Exactly this. After an Armageddon it's like the beginning of the game again, except you have what is likely a bad hand and some stuff on the board (which seems like a reasonable tradeoff). Just draw-go until the game kicks into gear again, it is really not that horrible, it starts up again pretty quickly. Unless the MLD player had a commanding board, in which case yeah it might be over.
Re: the ramp player recovering first... What you'll generally find is that they've stripped their deck of so much land in the early turns that they have a lower chance of drawing it. If they're running a bunch of rocks, well, isn't everyone? I don't see how that's a problem. The first person to recover is most often going to be the deck with the lowest mana curve (which is in most cases the most competitive deck at the table). If the ramp deck in your group is recovering from MLD faster than you, then your curve is probably too high relative to the amount of ramp -you- are running.
I play "MLD Tribal". There's not a single time where I resolve one, that it doesn't end the game in my favor.
Wait, I though MLD was used to rein in the ramp player? I thought it was to police those high curve decks from getting out of control? MLD isn’t some tactic to “help” anybody from the ramp guy, it’s a win-con for you. I thought the point of this discussion was how to handle ramp, not how to win with MLD. See, entitled. So the guy can’t ramp to 100 and win, but you can blow sh** up and win.
In short, you aren’t playing Armageddon to slow down a ramp player, you are only playing it to win.
I play "MLD Tribal". There's not a single time where I resolve one, that it doesn't end the game in my favor.
Wait, I though MLD was used to rein in the ramp player? I thought it was to police those high curve decks from getting out of control? MLD isn’t some tactic to “help” anybody from the ramp guy, it’s a win-con for you. I thought the point of this discussion was how to handle ramp, not how to win with MLD. See, entitled. So the guy can’t ramp to 100 and win, but you can blow sh** up and win.
In short, you aren’t playing Armageddon to slow down ano ramp player, you are only playing it to win.
Alright, say I'm in a war against you. By the very nature of the war, our strategies and resources are in contention. So if I build an army of Panzers to roll over your borders and meanwhile, you nuke my capital city, you have a) beaten my tanks because my entire government is dead and unable to lead, and b) won the war. Drinks is saying combating ramp and winning are not mutually exclusive, which is a pretty goddamn sound and valid statement in context of a card game, no?
I play "MLD Tribal". There's not a single time where I resolve one, that it doesn't end the game in my favor.
Wait, I though MLD was used to rein in the ramp player? I thought it was to police those high curve decks from getting out of control? MLD isn’t some tactic to “help” anybody from the ramp guy, it’s a win-con for you. I thought the point of this discussion was how to handle ramp, not how to win with MLD. See, entitled. So the guy can’t ramp to 100 and win, but you can blow sh** up and win.
In short, you aren’t playing Armageddon to slow down ano ramp player, you are only playing it to win.
Alright, say I'm in a war against you. By the very nature of the war, our strategies and resources are in contention. So if I build an army of Panzers to roll over your borders and meanwhile, you nuke my capital city, you have a) beaten my tanks because my entire government is dead and unable to lead, and b) won the war. Drinks is saying combating ramp and winning are not mutually exclusive, which is a pretty goddamn sound and valid statement in context of a card game, no?
So you’re punishing the other players as well because some dude is playing Cultivate? It’s not a “goddamn sound statement” because on just the page prior there’s a list of about a half-dozen other strategies that combat ramp that doesn’t include blowing up any lands.
They can be mutually exclusive. Hell, up until that statement not one person mentioned “Armageddon to a win”, it has mostly been “Armageddon to slow the Ramp”. Or was that just taken out of context?
Also, I can’t believe that is your interpretation of war. Sounds like 1 to many games of COD.
The pro-MLD folk here seem to be very much ignoring the social contract aspect of the game. If MLD is cool in the group you are playing with, good. But it is also okay if they are not okay with MLD. Insisting that people should be okay with MLD is essentially saying everyone should want to play the game the way you want to play it, and that is about as asocial a stance as one can take.
People who don't want MLD in their EDH games are not bad players or wrong or whatever. They just want a different sort of game than you would prefer, and that is okay.
