So I am always seeing posts, comments, articles, etc about why Boros is the trashiest of trash, and I’m here to promote the unpopular opinion that that mindset is not fact, but rather a deep-seated culture problem in the EDH community. The truth of the matter is that Boros has some very pronounced advantages that the EDH community does not want to embrace.
Let me explain.
Mass Land Destruction and mana denial are the most hated and looked down upon part of commander, the community as a whole pushes against MLD and then complains about Boros being weak, and I don’t believe that that is a fair assessment. Yes, I will freely admit that Boros is lacking in card draw, but it isn’t completely missing. For instance, Boros players can always rely upon cards such as Wheel of Fortune and Reforge the Soul, looting abilities Tormenting Voice, and creatures with wheel abilities such as Dragon Mage. This is one of the biggest arguments against Boros, but I have to say that I find it somewhat lacking. Yes, a majority of Boros draw is wheeling or looting, but that is totally viable.
To move forward to my main point, Mass Land Destruction and mana denial, I would like to propose something. We, as the EDH community, need to be willing to accept MLD if we want Boros to be “viable”.
For instance, as a Boros player, I would run Blood MoonArmageddon, Ravages of War, Ruination, and so on. I would also include a larger number of mana rocks than usual. This would then mean that I *am* keeping up with the table as a Boros player by slowing down the rest of the table. This, unfortunately, goes against the “etiquette” of EDH that has pushed Boros off the table. Really, there are two cards on the banlist, Balance and Limited Resources that are banned ENTIRELY because of this prejudice! We allow board wipes, artifact wipes, cards that make everyone sacrifice things, things that restrict play, but when a card does that with mana, it gets banned. I agree that both of those cards are powerful, but they aren’t bannable outside of prejudice.
All of that said, I very much want to hear your opinions on this topic. I truly believe that if we, as a community, make MLD more acceptable then Boros can be fully capable of keeping up with the table.
I have played mass land destruction decks in the past, and you can only play so many in a deck as you need to setup a way to be advantaged before doing it. Otherwise I found you just end up drawing too many of them without the proper opportunity to cast them.
The problem is that other colors have better ways to mitigate the downside of land destruction.
Green has lots of mana creatures and blue has the most synergy with artifacts, so often has a lot of artifact mana.
Paring both white and red for mass land destruction is just not the best. Mono-red has more than enough by itself and white by itself has a good number as well if you can afford Ravages of War.
Convince me why I should pair both white and red for mass land destruction and not some of the other colors?
But see, I’m not arguing to pair those FOR MLD. I’m arguing that Boros should use MLD as a tool to keep up with other colors. Run more mana rocks, mix MLD and Board Wipes to allow you to keep the board moving slower. I’m saying run your Boros soldiers deck (or whatever) and use the lower average cmc of your creatures, the larger percentage of mana rocks you are playing, and the access to MLD to slow everyone else down to the rate that you are moving at. The issue is that we as a community have made MLD into a bad word. People freak out when an Armageddon drops. My point isn’t that Boros is the best color combo or anything like that, but that people tend to make it completely unplayable because the community makes certain strategies unplayable if you want to be accepted, and that is what I believe is wrong. MLD should be a legitimate strategy to keep pace with other colors. Or even beyond MLD, things such as Winter Orb and Rule of Law, which slow people down to the Boros rate but then everyone hates the person who dropped it.
I have to agree with darrenhabib. Boros isn't really bad because of players' hatred for LD, but rather that Boros decks tend to be creature based decks that win through the combat step. The problem is that when you are playing all those creatures and you can't draw cards without helping the rest of the table, you're going to eventually stall out. I think what you are saying has more to do with the color red only. Red is good at direct damage, chaos, and land destruction. Since people had LD (for good reason), it will never be acceptable in a casual meta. As a result red is typically used to supplement other commanders (usually with staples) or to play chaos decks.
If you want to play MLD, you need to play in a competitive meta where anything goes.
