Decks are too weak, and also too strong
Commander (EDH) forum
Posted on Sept. 22, 2015, 1:47 a.m. by ComradeJim270
So some people tune their decks to their playgroups. That's fine, I've got no problem with that. It's not really an option for me though because I'll often play with people I've never met before. I probably have at least two actual playgroups and a half-dozen pseudo playgroups.
I could be playing against some kid who threw a hundred cards together the other day and who I couldn't even pretend has a chance, or against someone who got bored with Vintage after a decade or so and put his cards in a an EDH deck that can answer anything I do. Both of these have actually happened to me.
Since I've kept all three of my decks on a similar power level compared to each other, the problem I have is that my decks are often noticeably more or less powerful than the ones they are playing against. It's not fun if someone doesn't have a fighting chance, whether it's me or my opponents.
Has anyone else with a highly diverse and unpredictable metagame has this issue? How do I fix it? How do I establish and implement clear power levels for my decks to be at so I have something to play in a variety of games?
Please note that I am not asking for deck-specific advice, but for how to address this problem in general!
ComradeJim270 says... #3
I am familiar with the concept, but not sure quite how I'd implement it and I already know I would not be at all comfortable applying some of those principles to any deck I play. Others I am fine with and have done without really intending to.
Thing is, it's very hard to gauge the power levels on my decks anyway. I consider Trostani and Lazav "fair" decks, but some people won't agree when the former runs Tooth and Nail and the latter has Duskmantle Guildmage + Mindcrank .
My current idea is to make them each a step up from each other in power level, with one for casual fun-times, one for the more combo and tutor-happy and cutthroat games I often play (and which I'm stuggling with), and one for straight-up Spikey groups (which I can't really play in right now).
I'm not sure how to do that. My concern is that if I make an actual 75% deck I'll very quickly get bored with it or lose interest in it, and if I make an actual competitive deck... well I don't know what happens, then. I don't know what that would even look like.
September 22, 2015 2:25 a.m.
FancyTuesday says... #4
Well it all starts with that most important element in EDH: the social one, where you gauge what you're going to be dealing with in that pod. You can either come out and ask people you haven't played with how competitive their decks are, or you can try to guess just from looking at their command zone. If I see Arcum Dagsson I'm gonna put on a much more serious face than if I see Ramirez DePietro.
Akido and Group Hug style decks are great for less cutthroat games. Akido scales and won't blow anyone out if they lack the means to blow you out, and Group Hug can help those less competitive decks get rolling, which is often their biggest weakness and keeps games from going on for hours.
Dealing with the other side of the coin is a bit more involved, because you can't just run whatever you want against a competitive deck, you need to run control and your commander choice becomes severely limited. If you can't match your opponent's buying power you basically have to play arch-enemy with your pod, trying to hold them back while the rest of the group does the dirty work. Until one player got banned from the store I play at (for being an ass) I would overload my Vorel deck with counterspells and just sit on him so everyone else could enjoy the game, it was pretty obvious what was happening and everyone was on board with taking him down at every opportunity.
September 22, 2015 3:17 a.m.
ComradeJim270 says... #5
Ok, Indigoindigo... after looking into it a bit more it seems I did not have a full understanding of the concept. I do think you're on to something there.
I would not use the same criteria for a 75% deck, in part because I do not have the option to evaluate their effectiveness. I can't build decks around how fun they are for my opponents because that's not a known factor. I don't see any way to solve it. My LGS has people just show up on Saturday to play and I'm never sure who will be there, what their decks will be like or what will make them salty. I would rather play a strong deck suboptimally than put specific limitations on it (and I do this with newer players who have weak decks).
Still, I can use some of these principles and appreciate you bringing up the concept.
I don't think any of my decks are even at the level of being 75% yet. They're more likely too weak than too strong, and I fully intend to do Daretti close to 100% optimal and extremely oppressive. The other two decks? I am trying to figure out how I determine where they are at and where I want them to be. That's something I'm really struggling with.
@FancyTuesday: Maybe I'm just not good enough at that yet. It's also tricky because my "playgroup" is very fluid. Asking people about their decks is a good plan. Would have been nice to know about that Armageddon and Force of Will the other week.
I'm working on building Lazav as aikido with a bit of a mean-spirited attitude, and it's going ok. Most people seem to find it pretty fun to play against... and it does not win quickly, so there's plenty of time for opponents to get things going. Group hug is not something I'd build; my experience is that many people I play with will use group hug decks as punching bags or get angry at them and focus them. Not a reliable strategy, here.
