40 Life in EDH

onering
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Post by onering » 3 years ago

Candlemane wrote:
3 years ago
After reading every post, I feel inclined to ask; what is an Aggro deck in this argument? Are we talking something more akin to a standard deck kind of Aggro, or something else?

In my opinion, I feel Commander has its own version of Aggro decks, but the arguments here sway back and forth in my head for me.
I read 'aggro' as any deck that has traditionally fallen under the umbrella of aggro, so any deck that wants to deploy threats early and turn them sideways as their primary strategy. A low curve, an aggressive strategy, reliant on creatures that tend to be cheap with a few more expensive (4-6 cmc in edh) and that wants to start smacking people turn 2-3. That encompasses a lot of decks. It can mean RDWs style aggro that wants to spit out as much damage as it can as quickly as possible, aggro/control "fish" decks that spit out early threats and protect them with counter magic and other disruption, hatebears, etc. Some of these are more viable than others.

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pokken
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Post by pokken » 3 years ago

DirkGently wrote:
3 years ago
I don't think I've ever seen another commander player bum-rush a single opponent from the word go to eliminate them in all the time I've been playing.
Well you're clearly not in my meta, where that's all the aggro players do is pick the most powerful person and try to eliminate them from the word go. That's the absolute best way to play aggro in commander; gun down the person most likely to play sweepers/removal or put them in the danger zone, and then force them to spend too many resources stopping you without overextending.

The crux of the game with an aggro player is typically can they kill the most threatening player without overextending.

Even as a non-aggro player if I determine with Ephara that I will lose a long game to a particular player I will always focus my energy on killing that person.

I will say that *traditionally* in commander you're correct but in the last few years there's been a bit of a sea change in every place I've played where people realized that lots of decks seriously benefit from eliminating even one opponent early.

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Post by DirkGently » 3 years ago

Please proofread your posts for broken quotes, this gets difficult to follow at points.
onering wrote:
3 years ago
It would be negligible. It would mostly effect slower combo decks, which aren't the problem and can already be disrupted easily enough. Fast combo isn't getting hated out by aggro at 30 life most of the time. If the table is all aggro and directs all fire at them, sure, but that's not going to be common at all. Aggro is still not going to be good enough at 30 life. That suddenly enough people will run it that gunning down fast combo will be realistic.
Slower combo can be killed by straight aggro. Slow combo decks aren't as big of a problem, sure, but I still think it's fair to help aggro against them. Fast combo decks won't be outraced solely by aggro at almost any life total, sure, but my point was that disruption matters a lot more when they're on a shorter clock, which is true both because aggro is better and because aggro will become more popular in a lower-life format.
Very low to the ground zerg rush aggro isn't viable, that doesn't mean that the full breadth of aggro isn't viable. Aggro control is viable, hatebears are viable, Those are still true aggro. Your argument relies on narrowly defining aggro to be a very specific subset of aggro (and the deck you gave as an example wouldn't be anymore viable in a 20 life format than hatebears or fish is in commander as it is now, and a bad joke in a 30 life format).
Later you may notice that I explicitly said I didn't want cavalcade-style hyper-aggro decks to become viable in commander, so that wasn't an accident.

The line between aggro and midrange is subjective, but when I look at my "aggro" decks that have worked, they'd be considered midrange or slower even in standard, let alone legacy or vintage (which seem like fairer comparisons given the card pool). But you can define aggro how you want I suppose.
Your usually reasonable, but you fail here badly at understanding what I was saying. Go back and reread what I wrote, and you'll see that I said that sometimes taking someone out early is necessary, and that generally you won't knock out everyone in one big turn when playing aggro. I specifically faulted zerg rushing one player without a plan for actually winning the game, which is what I see too often from unskilled aggro players. Committing too many resources to the board to take out one guy then getting put on you ass by one wrath and finding yourself completely unable to be relevant the rest of the game.
I don't think I've ever seen this happen so I'm mostly speculating here, but it sounds like in the scenario you're talking about, the player overextended, didn't have enough gas in his deck, and had no real chance of winning regardless.

Perhaps this is an online vs IRL difference, but I also don't understand why the player getting attacked can't argue for why he's a lesser threat and convince the aggro player to go elsewhere. I've seen people go after one player for a while, then realize other players are more threatening and change targets, I've seen aggro deck peck around a bit before trying to burst down someone with a big attack (a recent krenko game comes to mind), but in many years of play across many playgroups, I don't think I've ever seen the wrong player get immediately rushed all the way to the death to the exclusion of all others by an aggro deck.

This is not a super productive argument to have because your position hinges entirely on bad aggro players who zerg the wrong target while overextending. If that's a common situation, then I'd agree that dissuading bad players from aggro seems worthwhile. But I've never seen this happen to the best of my recollection. I've seen people kill the wrong person, of course, but rarely aggro and never from the word go.

For anyone else, how they feel depends entirely on their experience of the game and whether it matches with yours or mine. I don't think there's much else to say on this topic, really.
Taking a player out IN THEORY raises your odds of winning based on generic statistics, but generic statistics don't matter when you apply context. We've had this conversation before, and it seems to be a blind spot for you. Bad aggro players play based on the generic statistics that removing a player means there are fewer players in the game, and thus the generic chance that they will win increases (say from 25% to 33.3333%). The reality is that the generic statistics are never relevant. Your chance of winning isn't related only to how many players are in the game at the moment. Other factors are usually more important. I know that you know this, because when you describe games you've been in and the choices you make they don't boil down to just taking out players whenever you can.

