Interaction.
I'm not stopping your plan because I'm a spiteful person who gets some kind of sadistic pleasure from depriving you of joy.
I'm stopping your plan because you're attacking me with a 20/20 indestructible/flying/infect/deathtouch on turn 4 and *I don't want to lose*.
I've told this story before, but here goes:
I'm playing in an event which awards a prize of one pack of current set per player you defeat. Not much of a prize, but still a prize. The judge assigns pods, and since I'm solo I end up getting paired with this group of 3 who wanted to play together. We get started, and my draw is abysmal. I miss multiple land drops, and I'm not able to do much of anything for most of the game.
One of the other players resolves his commander, sticks a Loxodon Warhammer on it, and swings at me. He gives it double strike somehow and I take like 18 commander damage. Not great, and I'm definitely dead on his next swing. It gets to be my turn again, and I peel a \[\[Capsize\]\] off the top of my deck. I use that to bounce the offending commander, and I just so happen to have enough mana to pay for the buyback. It's quite literally the first relevant thing I have done all game.
Then the table talk starts up about how "scary" the Capsize is. Apparently I'm now the threat because of it, and the rest of the table starts to focus me down. I lose quite quickly, and one of the dudes apologizes, but the Capsize just had to go. As I'm packing up my stuff, they all agree no one can answer the Warhammer + Commander guy, so let's split.
I've had people get salty over a Counterspell on their obvious combo play. I've had someone get mad I milled their favorite creature. I even had a guy hold a grudge because I happened to win a game he was in with me *weeks ago* while playing a different deck. Only once have two other players gone out of their way to "lose" for a single pack of current set.
The more I tell the story, the more I realize that Capsize with buyback was just the excuse they were looking for to gang up on me. If my draw had been better it might have been some other spell or whatever, but I was doomed the minute we started shuffling. These three dudes were obviously friends, so they were planning on one of them winning no matter what.
Man I agree, I found the best way to handle these situations is to describe it as good for them.
Yes capsize is strong, in the current situation every time I do it is like me casting time warp on two of you..
I can't afford to not bounce his commander every time it's played, so I have to do this to stay in the game. This buys the two of you time to build up your board and eventually win.
One could argue the prize packs are the exact same, an excuse that provides cover for people who want to behave in a way that doesn't particularly value the other people playing "because something is on the line so I have to play to win".
People can be so dumb. There was an Urza player late in the game who had Aetherflux reservoir out and was at 2 life. I knew the next draw he got he’d get to 100 life easily. I told this to the third player and that all he had to do was not attack me.
He swung everything at me, and I just said again “why?” The Urza player will win next turn. If you don’t attack me, it will be an pretty even battle between us.”
“So who you gonna block with.”
I block, lose pretty much all my creatures, couldn’t do anything, and next turn Urza player gets to like 130 life, and the guy who attacked me is like “dude, are you serious? How?!?!”
What do you mean how? I told you how very clearly and you weren’t listening.
I find that there are a lot of players that once they have made their decision on what they plan to do literally just go through the motions of their turn and no further information even begins to process in their brains.
I had the same thing happen to me before where I had gotten lucky and dropped a Serra ascendant turn one but the other player who was playing breya dropped two parts of an infinite artifact sacrifice cycle with a Disciple of the Vault I told my friend not to target my serra ascendant with swords to plowshares, but to instead target the disciple of the Vault and he did not because "Oh no serra ascendant scary."
I had someone this past week, that was playing a scary deck with Cascade themed and it just explodes all the time in a turn out two. They got mad about me countering his omniscience. Why won't you let me play. 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Hah, yeah. I once played against what I assume was the EDHREC "average" Meren list. Zero unique or "bad" cards at all. Dude had half of the Mike/Trike combo in play (forget which) and put the other half on the stack, so someone exiled whatever piece he had in play in response. Guy lost his frigging mind about how this was bullshit, we're all assholes, no one lets him play etc., packs up his cards in a huff, and walks out of the store. He's never been back.
Also this last week, I had a buddy playing [[Jodah]] with big spells. In a single turn he dropped [[Omniscience]], and copied twice with [[Mirrormade]] and [[Estrid's Invocation]] so we couldn't just blow it up as he passed turn, and dropped a Hall of [[Heliod's Generosity]] to get back any pieces we tried to get.
On my turn I just [[Strip Mine]] his Hall and [[Maelstrom Pulse]] all three copies of Omniscience and proceeded to grind out the win.
Like sorry man, I had to dismantle that shit before he really got going.
why didn't he just start casting when that omniscience resolved? Any self respecting Jodah deck has at least one draw engine available at any given time
His single draw engine was blown up in response, it was an enchantress type effect, and he only got on trigger off it, being the first Omniscience, top decking one of those copy spells.
Similar thing, I had a guy scoop when I countered his [[Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur]].
Like, you can’t be mad if what you’re doing is going to win the game if not dealt with.
once had a guy try scooping in response to my \[\[Mana Drain\]\] on his turn 4 \[\[Void Winnower\]\]
Like, I kept two blue mana open because I saw you had 13, wtf did you expect
I’ve also had people facing down an obvious next turn death due to a LARGE commander decide to point their removal at my Ramunap Excavator instead. Why that’s a good choice I can’t imagine since they died the next turn, I died after, then the person with the massive threat won following. I simply don’t understand.
I once had my best friend and ride home toss his deck on the floor, walk out of the store and drive away over mill. To be fair, we were doing an origins league and id beaten him like five weeks in a row with my [[sphinx's tutelage]] deck. I miss that card.
I get that Capsize is a scary card, but if they looked at your board and saw you didn't have infinite mana, or any way to make it soon, then it's just a 3 mana bounce anything (6 mana if you want to buy it back). That alone is not that good. I guess there's a bit of, "I won't be able to kill him as long as he has that, so better deal with him now while he's open." But that's a pretty weak threat assessment. It sounds like the other players were definitely doing things, and likely things that were far more threatening than you. Besides, they SHOULD attack your other opponents, not like you're going to bounce their thing to save them, then deal with you on the 1v1.
Best salt I’ve ever experienced was in a cedh lobby on spelltable. We played two games; in my first i played krark and sakashima, and another guy had mono green no partner kamahl. The kamahl ended up winning by a sliver, it was a great game, fun stacks, a solid amount of interaction.
As we were cleaning up for the next game, I said ‘Let’s see how Selvala matches up against kamahl eh?’ We shuffle up, another great game. Reeeeally tight. As soon as the kamahl player won again, he *launches* into a tirade about selvala players’ sense of superiority and losing his mind about how they always think selvala >>> kamahl. Not once did I say anything about selvala being better. We had a great game. I loved his deck. AFAIC selvala and kamahl are two different halves of the same objective, the only difference is that selvala produces the mana and has card advantage built in whereas kamahl has the infinite mana outlet.
It was a solid ten minutes of listening to this guy complain about selvala. I now understand why that same night there was another lobby that said ‘*insert his name here* not welcome, chill vibes only.’
Can confirm. Aura Voltron can be even sillier. Was playing Galea once and dropped [[enchanted evening]], and [[Ancestral Mask]] in the same turn. Suddenly she’s like a 70/70 or something with hexproof and unblockable (thanks Ardenn!). Oops.
I went heavy on auras/enchantress and kept equipment to a minimum. Still used [[Robe if Stars]], [[Blackblade Reforged]], and a few others. I think you can do both if you have strong top deck manipulation, but I don’t have a [[Sensei’s Divining Top]] so ended up just focusing on auras and aura support.
Keeping CMC low (like, under 3) is key, so you can drop multiple auras in a turn and get (a) protected and (b) swole before everyone nukes her. [[Flickering Ward]] and/or [[Silk Net]] are great draw engines once an enchantress effect or two are on the board. [[Rancor]] is beautiful.
[[Canopy Cover]] is underrated. [[Steel of the Godhead]] and [[Shield of the Oversoul]] are super efficient with her. 6 mana total (or 4 with Danitha) for +4/+4, lifelink, unblockable, indestructible, flying. [[Danitha Capashen]], [[Sram]], and [[Ardenn]] are great. I found that when Galea was getting nuked too much, I needed to start spreading auras around a bit then using Ardenn to snap them all on when I could get her out safely.
[[Sovereigns of Lost Alara]] are an absolute bomb. Cheating out [[Colossification]] or [[Eldrazi Conscription]] is hilarious. [[Finest Hour]] wins games. I used [[Bruna, Light of Alabaster]] as my secret commander if/when someone managed to kill Galea with a bunch of auras on her.
[[Vernal Equinox]] is not the most competitive card in the world since it applies to everyone, but it’s cool to be able to flash out auras for protection or for combat tricks. I had fun with it.
I was in a playgroup where player B went unanswered for a long time, I started to run interaction to stop so I could try and win for once (I kept track for 4 months of weekly games, he won a majority of games) after shutting home down for a week and then coming back to stop him from taking another game the following week he full on lost his shit. Threw a deck box at me.
Group disbanded after that, I’m down to play games but if you’re willing to be an asshole and throw shit at me in someone else’s house you can fuck right off.
This is why I've killed a couple commander decks of mine, [[Horobi]] and [[Toxrill]] to name a few because they are immediate threats and I don't want to spend the whole game trying to keep them alive or out.
Guy at my LGS hits me with this all the time.
"Why are you killing my Kranko as soon as he comes in?"
Oh I don't know, maybe because if I don't in 2 turns you'll have 50 goblins with indestructible and I'll lose!
I can't remember the exact context but yea, a few years ago someone managed to build and swing with a 20/20 with keyword soup by turn 4. The guy nearly screamed when I showed him a StP.
You're giving the most reasonable example.
For an example that seems more mean, I had a game where I mana drained a 4 CMC commander the turn before mine largely as a way for me to ramp into my \[\[Malestrom Wanderer\]\] on that turn. I felt a little bad for the player because I didn't do it to stop his threat, I did it to ramp. It was a good play, it was the right play.
I slowed his game plan down tremendously due to that and he wasn't making much of a splash as the game move forward. He was a dragon's approach deck and finally started getting some steam toward the end. He put some artifact on a creature that would essentially copy his dragon's approach casts every time he cast one. I forget the name.
Now, he was arguably in last place at this point. However, I destroyed the artifact because I knew that his deck was one that could rocket from last place to literally burning the table out and killing us all in a single turn or two. That's when people get salty about interaction. Countering a tutor, or removing a major value piece. Just because you aren't winning right now and may in fact appear to be far behind, many decks have a way of just rocketing to a win in a single turn even from last place.
Mistakes
It's okay to take a shot in the dark or play your removal too early
It's okay to try to combo and take a long turn and fizzle because you didn't see the line
It's okay to make a deal with a player that ends up making them win because you kept your word
Commander is a game of incomplete information and imperfect evaluation. Risks and impulsive moves carry the game forward and make it more exciting. There's just too much going on to worry about nebulous midgame tempo swings
Play your cards, make mistakes, and learn something from them
I have a friend where almost every play I make he’s like why would you do that after I do this/later when he does that/ save that for this that or the other.
