You really shouldn't be cutting lands to make room for ramp. What makes ramp good is allowing you to exceed the 'normal' 1-per-turn limit of available mana. It's wasted if you're missing land drops.
My question for you, Bob is how much ramp is too much ramp?
Lets say you run 7 mana rocks, 3 mana doublers with 38 lands. That's already 48 card slots dedicated to mana. Don't you think that's too much?
No, I'd say that's about average. As an aside - which mana doublers are you running in a UB deck?
It sounds to me like you don't run enough card draw in your decks. If you have trouble imagining wanting more than 10 mana in a casual multiplayer game, it's probably because you're not used to playing more than 1 spell per turn.
I think burnished hart is pretty sweet for this format.
My question for you, Bob is how much ramp is too much ramp?
Lets say you run 7 mana rocks, 3 mana doublers with 38 lands. That's already 48 card slots dedicated to mana. Don't you think that's too much?
No, I'd say that's about average. As an aside - which mana doublers are you running in a UB deck?
More to the point, it sounds to me like you don't run enough card draw in your decks. If you have trouble imagining wanting more than 10 mana, it's probably because you're not used to playing more than 1 spell per turn.
I think burnished hart is pretty sweet for this format.
Hm well I said the originally posted decklist was slow and underpowered. I'll agree that going for a faster swarm gameplan would be an improvement, I think we're on the same page there. But I'll go a step further and admit that you're right, I don't think that's the absolute best approach.
In French EDH, it's pretty awesome to curve out 1-drop, 2-drop, edric (depending on opponent). After all, what is your opponent likely to do with his first 3 turns that's more powerful than that?
Under MTGCommander rules, the range of what can happen in those first few turns is wider - much wider. What's the most broken thing you can do with 6 mana? Ad nausem with mana floating? High tide + time spiral? Doomsday? Infinite mana combo into stroke of genius? I don't even know, honestly, but whatever it is surely beats an aggro opening. Typically, edric wins against those things under french rules because by the time they happen, the edric player has already seized a strong board position and is keeping up countermagic. However the availability crypt/vault/ring/monolith/tomb have a way of warping not only early board development, but deckbuilding. If you have access to multiple broken mana rocks like those, there's a lot more incentive to go deep, and play the full array of moxes (chrome/diamond/opal) and build a gameplan around abusing fast mana. Turns 1-3 are not the safe haven for development that you're used to having in french EDH - many powerful plays that fell safely into "slow enough not to be a concern for edric" under french rules can now happen as early as turn 1. Tapping out for brindle shoat on turn 2 can cost you the game. Some of the opposing decks will mandate keeping up countermagic as soon as it's online, allowing little to no time to play early beaters.
Edric is supremely good at crushing fair decks, and French rules do a decent job of keeping things fair. MTG commander rules however, don't do quite as good a job.
I don't pretend to know what's the best way to build edric for this format, I'm just speculating here, as we all are. I noted in my original reply that I saw Weissman's build on youtube and think it's pretty sweet. It does a good job of utilizing both edric and the fast mana in the format, so I that's probably a good place to start. May not be optimal, but at least it's tuned for the right format.
Easy there....you're making a lot of incorrect assumptions and being pretty sarcastic attacking those assumptions. Maybe you should re-read my posts for their actual content?
I never suggested the deck be more midrangy...I said more vintage-y. If you associate vintage with mid-range decks then I don't know what to tell you...
I never said anything about multiplayer. This is a 1v1 forum last I checked?
I never said edric was bad, just that it's probably wise not to go all-in on him, especially when there are some other stupidly fast+powerful other avenues to victory available to him.
Funny to see you criticising what my 'deck is clearly not designed to do' since I never posted or even built one. I'm just making some suggestions that I think will improve the OP's list. Maybe I came across overly critical, in which case: my bad. But looking back I haven't seen you disagree with a single one of the actual suggestions I made. So maybe you're being a little overly sensitive at me suggesting there's room to improve on a french edric list beyond just adding mana drain?.
