1. Cast Tergrid
2. Make a copy of Tergrid via a spell or clone creature, sacrifice the original card via the legendary rule
3. Return it to your hand somehow if it’s not your commander, otherwise it’s in the command zone
4. Cast the other side
Is casual Modern still a thing? I remember people playing that a few years back, building off-beat tier 3 decks for non-tournament play, many of which could play a decent game against less competitive tier 2 Modern decks. I haven’t heard much in that direction recently, if it’s dead I imagine a lot of those players are doing EDH now and given the nature of what casual Modern was I imagine they tend to run more well tuned decks in EDH.
Other than that, the current state of EDH is more the result of WotC printing cards than the rules committee. As EDH has become popular, WotC has been printing more cards specifically for the format. Even standard sets are full of cards that suck in 60 card competitive but great in EDH, especially starting with Ixalan. I remember looking at the mythic rares of both Ixalan sets and thinking most of these are garbage for competitive standard but look pretty good as Commander jank. The rules committee from what I can tell has always managed EDH with a very light touch, with it assumed that the social contract will take care of things. Are people saying that they aren’t doing enough to deal with the power creep of WotC cranking out new EDH staples at the rate they have been?
The other two questions I see being asked is whether the EDH social contract still works for LGS pickup games with strangers, and whether people still playing 2009 style battlecruiser EDH should still be able to expect to win vs well tuned decks filled with interaction. For the second, I’m not talking about cEDH, I’m talking about decks at a lower power level but running 3 or so board wipes and 8-10 or so pieces of targeted interaction. I don’t have the answers to these questions, I’ve only recently started playing EDH and LGS with strangers isn’t available to me yet, and I haven’t personally encountered any old school Commander jank either.
My question would be whether people think EDH could survive being split in two. One format would look like what we have now with few bans and based on the social contract, the other would ban the reserved list and whatever else was necessary to achieve a healthy competitive format. Casual players could build decks for either depending on preference, and decks from the more limited format could certainly still be played in casual “no rules” EDH.
This card is really good for Commander. Shame it ETBTs, but still a strong contender for pretty much anything that runs lots of colors.
Also, grab them while you can, 'cuz with a name like that, it's unlikely it'll be reprinted anytime soon.
Yeah, I could definitely see this in every Commander deck with at least two colors. At least it’s an uncommon.
My big question at the moment is how many lands to run in the mono red version of this. I see people running 22-24 these days. I just got back from a 3-0-1 Standard Showdown with a 23 land red deck(24th in SB). I worry that 24 lands is too many for a deck without Ramunap Ruins, but I like having 24 lands for going big after SB.
I’m skeptical. As a survivor of the Dungeons and Dragons edition wars, the topic of WotC being sold was brought up time and again by wishful thinkers of all sides. It was always given the same answer, which is that historically Hasbro NEVER sells anything they hold the rights to.
My guess is that with a weakened aggro deck and energy hit relatively hard, The Scarab God and Approach of the Second Sun decks are going to start popping up more. The approach decks were already pretty decent even before the bannings and given how crappy the manabase is for the tribes I'm really not sure where things are going to go from here.
Approach is still vulnerable to creature decks that run Negate and Duress. I’ve been playing Scarab God decks for some time, but people are running answers and while the card is incredibly strong it’s not very aggressive. The Scarab God can be run under and does little to stop combos from going off. I really don’t know how it’s going to shake out. The tribes don’t have great mana, but neither does anyone else for the most part. I think Vampires and Merfolk might be good enough now that they don’t have to deal with RR/Energy at their peak, and Dinos may work as well if they can find a way to beat Fumigate/Settle. I don’t know how it’s going to shake out, all I can say is that I’ll be sleeving up Mardu Vehicles for next weekend.
Attendance is always lower for small set Prereleases. I did the marathon this weekend(5 events) and while attendance was down compared to Ixalan it was within the expected range for a small set. The packs have 4 Rivals and 2 Ixalan and that’s less value since at least personally I don’t need cards from Ixalan anymore.
It also hasn’t been mentioned yet in this thread but Energy and Ramunap Red both just got hit with the Ban Hammer today.
