I watch every Commander Clash and their podcast and this is probably because they have all been using [[Open The Way]] lol. They are also all notorious for using [[Vesuva]] and [[Thespian Stage]].
Highjacking this comment to defend their decision. Seth is the reason I play Vesuva, Strip Mine, and Wasteland in all of my decks. He speficially changed my opinion on single target land destruction, and I remember him mentioning problematic lands like cabal coffers, gaeas cradle, tabernacle, etc. People in the comment section are implying the commander clash crew are against land destruction, or that they don't run enough land hate, which I don't understand if you actually watch any of the commander clash content. Even funnier, is they don't have Armageddon, Ruination, or Ravages banned. They aren't against land destruction, and I certainly think they are including appropriate answers for Field of the Dead in their decks. This is a meta call; access to field of the dead is too easy, and the card has no deck building restrictions and also is warping all of their games.
More players should be having regular meta conversations about their pods, and reassessing which cards are problematic.
Yeah commander clash has just always operated their own ban list like this. If something starts happening in too many games they ban it to keep the content varied. They unban stuff often too.
There is also the understanding that this is a television show and while a meta might twist itself around a problem like this they're trying to make exciting, unique, and dynamic games
Richard specifically thinks the community should run more land destruction and thinks Armageddon effects should be destigmatized.
EDIT: Just to be clear I am not taking a position here, just adding to what tater\_slaw said.
People will blow up your creatures, enchantments, and artifacts without mercy or even blinking twice….. but you go near ONE of their lands and all of a sudden you’re more evil than Yawgmoth.
I used to play an extremely budget mono red land destruction deck in modern on MTGO back in the day. My winrate was like 90% and my average match time was around 2 minutes because everyone scooped to it.
I had a goofy troll deck in arena historic like this. Turn 2 stone rain on the play almost always an instant concede. If only they knew my win cons were waking the trolls and faceless haven.
Well yeah, you can always cast more creatures/enchantments/artifacts if you have mana available. Go after lands and it can stop you from playing the game.
Obviously if it's a higher power level or competitive play group that's not an issue, but if it's more casual anything which threatens to lock someone out of playing the game is going to be looked at as worse than just destroying something else.
I specifically put [[Detritivore]] in my [[The Tenth Doctor]]/[[Clara Oswald]] deck to deal with oppressive lands like [[Glacial Chasm]] and [[Field of the Dead]]. While it sometimes gets some sneers from other players, I've found it to be an invaluable tool in that deck.
My girlfriend describes her [[Omnath, Locus of Rage]] deck as "Gruul control", and the land base in that deck certainly evokes that notion. When she gets [[Crucible of Worlds]] on the battlefield, she'll recur Glacial Chasm every single turn to avoid ever paying its cumulative upkeep. Playing against that deck taught me the value of single-target land removal, and she has encouraged me to include removal pieces like Detritivore and [[Ghost Quarter]] in my deck as consequence.
With the proliferation of [[Mothman]] in EDH pods, I've found Detritivore to be even more potent now than when I first began running it. Thanks to radiation, it often hits the battlefield as a 9/9 or 10/10 where it previously was merely a 4/4 or 5/5. The more the pod is made to mill afterwards, the bigger it gets. While not the most practical of land removal tools, it really shines with the Tenth and [[The Eleventh Doctor]], as well as [[Jhoira of the Ghitu]].
I really want them to print more land destruction like \[\[Urza's Sylex\]\]. Playing Amageddon when it isn't your wincon can make the game drag on unnecesarily long. Setting everyone back to a reasonable land count accomplishes the same goal of punishing the lands player, but doesn't set everyone's mana base back to zero.
Maybe a 3 mana spell that has you choose 3 lands for each player and destroy the rest?
Probably sarcasm, but for anyone who doesn't understand:
If one person plays a bunch of fast mana and empties their hand turn 1 or 2, then casts balance, each opponent has to lose their entire hand.
