False Friends in your Decks

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KitsuLeif
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Post by KitsuLeif » 1 year ago

EDHRec, as wonderful of a tool it is, isn't free of problems. One of these problems that I want to discuss today is "false friends".
Cards that appear in a lot of decks for a selected Commander and that seem to be the perfect fit for these Commanders, but have in fact way less to no synergy with what the Commander is doing.

Want an example? I'm giving you three! And all for the same Commander:
Zask, Skittering Swarmlord currently sits at 714 decks on EDHRec. Not bad for a Commander that came out ~2 months ago.

Right now, the New Cards section is showing us the first false friend: Appearing in 61% of 685 decks there is Canoptek Tomb Sentinel.
At first glance, this looks like a great card for a Commander that returns Insects from the graveyard. Problem is, Canoptek Tomb Sentinel would have to enter the battlefield directly from the graveyard, without a detour over the stack. Which it takes if you cast it with Zask's ability. I'm not sure if the Unearth ability for 7 is worth the inclusion, since you can only use it once, but from multiple conversations I know that people think it acts as repeatable removal with Zask's ability, which unfortunately isn't the case.

In the Creatures section, we have our next false friend: In 40% of 714 decks there is Bane of the Living.
I guess, this one can be excused because if you cast it face-down from your hand, it can still be a boardwipe once. Unfortunately, you can't cast it face-down from your graveyard with Zask, because a face-down spell has no creature types, which Zask cares about.

And the last one is in the Utility Artifacts section: Fortunately, most people know, but there are still 8% of 714 decks that play Ashes of the Fallen.
Because why wouldn't you? It's a cheaper Maskwood Nexus (which appears in 22% of 714 decks) or Conspiracy (which appears in 100% of 30 decks), isn't it? Unfortunately, it isn't. Because just like with Bane of the Living, if you try to cast a non-Insect spell that was an Insect card in your graveyard, that's considered an illegal action by the game and the game reverts itself back to the point before proposing to cast the spell. And since Ashes doesn't alter the creature types of spells on the stack, it serves absolutely no purpose in Zask decks.


I have seen those cards showing up in so many lists now over the last couple of weeks, and every time there has been the misconception that they'd work.
So I wanted to create this thread for you to post your "false friends" that you see appearing in decks or on EDHRec and that don't work the way people think they do.

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RxPhantom
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Post by RxPhantom » 1 year ago

I"d chalk it up to Magic being a complex game. Having tens of thousands of unique cards will have that effect, and since EDHrec is crowdsourced there's really no way to prevent it. I take EDHrec data with a grain of salt anyway. It's probably the best source of data we have, but there are a ton of reasons not to trust it completely, including the issues you bring up. Methodology in data collection and deck qualification rules are also big hits against it.

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DirkGently
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Post by DirkGently » 1 year ago

Interesting, I did not know that about casting from gy. Super weird.

It does happen occasionally but it is quite rare imo.

There are more common reasons to think critically about edhrec data, for example people playing cards for thematic reasons over synergistic ones. For example, 80% of Ambassador Blorpityblorpbloop are running Glitterflitter because it says sticker on it, even though it's incredibly weak compared to flickering the commander (Thassa, Deep-Dwelling at 47% btw). Even Wizards of the _____ has 66% and even less synergy.

For an inverse comparison, basically nobody is running Corpse Dance in Kagemaro, First to Suffer despite it being a very powerful synergy. More people are running Kagemaro's Clutch lol.

And then there's commanders like Morophon, the Boundless where people could have entirely different decklists while still being fairly optimised.

You've just gotta understand that a lot of people either are bad at building decks and/or are imposing unfathomable restrictions on themselves. EDHrec is a place for recommendations, not somewhere to get a finished decklist with no effort.

@RxPhantom lol where is that ajani sticker from? In light of recent events, I'm concerned about what "this" might be…
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darrenhabib
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Post by darrenhabib » 1 year ago

Hmm, are you sure about that interaction with spells on the stack? I literally just tried it on Magic Online with both Morph and Ashes of the Fallen and they both resolved putting the creatures into play.
If you still think you're correct (Magic Online is not known to be the best) it would highlight that it's not an EDHREC problem, but a complexity of rules as RxPhantom pointed out, as Wizards of the Coast MTGO don't even know that particular interaction.

But EDHREC does give false flags for builds as I experience with Zacama Primal Calamity having lots of Dino tribal, which I'm afraid has 0% synergy with Zacama.


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DirkGently
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Post by DirkGently » 1 year ago

darrenhabib wrote:
1 year ago
But EDHREC does give false flags for builds as I experience with Zacama Primal Calamity having lots of Dino tribal, which I'm afraid has 0% synergy with Zacama.
There's a lot of forced tribal decks. Arixmethes, Slumbering Isle is another one. Zacama makes even less sense given that there's a very obvious tribal option in the same CI though. Kozilek, the Great Distortion for eldrazi tribal, Derevi, Empyrial Tactician for bird tribal…Tribal players are just degenerates I guess, it's probably incurable.

@TheGildedGoose wait, why doesn't that work? Lol this thread is making me feel dumb.

Well, I guess it's "just" an 8/8 for 3 that draws you a card on attacks and is goaded. Seems okay though.
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TheGildedGoose
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Post by TheGildedGoose » 1 year ago

DirkGently wrote:
1 year ago
Tribal players are just degenerates I guess, it's probably incurable.
You know, I'm really hoping for a great merfolk commander in the Ixalan set later this year. Normally I disdain tribal decks because they're paint-by-number but I have a soft spot for fish from playing them in Vintage so long ago.

