Hold on... a meta that runs a Vorinclex whinging about someone playing Edgar?
No case to answer for you my friend.. play it and smirk away when it beats down
EDH is a social game. If he's being asked not to play it and keeps playing it, they'll just stop playing with him. The fact that I need to explain this to you is pretty hilarious.
Also remember we're only getting his side of the story. Look at it this way: They're playing Vorinclex, 5c Goodstuff and other powerful decks and STILL asking him not to play this. His deck is probably crushing them pretty often, or they probably wouldn't complain.
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My Decks:
Aggro: WUBRGHorde of Notions Goodstuff, RUBCheesy Aggro, GR Xenagod Gruul Goodstuff
Control: GWBGhave, Guru of Adaptability, UBWrexial, Milling Deep UAzami, Lady of No Infinite Combos GWU Derevi, Tempo Beats
Other: URGRiku of Too Much Mana, WUBRG Sliver Queen Enchantress
I guess its worth mentioning..... if there is a deck / strategy I am often losing to.... I will to some degree shift my decks to meta against that. In this sense I think it makes sense to meta against anything you are weak to on a regular basis.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
But you still have to play and pay them. This thing alone makes them way more riskier than Edgar
Right, and they can also potentially activate their abilities more than once while they're alive to quadruple your tokens - or even more! Edgar can't do that.
But you still have to play and pay them. This thing alone makes them way more riskier than Edgar
I don't disagree. That being said, Krenko in particular goes off at around the same time as Edgar. The difference being that Krenko mathematically doubles after each activation, whereas Edgar simply adds 1 each interaction. Krenko is also more abusable, and has various interactions to move towards an early combo win. Thornbite Staff, Swiftfoot Boots and Goblin Bombardment all scale well into Krenko's curve and go off early. Rhys is probably more comparable to Edgar, but is still far more abusable. I guess the point I'm making is that while it's a strong mechanic, and doesn't encourage immediately playing Edgar as an actual card from the command zone, he still has a place as a shock tactic mid game, and buffs your board. He's not just there as an indomitable anthem. And he's much, much less combo abusable. So I feel like going up against Edgar you know what you're getting into. All it really takes to put Edgar off (or to deter him from attacking you personally) is a freakin' Ghostly Prison or Propaganda. If even one swing whiffs, Edgar has lost tempo and is in a weaker position. I just don't think its as broken and stupid as you're suggesting. Or at least, it's equivalent to the stupidity of existent token commanders. We haven't even mentioned Ghave, Guru of Spores yet.
I guess its worth mentioning..... if there is a deck / strategy I am often losing to.... I will to some degree shift my decks to meta against that. In this sense I think it makes sense to meta against anything you are weak to on a regular basis.
I take this tack, too. And this interaction has made me much less likely to want to play Edgar again, but I do enjoy playing him. I like interactive, swing-back-and-forth arm wrestle games, not easy beats. So, if or when I bring Edgar out again, it'll only be against decks that I now pack answers for it, or close games early. I guess this was the initial point of the thread - do I pack it in or carry on with it? I like having a scalable collection of decks depending on the level of play, but the fact that two of the people I was playing against swept was frustrating.
In a related point, I feel like sweeping is kind of defeatist. I'll do it if it's down to one against another and I've clearly lost. But when one player is clearly dominant, I feel like this is where the social aspect of EDH comes in. I'm quite happy to work with others to level someone out, and this is where games get awesomely fun. I totally expect that if my Edgar deck is dominant that people should band together and play archenemy until I'm at parity with the table. Similarly, if someone is comboing out, I'll do everything I can to stop it and give everyone else a fighting chance at an interactive game, because that's worth the fight. And it's worth combating combo or oppressive boardstates for - regardless of your stance on whether oppressive combo or lockdown is acceptable or not, I'll always try to push back against it for the sake of a socially inclusive game. That becomes infinitely harder when people just give up and sweep, and it frustrates me. These challenges are what test the limits of your deckbuilding skills, your threat assessment and play line skills, and what your deck is capable of. I just don't get the idea of not taking the challenge unless it's decidedly outside of your capabilities.
