r/EDH

Need some advice on my pod situation. Bit of detail to start. So there’s 4 of us in our pod that play Atleast 3 nights a week since we all got into magic about 3 months ago. It’s been great everyone learning what kind of decks they like and for the most part it was very fair.
Myself and let’s call him Jerry have bought the most decks and upgraded them with some more expensive cards compared to the other two. This hasn’t been an issue as we’ve made sure to still keep our decks within the realm of the usual bracket 3 upgraded precon level.
Now Jerry has figured out that his preferred deck style is control / pillow fort. Since he’s discovered this and has about 3 decks that he mainly plays built around this.
He has won every single game we’ve played together over the last 3 weeks. The only games he hasn’t won has been when he isn’t using those decks or he got no lands for half the game. I’ve voiced that I feel like it’s becoming unfair and he just argues back that there no stronger then my own decks and which is technically true as we’ve both spent similar money but because of the style of his decks they are so incredibly difficult to fight against.

Now the biggest problem I have is that the only way to beat him so other people have a chance to win is if either I target him early and only him (which always leads to arguments about me only hitting him). Or our whole pod gangs up on him but both the other two don’t want to do this when I suggest it. One of them won’t due to them being too nice of a person and the other decks they don’t care if he wins yet another game.
But I can see that moral has taken a hit the past few games regardless of what they say, we all show up and then everyone sits in silence as they play the slow game of just deciding if they are gonna die first or die 2nd while Jerry wins.
Do I just suck it up and deal with it because the others won’t do anything about it because there scared to confront Jerry or am I just the only one with a problem? (Just to clarify I want everyone to win not just me, the best games are when everyone is on the edge of there seat and you don’t know who will win)

I’m looking at including 3 game changer cards in my Baylen commander deck, but having difficulty trying to determine what to keep. Between Seedborn Muse, Smothering Tithe, Aura Shards and Enlightened Tutor.

Looking to determine which are the best 3 to include, maybe there is something I’m not listing that I should include, please let me know.

Additionally looking to know what removal aside from swords to plowshares and path to exile should I include if any?

Any general tips, advice or cards I should be including is in this build would be greatly appreciated.

Every time [[krark clan ironworks]] [[phyrexian altar]] or [[ashnods altar]] come out in a game I know it will lead to some incredibly degenerate nondeterministic combo/storm chicanery. Sacrificing as a mana ability is near impossible to interact with. Do you think these cards belong in bracket 2?

Would they be worth a game changer slot in bracket 3?

Am I way off base in thinking these cards enable absurd play patterns?

Bonus question how do people feel about [[skullclamp]]?

I was playing a game with randoms recently where I cast a [[Sylvan Awakening]] on turn 8 to knock two players out, but a player responded with [[Evacuation]]. I had already lost three extra land enablers to removal earlier in the game and had no ramp in hand.

The problem was that I was still at 38 life at this point, and because everyone's creatures were bounced, nobody was in a position to actually complete the process of eliminating me soon. So, with no creatures or lands on the board, I scooped during my second main phase.

Two of the other players got annoyed and said it was lame to scoop before you had clearly lost. I said that when everybody else has full mana bases, including rocks, and all of my source is mana is gone going into turn 9, that I have clearly lost.

I'm not denying that I got punished for overextending, but does that automatically mean it is bad etiquette to scoop?

I thought I would do a deep dive on manabases for 2 color decks. If there’s enough interest, I’ll do another post on 3+ color decks as well!

This primer is geared towards decks with approximately 38 lands. This also doesn’t include cEDH, which has its own rules and expectations, and specific decks like landfall decks, which often want way more lands.

Part 1: How many dual lands should I include in my decks?

To answer that question, I ask another question first: How badly do I need mana of a specific color by a specific turn? Let’s say you’re playing a blue/black deck, and you want to be certain to have a land that produces untapped blue on turn 1. Using hypergeometric probability, you can calculate the number of lands you need to figure out how many non-basic lands you need.

80% probability: 20 sources.
90% probability: 27 sources.
95% probability: 34 sources.

If you’re running 38 lands, and want even distribution of your two colors, that means that you should be running 2 dual lands if you want an 80% chance of having each color in your opening hand, 16 dual lands if you want a 90% chance of having each color in your opening hand, and 30 dual lands if you want a 95% chance of having each color in your opening hand. Note that if you’re including colorless utility lands like reliquary tower, you’ll want to include 1 extra dual land for every 2 utility lands you include. Personally, I aim to have somewhere between 12 and 18 dual lands in each of my 2 color decks. 

Tier list of land cycles for 2 color decks.

Tier 0: The money tier.