We're not talking about what is/was good under french rules. When Edric was banned in duel commander, he didn't have to contend with tucking, or sol ring starts, or combo with the full array of tutors and mana rocks.
If I'm playing zur, and I open with mana crypt+signet, and continuously save counter mana for edric himself....what draw could your list possibly have that beats that? Saying "well you can't keep up with 5+ cards a turn" is meaningless. You'll never get a chance to draw off edric against a control deck with that degree of mana advantage.
I'm not saying that edric is a bad choice, or even that this deck is bad.. just that it could be better. Sol ring is going to do more for you than vapor snag, for example. Strip mine is a no-brainer. This is probably the best home possible for winter orb. And so on. Why let other people have all the degenerate cards?
...Unless of course, they can keep edric out of play. In which case you're playing a deck full of 'fair' creatures in a 40-life format full of busted cards that everyone except you is abusing.
And let's be honest...if the turn 2 zurs out there have access to necropotence, you aren't outdrawing them 5-1.
Watch the weissman videos...between mana dorks and value creatures, edric still threatens to draw 2+ extra cards per turn, which is still pretty much unbeatable. But unlike the above list, that's just one line of attack...it doesn't require force of will to avoid scooping to hinder/spell crumple (don't forget tucking is a thing in mtgcommander EDH). Being able to use edric to bait counters and removal makes him more powerful, not less, than depending on resolving and protecting him.
Anyone else excited about unexpectedly absent? temporal spring at instant speed for 2 mana seems pretty damned good. Can be done in response to a shuffle effect (fetchland, land ramp, tutors, etc) too.
You're trying to show how busted the mtgcommander banlist is compared to the french list, but using almost none of the really busted things that differentiate the formats. You've got edric and mana drain and ancient tomb...and unless I'm missing something, that's it.
Where's sol ring? Mana crypt? Strip mine + crucible? Winter orb?
I think I'd build this very differently from you. Edric doesn't have to be all-in aggro+counterspells. I'd aim for a vintage-y looking deck, with more unfair lines of play. Lots of mana rocks, including vault and monolith, natural order + terastodon, tezzeret to find orb/crucible/shackles/rocks, etc...
Look for Brian Weissman on youtube. He's been playing a lot of commander on MTGO lately and uploading+commentating his replays. In addition to the games he chooses to upload being pretty entertaining, his edric list is friggin' sweet.
I don't think there's anything wrong with using an extra turn spell as an explore. Obviously you put them in a deck hoping to get more out of it than just that (eg planeswalker activations, attack phases, etc), but explore with an extra untap phase is still 100% upside.
Is Kokusho in the same ball park ? No. Kokusho doesn't provide resources except for life
You're confusing power with fun. Just because primetime is more powerful doesn't mean he's less fun.
Kokusho changes the dynamics of how you look at life totals...for example imagine a typical game approaching turn 10 or so, and a kokusho hits play. How much life do the players typically have? 20s and 30s? Well, consider that a single rite of replication now eliminates everyone else under 30 life. Are you safe sitting at 32? Bob there sure doesn't feel safe at 24. But oh look he's got it covered, phantasmal image copying koko puts him up to a comfortable 34. But oh, since 2 kokos have died now you're down to 22! And a bit later in the game, when someone resolves animate dead on koko, you've got to be really worried. Maybe that rite of replication never resolves. Maybe no one's even drawn one. But the threat of losing 30 life suddenly, means you're kind of forced to seek a safer life total. And incidentally, that koko in play is probably the easiest way to gain a bunch of life...but doing so hurts everyone else, and if someone else is in the same boat and beats you to it, you're in even worse shape.
It's not that koko's effect is more powerful than primeval titan - it isn't. And koko isn't. It's just that koko games are less fun than primetime games. People copy/steal/recur primetime because they want to - he provides a powerful effect. People treat koko the same way not because they want to, but because they kind of have to. Koko is both the disease and the cure. You want a safe life total to survive a koko-explosion, and then contribute to the koko explosion to achieve that.
