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31

Commander Discussion / Re: Green Sun's Twilight

« am: Mai 17, 2023, 12:17:53 Nachmittag »

Depends on how cutthroat you want to go but this wouldn't cut it in stronger metas I'd say. I'd much rather do Genesis Wave than this. Run a ramp spell in Twilight's place - that way you get the Overlord out faster and have more activations.

32

Commander Discussion / Re: The wheels on the bus don't go round and round

« am: Mai 17, 2023, 12:15:15 Nachmittag »

I've never seen these commanders in cEDH. Nice to see fresh strats!

33

General Magic / Re: The Walking Dead cards to get in-mtg-universe reprints in Wilds of Eldraine

« am: Mai 13, 2023, 12:41:50 Vormittag »

FINALLY

Now I can stop hating on SL.

34

Commander Discussion / Re: Cards that are no longer staples.

« am: Mai 12, 2023, 06:02:21 Nachmittag »

Damn, you guys are just listing cards I keep slamming into decks without a second thought 

* insert Skinner meme asking if I'm out of touch but deciding no, it's the format that is wrong *

I feel the same...

35

Commander Discussion / Re: Cards that are no longer staples.

« am: Mai 11, 2023, 04:15:53 Nachmittag »

Board wipes. I know this is meta-dependent but the general trend from my perspective has been towards pinpoint removal and asymmetrical effects instead of symmetrical generic board wipes.

That's:
Wrath of God
Chain Reaction
Damnation
Evacuation
Can't think of an example for green. Green be special.
Nevinyrral's Disk

36

Commander Discussion / Re: Countering Creature Spells

« am: Mai 11, 2023, 01:47:18 Vormittag »

I've used Defabricate for both of its modes. It's amazing.

I also use a lot of Stifle effects in my deck; Nimble Obstructionist has been very kind to me because it cantrips.

37

General Magic / "Looking for Games" Discord for Deckstats (Deck-Smash!)

« am: Mai 08, 2023, 06:57:21 Nachmittag »

Hi everyone!

Some time ago I talked about forming a play group here on Deckstats. Nothing ever came out of it so I decided to make something come out of it, now, a year later.

Please join the official Deckstats Discord first: https://discord.gg/hUAHUrv - obviously not mandatory but I highly recommend since the LFG-server has only the bare minimum in terms of channels and features.

The unofficial "Deck-Smash" Discord can be joined through this link: https://discord.gg/sRXQChcZMx

We've provided you with some LFG-channels and a single general chat-channel as it is intended to serve as an extension only to the actual Deckstats Discord. We're currently supporting Spelltable/Spellbot, Cockatrice and a generic "other platforms" group. I will make more groups if it looks like they're needed. Ask me here on Deckstats or on Discord if you have any problems!



(Aetherium Slinky was previously known as MustaKotka. Nothing to worry about. The world isn't ending.)

38

Commander Discussion / Re: Is Ramp Too Good?

« am: Mai 07, 2023, 01:59:11 Nachmittag »

You're trying to decide what the final mana rocks should look like (or they could be Rampant Growths, whatever, but let's just stick with rocks without loss of generality) and, for the sake of this thought experiment, let's assume there aren't already mana dorks or whatever to compare too. What CMC do you put these rocks at? Zero is a valid answer - that was what they did first, after all! But they decided that that was too low. Why? How about 1? 2? 3? 4? And why?

That's a whole different question...again.

I think WotC has done a fine job balancing formats: at first you could get cards and mana for free, basically. But to offset that creatures and damage was hard to come by. Nowadays the balance has shifted to the opposite and I think that is a natural consequence of balancing the different metas. If you look at what is printed to Modern and Standard these days you see what is being considered fair. So the answer is 2 (creature with summoning sickness), 2 (tapped rock) or 3 (untapped).

That being said it doesn't make previous ramp cards too powerful. They simply are? They don't break anything on their own. If you run all fast mana you have fast starts and EDH starts to look like Legacy lite and if you don't it's just as valid of a format.

You're asking to ignore a lot of context here. I don't understand why. It's very confusing. Sol Ring of Mana Crypt are not bonkers good if everyone is running them and everyone is prepared to answer them. Dockside Extortionist is bonkers good and probably the best ramp card out there in terms of cEDH. Not that good in lower power metas but that's not something you're concerned with.

