The Tarmogoyf question

[DirkGently]

I left in 0/1 to catch all the jokey jokesters. And then I left in 1/2 to catch all the contrarian jokesters.

[NZB2323]

I don't know how to vote. I couldn't run a rare vanilla beater in Edric, Spymaster of Trest commons only, and I'd have no use for one in Morophon, the Boundless. Those are the only green decks I run, though in the past I've ran Captain Sisay, Sarulf, Realm Eater, and Baeloth Barrityl, Entertainer/Raised by Giants, but I don't think any of those decks want a vanilla beater.

If it was a Minotaur I'd want it for Neheb, the Worthy, or if it was a cleric I'd run it in Tymna the Weaver//Ravos, Soultender. My cleric deck runs beaters like Serra Ascendant, Doubtless One, and Hanweir Militia Captain // Westvale Cult Leader, but they're not exactly vanilla. Edric runs Elvish Vanguard as a vanilla beater, and can because he was reprinted at common.

[DirkGently]

It's intentionally somewhat ambiguous, but if you don't personally have a deck that would consider a vanilla creature assume you're talking about a theoretical deck that's aggro-ish but doesn't have any other synergies with a large creature.

[Jemolk]

Honestly, if it's too small, it's useless, and if it's too big, it's boring and also wearing a massive target that then passes to you when it dies. If it's in between, it's both of highly questionable utility and also boring. With no relevant creature type or theming, either? Where's the draw here? I wouldn't, full stop. Without either synergy or flavor, there's no chance in hell I'm including something in my commander decks. It would need some very strong Vorthos-y reasons for inclusion to overcome that, and even then, the competition for the slot would have to be pretty minimal. Otherwise, it is at best the kind of generically strong card that I loathe the very concept of.

[Mookie]

Selvala, Heart of the Wilds says 'hi'.

More broadly, I do think there are some decks that I could see myself running vanilla beaters in... namely Mina and Denn, Wildborn, Rhonas the Indomitable, and other decks capable of granting trample. I don't know that I would necessarily build those decks in the first place, but for a two mana creature, I'll accept 'big' as a relevant keyword in its own right. At three mana, I'd need to think about it, and at four mana I would probably pass though. I suspect the breakpoint is around when it becomes a significant tempo loss to have an opponent kill it or have it swept away by a board wipe.

For the record, I put 10/11 as my size breakpoint - killing an opponent in 4 hits puts it on par with a 6 power commander dealing lethal commander damage, which is the breakpoint at which I consider doing so to be a viable backup win condition. That's also the point at which I consider throwing in some voltron equipment / evasion for a commander.

If I didn't have any way to grant evasion or otherwise have large creature synergies... I'd probably still run it at 20+ power, but less sure whether I would do so in the 11-19 range. Killing an opponent in two hits seems quick enough to punish slower decks / get in under board wipes, but otherwise I expect opponents to have removal, and starting an opponent at 19 lower life may not significantly contribute to my gameplan.

[netn10]

I play Bayou Groff unironically in EDH. It has sac synergy, giving it infect is brutal and it's just a very early beater. It made me realize that most casual EDH decks (in my area at least) can't deal with a 5/4 for 2. So my answer is either 4/5 or 5/6, an answer that still makes sense design-wise and playability-wise.

[DirkGently]

Selvala, Heart of the Wilds says 'hi'

Yeah, that was why I didn't want to get too specific since obviously some commanders do specifically get a significant benefit from a high power/toughness creature and I didn't want them to skew the results.

If one or two sevala players votes based on that, np, but I don't want everyone basing their vote on that niche case.

[TheAmericanSpirit]

I said 5/6, but 4/5 might be good enough. Creatures that are just beaters catch a lot of flak in a value-oriented format like EDH, but in my experience, most players are not adequately equipped to defend their life total until several turns into the game. Sometimes a big dumb monster like Silvos, Rogue Elemental is exactly what you need to put the fear of God into a combo player who thought they'd have all the time in world to hand sculpt into a win or a control player who focused too much on development instead of keeping shields up.

