Control Magic effect is just way too powerful when targeting generals. I believe this is the conclusion reached by the majority of EDH players (at least people on the "official" EDH board seems to think so).
Something like Blatant Thievery, normally just a very good card, becomes ridiculous and totally approaching ban worthy if you let it take every other player's generals permanently. Control magic effects are also fairly easy to recur, particularly stuff like Gilded Drake, that it becomes ridiculously easy to just take everyone else's general and never give them back. This results in degenerate game states, and thus, Control Magic effects were errataed to not affect generals.
Also, most strategies revolving around a singular general will get hosed easily with Control Magic effects. Zur? Maga? Jhoira? All of these generals requires a deck to be built around them, and a singular control magic can undo their entire deck. Without the errata, the rules favour decks that never cast their general, but just use the general as the colour control. This completely defeats the purpose of EDH, and that's why it had to be errataed.
If you don't believe me, try it out next time. Make a mono blue deck with Teferi as your general. Now cram it with as many control magic effect as possible. Treachery, Confiscate, Take Possession, etc, etc. You can easily win multiple games, since you don't need any win conditions other than your opponent's generals. It becomes just a bit unbalanced.
Stealing creatures is one of the only ways mono-blue has to deal with them in any sort of permanent fashion. I think the answer here is that in magic there are a lot of different ways to answer it. Disenchant takes care of things like Confiscate and Control Magic. Counterspell stops something like Blatanty Thievery. Brooding Saurian (seen play recently in extended) pretty much trumps all of those. Claws of Gix was mentioned, killing your creature seems better than giving it to your opponent.
Its not unbalanced at all, its just a bias against blue that people always have. Yes, taking a creature CAN be better than destroying it, BUT most of those ways of taking creatures can be answered. Sower of Temptation dies to almost all relevant removal spells. Take Possession dies to any enchantment kill. Any of those can be countered. Red even has ways of redirecting stuff like that. Also, most are playing more than a single color so you should have access to one of these things at least.
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EDH Decks:
UWMerfolk (Sygg, River Guide) B Vampires (Anowon the Ruin Sage) BRU Zombies! (Lord of Tresserhorn) WUBRG Allies (Karona, False God) W Soldiers (Darien, King of Kjeldor)
That's not the point. The point is, taking GENERALS is much more game swinging than taking ordinary creatures. It also completely defeats the purpose of playing EDH in the first place.
Most "competitive" (and I use the term loosely since there hasn't been that many EDH tournaments) build their decks around their general (see top general Zur), stealing someone's primary win condition is a HUGE blow to them, considering the 21 general damage rule is often in effect, taking a general and smacking someone else a couple of times to kill them isn't hard to do.
From your post, I'm guessing you haven't played EDH extensively, but rather, you've played more "normal" magic. EDH has a different set of problems. If you allow Control Magic effects, then what about Karakas, what about Riftsweeper? The former is universally agreed upon by almost all the play groups to be errataed, and the later is even banned by the new MTGO commander format (EDH online). Denying someone's general is against the basics of the format (which evolved from a more casual environment). Control Magic effect does just that. They aren't banned, they are just errataed to not affect enemy generals. This keeps the spirit of the format alive, and that's what makes it a unique variant.
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This is only somewhat on topic, but I find myself wondering if using Phage as a general is an extremely bad idea....seeing as the one I was planning on using got himself banhammered
Failing that, I do like the Zur idea.
My husband keeps talking about using Memnarch but I can't find the rulings behind that. In one place, it said you get only artifacts...in another, it syas that Memnarch is officially blue so you use blue cards.
And yes, no incantatrix for you. Or anyone. That class makes puppies cry. Mostly because they are the former Big Bads who have been Baleful Polymorphed into said puppies. By you. Because you're an incantatrix.
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So far I have to say i'm pleased with Kaervek the Merciless even if he does take a bit of mana to get out. Tsabo Tavoc right now is kind of my Lt. in my deck that i'm trying out to see if I might want to switch over to her.
That's not the point. The point is, taking GENERALS is much more game swinging than taking ordinary creatures. It also completely defeats the purpose of playing EDH in the first place.
Most "competitive" (and I use the term loosely since there hasn't been that many EDH tournaments) build their decks around their general (see top general Zur), stealing someone's primary win condition is a HUGE blow to them, considering the 21 general damage rule is often in effect, taking a general and smacking someone else a couple of times to kill them isn't hard to do.
From your post, I'm guessing you haven't played EDH extensively, but rather, you've played more "normal" magic. EDH has a different set of problems. If you allow Control Magic effects, then what about Karakas, what about Riftsweeper? The former is universally agreed upon by almost all the play groups to be errataed, and the later is even banned by the new MTGO commander format (EDH online). Denying someone's general is against the basics of the format (which evolved from a more casual environment). Control Magic effect does just that. They aren't banned, they are just errataed to not affect enemy generals. This keeps the spirit of the format alive, and that's what makes it a unique variant.
