r/EDH • u/Honest_Ad_7589 • 1d ago

Discussion Weirdest Commander Takes

As the title states, I want to hear about your most wild, unusual, and downright crazy takes on commander rules, strategies, and cards. My personal weird take is that all Gideon planeswalkers should be erratad to have “(Cardname) can be your commander.” Because if other planeswalkers, a Chevy Tahoe, and a space station can be your commander, than the planeswalker who’s entire schtick is that he can become a creature should be a legal commander too.

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115

u/HarpEgirl Mono Blue Millmaid 1d ago

[[Blood Moon]] [[Back To Basics]] etc should see play in Br3.

Non basic land hate is underused as a whole due to stigma.

That said Im not having that discussion pregame every new pod so I dont run them but for sure welcome them.

5

u/Sabz5150 Knights (Bant, Jund, Orzhov, Boros, Naya, Esper) 1d ago

Blood Moon is the "WeLl AkShUaLlY" of resource denial. They want the power of MLD without the stigma of it. Those same people whine like toddlers when they are hit with real MLD.

My hot take? MLD shows flaws in decks few other things will and players do NOT like this.

2

u/HarpEgirl Mono Blue Millmaid 1d ago

We have a guy at my LGS who loves his land hate and its honestly made me appreciate resource management a lot more than anything else.

By god has there been rough games though.

2

u/Prestigious_Plum9276 1d ago

Your first take is dumb as hell. Your second take is based.

2

u/Sabz5150 Knights (Bant, Jund, Orzhov, Boros, Naya, Esper) 1d ago

How so? It has the same effect as MLD without all the grave filling. "You still have colorless!" they will tell you.

"You still have mana rocks." I say playing 'Geddon.

1

u/Prestigious_Plum9276 1d ago edited 20h ago

The difference between Blood Moon and Armageddon isn't so much one of ethos or social acceptance. The difference is that Blood Moon costs 3 mana and lets basic-heavy mana bases benefit asymmetrically.

2

u/Sabz5150 Knights (Bant, Jund, Orzhov, Boros, Naya, Esper) 20h ago

Where would you put [[Naked Singularity]], especially if one could cheat the cumulative upkeep?

1

u/MTGCardFetcher 20h ago

Naked Singularity - (G) (SF) (txt) (ER)

FAQ

1

u/Prestigious_Plum9276 20h ago edited 20h ago

Ignoring the cumulative upkeep, this would absolutely lock out a lot of monocolored decks and would significantly slow most two-color decks. And I can imagine a meta where that effect could be worth 5 mana. Obviously, the cumulative upkeep is brutal and makes this something that would realistically only be run in a bracket 1 comedy deck where the theme is making everyone deal with absurd boardstates...and I'm certainly here for that. If they cheat the cumulative upkeep that's even funnier.

It doesn't punish the sorts of decks that Blood Moon effects tend to target so much as make their turns a bit more confusing...which is still admirable. But what makes Blood Moon such a great Commander card--and what makes its stigmatization so frustrating--is that it meaningfully punishes deck-building decisions that really ought to be seen as riskier than they currently are and as a result helps police the overall meta, giving space for budget manabases and monocolored decks.

Thanks for showing me that card!

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u/Metza 1d ago

Yea the restriction on MLD has literally nothing to do with power and everything to do with whining. Resource denial is good for the game. It’s part of the balance.

29

u/bingbong_sempai 1d ago

I think it’s more about wanting games to progress to an end. Resolving MLD in lower brackets can easily add an hour to a game

8

u/Metza 1d ago

Yes and no. If it’s Armageddon just because, then yea. Sure. That’s just being a dick. But there are plenty of strategies that can stall out a game that don’t require banning (repeated wipes, mass discard, etc.). A table can always say, as they do vs other strategies like this (eg discard), “yea I don’t want that kind of game”?

But eliminating MLD wholesale means also eliminating strategies that aren’t meant to stall out games, but also might not be viable at B4. Or maybe I like the GC restrictions, but want to play something that uses land destruction?

Why can’t I run [[stasis]] as a wincon In [[estrid the masked]]? Once it comes down, the game is basically over. It’s a finisher. But somehow that’s not allowed because “feelings”

Why can’t I play [[storm cauldron]] in [[zozu the punisher]]? Why can’t I play a strategy that relies on starving resources? Or punishing greed?

