Stale Gameplay

Not sure how to say this, but when Ive been sitting down to play EDH it feels like im entering the same game over and over.. although its fun, its starting to feel stale or stagnant. I'd love to see a few new decks, things that you wouldn't expect to see someone play. Like, people branching out into colours they dont usually play, or deck types that are very different from others they have.

Its just a thought I was having.

Like, I usually like red, kill, boardwipe, f*** everything up sort of thing. but If i can find a decent general, id possibly try a blue or blue white control deck. Just to switch up games a bit.

If a bunch of people people all made different decks, and only agreed to play them the first time as everyone else, Id say we could get an interesting game going...


does anyone else have any thoughts on this? whether it be similar, agreeing or disagreeing?

The big reason all game are feeling stale isn't truly because of repeating decks, but because of repeating cards that see play in every deck that can run them that make the game play out almost the exact same. For example Warp World, Hive Mind, or Eye of the Storm. As soon as one of those cards hit the field the game it pretty much the same everytime.

Another reason is because most of the decks seem to be control decks, games feel stale because between all the decks there are 20 board wipe spells in any given game which causes it to drag on and on. A little deck modification could help in making things different I am sure, but what needs to be really changed is the state of mind players play in. Few people are aggressive and play to win and instead play decks that just F with everyone's game instead, which sure everynow and again is good for a laugh but now has been beaten to death.

With that said I am considering a new EDH build, but I am considering it in a build that wins quickly even against mass opponents, I think we need to see some decks built to actually win emerge. That would be heatlhy.

i haven't seen anyone run eye of the storm or hive mind in edh except me...

yes warp world is becoming over used, i will give you that, along with the massive amounts of board wipe. however i think this formant needs that board wipe, maybe not such an excess of it. but it definitely requires some.

and Steven Lindsay has built a deck that wins... somewhat fast, but can kill everyone... (takes a long time to do it, but it works)


i have more to say on this, but i cant seem to grasp my thoughts properly right now.. ill post more again another time

Fine, but next time I pox for 115%+ life to everyone, don't complain

But I agree, there is some staleness in EDH currently, but for me its not as much seeing the same decks, but its more about seeing the game stalemate and deadlock

I'm currently designing something that punishes for not playing stuff and for not being aggressive, hopefully it helps

But sometimes, 6+ player games aren't always the best idea and having 5 players tops is generally what I find to work the best.

Thoughts on player size?

Havens wrote:

but If i can find a decent general, id possibly try a blue or blue white control deck. Just to switch up games a bit.

You want Ayesha Tanaka, obviously.

Legendary Josh wrote:

With that said I am considering a new EDH build, but I am considering it in a build that wins quickly even against mass opponents, I think we need to see some decks built to actually win emerge. That would be heatlhy.

I'm currently building a deck like Dan built decks. The gayest type of deck you could ever think of; but it won...

Havens wrote:

and Steven Lindsay has built a deck that wins... somewhat fast, but can kill everyone... (takes a long time to do it, but it works)

His old deck can no longer win using the grindstone + painter servent (as painter servent is banned now), but he could still do his gayness with the tokens. He's building a new deck to simply win (as am I).

V wrote:

I'm currently designing something that punishes for not playing stuff and for not being aggressive, hopefully it helps

Similar to the Avatar idea, only it has a negative impact on you for not playing stuff?, what if you're running a type of combo deck?

V wrote:

6+ player games aren't always the best idea and having 5 players tops is generally what I find to work the best.

Thoughts on player size?

EDH is meant to be a large, casual, multiplayer environment. Would limiting players effect this in any way?




I'm working on a winning edh deck. As you can see, my general is Zur the asshole. So I hope it'll win every game and a half, but challengers always approach >: D

Acalia wrote:

Havens wrote:

but If i can find a decent general, id possibly try a blue or blue white control deck. Just to switch up games a bit.

You want Ayesha Tanaka, obviously.

Havens wrote:

and Steven Lindsay has built a deck that wins... somewhat fast, but can kill everyone... (takes a long time to do it, but it works)

His old deck can no longer win using the grindstone + painter servent (as painter servent is banned now), but he could still do his gayness with the tokens. He's building a new deck to simply win (as am I).

im lying in the dark and cant be bothered trying to seperate the quotes...


i like that general, i shall look into it (asides from countering, banding is awesome,, maybe ill make a banding edh deck... conguse the shit out of some people...



and regarding the painter servant grindstone thing, i have no idea what you are talking about... he used a storm combo that killed everyone in one turn and also caused him to draw out his entire deck.....

Doing this on an iPhone which is really laggy. But are you talking about his ad nausium deck? I thik he's making an edh-like version of that. His ad nausium was a regular deck though.

Personally I have issues with the constant board wipe, I can see how it can be good to save you, but You seeing it cast far too often just because it "happened to be in your hand" I have no problem is it is a valid win condition.

Ex. Ashling the Pilgrim is a general that wipes through damage all the time, But at the same time, it is hitting all of the players keeping the game moving. It creates a race to take out the player with Ashling or Die to the onslaught of Damage you take each time she is recast.

