With Unstable being released in a few months, I wanted to share what I'd been thinking about with respect to an older Silver-Bordered mechanic as far as possible applications in Commander.
The basic play pattern of Gotcha cards is that when an opponent says or does something, you get to buyback some card from your graveyard. The classical problem with this is that it makes the game less fun by making the strategically optimal behavior to freeze up and avoid doing anything.
The way I want to run these is as an action that opponents can opt into if they way. If they want to let you have Cardpecker back, take it. If they did it accidentally, never punish them for doing the trigger.
In a multiplayer environment, this very quickly turns it into a political mechanic that gives opponents the ability to give you free gifts at no cost to themselves. This feels very key to strategies that give away things because it means you can set up a payment-repayment play pattern that is fully opt-in with nothing required by your temporary ally other than their willingness to do so.
Obviously, not all play groups will allow silver-bordered cards and certain of these Gotcha cards feel like they would quickly become unfun for certain groups, however others look quite appealing.
Deal Damage, Number Crunch, Kill Destroy being repeatable removal, though not too efficient. I could see big mana black decks becoming a bit annoying if an opponent allowed you to cast the kill spell multiple times every turn. And even if bounced, I can easily see people quickly becoming annoyed at their commander being bounced every turn. Though that can happen with a few cards in commander already, so I think it depends on the power level of one's environment.
Save Life doesn't do much on its own, but you can target any player, so paying into it any amount of white mana would let you heal opponents as well as yourself. It's not clear to me the end-game of this but it feels like it ends up drawing out the game.
Spell Counter, Touch and Go, and Stop That feel like cards that many play groups would not want cast multiple times. The first two aren't very efficient, however, and Touch and Go could theoretically be included as merely answers to non-basic lands like Maze of Ith rather than repeated mana denial.
The only other gotcha card is Name Dropping, which extends Gotcha to one's entire graveyard for a low cost. This seems like the most powerful/abuseable, and even when played with the pattern described earlier, I think it would turn people off quickly, though it would certainly depend on the kinds of decks and players in one's play group.
This seems hugely problematic. As long as you ally with one opponent, you can have a 3 mana capsize. Seems like a very easy fast way to return all of an opponents lands to their hand, and it's almost entirely noninteractive - short of an exiling counterspell it basically cannot be stopped. Even extirpate can't stop it. The others are a bit more limited but still very nasty. There's a reason trade secrets was banned. Cards that allow you to turn the game into a 2-horse race so easily are caustic to the format.
Ah, Gotcha - I remember an Unhinged draft where we had a ten minute argument over whether or not my friend Jesse touched his face. No way I'd want to play these in a regular commander deck. Silver bordered commander? Only if everyone is running it. (Speaking of - are we getting legends in Unstable? Because an all silver bordered commander game would be nuts).
Cards that allow you to turn the game into a 2-horse race so easily are caustic to the format.
This is definitely not an outcome I'd want to emerge but I definitely see it happening with some of these removal spells, especially when not in high-powered environments.
On the positive side, you have full power to miss all the Gotcha triggers you want, so you can design restrictions into it to curtail that problem. You could try doing "One recursion per player per game (per Gotcha source)." on the restrictive end. To be clear, I'm only talking about self-imposed restrictions.
Cards that allow you to turn the game into a 2-horse race so easily are caustic to the format.
This is definitely not an outcome I'd want to emerge but I definitely see it happening with some of these removal spells, especially when not in high-powered environments.
On the positive side, you have full power to miss all the Gotcha triggers you want, so you can design restrictions into it to curtail that problem. You could try doing "One recursion per player per game (per Gotcha source)." on the restrictive end. To be clear, I'm only talking about self-imposed restrictions.
I mean, at a certain point you've gotta just admit you're basically designing a custom card.
I mean, at a certain point you've gotta just admit you're basically designing a custom card.
Is that a bad thing? It's not like you're doing something that isn't printed on the card, you're just NOT doing something that you have the option of doing. Another simple option for reining in the power: Only saying Gotcha if the person triggering them could cast a sorcery. This makes counter play much easier since most graveyard removal could nab it and it prevents you from getting them back during your own turn.
I don't really see this as much different from building Zur with no tutorable removal or protection. Or building Derevi where you only ever use Derevi's triggers to untap opponents permanents. Or intentionally never going infinite with any sort of infinite combo you might happen to draw into.
I mean, at a certain point you've gotta just admit you're basically designing a custom card.
Is that a bad thing? It's not like you're doing something that isn't printed on the card, you're just NOT doing something that you have the option of doing. Another simple option for reining in the power: Only saying Gotcha if the person triggering them could cast a sorcery. This makes counter play much easier since most graveyard removal could nab it and it prevents you from getting them back during your own turn.
