You just said in that post up there that magic cards are not designed to combo.
It is one of the most factually inaccurate things I have ever seen anyone say about this game.
Harp on that if you like. Lets actually talk about EDH:
Infinite combo is not a pillar of EDH, it was fairly recently the RC started to unban combo pieces. The creators are speaking out about it negatively. The RC has always been in that general vicinity in regards to infinite combo.
Making out like this is some new twist is intellectually dishonest.
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.
All this is fascinating, really, but you people are neglecting to talk about the most important aspect: even assuming that combos are as bad for the format as you're making them out to be, what would you actually DO about it? Ban them all? Good luck with that, the card pool is too vast to block ALL possible ways this format offers to get to combos, and with new cards designed every few months (and the devs making it clear that they have no interest in checking ALL CARDS EVER DESIGNED whenever they create a new one in order to make sure it doesn't combo with anything else) people will always find new ways to pull off "I drop this and I win" situations, simply because the alternative is to attack into 120 HPs (often protected by fort/stax/pure control strategies) wth a bunch of creatures, and quite frankly nobody's got time for that.
So yeah, my opinion is that combos are a necessary evil in that they're the fastest and most efficient way of breaking the board state of otherwise oppressive decks, while your opinion is that a mentality like mine is damaging for the format... But the point here is that neither opinion really matters, because no realistic solution can be adopted either way. Combos are a toxic way of combating decks/strategies that are arguably even more toxic: in order to get rid of all the toxicity, you'd need to ban half the card pool, and then people would probably still find ways to be toxic. If my experience in videogame development is teaching me anything, is that you should never underestimate the ability your playerbase has of finding new and exciting ways to be toxic.
So my conclusion is this: some feel combos are a problem, and some feel the oppressive decks that would be nigh impossible to bring down without combos are the real problem... But regardless of which side you're on, in the end the fact of the matter is that a solution cannot be found without greatly diminishing what the format is about. So this discussion is essentially destined to go nowhere.
So my conclusion is this: some feel combos are a problem, and some feel the oppressive decks that would be nigh impossible to bring down without combos are the real problem... But regardless of which side you're on, in the end the fact of the matter is that a solution cannot be found without greatly diminishing what the format is about. So this discussion is essentially destined to go nowhere.
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.
So my conclusion is this: some feel combos are a problem, and some feel the oppressive decks that would be nigh impossible to bring down without combos are the real problem... But regardless of which side you're on, in the end the fact of the matter is that a solution cannot be found without greatly diminishing what the format is about. So this discussion is essentially destined to go nowhere.
Did you even read the original post from Sheldon?
I did, an I reiterate my question: talking about how the "descent into infinite" mentality is bad for the game is a nice exercise of rhetoric, but what would you folks actually DO about it?
I'm relatively new to EDH compared to most here, I've only been at this for 3 years where Kess (place held with Crosis for a few months) on release was my first deck. EDH was my window back into MtG after having left paper around Origins.
I learned very quickly that big money staples > thematic decks (especially with the mana base). This Kess deck was just Grixis control, using Crosis, Bolas and other relatively cheap beaters in the 99 to close games out. I still didn't have much in the way of a fleshed out mana base, since I bought precons only after a few games. From memory I think I had a Bloodstained Mire from my days playing Khans standard, a Temple of Epiphany and then guildgates with basics. Mana rocks consisted of Darksteel Ingot, a few Cluestones and a Worn Powerstone. As you'd expect from the first time running this pile sans Command Towers and Sol Rings, it did very little until one action would annoy the table (nature of control) and get me wiped out of the game in short order. But I was able to pick up on a few things that still speak to me now...
1) The guy running Uril, the Miststalker in my first game basically read: "You don't get to interact with me", which led to a very boring match being his first target. To this day I have no love for this Commander and will happily lose if it means countering every time he's cast. I play to have interactive back and forth games, not "can you answer this? Lose" which is no different to Sheldon's issues with the "feel bads" of infinite combo.
2) 2 players had Mana Crypts (1 had a Mana Vault) and fully fleshed out mana bases, but were running what I now know aren't "top tier" decks. They're just run to accelerate their game plan. one was the above mentioned Uril Voltron, the other was some Kruphix concoction I can't recall entirely, although I'm feeling "Big X Spells" came up a lot more than Eldrazi did. Kruphix was also running Oracle of Mul Daya too.
Now what was the overarching lesson for me from these 2 things? I needed to win faster. If I was going to be staring down lethal, unblockable commander damage or an overwhelming board state of enchantments Grixis has a sad time against, I needed a faster game plan. The issue was the cost some of these cards had, easy for older players long in the tooth who collected these in better times, but with a lot of the good ramp and win packages consisting of $20+ cards, this wasn't the "cheap, casual format" I was led to believe. So I took a different approach in looking at cheap, fast combos. 2 months and a few other precons experience later, I came very close to a full Kess Storm deck sans the mana base. The reaction of players at that LGS? "Get out of here with that tryharding pile". This shocked me a bit, surely these same players running one shot voltron decks or Craterhoof Behemoth wins wouldn't be that dim to not see how easily an Isochron Scepter win turn 8 achieved the same effect at the same speed? Fast forward to now and I still don't see Sheldon and others' arguments against infinite wincons as anything other than an old-guard grumbling that kids nowadays get bored of smacking plastic dinosaurs against each other for 2+ hours.
