The best example why people detest combo... Look no further than the recent Standard bannings. Combo decks actually narrow a deckbuilder's card pool. When a combo is so efficient and easy to set up there's usually no proper/viable answer. Even in EDH, people are obliged to play a "side game", needing to keep their mana open instead of progressing their own. You suddenly feel a need to play more instant-speed cards than the cool, sweet sorcery-speed spells. I'm not saying not to run answers, but if one's Plan A becomes stopping a combo player, that is totally wrong. If every game becomes archenemy it's all gone wrong.
This leaves two choices: Either you join the combo or you play elsewhere. Sorry to say but there's rarely a middleground.
Standard players were forced to make the exact same decision. To not play Standard events, or to suck it up and join the degen fest. Combo fest normally has bad consequences. Turnout becomes low, product shifting goes stale, confidence in the game shrinks. Translate it to casual multiplayer EDH, your friends stop turning up, or more disagreements/arguments ensue, feelbads, feeling marginalized, feeling of a necessary arms race, etc...
Just wanna point out that it's my belief most people that hate combo, hate it for the very fact that it's anticlimactic. Not to mention boring as well.
This is probably the most accurate assessment of why people hate combo I've heard in recent memory. I still firmly believe the reason you see it so often even among casual groups is simple: it's too easy, and the power and utility of the cards you can combo with is absurd. Competitively you have the Hermit Druids, Ad Nauseams, Doomsdays and so on, but those cards are rarely the ones causing problems amongst the mid-level "optimized casual" groups of players.
The culprits are all cards that combo very easily, but people put in decks because even without the combo they lend a ridiculous amount of power to the deck it's in. There are a class of Whether it's Mikaeus the Unhallowed saving your entire field from a wipe and giving you a bunch of fresh ETB triggers, Kiki-Jiki copying exactly the right utility dude at instant speed for you to pull off the perfect counter play, or Deadeye Navigator flickering an Elvish Visionary 9 times every end step before yours feeding you endless card draw there is an insidious, poisonous line of thought that often follows adding them to a deck.
It's so easy to take one of these and fall into the trap of throwing in a 2 card combo "just to have one" or "because other people have it" and thinking "I don't ALWAYS have to grab it..." and then a few more deck revisions later you realize your entire game plan now revolves around those two cards getting into play and wiping the table. Time spells are the worst offender of all in this, you put them into your deck thinking "I need that one crucial turn to stall and get a good board" or "it gives me so much value for one spell" and then after playing with it for awhile you realize how easy it is to just recur a Regrowth ETB dude over and over and win the game just because the time spell is in your deck.
These cards and others like them could really stand to be pruned from the format.
Raz seems best used in the 99 rather than as a general, something heavy on the reanimator and sacrifice combo adjacent like Ghave, Savra, Meren, Varolz, Jarad and the like. inifinte Zulaport Cutthroat and/or Blood Artist style of combo seems most appropriate.
1. Tutor effects prevent players from being powerless against insane top decks. Without them whoever just lucked into drawing good cards would win, not because they played well. Tutoring isn't always easy but it does allow us to find answers or threats to finish the game.
If you didn't use tutors as a crutch for your lazy deck building then that wouldn't be a problem. If you made your deck synergistic with each and every 99 cards you would draw, then you wouldn't need to tutor. I have a deck that where no matter what I draw in any point of the mid to late game is a viable answer or multiple decision trees for an out to a situation. Tutors are just lazy, pure and simple.
This is a complete misconception. Tutors are just as synergistic as anything else when used properly. I'll Merchant Scroll for Mystical Tutor to get Chord of Calling to get Sidisi, Undead Vizier to get Corpse Dance to set up an infinite tutor chain to pick up a very specific sequence of cards that somehow ends up winning me the game. High end decks have to consider what tutors can fetch which cards, including tutors, so they can reach their end point as efficiently as their draws allow. Sounds like synergy to me.