I don't really see this as much different from building Zur with no tutorable removal or protection. Or building Derevi where you only ever use Derevi's triggers to untap opponents permanents. Or intentionally never going infinite with any sort of infinite combo you might happen to draw into.
I love Manifold Insights and Fact or Fiction is ok. Tasigur was miserable to play.
Well more importantly you're running a silver-bordered card. Personally I would not allow silver bordered cards unless everyone had the opportunity to include them in their decks, and time to prepare for it.
Also I guess you've gotta ask yourself what you're going to do if you're down to the final 2 with no outs and your opponent is at 4 and says "damage" with deal damage in your graveyard. Are you going to follow the "rules"? I played a kaervek the merciless deck where my "rule" was that I let opponents pick the targets, but once it's down to the endgame all bets are off (I generally disclose this in advance though).
Personally I'd find it pretty obnoxious if my opponent had an infinite but didn't use it. It's like I only won because they cut off their own legs. Idk if that quite correlates to this situation though. Building a deck with X but no cards to abuse X is something I do, but then there's no temptation to abuse
it because it literally isn't there. i.e. I don't play sword of feast and famine in zirilan because of hellkite charger. But if someone else plays one, I won't hold back on using hellkite tyrant and taking the combo. Once you're in the game, imo you should play to win. If you want a casual game, build a casual deck, don't build a powerful deck and play it like an idiot.
(and before you say that I was nerfing myself with my kaervek rule, trust me, it worked 1000% better when people weren't afraid of their spells killing their own creatures - people would cast spells constantly to wreck their opponents while costing me nothing, rather than my opponents holding back playing anything until kaervek was dead)
What's wrong with tasigur? I've had mixed reactions with that deck, but that's mostly because people don't like all their stuff getting killed all the time. I'd imagine there are nicer versions of the deck one could build, though.
Also I guess you've gotta ask yourself what you're going to do if you're down to the final 2 with no outs and your opponent is at 4 and says "damage" with deal damage in your graveyard. Are you going to follow the "rules"?
Yes, because the underlying stipulation never goes away: My rule for my Gotcha cards is that I never get them back unless an opponent is intending it.
Once it comes down to 1v1, the loss of free recursion is the cost of being able to play politics in multiplayer. All cards designed specifically for politics have that pattern-change. That's nothing new. Skullwinder, Intellectual Offering, Pulsemage Advocate, Manifold Insights.
Personally I'd find it pretty obnoxious if my opponent had an infinite but didn't use it.
That is certainly your right. I've heard of a play group where the players elected to limit the number of iterations they would take a loop per turn. These were known at deckbuilding time and at the start of game, I would assume.
(and before you say that I was nerfing myself with my kaervek rule, trust me, it worked 1000% better when people weren't afraid of their spells killing their own creatures - people would cast spells constantly to wreck their opponents while costing me nothing, rather than my opponents holding back playing anything until kaervek was dead)
That's the point. Narrowing the boundaries on your power to make the game play more satisfyingly. I like the idea of turning him into a political card.
What's wrong with tasigur? I've had mixed reactions with that deck, but that's mostly because people don't like all their stuff getting killed all the time. I'd imagine there are nicer versions of the deck one could build, though.
I put together a test version but he requires way too much mana compared to the bant version. Having to hold up 5-6 mana every turn is awful. Seedborn Muse consumes too much play time, as would Training Grounds, I suspect. I found myself never wanting to cast him because even with delve, it would consume 7 mana to do anything with him immediately.
He just has too much setup cost and, compared to what I wanted, the pay off isn't really there IMO. I found him weak / bad / boring. Compare what you'd be doing with him to Shieldmage Advocate. The setup cost is much lower, the activation is free, and the upside scales with the number of players and varies based on the opposing decks.
ludevic? ugh, but you have no control over ludevic. I don't get it at all.
The difference between the way the offering cycle works and the proposed gotcha "rule" is that the offering cycle is the actual rules whereas your gotcha "rule" is more like a "policy" (which is what I'd call my kaervek rules), insofar as there's nothing legally stopping you from breaking them if you want. I guess if you created a house rule where those cards worked that way, then that would be different. Same is true for the infinite combo situation I suppose.
I think you totally misunderstood what I said about kaervek. I let my opponents pick the targets because it made him MORE powerful rather than less powerful. They often picked targets I would have picked myself, it made people more likely to cast lots of spells, and less likely to remove Kaervek because they largely blamed each other for the damage inflicted upon them. It had nothing to do with being more satisfying, and everything to do with manipulating people to increase my chances to win :evillol:.
