The only major rule change that I can think of that ever happened in the current era** (other than banlist changes) was the Tuck rule, and at the time it was extremely divisive. I know a number of people who quit playing for a long time over it, and fundamentally that rule changes decks significantly less than life totals.
The previous life total change is really not one that I would consider to have been during the history of EDH. It happened over 10 years ago when the game was basically a novelty with no established metagame. The previous life change happened before the banning of:
Also note that at this time exiling generals removed them permanently (that rule changed in 2009)
At the time that the Tuck change happened that allowed replacement for into the library effects, there was a *ton* of doom and gloom. And this is a way bigger change than that.
Pretending it's impossible that it has serious consequences is what I find ludicrous.
** What I consider a very minor change also happened - the allowing people to make mana of other colors. But that's nowhere near the level of even tuck, much less life total changing.
In the end this is a card I wind up cutting every time I put it in a deck. It's just too situational and very mana intensive. It's undeniably powerful but it never seems to work out for me.
I think the likelihood is at least single digit percent that it causes commander to die completely as a format over some amount of time, perhaps 5 years** or so. It creates a cascade where more aggressive decks are incentivized to the point that the population stops growing, starts shrinking, and eventually fades. Assuming that they don't revert it once they see that trend. When decks have to start packing 15 pieces of ramp and 15 pieces of interaction there's not as much room for craw wurm and vivid grove.
I think the likelihood is probably >= 50% that it would require so many new bans to maintain diversity that even if the format survived it, it'd be changed so much as to have to sacrifice much of the core mission of the format.
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(Just one example off the top of my head, but Edgar Markov is the 2nd most popular commander on EDHrec; likelihood he has to get banned is close to 100% for me).
Likelihood approaches 100% for me that almost all decks will need to be massively changed or rebuilt and that will cause a lot of turmoil. Whether it's enough to have severe consequences or not, I don't know. But I do know people who do not tune and mod their decks all the time, and this kind of change could easily drive those people out of the format completely.
Personally every deck I own would change by 10-20 cards at minimum. I've spent years foiling out my Ephara deck and if I had to hack 20 cards out of it to re-tune it for the 30 life meta I can't 100% say I would bother with it. It's always hard to predict how your brain will react to something like that.
** It's possible Commander is already dying, so it might be hard to tell if it happened because of a 30 life change.
Instead, a search for Kiki-Jiki as a card on EDHRec shows up in only 7% of all possible deck. Not in all registered deck, but in all decks which have redand can use him. Sure, that is not really fair. Edgar Markov COULD use him, but never really would. Instead, let us dig another level deeper and see which decks are using Kiki-Jiki. Of the top 18 commanders in which it is found, #1 is mono red (very interesting) led by Iizuka the Ruthless. this is followed by 4 color partners, a pair of Rakdos decks, then 6 of the next 8 are also mono red (also very interesting), and the rest appear to be 3 or 4 colors. Of those mono red commander, we actually see the ones I covered above which do not appear to be using Kiki-Jiki to combo. Even the number one deck, Iizuka the Ruthless, does not have Zealous Conscripts anywhere to be found. (control + f to search and paste the name). So, again, the data seems to point that the hypothesis has been disproven.
The conscripts argument probably needs to focus on how many mono red decks played Kiki before conscripts and I would bet that it was near zero since there wasn't a combo (and Kiki is pretty good by himself but not amazing).
Adding conscripts enabled both 1) kiki commander to combo easily, 2) other people playing mono red to have a 2-card combo (that otherwise does not really exist in the color).
The old combos actually get better almost every year too. Food chain got eternal scourge allowing it to be played in mono green even (and just making it 1 mana faster and easier to cast). Doomsday just got an upgraded black draw spell that allows simpler doomsday piles in Ransack the lab.
Prossh, Skyraider of Kher is actually a great example of a new-ish card making an old combo easier, faster and more accessible - Food Chain didn't really rise to prominence in casual groups until Prossh came around and made it a one card combo.
Dramatic Scepter is probably the most common combo in CEDH and is only a year or two old. Same with Paradox Engine.
Anyway I generally agree with the idea that people are gonna combo but I do think it is demonstrable that combo is becoming easier and faster.