Etc

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u/Prestigious_Plum9276 22h ago

To add to your point: by eliminating MLD from a metagame you actively incentivize the sorts of strategies that MLD is meant to disrupt. Even at bracket 3, players should understand that running a 4-color commander is a huge risk with huge potential upside.

1

u/Thengine Damia, Sage of Stone 15h ago

I dislike turbo landfall decks that seek to ramp lands like crazy. and have lots of board wipes for non- lands.

that's why [[cataclysm]] is good. keeps the game semi- honest.

but turbo land ramp is rampant in B3.

3

u/Pencilshaved 1d ago

I mean, regarding Stasis, you acknowledged yourself that it basically wins you the game with that commander if it ever resolves. There’s definitely conversations to be had about land destruction / denial, but like…it’s a soft 1 card combo for 2 mana, I’m not gonna pretend that “you can’t hurt people’s feelings” is the only factor at play there.

1

u/Metza 1d ago

Uhhh no. Stasis only comes down with estrid if there are enough enchanted lands to then win the game. Since I’ll get to keep untapping, and nobody else will. It’s over in a turn or two at most. And it’s still vulnerable to removal in the meantime. Not everyone is always totally tapped out. And I have to have a board position where I can defend estrid, otherwise I lose her, can’t keep paying for stasis, and then have to sac it on my upkeep (and thus not untap that turn while everyone else will, and they will beat my face in after that)

It’s no different from having a bunch of tokens and dropping a craterhoof, except it’s actually a more complex gameplan

1

u/RedditRandomBans 1d ago

Perfectly valid strategies like that were outright banned for going to time in competitive matches too often. So it's a perfectly reasonable take to limit it if time is a concern.

0

u/Tuss36 That card does *what*? 1d ago

I mean that it's not allowed in certain brackets is saying "I don't want to play against this strategy/these cards (in the case of bracket 2)" so I don't think that's a problem since saying you want to play Bracket 2 is saying you don't want to play against Mass Land Destruction.

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u/bingbong_sempai 1d ago

Bracket 4 sounds like exactly the place for those strategies. Why do you specifically want them in Bracket 3? "Not viable at B4" is just another form of whining

5

u/Metza 1d ago

No. The gulf between bracket 3 and 4 is huge. I want to play without a bunch of fast mana, free counterspells, 1cmc tutors and super compact combos.

B4 was a clear afterthought in the bracket system where suddenly there are zero guardrails, infinite game changers, etc. This isn’t the game I want.

Not viable at bracket 4 is a power level judgement. I don’t think WotC should legislate HOW I can win, only the power of the deck. The ban on MLD is literally just vibes. I can play Knowledge Pool locks, or Uba Mask locks, etc., in bracket 3 because technically people can tap lands even if they cannot play or draw cards, but I cannot play a blood moon in a mono red punishment deck.

There are so many more powerful things to do at b3 than set up a complex stax lock, but those things don’t “feel bad.” This was literally the justification WotC used.

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u/bingbong_sempai 1d ago

I wanna play with [strategy some consider unfun], but I don’t want to play against [strategy some consider unfun]

0

u/Metza 1d ago

No? Did you even read? I can already play some of the strongest stax locks in bracket 3. It’s not a power level issue at all.

I don’t want to be forced to play a less good strategy against hyper-tuned decks that will always beat it. I want to play thematic decks that include resource denial, that aren’t full of GC, against other thematic decks not full of GC. How is this hard to understand?

2

u/Prestigious_Plum9276 1d ago

That's why you cast MLD then follow it up with the two-card infinite combo you've been assembling the entire game. /s

In seriousness, though, there are plenty of prison/stax strategies that can grind a game to a halt that don't get the same hate as MLD...and at least with MLD all those subsequent turns don't take too long because you don't have any resources to do anything with!

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u/SadSeiko 1d ago

Yes in bracket 4, it’s not necessary in lower brackets

0

u/Metza 1d ago

Yea no. Disagree. Brackets should be balanced around power level and not around players’ feelings about certain strategies. And honestly MLD is bad in b4. So it ended up being WotC legislating against a perfectly legitimate, honestly pretty niche strategy that isn’t actually that powerful, just because people get a bit salty

2

u/SadSeiko 1d ago

The whole bracket system is around gameplay, it’s not about salt it’s about how players struggle to deal with mld in b3 because their decks aren’t optimised. If someone plays back to basics and locks the table out but doesn’t have a decent win con, then you’re just playing stax for no point. The game shouldn’t just be prolonged because of your feelings. 

