The Problem with Board Wipes (in EDH)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 25 ก.ย. 2024
- Finally, a video where the intended audience is myself in the past.
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I tried to heed the words of the people telling me I talk too slow. Keep complaining and I might even add music or something crazy like that. I appreciate y'all for the 1000 subs!
I’ve been so uninspired recently with edh deck building. I feel like your channel started popping up exactly when I needed it to. Love how you approach things.
You were so close, your, not you're
@@UEENavy LOL. Damn. You got me.
I'm always glad to be a source of inspiration
only people that care are mentally ill @@UEENavy
I was uninspired once... and then I found Rielle, the everWheel
and I've been touching SO much cardboard...
One of the craziest games I've played recently was 3 clunky midrange decks vs child of alara board wipe tribal. The game turned into a 3v1 with everyone working to chip away the players life total between wipes. After like 20 grueling turns, the villain was defeated, and the shitty midrange deck in the best position promptly eliminated the others in like 2 turns
Lmao cool
I love how you approach certain topics or EDH that are talk in such a different way by other content creators or either not talked at all like your video on edhrec or this one. Good job my guy, love the content and your takes
Thank you!
The thing that bothers me about board wipes (although they are necessary) is that the person going after the person who wipes the board always has such a tempo gain, ESPECIALLY if it doesn't wipe artifacts or fast mana away. Very frustrating when you are just on the defensive for the next couple of turns after a boardwipe simply because you go before the person who wipes the board constantly.
Time to put Aeon Engine in every deck
Reason why instant speed board wipes are so horrifically powerful, and one-sided instant-speed board wipes will get you kicked from the play group.
@@MetalHev thats a crap playgroup then.
@@MetalHev but theres only one: cyclonic rift
@@bodaciouschad there are more, but yeah cyclonic rift is the main offender.
I agree. I've seen so many bad board wipes ... where the powerful deck that prompted the board wipe just comes right back anyway while other decks, that were not the problem at the table, struggle to recover.
It's called resiliency and it's a good to for a deck to have
My playgroup had a guy run Child and 99 lands. It wasn't supposed to be a high power deck, but he really wanted that Maze's End win to happen eventually. He didn't expect someone to play Timesifter the first time he ever used it.
Amazing
i say all the time, i wish i could have a beast within in my hand every single turn of every commander game i play. there's always something fantastic on the board that needs to be removed. since that isn't possible, i think of a bane of progress or austere command as casting several beast withins all at once to catch up for all the turns that i didn't cast one.
furthermore on the point about symmetry. i also say all the time, play the boardwipes that advantage you. so as to make them less symmetrical.
What's up, Demo? Big viewer of your channel, love all your content. To add to your comment, yes boardwipes really do win games when they advantage you. But I prefer running more spot removal just a little more than putting more boardwipes in a deck. My experience, mass removal just makes games drag out longer because typically the boardwipe also takes out the caster's wincon and now they're top decking to build their boardstate back up and find their next wincon. And usually it's too late when they finally get it.
I think the best strategy definitely is not only running more spot removal but to run boardwipes that take out a lot of the opponents' stuff and leave your most important permanents alone. Like I could cast a Blasphemous Act to take everything out, but Brotherhood's End takes care of the smaller creatures and leaves my bigger creatures alive. And then spot removal takes care of the rest.
I built your Kibo deck that you posted in a video and it's been my favorite deck to play because I bought physical banana miniatures to give out as tokens for everyone to use! I loaded that deck up with more spot removal and one-sided boardwipes because I was tired of seeing my big monkeys and apes getting destroyed and I'm getting ran through with even bigger creatures than them. Even before the changes, I had some great matches with Kibo. And now with more removal, it can take on the Eldrazi and Sliver precons from Commander Masters without too much difficulty. Anyways Demo, thanks for all your wonderful content! 👍 👍
How do you listen to the way this dbag talks about magic demo? This is the last kind of person i want to end up across the table from. The fucking megamind
Delete your channel
The problem isn't boardwipes. It's not having action after your boardwipe. Simply wiping the board over and over doesn't let you win. It doesn't even really stop you from losing. Wiping the board to by a turn or two is a very viable tactic. Without boardwipes, midrange value engines take over the game.
Phenomenal video, good sir. I have a similar philosophy about board-wipes.
The short reason I give to people on why I tell them they should stop relying so heavily on board-wipes is this. Board-wipes (especially ones that only hit creatures) don't do shit against well-constructed decks.
Ideally, if you eliminate the cards they have now, they should be playing something more threatening later. Additionally, the problem with most board-wipes is that you're usually tapping out to get rid of "everything" that's in play, but what this means is the next player in turn order capitalizes on YOUR board-wipe the most by being first to rebuild. I don't know about everyone else, but if my plan involves hoping all three of my opponents over-commit and allow my board-wipe to resolve, when three people have a reason to stop it, while tapping out (usually) on my turn to do so, then I don't think that's a reliable plan.
