Best Way to make Games more fun: Up your tables' mana curve. 3 mana rocks have gotten awesome, play splashier and more expensive bombs, make your interaction up a bit more expensive but a bit more impactful, etc. In my experience that has what has made my table loads more fun to play at. And also, surprisingly, makes games faster.
@danielsniff6405 if a counterspell makes your playgroup feel bad, then they deserve to feel bad. They don't wanna play magic, they wanna play solitaire.
That's honestly what makes it such a miserable format. Regular Magic you can just sit and go with anyone and have a pretty good time. Commander requires you to know people who see the game the same way that you do.
@@jeffe2267 I think that is both its strength and its weakness. Being far less competitive than 2 player formats can really make it more enjoyable with a fun group but in the end, one bad apple spoils the bunch. I prefer Commander amongst friends but 2 player formats tend to be more enjoyable at an LGS.
I never want to play a game that I just want to move on from. If that is a situation I find myself in often, then I am just playing the wrong place/game.@marshallscot
@@Dragon_Fyre definitely a strength and a weakness, the casual multiplayer aspect has potential to make each game of the most fun multiplayer tabletop experiences you can have, period (as is evident by its commercial success), or a horrible experience depending on the social cohesion of the group
Best way to have more fun is to make sure your deck can “do its thing” without that automatically meaning you won. So if you can do the cool thing even on games you lose, you won’t feel like your deck “didn’t work that game”. I’ve had plenty of games where I lost but got to “pop off” (to an extent) and it was still a fun game.
Tbh this is my defense for playing "staples" in less than competitive decks. I think it's totally reasonable to sol ring signet demonic tutor if it's just to get your silly strategy online. It's no fun to play against an opponent who just waffles not able to cast their spells.
As a big fighting gamer, I gotta say the segment with the MVC2 was so surreal because it felt my two favorite things were merging together. MTG and fighting games! Rock on guys another great episode. PS when we getting the universe beyond MVC2 cross over?
Dearest Goldfish, Some land destruction ideas: Keldon Firebombers, Natural Balance, Thoughts of Ruin. Some older cards only destroy so many. Thoughts of Ruin is just great 👍
jank decks are fine depending on the playgroup, if you want to play a fun but "underpowered" deck usually the other players won't pick on you, allowing you to progress your gameplan and have more fun with the other players rather than stomp them with a full stape deck
On playing less staples, i usually lean towards synergy. There are some cards where i say "this deck is the only one where i could play this card" so it goes in, even if its strictly worse than a more staply alternative. That allows me to experiment with more cards :)
I’m currently trying to build Kykar with some weird “Spirit Matters” cards instead of strictly Storm. Hopefully that helps me build a mid-power goofy deck.
The best way for my group to keep enjoying the game we play each week. Force ourselves to play against our own decks. It keeps us honest and we all understand the power levels we play at.
In terms of consistency I've really liked not having Sol Ring in my decks. I've found it to be like rigging a randomly triggered NOS to a VW Beetle. Confounding Conundrum is maybe a good way in which to curb land ramp... put a once per turn limit on lands entering the battlefield essentially.
For playing without staples, I feel like this group is well set up to experiment with this concept. What if you took a whole season where you put a limit on the number of times you can play a card? Teferi's protection can only be in one of your decks in the season for example (or maybe 2 if that seems crazy).
i'm so with seth on the not feeling bad about killing someone, I have a tron deck and if i get off to a good start i will just kill someone on turn 4 but the act of killing someone just feels so bad in the early turns 😭
@@jaywinner328 I run this in my landfall deck to punish other people for trying to ramp. If I I'm playing against another landfall deck I usually will hold it in hand which feels bad but its great against normal ramp.
I have been playing a lot of "bad" blue enchantments, Land Equilibrium, Dream Tides, Energy Flux, Pendrell Mists, Disruption Field, Meishin Mind Cage... To turtle up, and yeah, sometimes you draw them and it's just bad, but you are in blue, you have looting effects. And if I see more enchantress, maybe Aura Flux.
I'm really big on ditching staples for worse versions of themselves. It's a lot of fun to express creativity and deckbuilding skill, as opposed to just slamming a universally and quite generally good card. Richard doesn't seem to understand what Seth meant by "play less staples, play more unique cards" though. Sure, in a sense, he's playing strictly worse cards, but that's not the same as running terrible cards.
What's funny is that the cards we are talking about are not even bad for the game at large. It's just that the "staples" are not well balanced for the format to keep a proper pace. It's almost like we are actively fixing the game by making this choice.
Specific advice for Tomer on learning to play faster: the only way to get better at playing faster is to just force yourself to play faster. Get yourself a chess timer and set it to a number that's slightly uncomfortable (but doable) and adhere to it. Every so often, take 5 seconds or so off the timer. People will say "the best way to learn how to play faster is to just play more" and that's absolutely untrue. If you play methodically 100% of the time, playing more will just reinforce your ability to play methodically. You may also find some success in just learning how to think about lines faster by playing a video game where APM truly matters and quick thinking goes hand in hand with winning.
I do agree on the weaker combos needing to be more permitted. I run a Slimefoot and Squee deck, and I can combo kill with Atsushi, the Blazing Sky, Ashnod's Altar, and Zulaport Cutthroat. There are a few redundancies in the deck, but I never feel bad when I win that way. It takes my commander, a very specific creature, a specific artifact, a payoff, and like 8+ mana to set up. It can also be relatively easily interacted with, especially by people who know the deck.
Stranglehold is the card to punish Ramp Players (and also prevent extra turns). It seems like it doesn't do a whole lot, so try it out in your meta in Decks that loot a lot so you can discard it if you don't need it. But you should definitely try it.
An underrated way to punish ramp decks is with Mind Twist effects. If somebody goes all-in on ramp you can snipe the payoff before they get to cast it. I like Mindslicer, Awaken the Erstwhile, Mind Twist, Head Games, etc, for achieving this result.
57:29 I'm the complete opposite, I have around 70 decks. Love all of them, and keep making more. But I'm also an enabler, I like lending out decks. So this way I can ask "Any preferred colors or themes?" And grab something that matches. (I might also be trying to make 2 of every color combination, without the decks feeling samey)
Landfall usually has land recursion and 2-4 pieces of it or a payoff for killing lands. Like Titania or something that gets out of control when their lands die. 40:52
Also, Volcanic Offering is such a good card to consider to correct the unbalance of ramp at the table. Not sure why that one was lost here... I feel like sometimes the solutions to the problems you guys face so often tend to be extreme. I agree with comments here that Confounding Conundrum is another type of card to consider too.
1:22 in and I gotta say I love Crim trolling the table. Dont kill Crim first 😂... but if you do, since I just found out about Crim's music talents from the other podcast, Im putting in a request that if Crim dies first, he picks up a guitar and rocks a background soundtrack for the rest of clash (whilst simultaneously giving commentary of course)
Crim is a special breed of player that WANTS to be knocked out first to prove he got a reaction. I know that would not fly well with most circles I play in... I think people enjoy it more when everyone is at similar play levels and have fair chances towards the end. I'd hate for anyone to have to be knocked out early.
My favourite way to deal with ramp decks whilst avoiding negativity is Nature's Balance. It makes everyone end up with 5 lands (either by sacrificing down, or tutoring up basics into play). Great way to level the playing field to a state where everyone can still play their cards. Also allows for breaking symmetry with things like bounce lands.
