EDH/Commander General

Man, you are really on about this dice thing? That seems to be the biggest sticking point.

My entire premise was simply using people's poor threat assessment to win the game is a legitimate strategy. And if you can convince someone you aren't a threat using your in game decisions as evidence, it is still strategy.

Anyway, you go on thinking that the only reason you don't win every game is because of random chance and stupid players.

As a fellow Erebos Big Black player, I don't run any rituals, I never felt the need. I'd usually rather have a doubler.

>And if you can convince someone you aren't a threat using your in game decisions as evidence, it is still strategy.
Yes, that is a strategy, but rolling a dice to decide who to attack is the exact opposite of strategy, it's being a complete dumbfuck. And going "You should attack him, he attacked you last turn" is metagamey bullshit that should only ever work against 12 years old. If you don't want to promote an environment in which people play logically and in which threat assessment based on actual game information is key to winning, then the more power to you, but don't go pretending you're some master strategist here.

I don't know yet. Probably Nefarox and Sidisi.

This reminds of the times in the distant past when a vanilla a 6/6 for 7 was considered good enough to be a rare.

>If you don't want to promote an environment in which people play logically and in which threat assessment based on actual game information is key to winning, then the more power to you, but don't go pretending you're some master strategist here.

My point is that most EDH groups don't think logically or base their decisions on game information. And you refusing to accept that is being stubborn and doesn't help you win more.

I'm gonna drop the charade. I don't think of myself as a master strategist. I also haven't rolled a dice to decide who to artack, ever. I have attacked someone and said "Have to attack someone" but that's honestly about the extent to which I play politics. For the sake of argument, I just wanted to discuss why people consider that sort of thing underhanded or unsportsmanlike. And I am always confused why people so hellbent on winning seem fine when a stupid threat assessment is in your favor but not when it isn't.

Anyway, sorry for having wasted your time.

>My point is that most EDH groups don't think logically or base their decisions on game information.
That's true. Most EDH groups are bad. Which doesn't mean improvement is impossible. If I regularly play against idiots who have terrible play patterns and can't into threat assessment, I try to help them improve, rather than trying to encourage these bad plays. There's no glory in beating retards who'll attack anyone you point your finger at. I know a player who totally gets a kick out of that, he'll sit at a table with complete casuals and pit them against each others by exploiting their gullibility and tendencies to hold grudge while he's pillowforting to his combo win. That guy is a scrub, he has no interest in getting better and he can't ever put up a fight at the big boys table where people are more prone to telling him "Shut the fuck up, I don't need your input when deciding who to attack."

Admittedly, given how scrubby he is, you shouldn't have a problem beating him even if there are two other newbies at the table. My point is if you do lose to that, you didn't play the politics game right.

Anyway, I do agree that those people are the worst.

Dude I LOVE Vizzerdrix!

>My point is if you do lose to that, you didn't play the politics game right.
Disagreed. I'd rather lose a game to that bullshit than try to retaliate with the same kind of bullshit. I think of myself as a somewhat competitive player but winning at all costs isn't my focus, I'd rather have good games in which my skills are put to the test. Bickering over who should attack who based on information that's not relevant to the game at hand, that's not a skill I want to work on and improve in EDH.

When only one guy is trying to be a manipulative little bitch, the other players tend to wise up and stop falling for it. When everyone's trying to be a manipulative little bitch, metas degenerate and games devolve into schoolground arguments. You should never play their game, it's not worth it.

>tfw my commander is a french vanilla 4/3 first strike for six mana
I do it for the flavor.

Is the lack of mana on Ith's Maze really a drawback if you count it as a 1-cost artifact in your list? In other words, when slotting into an existing deck, you replace a nonland card with it.

It can set you back a turn if you need to play it early, but won't cost any tempo if you didn't already have a land to play that turn. It just feels a little risky.

Also
>that Duplicant reprint
about damn time

Ramirez?

Yeah. Proudly at the helm of my weakest and most thematically brilliant deck.

