We have not had a thread about tutors in a while, so I wanted to start a new one.
To begin with, I do not have a problem with any tutors in principle; I own many myself; and I think trying to regulate and control them within a playgroup can be rather futile. Despite this, I find myself wanting to tune down the power level of my decks by reducing or outright removing tutors in favor of more card draw and/or redundant effects.
Aaron Forsythe elegantly explained "the problem with tutors" in one of his old random card of the day entries on Planar Portal. I will put in bold the parts which really caught my attention and have never forgotten:
Aaron's Random Card Comment of the Day #29, 11/4/10
The structure of (Planar Portal) is based on that of the oft-reprinted original card advantage machine Jayemdae Tome. Replace the 4’s with 6’s and change “draw” to “tutor” and there you have it.
As a designer, I like this card about a tenth as much as I like Jayemdae Tome. As designers, we strive to make sure the game has the right amount of variance in it; variance leads to replayability and it keeps the outcomes of individual games in doubt longer. Players, at least those whose primary goal is winning, strive to reduce the variance in the game as much as possible. Things like tutors, scry, and card drawing are used to make sure the same spells come up in essentially the same order--or at the very least at close to the right time--game after game. If a deck can consistently assemble a game-winning combo on turn two, players will do that over and over and over. Games like that get really boring really fast, so we need to fight back against that. The mystery of the draw is a vital part of the game.
Tutoring every single turn has the potential to remove all the variance from at least one player’s part of the game. Once Planar Portal is up and running, assuming its controller isn’t under significant pressure, the outcome of the game is a foregone conclusion.
Not only does Planar Portal eliminate variance, it adds shuffling, which is another way to make a game consistently less fun.
The only thing that makes the card printable are the high costs associated with using it; you have to spend 12 mana to get the first benefit out of it. The mere act of surviving long enough to activate it is a feat in itself. It’s okay for us to print cards like this that do powerful-but-bad things at high costs once in a while, but personally I’d rather focus our efforts on powerful-and-fun.
The key words and bits being: "Variance" & "The mystery of the draw is a vital part of the game."
In 2014, Jason Alt coined the term "75%" to describe a style of deck building that many of us are familiar with by now. One constant theme within 75% is the topic of tutors. In an early article, he directs readers to Bennie Smith's 2012 article, Letting go of tutors in Commander, wherein we find the following quotes of interest:
Commander's singleton format and 100-card deck size often cause people to instinctively stuff as many Tutor spells into their deck as they possibly can. Sometimes it's necessary—perhaps your Commander needs a boost to be really good or you're trying to assemble some sweet off-the-wall haymaker play that requires a couple specific cards. Or maybe you're trying to be a control deck which is quite the high-wire act in multiplayer where you can't always rely on pure card drawing to have the right answer in your hand.
But I think all the Tutor power that is readily available for just about every Commander deck you build takes away a bit from the enjoyment of the game. Today I want everyone to take a few minutes to think about letting go of Tutors in Commander or at least minimizing the quantity you use.
(...)
Embrace the Chaos!
There's a reason why this is Sheldon Menery's catchphrase for Commander and it's the reason why it's a singleton format with 100-card decks. One of the joys of playing a Commander deck without Tutors is that each game is going to play out differently keeping the experience fresh and fun. If you've tuned your deck into a machine that kills the same way each game not only will your opponents quickly tire of playing against you but you're going to tire of playing it yourself.
Jason Alt does not directly respond to the article, but rather veers off into his second rule: Always start weak and improve the deck & never weaken a better deck. Instead, Jason address tutors more directly in his article 75% – Homogeneity, wherein he defines/refers to "face up" and "face down" tutors.
When Bennie Smith wrote his article about letting go of tutors in Commander, I thought the argument against having players search through their decks in secret and pull something out while laughing maniacally was a compelling one. You make the entire table wait for you, and they don’t get to know what you’re doing. It makes them a bit nervous, and they may have a tendency to want to attack you because of your secret shenanigans. I thought at the time that my objection to face-down tutors may have stemmed from not wanting to inflict that kind of game experience on the group I was playing with. I think now, although my gut instinct to shy away from face-down tutors was correct, that I may not have interpreted my aversion to them properly in a 75% context. I think trying to come up with a Zegana deck may have given me the proper context to evaluate what I really don’t like about face-down tutors and what other things I’d like to avoid in 75% decks.
As much as I’m averse to face-down tutors, I find myself partial to face-up tutors.
(snip)
But why are face-up tutors better? Is it because your opponents don’t like to see you root around in your deck in secret? I thought about it seriously and asked a lot of players, and that’s really a small part of it. But the more I think about it, the more I realized that face-up tutors work better in a 75% context because they’re narrow. And narrow tutors are very, very 75%. A face-down tutor finds you a card face-down because your opponent doesn’t need to see it. You can grab anything. You can fetch a Swamp. You can find a Steamflogger Boss. It could be anything; it could even be a boat. A face-up tutor needs to be face-up so you don’t Wizardcycle a Vedalken Aethermage and grab a Force of Will. Face-up tutors need oversight because everyone needs to verify you found something legal. Narrow tutors not only give away information, which puts you at a competitive disadvantage compared to face-down tutors, but they force you to derive your answers from a smaller pool of cards. And I think that there is an inherent danger in this and requires a little vigilance on your part. I’m suggesting there are situations in which you might want to voluntarily remove tutors from your deck.
