Commander "Would You Rather?" | EDHRECast 306

Stax or chaos? Land destruction or extra turns? Matt and Joey play an EDH "Would You Rather" with some of Commander's saltiest subjects!
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[@Agaures]

"Prose and cons" is an AMAZING joke, Matt.

[@chumbogrosso5133]

As a non-native speaker it took me a while to get that. Exactly what he was hoping for. 11/10 joke

[@gilliganallmighty3]

​@@chumbogrosso5133 perfect 5/7

[@Kryptnyt]

The Prose and Cons of Tarkir, of course.

[@Barloq133IC2S]

Truly captivating joke there ;p

[@Molker]

As a non-native speaker I still don't get it 😔

[@raonair]

I really wish we could also have had Dana's perspective in this episode

[@praisetherok3299]

For the Eminence Vs Cheating Tax, I feel like Eminence is such an underused mechanic where instead of giving you an insane ability like Egdar, Why not give us an insane commander with a downside like your maximum handsize at the start of the game is 4 but you draw 2 at your draw step or all your lands enter taps but taps for double kind of thing

[@Onattamato]

I feel like they really nailed the appropriate power level for Sidar Jabari - needs to be built around a tribe to get the eminence thing that's just looting and can only happen once a turn

[@muffin8r]

I would love to see them experiment more in the design space of commanders that impose a deckbuilding restriction like you’re suggesting. Sort of like the companion restrictions, but toned down in intensity

[@mega-flare]

Yeah, Eminence is a pretty good design space, though people might hate it if they power creep and all legends need Eminence abilities, but used sparingly there are many interesting things they could do. Commander creatures are like playable characters anyway, and true passive abilities could be an interesting space, especially if they involve restrictions.

[@Benevolent_sociopath]

I agree on the underused part, however, it's a very dangerous mechanic to mess with. Your examples show exactly that, as both of them are insanely powerful, matching that if not stronger than Edgar and urdragon. No shade, since it's probably off the top of your head. But yea eminence is very cool and one of my favourite mechanics, though it is something to be tinkered with very carefully 😄

[@mega-flare]

@@Benevolent_sociopath It can be designed responsibly, but that's hard to do when Magic has tens of thousands of cards competing against each other. Eminence is indeed dangerous, and could warp EDH if managed irresponsibly... as we have witnessed, of course. Mostly because they feel the need to make every card (especially legendaries) "win more" / all-upside. Downsides are a much more important part of card design than anyone gives credit to.

[@robboomsma6739]

You should create youtube polls to see what your viewers think of these choices!

[@joshmountain9705]

Re: Eminence Vs Tax Fraud: Eminence is by far my favoured of the two. The main reason is that it has significantly more design space being a mechanic and not the result of one. While the examples we have now are pushed and widely considered a mistake there are so many ideas left unexplored with Eminence. One thing I'd love is a Eminence ability that sets up for when the creature enters the field. That way removing the commander stops the part of the effect you're worried about.

[@Antare5]

On the subject of cheating commander tax, I would at least be *interested* in things like Liesa, Shroud of Dusk where instead of paying mana for commander tax, you have to pay something else. There are only so many other things I feel would be a reasonable other cost to supplant commander tax, but I at least find that interesting.

[@construct8295]

Yeah or something like you can discard a card or sacrifice a permanent to pay for each 2 mana for the tax

[@Controlqueen31]

​@@construct8295 Dargo is precisely that and IS so "strong" because of that last part. Discarding cards? Maybe ok Sacrifice permanents? BIG NO

[@Commander_Claw]

Camp Fire is a great card to avoid commander tax and paying anything else. Players don’t really look for other effects like that. It’s a great card for Gishath dinosaur decks! Your welcome

[@swolegolisopod7340]

​@Controlqueen31 dargo is different in that he counts all the creatures/artifacts sacced that turn. They were suggesting saccing a creature for each previous cast every time you cast it which would quickly become unwieldy if you tried playing it like dargo

[@yoricktop8649]

Counterpoint to stick together: I play it in my party deck, and opponents surprisingly often have about 2 party members. It has never been a 1 sided board wipe for me

[@ss3nm0dn4r8]

yeah those creature types are super common for non tribal decks

[@robertburns22]

@49:03 hahahaha "Who hurt you, Joey?" Immediate response: "ahhh"

[@_savvi3_]

The cheating cmd tax I feel is more fair when it's like "this costs X less for Y variable"

[@Kryptnyt]

More Emry and Dargo?

[@Rice_Spicee]

@@KryptnytI'm fine with Emry, but Dargo is so disgusting hahaha

[@NateFinch]

Ghalta Stampede Tyrant and The Pride of Hull Clade are super fair. It's not an automatic reduction, you have to earn it with stuff in play. Or, whatever the Orzhov one where you pay 2 life instead of 2 mana...slightly less fair, but at least it's not just nothing.

[@jacquesdespadas]

@@NateFinchI play Liesa (Shroud of Dusk) and can confirm that the 2 life per cast can get steep without sufficient other sources of life gain to counteract it. She gets targeted hard because the (symmetrical) 2 life per spell is a real cost that people just don’t want to pay. I’ve had games in which I lost access to her because of that. She’s really not in the same class as Yuriko or Derevi.

[@dougclendening5896]

I think they did it best with liesa and marath.

