Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
While I agree with many of the criteria mentioned so far and even though it falls short on a number of them, I want to give a shout out to Meglonoth. A wonderful, fun, creative blocker. Just give him reach, indestructible and first strike.
Riku of Two Reflections - Copy, then copy again | Shattergang Brothers - Token Sac&Recur | Gahiji, Honored One - Multiple attack steps | Karametra, God of Harvests - Landfall, Creaturefall, Shroud | Ruhan of the Fomori - Stop hitting yourself | Zurgo Helmsmasher - Equipment&Wraths | Crosis, the Purger - Dragon Tribal Reanimator | Derevi, Empyrial Tactician - No stax, just tap and untap fun | Anafenza, the Foremost - Enduring Ideal Enchantress | Sharuum, the Hegemon - Sphinx Tribal Control | Noyan Dar - Spellslinger | The Mimeoplasm - Counterpalooza
Lists can be found here.
Still convinced the guy on Beseech the Queen is wearing a Mitra-type hat. Wake up sheeple!
Wall of Denial answers every category except for blocking wide.
Unfortunately, it doesn't have any power, so you'll be blocking the biggest creature with power 7 or less (and no deathtouch or supertrample) over and over without some anthems (since of course it has shroud).
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Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
While I agree with many of the criteria mentioned so far and even though it falls short on a number of them . . .
Where do you think the criteria fall short?
sorry, I meant Meglonoth falls short as a great blocker according to some of your criteria (i.e. it doesn't have reach and is not cheap). My choice of words may have been a bit clunky.
Riku of Two Reflections - Copy, then copy again | Shattergang Brothers - Token Sac&Recur | Gahiji, Honored One - Multiple attack steps | Karametra, God of Harvests - Landfall, Creaturefall, Shroud | Ruhan of the Fomori - Stop hitting yourself | Zurgo Helmsmasher - Equipment&Wraths | Crosis, the Purger - Dragon Tribal Reanimator | Derevi, Empyrial Tactician - No stax, just tap and untap fun | Anafenza, the Foremost - Enduring Ideal Enchantress | Sharuum, the Hegemon - Sphinx Tribal Control | Noyan Dar - Spellslinger | The Mimeoplasm - Counterpalooza
Lists can be found here.
Still convinced the guy on Beseech the Queen is wearing a Mitra-type hat. Wake up sheeple!
sorry, I meant Meglonoth falls short as a great blocker according to some of your criteria (i.e. it doesn't have reach and is not cheap). My choice of words may have been a bit clunky.
That's okay. It's going to be hard to find cards that meet all of my criteria. After all, the more valuable a card is, the more expensive it is likely to be, so even a phenomenal blocker like Teysa, Envoy of Ghosts won't meet all of my criteria.
Unfortunately, it doesn't have any power, so you'll be blocking the biggest creature with power 7 or less (and no deathtouch or supertrample) over and over without some anthems (since of course it has shroud).
This. Wall of Denial and similar cards like Fog Bank make for poor blockers imo since there aren't any consequences to attacking into them.
Ofc there are consequences, your creature is tapped and you missed the opportunity to attack someone else. Imo you want a gentle nudge towards attacking others, not a rough shove (I.e. constant mists). Then you're just a threat.
Interesting new card for blocking from allegiance is mesmerizing benthid. Creates multiple tokens that suck to attack fatties into, and it's a good reliable blocker for small stuff and/or an equipment magnet. Doesn't look edh-focused on the surface but I think it'll play better than expected.
Interesting new card for blocking from allegiance is mesmerizing benthid. Creates multiple tokens that suck to attack fatties into, and it's a good reliable blocker for small stuff and/or an equipment magnet. Doesn't look edh-focused on the surface but I think it'll play better than expected.
I was actually thinking the same thing. Glad I wasn't the only one considering it.
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WUBRGMr. Bones' Wild RideGRBUW Trap your friends in an endless game with this 23-card combo!
Not necessarily. Maybe you can't attack or block your other opponents profitably, but you can pot shot a guy with a wall.
You can always be out-defensed by the other players. That said, if you can't attack or even block the other players, and one guy is sitting there with some walls, I feel like maybe you should be allied with him instead of hitting him, generally-speaking.
