I'm no cedh player and I'm not looking to make major leaps in skill, but this goes back to a concept I did learn about a long time ago from regular commander games: scaling up effects that for one resource affects all the other players. It's always fun to find cards that do that for so little input
"This video is getting long, so I'm going to stop here" NOOOO No no no, keep going, we want more! This video (like all your theory work tbh) is incredible. We want more.
As someone who’s played magic the gathering for many years it’s difficult to learn new concepts and/or explain concepts to other people. This is the best explanation of tempo yet. I hope you continue to make videos like this. I’m interested in creating a gauntlet of CEDH decks and would like your help selecting the most optimal decklists and discussing some game theory. Thanks for all you do in the community!
Great Tempo Tutorial video!!! I especially loved the part when you brought up the tempo potential of casting [[Sheoldred's Edict]] over a single target removal spell (like [[Lightning Bolt]])! I love mono red in cedh and when I saw the new [[Guff Rewrites History]] I immediately was turned off to the downside of flipping each opponent into a free spell. However, this video has made me more willing to try it out as a tempo piece in Mono Red (over a [[Chaos Warp]] or [[Wild Magic Surge]] single target removal spell)!! Keep up the great work Rebel!
I was gonna take a break from commander and modern whilst I pivot into legacy. This video alone realized me into cedh, as I have a nymris shell that attempts to play somewhat of a turbo Doomsday deck (she was a shell of my old kess deck). Also forces me to tackle the tempo/control aspect of the game instead of turbo storm so I'm excited 🎉
I for one would love to see what you made out of Gale, and maybe even a revisions list with lessons you learned from Nymris! Very interesting breakdown
I love the synopsis on control. I’m doing an extremely similar mindset and process in my Lord of the Nazgul. Turning every game into a snowball just by interacting and stopping other attempts to gain advantage
First, as always, love your content. Second, had to drop in part of the deck primer. 🤣 If I am being honest most people thinking about playing Nymris should just play Tivit, everything I said about playing Grafdigger's effects and board wipes still applies to Tivit but you get the power of silence effects to actively present faster and better protected wins. If one still wanted to play Nymris I would honestly say the list needs a lot of work.
Nymris was my first high powered Commander and I enjoyed the deck very much. I moved on to an Oskar deck and now I’m using the newest Rona as the commander. I’m happy to see Nymris getting love still! (I appreciate this video very much and I’ve definitely learned something new here, so thank you for this!)
Something related to this that I'm working on is card counting in Magic. I believe that card counting like you do in blackjack could be possible in mtg. Keeping count of the tempo of each player could be beneficial. But I would still need to get a way of determening the tempo you receive from the cards you play because that is often highly subjective. You would need to get the subjective feeling out of it with a lot of stats.
Thanks for the video, Rebell! As a guy that loves Curiosity Control, this was an informative watch, and I'm kind of excited to see this deck in action my LGS -- if not try it out myself.
In ygo we figured a similar concept in trading positive in overall card value and in my opinion one of the best control decks of the format emerged because of it. Based solely on outgrinding your opponents in what we call “1 for 2 or 1 for 3” the deck was so intensively hard to build, but when build properly all made sublimous sense. This is what I love from these types of play-styles and where the true and profound knowledge of the player comes to shine.
Amazing analysis rebell. Very interesting, I'm learning a lot. I think tempo is so often misunderstood by magic players, me too. And this nimris deck is very interesting
This was a fantastic video. You do an awesome job outlining the strength's of the deck! I appreciate the non-memey take on this. I'd love to see more videos like this; always awesome to hear your cEDH mindset.
It's not about just mana rocks: it's about mana rocks that produce colored mana that you could use and cost 2 mana. If you go up to 3 mana, there's plenty but those are really slow. 1 Mana makes huge difference. Green doesn't have this problem, because mana dorks and ramp spells basically can eliminate it easily.