The problem with wildfire's post is that the logic he attacks is NOT the logic used to ban the cards. Kokusho isn't banned because he centralizes he the game, he's banned because he does that AND a game centralized around kok becomes very lame and unfun. Yes, you see people fighting over primeval titan, but games where players are dumping lots of lands into play often still end up being interesting, interactive, and fun. Even if you're unable the player unable to steal/copy/recur primetime and are behind on lands, you still get to participate in the game, and get to register lower on everyone's threat radar to compensate. If you're the lone guy unable to abuse kokusho, you probably just get drained out of the game, and that's not much fun.
Having said all that, I'm pretty convinced that hulk was snap-banned during the flash-hulk era, and hasn't been given a fair shake ever since. I'm not convinced that particular card needs to stay banned.
P8 + library are not banned *just* for being expensive, they're banned for being ubiquitous and expensive. Sure, workshop and bazaar can cost more, but those are techy cards that only certain decks want." You could make an argument for imperial seal maybe being ubiquitous+pricy enough...but that's really the only one, but even there, it's not above the power curve in the way that the banned cards are. It's just vampiric tutor's slightly retarded brother.
I could go on...but you can't just bring up a card, pick a small part of the reason it was banned, and then attack its banning because other cards fit that particular part of the criteria.
TL/DR the banned list is arbitrary, insufficient to stop broken plays or unfun decks/games
sigh...I feel like a broken record. I've already explained why this statement is wrong ON THE SAME PAGE and people are stiil tooting the same horn. The banlist is not trying to stop spike philosophy. The banlist is not capable of doing that. The banlist is serving an entirely different purpose, that you ignore, and then you argue that it fails to achieve some purpose that only you claim it should be trying to fulfill.
The banlist is trying to highlight the cards that look fun, but aren't. That's all. If you're on board with the spirit of the format, many cards might appeal to you, but then you might notice that some of those cards are having a negative effect on the enjoyability of the games you're playing...the banned list is just trying to save you from having to figure out those cards yourself. If you're expecting it to make it impossible to be a douchebag, you're asking too much.
Inappropriate language warning issued (inappropriate use of 'retarded'). -viper
While banning 100 cards may not stop the problem, it will put a huge dent in the spike philosophy.
No it won't...not at all. This is a multiplayer format, and the most effective way to win is always alwaysalways combo. Even if you ban the 50 most efficient 2-card combos, and every tutor, there will still be decks running card draw/digging effects and some way to say "oops I just won" that will be so much more successful than trying to mount an overwhelming board presence and hoping to project strength without drawing enemy fire. Heck, you could even ban the efficient digging cards (like impulse, brainstorm, etc) and I bet you could still build a decent combo deck on the back of divination, mulldrifter, concentrate, etc. You can make combo a ridiculous amount slower and less reliable than it's currently capable of being, and it'll still be the best way to win multiplayer games.
The fact that it's multiplayer also stems the broken starts you speak of (like sol ring into early primetime). That's an undeniably awesome start, but the game isn't over and as the table's ability to shift into a 3v1 as your opponents start to recognize you as the main obstacle to their chance of winning has a way of balancing all the non-sudden ways of doing broken things. Pulling ahead - even by leaps and bounds that would be broken in 1v1 - is fine in multiplayer because politics tend to compensate. Winning suddenly without warning however, is unfun and toxic to a friendly play atmosphere. And that's also the most effective way to win multiplayer games - because it doesn't give politics any time to compensate for the broken-ness.
Spike strategies will pursue that lameness, not because spikes are lame, but because lameness wins. Removing cards like sol ring and demonic tutor won't change that, combo is still lame, and still effective.
The RC has decided to use the banlist to warn players off cards that seem fun but are not. It isn't intended to govern the format in the way that tournament formats' banlists are (with the assumption that most players will be doing the most powerful things they can within the limits of the format). It's more of a "hey, don't be fooled by these ones"
It sounds to me like you don't run enough card draw in your decks. If you have trouble imagining wanting more than 10 mana in a casual multiplayer game, it's probably because you're not used to playing more than 1 spell per turn.
I think burnished hart is pretty sweet for this format.
