40 Life in EDH

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Post by Cyberium » 3 years ago

I recall we have a member of RC who frequents this site. What is his opinion on 30 starting life? As for RC themselves?

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Post by onering » 3 years ago

DirkGently wrote:
3 years ago
onering wrote:
3 years ago
And this is where we get to the rub.

When proposing a change, the onus is on the proponent to make the case that the change will be beneficial. It seems that, when pressed, the best we can muster for lower life totals is that we'd either be replacing one boogeyman with another, or the same boogeyman will continue to reign. The long term benefit is theoretically that aggro decks will have a shot without being overpowered or just knocking people out early then puttering out, while combo and control and ramp would be reigned in. But it seems that its pretty easy to poke holes in that from both sides. Purphoros is just one card, just one deck, but it illustrates this wonderfully. I and Pokken worry about how miserable Purph would be at 30 life, and you counter with him not being that bad lately because other strategies have gotten that much more powerful, and that this would still be the case at 30 life. We can't know whose assessment is correct without plenty of testing across several metas, but it doesn't really matter as BOTH conclusions point to a problem. Either Pokken and I are right and Purphoros is as bad as is feared at 30 life, which makes an argument that lowering the starting life would cause negative consequences, or you are right and even at 30 life Purph wouldn't stand up to the more powerful strategies that are handling him now and would continue to do so even at 30 life, which makes an argument that one of the biggest potential benefits cited by lower life total proponents, reigning in combo and control and ha ha Golos go brrrrrr, won't materialize. We're left with either the change creating new monsters or failing to slay the old ones, and quite possibly both (maybe Purph and similar cannot overcome the more powerful modern strategies even at 30 life, but they CAN become an even bigger problem for more moderately powered strategies). For the change to be worth it, it would need to result in Purphoros, or aggro and midrange more generally, being able to reign in combo ramp and control without becoming problems themselves. Fail to solve the current problems, then the change wasn't worth it, create new problems, its the same thing. Ramp into Golos sucks. Fast combo sucks. Torrent of Hailfire and Purph needing to eat 10 fewer life would also suck.

The comparison to Panoptic Mirror is good, but flawed. I think your right that the same sort of overreaction is a danger both with testing a mirror unban and a lower life total. The reason its flawed is that with mirror, we can logically predict the long term outcome of an unban, while we cannot with a lower life total. And I do mean logically. If Mirror + Xtra Terns is a 2 card combo that wins the game, and the purpose of 2 card combos that win the games is to win quickly and efficiently, then if a quicker and more efficient 2 card combo that wins the game exists in those colors, then players will choose that alternative 2 card combo over Mirror. Quicker, more efficient 2 card combos that win the game exist in mono blue, thus the players who want to play 2 card mono blue combos that win the game will choose options other than Mirror. Other considerations would have to come into play to cause people to pick a Mirror combo instead, despite it being more easily answered and less efficient than other options. Novelty of playing a recently unbanned card would be one, and would likely be considerable early after unbanning. Attempting more esoteric combos with non extra turn spells imprinted on Mirror would be another. Simply choosing Mirror for the win con BECAUSE it is less powerful and more easily answered is another, for players who may be seeking to slightly power down their deck for whatever reason. In any case, the long term result would very likely be that Mirror being unbanned would do little to alter the status quo. Indeed, Worldgorger Dragon presents a similar case. The biggest variable here is actually the non instant win applications of Mirror. and that isn't what we'd see be declared broken right out of the gate. With lowered life total though, that's far too chaotic to predict logically. You yourself have offered potential reactions that demonstrate this. Maybe people immediately try to push aggro and it becomes an aggro hellscape because every game features 2-3 aggro decks zerg rushing everyone else, but then we'd see a reaction of more cheap sweepers, more life gain, prison effects becoming more effective, more early interaction, more cheap creatures that can block even in control and combo, etc to even it out, or maybe some early adopters become bored of it. But maybe not many people want to dip their toe in at first, and those who do find themselves as the lone aggro deck and its still not good enough. Or maybe people hop in with Purphoros and Syr Konrad and similar effects right out of the gate and aggro never gets the love. Or, or, or, or, or. There's just too many variables that lead to too many potential outcomes, without any single one being particularly likely. And that brings me back around to the central problem. We have all these potential outcomes, with no real way of telling the most likely one, but looking at the potential outcomes shows only a few where changing the life total makes things better, a few where it makes things worse, and a whole bunch where the change is mixed and sort of evens out, a lateral change.

The obvious answer here is for several playgroups to do extensive testing, including the RC and CAG members playgroups, before making an official change. In the absence of this, no change is the best course of action. Stability is a virtue on its own. The format already gets a steady amount of change in the form of new card releases, so stagnation is only a moderate threat (and frankly the biggest driver is OP individual commanders). I'd say its a bigger threat at the highest power levels, but those are also the least likely to be impacted by a lower life total. When there is a likelihood that a change will be beneficial then the change must be made, but when there is serious reason to doubt that a change will be beneficial then either the change should not be made or it should be investigated until serious doubt is removed either way, then acted on accordingly.
Your argument seems to hinge on this idea that only extreme results are possible, and also that only one global meta exists.
Not at all. It hinges on the belief that if even Purphoros wouldn't be good enough to stand up to combo at 30 life, then the experiment is a failure. Because Purphoros is one of the decks most poised to benefit to an obnoxious degree from lowering the life total to 30, you would expect that if there is any appreciable positive effect at weakening combo, as you assert is a reason to lower the life totals, then your other assertion, that Purphoros would not be competitive with them at 30 life, either must not be true or must mean that lowering the life total will fail in its objective. You made two mutually exclusive assertions. I showed why they are mutually exclusive.
Purphoros might not be more powerful than combo, but he could still be better. Combo and control might still be the best archetypes, but they could still be reigned in. The idea that either there will be no substantive effect, or aggro will dominate, both seem ridiculous to me when the most likely result falls somewhere in the middle, which is the goal.
There is some truth to this, but it doesn't contradict what I said and is moving the goal posts. If Purphoros gets better, and combo and control get worse, but Purph still can't compete with them at 30 life, I consider that proof of a failure of lowering the life total to 30 achieving its stated goals. Its certainly in the middle of an aggro hellscape vs nothing changes, true, but its not living up to the purported reasons for lowering the life total. And I did account for this with the "both happen" scenario. Purphoros style decks become better, and more annoying than they already are, while still getting stomped by control and combo. The status quo is maintained in terms of archetype hierarchy, the more competitive metas will look the same, but a few strategies like Purphoros or Hoff become more powerful in lower power metas, where they are already quite powerful. The best case scenario to land in the middle is aggro gets a slight boost in power but otherwise everything stays the same, which frankly isn't worth making a major structural change.
And of course it will likely vary substantially meta to meta.
Obviously. As I said, it should be tested in dozens of metas at least before implemented, to account for this. That's the only way to get a picture of what the impact would be across metas. [/quote]
The life total change may push commanders like purphoros into the unpleasant range in slower metas, while having minimal impact on more competitive ones. But there's likely places in the middle where he's boosted into a relatively harmony with the power level of other archetypes.
and is that narrow band worth changing the rules for?
I'm not really sure why you got so into the weeds on the panoptic mirror analogy but it seems like you came out the other side with roughly the same argument I responded to above.
It was to agree while heading off a potential counter argument. Unlike Panoptic Mirror, the long term impact of lower life totals is unpredictable. The original comparison left open the argument that "Nah, here's what will happen long term with Panoptic Mirror, due to these logical reasons, thus my personal bias as to what would happen with a lower life total is equally certain."
As far as testing, unfortunately I think that's where we hit a bit of a dead end, because I think testing fairly would be extremely difficult. If I tested it, I know I'd be looking to prove that 30 life was good, and it seems like you'd be looking to prove that it's bad, so out of the gate it's likely to skew heavily towards our biases, or the biases of whoever is playing in those testing metas. Both in terms of which decks to test (people intentionally pushing aggro decks that are stronger than their meta, or intentionally holding back, depending on bias) and in terms of reporting (if I know commander players, if you lower the life total and then an aggro deck wins once, they're all going to say it's broken and overpowered, because they already do that when I play aggro decks at 40 life and win - and those aren't even symmetrical purphoros-style aggro decks, just good old fashioned beatdown like gallia and sylvia/khorvath).

