Not to hyjack the original question but to add onto this discussion:
If Night of Souls Betrayal was in play prior to Prossh being cast, does the Prossh player get an opportunity to sacrifice the tokens to Goblin Bombardment prior to them inherently dying to Night? (I'm guessing no but looking for confirmation)
i guess when people who don't take the time to accurately identify specific nuances, will consider their Goblin Warchief in their hand with Mycosynth Lattice in play has a cost of3 as opposed to 1RR. Unless you make the conscience connection that it still costs it's printed cost, you can just use colorless mana to pay for it, you are likely to think "oh his mana cost is fully colorless now. That means he doesn't affect my devotion to red for Purphoros, God of the Forge."
It's a wrong understanding of the Lattice even though the way you play doesn't change. Something subtle that not everyone picks up right away.
Edit: Another way of saying my point: It's not entirely intuitive that Goblin Warchief's Mana Cost is still 1RR, when Mycosynth Lattice makes it an Artifact and Colorless.
Checked and couldn't find an existing discussion on how Devotion checks mana symbols (the official rules page doesn't help a whole lot).
Devotion
A numerical value a player has, equal to the number of mana symbols of a certain color among the mana costs of permanents that player controls. See rule 700.5.
700.5. A player's devotion to [color] is equal to the number of mana symbols of that color among the mana costs of permanents that player controls.
I always understood this to mean: # of mana symbols printed on the card. As in, the only way to change this would be to take a marker and scratch over it, vs. casting something like Mycosynth Lattice.
I'm hum-drumming over a new WUBRG build. I want the deck to be interactive and effect board state. It should also be fairly reliable and consistent.
What do you guys play and how does it work out for you? Anyone have any luck with WUBRG and find something that they really enjoy?
Some things i'm looking for:
1. what general did you pick?
2. how does the deck play?
3. good synergies and interactions?
4. what's the win con?
I personally am not a fan of combos and infinity, so i generally rule out Sliver Queen. But the rest are up in the air. My current Genju of the Realm list is Enchantments.dec. It's different and interesting but not consistent enough.
I used to run Scion of the Ur-Dragon, and it was fun and super competitive. I found though it was basically just a hate magnet and i would have to compete 3v1 every time i played it.
How about talking to him and say he's ruining the games? Social answer for a social problem.
I feel like most of the issues people complain about in this community, AND in our culture as a whole, could be solved by people communicating more effectively.
That and people knowing the difference between causation and correlation.
I have to agree with Jivan on this one. EDH Is a political game, Group Hug is a political archetype. There are other formats for people who don't want to play the political game. Talking to your playgroup and working out a solution would help resolve an issue people have with balance of power.
I ran Rosheen Meanderer for a while. Tons of artifact mana ramp and then X spells and hydra-tribal. It actually worked decently well. Rosheen is one of those generals who doesn't generate a ton of threat but once your deck starts doing it's thing she's pretty frustrating.
I'll throw out Wort, the RaidMother. This can definitely be aggro and then it turns into Storm really fast. I've seen this deck do some fun stuff at instant speed. This could be an option if you want to be casting spells more than casting creatures. tons of Cantrips and spell slinging.
Whenever i get a collection of cards i separate them into two piles. 1. - good stuff potential use later. 2. - crap will never be used. The 1st group of stuff goes into a seperate box for later, the 2nd group gets filed away by color to collect dust in a closet.
Whenever i'm building a new deck if i want to get inspired by physical cards first, what i'll do is sift through the 1st bucket from above. If i want to use databasing to get inspired i'll use Starcity advanced search or gatherer to do keyword searches, and assemble a list that way.
Since i'm in active playgroup i'll usually as the guys too for advice and suggestions which tends to yield some of the better results. The last place is the decklists here. It's pretty easy to pick up on the easy low hanging fruits with net decks. It's my last resort because i enjoy playing the deck way more if i got the end result deck list on my own or with my friends' help, even if it looks identical to a net deck based on the best card choices.
i hate the "run more answers" response when people complain about things like combo. I don't even play combo but i understand how statistics works. The chance of drawing one specific card is the same whether is named Counterspell, Swords to Plowshares, or Tooth and Nail.
Many people have to decide how many slots in their deck they want to devote to answers and removals. For the most part, those slots take away from other spots to cards that used in the win condition or completing the deck's objective.
You can't sustain an argument that says "because i wasn't able to stop this combo from happening, i clearly didn't have enough answers in my deck" Especially if the combo happened by turn 5. Assuming you only draw 1 card per turn and no tutoring, turn 5 means opening hand of 7 plus 6 draws = seeing 13 cards. That's not nearly high enough of a percentage of the entire deck to validate whether or not 5 or 10 spot removals and counters is sufficient.
I do believe that answers are important regardless of casual vs. competative. Stopping other people from doing things DOES help you win the game. But you cannot use 1 game to justify deck alterations. A turn 5 combo win doesn't tell me anything about me needing more answers. The only thing it tells me is to shuffle up and play again.