Again, it doesn't matter how much Edgar is strong compared to other decks. It's a psychological thing. You see the opponent accomplishing things by doing nothing while you have to cast things, you'll think there is something wrong.
You're probably right, but that doesn't make it a fair or rational assessment. That's not entirely surprising though, there's lots of folk out there who aren't great at threat assessment. Given the choice between targeting Edgar or Krenko at a table, it's an even toss for me - and it entirely depends on boardstates and what answers I'm running. Regardless, I'm not going to sweep to either one, and I'm not going to complain about either one.
Just by the by, I hope you know I'm not trying to attack your opinions. The scenario just took me by surprise, so it's interesting to be able to unpack people's thoughts on the commander, because a lot of it seems a little overblown.
Power level isn't always everything, especially in a commander game. You can have the strongest deck and still lose 100% of the games because the whole doesn't like your face and team against you.
Yeah no I get that. It's similar to the hate that Oloro gets. It's scaremongering in a lot of cases. They do have some advantage, but every commander has one in some variation.
You have to understand that they not only see you gaining vampire tokens without paying, but they also can't kill the ability's source.
But tokens coming out of nowhere, on its own, is only a moderately powered ability. Especially when they have no inbuilt evasion and it's a one-for-one ability. As an Edgar player, if you don't hit a pump of some kind, you're not going to win. No ifs, no buts, without a pump, your creatures are frail.
Krenko may go crazy infinite, but you can also kill him with a doom blade. You feel like you have some control. You can't kill Edgar Markov while he is in the command zone, so you will feel like you have less control over the game.
It just doesn't seem rational. There are ways to deal with any problem in MtG for the most part and Edgar is no different. You might not be able to get rid of that eminence ability, but there's a lot of ways to play around it. Rakdos Charm costs 30 cents if that, there's untold variations of fog effects, tax-for-attacks, and if you want to turn his ability off entirely there's Containment Priest, Hallowed Moonlight and Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite. Or if you can't afford that there's Aether Snap, Illness in the Ranks, Toxic Deluge, Dissipation Field and untold number of lock down effects - Silent Arbiter or Crawlspace, Blinding Angel, there really are plenty of ways to mitigate Edgar's army, and a lot of them are cheap. I guess I'm saying there's tons of options, and as an Edgar player it's by no means a done deal that I win. I've also gone up against strong Edgar decks and beaten them, too. They're quick and strong, but there's no way I see them as overpowered.
I have pulled off my share of games with my Edgar deck, which isn't even close to competitively-tuned, but what I have seen more often is getting *that* close, then getting shut down, and whichever of the opponents spent the least resources putting Edgar in check then wins a turn or two later.
In my experience, a tuned Karlov of the Ghost Council deck can be every bit as dangerous as an Edgar deck. Two nights ago I killed someone with Karlov on turn 4.
It just doesn't seem rational. There are ways to deal with any problem in MtG for the most part and Edgar is no different. You might not be able to get rid of that eminence ability, but there's a lot of ways to play around it. Rakdos Charm costs 30 cents if that, there's untold variations of fog effects, tax-for-attacks, and if you want to turn his ability off entirely there's Containment Priest, Hallowed Moonlight and Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite. Or if you can't afford that there's Aether Snap, Illness in the Ranks, Toxic Deluge, Dissipation Field and untold number of lock down effects - Silent Arbiter or Crawlspace, Blinding Angel, there really are plenty of ways to mitigate Edgar's army, and a lot of them are cheap. I guess I'm saying there's tons of options, and as an Edgar player it's by no means a done deal that I win. I've also gone up against strong Edgar decks and beaten them, too. They're quick and strong, but there's no way I see them as overpowered.
