EDH/Commander General /edhg/

Magic is out of ideas. More so than it has ever been. They're taking notes from Hollywood now.

nah they are not out of ideas, they just purposely make things under powered now

See also: Kamigawa, Masques. I think Amonkhet into Ixalan is an attempt to do it more gracefully than the past examples but they're clearly still pressure release valves for power creep.

I'm not talking about power dude. I'm talking about themes and mechanics.

explore, enrage, devotion, afflict, eternalize, revolt, and that red "card draw" where you exile something until the end of turn and then can cast it are all great mechanics from recent sets even if they are implemented poorly sometimes. you can tell there is more that wizards wants to do and they mechanics have great potential but they are holding back for some reason

>I'm talking about themes and mechanics.
Creative seems to be rolling with themes. True, Ixalan is nuts, but it's also hardly the end of anything, or even close.

Mechanics I think you might be... sort of right on? One of the big problems with Magic design in the modern era has been wildly squandering mechanics, and we have been seeing a fairly massive dial-back in keywords. Contrast Ixalan with Ravnica's cancer and yeah, instead of 10 new key/ability word mechanics we got a new keyword action, a 'new' ability word, a returning ability word, a theme, and a couple of returning mechanics that might just be deciduous. (Transform and vehicles)

But compare that to an era when Magic design was good. The Rath Cycle gave us two actual keyword mechanics: Buyback, which was really the headline mechanic, and Shadow, which a lot of people would rather forget. It also had strong themes (Spikes & Slivers; Wall Tribal in Stronghold, Discard-for-power in Exodus) but it wasn't a bounty of new mechanics. Urza's block, while the shadow of being broken as fuck hung over it, also played nicely with two big keywords (Echo & Cycling) and a couple themes (Sleeping/growing enchantments and so on)

The early blocks that actually worked followed much the same pattern: Introduce one or two new things that feel like they actually matter and otherwise carve out an identity with existing tools, no need to have a million ways of handing out +1/+1 counters with "NEW!" stickers on them every damn set.

But Magic has run wasteful design since at least Ravnica 1 (and arguably as far back as Mirrodin or Onslaught) so it's burned a lot of resource. I don't think we yet know whether design has pulled back to sanity, or exhausted their options.

>Thread Question
I wouldn't because holy shit, there's too many Masters sets going around these days and only literal Jews or investors can afford the damn things.

Instead, I'd opt for another Commander's Arsenal-type release. Bigger print run than the original version, 50 high-quality cards, and maybe a handful of Reserved List oversized Commanders a la Sliver Queen & Karn (Angus MacKenzie, Hazezon Tamar and Radiant, Archangel come to mind).

There's also the problem that about half of all mechanics are just Kicker with a different name.

This is more a problem with kicker having been a mistake than anything else.

>they are holding back for some reason
Finite design space. Part of the reason they rehash things and revisit old planes. Drip feed the innovation and the games lifespan can be stretched significantly.

Rude

Most of the new mechanics I see are renamed or reworked versions of older mechanics. I have been playing this game too long.
>emerge - offering
>escalate - kicker
>aftermath -splitcard/flashback
>embalm - unearth
>eternalize - megamorph embalm
>exploit - reworked champion
>devotion - tweaked chroma
Etc.

But I don't have as much a problem with mechanics as my comment implies so much as revisiting Domineria has me a concerned that my childhood memories are going to be trampled.

>Exploit
>reworked Champion
Motherfucker what

This I would love to see another commanders arsenal. (plus some sweet new art or old art in foil would be neat to see the old sol ring art in foil stuff like that)

Search your heart user.

It's highly unlikely, though. The only real reason they did the first one was because they decided after the success of the original decks they wanted to do a Commander release every year, but it was too late to do a full 5 decks for 2012. So instead, they just threw together the Arsenal.

alright... i think edgar is just bad. i've tried every build of the deck with all the absolute best possible cards and it just can't compete consistently.

i hear talk all the time of him being a super strong commander, and he definitely is in a vacuum, but no matter how hard i try i can't get him to that level. is everyone exaggerating or am i missing something?

Champion is "When this enters the battlefield, sacrifice it unless you exile another [QUALITY] creature you control. When this leaves the battlefield, that card returns to the battlefield".

Exploit is just "when this enters, you may sacrifice a creature", and then a second ability that triggers off of the exploit. Exploit is basically an ETB trigger that costs a sacrifice, and to which you can feed the creature itself if you have to. Champion is basically 'evolving' a creature you already control into the stronger one, and you get the original back when the first one dies. And unlike Exploit, you can't play a Champion onto an empty board and keep it.

The only thing they really have in common is "A trigger that eats another creature when this ETB".

I'd have gone with "Flashback for creatures" rather than the explicitly one-shot garbage of Unearth when analyxing Embalm/eternalize, but you are right on a lot of counts. Though in most of those cases there's something new being done or a good reason why it's distinct: Escalate and Devotion are the two off of that list I think really would have been done properly with the former mechanic.