I mean, I think mostly people are just mad at him for the whole Brexit thing.
Besides what's already been said, one point specifically on limited resources - limited resources would be fine and not banned if it worked as intended and said "as long as there are (5 x number of players) lands, players can't play lands." The problem is when played early it says "2 players get 3 lands and 2 players get 2...forever." God forbid it's a 5+ person game. It's just a card that wasn't designed with multiplayer in mind. Same reason trade secrets is banned.
Balance could honestly maybe be unbanned imo. While it's extremely nasty and broken when built around, (1) it takes a lot of effort to build around, you need a ton of artifacts, ways to sac lands, discard cards, no creatures, tutors to hit it reliably, etc...it's really a build-around combo piece, not an unconditional land/hand/board wipe and (2) I thought the point of the banlist was to ban stuff that's accidentally evil, not stuff that's only evil if you really work at it. Otherwise food chain, doomsday, lab man, etc would be banned to oblivion.
Looting and wheels are not card advantage in most decks.
* Looting specifically is quite bad without a graveyard subtheme
* Wheels are functionally card disadvantage in many situations--e.g. if there are 4 players, each with 4 cards (typical), you're drawing your opponents +9 cards and you +3. Again, mostly only strong if you have a storm, combo or reanimator subtheme, otherwise as likely to bone you as it is to help you
You can obviously control when you wheel, but there really aren't *that* many wheels and they can often be bad if you're not playing in a specific theme.
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Even if MLD was fully accepted and you jumped through all the hoops necessary, you get very few playable archetypes. Most of that issue honestly is that the commander options are pathetically weak. None of the things you can do with MLD in RW are any good when compared to being in green, blue or black as a secondary color unfortunately because the commanders are just bad.
Boros doesn't really suffer from bad cards as much as it suffers from really bad commanders with really weak mechanics. It would be easy to devise some good ones but Wizards doesn't for some reason.
If people are sick of reading about stuff just stop taking part. You have 100% control over what you read. Simic Ascendancy isn't going to get banned just because you didn't tell someone to shut up on the internet.
Preaching to the choir over here. I would like to see Balance unbanned as well as its actually a very fair card, Limited Resources is fine in 1v1 but not multiplayer.
Land destruction only gets its flak from when used incorrectly, but people tend to overlook the times ramp gets used incorrectly when there are better plays. Mostly because there isn't the same emotional response of a bad ramp play unlike the kind of emotional response that a bad MLD play causes.
Boros commanders also just don't offer the same level of competitiveness than their competition. Boros is a tier 4-5 combination because its leaders more than its tools. That the colors by themselves, red and white respectively, have a more competitive edge than when combined says something powerful about how Boros is being left behind. Sram, Senior Edificer is a tier 3 deck and also is the highest white can be by itself. Meanwhile Purphoros, God of the Forge, Heartless Hidetsugu, Godo, Bandit Warlord, Neheb, the Eternal, and Krenko, Mob Boss are also tier 3 decks. The tier 1-2 decks all have a thing in common, you are always going to have some combination of U, G, and/or/maybe B in your color identity if you want a more competitive deck. The only mono-colored decks that are also tier 1 in the format are Teferi, Temporal Archmage and Yisan, the Wanderer Bard.
The OP suggests that we cut off our leg because we sprained our ankle. Hobbling an entire format just to kinda sorta improve just one color combination? How could anyone think that was a good idea?
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Can you name all of the creature types with at least 20 cards? Try my Sporcle Quiz! Last Updated: 6/29/20 (Core Set 2021).
The OP suggests that we cut off our leg because we sprained our ankle. Hobbling an entire format just to kinda sorta improve just one color combination? How could anyone think that was a good idea?
Its not going to hobble an entire format like you think.
From what I've seen, Boros' problem is more along the lines of lack of meaningful, non-red-zone options in the commander department - though at least they are slowly getting there... sort of.