[@ACertainGuy0]

I speak as someone who plays Tergrid intentionally, and I've found the way to make playing against her not completely unbearable: Group Hug. Yes, you read that correctly. Group Hug. The Idea is this: Make everyone mass draw as much as possible, then let the opponent choose what they want to discard instead of hand ripping them. They have the full control to decide what they give you (if anything, remember that Tergrid can only steal permanents, if you pitch an instant/sorcery she gets nothing!). If you try to dump your hand of creatures/artifacts/enchantments, then you have the removal for some of that (creatures mostly, remember black isnt exactly great at artifact/enchantment removal). So yes, Im still packing those mass sacrifice spells because I do eventually try to win with everyone elses stuff, but Im not trying to stop you from playing the game, Its the opposite: I want you to play MORE for fear of having to discard it yourself and give it to me completely cost free.

[@drew-id]

I like the take. I wanted to do background tribal with the new Jodah.... But much like your deck.... I feared no one would trust me when I say calm down guys.

[@richardjohnson8991]

I played Sheoldred the apocalypse as a combo deck using sheoldred for sustainability and a secondary wincon. It was not the forced draw deck everyone thought it was and it was still a generally miserable experience for everyone else if they didn't keep it off the field constantly. I took the thing apart because it was such a hated commander regardless of the spin I put on it to move away from the core idea of the card. Some things are just broken no matter what you do with them

[@TeaHauss]

The Percy Jackson show is actually very good, close to the books with some fun additions, I recommend Edit: as for ward, I'd prefer more ward 1 or enters with shield counters, and treasures can exist as long as they enter tapped and are on more mana expensive cards and/or non-permanents non-repeatable effects

[@drew-id]

Top comment imo

[@zdayzllc]

One downside to Anzrag's Rampage, the remainder of the exiled cards, would remain in exile. If X was a large number you would lose access to a considerable portion of your deck.

[@petesalzl1]

Was just gonna say this. If I'm your opponent and I've got ten treasures etc, I'd let them get destroyed so you exile extra cards

[@daneburke6592]

Maybe if you’re a combo deck that relies on specific cards to combo off this is rough but if you’re just a deck full of synergistic cards it’s not that big of a deal

[@zdayzllc]

@@daneburke6592 I have a lot of food/clue/treasure tokens in our play ground, its not combo, its just dangerous when there are 30+ artifact tokens on the table

[@andrueurbane7361]

Voja is clearly designed to be a changeling commander... [shivers]

[@51gunner]

From everything I've seen with Voja, the "wolf" part is not anywhere near as important as the "elf" part, and while you can go changelings to take advantage of both I think it detracts from all the elf synergies. Namely, elves that tap for mana to get Voja out faster, and elves that already synergize with more elves. I wouldn't give those up just to have more draw for a changeling in play that draws an extra card relative to an elf. I consider changelings for creature types that aren't super well supported but elves are among the best supported. You don't need to kick out an elf with an A+ ability to get a C- changeling for typal support. Not to say that something like Maskwood Nexus isn't good, but I think it's just stronger as Elfball & the wolf in the command zone.

[@andrewb378]

@@51gunner Yeah the Voja elfball deck is *so* good. I threw one together in like 15 minutes while they were talking about it and it's so consistent to get Voja out turn 3 where ward 3 is just backbreaking. Most decks are playing like land go, land talisman go, land commander, but voja is going land dork, land dork dork, land voja dork. It's so fast and asking an opponent to take their entire turn 4 to play a swords on someone else's commander feels bad, but voja decks have so much ramp that they'll almost certainly just be able to cast voja next turn again anyway. Also want to point out that ward 3 doesn't prevent people from running protection. It feels bad to pay 6 to beast within a voja, it feels *really* bad to pay 6 to *not* beast within a voja.

[@51gunner]

@@andrewb378 Oh yeah. Voja on turn 3 is so, so doable for a green deck full of elves. Voja on 4 is basically guaranteed - if it can't get Voja on 4 the deck is just built wrong. I think the counterplays to Voja are to bolt the birds (don't let them keep the elves that both ramp it AND add counters for each), be in a controlly deck that doesn't mind running a ton of wraths, or hold up a counterspell on the turn you know it's coming. Without those, the pure exponential power spam of elfball on steroids is going to run over anything. I think it'll even outrun Slivers.

[@andrewb378]

@@51gunner it definitely outruns slivers. I still don't know if counterspells are enough though. Like if Voja goes before me, I can't play a talisman turn 2, I have to hold up counterspell mana for Voja. And if Voja goes after me I can't use turn 3 to play my commander, I have to hold up mana for a counterspell. In both scenarios, Voja is likely able to recast next turn anyway. Because I have to assume they can recast, I can't progress my board even if Voja doesn't come down next turn. It's just such a brutal commander.

[@Unyubaby]

After listening to this, I started making a Voja deck that's all wolves with just 3 Elves all named Tolsimir because of the lore connection.

[@imawhalearoo]

“If you just slam a winter orb down I’m gonna be like ‘yo what is this? What is the game we are playing?’” *looks at Urza* *sweats profusely*

[@evandill]

To the stax vs chaos debate: "Chaos is Stax for people who think they're quirky" - Tomer, 2023

[@dyne313]

WRONG!

[@thechaotimagnet]

I guess the way to get around ward while still making those cards interactable would be something like "This spell can't be countered by permanents". So counter spells would still work, but when ward tries to counter the kill spell it would still go through.

[@guyatanosavia8487]

I don't mind stax decks. If my deck is strong enough in interaction then I can keep up most of the time. There's a puzzle there and they usually have an end-game in mind: a wincon. Chaos decks feed on not working towards a win. They usually take longer because of this and the rules being a headache, and resolving every single spell takes a million years and trading cards hoping they don't get bent by other players. And here's the thing: the better/more synergistic your deck is compared to other peoples, the less likely you are to win. Because your strategy is both being dismantled and also being given to other people.

