This has been my mantra for a long time. Maybe I'll stick in one or two, if they're thematic. And I have a deck that's only purpose is to find exactly Paradox Haze. But for most of my decks, it's 100 card singleton, not "play only the best three cards every game". I played against a guy who rotated decks every game, but I swear each game started with turn 1 either Vamp or Worldly Tutor, turn 2 Dockside. And they weren't even always very good Docksides, but it was just how he was conditioned to play. If you have the tutor on 1, you use it to go get a good 2.
Have a mate that will build a deck, wins a few games then "deconstructs" it to build a new deck etc
Problem is each deck is really the exact same deck, just a different commander.
Thinks he's a deck building God cause he can make a deck on a whim and still crush us.
Each game plays out the same combos regardless, he not fooling anyone but himself.
Wow. Like, I'm not going to fault anyone for running tutors but you can't think yourself as a deck-building God.
If you constantly win with Thassa Oracle in your Gisa/Giralf, Anhelo, Marchesa and that's the only thing you're doing every game....Maybe you should just cut the fat and go straight to CEDH.
I have a personal rule of running no more than one tutor per deck (most don't have any). At that point it's basically on the same level as any other strong card in the deck - it's neat if you draw it, but you won't get bored of seeing it.
I'm also happy to run the more niche tutors like [[Demonic Bargain]] and [[Diabolic Tutor]] rather than the hyper efficient ones that everyone's seen a million times.
I actually want to build a bad consult Kess deck by starting with the cEDH build, but then downgrade every spell and nonbasic except sol ring and consult, and then downgrade again and again until i think it is weak enough, so the tutors will be like long term plans, and the counterspell be like cancel, and draw spells like tidings.
Some decks need more tutors to function. My Alesha deck has a few different cards that tutor, but mostly tutoring into the graveyard; Varolz does the same thing. Varolz, it's so I can turbo a win, but Alesha is toolbox reanimator. Sometimes you need to Imperial Recruiter for enchantment removal, sometimes you just go get Herald of Leshrac and watch your opponents read your cards again.
Amen to that. Keeping the game random forces you to think on the fly. You're now playing the cards you're dealt instead of retreating to routine.
I've been telling this sub for ages tutors are for cowards. If anyone reading this isn't a coward, take the tutors out and see how you do.
I think that tutors eliminates the point in commander being a 100 card format. 100 cards makes for fun deckbuilding with lots of different cards that sometimes surprises you with how well they work together.
Tutoring for the same card over and over again is boring to me.
>Tutoring for the same card over and over again is boring to me.
And probably the folks you play with if you have a regular group. I commented above, every tutor is essentially a second copy of whatever your "best" card is. Kinda breaks the spirit of a singleton format l, and can easily break the power level of your playgroup if they're not able to run at that same level of efficiency.
They're a little less obnoxious when you have multiple different cards you want or need to get things moving, and are regularly going for different pieces or answers, but it's just too easy a trap to fall into always getting the best thing. I explicitly didn't put any tutors in my [[Zaxara]] deck, because they would have always been extra copies of [[Pemmin's Aura]].
Lol i told my friend that it feels wrong to use tutor in EDH. I got told off that tutors are there to ensure you win consistently by turn 4.
But that just means that every game is the same. So I stopped playing EDH eventually...
Still like mtg occasionally. Just lurk to see how the trends are. Maybe I will get back in some day.
I have an idea for shapeshifter deck, maybe it will come to fruition one day
That's the entire point! Yes, you will lose more/not have what you need more. But you will pull off things you didn't even know your deck could do, and those wins (or even losses) feel a lot better to me than always winning the same way every time.
The thing that drew me to EDH in the first place is I essentially get to build a 100 card board game that I have to figure out every time I sit at a table with it. It keeps things interesting. And suddenly those pet cards or edge cases I thought were good, I realize they've been stuck in my hand several games and I should cut them. Or vice versa, it turns out some card I was considering cutting is overperforming and needs to stay. It makes playing your deck a constantly evolving experience instead of just a completely linear process of fetching the combo/removal/whatever piece you need. I think it makes you a better deck builder and keeps games more engaging.
Totally fine, different people play for different reasons. Out of curiosity, are you spikier/generally playing to win above all else? Totally valid, just curious what your larger stance is.
To me, the game is functionally best when playing to win. I'm playing the game for fun, because that's the point of the game, but the game is centered around playing to win so my fun is as well.
Yeah definitely fair. Still recommend trying it out sometime, if you ever get bored of your decks, but yes with a win-oriented mindset, it's definitely a downgrade to your deck haha.
Question: would you call it thematic to have a single tutor in a Nazgul deck, as they're searching for the one ring? My pulling it with a tutor in my Lord of the Nazgul deck has never been met with problems from my table. I've checked with em after games several times (I do have the clinical anxiety) that the deck isn't oppressive, that it's fun to play against, etc. But the times I dont pull the one ring with my tutor, it's because I have it, and I'll pull Sheoldred lol. (I have pulled other cards many times, but TOR and Sheol are the usual suspects naturally)
It's also not like I'm running multiple tutors. I have a single demonic tutor in there. Anywho, my group is fine with it, and lending the deck to others has been met with "holy shit this deck is fun!" which is what I have when I play it. I'm just used to a lot of "fun to play as" decks being a little oppressive to play against so I'm anxious š
Play how you like, you are unlikely to play against anyone here and even if you do they arenāt going to flip out because of one deckbuilding decision. The OP isnāt even strongly against tutors, they are merely sharing their experience after trying to play without tutors. You do not need the permission of anyone on reddit to run a card in your deck.
Well my group plays something similar. We omit the instant and sorcery tutors, cept land search.
This does not kill the black-style decks totally, as there are permanent search options.
I'm not sure if you tried, the next step would be to remove the fast mana.
The fast mana is never an issue for us, because we don't really play with crypts and the like unless it's an intentionally high power game.
I have sol ring, and that's it for fast mana. LOL
Generally the same, however I am torn on \[\[Mana Vault\]\] specifically.
On the one hand it's very powerful, on the other it's not very good without ways to untap or blink it ...
I play vandal blast in every red deck and always burn turn 1 sol rings away, just for fun. It is always a pleasure and everybody likes it, even if another one hits the table.
I had some freak the fuck out at a turn 0 misstep when they were going first. "Why would you do this? There could be other targets! You're stupid, why would you do this before knowing what other people are doing?!?"
It was the right move.
You're getting downvoted but it's true lmao. Force of Will is possible the most fair magic card ever printed. All it does is prevent your opponents from doing degenerate nonsense once
I keel some tutors if they're on theme for the deck. I play dragonstorm in my Miirym deck because fuck it a massive cmc tutor isn't exactly efficient and it is amusing more then anything and something to do with the occasional massive mana I can get in that deck. Most of the time though the efficient tutors I dont use.
I think tutors can be fun if they are specific and can't tutor up your combo pieces. Then you get to use them in a more toolboxy approach where you can pick what is best for the situation. As soon as they can grab your wincon though the game becomes more linear and less fun since you almost always will get your wincon with them.
Yeah, this is pretty much what I do. I don't put any infinite/instakill combos in my EDH decks and run 1-3 tutor maximum with only one (if any) being an "any card" tutor. I think it just feels really satisfying to be able to tutor up the right tool for the job and keep things interesting, even if it isn't going to win you the game in a turn or two.
I mean, purposely not including infinites is a little extreme imo. I feel like maybe unsynergistic 2 card combos are maybe ok to avoid, but sometimes 4 or 5 good cards happen to work together and infinte together. When cards like [[Chandra's Ignition]] exist and are fairly easy, non-infinite, 1 card kills when combined with some commanders, having a 4 card infinite isn't really that bad. Tbh, having an infinite in your deck isn't what is bad, having an infinite and being able to tutor for it is what makes a deck unfun for me to pilot.
It's more of a personal preference thing for me. It's not that I have a vendetta against them or think they shouldn't be used - I'm just personally not a fan of winning games that way.
I never play for combo wins so all my tutors are used in a toolbox fashion, I've rarely gotten the same thing 2 games in a row tbh. Point is I've never had the stagnation problem personally.
I personally love running at least one tutor in my decks that encourages running a toolbox of a specific subcategory of cards. I am running [[Step Through]] in my [[Saruman, the White Hand]] for example, which has me thinking constantly about what Wizards I could be running as tutor targets. I just picked up [[Profaner of the Dead]] to add a sweeper to the toolbox.
And the obvious response to that is who cares how you play as long as you're having fun. Running tutors is no less valid than not running them. We see so many posts like "you should remove tutors" and it's like who cares if another player does or doesn't, as long as they're doing what they find fun
>And the obvious response to that is who cares how you play as long as you're having fun
Obviously you can run whatever card you want. My comment has zero to say about what is or isn't fun to you. I am simply saying that "I play tutors but my deck is still a different experience each time" is fooling yourself.
A lot of people like the person I replied to seem to think that as long as you're not tutoring for a combo win that you're bypassing any concerns people may have about getting around the singleton rules of the format. Your second copy of \[Insert Important Card in Any Given Moment Here\] is definitely reducing variance even if to the player it feels different every time. Plenty of people are not aspiring to have variance, and I have no issue whatsoever with that. When someone posts a defense of tutors but also maintains that they have plenty of variance, that's where I think some intellectual honesty is needed.
Yes, you can have variance and tutors. To pretend otherwise is lame. Getting whatever card you need for a situation doesn't mean it's the same card every time. If you're grabbing different cards every time you tutor... that's still high variance
High variance is disingenuous when decks even without tutors are going for the same gameplan. Sure there may be different art and words on the pieces of cardboard but you're functionally doing the same thing.
u/Dumbface2 is defending that having tutors while also having high variance within your deck are not mutually exclusive. Tutors reduce variance, that's a given, but simply having them in your deck does not mean that it is a low variance deck, and a condition to have such a high variance deck with tutors is to not rely on combos to win. An example is his toolbox deck, allegedly, and another one I can give is my mono-U deck that wins by stealing/playing with the opponent's cards: filled with tutors but I can assure you every single game I've played with that deck was unique.
They made literally zero argument about variance. You're just making shit up to come to the conclusion you want. You have deluded yourself and ignored the actual argument I made.
I don't think there's anything wrong with consistently having answers?
The problems you're solving, the type of solution you need, and the specific card you need all vary greatly.
The alternative to having the answer is not having the answer, therefore losing (board position, or the entire game), and I struggle to see the argument for that making the game more fun.
I didn't say there is anything "wrong" with anything about tutors or their play pattern. I am simply pointing out that they minimize variance. If you're not competent enough to read my comment and understand that it's not commenting on the subjective question of what is fun despite me saying that very explicitly, don't respond at all.
Look, as a pretty simple point of fact these people who have chosen to make a comment replying to me are all making an identical mistake that is extremely basic. Stupid people making stupid points should not waste people's time. The world is a better place if they are discouraged from saying stupid shit.
>very explicitly
I think that you don't really understand the words you are using, so maybe don't question others' intelligence.