I repeat my point: cEDH isn't crying for banning any ramp cards other than Dockside Extortionist but even it is not a problem at large because it doesn't warp the meta to the point R is a must have colour. In fact its inclusion rate is 53% and it's not even the most popular combo card even though there are a lot of cards that combo with it.

39

Commander Discussion / Re: Suggestion for Flash/control-oriented commander

« am: Mai 06, 2023, 02:10:07 Nachmittag »

There are a lot of Humans with Flash. This enables Katilda and Lier as a commander. You get to use your counterspells twice - especially if you include cards like Niambi, Esteemed Speaker to bounce and re-play your Flash-Humans again and again. Use green to ramp and Humans to cast your ramp spells twice to generate the mana needed for the loop to continue. Spells like Turnabout and Essence Harvest can burst you ahead in mana especially if you recur them somehow; Archaeomancer (Human), Eternal Witness (Human), Bala Ged Recovery (sorcery) etc...

40

Commander Discussion / Re: Is Ramp Too Good?

« am: Mai 06, 2023, 02:04:01 Nachmittag »

It's not an argument against anything. It's supposed to be a discussion. I'm just saying "hey, do we think that maybe the best ramp cards in EDH are actually better than they need to be?". It's really that simple.

Highlights by me. I've been lacking this piece of information. Why do you say it only now, after three pages of novels?

Knowing this: no, ramp is not too good. They're just spells. This is the same as asking "is Thoracle too good?" which isn't really a question anyone else but the cEDH community can answer. Now, the format isn't ruled by the cEDH community -- in fact the RC very reluctantly banned Flash as a result of an outcry from the community. This to me proves that all cards can be used responsibly (including ramp) so that's a non-problem.

If you're asking on behalf of the cEDH community please say so! Is ramp too good in the context of cEDH? No, the meta is in a very healthy place right now. If it isn't broken don't try to fix it. I've never heard the cEDH community complain about ramp. Other cards, yes, but not ramp at large. I don't think ramp is a problem at any power level. When it comes to cEDH nothing in the current conversation implies ramp is a problem.

At lower power level the community is self-regulating and responsibility to play appropriate cards is on the player. So that, by definition, cannot be a problem. This is universal to all spells and does not apply to ramp specifically so that's not an argument either.

Q.E.D. - I rest my case. Is that what you were looking for? Does this prove ramp not being a problem well enough?

41

General Magic / Re: Rules question: Vehicles becoming creatures without crewing

« am: Mai 01, 2023, 03:12:05 Nachmittag »

The Vehicle spell on the stack is never a creature. It will always have its printed characteristics unless there's a global effect that specifically modifies cards that aren't in play.

You are a little incorrect: SBAs don't make a card anything. Continuous effects apply all the time, even before SBAs are checked so that SBAs can see the effects. Let's build Smuggler's Copter from scratch. We come to layers.

613.1a Layer 1: Rules and effects that modify copiable values are applied.
613.1b Layer 2: Control-changing effects are applied.
613.1c Layer 3: Text-changing effects are applied. See rule 612, “Text-Changing Effects.”
613.1d Layer 4: Type-changing effects are applied. These include effects that change an object’s card type, subtype, and/or supertype.
613.1e Layer 5: Color-changing effects are applied.
613.1f Layer 6: Ability-adding effects, keyword counters, ability-removing effects, and effects that say an object can’t have an ability are applied.
613.1g Layer 7: Power- and/or toughness-changing effects are applied.

We start with ("Layer 0" in a way) the face of the card. It's a noncreature artifact with the printed qualities.
Layer 1 (not relevant) looks for effects that say "copy", basically. All clones apply their effects here.
Layer 2 (not relevant) looks for the controller of the object.
Layer 3 (not relevant) looks for stuff that changes the text box somehow. I believe Whim of Volrath does this, for example.
Layer 4 looks for the change from artifact to artifact creature. At this point the Copter inherits its printed values of power and toughness.
Layer 5 (not relevant) looks for effects like Cerulean Wisps that change colours of the object.
Layer 6 (not relevant) looks for effects that add/remove/modify abilities. Hall of the Bandit Lord would add haste, for example.
Layer 7 looks for stuff such as the Karn Vanguard that modifies the P/T.

