Emblematic Problems & Bad Reputations | EDHRECast 252

this week's episode is brought to you by Tommy John underwear Tommy John has been protecting your Treasures for 15 years with the most comfortable underwear around shop Tommy John's colorful new spring designs at tommyjohn.com EDH and get 20 off your first order save 20 right now at tommyjohn.com EDH see site for details [Music] hello and welcome to the edhretcast I'm Joey Schultz and I'm joined by my fantastic co-host he loves rexia all will be won so much that he can't wait for the sequel for rexia all will be too it's Matt Morgan so Joy you want to know what the biggest difference is between me and a calendar uh wait wait wait I know this one because you have a you don't have a it's something to do with dates no I don't know I'm bad at this you aren't far off but a calendar actually had a date on Valentine's Day there it is that I I did have a date myself my partner I had a fantastic time but it for the sake of the joke I can I can take one on the chin self-deprecating humor is one of my favorite types of humor Matt so I really appreciate you putting your heart on the line out there so that you can make everyone happy with all of the dad joking yeah I mean my dad joke game about calendars it's not very weak but uh oh wow wow okay wait that was that was well done live left love that for me oh I'm glad that you stalled just long enough for that one to kick in but anyway we can proceed then we don't yes yes we can um and this week we will not be joined by our usual co-host Dana he happened to find some glistening oil got a couple of poison counters and he needed to get you know get that checked out so he won't be with us for this episode but um I'm sure that he's somewhere dad joking everyone else around him much like we always love to do so we wish him the absolute best and hope that forexane oil problem sorts itself out soon I think you should complete this intro and uh keep moving along that's that's just me though well done all right yeah this is the EDH retcast edhrek is the best deck building resource on the web for the commander format compiling data from deck lists all over the Internet to provide helpful recommendations for new Commander Dex and here on the podcast what we'd like to do is give all of that data a little more context and Matt can you tell us what it is that we're going to be talking about in this week's episode well this week we're going to take advantage of Dana being gone and talk about cards that are maybe kind of emblematic of bigger problems in the format and see if it's really if the problem exists on one card or if it extends Beyond just that single entity of of that problem yeah I think that's a nice way to phrase it there are certain things out there that have a big reputation and we want to investigate is that reputation earned for say like a whole mechanic or are there sometimes just individual cards that are the source of that reputation and kind of spoil it for the rest of that subject the resident mechanic the rest of that group of cards or whatever stuff like that those little emblematic problems and you said take advantage of Dana being gone are we gonna have a scrap are we on different sides about these issues are we going to be debating is that what this is I mean we can turn it into one we can we can throw hands with words but that that doesn't work too well throw hands with words this this is the type of fire content that people come to the EDH redcastle here all right it'll be a fun uh fun subject for sure but we've got a couple of shout outs that we want to do first first and foremost we want to shout out Chase also known as Mana curves for helping with the post-production on the show Chase thank you so so much you're such a great asset to the Eda truck team we love you bunches and if you would like to support the show you can do so by liking subscribing on YouTube you can subscribe on your podcast app you can leave us a review on your podcast apps as well we always love seeing those or you can head over to patreon.com edhretcast where you can get yourself a little something back by supporting the show there whether you want to see all the episodes a day early you want to join the Discord Community there's all of that and more over at patreon.com edhretcast including the coveted weekly shout out so this week we want to give a very special shout out to Marcus kalafka so thank you so much you're so close to being Marcus Kafka but I see you metamorphosized away from that and uh wow Marcus we do appreciate the support thank you so much wow I did not expect a coffee wow okay well you you are metamorphosis actually is a magic card it is a way to make Mana in mono green which has never been done before I don't know if you know that or not Joey you are a master of your craft and it's a little bit terrifying I'm not gonna lie like I think we've given you too much power with the dad joking that's going on here it is my blessing but it is also my curse at the same time so yeah yes okay let's get into our topic here talking about emblematic problems whether these are actually issues or if there are sometimes just individual cards that might have soured a reputation for a whole subject within the game of Commander specifically the EDH format um and yeah the reason that we're talking about this is definitely because forexia all will be one has given us a bunch more poison cards out there so poison is certainly a thing that is on everyone's mind and that seems like the most sensible place to start right so the way that I guess we're kind of phrasing this one is like is poison actually the problem or are there individual cards in search Triumph of the horde's discussion here um that are kind of souring the reputation of poison and uh Matt I guess let's uh pass it off to you and what do you think about poison in EDH and how the whole mechanic is or how individual cards are and where you think the problem quote unquote actually might be so never before has it been easier to put poison counters on your opponents or at least that's kind of the argument and I don't know if it's worthy of in this case the the kind of the request from the community towards the rules committee is raising the limit so you don't need 10 poison counters you need 20 now and I really don't know if it's because poison is the issue or toxic or infect or anything or people have just lost so many games out of the blue to try for the hordes that that's where the issue is with you on that one I feel like I've seen a common refrain a couple of times from a couple of different people who like to make the stance you don't hate poison you just hate trying for the hordes or you don't hate poison you just dislike tainted strike yeah and the out of nowhere aspect of those cards is I think one of the really big things that makes it feel a little bit uh a little bit sour maybe is a word that I kind of keep coming back to um you know if a Triumph of the hordes gives all of your stuff plus one trample and the infect that can suddenly feel like oh the game is over and there was no way that I was fighting against that or tainted Shrek is an instant that gives plus one plus o and infect to a creature and that's a thing that you know Dana's not here but he's with us in spirit and he frequently turns one of your 9 or 10 or 11 power usually tramply creatures that's coming at me into suddenly a 12 hour infector by putting a tainted strike on it and then suddenly I've lost out of nowhere and there are moments where that can be really funny but there are also moments where it's just like oh I guess the game is just over now um and I feel like those two cards tend to be one of the main ways that the reputation of poison gets that bad rap as it were because I don't feel like a lot of poison guards themselves are actually that much of an issue I mean like cyst Bearer which is just a little in fact Reacher that has that shows up in fewer than 3000 decks in the format you know so that's just yeah sort of the the basis of this one see I and and I understand where the concern from the community