EsotericManiac
Banned
Makes the EDH-only people feel important.
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Magic: the GAFering |OT2|
- Thread starter The Technomancer
- Start date
Makes the EDH-only people feel important.
People play with randoms pretty often, and it's hard to find understanding groups -- it's magic players we're talking about here. Not everyone plays with massive groups of friends like we do, and there are money events for EDH at nearly every store and major event I go to.
The EDH rules committee is a group of judges who play fairly casual games, then ban the cards that annoy them. They really shouldn't have power over such a popular format.
That said, no multiplayer format should have a ban list OR tournaments. Shit's all about politics, it's impossible to regulate or make 'fair.'
I don't understand why anyone would ever participate in such a thing. Antithesis of the format.
Is there something particularly egregious about Staff of Domination I'm not noticing that got it banned originally besides it being a nice place to dump your mana for value that can go in any deck?
I don't care which cards they ban, but it's amusing how many people do. The fact that card prices are actually affected by the ban list updates is somewhat crazy.
I'd say that no casual format should have a ban list and that tournaments are fine, despite the fact that the latter would probably tend to push decks towards competitive builds rather than stuff that's mostly for fun.
One of my pet EDH cards is Abyssal Persecutor, not because of the body or any crazy shenanigans (I even play him in decks that have no way to remove it unless I wanted to spend a kill spell on it), but because it's an interesting political card that also happens to counteract odd effects such as Door to Nothingness as an added bonus (they're forced to aim it at you, since other players can't lose the game).
I remember when I went to a store which started hosting all-commons tournaments and the metagame was fairly diverse and I could have fun with a variety of decks, but over time competitive archetypes and tier lists started to emerge, and it finally became so damn competitive and same-y that I simply stopped going (ie: Infect w/Invigorate + Rancor, 8-post control, Affinity).
My new LGS at least has a mix of casual and competitive players, so it's a lot more fun. It isn't bad to get my homebrew decks beaten up by Rites or Naya Blitz if it only happens once per night, and I get to watch amazing plays such as a guy attacking with an animated Gideon, only to have his opponent activate Alchemist's Refuge and playing a Clone, copying and killing the Gideon.
I can confirm that 1v1 EDH is amazingly fun, as is EDH cube.
I play EDH to have fun with my friends. I know other people enjoy it as a competitive format -- that's all fine.
New people joining my group occasionally complain about banned cards used by others, and even banned cards in the commander cube. Even if the card is mediocre, it'll cause people to feel like we aren't following 'the rules' -- of course, the rules of a casual format are 'whatever the fuck you want', but commander's banlist is on gatherer. It's official to anyone who doesn't know about the panel who helped create the format.
A panel should not be making a ban list for a purely casual format. If that format becomes competitive, dominant and degenerate cards should be banned -- not casual cards which annoyed some dude I'll never play against.
It's kind of circular logic.
"We want to ban cards in an extremely popular WOTC supported casual format."
"Why does casual need a banlist? Doesn't that defeat the purpose?"
"Well, we don't want things to get too degenerate!"
"Then why aren't you banning degenerate cards?"
"Because it's a casual format! Jeez!"
Lucario, I still need to get you my list for that one EDH deck lol I'm sorry I forgot
I figure they're banned for a reason. And for the most part they are. Grisselbrand is no fun for anyone, especially when dropped by a Kalia. It's a general over view, sure, but it can help things be more fun.
I figure they're banned for a reason. And for the most part they are. Grisselbrand is no fun for anyone, especially when dropped by a Kalia. It's a general over view, sure, but it can help things be more fun.
My cube is highly likely to be a great EDH cube due to its nature.
So guys, im starting an rpg campaign with my gf thats centered around playing mtg in a universe very similar to yugioh's. I want some incredibly cheap, bad, and fun theme decks to use against her, becuase shell be running something similar. I already have bought a Ninja deck, but want some more ideas
Zombies, Goblins and Elves might be a bit expensive since they're the most common tribes, but here're some cheaper ideas:
- Black/Red Vampire deck: mostly Zendikar and Innistrad block cards
- Blue/something else Trap deck: Zendikar had a trap subtype for instants and sorceries, most of them weren't that good, so they're pretty cheap and there's Trapmaker's Snare, an uncommon that fetches you any trap card from your deck
- Blue/green graveyard-loving deck: Innistrad block had lots of cards which fed your graveyards as well as cards you could cast from there or blue zombies which gobbled up creatures from your GY as an additional cost. Adding black could give you even more zombies.
Etrian Oddity
Member
Elephant aggro
My cube is highly likely to be a great EDH cube due to its nature.
