I completely agree that one of the main flaws about a "casual" mindset is that opponent disruption/interaction tends to be placed on the backburner when brewing. If the main theme of your deck isn't to disrupt an opponent, you should still invest about 10% to maybe 15% of your slots to some form of disruption. With some more focused brews, these slots could even be synergistic with the theme of the deck as well, including cards that are not exclusively disruptive. Even something as simple as running Decimate or Casualties of War could be good in casual builds. Being too caught up on brewing the deck solely for yourself instead of also taking opponents into consideration can lead to situations where threat assessment is not handled properly because you didn't have those things in mind when building your deck. It's ok to have a competitive mindset even if you're playing a casual deck and/or in a casual pod.
I enjoy these topics being covered because I feel they help me better myself as a Magic player, especially being somewhat considered a newer player. Please keep videos like this coming!
Glad you share it. I actually know this and try to take advantage of people not knowing this. But when I play more games, I don’t feel that much fun when people think less and make dumb plays. I feel more exciting playing with equally smart people.
I just recently started watching you Mons, so I’m late to the party. However, thank you very much for your content! I’m new to cedh and pieces like cursed totem scare the crap out of me. I feel more prepared for tough games and situations after watching your videos.
9:37 reminds me of the time my buddy playing Yawgmoth used my other friends butcher ghoul to combo off. We all died instantly but it was an amazingly creative play
I've put together a stax build with Gwafa Hazid, Profiteer. One of tactics I have is to use Venser, the Sojourner to temporarily blink cards like Damping Matrix and Presence of the Master as needed
Very good tactical advice episode, with good examples that illustrate terms drawn from EDH/mtg jargon. This will help people play against players that may set up frustrating/demanding matches. Good job!
Not a bad video. One thing not mentioned, at least directly, is that not all stax decks attack on the same axis. An example: The Blood Pod archetype uses mana dorks mostly to walk around its mana denial pieces (usually taxation pieces such as Sphere of Resistance and Trinisphere, Null Rod, Blood Moon, and occasionally Winter Orb, not counting others). Knowing that, by attacking the deck on the axis of their "bridge pieces", you can grind that deck to a halt; in the case of Blood Pod, dropping a Cursed Totem against them effectively forces the Blood Pod pilot to either find removal for Totem, or eliminate the player who owns the stax piece, before moving forward. (Alternatively, dropping a Static Orb will also grind Blood Pod to a halt since it relies on its creatures to do work in the deck.) Just as an aside, a funny thing you can also do against the flash-hulk player, when they use flash to drop hulk for free, is use Eldrazi Displacer by itself in response to Flash's forced-sacrifice trigger. This forces the Hulk player to lose access to the forced-sacrifice part of Flash since the re-entered object is a new object with no knowledge of its former existence. EDIT: Flash has since been updated since Masters 25. Interrupting in the way I described above doesn't work anymore. Now you need a Trickbind to shut off Hulk's LTB trigger.
Unfortunately you can't interact with a hulk entering and leaving the battlefield via Flash, as it is a replacement effect, so it can't be interrupted until after it's already sacrificed
Just checked rulings. Most recent being March 16th, of 2018. Under the old rulings prior to its reprinting, you could do that, as it was classified as a triggered event. Apparently, the oracle has been since updated from mirage/6th edt., to a replacement effect from a triggered one. I will amend my statement. Good catch.
Correct. So if I am playing Tasigur in this example. I should tutor for a kill spell vs Gitrog. To prevent gitog from winning after he gets rid of my rest in peace problem :)
This has taught me so much. I never thought about this. One time my opponent cast a bird enchantment thing that countered all noncreature spells and them made birds. I used it to go infinite with Teshar and artifacts. If was epic.
Excellent video. I think in essence competitive threat assessment is what really separates casual play from competitive play. Inherently not interacting with things to force other players to deal with it is a huge level up moment for your EDH play level. Its probably a lot of why some people are very against the format (feeling morally obligated to stop a problem in game or what not), but if the goal of the game is to win by any means... I actually had an instance years ago where a friend was playing a gaea's cradle deck and a visiting player used intuition targeting him to choose between two other hoser cards and a winter orb thinking "nobody wants to see winter orb". Needless to say my friend won that game from the free group hug he got. Its part of the reason I dont personally value stax as highly as fast combo if your meta leans more towards fast combo. You can slow down a lot of players a lot of the time but you can't slow down all the players all the time. It leads to a lot of situations where you're just playing a bunch of stuff that doesnt further your own wincon while other people you can't deal with are.
But I'm a casual player. I consider very heavily what my opponents might be running when I'm constructing a deck. Is that why no one wants to play with me? Because I run answers to problems?