This shocked me a bit, surely these same players running one shot voltron decks or Craterhoof Behemoth wins wouldn't be that dim to not see how easily an Isochron Scepter win turn 8 achieved the same effect at the same speed?
This was pretty much my argument as well. When faced with 120 HPs protected by all manners of high-end strategies, you cannot just put down a small/medium creature per turn, turn it sideways, and hope it goes through: you need to win in one big fell swoop. And when it comes to winning in one big fell swoop, when it comes to telling the opponent "if this resolves then you're powerless to stop me", I frankly see no difference between an infinite combo, an unkillable voltron, a complete removal of other people's resources (think Mycosynth Lattice + Vandalblast), or Avenger+Craterhoof. So essentially there are two option in front of someone who wants to address the problem of "descent into combo":
1) Ban the combo cards. This is both unfeasible (there are so many different interactions in MtG, that if you were to make it impossible to use the currently popular combos people would simply come up with new one that you cannot even imagine right now) and hypocritical, because it leads to a toxic playstyle being completely eradicated, while two or three other playstyles that are arguably just as toxic remain completely unaddressed.
2) Ban all key cards used in all kinds of toxic decks, making it impossible to win in one big fell swoop. This would be absolutely unfeasible, because it would require you to ban all the voltron cards, all the combo cards, and all the big mana/fast tokens/mass buff cards... And then breaking the board state of decks such as pure stax/pillowfort would become nigh impossible, so those decks would become the next problem and you'd end up needing to ban their key cards too. At the end of the day, this would result in the banning of literally half of the card pool and the gutting of 5 major playstyles out of what, 8? The blow to the game's diversity would be staggering.
So I maintain that this discussion is destined to go nowhere: regardless of whether or not you believe combos are a problem, the fact of the matter is that there's no feasible, realistic solution for it. You can SAY that combos are a problem, but there's nothing you can actually DO about it.
The only two suggestions I've seen in this topic that I actually like are the banning of all "search your library for this or that" cards (because on paper the point of 99 singleton cards is to force the players to choose between the consistency of running one wincon and the versatility of running multiple ones, but if you've got so many tutors to be absolutely certain that your one wincon will be on the field by turn 4/5, than that choice becomes completely meaningless), and the reduction of the starting HP total from 40 to 30 or perhaps even 20 (so as to make attacking with creatures an actually worthwhile wincon even without the likes of Craterhoof). Such changes would keep the high-end competitive players honest, preventing their games from being "ramp tutor ramp tutor ramp tutor ramp tutor I WIN", but at the same time thy wouldn't affect the majority of the playerbase, I.E. the casual players who have a favorite card/interaction/combo and just want to have fun with it: I mean, such players probably weren't going to be able to afford a Vampiric Tutor anyway.
But banning the combos themselves would be hypocritical at best, and actively detrimental for the format's future at worst.
Reduction of HP wouldn't do much either. Quite a few fast commander decks around(even ones that aren't expensive to build such as for example Najeela warrior tribal) that can decimate the lower life total rather quickly if not stopped. And even that is't the same speed as some degenerate combo decks.
A really large difference i notice with the more 'casual' commander decks, other than the amount of ramp/tutors and a more solid manabase is the amount of answers that are included in the deck. Counters? protection? threat removal? graveyard removal?. Most of the times the tools that can actually stop a combo from forming aren't included in any worthwile amount.
The thing you do to fix combos is lower the starting life total. When winning via damage is more feasible, combo will cease to be the only option to compete at powerful tables, and groups can "degenerate" without all becoming combo focused out of necessity.
Right now the easiest way to win a game of commander - by far - is to doing something extremely high-impact in a single turn, to reduce your opponents ability to interact with you and win before they can recover - whether combo, craterhoof, or expropriate. That's because any incremental damage strategy is going to fail frequently against 120 enemy life. Make life totals smaller, make incremental damage matter again, and explosive plays will be less important, and a greater diversity of strategy can thrive.
If you want to lessen the dominance of combo, I'm quite the fan of the WotC approach - ban the cheap and plentiful cantrips that are the glue that holds together any xU deck - Brainstorm, Ponder, Preordain, and their ilk. You can even add on to this with the same take they use on Vintage where they hit other egregious offenders (Treasure Cruise, Gush and at one point, Fact or Fiction). When you take away the best tools to dig for pieces, you force these decks to improvise with inferior parts which then reduces their efficiency as a machine up to and including their legitimacy as a deck.
You might not think so when you look at these cards in a vacuum, but their iMPACT on your deck's consistency cannot be understated. And, then when you add in the removal of cheap unrestricted tutours and fast mana (defined as anything that generates more mana than it's cmc), you've finally officially reduced the incredible staying power that combo decks currently enjoy in the format.
If you try to stifle combo by removing card selection and tutors people will focus on one card commander combos like food chain and curiosity and similar. There are enough these you will need to ban a lot of dumb cards or generals.
If you then ban those combos people will play generals that tutor. Then you can those.
Then people will play generals that lock the board down and combine that with critical mass of stax pieces.
