Well, pretty sick of this retort. “Can’t compare to 60 card formats.” Fact is, 60 card formats, as a whole, are far more consistent than a singleton format. So my point was, aggro decks in that environment would struggle to deal 60 points of damage when fully optimized, therefore it is infinitely harder to do so in EDH. Who cares how many cards you have to dig through when you have access to Dig Spells, Super draw spells, all of the tutors, etc. This isn’t a great argument here.
Aggro decks in 60 card are built with the goal of dealing 20 damage as efficiently as possible to a single opponent. Of course they aren't going to scale well to 60 life.
But if you lower the life total enough that a fast aggro can deal lethal to at least one person reliably before a combo can reasonably be assembled, that takes a significant amount of the luster away from combo, because you'll always be at the mercy of the aggro player, and if he sniffs you out, you're in trouble.
Both aggro and combo are less consistent with 100 cards - which to a greater degree is hard to say, but I think duel commander shows us that combo takes the bigger hit (although they do ban a couple tutors...but they also ban some aggro cards).
And come on, you can't be serious with "who cares how many cards you have to dig through". Obviously number of cards matters. You want to try to put together a combo deck in my new format? It's 10,000 card decks, no duplicates. But don't worry, you have one copy of dig through time. That should make it easy.
How, exactly, do you know which player is which? Another not so great argument here. Is all it takes is for one of the “scrubs” to Murder a threat from the aggro player, and this goes completely out the window.
Good threat assessment? I rarely have any trouble figuring out who the tryhard is at my table after a couple turns, and most of the time commander choice alone gives it away.
Sure, other players could murder some random aggro creature attacking another player if they're especially thick. They could also kill the critical combo piece at the right time and totally dismantle the combo player. Outside interference could go either way - except at least the aggro player has the better argument to leave him alone until he's finished off the combo player.
And sure, maybe people will have crappy threat assessment and kill the aggro player's stuff while someone else combos off. Kinda hard to stop that. But hopefully they'll remember their mistake in the next game. Making it even harder on the aggro player by having outrageous life totals isn't improving anything.
And come on, you can't be serious with "who cares how many cards you have to dig through". Obviously number of cards matters. You want to try to put together a combo deck in my new format? It's 10,000 card decks, no duplicates. But don't worry, you have one copy of dig through time. That should make it easy.
Oh, so we can’t compare to 60 card, but let’s throw in some home-brew format. Makes sense. Then, let’s compare to Duel, which is 1v1. To top it off, we’re only going to talk about 2 competent players at a 4 man table.
Or, with all things being equal, combo will still reign supreme. Threat assessment has nothing to do with it. So many combos blow up out of nothing that it’s “anybody have stack interaction? No? GG.” How about the guy at the table playing life-gain? That Aggro player needs to eliminate that player first, otherwise they will be out of reach.
You’re focusing too much on Aggro vs. Combo. Other players and decks exist at the table. It’s an irrelevant point. Life totals will do absolutely nothing to curb what we are talking about here. Will Aggro be more viable? Well duh, yeah. But, that doesn’t immediately make combo worse off.
Good threat assessment? I rarely have any trouble figuring out who the tryhard is at my table after a couple turns, and most of the time commander choice alone gives it away.
Sure, other players could murder some random aggro creature attacking another player if they're especially thick. They could also kill the critical combo piece at the right time and totally dismantle the combo player. Outside interference could go either way - except at least the aggro player has the better argument to leave him alone until he's finished off the combo player.
And sure, maybe people will have crappy threat assessment and kill the aggro player's stuff while someone else combos off. Kinda hard to stop that. But hopefully they'll remember their mistake in the next game. Making it even harder on the aggro player by having outrageous life totals isn't improving anything.
Ugh, this whole thing bothers me. Let’s take your example of 2 good decks and 2 schmucks. What makes you think the 2 schmucks won’t see the aggro player punching the somehow-known combo player in the face and think “Well geeze, I’m next”.
You can’t sit there and say Aggro reigns in combo, and if you don’t recognize the fact that the Aggro player is doing the table a favor, you’re dense. All the while expecting the other players to be OK watching one player cobble another without thinking, “yeah, I don’t want this to happen to me”.
Oh wow, this again, except under the guise of "wide-eyed casual goes out into casual terror waters, gets mauled". Every single time one of these comes up (combos are bad, stax are bad, your ad here is bad), it pretty much boils down to the fact people dislike losing, even if they claim otherwise. My Daxos the Returned is inherently relatively unpleasant, what with the Oppressions and the Rule of Laws, but my meta minds it less than my Feather, the Redeemed that avoids messing with the game. Why? One of those is much better at cleaning house quickly (even though "quickly" is around turn 8).
That said, public EDH mileage may vary. Wildly. I hit up an LGS a few weeks ago, and watched as two guys struck a deal - guy A won't punch guy B for some number of turns if guy B lets guy A's commander resolve. Guy A casts the commander, guy B plonks down Desertion immediately. This was within 10 seconds of finishing up the deal. I saw red, threw all my resources at taking guy B out, and fell over to guy A on the backswing. Given the uncertain nature of the social interaction, building to win is the most reliable way to get something out of a public game, which leads to the rise of various ugly decks that aren't quite cEDH. The best way to get joy out of the format is to cultivate a local meta, which you can then communicate with to inbreed it to whatever standard you desire.
I think something missing from the aggro v. combo discussion is that in traditional formats, Aggro decks are the prey of combo decks, not vice versa.
The traditional pillars combo beats aggro and loses to control.
In Modern that was kinda spun on its head for a while because most combo decks couldn't beat burn because of Eidolon of the great revel but that's an unnatural state of affairs (and it's arguable whether burn in modern was really an aggro deck or closer to a combo deck, but that's a realllly big tangent).
The reason all that is weird in EDH is that the only efficient control finishers are combos, and so we have combo-control decks and combo-combo decks, and midrange-combo decks, and all kinds of stuff.
If your goal is to think about it like a regular format, I guess you could say that you want aggro to beat combo-control or combo-stax. And lowering life totals is something that might actually do, but I doubt it - you'd need the life totals to be closer to 10 than 30 for that to be feasible.
This is the type of game that sheldon is looking at unless I'm misunderstanding. Not this:
combo kill t5.
I don't mean he would like all games to go that long, but looking back at T's statement the one he agreed with that seems to me to be what he's aiming at.
...you'd need the life totals to be closer to 10 than 30 for that to be feasible.
This is exactly what I think as well.
I don’t even think life total is the problem, but the available card pool itself that is. When I think Aggro, I think Lightning Bolt. Mana spent to damage dealt. Burn spells scale horribly into multiplayer. Same goes with aggressive creatures. You can achieve stupidly large burst turns, but you’re still probably only eliminating one player, and leaving yourself open to be killed by the others. There isn’t enough efficiency across the available Aggro cards for it to be viable like combo is.
I mean, if you’re combo ing, your deck can easily see/filter through 30-40 cards of your deck in a handful of turns. Whereas with Aggro, you may be pushing lethal on one player in a handful of turns, and that’s probably with a nut draw.
If he does not like the style of play in his new LGS, I would suggest he talk to his playgroup about it, like we are all expected to do. If I were a new guy in a group, I would feel like it would be presumptuous to ask everyone to change to meet my expectations.
If this is very difficult or impossible because he is playing pickup games with relative strangers... well, that’s kind of the position many of us have been in for years now.
I hope Sheldon leads by example on this and shows us how it’s supposed to be done.