If something with a later time stamp would modify Copter's P/T in layer 7 the object will get that. The only way for the Copter to "regain" its P/T is to remove the continuous effect from the Karn Vanguard (which is impossible because there's nothing that could ever interact with it) because the Crew ability only changes type, doesn't set the power and toughness to anything.

All in all the Copter will cast as a noncreature spell and enter the battlefield as a creature with P/T set to its mana value.

42

Commander Discussion / Re: Is Ramp Too Good?

« am: April 29, 2023, 12:06:12 Nachmittag »

I thought when I said ramp is overrated I also implied it's not too good. In fact I think there are real alternatives to jamming your deck full of Cultivate and Arcane Signet. The alternative is drawing more cards and hitting your land drops. It's not as fast as ramping to eleven on turns 1 and 2 but it's certainly better than having all this mana and nothing to cast.

Well, I think I disagree. You said you typically run only three ramp pieces, but you still run ramp - and I think most people run a lot more than that. Are there any competitive decks that don't?

Let's put it this way: if ramp was overpowered then why aren't people playing like 40 ramp spells in their decks?

Well, two big reasons: firstly, this is a singleton format with a limited (albeit large) card pool; just because some ramp spells are overpowered doesn't mean that 40 of them are. If you could put 40 Sol Rings in a deck, I doubt people would only put one Sol Ring in a deck. But would they put 40? Probably not, because of the bigger reason, which is that ramp alone doesn't win games. This is true of everything else in Magic! If your deck was all one-mana draw-three spells or two-mana extra-turn spells, you wouldn't actually have any wincon - does that mean that Time Walk isn't overpowered? I might run 40 Time Walks but I wouldn't run 98 Time Walks, so clearly there's a limit that has nothing to do with the overall power of the card.

Plus, what people run and what's optimal for people to run are two very different things. People will choose not to play cards sometimes precisely because they consider them to be "too good", or for any number of other reasons.

I have written paragraphs on the topic but all fast mana does is generate volatile pods that may or may not end up lopsided. If you play all fast mana you're guaranteed to see some so that's not a problem but if your only piece of fast mana is the Sol Ring you're guaranteed to have some lopsided starts. Some people like that, some don't but that is a true effect Sol Ring has on the game. https://www.reddit.com/r/EDH/comments/120jvvk/to_sol_ring_or_not_to_sol_ring_variance_and/ There's the full article for those who are interested.

I think this is a good argument for fast mana not to exist, and a good counter to the argument that, well, if everyone's using it it doesn't really matter and is equivalent just to drawing lands and everyone playing them more slowly.

I'm sorry, I can't figure out what your stance is. Are you arguing just for the sake of arguing?

From what I've gathered thus far:

• 40 copies of Sol Ring is excessive
• Lots of ramp is good, though
• Having draw spells is somehow not a part of this conversation
• Competitive decks are the golden standard except when they're not

Let's not consider competitive EDH. That is not what people play most of the time. It has its own established meta and there isn't much to say about it. You run 20 ramp spells, 20 draw spells, a couple of efficient win conditions, fill the rest of the deck with interaction and you're pretty much good to go. That's the formula.

For slower games (=not competitive) the golden standards are Cultivate and Arcane Signet. This is what people play. For Arcane Signet you can make a case. Cultivate in my opinion is straight up bad, overrated and useless when compared to a decent draw spell that enables a land drop and draws you gas on top. Cultivate is a draw spell but it can't find win conditions because basics don't finish games.

If everyone has fast mana all is good but what I'm trying to say here and in the article is that Sol Ring as a single inclusion is "too good" - not because it statistically somehow warps the gameplay on average but because in reality the person with the Sol Ring is rocketed so much ahead that the game becomes lopsided. And unfun for some folks. And that it's surprisingly common how often this happens.

