When a beloved deck disgusts you

[3drinks]

If you've followed my style of play philosophies over the years at Sally and now here at Nexus, you know I'm a competitive player. Or rather, that I'm what's considered this weird amalgamation of a Johnny-Spike. Meaning, I'm going to do what I can to win, regardless of how hard I have to kick you in the teeth to do it...but I also want to design the win con my own way (such as, for example, most control decks finishing on an Aetherling while I choose to finish on Prognostic Sphinx with or without a Pike in it's claws). This, in my case, is most viewable in my pursuit of Experiment Kraj. Now, I know, yes, I'm not the U player. But there's something about this deck and it's zany interactions and different game every time effect of it that drew me to it. It became synonymous to others, that Kraj had gone from "binder rot jank excuse to play the colours" (you can see how far I go back in this format haha) to "ruthless doomsday machine", in my hands. It's this deck where I coined the phrase "when 3drinks plays U, nobody wins". And it was easy to see why, I'd get to that turn six or seven and every turn would take over fifteen minutes as I finagle my options, triggers, activation sequences, and would win in the way that only I could.

Soon, Illusionist's Bracers got printed, and Kraj as a deck had found it's ultimate weapon. All the lines of play grew more compact, eventually revolving around Arcanis and Triskelion abilities, copied, and an untap, to lead the deck to it's eventual table kill win. It still took several pieces, and it still was viewed as that deck only I could turn into a ruthless machine with. And then the Heroic ability was created;

SPOILER

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Since then, my brain refuses to look toward the other interactions, because it knows about this interaction. Suddenly I can take infinite turns, generate infinite untaps, infinite mana, infinite draw, and all of a sudden my "adorable", beloved purple ooze mutant had become the same entity that was reviled from LGS tables. I didn't like what I had become. My interest waned in the deck, and any of it's attempts to reel me in were for naught.

So, what do you do when a deck you once beloved, and had turned an entire group onto as "your's" that could only behave in your hands...what do you do when it misbehaves to this point where you're disgusted by it? When Sygg hit this point, I had retired that deck undefeated. But I didn't have that attachment to that deck, that was a tempo deck which only had a goal of "swing for three". Kraj is different. It was special...until now. I don't want to play it, but I don't want to forget the weird interactions over the years. Weakening it isn't an option, as that will just feel like watre'd down Kraj.

I'm sure I'm not alone here. So let's discuss! Certainly we've all had this feeling of "betrayal" by a deck we once beloved that morphed into something we didn't want it to become, right?

[lyonhaert]

Certainly we've all had this feeling of "betrayal" by a deck we once beloved that morphed into something we didn't want it to become, right?

Not really. The deck didn't put the cards in itself. If it does something I don't like it's because I built it that way and I need to tweak/rebuild if I want to continue playing a version of it I do like.

To be frank, the tone of anthropomorphizing the deck, as if you were a bystander, rubs me the wrong way. If one doesn't want to tune down the deck if that's the only direction in which it might be enjoyable again, then I believe one should own that and take it apart. Or own that it was tuned up intentionally with enablers, try removing them, and see if it's still enjoyable but more fair.

[DirkGently]

I rarely have a problem taking any specific synergies out of my decks, and I rarely put in the sorts of things that tend to raise people's hackles - extra turns, MLD, infinite combos, etc.

That said, my decks don't always play out how I want them to. I build Geth, Lord of the Vault a long time ago, and loved it, so I rebuilt in recently. Using enemy cards against them is fun since games play out differently every time, and the build gets to be super simple because mostly you just want ramp, and the rest you get from your opponents.

Unfortunately, once I actually started playing it, it was a nightmare. I had to track dozens of cards in multiple graveyards, manage enormous mana totals, sequence plays with an absurd number of possibilities, and generally monopolize the clock. I won, but it took forever, and I was still playing very sub-optimally. In that case, I don't think the problem is fixable - it's inherent to the commander. The only alternative would be to build him worse overall, so I can't generate such large sums of mana...and that's just a lot less fun. So I disassembled it pretty quickly.

I've had similar issues with many spellslinger decks I build. They can get into the lead and hold the lead, but they can't actually win very quickly. So it becomes really tedious and I feel like the bad guy at the end.

I can't claim any of these felt like "my deck" though, since I don't hold many decks particularly close to my heart - pretty hard to feel too strongly about any in particular when I've built so many. If they aren't fun, I don't keep playing them. Phelddagrif is probably the closest to my heart, and while I can have games that go badly and I end up in an uncomfortable protracted control game, that's generally either because of my own mistakes, or an unfortunate table situation. Back when I played a Phelddagrif-esque Tasigur build, I remember one game where the other two players basically refused to do anything to each other until I was dead, because they just didn't like control. Not a fun experience, but I don't blame the deck for that.

Btw, I don't think being a johnny/spike is particularly unusual. I'd say I'm the same way. I try to build original ideas, or put my own spin on an existing one, but I build my decks to do whatever-dumb-thing-they-want-to-do as well as they can, and I play to win. I think a pretty large portion of the community on this site would probably agree - commander players who don't feel that way likely aren't brewing lists and talking strategy all the time, they're just out bashing modified precons - or netdecks, for the standard equivalent - and not thinking about magic every waking moment like most of us on this forum do. That is a most-of-us thing, right? Not just me?

[Mookie]

Hmmm.... to some extent, I view my decks like different types of foods. Some are comfort foods - Teysa, Sharuum, Tasigur - decks I'm comfortable with, have had a long time, and will always return to. Others (mostly Animar) are junk foods - I know I shouldn't play them too often (because my playgroup would hate me), but they're fun to pull out once in a while. And still others (Mizzix) are the equivalent of some really spicy food, or something really foreign - decks I play when I crave something different.

When I'm cooking, if I find that a recipe doesn't quite taste right, I adjust the recipe. I'm not the sort of person to just blindly follow a recipe. The same is true for my decks - if they're not giving me the experience I want, I adjust them. I've definitely had decks performing in ways I haven't wanted before. For a while, my Teysa deck was winning waaay too often through combat, and not enough from draining people with Blood Artist. The cause? Cathar's Crusade and Jazal Goldmane. So I cut the cards. Did it reduce the winrate? Maybe. But did it make the deck more closely align with my intent? Absolutely.