Why? I feel like 40 life started as a way to make games long and epic, and now it's rotting away at our foundations because it pushes people who aren't deliberately avoiding them into more and more efficient wincons, which are less and less interesting. A good idea in theory, ruined by human nature.
Then we just disagree about what 40 life does. I see it as a buffer so you don't have to have blockers T2 or just get zerged to death. You can pop a fetchland, or use a painland T3, and not have to worry if thats your death 3 turns from now. I think 30 would be a fine adjustment to 'tune up' aggro / midrange.
But that wont stop Combo from being the most efficient.
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.
I think something missing from the aggro v. combo discussion is that in traditional formats, Aggro decks are the prey of combo decks, not vice versa.
The traditional pillars combo beats aggro and loses to control.
In Modern that was kinda spun on its head for a while because most combo decks couldn't beat burn because of Eidolon of the great revel but that's an unnatural state of affairs (and it's arguable whether burn in modern was really an aggro deck or closer to a combo deck, but that's a realllly big tangent).
The reason all that is weird in EDH is that the only efficient control finishers are combos, and so we have combo-control decks and combo-combo decks, and midrange-combo decks, and all kinds of stuff.
If your goal is to think about it like a regular format, I guess you could say that you want aggro to beat combo-control or combo-stax. And lowering life totals is something that might actually do, but I doubt it - you'd need the life totals to be closer to 10 than 30 for that to be feasible.
Also just the nature of multiplayer makes it impossible to achieve the kind of game state control is looking for where it can reliably answer all relevant threats for the rest of the game.
A single player going off is usually enough to drain the control player of resources enough for the next player to go off immediately.
So we have aggro decks trying to deal 120 damage instead of 20
Control decks trying to control 3 players instead of 1
And combo decks that...are completely unaffected
It's pretty obvious from the outset which archetype is going to be the most successful.
Yeah and I'm not really convinced it's a problem personally. I think some of the combos are a bit too easy and powerful and resilient, but there really is a huge variety of combo decks.
I have a control-combo deck (inalla), an aggro-control deck with a combo finisher (ephara), and a couple weird ramp decks (gitrog and maelstrom wanderer). All of my decks play pretty differently, despite there being combos in some.
I keep hearing a lot of tutors and ramp are the problem but I see lots of people using those responsibly and in fun ways, but there are an awful lot of "must include" combo cards like food chain, isochron scepter and paradox engine that are independently very strong cards and also combo engines. I think those cards are more likely the problem than tutors and fast mana or even life totals.
Back when I got into EDH the go to mana combo was Basalt Monolith with rings or power artifact. These cards were all pretty clunky and awkward to find and half the combo didn't do much by itself. Almost no one used food chain really until well after Prossh was printed and popularized it by being a one-card combo basically (and then Eternal Scourge getting printed did not help. Isochron scepter didn't really see much play until Dramatic Reversal either, and of course Protean Hulk was banned.
Storm decks also have come a really long way since the earlier ones, with reservoir and some of the new nutterbutter enchantments (for casuals) and reversal/scepter and dark petition, etc.
Now combo packages are super dense, stronger, and faster. It's crazy to me how much faster and tighter decks have gotten even on the less than CEDH side. And it's mostly related to cards printed in the last few years.
I'm not really sure what to make of it to be honest but I would not shed any tears if a couple of the more degenerate pieces went away. I think that could be done with a lot less impact than some of the more exotic suggestions I've heard, if it were even warranted.
Oh, so we can’t compare to 60 card, but let’s throw in some home-brew format. Makes sense. Then, let’s compare to Duel, which is 1v1. To top it off, we’re only going to talk about 2 competent players at a 4 man table.
Or, with all things being equal, combo will still reign supreme. Threat assessment has nothing to do with it. So many combos blow up out of nothing that it’s “anybody have stack interaction? No? GG.” How about the guy at the table playing life-gain? That Aggro player needs to eliminate that player first, otherwise they will be out of reach.
You’re focusing too much on Aggro vs. Combo. Other players and decks exist at the table. It’s an irrelevant point. Life totals will do absolutely nothing to curb what we are talking about here. Will Aggro be more viable? Well duh, yeah. But, that doesn’t immediately make combo worse off.
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Ugh, this whole thing bothers me. Let’s take your example of 2 good decks and 2 schmucks. What makes you think the 2 schmucks won’t see the aggro player punching the somehow-known combo player in the face and think “Well geeze, I’m next”.
You can’t sit there and say Aggro reigns in combo, and if you don’t recognize the fact that the Aggro player is doing the table a favor, you’re dense. All the while expecting the other players to be OK watching one player cobble another without thinking, “yeah, I don’t want this to happen to me”.
The point of the mythical 10,000 card format was not direct comparison, the point was to refute your claim that "number of cards doesn't matter to combo", because obviously it does. Vintage combo is much more consistent than edh combo, thanks to deck size and being singleton. I'm not trying to draw a wider comparison. I'm just pointing out that your single point there is patently wrong by way of reductio ad absurdum.
Will combo still be superior? Probably, short of cutting life totals very low it's hard to avoid in multiplayer without some fairly heavy bans. I still think it's worth putting their superiority at some contention. But even outside of the cEDH aggro vs cEDH combo scenario - having lower life totals makes it more feasible for players to collaborate and kill someone who's clearly setting up some nonsense. I've had many games where one player has ramped to 15 mana on turn 6 or whatever, and even though everyone agrees they're the threat, it's hard to put a dent in that massive life total. Partly this is the fault of decks in general ignoring early board development because in a 40-life format it's not very important, and partly it's the fault of their life total being so high that most early drops won't have much of an effect. Both of these problems are reduced by lowering the starting life totals.
Not particularly important, but the lifegain comment is totally dependent on what kind of aggro deck you're talking about. Krenko, for example, doesn't give much of a crap about lifegain. At most it delays him...one turn? You seem to be assuming some sort of lightning-bolt-burn-based aggro deck, which is just never going to happen without lowering life totals absurdly low. Aggro decks in commander will always, of necessity, scale to the midgame.
RE: 2 schmucks vs aggro vs combo: the correct play in that scenario is to let aggro kill combo, then unleash whatever tools you have to stop the aggro player killing you. I don't particularly care what bad players are likely to do - I care about whether the metagame is balanced when players are playing intelligently. I have no idea what you mean about "doing the table a favor". Sure, it's good for the table - it's also good for the aggro player to eliminate the greatest threat first. It's for the latter reason that he should be doing it, not philanthropy.
When talking about, say, a cEDH game where there are 2 combo and 2 aggro players, or 3 combo and 1 aggro player - it's not as though the combo players get to go off unopposed. More competitive decks means more interaction, means a greater risk of going off early. The aggro player has a reasonable chance to win, so long as the combo/control players are keeping each other from going off long enough for him to deal enough damage - presumably with some interaction of his own. Lowering life totals makes that a lot more feasible.
Anyone saying "combo is unaffected" has a very poor understanding of multiplayer. Combo has THREE TIMES as many players who could be running answers to fend off. There's a reason cEDH games frequently don't involve a lot of successful comboing off - it's hard to fight through those odds. It's unaffected when playing a combo deck against casual decks not running interaction, I'll give you that one, but it's a problem of disparate power levels, not a problem of combo having an inherent advantage in multiplayer (it does have an advantage, granted, but it's certainly not "unaffected").
As far as combo > aggro > control > combo truism - that would still be true, because even if aggro can outrace one combo it is still overall weaker in the format because of needing to eliminate all players individually. We aren't talking about simple, one-category decks here, though. most cedh decks are combo + control. And most aggro decks run disruption. So the lines break down a bit.