I'm not entirely convinced you don't not want to be a threat at all times anyway.
If the goal of having good blocks is that it sends attacks elsewhere, then there's certainly a point of diminishing returns where your defensive power is too strong to be ignored and attacks can't reasonably go elsewhere. Even with something purely defensive like constant mists (especially with a way to consistently fuel it), if one player has no way to beat it, then they'd be an idiot to attack the other players. They need to either ally with your opponents to kill you first, or convince the other players to help dismantle your defenses.
I've had similar situations in, for example, hapatra brawl where I created a dozen deathtouchy snakes or so. I'd hoped that would push attacks elsewhere, but instead this display of power showed the other players that I needed to be dealt with, even if it meant significant losses against my snake horde, and the attacks intensified rather than diminished. Whereas if I'd only had a couple snakes I may have seemed like a less significant threat that could be ignored until later. I think the goal is for your opponents to think you're vulnerable enough that you won't be an insurmountable problem later, while being nasty enough that you're not worth taking on right now.
You can always be out-defensed by the other players. That said, if you can't attack or even block the other players, and one guy is sitting there with some walls, I feel like maybe you should be allied with him instead of hitting him, generally-speaking.
If the goal of having good blocks is that it sends attacks elsewhere...
See, that's just it. I'm not sure that is the point of blocking. I mean, yes, redirecting attacks that might otherwise be directed at you is certainly advantageous, but at what cost? Because it seems to me you pay a heavy price to do so. The way I see it, the goal of having good blocks is not to leverage opponents into possibly damaging one another; it's to mitigate damage. If your opponents do happen to fight one another, great. That's wonderful, but that's just icing on the cake.
...then there's certainly a point of diminishing returns where your defensive power is too strong to be ignored and attacks can't reasonably go elsewhere. Even with something purely defensive like constant mists (especially with a way to consistently fuel it), if one player has no way to beat it, then they'd be an idiot to attack the other players. They need to either ally with your opponents to kill you first, or convince the other players to help dismantle your defenses.
I agree with the rest of what you've written here. Sometimes a player can't be defeated because their defenses are insurmountable, so that player's opponents band together temporarily to knock them down a peg. I think it's also worth mentioning that you can have the best defenses without simultaneously being the archenemy though.
I've had similar situations in, for example, hapatra brawl where I created a dozen deathtouchy snakes or so. I'd hoped that would push attacks elsewhere, but instead this display of power showed the other players that I needed to be dealt with, even if it meant significant losses against my snake horde, and the attacks intensified rather than diminished. Whereas if I'd only had a couple snakes I may have seemed like a less significant threat that could be ignored until later. I think the goal is for your opponents to think you're vulnerable enough that you won't be an insurmountable problem later, while being nasty enough that you're not worth taking on right now.
Oops, now I'm just talking about Phelddagrif
I find this really interesting. Did you end up winning that game? This may sound provocative (and that is not my intention), but rather than making too many, I suspect you may not have made enough snakes.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you and I both understand that there's this valley one can enter where, by accumulating power, one becomes a target. What's interesting about this valley is that, at its nadir, you're actually more vulnerable than if you hadn't entered it at all since, despite your collection of power, you've now drawn the attention of each of your opponents, and the not-insignificant-but-not-significant-enough power you've obtained isn't enough to stop your collective enemies, so you usually end off worse for having traveled there.
What I believe you're concerned about is entering the valley. You don't ever want to reach the nadir. After all, it's possible to accomplish your goals without ever going there in the first place. You need only install minor deterrents, as you've already pointed out. I'm on the opposite side. I'm not concerned about entering the valley. I'm concerned with not crossing it. I understand that, once you reach the nadir, there's nowhere to go but up. If you've already drawn the ire of all your opponents, you can't draw out any more ire; the valley only ascends, so every further bit of power one accumulates comes without cost.
Some strategies (like combo decks that win out of nowhere) have the luxury of never having to appear threatening. Other strategies don't have this luxury; they broadcast exactly how well they are doing to the entire table. But sometimes it doesn't matter if you're broadcasting this because there's nothing your opponents can do about it. Maybe everyone at the table understands you're a problem, but no one can do anything about it, so they just resume playing, and everyone plays their cards to the best of their ability given the situation anyway. It doesn't mean the most powerful person will always be on the receiving end of every card. Sometimes you're in a powerful state, everyone knows it, and not much can be done about it, but the game isn't over either.