There's always ways to do the ramp and the draw, even if you have to lower your standards a bit to get there in Boros.
MLD tends to fly to the face of most casual tables actually wanting to play the game, like it or not.
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X Hope of Ghirapur Swordpile W Ghosty Blinky Anafenza U Nezahal- Big, Blue and HERE! B Gonti Can Afford It R Etali, Primal 'Whatjusthappened?' G Polukranos Wants More Mana WU The Exalted Vizier Temmet WB Home, Athreos WR Basandra, Recursive Aggression WG Karametra, Momma of Lands UB Wrexial Eats Your Brains UR Arjun, the Mad Flame UG The Fable of Prime Speaker BR Hellbent, Malfegor Style BG Jarad, Death is Served RG Running Thromok WUB Varina and ALL the Zombies WUBYennett, the Odd Pain-Train WUR Zedruu the Furyhearted WUG Arcades' Strategy, Shmategy, Sausage and Spam WBR A Case of Mathas' Persistent F*ckery WBRLicia's League of Legendary Lifegain Layabouts WBG The Karador Advantage PackageWRG Gahiji Rattlesnake Collection UBR Jeleva... does... things UBG Damia's Just Deserts URG Yasova's Has More Power Than Sense BRG Wasitora, Bad Kitty WUBRBreya, Eggs, Breya'd Eggs WUBG Tymna and Kydele, Extended Borrowing WURG Kynaios and Tiro, Landfall Impersonations WBRG Saskia Pet Card EnchantressUBRG Yidris of the Chi-Ting Corporation WUBRG Tazri's Amazing Allies
I mean let's be honest here, Boris Devilboon just isn't a great commander.
Seriously though, the problems are simple: Barely any non-combat-zone commanders, the worst combo for drawpower and rather poor at ramping...and those are strategies Commander wants.
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My Commander decks:
Chandra, Torch of Defiance - Oops! All Chandras.
Prime Speaker Zegana - Draw for Power.
Pir & Toothy - Counterpalooza.
Arcades, the Strategist - Another Brick in the Wall.
Zacama, Primal Calamity - Calamity of Double Mana.
Edgar Markov - Vampires Don't Die.
Child of Alara - Dreamcrusher.
The number one issue is that Boros commanders are extremely one-note. I mean, Brion and Avacyn are like the only ones that legitimately don’t push you towards a combat step focused deck, unless you count Firesong and Sunspeaker, but 6-mana makes that basically unplayable. Basically every other color combination gives you at least some variety in commander playstyle.
On your other point re: MLD... I’m not opposed to MLD. I think that most Boros decks would benefit from running them.a
I feel like it is Boros commanders in general that are lacking.
Monored has gotten a lot of card advantage and good commanders over the years. The main downside of that red card advantage is needing to use it when you get it... which is generally not much of a problem for monored. Adding white gets you stuff, but I feel like it doesn't give you enough. The other colors give you a lot of what red lacks.
There are mono-white and mono-red decks that perform better than Boros/WR, that's because WotC is blinded by the success of Ravnica and decided to make most Boros legend combat oriented, instead of exploring other themes like in Lorwyn and Ravnica #1. The weaker legends (or rather, less-EDH-friendly) in Boros is what made the color combination so hard to play.
Hell, they could've make a legend that give instant/sorceries Radiance keyword, or a legend that focuses on Balance style effect with plus side, etc, but they stick with combat/combat/combat as if Ravnica Boros is the only viable W/R combination. It's NOT.
The only Boros Commander I would consider is Aurelia, the Warleader because she can go infinite combat phase fast. It isn't an auto win but most of the time if the combo go off. She is Tier 4.
Let's put a little difference between boros (the guild) and RW.
- Boros get pushed in the "white weenie attack, attack and attack again!" strategy. That strategy sucks in commander because of higher life totals and frequent wipes.
