MTG Salvation

I mean I don't need the internet to make decks anyway since I already have all the cards (although my collection is a little out of date for the past couple expansions, bleh new zealand problems). If the internet went down for some insane tinfoil hat bull***** reason, though, I guarantee that my absolute lowest concern would be "how am I going to optimize my commander deck building?"

Anyway even if you were right (which you aren't) why would anyone give a ***** about magic card search engines? I could imagine the internet getting restructured at some point to reduce bootlegging, dark web drug trade, etc, but p sure nobody is trying to stop us from searching for magic cards. As long as the internet and magic both exist, there will be a way to search for magic cards.

I have to assume this thread was created because Card Slinger J really wanted to ramble on about deranged conspiracy theories with naught but the flimsiest YouTube evidence, but had to figure out some way to tangentially relate it to magic to justify posting it here. And in the process he created a true work of art. Bravo.

I feel your pain. I really dislike players who will randomly murder-suicide “just because”, and people who brag about their decks after someone else handed them a free win are cringe.


“I don’t feel like talking” seems like a pretty inoffensive thing to say. I wouldn’t blame you at all. If I were the Thalisse player I’d probably be apologising tbh.

I don’t think you’re considering all the possible permutations of partners. That adds another 1400 or so.


also why can’t you make the same commander twice? Some commanders are versatile. I’ve made a deck for plargg based around sunforger, and one around reanimation, for example, and I’ve got even more in the works, because there’s a ton of directions to go with him.


also this topic is super old lol.

What exactly is “the highest quality and simplicity”? TCC has reviewed a million deck boxes, most of which fit commander decks.


personally I use a ultimate guard super hive with 5 of their sidewinders inside for my deck carry, but if I’m packing light I’ll pull out one or two of the sidewinders separately.


For my commander collection, BCW 930 cts (15 so far).

What's tripping me up is the ruling on fiery confluence, but I think I understand now - despite the fact that, from a gameplay perspective, the damage being dealt by fiery confluence sort of seems simultaneous, because SBAs aren't checked in between each "event" - they're still not technically simultaneous (even though for most intents and purposes they behave like they are). Whereas the earthquake example is fully simultaneous and thus only one trigger.

Btw only the third of those threads really explained anything to me, the other two examples were already clear.

Say I play Earthquake for X=3 while controlling outrider en-kor and ripjaw raptor. Holding priority, I activate outrider's ability three times targeting raptor.

How many cards do I draw?

1 because it's all being dealt from one source?
2 because it received the damage from earthquake and the earthquake damage redirected from outrider?
4 for each instance of redirection plus the original earthquake?
Some other number?

I'm not saying Birgi doesn't open some new options, but I doubt it's going to make much of a splash a commander in cEDH, and she's certainly not "stronger than kykar". I do think she'll get played a lot in the 99 though. Her flip side isn't bad either.

Quote from Pete the pancreas »

Narfi goes infinite with Kormus Bell + 3+ Snow swamps + Intruder Alarm and a sac outlet or Thermal Flux=> Ashnod’s Altar + Desecrated Tomb

lol, ok that does work, but you can’t honestly think it makes him remotely powerful? It’s more a lulz combo than anything actually worth doing. Definitely not "brilliantly broken". He's a very mediocre lord, which is only somewhat interesting because he's hard to kill. But know who else is hard to kill? Scarab God.

Huh? I said Cosima was strong, I never said she was fast. She's slow but steady all the way. No idea why you're trying to concoct T4 wins with her, that's not how she plays at all. She's a grindy draw-go commander, probably aiming to win around turn 12 at the absolute earliest.

Also proliferate cannot choose exiled cards.

The actual gameplan would be to have a deck packed with removal and counters. Get her exiled, then just use interaction to prevent anyone else getting too out of control while ticking her up. When enemy shields look relatively down and Cosima is ideally at 19+ counters, EOT flash her in, using either something like rogue's passage or something like cyc rift/evac/etc to clear away blockers and kill whoever poses the biggest threat to you, with multiple counter backup. Now you're either fully or mostly untapped, with an enormous hand of answers and a 1-hit-KO commander on the board and a shrinking pool of opponents. If anything goes wrong, just flash her into play with a fetchland to refill your hand, then either go for a multi-turn kill or throw her back into exile on upkeep to start accumulating cards again.

