Thought Experiment: How would the Commander format be different if tutors were banned?
Note: For the sake of the discussion, assume all cards that tutor with the exception of cards that only search for basic land type cards would be banned. That means Rampant Growth and Polluted Delta are safe but everything else from Crop Rotation to Bribery to Demonic Tutor to Captain Sisay would be banned.
Some of my takes on this thought experiment I raised:
Generally speaking, games would be longer on average and there would be much more variation in each game. Midrange and aggro decks would become more viable. Game winning infinite combos wouldn't go away but they would happen substantially less frequently.
Decks that rely on infinite combos would become much weaker. Combo decks would still exist but they would have to rely on multiple combos instead of just one or two and they would need traditional alternate win conditions. They would probably rely heavily on mass draw spells like Stroke of Genius and Pull from Tomorrow to ensure they can increase the odds of finding relevant pieces.
Combo decks would turn into value based synergy decks like Brago, King Eternal.
Fringe strategies like mill could become more viable as games would be more likely to last longer due to lack of consistency.
The format would likely have more variation and deck diversity in competitive circles. Even if there was less deck diversity, the way games play out would involve substantially more variation.
A few of your thought say "in competitive circles" - I can't speak for competitive circles. I can say it would suck for casual. We're not tutoring infinite combos usually. Sure, we're either tutoring a win condition or an answer to an opponent's win condition, but it's the back and forth and being able to tutor the right thing at the right time that keeps the game interesting sometimes. And it wouldn't create more variation - it would just make it harder to stop whoever got their win condition first because you would have to already have the answer.
- Clearly, combo decks would become less competitive, but so would toolbox generals.
- In place of tutoring one card, players would resort to mass-draw in hopes of finding the one card among many. Blue gets better.
A few of your thought say "in competitive circles" - I can't speak for competitive circles. I can say it would suck for casual. We're not tutoring infinite combos usually. Sure, we're either tutoring a win condition or an answer to an opponent's win condition, but it's the back and forth and being able to tutor the right thing at the right time that keeps the game interesting sometimes. And it wouldn't create more variation - it would just make it harder to stop whoever got their win condition first because you would have to already have the answer.
- Clearly, combo decks would become less competitive, but so would toolbox generals.
- In place of tutoring one card, players would resort to mass-draw in hopes of finding the one card among many. Blue gets better.
I'm not sure if blue gets better. With combos being much weaker, counterspells become way less essential and that is currently one of blue's strongest assets.
The game would still be interesting. It arguably would be more interesting because games would have much more variance.
I'm not sure if blue gets better. With combos being much weaker, counterspells become way less essential and that is currently one of blue's strongest assets.
Maybe one of, but card draw is even stronger in blue, and it would step up to replace individual tutoring.
The game would still be interesting. It arguably would be more interesting because games would have much more variance.
Or less variance because the first person to get their engine going wins, and nobody can tutor an answer to slow it down. Fast decks, especially with ramp and card draw would be nigh unstoppable.
1. I would say that it would hurt combo decks and control decks the most. Combo decks is obvious as you are usually just trying to get the second half of whatever combo you might be running or some enabler, and control decks because sometimes you just need to go find an answer card to whatever may be a problem at the time.
2. I would say that synergy and theme decks would benefit the most. Most of these decks are built with redundancy in mind anyway and these kinds of decks typically wouldn't want or need tutors to operate.
4. I think you'd have a lot of variance (which we have already, but it would see an uptick) and games might go shorter (less time for searching) or longer (more topdeck attrition battles) depending on your meta, but the biggest change would just be the shear size of the banned list. You are talking dozens and dozens of cards here, and potentially more if you include Transmute cards. Just a list of the 21 Commanders that would need to be banned:
As you can see, the "no tutors except basic lands" hits a lot of cards that are otherwise perfectly fine and has a lot of unintended consequences for your banned list.
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Everyone else has already said it, but combo and control decks would get hit hard. Having a toolbox doesn't work very well when you pull out a random tool each time, none of which solve the problem or get you where you want to be going.
I think by excluding cards that search basics, green becomes the uncontested best single color. Blue would still be good - It already has abundant card draw. Black would take a massive hit; losing all tutors means nothing goes directly to the grave for reanimation shenanigans, combos get harder. White and Red are odd ducks - red doesn't really lose much, but considering what the others lose, it'd likely have greater impact. White only really tutors for equipment or enchantments.
White only really tutors for equipment or enchantments.
In recent years, white has also had cards which tutor for legendaries (Thalia's Lancers), planeswalkers (Call the Gatewatch, Djeru, With Eyes Open) and smaller creatures (Recruiter of the Guard). Specialized tutoring has become a slightly larger component of white's slice of the color pie in the recent past, and one which has helped make it somewhat more viable in Commander.
