He is some random guy that made and helps to manage a format. A non sanctioned one that can be played anyway a group chooses. His word is not law. He is not paid for his time or effort. People should be grateful he has done what he has for the format. Rather then be ungrateful "the world revolves around me" little ****s and throw a tantrum about anything they disagree with.
woah, calm down sir. His post suggested little of what you're referring to. He did not throw a tantrum nor did he exhibit any of the 'world revolves around me' mentality of which you refered to. For the last couple of post, you neither responded to what the threader was talking about and instead hurled unwarrented insults.
Sheldon is not some random guy. He's the recognized creator of the format. He doesn't help manage it. He writes weekly articles about commander specifically expressing his views on how the format should be played. BTW, he is getting paid for his effort, you don't think SCG pays him? You don't think he's made money off the format? Please don't be so naive. Besides, this point isn't even relevent. What we were saying is that sheldon sets himself apart from the rest of the rule committee because of his publicity, because of his overtness to express his personal view of commander in light of his publicity. Please, this average joe Sheldon is fiction.
lol, i guess my tone was a little agitated. But dude, its hard to tell if sheldon's being serious or whimsical. That list had both lightning greaves and march of the machines on it. Remember the john fun wrecker article where he went off on that guy who played march of the machines...well they're both there.
no, this is just his musings seriously guys, reading is tech.
sorry, i didnt finish my thought when i posted that. went back to fix. basically im commenting on his banning philosophy. If sheldon is considering these reasonings, even as musing, can we trust his judgment when it comes to official bannings?
Wow lightning greaves... are you serious...this banning philosophy is just getting ridiculous. Is he seriously considering cards because they're boring.
Heres a quick run down of what I think of sheldon';s banning philsophy.
Refuses to acknowledge certain strategies, believe them to be cheap --> limits his incoporation of answers because they feel cheap --> inability to deal with certain cards ---> belief that these cards he 'cant deal with' are cheap ---> put these cards on a ban list.
Honestly, this is very evident in the way Sheldon writes. I get a sense of this when I read his articles, particular when he's talking about his past commander experiences. I think this is a problem because when you get a sense of his banning philsophy, you begin to consider if someone who has as much of an influence over the format as he does, should take such an approach, his musings still give us a glimpse into the reasons he'd actually consider. To be honest, most of his reasoning doesn't seem to be based on rationality or empiricism
We all have to admit that commander players do read and follow the official rules as a general guideline of how to play the format. Thus consider these rules as rudimentary rubrics.
I agree with the philosophy that a card should be banned if it's too expensive and if its power level offers a significant advantage to those who can afford it.
Here are examples of well banned cards: Power 9 - timetwister. These cards are all 400+ and stronger by a ridiculous margin.
These are questionable bans:
Library of Alexandria - ~200$, and if you've played with this card, its not actually that powerful or close to being broken. It is very unclear to me why this card should be banned, do we say that 200 is too much? But if so, grim tutor, imperial recruitor, imperial seal, mishra's workshop are all unbanned. Do we consider this too powerful and too expensive? Here i think its still quite easy to argue that mishra's workshop, imperial seal are more pricy and more powerful. The lack of clear logic for banning this card convinces me otherwise.
Whats not banned:
Mishra's workshop - ~350$ and ya if you've played with this card, its just retarded.
Imperial Seal ~250-300$, we know how powerful tutors for 1 mana are.
Now on to Power level banned cards.
Problematic bans:
Coalition victory, this is much harder to pull off than test of endurance or mortal combat.
Lion's eye diamond - reason for ban #1. so I realize that this is part of a combo, but that combo sucks, and can be easily disrupted. I mean its a 3 peice infinite combo, there are much better 2 card infinite combo that are legal. Reason for ban #2, ok so this accelerates you into your general...but you just lost your entire hand. I think that is fair enough of a risk - reward ratio to justify it being legal. This card is not broken.
Sway of the Stars: are you serious? This card cost 10 mana, and is worse than obliterate in 99% of situations.
So Im planning to make a commander cube for my play group. Im limiting it to a 4 player draft cube. My playgroup is casually competitive, they like good cards and good synergies but dislike infinite combos, repeated board wipes. Here are my initial thoughts, hope you guys can give me some constructed inputs.