is about this with toxic and there's just a lot more sources of cards that are are going to give well I guess they're a lot more cards that are sources of those poison counters with the new toxic mechanics so whenever a creature deals combat damage it deals X or the opponent that is hit with that creature gets X poison counters now yes that sounds scary and there's a lot more but there is a huge massive also still huge difference between the toxic X mechanic and in fact as a as a mechanic itself in fact dealing damage two opponents in the form of poison counters means it scales with power and toughness you can cast pump spells that there's a reason why infect for a while was a very very powerful deck in any 60 card format because you were able to so easily scale the the power of the creature with pump spells so that you are able to hit your opponent instantly for 10 damage well that that doesn't carry over quite as well into Commander where you might be able to kind of Rocket missile somebody to the face but then you still have two other opponents you got to deal with and you just spent all your resources so I understand where the concern is because in fact historically when it first came out was a very scary mechanic but I think that the format has kind of caught up to what infect was doing and I I also don't remember the last time a Triumph of the hordes won a game at an event that I was at so part of me wants to say it's much to do about nothing but also I don't want to completely sweep out of the rug because it is still a powerful mechanic I feel like with Triumph of the hordes as and especially like that that's an interesting use case because I I feel to me it feels as though anytime the Triumph of the hordes would have won the game the card overwhelming Stampede also would have won the game in that same situation pumping up all the creatures by double and making them trampoline tends to end a whole lot of games too yeah and as a quick note of comparison for some like let's start throwing some numbers out here because I think this will be the most informative to my opinion here like Triumph shows up in 53 000 decks and overwhelming Stampede shows up in 57 000 like again I see quite a bit of the correlation there and these just feel like the same type of spell in that ilk and there are probably more than just the two culprits here it's not just Triumph obtained strike there's also the issue of like a grafted exoskeleton or phyresis can also cause some of those out of nowhere wins but I feel like the out of nowhere nature of those cards specifically is what can cause the infect to feel a little bit more of that sour note but if those cards were were like mentioned in a pregame discussion if someone's just like oh yeah you know sometimes I'll try for the hordes win or uh I've tainted striked a couple of people with this one that's something that I would know to be prepared for and I would feel a little bit more tension with that knowing what's what's going on going in there and I wouldn't feel like I don't know I suddenly got got in a way that was like dishonest or anything like that it'd be kind of like oh I'm gonna keep my eye out and that would be a fun thing to pay attention to in the game but also I I'm trying to think of and of course this is anecdotal this is just my own personal experiences but you're also talking to somebody who enjoys the combat step a whole heck of a lot and tribal Lords is a powerful card but I also don't know if it's outstanding compared to stuff like path breaker Ibex sure or search to Victory or any of these other huge I'm gonna pump up my entire team in a massive way because yes trying for the hordes gives infect and plus one plus one like it does a lot of work when you're punching through because you only need to do 10 damage but when you figure your pathbreaker Ibex is always buffing the you know your entire team by plus six plus six or whatever so it that kind of just scales along with what you need to be doing anyway so it I understand and yes and having another way to deal poison counters to your opponents with toxic one or two but again it combat damage happens and you only get one or two you could it could be a 20 20 but it's only going to get one poison counter from it that is a massive massive difference in in how it's going to be kind of carried out now I I could be totally wrong people could be taking advantage of the hundred of proliferate cards in in this you know once now excuse me now that all uh all will be one has come out that could completely change everything and I could be totally wrong and I'm more than happy to be wrong but until I actually see it I I don't think that in fact or trying for The Horde specifically I don't think either these two items are really a problem they're powerful but not a problem right I think that like Triumph can be an individually powerful standout I think tandit's right is an individually powerful thing but I think those color the impression of the rest of the mechanic in a way that I don't think is entirely fair to the rest of the mechanic right and I want to go into even further numbers here because again I think it illustrates the point like there are 69 cards that have the infect keyword on it there are two cards with the keyword poisonous which also gives up poison counters and only 15 total of those cards appear in more than 10 000 decks on EDH Rec and now there are approximately like 57 new cards that have the toxic keyword plus 25 new ones that give up poison counters in in some other way as well but like again only 15 of those that we're seeing so far are showing up in more than 10 000 decks and that is to me a very important number and I don't think the new toxic stuff is enough to make a dramatic shift up towards that or to to boost a whole bunch of those I mean even looking at what the card icarrats icarrats is a cool one it enters it gives each opponent a poison counter and that shows up in 13 000 decks and that's a respectable number but a full third of its popularity is devoted just from attraxa in fact X and that's in important to keep in mind about where this is all actually allocated so yeah this one feels to me like the Triumph card is emblematic of a problem in a way that the problem itself isn't actually quote a problem it's not a mechanic based thing that is actually an issue it's just a couple of individual individual cards here so that I guess is our first example and and yeah and if it's if we're going to talk about one or two cards versus the entire problem I think we have better luck arguing that chaos as a type of card like that those cards like scramble verse and scramble verse yeah like those are the types of cards that I think the mechanics an issue and shouldn't be around but we're not here to discuss that today well no that's a good contrast like yeah I think that you can take any like the idea of a chaos card in general feels like more of a problem and I don't think there's probably any way to do one of those chaotic everyone's permanents belong to different players reshuffle everything like the concept of those feels like there's no way to do that in a way that won't be an issue so like that whole grouping of of cards does feel like it doesn't have an individual card that's giving it a bad reputation like I don't want to go against the thieves auction or scramble verse or warp Pearl like all of those seem to have the same problem which isn't true of like in fact like we were just talking about I think that's a great example yeah it's just something like every mechanic has an opportunity to be abused and we'll probably talk about a few more throughout the course of the show but to me I struggled to say that even with all the new sources of poison counters infect and poison it's not an issue yet if we might see something in uh the next set who knows so that moves us to the next one which I think is going to also be kind of thorny and I don't know if we'll have the same takeaway so now let's move to Treasures as a concept and whether Treasures in general are in some way a problem or is it just