MLD is awful

[DirkGently]

I can't believe there isn't already a thread for this topic. Let's rectify that.

Let me start by admitting that Mass Land Destruction is not a problem that commonly appears in commander games, as it's one of the few things that the social contract, weak as it is in public games, has been effective at largely eliminating.

That said, Iona wasn't that heavily played either but it got banned because it was miserable to play against. MLD is the same and should follow the same trajectory into the dumpster.

The arguments for:

1) It has a massively outsized impact relative to the cost. Armageddon was designed with the 60-card, 2-player, 20-life format in mind. In that arena, it's relatively reasonable, because the game isn't expected to go super long and the level of work expected to win the game is much lower (try winning commander with standard RDW). It might blow up ten permanents, half of which were yours. But in commander, it's likely to destroy dozens of hard-to-replace permanents for four mana. People like to compare it to Wrath of God, but it's so much more impactful than that because you can only play one land per turn. It's also much easier to avoid overcommitting with creatures if you suspect wog - a couple creatures can easily be enough to play defense in many circumstances, whereas most decks are going to need at least 5-6 lands to play reasonably. If someone casts armageddon, one way or another it's going to have a huge impact on the game. It might end the game immediately, it might make it last forever, it might mean someone can't do a single thing for the next five turns. For a 4-mana card, that's way too much imo.

2) It can't be effectively answered by most colors. Practically-speaking, there's only one color with the ability to interact with Armageddon - blue. Blue can counterspell it. For everyone else, options are slim. You can answer their on-board threats to prevent them running away with the game, if that's possible, but then you're ensuring that the game gets dragged on forever. It's an answer to the win, but it's not an answer to the MLD, and you're just as likely to give the win to someone else because of it.

3) It makes it too easy to win the game. MLD basically says "if you're ever significantly ahead on board, you just win the game." But it doesn't require a guaranteed win to be a strong play. If a board wipe just happened, and your opponents have missed their last land drops and you've got a couple lands in hand...it's probably a good play. If you're the only one with creatures on board, it's probably a good play. If you've got the most artifact mana, it's probably a good play. If you've got a planeswalker on an empty board, it's probably a good play. You can say "well, I would only play it if it was a 100% guaranteed game win to avoid wasting people's time" but the golden rule of the format is "build casually, play competitively." Saying someone can play a card but that they have to use it sub-optimally by only playing it under specific circumstances violates that principle.

The arguments against:

1) "Just play around it bro, keep lands in your hand, duh." This is such a ludicrous defense that I can't believe I have to refute it, but I do see people say it a lot. Playing one land per turn, when someone else already has a developed board state, is not likely to end well for you. If anything, it's likely to paint a target on your head while the rest of the table is missing land drops and doing nothing to take the heat off you.

The rarity of MLD in normal commander games also means it's very rarely a good choice to do so. This isn't standard, most decks don't function as "once I get to five lands, I'm basically maxed out and more are irrelevant." The longer the game goes, the bigger the swings, and the more mana you need to keep up. If you sandbag lands and then no one plays MLD, you're likely to put yourself painfully behind. If nothing else, recasting your commander keeps getting more and more expensive - you're going to feel quite the fool when you have to skip recasting with lands sitting in your hand. If MLD were omnipresent maybe the tradeoff would be reasonable, but it's so uncommon that telling someone to anticipate it is like telling them to anticipate a karate attack on the subway.

2) "If someone wins from MLD, they earned it/it's fair." I kinda already covered this above, but I strongly disagree. Finding a good place to use MLD - whether to outright win or just get way ahead - is quite easy. Now, compared to other cEDH wincons is it easy? No, but that's not the point of comparison most people are using, nor are counterspells as likely outside of cEDH. Unlike cEDH wincons, though, MLD is just one card. It requires much less intentionality to make effective. All you need is a deck that might reasonably be ahead on board, and geddon can give you easy wins.

