[new cards] Eww, every new Commander. [Archive]

TsumiBand

10-07-2013, 10:59 AM

So, is it just me? I don't care for any of these new Commanders.

This feels and sounds like a dumb thing to say, but commanders are almost better when they are *not* built against EDH's rules.

So far there are three new Legendary Creatures that I know of coming from the Commander precons in November:

Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge 1UBR

Flying
When -this- enters the battlefield, each player exiles the top X cards of his or her library where X is the amount of mana spent to cast -this-.
Whenever -this- attacks, you may cast an instant or sorcery spell exiled by -this- without paying its mana cost.
1/3

Prossh, Skyraider of Kher 1BRG

Flying
When you cast -this- put X 0/1 Red Kobold creature tokens on the battlefield, where X is the amount of mana spent to cast -this-.
Sacrifice another creature: -this- gets +1/+0 until end of turn.
5/5

Derevi, Empyrial Tactician GWU

Flying
When -this- enters the battlefield or a creature you control deals combat damage to a player, you may tap or untap target permanent.

1GWU: Put -this- onto the battlefield from the command zone.
2/3

So maybe I'm just poopy but I feel like all of these are kind of subversive and really just not-very-good for the format in general.

I've playtested against a putative Jeleva deck. It's dumb as shit. The right play is always pretty much to just exile all the things and then pass. Having said that -- I did manage to eek out wins because Mistveil Plains was definitely in play on my side, but there are going to be a lot of decks that are just unprepared for that kind of milling effect. On its face it probably isn't worse than Oona, Queen of the Infinite Mana, but it's untargeted and it's a commander so it's "on a stick", as it were.

Prossh is just like "Hey Dude Where's My Food Chain"? It is way too easy to construct some Mana Echoes/Greater Good/Food Chain/whatever else style deck with this guy, he will never actually swing for the win. And of course he's Jund so amazing tutors exist for him. Prossh is probably the most worrisome, just because he is a two-card combo with a lot of things and he is so easily accessible that really you just need to draw the other half and crush. Beh.

Derevi is an odd duck. It isn't OP or anything, but it just exists to be like "I always cost 1GWU. I have Flash basically. I don't creature spell, ever. Also I make things tap and untap because reasons!"

I'm not the Chicken Little type -- and I don't think anything is horribly awry. But I also kind of feel like these cards are just aimed at taking aspects of the format that are kind of meant to be hard-coded drawbacks and turn them into non-issues or benefits, and some of them are just begging to break things. Honestly I think Prossh is just bad for a ton of reasons -- little kids will hate it b/c it's a dragon that wins by not attacking but by being a combo piece, so it's setting up a lot of people to say "I came over to this side of the fence to avoid SHIT LIKE THIS GRRAGGH" and then rage. Which, whatever, people can react however they want, but it's just.. ugh. These commanders all just feel ill-advised. IMO.

What think?

Kayradis

10-07-2013, 12:37 PM

can't never be as good as Sharuum.

Koby

10-07-2013, 01:03 PM

EDH. What an abortion of a rational thoughts.

It's getting to the point where any card with Legend on it is just going to be awful. I'm more excited about the non-Legendary cards from these sets than any proposed Commanders. I wonder if WotC is going back to their Legends model of just turning their shitty D&D characters into "Creature - Legend"s. Here's looking at you Lady of the Mountain.

Davran

10-07-2013, 01:55 PM

I think it's cool that they're willing to explore the design space a little when it comes to these products. I just wish they would do a little testing first. It took what, 3 seconds after Prossh was spoiled for someone to go "lulz, Food Chain"? This leads to boring decks with 90/100 identical cards like all of the other "pushed" legends out there (Sharuum, Jhoira etc.) that all telegraph their game plan from the second they take it out of the box.

For what it's worth, I don't think any of these new legends are going to break the format as it stands right now. They just make tuck effects and cards like Torpor Orb even better. The thing that gets me is the same twelve year old playing Food Chain Prossh will get all whiny when you slam Mind Over Matter and show him what a real combo looks like.

**EDIT:

This just popped up on Twitter

Oloro, Ageless Ascetic 3WUB

Legendary Giant Soldier

At the beginning of your upkeep, you gain 2 life.