- RW has a strong boros influence but it has a different array of strategies. Still, it has many problems. By losing UBG you literally have the 2 worst color at card draw. Wheel of fortune won't change the fact that blue, black and green have way better card draw options.
- red and white is also the worst ramp bicolor. This means that many high-costed generals are just off limits.
- RW has many other problems, since trying to be the best wrath color combinations while also being the best weenie or "go wide" color combinations is contradictory.
- RW also has terrible generals because they are all pigeon-holed into the "attack!" strategy.
- Land destruction won't save RW. The whole "MLD is frowned upon, if it wasn't RW could rock" is just false and delusional. The best land destruction decks would be tricolor, Kaalia and Zurgo for example, or the combo of maelstrom wanderer + cascaded jokulhaups. Many combination of colors and generals can exploit MLD way better than RW, so this is not what is holding RW back.
Its strategies just scale bad with EDH, period. Boros will never be good in EDH because EDH is made in a way that will never make Boros good. RW has the potential to be good, but wizard need to print more "non-boros" cards and focus more, for example, on the spellslinging aspect.
Land destruction only gets its flak from when used incorrectly, but people tend to overlook the times ramp gets used incorrectly when there are better plays. Mostly because there isn't the same emotional response of a bad ramp play unlike the kind of emotional response that a bad MLD play causes.
lol idk what this sentence is supposed to mean. Ramp alone doesn't harm other played. If you "misramped" and now have 2 more lands then me, my gameplan can virtually proceed unchanged. If you play a bad timed MLD, i won't be able to do anything for 2-3 turns.
Trying to make just an emotional thing is hiding part of the truth. MLD interacts with the opponent resources and prevent or seriously limit them from playing. That's a big gameplay difference and that's what causes the "emotional response"
How i feel about competitive players and casual players in EDH: The competitive are german tourists, the casual are italian tourists, both in a italian beach. The italians asking themselves "why are the germans here?" make a legitimate question, the answer is because the beach is beautiful, no matter the country you came from. The italians wanting to ban the germans are dumb, because if the germans pay for their stay and follow the rules like everyone else, they have the right to be in the beach. Hovewer, if the germans started to ask themselves "why are the italians here?"... they would be dumb as hell.
Preaching to the choir over here. I would like to see Balance unbanned as well as its actually a very fair card...
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
"fair card"
Yeah, it's not. Like, not at all.
And yet its only banned in commander, specifically multiplayer commander. Apparently vintage, 93/94 magic, and duel commander have no problem with it and keep it restricted (1-of). I even remember when it was in standard, both against it and with it.
Land destruction only gets its flak from when used incorrectly, but people tend to overlook the times ramp gets used incorrectly when there are better plays. Mostly because there isn't the same emotional response of a bad ramp play unlike the kind of emotional response that a bad MLD play causes.
lol idk what this sentence is supposed to mean. Ramp alone doesn't harm other played. If you "misramped" and now have 2 more lands then me, my gameplan can virtually proceed unchanged. If you play a bad timed MLD, i won't be able to do anything for 2-3 turns.
Trying to make just an emotional thing is hiding part of the truth. MLD interacts with the opponent resources and prevent or seriously limit them from playing. That's a big gameplay difference and that's what causes the "emotional response"
And yet its only banned in commander, specifically multiplayer commander. Apparently vintage, 93/94 magic, and duel commander have no problem with it and keep it restricted (1-of). I even remember when it was in standard, both against it and with it.
By this logic we should unban Emrakul, Griselbrand, prime titan and likely half of the banlist
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How i feel about competitive players and casual players in EDH: The competitive are german tourists, the casual are italian tourists, both in a italian beach. The italians asking themselves "why are the germans here?" make a legitimate question, the answer is because the beach is beautiful, no matter the country you came from. The italians wanting to ban the germans are dumb, because if the germans pay for their stay and follow the rules like everyone else, they have the right to be in the beach. Hovewer, if the germans started to ask themselves "why are the italians here?"... they would be dumb as hell.
