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View Full Version : The Power vs. Hate Ratio



Jeff Kruchkow
02-05-2010, 12:08 PM
Ok so I'm having a bit of a dilemma of late with my EDH group. I can't seem to find a deck that is both powerful enough to actually win, and also inconspicuous enough to not draw everyone's hate. In the past I played Azami (who draws hate like no other) and a bad Kresh build (no way to win compared to the rest of the decks).
So anyway, what decks have you found are strong enough to win and yet don't get hated out every game??

badjuju
02-05-2010, 02:13 PM
Well from my experience, if you win with a deck, people are going to be wary of it anyways. But by principle...

Don't play spells that make people worry. Stuff like Legacy Weapon.
Don't play spells that make people groan. Stuff like Armageddon.
Don't play spells that lock people out. Stuff like Iona.
And of course don't play generals like Teeg or Azami

I think the most under-the-radar decks are the UBR ones. I was discussing this with a few people, and I noticed how this Thraximundar deck at our gatherings always seems to do rather well. The deck doesn't do shit for the first half of the game except "pretend to be friends" by +2ing Jace and countering table-offending bombs. Then he starts busting out all the Earthquakes and Take Possessions, followed by a slew of planeswalkers. Three easy swings with Thraximundar later and each other opponent is dead. It's easy to play political and subtle with the deck, since it is 100% reactive and you can choose how you want to affect the game flow.

umbowta
02-05-2010, 04:27 PM
Don't play spells that make people worry. Stuff like Legacy Weapon.
Don't play spells that make people groan. Stuff like Armageddon.
Don't play spells that lock people out. Stuff like Iona.
And of course don't play generals like Teeg or Azami


I follow these rules 100% and I still got bitched out recently for recurring Defense of the Heart off Twilight Shepherd and Kiki-Jiki. There were seriously 4 other players in the game, none of which had artifact or enchanment removal so Survival, Mind's Eye, and Defense of the Heart went nuts all over everyones face...and I got yelled at for playing EDH like a Spike. I'm still a little pissed about the situation. I mean, I've already removed all of the "infinite" combo's and most of the tutors.

How much more LAME do I have to make my deck before I dont get bitched at?

Shouldn't I be able to play Survival and/or Defense of the Heart without complaints? Get a friggin disenchant people. It's deck building 101, lesson 4 or 5 or whatever. Either play the appropriate removal or have the backbone to take it to the dome if you chose not to have removal.

sunshine
02-05-2010, 04:57 PM
You can't please everybody. I mean, there's a banned list for a reason - to lay down the law on what you can play and what you can't. Anything beyond that should be spelled out explicitly by your play group. I used to run a rather unfair Oona build, but relegated that to competetive (read: prizes involved) matches as most people don't enjoy playing againt straight up combo EDH. That being said, in my more casual deck I still run cards to hand other people playing similar decks because honestly there's no real reason they shouldn't.

If a card is "against the spirit of EDH" it should be banned. If it's not banned (by your play group or otherwise) then go for it.

badjuju
02-05-2010, 05:28 PM
I follow these rules 100% and I still got bitched out recently for recurring Defense of the Heart off Twilight Shepherd and Kiki-Jiki. There were seriously 4 other players in the game, none of which had artifact or enchanment removal so Survival, Mind's Eye, and Defense of the Heart went nuts all over everyones face...and I got yelled at for playing EDH like a Spike. I'm still a little pissed about the situation. I mean, I've already removed all of the "infinite" combo's and most of the tutors.

How much more LAME do I have to make my deck before I dont get bitched at?

Shouldn't I be able to play Survival and/or Defense of the Heart without complaints? Get a friggin disenchant people. It's deck building 101, lesson 4 or 5 or whatever. Either play the appropriate removal or have the backbone to take it to the dome if you chose not to have removal.

