Blaze Commando. It's a unique effect that isn't quite exactly replicated by any other card that I know of, and it would bring R/W in a it different direction from the usual if built around.
I've made a whole lotta mistakes... I managed to ignore shroud on Tiger somehow, flip that 6-0 to 0-6. Pretty sure (not certain of anything anymore) Maze means I still win the Depths matchups, though -- if anything, it should be easier to not worry about two potential Lages. | X 6 0 6 2 6 2 | 22 |, then.
I'd thought Mogg was the person behind the PHM account at the moment, but it looks like they didn't enter... so knobbodi, maybe?
Anyway... first, though: for Personman and ManyCookies v MyNameIsFourteen, can't they follow a strat where they play Depths, slowly tick down the counters manually, and then play Stage for the Lage token? If MNIF plays Cloudskate to bounce the token, you can immediately make another one with the original Depths.
2) knobbodi 6-0
I figured Bridge would come up. Words races Doll. Also, given the traditional image of Stuffy Doll as a voodoo-type doll -- stick a needle in me, it'll hurt you -- isn't it completely backwards that Pithing Needle turns it off? 3) Magus of the Aesthetic 6-0
Words kill tigers. tyger, tyger, burning bright... Flammable felines - what a weird subject for poetry. 4) ManyCookies 6-0
I T1 Needle Stage. If you counter it then Maze deals with 1 Lage token, and you can't make 2 'cause they're legendary. You otherwise need to counter my Words, and from there (since Stage copying Maze is out) I win with a Bird. 5) MyNameIsFourteen 2-2
Delirium Skeins / Mental Misstep / Riftwing Cloudskate
Agreed, nice. I love it when discard strats work. 6) Personman 6-0
Maze beats Depths. 7) Superbajt 2-2
Anurid Scavenger / Kolaghan's Command / Path to Exile
Agreed; I just need to hold back Needle so you can't make me discard Words.
| X 6 6 6 2 6 2 | 28 |
Pretty alright, I'd say! Maze of Ith turned out to be way better than I had even realized when I chose it, because it keeps Lage tokens on the board so that nobody can make 2 of 'em. Words of War was alright, which just goes to show Mom was right: using your words is always better than using your fists, or using plane-warping Lovecraftian monstrosities.
Although it doesn't work with Yasova's ability, Hazoret's Favor is nice with control effects during main phase 1.
are you sure about that? Cannot we put the two abilities on the stack as we want to?
You need to choose targets when the ability triggers, at which point you don't control your opponent's creature yet. Regardless of how you stack the abilities, Favor can't be targetting the opposing creature.
Hey, I know y'all are looking at Baron as a commander, but I did want to mention that, in a differently-colored deck, By Gnome Means, and arguably Ambiguity (ironically, it's unclear) allow you to put multiple doom counters on the Baron. Now, there's no ruling on whether you can immediately drop them on the '1' position, but as far as I'm aware there's also no rules saying you can't put counters anywhere you like on a card, assuming it doesn't say otherwise.
Someone should ask Maro, but the important point is: one of the versions of Everythingamajig and Giant Fan both should let you put multiple doom counters on Baron von Count.
I actually quite like the Wizards Commander premade decks -- they're really not awful as default and they give you something to work with. They've released 4 sets so far: Mono-color, enemy colors, 4-colored, and 3-colors; the 3-colored sets were original and are kinda expensive now, but since you mentioned you were looking at blue-green, the 2015 decks can be found for about $40 (here's the decklists). Otherwise, though, this forum has a ton of great threads in the Commander section. If you poke around a bit, it should be easy enough to find some good guides (and the final decklist will probably be cheaper since you can tailor it yourself).
As for magic in general: creatures are better than ever, Standard goes up and down (you left around when it started going downhill), and buying singles is still by far the cheapest option. I, personally, think EDH is definitely the best place to start (though some would disagree with me), so good on you for that. It might be a bit of a leap since you said you weren't sure about your playing skill, but the relatively casual nature of EDH in most groups should help alleviate that.
EDIT: As usual, links to Gatherer break the forum software. Geez. Just look up 'Gatherer' and enter in blue, green, exclude other colors for color, legendary for type.
1) AvatarDylaang :: 6-0 You're a slower clock and can't stop me.
3) Convoy_Avenger :: 0-6 You can proliferate.
4) Feyd_Ruin :: 6-0 You're a lot slower.
5) knobbodi :: 3-3 Agreed
6) Magus of the Aesthetic :: 0-6 Sanctuary! 7) Mogg :: 3-3 I might be wrong, but OTP for you don't you go T1 Agent, then I take damage 3 times on upkeep?