On your point about stax I am curious on your opinion with what I'm about to say here. Because commander players, in a general sense, look down heavily upon stax, they view white as this vastly inferior color. "It needs more card draw." "It needs more interaction." White is only weak when the community strips it of its most powerful asset, resource denial via stax/hatebearers, as board-wipes alone are not going to cut it.
Vi: Surprised you didn’t mention the political part of board wipes. In my experience, Child of Alara decks are often targeted because people consider “easy access to board wipes” anti-fun, and they will tend to target decks when they are considered anti-fun even more often than powerful threats, even if those are just terrible gate decks.
Your videos are fantastic!! You've introduced me to a totally new way of thinking about the game
I bought an electric car
This channel has made more of an impact on how I think about commander decks in 1 month than all other channels combined have over a decade. I love that I found this channel.
This was something interesting I encountered with Syr Gwyn deck I played this week. The Sidisi player flipped everyones cards face down, making them a 2/2, including Syr Gwyn, however this didn't stop me because of the numerous other equipment cards I could still slot on in a variety of different ways. It got to the stage where if they *killed* the face down Syr Gwyn, it would just send them back to the command zone and then I could recast it and with Syr Gwyn's ability, just reequip all my stuff for free (including Embercleave which gives Syr Gwyn haste) turning them from a 2/2 with 18 powers worth of equipment into a 6/6 with 18 powers worth of equipment on them.
It's the first time I've ever seen a deck completel disincentive mutal boardwipes.
Hey I’m sure this took a long time to make andI love it is there another one for tomorrow? Jk take your time can’t wait!
My problem with permanents that wipe the board when they die is that it gives your opponents who have single target removal control over when the board is wiped. I don't like to hand weapons to my opponents. Board wipes should be a surprise.
For sure. Having a High Market or Hostile Hostel in play definitely helps, but obviously in my video I included a slide of a very common situation in which having one of those simply isn't enough.
@@salubrioussnail For sure, But i have found a way to make child of alara fun again. run her in a creature deck ( I run a alt win con deck that has about 15 different ways to win and about 3 ways to get to each victory. with alara as my commander. you see theres also exactly 15 creatures in my deck (including alara) and my favorite way to win? self mill my creatures and then sac alara or watch my players forcivly remove her thinking im done... only to turn around and play mortal combat for the victory. I think running a tuter deck with mortal combat draw, and creatures would be a very fun and reliable alara board wipe deck. It is just not good enough on its own to have mazes end as its win con.
Board wipes are never a surprise. You know and expect getting wiped, you just hope you can protect your board or you draw a way to kickstart a board again.
Honestly, i have more of a problem with Nevrendal urborg tyrant than i do Child of Elara. However, in both cases both have access to counterspells. My problem with board wipes is just normally it's one of the many sorcery board wipes, and after resolving, your opponents get to be the first to make attempts to rebuild their board or win thanks to the board wipe before you can. And seemingly not enough people play Sarulf, Realm Eater.
@@MageSkeletonDo you think it will be more balanced if the control player got to rebuild first? Control decks are not affected by summoning sickness 99% of the time if the control player went rebuilding first then you would know the game is as good as over once a board wipe is played.
I love board wipes, but I've also learned not to rely on them solely. I think while stax effects are good in their own right, it telegraphs to your opponents that you are standing between them and victory, and that you need to be taken down. I'd rather have my opponents over commit then interact with them. This is done with a combination of instant speed interaction and board wipes.
Long gone are the days were I would play my mono black control deck in edh (it's just more fun when everyone gets to play) Also happened to crush a dragons of tarkir prerelease with blue black control. It's nice knowing someone else has had similar experiences playing magic! 😉
Nice! Yeah, blue black control cards went hard that set. I wanna say I 2-1ed or 2-0-1ed in the draft with 12 removal spells, but there was another DTK draft at the same shop where I made a more well-rounded grindy blue black midrange deck that 3-0ed. The only downside of that set was going to standard game day and playing against a wall of grixis dragons, never did I think I’d be missing siege rhino before that.
All decks have a weakness. One of the great things about commander is you can take your time honing a deck to fix any weaknesses. All game plans in magic work, it’s whether or not you have the patience to ascertain and fix the weaknesses. That’s not to say you can turn every strategy into a high power killer, but you can give every deck a place in your line up of decks you run.
All that said, the great thing about magic is, every deck has a weakness and expecting to have no weakness is naive.
Your videos are amazing, this is so so helpful when building a commander deck.
Severely underated channel here you deserve so much more appreciation mate!