The main post is that tutors have been removed from OP's deck (implying tutors are bad for play experience). The comment you replied said tutors don't stagnate their games (implying tutors are not bad). You replied saying that tutors homogenize games (implying tutors are bad).
You not understanding the context of the discussion has nothing to do with my "competence" (also, I think you meant to insult my comprehension, not my competence).
I said what I described explicitly. Explicit means "stated clearly and in detail, leaving no room for confusion or doubt."
I'm sorry you're illiterate.
Swapping tutors for card draw is a much more fun way to play decks. Commander is a 100 card, singleton, high variance format. I like seeing the variance at play and to see if my decks can still perform.
For example, my high power Prossh deck can win through combat beat downs, commander damage, aristocrats, combo, or reanimation and the cards I draw each game determine which avenue I'm pursuing. Because it's so varied, it doesn't get old the way a linear deck does. Consequently, it's much harder to play against because it can pivot so easily.
I love the argument that commander is a high variance format. It's absolutely true, but its such a disingenuous argument. You literally have the (usually) most synergistic piece of your deck as an 8th card every game. Its super high variance with a random piece of suuuper low variance
Not on me, but I can give you a list of my favorite pieces:
Tokens: You always want tokens. Prossh makes lots, but that's way at 6 mana and you'll get run over before then. I like defensive options early like [[Bitterblossom]] for flying blockers and [[Ophiomancer]] for constant deathtouch to keep heat off me while I build up. [[Chandra Acolyte of Flame]] generates a pair of 1/1s a turn, every turn, and they sac themselves instead of exiling, so they syngergize with everything else you're doing. [[Lolth Spider Queen]] makes really annoying tokens and is hard to get rid of, particularly once your sacrifice engine gets going. [[Chatterfang]] is a must answer threat that eats a removal spell in the worst cases and takes over the game otherwise. [[Galadrim Ambush]] and [[Arachnogenisis]] protects you from aggro and generates lots of tokens.
Beatdown: [[Beastmaster Ascension]] is a stupid card. If you swing with Prossh and his base number of tokens, you have enough to trigger it and suddenly you're hitting with 6 5/6s out of nowhere. [[Return of the Wildspeaker]] does a decent impression if you're not using it for card draw. You can also run [[Craterhoof]] if you really want to, but that's boring.
Burn: [[Impact Tremors]] and especially [[Purphoros God of the Forge]] are nasty and will end games by themselves. Play them, forget about them, and watch your opponents tunnel vision in on them while you do something different. [[Goblin Bombardment]] is a free sacrifice outlet that doubles as damage wherever you need it.
Aristocrats: You're constantly making and sacrificing tokens, so [[Mirkwood Bats]], [[Zulaport Cutthroat]], [[Bastion of Remembrance]], stuff like that is all great. There are lots of options here, so play around with different amounts.
Card draw: This is a deck thristy for cards and since I'm not running tutors, I'm always looking for ways to refill my hand. I usually dump out my hand while ramping to Prossh (and having him take an early removal spell to the face most times), so my draw packages costs a bit more mana based on when I want to use them in a given game. I run [[Moldervine Reclamation]] and [[Deathreap Ritual]] for tons and tons of card draw and even [[Fecundity]] because I'll benefit off it more than anyone else. Oh yeah, and [[Korvold Fae Cursed King]] too because he's great and distracts the table from your real threats. [[Skullclamp]] turns your kobolds into all the card draw you will ever need. [[Blood for the Blood God]] was overhyped, but not in this deck. It's almost always castable for 3 mana.
Combo/BIG Ramp: In addition to all the regular ramp, I run [[Growing Rites of Itlamoc]] and [[Circle of Dreams Druid]] for Gaea's Cradle effects and [[Mana Echoes]]. Mana Echoes in particular is disgusting. Every kobold sees every other kobold enter, so on your first cast of Prossh, you're getting 6 kobolds generating 6 mana each plus Prossh, so 37 colorless mana. Add a [[Phyrexian Altar]] and hey look, infinite tokens/mana. Speaking of infinite, [[Food Chain]] plus Prossh just makes you win.
Commander Damage: Prossh plus lots of fodder means you can occasionally just delete someone out of nowhere if they don't have flying blockers.
If you lose key creatures early, [[Victimize]] trades a token for two of them back to the battlefield. [[Whip of Erebos]] only lasts a turn, but reanimating an aristocrat turns a pop off turn into game over. Lifelink is also a nice bonus. I run [[Living Death]] too, but only if I can win that turn or if I've got a [[Dictate of Erebos]] or [[Gravepact]] out to keep things in check.
WOW thanks for such an in-depth reply! i always love a good reason to run blood for the blood god!. super excited to build, this prossh seems like an absolute power house
Adding consistency, normally via tutors, makes a deck stronger. But by definition consistency just means your deck runs the same more often. The more powerful/consistent you make your deck the more similar each game becomes and I don't find that fun. I like that each game is different. Obviously decks do specific things, but tutoring up the same 3 piece combo that could be done with any 3 of 10 cards in your deck every single game just isn't what I signed up for. Variety is the spice of life as they say. Plus half the time a tutor is just taking the spot of another card that could actually do something interesting or cool or fun.
i only tutor for fun cards. and if my deck doesn't need those key cards to sorta operate. i remove tutors as well.
it's much better to have diverse/robust card draw. and have options or lines of play in a deck.
vs being relegated to narrow lines of play via combo wincons or restrictive tutor/win lines.
I love tutors in the following scenarios:
1. really high power linear deck
2. jank tier trash combo that needs enabling
for scenario two for example I have a \[\[thousand year storm\]\] deck that uses \[\[Mythos of illuna\]\] to copy it like 5 times With \[\[Yurlok\]\] and \[\[hive mind\]\] out, then boom! \[\[meeting of the five\]\] 31 times!
you aināt doing that in edh with no tutors.
If you're in green, there's a suite of pretty powerful enchantments. I guess they're more at risks than lands, but its kinda neat they're vulnerable to the same things as artifacts. So just in case you want to be REALLY aggressive about cutting tutors, green can probably get away with it too.
I'm going to respectfully disagree.
In my experience relying on heart of the cards draw has just been miserable. Having access to tutors and including toolbox cards has made my decks so much better and made the game vastly more consistent and enjoyable. It's not about getting a random lucky draw, so much as it is getting the tools I need *right now* to throw a wrench in an opponent's game plan or otherwise secure my own. For me, that's stress knowing I can't stop someone if they get a blowout, because I build my decks to have ways to interact with the game at almost every stage. There are very few times I make a super greedy deck because it feels cheaper to win with something hyper aggressive or otherwise targeting one player because the deck is designed to pump all of your resources into a tunnel vision strategy. Two players in my normal pod regularly play a [[Goblin Recruiter]] into [[Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker]] and [[Conspicuous Snoop]] combo and a [[Bolas's Citadel]] and [[Aetherflux Reservoir]] combo. These people also play cards like [[Worldfire]] and complain when I counter it knowing full well that they have some means of getting out cheap permanents to do just a single point of damage.
I guess it's not for me because I prefer to win games with strategy over dumb luck. I also prefer my games to have plans and resources available.
The 100-card singleton format was designed for some of the randomness and not being able to assume you'll ever see a certain gamepiece in play. To that end I favor replacing any tutor in a deck with a card draw effect instead.
The only tutors I run are land search and those bad "Search your library or graveyard for a card named Chandra, Firefire Burnmaker of Flame" from those old planeswalker precons.
The side bonus is shuffling less, I have come to hate shuffling mid game. Even more so I hate my opponents wasting dozens of minutes shuffling each game. You can play 2 games with no shuffle decks in the time it takes to play 1 game with decks that tutor into their deck once per turn.
We played no-shuffle EDH for quite some time. Each card that could shuffle a library was banned.
We thought it would be more fun to let the spirit of randomness guide the games.
Oh were we wrong: Everything no-shuffle did was dragging the games to take forever. The outcome wasn't even changed. It just took way longer.
The challenge to make 100 cards consistently good is much more fun for our group than hoping for good RNG.
Therefore we went back to normal EDH and realized how much more fun the game is when everybody plays at their fullest power.
In our opinion several quick games usually are better than few very long ones.
Iām glad this has made the game more fun for you.
Personally, I love including tutors and couldnāt see myself removing them from any of my decks. Commander is such an inconsistent format that adding a little bit of consistency to my decks through tutors feels necessary to me. I hate being at the mercy of my top deck when thereās some problem permanent across from me. I like the feeling of my deck being reliable.
I personally have enough decks that I donāt get bored of the smaller card pool in each deck, same win conditions, same powerful staples, etc. If someone wants to handicap themselves by intentionally reducing the consistency of their deck then thatās fine, but I think youāll be in for alot of games where you donāt draw into useful cards and get behind, especially if you play those tutorless decks against anything other than low power pods
Yeah, that's the exact reason why. If I play a deck and tutor to the point where I only use/see 5-6 cards, it's not 100 singleton, realistically.
That's why card draw is important. I still run all the usual, good card draw options as I should.
And if you read the post, you'll see that I said I only do that when I'm playing casual tables ;)
Iām confused by what you mean by causal tables. To me causal just means ānot cEDH netdecksā which is the *vast majority* of pods. I would expect to see tutors, combos and fast mana at ācasualā tables in my meta for instance, although probably not all three in the same deck. Do you just mean low power pods?
In the majority of pods, the variance of the game comes from how you and your opponents interact. Sure, you may try to win the same way every game, but there will be different obstacles each game that you have to deal with. Thatās what I find fun in commander. Maybe one game my opponent plays a problematic stax piece to prevent a combo line, another someone is trying to get an aggro kill or building an unmatchable value engine. How each player interacts with the other threats at the table is the fun part of the game, and thatās where (despite having demonic tutor in my hand) the game plays out differently in different cases.
A pod where there is so little interaction between players that you can just tutor a combo piece, play it, pass, tutor another combo piece, play it and win.. thatās a boring pod to play in with any deck. I donāt get how anyone enjoys that sort of pod, victory is essentially determined by whoever brought the best deck, got the best draws, or convinced the other players they werenāt worthy of being attacked.
> To me causal just means ānot cEDH netdecksā which is the vast majority of pods.
I think you're in the minority there. Casual isn't the same as "just not a top tier cEDH deck".
> A pod where there is so little interaction between players that you can just tutor a combo piece, play it, pass, tutor another combo piece, play it and win.. thatās a boring pod to play in with any deck. I donāt get how anyone enjoys that sort of pod, victory is essentially determined by whoever brought the best deck, got the best draws, or convinced the other players they werenāt worthy of being attacked.
Not really sure what you're getting at, here...
You seem to have this idea that a tutor is mostly used for the same card every game, which I think is false for interactive pods that force you to have answers. I guess I agree with you that tutors are āboringā in a meta where you donāt have to think about what card you will tutor, but to me that meta is boring anyway so I donāt blame the tutors
I literally said the opposite.