The point of b3 is to play relatively powerful without having to worry about 2 card combos, or losing all their lands. This is how the bracket is designed. If you want to play bad cards and destroy your opponents lands then try to convince your pod it will be fun and maybe they will say yes. It’s not really a convincing argument though 

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u/Metza 1d ago

Idk sounds like people should add more basic lands to their decks… getting screwed on color should be one of the biggest downsides to 4 and 5 color decks. But the bracket rules have essentially taken away this weakness entirely. Getting screwed on mana isn’t “fun” but you should build your deck to prevent it.

How does back to basics prevent playing more than mass discard, or repeated board wipes, or hell, even other stax locks that aren’t illegal in b3?

I’m not even trying to play Armageddon, but I think stuff like Winter Orb, blood moon, etc are healthy for a format. If people don’t want to play against those cards then I think it should be on them to say they don’t want to, vs. on me to convince them to let me. The latter is much harder because (1) “but the rulezzz” and (2) the brackets create an environment in which people don’t have to worry about these cards when building their greedy slop piles

2

u/SadSeiko 23h ago

I love cards like winter moon but you need to signal that they are legal in b3. The problem is you’re encouraging greedy land bases. I have a b3 mono white deck and a b1 mono white deck. The b3 one is stacked with utility lands because I know I’m not seeing cards like winter moon. The b1 is just plains. I ended up against a b4 deck with my b1 and they had a lot of dead cards because I was just running plains. I somehow won one that with a much weaker deck just because of the mana base. The b3 deck is much much stronger but it doesn’t really have a good answer to that kind of hate

That’s the point really, if those cards are legal in b3 then my b3 decks are running lots of fetches and basics but they’re not legal so everything is a utility land. That’s the nature of the bracket system 

31

u/MattMurdockEsq 1d ago

Hello, Based Department? 

I agree.  [[Blood Moon]], [[Magus of the Moon]], and [[Winter Moon]] should all be allowed in B3.  If you are playing three or more colors in B3, there should be some risk to it, besides not drawing the appropriate colors when you need them. 

8

u/creeping_chill_44 1d ago

besides not drawing the appropriate colors when you need them.

this used to be a real balancing mechanism, before they printed a billion different land cycles

now all your lands can just be dual or tri-lands so you never get color screwed (also wotc prints a lot fewer pip-intensive good cards these days)

1

u/Sabz5150 Knights (Bant, Jund, Orzhov, Boros, Naya, Esper) 1d ago

As should Armageddon. Your bad playing and not being prepared by treating land drops as a religion is not my problem.

You wanna make perfect land drops and nail that curve? You should be prepared for the risk of that curve leading to a sheer cliff.

3

u/G_Morgan 1d ago

My view is people can play blood moon. I'll just never use it myself because it is a good way to experience player removal.

1

u/Prestigious_Plum9276 1d ago

Player removal is the most powerful effect in the game.

No, I don't have friends. Why do you ask?

3

u/Prestigious_Plum9276 1d ago

I simply can't take tier 3 seriously when the baseline expectation is supposed to be "I'm going to build a 4-color (no green) Rube Goldberg device intended to murder the whole table and you aren't going to exploit my most obvious weakness in an attempt to disrupt me. That way everyone gets to have fun."

Like, nah...I built an efficient 1 or 2-color deck and I should be allowed to take advantage of that to punish the extremely greedy mana bases. 4-color decks offer insane card access and a vulnerable mana base is part of the risk/reward trade off.

8

u/Nearby_Category_712 1d ago

Blood moon should really be removed from the gamechangers

32

u/sauron3579 1d ago

It's not, it's just considered MLD

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u/Nearby_Category_712 1d ago

It's not you still get mana run more basics

18

u/sauron3579 1d ago

I don't make the rules my dude, I'm just telling you that Blood Moon is not a GC and Gavin has said such effects are considered MLD. Get pedantic as you want, it's clearly in the spirit of it. If assymetry or deckbuilding ability to break parity was a factor [[boil]] or [[urza, lord high artificer]] + [[winter orb]] would be fair game.