[PrimevalCommander]

I voted 8/9, though it is hard to say until I actually have the card in hand and the rubber hits the road for finding a spot in my deck. A 2 mv 8/9 would be highly likely to find a spot in one deck despite the lack of synergy. Putting that kind of power on the board for such a small investment would help my creature-light Kalamax, the Stormsire Deck as an early threat or late game blocker that takes heat off Kalamax. It may make that deck as a 6/7 for 2 if I'm being honest since something that large on turn two would help that deck quite a bit.

Most of my other green decks I want to be building up to something greater, by either drawing cards, making tokens, doing land stuff, or having some sort of evastion.

Everyone knows Lord of Extinction is the largest vanilla threat, commonly surpassing 20/20 for 5 mana, but is still only rarely seen in black green decks. Something that large demands an answer, where something under 10 power I would let sit for a bit as long as I could chump block it. Kalamax doesn't stick many chump blockers, so having a cheap, high toughness creature around is something I would take even without any synergies.

[folding_music]

mmm even when running Rite of Consumption, or every Kavu Lair and Kiora, I'm still playing original Lhurgoyf over Tarmogoyf, stats need to be almost unbounded on a vanilla creature. makes the format boring in some ways since you know every low cmc creature you see will be a mana bug, an aristocrat or a target for endless equipment

[void_nothing]

Keeping in mind that I have a casual meta that regularly sees meme decks, I would say a 4/5 is the minimum that that vanilla P/T line "does something" in green. Even if this card were a Brushwagg on the typeline, it would still have interactions with a mass of other cards in a theme.

[Crazy Monkey]

I play many decks with Selvala, Heart of the Wilds, as well as decks where power matters like Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord and Ghalta, Primal Hunger. I voted 5 power for 2 because I already run Sheltering Ancient.

In other decks, the other text on the card matters, specifically the creature type. I play vanilla 1/1s that cost 2 in decks because Unesh, Criosphinx Sovereign just wants the free body and changeling isn't really an ability.

In a straightforward aggro deck, with no purpose other than attacking? 8/8 at least for me to consider it.

[materpillar]

I run Eater of Days, Rotting Regisaur, Hunted Horror and Treacherous Pit-Dweller in my Lazav, the Multifarious deck. They're not vanilla but they're close?

Treacherous Pit-Dweller is a surprising beating. You can attack the most obvious combo player. If they kill it you give it to someone else to continue beating that player down. So having some minor built in protection/politics is enough to be worth a jump in stats. I'd probably consider a 7/8 just because it give Lazav some 3-shot power for low cost.

I've also played Canyon Minotaur and Trained Orgg before in my Lovisa Coldeyes deck. Mostly that was just to meme and because I think Canyon Minotaur has hilarious flavor text.

That being said I also play really bad cards like Voidmage Husher because I like the art. I'd totally play a 0/1 for 2 mana for the memes if it had fantastic art and flavor text.

[Dunharrow]

I think this is an interesting question. Reminds me of an argument about how much life would a spell need to gain you for you to play it. Would you play "W - instant - Gain 10 life"?

Vanillas and lifegain are generally bad but if the number is big enough maybe it makes sense.
I put 7/8 because I don't play a lot of aggro decks, but I could see 6/7 being pretty good with some generals.

[NZB2323]

If you're already playing a green deck that has cards like Colossal Majesty, Unnatural Growth, Hunter's Insight, Return of the Wildspeaker, Rishkar's Expertise, Soul's Majesty, Shamanic Revelation, Overwhelming Stampede, ect. it would make sense to include it.

And then there's the Ruxa, Patient Professor deck with Muraganda Petroglyphs that plays cards like Kalonian Tusker, Terrain Elemental, and Elvish Warrior.