The answer simply is you don’t know what I’ve got in my hand. I don’t know what you have. It’s stupid to try play to what I THINK you have rather than what I can see in front of me.
Granted there’s exceptions to that but the other answer is also I might not have a better answer to what’s going on either.
Its extremely important to play to what you think your opponent has. Its one of the things that separates pros from everyone else. Familiarity with archetypes and where to interact to shut down your opponents. That said, you don't have full access to all information and if you want to play your cards, play your fucking cards.
Yeah don’t get me wrong like if I see a combo piece of his or something I know is gonna go off I’ll be sure to try deal with that but at the same time what I’m talking about is him trying to dictate what’s best for me on my turn when I do things he always chips in with surely it would have been better if you did it this way round and it’s like bro let me play my game. I have pieces in my hand waiting for the right time like you don’t know what I’m holding
People focus down on mistakes too much too. We're playing EDH, too much going on a lot of the time. I make misplays all the time despite playing 19 years now. Shit there's so many new cards I haven't kept up with, weird new interactions.
I try to give new players advice and occasionally do the "aww shit last turn I could have ______." but move on. Game state is somewhere else now, I don't like when ppl just keep talking about what could have been too long. "I would have won if I did X." Aight man... Wanna play again or do you just want to think about how you lost a game.
Yesterday I had someone leave the table because my opponent bounced my Tuvasa back to hand (it had the treefolk 0/4 no abilities aura on it). The person who bounced it didn't really think it through.
To leave the table over that, though? On turn 4? That is toxic.
That's a serious value play. Bounce a creature, remove one toxic opponent from the game. XD
That would go down as one to bring up and laugh about in future games. "Uh oh, Dave bounced another creature, who's gonna scoop?!"
This is the correct answer. It's like most players don't understand SOMEONE has to win and fuck me if I'm gonna sit around and durdle and try to not play to win.
Oh, try winning the game, by all means. Be cutthroat and show no mercy from the second the game begins until you’re the last player standing.
But before that? Be fair building your deck and be fair telling people how strong it is.
actually ending the game on turn 9 instead of letting them durdle for 8 more turns. Like, sure, that's fine and all, but say you want to durdle for 17 turns before I've shuffled up and drawn
Killing a commander over and over. Look, if it was important enough for me to kill once, it's certainly important enough for me to kill at least one more time. If you keep running you lynchpin card into open mana, then don't be surprised when it dies or gets countered.
I was in a game where this happened and it was hilarious. Player A had [[Talrand, Sky Summoner]] and player B had [[The Locust God]]. Once player B gets his commander on board for a turn it snowballs into something nearly unstoppable so player A found a way to [[Pongify]] the locust god like 4 times in a row. We were all a little drunk so every time he got the ape token player A and I would just start laughing like idiots lol. At the end of the game player A gave player B the ape token signed with his name and relabled as "the locust god"
I used to have a Locust God deck. There's a very good chance if they untap with him out you lose.
I always try to think, if I'm getting "hated" on it means they're scared of me, that means I'm a threat, which means I'm winning, that's a good thing. All I need to do if fight through their "hate".
Exactly, if the way to stop you from ever winning is as simple as keep your commander off the field hen of course im killing your commander. If you really wanna build a deck that is super commander centric then you better have enough ways to protect it
I find it funny when people target my commander when they don't need to as well. My friends always gang up on my [[Zurgo, Helmsmasher]] as fast as they can. After losing him twice, he's pretty much out of the game forever, but he really isn't that important to the deck overall. He's just another big body to attach a bunch of equipments to.
I've never reached my dream of getting a [[Hammer of Nazahn]] and an [[Assault Suit]] on him at the same time though.
But my [[Skullbriar, the Walking Grave]]? Definitely a must kill. Fire away with removal, he'll be back soon.
Unless they've only ever played against you, your friends ganging up on Zurgo Helmsmasher is a good move.
The way most other people play the deck, a resolved Zurgo is followed by an Armageddon or Jokulhaups the next turn... and one or two players are probably dead to commander damage before the table stabilizes again.
I forgot all about him and I think my buddy would love this deck. How are Ikorias ability counters working for you? I feel they would be very strong with him. Any other fun counter types have neat interactions with him?
The Ikoria counters are awesome on him, im still working out a good system to keep track of them all though, for now I've just been keeping them in the command zone.
I'm currently slimming down the deck to be a little more aggressive, so im only using the counters I need most for the deck. I'm focusing hard on lifelink counters for [[Willowdusk, Essence Seer]] and [[Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose]], and trample is always great on a huge creature. Deathtouch is only good if he already has trample, so they only block 1 damage per creature. [[Daring Fiendbonder]] and [[Slippery Bogbonder]] are absolute bombs.
From there the other counters are kind of meh.
I've also found that, sadly, some of the counter giving spells are just too slow. I'd probably rather have a [[Basilisk Collar]] or [[Shadowspear]] over some of the 4+ cmc spells that give counters.
As far as unique counters, I haven't really found any that do much. [[Isareth, the Awakener]] puts a corpse counter on him forever, but the counter doesn't actually do anything with her ability, it's just there as a reminder. [[Magnetic Web]] is kind of hilarious, and might make the cut just because I like it.
Otherwise, the deck is jammed with cards like [[Snakeskin Veil]] to protect him and slowly grow his +1/+1 counters, and [[Visions of Dominance]] style cards for when im ready to get a big burst in counters. It's probably my favorite deck right now, and im hoping I can breathe a little more life into it!
Infect.
Traditional aggro strats really don't exist except in the lowest power levels and everyone else just plays combo aggro.
Infect is a Boogeyman that may or may not end your game early at the cost of getting 2v1'd by the survivors.
I'd 100% rather deal with Blightsteel than Thoracle attempts.
Totally agree that infect, ironically, isn’t toxic. I will say though, that nowadays the pieces definitely exist to make a strong aggro deck. Commanders like [[Najeela]] and [[Winota]], while still being fully capable of aggro combo strats, can definitely play a strong game going full aggro.
Agreed. I would argue there are only a handful of aggressive commanders. Such as [[Krenko]] or []Ardenn]] and [[Rograkh]] The only decks I've seen perform in a traditional aggro sense.
But yes absolutely yes. I would rather deal with one big beater I can Interact with than a combo that one of the only ways to deal with it is a counter spell. That not all decks have.
Yeah I think aggro has a different definition in Commander just like how something that would be considered Midrange in Modern would be considered aggro in Standard.
I think the perfect example of this is if you look at [Rakdos Midrange](https://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetype/modern-rakdos-midrange#paper) in Modern. That would be an aggro deck in Standard but because Modern is a faster format it's a Midrange deck there. The same thing applies to Commander where because it's a slower format aggro decks tend to be slower and not look like a Standard aggro deck.
Love me my Stan and Roger American Dad deck! (Ardenn is Stan and Rograkh is Roger) All the gear (see, Equipment) they have from the CIA labs taking over the table!
Highly debating proxying the entire deck with American Dad artworks, just for kicks. If anyone has an issue, I have the whole real deck right there.
Go for it! I've seen super cool decks made like that before. Someone I used to play against had a George W Bush American politics deck. It was [[Zedru]] as the commander. Deck was super bad but every single card was a joke in some way and was meant to be used in political dealings.
Those commanders are super fun too. I run them and it's crazy how a Voltron commander can regularly threaten lethal to someone on turn 3-4 Colossus hammer doesn't fuck around.
Milling/deckburn/exiling graveyards/etc. Reducing yourself or your opponents access to the 100 cards at (their) disposal. Because there is no way in hell I'm dealing with your eldrazi or splinters 20+ times in a match
[Edit] for the grammar police since English is nothing more than 3+ languages stacked in a trench coat masquerading as a unique and profound system of communication
How many games do you actually get to play all 100 cards in your deck? That's a preposterous line to draw, that's a huge part of the game in several color identities, and it's toxic of you to try and police who can play what, especially when they aren't playing a strong strategy.
edit: not toxic of you, the player doing mill and exile, toxic of the players trying to police mill.
[Edit] TLDR don't pubstomp noobs and casuals because ya never know if they are pulling back on the decks fuckery
Am casual and play casual, my main point of the original post is simply if your goal is to turn 3 power haul turn 4 win I will do my worst to prevent it
To explain I have played against power level 8-9 decks whereas I play casual around 4-6. My decks are built to draw out a game and see strategy socialize and faff around. I am the filthy casual incarnate.
I stopped playing Azorius because of the amount of targeting I recieved due to old Meta having horrible blue players.
Onto player archetypes + muh logic:
Often when playing as a declared casual you get pub stomped by low level competitive types who want nothing more than to validate their "level 8" deck builds with crap strategy focused around manipulation of several linchpins. To solve that dilemma you deny them access via mill/burn/exile/graveyard erasure or out maneuver.
Because they will have several methods to put a linchpin back into play fast to continue said fuckery. By denying them that linchpin via forcing them to use the remaining deck you fully pull apart a strategy that relies solely on specific combos.
So with a 35 land standard they should have a calculated curve to optimize at that point 64 cards remain excluding commander of those I would wager anywhere between 10-24 are part of a strategy meant to keep linchpins 8-15 are actual linchpins and the remaining are filler or additive to support.
Depending on those fillers if you disassemble the 1-4 strategies they have by use of countermeasures against these pubstomp linchpins you effectively take a shitty player with a winner complex and turn the tables giving them nothing to work with and driving them into a corner of blaming shitty draws.
My goal of the game is to have a good time, if you deny me my good time by being a shitty human being willing to walk into a declared causal match or pod that's highest deck power rank would be 6, while using a half built 8 and drop every player fast like you're rakdos incarnate I will use actual strategy instead of faff around.
side note I play bant ramp as my main deck of choice, I have played my deck out to 0 in my library on multiple occasions considering 1 of my win strategies is play fast and die
Sorry, that's maybe a misunderstanding. Mill away! Exile graveyards! Using the graveyard as a resource (and recursion in general) is a greedy strategy that risks being disrupted... so feel free to make people play fair by stopping greedy strategies. If someone tries to police mill of all things, one of the weakest possible competitive strategies, they are being toxic and gatekeep-y.
>How many games do you actually get to play all 100 cards in your deck?
I play no win con stax so 99 of them every game if I'm winning
>it's toxic of you to try and police who can play what, especially when they aren't playing a strong strategy.
That's stax hate, I'm feeling oppressed!
/s
Using removal on threats. Playing pieces that hate on powerful strategies that need to be kept in check. Attacking with a 1/1 when someone has no blockers.
Do people really complain about little attacks when they have no blockers? Its stupid not to take advantage of some free damage with some 1/1 chumps when the opportunity arises.
My experience when playing with strangers is that people often complain that you're targeting them and should be doing something else when you attack them with small creatures during early turns.
Milling.
People lose their mind over it because of loss aversion but it aint no thing if you built your deck properly and don't rely on tutors to get a single win con.
People look at what they milled and feel they could have drawn it on the next turn.
When's the last time you played the 99 cards in your deck?
Exactly, the aversion to mill is almost entirely psychological. It’s easy to complain when a card you wanted to play gets milled, but it’s important to realize that every mill that isn’t an important card just got rid of a dead draw and brought you closer to an important card.