Whenever you gain life, you may pay 1. If you do, draw a card and each opponent loses 1 life.

At the beginning of your upkeep, if -this- is in the command zone, you gain 2 life.

4/5

Sanguine Bond says "what's up"?

Aggro_zombies

10-07-2013, 04:09 PM

Derevi is an odd duck. It isn't OP or anything, but it just exists to be like "I always cost 1GWU. I have Flash basically. I don't creature spell, ever. Also I make things tap and untap because reasons!"
I think this guy is meant to be a Bant aggro-control general. The Twiddle triggers play well with cards like Opposition and Glare of Subdual plus a pile of dorks. Bant didn't really have a general for this kind of deck previously: Rafiq was Voltron, Angus McKenzie was control, Phedalgriff or however you spell it was for that one annoying motherfucker who wants to play Helper. Treva was as close as Bant got to having a reasonable general for a creature deck.

But I also kind of feel like these cards are just aimed at taking aspects of the format that are kind of meant to be hard-coded drawbacks and turn them into non-issues or benefits...
Welcome to modern Magic design.

Koby

10-07-2013, 04:32 PM

I think this guy is meant to be a Bant aggro-control general. The Twiddle triggers play well with cards like Opposition and Glare of Subdual plus a pile of dorks. Bant didn't really have a general for this kind of deck previously: Rafiq was Voltron, Angus McKenzie was control, Phedalgriff or however you spell it was for that one annoying motherfucker who wants to play Helper. Treva was as close as Bant got to having a reasonable general for a creature deck.

Welcome to modern Magic design.

I was under the impression that Jenara was the aggro-y Bant general, and played well extremely well with the Exalted shard.

Aggro_zombies

10-07-2013, 04:41 PM

I was under the impression that Jenara was the aggro-y Bant general, and played well extremely well with the Exalted shard.
Eh, Jenara is one of those "only playing it for its colors" generals. She doesn't really help or hinder an aggro-control plan, but she's efficient and evasive so she's a reasonable option. Treva is also large and evasive, but has an extra life gain ability which can be relevant under some circumstances.

There aren't enough good exalted creatures to be worth playing a dedicated exalted deck, but if there were, Rafiq is your man.

Anusien

10-07-2013, 07:03 PM

HammafistRoob

10-07-2013, 08:26 PM

Jeleva seems absolutely disgusting if you give it haste(Greaves anyone?). I mean, she won't be your win condition or anything but her ability is better than drawing cards.

kombatkiwi

10-08-2013, 01:05 PM

-The Grixis one is definitely the strongest power-level wise if you're truly trying to break things
-The Jund one is the strongest if you're viewing these through the turd-tinted lenses of "My entire playgroup is only allowed to play midrange green decks because somebody decided that counterspells and 'combos' are unfun". I don't think it's significantly better than Sekkuar.
-The Bant one does a very interesting thing and powerful thing (uncounterable flash from the command zone that never gets more expensive) but at the end of the day the body is only a 2/3. The tap-untap requires you to build around it a bit which is great, I think this is the most interesting card of the 5.
-The strength of the Esper one lies in how well you can abuse the draw-cards ability which requires a fairly heavy commitment, this is also quite a cool card but again when you boil it down it's only really a phyrexian arena with legs.
-The Naya one has great art and I think is a well designed card, but it's super underpowered as-is and for it to be good I feel like the activated ability needs to cost 0. (I mean still have the "X can't be 0" clause, but you just pay 0 and remove 1 or more counters)

If I was going to build any of these as decks it would definitely be the Bant Bird but there are still 5 new 3 colour legends to be spoiled (if they're following the previous format) and I'm keen to see the 2-colour legends too.

Really if you think that Mana Crypt and Sol Ring are acceptable cards to have in the format then there's no way that any of these spoilers should even come close to rustling your jimmies. The Bant Bird is going to make serious waves in French though if my understanding of that format is correct.

TsumiBand

10-08-2013, 04:58 PM

@koby
...Not sure if trolling, but I agree that it's good to have a venue for new Eternal-only cards to exist. Chaos Warp and Flusterstorm probably could not have happened any other way, especially the latter since Storm is pretty much quintuple-banned from ever occurring in an expansion ever again ever.

