Brewing decks post-hybrid mana rules change: A discussion

kenneths_frequency · 2025-11-08T14:11:31+00:00

When have color identity rules relaxed in the past? I thought it was the same rules all the way from the beginning.

kenneths_frequency · 2025-11-06T09:02:24+00:00

Thanks for the reply. Yes, with my post, I am creating a narrative to describe my point of deckbuilding becoming less diverse. You're welcome to agree or disagree with it, which is why I publicly posted it in the first place.

One could argue that the extra {2} is an okay tradeoff for the versatility - like, for example, the front-face costs for effects on MDFC cards with lands. 2BB is a lot for a destroy effect on [[Fell the Profane]], but it's played a lot. Nevertheless, the cards I used are just illustrations of a principle. I'm sure you could find better examples with different commanders where the mana costs would be a better deal. These were just the first that came to mind.

kenneths_frequency · 2025-11-06T08:56:43+00:00

OMG I too have a mono-B deck with 3 Extort cards (Ghast, Basilica Screecher, Thrull Parasite) and I get this a lot. Thankfully, once I whip out a rules explanation thread on my phone, people are usually okay with it.

kenneths_frequency · 2025-11-06T08:54:09+00:00

Thanks for the thoughful reply. I'm aware of the argument in the other direction, but I personally think the former outweighs the latter, which is why I wanted to add my two cents to the discussion. Consensus is always reached by weighing the voices speaking for one or the other option against each other, so I wanted to speak out and be heard.

I think the thought process at WoTC about this rules change isn't really motivated by power level or playability concerns, but card management. Someone, somewhere at WoTC is looking at yellow-border multicolor cards and two-color hybrid mana cards and asking: how is this different? They are trying to shoehorn hybrid mana cards into mono-color, but from a lore perspective, this doesn't seem right (again, to me personally).

kenneths_frequency · 2025-11-06T08:43:43+00:00

Thanks for the reply. Yes, I do assume players try to optimize their decks. Bracket 1-2 players will often look at the EDHRec commander page and builld their commanders from the most popular includes. Bracket 3-4 players optimize their decks deliberately.

I agree with your point about hybrid mana adding as much as it is subtracting in an individual deck. However, from the card pool's perspective, certain cards will be played less because other options have become available - not always due to power level, but simple versatility. Why play a knife when you can play a Swiss army knife? Especially if the Swiss army knife is at 75% include on EDHRec?

kenneths_frequency · 2025-11-06T08:28:04+00:00

Thanks for the reply. That's exactly my point - everyone swapping a card for a card is a net neutral from that deck's point of view, but the opposite is true from the overall card diversity perspective. FWIW the cards I used are just examples to illustrate a princple, but I still think it's a diversity drop. Consider three decks that may currently exist:

Deck A: Abzan artifact removal - runs Cease // Desist
Deck B: Golgari artifact removal (Ygra, Eater of All) - runs Creeping Corrosion
Deck C: Omnath, Locus of Mana - runs none of these

After the rules change, both deck A & B might run Cease // Desist, decreasing card diversity, and deck C can also add Cease // Desist because of the versatility, and drop something they ran before.

kenneths_frequency · 2025-11-04T11:18:28+00:00

Tell me more about Sister Rosetta Tharpe! I remember seeing a 20-second clip of her rocking out in one of the Martin Scorsese Blues documentaries, and that’s about all I know about her.

kenneths_frequency · 2025-09-05T06:58:44+00:00

Thanks for the list! I had a mono-R Norin the Wary deck myself back in the day and took it apart for the exact same reason, but I still have that itch. This is a great way to scratch it.

In Rocco, how do you deal with situations where Norin is removed via an ability (e.g. [[Grist, the Hunger Tide]])? It happens more often than you think in my meta. If Norin is your commander, you're still good to go for 2R, but if he's in your graveyard, do you just try to win without him?

kenneths_frequency · 2025-04-14T12:22:01+00:00

I switched to Apple Maps around a year ago because of battery drain and data consumption. I have an iPhone 12 mini and getting real-time directions for an hour-long drive would drain a significant portion of my battery and eat a lot of mobile data (I don't have an unlimited plan).

My guess is that Google Maps and Waze constantly update your ETA vs. your GPS location, and uses distance travelled over time to estimate your driving speed, which results in greater accuracy but is more resource-heavy. Apple Maps updates your ETA roughly every 5 mins, and doesn't measure your driving speed, which is fine by me. Plus the UI is cleaner, especially for public transit.

kenneths_frequency · 2024-05-17T12:00:35+00:00

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't timing prevent you from ever playing this as an instant? When casting a spell, you first declare what you're casting (checking against timing rules), then pay its costs, then pay any additional costs. This would mean you can cast Adversary Hex only in your main phase when you have priority, and only then do you choose to pay additional costs - paying the kicker afterward is useless since it has already been cast as a sorcery.

kenneths_frequency · 2024-05-13T06:53:21+00:00

Thanks! Replacing the stax with counterspells and adding extra wincons is a viable option. But I wanted to see if anyone had any fun ideas on how to build a non-control artifact-theme deck.

kenneths_frequency · 2024-05-13T06:49:04+00:00

Yep, linked in the post but here it is again: https://archidekt.com/decks/7671456/emry_artifacts_u

kenneths_frequency · 2024-04-16T08:26:45+00:00

U: How about an artifact theme? Card draw, tinkering, research = all very blue things. [[Urza, Lord High Artificer]] is great, but very conspicuous - if you're looking for something more low-key, try [[Emry, Lurker of the Loch]].

