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tstorm823
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Post by tstorm823 » 2 years ago

Janky_as_heck wrote:
2 years ago
tstorm823 wrote:
2 years ago
Sol Ring. Just Sol Ring like 15 times.
I'm feeling like you're hinting at sol ring
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Post by ISBPathfinder » 2 years ago

Random fun red tech but you can activate Thawing Glaciers on your turn and then hit it with Cleansing Wildfire / Geomancer's Gambit for some weird red ramp (Thawing doesn't bounce until end of turn). I hadn't seen the interaction before but its kinda cute. You can also use these spells on things like Darksteel Citadel / Cascading Cataracts for a similar effect.

Its not crazy but it can be useful in some of the red based spellslinger concepts. I felt it was minor enough I would just toss it here to see if others had seen it before.
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Post by Jemolk » 2 years ago

ISBPathfinder wrote:
2 years ago
Random fun red tech but you can activate Thawing Glaciers on your turn and then hit it with Cleansing Wildfire / Geomancer's Gambit for some weird red ramp (Thawing doesn't bounce until end of turn). I hadn't seen the interaction before but its kinda cute. You can also use these spells on things like Darksteel Citadel / Cascading Cataracts for a similar effect.

Its not crazy but it can be useful in some of the red based spellslinger concepts. I felt it was minor enough I would just toss it here to see if others had seen it before.
I mean, yes, you can, but for me at least, that defeats the point of Thawing Glaciers, which is to ensure that you hit your land drops every turn, and you play it in a deck that really, really cares about that. If you can untap Thawing Glaciers, though -- for example, with Deserted Temple -- that's solid ramp, and could even be entirely colorless. Now, the use of Cleansing Wildfire or Geomancer's Gambit on the Citadel or Cataracts is legit.

@Janky_as_heck -- Since I'm here, I may as well offer what little I have on the question. Most of my examples have already been mentioned -- Craterhoof, Cyclonic Rift, Dockside, etc. I'd also mention Avenger of Zendikar and the like. Basically, anything that's seen as just the best thing to be playing -- whether they are or not. In a word, staples. Cards like this are so easy and obvious, and they have the result of homogenizing games because everyone and their brother is running them, it sometimes seems like. EDH decks should be at least somewhat creative things, and they end up really not being that when most people run the same cards. If there's a card you run in an inordinate amount of decks, either it's an at least mildly janky personal pet card, or you should try to find some replacements that are more interesting and unique.
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Post by wildfire393 » 2 years ago

ISBPathfinder wrote:
2 years ago
Random fun red tech but you can activate Thawing Glaciers on your turn and then hit it with Cleansing Wildfire / Geomancer's Gambit for some weird red ramp (Thawing doesn't bounce until end of turn). I hadn't seen the interaction before but its kinda cute. You can also use these spells on things like Darksteel Citadel / Cascading Cataracts for a similar effect.

Its not crazy but it can be useful in some of the red based spellslinger concepts. I felt it was minor enough I would just toss it here to see if others had seen it before.
I had a decent bit of fun and success with a RWx build running a bunch of Karoo and Lotus Field type lands plus white's "return a permanent with CMC 2-3 or less from GY to play", catch-up ramp like Archaeomancer's Map, and Faith's Reward type effects. It did especially well with super-ramp green players at the table, but it could also do kooky things like Archaeo's Map + Aggressive Mining or Nahiri's Lithoforming + Second Sunrise.

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Post by BeneTleilax » 2 years ago

DirkGently wrote:
2 years ago
So without further information it can be hard to tell what's actually going on.
At least for me, they have fairly different metas, with multiple casual metagame environments in the area, but one fairly inbred cEDH meta. So going back to the original question, some cards that are optimal for the cEDH meta are mediocre in a casual one.