@kiwi
The Bant and Esper ones break the "X mana spent to cast this" theme and I have to say I find them to be the most interesting, and I'm usually the guy who likes his card cycles neatly wrapped up. The other 3 are just playing right into the butthole theme that people have less and less patience for in EDH; you draw your one card, you play the card that lets you go infinite, and since counterspells are so fucking terrible in EDH for most of the same reasons that spot removal and burn are terrible, things just resolve and the game ends. So for my part it's like... oh, great your game-ending 2-card combo just happens to be your damn commander. It's a bit douchey. I dunno. I guess that's a fallacy on my part; something about not hating the player but the game, right?

Nice job with the Naya guy ugh. Love me some errata to fix a derping. I bet they didn't even see it until someone said "So, Crusade." Too bad I can't play it in the same deck as Wormfang Crab :/

As for Mana Crypt and Sol Ring, I don't mind them. I do not think they are nearly as swingy as people believe them to be, and they still just exist in an ecosystem with plenty of other mana rocks and so people will always find a way to turn 2 a Natural Order or turn 3 a Warp World, or just be full-on dicks and play Storm combo and just totally scoop the format, and none of those plays require a Sol Ring to be on the battlefield. Anecdotally speaking I win without drawing those cards all the time, so w/e I don't even care. I may not care for 2-card game-ending combos that no one has the balls to pack countermagic for, but I respect the desire to leave hooks in the format for Spikes.

Aggro_zombies

10-08-2013, 05:50 PM

I wonder if the text on the Naya general was inadvertently left off the card or if someone in templating saw that and said, "We're going to have to put this in four-point font for all the text to fit," and someone else said, "Eh, whatever, we'll just errata it."

That said, the Naya general is kind of boring. I've heard comparisons to Ghave, but it's nowhere near that good. Even setting aside that black is vastly better than red in EDH, Ghave can refill himself and has a built-in sacrifice outlet; Marath will get real pricey real fast if you are just trying to spam tokens. I think it's much more comparable to Ulasht or Rith.

I suspect each deck will have a "how much mana you spend" general in it, assuming they follow the pattern they set last time with two new dudes, a new two-color dude, and a reprint. The other new general in each deck might reference the command zone in some way, since that seems to be the theme this time around. If they're giving us a common card that's in each deck, my guess would be something like the following:

Command Rock
2
Artifact
Whenever your Commander is put into the command zone from anywhere, put a charge counter on ~.
T: Add 1 to your mana pool.
T: Add 1 to your mana pool for each charge counter on ~.

Seems reasonable.

Offler

10-09-2013, 06:52 AM

TsumiBand

10-09-2013, 08:31 AM

Yeah I thought of Ghave when I saw the Naya guy. Ghave is a house though and its colors are arguably stronger for what it does.

Also the Naya guy is just another Food Chain/Mana Echoes combo guy, yay. It's an Elemental and it makes Elementals, so you can just sit and spin and produce billions of manas. That's probably the more frustrating part about it, is eventually people just cave to that combo stuff. I'd be lying if I said most of my decks don't contain at least one "fuck this game" two-card game ender. And in a lot of ways I think ultimately you kind of need some of those, because otherwise games can just drag out.

It's just awkward to see so many of the new commanders (grixis/naya/jund) have such a high potential for catering to the "go infinite" crowd in EDH. Even most of the Spikes I know are like... man that's not why we play EDH. I mean I dunno, as with all things EDH your community will determine how big a problem it actually is. It just feels like thoughtless design that was supposed to be this whole "command zone MATTERS" thing and its just very breakable.

Aggro_zombies

10-09-2013, 03:39 PM

Making "Commanderness" as a mechanic is bad decision. Those cards can hardly be used in other way as a general. That never happened before.

New generals are just missing the point of why are current tier 1 generals being played.
I'm pretty sure "the point" of this product is not to make Tier 0.001 generals, but to make fun cards that will appeal to a broad cross-section of people. In many ways, printing broken new combo-control generals is antithetical to that goal.