It's still better to destroy threats. That's why back in the day, Wall of Swords was the closest thing we had to a passable wall. I mean, it still wasn't "good", but there weren't a lot of walls you could play.
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Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
See, that's just it. I'm not sure that is the point of blocking. I mean, yes, redirecting attacks that might otherwise be directed at you is certainly advantageous, but at what cost? Because it seems to me you pay a heavy price to do so. The way I see it, the goal of having good blocks is not to leverage opponents into possibly damaging one another; it's to mitigate damage. If your opponents do happen to fight one another, great. That's wonderful, but that's just icing on the cake.
I'm not sure what you mean about a "heavy price", but sure, damaging an opponent is, broadly speaking, 1/x as important as preserving your own life, where x is the number of opponents, so generally self-preservation is more important. But on the other hand, dealing damage > gaining(/preserving) life. And sometimes in casual formats people develop grudges against each other for attacking and then you're even more likely to be ignored, and it just generally raises their threat profile. So sure, directing attacks elsewhere is the lesser of the two, but it's a pretty thick and rich icing imo.
I think it's also worth mentioning that you can have the best defenses without simultaneously being the archenemy though.
Agreed, I think it's all a matter of context. Ideally you've got the best defenses by a nose, but significantly less offensive power, in order to win the "least likely to be attacked" award. Keeping yourself in the right position in these regards is a key part of smart politics imo.
I find this really interesting. Did you end up winning that game? This may sound provocative (and that is not my intention), but rather than making too many, I suspect you may not have made enough snakes.
Well it was all I could make (I played liliana's influence), if I could have made more I would have. At that point I assumed I'd be the biggest threat, but in a way that would make it very difficult to mess with me profitably. Which was true, but it didn't stop people from doing it. So yes, more snakes would definitely have been better at that point since I was already the threat. Possibly fewer snakes would also have been better to avoid making me the threat, although idk how many fewer would have been necessary. Hard to be sure. I think I also have a bit of a rep for winning frequently, even if I don't play anything frowned upon. So that also makes it more likely I'll attract ire.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you and I both understand that there's this valley one can enter where, by accumulating power, one becomes a target. What's interesting about this valley is that, at its nadir, you're actually more vulnerable than if you hadn't entered it at all since, despite your collection of power, you've now drawn the attention of each of your opponents, and the not-insignificant-but-not-significant-enough power you've obtained isn't enough to stop your collective enemies, so you usually end off worse for having traveled there.
What I believe you're concerned about is entering the valley. You don't ever want to reach the nadir. After all, it's possible to accomplish your goals without ever going there in the first place. You need only install minor deterrents, as you've already pointed out. I'm on the opposite side. I'm not concerned about entering the valley. I'm concerned with not crossing it. I understand that, once you reach the nadir, there's nowhere to go but up. If you've already drawn the ire of all your opponents, you can't draw out any more ire; the valley only ascends, so every further bit of power one accumulates comes without cost.
Some strategies (like combo decks that win out of nowhere) have the luxury of never having to appear threatening. Other strategies don't have this luxury; they broadcast exactly how well they are doing to the entire table. But sometimes it doesn't matter if you're broadcasting this because there's nothing your opponents can do about it. Maybe everyone at the table understands you're a problem, but no one can do anything about it, so they just resume playing, and everyone plays their cards to the best of their ability given the situation anyway. It doesn't mean the most powerful person will always be on the receiving end of every card. Sometimes you're in a powerful state, everyone knows it, and not much can be done about it, but the game isn't over either.
Oooh, these are really good observations. You've put them into words very nicely. The valley metaphor is uncannily apt (:P), so now I'm going to abuse the hell out of it.
Generally I think once you're in the valley, most likely you're going to get dragged out of it by the table ganging up on you. Most of the time, if you're able to make it to the other side of the valley, it's because you jumped straight over it with some burst of power - a combo, a strong synergy, or maybe just one particularly nasty bomb, most often. If you're legitimately at the nadir of the valley I think you've usually got a hard time getting up the far side. Maybe you can tiptoe up to the edge of the valley and then jump over before people are paying too much attention, but to make it from the nadir back up I think is very hard, because from the nadir onwards everyone is ganging up on you. If you do make it out, I think most of the time it's because you weren't really at the nadir at all, but some ways up the far side.