3) "Why do you want to hurt white bro? MLD is the one good thing white can do. Y'know, white would be a lot better if people would just play geddon, that's white's real problem. All the whiners." This argument would make a lot more sense if MLD cost , but it doesn't. It's extremely splashable and far more likely to show up in multicolor decks. White is, and has always been, a good support color, and it doesn't need MLD to help it along. White is behind the other colors, yes, but that doesn't mean we should embrace miserable play patterns in order to help it out. Personally I think white's greatest strength is being relatively unobtrusive, and constantly threatening MLD kinda ruins that. As far as "whiners", there are other miserable things that largely go unplayed from social stigma. Unless you want to go full cEDH, there's going to be things that get trimmed for being unfun. Sorry to white that some of its stronger cards are unfun, but that doesn't mean we should have to play against them.

4) "We need a way to combat ramp. What are we supposed to do without MLD bro?" MLD doesn't exclusively hose ramp - it hoses everyone who doesn't have a strong board presence right now. For that matter, it's extremely effective WITH artifact ramp, and extremely ineffective against it. It's not effective against green's mana dorks either. Compared to other ramp, land ramp is mostly pretty inefficient (Rampant Growth is one of the best ramp spells but is nearly identical in function to the largely ignored Coldsteel Heart because artifacts have better options) - lack of vulnerability is the benefit you're paying for with land ramp. If you want to combat ramp, I'd say (1) punish them for taking turns to ramp by developing threats and using those threats against them (2) answer their threats, which will be scarcer since a lot of their deck is taken up with ramp (3) run more recent, fairer equalizers like Scholarship Sponsor. Remember that card? It basically does the same thing as MLD vs ramp except inverted, with none of the social stigma, and how many people are playing it? Nobody. Because nobody is actually using MLD as "the counter to ramp". They're using it as a way to win the game regardless of what the other person is playing. The fact that the ramp player is going to put more cards into the graveyard is irrelevant.

[BeneTleilax]

build casually, play competitively.

Is that anywhere? It's your rule, and it's a good one, but I don't think you can take it as axiomatic. This is especially so here, as this doesn't seem to be in response to anything, but rather to shore up and explain established norms. You can't just defend one underexplained norm by propping it up on another, arguably weaker, underexplained norm.

Anyway, I agree, with the exception of people who really like grindy games. I've seen one group where all the players just loved finding ways to turn their games into WWI, and good for them, I guess. As a general norm though, MLD should definitely be opt-in, and opt-in with full knowledge of the contents of your post.

[DirkGently]

build casually, play competitively.

Is that anywhere? It's your rule, and it's a good one, but I don't think you can take it as axiomatic. This is especially so here, as this doesn't seem to be in response to anything, but rather to shore up and explain established norms. You can't just defend one underexplained norm by propping it up on another, arguably weaker, underexplained norm.

I've often repeated the mantra "build casually, play competitively."

Among other places.

Not that Sheldon speaks for everyone, but if anyone does speak for the format as a whole, it's Sheldon.

[toctheyounger]

I'll be honest, I skimmed, but from what I can see I agree.

I'm never going to table flip or rage quit, I'll play mostly anything, my only real caveat is I want a game against decks that are evenly pegged as best as can be managed (read: if you're trying to %$#% on the rest of the table im not interested). That said MLD just isn't ever a necessity. If your meta is fine with it thats fine but I don't think there's a justification for it to ever be stated as being a mandatory part of the game.

If you want to play it just say so, there's nothing wrong with that in and of itself, but passing it off as a necessary evil just isn't accurate anymore, if it ever was.

[pokken]

Generally speaking MLD is actively bad at combatting land ramp decks. They rate to be ahead on board and to play a lot of crucible effects. Cards like splendid reclamation and the dude version of splendid rec exacerbate the issue.

Land ramp decks are also one of the best users of MLD since they can essentially combo with a reclamation effect to auto win

[JovialJovian]

@DirkGently what does "MLD" stand for? You never defined the abbreviation in your treatise there, and it's confusing.

[onering]

MLD is a valid way for more aggressive decks to seal a win. Its flat out wrong to say that Armageddon either wins or makes the game take forever, because that ignores the fact that its a dead card until its ready to win, which is a situation that might never present itself. MLD can very well just sit in your hand and do nothing because a good opportunity to cast it never arises. And in a format where people combo on an empty board or play Hoof on a board with 5-6 creatures to win, having to set up a winning board and protect it until you can Armageddon IS a fair way to end the game. This is something that realistically wins mid game at the earliest, when everything is going right.