Beyond all that though, I think the main points to engage in with combo discussions are:
1) is it really more common?
2) is it really a problem if it is?
Some of my discussion here has been assuming it is both of those, but I think those are probably the real basis that have to be dug into before looking at trying to solve a problem that we aren't sure is a real problem
I give all of this back ground to get to my point, which is that in all this time, two card combos have been a thing, yet throughout all of these years, the more things change, the more they stay the same. People were using Tooth and Nail for Kiki Jiki, Mirror Breaker and Sky Hussar before Mikaeus, the Unhallowed had ever been printed. Heck, before mike and Trike, Triskelion used to combo with Mephidross Vampire. Combos are not any easier, faster, or more appealing than they have ever been. So, when Sheldon writes:
The problem comes from the tendency to want to do it a little earlier next time because someone beat you to it. And then earlier after that. Arms races lead to bad places.
This, in turn, forces me to ask what it is that he thinks might be causing a "sudden" (yet immeasurable) push towards combo that we have otherwise yet to see in all of this time? The evidence provided by The Command Zone indicated quite the opposite to be true.
I agree with one part of this which is that people are going to combo, but the bolded part is something I take issue with.
I would argue that combos are both easier and faster than they used to be. Here are a few examples to make my point:
Just a few brief examples but Imperial Recruiter's reprint combined with recruiter of the guard are probably the biggest pieces that make this combo much easier; either recruiter now gets you the entire combo (recruiter -> kiki -> copy recruiter -> gg).
more appealing
This is a very minor point but the Kiki combo at least is quite a bit more appealing because now it doesn't require being in Jeskai. You can even combo in straight up mono red with two cards as of Avacyn Restored, or just UR, or RUG.
Making the potential audience broader is at least slightly increasing the appeal. Somewhat akin to The NBA adding a new team to your town, perhaps?
Again you made some truly excellent points most of which I support. But this same series of arguments can be made with almost every combo pattern. Combos have gotten easier and faster undoubtedly since I started playing and probably more appealing in general since there have been way more combo generals printed.
Yeah the issue I've noticed in the new meta is it is much more punishing. So there's less time to build up. But it is still probably right to try to be more disciplined of course.
I do have quite a few ways to find one of the mentor engines (seeker, mystical and enlightened) but perhaps time to consider some more card selection. I have been thinking on ponder and brainstorm for a while, and rack as well.
I'm thinking if I were to add tribute mage rack would be a strong addition.
Anyway gonna see how this week goes.
edit: altar of dementia is also a pretty straight forward win with the reveillark combo now since you can use it to mill yourself until you hit recruiter or remorseful cleric to stop other people's eldrazi if needed. Might have to noodle on that some too. previously our only grave hate was stonecloaker which wasn't reveillarkable.
I would be 100% against the change without a trial run or a long optional rule period.
The likelihood of making the change abruptly straight up ruining the game is high. Pretending that the risk is not massive just to make your point is something I find questionable.
Arguing a point in debate club is where you pull out all the stops and try to win. This setting is not about trying to bring others to your point of view it's about reaching the right conclusion through discussion.
I generally do not care for the debate club approach. It's tiresome. If your goal is to simply win your incentive is to dismiss every counterargument whether it's reasonable or not.
I don't have anything else to say on this topic. It's a massive risk that is poorly justified attempting to achieve ends we're not sure are good for the format anyway.
I don't find the arguments for changing the life total to be more compelling than the risks personally and I doubt I am alone in that. The responses to the risks I presented were mostly "no way bro!"
I think the best you could possibly hope for is either:
1) An official guideline that allows for "fast games" to start at 30 life
2) A season with 30 life
And I'd personally be OK with either of those but the idea of just changing the rule seems insanely risky to me, and none of the arguments are anywhere near enough for me to be in favor of making an abrupt permanent rule change.
Literally every argument I have heard is just loaded with assumptions that the things that very informed, experienced, and somewhat spiky players want are the same things everyone wants. Things like focusing on streamlining decks and faster games and so on. There's really no foundation for these assumptions whatsoever.
And another argument is based on the idea that somehow shorter games are going to lead to less combo in the casual community which I think is the exact opposite of what's likely. Presenting that as anything more than a guess is really extreme in my opinion.
