A Discussion of Staples
Commander (EDH) forum
Posted on March 25, 2023, 11:43 a.m. by TypicalTimmy
We all know that certain cards are staples in this format, such as Sol Ring and Mana Crypt if it is affordable. However staples also have a little bit of fluidity in that they have color restrictions. If you are playing a deck that contains and you are not playing Necropotence, you are running decidedly below your potential.
Unfortunately cards such as Crypt and Potence are very expensive, so not all players can have them.
In this thread, I'm not so much focused on the financial aspect, but the physical aspect.
I'd like to ask, what makes a staple? Now yes, casual play and competitive play are two different beasts. Competitive decks will be leagues behind if they lack specific cards, whereas casual decks will be slightly hindered but not really all that far off. Especially if there is a budget the friends adhere to.
Let's take for example Lightning Bolt. It is both financially cheap and resourcefully cheap as well. It is instant speed and works wonders as removal. Unfortunately, in many cases, it doesn't serve a great enough impact to win the game. Yes it can take down something such as a Thassa's Oracle or bolt a Sorin Markov so the opponent can't -3 you immediately. However, in the majority of plays, it serves as little more than a bump in the road to victory. Meanwhile, a card such as Path to Exile sees far fewer targets, but it'll remove that massive gargantuan 15/15 Ramos, Dragon Engine or Edgar Markov. So while Path has fewer total available targets then Bolt, it's impact is far greater and more disruptive.
- (Although I prefer Swords to Plowshares. I'd rather give my opponent some life that will be gone in a turn or two, then a land of their choosing that they keep for the rest of the game.)
Similarly, a really good card in terms of mechanics is Scour from Existence. What hinders it is the mana value of . If it cost less, I'd expect to see it slotted into nearly every deck. The same applies to All is Dust. Yes, Wrath of God and Damnation are superior in that they cost less, however they also do less and are restrained to their own colors.
Mechanics, timing, color restrictions... These all play a role in what becomes a staple, and what doesn't.
So I'm curious, what are some staples across EDH that people know of, and do you have any opinions on what cards SHOULD be staples, that currently aren't?
griffstick says... #3
I couldn't finish reading because you said that you can lighting bolt sorin. You can't my friend. You don't get priority to do that until that player activates sorins -3. Let me explain.
You get priority on cast of sorin, and then it resolves (asuming it isn't countered), then priority returns to the owner of sorin. Then that player activates sorin's -3 and priority goes to you with the lightning bolt.
March 25, 2023 4:12 p.m. Edited.
Honestly, I think that absolutely everything is situational, but maybe to varying degrees. I've had a few decks now that cut Sol Ring all for different reasons. My elfball deck didn't like that it wasn't a creature, my agro deck doesn't have a high curve, and my mill deck just didn't want to slot in something that will probably just get milled and stay dead.
So, I don't know, I think that there really are very few true staples because everything is so dependent on your deck and your metagame. cEDH probably has a better perspective on staples because when you get to that level of optimization you have a better idea about what is necessary to have, and also what you are going to be playing against.
Maybe it's just that the longer I play around with commander the more I get away from the old advice of, these cards are staples, you need this amount of X per deck, the early game is this, and all that. It just all changes so much, and then if people switch decks between games, it changes again. If one player starts playing weenie or something then you are like, shoot, what do I even do with Swords to Plowshares? If someone plays voltron then your Wrath of God becomes a "hey you need to cast your commander again" rather than a bomb. But on the flip side of each example, you'd have the perfect answer.
Ha, sorry for the nonanswer : ) I think it's an awesome topic and I might just be waxing too much on it, like, what even is a staple? Sorry!
March 26, 2023 9:14 a.m.
FormOverFunction says... #5
I think Niko9 raises a good question. In an attempt to agree and answer, with reference to my prior post, I think it heavily depends on the deck you’re talking about. When you hear that someone is playing an Izzet spell slinger deck, a number of creatures and artifacts jump to mind (like Harmonic Prodigy). To complicate things, though, the realm of types of decks has expanded a fair amount; imagine what M:tG looked like before Ravnica. I think that growth is part of why the idea of staples is harder to explain now. Back when 80% of the decks relied on creature combat, Sol Ring was a heavy hitter. Nowadays most creatures don’t even attack ;p To piggyback on a term Purp The Historian has used in his videos: “Paint-by-Numbers commanders” have both broadened the scope of commander, and created/cemented/narrowed deck types. The staples for a spell slinger deck will always be changing because they will always be producing a new wizard with “::good thing:: happens when you cast an instant or sorcery” and a new cleric that has “::good thing:: happens every time a creature enters the battlefield” {shrug} in the long run this (in my opinion) dead ends into everyone having basically the same decks (meaning: all spell slinger decks will have ~60 of the above-mentioned wizards to choose from) and the real distinction will be how they actually try to win. We’re sort of there already, honestly.
March 26, 2023 11:25 a.m.
FormOverFunction Too true : ) Not only are there way more commanders, but ones that have ultra-specific abilities so there is that wider range of what's possible, but at the same time, almost more limited ways to play an individual commander. Something like Jaheira, Friend of the Forest (ha, I am replaying BG2 so this is what comes to mind) but Jaheria is so specific as a commander that your build is stuck between either being the same as every other Jaheria deck, or being something that's completely better suited for another commander.
But the more I think about it, I'm realizing that my post might be way off too. When I'm building decks I always start with a commander I want to use and go from there, so my process takes the meta less into account than the want to figure out the puzzle that is a commander I like.
