Has the PUNISHING meta begun?

With the new spoiler Winter Moon, folks are again talking about whether Blood Moon effects are acceptable. I extend the discussion to other stax permanents as well.

[@PensFan96]

Got no problem with the Blood/Winter Moon. If we embrace it, we will adjust and honestly the format will be better for it. Basics are heavily underrated.

[@kcrad1527]

Everyone has been gaming too easily, for too long. Time for unapologetic red control to get the stage again. Stranglehold, Blood Moon, any other red punishment card you can think of has needed to come back.

[@Donaldsangry]

Zozu supremacy

[@JoeDaMoeDoe]

cast rUiNatIOn, response?

[@TheStevetree]

So brave 😂

[@riukenavatar8625]

If you have more colors you have more answers. It's your fault for having a greedy mana base, greedy color pips on cards, and not planning to mitigate the obvious weakness. On-board decks need to protect from board wipes, and graveyard decks need to prepare for graveyard hate. If you have a weakness cover it or accept it. Problem with value-based low color payoff is it's nobody's problem to answer. If you play a hate piece against someone it's on them to remove it, or make a deal with another player. All value all the time is why we have runaway games where nobody wants to play removal or even put it in their deck.

[@TheSillySils]

word

[@TheDoinkmaster]

I've been running Zo-Zu stax for years, life just keeps getting better

[@__-nd5qi]

My opp plays winter moon I drop a tactical blood moon to untap my non basic lands

[@jonarbuckle3445]

That doesn't work lmao

[@__-nd5qi]

@@jonarbuckle3445 tears indeed, they gain mountain and tap for red not the super land type basic lmao

[@Phonk-vo4oi]

Mono colour does need a boost that isn’t ripping multi down. Wizards seem to really avoid putting 3+ pips of one colour on cards but I thought Devotion was a really cool mechanic and a revisit to that concept would be good to see

[@joelrandall2348]

I mean things like blood moon, back to the basics, and hall of gemstones help single color decks compete against the arguably most powerful color combinations. Single color needs more love or it needs to use the mean tools to be viable.

[@Sean-gh3rn]

exactly. I don't run vorinclex in multiple colors where he's easy to protect or reanimate, feels bad. But mono green, get ready.

[@27777BigRedBarn]

I think an interesting design space would be stax effects that are on instant and sorceries that inhibit something with some sort of time counter. For the next three turns you don’t get to do something and if you have an away of removing a counter then the effect is lessened. This would help some colors that can’t remove certain types of cards. I want to see interactive gameplay personally but I also think that an open and honest conversation is needed before shuffling and many players gloss over this resulting in mismatched expectations.

[@TheSillySils]

Any normal card that punishes expensive cards is always a win.

[@biostem]

Land packages are so strong now that I agree with Crim on Goldfish - it's time to make them interactable again, and also make people consider basics as an important strategic option. Blood Moon may be overboard, but if you are 3-5 color all non-basics, there should be a real risk or potential downside to that. I genuinely miss the days when 3 color was tricky to build, and 5 color was almost a meme. Now mono is the meme.

[@scottmcallister6583]

I like the idea of giving black and red more options to deal with non-creature stax pieces. If there were more redundancy with cards like chaos warp or feed the swarm at least you could reliably deal with stax pieces when they shut down your primary game plan.

[@TraskLargero]

So long as you aren't playing one of wizards' pet decks expect to have cards to punish you.

[@franslair2199]

The problem is when these stax pieces affect one person much more heavily than they do others. For example one player gets an edict enchant in play and is playing aristocrats. You're playing a normal deck that might not when be in colors for enchantment removal, and of the two other players one is on tokens and the other is playing superfriends. They can remove the enchantment but they have no reason whatsoever to do it, so it just incidentally becomes a 3v1. Similarly if I'm playing Rocco and someone else slams a blood moon - i have enchantment removal but my mana is in artifacts, so what do I care?

[@christopherealy8025]

Between winter moon, the merfolk, and other indicators in the set, WoTC is going to focus hard on punishing greedy triome shock and fetch based mana bases. That way, they can subtly limit the usage of the elementals, and allow for more 1, 2 color strats that can't compete against the sheer card selection of 3 or more colors. Hopefully they ban grief, too, and we can finally have fun in modern again.

