now in multiplayer cardadvantage is way overrated. tempo is the most dominant factor imo.
there was a lot of good stuff said in this post but i want to just focus on this and make the obvious point that it will depend to some degree on your meta. i'd say tempo is key in competitive edh (and that is what this post was about, so it is 100% correct), but it is less important in more casual metagames. if people are playing casual, they are not usually racing to combos, and the game is likely to be longer and more of slogfest with a few wraths thrown around and so on. in these situations it is much harder to win through early tempo advantage and it is often card advantage that wins the game in the long run.
as a silly example, i've played Rakdos, Lord of Riots for a while and that guy will generate massive tempo, effectively tapping for 10+ mana every turn. if i did that on turn 1 maybe it would win me the game. but i can't, and instead it gets me wrathed. so to win i pack a pile of recursion and card draw so that i can play through wraths, ie, win the card advantage game.
now of course it will be said that the wrath in this case nets major tempo as well as card advantage. and that is true, in fact most card advantage plays will also net tempo (understood broadly as spending less mana to deal with more mana spent by your opponent). but if wrath is not followed up with a win-con, that tempo is mostly useless and the card advantage is what matters. and if didn't run a ton of card-draw i would lose to the card advantage, not to the tempo.
i'd even go so far as to make a more general observation about tempo as compared to card advantage here: tempo advantage dissipates quickly while card advantage is more permanent improvement. if you cannot press the tempo advantage quickly (ie play threats and produce a clock), it becomes less and less relevant as time passes. this is why you see tempo decks in all formats always contain cheap clocks like Delver of Secrets, and why tempo matters more in cEDH because cEDH decks are more typically designed to produce threats quickly.
TL;DR tempo is more important in competitive metagames where an early advantage means getting the game-winning pieces in play sooner, less important in casual games where there is a more prolonged back and forth. accordingly, play more fast dorks and cheap rocks in competitive environments, more find-two-lands and card-advantage generating ramp in more casual metas.
there was a lot of good stuff said in this post but i want to just focus on this and make the obvious point that it will depend to some degree on your meta. i'd say tempo is key in competitive edh (and that is what this post was about, so it is 100% correct), but it is less important in more casual metagames. if people are playing casual, they are not usually racing to combos, and the game is likely to be longer and more of slogfest with a few wraths thrown around and so on. in these situations it is much harder to win through early tempo advantage and it is often card advantage that wins the game in the long run.
as a silly example, i've played Rakdos, Lord of Riots for a while and that guy will generate massive tempo, effectively tapping for 10+ mana every turn. if i did that on turn 1 maybe it would win me the game. but i can't, and instead it gets me wrathed. so to win i pack a pile of recursion and card draw so that i can play through wraths, ie, win the card advantage game.
now of course it will be said that the wrath in this case nets major tempo as well as card advantage. and that is true, in fact most card advantage plays will also net tempo (understood broadly as spending less mana to deal with more mana spent by your opponent). but if wrath is not followed up with a win-con, that tempo is mostly useless and the card advantage is what matters. and if didn't run a ton of card-draw i would lose to the card advantage, not to the tempo.
i'd even go so far as to make a more general observation about tempo as compared to card advantage here: tempo advantage dissipates quickly while card advantage is more permanent improvement. if you cannot press the tempo advantage quickly (ie play threats and produce a clock), it becomes less and less relevant as time passes. this is why you see tempo decks in all formats always contain cheap clocks like Delver of Secrets, and why tempo matters more in cEDH because cEDH decks are more typically designed to produce threats quickly.
TL;DR tempo is more important in competitive metagames where an early advantage means getting the game-winning pieces in play sooner, less important in casual games where there is a more prolonged back and forth. accordingly, play more fast dorks and cheap rocks in competitive environments, more find-two-lands and card-advantage generating ramp in more casual metas.
Tymna & Ishai, ie Esper Edric
Crosis Turbotrash