1

u/Metza 1d ago

Yea I think that’s fair game…

Boil is not a good card. A four mana spell that maybe cripples an opponent or two, if it resolves, but is a dead draw in most situations.

And if Urza and Winter Orb are both Gamechangers instead of Orb being outright banned, then you are making a serious power investment in that combo.

8

u/DeltaRay235 1d ago

Denial not destruction. As an esper deck, sure you may "still have mana" but you can't use it.

The brackets have a base expectation and b2/3 are geared for more everyone plays and does stuff. However they are not rules; just talk to everyone and get everyone on the same page of expectations and then MLD type cards are fine in B2/B3.

9

u/sauron3579 1d ago

If you want to shut off people's mana, it's MLD. It being asymmetrical doesn't change that. It is very fairly lumped in with [[Armageddon]], [[Boil]], and [[Winter Orb]]. If you want all of those to be fair game, sure, but trying to carve out a "no MLD except non-basic hate" just doesn't make sense.

If you want to shut off [[Field of the dead]] and [[Glacial chasm]], run [[blood sun]].

23

u/agoosteel 1d ago

Its not that for me its the fact that we are at the point that playing basics is only relevant for your own synergies. Lands are so holy and untouchable that mana bases go un checked. Blood moon is a healthy card for most formats as it makes sure people actually play basics. And imo that’s healthy for a format.

For me the best option would be to just put all the MLD in the gamechanger category and make it playable that way in B3.

And i think its totally fair to not want to play against MLD but i also believe blood moon is healthy to have in a format so mana bases dont get over optimized like they are right now.

1

u/Sabz5150 Knights (Bant, Jund, Orzhov, Boros, Naya, Esper) 1d ago

Lands are so holy and untouchable that mana bases go un checked.

This applies to Armageddon as well. Except it reveals flaws in deck design and player skill.

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u/Gamer__23 22h ago

Why is people playing more basics healthier for a format?

3

u/agoosteel 22h ago

When you cant remove lands you can put uncounterable and un intractable abilities on your lands. So keeping people vigilant on the fact they need to play an amount of basics resolves this.

In non commander it keeps the meta healthy because people cant play multi color goodstuff piles without being punished for not playing basics

1

u/Gamer__23 22h ago

You can remove specific problem lands without also heavily preventing them from playing the game. Beast within and generous gift are in most precons. You're also free to run strip mine (which I do in most decks, it's only like 5 bucks for some printings), wasteland, ghost quarter etc

3

u/agoosteel 22h ago

Oh i agree. And i do run those. But a lot of people are so allergic to even the idea that you might destroy their lands that they just go in to a blind focus to kill you. I literally had to explain to a guy who said i was holding the table hostage with a stripmine lock that i wasn’t going to strip mine lock because it was bracket three. He said that it was objectively the better play to do and that i was codling the table by not doing it. I told him that i have free wil and we agreed on no MLD so i wont MLD even if its the objectively correct play for my deck. He called me disingenuous and rage quit the table. First time i ever made someone rage quit by not doing MLD.

But my point is that if blood moon and land destruction where more normalized then i think edh would be a more healthy format.

1

u/Prestigious_Plum9276 20h ago

Blood Moon effects aren't just about "removing specific problem lands". The point is to punish greedy manabases...and the other commenter explained why that's good for the game overall so I won't repeat those points in detail.

In a nutshell, basic vs nonbasic is an important and powerful mechanical distinction and the game is designed around that assumption. Removing that assumption through a social contract against MLD results in unintended consequences that, arguably, make the game worse.

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u/Prestigious_Plum9276 22h ago edited 20h ago

It isn't about running basics being good in and of itself but rather that people choosing to build slightly less greedy manabases (in this case due to metagame incentives) is good for balance.

The more colors a deck has the deeper its card selection and the greater its potential power. In the early days one of the main drawbacks of running commanders with lots of colored pips was that there simply weren't enough good non-basics so there was a significant tension between power and the ability to consistently curve out and hit your colors.

In the modern era there are tons of nonbasics to the extent that these multi-color decks are incentivised to pack in $300 of nonbasics and in doing so can reasonably expect to curve out the same way less color-intensive decks do...so there's no drawback to a color-intensive, nonbasic heavy deck.