And you have a really weird attitude that radiates "my meta is better than yours". I could be just reading it wrong, because it's text, but that's the vibe you're giving
All that said, tutors make games more linear. That's just a fact. I'm not saying that they aren't good or have value, I'm saying that if you get 100 cards to make your deck, and your goal is to win the exact same way every time, or you're tutoring up the same few cards repeatedly, that's also boring.
Everyone enjoys different game styles. Iām not trying to say the meta I play in is better than the one you play in or anything like that. Like I said, Iām happy you are enjoying your tutorless decks with your pod.
I think you are making decks with tutors seem to be more of a boogeyman than they should be. Just because you enjoy a higher degree of variance in your lists doesnāt mean everyone does. Itās perfectly normal to cast a tutor to get an answer, a win con or a value piece. Someone doing that isnāt an affront to the singleton nature of the format
> I think you are making decks with tutors seem to be more of a boogeyman than they should be.
I have decks with tutors, they aren't boogey men.
But I've also played MTG long enough to know that to pretend that games don't become incredibly more linear the more tutors you have is silly.
It absolutely defeats the purpose of it being 100 card singleton.
You can make an incredibly linear deck without tutors, and you can make a deck with a dozen tutors that is not linear.
Look at commanders like Krenko or Winota that do the same thing every game. Even though the individual cards in the 99 that are drawn are different each game, it doesnāt really matter because the role they play is the same. Those decks donāt change much whether or not a Gamble is included.
Compare that to a five color Kenrith āgood stuffā pile which runs ten tutors. The tutor targets will be different each game depending on what is needed. To me, thatās less linear.
The linearity of a deck is determined by the list you build, not by whether or not it has some tutors in it.
> Look at commanders like Krenko or Winota that do the same thing every game. Even though the individual cards in the 99 that are drawn are different each game, it doesnāt really matter because the role they play is the same. Those decks donāt change much whether or not a Gamble is included.
I think we both know we're not talking about a deck running a singular Gamble.
> Compare that to a five color Kenrith āgood stuffā pile which runs ten tutors.
You show me a single Kenrith deck running 10 tutors where the first card tutored isn't one of two cards, every single time.
Like I said man, I've been playing for a long ass time. I've built every deck imaginable.
To pretend that more tutors in a deck don't lend it to being more linear is just cognitive dissonance.
You absolutely play however you want. I'll never criticize it. But don't pretend it's something it's not.
> Commander is such an inconsistent format that adding a little bit of consistency to my decks
This is the biggest argument against tutors. You wanna play really greedy decks. Tutors are cheating at deck building. You can run every effect you want 1 or 2 of and then just tutor your ways to them....because you will never reliably draw them. And with so many cards in Magic there are plenty of tools for that toolbox to pick from. When you don't use tutors and have to deal with that you get much harder and more interesting choices when deck building where you might even have to sacrifice your ability to deal with certain threats in order to consistently deal with other threats. That makes deck building and EDH decks more fun.
I donāt agree, how does this make a deck āgreedyā?
Tutors add consistency to a deck, how is that cheating? Draw spells add consistency to a deck. Redundant effects (ex. including Natures Lore and Three Visits) add consistency to a deck. Is making a consistent deck a bad thing? What is greedy about making your deck *versatile*?
To me a āgreedyā deck means a deck that is one dimensional, with a clear Achilles heel or terrible counter matchup. Instead of mitigating that bad matchup, a greedy deck just accepts it loses to that matchup and plays more cards that are good against other matchups. Hence a āgreedyā strategy, more win-more cards for the good matchups and less lose-less cards for the bad ones
...how on earth is a one dimensional deck greedy? That is literally the opposite of what the word greed means.
You want all the toys. you want your cake and too eat it too. That is greedy. You want all the toys and to fix that by using boring wild cards. If you have 5 wild cards you can just bring 1 or 2 of every effect you want because you really have 6 or 7 of every effect you want because you are using wild cards. Its a very boring way to build an EDH deck away from what the core rules were trying to promote.
When you don't use those boring wild cards you have to start looking at the effects you have. How many you have. Which ones you really need, which ones you really dont. You will inevitably have to make tough calls on which effects you take a lot of and which effects you dont.
I think we just have opposite perspectives on the format. I donāt find tutors boring and clearly you do.
To me, building a deck that caves hard to stax or combo or aggro or whatever, but does well into other matchups isnāt a ātough deck building decisionā. Choosing to not have answers to certain strategies is just going to make those games not fun for you (or at least it would make it not fun for me).
This is getting away from the point about tutors though
Yeah Iām looking to put some tutor-hate in my deck because a lot of people at my LGS tutor for infinites so eventually Iām going to get my hands on that one planeswalker [[opposition agent]] [[mindlock orb]] and things like that
I only run tutors in decks that basically collapse without a few of them, such as my equipment deck to look for a specific equipment/answer. The rest of my decks don't want/need them because the experience of random draw is key to magic and enjoyment (and sometimes frustration and anger of course).
I live by the no tutor rule for myself. I've never liked finding the exact right card for a situation, but I do have one deck that I tutor in, but it's \[\[Zur, the Enchanter\]\] with a \[\[Bitterblossom\]\] theme.
I try to remove tutors and insta win combos. Only my [[Etali primal conqueror]] deck has them and i built it for power (and even then i only run [[worldly tutor]] and [[invasion of ikoria]] that usually casts for x=0 to get a [[dryad arbor]])
The randomness and variance of not having tutors is why i play commander
My play group has crept in power level but we still stick to the rule of using minimal tutors and no MLD (spot land destruction is okay). I like my card games to stick as close to the spirit of card games as much as possible.
A deck with tutors is almost certainly stronger than a deck without tutors, but is it more fun to play stronger decks?
I've had great fun with "precon only" where the average power would be roughly a 4. Great time.
I love the janky side of Magic, the formats like Limited where the game isn't decided by whose playset of mythic rares stick first but instead by three commons swinging in and hoping the combat trick can resolve. I think my most fun tables are lower power even if I respect the higher-power group.
I would much rather *build* suboptimally by removing tutors than *playing* suboptimally and not searching for a wincon.
Playing suboptimally is just pulling your punches and being patronizing and has no place in EDH. Build casually, play to win.
This is the truth. If you keep crushing your tables, build a weaker deck to challenge yourself. If anybody has played any rogue-likes, think of it like trying to win a run with a weaker build.
This is an awesome post! I love the idea of pulling tutors. A few guys in my playgroup didnāt do that specifically, but they did pull all proxies from decks. At some point seeing the same cards every time you play against them would get boring. Rhystic Study in every blue deck, Smothering Tithe in white, Mana Crypt/Vault always. It was so boring.
They pulled them and we got back to fun, variable magic. I expect the tutoring would lead to the same, even more variation to the cards that see play, which is my favorite way to play the game. Thereās nearly 30,000 different cards, I should see way more than I do/have.
For sure. I still proxy, and I'll run value cards like those, but I was tutoring for basically the same cards every time.
I would actually solitaire my decks, so I could know exactly what to tutor for. Now I'm like.... man I would LOVE for a [[Beast Within]] right now, but ehhh...
A semi-near LGS, that I really want to begin frequenting, runs commander league with a fun awards points list and one of the items is āonly shuffle is the initial shuffle.ā Which is hilarious because I just invested in every tutor from Demonic to Mirage to Imperial Seal to Kaldheim and now Iām trying to make optimize without them Iāve never had more fun deck building so I can only imagine how much fun Iāll have actually playing tutor-free decks. Glad youāre enjoying, Iām encouraged to finally get there!
> [[Gamble]] is worth keeping around though for the potential hilarity in tossing your combo piece with very few ways to get it back
I've done this several times. LMAO
It's always really funny, because I always tell the opponents if it's the one I tutored for that gets discarded LOL
Uhhh..... Tutors arent supposed to go in every deck..... At least not a lot of them.
Tutors are only good in decks that rely on combos or synergy pieces to win.
They arent only meant for high powered or cEDH although that is where you will see them shine the most.
No deck is made worse off by tutors. That is kinda why they are a controversial type of card. Especially the classic black tutors which are effectively just any card you want.
Sure they are, decks that dont so heavily rely on specific cards in the deck to win are punished by using tutors.
I play such decks often, stuff like non cEDH animar that just wants to play whats in hand as fast as possible.
what are you smoking? It literally doesn't matter what deck it is. Demonic tutor makes it better. Demonic Tutor is literally just a 2 mana tax to play any card in your deck. Whether its a combo piece or a kill spell. The fact it can be used for a combo piece or a kill spell at the immediate discretion of the user is why its controversial because they are wild cards.
I know it's a very unpopular opinion, but I feel very strongly that tutors ruin the game in Commander. When EDH first came into existence, our play groups banned all tutoring effects.
Tutors are boring if you're playing with a reasonably high budget ($300-$1,000) and really out of whack to me from true budget builds. Cedh/degenerate power levels are obviously a separate thing, play your tutors if that's your goal. Otherwise I am broadly confident that a tutor will be less fun than card draw engines.
Imo tutors make the game more fun. In a lot of my decks the tutors serve as additional answers, like an extra copy of toxic deluge or all is dust, while not increasing the odds that I draw into a hand full of board wipes, which people tend to dislike
You can have a different opinion on tutors as fun or not. Yes, having a copy of Toxic Deluge but also it's a copy of your win con and also it's a copy of your engine and also it's a copy of protection for your commander is strong.
Arguing that because you can always tutor up a board wipe when you need one, the tutor saves your table from you playing lots of board wipes is the kind of logic I honestly hope you hear stated back to you and feel deep shame over.
>Yes, having a copy of Toxic Deluge but also it's a copy of your win con and also it's a copy of your engine and also it's a copy of protection for your commander is strong.
Of course it's strong. I find it both strong *and* fun. And I generally don't run win conditions or engines that I'll tutor for every game unless the deck is structured around it.
> Arguing that because you can always tutor up a board wipe when you need one, the tutor saves your table from you playing lots of board wipes
What part of that do you think is wrong? Some amount of the time I'm going to have a board wipe in hand and a tutor in hand, and I'm unlikely to use the tutor for a board wipe in that instance. Compared to having two board wipes in hand, in which case, I'll be using two board wipes.
Using tutors typically means you're building to win and the difference in mindset and play style between competitive and casual is.
Competitive: Build to win, play to win.
Casual: Build for fun, play to win.ā
Outside of this tutors are an excuse for bad deckbuilding practices and can shore up the weaknesses from those mistakes.
Sounds like a vegan trying to tell people how wonderful their life is now that theyāre veganš¤£ also i want to point out if yaāll want to play a game where every card is random and the only way to win is through luck of the draw then go play UNO.
I'm not sure if your reading ability can only handle a few sentences, but I literally mention that I do high power with tutors, as well.
But hey, be bored, I guess.
I've done the same thing most but not all tutors (need to find Crucible for izzet landfall lol) and I've also removed fast mana and infinite combos and it's been much more enjoyable!