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KitsuLeif
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Post by KitsuLeif » 1 year ago

darrenhabib wrote:
1 year ago
Hmm, are you sure about that interaction with spells on the stack? I literally just tried it on Magic Online with both Morph and Ashes of the Fallen and they both resolved putting the creatures into play.
If you still think you're correct (Magic Online is not known to be the best) it would highlight that it's not an EDHREC problem, but a complexity of rules as RxPhantom pointed out, as Wizards of the Coast MTGO don't even know that particular interaction.
It doesn't work with Haakon, Stromgald Scourge, as confirmed by judges:
Same wording as Zask.


And the comp rules for this:
601.2a To propose the casting of a spell, a player first moves that card (or that copy of a card) from where it is to the stack. It becomes the topmost object on the stack. It has all the characteristics of the card (or the copy of a card) associated with it, and that player becomes its controller. Any continuous effects that modify the characteristics of the spell as you start casting it begin as it is put on the stack (see rule 611.2f). The spell remains on the stack until it resolves, it's countered, or a rule or effect moves it elsewhere.
601.2e The game checks to see if the proposed spell can legally be cast. If the proposed spell is illegal, the game returns to the moment before the casting of that spell was proposed (see rule 729, "Handling Illegal Actions").

So yeah, don't trust MtG:O or Magic Arena or any other digital client (XMage etc.) fully on card interactions.
For example, a few weeks ago, Arena didn't create a snake for Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons when a creature with +1/+1 counters got a -1/-1 counter from the Hapatra player.

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Post by Treamayne » 1 year ago

DirkGently wrote:
1 year ago
@TheGildedGoose wait, why doesn't that work? Lol this thread is making me feel dumb.

Well, I guess it's "just" an 8/8 for 3 that draws you a card on attacks and is goaded. Seems okay though.
I'm guessing you mean this:
And it's because the "sacrifice a creature" is cumulative upkeep - the opponent can just elect not to pay and kill your goaded, forced sac, draw engine and you get nothing. . .
V/R

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KitsuLeif
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Post by KitsuLeif » 1 year ago

Treamayne wrote:
1 year ago
And it's because the "sacrifice a creature" is cumulative upkeep - the opponent can just elect not to pay and kill your goaded, forced sac, draw engine and you get nothing. . .
If they don't pay, they won't get to sacrifice it either, because it can't get sacrificed. So it's a free 10/10 goaded creature for them.

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Post by TheGildedGoose » 1 year ago

Treamayne wrote:
1 year ago
DirkGently wrote:
1 year ago
@TheGildedGoose wait, why doesn't that work? Lol this thread is making me feel dumb.

Well, I guess it's "just" an 8/8 for 3 that draws you a card on attacks and is goaded. Seems okay though.
I'm guessing you mean this:
And it's because the "sacrifice a creature" is cumulative upkeep - the opponent can just elect not to pay and kill your goaded, forced sac, draw engine and you get nothing. . .
Not paying the cumulative upkeep makes you sacrifice the permanent and Irenicus makes the creature unable to be sacrificed, so it's basically donating a goaded 10/10 without evasion, which is pretty mediocre in a Bad Santa deck.

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Post by BaronCappuccino » 1 year ago

Bothersome Quasit shows up in quite a few Baeloth Barrityl, Entertainer //Raised by Giants decks, and while not a strict nonbo by any means, I think it hurts more than it helps. What's particularly bothersome about this Quasit is that Baeloth rewards the death of goaded creatures in combat with treasure, and the Quasit renders them unable to block. It shuts off half of Baeloth's rules text. On an aside, I'm not a fan of redundancy with the commander, so the Quasit's goad ability is also worthless to me. I can't fathom building Bae as anything that can't do all the goading himself.

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Post by darrenhabib » 1 year ago

TheGildedGoose wrote:
1 year ago
Not paying the cumulative upkeep makes you sacrifice the permanent and Irenicus makes the creature unable to be sacrificed, so it's basically donating a goaded 10/10 without evasion, which is pretty mediocre in a Bad Santa deck.
I don't want to derail the thread on a particular interaction, but I actually think that this is pretty good. As the Irenicus player you get to draw a card each time it attacks, and the 10/10 means that it's hard to kill, so you should get recursive draw. And 10/10 even without evasion is still a lot of pressure.

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Post by onering » 1 year ago

BaronCappuccino wrote:
1 year ago
Bothersome Quasit shows up in quite a few Baeloth Barrityl, Entertainer //Raised by Giants decks, and while not a strict nonbo by any means, I think it hurts more than it helps. What's particularly bothersome about this Quasit is that Baeloth rewards the death of goaded creatures in combat with treasure, and the Quasit renders them unable to block. It shuts off half of Baeloth's rules text. On an aside, I'm not a fan of redundancy with the commander, so the Quasit's goad ability is also worthless to me. I can't fathom building Bae as anything that can't do all the goading himself.

I think having a clear path for your 10 power commander to connect is worth not getting treasure. Not at every point in the game, sure, but you can hold off playing the demon until being able to alpha strike with all your creatures (while forcing your opponents to alpha strike each other) and make none of your opponents able to block it outweighs getting some treasure tokens.

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