MTG Salvation

I played against a Queen Marchesa with 40 removal spells including all good wraths and still stole a round. Pyroclasm isn't saving anyone.

I have faith in Karlov because he can be dirty as ****, but yes, Edgar kills all other non-G aggro decks in the format and right now that pretty much only leaves Tymna-Kondo and Titania. Baral can still steal games with turn 3 Ulamog, but I don't fear that half as much as turn 2 Emrakul. And I don't see Keranos doing anything to Edgar.

Either some old decks (Queen Marchesa, Animar, Doran, Prossh) come back to fight him, or we have a new king.
Arhabo is another concern, not because it can beat Edgar but because it looks like it's gonna be another bane on non removal-heavy decks, which may mean an eminence aggro vs reactive control metagame and push the RC to ban these commanders.

Played more with friends, I love this guy.
Titania, Doran and Queen Marchesa can fend him off. Tymna-Kondo, Karlov, Zurgo and Animar have fair chances of winning. Everyone else needs to pray to RNGesus that you'll draw nothing but lands.
I'm starting to think the last bans were a mistake. Maybe we didn't need to ban Geist, Breya and Bruse, maybe we needed to unban Tasigur, Marath and Necrotic Ooze.

Quote from Cainsson »

Played more with friends, I love this guy.
Titania, Doran and Queen Marchesa can fend him off. Tymna-Kondo, Karlov, Zurgo and Animar have fair chances of winning. Everyone else needs to pray to RNGesus that you'll draw nothing but lands.
I'm starting to think the last bans were a mistake. Maybe we didn't need to ban Geist, Breya and Bruse, maybe we needed to unban Tasigur, Marath and Necrotic Ooze.

I've always argued Nec. Ooze is fine...just ban the offending card, which in ooze's case is Phyrexian Devourer. That card is literally only used for the degenerate combo. Ooze has tons of interesting upside.

Gotta agree, yes it's easy to Buried Alive for Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, Mogg Fanatic and Anger with Ooze out. But that exposes the Ooze/your yard as BA ressolves, or in response to the Kiki trigger. Requires you to play three rather *****ty cards instead of just Devourer and requires you to play red.

Quote from Cainsson »

Played more with friends, I love this guy.
Titania, Doran and Queen Marchesa can fend him off. Tymna-Kondo, Karlov, Zurgo and Animar have fair chances of winning. Everyone else needs to pray to RNGesus that you'll draw nothing but lands.
I'm starting to think the last bans were a mistake. Maybe we didn't need to ban Geist, Breya and Bruse, maybe we needed to unban Tasigur, Marath and Necrotic Ooze.

tasigur was a nightmare to me from a mardu standpoint, though that was back in 30. what exactly makes you think he's better now?

i agree with unbanning ooze and marath tho. not too sure abt breya staying legal, but geist and bruse seemed ok to me.

Tasigur would have been fine if you couldn't delve away the tax. As they [understandably] didn't want to change rules, he had to go. and Yuji, no, Breya has to stay gone lol. Bruse surprised me, but it's nothing that strikes me as unreasonable - double striking lifelinker in the command zone is enough to scare most off of aggressive strats.

I think Tas would be fine in 20 life. It's at least worth testing imo

Tas got his ars handed to him during testing when we still used to play with 20 life around here. I think he would make waves but not warp the format like he used to do

Quote from balangaz »

Tas got his ars handed to him during testing when we still used to play with 20 life around here. I think he would make waves but not warp the format like he used to do

died to zurgo?

Zurgo, Boros partners, 4c Akiri affinity, "delverless" geist. The amount of aggression French had when we were testing made for the Sultai control game to be very badly positioned. Maybe now, w/o moxen and geist, Tas could play a more mid-rangy control game and be good, but I don't think he would ever be great again.

hello to everybody in this thread

My friends and me made a big test session for Edgar. Here are our results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1u77I2vYKUWyLOf-DZHp-Zcdh6LMekn2xkRL3tHTZYAc/edit#gid=0

to tell the truth, i was really shocked with such results. Total dominance.Of course we can start to change decks to beat Edgar, but will they be able to play vs other metagame. As for me- Edgar is too strong for current meta. Such words i can say about Zurgo. I hope that in some time i will find opportunity to make a test session of Zurgo vs all the meta

I settled on this and went out of my way to find ways to beat it because the current top tier is baby tier vs Edgar. And it's pretty much Doran, Marchesa or goldfishing turn 4 Mike+Trike in some UB/Grixis build. Also obviously beat it with Sidisi MBC with Virulent Plague, Illness in the Ranks, Engineered Plague, Night of Souls' Betrayal and Curse of Death's Hold but the only other Tier decks that pile can beat are Karlov, Baral and Titania.