8) MyNameIsFourteen :: 3-3 Mirror, mirror...
9) WhammeWhamme :: 0-6 Sanctuary!
| 6 X 0 6 2 0 2 2 0 | 18
Okay, just gonna say: I was so tempted to play Angel's Grace (and/or Gideon of the Trials, but he's more vulnerable). It's a guaranteed tie against every deck that you can keep mana open against. I went for the cheeky option instead, which actually turned out to do very well (besides for the Leyline -- I needed enchantment removal, instead.)
oooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...
Seriously, though, this makes so much more sense lol
I wonder if it's almost an attempt to show off what it was like in the 'old days' of Magic? LIke, when there was no good universal knowledge of what's out there and you could discover new cards from someone else and not be able to get them anywhere else. With enough random options, it could easily be the case that it would be difficult-to-impossible for one website to stock all possible versions of a card.
This looks pretty good, but I question a few of the choices:
1) Ol' Buzzbark is one of the legendary creatures, and is probably the best choice for a dice-rolling commander. I'd agree with you if he were a common or something, but as one of the marquee potential commanders he seems a sketchy ban. 2) What's wrong with Infernal Spawn of Infernal Spawn of Evil? Panglacial Wurm even means that it's probably not actually too far outside of the rules, and I don't think there's any powerlevel concerns.
3) Okay, I might be missing something big here, but why Magical Hacker? It's on the RC's list, but I don't see why. It's strong, yes, but not that strong.
4) Rare-B-Gone is super duper powerful, but I think that things like Ruination and Blood Moon play into the same space -- punishing people who spent a lot of money on their decks. Given that rares aren't always even the best option for all decks, this seems strong but not inherently overpowered.
5) Again, why Ineffable Blessing and More or Less? The first especially -- yes, it's crazy with tokens, but I'm not sure I'm convinced it's more powerful than, say, Sylvan Library or Glimpse of Nature -- or that it's so much more powerful that it needs to be banned.
6) I totally understand why Staying Power is here, but I will say it's extremely disappointing Why this but not, say, Topsy Turvy or Rules Lawyer?
This looks like a good starting point -- I mostly question Infernal Spawn banning.
First of all, thank you to the person behind @PerfectHandMagic (I think Mogg, right?) for that explanation. I didn't end up needing it but it was super helpful in figuring out what I was gonna be playing.
My original hand was Puka's Mischief / Illusions of Grandeur / ?Revoker?, but I decided not to after realizing what Aura of Silence and similar cards could do to it. Given the general lack of enchantment removal compared with what I was expecting, I almost feel like I should've gone for it! I expected relatively few creatures because I expected enchantments to be more powerful -- clearly, a mistake. Revoker and Aura were great, but neither Golem nor Aura's first ability turned out to be relevant; something big and dumb and a more versatile removal might've been better.
Hands:
1) Anachronity – 0-6
2 Muses is enough
3) Feyd_Ruin – 0-6
2 Nyxathids is enough
4) knobbodi 0-6
3 sufficiently large creatures, is enough
5) Magus of the Aesthetic 6-0
Kill Clout, race you
6) Mogg 6-0
Revoker + Aura can kill Wave, and Golem > Venser
7) MyNameIsFourteen 6-0
Aura Digger, Revoke Ally of Zendikar, and swing to kill them both.
8) Personman 0-6
Large creature is enough
9) WhammeWhamme 6-0
Revoker on the Sliver, Aura the Renewal, race with Golem.
If they were not attacking, then they are correct in result but not method. Aetherize returns all attacking creatures to their owners' hands. There were, ostensibly, no creatures attacking, so it won't accomplish much to cast it. You still can legally cast it, though, even if it won't do anything; it will resolve, do what it does (which here is nothing, but that doesn't matter), and go to graveyard like any other instant or sorcery that you might cast.
As a similar example, Cower in Fear may legally be cast while your opponent controls no creatures -- it just won't do very much. Part of the confusion here stems from the way that, since Aetherize is only useful after declaring attackers, you might think you can only cast it when it would logically make sense to cast it. In fact, many cards like it, that have effects that only make sense in the presence of attacking creatures during combat, actually specify that you can only cast them during those steps -- for instance, Mirror Match. Aetherize lacks this check, and thus opens itself up to confusion like this.
'Fizzle' is a term that doesn't apply here. It means "countered on resolution due to illegal targets'. Usually, this happens when you cast a spell targetting one creature, and that creature is then destroyed in response to you casting the spell. For instance, if I cast Larger than Life on a Savannah Lions, and in response my opponent casts Murder on the Lions: The Murder will resolve first, killing the Lions, and then when my Larger than Life tries to resolve it will be countered for lack of any target.