This was a great video. I played against someone at an LGS who pulled out the new Ojutai and Zurgo. I was playing a midrange 5C tribal deck and got surprised by the way this person built their deck. It was 30+ board wipes and a Commander that keeps returning to their hand. It was a miserable waste of a game. There wasn't enough we could do playing what we were. Board wipes are fine to an extent. Sometimes it keeps you in the game long enough to win when someone pops off early. If you're going to play a deck like that, don't surprise people. Tell them, hey this deck is going to wipe the board over and over again. Make sure you play something that will stand a chance
Man your videos have helped me think about my favorite commander deck so much better. Thanks bro
AAAAAAAAH, YOU JUST KEEP TELLING ME EXACTLY WHAT I NEED TO KNOW. Your videos are so insightful and put into words exact things I've either had trouble articulating or things I didn't fully realize. With this vid I'm realizing, especially with your final closing statement of the video, a critical flaw with one of my old decks. I made Halvar, God of battle/Sword of the realms deck that was centered around using the Sword of the Realms side to accrue incremental value. One of the tricks I had in there was that I played a fuck ton of board wipes. Keep my commander and my value creature and destroy everyone else's creatures, I come out very slightly on top and play the long game using that value to win. But exactly what you said here with your child of alara dec happened. It crushed the fair midrangey decks two of my friend's were playing and couldn't do anything to the combo deck my other friend was playing. Which just lead to boring game states and eventually the deck getting retired with an unsure vague feeling of it just being too boring sometimes. I've wanted to bring it back and figure out a way to make it work better and I think your videos are helping me figure out a way I can. ACK thank you for these videos ❤
your comment here is helpful to me as well, thank you🎉
I think board wipes are great if you also have a way to benefit from them, like drawing cards based on how many creatures get killed.
I've won some games because of Nemata, Primeval Warden and my opponent not reading my cards before doing a board wipe.
That's something i have only recently starting to grasp, to build a deck thinking of board interaction.
I'm the guy with the "wrath tribal" deck at my play group because I play four wraths and six spells that deal damage to all creatures, plus spot removals. But only recently i have better thought out about what to do with an opponent's graveyard if they reanimate, or living death, if they tutor a card, or if they have their own combo or play lots of quick small creatures.
When i started playing at my lgs more is when i started taking out some of the destroy all creatures effects and started diversifying my removal, some for creatures, artifacts, enchantments, and even land. Lets call this "table" mentality, started to develop, cause when you play 1v1 a lot, your deck either gets adapted to countering a specific or small set of strategies, and then fairs much worse at tables which play more diverse or none of the strategies you're usually accustomed to - when I look at my decklist now and to the old one when i started building it, i gotta admit that my past self would struggle to see why there is "random goodstuff" that doesnt necessarily contribute directly to my commander's ability, in this case killing creatures, or playing lots of creatures with big fronts and small butts to serve as fodder, or playing some 15 spot removal, when im currently using only 3, or using all wraths for board wipe when they become consistently impracticable to play because i would usually need a support spell such as regenerate or give indestructible to my board.
And it actually works!
Hey man I came across your channel a little bit ago and I gotta say you’re amazing, I’m brand new to commander and watching you has taught me so much!!!
4:30 the analogy is like using insult on people
so what you're telling me is: make a stax gates deck.
yes
This is why all board whips I play are asymmetrical in the truest sense of the word.
I actually have a Clavileño, First of the Blessed deck that’s all around wiping the board a bunch of times and being the only person with a board state intact after board wipe number 6 with graveyard recursion and death triggers on low curve vampires. It’s actually worked pretty well for me as an agro / aristocrats deck
on the note of drafts with a lot of removal, I played a 2 headed giant sealed with my husband and he went black white and had I think 12 removal spells between our pool and I played green blue stompy. very fun
I do have a Wrath of God tribal deck. 23 board wipes and about 25 single target removal spells. The difference is that mine is a Zurgo, Helmsmasher deck that absolutely can kill the combo deck by turn 3.
Dusk! I choose you! Destroy everything except my spirit tokens and the smelly guy's mana elves!
Dawn! Get my Rattlechains and Spell Queller back!
I use to run a child of alara deck that ran it as its only board wipe, the rest of it was planes walkers and instants/sorceries that either disrupted my opponents or helped ramp/mana fix it was pretty fun, too bad it didnt see the day that your commanders death effects could activate if you chose to send it to the command zone
I would personally argue that those non-board based burst from hand and either infinite or instant win combo decks are precisely the decks which prevent interesting or dynamic games rather than boardwipes that disproportionately don't work against them, but that's coming from a "creature combat IS Magic The Gathering" purist.