People who like MLD are also not bad players or wrong or whatever. They just want a different sort of game than the majority of EDH players want - and yes, like it or not, MLD guys, most EDH players are not big on MLD. That's just a fact. But you aren't wrong for wanting what you want, either. NEITHER side is wrong, they just prefer different sorts of games, which is completely okay. That's part of the whole "social contract" thing. Same with people who prefer a more cEDH vs. those who prefer things to be much less competitive. Some people just want to win. Other care less about winning than they do about having a fun, social game where everyone has a good time. Nether is wrong, they are just different.
The solution is for people who like MLD to play with other people who are cool with MLD, or to play a range of decks and not play your MLD decks with people who aren't cool with MLD.
And again, to get back to the original question of this thread, MLD is actually not a very reliable way to deal with ramp decks. MLD is a control strategy akin to stax. Claiming otherwise is at best erroneous, at worst dishonest. 3Drinks is honest about it... it is a strategy he uses to win games. That's a more competitive approach to the game than a lot of EDH players prefer (and most pro-MLD people do fall further to the competitive end of the casual/competitive continuum), but he isn't wrong for liking that, so long as he doesn't insist on bringing that to the table when playing with people who want a less competitive game.
Players should expect to be punished in Magic. The whole idea that we're entitled to keep our resources is ludicrous at best.
Uh, no. That’s not the type of game everybody enjoys. That’s also not the type of game the RC of the format encourages. I don’t care about Wrath of God or whatever kind of sweeper is needed. Targeted LD is also fair game. I don’t really see the need for MLD, specifically if it’s just employed to “slow the ramp player”, or worse, that “players should expect to be punished”.
Players should expect to be punished in Magic. The whole idea that we're entitled to keep our resources is ludicrous at best.
Uh, no. That’s not the type of game everybody enjoys. That’s also not the type of game the RC of the format encourages. I don’t care about Wrath of God or whatever kind of sweeper is needed. Targeted LD is also fair game. I don’t really see the need for MLD, specifically if it’s just employed to “slow the ramp player”, or worse, that “players should expect to be punished”.
In competitive Magic, the Baron would be correct. In default EDH, not so much. He's not wrong for liking what he likes, but the idea that players should "expect to be punished" is not really consistent with what the majority of EDH players want.
The problem with saying that MLD is just another form of resource punishment is that land, unlike other resources, is very difficult to replenish. Someone hits you with mind twist? Topdeck a big draw spell and you're fine. Someone hits you with a board wipe? No problem, if you've played it smart you might have a hand full of creatures to reload. With MLD, short of a counterspell or a handful of other pretty specific tools like faith's reward(which requires keeping up 4) or splendid reclamation(which still needs some mana to cast post geddon), there is basically no way to interact with it. Otherwise your plan is to keep playing one land per turn at best until you're back in the game, which is way too slow to be relevant if the MLD player has planned ahead by either having a wincon on board, or a decent amount of artifact mana. You can be sitting on a handful of land just in case someone plays geddon, and it's still going to mean nothing most of the time. So this argument of punishing players for not planning ahead or whatever is nonsense.
And the idea that you're punishing ramp is similarly ludicrous. Well-placed MLD wins the game by punishing people for not having board presence, not for playing ramp specifically. If the ramp player has already deployed a big threat or two then they probably don't mind it at all. On the other hand, someone playing a non-rampy deck could easily get knocked out of the game just as easily as the ramper, if they don't have much on board. Plus, of course, any non-land ramp isn't affected by MLD. If your group enjoys MLD and thinks it's a fair wincon, then go ahead and play it, I've got nothing against players who like playing high-powered decks against other high-powered decks. But it's not a ramp punisher. It's a punisher for anyone who doesn't currently have a significant board presence or artifact mana.
If you want to punish ramp specifically, you've got a few options:
-play aggressively to hurt them while they're powering up
-they have a lower threat to mana ratio, so having answers can slow them down a lot
-there are a handful of cards that hurt ramp players while not locking people out of the game, like natural balance and keldon firebombers, as long as your group is cool with them
-play targeted LD like strip mine to deal with the coffers and gaea's cradles of the world
The pro-MLD folk here seem to be very much ignoring the social contract aspect of the game. If MLD is cool in the group you are playing with, good. But it is also okay if they are not okay with MLD. Insisting that people should be okay with MLD is essentially saying everyone should want to play the game the way you want to play it, and that is about as asocial a stance as one can take.