Sorry, going to have to disagree with you on this. Next thing you'll tell me is that removal spells shouldnt target your general either because that takes the fun out of the game. I understand that it has a different set of problems, and I do understand where you are coming from with this. Unique format or not, the nature of the game of magic should remain. I understand that the general is quite often the focal point, and I completely understand why taking it would be frustrating (especially with the 21 point rule).
First, I'll point out that I re-read the official rules site, there is no such errata on control magic effects at this time. So at this time I have to believe that there arent enough people who believe how you do that its that much of an issue.
Second, Karakas and Rift Sweeper are a little different. Karakas is a land, there are plenty of ways of answering it sure, but its a fairly unique card, its a one-off thing. Banning a one-off thing because it messes with the format is fine. Ditto for rift sweeper, its a one-off card, you'd need generally a counter or a discard spell to deal with it, removal doesn't and shuffling in the general is just silly.
Third, flavor-wise I'd say that "Attacking the general" is always a sound defense. If my attack is to steal your creature, then thats how I do it. Sure blue can have bounce too, but you are handicapping that color's options by taking away one of its primary weapons against generals. Essentially a blue deck at that point only has blocking with inefficient creatures and bounce, not cool.
Forth, there are LOTS of answers to all of these things. What about something like declaration of naught naming the general? Not banned according to the official rules, that seems much more of a problem than a control magic effect. How about Meddling Mage? Thats not banned, you could play Meddling Mage naming an opponents general. What if you aren't even allowed to COUNTER a general, that would be a big balance problem, but its another thing stopping your general from being in play.
Fifth, the format uses VINTAGE legal cards, in situations like that you ARE going to end up with swingy formats. Without the power cards it helps some, but there are still crazy cards like Dream Halls, Vampiric Tutor, Workshop, etc if people have them, or the money, etc. Its a casual format, it can be swingy.
Personally, banning/errating should not happen for an entire style of card that has existed in every block and every coreset since the beginning of magic. So far the rules agree with me too. When you talk of banning or errating that should be for individual cards and one-offs. The rest you have to just find a way to deal with.
There are answers to all things in magic, thats the beauty of it. Also, just playing smarter is often an answer, maybe you don't play your general until absolutely necessary. Maybe you hold off at all when they have certain mana open. Add more discard or counters to your deck. Have a general that is untargetable or give it untargetablility (Zur + Diplomatic Immunity). Maybe you make sure you don't need to pass priority for the ridiculousness (Resolve Jhiora, then suspend all the cards you need that turn).
Sorry, I'm not going to agree with you on this one. If I see a rule change on the official site then possibly, but I would disagree with the rule as a whole too, having to errata and change a lot of cards just to fit a variant is not a good idea, the point is that its still MAGIC.
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EDH Decks:
UWMerfolk (Sygg, River Guide) B Vampires (Anowon the Ruin Sage) BRU Zombies! (Lord of Tresserhorn) WUBRG Allies (Karona, False God) W Soldiers (Darien, King of Kjeldor)
That's not the point. The point is, taking GENERALS is much more game swinging than taking ordinary creatures. It also completely defeats the purpose of playing EDH in the first place.
Most "competitive" (and I use the term loosely since there hasn't been that many EDH tournaments) build their decks around their general (see top general Zur), stealing someone's primary win condition is a HUGE blow to them, considering the 21 general damage rule is often in effect, taking a general and smacking someone else a couple of times to kill them isn't hard to do.
You see, I really don't see a huge problem with this. Requiring players to either pack answers or have a way to win if plan A doesn't work out? I'm just not seeing a huge problem. Why shouldn't Zur need to run creature removal (for Zur), enchantment/artifact removal (which will likely take out the enchantment/whatever stealing him), or even just wacky crap like Despotic Scepter? Heck, he's even in the best colors for the first two anyway.
From your post, I'm guessing you haven't played EDH extensively, but rather, you've played more "normal" magic. EDH has a different set of problems. If you allow Control Magic effects, then what about Karakas, what about Riftsweeper? The former is universally agreed upon by almost all the play groups to be errataed, and the later is even banned by the new MTGO commander format (EDH online). Denying someone's general is against the basics of the format (which evolved from a more casual environment). Control Magic effect does just that. They aren't banned, they are just errataed to not affect enemy generals. This keeps the spirit of the format alive, and that's what makes it a unique variant.
Karakas has received errata "officially," as has Riftsweeper. However, I think that both offer a very different thing than the Control Magic rule. Karakas is, among other things, the least answerable type of permanent (Sure, Dust Bowl and Strip Mine are pretty much obligatory in the format, but beyond that...), which makes it notably more difficult for a player to answer effectively. Control Magic variants, on the other hand, are usually very answerable: While you get exceptions like Blatant Thievery and Govern the Guildless, most creature theft takes the form of an enchantment or artifact, which any good EDH deck will have removal for in some form or another. Even if they don't, the creature's controller can still just kill their general and play it again later, and literally every EDH deck packs some form of creature hate. Sure, it's a resource drain, but that's not really that big of a deal.