Most infinite combos take 3-4 cards. Ie. Krenko mob boss. Skirk and sword of Paruns or krenko. Ashnods altar and goblin bombardment. Or Frodo Sauron’s bane Ashnods altar Rasdribrick or whatever his name is and boromir. Jan Jansen thornbite staff and goblin bombardment.
All infinite combos but need multiple pieces and set up.
I'd argue you have it backwards. The over-presence of strong, cost-effective board wipes necessitated combo decks that could win without committing to board. So here we are.
Heard, less board wipes, more stax
I took this video as a challenge.
Instead of putting a board wipe in the command zone, I put Tajic, Blade of the Legion. He is a 2/2 indestructible creature in Boros. He also gets +5/+5 when attacking with two or more other creatures. This gives me a reliable way to apply pressure to players, while also ensuring I don’t suffer from my own board wipes.
In addition, I have twenty spells that destroy all creatures or deal damage to all creatures. This keeps the board clear of most creature threats. The board wipes are paired with targeted removal for Nonland permanents in the form of enchantments in case there are non-creature threats that are on the board.
The creature suite consists of the few creatures with indestructible, can gain indestructible, or prevent damage in budget, while being supplemented by enchantments that generate creature tokens before combat to trigger Tajic’s buff. Lastly, I added some lifelink to ensure the deck could continue to grind fight a battle of attrition.
I am still in testing, but so far it has won both of the games it has been part of. One was against the midrange decks that it was designed to stomp, while the other was a grinder combo and control pod, which it managed to handle through agro mentality.
The deck has issues. Cyclonic Rift returning all the enchantments to hand returns the problem pieces, and the deck can only stall if Tajic continues to be removed, but those aren’t issues I can really fix at my current budget. More concerning is my draw power, but I have so far managed without it. If I feel the deck needs that, I’ll add it, likely in the form of artifacts like staff of nin that give me additional draws turn after turn.
While the deck can operate, it does suffer from asymmetric issues. I have to target combo players and instant/sorcery based decks first if I intend to win. Still, very fun deck, at least for me, and it inspired the creation of some new decks in my playgroup.
TLDR: Thanks for the inspiration for my Midrange Crusher 9000 deck. Deck is linked below.
www.moxfield.com/decks/lHrz1WzzVU2GkbSOCXG8NQ
As someone with a mono green treefolk deck, and who's building a gate deck, I feel so attacked right now.
Which is why you have 3 opponents in the game and not 1 >.> yes It feels bad but teferi's protection or some other boardwipe protection needs to be Considered if a board wipe completely stops your deck in its tracks
I would absolutely love to see your agro Meria equipment decklist, I really love the commander but I am struggling to build her in a way that isn't just combo :) Keep up the awesome vid.
archidekt.com/decks/4615680/i_tap_my_equipments_because_its_funny
@@salubrioussnailThank you so much I have been checking this vid everyday but glad I never gave up hope :)
Me playing my tribal deck feels ok if you board wipe me, atleast I got some sorcery to let me revive everyone.
Until they decided to exile everything
I feel like the tendancy to more and more lean on exiling instead of destroying is kind of mistake of modern magic design. They printed so many indestructible effects, that exiling became much more important, thus reducing the value of indestructible (and regenerate, but that one was already abandonned quite a bit of time ago).
For target removal it's not that problematic (even though the color pie breaking ones are a bit sad), but exiling board wipes are kind of ridiculous if they don't have heavy restrictions or downsides.
Hell yeah Cruel Control. Anyone else remember Bolas for a Better Tomorrow?
Fun comment on stax btw. The interesting part is that often even the decks players who are mildly impaired try to get rid of the stax pieces, simply because of their bad rep it seems...
This video has inspired me to an avacyn angel of hope land hate deck
I have one permanent in my Child of Alara gate tribal deck: Manabond. Its more of a 'leave me alone deck'. I dont attack, I only threaten to blow up the board if someone comes after me. More arbiter than antagonist. To me this seems like a pilot-problem, or maybe a playgroup-specific deck. I have some counters, a number of fogs, and 2 "end the turn" spells. Everything else either draws me cards or poops out gates.
Recently had a member of my pod that plays nothing but green try and make a deck without green. Finally understood why we all wanted to take him out back and beat him with his own deckbox whenever he tutored for a bane of progress or a culling ritual.
Endless creature wipes aren't the worst thing ever depending on the deck. Most decks cant recover as well from mass artifact and enchantment hate. Rebuilding a creature board turns into a race. Rebuilding your mana base or utility pieces feels like hell.
Do you have any decklists posted? Would love to see what kind of stuff you have built
I have a bunch of decks posted to archidekt, though only 6 that I've actually assembled in paper and play with, and two of them are terrible meme decks. This is probably the weakest of the four better ones (5ish on a 1-10 scale) but also by far the spiciest:
archidekt.com/decks/4221386/sharuum_slide
I expected you to talk about the fact that board wipes in edh often end up with everyone sitting there, slowly trying to build up their board from nothing (including the one who played the wipe in the first place).
