This weekend the Occupy Movement has spawned another branch.  Thousand of Magic: the Gathering players showed their frustration about the current financial development of the Magic market.  While only a few players are gun slinging in the pro tour with cards like Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Primeval Titan and Sword of Feast and Famine, many players are not so fortune. Most of those unprivileged players, often also referred to as “casual players”, have to settle with cards like Chandra Ablaze, Inferno Titan and Hammer of Ruin.

Today at an official press conference their spokesman, Andy from CommanderCast.com announced:  “We will not endure it any longer how the 1% are corrupting the fun of Magic: the Gathering, like Phyrexia corrupted Mirrodin.  We the 99% of Magic players stand together.”

Currently thousands of Magic players are camping out side the Wizards Headquarters in Renton, Washington. Chanting their claims, and tapping cards. The frosty nights of March in Washington seem to be unable to break their spirit. Surprisingly, famous former Magic: the Gathering icon, Serra Angel was among the protesters and said “My golden times are gone now. The middle-class is becoming less and less relevant. Tournament play ist dominated by a thin mythic-class.”

Head Designer, Mark Rosewater justified R&Ds Rating-Policy change, that included downgrading Rares to the second highest rarity by saying: “Mythic Rares are no cash grab, it is just a method to show that something is special within the Magic Multiverse. I cannot understand how players have this strong misconception about our intentions. It is important to keep Magic’s fantasy flavor believable.” Therefore it seems unlikely that Wizards will rethink it’s current policy.

Recent price changes in eternal formats have brought many Magic players to desperation. “Jace took my money and my whole library away”, complained Johnny, one of the Protesters, while holding up a sign that read: “Go Home Mr. Innovator – We want Beleren back!” Many players like Johnny, are angry about how Wizards ignores their own player base, and they are here to show it.

Mark Gottlieb was surprised by the recent Development: “Nerdrage is a well known phenomenon among Nerd culture and Magic players especially, but it never took to these extremes. Normally they move on, as soon as an important science fiction show, that nobody watched, gets canceled. I’m pretty sure that they will move on eventually.”

While many players agree on the financial issues, not all of them do. A player called Spike, who did not take part in the protest, explained to us: “Everything has its price in the multiverse, should it be mana or money. If you want to get on top, you have to make an investment.” While Mythic rares had increased in value, they also increased in power during the last two blocks, changing tournament results in the favour of players like Spike.

Many players like Timmy, are preparing for a longer stay here in Renton. “We organized daily MtG: Commander playgroups, to keep everyone’s spirits high. Every morning at 10, we have an open-mic discussion about what cards should be banned or unbanned”, explained Timmy while separating some protesters in four person pods, so everyone should be able to play multiplayer games while protesting. Then he added: “We even have some French guys over there, but we are having some issues with them agreeing on the same banned list.”

Many players stated their will to stay as long as it takes to make Wizards of the Coast change their minds – Most of the protesters even stayed during Friday Night Magic.

(Of course, as you probably have noticed, the whole article is fictional. As are the statements of real and fictional characters. It is just meant to humor you!)

So keep it casual my fellow protesters, we are the 99%, we stand together!
Yours Dominik Schönleben

Golem, or Zombie?

We all have our favorite artists, and some even go the extra mile doing alter-art pieces. Check out this recent alter-art (by the artist himself!) Solemn Simulacrum, which rightfully goes straight into my Standard deck, where it will undergo multiple joyful recursions courtesy of Havengul Lich and stacking Heartless Summoning.

Does your opponent rally righteous elves, or command hoards of loathsome goblins? Zombies, werewolves, or humans? Dissing goblins, who to some are simply misunderstood beings too often discounted and ignored by elitists and main-streamers, could be offensive and even hurtful. (No, really. I’m not making this up. I have actually been judged by my opinion of goblins during a match. For the record, I said I liked them.)

Goblins Have Feelings, Too!

In this light, I can see how some Magic fans may feel ostracized by liking the Pastimes promotional play-mat that was banned just prior to it’s scheduled distribution at the 2012 March Indianapolis Grand Prix. What fuel for the fire for the feminist police, goblin fans, fans of anything with boobs (I know you exist because Wizards keeps marketing to you), and would-be Moms who pick their kids up and re-think dropping them off at future events.

It’s “porny, atrocious, and absurdly awesome.” “It’s not Steve Argyle,” but “I want one.”