[pokken]

I think it also may be worth considering how abusive obliterate and jokulhaups are. They make enchantment and planeswalker decks absolutely bananas. Were it not for the social contract playing two walkers and haups would be one of the strongest things you could do at mid power levels.

MLD is a valid way for more aggressive decks to seal a win. Its flat out wrong to say that Armageddon either wins or makes the game take forever, because that ignores the fact that its a dead card until its ready to win, which is a situation that might never present itself. MLD can very well just sit in your hand and do nothing because a good opportunity to cast it never arises. And in a format where people combo on an empty board or play Hoof on a board with 5-6 creatures to win, having to set up a winning board and protect it until you can Armageddon IS a fair way to end the game. This is something that realistically wins mid game at the earliest, when everything is going right.

I'm not sure these things are directly comparable; Craterhoof Behemoth costs 8 and requires more of an investment. Hoof is more like 10 creatures to table lethal (dealing ~100 through blockers).

There is some relationship in being a win condition that is mostly only able to be interacted with via countermagic, but without the social contract dropping a Armageddon when you had 10 creatures would be a vastly better winning strategy than casting Craterhoof Behemoth, since you could do it (on average) 4 turns earlier -- the biggest problem with Hoofdad is having 10 untapped creatures to win with.

I think the main reason people are not up in arms about MLD is that it's not typically as socially acceptable. Casting 4-5 enchantments and then Jokulhaups is a way easier way to win than Hoofing for a lot of reasons, people just don't do it much because of the groans.

[ISBPathfinder]

@DirkGently what does "MLD" stand for? You never defined the abbreviation in your treatise there, and it's confusing.

Its short for "Mass Land Destruction". Generally speaking he is talking about effects like Armageddon that disrupt lands en mass. Some will and some won't add some of the land untapping things like Winter Orb / Static Orb / Stasis into the mix when talking about MLD as well which is always a bit vague.

I for the record am in agreement that MLD and a bunch of the land Stasis effects should all be banned. I don't mind the banned list expanding though especially when it something that has to regularly be social argument banned anyways.

[pokken]

I am less certain when it comes to some of the stasis like effects but what game is made better by Winter Orb / Static Orb / Stasis? I would probably round those up and throw them in on the ban.

I am generally fine with permanents that lock the board down since they die to removal, personally - that's the main distinction for me. Stax is a strategy every color can interact with meaningfully for the most part (with black having some issues, but still having outs). I don't particularly enjoy stax but it's at least got a bigger attack surface than "hope you got countermagic bro."

[ISBPathfinder]

I am less certain when it comes to some of the stasis like effects but what game is made better by Winter Orb / Static Orb / Stasis? I would probably round those up and throw them in on the ban.

I am generally fine with permanents that lock the board down since they die to removal, personally - that's the main distinction for me. Stax is a strategy every color can interact with meaningfully for the most part (with black having some issues, but still having outs). I don't particularly enjoy stax but it's at least got a bigger attack surface than "hope you got countermagic bro."

I suppose thats true. You can respond to MLD though by means of removing whatever was going to give them a competitive advantage through the land sweep though. Its not remotely fun but generally it takes a hexproof commander to stop this from being an option. Low curve, mana dorks, and mana rocks are also how you play against MLD.

[pokken]

I suppose thats true. You can respond to MLD though by means of removing whatever was going to give them a competitive advantage through the land sweep though. Its not remotely fun but generally it takes a hexproof commander to stop this from being an option. Low curve, mana dorks, and mana rocks are also how you play against MLD.

I have experienced the removal sequence against mld attempts a bunch and it basically turns it into a reset which is nearly as awful. Not at all like blowing up a Static Orb and releasing everyone's mana--which can often be done right after the stax player's turn to extra punish them.

There are also shields down moments where you can stick a geddon and there's no coming back, vs. stax piece you can untap two lands and blow it up. Stasis is one I could see being banned since it's much harder to get out from under a Stasis + Sword of Feast and Famine lock or something.

I personally am not a huge fan of playing with staxy decks but I think they're less likely to create awful experiences like Jokulhaups + Shrines. or whatever.

[BeneTleilax]

Not that Sheldon speaks for everyone, but if anyone does speak for the format as a whole, it's Sheldon.

Ah, I never realized that came from Sheldon. That does give it much stronger provenance.

As for Stax, I'm fine with it, but it's not the point of the thread.