Part of why I like to play how I play is because it appeals to what I think feel like "earned wins". I used to play, for example, my child of alara deck. It started wiping the board around turn 4-5 and basically just does it every turn until the game is over, and it's pretty hard to dismantle since it has tons of recursion and protection built in. And it was kind of fun for a little while, but pretty quickly it got boring because my group just wasn't really capable of beating it. I made it to the far side of the valley, but it wasn't very satisfying. I think the same thing about making most combo decks. If you're playing it well against an average LGS commander group, I think it's almost trivial to win. In a cEDH group ofc it isn't, but most LGS players won't have answers, and if they do they won't have many and they probably won't leave them up at the critical time, especially if they haven't seen the deck before.
Maybe a better example is something value-oriented, like maelstrom wanderer. When I played maelstrom wanderer I was usually archenemy from around turn 3-4 and never really stopped being so, and I still usually won. At that point it seems like I won just because my cards/deck was so much better(my collection contributes a lot to this, ofc), not because of any skill. In medium-powered commander I think it's pretty easy to make it up the far side of the valley with either a powerful deck or something that jumps you over quickly, but if that's your only objective then I don't think that's an interesting goal for exactly that reason. So instead, I like to focus on how to win without ever feeling unfair or overpowered, but trying to find ways to win that rely as much as possible on skill, and as little as possible on having better cards. Usually this means it's very advantageous to stay on the near side of the valley for as long as possible, since I lack cards and combos that can easily catapult me over to the other side.
Of course I realize that isn't necessarily how much people like to play, but everyone who isn't playing cEDH has to draw their own line in the sand for how they're going to limit their deckbuilding.
Part of why I like to play how I play is because it appeals to what I think feel like "earned wins". I used to play, for example, my child of alara deck. It started wiping the board around turn 4-5 and basically just does it every turn until the game is over, and it's pretty hard to dismantle since it has tons of recursion and protection built in. And it was kind of fun for a little while, but pretty quickly it got boring because my group just wasn't really capable of beating it. I made it to the far side of the valley, but it wasn't very satisfying. I think the same thing about making most combo decks. If you're playing it well against an average LGS commander group, I think it's almost trivial to win. In a cEDH group ofc it isn't, but most LGS players won't have answers, and if they do they won't have many and they probably won't leave them up at the critical time, especially if they haven't seen the deck before.
Maybe a better example is something value-oriented, like maelstrom wanderer. When I played maelstrom wanderer I was usually archenemy from around turn 3-4 and never really stopped being so, and I still usually won. At that point it seems like I won just because my cards/deck was so much better(my collection contributes a lot to this, ofc), not because of any skill. In medium-powered commander I think it's pretty easy to make it up the far side of the valley with either a powerful deck or something that jumps you over quickly, but if that's your only objective then I don't think that's an interesting goal for exactly that reason. So instead, I like to focus on how to win without ever feeling unfair or overpowered, but trying to find ways to win that rely as much as possible on skill, and as little as possible on having better cards. Usually this means it's very advantageous to stay on the near side of the valley for as long as possible, since I lack cards and combos that can easily catapult me over to the other side.
Of course I realize that isn't necessarily how much people like to play, but everyone who isn't playing cEDH has to draw their own line in the sand for how they're going to limit their deckbuilding.
Respectable and relatable. Limitations are the key to creativity, and this game is a lot more fun thinking around corners rather than busting through them.
Even better than deathtouch is the ability stapled onto Pit Spawn|
Trump card
On phasing:
But the slagwurm doesn't deal with indestructible.
I tried to exclude defenders and vigilantes.
We might as well include Hornet’s Nest to that list. Also permeating mass is obnoxious to attack into.
Tamanoa - Welcome to the Jungle
Lists can be found here.
Well I guess less technically..