I file Maze of Ith under "generally worth it", though I find it even better in green and/or black. Green can get it out "cheaper" thanks to having extra land drops, it also has infinite mana combos with it and Argothian Elder. Black has Urborg, which offsets the Maze's downsides a bit since you'll often be tutoring for Urborg anyway.

Let's see a list, I'm a sucker for flavor

I'm surprised at how few artifacts have a looting effect. I have an artifact deck that likes putting cards in the GY and the best I see are Knowledge Jar, Anvil of Bogardan, and Deal Broker.

Granted the deck is Grixis colors so I have access to other looting abilities but still, you'd think with the artifact theme and looting theme that UR share they'd have a little more overlap.

Sorry for the wait, have a deck.
tappedout.net/mtg-decks/ramirez-lord-of-the-seas/

I'm a newbie, who should I build, and whose most playable on a budget?

Ephara seems like a good, fun commander for a new player. Token-generating cards are cheap/plentiful and having a draw engine for a commander is a great starting point.

Have a few backup plans in case someone's trying to combo off or gain infinite life (Counterspell etc) but don't think armies of 1/1s or flyers are bad in this format.

If the idea of dealing 40 damage to multiple players sounds tedious to you, then try Heartless Hidetsugu.

I'd recommend Ephara or Brago. They're both commanders that are extremely easy to build around but with very high ceilings meaning you can put together something playable with minimal efforts and have ample room to grow and improve as you learn the format.

Of those, Brago is the most powerful, but he's also a bit more complex and also more likely to draw everyone's aggro. For those reasons I'd recommend Ephara for a new player, it's my "comfy" control deck when I feel like playing casually. But Brago is also a fantastic starting point. Whichever you build, you can put the other in the deck, they like the same things, so you could always switch later.

Be warned that Brago in particular is total cancer at high levels of play so you can start there to learn your way around EDH and branch out into weaker things like Rakdos or Basandra later.

Tromokratis or Hidetsugu are both pretty easy to build, and neither should be terribly expensive if I remember correctly.

With Tromokratis, you just need to pack protection for your commander and have something ready to tap one of your opponent's creatures. Beyond that, building big blue is kind of fun - You throw in a bunch of huge dudes and mana doublers/ramp and you've just got a huge field of giant monsters and bad things happen to your opponents

Hidetsugu works well with burn and damage doublers - You put yourself to an odd number of life and your opponent to an even number, and drop a damage doubler and Hidetsugu and win.

For a super budget, just for fun kind of thing you can't go wrong with Thelon's silly fungus man shenanigans.

It's not strong, but it can fly under the radar in multiplayer and has a lot of cool interactions. Plus when I made the deck it did a good job of absorbing a lot of rares a had laying around with no place to put them.

I always thought Felon looked pretty decent, but I never found out if there were enough playable Fungus creatures to support a singleton deck.

Not that user but I'm torn on Thelon and Hidetsugu. While it's true they're cool and fun casual decks that are easy to get into, I don't think they do a good job of teaching newer players what EDH is about. I say this because I started playing EDH with Aurelia and I was immensely frustrated with my first couple games, because I was using a fringe strategy that wasn't really exploiting the structure of the format. I dipped into UGx shenanigans, went "Oh so that's what EDH enables", and once I learned that I started to build and have fun with decks that prey on UGx shenanigans.

You have to understand the main strategy before attempting to counter it, is what I'm saying. But I guess in a casual enough meta starting with Hidetsugu or Thelon might be fine.

Out of all my Blue/White Commanders, she does look the most fun, especially since I'm not too much for blinking.

Guy I met at the LGS has a Brago he built for $35. Price is tempting, but I think I'll wait till I can pilot his next time he's around. Blink always seemed like an asshole mechanic, doesn't surprise me to hear Brago's cancer in tournaments.

Blue monsters have always been one of my favorites, a buddy of mine gave me Stormtide Leviathan when I first started playing, and it's helped me ever since.