1. ABU Duals. These are obviously the best dual lands you can have for your decks, the only limitation is their absurd price point. If you’re proxying or have a ton of money and no pod-imposed budget limits on decks, these should go in every 2 color deck. Realistically, you will never see one of these in a commander game unless you are playing with proxies or Post Malone.

Tier 1: Should be included in every deck if it’s within your budget.

1. Onslaught/Zendikar Fetchlands. With the printing of the surveil lands, having the versatility to search up an untapped land when needed or a surveil land when you don’t need the mana this turn puts fetches at #1. Every deck that can afford them should play 1, most decks should play 3, and some decks should play all 7.
2. Shocklands. Despite being strictly worse than ABU duals, they’re still the best lands you can fetch by a wide amount that don’t also cost a down payment on a car.
3. MKM Surveil lands. Fetchable lands that are pseudo card advantage make up for the fact that they come into play tapped.
4. Battle Bond lands. Another commander staple, and should go in every deck that supports them. The only reason they’re below the top 4 lands is that they aren’t fetchable.
5. Marvel Lands (ally only). They tap for the color you need no matter what the turn you play them, and probably every other turn as well. They also tap for colorless, which can matter in some colorless matters decks. I could see these being better viewed as better than battle bond lands in some 2 color decks.
6. Verges. Another auto include for 2 color decks, these are about 80% as strong as Battle Bond lands.
7. Slow Lands. If you’re not playing cEDH, these should absolutely be going in your deck. The downside is almost nonexistent.
8. Pathways. Always enter untapped? Check. Give you the color you need the turn you play them? Check. Doesn’t hurt you? Check. In a 2-color deck, these are better than a prismatic vista (unless you’re playing landfall), they do get worse in a 3+ color deck where you have stricter mana needs.
9. Check lands. The bottom of tier 1. Auto includes, but can sometimes betray you.
10. Turbulent cycle (enemy only). On average these come into play untapped on turn 4, compared to slow lands which come into play untapped on turn 3. What I like about these is that they’re a budget(ish) dual land that can be fetched painlessly in the mid to late game.

Tier 1b: These lands are also auto-includes, but aren’t part of a cycle.

1. Command Tower.
2. Exotic Orchard.

Tier 2: Not needed for every deck, but are fine to include in most decks.

1. Pain Lands. Greatness at any cost, if any cost is 1 life per activation. Still worth including in most decks.
2. Filter Lands. These are fine, but don’t tap for colored mana on turn 1. Include them in decks where you don’t consistently need to play a colored spell on turn 1.
3. Reveal Lands. These are much worse than the checklands, especially as a topdeck. They’re definitely playable, but are aggressively mid.
4. Tango lands. These are fine, but won’t come into play untapped until at least turn 3, and sometimes later than that.

 

Tier 2b: These lands can go in most 2-color decks, but aren’t auto-includes. They are not part of a cycle.

1. Fabled Passage. Definitely include it if you’re playing landfall or have some graveyard/recursion synergy, otherwise you can pass on this.
2. Prismatic Vista. Not budget friendly, and in a 2-color deck not required.

Tier 3: Fringe. Only play these lands if you’re on a budget, or if they synergize with your deck.

1. Cycle lands. These are somewhere in between tier 2 and tier 3. I wouldn’t play them in a deck that doesn’t have a way to recur lands from the yard.
2. Bounce lands. I would only include these in landfall decks, or if you’re playing a commander that lets lands enter untapped.
3. Temples. Not being fetchable, and scrying instead of surveilling really pushed these down far. I wouldn’t play a temple unless I was on a strict budget.
4. Sol Lands. These lands do nothing if you play them turn 1, can’t pay for double-pip cards of the same color, and will often leave you unable to cast the spell you want if you’re not paying close attention to the mana you have. The fact that you can’t leave these lands untapped as your only land also makes it hard to hold up/bluff having spells at instant speed. They’re probably powerful enough to be in tier 2, but the headache they create isn’t worth the hassle for me.
5. Tainted lands. Fine in a deck that is heavy black, but doesn’t do much on turn 1.
6. Horizon lands. Play them if you are a land recursion deck, or if you’re playing cEDH and your life total super doesn’t matter. At fair magic tables, you can pass on these.
7. Fastlands. I would not play these in a deck outside of cEDH.

Tier 3b: Fringe lands that aren’t part of a cycle.

1. Path of Ancestry. I’d avoid this unless you’re playing a kindred deck.
2. Hidden Hideout. Fine if you’re playing a counters deck, otherwise it’s a pass.
3. Reflecting Pool. This goes up in a 3-5 color deck in playability, but it really isn’t needed in 2-color decks.