There just aren't conditional wipes for every deck but at the same time if you aren't playing hyper aggro (and arguably even then) you need some way to come back when someone had a massive turn or your commander got blown up 3 times in a row.
In my opinion, some sort of boardwipe is necessary in almost every midtier deck. Even if it throws you back a lot, by deciding when to boardwipe you can often get a value advantage.
Having a board wipe as a commander is a neat idea, especially with Maze's End as a alt win con. But the downsides can be glaringly obvious after a few games.
It depends on how well rounded your removal is, as well as how smart you play it. Most combos, barring cedh level stuff, do require some gamepieces to live on board. Identify the player most likely to combo off, focus your instant speed interaction on them, try to pressure their lifetotal. I have to say I am yet to run into trouble with my control rakdos deck... though it helps that a lot of these decks are specifically dependent on their commander, so you can just hate that out.
Oh hey! I encountered the same problem with my Arixmethes bounce and wheels deck running 8 of each! The idea was to board wipe, then wheel everyone so Arixmethes can kill them one by one. It was fun in my head but not so much playing. Everyone just had a bad time not playing until I kill them.
me, with my boardwipe tribal deck with over 36 boardwipes in it: 👀
My solution to the oh I'm not hurt by board wipes, is that I became the land destroyer. After all it's like putting laxiative into the tap water rather then the dough less risk of discovery. More opportunity for indirect unassociated mayhem. Granted...this is only if you don't mind being having a 3 way truce toward your destruction put up in any games where your color alignment even remotely smells of Red or Black. xD
"oof ouch ooh god ouch"
I might use that next time someone board wipes.
Watching these videos make me realize just how shit I am at deckbuilding
Different decks have different strengths and weaknesses? Mind blown
The rain bow bridge super friends deck with gates as an alternate wincon.
Today I played and tested out a glorious child of alara deck on Xmage. First, I put a mythril coat on the child to give it indestructible, then I put a hexproof counter on it. Then for the next 5 turns in a row I played a clone effect copying the child, which I'd then sac to the legend rule to wipe everything but child of alara. I won eventually with commander damage against the 2 other players
Child of Alara is the one commander where I just don't play against it. I don't feel like mulliganing till i find removal, playing a game with a "every two turns you better need non-destroy removal" sucks
I feel like board wipes are a necessary evil that is tricky to balance. I use more in my Henzie deck than most other decks I run because he's suicidal. His Blitz others ability becomes broken when he dies over and over. There's even an enchantment that hardcore enables him, but without it, ramp makes him incredibly resilient. So of course, I wipe the board a fair amount now to make sure he dies and slow down my opponents plans while accelerating mine. This is a good strategy, but I played it recently and won, but it forced the mono red player into topdecking. He could've focused on me and eliminated me if he thought about the consequences of keeping me alive, but most decks presented a real threat and it was hard to know who to beat down. His deck can win, but not when he can't build up to an infinite combat combo usually. Mine just needs an explosive turn to take over the game, and it gets it much easier when he dies a lot. It has made me consider if I have too much board wiping in that deck or if I just got lucky and drew most of them. Either way, it's a tricky balance that I want to continue to strive towards so that I'm not ruining someone else's game like that and I'm not getting focused down to 0 before my plans can take off
Bro I actually built this deck. And realized all these things on my own as a result. It's all too true
love your videos
if your deck's matchup spread is as onesided as you describe your glissa deck's(shits on decks even slightly weaker, but crumples against decks even slightly stronger) then that's a deckbuilding and pod problem
everyone nowadays measures their decks by speed and raw power - get a lot of mana fast and then drop a bunch of big mana plays - but this ends up just being a bunch of people playing solitaire and then mashing their cards against one another
yes it feels like shit to have your one lander's sol ring mental misstepped (who even plays MM in an edh deck???) but if edh players are going to be salty about their mana acceleration being disrupted, they may as well just play 100 card omniscience highlander
single target removal is considered inefficient in edh because two people are down a card, so the other two benefit, but this assumes that you're the only one playing interaction
if you're upset about someone board wiping every turn when you're playing a tokens deck, where's your interaction - your selfless spirit, boromir, boros charm, flawless maneuver, reprieve, mana tithe, lapse of certainty
hell, whats wrong with thalia, vryn wingmare, or elite spellbinder + drannith magistrate?
every color has ways to play around every strategy - that's the beauty of having years of magic history and card design, and new cards rounding out color's weaknesses in unique ways
if you "rule zero" out certain tools, of course they're going to suffer and the things those tools counter are going to thrive
I am literately building the gates deck with alara deck :/, as salti was not getting enough gates.
