Does Magic Have a Lands Problem? | Commander Clash Podcast 145

Are lands out of control in Commander?
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#MTG #MagicTheGathering #Commander #CommanderClash
0:00 intro
3:15 Setting the stage
5:41 Ramp is too good
13:01 land destruction
20:14 the problematic lands
24:42 green is the problem
32:05 Does Armageddon even help?
48:59 other answers
55:25 the changing dynamics of the format
1:14:23 outro

[@loach5348]

“internal discussions” has gotta just be everyone else yelling at Richard after every recording

[@Spirited_skiing]

This comment needs to be pushed to the top slot lol

[@christopherwilson39]

He’s the worst. I literally root against him every commander clash lol I don’t care who wins as long as Richard looses, it was a great episode 😂

[@foxrogge6298]

​@@christopherwilson39 why? Richard is great, don't be a hater

[@noahfriedrich4686]

Maybe you should for a Commander Clash episode build staple-free decks where you can't use the top 50 cards for any color and colorless on EDHREC

[@colecarmichael5724]

Make this top comment

[@Tsunamiis]

or you build your best 99 cards for one commander, then you cant put any of those cards in your deck so your essentially playing the second 100 best cards

[@ComfyDents]

Like revenge week, but with 99 different cards. 😊​@@Tsunamiis

[@andyspendlove1019]

Ironically, this would mean green decks could still play Open the Way

[@Ubermunki3]

Bye bye basic lands

[@Graatand]

Can Crim please be a bit more mindful about where he’s positioned on camera? It’s hard to see his dog sometimes.

[@kotw980]

Yeah I agree. We need more Corgi Screen Time. Also i hope he brings the new Corgi Commander to commander Clash

[@samueldefazio6369]

Vote this comment to the moooooon

[@tdimensional6733]

I think the better question is 'Does Richard have a lands problem'.

[@adamseweryn6005]

The problem is that You banned fast mana from artifacts and left every ramp spell so most efficient way to play is ramping

[@discoviolenza1984]

I still think hating on all non basics is fine. Punishing decks with greedy mana bases should be allowed in commander. Also punishing ramp with Tutor hate should be made More efficient.

[@bartoffer]

If the format could have an actual split between "tuned" and "casual," the problem of people finding it unfun also evaporates. Sure, against newer players and weaker decks, Ruination is overkill. It's not quite overkill against someone running Crop Rotation as a toolkit to grab one of 20 utility lands in their deck.

[@TheMartianBotanist]

Yep tutoring is next on the hate block. One little Archivist ain't cutting it.

[@faerie7dragon]

Ramp Tutor Hate? The issue is that it hits the Evolving Wilds of the world about the same as it does hit fetchlands and efficient 2 MV ramp. Time to change Skyshroud Claim to Open The Way.

[@Awesomesausages]

Punishing non-basics also nukes any budget 3-5C deck. Nice taplands idiot, here's Ruination. Meanwhile the ramp deck just ramped 10 Basics instead of duals and whoops can't do shit about that, "that's fair, unlike a tapped triland". Blanket-punishing nonbasics is a shortsighted nonsolution with too many unintended casualties.

[@wesleywyndam-pryce5305]

​@@bartoffer wtf are you talking about? thats just a power discussion. the format is split into 10 tiers already people just need to use them.

[@brendanpulsford]

I feel like the Goldfish crew is so enfranchised that this is a much bigger problem for them than most, primarily due to the over-optimization mentioned. I have 5-10 commander decks around at any given time, and I'm not going to spend the money required to have the best utility lands in each of them, nor am I gonna bother switching out a whole suite of lands between each deck. I'm going to use the lands that are relevant specifically for that deck, color fixing, and then whatever else i have lying around that seems useful. I presume this is how most people build decks.

[@koolaiddude7685894]

Proxy gang sends their regards. Anyways, I'll play Ancient Tomb and pass

[@pedroms720]

dude. they are not over enfranchised............. they do this for a living.

[@mattlaflamme4774]

I kinda agree with this sentiment, it’s like the picked themselves into this lol. Okay we’re not gonna play fast mana like sol ring and we’re gonna play super slow by loading up on utility lands and bounce lands in a 3+ color deck. Building your mana base like that you’ll be lucky to play anything before turn 5 and just constantly praying that you’ll draw into an island in this turn. You can easily color fix without fast mana like sol ring, urborg or yavimaya, their play group just chooses not to and then complains about it lol

[@mattlaflamme4774]

Plus the whole argument around somebody having multiple copies of maze of ith is totally ridiculous because that player is only hurting themselves if the rest of the table has accurate threat assessment. Of course they’re going to be able to progressively build their board if the three other players are terrified of their stuff getting mazed… make that player use them and remove the whole player. Their really hurting themselves if they don’t have an urborg or yavimaya out cause that’s 4 lands they can’t tap for mana and even if they do they probably won’t tap it for mana just to keep that little threat over the rest of the board. Make them tap it and pressure them they’re out numbered on board and someone will eventually start getting through

[@lorenzolopez15]

They should test it and have a full season of Land Destruction on the table! It would put this argument to rest. 🎉🎉

[@donb7519]

Mld isnt in their house bans so thats every season they just dont like running it either except for mld week

[@Yourbeautiful666]

If they planned on doing that, they would just meta build against it. They should just sprinkle in MLD in decks where it makes sense to do so.

[@VexylObby]

That it is only not miserable for playgroups that build around it?

[@maxwelllevey3963]

“We haven’t concluded anything other than Magic is doomed” dead laughing at that, best ending ever 😂

[@geeknseek]

So glad Tomer was here to defend Phil lol

[@dragonmaster47]

At 12:22 So I am subscribed to a lot of commander channels, and the Goldfish crew does optimize the most with nonbasics out of all of them. Plus I just checked the recent Game Knights outlaws deck to confirm my observation, three of the players ran 10 basics in 3-colored decks, Jimmy ran 19 in his 2-colored Izzet deck.

[@jamesmoore1476]

Yeah the crew is very sweaty with their lands. Except for Tomer.

[@supranova7594]

They absolutely do go ham on the mana bases and since our groups effectively proxies anything we already have 1 copy of our group very quickly ran into the same problem and had to start kinda self moderating things like instead of every fetch possible only running the ones exactly in our colors or not slamming boseiju endures/otawara in every blue or green deck possible, not having glacial in decks with crucible of world effects for every turn(yes we all ran gy hate to remove glacial from it but since we play a mostly combat meta it was boring waiting for someone to try to draw it in the meantime)

[@zaclock-4228]

There is inherently a meta aspect with your land issue. Most people don't have an infinite collection, so they have an opportunity cost when they play Field of the Dead in this one deck: they cannot play that copy in their 17 other decks. Same with the perfect mana bases with triomes, fetch, shocks... Most people can't afford that perfect mana base in every deck. A point system, restricting the number of times a card can be played per season based on value thresholds, would bring your decks closer to the builds of regular players.

[@Dext3rM0rg4n]

​@@zaclock-4228I never heard of anyone having that problem, if you want to play the same card in multiple deck you either change its sleeve in between games or proxy it and put the real one in your favorite deck.