Most of the time, this doesn't matter -- with the above example, Larger than Life only would have affected the Lions anyway, so it doesn't matter if it fizzles or not. Now, however, imagine that, instead of casting Larger than Life, I was casting Titan's Strength -- a similar effect, but it also allows me to scry 1 on resolution. In this scenario, Murdering the Lions to fizzle my spell would prevent that scry 1 from happening, even though 'scry 1' has nothing to do with the target -- because the whole spell would be countered for lack of a target.
Now, some caveats: First, I assumed above you know that you can play spells in response to other actions -- if not, we can go over the stack. Second, a spell is only countered for lack of targets when all of its targets are gone -- so, if I cast Seeds of Strength targetting 3 separate creatures, then all 3 would need to die for the spell to fizzle on resolution. Third, a spell can also fizzle if the target becomes illegal, which usually occurs if you suddenly give something hexproof, such as with eg Mizzium Skin.
The hard part about this is the distinction between targetting and non-targetting spells. In the case of Aetherize, if it had said "return any number of target attacking creatures to their owners' hands", then this wouldn't be an issue -- because you aren't allowed to cast a targetted spell without picking targets. In that case, if your friends had told you 'nope, sorry, we're not attacking', then you would've cast the spell illegally, which I'm unsure of what happens in a tournament setting but I think may result in you undoing the move. (Don't quote me on that, tournament penalty rules are not my forte.) As is, though, Aetherize can be cast perfectly legally without targets, or even anything that it affects.
Now, 'pushing their creatures towards me' might be classified as a shortcut, and if it's clear to a judge that they were doing that maliciously then they could (I think) be penalized. As I said, I don't know much about tournament penalties and how they're played. In a casual setting, though, I doubt you have much recourse besides being careful and always double-checking with people, "okay, so you're attacking?" Or failing that, trying not to play with these folks anymore.
*Not technically a judge, please don't sue, if anyone sees inaccuracies please inform me/correct them.
Y'know, couldn't the round rules technically allow you to start the game with an instant/sorcery on the battlefield, since it specifies any number of 'cards'? They'd probably be sent to graveyard, and this probably shouldn't affect the round in any meaningful way, but I just was curious whether it was technically a vulnerability.
EDIT: Also, I hate asking for rules advice, but would ETB effects still trigger for cards that 'begin the game on the battlefield'? They're not entering it under any normal means, and the phrasing almost leads me to think that they wouldn't; on the other hand, the comp rules for this list it as "103.5a: If a card allows a player to begin the game with that card on the battlefield, the player taking this action puts that card onto the battlefield," which suggests to me that ETB effects might trigger. In that case, though, I'm not sure if the triggered ability would be put on the stack until the first upkeep, or just immediately.
...anyway, if anyone knows I'd appreciate it.
Presumably he's using the second ability on both of the cards. it doesn't go infinite since Magosi enters tapped, but he does get 2 turns for everyone else's turns, assuming he can keep sacrificing artifacts. It's not broken -- arguably better than, say, Opposition or Time Warp -- but still really annoying.
Anyway... first, though: for Personman and ManyCookies v MyNameIsFourteen, can't they follow a strat where they play Depths, slowly tick down the counters manually, and then play Stage for the Lage token? If MNIF plays Cloudskate to bounce the token, you can immediately make another one with the original Depths.
2) knobbodi 6-0
I figured Bridge would come up. Words races Doll. Also, given the traditional image of Stuffy Doll as a voodoo-type doll -- stick a needle in me, it'll hurt you -- isn't it completely backwards that Pithing Needle turns it off?
3) Magus of the Aesthetic 6-0
Words kill tigers. tyger, tyger, burning bright... Flammable felines - what a weird subject for poetry.
4) ManyCookies 6-0
I T1 Needle Stage. If you counter it then Maze deals with 1 Lage token, and you can't make 2 'cause they're legendary. You otherwise need to counter my Words, and from there (since Stage copying Maze is out) I win with a Bird.
5) MyNameIsFourteen 2-2
Delirium Skeins / Mental Misstep / Riftwing Cloudskate
Agreed, nice. I love it when discard strats work.
6) Personman 6-0
Maze beats Depths.
7) Superbajt 2-2
Anurid Scavenger / Kolaghan's Command / Path to Exile
Agreed; I just need to hold back Needle so you can't make me discard Words.
| X 6 6 6 2 6 2 | 28 |
Pretty alright, I'd say! Maze of Ith turned out to be way better than I had even realized when I chose it, because it keeps Lage tokens on the board so that nobody can make 2 of 'em. Words of War was alright, which just goes to show Mom was right: using your words is always better than using your fists, or using plane-warping Lovecraftian monstrosities.
