Indeed. However, if I have the cost reduction in effect: I cast Kozilek, Butcher of Truth for free, his ability resolves, he enters the battlefield, I pay 2 life and sacrifice him to Razaketh, the Foulblooded, he hits graveyard, his ability triggers to shuffle him into my library, I search for him with Razaketh, repeat as needed. Obviously, I can't use him to avoid decking myself in that situation so I guess those <4 cards left will just have to stay there.
I feel like this doesn't work, but I thought I'd check. If, say, I've hit an opponent with Rakdos, Lord of Riots and Razaketh, the Foulblooded meaning that I've got a reduction of 13 in effect, I can cast Kozilek, Butcher of Truth for free. My question is: if I sacrifice Kozilek to Razaketh, does he shuffle into the library before or after I search my library? It feels like before, but I also don't think that is so.
I'd greatly appreciate any guidance provided. Thank you, in advance, for your help.
Sephon19, I'd quote you but there's no single passage I'd highlight so that would look funny.
I think that's an admirable level of communication. I usually just try not to play any deck that hard-counters anyone's deck, and call that good. Props to you for that effort. I wish I encountered more players with such open mindsets...
At least you are getting to play magic....harder and harder to dodge people when they keep arguing that every deck must have a way to combo off and win the game on the spot. One guy who always plays his Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind will always just hold counters to play Curiosity and insta-win.
See, I'd get pretty peeved if someone did that repeatedly. I think at certain levels, combos can be fairly necessary but never like that. It's one thing if you have combo that might happen turn 12 every so often, it's another if your deck is based around just getting the combo. I'm lucky enough to rarely have to deal with that sort of situation.
I don't feel like I have much to contribute to the topic at hand, but after reading everything posted thus far, I figured I may as well speak my mind.
At the end of the day, what matters most to me is not the destination, but the journey. After the swell of pride and the sting of defeat have faded in the moments proceeding the game, the only thing anyone has to take away with them is their memories. What happened in the game? Was anything memorable? If so, what was it, and why was it memorable?
For me, the social contract is about building these sorts of collective memories, and it is up to the players to shape them. Sometimes someone isn't interested in creating the kind of story that everyone else wants to. That's fine, but once said person becomes aware of that fact, I consider it pretty selfish for them to continue doing whatever it is they are doing without taking it upon themselves to do something about it.
I've never thought of it that way, that's a neat perspective. I tend to agree that in a format like this, the journey tends to be more compelling than how it ended. Thanks for sharing!
If 3/4 aren't enjoying themselves, then it's time to have a chat. In my personal opinion, anyone who brings high-powered decks along should also have a weaker deck with them. That way, if you do end up roflstomping game 1, you can just go ok, here's my other deck, let's have something more relaxed.
Playgroups have varying power levels and if you're on the higher end of the power scale with your best decks, then I feel it's up to you to ensure that you also bring lower-end decks. People with only lower-end decks perhaps can't make the jump to higher power (Either due to cost or lack of skill) so it's not as much on them. Being flexible is important to the format.
I should have kept it in the original post, I didn't think it was especially important, but I did talk with the guy, and will again if necessary. It was more just that turn of events that made me think about this topic. I included the anecdote partly because I was still peeved, but mostly just to give background to my train of thought.
Do forgive me if this is the wrong section to post such a topic.
I want to start this post with an anecdote, and a question. I am very interested to hear others' views on this subject.
At my LGS, there are arguably 3 pods on any given Tuesday, and usually 1 on Fridays, each of varying competitiveness. I'm usually in the one of the more casual pods. On Friday's, the Pod is really just me, a friend or two, and whoever gets tired of FNM that night. So far so simple. However, recently that's changed. There is a regular of the store who's a fan of the format as well who often ends up being the fourth guy. This fourth guy plays much, much more competitive decks than us three. So, here's the thing: it's not a pleasant experience for any of us three playing with him. On the most recent outing, I intended to field my The Locust God deck for it's maiden voyage to get a feel for what needed adjusting, one of my friends is relatively inexperienced and plays (and enjoys) a Minotaur tribal led by (you guessed it) Neheb, the Worthy, and the other was piloting his newly assembled infect deck with Atraxa, Praetors' Voice at the helm, and the regular wanted to use his ultra-tuned Ramos, Dragon Engine. I'm not gonna surprise anyone by saying that the Minotaurs deck was the least competitive there, while the Ramos deck was the most competitive. The problem was that the Ramos deck was predictably way too competitive relative to the rest of the group (no surprise given how ludicrously powerful Ramos, Dragon Engine is). I felt that in the moment this was a little against EDH, in the way that only 1/4 of the players really enjoyed themselves. Although, now, I feel like that's more just being an ass____. Oh, and just in case someone says I'm just upset about losing, I'm not. I won 1/2 the games played, it just wasn't very enjoyable playing effectively Archenemy for 15 minutes every time.