Whether you’re a goblin sympathetic, a proponent for artistic freedom, a perturbed Mom, or an amused fan, this mat is sure to engender a reaction. The majority of responses have involved varying degrees of opinions on what is and is not appropriate art, and just how much objectification and sexualization is acceptable in Magic-related art. But that isn’t the bottom line. It’s not the image itself that is the problem. It’s the context in which the image is being used. The bottom line is that this is an image on a promotional play-mat, and promoting the concept of a “harem” in the context of promoting a large event, (which, according to the Pastimes official statement posted on Facebook, harem and fantasy are words given by Pastimes to the play-mat’s artist) is, well, inappropriate for a diverse audience of players.

How Pastimes could have overlooked that for as long as they did is an interesting question. A more pointed question would be to ask why Pastimes ever requested for such a mat to be mass produced. Yet, this mat is really not too shocking when you consider the context of the card art in Magic. Because we already accept (passively, if not actively) various Magic cards with risque art involving scantily clad women, S&M themes, and dark, freaky goblins. Why shouldn’t this one be accepted, too? Just where do we, in the spirit of fairness, draw the line? More importantly, in what direction are we as consumers taking the imagery on Magic related promotional items? That is a more pragmatic question to be asking ourselves.

There’s no doubt that gender role tensions are present in the Magic community. Wizards of the Coast does pay careful attention to them. As Magic acquires a more diverse and seasoned fan base, that is a context that can no longer be ignored. The immediate back-lash created by this play-mat demonstrates the growing influence of the female Magic-playing community. The Ladies are part of Magic, the growing direction of the game and it’s fantasy art, and they won’t be satisfied with poor and under-developed female characters, or with promoting images of submissive or distressed women. There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with sexy, but when women are hyper-sexualized, and portrayed as a sexual object existing for someone else’s sexual pleasure, that has serious psychological and social implications.

Yet part of me wonders, did Pastimes really think they could get away with this? Or, is that goblin grinning back at us really a giant troll?

Fetchlands (like Misty Rainforest) paired with Sensei’s Divining Top and Scroll Rack to gain some card quality. Then using Crucible of Worlds and Life from the Loam to get those Fetchlands and Strip Mine back from your graveyard every turn. Not enough resilience? Add Exploration for even more fun.
Been there, done that!

Many strategies like this are not only obvious to anybody playing the format longer than a week, but are also overused. This fact can be exploited for your advantage and even better: “Schadenfreude”.

Schadenfreude is pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others.

- Wikipedia.com

In Magic: the Gathering a Griefer is often regarded as the player who locks out everyone with Smokestack or uses any other combo to stop others from playing the game.  While this player essentially could be called a Griefer, he actually is only offensive.  But there are socially accepted forms of “griefing”, they all follow the principle, to punishing players for their most obvious plays.  Following the German philosophy of bringing misanthropy into other peoples lives, it is important to first analyse what strategies are used in Commander excessively.  Then, to find ways to punish them.

Overused Strategies:

Tutoring

Analysis:  In a 100 card singleton format it is very benefical to have the ability to search your library for the right toolbox card when needed.  So many players rely on the ability to search their deck for certain cards.
This also includes using Fetchlands (e.g. Misty Rainforest) to find the Land of your choice or using Ramp spells  (e.g. Cultivate to accelerate yourself into the endgame quicker.

Punishment:  Many players will despair when you forbid them to search their deck, as they rely on accessing their Dual-lands or are unable to funktion without having accelerated to eight Mana first.  Use Mindlock Orb or Stranglehold and some players will have a really hard time winning. Sadly, due to the high life totals in Commander, cards like Psychogenic Probe and Aven Mindcensor aren’t relevant enough most of the times.

Artifacts

Analysis:  It seems needless to point out that Artifacts are a very strong card type in Magic: the Gathering, especially as every color has access to them.  This leads to the result that many, if not all decks use Artifacts.  Just look through your own decks and make a count if you don’t trust me.  Some are great mana  fixers (e.g. Dimir Signet) and accelerators (Thran Dynamo) in colors without access to Ramp. Other artifacts are considered just a great addition to about any deck:  Sword of Feast and Famine, Lightning Greaves or Duplicant.

Punishment:  Avoid artifacts with activated abilities in your own deck and play cards like: Null Rod, Damping Matrix or Damping Field. Great thing is, that you can still benefit from triggered abilities like Mind’s Eye. Another way to punish artifact users is to rely on Molder Slug or mass removal effects like:  Shatterstorm or Creeping Corrosion.  Also having anti-affinity can be quiet stressful with Hum of the Radix, though Kataki, War’s Wage is probably just more effective. When playing agressive, you can also consider Ancient Runes

Graveyard as Recource

Analysis:  Many players rely on their Grave as a resource.  When you abandon the notion that your Grave has to be a second hand, there are many ways to punish players who think that way.

