I am "that guy" when I play my mono-red deck. It has a large component of chaos-oriented stuff, like Confusion in the Ranks, Scrambleverse, Knowledge Pool, etc...and also some more hateful cards that slow down popular strategies like Torpor Orb, Stranglehold, and Omen Machine.
I enjoy playing it because it tends to force people to think outside of the box, creating unique situations and not allowing everyone to just play to their linear strategies. The games tend to be more memorable than those I play with a standard strategy.
The chaos/hate also tend to work pretty well from a strategic view, as they slow people down and give my slow deck a chance to get a ton of Mountains in play, which gives me a chance to kill people pretty quickly with my general (Akroma) and a mana doubling effect like Gauntlet of Might.
I get that, I was just responding to what seemed to be your previous line of thinking:
"and i came to Menarch, who i had intentionally excluded from my infinite combo deck, as her ability seemed unfun as a game winner."
Thought it was funny that you were worried about including an unfun game winner in a deck built to do just that (because realistically how else would you characterize mono-blue infinite combo.dec?).
In all seriousness though, I think you would be fine to include Memnarch in a "fair" blue deck that isn't trying to generate infinite mana or quick ramp. He is powerful, and will probably get targeted asap, but I don't think he will ruin games.
Deck swapping is really common among my playgroup, though usually it's more for a change of pace. Certain players consider switching to less "scary" things a form of sandbagging by other players though.
Out of curiosity, did that Animar win by combo? In my circle I've only seen him played as a french/duelcommander 1v1 general that runs either goodstuff or the more intricate/power combo variant so I'm curious how multiplayer Animar works out.
No, him winning is kind of a long story:
- Crosis player focused on draw/discard with Megrim / Underworld Dreams to kill plays a bunch of Wheel of Fortune effects and ultimately ends up killing 2 opponents and himself by accident (I stole his Liliana's Caress after he cast Prosperity for a bunch, so at his EoT he had to discard a bunch and died to the Caress).
- All of those card drawing effects loaded up the graveyards of the Animar player and the Mimeoplasm players remaining. Mimeoplasm casts Living Death, not realizing just how much gas the Animar player has in the yard (basically every good EtB creature available). Both have big armies but the Animar player gets first swing since the Mimeoplasm cast the Living Death and couldn't give his guys haste. Animar is able to kill me and Mimeoplasm in that swing.
I didn't look through his deck, but based on what I saw it looked like a "good stuff" attrition deck focused on getting quick counters on Animar then dropping the best EtB fatties available. He might have had combos in there, but I didn't see them.
I love it. Versatile answer that is actually kind of fun for the player you are hitting with it. (which can matter politically, and matters to me personally)
I think ubiquity plus ease of abuse is what combines to make some of the better ETB creatures annoyingly powerful. The first time you see a Sylvan Primordial, no big deal. But when you have multiple players at the table playing and recurring that, Terastodon, Woodfall Primus, etc., it gets pretty obnoxious. And why wouldn't pretty much any green mage play them, when those creatures offer answers to so much while also providing win-cons to boot?
More Torpor Orb effects would be a nice way to give players reasonable answers to those, especially if we saw them attached to things with other uses (aka a Torpor Bear, or maybe one of the big wacky red enchantments that does something chaotic and has this attached)
It can definitely be an issue, but at least in my lgs it seems to be mostly self-correcting. People quickly figure out which decks/players tend to do broken stuff early, and then they gang up on them.
Saw the perfect example of this a couple of days ago. 6 of us playing, and in game one Jhoira gets taken out ASAP. Game two the Jhoira player swaps to the less threatening Animar and ends up winning.
Ummm....just don't play it. The card creates unfun games for you, why play it? You have hundreds of other more interesting options, get creative. And who knows, maybe by setting this example you will help promote more fun in your group long term.
It isn't like you are obligated to play the most powerful deck possible. If anything as the better player in your group you would do well to handicap yourself with a weaker deck. It will challenge you and make your games more entertaining.
While there are ways to return and copy sorceries repeatedly that pales into comparison to how well you can abuse enter the battlefield effects.
It is so easy to blink, recur, reanimate and copy creatures, not to mention very very easy to tutor for them with many of the green spells sending them to play.
With addition of cavern of souls you can make them uncounterable as well...
There are only 4 cards that interact with them directly and only 1 shuts it off perminately.
Counters and Discard deal with everything it isn't really worth talking about them.
I think the argument against them is basically WotC has stopped penalizing the power of the creature for the power of the effect. Acidic slime is a 2/2 for.... 5. whille the primodial is only 7 mana for a 6/8 that is almost on curve. the cost to a creature for its ability is getting less and less.
Why is Snapcaster mage a 2/1 ??? it would be played if it was a 0/1. (admittedly that is not important in EDH)
Nailed it. IMO the biggest issue is the ease of abuse. Almost every deck can find efficient ways to get multiple triggers out of their ETB dudes, and it is the second, third, fourth, etc...uses that put them over the top.
I enjoy playing it because it tends to force people to think outside of the box, creating unique situations and not allowing everyone to just play to their linear strategies. The games tend to be more memorable than those I play with a standard strategy.
The chaos/hate also tend to work pretty well from a strategic view, as they slow people down and give my slow deck a chance to get a ton of Mountains in play, which gives me a chance to kill people pretty quickly with my general (Akroma) and a mana doubling effect like Gauntlet of Might.
"and i came to Menarch, who i had intentionally excluded from my infinite combo deck, as her ability seemed unfun as a game winner."
Thought it was funny that you were worried about including an unfun game winner in a deck built to do just that (because realistically how else would you characterize mono-blue infinite combo.dec?).
In all seriousness though, I think you would be fine to include Memnarch in a "fair" blue deck that isn't trying to generate infinite mana or quick ramp. He is powerful, and will probably get targeted asap, but I don't think he will ruin games.
No, him winning is kind of a long story:
- Crosis player focused on draw/discard with Megrim / Underworld Dreams to kill plays a bunch of Wheel of Fortune effects and ultimately ends up killing 2 opponents and himself by accident (I stole his Liliana's Caress after he cast Prosperity for a bunch, so at his EoT he had to discard a bunch and died to the Caress).
- All of those card drawing effects loaded up the graveyards of the Animar player and the Mimeoplasm players remaining. Mimeoplasm casts Living Death, not realizing just how much gas the Animar player has in the yard (basically every good EtB creature available). Both have big armies but the Animar player gets first swing since the Mimeoplasm cast the Living Death and couldn't give his guys haste. Animar is able to kill me and Mimeoplasm in that swing.
I didn't look through his deck, but based on what I saw it looked like a "good stuff" attrition deck focused on getting quick counters on Animar then dropping the best EtB fatties available. He might have had combos in there, but I didn't see them.
More Torpor Orb effects would be a nice way to give players reasonable answers to those, especially if we saw them attached to things with other uses (aka a Torpor Bear, or maybe one of the big wacky red enchantments that does something chaotic and has this attached)
Saw the perfect example of this a couple of days ago. 6 of us playing, and in game one Jhoira gets taken out ASAP. Game two the Jhoira player swaps to the less threatening Animar and ends up winning.
It isn't like you are obligated to play the most powerful deck possible. If anything as the better player in your group you would do well to handicap yourself with a weaker deck. It will challenge you and make your games more entertaining.
Nailed it. IMO the biggest issue is the ease of abuse. Almost every deck can find efficient ways to get multiple triggers out of their ETB dudes, and it is the second, third, fourth, etc...uses that put them over the top.