Tempo: The hidden cost of spells that don't do anything

[pokken]

Tempo, Velocity and Do Nothing Cards

The above are undeniably ridiculously powerful cards, with minimal tempo impact -- 1 or 2 in most cases. But here's thing -- these spells cost mana without deploying anything functional to the board. The things they do have to enable getting cards that do more than any other card you'd draw, or they have to speed you up enough to counteract the tempo and velocity spent to deploy them. When I say these things I mean:

Tempo - the amount of mana you spend
Velocity - the number of cards you see

There are distinctions here between tutors, card draw/selection effects, and card neutral or even card positive ramp spells. And sometimes the effects that deploy something to the board have other hidden advantages. For example, Arcane Signet can synergize with artifact and untap strategies, and Brainstorm can synergize with draw effects like The Locust God, and Rampant Growth can synergize with Scute Swarm.

When I talk about do nothing cards, I'm talking about cards that in a vacuum do nothing to impact the board state. They:

(1) Make Subsequent Things Faster (Increase Max CMC & Future Tempo)
(2) Find More Powerful Things To Do (velocity)

(Avoid the natural digression of Llanowar Elves; it can be thought of as Arcane Signet or Rampant Growth for the most part, it doesn't do anything without a lot of help).

What is it then, to do something? It's putting a reasonable amount of pressure on the board. What is meaningful to a board will be different in every game, but fundamentally it's putting power on the board in most games. In more competitive games card advantage engines like Rhystic Study occupy a gray area but no matter how many cards you draw, you need to try to win the game, and you can only cast so many spells.

For the purposes of this thread, I'm going to stick to this simple definition of Doing Something:

Doing Something is placing something on the board that can directly win the game if no one interacts with it.

Sylvan Library is not doing something, but Quartzwood Crasher is doing something. You may eventually win the game if people let you draw all the cards with Sylvan Library but you still *have to cast something else*.

So, what do with this information? The classic trap of aggro in commander is to deploy only high tempo threats, beat someone most of the way down, and die to a sweeper. It's why commander has become largely a midrange format, where you deploy engines in the early game and try to reduce your risk to sweepers - or deploy ramp early game, so you deploy higher quality cards.

Here's thing: I think the tides are finally turning in terms of that strategy. Because of Wizards' printing of more functional reprints and more powerful cheaper cards, if you look at a typical CEDH deck nowadays, almost none of them play mana ramp that is any worse than mana neutral, and no one plays any 3 cmc tutors unless they directly synergize.

You can't *quite* just drop your hand - you still need to know how you're going to draw extra cards - but you *can* build decks that minimize do nothing cards if you want to.

I think the power level of individual threats and commanders that make them work is approaching the point where we have to pay much closer attention to how many spells we cast and how much mana we spend developing the board. The commanders that make them work is really the secret sauce there; decks like Raffine, Scheming Seer and Winota, Joiner of Forces enable you to play an extremely high threat density because *they are the engine* that fixes the commander velocity problem. They also fix the tempo problem, because they make cheap cards great, and you'd rather draw one of your three copies of Mother of Runes (Giver of Runes, Skrelv, Defector Mite) than draw Boros Signet ever.

In terms of how this impacts deck building and gameplay;

- Look at every single do nothing card in your deck and and see what you're looking for it to do. Can you replace it with something that does something?
- In particular, look really hard at tutors. You're going to have a lot more fun the less you tutor, and somewhat counterintuitively it can make your deck better if you can focus in on what you really want to draw.
- Think about how much velocity and how many cards you get *per card cast* and *per mana spent* - a lot of decks require so much ramp to function that they are virtually guaranteed to get to 5-6 mana early. These decks can have more expensive card draw effects and wind up more efficient because of it. Tailor your card draw/velocity package to your ramp package.
- When you're playing, try to think about how much pressure ("something) is on the board and where it came from, and where it goes.

I'm certainly not saying any of this is gospel, and certainly none of it is new. I don't think we're at the point where Demonic Tutor is a bad magic card, but I do think we're at the point where you might build a deck that's more fun by applying pressure when it's doing its thing instead of just ramping and finding more cards without pressure.

Let's Do Something


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The above is half-fleshed-out concepts that fell out of my brain after coffee, I don't fully endorse it and it's not fully baked

[Treamayne]

I won't say any of your analysis is wrong; but I do feel that that it is indicative of what is wrong with Commander (as opposed to what EDH was).
I really miss EDH. . .

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Especially since Commander Killed Casual

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By that, I mean that on MTGO I have not seen a non-Commander Multiplayer "casual" game fire in years, I can sit there with an open table for tribal or 2HG all night, and never find three other players to play 1 game.
So, Commander is no longer casual - and there is no other casual but Commander - at least online

[pokken]

I won't say any of your analysis is wrong; but I do feel that that it is indicative of what is wrong with Commander (as opposed to what EDH was).
I really miss EDH. . .