Yeah and I'm not really convinced it's a problem personally. I think some of the combos are a bit too easy and powerful and resilient, but there really is a huge variety of combo decks.
I have a control-combo deck (inalla), an aggro-control deck with a combo finisher (ephara), and a couple weird ramp decks (gitrog and maelstrom wanderer). All of my decks play pretty differently, despite there being combos in some.
I keep hearing a lot of tutors and ramp are the problem but I see lots of people using those responsibly and in fun ways, but there are an awful lot of "must include" combo cards like food chain, isochron scepter and paradox engine that are independently very strong cards and also combo engines. I think those cards are more likely the problem than tutors and fast mana or even life totals.
Back when I got into EDH the go to mana combo was Basalt Monolith with rings or power artifact. These cards were all pretty clunky and awkward to find and half the combo didn't do much by itself. Almost no one used food chain really until well after Prossh was printed and popularized it by being a one-card combo basically (and then Eternal Scourge getting printed did not help. Isochron scepter didn't really see much play until Dramatic Reversal either, and of course Protean Hulk was banned.
Storm decks also have come a really long way since the earlier ones, with reservoir and some of the new nutterbutter enchantments (for casuals) and reversal/scepter and dark petition, etc.
Now combo packages are super dense, stronger, and faster. It's crazy to me how much faster and tighter decks have gotten even on the less than CEDH side. And it's mostly related to cards printed in the last few years.
I'm not really sure what to make of it to be honest but I would not shed any tears if a couple of the more degenerate pieces went away. I think that could be done with a lot less impact than some of the more exotic suggestions I've heard, if it were even warranted.
I think lowering starting life totals is the least "exotic" suggestion. For anyone wanting to keep the starting totals at 40, how come? How does giving 4 players such high life totals make games better than having them start at 30 instead?
Banning cards is a massive feel bad. Like you said, Isochron Scepter was okay for years until Dramatic Reversal. In fact, it was dismissed as actively bad for a long time.
A lot of the discussion has gone far off the path/problem that Sheldon laid out. He's not talking about cEDH combo decks or decks built entirely around combos. He talked about how decks too often pack some type of infinite loop to end games "just in case." However, the "just in case" scenario just happens to become every game. There's no amount of bannings that can eliminate theses types of "just in case" combo packages.
Games where all previous interactions are deemed meaningless through an out of nowhere infinite occurs are not satisfying. How many times do you sweat leaving someone at 4-5 life because you just know that everyone packs "infinites?" Lowering life totals just helps games end faster and more games will end organically.
And for the types of games Sheldon's referring to, most of the infinites are out of nowhere. The infinities have no synergy with the rest of the deck. They are simply "oopsies" I have the loop. And they're incredibly unsatisfying because the game and board-state never built up for the game to end that way.
He's not discussing cEDH battles where there are stacks that go 6-7 spells deep, where passing priority properly is important. When combos end those games, they are satisfying because the entire game was fought back and forth along that axis (card draw, counter-magic, decks with only 1v1 instant speed disruption).
One archetype that hasn't been discussed so far is Ramp. Lower life total definitely helps aggro vs ramp.
One archetype that hasn't been discussed so far is Ramp. Lower life total definitely helps aggro vs ramp.
Here is something I agree with. Also ramp is considered a 'fair' play style, even if you are dead but don't know it because they have twice as many lands as you.
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.
I think lowering starting life totals is the least "exotic" suggestion. For anyone wanting to keep the starting totals at 40, how come? How does giving 4 players such high life totals make games better than having them start at 30 instead?
Banning cards is a massive feel bad. Like you said, Isochron Scepter was okay for years until Dramatic Reversal. In fact, it was dismissed as actively bad for a long time.
A lot of the discussion has gone far off the path/problem that Sheldon laid out. He's not talking about cEDH combo decks or decks built entirely around combos. He talked about how decks too often pack some type of infinite loop to end games "just in case." However, the "just in case" scenario just happens to become every game. There's no amount of bannings that can eliminate theses types of "just in case" combo packages.
Games where all previous interactions are deemed meaningless through an out of nowhere infinite occurs are not satisfying. How many times do you sweat leaving someone at 4-5 life because you just know that everyone packs "infinites?" Lowering life totals just helps games end faster and more games will end organically.
And for the types of games Sheldon's referring to, most of the infinites are out of nowhere. The infinities have no synergy with the rest of the deck. They are simply "oopsies" I have the loop. And they're incredibly unsatisfying because the game and board-state never built up for the game to end that way.
He's not discussing cEDH battles where there are stacks that go 6-7 spells deep, where passing priority properly is important. When combos end those games, they are satisfying because the entire game was fought back and forth along that axis (card draw, counter-magic, decks with only 1v1 instant speed disruption).
One archetype that hasn't been discussed so far is Ramp. Lower life total definitely helps aggro vs ramp.
Lowering life totals is pretty format defining change. It'd make a huge impact. I think it's far more risky than banning and unbanning personally. You could ban 20 or 30 cards and it would be less impactful than changing the life totals to how the game fundamentally plays--if they were the right 20 or 30 cards.
I'm not saying it's wrong, but banning a few cards that are only really impactful in CEDH and the upper end of casual would be far less of a change.
I'm not going to get deep into banning discussions or anything but I've heard this same thing from a bunch of players who play the traditionally powerful foodchain generals (before FS was printed) - maelstrom wanderer, prossh, and momir vig.
"Yeah, food chain's in there, it's just so good, but I don't really go for it."
I have heard the exact same thing re: Paradox engine from a guy who made a really cool Urza equipment deck and then paradox engine'd us - like why man? "It's just too good."
As much as people like to pretend it doesn't, CEDH *does* trickle down to normal CEDH. There has been downward pressure on curves in EDH for years now. I'd bet if you could plot the average curve over the last say, 5 years, it's gone from probably 3.5+ to 3 if not a little lower.
I think the CEDH scene is a huge driver toward normalizing both combo and stax play in non-CEDH playgroups; people run into guys running pubstomp decks, they take ideas from CEDH decks, etc. [card}Winter Orb[/card] isn't quite mainstream but Urza has done a lot to make it acceptable in casuals -- hey, it's just soooo good with my general man!
Other than "do nothing" there isn't a lower risk proposal than to start banning the egregious combo cards. tutors have been a pillar of EDH for so long that if you start banning Demonic tutor you're going to impact more decks than if you banned PE, Food Chain and Isochron Scepter combined.
If you ban the top 5 egregious tutors, you'd hit nearly 25% of decks in the game, vs. probably 4%.
Fast mana is even more impactful. You're talking about every single deck being impacted and then a huge portion of others even more.
Again, I don't want to get into the merits of the bans themselves because this isn't the place for it, but if you want to talk simple, low risk solution, nothing comes close to banning some combo cards and seeing what happens. Again, assuming you think there is a problem, which I am not personally convinced of.
[Quote]When I think Aggro, I think Lightning Bolt. Mana spent to damage dealt. Burn spells scale horribly into multiplayer. Same goes with aggressive creatures. You can achieve stupidly large burst turns, but you’re still probably only eliminating one player, and leaving yourself open to be killed by the others. There isn’t enough efficiency across the available Aggro cards for it to be viable like combo is.
Turn one cast a one drop, get a token. Turn two cast two more one drops, tap them to convoke Obelisk of Urd. You now have 18 power on the board at the end of turn 2. That can kill many players player in two swings if they have fetch lands and/or pay life to ramp/tutor.