[@danielbrien3512]

Have this problem all the time. I don't proxy and find it a pain to have a whole bunch of 90 card decks lying around because my staples are in a different deck. Easier to just have a slightly suboptimal deck with 100 cards

[@matthugenberg8869]

The real problem with "letting decks do their thing is that some decks, when they do the thing, the thing normally leads to them winning the game in the next 2 turns. So you really just can't let those decks do their thing

[@colboy1fish]

Me when someone gets to untap with Miirym, Sentinel wyrm on the field

[@Scotterbotter331]

Yep, that's magic, baby! We do our thing and make an experience together. It's not a problem, it's literally the entire game. Count yourself lucky you get 1-3 turns to find a solution instead of facing a billion infinite combos like some folks are suggesting is the answer here

[@caseyfurey1348]

@@colboy1fishyep this is my one friend lol. I feel bad because his deck exists at 5mph and 100mph with no in between. I don’t wanna bully you and make you have no fun, but if we let Miirym stick, you can be sure he drops Klauth, makes 28 mana and wins

[@BabyBull72]

I completely agree. I have decks that slowly "do their thing" over a long time, but I also have decks that do as you say and completely understand when I get targeted or am stopped from "doing the thing" (Mirrym and Ovika to name two). There is some games I can often play my commander and pop off the same turn, so I completely understand being refused the ability to do it, but unfortunately not everyone shares this logical approach and gets real butt hurt when they get repeatedly targeted.

[@eewweeppkk]

I get your point, but 2 turns is actually a pretty long time for a deck aiming to win to do their thing. Of the 3 other players, one of them probably should've had an interaction piece that hit a piece of their thing.

[@LunarWingCloud]

I think I am on Tomer's "more nonbasic hate" train. I also don't dislike MLD but I still think MLD needs to be part of the wincon, not just slammed down because "well the mean ramp player ramped too much", but as a way to back up a big threat you have that will win the game if your opponents can't answer it

[@Volvary]

We need more effects like Balance, but not possible to abuse. Give me a card that force people to sacrifice lands back down to be on the same point as everyone. Give me a "Sac or Fetch until you are at 4 lands" or something and I will be happy.

[@Momo_pstat4]

I genuinely feel the main issues prompted in this video is mainly sourced in the deck building of the mtggoldfish, and not lands as a whole. After watching some of the mtggoldfish commander games, ive noticed yall (baring intentionally budget games) prioritize goodstuff/staple cards, rather than prioritizing synergy. Most players ive played with dont just run vesuva cause “oh that land is so good lets get 2”. Most people dont drop a field on the dead into a deck for ships and giggles. Turn 1 ragavans and random oppo agents and the like seems a lot like higher power, goodstuff decks rather than decks with any identity and synergy. And its ok that the way the mtggoldfish plays is in this kind of way. I expect a lot of players to kinda fall suit and want to play strong cards. But lets not pretend that a deck stuffed with goodstuff/staples is a mid powered deck just cause its not cedh. For the playgroups ive played in, the existence of a field of the dead is due to some deck synergy that it fufills, be it land fall or tokens. Ive personally never seen someone just jam it to jam it, and its usually cause a deck loses out on other potential synergy cards that make decks unique and personalized to that individual

[@webbc99]

The problem with your argument is that these are all lands and presumably replacing a basic. How "on theme" is a basic land. Adding Vesuva doesn't make your deck less on theme if it's just taking the place of a basic.

[@Momo_pstat4]

@@webbc99 it is also taking the place of another utility land. By devoting space for a field of the dead package and glacial chasm, a counters deck has less ability to run a karns bastion for example. This is due to a deck needing a certain amount of the lands to be colored lands, and so a deck only has so many utility land slots. A deck with too many colorless utility lands may be subject to not being able to cast their spells when needed

[@Slippils]

@@webbc99 Lands in some form are required to play Magic, and basic lands are the most non-descript form of meeting that requirement. Utility lands are uniquely named and have unique effects, for a thematic deck they're not the same as a basic. Some people care about that more than the power the cards provide.

[@Lucarioguild7]

​@@webbc99A good way to illustrate ops point is take a look at any of Richards mono white decks recently sure a plains may not necessarily be on theme but it's a hell of a lot more on theme than a land that makes zombies in a white deck. Part of it also stems from the fact most commander players have a lot of decks so their staples are spread amongst them, I have 12 commander decks but only 2 field of the deads so they're just going to naturally end up in decks where it makes more sense for them because I'm definitely not going to go out and buy 10 fields just because it might be objectively correct to

[@rockerknight25]

I agree with you. They often say their decks are mid power but I disagree. Their personal group meta is very much not the norm, and most of the decks they build would dominate the typical LGS. As another commenter said, they're always watching Crim's mana to see if he's going to flash Oppo Agent. That's not a normal thing to watch for. I think running stuff like ruination is fine because most people DO run basics. Like yeah, it'll set them back a bit, but they're not out of the game hoping to topdeck a land so they can drop a 2 drop.

[@MakeVarahHappen]

Richard thinking any card that ever interacts with an opponent is a death sentence is the other side of his "don't play removal" coin. Like yeah, if I can never ever removal something I'll kill someone but here's a magic fun fact for yah: most of the time it's easier to get rid of a permanent than it is a player, and if three opponents can't get rid of a permanent, it should be easy for *you* to get rid of them.

[@falconje11]

Whenever his argument is "oh but it dies to removal", "oh but there are a few specific cards in the game that get around it", and the one you mentioned "but if you do that you get focused", are all just examples of him not having good counter points. Everything dies to removal, there is nothing that (by game rules) can't be stopped or overcome, and "people will just attack you" means, he will politic people into attacking that person, cause it definitely isn't good threat assessment. I also think this problem is, mostly, specific to their meta, or a little more broadly, only specific to playing in low powered casual. I also think they've been playing stronger decks since moving to paper, while still building lower powered engines and trying to play like they are still a jank fest, but if youc an tutor out Glacial Chasm reliably or Urborg/Cabal reliably, you aren't in a jank-fest. It can still be casual, but it is mid to high power, not jank. And in mid to high power, there are MANY solutions to punish green, which also gets worse and worse the higher the power level of the game is.

[@petrri323]

@@falconje11 Exactly. I think their meta is just stale. Less than half of the top 20 most popular decks on EDHREC are even running green right now. And OP said, If you can reliably tutor out powerful cards, there are reliable ways to prevent that tutoring as well.

[@PortestdorFlamvoldt]

I feel like Richard could make his points so much more effectively if he wasn’t so hyperbolic all the time. The discussion around pressuring the ramp player early was almost totally ruined by framing it as “combo kill on turn 4”. Crim saw what he was going for and course corrected to say apply pressure and direct damage at them (down to twenty) and Richard immediately dialled it back up to “down to like 5 life”. It sometimes feel like Richard presents the format in an extremely straw man kind of way, and the legitimate points he is trying to make could be understood so much more if he was less inflammatory. He takes the most extreme, outlier scenarios and presents them as though they happen literally every game when they don’t even happen every game on clash. 100% we should normalise pressuring the ramp players to provide some tension in their strategy, but there’s a reason why Seth and tomer immediately thought he was suggesting CEDH as the way to do that.

[@icedreamer9629]

Richard should stop playing commander. He's the kind of person the format was deliberately developed to exclude because his version of fun destroys their version of fun. Too much focus on winning, not enough on exploring the deck and exploring the social setting. Please leave the format. You will _not_ be missed.