[DirkGently]

And then there's the Ruxa, Patient Professor

Lol I was hoping people wouldn't bring up the vanilla-matters commanders since they obviously wouldn't apply to the actual Tarmogoyf.

Commander is funny because, even in the context of Ruxa or that recent GW legend whose name escapes me, I'm pretty positive that Elvish Warrior is absolute garbage. But the commander says to do vanilla tribal, so people are damn sure going to try to make that happen even if their deck would be stronger with practically anything else.

Which I mean, I totally understand - my newest Ambassador Blorpityblorpboop deck intentionally eschews equipment to avoid overshadowing the sticker plan - it's just funny when it's taken to such an extreme archetype.

[Dunadain]

So I think the commander that actually cares the most about vanilla creatures with aggressive stats would be Selvala, Heart of the Wilds and she would take a 5/6 for two, she MIGHT take a 4/5.

[Legend]

10/11 for the same reasons as Mookie.

[Hawk]

As the representative for a slower and sillier meta I said 6/7, but it's tough...I think Mookie is right with 10/11 being the Threshold for it to be a card I'd include as "just good stuff"

But Green has plenty of power matters cards - not just Selvala, but also Traverse the Outlands, Soul's Majesty, even random fight cards (sure a random 1/1 deathtouch "wins" every fight, but a 6/7 is likely to stick around for a deck like Neyith of the Dire Hunt).

And I run all sorts of janky critters in decks where they are tribally relevant, so a 6/7 with a good typeline (Elf, Warrior, Dinosaur are the big ones in G/x; Cat and Dog are growing tribes for the color) would be great. I'd probably consider it at 5/6, honestly, for a tribal deck. On the flip side, I might consider a 6/7 for 1G with a really unusual typeline (or unusual for Simic at least) in Volo, Guide to Monsters since it's just a lot of stats when doubled.

There's also Ruxa, Patient Professor - I'd probably willingly jam a 3/4 vanilla for 1G there since I don't think Kalonian Tusker is awful for him already.

But since I don't currently have any of those decks, yeah, 10/11 is what's necessary for me to start treating that card like Serra Ascendant (a card I'd note is no longer an auto-include in my books; it usually needs a bit more synergy) instead of a role-player in a few specific archetypes. At that typeline I'd be at least thinking about it as just a generically powerful card for a deck like Samut, Voice of Dissent.

[3drinks]

o i c wut u did thar................

I see the quest for value has seeped in far and wide here as well. Yeah, I voted for a 3/4 because I'm not so obsessed with needing all my cards to come with a free handy-j on etb. When I still played Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma, I absolutely jammed Erhnam Djinn|arn because as it turns out, being able to slam 4 power dudes for two was really, really good. Ripjaw Raptor was another, and Weatherseed Treefolk while being french vanilla, still put in ample work. blastoderm|nem is still the beast it was in it's day. And don't get me started on Saproling Burst ..........you kids don't even know.

Here's the dirty little secret truth they don't want you to know; players criminally underplay the amount of removal they actually have in their decks, and as such will sandbag it for what they perceive to be the "biggest threat", all the while not realizing that if they just sit here and take the 8-12 from my derpy g djinn, they're not going to win because they have taken far too much from a single threat. You can't just sit back on your four pieces of removal waiting for a threat that never comes, I watched this manifest itself with Gut/Iron Throne, while I'm running cards like Skullport Merchant with treasures and skelie tokens, and the skelies are just clobbering you because you refuse to recognize these 4/1s are the threat because you improperly assess they don't matter because they don't have a bunch of text, or an orange rarity symbol and like....you wouldn't even be in this situation if you properly assessed.

I'm getting all contrived here. All I'm saying is, mana curves matter, and you're often paying too much of a premium on the bodies in your decks because you're too busy looking for "the value" and turning your nose up at the simpler "less flashy" card. Look, I'm not saying play jank like Emperor Crocodile, but if you can stop turning your nose up at any creature that doesn't read like Questing Beast, your threat density will improve.