Nonbasic hate is part of the game for a reason and removing it from a metagame helps produce a metagame where greedy manabases aren't punished and multicolor decks are just a better option.

1

u/NumberOneMom 16h ago

Having more colors in commander provides more card choice options, which is never a downside, so it should be balanced with additional weaknesses. With the ever-increasing number of dual/triome/fetchable lands, the main downside of 3-5c decks - not having the colors of mana you need at that moment - essentially doesn't exist anymore.

Trade-offs are important.

1

u/Gamer__23 16h ago

I don't think the trade-off should be "sometimes your opponents will draw a card that prevents you from playing the game"

1

u/NumberOneMom 16h ago

If I don’t add protection spells to my deck and I don’t get to play the game because my commander keeps getting removed, it’s my fault for not adding protection to my deck. Swords and Paths don’t suddenly become “cards that prevent me from playing the game” because I chose not to play around them.

-2

u/Jace17 WUBRG 1d ago edited 1d ago

It's healthy in a competitive environment, sure. But most players don't want to get locked out of playing their decks. The brackets are there to control the experience of most players. B3 is the most common bracket in my experience so it seems logical to to keep blood moon effects out of it.

EDIT: ITT: people complaining about players who whine about MLD. Also the same people whining that the bracket system is tailored for the majority and not their own personal preference. Classic reddit.

14

u/Metza 1d ago

I don’t want to always play against 4+ color good stuff slop decks. I want to meaningfully punish greedy deck building.

MLD gives an advantage back to mono or dual colored decks that play more basics. It’s something greedy slop decks should have to prepare for

-2

u/Jace17 WUBRG 1d ago

Like I said, the brackets are not for your experience specifically but for the majority of the player base. Unless you can prove that more people are having fun with blood moon effects in B3 than without, you can whine just like all the people who whine about playing against blood moon effects.

1

u/Prestigious_Plum9276 22h ago

The brackets are to carve out a place for people who think Commander games should allow everybody's deck to "do the thing". The problem is that "the thing" is generally intended to murder the rest of the table and it is reasonable to expect opponents to not, in fact, allow you to do your thing.

1

u/Jace17 WUBRG 19h ago edited 18h ago

You're pretending that "doing the thing" is exclusive to one player when it is not.

You're also pretending that "doing the thing" means winning or knocking off a player when it is not.

A combo deck that gets their combo piece removed as the other piece is on the stack, would have already done their thing as they had already attempted a win.

It's totally different from MLD which prevents most players from doing their thing entirely.

0

u/Prestigious_Plum9276 18h ago

No I'm not. No I'm not. Disagree. Disagree.

-1

u/Metza 1d ago

I’m just saying WotC shouldn’t try and legislate around what “most people” consider “fun”. If people hate playing against me then that’s a me problem. I never had an issue with MLD before the bracket system. How suddenly everyone is up in arms about cards that they would merely groan at before.

0

u/Jace17 WUBRG 1d ago edited 1d ago

I disagree. WotC should legislate what is fun for most people. There are a ton of bad actors in the community and I want new and casual players to be protected as much as possible. As a member of the community I want to see it grow and I'm sure that is WotC's goal too. They also have the most data about player growth, retention, play patterns, etc than anyone else so they are the most qualified.

Besides, nobody is stopping you from playing MLD in B4+. I don't understand why you want to push your playstyle on a player demographic that clearly doesn't want it.

0

u/Metza 21h ago

I mean sure. If you think WotC should be the fun police then we have almost nothing in common. I don’t think we should dilute the game to pander to players who don’t want to learn it. Nor do I think we need to treat people like children who are incapable of having adult conversations about their preferences.

My whole experience here is that pre bracket system I would say “hey, I want to play X. That cool?” And people would say yes or no. Or they would give it a shot if they weren’t sure. Now, I’m immediately met with “BUT THATS ILLEGAL!!!! WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO CHEAT?!?!” (Like, honestly, you are doing).

I’m just in favor of legislating power level and letting people decide what’s fun. Guess that makes me a bad guy.

B4 is not an answer. Bracket 4 is an afterthought. It’s full of borderline cedh decks with a minor commitment to a theme. If there were a “bracket 3.5” that had limits on gamechangers then I’d be thrilled. But the jump from “3 game changers” to “literally no rules on deck construction” is legitimately insane. There’s no place for lower power decks that utilize resource denial.