I don't think there is a solution to players trying to play the most efficient, consistent way. And I don't think there is anything you can do to prevent people from complaining that xyz is degenerate.
I think the format can be improved but we need to take very slow and incremental steps. I do think that banning a few of the more egregious combo cards might do more for the higher powered but noncedh metas than people might think because it makes a statement. That's a lot of what the banlist is commander does is set a kind of philosophical foundation for the format.
But there is very little chance you're going to tighten a bolt with a hammer.
If you try to ban combo by removing card selection and tutors people will focus on one card commander combos like food chain and curiosity and similar. There are enough these you will need to ban a lot of dumb cards or generals.
If you then ban those combos people will play generals that tutor. Then you can those.
Then people will play generals that lock the board down and combine that with critical mass of stax pieces.
I don't think there is a solution to players trying to play the most efficient, consistent way. And I don't think there is anything you can do to prevent people from complaining that xyz is degenerate.
I think the format can be improved but we need to take very slow and incremental steps. I do think that banning a few of the more egregious combo cards might do more for the higher powered but noncedh metas than people might think because it makes a statement. That's a lot of what the banlist is commander does is set a kind of philosophical foundation for the format.
But there is very little chance you're going to tighten a bolt with a hammer.
I never said you will eliminate combos. Just that you will rein them in to a degree by robbing them of some of their efficiency.
Oh, look, it is this thread again. Three things in life you can count on are death, taxes, and people complaining about combos in EDH. There has been some thread about this since before the Commander subforum was created, back when we only had topics in the Casual section.
Combos are a part of magic. Get over it.
You are responsible for cultivating the environment you want to play in. Be a poaitive influence rather than a cry baby who takes its ball amd goes home when it doesn't get its way. Cut toxic people from your life if they are unrrasonable.
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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
I would appreciate you clarifying your recommendation because if it is to ban cantrips/cheap draw spells I think you're barking up the wrong tree. But if you mean that banning the cheap tutors would be analogous to banning cantrips in other formats, I can at least see the parallels.
If you're seriously talking about banning cantrips and cheap dig spells, I think you will just make black the new dominant color in combo (as if it's not already close). Black has some of the best draw in the format and also has Necropotence which straight up is the best draw spell in the format possibly after Ad Nauseam (I'm not really sure there).
Most non-CEDH decks don't play cantrips beyond Brainstorm and Ponder (if that) -- there is a steeeep falloff in play after Ponder/Brainstorm/Preordain and even Preordain starts to fall off precipitously after ponder. And comparing those in effectiveness to Vampiric tutor is comical.
CEDH and even high power level (75%+) combo decks would adapt to the removal of cantrips in about twenty minutes.
I did, an I reiterate my question: talking about how the "descent into infinite" mentality is bad for the game is a nice exercise of rhetoric, but what would you folks actually DO about it?
Convince other people its not where the game should be. The other option I see is a hundred card ban list, and no one wants that.
2 months and a few other precons experience later, I came very close to a full Kess Storm deck sans the mana base. The reaction of players at that LGS? "Get out of here with that tryharding pile". This shocked me a bit, surely these same players running one shot voltron decks or Craterhoof Behemoth wins wouldn't be that dim to not see how easily an Isochron Scepter win turn 8 achieved the same effect at the same speed? Fast forward to now and I still don't see Sheldon and others' arguments against infinite wincons as anything other than an old-guard grumbling that kids nowadays get bored of smacking plastic dinosaurs against each other for 2+ hours.
Thats the thing, I don't see what Sheldon is saying as grumbling about winning with combo. If you are about the same power level, around the same turn I don't see an issue with that per se. Now if you are tutoring for combo pieces and winning around T8, I may ask you to play something else. Another issue is Dramatic Scepter can all happen in one turn, those other items take setup, so some folks see that as not the same power level.
The thing you do to fix combos is lower the starting life total. When winning via damage is more feasible, combo will cease to be the only option to compete at powerful tables, and groups can "degenerate" without all becoming combo focused out of necessity.
I dont think the difference between 90 and 120 makes this happen. And anything under 30 is going to be to low to me in EDH. YMMV
You are responsible for cultivating the environment you want to play in. Be a poaitive influence rather than a cry baby who takes its ball amd goes home when it doesn't get its way. Cut toxic people from your life if they are unrrasonable.
If people refuse to be a part of the power level the majority wants, is refusing to play with them 'taking your ball and going home'?
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.
The thing you do to fix combos is lower the starting life total. When winning via damage is more feasible, combo will cease to be the only option to compete at powerful tables, and groups can "degenerate" without all becoming combo focused out of necessity.
This came up at a table I sat down at on a Saturday. Long game, 15+ turns. Enjoyable peeps, too. So, we naturally got to chatting on a few things, when on a table just behind us, combo kill t5. We were rotating, so the other players had to wait until we finished.
Anyways, the topic of life totals came up, and one individual who I hadn’t met yet before brought up a good point. Combo became the “boogeyman” of the format in response to the initial “boogeyman”, big creatures that were hard to interact with. In doing so, players realized that combo wasn’t just a good answer to that, but ultimately, the most efficient way to kill the table in one go. So the point was this, it wouldn’t matter what life-totals were, because combo would still reign supreme by virtue of being the most efficient tool to wipe out the table. If anything, lowering life totals would have the opposite effect, and drive people further into combo decks. Even at 20 life, the aggro or “non-combo” deck still has to get through ~60 points of damage. That’s not even feasible in 60-card formats.