Playing aggro doesn't mean you forget politics, and it doesn't mean you ignore what other players are doing, and how they can help you, to just goldfish. As I said in the post you replied to, sometimes zerg rushing a player is correct, and rarely will you be putting everyone away in one turn, but everything is based on the context of what is happening in the game. Most of the time, whittling down everyone a bit early and then focusing fire based on what is happening in the game is correct, it makes it less likely that any one person will feel the need to commit everything to stopping you, it lets you find out who needs to be put away first, and it gets the other players to more manageable life totals for when you need to turn your focus to them. Other times, you have to be opportunistic. Context matters.

Again, I have no issue with taking someone out, or someone taking me out, if its actually contributing to victory. I take issue with people who blindly rush someone at random and succeed only in making sure they both lose. Discouraging lower skilled players from trying aggro makes this less likely.
All this fits into what I said above. I don't think there's anything else productive to say here. Of course I agree about number of players, win%s, etc. since many of my decks are based on that concept. But the aggro plan and the Phelddagrif plan are basically total opposites.
What's weird is that your bringing up how it varies by format. 1v1, aggro can require a lot less skill to pilot. It should have been clear however that I was talking about multiplayer, given that many of the reasons I gave for aggro requiring skill to pilot effectively only applying to multiplayer.
I assumed you meant aggro in general, instead of aggro in commander specifically, because people always complain about aggro being a low-skilled archetype in other formats but I rarely, if ever, hear that talk in commander. Tbh I rarely hear people talk about aggro at all in my commander groups, because aggro is so rare - and usually not hyper aggro either, of the type that tends to raise people's hackles in, say, standard. But sure, I agree that aggro (or "aggro") is fairly high skill in commander - but so is everything tbh, except combo :) .
Weak argument. You know that this format is never going to be in a place where every play style is equally viable at all levels of play. This is the one format where Battle Cruiser and other more durdly archetypes are at least somewhat viable, and they stand to lose the most from aggro getting better due to lower life totals, and will do so before aggro gets good enough to actually impact control or combo.
I think shaving off 10 life absolutely helps aggro against control, less so against combo but as I mentioned earlier, I think it still helps in a not-insignificant way across two fronts.

When I'm playing aggro, if someone is actually playing a "classic battlecruiser deck" like sea monster tribal or something equally weak, they're probably my lowest-priority target, so I'm likely chewing through two other players before going after them. If they can't muster a defense by that point, it's on them. True at 40, true at 30.

You can say "but what about bad aggro players that will zerg rush the battlecruiser deck for no reason", but then we're kind of back to that earlier impasse.

I don't think everything needs to be equally viable but right now aggro is practically nonexistent. I think we should strive for more balance than THAT.
Again, context matters. If your going to pick out things to respond to, do your due diligence and at least to attempt to understand what you are responding to. From the context, it should be clear that I wasn't saying unskilled players would be unable to win with combo decks. I was talking about how unskilled aggro play can hurt the enjoyment of other players, and comparing it to the effects of unskilled play of other archetypes. The effect of unskilled play of a combo deck just results, at most, in that player losing (due to trying to force through a combo at an inopportune time, or screwing up triggers, or not realizing that something on the board blanks the combo, etc). It doesn't usually ruin the game for anyone except the unskilled combo player if they screw up. Casting T&N into a Stranglehold or Aven Mindcensor is just a funny oof for the combo player. Zerg rushing someone out of the game at random then running out of gas and sitting around being irrelevant means the guy you took out lost because you were an idiot, and that feels a lot worse than losing because you were outplayed. You'll notice that I also compared it to poorly played control, which I said can be annoying because they don't answer the right threats, but that this tends to even out (because they usually will not just focus on answering only one player's things, so the effects of their misplays are evened out).
Fair enough, I don't think that was clear but from that context, but I see what you're saying now - although I do think a lot of low-skilled players choose to play combo (or are pushed towards combo) in the first place because of the difficulty of dealing 40 damage, which ruins plenty of games because losing to combo is rarely interesting and usually anticlimactic.
You didn't see it so it doesn't happen is a piss poor argument.
I mean, it's kind of the only argument. I agree that, if this is a regular occurrence, then that's generally bad. But from my experience it's not regular, or even existent. I'm sure you're not lying about it happening, but it doesn't square with my experience at all.

It's like someone saying "we've gotta do something about these butterflies, they keep flying into people's eyes and blinding them! I see it every day!" What else am I to say, except "If that's happening it sounds bad....but I've never seen it happen....so....?"

Do you play online only? I wonder if it's a cultural difference or something. Because I genuinely have not seen this behavior.

