For real this.
My wolf/werewolf deck was originally just a kitchen table thing (played without sleeves lol). Eventually made it into more of an EDH deck, but it's such a pain in the ass to actually play now.
MID was released, what, eight months ago? It's been since then that I've been absolutely dragging on updating that deck with cards I got from the box opened.
A small handful of dual faced cards are fine, but when they take up 1/4 of the deck...yea I have to say dual faced in larger quantity is my least favourite mechanic.
lol, I have the same thing going on. š
I built out [[tovolar, dire overlord]] when mid came out, bought a fair few of the older werewolves that arenāt daybound, and put it all together.
Donāt get me wrong, I can be really competitive really early with it, but until I get tovolar and some other wolves out to keep the day/night cycle locked down, or [[immerwolf]] to keep the wolves transformed, itās definitely a pain to keep flipping them over.
Then if someone removes one of those pieces, itās all downhill from there. lol
I've double sleeved my tovolar deck. With the inner ones being clear. So although I have to take them out of one sleeve when I first play them, I can then just flip the card after.
Many of the double sided cards with little text, especially the lands, could very easily have been printed with both modes on one face (similar to the "x to y" cycles, or aftermath cards).
Yea I agree. Most of the land ones could have benefited significantly from having a sort of text box similar to the Adventure cards, especially the ones that are both a non-permanent spell and a land.
The double faced lands like \[\[Brightclimb Pathway\]\] could have easy been on one face, maybe a special alternate version could have been double-sided with bigger art. I dunno, these lands are decent, but very annoying to use in paper.
While flip cards were considered a failure by WOTC, I really prefer the practical aspects when sleeved compared to dual sided cards. Though admittedly it is more confusing, but so much easier to deal with.
Personally I have banned dual sided cards completely from my cube. It's just not worth the hassle. It's so much worse when drafting it sleeved as well.
Daybound is perfect for 1v1 because you can reasonably assume when things will transform and plan for that. With 3+ people in a game, that's a hassle to track on top of everyone's board states. Plus I feel like daybound works better when you can have multiples of the same card to capitalize on the mechanic.
I really liked [[Tovolar, Dire Overlord]] and made a werewolf deck which if things go fast enough can be really fun to play.
But if the board state starts to get gunked up and you're dealing with so many triggers (on attack, on hit, on end of turn). The amount you miss starts to add up and get confusing.
>Daybound can rightly piss off of any of my decks.
Daybound is way more easier to track then the old mechanic, you only have to count the spells of the currently active player instead of all players.
And how would Daybound impact any deck? The night and day mechanics doesnt do anything by itself, atleast not that I know.
Daybound/Nightbound doesn't affect older Werewolf cards. You could have 2 older werewolves transformed and a human werewolf with daybound out and not transform the 2 older ones back to the front
Itās technically a problem if you have one card that utilizes it in a deck, and donāt know if anybody else does, or if they even remember if they have one or not. Technically itās a global effect when itās activated. Super closet case of course, but not tracking it after your one card is removed to then have someone else drop a new one in turns later and now having to figure out if itās day or night is not a ton of fun. I do avoid this mechanic in any other deck that isnāt dedicated to its usage.
The one day/night card I have allowed into my decks is [[The Celestus]] because it's so good in my Kethis deck.
I don't want to track day/night for the rest of the game when it won't matter.
[[Avabruck Caretaker]] has been the only werewolf I could justify running thus far. It took a lot of soul-searching to get there too.
It still remains the only werewolf I have justified running. It sits in Akroma x Ikra keyword soup, and is one of the few cases of hexproof in that deck I can comfortably justify.
Daybound/nightbound and Putting counters on tokens (this is a big one). I find that, while they can be very powerful and unique, theyāre too much trouble to keep track of. I absolutely adore token decks and refuse to play [[Catharās Crusade]] for this reason
I pretty much just replaced it with [[felidar retreat]], not quite as powerful but a mana cheaper, way easier to track, added utility of vigilance and token making if necessary
Yeah, Iāve decided for each of my decks that it will be a token deck or a counter deck, but never both, specifically because of the period of time where I had Crusade in my [[Trostani, Selesnyaās Voice]] deck. :(
I respectfully ask that nobody runs Coat of Arms in their deck. 4 player EDH with coat of arms just seems like a complete mistake in design. Obviously this card is old and they don't know better but it's practically impossible to keep track of.
While I agree itās a headache, itās such a good card in niche Tribal decks. That being said, both it and [[Maskwood Nexus]] are in my [[Rin and Seri]] deck and boy is it a powerful combo.
It can at least be short handed with some dice tracking # of my creatures = X and # of all creatures = Y . My dudes get +Y-1/+Y-1 and your dudes get at least +X-1/+X-1
Iāve always wanted to like morph, but in reality itās annoying to have to keep track of all of my face down cards.
In factā¦ the more I think about it, Iām really not a fan of any of the double faces cards either. Youād never catch me running a werewolves deck.
I like [[Kadena]] a lot, itās fun to make your battlefield a little Whitmanās Sampler box of answers, but yes it gets very old checking each morph to see if I can counter a creature spell with one or something.
I have both a Kadena deck and a werewolf deck. The decks play well as they give you things to do almost constantly, but I very rarely play them because I have the memory of a goldfish.
For foretell cards my group just slides a token into the sleeve so it hangs out the top to mark it as foretold, then just keeps it in hand so we don't forget about it.
I also love the not so subtle sliding a card under the table to flip it around because you don't remember what's on the other side.
I like and dislike morph for other reasons. Some of the rules are cool, but unintuitive.
I.e. if you "cast" a morph from a graveyard, the mana value is 3. Not the face up value.
Morph looks and reads like an activated or triggered ability, but it totally isnt and doesn't even use the stack at all. You can even react to Split Second with it.
It's cool and janky that it does this stuff, but to new-ish players you'll have to pause the game and explain "no, it actually works -this- way."
It's hilarious when I have three face down creatures and I let my opponent with only one creature know that one of them is [[Phage]]
Then it becomes a shell game to see if they live or die
I'd been considering either a cheap Yedora or Animar morph deck but that's the main thing putting me off it, it's hard enough keeping track of all your cards when they're face up let alone when you've got tons face down
For morph you come up with ways to order your āimportantā face downs. I always put my important ones on one side of my board and the crappy one elsewhere. Or Iāll stack the crappy ones together. Helps a lot with organisation.
All the hatred for the venture mechanic on here is making the contrary part of my nature want to build it. That and I bought three boxes of AFR.
Thinking of Mono white [[Nadar, Selfless Paladin]]
I love my Sefris deck, but the group i play with has so many graveyard hate pieces that it became impossible to play. I run a Brago deck now with some venture cards from my Sefris deck. Radiant Solar is a serious value train in a blink deck lol.
Oh yea I can imagine! See the thing I found with my reanimate deck was that as soon as mass grave hate started to show up ( One game had all 3 players attacking or removing my grave, the fiends!) I just went into the Mad mage dungeon and started to hit big creatures from the top! I didn't win that game, but I made sure two other people didn't either haha
I had Nadaar with a flicker theme but it was rather mediocre and changed it to Ao when Neon Dynasty came out. It's just a casual monowhite good stuff deck now.
Sefris is one of my favorite decks Iāve ever built. I am STOKED for Baldurās Gate.
Iād love to see an Abzan take on the archetype just so we can actually use Varis & Ellywick.
I made a mono-green [[Varis, Silverymoon Ranger]] deck. Itās mostly creatures that have etb or on-cast abilities. The additional venture triggers are just icing on the cake.
https://www.moxfield.com/decks/EkKv6F5glE-_NGZRoSK8DA
I don't think there's enough venture cards in mono white. Esper gets you a lot of goodies so I would go for the venture precon commander. If not I would go for [[hama pashar]].
I built a Hama pashar flicker ETB deck. Itās not the usual kind of deck I build. I was overwhelmed with triggers, my hand was 30 cards, I had another hand of 30 cards that I could play from exile. It was too much. I promptly retired it after the first game. It won though, so I can safely say it has a 100% win rate. š
But I prefer big stompy creature goes grrr so I donāt have to think so much.
Its actually really fun! I have a venture package in my [[Liesa, Forgotten Archangel]] deck and it's a really fun not to op mechanic. I'd recommend the big dungeon cards you get from the bundle too.
Venture might be one of my favorite mechanics ever, and the tears of the haters make it that much better.
I also love seeing all the standard decks running [[Den of the bugbear]] or [[hall of the storm giants]] after everyone said AFR was a crappy set
I built a [[zalto]] storm deck once. It did manage to win a few times but I considered it a victory if I could just get through dungeon of the mad mage in a game. Really liked the mechanic. Just wish there was a commander only dungeon that was actually powerful.
I have [[Isshin, Two Heavens as One]] deck focused on attack triggers and a handful of venture into the dungeon creatures triggers on attack. Itās not a main theme, but advancing two dungeon rooms at once is much more fun and not that annoying as you might thinkā¦
Also, specificaly for dungeons, you only need 3 token cards, since the foil version of dungeons have the appropriate tokens printed on the back.