(Edit for clarification) I did talk to the player in question, I will do so again if necessary, I am just using the anecdote to illustrate how I came about this train of thought.
So the question is this, at what point do you feel that a deck breaks the implicit social contract often referred to as the "spirit of EDH"? Is that very contract directly at odds the ethos of the competitive player?
I, for one, feel that anything is fine provided one is playing with likeminded players. However, I feel that it is against the so called spirit of the format to knowingly use a deck that is excessively more powerful than the rest of the group. In a format as limitless as EDH, I feel that a certain level of altruism is required. In order for everyone to enjoy their time you have to recognize the power level of the group, and willingly limit yourself to match that if necessary. It's unreasonable to expect the rest of the players to accommodate you if you're the only one playing an especially powerful deck; if they're not at that power level, the chances are fairly good it's because they don't want to be. I don't like the idea of telling people what to play, but deliberately choosing to play something that all but guarantees your win is likely just ruining the game for the rest of the table. Just to make sure this isn't misunderstood, I'm not saying super competitive decks are against the format's ideology, I'm saying that, unless it's between consenting adults, paying no attention to how the rest of the players want to do it is.
I don't have a problem with mass land destruction, I don't mind combos, I don't mind infect, stax is cool, most strategies don't bother me so long as they're a means to an end. That being said, I don't want to have to deal with someone blowing themselves for ten minutes just because they can. If you could've killed the table at the start of the turn, but then decided to play solitaire for all that time even though it made no difference, that's just being a jerk, which, to me, is against the spirit of the format. I suppose that I feel that most of the spirit of the format is just putting the group's enjoyment ahead of your own, and recognizing that to many that is contrary to the player's basic instinct to try to win. I feel there comes a point where you have to willingly stop the arms race in order to still be enjoying EDH in the the way it's creators intended and that beyond that point you stop caring about the experience of others so long as you can win. There's nothing wrong with going past that point, though, so long as whoever you play with also wants to be there.
Before I end my little spiel, I want to demarcate the difference (as I see it) between powerful and tuned. Obviously the two aren't mutually exclusive, they are even often coincident in a good deck. However, I would like to point out that tuning works to optimize what's already there, while powering up implies replacing something to improve performance. I can have a perfectly tuned Dromar, the Banisher spirits tribal deck which is reasonably effective, but obviously not especially powerful. On the other hand, even an only roughly tuned General Tazri is probably going to be more powerful than my spirits deck. To me, tuning a deck is optimizing it within the constricts of the theme; not directly making it more powerful, not adding stronger per se cards, just making it run as smoothly as possible.
What do you think? How do you think the implicit social contract of EDH relates to the player's natural desire to win? Do you feel that anything should go, so long as at least one person is enjoying themselves?
I've got a Dromar the Banisher spirits/arcane tribal that's fairly unique. Or at least I've never seen any others. It's never gonna be a game breaker, but it's a surprisingly effective control-synergy deck.
So, I'm pretty sure I know the answer, but I thought I'd ask the audience. If I have Pyrohemia or Earthquake, something that deals damage to creatures and players simultaneously, and War Elemental out, does my War Elemental die before it receives the +1/+1 counters?
I'm pretty sure the answer is yes, it will die and then counters will be distributed to the now non-existent target. Nonetheless, I thought I'd ask to be certain.
