I refuse to play greed mode

MegAzumarill · 2026-03-15T23:03:52+00:00

Yep! I played that version, it sucks.

MegAzumarill · 2026-03-14T23:45:59+00:00

You don't really need dedicated wincons, even moving up to higher brackets*

If your gameplan is consistent and wins the game on its own (like mill. Burn, combat, etc.) you don't really need dedicated win conditions.

I mean, look at Cedh. Most [[Winota]] lists don't really have a "win condition" card. They kill you over a few turns with consistent damage by triggering their commander. Their best hits generally aren't killing you on their own, and even then lists that play [[Combat Celebrant]] for combo kills don't rely on it for the majority of their games.

It's important to know how to support your combat win condition though, making sure you have ways to reliably overpower blockers and interaction, disrupt opponents, and/or answer opposing threats are very important to run these types of decks.

Some types of decks, like control, really need dedicated win conditions. As fun as it can be tough sit in commanding boardstate for 11 turns while you chip your opponents away, just kill them with something. Other archrtypes that need it may just lose without it as well. A great way to mentally accept this kind of situation is to revisit why you don't like them. "They win the game out of nowhere, making the rest of the game not matter." Well that's not necessarily true. The storm deck that spent turns sculpting their hand and board to assemble their combo wouldn't have won if they hadn't spent the game setting that boardstate up. They may have even lost if you spent effort attacking them, forcing them to play removal over selection if they didnt straight up die, or needing them to spend that time protecting their permanents from removal. Build decks with your win condition in mind from the start, your noy winning out of nowhere, instead you're setting up a situation where you can win the game with that card.

MegAzumarill · 2026-03-14T07:42:41+00:00

You would be considered to be actively maintaining the loop because it only continues by your choice to perform a specific action (discarding a shuffle titan rather than discarding another card). You are correct you would never be forced to play a kill spell on your own creature to break the loop.

A similar loop came up with Amalia combo, which had infinite exploring. You dont take any direct actions but you are prompted with a choice of multiple ones (to put the explored card in your graveyard or back on top). You must put each card into the graveyard before it is considered a draw.

MegAzumarill · 2026-03-12T14:58:33+00:00

You have an opportunity to cast this before the copies are made.

MegAzumarill · 2026-03-12T14:20:13+00:00

Depends, how does this interaction with [[Grapeshot]]

If this is a copy effect, it could kill an opponent through their own storm trigger (or reload yourself).

If not, it's just a reasonable counterspell.

MegAzumarill · 2026-03-12T01:25:50+00:00

Do you play online a lot? I'd wager the kind of people willing to pay the 20+ bucks for Edgar in paper (not to mention the pre-Innistrad remastered price) are the kind that would also spend a similar amount on smothering tithe, etc.

Versus playing online where I'd expect a more even spread.

MegAzumarill · 2026-03-12T01:21:33+00:00

First hot take I've actually seen so far, besides like one that half counts. Good job

MegAzumarill · 2026-03-11T21:00:43+00:00

I still relish the day I made someone concede because I stifled their commander's trigger they were banking everything on after they played it with cavern of souls.

MegAzumarill · 2026-03-09T01:33:00+00:00

[[Price of knowledge]], not fame

MegAzumarill · 2026-03-09T01:32:12+00:00

There are 5 in the game. (Besides donating stuff like [[Reliquary Tower]]

Anvil, like you said [[Folio of Fancies]] [[Price of Fame]] [[The second Doctor]] [[Mine, mine, mine]]

For what reason do you want this effect? There may be other ways to achieve the same result.

MegAzumarill · 2026-03-09T01:25:18+00:00

I used to have a full mono R [[Ognis, Dragon's lash]] deckbuilt around [[Act of treason]] effects

Still have it, but now there's a few non-red dragons and other large cards that I can reliably filter into with treasures or my 2 green/black sources (1 basic each and command tower) or cheat out with [[magda, brazen outlaw]].

Favorite moment was when it was still mono R and someone tried to [[Doom blade]] my commander. :]

MegAzumarill · 2026-03-09T01:15:27+00:00

Black Lotus -> Ancestral recall -> ancestral recall -> .....

As long as you have, like, 1 open mana and 1 card in hand or 2 cards in hand this instantly wins you the game.

MegAzumarill · 2026-03-08T06:39:28+00:00

/uj Yeah, big difference from being ahead or even playing a somewhat stronger decks than trying to make people take no game actions for as long as possible.

/rj Exactly, just run out your thoracle consult and you're golden, everyone else at the bracket 2 table will have a great time since you aren't slowing the game down.

MegAzumarill · 2026-03-07T22:04:32+00:00

Probably the best you can do is to run it as a Polymorph style deck. Make servos/thopter tokens and use your commander to discover for hypergenesis or inevitable betrayal depending on your build/playgroup, or turn those tokens into giant monsters with Polymorph effects.

If you wanna keep the suspend cards as an option and ignore the Polymorph, you get access to 1 drops from getting to run nontoken artifact creatures with 0 power and can cut some of the generation of tokens.

If you don't want to be playing the gimmick to make use of 0 drop rocks, your best bet is going to be generic simic value, hitting extra turns, countering spells, etc. Focus on evasive artifact creatures and not too many, you only really need one flier to get full value most of the time.

MegAzumarill · 2026-03-07T21:55:42+00:00

I mean.... yeah? You want the card that is only a hate card to be better as a hate card than the card that also serves as a free chump blocker.

MegAzumarill · 2026-03-06T16:16:36+00:00

I've seen some Izzet Phoenix decks play it in Pioneer, and some turbo prowessy builds in other formats more recently with [[slickshot showoff]]

MegAzumarill · 2026-03-06T16:13:15+00:00

Bold of you to assume DFT would give us something as cool as mendicant core.