As for the actual generals themselves: legends in this product are not bound by the same constraints as legends printed in basically any other product Wizards makes. Since this is made specifically for EDH, the generals can be used to highlight the unique aspects of the format in ways they can't in normal Magic sets. I think these guys are fine, though I like the "how much mana you spent" execution more just because it's a little more subtle.

thulnanth

10-10-2013, 01:18 AM

As for the actual generals themselves: legends in this product are not bound by the same constraints as legends printed in basically any other product Wizards makes. Since this is made specifically for EDH, the generals can be used to highlight the unique aspects of the format in ways they can't in normal Magic sets.

This 100%.

I thought one of the coolest things they did last time around was Command Tower - a great land in EDH that is worthless anywhere else. Whether or not I like the commanders they've shown so far, I am pleased they are using this product to do things they couldn't do elsewhere. Just my $0.02 worth.

Take it easy,
Jared

Offler

10-10-2013, 03:28 AM

I'm pretty sure "the point" of this product is not to make Tier 0.001 generals, but to make fun cards that will appeal to a broad cross-section of people. In many ways, printing broken new combo-control generals is antithetical to that goal.

As for the actual generals themselves: legends in this product are not bound by the same constraints as legends printed in basically any other product Wizards makes. Since this is made specifically for EDH, the generals can be used to highlight the unique aspects of the format in ways they can't in normal Magic sets. I think these guys are fine, though I like the "how much mana you spent" execution more just because it's a little more subtle.

I simply like legendary creatures which were not intended to become EDH Generals in the future :) From the new legendary creatures I like Vela the Night-clad. She is not broken or particulary very good general (when compared to Oona for example), but she has some tricks like - you cast Evacuation and deal quite a lot damage.

These new commanders seem to me bit too straightforward... I would not expect anything like Azami or Oona since those are broken for sure. I expected something like was last planechase...

TsumiBand

10-10-2013, 01:40 PM

This 100%.

I thought one of the coolest things they did last time around was Command Tower - a great land in EDH that is worthless anywhere else. Whether or not I like the commanders they've shown so far, I am pleased they are using this product to do things they couldn't do elsewhere. Just my $0.02 worth.

Take it easy,
Jared

So, there's a difference between playing with the theme and turning it on its head, right -- Command Tower is a direct abstraction from EDH's 'color identity' -- which itself is an abstraction, last time I checked 'color identity' doesn't exist in any other format (sorry Wild Mongrel).

Here's the thing; the RC for EDH was wise to add 2 to the cost of each recasting of the commander -- for most intents and purposes, the commander is always 'in your hand' only it can never be forcibly discarded, exiled, cast from your own hand, shuffled into your library from your hand, and so on. In this way it has so many more benefits than drawbacks that it must start to become difficult to recast it -- barring shenanigans it is always a spell you can cast. Wizards understands why this matters; Planeswalkers are a one-shot-per-turn effect partially because they don't really need mana to work, and they couldn't really exist as they do now if they worked like other permanents with activated abilities; you'd just run one all the way up and then cast their final ability into perdition.

Making commanders that intentionally turn that drawback around and make it a benefit -- a greater benefit than simply recasting the same spell -- sort of ejects one of the smarter aspects about EDH. In a Highlander format it *should* be difficult to recast the same spell, even if it is your commander. It's true that it becomes an issue of diminishing returns - do I really want to pay 8WWBB for Ghost Council of Orzhova? -- but that's the cost of recursion in a singleton format.

Davran

10-10-2013, 02:20 PM

Making commanders that intentionally turn that drawback around and make it a benefit -- a greater benefit than simply recasting the same spell -- sort of ejects one of the smarter aspects about EDH. In a Highlander format it *should* be difficult to recast the same spell, even if it is your commander. It's true that it becomes an issue of diminishing returns - do I really want to pay 8WWBB for Ghost Council of Orzhova? -- but that's the cost of recursion in a singleton format.

For what it's worth, I think these new commanders still hit that point eventually.