Here, I wish to improve this list so as to ensure it does actually make games fun for everyone at the table: 1) Play surprising new versions of decks/commanders. 2) Aim to make sure nobody can be salty from the experience you bring. 3) Play no clear combos. Be more incidental. 4) Be the change you want to see. 5) Play cards that are unexpected but entertaining. 6) Practice your decks in a more realistic fashion. 7) Play your own ramp, and maybe keep targeted land removal available. 8) Have good reasons for knocking into people and people out of the game. 9) Play cards that look cool, but be ready to explain the unreadable gibberish. 10) Be deliberate about your decks you keep. 11) Understand artifact deck potentials, but also keep artifact removal like "Heliod's Intervention". 12) Play less "staples".
Ive found that Archaeomancer's Map and/or Confounding Conundrum has worked pretty well against our ramp players. Although landfall decks usually find Confounding Conundrum more of a benefit than a hinderance so be careful with that
i usually try to fit 5-15 staples in my decks depending on color, my first step in building a deck I'm going through all cards I own and hopefully find enough cards that is close enough.
Hey Crim if you ever see this, as an avid artifict player the answer is play green. there is SO MUCH hate in green that will kill me and some that can basically lock me out. lots of it is quite old but just search keyword artifact in green and look for the hate pieces. become the 4c control player you were always meant to be! in blue that girl that can search enemy libraries to steal artifacts rights out of them is also just a fun hate card that at worst steals some mana rocks. the real secret though is you build an all artifact hate deck and put in mycosynth lattice. its 1 deck but the effect is your entire deck is built around punishing the card type youre forcing everyone to play.
Every color has an interaction to balance heavy ramp, just some need more ways to interact. Catch up ramp in white LD in red Counters in blue Oppo agent and tutors in black (quality over quantity) Green just races other green
I've taken that Tomer approach to commander since I've started the format. If you can appreciate the magic being played by other people it tends to make it more enjoyable. Gotta be there for the content/memes and then everyone enjoys playing with you and aren't salty when you're popping off. Backwards jedi mind trick confirmed 😅
I feel like that is a way to disguise the fact of popping off too well. I think one can genuinely have a great thing happen for the in game without a way to manipulate peoples' impression of it. I know I would be pretty miffed if someone was trying to pretend they didn't bring a 9 to a 6 pod with funny jokes.
So I'm playing a combo deck that does have the option of combat killing. Xyris Writhing Storm, make a load of tokens, summon a Zada Hedron Grinder and then Polymorph the Zada and all the tokens. The deck plays Purphuros (probably botched the name), Terror of the Peaks, Impact Tremors. So kinda combo/aggro hybrid. I pitch it as group hug to my friends and use cards like Howling Mine and Rites of Flourishing. Basically to benefit the Xyris and and delay people wanting to kill me. Richard, try it!
The vision of Tomer saying 'Itsa Kiki, Combo!' in a terrible Mario voice will hunt my dreams/nightmares. I actively avoid staples in certain decks, and I love relatively grindy decks... if you've never tried to find a home for Banshee, (only The Dark versions need apply obv), consider it! Similarly, Orcish Artillery is actually a fine Commander card, both are dying for Lifelink and Deathtouch, both shine bright with a Scavenged Brawler's tokens, both like Gift of Doom, just such good cards that people look at and say 'oh well, it won't kill their finisher so it's a bad card, I guess I'll just let them build up mana dorks derp derp!'. Also, Crim, my boy, run Dwarven Miner (he's the thirstiest dwarf in all of fantasy), but also run Dwarven Blastminer. The effect is actually so good you NEED two of it.
Hot take maybe, but people SHOULD be playing more basic land cards these days. There SHOULD be downsides to running nonbasics, and things like From the Ashes, Ruination, and Blood Moon are there to equalize it. If you want to be greedy AF with your mana base, you should expect, and deserve, to get punished for it. That kind of power doesn't exist in a vacuum. Run basics, run fetches to get basics, and expect to get dumpstered because you're so effing greedy with your mana base.
If you’re OK with those cards, you’re either OK with mass land destruction or a hypocrite. There is a huge difference in cards that punish your opponents with those that effectively lock them out of the game.
@@Dragon_Fyre I'm perfectly fine with land destruction! I run a lot of basics in my decks and ways to fetch out basics. I have a full complement of dual lands and tri-lands, but I do my best not to pack my decks with so many non-basics that they're functionally worthless in the face of a blood moon. There should be a real oppourtunity cost to including nonbasics. You can't get a perfect manabase without paying the piper, and it's real sour grapes moments to poopoo punishing someone's risky manabase. You can run five colour decks with fetchlands and basics just fine, especially with the new complement of fetches from New Capenna.
@@KaldarisX All things come with a price. I don’t like players that play “targeting land destruction” like the cards you mentioned, so as soon as someone attempts to play one, it’s probably going to be my sole purpose in that game to just single out that player as the target of every action I take thereafter to set an example for the future. STAX or “board wipe decks (not having them but where that’s the focus of the deck)” are the other actions people can take, where I will no longer care about the game, I’m just focused on being spiteful at that point and will even declare to the other 2 players they are now safe. Far as I’m concerned, that player is just there to ruin everyone else’s fun…
@aklepatzky @@Dragon_Fyre The more you expect to get out of your mana base. The more oppourtunity cost there *should* be to running it. As I said. Power and flexibility like that doesn't come in a vacuum. Targeted hate cards are there to punish people who refuse to run a decent amount of basics in their decks. I, personally, think it's unreasonable for people to have Kamigawa Channel-lands, Cabal Coffers, Shrines of Nyx, Gaia's Cradles, Tri-lands, utility lands, and so many other nonbasics and somehow think that what you're doing gets to be absolved of any kind of targeted disruption. By and large, commander players have become enormous, whiny babies in the face of any kind of talk about mana disruption, they want their precious perfect mana base to be safe. But it isn't supposed to be, by design. It's only a lax social construct that keeps your mana base from being targeted. I'm more than happy to run Back to Basics or Blood Moon in any relevant deck to punish people that insist on using NOTHING but non-basics for their decks. To Aklepatzky, your deck is greedy when you're running a minimal amount of basics. Consider Tomer saying his five colour deck has 'one basic' in it. That's greedy as heck. Basics exist for a reason. They're the most undisturbed and undisrupted kind of land. If you want security, use basics. Use fetches to get basics. When I see a deck that only has like six or seven basic lands in it, that's a greedy mana base and prime for disruption!
Karn is in my Okaun Zndrsplt deck and is so good, no ability is wasted. Stax. Recur the Kraark Thumb from exile, or turn it into a creature for cloning.
Came here to comment that Ruination effects are the least effective on the ramp deck 8 seconds before Tomer brought it up. The only decks I run with more than 3-5 basics are my green ramp decks.
I would really like if you started playing armageddon etc unironically for a season, see how it affects the games. Id wager you could potentially sway a lot of stigma against these effects by doing it, and with Phil back it is prime time to dunk on green!
So for me when I have issues against people that ramp too many lands I run Natural Balance. It's not really an Armageddon but it sets everyone's land total to 5. Yes it removes lands but people's decks should still be able to function on 5 lands.