I was watching this expecting to get enlightened on control strategies, because I am reluctant to try to implement them in EDH due to hating to be the table police but... I had a (non cEDH) Mahadi, Emporium Master deck, that I played a lot and almost dismantled due to seeing problems with it and being unable to find a solution. I stepped back and analyzed in my head when did the deck work and when it didn't, because I noticed that when it did work, it was basically 1v3 the table and in one case, 1v4 the table in a 5 man pod from the very early turns and keeping the advantage somehow. Turned out edicts and "plague marauder" effects scaled so well, and gave so much gas to the deck, that it was ridiculous how much adventage a single one of them in early game could get me. I changed the deck to utilize this more, even including the 4 mana variants like Slum Reaper and the 5 mana equivalents like Torban and Rankle, still have to get Rankle himself though. Things like Vat of Rebirth, Dawn of the Dead, Ruthless Technomancer and similiar, allowed me to reuse the same edict-boy over and over and over again which lead to only me being allowed to keep the board pressence. And even if my board pressence somehow felt apart, I had managed to amass card advantage, gain life or straight up stockpile so much treasures that I could instantly restart this process and keep doing it. The deck basically has an ability to take the table hostage. Nobody wants to play their commanders, because edicts make them hard to protect and I can often clear smaller guys with cards like Mayhem Devil or Ghirapur Æther Grid while grinding the road to victory. I learned the same lesson: If I can generate tempo while stalling the table, or you could say "staxing their board development", then I have high chances to win. Obviously, cEDH tables are way less board heavy than lower levels, so Mahadi is less powerful, but the concept felt similiar.
I have a Nicol Bolas, The Ravager deck that aims do to similar. Probably one of the best game openings I've had with it was land into Dark Ritual, into Sol Ring into Dimir Signet into Waste Not. Turn 2 fetchland into Blood Crypt into Nicol Bolas, The Ravager, everyone discarded, I drew 2 cards and made 2 mana. I used that 2 mana to drop a Rakdos Signet and Mana Vault. Turn 3 saw me entomb Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker, hit someone with NB:Ravager, transform him, reanimate NB:Planeswalker with NB: Ravager, downtick NB:Planeswalker, take an opponent's commander (Glissa, The Traitor) to protect my walkers, and pass with a mana up for the Swan Song and Vendetta in my hand to use as required. I was clearly in the lead on all fronts - cards, board state AND mana, and the entire board clubbed together to fight through my counter and kill both of my walkers, Glissa dying in the process, meaning the Glissa now cost 5. But the damage was already done. My next turn saw me recast NB:Ravager and they, already a little depleted from the earlier discard, advancing their own boards and having to deal with me, now had to discard again, with fewer cards in hand and much tougher choices. I drew more, made a zombie, Force of Negation'd their most relevant play, took a decent chunk of combat damage, but was still fine. Life is a resource just like any other. On my turn I swung out, put a player to 8 commander damage, flipped NB:Ravager again, reanimated NB:Planeswalker, upticked him, killed an opposing Mystic Remora, sunk that player's hopes of regaining card parity and rendered all of their previous efforts worthless, while presenting a threatening high-loyalty planeswalker to deal with, and my weaker planeswalker commander that they really couldn't afford to keep around either, but who they also couldn't really afford to kill only for me to recast it the next turn and make them discard again. And if they killed them, then they weren't harming me. Choices choices. I let them beat down my walkers, proceeded to maintain control of the board, picking off problems, letting them build up and target each other here and there as while I was still the threat others were (by design) beginning to represent threatening board states to divert some attention from me while I transitioned from phase 1 (ramp and draw like a MF'er) and phase 2 (control) into phase 3 (restock and prepare for the endgame). One of them spent their turn's mana to swing at me through my Propaganda. I cast an Illusionist's Gambit and forced him into unfavourable attacks vs the Glissa player. Both lost far more than the 4 mana of resources I'd spend with the Illusionist's Gambit, but still had reasonable boards. Perfect. Their every wasted turn only serves to make my victory more assured. On my turn, having continued to ramp more or less this entire time (my deck runs no less than 14 ramp permanents, not including things like Waste Not), I cast a Mind Slash, followed by an Insurrection, mind control their entire boards, beat them to near death with them, and then sacrifice most of the creatures to Mind Slash to