Again, I do intend to make a straight-up competitive list with Daretti (who is a viable commander for that) and probably some sort of 75%-ish aikido thing with Lazav. Finding the middle ground for that third deck is going to be... more difficult, I think.
September 22, 2015 3:33 a.m.
I kind of have a similar issue - I play in both a semi competitive / competitive environment as well as a casual one. My recommendation - 2 to 3 decks. This will provide a good mix between power level and not be too heavy on budget.
And the thing is, unless your deck is choked full of counterspells you can play a more competitive deck much more casually. Sit back, don't be aggressive, just play to where the game is at.
September 22, 2015 3:53 a.m.
What enpc said. I run a Doran treefolk tribal deck that's just sort of a janky beatdown for less competitive games/groups, and Chainer for the more intense games. And even that can be used for more casual games as long as I don't actively try to combo out. Having a set of decks that are designated for different levels of competition is best.
September 22, 2015 9:07 a.m.
Karns_Pyromancer says... #8
I have almost the same problem. I don't have an LGS where I live so I'm forced to play at stores one or more hours from home. Also, the issue I've found with 75% decks is that some thrive on this setting whereas others flop. This issue was really brought home when I was playing in a pod against Kaalia of the Vast, Alesha, Who Smiles at Death and Animar, Soul of Elements with my Tasigur deck.
Basically, Animar plays Aluren and everyone else begins to flood the field. Someone wipes and I cast Consuming Aberration + Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord . Everyone considered this a fair move, but I know some groups that wouldn't. (Please note, I keep my lists both EDH and French legal because there's a large French community nearby, so I'm a bit more limited in my options). Those French players would welcome someone pulling that off, but there's rarely any time to do it in a French game.
More casual groups like my Tasigur deck because it's quirky and I haven't over powered it yet. However, this is the main point; the game requires a social contract. A Sharuum deck comboing off T3 is cool, but no one wants to play against it. An Bounteous Kirin deck is unlikely to be worth mentioning outside of a beginner's league.
I think the issue, Comrade, that we need to keep in mind is understanding of the game and social contract, not deck power level. Get your deck out and power up! When you play against new people, instead of feeling bad, maybe sit next to them and offer an 'alliance' or include them in your combo. Basically, I'm saying that the message should be 'Your deck can always be improved, you're valued as a player first'. (Of course, we should help new players out anyway as they don't often have the resources to improve well).
Well, I went off on a tangent. Sorry if this is off topic by the time it gets posted. :P
September 22, 2015 9:12 a.m.
Indigoindigo says... #9
Lazav sounds like a good 75% commander with a lot of scaleability, and Daretti can be the pilot of a mean stax-deck. Not every deck you own need to be 75%, it's nice to have something for really competitive settings. Out of curiosity, what's your third deck?
An option I've considered is to have a competitive sideboard to 1-2 of my decks. I don't run tutors or too much countermagic, but if I were to compete in a serious tournament I'd probably add in 4-5 tutors and 8-10 counterspells and have a plan for what cards I'd take out. Regardless of commander I prefer to have a solid package for ramp and draw, and some power and some scaleability after that.
September 22, 2015 9:29 a.m.
Frimbleglim says... #10
You could try playing a geth of the vault deck. Or a deck based around bribery and desertion and other steal effects.
This way your deck automatically gauges it'self to the power level of your opponent.
Warp world works well too.
September 22, 2015 9:48 a.m.
canterlotguardian says... #11
I'm like a few others on this thread. I have a super lax playgroup that I play with and a super competitive one as well. I have exactly one EDH deck to my name, and I specifically built it with both playgroups in mind. (Not sure if this would be considered self-promotion or not, but for reference, I Must Agree, You're Just Like Me. is the deck I'm referring to.) Because it's a clone effects deck, it naturally scales to the power level of the group. If I'm playing casually, I clone their $.15 commons and not really care. If I'm playing competitively, I'll clone their Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger and laugh as everyone tries to work around not one, but two threats. Decks that work with what other people have are my favorite kinds of decks. I don't have to worry about alienating the people with decks that probably cost less than my commander, and I can still put up a fight in more competitive scenes. It's perfect for me.
September 22, 2015 9:58 a.m.
Coinman1863 says... #12
Comrade, I am in a similar situation but of a different flavor. I have 3 playgroups:
A half way competitive EDH group (two play uber completive [thats what their college is like], the other people who use our decks [theirs are works in progress/don't own one, then there is me).
