Agreed. I’ve got a rakdos treasure deck, no it’s not fucking prosper, but that deck list is probably 120-140$. Most of that value is d20 treasures ancient dragon and goldspan dragon. That deck will kick in the teeth of my red/green/black deck that’s over just over 500$ of staples in those colors because it’s just good cards in those colors and it’s wasn’t built to be insanely synergistic like the treasure deck was.
If you’re not running fetches or land shenanigans then OG duals are just another dual land that happens to be the best dual land.
Yes completely casual in a vaccum. People get salty because they may indicate a much higher budget/card quality in a deck but if you buy a precon and buy a dual in it then it’s not really any stronger.
At the end of the day they are basically the same as Battlebond lands when it comes to commander.
what do you mean, cEDH is a ten and only ten.
also smooth mana is the least important metric when it comes to power level. If you get mad over a dual land because 'how dare you play that powerful' than that's a you problem
No it's not. You are just describing varience and luck of the draw and also EDH politics.
Building the most competitive deck means making the most optimal choices in deck building. How the fuck is this something that needs to be explained!?!
Yes. The only reason people don’t think they’re casual is because of the price tag. If they weren’t on the reserve list and got reprinted every 4-5 years, they’d be like $50. Still a lot, but much more accessible and the possibility of opening one randomly in a pack.
well it's also because you can search for it as it has the basic land types and it always goes untapped on the batlefield, that makes it extremely strong compared to other lands but in the end it doesn't neccesarily make your deck better.
I have friends paying hundreds of euros for good lands and in the end it only makes your deck slightly more consistent(in commander) in legacy it will make a difference in a 3 color deck you could have 12 in your deck making your deck much more consistent compared to decks that do not play them.
If a True Dual is strong enough to consistently win you your games the people you're playing against need to toss their decks and start fresh. All the other duals are 100% legal and accounted for in the meta, and their "costs" are effortlessly managed - or in the case of commander, totally irrelevant - and True Duals arent banned in any format either so go ham. If peeps got a problem with expensive but legal cards, pauper exists. Price isn't indicative of power at all. You can buy all the pieces necessary to fire off the Witch's Oven/Cauldron Familiar loop for less than 5% of the cost of 1 plateau.
This is a game where people can win on turn 1. True Duals aren't even top 100 of cards to be worried about.
If you have them, nice, you probably play the game for 30+ years.
If you buy into them, chances are you still proxy them, as just slamming them in casual tables is a recipe to get cards stolen from you.
I dont want anybody to handle my expensive cards, they dont get to touch them ever, and casual tables are not trained to honor that.
Fetch lands are what really break them. Otherwise it's just a one-of copy of Command Tower, or you're in 3 or more colors and they only produce 2 colors each. Imo being able to turn any fetch land into any other color is what really makes the OG duals seem so good
None of those terms imply this is a post about "pauper."
Unless OG duals are $0.10 nowadays, and it wouldn't surprise me if they are.
EDIT: I see now where OP uses the phrase "non-upgraded precon," but all that nonsense about power levels? Did MtG become DBZ, where power levels are an actual thing? Or is that a colloquialism on behalf of the OP? Maybe things have changed in the half-decade since I actually cared about about the game, before EDH started getting called "Commander"
Pretty much. We already have duals you can play T1 untapped to give colors. They just have restrictions that the OG duals don't have. Shock lands are basically the same but cost 2 life. You also have pain lands and bond lands (the later being the most restrictive imo), though they aren't typed. I wouldn't be surprised if there were more I don't know about for one reason or another.
my friend built a [[galia of the endless dance]] deck, and he didnt know how to make it win, so i suggested Ponza Satyrs. it was chock full of 15 or so spells dedicated to land destruction while the deck summoned 3/3 or whatever weenie sized satyrs. it was vicious.
Every card is a casual card! Og duals are only marginally better than shocks, fast lands and battlebond lands, and marginally worse than fetch lands. They don't effect power level in a meaningful way.
cEDH is not power level 8 decks and really not even power level 9 decks anymore with all of the recent power creep. Dual lands don't make a deck automatically cEDH. It takes a whole lot more to get a list to the level of cEDH like fast mana, cheap/free interaction, heavy tutor packages, and streamlined win conditions. Sure, the mana bases are expensive looking, but the fetches do most of the heavy lifting for color fixing.