My first deck i built was a gates/ child o alara, it was ok but never won with but it moved well, now my favorite deck Ashling the Pilgrim. When i blow her up, i can only be stopped by commander damage, poison counters or a i win card card. i will have lifelink and will have a ton of life. It wins about 35% of the time
This mostly goes over "destroy" or "exile" board wipes in the form of farewell. How does mass bounce like whelming wave or cyclonic rift fit into the average playgroups deck archetypes?
The same. It's still a board wipe since it wipes the board of creatures. It will also not affect decks not playing creatures or playing very few creatures.
It's the same. That being said, Cyclonic Rift specifically won't affect you, which means you don't have to play around your own Rift. You should still play around opponent's board wipes of course.
@@ThorsShadowDoesn’t Cyc rift hit more than creatures though? Do we count something like Rebuild as a board wipe as it bounces all artifacts?
Great video, but how is Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain, "heavily board-based" ? Isn't it usually a storm deck that is only technically permanent-based because you spam out 0 CMC artifacts until you win with a storm spell the same turn ? I'm not really sure how Hour of Revelation helps against that.
*Myojin of Infinite Rage go brrrr*
I played a Turboversion of Sythis (it was a glasscanon deck which could finish the Game Turn5 pretty consistently)
I now swaped some valuepieces with boardwipes and it works better because i can nuke creatures and grinding afterwards because of my enchantments
It’s rock paper shoe out here, each good deck has multiple wincons of different types, combat and combo
Running Feign Death effects makes CoA even more ridiculous
5:47 agreed, best removal is player removal
Except this philosophy has issues with it. Not that sometimes that isn’t the way to go in a desperate or advantageous situation. But it’s going to cost you a lot more resources to end a player than it would to stop their growing combo with an overloaded Vandalblast. Unless you are throwing down Torment of Hailfire or Exsanguinate and didn’t spend cards to make those plays advantageous you waisted far less of your needed resources dealing with the issue. Building the canon to kill the mosquito is a waste when you can get rid of it with your bare hand.
I run 7 board wipes, I think that's easier to hear than hearing "turn 3/4/5 win", consistently
I made my first edh deck with nevinyrral as the head, and i definetly did feel that boardwipe issue. But the way i built it really doesn't want to wipe as often as it can. I buit around wiping the board and immediately bringing him back to make a ton of zombies. I ran into 2 issues manly. First, even if i'm giving out creatures to people and making a bunch of fodder on my side, the 2/2 zombies are just not that strong, so the deck can struggle to close the game even after i wipe the board at instant speed and have an empty board to attack with the tokens. The second issue is that everyone gets super scared of the boardwipe and the game progresses way slower. Even if my deck actively doesn't want to pull the trigger until i can get reliably get a relevant number of tokens out of it (which means i need to have enough mana to play nevinyrral, cast an undying effect, sac it and pay for the trigger (which is at least 8 mana) AND have creatures to die and count towards making zombies, none of that matters, because my commander is a boardwipe. (nevinyrral is WUB, and wipes manarocks, so it's really hard to recast and completely uncastable for the third time).
I had hour of rev and nevin's disk as the only 2 bw other then the commander, and the disk was more for flavour reasons, but the time i drew and played the disk without having the need to pop it felt terrible, no one wanted to play anything. It was super strong, because my deck wouldn't care about having the stuff i play getting blown out, the deck was build counting on that happening, but it did NOT feel like a fun and engaging group activity.
I completely agree that board wipes are necessary. While it's not the perfect solution, it does stop the player that heavily invested from getting critical mass and ending the game thus giving a chance for the combo player to potentially sneak in the win right after. What I'm trying to say is that when you build an EDH deck, you gotta balance it with a good amount of meta rather than complaining about what was played. Analyze the part(s) of the game where your deck is weak and fix it for next time rather than fill your deck with nothing but gas and then you scoop when it doesn't go your way. It's easier to change yourself as a player than it is to change somebody you're gonna play only a few times.
I had a game with my Nethroi deck where I pulled a creature that makes another when it died.
In that case, destruction boardwipes (including one I myself cast) did *literally* nothing when I Mutated my commander again next turn.
I used to play like 3 or 4 boardwipes per deck when I started palying. I was always scared of my opponents decks and all their crazy boardstates and strong creatures. Nowadays I only play one at max because in my experience boardwipes just make games feel sluggish and make them way too long. They also take the fun from my opponents cause they can't do their cool shit. I'd rather have more slots for synergies or targeted removal to answer threats but not completely reset the board. Since the games don't tend to drag on for eternities people get to do their cool stuff, win and start a new game to have more fun with cool stuff.