rob them of the last few cards in their hands, whilst simultaneously neutering their hard-created board states and gaining a couple of zombies and cards to keep me comfortably in the driver's seat. The following turn was the coup-de-grace, delivered in the form of a Rise of the Dark Realms, stealing back all of the creatures I'd Insurrection'd and sacrificed the turn before. Staring down the combined reanimated undead armies of three opponents united under the banner of Bolas, with meagre boards, single digit life totals, and empty hands, they agreed concession. Is my deck cEDH? LMAO FCK NO. Its a Nicol Bolas Vorthos Combo Control deck for the most part, with some supervillains thrown in. But it *plays* like Nicol Bolas, and when you vs it, you FEEL like you're playing against Nicol Bolas, and that's what I love most about it. From the get go its a desperate, all-out battle for survival both for me and the other players, 3vs1, a war on all fronts, fighting against overwhelming pressure on every single resource you have. I get to feel like a mighty, powerful villain, and they get to try to take down the archenemy (fyi we played this with NB having a scheme deck and holy shit it was a BRUTAL beatdown.). Even then, with their similarly powerful decks, my win record with NB:Ravager is 13 wins in 16 games, and the only major loss came from a game where I was mana screwed and made a critical error on a turn in which an opponent I'd underestimated managed to work his way into an unorthodox infinite combo I hadn't seen coming. The others were all close, brilliantly fun games. If you've read this far, thank you for reading, i'm glad you're succeeding with and enjoying your Mahadi deck, been looking at building him for a while, but I may slot him and a Bloodghast/Nether Traitor/Grave Pact package into the Vazi, Keen Negotiator deck i'm designing. My friends will enjoy all the group hug and treasures.. until its far too late and they realise the monster they've created >:-)
As someone who has been playing an unhealthy amount of Orvar, the ability for that deck to get the board State in a point where you break parody before combining is fantastic.
This deck is so cool! Lots of refreshing ideas I haven’t heard of before as a control player in casual edh. I was wondering: regarding tempo, how do you factor in the mana necessary to cast Nymris? Would the initial investment start to “net tempo” after you’ve triggered Nymris 5 times (essentially gaining a 5 mana equivalent tempo gain)?
Hey Rebel, I just recently stumbled on your channel and have been loving the content- cEDH is so interesting and so complicated, and you have a knack for breaking down complicated concepts and interactions in such a way that even a dunce like me can follow. Would you ever consider making a video that goes over some of the logistics of getting into/playing cEDH, like how are people building these decks, and is no one using proxies? Also like how the heck do you even shuffle your cEDH deck quickly and efficiently? Stuff like that lol
I'm no cEDH player so my nymris deck is cute (my combo win is 10 mana) but i love it. She is so fun as she allows a wacky control deck without ever running out of cards :).
Just found your channel and have really been enjoying the content, very helpful for not only understanding CEDH but refining competitive fundamentals. One thing you mentioned in the video is that more colors = more resources = more power as a general rule, and I was curious on how that equates to commanders that function as engines? For instance I play Elenda the Dusk Rose at a pretty high power table, and most of my deck is controlling the board via edicts/kill spells/imps mischief + white counters to assemble Animation Module + Altar + Elenda + random body, either for infinite pings a la aristocrats or torment of hailfire/exsanguinate effects via the infinite mana. I’d be curious to see how it’d fair in a shell more focused around taxes rather than control/ loose tribal synergies in a cEDH environment. Other 2c Commanders like Glissa the Traitor or Xantcha also seem like they could fill similar roles due to graveyard synergies and Dockside Cloudstone Shenanigans, respectively. Just curious on how common a scenario something like this deck is. If you read this whole comment thanks, ended up being denser than I thought it’d be lol
I have been brewing a concept up since running into this particular Nymris deck.... I can think of another commander who does a very, very good job of skewing resources and can play all of this black and colorless tech, but also Null Rod/Ouphe if designed properly..... Lord Windgrace. Obliterate is laughably easy to cast as your top end, and feels like a real EZ means of finishing a game off with Minsc and Boo, Windgrace, Wrenn and Six (plays well into the increase of creatures in the meta too?) - the biggest problem is the lack of blue, but Jund is a very powerful place to be at as well i figure if played well - i don't really play tournaments though so guess that is a factor at hand...