I think he's pretty good as far as doing some good board control. As always being attached to a creature means he's slightly easier to disrupt, but on the flip side you can swing with him and still use his abilities.
As a long time EDH player i've often struggled when it comes to nailing down a particular win condition (from here on win con) for each of the decks I build. And i'm not talking about over all deck strategy, i'm talking about how do you actually win.
Many decks have themes: they want to steal cards, they want to disrupt people's abilities to cast spells, they want to control the board. But those strategies don't win you the game until you deal 21 general damage, bring their life total to 0, poison counters to 10, or find some sort of lock (either physical or mental) that players concede out of frustration or in ability to play the game (or run one of the many "i win" cards).
In some cases its easy: generally voltron decks are self explanatory. Or for that matter any deck that depends on general damage to win you the game, it's pretty easy to build and play around a concise strategy. But with decks that build around card or ability synergy (+1/+1 counters, tokens, control, stax, tax, etc) i find myself trying to find out how i'm going to actually close the win. I find myself looking down at my deck and saying "well... i guess i'll just swing with creatures..." The old Beatdown archetype could come in here as the particular win con but is that really the most viable answer in EDH? For example, my Roon of the Hidden Realm deck abuses ETB effects. I find that the options are either infinite mana using some sort of DEN / Great Whale / Palinchron combo, or general control + beat down. I find myself leaning towards "well... i'll just blink a bunch of stuff and try and hold the board down and then swing with my various creatures when i can and win by doing direct damage." This seems like a slow and ineffective method.
I personally am generally not a fan of combo lock strategies, i find them boring. But so be it, that's a personal choice. What insight does the MTGS community have about finding your win con for each of your decks? Should I embrace infinite mana / combo lock in Roon? What do you do when a win con is not so obvious and you are working on a more unique synergy. Do you rely on politics to win via last man standing?
This thread is not really about my Roon deck but about finding your win cons. Please discuss!
the discussion you are going to get is very subjective because the "spirit of the format" is a completely undefinable concept. It means different things to different people.
One of the virtues (part of the Spirit of EDH) of this format is the freedom of card choice. Thats what makes this format beautiful.
No i don't long for a format that makes a subjective decision against a specific archetype in magic. That would be severely crippling.
Leaving tutors out is a personal choice. Play with people who agree with your choices, if you don't enjoy playing against people who tutor for their 3 card combos.
absolutely depends on your deck and mana curve. It's offset by the amount of mana rocks and mana dorks you run.
You might notice a drop in average land count in a deck over time as other sources of mana get added to the deck. This is because as the game progresses past turn 5-6, hitting land drops is not as important if you have other mana sources that you can depend on.
As you tweak the deck and slowly lower the mana curve, the need for large amount of mana / land (by the end game) drops as well.
In the beginning however, the amount of land in your opening hand has nothing to do with the amount of mana your deck creates from other sources. Having a ton of mana rocks and mana dorks is useless (baring the 0-mana cost ETB untapped rocks) if you struggle to make those first few land drops . The chances of having 2-3 land in your opening hand (or sustaining land drops / ready access to mana through turn 5) drops as you lower the over all land count. Because of that my starting point is always 40 lands, where I am comfortable and reliably getting a good opening hand.
Even some high mana rock decks i usually don't dip below 37 because there's nothing worse than the opening hand / 2 muligans later, and through turn 4, not having access to enough mana.
If Night of Souls Betrayal was in play prior to Prossh being cast, does the Prossh player get an opportunity to sacrifice the tokens to Goblin Bombardment prior to them inherently dying to Night? (I'm guessing no but looking for confirmation)
It's a wrong understanding of the Lattice even though the way you play doesn't change. Something subtle that not everyone picks up right away.
Edit: Another way of saying my point: It's not entirely intuitive that Goblin Warchief's Mana Cost is still 1RR, when Mycosynth Lattice makes it an Artifact and Colorless.
Devotion
A numerical value a player has, equal to the number of mana symbols of a certain color among the mana costs of permanents that player controls. See rule 700.5.
700.5. A player's devotion to [color] is equal to the number of mana symbols of that color among the mana costs of permanents that player controls.
I always understood this to mean: # of mana symbols printed on the card. As in, the only way to change this would be to take a marker and scratch over it, vs. casting something like Mycosynth Lattice.
Confirm / Deny?
What do you guys play and how does it work out for you? Anyone have any luck with WUBRG and find something that they really enjoy?
Some things i'm looking for:
1. what general did you pick?
2. how does the deck play?
3. good synergies and interactions?
4. what's the win con?
I personally am not a fan of combos and infinity, so i generally rule out Sliver Queen. But the rest are up in the air. My current Genju of the Realm list is Enchantments.dec. It's different and interesting but not consistent enough.
I used to run Scion of the Ur-Dragon, and it was fun and super competitive. I found though it was basically just a hate magnet and i would have to compete 3v1 every time i played it.
thoughts? comments welcome!
I feel like most of the issues people complain about in this community, AND in our culture as a whole, could be solved by people communicating more effectively.
That and people knowing the difference between causation and correlation.