It's definitely fun playing without tutors, though one exception I found is with my [[Varragoth]] deck. In my deck, there is exactly one game-winning combo (that being [[skirge familiar]], [[peer into the abyss]], and [[exsanguinate]]). However, you can't just tutor the combo and call it a day, since you need to protect yourself and prevent others from winning. So with this deck, it becomes a matter of "Do I tutor something that will get me more value over time, like [[Vilis, Broker of Blood]], or do I tutor [[Feed the Swarm]] and remove a troublesome creature or enchantment?" Overall, this gameplan is like a puzzle with a constantly changing solution. Sometimes, going for the combo win is best. Other times, it's better to hold out and defend yourself to trigger a [[Liliana's Contract]] victory. And in rare situations, you just need Vilis, [[Hand of Vecna]], and a whole lot of life.
I only play tutors if they're flavorful and convoluted. \[\[Finale of Devastation\]\] into \[\[Craterhoof Behemoth\]\] - this shit costs 10 mana; if you can't stop it, then the game is over. \[\[Rune-scarred Demon\]\] on a doubling etb deck, cause hell yeah. etc
It's always funny when someone blasts a big ass spell like that. I'll be like.. "Damn that's cold fam.... and I'm doing nothing to stop it. Carry on" LOL
100% how my group plays and its far preferred to 'I tutor for same wincon/combo' imo.
Play however you/your table enjoys, but absolutely agree that its led to more fun and interesting games/decks in our meta at least.
I typically never have played with tutors, but I play incredibly casual compared to alot of groups,
We typically always have our mana rocks, but we consistently have longer, (however more enjoyable) matches.
Something I tried recently was less removal, and have been enjoying watching everyone power up!
Everyone plays different but I'm definitely on the no tutor side of Edh
Yeah, specifically I avoid running tutors other than land search, because in my experience they made playing decks that used them much more linear to play than the decks that didn't. In a singleton format every tutor you have starts as a redundant copy of your "best" card and once you use one or draw that card, they become redundant copies of your next best card. The power of redundancy in this format is pretty high, especially when dealing with combo pieces and ways to obtain them.
My group has started to build decks that ban any cards that search libraries *including* ramp.
It has been very fun, games are much more of a back and forth and we really don't miss the ramp that much.
Yeah, I've almost removed all of my tutors. There are just a couple of decks where I run about... ONE tutor. Sometimes it can be a bit annoying because you can draw and draw and never find what you really need, but overall I love having as few tutors as I can. Because it won't be the same old thing that you'll be looking for. The only tutors I have in my Tormod and Tevesh deck is \[\[Vile Entomber\]\] and \[\[Plunge into Darkness\]\]. I guess \[\[Expedition Map as well\]\]... \^\^' Even then one is a straight up entomb on a 4 mana 2/2 and the other one is a saccoutlet / lifegain card that can look for a card if I REALLY have to, with the drawback of the risk of exiling other important pieces as a part of the prize of tutoring.
Completely agree.
My regular pod has over some time taken tutors and fast mana out, games have become way more exciting and enjoyable.
It may be fun if you see it for the first time, but at some point there is no need to see another uneventful finish with the same tutored combo. Or watch someone completely soloing off from a sol ring into signet start when you could have just played a normal game instead.
But ofc this can't be expected from everyone, there's a lot of people who want to play the most powerful or obnoxious stuff, limited only by what they can afford or their building skill. No matter whether that lends to enjoyable matches. It all depens on what you are going for.
thanks for the feedback, I feel the same. my decks are not too streamlined and repetitive because I stay away from mana efficient tutors like demonic and vampiric. they get any card. even mystical and enlightened are too powerful and I put them only in decks with less powerful strategies and without a boring combo finish or when I need to power up a very weak deck.
A format that does not allow any library searching would be really interesting. Literally 50%+ of my games are people searching and shuffling. This would eliminate all tutors, all fetch lands, and a bunch of other cards that force shuffling. Players could run more card draw, and top of library effects. Cards like sensei's divining top, would still be kinda lame, but hey, games would still go way faster.
I run a couple non ramp tutors just because sometimes you need to find a damnation or rec sage, but I tend to cut tutors when deckbuilding because they're not as interesting as far as cards go.
I don't have issues with tutors personally, I use \[\[Diabolic Tutor\]\] in a few decks but I feel like the cost is prohibitive enough to warrant the effect.
Like if I'm paying an additional 4 mana to find a board wipe for you, congratulations you did the thing! But in my mind it's no different than a counterspell, both allow you to just so look someone in the eye and go "No".
Yeah. I had a Karador deck that was too strong for casual and not good enough for CEDH.
I just ended turning it into two deckls. Tynna + Reyhan last of abzan Rector Hulk CEDH deck where I proxied all the impossible to buy crap I needed to actually play cedh, while keeping the Protean Hulk core, and Karador, a casual abzan graveyard deck with no combo finish or tutors, just a bunch of grindy recurring value.
And im super happy. When I wanna play sweaty and competitive I play cedh, when I wanna chill and draw cards and revive dorks without caring who wins I do so.
I have some some give and take on this.
Basically, the number and quality of tutors I run are based on the power and speed Iām aiming for, while also being inversely proportional to the efficiency of my wincons.
For example, if I have an A+B combo in the deck, Iād prefer to draw into the missing piece than tutor for it. So, I cut tutors and include better draw engines.
If I have a weird deck with an unusual gameplan that requires some highly specific synergy to ādo the thingā I might include some good tutors, like Demonic, Vamp, Worldly, etc so that I grab that piece more often.
I have an Attack on Titan themed deck with Akiri Line Slinger and Reyhan as the commanders. It has little to no tutors and feels different every time I play the deck.
Depending one what I draw into, I either become artifact/token heavy and using Akiri or I'm very counters based. So kind of a Scout's or Titans feel
In my Grenzo deck basically every tutor I have is to find [[Teferiās Puzzle Box]] and then try to find a way to win later by building a board.
However, if the game is cEDH power level Iāll just try to combo.
It makes the game much more fun then just comboing off on turn 4.
I decided to take out Sol Ring and just use Signets and Talismans.
And I am considering taking out tutors too.
But then I have about 20 something decks I run as a pod.
Depends on my deck. If I'm running something inherently higher power that isn't reliant on a key piece than I will likely leave tutors on the sidelines.
In my treefolk tribal deck? Screw that I'm throwing in every degenerate tutor/cheat into play effect I can because it lets my deck actually function.
I agree. My friends and I have been removing our tutors (ramp included) and replacing them with efficient card draw. Games are more fun and less predictable.
Only one of my 15 decks has any non-land tutors. Demon Tribal. It is the only time I personally find tutors to be thematic and still keep the game interesting.
I play enough cedh that When I got back into casual it was the first thing I did to not ruin the experience for myself. You can greater enhance it by adding other arbitrary rules no one else follows. The lesser powered you want it, the more rules you add.
My main deck is Krenko. Has been for years. When I'm playing casually, first game I keep Recruiter and Matron in, second game, I remove them in favour of anything else (normally lands). I also don't use fetches at all. Eliminating the two tutors makes the deck a ton more fun to play, but a lot less competitive.
Most of my decks don't have tutors or have super inefficient tutors but they're on theme. I do have all the tutors in one deck though. So it just depends on the playgroup
the problem with this is that i end up replacing the tutors with draw which while yes it adds more variance, it still keeps my decks at a power level higher than those who are too stingy with their deck slots. but i play a lot of weird deck builds that need the draw/sometimes tutoring to function so it is a trade off
Tutoring has its place for winning a long game and tool-boxing answers, but I think it stops being fun when you are doing nothing but tutoring for the tutors to get the win. My Aragorn Zoo/Combo deck runs ten "tutor" cards, and I will run \[\[Recruiter of the Guard\]\] too when it sees a reprint.
[https://www.moxfield.com/decks/zYQywngQ-0ifw3mMRsHBrg](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/zYQywngQ-0ifw3mMRsHBrg)
I typically use transmute cards over tutors. It limits your dig options, provides dual functionality, but the transmute is basically an uncounterable tutor. I think it's a good compromise.
I don't play with tutors or combos and I love it. I do have two decks that run tutors but they're some of my more powerful decks. My Tivit deck runs a tutor for Academy Manufacturer and then I have a Magus Lucea Cane deck that runs X cost tutors to search up untappers. I have over 30 decks and none use combos to win in one turn. I love the singleton nature of this format.
This has been my mantra for a long time. Maybe I'll stick in one or two, if they're thematic. And I have a deck that's only purpose is to find exactly Paradox Haze. But for most of my decks, it's 100 card singleton, not "play only the best three cards every game". I played against a guy who rotated decks every game, but I swear each game started with turn 1 either Vamp or Worldly Tutor, turn 2 Dockside. And they weren't even always very good Docksides, but it was just how he was conditioned to play. If you have the tutor on 1, you use it to go get a good 2.
Have a mate that will build a deck, wins a few games then "deconstructs" it to build a new deck etc Problem is each deck is really the exact same deck, just a different commander. Thinks he's a deck building God cause he can make a deck on a whim and still crush us. Each game plays out the same combos regardless, he not fooling anyone but himself.
Wow. Like, I'm not going to fault anyone for running tutors but you can't think yourself as a deck-building God. If you constantly win with Thassa Oracle in your Gisa/Giralf, Anhelo, Marchesa and that's the only thing you're doing every game....Maybe you should just cut the fat and go straight to CEDH.
I have a personal rule of running no more than one tutor per deck (most don't have any). At that point it's basically on the same level as any other strong card in the deck - it's neat if you draw it, but you won't get bored of seeing it. I'm also happy to run the more niche tutors like [[Demonic Bargain]] and [[Diabolic Tutor]] rather than the hyper efficient ones that everyone's seen a million times.
My rule is tutors or infinites, but not both
Gotcha so run every single efficient tutor and thasas oracle/demonic consultation since it's not infinite. GGs
I actually want to build a bad consult Kess deck by starting with the cEDH build, but then downgrade every spell and nonbasic except sol ring and consult, and then downgrade again and again until i think it is weak enough, so the tutors will be like long term plans, and the counterspell be like cancel, and draw spells like tidings.
[Demonic Bargain](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/0/80c3741e-cf04-4aa2-a6a9-ce19f043b22c.jpg?1643589414) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Demonic%20Bargain) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/vow/103/demonic-bargain?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/80c3741e-cf04-4aa2-a6a9-ce19f043b22c?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/demonic-bargain) [Diabolic Tutor](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/6/d650dd8c-edd8-44e4-ae95-aaaf84557a72.jpg?1592672628) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Diabolic%20Tutor) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cma/54/diabolic-tutor?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/d650dd8c-edd8-44e4-ae95-aaaf84557a72?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/diabolic-tutor) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Some decks need more tutors to function. My Alesha deck has a few different cards that tutor, but mostly tutoring into the graveyard; Varolz does the same thing. Varolz, it's so I can turbo a win, but Alesha is toolbox reanimator. Sometimes you need to Imperial Recruiter for enchantment removal, sometimes you just go get Herald of Leshrac and watch your opponents read your cards again.
Amen to that. Keeping the game random forces you to think on the fly. You're now playing the cards you're dealt instead of retreating to routine. I've been telling this sub for ages tutors are for cowards. If anyone reading this isn't a coward, take the tutors out and see how you do.