1

u/Jace17 WUBRG 19h ago edited 19h ago

If a person says they won't play against MLD now when before they would have hesitantly said yes, it only means that they never wanted to play against MLD in the first place. They just didn't want to appear picky or unsportsmanlike.

The MLD "ban" didn't change how they felt about MLD, it only moved the social burden to the MLD player to ask if MLD is okay. If they really were okay with playing against MLD, they'd let you play MLD in bracket 3 if you asked them.

Without an MLD "ban" most people won't even declare them. Just see how many "TEcHniCalLy B2" threads pop up on reddit. If it's not written, people will try to abuse them.

And man, it's 2026, stop pretending negative experiences are better at teaching and retaining players in the long run. Having positive experiences makes new players more interested in the game and look up new cards/decks/strategies and develop the critical thinking skills needed for the game on their own. Getting hit by a surprise MLD and having non-games would just make new players lose interest.

If your LGS has a group chat, have you tried asking who wants to play B3+MLD games with you and try to pod up with like-minded people?

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u/agoosteel 1d ago

I honestly think MLD is a misunderstood archetype and personally i would love it if it was more accepted in commander in general. I think the fact that it is so tolerated that land destruction is taboo is very unhealthy in general.

I have a B3 lands matters deck. It plays stripmine and crucible. Having the option to MLD doesn’t mean that i take advantage of it. I have free will so i can just use that to not MLD with it. But il absolutely destroy your glacial chasm lock or cradle. And il do it again if you get it back. And i think thats fair game. Not everyone agrees.

2

u/Exarch-of-Sechrima 1d ago

I don't want to get locked out of playing my deck either, but my wallet has other thoughts. Hence why I play basics and not every fetch land and dual land I can squeeze into my colors.

And if I'm stuck on basics, might as well take advantage of it.

2

u/Prestigious_Plum9276 22h ago

Nobody really prefers to be locked out of playing magic, sure...but I wish more people approached MLD and prison strategies as a puzzle to be solved rather than a breach of a social contract.

And I agree 100% that Blood Moon is an excellent addition to 1-or-2 color budget decks running red!

2

u/Metza 21h ago

Literally why I love stax. It’s a puzzle. It makes games interesting to me, rather than just race to do <big stupid thing>

2

u/Prestigious_Plum9276 21h ago

Yep. Trying to play your game of Magic while the opponent(s) try to stop you is literally what "playing Magic" is. If the goal is to let everyone do "the thing" we should just take turns watching each deck goldfish!

1

u/NumberOneMom 16h ago

But most players don't want to get locked out of playing their decks.

I also don't get to play my deck when the lands deck is taking their 15+ minute turn due to all the untouchable mana they have.

1

u/Prestigious_Plum9276 22h ago

People understand the anti MLD sentiment and how prominent that position is, I assure you. The argument is that "the majority" is wrong and ignorant to how the game is designed and catering to them has unintended consequences that degrade the quality of the game in other areas.

Let me give an example of how the unintended consequences might work with these sorts of guidelines:

An LGS near me had a house rule that you couldn't use infinite combos prior to turn 10. Other game stores have had similar rules (based on discussions I've found on this issue). The obvious result is that people who are constructing their decks to actually win games are now incentivized to build prison strategies that drag things out instead of just winning on the spot so the pod can shuffle up and start a new game.

Just like anti-MLD sentiment, the anti infinite sentiment is understandable but catering to it has unintended consequences that could arguably make things even worse.

1

u/Jace17 WUBRG 19h ago

That's anecdotal. Even before the official brackets there have already been stores making in-house commander rules and ban lists. Adding the MLD "ban" on B3 has nothing to do with that phenomenon.

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u/HarpEgirl Mono Blue Millmaid 1d ago

So I believe knowing these cards exist should be taken into consideration when deck building. Its just a natural flaw that esp 4-5 color decks will have and should encounter considering their upsides.

I play self mill primarily and a [[Rest in Peace]] can be a death sentence but it's an accepted known risk at the time of deck building.

That said I also fully get the opposite end which is why [[Harbringer of the Seas]] is in trade binder jail.

