MTG Salvation

I just wanted to stop in and say how glad I am to see thet this thread is still active and that 3drinks is still here. Back when I was in grad school and had half a dozen close friends who all played EDH almost daily, Kaalia was the first 75% deck that I made, and this thread and 3drinks' input on how to build Kaalia for 1v1 vs. multiplayer were huge influences on that build. All those friends have long since moved away, I've had 2 kids, and with those and other factors I haven't played paper magic in years. Some recently-printed legends piqued my interest, though, so I thought I'd just poke my head back in and, like I said, it warms my heart to find this thread still here. I'd of been super sad if it had fallen into disrepair.

Hey all,

A search for Misdirection didn't really turn up much recent or relevant, so I thought I'd start a new thread.

I'm wondering what the juiciest possible Misdirection targets might be that you actually run across fairly frequently in your meta. I don't specifically mean cards you find yourself Misdirecting, as it seems Misdirection is a relatively little-played card, but cards that you see pretty often that, if you stopped to think about it, would be awesome to Misdirect and might even blow out the game.

I'm debating the merit of running it in a reactive blue-based deck, but I also just think this is a fun thought experiment. Looking forward to your replies.

Counters didn't matter too much when I was playing Azusa, Lost but Seeking. You still get your "when cast" trigger on the Eldrazi titans, and you shuffle your graveyard up and do it again next turn.

You could try Thrun, the Last Troll to stay in green and thumb your nose at blue.

There's also City of Solitude, Dosan the Falling Leaf, and to a lesser extent Carpet of Flowers and Tsunami to hose blue.

Or you could expand out into RUG and play Surrak Dragonclaw to enable the Timmy gameplay with some protection from counterspells built in.

Quote from elderscrollsnick »

I think we need some more DATA........
SO
Bump
FOR THE GOOD OF THE COMMUNITY

I agree, we do need more data, and hopefully lots of it. I've tallied all the votes from posts 33-42. Thanks for the input.

In general, I find it interesting that a lot of the older "staple" commanders of each archetype aren't getting mentioned much (i.e. Sharuum combo, Kaalia aggro, etc.). The question I'm asking myself is whether this is due to the fact that EDH is something of a FOTM format and people like to brew, build, and play the newer commanders or because newer options are just "strictly better." I think it's a bit of both, but I do think there is something to be said about the fact that WotC has been printing cards that really outclass some of the former leaders in their respective archetypes and bring the whole format to a new level of possible brokenness (Derevi, Empyrial Tactician stax, Teferi, Temporal Archmage combo, etc.). I also feel like EDH is more of a "solved" format than it was even a few years ago, with a far greater accessibility to information on how to build and fine tune decks.

Surprised not to find Lich + Repay in Kind at least in the strong synergies category, as it can potentially take out the table. Would also be curious what else can combo with Lich to one-shot the table.

Having circled back to the game after a ~2 year hiatus, I couldn't believe how much the price of cards that I used to frequently consider including in deck lists had gone up. Now, granted, these were never exactly cheap cards, but they've gone up 2-4x from already substantial prices:

Vampiric Tutor: was ~$20 last time I looked, now sitting at ~$50. Usually a card I would include in almost every deck that has black in it.
Phyrexian Tower and Volrath's Stronghold: were both ~$20 a few years back, now ~$40. Usually cards I would put in any black deck that cares about creatures at all.
Chains of Mephistopheles: A more niche card, for sure, but a card with a unique, awesome, and fairly irreplaceable effect. Was ~$80 back when I was playing the most paper EDH (~2010-2012), and ~$180 a few years ago. Going up to ~$750 is quite the leap, and places it in "Nope, not gonna happen" territory for a single card.
Nether Void: Another awesome black card that can't be replaced (I get that that's part of the very reason they've gotten expensive). Was ~$175 a few years back, now ~$800. Another "never gonna happen" card now.
The Abyss: Was also ~$175 a few years back, now ~$1,200. Man, Legends was the king of black stax cards. Also, screw you no reprint list.

These were just cards that I came across when brewing a mono black deck. Venturing out into other colors brings up things like Survival of the Fittest, which I both bought and sold for ~$22 when I made and later parted out my paper EDH collection. Now at ~$125.

I owned a lot of these specific cards and others of their relative price and rarity (in the paper circulation pool) in the 2010s. Having sold them closer to %25-50 of their current value, though, there's just no way I could convince myself to buy back in at current prices. So... that basically means Cockatrice for me.