I think it depends heavily on what you're competing WITH. At some 75% tables, I can see Edgar being strong just because all your shit comes with extra bodies stapled to it, and then once you cast him and swing, you're putting an Anthem on your whole team. But it's definitely gonna falter against Food Chain decks, for example.

This is it. The moment all my plan comes to fruition. All that time spent posting across multiple sites with multiple sock puppet accounts has been worth it for this moment.

Unearth was already flashback for creatures. Embalm is reworking unearth. Splitting hairs.

my table is 75% decks, yes, but they're packed to the brim with wraths. it's hard to rebuild in an such an aggressive deck and you can only run so many wheels.

i'm considering just transplanting the mana base to mathas instead. if the deck is gonna be bad, might as well make it fun.

Unearth is "pay a lower cost to get this creature back with haste, and then exile it".

Embalm is "pay a higher cost to exile this creature from your graveyard, but get an almost exact copy of it onto the battlefield for however long it lives".

Embalm is much more in-line with "Flashback, but for creatures" than Unearth was. Hell, multiple things had Unearth costs cheaper than their normal costs.

Well, there you go. It might just be bad for your meta.

The point being that if you go reductionist enough it's just as absurd as the "There are only four stories" literary analysis dorks. Consider

>"A trigger that eats another creature when this ETB".

Connecting Champion and exploit. We can go deeper to "New creature eats/supplants old" and declare Champion, Exploit, Emerge, and Offering to basically be the same. And all of them "Give you something cool at extra cost" so why not call them "Kicker - Sacrifice a Creature"?

i know, but it feels bad to take the deck apart after only having it for a month. ah well, at least i get to rebuild teysa.

You're getting hung up on the minutiae. Boiled down they are both 'remove thing for effect' be it an etb trigger or a stronger creature or both. They made it optional because the mandatory nature of champion didn't go down so well.

See, that's where we differ. I frown when something is basically the exact same mechanic with a new name (like Chroma -> Devotion), but if your metric is "shares any similarities at all with an existing mechanic", then yeah, they basically would have stopped making new mechanics 20 years ago because they'd just have "kicker" and a small handful of other things.

I disagree. I say that you're pointing out *one* thing they have in common and declaring them the same card.

By that logic, why print counterspells after Counterspell was in Alpha? They're just rehashing the same idea with different costs and additional effects.

They're very deliberately making shallow scoops into new mechanics. Consider how much design space there is in Transform, it's one of the single most versatile mechanics since the onset of NWO, and Innistrad barely scraped the surface of it. SoI mined just a tiny bit deeper, playing around with things like the transforming Sorcery, and Ixalan shaved a tiny bit further off. Old, old Magic design, like Rath, was when they thought the sky was the limit and they could make new mechanics every block and casually discard old ones, so every set tried to squeeze mechanics for all they were worth. Current Magic design is definitely something where they've put the brakes on as much as they can. They're trying to think about the next 25 years of Magic.

>They're just rehashing the same idea with different costs and additional effects
Now you're getting it.

Well fuck, let's just ignore every set after Alpha, it was all downhill from there.

You're getting hung up on whatever the opposite of minutiae is. If you want to stretch things as far as you can to find similarities, you're obviously going to find them.

Have you tried playing vampires?

>downhill
That was never my point.

>Both these cards cost mana? REHASHED IDEAS

what is your point with this

They are very similar though.

No, really, they aren't. You're just acting like if a mechanic isn't 100% completely and utterly unique in every way, it's 100% a rehash.

Relax guy. I'm not trying to attack you. They rehash shit all the time in magic. That doesn't imply that it's bad.

Explore is definitely one of the worst mechanics in the game. It's low power and also EXTREMELY complicated.

They 'rehash' things -sometimes-. They do not do it "all the time".

What they do 'all the time' is create mechanics that are similar to existing ones, but that have enough differences that they're justified in calling it something new, rather than just tacking it onto the old mechanic.

You're acting like unless the mechanic is completely unique, and shares absolutely nothing with any existing mechanic, at all, then it's a "rehash". There's a whole spectrum between "rehash" and "completely unique". And honestly, I'd expect you of all people to be familiar with the concept of a 'spectrum'.

A differing opinion is no reason to get upset brah.

...

You must be a blast to play with.

alright, edgar is a bust.

which would be more fun, mathas or lucia?

l i c i a*

Mathas, by a country mile. Licia is boring as hell.

alright. what are some good win cons for mathas?

Rip + healm
Kiki + resto

Mathas is targetedremoval.dec with a handful of wincons.
He's difficult to build well and has to be custom tailored to your table.
Licia is the soul of mardu jank, just spend some time in magiccards and search for lifegain and counter effects. She's super fun to build.

so... combos

ehh, sounds boring.

They don't preclude beating down with creatures in your colors though. All those pieces have uses outside the combo and you don't HAVE to combo with them.