And that assumes we've actually got metas willing to try such an experiment - I think I'd have a pretty difficult time testing it at my LGS for even one game, let alone repeatedly for long enough to get a useful result.

So unless the RC does actual testing with their far greater reach than any one player, I think the change will likely remain theoretical. BUT I think it's worth having the discussion in case members of the RC read this and decide to put some resources into it.
It would have to fall to the RC and CAG. They all have their own local playgroups, and would be able to create a decent sample based on that, and would have the authority to get their play groups to experiment. They would also have better luck recruiting other playgroups to test as well. Its one thing for forum randos to try to test, its another when its coming from on high. And obviously, it would require the RC and CAG to actually want to try it out.

As for my own playgroup, I think we'd do ok at 30 life. We had one guy that was "that guy" once with an infect deck, and over committed to take one guy out turn 4, then twiddled his thumbs for two hours. He still runs aggro most of the time, but he doesn't make the same mistake. Online, I wouldn't have the ability to even test it, since the option to change life totals was removed.

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Post by Magiqmaster » 3 years ago

I'm sure you are aware of this, but Sheldon has said many times that the life total isn't something they are willing to change, so I bet we won't see any modification in the foreseable future. Just like regular magic and its 20 life count, both formats will remain as they are for a while.

As some persons mentioned, though, there is nothing stopping you from trying out lower life totals in your playgroup and see how things evolve from there on. However, it might be difficult to convince some players to modify their decks according to the new change. Is anyone here willing to try this?

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Post by Candlemane » 3 years ago

ISBPathfinder wrote:
3 years ago
Candlemane wrote:
3 years ago
After reading the rest of the post, I'm going to say I'm fine with the way things are.

Aggro in the straight forward, early curve smash a face is hard to come by and win, sure. However, it's not impossible, and newer cards like Winota, Subira and possibly Radha can do it. Who remembers Edgar Markov? It's not "straight, classical" aggro, but it's Commander Aggro. Maybe it's the way I prefer to play, but I'm always down for punching someone (metaphorically) if I can get away with it, even with a Mother of Runes.

Aggro can/will be stopped by the same cards it always has been. I don't think changing the life total ten points down is going to do much for Aggro being the way I described above. Better cards have been made for it. Maybe, Aggro in Commander is closer to turn 6-8 for some metas. Maybe it's just slower than other formats. I'm fine with that.

I think this is more a discussion between play groups, metas therein, and available cards to each player because that will be a factor for a successful deck compared to others.
Curving staring health makes the aggro decks get there sooner. It means you have less time to set up and ignore them. Most of those decks you mentioned have a lot of ways they can be interacted with and stopped but for the most part, people have so much starting health that they don't opt to run cheaper sweepers, lower curve, and less 6+ drops because they have so much cushion with their starting life total.

Lowering starting life total lowers the clock time that it will take for them to kill you and forces players to respect the clock that much more. It makes it harder to get away with greedy ramp decks and it gives a smaller window for combo decks to assemble their wincons.

I don't think it would change much in top end magic, but it might make combo, ramp, and control be forced to move faster and or respect the aggro player a bit more. Right now aggro is very far down on the totem poll for commander playability across all levels of competition and the biggest issue tends to be the amount of health you have to go through.

If you ask me, this question is a question of casual vs competitive. From a casual perspective the starting life is fine and healthy but even looking towards 75% deckbuilding 40 life is really punishing for aggro. When you get to CEDH, I am not convinced that lowering life to 30 will really make much difference in what will be popular but it goes from a standpoint of aggro not being even in the realm of playable to maybe disadvantaged.
Well, I play casually, so for me it's fine I guess :D I only ever play for some packs otherwise. It's just so hard to argue these things across a spectrum, and I'll agree with the casual v competitive, though I'll use that to point to my arguments within the main one. Yore-tiller does just fine, but I'm not sure what 75% ever was/is, so I just avoid obvious high powered boring poop and play with what I want otherwise.

In more relation to the spectrum of jank to cutthroat (casual v competitive), I just don't think a fit all answer would work. See if you playgroup(s) will try it for a while, if you have people who are willing. One of my groups has a Commander life total combined into one 21 number for every commander, not one for each, and our regular games are 6+ players. It's worked great for years. Never an issue. We try new stuff on occasion as well, but we vote for trying it out. (1 beats a 20 on a D20, Snake eyes beats 12 on two D6 as well).
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Post by ISBPathfinder » 3 years ago

Candlemane wrote:
3 years ago
Well, I play casually, so for me it's fine I guess :D I only ever play for some packs otherwise. It's just so hard to argue these things across a spectrum, and I'll agree with the casual v competitive, though I'll use that to point to my arguments within the main one. Yore-tiller does just fine, but I'm not sure what 75% ever was/is, so I just avoid obvious high powered boring poop and play with what I want otherwise.

In more relation to the spectrum of jank to cutthroat (casual v competitive), I just don't think a fit all answer would work. See if you playgroup(s) will try it for a while, if you have people who are willing. One of my groups has a Commander life total combined into one 21 number for every commander, not one for each, and our regular games are 6+ players. It's worked great for years. Never an issue. We try new stuff on occasion as well, but we vote for trying it out. (1 beats a 20 on a D20, Snake eyes beats 12 on two D6 as well).
75% is a term that often means that its tuned non combo or a combo deck that isn't tuned or using tutors. Its hard to get an exact explanation of it but on the higher end its fast and efficiently tuned decks that might put additional limitations on themselves beyond just the banned list exclusively. cEDH is usually the term for competitive commander which tends to literally be play anything that isn't banned and win as fast as you can. In a lot of cases 75% decks will be non combo / stax / stasis / land destruction sort of metas that otherwise have tuned up to be fast.

Generally speaking a 75% deck can still be a fast deck, but often they are considered to use less degenerate wincons (and by that often slower ones). 75% lists tend to have some level of social contract considerations (the idea of our meta doesn't like land destruction so we don't do it sort of things) in addition to the banned list but are otherwise utilizing a tuned list.

I agree that the starting life total isn't an issue from a casual standpoint. It is in a healthy place even. The issue tends to be as lists get more competitive and tuned. There is an argument that "the game has to end somehow" that is used to defend some of the big 8+ mana lame wincons in this game that I suspect would see less action if we didn't give players as much wiggle room to sit back and ramp into them.
Magiqmaster wrote:
3 years ago
I'm sure you are aware of this, but Sheldon has said many times that the life total isn't something they are willing to change, so I bet we won't see any modification in the foreseable future. Just like regular magic and its 20 life count, both formats will remain as they are for a while.

As some persons mentioned, though, there is nothing stopping you from trying out lower life totals in your playgroup and see how things evolve from there on. However, it might be difficult to convince some players to modify their decks according to the new change. Is anyone here willing to try this?
Meta changes to the banned list are incredibly hard to get people to agree to and very challenging to maintain assuming you have any level of change of players in your meta. When someone new comes in and you go to explain the rules changes that said meta plays its usually rather offputting as a new player. Its usually much healthier to play strict commander banned list and try to convince the RC to change the format even though said task is incredibly difficult.

I know the RC has said for years how it encourages local changes. I have rarely seen them work and they are really not welcoming to new players who might not have had a say in said rule changes. Probably six years back an old meta of mine changed to allow hybrid mana as either color. It actually worked just fine but literally everyone new to the meta was like, thats illegal. It was SUPER awkward to the point that I was shamed into just not doing it anymore.