I think people have lost the plot on my Armageddon is bad to the point where they will complain about a stone rain. The issue is that it hurts people who aren't ramping disproportionately and unless you combo with it you just ruined the game. Something like Natural Balance or Urza's Sylex (Urza less so because it fully wipes the board) will hurt someone who over ramped way more.
The best way to improve your commander experience is to stop having winning be your primary goal. I still play to win but I also take pride in being enough of a threat to be targeted or being the player who causes the threat to lose by interacting with key pieces. People value winning so much that I’ve seen less and less interaction, and in the process, clogging the board to make a game drag. I’m glad that Tomer brought up being less salty but that’s only a step in the process.
I think I'm going to work on getting more comfortable with searching my deck for stuff this year. I don't really like shuffling because I have small hands, making it take awhile, so I usually don't play anything that searches my library. For the most part this is fine (I don't care much for tutors in my deck even outside of shuffling), but where it really hurts is with land ramp (or in my case, catch-up ramp, since I mostly play white)
My brother has a hard time shuffling and when I built a commander deck for him I avoided evolving wilds and rampant growth effects, and WOW is it hard to build a good ramp package in green or white deck without searching your library
Yeah, it's been a challenge, lol, especially in mono-white-thankfully, artifact removal isn't super common in my playgroup, so I've been able to get by with artifact-based acceleration for the most part
My suggestion for one commander clash week is, to play decks made only from cards from supplemental sets. No standard sets, no modern horizons. This way we could see more unknown and less staple cards.
A friend of mine has an Osgir deck, that I think might just give Crim an aneurysm. It's a Boros artifact deck that usually gets more lands onto the battlefield than most green decks.
For Crim regarding punishing land ramp, manabarbs + War's Toll maybe? Opps pretty much have to choose how much mana to float when they begin to cast their first spell. Do they tap all 12 forests for mana and take the 12 damage or do they only tap 4 for mana and let the rest get tapped down by War's Toll?
I think it is easy for people to dismiss others as "salty" when those people are sometimes justified in making sure they were understood. If people just don't say anything, then nothing will ever change.
Crim: To punish all the land ramp: Make some kind of Rakdos deck with Polluted Bonds, Manabarbs, Ankh of Mishra, Price of Progress, Zo-Zu the Punisher, Storm Cauldron, etc.
Also the idea that you are hoping that somebody else pops off isn't really the best way to evaluate that card yeah sure that card is better when somebody is popping off really it is like a non-threatening ruristic study it's something that has the potential to gain you advantage throughout the game and it doesn't draw the ire that rystic study does
Also also hands down the best phrase that you could utter at a table is will you marry me and then play wedding ring especially if nobody knows that you're playing that card
I think the problem with combos is that the whole deck can end up being about it. I personaly really like thinking up combos and love magic for it, but when playing it out, most combos are only fun while they're novelty. once you pull it out once no one thinks it's cool the next time, and since you have the combo in the deck, (i) it's by default the best thing your deck can do, so not going for it and building to optimize feels wrong, as it’s always the “correct”choice and (ii) once everyone knows about the combo, they (rightfully) know they have to take you out before it happens, which in turn makes it so optimizing to get to the combo even more important. It's a slippery slope for the deck to be consumed by the combo even if it was not the original intention.
For example, i’ve recently got excited about the idea of a spykit secret commander deck. Ardenn attaching it to an opponent’s creature and exiling all non-legendaries from their deck seems hilarious. But the best cards to pair it with are in green, best being verdant succession. Spykit with verdant succession seems like a blast, you could make a toolbox style deck. But spykit+verdant succession can actually get any nonlegendary into play…why would i do anything other then grab a sac outlet and proceed to loop worldspine wurm a few times into a craterhoof?
For Crim, I play Confounding conundrum to stop ramp. It is one and a Blue mana enchantment. It cantrips, and then each opponent can essentially only play one land per turn. Otherwise, for each additional land, they bounce one back to hand. Plus, it’s asymmetrical. You’re not blowing anything up, just lightly staxing the rank deck and forcing them to play fair
About punishing green: Looking forward to white Equalizer spells: "Each player has to sac lands, until the all have the same amount as the player with the fewest lands." That way, it's not Armageddon and the game stretches another 2 hours bcs everyone needs 6 turns to rebuild - but no one has three times the lands. Looking at you Simic. There is sufficient artifact hate out there for rocks already. The issue is lands and the only landhate is unfun! We need playable land hate.
I feel a bit called out now. I have 5 commander, 7 modern, 7 pioneer and 8 standard decks. And I don't even want to think about the half decks I have brewing. I do take them all to my LGS, someone is always looking for a deck for whatever format is running
I wholeheartedly agree with Seth. I just don't run cards I don't like, even if they are good. Other people can run the Smothering Tithes, Cyclonic Rifts, and Rhystic Studies. I just won't. I've been cutting Sol Ring for the same reason.
I have to agree with Joey about Crim (as I did when I watched the edhrec podcast!). From a spectator POV it often looks like Crim brings some really "mean" stuff, things that may usually be considered "feel bads", but he does it all in good fun and he never gets salty when he's on the receiving end. And that's great, I could see myself having a laugh getting oppo agent'd or narset/windfall'd with someone like that. In contrast: I know a specific player who's all laughs and jokes when he's doing the "mean" stuff, but he gets salty when it's done to him, and that sucks almighty brushwaggs. Also: after a lifetime of the same playgroup I've recently joined the TCC discord and it's been really cool putting those social skills to use with strangers. I'd like to think that I've been a chill person in those games, but in the wise words of Daft Punk: _our work is never over_
Crim is truly my people sometimes. I just keep making more decks. At first i was trying to do every color pairing. But then there were just too many great new commanders and now i have 59 decks with like 4 in the works.
for crims problem i like to play all the do not search effects if possible meaning aven mindsensor and leonin arbiter too. (i think there is even more) and then ank of mishra or confounding connondrum work really well
I have a question for yall. Does it feel better to win with a deck full of staples or win with a deck that was built to have max synergy and its goal is to “do the thing”? For me it is the second. I expect to win with my powerful/expensive decks. But when I win with my synergy or themed deck it feels better.
Armageddon may be to drastic for punishing ramp, because everyone needs to build up their lands again and the game just takes longer. But what about effects which equalize the lands in play? Balance is banned, there are still other cards like the white sorcery “Balancing Act”. Or the blue enchantment “Land Equilibrium”. I would be interested what your opinion is of those kind of cards. And are those worth playing?
Land Equilibrium sounds great! I might put a proxy in all my blue decks to get a quick Feedback on the card in different scenarios. It might give certain players like cascade/discover or treasure an Advantage, but lets find out. Balancing act seems to fall a bit more into the category 'everything you did so far doesn't matter'.
On the note of cutting staples/expensive cards. I don't like playing repeats across the collections. That way, every deck has its own unique form of power.
39:53 confounding conundrum is probably one of the best punishes for green decks. Or play tons of white catch up ramp and play with their own ramp. Knight of the White Orchid, Deep Gnome Terramancer, Archeomancer’s map, Scholarship Sponsor is group huggy but it makes it so everyone can play on par with the green decks. I played against an atraxa last week and they ramped super hard with Rhystic Study drawing cards and a Exploration out. Very cancerous. Had 6 mana turn 2 with a sol ring.
