Proactive and Disruptive decks in Casual Settings

[Morganator 2.0]

In Competitive Commander decks go into three broad classifications. Proactive decks try to win as soon as possible and only interact with other decks for the sake of protecting their gameplan. Disruptive decks use stax and removal to stop other decks from winning, before trying to win themselves. Lastly, adaptive decks try to switch between both tactics depending on their situation.

It's pretty easy to identify which strategy a cEDH deck is using because they are always high-octane builds. But I'm having trouble identifying where most casual decks fall on this scale, if they even can. Of the decks that you own, which ones would you say are proactive, which are disruptive, and which are adaptive? And why do you give them this classification?

[jlutzxinc]

I have several Decks in various stages of completion (most actually are complete per se but not optimized enough for my taste), but by your definitions none of them are any of those.  For example, one is a "group hug" Deck to the extreme that the objective is actually to make an OPPONENT win...but it runs loads of protection because I want them to win MY way.  Another is a lot more fast-paced, close to what you would call "proactive", but only because I a) hate "prison" Decks and b) wanted to do something insane and make a Deck that ran no Sorceries and NO ARTIFACTS.

I guess technically all of my Decks focus on doing whatever it is I want them to (whether it's "good" is irrelevant to me), with recursion and protection always present but added last rather than first, so they'd all be closest to "proactive", but really that isn't as clear-cut for mine as it would be for yours; furthermore, to me "proactive" means you prepare ahead of time so my Deckbuilding style would be very "reactive" by comparison with the results.

[CleanBelwas]

I think most casual decks can't really be categorised as succinctly.

Looking at my decks (ignoring the deliberately shit meme decks), they all have a plan that they are going for but are all packing an amount of interaction and removal for problems presented by opponents. Generally I think this comes from an expectancy of a game to go longer. I'm never really expecting to win in the first few turns or by combo-ing off early, so I'm anticipating having to deal with some of my opponents stuff if I want to win.

That said, I certainly have decks that are more proactive and more disruptive. I think when it comes to casual decks, it's probably more appropriate to consider them on a scale rather than fitting in to a distinct classification.

[Aetherium Slinky]

I would say that in casual settings the colours matter a lot. I haven't heard of a red casual deck that is disruptive (i.e. a stax build) and green decks tend to pump out a lot of value on the board. Same goes for Simic although the presence of blue usually means some form of disruption.

I like Esper decks and now that you asked I noticed that surprisingly many of them are proactive even though Esper has probably the best tools for disruption. My Barrin, Tolarian Archmage deck is definitely a disruptive force with all that bouncing and counterspelling going on. Rosheen Meanderer is definitely a proactive deck pushing out large Hydras and having very little removal. Just some basic protection. Everything else sort of falls in between with counterspells and removal that can be used either defensively or offensively. Even the Sen Triplets brew I made recently has very little disruption outside of Sen Triplets themselves. My friend's Phelddagrif deck is definitely a disruptive deck despite being a group hug deck, though. It uses counterspells to control the boosted board state and it quickly revolves around them saying yay or nay to your plans.

Then there's of course my Merieke Ri Berit (which has to be mentioned for its meme value at this point) which is probably an adaptive deck. If it can't find its combo it'll try and stop others from executing their plan. It doesn't run (s)tax other than pillowfort, Rhystic Study and Smothering Tithe so it cannot be a true disruptive deck at heart. It's not a proactive deck either with all the removal and counterspelling going on.

All in all I feel like most casual decks are proactive, some are adaptive and very few are disruptive. I think most casual decks can be classified this way - it's just that the proactive end is overrepresented so people probably don't recognise their decks as proactive decks. Very few casual decks actively try to prevent others from winning. Relatively few casual decks even carry the means to shift from proactive to disruption making adaptive strategies pretty rare, too.

There's a stigma to doing disruption. Disruption "doesn't let others play Magic" (which isn't true) so it is usually soft-banned from most groups that I've encountered. Even online, say on Cockatrice, you see "no stax, no MLD, no combo" often tagged in the title of the room. This heavily implies that people don't like disruptive plans and they also dislike proactive decks that can't be interacted with through combat.

[jlutzxinc]

I come from a game wherein a number of years after I started playing the options have been mostly reduced to variants of "give your opponent a turn, in which said opponent can't do anything meaningful" and "win before your opponent gets a turn at all", which is not my idea of fun no matter whose team I'm on.  I don't mind interaction but if one side never plays that's not "interaction" in my book.