Thelon is definitely the most tempting right now, especially since the guy with the Brago deck gave him to me when he heard I was wanting to build him.

Looking it up, UGx is obviously Blue and Green, but what's the x for? Ramp?

>get a 1v1 pickup game older nerd dude.
>lose first round to Isamaru with a decent aggro play.
>Next game I win.

>"Saw you drawing a lot of the same cards"
Yeah, tutors and partial paris do that.
>I win again.
>Continues to insinuate I'm cheating
>"You sure your shuffling right?"
Yeah, you also refused to cut.
>"We'll i only lost that game because I didn't draw removal"
...
>Win next game.
>"yeah well I could kill you turn 4 since i had phyrexian naugt in my hand. You just had Linvala out."
...
>"Also i should have killed your caged sun.... but I didn't"
...
>"And..."

OMG you fucking cast bribery when I had homeward already on the fucking field! you can't be with dense.

You can fuck people up with Hidetsugu

honestly the best fungus in the deck is Chameleon Colossus,

From there just pick and choose which ones you think are cool, you only have 20 something slots to fill out and enough fungus to do about that. Your playing of tribal synergy on not individual power on the card.

It's also delicious to have someone bribery you and then quit in frustration.

Just got back from my first FNM. Green text incoming.

>first time playing MTG in over a decade
>first time playing commander
>go to newly found lgs
>about 30 people there, half there for commander half there for FNM modern
>go to enter name for commander
>find out theres no entry fee
>cool
>also find out for every person you kill during the event nets you $5 store credit
>dope
>first match
>playing non jank Meren precon edit
>guy across from me pulls out a giant ass stack of hard cases
>its his fucking deck
>its literally like a foot tall
>find out hes a judge
>find out guy next to me is also judge
>other guy playing BU commander that copies things
>other guys are some UR control shit
>guy with foot high deck gets mana screwed whole game
>other guy gets out like one merfolk
>guy with UB drops a darksteel plate turn 3 and proceeds to slowly kill us all with commander damage
>next match
>guy running Horbi control
>other dudes commander is like necropotence on a stick
>other dude with kaalia
>guy with necropotence commander turn 6 exsanguinates us for like 30 damage each
>knocked out of tournament
>leave with $0 store credit

It was kinda ____fun but also kinda meh. I wish I was able to play some more matches. I think I was pretty bad at piloting my deck. Also I noticed my commander being targeted for removal a lot. What are some cards that help protect my commander?

Overall experience: 5/10 will be attending next week.

>Looking it up, UGx is obviously Blue and Green, but what's the x for? Ramp?
Blue, green and any other color. The third color doesn't have a huge impact on the playstyle, there'll be some differences between Sultai and Bant and Temur decks but overall the general idea of "ramp into value into more value" remains the same. It teaches an essential aspect of EDH, being that since people take longer to kill and people always have stuff to do due to being able to recast their commander, whoever gets the most mana in play has a huge advantage. UGx is just the best at ramping, never running out of action and casting 4+ spells per turn in the late game.

The "if I had only drawn X" or "I could have killed Y" people are the worst

Well you fucking didn't do it so don't bitch about it, spilled milk and all that

>>other dudes commander is like necropotence on a stick
>>other dude with kaalia
>>guy with necropotence commander turn 6 exsanguinates us for like 30 damage each
Sounds like Griselbrand. He's banned. Tell that guy to suck a dick.

>playing BU commander that copies things
Lazav? I'm surprised it was slow, he should have been milling into fatties

Also Meren is deadly when built right so they probably saw you as a threat

>guy with necropotence commander turn 6 exsanguinates us for like 30 damage each
I'm sorry user, BigBlackExsanguinate.dec is the worst

I like to go "If I had drawn U, V, W, X, Y and Z I would have killed you all turn 1".

>necropotence on a stick
This guy? If so, he's banned. Whoever was running him is a fag.