To this day, regardless of how much I might disagree with any rule I just play strictly by the rules because its hard to maintain any level of changes in a meta. Suggesting for a game or two might be one thing but getting local meta changes are not a great idea if you ask me.
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Post by DirkGently » 3 years ago

onering wrote:
3 years ago
Not at all. It hinges on the belief that if even Purphoros wouldn't be good enough to stand up to combo at 30 life, then the experiment is a failure. Because Purphoros is one of the decks most poised to benefit to an obnoxious degree from lowering the life total to 30, you would expect that if there is any appreciable positive effect at weakening combo, as you assert is a reason to lower the life totals, then your other assertion, that Purphoros would not be competitive with them at 30 life, either must not be true or must mean that lowering the life total will fail in its objective. You made two mutually exclusive assertions. I showed why they are mutually exclusive.
That you would even suggest that there could be an answer to the question "does 30 life mean purphoros can stand up to combo decks" shows you aren't paying attention. Which purphoros deck? Stand up to which combo decks? In what meta? How often is often enough to "stand up"?

Will he stand up to food chain in a cEDH meta? Probably not for any reasonable definition. Will he stand up to 4-station zero-tutor combo in a super casual meta? He probably already wins that matchup most of the time. But the vast majority of playgroups, in my experience, fall in the middle of those extremes, where it will boost his win% - in some cases boost it to where he's better than the local combo deck, in some cases boost it to where he's still worse, but less worse.

Purphoros I think is among the more likely aggro-ish decks to get out of hand with a lower life meta, but I don't think it's the best to rein in a combo deck, not by a long shot. He's good at dealing 120 damage to the table (or 90) but he's garbage at dealing 40 (or 30) damage to one person, which is usually the best way to deal with a combo deck.
There is some truth to this, but it doesn't contradict what I said and is moving the goal posts. If Purphoros gets better, and combo and control get worse, but Purph still can't compete with them at 30 life, I consider that proof of a failure of lowering the life total to 30 achieving its stated goals. Its certainly in the middle of an aggro hellscape vs nothing changes, true, but its not living up to the purported reasons for lowering the life total. And I did account for this with the "both happen" scenario. Purphoros style decks become better, and more annoying than they already are, while still getting stomped by control and combo. The status quo is maintained in terms of archetype hierarchy, the more competitive metas will look the same, but a few strategies like Purphoros or Hoff become more powerful in lower power metas, where they are already quite powerful. The best case scenario to land in the middle is aggro gets a slight boost in power but otherwise everything stays the same, which frankly isn't worth making a major structural change.
Ok, again, there isn't an answer to the question of "can purphoros compete with combo" outside of some specific meta and circumstance (at which point the question is no longer useful because there is no global meta).

And, again, purphoros is not a good deck to kill combo anyway. Besides being symmetrical, he's also mono-red so lacks the combo disruption available to RG, RW, or even RB aggro commanders that could give them time to close the deal, and needs a high density of token production since he doesn't do anything significant unless you keep making creatures. Purphoros is the aggro version of the dumb, all-in combo deck with 50 tutors and no interaction.

The reason to lower the life total is because aggro is by far the weakest real archetype and 30 life can help bring it closer - not all the way, but closer - in line with the power level of other archetypes. And to cut down on the "necessity" of running combo finishers in otherwise non-combo decks. No idea where you think the goalposts were or are. Idk where your line for "worth making a major structural change" is, but I don't think it would actually upset the balance all that much. I doubt any of my decks would change substantially. Though I might be more inclined to try aggro decks more often in the future.

Idk what hoff is. Craterhoof? I think it's weird people are bringing up hoof since slower wincons like hoof I think are likely to get worse, or maybe stay the same. Lemme tell you, craterhoof is a lot less good in 20 life formats.
And since it scales exponentially (pretty sure that's the wrong word but it's close enough, I haven't taken a math class in a long time) the difference between lethal at 30 vs 40 life is only 1-2 creatures.
and is that narrow band worth changing the rules for?
I think that "narrow band" is "90% of commander metas",

So yes.

Plus I doubt it'll have a negative impact on high powered metas - a small impact is fine. At least necro will be less busted.
It was to agree while heading off a potential counter argument. Unlike Panoptic Mirror, the long term impact of lower life totals is unpredictable. The original comparison left open the argument that "Nah, here's what will happen long term with Panoptic Mirror, due to these logical reasons, thus my personal bias as to what would happen with a lower life total is equally certain."
I don't think the results of either change would be certain. Though ofc the life total change would be likely be much higher impact.

My only point with the mirror comparison was to illustrate that the short term effects would not necessarily be a good indicator of the long term ones.
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Post by Mimicvat » 3 years ago

Firmly in the 30 life camp, though the main arguments re; ramp, combo, multiple players etc have already been stated. I'll add in my 2c that adding Monarch to the game also has a similar effect in that it strongly supports decks that can get and maintain an early board presence.
DirkGently wrote:
3 years ago
Commander's "aggro" decks are just midrange decks. True aggro doesn't exist (outside of 1v1).
I wholeheartedly agree with what you've posted in this thread aside from this one section. A friend of mine has multiple aggro decks. Drana and Iroas, filled with 1 and 2 drops maybe curving to a five drop multi-combat spell at most. As well as a Goreclaw thats either aggro or low curve midrange. These decks exist and they can work, at least at our power level (tuned but not really combo).
TheAmericanSpirit wrote:
3 years ago
What we really need is data. Like 1500 games with lots of varied participants with equally varied cardpools. With that, we could analyze deckbuilding trends, mean turn counts, P values, all the good stuff, etc and get some %$#%$#% answers. But that's a lot of work, right, so I suppose we'll just beat around this perennial bush until something more entertaining/controversial hits the forum.
Pretty sure the RC doesn't use this for ban decisions, or for the various command zone rules changes they've implemented. For them, anecdotal data from many users was enough, so I'm in the camp that it's enough for a life change too.
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Post by TheAmericanSpirit » 3 years ago

Mimicvat wrote:
3 years ago
TheAmericanSpirit wrote:
3 years ago
What we really need is data. Like 1500 games with lots of varied participants with equally varied cardpools. With that, we could analyze deckbuilding trends, mean turn counts, P values, all the good stuff, etc and get some %$#%$#% answers. But that's a lot of work, right, so I suppose we'll just beat around this perennial bush until something more entertaining/controversial hits the forum.
Pretty sure the RC doesn't use this for ban decisions, or for the various command zone rules changes they've implemented. For them, anecdotal data from many users was enough, so I'm in the camp that it's enough for a life change too.
Yes, but the RC is also fairly conservative and they have also previously stated having no intention to modify life totals. I also highly doubt they operate independently of all statistics and just off some gut instinct, e.g. the recent flash ban, which was occupying a disproportionate PERCENTAGE of that meta. So your appeal to authority is fairly flaccid there.

Futhermore, you failed to dispute that the hard data we lack can provide the answers to the questions we've posed. Hard data actually tells us things from which we can infer conclusions, throwing anecdotes around is just spinning wheels to no avail. I can't imagine why you'd prefer to make major changes in a state of collective ignorance than actually, you know, learn something from the potential experiment.
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Post by materpillar » 3 years ago

Ew ew ew ew ew. Keep a 30 starting life miles away from me. I don't viable "true" aggro decks. Yuck.

I excursively play EDH and sealed/draft. I have an immense burning distaste for any constructed format, shifting commander to be closer to constructed gets a hard no from me.

A good way to explain this is to look at my interactions with drafting. I have even found the streamlining and shifting of draft the past few years to be fairly distasteful. I've noticed more and more draft formats recently have been exceptionally punishing on your curve. The way I think of this is often times more recent sets have become "if you stumble and miss your three drop you immediately die." A good litmus test for how much I like a limited format is if you can play 1-2 seven drops. If there's nothing running around keeping you somewhat fair and you can ignore your curve completely then that's bad. If you have to play mono 2/2 bears that's also bad (I'm looking at you Amonkhet). I like efficient answers and inefficient creatures.