On the other hand, I've also had some decks play out a bit too repetitively - there was a while when I kept winning with Sharuum via Phyrexian Metamorph + Altar of the Brood. The cards are still in the deck, but I've adjusted my playstyle to focus on them much less aggressively, which I find makes for more interesting games.

Anyway, to respond to the initial question: I don't really find myself taking apart misbehaving decks - instead, I tweak the decks until they function the way I want them to... or I adjust my play patterns to better fit my goals. (on the other hand, I almost never take apart decks in general, and there are definitely some decks I pull out less often than others, but I still appreciate having them available when I want to do something different - I think it's perfectly fine to have some decks that I can only appreciate in small doses)

[3drinks]

I've had friend suggestions to take it another route, such as old face (up through Scourge) only. That could be intriguing, though may just end up leaning hard into an Elfball shell and Intruder Alarm.

What's a new card that came out and changed the fundamental shape of your favourite decks? For Kraj, I can't help but single out Sage of Hours as the most egregious of offenders.

[DirkGently]

If there's a card that's an obvious issue with a commander I tend to just cut it (for example, I just build Heliod, but left walking ballista in the SB). There's not a problem if you don't include it. If someone is concerned about the combo, I'm happy to tell that that I don't include it. Though I might bring the combo pieces in case people want to play a more cutthroat game - my new meta is pretty diverse, power-wise. Fair number of clueless tryhards.

In terms of old decks that became more powerful, I once played Godo and enjoyed it back in the day - I'm assuming that, if I built him now, I'd want to mention pre-game "FYI, I'm not running helm of the host". Or if I was, I'd just keep quiet and hope no one asks.

[folding_music]

my decks seem to get less staple-y and oppressive the longer they're together. I maintained a stupid Lord Magnus deck for years which had a general enchantress-y, curl up into a ball and then activate Centaur Glade one thousand times theme... the more I return to it, the more likely I am to remove the tutors (Enlightened Tutor, Sterling Grove) and fast mana (Elvish Spirit Guide, Lotus Petal) to add fun effects I've never used before. When Theros: Beyond Death came out, I revived it so I could add Setessian Champion and Destiny Spinner and then just kept on changing things, making Siona, Captain of the Syleas the commander, kicking out the insanely boring cards like Solitary Confinement and ending up with something which has a fairly terrible power level but draws more cards I've always wanted to check out. I've read enough articles about casual M:TG and suffered through enough coverage that I know what the really effective cards are called and reach out to them to build an initial deck and end up with a greedy synergy engine which dies instantly to Clearfall and then dismantle it bit by bit until it's a slower midrange deck which doesn't care about any particular combination, can resuscitate itself from board sweepers and is just generally a nice recipe of the necessary staples and my pet cards!

I have had a problem with building a black-white deck because my fave cards in the pairing tend to sweep or tax the board; I thought it'd be really fun to activate a Thrashing Wumpus with Sorin, Vengeful Bloodlord in play or a Gangrenous Zombies carrying a Shadowspear but what it usually accomplishes is the death of all utility creatures which frustrates players who build to tappety tap tap a hundred mana elves; people hate False Prophet and Aura of Silence and Deafening Silence but those are the sorts of cards I've found suit the deck and allow the commander Obzedat, Ghost Council do some damage. I still doubt it's a seven out of ten but the strategy seems to oppress the board and generally make a mockery of creature-focused decks so it ruins too much of the fun. Need to dismantle this one and work out a more interesting orzhov ploy.

[BaronCappuccino]

One reason, until currently, that I avoided tutors in my commander decks, is because I can't not do the same thing over and over again. I discovered this when I had a mono-black expensive stuff deck (calling it good would be misleading at best, a true example that decks aren't their card prices but rather the sum of their parts), and I tutored for the same two things every single game - Chains of Mephistopheles and Teferi's Puzzle Box. I couldn't not. And before that, Contamination and Bitterblossom. If I knew of a two card dick move, I was pulling it out asap, every game. I couldn't not. My only solution was to build decks that forced me to go with the zen of the moment - card draw over tutors. I've retreated from that, because I play better with a defined, linear goal in mind.

[Dunharrow]

I refused to play combos in Commander. Then one day, I am playing my beloved Karador deck, and I realize that Sun Titan and Gift of Immortality let me sacrifice ST infinite times. I was upset. But I loved both cards and couldn't see the deck working without either of them.

But after grinding out games with Yosei, the Morning Star, and Sun Titan + Pernicious Deed... I realized infinite combos were not so bad. They helped close the game out. Otherwise I would just soft lock the table and win over 5-6 turns.

So then I embraced combos for this deck, and now I rarely play it.. .must be a good 4 years since I last played it.
I made a second Karador deck, with crazy limitations (no stax pieces, no infinite combos, try to win by aggro spirit tribal).
It's fun. Probably my worst deck.

So... I get you. I think you can embrace the combo and pull out the deck when you want to.
Or I think you can rebuild it as a casual deck or put a hard limitation on the deck.
Or you cut tutors and just let the combo happen if it happens.

I totally get how your pet deck that you love can 'betray you'. My Karador deck just got too good with time and now I never play it.

Change happens. If you upgrade your deck with each new set, eventually, it will change its identity.

[toctheyounger]

It happened with my Ghave, Guru of Spores. I tried my very best to build with not a single combo in it. And it was still fairly strong, and very hard to put down. It won it's fair share of games.

I'm not sure at which point I decided if I was going to keep the deck I'd make it as rough as I could, but as some point I did, and it became a one trick pony*, so I took it apart. Still have all of the pieces in my folder just in case, but the chances of getting the band back together is pretty slim.

I should be clear though - when I first joined the format, I had issues with combo, and I sort of still do. I try not to use them unless the game needs to end, but I generally have no issues putting my decks up against whatever roughness anyone else brings to the table. So it's not the inclusion of combo that jumped the shark, it's this*. When a deck does one thing very well, and virtually nothing else, or it does a multitude of things but there's one that precludes playing out any other angle because it wins every time and there seems no point in pursuing any other angle, I'm done and have no interest in playing it.