I really want to see more cards to punish Green in the vein of Confounding Conundrum. Cards that punish your opponent for playing more than one land in a turn. I really like Confounding Conundrum and if I played in stronger pods I would probably jam it into every blue deck I own. It doesn't do anything to harm the players at the table with less access to land ramp, especially since a lot of the colorless land ramp such as Wayfayer's Bauble and Navigation Orb etc can be done at instant speed and hence get around the effect. It's not a perfect answer, obviously the effect can play badly into some board states such as like Azusa in a landfall deck and it also punishes fetch lands which is not great but it's the best answer I've seen printed so far.
My collection is far less X amount of decks, and more X amount of commanders - and then a pile of cards. I build and rebuild constantly, making large or small changes. This past year has been much more drastic, but it's emblematic of my collection. My favourite commander is Muldrotha, the Gravetide. The last eighteen times our group has assembled, I've played Muldrotha - but each session was a new decklist. Mono-black, Artifacts, Spellseeker meme, Mutate, mill, Lhurgoyfs, Emerge, andsoforth. Some commanders I play are pretty predictable in what they do (Hazezon, Henzie, Roon), but the exact list still varies constantly - but Windgrace/Soul of, Muldrotha and even Vaevictis are a bit of a toss-up as to what I'm planning on doing. Additionally, I'll occasionally grab a random Legendary I have and play that, for example a Humans & Demons Chainer deck. Our group's powerlevel pushes out a fair amount of staples (plus budgetary restrictions of real life for some of those, lol), but as an example not only do I not miss Farewell, I don't want to see Farewell anyways. Tragic Arrogance and The Eternal Wanderer are not full-on wraths, but that's exactly why I much prefer these effects: the game doesn't come to a complete halt from just one card resolving. Plus, you get to choose who gets to keep their fun toys, and who is holding onto a Food for dear life. I find these lead to a more fun game, even if they're mostly Just Weaker. I like that middling tier of power, it leaves so much more room for cards that people simply really like but aren't great.
I am a dabbler in alterations and I have altered maybe 4-5 dozen commons and uncommons most of which I've given to friends but I started putting them in my own decks just because it personalizes my deck more than anything else I can think of. Despite many of them being subpar or just bad. I guess, for me, I should actually play more paper EDH this year. Last year I think I played maybe 4 games total in paper. About killing Ramp: Steal their win cons. Praetor's Grasp for example.
I dunno, being salty is a valid response sometimes - I played a game where my deck with 38 lands required SEVEN free mulligans because 6 of those hands had 0 lands and one only had Mountain Stronghold and I got hated out first by the kid playing a moxfielded Animar deck (that I'm pretty sure was loaded up with so much Temur Goodstuff that it was worth more than the rest of our decks combined) when literally all I'd managed to do once I finally got a hand with lands was get a Feldon on the field...with nothing in my grave. And like, 3 lands. Nothing else.
Run more decks that are equally powerful to the table but frowned upon. For example my discard deck elicits groans from the table but once the game begins, folks enjoy it. Limited resources lead to more strategic plays than just make a ton and win. Chaos, stax, etc are all great ways to spice matches up. People dislike these hurdles but they make the game a challenge and it helps players improve. I’m not saying every game needs to be that but 1 in 10 games will not kill anyone. Heck, they might like it.
4:21 I want Richard to play a 4+ card combo. I immediately thought of golgari value and something like meren with yawgmoth and mikeaus. A “hidden commander” deck of sorts.
I play with decks that pleases me the most. I like creatures and 75% of my decks are aggro. And I'm happy about it. I don't see a bunch of combo players disliking the fact that they only win playing combo decks, so why bother?
I always tell the people I play with, please no mass land destruction, no heavy stax, and try to keep everyone alive till turn 7 or 8. After that end the game haha. Surprisingly it works pretty well for us and my game store!!
Maybe set a maximum of staple cards you are allowed to put in your decks for a couple of clash episodes like 10 or so not counting lands maybe and see where it goes. But than is the question what is a staple 😅. If it's the top 50 played cards per colour maybe that works🤔
I will say in Commander there's a difference to other games, in Commander you can negotiate for your own survival and maybe that element brings more bad feelings when someone gets focused down, as they don't even really have an ability to negotiate since the game hasn't kicked off.
Combos are hated for 2 main reasons (in my opinion): 1 It changes the way games are played, in part because you need to know combos to counter them and playing against combo generally requires more instant speed interaction, both things casual players dont realy want to bother with too much. 2 They usually end the game, if not immideately interacted with, or put the combo player in a position were a fair deck generally no longer has a chance of winning (no fair deck beats infinite life unless they can go for commander damage as an example).
35:45 land ramp punishers: Confounding Conundrum Fall of the Thran (equalizes lands to 4) Keldon Firebombers (sac all but 3 lands) Limited Resources (sac all but 5, can't get more) From the Ashes Balancing Act (get those additional permanents out of here) Natural Balance (set all players lands to 5) Archon of Emeria (punishes nonbasics, especially fetches, but not ramp per se)
I try to avoid cards that punish the non-rampers as well. I would say the targeted removal options are more favored. ConCon is great, and so is Volcanic Offering.
Best Way to make Games more fun: Up your tables' mana curve.
3 mana rocks have gotten awesome, play splashier and more expensive bombs, make your interaction up a bit more expensive but a bit more impactful, etc. In my experience that has what has made my table loads more fun to play at. And also, surprisingly, makes games faster.
I think the best way to compliment other players is interaction. Show them that you respect their alligator combo by counter spelling the pieces.
A counter spell is just as likely to make them feel bad. Depends on your playgroup.
Alligators are a sleeper, be careful
@@danielsniff6405it's a joke.
@@danielsniff6405 whoooosh
@danielsniff6405 if a counterspell makes your playgroup feel bad, then they deserve to feel bad.
They don't wanna play magic, they wanna play solitaire.
The most important part of enjoying Commander is simply who you play with.
That's honestly what makes it such a miserable format. Regular Magic you can just sit and go with anyone and have a pretty good time. Commander requires you to know people who see the game the same way that you do.
@@jeffe2267 I think that is both its strength and its weakness. Being far less competitive than 2 player formats can really make it more enjoyable with a fun group but in the end, one bad apple spoils the bunch.
I prefer Commander amongst friends but 2 player formats tend to be more enjoyable at an LGS.
I never want to play a game that I just want to move on from. If that is a situation I find myself in often, then I am just playing the wrong place/game.@marshallscot
@@Dragon_Fyre definitely a strength and a weakness, the casual multiplayer aspect has potential to make each game of the most fun multiplayer tabletop experiences you can have, period (as is evident by its commercial success), or a horrible experience depending on the social cohesion of the group
Every game you have will have 1/4th the same pod every time, too.
Best way to have more fun is to make sure your deck can “do its thing” without that automatically meaning you won. So if you can do the cool thing even on games you lose, you won’t feel like your deck “didn’t work that game”. I’ve had plenty of games where I lost but got to “pop off” (to an extent) and it was still a fun game.
Tbh this is my defense for playing "staples" in less than competitive decks. I think it's totally reasonable to sol ring signet demonic tutor if it's just to get your silly strategy online. It's no fun to play against an opponent who just waffles not able to cast their spells.
@@ekuude yeah I totally agree with that!
totally unrelated but you guys all look really great this year so far. whatever self care ya'll are doin keep it up.
Thanks!