Same set up, turn one one drop, turn two a pair of one drops, turn three Shared Animosity and swing for 36.
Turn two mana rock, turn three Door of Destinies. Cast a combination of one and two drops which add 3+ counters to the door. Next turn cast Grandpa Munster and swing for 39+
Purphoros, God of the Forge + 10 or fewer one and two drops should kill the table. Malakir Bloodwitch can knock out one player upon resolution and swing out on another, leaving the third player to look at their top deck and sometimes concede.
ISBPathfinder's deck is really fun, and mine is not even as strong as his is. The mass card draw keeps your hand full, and unlike other traditional agro decks, you do not have to vomit your hand and over extend into a wrath to create a board presence. Just a combination of three creatures which cost one and two mana can easily result in 18+ power in play. Glory of Warfare, Dictate of Heliod, Anthem of Rakdos and Coat of Arms are all casual anthem effects which can single-handedly threaten the table.
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"Whatever style you wish to play, be it fast and frenzied or slow and tactical, the surest way to defeat your opponent consistently is by dominating him or her in the war of card advantage." - Brian Wiseman, April 1996
Lowering life totals is pretty format defining change. It'd make a huge impact. I think it's far more risky than banning and unbanning personally. You could ban 20 or 30 cards and it would be less impactful than changing the life totals to how the game fundamentally plays--if they were the right 20 or 30 cards.
20-30 cards? That's a disaster...mass bannings impact 3 out of these 4 objectives that you stated:
* Do my thing
* Hopefully see other people do their thing
* Chat with people
* Have a good time
However, you haven't mentioned how exactly you think lowering life totals would negatively impact the game? I'm interested in knowing that from your perspective.
cEDH hasn't been the main driver in the massive power creep in EDH. Neither has it been a big driver, nor small driver. cEDH's impact isn't nothing, but it's closer to being nothing than not.
It's been the annual CMDR pre-cons and the cards made specifically for EDH that pop each with each set. Also consider that EDH has grown but so has it's player base. Even if only ~10% of players become better deck builders, you'll notice it even if they don't play cEDH.
[Quote]When I think Aggro, I think Lightning Bolt. Mana spent to damage dealt. Burn spells scale horribly into multiplayer. Same goes with aggressive creatures. You can achieve stupidly large burst turns, but you’re still probably only eliminating one player, and leaving yourself open to be killed by the others. There isn’t enough efficiency across the available Aggro cards for it to be viable like combo is.
Turn one cast a one drop, get a token. Turn two cast two more one drops, tap them to convoke Obelisk of Urd. You now have 18 power on the board at the end of turn 2. That can kill many players player in two swings if they have fetch lands and/or pay life to ramp/tutor.
Same set up, turn one one drop, turn two a pair of one drops, turn three Shared Animosity and swing for 36.
Turn two mana rock, turn three Door of Destinies. Cast a combination of one and two drops which add 3+ counters to the door. Next turn cast Grandpa Munster and swing for 39+
Purphoros, God of the Forge + 10 or fewer one and two drops should kill the table. Malakir Bloodwitch can knock out one player upon resolution and swing out on another, leaving the third player to look at their top deck and sometimes concede.
ISBPathfinder's deck is really fun, and mine is not even as strong as his is. The mass card draw keeps your hand full, and unlike other traditional agro decks, you do not have to vomit your hand and over extend into a wrath to create a board presence. Just a combination of three creatures which cost one and two mana can easily result in 18+ power in play. Glory of Warfare, Dictate of Heliod, Anthem of Rakdos and Coat of Arms are all casual anthem effects which can single-handedly threaten the table.
Having played out similar situations to this many times, what actually happens:
One player dies, then the board is wiped, then the game goes on and the aggro player has no cards in hand. The player that went all in is unhappy because they have nothing to do with the empty hand, and the player who was eliminated is unhappy because the game can last for an hour after that.
I don't know that i think lowering life totals is necessarily bad but it would easily impact the game more than banning say the top 20 combo enablers.
Most people don't play combos but everyone has a life total and their decks are built with that in mind.
Fetches and shocks change. Night's whisper is worse. Mana crypt can become a death sentence. Sweepers have to be player more and cheaper.
So many impacts it's hard to even guess at. Go find every card in edh that says pay life and think on it. Serra ascendant actually gets better by a lot because now its a 5 turn clock instead of 7.
Turn one plays become way more critical. Bad manabase with tons of etb tapped lands become waaaaay worse.
The consequence are wildly unpredictable but it's far more likely to kill the format than banning kiki and ashnods altar or whatever.
I think the worst consequences I can think of relate to the pressure to play expensive manabase.
If games are 2 turns shorter on average your early turns are even more important. So there's a lot of pressure to lower curve, play expensive cheap ramp, mulligan aggressively and so on.
The gulf between cheap and expensive decks could widen significantly just by the casual consequences on manabase further stratifying the community by budget. That's already a thing but more so when the games are faster.
I don't know that i think lowering life totals is necessarily bad but it would easily impact the game more than banning say the top 20 combo enablers.
Most people don't play combos but everyone has a life total and their decks are built with that in mind.
Fetches and shocks change. Night's whisper is worse. Mana crypt can become a death sentence. Sweepers have to be player more and cheaper.
So many impacts it's hard to even guess at. Go find every card in edh that says pay life and think on it. Serra ascendant actually gets better by a lot because now its a 5 turn clock instead of 7.
Turn one plays become way more critical. Bad manabase with tons of etb tapped lands become waaaaay worse.
The consequence are wildly unpredictable but it's far more likely to kill the format than banning kiki and ashnods altar or whatever.
I think the worst consequences I can think of relate to the pressure to play expensive manabase.
If games are 2 turns shorter on average your early turns are even more important. So there's a lot of pressure to lower curve, play expensive cheap ramp, mulligan aggressively and so on.
The gulf between cheap and expensive decks could widen significantly just by the casual consequences on manabase further stratifying the community by budget. That's already a thing but more so when the games are faster.
I guess that all of the "negatives" that you listed are things that I see as positives.
I agree that most people don't play combos [or combo decks] and, like you, I don't see combos as a problem. They don't make for the best games but they are going to exist. However, I believe that issues with combo are more a structure of the format (i.e. 40 life, multiplayer) rather than a function of the banned list (i.e. you can't possibly have a palatable banned list that eliminates it).
Fetches/Shocks, Night's Whisper, and Mana Crypt should all have meaningful costs/downsides/drawbacks. I don't understand how that is a negative. You said that all people build with 40 life in mind...but are you going to ignore that almost every magic card is designed with 20 life in mind? Having an extra 20 life to buffer fetch->shock is ridiculous.
Serra Ascendant would be weaker. At 30 starting life, a fetch on turn 1 (or any chip damage) would stop it from entering as 6/6. Lower life total would probably lead to more early creatures and more early removal spells. How does lower life make it better?
Instead of banning every single "pay life" card printed, it's just cleaner to have life start at 30 instead of 40. There's a lot of "pay life" cards that are fair but just get too much juice at 40 life.
Turn one plays being a critical part of the game is a good thing. Explain why it shouldn't be the case? Come into play tapped lands are mostly bad, but there are many tools available for deck builders besides fetch->ABUR dual to fix mana. Are they not as good? Sure, but I think almost every single deck builder worth his salt would tell you that $$$-to-effectiveness, ABUR duals offer the worst return over any other upgrade. Lower life total doesn't pressure players into feeling like they "have to" buy duals. That's just a non-sequitur.