[@ty_sylicus]

I can't believe Voja gives +1/+1 counters instead of a static +X/+X until end of turn! That's bonkers!!

[@mfsoab]

Your take on infect surprised me! Around here, almost everybody hates infect decks, but has no problem with taking the L through Triumph of the hordes. Nobody really wants to have to race against a gazillion infect/toxic/poison and proliferate sources from tun 1 or 2 on. Taking a hit with Triumph almost always is perceived as any other overrun-like effect and more often than not the combat damage would have done pretty much the same without the infect, but the +1 and Trample was neccessary to push enough through to the dome.

[@shorewall]

I feel like Poison just needs to be adjusted for Commander. As well as all cards that reference life totals. They were designed for a 20 life format. 10 Poison in Commander is like 5 poison in 20 life formats.

[@coreyroberson4550]

On cheating commander tax, you also have Liesa, Shroud of Dusk, which rather than eliminating tax altogether, it changes what you pay. I feel like this could have interesting design space. Sacrificing permanents is an obvious route, but what if there were a commander that said "Rather than pay {2} for each previous time you’ve cast this spell from the command zone this game, donate that many permanents to an opponent."

[@ComstarAgent]

Sacrificng permanents already exists with Dargo the Shipwrecker

[@coreyroberson4550]

@@ComstarAgent Totally forgot about that card. Don't think I've ever actually seen it in play.

[@vincent-antoinesoucy1872]

Voja could have been ''when ETB or attack, if you control an elf, +1+1 counter on all your creature, if you control another wolf, draw a card'' They just put too much on cards.

[@steelstiletto]

Disagree that Anzrag's Rampage is an easy swap-in for Vandalblast. Every card exiled other than the creature chosen stay in exile. So you can easily be setting yourself up for failure, by exiling key strategy pieces.

[@mfsoab]

Came here to say exactly that! Potentially loosing tens of cards into exile and the possibility of hitting some dork, or no creature at all, seems not really worth it. Vandalblast could at least get rid of the most problematic piece on the board when the artifact count is high, but not all of them are really problematic.

[@tefin420]

Love seeing challenge the challenge the stats 😂

[@Orengi-kun]

I think the big problem you were seeing in the Eminence vs Cheating tax is that the examples you were presenting about Derevi and Yuriko were the most egregious. I think the main problem with both of these commanders is that you can just cheat them with Activated Abilities, which means you can put them into play even if they get killed immediately (for example if you attack with multiple unblocked creatures in Yuriko's case). I think if you make them Triggered abilities or restrict the activation to some sort of "quest" that is difficult to achieve then that could be an interesting design space (for example, you can cheat them for an alternative cost if your opponents milled 20 or more cards this turn only once per turn, whenever you attack with 6 or more creatures, if you had 4 or more creatures die this turn, etc).

[@90kalos1]

A lot of this can be boiled down to agency. The most annoying things are the ones that take away your agency in a game or prevent you from playing

[@jaredcrawford923]

This is it, I have a friend who is a great deck builder, but some of his decks are just so oppressive if he gets ahead. One is build entirely around deathtouch pingers so basically you cant play a single creature without it being insta-killed, another is build around admiral beckett brass with so many evasive pirates that your good stuff gets stolen the turn you play it. It basically makes me not want to play any cards for the whole game once he gets any kind of board presence or lead. If I don't top deck a board wipe the game is over 5 turns before it actually ends.

[@90kalos1]

@@jaredcrawford923 one of my friends has a "steal your stuff deck", it's not even that strong of a deck and I can beat it more often than not. It's just really annoying to play against

[@jaredcrawford923]

i think everyone has an archetype that they hate playing against, theft is definitely mine lol @@90kalos1

[@Controlqueen31]

​@@90kalos1 especially when those decks get into "stealing mode" quickly. For example, a Gonti deck can be OK or even bad. But, if it hits sol ring turn 1 you are going to have a hard time if you are the first targeted player. You may say that a lot of decks do that, but steal decks, if they go wide in the early game, is not fun for the player that is going to get targeted more

[@shayneweyker]

Ward is intended as an answer to the problem of 1cc creature removal like plow/path/pongify making key expensive creatures bad and making lightning greaves necessary in most decks. If players move away from 1cc removal that now costs 3+ to different removal like (highest-cc) edict and mass removal/neutralization then key higher mana cost creatures get more playable (and lightning greaves worse). It's kind off like opposition agent and aven mindcensor answering the problem of too many tutors/fetches.

[@alexzavoluk2271]

I actually agree with y'all on eminence; there are definitely knobs that can be tweaked. It's not great game design, but something like Arahbo or Oloro is just so inoffensive. Triumph of the hordes isn't usually what "infect" brings to mind IMO. That's often the only infect card in the deck, and yes, it's just an overrun (or some decks play, like, blightsteel colossus and a haste enabler, but again it's the only infect in the deck). I generally dislike the "put 1 infect counter on everyone then proliferate a bunch" which I think is more common, and I think this is often like the combo decks that Matt describes, and are very tough to interact with for most decks. In the middle are infect decks like they describe that consistently play infect creatures, although I think those decks' play patterns are also not great. I would rather play against a combo, as long as it can be interacted with on the board. If you have to have counterspells to not die, then yes, infect is preferred. The discussion of the type and speed of combos is very good as well--"combo" in most other magic formats primarily means "fast combo" but that's not always true, especially in EDH.