(snip)
While narrow tutors are good because they have limitations and are therefore more 75%-friendly because they cause you to be a bit more creative in deck-building they can lead to homogeneity in game experience. If your one tutor target with Worldly Tutor is going to be It That Betrays all the time, you might as well just play Demonic Tutor. You might as well not tutor face-up if you’re fetching the same thing every time. If your tutors allow you to create a path of least resistance and homogenize the game experience, they need to be re-evaluated.
(snip)
• Try to vary the game experience, and build with multiple paths to victory in mind.
• Play tutors or card-draw, but not both.
At the risk of piling on, one of the things which has caused me to want to start this thread was how on Saturday I re-watched an older episode of The Command Zone with special guests Graham and Kathleen from Loading Ready Run in which they discussed building EDH decks without tutors and going so far as to play decks blind.
So, as I have said, the topic of tutors in commander is one with a lot of history. I wanted to know your thoughts. For example, do you use tutors? Face down and/or face up? Why? Do you run decks of different power levels based on what you are trying to do and who you are facing? What do you think of the various quotes I provided?
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"Whatever style you wish to play, be it fast and frenzied or slow and tactical, the surest way to defeat your opponent consistently is by dominating him or her in the war of card advantage." - Brian Wiseman, April 1996
I use quite a few tutors (up or down, whatever is available), but I do think they can be problematic. Here’s how I usually justify mine:
-I vary the game by only playing each deck a few times before disassembly, so if the plan ends up excessively linear it won’t be true for long.
-I’m oftentimes trying to accomplish something unusual, and not something that will immediately or easily win the game. To make weak strategies good, it can be necessary to remove variance.
-I like working towards optimal decks within the narrow constraints I set for myself. Everyone except cEDH has constraints, and no tutors is a fine constraint if you’re otherwise pretty unconstrained in your approach. But given how specific my deck ideas tend to be, I think it’s not only unnecessary to omit tutors, but also limits my ability to see how functional a silly strategy could be, with all the stops pulled out, and thus how viable the strat is as a whole.
How i feel about competitive players and casual players in EDH: The competitive are german tourists, the casual are italian tourists, both in a italian beach. The italians asking themselves "why are the germans here?" make a legitimate question, the answer is because the beach is beautiful, no matter the country you came from. The italians wanting to ban the germans are dumb, because if the germans pay for their stay and follow the rules like everyone else, they have the right to be in the beach. Hovewer, if the germans started to ask themselves "why are the italians here?"... they would be dumb as hell.
Replace tutors with things like demonic consultation. I don’t usually die from using it, but there’s always the risk.
I don’t think tutors are all that bad tho. It’s more the aggressive tutoring that makes the game unfun. Consider always tutoring for the combo win, and compare to tutoring for silver bullet answers.
Great experiment. Now, instead of banning tutors, try banning the cards that player in your group tutor for over and over again. And then have fun.
If you have a solid play group, doing both of these on separate occasions would be worth your while. See which games are actually more varied.
I find breaking up people from playing the same win-conditions over and over again leads to much more varied games. Take away tutors for Craterhoof Behemoth and guess what? Craterhoof still ends up winning the same amount of games.
If you ban one type of tutor like demonic tutor then you warp what the color choices people use in edh away from black. Technically rampant growth is a tutor, that also puts a permenant strait in to play. Is that ban worthy? It doesn't seem far to ban demonic tutor variants without also hitting all of the green land-ramp and creature spells, the white equipment and enchantment tutors, the blue spell tutors, and the joke of red tutors in gamble and sarkhan's triumph.
My issue with people bringing up this topic is usually similar to my issue with people wanting to ban fast mana. If you take away all the fast mana-rocks then competitive decks are going to be all semi-green to use all the 1cmc mana dorks and land-ramp. It would be terrible for the entire format from casual to competitive.
Tutors are just basically wild cards which I find unfun in all games not just Magic. It seems they've been printing more tutor hate of late. I just hope they continue to print more playable tutor hate, then the problem will fix itself as tutoring will not be a sure thing.
If you ban one type of tutor like demonic tutor then you warp what the color choices people use in edh away from black. Technically rampant growth is a tutor, that also puts a permenant strait in to play. Is that ban worthy? It doesn't seem far to ban demonic tutor variants without also hitting all of the green land-ramp and creature spells, the white equipment and enchantment tutors, the blue spell tutors, and the joke of red tutors in gamble and sarkhan's triumph.
My issue with people bringing up this topic is usually similar to my issue with people wanting to ban fast mana. If you take away all the fast mana-rocks then competitive decks are going to be all semi-green to use all the 1cmc mana dorks and land-ramp. It would be terrible for the entire format from casual to competitive.
Neither of these points are really true. How often are you grabbing a land with Demonic Tutor? Unless you are grabbing Urborg/Coffers, likely never. Green ramp spells have minimal impact on the game, at least in comparison to other tutors. You aren’t tutoring up a game winning/saving answer with Rampant Growth.
Tutors are just basically wild cards which I find unfun in all games not just Magic. It seems they've been printing more tutor hate of late. I just hope they continue to print more playable tutor hate, then the problem will fix itself as tutoring will not be a sure thing.
I suppose that split cards are kinda like wildcards too...so I don't necessarily agree that tutors are exactly wildcards, but I understand.
100% there definitely does need to be more search-hate.