Niv-Mizzet Reborn
Feather, the Redeemed
Estrid, the Masked
Teshar
Tymna/Ravos
Najeela, Blade-Blossom
Firesong & Sunspeaker
Zur the Enchanter
Lazav, the Multifarious
Ishai+Reyhan
Click images for decks->
-Prime Speaker Vannifar
---------------------Will & Rowan Kenrith
Trap your friends in an endless game with this 23-card combo!
Souls of the Faultless can be annoying.
Wall of Denial answers every category except for blocking wide.
Low-power cube enthusiast!
My 1570 card cube (no longer updated)
My 415 Peasant+ Artifact and Enchantment Cube
Ever-Expanding "Just throw it in" cube.
Unfortunately, it doesn't have any power, so you'll be blocking the biggest creature with power 7 or less (and no deathtouch or supertrample) over and over without some anthems (since of course it has shroud).
On phasing:
Tamanoa - Welcome to the Jungle
Lists can be found here.
This. Wall of Denial and similar cards like Fog Bank make for poor blockers imo since there aren't any consequences to attacking into them.
Trap your friends in an endless game with this 23-card combo!
Interesting new card for blocking from allegiance is mesmerizing benthid. Creates multiple tokens that suck to attack fatties into, and it's a good reliable blocker for small stuff and/or an equipment magnet. Doesn't look edh-focused on the surface but I think it'll play better than expected.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
I'm not entirely convinced you don't not want to be a threat at all times anyway.
I was actually thinking the same thing. Glad I wasn't the only one considering it.
Trap your friends in an endless game with this 23-card combo!
If the goal of having good blocks is that it sends attacks elsewhere, then there's certainly a point of diminishing returns where your defensive power is too strong to be ignored and attacks can't reasonably go elsewhere. Even with something purely defensive like constant mists (especially with a way to consistently fuel it), if one player has no way to beat it, then they'd be an idiot to attack the other players. They need to either ally with your opponents to kill you first, or convince the other players to help dismantle your defenses.
I've had similar situations in, for example, hapatra brawl where I created a dozen deathtouchy snakes or so. I'd hoped that would push attacks elsewhere, but instead this display of power showed the other players that I needed to be dealt with, even if it meant significant losses against my snake horde, and the attacks intensified rather than diminished. Whereas if I'd only had a couple snakes I may have seemed like a less significant threat that could be ignored until later. I think the goal is for your opponents to think you're vulnerable enough that you won't be an insurmountable problem later, while being nasty enough that you're not worth taking on right now.
Oops, now I'm just talking about Phelddagrif
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
See, that's just it. I'm not sure that is the point of blocking. I mean, yes, redirecting attacks that might otherwise be directed at you is certainly advantageous, but at what cost? Because it seems to me you pay a heavy price to do so. The way I see it, the goal of having good blocks is not to leverage opponents into possibly damaging one another; it's to mitigate damage. If your opponents do happen to fight one another, great. That's wonderful, but that's just icing on the cake.
I agree with the rest of what you've written here. Sometimes a player can't be defeated because their defenses are insurmountable, so that player's opponents band together temporarily to knock them down a peg. I think it's also worth mentioning that you can have the best defenses without simultaneously being the archenemy though.
I find this really interesting. Did you end up winning that game? This may sound provocative (and that is not my intention), but rather than making too many, I suspect you may not have made enough snakes.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you and I both understand that there's this valley one can enter where, by accumulating power, one becomes a target. What's interesting about this valley is that, at its nadir, you're actually more vulnerable than if you hadn't entered it at all since, despite your collection of power, you've now drawn the attention of each of your opponents, and the not-insignificant-but-not-significant-enough power you've obtained isn't enough to stop your collective enemies, so you usually end off worse for having traveled there.
What I believe you're concerned about is entering the valley. You don't ever want to reach the nadir. After all, it's possible to accomplish your goals without ever going there in the first place. You need only install minor deterrents, as you've already pointed out. I'm on the opposite side. I'm not concerned about entering the valley. I'm concerned with not crossing it. I understand that, once you reach the nadir, there's nowhere to go but up. If you've already drawn the ire of all your opponents, you can't draw out any more ire; the valley only ascends, so every further bit of power one accumulates comes without cost.