(I'm planning on updating its progress as I build it, so keep checking back)
I. General Draft Format - Numbers and Order.
So Im thinking that since commander is a unique format, drafting it in a cube must be unique as well. My initial thought is that it might be easier to draft with several potential commanders in mind, hence, it might be a great idea to have a separate draft for commanders first. Here are the numbers
40 commanders - 2 for each monocolored (10) 2 for allied and enemy colors (10) 2 for each tricolor (10) 2 for each wedge (10)
Don't really have the exact generals in mind yet, but I'll start putting lists up as I receive more suggestions.
In any case, I feel that trying to draft a 99 card deck will be too taxing, since you need to draft at least 9-10 packs, which will take hours on end. I'm thinking that realistically people like drafting but exhausting themselves over it will get old and not as fun, so what about 60 card edh decks. Im debating this because commander is a 99 singleton format, so will a 60 card singleton format change the nature of the game? If so, how should I compromise between time and staying true to the game.
Just a quick overview on number of 15 card packs that need to be drafted for number of cards in a constructed deck:
So here, Im trying to keep in mind the nature of my play group as well as hte types of decks I enjoy playing a drafting. I don't see myself building an entirely casual cube since most of my friends as well as myself like really good synergies and powerful effects. But unlike a normal cube, I believe that its hard to cater to some colors without including very douche cards for example red; I feel will be completely underwhelming without mass LD since life totals are higher and burn will be underwhelming. Here are some things Im considering to mitigate this problem: Starting life at 30, come up with better lists for red; Or another way to look at this is that some colors will naturally be support colors vs primary colors, maybe its impossible to draft a mono red- centric deck. I can't decide.
Another hard aspect of building the cube is balance. Blue and Green are the most powerful colors in commander, but because of their popularity, Im hoping that division of resources will naturally balance this out. I do want to brainstorm central themes for each color in hopes of balancing these themes (roughly) in terms of playability and power. And again please give me suggestions, greatly appreciated.
Green: Mana Aceel, Utility Creatures, Big come into play effects (very playable)
Black: Tutors, Creature Removal, Recursion, don't know if discard makes it. (seems that black is playable, though leaning more to a support color)
White: Everything removal, Enchantments, Limited Recursion, Good Creatures (still seems a bit on the support side, how do I bring out primary white)
Red: Direct Damage, Mass LD, Creature Stealing (?? how do I make this better)
III. Random fun cards that are just insanely fun.
I really want to have an surprising LOL factor for this cube as well. Unfortunately, Im stuck here since i've been more on the competitive side of things. Im sure you guys have encountered great fun cards that I'd love to include.
so i think tier lists are something to consider only if you have a really competitive group. I can see competitive groups debating tier generals and making a game out of beating the perceived tier list by making better decks.
In any case, this is what I think are tier 1s in a multiplayer competitive mindset.
Sharuum combo
Zur the enchanter (contamination-bitterblossom lock)
Jhoira of the Ghitu LD
Azami, Lady of Scroll combo control
Animar Soul of elements Combo
Momir Vigg combo
Grand Arbiter UW stacks
Hana Ship's Navigator UW stacks combo
This is very true. I'm foiling out one deck entirely, or as close to as I can manage with what's available. The rest of them just get the occasional foil that looks better as such (Greater Good, or cards that I just love (Perilous Forays). It seems like a much saner way to do it, especially without significant income.
ya definitely. I agree that spending money on a few cards you love is one of the most gratifying ways to pimp out your deck. This is especially true if you've played with a certain old card back in the days that you've owned face with. For me, its meloku, tooth and nail, sylvan library and intuition.
I so have a pet peeve, and its fairly annoying when it comes time to set plays on pimping a deck; its against white bordered cards. This is really because FBB cards are hard to get ahold of. So I'd often go out of my way for them. A pet peeve I do enjoy is that I have to find the best art of a card if it has multiple versions. I really find that quite satisfying; theres a little smirk when i see my friends play with vastly inferior ugly versions. lawl.