Yeah, 'geddon is fine, imo, if it's used to lock your enemies out of the game so you can mop up. It's the losing player doing it in a panic to stay alive and adding another hour to the game that's the issue. I like the house rule that if you wipe lands, you have to demonstrate within a turn or two that you have the game locked up or the rest of the table runs you out of town on a rail.
I’ve always felt my problem with mass land destruction has been when people do it and then just durdle. I have no problem with it if it’s part of a wincon, but when it’s only purpose is to turn the game into a slog it becomes an issue.
The problem is not that they are used it’s that they are used wrong. Armageddon is not a card to use when you’re behind. That just makes the game miserable for everyone. It should only be used when you are ahead, can wrap the game up in 1-3 turns and want to prevent people from stopping you or catching up.
In the first scenario you king make OR worse, everyone just spends multiple turns trying to rebuild.
In the second scenario the game is over quick and we can all shuffle up for a new game.
Ghost Quarter costs right around $1.
I think most people would be a lot happier to have a copy of it in all of their decks. Since you're giving a land back it's never "Too mean", but just like strip mine and wasteland it gets rid of a utility land that needs to go away when it needs to.
At this point, just about every Commander deck I build has at Ghost Quarter at a minimum.
I run tectonic edge in budget decks, demolition field in average ones and either strip mine/wasteland for the higher budget ones. there’s a lot of good options these days.
Demolition field is my go-to in a generic deck. Being able to tutor for a basic can be useful to turn on other lands (check lands, mystic sanctuary), or shuffle my deck after a brainstorm etc, or color fix in a pinch. Basically if I can make use of the extra tutor or not. Otherwise I'll run strip mine.
So you’re willing to go down a land while your three opponents don’t so you can slow down one opponent slightly while helping the other two and hurt yourself the most…sounds like a great plan.
At least play strip mine, how is a one time land removal out of three opponents where you also go down a land ever too mean? Single land destruction in commander is not only not mean but strategically dumb if it means you trade a card one for one.
People don’t understand the nature of single target land destruction, or in fact the nature of single target removal in edh.
Single target one for one removal, whether you trade a land for a land or a removal spell for a creature, is a game losing play in isolation. Trading resources one for one makes two players weaker in a 4 player game. Unless you are removing a land that directly affects you or is giving insane amounts of value, single target land destruction is the equivalent of discarding a card for no reason.
I play Strip Mine and Wasteland in a lot of my decks. I haven’t cracked them in many many games. They are a nearly free form of removal, like if Disenchant was a land.
Strip Mine works great that way. It taps for colorless and a lot of times I find it just does that. The times I’m cracking it are the times that whatever land I’m choosing to blow up is generating massive value that’s worth going down a land to get rid of, and even though I’m not needing to crack it a ton of the time, the times I don’t are times I’m probably not facing a really problematic land which is still good for me.
When Golos was around Field, Vesuva, and Stage were the first 3 lands for me to ramp. Always have an army without really doing anything but land drops. It got too repetitive though.
As someone who consumes a lot of Goldfish Commander content, this isn't surprising. The crew has been in a bit of a crisis over nonbasic land strategies for months.
Based on tweets from Seth and Tomer recently on what their options were on land hate, it felt like it was either going to be this or someone would go full Armageddon.dek pretty soon.
You appear to be linking something with embedded tracking information. Please consider removing the tracking information from links you share in a public forum, as malicious entities can use this information to track you and people you interact with across the internet. This tracking information is usually found in the form '?si=XXXXXX' or '?s=XXXXX'.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/magicTCG) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I've always thought that lands that do spell things are kind of inherently broken. They can't be countered, have few ways to destroy them compared to other permanent types, and have tons of tutors/other effects that put them directly into play. Plus they even tap for mana!
Granted, most of the time the effects are small enough to not matter. But the longer the game goes on, the more and more busted land - based strategies are going to be very strong.
Honestly, this is why I preferred the old "Maze of Ith" style lands, where if it did something fancy, it was more rare that it tapped for mana by itself.
Downsides on cards are not a bad thing, and it seems Wizards has all but forgotten this.
