SCD: Golos, Tired-Ass Pilgrim

[pokken]

Yes, I'm arguing that for most Golos decks, the differences in construction are really cosmetic, not functional. There's Golos with extra turns, Golos without extra turns, Golos a land is my commander, and Golos I'm actively building this with the worst trash I can fit in the deck and still have a decent shot at winning now eat some Torsten Van Ursus to the face. Those are the different Golos decks.

(from the other thread)

Yep. That's pretty much what I mean by repetitive. Every Golos deck does basically the same thing. Some very few don't look to activate his ability but let's not pretend that using a commander and not using its ability is a common use case that we should be building banlist criteria around

If being possible to build a nice version of a deck was a good excuse for not being banned, Leovold Advisor Tribal where there're no wheels would have made Leovold fine.

[onering]

I think the tricky thing about Golos and repetitiveness is that he's extremely repetitive to play against but doesn't feel that way to the pilot. To the opponent, its ramp into Golos then spam his ability. What pops out is largely irrelevant, as the next play by the Golos pilot is typically going to be activating Golos again, and again, and again no matter what pops out. Whether is general good stuff, God Tribal, Eldrazi, or what have you (even Legends legends tribal!), its all about spamming that ability to drop threats (and occasionally answers).

For the pilot, it sure feels different. There's excitement over what you're about to flip over, and your more attuned to the subtle differences because they're your cards and your deck, even if in practice you could have built it fifty different ways and had it play exactly the same.

The repetitive gameplay factor has never been about whether the gameplay feels repetitive for the pilot, only whether it is that way for the opponents. This should be obvious, the ban list isn't about telling people they can't have fun the way they want to, but about protecting the fun of everyone else. If someone enjoys doing something that's extremely repetitive for themselves, but which doesn't make the game repetitive for the rest of the table, then there's no problem at all. When someone enjoys something that feels varied to them but is extremely repetitive for the rest of the table, that's when there's a problem.

As I said in the other thread, Golos is a broken slot machine that turns a profit for the player. If your pulling the lever, its pretty exciting, you're not quite sure what will happen but most of the time its pretty sweet. But for an observer, its just a guy sitting at the machine pulling a lever repeatedly and making money. Its the same action, done repeatedly, with the same outcome and goal.

[DirkGently]

If 1.3% is actually accurate, that means more than 1 out of 100 people you play against are playing Golos which is absolutely unheard of for a commander.

Did you make any attempt to verify if that was true?

I used the wayback machine to check out EDHrec's top commanders on march 5th, 2019 - you can go verify it yourself if you don't believe me. Atraxa was #1 with 5551 decks, and there were a total of 305,255 decks on the site at that time. Do some division and hey presto, Atraxa was at 1.8%, significantly higher than Golos is now. And that was before they started only keeping 2 years of decks, so they were including years of decks before Atraxa even existed.

So no, I don't think it's unheard of. I suspect it's probably pretty common for the most popular commander to have that sort of percentage of the meta. And I doubt if Golos is going to be the most popular forever. WotC will inevitably push something else even harder and Golos will fall down the list.

hahaha man speaking as someone who has cloned golos and then blinked it over and over again he's a ridiculous clone target even just for the land ability. If someone plays Golos against my Ephara deck you can bet I am going to try to steal it and Thassa it or dig for Phantasmal Image asap. Ramping nonbasics is insane.

So while he's not a great theft target because of the mana cost to activate his ability, he's a huge theft target because of how centralizing he is. And he's a fantastic clone target.

If you can't activate the ability, he's 1/2 the power of prime time just in terms of ETBs, plus PT has the same ability on attack and has a much bigger, beefier body.

I'm not saying he's a terrible clone target, but he's not remotely on the same level as prime time. I find it hard to believe that the table is abusing him so much that it's having an impact on deck construction, in the way clones were significantly better when PT roamed free. If you think ramping nonbasics is "insane", there's a fair bit available at a reasonable rate. You don't need to play clones and hope to hit a Golos in 1.3% of games.

In terms of his centralizing effect on games the play patterns are very similar to primetime. Games become about Golos the moment golos is on the battlefield.

I don't think that's any less true for many other commanders. If someone's got a gitrog monster on the board, or a Niv Mizzet Parun, or a Kykar, or many others - those cards warp the game around them just as much as Golos imo. I don't like those commanders either, but we can't ban 'em all.

Let me reiterate what I've said before - I don't like Golos. I don't like his design - I think he's too pushed, and I think he "looks too fun" in a way that appeals to casual players, while being easy to make oppressive even with good intentions. But I think trying to fight against Golos - and against what he represents - is a losing battle. WotC makes what sells, and commanders that are powerful, splashy, and easy to build sell like hotcakes. Trying to ban Golos is plugging one hole in a dam that's already breaking apart.

[pokken]

Ya got me I was just going on memory. I'd never seen atraxa over 1% or so.

I don't think that's any less true for many other commanders. If someone's got a gitrog monster on the board, or a Niv Mizzet Parun, or a Kykar, or many others - those cards warp the game around them just as much as Golos imo. I don't like those commanders either, but we can't ban 'em all.

Eh, I don't know that any of those examples warp like Golos. Gitrog only if you're comboing, otherwise it's just a powerful draw engine. Niv-Mizzet, Parun is pretty close, but tends to be more conditional about what your opponents are doing. It's basically a hard counter to Feather, the Redeemed but it's squat against a deck playing mostly creatures.

There are surely commanders who are extremely oppressive when on the board, e.g. Zur the Enchanter. But you're missing the critical piece here.

None of those commanders see the level of play Golos does. That's why a reductionist "poke holes in each point" approach doesn't work here. You can say "Well, golos isn't that oppressive" or "golos isn't that ubiquitous" or "golos doesn't create that much resource imbalance."

But he does all of those things a lot, and the whole is pretty awful.

Let me reiterate what I've said before - I don't like Golos. I don't like his design - I think he's too pushed, and I think he "looks too fun" in a way that appeals to casual players, while being easy to make oppressive even with good intentions. But I think trying to fight against Golos - and against what he represents - is a losing battle. WotC makes what sells, and commanders that are powerful, splashy, and easy to build sell like hotcakes. Trying to ban Golos is plugging one hole in a dam that's already breaking apart.

I disagree. WOTC is already trying to pivot on this issue as they've started to understand it. Banning Golos earlier would have made a huge difference in saying "this is not what the format is about." It's really unfortunate that the RC took so much of a wait and see with him.

I doubt it would take more than 3 bans to make a huge difference in the health of the meta.

---

I wanted to expand on a bit of a point floating in there too. Most of the other 'problem' generals are problematic for different reasons than Golos.

Zur the Enchanter, Animar, Soul of Elements, Kykar, Wind's Fury, Yarok, the Desecrated, The Gitrog Monster etc et cetc

These guys all have approaches you take to deckbuilding - without ignoring half the card - that are pretty fair. Gitrog is really not absurd if you don't play the combo, Animar can be just a pretty fair beats general if you don't play the combo pieces, Kykar and Yarok the same. Their power level is mostly unpleasant to play against, but what makes them awful is that most people seem to play the stupid commander combos. Zur without Necropotence or Mana Vortex is not that awful. Not great, but not utterly infuriating.

Maelstrom Wanderer is probably the closest comparison where just the fact of his abilities makes him almost impossible to build in a fun way below a certain power level. I've played my old MW deck as a kinda meta-buster in high powered groups and it was pretty fun (to steal ZenN's phrase) Kool-Aid-Man the table sometimes. But you almost can't make a MW deck that is capable of playing in a group below what I'd consider 7 power level - he just has too high a floor.

Golos is a problem because he wildly imbalances any game in which he's present unless your group is powered up enough to deal with it. You can't really play a medium-low power level Golos deck without just ignoring half the card or playing total trash. (edit: and I'd add that even at high power his play pattern is gross, just that he's capable of being contained in groups that can infinite combo over the top of him while interacting enough).