[onering]

Surprisingly, this is a question with multiple answers.

For a deck that isn't trying to be that aggressive as a main strategy, so a deck where this 2 mana vanilla beater functions mostly on its own, I'd say a 7/8. In such a deck, it would need to be able to put pressure on its own if cast early, be able to finish off players from half life in only a few hits, and sit back as an effective deterrent to attackers, and this is the minimum size that meets the job requirements (though not in a way that I'd be excited about). Being two mana would be most relevant here as it would let this kind of deck cast it turn 4 while holding up enough mana for interaction even without ramp.

For a deck that is planning on attacking a lot, and thus having a lot of other means of dealing damage so this doesn't have to do everything on its own, a 5/6 would be the minimum stats (5/4 really, toughness doesn't matter as much). I'd consider running such a card in Gallia, despite lacking any abilities and not being a satyr, because it's stats are too efficient to ignore for an aggressive deck like that. I'd eagerly run it if it were a satyr, even if it were a 4/3, but that isn't what was asked.

But there's a situation where I'd accept a 4/5 for 2, and that's a deck with an abundance of cheap beaters. I didn't consider this at first, but that's basically what my Geralf deck is, the 3 mana one that gives zombies flying and sacs creatures to make X/X tokens based on their toughness. It's all dirt cheap, high toughness creatures that exist to be sacrifices to Geralf. I absolutely run 0/4's for 1 in that, which translates into 4/4s for two mana once his ability's cost is factored in. Of course, Geralf gives those tokens flying, so just a vanilla 4/5 for 2 wouldn't be as good as a 0/4 for 1 getting sacrificed to him, so I have to consider whether I'm good with the size of the tokens if he's removed and they don't have flying. Because the deck has a critical mass, I'm ok dropping 2 mana 4/4s and 3 mana 6/6s and backing it up with control. The deck is commander reliant because the creatures mostly suck unless you sac them, so I'd say if I replaced every creature in the deck with a creature that costs one mana more and is just the token the original creatures would become, I'd see the increased consistency as a fair tradeoff for not having flying. Of course, part of the fun of the deck is being able to sac Phyrexian Dreadnought to make a 12/12 with flying for essentially 2 mana, so maybe I'd need a couple insanely undercoated beaters in the deck to make the merely moderately undercosted vanillas worth it. But yeah, short story is I'd run a 4/5 for 2 with no abilities if the deck can run a bunch of similarly undercosted beaters, because I basically already have that deck with extra steps and potential upside.

[DirkGently]

@3drinks How are you recovering from a board wipe, is the thing I don't understand. If you're turning your nose up at anything that gives you value, and you play out a bunch of low/mid power threats that don't do anything except swing - and presumably you need a decent number to constitute a sufficient threat - and then someone plays Wrath of God, how is that game winnable from that point?

The other thing is that, given that there are strong value cards that are also effective threats, I don't see why you'd ever play Erhnam Djinn over something like Rampaging Baloths (outside of intentionally weakening your deck). With djinn and blastoderm, you've committed two cards to the board for 4 mana with total stats 9/10 and multiple downsides. With baloths, you've only committed one card, you've got 10/10 in power (14/14 with a fetch), AND you have constant value generation. Or oldy-but-goody Forgotten Ancient, who is likely to outgrow erhnam djinn in a single turn cycle and generates ongoing value. Or Defiler of Vigor or Silverback Elder or Garruk's Packleader or Soul of the Harvest or Kogla, the Titan Ape or Yeva, Nature's Herald or Vigor or Thunderfoot Baloth or Kodama of the East Tree or Elder Gargaroth or Battle Mammoth or Old Gnawbone or Ancient Bronze Dragon or Loyal Guardian or etc etc etc. In all these cases you aren't really paying hardly anything for the value add. Many of them are further above the curve than erhnam djinn, and/or have abilities that generate a ton of value, especially if they stick around. Given that all these creatures exist, and more are printed in every set, why would you sacrifice value for efficiency when you can have both?