the case that there are some individual cards like Dockside extortionist for example which is okay on the tip of a lot of tongues out there like is it just the case that certain individual treasure cards like Dockside are giving all treasure cards a bad rap or are all treasure cards actually like is this a mechanic that is worrying in certain ways so like let's try talking about that uh where where do you stand with treasure is so I think Dockside extortionist is a problem because Treasures are a problem and I know that doesn't make any sense but hear me out so so Treasures kind of get started to get stapled on everything in the past year so new capena the the joke was why can't you be a normal Magic card and then the kids screaming in the background makes them makes a treasure token absolutely uh so treasure has become so prevalent that it's everybody has Treasures now on accident which means Dockside extortionist has gotten that much more powerful it already was a very good card because it was at the time one of the only cards only only ways to make treasure tokens but the amount like the the Clutter of the battlefield in 2023 has gotten so much more complicated than it was even when Dockside first came out a couple years ago and so Dockside to me is the the banner card for Treasures being a problem so I'm going to agree with you that Treasures are a problem but because the the more of a problem Treasures have become the more of a problem the banner card and Dockside extortionist has gotten okay okay because I think maybe this is where we do actually get out our our wordy fisticuffs because to me I'm kind of on team don't care as much about the Dockside I think that it is okay amongst a bigger issue rather than like like the the single issue so you're taking a both approach and I'm taking a just a problem in general approach um so we have a slight disagreement but it's also not much of a disagreement but no I'm trying to have a debate with you Matt oh okay okay you're wrong there we go cool all right we have officially begun debate um I I do think that like the the cards that we've seen treasure stuff do I it feels to be like it is airing a lot more towards problem in general because it tends to be the case that whenever I see a treasure making card in a deck it is often such a standout in the deck that it is played in like when an old knobbone comes down I feel like it transforms the game when a smothering tide comes down it definitely shifts part of the landscape of that game when a professional face breaker comes down it transforms a game when a storm kill the artist comes down doing all the stormy okay so so you have examples okay right and and even the niche ones like pitiless plunderer for example which you know when your stuff dies you make treasure that can be one of the most powerful cards in the decks in which it is played like a taster car love giving you double the number of treasures or being straight up a combo engine and chatterfang deck for example so I feel like the treasure cards that we do tend to see are more of there are more of them that are more of an issue simply because they become some of the most important cards in their respective decks and and see I get that and my struggle I guess is that they took perfectly normal cards and then they made a version that just it was just better because they were able to make a treasure off of it so I for me a good example of treasures just becoming everywhere is they pushed out a lot of other cards so Village rights for example that was a perfectly playable card single black man of sacrifice creature cards great that's a great simple effect but then they added deadly dispute and so they're just taking all of these cards that already we're already playing a bunch of these cards but they're making a better version of it by because you're maybe you have to pay a Mana extra but you're getting a treasure or two tracks Treasures so it effectively becomes a ritual in practice Treasures like one of the the fundamental resources of the game is the Mana system that's one thing that makes magic unique to other card games and being able to kind of skirt around downfalls in that and maybe not downfalls but the challenges in the Mana system I would say yeah every card that gives you treasure is cheating around a certain amount of Mana costs exactly yeah and and so yes there's The Upfront cost but then it refunds you that cost later on and that's where I think Treasures it becomes too much of a good thing you're eating ice cream all the time and daddy rose water needs to sit down with the r d team and say you need to eat some vegetables you can't have all this ice cream and and that's the problem and so because Treasures have become so prevalent the best ways to make Treasures like smothering tithe like Dockside extortionist they just become that much more egregious because they were so early in the stages of making Treasures that they didn't know how to balance it quite yet they've gotten better but those first few misses where they swung too hard boy they just got out of hand right see also like you were talking about how those cars can feel upgraded in certain ways like see also Lotus Cobra landfall get a Mana which would be a temporary thing being upgraded now into tireless provisioner which gives you a treasure on a landfall and also could give you food if you ever need it but why would you need it you're gonna make something Casey need a snacks mid game yeah I guess yeah like and so I want to go to numbers again for this one which I think in comparison to how we saw only 15 cards with uh poison granting abilities are hitting above the 10 000 deck mark this is a number that I find very important for the treasure discussion there are approximately 170 cards that say create treasure token on them doing a Skyfall search on that and 75 of those appear in 10 000 decks or more according to the edhrek database and that to me is a lot that is 44 of all cards that say treasure on them let's say create treasure token on them showing up in 10 000 decks and you know some of the biggest names of course are way above that you know smothering tie they're showing up in 28 of all Decks that can play a Dockside is appearing in 19 of all Decks that are eligible to play it but yeah a 44 metric there on the whole mechanic that is a more alarming figure to me and that is why I lean on this is kind of a a general problem rather than there's only one mascot of the problem yeah but but like do you remember Joey when we first saw treasures and revel and riches was kind of a oh there's no way anybody ever wins this way but now you win this way on accident yeah you remember those days it is a lot easier to win with Revel and riches these days yeah and this is obviously a thing that people have talked a lot about in the community r d has certainly heard feedback about this issue but when it comes to is there a specific mascot that's causing a problem versus is it actually an issue I feel like the numbers here are what inform my opinion that Treasures are still a thing that I'm just like I hope that they don't get too willy-nilly about these because it is it we we certainly saw some some some landscape shift when all this went down sure and and I I still stand by yes the landscape has shifted but the more it shifts the more it continues to make the worst cards even more worser so yeah I'm sorry Matt even even more worser see people listen to the EDH retcast to listen to our our fantastic vernacular it's uh a broadened compared to the typical podcast indeed it is we are we are splendiferous wordsmiths and and fisticuffed very well I think a word that everyone should work into there every day uh word case of of great availableness um is the word Segway which we're going to do because we're going to work our way into challenging some stats in this fantastic Segway Matthew of knowledge oh my goodness for folks who don't know I haven't been able to segue into challenge the stats for how many episodes now they keep taking it from me I thought because Dana wasn't here we've been challenging the