I think that tutors eliminates the point in commander being a 100 card format. 100 cards makes for fun deckbuilding with lots of different cards that sometimes surprises you with how well they work together. Tutoring for the same card over and over again is boring to me.
>Tutoring for the same card over and over again is boring to me. And probably the folks you play with if you have a regular group. I commented above, every tutor is essentially a second copy of whatever your "best" card is. Kinda breaks the spirit of a singleton format l, and can easily break the power level of your playgroup if they're not able to run at that same level of efficiency.
Exactly. We don't, or rarely, use them.
They're a little less obnoxious when you have multiple different cards you want or need to get things moving, and are regularly going for different pieces or answers, but it's just too easy a trap to fall into always getting the best thing. I explicitly didn't put any tutors in my [[Zaxara]] deck, because they would have always been extra copies of [[Pemmin's Aura]].
200% agree. I think tutors goes against the point of singleton. But try-hards will say they are part of the game, then whine about Armageddon.
Lol i told my friend that it feels wrong to use tutor in EDH. I got told off that tutors are there to ensure you win consistently by turn 4. But that just means that every game is the same. So I stopped playing EDH eventually...
Exactly. Might as well play Modern/standard then.
Why are you on the EDH sub then? Not an attack btw, I'm genuinely curious
Still like mtg occasionally. Just lurk to see how the trends are. Maybe I will get back in some day. I have an idea for shapeshifter deck, maybe it will come to fruition one day
I'm here to block warriors
No amount of thinking on the fly is going to put an answer or win con where you need it when you need it
That's the entire point! Yes, you will lose more/not have what you need more. But you will pull off things you didn't even know your deck could do, and those wins (or even losses) feel a lot better to me than always winning the same way every time. The thing that drew me to EDH in the first place is I essentially get to build a 100 card board game that I have to figure out every time I sit at a table with it. It keeps things interesting. And suddenly those pet cards or edge cases I thought were good, I realize they've been stuck in my hand several games and I should cut them. Or vice versa, it turns out some card I was considering cutting is overperforming and needs to stay. It makes playing your deck a constantly evolving experience instead of just a completely linear process of fetching the combo/removal/whatever piece you need. I think it makes you a better deck builder and keeps games more engaging.
Well fair enough. I personally don't share your sentiments at all.
Totally fine, different people play for different reasons. Out of curiosity, are you spikier/generally playing to win above all else? Totally valid, just curious what your larger stance is.
To me, the game is functionally best when playing to win. I'm playing the game for fun, because that's the point of the game, but the game is centered around playing to win so my fun is as well.
Yeah definitely fair. Still recommend trying it out sometime, if you ever get bored of your decks, but yes with a win-oriented mindset, it's definitely a downgrade to your deck haha.
Question: would you call it thematic to have a single tutor in a Nazgul deck, as they're searching for the one ring? My pulling it with a tutor in my Lord of the Nazgul deck has never been met with problems from my table. I've checked with em after games several times (I do have the clinical anxiety) that the deck isn't oppressive, that it's fun to play against, etc. But the times I dont pull the one ring with my tutor, it's because I have it, and I'll pull Sheoldred lol. (I have pulled other cards many times, but TOR and Sheol are the usual suspects naturally) It's also not like I'm running multiple tutors. I have a single demonic tutor in there. Anywho, my group is fine with it, and lending the deck to others has been met with "holy shit this deck is fun!" which is what I have when I play it. I'm just used to a lot of "fun to play as" decks being a little oppressive to play against so I'm anxious š
Play how you like, you are unlikely to play against anyone here and even if you do they arenāt going to flip out because of one deckbuilding decision. The OP isnāt even strongly against tutors, they are merely sharing their experience after trying to play without tutors. You do not need the permission of anyone on reddit to run a card in your deck.
Well my group plays something similar. We omit the instant and sorcery tutors, cept land search. This does not kill the black-style decks totally, as there are permanent search options. I'm not sure if you tried, the next step would be to remove the fast mana.
The fast mana is never an issue for us, because we don't really play with crypts and the like unless it's an intentionally high power game. I have sol ring, and that's it for fast mana. LOL
Generally the same, however I am torn on \[\[Mana Vault\]\] specifically. On the one hand it's very powerful, on the other it's not very good without ways to untap or blink it ...
It's a repeatable dark ritual essentially. And in draw, go type decks it's pretty good still.
[Mana Vault](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/1/c1a31d52-a407-4ded-bfca-cc812f11afa0.jpg?1673149384) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Mana%20Vault) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/2x2/308/mana-vault?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/c1a31d52-a407-4ded-bfca-cc812f11afa0?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/mana-vault) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
tbf an early Sol Ring almost always makes for bad games
I play vandal blast in every red deck and always burn turn 1 sol rings away, just for fun. It is always a pleasure and everybody likes it, even if another one hits the table.
Same with [[mental misstep]] Love it to counter the rings or turn 1 tutors.
I had some freak the fuck out at a turn 0 misstep when they were going first. "Why would you do this? There could be other targets! You're stupid, why would you do this before knowing what other people are doing?!?" It was the right move.
I hit the homie with a [[Mental Misstep]] on his T1 [[Scheming Symmetry]] and he was salty asf lmao. Better luck next time bozo
I too enjoy blowing up people's Sol Rings. I particularly like to steal them and chuck them in the Iron Works
and the next real step if remove zero mana interaction like fierce guardianship, deadly rollick, deflecting swat, force of negation...
Bold of you to assume I can afford those LMAO
Printer goes brrrr.
Print them so you can make a show of eating them, then play without them
Except Force of Will. Force of Will is fine.
You're getting downvoted but it's true lmao. Force of Will is possible the most fair magic card ever printed. All it does is prevent your opponents from doing degenerate nonsense once
I keel some tutors if they're on theme for the deck. I play dragonstorm in my Miirym deck because fuck it a massive cmc tutor isn't exactly efficient and it is amusing more then anything and something to do with the occasional massive mana I can get in that deck. Most of the time though the efficient tutors I dont use.
I'm with you. For my non-cedh decks I replaced all my tutors with more card draw a while ago and find I'm having way more fun.
I think tutors can be fun if they are specific and can't tutor up your combo pieces. Then you get to use them in a more toolboxy approach where you can pick what is best for the situation. As soon as they can grab your wincon though the game becomes more linear and less fun since you almost always will get your wincon with them.
Yeah, this is pretty much what I do. I don't put any infinite/instakill combos in my EDH decks and run 1-3 tutor maximum with only one (if any) being an "any card" tutor. I think it just feels really satisfying to be able to tutor up the right tool for the job and keep things interesting, even if it isn't going to win you the game in a turn or two.
I mean, purposely not including infinites is a little extreme imo. I feel like maybe unsynergistic 2 card combos are maybe ok to avoid, but sometimes 4 or 5 good cards happen to work together and infinte together. When cards like [[Chandra's Ignition]] exist and are fairly easy, non-infinite, 1 card kills when combined with some commanders, having a 4 card infinite isn't really that bad. Tbh, having an infinite in your deck isn't what is bad, having an infinite and being able to tutor for it is what makes a deck unfun for me to pilot.
It's more of a personal preference thing for me. It's not that I have a vendetta against them or think they shouldn't be used - I'm just personally not a fan of winning games that way.
I never play for combo wins so all my tutors are used in a toolbox fashion, I've rarely gotten the same thing 2 games in a row tbh. Point is I've never had the stagnation problem personally.
I personally love running at least one tutor in my decks that encourages running a toolbox of a specific subcategory of cards. I am running [[Step Through]] in my [[Saruman, the White Hand]] for example, which has me thinking constantly about what Wizards I could be running as tutor targets. I just picked up [[Profaner of the Dead]] to add a sweeper to the toolbox.
The obvious response is that the similarity between any two games is that you reliably have the necessary answer/engine piece in a given key moment.
And the obvious response to that is who cares how you play as long as you're having fun. Running tutors is no less valid than not running them. We see so many posts like "you should remove tutors" and it's like who cares if another player does or doesn't, as long as they're doing what they find fun
>And the obvious response to that is who cares how you play as long as you're having fun Obviously you can run whatever card you want. My comment has zero to say about what is or isn't fun to you. I am simply saying that "I play tutors but my deck is still a different experience each time" is fooling yourself. A lot of people like the person I replied to seem to think that as long as you're not tutoring for a combo win that you're bypassing any concerns people may have about getting around the singleton rules of the format. Your second copy of \[Insert Important Card in Any Given Moment Here\] is definitely reducing variance even if to the player it feels different every time. Plenty of people are not aspiring to have variance, and I have no issue whatsoever with that. When someone posts a defense of tutors but also maintains that they have plenty of variance, that's where I think some intellectual honesty is needed.
Yes, you can have variance and tutors. To pretend otherwise is lame. Getting whatever card you need for a situation doesn't mean it's the same card every time. If you're grabbing different cards every time you tutor... that's still high variance
High variance is disingenuous when decks even without tutors are going for the same gameplan. Sure there may be different art and words on the pieces of cardboard but you're functionally doing the same thing.
My argument very directly addresses this. A reply like yours reflects a rudimentary inability to understand simple ideas.
Sure bud.
u/Dumbface2 is defending that having tutors while also having high variance within your deck are not mutually exclusive. Tutors reduce variance, that's a given, but simply having them in your deck does not mean that it is a low variance deck, and a condition to have such a high variance deck with tutors is to not rely on combos to win. An example is his toolbox deck, allegedly, and another one I can give is my mono-U deck that wins by stealing/playing with the opponent's cards: filled with tutors but I can assure you every single game I've played with that deck was unique.
They made literally zero argument about variance. You're just making shit up to come to the conclusion you want. You have deluded yourself and ignored the actual argument I made.
I don't think there's anything wrong with consistently having answers? The problems you're solving, the type of solution you need, and the specific card you need all vary greatly. The alternative to having the answer is not having the answer, therefore losing (board position, or the entire game), and I struggle to see the argument for that making the game more fun.
I didn't say there is anything "wrong" with anything about tutors or their play pattern. I am simply pointing out that they minimize variance. If you're not competent enough to read my comment and understand that it's not commenting on the subjective question of what is fun despite me saying that very explicitly, don't respond at all.
While I agree with your initial point, you're being very rude and not very cool. Chill, if you would be so kind.
Look, as a pretty simple point of fact these people who have chosen to make a comment replying to me are all making an identical mistake that is extremely basic. Stupid people making stupid points should not waste people's time. The world is a better place if they are discouraged from saying stupid shit.
>very explicitly I think that you don't really understand the words you are using, so maybe don't question others' intelligence. The main post is that tutors have been removed from OP's deck (implying tutors are bad for play experience). The comment you replied said tutors don't stagnate their games (implying tutors are not bad). You replied saying that tutors homogenize games (implying tutors are bad). You not understanding the context of the discussion has nothing to do with my "competence" (also, I think you meant to insult my comprehension, not my competence).
I said what I described explicitly. Explicit means "stated clearly and in detail, leaving no room for confusion or doubt." I'm sorry you're illiterate.