Note, however, that I'm not a huge fan of the Karakas rule, either. While I could be convinced either way, I don't think that it's as problematic now as it may have once been.
Here's what the problem was with Riftsweeper, by the way:
"Prior to PT San Diego, the EDH rules committee discussed Riftsweeper, and its place in EDH. Based on its agressive cost, substantial effect in EDH, and preemptive nature, the decision was made to alter the rules such that Riftsweeper's ability does NOT affect Generals in the RFG zone. This falls under Principle #1 listed here, namely that its power level:cost ratio is unacceptably higher in EDH than it is in other formats, due to EDH-specific rules.
Other Shuffle-into-library effects, such as Oblation/Condemn, still work as normal. The fact that they are reactive, and they allow the owner more opportunities to play their general and defend it, makes them acceptable to us.
As always, everyone is encouraged to play whatever house rules work best for your local community, but we believe that these are the rules which are best for the format at large, and will be played in the casual games after hours at PTs and GPs.
Gavin"
I agree with this sentiment, and feel that it makes a clear distinction between Riftsweeper and Control Magic variants. Do you agree or disagree? If you disagree, why?
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This is only somewhat on topic, but I find myself wondering if using Phage as a general is an extremely bad idea....seeing as the one I was planning on using got himself banhammered
According to the "official" rules, Phage kills you when you play her, and Koko never hit the graveyard (so he wouldn't have been a good choice anyway). However, I am under the impression that many playgroups let players play Phage as a general and allow that player to cast her as though she was in the player's hand. Of course, I don't know if she's the best choice anyway...
My husband keeps talking about using Memnarch but I can't find the rulings behind that. In one place, it said you get only artifacts...in another, it syas that Memnarch is officially blue so you use blue cards.
According to the official rules, Memnarch is not a valid general choice, as his off-color activations are of a different color than the deck's general's mana cost. Here's the rules page: http://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/~geduggan/EDH_rules.html
"The general's mana cost dictates what mana symbols may appear on cards in the deck. A deck may not generate mana outside it's colours; anything which would generate mana of an illegal colour generates colourless mana instead."
However, many groups (I am under the impression that this is something that almost all groups do) allow generals with off-color activations and allow them to count as generals of the colors of their off-color activations, which allows for guys like Memnarch, Bosh, and Rhys as blue, red, and green/black generals, respectively. I think that this will become official soon, though, as two of the three head rules committee guys seem to agree with the rule, and it's a practically universal exception anyway (as far as I can tell).
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We've had the same discussion about general vs Control Magic/Meddling Mage effects many, many times. In our playgroup, other nearby playgroups and on forums. After many back and forth debate, we've basically came to the conclusion that those cards were good enough to be given an errata, particularly if EDH was to be played more casually (which is what most people play it as).
This came after many months of testing/playing EDH. We generally try to keep track of all the broken stuff in EDH (extremely easy to set up infinite/near infinite combo). Your group can play with whatever your group's rules, but we've found for just a general, casual playing field, errata-ing these cards were the best way to go.
EDH is not a competitive format. It is more akin to kitchen table magic than anything else. Why take out the fun of it by restricting the basis of the format? We've all played EDH for quite a while, and we've all tried various combinations of decks that were entirely broken. It went down to the point where many games would end in the first few turns because you would just go: Accel, Merchant Scroll, Summoner's Pact, Flash, no Force? Win. Or accel, tutor, transmute, tutor again, Iggy, loop, Will, replay everything, Tendrils, Wish, Tendrils, Win. It became so ridiculous it wasn't even funny. We've moved past that point now, and that's why we've advocated the errata.
If you REALLY wanted to be spiky about this, then the whole Control Magic/Mage effect doesn't even matter, because the best EDH decks don't use their generals. Things that affects generals greatly doesn't even touch combo decks that kill everyone consistently on the first few turns. These and other erratas/bans were enforced by our playgroup (and many playgroup locally) and particularly advocated by the judges to ensure that the EDH was played as it was supposed to be played. What's the point otherwise?
If you really want to go for it, go ahead, it is ultimately your group's decision. But it only takes a couple of meets before someone will inevitably come up with that ridiculous deck, and then all of you will have to match him or lose. Then EDH becomes ridiculously boring. The amount of combo-licious cards far outweighs the amount of cards that can protect yourself from everyone else.
I have yet to play EDH but after reading some decks and the rules, I'm going to build several decks later this week and get my roommate and I playing again. I always hate playing against my own decks but with this amount of diversity in decks, it can't be nearly as bad doing so.
My thought was Brion Stoutarm. He's cheap enough to recast several times even if he is more suited to throwing non-combat damage around. The idea of paying 7 for a crater hellion and his ability doing 6 to everything a 6 life isn't a bad thought even considering how much I don't like red.
That'll probably be my first deck to tinker with.