People who don't want MLD in their EDH games are not bad players or wrong or whatever. They just want a different sort of game than you would prefer, and that is okay.
People who like MLD are also not bad players or wrong or whatever. They just want a different sort of game than the majority of EDH players want - and yes, like it or not, MLD guys, most EDH players are not big on MLD. That's just a fact. But you aren't wrong for wanting what you want, either. NEITHER side is wrong, they just prefer different sorts of games, which is completely okay. That's part of the whole "social contract" thing. Same with people who prefer a more cEDH vs. those who prefer things to be much less competitive. Some people just want to win. Other care less about winning than they do about having a fun, social game where everyone has a good time. Nether is wrong, they are just different.
The solution is for people who like MLD to play with other people who are cool with MLD, or to play a range of decks and not play your MLD decks with people who aren't cool with MLD.
And again, to get back to the original question of this thread, MLD is actually not a very reliable way to deal with ramp decks. MLD is a control strategy akin to stax. Claiming otherwise is at best erroneous, at worst dishonest. 3Drinks is honest about it... it is a strategy he uses to win games. That's a more competitive approach to the game than a lot of EDH players prefer (and most pro-MLD people do fall further to the competitive end of the casual/competitive continuum), but he isn't wrong for liking that, so long as he doesn't insist on bringing that to the table when playing with people who want a less competitive game.
I get what you are saying, and I think that a conversation prior to a game is always critical.
However, the issue becomes when people who say “No MLD” also think it’s cool to play Boundless Realms. It’s akin to someone playing combo and saying “No counterspells” or Elfball combo and saying “No board wipes.” If a deck’s strategy is to vomit as many lands out as possible and do something huge, I’m going to pack answers for that.
And again, it’s important to remember that land destruction spells are spells on the hands of players. You cannot blanket say that every time someone plays MLD that X happens. I play Wildfire in my Xantcha deck because she survives the damage, small blockers get wiped, and it sets a boardstate that often requires Xantcha activations for players to dig to mana sources. All those things help my deck win, and since I have the spell in my hand/deck, I can craft a situation where it benefits me. My answers are cheap, so I can operate on fewer mana sources, and I run a land count on the higher end to lower the probability that I fail to recover if I have to deploy it early.
What about heavy Artifact Ramp? Or Mana Dorks? The only group that sounds “entitled” are the one who believe they are “policing” the format with MLD, protecting us all from the big scary ramp monster.
For reals tho, who has ever said “Thanks for blowing up my sh** just to slow that guy down”.
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!
@JWK, you know I respect your philosophies, but respectfully I disagree here. The topic in this thread is "how to combat ramp", and by taking away the weakness ramp has (over committing lands into a sweeper), you instead twist the very game you've socially agreed upon to be one of "play ramp or lose". All archetypes need their checks lest the game as a whole become entirely unbalanced. Might as well get everyone playing Maelstrom Wanderer, or 3 Wanderers and 1 Thrassios/Tymna flash-hulk (because there's always that one guy at a table, esp at the LGS) because doing something not-Wanderer (big dumb ramp things) is inherently inferior.
This thread should be titled "ways to combat ramp that don't involve blowing up the world" to which is a much different conversation. As it is, however, this discussion is solved and now we're arguing semantics in what makes a "game to remember" rather than a "game to forget".
Where the actual f*** does this even come from? Do you really believe that? I see your Alesha deck in your signature, and I had one myself. I had an incredibly low curve with some high-cost targets that probably would never be hard cast. I had Sol Ring and the corresponding signets, that’s it. The deck functioned really well. Won way more games than lost, that’s for sure. I played in a no-LD group, and I can safely say that ramp players didn’t run away with games. Likewise, I played hundreds of games with Big Green decks and lost plenty, without LD.
Again, MLD does nothing to Ramp. It’s a way to protect boardstates. Saying otherwise is flat out wrong. Fast combo also punishes Ramp decks, so why not just suggest that?