Punishment:  We all know the cheapest way to get rid of all players graveyards:  Relic of Progenitus.  But now finally  we got the Griefer-card, Gravedigger’s Cage, which we were all  waiting for. Ground Seal is also nice as a less efficient version of the Cage, that draws a card.

Drawing Cards

Analysis:  Commander is about the end-game as they say. There card advantage is key.  So many decks try to draw as many cards as possible, to weight out the disadvantage of having to fight more than one opponent.

Punishment:  A nice way to be a Griefer is denying players to draw cards.  It sounds like a move from a Casual Offender, but there are many ways to fairly punish additional card draw. It is not about taking away your opponents one card a turn, but rather to negate excessive card draw. Uba Mask and Omen Machine are the perfect tool for that. An old gem with a similar effect is the epic looking card: Chains of Mephistopheles. While you can also go with cards that deal damage for drawing cards, in most cases the starting life total in Commander makes them less relevant: Underworld Dreams, Spiteful Visions, Phyrexian Tyranny.

Non-basic Lands

Analysis:  Playing three colored is the way propagated even through Wizard’s pre-constructed Commander decks.  Baggage that comes with this multi-color madness is the reliance on non-basic lands to fix your mana base.

Punishment:  While in recent sets Wizards of the Coast has come around to the idea that non-basiclands are fine, in older sets they released cards that punished players for for playing them.  There is a reason why Back to Basics is considered a back breaker in Legacy.  When avoiding blue, there are the equally game changing Magus of the Moon and Blood Moon available.  Though as we all know, there was no actually good card in Homelands, it should not be overlooked for the Griefer potential of Primal Order.  To get in some extra damage Price of Progress might be usefull.  Or go nuclear, as Ruination was in the MtG: Commander pre-constructed Decks, this strategy is even approved by R&D.

No Instants

Analysis:  We all love or hate the power of Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir when used as a Commander. Why? …because playing cards at instant speed is extremely strong (Never underestimate your opponents Vedalken Orrery).  So giving yourself the power to play Creatures at Instant speed is great, while denying your opponent the ability to react to your spells is even better.

Punsihment:  Defense Grid or Price of Glory are cards, that punish players for playing Instants or at least playing them during their opponent’s turn.  Just on a side note:  These cards work great against countermagic, too.  Of cause, Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir and Dosan the Falling Leaf are not limited to being played as a General. The classic City of Solitude works also fine.

Relying on the Endgame

Analysis:  Many players in Commander rely on the endgame (also one of the reasons why Primeval Titan is so dominant in Commander).  While fellow blogger Andy, from CommanderCast.com propagates playing Armageddon or Decree of Annihilation, to ruin the endgame fanatic’s day, I would argue that some less offensive strategies are in order.

Punishment:  Natural Balance is a way less offensive and accomplishes the same thing. Also an option is Damping Engine, which basically forbids every player, who ramped his way into oblivion, to ever play a spell again without sacrificing permanents first.  Ward of Bones is a variant of this card, that is less often active than the Engine, but leaves your opponent without the ability to ignore the effect by sacrificing a card.  Another way to counteract the constant mana ramp and land search in Commander are Polluted Bonds, Ankh of Mishra or Zo-Zu the Punisher.

Value Engines

Analysis:  Most value engines that Commander players fancy rely on Creatures entering the battlefield.  Should it be your Eternal Witness/Erratic Portal-combo or just Primeval Titan reanimated time and time again.

Punishment:  Torpor Orb is the solution. It might not look like much, but this cards brings many players to frustration, when they realize that most of their utility creatures are now expensive Grizzly Bears. Cursed Totem from Mirage is just the same for activated abilities, something that can also be accomplished by the already above mentioned Artifacts hating Damping Matrix – if that’s not griefing two-for-one.

Building a Hand

Analysis:  Many players craft a hand, to kill everybody later.  Some decks search for the right combo pieces, others just want to hold back and wait till everybody has wasted their resources on each other.  While playing cards like Identity Crisis might be effective, these are often considered unfun, but there are alternatives.

Punishment:  When your deck has ways to work without a hand or tries to commit early to the board, the following cards are great:  Painful Quandary, Oppression, Necrogen Mists, Bottomless Pit, Cunning Lethemancer, Gibbering Descent, Spiteful Visions. They basically all do the same thing, discarding everyone’s hand eventually. Meaning, that if you do not commit permanents to the board and try to hoard stuff, you are out of luck.  There is no way to sandbag anything, period.