In recent years, white has also had cards which tutor for legendaries (Thalia's Lancers), planeswalkers (Call the Gatewatch, Djeru, With Eyes Open) and smaller creatures (Recruiter of the Guard). Specialized tutoring has become a slightly larger component of white's slice of the color pie in the recent past, and one which has helped make it somewhat more viable in Commander.
Fair enough. I haven't seen too many of those around in my playgroup or LGS. But for the purposes of this thread, White would lose those too... So whatever minimal specialized tutors they have, they'd lose all the same.
I think my Azami, Lady of Scrolls deck would be even stronger in a commander format with tutors banned
God, that's horrifying to think of.
I've got a Josu Vess, Lich Knight deck revolving around Haakon, Stromgald Scourge and type-changers. Without tutors, the deck literally could not function. Even then I'd classify it as casual jank, at best.
Anything in black, is borderline, as it's strength is quite often from it's ability to tutor for key cards.
My general take is that Izzet colors UR or just mono blue become the strongest, as you still have Tiered decks in those colors, but they have the fewest tutors in general.
That's not completely true, there are still a lot of search for artifact combo cards in these colors, but with blue having the most card draw and cantrip manipulation like Ponder, Preordain, etc, has the best way of getting to cards more quickly.
Decks that can combo with a lot of redundancy would become way more powerful decks against the rest of the field. My Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle combo deck is an example of not needing tutors to win consistently on Turn 4-5 without disruption.
I've found Najeela, the Blade-Blossom lately to just be incredible consistent at winning without needing to tutor for any cards, just because of redundancy and win-condition built into the commander.
Please keep telling me how useless W is and how few tricks it has.
Those are all very strong cards, of course. And they were all originally printed many years ago. These days, white's exile removal is more expensive, and often sorcery speed. White still gets the occasional great beater (usually an angel) and some boardwipes (never as efficient as Wrath, but generally reasonably priced), plus some really quality hatebears. Removal of all tutoring would make what the color is doing right now a lot less diverse, though, and a lot less relevant to the future of the format.
I like this thought experiment. I've been cutting tutors for some time now, just cause my current group is far less competitive than my previous group.
I think the "Competitive scene" as a whole would become less competitive. I think the format would shift slightly and more card draw focused than it already is. I think commanders like Azami, lady of scrolls would make it back to being some of the more powerful decks in the format again.
I would dislike the shallow tutors being gone. Maybe ditch tutors that let you fetch any card and maybe various card type tutors like Enlightened Tutor, Worldly Tutor, and keep all land based tutors excluding the ones that let you fetch any land (keep stuff like Maze's End and Gatecreeper Vine, but get rid of cards like Crop Rotation). I would also dislike things like Praetor's Grasp being gone, but I'd be ok with things like Bribery being gone and I think it comes down to the fact of whether you have to cast the card you take with mana rather than just free casting or putting it into play.
I like this thought experiment. I've been cutting tutors for some time now, just cause my current group is far less competitive than my previous group.
I do something similar. I include more tutors the less competitive/more jank the deck is, and try to use conditional tutors where able (i.e. transmute or the later mentioned type tutors).
Note: For the sake of the discussion, assume all cards that tutor with the exception of cards that only search for basic land type cards would be banned. That means Rampant Growth
That right there is the issue I would see. If you still allow green to ramp, then the format would become all green ramp-decks. The sheer volume of green land-ramp spells is absurd, and if you remove most other deck-search/tutor effects (including common tools like trinket mage or enlightened tutors to get sol ring), then the EDH format just becomes Green+whatever ramp decks.
Other decks can still function, but they will suffer. Anything non-green will run 14+ mana rocks to try and compete with green ramp, and then green can land bane of progress or aura shards or one of their infinite number of etb-artifact hate. Without reliable tutors a non-green deck will have zero way to guarantee that they can even compete at the same speed of a green deck.
If you want to ban tutors, then you have to ban rampant growth. Otherwise this argument doesn't really have much of a foundation.
If anything, there needs to be more specific tutors that are more on-theme with their colors. Red of all things needs more tutors. They have gamble, hoarding dragon, and sarkhan's triumph. The sheer volume of tutors that other colors have access to is absurd compared to how little red gets.
Note: For the sake of the discussion, assume all cards that tutor with the exception of cards that only search for basic land type cards would be banned. That means Rampant Growth and Polluted Delta are safe but everything else from Crop Rotation to Bribery to Demonic Tutor to Captain Sisay would be banned.
In this thought experiment, assume the tutor ban would also prohibit makeshift tutors like Buried Alive, Intuition, Elvish Habinger and Long-Term Plans.
2. Which decks and general strategies would become more competitive if tutors were banned?
3. What cards would be expected to see more play or rise in value if tutors were banned?
4. Overall what would be different about the format?
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Generally speaking, games would be longer on average and there would be much more variation in each game. Midrange and aggro decks would become more viable. Game winning infinite combos wouldn't go away but they would happen substantially less frequently.