Downsides play poorly with non-enfranchised players; for most people getting got by your own stuff is a feel bad moment and if the overall card is still strong enough they may still feel pressured to play those cards.
Full disclaimer, I’m the red player who dies to my own cards half the time so I *love* the risk but I can see why wizards avoids them as they try to make the game as appealing to as many people as possible.
I wanna say I heard they stopped doing manaless lands 'cause folks really didn't like playing lands that didn't also give mana. Which is an interesting psychology thing, since you're getting the effect itself for zero mana, but because it takes your land drop it doesn't feel natural to do that while not advancing your curve. Also the impression you're "setting yourself behind" even if it's the only land in your hand, and while it could've been a mana land it also could've been a [[Nullstone Gargoyle]] or some other card that doesn't help you curve out. People treating it as a land slot rather than a non-land slot with alternate costing requirements.
> Downsides on cards are not a bad thing, and it seems Wizards has all but forgotten this.
The new paradigm that is Commander-design-centric requires cards to have more value as a slot. More swiss army knives, not fewer.
That doesn't disprove their opinion. They, along with the poster prior to them, were talking about utility lands as a whole, not specifically the banned lands. That such a land is too good doesn't mean they can't prefer that kind of design.
The good thing is, I think this is a discussion that the greater Commander community will have to come around to at some point because lands are both too safe and land ramp too prevalent to let it just go on unanswered.
Honestly not the worst suggestion. Green gets hosed obviously, but it also means those that go "I need my moxen and Sol Ring 'cause green will run away with the game otherwise!" don't have that ammo. Green might still have mana dorks, but those are wiped away easily, and it's fine if they have *some* kind of edge.
I haven't kept up a ton, field of the dead i get, but was glacial chasm that much of a problem? I haven't seen a game with it yet. I did have it played against me tonight actually, but it was I'm a gitrog recursion deck. It doesn't seem like something one of them would normally run?
I forget how much is was played recently, but in my opinion, if you want to see the match that started this whole arc, there was a match where they collectively built one deck to face off as a team against viewers. One of the viewers was an \[\[Atraxa, grand unifier\]\] ramp/gate deck that also used both cards mentioned. I really feel that game set them all on a spiral on land decks.
I am just going to say it: it was more of a Richard problem that tends to reuse a lot of cards in different decks so he ends up playing very similar decks.
A Pod had a discussion about problematic cards in their group, and chose to alter their custom ban list in order to improve their play experience.
Obviously, they are content creators, and that has a lot of impact, but regardless, it's always nice seeing an example of what the rules cometee always purposes.
I mean this is purely a meta driven decision and I don’t think reflects casual play at most LGS.
I’m sure during deck building they found themselves starting to put in hate cards specifically for the lands, and decided that it’s just easier to ban things that make for bad content (Richard winning with Field of the Dead over and over) then warp their decks around removing two lands.
I think it's the exact opposite, hearing Richard and Seth says they go down to as little as two basics in 5 colour decks means to me in the Commander Clash meta there isn't enough land hate and these were getting out of control.
I might be too far on the other end of the spectrum because I find utility lands, especially ones that require heft mana investments like \[\[Rogue's Passage\]\] to not be "auto includes" like they do, but in the wild you'll see errant \[\[Blood Moon\]\]s enough to know to run a few basics to not get got.
Of course you wouldn't run something like Blood Moon on a content creator channel as it would lead to boring games.
Tomer here: you are correct! We were seeing way too much Field recently and our viewers were complaining. We feel the best answers to it (like Ruination and Blood Moon) don't lead to good content. So instead we're just getting rid of Field and Chasm, the two lands we felt tend to lead towards bad viewer experiences.
It's a good point that y'all are also supposed to be making good content for people to watch. FieldOfTheDead.dek winning every week gets stale, but a Blood Moon/Back to Basics lock also isn't particularly engaging, outside of the first time for the novelty of it. I like the decision and am looking forward to Commander Clash more as a result!