I honestly do not find MLD to be a very good answer to ramp, because it only really helps in narrow situations:
1) where you can also sweep the creatures, if the ramp player is ahead
2) where you have a mana advantage in the form of rocks/dorks and can also recover from their remaining board state
3) where the board is clear already and someone is just way ahead on mana
The issue with these is that there are so many situations where it seems like fits one of these but in fact the ramp player will recover faster, or they can defend their board state, etc.
So MLD often becomes what someone else alluded to as a partial reset that cripples people at random--I've seen MLD hit and two players had no more lands to play and couldn't recover, but the ramp player had a life from the loam and just kept trucking, for example.
Hell one game I had I got MLD'd as gitrog and still had an exploration and gitrog on board and was able to splendid reclamation that turn off my mana crypt and lands in hand Basically won the game for me since I put 20+ lands back into play and everyone else was chilling on a couple mana rocks.
MLD is good at closing games vs. Ramp when you're ahead on board but it's far from a generic answer to a land ramp deck. Most of the time it's just annoying when played defensively.
Where the actual f*** does this even come from? Do you really believe that? I see your Alesha deck in your signature, and I had one myself. I had an incredibly low curve with some high-cost targets that probably would never be hard cast. I had Sol Ring and the corresponding signets, that’s it. The deck functioned really well. Won way more games than lost, that’s for sure. I played in a no-LD group, and I can safely say that ramp players didn’t run away with games. Likewise, I played hundreds of games with Big Green decks and lost plenty, without LD.
Again, MLD does nothing to Ramp. It’s a way to protect boardstates. Saying otherwise is flat out wrong. Fast combo also punishes Ramp decks, so why not just suggest that?
Why not suggest fast combo? Would it surprise you that no small amount of Commander players complain about that too? And fast aggro taking out one player first? They complain about that. What we actually have is a house ban on losing.
Edit: Makes sense in the larger context of WotC devaluing everything that stops creatures from getting onto the battlefield, and making sure every creature does its job on etb despite removal, because a significant portion of the community would rather play unopposed.
Magic is about answers and interaction. Playing a wasteland isn’t any different from playing a terminate. The social aspect of commander says you should target the strongest player, not the weakest player. If you use a wasteland or terminate against the weakest player, that’s a jerk move. If you use it against the strongest player, it’s a smart move.
Other options are search hate, like Aven Mindcensor, or a reclamation sage to blow up a sol ring or mirrari’s wake. Or you can try and kill the player who is ramping.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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
Where the actual f*** does this even come from? Do you really believe that? I see your Alesha deck in your signature, and I had one myself. I had an incredibly low curve with some high-cost targets that probably would never be hard cast. I had Sol Ring and the corresponding signets, that’s it. The deck functioned really well. Won way more games than lost, that’s for sure. I played in a no-LD group, and I can safely say that ramp players didn’t run away with games. Likewise, I played hundreds of games with Big Green decks and lost plenty, without LD.
Again, MLD does nothing to Ramp. It’s a way to protect boardstates. Saying otherwise is flat out wrong. Fast combo also punishes Ramp decks, so why not just suggest that?
Why not suggest fast combo? Would it surprise you that no small amount of Commander players complain about that too? And fast aggro taking out one player first? They complain about that. What we actually have is a house ban on losing.
There is a subset of EDH who likes the stuff you talk about. It's called cEDH. It isn't the majority of EDH players, and isn't going to be. Your posts pretty much just suggest everyone should play cEDH or they're a bunch of wimps, which is frankly condescending and insulting, not to mention completely contrary to the default philosophy of the format. That attitude is part of why some mainstream EDH players really dislike cEDH and those who play that way. At very least, the attitude really does not do much for the argument that the RC should pay more attention to the interests and perceptions of the cEDH segment of the community.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t build to sit at the big kids’ table. What I disagree with is restricting people’s answers. My current list is mono black, and it goes absolutely all in on big mana. There’s no doubler I missed. I’ve never built a list that would compete with the turn three storm/ad nauseam/high tide folks, but I welcome 100% every card that tries to stop me.