So, while 3drinks already brought it up as well, we decided that the best way to curb combo is to cut the most efficient enablers. Starting with tutors 2cmc and less, and see what shakes out. I don’t think you have to go after U draw spells initially, because cutting tutors while inevitably push them further into draw spells, which shrinks their overall threat density in favor of more consistency, buying other players time while you hope to draw into something.
I just don’t think life totals are the answer here. Combo will still exist, and it will still be the best at winning the game over any other strategy.
I enjoy any commander game where everyone is playing decks at the same level. Degenerate combo-control is totally fine by me as long as you didn't shrug and say 'sure' to that new kid who asked to join the table because they wanted to test out their precon for the first time. Counterspell wars are honestly awesome as long as everyone can participate. Because, as has been pointed out before, it feels like there's a buildup to it. Every spell counts and every slight grievance against you is a white-knuckle choice of "do I retaliate, or do I let it slide in case I need to stop a win?" Every previous choice matters.
But if you've allowed someone playing red-green minotaur tribal into that game, you've basically graciously allowed them to waste two to three hours of their life either not understanding why they don't get to have fun or else understanding it perfectly well and being too polite to walk away. It's a similar case for the inverse situation where everyone is having fun with their battlecruiser jank, and then you cut in with a counter-supported combo just before the game could reach its glorious finale.
I would appreciate you clarifying your recommendation because if it is to ban cantrips/cheap draw spells I think you're barking up the wrong tree. But if you mean that banning the cheap tutors would be analogous to banning cantrips in other formats, I can at least see the parallels.
If you're seriously talking about banning cantrips and cheap dig spells, I think you will just make black the new dominant color in combo (as if it's not already close). Black has some of the best draw in the format and also has Necropotence which straight up is the best draw spell in the format possibly after Ad Nauseam (I'm not really sure there).
Most non-CEDH decks don't play cantrips beyond Brainstorm and Ponder (if that) -- there is a steeeep falloff in play after Ponder/Brainstorm/Preordain and even Preordain starts to fall off precipitously after ponder. And comparing those in effectiveness to Vampiric tutor is comical.
CEDH and even high power level (75%+) combo decks would adapt to the removal of cantrips in about twenty minutes.
Obviously you can't just ban the cantrips when the tutours as I did mention, would take over precedence. Of course this by nature would hit your Necros and Ad Naus (and similar) by virtue which serves to create an unmanageable, bloated banlist. That's not desirable to anyone, but would rein in the offending decks in question.
Anyways, the topic of life totals came up, and one individual who I hadn’t met yet before brought up a good point. Combo became the “boogeyman” of the format in response to the initial “boogeyman”, big creatures that were hard to interact with. In doing so, players realized that combo wasn’t just a good answer to that, but ultimately, the most efficient way to kill the table in one go. So the point was this, it wouldn’t matter what life-totals were, because combo would still reign supreme by virtue of being the most efficient tool to wipe out the table. If anything, lowering life totals would have the opposite effect, and drive people further into combo decks. Even at 20 life, the aggro or “non-combo” deck still has to get through ~60 points of damage. That’s not even feasible in 60-card formats.
"Big creatures that are hard to interact with" were the boogeyman of the format? I certainly don't remember that ever really being true. And I've been playing since '09. I remember people used to think that simic sky swallower was a good card, but they were just wrong. It sucks now, and it sucked back then too.
You don't need to deal 60 damage to stop the combo player if life totals start at 20. You only need to deal 20. And even if they assemble their combo first, they don't have the luxury of sitting on it until everyone is tapped out - they're dead next turn, they've gotta just go, and hope no one has answers.
And you can't really directly compare to 60 card formats. After all, combo has 1.6x as many cards to look through for their combo, AND they're all singleton. That's a huge disadvantage compared to vintage. I'd argue aggro takes a much lesser hit in power from deck size and consistency than combo does. Which is borne out in competitive 1v1, where the life totals are over 20 but aggro is consistently a menace, to the point that seemingly innocuous cards are banned in an effort to diminish its effectiveness.
What that tells you is - if you sit down at a table with 2 scrubs, a competitive combo deck, and a competitive aggro deck, the aggro deck can kill the combo deck first most of the time, if you fix the life totals so it's not as outrageous as it is now. At 25 life, that combo player is going to be feeling some serious pressure if the aggro player is gunning for him. And sure, the aggro player still has to kill the other 2 players if he wins, whereas the combo player just wins...but that seems a reasonable tradeoff in strategies to me. Aggro gets to control the flow of the game by choosing who gets eliminated first but has to make sure they have the resources to finish the job, whereas combo is slower but doesn't have to worry about the other players.
Instead we have a format where aggro has no advantages and combo is the only viable competitive archetype. Which is kind of terrible.
I dont think the difference between 90 and 120 makes this happen. And anything under 30 is going to be to low to me in EDH. YMMV
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.
talking about how the "descent into infinite" mentality is bad for the game is a nice exercise of rhetoric, but what would you folks actually DO about it?
