Spirit of EDH

[Oversoul]

Yesterday I took apart my EDH deck. There's already a thread in the Decks forum stating this, but I used the parts to start a new Canadian Highlander deck, so it's not for nothing. But I do have some reservations about this and I started a new thread here in the General forum because my issue goes beyond that one deck...

I first set out to build a Dredge-based deck for EDH back when I wrote the original "The Storm Count" article in early 2014. At that time, Karador, Ghost Chieftain seemed to be by far the strongest option for a commander in a deck attempting to do "Dredge stuff." I built it, tested it, and had it ready to go for an event I was planning to attend in May of that year, but then I got a new job and had to cancel that plan. And it would be almost another full year before I got to sit down with the deck at a real table across from real opponents with their own real decks and actually play some EDH.

Shadows over Innistrad saw this deck using The Gitrog Monster for more Dredge shenanigans and I rechristened the deck "Gitrog County Municipal Lake Dredge Appraisal." Then I continued to refine the deck more. The "official" unbanning of Protean Hulk enticed me to focus even more on infinite combos via sacrifice loops. And I was essentially running a kind of Pattern Rector deck reminiscent of Legacy in the heyday of Reveillark. But I was also still running the Dredge package.

I promise I'm coming to a point here. Over the years, this deck used some pretty cool tricks, all based on the premise that I'd load my graveyard up with Dredge cards. For a while, even before the big update I made to the deck (including Protean Hulk), I was noticing that I found lines of play in which I had access to a sacrifice outlet and creatures that could abuse it, preferably for an infinite loop, to be more successful than the Dredge-based stuff I'd originally been going for. A gigantic Spider Spawning or Lord of Extinction is cool, but looping Reveillark and Karmic Guide to acquire the "Trike and Mike" combo for infinite damage wins more games. And so, in adjusting this deck, I came to a kind of crossroads. My "sacrifice loops" like stuff from Pattern Rector decks were powerful, as was pretty much any other means by which the deck could "go infinite" (like Trike and Mike). My Dredge package had some synergy with these concepts, but also precluded the tools that a dedicated infinite combo deck would use to make itself even more formidable. I was approaching, and in the end possibly arrived at, a point where I had pushed the "infinite combo package" about as far as I could while still maintaining a relevant "Dredge package."

So I was kinda stuck, when it came to my primary EDH deck. But that wasn't the sole impetus for taking it apart. Like I said, I wanted to try a new Canadian Highlander deck. There were other factors too. Most players I know who have been at this a long time build and deconstruct multiple decks but have one "pet deck" for EDH, something special. And I could see myself doing that, but not with this deck. I've been pondering a few different concepts to work on for EDH. But when I think about the format, I run into a larger-scale version of the same conflict I had with Gitrog County Municipal Lake Dredge Appraisal...

The ostensible "spirit of the format" in EDH is brought up a lot: it's supposed to be this ultimate casual-fun-social-casual-fest that isn't broken or competitive. Online, when I see someone complain about a broken card, the default response seems to be "If it's a problem for your playgroup, ban it within your playgroup" along with "If people are trying to break the game, they'll find a way to, but that's not the spirit of the format." Well, the spirit may be one thing, but after having observed EDH being played in numerous venues, the reality of the format seems to be that EDH is loaded with infinite combos and everyone is trying to kill everyone else in one fell swoop. I can't really blame people: the format lends itself toward that! You take a card pool of everything in Magic's history, you only ban a few cards (most of which are not even good), you give everyone 40 life (so they have a buffer against aggro decks), you give everyone 1oo-card decks and restrict everything but basic lands (so engine-based decks and such are unlikely to work), but you allow players to use every tutor ever (except Gifts Ungiven) and give everyone a 100% reliable access to a single legendary creature. Well, it turns out that's a formula to make the best decks be the ones that attempt to assemble broken one-two punch combos out of functionally similar cards, tutors, and some utility in using a commander to set this up. Does it go against the spirit of the format? Sure, but it seems like every group of EDH players arrives at one of two points.