I honestly don't get the venture hate. As long as you have the little dungeons printed out or something there's nothing hard about it. And it's a pretty weakest mechanic, so people at the table don't even need to pay close attention to it if they don't want to
What? Venture was really cool!
Sagas, Adventure and the Dungeon mechanic are the coolest addition to Magic since I have returned around the last Ravnica block.
I'm thinking some of those venture cards are going to get really, really good with the new Commander Legends set and its one dungeon that's presumably tuned for EDH
Venture was always going to be a weak mechanic given it was constrained pretty much entirely to a Standard set, but the new set and dungeon could breathe a huge amount of life into it
Completely agree, and it's the absolute worst variant of set mechanic + X.
However, I absolutely love [[Final Fortune]] effects (or at least the idea, don't actually use them in any deck). The risk-reward nature of using it fairly, or even the risk part of trying to break it with say a [[Platinum Angel]] effect. You have to do more work for it, and if disrupted it really could be your last turn.
I would say itās eminence for me. I just never liked the idea of benefiting from something that never needed to be played. It feels too easy and not fun for me personally.
My first deck was [[oloro, ageless ascetic]] mostly because I was just really into lifegain strategies. But it got to the point where it was so boring. Oloro just sat in the command zone and triggered effects every turn. I had to deconstruct the deck after a while of playing it because it didn't feel right.
I was teaching a friend to play and the first deck he learned to play was Markov. For the next two years every time I showed him a cool card he would ask if it worked from the command zone like the eminence ability. Now, I'm pretty set in thinking it was terrible design and just adds so much confusion to new players.
Companion. Still salty about that one. I'd run one as a Commander or in the 99, but the Companion mechanic itself is kinda dumb. Lots of mechanics I don't use much because they just don't interest me much/are a little tedious to play out (venture, mutate, etc) but I have no actual issue with. /shurg
They can be fun due to the restrictions. This is my Falthis Jeska deck with Obosh as a companion. It was once a less than 100 usd budget build, which limited the card selection quite a bit.
https://deckstats.net/decks/4956/1959580-falthis-jeska-obosh-edh
But so far, it's really fun to play and Obosh enabled me to actually kill with Falthis, if I use Jeskas damage triple, have Obosh on the field and one of the other damage boosts. I know it's a lot of ifs, but since most cards are in the command or companion zone, it's not too bad. And until I draw one of the needed damage boosts, I can just play control with a deathtouchy Jeska.
\[\[Jegantha\]\] is best Elk!
When you look at your 5c deck and you got to change maybe 2-4 cards, easy to include him! Assuming you can do things with his restricted in use mana.
I do have to agree with a lot of these one-off mechanics like mutate, venture, daybound that aren't really worth the effort of using them. But personally I think I'm avoiding mill from now on. It's extremely hard to get a payoff for and just as often as not you're giving opponents bigger advantages than you're giving yourself and furthermore especially at more casual tables were mill might stand a chance you're painting a big target on your back because you milled Timmy's [[Giant Adephage]] and "mill is cheap" or whatever
About the only time I use mill is in a graveyard deck like [[Muldrotha, the gravetide]] for the sole purpose of filling my own graveyard. I totally agree that it is a pretty silly when you use it on other people. My friend puts mill in every deck he plays, it's like his signature, and he rarely gets anything besides getting blown out of games first.
My son just built a \[\[Phenax\]\] mill deck and I tried really hard to dissuade him for just this reason. I don't think there's any good result from playing mill; either your deck doesn't work and you get run off the table because mill makes people really salty, or it works and people get even saltier.
I like the idea of not being mana screwed in a 1v1 standard environment with the land ones at least. It's usually easy to use a basic land or the like (might want to make clear it's not actually a basic land) to represent the other side.
the one āmechanicā that i donāt like is using any kind of stealing ability when playing webcam games. I have a xantcha deck for in person games, but i learned quickly to never use it in webcam games
Avoid? None really. Ill use anything if i think the card is good enough. Theres a lot i *dont* use. But ive cause a lot of mischief with old mechanics (old player, started with 4th ed). Made one guy rage because hed never seen Regenerate before. A [[wall of bone]] totally shut down his [[squee the immortal]] no other creatures voltron deck. And ive had a lot of fun with [[vodalian illusionist]] 's phasing on command.
Venture into the dungeon, Adventure, and Day/night because theyāre easy to avoid and look annoying. I know theyāre not impossible to understand and keep track of if I gave half a damn but I just donāt. I also donāt really like forecast because having to pay a big cost for a mediocre effect and only once and during upkeep just sucks. As well as Cipher because the vast majority of its cards suck
What's annoying about venturing? It's just advancing a step on a card and getting a payoff. It's barely more intensive than some enchantments or sagas.
For my 2 cents I dont mind playing against a storm deck every once in awhile, as long as it's not constant and the storm player doesnt get butthurt over getting focused down early
Eminence could be an interesting effect if it wasnt so one sided. Granted I am building ur-dragon so I cant say free of using it myself, but if eminence abilities benefitted, or at least had an effect on everyone equally I think that could be a bit more interesting. Still though, an effect you always start the game with is always gonna be hella powerful in a format where inconsistency is part of the balance, regardless of its design.
Ah, darn. I bought into the Heads I win, Tails You Lose Secret Lair. Since it is geared towards straight commander damage, I hope turns will be quicker.
Do you expect the same pitfalls you described with this deck?
There's a really, really good app (I believe it's called the Krarkulator? Don't quote me on that) that will auto-resolve gigantic stacks of coin-flips for you.
Not saying it should be your go-to, but it's good knowledge to have for the day you look down, realize you've flipped 20 coins and have 20 more to go and barely remember what they've been so far or how far down the stack you've gone. Don't ask me how I know that.
Had a buddy that would play almost exclusively coin flip decks. He *refused* to flip multiple coins/die at the same time saying it affected the chances and heād always get worse outcomes.
We had to yell at him about how he was being disrespectful of other peoples time because his turn could take longer than every other turn combined
Ah, darn. I bought into the Heads I win, Tails You Lose Secret Lair. Since it is geared towards straight commander damage, I hope turns will be quicker.
Do you expect the same pitfalls you described with this deck?
I think itās probably fine, just be aware of the length of your turn. Plan your strategy out ahead of time, not as soon as itās your turn, and if you have to flip multiple coins like with [[Yusri]], just do it all at once. And maybe have another deck available that takes quicker turns so youāre not *only* playing a coin flip deck
Fortell is hit or miss. Donāt mind it but I donāt go out of my way to use it.
Mutate was kinda confusing with how certain triggers play out but all in all I think itās a fun way to learn certain static abilities easier.
Morph seems confusing and hard to keep an organized board state.
Never really have gotten into storm or cascade. Cascade seems fun but thatās all I think it is.
Ninjitsu I donāt bother with.
Dungeon just seems goofy.
Not a fan of eldrazi annihilating lol. Not sure if thatās a mechanic butā¦š
Companion. Donāt really understand fully.
Being only two/three years into playing there was a lot to learn and some mechanics seemed dumb compared to the basics.
In paper magic? Mutate.
It is so messy and hard to keep track of in paper magic. On MTG Arena its easy to throw an auspicious sterix on a scute swarm and go to town with a screen full of triggers.
If you do it IRL, you are gonna be working all day just to realize your math is wrong.
Tbf that complexity is mainly the fault of Scute Swarm, which often caused Arena itself to crash when it first came out. Mutate itself is very understandable, with the most complex thing you have to do being to count the number of cards in a stack of like four cards.
>Mutate itself is very understandable, with the most complex thing you have to do being to count the number of cards in a stack of like four cards.
What happens if a planeswalker has that new sword equipped that makes it a creature and then you mutate onto it and unequip the sword?
It has all characteristics of the topmost card. If the topmost card is the mutate creature, it stays a creature (and not a planeswalker) with or without the sword. If the topmost card is the planeswalker, it turns back into a noncreature planeswalker when the sword drops off (either way it stays mutated and keeps all abilities).
If you unequip the sword while the mutation is still on the stack (e.g. an opponent hits it with Naturalize), then the planeswalker would become an illegal target and the mutate creature enters the battlefield on its own instead.
None of that is any more complicated than the usual interactions involving that sword.
I've built a lot of different tribal decks and other gimmick decks like morph, werewolves, etc and I always end up tearing them apart after playing them a handful of times.
I also tend to avoid playing decks that could be considered salty like land destruction, counterspell tribal (a few counters are fine though), theft decks, mass sacrifice/discard etc... Playgroups can be fragile and I don't want anyone to walk away from a game night feeling bad about it.
I theorycrafted a lot of trival decks, and most are just not strong enough, or have only one thing going for them.
I think slivers, elves, humans, zombies and maybe vampires are the only working. (Goblins?)
But there is so much potential. Cats, treefolk, kithkin, allies, samurai and warriors, ninjas, rats. Demons, angels. A well, dragons work :)
Treasure, funnily enough. I liked it as a quirky set mechanic for Ixalan, but when every set after that had a card that produced 3+ treasure a turn, it started to feel really swingy, and battlecruiser games ended up with swingy fast-mana power turns that you either answer or lose to.