Something about the way he works has reduced the impact of social pressures at making him undesirable.

Zur the Enchanter has self-corrected to the point that I almost never see him anymore outside of CEDH because social pressure works. Same with Animar. That just isn't working with Golos.

[Dragoon]

I'm really sick of the "you can't play it nice, it's impossible" argument. I've played fair Animar, Soul of Elements (only creatures and land, nothing else and no combos), fair Ghave, Guru of Spores (no combos), fair Kykar, Wind's Fury (aikido-style deck), fair Maelstrom Wanderer and fair Golos (both as random.dec). Heck, one of my last games was my Golos deck, against both Zendikar precons and a political Sliver Queen deck (think Kenrith/K&T-syle deck, just with Sliver Queen at the helm) and yet I barely won, after around 12 turns. And everybody had fun at the table.

Yes, it requires you to pay attention during deckbuilding, to not just jam every EDH staple into the deck and call it a day, but it's totally doable. And being dismissive about that fact is not going to help your case. You have all the right to hate Golos, but many people love him and some (if not a lot) of them play with him in a fair way. I only came across an oppressive Golos deck once (and even then, it had more to do with cards like Agent of Treachery and Expropriate rather than Golos himself). After that game, the guy planned to convert it to gods tribal. People realize how powerful Golos is, then try to build wonky and weird stuff with him, stuff that probably wouldn't have worked otherwise. That is my experience at least, at my LGS.

The way I see it is that you don't like 5 colours goodstuff deck, which is understandable, but banning Golos won't make those go away. People will just play Jodah, Archmage Eternal or Esika, God of the Tree // The Prismatic Bridge or Sisay, Weatherlight Captain or whatever WotC prints in the meantime. But for the people playing Golos with one of the 50+ other themes that he supports, it might simply mean the death of their decks. I don't like playing against stax or combo decks, but I don't go out of my way to ask for the banning of stax pieces and tutors. I respect other people styles and preferences.

[pokken]

I'm really sick of the "you can't play it nice, it's impossible" argument. I've played fair Animar, Soul of Elements (only creatures and land, nothing else and no combos), fair Ghave, Guru of Spores (no combos), fair Kykar, Wind's Fury (aikido-style deck), fair Maelstrom Wanderer and fair Golos (both as random.dec). Heck, one of my last games was my Golos deck, against both Zendikar precons and a political Sliver Queen deck (think Kenrith/K&T-syle deck, just with Sliver Queen at the helm) and yet I barely won, after around 12 turns. And everybody had fun at the table.

Yes, it requires you to pay attention during deckbuilding, to not just jam every EDH staple into the deck and call it a day, but it's totally doable. And being dismissive about that fact is not going to help your case. You have all the right to hate Golos, but many people love him and some (if not a lot) of them play with him in a fair way. I only came across an oppressive Golos deck once (and even then, it had more to do with cards like Agent of Treachery and Expropriate rather than Golos himself). After that game, the guy planned to convert it to gods tribal. People realize how powerful Golos is, then try to build wonky and weird stuff with him, stuff that probably wouldn't have worked otherwise. That is my experience at least, at my LGS.

The way I see it is that you don't like 5 colours goodstuff deck, which is understandable, but banning Golos won't make those go away. People will just play Jodah, Archmage Eternal or Esika, God of the Tree // The Prismatic Bridge or Sisay, Weatherlight Captain or whatever WotC prints in the meantime. But for the people playing Golos with one of the 50+ other themes that he supports, it might simply mean the death of their decks. I don't like playing against stax or combo decks, but I don't go out of my way to ask for the banning of stax pieces and tutors. I respect other people styles and preferences.

It's not that you can't, it's that it's egregiously difficult and there's a threshold below which you can't get.

If you'll read what I wrote, you'll note that I used Animar and Kykar as examples of the opposite - generals who have some ground to make fair builds on (that is, their floor is much lower, despite ceilings that are possibly higher than Golos).

Golos and MW are on another side of the spectrum where it's a lot harder to dumb them down enough to have good casual games. It's not completely impossible it's just a lot harder. It takes way more attention than most people are able to give. Generally speaking you have to ignore a chunk of the card to make it fair -- make it so it's difficult or not possible to activate his ability, or play very bad lands, or both, or just play a huge pile of unspeakable garbage (and even that doesn't always work).

I don't particularly care about 5c goodstuff.dec, most golos decks are closer to Simic goodstuff decks with a mammoth mana sink, ramp spell, and card advantage engine all in one card. I care that Golos' power floor is such that he tends to create lopsided games. Give me Jodah and Esika all day long - those are much easier to tune the power level for, and much easier to interact with. Their floor is waaaaay lower.

You're straight up arguing against something I have never once brought up - hell, I've built five different mono colored golos decks and found them to be problematic

[Dragoon]

It's not that you can't, it's that it's egregiously difficult and there's a threshold below which you can't get.

If you'll read what I wrote, you'll note that I used Animar and Kykar as examples of the opposite - generals who have some ground to make fair builds on (that is, their floor is much lower, despite ceilings that are possibly higher than Golos). Golos and MW are on another side of the spectrum where it's a lot harder to dumb them down enough to have good casual games. It's not completely impossible it's just a lot harder. It takes way more attention than most people are able to give.

Yes, I understood that. I'm arguing that I didn't find Golos much more difficult to build in a fair way (although rereading the first paragraph of my previous post, it might not be clear at all, sorry if it was confusing). Maybe it's because our approach to deckbuilding is vastly different, maybe it's because our playstyles differ by a lot, who knows.

Generally speaking you have to ignore a chunk of the card to make it fair -- make it so it's difficult or not possible to activate his ability, or play very bad lands, or both, or just play a huge pile of unspeakable garbage (and even that doesn't always work).[/card]

I usually use the first Golos trigger to either finish my fixing with Path of Ancestry or Cascading Cataracts, ramp harder with Temple of the False God (or Gaea's Cradle if I have enough creatures already), or just fetch some utility land like Flamekin Village or Alchemist's Refuge. On the next turn, if he's still on the field, I usually activate him and see what I got. If he ends up getting killed, I play cards from my hand until there is an opportunity to replay him. I usually only cast Golos once or twice and activate him two or three times per game, sometimes more. As far as garbage cards goes, I have a few of them for sure, but I also play pretty high-profile cards like Etali, Primal Storm or Maelstrom Wanderer. I don't feel like I'm ignoring any part of his design.

I don't particularly care about 5c goodstuff.dec, most golos decks are closer to Simic goodstuff decks with a mammoth mana sink, ramp spell, and card advantage engine all in one card. I care that Golos' power floor is such that he tends to create lopsided games. Give me Jodah and Esika all day long - those are much easier to tune the power level for, and much easier to interact with. Their floor is waaaaay lower.

Okay, maybe not 5 colours goodstuff deck, but Simic goodstuff ... At the end of day, you still don't like goodstuff decks.
On my side of things, I don't face him at the helm of goodstuff decks. As I said, there is one gods tribal deck in my meta (who might have switched to Esika, God of the Tree // The Prismatic Bridge in the meantime, I don't know due to the COVID situation) and the only other Golos deck is a lands deck that used to play Child of Alara (which I personally find way more oppressive than Golos, talk about not playing magic).

You're straight up arguing against something I have never once brought up - hell, I've built five different mono colored golos decks and found them to be problematic

Well, it may simply be that you are a good player and a good deckbuilder who focuses on the winning potential of his decks, which would partly explain why you only see Golos as a powerhouse the world does not need. I've only built one Golos deck and I got it right in terms of power level, but maybe I just suck at Magic.