A tangle example of a good and bad format is this past year I drafted odyssey block. My game winning bomb was Angel of Retribution. It was a massive monster that completely stonewalled opponents and I could reliable get to the point where I could cast it. However, there was a handful of matches where I sided it out because my opponent's deck was better than mine and I needed to take a more aggressive slant and try to kill them fast since their late game was better than mine (a really cool Braids, Cabal Minion/Squirrel Nest deck). This was pretty cool. Lots of decision trees were required in each game and I could lower my curve to punish my opponents greedier deck.

An bad example was that I also won the finals by decking my opponent in the mirror match since our board's got so clogged neither of us could make a profitable attack and his library was smaller since he cast Far Wanderings. That's too slow, since our finishers weren't actually strong enough to finish. through our removal.

In recent sets Angel of Retribution would just be garbage. In torment it was strong but not gamebreaking.


I want my seven drops to be playable and strong. I don't mean like lul I won the game because you're not playing blue Craterhoof Behemoth strong. I mean I want to jam Sheoldred, Whispering One. I want to slam down my Chromium and I want to actually have to turn them right over several turns to finally kill someone. I want to be able to play 7 drops that don't immediately win the game. I certainly don't want my 5-drops to have to immediately win the game or they're not worth playing. I want my 10+ turn slugfests with a balance of ramp, overly complicated value engines and splashy timmy creatures.

Get your garbage, "oops I killed the table turn 7" aggro/combo garbage out of my hour long slugfest, interaction filled fun. Definitely don't arbitrarily speed up the format by lowering life totals. The format is already doing that with the slow and steady powercreep of recent cards, it doesn't need help.

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Post by DirkGently » 3 years ago

materpillar wrote:
3 years ago
Get your garbage, "oops I killed the table turn 7" aggro/combo garbage out of my hour long slugfest, interaction filled fun. Definitely don't arbitrarily speed up the format by lowering life totals. The format is already doing that with the slow and steady powercreep of recent cards, it doesn't need help.
I see 30 life as a way to PRESERVE the slugfest. "Oops I killed the table turn 7" is just not something aggro can (usually) do in commander. That's the realm of combo, and it's especially the realm of combo when they have a 40 life buffer and the aggro decks which might put a clock on them are weak and rarely played.

The power creep has happened. We can't undo the past 10 years of card releases (I mean, unless the RC wants to make some pretty dramatic changes to the banlist). The problem is that the power creep has made combo and ramp so absurdly powerful compared to other strategies that life totals are increasingly irrelevant. Every game ends in an infinite combo or five consecutive turns or triple-digit craterhoof or some other garbage that renders irrelevant everything that happened prior.

And these problems will just keep getting worse the more cards are released. I think a lot of people feel the format has been getting worse for a long time. We should be looking for a fix, trying bold solutions, not clinging to what we've got for fear that it'll fall apart if we try to change anything, even as it slowly gets less and less enjoyable.

Lower the life totals, and fighting for life becomes more important, and might help bring us back to what magic ought to be. A faster format than it used to be, yes, but at least one that feels like interactive magic instead of 5 turns of setup and then someone immediately wins.
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onering
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Post by onering » 3 years ago

DirkGently wrote:
3 years ago
onering wrote:
3 years ago
Not at all. It hinges on the belief that if even Purphoros wouldn't be good enough to stand up to combo at 30 life, then the experiment is a failure. Because Purphoros is one of the decks most poised to benefit to an obnoxious degree from lowering the life total to 30, you would expect that if there is any appreciable positive effect at weakening combo, as you assert is a reason to lower the life totals, then your other assertion, that Purphoros would not be competitive with them at 30 life, either must not be true or must mean that lowering the life total will fail in its objective. You made two mutually exclusive assertions. I showed why they are mutually exclusive.
That you would even suggest that there could be an answer to the question "does 30 life mean purphoros can stand up to combo decks" shows you aren't paying attention.
Nah bro, I'm paying attention just fine. I'm not the one who asserted an answer, you were. You were trying to downplay the concern that lowering life totals would make Purphoros miserable. Here's your own words:
I used to hate purphoros, but whenever I've played against it recently it's looked extremely mediocre. Other strats have just gotten so much faster and more powerful. Thinking back to recent games, even at 30 life it wouldn't have had a chance. And it also makes the purphoros player easier to kill.
So, you argued that A: Purph looks extremely mediocre in your current meta because other strats are just so much better and B: you think that even at 30 life it wouldn't have a chance. If you didn't like the argument, you shouldn't have made it. I also, unlike you, didn't even assert that this was the answer. I took your own assertion as merely a possible answer, and said that if YOUR assertion were true, the experiment was a failure. That still stands, because you haven't argued against it.
Purphoros I think is among the more likely aggro-ish decks to get out of hand with a lower life meta, but I don't think it's the best to rein in a combo deck, not by a long shot. He's good at dealing 120 damage to the table (or 90) but he's garbage at dealing 40 (or 30) damage to one person, which is usually the best way to deal with a combo deck
This on the other hand actually moves the conversation forward. I think he's pretty good at pressuring players down, and ending games before the kind of combos and plays you are worried about come online. Purph can win turn 5-6. You seem to be worried about turn 7-8 combos and big spells. Purph will be faster with 10 fewer life to eat through, while those slower combos and big spells will be the same speed. There are probably better commanders for killing a single player even quicker, but how many of them would actually be able to follow that up by actually winning the game at some point? If your killing the turn 7 combo guy turn 4, then not being able to close out the rest of the table, is that actually a better strat to take out turn 7 combo guy than just killing the table with Purph turn 6? I'd assume there are strats capable of getting that quicker kill yet still being as likely to actually win the game, but you should have probably included some examples instead of a broad hypothetical.

The reason to lower the life total is because aggro is by far the weakest real archetype and 30 life can help bring it closer - not all the way, but closer - in line with the power level of other archetypes. And to cut down on the "necessity" of running combo finishers in otherwise non-combo decks. No idea where you think the goalposts were or are. Idk where your line for "worth making a major structural change" is, but I don't think it would actually upset the balance all that much. I doubt any of my decks would change substantially. Though I might be more inclined to try aggro decks more often in the future.
Your opinion is a reasonable one. So is mine. There is clearly reasonable disagreement on this issue, The impact itself, by your own estimation, would be a minor benefit to aggro. The impact, by other's equally reasonable estimations, is that the overall impact would be a minor negative. Still others argue it would be a wash. If the change would create only a minor impact, and there's fairly equivalent support for changing and keeping things the same, and disagreement over whether the change would be positive or negative, then things shouldn't change. I'm sorry, but the case for making a change needs to be stronger than the case for not doing so. Either the arguments have to be equivalent but the potential benefit of the change is much larger than the potential downside, making it worth the risk, or the potential benefit is about equal to the potential downside but the arguments in favor of change are stronger, making the change more certain to bring tangible benefits. This is because stability, on its own, is a benefit. Without factoring that in, what's to stop the people who want 30 life getting their way and then the people who don't like it immediately spamming the RC to revert it? In such a case, proponents of the original change would try to appeal to stability, and I'd be backing it unless the change was a disaster.
Idk what hoff is. Craterhoof?
Obviously you knew what it was. Calling out unimportant typos is the lowest form of argumentation and you should be embarrassed.
I think it's weird people are bringing up hoof since slower wincons like hoof I think are likely to get worse, or maybe stay the same. Lemme tell you, craterhoof is a lot less good in 20 life formats.
And since it scales exponentially (pretty sure that's the wrong word but it's close enough, I haven't taken a math class in a long time) the difference between lethal at 30 vs 40 life is only 1-2 creatures.
Unlike some more expensive wincons, Hoof does actually get faster at lower life totals, because it does actually need fewer creatures. its more like 2-3 more on the board if they can attack, more if they can't (such as if you have things that make tokens on your upkeep). That does mean that Hoof comes online more easily, and can thus kill the table more quickly. I don't know if I buy your "trust me" argument on Hoof in 20 life formats, since you don't specify what kind of formats, but he can quickly close games out in multiplayer cube. Yes, if there's enough fast aggro at the table at 20 life, then its going to be worse because its more likely the hoof player will die before hoof comes online, but even then it might be another player that dies and now hoof has even less life to burn through.
I think that "narrow band" is "90% of commander metas",

So yes.