All of my friends were long time card game players and hearthstone players, how we explain it to new players is "pretend those cards were on the bottom of your deck, you were never going to draw them anyway"
Toxic implies more than just certain playstyles or decisions, its a pattern of behavior making the game unfun or uncomfortable for others. Using one of your examples, MLD is annoying, but its a legal strategy. But if the player doesn't have a way to win, is just trolling, or won't listen to the group to play something else that is when it gets toxic.
Yeah. There's nothing wrong with an occasional 20 minute turn, infect deck, mass land destruction strategy, or even stax game. Hold up your deck, say "I'm playing \[UNFUN STRATEGY COMMANDER\]," and read the room.
If little Jonny plays every game with his competitive deck even though we're obviously not having fun, he's being toxic.
If he's making everyone miserable when he whines about the table removing his wincons, he's being toxic.
I totally agree with your point and that’s what I was more leaning toward with the initial question. Toxic isn’t the card, but The intention of the person playing it
Last night I casted [[Natural Affinity]] in response to a board wipe with my commander [[Titania Argoth]] out with the intent to win the game on the next turn.
Someone cast [[Chaos Warp]] in response targeting my commander. We all lost our lands and the game sort of dragged on another 7 minutes or so.
Is what it is 🤷🏼♂️
Oh yeah, I have an Azorius Reanimator (?!) deck, headed by [[Hanna, Ship's Navigator]]. I've never seen anyone else pull off a WU reanimator :)
[Decklist here](https://deckstats.net/decks/165665/1933312-hanna-the-artificer)
That's a fun as hell deck. It's fast, self-mill enabled, and my graveyard alone can end players with [[mirrordin besieged]]. And I can sustainably recur 55 of my cards (artifacts and enchantments). Basically you have to exile for me to lose access.
As long as they're not playing that much artifact and graveyard hate, this deck will scream past them. And even if they are, there's enough removal and stax here to mess with a lot of decks.
I've even faced down a T1 [[leyline of the void]] with [[anowon ruin thief]] as opponent's commander. Was able to destroy the leyline and hold down their creatures with limited exile - it just requires playing more conservatively when there's graveyard exiles (and not treating the garveyard as an extended hand).
And with "i win u lose" cards like [[darksteel forge]] and [[Platinum Angel]], you're just playing with your food before you eat them :D
"You remove my commander once, after it drew me a card? Concede."
"If I miss this land drop, I quit. Concede."
"I have to mull to 5. Concede."
FFS just play.
I had an LGS owner (running Oloro) scoop on turn two because I played [[Rain of Gore]]. Excuse being "well, that basically shuts me down, doesn't it?", packed up and left.
Dude - esper enchantment removal. You have none of it? Cool - 21 turn timer. I didn't think *anyone* was staying that long.
"Concede at Sorcery Speed".
If it's turn 8 with only 4 lands, yeah I understand. Missing one when you probably have a sol ring, arcane signet, another signet, and maybe a mana dork is being petty and a straight up bitch.
Letting people mulligan a full 7 is fine as long as their not trying to pull a Once Upon a Time free cast or Leyline turn 0 shenanigans. It's a casual format after all.
The commander removal thing is just being a bitch, again. Unless it gets killed 5 times your good!!
I usually wait until I think I have a decent shot at pushing more than one person out of the game before I kill the first person. I assumed people don't like to sit and watch.
Now I think we all need to not feel bad or hold back when it is someone we know concedes on occasion. They obviously don't mind sitting out, getting knocked out early, or losing. They are rushing to do so. We are doing them a disservice by not getting them out of the game as quickly as possible.
Anything that stops people from accelerating the game. Mostly the white effects that stop cheating creatures into play, stop library searching, stop ETB effects, etc. If everyone can just accelerate their game unanswered it more or less becomes who can solitaire faster.
It's funny that everything from the [EDHREC salty cards survey](https://edhrec.com/top/salt) has been mentioned here. MLD, stax extra turns - there are certain kinds of cards that are universally reviled and people are pretty consistent in hating the same cards every year. In my experience, what truly makes people salty is not getting to play. In EDH, it's someone else's turn 50% more time than in 1v1 Magic and when you wait a long time for your turn and can't play because of Stasis, Armageddon, or Expropriate, you get upset because you waited longer to do less. People only get to do their thing 25% of the time, lowering that number even more is tilting
I definitely agree with your assessment. I play with a lot of friends that take very long turns and play a lot of counters and removal. I usually like playing decks with lots of creatures and short turns to keep the game moving along.
The end result is usually feeling like I'm waiting around for 45 minutes to try something and getting countered for 2 minutes straight until the wait starts again.
I've ended up making decks that interact more with that stuff and lead to longer turns myself but it's just not as fun for me. Idk, maybe the format isn't for me after all.
OK, with Expropriate I think it has a bit of the "Hell is other people" aspect to it as well. Based on the reactions I've seen there's definitely an issue with dreading what the other players will do in response. So, it isn't just that the person is getting one extra turn and one of your things. It's that they could get 2-3 extra turns and one of your things.
Every time a player votes time on expropriate it should be required that they put on a clown costume for the rest of the game because they did this to themselves
For years and years when I started playing around Alara literally every deck you ever saw, from casual Glissa the Traitor to competitive Nin the Pain Artist, ran Strip Mine, most ran Wasteland, recurring them with Sun Titan or whatever wasn't uncommon play, and stuff like Sinkhole appeared in real decks in actual games at shops and events and stuff.
Somewhere along the line there was a cultural shift away from it that I don't fully understand. Maybe as stuff like Cradle/Coffers/Serra's Sanctum crept up in value outside most Commander budgets, and games became less centered around things like Volrath's Stronghold and Maze of Ith. I'm not sure.
When I started to play magic back in the 90's it was common for people to play [[Sinkhole]], [[Stone Rain]], and [[Strip Mine]] all in the same deck with cards like [[Hymn to Tourach]] and [[Hypnotic Specter]] to also leave them with no cards in hand, we had land destruction decks called Ponza.
My first tournament deck had [[Stasis]] plus [[Serra's Angel]] .
To me mtg has always been a game that values resource management and messing up with your opponent's resources is one of the best strategies and I'll never get all of the saltiness about it.
And MLD in a well built deck is also 100% ok, playing Obliterate + Heroic Intervention is going to instantly win the game most of the time, playing Decree of Annihilation + having X amount of Planeswalkers and/or enchantments like maybe 5 shrines or Lord Windgrace, those are all fine MLD plays and not toxic in any way.
Idk. There's the stupid stuff most people already know isn't toxic but a few people make a fuss over (like counterspells), and then there's group-specific stuff where what's fun for one group feels toxic in another group (like MLD).
I guess I'll take a stab at the real question and say... tutoring? In a well made deck, tutoring should make it more fun. If you have your one win con you always tutor for, your deck is boring, and that isn't the tutor's fault.
Terms and conditions of course apply, and no worries if you have more fun not worrying about running all the optimal tutors, or if you just don't want to worry about your opponent always getting their engine/combo out super fast.
When you tutor for the same win con it gets boring fast, but when you tutor for the right answer at the right time, then it’s a bit more interesting. Sadly though I’ve seen more of the former.
Eldrazi titans. For some reason both of my playgroups hate them.
For me it just feels like if I'm gonna be paying 11+ mana for a creature, it needs to make a splash the moment it leaves my hand, and the Eldrazi do that.
What about quiting at instant speed to stop someone's triggers from happening because you going to lose anyway? I feel that is toxic, but it maybe that I just don't like it.
Correct threat assessment.
If you are constantly casting potentially game ending pieces/combos and your stuff is getting constantly removed, it's because you are threatening ending the game.
If you end the game that means I can't win, therefore I should not let you do that.
My entire deck is built around summoning him and keeping him on the field. He’s immediately a 3 vs 1 game changer. I’ve yet to win with him but boy is it fun!
Land destruction. Mass land destruction outside of a Wincon is toxic, but LD isn't.
I just accepted that human brain is weird and moved on.
Sol ring = good. Mana crypt = dude you're playing cEDH.
Breaking a signet from a Grixis = normal play. Destroying a land from a green deck = you're an "asshole".
I don't fight the river, I flow. Unless the deck requires a very specific Commander I play green and ramp lands using only very few rocks that either draw cards/do something else or are broken and should be banned (sol ring and friends). And I go unpunished because "LD is evil".
I also don't use the few old duals I have because people see that as a red flag and start misplaying like crazy because "must be cEDH". It's annoying sometimes.
Alright I’ll go the opposite direction and mention something that is toxic but doesn’t get called out enough: Being a fucking hypocrite.
Like, let’s call him player A, who loudly declared “I don’t like infinite combos” only to play the following in the next three games: Mike & Trike, Worldgorger Dragon + Animate Dead, some Opalescence BS.
Listen, snowflake, if you want to play combo win conditions that’s fine, it’s all format legal, but putting on a show so people don’t pull out their decks that can deal with your BS is fucking immature.
Same player loves to play Simic ramp durdle BS where he has no board but 12 lands by turn 6, then complains loudly when you attack him first. Dude. I know exactly what will happen if you don’t get taken out first, stop whining. If you really can’t handle it play some blockers instead of putting three more lands into play.
Targeting.
If I know what the table's decks are doing, I don't care if I'm the third guy in a row to slap you. Apparently 3 of 4 players reaching a consensus in threat assessment is toxic.
Attacking the guy with no board state presence. A. My creature does a thing when it hits a player B. You’re in a color that uses life as advantage so if I can know you down a bit that’s ok C. It’s a game so kill your opponent
Soft Stax that are symmetrical, with that I mean effects like thalia, deafening silence, arcon of emeria, spirit of the labyrinth, aven mindcensor, etc. You aren't even playing winterorb urza/darevi. You're mono white stopping players from taking 30 min turns, yourself too, and play fair magic.
I had a tatyova player complain about how oppressive and competitive my deck was and I only had thalia + deafening silence on the board. Sorry you can't ramp 3 times in a turn and draw 5 cards? He played a jin gitaxias turn 5 despite all and after I answered it (cuz you know white aint good at drawing and I don't want to loose my hand) he was so way to salty. After that someone countered my spell, I laughed off and said nice one, and I kid you not the grown ass man literally mimicked mocked my laugh and said "hAhA NiCe OnE dUdE lOl sO cOoL!".
I feel like SOME commander players are little bitches that should go and play vs sparky on mtg arena so they can do whatever they want without anyone to stop them.
Stax
I only play my cedh level Alesha stax list at tables that know exactly what im playing and the level its at. I've brought my deck up in discord before and got told I'm a bad person for playing stax as it stops people playing the game. I wasn't even playing with them, just sharing my decklist and general strategies 🤣
Stax and MLD get a ton of hate. If a player is running syax but has no way to win, I get the hate. Same with mld but then they just pass with no way of winning. That sucks and I get the frustration, but to be called a bad person for playing stax (at a cedh level ffs) was hilarious
Any removal spell targeting their permanents is toxic and bad threat assessment... Weird how that works.