[materpillar]

Certainly we've all had this feeling of "betrayal" by a deck we once beloved that morphed into something we didn't want it to become, right?

This post is probably going to sound really aggressive, fair warning. So for clarity, my intent is not to be attacking or mean but I don't feel tactfulness and sugarcoating is the best coarse of action here. I think you're very wrong and your mindset needs to change. I've literally never had this problem you're mentioning. If I don't like my deck I change it to be what I want it to be.

So, what do you do when a deck you once beloved, and had turned an entire group onto as "your's" that could only behave in your hands...what do you do when it misbehaves to this point where you're disgusted by it?

^^ This statement is a direct contradiction to the following statement.

Meaning, I'm going to do what I can to win, regardless of how hard I have to kick you in the teeth to do it...but I also want to design the win con my own way (such as, for example, most control decks finishing on an Aetherling while I choose to finish on Prognostic Sphinx with or without a Pike in it's claws).

You're not designing the wincon of your deck anymore, you're letting your cardboard and emotions control your deck building choices. You're like the author who lets their story take control of them.

Since then, my brain refuses to look toward the other interactions, because it knows about this interaction. Suddenly I can take infinite turns, generate infinite untaps, infinite mana, infinite draw, and all of a sudden my "adorable", beloved purple ooze mutant had become the same entity that was reviled from LGS tables. I didn't like what I had become. My interest waned in the deck, and any of it's attempts to reel me in were for naught.

I'm going to be really blunt your problem is really really easy to solve logistically but obviously very hard to do. You need to combo Sage of Hours with a pair of scissors.

It was special...until now. I don't want to play it, but I don't want to forget the weird interactions over the years. Weakening it isn't an option, as that will just feel like water'd down Kraj.

I'm sure I'm not alone here. So let's discuss! Certainly we've all had this feeling of "betrayal" by a deck we once beloved that morphed into something we didn't want it to become, right?

You had more fun piloting the deck without Sage of Hours. Your opponents had more fun playing against it when it didn't have Sage of Hours. Literally no one wants Sage of Hours in your deck. Just take it out. You said you can't take it out, but you literally can. You can just pull that card out of the sleeve and put in another one. I understand that emotionally you like to make your decks as streamlined and powerful as you can but that belief is making your life worse.

If it's too difficult for you to overcome your emotions in this area, then just slap a restriction on your deck. This is now your Non-infinite Experiment Kraj deck. For example I have non-infinite, elf-ball Tendrils of Agony deck. It is explicitly designed with the restriction that it can't go infinite because that's too easy and boring. Let me tell you, it's really hard to build a deck that doesn't randomly go infinite in some way. It's going to be exceptionally massively difficult to do that with Kraj, he goes infinite with so much crap. Or maybe this is now your "pre-2013 cards only Experiment Kraj deck". I know for a fact you could do that, you've a white bordered only deck. Same concept, slightly different execution.

If your emotional desire to maximize the murder potential of your deck is so great that you can't possible consider cutting Sage of Hours. Then, you're going to retire your kraj deck. No one likes it with Sage of Hours not even you. Find a way to emotionally come to terms with the fact that Sage of Hours or Experiment Kraj needs to go. If your answer to that is Experiment Kraj needs to die, then you probably don't care about that deck as much as you imply.

TLDR; I recommend your Experiment Kraj deck, is now your "I literally can't go infinite without opponent's cards Experiment Kraj deck". Building and tuning that will be hella difficult, which I think you'd enjoy. One of the hardest choices I've ever had to make was if I thought Chulane, Teller of Tales or Intruder Alarm was stronger for my elfball storm. I couldn't play them both, Chulane would go infinite with the Intruder Alarm.

[3drinks]

I don't find the post to be aggressive. Blunt, maybe, but blunt =/= bad. It's like Sage of Hours led to the apex of Krajism, and that apex is ugly and far greater than any game with no $ on the table should read. Sage of Hours is the Lighthouse Chronologist of today, or at least it is in this deck (as well as Simic Ezuri). It really is an easy cut...but if you're not building to the max within your designated sphere of building, that's ethically dishonest, or so I've been struggling with. Knowing it's there, and choosing to arbitrarily not play it is sawft balling your opponents. They don't feel accomplished defeating the lite version of a known commodity, yeah?

Anyway, that's been my own inner struggle. I've been interested in an old face (pre-modern) deck for some time. A larger pool than white border only, but not the full decks that get updated every set. Still definitively fixed. I think this is the right direction. It can still do it's iconic plays - Trike, Arcanis, Horseshoe Crab, Morphling - and still has it's neat interactions - Spike Weaver - and still has powerful interactions it can employ - Earthcraft, Squirrel Nest, Gaea's Cradle, Intruder Alarm, Opposition. I lost many of the tutours - Neoform, Fauna Shaman, Pod, Prime Speaker Vannifear, and of course, no more Sage of Hours. I get to research, build, and play to the fullest, but it's not nearly as easy as these modern powerhouses have given me the chance to be. I even lose half the fetchlands, some mana dorks, a lot of the nonbasics, and the creatures that cheat on land drops. I'm sad to lose all the variants of Kenrith's Transformation, but I can go back to control magic, gilded drake, and treachery. Aww, I lose willbreaker and cytoplast manipulator. Sad face.

Anyway, there's a ton of room to brew, and thank you to everyone that's talked me off a ledge with this. Sometimes you just have to get intentional with what you do and what you want. And then this too becomes a "finished" deck, because no more cards in these frames will be printed.

[DirkGently]

[...]if you're not building to the max within your designated sphere of building, that's ethically dishonest, or so I've been struggling with. Knowing it's there, and choosing to arbitrarily not play it is sawft balling your opponents. They don't feel accomplished defeating the lite version of a known commodity, yeah?

I'm curious to explore this.

"Build socially, play competitively" has been my mantra for a while. It means a certain kind of restraint while deck building, and nothing of the kind once the game starts.