Hmmmm, so theoretically the gale/scion can still work but only if you put some stax pieces to help retain a boardwide control to go with the interaction? Very interesting. I bet that could work for high power control decks as well.
Can’t tell if this is a joke but this is very important to one of the best aggro theory articles the Philosophy of Fire, and how tempo relates to card valuations in burn
@@RebellSon I dont have many of the vital parts that would allow me to play it at a cedh table, but I found a Nymris in my lgs last week, immediately I built myself a casual list to try out this week
This deck also seems remarkably cheap. Which makes me sound like an insane person since it's 3.5k, but it's not playing every expensive card just because everyone is playing those expensive cards and a lot of cEDH is proxy friendly. I can look through and see they made purposeful card selections rather than dumping the cEDH staples list into a decklist then deleting WGR.
Ohhhhh, this explains why my Sen Triplets's deck performance was so middling! That segment on tempo immediately set off red flags on half my interaction, hahaha! I've got some renovations to make! 😅
@@amdidnothingwrong Middling is like "average," but in a negative tone. It's a combination of "middle" and "-ing," which can be defined as "the state of being mediocre." I was unhappy with my Sen Triplets deck performance because of the problems Rebell mentioned. My hand was often emptied in a single turn cycle without the impact to justify having so few resources. Even the draw effects I had could not keep up, which means I was on negative tempo. I hope my explanation did not confuse you further! 😅
I’m curious… how do you feel rashmi stacks up against nymrus? I feel like black in general is stronger as a color, but rashmi is stronger as a commander b/c she comes down on 4 + can free cast spells on occasion
This is my opinion. I play both and I find that they both have their pros and cons. Id say nymris may edge out on top due to having black for easier combo access, filling the graveyard, and keeping the drawed cards a secret unlikr Rashmi. Green solves mana issues in control though. Seedborne can really come in clutch. The larger manabase in simic also allows me to run nezahal and koma as backups. Both have won me games.
This is almost the exact reason why traditional T&K Blue Farm has fallen out of my favor. As much as T&K has the mana, I don’t really want to spend all that mana and cards to answer opponents. The trick; play soft stax to get discounts on value and with the value throw away answers which are low costed to reach a cheap win with very low costed cards that can win the game. The tempo masterclass also shows why RogSi is great; it doesn’t have to answer anything if it’s win cons are so cheap and low costed.
@RebellSon but seriously I love the vid. Any chance you could help me with some cEDH theory? I have a mono black deck and I'm able to do some fun things with it but I resonate with being up on mana when dealing with the table and I have a hard hurdle to try and loop over
I'm 4 minutes in. I really wanna know about the deck. There are sooooo many filler sentences... anyway, i'm guessing it'll come now EDIT: interesting deck. Thank you for the video
Tempo isn’t about mana value or drawing/grinding out a game. Delver is a strong tempo card because it puts out a fast clock not because it’s “4 mana worth of card.” Fading hope isn’t “answering” 4 mana of a card, it’s buying you time while you hit your opponent for 3. Tempo decks use tricks and deft play to monkey wrench the opponent just long enough to win. This is slightly different than aggrieved because aggrieved just puts their d on the table and presents lethal asap. Both are a style of aggro. Tempo might be “aggro-control.” The way you describe how Nymris wins is not tempo. It uses Stax and a grindy mechanic where you replace each removal/counter. That’s classic control. I mean it’s 5 for a 1/6 how is that even a tempo creature at all?
If you come out thinking Nymris is ginving you tempo advantage and not card advantage you are missing the forest for the trees. Also: the idea that many coloured decks are advantaged bc they can play more mana stones is missing something: if other players invest into mana stones of any kind why can their business of any kind hold up to a deck that, well isnt doing that.