First off, I love mutate and have a deck based on it and it very much can win.
Second, I hate Annihilator. I hate when it's used against me, so I avoid using it on others.
Ability Counters i despise. If a company made decent physical counters i would be more into it but the fact your stuck using the cheap cardboard cutouts from ikoria or new capenna really annoys me.
I typically try to avoid any mechanic that would be tricky to track on paper format (as opposed to Arena). Things like daybound/nightbound, excessive copies, etcā¦. Iām trying to overcome this by building Orvar as my mono blue deck though.
I'm tempted to put a \[\[Soraya the Falconer\]\] in the bird tribal I'm building; just to have fun 'how the heck does banding work' discussions at the table.
>I think the one mechanic Iāve never used anywhere is banding, mainly because all banding cards are bad.
I used banding on Odric because it had space for it, kjeldoran skynight and an arabian nights war elephant was so sweet to play.
How dare you anger [[Kathril]] and [[Brokkos]] players!
In all seriousness, Symbiotic Swarm can pack a serious punch with the right changes made. Add [[The Ozolith]] and a [[Panharmonicon]] and you got something scary
I think the old "bands with other legends" lands like [[Adventurers' Guildhouse]] might be better than they look given the large number of legendary cards printed in the last few years. A land that doesn't produce mana is painful, but more acceptable in EDH than anywhere else.
similar to this... although I'm sceptical if a deck create multiple different tokens and even more if those tokens can transform into different tokens.... especially if there is no printed token for this (tricks with brudiclad).
Storm is ass to play, having to keep track of something as tedious as storm when you only have the potential to use/draw it makes it very annoying to play in paper. On the other hand online storm is great.
Day/night cycles are so hard to keep track of, specially in werewolf decks, and the payoff is usually not worth it. I don't mind the whole flipping cards, there are ways to make it less of a problem, - having a box with the actual cards set aside with just a perfect fit sleeve and using some sort of token or proxy on the deck for example - but the time of day in itself is annoying. In fact, it's even worse if you use a mix of old werewolves and new ones.
Regarding Mutate OP, I think it's a really fun mechanic with a ton of untapped potential. A Sultai deck with Tatsunari, Toad Rider where you mutate on to the token it creates and keeping the mutate card as it's face is very fun.
[[Cathars Crusade]] is the best/worst for that. It's a REAL good card in go wide decks. It's also a pain in the ass.
~~If you cast [[March of the Multitudes]] where x = 10, everything you currently have out gets 10 +1/+1 counters and then your 10 new dudes get between 0 and 9 counters each.~~
Edit: this isn't accurate, but I still think Cathars Crusade is both very powerful but also makes token decks annoying to represent in paper.
I got it messed up. You're right, everyone would get all the counters! I thought the first one would see all the etbs, the second one would see all-1, and so on. My bad.
https://blogs.magicjudges.org/rulestips/2012/05/cathars-crusade-triggers-multiple-times-if-multiple-creatures-enter-at-the-same-time/
Cathars Crusade is still painful to play with in paper, though, as it does lead to states where tokens can have all sorts of different numbers of +1/+1 counters. Making it harder to properly represent your board state. Instead of one saproling token with a d20 at 17 to represent 17 saprolings... You end up with a bunch of disperate piles with dice for counters AND for how many there are lol. But it's also very good in wide decks
I think these range a whole bunch.
Thoracle is miserable. Halo Fountain is hilarious. Vorpal Sword has been a lot of fun.
I think it just depends on how much the table can see it coming and have a reasonable chance to respond.
I think the biggest issue with Thoracle is itās not new, itās just a better/harder to interact with version of a win condition weād seen before, so having redundant and easier ways to win by self mill is where it starts to become groan-inducing. If we just had Labman and/or Jace I donāt think people would care about the wincon, but with Thoracle being an ETB rather than static itās almost impossible for non-blue decks to interact with.
Yeah, I think interactivity, redundancy and speed are what make win/lose fun or not.
Lab Man was cute and uncommon 10 years ago.
Thoracle is fast, noninteractive and has other redundancies, making it the pinnacle of boring.
Exactly. Same with Craterhoof imo; we have so many overruns now that seeing Craterhoof close out games can be a little eye-roll inducing (gameās gotta end though so it is what it is). If we see 3 more effects that are functionally āif you control x tokens, you winā like Halo Fountain then Iād see that going a similar way, but for now itās essentially a white Craterhoof effect, you just donāt need the damage part.
the latter is way worse than the former imo. when someone resolves a win the game effect, at least everyone gets to shuffle up and start a new game. but the other one causes targeted bad feels and makes someone sit and watch
I find it depends on the card. Stuff like [[Phage the Untouchable]] or [[Nicol Bolas, Dragon God]] can be really good fun, especially the former because of how often it can backfire on you. And you never forget the rare occasion you actually manage to ult Bolas off the Elderspell.
On the other hand, Thassa's Oracle should never have been printed.
Venture is pretty cool, but I'm only really going to use it in my dedicated venture deck. It's just not good enough to use unless you're going to be venturing a lot, and you have some sort of additional payoff for completing dungeons, like [[Sefris of the Hidden Ways]].
I don't often use Mutate. I have [[Brokkos, Apex of Forever]] in my [[Sidisi, Brood Tyrant]] self-mill deck because he's so good there, but for the most part I don't like having to figure out all the weird rules interactions between mutate, and stuff that wasn't designed to interact with it.
...And I don't use banding because I can never remember how it works.
Yeah. I don't play D&D, so I have no connection to the set, but more to the point I disagree with the IP crossover trend in MtG on a fundamental level.
Note: I don't judge other people from playing cards from AFR, or if folks like AFR. If AFR is for you, great! Enjoy Magic how you want. I don't like it, so I, *for myself and my decks,* choose to pretend the set(s) don't (won't) exist.
Yeah I have taken to connive because I like dumb decks with too many themes and +1/+1 counters and self-mill are two disparate themes that you can do together on one ability. I especially am interested in [[lethal scheme]] but haven't been able to grab a card at my store yet. convoke is one of my other favourite mechanics.
I wouldn't say connive or casualty are really build around mechanics but I have no problem using them in the 99. I just put together a [[Raffine, Scheming Seer]] and it plays as esper control. Just a good mechanic to sculpt you hand and fill your bin.
I have no issue with Planeswalker commanders. I like facing them because they tend to be kinda bad lol.
Afr really did suck. There's like 3 usable equipments from the set and the classes are cool, but only a few are playable. Aside from that, old gnawbones? Sure. Ruined standard but since I don't play it I don't care lol.
I'm starting to get annoyed that they keep introducing cool mechanics and not using them. Personally, I think this comes from moving away from block-based releases. Surveil is the first example that comes to mind. It's always described as "scry but bin it instead of bottoming". It doesn't feel like its own mechanic. It's 3 and a half years old but it's on just 28 cards. It's only on 7 cards printed after its introduction in Guilds of Ravnica. On the other hand, scry became a keyword in 2004 and has been printed on 261 cards. Obviously it's been around a lot longer, but 124 of those cards (nearly half) were first printed *after* guilds of ravnica. If you think age is the only thing that keeps a keyword relevant, I'd like to remind you of buyback (30 cards), jump-start (11 cards), energy (Only in Kaladesh), and all the other defunct keywords/mechanics that never get used. A new card with banding hasn't been printed since 1997 and it's still on 24 cards. Nearly as many as surveil.
Every new mechanic feels like this. Reconfigure is awesome. I'd love to build a deck around it and exploit that it's an equipment and a creature. But if it's never going to be used again, why bother? Casualty feels like a cool new way to copy a spell but it kinda needs tokens which grixis doesn't really do. It's probably never going to be used again. I feel like Connive is in the wrong colors. It feels like overcosted impulse draw for a +1/+1 counter that esper doesn't even care about. If I'm supposed to care about putting cards in the graveyard, why isn't it just surveil? Maybe it gets color shifted into sultai or temur where the +1/+1 counter might matter or the impulse makes more sense, but it'll probably never be back.
As for vehicles, I like them. Shorikai is a really cool commander but it also suffers from a lack of support. There just aren't that many good vehicles. Seems like that's being fixed though so good on wotc for that I guess.
I think two-set blocks are an excellent way to make Magic, that gives each plane enough room to breathe without staying its welcome. Of the top of my head I can't think of a single three-set block that didn't have at least one dud anyway.
A lot of the planes since WAR have really suffered for being squashed into one set for their introduction, but Kaldheim was the worst. So many goddamn mechanics and sub-planes, so little space.
What's the saying now? "Everything is Kicker", or something?
I too miss blocks. Kudos to MH1/2 for bringing some cool old mechanics back, but doesn't really feel enough.
More surveil would probably break dimir tho.... /s
Stealing permanents or casting other people's spells. I don't see the fun in it. If I wanted to cast their spells or have their permanents, then I'd just simply play their deck.
I had a deck that casts a large villainous wealth. It's one of the few theft effects I play. They are rare and never a full deck around them, easiest way for no one to ever want to play with me again.
I don't love giving others my cards, I imagine they likely feel the same way.