Green ramp spells have minimal impact on the game, at least in comparison to other tutors. You aren’t tutoring up a game winning/saving answer with Rampant Growth.
Green land ramp/tutoring is one of the biggest parts of EDH though.
At this point I'm settled with any kind of tutor as long as the deck isn't aiming for three turn kill. I use tutors for Akido style gameplay, and in most cases I only use Demonic/Vampiric if I don't have green/white removal in my deck, so I could find artifact answers.
I've absolutely used demonic and vamp tuts to guarantee landfall in earlier stages of a game. This is very common. Turn-3 after keeping a 2 land hand without drawing anything? Best to tutor up a land or way to draw and get lands.
A non-restricted tutor doesn't do anything in the first few turns if you can't develop the resources to to continue playing, so you can use it to get the resources to try and actually participate in the game.
Regarding green land-ramp tutors - I strongly feel that land-ramp focused decks tend to dominate most non-competitive tables. It's really kind of sad of just how little hate and negative attention this gets. The sheer volume of landramp tutors that cheat extra permenants in to play is insane compared to what other tutors do. Lands tending to be the hardest to deal with card in the game, and if you happen to run MLD you may be classified as a terrible person.
Mass land-ramp decks tend to plaque casual tables and green/blue/x casual ramp decks are, imo, the worst. I have a typical ramp bant deck and it feels like every win was never deserved. I honestly feel that they are the catalyst for most issues in the format. To answer a deck that can consistently put 8 lands into play around turn 5 to 6, you have to make a quicker deck full of fast mana (which people complain about), and a fast combo win (which people complain about), and the tutors to get these parts (which people complain about).
Regarding green land-ramp tutors - I strongly feel that land-ramp focused decks tend to dominate most non-competitive tables. It's really kind of sad of just how little hate and negative attention this gets. The sheer volume of landramp tutors that cheat extra permenants in to play is insane compared to what other tutors do. Lands tending to be the hardest to deal with card in the game, and if you happen to run MLD you may be classified as a terrible person.
Mass land-ramp decks tend to plaque casual tables and green/blue/x casual ramp decks are, imo, the worst. I have a typical ramp bant deck and it feels like every win was never deserved. I honestly feel that they are the catalyst for most issues in the format. To answer a deck that can consistently put 8 lands into play around turn 5 to 6, you have to make a quicker deck full of fast mana (which people complain about), and a fast combo win (which people complain about), and the tutors to get these parts (which people complain about).
That's not really my experience in my local meta. There are a couple of fairly fast-ramping decks, but there's also a bunch of non-ramp decks. One player mostly plays control decks, another one has a mono-black deck, and neither of these players tend to be out-performed by those that do bring ramping decks to the table, and they don't run fast-combo wins or anything like that.
[quote from="Macabre »" url="/forums/the-game/commander-edh/813822-beating-a-dead-horse-tutors-in-commander?comment=11"Mass land-ramp decks tend to plaque casual tables and green/blue/x casual ramp decks are, imo, the worst. I have a typical ramp bant deck and it feels like every win was never deserved. I honestly feel that they are the catalyst for most issues in the format. To answer a deck that can consistently put 8 lands into play around turn 5 to 6, you have to make a quicker deck full of fast mana (which people complain about), and a fast combo win (which people complain about), and the tutors to get these parts (which people complain about).[/quote]
Or maybe people play noncompetitive commander to enjoy that ramp and battlecruiser playstyle that sucks everywhere else?
To stop a deck with 8 lands that isn't comboing out but need to go through combat you just need a murder.
Your argoment seems really biased, considering that it started with comparing a card banned and restricted almost everywhere to... rampant growth, which is ***** even in pauper
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How i feel about competitive players and casual players in EDH: The competitive are german tourists, the casual are italian tourists, both in a italian beach. The italians asking themselves "why are the germans here?" make a legitimate question, the answer is because the beach is beautiful, no matter the country you came from. The italians wanting to ban the germans are dumb, because if the germans pay for their stay and follow the rules like everyone else, they have the right to be in the beach. Hovewer, if the germans started to ask themselves "why are the italians here?"... they would be dumb as hell.
I never said that the player that ramped out 8 lands was playing battlecruiser or attacking. In my area, and from my experiance visiting cons, a very common trend are green/blue/x decks that just ramp+draw out the opponents till they have far more answers and mana and just overwhelm the table until they assemble a combo.
Yes they "might" fail to a counterspell when they try to draw big after ramping, but if they've been sitting on a remora or have any counter ready then it is all an uphill fight. If their commander offers card advantage (like most green/blue legends), then most games are decided once we reveal all of our commanders. We have to actively waste early game resources just to not die.
My complaint here is that an average budget green/blue ramp deck can typically outperform an optimal non-green non-combo deck. This is mainly due to greens tutor ability to cheat lands in to play, and the sheer volume of ramp tutors available making for obnoxious consistancy.
But I also know people love their ramp, and doubt anything i say will ever reach any relivant ears. I'm just a mono red, rakdos and grixis fan that enjoys being blown out by boundless realms followed by bane of progress/devastation tide trash in "casual" games. It's always fun to just scoop up my cards and pick a combo deck with tutors and fast mana.
My complaint here is that an average budget green/blue ramp deck can typically outperform an optimal non-green non-combo deck.
Your problem then is with the non-combo part, not the ramp part. A jank combo deck can easily crush jank aggro/control decks without combo. A jank ramp deck that goes through combat isn't anything exceptional.