I think answers are great so long as a) they are actually answers (and MLD generally speaking is a poor answer to ramp), and b) they don't make the game more miserable for everyone along the way. I personally care more about having an interesting, fairly relaxed and social game than I do about winning, but all things being equal, I would still also rather win than lose. Just not at the expense of the interesting, relaxed social stuff. I also think everyone playing together should have some input into what kind of games they want, and what they don't really want to play against. If I want to play my one Stax deck and nobody really wants to play against that at the moment, I play something else. Similarly, some people just don't want to play against fast combo or MLD, and they aren't wrong to feel that way.
MLD isn't really the answer to ramp, though a certain degree of MLD can sometimes be part of that answer, so long as it's acceptable to the rest of the people in the game. It certainly isn't the only answer, and I would argue it isn't even close to the best one most of the time. That's why, for general EDH, I think it best to go with other routes that are more generally acceptable, which I and several others on this thread have suggested.
Whether MLD has a place in general EDH at all is a whole different thread than "how do you fight ramp?" The two have sort of gotten mixed in here.
@JWK, you know I respect your philosophies, but respectfully I disagree here. The topic in this thread is "how to combat ramp", and by taking away the weakness ramp has (over committing lands into a sweeper), you instead twist the very game you've socially agreed upon to be one of "play ramp or lose". All archetypes need their checks lest the game as a whole become entirely unbalanced. Might as well get everyone playing Maelstrom Wanderer, or 3 Wanderers and 1 Thrassios/Tymna flash-hulk (because there's always that one guy at a table, esp at the LGS) because doing something not-Wanderer (big dumb ramp things) is inherently inferior.
This thread should be titled "ways to combat ramp that don't involve blowing up the world" to which is a much different conversation. As it is, however, this discussion is solved and now we're arguing semantics in what makes a "game to remember" rather than a "game to forget".
Somehow I overlooked this earlier.
I think we are just going to have to agree to disagree on this one. Putting the whole "what sort of game do we want" stuff aside, I don't think MLD, generally speaking, is a very good way to answer ramp. I have explained why, based on both experience and on basic deck math. Others have made similar points.
Hold on did I just see that you could top deck a mass draw spell in response to a Mind Twist on this page and you will be fine afterwords? Let alone the fact that Mind Twist is a card that only targets one player and not all the lands in play, and not alone the differences of finding one of those spells depending on what kind of deck you are playing.
The amount you are behind is a different level of magnitude.
If you gave me the choice in 90% of Commander games of Mind Twist my hand or cast Armageddon I am picking the latter every single time.
Also there is probably something lost here in that people are substituting ramp to mean a deck that wants to increase how much mana it can produce the next turn to decks about ramp. Because even in our situation where someone casts an Armageddon that player is not not ramping. The thing people are saying it punishes are big flashy ramp spells that often go overlooked in this game until they then overwhelm it.
The deck that has a handful of 2, 3, 4 and probably 7 mana ramp spells, versus the decks with a couple and some rocks. If you hit the deck loaded the brim with ramp spells at the right time it is foolish to think that you are not putting them further behind.
Also hey the Magic The Gathering is a game about resource denial is back again and more true than ever before.
Hold on did I just see that you could top deck a mass draw spell in response to a Mind Twist on this page and you will be fine afterwords? Let alone the fact that Mind Twist is a card that only targets one player and not all the lands in play, and not alone the differences of finding one of those spells depending on what kind of deck you are playing.
The amount you are behind is a different level of magnitude.
If you gave me the choice in 90% of Commander games of Mind Twist my hand or cast Armageddon I am picking the latter every single time.
I really don’t see how, on two separate fronts. No hand w/ resources at least allows me to cast a drawn piece to advance my board. At worst, your commander. WTF are you doing with a grip full of cards and nothing to play them with? Or, the inevitibale counter point being “artifact source in play”, which is the second point, ‘Geddoning to doing nothing but slow the game. Every deck is non-land>Lands, so I’d prefer to draw into something and play it, which I’ll have higher probability of doing.
Also there is probably something lost here in that people are substituting ramp to mean a deck that wants to increase how much mana it can produce the next turn to decks about ramp. Because even in our situation where someone casts an Armageddon that player is not not ramping. The thing people are saying it punishes are big flashy ramp spells that often go overlooked in this game until they then overwhelm it.