I frown upon holding back or intentional misplays within a game, but I think most experienced players recognize that all decks outside of cEDH are intentionally limited in power. Maybe you're approaching maximum power within Kraj, but Kraj himself is very limited in power next to other options.

I can see the appeal in beating a top-tier cEDH deck - if your deck can do that, that's definitely some kind of accomplishment. But outside of that, we're all limiting ourselves to some degree or another. I can only speak for myself, but I really don't care very much whether I've beaten a fully tuned list for a C-tier commander, as compared to a mediocre one.

Why are deckbuilding compromises ok where intentional misplays are not? Partly because it's unavoidable in order to keep the format as varied and open as it is. If viable cEDH lists could be any color of the rainbow, then cEDH would probably be close the norm. Competition is a crucial element of the fun of the game, and for competition to work, it needs to feel genuine. We all came into the competition with the assumption that we're building sub-optimal decks - whether that's a budget restriction, intentional omission of certain cards or combos, building around a weak commander, or some other limitation - and part of the competition is feeling out how strong everyone else's decks are, and how good of a player they are. You aren't trying to beat the deck - unless you're playing cEDH - you're trying to beat the player. That's the goal, from the attempt of which the fun is derived. If they're misplaying on purpose, then the goal is meaningless, and the whole thing crumbles.

I'm kind of struggling to put my thoughts into coherent words. Maybe someone else can explain it better. I'll try to put more thought into it.

[3drinks]

I see it, and I think i know what you're getting at. I'm gonna try to put that more into words as I think over that tonight on this overtime shift.

I can say at least build compromises on my part, is about a need to keep the entire deck uniformed in appearance kinda an OCD thing to a degree.

[Toshi]

"Build socially, play competitively" has been my mantra for a while. It means a certain kind of restraint while deck building, and nothing of the kind once the game starts.

I frown upon holding back or intentional misplays within a game

I think this is essentially why i never got disgusted by a deck of mine - i have gotten bored though in the past.
I like playing MTG a lot and i love playing it as flawlessly as i can on par. So my usual thought process is: Is a card, interaction or synergy keeping me and/or others from enjoying the game the way we want to enjoy it? (Note: Stax, MLD, etc might be totally fine, if built correctly) If so, i won't even include it in my deck. I would hate to adjust my plays and decisions, but i'm very open to adjusting my decks so they max out at a reasonable level.
Its crazy how different this process can look. It would take insane effort to build Ghave, Guru of Spores in a way that wouldn't be atrocious for my playgroup, yet strong and versatile enough to get great entertainment out of it. On the other hand Yargle, Glutton of Urborg would only take slight adjustments - off the top of my head no Tainted Strike or very limited tutors for it - to be spot on.

[3drinks]

I frown upon holding back or intentional misplays within a game, but I think most experienced players recognize that all decks outside of cEDH are intentionally limited in power. Maybe you're approaching maximum power within Kraj, but Kraj himself is very limited in power next to other options.

Why are deckbuilding compromises ok where intentional misplays are not? Partly because it's unavoidable in order to keep the format as varied and open as it is. If viable cEDH lists could be any color of the rainbow, then cEDH would probably be close the norm. Competition is a crucial element of the fun of the game, and for competition to work, it needs to feel genuine. We all came into the competition with the assumption that we're building sub-optimal decks - whether that's a budget restriction, intentional omission of certain cards or combos, building around a weak commander, or some other limitation - and part of the competition is feeling out how strong everyone else's decks are, and how good of a player they are. You aren't trying to beat the deck - unless you're playing cEDH - you're trying to beat the player. That's the goal, from the attempt of which the fun is derived. If they're misplaying on purpose, then the goal is meaningless, and the whole thing crumbles.

So, I reflected over this through my shift, my slow cooker prep, and through a lengthy conversation over Discord with a close friend. And really, the shining point that stood out was a comparison to Timetwister. This card is legal, so that means (barring price obv) we should all play it, and if we don't does that mean we're being ethically dishonest about our decks? No, that's absurd. It's not right for our deck and what we're wanting to do, so it's not in the deck. And you can apply this to any card you're looking at, in my case I'll use Sage of Hours since that's the hot topic right now. Yeah, I can take infinite turns relatively easily with an untap on Kraj. Sure, okay, but by removing this is it really limiting anything? It's a win con. Just like the loops with Kraj, an untap, and Trike. Or Arcanis/Cryptologist/Archivist loops. Any of these is going to lead to the same net result of being a win con. In reality. having Sage with these other interactions is just win more, since if you have a win...why do you need another win? Just win already. The real meat and potatoes of the deck, when you break it down for analysis, is the ability to generate untaps, and if those untaps can at least retain mana parity or heaven forbid actually net you mana, that's where things get crazy. This whole situation was spawned by an iteration that suddenly saw me take all the turns. That's when it turned around from huge value-centric plays and strong synergy...that's where it broke.

I think I'm rambling on a tangent here so I'll try to get back on the rails. Kraj will keep doing Kraj things, and if I hit something that's offending, it's OK to remove the offending piece. It's not ethically dishonest as I had believed because that interaction was never intended to be a part of the deck. It's just being a responsible builder and saying "Whoa, I don't like the way that worked", which is what I should have figured out when I made this thread. Idk, this has been a long week and I just hit my sixth consecutive day. Anyway, @materpillar is right, the correct response here, since I still do enjoy creating all the activated abilities and playing the deck, is to remove the Sage and reboot the deck akin to what you do on a PC when you get a bad Windows update.

[Rumpy5897]

The Johnny/Spike duality is real in the EDH community. We pick our decks all Johnny-like, and then try to tune the absolute crap out of them. I kind of reigned in the Spike a tiny bit over the years - nothing used to be off bounds, but these days I preemptively steer away from stuff that stops the game from progressing. Feather would probably be better with hatebears, Ghired would likely appreciate Yosei locks, but I preemptively stopped myself from exploring that.

