M20 Spoilers

[Red_Wyrm]

But... There is a way to deal with emblems. Don't let them come out.

Most emblems are final abilities of Planeswalkers that take 3 or 4 turns to become ready to use, assuming no other factors (both positive and negative). The ones that can come out right away are minor abilities (like what we see on Gideon of the Trials and Sorin, Lord of Innistrad).

You also need to think if this from the opposite end as well. It would be hella annoying to spend 4 turns protecting this planeswalker to get its emblem out, only to have someone spend 1 black mana to get rid of it.

But I did put some though to this "emblem removal". The only way I could see it work is if it is the activated ability of another Planeswalker, that takes at least two turns to become usable.

The entire idea of having a card that cannot be interacted with is stupid in my opinion because as previously pointed out, there is a way to deal with everything. Everything can be beaten. There is no best deck, no best card, no unbeatable combo, but how do you play against an emblem that says whenever your opponent draws a card, exile target permanent? Or Your opponents can only untap up to two permanents on their untap step. Or counter the first spell each opponent plays each turn.

My problem with emblems is the ones I mentioned just now, and most of them, do not say "win the game" or give some game winning ability. It prevents your opponent from playing magic until you find a win condition in your deck to actually win. I've sat there for an hour or longer and waited as I was locked out of the game for my opponent to actually be able to kill me after activating an emblem. Perhaps that is because he had the stupid activate plansewalker abilities any time emblem from teferi, so each turn became a 15 minute cluster fuck as he decided how he was going to do the activation of his other 7 plansewalkers. And I am 100% against scooping, but I want to have fun. How is this fun? It isn't.

If the emblems would end the game, then great, close the game, but they just put your opponents at a severe disadvantage, that in theory wins the game, sort of like necropotence does if left on the table. Except you can remove necropotence whenever, for the most part, and it doesn't make the game unenjoyable for your opponents.

With cards like doubling season and now The Elder Spell, it is too easy to get so many loyalty counters in a turn, that ultimating is too easy, and isn't a reward for anything except for having a decent boardstate to begin with, and if you already had that, can't you play with a card like avacyn, angel of hope, instead of narset transcendent if you only plan on locking people out of the game with her?

[WWolfe]

If my math is rest, preview season should start next week shouldn't it?

[Vensa4790]

I don't think emblem interaction will happen and it would seem silly to make a card for that sole purpose. I mean, I have been an avid legacy/modern player for years and beating/losing to decks that seem to be able to turbo emblem has never been a issue to me. I find getting the slow death from pox/ponza/eggs decks to be more tilting. I just save my pyro/hydro blasts and red/blue elemental blasts or liliana's defeat to counter or just blow it up. For modern I would just save a bolt. And now with all the new cards that remove like 5 counters off a permanent, its my own deck building fault for letting the game go long enough for them to drop a fat walker on the board and lose to "defeat by emblem". I also just run stifle/ nimble obstructionist, god is cycling him so good when you get them with that or put the kibosh on a storm trigger, and let them kill their own walker with a failed ultimate. Pithing needle is also great.

Short story, there are so many ways to deal with planeswalkers when they are on the field or to counter/ make the player sac them that losing to an emblem is just your deck not dealing with it or they had a better game than you.

I don't play commander much so I figure complaining about it in that format is just like saying the sun is to bright, why can't they make better sunglasses.

[BoBWiz]

ok - here my 50 ct.:

in some point i agree to vensa4790. there are a lot of cards in different colours to interact with pw (and prevent the emblem).
you have to build a deck around any pw you want to instant-emplem. what is the difference to any combo-deck? some time you're faster (or resilient or whatever) than the combo, sometimes not. that's the way it goes. playing against a combo-deck is often no fun.

in my play-group, long time an approach of the second sun - deck dominates our specific format, but now each of us can interact with this, without making our decks bad.

this m20 chandra, potentially emblems each turn ... it looks very strong. but this is just 1 dmg each turn per emblem. in my opinion lot of average decks could handle it.

i'm a casual-multiplayer-circle-player and a bad commander-player, so i do not wan't to score down just for an opinion with this limited point of view.

regards

[Red_Wyrm]

I don't play commander much so I figure complaining about it in that format is just like saying the sun is to bright, why can't they make better sunglasses.

I don't play legacy or modern, in part due to my poorness, in part due to lack of interest. Well it is probably because I am more interested in EDH. If I had the money, I would love to build a modern deck and show up to my LGS with it. Same goes for legacy. I would love to try them both, but I would rather put my money into EDH since I don't have enough to split it. Whatever my reasoning, I don't play the format, so I don't have an opinion about KCI or Eldrazi Winter. I hear about KCI not being healthy for the format, sure. Eldrazi winter wasn't too healthy for the format. However I never told anyone they were wrong for complaining about one thing or the other because I didn't (and still don't) have enough information on the subject.


If they make emblem interaction cards, I don't see how it will affect your modern or legacy play because as you said you can already deal with them efficiently. Either you have an answer and you win or you don't and you lose. Personally I thought walkers and emblems were too slow for those two formats, but again I don't play them, so I am not 100% on them. In commander an emblem stagnates a lot more than in modern. Say you have your 5/3 juggernaut and you get an emblem locking your opponents out of the game. In most cases in modern that shouldn't be more than 4 attacks. In commander that is 8 attacks to kill a single person. Then three opponents. That is 24 turns. This isn't a realistic version of a commander game, but I want to emphasize that the board presence you have in modern isn't equivalent to the board presence you have in EDH. I said it wasn't realistic representation of a commander game, it was an oversimplification to illustrate my point.

What is the difference to any combo-deck? some time you're faster (or resilient or whatever) than the combo, sometimes not.

