pokken wrote: ↑3 years ago
I'll grant you average is a really sloppy word here. I think the 'norm' would be a better word. Statistically speaking we're probably talking more like the median being useful? I'm not a statistician though. Median is likely much closer though because it own't exaggerate the impact of the ONE BILLION CARDS effects.
median is definitely closer (obviously that gets weird since if you combo 51% of the time then the median is that you combo win, but it's definitely closer).
As above, I'll grant average is the wrong word. The usual experience for me is commanders representing more than one card a turn over the duration of the game.
What about you?
I do think there's a big difference between Golos and Feather that you mentioned in your other thread.
Feather, when it goes off, will draw you a ton of cards, absolutely. But if feather gets countered or dies or whatever, not only are you not getting the CA, but your deck is now chock full of absolute garbage. A feather deck where feather can't stick on the board has like a 1% chance of winning the game. So that's sort of the gambling analogy there, feather is betting the house, and sometimes she gets rich and sometimes she's penniless on the street.
Part of why I hate golos's design is that he really doesn't have to give up anything for his potential high-rolls. He's an OK 5-drop even without the activated ability, and the ability is pretty bonkers. You could stick golos into basically any deck and he'll probably be strong (probably not a feather deck though lol). He's kind of similar to the theoretical eminence commander in that sense - although he does cost 5 so if you're playing cEDH he's often not going to resolve, and his value becomes irrelevant.
Feather gets absolutely slaughtered by drannith magistrate. I'd expect Golos can shrug it off pretty easily in most cases.
As far as my three main decks:
Phelddagrif provides political advantages and an inevitable wincon. No direct CA, though the politicking can absolutely give CA in a sense (hey, you kill that creature and I'll give you hippos - or whatever). And just by playing him, it means enemy threats are more likely to go elsewhere. How does one count up the CA? Not sure.
Kaervek does tend to kill a lot of enemy creatures, so he is CA I guess. Kind of hard to pin down exactly how much since it depends on lot on how the table reacts to him. Probably kills 1 creature per enemy turn on average, maybe? Which divided across 3 opponents is roughly equivalent to 1 card per turn cycle? But that's a lot better because of the tempo they spent casting those creatures. And he goes face a lot and closes out the game that way too. But then something like 80% of the deck is dedicated to getting him out, keeping him out, and making him more powerful, so it's a big job to get that card/tempo/damage advantage.
Zirilan sometimes just goes straight for the win, so I'm not sure how you'd say that works in terms of CA. Does the specific number of dragons matter if the end result is everyone else dies? He can also get dragons like
Hellkite Tyrant,
Skyline Despot, and
dragon mage that can give me CA. Technically since the dragon has to leave the battlefield, it's not a permanent card. But the main thing really is the tempo of getting a dragon for 3 mana and giving it haste, plus the flexibility of getting to choose the dragon. So I think it's a bit too esoteric to put a number on it. I wouldn't replace Zirilan in the Zirilan deck with "eminence: draw any number of cards on your upkeep", because that's just not what he does for the deck. But that doesn't mean he's better than that theoretical commander, just better in this deck.
Btw this is what I mean when I say it's really hard to compare a commander to a simple # card per turn.