Embrace the social aspect of the format, talk to my playgroup and friends, and build casually so that even if combo pieces end up in my deck, I don't rely on them to win the game every time, and use them instead as the ball in the coffin for those few games where things really get bizarre and difficult.
Obviously you can't just ban the cantrips when the tutours as I did mention, would take over precedence. Of course this by nature would hit your Necros and Ad Naus (and similar) by virtue which serves to create an unmanageable, bloated banlist. That's not desirable to anyone, but would rein in the offending decks in question.
I suspect that a similar effect could be achieved by an update to the philosophy document (which is coming) and a couple targeted bans on a handful of the most egregious combos.
If it were me I would consider a "combo is too everywhere ban" of
After that you've got to work pretty hard for your combos, playing bad cards or very mana intensive combos or both - back to stuff like Power Artifact and Rings of Brighthearth, Dualcaster mage/Twinflame, etc.
But more than actually fixing the format, I think banning a handful of cards that serve only to combo sends a message to the community that would be heard far more loudly than banning tutors.
The issue I take with banning tutors is something I've talked about before--
Banning cards like Mystical Tutor for example pushes people hard at creature tutors. Creature tutors are not broken enough to be banned, but they are far more prevalent and push people hard into green, which is seriously boring for the format.
Embrace the social aspect of the format, talk to my playgroup and friends, and build casually so that even if combo pieces end up in my deck, I don't rely on them to win the game every time, and use them instead as the ball in the coffin for those few games where things really get bizarre and difficult.
I can respect that. My line however was meant to criticize those in this topic who want to deal with combos with drastic bans.
"Big creatures that are hard to interact with" were the boogeyman of the format? I certainly don't remember that ever really being true. And I've been playing since '09. I remember people used to think that simic sky swallower was a good card, but they were just wrong. It sucks now, and it sucked back then too.
Ok, “hard to interact with” wasn’t the best phrase there, maybe “too much value” would be the appropriate term. GriselB, PrimeTime, Sylvan Primordial, albeit banned now, those were cards that drove other players(more) players to combo-out so they didn’t get run over. When every creature you cast creates value, all of a sudden you don’t have enough removal to keep up. So, that left the only option to do something faster.
And you can't really directly compare to 60 card formats. After all, combo has 1.6x as many cards to look through for their combo, AND they're all singleton. That's a huge disadvantage compared to vintage. I'd argue aggro takes a much lesser hit in power from deck size and consistency than combo does. Which is borne out in competitive 1v1, where the life totals are over 20 but aggro is consistently a menace, to the point that seemingly innocuous cards are banned in an effort to diminish its effectiveness.
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.
What that tells you is - if you sit down at a table with 2 scrubs, a competitive combo deck, and a competitive aggro deck, the aggro deck can kill the combo deck first most of the time...
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.
Lowering life totals serves multiple purposes. Starting life totals definitely matter. Look no further than one of the premier win-cons, Aetherflux Reservoir. That card is so dangerous because even non-combo decks can get to 50 incredibly fast because we all start at 40.
Even if your argument is that lower life totals wouldn't allow aggro decks to flourish, it would still make it tougher for combo decks to operate since life is a valuable resource. It's cliche to say that only the last point of life matters. The game is way more nuanced than that. Life has to be balanced to fix mana (fetch/shock/talismans/mana crypt/mana vault), draw cards, and buying time via combat.
Those of us advocating lower life totals aren't asking to make aggro tier one. We're not delusional about attacking with Savannah Lions, but combat needs to be more meaningful in the early stages of the game. I also don't think we're advocating lower life totals solely because of combo either. I whole-heartedly believe games would just be better with players at 30 life, regardless of combo.
What that tells you is - if you sit down at a table with 2 scrubs, a competitive combo deck, and a competitive aggro deck, the aggro deck can kill the combo deck first most of the time, if you fix the life totals so it's not as outrageous as it is now. At 25 life, that combo player is going to be feeling some serious pressure if the aggro player is gunning for him. And sure, the aggro player still has to kill the other 2 players if he wins, whereas the combo player just wins...but that seems a reasonable tradeoff in strategies to me. Aggro gets to control the flow of the game by choosing who gets eliminated first but has to make sure they have the resources to finish the job, whereas combo is slower but doesn't have to worry about the other players.
This is very important to consider. Players with less powerful decks have a better shot with everyone starting lower. No one person has to do all of the work. Which, coincidentally enough, is why infect sucks in EDH (even at 10).
Starting life total being lower also means crack-backs are more noticeable part of the game. Vigilance being a meaningful keyword in EDH would be nice.
21 cmdr damage is still important though because the cdmr is essentially a free card that's always present.
It is one of the most factually inaccurate things I have ever seen anyone say about this game.
Infinite combo is not a pillar of EDH, it was fairly recently the RC started to unban combo pieces. The creators are speaking out about it negatively. The RC has always been in that general vicinity in regards to infinite combo.
Making out like this is some new twist is intellectually dishonest.