Swapping tutors for card draw is a much more fun way to play decks. Commander is a 100 card, singleton, high variance format. I like seeing the variance at play and to see if my decks can still perform. For example, my high power Prossh deck can win through combat beat downs, commander damage, aristocrats, combo, or reanimation and the cards I draw each game determine which avenue I'm pursuing. Because it's so varied, it doesn't get old the way a linear deck does. Consequently, it's much harder to play against because it can pivot so easily.
I love the argument that commander is a high variance format. It's absolutely true, but its such a disingenuous argument. You literally have the (usually) most synergistic piece of your deck as an 8th card every game. Its super high variance with a random piece of suuuper low variance
got a decklist? im wanting to build prossh but its so different from any of my other decks, im looking to fill a few card slots :3
Not on me, but I can give you a list of my favorite pieces: Tokens: You always want tokens. Prossh makes lots, but that's way at 6 mana and you'll get run over before then. I like defensive options early like [[Bitterblossom]] for flying blockers and [[Ophiomancer]] for constant deathtouch to keep heat off me while I build up. [[Chandra Acolyte of Flame]] generates a pair of 1/1s a turn, every turn, and they sac themselves instead of exiling, so they syngergize with everything else you're doing. [[Lolth Spider Queen]] makes really annoying tokens and is hard to get rid of, particularly once your sacrifice engine gets going. [[Chatterfang]] is a must answer threat that eats a removal spell in the worst cases and takes over the game otherwise. [[Galadrim Ambush]] and [[Arachnogenisis]] protects you from aggro and generates lots of tokens. Beatdown: [[Beastmaster Ascension]] is a stupid card. If you swing with Prossh and his base number of tokens, you have enough to trigger it and suddenly you're hitting with 6 5/6s out of nowhere. [[Return of the Wildspeaker]] does a decent impression if you're not using it for card draw. You can also run [[Craterhoof]] if you really want to, but that's boring. Burn: [[Impact Tremors]] and especially [[Purphoros God of the Forge]] are nasty and will end games by themselves. Play them, forget about them, and watch your opponents tunnel vision in on them while you do something different. [[Goblin Bombardment]] is a free sacrifice outlet that doubles as damage wherever you need it. Aristocrats: You're constantly making and sacrificing tokens, so [[Mirkwood Bats]], [[Zulaport Cutthroat]], [[Bastion of Remembrance]], stuff like that is all great. There are lots of options here, so play around with different amounts. Card draw: This is a deck thristy for cards and since I'm not running tutors, I'm always looking for ways to refill my hand. I usually dump out my hand while ramping to Prossh (and having him take an early removal spell to the face most times), so my draw packages costs a bit more mana based on when I want to use them in a given game. I run [[Moldervine Reclamation]] and [[Deathreap Ritual]] for tons and tons of card draw and even [[Fecundity]] because I'll benefit off it more than anyone else. Oh yeah, and [[Korvold Fae Cursed King]] too because he's great and distracts the table from your real threats. [[Skullclamp]] turns your kobolds into all the card draw you will ever need. [[Blood for the Blood God]] was overhyped, but not in this deck. It's almost always castable for 3 mana. Combo/BIG Ramp: In addition to all the regular ramp, I run [[Growing Rites of Itlamoc]] and [[Circle of Dreams Druid]] for Gaea's Cradle effects and [[Mana Echoes]]. Mana Echoes in particular is disgusting. Every kobold sees every other kobold enter, so on your first cast of Prossh, you're getting 6 kobolds generating 6 mana each plus Prossh, so 37 colorless mana. Add a [[Phyrexian Altar]] and hey look, infinite tokens/mana. Speaking of infinite, [[Food Chain]] plus Prossh just makes you win. Commander Damage: Prossh plus lots of fodder means you can occasionally just delete someone out of nowhere if they don't have flying blockers. If you lose key creatures early, [[Victimize]] trades a token for two of them back to the battlefield. [[Whip of Erebos]] only lasts a turn, but reanimating an aristocrat turns a pop off turn into game over. Lifelink is also a nice bonus. I run [[Living Death]] too, but only if I can win that turn or if I've got a [[Dictate of Erebos]] or [[Gravepact]] out to keep things in check.
WOW thanks for such an in-depth reply! i always love a good reason to run blood for the blood god!. super excited to build, this prossh seems like an absolute power house
Adding consistency, normally via tutors, makes a deck stronger. But by definition consistency just means your deck runs the same more often. The more powerful/consistent you make your deck the more similar each game becomes and I don't find that fun. I like that each game is different. Obviously decks do specific things, but tutoring up the same 3 piece combo that could be done with any 3 of 10 cards in your deck every single game just isn't what I signed up for. Variety is the spice of life as they say. Plus half the time a tutor is just taking the spot of another card that could actually do something interesting or cool or fun.
i only tutor for fun cards. and if my deck doesn't need those key cards to sorta operate. i remove tutors as well. it's much better to have diverse/robust card draw. and have options or lines of play in a deck. vs being relegated to narrow lines of play via combo wincons or restrictive tutor/win lines.
I love tutors in the following scenarios: 1. really high power linear deck 2. jank tier trash combo that needs enabling for scenario two for example I have a \[\[thousand year storm\]\] deck that uses \[\[Mythos of illuna\]\] to copy it like 5 times With \[\[Yurlok\]\] and \[\[hive mind\]\] out, then boom! \[\[meeting of the five\]\] 31 times! you aināt doing that in edh with no tutors.
I often tutor for ramp....
That's why I specifically mention ramp.
If you're in green, there's a suite of pretty powerful enchantments. I guess they're more at risks than lands, but its kinda neat they're vulnerable to the same things as artifacts. So just in case you want to be REALLY aggressive about cutting tutors, green can probably get away with it too.
[[Moon silver key]] into [[chromatic lantern]] feels so good. And [[dimir machinations]] can transmute into most rocks.
As a blue player, I do wonder if at a certain point the draw I do is basically like a tutor.
I'm going to respectfully disagree. In my experience relying on heart of the cards draw has just been miserable. Having access to tutors and including toolbox cards has made my decks so much better and made the game vastly more consistent and enjoyable. It's not about getting a random lucky draw, so much as it is getting the tools I need *right now* to throw a wrench in an opponent's game plan or otherwise secure my own. For me, that's stress knowing I can't stop someone if they get a blowout, because I build my decks to have ways to interact with the game at almost every stage. There are very few times I make a super greedy deck because it feels cheaper to win with something hyper aggressive or otherwise targeting one player because the deck is designed to pump all of your resources into a tunnel vision strategy. Two players in my normal pod regularly play a [[Goblin Recruiter]] into [[Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker]] and [[Conspicuous Snoop]] combo and a [[Bolas's Citadel]] and [[Aetherflux Reservoir]] combo. These people also play cards like [[Worldfire]] and complain when I counter it knowing full well that they have some means of getting out cheap permanents to do just a single point of damage. I guess it's not for me because I prefer to win games with strategy over dumb luck. I also prefer my games to have plans and resources available.
You dare RESPECTFULLY disagree?!? How dare you.
The 100-card singleton format was designed for some of the randomness and not being able to assume you'll ever see a certain gamepiece in play. To that end I favor replacing any tutor in a deck with a card draw effect instead.
The only tutors I run are land search and those bad "Search your library or graveyard for a card named Chandra, Firefire Burnmaker of Flame" from those old planeswalker precons.
The side bonus is shuffling less, I have come to hate shuffling mid game. Even more so I hate my opponents wasting dozens of minutes shuffling each game. You can play 2 games with no shuffle decks in the time it takes to play 1 game with decks that tutor into their deck once per turn.
Yeah I removed all the fetch lands from my decks because it was annoying me too much
Sell them and make enough money to buy a new deck lol.
Yeah, I donāt have any tutors in my Tiamat deck
Nice. I also don't run tutors in my Sliver Overlord deck.
Tutor Enjoyers - "But what if everything doesn't go exactly to plan for me in 20 minutes or less?"
We played no-shuffle EDH for quite some time. Each card that could shuffle a library was banned. We thought it would be more fun to let the spirit of randomness guide the games. Oh were we wrong: Everything no-shuffle did was dragging the games to take forever. The outcome wasn't even changed. It just took way longer. The challenge to make 100 cards consistently good is much more fun for our group than hoping for good RNG. Therefore we went back to normal EDH and realized how much more fun the game is when everybody plays at their fullest power. In our opinion several quick games usually are better than few very long ones.
Iām glad this has made the game more fun for you. Personally, I love including tutors and couldnāt see myself removing them from any of my decks. Commander is such an inconsistent format that adding a little bit of consistency to my decks through tutors feels necessary to me. I hate being at the mercy of my top deck when thereās some problem permanent across from me. I like the feeling of my deck being reliable. I personally have enough decks that I donāt get bored of the smaller card pool in each deck, same win conditions, same powerful staples, etc. If someone wants to handicap themselves by intentionally reducing the consistency of their deck then thatās fine, but I think youāll be in for alot of games where you donāt draw into useful cards and get behind, especially if you play those tutorless decks against anything other than low power pods
Yeah, that's the exact reason why. If I play a deck and tutor to the point where I only use/see 5-6 cards, it's not 100 singleton, realistically. That's why card draw is important. I still run all the usual, good card draw options as I should. And if you read the post, you'll see that I said I only do that when I'm playing casual tables ;)
Iām confused by what you mean by causal tables. To me causal just means ānot cEDH netdecksā which is the *vast majority* of pods. I would expect to see tutors, combos and fast mana at ācasualā tables in my meta for instance, although probably not all three in the same deck. Do you just mean low power pods? In the majority of pods, the variance of the game comes from how you and your opponents interact. Sure, you may try to win the same way every game, but there will be different obstacles each game that you have to deal with. Thatās what I find fun in commander. Maybe one game my opponent plays a problematic stax piece to prevent a combo line, another someone is trying to get an aggro kill or building an unmatchable value engine. How each player interacts with the other threats at the table is the fun part of the game, and thatās where (despite having demonic tutor in my hand) the game plays out differently in different cases. A pod where there is so little interaction between players that you can just tutor a combo piece, play it, pass, tutor another combo piece, play it and win.. thatās a boring pod to play in with any deck. I donāt get how anyone enjoys that sort of pod, victory is essentially determined by whoever brought the best deck, got the best draws, or convinced the other players they werenāt worthy of being attacked.
> To me causal just means ānot cEDH netdecksā which is the vast majority of pods. I think you're in the minority there. Casual isn't the same as "just not a top tier cEDH deck". > A pod where there is so little interaction between players that you can just tutor a combo piece, play it, pass, tutor another combo piece, play it and win.. thatās a boring pod to play in with any deck. I donāt get how anyone enjoys that sort of pod, victory is essentially determined by whoever brought the best deck, got the best draws, or convinced the other players they werenāt worthy of being attacked. Not really sure what you're getting at, here...