Bruse+Reyhan does beat Edgar and Geist has a 50/50 match, the latest banlist update ****ed up the format and they really should have waited until Ixalan to make any changes.

if bruse stayed legal it would have turned into a partners vs eminence meta which could be a problem of its own.. i'm really anxious to see the next announcement.

I just wanted to say I played against Edgar Markov in some casual duel commander games and he seems ridiculously busted. I wasn't even playing against an optimized list either. If you thought Skullclamp was broken before, wait until you play against it with Edgar Markov using it. Edgar Markov creates way too much value without having to work for it.

I would be surprised if he didn't get banned before the end of the year if not sooner.

Honestly if the format was 30 or 40 life, Edgar Markov might be fine. But in a 20 life format it's absurd.

Turn 1 Falkenrath Gorger, you get a token. You already have 3 power on the board.

Turn 2 Bold Impaler + Indulgent Aristocrat. Now you have 7 power on the board and 4 creatures.

Trust me, playing against it is a nightmare.

Quote from Honor Basquiat »

Honestly if the format was 30 or 40 life, Edgar Markov might be fine. But in a 20 life format it's absurd.

Turn 1 Falkenrath Gorger, you get a token. You already have 3 power on the board.

Turn 2 Bold Impaler + Indulgent Aristocrat. Now you have 7 power on the board and 4 creatures.

Trust me, playing against it is a nightmare.

I've been pretty successful with Edgar on the mtgo banlist so far, with minimal losses against solid decks. If Breya gets the axe tomorrow (on modo) we'll lose one of the worse bad matches we have.

If the format was 40 life there wouldn't be any reason to play anything but Grixis combos. And 30lp haven't had that much better luck with bans.
There has to be a way for Bruse, Geist, Tasigur, Marath and maybe even Breya to be unbannable. Maybe modify the Commander Tax rules for Partners/Delve and ban Steel of the Godhead, Mana Echoes and Academy Ruins instead.
Otherwise we'll never have a real format. Before Edgar and Arhabo infused some interest in my local scene, it was 8 people playing Karlov, Titania, Zurgo and Baral every week with more chore-like contempt than interest.

Hmmm.............

Quote from Cainsson »

If the format was 40 life there wouldn't be any reason to play anything but Grixis combos. And 30lp haven't had that much better luck with bans.
There has to be a way for Bruse, Geist, Tasigur, Marath and maybe even Breya to be unbannable. Maybe modify the Commander Tax rules for Partners/Delve and ban Steel of the Godhead, Mana Echoes and Academy Ruins instead.
Otherwise we'll never have a real format. Before Edgar and Arhabo infused some interest in my local scene, it was 8 people playing Karlov, Titania, Zurgo and Baral every week with more chore-like contempt than interest.

i've been saying for quite a while that partner tax was more of a problem than individual partner pieces ever were.. but for eminence i have no idea how they'd nerf it to be 20 life playable... as time goes by, the number of busted commanders at 20 life seems to be catching up to the ones that were a menace at 30.

25 life is looking better and better now coz combo will be able to survive long enough to end eminence commanders without immediately dying, control will have a reasonable cushion to survive aggro and shut down combo, and aggro will still have enough reach..

What about Tainted AEther? Overburden? AEther Flash? Crawlspace?
Has anyone considered the option of adding sideboards? 15-25ish cards?

Quote from Etienne »

Why DC would act differently ?

Because of the nature of side-boardless decks and the greater number of cards increasing the variance of games.