Things I'd consider more staples are like
and some of the MDFC cards
Not because every deck needs to run them, but because every time you draw them you will absolutely use them that game.
March 26, 2023 1:01 p.m.
FormOverFunction says... #7
Niko9 is 100% on point. I feel like M:tG has a lot of good parallels with D&D (unsurprisingly): if you and some strangers are talking about D&D and you mention that you’re playing a barbarian, they’re going to assume that you’re using a certain block of stats/feats/equipment/etc because that is what people would use to optimize damage, armor class, etc. You could very easily have made an Intelligence-focused barbarian because you’re playing a Fox-Mulder-inspired investigator, but the assumption will start out as whatever the “ideal” meta is for barbarians. Staples are going to slowly rise in the ranks, streamlining those archetype decks to (effectively) perfection. Side note: it sounds like Niko9 would be a lot of fun to play D&D with, but someone who plays the Strong Meta (tm) isn’t less fun to play with either. You just gotta find your ideal play group and support them accordingly.
March 26, 2023 2:36 p.m.
FormOverFunction Aww, I'd love to play DnD someday : ) I just have a weird mix of things holding me back in that, I really only want to play in person (I love the social aspect) but I also actually live on a mountain, so it's like, good luck : ) I feel very lucky that I can drive like 20mins and get games of magic sometimes.
But I'd also have to find a DnD group that is okay with me playing a complete joke character. Bard who is cursed with literally two left feet? A cowardly werewolf hunter who takes a sick day every full moon? A giant barbarian who gets a little smaller every time he has to be brought back to life? A stern warrior who completely deflates every time their socks get wet? I feel like there really are no limits for silliness in character creation : )
Also, Fox Moulder would make an amazing DnD character now that you mention it. Traveling around and finding rare creatures, believing in things that are too far fetched, knowing way too much about the DnD equivalent of baseball...it would all be so good.
March 26, 2023 6:14 p.m.
plakjekaas says... #9
I think it's amazing someone starts a thread for this question every 2 years :P
Staples are the cards that people will raise an eyebrow if you didn't include them if your colors would allow to. Green without Cultivate? Red without Dockside Extortionist? Blue without Mana Drain? White without Smothering Tithe? Black without Demonic Tutor? Any deck without Sol Ring? You need a reason not to include them in your deck, because they're that good.
Budget is an excellent reason for most of them to not be included though, because there's an enormous run on al cards that could become staples, and if their rarity is rare or higher, prepare to empty the wallet.
Or a desire to build unique decks. My Klothys, God of Destiny deck I've mentioned before plays no artifacts, no planeswalkers, and only a handful of instants/sorceries. No Sol Ring, no Dockside Extortionist, not even Chaos Warp or Cultivate. I deemed they don't fit the deck, so they're not in it, even though I acknowledge the deck would probably be performing better if I would include them.
March 27, 2023 4:04 a.m.
Haha, I haven't played DnD in forever. Funny you should mention meta & stat-maxing DnD, I used to play it when "use magic device" was a thing. When you didn't have a Deckard Cane to just identify these things you found & "Deus ex metaknowledge" wasn't so rampant.
When you have a GM that approaches the game in a positive-Naive way usually the best characters are ones that grow organically instead of all this: build X character with Y (statmax) goal in mind. Some of the best characters aren't the ex-special forces racecar driver so much as the spatula-wielding fry cook thrust into the unknown situation. So I typically start simple... even lame & the character grows into something great, especially if the GM starts to love your joke. I played a badass knight once, he just started as a run-of-the-mill human warrior (squire) who had a powerful curse placed on him (functionally the curse would put the crest of the chicken on all his equipment)... Basically I liked the symbol of the chicken & Brave Sir Robin.
I watched some piece on why Sol Ring has become less of a sure thing staple & alot of the arguments above were presented, it is interesting that so many of those matched up with this solid video. I personally play a good amount of agro or polymorph so there are a bunch of staples that I don't actually play in those decks. Do you play alot of cheatyface/polymorph strategy? then fast-mana "staples" can be a major bummer, same thing on the other end of the curve with agro.
March 27, 2023 10:16 a.m.
Gleeock I love the idea of the brave Sir Robin crest on everything! Sounds like such a fun campaign. I feel like DnD is such a good place for silly ideas to grow into big silly ideas, because you are totally right, and if you really want to play as James Wick Borne, there are a million games to do that in.
Also, maybe a hit to Sol Ring that we haven't mentioned is that it's colorless, and as more 4-5 color commanders come into the game, that becomes less of an advantage when you just need to hit your colors. I took it out of my Catti-brie of Mithral Hall deck because it was way better to hit both colors and cast my commander on turn 2 than it was to ramp.
And yep, I think I saw that video you're talking about pop up but haven't had a chance to really watch magic stuff lately. Might have to check it out : )
FormOverFunction says... #2
I think staples can be categorized well by effect: card draw, single creature removal, board wipes, land ramp, graveyard hate, creature protection, effect-copying... there’s a ton. Colors will have different strengths and weaknesses, and artifacts/lands that do these things are more likely to be staples because of accessibility. So you could almost break your question down into: what are your staple oddities for [topic]. Board wipes are pretty easy for red, white, and blue... less so for green (maybe, I don’t know). A black staple that I love, and have posted a bunch of times about (sorry) addresses a different type of staple: equipment. Artificer's Hex is brutal on boots and swords, and in commander they need to be dealt with promptly.
March 25, 2023 12:25 p.m.