Tasigur as a deck (at least, my deck) is pretty slow win-wise, I'll agree with that. Doesn't really bother me I guess, I like long control games. I wouldn't call him weak by any stretch though. Shieldmage is fun politically but can't pull you ahead like tasigur can. Plus he often costs less and can be activated repeatedly, and can be used the turn you cast him without haste. Weird comparison tbh.
Anyway by far the most important factor is that, imo, you'd have to let your playgroup play with un-cards as well, and give them time to modify their decks. I will never play against someone using cards that I'm not able to play.
ludevic? ugh, but you have no control over ludevic. I don't get it at all.
Always having a draw engine on turn 3 that also incidentally encourages my opponents to attack each other and punishes creatureless decks is pretty appealing to me. It makes more starting hands keepable which is the main draw, though that's not really related to politics.
The difference between the way the offering cycle works and the proposed gotcha "rule" is that the offering cycle is the actual rules whereas your gotcha "rule" is more like a "policy" (which is what I'd call my kaervek rules), insofar as there's nothing legally stopping you from breaking them if you want.
I'm not understanding what's wrong with this. If I'm going to play Cardpecker, I'm going to very clear about how I intend my gotcha triggers to work. I don't want it back unless another player is willing to let me have it back and will ignore any other situation that would otherwise trigger it. I would expect to essentially be accused of cheating if I recurred the card it back under any other circumstances. I suspect if you unexpectedly started changing Kaervek targets, people would trust you less and kill him more frequently. I don't think you would want that.
I do want to reiterate that there's a huge difference between not taking an optional play and doing something not allowed on the card. This is completely unrelated to Gotcha cards / silverbordered, though admittedly there's less wiggle room here when one intends to convince a playgroup of allowing cards that aren't otherwise legal.
I could understand the desire for a house rule in the case of cards that aren't legal in the format purely because other people can't be trusted to have similar levels of restraint.
I think you totally misunderstood what I said about kaervek. I let my opponents pick the targets because it made him MORE powerful rather than less powerful. They often picked targets I would have picked myself, it made people more likely to cast lots of spells, and less likely to remove Kaervek because they largely blamed each other for the damage inflicted upon them. It had nothing to do with being more satisfying, and everything to do with manipulating people to increase my chances to win :evillol:.
By taking away your control over the targets, you make Kaervek less powerful. You get more average mileage out of him because he's no longer an oppressive threat. Don't conflate opponents not killing him with him being more powerful. People kill Consecrated Sphinx on sight if they can but that doesn't mean mean that Mind's Eye is more powerful.
There are likely games where Kaervek could have locked the rest of the table out of playing spells simply by being in play that you gave up by letting opponents target whatever they want. I'm not saying you're wrong to do that and your take on Kaervek sounds way more fun to play against, but you are most definitely making him less powerful by giving opponents control of the targets. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. I'll take social game over prison stax any day of the week.
Tasigur as a deck (at least, my deck) is pretty slow win-wise, I'll agree with that. Doesn't really bother me I guess, I like long control games.
I was never arguing that point. My pont was that it takes too much play time to resolve his ability when you start activating it multiple times between each players' turn.
I wouldn't call him weak by any stretch though. Shieldmage is fun politically but can't pull you ahead like tasigur can. Plus he often costs less and can be activated repeatedly, and can be used the turn you cast him without haste.
Strength is relative. He's played in Modern, so of course he's strong. He can get back cards from your graveyard endlessly. For what I want out of a card, however, the barrier to entry is too high. I don't want to have to hold open 6 mana during everyone's turn to stop a combo ending the game. I'd rather just toss out a Shieldmage Advocate, and just give someone back removal when the ***** hits the fan without having to disrupt my board development. Shieldmage Advocate has a lower ceiling but it hits its own ceiling with way more regularity and with much less effort than Tasigur.
Weird comparison tbh.
What you want from Tasigur must be something very different than what I wanted him to do, because the comparison is pretty spot on to me.
Anyway by far the most important factor is that, imo, you'd have to let your playgroup play with un-cards as well, and give them time to modify their decks. I will never play against someone using cards that I'm not able to play.
I don't agree with this. Sure if you're telling other people that you want to experiment with silver-bordered cards, you should be willing to offer them the same leniency. Assuming it didn't cause problems, I'd be fine with someone else using them even if I weren't. I think I'd be ok with people playing Tinker, Panoptic Mirror, and Gifts Ungiven even though they're on the banned list provided they aren't doing the busted things that caused them to get banned in the first place.