Oh wait no. Just looked it up the commander was Daima Sage of Stone. I just remembered the 'skip your draw step' part of it.

You know you can say something like that without "bitching" about it

One of my favorite parts about edh is that one card can change a game so dramatically

Alright that's a big difference

Damia is strong as all getout too

You can, sure, but I meant like the people who get overly salty about not drawing into that one thing at just the right time

I agree though, I like the big game changes that can result from a single card

I truly cannot understand why people don't play with commander damage

No I know what you mean

My post came off like I was disagreeing I just meant that the problem was their attitude not with their idea

People in my playgroup sometimes do that thing where they enumerate all the different perceived misfortunes that happened to them that game

If only any of these things were different I would've won, therefore your win doesn't count

Isn't 100 cards cap for commander?

Commander damage is dumb

Do you have some sort of infinite life gain meta?

Damia is objectively not banworthy but she subjectively feels like she should be. The deck is perfectly beatable and can misfire really hard when it faces the right kind of disruption, but when Damia works, boy does it feel like the most cancerous shit ever. You have my sympathies user, losing to Damia is never a pleasant experience.

It's because you know they're going to draw 7 cards, and you don't have the proper answer right away, and once they draw their 7 it's already too late because of fucking course they have Forbid now. So it's like watching a train crash in slow motion from the driver's cabin.

His deck was in 100 of these.

>Commander damage is dumb
Why, because it takes 21 damage? That's over half your life, less if you run lifegain. It makes a certain fun archetype viable

Speaking of lifegain, what the fuck makes it so attractive to newbies

Jesus Christ

I'm thinking of finally switching from just Titania to a duel colored commander like Toad or Angrynath any suggestions on which would play better.

He didn't really do much with damia actually it was more the cabal coffers+urborg exsanguinate combo that fucked us. coffers+urborg was actually the reason I decided against making a mono black commander deck when I first was looking at potential commanders, it seemed kind of anti-fun.

I like the toad more than angrynath

Omnath looks more fun, cheap, and easier to pilot, Toad looks stronger and has better colors.

>Introduced my group to EDH about a year ago
>they built shit out of pack fodder
>I won a lot more often than I lost because I bought singles
>caught shit-talk about spending more than $5 on a card
>group has finally come to understand that boardwipes are key
>couple guys also started to buy singles

I can't run wild with decks anymore but games have gotten so much better as a result

How do you all feel about the 2015 precon decks? I have the Bird Wizard deck from 2013 and I love it, but I want to get a second deck... and being poor/lazy I figure the precons are a good way to go. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

>cabal coffers+urborg exsanguinate combo
Ahhh yep, that sounds like every deck ever that runs black

That's part of why I don't want to build with black, because I know that's a combo too enticing to pass up. Even though I REALLY want to build Kaervek.

Not him but I sort of agree, and I say that as a Boros player who just loves strapping a Sunforger to Aurelia, hitting twice and tutoring up Final Fortune. I've exploited commander damage more than anyone else in my group but it just feels so... unnecessary, I guess? It's not a huge deal but it's sort of annoying if someone absentmindedly hits you for 2 with his Grand Arbiter and you have to keep that tracked for the rest of the game. It's really a ridiculously minor complaint but when you look at what commander damage meant back then, when commanders were elder dragons, and what it means now, well I don't feel like it's as necessary today.

Remove commander damage, lower life totals to 30, aggro/voltron decks are just as viable as before the change. Lifegain gets a buff but who fucking cares, lifegain is a shit strategy in EDH and the lower life total means less time to set up and stabilize. 40 life is dumb I'll fight you over this.

WB is pillowforty, kinda annoying to play against.
UR is concentrated fun, lots of stupid things
BG is very, very strong if you don't deal with it immediately
WR is ...alright
UG is completely broken if you don't deal with it immediately.

I like 2014 more, personally.