[@Tuss36]

I was also a bit amused by their seeming assumption that infect = Triumph/Blightsteel when there's a lot more cards than just that. Personally I would prefer infect because, while the counters aren't easy to interact with, it does present a clock that can create an interesting kind of pressure of "Can I take out this player before they get to 10" meanwhile a combo is often just "Have the answer now or die"

[@tdimensional6733]

I hope they know that several Azami voltron decks will manifest in the wake of this episode and i hope they're happy about this development

[@jacquesdespadas]

Thought about it myself. 😂

[@adammiranda384]

I think there is actually a lot of design space in eminence abilities that are strictly negative. You could make a powerful commander that hurts you or makes you discard cards until you get it on the field

[@MortonFMurphy]

This would be a really interesting dimension to add to the design space

[@markbrierley6367]

Every single one of those decks would run Command Beacon (and probably easy ways to fetch it like Expedition Map) thus minimizing the downside significantly. But I agree it's interesting in concept.

[@jaredcrawford923]

This could even be a way for veteran players to handicap themselves against beginners. Play the whole game with it in the command zone.

[@MEIZimm]

Idea: to borrow from Companion a bit, have Eminence abilities that encourage building a certain way. Example: "Eminence: [do whatever.] This ability triggers only if ~ is in the command zone and all creatures you control have power 2 or less, or if ~ is on the battlefield."

[@Magnafiend]

Even better reason Stick Together works, the card says UP TO one of each.... even if you do have other party cards in play you just choose not to, revive what you want, and bam, instant value lol.

[@k9commander]

My views on Ward vs Treasures. The problem with Treasures is the treasure itself. Even if it comes in tapped, it's still treasure being piled up. Having more treasure cards makes the problem worse. The problem with Ward is not the ward, but the creatures it's on. Toadstool Admirer Armguard Familiar Dancing Sword Drawven Forge-Chanter Tomakul Honor Guard You guys listed many problematic creatures with ward. You didn't name any of the ones I listed. Why? Because despite having ward, or giving ward, those cards pretty much suck. The problem with ward is who they give it to. If WotC is more careful with who gets it, having 1000 creatures with ward won't be a problem. Most won't see play outside of limited. Imagine they gave Yargle ward 3. Would that alone make him a terrifying commander? Would he be as powerful and dangerous as Voja? No. Ward doesn't make the card dangerous. Keep it away from dangerous cards, and ward won't be a problem. That's why I would let ward stay and have treasures stop. I still enjoyed your conversation.

[@l337suxx0r]

Preach!

[@markbrierley6367]

Treasures also potentially lead to victory in themselves. They keep printing Murkwood Bats and Nadier's Nightblade cards. Every new treasure card adds to their value while ward appearing doesn't generally make older cards better.

[@TelepathicWhale]

Colossal agree.

[@benjaminhaile8334]

Eminence is also historically locked to a creature type which is important in think

[@hansmelby5080]

Note: Anurag’s Rampage does have a downside, if there are a significant number of artifacts in play you may exile a large number of cards for only one creature.

[@TonyStark-oi7pk]

Sidar Jabari might feel more fair than the other eminence commanders, but it is still extremely powerful. It essentially allows you to play a graveyard deck without having to worry about filling your graveyard or reanimating your creatures. It is a very dangerous mechanic that I think should not be revisited.

[@Stalzer2002]

I think Eminence can be a great ability for underplayed tribes. The problem with Edgar isn't just that it's a super pushed ability, it's also that Vampires are already a good tribe. Give Edgar's ability to something like Griffins and it isn't nearly as problematic.

[@KrakenWall]

For the eminence vs cheating commander tax, I agree eminence is the safer and more fun ability, but only if you restrict yourself to thinking about the commander itself. I think there is plenty of design space around things like instants that reset your commander tax, or an enchantment or artifact that you pay x and put your commander into play. Or even a non-legendary creature that has an etb to put your commander into play or into your hand.

[@markbrierley6367]

Myth Unbound shows up in less than 1% of eligible decks and is mostly only abused for partner. I agree this is untapped design space. It appears that players are uninterested in this kind of effect.

[@zramirez5471]

This was an awesome topic - I'm always down for more!

[@ty_sylicus]

Wow, after 12 years they finally printed "Vandalblast with upside". I never thought I'd see the day. Pour one out for another RTR card gone.

[@jeffe2267]

Nah, Vandalblast's modality makes it still relevant (and arguably better).

[@skinkintreeshade3673]

Every time it comes up, i wonder why they cant just errata commander ninjutsu. I think it's a really cool ability that could see some more cool designs without the mana cheating. If it payed tax as usual then yuriko would be pushed to use more bounce effects and the like which would also be decent. Dunno. If they're willing to change the companions for power level why not also let the cool ninja lady.

[@tristansherman9611]

I get your point, and I don’t think it would be a bad change, but the only reason companions got an errata is because they broke every single competitive format due to their ease of inclusion, Yuriko would have to be similarly broken in order for Wizards to errata the mechanic, and I don’t see that happening

[@APack0fWolves95]

I think Eminence is a very cool idea, basically a free enchantment everyone gets to start the game with, with the main problem being balancing

[@teradul2480]

Anzrag's Rampage is cool, but I personally much rather have a Structural Assault. If I'm taking my time to blow up all artifacts, I much more likely want to remove other threats as well, instead of having a single turn to play with something (and maybe lose access to other stuff I'd rather deploy later).