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Legacy: B Pox WG(R/B) Enchantress WRU Star Spangled Failure
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EDH: BWR Oros GWU Jenara
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Modern: B (small)Pox GWUBR Enchantress RW Stax(less) Records
Apex: Why even play EDH, if you're going to play like that? Don't advocate errata on largely non-problematic cards to make the format more acceptable for you by restricting the choices of people who actually want to play some EDH.
I have no problems with cursing. I always feel like the sort of people who buy that cliche are the same ones who think that every bully is secretly insecure. Life isn't as simple as our kindergarten teachers taught us.
i gotta go in favor of control magic effecting the general as well. Blue removed creatures by stealing them. if you arent prepared to deal with a little (or even a lot) of that you just dont have a good deck. Proteus Staff is not banned but it keeps your general away from you more permanantly than any CM effect. CM et al are powerful but far from broken. there are so many hosers for those types of effects (hell if you dont run enchantment removal just kill your own guy or wrath everyone [should] packs creature removal)
@ leprichaun: i am not saying that if Apex's group agrees to the no CM the general rules that he shouldnt be able to, magic is a gmae and should be played to maximise the fun your group is having. If no stealing generals is a rule that his group agrees on, so be it as long as they have fun. If someone thinks that it is unfair and it ruins thier experience, consider changing it. However I do not think that this rule needs to become official for EDH
I would have to agree, STD. For example, my old playgroup "banned" any targetted burn spells against players. Not to say that it never happened, but as a rule we didn't like the idea. But we would NEVER suggest taking such a fundamental part of the game out of Magic completely. The same should follow for Control Magic and such in EDH. Meddling Mage actually is more of a concern for me, but given that you can only have one of them it shouldn't be an issue.
@ Stan: I love the idea of a Stonebrow deck, and I have a tentative decklist. Haste + Trample + Stonebrow = fun!
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They love and hate to see me walk through the door. I'm the man with the box, one to carry all his Standard cards with him. I've got the commons and uncommons they need. But I've also got my decks. If I walk into FNM, I came to play. And they never know what I'm gonna pull out of my hat next. I may lose more than I win, but it just might be THIS deck that has all the answers that they don't have answers for. They fear the unknown. They fear me. And they never see me coming!
Like I previously posted, it is our group errata, just throwing it out there. We've had too many broken decks around that it made random generals obsolete. Therefore, we tried to play the game of EDH as it was meant to be played: a fun format where everyone will have a chance to play with cards you normally wouldn't play or cards that are your favourites but just aren't good enough to make it into competitive magic.
Mass land destruction got banned and control magic variants were errataed to make sure everyone has a fun time. When you've gone through the "make a deck as competitive as possible" phase, most of us just don't see the point of playing broken decks anymore. Anything that was deemed unfun by the majority of the players (like Limited Resources or Sundering Titan, cards that you can't believe how many of us managed to cheat into play on turn 1 or 2) got the axe so the format for us remained a cool and fun format.
Also like I've posted previously, if you really just want to win in EDH and do nothing else, then all of these erratas don't matter at all to you. In fact, you don't even care about your general other then the fact that he lets you play with the colours of your deck. Just play a hulk/storm based combo, and everyone dies right there. Taking a 30 minute 2nd turn to kill everyone else isn't our idea of fun, and when everyone does it, it gets incredibly lame.
EDH is a group thing, you play with your friends, and whatever the group decides is better for them, then that's that. Different groups will have different philosophies, and this one is ours, one we've reached after many months of broken stuff. Maybe we've jumped the gun too harshly, and tried to axe as many thing as possible because we hated going back to those combo times. But it has worked out for us, and many of us would now come in with wacky generals and we would all have fun playing together.
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Treefrog: it doesn't happen often, but stonebrow and red akroma out together (even though it doesn't have haste on its own, and my only haste enabler is a lightning grieves) usually means good game.
My design actually focuses on giving Haste. I have ... 4-6 enchantments (I don't have my list with me right now), plus Anger. I also have plenty of creatures with both Trample and Haste. And yes, I have Akroma AOF, as well as my sub-general: Borborygmos.
It's funny, though. I didn't actually think that Stonebrow would be a popular choice for a general. I guess I should have known better, thinking about the colors and theme that he brings.
My current deck design I'm working with is a five-color deck, and I don't care which general I use (maybe Cromat, or Karona, for something different :o). My tentative name for the deck is:
Project Bridge Flash RX
I know that I can't use Flash itself (*SIGH*), but I'm looking at a few replacements that'll do in a pinch. And yes, all the other usual suspects are there: Reveillark, Body Double, Saffi, Crypt Champion, Hulk, Wardens, Bridge, Flamekin, Dread Return, etc. There will be a fair amount of reanimation, plenty of card sifting (Impulse and such), creature tutors, sac engines... I don't know what kind of a game it'll have, but I'm sure I'll get a few laughs with it.
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They love and hate to see me walk through the door. I'm the man with the box, one to carry all his Standard cards with him. I've got the commons and uncommons they need. But I've also got my decks. If I walk into FNM, I came to play. And they never know what I'm gonna pull out of my hat next. I may lose more than I win, but it just might be THIS deck that has all the answers that they don't have answers for. They fear the unknown. They fear me. And they never see me coming!
