Disadvantaged matchups
Commander (EDH) forum
Posted on Nov. 2, 2019, 5:14 a.m. by ShutUpMokuba
Hello everyone,
I was debating with some friends at my LGS about what to do in the situation in which in your play group someone plays a deck that has a clear advantage on the one you use or it basically shuts down your strategy. Since we don't play at competitive level (mostly between focused and optimized decks) the two main possibilities are either improve your own deck to manage to take the edge or adjusting your deck to the meta since you basically already know what you are going to face. Even if the two are not mutual options my question is about which you mainly focus on.
Like it's fine to ask them to change their deck, especially if they're your friends. You're right, if it's rock paper scissors it's one thing. But knowing that someone always throws rock is gonna be a game ruiner. One idea, if you have multiple decks, is do roll a dice for which deck you play with (something I do). So that you're not playing against a silver bullet every time.
Also, even if you do do that, it's still a silver bullet. If you both have two decks on you, there's a 25% chance that you won't be able to play at all. My suggestion would be to tuck silver bullet pieces that are also semiuseful in other situations into the deck or alternate ways of winning that don't use your main focus. For example, you play sacrifice deck and there's an Anafenza, the Foremost deck there? Great play some things that can make it so they can never play AtF, or make it's that it's not just creatures your sacrificing to win.
November 2, 2019 6:21 a.m.
ShutUpMokuba says... #4
dbpunk so you suggest trying to "take some precautions"...
The fact is also this: In that LGS at the "non competitive table" during events are "forbidden" infinite combos. For example i run a The Scarab God deck without the Phyrexian Altar + Gravecrawler combos. Which is totally fine by me. The problem is that giving away some of your win conditions makes your deck way weaker. A friend of mine built an Urza deck (post Paradox Engine ban). The owner told him "yeah you can run Winter Orb and Static Orb but you may take the fun out of the game.. next time maybe you should play something else".
The problem is that for a reason (which would be intresting to discuss in another thread) some strategies/win cond are totally "fine" while Others (not talking just about infinite combos) are "unfair". If you play two lands per turn and then you turn them into 5/5 flyiers is totally fine but if you play just one little orb everyone loses their mind (Joker reference intended).
So i told my friends that when there is a problem there is Always (almost) an answer. The two answers inside the game are to add cards to take care the other strategies (which means making your own less efficient becaus you need to cut out something you probably would need) or making yourself better and faster in order to win before the Others.
November 2, 2019 7:10 a.m.
Gidgetimer says... #5
I agree with Timmy that if it is a once in a while thing, let them have their game of silver bulleting you. If someone is always trying to hate specifically you out it might be time to have a conversation with them on sportsmanship. If that fails, switch decks (assuming that you have multiple). The fourth and final step is that we come to one of your options.
Once everything else has broken down I will 100% of the time silver bullet them back. I usually adjust to and play to the meta to begin with and the meta as a whole isn't the problem in this scenario. It is a single player that wants to shut off your deck. So the solution isn't to beat the meta harder. It is to adapt to beat that specific player. Even if it takes a couple of weeks of throwing games and hating on them until they realize how annoying they were being by shutting you down consistently.
November 2, 2019 9:53 a.m.
ShutUpMokuba says... #6
Gidgetimer silver bullet them back is a thing i would avoid because it starts a chain reaction in which i play B to beat your A Deck, then you play C to beat my B deck, then i play D to beat C and so on.
November 2, 2019 10:26 a.m.
GhostChieftain says... #7
My suggestion is to up your counterspell or removal game. Take a look at the removal in cEDH level decks and find what you need to stop their deck from being such a silver bullet for you. Sure, infinite combos and locks are the way a lot of cEDH games finish, but anyone can play on close to cEDH level with the right interaction. Good interaction and draw are key to a good deck and even if you don't have such a mass of cards that synergize with each other, you have a deck that can stop opposing synergies and things that you can't come back from.
Alternatively if they are running things that your deck's color has no real way to deal with, either put in a few silver bullets against what their plan is or just try to kill them first because you can't win with them still at the table. If they are upset that you always go after them, then let them know that it is the only way your deck doesn't get shut out due to their deck.
November 2, 2019 11:46 a.m.
Evry1sfavteddy says... #8
Did they build the deck specifically to beat you or is the fact that it shuts you down just a coincidence? As for your question, it depends. Speeding your deck up may put you into a bracket above your friends decks ruining their fun.
November 2, 2019 noon
ShutUpMokuba says... #9
GhostChieftain thanks for your advice.
Evry1sfavteddy No they didn't. They are not bad guys they just happen to have decks that are advantaged against the one my friends and I usually play.
November 2, 2019 12:15 p.m.
Gidgetimer says... #10
The two possibilities you gave were silver bullet them back or improve overall "the two main possibilities are either improve your own deck to manage to take the edge or adjusting your deck to the meta". To me if "improving your deck to take the edge" is something different than "adjust to the meta" then it must be improving only in relation to how it handles the silver bullet, aka silver bullet them back. To me trying to raise your deck's power above that of the meta is more dangerous than just being a dick back to a dickhead. Trying to rise above the meta is the thing that arms races are made of.
At the time you hadn't said that it was just that one of their decks happened to shut down one of your decks. If they consistently play the deck that just happens to shut down a deck you like playing the best course of action is going to just talk to them and say that you would like to be able to play your deck sometimes and would they mind playing a different deck every once in awhile. I don't think that trying to outpower the meta is ever a good choice and if this is not a situation where "be an ass back" is appropriate then you need to solve it outside of the game.