Here's the thing. Most decks don't pack specific token hate cards, and a well built Edgar deck can keep a decent board presence while keeping a large hand. If you board-wipe he rebuilds twice as fast and you've cleared the path.
As far as I'm concerned there's exactly one solution all my decks pack to Edgar in the command zone, and that's bringing his life total to 0, so while he's not 100% my choice every time, I tend to kill him when I can.
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My Decks:
Aggro: WUBRGHorde of Notions Goodstuff, RUBCheesy Aggro, GR Xenagod Gruul Goodstuff
Control: GWBGhave, Guru of Adaptability, UBWrexial, Milling Deep UAzami, Lady of No Infinite Combos GWU Derevi, Tempo Beats
Other: URGRiku of Too Much Mana, WUBRG Sliver Queen Enchantress
[quote from="toctheyounger77 »" url="/forums/the-game/commander-edh/796318-edgar-markov-hateworthy-or-no?comment=39"]Here's the thing. Most decks don't pack specific token hate cards, and a well built Edgar deck can keep a decent board presence while keeping a large hand. If you board-wipe he rebuilds twice as fast and you've cleared the path.
Really? I try to pack bare minimum one or two token answers in almost every deck I build. Especially if they're slow burner decks, but there almost isn't an exception. If it's not token destruction in particular, it's token punisher or combat deterrents. I understand that you can't answer every possible threat you might come up against, but the sort of things that you might pack against Edgar also work against a TON of other decks that run tokens too. The same answers that work against Edgar also work against the decks mentioned thus far - Krenko, Rhys, Ghave, as well as Rith, Gisa.....tokens are a strategy that's been around for a long time now. If you're not packing at least one or two answers or ways to compete against them then you don't really have an axe to grind.
I do also understand that tokens rebuild quickly. It's what makes them a threat, and its not isolated to Edgar. My Ghave deck is a threat because its resilient. I've played once or twice against someone proxying the new Izzet token general, Brudiclad. It's no different, and that guy in particulr is going to see some degenerate builds. To me, though, there's a degree of focussing on the wrong things as a threat that allows them to rebuild. Is Edgar refilling his hand with Necropotence? Vindicate THAT, not the tokens. Are the tokens enormous due to Shared Animosity? Beast Within is your answer. Then there's common 'nonland permanent' sweepers like Nev Disk, O-Stone, All is Dust, Cyclonic Rift (and who doesn't run this?), Wave of Vitriol, Hour of Revelation. Hell, even Tranquility will do you in a fix. Constant Mists will keep you alive, Insurrection turns the tables on Edgar: there almost isn't a deck archetype or colour that doesn't have at least a couple of answers.
I know this argument is at least somewhat reductive, but so is the argument that Edgar is too strong, or worthy of excessive hate. There's answers available, and if you don't run them to give yourself at least a fighting chance, more fool you. I think a lot of it comes down to the idea of building a deck with strong synergy for your own engine, but not building around speed bumps or contingencies. If you don't run answers for at least a couple of common archetypes, it's not just Edgar you're going to struggle against. Granted, he does tip the early turns on their heads, in that you need to be able to remove parts of his engine early, but that's not really ever out of the question.
As far as I'm concerned there's exactly one solution all my decks pack to Edgar in the command zone, and that's bringing his life total to 0, so while he's not 100% my choice every time, I tend to kill him when I can.
I understand this, and can relate to it to some degree. That being said, you do realise that you're forcing the Edgar player's hand by playing this way, right? By gunning for him you're forcing him to remove you from the game early in order to survive? In other terms, if you were hunting a boar and had it trapped, you're calling it a threat of harm because you've caused it to be injured and threatened. The comparison isn't perfect, but playing the social aspect of EDH probably goes a long way with an Edgar player regardless. He or she has 3-4 turns to accelerate before the rest of the table is too well established to make a sizable dent, so having at least a temporary alliance could allow you to find answers to gain dominance over the table. Just a thought, I know it won't play out in every circumstance but it's not out of the question by any stretch.
