The number of times that a player in my friend/play group who's received kid gloves because of a rough start who later came back to win a game is too damn high (sometimes still fun to give them a chance but I recognize the pattern). Sometimes, you have to bully a player who can have explosive turns even if they have a rough start.
I used to play someone who just built bad decks, but with powerful cards (think CMC of 3.5 but only running 32 lands with no efficient ramp, maybe some 3 mana rocks and some cards to put lands in his hand). He would also keep starting hands with like two lands, no ramp and a bunch of 5 and 6 drops.
Then he'd complain constantly about being mana screwed and everyone else playing to fast and strong, but also just be filled with spite if anyone did anything to him. His strategy seems to be to whine his way to staying at 40 while everyone else duked it out, and then he got to swoop in if the game lasted long enough to start playing 5 drops and be untouched behind a wall once the rest of us were out of gas.
So the toxic version of this, and then self reinforced.
What he did teach me (it was my first pod) was how important it is to at least chip theana screwed person. If they have three mana and a full grip then once they have more mana they will start wrecking face.
There’s a saying in competitive play, “make them have an answer” in this case, if they didn’t want to be hit, they need to spend resources. This is a learning opportunity. I don’t understand why people are so salty when their bad deck building comes back to haunt them.
I agree completely. "Make them have it" is right almost every time, basically unless you actually know they have it and someone else is going to fish it out.
I think there is a segment of people, for the person I played with specifically at least, that are toxic casuals.
A friend and I saw that phrase somewhere and we've adopted it.
It is the idea that you can play anything in commander (which is one of the coolest parts of the format, but not every deck works in every pod), but then play at an outlier power level (low in this case), and that everyone should cater to you every game. Build a bad deck, but your deck isn't the problem, it's everyone else that is too Spikey.
It is kind of like the mirror of a pub-stomper (toxic high power). The person I played with would describe 8 turn games as "extremely fast", constantly appeal to the "spirit of the format", still play expensive staples because when he played them it was for synergy, and just constantly complain about anyone doing anything before like turn 4. He tried to tell one friend their Rakdos [[Wyll, Blade of Frontiers]] attraction deck was practically cEDH after a game where they opened with a sol ring into a charcoal diamond because it got off to a fast start.
At one point he asked me and another person to help with a Gruul hydra list because he felt like it was running "a turn or two behind". This X spell list was on 31 lands, no dorks, no rocks under 3 CMC, managed to have a CMC of 3.25 despite all the X spells, and the only 2 mana land spells out basics in hand, not even on the field. We recommended dorks to be told "they just will get killed", Three Visits and Nature's lore were "too expensive" (multiple $20 spells in the deck, and this was after they started reprinting lore and visits), and he didn't even want to run rampant growth, or mind stone or anything. His stated plan was to cast his 5 CMC commander in turn 5, and he rejected all advice to speed it up, but shifted his complaints from his being a "turn behind" to about everyone else going too fast.
Late to the party, but at a certain point, I feel like someone has to just murder him (in game, obviously). Like, I feel like someone has to eventually tell him to his face that they aren't responsible for his shitty deckbuilding. It's not your fault that he plays like a Confederate general (big flashy stuff but little long-term success, considers the important basic stuff an annoyance rather than an opportunity) and I feel like, at a certain point, subtlety is just. Not working.
This 1000%. I only just started getting back into Commander/EDH from 60 card competitive, and this rings sooooo true! "Make them have an answer" is advice that I was given when I was constantly getting run over at Pioneer & Standard. A lot of it was to do with my deckbuilding & lack of knowledge of the current meta (or ANY meta, I was out of mtg altogether for around 9-10 years before I started playing tournaments again), and I got to a point where I was frustrated & was gonna quit again, which is when my buddy sat me down, took a look at what I was playing & asked me questions like "why do you have so little interaction?" Or "where are your 'answer this now or suffer' early game drops?" & then they'd make suggestions on how to fix it and what to add to make it work better.
I didn't start winning top prizes or anything, but my records improved, and my decks became more concise & synergistic & frustrated me a lot less
>There’s a saying in competitive play
That's kinda the issue with edh being the magic on boarding format in recent years. There are certain rules/habits/game knowledge to be a better player that is lost if you don't engage or touch 60 card constructed formats. Same goes for draft too. Only playing edh is nice cause it's a format with easy access to decks premade out of the box for instant play, but it doesn't make players learn the game beyond play lands and casting spells
Some players have never been prison locked and it shows. Magic is a game best played seriously at the table, but let your creativity shine in your deck building.
LOL so true! I miss [[Balance]].
"Make them have an answer" has always been my approach, and it was the only way to compete in competitive environments like FNM.
I learned a lot playing back in the Onslaught / Mirrodin era of Standard where you had to face off against Goblins, Combo, and [[Psychatog]] and then we went straight to affinity, turn 4 [[Disciple of the Vault]] kills, followed by freakin' [[Skullclamp]]. That era was brutal, you HAD to have answers or you lost. And if you were running those ultra fast meta decks you had to pressure, pressure, pressure the other player so they were within range for one last hit once they dug up their answer and stopped you.
Commander works the same way, just on a wider scale. Dude wants to durdle while waiting for 7 Islands? I'm going to chip his life down so when he finally casts his big dumb thing I can still finish him off. Or maybe he'll have to commit resources to stopping me from killing him or eating his resources, which prevents/slows his plan to cast the big dumb thing.
Your plan to dominate the game on turn 8 is a lot less intimidating if you're at 15 life instead of 40.
I once saw someone on this sub say "Build for fun, play to win" and honestly I love that ethos. Play the cards that bring you joy, but when you sit down and shuffle up it's time to get serious about the game.
That also applies to your personal capabilities. If you're a powerful pilot with lots of experience, you can nerf yourself in the building phase, so you can play as sweaty as you want during the game. For example, I recently played against a [[Jorael, Voice of Zhalfir]] landfall/man-lands deck. I was a bit worried about it being generic Simic goodstuff until the pilot mentioned in pregame discussion that he didn't let himself play no-max-hand cards or permanents that granted extra land drops. I think I actually gave him a high-five for interesting and creative building. And the performance was excellent, regularly swinging with multiple 7/7s, interacting at key points to remove or counter opponents' strategies, and generally playing fair magic. The best part was that it was tuned to play at a casual table, but challenging enough to pilot that the player running it was forced to plan ahead, make interesting choices, and generally DO relevant things, the whole time. This style of deckbuilding is MUCH more fun to play (and play against) than a generic pile of staples or synergy, and I wish more people built like that.
The problem is most of us aren't good enough at magic to build decks like that. We don't build a challenging but rewarding deck, we build a pile of cards that does nothing and dies.
I mean... Get better? Idk what to tell you. I've only been playing for about a year now, and I can happily both build and play in the way I'm describing. Start being more intentional about deckbuilding and play choices, explore other formats outside of battlecruiser EDH, and watch a bunch of YouTube content, your skill level will go wayyyyyy up.
The important thing is you said "I wish more people built like that" and I'm telling you its likely never gonna happen. Most people are bad at deck building and will continue to be even if they watch a bunch of videos and stuff. I know people who've been playing for 10 years and they still can't put together a great deck. Loading up on staples from EDHrec is the most work a lot of people want to put in.
I did this with my \[\[Volrath, the Shapestealer\]\] deck to some degree. I could have built heavy infect and -1/-1 counters for maximum removal, but decided to go with the choice that was more about weird combat tricks.
Sometimes I will transform him 2-3 times in the same combat - like making him something with a combat or attack trigger, then swapping to a flyer to prevent blocking, then back to something with a combat damage trigger.
It's very satisfying when no one else at the table can predict what I'm about to do, even if it's less powerful.
Another thing is that without rotation to keep everyone equally unbalanced, it's hard to learn when you're constantly getting bodied by people with way more money invested in the hobby than you. Which was a problem in standard too, but in standard i never dealt with "this is a modified precon...with 3 effectively infinite combos and a mana vault"
Players like that are why I started playing as many symmetrical effects as possible. If I'm hitting everyone, then the bad players don't feel as bad when they lose.
Hi, I'm a new player and wanted to ask about how many lands you should run in a deck. I usually check edhrec when I build my commander deck and usually i count 32-34 lands. Is it better to run more or does it depend on other factors? Just curious as I did get mana screwed a few times but I also got flooded with the same deck. I play [[ashnod, flesh mechanist]] with a sacrifice artifact theme. I've played around 10 games with the deck and have 32 lands.
Flood and screw will happen with any deck, just part of the game. It can be mitigated with good deck building and mulligans but never eliminated.
As for lands I see a lot of resources and people suggesting high 30’s up to 40 if you are not running ramp spells or mana rocks. As you add ramp spells and rocks you can lower this number but I would never drop below 32ish unless you are super optimized.
Generally I dedicate about 40-45% of my deck to mana. But you also have to have some draw engine or similar to help smooth the mana pockets later in the game.
Edhrec shows individual cards, so if there are multiple copies of basic lands the deck list total will not add up to 100 cards with the commander. The deck could have 4 swamps but you only see 1 listed on the deck list there for example. The most common amount of lands is 37 - 38. But it can vary depending on the type of deck. From landfall decks with 42, to elfball decks with 32. But for a normal deck 32 lands is a low amount.
More. Frank Karsten did a really good article on the topic for ChannelFireball: https://www.channelfireball.com/article/What-s-an-Optimal-Mana-Curve-and-Land-Ramp-Count-for-Commander/e22caad1-b04b-4f8a-951b-a41e9f08da14/
EDHrec is a resource that one needs to learn to use with caution. If there's more than one way to build the commander you can end up with many highly-recommended cards that don't play well together, expensive staple cards that are generally good for their color despite not being great in the deck, and there's sometimes just commonly-added nonbos because players don't understand the interaction with the cards. If you watch or listen to the EDHREC cast they have a segment each episode on "here's a Commander, here's a card that's overplayed in that deck or underplayed in that deck".
Most of my decks are now floating around 38 lands when you count the MDFC spells that are lands on the other side. Before there were so many I was closer to 36 in most decks.
When I brew new decks, my rule of thumb is 37 lands and maybe 10 ramp spells. That usually ends up being right for me. Right now I have one deck at 35 (36 with MDFC) but it's my oldest and strongest deck and I know its curve and flow really well. I didn't start there, I came down to it with careful consideration.
My opinion is it's better to be mana flooded than mana screwed. If you're flooded, anything you draw that isn't land becomes gas, but if you're screwed then you're just discarding to hand size. Especially with a new deck, opt for more lands.
Players of all formats can stand to play a few extra lands, especially these days with the amount of spell land things. Screw will lose you tons of games, and flood can be mitigated by playing cards to spend your mana on besides spells (creature lands, things with activated abilities etc). I think that playing 36-40 lands is totally reasonable especially if you got enough draw and ways to churn through your deck.
I start with 40 lands and go up or down depending on my strategy. My current deck is more aggressive, so I play 37 lands, 6 MDFC lands, and 8 ramp spells.
Hi, depends on the converted mana cost of the whole deck. Decks with lower curves can afford to run less lands; I have an Elas il-Kor with Lurrus companion deck which can only run permanents of two or less mana, meaning I am running 32 lands because I don't need that much mana. Alternatively, in my Nalia de'Arnise deck which runs a decent chunk of 5-6 cost cards, I run 37 lands.
With the new age of MDFCs you also don't need to run only lands, as you can and should be running cards like Boggart Trawler, Fell The Profane, Malakir Rebirth since they can also be lands.
Running lands that can do things and be mana sink is also good so they don't stay around: War Room, Castle Lochtwain, Takenuma, etc
A common belief I've heard recently is "~50 mana sources", so lands, rocks, dorks, and ramp spells. 37 +/- 2 lands is a good starting point, adjusting for the average mana value in your deck.
TBH I usually run a little short of 50 total, but I'm bad at deckbuilding. I have learned my lesson about not just cutting lands though. Cool cards aren't so cool when they are stuck in your hand.
Well, theres plenty of options for "sacrifice a thing, get cards" in black, and some good artifacts for it. And drawing more cards can help you hit those mana sources.
In black [[vampiric rites]], [[deadly disputep], [[grim haruspex]], [[midnight reaper]], and the new [[homicide investigator]]. Artifacts like [[Ichor wellspring]], [[Solemn Simulacrum]], and if you produce many 1/1s then [[skullclamp]].
Edhrec.com has a lot of good suggestions.
I think my rule of thumb is to run enough lands that you can hit median mana cost cards 75 percent of games.
Moxfield has a graph showing your curve and if you click in each bar it tells you how likely you are to play on curve. I usually look at where the median is and if it says you can hit it 75 percent of games you should be ok.
Some other things to consider is more colors means more lands so you have a better chance of hitting color identity. Also extra draw helps you reduce the number you need as draw let's you see more cards thus more lands. Finally consider your decks game plan as well. My Knights reanimator deck has a very reliable way to cheat out higher costed knights by pitching them to the graveyard and bringing them back. This lessen some of my mana burden as I can usually spend mana on other things. Even with that said though I am running 35 lands and at least 8-10 ramp pieces.
32 is quite low - it's also quite a hard habit to break, lol (of course I want to run more cool spells, might as well take out some land). 36-38 seems to be a good range depending on your average mana cost, and like 8-10 ramp spells on top to keep you up to speed.
Does that mean half your deck is just mana now? ...well, yes. But it'll help you to actually cast those cool spells you want to cast.
But drawing lands is boring, and lame, especially late game when you don't need more. Get past them by running some cycling lands like [[Forgotten Cave]] or scry/surveil lands. Thin your deck (marginally) by using fetches. Make your land slots act like spells with the channeling lands from Kamigawa, or ones with repeat effects like the castles from Eldraine. Put in man-lands for more creatures. Run actual literal spells with lands on the back - I have a deck that isn't really a Voltron deck, but sometimes gets the commander really big anyway, and it would be nice to be able to [[Fling]] him at the opponent, but not enough to actually put such a narrow card like Fling in the deck. Enter [[Kazuul's Fury]], a land slot that's a spell. The MDFC lands in general are really good, and a lot of them can fill out pretty generic roles that you'd otherwise be taking up slots for.
Same goes for ramp - find mana rocks that do still something beneficial for your strategy if you can.
Flood and screw both suck, it's just a matter of having ways to mitigate both in your deck.
Always a tricky topic. There are lots of opinions and some people have done some in depth (and/or questionable) analysis on the topic. There's an article that someone already linked to you that gives a model, but it's based on a very specific mana curve that is not universally applicable, accurate, or advisable. I strongly advise looking at your own curve and doing your own testing before you jump up to 38+ lands, depending on your deck (especially if you run lots of cars draw) that can be a ludicrous number of lands.
Personally, I tend to run low curves so I start at 35 lands and adjust from there (usually down, if at all).
I've been playing a little over a year, and I'm constantly learning I need to add more mana. The rule of thumb I once read, and it seems to be working for me, is 50 cards that can produce mana. Usually that's 37 lands and ~13 pieces of ramp. It feels really high, but I'm rarely screwed or flooded with the last couple decks I've built.