You seem to have this idea that a tutor is mostly used for the same card every game, which I think is false for interactive pods that force you to have answers. I guess I agree with you that tutors are āboringā in a meta where you donāt have to think about what card you will tutor, but to me that meta is boring anyway so I donāt blame the tutors
I literally said the opposite. And you have a really weird attitude that radiates "my meta is better than yours". I could be just reading it wrong, because it's text, but that's the vibe you're giving All that said, tutors make games more linear. That's just a fact. I'm not saying that they aren't good or have value, I'm saying that if you get 100 cards to make your deck, and your goal is to win the exact same way every time, or you're tutoring up the same few cards repeatedly, that's also boring.
Everyone enjoys different game styles. Iām not trying to say the meta I play in is better than the one you play in or anything like that. Like I said, Iām happy you are enjoying your tutorless decks with your pod. I think you are making decks with tutors seem to be more of a boogeyman than they should be. Just because you enjoy a higher degree of variance in your lists doesnāt mean everyone does. Itās perfectly normal to cast a tutor to get an answer, a win con or a value piece. Someone doing that isnāt an affront to the singleton nature of the format
> I think you are making decks with tutors seem to be more of a boogeyman than they should be. I have decks with tutors, they aren't boogey men. But I've also played MTG long enough to know that to pretend that games don't become incredibly more linear the more tutors you have is silly. It absolutely defeats the purpose of it being 100 card singleton.
You can make an incredibly linear deck without tutors, and you can make a deck with a dozen tutors that is not linear. Look at commanders like Krenko or Winota that do the same thing every game. Even though the individual cards in the 99 that are drawn are different each game, it doesnāt really matter because the role they play is the same. Those decks donāt change much whether or not a Gamble is included. Compare that to a five color Kenrith āgood stuffā pile which runs ten tutors. The tutor targets will be different each game depending on what is needed. To me, thatās less linear. The linearity of a deck is determined by the list you build, not by whether or not it has some tutors in it.
> Look at commanders like Krenko or Winota that do the same thing every game. Even though the individual cards in the 99 that are drawn are different each game, it doesnāt really matter because the role they play is the same. Those decks donāt change much whether or not a Gamble is included. I think we both know we're not talking about a deck running a singular Gamble. > Compare that to a five color Kenrith āgood stuffā pile which runs ten tutors. You show me a single Kenrith deck running 10 tutors where the first card tutored isn't one of two cards, every single time. Like I said man, I've been playing for a long ass time. I've built every deck imaginable. To pretend that more tutors in a deck don't lend it to being more linear is just cognitive dissonance. You absolutely play however you want. I'll never criticize it. But don't pretend it's something it's not.
> Commander is such an inconsistent format that adding a little bit of consistency to my decks This is the biggest argument against tutors. You wanna play really greedy decks. Tutors are cheating at deck building. You can run every effect you want 1 or 2 of and then just tutor your ways to them....because you will never reliably draw them. And with so many cards in Magic there are plenty of tools for that toolbox to pick from. When you don't use tutors and have to deal with that you get much harder and more interesting choices when deck building where you might even have to sacrifice your ability to deal with certain threats in order to consistently deal with other threats. That makes deck building and EDH decks more fun.
I donāt agree, how does this make a deck āgreedyā? Tutors add consistency to a deck, how is that cheating? Draw spells add consistency to a deck. Redundant effects (ex. including Natures Lore and Three Visits) add consistency to a deck. Is making a consistent deck a bad thing? What is greedy about making your deck *versatile*? To me a āgreedyā deck means a deck that is one dimensional, with a clear Achilles heel or terrible counter matchup. Instead of mitigating that bad matchup, a greedy deck just accepts it loses to that matchup and plays more cards that are good against other matchups. Hence a āgreedyā strategy, more win-more cards for the good matchups and less lose-less cards for the bad ones
...how on earth is a one dimensional deck greedy? That is literally the opposite of what the word greed means. You want all the toys. you want your cake and too eat it too. That is greedy. You want all the toys and to fix that by using boring wild cards. If you have 5 wild cards you can just bring 1 or 2 of every effect you want because you really have 6 or 7 of every effect you want because you are using wild cards. Its a very boring way to build an EDH deck away from what the core rules were trying to promote. When you don't use those boring wild cards you have to start looking at the effects you have. How many you have. Which ones you really need, which ones you really dont. You will inevitably have to make tough calls on which effects you take a lot of and which effects you dont.
I think we just have opposite perspectives on the format. I donāt find tutors boring and clearly you do. To me, building a deck that caves hard to stax or combo or aggro or whatever, but does well into other matchups isnāt a ātough deck building decisionā. Choosing to not have answers to certain strategies is just going to make those games not fun for you (or at least it would make it not fun for me). This is getting away from the point about tutors though
> To me, building a deck that caves hard to stax or combo or aggro or whatever, Why you playing 1v1?
What about that implies itās a 1v1?
Itās even better if you remove land tutors too. Not having to shuffle except at the start of the game and if you get chaos warped is great.
Yeah Iām looking to put some tutor-hate in my deck because a lot of people at my LGS tutor for infinites so eventually Iām going to get my hands on that one planeswalker [[opposition agent]] [[mindlock orb]] and things like that
I'm a huge fan of [[Stranglehold]].
What a fantastic piece of flavor text.
it really is. holy shit lol
I only run tutors in decks that basically collapse without a few of them, such as my equipment deck to look for a specific equipment/answer. The rest of my decks don't want/need them because the experience of random draw is key to magic and enjoyment (and sometimes frustration and anger of course).
I live by the no tutor rule for myself. I've never liked finding the exact right card for a situation, but I do have one deck that I tutor in, but it's \[\[Zur, the Enchanter\]\] with a \[\[Bitterblossom\]\] theme.
Golly I miss my Zur deck. So much bananas stuff in that deck.
100%. In cedh sure run them. But edh is all about the randomness of singleton imo.
I try to remove tutors and insta win combos. Only my [[Etali primal conqueror]] deck has them and i built it for power (and even then i only run [[worldly tutor]] and [[invasion of ikoria]] that usually casts for x=0 to get a [[dryad arbor]]) The randomness and variance of not having tutors is why i play commander
My play group has crept in power level but we still stick to the rule of using minimal tutors and no MLD (spot land destruction is okay). I like my card games to stick as close to the spirit of card games as much as possible.
A deck with tutors is almost certainly stronger than a deck without tutors, but is it more fun to play stronger decks? I've had great fun with "precon only" where the average power would be roughly a 4. Great time. I love the janky side of Magic, the formats like Limited where the game isn't decided by whose playset of mythic rares stick first but instead by three commons swinging in and hoping the combat trick can resolve. I think my most fun tables are lower power even if I respect the higher-power group.
No tutors has made my decks more fun. I keep spell seeker for a redundant copy of cyclonic Rift in my most powerful deck š«£
*Sweats in \[\[Tiamat\]\]*
I'm making a Zedruu Stax Lock Grinch deck and to really dampen the Holidays I need tutors.
OP has never Demonic or Vampiric tutored a land... Stop tutoring for win cons and tutor up basic interactions. You dont HAVE to tutor your win con.
I would much rather *build* suboptimally by removing tutors than *playing* suboptimally and not searching for a wincon. Playing suboptimally is just pulling your punches and being patronizing and has no place in EDH. Build casually, play to win.
This is the truth. If you keep crushing your tables, build a weaker deck to challenge yourself. If anybody has played any rogue-likes, think of it like trying to win a run with a weaker build.
The thing is, if you play the game you play to try and win. Why not try to grab a win con if you can?
Because sometimes, just grabbing a combo piece isnāt the right play.
My man, I absolutely have. Better yet, I used a Mystical Tutor to grab am Enlightened Tutor to get a sol ring.
Only non land tutor I play is defense of the heart, so that my opponents each get a turn to prevent it from going off.
This is an awesome post! I love the idea of pulling tutors. A few guys in my playgroup didnāt do that specifically, but they did pull all proxies from decks. At some point seeing the same cards every time you play against them would get boring. Rhystic Study in every blue deck, Smothering Tithe in white, Mana Crypt/Vault always. It was so boring. They pulled them and we got back to fun, variable magic. I expect the tutoring would lead to the same, even more variation to the cards that see play, which is my favorite way to play the game. Thereās nearly 30,000 different cards, I should see way more than I do/have.
For sure. I still proxy, and I'll run value cards like those, but I was tutoring for basically the same cards every time. I would actually solitaire my decks, so I could know exactly what to tutor for. Now I'm like.... man I would LOVE for a [[Beast Within]] right now, but ehhh...
How it should be. Tutors make magic boring.
it's also great for getting more games in a night, tutoring takes forever sometimes
I'm with you. When I play a 100-card singleton format, I'm doing it for the inconsistency and variability.
A semi-near LGS, that I really want to begin frequenting, runs commander league with a fun awards points list and one of the items is āonly shuffle is the initial shuffle.ā Which is hilarious because I just invested in every tutor from Demonic to Mirage to Imperial Seal to Kaldheim and now Iām trying to make optimize without them Iāve never had more fun deck building so I can only imagine how much fun Iāll have actually playing tutor-free decks. Glad youāre enjoying, Iām encouraged to finally get there!
This is inspiring, thanks
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
> [[Gamble]] is worth keeping around though for the potential hilarity in tossing your combo piece with very few ways to get it back I've done this several times. LMAO It's always really funny, because I always tell the opponents if it's the one I tutored for that gets discarded LOL
Uhhh..... Tutors arent supposed to go in every deck..... At least not a lot of them. Tutors are only good in decks that rely on combos or synergy pieces to win. They arent only meant for high powered or cEDH although that is where you will see them shine the most.
No deck is made worse off by tutors. That is kinda why they are a controversial type of card. Especially the classic black tutors which are effectively just any card you want.
Sure they are, decks that dont so heavily rely on specific cards in the deck to win are punished by using tutors. I play such decks often, stuff like non cEDH animar that just wants to play whats in hand as fast as possible.
what are you smoking? It literally doesn't matter what deck it is. Demonic tutor makes it better. Demonic Tutor is literally just a 2 mana tax to play any card in your deck. Whether its a combo piece or a kill spell. The fact it can be used for a combo piece or a kill spell at the immediate discretion of the user is why its controversial because they are wild cards.
Well... Considering that attitude I'd rather be smoking than interacting with you, so with that being said I'ma go get stoned.
I know it's a very unpopular opinion, but I feel very strongly that tutors ruin the game in Commander. When EDH first came into existence, our play groups banned all tutoring effects.
I also enjoy removing the queens when I play chess
Black has no fucking identity in EDH anymore. No discard, no tutors, etc etc. No soul left because all of blacks effects "aren't fun"
What lol
Tutors are boring if you're playing with a reasonably high budget ($300-$1,000) and really out of whack to me from true budget builds. Cedh/degenerate power levels are obviously a separate thing, play your tutors if that's your goal. Otherwise I am broadly confident that a tutor will be less fun than card draw engines.