At some point exiling those extra two cards for your 1/3 flyer just isn't worth it anymore...especially in grixis colors where ramping is pretty difficult. Unless of course you're slamming a free Boundless Realms or whatever...but still. You need to exile ~80 cards per player to win that way, and a 1/3 flyer needs quite a lot of help to get there for 21. On top of all of that, this is commander: the format of big stupid creatures. The average deck has what, 15-20 potential "free" toys for her...or 1 in 5 cards exiled?

The jund colored one is probably the least likely to hit that wall since you're getting an army for your trouble. Then again, you're probably always one turn away from that victory Overrun or Craterhoof Behemoth once you start spending 12 on your general.

Oloro is just fine sitting in the command zone...which adds a whole new spin to playing it for the colors. All you need to do there is point a Jester's Cap at the deck, pull out Fieldar Sovereign, Serra Ascendant and Sanguine Bond. That'll be the end of that deck.

The naya guy is kind of boring. I agree that he sort of apes Ghave, and that card isn't exactly broken or anything.

The real potential problem is the bant-colored one with a fixed cost since that completely sidesteps the whole idea of the general "tax". Need some fodder for Smokestack? Whatever, I can sac my general, hold up for Cryptic Command, and sneak her into play at EOT. The best part is, my opponent can't even Hinder her to the bottom of my library...so she's literally always available. What are you going to do, start running Stifle to keep her in the command zone? Actually, screw that noise. Cursed Totem should be effective here...and it's not even remotely dead if you don't run into a Derevi deck.

HammafistRoob

10-10-2013, 02:33 PM

At some point exiling those extra two cards for your 1/3 flyer just isn't worth it anymore...especially in grixis colors where ramping is pretty difficult. Unless of course you're slamming a free Boundless Realms or whatever...but still. You need to exile ~80 cards per player to win that way, and a 1/3 flyer needs quite a lot of help to get there for 21. On top of all of that, this is commander: the format of big stupid creatures. The average deck has what, 15-20 potential "free" toys for her...or 1 in 5 cards exiled?

But she mills ALL players, including yourself. I'm pretty sure you'll get something relatively amazing to cast for free, every turn. Decent interaction with Brainstorm as well.

Davran

10-10-2013, 02:47 PM

But she mills ALL players, including yourself. I'm pretty sure you'll get something relatively amazing to cast for free, every turn. Decent interaction with Brainstorm as well.

I totally missed that part of her text. Reading cards is tech.

Ignore my previous opinion of her...the card is pretty busted. I hear free Time Stretch is best Time Stretch...

TsumiBand

10-10-2013, 03:47 PM

Jeleva doesn't care about extra turns; it will almost certainly just be used to infinitely mill everything and then just pass.

And none of the Green ones ever need to actually become "too hard to cast". Two of them make tokens to feed to Food Chain which will always cover the cost of recasting them - or the aforementioned Mana Echoes works quite well with both of them, though that demands at least one more card like Phyrexian Altar or something.

Really Prossh + Food Chain is the biggest derp of all the new ones, it's in G for Food Chain and ramp and B for tutor and maybe R somehow will matter but I feel like it doesn't? Maybe some fast mana if it's necessary. But yeah, anyone who kills with Prossh and Craterhoof is arguably taking the long way home. Just dial up Food Chain and instantly do all the things with your infinite mana.

I know infinite mana combos are already a thing and shit you can do it in mono-Blue very easily, so who cares right? I just don't like the idea of printing a commander that basically begs for it. There is no literal reason not to run that combo unless you're worried about, like, I dunno... Time Stop or something ruining your fun and making Prossh cost 82461243242Jund the next time you wanna cast it. I guess that would suck. vOv

The Esper guy is solid though. I really like it. I think that card is "command zone matters" done right. I will probably build something shitty around that guy, and it will probably have nothing to do with Test of Endurance-like cards.

Cursed Totem might be a good call, along with that one bad card that auto-Stifles ETB triggers.

Aggro_zombies

10-10-2013, 04:00 PM

TsumiBand

10-10-2013, 06:21 PM

How do you infinitely mill with Jelava? Make infinite colored mana? Doesn't that just make her a worse Oona?

In Prossh Chain, red provides the win: either Pandemonium or Warstorm Surge, or maybe Hissing Iguanar. I personally don't mind Prossh, but that's because a Food Chain Prossh deck built around sacrificing my own guys for profit is the kind of thing I enjoy playing.

