MTG Salvation

I had this same problem when I decided I wanted to keep playing EDH, but had moved to a different city. I put my most competitive deck on the shelf (it's still there actually) and built a handful more decks with different strategies so people could pick what they wanted, and a couple of people started showing up with their own after a few weeks. Once there were four of us who played regularly, popularity exploded and now there's a weekly EDH night at the store!

Funny story: One guy refused to borrow anyone's deck, but really wanted to play! He had his heart set on Karn as a general, but didn't want to show up without being able to compete at least a little. It took him three months to finally get it all together, bring it and play with his one EDH deck. He had a really good time. Following that, he did a bunch of deck building and showed up with thirteen EDH decks the next week!

Quote from Aitrus

Your "allies" (neighbours) can maze of ith your 20/20 uril, the miststalker even though your enemies can't.

I've personally never played Star that way. You are trying to win. If you win, your "allies" lose*. Therefore, they are your opponents.

I've also always played where you are allowed to attack anyone you want. It's my experience that usually no one wants to take damage to help someone that's trying to beat them to the finish. If your two enemies start doing this, take this as a compliment and thank them for the help in reducing their collective life total to zero.

*Or, at most, tie.

PS: Being able to attack everyone makes for some interesting choices if you get down to 3 players. Do I go for the tie, or do I kill my "ally" first...

Oh man! Then screw Gix coming back! Karn is the new Yawgmoth!!!

Quote from LennonMarx

If playing combo gives you the best chance to win/have fun/be splashy/whatever, then you can still play it, and people should still be expecting it, even if you will get booed a bit for setting it up.

I guess that's what I'm really getting at here. If you get booed for playing something, other people might not be having a good time. If you're playing for fun and people aren't having a good time, then you should probably switch up your deck or go play it elsewhere. That doesn't mean you can't play combo, just play a combo that let's other players play too. That's why I specified "quick combo" in my last post.

I'd certainly agree that this is different in tournament situations (and perhaps on MWS as well) where being a scrub is obviously just a bad idea. It wasn't Sagat that was "soft-banned", it was Akuma. Any serious player that doesn't choose Akuma in a tournament situation is probably a scrub. Anyone that pulls out Akuma for fun against a friend is probably a bad person.

I agree with Blue Warlock, except for that thing about the banned list. Although I do see your point, it really is hard to get away with playing a banned card.

Reading that article, the whole time I was thinking about how this mindset is simply not welcome in most EDH circles. Most EDH players are scrubs by Sirlin's definition. Because of this, most EDH decks are built to fight other scrubs.

Look at it this way: throwing is part of Street Fighter just like combos are part of Magic. However, if I created a fun and popular variant of Street Fighter where throwing is discouraged (let's call it SDH), I would expect people not to throw when playing this variant. We're not trying to win by any means possible, so I will happily call them cheap when they show up and start throwing me around because that's going against the intended spirit of the variant. I hadn't prepared for throwing, and I shouldn't have to because that's not the point of playing SDH.

Same goes for EDH where quick combos are discouraged. They aren't perceived as fun to play against, so most EDH players avoid playing them for the good of the group. Because of this meta, most decks don't have the tools to fend off quick combo either, which is actually the most logical way to build your EDH deck (ie: if you don't expect to encounter a type of deck, it's bad deckbuilding to prepare for it).

All of this simply stems from the fact that the "best deck possible" in EDH is not necessarily the deck that wins first. Are "Group Hug" decks bad if everyone is having fun? No! Of course not! Are my EDH decks bad because I don't try to win as fast as possible? No! We're just a bunch of scrubs hanging out together to button mash, and that's okay. It just so happens we're experts at having a good time!

EDIT: BurntChomsky beat me to it, but I pretty much agree with everything he just said.

That's definitely good advice if you want to read through all that, but it's not totally necessary with generals like 8.5 Tails that are just generally good. It's a different story with more "build-around-me" generals like Arcum Dagsson, but you don't need a specific list or cards to get started with this guy. Just throw in some good, hard-hitting removal (white's got plenty in Swords to Plowshares, Path to Exile etc.; just stay away from stuff like Sunlance because 3 damage is nothing in EDH) and some solid creatures and wraths and you're set!

Centaur Glade
Staff of Domination
Myr Matrix
Rings of Brighthearth + Sensei's Divining Top (becomes 3: Draw a card)

In the future please post a little more substance in your replies. — DC

EDIT: What!? This is exactly what the OP asked for!! You're crazy DC...

It's a shame that Iona didn't get the cut for the stated reason that she gives "interesting design/deckbuilding space". In my opinion, Painter's Servant has much more interesting applications that certainly are more powerful, but generally less "mean" than Iona. Ah well...