I mean I think I have good threat prioritization, and I tend to play well versus Edgar.
The thread is about people hating your Edgar deck, and my point is just that when all other things are even you do have an emblem from the start of the game that can only be permanently removed with your loss or their win.
It's also about when the board state is empty you do have the ability to rebuild quicker than many other fair decks.
Do they go overboard? Maybe. But there are reasons to focus you when everything else seems even.
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My Decks:
Aggro: WUBRGHorde of Notions Goodstuff, RUBCheesy Aggro, GR Xenagod Gruul Goodstuff
Control: GWBGhave, Guru of Adaptability, UBWrexial, Milling Deep UAzami, Lady of No Infinite Combos GWU Derevi, Tempo Beats
Other: URGRiku of Too Much Mana, WUBRG Sliver Queen Enchantress
The thread is about people hating your Edgar deck, and my point is just that when all other things are even you do have an emblem from the start of the game that can only be permanently removed with your loss or their win.
It's also about when the board state is empty you do have the ability to rebuild quicker than many other fair decks.
Do they go overboard? Maybe. But there are reasons to focus you when everything else seems even.
Understood. I still think a lot is made of these tokens coming from 'nowhere', and they don't. Again, on their own, the tokens aren't back breaking for anyone. I understand the hate, I just think there's times it goes a bit far and gets blown out of proportion.
My experience with my Edgar deck is mainly me losing to combo. I’ll get all my opponent’s life totals down to single digits, and then one of them combos off.
I get that EDH is a social game, but it’s also supposed to be inclusive. If I owned multiple EDH decks and someone asked me to play with a different deck, I would have no issue. However, that’s the only Commander deck that I have right now. People should be free to team up on a deck if they want, or pack hate for it, but excluding a player from a game opposite of what Magic The Gathering is supposed to be.
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Modern
JundBGR
RW Blood MoonRW
Pauper
Delver U
Elves G
Control B
Commander
Edgar Markov BRW
Captain Sisay GW
Niv-Mizzet, Parun UR
Tymna and Ravos WB
My experience with my Edgar deck is mainly me losing to combo. I’ll get all my opponent’s life totals down to single digits, and then one of them combos off.
I get that EDH is a social game, but it’s also supposed to be inclusive. If I owned multiple EDH decks and someone asked me to play with a different deck, I would have no issue. However, that’s the only Commander deck that I have right now. People should be free to team up on a deck if they want, or pack hate for it, but excluding a player from a game opposite of what Magic The Gathering is supposed to be.
How fast is your build and how quickly are they going off?
I have just bought abput 17 cards for my Edgar deck this last weekend and have upgraded it based on IBSPathfinder's list recomendations. In goldfish tests, it has been well wprth it and I can feel the deck as much faster and more powerful, and my build was already able to lay the beat down pretty hard.
Are you spreading damage around or knocking players out one by one?
I love this Commander so much. Finally, an agro deck I can get excited about and in Mardu colors (as opposed to Zoo or Jund). What is not to like? Unless you shuffle up against it
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"Whatever style you wish to play, be it fast and frenzied or slow and tactical, the surest way to defeat your opponent consistently is by dominating him or her in the war of card advantage." - Brian Wiseman, April 1996
My experience with my Edgar deck is mainly me losing to combo. I’ll get all my opponent’s life totals down to single digits, and then one of them combos off.
If you're not focusing down 1 opponent at a time you're making a mistake. Aggro decks that try to spread the love post really pathetic results.
Kill the biggest threat, then the next, then the last one most games. Sometimes ease is more important than threat, but if they're combing all their pants should be pretty far down stopping your aggro.
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My Decks:
Aggro: WUBRGHorde of Notions Goodstuff, RUBCheesy Aggro, GR Xenagod Gruul Goodstuff
Control: GWBGhave, Guru of Adaptability, UBWrexial, Milling Deep UAzami, Lady of No Infinite Combos GWU Derevi, Tempo Beats
Other: URGRiku of Too Much Mana, WUBRG Sliver Queen Enchantress
My experience with my Edgar deck is mainly me losing to combo. I’ll get all my opponent’s life totals down to single digits, and then one of them combos off.