And guess what? Combo is the archetype that get helped the most by tutors. By a really wide margin. If your thesis is that rampant growth and similar ramps help a combo more than demonic tutor... well, does that really need an answer?
And still, talking about rampant growth and cultivate and so on like they are big boogeymans while every deck has access to sol ring, mana crypt and mana vault is kinda laughable too.
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How i feel about competitive players and casual players in EDH: The competitive are german tourists, the casual are italian tourists, both in a italian beach. The italians asking themselves "why are the germans here?" make a legitimate question, the answer is because the beach is beautiful, no matter the country you came from. The italians wanting to ban the germans are dumb, because if the germans pay for their stay and follow the rules like everyone else, they have the right to be in the beach. Hovewer, if the germans started to ask themselves "why are the italians here?"... they would be dumb as hell.
My complaint here is that an average budget green/blue ramp deck can typically outperform an optimal non-green non-combo deck. This is mainly due to greens tutor ability to cheat lands in to play, and the sheer volume of ramp tutors available making for obnoxious consistancy.
Whoa, no stepping out just yet there bud. Why are we choosing UG?
I know why. It’s because that is the best color for card advantage. You’re getting buried in CA, so you associate that with a player having more lands than you. You aren’t losing to Ramp, you’re losing to decks that out-tempo you.
You won’t accept this response, but this is really what you have a problem with. This has nothing to do with Rampant Growth lol.
I run tutors in my Tymna/Ravos Cleric tribal deck, but depending on what I have in hand and what my opponents have I may tutor for different cards. Same with my Captain Sisay deck who is a tutor on a stick.
In my Edgar Markov deck I tutor for Necropotence, so I still have variance for cards that I draw.
My Niv-Mizzet, Paurn deck uses Gamble for combo pieces, so it still has variance, and the blue tutors I use for answers.
I've never really thought of my tutors as unfun or oppressive, but I try to play a deck that's at the same power level as the rest of the table. If someone at a table wanted to play a game with no tutors I'd be down to try it out.
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Modern
JundBGR
RW Blood MoonRW
Pauper
Delver U
Elves G
Control B
Commander
Edgar Markov BRW
Captain Sisay GW
Niv-Mizzet, Parun UR
Tymna and Ravos WB
If your thesis is that rampant growth and similar ramps help a combo more than demonic tutor... well, does that really need an answer?
I'm not at all sure how you arrived to this thesis, so I have absolutely no idea how to even reply to this.
Not so hard. First you said that banning demonic tutor would be unfair without also banning rampant growth and similar cards. Then you said that tutors are necessary in casual to beat green-blue decks that use rampant growth. So...
Also, rampant growth is op but cultivate is fine? You sure have some weird power level meters...
I reiterate my opinion to ban all the fast tutors. They are far too versatile, can be played the same turn as the tutored cards and can make you win out of nowhere. It's pointless to have a singleton restriction if your deck can contain some wildcards (great analogy)that for 1-2 mana can be everything else. If you need to tutor that bad, you still have diabolic tutor
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How i feel about competitive players and casual players in EDH: The competitive are german tourists, the casual are italian tourists, both in a italian beach. The italians asking themselves "why are the germans here?" make a legitimate question, the answer is because the beach is beautiful, no matter the country you came from. The italians wanting to ban the germans are dumb, because if the germans pay for their stay and follow the rules like everyone else, they have the right to be in the beach. Hovewer, if the germans started to ask themselves "why are the italians here?"... they would be dumb as hell.
It's pointless to have a singleton restriction if your deck can contain some wildcards (great analogy)that for 1-2 mana can be everything else. If you need to tutor that bad, you still have diabolic tutor
I don't think tutors violate the singleton nature of the format because it's not as if you can tutor for another copy of the same card.
About the "singleton restriction" of the format, do you feel the same about Relentless Rats?
Do not put tutors that search for spells and tutors that search for basic lands together in the same group.
If you want to complain about ramp, complain about ramp, but they are separate discussions.
I agree that those are two separate things.
However, one of the complaints about tutors is that they make the game more consistently the same. So other than power-level, some people complain about tutors making games feel the same. It's an easy parallel for people to make since ramping lands consistently also makes games feel the same and land ramp is literally searching your deck for specific cards. So I guess that's why it's brought up so often together.
But I'm sure the OP meant to just discuss Demonic Tutor and the like.
About the "singleton restriction" of the format, do you feel the same about Relentless Rats?
Really? We are comparing tutors to vanillas now?
Kinda tired of these thread, it's just full of false equivalence.
Tutors can be removals, counters, wrath and missing combo pieces all in one card. Do not compare them to other cards that can't do the same
The singleton nature of the format make it so the card OP McBrokenFace maybe be strong as ***** in my deck, but in the end it's just a single card inside a 100-card deck. I can't expect to use it everygame.
Tutors can act as copy #2, #3, #4 and even #5 of that cards, enormously increasing its chance to appear in almost every game.
And they can also be more versatile than that!
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How i feel about competitive players and casual players in EDH: The competitive are german tourists, the casual are italian tourists, both in a italian beach. The italians asking themselves "why are the germans here?" make a legitimate question, the answer is because the beach is beautiful, no matter the country you came from. The italians wanting to ban the germans are dumb, because if the germans pay for their stay and follow the rules like everyone else, they have the right to be in the beach. Hovewer, if the germans started to ask themselves "why are the italians here?"... they would be dumb as hell.