---

In order to get more "neutral" data, I just went to EDHrec and consulted the Golos page. First of all, the average CMC is at 3.5 with 38 spells at 0-3 CMC and "only" 8 spells at 7+ CMC range (I don't really know what to do with this, but at least it doesn't look to me like the average Golos deck has this monster curve full of high CMC bombs). Next, out of the 6127 decks, there is 10 themes with more than a hundred decks and more than 40 others with less than a hundred decks. The top 10 themes only cover 53% of the Golos decks. In comparison, 77% of the 4862 Atraxa decks are divided into three themes: Planeswalkers (1853 decks), +1/+1 counters (1207 decks), and Infect (690 decks). Muldrotha offers more variety but the number 1 theme (sacrifice) sits at a whopping 41% (1904 out of 4558 decks).

Now let's get into those 10 dominant themes. They are:

• Lands (1522, ～25%) - Well, this one is obvious. The curve has a 3.4 average CMC and only 4 spells at 7+ CMC (also playing less than 60 nonland cards on average). As far as I know, the only other option for a 5 colours lands deck is Child of Alara and I certainly do not want to go back to that!
• Big Mana (398, ～6.5%) - Now, this is probably the boogeyman you seem to only come across, with a monster curve towering at a 5.75 average CMC and 30 spells at 7+ CMC. With a curve like that, I can see the pattern cast/activate Golos and do nothing else, there is probably nothing else to do at this point, not until you get at least 10+ mana to actually cast your stuff. Other options include Jodah, Archmage Eternal or maybe Esika, God of the Tree // The Prismatic Bridge if there is enough creatures/planeswalkers.
• Planeswalkers (366, ～6%) - Nothing in particular, the curve has the classic gaussian look with an average CMC just above 4 and only 4 spells at 7+ CMC. I guess those people could just switch gears to Sisay, Weatherlight Captain in case of a Golos ban, but I think she might end up being more oppressive and boring.
• Artifacts (182, ～3%) - I guess it makes sense with Golos being an artifact himself. The curve is rather low, standing at 3.5 average CMC and 6 spells at 7+ CMC. The only other options for 5 colours artifacts decks in my eyes are Ramos, Dragon Engine and Reaper King, but there will be probably too few coloured spells for the first one to really work and the second one aims more specifically at scarecrow tribal rather than artifacts in general.
• Eldrazi Tribal (177, ～3%) - It seems to be one of the most logical choices for a 5 colours Eldrazi tribal deck. The curve is what you would expect for such a tribe: an average CMC of 4.95 and 18 spells at 7+ CMC. As for the big mana theme, Jodah, Archmage Eternal and Esika, God of the Tree // The Prismatic Bridge can be used instead. I think the only other option is Morophon, the Boundless but it has itself a rather high CMC and only helps for the devoid cards.
• Blink (138, ～2.5%) - Yup, makes sense with such a strong ETB. The lowest curve so far: 3.3 average CMC and only 2 spells at 7 CMC. I guess Niv-Mizzet Reborn might also fit the bill if you have enough dual-coloured cards?
• Devotion (125, ～2%) and God Tribal (124, ～2%) - While some of the lesser played cards in those two categories differ, they are very similar in terms of High Synergy Cards and Top Cards, and have very similar curves, standing at ～3.7 CMC and only 1 spell at 7 CMC. This is clearly more of a thematic fit for Golos rather than a synergistic one, and he might be dethroned by Esika, God of the Tree // The Prismatic Bridge on this theme.
• Ramp (119, ～2%) - Another candidate for the type you don't like to play against. Still nowhere near the Big Mana theme though: an average CMC of 4.3 and 16 spells at 7+ CMC. This deck should have a more varied playstyle and not just spam Golos endlessly I think. This theme is probably the least tied to Golos: Jegantha, the Wellspring, Jodah, Archmage Eternal, Esika, God of the Tree // The Prismatic Bridge and Ramos, Dragon Engine are all viable candidates depending on the specificities of the build.
• Enchantments (117, ～2%) - Another loose thematic tie, but a really low curve with a 3.3 average CMC and only 3 spells at 7+ CMC. I guess the only other option is Esika, God of the Tree // The Prismatic Bridge if your playgroup does not allow you to play Genju of the Realm.

That's it, I think this can give us a solid basis to look at what people do with Golos, even if it only covers barely more than half of those decks. With this, we can already see that there is some amount of variety in the builds and that not all Golos decks are the same, be it by theme or by curve!

If this can ease your mind, Esika, God of the Tree // The Prismatic Bridge looks like a serious contender for 6 of those 10 themes, representing 17% of the Golos decks (obviously this is more subjective). This means that Golos might lose some of his popularity in the next months in favour of Esika, God of the Tree // The Prismatic Bridge.

If we were to ban Golos though, out of those 53% decks, the 25% lands deck will probably fall back to Child of Alara and the 6% superfriends will fall back to Sisay, Weatherlight Captain. In my opinion, those changes will lead to more obnoxious and repetitive games than Golos, and I'm not in favour of it. The 5% represented by the artifacts and blink themes will just have to suck it up as well, as there is no real replacement for them. And that's just looking at the more usual themes, there are over 40 other ones that might be affected too!

[pokken]

Yes, I understood that. I'm arguing that I didn't find Golos much more difficult to build in a fair way (although rereading the first paragraph of my previous post, it might not be clear at all, sorry if it was confusing). Maybe it's because our approach to deckbuilding is vastly different, maybe it's because our playstyles differ by a lot, who knows.

I get that you don't think it is. I'd be interested in knowing why that is - some combination of your playgroup being established and high enough power level for it to work?

Based on what I have seen from Golos, I would argue that it's very difficult to get the balance right. I've run into a bunch of them and never one that I wanted to play again.

Okay, maybe not 5 colours goodstuff deck, but Simic goodstuff ... At the end of day, you still don't like goodstuff decks.
On my side of things, I don't face him at the helm of goodstuff decks.

Let's maybe completely forget about goodstuff as a topic. I don't know if I have been clear enough but Golos makes every strategy he helms awful for the most part.

He's just as awful and repetitive as an artifacts deck, a superfriends deck, an enchantment deck, a Gods tribal deck (good lord I have played against that and it's super boring, golos for world tree womp womp).

That's it, I think this can give us a solid basis to look at what people do with Golos, even if it only covers barely more than half of those decks. With this, we can already see that there is some amount of variety in the builds and that not all Golos decks are the same, be it by theme or by curve!

usually use the first Golos trigger to either finish my fixing with Path of Ancestry or Cascading Cataracts, ramp harder with Temple of the False God (or Gaea's Cradle if I have enough creatures already), or just fetch some utility land like Flamekin Village or Alchemist's Refuge. On the next turn, if he's still on the field, I usually activate him and see what I got. If he ends up getting killed, I play cards from my hand until there is an opportunity to replay him. I usually only cast Golos once or twice and activate him two or three times per game, sometimes more.

I think it'd be worth it to you to reread how you play golos, and then Onering's post about what makes Golos so repetitive.

I know a lot of people have built Golos decks they think are fun and that they enjoy; it's super possible that some playgroups are right for it. I know @ZenN has a Golos ETB deck that's extremely high powered that fits in fine with his playgroup, and I know @materpillar has a couple golos decks tailored to their meta that are going fine.

But this is the exception. Out in the wild there are Golos decks of all kinds that are truly awful experiences, particularly in unmanaged playgroups where people play with strangers.

If we were to ban Golos though, out of those 53% decks, the 25% lands deck will probably fall back to Child of Alara and the 6% superfriends will fall back to Sisay, Weatherlight Captain. In my opinion, those changes will lead to more obnoxious and repetitive games than Golos, and I'm not in favour of it. The 5% represented by the artifacts and blink themes will just have to suck it up as well, as there is no real replacement for them. And that's just looking at the more usual themes, there are over 40 other ones that might be affected too!

I don't know if that's the case at all. I think most lands players would take different approaches than 5c - Child of Alara is a pretty dead deck. My guess would be most of those decks fall back to Omnath, Locus of Creation who is while not my favorite, perfectly fair in comparison and killing him actually matters. Either way the deck gets significantly worse and that's great.