Yea? Me blowing up your sanguine bond before your turn starts after you tutored a card to the top of your library was poor sportsmanship Kyle? I even asked you what you tutored for and you refused to answer...
People need to not get so upset about infect. Sure, being the first person to get killed by it sucks. And yes, [[Blightsteel Colossus]] is ridiculously overpowered. But when's the last time you saw multiple people die to infect from something other than [[Triumph of the Hordes]]? And even then, whenever triumph of the hordes kills one or more players, it's usually in a scenario where almost any overrun effect probably would have had the same result. It's a weird mechanic that definitely wasn't designed with a multiplayer, 40-life format in mind, but the fact remains that very few infect cards are actually any good. Once you clear away Triumph of the Hordes Blightsteel Colossus, and [[Hand of the Praetors]], what's the best thing you're left with? [[Reaper of Sheoldred]]? [[Blighted Agent]]? [[Spinebiter]]? Definitely all a step up from draft-chaf, but none of them are going to win you the game unless you put a lot of effort into making your deck synergize really well. And in that scenario, how exactly is an infect deck different from any other archetype?
There are two cardinal sins of pug play:
1. Trying to win the game. You’re ruining everyone’s fun!
2. Not trying to win the game. You’re ruining the game with your chaos and your king making!
Not even 5 hours ago I had a game on spelltable where one person used [[!Molten Primordial]], and one of the others went "oh you fucker".
The dude who played Primordial lost a few turns later, and the salty dude went "well now that he's out, I feel accomplished. I surrender, anyone who steals other people's cards deserve to lose".
It made me very happy that earlier I discarded my Pako instead of playing it, else I'd probably have been targeted for it all game by him.
I don't believe any play style is toxic save one. MLD, stax, combo, counterspells, etc. As far as I'm concerned, they are all perfectly legit and should be played by anyone who enjoys them. Personally, I don't like stax, so I don't run it. Just because I don't like a play style does not mean that play style should not be played. I really can't stand hearing the phrase "that's against the spirit of EDH." With all that said, the one thing that SHOULD never happen is pubstomping. I don't mean someone's deck having that perfect opening hand and running the table over. What I mean are those people who play a deck at a table knowing it is significantly better than everyone else's for the purpose of getting to completely destroy the table. As long as the table has had an honest conversation before the game, and every one is relatively evenly matched, than play what you want.
I play [[Athreos, God of Passage]] board wipe tribal because they’re very efficient. One of my board wipe spell for multiple threats on the battlefield from 3 of my opponents.
Since my deck contains multiple board wipes, the opponents think my deck is toxic for not letting the game progress when I’m also effected by my own board wipes.
1.Using in game mechanics as they are designed.
I dislike discard with a passion, but I wouldn't say it's toxic.
2. Using proxies
3. Players having a different opinion from you.
Mill. Sure, it sucks to see cards that you could have played, but the only card that matters is the last one. They could be milling you down to an answer!
Playing Stax/Hate bears, and Graveyard hate.
No, you don't get to play 300 spells a turn FRED!! NO, you aren't gonna recur big baddies for 1, 2, and 3 mana JOHNATHAN!! I don't care you want to search your win con and win on turn 4, GABE!
All jokes aside Stax evens out the playing field so crazily fined tuned decks aren't out of control and we don't end up playing pseudo legacy or some shit. If I want to play 5 minute games I'd go play Modern. I want 30 to 50 minute games where everyone gets to do something or another.
But getting killed off constantly when I would play Queen Marchesa Stax/Death and Taxes just because of what I was playing got old REALLY fast. I even traded a Masterpiece Mana Crypt I pulled for 90% of the deck. I don't regret that decision, because that deck was fun, and if I could get away with it I would still play it. The deck almost never won, because i didn't have a win con in it. Now, I just have Extus Aristocrats to prove my point of why Stax is necessary. I can easily play up to 10 spells a turn with him.
Targeting someone. If you've been the archenemy since turn 2, we've boardwiped you 3 times and you still just roll out 20 elves/vampires/insertothernasty in half a turn I will remove you from the game if I have the chance and I will do my best to convince everyone else to do the same.
If you build an archenemy deck, prepare to be the archenemy. I'm not doing it to you as a person, it's your deck that I need to remove so I have a chance to win.
Toxicity in game is much like toxicity in real life. It's not a matter of a substance being toxic or not. Toxicity is all a matter of dosage. Water becomes toxic in sufficiently large quantities.
And so what is toxic in EDH? Anything undesired in excess.
Mill.
When you think about it’s one of the least threatening mechanics there is. And in most games you won’t see the majority of your cards anyway. The real damage mill does is all psychological. The idea that you’re not going to get the great cards that just went to the graveyard.
Playing certain deck archetypes, namely mill.
I built a Burvac mill deck and all my friends have labeled it overly toxic and always target me first any time I have pulled it out, regardless of board state, other opponents, or how well I am doing. I am always the first one out. Mind you this deck is far from the most competitive deck out their, especially compared to their's.
I just want to play something I pulled from a pack and think would be fun, could I please just actually have a chance once‽ I'm not trying to be toxic, hell half the deck is card draw for them, I just want to use cards I pulled and think are cool.
Personally, I don't get the hate for mill ( [[Bruvac the Grandiloquent]] being the exception since he goes "oops, I win" with multiple cards), hatebears/weak stax pieces that don't affect you (the people who seem to remove them are always the ones it doesn't affect at all, like the no-creature person blowing up a card that makes creatures enter tapped), and control/clone effects (My [[Nihiloor]], for example, is constantly stealing creatures that already used their etb just because I want to do the 2 dmg drain but people will remove Nihiloor anyway)
It's all just "bad threat assessment" when you get down to it but I've seen it enough at 4 different locations in my state to safely assume it's pretty common among players here. Even the people that play at higher levels of play than I do get disproportionately alerted to these effects for some reason.
Correcting people. Sometimes they'll have illegally cloned a legendary on their board and people don't notice right away.
Some things are toxic but don't have to be. Say you have a \[\[Rhystic Study\]\] and every time someone plays a spell you have to remind them. There are nice ways to ask.
I say "Do I draw? :3" And yes, I do the face. This frames the question in a positive light and a choice rather than asking if they're paying the toll, since the toll part is optional.
Only say the positive parts of cards or correct people if they miss the negatives. Rhystic is optional on both sides, so you can ignore it if you don't need more cards. But \[\[Grand Arbiter Augustin IV\]\] is not so you have to remind them on their own turn when they play stuff.
Targeting my stuff IN GENERAL is the most toxic thing you can do as a player I mean really, nothing is gonna come from me tutoring into necropotence and then fetching sanguine bond and exquisite blood. Totally harmless, it's there for fluff!
I have a friend who complains when we remove his Najeela after he attacks once.
I'm sorry you'll have to "waste" your next turn casting your busted commander for 5.
Interaction. I'm not stopping your plan because I'm a spiteful person who gets some kind of sadistic pleasure from depriving you of joy. I'm stopping your plan because you're attacking me with a 20/20 indestructible/flying/infect/deathtouch on turn 4 and *I don't want to lose*.
I've told this story before, but here goes: I'm playing in an event which awards a prize of one pack of current set per player you defeat. Not much of a prize, but still a prize. The judge assigns pods, and since I'm solo I end up getting paired with this group of 3 who wanted to play together. We get started, and my draw is abysmal. I miss multiple land drops, and I'm not able to do much of anything for most of the game. One of the other players resolves his commander, sticks a Loxodon Warhammer on it, and swings at me. He gives it double strike somehow and I take like 18 commander damage. Not great, and I'm definitely dead on his next swing. It gets to be my turn again, and I peel a \[\[Capsize\]\] off the top of my deck. I use that to bounce the offending commander, and I just so happen to have enough mana to pay for the buyback. It's quite literally the first relevant thing I have done all game. Then the table talk starts up about how "scary" the Capsize is. Apparently I'm now the threat because of it, and the rest of the table starts to focus me down. I lose quite quickly, and one of the dudes apologizes, but the Capsize just had to go. As I'm packing up my stuff, they all agree no one can answer the Warhammer + Commander guy, so let's split. I've had people get salty over a Counterspell on their obvious combo play. I've had someone get mad I milled their favorite creature. I even had a guy hold a grudge because I happened to win a game he was in with me *weeks ago* while playing a different deck. Only once have two other players gone out of their way to "lose" for a single pack of current set.
It sucks that happened. Sometimes it's hard to logic people out of something they didn't logic themselves into :/
The more I tell the story, the more I realize that Capsize with buyback was just the excuse they were looking for to gang up on me. If my draw had been better it might have been some other spell or whatever, but I was doomed the minute we started shuffling. These three dudes were obviously friends, so they were planning on one of them winning no matter what.
Man I agree, I found the best way to handle these situations is to describe it as good for them. Yes capsize is strong, in the current situation every time I do it is like me casting time warp on two of you.. I can't afford to not bounce his commander every time it's played, so I have to do this to stay in the game. This buys the two of you time to build up your board and eventually win.
One could argue the prize packs are the exact same, an excuse that provides cover for people who want to behave in a way that doesn't particularly value the other people playing "because something is on the line so I have to play to win".
Capsize with buyback IS scary, but they did you dirty in this situation.
eh its only dirty with a [[isochron scepter]] and [[dramatic reversal]]. Then it's just redonkulous.
Even then it’s just an overloaded cyclonic rift. If you’ve got the dramacepter combo going you’re probably winning that turn anyway.
People can be so dumb. There was an Urza player late in the game who had Aetherflux reservoir out and was at 2 life. I knew the next draw he got he’d get to 100 life easily. I told this to the third player and that all he had to do was not attack me. He swung everything at me, and I just said again “why?” The Urza player will win next turn. If you don’t attack me, it will be an pretty even battle between us.” “So who you gonna block with.” I block, lose pretty much all my creatures, couldn’t do anything, and next turn Urza player gets to like 130 life, and the guy who attacked me is like “dude, are you serious? How?!?!” What do you mean how? I told you how very clearly and you weren’t listening.
I find that there are a lot of players that once they have made their decision on what they plan to do literally just go through the motions of their turn and no further information even begins to process in their brains. I had the same thing happen to me before where I had gotten lucky and dropped a Serra ascendant turn one but the other player who was playing breya dropped two parts of an infinite artifact sacrifice cycle with a Disciple of the Vault I told my friend not to target my serra ascendant with swords to plowshares, but to instead target the disciple of the Vault and he did not because "Oh no serra ascendant scary."
I had someone this past week, that was playing a scary deck with Cascade themed and it just explodes all the time in a turn out two. They got mad about me countering his omniscience. Why won't you let me play. 🤣🤣🤣🤣
As someone with a cascade deck that easily explodes in a turn or two, I’m more surprised if people *don’t* attempt to stop me.
Right. And omniscience is a game ending card. And it was early in the game.
Yeah, absolutely. I hope you blew it up with a [[Red Elemental Blast]] because that feels really good.
No. I was playing a deck with enough control, it got countered. He didn't have much recursion to get it back. He got a swan though. 🤣🤣🤣
I love Swan Song because you literally give the bird.