As a person who brews and enjoys the creating and playing, I test extensively against top tier decks to see if my brew is viable or falls short.
Net decks are expected and I don't mind them. Sure, no creativity goes into them. It's a little irritating to get blown out by someone who just bought a deck online but if your deck is fleshed out and you've planned a sideboard for troublemakers you should have a chance. At least that's how it used to be.
Part of the problem right now is even if you test, plan, and make an effort the top tier decks will eat you alive unless they beat themselves.
Great tournament standard (RTR-Tarkir) is also great LGS standard. 10 decks means you have the flexibility to be creative and not get blown out 90% of the time. More strategies are viable and the game is fun.
Net deck away. When the game is done right I know exactly how to beat those guys.
When there are 10 decks in the meta, not being competitive against one of them isn’t fatal. When there are three it is fatal.
My problem with the attendance angle of this is that people are asking them to fix and bring the game back to the glory days of mass competitive play.
Well, in the beginning there were a lot of casual players on competetive events. Just because a tournament was a good way to meet people and see what decks they came up with.
But since netdecking, that isn´t a reason anymore to go to competetive events, because you end up playing against the same decks time and again, whatever format you are playing.
So, it leaves the players that are competetive anyway, and they are just a small percentage. i doubt it is enough for a "mass"
People were netdecking in 1997. It is not new. What is different now is that casual players who don’t netdeck are playing Commander instead of 60 card constructed.
People not showing up to play standard don't buy product... of any kind. Stores hurt first and hard and the trickle up to WotC is slower.
They already raised the prices to stores without raising the MSRP. Dirty deeds...
As far as standard is concerned... the last 2 years have been utter dumpster fire especially with Kaladesh. Design thought they could sell more cards with big fatty creatures and janky unbalanced mechanics that you weren't given the right tools to remove or counter. Control is just about dead because they want it that way by DESIGN.
Maro needs to realize that his plan doesn't work even a little and go back to balanced sets. Use RTR and Tarkir as templates to give us fun draft/standard environments.
My problem with the attendance angle of this is that people are asking them to fix and bring the game back to the glory days of mass competitive play. If anything, the current situation shows how anemic the game is outside of that venue. What exactly has wizards done to support players that don't want to compete at FNM and just want to be able to afford good cards to build their deck building kits? They literally push the most powerful cards each set through their own promotional tools like the Pro Tour and then refuse to make those cards more affordable even after rotation hits. The cards that are cheap are ones that have no demand due to better / more efficient cards being present. Most people are not made of money: They can't just say "I'm going to put 150-300 dollars down to get a playset of X, Y, or Z staple card", and those that do always have to make sure that card has a home first or are willing to trade away something to get to that goal.
This isn't helped by watching youtube videos of WoTC representatives cluelessly milling about and saying how fun a six mana legendary dinosaur that marks things for death if it ever gets played is.
I feel EDH is more or less a different game from 60 card constructed, and the transition between the two is a bit awkward. I’m also admittedly not a big fan of it overall. EDH is a much better game for multiplayer, but I’ve always preferred 1v1.
They actually have chosen to not print those modern staples because their power is 'too great' for standard which doesn't make sense when you're printing one or two in a set/block.
They are cannibalizing their own sales by only printing Modern cards in Modern Masters. The Modern players don't look to new sets for much of anything anymore.
Not to mention many players left standard to play Modern because standard was costing too much and has been getting to be less and less fun for 2 years now.
Going to modern or just leaving the game entirely. The problem is the game isn't even fun to play casually because the game has been marketed heavily through competitions and online deck listings. People often don't so much as build a deck as much as try to find the closest official archetype they can find and copy it. The game basically needs EDH because it's a format that forces people to use more than just the best few cards available.
Online deck listings have been around since Tempest block or even before, almost as old as the game. Back then, I was a 60-card casual player, which is what I would like to be now if I wasn’t more or less alone. I’m a Standard player these days after being a Limited player for a while, then added Standard to play more because I disliked Standard less than I dislike EDH and Modern. You do have a point that high level tournaments are a bigger part of their advertising than was true 20 years ago, but most of the people I was playing back then were net decking so that’s not something I consider new.