Great stuff! As someone who literally built the Child of Alara gates decks in my early EDH days, I felt this acutely.
How do you feel about combatting this problem with the "opposing roles" idea you talked about in your Glissa video? In other words, rather than ramp and card draw, push the deck towards a draw-go control plan which focuses on shutting down the spellslinging decks? You have your wincons already built in (especially the Maze's End, which is really hard to interact with) and CoA plus some basic sac outlets gives you endless board control. Plus, having access to five colors with the gates naturally fixing your mana base at the cost of usually being a turn behind, you can run a really diverse interaction package of counters and spot removal for small stuff (esp stuff that shuts down your telegraphed board wipe).
Separately, running an "interactive" commander like CoA poses an interesting question: how does everyone else play when staring down a board wipe? Obviously the control players go forward as if nothing is wrong and the jank creature decks cry, but in between you get people playing a game of not overcommitting, trying to bait out the Child sac, etc. It's fun to analyze that gameplay and think about how to build a deck that capitalizes in on those play patterns; for example, you can indirectly control when and how much everyone else establishes board presence, and by extension e.g. how much people pressure life totals through combat, because as you put out more permanents yourself, people will also put out more in the hopes that you'll be too attached to your own stuff to wipe. If only for that reason, I find CoA a fun commander to build because it's mostly about analyzing opponents' game plans rather than your own.
board wipes aren't win conditions, which is prob the reason you shouldn't be running too many. probably the only scenario where board wipes become a win condition is super friends.
you're tapping yourself out to give more advantage to the player that doesn't depend on a full board in order to win, you're also giving away one card from your hand in order to do it, is just "king making"
p much the only reason you're ever going to board wipe is to go for the win yourself: on a full staxed board, which is why the cheap board wipes are the best options for those decks (vanquish the horde, hour of devastation, blasphemous act, toxic deluge) or the more flexible ones (march of swirling mist, cyclonic rift, damn, fire covenant)
most critical mass decks seem to be stopped with removal on their specific pieces (I'd put counters in the same category as single target removal), so you prob should run more of that instead (anthems or advantage pieces being the main targets, normally in the shape of their commander)
tl;dr run more stax and run more flexible removal even if it is single target
great video, have pondered about the same stuff myself and I've come to very similar conclusions
I think that one example of a board wipe that I think is very good but new and it is neither cheap or flexible is sunfall, as it kinda makes a threat/body/wincon on its own as you usually will wipe 10+ creatures
@@xaropevic7918 yeah, still seems specific though, you need to either wipe 30+ in order for it to be a one shot, or you need to be an aggro deck to be close to closing down in dmg and you shouldn't be affected by activating sunfall yourself somehow, or you need to be a control deck where you have enough interaction to stop 3 opponents from ganging up on your threat.
it is prob still one of the best ones, way better than just a wrath of god or a supreme verdict
Do we count things like Vandal Blast as a board wipe?
@@Arufonsa1 probably not right? unless we also call armageddon a board wipe.
I think board wipe suggest it cleans away all your creatures, but it can also hit other things while doing so
@@SoojArt What would you call it you think? Because “removal” as a term has kind of been coined as short for “single target removal”. So it leaves mass artifact, lands, etc… as something else.
I feel like The Meathook Massacre is the only fun feeling board wipe because it is a finisher on its own.
I remember a guy in our friend group who played this exact deck!!!
the only thing he found wrong with it was that when he brought it out everyone would groan and promptly find something else to do.
My child of alara gate deck was fun but weak, best board wipe commander is Ashling the Pilgrim, i put indestructible and lifelink on her so i keep blowing the board and removing creatures and killing opponents. Dictate of the twin gods, city on fire, Gratuitous violence, brash taunter, etc. It doesn't always win but always does something and wins a lot.
Cruel Ultimatum is my favorite EDH card.
There's a Child of Alara deck in my playgroup which basically sacs the child for cards every time he's running low on cards and reanimates the CoA over and over, and hopes to kill by commander damage.
Every time the player pulls the deck you know its going to be a long despairing game unless you can Oubliette the CoA or deny its trigger somehow, then the deck does nothing.
love the videos but i have one request/critisim. could you darken the white background? watched this at night and it was BRIGHT.
Obviously the solution to boardwipes being asymmetrical is to play Obliterate. Now no one comes out on top!
My 1st commander deck, was a Gates Child of Alara, back in 2017.
It was GLORIOUS.
It ramped, reanimated, wrath'd.
Nothing more.
I even had a Debt of the Deathless in case i had too much mana.
Creature hit the field? Wrath.
Weird enchantment? Wrath.
Artifact? Wrath.
Wrath? Wrath.
I was archenemy everygame. It was my 1st commander deck!
It even competed against some Flash/Hulk decks on the LGS.