Other nice Griefer cards:

Squeeze
Thought Prison

So, do not quail, if you cannot afford Duals and Fetches.  Embrace the alternative and become a Griefer. You’ll see that it is quite a nice holiday from the normal MtG: Commander scene.  While some things seem very mean, they basically only work, because players rely to heavily on a specific strategy.  Sometimes it is time to punish them for that – time to wake them up.  It might even make people change their decks.  This can be the only way to save your local playgroup from stagnating.  Griefer cards force players to built more creative decks.  You are not the fun wrecker here, they are.  It is their own fault they built the obvious deck.

For further refference read Master your Meta from Sean aka Swordstoplow on CommanderCast.com.

‘Till next time. Keep it casual and do not exaggerate too much in making your opponents life miserable, eventually they will stop playing with you.
Yours Dominik Schönleben

Alex Kenny, MtG: Commander Rules Committee Member

Inteview by Andy (aka Ghooosts)

This interview ran first on Commandercast.com as a two-piece, spread among two episodes of their weekly MtG: Commander podcast.  Do not forget to check out their epic site, with new Commander related content every day of the week.

‘Till then, keep it casual.  The only manner gaming is approved by the MtG: Commander Rules Committee.
Yours Dominik Schönleben

There are many players that do not believe in Spot-Removal in MtG: Commander.  They consider it to be ineffective because it only ever trades one-for-one.  My personal experience has shown me that these players are dead wrong.   Any good Commander-Deck needs its spot removal and in the following I will present to you why.

Spot-Removal Vs Wrath-Effects: a definition

Spot-Removal are all spells are spells that can be played to remove a single card from the playing field.  This includes cards that Exile, Sacrifice, Return to Hand or Library, or just classic Destroy stuff.  Prominent examples include: Swords to Plowshares, Tribute to Hunger, Submerge or Go for the Throat naming one from each category. Spot-Removal are cards that target specific permanents (or a player in rare cases).  It traditionally trades in a one to one ratio.  Meaning that you loose one card, to destroy another one.  Something that in Magic often is referred to as a “one-for-one”.  Sometimes these cards even target more than one permanent to create a two-for-one, like for example Hull Breach, but the most efficient and versatile spot-removal normally trades only one-for-one.

Wrath-Effects are cards that do not rely on targeting a specific card, but rather have an indiscriminate effect on all cards from a specific permanent type or types.  Name giving is, of cause, the Alpha card Wrath of God as the most iconic Wrath-Effect in Magic’s history.  Other famous examples include: Evacuation, Akroma’s Vengeance or Decree of Annihilation.  Often these cards are also referred to as Mass-Removal.  These cards traditionally are favoured in Commander because of their potential to make not only one-for-ones or  two-for-ones, but any higher ratio of X-for-one you can imagine.  This of cause can be beneficial in a format where you have to combat not only one opponent, but multiples.
While Wrath-Effects are very strong cards in MtG: Commander, they are highly overrated when compared to Spot-Removal.  Spot-Removal are often dismissed in Commander as a bad card choice.  In the following I will elaborate why this is not only a false basic assumption about the format, but also a wrong way to look at strategy when only thinking in potential five-for-ones all the time.

1. Not your problem

It often seems like you have at least three opponents at the same time in an average Commander game.  So how can you win against all of them if Magic is a game about card advantage, if not with trading at least three-for-one at least?
My advice: Do not make it your problem.  Not every opponent is actually out there to kill you.  The only creatures that matter are those who attack YOU.  Maybe this might not be true all the times when talking about creatures like Primeval Titan, but in general this is true.  Your opponent is sending his Silent Specter out to destroy your opponents hand. Why should you care?  When your opponents play creatures you either have the choice to Wrath of God the board as soon as more than two creatures hit the board.  Or you could just sit back, keep a single white mana open and wait whom your opponent will actually attack.  If it is not you, your opponent is basically working on your path to victory.  So instead of indiscriminately killing everything on the board to get in some three-for-ones, only kill the relevant stuff.  Obviously for this strategy to work your spot removal has to be instant speed.  (The speed any removal is best at anyways.)

2. Looking Scary

Leaving one white mana open to kill dudes that might attack you leads right into my next argument:  If you opponents know you play spot removal and have the right mana open to play Swords to Plowshares or Path to Exile they might be discouraged to attack you.  In fear of losing their dude.  This fact is also the reasons why cards like Propaganda are good in Commander.  They discourage your opponents form attacking you.
When people know that you rely on Wrath-Effects to get rid of their dudes they will feel safe as soon as it is not your turn.  As all relevant Mass-Removal spells, with an exception for Rout and Evacuation, are sorcery speed.  Obviously in a game of wits, it is always best to keep your opponent uncertain and afraid.  There is nothing better than an opponent deciding to attack a different opponent just because you spot a single white mana.  Though remember the seed of doubt can only be planted into your opponents mind if you have cast these cards before.