Plus I doubt it'll have a negative impact on high powered metas - a small impact is fine. At least necro will be less busted.
I agree with you that it will have little to know impact on high powered metas. I disagree with you pulled from the rear 90% of metas guess. I think that's nonsense pulled from your own personal biases, rather than being based on anything even remotely reality based. I consider 75% to be about where Purph would find the sweet spot of getting better without getting oppressive, but I consider 75% to be a relatively narrow band of the total meta. Not a sliver, but not a plurality either.
I see 30 life as a way to PRESERVE the slugfest. "Oops I killed the table turn 7" is just not something aggro can (usually) do in commander. That's the realm of combo, and it's especially the realm of combo when they have a 40 life buffer and the aggro decks which might put a clock on them are weak and rarely played.

The power creep has happened. We can't undo the past 10 years of card releases (I mean, unless the RC wants to make some pretty dramatic changes to the banlist). The problem is that the power creep has made combo and ramp so absurdly powerful compared to other strategies that life totals are increasingly irrelevant. Every game ends in an infinite combo or five consecutive turns or triple-digit craterhoof or some other garbage that renders irrelevant everything that happened prior.

And these problems will just keep getting worse the more cards are released. I think a lot of people feel the format has been getting worse for a long time. We should be looking for a fix, trying bold solutions, not clinging to what we've got for fear that it'll fall apart if we try to change anything, even as it slowly gets less and less enjoyable.

Lower the life totals, and fighting for life becomes more important, and might help bring us back to what magic ought to be. A faster format than it used to be, yes, but at least one that feels like interactive magic instead of 5 turns of setup and then someone immediately wins.
And here you just complain about what you currently don't like and just hope that aggro can solve it if life totals are lowered, despite conceding earlier in the thread, repeatedly, that it wouldn't really work like that.

So why would lowering life totals do a better job of stopping stupid big spells and combos than people playing control and not letting those stupid big spells and combos resolve? You spent a lot of words earlier in the thread arguing that it wouldn't be a major change to lower life totals, that you'd expect the meta to not change all that much, that we wouldn't have to worry about aggro being too fast, etc, and conceded multiple times that yea, this change isn't going to stop fast combo and probably would have no impact in high powered metas. But then you compare it to "5 turns of setup and then someone immediately wins" as the current state of affairs, implying that the lower life totals will change that. You keep trying to have it both ways. If changing the life totals will keep people from just setting up their wincon and firing it off turn 5, then that's going to be a huge impact on the format, because that implies that aggro decks will be taking people out by turn 4 with regularity. If they aren't going to be taking people out by turn 4-5 with regularity, then they aren't solving the problem of people setting up their wincons by turn 5-6. That means it doesn't make a difference in metas where the current issues exist, and only changes metas that don't really have a problem as it is.

And even if aggro is now killing people turn 4, there's still other players at the table. Maybe turn 5 combo guy #1 is gone, but turn 5 combo guy #2 goes off and wins.

Sorry, but it seems like all you have is wishful thinking at this point. I'll continue to argue for testing so that we can get a better picture of what such a change would actually do. "Clinging to what we've got for fear that it'll fall apart if we try to change anything" may be bad, and a convenient characterization of your opponents as irrational as a way to easily dismiss their arguments, but desperately flailing around making changes in the hope that it does something positive is just as bad. The former approach is cowardice, but your suggestion is recklessness. Unfortunately, a proposal being "bold" doesn't actually make it better. Doing testing on the proposal and then acting based on those results is less "bold" than making the change and hoping it plays out well, but its also much wiser.

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Post by Magiqmaster » 3 years ago

How about just banning infinite combos?

In our playgroup, we don't allow this and games are usually quite fun. This would be an easy fix, no need to go about banning cards and thus complicate everything for everyone. I know lots of people enjoy playing such combos, but by removing them we avoid insta-win feel-bad moments that nullify the whole game. I suppose many will be against such a change, but I believe that EDH loses much of its appeal when decks are specifically built to combo out. Otherwise, leave this option available for cEDH games, so those that like infinite combos can have their own fun too. I know this wouldn't solve everything, but it's a step in the right direction IMO.

Just my 2 cents.

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Post by DirkGently » 3 years ago

onering wrote:
3 years ago
Nah bro, I'm paying attention just fine. I'm not the one who asserted an answer, you were. You were trying to downplay the concern that lowering life totals would make Purphoros miserable. Here's your own words:
I used to hate purphoros, but whenever I've played against it recently it's looked extremely mediocre. Other strats have just gotten so much faster and more powerful. Thinking back to recent games, even at 30 life it wouldn't have had a chance. And it also makes the purphoros player easier to kill.
So, you argued that A: Purph looks extremely mediocre in your current meta because other strats are just so much better and B: you think that even at 30 life it wouldn't have a chance. If you didn't like the argument, you shouldn't have made it. I also, unlike you, didn't even assert that this was the answer. I took your own assertion as merely a possible answer, and said that if YOUR assertion were true, the experiment was a failure. That still stands, because you haven't argued against it.
Maybe I said something else that actually contradicts what I said, in which case I apologize, but in that quote I think it's pretty clear I'm talking only about my own experiences in my own meta. In other metas I can totally believe that he's powerful and would become unpleasantly so in a 30 life game, but within my own meta I think 30 life would not make purphoros problematic, and likely still leave him significantly weaker than other strats (though less so). Your statements implied that purphoros either would, or wouldn't, be globally better or worse than combo, which just isn't a reasonable way to think about the impact of the proposed change.
This on the other hand actually moves the conversation forward. I think he's pretty good at pressuring players down, and ending games before the kind of combos and plays you are worried about come online. Purph can win turn 5-6. You seem to be worried about turn 7-8 combos and big spells. Purph will be faster with 10 fewer life to eat through, while those slower combos and big spells will be the same speed. There are probably better commanders for killing a single player even quicker, but how many of them would actually be able to follow that up by actually winning the game at some point? If your killing the turn 7 combo guy turn 4, then not being able to close out the rest of the table, is that actually a better strat to take out turn 7 combo guy than just killing the table with Purph turn 6? I'd assume there are strats capable of getting that quicker kill yet still being as likely to actually win the game, but you should have probably included some examples instead of a broad hypothetical.
Does purph actually win turn 5-6 without fast mana? I'm skeptical that that's anything like an average result. I haven't been tracking turns while playing against him but I think we made it to at least turn 5 or 6 before the games I played against him ended, and he was nowhere near killing anyone.

I agree that purphoros is better at winning the game as a whole, which is why I said he's most likely to get out of control, but if the slower combo deck has a good draw, or the aggro deck has a slow draw, a faster, more targeted aggro deck or one with more disruption has a much better chance than purphoros. You're assuming that "slowish combo deck" means it always wins on the exact same turn for some reason but obviously games aren't that deterministic. And I'm totally guessing on turns here anyway, since I don't track such things.

Of my recent decks? Well ukkima + cazur is a sometimes-fast aggro deck with good disruption, pretty ideal for killing combo while protecting itself from either combos or wipes. Gallia is a durable aggro deck with card advantage, ideal for killing control but fast enough to kill combo potentially, and then good at recovering from the board wipe and focus on the next target. The most aggressive deck I've played in recent memory was probably sylvia + khorvath, which could maybe kill someone turn 4 with fast mana, more likely turn 5 or 6 though, definitely has a good chance against combo if I focus them down. There I'd probably be hoping to just kill everyone before someone hits a wipe, which is certainly less reliable than the other two but makes up for it with speed.

Those are just decks I've been playing, though, with a relatively small sample size.
Your opinion is a reasonable one. So is mine. There is clearly reasonable disagreement on this issue, The impact itself, by your own estimation, would be a minor benefit to aggro. The impact, by other's equally reasonable estimations, is that the overall impact would be a minor negative. Still others argue it would be a wash. If the change would create only a minor impact, and there's fairly equivalent support for changing and keeping things the same, and disagreement over whether the change would be positive or negative, then things shouldn't change. I'm sorry, but the case for making a change needs to be stronger than the case for not doing so. Either the arguments have to be equivalent but the potential benefit of the change is much larger than the potential downside, making it worth the risk, or the potential benefit is about equal to the potential downside but the arguments in favor of change are stronger, making the change more certain to bring tangible benefits. This is because stability, on its own, is a benefit. Without factoring that in, what's to stop the people who want 30 life getting their way and then the people who don't like it immediately spamming the RC to revert it? In such a case, proponents of the original change would try to appeal to stability, and I'd be backing it unless the change was a disaster.
I don't think rhetoric alone is a sufficient reason in either direction. I think it's hopefully enough to motivate actual testing, and then testing would be the reason to change it or not, depending on what the testing reveals.

I think the possible impact would be larger than a minor benefit to aggro - I think it might help correct the cultural slide towards combo that I've personally experienced (and I think others have as well). But that is absolutely speculation and testing would be required to prove it out. Unfortunately such testing would be very difficult as mentioned, perhaps impossible.
Idk what hoff is. Craterhoof?
Obviously you knew what it was. Calling out unimportant typos is the lowest form of argumentation and you should be embarrassed.
Why are you assuming maliciousness on my part? Craterhoof hadn't really been a focus of our conversation, and you gave me 4 letters (3 with the typo) to identify one of 20,000+ cards. Honestly the first thing that came to mind, of all things, was Selhoff Occultist, which does technically get used in some infinite combos but seemed unlikely to be something you were talking about. I scryfalled for "hoff" and nothing obvious came up. So yeah, I thought craterhoof was most likely what you meant, but maybe there was slang for another card that I just hadn't heard, and I'd look pretty stupid writing my hot take on craterhoof if that wasn't even what you meant. I didn't say " :crazy: :thinking: Do you mean CRATERHOOF? :grin: :love: LOL LERN 2 SPEL!!!!!" to shame you or whatever, I just genuinely wanted to verify what you meant. Damn. So much for assuming the best about your interlocutor.
Unlike some more expensive wincons, Hoof does actually get faster at lower life totals, because it does actually need fewer creatures.
It gets advantages and disadvantages. Maybe it gets better or worse overall, but I don't think it's obvious which way the pendulum swings.
its more like 2-3 more on the board if they can attack, more if they can't (such as if you have things that make tokens on your upkeep). That does mean that Hoof comes online more easily, and can thus kill the table more quickly.
I did the quick math and, for 120 vs 90 damage (and assuming all creatures can attack which, fair enough, isn't necessarily the case) it'd be a difference of 1-2 depending on the base power of those creatures (but assuming it's fairly low). Of course blockers and damage splits might make it more so maybe 2-3 is more reasonable, but we're still talking 2-3 in the context of already having 9+, so it's not THAT big of a difference.
I don't know if I buy your "trust me" argument on Hoof in 20 life formats, since you don't specify what kind of formats, but he can quickly close games out in multiplayer cube. Yes, if there's enough fast aggro at the table at 20 life, then its going to be worse because its more likely the hoof player will die before hoof comes online, but even then it might be another player that dies and now hoof has even less life to burn through.
Fair enough, I was talking about other constructed formats, which presumably correspond more directly with commander.
I agree with you that it will have little to know impact on high powered metas. I disagree with you pulled from the rear 90% of metas guess. I think that's nonsense pulled from your own personal biases, rather than being based on anything even remotely reality based. I consider 75% to be about where Purph would find the sweet spot of getting better without getting oppressive, but I consider 75% to be a relatively narrow band of the total meta. Not a sliver, but not a plurality either.
It's pulled from my experiences playing a decent number of varied places with a lot of different people. But ofc it's still a small sample size in the greater scheme of things. I'd consider almost all of those metas to be ~75% more or less.

I'm not saying it's guaranteed to work, I'm saying it merits testing because I think it might, based on my experiences in the format.
And here you just complain about what you currently don't like and just hope that aggro can solve it if life totals are lowered, despite conceding earlier in the thread, repeatedly, that it wouldn't really work like that.
I'm talking about a general shift in the culture towards aggro and away from combo. Not specifically "who would win in a fight, this specific aggro deck or a combo deck?" What happens in some specific meta would be impossible to predict, but I think most people can agree that there would be SOME shift away from life-agnostic strategies like combo and towards life-matters strategies like aggro, on average. And I see that as a good thing.
So why would lowering life totals do a better job of stopping stupid big spells and combos than people playing control and not letting those stupid big spells and combos resolve?
It probably wouldn't, but people are gonna play what people want to play and personally I don't see that much control tbh. Lowering life totals is a systemic solution to motivate people to do the desired behavior (play fewer combos, care more about life totals). How do you propose we motivate people to play more control?

At least locally, instead of seeing control decks stop combo, it tends to be other big life-total-agnostic plays racing to win first (whether ramp or another combo). Which is pretty boring imo.
You spent a lot of words earlier in the thread arguing that it wouldn't be a major change to lower life totals, that you'd expect the meta to not change all that much, that we wouldn't have to worry about aggro being too fast, etc, and conceded multiple times that yea, this change isn't going to stop fast combo and probably would have no impact in high powered metas. But then you compare it to "5 turns of setup and then someone immediately wins" as the current state of affairs, implying that the lower life totals will change that. You keep trying to have it both ways. If changing the life totals will keep people from just setting up their wincon and firing it off turn 5, then that's going to be a huge impact on the format, because that implies that aggro decks will be taking people out by turn 4 with regularity. If they aren't going to be taking people out by turn 4-5 with regularity, then they aren't solving the problem of people setting up their wincons by turn 5-6. That means it doesn't make a difference in metas where the current issues exist, and only changes metas that don't really have a problem as it is.

And even if aggro is now killing people turn 4, there's still other players at the table. Maybe turn 5 combo guy #1 is gone, but turn 5 combo guy #2 goes off and wins.
Part of the desired result here is not simply "in this one game, the aggro player can now kill the combo player first, thus solving the problems in the format". The desired result is that, because lower life totals incentivize more aggressive strategies, there AREN'T two combo players at the table (or are less likely to be) because more players are playing decks that play to the board. You're focusing on what's happening in some specific hypothetical game but the desired result isn't what happens in one game, it's what happens to the culture as a whole.

I think we can agree that too little change will have no impact, and too much change would turn commander into an aggro hellscape. Obviously I don't want the latter. So a world in which aggro reliably beats combo is not something I think would be healthy. I don't want a huge upset, I just want a gentle shift. Stop assuming the only possibilities are extremes.
Sorry, but it seems like all you have is wishful thinking at this point. I'll continue to argue for testing so that we can get a better picture of what such a change would actually do. "Clinging to what we've got for fear that it'll fall apart if we try to change anything" may be bad, and a convenient characterization of your opponents as irrational as a way to easily dismiss their arguments, but desperately flailing around making changes in the hope that it does something positive is just as bad. The former approach is cowardice, but your suggestion is recklessness. Unfortunately, a proposal being "bold" doesn't actually make it better. Doing testing on the proposal and then acting based on those results is less "bold" than making the change and hoping it plays out well, but its also much wiser.
I'm 100% on board for testing and always have been.

If you've got another suggesting for shifting the direction of the format I'd genuinely love to hear it.
Magiqmaster wrote:
3 years ago
How about just banning infinite combos?

In our playgroup, we don't allow this and games are usually quite fun. This would be an easy fix, no need to go about banning cards and thus complicate everything for everyone. I know lots of people enjoy playing such combos, but by removing them we avoid insta-win feel-bad moments that nullify the whole game. I suppose many will be against such a change, but I believe that EDH loses much of its appeal when decks are specifically built to combo out. Otherwise, leave this option available for cEDH games, so those that like infinite combos can have their own fun too. I know this wouldn't solve everything, but it's a step in the right direction IMO.

Just my 2 cents.
I'd love to do this personally, but we don't all have that option.
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ironic gesture
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Post by ironic gesture » 3 years ago

DirkGently wrote:
3 years ago

Part of the desired result here is not simply "in this one game, the aggro player can now kill the combo player first, thus solving the problems in the format". The desired result is that, because lower life totals incentivize more aggressive strategies, there AREN'T two combo players at the table (or are less likely to be) because more players are playing decks that play to the board. You're focusing on what's happening in some specific hypothetical game but the desired result isn't what happens in one game, it's what happens to the culture as a whole.

I think we can agree that too little change will have no impact, and too much change would turn commander into an aggro hellscape. Obviously I don't want the latter. So a world in which aggro reliably beats combo is not something I think would be healthy. I don't want a huge upset, I just want a gentle shift. Stop assuming the only possibilities are extremes.
This feels like a good summation of the entire lowered life total argument. This rule change would fundamentally change all metas and no one knows exactly what that would look like. However, I'm not sure anyone could argue that it would help durdly ramp/combo strats and I don't think anyone could argue that it would hurt aggressive combat strats which we feel is a shift that would be healthy for the format.
DirkGently wrote:
3 years ago
Magiqmaster wrote:
3 years ago
How about just banning infinite combos?

In our playgroup, we don't allow this and games are usually quite fun. This would be an easy fix, no need to go about banning cards and thus complicate everything for everyone. I know lots of people enjoy playing such combos, but by removing them we avoid insta-win feel-bad moments that nullify the whole game. I suppose many will be against such a change, but I believe that EDH loses much of its appeal when decks are specifically built to combo out. Otherwise, leave this option available for cEDH games, so those that like infinite combos can have their own fun too. I know this wouldn't solve everything, but it's a step in the right direction IMO.

Just my 2 cents.
I'd love to do this personally, but we don't all have that option.
IMHO the lowered life total would be about letting more people play the way they want to play (maintaining viability of combo+ramp+control PLUS adding 'aggro') whereas banning an entire (and popular) strategy by banning combos would be taking away people's options. Group's are free to house-ban combos (1 of my groups has done this) but it would do too much damage to remove one of the pillars of the format. I am much more in support of everyone's desire's balancing each other than prohibiting the desires of an entire group.

onering
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Post by onering » 3 years ago

DirkGently wrote:
3 years ago

Maybe I said something else that actually contradicts what I said, in which case I apologize, but in that quote I think it's pretty clear I'm talking only about my own experiences in my own meta. In other metas I can totally believe that he's powerful and would become unpleasantly so in a 30 life game, but within my own meta I think 30 life would not make purphoros problematic, and likely still leave him significantly weaker than other strats (though less so). Your statements implied that purphoros either would, or wouldn't, be globally better or worse than combo, which just isn't a reasonable way to think about the impact of the proposed change.

]Does purph actually win turn 5-6 without fast mana? I'm skeptical that that's anything like an average result. I haven't been tracking turns while playing against him but I think we made it to at least turn 5 or 6 before the games I played against him ended, and he was nowhere near killing anyone.

I agree that purphoros is better at winning the game as a whole, which is why I said he's most likely to get out of control, but if the slower combo deck has a good draw, or the aggro deck has a slow draw, a faster, more targeted aggro deck or one with more disruption has a much better chance than purphoros. You're assuming that "slowish combo deck" means it always wins on the exact same turn for some reason but obviously games aren't that deterministic. And I'm totally guessing on turns here anyway, since I don't track such things.

Of my recent decks? Well ukkima + cazur is a sometimes-fast aggro deck with good disruption, pretty ideal for killing combo while protecting itself from either combos or wipes. Gallia is a durable aggro deck with card advantage, ideal for killing control but fast enough to kill combo potentially, and then good at recovering from the board wipe and focus on the next target. The most aggressive deck I've played in recent memory was probably sylvia + khorvath, which could maybe kill someone turn 4 with fast mana, more likely turn 5 or 6 though, definitely has a good chance against combo if I focus them down. There I'd probably be hoping to just kill everyone before someone hits a wipe, which is certainly less reliable than the other two but makes up for it with speed.

Those are just decks I've been playing, though, with a relatively small sample size.
This clears things up a bit more. I have a Gallia deck as well and it does pretty well at recovering from wipes, because like other aggro decks I mentioned that do well currently it can generate significant card advantage while pressuring the board, allowing it to go all in without being a glass cannon. To kill someone turn 5 it needs a bit of luck but otherwise its relatively quick and resilient. Purph will need fast mana to kill turn 5, but I think that's relevant. You bring up the possibility of slow combo potentially getting a good draw and going off earlier, and the same is true for Purphoros and aggro. Without fast mana, he goes into the turn 7-8 range, which is when slower combo decks and big play decks will typically go off. To me, that seems pretty fair. I don't know why a deck like that winning with an average hand around the same time ramp or slow combo wins with an average hand is a problem. If Purph is going off around the same time as those decks, then its causing those decks to not be able to dominate. Just one other deck at the table that cares about damage and the clock gets faster. I don't know why you seem to be under the impression that I think these decks are always going to win on the same turns, I'm talking about an average. If an aggro deck or a damage based deck can get there on the same average turn as a combo or ramp deck, that means its in a good place vs it. If it is also able to undercut the ramp or combo deck by a turn or two with a good draw, that confirms it. Its what you would expect to see if two decks are around the same power level. Yes, if the combo deck gets a good draw and Purph gets an average one, the combo deck wins, but that's still what I'd expect to see in that situation if both decks are about equally powered.


I don't think rhetoric alone is a sufficient reason in either direction. I think it's hopefully enough to motivate actual testing, and then testing would be the reason to change it or not, depending on what the testing reveals.

I think the possible impact would be larger than a minor benefit to aggro - I think it might help correct the cultural slide towards combo that I've personally experienced (and I think others have as well). But that is absolutely speculation and testing would be required to prove it out. Unfortunately such testing would be very difficult as mentioned, perhaps impossible.


When I say arguments, I don't mean the rhetoric used, but rather the quality of the points made, but that wasn't all that clear. A side having stronger arguments means that the points they are making about the change are more significant or relevant than the other side's. When Paradox Engine was discussed for banning, the pro ban side pointed out that it was easy to slot into decks because it was an artifact, that it was warping the format by causing people to change the way the built decks to include it, that it provided a very short window for interaction that required narrow answers, and that it was very widespread and taking over games. The anti ban side focused on it requiring certain deck building restrictions that made it impractical for many decks, needing an outlet, and not being that represented in more casual metas. The pro ban side had made stronger arguments, not because they argued more eloquently but because their arguments proved to be more relevant to what was happening. I myself was on the wrong side of that.
Why are you assuming maliciousness on my part? Craterhoof hadn't really been a focus of our conversation, and you gave me 4 letters (3 with the typo) to identify one of 20,000+ cards. Honestly the first thing that came to mind, of all things, was Selhoff Occultist, which does technically get used in some infinite combos but seemed unlikely to be something you were talking about. I scryfalled for "hoff" and nothing obvious came up. So yeah, I thought craterhoof was most likely what you meant, but maybe there was slang for another card that I just hadn't heard, and I'd look pretty stupid writing my hot take on craterhoof if that wasn't even what you meant. I didn't say " :crazy: :thinking: Do you mean CRATERHOOF? :grin: :love: LOL LERN 2 SPEL!!!!!" to shame you or whatever, I just genuinely wanted to verify what you meant. Damn. So much for assuming the best about your interlocutor.
Craterhoof was mentioned in the posts leading up to that and the conversation had moved to damage based wincons that are already good, with a focus on Purphoros and Craterhoof. I see people use that "technique" too often, but I'm sorry that I assumed maliciousness when you had other intentions. I hope you can now see why someone might, as I now see how you weren't thanks to your explanation.
It's pulled from my experiences playing a decent number of varied places with a lot of different people. But ofc it's still a small sample size in the greater scheme of things. I'd consider almost all of those metas to be ~75% more or less.