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Post by DirkGently » 2 years ago

Toshi wrote:
2 years ago
Yikes, should've chosen my words more wisely. I didn't mean "easy" as in "plug it into any deck and you'll be fine anyhow".
What i meant with "easy mode" is that enables plenty of things (filtering, draw triggers, top deck rearrangement, securing land drops, ...) you might want out of a card - at instant speed and for one mana.
You also said they were "weapons", which to me implies power and not ease of play. Otherwise surely Chromatic Lantern would be #1 lol. I guess maybe I'm not sure what metric you're using exactly.
TheGildedGoose wrote:
2 years ago
The card I most see warp games is Sol Ring, but only because Mana Crypt is less widely available.
It's interesting how individual cards interact with power level. While sol ring is obviously very powerful (and sol ring and crypt are almost certainly #1 and #2 in terms of raw power), simply having a sol ring doesn't make a deck overall THAT much better. I think the best example, though, is Demonic Tutor. One of the best cards in a powerful deck, but not that great in a casual deck. Still fine, of course, but hardly game-breaking.
BeneTleilax wrote:
2 years ago
At least for me, they have fairly different metas, with multiple casual metagame environments in the area, but one fairly inbred cEDH meta. So going back to the original question, some cards that are optimal for the cEDH meta are mediocre in a casual one.
Maybe it's been my change(s) of location, but it used to be that cEDH was basically standard-style, where you picked one of the ten metadecks. And the non-c-EDH was usually quite a ways away from that. Now, I see a lot more decks that have crept into that in-between space where they're playing powerful combos and low curves but aren't exactly meta.

It's like it used to be that cEDH decks were all 10s and normal EDH decks were all 4-7, maybe 8 on occasion. And now I see a lot more 8s and 9s.

Can't say I'm a fan of this trend but I think the constant deluge of pushed commanders has been a big contributor. When your starting place is Korvold, Fae-Cursed King it's going to be a lot easier to end up with a 8-9 deck than when you're starting with Mogis, God of Slaughter.
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Post by BeneTleilax » 2 years ago

The one reason why I don't want a Tergrid ban is that she has successfully forced Korvold out of area. Also, there is this perception of power level that a lot of the new stuff gets past for whatever reason, but old staples run into. So even if a guy saves the table with Force of Will, say, I've seen the table turn around and go "he's playing FoW, that's a broken card! Get him!". This sort of norm-based politics defines the deckbuilding and meta of casual, and is non-existent in cEDH, which has led to cEDH sort of becoming its own little world, even as casual goes through periods of power creep. Maybe that's just a local thing, or an effect of playing in a university town, or the outcome of some inscrutable drama I missed, but it's given the two a sharper cultural and metagame boundary than ever before.

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Post by toctheyounger » 2 years ago

BeneTleilax wrote:
2 years ago
The one reason why I don't want a Tergrid ban is that she has successfully forced Korvold out of area. Also, there is this perception of power level that a lot of the new stuff gets past for whatever reason, but old staples run into. So even if a guy saves the table with Force of Will, say, I've seen the table turn around and go "he's playing FoW, that's a broken card! Get him!". This sort of norm-based politics defines the deckbuilding and meta of casual, and is non-existent in cEDH, which has led to cEDH sort of becoming its own little world, even as casual goes through periods of power creep. Maybe that's just a local thing, or an effect of playing in a university town, or the outcome of some inscrutable drama I missed, but it's given the two a sharper cultural and metagame boundary than ever before.
I tend to think its tied up in price point for a lot of people mentally. They assume that if you can afford an FoW theres no telling what else you can afford. And that varies, for some it rings true, some it was a lucky pull from a masters pack and some its the diamond in the rough from their collection. As far as correlation for cedh its my understanding that proxying is widely accepted as long as a single copy of a card is owned or similar. It would be an incredibly restrictive format without that sort of attitude I would think. But yeah that sort of mental extrapolation shouldn't feature as much as it does with threat assessment.
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Post by tstorm823 » 2 years ago

