Messages

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Commander Discussion / Re: Commanders That are Fun for the Whole Table

« on: January 23, 2021, 12:02:58 am »

Color hugging is fun. Either Crovax is hilairous for this. Dont forget to run removal that affects anything other than your color. I had mixed results with a budget deck, but it is fun.

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Deck Comments / Re: RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATS - Comments

« on: October 31, 2020, 08:10:58 am »

did they even print that many rat colonies? You could corner the market you know.

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Commander Discussion / Re: EMERGENCY MEETING: Black Lotus Adjacent

« on: October 31, 2020, 07:49:38 am »

"You play it and become enemy number one".

Well I'm not sure I completely agree with that. At least not in my playgroups. Below is my perspective:

Using binomial coefficients, there's already a 30% chance for at least one person in a pod of 4 to pull a sol ring in their opening hand after the draw. There is then a higher chance if people start mulling.

Pulling the turn 1 sol ring, or turn 1 lotus, is not going to be far off. It means that there's a 50% chance for someone to pull one of the ideal fast mana sources, provided they are running the right commander. I heard from a youtube video that it is compatible with around 300 commanders. Again, mulligans increase this chance. It's going to be commonplace as fuck to just have a fast commander start. I feel that people will probably just start ignoring other players with fast mana starts. They already do in my case with just sol rings and basic ramp.

Now let's talk about these mulligans: the mulligans are based on playstyle of groups and metas, but what I've always noticed is that people will mulligan for some form of ramp with 2-3 land, or 1cmc removal with 2-3 land. This is so that they can respond to fast plays, or be the fast plays. It does not always happen, and they run a considerable risk for disadvantage doing it, but if they notice a commander they don't want to see make a fast start (krenko, for instance), they may try it. Also, my playgroups allow 1 free mulligan, this was in response to serious mana screwing issues. However, it has become a tool to win and I hate it.

We must also consider if not everyone is running enough removal and no one mulls, which can certainly happen (say there's only 1 quick spot removal spells in everyone's decks, like swords or path), then there is likely no answer for this high chance of running away to become mayor of value town turns 1-4. There is only a 32% chance someone would draw that 1 cmc spot removal within that time frame. If players were to load up on lots of 1 cmc removal (pongify, swords, path, etc...) There could be upwards of a 86% chance to respond to it within that time frame. Though, you really don't want to have that much 1 cmc removal, as it would probably take a away from potentially important draws that could give you more value for your draw. At a certain point, you have to play the deck you made.

What I'm getting at is that is that I think people, at least in my groups, are either A) going to load up on more removal than ever before, B) make their decks only control/reactive-based, or C) just ignore it and let people run away with high value plays because multiple players are probably playing lotuses and sol rings on turn 1. It's most likely C because we already largely ignore sol ring starts. The only time I ever see an enemy at a table is when they are trying to combo off or do big shit you know they're about to win with (fucking anjie, man).

However, my groups may silently agree not to run it, as we do not run the other fast mana rocks or most of the reserved list. I won't, because it would be way out of scale for my group. However, I think it is unlikely that I will get targeted for this card, especially over a sol ring, which stays around forever.

tl;dr If you are in groups running the fast mana rocks, I do not think this weird nonsense I said applies to your concerns. Lotus is benign in high-power circles, but, like the other fast rocks, probably warping in mid-low power level circles. No it doesn't need to be banned imo

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General Magic / Re: Infect

« on: October 25, 2020, 02:43:02 am »

yea i do appreciate the feedback it has been valuable in the case for analyzing the case for infect as a strategy. 

The points are valid. However, last I checked, if your board is the target of all the spot removal in 4 player pods, which all cases I've seen of that have been a concentrated effort from all players, it's incredibly back breaking for most decks. It would be kind of a waste to remove reyhan or the infect creature in my opinion, and people simply focus on killing ishai, which I know is going to happen, so I try to play around it. I've been target. Hence why some are suggesting more protection. That's just been my experience with it. Take it for what it's worth.

I would like to add some good backup strategies to it, since that seems to be the what is being alluded to. I've thought of using atraxa and some repeatable proliferate engines. I would want to keep the wipes because that keeps the board clear for stacking up the infect points.

Really though, I know that most people consider atraxa infect the gold standard of how good infect can do, but I really didn't want to make the same atraxa deck everyone else was running and found this strategy interesting instead. It seemed to be a slightly new angle on the idea and have found it rather successful. Thought it would be interesting to share on the subject. Obviously this isn't a deck a review thread, so I'll be on with my business lol.