You're suggesting banning Kiki-Jiki? That's ridiculous. More people would dislike not being able to play their cards than starting out at 30.
I've played in so many games where players with creatures on boards, facing no blockers, still skip attacking. "Don't want to make enemies." There is truth in that. But the complete answer is just that in the face of 3/4 other players with 40 life, chip damage feels meaningless.
If this thread proves anything, it's that this group of people who cares a lot about this format can't agree on how combo should fit into the format. Banning combo or combo cards would alienate a large portion of players, and yet there is a large portion of players who want to play without it.
I live in Portland where it's not hard to find a combo-friendly or non-combo playgroup. I'll usually ask when sitting down to a new group of players which they are. I also get that some people have limited options as far as people to play with. I suppose if I was in that scenario and wanted a non-combo game I might ask if we could have a combo game and a noncombo game, maybe I could borrow someone's combo deck if I wasn't into building such a thing myself. Or if I am a combo player and nobody wants to play combo maybe I'd ask if we could do 1 combo game a night and here's some fun fast combo decks for you guys to borrow, don't worry this'll take less than 30 minutes probably.
I think this discussion is healthy because we see how many different types of game people like, but it's pretty damn clear we're never never never all going to agree on what the ideal EDH/Commander game looks like.
I guess that all of the "negatives" that you listed are things that I see as positives.
I agree that most people don't play combos [or combo decks] and, like you, I don't see combos as a problem. They don't make for the best games but they are going to exist. However, I believe that issues with combo are more a structure of the format (i.e. 40 life, multiplayer) rather than a function of the banned list (i.e. you can't possibly have a palatable banned list that eliminates it).
Fetches/Shocks, Night's Whisper, and Mana Crypt should all have meaningful costs/downsides/drawbacks. I don't understand how that is a negative. You said that all people build with 40 life in mind...but are you going to ignore that almost every magic card is designed with 20 life in mind? Having an extra 20 life to buffer fetch->shock is ridiculous.
Serra Ascendant would be weaker. At 30 starting life, a fetch on turn 1 (or any chip damage) would stop it from entering as 6/6. Lower life total would probably lead to more early creatures and more early removal spells. How does lower life make it better?
Instead of banning every single "pay life" card printed, it's just cleaner to have life start at 30 instead of 40. There's a lot of "pay life" cards that are fair but just get too much juice at 40 life.
Turn one plays being a critical part of the game is a good thing. Explain why it shouldn't be the case? Come into play tapped lands are mostly bad, but there are many tools available for deck builders besides fetch->ABUR dual to fix mana. Are they not as good? Sure, but I think almost every single deck builder worth his salt would tell you that $$$-to-effectiveness, ABUR duals offer the worst return over any other upgrade. Lower life total doesn't pressure players into feeling like they "have to" buy duals. That's just a non-sequitur.
You're suggesting banning Kiki-Jiki? That's ridiculous. More people would dislike not being able to play their cards than starting out at 30.
I've played in so many games where players with creatures on boards, facing no blockers, still skip attacking. "Don't want to make enemies." There is truth in that. But the complete answer is just that in the face of 3/4 other players with 40 life, chip damage feels meaningless.
You keep reading negatives somehow despite me saying differences and consequences, and I'm really confused by that so I'll take one more stab and then check out.
Changing to 30 life will change the format far more than banning even a large number of combo cards.
I do think that downward curve pressure is potentially very bad for casual deck construction and budget manabases.
Lower life total -> faster games -> more non-games for slow manabases -> pressure to improve manabases
The nature of this format is that it's really not implicit that all of those things are good. Lots of people like the slower games you malign.
I don't actually know what the preference is broadly, but I wouldn't pretend to know best in that respect - just say that it's a concern.
Saying things like "Turn one plays being a critical part of the game is a good thing" makes me really question your motivation. That's the type of "efficiency is king" statement that is making a lot of assumptions about how people "should" play magic that may not apply to EDH.
Kiki-Jiki was just a hypothetical as a "random combo card" you could ban. I'm not saying you should. I said you *could* and it would impact the format less than changing the life totals.
And for the types of games Sheldon's referring to, most of the infinites are out of nowhere. The infinities have no synergy with the rest of the deck. They are simply "oopsies" I have the loop. And they're incredibly unsatisfying because the game and board-state never built up for the game to end that way.
This sums up the issue.
If I create a tribal sea monster deck I could include Isochron Scepter & Dramatic Reversal. I won't because it doesn't fit the theme or spirit I am going for, but some players will because they saw on cEDH subreddit a player use them and win on turn 4.
I maintain if combos are ruining your playgroups fun, talk and then switch out one of the combo pieces for an = cmc card and then carry on playing. (E.g from the example above Isochron Scepter gets swapped for Null Rod or Dramatic Reversal is switched for Refocus)
People seem to be purposely missing his point. He didn't say 'don't play combo' or anything that approached that. His issue was with going straight for combo every time as option #1, perhaps your only win-con. And again, only in an unknown group, where such a thing should have social consequences.
People straight up straw-manning his stance is a sad thing on MTGS.
If that's what he said, that's fairer. I see combo as a way to close out games before they devolve into "We could've seen the entire Ring Cycle by now." But if you go to combo first, you will fold to even one control player. So, basically, whenever people bash control players, just remember I'm your friend
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!
If the perceived problem is that people are actively trying to combo out every game... and not that they have combos in their deck that they sometimes draw into.... then the obvious answer is that low cmc tutors need to be banned.
I have always said that I dislike tutors. This format is singleton, and there are enough tutors in a 3 colour deck to effectively play the same win condition in every game. Doesn't feel like singleton.
Sure, some people tutor out their jank synergies. Those decks can settle for less aggressive tutors, especially if that also means that combo decks are much weaker.
The issue isn't that people are playing scepter and reversal. It is that there are so many ways to tutor it that they may as well go for it every game.
I treat Chord of Calling like a toolbox card. But I am not getting an Acidic Slime to blow up a Cradle if I can get a Protean Hulk and win the game right away. This is the issue. Once you have the tutors, it is usually correct to tutor the combo. So you either restrict yourself by not including tutors or not including combos or you end up comboing out consistently.
If the perceived problem is that people are actively trying to combo out every game... and not that they have combos in their deck that they sometimes draw into.... then the obvious answer is that low cmc tutors need to be banned.
I have always said that I dislike tutors. This format is singleton, and there are enough tutors in a 3 colour deck to effectively play the same win condition in every game. Doesn't feel like singleton.
Sure, some people tutor out their jank synergies. Those decks can settle for less aggressive tutors, especially if that also means that combo decks are much weaker.
The issue isn't that people are playing scepter and reversal. It is that there are so many ways to tutor it that they may as well go for it every game.
I treat Chord of Calling like a toolbox card. But I am not getting an Acidic Slime to blow up a Cradle if I can get a Protean Hulk and win the game right away. This is the issue. Once you have the tutors, it is usually correct to tutor the combo. So you either restrict yourself by not including tutors or not including combos or you end up comboing out consistently.
The problem with this is that it--
1) is a *massive* change to the format, touching basically half of all decks if not more and requiring a banlist addition of at least 10 cards that all have broad fair uses outside of combos
2) would necessitate banning several additional generals
3) would just be replaced with filtering and cantrips immediately
4) has an extreme financial implication; it would likely cause a swing of billions in the value of cards. Billions.