So a lot of what I'm doing these days is trying to figure out ways to put decks together that don't use as much of what has become the glue of the format (ramp, tutor, draw and removal staples). Putting concepts like this down is, *hopefully* a step toward making more fun and engaging ways to put a deck together that can play in the broader format despite not doing things the same way.

Hopefully

[DirkGently]

You're kinda talking about different things here. On one hand you say that cEDH is largely ignoring non-fast mana. Okay, so it's an issue of power level. But then you say that tutors aren't fun. Which, one, I disagree, and two, isn't that a completely different consideration?

I do agree that combat-focused, low-curve game plans should generally aim to include CA into their threats rather than separate them. I think the reason being that wizards prints synergy cards that are much more efficient that non-synergy cards. A good example from my catalogue would be Gallia of the Endless Dance. She's aggressive, but she also gives you a really strong CA engine in the CZ. Running Harmonize would be wasteful because I'm already committing the deck resources towards enabling an aggressive plan, so I can get a lot more efficiency out of card advantage that requires attacking, i.e. gallia.

But that's just one way to build a deck. If you're playing a rampier, more midrange deck then maybe harmonize is good because you don't have the synergy to use other, potentially more efficient draw spells. Or maybe you can get better use from Rishkar's Expertise, or Collective Unconscious, or Mizzix's Mastery, or whatever synergizes with your thing. Of course, alongside that, you do need to have a plan for every stage of the game, and if you have a slow early game you may need to dedicate slots to protecting yourself at that point.

[pokken]

I think rampy decks can use some of the same ideas too thinking about quality of cards and cutting back on do nothing stuff for more impact.

Say you're almost always tutoring for a bomb in your green deck. Maybe you just run another bomb and save the tutor mana. Maybe run tutors that are mana positive or provide card advantage.

Thinking about ways to ramp that are also threats is another way to think about less do nothings; say Klauth or old gnawbone instead of another 2 cmc ramp.

In a nutshell the point is I think that tutors and ramp often chew up tempo unnecessarily. You can accomplish similar things cutting from either package and playing cards that progress your gameplan or that are flexible but actually do stuff.

The connection with cedh decks is that they do not want to sacrifice very much tempo on bad tutors or bad ramp and you can apply some of those ideas to make differently powerful casual decks than are typical.

Like I said though I'm kinda drifting around a point and not really sure of what it is lol - not married to any ideas here.

[toctheyounger]

I think you're onto something here. In matters of draw, ramp and tutors all, it's almost always better when your inclusions are meaningful and included with intent, not just because goodstuff. I definitely prefer to run synergy and layered value over pure draw or pure tutor. I run them where there are specific things I need to be able to get that don't necessarily come up easily any other way (case in point the altars in Varina), or where the tutor is deck appropriate (Mirage block tutors in a topdeck matters build for example).

In any other circumstance, in a non-cedh setting you're almost certainly sacrificing synergy for the sake of efficiency. It matters in cedh, where on average games are done by turn 5 if not earlier; that part of the meta is prioritising efficiency and tempo, for the most part. These cards work for them because they want the most efficient draw, tutor and card velocity they can get, all the while presenting as little surface for interaction as possible. In most cases.

Outside of that part of the meta I think it's important to pick your scaffolding cards well and with appropriate forethought. The early turns of a lot of casual games are literally just treading water from an excitement perspective and a tempo perspective. You scaffold some ramp, some rocks, some draw and nothing happens overly. It's important to pick pieces for your list that give you some presence and have the potential to impact the game over and above just adding to your mana pool or your grip. I've come to really loathe cards like Cultivate and Rampant Growth for this reason. They're woefully inefficient for cost, truly vanilla to play and unless you have them on curve early game you are not where you wanna be casting them. The same could be said for Brainstorm too; as good a card as it can be, it probably sees a damn sight more play than it should in commander.

I think that's part of why I like the Varina build so much; it doesn't just drop rocks and go 'wait till turn 4, I'm coming for ya'. It's got varied choices in the 99 that rely on synergy and tempo, and it requires some sequencing to get you where you want to go. It's been a real learning experience to brew for however long it's been about. I genuinely love the fact that it doesn't run all the standard rocks and crap. I'll take a Springleaf Drum over signets any day; we're in a paradise for card diversity these days, there's a card for most of what you'd need to do, it's just a matter or finding it.

[DirkGently]

@pokken Bombs are probably the worst place, in terms of power, to avoid tutors. They tend to be expensive already, so mana cost saving isn't as relevant as an early-game play. And if your endgame overrun is craterhoof, say, there's just not anything that's going to be close to that power level. And you probably don't care about card advantage when you're going to win the game.