More to the point, it sounds to me like you don't run enough card draw in your decks. If you have trouble imagining wanting more than 10 mana, it's probably because you're not used to playing more than 1 spell per turn.
I think burnished hart is pretty sweet for this format.
In French EDH, it's pretty awesome to curve out 1-drop, 2-drop, edric (depending on opponent). After all, what is your opponent likely to do with his first 3 turns that's more powerful than that?
Under MTGCommander rules, the range of what can happen in those first few turns is wider - much wider. What's the most broken thing you can do with 6 mana? Ad nausem with mana floating? High tide + time spiral? Doomsday? Infinite mana combo into stroke of genius? I don't even know, honestly, but whatever it is surely beats an aggro opening. Typically, edric wins against those things under french rules because by the time they happen, the edric player has already seized a strong board position and is keeping up countermagic. However the availability crypt/vault/ring/monolith/tomb have a way of warping not only early board development, but deckbuilding. If you have access to multiple broken mana rocks like those, there's a lot more incentive to go deep, and play the full array of moxes (chrome/diamond/opal) and build a gameplan around abusing fast mana. Turns 1-3 are not the safe haven for development that you're used to having in french EDH - many powerful plays that fell safely into "slow enough not to be a concern for edric" under french rules can now happen as early as turn 1. Tapping out for brindle shoat on turn 2 can cost you the game. Some of the opposing decks will mandate keeping up countermagic as soon as it's online, allowing little to no time to play early beaters.
Edric is supremely good at crushing fair decks, and French rules do a decent job of keeping things fair. MTG commander rules however, don't do quite as good a job.
I don't pretend to know what's the best way to build edric for this format, I'm just speculating here, as we all are. I noted in my original reply that I saw Weissman's build on youtube and think it's pretty sweet. It does a good job of utilizing both edric and the fast mana in the format, so I that's probably a good place to start. May not be optimal, but at least it's tuned for the right format.
I never suggested the deck be more midrangy...I said more vintage-y. If you associate vintage with mid-range decks then I don't know what to tell you...
I never said anything about multiplayer. This is a 1v1 forum last I checked?
I never said edric was bad, just that it's probably wise not to go all-in on him, especially when there are some other stupidly fast+powerful other avenues to victory available to him.
Funny to see you criticising what my 'deck is clearly not designed to do' since I never posted or even built one. I'm just making some suggestions that I think will improve the OP's list. Maybe I came across overly critical, in which case: my bad. But looking back I haven't seen you disagree with a single one of the actual suggestions I made. So maybe you're being a little overly sensitive at me suggesting there's room to improve on a french edric list beyond just adding mana drain?.
If I'm playing zur, and I open with mana crypt+signet, and continuously save counter mana for edric himself....what draw could your list possibly have that beats that? Saying "well you can't keep up with 5+ cards a turn" is meaningless. You'll never get a chance to draw off edric against a control deck with that degree of mana advantage.
I'm not saying that edric is a bad choice, or even that this deck is bad.. just that it could be better. Sol ring is going to do more for you than vapor snag, for example. Strip mine is a no-brainer. This is probably the best home possible for winter orb. And so on. Why let other people have all the degenerate cards?
And let's be honest...if the turn 2 zurs out there have access to necropotence, you aren't outdrawing them 5-1.
Watch the weissman videos...between mana dorks and value creatures, edric still threatens to draw 2+ extra cards per turn, which is still pretty much unbeatable. But unlike the above list, that's just one line of attack...it doesn't require force of will to avoid scooping to hinder/spell crumple (don't forget tucking is a thing in mtgcommander EDH). Being able to use edric to bait counters and removal makes him more powerful, not less, than depending on resolving and protecting him.
You're trying to show how busted the mtgcommander banlist is compared to the french list, but using almost none of the really busted things that differentiate the formats. You've got edric and mana drain and ancient tomb...and unless I'm missing something, that's it.
Where's sol ring? Mana crypt? Strip mine + crucible? Winter orb?
I think I'd build this very differently from you. Edric doesn't have to be all-in aggro+counterspells. I'd aim for a vintage-y looking deck, with more unfair lines of play. Lots of mana rocks, including vault and monolith, natural order + terastodon, tezzeret to find orb/crucible/shackles/rocks, etc...