But if you lower the life total enough that a fast aggro can deal lethal to at least one person reliably before a combo can reasonably be assembled, that takes a significant amount of the luster away from combo, because you'll always be at the mercy of the aggro player, and if he sniffs you out, you're in trouble.
Both aggro and combo are less consistent with 100 cards - which to a greater degree is hard to say, but I think duel commander shows us that combo takes the bigger hit (although they do ban a couple tutors...but they also ban some aggro cards).
And come on, you can't be serious with "who cares how many cards you have to dig through". Obviously number of cards matters. You want to try to put together a combo deck in my new format? It's 10,000 card decks, no duplicates. But don't worry, you have one copy of dig through time. That should make it easy. Good threat assessment? I rarely have any trouble figuring out who the tryhard is at my table after a couple turns, and most of the time commander choice alone gives it away.
Sure, other players could murder some random aggro creature attacking another player if they're especially thick. They could also kill the critical combo piece at the right time and totally dismantle the combo player. Outside interference could go either way - except at least the aggro player has the better argument to leave him alone until he's finished off the combo player.
And sure, maybe people will have crappy threat assessment and kill the aggro player's stuff while someone else combos off. Kinda hard to stop that. But hopefully they'll remember their mistake in the next game. Making it even harder on the aggro player by having outrageous life totals isn't improving anything.
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
Oh, so we can’t compare to 60 card, but let’s throw in some home-brew format. Makes sense. Then, let’s compare to Duel, which is 1v1. To top it off, we’re only going to talk about 2 competent players at a 4 man table.
Or, with all things being equal, combo will still reign supreme. Threat assessment has nothing to do with it. So many combos blow up out of nothing that it’s “anybody have stack interaction? No? GG.” How about the guy at the table playing life-gain? That Aggro player needs to eliminate that player first, otherwise they will be out of reach.
You’re focusing too much on Aggro vs. Combo. Other players and decks exist at the table. It’s an irrelevant point. Life totals will do absolutely nothing to curb what we are talking about here. Will Aggro be more viable? Well duh, yeah. But, that doesn’t immediately make combo worse off.
Ugh, this whole thing bothers me. Let’s take your example of 2 good decks and 2 schmucks. What makes you think the 2 schmucks won’t see the aggro player punching the somehow-known combo player in the face and think “Well geeze, I’m next”.
You can’t sit there and say Aggro reigns in combo, and if you don’t recognize the fact that the Aggro player is doing the table a favor, you’re dense. All the while expecting the other players to be OK watching one player cobble another without thinking, “yeah, I don’t want this to happen to me”.
That said, public EDH mileage may vary. Wildly. I hit up an LGS a few weeks ago, and watched as two guys struck a deal - guy A won't punch guy B for some number of turns if guy B lets guy A's commander resolve. Guy A casts the commander, guy B plonks down Desertion immediately. This was within 10 seconds of finishing up the deal. I saw red, threw all my resources at taking guy B out, and fell over to guy A on the backswing. Given the uncertain nature of the social interaction, building to win is the most reliable way to get something out of a public game, which leads to the rise of various ugly decks that aren't quite cEDH. The best way to get joy out of the format is to cultivate a local meta, which you can then communicate with to inbreed it to whatever standard you desire.
The traditional pillars combo beats aggro and loses to control.
In Modern that was kinda spun on its head for a while because most combo decks couldn't beat burn because of Eidolon of the great revel but that's an unnatural state of affairs (and it's arguable whether burn in modern was really an aggro deck or closer to a combo deck, but that's a realllly big tangent).
The reason all that is weird in EDH is that the only efficient control finishers are combos, and so we have combo-control decks and combo-combo decks, and midrange-combo decks, and all kinds of stuff.
If your goal is to think about it like a regular format, I guess you could say that you want aggro to beat combo-control or combo-stax. And lowering life totals is something that might actually do, but I doubt it - you'd need the life totals to be closer to 10 than 30 for that to be feasible.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
This is the type of game that sheldon is looking at unless I'm misunderstanding. Not this:
I don't mean he would like all games to go that long, but looking back at T's statement the one he agreed with that seems to me to be what he's aiming at.
This is exactly what I think as well.
I don’t even think life total is the problem, but the available card pool itself that is. When I think Aggro, I think Lightning Bolt. Mana spent to damage dealt. Burn spells scale horribly into multiplayer. Same goes with aggressive creatures. You can achieve stupidly large burst turns, but you’re still probably only eliminating one player, and leaving yourself open to be killed by the others. There isn’t enough efficiency across the available Aggro cards for it to be viable like combo is.
I mean, if you’re combo ing, your deck can easily see/filter through 30-40 cards of your deck in a handful of turns. Whereas with Aggro, you may be pushing lethal on one player in a handful of turns, and that’s probably with a nut draw.
If this is very difficult or impossible because he is playing pickup games with relative strangers... well, that’s kind of the position many of us have been in for years now.
I hope Sheldon leads by example on this and shows us how it’s supposed to be done.
Draft my Mono-Blue Cube!
lichess.org | chess.com
But that wont stop Combo from being the most efficient.
Also just the nature of multiplayer makes it impossible to achieve the kind of game state control is looking for where it can reliably answer all relevant threats for the rest of the game.
A single player going off is usually enough to drain the control player of resources enough for the next player to go off immediately.
So we have aggro decks trying to deal 120 damage instead of 20
Control decks trying to control 3 players instead of 1
And combo decks that...are completely unaffected
It's pretty obvious from the outset which archetype is going to be the most successful.
I have a control-combo deck (inalla), an aggro-control deck with a combo finisher (ephara), and a couple weird ramp decks (gitrog and maelstrom wanderer). All of my decks play pretty differently, despite there being combos in some.
I keep hearing a lot of tutors and ramp are the problem but I see lots of people using those responsibly and in fun ways, but there are an awful lot of "must include" combo cards like food chain, isochron scepter and paradox engine that are independently very strong cards and also combo engines. I think those cards are more likely the problem than tutors and fast mana or even life totals.
Back when I got into EDH the go to mana combo was Basalt Monolith with rings or power artifact. These cards were all pretty clunky and awkward to find and half the combo didn't do much by itself. Almost no one used food chain really until well after Prossh was printed and popularized it by being a one-card combo basically (and then Eternal Scourge getting printed did not help. Isochron scepter didn't really see much play until Dramatic Reversal either, and of course Protean Hulk was banned.
Storm decks also have come a really long way since the earlier ones, with reservoir and some of the new nutterbutter enchantments (for casuals) and reversal/scepter and dark petition, etc.
Now combo packages are super dense, stronger, and faster. It's crazy to me how much faster and tighter decks have gotten even on the less than CEDH side. And it's mostly related to cards printed in the last few years.
I'm not really sure what to make of it to be honest but I would not shed any tears if a couple of the more degenerate pieces went away. I think that could be done with a lot less impact than some of the more exotic suggestions I've heard, if it were even warranted.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Will combo still be superior? Probably, short of cutting life totals very low it's hard to avoid in multiplayer without some fairly heavy bans. I still think it's worth putting their superiority at some contention. But even outside of the cEDH aggro vs cEDH combo scenario - having lower life totals makes it more feasible for players to collaborate and kill someone who's clearly setting up some nonsense. I've had many games where one player has ramped to 15 mana on turn 6 or whatever, and even though everyone agrees they're the threat, it's hard to put a dent in that massive life total. Partly this is the fault of decks in general ignoring early board development because in a 40-life format it's not very important, and partly it's the fault of their life total being so high that most early drops won't have much of an effect. Both of these problems are reduced by lowering the starting life totals.