Segway is what's really been happening um that's that's the ultimate challenge is letting Joseph hear host the show the way he he would almost I thought that since Dana wasn't here I'd be able to like have a better chance at making the Segways between different topics but but no I have been thwarted once again all right Matt you're right there's a lot of data on Ada track and we don't always agree with all of it sometimes we'd like to challenge those stats so let's take a quick break and come back with those what's going on Matt here and you know what that means everybody it's time to talk about what keeps the most tender parts of us comfortable throughout the day and that is Tommy John underwear so here's the deal it's getting warmer outside which means hopefully you'll be outside more enjoying the summer Bloom experiencing the Rites of Spring whatever it takes to get away from the dead of winter whatever you do though make sure you don't get too hot and Tommy John is the perfect way to prevent yourself from building up a little extra Unholy heat downstairs one thing about working from home means that there's no dress code and with no dress code means I get to dress comfortably all the time and the perfect solution for that is the new Tommy John loungewear I ditched my baggy sweatpants that my partner hates for a pair of the new Tommy John loungewear and honestly I haven't looked back the luxuriously soft tri-blend fabric is one of the most comfortable Innovations around I'm sitting on my butt throughout the day and Tommy John is covering that butt so I can wear these joggers at my desk or running errands around town me purse personally I love the Tommy John underwear I just do it's such a pain-finding loungewear that fits for an athletic build like me and the Luxe French terry joggers have the perfect blend of being built for comfort and for style it's no surprise that over 20 million pairs of Tommy John have been sold shop Tommy John's colorful new spring designs at tommyjohn.com EDH and get 20 off your first order save 20 right now at tommyjohn.com EDH see site for details all right well since I stole the Segway I'm also going to steal the first challenge but if it makes you feel better Joey the challenges are listener submitted challenge of stats this week and I actually I really really enjoy this I like the thought process behind it and plus it's an overplayed challenge which we always are a big fan of that so uh one of our listeners went to patreon.comcast joined our Discord community and they submitted a challenge so shade Elite's gruel Mage so likes to go Stompy had a really good challenge this week and said hello fellas today I would like to make a challenge for Finn the Fang bear which is the legendary human Warrior that deals all with death touch creatures and says whenever a creature you control with death touch deals combat damage to a player that player gets two poison counters speaking of poison counters everyone so shade goes on to say the card I would like to challenge today is hornet nest this three Mana O2 generates a 1-1 insect with flying in death touch for each point of damage dealt which seems handy except no one will ever attack into it the deck is full of death touching blockers and you almost never have ground attackers sent your way the nest wants to be in a deck that can manually cause damage to it but even the handful of creature damaging spells in this deck specify only creatures and opponent controls meaning fight cards it's in 65 percent of Finn decks and I think that number should be much closer to zero so shade I really actually agree with you I think this thought process that you have behind it is absolutely a very very good catch you are right you have a ton of death touching blockers that's just kind of what Finn the Fang Bearer does and so nobody's ever going to attack you when you have you have just a bunch of one one death touchers people just not get attacked into you unless they have a way to give their creatures First Strike or some way to make it evasive so more often than not you're playing a card that wants you to get attacked while also putting in a deck full of cards that make it so that nobody wants to attack you I like this thought process a lot I think it's a very good catch and you need to find ways to make hornet nest be put into the situation to block and this just isn't the deck for it at all so very very good catch shade I like this a lot um and yeah just keep sending us these overplayed challenges because these are just great ways to find out what the community is doing what maybe they shouldn't yeah I'm absolutely on board for that and Matt I actually also have an overplayed challenge the stats for my submission here too okay and this is actually one that we've mentioned on a previous show probably like I don't know back in like episode 40 or something like that so I think it's all right to bring it back for this one um but the card days undoing is still showing up in about 6 000 decks and specifically in some commanders that it just it it does a non-bow thing with them and it just it's not it just gives me the sadness on the stack and then the sadness resolves so anyway today's undoing is a three Mana blue sorcery each player shuffles their hand and graveyard into their library then draw seven cards and if it's your turn you end the turn which means that you Exile all spells and abilities on the stack including this card and then you discard down to hand size and all of that jazz but yeah you'll Exile all spells and abilities that are on the stack which means if you're playing this in like a nikazar deck which would deal damage to your opponents when they draw cards well those damage triggers go away or if you're playing this in the new quasa auger of agonies because you've drawn cards to make your opponents lose life nope those triggers are exiled from the stack as well this will also be true of zyrus the riding storm a whole bunch of those those triggers will not actually resolve and yet this card still shows up and 12 of Nuka sardax it shows up in eight percent of Quasi decks it shows up in almost eight percent of zyra's decks so you know that's a thousand decks 300 decks 350 decks respectively and I just don't think that this card is good enough to Warrant play in those situations because you've got a lot of other wheels that you can choose from and those Wheels actually will allow you to get the card draw triggers and the Damage that you want to deal to resolve on the stack so yeah this is an old challenge but the 6000 folks out there still playing days undoing take a very critical look at it because this card doesn't actually synergize with the commanders that want to make all of the people draw all of the cards so yeah be very critical of your wheels so I I just all I always feel super flattered when you and Dana steal my challenges from two years ago so it's a nice warm feeling that like maybe on some level you were listening to me all along well that's just it that's my sadness is that those those folks from two years ago weren't listening to you now because it's still showing up and all those things I feel like we've got to keep challenging this until that number goes down right that's that's fair I just want more people to listen to your wonderful wordsmithingness okay word smithing this yes um smashing the the English language into Smithereens as it were but I mean it's true yeah well let's get back into the Regular Show so Joey I know that the next point you have on here is one that you we've talked about a lot but you always seem to have a certain Vigor for arguing the yeah merits and demerits of this mechanic so this one we're going to talk about the Eminence mechanic versus Edgar Markov and the ER Dragon which are the two kind of Marquee cards for the Eminence ability so Eminence is the one that your commander has the ability whether they're on the battlefield or in the command Zone and that makes that makes a lot of things happen so so the the struggle I guess Joey and feel free to jump in if I'm doing this wrong but the struggle with