Treefrog: it doesn't happen often, but stonebrow and red akroma out together (even though it doesn't have haste on its own, and my only haste enabler is a lightning grieves) usually means good game.
Hah, I did a build on Stonebrow as well when I first started playing. I first made my intitial crappy Zur build and then made this as a spare less business-orientated deck. Another few goods cards I found out were Silvos, Rogue Elemental and the green totem from timespiral (recurring Tramplers + mana in a pinch = good. Multipurpose cards ftw...).
My current deck design I'm working with is a five-color deck, and I don't care which general I use (maybe Cromat, or Karona, for something different :o). My tentative name for the deck is:
Project Bridge Flash RX
I know that I can't use Flash itself (*SIGH*), but I'm looking at a few replacements that'll do in a pinch. And yes, all the other usual suspects are there: Reveillark, Body Double, Saffi, Crypt Champion, Hulk, Wardens, Bridge, Flamekin, Dread Return, etc. There will be a fair amount of reanimation, plenty of card sifting (Impulse and such), creature tutors, sac engines... I don't know what kind of a game it'll have, but I'm sure I'll get a few laughs with it.
You can run any of the Sneak Attack variants instead of Flash to quickly get the hulk into the yard for combo shenanigans. Through the Breach, Footsteps of the Goryo, basically anything that puts stuff into play. Reanimation would also totally work.
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My thought was Brion Stoutarm. He's cheap enough to recast several times even if he is more suited to throwing non-combat damage around. The idea of paying 7 for a crater hellion and his ability doing 6 to everything a 6 life isn't a bad thought even considering how much I don't like red.
Brion Stoutarm is a beast. Take a look at my list, click the link in my sig.
zur isnt broken....just good. I havent seen any build that i think is unfair, just REALLY playable....plus [card=zur the enchanter]zur is just fun. all you have to do to slow him down is block with a 4/* creature and pack enchantment removal
my fav zur fetch is still In the eye of chaos....dont be fooled, it is in his colors
Zur isn't broken. Flash is "broken". Resolve it and you win, that's broken. Zur still needs time to setup the whole Flickerform, Diplomatic Immunity, etc, etc aura shenanigans. That gives you ample amount of time to deal with it.
Though there are some problem enchantments like Limited Resources (which is widely agreed upon by many as one of the most unfun card in multiplayer, ever) that can potentially ruin people. If you can go, 3rd turn Zur -> 4th turn Limited Resources, you can often keep most people on 3-4 lands. In a big game of EDH multiplayer, 3-4 lands per person could very well spell game for half the people there.
There isn't a "broken" general. There are very competitive generals, but in no way are they broken. I would definitely put Maga on that competitive list too, especially in 1 on 1 games. In multiplayer, many of these "rankings" will change, since if someone is way too powerful, they'll get ganged on really early and fast, and no general/deck can handle 5 other players simultaneously beating down on you constantly. Which is why I think the "best" generals are actually the ones that can fly under the radar, and pull shenanigans afterwards.
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oh there ARE broken generals....there are also BANNED generals and these tend to be the same thing
see Kokushko and Rosfellos
The man makes a good point.
Although, with that said, I am actually surprised Zur isn't on the chopping block anytime soon. Yes, it takes a few turns to set up, but given the right amount of mana with the diplomatic immunity/flickerform setup, zur's almost untouchable, and after that it's all just one massacre from there. The only way that one can really get rid of him is if you kill the player, and that can be surprisingly hard if the deck's tweaked right for multiplay madness.
Stealing creatures is one of the only ways mono-blue has to deal with them in any sort of permanent fashion. I think the answer here is that in magic there are a lot of different ways to answer it. Disenchant takes care of things like Confiscate and Control Magic. Counterspell stops something like Blatanty Thievery. Brooding Saurian (seen play recently in extended) pretty much trumps all of those. Claws of Gix was mentioned, killing your creature seems better than giving it to your opponent.
Its not unbalanced at all, its just a bias against blue that people always have. Yes, taking a creature CAN be better than destroying it, BUT most of those ways of taking creatures can be answered. Sower of Temptation dies to almost all relevant removal spells. Take Possession dies to any enchantment kill. Any of those can be countered. Red even has ways of redirecting stuff like that. Also, most are playing more than a single color so you should have access to one of these things at least.
UWMerfolk (Sygg, River Guide)
B Vampires (Anowon the Ruin Sage)
BRU Zombies! (Lord of Tresserhorn)
WUBRG Allies (Karona, False God)
W Soldiers (Darien, King of Kjeldor)
Most "competitive" (and I use the term loosely since there hasn't been that many EDH tournaments) build their decks around their general (see top general Zur), stealing someone's primary win condition is a HUGE blow to them, considering the 21 general damage rule is often in effect, taking a general and smacking someone else a couple of times to kill them isn't hard to do.