I do not understand at all why you're concerned about the vague possibility that a 5c superfriends deck might get 3% less fun but it's not something that keeps me up at all about a Golos ban. If your argument is that Sisay is more powerful than Golos in this shell, you are simply incorrect.

If you are trying to make a generic point which is that toxic archetypes are gonna stay toxic without Golos, I guess? But that feels kind of like a "well then why ever do anything?" argument. Almost every deck is stronger and more annoying with Golos at the helm and bans make incremental improvements - I can live with that.

[Dragoon]

I get that you don't think it is. I'd be interested in knowing why that is - some combination of your playgroup being established and high enough power level for it to work?

If you reread my second to last post, you'll see that I was facing precons in my last game, do you consider that high powered decks? I play in my LGS, we have both regulars and strangers, and some of the strangers are complete newbies.

Based on what I have seen from Golos, I would argue that it's very difficult to get the balance right. I've run into a bunch of them and never one that I wanted to play again.

I certainly believe you, but this is your experience, and I have mine.

Let's maybe completely forget about goodstuff as a topic. I don't know if I have been clear enough but Golos makes every strategy he helms awful for the most part.

He's just as awful and repetitive as an artifacts deck, a superfriends deck, an enchantment deck, a Gods tribal deck (good lord I have played against that and it's super boring, golos for world tree womp womp).

You might not mean it, but this comes across as incredibly rude to every Golos player out there. "It doesn't matter what you build, all your decks will look the same anyway: boring, awful and repetitive".

I think it'd be worth it to you to reread how you play golos, and then Onering's post about what makes Golos so repetitive.

I know a lot of people have built Golos decks they think are fun and that they enjoy; it's super possible that some playgroups are right for it.

I reread it, @onering mentions that the only thing the pilot does is casting and activating Golos over and over again. If you reread my last post, you'll see that I said I cast Golos once or twice, and activate him two or three times per game. How is that any more repetitive that other commanders with other abilities? Do you complain when Chainer, Dementia Master activates his ability for the third time each game? Do you complain when Muldrotha, the Gravetide casts its third spell from the graveyard or when Atraxa, Praetors' Voice proliferates for the third time?

@onering said that it's miserable to play against and that only the pilot finds it fun. Yet if you reread my second to last post, I said everyone had fun at the table. I talk to people after every game, to see what they enjoyed, what they didn't like, what they thought of everyone's decks. I find this important in a social format such as ours, especially with newbies. Now, are people being nice to me out of consideration? Maybe, but they sure were being vocal every time we were facing stax, combos, MLD or counterspell heavy decks.

I know @ZenN has a Golos ETB deck that's extremely high powered that fits in fine with his playgroup, and I know @materpillar has a couple golos decks tailored to their meta that are going fine.

But this is the exception. Out in the wild there are Golos decks of all kinds that are truly awful experiences, particularly in unmanaged playgroups where people play with strangers.

How can you dismiss my experience, and the ones from @ZenN and @materpillar, as being the exception? Do you happen to have played against thousands of Golos decks in many different groups of various countries?

I don't know if that's the case at all. I think most lands players would take different approaches than 5c - Child of Alara is a pretty dead deck. My guess would be most of those decks fall back to Omnath, Locus of Creation who is while not my favorite, perfectly fair in comparison and killing him actually matters. Either way the deck gets significantly worse and that's great.

Maybe, although losing a color still hurts.

I do not understand at all why you're concerned about the vague possibility that a 5c superfriends deck might get 3% less fun but it's not something that keeps me up at all about a Golos ban. If your argument is that Sisay is more powerful than Golos in this shell, you are simply incorrect.

I never argued that Sisay was more powerful, and I certainly don't care about the inherent power level of a commander. My point is that she's way more boring and repetitive than Golos in this archetype in my opinion. I also said that I don't see what benefit banning Golos will bring us for those superfriends deck.

If you are trying to make a generic point which is that toxic archetypes are gonna stay toxic without Golos, I guess? But that feels kind of like a "well then why ever do anything?" argument. Almost every deck is stronger and more annoying with Golos at the helm and bans make incremental improvements - I can live with that.

So the toxic decks will still be toxic, even if slightly less. On the other hand, all the funny and weird ones that don't cause problems will just go away and disappear. In my point of view, we are taking away more than we are giving by banning Golos.

You don't like to play against him, I get it, you find it boring and toxic and like to remind everyone about it, I get it. I just said that this was not my experience at all. I also went to EDHrec to gather more neutral data, and I saw tons of decklists with way more themes than any other commander in there, yet you just brushed it off as "doesn't matter, still boring and repetitive". At this point, I just don't see this discussion going anywhere. Anything I say will just be dismissed as the exception while what you say is somehow the sacred standard to follow.

[umtiger]

When you build a deck with certain commanders, not including just one certain card or certain type of card makes a huge difference. Like if one intentional decides to cut Mind Over Matter from Arcanis the Omnipotent or Splinter Twin safety valve from your Izzet deck.

For Golos, the power floor is so high, you're talking about intentionally dumbing down the entire deck. Like having crippling handicaps such as making it mono-color but still winning more than a fair share of games. Even the RNG aspect of Golos isn't enough to level out playing spells at a discount. It's like playing against Maelstrom Wanderer even when it does cascade into "just ramp."

I won't speak on banning the card, but more so on the ethos of Golos that pervades the format since you mentioned my favorite commander, Child of Alara.

I enjoy playing Child of Alara lands. I have it built to win primarily with Maze's End and maybe trigger CoA once or twice to get there. It would win faster with Golos as a commander instead. And according to some, it would also receive fewer groans. When I first built it, super friends decks were taking hold of my meta and I wanted to take their lunch money by triggering CoA every turn.. So yeah, I like repeatedly destroying stuff.

It's a fact that it's more palatable to win with Maze's End 3-4 turns faster using Golos instead of with Child of Alara. In part because there is an idea that the only people "preventing you from playing" are the players who sweep the board with copious amounts of removal, use Blood Moon (and etc.) + stax pieces, and/or cast counter magic.

But it's false and always has been. When you're sitting at a casual/low-power game and you sit across from Golos, you're likely to get outresourced and potentially by a mile. You're not getting actually Wasteland'd every turn but you are getting virtually 1-3 lands Rishadan Port'd compared to the Golos player. You are being virtually "prevented from playing" because the Golos player will always get to their endgame earlier than you. And if their endgame involves winning instead of dilly dallying, then you never get to your endgame.

[pokken]

You don't like to play against him, I get it, you find it boring and toxic and like to remind everyone about it, I get it. I just said that this was not my experience at all. I also went to EDHrec to gather more neutral data, and I saw tons of decklists with way more themes than any other commander in there, yet you just brushed it off as "doesn't matter, still boring and repetitive". At this point, I just don't see this discussion going anywhere. Anything I say will just be dismissed as the exception while what you say is somehow the sacred standard to follow.

I think we can just disagree on this topic. I don't think your list looks particularly fun to play against with a precon, certainly not more than once. All those bombs and free casting things and casting other people's stuff seems like it'll constantly overpower lower level decks -- and very likely if you kept spamming Golos it'd be pretty oppressive.

To this date the only Golos deck I think looks interesting to play in lower power is Materpillar's high cmc tribal - because there're just so many wildly bad and hilarious cards out there.

My supposition is that you are just a super nice person who's easy to play against and that's why it goes so well. Some people can make anything work because of who they are.

And yes, I really do think the fact that we can only point to a handful of exceptions (at best) is meaningful. And one of them is a near-competitive meta (ZenN's).

[DirkGently]

To this date the only Golos deck I think looks interesting to play in lower power is Materpillar's high cmc tribal - because there're just so many wildly bad and hilarious cards out there.

Aww, you don't like my Sorrow's Path build?

Actually it might be kinda OP lol. But damn if it's not satisfying winning off a Sorrow's Path.