the mechanic is that you just can't interact with it no matter what happens uh Edgar Markov for example in a recast a vampire spell even if Edgar Markov is in the command Zone you're still going to get Edgar markov's ability even if he hasn't been cast which is very unique because typically you're building your whole deck around cards that they have to be on the battlefield to do anything yeah that tends to be the issue that I see crop up with the Eminence thing and for the record I agree that yeah it's probably not the best design space to ever go into with these things that you cannot interact with in game and Eminence tends to be one of the biggest things that I see a lot of folks are really not a fan of eminence and don't want Wizards the coast to ever do Eminence again but I don't fully agree with that and I do think that Edgar Markov and the UR Dragon having as powerful Eminence effects as they have is sort of fueling a bit of that fire whereas a card like a Robbo that also has an Eminence ability feels perfectly fair to me where it's just gives one of your cats a random plus three plus three even if arabo is still in the command Zone and the other thing that actually makes me really appreciate the Eminence ability especially with the way it was done in the 2017 Commander product with stuff like arabo or with vampires and things like that is that it did actually Force quite a bit of a deck building restriction in a very organic way like to your opponents it may not feel like it was that big of a restriction for you during the middle of the game where you're getting those extra benefits but the cost the price of the Eminence is a thing that you pay during the deck building process and I like stuff that encourages you to pay a price during the deck building process that encourages a certain restriction and the creature type Eminence stuff really really encourages that well so if we saw other Eminence commanders in the future that had stuff similar to arabo rather than being Ultra powerful in the way that Edgar Markov is I'd personally be kind of okay with that because I think that there's still more that you could do with that design space and it doesn't bug me that you can't interact with it because of where the cost was paid see and I don't even know if Edgar markov's ability If You released that today it would be very very powerful I'm not saying it's not but I think that the rest of the format has we we did an episode not too long ago about how curves are still getting lower and lower the average Mana cost of a of a deck and cards in the deck is getting lower to kind of match what Edgar Markov did years ago but it kind of led the charge so it was just years ahead of the design space I don't know if Edgar Markov would be as bad it would still be a very powerful commander and a lot of folks would certainly play it I think the ER dragon is the really bad offender of the Eminence ability because you're you're putting a cost reduction you're not just getting a 1-1 token you're getting a flat cost reduction on all of your dragons which historically have been a very expensive creature type to cast and so putting that in the command zone so that you don't ever have to cast you're getting a a cost reduction on all of your dragons plus the ability once ER Dragon does get on the battlefield is absolutely just bug nutty and that's where I think the problem was I ER dragon is I believe I I would say too pushed Edgar Markov If You released it now it would be good but not broken I think her Dragon still is broken interesting I see I actually kind of flop on on that one really actually I don't like Edgar because there is kind of no reason for you ever to cast it whereas the Your Dragon's ability when it's in play where you draw a whole bunch of extra cards that at least does incentivize me to actually finally cast the dang thing and that is a better design to me at the very least so maybe that's just the way that I'm that I'm looking through it I think Edgar Markov is still perfectly powerful it's like absolutely still very good yeah Edgar Markov is yeah I like I said I'm not saying it's not powerful or it wouldn't be like oh man this thing is pushed but I all I don't think that the reaction that it originally had would be as resounding today our Dragon people would still soil themselves for seeing it um wow I but I and I so that said to your point joy and to the point of this question is is Eminence the problem or the Commander's a problem I don't know if Eminence is worth revisiting I guess is the way that I would want to put it it's a powerful mechanic but it also wasn't popular among people to play against there were people that loved playing the original version that we saw of of eminence with alaro which was one of the most played commanders of all time for the longest time yeah for the first years of people playing Commander Alora was the Marquee Commander because you just you gaining life every turn no matter what right off the bat absolutely so Eminence it was a cool thought process and I think that in theory it's a it's a cool design ability I also don't know if it's worth messing around with because it's kind of like companions which is another contentious topic I know but it's kind of those could you yes should you probably not is where I land on Eminence companions is a very good Counterpoint to this because while I said I enjoy what Eminence can do to organically make it feel like you want to build with the deck building restriction and I personally wouldn't be too bothered if we saw a more a robot type eminent stuff companions as a Counterpoint to that I never want to see another curse word curse word curse word companion in my curse word life like I just okay that from like the that is a thing there's no single it's not like oh just lutry wasn't it's not like oh just lyrics like no every single facet of the companion design was bad like that is a case where no the whole thing deserves the reputation that it got and I I just it's just not good and obviously it was not not good much more for other formats where it behested them in half and then they had to change the mechanic and it was still busted in half the mechanic literally had to be changed for 60 card formats yeah right like that does to me the companion design space is unsavable in a way that the Eminence design space is not unsavable I think you can still make compelling permanent stuff as long as you actually balance it whereas companions there's no such thing as balancing that to me the it's just it's completely lost cause well and I everybody wants to talk about how they want to play lootry but Lucci's literally literally a free card and if you take out the creature type and the cuteness factor lutry is not a healthy card for the format and absolutely should not have ever been put into commander and in the rules committee rightfully so banded out the gates if you want to rule zero at cool but you're you're basically getting a free card and I don't think folks really understand the power of that in in a in a big picture setting um no that said I don't think that companion is irredeemable but it's it's so hard to because there's the situations that it creates socially not the situations within the game but I know Joey one of your points you always make is people always have to like act like a hawk on the cards you play and actually you can't play that card because you have karuga as your companion socially that's more Awkward than anything because especially when you're getting into the new player experience which you know me Joey I I'm always going to advocate for the the new player experience that people are just getting into the game because man that that's the best Stage to be in with magic a companion can create the most feel bads for the new players who aren't really invested they don't understand the rules of the of the mechanic really or they don't understand you know at the an example you like is the insult to injury card yeah like if obosh is your companion all the cards in your deck have to have an odd converted Mana cost and there are