Have cheap +1 CA draw spells really "aged out" of the format?

[Mookie]

Something I've been thinking about: were cantrips like Ponder and Preordain ever actually good in EDH, or was conventional wisdom about them being good just ported from Legacy / Modern?

In Legacy, stuff like Brainstorm is powerful due to a variety of factors, but one of the largest is the high variance in card quality. A lot of Legacy decks are built around casting specific broken cards - Show and Tell, Ad Nauseam, Painter's Servant + Grindstone, etc. On the flip side, when your curve stops at two or three mana, the value of extra lands is effectively zero. This means that there is very high variance in card value... and that's before accounting for sideboard cards like Blood Moon or Leyline of the Void that can win the game entirely on their own against certain decks.

On the flip side, I think card quality in EDH is relatively flat - if you're building around a single card, it will usually be your commander. There isn't any sideboarding, so you probably won't have any silver bullets or totally dead cards in your maindeck. The format is generally grindy and people run lots of card advantage, so extra lands are usually useful even into the lategame just because they let you cast extra spells each turn. All of this means that raw card advantage is generally more important than card filtering, and that's before we account for EDH being a 100-card singleton format, which means the odds of digging to any particular card are much lower... or the presence of tutors to outclass any card filtering entirely.

[TheAmericanSpirit]

Something I've been thinking about: were cantrips like Ponder and Preordain ever actually good in EDH, or was conventional wisdom about them being good just ported from Legacy / Modern?

I've often suspected this. I've never been impressed with cantrips in EDH outside of spellslinger, and considering the other cross format pollination that goes on, I have to wonder if they've ever been any good outside of 60 card constructed or decks specifically designed to generate extra value from them.

[3drinks]

Something I've been thinking about: were cantrips like Ponder and Preordain ever actually good in EDH, or was conventional wisdom about them being good just ported from Legacy / Modern?

The short answer is a resounding yes. Low mv cantrips that retain card parity are good at finding the land drops you need early, digging for business late, and effortlessly seeing more of your deck than other players at a faster rate. I watch this on modo, by t5 I might have 78 cards left in my deck while everyone else has 91-92. That's a significant bump in sheer volume and a leading cause of victory because you've had more options to browse in a given game. It's simple mathematical extrapolation.

[hyalopterouslemur]

Very specific to low mv cantrips. My rule of thumb is a permanent (usually a creature) with mv 3 or less or a spell with 2 or less, if it's a cantrip, it gets consideration. May not make the cut, but it's considered.

And that's not even counting fun things like the time I cast Aggressive Urge on Mirrorwing Dragon for a cheap (and instant) Collective Unconscious that requires a fist full of counterspells to counter. And I get a Morale-type effect to boot!

I can't emphasize how much this format still has a curve (even if aggro decks are practically nonexistent, there's nothing really similar to a burn or weenie deck, and I kinda blame the taboo on land destruction?, but I digress), so there will always be a place for cheap effects.

[3drinks]

...there's nothing really similar to a burn or weenie deck, and I kinda blame the taboo on land destruction?, but I digress), so there will always be a place for cheap effects.

idk, I've burned people out with Vial/Dargo.

- galv blast
- k-command
- l-bolt
- sulfuric vortex

Those have all let me get a burn win, and I'm excited to sleeve up Blood for the Blood God! and get some major carnage there.

[pokken]

I can't emphasize how much this format still has a curve

I feel like this is a seriously underthrought aspect of commander. The next step beyond "this format has a curve" is thinking about the different curves within your deck -- in eternal formats when you design a deck, you think about:

1) proactive vs. reactive spells (reactive spells are not on your curve normally! You don't just cast them, so they aren't part of developing your gameplan...except sometimes, e.g. sweepers in control decks, a Toxic Deluge and Supreme Verdict can be thought of as on the curve at 3 and 4)

2) mutually exclusive spell/curve spots
ex. if you have to choose between casting Sylvan Library and Arcane Signet on turn 2, how does that impact your game? Which one is right? Do you Ponder or Sol Ring on turn 1?

Obviously you often will run a lot of these, but the best example I can think of is:
You should probably not run Ponder in a deck that plays 10+ Llanowar Elves effects
- when you ponder, your top 3 will be filled with air because of mana dorks
- turn 1 green + blue is iffy to achieve (assume 21 untapped green and 21 untapped blue sources in your deck approximately) - it basically only works with a pure fetch manabase and even then it can be icky if you're in 3+ colors and might need a third color on turn 1/2

3) Multispell curves
Which spells cast together? Snapcaster Mage and Brainstorm are way more flexible than Divination at making multi-spell turns; sometimes you brainstorm, then snap brainstorm, and that gives you a plan for turn 1 and 3. Other times you have Snap+counterspell on turn 4 (or earlier if you ramped, etc.).

Knowing which spells play together can help with better understanding of your curve.

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Bottom line, with commander being faster now, I think it's really way more important to think about these curves. and cheap card draws/cantrips really help figure into filling out a curve.

[BaronCappuccino]

When I was building my new Azami deck, I knew I wanted "counter everything" to be the guiding mantra of deck construction. There seemed to me to be two ways to achieve such an end: fill all the slots allocated to counterspell effects with distinct relevant cards, at the cost of card quality but with the upside of variety, or choose only the best and fill the remaining slots with the cantrips discussed in this topic. I chose the former, but a better player would choose the latter. Back in Azami's heyday, the decks that convinced me that she's awesome played very busy turns on everybody's turn. Every time an answer was needed, there would be Snapcasters, cantrips, draws, more cantrips... Finally, there'd either be a top notch counterspell or a bust. Seemed like an awful lot of work. I'd rather just draw a card or two till the 50% chance of drawing a counterspell works in my favor. These cantrips make sure that you're only holding the best possible cards at any given moment, and I don't think that'll ever age out.