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General Magic / Re: Infect

« on: October 24, 2020, 06:11:15 am »

Thats what reyhan is for. Lol

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General Magic / Re: Infect

« on: October 23, 2020, 11:24:47 pm »

Here it is. I made a few minor adjustments based on what I might want to put on it as I haven't updated it in a while, but thyoull get the idea. For reference, since someone made a point about metas, and I don't want to overstate this decks capabilities, I'd consider the cards in this deck mid power for my metas. The strategy is strong though. You will never see someone entombing kozelik, vampiric tutor, or most reserved list nonsense. You will see all the power creep commanders like kinnan. Those decks would probably allow register at this price range... speaking of which this was like 100 when I first made it roughly. I would guess that the median turns it takes to end a game in our group in general is 7, with most of the data supporting strongly skewed towards that end.

http://deck.tk/4dRe2pJJ

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General Magic / Re: Infect

« on: October 23, 2020, 04:21:59 pm »

I will post deck sometime today. My groups meta is high powered minus the reserved list. I still only make budget decks as I still enjoy the challenge. However, I started big and went in reverse due to rising cost of commander. Everyone else went big as i went small lol. I do have like several other high powered decks I have that I will run if I do feel like winning. This is one of them.

My deck focuses on 1 shoting 1 or 2 players at the same time or within consecutive turns using board wipes as a consistent one sided advantage to keep the board clear from preventing gang bang after you've murdered some dudes turn 5, or faster with proper ramp.

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General Magic / Re: Infect

« on: October 23, 2020, 02:30:17 am »

I think infect is good in edh if there's an aspect of control to it and backup plans. I use Ishai and reyhan, and play on low curve cmc creatures with infect, especially those with evasion. Using totems and other means of indestructible protection, I can use board wipes to reassign counters however I want in favorable positions with low cmc counters to protect my decisions. I've been nearly undefeated with it. I have options of also just doing volition and board control as as well. If you're playing with more than 4 players, which has always been a disaster cause then combo players either win at some point or die on turn 1, infect and voltron will fall flat on their face. If done properly with enough speed, I feel it can win pretty handely.

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Deck Comments / Re: They Protecc - Comments

« on: October 20, 2020, 06:03:05 am »

Haha this is great

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Commander Discussion / Re: Describe your playgroup

« on: October 20, 2020, 05:39:51 am »

There's about 10 of us in my closest group, and we will occasionally appear at local shops we like, try to recruit new people to the group, split off into pods of 4 and just casually play commander. Otherwise, it's high-powered cubes. We play usually once a week for quite a while.

Other than that, what I am about to say is a not-for-the-faint-hearted-summary of my group's activities in EDH. It is rated A on the negativity scale, and 11/10 on the "crying about it" scale. You have been warned.

For EDH group personality and deck layouts - the decks that are used are too high powered, just for the commander's alone. I would say only 3 of us build decks around challenging commanders with challenging restrictions (I do budget trash commanders for instance). I don't know how much of a sin it is to talk about it here, but if you've ever seen the tier list on tapped out, or even believe in its validity, the rest of the playgroup is just at 2 or above. Only one of them uses reserved list cards and cEDH stuff which is nice, but I mean these decks they run are almost always on the border of being competitive without RL. They constantly are switching out decks to more powerful commanders. It's gotten insane. There's one person won't stop running this maximum tuned, game-warping Karlov deck, and everyone else just does free shit and combo decks. We even have the token "passive-agressive-player-who-always-has-a-reason-other-than-themselves-for-loosing-and-they-need-to-constantly-talk-about-it." This wouldn't normally be a problem, if this person would also not A) lie about how much they spend on cards, and B) attempt to gaslight their deck power levels when they loose a game or someone else complains. Hallar is not better than Kinan.

Long story short: The budget player who runs Kangee is feeling mighty displeased about this. I thought I had a solution a couple weeks ago but no one bought into it. I used to win with decks like that too before everyone decided it was time to just send the power level to space. I am standing my ground on the issue with my Jaques Le Vert Naya-Draw deck. Sounds miserable, but I put up with it occasionally with some powerful decks I have that will win most of the time. I've just been shifting everyone over to cube and limited since it's basically fair and those games are always solid and fun and there's never any salt short of mana problems. However, I probably should find a new group to play commander with regularly. The toxicity is obnoxious. Outside of MTG, they are actually awesome people and I still want to hang with them, but MTG with them doesn't mix for me.

