[SCD] Koma, Cosmos Serpent

[Boros_Blendo]

How warping is too warping?

My regular group is very casual. You can still run Zurgo Helmsmasher or a non-competitive Prime Speaker Zegana simic deck and be fine, most of the time. So, my friend's son recently released Koma, Cosmos Serpent, and it's a highly-supported 99, so Koma is annoyingly hard to take out. It's been run twice now, and it warped the game into a blowout both times. I understand that answers answer everything, as long as you have that in hand, or can get to it in time. I've read up on other boards about how people feel about Koma in general, and it's mostly overall negative regarding lower-level metas, The question regarding Koma is...are some cards just meant only for the more powerful metas?

How much should the meta warp to deal with one Commander, and does it inevitably lead to everyone packing cards like Cyclonic Rift in a cEDH arms race that ends up blowing past Koma?

[Cyax]

There are a number of different power levels, and it's up to the players to decide what power level they prefer playing at.

Koma is strong for casual playgroups because it does a lot of what finishers want to do by itself. It's far from being CEDH though; there are still many casual decks that will give it a run for its money.

It's quite common for arms races to occur in EDH playgroups, although often it does not devolve into CEDH. Answers are actually quite restrictive in terms of opportunity cost and what scenarios they can properly answer, which is why it's more important to focus on winning than on not losing.

You can always choose to not play against the Koma player, and that's perfectly fine if you want to stay at your current power level.

[pokken]

Koma is definitely one of those cards that asks really hard meta questions. In the abstract, the deck is not particularly strong; Koma is expensive, removable easily with non-destructive removal (just Swords to Plowshares it!). But on the flipside, just its normal mode of existing asks hard questions; if you don't remove it, it's killing the table in 2 turn cycles with almost no support.

The card that did this to my old meta was Maelstrom Wanderer. My buddy made a medium powered MW deck, but, MW's power floor is just too high.

And that's pretty much where it comes around to; certain commanders just have floors that are too powerful for casual metas.

Very interestingly, those decks have a toxic effect even if their overall power level is not as high as other decks in the meta; because posing big questions like "can you remove my koma Right now or you lose" forces people to play a certain way even if their deck might have a more powerful mid-endgame. Alright, everybody stop and kill Koma every turn until the game ends is not great experience.

I tend to strive to build decks with commanders that you can leave in play for a few turns and not sweat it too hard, even if the power level is higher. More Ephara, God of the Polis and less The Locust God. But that's just me.

[Mookie]

Koma is a strong, self-contained win condition for lower-power metas. It quickly creates an army of 3/3 tokens that can invalidate what many other decks are doing, and it effectively has indestructible to shrug off any board wipes people cast to get rid of the tokens. It's seven mana and dies to removal... but it's also in colors that can ramp and counter any removal spells pointed at it. Its tap ability can also be a headache for many decks, such as any that are dependent on attacking with their commander.

On the flip side, higher-power metas can work around Koma - it invalidates many combat-based strategies, but solutions do exist. You can tune your removal suite to have more exile / theft effects, or you can just go over it with combo or some other strategy that doesn't care about a board full of 3/3 tokens.

In general, I think how problematic format-warping commanders are depends on how often they appear. If you have a small meta and are regularly playing against the same decks, then that will often result in an arms race (which isn't great), or you can ask the player to tone down their deck. In a larger meta with more diverse decks, I think it will be less warping - it isn't worth changing your deck on the off chance you run into a poor matchup.

[Ruiner]

Koma can absolutely Spiral out of control quickly. This isn't a huge problem if your playgroup runs a reasonable amount of interaction and has decent threat assessment. If your playgroup is of those that unfortunately is for some reason interaction adverse, and/or has a significant amount of beginners just developing threat assessment abilities, Koma can potentially be an issue (or a catalyst for people to start to put proper interaction in their decks).

[materpillar]

How warping is too warping?

My regular group is very casual. You can still run Zurgo Helmsmasher or a non-competitive Prime Speaker Zegana simic deck and be fine, most of the time. So, my friend's son recently released Koma, Cosmos Serpent, and it's a highly-supported 99, so Koma is annoyingly hard to take out. It's been run twice now, and it warped the game into a blowout both times. I understand that answers answer everything, as long as you have that in hand, or can get to it in time. I've read up on other boards about how people feel about Koma in general, and it's mostly overall negative regarding lower-level metas, The question regarding Koma is...are some cards just meant only for the more powerful metas?

How much should the meta warp to deal with one Commander, and does it inevitably lead to everyone packing cards like Cyclonic Rift in a cEDH arms race that ends up blowing past Koma?

My meta wouldn't be particularly phased by Koma, Cosmos Serpent. It's very expensive to cast and is somewhat easy to answer. I'm much more afraid of cheap engine cards in the command zone than control finishers. For example, Henzie "Toolbox" Torre threatens to take over the game Turn 4 as opposed to Koma, Cosmos Serpent's turn 8 or so. That being said, how Koma, Cosmos Serpent would affect my meta is incredibly irrelevant.

If your friend's Koma is warping your local meta to an unfun degree than have a discussion about it. Having a strong foundation of being able to talk about the desired powerlevel of your decks is the most essential framework for keeping your meta healthy. If you can't talk with each other about what kind of games you want to have then your metagame will slowly powercreep as it acquires newer and more powerful cards. That doesn't necessarily mean asking him not to play Koma, maybe he could shave off some ramp so Koma comes down later in the game. Maybe he thinks Koma is fine and would prefer that everyone else bring slightly stronger commanders. Maybe he shifts Koma to the 99 and fields a different commander. There's a lot of answers to this situation.

[Sinis]

My environment has boatloads of exile removal. Indestructibility isn't even remotely reliable with my playgroup.

So, I think it could be a winner if it were unanswered, but that's a very big "if".

[RowanKeltizar]

Koma is a higher powered casual commander. I own a Koma deck but actually it doesn't win as much as I would think given my playgroup's power level, so this is very much relative. How fast your decks are and how many answers do you have? Most blue decks in my playgroup for example run all the big hitting staples like Cyclonic Rift.

If you don't want your playgroup to move to higher power level, probably just have a discussion with the Koma player. Perhaps they can put Koma in the 99 and run a different simic commander instead? Adrix and Nev, Twincasters is also in my deck and sometimes I switch to that. I also have Imoti, Celebrant of Bounty or Arixmethes, Slumbering Isle. Inga and Esika is also another good option. I have all of these alternative commanders in the deck and i tend to switch them up as I feel like it. My koma deck isn't highly focused however, mostly a simic goodstuff deck - aggro control.