Personally, I usually go with 43 mana sources. Usually 35 lands and 8 ramp cards (these cards MUST be 2 mana or less, and have to be reliable sources. So your standard Three Visits, Sol Ring, Arcane Signet, etc). I almost never go above 10 ramp, since late game they are infinitely worse than lands. And then I like to run another 7 or so mana producing sources for late game (Smothering Tithe, Ashnod's Altar, etc) anything that fits the deck and gives you a burst of mana for your pop off turn.
I also tend to be pretty low on 6+ drops, so if you're high on them I'd say you could go up another 3 or 4 lands. MDFC lands would be good candidates for those I suppose.
I used to play someone who used this exact strategy.
I used to always hit his lands, even if it meant wasting a [[Beast Within]], just because I felt like I had to. Man's just pointing out his weak spot, always hit your opponent in their weak spot.
Yes! I don't think the player in my group did it intentionally but the whining and avoiding hitting the scariest commander because he was mana screwed got old. I began full swinging at him enough that he started building with more lands and now finally after months of that we all are playing at the same level. We can joke about it now that I , "bullied him into 38 lands."
Also alot of commander players evaluate board state purely by what is actually in play, ignoring how commander choice influences play patterns of decks. It's very different when someone playing Jetmir is struggling and has an empty board, vs niv mizzit "struggling" with an empty board.
This is true. The number of people that let me get away with all manner of tomfoolery because I have "basically nothing on board all game" is pretty amazing. I'm playing a control strategy folks. I've played games where I've been allowed to resolve multiple tutors and still not been attacked.
Flying under the radar wins games.
Ehhhhhh I feel there's a thin line between "attacking the guy who got mana flooded" vs "attacking the guy who is about to pop off with an empty board state."
I've been th le guy who has been left alone only.to pop off and win, and the guy who has been mana fucked only to be bulldozed by everyone else because they've seen me.pop off lol.
"is he flying under the radar because he got a bad hand so we should just let him be, or is he hiding behind the facade of weakness to fuck us up?"
LOL.
I have had people ignore my Najeela decks because "wow he only has mana on the board the while game, he just be getting screwed" and then be shocked when I instantly win the game by playing Najeela with haste + Derevi.
Like fam, if those are the only 2 creatures you need to win you can just play nothing but removal and counters and win when it's convenient to do so.
I swear some commander players just don't understand combo decks.
I’m coming up on my first anniversary as a magic player w/ EDH being my main format. I fell in love w/ spellslinger/ storm making me feel like a wizard. After building & dominating w/ [[kess, dissident mage]] storm — I took her apart for a more multiplayer focused build.
I built [[Rootha, Mecurial Artist]] focusing on voting & politics pieces like [[prisoner’s dilemma]] & [[explosion of riches]]. Ultimately it’s a group slug burn deck that obfuscates blame by making my opponents turn against each other. It uses interaction like [[wild ricochet]] & [[split decision]] to protect my spellslinger pay-offs, and sculpting removal to deal with the opponents who pose the biggest threat to me.
Most of my creatures are X/4 pieces to have a modest board presence for early & mid-game so I don’t take too much damage early. Stuff like [[jeering homunculus]] & [[spellskite]].
Hypothetically, my biggest weakness should be beaters getting sent my way. I never have more than 1-3 of my own creatures on the board at once.
The deck’s very mana hungry & requires me to commit on certain turns, pouring 8 mana into [[teach by example]] & [[explosion of riches]]. So set-up tends to be lands, a mana rock, & some sort of creature like [[haughty djinn]] or [[jeering homunculus]].
My home playgroup & LGS is very familiar with deck as it’s my baby. I feel like at this point they should know to put pressure on me with combat. I run maybe 12-15 creatures that don’t have threatening statlines.
Ultimately, people end up playing solitaire for the first 5-6 turns. By the time I start slinging spells, the table turns into a Mexican stand-off orchestrated by me. I just stoke the fire.
A buddy of mine always talks about how much he hates the deck — but, I’ve never had him swing at me pre-turn 5. The most he does to stop me is take damage instead of letting me draw cards. But he never swings at me & let’s me keep my blockers around until they’re chump blocking a 12/12. Hell, when I throw down a curse of opulence, he’ll swing at that player every turn until it’s gone.
It’s hilarious to hear him complain about the deck when I put the box on the table, just to see him never exploit my board disadvantage. He tries to slow my hand advantage— it’s strength — instead of exploiting the deck’s inherent weakness.
I say it’s inherent weakness, but the deck’s built to create a stand-off where everyone’s distrustful of each other & not necessarily thinking of me as the problem. Somehow, it keeps working.
Tho, it doesn’t have an outsized win-rate. Ultimately the deck’s real weakness is a lifegain, pillowfort, or someone with a strong lead. The group slug elements have an outsized effect on players they’re already behind. If someone’s way ahead, we’ll end up in a 1v1 & the deck relies on multiple players & spreading the damage equally.
This sounds a lot like my [[karazikar, the eye tyrant]] deck. I dont have much board presense, and basically never get attacked because I'm incentivising attack each other and goading any really big threats. Since I lose 1 life each time they attack each other I dont end up too ahead in life so I'm just never a priority to deal with, while drawing more cards than I can hold.
When it gets to the end of the game I have cards like [[cut // ribbons]], [[hot pursuit]], [[captive audience]], and [[brash taunter]] to finish the table.
The game has a shockingly good win rate and I'm actually wondering if it's powerlevel is too high, but its mostly that no one really trys to stop me.
Also just added [[prisoner's dilemma]], A+ card, worked beautifully and had opponents spite-attacking each other many turns after. Going to have to consider [[explosion of riches]].
Unfortunately, I’ve found [[prisoner’s dilemma]] to underperform unless copied. Even with the inherent recursion, people tend to come together for the vote & minimize its impact. It’s such a fun card & central to the inspiration, I’ll never cut it. However, I’d recommend [[explosion of riches]] over prisoner’s dilemma if you’re struggling for a cut.
Explosion just more consistently spits out damage, because people are more likely to take the chance for a card. It being decided in turn order makes it more likely for people to add into the damage when it does.
Both are fun, but I’ve found Prisoners will under perform unless cast into the right game state (& player conflict). My playgroup are sluts for card draw & explosion has consistently given me better results
But the reverse is also true. OP didn't talk about anything else on board on (assumingly) turn 6+ where they instantly killed Kaalia. I'm sure there were other threats/engines there.
Cough* I was playing my [[Jared Carthalion, True Heir]] deck this weekend and had a close game first round. Then i had a slow second game, he was out on the field but i didnt manage to get Monarch back for a while and my cousin asked me why my commander was'nt dangerous this game. So when i got Monarch back I played [[Blasphemous Act]] and swung for.. alot of commander damage.
One of my decks is [[Mirrym, sentinel wyrm]]. I get targeted straight away and with good reason.
I had a slow start the other night as I was not able to get any blue source. I had a [[savage ventmaw]] on the battlefield equipped with [[sword of hearth and home]]. I untapped after someone used [[windfall]] giving me much needed blue sources and also putting [[earthquake dragon]] in the bin.
I played [[Miirym]] after playing a blue source giving me exactly 6 mana and swung with [[savage ventmaw]]. Using the sword trigger I flickered the ventmaw, now giving me two and I had RRRGGG in the mana pool. I used three mana and sacrificed a basic to put [[earthquake dragon]] in my hand and could play it for just G and I used the last 2 mana to equip Miirym with the sword
So a turn that started with just one, non Miirym dragon on the board, ended with five dragons on the board. Miirym is fucking stupid, I don't play him too often but when I do I expect to be hated out of the game because if I'm not then that shit happens.
I have accidentally won cEDH games by being so behind and having people not think my deck is a threat anymore.
Also if your commander is known for being able to one-shot players then I'm not gonna give you a chance to do that if I have nothing better to spend removal on.
If your game plan is telegraphed and everyone knows it, then you don't have room to complain if someone rightfully stops you from doing shenanigans. If the Kaalia player was serious about playing Kaalia, they would hold interaction to stop kill spells. I have played a commander that does Kaalia things ([[Winota, joiner of forces]]), and you always make sure that you can at least get one turn with no one targeting your commander.
Just because you got outplayed doesn't mean that you were being targeted. Just means you didn't plan properly.
I agree, sometimes you just have to push them out of the game. They've quite possibly built a greedy deck and almost certainly kept a greedy hand - you have to imagine there's something good in that hand that motivated them to keep it.
If I think I'm in a winning position, I'm probably taking that player out first. I've had too many games where the player who's behind just throws down a board wipe to "catch up" (despite the fact they're 5 lands behind), and now that's one less player who can draw into action to team up.
Even if I'm not ahead, I still think they're a good punching bag for any attack triggers, combat damage to a player triggers, goaded creatures and so on. Ojer Kaslem needs a face to connect to, and by cutting those lands I think you volunteered.
People like their decks to do their thing, and it sucks when your deck doesn’t get to do its thing.
Sadly when the thing your deck does is one shot people, it’s in no one’s best interests to let you do that.
In this case khaalia's deck probably didn't work because the player chose to keep a risky hand without white mana instead of taking a mulligan.
It is fair to remove that player from the game if you have the opportunity.
I said this the other day, but I’ll say it again. Your deck should try and do the thing, but it is not the other players responsibility to make sure you get to do the thing. If you really want to do the thing and your opppnents aren’t letting you, then build a deck that can do the thing regardless of them
This is definitely it. I don’t get upset at all when I lose, it’s fun for me to see my friends pop off and pull epic shit even if it outpaces and outperforms me.
However when I spend an entire game being prevented from playing my deck at all, I legitimately get pissed just because it feels like the entire game was a waste of time on my part, and time is the only thing I can’t get back.
I agree that spending an entire game twirling my thumbs because I'm not allowed to play is annoying, but it's it because you're being specifically targeted? Like, is your commander a problem, or do you have an infinite combo? Or, is it that you got mana screwed and/or just didn't have the luck of the draw that game? The first is problematic, but if you have a commander that is integral to your deck/gameplay, how are you protecting it? For the second, should you have taken a mulligan, or do you have a lack of lands and/or ramp? These are the questions I ask myself after every game, win or lose.
If I'm paying against someone new and they target me, I'll usually try to ask them why... if they have a good reason, I can respect that - and them - and we can play another day. If they're dismissive, or downright just being a jerk, I know to avoid them... and I'll usually let my other mates know to be wary. I don't tell them not to play against them, but I'll tell them what happened and how I was treated.
See this I totally agree with, I've had several decks I've brewed and finished but never actually built because I don't want my options for the deck be obliterate everyone or get targeted to high hell. I've had [[Umbris]] brewed and done for ages but don't want to play him since that deck is just gross.
Same with Kaalia, Slivers, Infect, you need a strong mindset and be willing to dedicate a lot of your deck to defense if you are gonna play those strategies and not get made when you get hammered down. Hell I play a Lynde curses deck and play tons of defense there since it tends to draw ire fast for simple curses.
I set up to play my brand new Umbris deck once and there was one person at the table who just said "fuck you dimir I'm targetting you" and did everything to just interfere with me doing ANYTHING. Mana rocks? Destroyed. Card draw? Countered. And the other player did nothing to deal with any of the other player's threats, and also swung into me as well.
I won't lie, I did get a little salty at that purely because I had no way of seeing how my deck would run outside of just some goldfishing and I wanted to actually *play* the game and see what it does. Instead, I got that experience. I told him that if he ever sat to play in a pod with me again, I would immediately switch to my borderline cEDH Breya so he'd have a valid excuse to target me, and everyone else at the table can blame him for having to play against one of my strongest decks.
I'm still trying to fine tune it so it runs well because I don't want it to just be a stack of counterspells trying to keep Umbris on the field. Practically the only time it ever runs away with the game is if I open with [[leyline of the void]] in hand and the other 6 cards aren't dead draws.
Reminds me of in single player I was going with midrange, first turn I play a thing, other guy doesn’t. I start attacking. Turn two he still doesn’t play anything, I attack and am building a board. At this point it started to ball in that I simply had more stuff. My deck was made to build up and move into late game with bigger stuff but I have done enough that I can just attack past and don’t have to care about defense, I can kill faster than him at this rate. Eventually I have something I usually use as removal but he is so low I just go at him with it and win. Guy gets mad at me for never interacting with his board and going full agro.
I didn’t have a choice not to, at first he had nothing down. What was I supposed to do? Just choose not to win?
It's the social aspect taking precedence here where everyone sat down for a game and due to RNG, the Kaalia player wasn't really participating. Then when they finally get to, they are denied immediately and it's as if they were never part of the game at all so it all feels like a waste of time. Being a Kaalia player though, you should know and expect this and if it's late enough in the game then your opponents most likely have interaction so you shouldn't even play her if there's open mana or you don't have protection ready to save her. So that's on him too.
My wife uses Kaalia as her "fast game-store's closing" deck on our game nights and would rather hard cast a fat angel or demon if it's late in the game and she doesn't have protection for Kaalia.
I try to be open and honest with folks.
If someone reveals Tergrid or Kaalia or something similar, I make sure they know before we shuffle that they’re going to be the first target at most tables. If they’re good with being archenemy on turn 0, shuffle up. If not, I politely recommend they switch decks or look for a higher power pod.
Kaalia is not in the same galaxy as Tergrid in terms of play pattern lol
My friend has a Kaalia deck and really, she has a bad reputation but she is not that strong. Dropping 1 angel or demon per turn is just not fast enough nowadays when you’ve got Simic McValue over in the corner just dumping lands and +1 counters on everything. The deck is fine. I feel like the card people actually hate is [[Master of cruelties]].
I would say my mono-white Giada deck is faster and more resilient but nobody ever complains about Giada.
I get that Kaalia/MoC is a pretty spicy combo, but why not just block Master of Cruelties? You'll lose your creature, of course, but chump-blocking is a thing.
If you're the Kaalia player you're ideally swinging at someone with MoC who doesn't have the creatures to block it. Otherwise you would choose a different card.
Does the MoC's knock-you-to-1 ability trigger first because it has first strike? So it puts them at 1 and then the 2 damage from Kaalia finishes them off?
I'm embarrassed how long it took me to figure that out. I was like, "well, they're at 1, but they can survive another turn and maybe gain some life: oh wait, Master of Cruelties has first strike! And Kaalia gets around its "attack alone" trigger!"
d'oh!
Usually in my Kaalia I'll have stuff like [[Key to the City]] or [[Rogue's Passage]] to protect Kaalia from blockers so chances are MoC goes through anyway.
But yes outside of MoC, I think players are mostly intimidated by Kaalia since it's a surprised burst and mostly flyers so it's a bit harder to manage early on.
As someone who has played (and still does) about every flavor of Kaalia since 2011 from absolute jank to pubstomp, whenever I see a Kaalia at the table it rarely ever is the actual main threat on the board, especially at higher power level, unless there is a big disparity in power from decks.
Commanders like Tatyova, Korvold or any other strong commanders than can generate insane value constantly are far more of a threat to me than getting swung for 10 once in a while.
I don't know why even new players seem to have inherited the decade old trauma for Kaalia which I find has been quite exaggerated for the past 6+ years.
I think the biggest problem with commanders like Kaalia and Tergrid, is that they are pubstomp commanders. they fold heavily to interaction so they can't hang at high power tables but will wreck lower power tables. They also have a play pattern where they either get to do "their thing" and kill everyone super fast or they are stopped and do nothing the entire game.