1. Experienced/enfranchised players deliberately build inferior decks to keep things "fair" for their newer/poorer friends. If there are enough experienced/enfranchised players, they might impose further limits on themselves like banning commanders that win too much, splitting their decks between competitive decks they play against each other and nerfed decks they play against other people, or setting up other barriers. One of the playgroups I saw recently imposed a total deck value of $150 as a limit on deck construction.
2. Everything devolves into all players at the table trying to win with an infinite combo or with something that presents a reasonable facsimile of one. While infinite combos are popular, there are other approaches that aren't technically infinite combos but achieve the same aim of being able to kill everyone else: ramping into big armies of big creatures, locking down the game with some sort of prison combo, deploying and protecting an alternate win condition, etc.

To reiterate: I'm not blaming players for letting this happen. It's a natural consequence of the environment. If I am playing against three or four other people and we all have 40 life, it's much more likely that I'll be able to win by building my deck to do something broken (often an infinite combo, but not necessarily limited to that) and kill all of them at once than by trying to do run-of-the-mill stuff and win out in a prolonged battle through some combination of offense and defense. And once that realization sets in, if everyone in the group is doing that same thing, it's a positive feedback loop. Even if I can kill one guy who is trying to win with an infinite combo by beating him down with my army of tribal cats or whatever, the player next to him might set up an infinite combo and win the game. And if that doesn't happen, the next player might wipe the board and play a combo that keeps all of use from being able to play stuff. And if that doesn't happen, the next player might create a whole bunch of tokens, give them all +X/+X (where X is some large number), and attack all of us for lethal damage on the same turn. And so it goes. There's "stuff that wins" and "stuff that does other, non-winning things." If I'm the only one playing "stuff that wins" I have the best chance of winning (unless everyone else at the table knows this and works to stop me). And if other people are playing "stuff that wins" then I'd better do it too, or I have the worst chance of winning.
So I've had a few different ideas for possible EDH decks I'd like to try, but I keep running into this dilemma. How do I square the spirit of the format with what seems to be the reality? I know this has run a little long, but I didn't want to make an article out of it because I really do want this to be a discussion. I'm honestly torn as to how to proceed with this stuff.

 

[Spiderman]

I think it depends on your actual play setting or group (kind of). If you're going into the game without knowing the players beforehand, assume the goal is to kill as fast as possible via the infinite combo or whatever. If you've been playing with these people for a while and know what kind of decks they're playing (in this case, infinite combo or not), then bring whatever deck suits the group.

Like the other thread talked about a few weeks ago, it's all about expectation. The first situation is not knowing any expectations so just bring your deck to win that suits your style (or not, if you don't mind losing and want to see how your deck might perform against "fast" decks) and the second situation is kind of setting the expectations beforehand.

 

[Oversoul]

I think it depends on your actual play setting or group (kind of). If you're going into the game without knowing the players beforehand, assume the goal is to kill as fast as possible via the infinite combo or whatever. If you've been playing with these people for a while and know what kind of decks they're playing (in this case, infinite combo or not), then bring whatever deck suits the group.

Like the other thread talked about a few weeks ago, it's all about expectation. The first situation is not knowing any expectations so just bring your deck to win that suits your style (or not, if you don't mind losing and want to see how your deck might perform against "fast" decks) and the second situation is kind of setting the expectations beforehand.

I actually think this is pretty solid advice and is kind along the same lines as one approach I was thinking of, which was basically just "built different decks tuned to different power levels." It's a kind of brute force solution to a tricky problem that might not be solved any other way.

Of course, I don't mind losing. I think a relatively more benign deck as a lead in a completely unknown environment would be better than just coming in with the big guns.

 

[Spiderman]

I think a relatively more benign deck as a lead in a completely unknown environment would be better than just coming in with the big guns.

Heh, yes, it depends on what kind of first impression you want to make with others