Some strategies (like combo decks that win out of nowhere) have the luxury of never having to appear threatening. Other strategies don't have this luxury; they broadcast exactly how well they are doing to the entire table. But sometimes it doesn't matter if you're broadcasting this because there's nothing your opponents can do about it. Maybe everyone at the table understands you're a problem, but no one can do anything about it, so they just resume playing, and everyone plays their cards to the best of their ability given the situation anyway. It doesn't mean the most powerful person will always be on the receiving end of every card. Sometimes you're in a powerful state, everyone knows it, and not much can be done about it, but the game isn't over either.
Thanks for mentioning Rhonas. I used to play him to amazing effect, and I somehow forgot all about him.
Trap your friends in an endless game with this 23-card combo!
On phasing:
Spider Spawning Makes a lot of decent chumps.
Low-power cube enthusiast!
My 1570 card cube (no longer updated)
My 415 Peasant+ Artifact and Enchantment Cube
Ever-Expanding "Just throw it in" cube.
Agreed, I think it's all a matter of context. Ideally you've got the best defenses by a nose, but significantly less offensive power, in order to win the "least likely to be attacked" award. Keeping yourself in the right position in these regards is a key part of smart politics imo.
Well it was all I could make (I played liliana's influence), if I could have made more I would have. At that point I assumed I'd be the biggest threat, but in a way that would make it very difficult to mess with me profitably. Which was true, but it didn't stop people from doing it. So yes, more snakes would definitely have been better at that point since I was already the threat. Possibly fewer snakes would also have been better to avoid making me the threat, although idk how many fewer would have been necessary. Hard to be sure. I think I also have a bit of a rep for winning frequently, even if I don't play anything frowned upon. So that also makes it more likely I'll attract ire.
Oooh, these are really good observations. You've put them into words very nicely. The valley metaphor is uncannily apt (:P), so now I'm going to abuse the hell out of it.
Generally I think once you're in the valley, most likely you're going to get dragged out of it by the table ganging up on you. Most of the time, if you're able to make it to the other side of the valley, it's because you jumped straight over it with some burst of power - a combo, a strong synergy, or maybe just one particularly nasty bomb, most often. If you're legitimately at the nadir of the valley I think you've usually got a hard time getting up the far side. Maybe you can tiptoe up to the edge of the valley and then jump over before people are paying too much attention, but to make it from the nadir back up I think is very hard, because from the nadir onwards everyone is ganging up on you. If you do make it out, I think most of the time it's because you weren't really at the nadir at all, but some ways up the far side.
Part of why I like to play how I play is because it appeals to what I think feel like "earned wins". I used to play, for example, my child of alara deck. It started wiping the board around turn 4-5 and basically just does it every turn until the game is over, and it's pretty hard to dismantle since it has tons of recursion and protection built in. And it was kind of fun for a little while, but pretty quickly it got boring because my group just wasn't really capable of beating it. I made it to the far side of the valley, but it wasn't very satisfying. I think the same thing about making most combo decks. If you're playing it well against an average LGS commander group, I think it's almost trivial to win. In a cEDH group ofc it isn't, but most LGS players won't have answers, and if they do they won't have many and they probably won't leave them up at the critical time, especially if they haven't seen the deck before.
Maybe a better example is something value-oriented, like maelstrom wanderer. When I played maelstrom wanderer I was usually archenemy from around turn 3-4 and never really stopped being so, and I still usually won. At that point it seems like I won just because my cards/deck was so much better(my collection contributes a lot to this, ofc), not because of any skill. In medium-powered commander I think it's pretty easy to make it up the far side of the valley with either a powerful deck or something that jumps you over quickly, but if that's your only objective then I don't think that's an interesting goal for exactly that reason. So instead, I like to focus on how to win without ever feeling unfair or overpowered, but trying to find ways to win that rely as much as possible on skill, and as little as possible on having better cards. Usually this means it's very advantageous to stay on the near side of the valley for as long as possible, since I lack cards and combos that can easily catapult me over to the other side.
Of course I realize that isn't necessarily how much people like to play, but everyone who isn't playing cEDH has to draw their own line in the sand for how they're going to limit their deckbuilding.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
Respectable and relatable. Limitations are the key to creativity, and this game is a lot more fun thinking around corners rather than busting through them.