Combining EDH with Archenemy
Commander (EDH) forum
Posted on Aug. 29, 2020, 9:38 a.m. by DemonDragonJ
EDH and archenemy are two of my favorite ways to play this game, so I have often wondered about combining them, as that likely would make for very exciting games.
The most important questions are the starting life total of the archenemy and if both the number of poison counters and amount of general damage needed to defeat them should be increased. I personally feel that both of those numbers should be, so that games do not end too quickly and anticlimactically. In normal games of archenemy, the archenemy has 40 life, which is both twice as much and 20 more life than what every other player has, so, when combining archenemy with EDH, should the archenemy have 60 life (20 more than each other player) or 80 life (twice as much as each other player)?
What does everyone else say about this? Have you ever combined EDH with archenemy?
EleshNornsFs says... #3
I would almost say that 100 life is appropriate and 20 poison. 51 commander damage from every command combined.
August 29, 2020 10 a.m.
griffstick says... #4
When me and my friends do two-headed giant edh 4 player game, basically a 2v2. We do 60 starting life. Nothing else changes. And if we were to do archenemy I would leave everyone's lifes at 40. That's because the schemes are supposed to make up for the 3v1 that you are getting.
August 29, 2020 11:15 a.m.
we do it all the time and its always a blast
we do 30 + 10 per opponent for life total because 60 life is not enough when your 1 vs 7
no changes to 21 commander or 10 poison damage
it takes what would be long large pod plays into fast intense games
this is also how we test our competitive decks out.
August 29, 2020 2:04 p.m.
Was curious about that mairsil deck now and got disappointed
August 29, 2020 3:32 p.m.
The Horde Magic format is basically archenemy for EDH. It doesnt have the archenemy schemes but adding those is simple. It is a fun way to play edh even with the restrictions for deck construction. Check out the rules here:
https://mtg.gamepedia.com/Horde_Magic
Adding schemes would make the Horde even tougher to beat but I bet even more fun to battle against.
August 29, 2020 10:34 p.m.
battle_jelly says... #8
Not going to lie, with commanders that love tokens, like Purphoros, God of the Forge, it makes the game very very very one-sided. I've used my deck Purphoros, God of the ETB Triggers [cEDH PRIMER] before for Archenemy, and now we don't play EDH archenemy as much. xD
September 2, 2020 11:20 p.m.
Horde Magic is not competitive for cEDH decks. And theres a section that talks about the "spirit of the format". I am guessing your deck would not qualify to be used as a survivor's deck.
Given that the Horde deck has infinite mana on turn 1, there are quite a lot of cards that would basically give it an instant win against your entire playgroup on turn one if they were in in the Horde's opening hand.
Hence, the deck construction restrictions. But if I was going to build a Horde deck to play against a set of cEDH decks, I would build it with the same lack of restrictions you built your deck with. For example, You piloting your Porphyros deck is powerful magic. Now imagine what would happen with your opening hand if you have infinite mana?
TriusMalarky says... #2
It's called 'my decks are more focused, so my friends gang up on me'. Of course, I only lose when I haven't focused them enough. RN my two best decks are Mairsil and Korvold, and nobody beats them.
August 29, 2020 9:54 a.m.