Watching your videos has made my decks so much better over the course of time. Adding cards with more versatility and removal/interaction has made my decks more fun to play since I rarely get to do "nothing" in a game. The same can be said for what you described as stax cards.
I like to denote the difference between Stax and Control as "You can try to do that but i will stop you" and "No, you are not allowed to do that". And i find stopping people engaging, while i find denying people the ability to play to be boring. But thats just me.
Actually i was scrolling through the salt list just a few hours ago, and wondering "why on earth is teferis protection on here" (Score: 2.02). So thank you, you managed to answer my question with remarkable speed! A lot of your examples of pseudo-stax that isnt socially excluded seem to be pretty hated: The one ring (2.70) is the 8th most salty card legal in the format. Blood moon (2.20) is on the list as well. And of course so is cyclonic rift (2.40). Farewell (2.20) too.
Excellent analysis (as usual)! I found that ending summation particularly insightful. One thing I would add is that part of why something like Teferi's Protection is much less objectionable to most Commander players than some hard stax piece like Amaggedon is that TP allows for more hope. In this case because it only lasts a single turn cycle at most (without recursion, which is a different matter). Certainly, buying just one turn with TP is often more than enough to close out a game, but it isn't necessarily guarenteed that the TP player is going to close it out. We can imagine a scenario where all your (living) opponents have TP'd this turn cycle and you're just stuck there spinning in place - and that feels bad - but you've got the relief that (provided you get another turn at all) your next turn isn't going to be like that. Whereas something like Armaggedon or Winter Orb not only denies that relief by promising that next turn will feel just as bad (or only marginally better) but actively inhibits your ability to accumulate or use resources to shut it off (now this isn't true for all stax pieces but it is particularly poignant in the cases of mass land removal/mana denial), further denying the hope that you or another player will be able to turn off their machine. It's not about one objectively being weaker or stronger - it's that one allows for more *hope*. And more generally this is a part of why many players would rather be stuck against a hopelessly ahead Elder Dragon player than a fully online stax machine that has softlocked you. Yes it's likely that the Elder Dragon player has counterplay for any attempt to clear their board (and even if you did they still have a full hand) but there is still the dream that you might topdeck Wrath of God. Sure, they'd also need to be unlucky in their draws and not have any protection in hand (or perhaps another player might chip in a counterspell of their own to ensure your Wrath goes through), and then more effort will need to be made by the whole table to level the card advantage. But still, the outs clearly exist, even if they're wildly unlikely in reality. Whereas your deck might not even have any ways of simply or efficiently levelling part of the playing field in a topdeck, even in your the most optimistic projections. Rationally your outs might be just as unlikely, but a stax-created softlock provides less outs to play for, even in theory. It doesn't matter if you draw that Farewell, because you're not going to be able to cast it because you're not going to untap any lands next turn. By making the fact that you're fucked more explicit, it kills your hope. And regardless of their objective chances to win, players don't like feeling hopeless. P.S: This also helps with further justifying why softer stax pieces and targeted land removal are cool and based.
Wow that explain so well why I love Stax in EDH!!! I feel that the social fear of Stax is the equivalent of playing rock paper scissor without rock. I totally get playgroup that are all playing those value machine midrange deck, but the result of those type of meta environment that I have encounter is a meta where deck are just trying to be the biggest scissor. Stax and Agro/Turbo are in my mind thing that add depth to the game dynamic of a EDH game environment, so it will lead to more complex game that are a good thing for experience player, but will be for sure a "fun wall" for newcomer unequip/unprepare for those kind of tools in a deck.
The problem is that its inclusion always leads to the same response from the stax player; “just run more answers”, which devolves into every deck becoming extremely similar shells of the most efficient interaction and coverage they can muster with like 1/3 of the deck actually geared towards being what they wanted. That’s for CEDH, or a receptive pod, where people are fully in for that experience. It’s not YuGiOh, every deck shouldn’t be the same staples with a twist. It’s EDH, flavour/thematics are inherently limiting and building stax in a format where people are not prepared for it because that’s not the point of the format is a failure to read the room.
I recently slotted Fall of the Thran into my Megatron, Tyrant deck to punish the two guys at the table who seem addicted to getting 12 lands on the table in the first 4 turns. It brings parity to the table, I can get most of the mana to cast it from Megatron slapping around the ramp player who doesn't have an effective blocker, and gives everyone back some lands over some turns. Of course, Megatron himself is still slapping people around and generating mana in the meantime. And since I get the first returned lands I'll be the first one with 3 colored pips available, which is pretty sweet.
13:25 I think of the distinction as "control is looking to answer a threat and to remove it entirely, while stax looks to wither render is useless or prevent it from happening in the first place"
Razia's Purification is "everyone chooses 3 permanents and sacrifices the rest", if you're looking for more effects that attack manabases but are limited in scope.
IMO the issue with stax is just that the most iconic stax pieces, the most powerful ones and thus the most run, are old designs overtuned to be so splashy and impactful for so cheap that the entire game is immediately defined by its presence if players aren't positioned to immediately deal with it. An early Winter Orb going unanswered due to no one at the table drawing into cheap artifact removal on the first few turns is positioned to turn a game into a real slog in a way that few other unanswered early drops can. Honestly, even though I'm not really wishing for any more bans after everything, I do feel like stax would be in a much more socially acceptable place (and the game better for it) if we just forgot about a bunch of those early stax options and had to use the much more interactive and interesting modern stax instead.
My favorite rule card is Silent Arbiter, and it's basically a win con all of its own in any deck I include it in, so it's entirely deserved every time it's targeted.
While my playgroup banned MLD, I suggested to unban Wave of Vitriol and From the Ashes, so that it turns to a Basic Lands issue and deckbuilding problem now. This is coming from a Lands player that wins via Maze's End.
@2:23 I believe that if there was an indestructible land cycle with all the basic land's subtypes the armageddon wouldn't feel so bad as people would include those in their decks in case of land destruction. The artifact lands that has the indestructiblity ability can't be fetched as easily unless you play blue centric deck with fabricate or other similar. So, there are according to scryfall 12 cards that grant indestructible to permanents (including lands) and 6 cards that grant indestructible to lands specifically. Searching for "creature indestructible" nets you with almost 300 different options. So in a way the argument is nice. If in that reality there was only 20 obscure spells in the game that granted indestructible to creatures but were in very specific two or three colors or the card was something like Eldrazi Monument or Plaza of Heroes. People in that universe would see and understand that they should add Plaza of Heroes just in care someone plays and Wrath of God and wipes their creature but even then it's like 1/100th game if someone were to play it. But even in that universe if you were to search "destroy creature" or in this case cards that included words "destroy land". You would find around 300 different options to do so. Which is like 1 protection for 100 different land destructive effects. So in a way land destruction feels bad as there's not enough good options to pre-emptively protect and all you can do is react with curved and not so clear cut answers. Like, Negate is fine but what then when you had counter Acid Rain, Wasteland, Boseiju and many more. How much counter magic you are willing to spare in your hand until you just say: "I just can't."
As an over 40 dude with a massive card collection and the ability to build any deck I want , who plays with a bunch of similar guys, the reason we have rule zeroed most MLD comes down to one thing: time. We all only have 1 evening per week to play. Unless the player who just land swept can win immediately, it makes games take longer than we'd like. Being able to jam several games on commander night matters to us, so we lean into not banning combo decks or restricting power in that direction.
In my Avacyn deck there’s a natural slot for mass land destruction. I’ve chosen to run Fall of the Thran as it’s a saga that’s possible to tutor for me, and also because it eventually returns 4 of the lands of each player’s choosing to the field. This will hopefully make it less brutal if/when my deck fails to close out the game after such a play
Deleted my original post until I finished watching the video to see if this was addressed, and it was partially. Armageddon, or any early mass land destruction, is particularly a problem when one player builds with it as their game plan and plays it early. Most players will try to ramp on the first two turns, and an Armageddon deck will likely do so more aggressively and could have 3 dorks/rocks on the third turn when they play their armageddon. The other players might have one or no dorks/rocks, essentially creating the 90% lose chance you described, and during that time the Armageddon player will functionally get to play solitaire while everyone else watches. The only answers aren't particularly helpful either, keep mana up for removal, play more dorks/rocks and hope you draw them, play stax to prevent an early armageddon.
And this is why I run Deafening Silence to just see what happens, You are still allowed to play the game, however everybody (including myself) needs to play "fair" magic Also, Charitable Levy is an hilarious card in white, its ramp, its a cantrip, and its a taxing effect that only sticks around for a turn rotation for 2.
Not gonna lie, most people I play with run 3-4 board wipes and extra card draw, so it really doesn't feel that bad. However, at more casual tables, I can see how frustrating they can be.
I wholly agree with your point about Teferi's pritection but there is technically one other kind of counterplay If someone has a card that makes it so that damge cannot be prevented, then, even if your life total can't change, you can still take Commander damage and lose that way thats obviouslt quite and edge case though
I currently have a deafening silence and a damping sphere on my bedside table. No idea why as i have never used either card but i think at least one might find its way into a future deck after this video.
I get like 5 hours a month to play commander. Cards that perpetually prevent me from performing game actions in a casual format during that window is attacking me as a human. I'm aware I'm being melodramatic, but with NOTHING on the line, what is the point of treating fun like some zero sum equation?
I myself play Brago (it is a super budget deck build from my small collection) and I must say that the commander can get out of hand pretty easily. Therefore I would not mind my opponent playing Torpor Orb, because that is the simplest and best way to shut down the bullshit Brago is doing
Mass land destruction makes white almost entirely unplayable as a color due to the relative scarcity of ways to respond short of phasing your whole board out.
The fundamental distinction between stax and control is that control expends resources in order to control and Therefore makes meaningful decisions about WHAT to counter or respond to, while stax effects are mostly stapled to permanents and therefore aren't expended when played and do not require the player to use up scarce resources to answer single cards. Board wipes answer the current board state, mass land destruction answers future board states as well due to the one land per turn restriction. Even stax pieces that target a single card can be blinked to retarget a different threat, but once you use a counterspell it's gone unless you expend OTHER resources to retrieve it. That's also why TP and the One Ring aren't stax. TP exiles itself which means it's only used once in a game, and 1R also only has a one turn effect. I have a Bant Merfolk control deck that can under certain circumstances, generate unlimited counterspells. Once that combo goes off, it essentially becomes an ad hoc stax deck because I'm no longer expending resources (and in fact build a board state) when countering opponents.
Okay, I get what you're saying and I don't think there are any serious technical flaws in your argumentation: you make solid points and argue them well. It's true that we're inconsistent about what stax means, about which stax we allow and don't, and about how (probably all) interaction is effectively some form of proactive or reactive stax. My issue is mostly that this framing misses the real, underlying 'human' things we usually care about when it comes to stax. You'll have noticed that the stax pieces we object to the most have very 'blanket' effects: they affect a lót of the game for how much they cost (made worse by, as you noted, them originally being designed for 1v1) without further cost to their controller; these make the game difficult to play for 75% of the table. Even worse are probably the 'hosers' that shut down particular play patterns (like draw or graveyard decks) which lock out particular players from 'doing their thing' while everyone else is relatively unaffected. I don't think most people mind these effects to some degree, but rather care about 'how much' they affect the game. This is amplified by the fact that these stax effects often drag games out, which means you're sitting around frustrated for a long time, doing little to nothing while you wait for the stax players to finally turn the equlibrium to their favor. Goad is fine, Bojuka is fine, discard is fine, even land destruction is fine: the problem with the cards that generate these effects is not that they're stax; it's with how they're designed to be very oppressive and absolute in ways that are very difficult to come back from if they do catch you it. In that way they're very similar to the many 'I win if I get to untap this' board states that frequently hit before turn 7; you just 'feel' blown out in an unsatisfying way, but at least with the killer combo you got a chance to interact and the game will be over very soon. In my opinion the strongest part of your video is the end: we need stax cards with better designs. Monologue Tax > Smotherting Tithe for example, but there are so many stax effects that would be absolutely fine if they just had clauses like "the first time a player does X in a turn," or "x happens unless the player pays {1}", as well as limiters like "each opponent discards X, but never their last" or "destroy lands, but leave each player with at least 3" and so on. That way these effects can exist and disrupt players, they get to feel smart and rewarded for having interaction against these effects, but don't just sit there for an hour waiting to finally top-deck into the removal they need to start playing the game again. Thanks for the video! PS: also yes Teferi's Protection sucks.
It can if you prepare for it, tap mana then teferi's protection. Or you just do it after you do a boardwipe with indestructible creatures and then just win since no one has a board but you.
It usually doesn't - because they aren't built that way.... usually. I have one deck I use mass land destruction that's just looking to buy enough time to close out the game through big damage. I'm playing a quick commander and a bunch of low drops and then blow the land while I'm ahead so I can push through damage. I don't blow up the board all the time, but doing so throws off the big plays that can stop my small but efficient beaters. I think land destruct is usually not fitting for commander. Especially with control. I think for EDH, something more like a ponza deck is more fitting where it's more a disruption than a denial. Get ahead, slow everyone else down, and try to build up steam. Even then, I think it's something that should be played rarely.
Issue is that most mass land destruction decks is that they aren't build in a way that wins quickly after it. It would be as terrible to play against deck full of boardwipes with no winning plan.
As commenters already points out, its mostly a deckbuilding problem. Planeswalkers LOVES mass land destruction. my issue with land destruction is that desirable counter measure are very undesirable. All the exemple snails give you will weaken your deck's gameplan more than it will make it ressilient. The only 2 good ones i can think of rn are Tefferi's protection and Heroic intervention.
How about a stax-license. If you can actually play your deck turns quickly instead of dawdling, durdling, and generally wasting everyone's time then cool - license approved. It's one thing to be slowed down by a stack piece in a vacuum, it's another thing entirely in a commander format where it takes 20 minutes to go around the table.
8:39 - FALSE! The enchantment Spacial Binding can stop permanents from phasing out, so while you might not be able to hit the player you can still keep their board in play and destroy them.
I dont hate stax. I hate teferis protection, cyclonic rift and zero mana counter spells. But to be fair I almost never play against stax. For me the powerlevel of the card and the price tag coming with the card is what makes it annoying to play against it. E.g. oh you played a card that cost as much as my deck nice play man ;) But I guess that's kinda a rule 0 problem.
...I'm so confused who isn't playing sweepers, and who is calling sweepers stax?? Stax is *repeated* resource denial. People hate mass land destruction because it causes game states that drag on a fight rather than allow for rebuilding and then potentially win off of that. People hate repeated creature sweeping because it does something similar, but at least everyone's level on rebuilding. You have created a new definition for stax that I've never heard before. Teferi players can still be milled. And stax itself begs the question: how are you winning?
I mean that's already an inconsistent argument right? If stax is repeated resource denial then by that logic mld isn't stax because it's an one off effect. The point snail was making was that there's some vagueness to the definition, lantern control was a competitive 60 card deck and despite being called control us edh players would call it stax. Graveyard hate and sweepers aren't really considering stax despite being on resource denial. We have sweepers like farewell and cyclonic rift that basically remove everything BUT lands but aren't seen as bad despite being able to slow the game just as hard. The video is exploring why that is and questioning if it's a good thing or not.
inb4 everyone just runs static orb/winter orb combos or lordwingrace mass land destruction. I am sure thats totally a fun concept. You got to understand. Theres always gonna be people playing the most powerful thing possible. So if Johnny with infinite ashnod's altar combos in their urza deck felt like it already. The games would be a lot more stale. Yes, you are right, Stax would encourage folks to play differently, that is not even remotely wrong, but you would start approaching an even more strict format if stax was on the table. Almost every deck would then start eventually running something like chalice of the void to help counter said stax pieces. And that Vandal blast example at 19:00 for the mana rock resources would then just become used for the artifact stax pieces. The removal will always exist in any format because instead of mana engines, you will have stax engines that need to be removed. If mass land destruction became ok, then you would start seeing people run those tapped indestruct lands. The game would just become a lot more slow, drawn out, and incredibly boring if that became the accepted meta in Rule 0 discussions. Theres been many a time where I seen "Bob" say. "Hey can we not run infinites" And 2 others at the table go "Wow you must not like fun" and then Bob feels like shit, then eventually considers running infinites themself to help blend into the enviornment the majority of MTG players have created. 24:00 where you say players should make resiliant decks. I 10000% agree, but the issue is if you try to make a universally resiliant deck that tries to answer every problem eventually, Your board state will either: A) not have enough resources cause you arent devoting to ramping, B) May not have been able to answer the stax pieces in play due to unlucky draws, C) be forced into a situation where you got to run tutors and just lower the possible creativity a deck can have because you need to be so resiliant. (inb4 people run 1 ring even more for the sake of resiliance) in regards to 25:22. About your gear hulk, if you ran into stax, your boardwipes are non existant here cause ETB's arent allowed till you draw said removal. In essence, that form of removal is the most player friendly, you are correct, but you are in a very slippery slope in the enviornment you are saying is good and bad, because in 30:00 where you encourage soft stax. I AGREE I would love more soft stax in games, but people will take that out of hand and just start bringing more hard stax :/. Because you just get those people who will go "Its just a slightly better card" aka lots of people who gaslight. Wall of text later, a lot of valid points are made, but I don't think the consideration of the player base was in mind for people who would take advantage of any situation of people who would adapt.
there's a difference between stacks cards and stacks decks People don't complain too much when facing a propaganda. but when facing propaganda+fantomal prison+windborn muse, people will complain. people complain about blood moon and geddon, but not wraths because people hate ressource denial. So geddon is not comparable to wrath which does not deny ressources.
Teferi's Protection is a bad example, because you're mixing to wildly different topics. Stax, versus extremely undercosted outlier power cards that you can't really compare anything to due to how aberrant they are. Much like Cyclonic Rift and Farewell, which are also effects fundamentally transformed by the fact they're undercosted by about a third. We should not reconsider stax based on the prevalence of these cards arbitrarily given a pass to be played in environments where they are inappropriate; we should consider the appropriateness of including these outlier power cards in environments where they are inappropriate in the first place.
I just don't like creature-based decks, so I always in the situation of 1-2 weak creatures or none at all against powerful midrange creature board. So I always prefeer to run at least 6-8 boardwipes, cause it can guarantee me (more or less) survival. And farewell is especially good ofc, I really like this spell. I'm often play with guys from Snail's discord and hear "that was a weird game" just cause board was wiped multiple times. Sometimes I feel bad about it, but at the same time I don't understand this creature-centric wiev on the game. play more artifacts, enchantments, play boardwipe protection, there is no reason to try to drop creature every turn.
Longest video so far. There's a lot to talk about. Pressure and stax are great for the format, and only recive as much hate because people are unprepared for it. The only "problematic" stax card are those who create massive shift in board state, and are tough to interact with. The exemple you give to mitigate massland destruction ultimately weaken your decks more than it make it resillient either by worsening your manabase, being vulnerable to more common interaction, being "do nothing card" most of the time, and keepin lands in hand in case of a landwipe is effectively the same as playing with 2 lands destroyed already. That's why it's a problem. counter measure are undesirable. I join you with your conclusion. all those stax pieces that are both incredibely powerfull and/or difficult to prepare are allowed to exist, but they do not belong in midpower table.
stax just isnt fun. thats it. people have fun getting steamrolled by dinosaurs, idk why but they do. you can logic about it all day long but at the end of the day, stax and mld just suck the fun out of a game.
It's the same way with aggro and it all depends on the player. I don't mind stacks but I do remember being really irritated by pirate aggro strategies when I was plaing hearthstone.
Drawing some disingenuous equivalency between Armageddon, Smoke and Static Orb, and sweepers, is one of the most mind bending mental acrobatics I've seen online. Do better.
Land destruction is a garbage mechanic and even wizards knows it, anyone that has it or plays it has to take it out before they play again because we just don't do that here anymore It doesn't respect players time in a match and drags games out because 99% of mass land destruction decks don't close a game because their pilots are incompetent
6:40 I kinda want to be in situation A rather than situation B, because assume situation B but then they have 7+ counterspells in their hand or so. Like what are you then gone do, cast a meaningfull spell to it just doing nothing... In situation A, mostly also the stax player is limited, maybe not as mush as you are, but still, its even possible that when you get out of situation A, the stax player itself is the one limited by their own cards.
An important thing to note about land destruction in edh: it adds a whole new layer of complexity. For new and less enfranchised players edh games can already be mind-bendingly complex. Game designers eschew land destruction in precons because it was decided to be a feel-bad AND a complexity they can drop in favor of higher new player retention. I do wonder how different edh would be if land destruction was so common that every deck ran it. I think I would genuinely love it if Mardu colors especially got a few cards that just said "and you may destroy target land" in addition to the normal thing they do.
@@Junk-Troller In casual edh? Once it resolves? Not a lot. 90% of the time it decides the game. The game goes to whoever happens to have the correct board state or be lucky enough with their draws to recover first. But the meta knowledge of something so singularly game changing is very complex. If you are to expect an armageddon or obliterate in every game and not be completely bulldozered then you will need to make significant changes in your deckbuilding, like keeping your curve lower and vastly increasing your ways to produce mana without lands. Just this already demands knowledge of advanced deckbuilding concepts like mana curves and chances of drawing into specific cards, not to mention having the knowledge of all these game pieces in the first place. This is not as simple as having removal for specific threats. There is no easy "these are the cards that beat armageddon" category. Simply ignoring mass land destruction exists does decrease the mental load on a beginner and an average casual player significantly. Yes, it's possible to create precons that are simple enough for beginners AND streamlined and powerful enough to be able to deal with mass land destruction. But that would mean constantly reprinting some of the most expensive game pieces and also selling precons that are "finished" decks and having all the cards you would need in a single purchase doesn't gel with the "collectible card game" business model.
I dont think anyone has a problem with stax *cards* as a rule, I think they have a problem with stax *decks*. I dont see Thalia and immediately think "oh great, this is going to be miserable" any more than I do a Sol Ring or a Counterspell. When I see a Winter Orb however, I know this isnt going to be a one-of and is instead going to now warp the entire game and cut away interesting decisions for all players - including the staxer. Similarly, I dont care about Counterspell, but if someone plays 10 counters in a row and nothing else, Im gonna think theyre being a bit obnoxious. It doesnt help, of course, that people who play stax or infinites tend to pretend they just have no idea why people dont like their decks, but thats a social thing and not an issue with stax. And, lets be honest, someone who plays a deck made of 60 counters, 30 lands, and 10 win-con cards still has to think about how, when, and why theyre countering something. What is the thought behind playing your Winter Orb turn 1, exactly? When are you ever going to NOT do that? Theres no planning and trickery and adapting when stax is your main strategy, its just "play my stax and play my wincon before my opponents." Also, Im sorry, but "stax is good and healthy because it forces people to play the game in the way that I think is better to counter it" is probably the worst argument for anything Ive ever heard, ESPECIALLY for casual play. If your strategy is so game-warping youre forcing people to change their decks to specifically deal with you, youre not playing to parity with your pod. Its not really any different than the "my deck is about a 7" people. If you want to see this logic taken to its natural extreme, go have a chat with the YuGiOh community and see how much fun were having with Maxx C and boards of 30,000 negations. Theres a good reason "just draw the out" is not a good counter-argument against toxic strategies and cards.
It's unfortunate, but I agree and disagree. I would have no problem with it as part of a combo or a coup de grace that ends the game quickly. The problem is there is no real way to enforce that it will be used in that way. Players playing the cards and then doing nothing just drags the game on for an eternity. I usually have no issue just scooping in these scenarios, but when it is used non deterministically it can kinda just kill the pace of the game.
People need to get over hating on mass land destruction in Commander and come to appreciate it. I hope that the tiers system does something to sort that out because it's one of the only counter tools to the current "green ramp lands" that is the core sacred cow of the format.
I have found a dozen off-brand channels that give thoughtful analysis on mtg...but nothing compares to the real thing.
Does this channel only resonate with Spikes?
Nope
Watching your videos has made my decks so much better over the course of time. Adding cards with more versatility and removal/interaction has made my decks more fun to play since I rarely get to do "nothing" in a game. The same can be said for what you described as stax cards.
This was really well done. Always like your stuff & takes. It’s obvious you’ve put a bunch of effort to make it super digestible & visually pleasant.
I like to denote the difference between Stax and Control as "You can try to do that but i will stop you" and "No, you are not allowed to do that". And i find stopping people engaging, while i find denying people the ability to play to be boring. But thats just me.
Actually i was scrolling through the salt list just a few hours ago, and wondering "why on earth is teferis protection on here" (Score: 2.02). So thank you, you managed to answer my question with remarkable speed!
A lot of your examples of pseudo-stax that isnt socially excluded seem to be pretty hated: The one ring (2.70) is the 8th most salty card legal in the format. Blood moon (2.20) is on the list as well. And of course so is cyclonic rift (2.40). Farewell (2.20) too.
Excellent analysis (as usual)! I found that ending summation particularly insightful. One thing I would add is that part of why something like Teferi's Protection is much less objectionable to most Commander players than some hard stax piece like Amaggedon is that TP allows for more hope. In this case because it only lasts a single turn cycle at most (without recursion, which is a different matter). Certainly, buying just one turn with TP is often more than enough to close out a game, but it isn't necessarily guarenteed that the TP player is going to close it out. We can imagine a scenario where all your (living) opponents have TP'd this turn cycle and you're just stuck there spinning in place - and that feels bad - but you've got the relief that (provided you get another turn at all) your next turn isn't going to be like that. Whereas something like Armaggedon or Winter Orb not only denies that relief by promising that next turn will feel just as bad (or only marginally better) but actively inhibits your ability to accumulate or use resources to shut it off (now this isn't true for all stax pieces but it is particularly poignant in the cases of mass land removal/mana denial), further denying the hope that you or another player will be able to turn off their machine.
It's not about one objectively being weaker or stronger - it's that one allows for more *hope*.
And more generally this is a part of why many players would rather be stuck against a hopelessly ahead Elder Dragon player than a fully online stax machine that has softlocked you. Yes it's likely that the Elder Dragon player has counterplay for any attempt to clear their board (and even if you did they still have a full hand) but there is still the dream that you might topdeck Wrath of God. Sure, they'd also need to be unlucky in their draws and not have any protection in hand (or perhaps another player might chip in a counterspell of their own to ensure your Wrath goes through), and then more effort will need to be made by the whole table to level the card advantage. But still, the outs clearly exist, even if they're wildly unlikely in reality. Whereas your deck might not even have any ways of simply or efficiently levelling part of the playing field in a topdeck, even in your the most optimistic projections. Rationally your outs might be just as unlikely, but a stax-created softlock provides less outs to play for, even in theory. It doesn't matter if you draw that Farewell, because you're not going to be able to cast it because you're not going to untap any lands next turn. By making the fact that you're fucked more explicit, it kills your hope.
And regardless of their objective chances to win, players don't like feeling hopeless.
P.S: This also helps with further justifying why softer stax pieces and targeted land removal are cool and based.
Wow that explain so well why I love Stax in EDH!!! I feel that the social fear of Stax is the equivalent of playing rock paper scissor without rock.
I totally get playgroup that are all playing those value machine midrange deck, but the result of those type of meta environment that I have encounter is a meta where deck are just trying to be the biggest scissor.
Stax and Agro/Turbo are in my mind thing that add depth to the game dynamic of a EDH game environment, so it will lead to more complex game that are a good thing for experience player, but will be for sure a "fun wall" for newcomer unequip/unprepare for those kind of tools in a deck.
The problem is that its inclusion always leads to the same response from the stax player; “just run more answers”, which devolves into every deck becoming extremely similar shells of the most efficient interaction and coverage they can muster with like 1/3 of the deck actually geared towards being what they wanted. That’s for CEDH, or a receptive pod, where people are fully in for that experience.
It’s not YuGiOh, every deck shouldn’t be the same staples with a twist. It’s EDH, flavour/thematics are inherently limiting and building stax in a format where people are not prepared for it because that’s not the point of the format is a failure to read the room.
I recently slotted Fall of the Thran into my Megatron, Tyrant deck to punish the two guys at the table who seem addicted to getting 12 lands on the table in the first 4 turns. It brings parity to the table, I can get most of the mana to cast it from Megatron slapping around the ramp player who doesn't have an effective blocker, and gives everyone back some lands over some turns. Of course, Megatron himself is still slapping people around and generating mana in the meantime. And since I get the first returned lands I'll be the first one with 3 colored pips available, which is pretty sweet.
30 minute weekly snail. What an absolute banger
13:25 I think of the distinction as "control is looking to answer a threat and to remove it entirely, while stax looks to wither render is useless or prevent it from happening in the first place"
Razia's Purification is "everyone chooses 3 permanents and sacrifices the rest", if you're looking for more effects that attack manabases but are limited in scope.
I love Pit of Offerings as a bit of basically free graveyard interaction
Destroy all lands. They can’t be regenerated.
IMO the issue with stax is just that the most iconic stax pieces, the most powerful ones and thus the most run, are old designs overtuned to be so splashy and impactful for so cheap that the entire game is immediately defined by its presence if players aren't positioned to immediately deal with it. An early Winter Orb going unanswered due to no one at the table drawing into cheap artifact removal on the first few turns is positioned to turn a game into a real slog in a way that few other unanswered early drops can.
Honestly, even though I'm not really wishing for any more bans after everything, I do feel like stax would be in a much more socially acceptable place (and the game better for it) if we just forgot about a bunch of those early stax options and had to use the much more interactive and interesting modern stax instead.
Monologue Tax is súch a better design than Smothering Tithe...
My favorite rule card is Silent Arbiter, and it's basically a win con all of its own in any deck I include it in, so it's entirely deserved every time it's targeted.
I think soft stax is great for casual edh. I have been running more in my aggressive decks, and would suggest other people do the same!
care to share what you are running, I play aggressive monowhite
Thalia Gitrog stax is a good suggestion.
While my playgroup banned MLD, I suggested to unban Wave of Vitriol and From the Ashes, so that it turns to a Basic Lands issue and deckbuilding problem now. This is coming from a Lands player that wins via Maze's End.
Someone in my playgroup metagamed my gates mazes end deck and added Confounding Conundrum. What a dick move😂
Soft stax is an amazing solution. This video makes me want to make a deck majorly incorporating it. Great video.
@2:23 I believe that if there was an indestructible land cycle with all the basic land's subtypes the armageddon wouldn't feel so bad as people would include those in their decks in case of land destruction. The artifact lands that has the indestructiblity ability can't be fetched as easily unless you play blue centric deck with fabricate or other similar. So, there are according to scryfall 12 cards that grant indestructible to permanents (including lands) and 6 cards that grant indestructible to lands specifically. Searching for "creature indestructible" nets you with almost 300 different options.
So in a way the argument is nice. If in that reality there was only 20 obscure spells in the game that granted indestructible to creatures but were in very specific two or three colors or the card was something like Eldrazi Monument or Plaza of Heroes. People in that universe would see and understand that they should add Plaza of Heroes just in care someone plays and Wrath of God and wipes their creature but even then it's like 1/100th game if someone were to play it. But even in that universe if you were to search "destroy creature" or in this case cards that included words "destroy land". You would find around 300 different options to do so. Which is like 1 protection for 100 different land destructive effects.
So in a way land destruction feels bad as there's not enough good options to pre-emptively protect and all you can do is react with curved and not so clear cut answers. Like, Negate is fine but what then when you had counter Acid Rain, Wasteland, Boseiju and many more. How much counter magic you are willing to spare in your hand until you just say: "I just can't."
As an over 40 dude with a massive card collection and the ability to build any deck I want , who plays with a bunch of similar guys, the reason we have rule zeroed most MLD comes down to one thing: time. We all only have 1 evening per week to play. Unless the player who just land swept can win immediately, it makes games take longer than we'd like. Being able to jam several games on commander night matters to us, so we lean into not banning combo decks or restricting power in that direction.
In my Avacyn deck there’s a natural slot for mass land destruction. I’ve chosen to run Fall of the Thran as it’s a saga that’s possible to tutor for me, and also because it eventually returns 4 of the lands of each player’s choosing to the field. This will hopefully make it less brutal if/when my deck fails to close out the game after such a play
Hey now, Teferi's Protection doesn't mean they can't be interacted with at all. You could hit them with a 10/10 Infect Questing Beast.
Deleted my original post until I finished watching the video to see if this was addressed, and it was partially.
Armageddon, or any early mass land destruction, is particularly a problem when one player builds with it as their game plan and plays it early.
Most players will try to ramp on the first two turns, and an Armageddon deck will likely do so more aggressively and could have 3 dorks/rocks on the third turn when they play their armageddon. The other players might have one or no dorks/rocks, essentially creating the 90% lose chance you described, and during that time the Armageddon player will functionally get to play solitaire while everyone else watches. The only answers aren't particularly helpful either, keep mana up for removal, play more dorks/rocks and hope you draw them, play stax to prevent an early armageddon.
And this is why I run Deafening Silence to just see what happens,
You are still allowed to play the game, however everybody (including myself) needs to play "fair" magic
Also, Charitable Levy is an hilarious card in white, its ramp, its a cantrip, and its a taxing effect that only sticks around for a turn rotation for 2.
Rule effects punishes everyone equally because no one gets to cast extra to catch up.
Not gonna lie, most people I play with run 3-4 board wipes and extra card draw, so it really doesn't feel that bad. However, at more casual tables, I can see how frustrating they can be.
I wholly agree with your point about Teferi's pritection but there is technically one other kind of counterplay
If someone has a card that makes it so that damge cannot be prevented, then, even if your life total can't change, you can still take Commander damage and lose that way
thats obviouslt quite and edge case though
Man calling out my solitaire 10 minute turns with Flubs 😢
I currently have a deafening silence and a damping sphere on my bedside table. No idea why as i have never used either card but i think at least one might find its way into a future deck after this video.
I wish I could afford a Living Plane
I get like 5 hours a month to play commander. Cards that perpetually prevent me from performing game actions in a casual format during that window is attacking me as a human. I'm aware I'm being melodramatic, but with NOTHING on the line, what is the point of treating fun like some zero sum equation?
I myself play Brago (it is a super budget deck build from my small collection) and I must say that the commander can get out of hand pretty easily. Therefore I would not mind my opponent playing Torpor Orb, because that is the simplest and best way to shut down the bullshit Brago is doing
people when I cast oracle:
Fall of thran is delayed firebombers/sylex. Dimensional breach removes lands and gives agency but could be too slow.
Mass land destruction makes white almost entirely unplayable as a color due to the relative scarcity of ways to respond short of phasing your whole board out.
Additionally, the innate ability to cast multiple permanents results in VERY different play patterns vs the one standard land drop per turn
The fundamental distinction between stax and control is that control expends resources in order to control and Therefore makes meaningful decisions about WHAT to counter or respond to, while stax effects are mostly stapled to permanents and therefore aren't expended when played and do not require the player to use up scarce resources to answer single cards.
Board wipes answer the current board state, mass land destruction answers future board states as well due to the one land per turn restriction. Even stax pieces that target a single card can be blinked to retarget a different threat, but once you use a counterspell it's gone unless you expend OTHER resources to retrieve it. That's also why TP and the One Ring aren't stax. TP exiles itself which means it's only used once in a game, and 1R also only has a one turn effect.
I have a Bant Merfolk control deck that can under certain circumstances, generate unlimited counterspells. Once that combo goes off, it essentially becomes an ad hoc stax deck because I'm no longer expending resources (and in fact build a board state) when countering opponents.
Okay, I get what you're saying and I don't think there are any serious technical flaws in your argumentation: you make solid points and argue them well. It's true that we're inconsistent about what stax means, about which stax we allow and don't, and about how (probably all) interaction is effectively some form of proactive or reactive stax.
My issue is mostly that this framing misses the real, underlying 'human' things we usually care about when it comes to stax. You'll have noticed that the stax pieces we object to the most have very 'blanket' effects: they affect a lót of the game for how much they cost (made worse by, as you noted, them originally being designed for 1v1) without further cost to their controller; these make the game difficult to play for 75% of the table. Even worse are probably the 'hosers' that shut down particular play patterns (like draw or graveyard decks) which lock out particular players from 'doing their thing' while everyone else is relatively unaffected. I don't think most people mind these effects to some degree, but rather care about 'how much' they affect the game. This is amplified by the fact that these stax effects often drag games out, which means you're sitting around frustrated for a long time, doing little to nothing while you wait for the stax players to finally turn the equlibrium to their favor.
Goad is fine, Bojuka is fine, discard is fine, even land destruction is fine: the problem with the cards that generate these effects is not that they're stax; it's with how they're designed to be very oppressive and absolute in ways that are very difficult to come back from if they do catch you it. In that way they're very similar to the many 'I win if I get to untap this' board states that frequently hit before turn 7; you just 'feel' blown out in an unsatisfying way, but at least with the killer combo you got a chance to interact and the game will be over very soon.
In my opinion the strongest part of your video is the end: we need stax cards with better designs. Monologue Tax > Smotherting Tithe for example, but there are so many stax effects that would be absolutely fine if they just had clauses like "the first time a player does X in a turn," or "x happens unless the player pays {1}", as well as limiters like "each opponent discards X, but never their last" or "destroy lands, but leave each player with at least 3" and so on. That way these effects can exist and disrupt players, they get to feel smart and rewarded for having interaction against these effects, but don't just sit there for an hour waiting to finally top-deck into the removal they need to start playing the game again.
Thanks for the video!
PS: also yes Teferi's Protection sucks.
My issue with mass land destruction is it doesn’t have the capability to win quickly after casting it in the same way a board wipe can
It can if you prepare for it, tap mana then teferi's protection. Or you just do it after you do a boardwipe with indestructible creatures and then just win since no one has a board but you.
*coughs in 3 planeswalkers*
It usually doesn't - because they aren't built that way.... usually. I have one deck I use mass land destruction that's just looking to buy enough time to close out the game through big damage. I'm playing a quick commander and a bunch of low drops and then blow the land while I'm ahead so I can push through damage. I don't blow up the board all the time, but doing so throws off the big plays that can stop my small but efficient beaters.
I think land destruct is usually not fitting for commander. Especially with control. I think for EDH, something more like a ponza deck is more fitting where it's more a disruption than a denial. Get ahead, slow everyone else down, and try to build up steam. Even then, I think it's something that should be played rarely.
Issue is that most mass land destruction decks is that they aren't build in a way that wins quickly after it. It would be as terrible to play against deck full of boardwipes with no winning plan.
As commenters already points out, its mostly a deckbuilding problem. Planeswalkers LOVES mass land destruction.
my issue with land destruction is that desirable counter measure are very undesirable. All the exemple snails give you will weaken your deck's gameplan more than it will make it ressilient.
The only 2 good ones i can think of rn are Tefferi's protection and Heroic intervention.
When WotC reprints it (and you know they will), they should rename it "The Pay-to-Won Ring".
How about a stax-license. If you can actually play your deck turns quickly instead of dawdling, durdling, and generally wasting everyone's time then cool - license approved.
It's one thing to be slowed down by a stack piece in a vacuum, it's another thing entirely in a commander format where it takes 20 minutes to go around the table.
24:07 fun fact, all these commanders are green
26:35 fall of the thran fills a similar role
nothing like spending work time on a snail video
8:39 - FALSE! The enchantment Spacial Binding can stop permanents from phasing out, so while you might not be able to hit the player you can still keep their board in play and destroy them.
Please, please, please do a video on the upcoming tier system WOTC is trying to implement.
I dont hate stax. I hate teferis protection, cyclonic rift and zero mana counter spells. But to be fair I almost never play against stax. For me the powerlevel of the card and the price tag coming with the card is what makes it annoying to play against it.
E.g. oh you played a card that cost as much as my deck nice play man ;) But I guess that's kinda a rule 0 problem.
...I'm so confused who isn't playing sweepers, and who is calling sweepers stax??
Stax is *repeated* resource denial. People hate mass land destruction because it causes game states that drag on a fight rather than allow for rebuilding and then potentially win off of that. People hate repeated creature sweeping because it does something similar, but at least everyone's level on rebuilding.
You have created a new definition for stax that I've never heard before.
Teferi players can still be milled.
And stax itself begs the question: how are you winning?
I mean that's already an inconsistent argument right? If stax is repeated resource denial then by that logic mld isn't stax because it's an one off effect.
The point snail was making was that there's some vagueness to the definition, lantern control was a competitive 60 card deck and despite being called control us edh players would call it stax. Graveyard hate and sweepers aren't really considering stax despite being on resource denial. We have sweepers like farewell and cyclonic rift that basically remove everything BUT lands but aren't seen as bad despite being able to slow the game just as hard. The video is exploring why that is and questioning if it's a good thing or not.
You're probably right about stax in edh.
inb4 everyone just runs static orb/winter orb combos or lordwingrace mass land destruction. I am sure thats totally a fun concept. You got to understand. Theres always gonna be people playing the most powerful thing possible. So if Johnny with infinite ashnod's altar combos in their urza deck felt like it already. The games would be a lot more stale. Yes, you are right, Stax would encourage folks to play differently, that is not even remotely wrong, but you would start approaching an even more strict format if stax was on the table. Almost every deck would then start eventually running something like chalice of the void to help counter said stax pieces. And that Vandal blast example at 19:00 for the mana rock resources would then just become used for the artifact stax pieces. The removal will always exist in any format because instead of mana engines, you will have stax engines that need to be removed. If mass land destruction became ok, then you would start seeing people run those tapped indestruct lands. The game would just become a lot more slow, drawn out, and incredibly boring if that became the accepted meta in Rule 0 discussions. Theres been many a time where I seen "Bob" say. "Hey can we not run infinites" And 2 others at the table go "Wow you must not like fun" and then Bob feels like shit, then eventually considers running infinites themself to help blend into the enviornment the majority of MTG players have created. 24:00 where you say players should make resiliant decks. I 10000% agree, but the issue is if you try to make a universally resiliant deck that tries to answer every problem eventually, Your board state will either: A) not have enough resources cause you arent devoting to ramping, B) May not have been able to answer the stax pieces in play due to unlucky draws, C) be forced into a situation where you got to run tutors and just lower the possible creativity a deck can have because you need to be so resiliant. (inb4 people run 1 ring even more for the sake of resiliance) in regards to 25:22. About your gear hulk, if you ran into stax, your boardwipes are non existant here cause ETB's arent allowed till you draw said removal. In essence, that form of removal is the most player friendly, you are correct, but you are in a very slippery slope in the enviornment you are saying is good and bad, because in 30:00 where you encourage soft stax. I AGREE I would love more soft stax in games, but people will take that out of hand and just start bringing more hard stax :/. Because you just get those people who will go "Its just a slightly better card" aka lots of people who gaslight. Wall of text later, a lot of valid points are made, but I don't think the consideration of the player base was in mind for people who would take advantage of any situation of people who would adapt.
Getting smashed by an 8/8 is definitely not a good time XD
there's a difference between stacks cards and stacks decks
People don't complain too much when facing a propaganda. but when facing propaganda+fantomal prison+windborn muse, people will complain.
people complain about blood moon and geddon, but not wraths because people hate ressource denial. So geddon is not comparable to wrath which does not deny ressources.
Teferi's Protection is a bad example, because you're mixing to wildly different topics.
Stax, versus extremely undercosted outlier power cards that you can't really compare anything to due to how aberrant they are. Much like Cyclonic Rift and Farewell, which are also effects fundamentally transformed by the fact they're undercosted by about a third.
We should not reconsider stax based on the prevalence of these cards arbitrarily given a pass to be played in environments where they are inappropriate; we should consider the appropriateness of including these outlier power cards in environments where they are inappropriate in the first place.
I just don't like creature-based decks, so I always in the situation of 1-2 weak creatures or none at all against powerful midrange creature board. So I always prefeer to run at least 6-8 boardwipes, cause it can guarantee me (more or less) survival. And farewell is especially good ofc, I really like this spell. I'm often play with guys from Snail's discord and hear "that was a weird game" just cause board was wiped multiple times. Sometimes I feel bad about it, but at the same time I don't understand this creature-centric wiev on the game. play more artifacts, enchantments, play boardwipe protection, there is no reason to try to drop creature every turn.
Longest video so far. There's a lot to talk about. Pressure and stax are great for the format, and only recive as much hate because people are unprepared for it. The only "problematic" stax card are those who create massive shift in board state, and are tough to interact with.
The exemple you give to mitigate massland destruction ultimately weaken your decks more than it make it resillient either by worsening your manabase, being vulnerable to more common interaction, being "do nothing card" most of the time, and keepin lands in hand in case of a landwipe is effectively the same as playing with 2 lands destroyed already. That's why it's a problem. counter measure are undesirable.
I join you with your conclusion. all those stax pieces that are both incredibely powerfull and/or difficult to prepare are allowed to exist, but they do not belong in midpower table.
*clicks video*
stax is icky
*leaves video*
stax just isnt fun. thats it. people have fun getting steamrolled by dinosaurs, idk why but they do.
you can logic about it all day long but at the end of the day, stax and mld just suck the fun out of a game.
Dinosaurs are less obvious wincons. Also you got a less emotionally laid argument?
@@Cynidecia reddit refuge lmao shut up
It is a game people play for fun the feelz are relevant, sorry.
@@Cynidecia Exactly, leave stupid emotions like "having fun" out of my card game!!!
It's the same way with aggro and it all depends on the player. I don't mind stacks but I do remember being really irritated by pirate aggro strategies when I was plaing hearthstone.
Drawing some disingenuous equivalency between Armageddon, Smoke and Static Orb, and sweepers, is one of the most mind bending mental acrobatics I've seen online.
Do better.
SNAILLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL PLS PLS PLS PLS PLS PLS
Land destruction is a garbage mechanic and even wizards knows it, anyone that has it or plays it has to take it out before they play again because we just don't do that here anymore
It doesn't respect players time in a match and drags games out because 99% of mass land destruction decks don't close a game because their pilots are incompetent
6:40 I kinda want to be in situation A rather than situation B, because assume situation B but then they have 7+ counterspells in their hand or so. Like what are you then gone do, cast a meaningfull spell to it just doing nothing... In situation A, mostly also the stax player is limited, maybe not as mush as you are, but still, its even possible that when you get out of situation A, the stax player itself is the one limited by their own cards.
Mass land destruction makes games boring and long.
An important thing to note about land destruction in edh: it adds a whole new layer of complexity. For new and less enfranchised players edh games can already be mind-bendingly complex. Game designers eschew land destruction in precons because it was decided to be a feel-bad AND a complexity they can drop in favor of higher new player retention. I do wonder how different edh would be if land destruction was so common that every deck ran it. I think I would genuinely love it if Mardu colors especially got a few cards that just said "and you may destroy target land" in addition to the normal thing they do.
What makes Armageddon a complex game piece?
@@Junk-Troller In casual edh? Once it resolves? Not a lot. 90% of the time it decides the game. The game goes to whoever happens to have the correct board state or be lucky enough with their draws to recover first. But the meta knowledge of something so singularly game changing is very complex. If you are to expect an armageddon or obliterate in every game and not be completely bulldozered then you will need to make significant changes in your deckbuilding, like keeping your curve lower and vastly increasing your ways to produce mana without lands. Just this already demands knowledge of advanced deckbuilding concepts like mana curves and chances of drawing into specific cards, not to mention having the knowledge of all these game pieces in the first place. This is not as simple as having removal for specific threats. There is no easy "these are the cards that beat armageddon" category. Simply ignoring mass land destruction exists does decrease the mental load on a beginner and an average casual player significantly.
Yes, it's possible to create precons that are simple enough for beginners AND streamlined and powerful enough to be able to deal with mass land destruction. But that would mean constantly reprinting some of the most expensive game pieces and also selling precons that are "finished" decks and having all the cards you would need in a single purchase doesn't gel with the "collectible card game" business model.
I dont think anyone has a problem with stax *cards* as a rule, I think they have a problem with stax *decks*. I dont see Thalia and immediately think "oh great, this is going to be miserable" any more than I do a Sol Ring or a Counterspell. When I see a Winter Orb however, I know this isnt going to be a one-of and is instead going to now warp the entire game and cut away interesting decisions for all players - including the staxer. Similarly, I dont care about Counterspell, but if someone plays 10 counters in a row and nothing else, Im gonna think theyre being a bit obnoxious. It doesnt help, of course, that people who play stax or infinites tend to pretend they just have no idea why people dont like their decks, but thats a social thing and not an issue with stax.
And, lets be honest, someone who plays a deck made of 60 counters, 30 lands, and 10 win-con cards still has to think about how, when, and why theyre countering something. What is the thought behind playing your Winter Orb turn 1, exactly? When are you ever going to NOT do that? Theres no planning and trickery and adapting when stax is your main strategy, its just "play my stax and play my wincon before my opponents."
Also, Im sorry, but "stax is good and healthy because it forces people to play the game in the way that I think is better to counter it" is probably the worst argument for anything Ive ever heard, ESPECIALLY for casual play. If your strategy is so game-warping youre forcing people to change their decks to specifically deal with you, youre not playing to parity with your pod. Its not really any different than the "my deck is about a 7" people. If you want to see this logic taken to its natural extreme, go have a chat with the YuGiOh community and see how much fun were having with Maxx C and boards of 30,000 negations. Theres a good reason "just draw the out" is not a good counter-argument against toxic strategies and cards.
L
New snail just dropped! Today is a good day!
For Urza's sake, please use dark backgrounds! My entire street is lit up from my monitor when watching your videos at night.
leave urza alone. he wasn't one to complain about mildly bright yellow backgrounds
MLD gets a major bad wrap.
It's unfortunate, but I agree and disagree. I would have no problem with it as part of a combo or a coup de grace that ends the game quickly.
The problem is there is no real way to enforce that it will be used in that way. Players playing the cards and then doing nothing just drags the game on for an eternity. I usually have no issue just scooping in these scenarios, but when it is used non deterministically it can kinda just kill the pace of the game.
Yay first!
1 second ago, wow!
People need to get over hating on mass land destruction in Commander and come to appreciate it. I hope that the tiers system does something to sort that out because it's one of the only counter tools to the current "green ramp lands" that is the core sacred cow of the format.
Why?
Green will recover best from a mld, they just ramp better again.