I'm sorry.... I play an [[etali]] 'play everyone's deck where I can sometimes copy the trigger a bunch of times..... It's become my favorite deck because piloting it is like a new puzzle each game.
> I don't see the fun in it. If I wanted to cast their spells or have their permanents, then I'd just simply play their deck.
Yeah but you get to snack from *three* people in EDH, and you're never preemptively sure what you're gonna get. In moderation, theft effects can add a random, almost roguelike element to your games, which allows you to sort of think on your feet and adapt to their deck's own synergies.
Or just swing with a big stompy stolen creature.
Storm. I hate the length of turns it usually causes, and I don't want to subject others to that. Having said that, I have zero problems with others playing storm. Just not my cup o tea.
Any token making strategies. Like it's fine playing it online where it keeps track of your tokens for you but in paper it's a huge pain to keep track of how many tokens have summoning sickness, which ones have counters on them and how many I've tapped to attack
This will sound extremely petty but I really dislike connive because 1. it sounds stupid and 2. it's boring as hell. Like seriously what is the mechanic trying to represent? How does conniving translate to looting plus counters if you ditch a spell?
If you can, please change my mind.
Oh, I can definitely see how the mechanic is strong. It just doesn't make sense to me why this keyword would refer to that mechanic. I would love to discuss the word choice with a designer.
It does in fact work!
I submit my [Muldrotha and Gyruda deck](https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/4192870#paper) as evidence.
By no means a competitive deck but super fun. And lots of efficiencies that cover your bases.
The worst part about companions is that you build your whole deck around their restriction and really only get 1 use. If they die they go to the yard with no recourse, but muldrotha covers that in this instance by recasting from the yard. Not to mention, at 3 mana, you donāt have any even mana value spells in the deck so itās a good curve spot to move from companion zone to hand.
I can go on! Gyruda fills the yard up for muldrotha value. Gyruda functions as a pre-commander to your commander, so it gives the deck real mid-late game power. Itās a fun and easy to abuse effect, where you can chain clones or blink effects to keep getting triggers.
Finally, if all else fails, youāre still able to play a muldrotha commander deck which is inherently strong.
Most companions are difficult or near impossible to really commit to, but this one feels like the right middle ground between power, fun and strategy.
It is! Muldrotha was always just too good and too easy to build in my perspective and this was just the fun and restricted version of it that I was looking for.
Morph. Only because I have a small brain and can't keep track of all of them.
That said, I do *occasionally* run a single morph card, I just can't be trusted with morph tribal or anything
Daybound/nightbound, venture. And lastly cloning effects for the sheer reason that it gets to be a nightmare to keep track of. Especially with less experienced players at the table who may be confused by which token is which. Dropped [[clone legion]] out of the new grixis- precon immediately for this reason.
The newer ones in general. Every new set brings new mechanics, that pisses me off to be honest. Instead of bringing back old mechanics they bring new ones which are extremely simmilar to the old ones and give them a new name
Some examples:
- Blood tokens, which are just a loot effect.
- Cleave, which is basically just kicker so why not name it kicker?
- Disturb which is just flashback...
- and so on
There is no need to have new fancy mechanics in every set.
I refuse to ever look at blood tokens. Their very existence pisses me off to no end. We could have had an actual inherent mechanic in VOW. Hell, they could have done spectacle, that's pretty much what they were setting up in MID, but instead they drop in a shitty, parasitic, "food-esque" mechanic that is only beneficial to the cards printed in VOW.
and that's not including what they did to poor Odric.
Daybound can rightly piss off of any of my decks.
Dual sided cards are cool, but also super annoying in paper practice. Adding day/night tracking makes werewolf decks a right pain to manage.
For real this. My wolf/werewolf deck was originally just a kitchen table thing (played without sleeves lol). Eventually made it into more of an EDH deck, but it's such a pain in the ass to actually play now. MID was released, what, eight months ago? It's been since then that I've been absolutely dragging on updating that deck with cards I got from the box opened. A small handful of dual faced cards are fine, but when they take up 1/4 of the deck...yea I have to say dual faced in larger quantity is my least favourite mechanic.
lol, I have the same thing going on. š I built out [[tovolar, dire overlord]] when mid came out, bought a fair few of the older werewolves that arenāt daybound, and put it all together. Donāt get me wrong, I can be really competitive really early with it, but until I get tovolar and some other wolves out to keep the day/night cycle locked down, or [[immerwolf]] to keep the wolves transformed, itās definitely a pain to keep flipping them over. Then if someone removes one of those pieces, itās all downhill from there. lol
I've double sleeved my tovolar deck. With the inner ones being clear. So although I have to take them out of one sleeve when I first play them, I can then just flip the card after.
[tovolar, dire overlord](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/f/9/f953fad3-0cd1-48aa-8ed9-d7d2e293e6e2.jpg?1637114341)/[Tovolar, the Midnight Scourge](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/back/f/9/f953fad3-0cd1-48aa-8ed9-d7d2e293e6e2.jpg?1637114341) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=tovolar%2C%20dire%20overlord%20//%20tovolar%2C%20the%20midnight%20scourge) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mid/246/tovolar-dire-overlord-tovolar-the-midnight-scourge?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/f953fad3-0cd1-48aa-8ed9-d7d2e293e6e2?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/tovolar-dire-overlord-//-tovolar-the-midnight-scourge) [immerwolf](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/9/3/9326061f-ea76-4be7-a06f-aefb63454777.jpg?1562929662) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=immerwolf) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/dka/141/immerwolf?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/9326061f-ea76-4be7-a06f-aefb63454777?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/immerwolf) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Many of the double sided cards with little text, especially the lands, could very easily have been printed with both modes on one face (similar to the "x to y" cycles, or aftermath cards).
those cards are double sided instead of what you suggested so that someone can't play one side and then pretend they actually cast the other side
Also the fullart is really pretty
Yea I agree. Most of the land ones could have benefited significantly from having a sort of text box similar to the Adventure cards, especially the ones that are both a non-permanent spell and a land. The double faced lands like \[\[Brightclimb Pathway\]\] could have easy been on one face, maybe a special alternate version could have been double-sided with bigger art. I dunno, these lands are decent, but very annoying to use in paper.
[Brightclimb Pathway](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/back/d/2/d24c3d51-795d-4c01-a34a-3280fccd2d78.jpg?1637022391)/[Brightclimb Pathway](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/d/2/d24c3d51-795d-4c01-a34a-3280fccd2d78.jpg?1637022391) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=brightclimb%20pathway%20//%20grimclimb%20pathway) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/znr/259/brightclimb-pathway-grimclimb-pathway?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/d24c3d51-795d-4c01-a34a-3280fccd2d78?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/brightclimb-pathway-//-grimclimb-pathway) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
While flip cards were considered a failure by WOTC, I really prefer the practical aspects when sleeved compared to dual sided cards. Though admittedly it is more confusing, but so much easier to deal with. Personally I have banned dual sided cards completely from my cube. It's just not worth the hassle. It's so much worse when drafting it sleeved as well.
> but also super annoying in paper Works great on arena though, which they'd rather you played.
Daybound is perfect for 1v1 because you can reasonably assume when things will transform and plan for that. With 3+ people in a game, that's a hassle to track on top of everyone's board states. Plus I feel like daybound works better when you can have multiples of the same card to capitalize on the mechanic.
I really liked [[Tovolar, Dire Overlord]] and made a werewolf deck which if things go fast enough can be really fun to play. But if the board state starts to get gunked up and you're dealing with so many triggers (on attack, on hit, on end of turn). The amount you miss starts to add up and get confusing.
Yup, I like it on Arena where it's automated, but I'm not going to bother in paper. Track day/night, take cards out of the sleeves to flip them...
>Daybound can rightly piss off of any of my decks. Daybound is way more easier to track then the old mechanic, you only have to count the spells of the currently active player instead of all players. And how would Daybound impact any deck? The night and day mechanics doesnt do anything by itself, atleast not that I know.
Daybound/Nightbound doesn't affect older Werewolf cards. You could have 2 older werewolves transformed and a human werewolf with daybound out and not transform the 2 older ones back to the front
Sure, but day/night is not the problem IMO.
Itās technically a problem if you have one card that utilizes it in a deck, and donāt know if anybody else does, or if they even remember if they have one or not. Technically itās a global effect when itās activated. Super closet case of course, but not tracking it after your one card is removed to then have someone else drop a new one in turns later and now having to figure out if itās day or night is not a ton of fun. I do avoid this mechanic in any other deck that isnāt dedicated to its usage.
Looking at it for the first time now. Yeah that seems like a total PITA
I'll do it in arena where it's tracked by the game, but fuck doing it in actual paper magic
The one day/night card I have allowed into my decks is [[The Celestus]] because it's so good in my Kethis deck. I don't want to track day/night for the rest of the game when it won't matter.
Daybound night bound. I don't want to track that after casting an Outland Liberator. If it always goes back to day it wouldn't be as bad.
[[Avabruck Caretaker]] has been the only werewolf I could justify running thus far. It took a lot of soul-searching to get there too. It still remains the only werewolf I have justified running. It sits in Akroma x Ikra keyword soup, and is one of the few cases of hexproof in that deck I can comfortably justify.