I feel like I shouldn't have to explain that a 7-drop can't replace a 2-mana ramp spell. If your deck wants enormous endgame mana and can use a klauth or gnawbone, then go and run them as part of your endgame plan, but you probably want the cheap ramp as well so you can actually get there. And ofc there are many decks that want to ramp early but don't get enough value out of massive ramp in the endgame, or don't have the attackers to make klauth or gnawbone effective.

cEDH decks don't run "bad ramp" because their wincons cost 2 mana, and they don't run "bad tutors" because they run the better tutors (better because they're cheaper, not better because they effect the board). I'm not really sure how that applies meaningfully to regular commander.

Of course you shouldn't put anything in your deck without considering how it fits into your game plan. If you have a low curve, maybe don't play so much ramp. If you have efficient ways to draw cards while developing, don't run generic inefficient draw spells like Harmonize. If none of your pieces are particularly crucial, probably don't run very many tutors. But that's not specific to ramp, draw, and tutors. If you aren't an aggro deck, don't run cheap aggressive creatures that drop off on the late game. Don't run cards that require you to attack if you expect to be on the defensive for most of the game. Have a plan, and choose your cards so that they fit into that plan. That's the lesson you're looking for, I think.

[pokken]

@pokken Bombs are probably the worst place, in terms of power, to avoid tutors. They tend to be expensive already, so mana cost saving isn't as relevant as an early-game play. And if your endgame overrun is craterhoof, say, there's just not anything that's going to be close to that power level. And you probably don't care about card advantage when you're going to win the game.

I feel like I shouldn't have to explain that a 7-drop can't replace a 2-mana ramp spell. If your deck wants enormous endgame mana and can use a klauth or gnawbone, then go and run them as part of your endgame plan, but you probably want the cheap ramp as well so you can actually get there.

So I think you can build a pretty good deck with critical mass of bombs instead of tutors if you design right. And instead of tutoring for them you just run the right number to draw the number you need to win the game. A hoof deck can run hoof pathbreaker ibex various kamahls. Whatever. And the nice part about running more bombs is sometimes it's a lot cheaper and they don't die to Fierce Guardianship. You don't lose to extraction effects randomly.

Tutors are "optimal" but not necessarily needed - and you can gain some things.

Re: pt 2 - A 7 drop doesn't necessarily replace a 2 drop but sometimes it does and you get a better deck! If your deck can get to 7 mana in a reasonable me time frame with one fewer rampant growth and you can spend the mana maybe it's okay? From what I've seen of modern decks people tend to flame out a lot ramp wise.

Obviously this goes to your other points about just focusing on whys your deck is trying to achieve etc etc.

[DirkGently]

So I think you can build a pretty good deck with critical mass of bombs instead of tutors if you design right. And instead of tutoring for them you just run the right number to draw the number you need to win the game. A hoof deck can run hoof pathbreaker ibex various kamahls. Whatever. And the nice part about running more bombs is sometimes it's a lot cheaper and they don't die to Fierce Guardianship. You don't lose to extraction effects randomly.

Kamahl and pathbreaker ibex, in a deck that's designed to make a bunch of 1/1 tokens or whatever, are going to be much much less effective that hoof though. You play Kamahl, Fist of Krosa, you pump in 10 mana, and you're still probably far short of the craterhoof buff after spending 16 mana. Run a tutor for craterhoof and you're only spending 10 or so. So the tutor is much MORE efficient, despite the upfront cost.

Nobody plays extraction effects so I'm going to ignore that one. Counterspells and removal, though, sure...and maybe teeeny bit of discard but its pretty rare. But there are multiple ways to combat that. You could run counter-counterspells like Guttural Response. You could run equipment or instants that protect your permanents. You could make your spells uncounterable with Insist. You could run recursion to get your wincon back to hand if it ends up in the bin. Etc. Or you could run alternative wincons if you have good options. Some decks do, some decks don't. You just have to think about your plan and what works best for it. And accept that no plan can ever be fully bulletproof.

Tutors are "optimal" but not necessarily needed - and you can gain some things.

Not to be pedantic but nothing is "needed", especially not in a casual/social format. it's all just somewhere along the scale of optimality. Typically at least a couple tutors is optimal, but not necessarily ofc.

Re: pt 2 - A 7 drop doesn't necessarily replace a 2 drop but sometimes it does and you get a better deck! If your deck can get to 7 mana in a reasonable me time frame with one fewer rampant growth and you can spend the mana maybe it's okay? From what I've seen of modern decks people tend to flame out a lot ramp wise.

Focusing on the idea of "replacing a 2 mv ramp spell with a 7 mv ramp spell" is taking the wrong perspective imo. The goal is to find the right balance for the deck, whatever that may be. If you identify that you have too much cheap ramp, it's just as plausible that the best replacement is a draw spell or a removal spell or a 4 mv ramp spell or a land. Asking "have you considered replacing cheap ramp with expensive ramp?" makes no more sense to focus on than "have you considered replacing draw spells with removal spells?" or "have you considered replacing counterspells with land?"