[pokken]

Aww, you don't like my Sorrow's Path build?

Actually it might be kinda OP lol. But damn if it's not satisfying winning off a Sorrow's Path.

So it's an inspired creation, making such a horrendous card cool. I think that's a ton of what's deceptive about Golos. He is deckbuilder candy of the best sort. That's why I made so many decks. I've brewed probably 5 more that I didn't build.

I think that's what's so hard for people who like Golos to get is that you can create really clever neat decks with him that are conceptually awesome, but that don't wind up being very good playing experiences.

I just do not know where your deck fits in, it looks way too strong for any casual meta and like actually powerhouse decks would just go right over the top of it.

So it's not about not liking it's more about not thinking there is a group that is a good audience for it, if that makes sense?

[DirkGently]

So it's not about not liking it's more about not thinking there is a group that is a good audience for it, if that makes sense?

It's my first time playing Golos, and I'm not exactly sure how I feel about it. On one hand, it's not generally explosive. It take a while to set up the engine, and while it can combo in theory it hasn't yet, probably thanks to the lack of nonland tutors. If it runs away with the game, it's usually later on. Most games there's a fair bit of back and forth, and it usually takes me a while to get into the lead. I think all my opponents have only had positive things to say about it.

On the other hand, I've won 8 consecutive games with it...

Idk, I've had a lot of fun with it, but the activated can feel a bit OP and usually feels like the right play even if I have decent stuff in hand. I think if the activated was a bit weaker - either costed more, had a cmc restriction, dug less deep, or turned into a draw with a lowered cost - any of those would preserve his flexibility without being so dominant in the late-game. When I start activating him twice in a turn it really feels hard to lose.

As far as my particular deck, I don't think it'd be too hard to tweak the power level. Removing fast mana (lol Mishra's Workshop...) would reduce a lot of the high rolls. Sure, a T6 Apex Altisaur or whatever is pretty strong, but it's not exactly game over. I mostly included stuff like workshop so I could finally play the damn thing - it's mostly been gathering dust in the time I've owned it, but it's amazing in this deck, especially with The World Tree letting it tap for normal mana later.

[Dragoon]

@umtiger: I can understand your point of view. My main grip is not about power level, I also realize that Golos is busted. I am just really angry at the "repetitive", "boring", "can go die in a hole", "awful" and "unoriginal" comments that everybody points at him. How would you react when people trash what you like? There is all kinds of broken stuff in Commander, and I realize that due do its popularity, Golos just makes it easier for people to crystallize their anger at him. But if you ban him for those reasons, to "send a message", I will really feel pissed off. Especially when all the other egregious cards still run free. Again, disliking Golos is fine, I also have cards I don't like, but there is a difference between disliking stuff and trying to take it away from everybody else who has fun with it.

I think we can just disagree on this topic. I don't think your list looks particularly fun to play against with a precon, certainly not more than once. All those bombs and free casting things and casting other people's stuff seems like it'll constantly overpower lower level decks -- and very likely if you kept spamming Golos it'd be pretty oppressive.
(...)
My supposition is that you are just a super nice person who's easy to play against and that's why it goes so well. Some people can make anything work because of who they are.

It might be the case, I don't know. (I'll take it as a compliment though. Thank you very much!) I realize I'm probably 0% Spike and more of a Timmy/Johnny at heart. I don't care at all about winning, I just want to ensure everybody has fun, which leads me to have a bad opinion of combo/MLD/stax in general, at least when they show up on a regular basis. I can also say, however, that the other two Golos decks in our meta do fine as well, and nobody is really complaining about them. That's why I'm always surprised to see so much hate for him on this site.

And yes, I really do think the fact that we can only point to a handful of exceptions (at best) is meaningful. And one of them is a near-competitive meta (ZenN's).

I'm always cautious about those types of conclusion. The community of this site is a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of the playerbase, and even if we took all the "enfranchised Magic players that like to go online and discuss about it with other enfranchised players" category, it would still be a tiny fraction and not representative of the playerbase. On top of that, you need to take into account that we tend, as human beings, to be more vocal about what we don't like rather than what we do like. With the online communities, and especially social media, echo chamber can also easily form. With all those caveats, it is extremely difficult to present any type of anecdotal evidence as "facts", which is, I feel, what you've been doing in this thread (I might be wrong though, sometimes the "imo" is just implicit). The RC already said that they are looking at ways to obtain data and if they have a hard time getting them, it makes sense to me that it is even harder for us. EDHrec might be a useful tool in this regard, but even then, it has some limitations.

@DirkGently: Your experience seems closer to mine (apart from winning 8 consecutive games with it ). I also agree that I would have preferred for its activated ability to require him to tap as well, but since nothing can be done about it, I prefer to keep him rather than ban him.

[pokken]

I think if the activated was a bit weaker - either costed more, had a cmc restriction, dug less deep, or turned into a draw with a lowered cost - any of those would preserve his flexibility without being so dominant in the late-game. When I start activating him twice in a turn it really feels hard to lose.

As far as my particular deck, I don't think it'd be too hard to tweak the power level. Removing fast mana (lol Mishra's Workshop...) would reduce a lot of the high rolls. Sure, a T6 Apex Altisaur or whatever is pretty strong, but it's not exactly game over.

Yeah, pretty much my same thoughts on Golos - the activated ability is way too much. If it was just WUBRG do something not super powerful, or even if it had a tap requirement so you couldn't spam it, it'd probably be fine. They just went way too ham with the unlimited mana sink at an aggressive rate. If it exiled 3 and played 1 it'd still be pretty powerful for 7 mana.

re: Your deck
You could definitely tune the power level down by shaving a lot of mana ramp. On a second run through @Dragoon's deck I think the main thing working for them is the lack of explosive ramp effects.

That said, my experience with Golos is that the end game is so strong that getting there 2 turns later is often not enough - and often by the time you crank the ramp down enough it's just crap and not really a factor anymore?

That said even in my mono colored decks that aimed to not really ramp into Golos often at all - the goal was to cast him on turn 5 and then go bananas on turn 6 - it was too much for most metas. The only games I lost were 1) against much more powerful decks I had no business playing against, or 2) if I missed my 5th land drop.

[umtiger]

@umtiger: I can understand your point of view. My main grip is not about power level, I also realize that Golos is busted. I am just really angry at the "repetitive", "boring", "can go die in a hole", "awful" and "unoriginal" comments that everybody points at him. How would you react when people trash what you like? There is all kinds of broken stuff in Commander, and I realize that due do its popularity, Golos just makes it easier for people to crystallize their anger at him. But if you ban him for those reasons, to "send a message", I will really feel pissed off. Especially when all the other egregious cards still run free. Again, disliking Golos is fine, I also have cards I don't like, but there is a difference between disliking stuff and trying to take it away from everybody else who has fun with it.

In addition to child of alara...
I also like Grand Arbiter Augustin IV. Any deck built around him will always have a power cap lower than ALL of the popular generals. Playing azorius and trying to close out games (without infinite loops since I personally dislike them) is difficult. But when the EDH godfather speaks about "problem generals," GAIV is near the top of the list. Why? People hate anything that slows them down. People hate facing any adversity (if you can even describe a game of MTG that way).

Even though the reality is that GAIV (w/ or w/o helm/grindstone) is a pathetic speed bump when people T1 Sol Ring/Jeweled Lotus or can untap with 6 lands in turn 4. But if I sit down in a game with him, I will be archenemy even if my GAIV is the only thing slowing down Golos.

I like for games to involve resource management. I have always like GAIV and cards in that category. I don't mind having to fetch basics to play around Blood Moon. Full on stax is one thing, I can see why people hate it but being pushed to make decisions by an active Smokestack is something that I think makes a game interesting. So yeah, while your Golos ain't banned, all of my favorite cards have been completely bullied out of existence. How do I feel about? I'm not pissed off. I don't play them. I cross my fingers and hope to come across an opponent who does. Because more often than not, games are interesting with them involved.