From your post, I'm guessing you haven't played EDH extensively, but rather, you've played more "normal" magic. EDH has a different set of problems. If you allow Control Magic effects, then what about Karakas, what about Riftsweeper? The former is universally agreed upon by almost all the play groups to be errataed, and the later is even banned by the new MTGO commander format (EDH online). Denying someone's general is against the basics of the format (which evolved from a more casual environment). Control Magic effect does just that. They aren't banned, they are just errataed to not affect enemy generals. This keeps the spirit of the format alive, and that's what makes it a unique variant.
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Failing that, I do like the Zur idea.
My husband keeps talking about using Memnarch but I can't find the rulings behind that. In one place, it said you get only artifacts...in another, it syas that Memnarch is officially blue so you use blue cards.
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Deraxas, Dark Maiden of Shimia,, still oddly obsessed with a mindmage.
Nath looks really promising as well as Tolsimir Wolfblood. And I have to say my experiences with Stonebrow, Krosan Hero have been nothing but good. Giant Solifuge, Groundbreaker and many, many more creatures love him, especially with Kamahl, Fist of Krosa's overrun effect.
Clan MTGSalivation :: Trade Thread
"In another life, in another dream,
By a different name,
Gave it all away for a memory and a quiet lie.
But I felt the face of a cold tonight,
Still don't know the score,
But I know the pain of leaving everything very far behind.
And if I could cry,
And if I could live,
What truth I did then take me there,
Heaven Goodbye."
-Heaven's Not Enough, by Steve Conte
Sorry, going to have to disagree with you on this. Next thing you'll tell me is that removal spells shouldnt target your general either because that takes the fun out of the game. I understand that it has a different set of problems, and I do understand where you are coming from with this. Unique format or not, the nature of the game of magic should remain. I understand that the general is quite often the focal point, and I completely understand why taking it would be frustrating (especially with the 21 point rule).
First, I'll point out that I re-read the official rules site, there is no such errata on control magic effects at this time. So at this time I have to believe that there arent enough people who believe how you do that its that much of an issue.
Second, Karakas and Rift Sweeper are a little different. Karakas is a land, there are plenty of ways of answering it sure, but its a fairly unique card, its a one-off thing. Banning a one-off thing because it messes with the format is fine. Ditto for rift sweeper, its a one-off card, you'd need generally a counter or a discard spell to deal with it, removal doesn't and shuffling in the general is just silly.
Third, flavor-wise I'd say that "Attacking the general" is always a sound defense. If my attack is to steal your creature, then thats how I do it. Sure blue can have bounce too, but you are handicapping that color's options by taking away one of its primary weapons against generals. Essentially a blue deck at that point only has blocking with inefficient creatures and bounce, not cool.
Forth, there are LOTS of answers to all of these things. What about something like declaration of naught naming the general? Not banned according to the official rules, that seems much more of a problem than a control magic effect. How about Meddling Mage? Thats not banned, you could play Meddling Mage naming an opponents general. What if you aren't even allowed to COUNTER a general, that would be a big balance problem, but its another thing stopping your general from being in play.
Fifth, the format uses VINTAGE legal cards, in situations like that you ARE going to end up with swingy formats. Without the power cards it helps some, but there are still crazy cards like Dream Halls, Vampiric Tutor, Workshop, etc if people have them, or the money, etc. Its a casual format, it can be swingy.
Personally, banning/errating should not happen for an entire style of card that has existed in every block and every coreset since the beginning of magic. So far the rules agree with me too. When you talk of banning or errating that should be for individual cards and one-offs. The rest you have to just find a way to deal with.
There are answers to all things in magic, thats the beauty of it. Also, just playing smarter is often an answer, maybe you don't play your general until absolutely necessary. Maybe you hold off at all when they have certain mana open. Add more discard or counters to your deck. Have a general that is untargetable or give it untargetablility (Zur + Diplomatic Immunity). Maybe you make sure you don't need to pass priority for the ridiculousness (Resolve Jhiora, then suspend all the cards you need that turn).
Sorry, I'm not going to agree with you on this one. If I see a rule change on the official site then possibly, but I would disagree with the rule as a whole too, having to errata and change a lot of cards just to fit a variant is not a good idea, the point is that its still MAGIC.
UWMerfolk (Sygg, River Guide)
B Vampires (Anowon the Ruin Sage)
BRU Zombies! (Lord of Tresserhorn)
WUBRG Allies (Karona, False God)
W Soldiers (Darien, King of Kjeldor)
You see, I really don't see a huge problem with this. Requiring players to either pack answers or have a way to win if plan A doesn't work out? I'm just not seeing a huge problem. Why shouldn't Zur need to run creature removal (for Zur), enchantment/artifact removal (which will likely take out the enchantment/whatever stealing him), or even just wacky crap like Despotic Scepter? Heck, he's even in the best colors for the first two anyway.