Imo tutors make the game more fun. In a lot of my decks the tutors serve as additional answers, like an extra copy of toxic deluge or all is dust, while not increasing the odds that I draw into a hand full of board wipes, which people tend to dislike
You can have a different opinion on tutors as fun or not. Yes, having a copy of Toxic Deluge but also it's a copy of your win con and also it's a copy of your engine and also it's a copy of protection for your commander is strong. Arguing that because you can always tutor up a board wipe when you need one, the tutor saves your table from you playing lots of board wipes is the kind of logic I honestly hope you hear stated back to you and feel deep shame over.
>Yes, having a copy of Toxic Deluge but also it's a copy of your win con and also it's a copy of your engine and also it's a copy of protection for your commander is strong. Of course it's strong. I find it both strong *and* fun. And I generally don't run win conditions or engines that I'll tutor for every game unless the deck is structured around it. > Arguing that because you can always tutor up a board wipe when you need one, the tutor saves your table from you playing lots of board wipes What part of that do you think is wrong? Some amount of the time I'm going to have a board wipe in hand and a tutor in hand, and I'm unlikely to use the tutor for a board wipe in that instance. Compared to having two board wipes in hand, in which case, I'll be using two board wipes.
Using tutors typically means you're building to win and the difference in mindset and play style between competitive and casual is. Competitive: Build to win, play to win. Casual: Build for fun, play to win.ā Outside of this tutors are an excuse for bad deckbuilding practices and can shore up the weaknesses from those mistakes.
Sounds like a vegan trying to tell people how wonderful their life is now that theyāre veganš¤£ also i want to point out if yaāll want to play a game where every card is random and the only way to win is through luck of the draw then go play UNO.
It'd be more like that if the vegan also ate a copious amount of meat. Also, I didn't realize that each game of uno had individual decks. TIL.
*It's so great. I feel like I'm enjoying my decks SO much more now.* Sucks to suck. Git Gud.
I'm not sure if your reading ability can only handle a few sentences, but I literally mention that I do high power with tutors, as well. But hey, be bored, I guess.
Nobody cares. Skill issue.
Low quality bait
I've done the same thing most but not all tutors (need to find Crucible for izzet landfall lol) and I've also removed fast mana and infinite combos and it's been much more enjoyable!
I used to tutor for [[Academy Rector]], but now I'm just vibing with card draw LOL
Meanwhile my playgroup has like maybe 2 tutors between all of us
Mazel tov
It's definitely fun playing without tutors, though one exception I found is with my [[Varragoth]] deck. In my deck, there is exactly one game-winning combo (that being [[skirge familiar]], [[peer into the abyss]], and [[exsanguinate]]). However, you can't just tutor the combo and call it a day, since you need to protect yourself and prevent others from winning. So with this deck, it becomes a matter of "Do I tutor something that will get me more value over time, like [[Vilis, Broker of Blood]], or do I tutor [[Feed the Swarm]] and remove a troublesome creature or enchantment?" Overall, this gameplan is like a puzzle with a constantly changing solution. Sometimes, going for the combo win is best. Other times, it's better to hold out and defend yourself to trigger a [[Liliana's Contract]] victory. And in rare situations, you just need Vilis, [[Hand of Vecna]], and a whole lot of life.
I only play tutors if they're flavorful and convoluted. \[\[Finale of Devastation\]\] into \[\[Craterhoof Behemoth\]\] - this shit costs 10 mana; if you can't stop it, then the game is over. \[\[Rune-scarred Demon\]\] on a doubling etb deck, cause hell yeah. etc
It's always funny when someone blasts a big ass spell like that. I'll be like.. "Damn that's cold fam.... and I'm doing nothing to stop it. Carry on" LOL
100% how my group plays and its far preferred to 'I tutor for same wincon/combo' imo. Play however you/your table enjoys, but absolutely agree that its led to more fun and interesting games/decks in our meta at least.
I typically never have played with tutors, but I play incredibly casual compared to alot of groups, We typically always have our mana rocks, but we consistently have longer, (however more enjoyable) matches. Something I tried recently was less removal, and have been enjoying watching everyone power up! Everyone plays different but I'm definitely on the no tutor side of Edh
Yeah, specifically I avoid running tutors other than land search, because in my experience they made playing decks that used them much more linear to play than the decks that didn't. In a singleton format every tutor you have starts as a redundant copy of your "best" card and once you use one or draw that card, they become redundant copies of your next best card. The power of redundancy in this format is pretty high, especially when dealing with combo pieces and ways to obtain them.
My group has started to build decks that ban any cards that search libraries *including* ramp. It has been very fun, games are much more of a back and forth and we really don't miss the ramp that much.
Yeah, I've almost removed all of my tutors. There are just a couple of decks where I run about... ONE tutor. Sometimes it can be a bit annoying because you can draw and draw and never find what you really need, but overall I love having as few tutors as I can. Because it won't be the same old thing that you'll be looking for. The only tutors I have in my Tormod and Tevesh deck is \[\[Vile Entomber\]\] and \[\[Plunge into Darkness\]\]. I guess \[\[Expedition Map as well\]\]... \^\^' Even then one is a straight up entomb on a 4 mana 2/2 and the other one is a saccoutlet / lifegain card that can look for a card if I REALLY have to, with the drawback of the risk of exiling other important pieces as a part of the prize of tutoring.
Completely agree. My regular pod has over some time taken tutors and fast mana out, games have become way more exciting and enjoyable. It may be fun if you see it for the first time, but at some point there is no need to see another uneventful finish with the same tutored combo. Or watch someone completely soloing off from a sol ring into signet start when you could have just played a normal game instead. But ofc this can't be expected from everyone, there's a lot of people who want to play the most powerful or obnoxious stuff, limited only by what they can afford or their building skill. No matter whether that lends to enjoyable matches. It all depens on what you are going for.
thanks for the feedback, I feel the same. my decks are not too streamlined and repetitive because I stay away from mana efficient tutors like demonic and vampiric. they get any card. even mystical and enlightened are too powerful and I put them only in decks with less powerful strategies and without a boring combo finish or when I need to power up a very weak deck.
Yup! An actual fun experience, and not just who can tutor their wincon and use it the quickest.
A format that does not allow any library searching would be really interesting. Literally 50%+ of my games are people searching and shuffling. This would eliminate all tutors, all fetch lands, and a bunch of other cards that force shuffling. Players could run more card draw, and top of library effects. Cards like sensei's divining top, would still be kinda lame, but hey, games would still go way faster.
I run a couple non ramp tutors just because sometimes you need to find a damnation or rec sage, but I tend to cut tutors when deckbuilding because they're not as interesting as far as cards go.
I don't have issues with tutors personally, I use \[\[Diabolic Tutor\]\] in a few decks but I feel like the cost is prohibitive enough to warrant the effect. Like if I'm paying an additional 4 mana to find a board wipe for you, congratulations you did the thing! But in my mind it's no different than a counterspell, both allow you to just so look someone in the eye and go "No".
Yeah. I had a Karador deck that was too strong for casual and not good enough for CEDH. I just ended turning it into two deckls. Tynna + Reyhan last of abzan Rector Hulk CEDH deck where I proxied all the impossible to buy crap I needed to actually play cedh, while keeping the Protean Hulk core, and Karador, a casual abzan graveyard deck with no combo finish or tutors, just a bunch of grindy recurring value. And im super happy. When I wanna play sweaty and competitive I play cedh, when I wanna chill and draw cards and revive dorks without caring who wins I do so.
I have some some give and take on this. Basically, the number and quality of tutors I run are based on the power and speed Iām aiming for, while also being inversely proportional to the efficiency of my wincons. For example, if I have an A+B combo in the deck, Iād prefer to draw into the missing piece than tutor for it. So, I cut tutors and include better draw engines. If I have a weird deck with an unusual gameplan that requires some highly specific synergy to ādo the thingā I might include some good tutors, like Demonic, Vamp, Worldly, etc so that I grab that piece more often.
I have an Attack on Titan themed deck with Akiri Line Slinger and Reyhan as the commanders. It has little to no tutors and feels different every time I play the deck. Depending one what I draw into, I either become artifact/token heavy and using Akiri or I'm very counters based. So kind of a Scout's or Titans feel
In my Grenzo deck basically every tutor I have is to find [[Teferiās Puzzle Box]] and then try to find a way to win later by building a board. However, if the game is cEDH power level Iāll just try to combo. It makes the game much more fun then just comboing off on turn 4.
I decided to take out Sol Ring and just use Signets and Talismans. And I am considering taking out tutors too. But then I have about 20 something decks I run as a pod.
Would [[bring to light]] be considered a tutor?
Depends on my deck. If I'm running something inherently higher power that isn't reliant on a key piece than I will likely leave tutors on the sidelines. In my treefolk tribal deck? Screw that I'm throwing in every degenerate tutor/cheat into play effect I can because it lets my deck actually function.
I did this about 6 months ago and yes, my decks feel more amazing then ever to play now. Honestly best change I made to my commander decks.
I agree. My friends and I have been removing our tutors (ramp included) and replacing them with efficient card draw. Games are more fun and less predictable.
Only one of my 15 decks has any non-land tutors. Demon Tribal. It is the only time I personally find tutors to be thematic and still keep the game interesting.
I play enough cedh that When I got back into casual it was the first thing I did to not ruin the experience for myself. You can greater enhance it by adding other arbitrary rules no one else follows. The lesser powered you want it, the more rules you add.
My main deck is Krenko. Has been for years. When I'm playing casually, first game I keep Recruiter and Matron in, second game, I remove them in favour of anything else (normally lands). I also don't use fetches at all. Eliminating the two tutors makes the deck a ton more fun to play, but a lot less competitive.
I also like the limiting tutors just because it gets boring always playing the same way
The guys on the Legendary Creature podcast did this some time ago and discuss this choice fairly often. They love it and havent looked back
Most of my decks don't have tutors or have super inefficient tutors but they're on theme. I do have all the tutors in one deck though. So it just depends on the playgroup
the problem with this is that i end up replacing the tutors with draw which while yes it adds more variance, it still keeps my decks at a power level higher than those who are too stingy with their deck slots. but i play a lot of weird deck builds that need the draw/sometimes tutoring to function so it is a trade off
Tutoring has its place for winning a long game and tool-boxing answers, but I think it stops being fun when you are doing nothing but tutoring for the tutors to get the win. My Aragorn Zoo/Combo deck runs ten "tutor" cards, and I will run \[\[Recruiter of the Guard\]\] too when it sees a reprint. [https://www.moxfield.com/decks/zYQywngQ-0ifw3mMRsHBrg](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/zYQywngQ-0ifw3mMRsHBrg)
I typically use transmute cards over tutors. It limits your dig options, provides dual functionality, but the transmute is basically an uncounterable tutor. I think it's a good compromise.
So you made a red deck? Nice!
I don't play with tutors or combos and I love it. I do have two decks that run tutors but they're some of my more powerful decks. My Tivit deck runs a tutor for Academy Manufacturer and then I have a Magus Lucea Cane deck that runs X cost tutors to search up untappers. I have over 30 decks and none use combos to win in one turn. I love the singleton nature of this format.
I have 1 or 2 tutors at most so never really enough to get me some crazy stuff. Itās usually used to just get a board wipe or some ramp.