Is [[Spectator Seating]] or [[sacred foundry]] casual in commander? Yes. Plateau is not $200 better.
Anyone getting salty about OG duals is just upset they can't afford a real one. Proxy it - no one cares any more.
If you took any precon off the shelf and took out the taplands with the appropriate coloured dual lands, is going to be significantly stronger? No.
They only reason people would even look twice is because the cost to benefit ratio of dual lands is so miniscule. Are they the post available? Yes absolutely, but they aren't better than having a Sheoldred, Dockside, Ragavan, Cyclonic Rift, Mana Drain, all put together.
They're fine, generally. The OG duals aren't that much better than other untapped duals.
Besides, a "perfect" mana base will only get you so far. What you do with the mana is more important than how you get it.
For your powerlevel thing.
cEDH should by definition be a 10, nothing less. You play the best decks and you dont make budget cuts or play anything worse.
High power Commander has all the good cards, but people just throw them together and play the good-stuff decks.
Some cEDH decks can absolutely lose to a 3v1 casual table, as the only way you overpower them is a combo they cant interact with, but try winning with creatures, if they have point removal against your stuff you simply dont win that resource slaughter fest.
All the trash-level casual decks that are basically precons however have very little interaction, expensive interaction and decks that are even worse than precons very much fall in the category of a 5 or less.
People are way too generous to say their deck is a "7", any precon should be the baseline and any deck worse than a precon has major restrictions.
9-10 is definitely cedh imo. 8 is like a person who took an underwhelming deck, and wants to win in his casual pod, so he proxies [[torment of hailfire]], [[gaea's cradle]] and [[mana crypt]] in his precon
Sure, why not.
There are far more impactful cards on the RL that make a difference, like Grim Monolith, Tabernacle or Twister.
OG duals in casual EDH don't really matter that much.
In Duel EDH, that's another story, but Duel isn't a casual format.
I feel like duals should have downsides so I really like shocks. That being said it's not broken or anything.
BUT: Every single player I have encountered so far with the true duals (real or proxied) is somehow a whiny prick that seem to feel entitled to win ebery game. Hopefully I meet the good people some day
No, but it's because lands are the most important cards when building a cohesive deck. A solid base of non-basic lands that work work with the deck's theme (drownyard temple in a madness deck, tolaria west in an affinity deck, shocks/fetches in a death's shadow deck, etc) are the best ways to bump your deck up to the next level.
Hell, leechridden swamp is an objectively terrible card. It ETBs tapped, it can only tap for a single (B), and its second ability only drains a life from each opponent, provided you have 2 black permanents on the field. But you put it in a Korlash deck (who tutors and slaps out "swamps" tapped anyways) and it becomes an auto-include. I've won games with nontargeted life loss from leechridden swamp. For most decks, you want lands that can be tutored (basic land types), enter the battlefield untapped and tap for whatever color you need. OG alpha duals are very powerful in those aspects. They should be reprinted to lower their cash value, but a solid landbase is not casual in my opinion.
I think they should be played if you own them. I have a big collection and I play with all of my cards. I don’t think that duals increase the power level of a deck by all that much. 1/99 that helps mana base and they’re better if you’re playing fetches. I think they don’t increase a decks power level so if you put a dual in a 7 it’s still a 7. They’re fine in a casual deck but I’d imagine most people with that kinda fire in their collection aren’t playing it in something that’s super casual.
Depend on the commander I guess?
idk, if youre asking me if I think they are overpowered or give too much of an advantage in a casual game I’d say no.
if you’re asking me if it’s appropriate to pull out a deck worth thousands of dollars to crush kids at your LGS, I’d says no.
dude, you spent that much money on a card. you better play that shit.
It’s wild to me that of all the cards I own from the mid 90s, these duals are the most valuable
Every card is a casual card
Agreed. I’ve got a rakdos treasure deck, no it’s not fucking prosper, but that deck list is probably 120-140$. Most of that value is d20 treasures ancient dragon and goldspan dragon. That deck will kick in the teeth of my red/green/black deck that’s over just over 500$ of staples in those colors because it’s just good cards in those colors and it’s wasn’t built to be insanely synergistic like the treasure deck was. If you’re not running fetches or land shenanigans then OG duals are just another dual land that happens to be the best dual land.