So which lands should you play? If budget isn’t a concern, and you choose to play 3 fetchlands in your 2 color decks, then there are 13 tier 1 lands that you should include in your decks. If you have 1 utility land in your deck, that puts you at an 87.9% chance to get a specific color in your opening hand, and a 77.8% chance to have both colors in your opening hand. Given a free mulligan, that means you’ll only be colorscrewed 5.2% of the time. If you’re on a budget, you can replace some of the expensive tier 1 lands with tier 2 or tier 3 ones.

Hello!

A lot of great sets have been released in the last couple of years, Strixhaven, Tarkir, Lorwyn, Final Fantasy, etc.

What precons are fun, not necessarily great, but fun precons people enjoy playing and playing against, and would be great to get for 2 new players to the game that will not be deck building for a little while?

I'd prefer getting precons that are on the newer side. I know Hakbal is great, but I've seen him a lot and I want to take the opportunity to discover new decks with them 🙂

Thanks! ♥️

My friends and I rarely play magic and often come back to the game after a long, 5 month break from play. Sometimes we come back and watch as somebody struggles to pilot their deck just because they're playing a trigger-heavy deck theme.

From your experience, What are some of the best and worst edh deck themes or wincons for beginners/casual play?

I know in the age of 7 sets per year + commander + jumpstart releases, we're looking at like 2000-3000 new cards every year, but [[Bloodthirsty Blade]] is still just one of the best goad-cards around, especially in colours that otherwise don't goad well.

All the usual goad reasons apply:

- instead of simply removing a threat, you're basically using it to make other player's life totals go down. It's like a [[Control Magic]] in disguise.
- removes a blocker from an opponent, which makes them more likely to get attacked and easier for you to attack into them.
- as it turns threats into other player's problems, they might be forced to spend creature removal/resources on it instead of your own threats.
- in a pinch, if can act as pseudo removal, forcing your opponent's utility creatures to attack into an opponent who will just block and kill it if's a big enough problem (e.g. [[Bood Artists]] and the like), though your opponent still get's a full turn of value out of the creature.

But what makes Bloodthirsty Blade so good is that it keeps goading creatures beyond just one round. Few things feel better in EDH than watching your opponents having to deal with each others stuff, while you sit back and enjoy the show, not having to spend tempo and cards on each other beyond your initial investment.

And it's not an enchantment that falls off like most of the impetus auras, which I also DO like very much. But there's a reason [[Ghoulish Impetus]] crept up in price until the reprint. It's more or less the same card for black decks with much the same advantages.

[[Eye of Nidhogg]] also got pretty popular. But recasting it costs 3 mana. Meanwhile Bloodthirsty Blade is just a single colourless mana to re-equip.

And then it actually gives a sizable +2/+0 making it more difficult to block profitably.

And It keeps being a problem for your opponents until it itself is actually answered or you're down to 1v1 and even then you can attach it to creatures that your opponent doesn't want to attack with (e.g. a [[Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy]] and other small-ish utility commanders). Most of the time, if Bloodthirsty Blade sticks around for two turn rotations it will have provided plenty of value to you.

Edited because I misread Ghoulish Impetus.

What, right now, is the biggest thing that irks you about EDH? Be it about the players, the format in general, the state of play/building, etc.

After having taken a 2 month break, I played a game with friends this past weekend! In one of the games, someone mulliganed 5 times into a hand that included Sol Ring, Arcane Signet, and Thran Dynamo. For context, I always go by the London Mulligan and I always make it a point to say I'm going down to 6 if I mulligan after the free one. It's often met with, "Oh you can just keep 7," or "it's a casual format," "I don't mind dude," things like that. And this pod's members did just that. This already set the casual precedent and I didn't wanna be the odd one out and hold other's to it. So I just brush it off as usual and explain quickly that it helps me with my counts and deck building if I can consistently get good playable hands within one or two mulligans.

I see one of my pod mates go for their 5th mulligan, get the start explained earlier and I'm just annoyed because they often get burned by their greedy mana bases in their decks and are so often saved by people being lax about free mulligans. What's worse is they are always playing competitively and are so cutthroat about everything in game. If you're gonna be a sweaty player, don't rely on players being okay with multiple mulligans to have playable games. Build. Your. Deck. Better.

I'm Heartfart, my biggest EDH pet peeve right now is people being too lax about mulligans.

Tell me your biggest pet peeve or current pet peeve and what situation made it so!

Last night I played a bracket 3 game against Bant +1/+1, Jund Lands and Grixis reanimator. Turn 5 I drew and cast an [[Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite]], removing a lot of mana from the Jund player and a mana dork from Bant. Yes, I know that is a scary card and it can make people salty. I still like it a lot in creature based decks as a way to shift the balance in combat.