I won the last game where my opponent Jokulhaups. I won the last game where my opponent had a turn 2 Smokestack. And I'm not even playing Sol Ring or any OP decks.

Golos is just the current poster child of EDH having become entirely a resource acquiring game versus a resource management game. That's what's truly egregious to me. It's not the power level of cards but just the entire nature of how games flow. So yeah, Thassa's Oracle will directly win you games and I still feel that Cyclonic Rift is the "best card" in EDH. But Golos has different problems.

What do you truly lose in a Golos ban? Do you lose your ability to play quirky decks? Or do you just lose the ability to consistently win with quirky decks?

[Dragoon]

I also like Grand Arbiter Augustin IV. Any deck built around him will always have a power cap lower than ALL of the popular generals. Playing azorius and trying to close out games (without infinite loops since I personally dislike them) is difficult. But when the EDH godfather speaks about "problem generals," GAIV is near the top of the list. Why? People hate anything that slows them down. People hate facing any adversity (if you can even describe a game of MTG that way).

Even though the reality is that GAIV (w/ or w/o helm/grindstone) is a pathetic speed bump when people T1 Sol Ring/Jeweled Lotus or can untap with 6 lands in turn 4. But if I sit down in a game with him, I will be archenemy even if my GAIV is the only thing slowing down Golos.

So you don't like people hating you because of your commander? This sounds familiar...

I like for games to involve resource management. I have always like GAIV and cards in that category. I don't mind having to fetch basics to play around Blood Moon. Full on stax is one thing, I can see why people hate it but being pushed to make decisions by an active Smokestack is something that I think makes a game interesting. So yeah, while your Golos ain't banned, all of my favorite cards have been completely bullied out of existence. How do I feel about? I'm not pissed off. I don't play them. I cross my fingers and hope to come across an opponent who does. Because more often than not, games are interesting with them involved.

You totally have the right to like Grand Arbiter Augustin IV, Smokestack and other cards like that. I dislike the latter but I don't have any problem with the former as long as there is not 10 other cards like it on the field. The main difference is that I don't go on forums ranting about it, asking for Smokestack to be banned and being dismissive towards anyone who happens to enjoy that style of games. I understand that while this style of adversity is not for me, they are some people who enjoy it. They are many different styles of commander decks, going from janky Vorthos story-focused builds to ultra-tuned hyper competitive decks. In my eyes, they all play commander the right way, which is the way they and their playgroup enjoy it the most.

Golos is just the current poster child of EDH having become entirely a resource acquiring game versus a resource management game. That's what's truly egregious to me. It's not the power level of cards but just the entire nature of how games flow. So yeah, Thassa's Oracle will directly win you games and I still feel that Cyclonic Rift is the "best card" in EDH. But Golos has different problems.

You like experiencing EDH games where resources are limited, others love them when resources are abundant. Why do you feel the need to impose the first style to people who enjoy the second? Nobody is forcing you to play against Golos, just like nobody is forcing me to play against stax. Why can't you just let people enjoy what they enjoy?

What do you truly lose in a Golos ban? Do you lose your ability to play quirky decks? Or do you just lose the ability to consistently win with quirky decks?

What I lose is one of my favourite decks that is finally able to compete with my meta after almost 10 years (my random deck started with Ruhan of the Fomori back in 2011). Golos synergizes well with my theme and my build. I lose more than 90% of my games but I enjoy each and everyone of them, because I know I was at least able to compete and people couldn't just ignore me. So yes, I would be pissed off if he ends up getting banned just because people don't enjoy playing against some of his builds, while there are many other commanders running rampant causing the exact same problem.

[onering]

I get that you don't think it is. I'd be interested in knowing why that is - some combination of your playgroup being established and high enough power level for it to work?

If you reread my second to last post, you'll see that I was facing precons in my last game, do you consider that high powered decks? I play in my LGS, we have both regulars and strangers, and some of the strangers are complete newbies.

Based on what I have seen from Golos, I would argue that it's very difficult to get the balance right. I've run into a bunch of them and never one that I wanted to play again.

I certainly believe you, but this is your experience, and I have mine.

Let's maybe completely forget about goodstuff as a topic. I don't know if I have been clear enough but Golos makes every strategy he helms awful for the most part.

He's just as awful and repetitive as an artifacts deck, a superfriends deck, an enchantment deck, a Gods tribal deck (good lord I have played against that and it's super boring, golos for world tree womp womp).

You might not mean it, but this comes across as incredibly rude to every Golos player out there. "It doesn't matter what you build, all your decks will look the same anyway: boring, awful and repetitive".

I think it'd be worth it to you to reread how you play golos, and then Onering's post about what makes Golos so repetitive.

I know a lot of people have built Golos decks they think are fun and that they enjoy; it's super possible that some playgroups are right for it.

I reread it, @onering mentions that the only thing the pilot does is casting and activating Golos over and over again. If you reread my last post, you'll see that I said I cast Golos once or twice, and activate him two or three times per game. How is that any more repetitive that other commanders with other abilities? Do you complain when Chainer, Dementia Master activates his ability for the third time each game? Do you complain when Muldrotha, the Gravetide casts its third spell from the graveyard or when Atraxa, Praetors' Voice proliferates for the third time?

@onering said that it's miserable to play against and that only the pilot finds it fun. Yet if you reread my second to last post, I said everyone had fun at the table. I talk to people after every game, to see what they enjoyed, what they didn't like, what they thought of everyone's decks. I find this important in a social format such as ours, especially with newbies. Now, are people being nice to me out of consideration? Maybe, but they sure were being vocal every time we were facing stax, combos, MLD or counterspell heavy decks.

I know @ZenN has a Golos ETB deck that's extremely high powered that fits in fine with his playgroup, and I know @materpillar has a couple golos decks tailored to their meta that are going fine.

But this is the exception. Out in the wild there are Golos decks of all kinds that are truly awful experiences, particularly in unmanaged playgroups where people play with strangers.

How can you dismiss my experience, and the ones from @ZenN and @materpillar, as being the exception? Do you happen to have played against thousands of Golos decks in many different groups of various countries?

I don't know if that's the case at all. I think most lands players would take different approaches than 5c - Child of Alara is a pretty dead deck. My guess would be most of those decks fall back to Omnath, Locus of Creation who is while not my favorite, perfectly fair in comparison and killing him actually matters. Either way the deck gets significantly worse and that's great.

Maybe, although losing a color still hurts.

I do not understand at all why you're concerned about the vague possibility that a 5c superfriends deck might get 3% less fun but it's not something that keeps me up at all about a Golos ban. If your argument is that Sisay is more powerful than Golos in this shell, you are simply incorrect.

I never argued that Sisay was more powerful, and I certainly don't care about the inherent power level of a commander. My point is that she's way more boring and repetitive than Golos in this archetype in my opinion. I also said that I don't see what benefit banning Golos will bring us for those superfriends deck.

If you are trying to make a generic point which is that toxic archetypes are gonna stay toxic without Golos, I guess? But that feels kind of like a "well then why ever do anything?" argument. Almost every deck is stronger and more annoying with Golos at the helm and bans make incremental improvements - I can live with that.

So the toxic decks will still be toxic, even if slightly less. On the other hand, all the funny and weird ones that don't cause problems will just go away and disappear. In my point of view, we are taking away more than we are giving by banning Golos.

You don't like to play against him, I get it, you find it boring and toxic and like to remind everyone about it, I get it. I just said that this was not my experience at all. I also went to EDHrec to gather more neutral data, and I saw tons of decklists with way more themes than any other commander in there, yet you just brushed it off as "doesn't matter, still boring and repetitive". At this point, I just don't see this discussion going anywhere. Anything I say will just be dismissed as the exception while what you say is somehow the sacred standard to follow.