As a big fighting gamer, I gotta say the segment with the MVC2 was so surreal because it felt my two favorite things were merging together. MTG and fighting games! Rock on guys another great episode. PS when we getting the universe beyond MVC2 cross over?
Dearest Goldfish,
Some land destruction ideas: Keldon Firebombers, Natural Balance, Thoughts of Ruin. Some older cards only destroy so many. Thoughts of Ruin is just great 👍
first 2 are nice!! Thoughts of Ruin though hits the non-ramp players the hardest..
and likely sets Crim to 0 lands himself xD
jank decks are fine depending on the playgroup, if you want to play a fun but "underpowered" deck usually the other players won't pick on you, allowing you to progress your gameplan and have more fun with the other players rather than stomp them with a full stape deck
On playing less staples, i usually lean towards synergy. There are some cards where i say "this deck is the only one where i could play this card" so it goes in, even if its strictly worse than a more staply alternative. That allows me to experiment with more cards :)
I’m currently trying to build Kykar with some weird “Spirit Matters” cards instead of strictly Storm. Hopefully that helps me build a mid-power goofy deck.
The best way for my group to keep enjoying the game we play each week.
Force ourselves to play against our own decks. It keeps us honest and we all understand the power levels we play at.
In terms of consistency I've really liked not having Sol Ring in my decks. I've found it to be like rigging a randomly triggered NOS to a VW Beetle.
Confounding Conundrum is maybe a good way in which to curb land ramp... put a once per turn limit on lands entering the battlefield essentially.
confounding conundrum is the card to punish ramp! Also stops fetches, such a nice budget options to contend with green decks
For playing without staples, I feel like this group is well set up to experiment with this concept.
What if you took a whole season where you put a limit on the number of times you can play a card? Teferi's protection can only be in one of your decks in the season for example (or maybe 2 if that seems crazy).
i'm so with seth on the not feeling bad about killing someone, I have a tron deck and if i get off to a good start i will just kill someone on turn 4 but the act of killing someone just feels so bad in the early turns 😭
If they have no defense they deserve it. Magic is NOT ramp ramp ramp bombs. Gotta show folks that.
Confounding conundrum is a card I’ve been adding to my blue decks to help against ramp
100%
It can end up backfiring against landfall decks though.
@@jaywinner328 I run this in my landfall deck to punish other people for trying to ramp. If I I'm playing against another landfall deck I usually will hold it in hand which feels bad but its great against normal ramp.
I have been playing a lot of "bad" blue enchantments, Land Equilibrium, Dream Tides, Energy Flux, Pendrell Mists, Disruption Field, Meishin Mind Cage... To turtle up, and yeah, sometimes you draw them and it's just bad, but you are in blue, you have looting effects. And if I see more enchantress, maybe Aura Flux.
I have had almost no issue with other people ramping these days. I think the sheer numbers game doesn't always equate as such.
I'm really big on ditching staples for worse versions of themselves. It's a lot of fun to express creativity and deckbuilding skill, as opposed to just slamming a universally and quite generally good card.
Richard doesn't seem to understand what Seth meant by "play less staples, play more unique cards" though. Sure, in a sense, he's playing strictly worse cards, but that's not the same as running terrible cards.
Unique card that’s a bit worse v staple is a favorite of mine de-optimizing decks.
What's funny is that the cards we are talking about are not even bad for the game at large. It's just that the "staples" are not well balanced for the format to keep a proper pace. It's almost like we are actively fixing the game by making this choice.
Specific advice for Tomer on learning to play faster: the only way to get better at playing faster is to just force yourself to play faster. Get yourself a chess timer and set it to a number that's slightly uncomfortable (but doable) and adhere to it. Every so often, take 5 seconds or so off the timer.
People will say "the best way to learn how to play faster is to just play more" and that's absolutely untrue. If you play methodically 100% of the time, playing more will just reinforce your ability to play methodically.
You may also find some success in just learning how to think about lines faster by playing a video game where APM truly matters and quick thinking goes hand in hand with winning.
I do agree on the weaker combos needing to be more permitted. I run a Slimefoot and Squee deck, and I can combo kill with Atsushi, the Blazing Sky, Ashnod's Altar, and Zulaport Cutthroat. There are a few redundancies in the deck, but I never feel bad when I win that way. It takes my commander, a very specific creature, a specific artifact, a payoff, and like 8+ mana to set up. It can also be relatively easily interacted with, especially by people who know the deck.
Stranglehold is the card to punish Ramp Players (and also prevent extra turns). It seems like it doesn't do a whole lot, so try it out in your meta in Decks that loot a lot so you can discard it if you don't need it. But you should definitely try it.
An underrated way to punish ramp decks is with Mind Twist effects. If somebody goes all-in on ramp you can snipe the payoff before they get to cast it. I like Mindslicer, Awaken the Erstwhile, Mind Twist, Head Games, etc, for achieving this result.
57:29 I'm the complete opposite, I have around 70 decks. Love all of them, and keep making more.
But I'm also an enabler, I like lending out decks. So this way I can ask "Any preferred colors or themes?" And grab something that matches.
(I might also be trying to make 2 of every color combination, without the decks feeling samey)
...70? Holy 🙀. I had 5 at my peak and thought it was excessive lollll
Landfall usually has land recursion and 2-4 pieces of it or a payoff for killing lands. Like Titania or something that gets out of control when their lands die. 40:52
Also, Volcanic Offering is such a good card to consider to correct the unbalance of ramp at the table. Not sure why that one was lost here... I feel like sometimes the solutions to the problems you guys face so often tend to be extreme. I agree with comments here that Confounding Conundrum is another type of card to consider too.
1:22 in and I gotta say I love Crim trolling the table. Dont kill Crim first 😂... but if you do, since I just found out about Crim's music talents from the other podcast, Im putting in a request that if Crim dies first, he picks up a guitar and rocks a background soundtrack for the rest of clash (whilst simultaneously giving commentary of course)
Crim is a special breed of player that WANTS to be knocked out first to prove he got a reaction. I know that would not fly well with most circles I play in... I think people enjoy it more when everyone is at similar play levels and have fair chances towards the end. I'd hate for anyone to have to be knocked out early.
If you want to punish ramp, you can use Confounding Conundrum or Tunnel Ignus. Nice video guys!
My favourite way to deal with ramp decks whilst avoiding negativity is Nature's Balance. It makes everyone end up with 5 lands (either by sacrificing down, or tutoring up basics into play). Great way to level the playing field to a state where everyone can still play their cards. Also allows for breaking symmetry with things like bounce lands.
Here, I wish to improve this list so as to ensure it does actually make games fun for everyone at the table:
1) Play surprising new versions of decks/commanders.
2) Aim to make sure nobody can be salty from the experience you bring.
3) Play no clear combos. Be more incidental.
4) Be the change you want to see.
5) Play cards that are unexpected but entertaining.
6) Practice your decks in a more realistic fashion.
7) Play your own ramp, and maybe keep targeted land removal available.
8) Have good reasons for knocking into people and people out of the game.
9) Play cards that look cool, but be ready to explain the unreadable gibberish.
10) Be deliberate about your decks you keep.
11) Understand artifact deck potentials, but also keep artifact removal like "Heliod's Intervention".
12) Play less "staples".
1:08:07 "Squirrels have skeletons too - on the inside" 😂😂😂
Ive found that Archaeomancer's Map and/or Confounding Conundrum has worked pretty well against our ramp players. Although landfall decks usually find Confounding Conundrum more of a benefit than a hinderance so be careful with that
i usually try to fit 5-15 staples in my decks depending on color, my first step in building a deck I'm going through all cards I own and hopefully find enough cards that is close enough.
Hey Crim if you ever see this, as an avid artifict player the answer is play green. there is SO MUCH hate in green that will kill me and some that can basically lock me out. lots of it is quite old but just search keyword artifact in green and look for the hate pieces.
become the 4c control player you were always meant to be!
in blue that girl that can search enemy libraries to steal artifacts rights out of them is also just a fun hate card that at worst steals some mana rocks.
the real secret though is you build an all artifact hate deck and put in mycosynth lattice. its 1 deck but the effect is your entire deck is built around punishing the card type youre forcing everyone to play.
Every color has an interaction to balance heavy ramp, just some need more ways to interact.
Catch up ramp in white
LD in red
Counters in blue
Oppo agent and tutors in black (quality over quantity)
Green just races other green
The world need 14h Seth shuffling ASMR!
Dumpstering artifacts is easy- you're right with stony silence, but you also have taxes like Aura of Silence or Kataki, War's Wage to work with.
Tomer: Will try to be less salty. Next week: gets strip mined on turn 1, 2, and 3. Richard proceeds to open a salt mining operation :)
Tomer bringing the less salty comment is him MetaGaming his way into everyone being okay with constant Kiki Combo
@53:00 - Yoichi Ishikawa ? Designer of the art style of Metal Gear Solid/2 !!
Amazing MTG artwork !
I've taken that Tomer approach to commander since I've started the format. If you can appreciate the magic being played by other people it tends to make it more enjoyable. Gotta be there for the content/memes and then everyone enjoys playing with you and aren't salty when you're popping off. Backwards jedi mind trick confirmed 😅
I feel like that is a way to disguise the fact of popping off too well. I think one can genuinely have a great thing happen for the in game without a way to manipulate peoples' impression of it. I know I would be pretty miffed if someone was trying to pretend they didn't bring a 9 to a 6 pod with funny jokes.
Listening to the number of commander decks... I think I have around 30 decks lol - including ones I'm taking apart (which is like... 5 right now)
So I'm playing a combo deck that does have the option of combat killing.
Xyris Writhing Storm, make a load of tokens, summon a Zada Hedron Grinder and then Polymorph the Zada and all the tokens.
The deck plays Purphuros (probably botched the name), Terror of the Peaks, Impact Tremors. So kinda combo/aggro hybrid.
I pitch it as group hug to my friends and use cards like Howling Mine and Rites of Flourishing. Basically to benefit the Xyris and and delay people wanting to kill me.
Richard, try it!
That MVC2 cabinet is sick!
The vision of Tomer saying 'Itsa Kiki, Combo!' in a terrible Mario voice will hunt my dreams/nightmares.
I actively avoid staples in certain decks, and I love relatively grindy decks... if you've never tried to find a home for Banshee, (only The Dark versions need apply obv), consider it! Similarly, Orcish Artillery is actually a fine Commander card, both are dying for Lifelink and Deathtouch, both shine bright with a Scavenged Brawler's tokens, both like Gift of Doom, just such good cards that people look at and say 'oh well, it won't kill their finisher so it's a bad card, I guess I'll just let them build up mana dorks derp derp!'.
Also, Crim, my boy, run Dwarven Miner (he's the thirstiest dwarf in all of fantasy), but also run Dwarven Blastminer. The effect is actually so good you NEED two of it.
Confounding conundrum! Shuts off green ramp decks great and it’s blue
Crim gripes about artifact recursion but plays Karn in every deck to recur his exiled ones. 🤔
Hot take maybe, but people SHOULD be playing more basic land cards these days. There SHOULD be downsides to running nonbasics, and things like From the Ashes, Ruination, and Blood Moon are there to equalize it. If you want to be greedy AF with your mana base, you should expect, and deserve, to get punished for it. That kind of power doesn't exist in a vacuum. Run basics, run fetches to get basics, and expect to get dumpstered because you're so effing greedy with your mana base.
If you’re OK with those cards, you’re either OK with mass land destruction or a hypocrite.
There is a huge difference in cards that punish your opponents with those that effectively lock them out of the game.
@@Dragon_Fyre I'm perfectly fine with land destruction! I run a lot of basics in my decks and ways to fetch out basics. I have a full complement of dual lands and tri-lands, but I do my best not to pack my decks with so many non-basics that they're functionally worthless in the face of a blood moon. There should be a real oppourtunity cost to including nonbasics. You can't get a perfect manabase without paying the piper, and it's real sour grapes moments to poopoo punishing someone's risky manabase. You can run five colour decks with fetchlands and basics just fine, especially with the new complement of fetches from New Capenna.
What defines being greedy and not?
@@KaldarisX All things come with a price. I don’t like players that play “targeting land destruction” like the cards you mentioned, so as soon as someone attempts to play one, it’s probably going to be my sole purpose in that game to just single out that player as the target of every action I take thereafter to set an example for the future. STAX or “board wipe decks (not having them but where that’s the focus of the deck)” are the other actions people can take, where I will no longer care about the game, I’m just focused on being spiteful at that point and will even declare to the other 2 players they are now safe. Far as I’m concerned, that player is just there to ruin everyone else’s fun…
@aklepatzky @@Dragon_Fyre The more you expect to get out of your mana base. The more oppourtunity cost there *should* be to running it. As I said. Power and flexibility like that doesn't come in a vacuum. Targeted hate cards are there to punish people who refuse to run a decent amount of basics in their decks. I, personally, think it's unreasonable for people to have Kamigawa Channel-lands, Cabal Coffers, Shrines of Nyx, Gaia's Cradles, Tri-lands, utility lands, and so many other nonbasics and somehow think that what you're doing gets to be absolved of any kind of targeted disruption. By and large, commander players have become enormous, whiny babies in the face of any kind of talk about mana disruption, they want their precious perfect mana base to be safe. But it isn't supposed to be, by design. It's only a lax social construct that keeps your mana base from being targeted. I'm more than happy to run Back to Basics or Blood Moon in any relevant deck to punish people that insist on using NOTHING but non-basics for their decks. To Aklepatzky, your deck is greedy when you're running a minimal amount of basics. Consider Tomer saying his five colour deck has 'one basic' in it. That's greedy as heck. Basics exist for a reason. They're the most undisturbed and undisrupted kind of land. If you want security, use basics. Use fetches to get basics. When I see a deck that only has like six or seven basic lands in it, that's a greedy mana base and prime for disruption!
Karn is in my Okaun Zndrsplt deck and is so good, no ability is wasted.
Stax. Recur the Kraark Thumb from exile, or turn it into a creature for cloning.
Came here to comment that Ruination effects are the least effective on the ramp deck 8 seconds before Tomer brought it up. The only decks I run with more than 3-5 basics are my green ramp decks.
If I had to suggest one thing for Tomer to work on it’s if he’s playing a tribal deck, play creatures from that actual tribe!
But Maskwood Nexus makes all peoples every tribe!
I would really like if you started playing armageddon etc unironically for a season, see how it affects the games.
Id wager you could potentially sway a lot of stigma against these effects by doing it, and with Phil back it is prime time to dunk on green!
So for me when I have issues against people that ramp too many lands I run Natural Balance. It's not really an Armageddon but it sets everyone's land total to 5. Yes it removes lands but people's decks should still be able to function on 5 lands.
I think people have lost the plot on my Armageddon is bad to the point where they will complain about a stone rain. The issue is that it hurts people who aren't ramping disproportionately and unless you combo with it you just ruined the game. Something like Natural Balance or Urza's Sylex (Urza less so because it fully wipes the board) will hurt someone who over ramped way more.
I tried something new this year, putting the helm of hosts on the mondrak in my Ursa construct deck. Kicking out 2048 contructs is pretty funny.
The best way to improve your commander experience is to stop having winning be your primary goal. I still play to win but I also take pride in being enough of a threat to be targeted or being the player who causes the threat to lose by interacting with key pieces. People value winning so much that I’ve seen less and less interaction, and in the process, clogging the board to make a game drag.
I’m glad that Tomer brought up being less salty but that’s only a step in the process.
I think I'm going to work on getting more comfortable with searching my deck for stuff this year. I don't really like shuffling because I have small hands, making it take awhile, so I usually don't play anything that searches my library. For the most part this is fine (I don't care much for tutors in my deck even outside of shuffling), but where it really hurts is with land ramp (or in my case, catch-up ramp, since I mostly play white)
My brother has a hard time shuffling and when I built a commander deck for him I avoided evolving wilds and rampant growth effects, and WOW is it hard to build a good ramp package in green or white deck without searching your library
Yeah, it's been a challenge, lol, especially in mono-white-thankfully, artifact removal isn't super common in my playgroup, so I've been able to get by with artifact-based acceleration for the most part
My suggestion for one commander clash week is, to play decks made only from cards from supplemental sets. No standard sets, no modern horizons. This way we could see more unknown and less staple cards.
A friend of mine has an Osgir deck, that I think might just give Crim an aneurysm. It's a Boros artifact deck that usually gets more lands onto the battlefield than most green decks.
For Crim regarding punishing land ramp, manabarbs + War's Toll maybe? Opps pretty much have to choose how much mana to float when they begin to cast their first spell. Do they tap all 12 forests for mana and take the 12 damage or do they only tap 4 for mana and let the rest get tapped down by War's Toll?
I think it is easy for people to dismiss others as "salty" when those people are sometimes justified in making sure they were understood. If people just don't say anything, then nothing will ever change.
I know you will probably never read this Crim but confounding conundrum is a card I use to stop ramp decks.
Crim: To punish all the land ramp: Make some kind of Rakdos deck with Polluted Bonds, Manabarbs, Ankh of Mishra, Price of Progress, Zo-Zu the Punisher, Storm Cauldron, etc.
Storm cauldron is a solid mld spell without destroying any lands. And if the green player ends their turn with 15+ cards in hand, that's on them
28:13 wedding ring absolutely plays better than it looks on paper I've never been disappointed by that card
Also the idea that you are hoping that somebody else pops off isn't really the best way to evaluate that card yeah sure that card is better when somebody is popping off really it is like a non-threatening ruristic study it's something that has the potential to gain you advantage throughout the game and it doesn't draw the ire that rystic study does
Also also hands down the best phrase that you could utter at a table is will you marry me and then play wedding ring especially if nobody knows that you're playing that card
I think the problem with combos is that the whole deck can end up being about it. I personaly really like thinking up combos and love magic for it, but when playing it out, most combos are only fun while they're novelty. once you pull it out once no one thinks it's cool the next time, and since you have the combo in the deck, (i) it's by default the best thing your deck can do, so not going for it and building to optimize feels wrong, as it’s always the “correct”choice and (ii) once everyone knows about the combo, they (rightfully) know they have to take you out before it happens, which in turn makes it so optimizing to get to the combo even more important.
It's a slippery slope for the deck to be consumed by the combo even if it was not the original intention.
For example, i’ve recently got excited about the idea of a spykit secret commander deck. Ardenn attaching it to an opponent’s creature and exiling all non-legendaries from their deck seems hilarious. But the best cards to pair it with are in green, best being verdant succession. Spykit with verdant succession seems like a blast, you could make a toolbox style deck. But spykit+verdant succession can actually get any nonlegendary into play…why would i do anything other then grab a sac outlet and proceed to loop worldspine wurm a few times into a craterhoof?
@Crim, you gotta play Confounding Conundrum to punish the ramp decks.
For Crim, I play Confounding conundrum to stop ramp. It is one and a Blue mana enchantment. It cantrips, and then each opponent can essentially only play one land per turn. Otherwise, for each additional land, they bounce one back to hand. Plus, it’s asymmetrical. You’re not blowing anything up, just lightly staxing the rank deck and forcing them to play fair
About punishing green:
Looking forward to white Equalizer spells:
"Each player has to sac lands, until the all have the same amount as the player with the fewest lands."
That way, it's not Armageddon and the game stretches another 2 hours bcs everyone needs 6 turns to rebuild - but no one has three times the lands. Looking at you Simic.
There is sufficient artifact hate out there for rocks already.
The issue is lands and the only landhate is unfun!
We need playable land hate.
Crim's New Year's Resolutions - Give win-cons a try in Commander...
I feel a bit called out now. I have 5 commander, 7 modern, 7 pioneer and 8 standard decks. And I don't even want to think about the half decks I have brewing. I do take them all to my LGS, someone is always looking for a deck for whatever format is running
49:50 I already get how I build my decks roasted enough, I don’t need them roasting how I build a sandwich
I wholeheartedly agree with Seth. I just don't run cards I don't like, even if they are good. Other people can run the Smothering Tithes, Cyclonic Rifts, and Rhystic Studies. I just won't. I've been cutting Sol Ring for the same reason.
Thats fine, ill still run mine and have a better wr = more fun
@@aklepatzky Exactly, everybody gets what they want.
I have to agree with Joey about Crim (as I did when I watched the edhrec podcast!).
From a spectator POV it often looks like Crim brings some really "mean" stuff, things that may usually be considered "feel bads", but he does it all in good fun and he never gets salty when he's on the receiving end. And that's great, I could see myself having a laugh getting oppo agent'd or narset/windfall'd with someone like that.
In contrast: I know a specific player who's all laughs and jokes when he's doing the "mean" stuff, but he gets salty when it's done to him, and that sucks almighty brushwaggs.
Also: after a lifetime of the same playgroup I've recently joined the TCC discord and it's been really cool putting those social skills to use with strangers. I'd like to think that I've been a chill person in those games, but in the wise words of Daft Punk: _our work is never over_
Crim is truly my people sometimes. I just keep making more decks. At first i was trying to do every color pairing. But then there were just too many great new commanders and now i have 59 decks with like 4 in the works.
for crims problem i like to play all the do not search effects if possible meaning aven mindsensor and leonin arbiter too. (i think there is even more) and then ank of mishra or confounding connondrum work really well
I have a question for yall. Does it feel better to win with a deck full of staples or win with a deck that was built to have max synergy and its goal is to “do the thing”?
For me it is the second. I expect to win with my powerful/expensive decks. But when I win with my synergy or themed deck it feels better.
I don't run extra turn cards or tutors. I also try to be somewhat fair at the table so everyone has the illusion of victory...
Man I love having a ton of commander decks, I do feel like they are all generally tribal though, than maybe like 1ish in each main archetype.
Armageddon may be to drastic for punishing ramp, because everyone needs to build up their lands again and the game just takes longer.