Im wondering why people who are invested in EDH, ie, play on a regular basis, have access to a wide spectrum of edh players, don't just make different types of deck to diversify their experience.
I understand that some people don't have alot of free time, Im in that situation myself since I work 5 days a week paying for college. But on any given week, I do have 4-6 solid hours of edh time, and ive decided to build a 1v1 competitive deck (jhoira), a multiplayer competitive deck (animar) and 2 casual competitive decks (kaervek and Ulasht). Usually I'd bring out different decks in different play group; there are play groups that i'm only comfortable playing kaervek or ulasht in and there are others that I can't play anything but jhoira or animar, but there is a core group of 5-6 players that I play with that'll rotate through their whole pantheon of edh decks, playing through all the archetypes under the color wheel. I've really grown to like that experience. Competitive games are stressful, but highly engaging and challenging mentally. Stack interaction with multiple blue players at the table who are driven by their own politics and threat assessment is great experience. After a competitive game, we'd throw down our casual decks and just revel in the pure carnage of bashing each other's face in. We often talk about the edh experience within a game. What about the experience of the entire night when you add up all the games you've played?
It just seems to me that EDH players can benefit more from diversifying our palette.
I'd say that alot of the flip cards with the exception of eryo has serious potential to be in this category. Especially cards that flip and changes card types, ie creature --> enchantment, etc, takes people off guard because the harmless creatures has no turned into a much bigger threat thats hard to deal with.
Also in my experience world queller has been insane. This is only so if you'd remember to play heavy politics with the card, ie promising to kill problemetic permenants on the board, pulling favors with people against the obvious threat, and even as far as making obvious bad plays for youself to convince the table that world queller is friendly. Because you can then use this time to set up a board ie martyr's bond, emeria sky ruin, reya dawnbringer, crucible of worlds,reveillark, karmic guide, etc in which world queller becomes an engine.
This deck i built to include as many pathways to win as possible, while staying synergistic with the deck's goals. I tend to like decks that give you a plethora of options to win, especially if the options themself become a core mechanic of the deck.
For example, birthing pod in animar can be a route to victory in itself, but playing with it require you to juggle comeinto play/leave play triggers, the sequence of creatures you grab also determines your success. On the other hand, glimpse of nature/primordial sage allows you to play animar like an elf ball deck that speaks to the combo players. The swords/jitte/edric package allows animar to be played like an aggro-tempo deck that solidifies advantage early on while accrueing counters on animar and win the game through combat damage.
I've given the deck to my friends and they've all had a blast playing the deck. Most of their remarks mirror the deck's goals 'i can't believe i have so many options' or 'all my decisions are so important'.
Though I think fun is a subjective term, building a fun deck can be very successful as long as you're clear in setting and achieving that specific goal of fun, be it 'my deck will be really fun because there are many combat interactions', 'my deck will be really fun because it fuels crazy plays', or 'my deck will be fun for others to play against'. Setting a clear goal of fun will require you to think about that specific aspect of fun your deck will promote. The more well thought out you are before constructing your deck, the more your end product will follow suit.
SB changes:
3x Emrakul
3x Chalice of the Void
3x Extirpate
3x Spell Pierce
3x Wipe Away
Reasoning: Lim-dul's vault has been an all star in testing. Not only does it significant improve the consistency of the deck, it also allows for a degree of planning - out maneveuring your opponent via knowing your next 3 draws, which i think is vastly important against any deck playing black.
Overall, I think the edition of lim-dul's vault/impulse and cutting emrakul/city from MD, slows down the deck, but add consistency. Though the main perk of this change is to adapt to an metagame filled with hate: angels grace, spellsputter sprite; as well as increased likelihood of facing mirrors.
Imagine the mirror match game 2, 3. You side board out 4x hive mind, 3x red pact, 2x green pact, 2x black pact. You bring in 3x chalice, 3x spell pierce, 3x emrakul, 3x wipe away. Now you are at a significant advantage. Chalice set to 0 hardly effects your deck, saved pact of negation. Also you have lim dul's vault to set up for emrakul, whereas your opponent doesn't.
Chalice for 1 also becoems relevant in these match ups. UW stoneblade, Darkblade, Bant Aggro.
