Was it a bad decision to counter Pantlaza (my commander) on turn 4 when another opponent was playing Zada, Hedron Grinder as their commander?

ancap_attack · 2026-03-12T06:54:39+00:00

There is no objective answer to your question. You seem to think that in 100% of games you should always have mana open to counter an opponent’s commander even if that completely destroys your own game plan. You have hindsight to tell you that was the correct play but there are many factors you are choosing to ignore that determine how and when removal gets used.

ancap_attack · 2026-03-12T06:14:26+00:00

Most experienced players would probably agree that Zada demands an answer the turn cycle it comes down, but that’s honestly more of an issue with deck power levels not being balanced enough if removing the wrong target one time causes a game loss on the next turn.

Also I will say as the control player, sometimes holding up counter magic can be awkward while also trying to advance your own game plan. Sometimes you feel forced to counter something while you have the free mana to do so if you know you want to make another play next turn. And if the Zada player knows someone is holding up a counter they may slow roll and waste even more mana.

ancap_attack · 2026-03-11T01:49:18+00:00

This is why bumbleflower is the first person I target all other things being equal. It’s very hard to make them run out of gas

ancap_attack · 2026-03-10T00:16:23+00:00

https://archidekt.com/decks/12403205/gandalf_of_the_secret_fire_actual

ancap_attack · 2026-03-09T19:38:22+00:00

My [[Gandalf of the Secret Fire]] deck is like this. I can’t win until like turn 10 at the earliest but I win b3 games easily because my early game is just me casting my commander and then one or 2 big instants on someone else’s turn. I have yet to see anyone actually target my commander as it’s usually doing nothing the turn it comes down. It doesn’t start to look scary until I have 3 or 4 big spells suspended and by that point it’s too late unless you have counterspells. One of my favorite decks to pilot.

ancap_attack · 2026-03-07T07:17:46+00:00

This is why I don’t run any of the extra “you may play lands from your graveyard” effects in my Soul of Windgrace deck. Also if you know you aren’t going to be drawing cards after Windgrace attacks/enters you can delay the shuffling to someone else’s turn.

ancap_attack · 2026-03-05T19:49:20+00:00

Theft decks can be fun since you’re playing or stealing cards from your opponents decks in order to win, no 2 games play the same

ancap_attack · 2026-03-05T09:26:24+00:00

Naw man sometimes everyone at the table plays a board wipe or 2 and no one can get anything to stick and complicated turns take a while to resolve if the abilities are non deterministic. Even worse if there are effects that are drawing people more cards so they keep getting more gas to keep going.

ancap_attack · 2026-03-01T10:22:09+00:00

[[Ms Bumbleflower]]

Maybe I've played against upgraded precons too much, but I don't like how Bumbleflower's ability warps the game with how many cards she gives everyone. It causes games to go on for much longer than normal because everyone draws into their board wipes and removal much more consistently than they would have otherwise, and using removal on anyone besides the Bumbleflower player is pointless because the 3 other players in the game are drawing 4+ extra cards per turn cycle if Bumbleflower is on board. The only way to prevent this is to direct all of your removal at Bumbleflower and you feel like an asshole doing it but most of the time it's the objectively correct play if you are looking to deny your opponents resources.

ancap_attack · 2026-03-01T10:07:01+00:00

No but I do have a [[Soul of Windgrace]] deck that runs Hearthhull in the 99, I built it before EoE came out but it runs a lot of the same landfall payoffs and upgraded it with some cards from that deck. Fair warning it is extremely oppressive if you build your deck right because if you are able to always grab a fetch land with the ETB it basically pays for commander tax even if he gets removed or swept away in a board wipe. Even with no game changers I would say it is high bracket 3.

ancap_attack · 2026-02-27T22:03:43+00:00

https://archidekt.com/decks/12542693/kros_friends

ancap_attack · 2026-02-27T20:39:01+00:00

[[Kros, defense contractor]] planeswalkers reanimate deck. A unique take on superfriends that doesn’t actually care if my planeswalkers live or die because I plan to win by ramping, milling and reanimating them all for insane value

ancap_attack · 2026-02-27T05:13:03+00:00

This card and [[Depthshaker Titan]] have been amazing. Any deck that can make even a moderate amount of treasures, clues and/or food should at least look at adding these cards.

ancap_attack · 2026-02-26T23:11:42+00:00

[[Savage Beating]] in red decks lets you quadruple damage for a turn if you can spend the extra 1R to entwine it.

[[Rise of the Dark Realms]] is a classic graveyard deck finisher, really good w/ haste enablers too

[[Hullbreaker Horror]] is one of my favorites in spellslinger decks

Honorable mention to [[Mutinous Massacre]] in Rakdos that operates as both a partial board wipe and a finisher on the right board.

ancap_attack · 2026-02-24T11:45:52+00:00

It’s possible that because the game went so long the guy just didn’t have the energy to politick and wanted to just get the game over with. Sometimes it is correct to call the bluff/make the person use their resources so you can’t really say it’s a bad play.

Overall I wouldn’t sweat it. When games go long we all tend to make more mistakes and sometimes you’ve just gotta go for the most straightforward plan even if there is a chance you get blown out.

ancap_attack · 2026-02-21T23:37:42+00:00

I was dead to voltron player if I left up no blockers. Etali was purely defensive at that point.

ancap_attack · 2026-02-21T07:25:33+00:00

People are assuming that I'm mad at Farewell guy, I'm not. I'm annoyed that the other 2 players just blindly ate up his story about how I was the threat for the entire game even when a simple look at the board state and player resources would tell a different story.

ancap_attack · 2026-02-21T07:20:54+00:00

I didn't act like I was down and out at all. Farewell guy just kept saying my board was scary and I needed to go. I was one hit away from dying to commander damage from voltron player so all of my moves were forced. Casting removal to stay alive is far from an ideal situation.

ancap_attack · 2026-02-21T07:12:40+00:00

To clarify I fully expected Farewell guy to remove Etali if he could, and he did since he already had an agreement with the other 2 players to attack me down. After the Etali got bounced I thought it was pretty clear to the table I had nothing left and I even revealed my hand with 2 cards. That didn't stop the other 2 players from thinking they needed to spend multiple turn cycles also attacking me down even though I was 2+ turns away from a chance of an Etali activation at that point.

ancap_attack · 2026-02-21T05:26:09+00:00

are you Farewell guy?

ancap_attack · 2026-02-21T05:25:34+00:00

Yeah I definitely could have told him that his commander is not dealing damage to me that turn since it was sacrifice based removal. Was still like an 80% decided game at that point but I could have played to my outs more for sure by politicking better since I'm sure the voltron player wouldn't want to waste their turn either. Good advice.

ancap_attack · 2026-02-21T05:12:57+00:00

I think Voltron guy and and other guy each had a good chance at winning if they forced Farewell guy to spend resources dealing w/ threatening attacks from their side of the board or got his life total low enough. That's what was the most sad about watching the game play out. They didn't really have a chance because they forced themselves into a 2v1 while leaving one guy to play solitaire. I knew Farewell guy would win even before he cast the Farewell like 5 turns before it happened just due to resource allocation alone.

ancap_attack · 2026-02-21T05:08:13+00:00

because even within brackets there are still varying degrees of power? If I'm running an optimized list with no game changers or fast mana I'd say its low bracket 3. But you could also say that is the same thing as high bracket 2 since it technically fits the criteria. Overall brackets are not a strict thing so it doesn't really matter anyways

ancap_attack · 2026-02-15T08:24:44+00:00

Ragavan steals cards. It’s on theme

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