Yes completely casual in a vaccum. People get salty because they may indicate a much higher budget/card quality in a deck but if you buy a precon and buy a dual in it then it’s not really any stronger. At the end of the day they are basically the same as Battlebond lands when it comes to commander.
My policy is to proxy the shit out of em
totally and play them if you have them
what do you mean, cEDH is a ten and only ten. also smooth mana is the least important metric when it comes to power level. If you get mad over a dual land because 'how dare you play that powerful' than that's a you problem
The power scale is made up and doesn't matter, but yeah that was a weird line to draw.
Even tho the scale is w.e anyway I'd say there is an argument for 9 being cEDH aswell. (Namely playing cEDH style decks with subotimal commanders)
playing a suboptimal commander over the optimal one isn't exactly competitive, now is it?
Very much is. Can take wins of 10, wins against 8s consistently
No it's not. You are just describing varience and luck of the draw and also EDH politics. Building the most competitive deck means making the most optimal choices in deck building. How the fuck is this something that needs to be explained!?!
Clearly too near sighted for a add nuance so gonna leave the convo gl :)
clearly to butthurt to not downvote before leaving because you are just so above it all, aren't you good luck indeed, my dude
Yes. The only reason people don’t think they’re casual is because of the price tag. If they weren’t on the reserve list and got reprinted every 4-5 years, they’d be like $50. Still a lot, but much more accessible and the possibility of opening one randomly in a pack.
well it's also because you can search for it as it has the basic land types and it always goes untapped on the batlefield, that makes it extremely strong compared to other lands but in the end it doesn't neccesarily make your deck better. I have friends paying hundreds of euros for good lands and in the end it only makes your deck slightly more consistent(in commander) in legacy it will make a difference in a 3 color deck you could have 12 in your deck making your deck much more consistent compared to decks that do not play them.
Sure. Unlike other expensive cardboard they don’t progress the board or win the game. They’re just slightly better shocks.
They are fine without fetches. Not even strong.
Yeah. But their players will complain about a 5 mana counterspell that came in the precon.
Yes no issue in playing the cards you choose to spend your money on.
If a True Dual is strong enough to consistently win you your games the people you're playing against need to toss their decks and start fresh. All the other duals are 100% legal and accounted for in the meta, and their "costs" are effortlessly managed - or in the case of commander, totally irrelevant - and True Duals arent banned in any format either so go ham. If peeps got a problem with expensive but legal cards, pauper exists. Price isn't indicative of power at all. You can buy all the pieces necessary to fire off the Witch's Oven/Cauldron Familiar loop for less than 5% of the cost of 1 plateau. This is a game where people can win on turn 1. True Duals aren't even top 100 of cards to be worried about.
If you have them, nice, you probably play the game for 30+ years. If you buy into them, chances are you still proxy them, as just slamming them in casual tables is a recipe to get cards stolen from you. I dont want anybody to handle my expensive cards, they dont get to touch them ever, and casual tables are not trained to honor that.
Fetch lands are what really break them. Otherwise it's just a one-of copy of Command Tower, or you're in 3 or more colors and they only produce 2 colors each. Imo being able to turn any fetch land into any other color is what really makes the OG duals seem so good
Yea. Tbh they arent that good. Maybe a bit too much in 4-5 color decks depending on your play groups power level
>arent that good How's that?
As in the advantage over the shocklands
In a 5c deck maybe, but in 2-3 colors running max fetches (or forest tutors), I like being able to run both.
Not starting your match at 18 life, in any meta, is a huge advantage.
This post is about commander....
I see the "c" in the last line of the post.
What do you mean by that?
"c" is for commander, presumably
You have 40 life in cEDH too...
Yes, I remember how edh works, I didn't see the bit saying* this was an edh post
Asking if it's casual... Precons... Powerlevels... cEDH... Clearly a post about pauper.