The Bant player proceeded to promptly clone the Elesh Norn so that the two of us were basically unaffected while the others could not play creatures. The next two turns I played some Initiative creatures and durdled around with a removal ready for the Bant players Elesh Norn if needed. I expected someone to boardwipe or at least spot remove my Elesh, but no one did. All three other players kept durdling around a little, but not doing much.

On the third turn, I drew [[Multiversal Incursion]], and it was copied twice by [[Tomb of Horrors Adventurer]]. The resulting Initiative triggers combined with 4 Elesh Norns on my side was enough to finish the game.

One of the opponents was very salty about Elesh Norn being played in the first place, another about it getting copied. I can understand the frustration. However, she stuck around for three turns unprotected, and no one even attempted to remove her.

I don't feel like I am wrong for playing the card in Bracket 3. I also didn't enjoy winning that game, considering that there was absolutely nothing done to stop me all game.

In your opinion, what thing(s) would you say make someone a great deck builder and/or talented player.

With many people putting together a pile of cards with the most synergy from edhrec, many decks with the same commander can look very similar. So what would you say is an indication that another player is a good/great deck builder?

What would you point to that would indicate that someone is a talented player? Conversely, what would you point to that a player is below average in talent and/or deck building?

Hello, I need desperate help. Our pod is going to have a tournament on tribals. Can you please suggest/recommend me a tribal commander thats released from 2024 to current. No universe beyond magic. Please help me, I want a fun competitive b2-b3 commander with a fun/cool/unique abilities that could win games. Thank you so much

I’ve had so much fun playing the Silverquill precon, goading my opponents creatures and feeling like a puppet master. It got me thinking about what other commanders and strategies impact the game in similar ways.

Would love some suggestions for decks that you’ve had a lot of fun playing that don’t just build a board and attack or play solitaire or combo but that affect the gameplay for everyone around the table. Not just looking for control decks but rather political, forced attack, group hug/slug etc type strategies

okay so i need advice. tell me how i should’ve handled this. i go to commander night tonight and walk up to a pod and see if they need a fourth. they do! so i sit down and join. i pull out my low bracket 3 choco, and everyone else pulls out their commanders. one guy is running teval with proxies (he asked if we’re okay with proxies and i said yes as long as you’re not proxying anything crazy) and another guy is running chatterfang. i run squirrels myself with hazel as the commander, but i have the chatterfang/pitiless plunderer/ warren soul trader combos along with some other 3-4 piece infinites. i ask the table “oh i would love to play my squirrels too, but it has infinites are we okay with that?” they all say no, this is around low bracket 3. fine! no issues i’ll play choco.

everything is going okay, squirrel man plays chatterfang turn 3 and i counter it because i know what he does and i need more time because he has tireless provisioner out as well. turn 4 he casts him again. fine i’ll let him through. game is playing as normal. first, teval man is milling through his deck and mills a rhystic study. my face is 😐 but i let it go because its whatever. then, turn 5 squirrel man plays PITILESS PLUNDERER. i IMMEDIATELY say “uh that goes infinite” and everyone plays dumb. so i explain it, and i say “i thought we weren’t doing infinites? i would’ve played hazel” and the squirrel man goes “oh i didn’t even realize it went infinite.” my face: 😐😐😐😐. OF COURSE YOU KNEW. i counter it, then by doing that i put a big fat target on my head and even though i had 15 life and they had 40, squirrel man and teval man were attacking me incessantly and i lost shortly after.

so my question is, what should i have done in this case? should i have been more clear at the beginning talking about brackets? should i have said something different? i’m relatively new to commander night so i dont know if this is just something that happens.

In our play group of around 14 people, there are three that play "Lands Matter". Alllll the landfall and 16 lands turn 6 plays you can think of. Stars of the show? Why of course its "The Gitrog Monster" and "hearthhull" in all its green bean looking glory 🚀 i u derstand these decks are meant to out last and out value other commander. The issue im having is the others in my play group dont help keep them at bay 😆 i try to be the voice of reason when they have 18 insects, 13 Baloths, life gain on lad sac and alter of dementia all out at once, but they insist its not a problem 😆 ill board wipe sometimes, help everyone out, then immediately the next guy send his pumped up 10/10 iron man at my face 😆 while lands guy is at 60+ health. So long story short...

What commander should i build around to combat this play style? Been eyeing up Elesh Norn, mother of machines (stax/grave hate) but looking for other suggestions as well. Also we keep it around bracket 3 power.

Thanks again for your time and help on this matter. I am not worthy 🙇‍♂️🙆‍♂️🙇‍♂️🙆‍♂️🙇‍♂️