I'm very curious about what everyone's meta is like, specifically in regards to deck power and average victory turns.
The very first sentence I said in this topic was how if people complain about demonic tutor to the point of banning it, then this is complaining about is the color pie. Strict tutoring has been a black effect since alpha. If you want to ban something that is a part of a color identity then you probably just need to make personal house rules for your friends to decide.
I never mentioned cultivate because I feel it is weaker. In my meta something that costs 3cmc has to be very relevant. Perhaps this is different for all of you.
There is only one demonic tutor. But as listed, there are many rampant growths. If you want to expand the complaint of demonic tutor variants to include all strict tutors like vampiric tutor, that's fine. There will always be more green land-ramp tutors that cheat hard-to-deal with permenants strait into play.
People here seem to be complaining about consistent games due to just a small pool of tutors. Are people complaining about someone fetching a combo part just to end the game?
In terms of just an average table there are less than 5 playable and efficient strict demonic tutor effects. There may be a few highly specific off-color tutors to help like mystical tutor/fabricate/gamble/etc. IMO a stronger deck will run just the efficient tutors, which is likely less than 8 cards total. In that same meta there are easily 10+ relevant land ramp spells, all 3cmc or below, that are also tutoring permenants strait into the battlefield.
Do you all actually believe that decks using land-ramp tutors are less consistent than a deck running fewer demonic tutor effects or color-restricted highly specific tutors like enlightened tutor?
Maybe that's how all of your tables play out. That's not at all how any of my tables work. If we are not playing near-cedh then green/blue/x ramp+value decks will always outperform everything else. If combo decks are not included then most games are decided as soon as someone reveals a green/blue/x legendary, unless people actively team up and aggro them.
Maybe you all just love ramping. I know at the core of this format everyone loves to ramp and cast big spells. So if you somehow got offended by me pointing out that land-|amp tutors make decks more consistent than demonic tutors, sorry. But my opinion stays - if you want to ban an effect that one color is known for, then you're just unbalancing the game and showing other color(s) favoritism. That should stay at your own table as a house rule.
The very first sentence I said in this topic was how if people complain about demonic tutor to the point of banning it, then this is complaining about is the color pie. Strict tutoring has been a black effect since alpha. If you want to ban something that is a part of a color identity then you probably just need to make personal house rules for your friends to decide.
This point makes no sense. Ancestral Recall has been in blue's color pie since alpha. And it still is. But it need to cost at least 2UU otherwise it's broken as *****.
Same for Time Walk VS Time Warp
Is it really that difficult to say the same about tutors?
Yeah and who the hell cares? You are comparing two completely different effects, they have nothing to do with each other. How can you compare a basic land with... everything? The tutor target can be ******* anything, rampant growth target is a selection of six cards.
It's like comparing Wood Elemental and Solemn Simulacrum because they both cost 4, or Dark Confidant and Shambling Ghoul because they have both 2 power.
They are completely different cards that fills different niches and have different power levels.
In terms of just an average table there are less than 5 playable and efficient strict demonic tutor effects. There may be a few highly specific off-color tutors to help like mystical tutor/fabricate/gamble/etc.
I provided a list of the tutors i consider broken, no need to reset the discussion.
But my opinion stays - if you want to ban an effect that one color is known for, then you're just unbalancing the game and showing other color(s) favoritism. That should stay at your own table as a house rule.
Also, i'd really like to know how in your meta these evil blue-green decks can go from t2 rampant growth to t4 "something that has to be very relevant" to win against multiple opponents, because i still don't get it and i still don't understand how fast tutors couldn't improve these decks too.
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How i feel about competitive players and casual players in EDH: The competitive are german tourists, the casual are italian tourists, both in a italian beach. The italians asking themselves "why are the germans here?" make a legitimate question, the answer is because the beach is beautiful, no matter the country you came from. The italians wanting to ban the germans are dumb, because if the germans pay for their stay and follow the rules like everyone else, they have the right to be in the beach. Hovewer, if the germans started to ask themselves "why are the italians here?"... they would be dumb as hell.
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To begin with, I do not have a problem with any tutors in principle; I own many myself; and I think trying to regulate and control them within a playgroup can be rather futile. Despite this, I find myself wanting to tune down the power level of my decks by reducing or outright removing tutors in favor of more card draw and/or redundant effects.
Aaron Forsythe elegantly explained "the problem with tutors" in one of his old random card of the day entries on Planar Portal. I will put in bold the parts which really caught my attention and have never forgotten:
The key words and bits being: "Variance" & "The mystery of the draw is a vital part of the game."
In 2014, Jason Alt coined the term "75%" to describe a style of deck building that many of us are familiar with by now. One constant theme within 75% is the topic of tutors. In an early article, he directs readers to Bennie Smith's 2012 article, Letting go of tutors in Commander, wherein we find the following quotes of interest:
Jason Alt does not directly respond to the article, but rather veers off into his second rule: Always start weak and improve the deck & never weaken a better deck. Instead, Jason address tutors more directly in his article 75% – Homogeneity, wherein he defines/refers to "face up" and "face down" tutors.
At the risk of piling on, one of the things which has caused me to want to start this thread was how on Saturday I re-watched an older episode of The Command Zone with special guests Graham and Kathleen from Loading Ready Run in which they discussed building EDH decks without tutors and going so far as to play decks blind.