There's an incredibly wide range of power level among silver-bordered cards and I think a play group would be better off deciding yes/no to cards on a card-by-card basis when taking the plunge. Staying Power is something I'm not sure I want to play against, but I'm pretty sure if I did, it would be maybe once a year. I don't think I'd want to play against Frankie Peanuts, mostly because I don't trust people with that kind of unknown power. It could be I'd be fine with one player playing him but not someone else purely on how they use the questions. Something like Cardpecker is fairly easy to litigate ruleswise by comparison.
of the topics not particularly relevant but which I still feel like arguing about:
The fact that ludevic triggers on fetch lands alone is enough to make me hurl, frankly.
I still think you misunderstand me about kaervek. It's not simply that people threat-assess him lower, it's that even if he was somehow completely non-removable, people still play totally differently when they know they won't be punished for casting a spell. In terms of damage-dealt-per-turn, he deals WAAAAY more when you let people pick the targets. So it's not analogous to consecrated sphinx, unless mind's eye also convinced everyone to use a lot more draw effects. And as far as keeping the table locked from playing spells, that's generally what ends up happening at the very end, sure. As I said, in the endgame the deal is off. During the midgame, I'd much much rather my opponents were playing all their cards and killing all each others creatures and life totals with kaervek triggers, rather than sandbagging them all until kaervek leaves. I sacrifice next to nothing and gain an absolute ton in terms of threat assessment and in terms of damage output. If I played kaervek targeting people with their own spell triggers I'd lose a much much higher percentage of games - that's the only metric of power that matters at the end of the day.
fair enough, tasigur is slow in multiple ways. I prefer phelddagrif for that type of deck these days, obviously. Tasigur as a piece in my own deck was made to be a political tool when behind and a crushing card advantage engine when I'm ahead, though, plus a beatstick for eventually closing out the game. Shieldmage only does one of those things at best. And I'd rather have an ability I can activate repeatedly through summoning sickness than one that's free but only activates once. I'm usually keeping up tons of mana anyway.
Of relevant topics:
It's a little surprising that you don't see how problematic these cards are. Cardpecker can easily result in killing someone on t3 easily, and as early as t1 with a few other cards, with wild mongrel/noose constrictor and a little buy-in from one of your fellow players. Why wouldn't they want the game to be short a player right out of the gate? Just increases the odds for everyone else. And I'm sure you wouldn't abuse the cards like that (maybe you didn't even think about it), but if someone shows up and asks to try out cards that aren't part of the meta, aren't well analyzed, and I'm just supposed to take their word that they're playing nice with them? No, screw that, take them out of your deck or find someone else to play.
Plus, imo, it's part of the integrity of the game that everyone has access to the same card pool. Which is why I'm fine with proxies. And if a group wants to try out unsets, I think that sounds like it could be fun. Or maybe a nightmare. Who knows. Seems worth a try. But saying "Well, I'm going to play them even though no one else is going to have them, and I'm going to be trustworthy with them even though I don't know that I'd trust other people with them, because I'm the arbiter of what fair use of these cards is"...I would not be interested in playing under those circumstances, AT ALL. If your group is fine with it, though, go nuts I guess.
My pont was that it takes too much play time to resolve [Tasigur's] ability when you start activating it multiple times between each players' turn.
Speaking as someone who plays against Tasigur on a semi-regular basis, it really doesn't. Especially when you run other Delve spells to curate your 'yard.
I'm a big fan of Athreos, God of Passage for this style of play. Just run Shifting Wall or Memnite and the ETB/dies trigger or sac outlet of your choice, and it's 100% black-border. It also not only costs nothing for your chosen opponent to aid you, but specifically costs them something to decide not to do so.
It definitely doesn't have the literally-at-any-time appeal that Gotcha has though. That's not something that exists outside of silver-border, and is partially what makes those cards highly questionable: I can stop Athreos with a Tormod's Crypt, if only once. I can't ever stop Gotcha with the crypt if someone doesn't let me. On the other hand Athreos is a literal infinite if you can find someone who will choose not to stop it.
In my experience with Athreos, you won't have a lot of trouble finding conspirators. To the contrary, when a player is down-but-not-out (manascrewed, empty hand and a bad board, etc.) then they're often willing to let you get away with anything just to end the game faster, which creates feel-bad moments for people still in the running since they stand almost zero chance against you if even one player fully conspires (again, the same reason Trade Secrets was banned). Athreos has become a very competitive deck for me despite the casual theme, since it can hypothetically win (or just kill the stax deck no one wants to play against) on T2 if someone lets me.