Decks that rely on infinite combos would become much weaker. Combo decks would still exist but they would have to rely on multiple combos instead of just one or two and they would need traditional alternate win conditions. They would probably rely heavily on mass draw spells like Stroke of Genius and Pull from Tomorrow to ensure they can increase the odds of finding relevant pieces.
Combo decks would turn into value based synergy decks like Brago, King Eternal.
Oloro, Ageless Ascetic decks would still have Exquisite Bond and Sanguine Bond in their decks but they would have to rely on more alternate win conditions in case they can't assemble the combo (i.e. beaters like Divinity of Pride).
Voltron strategies, especially those led by commanders with hexproof would become more popular in competitive circles (i.e. Sigarda, Host of Herons, Uril, the Miststalker)
Fringe strategies like mill could become more viable as games would be more likely to last longer due to lack of consistency.
The format would likely have more variation and deck diversity in competitive circles. Even if there was less deck diversity, the way games play out would involve substantially more variation.
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- Clearly, combo decks would become less competitive, but so would toolbox generals.
- In place of tutoring one card, players would resort to mass-draw in hopes of finding the one card among many. Blue gets better.
- We'd lose Captain Sisay and Scion of the Ur-Dragonand about 22 other commanders. We'd lose Shadowborn Apostles but not Relentless Rats or Rat Colony.
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Incorrect.
Cards that tutor solely for basic land types are still fair game. So things like Polluted Delta, Rampant Growth, Cultivate, etc. are still fair game. Cards like Crop Rotation, Sylvan Scrying and Scapeshift would be banned under this hypothetical thought experiment.
UBRKess, Dissident MageUBR - Controlling Dissidents
GRhonas the IndomitableG - Indomitable Four Drops
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I'm not sure if blue gets better. With combos being much weaker, counterspells become way less essential and that is currently one of blue's strongest assets.
The game would still be interesting. It arguably would be more interesting because games would have much more variance.
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GRhonas the IndomitableG - Indomitable Four Drops
WUBOloro, Ageless AsceticWUB - Loot & Renanimate
Or less variance because the first person to get their engine going wins, and nobody can tutor an answer to slow it down. Fast decks, especially with ramp and card draw would be nigh unstoppable.
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2. I would say that synergy and theme decks would benefit the most. Most of these decks are built with redundancy in mind anyway and these kinds of decks typically wouldn't want or need tutors to operate.
3. Raw card advantage and cards that "dig" (ie Impulse, Brainstorm, Ponder, etc.)
4. I think you'd have a lot of variance (which we have already, but it would see an uptick) and games might go shorter (less time for searching) or longer (more topdeck attrition battles) depending on your meta, but the biggest change would just be the shear size of the banned list. You are talking dozens and dozens of cards here, and potentially more if you include Transmute cards. Just a list of the 21 Commanders that would need to be banned:
1 Captain Sisay
1 Djeru, With Eyes Open
1 General Tazri
1 Godo, Bandit Warlord
1 Higure, the Still Wind
1 Iname As One
1 Iname, Death Aspect
1 Isperia the Inscrutable
1 Kaho, Minamo Historian
1 Lin Sivvi, Defiant Hero
1 Mishra, Artificer Prodigy
1 Niambi, Faithful Healer
1 Razaketh, the Foulblooded
1 Scion of the Ur-Dragon
1 Sidisi, Undead Vizier
1 Sliver Overlord
1 Thada Adel, Acquisitor
1 Yisan, the Wandering Bard
1 Zirilan of the Claw
1 Zur the Enchanter
As you can see, the "no tutors except basic lands" hits a lot of cards that are otherwise perfectly fine and has a lot of unintended consequences for your banned list.
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I think by excluding cards that search basics, green becomes the uncontested best single color. Blue would still be good - It already has abundant card draw. Black would take a massive hit; losing all tutors means nothing goes directly to the grave for reanimation shenanigans, combos get harder. White and Red are odd ducks - red doesn't really lose much, but considering what the others lose, it'd likely have greater impact. White only really tutors for equipment or enchantments.
Land-focused Commanders become significantly more powerful. Titania, Protector of Argoth, The Gitrog Monster, Omnath, Locus of Rage, Tatyova, benthic druid. They have access to lands and mana and can convert those into other resources (tokens/card draw).
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In recent years, white has also had cards which tutor for legendaries (Thalia's Lancers), planeswalkers (Call the Gatewatch, Djeru, With Eyes Open) and smaller creatures (Recruiter of the Guard). Specialized tutoring has become a slightly larger component of white's slice of the color pie in the recent past, and one which has helped make it somewhat more viable in Commander.