What is new is that 60 card casual is mostly dead, and EDH has replaced it. The problem I see with this, aside from my personal dislike of EDH, is that it’s just not the same game. There really isn’t any overlap between it and competitive formats. Back in the day, I could take a 60 card casual deck and play decent games against lower tier competitive players. On the odd occasion I can find that sort of game, I still can. When 60 card casual was a thing, you could go from noob to casual to scrub to competitive on a linear, evolutionary path. In addition, casual decks were usually built under a gentleman’s code, which included a stigma against net decking. 60 card casual players were once common enough that if you didn’t want to net deck, it wasn’t that hard to find players who weren’t doing it.
2. Make a copy of Tergrid via a spell or clone creature, sacrifice the original card via the legendary rule
3. Return it to your hand somehow if it’s not your commander, otherwise it’s in the command zone
4. Cast the other side
Other than that, the current state of EDH is more the result of WotC printing cards than the rules committee. As EDH has become popular, WotC has been printing more cards specifically for the format. Even standard sets are full of cards that suck in 60 card competitive but great in EDH, especially starting with Ixalan. I remember looking at the mythic rares of both Ixalan sets and thinking most of these are garbage for competitive standard but look pretty good as Commander jank. The rules committee from what I can tell has always managed EDH with a very light touch, with it assumed that the social contract will take care of things. Are people saying that they aren’t doing enough to deal with the power creep of WotC cranking out new EDH staples at the rate they have been?
The other two questions I see being asked is whether the EDH social contract still works for LGS pickup games with strangers, and whether people still playing 2009 style battlecruiser EDH should still be able to expect to win vs well tuned decks filled with interaction. For the second, I’m not talking about cEDH, I’m talking about decks at a lower power level but running 3 or so board wipes and 8-10 or so pieces of targeted interaction. I don’t have the answers to these questions, I’ve only recently started playing EDH and LGS with strangers isn’t available to me yet, and I haven’t personally encountered any old school Commander jank either.
Yeah, I could definitely see this in every Commander deck with at least two colors. At least it’s an uncommon.
Approach is still vulnerable to creature decks that run Negate and Duress. I’ve been playing Scarab God decks for some time, but people are running answers and while the card is incredibly strong it’s not very aggressive. The Scarab God can be run under and does little to stop combos from going off. I really don’t know how it’s going to shake out. The tribes don’t have great mana, but neither does anyone else for the most part. I think Vampires and Merfolk might be good enough now that they don’t have to deal with RR/Energy at their peak, and Dinos may work as well if they can find a way to beat Fumigate/Settle. I don’t know how it’s going to shake out, all I can say is that I’ll be sleeving up Mardu Vehicles for next weekend.
It also hasn’t been mentioned yet in this thread but Energy and Ramunap Red both just got hit with the Ban Hammer today.
When there are 10 decks in the meta, not being competitive against one of them isn’t fatal. When there are three it is fatal.
People were netdecking in 1997. It is not new. What is different now is that casual players who don’t netdeck are playing Commander instead of 60 card constructed.
Online deck listings have been around since Tempest block or even before, almost as old as the game. Back then, I was a 60-card casual player, which is what I would like to be now if I wasn’t more or less alone. I’m a Standard player these days after being a Limited player for a while, then added Standard to play more because I disliked Standard less than I dislike EDH and Modern. You do have a point that high level tournaments are a bigger part of their advertising than was true 20 years ago, but most of the people I was playing back then were net decking so that’s not something I consider new.
What is new is that 60 card casual is mostly dead, and EDH has replaced it. The problem I see with this, aside from my personal dislike of EDH, is that it’s just not the same game. There really isn’t any overlap between it and competitive formats. Back in the day, I could take a 60 card casual deck and play decent games against lower tier competitive players. On the odd occasion I can find that sort of game, I still can. When 60 card casual was a thing, you could go from noob to casual to scrub to competitive on a linear, evolutionary path. In addition, casual decks were usually built under a gentleman’s code, which included a stigma against net decking. 60 card casual players were once common enough that if you didn’t want to net deck, it wasn’t that hard to find players who weren’t doing it.