There are literally two of thesecards that see any meaningful play(big splashy ramp that gets overlooked). If you are packing MLD for exactly 2 cards, we’ll, we should have a chat about deck construction.
The deck that has a handful of 2, 3, 4 and probably 7 mana ramp spells, versus the decks with a couple and some rocks. If you hit the deck loaded the brim with ramp spells at the right time it is foolish to think that you are not putting them further behind.
Sure, and everybody else at the table. If any point is being missed, it’s that there are other players at the table. There are more, and much more efficient, ways to rein in ramp without wrecking the table.
Also hey the Magic The Gathering is a game about resource denial is back again and more true than ever before.
Any idea where I can find the source for this philosophy? Maybe just not looking in the right places, and I’d hate to be playing the game wrong all of these years. Regardless, that is certainly not how the creators of the format feel.
Re: the ramp player recovering first... What you'll generally find is that they've stripped their deck of so much land in the early turns that they have a lower chance of drawing it. If they're running a bunch of rocks, well, isn't everyone? I don't see how that's a problem. The first person to recover is most often going to be the deck with the lowest mana curve (which is in most cases the most competitive deck at the table). If the ramp deck in your group is recovering from MLD faster than you, then your curve is probably too high relative to the amount of ramp -you- are running.
Wait, I though MLD was used to rein in the ramp player? I thought it was to police those high curve decks from getting out of control? MLD isn’t some tactic to “help” anybody from the ramp guy, it’s a win-con for you. I thought the point of this discussion was how to handle ramp, not how to win with MLD. See, entitled. So the guy can’t ramp to 100 and win, but you can blow sh** up and win.
In short, you aren’t playing Armageddon to slow down a ramp player, you are only playing it to win.
Alright, say I'm in a war against you. By the very nature of the war, our strategies and resources are in contention. So if I build an army of Panzers to roll over your borders and meanwhile, you nuke my capital city, you have a) beaten my tanks because my entire government is dead and unable to lead, and b) won the war. Drinks is saying combating ramp and winning are not mutually exclusive, which is a pretty goddamn sound and valid statement in context of a card game, no?
So you’re punishing the other players as well because some dude is playing Cultivate? It’s not a “goddamn sound statement” because on just the page prior there’s a list of about a half-dozen other strategies that combat ramp that doesn’t include blowing up any lands.
They can be mutually exclusive. Hell, up until that statement not one person mentioned “Armageddon to a win”, it has mostly been “Armageddon to slow the Ramp”. Or was that just taken out of context?
Also, I can’t believe that is your interpretation of war. Sounds like 1 to many games of COD.
People who don't want MLD in their EDH games are not bad players or wrong or whatever. They just want a different sort of game than you would prefer, and that is okay.
People who like MLD are also not bad players or wrong or whatever. They just want a different sort of game than the majority of EDH players want - and yes, like it or not, MLD guys, most EDH players are not big on MLD. That's just a fact. But you aren't wrong for wanting what you want, either. NEITHER side is wrong, they just prefer different sorts of games, which is completely okay. That's part of the whole "social contract" thing. Same with people who prefer a more cEDH vs. those who prefer things to be much less competitive. Some people just want to win. Other care less about winning than they do about having a fun, social game where everyone has a good time. Nether is wrong, they are just different.
The solution is for people who like MLD to play with other people who are cool with MLD, or to play a range of decks and not play your MLD decks with people who aren't cool with MLD.
And again, to get back to the original question of this thread, MLD is actually not a very reliable way to deal with ramp decks. MLD is a control strategy akin to stax. Claiming otherwise is at best erroneous, at worst dishonest. 3Drinks is honest about it... it is a strategy he uses to win games. That's a more competitive approach to the game than a lot of EDH players prefer (and most pro-MLD people do fall further to the competitive end of the casual/competitive continuum), but he isn't wrong for liking that, so long as he doesn't insist on bringing that to the table when playing with people who want a less competitive game.
Uh, no. That’s not the type of game everybody enjoys. That’s also not the type of game the RC of the format encourages. I don’t care about Wrath of God or whatever kind of sweeper is needed. Targeted LD is also fair game. I don’t really see the need for MLD, specifically if it’s just employed to “slow the ramp player”, or worse, that “players should expect to be punished”.