So, as I have said, the topic of tutors in commander is one with a lot of history. I wanted to know your thoughts. For example, do you use tutors? Face down and/or face up? Why? Do you run decks of different power levels based on what you are trying to do and who you are facing? What do you think of the various quotes I provided?
-I vary the game by only playing each deck a few times before disassembly, so if the plan ends up excessively linear it won’t be true for long.
-I’m oftentimes trying to accomplish something unusual, and not something that will immediately or easily win the game. To make weak strategies good, it can be necessary to remove variance.
-I like working towards optimal decks within the narrow constraints I set for myself. Everyone except cEDH has constraints, and no tutors is a fine constraint if you’re otherwise pretty unconstrained in your approach. But given how specific my deck ideas tend to be, I think it’s not only unnecessary to omit tutors, but also limits my ability to see how functional a silly strategy could be, with all the stops pulled out, and thus how viable the strat is as a whole.
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
and then have fun
I don’t think tutors are all that bad tho. It’s more the aggressive tutoring that makes the game unfun. Consider always tutoring for the combo win, and compare to tutoring for silver bullet answers.
Legacy - Solidarity - mono U aggro - burn - Imperial Painter - Strawberry Shortcake - Bluuzards - bom
Great experiment. Now, instead of banning tutors, try banning the cards that player in your group tutor for over and over again. And then have fun.
If you have a solid play group, doing both of these on separate occasions would be worth your while. See which games are actually more varied.
I find breaking up people from playing the same win-conditions over and over again leads to much more varied games. Take away tutors for Craterhoof Behemoth and guess what? Craterhoof still ends up winning the same amount of games.
My issue with people bringing up this topic is usually similar to my issue with people wanting to ban fast mana. If you take away all the fast mana-rocks then competitive decks are going to be all semi-green to use all the 1cmc mana dorks and land-ramp. It would be terrible for the entire format from casual to competitive.
Links to my most current deck lists;
Primary EDH; Rakka Mar Token Perfection, Crosis Mnemonic Betrayal, Cromat Villainous, Judith Gravestorm, Rakdos Empty Storm, Exava Artifacts, Bant Trash, & Fumiko Voltron!
EDH kept at home; Ruzzian Isset & Rakdos LoR!
EDH (nostalgic/pimp/retired) in storage;
Latulla Burns, Akroma Smash, Jeska Voltron, Rakdos Storm, Bladewing Darghans, Lyzolda Worldgorger, Xantcha Steals your Heart, Jori Storm, Wydwen Permission, Gwendlyn Paradox, Jeleva Warps, & Sigarda Brick!
Legacy Showanimator and High Tide!
Neither of these points are really true. How often are you grabbing a land with Demonic Tutor? Unless you are grabbing Urborg/Coffers, likely never. Green ramp spells have minimal impact on the game, at least in comparison to other tutors. You aren’t tutoring up a game winning/saving answer with Rampant Growth.
I suppose that split cards are kinda like wildcards too...so I don't necessarily agree that tutors are exactly wildcards, but I understand.
100% there definitely does need to be more search-hate.
Green land ramp/tutoring is one of the biggest parts of EDH though.
Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest WUR Voltron Control
Temmet, Vizier of Naktamun WU Unblockable Mirror Trickery
Ra's al Ghul (Sidar Kondo) and Face-Down Ninjas
Brudiclad, Token Engineer
Vaevictis (VV2) the Dire Lantern
Rona, Disciple of Gix
Tiana the Auror
Hallar
Ulrich the Politician
Zur the Rebel
Scorpion, Locust, Scarab, Egyptian Gods
O-Kagachi, Mathas, Mairsil
"Non-Tribal" Tribal Generals, Eggs
A non-restricted tutor doesn't do anything in the first few turns if you can't develop the resources to to continue playing, so you can use it to get the resources to try and actually participate in the game.
Regarding green land-ramp tutors - I strongly feel that land-ramp focused decks tend to dominate most non-competitive tables. It's really kind of sad of just how little hate and negative attention this gets. The sheer volume of landramp tutors that cheat extra permenants in to play is insane compared to what other tutors do. Lands tending to be the hardest to deal with card in the game, and if you happen to run MLD you may be classified as a terrible person.
Mass land-ramp decks tend to plaque casual tables and green/blue/x casual ramp decks are, imo, the worst. I have a typical ramp bant deck and it feels like every win was never deserved. I honestly feel that they are the catalyst for most issues in the format. To answer a deck that can consistently put 8 lands into play around turn 5 to 6, you have to make a quicker deck full of fast mana (which people complain about), and a fast combo win (which people complain about), and the tutors to get these parts (which people complain about).
Links to my most current deck lists;
Primary EDH; Rakka Mar Token Perfection, Crosis Mnemonic Betrayal, Cromat Villainous, Judith Gravestorm, Rakdos Empty Storm, Exava Artifacts, Bant Trash, & Fumiko Voltron!
EDH kept at home; Ruzzian Isset & Rakdos LoR!
EDH (nostalgic/pimp/retired) in storage;
Latulla Burns, Akroma Smash, Jeska Voltron, Rakdos Storm, Bladewing Darghans, Lyzolda Worldgorger, Xantcha Steals your Heart, Jori Storm, Wydwen Permission, Gwendlyn Paradox, Jeleva Warps, & Sigarda Brick!