I get that EDH is a social game, but it’s also supposed to be inclusive. If I owned multiple EDH decks and someone asked me to play with a different deck, I would have no issue. However, that’s the only Commander deck that I have right now. People should be free to team up on a deck if they want, or pack hate for it, but excluding a player from a game opposite of what Magic The Gathering is supposed to be.
That sounds like a meta problem rather than whether Edgar is too strong or not. In a good game, you should be able to have one opponent down by t5 or 6, so they must be comboing hard. And really there's not much of ways to stop that unless you play control, which this deck really isn't. So I'd swing hard against the combo players and take them out ASAP. ElliotS is right - one player at a time, biggest threats first, unless convenience states otherwise. I guess the one thing on your side against combo is that a lot of the time it's pretty transparent, so you should get a pretty good idea of who to attack ahead of time.
I love this commander, too. He has, however, become one of the decks I'll shuffle up only if the meta calls for it, along with Ur-Dragon (people complain about dragons even though it's pretty slow - people are stupid) and Ghave. I think its important to play games inclusively, so I always try to scale to the rest of the table, and encourage others to do so too. Yesterday I played a casual game against a Daretti that swung out hard with Mycosynth Lattice/Nevinyrral's Disk MLD and Metalworker for gas. It was ridiculous, and pretty much every player ended up calling him an ******** and scooping. He was smug and unrepentant, so I won't be playing him again. Personally, I never want to be that guy, and that's partly why I started this thread. I like inclusive games. So, if Edgar has to be a 'game hard' deck for me, so be it.
I love this commander, too. He has, however, become one of the decks I'll shuffle up only if the meta calls for it, along with Ur-Dragon (people complain about dragons even though it's pretty slow - people are stupid)
People complain about Ur-Dragon? Seriously? Yes, it's true that with him as the commander, you can sometimes get a couple of dragons onto the playing field in the same timeframe other players are dropping serious threats, instead of having to wait 1-2 turns later, but that just makes dragons reasonably viable as a deck, not overwhelming.
I love this commander, too. He has, however, become one of the decks I'll shuffle up only if the meta calls for it, along with Ur-Dragon (people complain about dragons even though it's pretty slow - people are stupid)
People complain about Ur-Dragon? Seriously? Yes, it's true that with him as the commander, you can sometimes get a couple of dragons onto the playing field in the same timeframe other players are dropping serious threats, instead of having to wait 1-2 turns later, but that just makes dragons reasonably viable as a deck, not overwhelming.
Some people really will complain about anything.
Yeah, they will. It’s another case of not running necessary answers.
No case to answer for you my friend.. play it and smirk away when it beats down
EDH is a social game. If he's being asked not to play it and keeps playing it, they'll just stop playing with him. The fact that I need to explain this to you is pretty hilarious.
Also remember we're only getting his side of the story. Look at it this way: They're playing Vorinclex, 5c Goodstuff and other powerful decks and STILL asking him not to play this. His deck is probably crushing them pretty often, or they probably wouldn't complain.
Aggro: WUBRGHorde of Notions Goodstuff, RUB Cheesy Aggro, GR Xenagod Gruul Goodstuff
Control: GWBGhave, Guru of Adaptability, UBWrexial, Milling Deep UAzami, Lady of No Infinite Combos GWU Derevi, Tempo Beats
Other: URGRiku of Too Much Mana, WUBRG Sliver Queen Enchantress
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[Modern] Allies
Higher risk, higher reward.
