Archenemy in EDH

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Skello496
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Post by Skello496 » 4 years ago

Hi all! Just wondering if you all have tried Archenemy with EDH. I love archenemy as a fun alternative way to play Magic, and I own almost all of the archenemy cards, but I have yet to figure out the best way to play it with edh. The higher starting life totals make for a very difficult game of it, because normally it's 20, 20, 20, 20, 40 - but in EDH all the normal players have 40. I've felt like giving the archenemy 80 is crazy, but doing only 60 is not enough, so I'm wondering what you all have found to be the best balance.
Additionally, how do you incorporate commander damage? I feel like maybe it should be archenemy only?
EDH:
Krenko, Goblin Stampeder
Nylea, God of Hydra Counters G
Mahadi, Emporium Master rb
Feather, Catrips Redeemed wr
Ghired, The Tokened gwr

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DementedKirby
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Post by DementedKirby » 4 years ago

Yo!

I've also been considering Archenemy in my Commander games. 80 life is too high but I think 60 is a good place to be. I also think that commander damage shouldn't be an issue and should be fine to play as is. Besides, the archenemy does have a special deck to give him/her an advantage over the other players. However, with the other players having 40 starting life, they game will reach a point where they'll have enough mana and resources to together overtake you. So I think more so that a complication in merging formats, it's more a factor of how to build a deck for this merging.

If, with enough testing, you find that the archenemy always loses even though they have the advantage of the schemes, you can always juice it up even further. You could add the Garruk, the Slayer challenge as a sort of "team mate" to the archenemy. Or you could also have the Face the Hydra challenge deck or the Battle the Horde in unison alongside the archenemy (controlled by him/her) as sort of like "minions" they have. This also makes it fair for the opposition as well since these challenge decks have the hero's reward mechanic which prizes all players (in this case all the players facing the archenemy) for fulfilling certain goals.

I'm considering testing with the latter as well when I get around to testing. I've already played against these challenges (M15 Garruk challenge and the Theros block challenge decks) and it's fun as well as balanced enough where you don't always win, necessarily. Because I'm predicting that 40 life for the opposition is too high to be balanced.
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