And I still wanna know how the hell you're going infinite with Narfi...

Your analysis of Toralf sure doesn't read as "Toralf isn't good because his threat assessment will be too high", it reads as "he's not very strong", which is incorrect. As far as popularity, so far he's pretty high on EDHrec, though ofc it's too early to say anything definitive.

But I'm a bit confused by your ranking in general, now that I think about it - is it how popular you expect them to be, or how powerful? "cEDH worthy" implies power level, but "frequent play" implies popularity. Especially confusing since cEDH commanders often aren't popular among the general commander public.

Birgi is currently among the least-played commanders from the set and I doubt that'll change. Compared to Kykar she's waaaaay weaker. Saying she's stronger because she works with creatures is pretty ridiculous imo - creatures rarely lend themselves well to storm (maybe in green if you count elves, but not in red afaik). The only creatures I'm aware of seeing much play in modern storm lists, despite not needing to build around Kykar's ability, are ones like Baral and Goblin Electromancer that reduce costs for the instants and sorceries that are doing the real work - and those creatures are (afaik) all blue. That's not to say she won't see play in cEDH, she likely will...in the 99 of existing storm lists with more powerful 2+ color commanders which let you run crucial blue enablers.

Cosima - she doesn't need haste, she has flash. EoT crack a fetch, throw her into play, untap and get killing. Best of all, after she returns there's not even a window for anyone to kill her before you draw a ton of cards and have shields up. "You have to run multiple fetches"...not really seeing a meaningful downside there (I mean, I guess from a budget POV, but there are also a lot of cheap fetches that get the job done like the panoramas). "chancing that you pull lands"...again not sure what you mean. You're probably running a decent number of lands in a Cosima deck, and crucible of worlds will keep you in the money practically forever. Worse comes to worse, you pop Cosima early, draw a bunch of cards, re-exile her on upkeep and start ticking her up again with all those lands you just drew. Saying "there are other mono-blue commanders that do that job better" ignores the fact that no other commander can do what she can in terms of uninteractibility. After that one-turn setup window, she is almost completely uninteractive. Sure, Azami can draw you lots of cards, but if people start killing her she gets priced off the field quickly. For a similar level of protection, you'd have to look at something like Nezahal that costs SEVEN - not exactly ideal for a draw-go strategy. And even Nezahal can get forced off the field by repeated removal. Cosima is the card advantage commander that * poof * was never there. And she's a potentially massive beater to boot, 1 hit KO is a lot spicier than 3. I don't think she'll be very popular (and so far she's not) because I don't think how she plays is going to appeal to most players, but from a power level POV I think she's quite strong.

Maja - cute "combo", but given that it's a 3-card forced-infinite I don't think it really moves the needle anywhere (from a power-level POV or a popularity one).

How are you going infinite with Narfi? Tbh I still haven't figured that one out. Best I can figure you're Thermal Fluxing an Ashnod's Altar or something, but that doesn't even break even, let alone pay you off for it. It seems REALLY hard to generate three snow mana per creature loop, unless I'm missing something big.

@BobTheFunny - I did mention the damage doubling potential too. But yeah, scary card.

MTG's War and Peace? Lol my Phelddagrif guide was like 70 pages when I was editing it in MSWord...

The ones I'm pretty sure you're wrong about:

Birgi, God of Storytelling - This just looks like a worse Kykar to me (a MUCH worse kykar - lose 2 colors including blue, lose the ability to bank mana, lose a decent body, lose the ability to generate board presence). "Free" lightning bolt? That's your huge payoff for cEDH? Mmkay.

Valki - not sure about the Tybalt side, but the Valki side looks meh to me. A lot of strong decks don't play many creatures, and a lot of the most popular creatures have strong ETBs and whatnot. To me this looks like a ravenous rats in a CZ...fine but not super exciting.

Narfi - I'm sure he CAN go infinite, but realistically how's that going to happen? And while he's on the board...well, +1/+1 doesn't really blow me away TBH. Can't imagine running him over something with more potential for a tribal deck.

Tergrid - she's got a lot of hype. She's strong and will see play for sure. Only thing holding her back is being mono-color. Look at her price tag on TCGplayer - that's probably almost entirely commander hype.