cards like insult slash injury which has a three Mana cost on one side and then a three Mana cost on the aftermath half of that card and it is not necessarily intuitive for folks that that is technically a card with a Mana value of six because you see a three and a three and you aren't it's not always intuitive that you're supposed to add those together like you would for other split cards and even then with split cards it's not always intuitive either so then you can absolutely create instances where a person doesn't know that they've submitted an illegal deck when they're playing a game and like yeah that's kind of like this embarrassing like you're saying the social problem there is the thing that sucks and I it's not like when I'm playing against a person with a companion I feel like oh I have to like watch every single thing in case I think that I'm distrust full of them the issue that I have it is that when I'm playing with a companion which I've tried a couple of times but I feel like I am forcing a certain thing on my opponents where it feels like they have to watch the car that I'm playing in case I've forgotten or missed something and that's not what I want to focus on when I'm playing EDH like at all so so yeah to me I don't see a Redemption for this that at all in any way the way that I do for you know Eminence or or even like sorry kind of a topic shift on you Matt but whatever we're having a scrap uh but like also related to the the discussion of like stuff that people can't always deal with I also see sometimes Flack get piled onto experience counters because they're also a thing that you cannot deal with okay like emblems or stuff like that and there are a lot of folks who don't like experience but I feel like that might be another case where maybe just a couple of very strong cards that use experience counters like misix or Marin became a very dominant presence but that doesn't mean that all experience counters are necessarily A Bad Thing and in fact we've seen them revisit experience counters with cards like Kelsey in the plague or mintthara and those feel really fair and fun to me so like that is a future that I could imagine for Eminence too it would have to be done much more carefully and maybe you're right it probably wouldn't be worth it to revisit but to me it's not that the entire design space of eminence was necessarily always a bad thing I just think that there were some individual big culprits and so yeah but no screw companions they suck and and so I I guess to to play devil's advocate for the the design team every time they've Revisited a mechanically and they learned their lessons and they were able to apply those lessons and every time that we've seen partner come back it's gotten progressively better and better so I I believe and I have trust in the design team that if they did revisit Eminence or experience counters it wouldn't be as such a problem but I don't know if they I don't know if that's effort well spent is is my question and sure you're right experience counters having something that that players can't really interact with I understand where that frustration comes from and for a while I had the same struggle with experience commanders I even had one and I was still like this is kind of a problem that like I can get these you can kill my commander but the the benefit Still Remains when it comes back it's just there that seems silly and so I I understand the frustration but I also think that a lot of the power of the format has caught up to experience counters yeah not so much with Eminence and and companion I I don't even know honestly I think the corner cases for the downside of companion those are probably fewer and far between than the problems with Eminence if you had to ask my or ask me for my completely anecdotal experience I would say companions cause less feel bads than Eminence interesting that's just me that's that's my personal take because yeah you come into the awkward situations and I understand that they can be embarrassing but also they kind of gave people an interesting deck building Direction the same thing that you said about Eminence you said how oh well it directed you and kind of put a deck building restriction on there like that's the whole point of Companions and so I like giving people some hoops to jump through if they want to add that challenge to their deck building process I think that's absolutely fine and cool and and something that I honestly like I'm doing that more with my own deck building just in general without companions so I like companions in theory whereas Eminence are like less in theory so I I guess I I didn't fully agree with you or fully disagree with you about Dockside and treasures here we're just flip-flopping completely so yeah yeah yeah no for me the difference comes down to how organic it is to build a cat's deck versus how organic it is to build those specific restrictions because of how tight those restrictions need to be and how this was kind of just an example of wizards saying the commander was popular and they wanted to make standard and the mo if you want to question the motivation for companion I absolutely will get on board like I I don't think that they should have done companion I understand why um but somebody should have it basically they pulled a Christopher Nolan nobody said hey let's rethink this for a second let's let's pull on the brakes a little bit well especially because there were like design articles like going back over 12 years ago from Watson designers well not anymore they're gone now this is true yeah but they had articles from way back when saying oh yeah starting the game with a certain card in your hand all of the time is always a bad idea and then 12 years later they made well they make it I don't know obviously this is the thing that no the discussion and the intricacies between those different companion between Eminence between experienced counters those are definitely interesting and you are absolutely right that I do like the things that is that is going to encourage a certain type of restriction on your deck building but again I want it to be in an organic way and the thing that I think makes this a important discussion in the first place is that the community responses to these different mechanics I think we need to make sure that we leave room four Nuance in there so that we can give Wizards of the Coast the right type of feedback so that they can continue to make more interesting cards if they think that all experience counters are completely a failure then we never would have gotten cool cards like calcium you know and that is the kind of thing that I want to make sure that we like leave room for what the actual problem is rather than just labeling an entire mechanic an issue like infect for example when really it might just be the fault of one or two or three cards or something that are giving the entire mechanic that bad name so to speak so yeah you're asking for a whole lot saying the internet should take Nuance into into account so I I know that I I do agree with you but um you I'm not gonna say you're naive you're giving the internet a lot of credit no to to be nuanced with discussions I don't think I'm giving them a lot of credit I'm saying we should I don't think it all works okay well let's get into it yeah let's get into uh maybe a couple last points one that is completely not contentious at all Civic is a value engine easy mode Commander color yes or no this is an interesting one this is another thing that I see a lot of folks say online that simic is easy mode and that cynic is especially a line that I see a lot is that it tends to just reward you for things that you're already doing and in some cases I can agree with that but in a lot of other cases I wonder whether tatiova AC have just kind of like spoiled us on our impression of what simc can do in general and I feel like we don't always give room to see a lot of the creative designs that exist in simic so yeah I don't know I don't feel like uh this is a very charitable or good faith uh claim that people tend to make