I'm not saying it's guaranteed to work, I'm saying it merits testing because I think it might, based on my experiences in the format.


Which is far more reasonable than saying 90% of the meta. Yes, your experience definitely merits a call for testing, and I think testing these sorts of suggestions is just good practice anyway. And as you identify them as mostly around 75%, I think that lines up with my own thinking on what sort of meta is most likely to benefit from 30 life based on my own experiences. Where we differ is how representative of the overall format we consider the 75% metas to be. 90% is a gross exaggeration, and I know you weren't literally claiming its 90%, but saying a clearly exaggerated number is casually dismissive without intending to be. You likely believe the percentage of the format that can be considered 75% is much higher than I do, given how you self described as mostly playing in those sort of metas. If I had to do an ass pull and put a number on it, I'd estimate that its between 20-35% of the format. For most of that range, I'd consider that a narrow band. If you believe its more like 50-70%, then obviously you're going to give the impact a change has on 75% metas a great deal more weight. Instead of a narrow band, its frankly representative of the format in that case.
I'm talking about a general shift in the culture towards aggro and away from combo. Not specifically "who would win in a fight, this specific aggro deck or a combo deck?" What happens in some specific meta would be impossible to predict, but I think most people can agree that there would be SOME shift away from life-agnostic strategies like combo and towards life-matters strategies like aggro, on average. And I see that as a good thing.
Part of our disagreement here is over the likelihood of such a change actually producing such a shift, and part of it is a disagreement over how beneficial such a shift actually is. You have a problem with combo generally, not that you find it hard to beat but that you just don't like it, while I'm completely fine with someone winning via combo after 8 turns. You hate a lot of the big play spells, I don't really have a problem with most of them most of the time (Hoof on turn 9 doesn't phase me, gg, but flood the board and Hoof out on turn 5 and I'll be a tad salty). I don't see weakening these strategies as definite benefit, so the only benefit I would see from such a change is aggro getting more representation, weighted against not wanting it to become too good.
It probably wouldn't, but people are gonna play what people want to play and personally I don't see that much control tbh. Lowering life totals is a systemic solution to motivate people to do the desired behavior (play fewer combos, care more about life totals). How do you propose we motivate people to play more control?

At least locally, instead of seeing control decks stop combo, it tends to be other big life-total-agnostic plays racing to win first (whether ramp or another combo). Which is pretty boring imo.
This is another instance that boils down to a difference in metas. I see a decent amount of control, or at least decks that run answers. I'd say that I may be biased because I myself tend to run plenty of answers in all my decks, but you do as well. I don't run into much glass cannon combo, so even the combo decks tend to have answers. I myself play a healthy mix of control, ramp, combo, and aggro because I like varied experiences and the best way to control that is deck choice. I tend to see a mix on mtgo, and if I had to guess what has a plurality I'd say control.

Part of the desired result here is not simply "in this one game, the aggro player can now kill the combo player first, thus solving the problems in the format". The desired result is that, because lower life totals incentivize more aggressive strategies, there AREN'T two combo players at the table (or are less likely to be) because more players are playing decks that play to the board. You're focusing on what's happening in some specific hypothetical game but the desired result isn't what happens in one game, it's what happens to the culture as a whole.

I think we can agree that too little change will have no impact, and too much change would turn commander into an aggro hellscape. Obviously I don't want the latter. So a world in which aggro reliably beats combo is not something I think would be healthy. I don't want a huge upset, I just want a gentle shift. Stop assuming the only possibilities are extremes.

I'm 100% on board for testing and always have been.

If you've got another suggesting for shifting the direction of the format I'd genuinely love to hear it.
I'm focusing on those hypotheticals to illustrate why I have my doubts that the change will accomplish your goal. As we've both said, we won't KNOW without testing, but you've described why you think the change would accomplish its goals. My doubt arises from all the different circumstance I can imagine cropping up that still make aggro the path of most resistance. There will be some people who just need a little push to start playing aggro, that think that the current environment is just too tough, but I think people tend to be pretty binary with how they choose decks. I think there's a yes/no threshold for most people when they ask themselves if a strategy is worth it, and I'm not so sure that merely being less of an uphill battle is going to push enough people into yes. Some people have lower thresholds of course, and we see that now, the question is can that cultural shift you want to see be achieved with aggro still being the path of most resistance. As I think that aggro right now is actually better positioned than its reputation, outside of the top tiers, I'm left to conclude that its unpopularity is due to the momentum of reputation combined with being the path of most resistance and being harder to play than other archetypes in multiplayer generally.

Basically, what I want to see is long term testing, and for the results to be that aggro gets picked up a bit more without destabilizing the format. Then I'll support making the change to the format. I know what can convince me, I just want to see it.

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Post by materpillar » 3 years ago

DirkGently wrote:
3 years ago
I see 30 life as a way to PRESERVE the slugfest. "Oops I killed the table turn 7" is just not something aggro can (usually) do in commander. That's the realm of combo, and it's especially the realm of combo when they have a 40 life buffer and the aggro decks which might put a clock on them are weak and rarely played.
Part of the desired result here is not simply "in this one game, the aggro player can now kill the combo player first, thus solving the problems in the format". The desired result is that, because lower life totals incentivize more aggressive strategies, there AREN'T two combo players at the table (or are less likely to be) because more players are playing decks that play to the board. You're focusing on what's happening in some specific hypothetical game but the desired result isn't what happens in one game, it's what happens to the culture as a whole.
I want a format where I can cast chromium and assemble hilariously complicated and mana inefficient rube goldberg machines. Incentivizing highly aggressive decks is just as toxic to what I want from EDH as the over proliferation of combo decks or life total agnostic basically combo decks (I hate you with a thousand burning fires Chulane, Teller of Tales).

In my experience, at least the player who wins off an infinite combo turn 6-7 usually has the empathy to understand my annoyance. While the Maelstrom Wanderer who just looped 4 extra turns on his turn 6 to kill the table usually seems completely perplexed by my annoyance.
Lower the life totals, and fighting for life becomes more important, and might help bring us back to what magic ought to be. A faster format than it used to be, yes, but at least one that feels like interactive magic instead of 5 turns of setup and then someone immediately wins.
I don't understand why you think that lowering life will suddenly create interactive magic. If everyone is just racing to win first be that combo, pseudo-combo or aggro changing life totals isn't going to help. If they have the mindset of "I need to win as efficiently as possible" then that's what they'll do. These people will adept to the rules change and find the new most efficient and least interactive way to win available. Lowering everyone's life by 10 won't make games dramatically more interactive it'll just shake up what win-cons you see slightly. It's not hard to build decks that goldfish the table by turn 7, lowering life totals only opens a wider variety of ways to do that.

At least with combos I can meta-game somewhat appropriately with my removal suite. If I have to play around combo while also getting bashed in by aggro, meh. I see enough terrible threat analysis already and I imagine having 10 less life would only exacerbate that problem too.

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