So your point boils down to you intentionally not taking the optimal play line that most players do, and thus avoiding the miserable play typical of Golos. That's not a good point. Nobody ever said that nobody can do this, and a few people doing it isn't a counter argument. "I choose not to spam an always available ability that pukes out mana advantage and CA and instead hard cast my spells most of the time" really just translates into "I play Golos, but not really because I don't use him." Guess what, you could also have played Leovold without wheels or just chose to not wheel most of the time, that's irrelevant to the question of whether he should be banned. Golos is a card that you have to actually try to build in a way that isn't problematic at medium power levels, or which you have to intentionally suboptimally play. That's a problem.

[umtiger]

So you don't like people hating you because of your commander? This sounds familiar...

The main difference is that I don't go on forums ranting about it, asking for Smokestack to be banned and being dismissive towards anyone who happens to enjoy that style of games.

I don't want to be hated/targeted just for being me. But you know what, if opponents target me so what? I don't whine about it. I just play. Because you know what, if people hate adversity that's what GAIV is. I'm not going to sit here and say "Oh, it's not THAT kind of deck. I'm just playing GAIV for it's colors." Which is exactly what you're saying. "Oh, I got Golos, but it's only the type that wins 10% of the time."

Even if GAIV is the only cost increaser, my opponents won't give a flip. Your random opponents also have the right to not give a flip about Golos excuses as well.

So are you not okay with people hating playing against Golos? If you are okay with and can see why people hate playing against GAIV, you should be ready to have people hate your general too. Sorry, but your card isn't off limits. No one gets to sit on their Golos high horse and look down at me for GAIV.

Truly, no one here is being dismissive of your play style. It's just high time we acknowledge that overpowered resource acquisition is just as unfun to play against as dedicated resource denial.

You like experiencing EDH games where resources are limited, others love them when resources are abundant. Why do you feel the need to impose the first style to people who enjoy the second? Nobody is forcing you to play against Golos, just like nobody is forcing me to play against stax. Why can't you just let people enjoy what they enjoy?

I don't like limited resources (, weak pun), I like choices and decision trees. No interaction and pure ramp for the first 4-5 turns is not appealing to me.

People coming here to explain why they think Golos could be banned is not "forcing" or "imposing" you to do jack.

Don't worry about stax, it's been bullied out of existence.

No one is complaining about being forced to play against Golos. They're pointing out that Golos provides resources too effectively and has an all too convenient built in outlet to pour all of those resources into.

They are pointing out how that is unfun for them. I mean, they're right.

What I lose is one of my favourite decks that is finally able to compete with my meta after almost 10 years (my random deck started with Ruhan of the Fomori back in 2011). Golos synergizes well with my theme and my build. I lose more than 90% of my games but I enjoy each and everyone of them, because I know I was at least able to compete and people couldn't just ignore me. So yes, I would be pissed off if he ends up getting banned just because people don't enjoy playing against some of his builds, while there are many other commanders running rampant causing the exact same problem.

You couldn't find some other deck to lose 90% with? J/k

I'm sure some people played Prophet of Kruphix and lost too.

You're only winning 10% but others are winning 100% running jank Golos. Ultimately, we don't know what actually dictates banning because it's on the RC and this is a casual format. But if anything did dictate banning it's not your games. It's the games where Golos is obviously doing much better.

If you play the best deck in modern, you better be able to stomach bans and losing your deck. If you play EDH, you better be able to stomach all the whining there is about removal, counters, stax, you playing Golos. So whatever.

[Dragoon]

@onering : I always adapt my deck to the power level of my meta. If I choose a powerful commander like Animar or Narset, I usually tend to build them in a less cutthroat way, to compensate for their inherent power level. That is how I have always played and Golos is no different in that regard. If we only need to take into account the ceiling of every commander, then the banlist should be aimed at cEDH and nothing else. The RC has repeatedly said that they don't want that, they don't want Commander to look like the other formats, they don't want to ban stuff just because it's powerful or popular.

I don't want to be hated/targeted just for being me. But you know what, if opponents target me so what? I don't whine about it. I just play. Because you know what, if people hate adversity that's what GAIV is. I'm not going to sit here and say "Oh, it's not THAT kind of deck. I'm just playing GAIV for it's colors." Which is exactly what you're saying. "Oh, I got Golos, but it's only the type that wins 10% of the time."

Even if GAIV is the only cost increaser, my opponents won't give a flip. Your random opponents also have the right to not give a flip about Golos excuses as well.

So are you not okay with people hating playing against Golos? If you are okay with and can see why people hate playing against GAIV, you should be ready to have people hate your general too. Sorry, but your card isn't off limits. No one gets to sit on their Golos high horse and look down at me for GAIV.

I never said you don't have the right to hate Golos, never. If I'm facing you and you don't want to play against Golos, then I simply won't play that deck against you. It's that simple, really. And I don't look down on anyone playing anything, I even said that I don't have any problem with GAIV and yet you interpret it as me somehow looking down on you? I try my best to respect every player style, there are some cEDH decks in my meta, and some newbies playing unsleeved precons. They all have the right to exist and enjoy the game. I'm even against having a banlist at all, I think there is no point for that in a casual format that is not aimed at tournament play anyway but I know it's not realistic. The key part is just to communicate. If you don't want to face certain styles of decks, just say it beforehand, rather than hating on the player during the game.

Truly, no one here is being dismissive of your play style.

You might not be dismissive about my playstyle but this topic sure likes to make me feel like I should be ashamed to even like Golos, given how "awful", "boring", "terrible" or "bad for the format" he is.

It's just high time we acknowledge that overpowered resource acquisition is just as unfun to play against as dedicated resource denial.

You admitted yourself that it was fun to play against resource denial, that it makes the game more interesting in your eyes, which rightly proves that this is only a matter of taste. You have the right to like playing against resource denial but I don't have the right to like overpowered resource acquisition?

I don't like limited resources (, weak pun), I like choices and decision trees. No interaction and pure ramp for the first 4-5 turns is not appealing to me.

That is totally fair. I also like that style.

People coming here to explain why they think Golos could be banned is not "forcing" or "imposing" you to do jack.

I suggest rereading the topic and seeing the words that have been used throughout it. The first posts are totally valid, our opinion and experiences differ but the point of view is certainly valid, But it quickly degenerates after that, some people proudly stated targeting Golos players in each and every game, out of principle, and if their target dared to complain, they just see it as a "really myopic way of seeing the game and the players". I can also read "this is not what the format is about", suggesting there is only one valid way of playing? "He's just as awful and repetitive as an artifacts deck, a superfriends deck, an enchantment deck, a Gods tribal deck", completely ignoring what the player even intends to build with him. Again, this might not have been the intention, but it really comes across as, well, dismissive.

There is a difference between saying "I don't like the style of play Golos promotes", which is basically what the first post is about, and the follow-up conversation which implies hating the Golos player themselves, as if they were the one responsible for this design.

Don't worry about stax, it's been bullied out of existence.

And I find this sad, honestly. There are still a few of those in my meta among the cEDH players (or at least it looks like it is, I definitely saw Stasis and Smokestack being played).

No one is complaining about being forced to play against Golos. They're pointing out that Golos provides resources too effectively and has an all too convenient built in outlet to pour all of those resources into.

They are pointing out how that is unfun for them.

And I don't disagree with that, it is their opinion after all, and they have the right to express it. Golos is busted and some people don't like to play against him, I never denied that.

I mean, they're right.

And again, this is a matter of opinion. Nobody is wrong for liking resource denial just like nobody is wrong for liking Golos. And the same can be said for not liking those things.

You couldn't find some other deck to lose 90% with? J/k

Well, no. I want all my nonland cards and my commander to be on theme. Golos was the first 5 colours option to be printed that was compatible with my theme. Now there is Esika, God of the Tree // The Prismatic Bridge but she doesn't work as well with all the cascade stuff.

You're only winning 10% but others are winning 100% running jank Golos. Ultimately, we don't know what actually dictates banning because it's on the RC and this is a casual format. But if anything did dictate banning it's not your games. It's the games where Golos is obviously doing much better.