Just finished my set of revised duals, having a celebration draft soon with mine
On draft number six or seven, each and every one has been amazing.Magic night at my school has been completely overtaken by commander cube. Nothing (significant) has been stolen or lost, people are very thankful and appreciative, and people help me out when I'm low on funds by buying cards off me they don't need.
I love my playgroup. Awesome people, great players (I'm a scrub in constructed in comparison to most of 'em) and a healthy environment.
Can I see your cube list? I wanna compare. I'm just finishing up an article about mine, and revamping it for the arrival of my duals.
acheron_xl
Member
The ban list is easily ignorable if you're playing with friends or in some local group. I play with nothing but random people on MTGO, so I like there being some kind of list of things that are degenerate and/or excessively antisocial. I'm a bit jazzed that Staff is unbanned, because I have a deck or three that really wants what it has to offer. I really worry that it'll end up like the one time I felt comfortable enough with a deck that I could play Consecrated Sphinx and have it feel on-theme and it just did what it does and it felt totally dirty.
Here're some other ideas:
- R/G Werewolves (Innistrad/Dark Ascension): Most cards other than the mythic werewolf are quite cheap and easy to get since the set is still in Standard.
- U/R Burning Vengeance (Innistrad/Dark Ascension): The deck's namesake is an uncommon, and you can always add flashback cards from older blocks to the deck to spice things up (mostly from Odyssey and Time Spiral blocks).
- U/R Owling Mine-ish deck: The deck doesn't rely on creatures, but rather on a Kamigawa block uncommon (Ebony Owl Netsuke) and lots of things that draw your opponent cards to ensure they keep a full grip and get badly hurt by the Netsuke. You could add some newer stuff like Runeflare Trap or Reforge the Soul to make things even harder for your opponents, as well as older cards such as Black Vise.
- Black/whatever Discard: Fill the deck with Ravenous Rats, Necrotic Vapors, Okiba-Gang Shinobi, Duress and any other discard spells you can find, and couple that with The Rack (lots of damage for a single mana), Nixathyd (7/7 for 1BB), Mortivore and oddball stuff such as Geth's Grimoire (you draw cards whenever your opponent discards). You could also add a small reanimation subtheme as well.
- B/R Hellbent deck: Using the original Rakdos guild's specialty, you'd be playing an odd deck which actively wants to empty its hand to grant several bonuses to its creatures and spells. The cards might be old but most of them aren't used competitively, so you'd probably have no problems in finding whichever cards you want. Personally, I love Jagged Poppet and Rakdos Augermage.
Keru_Shiri
Member
Anyone familiar with Gatherer-Terrible? The idea of the format is to restrict yourself to cards that only have a 2.0 star or less rating on Gatherer. With that said, here's a list I've been brewing.
That's a hilarious idea. Pretty sure my group would love this.
Etrian Oddity
Member
I love you.
As a permanent effect, it would've been way too powerful at locking people out of their manabases.
As a temporary effect, it's useless in all but niche applications.
acheron_xl
Member
I think it's mostly fine, except for it's inexplicable sorcery speed. Every other Sleight/Hack ever printed is instant speed. Until this one.
Oh, that... I guess they should've prevented it from hitting lands to avoid unfun scenarios like that, but as it is the card is ridiculously bad. Even as an instant it would be useless, since nearly nobody has ever played color-changing spells, and the repeatable effect is even more limited since you need to connect with a crature and only get the benefits post-combat.
So what guilds are you guys going with? I'm doing a complete 180 from my initial pick of Rakdos considering how bad aggro is going to be. Instead I'm going with Golgari since DGM is incredibly slow and it seems to have the best matchup against other slow decks.
The staff really isn't even that impressive. If you have infinite mana there's like a million ways you can win.
The staff really isn't even that impressive. If you have infinite mana there's like a million ways you can win.
I think the same. Unless you get a really focused deck (which is more likely to happen in drafts than in sealed events), aggro should have a hard time bashing through the high-toughness creatures DGM is brigning to the format, so I think guilds cenetered more around the mid-to-late-game (ie: Orzhov, Golgari, Simic, Azorius... Dimir?) will have an edge over the more agressive guilds.
It's going to be interesting how each guild only got two keyworded cards in DGM (I think they all got a common and a rare), so we're a lot less likely to see any given guild's keyworded cards throoughout the tournament.
platypotamus
Member
I think I've switched from my plan of Golgari to go Azorius. With Golgari, I'd end up kind of grumpy with Gruul as my secret ally, but with Azorius, I don't think I'll be grumpy with anyone, even Boros.
Yofaycesux
Neo Member
My LCS asked which Ally Guild we wanted, so Golgarzov is going to be delicious. But I picked out Golgari as my main guild because Green/Black is my favorite pikachu.