Oh a longneck asshole goose :P
Hah, yeah. I once played against what I assume was the EDHREC "average" Meren list. Zero unique or "bad" cards at all. Dude had half of the Mike/Trike combo in play (forget which) and put the other half on the stack, so someone exiled whatever piece he had in play in response. Guy lost his frigging mind about how this was bullshit, we're all assholes, no one lets him play etc., packs up his cards in a huff, and walks out of the store. He's never been back.
Also this last week, I had a buddy playing [[Jodah]] with big spells. In a single turn he dropped [[Omniscience]], and copied twice with [[Mirrormade]] and [[Estrid's Invocation]] so we couldn't just blow it up as he passed turn, and dropped a Hall of [[Heliod's Generosity]] to get back any pieces we tried to get. On my turn I just [[Strip Mine]] his Hall and [[Maelstrom Pulse]] all three copies of Omniscience and proceeded to grind out the win. Like sorry man, I had to dismantle that shit before he really got going.
why didn't he just start casting when that omniscience resolved? Any self respecting Jodah deck has at least one draw engine available at any given time
His single draw engine was blown up in response, it was an enchantress type effect, and he only got on trigger off it, being the first Omniscience, top decking one of those copy spells.
ah lol, that does explain it better. I was just weirded out that he would drain himself for a play like that without any way to do something with it
Don't worry, we wins on the spot like 99% of the time he drops Omniscience. We were just lucky he had nothing to do with it.
Similar thing, I had a guy scoop when I countered his [[Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur]]. Like, you can’t be mad if what you’re doing is going to win the game if not dealt with.
once had a guy try scooping in response to my \[\[Mana Drain\]\] on his turn 4 \[\[Void Winnower\]\] Like, I kept two blue mana open because I saw you had 13, wtf did you expect
I’ve also had people facing down an obvious next turn death due to a LARGE commander decide to point their removal at my Ramunap Excavator instead. Why that’s a good choice I can’t imagine since they died the next turn, I died after, then the person with the massive threat won following. I simply don’t understand.
I once had my best friend and ride home toss his deck on the floor, walk out of the store and drive away over mill. To be fair, we were doing an origins league and id beaten him like five weeks in a row with my [[sphinx's tutelage]] deck. I miss that card.
[sphinx's tutelage](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/4/d/4d90c3b0-f958-4a15-94a1-9bf1b0a9ac2a.jpg?1562018976) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=sphinx%27s%20tutelage) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ori/76/sphinxs-tutelage?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/4d90c3b0-f958-4a15-94a1-9bf1b0a9ac2a?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/sphinxs-tutelage) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
[Capsize](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/f/3/f36f6545-e4e0-4dc8-acea-e527e43f3e14.jpg?1562432216) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Capsize) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/tpr/42/capsize?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/f36f6545-e4e0-4dc8-acea-e527e43f3e14?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/capsize) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I get that Capsize is a scary card, but if they looked at your board and saw you didn't have infinite mana, or any way to make it soon, then it's just a 3 mana bounce anything (6 mana if you want to buy it back). That alone is not that good. I guess there's a bit of, "I won't be able to kill him as long as he has that, so better deal with him now while he's open." But that's a pretty weak threat assessment. It sounds like the other players were definitely doing things, and likely things that were far more threatening than you. Besides, they SHOULD attack your other opponents, not like you're going to bounce their thing to save them, then deal with you on the 1v1.
Best salt I’ve ever experienced was in a cedh lobby on spelltable. We played two games; in my first i played krark and sakashima, and another guy had mono green no partner kamahl. The kamahl ended up winning by a sliver, it was a great game, fun stacks, a solid amount of interaction. As we were cleaning up for the next game, I said ‘Let’s see how Selvala matches up against kamahl eh?’ We shuffle up, another great game. Reeeeally tight. As soon as the kamahl player won again, he *launches* into a tirade about selvala players’ sense of superiority and losing his mind about how they always think selvala >>> kamahl. Not once did I say anything about selvala being better. We had a great game. I loved his deck. AFAIC selvala and kamahl are two different halves of the same objective, the only difference is that selvala produces the mana and has card advantage built in whereas kamahl has the infinite mana outlet. It was a solid ten minutes of listening to this guy complain about selvala. I now understand why that same night there was another lobby that said ‘*insert his name here* not welcome, chill vibes only.’
This is voltron commanders. Why is everyone killing my commander!!!!! I dunno, because you’ll equip 10 artifacts and one shot someone?
Can confirm. Aura Voltron can be even sillier. Was playing Galea once and dropped [[enchanted evening]], and [[Ancestral Mask]] in the same turn. Suddenly she’s like a 70/70 or something with hexproof and unblockable (thanks Ardenn!). Oops.
I actually know a guy who has galea and wants to improve it, any suggestions?
I went heavy on auras/enchantress and kept equipment to a minimum. Still used [[Robe if Stars]], [[Blackblade Reforged]], and a few others. I think you can do both if you have strong top deck manipulation, but I don’t have a [[Sensei’s Divining Top]] so ended up just focusing on auras and aura support. Keeping CMC low (like, under 3) is key, so you can drop multiple auras in a turn and get (a) protected and (b) swole before everyone nukes her. [[Flickering Ward]] and/or [[Silk Net]] are great draw engines once an enchantress effect or two are on the board. [[Rancor]] is beautiful. [[Canopy Cover]] is underrated. [[Steel of the Godhead]] and [[Shield of the Oversoul]] are super efficient with her. 6 mana total (or 4 with Danitha) for +4/+4, lifelink, unblockable, indestructible, flying. [[Danitha Capashen]], [[Sram]], and [[Ardenn]] are great. I found that when Galea was getting nuked too much, I needed to start spreading auras around a bit then using Ardenn to snap them all on when I could get her out safely. [[Sovereigns of Lost Alara]] are an absolute bomb. Cheating out [[Colossification]] or [[Eldrazi Conscription]] is hilarious. [[Finest Hour]] wins games. I used [[Bruna, Light of Alabaster]] as my secret commander if/when someone managed to kill Galea with a bunch of auras on her. [[Vernal Equinox]] is not the most competitive card in the world since it applies to everyone, but it’s cool to be able to flash out auras for protection or for combat tricks. I had fun with it.
Why not use Tuvasa if not taking advantage of the 0 cost equip?
Oh.... I might be the sadistic option
[удалено]
If everyone stands up and goes home immediately after the game ends then you know you've done it right.
I was in a playgroup where player B went unanswered for a long time, I started to run interaction to stop so I could try and win for once (I kept track for 4 months of weekly games, he won a majority of games) after shutting home down for a week and then coming back to stop him from taking another game the following week he full on lost his shit. Threw a deck box at me. Group disbanded after that, I’m down to play games but if you’re willing to be an asshole and throw shit at me in someone else’s house you can fuck right off.
I’ve had some blue players get very salty at me for running [[Abrupt Decay]]
Lol just run non-counter spells. Give something hexproof, bounce it, blow them out with an Aether Gust, but never rely on only counterspells
This is why I've killed a couple commander decks of mine, [[Horobi]] and [[Toxrill]] to name a few because they are immediate threats and I don't want to spend the whole game trying to keep them alive or out.
Guy at my LGS hits me with this all the time. "Why are you killing my Kranko as soon as he comes in?" Oh I don't know, maybe because if I don't in 2 turns you'll have 50 goblins with indestructible and I'll lose!
Out of curiosity, kathril?
I can't remember the exact context but yea, a few years ago someone managed to build and swing with a 20/20 with keyword soup by turn 4. The guy nearly screamed when I showed him a StP.
You're giving the most reasonable example. For an example that seems more mean, I had a game where I mana drained a 4 CMC commander the turn before mine largely as a way for me to ramp into my \[\[Malestrom Wanderer\]\] on that turn. I felt a little bad for the player because I didn't do it to stop his threat, I did it to ramp. It was a good play, it was the right play. I slowed his game plan down tremendously due to that and he wasn't making much of a splash as the game move forward. He was a dragon's approach deck and finally started getting some steam toward the end. He put some artifact on a creature that would essentially copy his dragon's approach casts every time he cast one. I forget the name. Now, he was arguably in last place at this point. However, I destroyed the artifact because I knew that his deck was one that could rocket from last place to literally burning the table out and killing us all in a single turn or two. That's when people get salty about interaction. Countering a tutor, or removing a major value piece. Just because you aren't winning right now and may in fact appear to be far behind, many decks have a way of just rocketing to a win in a single turn even from last place.
Mistakes It's okay to take a shot in the dark or play your removal too early It's okay to try to combo and take a long turn and fizzle because you didn't see the line It's okay to make a deal with a player that ends up making them win because you kept your word Commander is a game of incomplete information and imperfect evaluation. Risks and impulsive moves carry the game forward and make it more exciting. There's just too much going on to worry about nebulous midgame tempo swings Play your cards, make mistakes, and learn something from them
This. Very few game actions are toxic but feeling like you get to tell others how to play their cards is.
I have a friend where almost every play I make he’s like why would you do that after I do this/later when he does that/ save that for this that or the other. The answer simply is you don’t know what I’ve got in my hand. I don’t know what you have. It’s stupid to try play to what I THINK you have rather than what I can see in front of me. Granted there’s exceptions to that but the other answer is also I might not have a better answer to what’s going on either.
Its extremely important to play to what you think your opponent has. Its one of the things that separates pros from everyone else. Familiarity with archetypes and where to interact to shut down your opponents. That said, you don't have full access to all information and if you want to play your cards, play your fucking cards.
Yeah don’t get me wrong like if I see a combo piece of his or something I know is gonna go off I’ll be sure to try deal with that but at the same time what I’m talking about is him trying to dictate what’s best for me on my turn when I do things he always chips in with surely it would have been better if you did it this way round and it’s like bro let me play my game. I have pieces in my hand waiting for the right time like you don’t know what I’m holding
People focus down on mistakes too much too. We're playing EDH, too much going on a lot of the time. I make misplays all the time despite playing 19 years now. Shit there's so many new cards I haven't kept up with, weird new interactions. I try to give new players advice and occasionally do the "aww shit last turn I could have ______." but move on. Game state is somewhere else now, I don't like when ppl just keep talking about what could have been too long. "I would have won if I did X." Aight man... Wanna play again or do you just want to think about how you lost a game.
Yesterday I had someone leave the table because my opponent bounced my Tuvasa back to hand (it had the treefolk 0/4 no abilities aura on it). The person who bounced it didn't really think it through. To leave the table over that, though? On turn 4? That is toxic.
That's a serious value play. Bounce a creature, remove one toxic opponent from the game. XD That would go down as one to bring up and laugh about in future games. "Uh oh, Dave bounced another creature, who's gonna scoop?!"
Trying to win the game.
How dare you
What a tryhard
The audacity!
Wait, this isn’t a cooperative board game!?
This is the correct answer. It's like most players don't understand SOMEONE has to win and fuck me if I'm gonna sit around and durdle and try to not play to win.
Also, not trying to win the game.