I'm guessing they actually care about both kinds of games. For every banning decision, you need to take a look at the whole spectrum, not just one end of it.

If you play the best deck in modern, you better be able to stomach bans and losing your deck. If you play EDH, you better be able to stomach all the whining there is about removal, counters, stax, you playing Golos. So whatever.

I disagree with this point. The RC makes it one of their top priority to handle Commander in a different way than Modern and the other competitive formats. When I play EDH, I'm not playing for prizes. I'm playing to have fun, so no, I don't have to stomach anything at all. We should all be enjoying the game, period. If somebody is not having fun at the table, this is a miss and we need to figure out why and see how to correct it.

[umtiger]

Many are going to roll their eyes on the "I guess we can all just chalk everything to simply a matter of taste" sentiment.

Honestly, if you're against any banned list period, that's a different matter all together. That's not a worthwhile position to debate against/from when discussing a specific card.

Golos is theme agnostic. He truly is just good stuff like T&T. His allure is that he enables you to win. Even if you're a 5c landfall deck, you can still just play all of the 10 OP OG fetches. I find it hard to believe someone would personally lose an entire deck.

I'm not against resource acquisition, I'm a Sol Ring Stan even though I don't play it. I'm against the idea that only resource denial gets vilified whereas nothing is said against resource acquisition. That's where my GAIV vs Golos comment is from. It's not personal. It's just my indictment of the situation.

It's pretty crazy that I can more easily deal with a Sol Ring start than with repeat Golos casts. I can even blowout someone who spits out all their artifact mana. But since social contract, the Golos train keeps chugging.

Well, the RC can't care about your specific games where you only win 10% because I assume they aren't there. Same way I'm sure that WotC cares more about high level tournament data then what goes on at a local FNM.

My last comment wasn't about an incoming ban. Since not everyone enjoys the same types of games, you have to be ready for complaints.. But I guess if you're willing to set aside Golos when people don't want to face it, then you're in the same spot I am when it comes to GAIV.

[pokken]

It's pretty crazy that I can more easily deal with a Sol Ring start than with repeat Golos casts. I can even blowout someone who spits out all their artifact mana. But since social contract, the Golos train keeps chugging.

I will always remember the time I dropped Fall of the Thran in my Yorion deck and two golos players simultaneously scooped and one of them nastygrammed me for playing MLD That was not the only time a Golos player scooped to fall of the thran but the two-fer was hilarious (and also not my only nastygram).

[materpillar]

To this date the only Golos deck I think looks interesting to play in lower power is Materpillar's high cmc tribal - because there're just so many wildly bad and hilarious cards out there.

Well that's extremely flattering. Amusingly enough, I swapped Golos into the 99 for Esika, God of the Tree // The Prismatic Bridge because I got %$#% out for killing someone on turn 7 with Ancient Ooze (which I've mentioned to you). That was the final straw, it was just too exhausting trying to persuade people to be somewhat open minded about playing against my deck and not just knee jerk "omg it's golos, I hate golos he's literally never any fun". Dealing with that conversation every single game just sucked a lot of the joy out of the deck for me. If the deck just isn't functional (which is possible) I'll switch it back to Golos at the helm, but that's the current deck situation.

[Dragoon]

Golos is theme agnostic. He truly is just good stuff like T&T. His allure is that he enables you to win. Even if you're a 5c landfall deck, you can still just play all of the 10 OP OG fetches. I find it hard to believe someone would personally lose an entire deck.

There will always be people who lose their decks when you ban a commander. The only thing you can do is weight that against the number of people who prefer to play without. That is why I voiced out my opinion, because I don't want to see Golos go and I want my voice to be heard as much as yours.

I'm not against resource acquisition, I'm a Sol Ring Stan even though I don't play it. I'm against the idea that only resource denial gets vilified whereas nothing is said against resource acquisition. That's where my GAIV vs Golos comment is from. It's not personal. It's just my indictment of the situation.

Then we should work at stopping vilification (is that the correct word?) instead of demonizing other styles.

Well, the RC can't care about your specific games where you only win 10% because I assume they aren't there. Same way I'm sure that WotC cares more about high level tournament data then what goes on at a local FN.

I'm sure for WotC, but the RC said multiple times that they are not interested in the type of data that WotC collects about their tournaments. Again, they don't want EDH to be managed like the other formats.

My last comment wasn't about an incoming ban. Since not everyone enjoys the same types of games, you have to be ready for complaints.. But I guess if you're willing to set aside Golos when people don't want to face it, then you're in the same spot I am when it comes to GAIV.

I find normal to be considerate of others (just like you seem to be as well when you decide to not play GAIV). In my experience, when you just kindly ask to fight another deck, people just switch for something else. If they don't, then it clearly becomes a player problem and not a cards problem. If they only have one deck and don't want to borrow one, that's when there really might be a problem. Although for that last case, sometimes being nice also pays.

One of the players in my meta, who happens to only rarely play EDH and is more interested in Legacy and Modern, used to only have a Kozilek, Butcher of Truth deck, filled with all the busted artifact ramp like Metalworker and Mana Crypt. He always was upfront about that deck and always asked if he could bring it to the table. We played it from time to time, as we wanted him to have fun too. We often lost, but the games were faster than usual and the player was nice so it wasn't that big of a deal. When the 2016 precons were published, that player bought the Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis one and he now alternates between the decks, depending on what others are playing. If we hated him out right from the get-go just because he played that Kozilek, he might not be there with us anymore and we would have lost a nice player.

I will always remember the time I dropped Fall of the Thran in my Yorion deck and two golos players simultaneously scooped and one of them nastygrammed me for playing MLD That was not the only time a Golos player scooped to fall of the thran but the two-fer was hilarious (and also not my only nastygram).

If you suddenly play MLD without warning in a curated group that is clearly against it, I think it's a fair reaction (although, if I interpret the word "nastygram" correctly, they should not insult you for playing that either). On the other hand, if it's a pickup game and the players didn't express that they didn't want to play against MLD, then it's on them for not being clear about that.

I always remember the time when we had a new player join our group and he lent one of his decks to another player. I arrived later that day and was looking at his hand and the other player's hand out of curiosity. I saw Jokulhaups in both, I then smiled and said to the other players at the table "I think you should have told him beforehand". They didn't understood what I meant until the card was cast, then everybody went "Oh ... right".

That being said, I think cards like Fall of the Thran, Keldon Firebombers and Natural Balance are fine, as they leave the players with a reasonable amount of lands. If you intend to abuse them however, they just become like Armageddon and Ravages of War. Again, nothing wrong with that, but some players are just not there for this type of experience.

Well that's extremely flattering. Amusingly enough, I swapped Golos into the 99 for Esika, God of the Tree // The Prismatic Bridge because I got %$#% out for killing someone on turn 7 with Ancient Ooze (which I've mentioned to you). That was the final straw, it was just too exhausting trying to persuade people to be somewhat open minded about playing against my deck and not just knee jerk "omg it's golos, I hate golos he's literally never any fun". Dealing with that conversation every single game just sucked a lot of the joy out of the deck for me. If the deck just isn't functional (which is possible) I'll switch it back to Golos at the helm, but that's the current deck situation.

That is exactly the type of behaviour I was talking about. Targeting a player just because of their commander won't end well for anybody. I was confronted to this type of player at the beginning of my "EDH career", more than 10 years ago. My first EDH deck was helmed by Sharuum the Hegemon and I was accused of playing "combo" (I didn't even know what that meant back then). I was targeted all the time, being Mindslavered mercilessly and all my lands being destroyed, one by one. If I wasn't already playing casual multiplayer with other, nicer people, I would have probably quit right there. I'm sad to still see this type of behaviour being present, 10 years later. If you're unhappy about a particular type of card, just communicate instead of blindly hating on the player who is not responsible for this design.