I have seen people going vendetta against one player who pissed them off for whatever reason, which can "ruin" the game, although that's as likely to be removal, counterspells, and other control nasties than just attacking them. So again, I don't see singling out aggro specifically as reasonable. But this 100% based off my experience - as is yours.
Its not theory crafting, its from experience. When I am straight targeted by some idiot, or when I see it happen, people sit on their answers until he finishes killing the guy, and then answer him, because its sensible to hold your answers until you actually need to use them. Honestly, your smarter than this dude, because I've heard you make the same arguments when talking up your flying hippo deck. I'm not pathing any beater that isn't pointed at me, and if someone is telegraphing that they're aimed at one guy then I'll hold spot removal up but wait until they finish before throwing out a wrath. Spreading out damage doesn't make you a must answer threat to any one player, but is also more likely to bait out a wrath once you start swinging with a decent board. If you overextend, that's obviously going to be really bad, but if you don't overextend you can redeploy pretty quickly. The fact that you're just not going to be able to zerg rush the entire table is a disincentive to just vomit your hand onto the battlefield, unless you have some reliable way of refilling it (Sygg, Ephara, etc) or some way to protect against wipes. And you know that you can't just talk a bad player out of targeting you, as evidenced by the example you give above about dunce that made you discard everything. If you, master of magic politics, couldn't dissuade him, how's that going to go for average players? Oh, and if he was playing an aggro deck and decided to just spend everything to take you out instead of a bad control deck spending everything to attack your hand, you wouldn't have been able to sit back until you won.
Of course I agree about holding back targeted removal, but you specifically mentioned sitting on a board wipe, not STP, and most wipes are assumed to be sorceries. If an aggro player has a strong aggro position and is killing one dude who seems to be a lesser threat, why would the person sitting on his WoG assume that the aggro player will keep doing what he's doing? If it's my WoG and the aggro player is getting out of hand, I'm not going to trust that he'll finish off that one player and give me a chance to wipe his board before turning on me, especially not if attacking that same player again is a clear mistake. I'm going to assume my opponents make good decisions and that he'll attack me as the most important target. So I'll play WoG before he gets the chance to do me real damage.

All of this is context dependent though, if he's only got 10 damage on board then I'm more likely to accept the risk that he starts targeting me, and save my wrath until that happens. Or if I have a temporary answer like a fog, or instant-speed removal to mitigate the damage, etc. But the way you framed it sounded like aggro is just being fully left alone because the other players are assuming he'll keep attacking the same person without a clear reason to assume that.

In the draft example, the reason he targeted me seemed to be explicitly because he wasn't trying to win. There's no reasoning with that position, because he has no motivation. I'm assuming in this aggro situation (which I've never witnessed) that the aggro player is trying to win. Thus, reason can in theory be achieved.

If he'd been trying to aggro me it would have been no problem at all, because he couldn't have built or played a good aggro draft deck to save his life, and I could have easily defended myself. Getting hit a few times doesn't ruin your game, but getting your hand shredded or your board blown apart absolutely can. I'd MUCH rather be unfairly targeted by aggro than unfairly targeted by control, no question.
This particular No True Scotsman sucked the first time you made it, and it doesn't get any better here.
Archetype boundaries are arbitrary. Define it where you want, but I think most people would consider, say, purphoros 1.0 to be an aggro deck in commander, while any deck that has to resolve a 4-mana enchantment before it does anything in any other format would never be considered aggro.
Would 50 be absurd? Absolutely.
Why though? I think in an alternate universe where commander doesn't exist, most people would say 40 is absurd for a game conceived with a 20 life starting total.
Would 20? I think just as much.
I don't actually want a 20 life starter, but absurd? It's the starter for nearly every other format, it hardly seems "absurd".
You think 40 is too high for the reasons you gave, I think 30 is too low for the reasons I gave. I of course think my reasons are more valid, or else I wouldn't be holding my position. 35 is more intriguing though.
I've argued why I think aggro should be better and why I think a lower life total hurts control and combo which I think are too powerful, etc, but I don't think it's really possible to make a good argument for why 30 life specifically is the right number, any more than 35 or 20 or 50.

The way I see it, the only way to REALLY figure out the right total is experimentation. Right now we've got one solid data point, which is what the format looks like at 40 life. We can presumably infer that lower life totals benefit aggro and midrange, and hurt control, combo, and ramp (as well as specific cards like necro and fetches). So the question is, are we satisfied with the balance at 40 life? Should we go lower, or higher, or stay the same?

My opinion is lower because I see the format as profoundly imbalanced, but idk that 30 is the number. It might be 35, it might be 20, it might be 5 (it's probably not 5). I can hazard a guess about the right number but there are way too many variables to make a good argument for anything specific. I just think we need to go lower.
I think that's still high enough to scare off enough low skilled players from misplaying aggro. I think 30 might as well, but not well enough, while sub 30 its no longer a deterrent.
I don't know how you think you know this. Even at 20 life, there's still 3 opponents which is a heavily uphill battle for aggro. Granted, I do think aggro would become a lot more popular and thus it would be less man-against-the-world, as mentioned, so I think the format would ultimately become aggro friendly, but I don't think that's guaranteed by any stretch.

Unless we actually change the life total this all sounds like wild speculation to me.
More importantly, I think what life total is right depends on how many players there are in a game. I think 40 is definitely too much when the game is large, 6+ players, but I think its about right with 4 or less, and I lean toward in being alright with 5. There should probably be a sliding scale with life totals decreasing as the number of players increases. 40 life for 4 or fewer, 35 for 5-6, 30 for 7-8.
Oh god it's been a long time since I did 7-8 :grin:

I kinda like 120 life split. 40 for 3 players, 30 for 4 players, 24 for 5 players, 20 for 6.