That's the beauty (ugliness) of Damia decks. They don't have to play their commander. It's always there just in case they need to reload. They're a powerful BUG deck before Damia, they're a powerful BUG deck that refills their hand with Damia if the game gets to that point.

Cast Armageddon, get bitches

Meren is love. Meren is life. Also you can upgrade the deck and increase its efficiency by a lot for only like $50.

You and I would make a good 2HG team, I can tell

Honestly, if it's a commander I know doesn't rely on commander damage for the win, like GAA4, I don't bother keeping track. That is a good point about life though, 30 sounds better

I never even considered throwing coffers / exsanguinate in my black decks. Grenzo and Anafenza kill with aggro or combo, not with life drain. That shit's for pussies. The lower my life total when I win, the happier I am.

I was considering Seizan and going full-on suicide aggro

Could I see your Grenzo list?

Lifegain is basically a shield to them.

Or they learned about Necropotence/SuiBlack/Burn.and realized that more life = more fuel

I dunno man, I started in 2004, and the FIRST thing I was taught was that the last 4 life mattered (fucking bolt). I also came from yugioh, where the draw power was a great deal stronger, so I had an idea of card advantage going on. I picked up on Necropotence's strength immediately. I think it depends on where you start, because lifegain is fucking useless in yugioh too.

I run MLD in my Trump (Numot) deck. MLD, boardwipes, the works. And also a ton of defenders and artifacts. I only whip it out against no fun allowed turbonerds to make EDH great again

I have died to Edric, Zur, Derevi and Grand Arbiter commander damage. You have to keep track of that damage, you never know when it will be relevant. And I guess that's part of the annoyance. Most decks won't kill you that way, in most games, but it's a thing you have to track anyway even though it's likely to be entirely irrelevant.

I'm sorry, you can't. Every time I post it there's an argument over Priest of Urabrask. Also I haven't updated it in ages, so there's that. But there are a lot of really interesting Grenzo lists on tappedout covering many different takes on the deck, it's better to view as many of them as possible to figure out how you want to play it and what your X value will be.

Thanks for the advice. BG and UR look like my sort of fun.

>people complaining about the big black deck
Shh, just let it happen.

How should I be building this useless pile of garbage?
I traded someone laundry money for her, and now I'm trying to find justification for making the undeniably shitty joke deck around her.
There seem to be two camps, from what I can see:

1) Survive the trigger
Do this with Torpor Orb, Platinum Angel, Sundial of the Infinite, Command Beacon, and a billion tutors to get those cards. Hope your opponent doesn't have removal while you're doing it.

2) Cast Phage, counter that shit
There are juuuuust enough black counterspells to make this viable. This puts Phage in the grave, and she can then be returned to hand from the billion effects that do that in black.

Should I just be running both of these? It feels like a really linear plan of "Find a way to not die, cast Phage, give her unblockable/landwalk/trample, murder people". I guess that's not dissimilar to other aggro decks, but yeesh.

Anyone here play her, and can give advice?

>Remove commander damage, lower life totals to 30, aggro/voltron decks are just as viable as before the change
That's a pretty good solution, but what happens in case of infinite lifegain? Every deck will just need to have an alternate win con or else you scoop when it happens?

I'm designing an Ayli decks and it seems pretty easy to combo off and gain infinite life with her.

Aaaand I up and forget the image.
Fairly obvious who I'm talking about, though.

I feel like it's more the former than the latter. I have yet to meet a greenhorn MTG player who likes the idea of suicide black. The only time I give a shit about my life total is if I'm really getting pounded on and will die before the turn comes back to me. I've pulled off a bunch of 1-life wins

However I'm a babby in terms of MTG experience, I started during INN-RTR standard, discovered EDH about a year later and never looked back

>That's a pretty good solution, but what happens in case of infinite lifegain? Every deck will just need to have an alternate win con or else you scoop when it happens?
Well yeah, that's what infinite life does in every other format, and it's not like infinite life is so much easier to get in EDH.