[@daneburke6592]

Anzrag’s rampage only hits your opponents artifacts while structural assault hits all artifacts so that is something to keep in mind. If you’re not artifact heavy it’s not really an issue though. I play both in my xenagos deck and they’re both great. I also play subterranean tremors which is an earthquake that destroys all artifacts if x is 4 or greater and an 8/8 lizard token is x is 8 or greater

[@Couldnt_Be_Bothered]

On the topic of tergrid, my friend actually pulled her one time and was going to build a fun little commander deck around her. He quickly realized how miserable it would be to play against before he even finished building it lol

[@ty_sylicus]

Few things annoy me more than a player tutoring up their game ending combo. It feels like, "Hey y'all, I'm going to cheat by putting into my hand exactly what I need to end the game, right now, bc I've decided this game is over." It's a shallow victory.

[@dave_8600]

Anzrag’s rampage strands potentially a lot of cards in exile, that’s probably why it’s not played often

[@starkiller182]

My biggest issue with Anzrags Rampage is that if you just exiled 10 cards from you deck, they just stay exiled. So i would only put in a deck, where this is less of an issue

[@crosshroomhead]

On the anzrags rampage, I can't get past the fact that you don't get the misses back. It's nice but vandalblast doesn't potentially exile your own key pieces.

[@ty_sylicus]

The prison joke is aces! 😂 🤣

[@ty_sylicus]

My initial feeling was that Treasure is a bigger issue but, after listening to your points, it is cleae to me that ward is worse in high volumes.

[@drew-id]

Ward is a straight up better design space than hexproof, but I agree. I can pay for your ward with treasures. And the more treasure cards get printed, the more accessible and varied they becomes. Don't make ward creatures kill-on-sight. And tone down the fast mana, thats the real treasure problem.

[@ty_sylicus]

It's unusual how little I run into the Eldraine Brawl commanders at my LGS. I will keep my eye out for Voja though.

[@CaptainCharisma0]

I don't know if this is a hot take or not. But I think Commander Ninjutsu is a fantastic ability in terms of both mechanic, and flavor. They gave a flavorful commander to lead a tribal deck that people had wanted for years. I think the problem is Yuriko herself. It's the combination of the potent static ability, and that the commander ninjutsu cost is just 2 mana. But I'd be very much down with them taking another swing at a legendary ninja commander that is maybe dialed back a bit.

[@VentBoy311]

37:00 imagine if chulane was printed now, with an additional "ward 3".

[@beurtalvarez]

the whole Idea of chaos decks is that we have no idea what will go on, and if I'm smiling like a troll when something weird happens, it's not swagger or mockery. It is just innocent glee, cause I love those weird gamestates. However, I NEVER play chaos in a pod which is fully aware that I am NOT aware what I'm doing, and never more than once a game night (and definitely not on webcam games). To ellaborate, I remember fondly falling off my chair with laughter once when someone casted an overloaded Mizzix Mastery while I had a Hive Mind on board, thinking we would all swoop, but the stack was so absurd we decided to resolve it properly, taking us 54 dang minutes

[@olivergalitch5584]

You can see infect comming.... Never been instantly killed by sneak attack + Blightsteel colossus or Mimeoplasm + Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon or even more commonly Triumph of the hordes?

[@ryansprenkle6356]

I think there an interesting design space available for ward that would feel less disruptive. - target opponent gains 5 life - each player draws a card - put two +1/+1 counters or another creature controlled by "target's" controller (I like this one specifically because it effectively gives hexproof if its their only creature but gives a slight advantage if they have more) You could also give a strickly beneficial ward on a creature with a dies trigger or whatever yo encourage it being targeted (though I guess whether or not it need to be "ward" is up for debate then)

[@arkb0t379]

Regarding the cautionary example given at 10:00, where Ward might lead to "can't be countered" removal and an arms race around restricting interaction: MKM has three pieces of removal that can't be countered, which I hope isn't a sign that we'll be heading that way.

[@benjaminwileman4771]

The chaos cards are really fun when there are fewer permanents on the field. And easier to resolve. Highly recommend

[@lightfut]

Eldraine brawl was a heckin time - the two "would you rathers" with brawl commanders back to back ☠️

[@AlexM-nl6nx]

As far as combo conversation goes, that’s a turn 0 thing for me, one of my go to questions, what kind of fun combos can you do? People like to talk about their decks so they will usually tell you. I don’t mind combo, I just don’t wanna be blindsided. Of course, part of this responsibility falls on my own shoulders, for knowing what is possible under the banner of their chosen commander. As far as combo or infect, neither bother me, show me what you got!

[@ServbotNumba40]

The argument where hexproof is harder to interact with falls apart, when the costs of ward come at such a huge tempo disadvantage that it's almost essentially hexproof without the keyword, and you realize there are multiple colorless cards that remove hexproof...

[@Tuss36]

One thing to note about ward is if it's on EDH designed cards or if it's on Standard/Modern set cards. Cheap removal is the bread and butter of the latter, which means expensive threats rarely make headway. Thus ward allows them to be more viable by making the tempo hit against removal much less. Not that they couldn't still be putting it too much on EDH-focused cards (and I know the joke is that everything's for EDH but you know what I mean), but it's an important thing to keep in mind to judge it more fairly.

[@51gunner]

I think you're onto something. Voja is absolutely meant to be a Commander. But for some reason, it got pushed out in a Standard set. It's Standard/Pioneer/Modern legal, so they realized that it'd just instantly get removed in those formats. So it gets a truly obnoxious ward cost on it to try and keep it alive in formats running playsets of Destroy Target creature. I tried to draft up a Standard deck based around it and just couldn't. There's just not the same quantity and quality of elves, even worse for Wolves (they're almost all about to rotate anyway), and the deck just doesn't have the ramp and inherent safety of the commander format to ramp in. So it's a super powerful commander that got a solid layer of protection to enable it in a format it doesn't belong in.