It's much easier to think about the subtraction and the addition separately imo: What do I have too much of? Okay, cut some of that. What do I have too little of? Okay, put some of that in. And then just keep iterating on it.

[ISBPathfinder]

Tempo needs to be followed up with copious card advantage or just winning outright. Often times I have seen a card advantage commander played with tempo as it gives consistancy but sometimes a concept that is just super low to the ground can also feel like tempo. I used to play Edgar Markov as a super low to the ground deck full of one drops which also played a bit of tempo. Its unofficial name was tutor Necropotence lol as it was my main goal in the deck.

The weird distinction is between ramp and tempo. I don't actually think I would call mana dorks or ramp cards tempo because they sort of replace themselves with a resource that produces mana. Its true that mana dorks can be fragile but you could say the same thing about land ramp in a MLD meta or artifacts in a meta heavy on artifact hate. In my mind the term I would use for tempo is cards that ramp you at the cost of card advantage. Spending a card to have a mana dork or go get a land from deck into play is more ramp in my mind where as when you spend a card that is card disadvantage like Gemstone Caverns / moxen that is what I would call tempo.

Ramp tends to be a little slower in its advancement but also not as negative in its overall card advantage setup. Tempo ramp often needs more card advantage to offset.

[onering]

For tutors, my question is what are you using them for? If you are only tutoring for win cons, then yes you get randomly %$#% canned by extraction effects or smart players sitting on a counter to blank whatever you tutored for. But if you are using tutors as toolbox cards, then they really don't fall into that danger and don't make the game unfun. I always run demonic and vampiric in black decks online, because not only do they make the decks better they make them more fun to play. I don't use them solely to grab combo, and they're in many decks without combos. I use them early to fix mana or grab a CA engine, or later to grab a specific answer, or sometimes I cash them in for whatever my best bomb is in the situation. They get whatever you need when you need it and make everything flow more smoothly. Randomness is a fun part of the format, but having a couple of cards that reduce it is a treat.

Also, how would you consider cards that impact the board but don't win games if unanswered? Stuff like wraths, Rift, discard, hard gy hate, spot removal, etc?

[pokken]

For tutors, my question is what are you using them for? If you are only tutoring for win cons, then yes you get randomly %$#% canned by extraction effects or smart players sitting on a counter to blank whatever you tutored for. But if you are using tutors as toolbox cards, then they really don't fall into that danger and don't make the game unfun. I always run demonic and vampiric in black decks online, because not only do they make the decks better they make them more fun to play. I don't use them solely to grab combo, and they're in many decks without combos. I use them early to fix mana or grab a CA engine, or later to grab a specific answer, or sometimes I cash them in for whatever my best bomb is in the situation. They get whatever you need when you need it and make everything flow more smoothly. Randomness is a fun part of the format, but having a couple of cards that reduce it is a treat.

Also, how would you consider cards that impact the board but don't win games if unanswered? Stuff like wraths, Rift, discard, hard gy hate, spot removal, etc?

Re: tutors
I am personally becoming kinda anti toolbox for most decks and that's some of what this thread is about. I won't say it's never fun and what not but I am enjoying the challenge of severely cutting back on tutors for my more medium power decks. There are just so damn many cool new cards it's fun trying them out instead of tutoring for the best all the time.

And there is a material gain to be had of some tempo.

What I've been working on is reducing the number of categories I need and increasing the number of categories cards fit into (e.g. old gnawbone as ramp and a threat)

Re: sweepers
I would generally consider a wrath to be a method of gaining tempo (and to a lesser extent card advantage). You're trying to spend say 3-4 mana to extend the game x turns - or reset the game clock a little.

But there are lots of ways to think about them.

Wrath's can sometimes behave like fast mana (if they kill everyone else's fast mana) and can behave like card advantage if they take a lot of other peoples cards.

Fundamentally removal and sweepers are more do nothing cards; they spend cards and tempo to gain more cards and tempo. Thinking about ways to turn sweepers into threats is an extension of the ideas I'm chewing on (say Living Death and Balefire Dragon vs Toxic Deluge.

Very few things are straight equivalencies in magic and again we're just jawing here

Tempo needs to be followed up with copious card advantage or just winning outright. Often times I have seen a card advantage commander played with tempo as it gives consistancy but sometimes a concept that is just super low to the ground can also feel like tempo. I used to play Edgar Markov as a super low to the ground deck full of one drops which also played a bit of tempo. Its unofficial name was tutor Necropotence lol as it was my main goal in the deck.

The weird distinction is between ramp and tempo. I don't actually think I would call mana dorks or ramp cards tempo because they sort of replace themselves with a resource that produces mana. Its true that mana dorks can be fragile but you could say the same thing about land ramp in a MLD meta or artifacts in a meta heavy on artifact hate. In my mind the term I would use for tempo is cards that ramp you at the cost of card advantage. Spending a card to have a mana dork or go get a land from deck into play is more ramp in my mind where as when you spend a card that is card disadvantage like Gemstone Caverns / moxen that is what I would call tempo.