I was more wondering about reasons people like 40 life outside of those, because as it stands right now the reasons to keep the life total where it is seem minimal.
I do not like or dislike it but my stance against it is that my instinct when something is successful is to be change averse.
The burden for wanting to change things is heavily on the people arguing for it, and so far I feel that much like the Planeswalker argument that the people proposing the idea are:
1) making not particularly compelling arguments and being kind of bludgeony with them
2) proposing their arguments with a certainty that I find unnerving
This is a very large change. It warrants more caution.
Edit: I will note that Dirk came around (or was already there but I didn't see it until we'd argued a while) on the cautious trial run approach which I think is the natural end stage of the argument. If that's what we're arguing for I'll agree. it's fine to try it. But changing it willy nilly and thinking it's going to be fine is just nutterbutters.
Yeah, I don't necessarily disagree abou tCharger. I am playing so much more lately that I feel like I can through some iterations quickly, so probably have a chance to bring it back in. It not having a foil is a bit annoying tho
I have played Mentor a couple times now and it's always been pretty darned good; my topdecking was bad, but the card did a lot of work, and would have run away with either game had I not just drawn brick after brick after brick (6 lands and a fellwar stone in a row in one case--and it did make the fellwar stone cantrip which was pretty darn good ;)). I was basically finding top, capsize or forbid away from running away with games every time I saw it - just couldn't get there.
My sincere hope with muse is that it is going to help me not be a target of opportunity all the time; Crawlspace doesn't really stop the stuff that gets me which is random pot shots with 7/7s and whatever when I'm trying to stabilize. But I will have to test it out a bit and see.
Trophy Mage has been mostly a brick for me for a while now; it really goes well with cloudstone curio since it's a powerful engine but blasting station is nowhere near that role. I think I can accept it being out for a bit.
Another thing I am thinking about hard is that I think I've been playing like crap lately. I can look back one game in particular where I got sacred mesa down and instead of just maximizing my card draw with it I screwed around committing other pieces to the board and then got ruined when Mesa got removed followed by a sweeper. I could have just drawn 2 or 3 cards.
So this Friday I think I am just gonna try to jam all Ephara games for a bit and see how that goes. I may try seeing if I can think of a cut I'm happy with for boreas charger just so I give it a real college try.
My kneejerk reaction is "but tooth and nail and expropriate" but this card kinda is both a crappy rampant growth and expropriate on the same card, so that's interesting for sure.
The fact that you can green sun's zenith for craterhoof behemoth for less mana kind of makes me lean against, because GSZ is quite a bit better early game, but FOD has a bunch of advantages:
1) doesn't require a large board to kill someone; I killed a table with like 8 creatures the other day because they just didn't have enough blockers.
2) it beats torpor effects
3) it goes to the graveyard on resolution so you can get eternal witness and go again if you want to not overcommit.
Because of the very high mana cost to make it a game winner I don't think it's quite bannable but it is definitely very strong. I think we would need to address it against the banlist criteria as a starting point, but probably wait until Monday and see what the new ban criteria are
Personally I am about to order my 3rd copy and that's a good sign something is possibly too good since I'm kinda spikey about my green decks.
Had I put together that it was a replacement effect I think I would have got the ruling right but part of my brain was thinking triggered.
I should really know how replacement effects work with how much I've played chains of mephistopheles and dakmor salvage together but sometimes the old brain doesn't get all the way there
The previous life total change is really not one that I would consider to have been during the history of EDH. It happened over 10 years ago when the game was basically a novelty with no established metagame. The previous life change happened before the banning of:
Also note that at this time exiling generals removed them permanently (that rule changed in 2009)
At the time that the Tuck change happened that allowed replacement for into the library effects, there was a *ton* of doom and gloom. And this is a way bigger change than that.
Pretending it's impossible that it has serious consequences is what I find ludicrous.
** What I consider a very minor change also happened - the allowing people to make mana of other colors. But that's nowhere near the level of even tuck, much less life total changing.
I think the likelihood is probably >= 50% that it would require so many new bans to maintain diversity that even if the format survived it, it'd be changed so much as to have to sacrifice much of the core mission of the format.