Thanks for the feedback. always appreciate some. I have to wonder though, why sideboard out emrakul, especially show and tell. I use those cards often.
Against Combo decks such as Charbelcer which can kill you faster, show and tell emrakul often becomes too slow (ie, you kill on the turn after you cast it). I side boarded out show and tell because they can bring in charbelcer and kill me instantly. I think the same reasoning applies to reanimator. Show and tell often becomes too risky in this match up because their deck have very good targets for show and tell; they can stop you via iona naming your pact colors, angel of despair/blazing archon against emrakul.
woah, calm down sir. His post suggested little of what you're referring to. He did not throw a tantrum nor did he exhibit any of the 'world revolves around me' mentality of which you refered to. For the last couple of post, you neither responded to what the threader was talking about and instead hurled unwarrented insults.
Sheldon is not some random guy. He's the recognized creator of the format. He doesn't help manage it. He writes weekly articles about commander specifically expressing his views on how the format should be played. BTW, he is getting paid for his effort, you don't think SCG pays him? You don't think he's made money off the format? Please don't be so naive. Besides, this point isn't even relevent. What we were saying is that sheldon sets himself apart from the rest of the rule committee because of his publicity, because of his overtness to express his personal view of commander in light of his publicity. Please, this average joe Sheldon is fiction.
sorry, i didnt finish my thought when i posted that. went back to fix. basically im commenting on his banning philosophy. If sheldon is considering these reasonings, even as musing, can we trust his judgment when it comes to official bannings?
Heres a quick run down of what I think of sheldon';s banning philsophy.
Refuses to acknowledge certain strategies, believe them to be cheap --> limits his incoporation of answers because they feel cheap --> inability to deal with certain cards ---> belief that these cards he 'cant deal with' are cheap ---> put these cards on a ban list.
Honestly, this is very evident in the way Sheldon writes. I get a sense of this when I read his articles, particular when he's talking about his past commander experiences. I think this is a problem because when you get a sense of his banning philsophy, you begin to consider if someone who has as much of an influence over the format as he does, should take such an approach, his musings still give us a glimpse into the reasons he'd actually consider. To be honest, most of his reasoning doesn't seem to be based on rationality or empiricism
We all have to admit that commander players do read and follow the official rules as a general guideline of how to play the format. Thus consider these rules as rudimentary rubrics.
I agree with the philosophy that a card should be banned if it's too expensive and if its power level offers a significant advantage to those who can afford it.
Here are examples of well banned cards: Power 9 - timetwister. These cards are all 400+ and stronger by a ridiculous margin.
These are questionable bans:
Library of Alexandria - ~200$, and if you've played with this card, its not actually that powerful or close to being broken. It is very unclear to me why this card should be banned, do we say that 200 is too much? But if so, grim tutor, imperial recruitor, imperial seal, mishra's workshop are all unbanned. Do we consider this too powerful and too expensive? Here i think its still quite easy to argue that mishra's workshop, imperial seal are more pricy and more powerful. The lack of clear logic for banning this card convinces me otherwise.
Whats not banned:
Mishra's workshop - ~350$ and ya if you've played with this card, its just retarded.
Imperial Seal ~250-300$, we know how powerful tutors for 1 mana are.
Now on to Power level banned cards.
Problematic bans:
Coalition victory, this is much harder to pull off than test of endurance or mortal combat.
Lion's eye diamond - reason for ban #1. so I realize that this is part of a combo, but that combo sucks, and can be easily disrupted. I mean its a 3 peice infinite combo, there are much better 2 card infinite combo that are legal. Reason for ban #2, ok so this accelerates you into your general...but you just lost your entire hand. I think that is fair enough of a risk - reward ratio to justify it being legal. This card is not broken.
Sway of the Stars: are you serious? This card cost 10 mana, and is worse than obliterate in 99% of situations.
So Im planning to make a commander cube for my play group. Im limiting it to a 4 player draft cube. My playgroup is casually competitive, they like good cards and good synergies but dislike infinite combos, repeated board wipes. Here are my initial thoughts, hope you guys can give me some constructed inputs.