That's their own fault, not yours. While I think that Defense of the Heart can lead to some stupid stuff, the fact that you got Kiki-Jiki and Twilight Shepherd and NOT Sky Hussar is saying something. EDH wouldn't be fun without a little broken in it.

I should also add: Don't play combos that'll end the game, like the one mentioned above.

MMogg
02-05-2010, 05:58 PM
The flip side to Yesmilord's list of donts, some dos I find particularly useful:

Do play cards that protect yourself.
Do play spells that will wreck those who dare attack you.


Generally, you can use a siege mentality strategy and hide yourself behind a wall of protection. Targeting those who target you, such as Exile as opposed to Wrath of God, will help eliminate the political fallout of your actions and also make people think twice before attacking you. If I can use a cheesy simile, play like a sleeping tiger: people should not fear you will attack them, but should fear disturbing you.

Alternatively, you can see the fact that you get hated out as a badge of honour and go out in a blaze of fire. :laugh: No one likes being the last one selected when choosing teams; no one wants to be the lame gimp who sits there while the stronger better players play it out. I love getting hated on... but I'm essentially a red mage so no surprise there.

badjuju
02-05-2010, 06:53 PM
The flip side to Yesmilord's list of donts, some dos I find particularly useful:

Do play cards that protect yourself.
Do play spells that will wreck those who dare attack you.


Generally, you can use a siege mentality strategy and hide yourself behind a wall of protection. Targeting those who target you, such as Exile as opposed to Wrath of God, will help eliminate the political fallout of your actions and also make people think twice before attacking you. If I can use a cheesy simile, play like a sleeping tiger: people should not fear you will attack them, but should fear disturbing you.

Alternatively, you can see the fact that you get hated out as a badge of honour and go out in a blaze of fire. :laugh: No one likes being the last one selected when choosing teams; no one wants to be the lame gimp who sits there while the stronger better players play it out. I love getting hated on... but I'm essentially a red mage so no surprise there.

Red mages are great at getting hated out without doing anything broken :P
Sleeping tiger is the best way to put how the UB or UBR decks play out. Try not to fall too much into pattern either - people will start calling you out as the guy who slow rolls the game.

Sims
02-06-2010, 12:53 AM
Red mages are great at getting hated out without doing anything broken :P
Sleeping tiger is the best way to put how the UB or UBR decks play out. Try not to fall too much into pattern either - people will start calling you out as the guy who slow rolls the game.

I got called for "slow rolling" the game quite a bit while playing Maga... Mind Twisting the guy who just sculpted a great hand and was going to infi-out on the next turn to end the game, cycling decree of pain to kill kamahls animated lands in response to a vitalize or rude awakening, something that is saving my own ass usually...and everyone at the tables, but draws the game out longer. I would usually eventually win or be one of the last players to bow out because i was able to keep boards clear and out-card advantage people til Mirari', Coffers, and lots of drain effects/maga could take it home. It was (and is still now as Xiahou dun) a successful strategy, but people don't really care for it.

Thing that sucks though, is that the Kamahl deck can combo out early, and the Jhoira deck can just dominate the game... So when I get screwed or a "political" death cloud practically knocks me out of the game and one of the combo-y players recovers and wins... that's fun... but when i sit down with my combo deck and out-combo their combo.... it's not fun. I don't get it lol.

badjuju
02-06-2010, 04:32 AM
Yea the control decks of the format are all like that, especially if you play frugally. You can just sit there and ramp up until you have enough, then just keep dropping bombs. I personally prefer that playstyle, so that's how I get a kick out of EDH. I also think it's fun as hell to play spells like Wild Ricochet, Twincast, and Swerve. Make some enemies, make some friends, it's all fun and games.

I think people should care less about winning or losing in EDH. Most people take it well, and even more will act as good samaritans when a neighbor is in despair, but there are those who just have a bad attitude about losing. Maybe it's just something about "comboing" off that is obnoxious, like watching your opponent masturbate into a orgasm that will cover your face and smother you to death.