And yet its only banned in commander, specifically multiplayer commander. Apparently vintage, 93/94 magic, and duel commander have no problem with it and keep it restricted (1-of). I even remember when it was in standard, both against it and with it.
By this logic we should unban Emrakul, Griselbrand, prime titan and likely half of the banlist
No, those are foolish unbannings. Also: Association Fallacy, Either-Or-Fallacy, Non-Sequitur (Formal Fallacy).
I say that it partly is a culture problem. I have a low to the ground Iroas deck that runs a lot of hate bears and tries to lock in advantage with mld. I played it online Sunday, and popped a Ravages of War when I had a dude with an equipped sword of the animist out (cleary not just randomly firing it off) and when the Rashimi player was about to start going off (losing his lands stopped him). This guy was running your standard Rashimi bad guy combo deck looping seasons past and tutors with a wall of counters for backup. He whined like a child about mld as if sitting behind a wall of counters and a busted commander to combo off is somehow better. When I finally had him for lethal he decided to time out like a *****.
Look, I run mld in a few decks where it's good. I don't cast it willy nilly. I use it to lock in a winning gamestate, or at least one where I am quite likely to win, typically when I'm going to be able to quickly rebuild my Mana or still have a Mana base after it hits. This particular game went another 7 turns because I had to fire it off a bit early to prevent him from going off before I had a board that could kill him quickly, and then he got lucky and drew into a few lands that let him answer a few threats and drag it out.
The thing is, there were two other players, a group hug guy and another guy. Group hug guy gg'd and quit right away, the other guy waited a few turns hoping to draw more land before gg'ing. In my experience online, it's the entitled netdeckers that throw a fit because they got beat by a strategy they weren't expecting, while the players running more casual decks just treat it like you comboed. I told the crybaby that mld is the only way for an aggro Boros decks to keep up by making the game play on it's terms, and he replied "that's why nobody plays Boros in edh". It's an acknowledgement that this pov kneecaps the color combination by denying it one of it's most powerful tools.
I'm not saying you shouldn't me mad when someone just pops a geddon randomly and ruins the game, or just sticks every mld card ever printed in a deck and thinks it will win. Misplayed mld is bad. So are misplayed wrath's, or idiots who think sticking 30 counterspells in a deck will help them win without bothering to figure out what they should actually counter. Neither is MLD isn't going to redeem Boros and make it the hot new color combo, there are more issues it needs to deal with ranging from being bad at ramp and draw and having no dominant commanders. But greater acceptance of well played mld would make the color combo more viable, and specifically open up more aggressive strategies that can take advantage of keeping land counts low. It could also open up an artifact based archetype that relies on rocks and crucible to further break symmetry. Mostly, it's just irrational to hate on mld while accepting insta win combos, counterspell walls, and other such things.
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The Meaning of Life: "M-hmm. Well, it's nothing very special. Uh, try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations"
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Whether its blue players countering your spells, red players burning you out, or combo, if you have a problem with an aspect of Magic's gameplay, you can fix it!
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
As an aside, I've found most players tend to think of Ruination as more "fair" than Armageddon, which is itself more "fair" than, say, Boil. Ruination is just "You did it to yourself." with that expensive mana base. #NotAllNonbasics When you target a basic land type, though, it becomes too swingy, and clearly aimed at decks other than your own. Again, a case could be made that Boil takes the piss out of Arcum Dagsson or Azami, Lady of Scrolls (Surprised that monoblue shows up on lists of Most Broken Commanders?), but it doesn't do a thing to Prossh, Skyraider of Kher. Global Ruin also goes in this category for hating out monocolor decks (well, you keep one land...), in addition decks stupid enough to run all nonbasics.
At least that's been my experiences when talking about MLD.
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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!
I feel like the experience I have had with land destruction on a mass scale is entirely dependent on how well the people around the table know each other and since that is not something that can be guaranteed it presents a problem.