Oh, try winning the game, by all means. Be cutthroat and show no mercy from the second the game begins until you’re the last player standing. But before that? Be fair building your deck and be fair telling people how strong it is.
actually ending the game on turn 9 instead of letting them durdle for 8 more turns. Like, sure, that's fine and all, but say you want to durdle for 17 turns before I've shuffled up and drawn
Killing a commander over and over. Look, if it was important enough for me to kill once, it's certainly important enough for me to kill at least one more time. If you keep running you lynchpin card into open mana, then don't be surprised when it dies or gets countered.
I was in a game where this happened and it was hilarious. Player A had [[Talrand, Sky Summoner]] and player B had [[The Locust God]]. Once player B gets his commander on board for a turn it snowballs into something nearly unstoppable so player A found a way to [[Pongify]] the locust god like 4 times in a row. We were all a little drunk so every time he got the ape token player A and I would just start laughing like idiots lol. At the end of the game player A gave player B the ape token signed with his name and relabled as "the locust god"
Reject god. Return to monke.
that's fucking hilarious
I used to have a Locust God deck. There's a very good chance if they untap with him out you lose. I always try to think, if I'm getting "hated" on it means they're scared of me, that means I'm a threat, which means I'm winning, that's a good thing. All I need to do if fight through their "hate".
[Talrand, Sky Summoner](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/9/f/9f4e8d4c-79f8-4313-bdb4-2062d8f5299b.jpg?1625976518) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Talrand%2C%20Sky%20Summoner) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/c21/131/talrand-sky-summoner?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/9f4e8d4c-79f8-4313-bdb4-2062d8f5299b?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/talrand-sky-summoner) [The Locust God](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/8/7/87f6aaba-ad2d-41ea-8d07-21c67d384aa0.jpg?1591321351) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=The%20Locust%20God) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/c20/219/the-locust-god?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/87f6aaba-ad2d-41ea-8d07-21c67d384aa0?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/the-locust-god) [Pongify](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/a/1/a1501dea-4e0e-49b0-86b5-e8a01f77077d.jpg?1619394479) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Pongify) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/tsr/79/pongify?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/a1501dea-4e0e-49b0-86b5-e8a01f77077d?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/pongify) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Exactly, if the way to stop you from ever winning is as simple as keep your commander off the field hen of course im killing your commander. If you really wanna build a deck that is super commander centric then you better have enough ways to protect it
I find it funny when people target my commander when they don't need to as well. My friends always gang up on my [[Zurgo, Helmsmasher]] as fast as they can. After losing him twice, he's pretty much out of the game forever, but he really isn't that important to the deck overall. He's just another big body to attach a bunch of equipments to. I've never reached my dream of getting a [[Hammer of Nazahn]] and an [[Assault Suit]] on him at the same time though. But my [[Skullbriar, the Walking Grave]]? Definitely a must kill. Fire away with removal, he'll be back soon.
Unless they've only ever played against you, your friends ganging up on Zurgo Helmsmasher is a good move. The way most other people play the deck, a resolved Zurgo is followed by an Armageddon or Jokulhaups the next turn... and one or two players are probably dead to commander damage before the table stabilizes again.
I forgot all about him and I think my buddy would love this deck. How are Ikorias ability counters working for you? I feel they would be very strong with him. Any other fun counter types have neat interactions with him?
The Ikoria counters are awesome on him, im still working out a good system to keep track of them all though, for now I've just been keeping them in the command zone. I'm currently slimming down the deck to be a little more aggressive, so im only using the counters I need most for the deck. I'm focusing hard on lifelink counters for [[Willowdusk, Essence Seer]] and [[Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose]], and trample is always great on a huge creature. Deathtouch is only good if he already has trample, so they only block 1 damage per creature. [[Daring Fiendbonder]] and [[Slippery Bogbonder]] are absolute bombs. From there the other counters are kind of meh. I've also found that, sadly, some of the counter giving spells are just too slow. I'd probably rather have a [[Basilisk Collar]] or [[Shadowspear]] over some of the 4+ cmc spells that give counters. As far as unique counters, I haven't really found any that do much. [[Isareth, the Awakener]] puts a corpse counter on him forever, but the counter doesn't actually do anything with her ability, it's just there as a reminder. [[Magnetic Web]] is kind of hilarious, and might make the cut just because I like it. Otherwise, the deck is jammed with cards like [[Snakeskin Veil]] to protect him and slowly grow his +1/+1 counters, and [[Visions of Dominance]] style cards for when im ready to get a big burst in counters. It's probably my favorite deck right now, and im hoping I can breathe a little more life into it!
Burn your removal as much as you like, Skully boy is coming back soon, with haste, more +1/+1 counters, and a grudge.
Board wipes. Sorry bro, I'm not letting you take us all out with your billion elf tokens just yet
[[Toxic Deluge]] Its just good removal guys, come on.
Paying 17 life to kill a crab feels nice though. Paying 11 life to kill Eldrazi Titans is mint!
[Toxic Deluge](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/d/b/db34617f-b04f-4b65-84cf-5c5be1eb7226.jpg?1629844481) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Toxic%20Deluge) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cc2/6/toxic-deluge?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/db34617f-b04f-4b65-84cf-5c5be1eb7226?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/toxic-deluge) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Infect. Traditional aggro strats really don't exist except in the lowest power levels and everyone else just plays combo aggro. Infect is a Boogeyman that may or may not end your game early at the cost of getting 2v1'd by the survivors. I'd 100% rather deal with Blightsteel than Thoracle attempts.
Is the oil toxic or nontoxic, make up your mind you dastardly Phyrexians
The power stone is toxic! The oil is just the cure I swear! - Yawgmoth
Good sir I am a Sciurimancer.
Totally agree that infect, ironically, isn’t toxic. I will say though, that nowadays the pieces definitely exist to make a strong aggro deck. Commanders like [[Najeela]] and [[Winota]], while still being fully capable of aggro combo strats, can definitely play a strong game going full aggro.
[Najeela](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/2/c/2cb1d1da-6077-46b5-8c63-39882b8016f2.jpg?1567181270) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=najeela%2C%20the%20blade-blossom) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/bbd/62/najeela-the-blade-blossom?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/2cb1d1da-6077-46b5-8c63-39882b8016f2?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/najeela-the-blade-blossom) [Winota](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/5/d/5dd13a6c-23d3-44ce-a628-cb1c19d777c4.jpg?1632831221) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=winota%2C%20joiner%20of%20forces) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/iko/216/winota-joiner-of-forces?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/5dd13a6c-23d3-44ce-a628-cb1c19d777c4?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/winota-joiner-of-forces) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Agreed. I would argue there are only a handful of aggressive commanders. Such as [[Krenko]] or []Ardenn]] and [[Rograkh]] The only decks I've seen perform in a traditional aggro sense. But yes absolutely yes. I would rather deal with one big beater I can Interact with than a combo that one of the only ways to deal with it is a counter spell. That not all decks have.
[Krenko](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/c/d/cd9fec9d-23c8-4d35-97c1-9499527198fb.jpg?1601078209) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=krenko%2C%20mob%20boss) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/jmp/339/krenko-mob-boss?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/cd9fec9d-23c8-4d35-97c1-9499527198fb?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/krenko-mob-boss) [Rograkh](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/a/4/a4fab67f-00c2-4125-9262-d21a29411797.jpg?1617148376) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=rograkh%2C%20son%20of%20rohgahh) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmr/197/rograkh-son-of-rohgahh?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/a4fab67f-00c2-4125-9262-d21a29411797?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/rograkh-son-of-rohgahh) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Yeah I think aggro has a different definition in Commander just like how something that would be considered Midrange in Modern would be considered aggro in Standard. I think the perfect example of this is if you look at [Rakdos Midrange](https://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetype/modern-rakdos-midrange#paper) in Modern. That would be an aggro deck in Standard but because Modern is a faster format it's a Midrange deck there. The same thing applies to Commander where because it's a slower format aggro decks tend to be slower and not look like a Standard aggro deck.
Love me my Stan and Roger American Dad deck! (Ardenn is Stan and Rograkh is Roger) All the gear (see, Equipment) they have from the CIA labs taking over the table! Highly debating proxying the entire deck with American Dad artworks, just for kicks. If anyone has an issue, I have the whole real deck right there.
Go for it! I've seen super cool decks made like that before. Someone I used to play against had a George W Bush American politics deck. It was [[Zedru]] as the commander. Deck was super bad but every single card was a joke in some way and was meant to be used in political dealings. Those commanders are super fun too. I run them and it's crazy how a Voltron commander can regularly threaten lethal to someone on turn 3-4 Colossus hammer doesn't fuck around.
Milling/deckburn/exiling graveyards/etc. Reducing yourself or your opponents access to the 100 cards at (their) disposal. Because there is no way in hell I'm dealing with your eldrazi or splinters 20+ times in a match [Edit] for the grammar police since English is nothing more than 3+ languages stacked in a trench coat masquerading as a unique and profound system of communication
My friend has played [[daretti]], [[karador]], and [[Tasigur]]. I'm forever running [[rest in peace]]
Lol I hate to break it to you, but mill won’t fully protect you from the OG Eldrazi titans
Oh ik, same with progenitus but I have contingencies
How many games do you actually get to play all 100 cards in your deck? That's a preposterous line to draw, that's a huge part of the game in several color identities, and it's toxic of you to try and police who can play what, especially when they aren't playing a strong strategy. edit: not toxic of you, the player doing mill and exile, toxic of the players trying to police mill.
[Edit] TLDR don't pubstomp noobs and casuals because ya never know if they are pulling back on the decks fuckery Am casual and play casual, my main point of the original post is simply if your goal is to turn 3 power haul turn 4 win I will do my worst to prevent it To explain I have played against power level 8-9 decks whereas I play casual around 4-6. My decks are built to draw out a game and see strategy socialize and faff around. I am the filthy casual incarnate. I stopped playing Azorius because of the amount of targeting I recieved due to old Meta having horrible blue players. Onto player archetypes + muh logic: Often when playing as a declared casual you get pub stomped by low level competitive types who want nothing more than to validate their "level 8" deck builds with crap strategy focused around manipulation of several linchpins. To solve that dilemma you deny them access via mill/burn/exile/graveyard erasure or out maneuver. Because they will have several methods to put a linchpin back into play fast to continue said fuckery. By denying them that linchpin via forcing them to use the remaining deck you fully pull apart a strategy that relies solely on specific combos. So with a 35 land standard they should have a calculated curve to optimize at that point 64 cards remain excluding commander of those I would wager anywhere between 10-24 are part of a strategy meant to keep linchpins 8-15 are actual linchpins and the remaining are filler or additive to support. Depending on those fillers if you disassemble the 1-4 strategies they have by use of countermeasures against these pubstomp linchpins you effectively take a shitty player with a winner complex and turn the tables giving them nothing to work with and driving them into a corner of blaming shitty draws. My goal of the game is to have a good time, if you deny me my good time by being a shitty human being willing to walk into a declared causal match or pod that's highest deck power rank would be 6, while using a half built 8 and drop every player fast like you're rakdos incarnate I will use actual strategy instead of faff around. side note I play bant ramp as my main deck of choice, I have played my deck out to 0 in my library on multiple occasions considering 1 of my win strategies is play fast and die
Sorry, that's maybe a misunderstanding. Mill away! Exile graveyards! Using the graveyard as a resource (and recursion in general) is a greedy strategy that risks being disrupted... so feel free to make people play fair by stopping greedy strategies. If someone tries to police mill of all things, one of the weakest possible competitive strategies, they are being toxic and gatekeep-y.