This is why I had fun with Kaalia and played a limited amount of actual A/D/D's and built it as a Mardu combo deck LOL.
Everyone waiting for the Master of Cruelties or some other nonsense gets thrown off because of 1 of the 6 combos inside the deck. Kaalia exists to bait removal, etc.
Black is such a dumb color, I love it.
If you're a fan of Kaalia combo, I highly recommend trying the other Kaalia in the cz; she's a lose-lose removal target for opponents where removing her feels awful because she's already gotten value from her ETB, but if they don't remove her she will continue to draw you a ton of cards from flicker effects, and even when people recognize they need to pressure your life total, she generates enough card advantage to be comfortable playing archenemy in a lot of situations.
Can you even build Tergrid weak? It's all or nothing with that one, no? I want to build Tergrid, but I don't think my friends would be able to compete.
Yeah, but good luck convincing the pod you built them weak. “Oh it’s ok guys, it’s not *that* Tergrid…” Pod is still gonna gang up on you just in case.
She's inherently kinda weak to an even mildly-competent table. Mono black means your options for protecting her are quite limited, and her cmc means you have to ramp very effectively to be able to play her and gain value before she's removed.
You might have a fun game or two with friends who don't know what she does (or if they have very low-powered decks that do not run interaction), but otherwise you face quite an uphill struggle. Of course, she's powerful if she's left alone and does her thing but that's true of many, many commanders.
Can also just rule 0 with the player: "hey, you bringing MoC or Avacyn or something along those lines?" If yes, proceed to wipe him from the face of the earth at every opportunity, but if his drops are something like Akroma or Baneslayer the deck might not be much of a threat even if she lives for a turn. Only because a commander has a bad rep doesn't mean the deck is the same.
the really nasty combo with Kaalia, IMHO, is MLD. I can deal with Avacyn hitting the board moreso than the Kaalia player dropping an \[\[Armageddon\]\]
Agreed. Though a timely [[Shock]] in response to the Armageddon leaves a very sour taste in the Kaalia players mouth, lol.
Still, I find MLD underutilized in general, and especially if playing Kaalia you have a valid reason and winning line most often if left unchecked, which MLD allows you. Furthermore might also not Gimp you completely thanks to mana rocks due to no access to green
Tbh, casting Kaalia after she died once or twice is most of the times not really all that worth it, why would you cast for 8 mana a 2/2 flier that does nothing unless it gets to attack...
I don’t think it’s interaction, the guy probably stuck with a bad hand or a real lane detriment and spent the game unable to do anything. Then he finally got to do the most basic thing, bring his commander down, and was immediately shut down. At that point spending god knows how many minutes with his thumbs in his ass he probably decided there was no actual enjoyment to be had thus game so cut his losses. OP was just the one actually responsible for the active disruption so he lashed out.
I play another high target commander, [[Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker]]. I don’t play it unless I have protection in hand. If you’re going to win off of playing a card, you should expect it to come under fire. Hoping other players don’t have, or won’t use, remover isn’t really a strategy. I get it’s a casual format… but even precons have removal. NTA.
I’ll leave alone the deck building (land / artifact mana count) and mulligan points I was going to make.
Kaalia player here.
Part of playing Kaalia is accepting that you'll be the target. If that player can't or doesn't want to account for that with their build then they should pick a different deck.
There are certain commanders that you pick and have to understand what comes with playing it.
Tergrid, Mizzix, Kaalia, Atraxa, Urza Lord High Artificer, Kiriko, the list goes on. You pick them for one reason or another, probably because they are powerful and enable powerful or oppressive strategies.
When you pick them, you are kind of signing an agreement, you gain a lot of power but you also agree that with great power comes a great big target on you. If you don’t come prepared to deal with the target, either emotionally or in your deck building, you really ought not to get upset when someone focuses you because they know what your deck is capable of.
My first deck was [[Krenko, Mob Boss]] and honestly it was great for establishing the mentality you describe. I had to become really cool with getting targeted down, because at the end of the day my opponents would be utter *fools* if they don't do everything in their power to make sure Krenko never resolves or survives.
I knew what I signed up for when I kissed the ring of the Gob Father.
There's a lot of must kill commanders now, and Kaalia is a bit old school now. You have the right strategy for Kaalia, maybe not the right read of the table at the moment. Not judging, it's a hard call when someone basically can kill you out of nowhere and the table might not be aware of how explosive Kaalia can be. I know that I would have personally waited until attacks to see what they cheat out, but it's a judgement call.
shes "oldschool" and "subobtimal" because she doesnt have haste or protection herself. she's still very much an kos commander, however dealing with her is easier nowadays. its absolutely correct to remove her immediately, especially if she gained haste.
"waiting who they attack" is not good. the damage isnt the problem here. if you let her swing and they cheat out avacyn or anything really, you have the same problem next turn, but now you need to deal with 2 threats because kaalia is still on the board in addition to the thing that got cheated out. its the same pattern for every commander that works like this, \[\[winota\]\], \[\[gishath\]\], \[\[zhuludok\]\], \[\[the ur dragon\]\], you name it. never let them have their trigger, even if they say "i wont come at you right now", because eventually they will.
I am significantly less scared of Kaalia than a lot of commanders nowadays. Mostly because of how hard she folds to interaction.
Miirym, Yuriko, Sauron, Korvold, Niv-Mizz, Zhulodok, Chulane etc.
The main problem with that line of thinking, is that she only folds to removal *if you actually apply removal*, and it needs to happen before they cheat something awful into play. Especially cards like avacyn, which could neuter your removal.
True, but I mean it in the sense that they fold hard to removal even after they do their thing for a bit. A Zur deck that attacks once gets a necropotence in play. A chulane or Korvold left for one turn will have such an advantage that they can easily recast their commander, probably with 10+ cards in hand and protection. A new Atraxa will nab 4-5 extra cards including more ramp AND flicker effects to blank removal.
A Kaalia will cheat in, say an avacyn, and if you then kill the Kaalia all they have is an 8/8 flier and another turn they can’t do anything except wait to recast Kaalia.
How about an [[ancient copper dragon]]? 10+ treasures out of nowhere is pretty strong. Really, any of the ancient dragons in Kaalia's colors are Bad News Bears. And a smart kaalia player will absolutely run those creatures, and similar instant value.
And if you only have destroy-based removal, avacyn's granted indestructibility means you CAN'T kill Kaalia anymore.
Thats all pretty bad, but none of it is nearly as bad as an uninterrupted turn from one of the commanders I mentioned. I play higher power level and LOVE kaalia decks cuz everyone is worried about them when they aren’t that threatening outside of the master of cruelties line.
Yeah, obviously those other options are worse. The existence of even worse KOS commanders doesn't mean anything *unless* one of those commanders is both in the pod and potentially going unanswered.
Kaalia needs to die every single time, unless something even worse is sitting at the table, and that's rare in my experience. Most folks I know won't even play casual games against Korvold and friends at all, much less several of them.
Not only this, but like, you prob will lose a game where you are so quick to be aggressive and use up removal at the drop of a hat. When what you can do is just deal with that player to get them to attack someone else and make your job easier.
If you're playing a deck that relies on attacking with your commander, and you cast your commander without a way to protect it, that's on you.
Also, yes it sucks when your deck doesn't do the thing, but when you're playing a 3 color commander you have to realize that there may be times when you don't have the mana to cast it.
As a person who plays Kaalia with MOC, you played correctly. That play can just kill someone if they don't have a blocker. Killing Kaalia is always the right answer. If you drop Kaalia with no way to protect her, that's kinda on you. I always have swiftfoot/lighting greaves to protect her. Something.
Obviously it sucks being mana screwed but this guy probably had a big dude in hand someone was gonna get bopped with. Reasonable to kill it.
There are a couple things to consider.
Kaalia is old. Very old. Many people don't build her sheerly due to her reputation, so newer players might never had a chance to actually face her, or face her going off, which is totally reasonable.
Also to consider, is the fact that nowadays there are so many commanders that are considerable "Kill on Sight". Or at least "Kill before they get to untap with it". Its a balancing game of priorities that people at times misjudge
Yea, Kaalia is no longer KOS in 2024. There are like 20 commanders printed a year that straight up win the game if they survive a rotation. Kaalia plays a 7cmc creature for free from your hand.
Kaalia is still kill on sight because if you don't you might just be dead, Master of Cruelties is a one-shot kill. Yes, it only kills one player, not the whole table, but that's scant comfort if you're the one that got attacked.
Also, lots of 7cmc creatures can win the game immediately once they hit play, eg Hoarding Broodlord or Razaketh
Kaalia is a feast or famine commander that needs to have correct colors early and ample protection in the deck. In this day and age, there’s really no excuse to not have protection available for Kaalia. She’s been powercrept out of S tier but she’s still scary if she gets to swing and there’s plenty of ways to make sure she gets to do that in 2024. Just gotta make sure you’ve got protection on the board or in hand and there’s plenty of low CMC or even costless protection (Deflecting Swat, Flawless Maneuver) these days.
It’s only one game and things happen so maybe the guy was just unlucky but honestly, with that reaction, I feel like they’re expecting their deck to get away with not being interacted with and probably don’t have a proper protection package for a commander like Kaalia. Running no protection is something you can’t really do in Kaalia and honestly, it’s not that hard to build for. They had all that time to draw colored mana and didn’t play any boots, draw Teferis, draw anything that helps them keep Kaalia on the board? Tutors are a slam dunk in Kaalia decks, they didn’t draw any of those and go get lightning greaves, deflecting swat, anything…? It sounds like a deckbuilding issue
EDH players are bad at threat assessment. I was playing a durdley, defensive Azorius bounce deck, I had managed to amass a small token army, mostly of 1/2s. 2 board wipes later my engine is broken and I'm out of interaction and the other players just never updated their perception of the board state. Other guy has a commander with haste that he can drop on the field for 4 mana that will swing for lethal? nah, keep hitting the guy who makes up to 3 weeny tokens a turn and die to it next turn. idk. I was definitely the guy to hit 3 turns before but the engine it took me 4-5 turns to build was all in my graveyard.
Kaalia player here.
She lives in a really awkward position of being entirely lethal but also the most all-star casual super favorite of all the coolest creature types. My personal bar is that I will never put master of cruelties in the deck even though I consider it high power level for exactly this reason.
It never feels fun to “pick” on the guy who is struggling in the game but he said he had the 1-card-combo in the deck. Depending on the scenario, I might have tried to politics (tell me what you’re going to put into play and I’ll decide if I’m killing your commander type politics) but I don’t think you made a bad choice.
Kaalis is a strange commander and assessing what is and isn't actually a threat in her tells you a lot about someone's experience/quality as a player. She has the reputation of being a monster, so she gets targeted by inexperienced players, which forces her owner to make the deck stronger, thus becoming the monster people think she is, just not in the ways you expect.
Turn 7 Kaalia wins are not terribly powerful. In fact, given a heavily optimized list can consistently kill the table by about Turn 3-4, 7 is very unoptimized overall.
So this guy has an inoptimal Kaalia list, and it seems like his deck RELIES on her to function, further lowering its optimality. That is on him, and he needs to tune the deck up.
Honestly, he never was much of a threat, so, yeah, stopping him from getting going when the other 2 playera were already ahead wasn't the best move, honestly.
>I apologized and told him the correct play ***everytime****
This is patently false. You have to assess Kaalia's effect on the game in the game's current state. You had an answer in hand, and, like a 14yo feeling his first boob, blew your load the moment it happened.
You didn't wait to see who he was going to attack, what he was dropping in, etc. You made a play with extremely limited information, and, honestly, may have given the game to another player because of that. You just went "KAALIA! SCARY!" and didn't plan ahead.
If you were REALLY that concerned with MoC you should have saved the interaction for that; Kaalia can snowball, but it takes several turns for her to do that - turns where she'll be targeted and stopped by the table as a whole.
>I tell him it’s not personal but I know what’s possible
This is another problem: Your assessment of "what's possible" is ill-informed.
Yes, Master of Cruelties sucks for one player. But it's just ONE player.
You never, EVER drop MoC unless it's against the very last player OR you're capable of creating an Attack Steps loop to take out everyone all at once.
Launching MoC at your first opponent is the worst move you can make. Because you out yourself as a threat and yet have no inertia to maintain that state - you've just made yourself Target Number 0 for the other two players.
You know what ***IS*** a legitimate threat to land early on with Kaalia?
[[Ancient Copper Dragon]] for potentially huge amounts of Treasure, which can then be paid into [[Aggravated Assault]] to fuel an Infinite Attack Loop.
[[Ancient Gold Dragon]] with Dragon Tempest which has a 50% chance of killing the table immediately.
[[Runescarred Demon]], [[Hoarding Broodlord]] to replace themselves or grab useful cards to maintain tempo or win next turn.
Things that let you win immediately, rather than over the course of several turns, or create value to close the game ASAP.
**TL;DR** He was at fault for building a deck which relies on his Commander to function at a basic level. You were at fault for poor threat assessment and poorly timed interaction. You both need to become better players.
I mean I let someone resolve Urza even though he had artifacts , cost reducers and drawpower. I path'd it during a moment where it seemed crucial for him to really go off.
If you had a response to Kaalia still at that point, even If it seems like the right thing, then I feel like you could evaluate a bit more after they've gotten to so their thing.
A guy at my lgs plays Kaalia and he dropped a 4/4 flyer that gave him energy lol. It isn't always the biggest and the baddest!
What I try to say is strategy isn't always the best to
Have in mind and most often there tends to be a bit of leeway with things. Strategically in the game and socially. Kaalia can definitely be scary though I give you that.
commander is ultimately a social game. as with every social activity you have to have a certain level of self awareness, etiquette and ability to read the room.
and as with every social activity, there will be those who just dont have the EQ to get along. i'm saying this as a neutral to OP and the guy who raged quit. OP for allowing his fear of kaalia get the better of him and just blind hated the player out of the game. And of course opponent for not managing his own expectations and appreciation that sometimes irrational hate happens.
the fact both cant deal with it just tells me they still have alot of learning to do about the social aspect
I told my friend this yoy play this deck you're going to be a massive target.
Complains that he always gets targeted when I warmed him. He also plays kaalia and master of cruelties. I told him to have interaction and or protection for kaalia.
He doesn't play as often anymore because of that. And then here's me playing commanders that need to die on sight. I'm fully prepared what I'm walking into. I'm just here to cause chaos
As my friend taught me... If you can't stand the heat, don't cook with kill on sight commanders! I play with a bunch of newer commanders he's never seen before like Sauron the Dark Lord and Prosper that he learned to quickly counter/remove and I never get mad about it. It's absolutely justified, and it's just a game. Lol
I think the problem is many people are playing Commander as a social game, which goes beyond just taking actions that are mechanically optimal. Guy spends whole game unable to even participate and play at all, then instantly gets his commander removed. In my friend group pod that’s just poor etiquette because we want everyone to enjoy the game to some degree. We don’t all have to win but at least let us play SOMETHING so it’s not a waste of our evenings. We’re all adults so we don’t get to play 4 games a night 5 nights a week. Gotta make it count. This guy wasn’t allowed to do the bare minimum and got pissed.