Ramp tends to be a little slower in its advancement but also not as negative in its overall card advantage setup. Tempo ramp often needs more card advantage to offset.

So when I say tempo I mean it like this --

when you cast Llanowar Elves you are -1 tempo
next turn you even out to 0 tempo (the elves tap for the one you lost)
next turn you are +1 tempo, because you have an additional mana (as long as you hit your land drop)
(you're also *kinda* down one card because llanowar elves sucks but it's still there for craterhoof, but technically it's card neutral)

Ramp is basically sacrificing either tempo or card advantage for (1) future tempo and (2) future max power (higher peak mana cost of cards you can cast)

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In terms of winning a game o commander, tempo doesn't *strictly* need to be followed with copious card advantage; you can just win all the cards for free by killing everybody. If you turn 0 Gemstone Caverns into t1 Mox Diamond and then Thassa's Oracle / Demonic Consultation with Force of Will backup....you won going down 3 cards potentially

That said, I think it's a much better gameplan to go for turning all that free tempo into cards (and turbonaus decks would mostly agree, being the best CEDH decks right now)

Edgar Markov is absolutely a tempo machine! He's functionally doubling the speed you can deploy your threats (although the only sacrifice he makes to get there is card quality not card advantage, interestingly).

He's very similar to Winota, Joiner of Forces where you play bad cards to get free dudes off the top, aka massive tempo gains (also card advantage ofc).

[yeti1069]

I think looking to cEDH for philosophies or processes to apply to non-cEDH deckbuilding/games is inherently flawed. EDH and cEDH have fairly different goals--cEDH is looking to assemble a swift and efficient conclusion to the game or slow everyone else down until you can find your efficient conclusion, whereas EDH is more concerned with having a good time, maybe the social aspects of playing with 3 other people, and playing with "fun" cards. cEDH has no room for "fun" stuff; it wants the cards that are going to win, contribute to winning, or prevent losing.

As far as increasing threat density by sacrificing tutors/ramp/"do nothing" draw...this ONLY works for decks specifically built to circumvent the need for adding these cards (usually because the commander does one or more of these things). For example, Korvold doesn't need many/any draw spells, and needs few tutors, because it can draw so many cards on its own. Varina works in a similar fashion. Both also have specific deck-building constraints dictated by how their respective draw abilities function (Korvold needs stuff to sacrifice and other ways to sacrifice stuff, while Varina wants zombie creatures to attack with). However, there are plenty of commanders that people play, which aren't value engines, and which need outside card draw or tutoring. Some more expensive commanders/decks NEED ramp to hit the spells they want to cast. Sure, there's been a trend of the average CMC of commander decks going down, as players are building leaner decks (this is very likely due to the prevalence of deck-sharing on the internet), but that doesn't mean nobody wants to be playing those 7, 8, 10, 12, 15 mana bombs (or jank), and you're not getting there without ramp.

It's not clear to me what your point is regarding Rhystic Study. Is that a "do nothing" card, or does it affect the table? Is drawing cards somehow not moving toward a conclusion? We're playing a game using a deck of 100 singleton cards. Unless every spell in the deck is a game-ending threat (that you can somehow play with little mana), then you need card draw (fairly universally regarded as the best thing you can do in Magic). Someone who "does nothing" but draw 2-3 times as many cards as everyone else is probably winning that game. I recently added Demonic Tutor to my Captain N'ghathrod deck, and so far about 90% of the times that I've drawn it, it has gone to find Rhystic Study.

I do think it's valuable for people to devote more consideration to what they are including in their decks and why, and whether those inclusions fit with their game plan, but I don't think you can call a tutor a "do nothing" card, and suggest that somehow their decks or gameplay will be better without them.

[yeti1069]

I've removed tutors to some degree from most of my decks (usually going down by 1-3), because I believe it makes the game a little more enjoyable for everyone to be less consistent, but haven't gone to 0 anywhere, because having the ability to find a specific card (an answer or wincon) amongst 70+ cards is very important, and contributes to my enjoyment of the game. At the same time, however, I've also removed combos. That means games run longer.

Removing tutors absolutely reduces deck power, and can be seen as negative tempo if you're looking at it from the end-perspective of how are you moving toward a conclusion to the game.

[pokken]

I think looking to cEDH for philosophies or processes to apply to non-cEDH deckbuilding/games is inherently flawed. EDH and cEDH have fairly different goals--cEDH is looking to assemble a swift and efficient conclusion to the game or slow everyone else down until you can find your efficient conclusion, whereas EDH is more concerned with having a good time, maybe the social aspects of playing with 3 other people, and playing with "fun" cards. cEDH has no room for "fun" stuff; it wants the cards that are going to win, contribute to winning, or prevent losing.