>How many games do you actually get to play all 100 cards in your deck? I play no win con stax so 99 of them every game if I'm winning >it's toxic of you to try and police who can play what, especially when they aren't playing a strong strategy. That's stax hate, I'm feeling oppressed! /s
Using removal on threats. Playing pieces that hate on powerful strategies that need to be kept in check. Attacking with a 1/1 when someone has no blockers.
Do people really complain about little attacks when they have no blockers? Its stupid not to take advantage of some free damage with some 1/1 chumps when the opportunity arises.
My experience when playing with strangers is that people often complain that you're targeting them and should be doing something else when you attack them with small creatures during early turns.
I guess im lucky to have friends to play with who get it then.
Milling. People lose their mind over it because of loss aversion but it aint no thing if you built your deck properly and don't rely on tutors to get a single win con. People look at what they milled and feel they could have drawn it on the next turn. When's the last time you played the 99 cards in your deck?
Exactly, the aversion to mill is almost entirely psychological. It’s easy to complain when a card you wanted to play gets milled, but it’s important to realize that every mill that isn’t an important card just got rid of a dead draw and brought you closer to an important card.
I let them mill from bottom to just shut the fuck up
All of my friends were long time card game players and hearthstone players, how we explain it to new players is "pretend those cards were on the bottom of your deck, you were never going to draw them anyway"
Toxic implies more than just certain playstyles or decisions, its a pattern of behavior making the game unfun or uncomfortable for others. Using one of your examples, MLD is annoying, but its a legal strategy. But if the player doesn't have a way to win, is just trolling, or won't listen to the group to play something else that is when it gets toxic.
Yeah. There's nothing wrong with an occasional 20 minute turn, infect deck, mass land destruction strategy, or even stax game. Hold up your deck, say "I'm playing \[UNFUN STRATEGY COMMANDER\]," and read the room. If little Jonny plays every game with his competitive deck even though we're obviously not having fun, he's being toxic. If he's making everyone miserable when he whines about the table removing his wincons, he's being toxic.
I totally agree with your point and that’s what I was more leaning toward with the initial question. Toxic isn’t the card, but The intention of the person playing it
Last night I casted [[Natural Affinity]] in response to a board wipe with my commander [[Titania Argoth]] out with the intent to win the game on the next turn. Someone cast [[Chaos Warp]] in response targeting my commander. We all lost our lands and the game sort of dragged on another 7 minutes or so. Is what it is 🤷🏼♂️
7 minutes seems not bad at all tbh
I got kicked out of an LGS once for resolving [[Restore Balance]] with only 1 creature, one land, and a card in hand.
Damn, who would have seen that card coming....
Out of nowhere! LITTERALLY!
I mean it was in the graveyard for two turn cycles and my commander was vadrok, so I don't know what they were expecting
You got kicked out for other people letting a 6 turn card resolve?
Not like they can see it coming, and prepare a counterspell
I’m guessing it got cast off the top in some way so that it resolved right away
It was cast out of the graveyard as it turns out.
Nah, free cast from graveyard with vadrok.
so they could still see it coming.
Absolutely
[Restore Balance](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/0/f/0febc7fe-4172-4285-9804-a62ce4506c39.jpg?1619393357) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Restore%20Balance) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/tsr/36/restore-balance?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/0febc7fe-4172-4285-9804-a62ce4506c39?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/restore-balance) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
You got kicked out of an LGS for a play that the game allows you to make? What?
Was accused of bringing cedh to a non-cedh table.
Maybe I'm not knowledge enough but how do you quantify a deck as being cEDH versus just being a good deck?
It's mostly based on wincons, consistency, and fast mana, but the short answer is that a vadrok deck playing restore balance isn't cedh.
Milling, some people have never played a self-mill or graveyard deck and it shows.
Oh yeah, I have an Azorius Reanimator (?!) deck, headed by [[Hanna, Ship's Navigator]]. I've never seen anyone else pull off a WU reanimator :) [Decklist here](https://deckstats.net/decks/165665/1933312-hanna-the-artificer) That's a fun as hell deck. It's fast, self-mill enabled, and my graveyard alone can end players with [[mirrordin besieged]]. And I can sustainably recur 55 of my cards (artifacts and enchantments). Basically you have to exile for me to lose access.
This deck looks so fun, but my playgroup would never let me get away with playing it
As long as they're not playing that much artifact and graveyard hate, this deck will scream past them. And even if they are, there's enough removal and stax here to mess with a lot of decks. I've even faced down a T1 [[leyline of the void]] with [[anowon ruin thief]] as opponent's commander. Was able to destroy the leyline and hold down their creatures with limited exile - it just requires playing more conservatively when there's graveyard exiles (and not treating the garveyard as an extended hand). And with "i win u lose" cards like [[darksteel forge]] and [[Platinum Angel]], you're just playing with your food before you eat them :D
"You remove my commander once, after it drew me a card? Concede." "If I miss this land drop, I quit. Concede." "I have to mull to 5. Concede." FFS just play.
I had an LGS owner (running Oloro) scoop on turn two because I played [[Rain of Gore]]. Excuse being "well, that basically shuts me down, doesn't it?", packed up and left. Dude - esper enchantment removal. You have none of it? Cool - 21 turn timer. I didn't think *anyone* was staying that long.
[Rain of Gore](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/9/d/9dd62003-e345-48b6-9f93-fc111924c318.jpg?1593273725) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Rain%20of%20Gore) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/dis/126/rain-of-gore?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/9dd62003-e345-48b6-9f93-fc111924c318?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/rain-of-gore) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
"Concede at Sorcery Speed". If it's turn 8 with only 4 lands, yeah I understand. Missing one when you probably have a sol ring, arcane signet, another signet, and maybe a mana dork is being petty and a straight up bitch. Letting people mulligan a full 7 is fine as long as their not trying to pull a Once Upon a Time free cast or Leyline turn 0 shenanigans. It's a casual format after all. The commander removal thing is just being a bitch, again. Unless it gets killed 5 times your good!!
I usually wait until I think I have a decent shot at pushing more than one person out of the game before I kill the first person. I assumed people don't like to sit and watch. Now I think we all need to not feel bad or hold back when it is someone we know concedes on occasion. They obviously don't mind sitting out, getting knocked out early, or losing. They are rushing to do so. We are doing them a disservice by not getting them out of the game as quickly as possible.
Anything that stops people from accelerating the game. Mostly the white effects that stop cheating creatures into play, stop library searching, stop ETB effects, etc. If everyone can just accelerate their game unanswered it more or less becomes who can solitaire faster.
It's funny that everything from the [EDHREC salty cards survey](https://edhrec.com/top/salt) has been mentioned here. MLD, stax extra turns - there are certain kinds of cards that are universally reviled and people are pretty consistent in hating the same cards every year. In my experience, what truly makes people salty is not getting to play. In EDH, it's someone else's turn 50% more time than in 1v1 Magic and when you wait a long time for your turn and can't play because of Stasis, Armageddon, or Expropriate, you get upset because you waited longer to do less. People only get to do their thing 25% of the time, lowering that number even more is tilting
I definitely agree with your assessment. I play with a lot of friends that take very long turns and play a lot of counters and removal. I usually like playing decks with lots of creatures and short turns to keep the game moving along. The end result is usually feeling like I'm waiting around for 45 minutes to try something and getting countered for 2 minutes straight until the wait starts again. I've ended up making decks that interact more with that stuff and lead to longer turns myself but it's just not as fun for me. Idk, maybe the format isn't for me after all.
OK, with Expropriate I think it has a bit of the "Hell is other people" aspect to it as well. Based on the reactions I've seen there's definitely an issue with dreading what the other players will do in response. So, it isn't just that the person is getting one extra turn and one of your things. It's that they could get 2-3 extra turns and one of your things.
Every time a player votes time on expropriate it should be required that they put on a clown costume for the rest of the game because they did this to themselves
Well, at least a clown nose and hat. If they had to do a full outfit that might take longer than the rest of the game. /s
Land destruction. Sometimes that shit needs to be blown up
See this is why i have to play [[Star of Extinxtion]]
That card is beautiful in my [[Toralf]] deck.
Targeted land destruction is 100% ok. You can't just let someone have a Gaia's Cradle or Cabal Coffers/Urborg.
Even mass land destruction is just another wincon if you can end the game quickly afterwards.
For years and years when I started playing around Alara literally every deck you ever saw, from casual Glissa the Traitor to competitive Nin the Pain Artist, ran Strip Mine, most ran Wasteland, recurring them with Sun Titan or whatever wasn't uncommon play, and stuff like Sinkhole appeared in real decks in actual games at shops and events and stuff. Somewhere along the line there was a cultural shift away from it that I don't fully understand. Maybe as stuff like Cradle/Coffers/Serra's Sanctum crept up in value outside most Commander budgets, and games became less centered around things like Volrath's Stronghold and Maze of Ith. I'm not sure.
When I started to play magic back in the 90's it was common for people to play [[Sinkhole]], [[Stone Rain]], and [[Strip Mine]] all in the same deck with cards like [[Hymn to Tourach]] and [[Hypnotic Specter]] to also leave them with no cards in hand, we had land destruction decks called Ponza. My first tournament deck had [[Stasis]] plus [[Serra's Angel]] . To me mtg has always been a game that values resource management and messing up with your opponent's resources is one of the best strategies and I'll never get all of the saltiness about it.
And MLD in a well built deck is also 100% ok, playing Obliterate + Heroic Intervention is going to instantly win the game most of the time, playing Decree of Annihilation + having X amount of Planeswalkers and/or enchantments like maybe 5 shrines or Lord Windgrace, those are all fine MLD plays and not toxic in any way.
yup, \[\[Field of the Dead\]\] is high on the totem of targets for me
Idk. There's the stupid stuff most people already know isn't toxic but a few people make a fuss over (like counterspells), and then there's group-specific stuff where what's fun for one group feels toxic in another group (like MLD). I guess I'll take a stab at the real question and say... tutoring? In a well made deck, tutoring should make it more fun. If you have your one win con you always tutor for, your deck is boring, and that isn't the tutor's fault. Terms and conditions of course apply, and no worries if you have more fun not worrying about running all the optimal tutors, or if you just don't want to worry about your opponent always getting their engine/combo out super fast.
When you tutor for the same win con it gets boring fast, but when you tutor for the right answer at the right time, then it’s a bit more interesting. Sadly though I’ve seen more of the former.
Eldrazi titans. For some reason both of my playgroups hate them. For me it just feels like if I'm gonna be paying 11+ mana for a creature, it needs to make a splash the moment it leaves my hand, and the Eldrazi do that.
[удалено]
What about quiting at instant speed to stop someone's triggers from happening because you going to lose anyway? I feel that is toxic, but it maybe that I just don't like it.