Riku of Two Reflections is the clear winner in the Panharmonicon contest at least in my opinion. Cast a Coiling Oracle and copy it for 4 total mana, get 4 activations. throw in Cloudstone Curio watch things get dumber. Cast a spell you want to copy, then copy it with Dualcaster Mage copied, making 5 copies of that spell, curio the original dualcaster back to hand, continue until you have no mana and 30 copies of Bribery on the stack.
1 Casual - Tutors in casual really aren't the issue, abusive cards like [every extra turn effect], Deadeye Navigator, Dark Mike, Kiki, Staff of Domination and so on are the real problems casually. Protean Hulk is technically a tutor, but it's only purpose is usually just to get reanimated or Flash'd out to grab a combo anyway. In casual if you put these cards in your deck you are going to be tempted to grab them quickly and use them to ruin the game. Sure, you might say there are a million other tutorable combos, and you'd be right. However, I'd tend to believe once you cut out those cards that are both combo and top 10 best card in color goodstuff that casual people are less likely to stuff barely playable cards in their deck just to two card combo. Easy solution, get rid of the cards, keep the tutors.
10 Competitive - It doesn't really matter how many combos you take out competitively, there's always going to be another one because the only thing that matters in competitive is how fast you can win. Splinter Twin on it's own is a half decent card in EDH, Kiki-Jiki is downright broken, but Pestermite and Deciever Exarch are garbage, but competitive decks based on kiki/twin will run them because they can get to them quickly. Might not be the best example, but I think the principle still applies. Competitive magic doesn't care how bad the cards you win with are, just how fast you win. Tutors get you that win the fastest way possible.
So I'm kind of wracking my brain to come up with some new deck ideas, and unfortunately the decklist database isn't organized by deck theme. I've got a couple of ideas on the back burner I could use some ideas for, so I'll talk about those in a second. The first question on my mind right now though is: Does anyone have any interesting unusual deck themes or normal deck themes with an unusual but still synergistic commander they could share?
I always like getting other people's perspectives on deckbuilding because it usually leads to me coming up with things I hadn't considered before.
My current back burner ideas
Topdeck Manipulation: a deck all about knowing whats on the top and ripping cards off of it to play for free. I started with Rashmi, Eternities Crafter but unfortunately U/G is kind of... durdle heavy. I tried going the "make free big dudes, smash" approach, but it kind of turned into "get overwhelming durdley board state, opponents scoop" before I could attack. I was thinking of maybe going 3 color and looking at Sidisi, Brood Tyrant or Intet, the Dreamer for a more focused approach, sidisi being free stuff and reanimator, intet being free value bomb spells. My concerns on sidisi are that the topdeck theme might not actually be that useful compared to her usual "mill self incrementally, cast living death" game plan or that the two will get in the way of one another. Intent also runs the risk of becoming super durdle heavy but I don't really know how to curb that and also avoid boring two card table kills.
Self-Propagating Tokens: So this started with wanting to build a Sekki, Seasons' Guide deck based around cards like Broodhatch Nantuko, Hornet Nest, Sprouting Phytohydra and Saber Ants that make tokens when they get dealt damage. I also have recently made several failed attempts at a Pariah/Arcbond/Coalhauler Swine style self-damage combo deck, and I was thinking the two themes seemed like they would fit well together. I was thinking Reyhan, Last of the Abzan + Bruse Tarl, Boorish Herder would be ideal for this style of deck, but I still havent really figured out why I was having trouble with my other self-damage decks. Most of the time I just never drew the right cards together or got the tutors I needed, or sometimes I just didnt have enough on board to actually end the game and I'm not really sure where I went wrong.
Any input on these decks and the above topic is very much appreciated, thank you
definitely not looking for a competitive deck, just something that makes green feel interesting. Group hug seems neat although somewhat overshadowed by other color combinations doing it better.