Cosima - I think you're hugely underrating this (yet somehow overrating the boat side). Cosima is almost completely uninteractible-with once she's stuck for a turn, can draw a ton of cards (especially with fetches...despite being mono-blue there are a LOT of fetch lands that can be run), and can one-shot people without any real support. You just set her up, keep a fetch available to throw her into play if necessary, and you've got a massive stealth hand with a huge free flash creature on tap. It's a control deck's wet dream, imo. The boat side just doesn't have the payoff, I can't see any way to abuse it that wouldn't be much more effective with, say, Lu Xun who provides his own evasion, doesn't need crewing, and draws instead of only getting stolen lands.

Magda - I think she'll end up being pretty good. Speaking as a Zirilan player. She does require a lot more setup, but she also only costs 2 and there's more opportunity both to keep dragons on board (for the more casual version) or to go for huge OTKs by setting up a bunch of treasures at once (for the more competitive-minded).

Varragoth - doesn't look very fun, but any commander that can win on turn 2-5 off Adnaus every game deserves a higher tier.

Maja - just curious, what's your infinite combo here? Perilous Forays is pretty far from infinite so I hope it's not that. She's certainly a far cry from Scute, as scute grows exponentially while she just grows linearly. Still the placement seems fine.

Koll - it's weird to me that you mention infinite combos in Maja but ignore them in Koll, who is just loaded with them. Any free creature (there are 8, not including X-cost which will die without an anthem or something) and any free equip (I think there's 4? plus decent tutors in these colors) gives you infinite sac fodder. With an altar, you can expand equipment into things like skullclamp, or just gain infinite mana depending on the specifics. Honestly it bums me that he's going to be used probably primarily as a combo commander because the ability could be fun otherwise. Idk wtf that second line of text is for though, lol. Niche limited decks?

Toralf - how you've slept on this one baffles me. Blasphemous act is going to be a 1-Hit KO in a lot of games. As will star of extinction. It also goes pretty ham with any kind of damage doubler, chaining from creature to creature and then killing someone starting from a simple lightning bolt. Potential infinites with indestructibles too. Very scary card.

MDFC gods in general - Idk why you think cost is going to be a major factor for these cards. They're probably mostly going to be $5 or less. That's not going to scare off anyone except the most extreme budget-conscious. How much sticking power they have I'm not sure, but imo by FAR the biggest thing holding them back is that a lot of players don't like playing mono-color commanders.

Quote from Xcric »

i have to agree with the point of picking your strength and playing it constantly.

the more you play it the more you can hone it. the more you can understand it. the more you'll learn what works against it too. it'll end your losing streaks over time for sure if you're analyzing things correctly and adjusting. from those experiences you can then learn what makes other archetypes viable as you lose to them. for example: if you're playing aggro and keep losing to control, as your aggro play gets stronger and you start beating those decks, youll start understanding what makes those decks work. this means when you want to try something different you'll have a greater understanding of how to play that archetype right out of the gate. in turn this means you don't have to repeat the entire process to the same degree all over again. from this you can develop breadth of experience and knowledge. jumping around from archetype/deck to archetype/deck without mastering any really just makes you a sloppy player. it doesn't hone your skills or make you understand why something actually works or doesn't work. you're more likely to just get frustrated by losing, and you wont' necessarily have the skills yet to do more than that.

I think ultimately both options will improve you as a player. Focusing one at a time, or spreading it around - either way, playing more magic generally means getting better at magic. It probably comes down to player preference which works best for them and their learning style. For me, personally, I think I learn the most quickly when I'm trying new things, because there's more stuff to learn. If you picked up a new instrument every month, you'd be learning a ton of stuff constantly, you'd get better at being able to pick up instruments you weren't familiar with, and you'd learn a lot about music as a whole. But you probably wouldn't be first chair in any particular one. So it also depends on what your goals are. For me, I really don't care about mastering some specific archetype, because for me the exploration is a huge part of the fun of magic. Just being really good at playing one particular deck doesn't appeal to me, and that's why I've never seriously stuck with any constructed format at a competitive level, why I've built over a hundred commander decks, and why most of them usually only get played a couple times each. But if you prefer to find your lane and stick to it, then the other option might be better for you.