[@hanschristopherson8056]

This episode really convinced me that crim and Richard would enjoy cedh a lot more than casual as the arguments I keep hearing are what cedh is about

[@icedreamer9629]

Richard is the kind of person who should not be playing commander. Period. He doesn't have the temperament for it. Commander (EDH) was LITERALLY developed in order to play cards and strategies which were not the sort of things you play in Legacy. That was the whole point. It was meant to be slow, durdly, timmy heaven. Over time as its popularity grew, the legacy players started playing it and corrupting it. Richard needs to stop playing commander and go live his life in the world of Legacy and Modern where he is at home. Everyone would be happier. Crim, too, is in the wrong place. If a long turn bothers you, stop playing the format! Wrong format. You're meant to be kicking back with a beer discussing whatever with your mates while playing commander, not tapping the table impatiently while your opponent has a long turn.

[@severinschmid6264]

Instead of "no counter no boardwipes" you should do an episode of "no ramp no card draw". I would love to see that

[@Rancidtunip]

If you're having land problems, I feel bad for you, son. I got 55 plains, but a Irrigation Ditch ain't one.

[@roxashenry8315]

I got 99 swamps and a combo is one (ad)

[@ianleggett8429]

Please, we have to get this to the comment of the week. I need to hear Richard say this. It will be awesome.

[@carlshimota1022]

I think you guys touched on a really good point about the destory "nonland" part. They should change it to nonbasic. Just like how they changed how to deal with planeswalkers after war of the spark.

[@Arcadious10]

I second this motion

[@VexylObby]

I cannot agree with that. Being somebody that only plays 3 color decks, that just makes them innocent bystanders.

[@scipioafricanus2071]

nah! it's a bad take. they keep forgetting all the other constrcuted formats. they also forget why land destruction feels way worse than getting a spell countered. the inherent variance in magic doesn't guarantee drawing lands and there is no real counterplay to land destruction. if somebody on the play destroys a land on turn two, they might've just won the game then and there. meanwhile everybody who's played magic for a bit should understand that a blue deck keeping 2+ mana up at the end of their turn is a strong sign they have some instant speed interaction, most likely a counter. this way you have at least a chance to get your actual threat out by sequencing your turns properly. this is mostly a commander problem and therefore any changes in that direction will have an outsized effect on all the other formats.

[@theblakwarior]

In 1v1, land destruction is just better ramp. And it is purely miserable to play against. So no. Bad idea.

[@bartoffer]

I figured it out! Richard comes up with nonsense hypotheticals that assume rather strained best-case scenarios to gaslight everyone else out of actually countering the obscenely greedy way he plays. Just tempo him into oblivion. How many green decks that aren't specifically playing GY recursion (itself easy to deal with) are running crucible? How many non-artifact decks are running the indestructible lands? How is it more likely that an opponent has a teferi's protection than that you have a land destruction spell? How are you only seeing these spells "one in three times" in a format most known for tutoring? How is literally every game Crim is in having an "opposition agent mana check" somehow not influencing the game?

[@trenchaus]

Richard is a joke(r) .

[@pedroms720]

seems like you watch a lot of commander clash, friend

[@TCVxPRIDE]

Arguing with Richard literally feels like slamming your face into a wall over and over and over

[@dt8799]

why because he is the only sane one in this group lol? I mean this tongue and cheek love everyone on the cast.

[@Belena711]

I'm not sure "we're bad at threat assessment" should be a good argument against any card. Including confounding conundrum.

[@empurress77]

Um, yeahhhh, y'allz have an optimization issue. For real.

[@Clover011808]

Richard really hit the rest of the crew with the equivalent of "it dies to removal" in the MLD discussion lol

[@thetrinketmage]

The answer casual players don't want to hear is aggro and combo. You need to either focus down the lands player and not spread your damage or combo off cause you can't out grind late game. But just attacking one player or comboing off can be considered salty so people don't do it.

[@Scotterbotter331]

Aggro is fine. Combo is degenerate. Once you start using combo as the solution to a problem, you've only just replaced it with a new problem. Why not make the whole deck combo? Why not win on turn 3? Why not go play cedh? Combo is significantly more egregious than mana ramp, and the only reason we are even having this conversation is because everyone knows combo is a less fun way to have a 4 player gaming experience with your friends because you are going to spend 5 minutes shuffling and 10 minutes playing magic. We want to actually play magic, and we want to win. So we ramp. The real answer is normalizing effects to punish excessive ramp the same way we punish flooding the board with creatures. I won't pretend to know exactly what that looks like, but I feel strongly that combo is not the answer for playgroups that want to actually play with each other. Ramp is Sauron. Combo is Morgoth.

[@Scotterbotter331]

Also I love your channel, keep up the great work! I appreciate your contributions to the discourse of a game we all love ❤️

[@thetrinketmage]

@@Scotterbotter331 thank you!

[@seandun7083]

Honestly, in my playgroups I've never really heard complaints about aggro.

[@cjb_writings]

Zo-Zu the Punisher, Manabarbs, Burning Earth. Red has some burn answers if you're ramping super hard. You still get all your lands, but now they're actively hurting your life total as well.

[@seanfallon2271]

Some amount of it is definitely partly this crews problem, their decks are regularly >$1000 decks, whereas most of the people I've seen and played with sit closer to $200-$300 without every $40+ perfect staple lands/removal/protection/etc. But also, I think Richards and Seths counterargument to MLD that 'the green player will just outramp everyone right after' as if they hadn't just dumped their hand of all their land and ramp up to that point feels hilariously wrong. Nobody is hanging on to extra lands and ramp just in case someone casts MLD unless you're the person casting it.

[@spawn9892001]

one of the things I always say is "players don't miss 'old school' commander, they miss when we were worse at building and piloting commanders decks."

[@vincentbatten4686]

This is always the thing. The sad thing is you can never go back to that time frame.

[@Jug_or_not]

That is part of it, but you are in complete denial if you believe magic cards have not gotten way more powerful

[@jadegrace1312]

​@@Jug_or_notThe most powerful cards are still old cards

[@Awesomesausages]

@@jadegrace1312 There is not a single old card that does what Jeska's Will does. Drawing cards for *negative* Mana is idiotic. Old cards still have plenty of absolute design mistakes at the very top, but modern cards have blown past a *lot* of old-card-staples we used to play.

[@wesleywyndam-pryce5305]

​@@jadegrace1312 the ones that actually see play are new. and you're referring to a tiny handful of stand out cards many of which were just mistakes. on AVERAGE new cards are far more powerful.

[@ethanglaeser9239]

Yes, I believe fixing is too good. I think the worst cycle of cards they ever printed for the game was the Fetch lands. They just fix every problem and synergize with every mechanic.

[@seandun7083]

Also, given that the fetch lands already exist, I really hate that they printed the Triomes.

[@ethanglaeser9239]

@@seandun7083 Yeah, the Triomes felt a little pushed. I would have preferred no types or no cycling.

[@seandun7083]

@@ethanglaeser9239 they would have been a lot safer if they were formatted like Murmuring Bosc but maybe without the creature type part. That way there is a cost in life and every fetch land can't grab 9/10 of them.

[@ethanglaeser9239]

@@seandun7083 Oh yeah, I love the design in Murmuring Bosc. I would much prefer mana-fixing lands that are deck or archetype specific instead of letting everyone play 5-color good stuff all the time.

[@ttobbattam]

Richard's point around 38:50 is the best defense of running MLD in the whole video. "Once you know this is happening, it's so easy to get around:" [proceeds to describe how playing around interaction works] Crim is 1000% on point here. The world he was imagining around 39:00 is a beautiful world, in which there's play and counterplay.