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Commander Discussion / Re: Read the Bones, Night's Whisper, Sign in Blood, or Painful Truths

« on: October 20, 2020, 04:52:13 am »

If it's just mono-black, I personally always run night's whisper, sign in blood, and read the bones.

Higher CMC draws that would contain some value would be syphon mind, hoarder's greed (luck based), damnable pact, and even underworld connections can keep you flushed with cards.

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General Magic / Re: Secret Lair: Extra Life 2020

« on: October 20, 2020, 04:41:56 am »

I mean if they were going to sell to commander players with much needed reprints like this, it's a solid strategy I think we can all get behind.

What they did before was pretty botched. I don't think I've found a single person that was against saying that those cards should've been silver-boarded or cosmetic reprints. TWD Secret layer sold out simply on the premise that people wanted to flip them for a very nice profit for the time investment. I think that may be always the case here on out from now on. This is what I thought was going to happen. It makes me think that the secondary market investors are really the only people getting in on this stuff.

As for saying it's a PR scheme: maybe? Seems like a viable business strategy for a company that promised to double MTG profits to all of Hasbro's investors. I'm more concerned that WoTC is still producing way too much new product right now and just sending that power level into space. Every sets got free stuff spells and other mana cost circumventing nonsense it seems now. I personally think the writing might be on the wall and it's time to dump my collection, make a profit, and switch to fakes for EDH. Probably won't sell pauper, but I don't know yet. Market is still going up for everything despite the apparently massive backlash. Many people still seem to think they'll turn this nonsense train around. This would certainly be a start if it becomes the norm in my opinion.

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General Magic / Re: Positive reflection after a bad week for MTG.

« on: October 08, 2020, 12:56:54 am »

Well I'm sure I can still find it elsewhere. Thank you very much for the recommendation.

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General Magic / Re: Positive reflection after a bad week for MTG.

« on: October 07, 2020, 11:14:04 pm »

Well, i guess positive things did come about from last week. My edh groups now adhere to a custom banlist we made in response to what occurred last week. So that was fun. The document is well made. It covers philosophies behind bannings and the playstyles, so everyone now tends to understand what is acceptable and what is not. It also creates a split between budget deck *(<$100) gameplay and expensive gameplay. There was effort to prevent reserved list card usage and get people to grab as much jank as possible. We aren't competing, so why not explore the other 85% of cards and other 90% of commanders? Also, if you're going to spend money on what would normally be a >$100 deck, why not proxy the expensive cards? Some of us have flipped our initially budget decks for profit since all the prices have gone so far up and we build new one's with the money or make cubes. It's almost like a penny dreadful kind of rotating ban list or philosophy to some extent. If anyone is interested in me sharing it to compare notes then let me know.

Really it's all centered around stopping people in our group from loosing too much money on this hobby. I get people spend big money on things like warhammer, but luxury cardboard rectangle? If you're not competing or going to shops, I don't recommend it tbh. I buy all my budget decks from local shops and will have a sell point for certain cards in it if they go to high up so I can break the expenses down.

As for OP's mention of lore, I have to say I was honestly a big fan of that and the art back in the first decade of magic's existence. I strongly recommend reading the artifact and ice age cycle books. The brother's war is actually an excellent novel in it's own right. The arena books are decent as well. Pretty much everything before kamigawa had mostly well-written lore and story telling. I can't speak for any novella or lore after that. The novella had low sales anyway I think, probably because of the lack of marketing for it. I would say the sales of the novella probably lead to its lack of quality later on. I think it kept the game's theme really grounded and connected to something bigger. Warhammer is the best example I can give of a game and novella creating a really enthusiastic player base. I want to be as enthusiastic as I am when I play with the older cards. I even make cubes for those older sets since I liked them so much. I did, however, do a cube just for dominaria because I felt it had a good power level of its cards and it did lead me back to that old enthusiasm I had for the game.

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Deck Comments / Re: AURA AURA AURA AURA! - Comments

« on: July 28, 2020, 08:15:11 pm »

This deck could be remarkably less expensive and just as effective with some cantrip auras if im not mistaken. Simple evasion and trample can work really well for him too. Rancor being a great example. Probably need less creatures tbh to generate greater aura hit. Creatures that reduce aura or enchantment cost probably arent as effective. Draw is the most important thing in commander and magic so focus on that.