I agree that managing threat level can be valuable insofar as having the biggest, scariest threat on the table can be a downside, and intentionally sandbagging your most threatening creatures can be strategically valuable. But I don't think you need to go as far as playing basically-vanilla beaters like djinn and blastoderm. Somebody's probably putting an eldrazi into play on turn 6 or whatever, nobody is going to notice your garruk's packleader.

[3drinks]

@3drinks How are you recovering from a board wipe, is the thing I don't understand. If you're turning your nose up at anything that gives you value, and you play out a bunch of low/mid power threats that don't do anything except swing - and presumably you need a decent number to constitute a sufficient threat - and then someone plays Wrath of God, how is that game winnable from that point?

The other thing is that, given that there are strong value cards that are also effective threats, I don't see why you'd ever play Erhnam Djinn over something like Rampaging Baloths (outside of intentionally weakening your deck). With djinn and blastoderm, you've committed two cards to the board for 4 mana with total stats 9/10 and multiple downsides. With baloths, you've only committed one card, you've got 10/10 in power (14/14 with a fetch), AND you have constant value generation. Or oldy-but-goody Forgotten Ancient, who is likely to outgrow erhnam djinn in a single turn cycle and generates ongoing value. Or Defiler of Vigor or Silverback Elder or Garruk's Packleader or Soul of the Harvest or Kogla, the Titan Ape or Yeva, Nature's Herald or Vigor or Thunderfoot Baloth or Kodama of the East Tree or Elder Gargaroth or Battle Mammoth or Old Gnawbone or Ancient Bronze Dragon or Loyal Guardian or etc etc etc. In all these cases you aren't really paying hardly anything for the value add. Many of them are further above the curve than erhnam djinn, and/or have abilities that generate a ton of value, especially if they stick around. Given that all these creatures exist, and more are printed in every set, why would you sacrifice value for efficiency when you can have both?

I agree that managing threat level can be valuable insofar as having the biggest, scariest threat on the table can be a downside, and intentionally sandbagging your most threatening creatures can be strategically valuable. But I don't think you need to go as far as playing basically-vanilla beaters like djinn and blastoderm. Somebody's probably putting an eldrazi into play on turn 6 or whatever, nobody is going to notice your garruk's packleader.

The simple answer is, you understand how much to commit to the board and when to hold back. If I got two bodies on the board, that represents typically 6-8 damage, any more would be win more, I think, and I can pressure you until you feel forced to wrath. Even better if one of the two is my commander because I made your wrath effectively a one for one. But then after, I follow up with maybe, say, Surrak, the Hunt Caller and haste something up and continue on. Kalonian Hydra is largely just a big dumb dumb that makes your other big dumb dumbs even bigger and dumber, but that doesn't make it insignificant.

Your comment also doesn't take into effect mana values. You throw my four drops away for a six drop. Look, I like me some Rampaging Baloths too, so much so, I even used them in an early iteration of Mythic Bant in it's standard season. But sixes are not aggro cards, they are control finishers. In the context of Goreclaw, they still cost four while I can slam a pair of four drops for the same rate as this one six drop, there. That's a huge difference. Mana curves matter.

I'm not saying turn your nose up at anything that isn't Emperor Crocodile now or anything, by all means cards like Verdurous Gearhulk, Kogla, the Titan Ape, Rishkar, Peema Renegade and the like are good cards. What I am saying though, is the absence of game text isn't a reason to look down your nose at a card like it were some common pleb.

I always tell people when they [incorrectly] try to eliminate me, "I'm not the threat. I'm never the threat. I'm the proactive player that threatens the combo and control players to keep them uncomfortable and unable to sit back and sculpt their combo in their hand." And then what happens? I'm removed because "big scary creatures" and then the rest of the table loses because the U player combo'd off with Mind Over Matter or some similar sleep-inducing level play.

[DirkGently]

@3drinks How is >6-8 damage win-more in a 40 life multiplayer format? 120 isn't really a fair number, of course, since other people will probably attack and people will probably pay life for certain effects, but if I'm the aggro player I usually expect to be dealing at least 60-80 damage before I win. With 6-8 power in play that's going to take 10 turns, and more if you're disrupted by practically anything, including blockers. Most decks are not going to have a problem outracing that, even at quite low power levels.

I don't think anyone would consider Kalonian Hydra insignificant. I mean it swings as an 8/8 trample for 5 the first time, and grows rapidly from there (even if you have no other relevant counters). It's mythic, it has a bunch of text, and it generates value. I'd group it much closer to team rampaging baloth than team erhnam djinn. Correspondingly, it's played in a pretty decent number of decks and costs a fair amount of money (18,000 decks, and $15 respectively).

I was talking about baloths specifically in the context of goreclaw. Assuming you're playing goreclaw on 4 (and assuming he lives), you'll have the option of playing baloths or 2 vanilla-ish 4 drops on the next turn (presumably turn 4-5). So you aren't able to play a 4-drop any faster than a 6-drop in that context. In a different deck, without Goreclaw always being your 4-mana play and without his discount making a 6-drop playable on the next turn, then there'd be a more substantial difference between a 4-drop and a 6-drop (and you'd be reasonable to favor lower-mv creatures on average), but in this case if the 6-drop is better than 2 4-drops it seems like pure upside to me, unless you think someone's going to kill poor goreclaw.

Maybe I'm not totally clear on what it is you're against. Cards like Llanowar Elves have very little text, and are printed at common, and are extremely popular. The top green EDHrec creatures are Eternal Witness (uncommon, low-moderate text), Llanowar Elves (common, minimal text), Sakura-Tribe Elder (common, low-moderate text), Birds of Paradise (rare, low text), Elvish Mystic (see llanowar elves), Reclamation Sage (uncommon, low-moderate text), Fyndhorn Elves (see llanowar), Beast Whisperer (rare, low text), Avenger of Zendikar (finally our first mythic with a lot of text!), and to round out our top 10, Seedborn Muse (rare, low text). So I don't think people are running away from commons or creatures that don't have much text. Or at least I don't see the evidence for that. But then you're also lauding Kalonian Hydra (a mythic with a lot of text that generates value)...and even Erhnam Djinn was originally a rare, and has more text than 9/10 of the top 10 green creatures. So what is it that you think people are getting wrong?

You have my sympathy trying to direct answers towards the combo players. But I'm also a little confused - you say people are killing you because you're curving out with aggro threats, but you said previously that they're ignoring your threats thus allowing you to kill them.

the skelies are just clobbering you because you refuse to recognize these 4/1s are the threat because you improperly assess they don't matter

I always tell people when they [incorrectly] try to eliminate me, "I'm not the threat. I'm never the threat.["]

You also previously criticized people for "sandbag [removal] for what they perceive to be the 'biggest threat'", but surely that's a reasonable thing to do if someone is threatening to combo out, rather than use it up on your vanilla beaters? I'm not sure what you think people ought to do.

[materpillar]

I see the quest for value has seeped in far and wide here as well. Yeah, I voted for a 3/4 because I'm not so obsessed with needing all my cards to come with a free handy-j on etb. When I still played Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma,

I'm sorry I don't buy this at all. You think marginally better Kalonian Tusker is a good card in edh? You immediately listed a bunch of 4/5s (with extra upside usually) that play as though they're 5/6s tramples because of your commander. A 5/6 trample for 2 I can understand. A 3/4 with no text I very much cannot (outside of memeing).

Were you actually running Tarmogoyf in your Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma deck? It'd have basically always been a 3/4 for you.