Legacy Showanimator and High Tide!
That's not really my experience in my local meta. There are a couple of fairly fast-ramping decks, but there's also a bunch of non-ramp decks. One player mostly plays control decks, another one has a mono-black deck, and neither of these players tend to be out-performed by those that do bring ramping decks to the table, and they don't run fast-combo wins or anything like that.
Or maybe people play noncompetitive commander to enjoy that ramp and battlecruiser playstyle that sucks everywhere else?
To stop a deck with 8 lands that isn't comboing out but need to go through combat you just need a murder.
Your argoment seems really biased, considering that it started with comparing a card banned and restricted almost everywhere to... rampant growth, which is ***** even in pauper
Yes they "might" fail to a counterspell when they try to draw big after ramping, but if they've been sitting on a remora or have any counter ready then it is all an uphill fight. If their commander offers card advantage (like most green/blue legends), then most games are decided once we reveal all of our commanders. We have to actively waste early game resources just to not die.
My complaint here is that an average budget green/blue ramp deck can typically outperform an optimal non-green non-combo deck. This is mainly due to greens tutor ability to cheat lands in to play, and the sheer volume of ramp tutors available making for obnoxious consistancy.
But I also know people love their ramp, and doubt anything i say will ever reach any relivant ears. I'm just a mono red, rakdos and grixis fan that enjoys being blown out by boundless realms followed by bane of progress/devastation tide trash in "casual" games. It's always fun to just scoop up my cards and pick a combo deck with tutors and fast mana.
Links to my most current deck lists;
Primary EDH; Rakka Mar Token Perfection, Crosis Mnemonic Betrayal, Cromat Villainous, Judith Gravestorm, Rakdos Empty Storm, Exava Artifacts, Bant Trash, & Fumiko Voltron!
EDH kept at home; Ruzzian Isset & Rakdos LoR!
EDH (nostalgic/pimp/retired) in storage;
Latulla Burns, Akroma Smash, Jeska Voltron, Rakdos Storm, Bladewing Darghans, Lyzolda Worldgorger, Xantcha Steals your Heart, Jori Storm, Wydwen Permission, Gwendlyn Paradox, Jeleva Warps, & Sigarda Brick!
Legacy Showanimator and High Tide!
Your problem then is with the non-combo part, not the ramp part. A jank combo deck can easily crush jank aggro/control decks without combo. A jank ramp deck that goes through combat isn't anything exceptional.
And guess what? Combo is the archetype that get helped the most by tutors. By a really wide margin. If your thesis is that rampant growth and similar ramps help a combo more than demonic tutor... well, does that really need an answer?
And still, talking about rampant growth and cultivate and so on like they are big boogeymans while every deck has access to sol ring, mana crypt and mana vault is kinda laughable too.
I'm not at all sure how you arrived to this thesis, so I have absolutely no idea how to even reply to this.
I've also not mentioned cultivate once. I've been talking about the pile of 2cmc ramps like rampant growth/farseek/nature's lore/three visits/into the north.
I can't re-re-reiterate this all over again. I'll just step out of the conversation and let you all enjoy.
Links to my most current deck lists;
Primary EDH; Rakka Mar Token Perfection, Crosis Mnemonic Betrayal, Cromat Villainous, Judith Gravestorm, Rakdos Empty Storm, Exava Artifacts, Bant Trash, & Fumiko Voltron!
EDH kept at home; Ruzzian Isset & Rakdos LoR!
EDH (nostalgic/pimp/retired) in storage;
Latulla Burns, Akroma Smash, Jeska Voltron, Rakdos Storm, Bladewing Darghans, Lyzolda Worldgorger, Xantcha Steals your Heart, Jori Storm, Wydwen Permission, Gwendlyn Paradox, Jeleva Warps, & Sigarda Brick!
Legacy Showanimator and High Tide!
Whoa, no stepping out just yet there bud. Why are we choosing UG?
I know why. It’s because that is the best color for card advantage. You’re getting buried in CA, so you associate that with a player having more lands than you. You aren’t losing to Ramp, you’re losing to decks that out-tempo you.
You won’t accept this response, but this is really what you have a problem with. This has nothing to do with Rampant Growth lol.
I run tutors in my Tymna/Ravos Cleric tribal deck, but depending on what I have in hand and what my opponents have I may tutor for different cards. Same with my Captain Sisay deck who is a tutor on a stick.
In my Edgar Markov deck I tutor for Necropotence, so I still have variance for cards that I draw.
My Niv-Mizzet, Paurn deck uses Gamble for combo pieces, so it still has variance, and the blue tutors I use for answers.
I've never really thought of my tutors as unfun or oppressive, but I try to play a deck that's at the same power level as the rest of the table. If someone at a table wanted to play a game with no tutors I'd be down to try it out.
JundBGR
RW Blood MoonRW
Pauper
Delver U
Elves G
Control B
Commander
Edgar Markov BRW
Captain Sisay GW
Niv-Mizzet, Parun UR
Tymna and Ravos WB
Not so hard. First you said that banning demonic tutor would be unfair without also banning rampant growth and similar cards. Then you said that tutors are necessary in casual to beat green-blue decks that use rampant growth. So...
Also, rampant growth is op but cultivate is fine? You sure have some weird power level meters...