(I'm planning on updating its progress as I build it, so keep checking back)
I. General Draft Format - Numbers and Order.
So Im thinking that since commander is a unique format, drafting it in a cube must be unique as well. My initial thought is that it might be easier to draft with several potential commanders in mind, hence, it might be a great idea to have a separate draft for commanders first. Here are the numbers
40 commanders - 2 for each monocolored (10) 2 for allied and enemy colors (10) 2 for each tricolor (10) 2 for each wedge (10)
Don't really have the exact generals in mind yet, but I'll start putting lists up as I receive more suggestions.
In any case, I feel that trying to draft a 99 card deck will be too taxing, since you need to draft at least 9-10 packs, which will take hours on end. I'm thinking that realistically people like drafting but exhausting themselves over it will get old and not as fun, so what about 60 card edh decks. Im debating this because commander is a 99 singleton format, so will a 60 card singleton format change the nature of the game? If so, how should I compromise between time and staying true to the game.
Just a quick overview on number of 15 card packs that need to be drafted for number of cards in a constructed deck:
40 card - 3 packs (45) ~30 minutes
60 card - 5 packs (75) ~50 minutes
80 card - 7 packs (90) ~1 hour 15 minutes
99 card - 9 packs (135) ~1 hour 45 minutes
II. Philosophy of building the cube.
So here, Im trying to keep in mind the nature of my play group as well as hte types of decks I enjoy playing a drafting. I don't see myself building an entirely casual cube since most of my friends as well as myself like really good synergies and powerful effects. But unlike a normal cube, I believe that its hard to cater to some colors without including very douche cards for example red; I feel will be completely underwhelming without mass LD since life totals are higher and burn will be underwhelming. Here are some things Im considering to mitigate this problem: Starting life at 30, come up with better lists for red; Or another way to look at this is that some colors will naturally be support colors vs primary colors, maybe its impossible to draft a mono red- centric deck. I can't decide.
Another hard aspect of building the cube is balance. Blue and Green are the most powerful colors in commander, but because of their popularity, Im hoping that division of resources will naturally balance this out. I do want to brainstorm central themes for each color in hopes of balancing these themes (roughly) in terms of playability and power. And again please give me suggestions, greatly appreciated.
Blue: Card draw, CounterMagic, Clone/Steal Effects, Bounce (very playable)
Green: Mana Aceel, Utility Creatures, Big come into play effects (very playable)
Black: Tutors, Creature Removal, Recursion, don't know if discard makes it. (seems that black is playable, though leaning more to a support color)
White: Everything removal, Enchantments, Limited Recursion, Good Creatures (still seems a bit on the support side, how do I bring out primary white)
Red: Direct Damage, Mass LD, Creature Stealing (?? how do I make this better)
III. Random fun cards that are just insanely fun.
I really want to have an surprising LOL factor for this cube as well. Unfortunately, Im stuck here since i've been more on the competitive side of things. Im sure you guys have encountered great fun cards that I'd love to include.
This should do for now. More updates coming.
In any case, this is what I think are tier 1s in a multiplayer competitive mindset.
Sharuum combo
Zur the enchanter (contamination-bitterblossom lock)
Jhoira of the Ghitu LD
Azami, Lady of Scroll combo control
Animar Soul of elements Combo
Momir Vigg combo
Grand Arbiter UW stacks
Hana Ship's Navigator UW stacks combo
ya definitely. I agree that spending money on a few cards you love is one of the most gratifying ways to pimp out your deck. This is especially true if you've played with a certain old card back in the days that you've owned face with. For me, its meloku, tooth and nail, sylvan library and intuition.
I so have a pet peeve, and its fairly annoying when it comes time to set plays on pimping a deck; its against white bordered cards. This is really because FBB cards are hard to get ahold of. So I'd often go out of my way for them. A pet peeve I do enjoy is that I have to find the best art of a card if it has multiple versions. I really find that quite satisfying; theres a little smirk when i see my friends play with vastly inferior ugly versions. lawl.