Hey all,

I've been contemplating the idea of brewing up a new set of mono-colored EDH decks based around the idea of making each deck an archetype that it's specific color isn't particularly known for. I think this could be a fun deckbuilding exercise that imposes a natural power-limit on each deck and forces me to look at cards that I generally wouldn't include in decks.

So far, I've been thinking along the lines of the following:

W: combo
U: aggro
B: ramp? (I don't think this is actually far enough from black's place in the color pie, as it's pretty good at producing lots of mana)
R: control
G: voltron (as opposed to mega-ramp or go-wide stompy strategies)

Obviously, I could use a little more direction on this, and would love your thoughts as to what each color is capable of, but doesn't fall in their stereotypical part of the color pie.

Thanks!

Quote from Honor Basquiat »

Snap is so good. That card is crucially underplayed. Submerge is excellent if you play enough Islands. There are numerous options that blue has to deal with all types of creatures. Unsummon and Curfew haven't been mentioned yet either. Red has far fewer and is the least versatile color in the format but it has spells like Lightning Bolt that can answer mana dorks like Arbor Elf easily in the early game..

Bolting Azusa herself is also a not terrible way of slowing the deck down a turn or two.

Pongify, Rapid Hybridization, Cyclonic Rift / Into the Roil, counter it (Disdainful Stroke, et al), Propaganda, Ensnaring Bridge.

Quote from hyalapterouslemur »

I wouldn't feel too bad about it. I mean, come on, that requires some serious luck, and generally makes you a hate target.

I assume you mean alpha strike early. Because the last thing we need is combo players whining about aggro players, to go with the combo players whining about control players, midrange players whining about combo and control players, etc.

I mean... it requires more tutors and fast mana than it does luck Killing one player isn't the problem, it's killing the other 1-4...

Quote from Schutzwald »

I guess that's true to some extent. But I came to play magic, if I get knocked out of the game and have to sit around with nothing to do for 30mins to an hour, yeah I'm going to be a little bitter. If someone else(like alpha-strikes mcgee) gets knocked out then we can play modern or something while we wait for another commander game and then I don't really mind. If I get to play magic I'm happy, if not then booooooo.

And that's fair. So, do you think that the average player would prefer that everyone at the table lose to infinite combo than that players get knocked off one by one by voltron or other alpha-striking type of deck?

Quote from Schutzwald »

Like others have said, as long as the rest of the game finishes in a similar amount of time then fine. Time to shuffle up and play another game.

But if it drags on and no other player gets knocked out and I'm just sitting there lonely and sad, then no thanks.

The problem is that that's really out of the player doing the alpha-striking's control. Those strategies are usually dependent on being able to fight through a certain amount of hate, but will usually draw all the table's hate at a certain point and can definitely falter and totally fall apart. Be mad at the control player(s) instead?

Somehow it completely didn't cross my mind before I posted that there would be some in the "it's totally fine" camp and some in the "it's totally a d-bag move" camp, and that eventually the conversation would gravitate toward a conversation about what's "fun," what's "in the spirit of EDH," etc.

That said, I just find myself curious - to those who consider themselves EDH purists (i.e. the format is not about winning, the format is about having "fun"). It seems like infinite combo is deemed uncool. And based on this thread creature-based alpha striking (a decidedly less powerful strategy) is uncool. I know that in many circles infect is deemed uncool. So what's left? Are mid-rangey value-based strategies the only thing that's acceptable?

Anywho, back to my original thought here: I should've remembered that the answer is basically "it's up to your playgroup."

EDIT: I mean, is Url, the Miststalker frowned upon? Strategies like his are like Tier 2-3, but utterly dependent on alpha striking people.

... alpha strike someone out of the game (i.e. Sneak Attack a Blightsteel Colossus into them on turn 3). I see it said from time to time that this is frowned upon, but then I find myself thinking that that's the exact gameplan of a lot of decks, voltron decks in particular. It doesn't make any sense to put 7 commander damage on opponent A, then 7 on opponent B the next turn, 7 on opponent C the next etc. before coming around for another round and put them all at 14. You'd never win a single game that way. Instead, knocking an opponent entirely out of the game (likely the most threatening opponent at the table), is a much better strategy. But are you going to get grief about the fact that that player then sits there for the next hour while the game plays out? Thoughts?

Thanks for the replies, all. We're starting to get enough data to see some trends emerging. Don't let those influence your voting too much, though Keep 'em coming!