Depends what kind of game you want to play with Mathas. I think he works best in a pillow fort deck with some "group hug" elements, sort of like Queen Marchesa. Insulate yourself from the fallout and use your enemies as your wincons: You want some "Carrots" (Things that incentivize your opponents hurting each other like Mathas, c17 curses, Stalked Prey, and so on), "Sticks" (Things that disincentivize hurting you like Ghostly Prison/Sphere of Safety/Koshkun Falls, Crawlspace, and No Mercy, possibly including Martyr's Bond or Karmic Justice) and "Leashes" (Things that let you force the issue if players don't play like you want. Goad Everything spell, Insurrection, and Mindslaver).

If you want a "Real" wincon, Recurred Mindslaver Lock is probably the most fitting.

Do you pay one?

I pay three.

i've never seen anyone else playing this card and i don't know why

it's such a good early-game drop for blue, especially in a faster paced meta

*draws a card*

durr hurr forgot to add pic

I play this card, in Jhoira.

Its great.

What are some good wincons for her? Would like to have a fallback in case my opponents are combo players and slapping down a big ulamog is too slow to win me the game. My only thought has been enter the infinite into labman, but is there anything a bit easier to pull off than that?

I find its power is generally proportionate with the power level of your group.

every rashmi deck i've seen was a storm deck

they're pretty scary

Tooth and Nail, fetching DEN and Palinchron.

Food chain slots right in my man. Just nab a FC, that 2 cmc blue card that searches your library for some number of cards and exiles them and use it to search out that sphinx and that three drop eldrazi that can be cast from exile.

I run it in some blue decks. It's not as reliable as Study since cumulative upkeep will kill it fairly swiftly and it only trips on noncreatures in an era where effects with legs rule the world (ETB over instant/sorcery, ability on a dude over enchantment or artifact), but if you land it at the right moment you can reap your Ancestral Recall and then just let it die.

In cEDH, many decks are extremely creature light and laden with artifacts and tutors. It's quite effective in that arena.

maybe it's just my meta, but i usually get 5-6 cards out of it before it gets back around to me.

It really depends on your group. I've seen it draw 3 cards before the person untapped with it, and I've seen it do absolutely nothing for 3 full turns because everyone's first 3 turns were "Land, dork, go"

Can someone recommend me a new, fun, unassuming commander?

I need something that doesnt look very threatening and is kind of obscure

how relevant do you want the commander to be?

like you could do a hardcore 100% control deck and just have chromium as the commander for shits and giggles.

if you want the commander to be relevant try shirei. you don't see him all that often and there are a lot of cards that are terrible that he makes work, it's some fun, wacky, high-level jank.

Thromok

There's only one answer, my boy.

I like Explore, though I'll admit it is a bit wonky mechanically. Free library manip and draw for colors that don't usually get it.

Jori En.

Exploit feels more like Evoke to me.

>Exploit
Exploit is similar, but its better because you can sac a small token instead. That doesnt always happen but you have the option

What where they smoking when they where designing Homelands? Holy shit.

they were smoking "jesus christ we made some really fucked up overpowered cards, let's tone it down a little"

These are all good ideas.

I really like decks where the commander is relevant and necessary for the deck. Shirei might be interesting.

What are you on? Homelands was released in 1995. This is a full list of the sets that preceded it:

Alpha, Beta, Unlimited, Revised, Fourth Edition, Arabian Nights, Antiquities, Legends, The Dark, Fallen Empires, Ice Age.

I don't recall any of those sets being well-known for a ludicrous power level (beyond the Power 9, but that was more to do with them not expecting people to buy as much as they did).

each of those sets had one or two cards that were really exceptional though. homelands is on the same power level, just without any real standouts.

There's a whole world of difference between a set having a couple of strong cards and "we've been making some really fucked up overpowered cards".

Especially because this was back in the day when sets weren't exactly 'rotating'. It's not like they needed to de-power Standard, like when they made Kamigawa.

All of those sets except for The Dark and Fallen Empires are MUCH stronger than Homelands and even those two are stronger.

Homelands is a meme set with only 1 reasonably power card in Merchant Scroll.

Mayael a cute!

>All of those sets except for The Dark and Fallen Empires are MUCH stronger than Homelands and even those two are stronger.

That's not a high bar to clear, because Homelands is trash. If your bar for "fucked up overpowered cards" is "stronger than Merchant Scroll", then almost every set in the game is as bad as Urza's block in terms of power imbalance being too high.

every set from that time period was full of creatures on the same power level as veldrane. hell, the standard decks from back then actually played a few homelands creatures.

it's not as bad as people make it out to be, it just doesn't have an impact today because it didn't have any exceptionally powerful cards.

>hell, the standard decks from back then actually played a few homelands creatures.

Because they literally had to.

every set back then had its wood elementals. veldrane kinda sucked, but ihsan's shade, sengir autocrat, and eron the relentless were all playable creatures at the time.

like i said, it fits with the general power level of all the sets that existed in 1995, just without the big standout cards that are still played today.