That said, I see where you're coming from in your OP. The deck that got away in my case was Kumena. It was intended to just be a place for me to play Kindred Discovery and Sword of Feast and Famine, but it quite quickly became apparent that various value pieces come together to create combos or absurd advantage situations. I tried stripping them out, but the deck just felt... wrong. I knew that things were no longer my best attempt at the deck, and as a result I didn't enjoy it at all and the list perished. It also didn't help that I realised Aluren is a thing somewhere in the middle of all that.

Somehow, those pre-emptive restrictions before I put the things in, mentioned earlier, seem to work better for me personally.

[toctheyounger]

It's not ethically dishonest as I had believed because that interaction was never intended to be a part of the deck. It's just being a responsible builder and saying "Whoa, I don't like the way that worked", which is what I should have figured out when I made this thread.

In all honesty, with the variety of cards about these days it's actually pretty hard to build a deck that doesn't have some degree of broken synergy or a combo here or there. It's where you draw your line in the sand that matters. I try my best not to combo, but several of my decks have them available; I just try to make them relatively hard to assemble. Not only does that make it a reasonable stack of Jenga for the table to knock over if they can, it deters me from trying (which in a way, keeps things fresh and interesting for me too - if you know you have an 'I win' button, it's damn hard not to press it every time).

I personally don't see any issue with drawing your line at less than 100% and gaming as hard as you can within those limits. If you're a good enough gamer you'll still win games, and isn't that why we play this game? In this case, it shouldn't be a case of you winning every game just because you play Sage of Hours, that's where a deck has jumped the shark and you've taken a lot of the challenge of piloting the deck out of it for yourself (at least, that's the vibe I'm getting from this post anyway). It should be a case of 'yes I have a great deck, but it takes some skill to pilot and I'm equal to the task, and that is why I win games. That's what I aim for anyway.

We all came into the competition with the assumption that we're building sub-optimal decks - whether that's a budget restriction, intentional omission of certain cards or combos, building around a weak commander, or some other limitation - and part of the competition is feeling out how strong everyone else's decks are, and how good of a player they are. You aren't trying to beat the deck - unless you're playing cEDH - you're trying to beat the player. That's the goal, from the attempt of which the fun is derived. If they're misplaying on purpose, then the goal is meaningless, and the whole thing crumbles.

This, essentially. This is why we play this game.

[materpillar]

Why are deckbuilding compromises ok where intentional misplays are not? Partly because it's unavoidable in order to keep the format as varied and open as it is. If viable cEDH lists could be any color of the rainbow, then cEDH would probably be close the norm. Competition is a crucial element of the fun of the game, and for competition to work, it needs to feel genuine. We all came into the competition with the assumption that we're building sub-optimal decks - whether that's a budget restriction, intentional omission of certain cards or combos, building around a weak commander, or some other limitation - and part of the competition is feeling out how strong everyone else's decks are, and how good of a player they are. You aren't trying to beat the deck - unless you're playing cEDH - you're trying to beat the player. That's the goal, from the attempt of which the fun is derived. If they're misplaying on purpose, then the goal is meaningless, and the whole thing crumbles.

I'm kind of struggling to put my thoughts into coherent words. Maybe someone else can explain it better. I'll try to put more thought into it.

So, I reflected over this through my shift, my slow cooker prep, and through a lengthy conversation over Discord with a close friend. And really, the shining point that stood out was a comparison to Timetwister. This card is legal, so that means (barring price obv) we should all play it, and if we don't does that mean we're being ethically dishonest about our decks? No, that's absurd. It's not right for our deck and what we're wanting to do, so it's not in the deck. And you can apply this to any card you're looking at, in my case I'll use Sage of Hours since that's the hot topic right now. Yeah, I can take infinite turns relatively easily with an untap on Kraj. Sure, okay, but by removing this is it really limiting anything? It's a win con. Just like the loops with Kraj, an untap, and Trike. Or Arcanis/Cryptologist/Archivist loops. Any of these is going to lead to the same net result of being a win con. In reality. having Sage with these other interactions is just win more, since if you have a win...why do you need another win? Just win already. The real meat and potatoes of the deck, when you break it down for analysis, is the ability to generate untaps, and if those untaps can at least retain mana parity or heaven forbid actually net you mana, that's where things get crazy. This whole situation was spawned by an iteration that suddenly saw me take all the turns. That's when it turned around from huge value-centric plays and strong synergy...that's where it broke.

I find taking everything to their logical extreme to be a valuable way to process things, somewhat like you're doing here. In this case the extreme would be if a new player sits down at your table with an unmodified pre-con, is it ethically dishonest to sit down opposite of them with anything less than cEDH sushi-hulk (or whatever the Tier 1 deck exists now)? Obviously in this case you shouldn't go as hard as possible. How much should you handicap yourself? The most extreme deckbuilding handicap I can think of is Haakon, Stromgald Scourge + 99 swamps. That'd result in an even worse game. The that means the answer for the balance between optimizing your deck vs handicapping your deck is somewhere in the middle and that middle ground will depend on you and your playgroup. It appears you've stumbled upon a situation where you passed the upper limit of appropriate powerlevel for your LGS.

The meta-game in my area leans more heavily towards casual battlecruiser. With that in mind a rule of thumb that I've found is if one player at the table is drawing more cards or is generating more mana than the rest of the table combined the game isn't really going to be a fun one.

I think I'm rambling on a tangent here so I'll try to get back on the rails. Kraj will keep doing Kraj things, and if I hit something that's offending, it's OK to remove the offending piece. It's not ethically dishonest as I had believed because that interaction was never intended to be a part of the deck. It's just being a responsible builder and saying "Whoa, I don't like the way that worked", which is what I should have figured out when I made this thread. Idk, this has been a long week and I just hit my sixth consecutive day. Anyway, materpillar is right, the correct response here, since I still do enjoy creating all the activated abilities and playing the deck, is to remove the Sage and reboot the deck akin to what you do on a PC when you get a bad Windows update.

It's strange to tell someone that they're wrong on the internet and have that statement spark an interesting conversation instead of pure rage. I'm super impressed by the amount of thought you've displayed in this thread.

I just looked over your older decklist, I'm not sure what your updated version looks like exactly. I had a couple thoughts other than my original advice of murder Sage of Hours as that card might be more of a symptom than the cause. Could you post an updated list in your Kraj thread? I'd be curious to take a peak.