I understand that some people don't have alot of free time, Im in that situation myself since I work 5 days a week paying for college. But on any given week, I do have 4-6 solid hours of edh time, and ive decided to build a 1v1 competitive deck (jhoira), a multiplayer competitive deck (animar) and 2 casual competitive decks (kaervek and Ulasht). Usually I'd bring out different decks in different play group; there are play groups that i'm only comfortable playing kaervek or ulasht in and there are others that I can't play anything but jhoira or animar, but there is a core group of 5-6 players that I play with that'll rotate through their whole pantheon of edh decks, playing through all the archetypes under the color wheel. I've really grown to like that experience. Competitive games are stressful, but highly engaging and challenging mentally. Stack interaction with multiple blue players at the table who are driven by their own politics and threat assessment is great experience. After a competitive game, we'd throw down our casual decks and just revel in the pure carnage of bashing each other's face in. We often talk about the edh experience within a game. What about the experience of the entire night when you add up all the games you've played?
It just seems to me that EDH players can benefit more from diversifying our palette.
Also in my experience world queller has been insane. This is only so if you'd remember to play heavy politics with the card, ie promising to kill problemetic permenants on the board, pulling favors with people against the obvious threat, and even as far as making obvious bad plays for youself to convince the table that world queller is friendly. Because you can then use this time to set up a board ie martyr's bond, emeria sky ruin, reya dawnbringer, crucible of worlds,reveillark, karmic guide, etc in which world queller becomes an engine.
This deck i built to include as many pathways to win as possible, while staying synergistic with the deck's goals. I tend to like decks that give you a plethora of options to win, especially if the options themself become a core mechanic of the deck.
For example, birthing pod in animar can be a route to victory in itself, but playing with it require you to juggle comeinto play/leave play triggers, the sequence of creatures you grab also determines your success. On the other hand, glimpse of nature/primordial sage allows you to play animar like an elf ball deck that speaks to the combo players. The swords/jitte/edric package allows animar to be played like an aggro-tempo deck that solidifies advantage early on while accrueing counters on animar and win the game through combat damage.
I've given the deck to my friends and they've all had a blast playing the deck. Most of their remarks mirror the deck's goals 'i can't believe i have so many options' or 'all my decisions are so important'.
Though I think fun is a subjective term, building a fun deck can be very successful as long as you're clear in setting and achieving that specific goal of fun, be it 'my deck will be really fun because there are many combat interactions', 'my deck will be really fun because it fuels crazy plays', or 'my deck will be fun for others to play against'. Setting a clear goal of fun will require you to think about that specific aspect of fun your deck will promote. The more well thought out you are before constructing your deck, the more your end product will follow suit.
MD changes
out: 2x City of traitors
3x ponder
3x Emrakul
In:
2x Underground sea
3x Impulse
3x Lim-dul's vault
SB changes:
3x Emrakul
3x Chalice of the Void
3x Extirpate
3x Spell Pierce
3x Wipe Away
Reasoning: Lim-dul's vault has been an all star in testing. Not only does it significant improve the consistency of the deck, it also allows for a degree of planning - out maneveuring your opponent via knowing your next 3 draws, which i think is vastly important against any deck playing black.
Overall, I think the edition of lim-dul's vault/impulse and cutting emrakul/city from MD, slows down the deck, but add consistency. Though the main perk of this change is to adapt to an metagame filled with hate: angels grace, spellsputter sprite; as well as increased likelihood of facing mirrors.
Imagine the mirror match game 2, 3. You side board out 4x hive mind, 3x red pact, 2x green pact, 2x black pact. You bring in 3x chalice, 3x spell pierce, 3x emrakul, 3x wipe away. Now you are at a significant advantage. Chalice set to 0 hardly effects your deck, saved pact of negation. Also you have lim dul's vault to set up for emrakul, whereas your opponent doesn't.
Chalice for 1 also becoems relevant in these match ups. UW stoneblade, Darkblade, Bant Aggro.
Against Combo decks such as Charbelcer which can kill you faster, show and tell emrakul often becomes too slow (ie, you kill on the turn after you cast it). I side boarded out show and tell because they can bring in charbelcer and kill me instantly. I think the same reasoning applies to reanimator. Show and tell often becomes too risky in this match up because their deck have very good targets for show and tell; they can stop you via iona naming your pact colors, angel of despair/blazing archon against emrakul.