[DirkGently]

@DirkGently what does "MLD" stand for? You never defined the abbreviation in your treatise there, and it's confusing.

I clarified it now in case someone finds this thread later.

MLD is a valid way for more aggressive decks to seal a win. Its flat out wrong to say that Armageddon either wins or makes the game take forever, because that ignores the fact that its a dead card until its ready to win, which is a situation that might never present itself. MLD can very well just sit in your hand and do nothing because a good opportunity to cast it never arises. And in a format where people combo on an empty board or play Hoof on a board with 5-6 creatures to win, having to set up a winning board and protect it until you can Armageddon IS a fair way to end the game. This is something that realistically wins mid game at the earliest, when everything is going right.

I said as much in the OP, but no, the bolded isn't true. Of course the preferred way to use it is as a guaranteed win, but there are many scenarios where playing it is a strong play without it being a definite win and where I think it would still be strategically correct to use it. Unlike hoof, it's also fairly easy to play a significant threat and geddon on the same turn. If the board is pretty clear, Serra Ascendant + Armageddon is not exactly a bad play, let alone if you had a Hero of Bladehold stick from the turn before or a planeswalker that could ult in a couple turns. Even having a couple mana rocks where the rest of the table doesn't is a good way to get way ahead. Those things won't necessarily win you the game full stop, but they'll probably give you time to eliminate at least 1 opponent, or have a good chance at it. Meanwhile the rest of the table is now stuck in a miserable topdeck war where half the table gets to draw, sigh, pass. If someone looks at a clear table where one guy has 2 mana rocks, are they supposed to see that coming? Are they supposed to look at that and think "uh oh, this looks like a winning board, we'd better do something to rein in that guy!" And that's to say nothing of the games where someone could use geddon at the WRONG time, or uses it but loses their wincon to removal and drags the game out with no advantage at all.

I used to use geddon as a key part of my strategy back when I was playing Brimaz, King of Oreskos. Having a threat that grows while everyone else is stuck on mana is really strong and can start as early as T4 pretty easily. Doesn't necessarily win the game but it;s still a good strategic move. By the time people might be able to develop in a significant way, you've already got half a dozen tokens and everyone else has lost a lot of life.

I do agree with pokken RE stax. I don't like them and rarely play them, but as a permanent-based strategy the opportunity to interact is much wider. Outside of some mono-colors there are plenty of cards to break the lock, and even mono-color has karn and o-stone.

[hyalopterouslemur]

@DirkGently what does "MLD" stand for? You never defined the abbreviation in your treatise there, and it's confusing.

Its short for "Mass Land Destruction". Generally speaking he is talking about effects like Armageddon that disrupt lands en mass. Some will and some won't add some of the land untapping things like Winter Orb / Static Orb / Stasis into the mix when talking about MLD as well which is always a bit vague.

I for the record am in agreement that MLD and a bunch of the land Stasis effects should all be banned. I don't mind the banned list expanding though especially when it something that has to regularly be social argument banned anyways.

Multiple tiers might be useful. So, we have, let's call them Ban Tiers, or BT for short.

At BT0, only ante cards, subgames, "draft matters", conspiracies, and the like are banned.
At BT1, the Power Nine, and a few choice cards like Time Vault are banned. Banned in Legacy, restricted in Vintage, and banned in Commander.
At BT2, you have the current ban list.
At BT3, you start banning things like tutors that don't go for a specific subset of lands (Going for basic lands, snow lands, or a land subtype like Plains, Island, Swamp, Mountain, Forest, Lair, Locus, or Gate.), MLD, and other choice cards of loathed strategies like Hermit Druid and Erayo, Soratami Ascendant // Erayo's Essence.

The real problem is people who play it poorly. If you're behind, an Armageddon (assuring your loss) is just spite. And I really fail to see the problem with Ruination, Back to Basics, Blood Moon, etc., on grounds of "You know, you did this to yourself." (IOW, these cards punish progressively: The more expensive your land base, the worse these guys are.)

Now, cards like Boil, Conversion, Tsunami, Acid Rain, Flashfires, those cards? Yeah. Screw those guys.