As far as increasing threat density by sacrificing tutors/ramp/"do nothing" draw...this ONLY works for decks specifically built to circumvent the need for adding these cards (usually because the commander does one or more of these things). For example, Korvold doesn't need many/any draw spells, and needs few tutors, because it can draw so many cards on its own. Varina works in a similar fashion. Both also have specific deck-building constraints dictated by how their respective draw abilities function (Korvold needs stuff to sacrifice and other ways to sacrifice stuff, while Varina wants zombie creatures to attack with). However, there are plenty of commanders that people play, which aren't value engines, and which need outside card draw or tutoring. Some more expensive commanders/decks NEED ramp to hit the spells they want to cast. Sure, there's been a trend of the average CMC of commander decks going down, as players are building leaner decks (this is very likely due to the prevalence of deck-sharing on the internet), but that doesn't mean nobody wants to be playing those 7, 8, 10, 12, 15 mana bombs (or jank), and you're not getting there without ramp.

It's not clear to me what your point is regarding Rhystic Study. Is that a "do nothing" card, or does it affect the table? Is drawing cards somehow not moving toward a conclusion? We're playing a game using a deck of 100 singleton cards. Unless every spell in the deck is a game-ending threat (that you can somehow play with little mana), then you need card draw (fairly universally regarded as the best thing you can do in Magic). Someone who "does nothing" but draw 2-3 times as many cards as everyone else is probably winning that game. I recently added Demonic Tutor to my Captain N'ghathrod deck, and so far about 90% of the times that I've drawn it, it has gone to find Rhystic Study.

I do think it's valuable for people to devote more consideration to what they are including in their decks and why, and whether those inclusions fit with their game plan, but I don't think you can call a tutor a "do nothing" card, and suggest that somehow their decks or gameplay will be better without them.

re: Cedh
I don't think that's right; I think CEDH has a lot to teach us about card quality, tempo, mulliganning and gameplans. There're a lot of lessons to learn from the deck construction concepts (even if it's just which ones you want to break and how).

re: Value engine commanders (and to an extent tempo engine commanders)
*In general* I agree that most of the alternative gameplay styles are enabled by allowing your commander to fill the gaps in. But I'd argue that almost every commander that anyone has any interest in enables you to do this -- that's part of the whole point of the format I think. Commander X makes it so you can play bad salamanders, or bad flash creatures, or bad enchantments that have a good rate, etc.

What a commander does, functionally, is alter the card pool for your deck. And really understanding that is definitely part of what this thread is about. Understanding what your card pool is and just how much better some cards are is clutch here.

I 100% agree that some commanders need lots of ramp or lots of card draw, or some of certain types, to be effective. This thread is not saying "don't ramp" it's saying "sometimes you'd be better off not ramping, and sometimes you'd be better off ramping differently" (and the same for card draw).

I think commander is getting to the point where there is more and more room to do things differently than we have before, and that's a really neat thing. The card pool *seems* to be shrinking as stuff homogenizes, but all that homogenization opens up points of attack.

The way plays tend to build decks now with "I'll add 10 signets, and 10 cheap card draw spells, and 10 removal spells" and whatever is very vulnerable to going under (highe tempo) or over (inevitability, usually via endgame ramp or card advantage strategies).

re: Rhystic Study
Rhystic study is a do nothing card. It slows people's tempo or it draws cards. On the board it does nothing. If someone slams a 6/6 and starts bashing your face in, your only response is to remove it, and if that threat is aggressively costed enough or well defended enough, you can get tempo'd out.

I'm not saying Rhystic is a *bad* card. I'm saying it doesn't win until you cast other spells, which means people who deploy threats that also draw cards (see Ledger Shredder or Tymna the Weaver) can apply pressure while drawing cards.

re: Tutors as do nothing cards
Until you deploy the thing you got, they do nothing. So you're paying 2 extra mana for Rhystic Study with Demonic Tutor; you could instead draw Kindred Discovery and draw a ton more cards right now maybe. Or maybe you could play another horror that draws you cards

Is that "better?" Maybe not, but it can be.

You lose the ability to Demonic Tutor for Toxic Deluge, or even for Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth or whatever and that makes your deck quantitatively worse.

But how much worse? Maybe the deck can still be OK being a little more focused.

[toctheyounger]

I don't think that's right; I think CEDH has a lot to teach us about card quality, tempo, mulliganning and gameplans. There're a lot of lessons to learn from the deck construction concepts (even if it's just which ones you want to break and how).

I'd agree with this. I don't think the lessons are direct in most cases. I think you're looking to delve beyond card choices initially and looking at how a deck is structured, what a deck is looking to for advantage, and how to close out games. Obviously, a lot of actual card choices aren't going to translate over well; for example Thoracle in a casual meta is going to be pretty gauche, or just ineffective if it isn't paired with forbidden tutors.

That said there's plenty of decks within cedh which really delve deep into synergy to get what they need, and they do generally pretty well. Winota, Joiner of Forces is a common example, Krark, the Thumbless and Sakashima of a Thousand Faces , Inalla, Archmage Ritualist is complex as %$#% but runs layered synergy pieces, Magda, Brazen Outlaw wants super specific stuff, and I'm bringing this guy up a ton, but Tayam, Luminous Enigma is dense with synergy, and these are cards you literally don't want anywhere else (Icatian Moneychanger). Not only that, all of these decks bar Inalla do well in this setting. Krarkashima, Winota and Magda have all won major tournaments, and Tayam is regularly making finals cuts in tournaments presently. The only reason Inalla doesn't is the lines are super convoluted and it's a difficult deck to pilot.

Of course, the format is all about fun, so if you're happy to play with whatever 100 you've got on you that's cool. But I think there's good lessons in cedh to be learnt even if you're not pulling from the same card pool. If you're looking to make your deck as effective at doing the thing as you can be it's worth seeing what folks are doing to optimise. It also breaks down the whole us vs them thing that people seem to have with cedh, which is stupid and needlessly combative.

[duducrash]

Funny enough my understanding of do nothing cards is almost the opposite. A cards that draws cards isnt a do nothing in my book, a do nothing is a card that do nothing on its own the turn it comes down, like Panharmonicon , interesting perception

[pokken]

Funny enough my understanding of do nothing cards is almost the opposite. A cards that draws cards isnt a do nothing in my book, a do nothing is a card that do nothing on its own the turn it comes down, like Panharmonicon , interesting perception

Panharmonicon reads "when you play an etb effect draw a card" basically. It's just another form of card draw engine at its most fundamental (and sometimes a combo piece ofc). .

[duducrash]

Yeah, thats my point, you need another card for it work. A card that comes down and do nothing on its own is a do nothing. Specially at 4mv+ and you need to play something else and/or survive a rotation.

Sometimes Ad Nauseam is a do nothing and sometimes its a "You win the game"?

[toctheyounger]

Sometimes Ad Nauseam is a do nothing and sometimes its a "You win the game"?

Naus is specific in that it really only wins you the game if you can get quick mana from it. Or, your wincon is super compact, like Oracle Consult. It's one thing to draw the cards, if you're not playing mana positive rocks and rituals and dockside it gets significantly worse as a pseudo win con.

Card is still amazing, but if you can't win with it on the spot playing it out becomes a timing issue.

[Avacyn Believer]

Oh that is a lot of discission I will try to catch up on at a later time I just want to respond to the original post for now.

Good post, it feels like something I've come across in my own deck building, though never really put into words as such. The "do something" to me kind of also translates to "how do I win", which is something I try to think about a lot and struggle to find in some decks. It also reminds me of all the games where my opponent draws half their deck and can't win or put down a solid game plan on the battlefield.

Only recently I've been putting a lot of emphasis on synergy and I can feel noticeable difference between decks that synergize well and those that don't. I am sure there are exceptions, but I want to believe every card has a use in the right deck. A deck of mine that comes to mind when reading this is Bruna, Light of Alabaster. First time I built it years ago, it didn't work and I didn't have fun playing it. Recently I've attempted it again, taking a self-mill approach and loving the results.

I really miss EDH. . .

If someone asked already, please link me to the reply, otherwise I am curious why do you feel that way?

[Treamayne]

I really miss EDH. . .

If someone asked already, please link me to the reply, otherwise I am curious why do you feel that way?

BLUF*: I feel like MtG has passed me by, and there is now no more formats for players like me (tons of theoretical formats, but none you can actually get a game playing). I've been playing since The Dark (Jun 94) and I hate to give the hobby up, but I have had 1 game that I felt good about afterward in the last five years. I just really miss actual casual formats.

I have come to believe there are actually three related but distinctly different formats: EDH, Commander, and cEDH (probably more appropriately Competitive Commander - CC). EDH was a format for jamming 99 little used cards in a deck with a General and spending a few hours of fun. Winning didn't matter, Losing didn't matter, Efficiency certainly did not matter. Fun mattered. Doing your thing (whatever that may be) mattered.
Then came Commander 2013** - popularity soared efficiency became a factor as more and more people flooded the format. Commander was born; and it's a format where playing an actual Legends Elder Dragon as your general was "interesting but irrelevant".
cEDH and French Banlist were around the same time, but even more focused on efficiency and winning (especially as access to Legacy and Vintage games dried up and all those players needed a new home to exercise their skills).

For example:

• Note: None of the quotes below are "bad" or "wrong" - just emblematic of my point that EDH =/= Commander and the current format bears little resemblance to original EDH.