I have to agree with Jivan on this one. EDH Is a political game, Group Hug is a political archetype. There are other formats for people who don't want to play the political game. Talking to your playgroup and working out a solution would help resolve an issue people have with balance of power.
Why am i not running this in Ruric Thar? ugh! (I used to run in it in Mayael...)
My Gruul General now is Ruric Thar, the Unbowed. He's not quite as fast as Stonebrow, Krosan hero or Rhada, Heir to the Keld. I run full on punisher build, and it's a ton of fun to pilot, probably my favorite deck.
I'll throw out Wort, the RaidMother. This can definitely be aggro and then it turns into Storm really fast. I've seen this deck do some fun stuff at instant speed. This could be an option if you want to be casting spells more than casting creatures. tons of Cantrips and spell slinging.
Whenever i'm building a new deck if i want to get inspired by physical cards first, what i'll do is sift through the 1st bucket from above. If i want to use databasing to get inspired i'll use Starcity advanced search or gatherer to do keyword searches, and assemble a list that way.
Since i'm in active playgroup i'll usually as the guys too for advice and suggestions which tends to yield some of the better results. The last place is the decklists here. It's pretty easy to pick up on the easy low hanging fruits with net decks. It's my last resort because i enjoy playing the deck way more if i got the end result deck list on my own or with my friends' help, even if it looks identical to a net deck based on the best card choices.
Many people have to decide how many slots in their deck they want to devote to answers and removals. For the most part, those slots take away from other spots to cards that used in the win condition or completing the deck's objective.
You can't sustain an argument that says "because i wasn't able to stop this combo from happening, i clearly didn't have enough answers in my deck" Especially if the combo happened by turn 5. Assuming you only draw 1 card per turn and no tutoring, turn 5 means opening hand of 7 plus 6 draws = seeing 13 cards. That's not nearly high enough of a percentage of the entire deck to validate whether or not 5 or 10 spot removals and counters is sufficient.
I do believe that answers are important regardless of casual vs. competative. Stopping other people from doing things DOES help you win the game. But you cannot use 1 game to justify deck alterations. A turn 5 combo win doesn't tell me anything about me needing more answers. The only thing it tells me is to shuffle up and play again.
Definitely not broken. pretty cool though.
Many decks have themes: they want to steal cards, they want to disrupt people's abilities to cast spells, they want to control the board. But those strategies don't win you the game until you deal 21 general damage, bring their life total to 0, poison counters to 10, or find some sort of lock (either physical or mental) that players concede out of frustration or in ability to play the game (or run one of the many "i win" cards).
In some cases its easy: generally voltron decks are self explanatory. Or for that matter any deck that depends on general damage to win you the game, it's pretty easy to build and play around a concise strategy. But with decks that build around card or ability synergy (+1/+1 counters, tokens, control, stax, tax, etc) i find myself trying to find out how i'm going to actually close the win. I find myself looking down at my deck and saying "well... i guess i'll just swing with creatures..." The old Beatdown archetype could come in here as the particular win con but is that really the most viable answer in EDH? For example, my Roon of the Hidden Realm deck abuses ETB effects. I find that the options are either infinite mana using some sort of DEN / Great Whale / Palinchron combo, or general control + beat down. I find myself leaning towards "well... i'll just blink a bunch of stuff and try and hold the board down and then swing with my various creatures when i can and win by doing direct damage." This seems like a slow and ineffective method.
I personally am generally not a fan of combo lock strategies, i find them boring. But so be it, that's a personal choice. What insight does the MTGS community have about finding your win con for each of your decks? Should I embrace infinite mana / combo lock in Roon? What do you do when a win con is not so obvious and you are working on a more unique synergy. Do you rely on politics to win via last man standing?
This thread is not really about my Roon deck but about finding your win cons. Please discuss!
One of the virtues (part of the Spirit of EDH) of this format is the freedom of card choice. Thats what makes this format beautiful.
No i don't long for a format that makes a subjective decision against a specific archetype in magic. That would be severely crippling.
Leaving tutors out is a personal choice. Play with people who agree with your choices, if you don't enjoy playing against people who tutor for their 3 card combos.
You might notice a drop in average land count in a deck over time as other sources of mana get added to the deck. This is because as the game progresses past turn 5-6, hitting land drops is not as important if you have other mana sources that you can depend on.
As you tweak the deck and slowly lower the mana curve, the need for large amount of mana / land (by the end game) drops as well.
In the beginning however, the amount of land in your opening hand has nothing to do with the amount of mana your deck creates from other sources. Having a ton of mana rocks and mana dorks is useless (baring the 0-mana cost ETB untapped rocks) if you struggle to make those first few land drops . The chances of having 2-3 land in your opening hand (or sustaining land drops / ready access to mana through turn 5) drops as you lower the over all land count. Because of that my starting point is always 40 lands, where I am comfortable and reliably getting a good opening hand.
Even some high mana rock decks i usually don't dip below 37 because there's nothing worse than the opening hand / 2 muligans later, and through turn 4, not having access to enough mana.