Karakas has received errata "officially," as has Riftsweeper. However, I think that both offer a very different thing than the Control Magic rule. Karakas is, among other things, the least answerable type of permanent (Sure, Dust Bowl and Strip Mine are pretty much obligatory in the format, but beyond that...), which makes it notably more difficult for a player to answer effectively. Control Magic variants, on the other hand, are usually very answerable: While you get exceptions like Blatant Thievery and Govern the Guildless, most creature theft takes the form of an enchantment or artifact, which any good EDH deck will have removal for in some form or another. Even if they don't, the creature's controller can still just kill their general and play it again later, and literally every EDH deck packs some form of creature hate. Sure, it's a resource drain, but that's not really that big of a deal.
Note, however, that I'm not a huge fan of the Karakas rule, either. While I could be convinced either way, I don't think that it's as problematic now as it may have once been.
Here's what the problem was with Riftsweeper, by the way:
"Prior to PT San Diego, the EDH rules committee discussed Riftsweeper, and its place in EDH. Based on its agressive cost, substantial effect in EDH, and preemptive nature, the decision was made to alter the rules such that Riftsweeper's ability does NOT affect Generals in the RFG zone. This falls under Principle #1 listed here, namely that its power level:cost ratio is unacceptably higher in EDH than it is in other formats, due to EDH-specific rules.
Other Shuffle-into-library effects, such as Oblation/Condemn, still work as normal. The fact that they are reactive, and they allow the owner more opportunities to play their general and defend it, makes them acceptable to us.
As always, everyone is encouraged to play whatever house rules work best for your local community, but we believe that these are the rules which are best for the format at large, and will be played in the casual games after hours at PTs and GPs.
Gavin"
I agree with this sentiment, and feel that it makes a clear distinction between Riftsweeper and Control Magic variants. Do you agree or disagree? If you disagree, why?
According to the "official" rules, Phage kills you when you play her, and Koko never hit the graveyard (so he wouldn't have been a good choice anyway). However, I am under the impression that many playgroups let players play Phage as a general and allow that player to cast her as though she was in the player's hand. Of course, I don't know if she's the best choice anyway...
According to the official rules, Memnarch is not a valid general choice, as his off-color activations are of a different color than the deck's general's mana cost. Here's the rules page: http://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/~geduggan/EDH_rules.html
"The general's mana cost dictates what mana symbols may appear on cards in the deck. A deck may not generate mana outside it's colours; anything which would generate mana of an illegal colour generates colourless mana instead."
However, many groups (I am under the impression that this is something that almost all groups do) allow generals with off-color activations and allow them to count as generals of the colors of their off-color activations, which allows for guys like Memnarch, Bosh, and Rhys as blue, red, and green/black generals, respectively. I think that this will become official soon, though, as two of the three head rules committee guys seem to agree with the rule, and it's a practically universal exception anyway (as far as I can tell).
Yodafan: Official pro of one of Magic’s most casual formats.
This came after many months of testing/playing EDH. We generally try to keep track of all the broken stuff in EDH (extremely easy to set up infinite/near infinite combo). Your group can play with whatever your group's rules, but we've found for just a general, casual playing field, errata-ing these cards were the best way to go.
EDH is not a competitive format. It is more akin to kitchen table magic than anything else. Why take out the fun of it by restricting the basis of the format? We've all played EDH for quite a while, and we've all tried various combinations of decks that were entirely broken. It went down to the point where many games would end in the first few turns because you would just go: Accel, Merchant Scroll, Summoner's Pact, Flash, no Force? Win. Or accel, tutor, transmute, tutor again, Iggy, loop, Will, replay everything, Tendrils, Wish, Tendrils, Win. It became so ridiculous it wasn't even funny. We've moved past that point now, and that's why we've advocated the errata.
If you REALLY wanted to be spiky about this, then the whole Control Magic/Mage effect doesn't even matter, because the best EDH decks don't use their generals. Things that affects generals greatly doesn't even touch combo decks that kill everyone consistently on the first few turns. These and other erratas/bans were enforced by our playgroup (and many playgroup locally) and particularly advocated by the judges to ensure that the EDH was played as it was supposed to be played. What's the point otherwise?
If you really want to go for it, go ahead, it is ultimately your group's decision. But it only takes a couple of meets before someone will inevitably come up with that ridiculous deck, and then all of you will have to match him or lose. Then EDH becomes ridiculously boring. The amount of combo-licious cards far outweighs the amount of cards that can protect yourself from everyone else.
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My thought was Brion Stoutarm. He's cheap enough to recast several times even if he is more suited to throwing non-combat damage around. The idea of paying 7 for a crater hellion and his ability doing 6 to everything a 6 life isn't a bad thought even considering how much I don't like red.
That'll probably be my first deck to tinker with.