I think that there's a little bit of resentfulness here that doesn't really always it does it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me because there are some very cool cynic things out there um but I don't know that's that that's just me I feel like it's not a properly applied criticism but what do you think so I'm actually going to agree in in principle with the internet uh so if you look at the top commanders that are in blue and green so many of them revolve around just the basic resources of the game ACF guitar straight uh tachiova benthic Druid those are the the two Marquee ones whatever you do a land you drew the card it's it's just so easy um you're getting a lot of resources and a lot of value for playing resources and just you're the the two most fundamental resources in the game between the Mana system and drawing cards all you need to do is that and you're just going to overwhelm people with all of that but also so many of the other top commanders also are doing that Canon bonder Prodigy you're getting extra Mana for tapping things that make Mana you're also cheating cards into play it's not something you really get to like kumena tyrante Nebraska that you're seeing something kind of not Super Value enginey because it's at least focused onto merfolk specifically but everything else that it's it's a lot of address and Nev twin casters who are just oh you make a token double those Ah that's cool that's where I think a lot of the struggles and rightfully so players have with the Civic color combination because green is very very good at getting lands blue is very very good at drawing cards you put them together what do you get bippity boppity boo it's a Civic Commander for you so yeah I'm not going to like put a hard defense here necessarily um I just do see little designs like Ivy gleeful spell thief for example sure is doing a fun thing with copying those auras and I don't want this big reputation that simic has gotten itself over the years to color our impression of a deck like ivy for instance or when there are other strange things going on out there like knessos priest of of thasa who's doing interesting stuff with Krakens and leviathans and I don't think that it is necessarily going to help us become better magic players if we assume that simic is always easy mode and that there's nothing clever about it because I feel like there are definitely cool and cleverer Designs coming out for these colors for sure um you know do we have Comas out there that are constantly spitting out a bunch of serpents in ways that you can't get ever get rid of coma off the battlefield yeah am I pleased about that no not really but the reputation that tatiova or coma have earned shouldn't be applied to clever commanders like the little IVs out there that's that's kind of all that I'm that I you know I want to give it a little defense I mean my struggle is yes there are the IV gleeful spell thieves but they're few and far between I feel whereas other color combinations that historically people have kind of oh it's another boros Commander haha it sucks because then we everybody ignores those so it's the kind of the same thing where we get a unique and interesting looking Summit Commander everybody blows over it we get an interesting and actually like viable boros Commander everybody gloms over it because it's going along with the reputation that it has we're at and so yes everything for simic and a lot of it is just kind of on the players too like everybody says oh well simic only gets these things well it kind of becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because players play these super powerful AC tired of guy straight decks and then Wizards the coast goes to EDH wreck which Gavin verhay is very much said openly oh yeah we use edhrek every day so they see the stats they see that oh these are the types of commanders incimic people are playing this is what's popular this is what they must like let's explore this space some more and so that's what we get so it kind of becomes this circular thing where they release something players latch onto it Wizards see that they latch onto it so they'd give us more of that so if we want to see more cool Civic commanders that are interesting in doing unique things like Ivy we need to make sure that they know and I will grant you that we also did just very recently get is a restocker of spheres that says whenever you do a proliferate you draw a card and the whenever you X draw a card is yeah a bit of a tedious thing to see when it comes to to you know Commander designs whenever you x a thing that you already wanted to do whenever you do one thing you get another thing yeah the that that is a thing that I'm also a little fatigued by but I just yeah I just I hope that the reputation of one big thing doesn't allow those individual clever things to uh it doesn't force them to be avalanched over in a way that could be unfair to some of those really clever designs that do have a lot of very cool heart put into them Matt I have one last thing that I think might actually be okay it could be our biggest point of debate and this is what other idea that I see floating around online a lot and it's the idea and I I do genuinely I have heard this like a lot from people like a lot of people have said this the idea that and I quote all eight drops win the game they should they should okay well let's see and this is why I thought we might games gotta end game games don't need to last for three hours games can last an hour and then you get to play another game they super don't but this that statement honestly is a little bit Rylan to me I'm just like I don't I don't like this because I don't think it's true I think that this is one of the quintessential instances where someone is using crater hoof Behemoth as lists like metadomic stand in for all eight drops Behemoth go Burr I get it sure and like creator of Behemoth yeah that's a pretty big example of an a drop that tends to make games go end but saying all eight drops win the game I don't know I look through the most popular high Mana value cards in the format and it's stuff like avacyn which is just A8 that does a flying I I I do that it's not just uh eight eight well let's let's read the rest of the card Joseph it's good it gives your stuff indestructible it is not ending a game as soon as you play it or like other big Mana cards are like dark steel Forge galta terastodon utvara elkite I'm like the game didn't end when any of these were played you're you're never actually casting galta for its Mana cost so that one I'm gonna call Shenanigans no that's on that one uh that's like that's like saying that the great henge ends the game well you're never paying it playing it for its Mana cost let's let's slow down um so maybe instead of all eight drops win the game quote it should be all eight drops take over the game end quote that I yes they should you're investing a lot of mana and you're absolutely should be they should be strong enough if you're spending that much Mana if you're investing that much of your resources that turned into one card it should take over the game if your casting expropriate it should have a big effect now people might respond differently to it to whether they get rid of your thing they counter it whatever that is totally well within what they should be doing too like people should just let you have a nine drop for free and uncontested but should it warp what is currently happening and change the landscape of the game absolutely so otherwise why are you spending that much Mana why are you putting it in your deck if it's not powerful enough to warp everybody's attention yeah that's my my struggle is people expect to just win the game immediately or just get let people run them over with it no people are gonna push back but yeah I don't know I I struggle with people getting mad that they're playing big splashy cards they can't play in other formats because that's why we all play Commander that is exactly why we all play commander and right I want those High Mana cards that do big transformative things and