As far as limiting yourself, I agree with the 'build casual, play to win' paradigm. It robs a lot of the fun if I know you could have won but chose not to.
Silver-bordered cards are essentially on the same level as custom cards though; if your group agrees that you are completely unable to return the card unless someone explicitly wants you to, then go for it. If you're going to go that far though then you might as well design cards that aren't balanced on the assumption that people are going to try not to give them to you, but rather are balanced on what the actual case is. The creatures are probably fine, but a lot of the instants and sorceries are undercosted even with the understanding that you need to rely on someone else to get it back. Maybe have it cost mana and/or have returning it be sorcery-speed.
I know that if someone proposed a custom card that does what you are suggesting Gotcha could be used to do, I would not be on-board with playing a game with it.
The trouble I have with most of the Gotcha cards is that they trigger on things that are actually unavoidable in a normal Magic game. In silly un-games you can get creative trying to avoid saying the trigger words, but in a normal game player's wouldn't put up with being deliberately unclear in your actions when trying to avoid them.
Then there's the issue that introducing a silver-bordered card into your playgroup opens the floodgates. Why should you be able to include Cardpecker, but I can't use Richard Garfield, Ph.D. or Frankie Peanuts? If you want to include silver bordered cards in your playgroup, you need to go through them and make a banlist that you all agree upon. I wouldn't show up to a game shop to play with silver bordered cards and expect everyone to be cool with it.
That said, my favorite Un-card of all time is Stop That, and I wish I could play it in every deck in every format ever, just to stop that infernal hand flicking.
A gotcha deck would be fun imo. But not every game. Similar to planechase. Mahbe a fee games but then pull out your real deck a d put the kid stuff away.
The trouble I have with most of the Gotcha cards is that they trigger on things that are actually unavoidable in a normal Magic game. In silly un-games you can get creative trying to avoid saying the trigger words, but in a normal game player's wouldn't put up with being deliberately unclear in your actions when trying to avoid them.
Then there's the issue that introducing a silver-bordered card into your playgroup opens the floodgates. Why should you be able to include Cardpecker, but I can't use Richard Garfield, Ph.D. or Frankie Peanuts? If you want to include silver bordered cards in your playgroup, you need to go through them and make a banlist that you all agree upon. I wouldn't show up to a game shop to play with silver bordered cards and expect everyone to be cool with it.
That said, my favorite Un-card of all time is Stop That, and I wish I could play it in every deck in every format ever, just to stop that infernal hand flicking.
I agree. When mixing silver-bordered with other formats, a banlist must be preestablished so that everyone is on the same page. I also dislike the gotcha mechanic for the same reasons. And sure, maybe you have a policy for them instead of a rule, but what's to stop me from using my own gotcha cards how I see fit? Whenever an opponent grants you their gotcha, they'd be doing the same for me, too. And what if I don't personally follow your own policy? Playing with silver-bordered cards is opening a can of worms. You gotta decide on all those things with your playgroup beforehand.
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Number Crunch
The basic play pattern of Gotcha cards is that when an opponent says or does something, you get to buyback some card from your graveyard. The classical problem with this is that it makes the game less fun by making the strategically optimal behavior to freeze up and avoid doing anything.
The way I want to run these is as an action that opponents can opt into if they way. If they want to let you have Cardpecker back, take it. If they did it accidentally, never punish them for doing the trigger.
In a multiplayer environment, this very quickly turns it into a political mechanic that gives opponents the ability to give you free gifts at no cost to themselves. This feels very key to strategies that give away things because it means you can set up a payment-repayment play pattern that is fully opt-in with nothing required by your temporary ally other than their willingness to do so.
Obviously, not all play groups will allow silver-bordered cards and certain of these Gotcha cards feel like they would quickly become unfun for certain groups, however others look quite appealing.
Cardpecker and Laughing Hyena are cheap bodies, the former with evasion and triggering things like Mentor of the Meek make it very appealing. Creature Guy is the only other creature. It's not very efficient, but Fauna Shaman doesn't care.
Deal Damage, Number Crunch, Kill Destroy being repeatable removal, though not too efficient. I could see big mana black decks becoming a bit annoying if an opponent allowed you to cast the kill spell multiple times every turn. And even if bounced, I can easily see people quickly becoming annoyed at their commander being bounced every turn. Though that can happen with a few cards in commander already, so I think it depends on the power level of one's environment.
Save Life doesn't do much on its own, but you can target any player, so paying into it any amount of white mana would let you heal opponents as well as yourself. It's not clear to me the end-game of this but it feels like it ends up drawing out the game.