I understand that my experience is extreme, so people who think ALL disruption is lockout I genuinely hope will never have to face the real thing; for my part, I have some disruption when possible but unless meme-level "oppression" for the sake of it is the point (of the Deck I designed but won't play) I steer clear of the hardcore stuff because I don't like it either.

[WizardSpartan]

Morg with the excellent discussion questions, yay! I was getting bored irl.

I think Kumena would be a disruptive deck, although I'm not 100% sure. It definitely switches from keeping the board under control with removal & counterspells combined with a load of card advantage to eventually winning with Dramatic Scepter with Thassa's Oracle, so maybe it's an adaptive. I don't really use stax (unless you count Stormtide Leviathan), but I do include 18 cards dedicated to interacting with my opponents' boards, which is close to triple any of my other decks.

Ezuri is definitely proactive without a doubt. I only interact with my opponents' stuff if they are about to win or if they are stopping me from accomplishing my gameplan.

I am also confident that Alesha is adaptive. She has a lot of repeatable removal in Duplicant, Skyclave Apparition, etc. but also has an easy to set up infinite combo in Karmic Guide + Reveillark. Both of those gameplans combined with a bunch of tutors allows me to evaluate the boardstate to see how the deck needs to play. That's why I love it so much!

I'm less confident about Meren, but I would say she's disruptive (even more so than Kumena in some ways). Meren decks are known for their Plaguecrafter effects controlling entire games, and my deck is no different. I include all 4 Plaguecrafter clones and even include a few other slightly different forced sacrifice effects for good measure. Furthermore, Caustic Caterpillar & Viridian Zealot provide similar effects for artifacts & enchantments. I do have win conditions, but I think most of the game is spent using these forced sacrifice effects to generate the advantage I need to win the game.

Lmk if you has a different take on my decks (I am definitely open to other people's points of view)!

[Slyvester12]

My decks are often a little over-tuned to play with random store groups, but I'll go through them anyway.

My Ezuri, Renegade Leader and Scion of the Ur-Dragon decks are 100% proactive. Ezuri runs light stax and Scion has interaction, but the entire gameplan is based on getting a fast combo.

My Thrasios, Triton Hero and Silas Renn, Seeker Adept is a proactive meme combo deck, but it's VERY good at finding its meme combos.

My Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow deck is very control based. Lots of counter spells, removal effects, and bounce effects. It only wins through grinding out value in combat or one very silly Doomsday pile for 40+ damage to everyone.

Mayael the Anima and Omnath, Locus of Rage are both just big green strategies with splashes of other colors. Mayael manages to use a couple of big bois like a toolbox deck, but interaction is only incidental to the real plan.

So, I like combos a little too much? I feel like my decks aren't a good representation of the casual meta.

[Morganator 2.0]

Mayael the Anima and Omnath, Locus of Rage are both just big green strategies with splashes of other colors. Mayael manages to use a couple of big bois like a toolbox deck, but interaction is only incidental to the real plan.

So, I like combos a little too much? I feel like my decks aren't a good representation of the casual meta.

Mayael and Omnath seem like a good representation of casual decks. They also seem like they do the proactive strategy more than disruptive. I'm sure it takes a long time though; combat-based decks tend to win slowly. So yes, I'd say that these are solid casual decks.

I've always preferred disruptive and adaptive decks over proactive. I tend to get bored of playing proactive combo because it feels too much like I'm playing from a script. I much prefer disruptive strategies, where threat assessment matters a lot. I'd say that The Scarab God is definitely disruptive, as I'm constantly trying to figure out who is the biggest threat and what creature to reanimate to stop them. Vaevictis Asmadi, the Dire is also disruptive, as I remove everyone's best permanent each turn.

Haldan+Pako is an adaptive deck. How they perform is based entirely on which of my opponent's cards I can cast. Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer is probably the closest thing I have to a proactive deck... but I hate that deck so it's kind of fitting.

[WizardSpartan]

combat-based decks tend to win slowly

Imagine not winning the game in one combat.



This post was made by the Ezuri, Renegade Leader gang.

[Marshstepper78]

I had an old Starke of Rath chaos deck that would challenge the idea that red casual can't be disruptive. The last game I played with that deck lasted almost 3 hours without an end in sight.