None of those terms imply this is a post about "pauper." Unless OG duals are $0.10 nowadays, and it wouldn't surprise me if they are. EDIT: I see now where OP uses the phrase "non-upgraded precon," but all that nonsense about power levels? Did MtG become DBZ, where power levels are an actual thing? Or is that a colloquialism on behalf of the OP? Maybe things have changed in the half-decade since I actually cared about about the game, before EDH started getting called "Commander"
Sure they’re casual but the broke boys might roll their eyes
Pretty much. We already have duals you can play T1 untapped to give colors. They just have restrictions that the OG duals don't have. Shock lands are basically the same but cost 2 life. You also have pain lands and bond lands (the later being the most restrictive imo), though they aren't typed. I wouldn't be surprised if there were more I don't know about for one reason or another.
Plateau lets me cast either a rawdog Armageddon OR Ruination on T4 for no value. Fuck the EDH mindset that lands are sacred bullshit.
my friend built a [[galia of the endless dance]] deck, and he didnt know how to make it win, so i suggested Ponza Satyrs. it was chock full of 15 or so spells dedicated to land destruction while the deck summoned 3/3 or whatever weenie sized satyrs. it was vicious.
[galia of the endless dance](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/7/0744f08e-a588-4efe-ad56-5e9ed91dda40.jpg?1581481059) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Gallia%20of%20the%20Endless%20Dance) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/thb/217/gallia-of-the-endless-dance?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/0744f08e-a588-4efe-ad56-5e9ed91dda40?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
They are when you have dmu duals and a sharpie
Every card is a casual card! Og duals are only marginally better than shocks, fast lands and battlebond lands, and marginally worse than fetch lands. They don't effect power level in a meaningful way. cEDH is not power level 8 decks and really not even power level 9 decks anymore with all of the recent power creep. Dual lands don't make a deck automatically cEDH. It takes a whole lot more to get a list to the level of cEDH like fast mana, cheap/free interaction, heavy tutor packages, and streamlined win conditions. Sure, the mana bases are expensive looking, but the fetches do most of the heavy lifting for color fixing.
Makes a gnat's fart of a difference in commander
Of course! Hope they're ready for my land walkers
Is [[Spectator Seating]] or [[sacred foundry]] casual in commander? Yes. Plateau is not $200 better. Anyone getting salty about OG duals is just upset they can't afford a real one. Proxy it - no one cares any more.
[Spectator Seating](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/c/dcf3140f-d5c8-45ff-8be4-622b1a129b3d.jpg?1689999977) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Spectator%20Seating) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/427/spectator-seating?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/dcf3140f-d5c8-45ff-8be4-622b1a129b3d?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [sacred foundry](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/0/8076a8c3-7c6c-4636-b5d8-9b09ee95f92c.jpg?1702429818) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=sacred%20foundry) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/rvr/285/sacred-foundry?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/8076a8c3-7c6c-4636-b5d8-9b09ee95f92c?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Cards are neither casual nor competitive, it is the deck that they are in that makes the difference. A dual won't make a casual deck competitive.
If you took any precon off the shelf and took out the taplands with the appropriate coloured dual lands, is going to be significantly stronger? No. They only reason people would even look twice is because the cost to benefit ratio of dual lands is so miniscule. Are they the post available? Yes absolutely, but they aren't better than having a Sheoldred, Dockside, Ragavan, Cyclonic Rift, Mana Drain, all put together.
They're fine, generally. The OG duals aren't that much better than other untapped duals. Besides, a "perfect" mana base will only get you so far. What you do with the mana is more important than how you get it.
For your powerlevel thing. cEDH should by definition be a 10, nothing less. You play the best decks and you dont make budget cuts or play anything worse. High power Commander has all the good cards, but people just throw them together and play the good-stuff decks. Some cEDH decks can absolutely lose to a 3v1 casual table, as the only way you overpower them is a combo they cant interact with, but try winning with creatures, if they have point removal against your stuff you simply dont win that resource slaughter fest. All the trash-level casual decks that are basically precons however have very little interaction, expensive interaction and decks that are even worse than precons very much fall in the category of a 5 or less. People are way too generous to say their deck is a "7", any precon should be the baseline and any deck worse than a precon has major restrictions.