I agree with the general sentiment but I'm dubious the RC would consider such a change. Plus it'd be kind of weird to have a card like necro that's absurd with higher life totals and potentially kind of bad with low enough ones.
Well, you're not going to have much luck getting aggro to punish those decks at 30 life. If Omniscience into Expropriate is happening turn 4, then aggro is boned,
That's a worst-case-scenario. In that game, against such a strong hand, sure, aggro loses. In another game, maybe Jodah doesn't have such a good hand and stumbles, giving aggro a chance to kill him before he gets out of control. Or the control player kills the jodah forcing him to regroup and giving aggro a chance to kill him first. Aggro isn't playing a 1v1 game here.

The goal isn't for aggro to beat Jodah when he has a god hand. The goal is to give aggro a fighting chance against an average hand.
I also consider such decks to be more in the combo realm that Battlecruiser, because cheating out haymakers that give you a bunch of free spells or extra turns is combo territory. Not all combos are infinite. Show and Tell sure as hell wasn't but fell under the combo umbrella nonetheless. I still see more traditional Battlecruiser on mtgo, especially when people label the games casual or power 5-6, and before the Rona it would still pop up in my playgroup unless we went with our higher power decks. But, just as theres aggro/control with Sygg dumping 2 and 3 drops while countering answers, maybe Battlecruiser/combo is a better descriptor for Jodah dumping out Omniscience/Expropriate or similar decks.
Even if we set Jodah and other spell-cheaters aside, when I see someone ramping into a big bomb, it's usually not some big beater anymore, which is what I think of as "battlecruiser". It's usually expropriate or Rise of the Dark Realms or Torment of Hailfire or Craterhoof Behemoth or Emergent Ultimatum or Nyxbloom Ancient or vorinclex or jin gitaxias or a T&N combo or some other gross thing. It's not cute, it's not fun, it's not interesting, it's the same crap over and over, whether it's cheated out or ramped out or just played on curve.

If you're actually seeing people hardcasting 7+ mana creatures that just beat face then I guess we're in the attack-butterfly situation again, because that's not the world I live in.
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onering
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Post by onering » 3 years ago

The online meta is a lot more variant than any regular playgroup. It's also a place where you can advertise what sort of game your looking for and generally get people to abide. You don't see more traditional style battlecruiser when people are playing games targeted above 75%, but enough people are looking for lower powered games that it has a place.

As for how people would react to higher or lower life totals if commander was being introduced for the first time, that's not really relevant. Whether something sounds reasonable or absurd when nobody has experienced a format yet is quite a bit different than whether it sounds reasonable or absurd when the format has been around for awhile. And I'm not just talking about people getting used to how things are now, though that is important to a degree, I'm also talking about the fact that people have been able to see the benefits and drawbacks of 40 life, and can extrapolate that the drawbacks will get worse with a higher life total and less severe with a lower one, while the benefits will decrease as the life total lowers (whether they increase if the life total does is harder to judge). We do actually have 20 life as a data point, from cube, 60 card casual multiplayer, draft multiplayer, etc, so we have a pretty good idea how that plays out, and it's not taking a blind guess that it's too easy to get knocked out early at 20 life, especially if everyone has access to a key card at the start of every game. We can also make some educated guesses about how a number of things could change with life totals and have confidence that they'd hold up. We know that necropotence will be even stronger with and extra 10 life to work with because it will dig 10 deeper than it otherwise would, while decreasing the life totals to 30 would weaken it the same way. We know it's easier for aggro to compete at lower life totals than higher, and since the optimal viability of aggro is a difference of opinion the correct life total for achieving that will differ along with it. I'd think that I probably see 50 life as overly burdensome to aggro in the same way you think 40 life is, and the reason we differ on the life totals for it is because we differ on what we consider to be overly burdensome for aggro. One major thing we know is that 40 life has worked pretty well despite being an arbitrary choice, which doesn't mean we know it's the best choice, just that the best choice is probably not too far off. Given that far more people want a lower life total than a higher one, it's a reasonable guess, but just a guess, that 30 is more likely to work out than 50. There probably exists a range of starting life totals that would allow the format to exist basically how it is, and if you go below the low end or above the high end you start deviating too far from what the format is, which is pretty well liked. I can say, based on what I see as strengths and weaknesses in the format that can be tied to life total, that I don't know of 40 is on the high end of viability or closer to the middle, but I can say that I think it is within the range of viability and not on the low end, which to me would preclude both 20 and 50 as viable for keeping the format at least resembling what it is now.

I also think it's pretty obvious that the lower the life total, the easier it becomes to take out a single player quickly. I know our metas differ and you haven't seen this Dirk, but it does happen even at 40 life. I think that 40 life does a pretty good job at keeping this relatively rare, so that it's an occasional annoyance rather than something thats a regular risk of ruining games. As life totals lower, it obviously becomes easier to knock out someone early just because you have less damage to deal, but it also becomes more likely because people are more likely to run aggro decks so you just have a greater chance of running into someone who will do that. I think the rate of this happening is acceptable right now. I could perhaps accept a slightly increased rate, and while I would enjoy it happening even less often I don't think pursuing that is worth it. This is all my personal preference of course.