Infinite life is pretty much at the bottom of the combo hierarchy, it doesn't win you the game, there's a huge chunk of decks it does literally nothing against because they're not killing you with finite damage, so I can't perceive any situation where infinite life would become a real problem in EDH.

Just looked up a good list and Omnath would only take 6 cards to build but boy do I agree that toad would bring a lot more strength

I don't know what compels people to not play magic and instead babysit a total liability of a strategy all game

You're putting all your efforts into shoving a square peg into a round hole when you could be enjoying the easy breezy feeling of playing a deck that works, that works for you rather than you working for it

That new land seems like a decent solution, and can be fetched with an Explorer's Map which every black deck should have anyway for your Coffers or Urborg.

I have a Phage sitting in a binder that I really want to use but it just feels like she's always better in the 99. Anyone have any experience using her and if she's too hard to cast?

I'd love to combo her with Endless Whispers because I think it's a fun card, but not sure it's worth downgrading my half-decent monoblack deck into a joke.

Either survive the trigger or counter/reanimate her like you said

Then use Dauthi Embrace because NO ONE runs shadow creatures. Honestly she's not great, I'd rather have her in the 99 of an aggro deck

>Dauthi Embrace
Hoooooly shit what is that

I'm finding a room for that immediately in Skithiryx

Infinite life can be beaten with infinite damage (not always but it's possible)

Also you can win by decking your opponent or some Jank "you win the game" wincon

I'm not adverse to scooping to infinite life, doesn't seem any easier to pull off than any other combo so idk why we need a rules fail safe to prevent infinite life from winning you the game

>some Jank "you win the game" wincon
Are you talking shit about Azor's Elocutors? You better not be

That's just one example

The first one I thought of was actually barren glory lol, but Azor elocutors and lab man are probably the most common you'll see

Felidar Sovereign is a popular one with casuals.

I actually run Barren Glory as a win con in one deck but I'm OK with you talking shit about it. It's not easy to make work.

I'm currently piloting Zada, Mayael, and Sakashima. I've got a pretty wide range of styles and strategies.
Part of the fun is making it work.

Yeah, Beacon is on my list of options. Same with Endless Whispers. You might be right with giving up, but I can just proxy it on paper until I decide if it's worthwhile.

Dauthi Embrace is a top-level juke. Thanks, matey.

was khis ciommander grisel brand?

guys please help i'm so drunk

what the fuck are you huys on about, i have been known to roll a dice once or twice at the beginning of the game because no apparent advantage would be gained by focusing attention on a particular player, if the board state dictates it or rather if you have to make your decision based in very limited knowledge, rolling a dice is a good way to keep the game casual with people you haven't played before. stop being a social retard. it's a fucking game.

Bbbut mhu strategy.
if you think you can make an informed decision on whom to attack first based on land go for 2 turns while facing similar tier commanders in a casual setting you are retarded.

this guy gets it

>if you think you can make an informed decision on whom to attack first based on land go for 2 turns while facing similar tier commanders in a casual setting you are retarded.
If you think you can't you are retarded. It's not always going to turn out to be the right choice because a lot of variables are involved but
>if your best guess is worse than a dice roll on average, you suck at this game

Brewing a Mikaeus deck right now and question.

Do +1/+1 counters cancel out -1/-1 counters and vice versa? Or does a creature still count as having both counters but gets instead +0/+0?

fun experiences when shit works just right.

"remember that time I got a jitte to 69 in two turns and whipped the board to swing for game, that was funny (people laughing/having a chuckle)
vs
"i go infinite again guys, gg"(people just scoop cards and shuffle, maybe a groan and a roll of the eyes)

fun.
games are fun.

whats the difference between getting 69 jitte counters and comboing infinitely?

surely your opponents couldve just scooped at 10-15 jitte counters anyway, seems like a retarded story, doesnt sound fun at all

again, i know games are about fun, thats why i asked why somebody would want to NOT PLAY the game and instead babysit an unworkable gameplan