Look for Brian Weissman on youtube. He's been playing a lot of commander on MTGO lately and uploading+commentating his replays. In addition to the games he chooses to upload being pretty entertaining, his edric list is friggin' sweet.
Kokusho changes the dynamics of how you look at life totals...for example imagine a typical game approaching turn 10 or so, and a kokusho hits play. How much life do the players typically have? 20s and 30s? Well, consider that a single rite of replication now eliminates everyone else under 30 life. Are you safe sitting at 32? Bob there sure doesn't feel safe at 24. But oh look he's got it covered, phantasmal image copying koko puts him up to a comfortable 34. But oh, since 2 kokos have died now you're down to 22! And a bit later in the game, when someone resolves animate dead on koko, you've got to be really worried. Maybe that rite of replication never resolves. Maybe no one's even drawn one. But the threat of losing 30 life suddenly, means you're kind of forced to seek a safer life total. And incidentally, that koko in play is probably the easiest way to gain a bunch of life...but doing so hurts everyone else, and if someone else is in the same boat and beats you to it, you're in even worse shape.
It's not that koko's effect is more powerful than primeval titan - it isn't. And koko isn't. It's just that koko games are less fun than primetime games. People copy/steal/recur primetime because they want to - he provides a powerful effect. People treat koko the same way not because they want to, but because they kind of have to. Koko is both the disease and the cure. You want a safe life total to survive a koko-explosion, and then contribute to the koko explosion to achieve that.
Having said all that, I'm pretty convinced that hulk was snap-banned during the flash-hulk era, and hasn't been given a fair shake ever since. I'm not convinced that particular card needs to stay banned.
P8 + library are not banned *just* for being expensive, they're banned for being ubiquitous and expensive. Sure, workshop and bazaar can cost more, but those are techy cards that only certain decks want." You could make an argument for imperial seal maybe being ubiquitous+pricy enough...but that's really the only one, but even there, it's not above the power curve in the way that the banned cards are. It's just vampiric tutor's slightly retarded brother.
I could go on...but you can't just bring up a card, pick a small part of the reason it was banned, and then attack its banning because other cards fit that particular part of the criteria.
sigh...I feel like a broken record. I've already explained why this statement is wrong ON THE SAME PAGE and people are stiil tooting the same horn. The banlist is not trying to stop spike philosophy. The banlist is not capable of doing that. The banlist is serving an entirely different purpose, that you ignore, and then you argue that it fails to achieve some purpose that only you claim it should be trying to fulfill.
The banlist is trying to highlight the cards that look fun, but aren't. That's all. If you're on board with the spirit of the format, many cards might appeal to you, but then you might notice that some of those cards are having a negative effect on the enjoyability of the games you're playing...the banned list is just trying to save you from having to figure out those cards yourself. If you're expecting it to make it impossible to be a douchebag, you're asking too much.
Inappropriate language warning issued (inappropriate use of 'retarded'). -viper
The fact that it's multiplayer also stems the broken starts you speak of (like sol ring into early primetime). That's an undeniably awesome start, but the game isn't over and as the table's ability to shift into a 3v1 as your opponents start to recognize you as the main obstacle to their chance of winning has a way of balancing all the non-sudden ways of doing broken things. Pulling ahead - even by leaps and bounds that would be broken in 1v1 - is fine in multiplayer because politics tend to compensate. Winning suddenly without warning however, is unfun and toxic to a friendly play atmosphere. And that's also the most effective way to win multiplayer games - because it doesn't give politics any time to compensate for the broken-ness.
Spike strategies will pursue that lameness, not because spikes are lame, but because lameness wins. Removing cards like sol ring and demonic tutor won't change that, combo is still lame, and still effective.
The RC has decided to use the banlist to warn players off cards that seem fun but are not. It isn't intended to govern the format in the way that tournament formats' banlists are (with the assumption that most players will be doing the most powerful things they can within the limits of the format). It's more of a "hey, don't be fooled by these ones"