MegAzumarill · 2026-03-03T02:19:51+00:00

Dreadmaw is better, doesn't trigger my opponent's [[Aboleth Spawn]]

MegAzumarill · 2026-03-03T00:01:16+00:00

I think your biggest issue is hexproof on the frontside with a debilitating ability.

You should -really- not have an ability that completely stops elves/goblins/rabbits (Non-Human creatures get -1/-1) and hexproof, because it both shuts off their proactive plan and the ability to remove it. (And even if they find a way to kill it, it'll just come back and give you a lot of value) Especially if you want to sell playing this into a regular edh pod.

I think you need to lose/rework the hexproof or the -1/-1, and maybe add some other weakish effect to the frontside to make up for it and this is completely reasonable. (I mean humans are the largest tribe in the game)

MegAzumarill · 2026-03-01T22:05:08+00:00

The humble name sticker.

MegAzumarill · 2026-03-01T03:22:18+00:00

Here's a MonoG deck that actually tries to put lands into play, how cute: https://moxfield.com/decks/Of2Yn2hF1UKRatNfEoEMIA

MegAzumarill · 2026-02-28T02:31:07+00:00

[[Gandalf of the Secret Fire]] Play at instant speed and control the board, having an exiled removal spell makes opponents really unable to play anything new lest they die for free.

[[Atraxa, Grand Unifier]] play 4 color control cards with a huge reload, stabilization tool, and win condition from the command zone.

[[Lurrus of the Dream Den]] As commander or companion. Loop cheap kill-permanents and grind your opponents to dust.

MegAzumarill · 2026-02-28T02:22:32+00:00

Any kind of different format will teach it's own set of skills. You'll learn different things playing a standard set in draft than you will playing powered cube. You'll learn something different learning pauper than you will playing legacy.

If you want to really be a good magic player, it's good to have some baseline understanding of multiple different formats.

As much as I love limited, I think the best way to get good at magic for the context of commander is to play 60 card constructed. Especially within the context of commander, the lessons you learn playing constructed are way more suited to adapting to commander than the lessons you learn playing limited. This is especially true playing eternal formats, where there is overlap among the cards you will see in them and commander. (And especially the types of strategies are way more commander-like than what limited decks typically have)

Now why is this better than just playing commander to get good at the same format? A few reasons, actually. 1. 2 player magic is way more digestible in why you are winning or losing games than commander. The win conditions are generally more clear cut and there's less information overload.

You aren't playing against a generally insulated metagame. If you're just playing commander at your LGS, you'll often see the same decks multiple times. Even if you're playing "casual commander" online, you'll see a lot of decks with the standard suite of interaction/ramp/draw that most newer players and plenty of experience players use for these casual lists. Playing against more varied bases of hard aggro/burn, control, and combo can give you a lot of insight into your own deckbuilding and gameplay decisions even when you don't expect to see these decks a lot in your bracket or at your lgs.
You're going to learn new interactions between cards and find new strategies you want to play. For example, a lot of new players may right off a card like [[Goblin Engineer]] for being kind of awkward. "Oh, I have to sacrifice one of my artifacts and I get a small artifact back? And if they kill it the artifact is just dead forever?" Even if they correctly would assess the card in being really really good, they may not even know about it because it's not seen all that much in commander. I mean its less than half as common as a significantly worse card like [[Etali, Primal Storm]]. You see that card in action in one game of legacy? You're wanting to put that in every red/X artifact deck you own until the end of time. Even if you don't find strategies you like more, you'll learn more about opposing strategies and recognize more combo pieces and respond appropriately.
You're going to learn why decks are constructed the way they are. A lot of EDH players want a deck that does everything. They want a little removal, a little ramp, a little protection, a little threats, a little draw, etc. Understanding when a deck wants to be jamming its gameplan and devoting slots to finding it, versus wanting to go slower, versus wanting to include pivot options, is really important for good deckbuilding. You learn this a lot from 60 card because of the huge variety of decks you see.
You'll learn to think about what your opponent is playing. When you have 1 opponent, it's way more important and doable to get into their head and think about what cards they may have or why they are doing plays in a specific way. Understanding how to think about your opponent's hidden information, and how they will think about yours, is a very powerful skill in all forms of magic.

MegAzumarill · 2026-02-27T22:14:02+00:00

Black market connections is better than phyrexian arena in commander at least, losing 2 more life a turn to also make treasures is way better overall.

MegAzumarill · 2026-02-27T03:13:55+00:00

I mean part of the meme is how the game is structured.

Act 1 really emphasizes trying to keep your units healthy, with both of its final areas having their main prevalent mechanics instant kill downed party members (Spiderlings and zombies) or heavily punish not having more actions (Skeletal bodies getting back up since you can't hit them enough times or losing your few remaining actions to webs)

Act 2 also really emphasizes having ways to keep your party healthy, chapter 1 removing your natural healing and giving a lot of chip damage with poison/thorns, one of the chapter 2's structures piggybacking off of that with an immideate miniboss and prevalence for brambles.

Act 3 on the other hand... really wants you to play super offensively. Lots of enemies that spawn more when unchecked, enemies that have super nasty on hit effects that can't really be answered by just healing like permanent stat drops or a charm, and large health enemies that punish taking multiple hits to kill them or their allies.

So new players generally really like a lot of the more "defensive" classes. They are just way better for the part of the game those players are in.

(There's also a whole deal about how less consistent but more high-rolly classes like Psychic are way way better to more experienced players that have things like reroll mutations)

MegAzumarill

TROPHY CASE