A legacy group, all the local competitive/semicompetetive LGS folks
And this one, the kink in the chain, my local scout troop's extremely casual playgroup.
I end up never using my one 60 card deck because it slaughter them. (Imagine D&T vs. a Casual deck. Shudder). So I end up using my EDH decks in the casual format.
So then my predicament comes, how do I make an EDH deck which plays well in competitive formats while doesn't completely obliterate in the causal multiplayer games which are common place in my troop.
I currently maintain 3 non precon EDH decks. (Precons are basically unplayable as the need their commender and 40 life to function well). One of them, my Oloro deck (Artifacts for Life!), is unplayable as it need the life game which casual formats do not afford as I generally shuffle my commander in or remove it entirely. The other two are 5c-Goodstuff (All the Things), and a chaos deck (Who Owns What??). Both of these preform well in competitive formats as well as being in the constraint of 20 life and no commander. I prefer to use the chaos deck as it helps teach the game to new people (has a lot of odd interactions) and (as mentioned above) everyone uses everyone else's stuff, so it inherently scales itself to the powerlevel of the decks being used. The 5c-Goodsuff I generally use when playing against more advanced players since they have decks that can take the heat.
So really I have decks do double duty, one for the competitive side, and another to help teach and give a challenge (but a beatable one) to any decks which may play against which are severely less powered then the EDH playgroup's decks.
Hope this is useful.
September 22, 2015 10:29 a.m.
ComradeJim270 says... #13
Ok, now that I have an actual keyboard in front of me I can respond.
@enpc, O-Higgs: That's my thought. Since I already have three decks I would like to put each on a different power level so I can use a different deck if one of them proves inappropriate for the group I'm playing with at any given time. Building them this way will be a challenge.
@Karns_Pyromancer: Yeah, I get that. I make it a point to throttle down my plays against less experienced players. Often I'll make deliberately sub-optimal plays. I'll occasionally even ask them mid-game "how mean do you want me to get with this?". Or I might point out my combo pieces as they hit the board so they know they need to deal with them. "If you want to stop me, you need to do something about this artifact". Sometimes they're curious what that would look like and will be cool with me going off. I do make a point of offering any advice I can after a game; others have done that for me and I know how helpful it can be.
I've also had more experienced players complain about some of my combo plays. One of them dislikes infinite combos. I pointed out that they can be disrupted and that I enjoy them and will continue to do them and he did not have to play with me if he didn't like it. I told him I don't like some things he does (Spawnsire of Ulamog in Golgari ramp can fuck right off) but I let him do them because I know he's having fun. We've been pretty cool ever since.
@Indigoindigo: I think we're on the same page there. Lazav seems well-suited to it and he actually does scale to some extent and has been able to make a good showing against more powerful decks. It's Dimir so it does do some mean things, but people aren't usually salty about it. I wouldn't adopt the entire 75% philosophy, especially as regards countermagic and tutors, but drawing inspiration from it sounds like a great idea for a "casual" Lazav list that can still hold its own. Call it an 80% deck, I guess.
And Daretti is going to be rebuilt as a stax list. I want it set up for consistent early-game locks. It's not going to be playable in casual games when it's finished.
The third deck is Trostani, and I do have an idea for that one. Scroll down for that.
@Frimbleglim, canterlotguardian: I've got Geth in the 99, but Dimir is more fun than mono-black. I do really like the concept of aikido decks.
@Coinman1863: Interesting predicament and it sounds a bit familiar. In my experience, trying to design a deck to work in multiple environments often results in a bad deck, but your experience may be different. I simply built different decks.
@ everyone: My thoughts for what I ought to do are along these lines:
- Go all out with Daretti. Full-on competitive stax with absolutely zero regard to whether a card is broken or un-fun, or to how miserable the deck makes opponents. I've actually been intending to do this for a while to take some of the overly Spikey folks at the LGS down a peg. I started on the list but can't quite figure it out.
- Build Lazav as a 75%-ish list. There are certain elements of 75% deckbuilding I would never adopt (e.g. not using tutors, skimping on unconditional, not-nice countermagic). But I can scale down my plays easily enough.
- Build Trostani optimally, with the inherent limitations of a non-competitive commander and deck type to rein it in. Something that's powerful but not too "unfair" or "feel-bad".
In truth this will probably require a lot of upgrades to each of them, but I'm curious what people think of the idea.
September 23, 2015 12:06 a.m.