I reiterate my opinion to ban all the fast tutors. They are far too versatile, can be played the same turn as the tutored cards and can make you win out of nowhere. It's pointless to have a singleton restriction if your deck can contain some wildcards (great analogy)that for 1-2 mana can be everything else. If you need to tutor that bad, you still have diabolic tutor
It has none of the problems regarding stale playstyles or reptitive play lines that people dislike tutors for
Do not put tutors that search for spells and tutors that search for basic lands together in the same group.
If you want to complain about ramp, complain about ramp, but they are separate discussions.
I don't think tutors violate the singleton nature of the format because it's not as if you can tutor for another copy of the same card.
About the "singleton restriction" of the format, do you feel the same about Relentless Rats?
I agree that those are two separate things.
However, one of the complaints about tutors is that they make the game more consistently the same. So other than power-level, some people complain about tutors making games feel the same. It's an easy parallel for people to make since ramping lands consistently also makes games feel the same and land ramp is literally searching your deck for specific cards. So I guess that's why it's brought up so often together.
But I'm sure the OP meant to just discuss Demonic Tutor and the like.
Really? We are comparing tutors to vanillas now?
Kinda tired of these thread, it's just full of false equivalence.
Tutors can be removals, counters, wrath and missing combo pieces all in one card. Do not compare them to other cards that can't do the same
The singleton nature of the format make it so the card OP McBrokenFace maybe be strong as ***** in my deck, but in the end it's just a single card inside a 100-card deck. I can't expect to use it everygame.
Tutors can act as copy #2, #3, #4 and even #5 of that cards, enormously increasing its chance to appear in almost every game.
And they can also be more versatile than that!
The very first sentence I said in this topic was how if people complain about demonic tutor to the point of banning it, then this is complaining about is the color pie. Strict tutoring has been a black effect since alpha. If you want to ban something that is a part of a color identity then you probably just need to make personal house rules for your friends to decide.
My consistent referance to rampant growth/farseek/into the north/nature's lore/three visits has been due to the similarity of mana cost with demonic tutor.
I never mentioned cultivate because I feel it is weaker. In my meta something that costs 3cmc has to be very relevant. Perhaps this is different for all of you.
There is only one demonic tutor. But as listed, there are many rampant growths. If you want to expand the complaint of demonic tutor variants to include all strict tutors like vampiric tutor, that's fine. There will always be more green land-ramp tutors that cheat hard-to-deal with permenants strait into play.
People here seem to be complaining about consistent games due to just a small pool of tutors. Are people complaining about someone fetching a combo part just to end the game?
In terms of just an average table there are less than 5 playable and efficient strict demonic tutor effects. There may be a few highly specific off-color tutors to help like mystical tutor/fabricate/gamble/etc. IMO a stronger deck will run just the efficient tutors, which is likely less than 8 cards total. In that same meta there are easily 10+ relevant land ramp spells, all 3cmc or below, that are also tutoring permenants strait into the battlefield.
Do you all actually believe that decks using land-ramp tutors are less consistent than a deck running fewer demonic tutor effects or color-restricted highly specific tutors like enlightened tutor?
Maybe that's how all of your tables play out. That's not at all how any of my tables work. If we are not playing near-cedh then green/blue/x ramp+value decks will always outperform everything else. If combo decks are not included then most games are decided as soon as someone reveals a green/blue/x legendary, unless people actively team up and aggro them.
Maybe you all just love ramping. I know at the core of this format everyone loves to ramp and cast big spells. So if you somehow got offended by me pointing out that land-|amp tutors make decks more consistent than demonic tutors, sorry. But my opinion stays - if you want to ban an effect that one color is known for, then you're just unbalancing the game and showing other color(s) favoritism. That should stay at your own table as a house rule.
Links to my most current deck lists;
Primary EDH; Rakka Mar Token Perfection, Crosis Mnemonic Betrayal, Cromat Villainous, Judith Gravestorm, Rakdos Empty Storm, Exava Artifacts, Bant Trash, & Fumiko Voltron!
EDH kept at home; Ruzzian Isset & Rakdos LoR!
EDH (nostalgic/pimp/retired) in storage;
Latulla Burns, Akroma Smash, Jeska Voltron, Rakdos Storm, Bladewing Darghans, Lyzolda Worldgorger, Xantcha Steals your Heart, Jori Storm, Wydwen Permission, Gwendlyn Paradox, Jeleva Warps, & Sigarda Brick!
Legacy Showanimator and High Tide!
This point makes no sense. Ancestral Recall has been in blue's color pie since alpha. And it still is. But it need to cost at least 2UU otherwise it's broken as *****.
Same for Time Walk VS Time Warp
Is it really that difficult to say the same about tutors?
Yeah and who the hell cares? You are comparing two completely different effects, they have nothing to do with each other. How can you compare a basic land with... everything? The tutor target can be ******* anything, rampant growth target is a selection of six cards.
It's like comparing Wood Elemental and Solemn Simulacrum because they both cost 4, or Dark Confidant and Shambling Ghoul because they have both 2 power.
They are completely different cards that fills different niches and have different power levels.
I provided a list of the tutors i consider broken, no need to reset the discussion.
And again, Ancestral Recall and Time Walk are banned yet blue is still a thriving color.
Also, i'd really like to know how in your meta these evil blue-green decks can go from t2 rampant growth to t4 "something that has to be very relevant" to win against multiple opponents, because i still don't get it and i still don't understand how fast tutors couldn't improve these decks too.