As for holding back the wrath, if someone has a board that can take me out I'm not waiting to see if he finishes off the first guy, but most of the time this happens the bad aggro player is telegraphing who they are trying to kill, and their target has already spent resources trying to stop them. They overextend because they need to in order to finish off their target, but it doesn't put them in a position to suddenly kill someone else instead. So they get their kill, but at the cost of putting themselves in a weakened state. They can't suddenly kill a second or third player, but once they finish off their target their board gets handled by a wrath, and if they were to switch to start attacking someone else before finishing off their original target they would just get their board handled anyway, because the other players are fresh. The guy you have already got down to 15 can't take your alpha strike and survive, but I, who haven't been hit, can take it full to the face and still be North of 20. So when your player c or d, you're weighing the risk of taking 15 from a guy who has telegraphed their intentions to kill player b vs letting them kill player b for you and then handling their board. Of course if I can make an ally of player b in exchange for the wrath to save him, that changes the equation. Context always matters.

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DirkGently
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Post by DirkGently » 3 years ago

onering wrote:
3 years ago
The online meta is a lot more variant than any regular playgroup. It's also a place where you can advertise what sort of game your looking for and generally get people to abide. You don't see more traditional style battlecruiser when people are playing games targeted above 75%, but enough people are looking for lower powered games that it has a place.
I've never played on modo but irl one does not generally have a graceful way to avoid playing against things which they don't enjoy. People might have a couple decks of differing power levels and might try to match the power level of the table, but it's rare to find a game at my LGS where a "traditional battlecruiser" deck is going to have a hope in hell. Even the casual decks have got some damn shoehorned in combo just because the life totals are too damn high and it's the only way new players see to win reasonably. That is not a sign of a well-balanced format, nor is it contributing to good games. Kill me early from aggro any day of the week before another damnable combo.

Another thing I notice a lot of players straight-up not attacking on an empty board for basically no reason. Hell, I do that too. Because, with 40 life, the damage can be so meaningless than even a small chance of retaliation isn't worth the risk. MAKE LIFE TOTALS MATTER AGAIN.
As for how people would react to higher or lower life totals if commander was being introduced for the first time, that's not really relevant. Whether something sounds reasonable or absurd when nobody has experienced a format yet is quite a bit different than whether it sounds reasonable or absurd when the format has been around for awhile. And I'm not just talking about people getting used to how things are now, though that is important to a degree, I'm also talking about the fact that people have been able to see the benefits and drawbacks of 40 life, and can extrapolate that the drawbacks will get worse with a higher life total and less severe with a lower one, while the benefits will decrease as the life total lowers (whether they increase if the life total does is harder to judge). We do actually have 20 life as a data point, from cube, 60 card casual multiplayer, draft multiplayer, etc, so we have a pretty good idea how that plays out, and it's not taking a blind guess that it's too easy to get knocked out early at 20 life, especially if everyone has access to a key card at the start of every game. We can also make some educated guesses about how a number of things could change with life totals and have confidence that they'd hold up. We know that necropotence will be even stronger with and extra 10 life to work with because it will dig 10 deeper than it otherwise would, while decreasing the life totals to 30 would weaken it the same way. We know it's easier for aggro to compete at lower life totals than higher, and since the optimal viability of aggro is a difference of opinion the correct life total for achieving that will differ along with it. I'd think that I probably see 50 life as overly burdensome to aggro in the same way you think 40 life is, and the reason we differ on the life totals for it is because we differ on what we consider to be overly burdensome for aggro. One major thing we know is that 40 life has worked pretty well despite being an arbitrary choice, which doesn't mean we know it's the best choice, just that the best choice is probably not too far off. Given that far more people want a lower life total than a higher one, it's a reasonable guess, but just a guess, that 30 is more likely to work out than 50. There probably exists a range of starting life totals that would allow the format to exist basically how it is, and if you go below the low end or above the high end you start deviating too far from what the format is, which is pretty well liked. I can say, based on what I see as strengths and weaknesses in the format that can be tied to life total, that I don't know of 40 is on the high end of viability or closer to the middle, but I can say that I think it is within the range of viability and not on the low end, which to me would preclude both 20 and 50 as viable for keeping the format at least resembling what it is now.
Personally I have great memories of 60 card, 20-life casual. But that's also very different in other crucial ways - 4-ofs, no commander, and the culture around it, or lack thereof.

While other formats can be useful indicators I think they're all too different to draw any substantive conclusions.

Besides that, it is a matter of opinion whether aggro should be made stronger and whether combo/ramp/control should be weakened. I think I've made my position clear, as have you.
As for holding back the wrath, if someone has a board that can take me out I'm not waiting to see if he finishes off the first guy, but most of the time this happens the bad aggro player is telegraphing who they are trying to kill, and their target has already spent resources trying to stop them. They overextend because they need to in order to finish off their target, but it doesn't put them in a position to suddenly kill someone else instead. So they get their kill, but at the cost of putting themselves in a weakened state. They can't suddenly kill a second or third player, but once they finish off their target their board gets handled by a wrath, and if they were to switch to start attacking someone else before finishing off their original target they would just get their board handled anyway, because the other players are fresh. The guy you have already got down to 15 can't take your alpha strike and survive, but I, who haven't been hit, can take it full to the face and still be North of 20. So when your player c or d, you're weighing the risk of taking 15 from a guy who has telegraphed their intentions to kill player b vs letting them kill player b for you and then handling their board. Of course if I can make an ally of player b in exchange for the wrath to save him, that changes the equation. Context always matters.
Telegraphed intentions seems like a tenuous leap of logic to me, and I avoid relying on my opponents making misplays when making my own decisions. To me this sounds like two misplays making a right. Unless the targeted player is in fact the threat, in which case the aggro player is making the right call and the targeted player is being rightly targeted.