November 2, 2019 12:44 p.m.
ShutUpMokuba says... #11
TypicalTimmy that's one way to read that statement but i still feel that you probably can find solution without changing completely your game plan. At least in commander where you can have more win con. However i apreciate your point of view and probably you are actually right.
Gidgetimer I'll never afford a competitive deck. I won't be able to win by turn 6. What you say is right but here there is a limit imposed by the budget. No one will start buy >70$ cards. I won't buy a Mana Drain because it's way better than Counterspell . But i can buy a Swan Song if i don't have one copy.
November 2, 2019 1 p.m.
Gidgetimer says... #12
Someone in my playgroup decided he was tired of losing and built a budget The Gitrog Monster deck. The ensuing 3 months cultivated in me building Arcum's Even More Budget Asylum, which at the time was $250 for all of the cards, and winning turn 3-4 every single game. Arms races are not fun and there are budget ways to build ridiculously powerful decks. I would never recommend trying to out power the meta.
November 2, 2019 1:23 p.m.
ShutUpMokuba says... #13
Gidgetimer you know the funny thing is that one of them has a Lord Windgrace deck with The Gitrog Monster and stuff. The deck ramps fast and then without infinite combos you can play in the mid game he can win easily in the late game thanks to the tons of lands that allows him to cast everything even if you bounce back or destroy everything with a boardwipe. The fact is also that to beat ramp you should use stax effects. But, as i said in the previous comment, the owner of the lgs strongly encourages people not to play those cards because they are actually "annoying". When a friend of mine asked why ramp is fine while stax is not he answered that according to him "ramp affects you positively while stax affects others negative so in the first case anyone can still do their thing while in the second you can't". In fact once he used his urza deck and the guy wasn't able to do anything because 20 lands tapped are useless if you can't untap them. So, i may even agree that in a non competitive table you should let everyone "play" a bit. Which by the way is super hypocritical since my friend couldn't play his deck there any longer to let others play theirs. However i don't get why some strategy is considered fair while others aren't. The only exception may be infect which should be changed to 21 points imo.
Long story short, i'm strongly adviced not to build a budget deck to shut down theirs. So we come back to make minor changes to adjust to our opponents or to power up mine.
November 2, 2019 1:59 p.m.
I'm going through a similar situation myself. Some people I play with have added cards against one particular deck of mine. While it sucks, I like to view it as a challenge and motivate myself to become a better player (not trying to stand on a high horse, just sincerely how I feel).
Alternatively, I agree with one of the above comments for adding cards that not only mess with their strategy, but opposing strategies in the meta as well. For example, activated abilities are a thing in both my metas, so I've considered adding Pithing Needle and Cursed Totem (probably just the totem) because it hurts lots of my opponents, only 1 of my cards and it's a cheap silver bullet/stax piece. I removed "win more" pieces in my deck and replaced them with interaction and the above. Makes the deck a lot more resilient to other match ups as well as a result.
While I did loose "some" of the effectiveness of what I wanted the deck to do, I chose to sacrifice it for efficiency.
November 2, 2019 2:09 p.m.
Welcome to the most difficult part of being the best player.
We all want to play. Good players win lots of games all the time. The best players (especially in commander) lose gracefully, not because they misplay or anything of that sort, but because they have the self control to not “always win”.
If you are “always losing” to a silver billet deck, YOU have to chose whether to be good, or the best.
A good player wins faster, and makes answers obsolete by removing players from the game before they can get to their silver bullets. Essentially, a good player’s deck is always at a power level above that of the meta.
The best player does one of two things:
1) add answers for the silver bullets, so you still lose to them sometimes, but don’t get locked nearly as often.
2) build a different deck you enjoy at a similar power level which doesn’t get shutdown nearly as hard. Example of when this is necessary: I have a
Vona, Butcher of Magan
deck. It gets absolutely ranched by
Tainted Remedy
, and there’s no way around that. So I have a
Sharuum the Hegemon
deck and
Ezuri, Claw of Progress
deck which could give a squirrel about
Tainted Remedy
.
The best player is never above the meta’s power level because being above the meta means that no-one but you has fun. Either tech your deck to not get doo-doo’d on so hard, or if that’s not viable, build another deck at a similar power-level to compete with.
November 5, 2019 6:54 p.m.
ShutUpMokuba says... #16
DuTogira what you say is right.. I have different new decks i would like to try.. I'll try maybe to pick someone that doesn't suffer too much other's decks and at the same time not too strong to outmatch them.
ShutUpMokuba says... #2
TypicalTimmy What you say is right but my point of view is this: As Mark Rosewate said himself, this game as some sort of rock-paper-scissors style in which for every situation/strategy there is a proper answer. Maybe you can't find it in your deck at a particular moment or you weren't prepared for but there is. So, one of the things i like of this game is to find answers to situations i wasn't aware they even existed. The point is not going home having won a non competitive game with no reward whatsoever.
Now asking to a player to change deck to let someone else play his own in my opinion is not the solution nor to change playgroup (which, by the way wouldn't be a problem since we go to other LGS too).
The question here is this: Woul you rather optimized your deck to improve your strategy and win faster or adjust to anyone else so i have my time to get to my win con?
November 2, 2019 6:03 a.m.