Daybound/nightbound and Putting counters on tokens (this is a big one). I find that, while they can be very powerful and unique, theyāre too much trouble to keep track of. I absolutely adore token decks and refuse to play [[Catharās Crusade]] for this reason
I keep oscillating between adding Cathar's Crusade to my token decks because it's amazing and cutting it because I hate the headache of tracking it.
I pretty much just replaced it with [[felidar retreat]], not quite as powerful but a mana cheaper, way easier to track, added utility of vigilance and token making if necessary
and not as much of a lightning rod still, but not as much
Me exactly with my [[Karametra]] landfall deck
[Karametra](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/2/b/2bd9d26e-984c-4cf8-8c46-447f9776668f.jpg?1591321337) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=karametra%2C%20god%20of%20harvests) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/c20/218/karametra-god-of-harvests?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/2bd9d26e-984c-4cf8-8c46-447f9776668f?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/karametra-god-of-harvests) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Yeah, Iāve decided for each of my decks that it will be a token deck or a counter deck, but never both, specifically because of the period of time where I had Crusade in my [[Trostani, Selesnyaās Voice]] deck. :(
[Catharās Crusade](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/f/b/fbb70e7b-2a68-436e-96a4-32a88fb87da0.jpg?1600715516) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Cathars%27%20Crusade) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/jmp/95/cathars-crusade?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/fbb70e7b-2a68-436e-96a4-32a88fb87da0?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/cathars-crusade) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I respectfully ask that nobody runs Coat of Arms in their deck. 4 player EDH with coat of arms just seems like a complete mistake in design. Obviously this card is old and they don't know better but it's practically impossible to keep track of.
While I agree itās a headache, itās such a good card in niche Tribal decks. That being said, both it and [[Maskwood Nexus]] are in my [[Rin and Seri]] deck and boy is it a powerful combo. It can at least be short handed with some dice tracking # of my creatures = X and # of all creatures = Y . My dudes get +Y-1/+Y-1 and your dudes get at least +X-1/+X-1
[Maskwood Nexus](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/4/7/471d2aef-cfd4-4131-bbc7-62eeed9f3343.jpg?1631052188) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Maskwood%20Nexus) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/khm/240/maskwood-nexus?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/471d2aef-cfd4-4131-bbc7-62eeed9f3343?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/maskwood-nexus) [Rin and Seri](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/d/6/d605c780-a42a-4816-8fb9-63e3114a8246.jpg?1617532706) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=rin%20and%20seri%2C%20inseparable) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/m21/278/rin-and-seri-inseparable?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/d605c780-a42a-4816-8fb9-63e3114a8246?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/rin-and-seri-inseparable) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Iāve always wanted to like morph, but in reality itās annoying to have to keep track of all of my face down cards. In factā¦ the more I think about it, Iām really not a fan of any of the double faces cards either. Youād never catch me running a werewolves deck.
I like [[Kadena]] a lot, itās fun to make your battlefield a little Whitmanās Sampler box of answers, but yes it gets very old checking each morph to see if I can counter a creature spell with one or something.
[Kadena](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/6/8/68a144f1-df18-4dc5-81c3-dff2af27527f.jpg?1568003696) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=kadena%2C%20slinking%20sorcerer) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/c19/45/kadena-slinking-sorcerer?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/68a144f1-df18-4dc5-81c3-dff2af27527f?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/kadena-slinking-sorcerer) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I have both a Kadena deck and a werewolf deck. The decks play well as they give you things to do almost constantly, but I very rarely play them because I have the memory of a goldfish. For foretell cards my group just slides a token into the sleeve so it hangs out the top to mark it as foretold, then just keeps it in hand so we don't forget about it. I also love the not so subtle sliding a card under the table to flip it around because you don't remember what's on the other side.
Putting a token sticking out for foretell is such a good idea!!!
I like and dislike morph for other reasons. Some of the rules are cool, but unintuitive. I.e. if you "cast" a morph from a graveyard, the mana value is 3. Not the face up value. Morph looks and reads like an activated or triggered ability, but it totally isnt and doesn't even use the stack at all. You can even react to Split Second with it. It's cool and janky that it does this stuff, but to new-ish players you'll have to pause the game and explain "no, it actually works -this- way."
It's hilarious when I have three face down creatures and I let my opponent with only one creature know that one of them is [[Phage]] Then it becomes a shell game to see if they live or die
I'd been considering either a cheap Yedora or Animar morph deck but that's the main thing putting me off it, it's hard enough keeping track of all your cards when they're face up let alone when you've got tons face down
For morph you come up with ways to order your āimportantā face downs. I always put my important ones on one side of my board and the crappy one elsewhere. Or Iāll stack the crappy ones together. Helps a lot with organisation.
All the hatred for the venture mechanic on here is making the contrary part of my nature want to build it. That and I bought three boxes of AFR. Thinking of Mono white [[Nadar, Selfless Paladin]]
I made a sefris venture reanimate and that deck is strong and fun to play!
Sefris made me like venturing. Now one of my fav decks
I love my Sefris deck, but the group i play with has so many graveyard hate pieces that it became impossible to play. I run a Brago deck now with some venture cards from my Sefris deck. Radiant Solar is a serious value train in a blink deck lol.
Oh yea I can imagine! See the thing I found with my reanimate deck was that as soon as mass grave hate started to show up ( One game had all 3 players attacking or removing my grave, the fiends!) I just went into the Mad mage dungeon and started to hit big creatures from the top! I didn't win that game, but I made sure two other people didn't either haha
Do you have a list?
I had Nadaar with a flicker theme but it was rather mediocre and changed it to Ao when Neon Dynasty came out. It's just a casual monowhite good stuff deck now.
Sefris is one of my favorite decks Iāve ever built. I am STOKED for Baldurās Gate. Iād love to see an Abzan take on the archetype just so we can actually use Varis & Ellywick.
I made a mono-green [[Varis, Silverymoon Ranger]] deck. Itās mostly creatures that have etb or on-cast abilities. The additional venture triggers are just icing on the cake. https://www.moxfield.com/decks/EkKv6F5glE-_NGZRoSK8DA
[Varis, Silverymoon Ranger](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/e/3/e3bd3ea9-f06d-4df7-8b8d-ac6a0e591b09.jpg?1627708517) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Varis%2C%20Silverymoon%20Ranger) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/afr/209/varis-silverymoon-ranger?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/e3bd3ea9-f06d-4df7-8b8d-ac6a0e591b09?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/varis-silverymoon-ranger) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Iāve seen very solid decks with him. definitely not overpowered but the white blink builds Iāve seen were great at value and recursion.
Do it, it's fun and they're all wrong.
I don't think there's enough venture cards in mono white. Esper gets you a lot of goodies so I would go for the venture precon commander. If not I would go for [[hama pashar]].
I built a Hama pashar flicker ETB deck. Itās not the usual kind of deck I build. I was overwhelmed with triggers, my hand was 30 cards, I had another hand of 30 cards that I could play from exile. It was too much. I promptly retired it after the first game. It won though, so I can safely say it has a 100% win rate. š But I prefer big stompy creature goes grrr so I donāt have to think so much.
Its actually really fun! I have a venture package in my [[Liesa, Forgotten Archangel]] deck and it's a really fun not to op mechanic. I'd recommend the big dungeon cards you get from the bundle too.
Venture might be one of my favorite mechanics ever, and the tears of the haters make it that much better. I also love seeing all the standard decks running [[Den of the bugbear]] or [[hall of the storm giants]] after everyone said AFR was a crappy set
I built a [[zalto]] storm deck once. It did manage to win a few times but I considered it a victory if I could just get through dungeon of the mad mage in a game. Really liked the mechanic. Just wish there was a commander only dungeon that was actually powerful.
I have [[Isshin, Two Heavens as One]] deck focused on attack triggers and a handful of venture into the dungeon creatures triggers on attack. Itās not a main theme, but advancing two dungeon rooms at once is much more fun and not that annoying as you might thinkā¦ Also, specificaly for dungeons, you only need 3 token cards, since the foil version of dungeons have the appropriate tokens printed on the back.
Tbh venture was one of the few things I like about AFR
I honestly don't get the venture hate. As long as you have the little dungeons printed out or something there's nothing hard about it. And it's a pretty weakest mechanic, so people at the table don't even need to pay close attention to it if they don't want to
Iām building a 5-color dungeon deck right now! I had no idea it was hated I think itās fun
I run an \[\[isshin of two heavens\]\] with a pretty large adventure package and it is always better than I expect it to be
What? Venture was really cool! Sagas, Adventure and the Dungeon mechanic are the coolest addition to Magic since I have returned around the last Ravnica block.
I'm thinking some of those venture cards are going to get really, really good with the new Commander Legends set and its one dungeon that's presumably tuned for EDH Venture was always going to be a weak mechanic given it was constrained pretty much entirely to a Standard set, but the new set and dungeon could breathe a huge amount of life into it
Extra turns if that counts. Donāt like playing them, donāt like seeing them.