Also Board wipes such as Armageddon, Decree of Annihilation, Apocalypse, Razia's Purification and Cataclysm, All of these have one major issue Mass loss of land. Nothing slows a game down worse then Having to wait for your deck to spit out four to ten more land so you can start to play stuff again. (Yes I am guilty of running 2 of these in my Dragon Deck, but my dragon deck is my competitive deck and DOES NOT like having to nuke the bored it cost a lot of mana to rebuild with it. Ask Steve how many times I have cast them since we started to play EDH)

Warp World: This here is being use far too much. People are using it for flavour and if the person who cast it is not actually going to gain anything form it, it is just an annoying process. Very few decks Are running this because it helps them, Top of my head I can name two decks that use it to try and speed up the game.
1. Josh's Ashling the Pilgrim Deck. It helps trying to remove some of the opponent's field as well as making the attempt to trigger Land fall on Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle to deal out large amount of damage to players.
2. My Jhoira of the Ghitu. The deck is built of high mana cost cards. Most of them Creatures and when It casts Warp World it is making an attempt to gain bored position by exchanging land for Large creatures.

I do agree that too many decks are running the same cards and some of them honestly are not needed. The card That when we first started was run in only two decks were Vedalken Orrery, Yes I admit it is nice to cast everything you have at instant speed. But the gimmick is getting old. Everyone wants to run it and what is the point of the game if everything is done at instant speed.

I think I have more stuff to say, But I am Pretty sure there are people in my basement right now.

Roska wrote:

(Yes I am guilty of running 2 of these in my Dragon Deck, but my dragon deck is my competitive deck and DOES NOT like having to nuke the bored it cost a lot of mana to rebuild with it. Ask Steve how many times I have cast them since we started to play EDH)

I've only ever seen you use Razia's Purification once or twice o.O

Roska wrote:

I think I have more stuff to say, But I am Pretty sure there are people in my basement right now.

Creepy ending.


In general I think many of us are looking for less board wipe, less land destruction, and less "take forever to resolve" type of things, am I right on this?

This is one of the reasons i love casual constructed decks. 4ofs give you a very specific deck, where you can build 1 strategy, and have loads and loads of different kinds of decks. I've only managed 2 EDH decks, and not at the same time. But I've got 3-4 constructed decks and they're all different and fun (except they're all tribal ). Thats an issue I have with standard, too much of the same. I'd like to see a rise in casual constructed decks that are fun and themey.

And that's my 1/50th of a dollar.

ill admit i run a tad too much of the samey cards and an excess of board wipe, ill be changing that up soon enough.



im going to go digging in the gatherer for random cards that are fun but dont take a long time to resolve. glad to get oppinions on this whole matter though.

Vedalken Orrery is a degenerate card in this format and I believe its use should be limited. However, if people decided to play more artifact destruction perhaps it wouldn't be such a powerful card. The problem is people aren't really playing the meta at all. If there's a card you keep seeing that's causing problems, don't complain, do something about it.

So that's why from now on, I am instituting the 10 card pre-sideboard. This rule states that before the beginning of a match, once all generals have been declared, you have the option to sideboard before you draw your first hand. This, in conjunction with the EDH mulligan rule, should allow you to build around some of these nonsense cards people keep complaining about. Terra Eternal should be stapled in any white sideboard deck not running land destruction. Riftsweeper would be a decent card to deal with people constantly exiling stuff, and perhaps a graveyard shuffle like Reminisce would be good in blue to keep your deck running instead of having all its land in the graveyard and inaccessible. Crucible of Worlds gets used a lot and that's good. Maybe some more blue/xxx decks so you can counter the wipes.

In the end, I don't believe the problem is with stale gameplay. People simply need to start updating their decks to deal with these new problems. It's called a meta, learn to deal.

HOWEVER: There are 3 cards I'd like to take a personal look at. Apocalypse seems absurdly pointless unless you can give me a good reason why you put it into your deck. If you have thus far never used it to achieve the goal in which it was added for, then please stop using it. The second card is Hive Mind. This is a game-slower as it turns EVERY SPOT REMOVAL INTO BOARD CLEAR. Do it in constructed, not EDH please. Finally, I know a lot of people are complaining about Warp World. This is not a broken card. It is neat and useful, although it does get abused by players who do not seem to understand its true function. If you are using it, please explain why. If you can't, please don't use it.

Now I'm going to allow players to use the honour system for now, but if these problems persist, we might have to initiate a club banning of one or more of the aforementioned cards. I hope that a pre-sideboard can help eliminate this need, but for now let's just see how things play out. Of course, if players unfamiliar with club policy use them in one-off games, don't get angry with them as they won't know better, but do try to explain what it is we're trying to do and see if they can co-operate with us.

Thank you for reading this rant,

Steven ~Zerp Prez~

brb finding uses for all mentioned cards



and as far as apocalypse would go, it is used in the barren glory o ring combo. however, if i cant get that combo off, i use it for when im feeling threatened, and its not in my best interest to lose everything and my hand all of the time, unless absolutely necessary.



but you dont have to worry, i dont play the deck with it anymore


will you allow me to use it every once in a while?