In competitive Magic, the Baron would be correct. In default EDH, not so much. He's not wrong for liking what he likes, but the idea that players should "expect to be punished" is not really consistent with what the majority of EDH players want.
And the idea that you're punishing ramp is similarly ludicrous. Well-placed MLD wins the game by punishing people for not having board presence, not for playing ramp specifically. If the ramp player has already deployed a big threat or two then they probably don't mind it at all. On the other hand, someone playing a non-rampy deck could easily get knocked out of the game just as easily as the ramper, if they don't have much on board. Plus, of course, any non-land ramp isn't affected by MLD. If your group enjoys MLD and thinks it's a fair wincon, then go ahead and play it, I've got nothing against players who like playing high-powered decks against other high-powered decks. But it's not a ramp punisher. It's a punisher for anyone who doesn't currently have a significant board presence or artifact mana.
If you want to punish ramp specifically, you've got a few options:
-play aggressively to hurt them while they're powering up
-they have a lower threat to mana ratio, so having answers can slow them down a lot
-there are a handful of cards that hurt ramp players while not locking people out of the game, like natural balance and keldon firebombers, as long as your group is cool with them
-play targeted LD like strip mine to deal with the coffers and gaea's cradles of the world
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 get what you are saying, and I think that a conversation prior to a game is always critical.
However, the issue becomes when people who say “No MLD” also think it’s cool to play Boundless Realms. It’s akin to someone playing combo and saying “No counterspells” or Elfball combo and saying “No board wipes.” If a deck’s strategy is to vomit as many lands out as possible and do something huge, I’m going to pack answers for that.
And again, it’s important to remember that land destruction spells are spells on the hands of players. You cannot blanket say that every time someone plays MLD that X happens. I play Wildfire in my Xantcha deck because she survives the damage, small blockers get wiped, and it sets a boardstate that often requires Xantcha activations for players to dig to mana sources. All those things help my deck win, and since I have the spell in my hand/deck, I can craft a situation where it benefits me. My answers are cheap, so I can operate on fewer mana sources, and I run a land count on the higher end to lower the probability that I fail to recover if I have to deploy it early.
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EDH
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BRXantchaRB
BGVarolzGB
URWZedruuWRU
Rocks, you say? Would you like picking them off one by one? Or perhaps you would prefer killing them all at once? Or only some? Or perhaps some middle ground? But hey, as long as it helps me. I can even get rid of rocks, dorks, and lands at the same time, or only get rid of two lands. Or, I can make them easier to kill. Or just quote Dipper: Wow, that is completely worthless.
Silly argument gets silly autocard-heavy response.
On phasing:
This thread should be titled "ways to combat ramp that don't involve blowing up the world" to which is a much different conversation. As it is, however, this discussion is solved and now we're arguing semantics in what makes a "game to remember" rather than a "game to forget".
Steel Sabotage'ng Orbs of Mellowness since 2011.
Where the actual f*** does this even come from? Do you really believe that? I see your Alesha deck in your signature, and I had one myself. I had an incredibly low curve with some high-cost targets that probably would never be hard cast. I had Sol Ring and the corresponding signets, that’s it. The deck functioned really well. Won way more games than lost, that’s for sure. I played in a no-LD group, and I can safely say that ramp players didn’t run away with games. Likewise, I played hundreds of games with Big Green decks and lost plenty, without LD.
Again, MLD does nothing to Ramp. It’s a way to protect boardstates. Saying otherwise is flat out wrong. Fast combo also punishes Ramp decks, so why not just suggest that?
1) where you can also sweep the creatures, if the ramp player is ahead
2) where you have a mana advantage in the form of rocks/dorks and can also recover from their remaining board state
3) where the board is clear already and someone is just way ahead on mana
The issue with these is that there are so many situations where it seems like fits one of these but in fact the ramp player will recover faster, or they can defend their board state, etc.
So MLD often becomes what someone else alluded to as a partial reset that cripples people at random--I've seen MLD hit and two players had no more lands to play and couldn't recover, but the ramp player had a life from the loam and just kept trucking, for example.