I've also found that an elimination of tutors makes assembling a doomsday machine to be massively more difficult and inconsistent. Thus it feels a lot more fair to your opponents if you do get it off the ground. I noticed you were running Fauna Shaman, Birthing Pod and Prime Speaker Vannifar. In the screen shot you posted you also have Survival of the Fittest and Neoform. What do you use these cards for? Do you just use these to find an infinite combo enabler every time? If that's what you're doing, it isn't overly surprising that you're not doing wacky fun stuff anymore. Instead of putting together strange new combos every game, you're just tutoring for the same old combo every game. I can see how that would drain the fun out of the deck too. You might be able to leave the infinite combos in and just cut the tutors instead. From what I can tell your infinite combos are always 3 cards creature combos that require your general to untap and get stopped with Doom blade which don't sound particularly oppressive to me.

Another thought I have is you could lower your amount of protection for your combo by cutting stuff like Mizzium Skin. That way it is easier for your opponents to meaningfully interact and disrupt it. That would make actually pulling it off way more satisfying for yourself and less frustrating for your opponents since they'd have had more agency.

[DirkGently]

So, amusingly, I think this just happened to me a little bit. I've been tinkering with my Zirilan of the Claw list pretty seriously, doing a real deep dive. One of the cards I've always meant to grab for the deck but never got around to has been flameshadow conjuring. I used to run minion reflector, which always felt a bit clunky, but flameshadow looks like it cuts the mana costs just enough to be great. I also wanted to increase the number of dragons (current build only runs 9), so I've been seriously considering adding worldgorger dragon as a way to protect my stuff and "perm" my dragons.

And suddenly I realized that WGD goes infinite (mana and etb effects) with flameshadow conjuring. Minion reflector too, and that could be tutored via hoarding dragon (which obviously zirilan can tutor, provided he has a sac outlet or a chump block).

So...crap. Zirilan is not a deck I've ever felt the need to restrain myself with, since he's never really been excessively strong. But if I don't restrain myself here, it's going to mean the right play every time I get FSC is to combo win with WGD, and if I really wanted to build to the max, I'd include minion reflector as well and have a literal 1-card-combo in the command zone.

I definitely don't see there being any ethical reason not to restrain deckbuilding, but it is a little bit sad to have to hold yourself back. I do think it's fun to be totally unbridled in your pursuit of maximum power...within a sufficiently limited sphere, which I thought Zirilan was. I was really enjoying trying to min-max the crap out of this deck, and now that seems kind of pointless since I know the true max is probably deeply unfun.

I know the thread has kind of progressed past this point, but I thought it was interesting. I've often built restrictions into my flex decks, but of my three perm decks, Zirilan, Phelddagrif, and Kaervek, this is the first time in 10 years I've felt the need to restrain myself. Weird timing.

[3drinks]

I find taking everything to their logical extreme to be a valuable way to process things, somewhat like you're doing here. In this case the extreme would be if a new player sits down at your table with an unmodified pre-con, is it ethically dishonest to sit down opposite of them with anything less than cEDH sushi-hulk (or whatever the Tier 1 deck exists now)? Obviously in this case you shouldn't go as hard as possible. How much should you handicap yourself? The most extreme deckbuilding handicap I can think of is Haakon, Stromgald Scourge + 99 swamps. That'd result in an even worse game. The that means the answer for the balance between optimizing your deck vs handicapping your deck is somewhere in the middle and that middle ground will depend on you and your playgroup. It appears you've stumbled upon a situation where you passed the upper limit of appropriate powerlevel for your LGS.

The meta-game in my area leans more heavily towards casual battlecruiser. With that in mind a rule of thumb that I've found is if one player at the table is drawing more cards or is generating more mana than the rest of the table combined the game isn't really going to be a fun one.

It's hard, on modo. You'll join games that quite often look like cards scrapped together off a free card bot and the guy with the foiled out Edric flying men deck, and it can be maddening to see yourself take that heat when there's a pubstomper sitting to your left. In person, I'm renown enough (that happens when you bring a modern commander deck to a modern FNM - and put a Fish player on tilt because they didn't know Wildfire was a legal card), that people know what you're getting with me. I'm gonna play Kari Zev, and I'm probably going to drop a Ruination at some point. But never have I ever tried the weird final fortune combo deck with sundial of the infinite...though that'd be a fascinating deck with threaten effects, if my understanding is correct. I digress.

It's strange to tell someone that they're wrong on the internet and have that statement spark an interesting conversation instead of pure rage. I'm super impressed by the amount of thought you've displayed in this thread.

I just looked over your older decklist, I'm not sure what your updated version looks like exactly. I had a couple thoughts other than my original advice of murder Sage of Hours as that card might be more of a symptom than the cause. Could you post an updated list in your Kraj thread? I'd be curious to take a peak.

I've also found that an elimination of tutors makes assembling a doomsday machine to be massively more difficult and inconsistent. Thus it feels a lot more fair to your opponents if you do get it off the ground. I noticed you were running Fauna Shaman, Birthing Pod and Prime Speaker Vannifar. In the screen shot you posted you also have Survival of the Fittest and Neoform. What do you use these cards for? Do you just use these to find an infinite combo enabler every time? If that's what you're doing, it isn't overly surprising that you're not doing wacky fun stuff anymore. Instead of putting together strange new combos every game, you're just tutoring for the same old combo every game. I can see how that would drain the fun out of the deck too. You might be able to leave the infinite combos in and just cut the tutors instead. From what I can tell your infinite combos are always 3 cards creature combos that require your general to untap and get stopped with Doom blade which don't sound particularly oppressive to me.

Another thought I have is you could lower your amount of protection for your combo by cutting stuff like Mizzium Skin. That way it is easier for your opponents to meaningfully interact and disrupt it. That would make actually pulling it off way more satisfying for yourself and less frustrating for your opponents since they'd have had more agency.

So, I've just woke an hour ago, pleasantly surprised to see the thoughtful interactions in this thread. Here's the most recent list, fresh pulled from modo.