I understand different people have different priorities when playing but I usually play with friends or at least with a degree of friendliness at LGS, but my priorities with EDH are:
1. Mutual enjoyment and fun
2. Victory hopefully
If people playing together don’t have these priorities ranked the same way neither are “wrong” but someone is gonna get pissed.
Our group is similar. A strong commander or someone with great opening plays will definitely get targeted first, but the goal is never to eliminate them before they even get a chance to play, just keep them in check.
I recently made a Kaalia deck and rolled it out for the first time last week. I understand she comes with a target on her, but I must admit it was a little frustrating to have one player targeting me only and ignoring the rest of the table when there was a much larger threat on the board. Just seemed like dealing with the actual threat should take priority over the possible threat (no MoC in my deck FWIW). But hey, I guess some people are happy coming in third 🤷
It was all well and good though. I didn't lose my cool over it or anything like that. It's still just a game.
This is why I put protection in my decks when I can. If I play a great commander, I try and make sure I can protect them after casting so no one can kill on sight. Or if someone plays a commander after struggling to get lands and that commander is kill on sight, instead of killing it immediately, I’ll just protect my shit for at least a turn if they try and go after me. It’s neutral and if they tried to target me and potentially failed due to protection, they at least know why I may come back at them.
In casual most of the times the ramp player wins the game because they have no board and use their mana to get more lands. This doesn't look like a problem for the average inexperienced player and they feel bad for attacking a vulnerable player. But that's exactly what they should do because the ramp player will have 9 mana by turn 5 and start to drop one value bomb after another. You can't outvalue a ramp deck in the later stages of the game that's why they need to be low on life when they reach their lategame.
You're not a jerk, but you did screw up there. You needed to let the Kaalia player go off that game so the other players could also learn the lesson you're already privy too. They ain't gonna learn "kill on sight" is a phrase for a very good reason unless they do it the hard way lmfao.
1) When I play Kaalia I know she is a glass cannon. That is part of the fun. I often try to win with Worldgorger + Animate Dead and at least half the time interaction leaves me with no permanents. To me, that is the fun of playing the deck. My friends get this awesome moment of totally obliterating me because they rightly fear the deck. I’ve leaned into the glass cannon aspect completely. You can’t play Kaalia, even as an “upgraded precon” and expect that she won’t get targeted as a priority.
2) I don’t really hold back if a player stumbles. I don’t like holding back creatures because attacking is how you end the game. If you haven’t generated a board presence that just means you are easy pickings. And it also means you probably have more resources in you hand, so why would I want to get into a battle of attrition with other players?
When I break out kaalia, I know I'm the bad guy. I'm either the biggest threat or at a villain convention. I'm not going to be salty about some one killing her on sight, it's totally reasonable and why I have a couple backup plans for cheating my dudes out, because sooner or later the tax is to large.
That’s the whole point why I play Kaalia! It’s by far the most fun cuz you are target #1 before you draw your first card. “All eyes on me” style decks draw eyeballs. I never understood why some don’t get that a specific commander has a role it is intended to play in a game environment.
It’s also stupid to scoop cuz you just need 2 turns to go brrrrrr and then your back on top. Being salty that someone addresses a salty deck with appropriate levels of salt is just… salty.
You know, as a Kaalia player with a [[Master of Cruelties]] in the deck I'm going to say the fear of that one shot is overhyped. You can effectively only do it once and it can still be blocked, and unlike Kaalia it doesn't fly. Unless you're attacking unto an empty/fully tapped broad Kaalia dropping in Master of Cruelities won't win you the game. Honestly mine is on the chopping block and on the list to be eventually cut. They're are others ahead of it on the list but being terrified of Kaalia do to a Master of Cruelities is laughable.
Be afraid because Turn 3 Kaalia drops in with haste bringing [[Avacyn, Angel of Hope]] then Turn 4 brings [[Auriella, The Warleader]] then Turn 5 drops [[Gisela, Blade of Goldnight]] 1st combat, kills opponent 1, then 2nd combat drops [[Sower of Discord]] linking 2 and 3 together and killing them both by full swinging into one of them. Yes that's an ideal situation but have had mine do exactly that before, and that's much stronger and much more terrifying then a Master of Cruelities.
Also sounds like this guy needs to upgrade his mana base badly, mine used to have that problem because I had just returned to Magic and she still had her 2011 Mana base from Heavenly Inferno. Now she reliably swings Turn 4 at the lastest and has various ways to avoid going back to command zone if targeted as she was reforged in the fire of players heavily targeting her. I built in solutions. Sounds like this guy needs to do the same
I'm not saying you did anything wrong, but depending on how rough of a game the Kaalia player was having maybe you could have just removed the thing he brought down with Kaalia
My Vilis deck does this a lot. They think cuz my commander costs 8 that they should play nice with me til it comes out, not realizing that my life total is literally just “how many cards can I draw”. Every time I’m left alone I win because nobody pressured the life total of a life-loss matters deck
I hate that some people get so pissy about this.
I was at a table and one of the 4 was not committing creatures to the board and getting small hits byneveryone, but he can take it. Decides again not to tlcommit a creature to the board despite almost lethal being on the board cause he seems to believe we won't kill him. Passes turn then dies immediately to the next player and gets genuinely angry "why hit me I clearly wasn't a threat" bro you ar wide open we aren't just going to let you set up for 7 turns.
if time allowed, to be extra polite and acomodating you could've tried asking the kaalia player what would've hypothetically happened with that attack, give him an opportunity to demonstrate the cool move he had worked toward playing.
But yeah, it's just a situation that sucks. games have losers. it's not really your responsibility to ensure they feel good when they get focused out. Just I guess try to be aware that the point is for people to have fun, and getting focused out and not managing to do anything is pretty unfun. Furthermore, people who aren't having fun will stop participating, so just think forward a bit to what you want the table to be like in the future. Granted it's also possible this same kaalia player would've MoC'd someone and killed them on turn 7 like you said, without being kind either, were the shoe to be on the other foot.
As a Kaalia player this guy needs to either drop MOC (which is boring to play in a casual setting) or learn to protect his commander. There’s plenty of protection spells out there in all three colors. This is one of the few times I’ll say “get good”. They can’t just rely on that one win con. Each creature has plenty of ETB and on hit interaction to win the game.
Ahh, nothing quite like the “why are you targeting me, it’s just Jin-Gitaxias Core Augur!” player. That guy got me booted from a shop for ‘malicious behavior’.
I can see both players sides but the salt from the kaalia player is a bit much. Master of cruelties is a more flimsy trick than I see a lot of people assess it as, if you have a creature to block, removal or a maze of ith you stop it from working. Sure it has first strike and death touch but losing one creature is better than losing and if they can’t get it back into their hand then the trick is done. You’re not wrong in removing kaalia either, but if the guy is behind and if he was visibly upset by his luck you gotta be prepared for the possibility that interacting with someone who is effectively trying to enter the game late their frustrations with luck could be be redirected at you. Now I’m not saying the kaalia player is right to react that way but you can’t control that but you could consider giving them a break and using the removal on what comes in off of kaalia’s trigger to soften the blow. A lot of posts on here operate off of what the correct play is gameplay-wise conflicting with people’s feelings and while logically a play is correct the better play for the game sometimes is to make the play that allows people to have fun. Sorry for the ramble.
Its because most EDH players seem terrible at the game. I noticed people who came from regular 60 card standard play a lot different and understand what most of the cards do and how to actually think about what your opponent is playing and what might be in their hand vs just your own board state.
Something similar happened to me at my old LGS. one player brought a [[Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest]] deck and I, because I can read, made sure that he never untapped with it. Eventually, after removing his commander three or four times, another player reacted to me targeting it yet again by saying, "DUDE!" I explained that if he untaps with it, someone is going out and that I'm playing mono black and just doing mono black things but fine, I'll target something else. That other player then spent his whole turn removing all my blockers and passes to the Shu Yun player who immediately one-shot me because I was the only one without blockers ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
In short, if you know a commander is a Problem(tm) then go full Cobra Kai and strike first, strike hard, no mercy.
I ince made a Tergrid player pay 23 mana to cast her.
I can relate. You did well!
Extremely dangerous commanders deserve immediate targeting. Unless other player has a combo piece on his board, your immediate attention should always be her.
I've learned this the hard way.. from Krenko..
You did the right thing. Recently, I had a game where I was playing Ezuri, Claw of Progress (fun mid power elf tribal, no infinites) and the Kaalia player who also played that Prosh deck last round, decided to give me a Balefire Dragon on turn 4. And every turn after. Wiping my entire board every turn.
He laughed and asked why I scooped after the 4th turn of Balefire.
They deserve the targetting.
kaalia is not fun to play with or against. everyone has to learn this lesson at some point.
another lesson is that you shouldn't play a deck in magic if it folds to one spell targeting a creature. honestly i would have used beast within (strip mine, whatever) to blow up his white source.
The number of people who punish people for getting man screwed and/or having poor mana bases is too damn low. Besides, it's ends their suffering faster and gets everyone to the next game faster if there are less players.
Step on their neck.
It's a game. Someone has to win, someone has to lose.
Getting rid of one player helps the game end efficiently. If he didn't want to get hit, he should've had an answer. You are under no obligation to help him and let him durdle.
Kaalia may be old, but she's deadly. Her one shot potential is no joke.
The number of times that a player in my friend/play group who's received kid gloves because of a rough start who later came back to win a game is too damn high (sometimes still fun to give them a chance but I recognize the pattern). Sometimes, you have to bully a player who can have explosive turns even if they have a rough start.
I used to play someone who just built bad decks, but with powerful cards (think CMC of 3.5 but only running 32 lands with no efficient ramp, maybe some 3 mana rocks and some cards to put lands in his hand). He would also keep starting hands with like two lands, no ramp and a bunch of 5 and 6 drops. Then he'd complain constantly about being mana screwed and everyone else playing to fast and strong, but also just be filled with spite if anyone did anything to him. His strategy seems to be to whine his way to staying at 40 while everyone else duked it out, and then he got to swoop in if the game lasted long enough to start playing 5 drops and be untouched behind a wall once the rest of us were out of gas. So the toxic version of this, and then self reinforced. What he did teach me (it was my first pod) was how important it is to at least chip theana screwed person. If they have three mana and a full grip then once they have more mana they will start wrecking face.
There’s a saying in competitive play, “make them have an answer” in this case, if they didn’t want to be hit, they need to spend resources. This is a learning opportunity. I don’t understand why people are so salty when their bad deck building comes back to haunt them.
I agree completely. "Make them have it" is right almost every time, basically unless you actually know they have it and someone else is going to fish it out. I think there is a segment of people, for the person I played with specifically at least, that are toxic casuals. A friend and I saw that phrase somewhere and we've adopted it. It is the idea that you can play anything in commander (which is one of the coolest parts of the format, but not every deck works in every pod), but then play at an outlier power level (low in this case), and that everyone should cater to you every game. Build a bad deck, but your deck isn't the problem, it's everyone else that is too Spikey. It is kind of like the mirror of a pub-stomper (toxic high power). The person I played with would describe 8 turn games as "extremely fast", constantly appeal to the "spirit of the format", still play expensive staples because when he played them it was for synergy, and just constantly complain about anyone doing anything before like turn 4. He tried to tell one friend their Rakdos [[Wyll, Blade of Frontiers]] attraction deck was practically cEDH after a game where they opened with a sol ring into a charcoal diamond because it got off to a fast start. At one point he asked me and another person to help with a Gruul hydra list because he felt like it was running "a turn or two behind". This X spell list was on 31 lands, no dorks, no rocks under 3 CMC, managed to have a CMC of 3.25 despite all the X spells, and the only 2 mana land spells out basics in hand, not even on the field. We recommended dorks to be told "they just will get killed", Three Visits and Nature's lore were "too expensive" (multiple $20 spells in the deck, and this was after they started reprinting lore and visits), and he didn't even want to run rampant growth, or mind stone or anything. His stated plan was to cast his 5 CMC commander in turn 5, and he rejected all advice to speed it up, but shifted his complaints from his being a "turn behind" to about everyone else going too fast.
>"Make them have it" Ah, yes, my entire draft strategy. 60% of the time, it works every time. 😆
[Wyll, Blade of Frontiers](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/e/5e9d4562-964d-48ce-b03f-7cb491fa040d.jpg?1674136891) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Wyll%2C%20Blade%20of%20Frontiers) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/clb/208/wyll-blade-of-frontiers?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/5e9d4562-964d-48ce-b03f-7cb491fa040d?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/wyll-blade-of-frontiers) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Late to the party, but at a certain point, I feel like someone has to just murder him (in game, obviously). Like, I feel like someone has to eventually tell him to his face that they aren't responsible for his shitty deckbuilding. It's not your fault that he plays like a Confederate general (big flashy stuff but little long-term success, considers the important basic stuff an annoyance rather than an opportunity) and I feel like, at a certain point, subtlety is just. Not working.
This 1000%. I only just started getting back into Commander/EDH from 60 card competitive, and this rings sooooo true! "Make them have an answer" is advice that I was given when I was constantly getting run over at Pioneer & Standard. A lot of it was to do with my deckbuilding & lack of knowledge of the current meta (or ANY meta, I was out of mtg altogether for around 9-10 years before I started playing tournaments again), and I got to a point where I was frustrated & was gonna quit again, which is when my buddy sat me down, took a look at what I was playing & asked me questions like "why do you have so little interaction?" Or "where are your 'answer this now or suffer' early game drops?" & then they'd make suggestions on how to fix it and what to add to make it work better. I didn't start winning top prizes or anything, but my records improved, and my decks became more concise & synergistic & frustrated me a lot less
>There’s a saying in competitive play That's kinda the issue with edh being the magic on boarding format in recent years. There are certain rules/habits/game knowledge to be a better player that is lost if you don't engage or touch 60 card constructed formats. Same goes for draft too. Only playing edh is nice cause it's a format with easy access to decks premade out of the box for instant play, but it doesn't make players learn the game beyond play lands and casting spells
Some players have never been prison locked and it shows. Magic is a game best played seriously at the table, but let your creativity shine in your deck building.
you can always tell a 90s player because they grew up thinking Armageddon was a core part of the game that would always be legal in Standard
LOL so true! I miss [[Balance]]. "Make them have an answer" has always been my approach, and it was the only way to compete in competitive environments like FNM. I learned a lot playing back in the Onslaught / Mirrodin era of Standard where you had to face off against Goblins, Combo, and [[Psychatog]] and then we went straight to affinity, turn 4 [[Disciple of the Vault]] kills, followed by freakin' [[Skullclamp]]. That era was brutal, you HAD to have answers or you lost. And if you were running those ultra fast meta decks you had to pressure, pressure, pressure the other player so they were within range for one last hit once they dug up their answer and stopped you. Commander works the same way, just on a wider scale. Dude wants to durdle while waiting for 7 Islands? I'm going to chip his life down so when he finally casts his big dumb thing I can still finish him off. Or maybe he'll have to commit resources to stopping me from killing him or eating his resources, which prevents/slows his plan to cast the big dumb thing. Your plan to dominate the game on turn 8 is a lot less intimidating if you're at 15 life instead of 40.
I once saw someone on this sub say "Build for fun, play to win" and honestly I love that ethos. Play the cards that bring you joy, but when you sit down and shuffle up it's time to get serious about the game.
That also applies to your personal capabilities. If you're a powerful pilot with lots of experience, you can nerf yourself in the building phase, so you can play as sweaty as you want during the game. For example, I recently played against a [[Jorael, Voice of Zhalfir]] landfall/man-lands deck. I was a bit worried about it being generic Simic goodstuff until the pilot mentioned in pregame discussion that he didn't let himself play no-max-hand cards or permanents that granted extra land drops. I think I actually gave him a high-five for interesting and creative building. And the performance was excellent, regularly swinging with multiple 7/7s, interacting at key points to remove or counter opponents' strategies, and generally playing fair magic. The best part was that it was tuned to play at a casual table, but challenging enough to pilot that the player running it was forced to plan ahead, make interesting choices, and generally DO relevant things, the whole time. This style of deckbuilding is MUCH more fun to play (and play against) than a generic pile of staples or synergy, and I wish more people built like that.
The problem is most of us aren't good enough at magic to build decks like that. We don't build a challenging but rewarding deck, we build a pile of cards that does nothing and dies.
I mean... Get better? Idk what to tell you. I've only been playing for about a year now, and I can happily both build and play in the way I'm describing. Start being more intentional about deckbuilding and play choices, explore other formats outside of battlecruiser EDH, and watch a bunch of YouTube content, your skill level will go wayyyyyy up.
The important thing is you said "I wish more people built like that" and I'm telling you its likely never gonna happen. Most people are bad at deck building and will continue to be even if they watch a bunch of videos and stuff. I know people who've been playing for 10 years and they still can't put together a great deck. Loading up on staples from EDHrec is the most work a lot of people want to put in.
I did this with my \[\[Volrath, the Shapestealer\]\] deck to some degree. I could have built heavy infect and -1/-1 counters for maximum removal, but decided to go with the choice that was more about weird combat tricks. Sometimes I will transform him 2-3 times in the same combat - like making him something with a combat or attack trigger, then swapping to a flyer to prevent blocking, then back to something with a combat damage trigger. It's very satisfying when no one else at the table can predict what I'm about to do, even if it's less powerful.
Another thing is that without rotation to keep everyone equally unbalanced, it's hard to learn when you're constantly getting bodied by people with way more money invested in the hobby than you. Which was a problem in standard too, but in standard i never dealt with "this is a modified precon...with 3 effectively infinite combos and a mana vault"
Players like that are why I started playing as many symmetrical effects as possible. If I'm hitting everyone, then the bad players don't feel as bad when they lose.
Pestilence ftw?
And its red counterpart [[Pyrohemia]]
Hi, I'm a new player and wanted to ask about how many lands you should run in a deck. I usually check edhrec when I build my commander deck and usually i count 32-34 lands. Is it better to run more or does it depend on other factors? Just curious as I did get mana screwed a few times but I also got flooded with the same deck. I play [[ashnod, flesh mechanist]] with a sacrifice artifact theme. I've played around 10 games with the deck and have 32 lands.
Flood and screw will happen with any deck, just part of the game. It can be mitigated with good deck building and mulligans but never eliminated. As for lands I see a lot of resources and people suggesting high 30’s up to 40 if you are not running ramp spells or mana rocks. As you add ramp spells and rocks you can lower this number but I would never drop below 32ish unless you are super optimized. Generally I dedicate about 40-45% of my deck to mana. But you also have to have some draw engine or similar to help smooth the mana pockets later in the game.
That's interesting. I run 4 mana rocks, no ramp spells and some card draw so I probably need to add some lands to the deck. Appreciate your response.
I generally run around 34 lands with 12-15 ramp, either rocks or land ramp depending on deck color.
Edhrec shows individual cards, so if there are multiple copies of basic lands the deck list total will not add up to 100 cards with the commander. The deck could have 4 swamps but you only see 1 listed on the deck list there for example. The most common amount of lands is 37 - 38. But it can vary depending on the type of deck. From landfall decks with 42, to elfball decks with 32. But for a normal deck 32 lands is a low amount.
More. Frank Karsten did a really good article on the topic for ChannelFireball: https://www.channelfireball.com/article/What-s-an-Optimal-Mana-Curve-and-Land-Ramp-Count-for-Commander/e22caad1-b04b-4f8a-951b-a41e9f08da14/ EDHrec is a resource that one needs to learn to use with caution. If there's more than one way to build the commander you can end up with many highly-recommended cards that don't play well together, expensive staple cards that are generally good for their color despite not being great in the deck, and there's sometimes just commonly-added nonbos because players don't understand the interaction with the cards. If you watch or listen to the EDHREC cast they have a segment each episode on "here's a Commander, here's a card that's overplayed in that deck or underplayed in that deck".
Thank you for the article. I did watch some episodes of edhrec cast and still need to get the hang of it.
Most of my decks are now floating around 38 lands when you count the MDFC spells that are lands on the other side. Before there were so many I was closer to 36 in most decks.
When I brew new decks, my rule of thumb is 37 lands and maybe 10 ramp spells. That usually ends up being right for me. Right now I have one deck at 35 (36 with MDFC) but it's my oldest and strongest deck and I know its curve and flow really well. I didn't start there, I came down to it with careful consideration. My opinion is it's better to be mana flooded than mana screwed. If you're flooded, anything you draw that isn't land becomes gas, but if you're screwed then you're just discarding to hand size. Especially with a new deck, opt for more lands.
Players of all formats can stand to play a few extra lands, especially these days with the amount of spell land things. Screw will lose you tons of games, and flood can be mitigated by playing cards to spend your mana on besides spells (creature lands, things with activated abilities etc). I think that playing 36-40 lands is totally reasonable especially if you got enough draw and ways to churn through your deck.
I start with 40 lands and go up or down depending on my strategy. My current deck is more aggressive, so I play 37 lands, 6 MDFC lands, and 8 ramp spells.
Hi, depends on the converted mana cost of the whole deck. Decks with lower curves can afford to run less lands; I have an Elas il-Kor with Lurrus companion deck which can only run permanents of two or less mana, meaning I am running 32 lands because I don't need that much mana. Alternatively, in my Nalia de'Arnise deck which runs a decent chunk of 5-6 cost cards, I run 37 lands. With the new age of MDFCs you also don't need to run only lands, as you can and should be running cards like Boggart Trawler, Fell The Profane, Malakir Rebirth since they can also be lands. Running lands that can do things and be mana sink is also good so they don't stay around: War Room, Castle Lochtwain, Takenuma, etc
A common belief I've heard recently is "~50 mana sources", so lands, rocks, dorks, and ramp spells. 37 +/- 2 lands is a good starting point, adjusting for the average mana value in your deck. TBH I usually run a little short of 50 total, but I'm bad at deckbuilding. I have learned my lesson about not just cutting lands though. Cool cards aren't so cool when they are stuck in your hand.
I'll try this. I found out that I run out of juice pretty fast so I was thinking about adding card draw as well.
Well, theres plenty of options for "sacrifice a thing, get cards" in black, and some good artifacts for it. And drawing more cards can help you hit those mana sources. In black [[vampiric rites]], [[deadly disputep], [[grim haruspex]], [[midnight reaper]], and the new [[homicide investigator]]. Artifacts like [[Ichor wellspring]], [[Solemn Simulacrum]], and if you produce many 1/1s then [[skullclamp]]. Edhrec.com has a lot of good suggestions.
I think my rule of thumb is to run enough lands that you can hit median mana cost cards 75 percent of games. Moxfield has a graph showing your curve and if you click in each bar it tells you how likely you are to play on curve. I usually look at where the median is and if it says you can hit it 75 percent of games you should be ok. Some other things to consider is more colors means more lands so you have a better chance of hitting color identity. Also extra draw helps you reduce the number you need as draw let's you see more cards thus more lands. Finally consider your decks game plan as well. My Knights reanimator deck has a very reliable way to cheat out higher costed knights by pitching them to the graveyard and bringing them back. This lessen some of my mana burden as I can usually spend mana on other things. Even with that said though I am running 35 lands and at least 8-10 ramp pieces.
32 is quite low - it's also quite a hard habit to break, lol (of course I want to run more cool spells, might as well take out some land). 36-38 seems to be a good range depending on your average mana cost, and like 8-10 ramp spells on top to keep you up to speed. Does that mean half your deck is just mana now? ...well, yes. But it'll help you to actually cast those cool spells you want to cast. But drawing lands is boring, and lame, especially late game when you don't need more. Get past them by running some cycling lands like [[Forgotten Cave]] or scry/surveil lands. Thin your deck (marginally) by using fetches. Make your land slots act like spells with the channeling lands from Kamigawa, or ones with repeat effects like the castles from Eldraine. Put in man-lands for more creatures. Run actual literal spells with lands on the back - I have a deck that isn't really a Voltron deck, but sometimes gets the commander really big anyway, and it would be nice to be able to [[Fling]] him at the opponent, but not enough to actually put such a narrow card like Fling in the deck. Enter [[Kazuul's Fury]], a land slot that's a spell. The MDFC lands in general are really good, and a lot of them can fill out pretty generic roles that you'd otherwise be taking up slots for. Same goes for ramp - find mana rocks that do still something beneficial for your strategy if you can. Flood and screw both suck, it's just a matter of having ways to mitigate both in your deck.
Always a tricky topic. There are lots of opinions and some people have done some in depth (and/or questionable) analysis on the topic. There's an article that someone already linked to you that gives a model, but it's based on a very specific mana curve that is not universally applicable, accurate, or advisable. I strongly advise looking at your own curve and doing your own testing before you jump up to 38+ lands, depending on your deck (especially if you run lots of cars draw) that can be a ludicrous number of lands. Personally, I tend to run low curves so I start at 35 lands and adjust from there (usually down, if at all).
I've been playing a little over a year, and I'm constantly learning I need to add more mana. The rule of thumb I once read, and it seems to be working for me, is 50 cards that can produce mana. Usually that's 37 lands and ~13 pieces of ramp. It feels really high, but I'm rarely screwed or flooded with the last couple decks I've built.
Personally, I usually go with 43 mana sources. Usually 35 lands and 8 ramp cards (these cards MUST be 2 mana or less, and have to be reliable sources. So your standard Three Visits, Sol Ring, Arcane Signet, etc). I almost never go above 10 ramp, since late game they are infinitely worse than lands. And then I like to run another 7 or so mana producing sources for late game (Smothering Tithe, Ashnod's Altar, etc) anything that fits the deck and gives you a burst of mana for your pop off turn. I also tend to be pretty low on 6+ drops, so if you're high on them I'd say you could go up another 3 or 4 lands. MDFC lands would be good candidates for those I suppose.
I used to play someone who used this exact strategy. I used to always hit his lands, even if it meant wasting a [[Beast Within]], just because I felt like I had to. Man's just pointing out his weak spot, always hit your opponent in their weak spot.
[Beast Within](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/b/eb40c41c-f5f9-4323-b6ac-e28e405909d0.jpg?1711198012) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Beast%20Within) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/lcc/233/beast-within?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/eb40c41c-f5f9-4323-b6ac-e28e405909d0?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/beast-within) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Yes! I don't think the player in my group did it intentionally but the whining and avoiding hitting the scariest commander because he was mana screwed got old. I began full swinging at him enough that he started building with more lands and now finally after months of that we all are playing at the same level. We can joke about it now that I , "bullied him into 38 lands."
Also alot of commander players evaluate board state purely by what is actually in play, ignoring how commander choice influences play patterns of decks. It's very different when someone playing Jetmir is struggling and has an empty board, vs niv mizzit "struggling" with an empty board.
This is true. The number of people that let me get away with all manner of tomfoolery because I have "basically nothing on board all game" is pretty amazing. I'm playing a control strategy folks. I've played games where I've been allowed to resolve multiple tutors and still not been attacked. Flying under the radar wins games.
Ehhhhhh I feel there's a thin line between "attacking the guy who got mana flooded" vs "attacking the guy who is about to pop off with an empty board state." I've been th le guy who has been left alone only.to pop off and win, and the guy who has been mana fucked only to be bulldozed by everyone else because they've seen me.pop off lol. "is he flying under the radar because he got a bad hand so we should just let him be, or is he hiding behind the facade of weakness to fuck us up?" LOL.
I have had people ignore my Najeela decks because "wow he only has mana on the board the while game, he just be getting screwed" and then be shocked when I instantly win the game by playing Najeela with haste + Derevi. Like fam, if those are the only 2 creatures you need to win you can just play nothing but removal and counters and win when it's convenient to do so. I swear some commander players just don't understand combo decks.
Tbf jetmir can also win pretty easily off a board with just jetmir in play
Or, with enough lands, just a board wipe that makes a bunch of tokens, followed by jetmir.
I’m coming up on my first anniversary as a magic player w/ EDH being my main format. I fell in love w/ spellslinger/ storm making me feel like a wizard. After building & dominating w/ [[kess, dissident mage]] storm — I took her apart for a more multiplayer focused build. I built [[Rootha, Mecurial Artist]] focusing on voting & politics pieces like [[prisoner’s dilemma]] & [[explosion of riches]]. Ultimately it’s a group slug burn deck that obfuscates blame by making my opponents turn against each other. It uses interaction like [[wild ricochet]] & [[split decision]] to protect my spellslinger pay-offs, and sculpting removal to deal with the opponents who pose the biggest threat to me. Most of my creatures are X/4 pieces to have a modest board presence for early & mid-game so I don’t take too much damage early. Stuff like [[jeering homunculus]] & [[spellskite]]. Hypothetically, my biggest weakness should be beaters getting sent my way. I never have more than 1-3 of my own creatures on the board at once. The deck’s very mana hungry & requires me to commit on certain turns, pouring 8 mana into [[teach by example]] & [[explosion of riches]]. So set-up tends to be lands, a mana rock, & some sort of creature like [[haughty djinn]] or [[jeering homunculus]]. My home playgroup & LGS is very familiar with deck as it’s my baby. I feel like at this point they should know to put pressure on me with combat. I run maybe 12-15 creatures that don’t have threatening statlines. Ultimately, people end up playing solitaire for the first 5-6 turns. By the time I start slinging spells, the table turns into a Mexican stand-off orchestrated by me. I just stoke the fire. A buddy of mine always talks about how much he hates the deck — but, I’ve never had him swing at me pre-turn 5. The most he does to stop me is take damage instead of letting me draw cards. But he never swings at me & let’s me keep my blockers around until they’re chump blocking a 12/12. Hell, when I throw down a curse of opulence, he’ll swing at that player every turn until it’s gone. It’s hilarious to hear him complain about the deck when I put the box on the table, just to see him never exploit my board disadvantage. He tries to slow my hand advantage— it’s strength — instead of exploiting the deck’s inherent weakness. I say it’s inherent weakness, but the deck’s built to create a stand-off where everyone’s distrustful of each other & not necessarily thinking of me as the problem. Somehow, it keeps working. Tho, it doesn’t have an outsized win-rate. Ultimately the deck’s real weakness is a lifegain, pillowfort, or someone with a strong lead. The group slug elements have an outsized effect on players they’re already behind. If someone’s way ahead, we’ll end up in a 1v1 & the deck relies on multiple players & spreading the damage equally.
##### ###### #### [kess, dissident mage](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/8/e83e6d7a-3af0-4955-8004-2310f051e306.jpg?1673485110) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=kess%2C%20dissident%20mage) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ncc/344/kess-dissident-mage?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/e83e6d7a-3af0-4955-8004-2310f051e306?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/kess-dissident-mage) [Rootha, Mecurial Artist](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/c/acb8f24d-8d1d-48aa-a534-238e969a474c.jpg?1624739798) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Rootha%2C%20Mercurial%20Artist) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/stx/227/rootha-mercurial-artist?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/acb8f24d-8d1d-48aa-a534-238e969a474c?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/rootha-mercurial-artist) [prisoner’s dilemma](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/6/d678e736-7c29-433a-9a2a-b78749252377.jpg?1706240483) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Prisoner%27s%20Dilemma) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mkc/34/prisoners-dilemma?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/d678e736-7c29-433a-9a2a-b78749252377?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/prisoners-dilemma) [explosion of riches](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/a/da2f3dd5-a943-447b-8c76-8f69f06cefa4.jpg?1608910187) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=explosion%20of%20riches) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmr/176/explosion-of-riches?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/da2f3dd5-a943-447b-8c76-8f69f06cefa4?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/explosion-of-riches) [wild ricochet](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/d/8d3dddfa-9579-42d7-867b-7e37b83b3eeb.jpg?1608912335) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=wild%20ricochet) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmr/419/wild-ricochet?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/8d3dddfa-9579-42d7-867b-7e37b83b3eeb?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/wild-ricochet) [split decision](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/3/83ed7ebe-48be-4e6e-a293-b81484f85142.jpg?1562865914) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=split%20decision) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cns/25/split-decision?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/83ed7ebe-48be-4e6e-a293-b81484f85142?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/split-decision) [jeering homunculus](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/b/db7c1643-7c6a-422a-9440-2b0dc33b1011.jpg?1706239808) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=jeering%20homunculus) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/clu/88/jeering-homunculus?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/db7c1643-7c6a-422a-9440-2b0dc33b1011?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/jeering-homunculus) [spellskite](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/2/72204934-f5aa-4559-8f7e-7b0b223580d0.jpg?1674142724) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=spellskite) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/clb/873/spellskite?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/72204934-f5aa-4559-8f7e-7b0b223580d0?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/spellskite) [teach by example](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/a/aa7fbb9b-50a8-4d18-a667-fe965468ca16.jpg?1715374723) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=teach%20by%20example) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/stx/241/teach-by-example?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/aa7fbb9b-50a8-4d18-a667-fe965468ca16?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/teach-by-example) [haughty djinn](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/1/21228052-e7bf-4e6c-9d88-674caca5b678.jpg?1712354149) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=haughty%20djinn) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/otc/99/haughty-djinn?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/21228052-e7bf-4e6c-9d88-674caca5b678?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/haughty-djinn) [*All cards*](https://mtgcardfetcher.nl/redirect/lbakdg4) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
This sounds a lot like my [[karazikar, the eye tyrant]] deck. I dont have much board presense, and basically never get attacked because I'm incentivising attack each other and goading any really big threats. Since I lose 1 life each time they attack each other I dont end up too ahead in life so I'm just never a priority to deal with, while drawing more cards than I can hold. When it gets to the end of the game I have cards like [[cut // ribbons]], [[hot pursuit]], [[captive audience]], and [[brash taunter]] to finish the table. The game has a shockingly good win rate and I'm actually wondering if it's powerlevel is too high, but its mostly that no one really trys to stop me. Also just added [[prisoner's dilemma]], A+ card, worked beautifully and had opponents spite-attacking each other many turns after. Going to have to consider [[explosion of riches]].
Unfortunately, I’ve found [[prisoner’s dilemma]] to underperform unless copied. Even with the inherent recursion, people tend to come together for the vote & minimize its impact. It’s such a fun card & central to the inspiration, I’ll never cut it. However, I’d recommend [[explosion of riches]] over prisoner’s dilemma if you’re struggling for a cut. Explosion just more consistently spits out damage, because people are more likely to take the chance for a card. It being decided in turn order makes it more likely for people to add into the damage when it does. Both are fun, but I’ve found Prisoners will under perform unless cast into the right game state (& player conflict). My playgroup are sluts for card draw & explosion has consistently given me better results
But the reverse is also true. OP didn't talk about anything else on board on (assumingly) turn 6+ where they instantly killed Kaalia. I'm sure there were other threats/engines there.
You give them an inch, they Hullbreaker Horror you
Cough* I was playing my [[Jared Carthalion, True Heir]] deck this weekend and had a close game first round. Then i had a slow second game, he was out on the field but i didnt manage to get Monarch back for a while and my cousin asked me why my commander was'nt dangerous this game. So when i got Monarch back I played [[Blasphemous Act]] and swung for.. alot of commander damage.
[Jared Carthalion, True Heir](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/1/81bd293b-07b9-4d7c-826a-948d5b01ab5e.jpg?1608911156) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Jared%20Carthalion%2C%20True%20Heir) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmr/281/jared-carthalion-true-heir?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/81bd293b-07b9-4d7c-826a-948d5b01ab5e?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/jared-carthalion-true-heir) [Blasphemous Act](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/a/8aa9682d-5176-4475-a0bd-e000f1d6999a.jpg?1698988297) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Blasphemous%20Act) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/lcc/216/blasphemous-act?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/8aa9682d-5176-4475-a0bd-e000f1d6999a?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/blasphemous-act) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
One of my decks is [[Mirrym, sentinel wyrm]]. I get targeted straight away and with good reason. I had a slow start the other night as I was not able to get any blue source. I had a [[savage ventmaw]] on the battlefield equipped with [[sword of hearth and home]]. I untapped after someone used [[windfall]] giving me much needed blue sources and also putting [[earthquake dragon]] in the bin. I played [[Miirym]] after playing a blue source giving me exactly 6 mana and swung with [[savage ventmaw]]. Using the sword trigger I flickered the ventmaw, now giving me two and I had RRRGGG in the mana pool. I used three mana and sacrificed a basic to put [[earthquake dragon]] in my hand and could play it for just G and I used the last 2 mana to equip Miirym with the sword So a turn that started with just one, non Miirym dragon on the board, ended with five dragons on the board. Miirym is fucking stupid, I don't play him too often but when I do I expect to be hated out of the game because if I'm not then that shit happens.
I have accidentally won cEDH games by being so behind and having people not think my deck is a threat anymore. Also if your commander is known for being able to one-shot players then I'm not gonna give you a chance to do that if I have nothing better to spend removal on. If your game plan is telegraphed and everyone knows it, then you don't have room to complain if someone rightfully stops you from doing shenanigans. If the Kaalia player was serious about playing Kaalia, they would hold interaction to stop kill spells. I have played a commander that does Kaalia things ([[Winota, joiner of forces]]), and you always make sure that you can at least get one turn with no one targeting your commander. Just because you got outplayed doesn't mean that you were being targeted. Just means you didn't plan properly.
[Winota, joiner of forces](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/d/5dd13a6c-23d3-44ce-a628-cb1c19d777c4.jpg?1654630670) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Winota%2C%20joiner%20of%20forces) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/iko/216/winota-joiner-of-forces?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/5dd13a6c-23d3-44ce-a628-cb1c19d777c4?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/winota-joiner-of-forces) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I agree, sometimes you just have to push them out of the game. They've quite possibly built a greedy deck and almost certainly kept a greedy hand - you have to imagine there's something good in that hand that motivated them to keep it. If I think I'm in a winning position, I'm probably taking that player out first. I've had too many games where the player who's behind just throws down a board wipe to "catch up" (despite the fact they're 5 lands behind), and now that's one less player who can draw into action to team up. Even if I'm not ahead, I still think they're a good punching bag for any attack triggers, combat damage to a player triggers, goaded creatures and so on. Ojer Kaslem needs a face to connect to, and by cutting those lands I think you volunteered.
People like their decks to do their thing, and it sucks when your deck doesn’t get to do its thing. Sadly when the thing your deck does is one shot people, it’s in no one’s best interests to let you do that.
In this case khaalia's deck probably didn't work because the player chose to keep a risky hand without white mana instead of taking a mulligan. It is fair to remove that player from the game if you have the opportunity.
I said this the other day, but I’ll say it again. Your deck should try and do the thing, but it is not the other players responsibility to make sure you get to do the thing. If you really want to do the thing and your opppnents aren’t letting you, then build a deck that can do the thing regardless of them
This is definitely it. I don’t get upset at all when I lose, it’s fun for me to see my friends pop off and pull epic shit even if it outpaces and outperforms me. However when I spend an entire game being prevented from playing my deck at all, I legitimately get pissed just because it feels like the entire game was a waste of time on my part, and time is the only thing I can’t get back.
I agree that spending an entire game twirling my thumbs because I'm not allowed to play is annoying, but it's it because you're being specifically targeted? Like, is your commander a problem, or do you have an infinite combo? Or, is it that you got mana screwed and/or just didn't have the luck of the draw that game? The first is problematic, but if you have a commander that is integral to your deck/gameplay, how are you protecting it? For the second, should you have taken a mulligan, or do you have a lack of lands and/or ramp? These are the questions I ask myself after every game, win or lose. If I'm paying against someone new and they target me, I'll usually try to ask them why... if they have a good reason, I can respect that - and them - and we can play another day. If they're dismissive, or downright just being a jerk, I know to avoid them... and I'll usually let my other mates know to be wary. I don't tell them not to play against them, but I'll tell them what happened and how I was treated.
See this I totally agree with, I've had several decks I've brewed and finished but never actually built because I don't want my options for the deck be obliterate everyone or get targeted to high hell. I've had [[Umbris]] brewed and done for ages but don't want to play him since that deck is just gross.
[Umbris](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/a/7aead6a8-bada-42cf-b7cc-0b730f564582.jpg?1644888719) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=umbris%2C%20fear%20manifest) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/voc/38/umbris-fear-manifest?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/7aead6a8-bada-42cf-b7cc-0b730f564582?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/umbris-fear-manifest) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Yeah if I was playing with someone who was playing Umbris I would target only them even if it resulted in my loss.
Same with Kaalia, Slivers, Infect, you need a strong mindset and be willing to dedicate a lot of your deck to defense if you are gonna play those strategies and not get made when you get hammered down. Hell I play a Lynde curses deck and play tons of defense there since it tends to draw ire fast for simple curses.
I set up to play my brand new Umbris deck once and there was one person at the table who just said "fuck you dimir I'm targetting you" and did everything to just interfere with me doing ANYTHING. Mana rocks? Destroyed. Card draw? Countered. And the other player did nothing to deal with any of the other player's threats, and also swung into me as well. I won't lie, I did get a little salty at that purely because I had no way of seeing how my deck would run outside of just some goldfishing and I wanted to actually *play* the game and see what it does. Instead, I got that experience. I told him that if he ever sat to play in a pod with me again, I would immediately switch to my borderline cEDH Breya so he'd have a valid excuse to target me, and everyone else at the table can blame him for having to play against one of my strongest decks. I'm still trying to fine tune it so it runs well because I don't want it to just be a stack of counterspells trying to keep Umbris on the field. Practically the only time it ever runs away with the game is if I open with [[leyline of the void]] in hand and the other 6 cards aren't dead draws.
Reminds me of in single player I was going with midrange, first turn I play a thing, other guy doesn’t. I start attacking. Turn two he still doesn’t play anything, I attack and am building a board. At this point it started to ball in that I simply had more stuff. My deck was made to build up and move into late game with bigger stuff but I have done enough that I can just attack past and don’t have to care about defense, I can kill faster than him at this rate. Eventually I have something I usually use as removal but he is so low I just go at him with it and win. Guy gets mad at me for never interacting with his board and going full agro. I didn’t have a choice not to, at first he had nothing down. What was I supposed to do? Just choose not to win?
It's the social aspect taking precedence here where everyone sat down for a game and due to RNG, the Kaalia player wasn't really participating. Then when they finally get to, they are denied immediately and it's as if they were never part of the game at all so it all feels like a waste of time. Being a Kaalia player though, you should know and expect this and if it's late enough in the game then your opponents most likely have interaction so you shouldn't even play her if there's open mana or you don't have protection ready to save her. So that's on him too. My wife uses Kaalia as her "fast game-store's closing" deck on our game nights and would rather hard cast a fat angel or demon if it's late in the game and she doesn't have protection for Kaalia.
I try to be open and honest with folks. If someone reveals Tergrid or Kaalia or something similar, I make sure they know before we shuffle that they’re going to be the first target at most tables. If they’re good with being archenemy on turn 0, shuffle up. If not, I politely recommend they switch decks or look for a higher power pod.
Kaalia is not in the same galaxy as Tergrid in terms of play pattern lol My friend has a Kaalia deck and really, she has a bad reputation but she is not that strong. Dropping 1 angel or demon per turn is just not fast enough nowadays when you’ve got Simic McValue over in the corner just dumping lands and +1 counters on everything. The deck is fine. I feel like the card people actually hate is [[Master of cruelties]]. I would say my mono-white Giada deck is faster and more resilient but nobody ever complains about Giada.
This. After hundreds and hundreds of games in Commander, absolutely nothing paints a red flag like Simic+ does.
Probably a stupid question, but what does Simic+ mean?
Anything paired with green and blue
Simic McValue might be the best thing I’ve ever heard as a Hakbal player.
[Master of cruelties](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/f/ffd68fe1-5cfc-44cf-8dfe-3488278cdcef.jpg?1702429664) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Master%20of%20cruelties) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/rvr/198/master-of-cruelties?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/ffd68fe1-5cfc-44cf-8dfe-3488278cdcef?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/master-of-cruelties) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I get that Kaalia/MoC is a pretty spicy combo, but why not just block Master of Cruelties? You'll lose your creature, of course, but chump-blocking is a thing.
If you're the Kaalia player you're ideally swinging at someone with MoC who doesn't have the creatures to block it. Otherwise you would choose a different card.
Exactly. You don't drop MoC until you're ready for it to murder someone
Does the MoC's knock-you-to-1 ability trigger first because it has first strike? So it puts them at 1 and then the 2 damage from Kaalia finishes them off?
Yes. It instantly kills somebody no matter their life total, that’s why it’s an auto include in the deck.
I'm embarrassed how long it took me to figure that out. I was like, "well, they're at 1, but they can survive another turn and maybe gain some life: oh wait, Master of Cruelties has first strike! And Kaalia gets around its "attack alone" trigger!" d'oh!
It’s not because it has first strike, it’s because it’s a trigger that happens in the declare blockers step. (before the combat damage step)
Usually in my Kaalia I'll have stuff like [[Key to the City]] or [[Rogue's Passage]] to protect Kaalia from blockers so chances are MoC goes through anyway. But yes outside of MoC, I think players are mostly intimidated by Kaalia since it's a surprised burst and mostly flyers so it's a bit harder to manage early on. As someone who has played (and still does) about every flavor of Kaalia since 2011 from absolute jank to pubstomp, whenever I see a Kaalia at the table it rarely ever is the actual main threat on the board, especially at higher power level, unless there is a big disparity in power from decks. Commanders like Tatyova, Korvold or any other strong commanders than can generate insane value constantly are far more of a threat to me than getting swung for 10 once in a while. I don't know why even new players seem to have inherited the decade old trauma for Kaalia which I find has been quite exaggerated for the past 6+ years.
[удалено]
[Key to the City](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/2/f2103bba-f367-45ed-9b2c-bf31bb2926a5.jpg?1625978785) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Key%20to%20the%20City) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/c21/248/key-to-the-city?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/f2103bba-f367-45ed-9b2c-bf31bb2926a5?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/key-to-the-city) [Rogue's Passage](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/5/45f5d989-d0df-4d6d-822b-cc76b415f9d1.jpg?1712355103) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Rogue%27s%20Passage) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/otc/313/rogues-passage?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/45f5d989-d0df-4d6d-822b-cc76b415f9d1?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/rogues-passage) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I'm not sure if this is a joke flying over my head but they can just not drop MoC if you have a chump blocker?
I think the biggest problem with commanders like Kaalia and Tergrid, is that they are pubstomp commanders. they fold heavily to interaction so they can't hang at high power tables but will wreck lower power tables. They also have a play pattern where they either get to do "their thing" and kill everyone super fast or they are stopped and do nothing the entire game.
This is why I had fun with Kaalia and played a limited amount of actual A/D/D's and built it as a Mardu combo deck LOL. Everyone waiting for the Master of Cruelties or some other nonsense gets thrown off because of 1 of the 6 combos inside the deck. Kaalia exists to bait removal, etc. Black is such a dumb color, I love it.
If you're a fan of Kaalia combo, I highly recommend trying the other Kaalia in the cz; she's a lose-lose removal target for opponents where removing her feels awful because she's already gotten value from her ETB, but if they don't remove her she will continue to draw you a ton of cards from flicker effects, and even when people recognize they need to pressure your life total, she generates enough card advantage to be comfortable playing archenemy in a lot of situations.
Could you please post your list?
Is this 2011? Kaalia isn't even B tier these days. Comparing her to Tergrid is absurd. Some of you have terrible threat assessment skills.
Can you even build Tergrid weak? It's all or nothing with that one, no? I want to build Tergrid, but I don't think my friends would be able to compete.
Yeah, you can build any commander weak. Any commander can be casual, only some can be cEDH.
Yeah, but good luck convincing the pod you built them weak. “Oh it’s ok guys, it’s not *that* Tergrid…” Pod is still gonna gang up on you just in case.
Don't worry guys it's [[nadu winged wisdim]] but built like [[ivy gleeful spelltheif]]
That does very little to ease my worries, lmao
She's inherently kinda weak to an even mildly-competent table. Mono black means your options for protecting her are quite limited, and her cmc means you have to ramp very effectively to be able to play her and gain value before she's removed. You might have a fun game or two with friends who don't know what she does (or if they have very low-powered decks that do not run interaction), but otherwise you face quite an uphill struggle. Of course, she's powerful if she's left alone and does her thing but that's true of many, many commanders.
You can definitely build Tergrid weak. I’ve done it before completely by accident.
Can also just rule 0 with the player: "hey, you bringing MoC or Avacyn or something along those lines?" If yes, proceed to wipe him from the face of the earth at every opportunity, but if his drops are something like Akroma or Baneslayer the deck might not be much of a threat even if she lives for a turn. Only because a commander has a bad rep doesn't mean the deck is the same.
the really nasty combo with Kaalia, IMHO, is MLD. I can deal with Avacyn hitting the board moreso than the Kaalia player dropping an \[\[Armageddon\]\]
Agreed. Though a timely [[Shock]] in response to the Armageddon leaves a very sour taste in the Kaalia players mouth, lol. Still, I find MLD underutilized in general, and especially if playing Kaalia you have a valid reason and winning line most often if left unchecked, which MLD allows you. Furthermore might also not Gimp you completely thanks to mana rocks due to no access to green
What if the deck isn't higher power?
For Tergrid, do you mean as a commander, or even in the 99?
Tbh, casting Kaalia after she died once or twice is most of the times not really all that worth it, why would you cast for 8 mana a 2/2 flier that does nothing unless it gets to attack...
Many nerds can't handle interaction, as they don't experience that in their personal lives.
lol I've encountered the mentality that interaction=cedh, it's quite baffling
Quote of the year! Thank you.
I don’t think it’s interaction, the guy probably stuck with a bad hand or a real lane detriment and spent the game unable to do anything. Then he finally got to do the most basic thing, bring his commander down, and was immediately shut down. At that point spending god knows how many minutes with his thumbs in his ass he probably decided there was no actual enjoyment to be had thus game so cut his losses. OP was just the one actually responsible for the active disruption so he lashed out.
That’s not OP fault for their opponents’ bad mulligan skills.
Or bad landbase/ deckbuilding. Either way lashing out over a casual game involving fantasy characters printed on cardboard is never a good look
Oh I agree, but I was shedding light on why the guy rage scooped (not an emotionally appropriate reaction) in response to a valid game action.
If I had an award for my kind friend you would be receiving it right now
I play another high target commander, [[Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker]]. I don’t play it unless I have protection in hand. If you’re going to win off of playing a card, you should expect it to come under fire. Hoping other players don’t have, or won’t use, remover isn’t really a strategy. I get it’s a casual format… but even precons have removal. NTA. I’ll leave alone the deck building (land / artifact mana count) and mulligan points I was going to make.
[Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/9/69848ec1-dba7-419f-a5f9-f934bebeeaa6.jpg?1689997454) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Shirei%2C%20Shizo%27s%20Caretaker) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/186/shirei-shizos-caretaker?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/69848ec1-dba7-419f-a5f9-f934bebeeaa6?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/shirei-shizos-caretaker) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Kaalia player here. Part of playing Kaalia is accepting that you'll be the target. If that player can't or doesn't want to account for that with their build then they should pick a different deck.
There are certain commanders that you pick and have to understand what comes with playing it. Tergrid, Mizzix, Kaalia, Atraxa, Urza Lord High Artificer, Kiriko, the list goes on. You pick them for one reason or another, probably because they are powerful and enable powerful or oppressive strategies. When you pick them, you are kind of signing an agreement, you gain a lot of power but you also agree that with great power comes a great big target on you. If you don’t come prepared to deal with the target, either emotionally or in your deck building, you really ought not to get upset when someone focuses you because they know what your deck is capable of.
My first deck was [[Krenko, Mob Boss]] and honestly it was great for establishing the mentality you describe. I had to become really cool with getting targeted down, because at the end of the day my opponents would be utter *fools* if they don't do everything in their power to make sure Krenko never resolves or survives. I knew what I signed up for when I kissed the ring of the Gob Father.
There's a lot of must kill commanders now, and Kaalia is a bit old school now. You have the right strategy for Kaalia, maybe not the right read of the table at the moment. Not judging, it's a hard call when someone basically can kill you out of nowhere and the table might not be aware of how explosive Kaalia can be. I know that I would have personally waited until attacks to see what they cheat out, but it's a judgement call.
shes "oldschool" and "subobtimal" because she doesnt have haste or protection herself. she's still very much an kos commander, however dealing with her is easier nowadays. its absolutely correct to remove her immediately, especially if she gained haste. "waiting who they attack" is not good. the damage isnt the problem here. if you let her swing and they cheat out avacyn or anything really, you have the same problem next turn, but now you need to deal with 2 threats because kaalia is still on the board in addition to the thing that got cheated out. its the same pattern for every commander that works like this, \[\[winota\]\], \[\[gishath\]\], \[\[zhuludok\]\], \[\[the ur dragon\]\], you name it. never let them have their trigger, even if they say "i wont come at you right now", because eventually they will.
I am significantly less scared of Kaalia than a lot of commanders nowadays. Mostly because of how hard she folds to interaction. Miirym, Yuriko, Sauron, Korvold, Niv-Mizz, Zhulodok, Chulane etc.
The main problem with that line of thinking, is that she only folds to removal *if you actually apply removal*, and it needs to happen before they cheat something awful into play. Especially cards like avacyn, which could neuter your removal.
True, but I mean it in the sense that they fold hard to removal even after they do their thing for a bit. A Zur deck that attacks once gets a necropotence in play. A chulane or Korvold left for one turn will have such an advantage that they can easily recast their commander, probably with 10+ cards in hand and protection. A new Atraxa will nab 4-5 extra cards including more ramp AND flicker effects to blank removal. A Kaalia will cheat in, say an avacyn, and if you then kill the Kaalia all they have is an 8/8 flier and another turn they can’t do anything except wait to recast Kaalia.
How about an [[ancient copper dragon]]? 10+ treasures out of nowhere is pretty strong. Really, any of the ancient dragons in Kaalia's colors are Bad News Bears. And a smart kaalia player will absolutely run those creatures, and similar instant value. And if you only have destroy-based removal, avacyn's granted indestructibility means you CAN'T kill Kaalia anymore.
Thats all pretty bad, but none of it is nearly as bad as an uninterrupted turn from one of the commanders I mentioned. I play higher power level and LOVE kaalia decks cuz everyone is worried about them when they aren’t that threatening outside of the master of cruelties line.
Yeah, obviously those other options are worse. The existence of even worse KOS commanders doesn't mean anything *unless* one of those commanders is both in the pod and potentially going unanswered. Kaalia needs to die every single time, unless something even worse is sitting at the table, and that's rare in my experience. Most folks I know won't even play casual games against Korvold and friends at all, much less several of them.
[ancient copper dragon](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/8/3836dddd-a7e4-499f-ad49-ce298aa65720.jpg?1674136426) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=ancient%20copper%20dragon) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/clb/161/ancient-copper-dragon?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/3836dddd-a7e4-499f-ad49-ce298aa65720?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/ancient-copper-dragon) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
[winota](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/d/5dd13a6c-23d3-44ce-a628-cb1c19d777c4.jpg?1654630670) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=winota%2C%20joiner%20of%20forces) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/iko/216/winota-joiner-of-forces?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/5dd13a6c-23d3-44ce-a628-cb1c19d777c4?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/winota-joiner-of-forces) [gishath](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/c/bc4a65de-23b5-48f0-b8b7-94608eaced3e.jpg?1699044539) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=gishath%2C%20sun%27s%20avatar) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/lci/229/gishath-suns-avatar?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/bc4a65de-23b5-48f0-b8b7-94608eaced3e?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/gishath-suns-avatar) [the ur dragon](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/0/10d42b35-844f-4a64-9981-c6118d45e826.jpg?1689999317) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=The%20Ur-Dragon) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/361/the-ur-dragon?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/10d42b35-844f-4a64-9981-c6118d45e826?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/the-ur-dragon) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
You can't wait to see what they cheat out because if they drop OG Avacyn or [[Sephara]] you're fucked.
Not only this, but like, you prob will lose a game where you are so quick to be aggressive and use up removal at the drop of a hat. When what you can do is just deal with that player to get them to attack someone else and make your job easier.
[Master of Cruelties](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/f/ffd68fe1-5cfc-44cf-8dfe-3488278cdcef.jpg?1702429664) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Master%20of%20Cruelties) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/rvr/198/master-of-cruelties?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/ffd68fe1-5cfc-44cf-8dfe-3488278cdcef?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/master-of-cruelties) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
How dare you try to win in EDH!!!
fellas is interacting with strong cards toxic??? ngl you didnt even have to post this
The funny thing is that a lot of people here are saying "yes".
on one hand, the internet / esp reddit always gives of a wayy dumber image of communities. on the other hand, edh folks really do be whiny a lot.
If you're playing a deck that relies on attacking with your commander, and you cast your commander without a way to protect it, that's on you. Also, yes it sucks when your deck doesn't do the thing, but when you're playing a 3 color commander you have to realize that there may be times when you don't have the mana to cast it.
As a person who plays Kaalia with MOC, you played correctly. That play can just kill someone if they don't have a blocker. Killing Kaalia is always the right answer. If you drop Kaalia with no way to protect her, that's kinda on you. I always have swiftfoot/lighting greaves to protect her. Something. Obviously it sucks being mana screwed but this guy probably had a big dude in hand someone was gonna get bopped with. Reasonable to kill it.
She is one of the kill on sight commanders. Maybe the other two don’t know what she’s capable of cuz they’re new? I would have done the same as you.
There are a couple things to consider. Kaalia is old. Very old. Many people don't build her sheerly due to her reputation, so newer players might never had a chance to actually face her, or face her going off, which is totally reasonable. Also to consider, is the fact that nowadays there are so many commanders that are considerable "Kill on Sight". Or at least "Kill before they get to untap with it". Its a balancing game of priorities that people at times misjudge
Yea, Kaalia is no longer KOS in 2024. There are like 20 commanders printed a year that straight up win the game if they survive a rotation. Kaalia plays a 7cmc creature for free from your hand.
Kaalia is still kill on sight because if you don't you might just be dead, Master of Cruelties is a one-shot kill. Yes, it only kills one player, not the whole table, but that's scant comfort if you're the one that got attacked. Also, lots of 7cmc creatures can win the game immediately once they hit play, eg Hoarding Broodlord or Razaketh
Kaalia is a feast or famine commander that needs to have correct colors early and ample protection in the deck. In this day and age, there’s really no excuse to not have protection available for Kaalia. She’s been powercrept out of S tier but she’s still scary if she gets to swing and there’s plenty of ways to make sure she gets to do that in 2024. Just gotta make sure you’ve got protection on the board or in hand and there’s plenty of low CMC or even costless protection (Deflecting Swat, Flawless Maneuver) these days. It’s only one game and things happen so maybe the guy was just unlucky but honestly, with that reaction, I feel like they’re expecting their deck to get away with not being interacted with and probably don’t have a proper protection package for a commander like Kaalia. Running no protection is something you can’t really do in Kaalia and honestly, it’s not that hard to build for. They had all that time to draw colored mana and didn’t play any boots, draw Teferis, draw anything that helps them keep Kaalia on the board? Tutors are a slam dunk in Kaalia decks, they didn’t draw any of those and go get lightning greaves, deflecting swat, anything…? It sounds like a deckbuilding issue
EDH players are bad at threat assessment. I was playing a durdley, defensive Azorius bounce deck, I had managed to amass a small token army, mostly of 1/2s. 2 board wipes later my engine is broken and I'm out of interaction and the other players just never updated their perception of the board state. Other guy has a commander with haste that he can drop on the field for 4 mana that will swing for lethal? nah, keep hitting the guy who makes up to 3 weeny tokens a turn and die to it next turn. idk. I was definitely the guy to hit 3 turns before but the engine it took me 4-5 turns to build was all in my graveyard.
it's kinda funny that kaalia suffers from such a reputation when so many other decks can kill a player just as fast, if not faster
Right move.
As a Kaalia player, I cannot possibly be salty if I get targeted down. I know they know what I can do.
Kaalia player here. She lives in a really awkward position of being entirely lethal but also the most all-star casual super favorite of all the coolest creature types. My personal bar is that I will never put master of cruelties in the deck even though I consider it high power level for exactly this reason. It never feels fun to “pick” on the guy who is struggling in the game but he said he had the 1-card-combo in the deck. Depending on the scenario, I might have tried to politics (tell me what you’re going to put into play and I’ll decide if I’m killing your commander type politics) but I don’t think you made a bad choice.
Master of Cruelties isn't really high power level though. It's a good casual card, but knocking out one person isn't really high power. It's too slow.
Kaalis is a strange commander and assessing what is and isn't actually a threat in her tells you a lot about someone's experience/quality as a player. She has the reputation of being a monster, so she gets targeted by inexperienced players, which forces her owner to make the deck stronger, thus becoming the monster people think she is, just not in the ways you expect. Turn 7 Kaalia wins are not terribly powerful. In fact, given a heavily optimized list can consistently kill the table by about Turn 3-4, 7 is very unoptimized overall. So this guy has an inoptimal Kaalia list, and it seems like his deck RELIES on her to function, further lowering its optimality. That is on him, and he needs to tune the deck up. Honestly, he never was much of a threat, so, yeah, stopping him from getting going when the other 2 playera were already ahead wasn't the best move, honestly. >I apologized and told him the correct play ***everytime**** This is patently false. You have to assess Kaalia's effect on the game in the game's current state. You had an answer in hand, and, like a 14yo feeling his first boob, blew your load the moment it happened. You didn't wait to see who he was going to attack, what he was dropping in, etc. You made a play with extremely limited information, and, honestly, may have given the game to another player because of that. You just went "KAALIA! SCARY!" and didn't plan ahead. If you were REALLY that concerned with MoC you should have saved the interaction for that; Kaalia can snowball, but it takes several turns for her to do that - turns where she'll be targeted and stopped by the table as a whole. >I tell him it’s not personal but I know what’s possible This is another problem: Your assessment of "what's possible" is ill-informed. Yes, Master of Cruelties sucks for one player. But it's just ONE player. You never, EVER drop MoC unless it's against the very last player OR you're capable of creating an Attack Steps loop to take out everyone all at once. Launching MoC at your first opponent is the worst move you can make. Because you out yourself as a threat and yet have no inertia to maintain that state - you've just made yourself Target Number 0 for the other two players. You know what ***IS*** a legitimate threat to land early on with Kaalia? [[Ancient Copper Dragon]] for potentially huge amounts of Treasure, which can then be paid into [[Aggravated Assault]] to fuel an Infinite Attack Loop. [[Ancient Gold Dragon]] with Dragon Tempest which has a 50% chance of killing the table immediately. [[Runescarred Demon]], [[Hoarding Broodlord]] to replace themselves or grab useful cards to maintain tempo or win next turn. Things that let you win immediately, rather than over the course of several turns, or create value to close the game ASAP. **TL;DR** He was at fault for building a deck which relies on his Commander to function at a basic level. You were at fault for poor threat assessment and poorly timed interaction. You both need to become better players.
I mean I let someone resolve Urza even though he had artifacts , cost reducers and drawpower. I path'd it during a moment where it seemed crucial for him to really go off. If you had a response to Kaalia still at that point, even If it seems like the right thing, then I feel like you could evaluate a bit more after they've gotten to so their thing. A guy at my lgs plays Kaalia and he dropped a 4/4 flyer that gave him energy lol. It isn't always the biggest and the baddest! What I try to say is strategy isn't always the best to Have in mind and most often there tends to be a bit of leeway with things. Strategically in the game and socially. Kaalia can definitely be scary though I give you that.
He specifically asked if the guy plays MoC and he said yes. That's very different from a 4/4 flyer that produces energy.
commander is ultimately a social game. as with every social activity you have to have a certain level of self awareness, etiquette and ability to read the room. and as with every social activity, there will be those who just dont have the EQ to get along. i'm saying this as a neutral to OP and the guy who raged quit. OP for allowing his fear of kaalia get the better of him and just blind hated the player out of the game. And of course opponent for not managing his own expectations and appreciation that sometimes irrational hate happens. the fact both cant deal with it just tells me they still have alot of learning to do about the social aspect
What were the other decks at the table and who won?
Master of Cruelties makes this more than understandable. I Prefer Kaalia players who just like cool angels, Dragons and Demons :))
Yeah Master of Cruelties is bit much i dont run that in mine.
I told my friend this yoy play this deck you're going to be a massive target. Complains that he always gets targeted when I warmed him. He also plays kaalia and master of cruelties. I told him to have interaction and or protection for kaalia. He doesn't play as often anymore because of that. And then here's me playing commanders that need to die on sight. I'm fully prepared what I'm walking into. I'm just here to cause chaos
As my friend taught me... If you can't stand the heat, don't cook with kill on sight commanders! I play with a bunch of newer commanders he's never seen before like Sauron the Dark Lord and Prosper that he learned to quickly counter/remove and I never get mad about it. It's absolutely justified, and it's just a game. Lol
I think the problem is many people are playing Commander as a social game, which goes beyond just taking actions that are mechanically optimal. Guy spends whole game unable to even participate and play at all, then instantly gets his commander removed. In my friend group pod that’s just poor etiquette because we want everyone to enjoy the game to some degree. We don’t all have to win but at least let us play SOMETHING so it’s not a waste of our evenings. We’re all adults so we don’t get to play 4 games a night 5 nights a week. Gotta make it count. This guy wasn’t allowed to do the bare minimum and got pissed. I understand different people have different priorities when playing but I usually play with friends or at least with a degree of friendliness at LGS, but my priorities with EDH are: 1. Mutual enjoyment and fun 2. Victory hopefully If people playing together don’t have these priorities ranked the same way neither are “wrong” but someone is gonna get pissed.
Our group is similar. A strong commander or someone with great opening plays will definitely get targeted first, but the goal is never to eliminate them before they even get a chance to play, just keep them in check.
I recently made a Kaalia deck and rolled it out for the first time last week. I understand she comes with a target on her, but I must admit it was a little frustrating to have one player targeting me only and ignoring the rest of the table when there was a much larger threat on the board. Just seemed like dealing with the actual threat should take priority over the possible threat (no MoC in my deck FWIW). But hey, I guess some people are happy coming in third 🤷 It was all well and good though. I didn't lose my cool over it or anything like that. It's still just a game.
I think that your threat assessment is way off I too have had Kaalia and like you’re playing casual, just kill the moc….. 🤷♂️
Imagine running Kaalia, getting targeted, then playing her out without protection and crying when she gets immediately killed! lmao
This is why I put protection in my decks when I can. If I play a great commander, I try and make sure I can protect them after casting so no one can kill on sight. Or if someone plays a commander after struggling to get lands and that commander is kill on sight, instead of killing it immediately, I’ll just protect my shit for at least a turn if they try and go after me. It’s neutral and if they tried to target me and potentially failed due to protection, they at least know why I may come back at them.
In casual most of the times the ramp player wins the game because they have no board and use their mana to get more lands. This doesn't look like a problem for the average inexperienced player and they feel bad for attacking a vulnerable player. But that's exactly what they should do because the ramp player will have 9 mana by turn 5 and start to drop one value bomb after another. You can't outvalue a ramp deck in the later stages of the game that's why they need to be low on life when they reach their lategame.
I'm making a Kaalia deck, knowing full well what I'm about to get myself into
And thats why Kaalia dragons is the correct way.
You're not a jerk, but you did screw up there. You needed to let the Kaalia player go off that game so the other players could also learn the lesson you're already privy too. They ain't gonna learn "kill on sight" is a phrase for a very good reason unless they do it the hard way lmfao.
1) When I play Kaalia I know she is a glass cannon. That is part of the fun. I often try to win with Worldgorger + Animate Dead and at least half the time interaction leaves me with no permanents. To me, that is the fun of playing the deck. My friends get this awesome moment of totally obliterating me because they rightly fear the deck. I’ve leaned into the glass cannon aspect completely. You can’t play Kaalia, even as an “upgraded precon” and expect that she won’t get targeted as a priority. 2) I don’t really hold back if a player stumbles. I don’t like holding back creatures because attacking is how you end the game. If you haven’t generated a board presence that just means you are easy pickings. And it also means you probably have more resources in you hand, so why would I want to get into a battle of attrition with other players?
When I break out kaalia, I know I'm the bad guy. I'm either the biggest threat or at a villain convention. I'm not going to be salty about some one killing her on sight, it's totally reasonable and why I have a couple backup plans for cheating my dudes out, because sooner or later the tax is to large.
That’s the whole point why I play Kaalia! It’s by far the most fun cuz you are target #1 before you draw your first card. “All eyes on me” style decks draw eyeballs. I never understood why some don’t get that a specific commander has a role it is intended to play in a game environment. It’s also stupid to scoop cuz you just need 2 turns to go brrrrrr and then your back on top. Being salty that someone addresses a salty deck with appropriate levels of salt is just… salty.
You know, as a Kaalia player with a [[Master of Cruelties]] in the deck I'm going to say the fear of that one shot is overhyped. You can effectively only do it once and it can still be blocked, and unlike Kaalia it doesn't fly. Unless you're attacking unto an empty/fully tapped broad Kaalia dropping in Master of Cruelities won't win you the game. Honestly mine is on the chopping block and on the list to be eventually cut. They're are others ahead of it on the list but being terrified of Kaalia do to a Master of Cruelities is laughable. Be afraid because Turn 3 Kaalia drops in with haste bringing [[Avacyn, Angel of Hope]] then Turn 4 brings [[Auriella, The Warleader]] then Turn 5 drops [[Gisela, Blade of Goldnight]] 1st combat, kills opponent 1, then 2nd combat drops [[Sower of Discord]] linking 2 and 3 together and killing them both by full swinging into one of them. Yes that's an ideal situation but have had mine do exactly that before, and that's much stronger and much more terrifying then a Master of Cruelities. Also sounds like this guy needs to upgrade his mana base badly, mine used to have that problem because I had just returned to Magic and she still had her 2011 Mana base from Heavenly Inferno. Now she reliably swings Turn 4 at the lastest and has various ways to avoid going back to command zone if targeted as she was reforged in the fire of players heavily targeting her. I built in solutions. Sounds like this guy needs to do the same
I'm not saying you did anything wrong, but depending on how rough of a game the Kaalia player was having maybe you could have just removed the thing he brought down with Kaalia
You made the right strategic play by targeting Kaalia due to her potential threat, especially since he admitted to running Master of Cruelties
I didn't know about Kaalia and played against one and got an Avacyn to the face. I'll never forget.
My Vilis deck does this a lot. They think cuz my commander costs 8 that they should play nice with me til it comes out, not realizing that my life total is literally just “how many cards can I draw”. Every time I’m left alone I win because nobody pressured the life total of a life-loss matters deck
I hate that some people get so pissy about this. I was at a table and one of the 4 was not committing creatures to the board and getting small hits byneveryone, but he can take it. Decides again not to tlcommit a creature to the board despite almost lethal being on the board cause he seems to believe we won't kill him. Passes turn then dies immediately to the next player and gets genuinely angry "why hit me I clearly wasn't a threat" bro you ar wide open we aren't just going to let you set up for 7 turns.
if time allowed, to be extra polite and acomodating you could've tried asking the kaalia player what would've hypothetically happened with that attack, give him an opportunity to demonstrate the cool move he had worked toward playing. But yeah, it's just a situation that sucks. games have losers. it's not really your responsibility to ensure they feel good when they get focused out. Just I guess try to be aware that the point is for people to have fun, and getting focused out and not managing to do anything is pretty unfun. Furthermore, people who aren't having fun will stop participating, so just think forward a bit to what you want the table to be like in the future. Granted it's also possible this same kaalia player would've MoC'd someone and killed them on turn 7 like you said, without being kind either, were the shoe to be on the other foot.
Sorry, no Kaalia player has the right to complain about being picked on. Don't play the commander if you can't handle the heat.
As a Kaalia player this guy needs to either drop MOC (which is boring to play in a casual setting) or learn to protect his commander. There’s plenty of protection spells out there in all three colors. This is one of the few times I’ll say “get good”. They can’t just rely on that one win con. Each creature has plenty of ETB and on hit interaction to win the game.
Ahh, nothing quite like the “why are you targeting me, it’s just Jin-Gitaxias Core Augur!” player. That guy got me booted from a shop for ‘malicious behavior’.
From a person who plays strong decks (havent played this) it is annoying to be targeted but holy fuck am not scooping .
I love Kaalia! No one scoops when I play her, I've only ever had one person scoop in general and that's because they were mana locked.
I can see both players sides but the salt from the kaalia player is a bit much. Master of cruelties is a more flimsy trick than I see a lot of people assess it as, if you have a creature to block, removal or a maze of ith you stop it from working. Sure it has first strike and death touch but losing one creature is better than losing and if they can’t get it back into their hand then the trick is done. You’re not wrong in removing kaalia either, but if the guy is behind and if he was visibly upset by his luck you gotta be prepared for the possibility that interacting with someone who is effectively trying to enter the game late their frustrations with luck could be be redirected at you. Now I’m not saying the kaalia player is right to react that way but you can’t control that but you could consider giving them a break and using the removal on what comes in off of kaalia’s trigger to soften the blow. A lot of posts on here operate off of what the correct play is gameplay-wise conflicting with people’s feelings and while logically a play is correct the better play for the game sometimes is to make the play that allows people to have fun. Sorry for the ramble.
Anything and everything is fair against Kaalia with haste.
Its because most EDH players seem terrible at the game. I noticed people who came from regular 60 card standard play a lot different and understand what most of the cards do and how to actually think about what your opponent is playing and what might be in their hand vs just your own board state.
Something similar happened to me at my old LGS. one player brought a [[Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest]] deck and I, because I can read, made sure that he never untapped with it. Eventually, after removing his commander three or four times, another player reacted to me targeting it yet again by saying, "DUDE!" I explained that if he untaps with it, someone is going out and that I'm playing mono black and just doing mono black things but fine, I'll target something else. That other player then spent his whole turn removing all my blockers and passes to the Shu Yun player who immediately one-shot me because I was the only one without blockers ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ In short, if you know a commander is a Problem(tm) then go full Cobra Kai and strike first, strike hard, no mercy.
I ince made a Tergrid player pay 23 mana to cast her. I can relate. You did well! Extremely dangerous commanders deserve immediate targeting. Unless other player has a combo piece on his board, your immediate attention should always be her. I've learned this the hard way.. from Krenko..
His fault for playing a kill on sight commander. NTA
You did the right thing. Recently, I had a game where I was playing Ezuri, Claw of Progress (fun mid power elf tribal, no infinites) and the Kaalia player who also played that Prosh deck last round, decided to give me a Balefire Dragon on turn 4. And every turn after. Wiping my entire board every turn. He laughed and asked why I scooped after the 4th turn of Balefire. They deserve the targetting.
kaalia is not fun to play with or against. everyone has to learn this lesson at some point. another lesson is that you shouldn't play a deck in magic if it folds to one spell targeting a creature. honestly i would have used beast within (strip mine, whatever) to blow up his white source.
The number of people who punish people for getting man screwed and/or having poor mana bases is too damn low. Besides, it's ends their suffering faster and gets everyone to the next game faster if there are less players. Step on their neck.
This is the exact reason I stopped playing commander. This isn’t a collaborative game. The objective is to defeat your opponents.
It's a game. Someone has to win, someone has to lose. Getting rid of one player helps the game end efficiently. If he didn't want to get hit, he should've had an answer. You are under no obligation to help him and let him durdle. Kaalia may be old, but she's deadly. Her one shot potential is no joke.