However I do also think that the very strong stigma around it has a warping effect on how people treat the cards in a vacuum without looking at the game as a whole and often a resolution of one of those cards is less painful than talking about them in circles online.
Looting specifically is quite bad without a graveyard subtheme
Well that's utter bull*****. Looting effects are for card quality, letting you smooth out your draws and getting to the things you need now, rather than what you might need later, if at all.
Let me explain.
Mass Land Destruction and mana denial are the most hated and looked down upon part of commander, the community as a whole pushes against MLD and then complains about Boros being weak, and I don’t believe that that is a fair assessment. Yes, I will freely admit that Boros is lacking in card draw, but it isn’t completely missing. For instance, Boros players can always rely upon cards such as Wheel of Fortune and Reforge the Soul, looting abilities Tormenting Voice, and creatures with wheel abilities such as Dragon Mage. This is one of the biggest arguments against Boros, but I have to say that I find it somewhat lacking. Yes, a majority of Boros draw is wheeling or looting, but that is totally viable.
To move forward to my main point, Mass Land Destruction and mana denial, I would like to propose something. We, as the EDH community, need to be willing to accept MLD if we want Boros to be “viable”.
For instance, as a Boros player, I would run Blood Moon Armageddon, Ravages of War, Ruination, and so on. I would also include a larger number of mana rocks than usual. This would then mean that I *am* keeping up with the table as a Boros player by slowing down the rest of the table. This, unfortunately, goes against the “etiquette” of EDH that has pushed Boros off the table. Really, there are two cards on the banlist, Balance and Limited Resources that are banned ENTIRELY because of this prejudice! We allow board wipes, artifact wipes, cards that make everyone sacrifice things, things that restrict play, but when a card does that with mana, it gets banned. I agree that both of those cards are powerful, but they aren’t bannable outside of prejudice.
All of that said, I very much want to hear your opinions on this topic. I truly believe that if we, as a community, make MLD more acceptable then Boros can be fully capable of keeping up with the table.
The problem is that other colors have better ways to mitigate the downside of land destruction.
Green has lots of mana creatures and blue has the most synergy with artifacts, so often has a lot of artifact mana.
Paring both white and red for mass land destruction is just not the best. Mono-red has more than enough by itself and white by itself has a good number as well if you can afford Ravages of War.
Convince me why I should pair both white and red for mass land destruction and not some of the other colors?
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
If you want to play MLD, you need to play in a competitive meta where anything goes.
Besides what's already been said, one point specifically on limited resources - limited resources would be fine and not banned if it worked as intended and said "as long as there are (5 x number of players) lands, players can't play lands." The problem is when played early it says "2 players get 3 lands and 2 players get 2...forever." God forbid it's a 5+ person game. It's just a card that wasn't designed with multiplayer in mind. Same reason trade secrets is banned.
Balance could honestly maybe be unbanned imo. While it's extremely nasty and broken when built around, (1) it takes a lot of effort to build around, you need a ton of artifacts, ways to sac lands, discard cards, no creatures, tutors to hit it reliably, etc...it's really a build-around combo piece, not an unconditional land/hand/board wipe and (2) I thought the point of the banlist was to ban stuff that's accidentally evil, not stuff that's only evil if you really work at it. Otherwise food chain, doomsday, lab man, etc would be banned to oblivion.
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
Looting and wheels are not card advantage in most decks.
* Looting specifically is quite bad without a graveyard subtheme
* Wheels are functionally card disadvantage in many situations--e.g. if there are 4 players, each with 4 cards (typical), you're drawing your opponents +9 cards and you +3. Again, mostly only strong if you have a storm, combo or reanimator subtheme, otherwise as likely to bone you as it is to help you
You can obviously control when you wheel, but there really aren't *that* many wheels and they can often be bad if you're not playing in a specific theme.
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Even if MLD was fully accepted and you jumped through all the hoops necessary, you get very few playable archetypes. Most of that issue honestly is that the commander options are pathetically weak. None of the things you can do with MLD in RW are any good when compared to being in green, blue or black as a secondary color unfortunately because the commanders are just bad.