Hell one game I had I got MLD'd as gitrog and still had an exploration and gitrog on board and was able to splendid reclamation that turn off my mana crypt and lands in hand Basically won the game for me since I put 20+ lands back into play and everyone else was chilling on a couple mana rocks.
MLD is good at closing games vs. Ramp when you're ahead on board but it's far from a generic answer to a land ramp deck. Most of the time it's just annoying when played defensively.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Why not suggest fast combo? Would it surprise you that no small amount of Commander players complain about that too? And fast aggro taking out one player first? They complain about that. What we actually have is a house ban on losing.
Edit: Makes sense in the larger context of WotC devaluing everything that stops creatures from getting onto the battlefield, and making sure every creature does its job on etb despite removal, because a significant portion of the community would rather play unopposed.
Lol. No, not quite.
The irony here is that is what MLD does. Let’s you win, unimpeded.
Other options are search hate, like Aven Mindcensor, or a reclamation sage to blow up a sol ring or mirrari’s wake. Or you can try and kill the player who is ramping.
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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
There is a subset of EDH who likes the stuff you talk about. It's called cEDH. It isn't the majority of EDH players, and isn't going to be. Your posts pretty much just suggest everyone should play cEDH or they're a bunch of wimps, which is frankly condescending and insulting, not to mention completely contrary to the default philosophy of the format. That attitude is part of why some mainstream EDH players really dislike cEDH and those who play that way. At very least, the attitude really does not do much for the argument that the RC should pay more attention to the interests and perceptions of the cEDH segment of the community.
MLD isn't really the answer to ramp, though a certain degree of MLD can sometimes be part of that answer, so long as it's acceptable to the rest of the people in the game. It certainly isn't the only answer, and I would argue it isn't even close to the best one most of the time. That's why, for general EDH, I think it best to go with other routes that are more generally acceptable, which I and several others on this thread have suggested.
Whether MLD has a place in general EDH at all is a whole different thread than "how do you fight ramp?" The two have sort of gotten mixed in here.
Somehow I overlooked this earlier.
I think we are just going to have to agree to disagree on this one. Putting the whole "what sort of game do we want" stuff aside, I don't think MLD, generally speaking, is a very good way to answer ramp. I have explained why, based on both experience and on basic deck math. Others have made similar points.
The amount you are behind is a different level of magnitude.
If you gave me the choice in 90% of Commander games of Mind Twist my hand or cast Armageddon I am picking the latter every single time.
Also there is probably something lost here in that people are substituting ramp to mean a deck that wants to increase how much mana it can produce the next turn to decks about ramp. Because even in our situation where someone casts an Armageddon that player is not not ramping. The thing people are saying it punishes are big flashy ramp spells that often go overlooked in this game until they then overwhelm it.
The deck that has a handful of 2, 3, 4 and probably 7 mana ramp spells, versus the decks with a couple and some rocks. If you hit the deck loaded the brim with ramp spells at the right time it is foolish to think that you are not putting them further behind.
Also hey the Magic The Gathering is a game about resource denial is back again and more true than ever before.
I really don’t see how, on two separate fronts. No hand w/ resources at least allows me to cast a drawn piece to advance my board. At worst, your commander. WTF are you doing with a grip full of cards and nothing to play them with? Or, the inevitibale counter point being “artifact source in play”, which is the second point, ‘Geddoning to doing nothing but slow the game. Every deck is non-land>Lands, so I’d prefer to draw into something and play it, which I’ll have higher probability of doing.
There are literally two of these cards that see any meaningful play(big splashy ramp that gets overlooked). If you are packing MLD for exactly 2 cards, we’ll, we should have a chat about deck construction.
Sure, and everybody else at the table. If any point is being missed, it’s that there are other players at the table. There are more, and much more efficient, ways to rein in ramp without wrecking the table.
Any idea where I can find the source for this philosophy? Maybe just not looking in the right places, and I’d hate to be playing the game wrong all of these years. Regardless, that is certainly not how the creators of the format feel.
Me 1 player in a 4 player game has no hand but lands
Or
All 4 players in a 4 player game have no lands but our hands
Is any question.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall