Okay based on what I've learned about commander, there's basically no way Elsha monk/prowess tribal is very good unless you can give all those boys haste? Or is the prowess explosive enough to make up for that?
Anything tribal or based on creature-based combat besides Edric’s Flying Men and Najeela Technically Warriors is capped on effectiveness and can’t ever be high-level competitive.
Elsha Monk/Prowess tribal seems bad even by those standards, though, as besides Monastery Mentor there are basically no monks remotely good enough to be threatening in EDH via combat, and Elsha is much better when your deck is all spells you can actually cast off the top.
E: Also yes, Elsha is an extremely competitive commander and she will probably be blown up in short order.
I will point that that high-level competitiveness (cEDH) is probably not what you're aiming for. Tribal decks are usually lower on the powerful level depending on how well the tribe is supported (elves and vampires can be scarily effective) but whether they are are going to be fun at your table is more about what other decks are being played.
I'm really looking to play in a mid 75% optimized power level without going off for infinite combos or anything like that, so yeah, cEDH concerns are not applicable to me. It seems like if I tell people "this is Elsha prowess tribal I don't own a divining top" they should understand this isn't some sort of insane combo deck right? Like it has to be possible to play "overpowered" commanders at a moderate level.
Like if you played Narset without extra turns or combat spells.
Okay based on what I've learned about commander, there's basically no way Elsha monk/prowess tribal is very good unless you can give all those boys haste? Or is the prowess explosive enough to make up for that?
Anything tribal or based on creature-based combat besides Edric’s Flying Men and Najeela Technically Warriors is capped on effectiveness and can’t ever be high-level competitive.
Elsha Monk/Prowess tribal seems bad even by those standards, though, as besides Monastery Mentor there are basically no monks remotely good enough to be threatening in EDH via combat, and Elsha is much better when your deck is all spells you can actually cast off the top.
E: Also yes, Elsha is an extremely competitive commander and she will probably be blown up in short order.
I will point that that high-level competitiveness (cEDH) is probably not what you're aiming for. Tribal decks are usually lower on the powerful level depending on how well the tribe is supported (elves and vampires can be scarily effective) but whether they are are going to be fun at your table is more about what other decks are being played.
I'm really looking to play in a mid 75% optimized power level without going off for infinite combos or anything like that, so yeah, cEDH concerns are not applicable to me. It seems like if I tell people "this is Elsha prowess tribal I don't own a divining top" they should understand this isn't some sort of insane combo deck right? Like it has to be possible to play "overpowered" commanders at a moderate level.
Like if you played Narset without extra turns or combat spells.
I would consider 75% optimized and “does not have infinite combos” mutually contradictory, but that’s because EDH power levels are incredibly vast and tons of decks win via infinite combos that are fairly consistent and effective and still can’t hang at cEDH. That said, I would still tend to be slightly suspicious of an Elsha deck like that as there is a better combat-focused Jeskai monk prowess commander so I would assume you planned to do some sort of Elsha Things if you picked her as commander.
Okay based on what I've learned about commander, there's basically no way Elsha monk/prowess tribal is very good unless you can give all those boys haste? Or is the prowess explosive enough to make up for that?
Anything tribal or based on creature-based combat besides Edric’s Flying Men and Najeela Technically Warriors is capped on effectiveness and can’t ever be high-level competitive.
Elsha Monk/Prowess tribal seems bad even by those standards, though, as besides Monastery Mentor there are basically no monks remotely good enough to be threatening in EDH via combat, and Elsha is much better when your deck is all spells you can actually cast off the top.
E: Also yes, Elsha is an extremely competitive commander and she will probably be blown up in short order.
I will point that that high-level competitiveness (cEDH) is probably not what you're aiming for. Tribal decks are usually lower on the powerful level depending on how well the tribe is supported (elves and vampires can be scarily effective) but whether they are are going to be fun at your table is more about what other decks are being played.
I'm really looking to play in a mid 75% optimized power level without going off for infinite combos or anything like that, so yeah, cEDH concerns are not applicable to me. It seems like if I tell people "this is Elsha prowess tribal I don't own a divining top" they should understand this isn't some sort of insane combo deck right? Like it has to be possible to play "overpowered" commanders at a moderate level.
Like if you played Narset without extra turns or combat spells.
I would consider 75% optimized and “does not have infinite combos” mutually contradictory, but that’s because EDH power levels are incredibly vast and tons of decks win via infinite combos that are fairly consistent and effective and still can’t hang at cEDH. That said, I would still tend to be slightly suspicious of an Elsha deck like that as there is a better combat-focused Jeskai monk prowess commander so I would assume you planned to do some sort of Elsha Things if you picked her as commander.
You know you're probably not entirely wrong and my kalamax does have some infinite combos (although it's kind of hard to do what he wants to do without it) but I don't want these to be them to be too easy, consistent, or the primary focus of any given deck. Like maybe there is one but it's slow to come together and is kind of mana and card intensive but it does exist as an outlet to just end the game if it happens to go very long.
I mean, probably what I need to do is just use very few, or mostly mediocre tutors because you can have all the infinite combos you want but it's the finding them consistently part that makes a deck super good.
I feel like I would enjoy a lot more EDH games if it wasn't just "Who can tutor out their combo the fastest?"
Our group views tutoring for a combo as against the spirit of EDH, why bother having a 100 card singleton format if you're working to maximize the chances of seeing the same 2-card combo every game? Groups vary of course and people should probably talk about that kind of stuff before sitting down to play.
Battlenet ID: NullPointer
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ChaosHatHop, hop, hop, HA!Trick of the lightRegistered Userregular
That is exactly how I feel, it should be different every time and you should have to figure out the lines of play based on what you have instead of just conjuring up the exact same win con every time. Furthermore, an infinite combo win feels like the exact same thing no matter how you do it. "This + that + and that means I win unless you have an answer right now." Why even build different decks if they all reduce down to that? So you can experience the same thing with different art and text?
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KwoaruConfident SmirkFlawless Golden PecsRegistered Userregular
That is exactly how I feel, it should be different every time and you should have to figure out the lines of play based on what you have instead of just conjuring up the exact same win con every time. Furthermore, an infinite combo win feels like the exact same thing no matter how you do it. "This + that + and that means I win unless you have an answer right now." Why even build different decks if they all reduce down to that? So you can experience the same thing with different art and text?
This seems as dismissive as if I said "why build tribal aggro? Get 120 points of power on the board and swing every game, just with a different subtype."
I ate an engineer
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KalTorakOne way or another, they all end up inthe Undercity.Registered Userregular
same- I haven't played EDH in a while, but the most fun I have is when the deck is based on synergy between a lot of different cards that work with one effect, usually provided by the commander. Singleton means it'll play out differently each game, but the consistency of commander access means all the weird cards you draw will at least have something to work with. Then you can discover weird combos from there.
I played against a kid in a store once who tutored up a Basalt Monolith and a Power Artifact and then did something with infinite mana. I don't even remember what his commander was, he never cast it. Booooring.
Ever gotten a jumpstart so good it's hard to give up? Like I want to crack some new packets, but look at this thing, it just rolls everything that looks at it.
To actually explain why competitive decks or decks with consistent win conditions are fun, the fun in the game is in navigating the boardstate, playing well to predict and respond to opponent's plays, and getting out a highly efficient engine to take over the game and allow you to win safely. Additionally, competitive decks tend to have extremely unique stack interactions and ways to recover from disruption that can be very fun to navigate.
Like, my kinda tuned Niv Mizzet deck is fun because, even though most games end with me slapping curiosity on Niv, the nature of getting there and disrupting opponents is very fun.
I ate an engineer
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KalTorakOne way or another, they all end up inthe Undercity.Registered Userregular
also even with Curiousity + Niv, you have to do some strategizing. A 4-player game has base 120 life to take down, and you have less than 100 cards to draw.
also even with Curiousity + Niv, you have to do some strategizing. A 4-player game has base 120 life to take down, and you have less than 100 cards to draw.
Technically yes, functionally no. The deck is constructed such that it is almost impossible for me to not draw into additional burn or a way to shuffle my deck back in, and if that is insufficient killing two players and holding two free counterspells up should let me shuffle on my next turn anyway. If I have resolved a draw with curiosity on Niv the game is over unless somebody happened to have a noninstant/sorcery form of enchantment removal with flash
That is exactly how I feel, it should be different every time and you should have to figure out the lines of play based on what you have instead of just conjuring up the exact same win con every time. Furthermore, an infinite combo win feels like the exact same thing no matter how you do it. "This + that + and that means I win unless you have an answer right now." Why even build different decks if they all reduce down to that? So you can experience the same thing with different art and text?
This seems as dismissive as if I said "why build tribal aggro? Get 120 points of power on the board and swing every game, just with a different subtype."
Yeah I would kind of agree. Who needs a ton of tribal decks? Some people will absolutely love it from a collector stand point and that's fine. Why build a bunch of labman decks, or aristocrats decks, or token decks. Some people will obviously love having 5 different slightly different flavors of something but I'd say most people would prefer to have a lot of variety in the game plan and style of play.
I think the difference is all decks can become infinite combo decks if you want them to be. Your tribal deck can go infinite. Your labman deck can. When they all go infinite, yeah, what's the point?
I think it's fairly silly to complain about defined metas in any constructed format.
If you want people to play with what they have rather than another infinite combo, then you have to play draft or cube or sealed.
Otherwise people will go out and buy cards that make their deck more consistent.
Kitchen table magic is different again, where it's more a gentleman's agreement on how powerful a deck should be, but then that's not what I'd be calling competitive anything.
The greedier wotc gets the more i just want to put together a huge pauper battle box and never touch standard or any other constructed format. The price points for everything are just insane. Edh doesnt interest me at all, and coronavirus kinda nuked limited stuff in stores. At least i can play old staples like counterspell as well.
I'm fine with combo-tutoring in EDH as long as everyone at the table knows it's a possible win con to look out for. If you've sat down for casual or even cut-throat casual fun times, I just feel like it's polite to say to a new person at the table, "Hey, FYI, If I manage to do X next turn then I'll be able to combo off".
And if someone has a tutor deck that consistently wins regardless of interaction, usually the table adapts in one way or another. Either they stop playing the deck because winning like that isn't fun anymore, or other players start maindecking hate, or other players just...stop playing with you.
ChaosHatHop, hop, hop, HA!Trick of the lightRegistered Userregular
People should definitely chase their bliss, if that's what they find fun, go for it. I kind of find it prohibitively expensive and against the ethos of the format a bit, but you do you people. If you want to play consistent, broken decks I feel that's what legacy or vintage is for.
I dont think I've known a single commander playgroup that didnt devolve into busted expensive nonsense while denying it being such and everyone getting pissed off
Is probably why I had optimized purphoros for several years, so that everyone else at the table would experience my misery
So built a goblins deck for historic and was finally able to push through platinum and start working on diamond and uh, muxus feels pretty nutty.
He’s very easy to power out using a combo of Phyrexian Tower and Prospector and hitting a Warchief with Krenko or Seige Gang Commander can be lethal right there if your opponent didn’t expect it.
Plus he’s a ton of fun to drop when a control deck sweepers you.
That Sneak Attack art started a whole Twitter thread between Seth (Saffron Olive) and Vince (PleasantKenobi) about what constitutes a "hot dog" and it eventually devolved into what makes a burger a burger, and I thought I had slipped back into the Bad Food thread over here.
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KalTorakOne way or another, they all end up inthe Undercity.Registered Userregular
I think I saw part of that. The whole argument is dumb because that's obviously a fish with its tail cut off.
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I'm really looking to play in a mid 75% optimized power level without going off for infinite combos or anything like that, so yeah, cEDH concerns are not applicable to me. It seems like if I tell people "this is Elsha prowess tribal I don't own a divining top" they should understand this isn't some sort of insane combo deck right? Like it has to be possible to play "overpowered" commanders at a moderate level.
