The change from partial paris mulligans in our cEDH meta was gutting. Jeleva storm went from 23 lands to 28

Keranos blue moon went from 28 lands to 33 Gitrog combo went from 30 to... 31 because that deck is consistent enough Kess twin went from 29 to 32 The list goes on.

Rip partials. But in favor of the decision I think it was healthy for the format. It made well known, well built stax decks like derevi drop drastically in power. It turned narset from a t2 aggro combo deck into more like a controlling combo build (though now almost unplayed). Granted they really opened up the format by unbanning hulk - and that wouldn't have been ok with normal mulligans.

I mean if you're not playing full cEDH and you think your deck isn't quite as consistent as you'd like it to be, you can just house rule to allow the Partial Paris mulligan in your playgroup if they're all for it.

I actually prefer today’s mulligan rule to Partial Paris. It forces you to build your deck knowing you cannot easily engineer a more perfect hand, making deckbuilding decisions just a touch more complex. It forces you to weigh the odds of mulligans - do you keep a hand of powerful early plays but light on lands? A heavy land hand, with a couple early plays and a win con? It’s not simply a matter of looking at each card and deciding whether you are likely to get something better than that specific card.

I will take added complexity in deckbuilding and a more complex opening hand decision over explosive early plays any day.

Uhhhh...I don't think Kess existed yet, back then. Unless we're talking about two different things. Also, maybe I'm just not competitive enough, but most of my decks play 36 lands--I suppose I don't play combo very much, but I tend to follow the 7x9 rule when building a deck, which is a good way to scale up the way you'd build a 60-card deck in order to ensure a decent probability of drawing effects that you want, and said rule leaves one with 36 lands (which is a good scale-up from a 60-card deck in that it will usually give you a land drop every turn). I realize a lot of decks (even Tatyova, apparently) don't care about having a land drop every turn, though.

Both mulligans obviously change how you build decks, but Partial Paris required quite a bit of skill to know what cards to pitch during what matchups, to increase your chances of winning. If you pitch poorly, you would more than likely end up shooting yourself in the foot. And sometimes, sculpting didn't work out in your favor, because of RNG.

The only skill requirement necessary for Vancouver is knowing if your hand is fast enough, or has enough interaction to compete at the table. It lacks the all nuances of Partial Paris, that I believe made it (Partial Paris) a bit more skill intensive mulligan rule.

We only actually made the transition last October -COUGH- I probably should've mentioned that xD we're all Londoners like British Londoners. Though I definitely agree, crstisalie - paris partial meant the difference between choosing an interactive hand or a combo hand dependent on your meta. A very important thing based on the speed of the decks at the table (one storm and two flash hulk vs food chain) it ended up being those with better reactive / midgame strats that would last - which was really interesting to see.

I had a Sharuum reanimator/bomberman list that did really poorly after the partials were done away with within our group- as the reaction suite wasn't diverse enough without sacrificing a more combo pieces. A tough choice to make. Talking of Sharuum - the last one I saw displayed for this list was eggs. I'm not sure if that included the now more common kci combos, but maybe that's worth revisiting?

I believe my group made the transition during Origins, which was...pretty close to the mark, I think? At any rate, we can bitch about it all we want, but they're probably never bringing it back, so, yeah.

If they did, we'd have to put Momir Vig and such back on top, I guess (as opposed to having only ten commanders up there).

I don't think anyone is bitching about it, we're just having a conversation.

Well, I'm bitching about it, because it sucks. I didn't even play combo decks before it happened, I just enjoyed Partial Parising. Oh well.

I honestly don't remember it well. I didn't play competitively at all with it xD

If I would like to try and move a Mid Power commander to High power, would I do that by submitting a decklist in Average Dragon's spreadsheet?

Boy howdy did I miss a discussion. Oh well. I just snagged a Japanese Foil Tasigur, the Golden Fang and blew an additional ~$750 on pieces of cardboard. What a life we live my friends.

My goal one day is to build a deck that is all Japanese and fully foiled out because I'm a good for nothing weeb and I have no self-control lol.

Also, n0bunga, I would love to be able to just see your alters for Gitrog in person. Gosh, do I love that deck.

SynergyBuild

I dont think anyone has fully explored Ishai or many of thr other partners outside of thras tymna vial but I did spend some time pre hulk exploring a Ishai Reyhan synergies with Food Chain combos and post-hulk exploring Ishai Thras. Although these lists arent optimized or updated, they convinced me of viability. I wasnt necessarily advocating for Ishai at any particular level, but it is a partner effect in decent colors that applies a clock.

Ishai Reyhan

Ishai Thras

ChibiNature oh I'm sorry I didn't mean to disregard your comment! No, you don't have to make a submission on the decklist database, that's more or less used for cEDH decks and fringe decks as well. You can just start a discussion here by stating who you think should be moved up, why you think they should be moved up, and a decklist would be appreciated if you could link that as well.

Also tw0handt0uch, with all do respect, I don't think Ishai warrants a slot in competitive for having synergies with Reyhan in a Food Chain list. I understand that you weren't advocating for a placement, but tier 2 seems a little high to me. Especially since Reyhan is in tier 3 as well, and Ishai isn't directly involved in any of the combos you listed. It appears to me as if Ishai is more of a backup or compliment to your game plan in the deck. Would a drop to tier 3 be fair? It's still a really cool deck and I like the synergies the commanders have with one another, but it doesn't strike me as tier 2 material when compared to the rest listed as competitive. It has lots of potential though.

I have to agree with DiverDown here, tw0handt0uch, as even if with Reyhan there were some great combos, Reyhan isn't in Tier 2, nor is the deck you listed. Ishai is listed as a standalone commander, not in the partner pairings.

I ask what deck without a partner makes Ishai equivalent to the other tier 2 decks? That was really my question, apologies if I didn't make that clear before.

I do like that food chain deck tho, but it isn't what I would call tier 2 xD

IMO ishai + reyhan is pretty good... Beatstick+utility + best protection spells on a self-growing commander can end games in short order... except if going Voltron route with ishai it has that whole effective against 1 player at a time caveat.

The Aggro Problem in a nutshell.

See, this is why you just need to play infect. For my money, either they should just add a rule simply stating that poison counters do not exist in commmander, or raise the limit to 15 or 25, but so long as it’s 10, I’d say it’s a viable strategy in commander, even if it does still have problems (and certainly isn’t tier 1).

Infect doesn't solve the aggro problem xD It may help in some scenarios, but often it doesn't help enough.

NoOneOfConsequence I don't see infect much but the only way I've seen it knock out more than one player is by alpha striking everyone... It seems like it should be good but I often see Voltron work better. I'm talking casual games btw.

Great update all around. I had stopped coming to this page because the comment quality had gotten so bad. Glad to see that being addressed.

Hypothetical question while you're on the subject of agroo: If Saskia the Unyielding 's two unique abilities were changed to "Whenever a creature you control deals combat damage to an opponent, it deals that much damage to each other opponent.", would that be enough to bump her up to Competetive in your opinion?

(Bonus alternative: "Whenever a creature you control deals combat damage to an opponent, Saskia the Unyielding deals that much damage to each other opponent." so that you can easily combo with e.g. Tainted Strike .)