When I play aggro, even if I'm explicitly zerging someone down for a good and explicit reason (perhaps they're playing a combo deck I can't otherwise meaningfully interact with) I frequently will still have other people wipe my board to prevent me getting out of hand, because they don't want me to be too strong if/when I charge targets.

I absolutely agree that a bad aggro player could throw off a game, even though I haven't really seen it happen in the way you describe. But I've absolutely seen bad control players excessively focus one player while another skates by and wins, which is equally if not more frustrating. I'm afraid I just don't see how this is a problem specific to aggro. Especially not when the problem you're talking about is something I've never seen, while the parallel problem with other archetypes happens fairly frequently in my experience.
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Post by Vessiliana » 3 years ago

I greatly appreciate the 40 life. It makes just the sort of game I am hoping for, lots of opportunity to build board states, but I have not found that 40 life is too much when it comes to trying to chip away at it. Sure, the 3 damage from Lightning Bolt isn't as frightening as it is in 20 life formats, but it is not negligible. It adds up.

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Post by Cyberium » 3 years ago

darrenhabib wrote:
3 years ago
Cyberium wrote:
3 years ago
darrenhabib wrote:
3 years ago
However if life was lowered, what would people do about commander damage at 21? The difference between 30 and 21 is just too narrow to be a worth while rule.
It's a tricky balance, because 21 commander damage is as much a rule as the flavor of EDH, I don't think it's wise to change it. Many aggro commanders such as Adriana, Captain of the Guard focus on anthem effect rather than voltron, those would probably prefer the 30 starting life and don't mind the 21 commander damage.
You're saying 21 damage is as much part of commander as say its singleton nature or the fact that you have a commander...but that shows how 30 life then makes an intrinsic part of the format extremely laughable. It would be a literally joke at that point to style voltron decks and then you as yourself have pointed out would lose part of the format.
21 commander damage is symbolically a 7/7 Elder Dragon hitting three times, where the game of EDH started. My reasoning is a nostalgic one, not a rational one. :3

Since this is commonly called Commander now, perhaps that's no longer a requirement, especially if we're tuning it to 30 life.

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Post by onering » 3 years ago

Cyberium wrote:
3 years ago
darrenhabib wrote:
3 years ago
Cyberium wrote:
3 years ago

It's a tricky balance, because 21 commander damage is as much a rule as the flavor of EDH, I don't think it's wise to change it. Many aggro commanders such as Adriana, Captain of the Guard focus on anthem effect rather than voltron, those would probably prefer the 30 starting life and don't mind the 21 commander damage.
You're saying 21 damage is as much part of commander as say its singleton nature or the fact that you have a commander...but that shows how 30 life then makes an intrinsic part of the format extremely laughable. It would be a literally joke at that point to style voltron decks and then you as yourself have pointed out would lose part of the format.
21 commander damage is symbolically a 7/7 Elder Dragon hitting three times, where the game of EDH started. My reasoning is a nostalgic one, not a rational one. :3

Since this is commonly called Commander now, perhaps that's no longer a requirement, especially if we're tuning it to 30 life.
Its also half your starting life total plus 1 when the starting total is 40.

Lowering it to thirty would make that 16. Is this too low, or is it something that could make Voltron more viable again. Even keeping it at 21, its still a bit quicker than 30 or 35, and it does provide a built in counter against infinite life gain, or even just heavy life gain, that doesn't require that you combo out.

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Post by TheAmericanSpirit » 3 years ago

@ the advocates for the lower life toal

I feel like there's a lot of oversimplification in your arguments. 30 starting health as a premise does not automatically equate to viable aggro as a conclusion. Unintended consequences exist, folks. That being said, I get your fundamental arguments and I cannot say definitively that you're incorrect, which leads me to my next point...

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.

(Seriously, I swear I've seen this exact topic or a close approximation at least once for every 6 months I've been using Sally and subsequently nexus. And I've been at this since 2009, man. What else is there to say? What capacity have we few to change the minds of an RC who have proven uninclined to radical action? Unless, of course, some brave souls want to slam 1500+ games and get the data for them... Hell, I don't even agree with you folks, but I'd try it just to see for myself.)
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Post by onering » 3 years ago

Agreed, it's just a perennial topic of conversation. I doubt that the RC has never tested this out, but there's a limit to how much information one group can glean from testing. It does seem like the people who most back a lower life total are seeing something in their playgroups that leads them to their preference. Dirk has been the most descriptive of this. I'd see 30 life as more attractive if I simply never saw any aggro and nobody ever swung at open players, but the experience in my playgroup is very different, and my experience online, while in between his descriptions of his playgroup and my own playgroup, leans more towards my own.

I see the Crux of the lower life totals argument being that it makes it more likely that people will care about getting in for damage over time, rather than trying to combo out or set up one big turn that kills the table. But the big turn strategies would benefit, because those big turns become easier to pull off with lower life totals. You don't need as many creatures on the board to make Hoof lethal at 30 life as you do at 40, Purphoros and Syr Konrad kill more quickly, etc. Those are some of those unintended consequences.

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Post by pokken » 3 years ago

Good lord I can't even imagine how annoying Purphoros, God of the Forge would be at 30 life. It's already awful.

