MLD is awful
Posted: Mon Feb 07, 2022 9:39 pm
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.
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.