Spell Counter, Touch and Go, and Stop That feel like cards that many play groups would not want cast multiple times. The first two aren't very efficient, however, and Touch and Go could theoretically be included as merely answers to non-basic lands like Maze of Ith rather than repeated mana denial.
The only other gotcha card is Name Dropping, which extends Gotcha to one's entire graveyard for a low cost. This seems like the most powerful/abuseable, and even when played with the pattern described earlier, I think it would turn people off quickly, though it would certainly depend on the kinds of decks and players in one's play group.
Cardpecker and Laughing Hyena seem great, Deal Damage, Number Crunch, and Kill Destroy seem to have applications as well. They can be recurred when looted, milled into, used as discard fodder. It's definitely something I want to explore.
Cardpecker in particular seems the card with the best cost:effect ratio that also has the least chance of annoying opponents.
Older Magic as a Board Game: Panglacial Wurm , Mill
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
2023 Average Peasant Cube|and Discussion
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On the positive side, you have full power to miss all the Gotcha triggers you want, so you can design restrictions into it to curtail that problem. You could try doing "One recursion per player per game (per Gotcha source)." on the restrictive end. To be clear, I'm only talking about self-imposed restrictions.
Older Magic as a Board Game: Panglacial Wurm , Mill
Imo just play tasigur, fact or fiction, manifold insights, diviner spirit, etc. Or try to get your group to play silver bordered for a week or something, just for fun.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
I don't really see this as much different from building Zur with no tutorable removal or protection. Or building Derevi where you only ever use Derevi's triggers to untap opponents permanents. Or intentionally never going infinite with any sort of infinite combo you might happen to draw into.
I love Manifold Insights and Fact or Fiction is ok. Tasigur was miserable to play.
Older Magic as a Board Game: Panglacial Wurm , Mill
Also I guess you've gotta ask yourself what you're going to do if you're down to the final 2 with no outs and your opponent is at 4 and says "damage" with deal damage in your graveyard. Are you going to follow the "rules"? I played a kaervek the merciless deck where my "rule" was that I let opponents pick the targets, but once it's down to the endgame all bets are off (I generally disclose this in advance though).
Personally I'd find it pretty obnoxious if my opponent had an infinite but didn't use it. It's like I only won because they cut off their own legs. Idk if that quite correlates to this situation though. Building a deck with X but no cards to abuse X is something I do, but then there's no temptation to abuse
it because it literally isn't there. i.e. I don't play sword of feast and famine in zirilan because of hellkite charger. But if someone else plays one, I won't hold back on using hellkite tyrant and taking the combo. Once you're in the game, imo you should play to win. If you want a casual game, build a casual deck, don't build a powerful deck and play it like an idiot.
(and before you say that I was nerfing myself with my kaervek rule, trust me, it worked 1000% better when people weren't afraid of their spells killing their own creatures - people would cast spells constantly to wreck their opponents while costing me nothing, rather than my opponents holding back playing anything until kaervek was dead)
What's wrong with tasigur? I've had mixed reactions with that deck, but that's mostly because people don't like all their stuff getting killed all the time. I'd imagine there are nicer versions of the deck one could build, though.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
Once it comes down to 1v1, the loss of free recursion is the cost of being able to play politics in multiplayer. All cards designed specifically for politics have that pattern-change. That's nothing new. Skullwinder, Intellectual Offering, Pulsemage Advocate, Manifold Insights. That is certainly your right. I've heard of a play group where the players elected to limit the number of iterations they would take a loop per turn. These were known at deckbuilding time and at the start of game, I would assume. That's the point. Narrowing the boundaries on your power to make the game play more satisfyingly. I like the idea of turning him into a political card. I put together a test version but he requires way too much mana compared to the bant version. Having to hold up 5-6 mana every turn is awful. Seedborn Muse consumes too much play time, as would Training Grounds, I suspect. I found myself never wanting to cast him because even with delve, it would consume 7 mana to do anything with him immediately.
He just has too much setup cost and, compared to what I wanted, the pay off isn't really there IMO. I found him weak / bad / boring. Compare what you'd be doing with him to Shieldmage Advocate. The setup cost is much lower, the activation is free, and the upside scales with the number of players and varies based on the opposing decks.
Ledevic is way more satisfying, but I digress.
Older Magic as a Board Game: Panglacial Wurm , Mill
The difference between the way the offering cycle works and the proposed gotcha "rule" is that the offering cycle is the actual rules whereas your gotcha "rule" is more like a "policy" (which is what I'd call my kaervek rules), insofar as there's nothing legally stopping you from breaking them if you want. I guess if you created a house rule where those cards worked that way, then that would be different. Same is true for the infinite combo situation I suppose.