I think she is stronger than Oona in situations where you can't go off; she affects the table instead of one player and you get your own spells off of her as well. Oona makes angry Fairies if you name good colors I guess, but dealing with Oona just makes her cost more; if someone kills Jeleva then when she returns she's still got the threat of casting other players' spells and shit. I think it's a stronger play to slow-roll with Jeleva than Oona - regarding a situation where there's no infinite mana or sac outlet for either commander. If it were a strict matter of effect-to-cost ratio or whatever, Jeleva is way more efficient at getting rid of everyone's cards, so even if you're not going off, you're simultaneously crippling every player at the table.

I guess, if you're of the mind to exile all the cards anyway, you can either target all players one at a time or nail the table. I'm not certain why Jeleva isn't stronger than Oona considering it's a global effect. It's an effective lose-lose situation; it paints a target on her head but if the table is smart they don't just handle her like every noob I've sat down with when local-guy breaks out his future-tech EDH deck. Random kids have no idea how to deal with her, so they just kill her over and over because "oh man she took my cards urrrr". If there was ever anything that was going to make me swear off randoms at EDH and just stick to players I already know, it would be watching them all deal with cards that they don't understand. They don't get why killing Jeleva is good for the pilot, and they don't get why they lost after they helped her get up to 7, 9, 11UBR. That's bloody annoying.

Davran

10-10-2013, 06:40 PM

If there was ever anything that was going to make me swear off randoms at EDH and just stick to players I already know, it would be watching them all deal with cards that they don't understand.

To me, the lack of threat assessment is part of the problem with the format as a whole. Want to combo off? Too damn bad because I don't know which spells to counter, so clearly you're just an asshole who hates fun. Oh man, that guy has a game winning enchantment in play and enough mana to end the game on his next turn? Better exile your Mind Stone because that one time we played three weeks ago you did something I didn't agree with! (That last one actually happened to me. Apparently said guy would "rather lose to this dude's combo than Obliterate". Nevermind that I cast Obliterate on turn 28 of a game that had been going for an hour and a half and followed it up immediately with a win condition, and only then because the butt hurt kid had his own combo active on the following turn)...but I digress.

I suppose that not everyone can be a pro player, and I'm sure we've all missed the glaringly obvious play from time to time, but I totally understand where your frustration is coming from.

Aggro_zombies

10-10-2013, 07:47 PM

I think she is stronger than Oona in situations where you can't go off; she affects the table instead of one player and you get your own spells off of her as well. Oona makes angry Fairies if you name good colors I guess, but dealing with Oona just makes her cost more; if someone kills Jeleva then when she returns she's still got the threat of casting other players' spells and shit. I think it's a stronger play to slow-roll with Jeleva than Oona - regarding a situation where there's no infinite mana or sac outlet for either commander. If it were a strict matter of effect-to-cost ratio or whatever, Jeleva is way more efficient at getting rid of everyone's cards, so even if you're not going off, you're simultaneously crippling every player at the table.

I guess, if you're of the mind to exile all the cards anyway, you can either target all players one at a time or nail the table. I'm not certain why Jeleva isn't stronger than Oona considering it's a global effect. It's an effective lose-lose situation; it paints a target on her head but if the table is smart they don't just handle her like every noob I've sat down with when local-guy breaks out his future-tech EDH deck. Random kids have no idea how to deal with her, so they just kill her over and over because "oh man she took my cards urrrr". If there was ever anything that was going to make me swear off randoms at EDH and just stick to players I already know, it would be watching them all deal with cards that they don't understand. They don't get why killing Jeleva is good for the pilot, and they don't get why they lost after they helped her get up to 7, 9, 11UBR. That's bloody annoying.
Well, yeah, but milling people out piecemeal isn't the same as milling people infinitely. It is far easier to generate infinite colorless mana than infinite colored mana, and especially infinite mana that includes three different colors. Red doesn't really give you anything extra and Oona's combo is herself plus two other cards, while Jelava's is...however many cards it takes to make infinite red, blue, and black mana.