[DirkGently]

At BT2, you have the current ban list.
At BT3, you start banning things like tutors that don't go for a specific subset of lands (Going for basic lands, snow lands, or a land subtype like Plains, Island, Swamp, Mountain, Forest, Lair, Locus, or Gate.), MLD, and other choice cards of loathed strategies like Hermit Druid and Erayo, Soratami Ascendant // Erayo's Essence.

lol erayo is already banned my man. Has been for ages.

The real problem is people who play it poorly.

Disagree. There are many times where it's correct to use MLD that aren't you being in an obvious game-winning position.

And I really fail to see the problem with Ruination, Back to Basics, Blood Moon, etc., on grounds of "You know, you did this to yourself." (IOW, these cards punish progressively: The more expensive your land base, the worse these guys are.)

I'm fine with BM and B2B but Ruination should absolutely eat a ban imo. In order to combat BM or B2B you just need to have a few basics in play to enable you to cast your enchantment removal - and that's only if you didn't have the mana open when it was cast, floating it and then removing it after it resolved. For that matter, a deck with 50% basics is usually going to be fine under BM, and can survive under B2B until someone removes it. By contrast, Ruination when you have 50% basics - if the caster had 100% basics - is absolutely devastating. Ruination is basically the only card in the game that SEVERELY punishes you for running fewer than 80% basic lands, and because it's pretty rare to see and nonbasics are significantly better than basics (whether for utility or for fixing), it's correct imo to run mostly nonbasics. And then 1% of games you get absolutely blindsided by this stupid %$#%$#% card and auto-lose. If there was a bunch of ruination-type cards, such that nonbasics were more like artifact ramp where it's sort of expected that it might get blown up and shouldn't be heavily relied upon, that would be one thing, but it's not that way at all. Ruination is the only nonbasic hate on that level and it feels like such a cheap shot imo. One of my least-favorite cards in the format.

The budget thing is BS too. A better manabase (1) will have fetches, which can find basics (2) will be able to support running more basics since the better nonbasic fixing lands can better cover for the weak fixing of basics. When you have 15 rainbow lands in the deck (fetches, city, orchard, etc) having the rest as basics isn't so bad. When all you have is budget dual lands like gainlands or guildgates or whatever, you need a higher % of nonbasic lands in order to achieve adequate fixing.

Now, cards like Boil, Conversion, Tsunami, Acid Rain, Flashfires, those cards? Yeah. Screw those guys.

At least we agree on that. Although they're used very rarely - geddon is used more than 10x boil and 50x more than flashfires and acid rain.

[pzbw7z]

MLD should at least have a little flair; Living Plane plus Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, don't you think? Narset, Enlightened Master firing off Armageddon for free is so gauche!

[Mookie]

From my perspective, I would not be sad to see MLD go - it isn't widely played at least partially because of the social contract... but as a result, when it does show up, it tends to be even more impactful. I wouldn't have as much of a problem with it if the people playing it were to announce that fact before the game began, but playing it as a surprise tends to feel like a sucker punch. I don't think MLD is dominant from a pure power level perspective (although MLD + planeswalkers definitely pushes it), but it is definitely a major feel-bad when it does show up.

The lack of counterplay is a big contributor too - as others have noted, not playing lands is usually a bad idea due to how mana-hungry the format is. Meanwhile, decks that aren't running blue can't deal with MLD effects outside a small number of cards like Teferi's Protection and Heroic Intervention - the answers do exist, but there aren't many of them, and it's unlikely that you will hold them specifically for MLD instead of for any board wipe. Additionally, if a player wants to react in response to MLD with something that isn't countermagic, it will usually be to fire off a removal spell at whatever made the MLD caster think they were in a winning position in the first place... meaning they may no longer have a way to actually close out the game.

...I'll probably draw the line at the more efficient cards that say 'destroy all lands' though - while I don't necessarily love them, I don't think Sunder or Boil need to be banned, and combo effects like Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite + Kormus Bell + Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth are fine.

[JovialJovian]

I have played MLD only rarely.
The most notable application was in Slobad, Goblin Tinkerer, in which Jokulhaups and Obliterate could be used to set the opponents back to 0 while retaining half of my own board, leaving me open to close out the game, without being required to outright win immediately. There is enough artifact mana in my meta that an Armageddon doesn't really cut it, just makes people mad.
But I stopped playing that deck.
The issue is not really that it's somehow brokenly overpowered, but rather that it is just unfun, and as such should be caught by rule 0 anyway.