So yeah, pretty much every mono green deck in edh does the exact same thing, make a bunch of dudes, swing with buffs and trample, kill table. I mean in theory you could get Triskelion, Hardened Scales and Rite of Passage and direct damage everyone out I guess or use *vomit* Helix Pinnacle, but for the most part mono green decks all seem to have the same end outcome with only slightly different game plans. Are there any mono green decks that actually do something interesting? The closest I've come was Reki, but it boiled down to the same "vomit dudes, kill table" strategy in the end.
what happens when a creature with lifelink dies while Stalking Vengeance is out, do you gain life from the damage? if so, what about giving creatures lifelink temporarily, with something like vault of the archangel?
Ruination/Back to Basics/Armageddon also require more building around. It's also way better for lobbing targeted hate at someone than a lot of other options especially since it gets to trigger twice and it hits people with collateral damage. When they were banning for combos, they banned Crucible of Worlds because it's stupid with Strip Mine. That kinds of thing is heavily frowned upon but Primordial and Sundering gave people enough wiggle room to actually sneak into more casual decks and actually wreck lots of games as a result. Primordial was actually really fun the way I usually saw it played though. Hoof is nothing like that. Overruns encourage creature combat and creatures the gathering is very popular with most Magic players.
craterhoof encourages killing everyone all at once. That's not combat, that's combo.
That's like saying Burn is Aggro...
If you've amassed a boardstate that allows you to kill 3 players off a single CHoof, well, good for you, your opponents must suck.
not every playgroup is competitive enough that they want the game to end at or before the 8+ mana stage of the game. In those games cards at 6+ mana that cause instant table wipes are absolutely an issue, just because your group is more competitive doesn't mean be a jerk about it.
Ruination/Back to Basics/Armageddon also require more building around. It's also way better for lobbing targeted hate at someone than a lot of other options especially since it gets to trigger twice and it hits people with collateral damage. When they were banning for combos, they banned Crucible of Worlds because it's stupid with Strip Mine. That kinds of thing is heavily frowned upon but Primordial and Sundering gave people enough wiggle room to actually sneak into more casual decks and actually wreck lots of games as a result. Primordial was actually really fun the way I usually saw it played though. Hoof is nothing like that. Overruns encourage creature combat and creatures the gathering is very popular with most Magic players.
craterhoof encourages killing everyone all at once. That's not combat, that's combo.
I would replace all the resource denial with the cardinal rule, AKA "Don't Be a Dick" because that's how casual scrublords roll. (note, I am not insulting casual scrublords, I am THE casual scrublord) and maybe just another rule for "no extra turns. period, any problems, see rule 1"
and then ban actual annoying cards. I'm also surprised not to see Avacyn Angel of Hope because casual scrublords hate her, or the lamest game enders: Insurrection, Exsanguinate/Debt to The Deathless, and any card with the words "you win the game" printed on them (oh hey, theres a good third rule).
Also, I do love kiki-jiki, but hes too good not to ban.
Craterhoof fits into the same category as Insurrection, Exsanguinate/Debt to the Deathless, and cards with the text "you win the game" on them somewhere, or any other expensive single bomb card that effectively equates to "if board state is x, win game" which is that of incredibly boring one card win cons. Are they "ban worthy", not really, but a game ending that way is incredibly lame. Craterhoof might be the most engregious one of them though, purely by virtue of being the most cheatable, abusable card type in the game.
This is probably the most accurate assessment of why people hate combo I've heard in recent memory. I still firmly believe the reason you see it so often even among casual groups is simple: it's too easy, and the power and utility of the cards you can combo with is absurd. Competitively you have the Hermit Druids, Ad Nauseams, Doomsdays and so on, but those cards are rarely the ones causing problems amongst the mid-level "optimized casual" groups of players.
The culprits are all cards that combo very easily, but people put in decks because even without the combo they lend a ridiculous amount of power to the deck it's in. There are a class of Whether it's Mikaeus the Unhallowed saving your entire field from a wipe and giving you a bunch of fresh ETB triggers, Kiki-Jiki copying exactly the right utility dude at instant speed for you to pull off the perfect counter play, or Deadeye Navigator flickering an Elvish Visionary 9 times every end step before yours feeding you endless card draw there is an insidious, poisonous line of thought that often follows adding them to a deck.