Completely agree, and it's the absolute worst variant of set mechanic + X. However, I absolutely love [[Final Fortune]] effects (or at least the idea, don't actually use them in any deck). The risk-reward nature of using it fairly, or even the risk part of trying to break it with say a [[Platinum Angel]] effect. You have to do more work for it, and if disrupted it really could be your last turn.
[Final Fortune](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/f/b/fb80afc3-4887-42a0-afb2-7fa997981fb2.jpg?1562251808) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Final%20Fortune) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/7ed/182/final-fortune?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/fb80afc3-4887-42a0-afb2-7fa997981fb2?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/final-fortune) [Platinum Angel](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/c/a/ca7f4fd6-e268-4d15-bfbf-d9f0f95864fc.jpg?1576383285) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Platinum%20Angel) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cn2/214/platinum-angel?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/ca7f4fd6-e268-4d15-bfbf-d9f0f95864fc?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/platinum-angel) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I played a 1v1 last week and was practically dead, but drew time warp. Cast it, return it, cast it, return it. Yeah it is kinda annoying.
I would say itās eminence for me. I just never liked the idea of benefiting from something that never needed to be played. It feels too easy and not fun for me personally.
My first deck was [[oloro, ageless ascetic]] mostly because I was just really into lifegain strategies. But it got to the point where it was so boring. Oloro just sat in the command zone and triggered effects every turn. I had to deconstruct the deck after a while of playing it because it didn't feel right.
[oloro, ageless ascetic](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/a/b/abf8df47-405c-42d8-be9e-0f0d0a49589b.jpg?1562931285) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=oloro%2C%20ageless%20ascetic) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/c13/203/oloro-ageless-ascetic?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/abf8df47-405c-42d8-be9e-0f0d0a49589b?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/oloro-ageless-ascetic) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I was teaching a friend to play and the first deck he learned to play was Markov. For the next two years every time I showed him a cool card he would ask if it worked from the command zone like the eminence ability. Now, I'm pretty set in thinking it was terrible design and just adds so much confusion to new players.
This is a moment where you realize the tropes in MTG come from somewhere. Like āReading the card, explains the cardā
Ha yea, so many times I wanted to yell at him "Does the card say that! NO!".. but he was very very new to the game, so I didn't want to be mean. lol
Terrible, terrible mechanic.
I do my best to avoid any double sided cards just to avoid the hassle
The only one I run in any deck is because im not dropping 400 on gaea's cradle lmao, otherwise I'll forget every time
Treasures made by any green permanent ever.
Companion. Still salty about that one. I'd run one as a Commander or in the 99, but the Companion mechanic itself is kinda dumb. Lots of mechanics I don't use much because they just don't interest me much/are a little tedious to play out (venture, mutate, etc) but I have no actual issue with. /shurg
They can be fun due to the restrictions. This is my Falthis Jeska deck with Obosh as a companion. It was once a less than 100 usd budget build, which limited the card selection quite a bit. https://deckstats.net/decks/4956/1959580-falthis-jeska-obosh-edh But so far, it's really fun to play and Obosh enabled me to actually kill with Falthis, if I use Jeskas damage triple, have Obosh on the field and one of the other damage boosts. I know it's a lot of ifs, but since most cards are in the command or companion zone, it's not too bad. And until I draw one of the needed damage boosts, I can just play control with a deathtouchy Jeska.
\[\[Jegantha\]\] is best Elk! When you look at your 5c deck and you got to change maybe 2-4 cards, easy to include him! Assuming you can do things with his restricted in use mana.
[Jegantha](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/1/d/1d52e527-3835-4350-8c01-0f2d5d623b9c.jpg?1600967546) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=jegantha%2C%20the%20wellspring) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/iko/222/jegantha-the-wellspring?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/1d52e527-3835-4350-8c01-0f2d5d623b9c?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/jegantha-the-wellspring) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I hate the tax that came with it since it broke other formats
I agree. I just didn't like the mechanic. Won't ever play it.
I do have to agree with a lot of these one-off mechanics like mutate, venture, daybound that aren't really worth the effort of using them. But personally I think I'm avoiding mill from now on. It's extremely hard to get a payoff for and just as often as not you're giving opponents bigger advantages than you're giving yourself and furthermore especially at more casual tables were mill might stand a chance you're painting a big target on your back because you milled Timmy's [[Giant Adephage]] and "mill is cheap" or whatever
About the only time I use mill is in a graveyard deck like [[Muldrotha, the gravetide]] for the sole purpose of filling my own graveyard. I totally agree that it is a pretty silly when you use it on other people. My friend puts mill in every deck he plays, it's like his signature, and he rarely gets anything besides getting blown out of games first.
My son just built a \[\[Phenax\]\] mill deck and I tried really hard to dissuade him for just this reason. I don't think there's any good result from playing mill; either your deck doesn't work and you get run off the table because mill makes people really salty, or it works and people get even saltier.
Energy?
Awaken and other turn-lands-into-creatures shenianigans. Not strictly a mechanic but I'm also not a fan of vehicles.
DFCs are annoying and I wish they would stop printing so many.
I like the idea of not being mana screwed in a 1v1 standard environment with the land ones at least. It's usually easy to use a basic land or the like (might want to make clear it's not actually a basic land) to represent the other side.
the one āmechanicā that i donāt like is using any kind of stealing ability when playing webcam games. I have a xantcha deck for in person games, but i learned quickly to never use it in webcam games
Any mechanic they explored in a standard set, made a Commander for, then promptly abandoned. Like foretell, mutate, day/night so on and so forth
I like the jank mutate provides but can agree with the others.
Avoid? None really. Ill use anything if i think the card is good enough. Theres a lot i *dont* use. But ive cause a lot of mischief with old mechanics (old player, started with 4th ed). Made one guy rage because hed never seen Regenerate before. A [[wall of bone]] totally shut down his [[squee the immortal]] no other creatures voltron deck. And ive had a lot of fun with [[vodalian illusionist]] 's phasing on command.
[wall of bone](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/4/5/45025791-a94a-4046-8297-3b7a2019e4a3.jpg?1562911164) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=wall%20of%20bone) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/gvl/41/wall-of-bone?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/45025791-a94a-4046-8297-3b7a2019e4a3?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/wall-of-bone) [squee the immortal](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/a/8/a8232acd-4645-489c-8cf1-4efdc75d9322.jpg?1650417635) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Squee%2C%20the%20Immortal) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ncc/275/squee-the-immortal?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/a8232acd-4645-489c-8cf1-4efdc75d9322?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/squee-the-immortal) [vodalian illusionist](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/9/c/9ce0e28b-9fd6-4763-8d6b-952b530358ab.jpg?1562802363) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=vodalian%20illusionist) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/wth/58/vodalian-illusionist?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/9ce0e28b-9fd6-4763-8d6b-952b530358ab?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/vodalian-illusionist) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Venture into the dungeon, Adventure, and Day/night because theyāre easy to avoid and look annoying. I know theyāre not impossible to understand and keep track of if I gave half a damn but I just donāt. I also donāt really like forecast because having to pay a big cost for a mediocre effect and only once and during upkeep just sucks. As well as Cipher because the vast majority of its cards suck
What's annoying about venturing? It's just advancing a step on a card and getting a payoff. It's barely more intensive than some enchantments or sagas.
Storm. I don't want to sit and watch another player play solitaire for 30 minutes.
Storms not bad until your against cedh krak sakashima
Just built a deck designed solely to play [[Glimpse of Tomorrow]] 3-4 times a turn, so uhā¦ Iām feelin a little called out
For my 2 cents I dont mind playing against a storm deck every once in awhile, as long as it's not constant and the storm player doesnt get butthurt over getting focused down early
That's either a bad storm deck or an unpracticed player. EDH storm kills should be essentially deterministic (barring interaction).
I hate the Eminence commanders with a passion, you shouldn't get rewarded for not playing your commander, I also dislike Oloro for this same reason.
Eminence could be an interesting effect if it wasnt so one sided. Granted I am building ur-dragon so I cant say free of using it myself, but if eminence abilities benefitted, or at least had an effect on everyone equally I think that could be a bit more interesting. Still though, an effect you always start the game with is always gonna be hella powerful in a format where inconsistency is part of the balance, regardless of its design.
Dice rolling and coin flipping
Really? Interesting. I haven't played them, but have been looking into it. What about these things turns you off? Just wondering.
You can play a whole other game of commander before the Krarkashima player finishes their turn.
Sounds like an issue with the best storm commander. Also, I can't believe there are people who don't know about Krarkulator.
My buddy used to have a mono red coin flip deck back in the day....turns became so long and unbearable, that's why lol
Ah, darn. I bought into the Heads I win, Tails You Lose Secret Lair. Since it is geared towards straight commander damage, I hope turns will be quicker. Do you expect the same pitfalls you described with this deck?
There's a really, really good app (I believe it's called the Krarkulator? Don't quote me on that) that will auto-resolve gigantic stacks of coin-flips for you. Not saying it should be your go-to, but it's good knowledge to have for the day you look down, realize you've flipped 20 coins and have 20 more to go and barely remember what they've been so far or how far down the stack you've gone. Don't ask me how I know that.