Boros doesn't really suffer from bad cards as much as it suffers from really bad commanders with really weak mechanics. It would be easy to devise some good ones but Wizards doesn't for some reason.
The #2 issue after bad commanders is the lack of ramp options other than artifacts. If there were a few more cards like Knight of the White Orchid, Smothering Tithe and Boreas Charger I think you'd be there.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
MLD is used terribly far too often, so no it will not be socially acceptable.
Your takes on Balance and Limited Resources are not at all supported by the RC's discussion of said cards.
Land destruction only gets its flak from when used incorrectly, but people tend to overlook the times ramp gets used incorrectly when there are better plays. Mostly because there isn't the same emotional response of a bad ramp play unlike the kind of emotional response that a bad MLD play causes.
Boros commanders also just don't offer the same level of competitiveness than their competition. Boros is a tier 4-5 combination because its leaders more than its tools. That the colors by themselves, red and white respectively, have a more competitive edge than when combined says something powerful about how Boros is being left behind. Sram, Senior Edificer is a tier 3 deck and also is the highest white can be by itself. Meanwhile Purphoros, God of the Forge, Heartless Hidetsugu, Godo, Bandit Warlord, Neheb, the Eternal, and Krenko, Mob Boss are also tier 3 decks. The tier 1-2 decks all have a thing in common, you are always going to have some combination of U, G, and/or/maybe B in your color identity if you want a more competitive deck. The only mono-colored decks that are also tier 1 in the format are Teferi, Temporal Archmage and Yisan, the Wanderer Bard.
My 720 Peasant Cube
There's always ways to do the ramp and the draw, even if you have to lower your standards a bit to get there in Boros.
MLD tends to fly to the face of most casual tables actually wanting to play the game, like it or not.
Seriously though, the problems are simple: Barely any non-combat-zone commanders, the worst combo for drawpower and rather poor at ramping...and those are strategies Commander wants.
Chandra, Torch of Defiance - Oops! All Chandras.
Prime Speaker Zegana - Draw for Power.
Pir & Toothy - Counterpalooza.
Arcades, the Strategist - Another Brick in the Wall.
Zacama, Primal Calamity - Calamity of Double Mana.
Edgar Markov - Vampires Don't Die.
Child of Alara - Dreamcrusher.
On your other point re: MLD... I’m not opposed to MLD. I think that most Boros decks would benefit from running them.a
RBGLiving EndRBG
EDH
UFblthpU
BRXantchaRB
BGVarolzGB
URWZedruuWRU
Monored has gotten a lot of card advantage and good commanders over the years. The main downside of that red card advantage is needing to use it when you get it... which is generally not much of a problem for monored. Adding white gets you stuff, but I feel like it doesn't give you enough. The other colors give you a lot of what red lacks.
The Unidentified Fantastic Flying Girl.
EDH
Xenagos, the God of Stompy
The Gitrog Monster: Oppressive Value.
Marchesa, Marionette Master - Undying Robots
Yuriko, the Hydra Omnivore
I make dolls as a hobby.
Hell, they could've make a legend that give instant/sorceries Radiance keyword, or a legend that focuses on Balance style effect with plus side, etc, but they stick with combat/combat/combat as if Ravnica Boros is the only viable W/R combination. It's NOT.
Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest WUR Voltron Control
Temmet, Vizier of Naktamun WU Unblockable Mirror Trickery
Ra's al Ghul (Sidar Kondo) and Face-Down Ninjas
Brudiclad, Token Engineer
Vaevictis (VV2) the Dire Lantern
Rona, Disciple of Gix
Tiana the Auror
Hallar
Ulrich the Politician
Zur the Rebel
Scorpion, Locust, Scarab, Egyptian Gods
O-Kagachi, Mathas, Mairsil
"Non-Tribal" Tribal Generals, Eggs
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
"fair card"
Yeah, it's not. Like, not at all.