I like the way that you said that they like will warp the game and they'll do like big bunker stuff to the battlefield like that yes I'm absolutely down for that but the all eight drops in the game is a line that I just I cannot find myself agreeing with like even crater hoof Behemoth needs you to have creatures in play for it to do anything which might not be a tall order but also it does like you play a fog and then it didn't win because you prevented the combat damage or even rise of the Dark Realms like yeah that can that can be a game-ending card when I play it provided that you haven't scavenger grounds to me which Matt and Dana like to do quite a whole lot like right every single one of these still feels like it requires a substantial amount of setup and that setup feels answerable to me and so I just again want there to be more new ones and the all eight drops win the game thing is just a pet peeve of mine just like I don't think that this is true I think it is more complex than that and it's worth looking into that and like look into the actual High Mana cards that are getting played most often in this format it's not stuff that just like on its own will just mean that the game is completely over even an end race forerunners again needs you to have some stuff going on for you so it comes down to the way that you are engaging with the game and the way that you are going about playing it and that is just a thing that matters a lot to me is all I'm trying to say yeah and we've even talked about too how the the typical manner we've talked about on this episode even how the the average Mana value of Dex is going down decks are getting more efficient they're getting leaner and So eventually if you get so efficiently like all of your threats you're playing these you know three Mana three threes or four fours or whatever that have some sort of upside eventually somebody's gonna just go big and go over the top like that's that is my entire vivictus esmati the dire deck that's it right there it's okay you're gonna play all these cool things cool my my curve starts at four and eventually I'm just gonna play eight drop after a drop after eight drop because that's all that I have left at the deck and and yeah that is a different vibe than me with my Baba lasaga over there where like I have to play a whole bunch of things that are super low cost and I don't have nearly as much of the late game pound impact that you will have because yeah I have a hyper efficiency of that deck in a way that can't necessarily stand up to it yeah you're playing for the early game and you have to win in the early game if we get to that stage where everybody has 12 lands in play I mean eventually I'm gonna get there just because inevitability takes over that's just the trade-offs that you're making in the deck building process that you and your friends are gonna encounter when you're doing this at home with your friends Matt real quick a thing that I don't know just makes me happy is that like the the passion that you get like when you're on the show is the same whoa passion that you have when you're actually playing the game too sorry maybe that's a weird thing to comment on but I just I keep I notice it and I just wanted to comment on it here because I think it's really adorable I mean everybody just yeah we all love playing our Blast Furnace hell Kites and all of our our big dumb dragons and whatever and yeah it's just that's kind of why we play the game it's just to have fun and get to experience all these big things so I mean yeah your Apex Devastators whatever like yeah it's supposed to be big and splash and get all the attention so it's it's right yeah like I said I know I say this a lot but that's why we play we play to to do these big dumb silly things and I appreciate the way that you phrased it again going back to the the point earlier of like you're saying that what those things do is they will warp a game but that isn't always the same thing as ending the game and that right there is the Nuance that I appreciate the the idea of just like oh you know all in fact is bad we should raise poison or whatever like I think that that is a an easy thing to say that doesn't necessarily crack open the Nuance as much as we want to and I think the idea of like all a drops in the game is in a similar boat where it's just like no I don't think that all of them do they do have a game warping effect and there are some individual ones that certainly do tend to end the game but that isn't true of the entire category of cards that all cost eight Mana or more and having more nuance and being more careful about the ways that we give feedback like you were saying or the ways that we talk about the game is important to making us better players and that's why we wanted to tackle this topic in the first place and I further appreciate that the way that you've defended all of your points such as by specifying warping rather than ending games is a thing that has kept making me avoid having word fisticuffs with you I wanted to have a scrap dang it you wanna have a scrap I mean since Dana's not here we I can say this without repercussions but I guess my my favorite thing and my stance on oh they played an eight drop in it and it warped this game and and I we do need to specify too we're not meaning warping the game at large because that's that's bad for the format I'm talking about warping the specific sit-down event um so if somebody plays like a big fancy eight drop they play a crater who for whatever just play a nine drop just go one more just play play a clone Legion and go over the top of them and then Dana can be mad somebody played another big scary thing that he also has to deal with that's that's how I get by when they play an eight drop we play a nine drop is possibly my favorite put it on a t-shirt there we go heard you say ever and that is that is a good that is a dang funny attitude that I'm all on board with oh okay yeah I think we should probably move to wrap up this show but listeners we definitely want to hear from you are there other categories or indeed from these categories like is it actually the whole section the whole group of cards the whole topic that can actually be an issue or are there sometimes just individual representatives from those groups those Triumph of the hordes type of situations that might give a whole subject a bad reputation that isn't or is necessarily deserved and you know the more Nuance that we get with those takes the better magic players that we will be so we would love to hear the takes that you've got out there and Matt if folks want to tell us all about those fun takes where is it that they can find us on the onlines so you can find me on Twitter at mathimus55 that's m-a-t-h-i-m-u-s-55 you can also find Dana over at Dana roach on Twitter and you can find all three of us Wednesday evenings streaming over at twitch.tv slash edhrek cast wherever guests on every single week it's always a super fun time you can see eight drops nine drops maybe even 10 drop who knows depends on how squirrely we feel that night but it's always fun so make sure you tune in to all those Wednesday evenings and I'm Joey Schultz you can find me at Joseph M Schultz on Twitter and don't forget you can find us on patreon.com edhretcast if you would like to support the show but you can also do stuff like leave a review subscribe on the YouTube that also is a wonderful way to support the cast as well you can also find us on the onlines at edhretcast on places like Facebook and Twitter and if you've got a question for us you can contact us at edhrekcast gmail.com our thanks go out once again to chase for assisting me with the post-production of the show you can find them online at Mana curves listeners will be back at you next week with more data and insights but until then remember EDH wreck your deck before you wreck your deck [Music] thank you

Channel: EDHRECast

Views: 44,738

Keywords: magic the gathering, commander, edh, edhrec, mtg

Id: Xie8GFJM_5g

Length: 62min 18sec (3738 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 24 2023