\
(Just one example off the top of my head, but Edgar Markov is the 2nd most popular commander on EDHrec; likelihood he has to get banned is close to 100% for me).
Likelihood approaches 100% for me that almost all decks will need to be massively changed or rebuilt and that will cause a lot of turmoil. Whether it's enough to have severe consequences or not, I don't know. But I do know people who do not tune and mod their decks all the time, and this kind of change could easily drive those people out of the format completely.
Personally every deck I own would change by 10-20 cards at minimum. I've spent years foiling out my Ephara deck and if I had to hack 20 cards out of it to re-tune it for the 30 life meta I can't 100% say I would bother with it. It's always hard to predict how your brain will react to something like that.
** It's possible Commander is already dying, so it might be hard to tell if it happened because of a 30 life change.
The conscripts argument probably needs to focus on how many mono red decks played Kiki before conscripts and I would bet that it was near zero since there wasn't a combo (and Kiki is pretty good by himself but not amazing).
Adding conscripts enabled both 1) kiki commander to combo easily, 2) other people playing mono red to have a 2-card combo (that otherwise does not really exist in the color).
Looking at Deceiver Exarch is probably going to be much more representative, though i also forgot village bell-ringer.
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Re: The Old Combos
The old combos actually get better almost every year too. Food chain got eternal scourge allowing it to be played in mono green even (and just making it 1 mana faster and easier to cast). Doomsday just got an upgraded black draw spell that allows simpler doomsday piles in Ransack the lab.
Prossh, Skyraider of Kher is actually a great example of a new-ish card making an old combo easier, faster and more accessible - Food Chain didn't really rise to prominence in casual groups until Prossh came around and made it a one card combo.
Dramatic Scepter is probably the most common combo in CEDH and is only a year or two old. Same with Paradox Engine.
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Anyway I generally agree with the idea that people are gonna combo but I do think it is demonstrable that combo is becoming easier and faster.
Beyond all that though, I think the main points to engage in with combo discussions are:
1) is it really more common?
2) is it really a problem if it is?
Some of my discussion here has been assuming it is both of those, but I think those are probably the real basis that have to be dug into before looking at trying to solve a problem that we aren't sure is a real problem
In 7 years of EDH I have seen one ad nauseam cast.
(It didn't end the game)
Great post and one I largely agree with, so please don't let my one quibble take too much away from that
You said:
I agree with one part of this which is that people are going to combo, but the bolded part is something I take issue with.
I would argue that combos are both easier and faster than they used to be. Here are a few examples to make my point:
faster
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker - formerly combo'd with Sky Hussar. This put you in 3 colors and required 10 mana. Now you can combo with:
And that's not counting the newish 3-card combos that are fairly efficient using dryad arbor.
So, at least one combo is much faster (8 mana being a lot less than 10).
easier
Using the same combo we can find that this combo is also now much easier (and more accessible)--
Just a few brief examples but Imperial Recruiter's reprint combined with recruiter of the guard are probably the biggest pieces that make this combo much easier; either recruiter now gets you the entire combo (recruiter -> kiki -> copy recruiter -> gg).
more appealing
This is a very minor point but the Kiki combo at least is quite a bit more appealing because now it doesn't require being in Jeskai. You can even combo in straight up mono red with two cards as of Avacyn Restored, or just UR, or RUG.
Making the potential audience broader is at least slightly increasing the appeal. Somewhat akin to The NBA adding a new team to your town, perhaps?
---------------------------------------------------------
Again you made some truly excellent points most of which I support. But this same series of arguments can be made with almost every combo pattern. Combos have gotten easier and faster undoubtedly since I started playing and probably more appealing in general since there have been way more combo generals printed.
I do have quite a few ways to find one of the mentor engines (seeker, mystical and enlightened) but perhaps time to consider some more card selection. I have been thinking on ponder and brainstorm for a while, and rack as well.
I'm thinking if I were to add tribute mage rack would be a strong addition.
Anyway gonna see how this week goes.
edit: altar of dementia is also a pretty straight forward win with the reveillark combo now since you can use it to mill yourself until you hit recruiter or remorseful cleric to stop other people's eldrazi if needed. Might have to noodle on that some too. previously our only grave hate was stonecloaker which wasn't reveillarkable.