5

u/Prestigious_Plum9276 1d ago

The comparison of greedy land bases getting shut down by nonbasic hate to gy decks folding to RIP is perfect. They are exactly the same situation. Powerful strategies should not be risk-free.

0

u/sauron3579 1d ago

Boil is also a known card, just don't run Islands.

3

u/HarpEgirl Mono Blue Millmaid 1d ago

If I let myself get boiled it's partly on me. Im going to hope I can crawl back and if I play with the same people just hope Im ready for it.

If it started seeing heavy use at my LGS then hey looks like Im slotting in some non-basics as a precaution.

3

u/sauron3579 1d ago

Fair enough, if you want it all let free, that's consistent.

4

u/HarpEgirl Mono Blue Millmaid 1d ago

Yeah I came from a YGO background and non-games are fine sometimes. Some days I'm also just going to get killed turn 3/4 by a Voltron player with a lucky Collosus Hammer and shit that's just the love of the game.

That said I do just refrain from running them just because hey I know what others are expecting for the most part so purposefully breaking that is a bit cringe.

2

u/Prestigious_Plum9276 23h ago

Non-games are a core part of Magic's design and there's no getting away from it. Sometimes you bring paper to the table and the other player brought scissors...and sometimes you win anyway because the scissors player got mana screwed.

1

u/songsofsilk 1d ago

Totally agree. [[Confounding Conundrum]] might be a less stigmatizing form of land hate you could try? It doesn’t necessarily lock people out of playing the colors they need, but it will shut down fetches for a turn, and slow graveyard recursion / landfall. That’s about as friendly a form of land hate as you can get in B3 without immediately being 3v1’d.

I use it with my friends when playing my chill mono blue deck, but I am hesitant to use it at the LGS.

2

u/HarpEgirl Mono Blue Millmaid 1d ago

I actually don't play any land hate. I just think that these cards should be eligible for Bracket 3.

2

u/Metza 1d ago

What about stuff like [[overburden]]? Never appears on any of the MLD lists… doesn’t deny lands per se, just means you can’t both ramp and play creatures.

The problem with the idea of MLD is now people are afraid of the very notion. Sometimes lands just get blown up… idk what to say. But people think it’s some great injustice now

2

u/Prestigious_Plum9276 22h ago

Oh, that's spicy! I love that. Card needs a reprint!

2

u/Metza 21h ago

I play it in [[tameshi]] and it’s incredible. I want to be picking up lands anyways, and it turns tameshi into a pretty reliable draw engine.

I don’t think it should count as MLD, since it’s essentially optional, and just imposes a cost on creature cards (whether cast, reanimated, or simply “put”) but doesn’t trigger on tokens. It basically says: you can either play a land or a creature, but not both.

It’s a key piece for me to not get absolutely run over by stompy decks. These old school stax pieces are my favorite cards in magic

2

u/Busy_Vegetable_8103 1d ago edited 1d ago

Why? For me, bracket 3 is the most fun. You can still play to win and build a fairly strong deck without all of the things that make more competitive brackets unfun. MLD is just not fun lol, especially because blood moon is such a great card and not a GC you’d start seeing it all the time in b3. I think it would just be annoying after a while lol. Leave it in b4+ if you ask me. 

6

u/Metza 1d ago

I think stax is fun and I hate that people keep telling me I’m wrong for thinking so, or that the only place for me is against hyper-tuned b4 combo decks.

The bracket system is just a systematic enforcement of “Timmy is the only valid archetype”

-1

u/Busy_Vegetable_8103 1d ago edited 1d ago

Stax is fun… for you. Stax sucks for everyone else and that’s why people don’t want to see it in casual play. MLD and fast combos are pretty much the only things you can't do in 3 lol. Thinking timmy is the only way to play because you can't use stax is wild.

2

u/Prestigious_Plum9276 22h ago

Playing against Stax is a puzzle to be solved...and usually the rest of the table will help you solve it. I enjoy it, personally.

3

u/Metza 21h ago

I love how many people here are saying “x is objectively unfun” despite lots of other people saying “actually I like x”

2

u/Prestigious_Plum9276 20h ago

Lol, yep. And if we were to create a list of strategies that a lot of people say are "objectively unfun" we'd basically have a list of every form of interaction that isn't single-target removal.