You need to make up your mind when you say "ramp". I honestly don't know whether you mean Sol Ring, fast mana in general, Llanowar Elves, Rampant Growth or Cultivate. The answer is different for all of those depending on the scenario you're in. Sol Ring is "too good" as a single inclusion at a casual table but it's also a must in a cEDH deck. Even if everyone is running Sol Ring the randomness of drawing it in an opening hand messes up 1/4th of your games. Cultivate is popular but really bad outside of the slowest metas and certainly not cEDH viable despite it being a very popular card.

I would cut Sol Ring when playing in a low power meta, I would cut Cultivate for a draw spell any day and even Arcane Signet often feels "meh" because it's more than often a dead draw late game. I think that's the issue here for me: a draw spell is never dead but a Rampant Growth is very much dead in the late game.

Yes, it's all about the balance but the reason I'm pushing draw here is because in my experience people don't have a good balance of draw and ramp - instead people have way more ramp than they do draw.

Also my claim is that land drops are underrated as a form of securing mana later in the game. Depending on your pod it's not always necessary to power through stuff on turn 3, it might be enough to get it all out a turn later without sacrificing much. To be clear the previous statement also reads as follows: "trading cards for lands might be an actively bad thing to do in some situations in which case ramping might be a bad thing meaning ramp is definitely not too good". The upside of dedicating more slots to draw is that you have more interaction and gas in addition to your land drops compared to having a ramp spell.

Does that clarify anything?

43

Commander Discussion / Re: Is Ramp Too Good?

« am: April 29, 2023, 02:07:35 Vormittag »

I don’t mean to ask whether the concept of ramp is overpowered; quite clearly, an 8-mana sorcery that just put one land out would be pretty terrible, despite being ramp. Rather, the question is whether the ramp options that we have in EDH are too good. Cultivate may be overrated, but Sol Ring is pretty busted. What if, instead, Cultivate was the fastest ramp we had, and those rocks and dorks didn’t exist? (As in modern Standards)

Uhhh... Yeah? Cultivate is a very representative ramp card. https://edhrec.com/top It's the third most popular ramp card and fourth most popular card overall. Only Sol Ring (understandably) and Arcane Signet are more popular. That's my benchmark - what people actually play.

I have written paragraphs on the topic but all fast mana does is generate volatile pods that may or may not end up lopsided. If you play all fast mana you're guaranteed to see some so that's not a problem but if your only piece of fast mana is the Sol Ring you're guaranteed to have some lopsided starts. Some people like that, some don't but that is a true effect Sol Ring has on the game. https://www.reddit.com/r/EDH/comments/120jvvk/to_sol_ring_or_not_to_sol_ring_variance_and/ There's the full article for those who are interested.

I don't quite grasp your perspective. I might be missing something. I thought when I said ramp is overrated I also implied it's not too good. In fact I think there are real alternatives to jamming your deck full of Cultivate and Arcane Signet. The alternative is drawing more cards and hitting your land drops. It's not as fast as ramping to eleven on turns 1 and 2 but it's certainly better than having all this mana and nothing to cast.

Let's put it this way: if ramp was overpowered then why aren't people playing like 40 ramp spells in their decks?

44

Commander Discussion / Re: Is Ramp Too Good?

« am: April 29, 2023, 12:00:58 Vormittag »

By this logic if your game is very relaxed and casual it might even be better to have copious amounts of draw spells instead of ramp spells. I understand that the cumulative mana count is higher in a ramp-y deck but such a deck runs the risk of running out of cards to play which doesn't happen with a draw heavy deck.

Well, what do you mean by "relaxed and casual"? If you mean, deliberately trying to be slower then, yeah... but is that an argument that ramp is less good, or that ramp is so good that you don't want to use too much of it?

Draw definitely complicates matters, but it's not as simple as ramp vs draw. And, draw doesn't substitute for ramp. It might give you smoother games and hit your land drops, but it doesn't let you play important things early (when they're more impactful). Heck, if you can get a Rhystic Study or, say, Stolen Strategy out one or more turns early, you're quite possibly drawing even more by ramping than you would have otherwise.

Ramp is good but only certain kinds of ramp spells. You don't see anything above mana value 2 in cEDH games. Cultivate and such are just way too slow. Instead it's more about low to the ground ramp like Sol Ring.

If you relax on the speed a bit and allow for a slower game (than cEDH) it could be argued that at the point where Cultivate becomes relevant one could instead just have more draw and rely on land drops and drawing into ramp with the excess draw.