Like if you played Narset without extra turns or combat spells.
I would consider 75% optimized and “does not have infinite combos” mutually contradictory, but that’s because EDH power levels are incredibly vast and tons of decks win via infinite combos that are fairly consistent and effective and still can’t hang at cEDH. That said, I would still tend to be slightly suspicious of an Elsha deck like that as there is a better combat-focused Jeskai monk prowess commander so I would assume you planned to do some sort of Elsha Things if you picked her as commander.
You know you're probably not entirely wrong and my kalamax does have some infinite combos (although it's kind of hard to do what he wants to do without it) but I don't want these to be them to be too easy, consistent, or the primary focus of any given deck. Like maybe there is one but it's slow to come together and is kind of mana and card intensive but it does exist as an outlet to just end the game if it happens to go very long.
I mean, probably what I need to do is just use very few, or mostly mediocre tutors because you can have all the infinite combos you want but it's the finding them consistently part that makes a deck super good.
Our group views tutoring for a combo as against the spirit of EDH, why bother having a 100 card singleton format if you're working to maximize the chances of seeing the same 2-card combo every game? Groups vary of course and people should probably talk about that kind of stuff before sitting down to play.
This seems as dismissive as if I said "why build tribal aggro? Get 120 points of power on the board and swing every game, just with a different subtype."
I played against a kid in a store once who tutored up a Basalt Monolith and a Power Artifact and then did something with infinite mana. I don't even remember what his commander was, he never cast it. Booooring.
Like, my kinda tuned Niv Mizzet deck is fun because, even though most games end with me slapping curiosity on Niv, the nature of getting there and disrupting opponents is very fun.
Technically yes, functionally no. The deck is constructed such that it is almost impossible for me to not draw into additional burn or a way to shuffle my deck back in, and if that is insufficient killing two players and holding two free counterspells up should let me shuffle on my next turn anyway. If I have resolved a draw with curiosity on Niv the game is over unless somebody happened to have a noninstant/sorcery form of enchantment removal with flash
Yeah I would kind of agree. Who needs a ton of tribal decks? Some people will absolutely love it from a collector stand point and that's fine. Why build a bunch of labman decks, or aristocrats decks, or token decks. Some people will obviously love having 5 different slightly different flavors of something but I'd say most people would prefer to have a lot of variety in the game plan and style of play.
I think the difference is all decks can become infinite combo decks if you want them to be. Your tribal deck can go infinite. Your labman deck can. When they all go infinite, yeah, what's the point?
this is so pretty
If you want people to play with what they have rather than another infinite combo, then you have to play draft or cube or sealed.
Otherwise people will go out and buy cards that make their deck more consistent.
Kitchen table magic is different again, where it's more a gentleman's agreement on how powerful a deck should be, but then that's not what I'd be calling competitive anything.
I really wish it was Azusa they put in the art. The flavor text already matches!
Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198004484595
And if someone has a tutor deck that consistently wins regardless of interaction, usually the table adapts in one way or another. Either they stop playing the deck because winning like that isn't fun anymore, or other players start maindecking hate, or other players just...stop playing with you.
Steam ID: Obos Vent: Obos
Is probably why I had optimized purphoros for several years, so that everyone else at the table would experience my misery
They’re gonna drop Urborg too, aren’t they
The maniacs
He’s very easy to power out using a combo of Phyrexian Tower and Prospector and hitting a Warchief with Krenko or Seige Gang Commander can be lethal right there if your opponent didn’t expect it.
Plus he’s a ton of fun to drop when a control deck sweepers you.
With a shot of Bailey's would be nice.
Wrath of God promo for buying a box of Double Masters, or playing in a Launch Event (assuming you're somewhere that can host such events).
Magic Online - Bertro
Probably for an orc s'more.
Magic Online - Bertro
Magic Online - Bertro
wrath of goatse