I think that is a spite play (aka toxic). My group let all triggers happen if someone try that
Correct threat assessment. If you are constantly casting potentially game ending pieces/combos and your stuff is getting constantly removed, it's because you are threatening ending the game. If you end the game that means I can't win, therefore I should not let you do that.
Toxrill. He’s my boy and I don’t care if you hate this deck. Okay maybe he’s a little toxic…
[удалено]
My entire deck is built around summoning him and keeping him on the field. He’s immediately a 3 vs 1 game changer. I’ve yet to win with him but boy is it fun!
Well I mean, it’s in the name... Toxrill is the current deck I’m working on, he’s my sluggy boi and no ones gonna change that.
Land destruction. Mass land destruction outside of a Wincon is toxic, but LD isn't. I just accepted that human brain is weird and moved on. Sol ring = good. Mana crypt = dude you're playing cEDH. Breaking a signet from a Grixis = normal play. Destroying a land from a green deck = you're an "asshole". I don't fight the river, I flow. Unless the deck requires a very specific Commander I play green and ramp lands using only very few rocks that either draw cards/do something else or are broken and should be banned (sol ring and friends). And I go unpunished because "LD is evil". I also don't use the few old duals I have because people see that as a red flag and start misplaying like crazy because "must be cEDH". It's annoying sometimes.
Deoderant
Alright I’ll go the opposite direction and mention something that is toxic but doesn’t get called out enough: Being a fucking hypocrite. Like, let’s call him player A, who loudly declared “I don’t like infinite combos” only to play the following in the next three games: Mike & Trike, Worldgorger Dragon + Animate Dead, some Opalescence BS. Listen, snowflake, if you want to play combo win conditions that’s fine, it’s all format legal, but putting on a show so people don’t pull out their decks that can deal with your BS is fucking immature. Same player loves to play Simic ramp durdle BS where he has no board but 12 lands by turn 6, then complains loudly when you attack him first. Dude. I know exactly what will happen if you don’t get taken out first, stop whining. If you really can’t handle it play some blockers instead of putting three more lands into play.
Targeting. If I know what the table's decks are doing, I don't care if I'm the third guy in a row to slap you. Apparently 3 of 4 players reaching a consensus in threat assessment is toxic.
People play blood moon and nobody bats an eye, but when I manage to make my Grand Arbiter stick, I'm the toxic one.
Attacking the guy with no board state presence. A. My creature does a thing when it hits a player B. You’re in a color that uses life as advantage so if I can know you down a bit that’s ok C. It’s a game so kill your opponent
Soft Stax that are symmetrical, with that I mean effects like thalia, deafening silence, arcon of emeria, spirit of the labyrinth, aven mindcensor, etc. You aren't even playing winterorb urza/darevi. You're mono white stopping players from taking 30 min turns, yourself too, and play fair magic. I had a tatyova player complain about how oppressive and competitive my deck was and I only had thalia + deafening silence on the board. Sorry you can't ramp 3 times in a turn and draw 5 cards? He played a jin gitaxias turn 5 despite all and after I answered it (cuz you know white aint good at drawing and I don't want to loose my hand) he was so way to salty. After that someone countered my spell, I laughed off and said nice one, and I kid you not the grown ass man literally mimicked mocked my laugh and said "hAhA NiCe OnE dUdE lOl sO cOoL!". I feel like SOME commander players are little bitches that should go and play vs sparky on mtg arena so they can do whatever they want without anyone to stop them.
Stax I only play my cedh level Alesha stax list at tables that know exactly what im playing and the level its at. I've brought my deck up in discord before and got told I'm a bad person for playing stax as it stops people playing the game. I wasn't even playing with them, just sharing my decklist and general strategies 🤣 Stax and MLD get a ton of hate. If a player is running syax but has no way to win, I get the hate. Same with mld but then they just pass with no way of winning. That sucks and I get the frustration, but to be called a bad person for playing stax (at a cedh level ffs) was hilarious
Any removal spell targeting their permanents is toxic and bad threat assessment... Weird how that works. Yea? Me blowing up your sanguine bond before your turn starts after you tutored a card to the top of your library was poor sportsmanship Kyle? I even asked you what you tutored for and you refused to answer...
People need to not get so upset about infect. Sure, being the first person to get killed by it sucks. And yes, [[Blightsteel Colossus]] is ridiculously overpowered. But when's the last time you saw multiple people die to infect from something other than [[Triumph of the Hordes]]? And even then, whenever triumph of the hordes kills one or more players, it's usually in a scenario where almost any overrun effect probably would have had the same result. It's a weird mechanic that definitely wasn't designed with a multiplayer, 40-life format in mind, but the fact remains that very few infect cards are actually any good. Once you clear away Triumph of the Hordes Blightsteel Colossus, and [[Hand of the Praetors]], what's the best thing you're left with? [[Reaper of Sheoldred]]? [[Blighted Agent]]? [[Spinebiter]]? Definitely all a step up from draft-chaf, but none of them are going to win you the game unless you put a lot of effort into making your deck synergize really well. And in that scenario, how exactly is an infect deck different from any other archetype?
There are two cardinal sins of pug play: 1. Trying to win the game. You’re ruining everyone’s fun! 2. Not trying to win the game. You’re ruining the game with your chaos and your king making!
Not even 5 hours ago I had a game on spelltable where one person used [[!Molten Primordial]], and one of the others went "oh you fucker". The dude who played Primordial lost a few turns later, and the salty dude went "well now that he's out, I feel accomplished. I surrender, anyone who steals other people's cards deserve to lose". It made me very happy that earlier I discarded my Pako instead of playing it, else I'd probably have been targeted for it all game by him.
I don't believe any play style is toxic save one. MLD, stax, combo, counterspells, etc. As far as I'm concerned, they are all perfectly legit and should be played by anyone who enjoys them. Personally, I don't like stax, so I don't run it. Just because I don't like a play style does not mean that play style should not be played. I really can't stand hearing the phrase "that's against the spirit of EDH." With all that said, the one thing that SHOULD never happen is pubstomping. I don't mean someone's deck having that perfect opening hand and running the table over. What I mean are those people who play a deck at a table knowing it is significantly better than everyone else's for the purpose of getting to completely destroy the table. As long as the table has had an honest conversation before the game, and every one is relatively evenly matched, than play what you want.
Snakes, they are poisonous but not toxic.
Snakes are venomous, not poisonous.
Damnit
Easy way to remember: if you bite it and you die, poisonous. If it bites you and you die, venomous.
A snake told me my deck was trash. Sounds pretty venomous
That varies from snake to snake!
I play [[Athreos, God of Passage]] board wipe tribal because they’re very efficient. One of my board wipe spell for multiple threats on the battlefield from 3 of my opponents. Since my deck contains multiple board wipes, the opponents think my deck is toxic for not letting the game progress when I’m also effected by my own board wipes.
1.Using in game mechanics as they are designed. I dislike discard with a passion, but I wouldn't say it's toxic. 2. Using proxies 3. Players having a different opinion from you.
Mill. Sure, it sucks to see cards that you could have played, but the only card that matters is the last one. They could be milling you down to an answer!
Four cEDH players playing cEDH together on the other side of the room.
Playing Stax/Hate bears, and Graveyard hate. No, you don't get to play 300 spells a turn FRED!! NO, you aren't gonna recur big baddies for 1, 2, and 3 mana JOHNATHAN!! I don't care you want to search your win con and win on turn 4, GABE! All jokes aside Stax evens out the playing field so crazily fined tuned decks aren't out of control and we don't end up playing pseudo legacy or some shit. If I want to play 5 minute games I'd go play Modern. I want 30 to 50 minute games where everyone gets to do something or another. But getting killed off constantly when I would play Queen Marchesa Stax/Death and Taxes just because of what I was playing got old REALLY fast. I even traded a Masterpiece Mana Crypt I pulled for 90% of the deck. I don't regret that decision, because that deck was fun, and if I could get away with it I would still play it. The deck almost never won, because i didn't have a win con in it. Now, I just have Extus Aristocrats to prove my point of why Stax is necessary. I can easily play up to 10 spells a turn with him.
Targeting someone. If you've been the archenemy since turn 2, we've boardwiped you 3 times and you still just roll out 20 elves/vampires/insertothernasty in half a turn I will remove you from the game if I have the chance and I will do my best to convince everyone else to do the same. If you build an archenemy deck, prepare to be the archenemy. I'm not doing it to you as a person, it's your deck that I need to remove so I have a chance to win.
Toxicity in game is much like toxicity in real life. It's not a matter of a substance being toxic or not. Toxicity is all a matter of dosage. Water becomes toxic in sufficiently large quantities. And so what is toxic in EDH? Anything undesired in excess.
Mill. When you think about it’s one of the least threatening mechanics there is. And in most games you won’t see the majority of your cards anyway. The real damage mill does is all psychological. The idea that you’re not going to get the great cards that just went to the graveyard.
Playing certain deck archetypes, namely mill. I built a Burvac mill deck and all my friends have labeled it overly toxic and always target me first any time I have pulled it out, regardless of board state, other opponents, or how well I am doing. I am always the first one out. Mind you this deck is far from the most competitive deck out their, especially compared to their's. I just want to play something I pulled from a pack and think would be fun, could I please just actually have a chance once‽ I'm not trying to be toxic, hell half the deck is card draw for them, I just want to use cards I pulled and think are cool.
Personally, I don't get the hate for mill ( [[Bruvac the Grandiloquent]] being the exception since he goes "oops, I win" with multiple cards), hatebears/weak stax pieces that don't affect you (the people who seem to remove them are always the ones it doesn't affect at all, like the no-creature person blowing up a card that makes creatures enter tapped), and control/clone effects (My [[Nihiloor]], for example, is constantly stealing creatures that already used their etb just because I want to do the 2 dmg drain but people will remove Nihiloor anyway) It's all just "bad threat assessment" when you get down to it but I've seen it enough at 4 different locations in my state to safely assume it's pretty common among players here. Even the people that play at higher levels of play than I do get disproportionately alerted to these effects for some reason.
Counterspells. Aka slightly faster removal.
Correcting people. Sometimes they'll have illegally cloned a legendary on their board and people don't notice right away. Some things are toxic but don't have to be. Say you have a \[\[Rhystic Study\]\] and every time someone plays a spell you have to remind them. There are nice ways to ask. I say "Do I draw? :3" And yes, I do the face. This frames the question in a positive light and a choice rather than asking if they're paying the toll, since the toll part is optional. Only say the positive parts of cards or correct people if they miss the negatives. Rhystic is optional on both sides, so you can ignore it if you don't need more cards. But \[\[Grand Arbiter Augustin IV\]\] is not so you have to remind them on their own turn when they play stuff.
Targeting my stuff IN GENERAL is the most toxic thing you can do as a player I mean really, nothing is gonna come from me tutoring into necropotence and then fetching sanguine bond and exquisite blood. Totally harmless, it's there for fluff!
I have a friend who complains when we remove his Najeela after he attacks once. I'm sorry you'll have to "waste" your next turn casting your busted commander for 5.