DirkGently wrote:
2 years ago
It's interesting how individual cards interact with power level. While sol ring is obviously very powerful (and sol ring and crypt are almost certainly #1 and #2 in terms of raw power), simply having a sol ring doesn't make a deck overall THAT much better. I think the best example, though, is Demonic Tutor. One of the best cards in a powerful deck, but not that great in a casual deck. Still fine, of course, but hardly game-breaking.
There are different levels of analysis for this. A card's power can warp a game, warp a deck, warp a meta, or warp a format around itself. Sol Ring does that last one, and it might be the only card that does that in Commander.
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Post by materpillar » 2 years ago

tstorm823 wrote:
2 years ago
There are different levels of analysis for this. A card's power can warp a game, warp a deck, warp a meta, or warp a format around itself. Sol Ring does that last one, and it might be the only card that does that in Commander.
I don't particularly see Sol Ring as format warping at all. Sol Ring can enable degenerate stuff but it in and of itself doesn't push someone towards degenerate plays.

If three opponents sit down and the first says "I have Sol Ring in my deck". The second says "I have Craterhoof Behemoth in my deck." The final says "I have Thassa's Oracle in my deck."

My immediate gut reaction is the oracle player needs to die first, the hoof player second and who knows about the sol ring player.

You can do silly fair things with Sol Ring the same can't be said for a lot of other cards. I'd argue that introducing Craterhoof Behemoth into a battlecruiser meta will warp that meta significantly more than Sol Ring would. Nom-interactive finishers are far more damaging to a battle cruiser meta than fast mana is.

At cEDH tables I highly doubt banning Sol Ring would do anything other than have decks run a slightly less efficient manarock in its place.

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Post by DirkGently » 2 years ago

Part of the thing is that sol ring is so much stronger t1. Having hoof will warp your deck building to include tutors for it and to rely on it for a finisher, whereas sol ring is a big power spike when you start with it but usually doesn't have a big impact on games where you don't, and probably won't change how you build your deck in a big way.
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Post by Jemolk » 2 years ago

I'm not actually worried about Sol Ring being in the format. Or Mana Crypt, for that matter. Not to say they're not powerful cards. They are. And they can accelerate you into a powerful board position really early. Thing is, winning the game off that against three other players at 40 life each is rather difficult, and you're instantly arch-enemy when you accelerate noticeably past everyone else in a sudden burst. I'd give good odds that a whole lot of t1 Sol Ring plays actually count as over-extending, and that it will get you killed as often as it wins you the game, outside of cEDH-level combos. Strong plays aren't necessarily good plays, and weak ones aren't necessarily bad. There's a lot of value to be had being merely unprofitable to attack but largely unthreatening, versus assembling a dominating position and having to fight off three players at once. And both Sol Ring and Mana Crypt up your threat level dramatically, and justifiably so, in the eyes of the other players.
BeneTleilax wrote:
2 years ago
Also, there is this perception of power level that a lot of the new stuff gets past for whatever reason, but old staples run into. So even if a guy saves the table with Force of Will, say, I've seen the table turn around and go "he's playing FoW, that's a broken card! Get him!".
I mean, there is a fairly roundabout way in which Force of Will might be an indication of a higher power level deck -- if you're running it, that's an indication that you're worried about higher power level decks more broadly (because Force is more a necessary evil than a good card; the alternate cost is far higher than mere mana, so you only want to use it when someone unexpectedly tries to win the game when you thought it was safe to tap out, or does so on a super early turn before you can have other counters up). And people who are worried about running into higher powered decks are more likely to power up their own. But I don't think that's the thought process, somehow. And also, just punishing combo decks is a perfectly valid use for Force of Will that can actually improve a casual meta. I've been known to run it for exactly that reason. No, the counterspells that would worry me if I saw them would be Flusterstorm and Mental Misstep. Those indicate that you're going for super low CMC over everything else, and I'd be wondering what you regularly play against that means you need them, and what that says about what you're probably playing.
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Post by materpillar » 2 years ago

Jemolk wrote:
2 years ago
No, the counterspells that would worry me if I saw them would be Flusterstorm and Mental Misstep. Those indicate that you're going for super low CMC over everything else, and I'd be wondering what you regularly play against that means you need them, and what that says about what you're probably playing.
Amusingly I run Mental Misstep not because of the reasons you state but solely because some day I'm going to Mental Misstep someone's T1 Sol Ring when I have no lands in play. I expect their tears will sustain me for years to come.