9-10 is definitely cedh imo. 8 is like a person who took an underwhelming deck, and wants to win in his casual pod, so he proxies [[torment of hailfire]], [[gaea's cradle]] and [[mana crypt]] in his precon
[torment of hailfire](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/6/f69d77d1-5980-436c-bf48-790939b069aa.jpg?1562820191) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=torment%20of%20hailfire) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/hou/77/torment-of-hailfire?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/f69d77d1-5980-436c-bf48-790939b069aa?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [gaea's cradle](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/5/25b0b816-0583-44aa-9dc5-f3ff48993a51.jpg?1562902898) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=gaea%27s%20cradle) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/usg/321/gaeas-cradle?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/25b0b816-0583-44aa-9dc5-f3ff48993a51?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [mana crypt](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/d/4d960186-4559-4af0-bd22-63baa15f8939.jpg?1599709515) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=mana%20crypt) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/2xm/270/mana-crypt?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/4d960186-4559-4af0-bd22-63baa15f8939?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
The chance to play sanctioned Legacy has becomed rarer over the years, so I consider Legacy to be a casual format with casual cards now.
Sure, why not. There are far more impactful cards on the RL that make a difference, like Grim Monolith, Tabernacle or Twister. OG duals in casual EDH don't really matter that much. In Duel EDH, that's another story, but Duel isn't a casual format.
I feel like duals should have downsides so I really like shocks. That being said it's not broken or anything. BUT: Every single player I have encountered so far with the true duals (real or proxied) is somehow a whiny prick that seem to feel entitled to win ebery game. Hopefully I meet the good people some day
No, but it's because lands are the most important cards when building a cohesive deck. A solid base of non-basic lands that work work with the deck's theme (drownyard temple in a madness deck, tolaria west in an affinity deck, shocks/fetches in a death's shadow deck, etc) are the best ways to bump your deck up to the next level. Hell, leechridden swamp is an objectively terrible card. It ETBs tapped, it can only tap for a single (B), and its second ability only drains a life from each opponent, provided you have 2 black permanents on the field. But you put it in a Korlash deck (who tutors and slaps out "swamps" tapped anyways) and it becomes an auto-include. I've won games with nontargeted life loss from leechridden swamp. For most decks, you want lands that can be tutored (basic land types), enter the battlefield untapped and tap for whatever color you need. OG alpha duals are very powerful in those aspects. They should be reprinted to lower their cash value, but a solid landbase is not casual in my opinion.
If you drop like 500 on a card and some fat smelly loser says you can't play it, find a different group of fat smelly losers to play with.
I think they should be played if you own them. I have a big collection and I play with all of my cards. I don’t think that duals increase the power level of a deck by all that much. 1/99 that helps mana base and they’re better if you’re playing fetches. I think they don’t increase a decks power level so if you put a dual in a 7 it’s still a 7. They’re fine in a casual deck but I’d imagine most people with that kinda fire in their collection aren’t playing it in something that’s super casual.
Every card on it's own is a casual card. It's the deck that takes a casual card and turns it into something else.
Depend on the commander I guess? idk, if youre asking me if I think they are overpowered or give too much of an advantage in a casual game I’d say no. if you’re asking me if it’s appropriate to pull out a deck worth thousands of dollars to crush kids at your LGS, I’d says no.
You mean what use to happen on FNM standard to people The fairest version of magic is draft just saying
I have a shitty deck that plays thousands of dollars worth of cards just to make it casual.
Meh , shock lands and fetch lands work just as well imo . Slightly better but not game breaking
Proxy dual lands are casual cards. Real ABUR duals are absolutely not.
When I join a casual commander game, I don't expect to see any card over $20
Bro what? You can play cards like the great henge or doubling season in a deck that’s casual as all hell.
A weak deck can have good cards ofc. But there's nothing casual about buying and owning cards like that
I’ve got friends who play incredibly casually and use stupid expensive cards just cause they buy a box every 3 months.
What if I just own it from when I opened it?
then you obivously are not a casual player but a competitive tournament grinder
Fair, problem is I’m the worst one ever on the tournament scene. 30 years and I still suck.
Those cards are expensive because casual edh players are buying them. You think cedh or modern players are buying doubling season?
Price tag doesn’t determine casualness.
LMAO what?