Not particularly important, but the lifegain comment is totally dependent on what kind of aggro deck you're talking about. Krenko, for example, doesn't give much of a crap about lifegain. At most it delays him...one turn? You seem to be assuming some sort of lightning-bolt-burn-based aggro deck, which is just never going to happen without lowering life totals absurdly low. Aggro decks in commander will always, of necessity, scale to the midgame.
RE: 2 schmucks vs aggro vs combo: the correct play in that scenario is to let aggro kill combo, then unleash whatever tools you have to stop the aggro player killing you. I don't particularly care what bad players are likely to do - I care about whether the metagame is balanced when players are playing intelligently. I have no idea what you mean about "doing the table a favor". Sure, it's good for the table - it's also good for the aggro player to eliminate the greatest threat first. It's for the latter reason that he should be doing it, not philanthropy.
When talking about, say, a cEDH game where there are 2 combo and 2 aggro players, or 3 combo and 1 aggro player - it's not as though the combo players get to go off unopposed. More competitive decks means more interaction, means a greater risk of going off early. The aggro player has a reasonable chance to win, so long as the combo/control players are keeping each other from going off long enough for him to deal enough damage - presumably with some interaction of his own. Lowering life totals makes that a lot more feasible.
Anyone saying "combo is unaffected" has a very poor understanding of multiplayer. Combo has THREE TIMES as many players who could be running answers to fend off. There's a reason cEDH games frequently don't involve a lot of successful comboing off - it's hard to fight through those odds. It's unaffected when playing a combo deck against casual decks not running interaction, I'll give you that one, but it's a problem of disparate power levels, not a problem of combo having an inherent advantage in multiplayer (it does have an advantage, granted, but it's certainly not "unaffected").
As far as combo > aggro > control > combo truism - that would still be true, because even if aggro can outrace one combo it is still overall weaker in the format because of needing to eliminate all players individually. We aren't talking about simple, one-category decks here, though. most cedh decks are combo + control. And most aggro decks run disruption. So the lines break down a bit.
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 think lowering starting life totals is the least "exotic" suggestion. For anyone wanting to keep the starting totals at 40, how come? How does giving 4 players such high life totals make games better than having them start at 30 instead?
Banning cards is a massive feel bad. Like you said, Isochron Scepter was okay for years until Dramatic Reversal. In fact, it was dismissed as actively bad for a long time.
A lot of the discussion has gone far off the path/problem that Sheldon laid out. He's not talking about cEDH combo decks or decks built entirely around combos. He talked about how decks too often pack some type of infinite loop to end games "just in case." However, the "just in case" scenario just happens to become every game. There's no amount of bannings that can eliminate theses types of "just in case" combo packages.
Games where all previous interactions are deemed meaningless through an out of nowhere infinite occurs are not satisfying. How many times do you sweat leaving someone at 4-5 life because you just know that everyone packs "infinites?" Lowering life totals just helps games end faster and more games will end organically.
And for the types of games Sheldon's referring to, most of the infinites are out of nowhere. The infinities have no synergy with the rest of the deck. They are simply "oopsies" I have the loop. And they're incredibly unsatisfying because the game and board-state never built up for the game to end that way.
He's not discussing cEDH battles where there are stacks that go 6-7 spells deep, where passing priority properly is important. When combos end those games, they are satisfying because the entire game was fought back and forth along that axis (card draw, counter-magic, decks with only 1v1 instant speed disruption).
One archetype that hasn't been discussed so far is Ramp. Lower life total definitely helps aggro vs ramp.
Lowering life totals is pretty format defining change. It'd make a huge impact. I think it's far more risky than banning and unbanning personally. You could ban 20 or 30 cards and it would be less impactful than changing the life totals to how the game fundamentally plays--if they were the right 20 or 30 cards.
I'm not saying it's wrong, but banning a few cards that are only really impactful in CEDH and the upper end of casual would be far less of a change.
I'm not going to get deep into banning discussions or anything but I've heard this same thing from a bunch of players who play the traditionally powerful foodchain generals (before FS was printed) - maelstrom wanderer, prossh, and momir vig.
"Yeah, food chain's in there, it's just so good, but I don't really go for it."
I have heard the exact same thing re: Paradox engine from a guy who made a really cool Urza equipment deck and then paradox engine'd us - like why man? "It's just too good."
As much as people like to pretend it doesn't, CEDH *does* trickle down to normal CEDH. There has been downward pressure on curves in EDH for years now. I'd bet if you could plot the average curve over the last say, 5 years, it's gone from probably 3.5+ to 3 if not a little lower.
I think the CEDH scene is a huge driver toward normalizing both combo and stax play in non-CEDH playgroups; people run into guys running pubstomp decks, they take ideas from CEDH decks, etc. [card}Winter Orb[/card] isn't quite mainstream but Urza has done a lot to make it acceptable in casuals -- hey, it's just soooo good with my general man!
Other than "do nothing" there isn't a lower risk proposal than to start banning the egregious combo cards. tutors have been a pillar of EDH for so long that if you start banning Demonic tutor you're going to impact more decks than if you banned PE, Food Chain and Isochron Scepter combined.
If you ban the top 5 egregious tutors, you'd hit nearly 25% of decks in the game, vs. probably 4%.
Fast mana is even more impactful. You're talking about every single deck being impacted and then a huge portion of others even more.
Again, I don't want to get into the merits of the bans themselves because this isn't the place for it, but if you want to talk simple, low risk solution, nothing comes close to banning some combo cards and seeing what happens. Again, assuming you think there is a problem, which I am not personally convinced of.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Allow me to introduce Edgar Markov.
Turn one cast a one drop, get a token. Turn two cast two more one drops, tap them to convoke Obelisk of Urd. You now have 18 power on the board at the end of turn 2. That can kill many players player in two swings if they have fetch lands and/or pay life to ramp/tutor.
Same set up, turn one one drop, turn two a pair of one drops, turn three Shared Animosity and swing for 36.
Turn two mana rock, turn three Door of Destinies. Cast a combination of one and two drops which add 3+ counters to the door. Next turn cast Grandpa Munster and swing for 39+
Purphoros, God of the Forge + 10 or fewer one and two drops should kill the table.
Malakir Bloodwitch can knock out one player upon resolution and swing out on another, leaving the third player to look at their top deck and sometimes concede.
ISBPathfinder's deck is really fun, and mine is not even as strong as his is. The mass card draw keeps your hand full, and unlike other traditional agro decks, you do not have to vomit your hand and over extend into a wrath to create a board presence. Just a combination of three creatures which cost one and two mana can easily result in 18+ power in play. Glory of Warfare, Dictate of Heliod, Anthem of Rakdos and Coat of Arms are all casual anthem effects which can single-handedly threaten the table.
20-30 cards? That's a disaster...mass bannings impact 3 out of these 4 objectives that you stated:
* Do my thing
* Hopefully see other people do their thing
* Chat with people
* Have a good time
However, you haven't mentioned how exactly you think lowering life totals would negatively impact the game? I'm interested in knowing that from your perspective.
cEDH hasn't been the main driver in the massive power creep in EDH. Neither has it been a big driver, nor small driver. cEDH's impact isn't nothing, but it's closer to being nothing than not.
It's been the annual CMDR pre-cons and the cards made specifically for EDH that pop each with each set. Also consider that EDH has grown but so has it's player base. Even if only ~10% of players become better deck builders, you'll notice it even if they don't play cEDH.