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Post by Jemolk » 2 years ago

materpillar wrote:
2 years ago
Jemolk wrote:
2 years ago
No, the counterspells that would worry me if I saw them would be Flusterstorm and Mental Misstep. Those indicate that you're going for super low CMC over everything else, and I'd be wondering what you regularly play against that means you need them, and what that says about what you're probably playing.
Amusingly I run Mental Misstep not because of the reasons you state but solely because some day I'm going to Mental Misstep someone's T1 Sol Ring when I have no lands in play. I expect their tears will sustain me for years to come.
:rofl: There are exceptions to almost everything, admittedly, and this is a big one. If I saw you do it, I'd probably warily ask, "Wait, why are you running Mental Misstep...?" and when you explained, burst out laughing and offer you a high five. That's delightful. Wrecking people running mindless staples is always amusing, and while I'd generally prefer to do it with more obscure cards, overly narrow ones can work as well.
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Post by Dunharrow » 2 years ago

I have spent the last hour looking for Fatestitcher. I know I have 4 of them. I know I saw them in the last couple days. I am going insane. I need to sleep but I just want to find it.
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Post by Hermes_ » 2 years ago

materpillar wrote:
2 years ago
Hermes_ wrote:
2 years ago
well, i did I've decided to sell the cards that aren't in my decks (not counting swords of x and y and steam vents), and before grading it comes to 600, so after grading, I'm guessing 500 or so.
I'm hesitant to pull the trigger on my collection because prices seem to just be going up. I'm curious to why you're cashing out now and not holding for another couple years.
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Post by toctheyounger » 2 years ago

Dunharrow wrote:
2 years ago
I have spent the last hour looking for Fatestitcher. I know I have 4 of them. I know I saw them in the last couple days. I am going insane. I need to sleep but I just want to find it.
I did the same with Tatyova, Benthic Druid recently. Literally looked through every card i could find in the house, garage and deck boxes anywhere on ny property. I even had it in a deck at one point. It never turned up and now I've just decided to take the hit, as small as it is, and pony up for a copy.
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Post by Rumpy5897 » 2 years ago

It's honestly hard to gauge the power of the format on the whole. Looking at EDHREC is about as broad a sample as you can get, but even then you've got a bias toward people who are invested enough to post their lists online somewhere. On one hand, you have Thassa's Oracle somehow being the most played blue creature, showing the blurring power line. But then you look at Cultivate, a card that looks like it should have perished in the two-drop ramp revolution pushed down our throats, and it's in half the green decks.

There's no denying Sol Ring is wildly powerful. Whenever it comes up, it's good to recall the Command Zone gameplay stats analysis, where having it show up early actually decreased your odds of victory. It's not easy being in the spotlight from the get go, plus Sol Ring's presence can lead to some sketchy keeps (something I'm all too familiar with from practical experience). We've largely moved away from it as a group, I keep it in my primers because it's kinda weird to me to claim to be a guide to a deck and not run it. The gameplay is a bit more relaxed without it, though that may also be tied to the fact that my decks without it are the weaker ones.
 