It's so easy to take one of these and fall into the trap of throwing in a 2 card combo "just to have one" or "because other people have it" and thinking "I don't ALWAYS have to grab it..." and then a few more deck revisions later you realize your entire game plan now revolves around those two cards getting into play and wiping the table. Time spells are the worst offender of all in this, you put them into your deck thinking "I need that one crucial turn to stall and get a good board" or "it gives me so much value for one spell" and then after playing with it for awhile you realize how easy it is to just recur a Regrowth ETB dude over and over and win the game just because the time spell is in your deck.
These cards and others like them could really stand to be pruned from the format.
This is a complete misconception. Tutors are just as synergistic as anything else when used properly. I'll Merchant Scroll for Mystical Tutor to get Chord of Calling to get Sidisi, Undead Vizier to get Corpse Dance to set up an infinite tutor chain to pick up a very specific sequence of cards that somehow ends up winning me the game. High end decks have to consider what tutors can fetch which cards, including tutors, so they can reach their end point as efficiently as their draws allow. Sounds like synergy to me.
10 Competitive - It doesn't really matter how many combos you take out competitively, there's always going to be another one because the only thing that matters in competitive is how fast you can win. Splinter Twin on it's own is a half decent card in EDH, Kiki-Jiki is downright broken, but Pestermite and Deciever Exarch are garbage, but competitive decks based on kiki/twin will run them because they can get to them quickly. Might not be the best example, but I think the principle still applies. Competitive magic doesn't care how bad the cards you win with are, just how fast you win. Tutors get you that win the fastest way possible.
I always like getting other people's perspectives on deckbuilding because it usually leads to me coming up with things I hadn't considered before.
My current back burner ideas
Topdeck Manipulation: a deck all about knowing whats on the top and ripping cards off of it to play for free. I started with Rashmi, Eternities Crafter but unfortunately U/G is kind of... durdle heavy. I tried going the "make free big dudes, smash" approach, but it kind of turned into "get overwhelming durdley board state, opponents scoop" before I could attack. I was thinking of maybe going 3 color and looking at Sidisi, Brood Tyrant or Intet, the Dreamer for a more focused approach, sidisi being free stuff and reanimator, intet being free value bomb spells. My concerns on sidisi are that the topdeck theme might not actually be that useful compared to her usual "mill self incrementally, cast living death" game plan or that the two will get in the way of one another. Intent also runs the risk of becoming super durdle heavy but I don't really know how to curb that and also avoid boring two card table kills.
Self-Propagating Tokens: So this started with wanting to build a Sekki, Seasons' Guide deck based around cards like Broodhatch Nantuko, Hornet Nest, Sprouting Phytohydra and Saber Ants that make tokens when they get dealt damage. I also have recently made several failed attempts at a Pariah/Arcbond/Coalhauler Swine style self-damage combo deck, and I was thinking the two themes seemed like they would fit well together. I was thinking Reyhan, Last of the Abzan + Bruse Tarl, Boorish Herder would be ideal for this style of deck, but I still havent really figured out why I was having trouble with my other self-damage decks. Most of the time I just never drew the right cards together or got the tutors I needed, or sometimes I just didnt have enough on board to actually end the game and I'm not really sure where I went wrong.
Any input on these decks and the above topic is very much appreciated, thank you
not every playgroup is competitive enough that they want the game to end at or before the 8+ mana stage of the game. In those games cards at 6+ mana that cause instant table wipes are absolutely an issue, just because your group is more competitive doesn't mean be a jerk about it.
craterhoof encourages killing everyone all at once. That's not combat, that's combo.
and then ban actual annoying cards. I'm also surprised not to see Avacyn Angel of Hope because casual scrublords hate her, or the lamest game enders: Insurrection, Exsanguinate/Debt to The Deathless, and any card with the words "you win the game" printed on them (oh hey, theres a good third rule).
Also, I do love kiki-jiki, but hes too good not to ban.