I fully admit that I was in a bad mood when I wrote that, and that it was largely a vent of built-up frustrations. I'm having to type this a second time (damn you, technology!) so forgive me if some points are a bit less well written. The story has outlined the plan and the cards have illustrated the result. Jace only says not to use fire until they've bound the Eldrazi. Leylines are the plane's mana veins, so imposing them on the Eldrazi is throwing a large amount of mana at them. We know this plane has at least a sun if nothing else. I was speaking of astronomical time where even 1000000 years is quite brief. My understanding was that the Eldrazi can't leave the blind eternities because they're no planeswalkers. They merely "touch", if you will, a plane, and what the inhabitants see is akin to what a diver might see of something on the water's surface. Given their non-planetary sizes, and the fact they appear to require contact, or at least close proximity to exert their power, it would take some time to consume a star. Not to mention, the inherent proximity means that they would have to be able to withstand the results of nuclear fusion; that's pretty damn tough. Nissa is learning to use Zendikar's power, the Eldrazi are (relatively) rapidly consuming the plane's power; the power's she's tapping should be getting weaker. Kozilek distorts space in what must be a random fashion, otherwise it wouldn't be too difficult to make anything to deal with it. Truly random interference can't be adjusted for. If they could just overpower the effect, this would be an even sillier battle. The holes in space are at least absorbing light in an omnidirectional fashion. While no one says our idea of physics has to work in another universe, they would have difficulty breathing if the concept of matter moving to fill a void didn't apply. If nothing else, all gases on the planet should moving to fill the holes in space.
I don't mean to come across aggressively, nor do I wish to get into a drawn out argument. You posed perfectly reasonable questions to my complaints, I am merely answering them to the best of my abilities.
A lot of my concerns come from fear of future developments.
I briefly decide to indulge the bad fanfic Wizards calls story, only to be whacked in the face with a tire iron. So many logic holes, inconsistencies, and garbage. If the Eldrazi are big fat monsters of nothingness that exist in a space a chaos that destroys everything, and these monsters eat existence and are hungry enough to eat planes casually, then how on earth does throwing mana at them hurt them? Better question, if you impose an all consuming fire in a flood of it's own fuel, it won't be smothered; it's all consuming! All!
Secondly, one titan distorts all non-living things and last I checked mana was not living so imposing a particular leyline on it should be impossible. Supposing it is living (somehow) it's still the very thing the Eldrazi are supposed to be eating > the life-force of the plane. Plus this one now has holes in space (HOLES IN EFFING SPACE!) that follow it around, and last I checked, voids exist to be filled, so holes that big should be removing all matter from the plane at high speed. Your other titan is literally all consuming, it's supposed to instantly process anything that is remotely close. Trivia time: what happens when you throw, say, tissue paper at the sun? Answer: it freaking burns! How on earth does someone find enough energy to outpace the titan that eats entire planes of existence without issue on a plane that is half eaten already? That just doesn't make sense.
Lastly, since when do planes of existence only have one planet? That's not right is it? How the hell do they even know that that's the entire plane eating monstrosity? A universe is pretty big, and seeing as it's only taken a little while to half eat it, I would imagine somewhere in the space surrounding their sad little planet there's something bigger eating that universe.
For crying out loud, they exist a land of death, doom, destruction, and destiny, with conditions, and mana, so harsh not even planeswalkers can spend much time there; they ought to be able to handle however much mana a far more survivable place can supply. I hate this kind of story writing.
Oh, and as an afterthought, if Nissa is supposed to be getting her power from the plane then she should be getting weaker with it's consumption, not stronger.
Ooh! Ooh! Elemental tribal with Horde of Notions. Not outright bananas but very fun. Well, I just love my Horde so maybe I'm just biased. Still, though it does play beautifully to its own tribe. It casts from the grave, Maelstrom Wanderer wants to be cast; evoke cards want that second chance, elementals have a ton of ETB and the Horde plays strongly to that. It doesn't hurt that when all else fails he's a solid beater.
Vorthospike,
I am, of course, aware of the difference. However, prior to this set, that distinction was seldom (never, even?) relevant. Never before, as far as I can think of - I'm certainly not all knowing, though, and won't do a gatherer search for just that - did a card specify that the source of the mana be colourless, so I hope you can see how that misinterpretation of the text might happen. As far as semantics go, "reduce a specifically non-coloured portion of the cost" is pretty close to "reduce the colourless portion of the cost"; they're obviously different but non-coloured and colourless are very close in meaning. I do, nonetheless, acknowledge that it was not the most precise choice of words. Alas, such is the nature of an ever evolving game. I hope that I haven't come across as rude, or ungrateful, I am simply trying to communicate my logic that led to the question as clearly as possible. Thank you, however, for taking the time to consider the question and leave a response.