If you're just playing Jelava as a value general, then sure. I suspect she's on the annoyance level of Kaalia. The correct play is probably to let her exhaust the supply of castable spells while taking one each turn and then counter any sacrifice outlets; someone should sit on a Hinder or Spell Crumple to tuck her after a Wrath. She's actually probably not that difficult to handle until she's died three or four times, at which point she definitely gets annoying, but you can keep her in the command zone with a bit of mana denial (most of UBR's extra mana is going to be coming from artifacts, although Jelava will likely hit a couple of random green ramp spells as well). Of course, you could be like me and play in an area where people aren't really fond of blue-based counterspell decks, in which case Jelava requires more creative play to defang, but that will be interesting to see.

Kuma

10-10-2013, 08:54 PM

The best use for Jelava is probably tutoring Enter the Infinite to the top of your deck and then doing whatever you want.

TsumiBand

10-11-2013, 12:01 AM

The best use for Jelava is probably tutoring Enter the Infinite to the top of your deck and then doing whatever you want.

Bahh. I knew you'd know.

There's a billion and six ways to do that in those colors. Shit, even jank like Long-Term Plansputs it as the third card down; her first casting is 4 cards, so yeah that + anything that grants haste (sigh, Red)... yeah, that's pretty all right.

To me, the lack of threat assessment is part of the problem with the format as a whole. Want to combo off? Too damn bad because I don't know which spells to counter, so clearly you're just an asshole who hates fun. Oh man, that guy has a game winning enchantment in play and enough mana to end the game on his next turn? Better exile your Mind Stone because that one time we played three weeks ago you did something I didn't agree with! (That last one actually happened to me. Apparently said guy would "rather lose to this dude's combo than Obliterate". Nevermind that I cast Obliterate on turn 28 of a game that had been going for an hour and a half and followed it up immediately with a win condition, and only then because the butt hurt kid had his own combo active on the following turn)...but I digress.

I suppose that not everyone can be a pro player, and I'm sure we've all missed the glaringly obvious play from time to time, but I totally understand where your frustration is coming from.

Bingo.

I sat down to a couple randoms + this guy I've played with before and known for a few years. He's playing some 5-color good-stuff deck, and I'm trying out my Wort the Raidmother deck for the first time. He leads with Survival of the Fittest, and I played a Fires of Yavimaya and some junk, and he instantly goes, "woah woah kids... you guys better read that card." and so everyone looks at Fires and they're like "aw maaaaaan your guys get haste that's bullshit" and I'm like... has seriously no one ever even HEARD of SURVIVAL OF THE GODDAMN FITTEST. Yeah better come after fuckin' me, my guys I don't control yet have haste, stupid guy across from me with Survival in play is just throwing all his creatures in the graveyard! No haste in there, amirite?

I mean I derp and I misplay, I totally do. In fact I'm kind of a slow player just because I tend to miss shit. But Christ, how big of a fucking tell do you need; dude's general is Child of Alara, his lands cost more than my decks and all he's doing is searching for cards for four turns in a row. Oh, shit, really -- someone attacked you for 8 and you cast Holy Day? Fuck.

Amon Amarth

10-11-2013, 01:07 AM

All the new commanders seem pretty cool. But I'm kinda weird and I like having instant access to a 4 mana Bant Twiddle.

thulnanth

10-11-2013, 05:27 AM

So, there's a difference between playing with the theme and turning it on its head, right -- Command Tower is a direct abstraction from EDH's 'color identity' -- which itself is an abstraction, last time I checked 'color identity' doesn't exist in any other format (sorry Wild Mongrel).

Here's the thing; the RC for EDH was wise to add 2 to the cost of each recasting of the commander -- for most intents and purposes, the commander is always 'in your hand' only it can never be forcibly discarded, exiled, cast from your own hand, shuffled into your library from your hand, and so on. In this way it has so many more benefits than drawbacks that it must start to become difficult to recast it -- barring shenanigans it is always a spell you can cast. Wizards understands why this matters; Planeswalkers are a one-shot-per-turn effect partially because they don't really need mana to work, and they couldn't really exist as they do now if they worked like other permanents with activated abilities; you'd just run one all the way up and then cast their final ability into perdition.