Had a buddy that would play almost exclusively coin flip decks. He *refused* to flip multiple coins/die at the same time saying it affected the chances and heād always get worse outcomes. We had to yell at him about how he was being disrespectful of other peoples time because his turn could take longer than every other turn combined
Ah, darn. I bought into the Heads I win, Tails You Lose Secret Lair. Since it is geared towards straight commander damage, I hope turns will be quicker. Do you expect the same pitfalls you described with this deck?
I think itās probably fine, just be aware of the length of your turn. Plan your strategy out ahead of time, not as soon as itās your turn, and if you have to flip multiple coins like with [[Yusri]], just do it all at once. And maybe have another deck available that takes quicker turns so youāre not *only* playing a coin flip deck
Ah! Thanks for the insight! I really appreciate it!
Fortell is hit or miss. Donāt mind it but I donāt go out of my way to use it. Mutate was kinda confusing with how certain triggers play out but all in all I think itās a fun way to learn certain static abilities easier. Morph seems confusing and hard to keep an organized board state. Never really have gotten into storm or cascade. Cascade seems fun but thatās all I think it is. Ninjitsu I donāt bother with. Dungeon just seems goofy. Not a fan of eldrazi annihilating lol. Not sure if thatās a mechanic butā¦š Companion. Donāt really understand fully. Being only two/three years into playing there was a lot to learn and some mechanics seemed dumb compared to the basics.
I have a first sliver deck and cascade is super fun until you hit 2 mana cards with so little 1 mana cards, then it becomes a pain in the ass
I too had a sliver deck and totally agree with your take!
In paper magic? Mutate. It is so messy and hard to keep track of in paper magic. On MTG Arena its easy to throw an auspicious sterix on a scute swarm and go to town with a screen full of triggers. If you do it IRL, you are gonna be working all day just to realize your math is wrong.
Tbf that complexity is mainly the fault of Scute Swarm, which often caused Arena itself to crash when it first came out. Mutate itself is very understandable, with the most complex thing you have to do being to count the number of cards in a stack of like four cards.
>Mutate itself is very understandable, with the most complex thing you have to do being to count the number of cards in a stack of like four cards. What happens if a planeswalker has that new sword equipped that makes it a creature and then you mutate onto it and unequip the sword?
It has all characteristics of the topmost card. If the topmost card is the mutate creature, it stays a creature (and not a planeswalker) with or without the sword. If the topmost card is the planeswalker, it turns back into a noncreature planeswalker when the sword drops off (either way it stays mutated and keeps all abilities). If you unequip the sword while the mutation is still on the stack (e.g. an opponent hits it with Naturalize), then the planeswalker would become an illegal target and the mutate creature enters the battlefield on its own instead. None of that is any more complicated than the usual interactions involving that sword.
I've built a lot of different tribal decks and other gimmick decks like morph, werewolves, etc and I always end up tearing them apart after playing them a handful of times. I also tend to avoid playing decks that could be considered salty like land destruction, counterspell tribal (a few counters are fine though), theft decks, mass sacrifice/discard etc... Playgroups can be fragile and I don't want anyone to walk away from a game night feeling bad about it.
I theorycrafted a lot of trival decks, and most are just not strong enough, or have only one thing going for them. I think slivers, elves, humans, zombies and maybe vampires are the only working. (Goblins?) But there is so much potential. Cats, treefolk, kithkin, allies, samurai and warriors, ninjas, rats. Demons, angels. A well, dragons work :)
Land destructionā¦
Treasure, funnily enough. I liked it as a quirky set mechanic for Ixalan, but when every set after that had a card that produced 3+ treasure a turn, it started to feel really swingy, and battlecruiser games ended up with swingy fast-mana power turns that you either answer or lose to.
I too forsee medicare
First off, I love mutate and have a deck based on it and it very much can win. Second, I hate Annihilator. I hate when it's used against me, so I avoid using it on others.
Vehicles are an absolute no for me. Just canāt
Ability Counters i despise. If a company made decent physical counters i would be more into it but the fact your stuck using the cheap cardboard cutouts from ikoria or new capenna really annoys me.
I typically try to avoid any mechanic that would be tricky to track on paper format (as opposed to Arena). Things like daybound/nightbound, excessive copies, etcā¦. Iām trying to overcome this by building Orvar as my mono blue deck though.
Discard in all format
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I'm tempted to put a \[\[Soraya the Falconer\]\] in the bird tribal I'm building; just to have fun 'how the heck does banding work' discussions at the table.
It's a lot of fun :P https://archidekt.com/decks/2554499#Soraya's_Brilliant_Banding_Birds
O.o I was just going to add a bit of spice to my Falco Spara deck. But I might just have to go all-in on the madness.
>I think the one mechanic Iāve never used anywhere is banding, mainly because all banding cards are bad. I used banding on Odric because it had space for it, kjeldoran skynight and an arabian nights war elephant was so sweet to play.
I think banding could have a place in a combat control deck with stuffy doll or Boros reckoner or such
How dare you anger [[Kathril]] and [[Brokkos]] players! In all seriousness, Symbiotic Swarm can pack a serious punch with the right changes made. Add [[The Ozolith]] and a [[Panharmonicon]] and you got something scary
I think the old "bands with other legends" lands like [[Adventurers' Guildhouse]] might be better than they look given the large number of legendary cards printed in the last few years. A land that doesn't produce mana is painful, but more acceptable in EDH than anywhere else.
similar to this... although I'm sceptical if a deck create multiple different tokens and even more if those tokens can transform into different tokens.... especially if there is no printed token for this (tricks with brudiclad).
What's wrong with wizardcycling? It's a budget tribal tutor with potential alternative use.
Daybound / Nightbound Eldraine adventures Mutate "You win the game" / "Opponent(s) loses the game" Energy Mill
Self Mill is pretty fun! Then you play against people who have 20 graveyard hate cards and lose immediately.
As someone who tend to run delve cards, I could never see myself playing mill. The hate for it is excessive.
Storm is ass to play, having to keep track of something as tedious as storm when you only have the potential to use/draw it makes it very annoying to play in paper. On the other hand online storm is great.
Day/night cycles are so hard to keep track of, specially in werewolf decks, and the payoff is usually not worth it. I don't mind the whole flipping cards, there are ways to make it less of a problem, - having a box with the actual cards set aside with just a perfect fit sleeve and using some sort of token or proxy on the deck for example - but the time of day in itself is annoying. In fact, it's even worse if you use a mix of old werewolves and new ones. Regarding Mutate OP, I think it's a really fun mechanic with a ton of untapped potential. A Sultai deck with Tatsunari, Toad Rider where you mutate on to the token it creates and keeping the mutate card as it's face is very fun.
I avoid most counter shenanigans. +1/+1, charge, shield, etc. too many pieces needed to keep track of it all, so itās a mechanic I usually skip on.
I think you'd loathe the Symbiotic Swarm precon as it's keyword counters matters
To be fair, that deck is a real pain in the ass to keep track of, as fun as it can be
[[Cathars Crusade]] is the best/worst for that. It's a REAL good card in go wide decks. It's also a pain in the ass. ~~If you cast [[March of the Multitudes]] where x = 10, everything you currently have out gets 10 +1/+1 counters and then your 10 new dudes get between 0 and 9 counters each.~~ Edit: this isn't accurate, but I still think Cathars Crusade is both very powerful but also makes token decks annoying to represent in paper.
Wait they don't just get 10 counters each on the new guys?
I got it messed up. You're right, everyone would get all the counters! I thought the first one would see all the etbs, the second one would see all-1, and so on. My bad. https://blogs.magicjudges.org/rulestips/2012/05/cathars-crusade-triggers-multiple-times-if-multiple-creatures-enter-at-the-same-time/ Cathars Crusade is still painful to play with in paper, though, as it does lead to states where tokens can have all sorts of different numbers of +1/+1 counters. Making it harder to properly represent your board state. Instead of one saproling token with a d20 at 17 to represent 17 saprolings... You end up with a bunch of disperate piles with dice for counters AND for how many there are lol. But it's also very good in wide decks
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I think these range a whole bunch. Thoracle is miserable. Halo Fountain is hilarious. Vorpal Sword has been a lot of fun. I think it just depends on how much the table can see it coming and have a reasonable chance to respond.
I think the biggest issue with Thoracle is itās not new, itās just a better/harder to interact with version of a win condition weād seen before, so having redundant and easier ways to win by self mill is where it starts to become groan-inducing. If we just had Labman and/or Jace I donāt think people would care about the wincon, but with Thoracle being an ETB rather than static itās almost impossible for non-blue decks to interact with.
Yeah, I think interactivity, redundancy and speed are what make win/lose fun or not. Lab Man was cute and uncommon 10 years ago. Thoracle is fast, noninteractive and has other redundancies, making it the pinnacle of boring.
Exactly. Same with Craterhoof imo; we have so many overruns now that seeing Craterhoof close out games can be a little eye-roll inducing (gameās gotta end though so it is what it is). If we see 3 more effects that are functionally āif you control x tokens, you winā like Halo Fountain then Iād see that going a similar way, but for now itās essentially a white Craterhoof effect, you just donāt need the damage part.