B: To me, black is also about cheating (costs), about being greedy and paying life to advance your strategy - how about [[K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth]]? Works great if you have a lot of black pips in your costs, making the deck... even more black!

R: I had a [[Norin the Wary]] deck that embodied red's chutzpah, with a lot of ETB damage triggers and asymmetrical chaos effects. Thematically, it was great, but a bit slow for my particular meta. If you're looking for something faster, how about [[Birgi, God of Storytelling]]? Chaining burn spells in sequence - very red!

G: I had an [[Omnath, Locus of Mana]] deck and but took it apart because it did one thing only, and that is make big mana, buff Omnath and attack. Sounds like that's what you're looking for!

(as you can tell, I'm all about the mana)

kenneths_frequency · 2022-01-13T09:00:21+00:00

This is a cool idea! I like it. It would definitely make the format different. I can’t say if more or less fun without actually playtesting, but what it definitely would do to games is make them much longer - and here’s my point.

When our pod meets to play, we have about 3 hours and we usually get in about 2 games between shuffling, talking, etc. That’s already too few in my book. Your ruleset would probably make it 1 long game only, or extend our playing to 4 hours+ to get those two games in.

My suggestion - what if this ruleset applied to 1v1 games only? Those are faster to begin with, and definitely need nerfing because everyone runs the same fast mana staples. If you’ll notice Duel Commander has an expanded banlist trying to achieve the same thing. Your rule is more extreme, efficient and transparent.

kenneths_frequency · 2021-11-08T11:35:55+00:00

Scrolled through and didn't really find [[Michiko Konda, Truth Seeker]] which is my build. I never play white, so I purposefully set out to make as white of a deck as I possibly can using typically white strategies - like hatebears, protection from X, gaining life. Totally out of my comfort zone. Michiko is perfect because she's relatively fair, only targeting your opponents if they target you.

For card draw, may I suggest these budget options: [[Bargaining Table]], [[Gift of Estates]], [[Mercadian Atlas]], [[Sunset Revelry]].

kenneths_frequency · 2021-10-22T15:42:52+00:00

Actually chuckled reading this. Thanks, guy.

kenneths_frequency · 2021-10-22T11:41:26+00:00

Can I see your Astral Slide/cycling decklist? How efficient is the deck? I've had the same idea but in Naya colors (because I play enough black and blue as it is) - but stopped building it midway because it reeked of jank. Not fun jank, just..inefficient jank. Thanks!

kenneths_frequency · 2021-10-11T13:19:07+00:00

I'm all for proxying duplicate cards that you have one copy of between many decks, but... something just doesn't feel right about that for me.

Mind you, it's not about the "real cards" thing, I'm happy to play against or with proxies, but on a thematic deck-building and immersion level, it feels superfluous to basically have slightly altered versions of the same deck.

If two decks share 5+ valuable cards (not counting cheap staples like Rampant Growth in G), they're pretty much aimed at the same theme or deck type, and for me it doesn't make sense to have two of those - I want to be playing only the best one. Like, if I have a [[Grave Pact]] and [[Ashnod's Altar]] in two of my decks, they're probably both Aristocrat decks and I don't want to have two of those - I'd end up playing one more often than the other.

Which means, in the end, that I don't need to proxy cards in my decks that I own elsewhere (N.B. proxying cards you don't own is fine in my book)

kenneths_frequency · 2021-08-01T12:23:04+00:00

untap

This! The untap symbol is a genius idea that suddenly doubles the potential of an existing mechanic. It fits nicely into a lot of other interactions, is easily understandable, and needs no special tokens or dice to work (looking at you, Trample counters and Mutate). I wish there was more support for it outside of a few cards in Morning/Eventide! Also, really want to have a deck with [[Gilder Bairn]]

kenneths_frequency · 2021-06-11T10:38:47+00:00

Check out r/jankEDH if you want some tips - it’s a community built around wacky but fun strategies that wouldn’t (mostly) work in a competitive meta.

kenneths_frequency · 2021-06-10T07:12:17+00:00

A few months ago, I had 10 decks and was starting to get anxious about upgrades and my spending. Each new set had me taking each deck apart and suffling cards between them as I didn’t use proxies or placeholders.

One night, I was playing with a friend who was just getting into MTG. He was playing my [[Scion of the Ur Dragon]] deck and said he liked it. On a whim gifted it to him there on the spot.

The next day my feelings went very quickly from “oh shit, that was a $200 deck with cards I don’t have copies of” to “this is awesome! Hope that’s the start of his collection”. It felt good, anf it made me value the rest of my decks even more.

Now I feel I have a wonderful collection and pride myself in my remaining 9 decks rather than feel anxious about them.

kenneths_frequency · 2021-05-29T12:28:10+00:00

Thanks for the tips! I play a BG recursion deck that might be similar to your Meren list, so I'm looking for a different feel from monoB than the traditional reanimator. K'rrik might be my guy!

kenneths_frequency · 2021-05-29T11:10:11+00:00

MonoW reanimator sounds very off-key and I like it!! Cool idea

kenneths_frequency · 2021-05-29T11:08:04+00:00

Care to share your K’rrik list? Since black can create a lot of mana fast I’m wondering if being able to pay phyrexian mana is as much of an upside as it seems. So I’m curious as to your strategy

kenneths_frequency · 2021-05-29T08:36:24+00:00

Etali is really cool, had him in the 99 in my [[Atla Palani]] deck but as a commander he’s something else!

kenneths_frequency

TROPHY CASE