Indigoindigo says... #14
"It's Dimir so it does do some mean things, but people aren't usually salty about it. I wouldn't adopt the entire 75% philosophy, especially as regards countermagic and tutors, but drawing inspiration from it sounds like a great idea for a "casual" Lazav list that can still hold its own. Call it an 80% deck, I guess."
Mean things is OK occationally, it's when it's coupled with high consistency - i.e. if you have enough tutors to win with the same infinite combo every time - that it becomes troublesome.
There's different types of tutors too. A face-up tutor like Muddle the Mixture (the card is revealed) is preferable to Demonic Tutor. Bennie Smith writes more about tutors here. You can run tutors or draw, but not both in excess.
When it comes to countermagic there's a lot of available options. My Roon-deck runs Arcane Denial, Desertion, Dream Fracture, Glen Elendra Archmage, Hinder and Perplexing Chimera, and I think Spell Crumple, Dissipate, Faerie Trickery (and several more) would be fine too. More on countermagic in 75% here. Any deck needs answers, and instead of a lot of removal you can run more countermagic. An example from my deck would be Aura Shards that will draw a lot of hate (especially coupled with Roon or a token-maker), but power is OK (and encouraged) if it's not seen every game.
September 23, 2015 1:58 a.m.
ComradeJim270 says... #15
That's the main part of the 75% philosophy I disagree with. I can appreciate what others are trying to do with them, but I'm fine with running a bunch of tutors and efficient hard counters. It's easy enough for me to just not use them in oppressive ways, though I'll recognize some people have problems with this. I think it's because I get really bored if my deck plays in an overly linear fashion and just am not very Spikey.
So... tl;dr, I'm running Counterspell and Diabolic Tutor (because I don't own a Diabolic Tutor). A lot of the other 75% principles do sit better with me though, and I'll apply those ones.
September 23, 2015 2:19 a.m.
canterlotguardian says... #16
Do any of your playgroups allow for the use of a sideboard? If so, an idea would be to Brainstorm some alternate win-cons or just other cards that you would like to use. Sideboard them, and between games switch cards out. That way, even with the semi-consistency that you have, you can still bring a whole new strategy to the table, and your opponents don't have to see you win the same way every time (because it won't be the same way every time).
September 23, 2015 8:59 a.m.
Personally, id say you would be better off avoiding blue for your midrange deck. When your deck is filled with counterspells it can be kind of hard to scale down if that's all the deck does other than combo.
September 23, 2015 9:48 a.m.
ComradeJim270 says... #18
I don't think many people I play with would have a problem with a sideboard. I especially don't think more casual players would mind me taking out a few power cards either.
At present, linearity is not a problem for any of these decks and they all have multiple ways to win. Rise of the Dark Realms is actually my most common win condition in Lazav, moreso than the combos I have in the deck. Trostani doesn't have any way to combo off, though it does have Tooth and Nail. Daretti; I usually go for the same combo each time but it's often disrupted which forces me to put together a different one.
Multiple paths to victory is a prerequisite for me enjoying a deck. A deck that just tutors into the same combo all the time would cease to be enjoyable for me, which is why I immediately ruled out combo for my competitive list and am going with control.
September 23, 2015 12:36 p.m.
Generally, what I've done is choose which decks to focus on making them powerful - for the times I'm playing against the long-time mtg players with all the expensive, powerful cards that are gonna blow me out of the water.
Then I keep some other decks as more fun and casual. I would save these decks for more casual groups, new players or playing against lower-powered decks.
October 2, 2015 5:09 p.m.
NaturalChaos says... #20
i only recently got back into MTG, and EDH is the only format i've been building decks for. so, i'm not entirely sure how decent my advice is, especially given the depth of some of the above answers.
my answer to your problem was to start building a sideboard into each deck i own, and putting cards that seem "unbalanced" or alternative playstyles into the sideboard. when the more powerful generals come out, i sideboard in more powerful cards.
i stick with the traditional 10-card sideboard for EDH. most playgroups will sideboard after commander is declared, but i imagine some of the more friendly groups would even be willing to discuss what they are running before the game.
Indigoindigo says... #2
It sounds like you should build some 75% decks, or modify your decks with a few 75% principles in mind. If you're not familiar with the concept, this is a quick intro, and I really recommend it.
My main deck, [75%] Blink blink, nudge nudge, is built with a 75% mindset in mind, and I have fun games with both tournamentdecks and precons.
The entire article archive with a lot of decklists is here
September 22, 2015 2:03 a.m.