According to https://www.cedh.guide/stats we see that an average cEDH deck plays 20 ramp spells and 20 draw spells. That's a nice balance which is probably the best ratio to have. From what I've seen people usually run way more ramp than they do draw spells.

I'm not sure if playing impactful things early is always the desired outcome. The Command Zone (yes, Morganator) found way back that a turn 1 Sol Ring has a -2% effect on the chance to win. This is because EDH is a multiplayer format where the person in the lead is punished for being in the lead. A turn 1 Rhystic Study is incredibly powerful but it will also draw a ton of hate which might prove to be detrimental.

Sure, in a vacuum it's best to do your thing early when it has a proportionally bigger effect on the game. A good measure of that is cumulative mana spent which is higher in decks that both ramp fast and hit their land drops than in decks that cannot do that. So... I'm not sure if ramp is too good. However, I do think it's overrated most of the time, especially when it comes to cards like Cultivate. And particularly when the deck doesn't draw enough or misses its land drops due to a greedy land base.

45

Commander Discussion / Re: Is Ramp Too Good?

« am: April 28, 2023, 01:43:34 Nachmittag »

Full disclosure and confession: I didn't read the entire thread.

As others have stated low MV ramp is always effective. We're talking up to MV 1, I'd say. Other than that I've seen myself do the opposite in my most casual decks:

• Increase land count, e.g. instead of 35 I run 38 lands.
• Increase low MV draw density to find my lands.
• Hit land drops till turn 6-9.
• Have mana sink-esque extra land drops such as Thawing Glaciers or Terrain Generator that don't take up slots from the deck or serve multiple functions.
• Have mana doublers, e.g. Extraplanar Lens or Caged Sun.

This setup has worked for me in slower games. Since I tend to build slower decks with high card velocity it works out great. Let's remember that ramping on turn 2 with an Arcane Signet and subsequently missing your land drop on turn 3 does not put you ahead anyone in terms of mana. I feel like it's occasionally better to hit the land drops all the way till the end of the game and reserve the free'd up slots for more low to the ground card advantage and selection.

Having a bunch of draw is very beneficial because it lets you do anything your deck wants. You get lands, ramp (in case you still have a decent number) and gas. The numbers for me have shifted from 36 lands + 12 ramp + 10 draw to 38 lands + 3 ramp + 17 draw. (Adjust your deck accordingly.) It feels good to have a steady mana flow from lands and there are no dead draws late game. Arcane Signet is usually just in the way and not very useful on turn 8. Plus some rummaging / looting effects let you get rid of excess lands if you find yourself flooded.

The math works out as follows:

• With an average number of lands (36), lots of ramp (20) but very little draw (5) you get 1 card per turn and see about 20 cards (7 for starting hand + 10 for turn and 3 for one draw spell) during a game. Of those 20 cards about 7 are lands and 4 are ramp spells netting you about 11 mana per turn in late game.
• With a higher number of lands, very little ramp (5) but lots of draw (20) you get 1 card per turn... Plus a little extra. Here's where it gets interesting. I calculated once that Ponder, Preordain, Faithless Looting, Night's Whisper, incidental cantripping spells, etc. on average let you see 1.7 cards in addition to your card per turn. The draw spells start to chain together. Turn 1 you you've seen 8 cards of which 1.6 are draw spells, turn 2 you see 1+1.7 cards so you have 1.6-1+0.2*20~=1 draw spell remaining, turn 3 you see another 1+1.7 cards (0.5 draw spells remaining), turn 4 you see 1 card, turn 5 you see 1 card, turn 6 you see 1+1.7 cards and so forth till you've seen about 7 + 4*1.7 + 10 = 25 cards by the end of the game. Of those cards 10 are lands (i.e. you hit your every land drop statistically!) and 1 ramp spell netting you the same 11 mana at the end of the game. BUT! You've seen 5 extra cards that could be gas or whatever you need in the moment.

By this logic if your game is very relaxed and casual it might even be better to have copious amounts of draw spells instead of ramp spells. I understand that the cumulative mana count is higher in a ramp-y deck but such a deck runs the risk of running out of cards to play which doesn't happen with a draw heavy deck.