MMogg
02-06-2010, 04:55 AM
Yea the control decks of the format are all like that, especially if you play frugally. You can just sit there and ramp up until you have enough, then just keep dropping bombs. I personally prefer that playstyle, so that's how I get a kick out of EDH. I also think it's fun as hell to play spells like Wild Ricochet, Twincast, and Swerve. Make some enemies, make some friends, it's all fun and games.

I think people should care less about winning or losing in EDH. Most people take it well, and even more will act as good samaritans when a neighbor is in despair, but there are those who just have a bad attitude about losing. Maybe it's just something about "comboing" off that is obnoxious, like watching your opponent masturbate into a orgasm that will cover your face and smother you to death.

Lovely imagery. That settles it, my next EDH/Highlander deck will stuff a bunch of combos in there and I'll dub it "Bukkake".

I completely agree with your philosophy/approach to EDH. It's fun just to fuck around (hell, I feel like that about most Magic). I love playing Chaos Magic or Vortex (dunno if you know those). Random goodness is fun for a laugh and a nice change of pace from the egotism that usually surrounds competitive play... well, if you have a good play group that is.

badjuju
02-06-2010, 05:17 AM
Lovely imagery. That settles it, my next EDH/Highlander deck will stuff a bunch of combos in there and I'll dub it "Bukkake".

Give Oona or Azami combo a spin. They are definitely bukkake decks. And by bukkake I mean you're going to mill three guys simultaneously within the first few turns of the game. Consistently.

umbowta
02-07-2010, 09:42 PM
That's their own fault, not yours. While I think that Defense of the Heart can lead to some stupid stuff, the fact that you got Kiki-Jiki and Twilight Shepherd and NOT Sky Hussar is saying something. EDH wouldn't be fun without a little broken in it.

I should also add: Don't play combos that'll end the game, like the one mentioned above.Exactly my point! I feel I have made reasonable anti-spike adjustments to my deck while maintaining some of the busted but interruptable synergies. This should make the Power to Hate ratio just right imo. However, some folks still complain.

badjuju
02-08-2010, 12:51 PM
Exactly my point! I feel I have made reasonable anti-spike adjustments to my deck while maintaining some of the busted but interruptable synergies. This should make the Power to Hate ratio just right imo. However, some folks still complain.

"Interruptable synergies" is the perfect term for what EDH should look like. Every deck should be able to do something awesome, and players at the table should give kudos to the person who can pull it off, not whine like a little bitch. Thank god I haven't had too many bad experiences yet.

Jeff Kruchkow
02-08-2010, 01:01 PM
"Interruptable synergies" is the perfect term for what EDH should look like. Every deck should be able to do something awesome, and players at the table should give kudos to the person who can pull it off, not whine like a little bitch. Thank god I haven't had too many bad experiences yet.

Yeah my problem is the bitchy players. Its just odd to me how no one gets mad when the maga player death clouds everyone out on turn 5 but if i wrath to stay alive everyone flips shit.

Anyway, we have a guy that plays a thraxi deck much like the one described so right now im trying mono white and just protecting myself until i can do broken stuff and win in one or two turns.

Aggro_zombies
02-08-2010, 01:14 PM
Yeah my problem is the bitchy players. Its just odd to me how no one gets mad when the maga player death clouds everyone out on turn 5 but if i wrath to stay alive everyone flips shit.

Anyway, we have a guy that plays a thraxi deck much like the one described so right now im trying mono white and just protecting myself until i can do broken stuff and win in one or two turns.
How do you manage to do broken stuff in mono-white?

Players around here seem to be pretty chill, except for the "no one wants to play one-on-one because that's not the point of EDH" thing. I play Saffi Combos and Vorosh Dredge (no one interacts with this deck well, which is amusing. I haven't gotten any complaints about it), but I might put Oona combo-control back together.