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Post by ConstantMists » 3 years ago

pokken wrote:
3 years ago
Good lord I can't even imagine how annoying Purphoros, God of the Forge would be at 30 life. It's already awful.
My Purphoros, God of the Forge deck can really deliver now. At 30 life 1 good Firecat Blitz and the game might be over in 30 minutes. It's not worth shuffling a deck for a game to end that fast.
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Post by DirkGently » 3 years ago

pokken wrote:
3 years ago
Good lord I can't even imagine how annoying Purphoros, God of the Forge would be at 30 life. It's already awful.
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.

That said, if purphoros (or other aggro-ish commanders) ended up being a boogieman of the format, I don't think that's necessarily a problem. We've already got loads of combo and ramp boogiemen. If life totals changed, I think people would play purphoros a lot at first, then lose interest and he'd become soft-banned like Arcum or Azami. I think having try-hard boogiemen commanders across more archetypes is the sign of a more balanced meta.

It's really easy to run a few games with lower life totals and declare "hey look, we changed life totals to try it and it become an aggro hellscape!" but that's because everyone went in trying to exploit the change to the max. It'd be like if a group tried a Panoptic Mirror unban and everyone jammed mirror + time magic and declared it broken. To really see what things would look like with a life-changed meta, you'd need to run a meta with a lower life total for YEARS. And that'd still really just be one data point, since every meta is going to be a bit different.

onering mentioned 60 card multiplayer casual, and when I think back to when I played it, despite having 20 life and 4-ofs, aggro was still pretty uncommon. And that was 20 life. I think people are way overestimating the impact of 30.
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Gollum - Lobelia - Minthara - Plargg2 - Solphim - Otharri - Graaz - Ratchet - Soundwave - Slicer - Gale - Rootha - Kagemaro - Blorpityblorpboop - Kayla - SliverQueen - Ivy - Falco - Gluntch - Charlatan/Wilson - Garth - Kros - Anthousa - Shigeki - Light-Paws - Lukka - Sefris - Ebondeath - Rokiric - Garth - Nixilis - Grist - Mavinda - Kumano - Nezahal - Mavinda - Plargg - Plargg - Extus - Plargg - Oracle - Kardur - Halvar - Tergrid - Egon - Cosima - Halana+Livio - Jeska+Falthis+Obosh - Yeva - Akiri+Zirda - Lady Sun - Nahiri - Korlash - Overlord+Zirda - Chisei - Athreos2 - Akim - Cazur+Ukkima - Otrimi - Otrimi - Kalamax - Ayli+Lurrus - Clamilton - Gonti - Heliod2 - Ayula - Thassa2 - Gallia - Purphoros2 - Rankle - Uro - Rayami - Gargos - Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa - Ashling1 - Angus - Arcum - Talrand - Chainer - Higure - Kumano - Scion - Teferi1 - Uyo - Sisters
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Post by plushpenguin » 3 years ago

As an aggressively-slanted player, I will say that a change to 30 life will definitely shorten the clock with certain decks and strategies.

Token overruns have a lower threshold for killing multiple players
Low-yield craterhoof will have a greater chance of killing 2 players.
Yuriko brainstorming Draco will kill all players, and even Temporal Trespass will probably kill all players at a certain stage.
Xenagod's creatures are significantly more likely to hastily one-shot players.
OG purph requires 5 fewer creatures to wipe all players (which can amount to 2 turn's worth of creatures)

I'm coming up with these quickly, so I'm definitely forgetting a number of other examples..

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Post by Cyberium » 3 years ago

plushpenguin wrote:
3 years ago
As an aggressively-slanted player, I will say that a change to 30 life will definitely shorten the clock with certain decks and strategies.

Token overruns have a lower threshold for killing multiple players
Low-yield craterhoof will have a greater chance of killing 2 players.
Yuriko brainstorming Draco will kill all players, and even Temporal Trespass will probably kill all players at a certain stage.
Xenagod's creatures are significantly more likely to hastily one-shot players.
OG purph requires 5 fewer creatures to wipe all players (which can amount to 2 turn's worth of creatures)

I'm coming up with these quickly, so I'm definitely forgetting a number of other examples..
Remember when RC and Control/Combo players talked about powerful cards/decks, they have a habit of saying, "Don't worry, if a player over-performed, there will be three opponents to stop him/her, therefore this card/deck is not a problem." Under the same argument, even if the game starts at 30 life and aggro becomes more popular, they won't be unstoppable by default.

Perhaps because I play in a heavy counter/removal meta I don't expect any strategy to succeed easily, but Control/Combo decks tend to have much easier time coming back from a pitfall than an Aggro deck, because the higher starting life allow them to drag. C/C players on my table frequently gang up against the more aggressive/damage decks, just so they can play the game slowly. Much like people's hate for MLD, they want a smooth game without being hurried.

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Post by plushpenguin » 3 years ago

Cyberium wrote:
3 years ago
plushpenguin wrote:
3 years ago
As an aggressively-slanted player, I will say that a change to 30 life will definitely shorten the clock with certain decks and strategies.

Token overruns have a lower threshold for killing multiple players
Low-yield craterhoof will have a greater chance of killing 2 players.
Yuriko brainstorming Draco will kill all players, and even Temporal Trespass will probably kill all players at a certain stage.
Xenagod's creatures are significantly more likely to hastily one-shot players.
OG purph requires 5 fewer creatures to wipe all players (which can amount to 2 turn's worth of creatures)

I'm coming up with these quickly, so I'm definitely forgetting a number of other examples..
Remember when RC and Control/Combo players talked about powerful cards/decks, they have a habit of saying, "Don't worry, if a player over-performed, there will be three opponents to stop him/her, therefore this card/deck is not a problem." Under the same argument, even if the game starts at 30 life and aggro becomes more popular, they won't be unstoppable by default.