The difference, at least in my experience is that combos usually close the game. Infinite damage to everyone, infinite hasty tokens, etc. A plansewalker emblem usually gives one person an EXTREME advantage to the point that it is no fun to play against, but it doesn't actually win the game for them. Most often the games end by everyone scooping because we are tired of waiting for the superfriends deck to find a way to actually kill us.

This M20 Chandra, potentially emblems each turn ... it looks very strong. but this is just 1 dmg each turn per emblem. in my opinion lot of average decks could handle it.

Your capitalization is giving me anxiety.

Remember when Chandra gives everyone their emblems, she goes up to 8 loyalty. That is a lot. Depending on the board state, she might not be going anywhere for a while, but even 1 more activation can be deadly.

Think of underworld dreams and howling mine. Depending on the format, you either need to chip away at 20 or 40 life, and 40 is definately a lot, but after a few turns, combined with shocklands, fetches, etc. it adds up. Albeit you cannot increase the damage of the emblems like you can with underworld dreams. Usually that card will be played in conjunction with Nekusar and wheel effects.

[BoBWiz]

I'm sorry for my capitalization if the ortography is meant (don't know if there are some ideomatic applications I don't understand).
I guess it's needless to say, English is not my native language.

I understand the argument that the emblem does not finish the game immediately as an infinite combo does and I see that some emblems are an incredible advantage (or disadvantage if you play against).

Some emblems close the game without finishing it. In my point of view it doesn't matter how to loose. When I don't see a chance to win, I scoop the game and play a new one.

I have little experience in playing Commander, but I can imagine that all other players would work together to kill the Chandra even with 8 loyalty. As you say it depends on the board state.

In the special format in my little playgroup, some emblems are and this Chandra becomes ridiculously powerful, making everybody scooping. Nontheless I still think I don't need an interaction with emblems at all. That's just my personal opinion.

As you mentioned, I think that too, with the exception of the standard format, this Chandra will not got that big impact to competitiv 1v1 formats 'cause of the cmc.

But you're right - I'm not arguing with a legend. 

Thanks to the Google translator, I hope you do not have to worry about ortography any more.

regards

[Morganator 2.0]

I have little experience in playing Commander, but I can imagine that all other players would work together to kill the Chandra even with 8 loyalty.

That's another way of dealing with Planeswalkers. When you see that the emblem is coming, get everyone rallied against this Planeswalker.

In the same way that Modern and Legacy deal with Planeswalkers, commander does it the same way (mostly). It's the same card pool. The core difference being that Lightning Bolt isn't used in Commander, but cards like Hero's Downfall, Dreadbore, and now Price of Betrayal sees play in some metas.

I've never had an issue with emblems, even when Doubling Season is involved, but I think that's also because I've yet to go up against a good superfriends deck. I've gone up against a lot of people that claimed to have a good superfriends deck (and one who was audacious enought to call it the strongest deck he's ever seen) but I've never struggled against them. It really does come down to removing the Doubling Season, so once you've figure that out, you just have to focus on attacking the Planeswalkers.

[BoBWiz]

You can not prevent the emblem of this Chandra except with non-countering counterspells like commit//memory.

Can you respond to the resolve with hero's downfall before Chandra can use an ability? I don't know.

regards

[WWolfe]

Doubling Season is much easier to deal with than The Elderspell as there's a ton of ways to remove enchantments at instant speed (Krosan Grip, Beast Within, Assassin's Trophy, etc.). The problem is when someone drops a PW and casts The Elderspell on the same turn. It's not something that happens super often, but when it does it can be quite the problem.

I think there's 6 ways to deal with a PW at instant speed (Bedevil, Hero's Downfall, Vampire Hexmage's ability, Silumgar's Command, Windgrace's Judgment, and Fated Retribution).  Obviously there's Stifle and Disallow to counter the abilities but as far as PW removal, that's pretty much it as instant speed.

[Morganator 2.0]

There is also Capsize, Chain of Vapor, Generous Gift, Beast Within, Chaos Warp, Expel from Orazca, Anguished Unmaking, Crosis's Charm, Utter End (not super great, but whatever), and Cyclonic Rift.

Point being, there are lot's of answers and way to deal with emblems before they come out. If someone can power through all of this and get a emblem, they deserve to keep it.

[WWolfe]

I was referring to ones that were specific to PW's, didn't think I needed to list every single target permanent removal spell.

The more I think about it though, the more it has to be a perfect storm for them to ult the turn they come out so perhaps I'm changing my mind.

[Red_Wyrm]

I was referring to ones that were specific to PW's, didn't think I needed to list every single target permanent removal spell.

The more I think about it though, the more it has to be a perfect storm for them to ult the turn they come out so perhaps I'm changing my mind.

Yeah I am slowly coming around to a similar opinion. I think the problem is more so when the table doesn't recognize that doubling season is a threat. Or that the don't need to kill the plansewalker, they just need to keep it below ultimating, and then that doesn't happen because they forget about it.

I am the only one that tries to be proactive about these emblems in my playgroup, and superfriends has more threats than I do answers, so i usually lose that fight. If I could attack his mana base that would be different, but for whatever reason that is frowned upon.

[Firegriff]

My playgroup actively tries to stop Planeswalkers.  My wasn't the emblem so much as the uncounterable nature of Chandra and the fact that her emblem was a plus ability.  Other emblems give you a chance to stop ultimates.  Gideon lets you keep Gideins off the field to stop them.  Chandra... Not so much, and unless they plan to make every color able to counter Planeswalker abilities in some shape of form, you'll see deck design squish down to more and more narrowed viable options.

[Soren841]

And it has started.

[WWolfe]

Scheming Symmetry seems interesting.