Mystical_Jackass
02-08-2010, 01:22 PM
People are very myopic in EDH. It's like tunnel vision, if someone swings at you for 8 damage early on and you're vulnerable, they'll prolly continue gunning for you the rest of the game just because >.>

Best way around it is to always have someting on the table and have good defenses. Most people are lazy, if you're the one with the Maze or Ghostly Prison, I swear they're more likely to swing at the other guy 'cause they don't wanna go through the effort. Spike Weaver, Deed, Disk, etc. are all great spells to have out later on, but even stuff like yavimaya elder, Solemn, Academy Rector, Yosei, etc. are good because they hault an opponent, like... do I want to play into their benefit? naw, I'll pass

Offler
02-10-2010, 05:30 PM
I dont believe that there are any "bad" cards which make people hate you just because you play them. I have seen stupid decks with 50 counterspells for 2 mana and Isochron scepter. That guy was not going to play actually, he was going to waste time of his opponent. Deckbuilding was efficient, but not funny and it needed a lot of mulligans until he was satisfied (mostly when the scepter was on hand).

But it does not have anything to do with the power of the deck. Once you can put anything in play which can attack the opponent is dead.

I play some "broken cards" and some "unusable" cards but the way how they work together is the magic of the deck. Wise opponent will look at it and try to figure out how it works. Unwise will look at it saying "if you would do this on tournament you will be disqualified for long play". Mostly those players have 8-8 beasts which cant be countered, have protection from blue when i say "tap everything".

Good deck must be interesting from the point of deckbuilding, and good play must be same. I dont believe that interesting deck can invoke hate, mostly decks which are completely pasted from web are "the bad" decks where cards do not interact with each other.

Silverdragon
06-20-2010, 04:34 PM
I've been playing a lot of german highlander (just like edh but without general) casually with my friends and the main thing I learned is that they hate not being able to do stuff. That means that anything that can eliminate them early or prevent them from playing spells (and by that I mean stuff like mass land destruction or recursive Time Walks etc. NOT Counterspells, those are fine) will get stomped on hard.
We had one 4-player game with a Survival deck, an Oath of Druids deck, a Turboland deck and a Sliver deck. First to go was the Turboland deck because it might've been close to getting infi turns, second was the Oath deck because it has Iona in it, and then the remaining decks drawed because both got out a SotF and they thought it would be too complicated to sort through all that tutoring and response stuff.

So to me power is not really the issue. We have people playing with Ancestral Recall, Tolarian Academy and more. We solved this by weeding out the most aggravating combos (if we get killed before we can do something about it we simply refuse to play until changes are made) and by proxying up so everyone can be at the same powerlevel.
There are of course decks winning more than others because they are better positioned in our meta, are played by the better player or just get lucky more often. But, we don't notice as much because everyone gets to do what they want almost every game anyway.

Aleksandr
06-20-2010, 05:06 PM
We've played Pentagram on friday's night (hehe... not a FNM) and even though I don't have the most powerful deck in existence (in fact, most of my 101 is below ten USD range - except for... IDK - four or five cards, notable mention is CoW and Intuition), so, even though my deck is not that powerful, I was a bit hated (even by my teammates, lol), just because no one really likes that style of play Intuition->Gifts/Genesis/EW, EoT spin Top, upkeep: in resp. to Grunt's trigger sacrifice Plains + Forest to Zuran Orb and put them on bottom, Land Tax trigger: draw three, Genesis trigger: EW, draw: Sylvan Library - draw Azusa, dredge LftL, main: EW-> Intuition, Intuition -> Worm Harvest/Skullclamp/Ruins, LftL-> Ruins+Bog+Thicket, play Azusa, play Ruins, play Bog (and dance on your grave), play Forest, cycle Thicket, resp. Ruins -> Skullclamp, Skullclamp, equip Pheldagriff, swing for five, go. EoT Gifts -> FoF/Regrowth/Foundry/Sword of the Meek.

:confused: