I HATE Triumph of the Hordes

[yeti1069]

I really, really hate Triumph of the Hordes. Generally, spells that win you the game cost a fair bit more than 4 mana, or require a much more significant board presence. At the root, I greatly dislike infect, but I feel like I randomly lose to this card way too often.

[pokken]

I really, really hate Triumph of the Hordes. Generally, spells that win you the game cost a fair bit more than 4 mana, or require a much more significant board presence. At the root, I greatly dislike infect, but I feel like I randomly lose to this card way too often.

Yeah I can't argue with it tbh. The fundamental issue with these effects is that they require you to have fundamnetally instant speed board wipes or similar, or...counterspells.

"build up a board state, then cast something that requires a counterspell or a fog" is a gross play pattern. In casual edh, you should be able to meaningfully engage with win conditions with removal.

These play patterns are what inspire things like board wipe tribal; just never let everyone have a board state *yawn*

[yeti1069]

I really, really hate Triumph of the Hordes. Generally, spells that win you the game cost a fair bit more than 4 mana, or require a much more significant board presence. At the root, I greatly dislike infect, but I feel like I randomly lose to this card way too often.

Yeah I can't argue with it tbh. The fundamental issue with these effects is that they require you to have fundamnetally instant speed board wipes or similar, or...counterspells.

"build up a board state, then cast something that requires a counterspell or a fog" is a gross play pattern. In casual edh, you should be able to meaningfully engage with win conditions with removal.

These play patterns are what inspire things like board wipe tribal; just never let everyone have a board state *yawn*

You don't even need much of a board state for this to be lethal. A handful of 1/1s and an unwary opponent.

[Dunadain]

Combat is combat, and I'll die on this hill. Practically all horde kills involved passing the turn with an army in play.

[PrimevalCommander]

While I am firmly in the camp of "Triumph Sucks", and Craterhoof too. I am not sure I feel as strongly about Fog-or-Lose depending on the circumstances. How do we feel about the following cards: Nissa, Ascended Animist with 8 forests, or Overwhelming Stampede with a beefy commander? Each of these cards with a big enough board can represent a table kill by turn 7 if done aggressively. But I do not think these cards are bad for the format. Something has to give the Saproling deck a way to punch through 120 life points other than making 120+ saprolings.

Commiting to the board is a risk. If you get a large enough army to capitalize on some of these other fair overruns, the risk pays off and you can swing for a lot of damage. Though they would still be fog-or-lose unless the math works in your favor and you can kill enough power with spot removal to survive. I always look for this out, but I usually put a bit of overkill damage onto the player I want dead the most, just to be sure . Assuming I am not overkilling the table by 100 each, which usually I am not.

How do we feel about Finale of Devastation? 12 mana yes, but nigh unstoppable should it resolve for at X=10. Probably fine due to mana cost requirements. I know I want one, even as I purposefully leave Craterhoof to rot in the binder.

[PrimevalCommander]

Double post, but this thread could be a teaching moment from the BOARD WIPES thread where we are discussing various wipes that target token armies where Triumph and Craterhoof thrive. Some low mana, instant speed, damage based, wipes can do wonders for crippling an alpha strike like this, but not slow down the rest of the table to a retaliation can happen. Also why I will never take out Massacre Wurm in my Karador, Ghost Chieftain deck. I just love to make token decks sweat knowing this card is in my deck.

[pokken]

You don't even need much of a board state for this to be lethal. A handful of 1/1s and an unwary opponent.

Yeah, that's pretty true. people often go shields down early in the game. I think that, in general, that is a play pattern mistake by the triumpher though - if they wanna kill one person early in the game like that, chances are good they're fighting 1v2 for the rest and probly gonna lose. In general, blowing your wad to kill one person early is a person being dumb more than it is the card's fault.

But, the fact that the card scales to "if I have 30 or so power, I can kill the table with counterspell backup" is the real issue to me. You can early burst kill someone a lot of ways; I died on turn 4 to Jor Kadeen, the Prevailer myr tribal one time

While I am firmly in the camp of "Triumph Sucks", and Craterhoof too. I am not sure I feel as strongly about Fog-or-Lose depending on the circumstances

I think Overwhelming Stampede and Nissa, Ascended Animist have interaction surface that is different!

* If I remove your commander in response to stampede, it's now a much steeper setup cost; you had to have cast smething else fat as well. Two fats and a swarm is a lot steeper.
* nissa requires literally 8 forests and that's still not table lethal; 8 x 9/9s is 72 damage, which is not table lethal. Hoofdad works because it adds a body to change the math; 8 x 1/1s + hoof = 80 + 14 from hoof, which is far more likely to be table lethal

I have spent a lot of time thinking about Akroma's Will and while it's 4 mana and has other applications, it requires a much more obvious lethal army than hoofdad. You need roughly 50 power on board to make Akroma's will lethal to the table in most games. That's a metric %$#% of power to be sitting on the board.

If I untap with 50 power on board, that's the table's fault. If i untap with 8x 1/1s (that i may have flashed in at instant speed with Call the Coppercoats or whatever), that's just magic.

Even Triumph of the Hordes is not as bad as hoofdad, because developing your own board state is a defense. One time I saw someone fade a lethal triumph with Golgari Charm which was %$#% hilarious. The attack surface for hoofdad is much, much smaller.

[yeti1069]

In my game last night, I had a significantly larger board state than the Triumph player, except they had two flyers at about 5 power each. I'd gained some life, and was nowhere in range of lethal--even a Craterhoof would have been dicey if all they wanted to do was take me out, plus, no one was on 8 mana yet. Triumph meant my one flying blocker didn't matter, and it easily gave them lethal vs the table.

In a format specifically designed to go longer, with 40 life per player, poison doing the job at its regular 10 is an issue. There are plenty of ways to deal 10 poison to a player without much effort. Triumph makes it almost trivial to deal 10 poison to each player...for 4 mana. It being so cheap also means it's significantly easier to defend than a 7- or 8-mana spell.

[yeti1069]

While I am firmly in the camp of "Triumph Sucks", and Craterhoof too. I am not sure I feel as strongly about Fog-or-Lose depending on the circumstances. How do we feel about the following cards: Nissa, Ascended Animist with 8 forests, or Overwhelming Stampede with a beefy commander? Each of these cards with a big enough board can represent a table kill by turn 7 if done aggressively. But I do not think these cards are bad for the format. Something has to give the Saproling deck a way to punch through 120 life points other than making 120+ saprolings.

Commiting to the board is a risk. If you get a large enough army to capitalize on some of these other fair overruns, the risk pays off and you can swing for a lot of damage. Though they would still be fog-or-lose unless the math works in your favor and you can kill enough power with spot removal to survive. I always look for this out, but I usually put a bit of overkill damage onto the player I want dead the most, just to be sure . Assuming I am not overkilling the table by 100 each, which usually I am not.

How do we feel about Finale of Devastation? 12 mana yes, but nigh unstoppable should it resolve for at X=10. Probably fine due to mana cost requirements. I know I want one, even as I purposefully leave Craterhoof to rot in the binder.

Nissa, I think is a fairly obnoxious card, but you are still looking at needing to deal somewhere between 100 and 120 damage, usually, divided often unfavorably. Triumph changes that calculation to needing to deal 30 damage. You're talking about requiring 1/4 to 1/3 of the threshold, and for 3 mana less. Overwhelming Stamped is in the same boat, except you also need a big creature. I've absolutely gunned down the biggest power creature on someone's board in response to cards like Stamped, and watched their whole turn crumble, as it went from granting +7/+7 to +2/+2.

I get that there need to be ways to deal with decks that gain a lot of life, or that otherwise become difficult to deal with, but I think a 4-mana spell that requires fairly little set-up (you can literally turn a handful of mana dorks and utility creatures into lethal damage) seriously stretches the line. In fact, there are few situations I've seen where Triumph wouldn't have been as good, or better, than Craterhoof, for half the mana.

[PrimevalCommander]

I know Triumph and Hoof are orders of magnitude more powerful than Nissa and friends, but generally I don't hardly ever need 120 point of damage in a single instance to kill the table. If I am playing an aggro green deck I am whittling life totals pretty quickly along with any other chip damage up to turn 7-9. Again, these cards are much more fair, so I think the argument is where should the threshold of on-board power be for an overrun to be too much?

Akroma's Will typically requires 20-25 power, due to doublestrike, to kill the most threatening player (or two) and I just mop up the guy that is behind. That does open it up to interaction, but the Vigilance + Lifelink almost always prevents any counter attack, so it's mostly board wipe or bust.

What do we think is the next most powerful green overrun past Triumph and Hoof? I'm thinking Finale of Devastation (12 mana) or Nissa, Ascended Animist (7 mana). I like Kamahl, Heart of Krosa (8 mana), but it is definitely not high power. Pathbreaker Ibex is summoning sick and needs bigger creatures to get scary.

[pokken]

Finale of Devastation is better than hoof, since you can get Pathbreaker Ibex (or a couple other options) and turn a board of like 3-4 into lethal It's by far the strongest enabler.

[Igzex]

I'm not the proudest of using this card in my No Rares Tatyova, Benthic Druid build but it's like, either that or storm infinites to win against everyone else using todays hot chase cards D:
(Please WOTC just downshift Roil Elemental to uncommon me and everyone who plays against me is begging you)

[TheAmericanSpirit]

Triumph is a combat win at its heart, so I see no issue with it.

@pokken it's not just "Play Blue Or Die" as you claim. You can block, you can remove creatures in combat to lessen the poison, you can counter, you can fog, you can boardwipe. Every color has blockers, all five have instant speed creature removal, three colors can counter it, three can fog it, and four have enough quality boardwipes to mop up a growing army. Frankly, if you see Johnny Aggro across the table putting together the A Team or a swath of goons and you elect to do nothing about it, you probably deserve to lose that one.

[yeti1069]

Finale of Devastation is better than hoof, since you can get Pathbreaker Ibex (or a couple other options) and turn a board of like 3-4 into lethal It's by far the strongest enabler.

Finale is more flexible in having the ability to be used to fetch what's needed in a given moment before you reach the requisite 12 mana for the big play, but there's a big difference between 8 and 12 mana. Hoof can also be cheated into play, flickered, copied, or otherwise abused in ways that Finale can't.

[yeti1069]

I know Triumph and Hoof are orders of magnitude more powerful than Nissa and friends, but generally I don't hardly ever need 120 point of damage in a single instance to kill the table. If I am playing an aggro green deck I am whittling life totals pretty quickly along with any other chip damage up to turn 7-9. Again, these cards are much more fair, so I think the argument is where should the threshold of on-board power be for an overrun to be too much?

Talking about needing less than 120 damage ignores the point I'm making about Triumph. Everyone else could be at 10,000 life, yet it's still a 4 mana spell with the requirement of a moderate board presence to kill a player, or even the table.

Triumph is a combat win at its heart, so I see no issue with it.

@pokken it's not just "Play Blue Or Die" as you claim. You can block, you can remove creatures in combat to lessen the poison, you can counter, you can fog, you can boardwipe. Every color has blockers, all five have instant speed creature removal, three colors can counter it, three can fog it, and four have enough quality boardwipes to mop up a growing army. Frankly, if you see Johnny Aggro across the table putting together the A Team or a swath of goons and you elect to do nothing about it, you probably deserve to lose that one.

In this last game, I had as many or more creatures out, most with 3-4 toughness, a flying blocker, and was at 43 life. They didn't have Hoof mana, and had a 6/6 flyer, a 5/6 Birds of Paradise, a couple other mana dorks, and a number of 1/1 tokens--a few had been buffed with counters to be 3/3s. Now, sure, if they were at Hoof mana, that's a threatening board, but with 3 players in white, there's a real risk of killing 2 players with Hoof then losing your board to a wipe, since I had enough toughness that they would have had to commit nearly all their attackers to just me. That's not a board I'd wrath into.

Instead, they cast Triumph with mana up for a Heroic Intervention, and only had to swing the two flyers my way, then divided the remaining creatures between the other two players.

[pokken]

Finale is more flexible in having the ability to be used to fetch what's needed in a given moment before you reach the requisite 12 mana for the big play, but there's a big difference between 8 and 12 mana. Hoof can also be cheated into play, flickered, copied, or otherwise abused in ways that Finale can't.

Hoof is lethal at lower mana, but requires more board commitment and doesn't outlet with infinite mana. It's a much worse finisher because it's very narrow and requires too much board commitment.

Hoof remains the best "go-wide" finisher but it's a worse card because it scales worse and requires a more narrow deckbuilding design;

Killing with 5 creatures at 12 mana is much stronger than killing from 10 creatures at 8 mana, because you're a lot more likely to have 12 mana and 5 creatures in a game of commander than you are to get to untap with 10 creatures and 8 mana.

Finale of Devastation giving haste is the icing on the cake, because you can kill from an empty board if your commander is able to make a wide board or you can just cast some more stuff.

(and that doesn't even get into the infinite combos with finale, or the shenanigans you can do with extra combat steps)

[PrimevalCommander]

If Craterhoof didn't exist, would we all be complaining about how stupid Finale of Devastation is? None of my playgroup have a copy, but I'm failing to remember any casual online gameplay I've seen where it didn't win the game on resolution. Though it typically wants to either pump infinite mana into it, or find a creature to grant your team trample, which are significant hoops compared to Hoofdaddy and Triumph.

[pokken]

If Craterhoof didn't exist, would we all be complaining about how stupid Finale of Devastation is? None of my playgroup have a copy, but I'm failing to remember any casual online gameplay I've seen where it didn't win the game on resolution. Though it typically wants to either pump infinite mana into it, or find a creature to grant your team trample, which are significant hoops compared to Hoofdaddy and Triumph.

The big thing I guess is that Finale of Devastation *can* be interacted with by killing the creature they get with it. Since it doesn't give trample, I've had Ibex die and that shut things down. But you can't beat the ability to win from a nearly empty board.

Hoof wins on the low-interaction surface.

But yeah I am surprised there haven't been any ban threads on Finale at any point, the card is bananas. Might just be that it got super expensive super fast?

[Venedrex]

I'm sorry sir, you have fallen victim to what I call design warp. What is design warp you ask? Its when Wizards pioneers a mechanic makes a bunch of cards for it, then comes back a decade or 2 later and fixes the worst parts of the mechanics.

You see, if infect had been toxic in the beginning, this card would have given toxic instead of infect and you'd still be alive in your edh game. As compensation please accept this free brochure for time travel so we can go back in time and redesign all infect cards to have toxic and not raise the cholesterol levels of edh players (*quite so much, let's be fair they'd still get salty about it) since they first released.

In all seriousness, I don't think Triumph is a fun card, but if I'm being perfectly honest, I do like cards like Akroma's Will that are able to turn a boardstate into lethal. I'd rather die to combat over almost any other win con, and while I do agree that Triumph is annoying and egregious, it is just the last gasp of a mechanic that isn't coming back in any meaningful way and we have to live with it. Kind of like how Wizards isn't going to print another Cyclonic Rift but we all dread seven open mana when our opponent passes playing blue.

That's the thing about Commander though, you get to play with cards that weren't designed with modern sensibilities. Nowadays, Wotc would never make Triumph. They also might not make path to exile. Or necropotence. Or all the other way too strong for their own good cards that people love playing in this format. It's kind of the price we pay for having access to so many cards from magic's history. they get triumph, you get swords, they get craterhoof, you get teferi's protection. etc etc.

The only way to rein in the cards you play against is with a dedicated group of people (which I don't have) figuring out what goes and what doesn't. Otherwise, we just have to suck it up and try to have fun even when we get got by a design mistake of yesteryear. Because if we start advocating for a ban, where does it end. Ban triumph because its too good/annoying? Well we have to ban necropotence because its too good. Ban Winter Orb because its too miserable to play against. Now we have to ban Rhystic Study. Ban Rhystic Study, now we gotta hit mystic remora.

What I enjoy doing is playing with precons because to me, they show how lower powered magic can be a ton of fun, and you get to dodge trying to synchronize power levels. Sure games go longer perhaps, but I have had a lot of fun playing precons. I know we all still want to play with decks we make too, but I think showing the fun of playing lower power edh can help convince people to purposefully build decks to be fun, rather than to be cutthroat.

[ISBPathfinder]

If Craterhoof didn't exist, would we all be complaining about how stupid Finale of Devastation is? None of my playgroup have a copy, but I'm failing to remember any casual online gameplay I've seen where it didn't win the game on resolution. Though it typically wants to either pump infinite mana into it, or find a creature to grant your team trample, which are significant hoops compared to Hoofdaddy and Triumph.

Finale is a lot harder to tutor for and requires significantly more setup to execute to the same degree. Craterhoof is too easy to tutor for and is almost 50% stronger than almost all other overrun effects.

Back on my thoughts on Triumph, well yea its kind of lame but its really hard to kill more than one player without having already seriously outpaced everyone. Its been quite some time since I have seen it played. I really don't run it myself as I view it more as single player removal than an actual wincon.

[DirkGently]

Having 30 power more than the total combined toughness of your opponents (after a modest +1/+1 buff) seems like a pretty significant setup cost to me. It's vulnerable to wipes and can be disrupted by targeted removal, counters, fogs, etc. I'll admit I haven't played against it in a long time, but I have a hard time seeing it as a big problem.

[duducrash]

Minnesota vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins once said:
"If I die, I die"

And while it was something crazy stupid to say at the time, I'll repeat it here. If you are turning it sideways I should have stopped it, and if I cant, thats on me.

Games do have to end too, Edric, Spymaster of Trest and their Flying Men need some help getting there

[toctheyounger]

It's a pretty pushed card for sure. I think it's reasonable to hate it, but I also think it's relatively fair, at least when compared to Hoof, or if we're considering the win options that various colors have. Green has very little outside of doing this one thing, this card just happens to do it very well. And, if you don't succeed, it leaves the boardstate in tatters.

I think there's enough options to manage boardstates that it isn't something we need to consider in terms of legality in the format, by any stretch, but it is something we need to ask ourselves how polite it is to do to people we presume to like.

I personally have no issue with the card, infect is a little weird and doesn't really interact favorably with combat, especially in this particular case, but I think if you're managing to gather a horde and have this resolve fair play to you. It's not novel, no one is going to clap you on the back for your creativity or bombastic plays, much like Hoof, but it does what it says on the tin, and it doesn't necessarily break any sort of conventional rules or game clauses in the format to be as strong as it is.

In terms of overrun effects, it's definitely the one I'd play first, mostly because I'm not into Hoof. I think as far as it goes though, Finale of Devastation is the best card (as opposed to best finisher) for me. Being able to grab from your yard, scale to mana availability and grant haste is very, very versatile.

I totally see why you'd hate this card though. If you're not expecting infect it really can just render everything heretofore in the game null and void and that is a bit lame.

[yeti1069]

Having 30 power more than the total combined toughness of your opponents (after a modest +1/+1 buff) seems like a pretty significant setup cost to me. It's vulnerable to wipes and can be disrupted by targeted removal, counters, fogs, etc. I'll admit I haven't played against it in a long time, but I have a hard time seeing it as a big problem.

The issue is that it comes down early, and can turn a non-threatening board lethal. So, for example, players may not hold back blockers for the handful of dorks and tokens the player has, then they're dead. It also makes a couple of mid-sized flyers lethal out of nowhere as well.

Again, while 30 power more than blockers to kill the table seems like much, it's WAY less than any other Overrun effect needs. Also, since it's infect, the players who do block, are losing or shrinking any creatures that took damage, so the risk of crackback is virtually 0.

[DirkGently]

The issue is that it comes down early, and can turn a non-threatening board lethal. So, for example, players may not hold back blockers for the handful of dorks and tokens the player has, then they're dead. It also makes a couple of mid-sized flyers lethal out of nowhere as well.

Again I'm not seeing someone with that much total power on the board non-threatening. Like maybe you have decent enough blocks that you think you should probably be safe, but this is commander and spicy things can happen on occasion. And if you go fully shields down when someone has that much on board, idk man, I think you took a significant risk and it backfired.

Again, while 30 power more than blockers to kill the table seems like much, it's WAY less than any other Overrun effect needs.

I'd say there are some solid counterexamples in this thread already. Natural Order into craterhoof is the same cost even. Also worth pointing out that, while it does ignore lifegain, it also isn't helped by life loss and usually won't matter unless it's lethal. If someone triumphs and fails, whatever damage they dealt to players is probably irrelevant.

Non-infinite combat damage wins are relatively difficult in this format. I don't think triumph is nearly as strong as basically any commonly-played combo wincon. And with all cards like it, one has to remember that it's 100% dead cardboard up until you've set up the win, which is a pretty big weakness that isn't apparent until it's sitting in your own hand.

Also, since it's infect, the players who do block, are losing or shrinking any creatures that took damage, so the risk of crackback is virtually 0.

I'd say that depends a lot on the shape of the creatures involved. It's not "virtually 0" with any degree of certainty. The most effective wincons typically don't rely on small-medium changes in combat numbers anyway, it's more than possible for someone to combo off the turn after you fail to triumph them.