So yeah, my opinion is that combos are a necessary evil in that they're the fastest and most efficient way of breaking the board state of otherwise oppressive decks, while your opinion is that a mentality like mine is damaging for the format... But the point here is that neither opinion really matters, because no realistic solution can be adopted either way. Combos are a toxic way of combating decks/strategies that are arguably even more toxic: in order to get rid of all the toxicity, you'd need to ban half the card pool, and then people would probably still find ways to be toxic. If my experience in videogame development is teaching me anything, is that you should never underestimate the ability your playerbase has of finding new and exciting ways to be toxic.
So my conclusion is this: some feel combos are a problem, and some feel the oppressive decks that would be nigh impossible to bring down without combos are the real problem... But regardless of which side you're on, in the end the fact of the matter is that a solution cannot be found without greatly diminishing what the format is about. So this discussion is essentially destined to go nowhere.
I did, an I reiterate my question: talking about how the "descent into infinite" mentality is bad for the game is a nice exercise of rhetoric, but what would you folks actually DO about it?
Also sheldon: omg combos are so degenerate.
I learned very quickly that big money staples > thematic decks (especially with the mana base). This Kess deck was just Grixis control, using Crosis, Bolas and other relatively cheap beaters in the 99 to close games out. I still didn't have much in the way of a fleshed out mana base, since I bought precons only after a few games. From memory I think I had a Bloodstained Mire from my days playing Khans standard, a Temple of Epiphany and then guildgates with basics. Mana rocks consisted of Darksteel Ingot, a few Cluestones and a Worn Powerstone. As you'd expect from the first time running this pile sans Command Towers and Sol Rings, it did very little until one action would annoy the table (nature of control) and get me wiped out of the game in short order. But I was able to pick up on a few things that still speak to me now...
1) The guy running Uril, the Miststalker in my first game basically read: "You don't get to interact with me", which led to a very boring match being his first target. To this day I have no love for this Commander and will happily lose if it means countering every time he's cast. I play to have interactive back and forth games, not "can you answer this? Lose" which is no different to Sheldon's issues with the "feel bads" of infinite combo.
2) 2 players had Mana Crypts (1 had a Mana Vault) and fully fleshed out mana bases, but were running what I now know aren't "top tier" decks. They're just run to accelerate their game plan. one was the above mentioned Uril Voltron, the other was some Kruphix concoction I can't recall entirely, although I'm feeling "Big X Spells" came up a lot more than Eldrazi did. Kruphix was also running Oracle of Mul Daya too.
Now what was the overarching lesson for me from these 2 things? I needed to win faster. If I was going to be staring down lethal, unblockable commander damage or an overwhelming board state of enchantments Grixis has a sad time against, I needed a faster game plan. The issue was the cost some of these cards had, easy for older players long in the tooth who collected these in better times, but with a lot of the good ramp and win packages consisting of $20+ cards, this wasn't the "cheap, casual format" I was led to believe. So I took a different approach in looking at cheap, fast combos. 2 months and a few other precons experience later, I came very close to a full Kess Storm deck sans the mana base. The reaction of players at that LGS? "Get out of here with that tryharding pile". This shocked me a bit, surely these same players running one shot voltron decks or Craterhoof Behemoth wins wouldn't be that dim to not see how easily an Isochron Scepter win turn 8 achieved the same effect at the same speed? Fast forward to now and I still don't see Sheldon and others' arguments against infinite wincons as anything other than an old-guard grumbling that kids nowadays get bored of smacking plastic dinosaurs against each other for 2+ hours.
This was pretty much my argument as well. When faced with 120 HPs protected by all manners of high-end strategies, you cannot just put down a small/medium creature per turn, turn it sideways, and hope it goes through: you need to win in one big fell swoop. And when it comes to winning in one big fell swoop, when it comes to telling the opponent "if this resolves then you're powerless to stop me", I frankly see no difference between an infinite combo, an unkillable voltron, a complete removal of other people's resources (think Mycosynth Lattice + Vandalblast), or Avenger+Craterhoof. So essentially there are two option in front of someone who wants to address the problem of "descent into combo":
1) Ban the combo cards. This is both unfeasible (there are so many different interactions in MtG, that if you were to make it impossible to use the currently popular combos people would simply come up with new one that you cannot even imagine right now) and hypocritical, because it leads to a toxic playstyle being completely eradicated, while two or three other playstyles that are arguably just as toxic remain completely unaddressed.
2) Ban all key cards used in all kinds of toxic decks, making it impossible to win in one big fell swoop. This would be absolutely unfeasible, because it would require you to ban all the voltron cards, all the combo cards, and all the big mana/fast tokens/mass buff cards... And then breaking the board state of decks such as pure stax/pillowfort would become nigh impossible, so those decks would become the next problem and you'd end up needing to ban their key cards too. At the end of the day, this would result in the banning of literally half of the card pool and the gutting of 5 major playstyles out of what, 8? The blow to the game's diversity would be staggering.
So I maintain that this discussion is destined to go nowhere: regardless of whether or not you believe combos are a problem, the fact of the matter is that there's no feasible, realistic solution for it. You can SAY that combos are a problem, but there's nothing you can actually DO about it.