- Rabid Wombat
I don't disagree. That being said, Krenko in particular goes off at around the same time as Edgar. The difference being that Krenko mathematically doubles after each activation, whereas Edgar simply adds 1 each interaction. Krenko is also more abusable, and has various interactions to move towards an early combo win. Thornbite Staff, Swiftfoot Boots and Goblin Bombardment all scale well into Krenko's curve and go off early. Rhys is probably more comparable to Edgar, but is still far more abusable. I guess the point I'm making is that while it's a strong mechanic, and doesn't encourage immediately playing Edgar as an actual card from the command zone, he still has a place as a shock tactic mid game, and buffs your board. He's not just there as an indomitable anthem. And he's much, much less combo abusable. So I feel like going up against Edgar you know what you're getting into. All it really takes to put Edgar off (or to deter him from attacking you personally) is a freakin' Ghostly Prison or Propaganda. If even one swing whiffs, Edgar has lost tempo and is in a weaker position. I just don't think its as broken and stupid as you're suggesting. Or at least, it's equivalent to the stupidity of existent token commanders. We haven't even mentioned Ghave, Guru of Spores yet.
I take this tack, too. And this interaction has made me much less likely to want to play Edgar again, but I do enjoy playing him. I like interactive, swing-back-and-forth arm wrestle games, not easy beats. So, if or when I bring Edgar out again, it'll only be against decks that I now pack answers for it, or close games early. I guess this was the initial point of the thread - do I pack it in or carry on with it? I like having a scalable collection of decks depending on the level of play, but the fact that two of the people I was playing against swept was frustrating.
In a related point, I feel like sweeping is kind of defeatist. I'll do it if it's down to one against another and I've clearly lost. But when one player is clearly dominant, I feel like this is where the social aspect of EDH comes in. I'm quite happy to work with others to level someone out, and this is where games get awesomely fun. I totally expect that if my Edgar deck is dominant that people should band together and play archenemy until I'm at parity with the table. Similarly, if someone is comboing out, I'll do everything I can to stop it and give everyone else a fighting chance at an interactive game, because that's worth the fight. And it's worth combating combo or oppressive boardstates for - regardless of your stance on whether oppressive combo or lockdown is acceptable or not, I'll always try to push back against it for the sake of a socially inclusive game. That becomes infinitely harder when people just give up and sweep, and it frustrates me. These challenges are what test the limits of your deckbuilding skills, your threat assessment and play line skills, and what your deck is capable of. I just don't get the idea of not taking the challenge unless it's decidedly outside of your capabilities.
You're probably right, but that doesn't make it a fair or rational assessment. That's not entirely surprising though, there's lots of folk out there who aren't great at threat assessment. Given the choice between targeting Edgar or Krenko at a table, it's an even toss for me - and it entirely depends on boardstates and what answers I'm running. Regardless, I'm not going to sweep to either one, and I'm not going to complain about either one.
Just by the by, I hope you know I'm not trying to attack your opinions. The scenario just took me by surprise, so it's interesting to be able to unpack people's thoughts on the commander, because a lot of it seems a little overblown.
But tokens coming out of nowhere, on its own, is only a moderately powered ability. Especially when they have no inbuilt evasion and it's a one-for-one ability. As an Edgar player, if you don't hit a pump of some kind, you're not going to win. No ifs, no buts, without a pump, your creatures are frail.
It just doesn't seem rational. There are ways to deal with any problem in MtG for the most part and Edgar is no different. You might not be able to get rid of that eminence ability, but there's a lot of ways to play around it. Rakdos Charm costs 30 cents if that, there's untold variations of fog effects, tax-for-attacks, and if you want to turn his ability off entirely there's Containment Priest, Hallowed Moonlight and Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite. Or if you can't afford that there's Aether Snap, Illness in the Ranks, Toxic Deluge, Dissipation Field and untold number of lock down effects - Silent Arbiter or Crawlspace, Blinding Angel, there really are plenty of ways to mitigate Edgar's army, and a lot of them are cheap. I guess I'm saying there's tons of options, and as an Edgar player it's by no means a done deal that I win. I've also gone up against strong Edgar decks and beaten them, too. They're quick and strong, but there's no way I see them as overpowered.