3. Instant is King

It cannot be stated any less often how superior Instant spells are in Magic: the Gathering. There are numerous situations which can be resolved to a pleasant outcome for you just by playing a removal spell at the right time. Destroying a creature in response to it getting equipped or killing your opponents indestructible creature by destroying his Fleshbag Marauder when it enters the battlefield are just two of the many creative things you can do to ruin you opponent’s whole turn.  All this is only possible through the power of Instants and the way the stack works.  As mentioned above Mass-Removal is Sorcery speed, so rely on your one-for-one spells for this. They are worth it.

4. Spot-Removal is cheep

I am not talking about the fact that Doom Blade costs less money than Day of Judgment because that argument is mute in a mythic-rarity world and therefore irrelevant these days.

I am rather talking about mana costs and the effectiveness of cheep spells. It might be true that a Mass-Removal will save your ass in certain situations right now.  (And is the only out to some specific situations.) But the situation you will encounter even more often in an average Magic game is the following: your opponents have one or maybe two threats that are really relevant right now. You want to deal with them and progress your own game to get your opponent under pressure by playing a threat of your own. But here is a dilemma: unless this game has taken forever already or you are playing the super aggressive ramp deck, you will not have enough mana to play Day of Judgment and Frost Titan at the same time.  But when considering spot removal this becomes less of a problem to spot an additonal one or two mana instead of the at least four you need for any Mass-Removal.  This leaves you with the amazing option to progress your board, while still being able to react to your opponents actions.  Something that Mass-Removal cannot do through its higher mana cost intensity.

5. High-end, Low-end controversy

It is a well known and popular fact that Wrath of God can save your day.  The same is true about  cards like Fog.  Though being very different in nature, these cards have something in common: They have a “best-case” scenario you remember and anticipate.   Do you remember the game where your three opponents overextended and you wrecked them with a single Warth-Effect.  Sure you do.  This is like how you will remember the day when you countered an all-out attack with Fog and then attacked for the win.  But what often is overlooked are those times these cards sit in your hand and do nothing.  These cards have an extreme high-end and a very low-end.  While this is even more prevalent with Fog and at a higher extreme, it is still relevant when talking about Mass-Removal.

The important thing to consider is the average game situation compared to the high and low-end.  While it is obvious what the low-end of Fog is: your opponent not attacking in a relevant way, that leads you to victory. The low-end of Wrath of God is often overlooked: having an established board position.  In an average game situation your board will not be empty on yours side by the turn you want to play a Mass-Removal.  Meaning that it normally is a pretty bad strategy not to play stuff yourself, therefore you probably will have played creatures, artifacts and enchantments by turn four or five.  Meaning, if your opponent forces you to play a Wrath-Effect by playing a game dominant creature, you might be forced to kill one of your own, too.  The same is true for Talismans or Signets (like Dimir Signet or Talisman of Dominance when using cards like Austere Command.  So when replacing a Wrath-Effect with a Spot-Removal you might be able to deal with your opponents threat whilekeeping your own threats and resources.

Probably the average amount of permanents on the battlefield in a typical MtG: Commander game

Also on a side note:  a big problem when playing or evaluating Wrath-Effects, is to overestimate their five-for-one potential. First these situations are rare to come up when playing competent opponents. Second there are many situations where you can get a relevant four-for-two (by killing your own dude) or sometimes even just to trade one-for-one when relevant.  Often you see players waiting for their Wrath-Effect to have the highest impact, while an average impact might be far more profitable now.  So better not to let yourself be fooled by a fictional prospect that is never going to occur.

In Conclusion: Test it yourself

It has to be said:  wrath effects are powerful without a doubt.  I am not saying that the potential to play a Mass-Removal even while being ahead is a bad thing.  Or to have creature removal that does not target and gets rid of the whole board when needed.  But it is something that gets vastly overrated in MtG: Commander.  Even the all praised Wrath-Effects have downsides and there are plenty game situations where they are far inferior to Spot-Removal or even just another threat.

I pledge you to start a thought experiment:  when you play Commander next time, start to pay close attention.  Every time you have a Wrath-Effect in your hand, think about the game state and imagine if you would rather have a Spot-Removal in your hand.  Keep an open mind about this, you might be surprised.  If you have to answer the question with ‘yes’ more often than you anticipated, it might be time to sleeve out Akroma’s Vengeance for Path to Exile.

‘Till then, keep it casual. Even in the event of global destruction.
Yours Dominik Schönleben