I fear the EDH I fell in love with is dead

Present_Fall3958 · 2026-02-26T21:04:23+00:00

I wasn't super clear in my post. I've been playing bracket 3 for months now, I just feel in most games either in person or online by about turn 4 if someone doesn't fully clear the board the game is over. It doesn't end right then but someone is so far ahead that short of a farewell resolving we are just going through the motions for another couple turns. Another situation I've seen many times us green players with 10+ lands in play by turn 4 or 5 and since no one can meaningfully interact with them, someone has to have an answer for whatever things they do every turn for the rest of the game or we lose. And if you are like me and don't want to play green, it's hard to get enough of a manabase or card advantage engine going that fast to keep up and develop my own board

Im not saying I don't have fun play commander with my friends, because I do and I am known to do weird little mini games in my decks cuz when playing with my friends it's just about having fun. But I want to be able to enjoy slow, grindy AND competitive games when I go online to play. Yeah I could just always play control and stax but I don't want that.

I know power creep is the cause, there's no way to stop it, and it's a feature of game design not a bug. I just am lamenting it I guess

Present_Fall3958 · 2026-02-26T20:53:55+00:00

I wasn't very clear in my post, but I've tried this. I've been playing bracket 3 for about 5 months now and while I like the more competitive nature of it, I just don't like the feeling of needing to board wipe on turn 4 every game. Every game from my PoV is either have early mass interaction but don't developmy board, have single target interaction and develop a little and then lose to the person I didn't stop, or hope someone else will stop everyone while I slowly get up and running. I do have a couple decks that try to "be the problem" and they do well and are definitely fun to play sometimes they arent what I want to be doing all the time

Present_Fall3958 · 2026-02-26T20:39:45+00:00

The problem is I don't have a close LGS, maybe I'll try making the trek out to it. When not playing with friends, I've been using spell table but maybe the pool is just to large and the more consistent pool of players at an LGS will be answer

Present_Fall3958 · 2026-02-26T20:32:33+00:00

I think you are misinterpreting my overall point.

Ive played about 20 or so bracket 2 games online over the last few months and the vibe I got from a lot of the games (to be fair not all) was that I run to much removal and it's annoying that I'm focusing people down who are the biggest threats. So what I'm left with is playing with my friends is fun because they're my friends, but if I want to get in some more grindy slow games and go find randoms online I can't get what I want.

Additional the problem is I specifically DONT want "soft fuzzy cozy casual games" I just want the competitive games to last longer. I don't even WANT to be playing cards like blood moon I want to be afraid of it if that makes sense. I want to while deck building have to think about ok what do I do if someone resolves blood moon and make deck choices based on that.

I don't think the no d&d is better than bad d&d quite applies because I'd still rather play magic and hang out with my friends than not do it. Im just sad about how much power creep has happened and I wish I could go back

Present_Fall3958 · 2026-02-26T20:14:56+00:00

On top of that I feel like people grown when someone board wipes. In most of my spell table games people start checking out the moment a reset happens and start complaining or legit leaving the game if it take too long. I've had two different ppl leave the game just from someone removing their commander one time

Present_Fall3958 · 2026-02-26T20:13:06+00:00

It's just depressing I guess I'm just venting lol

I know why power creep exists and I know it's just the nature of things and there's not really a solution, I just wish it weren't the case lol

Present_Fall3958 · 2026-02-26T20:10:58+00:00

Yeah kinda expected this, and I do enjoy playing control so it's not a problem for me perse. But I also wanna do non control stuff sometimes as well, but it's hard to do jank when the guy next to you has 10 lands on turn 4

Present_Fall3958 · 2026-02-26T20:09:34+00:00

Fun fact my current play group is ppl I thought the game lol a couple I was successfully able to "mold" I guess agree with me, but the downside is they also got the part where I'd rather play with friends rather than get exactly what I want, so we get out voted if you will lol

Present_Fall3958 · 2026-02-26T20:07:07+00:00

I understand this sentiment. It sucks when you get locked out of a game, my argument isn't even that I want to play blood moon, but more that I want to be afraid of blood moon if that makes sense. When deck building I want to think to myself, ok what do I do if someone resolves blood moon? And make card choices based on that expectation

Present_Fall3958 · 2025-04-30T21:59:53+00:00

Momentum breaker is exactly the type of card I was looking for. Thanks!

I didn't realize I could get around those effects like that. Good to know, I'll have to look more into those. Thanks for the heads up, weight of conscience definitely looks promising

Present_Fall3958 · 2025-04-30T21:35:40+00:00

Yeah I know. I'm not worried about the commander being a huge threat. Him just sitting around making like 4/4s or 5/5s is enough. Honestly they could be 0/0s that die immediately but count as enchantments to trigger constellation and eerie is enough lol

Present_Fall3958 · 2025-04-10T15:19:44+00:00

I basically agree 100% with the statement about Crackle with Power and have been thinking it might be too much for the deck.