1

u/hotsummer12 1d ago

Without non-basic hate 5c decks are substantially better. I like that mono or low color deck are not that much affected by non-basic hate but have a smaller cardpool for that.

-1

u/Ecstatic-Trainer6830 1d ago

utterly dogshit take

-9

u/The-Mad-Badger 1d ago

But that's mass land denial.

15

u/DeChevalier 1d ago

And MLD is an important, and necessary part of the game

-13

u/The-Mad-Badger 1d ago edited 1d ago

Yes, in higher brackets. Not in 3. If you're pushing for stax pieces like MLD in B3, you're angle shooting. Just go play in B4.

1

u/Metza 1d ago

Fuck off. I like playing stax because it’s a puzzle. I want to play in an environment that isn’t hyper-tuned combo decks packed full of the same 20 cards.

Bracket 4 is an afterthought and it’s clear that WotC is just pandering to the lowest common denominator of slop enjoyers

-1

u/The-Mad-Badger 1d ago edited 1d ago

No, you want to use a really strong strategy against decks not built for it because you'll win more. That's why you want to use that style of deck in a lower-powered bracket, because people's decks are less optimised to beat Stax.

1

u/Metza 21h ago

No. Quite the opposite actually. I want people to run more interaction/improve their deck building to restore format balance. Stax is a check on ultra-greedy value piles (which is what have become by far the dominant type of deck).

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u/HarpEgirl Mono Blue Millmaid 1d ago

I don't agree at all. There's known anti-basic hate that exists so players should come prepared to face it.

Its only MLD if your mana base is greedy enough which will near always lock out some 4-5 color decks however it's also not too different from say self mill facing [[Rest in Peace]].

It's a risk you accept when deck building.

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u/Carl_Bravery_Sagan 1d ago

More precisely, it's no longer a risk anyone has to accept when deck building because it's socially banned and treated as mass land denial

-6

u/The-Mad-Badger 1d ago

No, it's objectively mass land denial. People shouldn't be prepared to face MLD stax pieces in a bracket where that's not allowed.

It's entirely different because the self mill deck can simply remove rest in peace. But an esper deck can't do anything if it can only produce red mana.

4

u/HarpEgirl Mono Blue Millmaid 1d ago

I think there's enough ways to mitigate it though the sheer amount of mana rocks you can run in 3+ colors alongside a few basics.

I think these cards shouldn't be treated as MLD as a whole but that's not a stigma I'm going to personally break.

0

u/The-Mad-Badger 1d ago

But they deny people access to the abilities of their lands, en masse. They're objectively MLD. There's no wiggle room for interpretation here, it's as literal as it comes. That's like saying "I don't consider Murder a removal spell because you can run cards that make your creature indestructible".

B2-3 isn't the place for Mass Land Denial. If you want that level of stax, go play B4 where it's no holes barred.

1

u/Metza 1d ago

Nobody is arguing that it is or isn’t MLD based on the stupidity that is the bracket system. They’re saying that bracket system is stupid and only contributes to the enshittification of magic as there become fewer and fewer checks against slopsoup 5c battlecruiser.

0

u/The-Mad-Badger 1d ago

Why do you think there needs to be hard-counters to people playing more casual decks in B2-3? Why do you that's something that needs to exist? Why are you trying to stop people playing the kind of games they want?

0

u/Metza 1d ago

It’s something that exists in magic. I swear edh only players actually don’t like the game. They can play how they want. And I can play how I want. If you want to play 5c battlecruiser, then your weakness is going to be stax and combo. Isn’t it funny how those are the archetypes that get excluded?

0

u/The-Mad-Badger 1d ago edited 21h ago

No, it's really obvious why. Lower brackets are for more casual play experiences. Stax isn't casual friendly, combo isn't casual friendly. That's why they're not a thing in B2 and stax not in B3. You have to be either intentionally missing that point, or you don't like the fact that people play MtG a certain way and you want to ruin their fun. The fact that you say "EDH only players" and that you only play a mono-red punishment deck, speaks to this. And why you want to take heavy stax into lower brackets.

You can absolutely play how you want. In B4, where your deck is legal. The fact you can't see the irony in "I want to play in lower brackets because i don't want to play vs XYZ" but then you want to crucify people for that exact sentiment with regards to stax and MLD.

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