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Post by tstorm823 » 2 years ago

materpillar wrote:
2 years ago
I don't particularly see Sol Ring as format warping at all.
materpillar wrote:
2 years ago
Amusingly I run Mental Misstep not because of the reasons you state but solely because some day I'm going to Mental Misstep someone's T1 Sol Ring when I have no lands in play. I expect their tears will sustain me for years to come.
Checkmate?
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Post by kirkusjones » 2 years ago

tstorm823 wrote:
2 years ago
materpillar wrote:
2 years ago
I don't particularly see Sol Ring as format warping at all.
materpillar wrote:
2 years ago
Amusingly I run Mental Misstep not because of the reasons you state but solely because some day I'm going to Mental Misstep someone's T1 Sol Ring when I have no lands in play. I expect their tears will sustain me for years to come.
Checkmate?
More like solmate, amirite?
Last edited by kirkusjones 2 years ago, edited 1 time in total.

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Post by materpillar » 2 years ago

tstorm823 wrote:
2 years ago
materpillar wrote:
2 years ago
I don't particularly see Sol Ring as format warping at all.
materpillar wrote:
2 years ago
Amusingly I run Mental Misstep not because of the reasons you state but solely because some day I'm going to Mental Misstep someone's T1 Sol Ring when I have no lands in play. I expect their tears will sustain me for years to come.
Checkmate?
I think me putting Mental Misstep in my deck to counter someone's T1 Sol Ring for meme value is actively lowering my winrate. Playing a card in your deck specifically to hose exactly Sol Ring is actively a bad decision. In fact Mental Missteping someone's T1 Sol Ring is probably not even the correct play in a lot of games. I'm aware of that and doing it anyway because I find it funny.

Format warping is when I squint at the Ayula, Queen Among Bears player's board state and think "Well Craterhoof Behemoth kills me here… soooo do I think this bear tribal deck is running that card?" and I actually have to spend some time pondering if I should pre-emptively fire off a Wrath of God because this deck just might be running a hoof.

Playing cards specifically to deal with Craterhoof Behemoth will probably increase your overall winrate. At least in the meta games that I've bumbled into.

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Post by tstorm823 » 2 years ago

materpillar wrote:
2 years ago
I think me putting Mental Misstep in my deck to counter someone's T1 Sol Ring for meme value is actively lowering my winrate.
It's not about winrate. It's about the amount people's decisions actually are effected by a card existing. A card winning a lot of games isn't itself a downside. Only when a card is so good at winning that it impacts the way people play the entire format can it become problematic. It doesn't really matter if Sol Ring is winning lots of games itself, it absolutely impacts the way people play this entire format, and the play patterns without it are more fun and more consistent.
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Post by materpillar » 2 years ago

tstorm823 wrote:
2 years ago
materpillar wrote:
2 years ago
I think me putting Mental Misstep in my deck to counter someone's T1 Sol Ring for meme value is actively lowering my winrate.
It's not about winrate. It's about the amount people's decisions actually are effected by a card existing.
I've killed opponents because I knew they had Expropriate somewhere in their deck. I've gone out and bought 6 Scavenger Grounds because a new game store in town had an addiction to graveyard decks. I built Tivadar of Thorn because my playgroup had a Mono-R phase.

I've never sat down and looked at someone's deck and thought "I wonder if I have to play around Sol Ring" like I have with Craterhoof Behemoth (admittedly I don't play Thada Adel, Acquisitor though).

I've never looked at Sol Ring and felt like I needed to warp my deck choices around really maximizing it. I've never put a tutor in a deck specifically with the goal of finding Sol Ring above all other cards.

I've never slotted a piece of removal into a deck because I thought I needed an out against Sol Ring. I used to run Liquimetal Coating + Into the Core specifically because my Jaya deck couldn't deal with Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre.

I've been in a handful of different meta games and the abundance or lack of Sol Ring has never factored into my analysis of said metagame. The same cannot be said of Craterhoof Behemoth, Expropriate, Eldrazi, Living Death, Thassa's Oracle and other meta warping cards.

If you sit down in a pod, and everyone is running Sol Ring. That could be a pod with anything from precons to cEDH. If everyone at the table is running Hermit Druid the viable decks there are going to be waaaay more narrow.


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