[@OriginalMokthol]

Between Ward and Treasures, before now, I would have said give me more Ward. But you're absolutely right that treasures can be made with drawbacks or weaker by having them ETB tapped, make sacrificing harder/more painful, but Ward only has drawbacks for the opponent, unless they start doing conditional Ward where you also have to give up something to give it ward. Between Eminence and Cheating Tax. 100% give me more Eminence. The problem we've had in the past is that Eminence has only been upside with little to no work behind it. We also haven't really explored the possibilities of what it can do. What if it was something that opponents could interact with. In my Inalla deck, I don't even care about casting my commander, to the point where if I have to cast her, I'm in trouble because I would rather cast ANYTHING else. Another problem with Eminence is, most of the time, you have no incentive to cast the commander. An Eminence could work if it was much better while the creature was on the battlefield, or encouraged the play it. For example. Let's say we have a Green/Red Eminence commander that gives you're other creatures +1/+1 for each time it has been cast from the command zone this game.

[@tefin420]

I would like to see these questions compete in brackets and see which is the overall most ok. I'd also love to see more of these questions.

[@zacharyripley5850]

Id rather play against mld than turns, generally there are treasures and rocks so it doesn't actually 0 people out as often, and if it does it's easy to read the board, scoop and play again. Extra turns I have to sit and watch solitaire until my opponent presents something

[@markbrierley6367]

While I disagree that reading the board and everyone giving up is an acceptable end to a commander game, your argument can easily apply to the turns deck as well.

[@zacharyripley5850]

@@markbrierley6367 as someone who used to be a much less considerate player, there are certainly games where I would cast a time warp, then cast another extra turn spell on that extra turn, then present actual "infinite" 4 or 5 turns down the line. Mld is like "okay next game" usually right off the rip. I do agree, I don't like either, but if I HAD to pick, that's my reasoning I guess.

[@bryceduyvewaardt8136]

Definitely hoping for a part 2! Would you rather play against a mutate deck or a companion deck?

[@troacctid]

Chaos decks are honestly just a subset of stax decks.

[@abesmith115]

Well, I do think cards like Yidris and Maelstrom Wanderer are cool chaos cards, and cards like wrong turn are very fun. Those are non-stax chaos cards! Yusri can be cool too, if you like coin flips! Just keep in mind, "random" isn't "chaos"

[@guyatanosavia8487]

I honestly disagree. Stax is about keeping other people from playing with Law effects and then breaking parity with that to accrue value over everyone else for a win. And they usually have combos they can eventually win with. Chaos decks are not about breaking parity. They are about "lolrandom" for the sake of it and involve me handing other people I may or *may not* know my cards to play with, and actively hurts stronger decks. You could say that they are an equalizer archetype which could also be said for stax, but again, one looks to break parity while the other does not

[@scaredycat3146]

​@@guyatanosavia8487 I'd argue they are equalizing in the sense that now everyone has to play snakes'n'ladders instead of magic the gathering.

[@Shikigami6]

Depends on the Chaos. I have a Ian Malcolm Deck which is def Chaos but more on the Group-Hug side I would say becuase it gives opponents Resources and wants them to play cards from your opponents.

[@hanschristopherson8056]

Voija being worse than chulane is nuts, I really don’t think they realized how bonkers that card would be

[@ceroluthor]

As someone with a Zedruu chaos deck I'll have to choose chaos over stax. My actual favorite card is possibility storm. It adds a level of complexity and strategy of if you truly know your deck. Being able to cheat on mana by essentially cascading into something better

[@hansmelby5080]

“Chulane, Teller of Tales” has the issue that they have exceedingly long turns when attempting to go off.

[@GrandLineLogPort]

This was such a fun idea But now, I reaaaally wanna see a "never have I ever" EDH episode

[@blairbrook1336]

I have not had a problem with voja yet :) mind you I played Sarulf cause I wanted a wolf war. The voja player had to take a 10 min break after the game.

[@baltosstrupelos302]

If ever I meet you in person Joey, I'll bring my Derevi deck. We'll see if I can earn that "Fair Derevi" honor!

[@bloodfox29]

One could say, ward was made to compensate and counteract the speed that treasures bring to a game. 😂

[@dgreenlonghorn1]

Ward is easy to interact with. Run more board wipes. The EDH format (even casually) has begun to shy away from board wipes and most decks now run 1-3. The solution to ward is to run 1-2 extra wipes. Get your board wipes up to the 3-5 range and problem solved. People are just to adverse to playing control. Control players have always adapted their “removal package” to the meta.

[@jeffe2267]

Everyone adding 1-2 wipes can make your games last 20-30 minutes longer, so I think there's some wisdom in avoiding overloading on them.

[@dgreenlonghorn1]

@@jeffe2267 people complain about short games. People also complain about long games. I’ve no problem with games being 20-30 mins longer on average; I also can’t prevent some people from getting salty. Thus I will do what’s best for me and my gameplan (ie playing 5 board wipes because of how prevalent ward is). If someone wants to get mad about my running more than 1 or 2 board wipes, then I know not to include them in future pods I make.

[@LoneSkag]

Treasures In tapped or once per turn in most cases would make them more manageable. Ward - pay x life sounds way better than higher mana costs. Fleshgorger is a great example. Dockside really needs an errata next printing to make it once per turn or treasures enter tapped. Limit creation or give the table a turn to react.

[@ArcticAlpaca275]

More balanced command tax workaround: This creature costs 1 colorless less for each time it was cast from the command zone. I think the base cost would have to not include any colorless so it would only take effect after being played once and going back. This means the command tax is only 1 instead of 2.