The only two suggestions I've seen in this topic that I actually like are the banning of all "search your library for this or that" cards (because on paper the point of 99 singleton cards is to force the players to choose between the consistency of running one wincon and the versatility of running multiple ones, but if you've got so many tutors to be absolutely certain that your one wincon will be on the field by turn 4/5, than that choice becomes completely meaningless), and the reduction of the starting HP total from 40 to 30 or perhaps even 20 (so as to make attacking with creatures an actually worthwhile wincon even without the likes of Craterhoof). Such changes would keep the high-end competitive players honest, preventing their games from being "ramp tutor ramp tutor ramp tutor ramp tutor I WIN", but at the same time thy wouldn't affect the majority of the playerbase, I.E. the casual players who have a favorite card/interaction/combo and just want to have fun with it: I mean, such players probably weren't going to be able to afford a Vampiric Tutor anyway.
But banning the combos themselves would be hypocritical at best, and actively detrimental for the format's future at worst.
A really large difference i notice with the more 'casual' commander decks, other than the amount of ramp/tutors and a more solid manabase is the amount of answers that are included in the deck. Counters? protection? threat removal? graveyard removal?. Most of the times the tools that can actually stop a combo from forming aren't included in any worthwile amount.
Right now the easiest way to win a game of commander - by far - is to doing something extremely high-impact in a single turn, to reduce your opponents ability to interact with you and win before they can recover - whether combo, craterhoof, or expropriate. That's because any incremental damage strategy is going to fail frequently against 120 enemy life. Make life totals smaller, make incremental damage matter again, and explosive plays will be less important, and a greater diversity of strategy can thrive.
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
You might not think so when you look at these cards in a vacuum, but their iMPACT on your deck's consistency cannot be understated. And, then when you add in the removal of cheap unrestricted tutours and fast mana (defined as anything that generates more mana than it's cmc), you've finally officially reduced the incredible staying power that combo decks currently enjoy in the format.
Steel Sabotage'ng Orbs of Mellowness since 2011.
If you then ban those combos people will play generals that tutor. Then you can those.
Then people will play generals that lock the board down and combine that with critical mass of stax pieces.
I don't think there is a solution to players trying to play the most efficient, consistent way. And I don't think there is anything you can do to prevent people from complaining that xyz is degenerate.
I think the format can be improved but we need to take very slow and incremental steps. I do think that banning a few of the more egregious combo cards might do more for the higher powered but noncedh metas than people might think because it makes a statement. That's a lot of what the banlist is commander does is set a kind of philosophical foundation for the format.
But there is very little chance you're going to tighten a bolt with a hammer.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
I never said you will eliminate combos. Just that you will rein them in to a degree by robbing them of some of their efficiency.
Steel Sabotage'ng Orbs of Mellowness since 2011.
Combos are a part of magic. Get over it.
You are responsible for cultivating the environment you want to play in. Be a poaitive influence rather than a cry baby who takes its ball amd goes home when it doesn't get its way. Cut toxic people from your life if they are unrrasonable.
I would appreciate you clarifying your recommendation because if it is to ban cantrips/cheap draw spells I think you're barking up the wrong tree. But if you mean that banning the cheap tutors would be analogous to banning cantrips in other formats, I can at least see the parallels.
If you're seriously talking about banning cantrips and cheap dig spells, I think you will just make black the new dominant color in combo (as if it's not already close). Black has some of the best draw in the format and also has Necropotence which straight up is the best draw spell in the format possibly after Ad Nauseam (I'm not really sure there).
Most non-CEDH decks don't play cantrips beyond Brainstorm and Ponder (if that) -- there is a steeeep falloff in play after Ponder/Brainstorm/Preordain and even Preordain starts to fall off precipitously after ponder. And comparing those in effectiveness to Vampiric tutor is comical.
CEDH and even high power level (75%+) combo decks would adapt to the removal of cantrips in about twenty minutes.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Thats the thing, I don't see what Sheldon is saying as grumbling about winning with combo. If you are about the same power level, around the same turn I don't see an issue with that per se. Now if you are tutoring for combo pieces and winning around T8, I may ask you to play something else. Another issue is Dramatic Scepter can all happen in one turn, those other items take setup, so some folks see that as not the same power level.
I dont think the difference between 90 and 120 makes this happen. And anything under 30 is going to be to low to me in EDH. YMMV
If people refuse to be a part of the power level the majority wants, is refusing to play with them 'taking your ball and going home'?
This came up at a table I sat down at on a Saturday. Long game, 15+ turns. Enjoyable peeps, too. So, we naturally got to chatting on a few things, when on a table just behind us, combo kill t5. We were rotating, so the other players had to wait until we finished.
Anyways, the topic of life totals came up, and one individual who I hadn’t met yet before brought up a good point. Combo became the “boogeyman” of the format in response to the initial “boogeyman”, big creatures that were hard to interact with. In doing so, players realized that combo wasn’t just a good answer to that, but ultimately, the most efficient way to kill the table in one go. So the point was this, it wouldn’t matter what life-totals were, because combo would still reign supreme by virtue of being the most efficient tool to wipe out the table. If anything, lowering life totals would have the opposite effect, and drive people further into combo decks. Even at 20 life, the aggro or “non-combo” deck still has to get through ~60 points of damage. That’s not even feasible in 60-card formats.
So, while 3drinks already brought it up as well, we decided that the best way to curb combo is to cut the most efficient enablers. Starting with tutors 2cmc and less, and see what shakes out. I don’t think you have to go after U draw spells initially, because cutting tutors while inevitably push them further into draw spells, which shrinks their overall threat density in favor of more consistency, buying other players time while you hope to draw into something.