Ok, let's think this through. Play Pyroclasm, Anger of the Gods, Wrath of God, Volcanic Fallout, Electrickery, etc, play Mardu boardwipes! Asume all the meta is Edgar, from now on.

Then go play in an event and get paired against anything not Edgar that is not soft against all boardwipes, like a great number of decks, lose the 1st and/or 2nd round and catch a ride to hosetown.

If only the solution to any commander was only "play X", then Tasigur would still be ok since, if you bounce him enough times he becomes horrible to re-cast. You could unban Edric as well, since with all the propaganda and Pyroclasm effects he would be instantly nerfed by the meta. Geist is soft against Pyroclasm, if people only played that a little more he wouldn't be a problem.

Quote from yujipooji »

i've been saying for quite a while that partner tax was more of a problem than individual partner pieces ever were.. but for eminence i have no idea how they'd nerf it to be 20 life playable... as time goes by, the number of busted commanders at 20 life seems to be catching up to the ones that were a menace at 30.

25 life is looking better and better now coz combo will be able to survive long enough to end eminence commanders without immediately dying, control will have a reasonable cushion to survive aggro and shut down combo, and aggro will still have enough reach..

I know that you're trying to find a solution to the problem, but throwing around the '25 life' mantra is getting a bit annoying. My question is: did you test your 25 life format? Di you practice with all the tier decks, including currently banned generals, to see if the format would change? Are you sure that your change would bring more combo decks to the table or are you just talking out of some wishful thinking?

Edgar is not a problem because we play at 20 life. He would be a problem even in a 30 life format, because he gives the player an emblem that can't be interacted with and that generates tons of advantage. That is not an issue of life points, the card is basically perverting the idea of playing commander by giving you a free effect without ever needing to move your commander from the command zone. That's why it should be banned.

Quote from Etienne »

... here comes a new challenger !
Everybody finds him strong. Everybody loves him or hates him.

And curiously, nobody found a way to counter him!
In which world are we afraid of an army of 1/1s ? I don't know ! IF you play red, play pyroclasm! If you play blue, play propaganda, ... there are a lot of answers that are not dead cards against the other decks.

A great thing in Magic the Gathering, is the new extensions. We encounter new cards, add them in existing T2 decks, some T2 decks are killed, other T2 are born. Why DC would act differently ?

...
Darwin once said : "the ones that doesn't adapt dies".

Doesn't work so simply like that. When you start to have to metagame to one particular deck (would you really play pyroclasm and propaganda if not for Edgar?) then that means the general is too strong. What's worse: it is entirely unclear that these cards actually make the matchup better for you. Just killing the vampires is not enough, you need to apply some pressure. Imagine it like a burn deck - if you kill all their threats and discard all their cards you will still die if you don't have a way to put pressure on the table. Edgar is even worse than that because even after you remove all the threats and start to hold up counterspells the 1/1s vampire will still hit the table since it is a cast trigger.

I don't see why the format should bend over backwards to deal with a card that is clearly too unbalanced to stay on it. He and Arahbo should bite the dust, and I'm saying that as someone that actually likes aggro and plays with Arahbo.

I think it's far too early to be talking about a ban. I've trusted the DC committee since day one and they've never let me down, and I trust the DC committee to do what's best for business in this case too, we have to take a wait and see approach. It's too new, we have to try and beat it first, rather than be lazy and all play AS Edgar and ay it's too good. We need at least one, preferably two, ban cycles to make sure we're not gonna ban because people don't want to cope with it and instead are banning because it truly is damaging to the format.

While I agree with bat Edgar is probably OP for 20, I'm genuinely curious to see what his impact wizards 30 will be

Quote from yujipooji »

Quote from Xxarien »

Quote from yujipooji »

unless inalla has some kind of broken t4 combo, i think zurgo's gonna plow her all night.. unless i'm missing something again lol

Inalla, Archmage Ritualist + Bloodline Necromancer + Ashnod's Altar/Phyrexian Altar

A couple of early rocks and there you go!

interesting! is this consistent enough to set up though?

I will hype u a litle: discard Wanderwine Prophets, reanimate it, pay {1} to copy it, exile the non token to the token, attack, sac the token, pay {1} to make another token, pass make a new token and just enjoy your turns