So, right, Prime Speaker is used to give Kraj Birthing Pod powers, multiple times because I have an untap with him. I find them somewhat awkward since I don't go too far up the chain (typically a five drop is where it ends, though if I can win, I can pod something into Arcanis/Trike). I find Fauna/Survival stronger...obviously...although I guess, not strictly so. Neoform on the other hand is a brutal scalpel of efficiency, will have no issues trading a two drop for the Crab, or a mana dork for biomancer's familiar, or a wickerbough elder for morphling. It's crazy powerful...which should be a red flag, I'd imagine.

I don't really think you can cut the mizzium skin effects. It's the nature of a six drop commander, you need to have that protection so you don't just get time walked. Which by it's nature...makes the combo side that much harder to stop.

[3drinks]

So, amusingly, I think this just happened to me a little bit. I've been tinkering with my Zirilan of the Claw list pretty seriously, doing a real deep dive. One of the cards I've always meant to grab for the deck but never got around to has been flameshadow conjuring. I used to run minion reflector, which always felt a bit clunky, but flameshadow looks like it cuts the mana costs just enough to be great. I also wanted to increase the number of dragons (current build only runs 9), so I've been seriously considering adding worldgorger dragon as a way to protect my stuff and "perm" my dragons.

And suddenly I realized that WGD goes infinite (mana and etb effects) with flameshadow conjuring. Minion reflector too, and that could be tutored via hoarding dragon (which obviously zirilan can tutor, provided he has a sac outlet or a chump block).

So...crap. Zirilan is not a deck I've ever felt the need to restrain myself with, since he's never really been excessively strong. But if I don't restrain myself here, it's going to mean the right play every time I get FSC is to combo win with WGD, and if I really wanted to build to the max, I'd include minion reflector as well and have a literal 1-card-combo in the command zone.

I definitely don't see there being any ethical reason not to restrain deckbuilding, but it is a little bit sad to have to hold yourself back. I do think it's fun to be totally unbridled in your pursuit of maximum power...within a sufficiently limited sphere, which I thought Zirilan was. I was really enjoying trying to min-max the crap out of this deck, and now that seems kind of pointless since I know the true max is probably deeply unfun.

I know the thread has kind of progressed past this point, but I thought it was interesting. I've often built restrictions into my flex decks, but of my three perm decks, Zirilan, Phelddagrif, and Kaervek, this is the first time in 10 years I've felt the need to restrain myself. Weird timing.

So, two things.

1) I'm not seeing the combo with WGD & FSC. Isn't this slow combo because of the timing? Play WGD, stack triggers to put the exile on top of the clone, float a R, everything gone then clone trigger resolves which will exile the real copy and bring everything back. Clone doesn't die until end step. I have to be missing something.

2) The pursuit of max power in a scope is totally a wonderful feeling. That's why I chose Korvold for the WB approach. We all know how powerful he is, I wanted to see what I could do with that in such a limited WB shell...and I STILL locked down a table with a grave pact and hell's caretaker. Wildfire plus him just wins (draw4+, grow dragon huge, take everyone's mana away).

Isn't it fascinating how the game has evolved to this point? Almost everything goes off with everything, old cards suddenly breakable with new stuff. But we still have to police ourselves because people are still playing precon level garbage and social ostracization is a thing...that I hate, but I don't know how to fix it.

[DirkGently]

So, two things.

1) I'm not seeing the combo with WGD & FSC. Isn't this slow combo because of the timing? Play WGD, stack triggers to put the exile on top of the clone, float a R, everything gone then clone trigger resolves which will exile the real copy and bring everything back. Clone doesn't die until end step. I have to be missing something.

2) The pursuit of max power in a scope is totally a wonderful feeling. That's why I chose Korvold for the WB approach. We all know how powerful he is, I wanted to see what I could do with that in such a limited WB shell...and I STILL locked down a table with a grave pact and hell's caretaker. Wildfire plus him just wins (draw4+, grow dragon huge, take everyone's mana away).

Isn't it fascinating how the game has evolved to this point? Almost everything goes off with everything, old cards suddenly breakable with new stuff. But we still have to police ourselves because people are still playing precon level garbage and social ostracization is a thing...that I hate, but I don't know how to fix it.

1) you missed two things:
-the obvious thing (maybe you did notice it?) is that Zirilan is pulling WGD into play. So it's 3 mana, and it's instant-speed if desired. Although ofc that requires playing Zirilan for 5 first. But the deck is chock full of ramp. A strong but not totally unlikely start would be T1 sol ring/crypt, T2 FSC, Turn 3 Zirilan, Turn 4 win (depending on hand). A medium start would be T2 rock, T3 FSC, T4 Zirilan, T5 win.
-the slightly less obvious thing is that you stacked the triggers in the wrong order. Resolve the FSC trigger first, make the token. All your stuff gets exiled to the token, including WGD. Original WGD trigger returns everything it exiled to the board, which is nothing. Then the original WGD trigger to exile everything resolves, exiling the token. The token WGD triggers and and returns everything to the board, including original WGD, which triggers FSC. Rinse and repeat for infinite etb and untaps.

2) I don't consider Phelddagrif or Kaervek to have pulled any punches in their construction, except for in the initial concept. In Phelddagrif's case, it's a pretty powerful concept, too, though hard to balance. It's naturally self-limiting because it only works when you're not the big threat.

3) Honestly it's a mixed bag. Some people are playing very basic stuff, but a lot of people are playing stuff that's pretty powerful and, imo, often unfun to play against - usually in the category of very myopic and inwardly focused builds that rarely interact with enemies and are only trying to put together their combo wombo board state to win, which can diminish the fun of the game a lot to me. But then there are still plenty of good games too. And it's not like I don't still win way more than my fair share. So idk.

Either way, there's not much (paper) magic happening right now.

[materpillar]

It's hard, on modo. You'll join games that quite often look like cards scrapped together off a free card bot and the guy with the foiled out Edric flying men deck, and it can be maddening to see yourself take that heat when there's a pubstomper sitting to your left. In person, I'm renown enough (that happens when you bring a modern commander deck to a modern FNM - and put a Fish player on tilt because they didn't know Wildfire was a legal card), that people know what you're getting with me. I'm gonna play Kari Zev, and I'm probably going to drop a Ruination at some point. But never have I ever tried the weird final fortune combo deck with sundial of the infinite...though that'd be a fascinating deck with threaten effects, if my understanding is correct. I digress.