But what about effects which equalize the lands in play?
Balance is banned, there are still other cards like the white sorcery “Balancing Act”. Or the blue enchantment “Land Equilibrium”.
I would be interested what your opinion is of those kind of cards.
And are those worth playing?
Land Equilibrium sounds great! I might put a proxy in all my blue decks to get a quick Feedback on the card in different scenarios. It might give certain players like cascade/discover or treasure an Advantage, but lets find out.
Balancing act seems to fall a bit more into the category 'everything you did so far doesn't matter'.
Confounding conundrum Crim....Confounding conundrum
Oh man. I have like 14 decks - some playable, some skeletons - but only about 6 of them are in rotation at any given time. 😅
I have 20-odd decks. A lot less then crim though!
I took your guys' advice and built a mono blue. Oops, no counter spells deck. 😂🎉
Crim looks like The Worm from Labyrinth. No shade. That worm was a cool guy.
@Crim Confounding Conundrum punishes land ramp w/o land destruction
I have already started taking apart some of my decks because I have too many.
On the note of cutting staples/expensive cards. I don't like playing repeats across the collections. That way, every deck has its own unique form of power.
39:53 confounding conundrum is probably one of the best punishes for green decks. Or play tons of white catch up ramp and play with their own ramp. Knight of the White Orchid, Deep Gnome Terramancer, Archeomancer’s map, Scholarship Sponsor is group huggy but it makes it so everyone can play on par with the green decks. I played against an atraxa last week and they ramped super hard with Rhystic Study drawing cards and a Exploration out. Very cancerous. Had 6 mana turn 2 with a sol ring.
I really want to see more cards to punish Green in the vein of Confounding Conundrum. Cards that punish your opponent for playing more than one land in a turn. I really like Confounding Conundrum and if I played in stronger pods I would probably jam it into every blue deck I own. It doesn't do anything to harm the players at the table with less access to land ramp, especially since a lot of the colorless land ramp such as Wayfayer's Bauble and Navigation Orb etc can be done at instant speed and hence get around the effect. It's not a perfect answer, obviously the effect can play badly into some board states such as like Azusa in a landfall deck and it also punishes fetch lands which is not great but it's the best answer I've seen printed so far.
My collection is far less X amount of decks, and more X amount of commanders - and then a pile of cards. I build and rebuild constantly, making large or small changes. This past year has been much more drastic, but it's emblematic of my collection. My favourite commander is Muldrotha, the Gravetide. The last eighteen times our group has assembled, I've played Muldrotha - but each session was a new decklist. Mono-black, Artifacts, Spellseeker meme, Mutate, mill, Lhurgoyfs, Emerge, andsoforth. Some commanders I play are pretty predictable in what they do (Hazezon, Henzie, Roon), but the exact list still varies constantly - but Windgrace/Soul of, Muldrotha and even Vaevictis are a bit of a toss-up as to what I'm planning on doing. Additionally, I'll occasionally grab a random Legendary I have and play that, for example a Humans & Demons Chainer deck.
Our group's powerlevel pushes out a fair amount of staples (plus budgetary restrictions of real life for some of those, lol), but as an example not only do I not miss Farewell, I don't want to see Farewell anyways. Tragic Arrogance and The Eternal Wanderer are not full-on wraths, but that's exactly why I much prefer these effects: the game doesn't come to a complete halt from just one card resolving. Plus, you get to choose who gets to keep their fun toys, and who is holding onto a Food for dear life. I find these lead to a more fun game, even if they're mostly Just Weaker. I like that middling tier of power, it leaves so much more room for cards that people simply really like but aren't great.
I am a dabbler in alterations and I have altered maybe 4-5 dozen commons and uncommons most of which I've given to friends but I started putting them in my own decks just because it personalizes my deck more than anything else I can think of. Despite many of them being subpar or just bad.
I guess, for me, I should actually play more paper EDH this year. Last year I think I played maybe 4 games total in paper.
About killing Ramp: Steal their win cons. Praetor's Grasp for example.
Oh and speaking of cute art, Minn is fun looking: A gnome riding a polar bear! Weeeeeee!
I dunno, being salty is a valid response sometimes - I played a game where my deck with 38 lands required SEVEN free mulligans because 6 of those hands had 0 lands and one only had Mountain Stronghold and I got hated out first by the kid playing a moxfielded Animar deck (that I'm pretty sure was loaded up with so much Temur Goodstuff that it was worth more than the rest of our decks combined) when literally all I'd managed to do once I finally got a hand with lands was get a Feldon on the field...with nothing in my grave. And like, 3 lands. Nothing else.
CRIM's good boi in the background!
Run more decks that are equally powerful to the table but frowned upon. For example my discard deck elicits groans from the table but once the game begins, folks enjoy it. Limited resources lead to more strategic plays than just make a ton and win. Chaos, stax, etc are all great ways to spice matches up. People dislike these hurdles but they make the game a challenge and it helps players improve. I’m not saying every game needs to be that but 1 in 10 games will not kill anyone. Heck, they might like it.
Hey Crim, I don't know how effective it is (I've never actually used it) but you could add Confounding Conundrum to your blue decks to punish ramp.
It's GENERALLY effective but can really backfire against land fall decks.
@@nykthosacolyte5710yeah lol. I tried this card against onmnath bounce lands and lost even harder XD
4:21 I want Richard to play a 4+ card combo. I immediately thought of golgari value and something like meren with yawgmoth and mikeaus. A “hidden commander” deck of sorts.
I play with decks that pleases me the most. I like creatures and 75% of my decks are aggro. And I'm happy about it. I don't see a bunch of combo players disliking the fact that they only win playing combo decks, so why bother?
I always tell the people I play with, please no mass land destruction, no heavy stax, and try to keep everyone alive till turn 7 or 8. After that end the game haha. Surprisingly it works pretty well for us and my game store!!
Maybe set a maximum of staple cards you are allowed to put in your decks for a couple of clash episodes like 10 or so not counting lands maybe and see where it goes. But than is the question what is a staple 😅. If it's the top 50 played cards per colour maybe that works🤔
I will say in Commander there's a difference to other games, in Commander you can negotiate for your own survival and maybe that element brings more bad feelings when someone gets focused down, as they don't even really have an ability to negotiate since the game hasn't kicked off.
Combos are hated for 2 main reasons (in my opinion):
1 It changes the way games are played, in part because you need to know combos to counter them and playing against combo generally requires more instant speed interaction, both things casual players dont realy want to bother with too much.
2 They usually end the game, if not immideately interacted with, or put the combo player in a position were a fair deck generally no longer has a chance of winning (no fair deck beats infinite life unless they can go for commander damage as an example).
35:45 land ramp punishers:
Confounding Conundrum
Fall of the Thran (equalizes lands to 4)
Keldon Firebombers (sac all but 3 lands)
Limited Resources (sac all but 5, can't get more)
From the Ashes
Balancing Act (get those additional permanents out of here)
Natural Balance (set all players lands to 5)
Archon of Emeria (punishes nonbasics, especially fetches, but not ramp per se)
I try to avoid cards that punish the non-rampers as well. I would say the targeted removal options are more favored. ConCon is great, and so is Volcanic Offering.
lmao I went on a building rampage and ended up with 23 sleeved decks in a single year.... 3 unsleeved... I may have a building problem. XD