B Pox
WG(R/B) Enchantress
WRU Star Spangled Failure
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BWR Oros
GWU Jenara
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B (small)Pox
GWUBR Enchantress
RW Stax(less) Records
@ leprichaun: i am not saying that if Apex's group agrees to the no CM the general rules that he shouldnt be able to, magic is a gmae and should be played to maximise the fun your group is having. If no stealing generals is a rule that his group agrees on, so be it as long as they have fun. If someone thinks that it is unfair and it ruins thier experience, consider changing it. However I do not think that this rule needs to become official for EDH
-Shoe
@ Stan: I love the idea of a Stonebrow deck, and I have a tentative decklist. Haste + Trample + Stonebrow = fun!
Mass land destruction got banned and control magic variants were errataed to make sure everyone has a fun time. When you've gone through the "make a deck as competitive as possible" phase, most of us just don't see the point of playing broken decks anymore. Anything that was deemed unfun by the majority of the players (like Limited Resources or Sundering Titan, cards that you can't believe how many of us managed to cheat into play on turn 1 or 2) got the axe so the format for us remained a cool and fun format.
Also like I've posted previously, if you really just want to win in EDH and do nothing else, then all of these erratas don't matter at all to you. In fact, you don't even care about your general other then the fact that he lets you play with the colours of your deck. Just play a hulk/storm based combo, and everyone dies right there. Taking a 30 minute 2nd turn to kill everyone else isn't our idea of fun, and when everyone does it, it gets incredibly lame.
EDH is a group thing, you play with your friends, and whatever the group decides is better for them, then that's that. Different groups will have different philosophies, and this one is ours, one we've reached after many months of broken stuff. Maybe we've jumped the gun too harshly, and tried to axe as many thing as possible because we hated going back to those combo times. But it has worked out for us, and many of us would now come in with wacky generals and we would all have fun playing together.
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My design actually focuses on giving Haste. I have ... 4-6 enchantments (I don't have my list with me right now), plus Anger. I also have plenty of creatures with both Trample and Haste. And yes, I have Akroma AOF, as well as my sub-general: Borborygmos.
It's funny, though. I didn't actually think that Stonebrow would be a popular choice for a general. I guess I should have known better, thinking about the colors and theme that he brings.
My current deck design I'm working with is a five-color deck, and I don't care which general I use (maybe Cromat, or Karona, for something different :o). My tentative name for the deck is:
Project Bridge Flash RX
I know that I can't use Flash itself (*SIGH*), but I'm looking at a few replacements that'll do in a pinch. And yes, all the other usual suspects are there: Reveillark, Body Double, Saffi, Crypt Champion, Hulk, Wardens, Bridge, Flamekin, Dread Return, etc. There will be a fair amount of reanimation, plenty of card sifting (Impulse and such), creature tutors, sac engines... I don't know what kind of a game it'll have, but I'm sure I'll get a few laughs with it.
Hah, I did a build on Stonebrow as well when I first started playing. I first made my intitial crappy Zur build and then made this as a spare less business-orientated deck. Another few goods cards I found out were Silvos, Rogue Elemental and the green totem from timespiral (recurring Tramplers + mana in a pinch = good. Multipurpose cards ftw...).
You can run any of the Sneak Attack variants instead of Flash to quickly get the hulk into the yard for combo shenanigans. Through the Breach, Footsteps of the Goryo, basically anything that puts stuff into play. Reanimation would also totally work.
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Brion Stoutarm is a beast. Take a look at my list, click the link in my sig.
Top Five Generals?
Pure Power:
(Heh, four of them are blue. Of course, the five are my subjective opinion.)
Most Badass:
Ten points if you knew what Xiahou Dun did without looking.
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He's definately not as bad as he once was now that Recurring Nightmare is banned, but he's still very, very good.
Whenever my one friend plays Karn, my other buddy always searches up Aura of Silence, and then Copy Enchantment on the Aura. :rolleyes::o
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my fav zur fetch is still In the eye of chaos....dont be fooled, it is in his colors
AND it prevents disenchant to some extent
Though there are some problem enchantments like Limited Resources (which is widely agreed upon by many as one of the most unfun card in multiplayer, ever) that can potentially ruin people. If you can go, 3rd turn Zur -> 4th turn Limited Resources, you can often keep most people on 3-4 lands. In a big game of EDH multiplayer, 3-4 lands per person could very well spell game for half the people there.
There isn't a "broken" general. There are very competitive generals, but in no way are they broken. I would definitely put Maga on that competitive list too, especially in 1 on 1 games. In multiplayer, many of these "rankings" will change, since if someone is way too powerful, they'll get ganged on really early and fast, and no general/deck can handle 5 other players simultaneously beating down on you constantly. Which is why I think the "best" generals are actually the ones that can fly under the radar, and pull shenanigans afterwards.
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see
Kokushko and Rosfellos
The man makes a good point.
Although, with that said, I am actually surprised Zur isn't on the chopping block anytime soon. Yes, it takes a few turns to set up, but given the right amount of mana with the diplomatic immunity/flickerform setup, zur's almost untouchable, and after that it's all just one massacre from there. The only way that one can really get rid of him is if you kill the player, and that can be surprisingly hard if the deck's tweaked right for multiplay madness.
Yup. That's why I said with the right amount of mana ...