You need to choose targets when the ability triggers, at which point you don't control your opponent's creature yet. Regardless of how you stack the abilities, Favor can't be targetting the opposing creature.
Someone should ask Maro, but the important point is: one of the versions of Everythingamajig and Giant Fan both should let you put multiple doom counters on Baron von Count.
I actually quite like the Wizards Commander premade decks -- they're really not awful as default and they give you something to work with. They've released 4 sets so far: Mono-color, enemy colors, 4-colored, and 3-colors; the 3-colored sets were original and are kinda expensive now, but since you mentioned you were looking at blue-green, the 2015 decks can be found for about $40 (here's the decklists). Otherwise, though, this forum has a ton of great threads in the Commander section. If you poke around a bit, it should be easy enough to find some good guides (and the final decklist will probably be cheaper since you can tailor it yourself).
As for magic in general: creatures are better than ever, Standard goes up and down (you left around when it started going downhill), and buying singles is still by far the cheapest option. I, personally, think EDH is definitely the best place to start (though some would disagree with me), so good on you for that. It might be a bit of a leap since you said you weren't sure about your playing skill, but the relatively casual nature of EDH in most groups should help alleviate that.
If you're looking for specific blue/green commanders, //gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?color=+@([U">+[G])&type=+[Legendary]"]this Gatherer search should cover 'em all (plus some planeswalkers, which you mostly can't use). Edric, Spymaster of Trest is a top-tier general for a deck full of Flying Men-type cards; Experiment Kraj and Vorel of the Hull Clade are wacky Simic +1/+1 counter weirdness; Ezuri, Claw of Progress is the 2015 Commander deck leader and is a great swarm / +1/+1 counter leader; Prime Speaker Zegana, Tishana, Voice of Thunder, and Momir Vig, Simic Visionary are both just great goodstuff commanders. There's also the option of expanding to 3 colors, which gives you (I think) a much better selection of options but will probably cost more in the deck.
EDIT: As usual, links to Gatherer break the forum software. Geez. Just look up 'Gatherer' and enter in blue, green, exclude other colors for color, legendary for type.
6-0 Mogg
3) Convoy_Avenger :: 0-6 You can proliferate.
4) Feyd_Ruin :: 6-0 You're a lot slower.
5) knobbodi :: 3-3 Agreed
6) Magus of the Aesthetic :: 0-6 Sanctuary!
7) Mogg :: 3-3 I might be wrong, but OTP for you don't you go T1 Agent, then I take damage 3 times on upkeep?
8) MyNameIsFourteen :: 3-3 Mirror, mirror...
9) WhammeWhamme :: 0-6 Sanctuary!
| 6 X 0 6 2 0 2 2 0 | 18
Okay, just gonna say: I was so tempted to play Angel's Grace (and/or Gideon of the Trials, but he's more vulnerable). It's a guaranteed tie against every deck that you can keep mana open against. I went for the cheeky option instead, which actually turned out to do very well (besides for the Leyline -- I needed enchantment removal, instead.)
Seriously, though, this makes so much more sense lol
I wonder if it's almost an attempt to show off what it was like in the 'old days' of Magic? LIke, when there was no good universal knowledge of what's out there and you could discover new cards from someone else and not be able to get them anywhere else. With enough random options, it could easily be the case that it would be difficult-to-impossible for one website to stock all possible versions of a card.
1) Ol' Buzzbark is one of the legendary creatures, and is probably the best choice for a dice-rolling commander. I'd agree with you if he were a common or something, but as one of the marquee potential commanders he seems a sketchy ban.
2) What's wrong with Infernal Spawn of Infernal Spawn of Evil? Panglacial Wurm even means that it's probably not actually too far outside of the rules, and I don't think there's any powerlevel concerns.
3) Okay, I might be missing something big here, but why Magical Hacker? It's on the RC's list, but I don't see why. It's strong, yes, but not that strong.
4) Rare-B-Gone is super duper powerful, but I think that things like Ruination and Blood Moon play into the same space -- punishing people who spent a lot of money on their decks. Given that rares aren't always even the best option for all decks, this seems strong but not inherently overpowered.
5) Again, why Ineffable Blessing and More or Less? The first especially -- yes, it's crazy with tokens, but I'm not sure I'm convinced it's more powerful than, say, Sylvan Library or Glimpse of Nature -- or that it's so much more powerful that it needs to be banned.
6) I totally understand why Staying Power is here, but I will say it's extremely disappointing
This looks like a good starting point -- I mostly question Infernal Spawn banning.