In my experience, a tuned Karlov of the Ghost Council deck can be every bit as dangerous as an Edgar deck. Two nights ago I killed someone with Karlov on turn 4.
Here's the thing. Most decks don't pack specific token hate cards, and a well built Edgar deck can keep a decent board presence while keeping a large hand. If you board-wipe he rebuilds twice as fast and you've cleared the path.
As far as I'm concerned there's exactly one solution all my decks pack to Edgar in the command zone, and that's bringing his life total to 0, so while he's not 100% my choice every time, I tend to kill him when I can.
Aggro: WUBRGHorde of Notions Goodstuff, RUB Cheesy Aggro, GR Xenagod Gruul Goodstuff
Control: GWBGhave, Guru of Adaptability, UBWrexial, Milling Deep UAzami, Lady of No Infinite Combos GWU Derevi, Tempo Beats
Other: URGRiku of Too Much Mana, WUBRG Sliver Queen Enchantress
Really? I try to pack bare minimum one or two token answers in almost every deck I build. Especially if they're slow burner decks, but there almost isn't an exception. If it's not token destruction in particular, it's token punisher or combat deterrents. I understand that you can't answer every possible threat you might come up against, but the sort of things that you might pack against Edgar also work against a TON of other decks that run tokens too. The same answers that work against Edgar also work against the decks mentioned thus far - Krenko, Rhys, Ghave, as well as Rith, Gisa.....tokens are a strategy that's been around for a long time now. If you're not packing at least one or two answers or ways to compete against them then you don't really have an axe to grind.
I do also understand that tokens rebuild quickly. It's what makes them a threat, and its not isolated to Edgar. My Ghave deck is a threat because its resilient. I've played once or twice against someone proxying the new Izzet token general, Brudiclad. It's no different, and that guy in particulr is going to see some degenerate builds. To me, though, there's a degree of focussing on the wrong things as a threat that allows them to rebuild. Is Edgar refilling his hand with Necropotence? Vindicate THAT, not the tokens. Are the tokens enormous due to Shared Animosity? Beast Within is your answer. Then there's common 'nonland permanent' sweepers like Nev Disk, O-Stone, All is Dust, Cyclonic Rift (and who doesn't run this?), Wave of Vitriol, Hour of Revelation. Hell, even Tranquility will do you in a fix. Constant Mists will keep you alive, Insurrection turns the tables on Edgar: there almost isn't a deck archetype or colour that doesn't have at least a couple of answers.
I know this argument is at least somewhat reductive, but so is the argument that Edgar is too strong, or worthy of excessive hate. There's answers available, and if you don't run them to give yourself at least a fighting chance, more fool you. I think a lot of it comes down to the idea of building a deck with strong synergy for your own engine, but not building around speed bumps or contingencies. If you don't run answers for at least a couple of common archetypes, it's not just Edgar you're going to struggle against. Granted, he does tip the early turns on their heads, in that you need to be able to remove parts of his engine early, but that's not really ever out of the question.
I understand this, and can relate to it to some degree. That being said, you do realise that you're forcing the Edgar player's hand by playing this way, right? By gunning for him you're forcing him to remove you from the game early in order to survive? In other terms, if you were hunting a boar and had it trapped, you're calling it a threat of harm because you've caused it to be injured and threatened. The comparison isn't perfect, but playing the social aspect of EDH probably goes a long way with an Edgar player regardless. He or she has 3-4 turns to accelerate before the rest of the table is too well established to make a sizable dent, so having at least a temporary alliance could allow you to find answers to gain dominance over the table. Just a thought, I know it won't play out in every circumstance but it's not out of the question by any stretch.
The thread is about people hating your Edgar deck, and my point is just that when all other things are even you do have an emblem from the start of the game that can only be permanently removed with your loss or their win.
It's also about when the board state is empty you do have the ability to rebuild quicker than many other fair decks.
Do they go overboard? Maybe. But there are reasons to focus you when everything else seems even.