Ryperior,
That was just unnecessary. All of that was already concluded. Still, I can understand the sentiment of wanting to contribute, and I did say that all contributions were welcome, so thank you for your response to my question. A word of advice though, take notes on the explanations provided by Lil_Bolas; even without citing a particular rules passage, they managed to convey a sense of why. This is better than simply showing an answer, as it helps the asker to solve future problems on their own. I wish you a good evening, and thank you for taking the time to respond.
Thanks for that quick help!
I'd greatly appreciate any guidance provided. Thank you, in advance, for your help.
I think that's an admirable level of communication. I usually just try not to play any deck that hard-counters anyone's deck, and call that good. Props to you for that effort. I wish I encountered more players with such open mindsets...
See, I'd get pretty peeved if someone did that repeatedly. I think at certain levels, combos can be fairly necessary but never like that. It's one thing if you have combo that might happen turn 12 every so often, it's another if your deck is based around just getting the combo. I'm lucky enough to rarely have to deal with that sort of situation.
I've never thought of it that way, that's a neat perspective. I tend to agree that in a format like this, the journey tends to be more compelling than how it ended. Thanks for sharing!
I should have kept it in the original post, I didn't think it was especially important, but I did talk with the guy, and will again if necessary. It was more just that turn of events that made me think about this topic. I included the anecdote partly because I was still peeved, but mostly just to give background to my train of thought.
I want to start this post with an anecdote, and a question. I am very interested to hear others' views on this subject.
At my LGS, there are arguably 3 pods on any given Tuesday, and usually 1 on Fridays, each of varying competitiveness. I'm usually in the one of the more casual pods. On Friday's, the Pod is really just me, a friend or two, and whoever gets tired of FNM that night. So far so simple. However, recently that's changed. There is a regular of the store who's a fan of the format as well who often ends up being the fourth guy. This fourth guy plays much, much more competitive decks than us three. So, here's the thing: it's not a pleasant experience for any of us three playing with him. On the most recent outing, I intended to field my The Locust God deck for it's maiden voyage to get a feel for what needed adjusting, one of my friends is relatively inexperienced and plays (and enjoys) a Minotaur tribal led by (you guessed it) Neheb, the Worthy, and the other was piloting his newly assembled infect deck with Atraxa, Praetors' Voice at the helm, and the regular wanted to use his ultra-tuned Ramos, Dragon Engine. I'm not gonna surprise anyone by saying that the Minotaurs deck was the least competitive there, while the Ramos deck was the most competitive. The problem was that the Ramos deck was predictably way too competitive relative to the rest of the group (no surprise given how ludicrously powerful Ramos, Dragon Engine is). I felt that in the moment this was a little against EDH, in the way that only 1/4 of the players really enjoyed themselves. Although, now, I feel like that's more just being an ass____. Oh, and just in case someone says I'm just upset about losing, I'm not. I won 1/2 the games played, it just wasn't very enjoyable playing effectively Archenemy for 15 minutes every time.
(Edit for clarification) I did talk to the player in question, I will do so again if necessary, I am just using the anecdote to illustrate how I came about this train of thought.
So the question is this, at what point do you feel that a deck breaks the implicit social contract often referred to as the "spirit of EDH"? Is that very contract directly at odds the ethos of the competitive player?
I, for one, feel that anything is fine provided one is playing with likeminded players. However, I feel that it is against the so called spirit of the format to knowingly use a deck that is excessively more powerful than the rest of the group. In a format as limitless as EDH, I feel that a certain level of altruism is required. In order for everyone to enjoy their time you have to recognize the power level of the group, and willingly limit yourself to match that if necessary. It's unreasonable to expect the rest of the players to accommodate you if you're the only one playing an especially powerful deck; if they're not at that power level, the chances are fairly good it's because they don't want to be. I don't like the idea of telling people what to play, but deliberately choosing to play something that all but guarantees your win is likely just ruining the game for the rest of the table. Just to make sure this isn't misunderstood, I'm not saying super competitive decks are against the format's ideology, I'm saying that, unless it's between consenting adults, paying no attention to how the rest of the players want to do it is.