[@markbrierley6367]

There already is this card. Almost nobody plays it.

[@drew-id]

Lol, I had Matts exact thought, but in reverse. "What *kind* of chaos."... Cause I love me some chaos warp, tibalts trickery, wild magic surge, etc. But Scrambleverse sucks. And if you're breaking parity on cards like Possibility Storm, your just playing stax with extra steps. (And can similarly backfire on you like MLD).

[@saltylemonaid7006]

Treasures and ward are solutions for each other. You can use your treasures to pay for ward. On the other hand, ward is needed because there are so many treasures. Also if they get rid of ward they would just get hexproof.

[@SWNJim]

1) Treasures: lately they’ve been having them come in tapped which I think helps mitigate a lot of the problems with them. 2) Eminence: Edgar Markov was egregious and I HAVE an Edgar Markov deck. Better designs can lead to future fun commanders that will actually cast. Meanwhile the game NEVER benefits from free spells or in this case, dodging commander tax. 3) I’d much rather be taken out by poison than some bs infinite combo of cards never meant to be played together. It’s like they never learned from combo winter. Combo leads into those “do arbitrary x, you win the game” that everyone seems to hate. 4) I’m with Joey, only because Tergrid is a known quantity, therefore not beyond a level of control. You MIGHT get something of mine, but I can always destroy it or take it back. 5) Speaking of overpowered commanders from brawl decks, I NEVER want to play against Chulane again. There’s ways to mitigate Voja since it’s really just an overrun effect. Yes, ward on everything is a problem. Even if Voja wins, we shuffle up and play again. I don’t want to sit there and watch Chulane basically #%*^ off. 6) In the same vein, I despise extra turns. I’m building a Mardu mass land destruction, so it will be designed to end, rather than prolong the game. With extra turns, I’m just watching other people play. 7) Stax are far more interesting than chaos. Stax are a puzzle, one that I consider any time I build a deck. Chaos wastes time just trying to resolve anything.

[@Achjakommaherkommadu]

thanks for financing my next dual. My Anzrag's Rampages (150 full art foil) are waiting to get shipped :)

[@WiLDRAGE777]

1. Treasures vs Ward: Treasures for the exact reasons expressed. Games will just devolved into constant Board Wipes which makes everything miserable. 2. Emminence vs Cheating: I rather cheating the commander tax so long as it does not circumvent casting or the tax entirely. Liesa, Shroud of Dusk is absolutely fine, for example. 3. Infiite Combos vs Poison: I rather Infinite Combos; the game ends and you play another. Poison decks rarely kill everyone at once which means it's more likely to have one person get knocked out early and be a spectator for an extended period of time while the poison player struggles to finish anyone else as they get ganged on by the remaining players. 4. Korvold vs Tergrid: Tergrid. Korvold can't be stopped once it starts, even if you kill it. Tegrid you can prepare for and you can knee-cap and knock it out of the game a lot easier. 5. Chulane vs Voja: Chulane. Voja is a pushed mistake that should not exist. That he is a pseudo-lord for the creature type that can ramp the easiest is just silly. It's like they got creatures confused and put all the keywords to Voja instead of giving some Duskana (the other Naya commander which I've not seen anywhere). 6. MLD or Extra Turns: Mass Land Destruction and it's not even close. Extra Turns that are not also infinite combos that end the game immediately just become tedious and I would rather not watch someone durdle for 20 minutes straight. 7. Stax or Chaos: Stax. I absolutely despise Chaos decks. Stax gives you a problem to work around or solve; Chaos makes your deck choices irrelevant because you don't get to play it.

[@huubbr783]

Talks about ward 12:05 "So, next question then, since we already resolved the first one." I see what you did there. 😉

[@Nr4747]

The biggest problem with Tergrid (which doesn't really exist for most Korvold decks) is that she is 100% what I call a binary commander: Either the person playing the Tergrid deck gets to do "their thing" once and wins/oppresses the rest of the table for the rest of the game and (most likely) eventually wins despite being archenemy - or they essentially don't get to do anything because their entire deck is built around Tergrid. The main problem this causes is this: You can pretty much never have a game with a Tergrid deck where all players get to do "their thing" and have a fun time. Either Tergrid gets to do "her thing" and everybody else gets oppressed out of the game - or Tergrid doesn't get to do "her thing", meaning that (at best) the other players get to do "their thing" and have fun but the Tergrid player is probably just on their phone for most of the night.

[@Gweezy12]

I think I've seen a tergrid pop off like once and still lost. Like a lot has to go right for tegrid to do anything. The card quality for that deck to do tergid things is terrible by themselves. My buddy has a tergrid deck but doesn't play it because he gets whoomped and not because he's the most threatening deck. Matt way over emphasizes how consistent that deck is I'm way more afraid of Jodah the unifier.

[@olivierdebilde4292]

I wanted to play Voja so bad and I felt it was pretty strong. I saw it in action first and gave up building her. Overtuned tribal commanders are sometimes really sad ideas :-(

[@orpheos9]

The best part about tergrid is their asshole plan is broadcasted in the command zone so you can easily refuse to play against it.

[@theonedraven8007]

Ward.. ward never changes

[@mabrewer64]

Voja with changelings, elf wolves.