My original hand was Puka's Mischief / Illusions of Grandeur / ?Revoker?, but I decided not to after realizing what Aura of Silence and similar cards could do to it. Given the general lack of enchantment removal compared with what I was expecting, I almost feel like I should've gone for it! I expected relatively few creatures because I expected enchantments to be more powerful -- clearly, a mistake. Revoker and Aura were great, but neither Golem nor Aura's first ability turned out to be relevant; something big and dumb and a more versatile removal might've been better.
Hands:
1) Anachronity – 0-6
2 Muses is enough
3) Feyd_Ruin – 0-6
2 Nyxathids is enough
4) knobbodi 0-6
3 sufficiently large creatures, is enough
5) Magus of the Aesthetic 6-0
Kill Clout, race you
6) Mogg 6-0
Revoker + Aura can kill Wave, and Golem > Venser
7) MyNameIsFourteen 6-0
Aura Digger, Revoke Ally of Zendikar, and swing to kill them both.
8) Personman 0-6
Large creature is enough
9) WhammeWhamme 6-0
Revoker on the Sliver, Aura the Renewal, race with Golem.
| 0 X 0 0 6 6 6 0 6 | 24
As a similar example, Cower in Fear may legally be cast while your opponent controls no creatures -- it just won't do very much. Part of the confusion here stems from the way that, since Aetherize is only useful after declaring attackers, you might think you can only cast it when it would logically make sense to cast it. In fact, many cards like it, that have effects that only make sense in the presence of attacking creatures during combat, actually specify that you can only cast them during those steps -- for instance, Mirror Match. Aetherize lacks this check, and thus opens itself up to confusion like this.
'Fizzle' is a term that doesn't apply here. It means "countered on resolution due to illegal targets'. Usually, this happens when you cast a spell targetting one creature, and that creature is then destroyed in response to you casting the spell. For instance, if I cast Larger than Life on a Savannah Lions, and in response my opponent casts Murder on the Lions: The Murder will resolve first, killing the Lions, and then when my Larger than Life tries to resolve it will be countered for lack of any target.
Most of the time, this doesn't matter -- with the above example, Larger than Life only would have affected the Lions anyway, so it doesn't matter if it fizzles or not. Now, however, imagine that, instead of casting Larger than Life, I was casting Titan's Strength -- a similar effect, but it also allows me to scry 1 on resolution. In this scenario, Murdering the Lions to fizzle my spell would prevent that scry 1 from happening, even though 'scry 1' has nothing to do with the target -- because the whole spell would be countered for lack of a target.
Now, some caveats: First, I assumed above you know that you can play spells in response to other actions -- if not, we can go over the stack. Second, a spell is only countered for lack of targets when all of its targets are gone -- so, if I cast Seeds of Strength targetting 3 separate creatures, then all 3 would need to die for the spell to fizzle on resolution. Third, a spell can also fizzle if the target becomes illegal, which usually occurs if you suddenly give something hexproof, such as with eg Mizzium Skin.
The hard part about this is the distinction between targetting and non-targetting spells. In the case of Aetherize, if it had said "return any number of target attacking creatures to their owners' hands", then this wouldn't be an issue -- because you aren't allowed to cast a targetted spell without picking targets. In that case, if your friends had told you 'nope, sorry, we're not attacking', then you would've cast the spell illegally, which I'm unsure of what happens in a tournament setting but I think may result in you undoing the move. (Don't quote me on that, tournament penalty rules are not my forte.) As is, though, Aetherize can be cast perfectly legally without targets, or even anything that it affects.
Now, 'pushing their creatures towards me' might be classified as a shortcut, and if it's clear to a judge that they were doing that maliciously then they could (I think) be penalized. As I said, I don't know much about tournament penalties and how they're played. In a casual setting, though, I doubt you have much recourse besides being careful and always double-checking with people, "okay, so you're attacking?" Or failing that, trying not to play with these folks anymore.
*Not technically a judge, please don't sue, if anyone sees inaccuracies please inform me/correct them.
EDIT: Also, I hate asking for rules advice, but would ETB effects still trigger for cards that 'begin the game on the battlefield'? They're not entering it under any normal means, and the phrasing almost leads me to think that they wouldn't; on the other hand, the comp rules for this list it as "103.5a: If a card allows a player to begin the game with that card on the battlefield, the player taking this action puts that card onto the battlefield," which suggests to me that ETB effects might trigger. In that case, though, I'm not sure if the triggered ability would be put on the stack until the first upkeep, or just immediately.
...anyway, if anyone knows I'd appreciate it.