- Boros get pushed in the "white weenie attack, attack and attack again!" strategy. That strategy sucks in commander because of higher life totals and frequent wipes.
- RW has a strong boros influence but it has a different array of strategies. Still, it has many problems. By losing UBG you literally have the 2 worst color at card draw. Wheel of fortune won't change the fact that blue, black and green have way better card draw options.
- red and white is also the worst ramp bicolor. This means that many high-costed generals are just off limits.
- RW has many other problems, since trying to be the best wrath color combinations while also being the best weenie or "go wide" color combinations is contradictory.
- RW also has terrible generals because they are all pigeon-holed into the "attack!" strategy.
- Land destruction won't save RW. The whole "MLD is frowned upon, if it wasn't RW could rock" is just false and delusional. The best land destruction decks would be tricolor, Kaalia and Zurgo for example, or the combo of maelstrom wanderer + cascaded jokulhaups. Many combination of colors and generals can exploit MLD way better than RW, so this is not what is holding RW back.
Its strategies just scale bad with EDH, period. Boros will never be good in EDH because EDH is made in a way that will never make Boros good. RW has the potential to be good, but wizard need to print more "non-boros" cards and focus more, for example, on the spellslinging aspect.
lol idk what this sentence is supposed to mean. Ramp alone doesn't harm other played. If you "misramped" and now have 2 more lands then me, my gameplan can virtually proceed unchanged. If you play a bad timed MLD, i won't be able to do anything for 2-3 turns.
Trying to make just an emotional thing is hiding part of the truth. MLD interacts with the opponent resources and prevent or seriously limit them from playing. That's a big gameplay difference and that's what causes the "emotional response"
Brutum fulmen.
By this logic we should unban Emrakul, Griselbrand, prime titan and likely half of the banlist
Look, I run mld in a few decks where it's good. I don't cast it willy nilly. I use it to lock in a winning gamestate, or at least one where I am quite likely to win, typically when I'm going to be able to quickly rebuild my Mana or still have a Mana base after it hits. This particular game went another 7 turns because I had to fire it off a bit early to prevent him from going off before I had a board that could kill him quickly, and then he got lucky and drew into a few lands that let him answer a few threats and drag it out.
The thing is, there were two other players, a group hug guy and another guy. Group hug guy gg'd and quit right away, the other guy waited a few turns hoping to draw more land before gg'ing. In my experience online, it's the entitled netdeckers that throw a fit because they got beat by a strategy they weren't expecting, while the players running more casual decks just treat it like you comboed. I told the crybaby that mld is the only way for an aggro Boros decks to keep up by making the game play on it's terms, and he replied "that's why nobody plays Boros in edh". It's an acknowledgement that this pov kneecaps the color combination by denying it one of it's most powerful tools.
I'm not saying you shouldn't me mad when someone just pops a geddon randomly and ruins the game, or just sticks every mld card ever printed in a deck and thinks it will win. Misplayed mld is bad. So are misplayed wrath's, or idiots who think sticking 30 counterspells in a deck will help them win without bothering to figure out what they should actually counter. Neither is MLD isn't going to redeem Boros and make it the hot new color combo, there are more issues it needs to deal with ranging from being bad at ramp and draw and having no dominant commanders. But greater acceptance of well played mld would make the color combo more viable, and specifically open up more aggressive strategies that can take advantage of keeping land counts low. It could also open up an artifact based archetype that relies on rocks and crucible to further break symmetry. Mostly, it's just irrational to hate on mld while accepting insta win combos, counterspell walls, and other such things.
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
At least that's been my experiences when talking about MLD.
On phasing:
However I do also think that the very strong stigma around it has a warping effect on how people treat the cards in a vacuum without looking at the game as a whole and often a resolution of one of those cards is less painful than talking about them in circles online.
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
(Image by totallynotabrony)