Making commanders that intentionally turn that drawback around and make it a benefit -- a greater benefit than simply recasting the same spell -- sort of ejects one of the smarter aspects about EDH. In a Highlander format it *should* be difficult to recast the same spell, even if it is your commander. It's true that it becomes an issue of diminishing returns - do I really want to pay 8WWBB for Ghost Council of Orzhova? -- but that's the cost of recursion in a singleton format.

This 100%.

I thought one of the coolest things they did last time around was Command Tower - a great land in EDH that is worthless anywhere else. Whether or not I like the commanders they've shown so far, I am pleased they are using this product to do things they couldn't do elsewhere. Just my $0.02 worth.

Take it easy,
Jared

Hey TsumiBand,

I'm not sure why you quoted me in your response. While I don't disagree with you, I think you missed the point of my post. All I'm saying is that I'm happy WotC is using the 2013 Commander product to produce cards they couldn't produce elsewhere.

Whether or not you or I like said cards... well, that's a whole other story. :laugh:

Take it easy,
Jared

Davran

10-11-2013, 08:07 AM

All the new commanders seem pretty cool. But I'm kinda weird and I like having instant access to a 4 mana Bant Twiddle.

Maybe it's just the caliber of player that frequents these boards...but I'm most interested in the Bant one too. The others are fine I guess (combos and all), they do things that those colors like to do...but the bant one has that little bit extra. I'm not even sure what it is...I just know I want to try and build it.

TsumiBand

10-11-2013, 08:23 AM

Hey TsumiBand,

I'm not sure why you quoted me in your response. While I don't disagree with you, I think you missed the point of my post. All I'm saying is that I'm happy WotC is using the 2013 Commander product to produce cards they couldn't produce elsewhere.

Whether or not you or I like said cards... well, that's a whole other story. :laugh:

Take it easy,
Jared

It wasn't a "hard disagree", let's put it that way. :) I wasn't yelling or anything.

I liked what you had to say about Command Tower, in my view that's an example of how to produce good product for Commander. In that respect, I suppose Command Tower shares a little bit of space with the new commanders -- they have abilities which don't work very well outside of EDH.

That's kind of where the similarities end though IMO. Command Tower isn't undermining any EDH rules; it's a painless City of Brass, but it just uses color identity to accomplish a task. The commanders that milk the commander tax are getting around the idea of diminishing returns, and that matters for all the reasons I listed; you get to do something more than once in a Highlander format, it should be at some deficit or require a bunch of cards or cost a lot of mana.

Think of it like, I dunno... any given racing game where you get X number of nitro boosts. Timing matters; you can't just blow your nitrous early and stay ahead of the pack, it doesn't work that way. Commanders are similar-ish to this, in that they ideally provide you with a singular reliable resource. But if you play it too early or often or stupidly, as it starts to cost more for the same effect you get a lot less bang for the mana cost. Upping their potency as the game progresses is the antithesis of that; it's akin to the nitro boosts burning longer and cleaner.

Another example is Risk. I like to compare EDH to Risk, because sometimes the games are just about as long and there's a political aspect involved at times, and there are other similarities as well but I need to walk my dog and go to work so I can't list them all :/ :/ Anyway, in Risk one of the swingiest things you can do is cash in your cards; if you play by the book, you get more and more and more armies for doing so as the game progresses. Invariably this will lead to board states where a near-death opponent suddenly tosses in their cards, collects 40+ armies and proceeds to do the most damage to the 1-2 players left in the game as they can, maybe even lockdown a smaller country in doing so. This just drags the game out for-balls-ever; virtually everyone I know puts a cap on the number of armies you can ultimately get for this very reason. So even if players are not just going balls-out broken and playing infinite mana or Food Chain or whatever your favorite three-color combo is with these generals, the net effect is very similar.

To that end it rewards just playing your commander as often as possible, which the commander tax makes a risky strategy. At least, classically it has. I hate to speak without playtesting experience, but "trust me"; when these cards are being used to go infinite or broken or whatever, these kinds of effects will most assuredly lead to that Risk-like "cashing-in" effect and games will just drag on.