I don't think they can let you choose- its randomized in the boxes
From what I understand there really is nothing special that separates the guild you pick from the secret ally. They just send an equal number of pairings that have one of the guilds printed on one side and another printed on the back. Like nothing obstructing the view of either side.
Yofaycesux
Neo Member
I believe this is whats happening. I only have about 90 people playing here, and they mentioned it was less than what they planned, so that could be the case too. Regardless I'm getting a golgari pack, so I'm happy. Orzhov is just extra cream on the top.
Yup. Initial description of "secret" ally was deceiving.
MODO got your back. Although I'd suggest doing the release events since it's the same cost as the prerelease except the prizes are much better.
1. It works well in my group hug deck.
2. I've wanted to use it ever since I pulled one, but my playgroup cares about bans.
Sorry for being excited guys... geez lol
Thought you meant "really?" as in why is that super broken griselbrand type shit getting unbanned.
MTGO prereleases go all week long right? Might do that if so. A big draw for prereleases for me is the crowd at my lgs though, friends I've been playing with for 10 years (some longer) that makes being there amazing, gonna miss that this time around.
I'll be going Orzhov. I thought on it for a bit and I feel like picking that Orzhov over Golgari (either way, I have a 50/50 shot at getting a guild I'd be fine working with or not enjoying).
With Orzhov, the safer hits are Golgari and Rakdos (I feel), and ideally I would get Golgari, and even if I get Azorious, that's just esper and that could work out fine, too. Dunno how I feel about getting Selesnya, though.
Honestly, I'd probably prefer Golgari for my pick but I feel Orzhov is a bit "safer" and I still have a 1/4 chance at Golgari for the ally. Maybe I'll go to a second prerelease and go Golgari just for kicks.
With Orzhov, the safer hits are Golgari and Rakdos (I feel), and ideally I would get Golgari, and even if I get Azorious, that's just esper and that could work out fine, too. Dunno how I feel about getting Selesnya, though.
Honestly, I'd probably prefer Golgari for my pick but I feel Orzhov is a bit "safer" and I still have a 1/4 chance at Golgari for the ally. Maybe I'll go to a second prerelease and go Golgari just for kicks.
divisionbyzorro
Member
Just drafted something pretty close to the nuts Simic deck. I would have preferred to not have to play the Keymaster Rogue, but I got to play 20 creatures, including 4 Shambleshark, a Raptor, a Crocanura, 2 Drakewing Krasis, Frilled Oculus, Slaughterhorn, etc. Went 3-0 easily.
When you get it, the nuts Simic deck in Gatecrash feels like nothing else. The nuts Boros deck is fun too, but there's something about playing a deck where your creatures are never irrelevant that's a hell of a lot of fun.
When you get it, the nuts Simic deck in Gatecrash feels like nothing else. The nuts Boros deck is fun too, but there's something about playing a deck where your creatures are never irrelevant that's a hell of a lot of fun.
Just got back from my local event and Azorius crushed everyone. Like it wasn't even close. I chose Orzhov and got Rakdos and made a Red/Black/White deck that did well against people but got shut down hard against control. Overall, I went 1-2 before I finally dropped out so I could get some sleep before I go back out at 12 noon with my friends to another event. Also, fuck Deputy of Acquittals and Sire of Insanity. That is all.
Picked Golgari and went Simic. The shop owner was being a dick and cut rounds to 40 minutes, which started at the same time as pairings going up, or I likely would have 6-0d. Ended up 5-0-1 for second place. Had zero in color bombs except perhaps the blue primordial. Jarad's Orders was my guild rare which didn't make the cut.
Picking Golgari again today and really not caring who I'm paired with. Golgari is the nuts.
Picking Golgari again today and really not caring who I'm paired with. Golgari is the nuts.
Well this makes me feel better about my golgari pick. I just got the impression looking through DGM that green and black and g/b itself had some of the better commons and uncommons, and golgari at RTR prerelease was nothing to scoff at either. Really hoping for simic ally since they'd have some really nice synergies.
Went Selesnya, got Orhzov as the secret ally. Average cards spread across all colors, so I went 4 colors. Went 3-2-1, being the bubble to top 8, which my store played out pass 5:30am. I didn't stick around for that though lol. The games I lost terribly were the ones where I just couldn't fix my mana color. Disappointed in my pulls but satisfied with how I played with what I got.
Selesnya was actually the least picked at my store to my surprise. Every other guild seemed to have been evenly picked. Will go back tonight and will try to stick to 3 colors at most.
Selesnya was actually the least picked at my store to my surprise. Every other guild seemed to have been evenly picked. Will go back tonight and will try to stick to 3 colors at most.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
I missed Gatecrash because I had work to do and I'm missing this one because I've thrown up, no joke, about 18 times in the last five hours :/
Similar threads
- Locked