[@ConManAU]

Yep. It doesn’t stop green from ramping, any more than wraths stops white from playing a thousand creatures, or GY hate stops black from reanimating. It just means that there are pressure valves to give everyone a chance to push back against otherwise strong strategies, and it forces those players to think about whether they want to drop all their resources early to gain an immediate advantage or hold some back to rebuild afterwards.

[@thesamuraiman]

​@@ConManAU He makes a good point.

[@wargin7049]

A card I’ve really been enjoying recently is primal order. Dealing damage on upkeep equal to the number of non basics that player controls is an amazing way to punish greedy manabases and to close out games, especially if you get a few copy enchantments.

[@pierredupont1096]

The problem is while this is good it's too slow. They might take 5-6 or something then just pop off. If Primal Order had a 2 mana variant I'd be in.

[@seandun7083]

​@@pierredupont1096literally just price of progress.

[@michaelcollins4534]

​@seandun7083 needs to be repeatable

[@seandun7083]

@@michaelcollins4534 I mean, there's plenty of ways to recur or copy it. The nice thing about it compared to primal order is that you get the next 2 turns worth of damage immediately and for half the cost (though happening on their upkeep is better than on yours). There's a pretty good chance primal order will get answered in that time but PoP happens immediately. You do also have isochron scepter if you do want to get it every turn.

[@seanedgar164]

You guys have the most gluttonous mana bases I see online. You also have had a board wipe problem, which incentivizes you making most of the permanents that don't die

[@seanedgar164]

Also I won against mld with splendid reclamation. Easy.

[@yugioh1870]

And combo is soft banned

[@Rasudido]

Honestly I want a fixed Limited Resources or a Balance effect that is set on a fair number (ex: Each player chooses 4 lands and sacrifices the rest, repeat this for artifacts and enchantments). Crim is right we need more things that make people respect the downside to doing X and ramp should not get scoff free.

[@delailama736]

I like that. Something like 4 lands, 3 artifacts, 2 enchantments and 1 creature.

[@tylershannon9319]

Urza's Sylex. On activation each player picks 6 lands and then each other permanent is destroyed. If it wasn't so mana intensive id definitely play it. Effects like that would be very healthy for the game imo.

[@petrri323]

What I don’t understand is that they talk as though cards like that don’t exist. They absolutely do. There have been THOUSANDS of different magic cards printed over the years. And in Commander you can play with almost all of them. There ARE answers to any problem in the game. Hell you can make a Turing complete computer using only game mechanics, I’m pretty sure you can keep the ramp player in check.

[@BadBrew]

From the Ashes, Wave of Vitriol, Back to Basics, Natural Balance, urza's sylex, and thats just off the top of my head. Wizards has been printing answers to this issue but nobody runs them. I have been running [From the Ashes] since it was printed and now with cards like [Virtue of Stength] being printed, it's clear basic land support/encouragement is on the way.

[@petrri323]

Exactly. They’re talking like they don’t have access to 95% of every card ever printed. They artificially created a problem within their pod and are crying about it instead of allowing the meta to shift towards land destruction because, “mean.” The fact that they can afford commander staples, but won’t even look for other answers to cards beyond, “stop playing it, you win too much when you do.” “Because it’s their win-con.” Is how they should view it. Then deal with it. Nobody shows up to the table unable to deal with a scary creature. Why do they allow themselves to continue to be unable to deal with ramp. It’s not hard. Also important to remember that ramp is a stand-alone-win-condition in its own right. Anything in too much excess will win you a game, card draw, creatures, lands, you name it.

[@kotw980]

there might or might not be a land problem, but there is a problem that Crim's corgi isn't getting pets right now

[@Suavek69]

Commander has lands problems, magic as a whole doesn't

[@TheDestroya88]

I would say it’s magic as a whole, but in 1v1 formats there isn’t a taboo about back to basics or blood moon punishing the absolutely insane greed in 99% of land bases.

[@matthewstoutenburg9519]

I like how you um actually’d exactly what he said

[@kphaxx]

lands.dec

[@twhite9615]

@@TheDestroya88 I 100% agree. We as players need to break those taboos and start changing the average play experience. People need to expect their board states to be messed with or to receive a beating if they are a threat to the table. Commander players just expect play solitaire.

[@Suavek69]

@@TheDestroya88 yeah, which makes the problem solved, and solved problem isn't a problem

[@austinbrown2833]

Another aspect too this conversation is that while mass land destruction is considered taboo people play mass artifact hate like vandalblast or bane of progress which is effectively Armageddon for non green colored decks; all they have is mana rocks to try to keep up and no one bats an eye destroying it

[@hopposai787]

Been saying this for years.

[@gabecastillo1634]

Those are 6-7 mana spells, and most decks aren’t completely relying on artifacts for mana production, the issue is no one ever running enough single target removal especially in my pod, have fun with 40 mana when nothing sticks on your board

[@eewweeppkk]

They in absolutely no universe at all are effectively Armageddon for non green colored decks. Armageddon means no more mana. Vandalblast means no more mana rocks. Green can't realistically ramp more than 2-3 lands ahead in a typical game just due to the fact that they need to both get their ramp spells AND develop stuff on the board in the meantime. Sure, they will often be ahead in mana, but not by much. You'll still be ahead of them 99% of the time from having a sol ring. Armageddon sends everyone back to the stone age. Vandalblast slaps rock heavy decks on the wrist.

[@Icameron259]

The issue is that this still leaves artifact ramp decks with some lands to continue the game, with, while armageddon leaves many green decks with literally 0 mana and often the non-green decks will only have like 2 mana left. So in terms of mana to play with the game was almost reset, which can be painfully boring to play out. I think the solution is to print more cards like Urza's Sylex, which left people keep a reasonable number of lands (in this case 6) but sacrifice/destroy/exile the rest.

[@gabecastillo1634]

@@eewweeppkk not to mention the fact they have dockside and smothering tiddies banned in their pods which just gaps ramp, but the amount of impulse mana red and black have is inexcusable to be hating on green

[@jasonmolisani1864]

You touched on this, but I don't think you truly said explicitly what I feel is the real problem with land ramp: it doesn't suffer incidentally from other things being answered. Let's look at a situation where I am playing a game and we get to turn 6 as someone casts Farewell (or some other board wipe that kills everything other than lands) and me and the player next to me each left with just 3 cards in hand and the lands we have in play. If I cast three ramp spells in the form of a Talisman, a Signet, and a Diamond. The player next to me also cast 3 two mana ramp spells in Rampant Growth, Sakura Tribe Elder, and Nature's Lore. After the Farewell, I have lost my ramp, despite the artifacts that needed to go being on some other player's board and just have 6 lands and 3 cards in hand. The player next to me still has their ramp and are just now ahead with 9 lands and 3 cards in hand. This is the biggest problem with land ramp. it is 100% safe. All other forms of ramp have the chance of being destroyed as collateral damage to clearing another more tangible problem. The only way to punish land ramp is some kind of targeted effect. You need to spend a card to undo their card, leaving you just down on cards and mana to your two opponents. Alternatively, as you were mentioning near the end, you could punish the player who left themselves open to attack by spending the early turns just ramping, but starting at 40 life in commander makes it harder to truly punish the ramping player without all players ganging up on the person ramping. Regarding mass land destruction, I do agree that it isn't the solution. It punishes everyone instead of just undoing the ramp, like board wipes do do for the other ramp options. It is banned for a reason and I wouldn't suggest unbanning it, but Balance is the kind of effect that would actually undo land ramp. I would rather see more land equalization things in that vein pulling the ramped players back down to the lowest land count made than the arms race of everyone gets mana you all brought up near the end. (Sorry this ended up being so long and thanks for reading the whole thing if you got this far)

[@RobiousIllyrian]

I think a good way to implement MLD as ramp hate would be some balance-like effect. Bring everyone back down to the amount of lands the player with the least lands has, this way there is still a game to be played (no hard reset of the game) but still punishes the players ramping out of control

[@jimmysmith6214]

It exists, Urza’s Sylex

[@Tvboy777]

They made that card, it's called "Balance", and it's banned.