I think you totally misunderstood what I said about kaervek. I let my opponents pick the targets because it made him MORE powerful rather than less powerful. They often picked targets I would have picked myself, it made people more likely to cast lots of spells, and less likely to remove Kaervek because they largely blamed each other for the damage inflicted upon them. It had nothing to do with being more satisfying, and everything to do with manipulating people to increase my chances to win :evillol:.
Tasigur as a deck (at least, my deck) is pretty slow win-wise, I'll agree with that. Doesn't really bother me I guess, I like long control games. I wouldn't call him weak by any stretch though. Shieldmage is fun politically but can't pull you ahead like tasigur can. Plus he often costs less and can be activated repeatedly, and can be used the turn you cast him without haste. Weird comparison tbh.
Anyway by far the most important factor is that, imo, you'd have to let your playgroup play with un-cards as well, and give them time to modify their decks. I will never play against someone using cards that I'm not able to play.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
I do want to reiterate that there's a huge difference between not taking an optional play and doing something not allowed on the card. This is completely unrelated to Gotcha cards / silverbordered, though admittedly there's less wiggle room here when one intends to convince a playgroup of allowing cards that aren't otherwise legal.
I could understand the desire for a house rule in the case of cards that aren't legal in the format purely because other people can't be trusted to have similar levels of restraint. By taking away your control over the targets, you make Kaervek less powerful. You get more average mileage out of him because he's no longer an oppressive threat. Don't conflate opponents not killing him with him being more powerful. People kill Consecrated Sphinx on sight if they can but that doesn't mean mean that Mind's Eye is more powerful.
There are likely games where Kaervek could have locked the rest of the table out of playing spells simply by being in play that you gave up by letting opponents target whatever they want. I'm not saying you're wrong to do that and your take on Kaervek sounds way more fun to play against, but you are most definitely making him less powerful by giving opponents control of the targets. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. I'll take social game over prison stax any day of the week.
I was never arguing that point. My pont was that it takes too much play time to resolve his ability when you start activating it multiple times between each players' turn. Strength is relative. He's played in Modern, so of course he's strong. He can get back cards from your graveyard endlessly. For what I want out of a card, however, the barrier to entry is too high. I don't want to have to hold open 6 mana during everyone's turn to stop a combo ending the game. I'd rather just toss out a Shieldmage Advocate, and just give someone back removal when the ***** hits the fan without having to disrupt my board development. Shieldmage Advocate has a lower ceiling but it hits its own ceiling with way more regularity and with much less effort than Tasigur. What you want from Tasigur must be something very different than what I wanted him to do, because the comparison is pretty spot on to me.
I don't agree with this. Sure if you're telling other people that you want to experiment with silver-bordered cards, you should be willing to offer them the same leniency. Assuming it didn't cause problems, I'd be fine with someone else using them even if I weren't. I think I'd be ok with people playing Tinker, Panoptic Mirror, and Gifts Ungiven even though they're on the banned list provided they aren't doing the busted things that caused them to get banned in the first place.
There's an incredibly wide range of power level among silver-bordered cards and I think a play group would be better off deciding yes/no to cards on a card-by-card basis when taking the plunge. Staying Power is something I'm not sure I want to play against, but I'm pretty sure if I did, it would be maybe once a year. I don't think I'd want to play against Frankie Peanuts, mostly because I don't trust people with that kind of unknown power. It could be I'd be fine with one player playing him but not someone else purely on how they use the questions. Something like Cardpecker is fairly easy to litigate ruleswise by comparison.
Older Magic as a Board Game: Panglacial Wurm , Mill
The fact that ludevic triggers on fetch lands alone is enough to make me hurl, frankly.
I still think you misunderstand me about kaervek. It's not simply that people threat-assess him lower, it's that even if he was somehow completely non-removable, people still play totally differently when they know they won't be punished for casting a spell. In terms of damage-dealt-per-turn, he deals WAAAAY more when you let people pick the targets. So it's not analogous to consecrated sphinx, unless mind's eye also convinced everyone to use a lot more draw effects. And as far as keeping the table locked from playing spells, that's generally what ends up happening at the very end, sure. As I said, in the endgame the deal is off. During the midgame, I'd much much rather my opponents were playing all their cards and killing all each others creatures and life totals with kaervek triggers, rather than sandbagging them all until kaervek leaves. I sacrifice next to nothing and gain an absolute ton in terms of threat assessment and in terms of damage output. If I played kaervek targeting people with their own spell triggers I'd lose a much much higher percentage of games - that's the only metric of power that matters at the end of the day.
fair enough, tasigur is slow in multiple ways. I prefer phelddagrif for that type of deck these days, obviously. Tasigur as a piece in my own deck was made to be a political tool when behind and a crushing card advantage engine when I'm ahead, though, plus a beatstick for eventually closing out the game. Shieldmage only does one of those things at best. And I'd rather have an ability I can activate repeatedly through summoning sickness than one that's free but only activates once. I'm usually keeping up tons of mana anyway.