SPOILER

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Those effects are minimal and not worth compromising your manabase for.

No surprises here overall, since i don't run nonbasics just for the sake of them - especially if they can't generate mana of color. Hitting pips and entering untapped are the most important things when it comes to lands overall.

This thread tears me apart. On one hand, I strongly believe 15 basics per edh deck is a hard and fast minimum for sane deckbuilding, but on the other hand, I've tasted the forbidden fruit of a rock solid nonbasic manabase and I can't deny the allure.

I find myself wondering, if maybe I'm wrong these days and all the Preordain|brc adjacent cards are "too low iMPACT" these days, as the kids say.

Hmmm... there are two reasons I'll call out why cards like Phyrexian Arena and Night's Whisper have fallen out of favor, at least in my own decks.

The first reason is synergy.

The second reason is that play patterns have changed.

A well-built deck will maximize the probability of cards reaching the ceiling and minimize the probability of those cards underperforming, but it's impossible to reduce the fail rate to zero. As a result, while I would say synergistic cards generally have a higher expected value, it's reasonable to run less synergy-dependent cards if you're particularly risk-averse or in a meta with lots of disruption.

Commander at any level is almost certain to have at least one of the players go off, meaning that nickle-and-dime isn't guaranteed to be good.

Yeah, I mean, I cannot fathom why anyone still gets tripped up on Temple of the Obvious Trap

In any other circumstance, in a non-cedh setting you're almost certainly sacrificing synergy for the sake of efficiency. It matters in cedh, where on average games are done by turn 5 if not earlier; that part of the meta is prioritising efficiency and tempo,
<snip>
Outside of that part of the meta I think it's important to pick your scaffolding cards well and with appropriate forethought.

Of course you shouldn't put anything in your deck without considering how it fits into your game plan.

Tempo needs to be followed up with copious card advantage or just winning outright.
<snip>
Ramp tends to be a little slower in its advancement but also not as negative in its overall card advantage setup. Tempo ramp often needs more card advantage to offset.

A card that comes down and do nothing on its own is a do nothing. Specially at 4mv+ and you need to play something else and/or survive a rotation.

As I said above, nothing is wrong with these comments or their creators - they just show how different Commander is from what EDH was.

As I mentioned in my original post's spoiler boxes - I have been an online primary player for a long time (work travel requirements and other factors). A decade ago, I would say that I was playing a about 60% Tribal Legacy, 20% Star / 5 Moons, 15% EDH, 5% Emperor/2/3HG. Shortly afterward WotC took away our access to 5 and 6 player games. Then they removed support for Tribal deckbuilding, then they removed all "house rule" support (MTGO used to allow the game builder to include things like "attack left/right", "spell range", etc).

My last in-person playgroup was 2017 (for a few months in Savannah); and my current B&M stores are toxic with pubstompers (at least the last 2-3 times I have tried to play there on a Commander night).

The result is that there are no supported casual formats (even Pauper has become hyper-competitive) left, because "Commander" is theoretically casual (but not as casual as EDH was) and so popular you can't find anybody to play anything else.

[/soapbox]

* 1 - Bottom Line, Up Front - it's TL;DR but at the beginning of the post rather than the end
**2 - Many people blame Commander 2011 - but I don't recall much change in the two years after that release (except maybe French Banlinst) because at the time it was a one-time deal (and horribly imbalanced decks). But with 2013 it became "annual" and all the changes really began to amplify. Then they started adding "for-commander" cards to normal Standard sets. . .

[DirkGently]

@Treamayne personally I've always been an optimiser, even back in 2009. Ofc I'm a lot better at it now, and the power creep has accelerated things significantly, but I think the will to win has always existed. I think the biggest difference is that there's so much more transfer of information now, and precons have significantly raised the floor. I miss the feeling that we were all trying to figure out the format on our own, personally. Now it feels a lot more like standard, "oh, you're playing THAT deck".

[pokken]

You have to get your group to actively deoptimize. It's very hard.

I tried hard by playing some horrendous trash decks for a while but everyone likes to win. So they started doing stuff like exploiting the trash compact by playing "trash" cards that one shot people with commander damage in a low removal format. One dude then played a creature machine gun "trash" commander. And the cycle went on.

People just could not grasp the idea of just playing non synergistic garbage to reprogram themselves. Pick cards by art and feel for a while is what I was going for.

This was my main deck https://deckbox.org/sets/3115196

Anyway it was a nice try I guess but there's just no bringing it back. Hell I have to try hard to get cultivate to work these days the game has gotten so fast.

[toctheyounger]

I mean yeah my trajectory has more been slow and steady, but I've generally always been for finding a pet decks and making it as good as it can be. I just have less vintage cardboard and money to throw at it than some of the pundits here on nexus so it's been a slow burn.

That said I don't disagree, you're looking at a pretty small niche of players wanting to just play fast and loose casual these days.