Perhaps because I play in a heavy counter/removal meta I don't expect any strategy to succeed easily, but Control/Combo decks tend to have much easier time coming back from a pitfall than an Aggro deck, because the higher starting life allow them to drag. C/C players on my table frequently gang up against the more aggressive/damage decks, just so they can play the game slowly. Much like people's hate for MLD, they want a smooth game without being hurried.
What you state is still correct. What I state is a notable edge, but not close to a gamebreaking one. I plan my decks around facing large quantities of interaction but even my measures have limits.

It won't change the overall inclination towards control and combo decks, but to say that it has little impact would not be exactly true.

I've also definitely had a fair share of games where I've been targeted for daring to be the proactive player in the game. Those games are basically lost, but in the process I've expended the resources of multiple control players. They didn't win either because they were dealing with serious tunnel vision.

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Post by onering » 3 years ago

DirkGently wrote:
3 years ago
pokken wrote:
3 years ago
Good lord I can't even imagine how annoying Purphoros, God of the Forge would be at 30 life. It's already awful.
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.

That said, if purphoros (or other aggro-ish commanders) ended up being a boogieman of the format, I don't think that's necessarily a problem. We've already got loads of combo and ramp boogiemen. If life totals changed, I think people would play purphoros a lot at first, then lose interest and he'd become soft-banned like Arcum or Azami. I think having try-hard boogiemen commanders across more archetypes is the sign of a more balanced meta.

It's really easy to run a few games with lower life totals and declare "hey look, we changed life totals to try it and it become an aggro hellscape!" but that's because everyone went in trying to exploit the change to the max. It'd be like if a group tried a Panoptic Mirror unban and everyone jammed mirror + time magic and declared it broken. To really see what things would look like with a life-changed meta, you'd need to run a meta with a lower life total for YEARS. And that'd still really just be one data point, since every meta is going to be a bit different.

onering mentioned 60 card multiplayer casual, and when I think back to when I played it, despite having 20 life and 4-ofs, aggro was still pretty uncommon. And that was 20 life. I think people are way overestimating the impact of 30.
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.

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Post by illakunsaa » 3 years ago

Why can't rc just try lower life total for like a month and see what happens? They did it with uncards and the world didn't end.

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Post by ISBPathfinder » 3 years ago

The problem is that from a more causal play perspective, 40 life starting its healthy but as metas bring up the power 40 life is too high and it pushes combo and punishes aggro strategies.

Its possible that some of the faster more aggressive commanders might become a problem with lower life totals but on the other hand it might push people to defend themselves sooner which they often are not pushed to do enough from aggro strategies.

I would be a big fan for lowering starting life totals and the commander damage required to eliminate opponents. It wouldn't feel very good to lower the starting life and leave commander damage at 21 if you ask me.
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Post by TheAmericanSpirit » 3 years ago

illakunsaa wrote:
3 years ago
Why can't rc just try lower life total for like a month and see what happens? They did it with uncards and the world didn't end.
You're missing an operative term: Once. They did it once and the world didn't end once. This is hypothetically a much greater change with potentially much greater impact. Do not fall into the trap of underestimating the fragility of a good thing.
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Post by DirkGently » 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.

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.

And of course it will likely vary substantially meta to meta. A full-on cEDH meta is likely too fast with their combos for the life total to make a significant difference for aggro vs combo, but when I think of combo decks at my LGS, I can think of two all-in combo decks, which are Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle and Sek'Kuar, Deathkeeper (using persist + things that remove the counter + sac outlet). Those decks have zero intention to win any way except infinite combos, but they aren't generally pulling it off on turn 3, they're more likely to start going off around turn 6, which gives aggro a chance if they get in there quickly. Difficult at 40 life, but 30...maybe it starts to nudge the dial a little closer to even steven.

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.

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.

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.
illakunsaa wrote:
3 years ago
Why can't rc just try lower life total for like a month and see what happens? They did it with uncards and the world didn't end.
Tbh I don't love this idea for the reason I stated above - the people likely to build decks to take advantage of it are likely those already with the strongest decks. When you improve an archetype and then incentivize the most enfranchised players to exploit it while the majority remains unchanged, it's likely going to look overpowered. The only way to really be sure is unbiased testing across many groups for a long period of time, which likely isn't feasible for anyone outside of the RC (and maybe not even within it).
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Post by plushpenguin » 3 years ago

If you're talking about turn 6-7 combo decks, it is very feasible for aggro to take out someone trying for that now (I can say with solid consistency, with a very fast aggro kill being a turn 4), even if you factor in interaction. If 3 other players are doing that, yeah good luck, but a combo imbalance in a pod is going to be a problem for control too.

30 life would make it more consistent for aggro to pull it off.

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Post by Candlemane » 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.
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Post by Cyberium » 3 years ago

illakunsaa wrote:
3 years ago
Why can't rc just try lower life total for like a month and see what happens? They did it with uncards and the world didn't end.
Because there's not a good way to collect date, and those who voice their concern the loudest tend to be those who're most displeased (or with the most time at hand), so it's hardly accurate. The change would have to last a year at least if there are no research method.

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Post by ISBPathfinder » 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.
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