[@adoo765]

1 - treasures (ward is making target removal less and less usefull wich makes us play more board wipes, wich leads to fast mana not beeing so effective and therefore making games longer, BUT not in a fun way) 2 - eminence ( that one was hard but when you dont need to manage your resources magic becomes yugioh) 3 - hoard effects ( combos are anticlimatic wins sometimes) 4 - korvold (i dont have a lot of free time to play so when i get the chance to, well i want to use the cards!!!) 5 - voja ( chulane either takes 15 min turns to pass or win and voja is not different of other elf decks, wipe the board or die ) 6 - land destruction ( time is precious for those who dont have much to play, if you destroy everything but your board everybody can agree on defeat but extra turns just get back to my chulane opinion ) 7 - chaos ( play the game its better that not doing it!!!!)

[@richardjohnson8991]

I get to play more vs you get to play less is MASSIVE when it comes to the feel of a game. Nobody enjoys when they don't get to contribute at all but it can still be fun to watch someone else's deck pop off

[@Wojtek36762]

I’m with you guys on Eminence vs. ignoring commander tax. Liesa, Shroud of Dusk is one of the fairer versions of that and it still feels like she’s impossible to get rid of.

[@snowdazeTV]

I just want to add that some things remove hexproof, but that doesn't exist for ward. Shadowspear, Archetype of Endu, and the light house land all help with hexproof but you're on your own with ward. I would rather prepare for hexproof than for Sarumon.

[@jeffe2267]

Giving your spells/abilities "cannot be countered" interacts with ward; it's just a different set of tools.

[@TheBraxton17]

I think the best way to have the reduced commander tax is already existing key words like affinity, exploit, artifact offering. Affinity is so vague you can put affinity for treefolk on a 10 mana 10/10 will be played because it can be cheated or the this cost x less based on x factor making it scale with you board state

[@Alico_Reborn]

For cheating Commander Tax, I think the design space needs to be more along the line of cards like Karador, Ghost Chieftain. It has a way of cheating mana cost, but it is by reducing the cost in a limited way because of what is happening in the game. Having an esper legend that costs less mana via how much health you lost this turn, or your storm count, ect, is an open design space that feels less broken than Derevi or Yuriko.

[@BrassWhole]

Amazing video, i just gotta say id take Korvold 9/10 times. The issue i have is Tergrid decks are built to be controlling from turn 1. Unless you are a card draw deck, you will never have a full hand, even if tergrid isnt on the field yet. If I sit down at game night and someone showsnup with tergrid, I immediately pull out konrad. If someone sits down with Korvold, I can play a lot of different decks.

[@Froot-y]

“I’ve never seen a fair derevi deck” ??? As a derevi player, this propaganda against my signature deck is so frustrating! My deck building style is one where I take a powerful commander or decks archetype and hold the reins in a way where the deck has a fair game plan but can pivot and respond against powerful threats. That being said, it’s tough when people make comments implying that some commanders like Derevi CANNOT be build in a fun and interesting way. I completely understand the power and flexibility of Derevi, my deck is strong and fun to play. I hate that I have to temper the propaganda and try to argue my deck isn’t broken, but still good. It’s honestly really tricky to navigate and I’m frustrated thinking about it. Commanders are not inherently anything. For all you know the derevi deck your opponent pulls out could be a Vorthos deck around building a bant army. Instead of immediately thinking your opponent who’s commander is one of the best in the format is going to be a terror, maybe start a conversation about their deck. Obviously there are commanders that can’t be held back.. like Korvold, you’d have a build a deck off theme for korvold to be even close to tempered.. This was a long comment, but if you want to check out my derevi list, here is the link. I’m not saying my deck is bad, it’s not, but it’s definitely fair. www.moxfield.com/decks/JRy6i_2aLk6XVPuCVJYnYg

[@Lucarioguild7]

I agree with most of these except the MLD vs Extra Turns discussion, in my opinion extra turns falls into both categories of not letting you play and they play too much

[@kiritokaguya9180]

1. I have to say I'm just thankful to WotC that the didn't invent ward earlier. Some legends like Edgar, Ur-Dragon, Teysa Karlov and so on could have gotten a kind of Ward effect. I play lot of decks centered around my commanders, but I dont need Ward on all of them. Just be prideful to be a problem for the table sometimes ;) so yeah just more Treasures I guess. 2. Cheating the CMDR Tax is just so evil 😄 I understand people if they hate Eminence, but it really depence on which commander you play and what your deck makes out of it. Yuriko is just a problem in all powerlevels and every player needs to be aware of this. 3. For Combos/Poison/infect I dont really see a problem with both of them, but if a had to pick I would rather play against infect. The game gets another twist and if he gets it, mostly he has to work for it and afterwards the table will try and get him, so with the new commanders I like Toxic and poison much more. 4. Well I played both Tergrid and Korvold but I changed my Tergrid pretty fast to Tinybones ^^ I just like to play on discard theme, if someone has a problem with this maybe we should talk ahead of the game. ^^ 5. MLD/Extra Turns: well I hate extra turns because in my opinion I just can watch someone else play solitude, so there is a slim chance that I will live through to MLD and can get him back for this horrible expierence. 6. Stax/Chaos: well chaos I would say, but please let the players know before hand!

[@AlexM-nl6nx]

If I had to pick ward vs treasures, I would rather see varied, interesting ward, rather than free lotus petals. Adding a hexproof but with a puzzle is way more interesting than more lotus petals. Maybe wizards could add ward interaction into the design space, adding even more variation!

[@DraggaRyuu]

I legit don't get the fuss about ward outside of the niche examples of incredibly specific costs. It's just a more balanced hexproof. Commander players just really hate paying the 1 ( or 2, or 3) even when you're outright saying the thing is likely worth paying that extra mana to get rid of.

[@GallantLee]

Stax over chaos every day for me - I also think a lot of people have different definition for stax too. You can interact and solve stax. Chaos is just annoying with no real purpose… it’s just a time sink.