I don't have a problem with mass land destruction, I don't mind combos, I don't mind infect, stax is cool, most strategies don't bother me so long as they're a means to an end. That being said, I don't want to have to deal with someone blowing themselves for ten minutes just because they can. If you could've killed the table at the start of the turn, but then decided to play solitaire for all that time even though it made no difference, that's just being a jerk, which, to me, is against the spirit of the format. I suppose that I feel that most of the spirit of the format is just putting the group's enjoyment ahead of your own, and recognizing that to many that is contrary to the player's basic instinct to try to win. I feel there comes a point where you have to willingly stop the arms race in order to still be enjoying EDH in the the way it's creators intended and that beyond that point you stop caring about the experience of others so long as you can win. There's nothing wrong with going past that point, though, so long as whoever you play with also wants to be there.
Before I end my little spiel, I want to demarcate the difference (as I see it) between powerful and tuned. Obviously the two aren't mutually exclusive, they are even often coincident in a good deck. However, I would like to point out that tuning works to optimize what's already there, while powering up implies replacing something to improve performance. I can have a perfectly tuned Dromar, the Banisher spirits tribal deck which is reasonably effective, but obviously not especially powerful. On the other hand, even an only roughly tuned General Tazri is probably going to be more powerful than my spirits deck. To me, tuning a deck is optimizing it within the constricts of the theme; not directly making it more powerful, not adding stronger per se cards, just making it run as smoothly as possible.
What do you think? How do you think the implicit social contract of EDH relates to the player's natural desire to win? Do you feel that anything should go, so long as at least one person is enjoying themselves?
I'm pretty sure the answer is yes, it will die and then counters will be distributed to the now non-existent target. Nonetheless, I thought I'd ask to be certain.
Thanks in advance for any help given.
I don't mean to come across aggressively, nor do I wish to get into a drawn out argument. You posed perfectly reasonable questions to my complaints, I am merely answering them to the best of my abilities.
A lot of my concerns come from fear of future developments.
Secondly, one titan distorts all non-living things and last I checked mana was not living so imposing a particular leyline on it should be impossible. Supposing it is living (somehow) it's still the very thing the Eldrazi are supposed to be eating > the life-force of the plane. Plus this one now has holes in space (HOLES IN EFFING SPACE!) that follow it around, and last I checked, voids exist to be filled, so holes that big should be removing all matter from the plane at high speed. Your other titan is literally all consuming, it's supposed to instantly process anything that is remotely close. Trivia time: what happens when you throw, say, tissue paper at the sun? Answer: it freaking burns! How on earth does someone find enough energy to outpace the titan that eats entire planes of existence without issue on a plane that is half eaten already? That just doesn't make sense.
Lastly, since when do planes of existence only have one planet? That's not right is it? How the hell do they even know that that's the entire plane eating monstrosity? A universe is pretty big, and seeing as it's only taken a little while to half eat it, I would imagine somewhere in the space surrounding their sad little planet there's something bigger eating that universe.
For crying out loud, they exist a land of death, doom, destruction, and destiny, with conditions, and mana, so harsh not even planeswalkers can spend much time there; they ought to be able to handle however much mana a far more survivable place can supply. I hate this kind of story writing.
Oh, and as an afterthought, if Nissa is supposed to be getting her power from the plane then she should be getting weaker with it's consumption, not stronger.
I am, of course, aware of the difference. However, prior to this set, that distinction was seldom (never, even?) relevant. Never before, as far as I can think of - I'm certainly not all knowing, though, and won't do a gatherer search for just that - did a card specify that the source of the mana be colourless, so I hope you can see how that misinterpretation of the text might happen. As far as semantics go, "reduce a specifically non-coloured portion of the cost" is pretty close to "reduce the colourless portion of the cost"; they're obviously different but non-coloured and colourless are very close in meaning. I do, nonetheless, acknowledge that it was not the most precise choice of words. Alas, such is the nature of an ever evolving game. I hope that I haven't come across as rude, or ungrateful, I am simply trying to communicate my logic that led to the question as clearly as possible. Thank you, however, for taking the time to consider the question and leave a response.
Ryperior,
That was just unnecessary. All of that was already concluded. Still, I can understand the sentiment of wanting to contribute, and I did say that all contributions were welcome, so thank you for your response to my question. A word of advice though, take notes on the explanations provided by Lil_Bolas; even without citing a particular rules passage, they managed to convey a sense of why. This is better than simply showing an answer, as it helps the asker to solve future problems on their own. I wish you a good evening, and thank you for taking the time to respond.
Well, anyways, thanks for your help.