Wait you played a modern legal commander deck in a modern FNM? Then, wildfired a fish player? That's... that's amazing.

So, I've just woke an hour ago, pleasantly surprised to see the thoughtful interactions in this thread. Here's the most recent list, fresh pulled from modo.

In your original list you can go infinite with Experiment Kraj, Devoted Druid/Bird's of Paradise+untapper and Illusionist's Bracers and you have no way to tutor for Bracers. That's going to be fairly rare and easily preventable with a shatter (since you have way less hexproof stuff for that artifact than your creatures). So your wincon is going to be some weird amalgamation of untap abuse synergy stuff for the most part.

When you updated your list you cut a fair amount of cuteness and added Gyre Sage/Incubation Druid/Krosan Restorer/Marwyn, the Nurturer/Viridian Joiner + Pili-Pala/Vigean Graftmage for infinite combos.

Then Sage of Hours goes infinite with a massive portion of your deck. I'm sure Wirewood Symbiote has a handful of infinite combos. Illusionist's Bracers went from going infinite with two mana dorks to 4 mana dorks. Then, you have Fauna Shaman, Survival of the Fittest, Green Sun's Zenith, and Neoform which can assemble whatever part of those combos you haven't drawn.

I don't really understand the point of Biomancer's Familiar and Training Grounds. Glancing through your list it looks like their primary purpose is just make Pili-Pala go infinite?

You went from two awkward 3/4 card combos that both rely on a single card you can't tutor for up to at least 10 different cards that all are part of some infinite combo or another (many of which overlap heavily), all of which can be tutored for. I can't really look through this decklist without accidentally tripping over new ways to go infinite. I can see why you think this deck is so very different, its play-style isn't even remotely close to your last iteration.

[3drinks]

1) you missed two things:
-the obvious thing (maybe you did notice it?) is that Zirilan is pulling WGD into play. So it's 3 mana, and it's instant-speed if desired. Although ofc that requires playing Zirilan for 5 first. But the deck is chock full of ramp. A strong but not totally unlikely start would be T1 sol ring/crypt, T2 FSC, Turn 3 Zirilan, Turn 4 win (depending on hand). A medium start would be T2 rock, T3 FSC, T4 Zirilan, T5 win.
-the slightly less obvious thing is that you stacked the triggers in the wrong order. Resolve the FSC trigger first, make the token. All your stuff gets exiled to the token, including WGD. Original WGD trigger returns everything it exiled to the board, which is nothing. Then the original WGD trigger to exile everything resolves, exiling the token. The token WGD triggers and and returns everything to the board, including original WGD, which triggers FSC. Rinse and repeat for infinite etb and untaps.

I had a feeling I was gonna mis-stack the triggers. Wouldn't be the first time.

Wait you played a modern legal commander deck in a modern FNM? Then, wildfired a fish player? That's... that's amazing.

I did. Latre that same night I was against some WB Death & Taxes brew with Athreos and Thalias, and I blew them out with their return triggers on the stack via Rakdos Charm. The wildfire play was actually blind. It was g3, he's got two guys and a mutavault on board and I'm dead next turn. I've got a Liliana on 5 and Ajani V on 4. My hand is garbage, and this guy has been smug all match at the audacity that I'd built Zurgo Helmsmasher modern legal commander (with a 15 card one of sideboard) and here he was in g3 with it. Anyway, blind ripped Wildfire and windmilled it, he table flipped and raged out, forgot his deck as he left. I had drawn quite the crowd, and that's how I became a bit of a local Magic celebrity there. It's definitely aged a lot, and not well, but you can see what I played then, here.

With a rip like that, you'd think I was Gabriel Nassif or something

In your original list you can go infinite with Experiment Kraj, Devoted Druid/Bird's of Paradise+untapper and Illusionist's Bracers and you have no way to tutor for Bracers. That's going to be fairly rare and easily preventable with a shatter (since you have way less hexproof stuff for that artifact than your creatures). So your wincon is going to be some weird amalgamation of untap abuse synergy stuff for the most part.

When you updated your list you cut a fair amount of cuteness and added Gyre Sage/Incubation Druid/Krosan Restorer/Marwyn, the Nurturer/Viridian Joiner + Pili-Pala/Vigean Graftmage for infinite combos.

Then Sage of Hours goes infinite with a massive portion of your deck. I'm sure Wirewood Symbiote has a handful of infinite combos. Illusionist's Bracers went from going infinite with two mana dorks to at for different 4 mana dorks. Then, you have Fauna Shaman, Survival of the Fittest, Green Sun's Zenith, and Neoform which can assemble whatever part of what half of those combos you haven't drawn.

I don't really understand the point of Biomancer's Familiar and Training Grounds. Glancing through your list it looks like their primary purpose is just make Pili-Pala go infinite?

You went from two awkward 3/4 card combos that both rely on a single card you can't tutor for up to at least 10 different cards that all are part of some infinite combo or another (many of which overlap heavily), all of which can be tutored for. I can't really look through this decklist without accidentally tripping over new ways to go infinite. I can see why you think this deck is so very different, its play-style isn't even remotely close to your last iteration.

Yes, when I did the $20 update, my focus was on generating more untaps and reducing the costs of untaps to Crab levels. I wanted one mana costs so that I could use Kraj as many times/turn. That's why I got the familiar and the grounds, which also made it easier to use frogling and other two mana protectours. Symbiote also features as a cheap untap engine, and since I have some small elf synergies anyway (such as frilled mystic), it became the only natural 0 cost untap. I never even intend to use Marwyn/Joiner much at all, but they let Kraj tap for GGGG, which makes for some easy infinite mana setups. A freakin witch engine without the drawback.

This is a valuabale case-study to examine. It shows just why the Q effect is busted and never should have been created. Untapping is super powerful. It changes things.