[@christopherpatricklizares5306]

As a guy playing both five-color and staxx (sometimes in the same decks, sometimes not), I'd always argue that it's a viable strategy. I also feel obligated to point out that the new staxx pieces are in a Modern-centred set which should be fine with letting more staxx into that main format. You mentioned that, though. Really, though, most healthy formats or ecosystems (such as LGSs) can usually deal with staxx if only because people are prepared to deal with them. Staxx as an archetype also allow certain decks to thrive depending on how they staxx. ROL? Aggro and creature combo decks in for a treat. The inverse happens if it's creature or graveyard ability hate.

[@lancearmada]

The era of floodgates?

[@Kalenz1234]

The problem is that they also print must deal threats so you have to play these kinds of cards. If someone brings a deck that has a combo for infinite mana that involves lands they can't complain about people playing blood moon.

[@garrethatch5362]

I've been putting ScytheClaw Raptor in all my red decks since it's printing

[@Ephringael]

Scour from Existence, Ugin the Ineffable, Karn's Sylex, Lux Cannon, Ratchet Bomb, and Filigree Sylex, can be played in all commander decks as an answer to enchantments that lock your manabase to a color you can't use.

[@yoyoguy1st]

Brother games are ending before you can get the mana to cast a freaking scour from existence. Dies to doomblade is not a good argument.

[@Ephringael]

Yeah, as it turns out stubbornly refusing to use interaction when its available to you makes games end pretty quick. In literally every format, if you don't bring answers to what shuts you down, you lose, end of story. So bring answers to what shuts you down in your 99. If answers are not available in your color, then build a deck that can run some answers. "I don't want to run interaction" Is a worse argument than "Dies to doomblade"

[@yoyoguy1st]

@@Ephringael what??? No the interaction you’re suggesting is so slow the game could be ending. Am I being trolled right now? I can’t tell if this is a legitimate argument

[@Ephringael]

@@yoyoguy1st No, you just have no intention of engaging in the discussion in good faith. You base your "argument" on the slowest piece of removal there. You misattribute "Run interaction" as "Dies to doomblade" because you simply don't want to play against certain cards and don't want to have to run interaction to deal with that type of card. You're also arguing from the basis that these cards are only ever played right at the start of the game and never to slow it down, when stax and lockdown SPECIFICALLY slow the game down, that is their gameplan, so you're entire point is just wrong.. Literally every color (With the exception of red) has more than a few ways of dealing with enchantments. If you refuse to use those thats on you. Having a few less efficient options that can be slotted into any deck if you need them, is not a bad thing. Anyways, if you want to go ahead and not run interaction and just keep trying to play solitare instead of magic, thats fine, its your deck. You could just... you know... do it though, and have more fun overall.

[@yoyoguy1st]

@@Ephringael I wasn't planning on a good faith argument because I legitimately didn't think anybody would ever recommend something like scour from existence in commander. There does not exist any card in magic that cannot be interacted with in some way. A card's ability to be answered doesn't make it bad because players still need those answers available. On the other hand a card's *inability* to be answered can make that really good and that's the boat cards like blood moon are in. The player facing the blood moon could very well have removal in hand but can no longer cast it. Telling people they need to run slow, clunky removal in the case that the opponent happens to have something that denies something as critical to playing the game as your lands so they can continue playing the game I feel is really missing the point to a social game like commander. If your playgroup is fine with it then more power to you, but lock pieces like stasis, blood moon or winter orb in a social format like commander is cringe, don't bring something like that to a random table. People just wanna play the game. Obviously this is for commander. I literally have 3 copies of blood moon sitting next to me for modern, if you're playing competitively go wild, do what you need to do to win.

[@JLKelly2]

Welcome to Magic new commander players. If your deck can not deal w/ a card seems like a you problem and not a me problem.

[@MatthiasFasching]

I don't think bloodmoon is a problem at all. Sure it sucks if you play a 4 or 5 color commander and get hit with it, but it does basically nothing against 1 and 2 color commanders. Greed should be able to be punished. People complaining about those cards are the same people that say "your fault for not playing more interaction/removal" when you mention its unfun to play against their super optimized 4 or 5 color deck with access to counter spells, land ramp, efficient removal, aso. 1 or 2 color commanders just can't have all of those, but these are also the decks that are not bothered by things like bloodmoon 🤷🏻‍♂️

[@bq1013]

Good thing about playing monored chandra. I am the one who bloodmoons

[@Sean-gh3rn]

mono red needs blood moon, it's just not powerful enough, so dirty cards are fine.

[@juliankirby9880]

Tax and stax. Do it everyone. It’s funny. I’ve got friend likes to socialize during games instead of playing the game. Might as well make that easier to accomplish for those kinds of players by making the game slow down.

[@The_Dying_Rose]

Well, time to update the mono moon deck. Mono moon's the only way to play.

[@blightdragonMTG]

Chaos warp and wild magic surge are auto includes in my red decks. They remove enchantments and other annoying things.

[@Goldscorpio7]

The problem for these cards is the prevalence of treasures and red cards finally being good, making blood moon not as good anymore.

[@jacobcarter6221]

Idk, if you are running these multicolor decks maybe run some removal. If your deck 100% dies to one card thats a deck building problem

[@daveclarke1990]

...commander has a meta?

[@monomanamaniac]

I'm all gas lol

[@Byteside546]

Shout out to the one ring sliding in the top salt, we pod banned it after just a few weeks because it got boring seeing it in every deck like sol ring

[@ericyang8474]

None of these cards are wrong, but if you're bringing cEDH type of hard stax when others are purposely not doing so, then you set a negative tone for people who aren't in it for winning. The implication for casual players in my opinion is that people would rather react to what has or is getting played vs not being able to play at all. Just cause you can Thoracle combo a two or three turn win doesn't mean people always want to play with or against that, same goes for Blood Moon.

[@granite_4576]

Someone slammed down a blood moon in my last game. It was awesome cos I was also playing mono red. The others whined a lot but I think they were playing a bunch of other, non-based colours so I really didn't care.

[@VexylObby]

I am glad I do NOT play with strangers now. Because I would NOT want to play against any form of MLD. I think Saffron Olive's issues stem from his playgroup that ramps a LOT. And those decks also require a rule 0 disclaimer.

[@sadizz455]

i will only ever save my interaction for these specific cards. i dislike things that just bring gameplay to a halt except for one player, and i always focus target the stax man.

[@yugioh1870]

I find it amusing that you think rest in peace is more reasonable than stony silence when artifact straregies are vastly more abundant and more powerful

[@IIIHUSKIII]

Have greedy mana bases, get btfo. Not my fault you chose to run nothing but 3+ color decks running nothing but dual/trilands, but I'll sure lean into punishing it.

[@micahheller6212]

Less winter moon or blood moon, more ghost quarter and field of ruin please

[@khathecleric]

No, dont support monocolor speed, the game is fast enough as it is. Theres not enough interaction that is 3 for 1 in the casual level, so cards like Blood Moon serve that role, otherwise the casual commander game becomes 4 person solitaire. Stop running swords to plowshares and run more board wipes.

[@PALIGames]

I run void mirror in mono red cause fuck free counters when I play wild ricochet and similar cards

[@yugioh1870]

Also, any color can remove any permanent. Meteor golem, all is dust, oblivion stone, scour from existence, introduction to annihilation, perlious vault, invasion of ravnica, both ugins, cityscape leveler, unstable obelisk, karn liberated, spine of ish sah, both ulamogs, nevinyrrls disk, and im sure ive missed many moee. Every deck has the tools availible to them to defeat problematic cards. It is 100% a choice not to use them

[@jadegrace1312]

Yes, people are making the choice to not play terrible 7 mana cards

[@yugioh1870]

@@jadegrace1312 not all of these are terrible, and not all of them are 7 mana.

[@yoyoguy1st]

I've seen the dies to doomblade argument as long as I've played magic and this is probably the worst one I've ever seen.

[@rnd41r]

bro decided he wants everyone to put ratchet bomb in their deck

[@djsk244]

These comments make me realize how bad the EDH community is. Holy shit, run naturalize effects and youre good, build and play around such effects.. its like you guys hate it when opponents interact with your shit

[@alexcaffri9091]

blood moon is a perfect card. Dont play 3 colors and its not a problem forehead. Playing more colors should have a cost and moon has always been part of that cost. If you have a problem with bloodmoon youre probably being too greedy.

[@jadegrace1312]

People should be allowed to play 3 colors lmfao

[@7218234]

@@jadegrace1312 they are. Blood Moon is also allowed through

[@alexcaffri9091]

@@jadegrace1312 you're allowed. Don't cry when you get punished though.

[@jadegrace1312]

@@alexcaffri9091 I do not think players should get punished for playing 3 colors in commander

[@IIIHUSKIII]

​@@jadegrace1312They are. And in the same breath, people are allowed to play Blood Moon. Welcome to MtG, some of you never actually learned how to play.

[@avatarofcloud]

Here's a thought: Who gives a shit what the impact is on Commander? Y'all go play your bad board game in the corner while the rest of us get on with actually playing MTG