Fair enough. I haven't seen too many of those around in my playgroup or LGS. But for the purposes of this thread, White would lose those too... So whatever minimal specialized tutors they have, they'd lose all the same.
God, that's horrifying to think of.
I've got a Josu Vess, Lich Knight deck revolving around Haakon, Stromgald Scourge and type-changers. Without tutors, the deck literally could not function. Even then I'd classify it as casual jank, at best.
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Please keep telling me how useless W is and how few tricks it has.
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Tier 1
Out
General Tazri
Thrasios, Triton Hero // Tymna the Weaver
Zur the Enchanter
In
Teferi, Temporal Archmage
Borderline
Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge
Kess, Dissident Mage
Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder
Tier 1.5
Out
Arcum Dagsson
Captain Sisay
Scion of the Ur-Dragon
Sidisi, Undead Vizier
Yisan, the Wanderer Bard
In
Animar, Soul of Elements
Brago, King Eternal
Breya, Etherium Shaper
Edric, Spymaster of Trest
Grand Arbiter Augustin IV
Borderline
Selvala, Heart of the Wilds
Prossh, Skyraider of Kher
Karador, Ghost Chieftain
Sidisi, Brood Tyrant
Tasigur, the Golden Fang
The Gitrog Monster
Anything in black, is borderline, as it's strength is quite often from it's ability to tutor for key cards.
My general take is that Izzet colors UR or just mono blue become the strongest, as you still have Tiered decks in those colors, but they have the fewest tutors in general.
That's not completely true, there are still a lot of search for artifact combo cards in these colors, but with blue having the most card draw and cantrip manipulation like Ponder, Preordain, etc, has the best way of getting to cards more quickly.
Decks that can combo with a lot of redundancy would become way more powerful decks against the rest of the field. My Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle combo deck is an example of not needing tutors to win consistently on Turn 4-5 without disruption.
I've found Najeela, the Blade-Blossom lately to just be incredible consistent at winning without needing to tutor for any cards, just because of redundancy and win-condition built into the commander.
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Those are all very strong cards, of course. And they were all originally printed many years ago. These days, white's exile removal is more expensive, and often sorcery speed. White still gets the occasional great beater (usually an angel) and some boardwipes (never as efficient as Wrath, but generally reasonably priced), plus some really quality hatebears. Removal of all tutoring would make what the color is doing right now a lot less diverse, though, and a lot less relevant to the future of the format.
So as not to restate a lot of the same boring talking points about this idea you should just go read the previous thread by the same person, https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/commander-edh/780142-agree-or-disagree-discussion-on-tutor-effects
I think the "Competitive scene" as a whole would become less competitive. I think the format would shift slightly and more card draw focused than it already is. I think commanders like Azami, lady of scrolls would make it back to being some of the more powerful decks in the format again.
I would dislike the shallow tutors being gone. Maybe ditch tutors that let you fetch any card and maybe various card type tutors like Enlightened Tutor, Worldly Tutor, and keep all land based tutors excluding the ones that let you fetch any land (keep stuff like Maze's End and Gatecreeper Vine, but get rid of cards like Crop Rotation). I would also dislike things like Praetor's Grasp being gone, but I'd be ok with things like Bribery being gone and I think it comes down to the fact of whether you have to cast the card you take with mana rather than just free casting or putting it into play.
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I do something similar. I include more tutors the less competitive/more jank the deck is, and try to use conditional tutors where able (i.e. transmute or the later mentioned type tutors).
That right there is the issue I would see. If you still allow green to ramp, then the format would become all green ramp-decks. The sheer volume of green land-ramp spells is absurd, and if you remove most other deck-search/tutor effects (including common tools like trinket mage or enlightened tutors to get sol ring), then the EDH format just becomes Green+whatever ramp decks.
Other decks can still function, but they will suffer. Anything non-green will run 14+ mana rocks to try and compete with green ramp, and then green can land bane of progress or aura shards or one of their infinite number of etb-artifact hate. Without reliable tutors a non-green deck will have zero way to guarantee that they can even compete at the same speed of a green deck.
If you want to ban tutors, then you have to ban rampant growth. Otherwise this argument doesn't really have much of a foundation.
And really, rampant growth should not be banned. It is what green does. Just like how black likes to pay life to tutor via vampiric tutor. Just like how blue likes to plan for the future with mystical tutor or merchant scroll.
If anything, there needs to be more specific tutors that are more on-theme with their colors. Red of all things needs more tutors. They have gamble, hoarding dragon, and sarkhan's triumph. The sheer volume of tutors that other colors have access to is absurd compared to how little red gets.
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* I’m fine if we got a 2x Gamble variant, though (think Idyllic Tutor vs. Plea for Guidance), with a terrible name like Double or Nothing.
**Even though I think all tutoring should be banned.
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