No greater pleasure, other than the groan of my fellow players and the gambles they took so they could stick something to the board long enough, trying to bait one more Nuclear Detonation.
It wasn't perfect, it was given to me.
So i modifyed it.
Some wraths came out, and some Exile based wraths came in.
Targeted removal was exchanged for a weak 4 mana tutor package, only to snatch Corpse Dance.
Or a Cataclysm.
When i didn't win, the others were not happy, but relieved.
I was their personal Fear and Hunger.
And Gro-Goroth was my Centerpiece.
Damn, you suck.
As someone who had a child of alara deck for a long while (and it truly working) this was an interesting video. I do think you're artificially enhancing your argument here by only running 2 counterspells in this hypothetical deck. The only removal I run in the deck specifically targets things that alara can't get at (so exile effects). And 0 other boardwipes, because I don't need them. And because of the assymetrical nature of the alara trigger, it has a whole bunch of stack interaction to stop the more combo'ish decks. The deck performs well and wins it fair share of games and its power level is around a 8 or a 9. Having said all that.... opponents don't love playing against it, so I find I'm playing it less and less unless everybody pulls out their power level 9 decks..
About 6 months ago I stopped playing mana rocks and just added more draw.
Feels pretty good coming back from a board wipe faster than everyone who got their commander out turn 3, lost it and half their mana base and has an empty hand.
Sounds like you (and whoever you play with) just needed more card draw, or you needed to balance it alongside your ramp. You can still run ramp alongside draw, because although you'll lose the ramp if a wipe hits, you can ramp into your draw outlets and then just draw the lands to play. Since you can only play one land per turn, and it's a little over a 1/3rd chance to draw a land in the average deck, you don't really need to draw that much to hit a land every turn; at some point, you start holding excess lands that you can't play when it could've instead been a rock to drop with your 1 excess mana and play more cards in the next turn.
No way, my first edh deck was ruin your day mono black Sheoldred too!
When building for casual during covid lockdowns, I thought "hey, creatures like Massacre Girl would be great for breaking through boards and having a creature to smash face with sooner!" Then I thought about it and realized the same conclusion as this video: decks less dependent on creatures would be unaffected. I'd already made the sources of card draw also be creatures to help lower life totals faster, so in came cards such as Painful Quandary, Rankle, etc to pressure control, combo, spellslinger, etc with discard and reduce the number of wipes. Also Archon of Emeria and some similar stax pieces.
I also diversified the kind of "creatures that wipe the board" to wipe more than just creatures, or hit more than just sending to graveyard. Bane of Progress, Kalemne's Captain, Blot Out the Sky, Cyclone Summoner, Ugin the Spirit Dragon (Hey, the +2 and -X are amazing!), Rolling Earthquake (burning opponents while killing creatures helps), and Ezuri's Predation also helped keep the game moving and answering threats in ways Massacre Girl and Phyrexian Rebirth couldn't.
I didn't even touch Child of Alara. xD
Made a board wipe deck where essentially the idea was nothing stayed on board. Just hard removal. Grave yard hate. Exile effects. Goal was to be able to remove every single permanent consistently.
What you said at the end inspired me to build a midrange mild stax abzan deck. When I started playing magic abzan control was a thing and I wanted to capture the spirit of that. So basically creatures beatdown card draw and control. Because that is the experience I want for me. I wonder if would play today
You gotta pair boardwipes with counterspells and doomblades and drawspells to cover all bases. If you want to cover all bases that is
This is something I struggle with with my most recent deck led by massacre girl. It's supposed to be some sort of a rampy and controlly pile, with access to a boardwipe if necessary, but oh boy does a wipe in the command zone alter the game.
Well, there's quite a difference between finding one of the few boardwipes in your deck and having a reset button ready to go in your command zone. The fact that everyone can see the glooming danger makes it draw much more hate and rightfully so, as it's not a one time thing.
Rather than the usual "99 lands lol" thing, the gimmick I chose for CoA is that it absolutely under no circumstances can generate a nonland permanent.
This leads to interesting consequences like I can't run Hour of Promise because what if someone donates me three deserts?
to clarify, it has to be a source you own and control that generates a permanent?
Can you do a deconstruction of building a captain n'gathrad deck? I'm flailing trying to construct it and struggle to pick the right cards for it.
oh hey it's why 90% of my commander games have been miserable
Good insight in the matter. I am playing in a playgroup where we forgo playing tutors and stax cards... We still got the problem that the combo decks are dominant af. Therefore rule 0 is the best way for everyone to have fun. I often run in similar problems like you described, building a deck that looks fun and feels powerful, but ultimately taking fun away from the playgroup..
Wondering how this deck would fare in two headed giant with a partner that doesnt rely on board presence