[@peoplesoft2784]

Speaking from my group’s experience. My personal bet is that it’s a problem specific to your playgroup. Most of my playgroup started with precons or builds on a budget. And if people do go degenerate ramp there’s a couple ways to stop that. I think the game has enough tools to shut down ramp abusing decks. You can destroy target lands, nerf tutoring, attack them while they ramp, play removal etc. also blood moon exists and there is now a merfolk which does the same in blue. Just run more non basic land hate ya know?

[@imaginarymatter]

There isn't a land ramp problem -- this is a power level problem. To start with a little tangent: why doesn't every deck in 60 card formats play ramp? That's because while accelerating your mana is strong it carries an opportunity cost. Ramping not only costs a card in your hand it usually doesn't contribute to a board state and the ramp player risks being overrun before they can play their more expensive spells. While there isn't a bunch of mono-red aggro decks capable of killing you on turn 4 with aggro in Commander there is a similar issue where you can't just spend your turns ramping. At some point you have to advance some kind of game plan. This is a power level problem because even in casual games more tuned lists can win starting on turn six. At higher power levels you can't spend the mid-game just ramping. The format is filled with low-cost, efficient win conditions. Using Open the Way as an example, playing it for six and untapping the next turn with 10+ is strong enough to win when you untap the next turn... but you also probably could have won with another six-mana worth of cards. And in the time you spent six mana ramping someone else won with their six mana. If you're playing slower games though you don't run into the risk of a player winning until much later and you can durdle with expensive ramp spells and cards like Field of the Dead. At that point, however, many cards start being problematic besides ramp.

[@hinatasninetailedfox]

Thank you. This has been the most sane take I've seen on the matter. Spells by and large are so efficient now that taking time off to cast a spell that doesn't build a board, to double your mana next turn isn't always enough. You also can't deny other people from deploying their man's efficient combos. I feel like green is only an issue when the decks are intentionally misbalanced like in this group where they play to themes and that's okay. But often other colors have things you cannot interact with as a green player and your only course of action is to try and outpace it and put a big threat into play.

[@totakekeslider3835]

@@hinatasninetailedfox Exactly. It's almost as if the game was balanced around the colors being better than others at different things. Green's lack of creature removal and board wipes is because they're supposed to answer with a bigger and badder board.

[@rossmcbeath4997]

I think this is mostly correct. I will say in a lot of play groups I'm in, the ramp players are attacked less early (people act like it's sad they don't have a board.) And then they swoop in with a massive game-changing spell and are way ahead. So if in more groups, we made it normal to go after durdling players instead of pitying them, the issue would go away somewhat. I figure the degree to which people go soft on durdling players is somewhat playgroup dependent.

[@pedroms720]

yeah. the problem is power creep.... AND ramp

[@iremiagaming]

One card that I absolutely love is "From the Ashes." Destroy all non-basics and replace them with basic lands. And if you're opponent doesn't have enough basics... I run it with Phylath and get a ton of landfall triggers while also setting the table back.

[@Gunrogk]

I think the early preassure is not there in casual because of the taboo of fast (cheap) combos and the high starting life. I think a solution could be to lower the sarting life to 30 or even lower so there is a higher resulting threat for the player if they don't put up defences early.

[@EdBurke37]

Commander definitely needs answers to Green land ramp but MLD isn't it. If MLD became more leverage it would end up adding the green players more than disadvantaging them. They would quickly learn to hold back a few leaves and a few ramp spells to recover faster from the MLD than the other players. I say this from personal experience having played landfall in a group with ag guy who regularly played MLD. Everyone else hated him but I was fine. What we need are ways to punish ramp without blowing up everyone else's lands. Also: Targeted land destruction like Strip Mine is not only fine but should be in almost every deck. Edit: Seth gets it.

[@VexylObby]

I would say, lok for a group that shows moderation, and tries to match power levels with you. I will not personally play against a deck I know will blow up too much with ramp or value. But yeah, normalizing MLD seems like a social disaster for the community of anonymous play.

[@twilightwolf90]

Targeted destruction is worse now than ever because of Open the Way, Tempt with Discovery, and Hour of Promise. You just sacrifice your land to go down card advantage. Plus green decks have access to multiple ways to get lands back that other decks only have Crucible of Worlds. MLD that hits nonbasics needs to become okay at higher power levels.

[@VexylObby]

@@twilightwolf90 I still think both MLD and Mass Ramp deserve a disclaimer before hand.

[@schadenfreude4846]

as long as people won't blow up lands I will continue to clone them with Orvar the All Form

[@PitLord]

with the new non-basic land Winter Orb coming out, i believe the new meta will revolve around decks that are either 100% basic lands and they'll run Ruinations, Blood Moons, etc or decks that are virtually 100% nonbasic lands and they'll be running Urza's Caves and Archdruid Charms, etc.

[@AutarchAlex]

Now don't get me wrong, I LOVE y'all, BUT. Why does it seem like most of these podcasts are just everyone trying to tone down Richard's strange takes, saying stuff like Karoo lands are auto-includes? Sorry Richard, bouncing lands back to your hand to play taplands is NOT card draw.

[@kevinthecarpathian]

I can't take Richard seriously anymore, it honestly seems to come down to what he likes and he will either defend until everyone else is either on board or doesn't care anymore...or say that it doesn't work against Teferi's Protection (which MLD doesn't work against either lol)

[@AutarchAlex]

Yeah and it's even weirder knowing he's basically their boss. I have a boss who acts EXACTLY like this, like getting mad at you for not calling them out. Yet at the same time if you do call them out they hold that against your job. Super annoying. ​@kevinthecarpathian

[@AutarchAlex]

Bosses be like "Why didn't you tell me I was being cringe?" Vs "how dare you say I was being cringe!"

[@TheWoelrat]

Its card advantage because it gives you an extra landdrop. I agree its not card draw, but I understand his view. However this normally comes at the cost of being vulnerable to tempo. Because the land comes into play tapped and it makes you more vulnerable to land destruction. But if you don't allow land destruction or people being killed in the early game then they will try to get away with these kind of plays

[@Myrrith16]

>does magic have a lands problem? No. M/LD is 'socially acceptable' to run in constructed competitive formats. Now COMMANDER has a land problem. Busted utility lands that you are encouraged not to interact with, and land-ramp makes green the best color in the format hands down. Balance effects should be printed more and they should unban og Balance. Whether Armageddon effects should be more acceptable to play is kinda eh to me, because it would just encourage more degenerate artifact ramp. Imo Wizards is just not printing enough non-basic hate

[@zym6687]

Balance is a fair card in casual decks, only degen when you drop your hand of mana rocks on t1/2 and mind twist everyone for 1W that it feels miserable.

[@gabecastillo1634]

@@zym6687yea the issue lies in mass land destruction letting no one play, I’ve gotten rid on plenty of utility lands with single target removal it’s not very hard people just refuse to run removal for some reason

[@jamesmoore1476]

@@gabecastillo1634 This is part of the problem with players like Richard, his philosophy for removal is if it isn't going to cost him the game immediately he isn't going to remove it. It kind of works for him because he's the most egregious utility land player on the crew but if the rest of the crew started to punish him then it wouldn't be so bad.

[@gabecastillo1634]

@@jamesmoore1476 yea that’s a pod issue not a commander issue, I agree with ur statement

[@yugioh1870]

Amusingly, green is the *worst* color in the commander format

[@CompetitiveEDH]

I love this conversation, I believe that ramp and fixing have become so easy. The biggest issue I have with MLD is the blowout potential from cards we already run, Heroic intervention, Teferi's Protection, and Boros Charm. I like the balance effects with lands that leave everyone with the same number of lands. I believe we should all be running multiple land removal in commander, Boseiju, Who Endures, Demolition Field, Tectonic Edge, and Volatile Fault. I don't think the MLD is going to help that much because as you said the green decks that care about the lands will have the play from graveyard cards. Also if you're countering an Angel's Grace, I think we should have a rules discussion.

[@jamesmoore1476]

Agree on the balance point. If I were in their play group I would be playing balance effects any time I wasn't playing green.

[@seandun7083]

The other big issue with mld is that it doesn't just affect the ramp player, it hurts everyone. Also, the answers you mentioned only exist in white and green. Blue has counterspells, but red and black have no real way to stop their lands from being blown up.

[@VexylObby]

MLD is just not good design for this kind of game nor format. Imagine a tabletop game that robs you of your essential resources with one card,. Or if you are lucky, one card completely saves you from that. That game would not win awards.

[@yugioh1870]

Alot of these issues aren't a problem within the format. It's a problem with some of the players and your playgroup specifically. Huge land swings from the simic player isn't an issue because objectively the format is just too fast to do that and win. You took the best ramp cards out of the format with the fast mana. Land destruction also isn't very good with aforementioned fast mana and combo strats because the game either ends before it's relevant, it doesn't remove the game winning permanents, and usually doesn't meaningfully set people behind Utility lands like field of the dead aren't good in a format that's as fast as commander is, and Glacial chasm does nothing to for example a thoracle and it's a big resource investment *anyways* You built your little meta in the hopes of making durdly creature decks be good, but clamping hard on wincons and fast mana to do that incentives playing wraths. Prevalence of wraths as card advantage incentivises playing permanents that don't get hit by those.

[@CompetitiveEDH]

@@yugioh1870 so to the first four yeah cEDH is it's own meta and no problems with MLD, because it's about winning or stopping other people from playing. And casual is not a little meta. It's an incredibly bad take to call it a little meta. Casual commander is supporting almost the entirety of magic right now and that's why every product is pandering to it. When the idea is to have a longer relaxed game your entire take is irrelevant. This is a discussion of house rules for people to enjoy a game more.

[@egoish6762]

Imagine playing 3 basics. I've been playing urza's sylex in my superfriends deck recently, i think more cards that set the maximum lands would be great in all colours.

[@petrri323]

I think y'all have a point. The community is VERY quick to defend ramp and decry land destruction; however, ramp is just as much a part of the game as any other mechanic. Banning the use of ramp cards, and fast mana -- while nice on paper -- DOES limit the possible deck pool in a negative way. Lands decks for example (which often rely on ramping out multiple lands per turn, and using lands for utility/value generation instead of using creatures/instants/sorceries/etc) become incredibly limited under those restrictions. Every pod is free to make their own rules, but I think people as a whole need to be a little more accepting of different win conditions at the commander table. If the spirit is to allow for the most amount of "Magic: the Gathering" to occur, in as many different unique ways as possible, then banning ramp outright is a bit of an overcorrection. Ramp and Land disruption are two sides of the same coin, and should both be allowed in the same spaces. If you allow for one, you must allow for the other to maintain a balanced meta-game. With no ramp, land destruction automatically will always be the strongest gameplan. I think a healthy balance of both ramp and mana-base disruption should be a goal for the community as a whole. I think a good example to go off of is how the community views artifacts. They are both commonly played and commonly destroyed. No one at the table is mad when abrade takes out a One Ring, because everybody understands that artifacts are powerful parts of almost every deck (Sol Ring, Grim Monolith, Mana Vault, Charbelcher, KCI, Sensei's Top, etc). The problem is when there is no balance. Too much Ramp, and the game snowballs out of control the moment somebody has an opening. Too much Land Destruction, and the game can never get off the ground in the first place. You need to be able to have both, and with artifacts the community accepts that the busted-nuts-OP-artifacts they just played are likely to be destroyed because they ARE a threat. I think it's about time we started viewing lands the same way.

[@michaelpatalano9884]

Regular segment can be like the EDHREC podcast, where they do a quick 3-5 min break in the middle of the video and dicuss view suggested cards!

[@jorgecrespoapastegui]

As Seth said, you live in a bubble where your very specific meta (very good mana base, expensive cards, very well deck building...) defines your judgment, in the real more casual common world this problem doesn't exists. The are A LOT of people with decks in the 100/200 $ where you can't expend 10% of your budget in a Yavimaya.

[@zaclock-4228]

There is inherently a meta aspect with your land issue. Most people don't have an infinite collection, so they have an opportunity cost when they play Field of the Dead in this one deck: they cannot play that copy in their 17 other decks. Same with the perfect mana bases with triomes, fetch, shocks... Most people can't afford that perfect mana base in every deck. A point system, restricting the number of times a card can be played per season based on value thresholds, would bring your decks closer to the builds of regular players.

[@bahablastfreeze8872]

Crim had a point around 41 minutes. The fact they don’t respect ANY decent counter play is the only problem to solve. Richard wanting parity is just a utopian task, when all we need is a reduction in mindless ramp gameplay.

[@DDPMonster]

Speaking of underrated cards. Blood Sun has been going into more decks. It even cycles.

[@tdimensional6733]

yo, what? this card bangs

[@crss29]

You can choose to break Commander with anything; creatures, artifacts, enchantments, instants, sorceries, tutors, the graveyard, hands, and lands too. The ONLY thing keeping Commander healthy is the players. You have a player problem. You can either adapt to the meta or force a meta. You chose to force the meta into what you want the show to be.

[@supranova7594]

Also a player with a nearly complete collection I definitely had to impose restrictions upon myself as far as perfect mana bases as I quickly became the field of the dead guy in every deck all the way down to mono colored cuz I could build the mana base however I wanted and Still be optimal

[@pedroms720]

true but, the things wizards keep printing does influence that.... for example, they keep printing fast mana and big timmy creatures each time more power crept can influence what one specific playgroup would like to play. then you have a problem.....

[@RyanEglitis]

As always, ramp is the problem, not utility lands. The only way to nerf ramp is to ban the best ramp spells (probably 30+ cards at this point), or to nerf what tutoring can do on a format-wide level. If tutoring only was allowed to search the top 7 cards (even for ramp/fetch), the format would be a lot more healthy. And trying to push LD or MLD as a fix, as you all noted, just makes the player most able to ramp the one to come back best. There are some stopgap printings you could try, something like Confusing Conundrum that required returning *2* lands if you ramp. Or a MLD spell that did Balance, but left you all at least 4-5 lands afterwards. But ultimately, it's a structural problem of the format, and it's hard to fix something like that without structural changes.

[@RazorDevil1]

my experience with open the way, is reveal 3 basics and command tower, bottom 25 spells. then draw lands for the rest of the game

[@goldbergbrain]

I do like Confounding Conundrum, but I also run effects like Price of Progress, Primal Order, and Cleansing. Instead of destroying lands, punish people for running non-basics. Make Blood Moon acceptable.

[@goldbergbrain]

I'd also like to see discard spells that let you target non-basics. This isn't a great answer in commander, but it's something that came up when I used to play Modern, and there are just so many decks that depend on specific lands like Tron, Amulet, Scapeshift, Eldrazi Monument, 12 Post, etc. I remember looking for non-basic land discard and there was only one Urza block spell that interacted, but it was bad.

[@VexylObby]

I'd rather not shut other people down that are not being greedy with Blood Moon. There are other ways of making things more balanced and still let people play. Including talking to the player that ramps 5 times in a game.

[@eon2330]

Land issues. 1. Land destruction is frowned upon. 2. Win cons cost less mana so you don't NEED mana. 3. More cards make utility lands actual lands. 4. Stax like B2b is frowned upon. 5. Land protection has been improved. 6. People don't value land based wincons properly in power scaling. 7. Lands have no "interaction" points between attempting to play and playing and can now win. 8. Tutoring and playing non-basic or multi-lands has increased. 9. Win cons have become harder to stop. 10. Utility lands can kill entire deck strategies. 11. Land interaction is costly and risky as its usually your universal answer for a 0 mana cost. 12. ++++CARD DRAW++++ Triskadeka. 13. COMMANDERS ARE WINCONS+REMOVAL+CARD DRAW all in one now. So all you need is the mana to cast.

[@nathansnelbaker3118]

I played my first land ramp deck with Omnath, Locus of Creation a few days ago, my opponents board wiped twice and I just rebuilt immediately. Felt unstoppable.

[@ChicknNugts]

I think part of the ramp meta is four player format and higher starting life as well: it's easier to hide and spend turns doing nothing but ramping with two additional enemies and a larger buffer to aggro play.

[@sams3476]

I think wizards needs to print more soft land hate. Like cards that punish a player for having multiple lands enter the battlefield every turn or punish players for having the most lands, by causing them to take damage or discard cards

[@Aarenby]

Or a curse that makes your spells cost one more for each non basic land you control. Or you could give the curse counters as a land fall trigger that and make the tax equal to the number of counters

[@VexylObby]

What is weird is that the spoilers are showing more of these land issues in the new set coming up. LOL

[@tessanger]

Also idea for the commander play group. Could you maybe try to use similar point system as in Canadian Highlander? But you can use it for your group and assign points. It would prevent you from playing to many staples in the deck, maybe better than banning the cards completely.

[@geeknseek]

This is something that's been brought up before. While the answer isn't "no, never," that would be complicated enough that it's not happening this season at least

[@thomaspetrucka9173]

- Targeted non-basic hate: Necessary - Mass non-basic hate: Occasionally, and conscientiously - Mass land destruction: Occasionally, and with great care - Tutor Stax: Competitively, and occasioally

[@Shimatzu95]

I have said so for several years now. We can ban landdestruction completely ONLY if we also ban the busted lands. Where is the cutoffpoint, coffers?, nykthos? I dont know but it is something we have to accept if we want to speak objectively.

[@travissmith6380]

I have to disagree here. Im old enough to remember when Lands were pretty much just a BASE to play SPELLS. Now there are 4000 lands that might as well be there own spells. Crim gets it.

[@TheSmartCinema]

actually, there is "only" one thousand lands, not four. LOL crazy to think about

[@winter945]

Like library if alexandria? Or maze of ith? Or thawing glacier? Kjeldoran outpost? Mishra's factory? Utility lands have been a thing for a long time, commander is just a very different format to most others

[@corbenmurphy1807]

​@winter945 tabernacle, tolarian academy, there are tons of problematic utility lands in old sets.

[@travissmith6380]

@winter945 yes, the old sets had a few unique lands but gameplay consisted of majority basic lands. Who plays more than a few basic lands anymore besides Tomer

[@eewweeppkk]

@@winter945 Yes, like those 5. But we're in a legacy format where all of those are legal (well technically one is banned) PLUS every utility stick ever printed since then. And also none of those lands were in the original set, with one coming out the following set and others following in the few sets afterwards. To imply they've always been here is a little dubious when you come to find that most of them have slowly trickled in and only a handful were ever legal at once, when the entire disucssion is about the fact that there are currently dozens of very playable utility lands and hundreds of them in total.

[@NoChillCC]

I think it would be cool to have half a season or so where you guys ban all land ramp and land tutors that don’t get just basics (including fetches)

[@PalPlays]

Just adapt with cards like Insight and Dream Tides. Green is only too strong when you intentionally let it be.

[@NoChillCC]

@@PalPlaysagreed! I just think it would be interesting to see how their meta shifts

[@Cawby]

Added Kellen the Kid to my Jodah commander deck, holy shit that combo is nuts. And on the "bullying" note, if someone is only playing ramp and draw, then attack them. I'd say avoid doing the Hatred thing, but if they naturally die from just not doing anything to protect themselves, then that's their learning opportunity to adjust.

[@darushkii]

I have the perfect card idea that I think Crim will really like: 2B - Lethal Fertilizer Enchantment If a land would enter the battlefield from anywhere except a player's hand, destroy that land. Pay 0, Skip your next turn: Destroy Lethal Fertilizer. Any player may activate this ability. Discuss!

[@aaronwindham6065]

I actually fully agree the lack of interaction with land ramp is wild and should be changed normally I'm not with Richard on most things. He is 100% right

[@VexylObby]

Why not also address the player who ramps too much?

[@dyne313]

Seth: I'M GONNA PLAY ALL MY 3 AND 4 MANA RAMP SPELLS THE TURN AFTER AN ARMAGEDDON. Seth, my dude. Do you not hear yourself?

[@sayntfuu]

Richard rarely hears himself either.

[@austinturgoose]

I’m not saying that Commander doesn’t have a land/ramp problem, but I think the biggest problem is that most people only play commander. Even just playing one other format can reset your palate and help you enjoy magic more as a whole. At the end of the day, something will be the best and cause people to complain, no matter what, so diversify (and minimize) your complaints

[@BS-gk2cb]

I don’t think ignoring an issue is the best way to resolve it. If there’s a meta game issue it’s fine to try and address it.

[@Spotifist]

It’s ironic that Natural Balance is in green when it’s the most pleasant answer to green shenanigans.

[@spookighost7663]

I kind of hate this discussion because it feels like it makes excuses for Green. You dont play MLD means green wins because they ramp. You play MLD and they win because they ramp back to where they were. So just play stax so they can't use the extra mana but thats not fun and no one will wanna play with you because they wanna do the thing. And they're in green so they're most likely to play 1 big threat a turn instead of multiple cards So just kill them? Thats fucking hard when they have 40 life and not everyone is helping deal damage, or there's multiple threatening opponents who need to also start the game at 20 life or else no one has fun. So whats the counterplay?

[@aidansherwin3872]

commander players need to stop holding back and start countering cultivates

[@CouchtrollPodcastDS]

I’m infamous in my play group for attacking rampers first and I run Armageddon in my mono white deck. Destroying all land is frequently a win condition and should be seen as such just like other crazy powerful cards

[@VexylObby]

It's not tho...

[@T_Peazy]

Coffers isn't a problem because it requires either another card (urborg) or you to play basics. Richard actually optimizes the fun out if it.

[@T_Peazy]

Armageddon isn't the answer. Ramp decks recover faster from Armageddon than others.

[@holstenmason]

Wizards needs to print a confounding conundrum that puts the land at the bottom of the library, and like 3-4 more opposition agents.

[@damonhymer5960]

Crim is correct. Ramp players need to sweat, give up card slots in fear of mld.

[@stormycat0905]

Playing a deck that solitaires land synergies while everyone has to watch you is a worse violation of the EDH social contract than running MLD.

[@ekolimitsLIVE]

I wrote a post on Reddit about Stun Counters on lands. It has potential to solve the imbalance by creating hate that’s interactive, impactful, and not perceived as punishing.

[@GenesisAkaG]

I mean, one clear land problem is the continued prevalence of good lands in the rare slot. Feels kind of crap to shell out rare wildcards/couple of bucks each for the thing that does nothing but tap for the new color combo you wanted to try.

[@Tinnituss]

I’ve been making my own magic set and I’m making Gruul almost strictly land control and destruction based. I have a card that gives you control of all lands on the battlefield until end of turn. Fun stuff.

[@victorperezurbano9504]

Combine with Zuran Orb. Profit.

[@crimsonleg4237]

Why Gruul? Boros would fit better, tbh.

[@TheSmartCinema]

having land control in green is a slippery slope, since they are the best at generating mana, you're making the gap even bigger... destroying other lands while being able to generate more mana than other players sounds uninteresting and unbalanced to me

[@ethanglaeser9239]

Listening to Richard argue that MLD isn't even good brings a different issue to mind. Commander is essentially a Best of 1 format, and that warps the game. Answers are simply worse in a format without sideboarding. I think it would be interesting to add Sideboarding to a portion of Commander games and see how it plays out. I like the idea of revealing each player's Commander, and then allowing for sideboarding prior to the game.

[@kylegonewild]

That final bit would set the primarily social format up for a lot of feels bad metagaming against individual players even worse than now. No point to sideboard if there's only one game. If I revealed my Kroxa for example then all the other players just go stuff all the RIP and Leyline of the Void style effects into their deck before we draw our first card I would just concede. The rest of them can play a worse game with shittier decks than they showed up with because they didn't bother working in answers and pivots beforehand. I have some answers for the odd GY hate permanent here and there and can recover from a Bojuka Bog effect but that's the thing, instead of waiting until my opponents reveals their hatebears Myrkul or artifact combo deck or something to realize I can't be as careless with my GY or need to hold up the more specialized interaction I thought about what my deck does and how it performs against other strategies and made room for countering or rebuilding from all of the ones Rakdos can reasonably handle.

[@samogburn2662]

That's only true if you consider best of three the de facto way to play magic. You could just as easily argue that sideboarding warps gameplay in best of three 60 card

[@ethanglaeser9239]

@@kylegonewild I agree, and that's the biggest issue I see with the idea. Commander needs a better home for sideboard cards, but without invalidating certain strategies.

[@ethanglaeser9239]

@@samogburn2662 My response to this is twofold. 1. Yes, the correct way to play any game ever is in sets. One game can easily accident itself into one direction or the other. A 2 of 3 or 3 of 5 set is far more accurate in determining a proper winner. 2. Sideboarding is something that keeps Magic balanced. There are cards that are designed to counter specific strategies, and without those cards, the strategies run rampant and unanswered. However, if those cards are mainboarded everywhere, then certain strategies are basically unplayable. Imagine playing graveyard decks in a format where everyone plays Rest in Peace; it would be miserable. However, without cards like Rest in Peace, how would anyone deal with Dredge decks? The only alternative to a best-of-three format with sideboarding is to do what WotC has started doing, which is printing hate effects onto modal cards or cards with additional utility like Cycling. This could easily cause a different effect, where too many decks are running hate pieces because they are "free".

[@samogburn2662]

@@ethanglaeser9239 Fair points, I prefer 60 card best of 3 formats for a lot of those reasons. But I don't think its fair to say commander being best of 1 warps the game. That's just the nature of having a different ruleset- certain cards and strategies won't carry over

[@sayntfuu]

I also think you guys play with a MASSIVE card base to pull from. I have less than 3k cards total in my collection. I don't even have these problem lands lol.

[@Kestral287]

I definitely own less than a thousand cards and have multiple Field of the Deads. That's not really a useful discussion point.

[@michaeldrew4239]

Suggesting Chaosphere for the secret tech card. Not only is it a banger in red decks that lack flying (looking at you, goblins), but the art is one of the most interesting pieces in magic.

[@jaegster1312]

I agree with Crim about hating ramp and green. Green's my most hated color just for that reason. I think utility lands in general are fine in any format except commander usually. Competitive metas are typically self-correcting while commander is typically casual and that's where the issue lies.

[@afinegamingexperience5739]

If I'm going largely green in my deck, I've been subbing out mana rocks for ramp spells since it's more likely lands stay around than those artifacts

[@Qdrew78]

I am grateful to own allot of EDH decks, and love the trial of fishing out what I have remaining for new commanders as they come out. I have a couple higher power level decks as needed, but I truly love trying to build decks with sub par (for EDH) cards and seeing how it preforms. I highly recommend just brewing with what we have and stop the optimization of every deck.

[@DannyHaslett]

When I find myself deck building to answer my play group meta instead of for the enjoyment of building my own style of deck I take a step back and remember winning isn’t the most important thing in casual commander

[@tobiaskrieger9481]

Nice Episode. Imagine a commander clash with "lands only" decks :)

[@vbkllr]

I think you should do a half-season where all ramp is band. No extra land drops. Just one game wouldn't prove anything one way or another, you need a span of at least 5 or 6 games. See if it makes for more interesting games.

[@totokenpachi]

I think ramp deck are weak if you can outvalue them. Some lands are obviously problematic, but then you can run some wastlands and tec edge maybe

[@toml8866]

The new Plot mechanic is opening the door for more effective MLD, especially for cards like Obliterate, Annihilation, Jokulhaups, Decree of Annihilation. A few cards can be plotted and then played immediately following the MLD and have 5-10 power on the board to start hitting opponents immediately and keep the game moving

[@Kestral287]

In the last two sets of commander decks we got three new effects that destroy a land. Wizards is absolutely printing these cards, repeatedly and deliberately.

[@delailama736]

I recently put Amulet of Vigor in a five colour deck that I play with almost only tapped lands and played Open the Way that got 3 bounce lands. So I had spent all 6 of my mana to play Open the Way and ended up with 7 mana to use after it.

[@enmanuelrondon9700]

Confounding conundrum is VERY funny if you copy it and have ways to force the opponent to make multiple land drops like fall of thran or assassinations trophy.

[@justinwelsh9367]

I think the solution is a combination of the "destroy non-basic land permanent" clause and ways to punish ramp as it happens (needing more opposition agent effects).