[duducrash]

White sucks because everything it does well is either frowned upon or not super unique/busted And the limitations are hardcore.

Im not a fan of MLD but it only comes up to me against Narset. Once I saw someone play a bunch of mana ramp as preparation and tbh it was nice to see once. I suppose it could suck to play against over and over.

White slowing things down has not kept up with the power creep. Drannith Magistrate and the zendikar Archon are the only new aditions and while good magic has speed up so much lately. I think the color council or whatever should decide if they are against MLD they should increase taxing effects and branch out a new area for white, I think thry might have tried with Oswald Fiddlebender but its a boring card

[toctheyounger]

White sucks because everything it does well is either frowned upon or not super unique/busted And the limitations are hardcore.

Im not a fan of MLD but it only comes up to me against Narset. Once I saw someone play a bunch of mana ramp as preparation and tbh it was nice to see once. I suppose it could suck to play against over and over.

White slowing things down has not kept up with the power creep. Drannith Magistrate and the zendikar Archon are the only new aditions and while good magic has speed up so much lately. I think the color council or whatever should decide if they are against MLD they should increase taxing effects and branch out a new area for white, I think thry might have tried with Oswald Fiddlebender but its a boring card

Idk thats totally true, but yeah white does have to get clever to compete, and it can be expensive too. MLD isn't all white can do to compete, but it is in the wheelhouse. I think the control effects you're talking about can go further than you'd think, but not being able to contest the stack is a rough proposition too so you may have a point there. Not every color is blue lol.

At any rate where I'm at with this is I don't really care myself if I see MLD, so long as I know to expect it. What I don't like though is people excusing playing it as the only way around certain archetypes or colors or whatever. Were long past that being the case now, so its just disingenuous to see people make these statements. Theres nothing wrong with saying you like MLD, if you like it just admit it. Its not like you're coming out of the closet or anything, it's ok to like stax and mld. Frankly these days I think its more shameful to be interested in gross simic value engines.

[DirkGently]

Personally I'm okay with almost anything if the person coming into the game is honest about it upfront. I'll probably switch decks and/or target you if you have MLD but I'll play against it. The biggest problem is when you get blindsided by some of the nastier things in the format like MLD, lots of extra turns, harsh lockouts, fast combo, etc.

[void_nothing]

Like most of you I wouldn't be sad to see MLD, at least the cheapest cards for it, go.

MLD should at least have a little flair; Living Plane plus Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, don't you think? Narset, Enlightened Master firing off Armageddon for free is so gauche!

Most valid post in the thread. You can do anything to me as long as it's stylish, tbh.

Personally I'm okay with almost anything if the person coming into the game is honest about it upfront. I'll probably switch decks and/or target you if you have MLD but I'll play against it. The biggest problem is when you get blindsided by some of the nastier things in the format like MLD, lots of extra turns, harsh lockouts, fast combo, etc.

Last sentence especially is extremely true.

[Venedrex]

I don't really have anything to add to what's been said, so uh keep up the good work? I agree with just about everything said here.

1. No one has ever NEEDED to play MLD. Cop out excuse. If you like it so much, just admit it and stop hiding behind excuses to try justify it. I like blue and counterspells, I don't say that I need to run a control deck when I play EDH.
2 Don't spring it on people if you do play it.
3. Make it at least somewhat interesting if you do run it.
4. Don't justify it because white supposedly NEEDS it, (funny how that is similar to no. 1) White can and should get other tools to win. (and hopefully will) Not to mention MLD was never a great tool for winning for White anyway, like they claimed.
5. It can/usually does make the game miserable (hear hear)
6. Ruination is worse than Blood Moon (OK to hit greedy manabases, opportunity for counterplay, versus out of nowhere hard to stop.)

[pokken]

What would an MLD ban list look like?

• Ruination
• Armageddon
• Ravages of War
• Fall of the Thran
• Catastrophe
• Cataclysm
• Jokulhaups
• Obliterate
• Decree of Annihilation
• Boom // Bust

Do we think about Wildfire et. al. or is that going too hard? I had exactly one experience with Wildfire Korvold, Fae-Cursed King and it was honestly enough, but not sure it's banworthy.