Tbh, yes. I'm very lucky that my local meta is highly interactive casual with a sprinkling of cEDH, but I spent a few weeks in Florida for training and there were quite a few games where I was the only one trying to answer anything. It was incredibly frustrating. In my experience, the average casual player has a very contradictory mindset, they hate decks that play solitaire, but actively avoid interacting with the board.
Lilith Geisler. I have something to tell you. Please sit down. .... .... Your a competitive player :P Nah I am just joking. But it's good that you interact with your opponents. Or well that's what a good magic player should do. And everything I say is just on average. There are definitely casual players out there that interact with other players. It's just not as common.
So, how is the Sisay deck treating you so far? I've been thinking of expanding my Anafenza hatebears list to 5c with her. It already has a legendary subtheme (because a lot of hatebears and staxx-y cards are legendary anyways, so cards that, say, tutor for legendaries work quite well), so the card choices wouldn't be too different - I only worry because the deck is already pretty tight with interaction, hatebears and everything, and I literally don't know what I'd take out when adding two more colors.
She is bouncing a bit back and forth. She has some really good matchups. That's for sure. It feels like my deck is getting stronger and stronger the more I play it. I learn it better. I cut cards for better cards that I discover is better. I have started to branch out with some new starts with her. I recommend her. If you wanna build her I recommend mana fixing. That's NR 1.
Than comes derevi, that tap all of your Land, blocks all of your dorks with linvala or steal them with willbreaker and for the grand final make all of your artifact useless by null rod/stony silence/oope. Ah and don't forget the stasis+carpet/forsaken city!
That’s why if you’re playing competitive EDH people play French duel commander. I’d much prefer that than multiplayer RNG. All the usual offenders that are truly oppressive (like the one you mentioned) are banned. The games go faster and the banning is more than fair.
Jhoria of the Ghitu should be considered. Group slug is so much fun. Knowledge pool, possibility storm, arcane laboratory, blood moon, back to basics e.t.c
Or, run Reset In your deck specifically for winter orb decks (if you run dramatic scepter combo). As well as chord of calling for seed muse in creature decks.
I love this video. I play in a bar league where 1/3 of the players have Cedh decks and the other 2/3 run decks ranging from power lvl 5-8. Everyone knows who plays Cedh and who doesnt so when 2 Cedh players get in a pod with 2 normal players and 1 plays stax, the only other Cedh player can only rely on themselves. Politically everybody hates stax so it normally turns into archenemy but if you’re playing a strong Cedh deck against 2 lvl 5/6 decks and maybe 1 lvl 8/9 deck you will probably win.
I dont do CEDH but the pod that I play with casually doesn’t play nice magic/ “fair magic” because we think it’s a game all of about advantage so we play and build with this mindset. Although when we end up with other groups at the shop even if we don’t play aggressively it not very fun for others because losing is pretty much the only option for other players. There are a lot of really interesting intersections between opponents. For example accidentally making your opponent go infinite. I played my Kaalia deck against a shieldored player. I tutor for Vilis. Kaalia got out Vilis, broker of blood who says “when you loose life you draw that many cards” shieldored says opponents take two damage when they draw so they go infinite against one another. I drew 15 cards, played a reliquary tower and then sneak attacked a resolute archangel to start my life total over then I swords to plowshares the praetor. In my Amareth enchantments ETB, I had 4 enchantments out and not that many lands. The opponent before me played a Concordant Crossroads and almost kills me. On my turn I play Sanctum weaver (enchantment matters mana dork) then I play displacer kitten. I cast a cheap enchantment, draw 2 cards, blink Sanctum weaver, Amareth triggers, then if the top card is a creature or enchantment put it in hand . . . infinite mana keep casting enchantments until win with Thassa’s Oracle or mill my opponent out with. Depends on how soon I draw sphinxes tutelage, psychic corrosion, or teferi’s tutelage
I know this was posted a while ago, my question is this hopefully it makes sense, I have been seeing a lot of stacks type land being played, land that prevents damage, kills off things, exiles stuff Ect. And I have been trying to figure out ways to either bounce or destroy them any suggestions,? usually these people have hexproof on their permanents.
I don’t know of problematic hexproof lands in cedh, but if there are them then the only real way is mass land destruction, or to remove the hexproof and remove the land
@@cedhtv Like everything you say to do, they don't, someone countered my bottomless pit the other day for no reason, next turn i used reanimate targeting razaketh(or hulk idk) and it was my fault for playing it even though they blew their removal on a pit? This wasn't a competitive game but not casual either.