Of relevant topics:
It's a little surprising that you don't see how problematic these cards are. Cardpecker can easily result in killing someone on t3 easily, and as early as t1 with a few other cards, with wild mongrel/noose constrictor and a little buy-in from one of your fellow players. Why wouldn't they want the game to be short a player right out of the gate? Just increases the odds for everyone else. And I'm sure you wouldn't abuse the cards like that (maybe you didn't even think about it), but if someone shows up and asks to try out cards that aren't part of the meta, aren't well analyzed, and I'm just supposed to take their word that they're playing nice with them? No, screw that, take them out of your deck or find someone else to play.
Plus, imo, it's part of the integrity of the game that everyone has access to the same card pool. Which is why I'm fine with proxies. And if a group wants to try out unsets, I think that sounds like it could be fun. Or maybe a nightmare. Who knows. Seems worth a try. But saying "Well, I'm going to play them even though no one else is going to have them, and I'm going to be trustworthy with them even though I don't know that I'd trust other people with them, because I'm the arbiter of what fair use of these cards is"...I would not be interested in playing under those circumstances, AT ALL. If your group is fine with it, though, go nuts I guess.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
Speaking as someone who plays against Tasigur on a semi-regular basis, it really doesn't. Especially when you run other Delve spells to curate your 'yard.
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
(Image by totallynotabrony)
It definitely doesn't have the literally-at-any-time appeal that Gotcha has though. That's not something that exists outside of silver-border, and is partially what makes those cards highly questionable: I can stop Athreos with a Tormod's Crypt, if only once. I can't ever stop Gotcha with the crypt if someone doesn't let me. On the other hand Athreos is a literal infinite if you can find someone who will choose not to stop it.
In my experience with Athreos, you won't have a lot of trouble finding conspirators. To the contrary, when a player is down-but-not-out (manascrewed, empty hand and a bad board, etc.) then they're often willing to let you get away with anything just to end the game faster, which creates feel-bad moments for people still in the running since they stand almost zero chance against you if even one player fully conspires (again, the same reason Trade Secrets was banned). Athreos has become a very competitive deck for me despite the casual theme, since it can hypothetically win (or just kill the stax deck no one wants to play against) on T2 if someone lets me.
As far as limiting yourself, I agree with the 'build casual, play to win' paradigm. It robs a lot of the fun if I know you could have won but chose not to.
Silver-bordered cards are essentially on the same level as custom cards though; if your group agrees that you are completely unable to return the card unless someone explicitly wants you to, then go for it. If you're going to go that far though then you might as well design cards that aren't balanced on the assumption that people are going to try not to give them to you, but rather are balanced on what the actual case is. The creatures are probably fine, but a lot of the instants and sorceries are undercosted even with the understanding that you need to rely on someone else to get it back. Maybe have it cost mana and/or have returning it be sorcery-speed.
I know that if someone proposed a custom card that does what you are suggesting Gotcha could be used to do, I would not be on-board with playing a game with it.
- Rabid Wombat
Then there's the issue that introducing a silver-bordered card into your playgroup opens the floodgates. Why should you be able to include Cardpecker, but I can't use Richard Garfield, Ph.D. or Frankie Peanuts? If you want to include silver bordered cards in your playgroup, you need to go through them and make a banlist that you all agree upon. I wouldn't show up to a game shop to play with silver bordered cards and expect everyone to be cool with it.
That said, my favorite Un-card of all time is Stop That, and I wish I could play it in every deck in every format ever, just to stop that infernal hand flicking.
UB Vela the Night-Clad BUDecklist
WBG Ghave, Guru of Spores GBW
WUBRGThe Ur-DragonWUBRGDecklist
I agree. When mixing silver-bordered with other formats, a banlist must be preestablished so that everyone is on the same page. I also dislike the gotcha mechanic for the same reasons. And sure, maybe you have a policy for them instead of a rule, but what's to stop me from using my own gotcha cards how I see fit? Whenever an opponent grants you their gotcha, they'd be doing the same for me, too. And what if I don't personally follow your own policy? Playing with silver-bordered cards is opening a can of worms. You gotta decide on all those things with your playgroup beforehand.
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