The likelihood of making the change abruptly straight up ruining the game is high. Pretending that the risk is not massive just to make your point is something I find questionable.
Arguing a point in debate club is where you pull out all the stops and try to win. This setting is not about trying to bring others to your point of view it's about reaching the right conclusion through discussion.
I generally do not care for the debate club approach. It's tiresome. If your goal is to simply win your incentive is to dismiss every counterargument whether it's reasonable or not.
I don't have anything else to say on this topic. It's a massive risk that is poorly justified attempting to achieve ends we're not sure are good for the format anyway.
I think the best you could possibly hope for is either:
1) An official guideline that allows for "fast games" to start at 30 life
2) A season with 30 life
And I'd personally be OK with either of those but the idea of just changing the rule seems insanely risky to me, and none of the arguments are anywhere near enough for me to be in favor of making an abrupt permanent rule change.
Literally every argument I have heard is just loaded with assumptions that the things that very informed, experienced, and somewhat spiky players want are the same things everyone wants. Things like focusing on streamlining decks and faster games and so on. There's really no foundation for these assumptions whatsoever.
And another argument is based on the idea that somehow shorter games are going to lead to less combo in the casual community which I think is the exact opposite of what's likely. Presenting that as anything more than a guess is really extreme in my opinion.
I do not like or dislike it but my stance against it is that my instinct when something is successful is to be change averse.
The burden for wanting to change things is heavily on the people arguing for it, and so far I feel that much like the Planeswalker argument that the people proposing the idea are:
1) making not particularly compelling arguments and being kind of bludgeony with them
2) proposing their arguments with a certainty that I find unnerving
This is a very large change. It warrants more caution.
Edit: I will note that Dirk came around (or was already there but I didn't see it until we'd argued a while) on the cautious trial run approach which I think is the natural end stage of the argument. If that's what we're arguing for I'll agree. it's fine to try it. But changing it willy nilly and thinking it's going to be fine is just nutterbutters.
I have played Mentor a couple times now and it's always been pretty darned good; my topdecking was bad, but the card did a lot of work, and would have run away with either game had I not just drawn brick after brick after brick (6 lands and a fellwar stone in a row in one case--and it did make the fellwar stone cantrip which was pretty darn good ;)). I was basically finding top, capsize or forbid away from running away with games every time I saw it - just couldn't get there.
My sincere hope with muse is that it is going to help me not be a target of opportunity all the time; Crawlspace doesn't really stop the stuff that gets me which is random pot shots with 7/7s and whatever when I'm trying to stabilize. But I will have to test it out a bit and see.
Trophy Mage has been mostly a brick for me for a while now; it really goes well with cloudstone curio since it's a powerful engine but blasting station is nowhere near that role. I think I can accept it being out for a bit.
Another thing I am thinking about hard is that I think I've been playing like crap lately. I can look back one game in particular where I got sacred mesa down and instead of just maximizing my card draw with it I screwed around committing other pieces to the board and then got ruined when Mesa got removed followed by a sweeper. I could have just drawn 2 or 3 cards.
So this Friday I think I am just gonna try to jam all Ephara games for a bit and see how that goes. I may try seeing if I can think of a cut I'm happy with for boreas charger just so I give it a real college try.
The fact that you can green sun's zenith for craterhoof behemoth for less mana kind of makes me lean against, because GSZ is quite a bit better early game, but FOD has a bunch of advantages:
1) doesn't require a large board to kill someone; I killed a table with like 8 creatures the other day because they just didn't have enough blockers.
2) it beats torpor effects
3) it goes to the graveyard on resolution so you can get eternal witness and go again if you want to not overcommit.
Because of the very high mana cost to make it a game winner I don't think it's quite bannable but it is definitely very strong. I think we would need to address it against the banlist criteria as a starting point, but probably wait until Monday and see what the new ban criteria are
Personally I am about to order my 3rd copy and that's a good sign something is possibly too good since I'm kinda spikey about my green decks.
I should really know how replacement effects work with how much I've played chains of mephistopheles and dakmor salvage together but sometimes the old brain doesn't get all the way there