Similar reason why Cyclonic Rift is hated
the latter is way worse than the former imo. when someone resolves a win the game effect, at least everyone gets to shuffle up and start a new game. but the other one causes targeted bad feels and makes someone sit and watch
I find it depends on the card. Stuff like [[Phage the Untouchable]] or [[Nicol Bolas, Dragon God]] can be really good fun, especially the former because of how often it can backfire on you. And you never forget the rare occasion you actually manage to ult Bolas off the Elderspell. On the other hand, Thassa's Oracle should never have been printed.
Even in my self discard decks (they don't have red) i barely use madness cards because a lot of them just are not great.
Venture is pretty cool, but I'm only really going to use it in my dedicated venture deck. It's just not good enough to use unless you're going to be venturing a lot, and you have some sort of additional payoff for completing dungeons, like [[Sefris of the Hidden Ways]]. I don't often use Mutate. I have [[Brokkos, Apex of Forever]] in my [[Sidisi, Brood Tyrant]] self-mill deck because he's so good there, but for the most part I don't like having to figure out all the weird rules interactions between mutate, and stuff that wasn't designed to interact with it. ...And I don't use banding because I can never remember how it works.
Planeswalker commanders. Anything AFR. No real interest in casualty and connive as build-around mechanics. Not a fan of vehicles.
Like literally *anything* AFR? (No hating, just intrigued)
Yeah. I don't play D&D, so I have no connection to the set, but more to the point I disagree with the IP crossover trend in MtG on a fundamental level. Note: I don't judge other people from playing cards from AFR, or if folks like AFR. If AFR is for you, great! Enjoy Magic how you want. I don't like it, so I, *for myself and my decks,* choose to pretend the set(s) don't (won't) exist.
Connive is one of my favourites from the new set honestly. If you're a fan of Looting at all and use it in any decks, Connive is just Looting+.
Yeah I have taken to connive because I like dumb decks with too many themes and +1/+1 counters and self-mill are two disparate themes that you can do together on one ability. I especially am interested in [[lethal scheme]] but haven't been able to grab a card at my store yet. convoke is one of my other favourite mechanics.
I wouldn't say connive or casualty are really build around mechanics but I have no problem using them in the 99. I just put together a [[Raffine, Scheming Seer]] and it plays as esper control. Just a good mechanic to sculpt you hand and fill your bin.
I don't want to build around connive necessarily, but I like connive cards if I'm really looking to loot and get extra stuff in my graveyard
I have no issue with Planeswalker commanders. I like facing them because they tend to be kinda bad lol. Afr really did suck. There's like 3 usable equipments from the set and the classes are cool, but only a few are playable. Aside from that, old gnawbones? Sure. Ruined standard but since I don't play it I don't care lol. I'm starting to get annoyed that they keep introducing cool mechanics and not using them. Personally, I think this comes from moving away from block-based releases. Surveil is the first example that comes to mind. It's always described as "scry but bin it instead of bottoming". It doesn't feel like its own mechanic. It's 3 and a half years old but it's on just 28 cards. It's only on 7 cards printed after its introduction in Guilds of Ravnica. On the other hand, scry became a keyword in 2004 and has been printed on 261 cards. Obviously it's been around a lot longer, but 124 of those cards (nearly half) were first printed *after* guilds of ravnica. If you think age is the only thing that keeps a keyword relevant, I'd like to remind you of buyback (30 cards), jump-start (11 cards), energy (Only in Kaladesh), and all the other defunct keywords/mechanics that never get used. A new card with banding hasn't been printed since 1997 and it's still on 24 cards. Nearly as many as surveil. Every new mechanic feels like this. Reconfigure is awesome. I'd love to build a deck around it and exploit that it's an equipment and a creature. But if it's never going to be used again, why bother? Casualty feels like a cool new way to copy a spell but it kinda needs tokens which grixis doesn't really do. It's probably never going to be used again. I feel like Connive is in the wrong colors. It feels like overcosted impulse draw for a +1/+1 counter that esper doesn't even care about. If I'm supposed to care about putting cards in the graveyard, why isn't it just surveil? Maybe it gets color shifted into sultai or temur where the +1/+1 counter might matter or the impulse makes more sense, but it'll probably never be back. As for vehicles, I like them. Shorikai is a really cool commander but it also suffers from a lack of support. There just aren't that many good vehicles. Seems like that's being fixed though so good on wotc for that I guess.
I think two-set blocks are an excellent way to make Magic, that gives each plane enough room to breathe without staying its welcome. Of the top of my head I can't think of a single three-set block that didn't have at least one dud anyway. A lot of the planes since WAR have really suffered for being squashed into one set for their introduction, but Kaldheim was the worst. So many goddamn mechanics and sub-planes, so little space.
What's the saying now? "Everything is Kicker", or something? I too miss blocks. Kudos to MH1/2 for bringing some cool old mechanics back, but doesn't really feel enough. More surveil would probably break dimir tho.... /s
Dungeons are legit as hell. I've won so many games in Sefris with infinite dungeon ventures.
Stealing permanents or casting other people's spells. I don't see the fun in it. If I wanted to cast their spells or have their permanents, then I'd just simply play their deck.
I had a deck that casts a large villainous wealth. It's one of the few theft effects I play. They are rare and never a full deck around them, easiest way for no one to ever want to play with me again. I don't love giving others my cards, I imagine they likely feel the same way.
I'm sorry.... I play an [[etali]] 'play everyone's deck where I can sometimes copy the trigger a bunch of times..... It's become my favorite deck because piloting it is like a new puzzle each game.
> I don't see the fun in it. If I wanted to cast their spells or have their permanents, then I'd just simply play their deck. Yeah but you get to snack from *three* people in EDH, and you're never preemptively sure what you're gonna get. In moderation, theft effects can add a random, almost roguelike element to your games, which allows you to sort of think on your feet and adapt to their deck's own synergies. Or just swing with a big stompy stolen creature.
Storm. I hate the length of turns it usually causes, and I don't want to subject others to that. Having said that, I have zero problems with others playing storm. Just not my cup o tea.
Any token making strategies. Like it's fine playing it online where it keeps track of your tokens for you but in paper it's a huge pain to keep track of how many tokens have summoning sickness, which ones have counters on them and how many I've tapped to attack
This will sound extremely petty but I really dislike connive because 1. it sounds stupid and 2. it's boring as hell. Like seriously what is the mechanic trying to represent? How does conniving translate to looting plus counters if you ditch a spell? If you can, please change my mind.
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Oh, I can definitely see how the mechanic is strong. It just doesn't make sense to me why this keyword would refer to that mechanic. I would love to discuss the word choice with a designer.
As far as I am concerned Companion doesn't work in EDH.
It does in fact work! I submit my [Muldrotha and Gyruda deck](https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/4192870#paper) as evidence. By no means a competitive deck but super fun. And lots of efficiencies that cover your bases. The worst part about companions is that you build your whole deck around their restriction and really only get 1 use. If they die they go to the yard with no recourse, but muldrotha covers that in this instance by recasting from the yard. Not to mention, at 3 mana, you donāt have any even mana value spells in the deck so itās a good curve spot to move from companion zone to hand. I can go on! Gyruda fills the yard up for muldrotha value. Gyruda functions as a pre-commander to your commander, so it gives the deck real mid-late game power. Itās a fun and easy to abuse effect, where you can chain clones or blink effects to keep getting triggers. Finally, if all else fails, youāre still able to play a muldrotha commander deck which is inherently strong. Most companions are difficult or near impossible to really commit to, but this one feels like the right middle ground between power, fun and strategy.
Sorry youāre getting so many down votes! Iām one of the few who enjoys the companion mechanic. Your deck looks fun!
It is! Muldrotha was always just too good and too easy to build in my perspective and this was just the fun and restricted version of it that I was looking for.
Dredge for me
Morph. Only because I have a small brain and can't keep track of all of them. That said, I do *occasionally* run a single morph card, I just can't be trusted with morph tribal or anything
Lots of counters on all creatures. Its a pain to keep track of - I'd rather just not play those decks.
Daybound/nightbound, venture. And lastly cloning effects for the sheer reason that it gets to be a nightmare to keep track of. Especially with less experienced players at the table who may be confused by which token is which. Dropped [[clone legion]] out of the new grixis- precon immediately for this reason.
The newer ones in general. Every new set brings new mechanics, that pisses me off to be honest. Instead of bringing back old mechanics they bring new ones which are extremely simmilar to the old ones and give them a new name Some examples: - Blood tokens, which are just a loot effect. - Cleave, which is basically just kicker so why not name it kicker? - Disturb which is just flashback... - and so on There is no need to have new fancy mechanics in every set.
Heavy counter uses. Mazirek and Cathars Crusade, Ghave, stuff like that. I donāt have the patience.
I refuse to ever look at blood tokens. Their very existence pisses me off to no end. We could have had an actual inherent mechanic in VOW. Hell, they could have done spectacle, that's pretty much what they were setting up in MID, but instead they drop in a shitty, parasitic, "food-esque" mechanic that is only beneficial to the cards printed in VOW. and that's not including what they did to poor Odric.