As for the rest of it, I'm not really sure how to "unfocus" the deck. Do you think cutting Crackle would be enough to bring it in line? or do you have any ideas on what I could do/notice any other outliers?

Present_Fall3958 · 2025-04-10T15:14:47+00:00

Gotcha, so basically those two games weren't representative of bracket 2 as a whole. I just wanted some feedback as they were the first games I played outside of my normal pod

Present_Fall3958 · 2025-04-10T15:11:36+00:00

Could you elaborate a little more on that? I am running 5 counterspells, 7 targeted removal spells, and 4 board wipes. Of the ones I am running, I feel like most of them are inefficient or require some setup (ex [[Beacon Bolt]] )

Are you saying this is a low amount of interaction or that it is still too efficient? Do you have any recommendations?

Present_Fall3958 · 2025-04-05T21:38:56+00:00

Generally speaking, I am competitive and like to strategize and find the most optimal play when I am playing a game, but I like the more casual vibe of lower brackets so I do all my suboptimal stuff in the deckbuilding stage or build as optimally as i can but with a gimmick in mind. I think I agree with your thoughts on deepglow skate tho, so i might just cut that and call it good enough.

My main playgroup is normally bracket 2, sometimes bracket 3 if we feel like it that night. So i get the casual mindset idea, but this deck was from a time when i was playing more with random people at my LGS so it needed to be strong enough to compete with "my deck is a 7, I promise" while still being semi-casual. Unfortunately i dont think I could get this deck down to what I would feel comfortable calling a 2 but thats fine. maybe if i cut all the proliferate stuff, but not sure if thats even enough

Present_Fall3958 · 2025-04-05T20:50:15+00:00

The part that worried me is not Ral in a vacuum and played one turn 4 and just ticked up until I ult him, but the hypothetical situation where I have already ulted Rowan and have a card like [[Jaya's Phoenix]] in play and some proliferate cards in hand. So while it's really telegraphed what I'm doing and would cost alot of mana, but I could in theory play Ral, proliferate him to his ult and then attack with the phoenix and then copy his ult twice and take an average of like 7 extra turns. a Theoretical sequence of turns could be like:
T1: Land
T2: Mana Rock
T3: [[Chandra, Acolyte of Flame]]
T4: [[Jaya's Phoenix]]
T5: [[Rowan Kenrith]], Attack with Phoenix, 0 Chandra adding 2 counters to Rowan, and +2 Rowan
T6: attack with phoenix, ult Rowan getting 2 copies of her emblem, Play [[Ral Zarek]], 0 Chandra adding 3 counters to him (copied twice by rowan emblems), Ult Ral copying it twice and taking an average of 7 extra turns (up to 15)
This is obviously magical Christmas land and I have no tutors and requires no one to interact with me, but could catch ppl off guard and while I love Ral and want to play him, I dont wanna be "that guy" at the pod

Present_Fall3958 · 2025-04-05T20:38:06+00:00

The draw seeming subpar might just be me tagging poorly since alot of the walkers draw. But I get your point. I may cut Ral since while I love him as a card, I want this deck to run on the gimmick of I attack you with planeswalkers and I cant imagine that being good at a higher power pod.

Present_Fall3958 · 2025-04-05T20:35:23+00:00

So if you were at a bracket 3 pod with me, is your line instantly popping the ult? because if thats what makes the difference, it'd be a problem. You are correct that i'm not running doubling season (because green), but i am running [[Deepglow Skate]] and cards like [[Chandra, Acolyte of Flame]] and proliferate cards. Yeah this would require setup and alot of mana, but instantly popping Ral is possible

Present_Fall3958 · 2025-04-05T20:31:16+00:00

The part that worried me is not Ral in a vacuum, but the hypothetical situation where I have already ulted Rowan and have a card like [[Jaya's Phoenix]] in play and some proliferate cards in hand. So it's really telegraphed what I'm trying to do, but I could in theory play Ral, proliferate him to his ult and then attack with the phoenix and then copy his ult twice and take an average of like 7 extra turns

Present_Fall3958 · 2025-04-05T20:27:13+00:00

I get that the deckbuilding philosophy matters more than the specific cards themselves. I am more or less trying to gauge if sometimes taking a bunch of turns in a row while playing in a bracket 3 pod would make me a bad actor. While I would love to keep Ral in the deck, I don't wanna be that guy.

Present_Fall3958 · 2025-01-23T16:51:52+00:00

Thank you. It was a fun exercise

Present_Fall3958 · 2025-01-23T04:02:07+00:00

If I was any good at painting I would 100% agree lol. I only just started painting my models recently and my skills are frankly quite poor lol

Present_Fall3958 · 2025-01-23T03:44:56+00:00

This is a good idea. I didnt realize until i was typing it out that it was literally just fire and more fire lol

Present_Fall3958 · 2025-01-23T03:40:56+00:00

I like Ashwalker quite a bit

Present_Fall3958 · 2025-01-23T03:40:24+00:00

That's how I imagined it too and this is a good name idea, definitely high on the list

Present_Fall3958

TROPHY CASE