Aggro: WUBRGHorde of Notions Goodstuff, RUB Cheesy Aggro, GR Xenagod Gruul Goodstuff
Control: GWBGhave, Guru of Adaptability, UBWrexial, Milling Deep UAzami, Lady of No Infinite Combos GWU Derevi, Tempo Beats
Other: URGRiku of Too Much Mana, WUBRG Sliver Queen Enchantress
Understood. I still think a lot is made of these tokens coming from 'nowhere', and they don't. Again, on their own, the tokens aren't back breaking for anyone. I understand the hate, I just think there's times it goes a bit far and gets blown out of proportion.
I get that EDH is a social game, but it’s also supposed to be inclusive. If I owned multiple EDH decks and someone asked me to play with a different deck, I would have no issue. However, that’s the only Commander deck that I have right now. People should be free to team up on a deck if they want, or pack hate for it, but excluding a player from a game opposite of what Magic The Gathering is supposed to be.
JundBGR
RW Blood MoonRW
Pauper
Delver U
Elves G
Control B
Commander
Edgar Markov BRW
Captain Sisay GW
Niv-Mizzet, Parun UR
Tymna and Ravos WB
How fast is your build and how quickly are they going off?
I have just bought abput 17 cards for my Edgar deck this last weekend and have upgraded it based on IBSPathfinder's list recomendations. In goldfish tests, it has been well wprth it and I can feel the deck as much faster and more powerful, and my build was already able to lay the beat down pretty hard.
Are you spreading damage around or knocking players out one by one?
I love this Commander so much. Finally, an agro deck I can get excited about and in Mardu colors (as opposed to Zoo or Jund). What is not to like? Unless you shuffle up against it
If you're not focusing down 1 opponent at a time you're making a mistake. Aggro decks that try to spread the love post really pathetic results.
Kill the biggest threat, then the next, then the last one most games. Sometimes ease is more important than threat, but if they're combing all their pants should be pretty far down stopping your aggro.
Aggro: WUBRGHorde of Notions Goodstuff, RUB Cheesy Aggro, GR Xenagod Gruul Goodstuff
Control: GWBGhave, Guru of Adaptability, UBWrexial, Milling Deep UAzami, Lady of No Infinite Combos GWU Derevi, Tempo Beats
Other: URGRiku of Too Much Mana, WUBRG Sliver Queen Enchantress
That sounds like a meta problem rather than whether Edgar is too strong or not. In a good game, you should be able to have one opponent down by t5 or 6, so they must be comboing hard. And really there's not much of ways to stop that unless you play control, which this deck really isn't. So I'd swing hard against the combo players and take them out ASAP. ElliotS is right - one player at a time, biggest threats first, unless convenience states otherwise. I guess the one thing on your side against combo is that a lot of the time it's pretty transparent, so you should get a pretty good idea of who to attack ahead of time.
I love this commander, too. He has, however, become one of the decks I'll shuffle up only if the meta calls for it, along with Ur-Dragon (people complain about dragons even though it's pretty slow - people are stupid) and Ghave. I think its important to play games inclusively, so I always try to scale to the rest of the table, and encourage others to do so too. Yesterday I played a casual game against a Daretti that swung out hard with Mycosynth Lattice/Nevinyrral's Disk MLD and Metalworker for gas. It was ridiculous, and pretty much every player ended up calling him an ******** and scooping. He was smug and unrepentant, so I won't be playing him again. Personally, I never want to be that guy, and that's partly why I started this thread. I like inclusive games. So, if Edgar has to be a 'game hard' deck for me, so be it.
People complain about Ur-Dragon? Seriously? Yes, it's true that with him as the commander, you can sometimes get a couple of dragons onto the playing field in the same timeframe other players are dropping serious threats, instead of having to wait 1-2 turns later, but that just makes dragons reasonably viable as a deck, not overwhelming.
Some people really will complain about anything.
Yeah, they will. It’s another case of not running necessary answers.