One thing I will say - in draft, there's a common problem with newer drafters (or even experienced ones who aren't as familiar with the format) where you can start to get a skewed perspective based on limited information. For example, you draft RB a couple times early on, do well, and now you're overvaluing red and black cards and end up forcing RB a lot more than you should. Or you draft aggro a few times, and now you're in the "always be attacking" mindset even when you ought to be on the defensive. Sticking with one mode of play I think can make it easier to form patterns in your play that you don't think about enough, because they're frequently correct for the kind of decks you've been playing. It can make you rigid in your thinking instead of looking at every angle. Not that it can't be overcome by critically analyzing your plays, but if I was trying to make someone good at magic, I'd be pushing them into new spaces so that they're constantly considering all possibilities during a game instead of falling into repetitive patterns.

I think a big part of why we're disagreeing is that, competitively, I focus primarily on limited, where obviously you don't have the luxury of specialization. You have to be ready to play whatever is open, whatever that may be. And the philosophy does affect how I play commander.

The main thing I would disagree with about what you've said is that I think you're looking at not just from constructed (which is obviously fair, given that we're talking about a constructed format) but a very high-level of play. Sure, some pro players favor certain types of decks over others, but any pro player worth their salt is good enough with the basics of play to pick up most random decks and play it decently, without even being familiar with the format.

That's just not the level most commander players are at. I know plenty of people that have basically picked up one deck because they liked the sound of it, and then just upgraded it occasionally and never tried anything else. When players are still at that really basic level, I think it really behooves them to try new things before they build up bad habits. For example, I've played limited against players who I've also played commander with, and one common mistake is that they'll play overly-defensively because they're used to commander combat where life totals are high, chances of salty retaliation are relevant, and playing defensively is generally the higher EV option - and also just the social norm. They're playing overly-defensively in commander too, of course - but they're not getting punished for it so they aren't aware of it. Getting into another format where combat is more effective can help shake up their habits a little, instead of autopiloting along with what they're used to and missing stuff. Then they can return to their norm with a more holistic understanding of the game - or maybe decide that they want to focus on some aspect that they weren't as familiar with before, because trying it out appealed to them.

I know when I first started playing commander, before I'd done anything competitively, I was very control-focused. And I still am, to a certain extent, but time spent playing limited and exploring other archetypes within commander made me more aware of what I like (and what I don't), and I've been able to use the lessons I've learned to all my decks - lessons that I wouldn't have gotten if I'd never left my safe control bunker.

Pro players may have preferences, but no successful player is married to one specific style of deck. If a pro player that likes control decks is going a GP in a meta where he thinks the best deck is aggro, he's not bringing a control deck. He's bringing an aggro deck. Even moreso for limited - if he prefers blue but white is what's open, then he's going into white and you can bet that he's prepared to play it.

My understanding is that, when doing specific tournament prep, pro teams will commonly play most meta decks against each other so they can decide for themselves where they think the meta is going to get an edge, but I'm sure that varies from team to team. At any rate, those players have almost certainly put in tons of hours playing some form of every archetype. Perhaps one is mastered more than the others, but they're going to be able to play every archetype at a much higher level than most players.

Can't speak for other pros, but I watch Kibler stream (hearthstone) all the time, and he switches from deck to deck and even format to format all the time. When he wants to hit legend, sure, he decides on the deck he wants to do it with - but he makes that decision based on having played many different decks so that he knows them all quite well and understands the meta inside and out. Sure, at a very high level it pays to be dedicated to a certain deck for a given constructed season, but that's so far above where most EDH players are at that it's hardly worth thinking about imo.

I think we still disagree. My opinion is that, ultimately, your goal should be to not have any "strengths". Not just to not focus on reanimator specifically, but not to focus on toolboxing more generally, or any other thing you might imagine. You should strive to do do EVERYTHING. There's no reason you can't be good at everything magic has to offer, and knowing more about every piece of it will make you a better overall player because you'll be able to apply lessons from one area to another, and to see enemy lines better and play around them.

Whenever someone asks me "what colors do you play?" or "what kinds of decks do you play?", that's a hint to me that they're either new or a weak player. Magic is not a game about finding your niche and burrowing in, that's how you stagnate. It's about constantly finding new territory to conquer.