Having played out similar situations to this many times, what actually happens:
One player dies, then the board is wiped, then the game goes on and the aggro player has no cards in hand. The player that went all in is unhappy because they have nothing to do with the empty hand, and the player who was eliminated is unhappy because the game can last for an hour after that.
Most people don't play combos but everyone has a life total and their decks are built with that in mind.
Fetches and shocks change. Night's whisper is worse. Mana crypt can become a death sentence. Sweepers have to be player more and cheaper.
So many impacts it's hard to even guess at. Go find every card in edh that says pay life and think on it. Serra ascendant actually gets better by a lot because now its a 5 turn clock instead of 7.
Turn one plays become way more critical. Bad manabase with tons of etb tapped lands become waaaaay worse.
The consequence are wildly unpredictable but it's far more likely to kill the format than banning kiki and ashnods altar or whatever.
I think the worst consequences I can think of relate to the pressure to play expensive manabase.
If games are 2 turns shorter on average your early turns are even more important. So there's a lot of pressure to lower curve, play expensive cheap ramp, mulligan aggressively and so on.
The gulf between cheap and expensive decks could widen significantly just by the casual consequences on manabase further stratifying the community by budget. That's already a thing but more so when the games are faster.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
I guess that all of the "negatives" that you listed are things that I see as positives.
I agree that most people don't play combos [or combo decks] and, like you, I don't see combos as a problem. They don't make for the best games but they are going to exist. However, I believe that issues with combo are more a structure of the format (i.e. 40 life, multiplayer) rather than a function of the banned list (i.e. you can't possibly have a palatable banned list that eliminates it).
Fetches/Shocks, Night's Whisper, and Mana Crypt should all have meaningful costs/downsides/drawbacks. I don't understand how that is a negative. You said that all people build with 40 life in mind...but are you going to ignore that almost every magic card is designed with 20 life in mind? Having an extra 20 life to buffer fetch->shock is ridiculous.
Serra Ascendant would be weaker. At 30 starting life, a fetch on turn 1 (or any chip damage) would stop it from entering as 6/6. Lower life total would probably lead to more early creatures and more early removal spells. How does lower life make it better?
Instead of banning every single "pay life" card printed, it's just cleaner to have life start at 30 instead of 40. There's a lot of "pay life" cards that are fair but just get too much juice at 40 life.
Turn one plays being a critical part of the game is a good thing. Explain why it shouldn't be the case? Come into play tapped lands are mostly bad, but there are many tools available for deck builders besides fetch->ABUR dual to fix mana. Are they not as good? Sure, but I think almost every single deck builder worth his salt would tell you that $$$-to-effectiveness, ABUR duals offer the worst return over any other upgrade. Lower life total doesn't pressure players into feeling like they "have to" buy duals. That's just a non-sequitur.
You're suggesting banning Kiki-Jiki? That's ridiculous. More people would dislike not being able to play their cards than starting out at 30.
I've played in so many games where players with creatures on boards, facing no blockers, still skip attacking. "Don't want to make enemies." There is truth in that. But the complete answer is just that in the face of 3/4 other players with 40 life, chip damage feels meaningless.
I live in Portland where it's not hard to find a combo-friendly or non-combo playgroup. I'll usually ask when sitting down to a new group of players which they are. I also get that some people have limited options as far as people to play with. I suppose if I was in that scenario and wanted a non-combo game I might ask if we could have a combo game and a noncombo game, maybe I could borrow someone's combo deck if I wasn't into building such a thing myself. Or if I am a combo player and nobody wants to play combo maybe I'd ask if we could do 1 combo game a night and here's some fun fast combo decks for you guys to borrow, don't worry this'll take less than 30 minutes probably.
I think this discussion is healthy because we see how many different types of game people like, but it's pretty damn clear we're never never never all going to agree on what the ideal EDH/Commander game looks like.
WUBRG Some of these decks can actually win games...WUBRG
How I know I should build a deck:
You keep reading negatives somehow despite me saying differences and consequences, and I'm really confused by that so I'll take one more stab and then check out.
Changing to 30 life will change the format far more than banning even a large number of combo cards.
I do think that downward curve pressure is potentially very bad for casual deck construction and budget manabases.
Lower life total -> faster games -> more non-games for slow manabases -> pressure to improve manabases
The nature of this format is that it's really not implicit that all of those things are good. Lots of people like the slower games you malign.
I don't actually know what the preference is broadly, but I wouldn't pretend to know best in that respect - just say that it's a concern.
Saying things like "Turn one plays being a critical part of the game is a good thing" makes me really question your motivation. That's the type of "efficiency is king" statement that is making a lot of assumptions about how people "should" play magic that may not apply to EDH.
Kiki-Jiki was just a hypothetical as a "random combo card" you could ban. I'm not saying you should. I said you *could* and it would impact the format less than changing the life totals.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
This sums up the issue.
If I create a tribal sea monster deck I could include Isochron Scepter & Dramatic Reversal. I won't because it doesn't fit the theme or spirit I am going for, but some players will because they saw on cEDH subreddit a player use them and win on turn 4.
I maintain if combos are ruining your playgroups fun, talk and then switch out one of the combo pieces for an = cmc card and then carry on playing. (E.g from the example above Isochron Scepter gets swapped for Null Rod or Dramatic Reversal is switched for Refocus)
Mr Barrin this Cube is on Fire!! - http://www.cubetutor.com/cubeblog/80149
WG Kei Takahashi: Is in Charge Now !? (EDH) WG
If that's what he said, that's fairer. I see combo as a way to close out games before they devolve into "We could've seen the entire Ring Cycle by now." But if you go to combo first, you will fold to even one control player. So, basically, whenever people bash control players, just remember I'm your friend
On phasing:
I have always said that I dislike tutors. This format is singleton, and there are enough tutors in a 3 colour deck to effectively play the same win condition in every game. Doesn't feel like singleton.
Sure, some people tutor out their jank synergies. Those decks can settle for less aggressive tutors, especially if that also means that combo decks are much weaker.
The issue isn't that people are playing scepter and reversal. It is that there are so many ways to tutor it that they may as well go for it every game.
I treat Chord of Calling like a toolbox card. But I am not getting an Acidic Slime to blow up a Cradle if I can get a Protean Hulk and win the game right away. This is the issue. Once you have the tutors, it is usually correct to tutor the combo. So you either restrict yourself by not including tutors or not including combos or you end up comboing out consistently.
8.RG Green Devotion Ramp/Combo 9.UR Draw Triggers 10.WUR Group stalling 11.WUR Voltron Spellslinger 12.WB Sacrificial Shenanigans
13.BR Creatureless Panharmonicon 14.BR Pingers and Eldrazi 15.URG Untapped Cascading
16.Reyhan, last of the Abzan's WUBG +1/+1 Counter Craziness 17.WUBRG Dragons aka Why did I make this?
Building: The Gitrog Monster lands, Glissa the Traitor stax, Muldrotha, the Gravetide Planeswalker Combo, Kydele, Chosen of Kruphix + Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa Clues, and Tribal Scarecrow Planeswalkers
The problem with this is that it--
1) is a *massive* change to the format, touching basically half of all decks if not more and requiring a banlist addition of at least 10 cards that all have broad fair uses outside of combos
2) would necessitate banning several additional generals
3) would just be replaced with filtering and cantrips immediately
4) has an extreme financial implication; it would likely cause a swing of billions in the value of cards. Billions.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall