Normally, Magic players are trying to improve their decks. That said, sometimes social pressures result in a need to reduce a deck's power level. Not necessarily its playability, just how fast and consistently it wins.
Especially in the Commander format.
So here are five ways to reduce your deck's perceived power level.
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1. Remove nonland tutors.
Tutors not only slow the game down with searching and shuffling, but tutoring also effectively allows for multiple copies of a card in a format whose largest draw is the singleton format. Tutors are really wild cards that can provide threats, answers, or anything else that is needed.
Removing nonland tutors means some Commanders, notably Zur, Arcum, and Magda, among others, become unusable. Such is life.
To compensate for this lack of utility in the 99, replace your tutors with more draw, be it cantrips or bigger spells. Every color has draw spells, just like every color has tutors, albeit some colors are better at drawing cards (and tutoring) than others.
2. Remove 0-cmc and 1-cmc rocks.
Granted, Sol Ring or Mana Crypt are lackluster draws on turn 11, but the reason these cards and their ilk are in decks is for the early game - presuming your opening hand holds them, of course.
A turn 1 Sol Ring can speed the game immensely, especially when none of the other players answer it or play one themselves. Slowing the opening turns just a small amount matters, and can make you appear as less of a threat.
Especially in an artifact or colorless heavy deck that untaps artifacts via this or these two.
There's a reason these rocks are banned in the Duel (or French) Commander format, after all.
3. Readjust your landbase.
Either go heavy on the basic lands or run the dual lands that enter play tapped - perhaps without Amulet of Vigor in the wings.
The inefficiency of basics and the lost turns from lands entering the battlefield tapped reduces your deck's options - and therefore power - immensely.
An upside of heavy basics is that it saves you from people like me that run nonbasic land hate, such as Blood Moon and Ruination. Why, if you go heavy basics, you could even run the nonbasic landhate yourself!
4. Avoid extra turn cards, or at least the easily exploited blue ones.
Red's extra turns aren't as obnoxious, because of the phrase 'Take an extra turn after this one. At the beginning of that turn's end step, you lose the game.' Yes, there are ways to get around this, but they require effort and rather telegraph themselves.
Blue - especially in a UG shell - can take all the turns with little effort. It's neat the first time you see it, but after that it's just an opportunity for the rest of the table to grab food or pee while the UG plays with themself.
5. Reconsider deck strategy.
This final option is admittedly a bit extreme. If your deck is based around Mass Land Destruction (MLD), heavy Stax strategies, heavy chaos, or Poison, don't run that deck or at least pull those cards. These strategies can be frustrating for veteran players, but are oppressive enough to make new players quit the game or even find a new hobby in smaller local metagames.
If your local playgroup is small enough, decks like these can ensure you aren't included in games any more, shrinking your playgroup immensely.
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None of these recommendations mean you cannot run interaction, strong synergies, combos, or 'I win' cards, nor does it mean deliberately making bad plays despite answers in hand and untapped mana.
These options just slow your game enough that less invested players are willing to stick around and keep playing, either with you or at all.
I know, you want to play the objectively good cards in an objectively good deck, so your opponents need to step up their game. But how to convince them to do so?
There are two actions you can take to build your local player base.
Ideally, you're willing and able to tactfully improve the newer players' threat evaluation skills.
Being new, they are unlikely to realize the potential of some cards or know that a card in play is one half of a game-winning combo. Remind the new player that there are other options for their targeted removal and take the time to explain why specific cards might need killing more than what the player initially targets.
Even if the biggest threat is under your control.
Especially if it is under your control.
The other simple way to improve your opponents' decks is to tactfully make card recommendations and, if possible, give, trade, or sell them said cards.
If nothing else, generically encouraging more interaction in a deck is a must for better games. If you've ever been the only person running answers in a pod, you know the pain of trying to forward your gamestate while everyone looks to you to prevent someone from winning.
Everyone bitches about blue countermagic until it would be clutch, then blue wizards are the savior yet are harassed for not countering a spell! Blue just cannot win the social game, no matter how many Magic games it does win.
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A bonus video, but not by me. Command Zone recently provided this on YouTube about affordable replacements for the expensive Commander staples. While this video doesn't quite fall along the lines of the rest of this post, the overlap is there.
So give it a watch.
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