I just don’t think life totals are the answer here. Combo will still exist, and it will still be the best at winning the game over any other strategy.
But if you've allowed someone playing red-green minotaur tribal into that game, you've basically graciously allowed them to waste two to three hours of their life either not understanding why they don't get to have fun or else understanding it perfectly well and being too polite to walk away. It's a similar case for the inverse situation where everyone is having fun with their battlecruiser jank, and then you cut in with a counter-supported combo just before the game could reach its glorious finale.
- Rabid Wombat
Obviously you can't just ban the cantrips when the tutours as I did mention, would take over precedence. Of course this by nature would hit your Necros and Ad Naus (and similar) by virtue which serves to create an unmanageable, bloated banlist. That's not desirable to anyone, but would rein in the offending decks in question.
Steel Sabotage'ng Orbs of Mellowness since 2011.
You don't need to deal 60 damage to stop the combo player if life totals start at 20. You only need to deal 20. And even if they assemble their combo first, they don't have the luxury of sitting on it until everyone is tapped out - they're dead next turn, they've gotta just go, and hope no one has answers.
And you can't really directly compare to 60 card formats. After all, combo has 1.6x as many cards to look through for their combo, AND they're all singleton. That's a huge disadvantage compared to vintage. I'd argue aggro takes a much lesser hit in power from deck size and consistency than combo does. Which is borne out in competitive 1v1, where the life totals are over 20 but aggro is consistently a menace, to the point that seemingly innocuous cards are banned in an effort to diminish its effectiveness.
What that tells you is - if you sit down at a table with 2 scrubs, a competitive combo deck, and a competitive aggro deck, the aggro deck can kill the combo deck first most of the time, if you fix the life totals so it's not as outrageous as it is now. At 25 life, that combo player is going to be feeling some serious pressure if the aggro player is gunning for him. And sure, the aggro player still has to kill the other 2 players if he wins, whereas the combo player just wins...but that seems a reasonable tradeoff in strategies to me. Aggro gets to control the flow of the game by choosing who gets eliminated first but has to make sure they have the resources to finish the job, whereas combo is slower but doesn't have to worry about the other players.
Instead we have a format where aggro has no advantages and combo is the only viable competitive archetype. Which is kind of terrible. 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.
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 run hulk in a few decks, but as solid value and tutoring, not an infinite combo of any sort.
Embrace the social aspect of the format, talk to my playgroup and friends, and build casually so that even if combo pieces end up in my deck, I don't rely on them to win the game every time, and use them instead as the ball in the coffin for those few games where things really get bizarre and difficult.
Retired EDH - Tibor and Lumia | [PR]Nemata |Ramirez dePietro | [C]Edric | Riku | Jenara | Lazav | Heliod | Daxos | Roon | Kozilek
I suspect that a similar effect could be achieved by an update to the philosophy document (which is coming) and a couple targeted bans on a handful of the most egregious combos.
If it were me I would consider a "combo is too everywhere ban" of
After that you've got to work pretty hard for your combos, playing bad cards or very mana intensive combos or both - back to stuff like Power Artifact and Rings of Brighthearth, Dualcaster mage/Twinflame, etc.
But more than actually fixing the format, I think banning a handful of cards that serve only to combo sends a message to the community that would be heard far more loudly than banning tutors.
The issue I take with banning tutors is something I've talked about before--
Banning cards like Mystical Tutor for example pushes people hard at creature tutors. Creature tutors are not broken enough to be banned, but they are far more prevalent and push people hard into green, which is seriously boring for the format.
and on and on and on. And that isn't even starting in on the recruiter chains.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
I can respect that. My line however was meant to criticize those in this topic who want to deal with combos with drastic bans.
Ok, “hard to interact with” wasn’t the best phrase there, maybe “too much value” would be the appropriate term. GriselB, PrimeTime, Sylvan Primordial, albeit banned now, those were cards that drove other players(more) players to combo-out so they didn’t get run over. When every creature you cast creates value, all of a sudden you don’t have enough removal to keep up. So, that left the only option to do something faster.
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.
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.
Even if your argument is that lower life totals wouldn't allow aggro decks to flourish, it would still make it tougher for combo decks to operate since life is a valuable resource. It's cliche to say that only the last point of life matters. The game is way more nuanced than that. Life has to be balanced to fix mana (fetch/shock/talismans/mana crypt/mana vault), draw cards, and buying time via combat.
Those of us advocating lower life totals aren't asking to make aggro tier one. We're not delusional about attacking with Savannah Lions, but combat needs to be more meaningful in the early stages of the game. I also don't think we're advocating lower life totals solely because of combo either. I whole-heartedly believe games would just be better with players at 30 life, regardless of combo.
This is very important to consider. Players with less powerful decks have a better shot with everyone starting lower. No one person has to do all of the work. Which, coincidentally enough, is why infect sucks in EDH (even at 10).
Starting life total being lower also means crack-backs are more noticeable part of the game. Vigilance being a meaningful keyword in EDH would be nice.
21 cmdr damage is still important though because the cdmr is essentially a free card that's always present.