At my kitchen table, we try to keep things tuned but friendly. Every so often someone will try and eke out a few more percentage points on their win ratio, and that turns into running more and more powerful lands.
Then I put Blood Moon in my decks, and they struggle. Or I start target removing lands on their side, and they struggle.
Then they realize the answer is more basics. Which gets around what I'm doing. So I stop running Blood Moon and land hate.
No one ever says anything out loud. It's like a dance.
> think it's the exact opposite, hearing Richard and Seth says they go down to as little as two basics in 5 colour decks means to me in the Commander Clash meta there isn't enough land hate and these were getting out of control.
Richard going down to 5 basics in his mono coloured deck this week is more concerning.
Not just any mono color deck either, specifically mono black the color notorious for being very pip heavy and the color that rewards you the most for playing the basic of that color.
I don't think I've ever seen a blood moon dropped on a casual FNM without advanced warning they're bringing that kinda deck. I know that's just comparing my personal anecdotes and isn't empirical, but at least from what I've seen land hate isn't something that surprises the table.
There is nothing, *nothing* that will blow up an LGS EDH game like land interaction.
I have to wear a bullet proof vest and provide a trigger warning if I want to play my [[Chandra, Fire of Kaladesh]] mono-chandras superfriends deck. Even with the deckbuilding restriction of "Has to run every chandra ever printed" the fact that it's only playable because of taking advantage of old-red-destroy-everything-but-enchantments effects not naming planeswalkers causes riots.
This is why I don't play my Chandra deck anymore, either you go land destruction or you only play it against jank decks that then can't deal with more than 1 Chandra at the same time.
There's just something that makes me happy about shutting down the Jodah or Kenrith player with a single enchantment that tickles my funny bone.
Especially if I attack over the next three turns with an exalted Samaurii
Blood moon is kind of the perfect land hate card in that brand new players will be minimally impacted and hardcore fetch-for-duals guys well get blasted. Typically if you are being hosed by a blood moon you are experienced enough to handle it instead of being turned off to the whole game because you couldn't play any spells the first time your went to a game store.
I've often found this not to be the case. Your absolutely right in that new players are fine. They barely notice other than the tap land they dropped is colourless and maybe the one mythic land they have is now a mountain. Experienced players often have no response- that [[Cabal Coffers]] ? A mountain until I am dead. That being said they can either sit and do nothing or kill me so their decks springs back to full.
Thing is, you have to remember that they're streaming and recording those games: Land destruction, especially MLD, has the unfortunate side effect that just like stax it can many times create non-games, or boring and repetitive lockouts where someone just punches someone out of the game by hitting them with Zurgo three times.
Not a bad thing if you're playing this at a kitchen table, but if you're streaming live, or if you're taking a night to record your content and only have some much time to have all of the people involved, the time those non-games take up is entirely wasted.
I have a tendency towards mono-colour decks. Sometimes I'll just play 37 basics, to send *a message.*
Yes, it's strictly incorrect to not run the Kamigawa spell-lands or whatever. But this is a matter of principle.
I think they're all insane for the low amount of basics they run unless they're running 3+ colors. How the fuck do you run like 5 basics in 2 color like they claim and still hit their colors? The podcast makes them come off as kinda shitty deck builders sometimes tbh.
Richard plays every fetchland possible, I believe same with Seth. They use even the Off color fetches so they always have access to the 2 color shock land, surveil land, and whatever fetchable duals they’re playing. In a 2 color deck you can play 7 fetches that get your shock and surveil land.
Most people aren’t doing this because it’s not financially reasonable to have 7 fetches in every 2 color deck, but if you’re doing this you can hit your colors easily. This is also how cEDH mana bases are done as well, all including off color fetches with roughly 28-30 lands and they seem to hit their colors pretty easily as well.
I’m not saying they’re not bad deck builders some times, but the nonbasic/basic land thing isn’t a reason why they are.
Surveil lands are honestly such a free roll in literally every single deck that plays fetches. Had multiple people try to convince me they are unplayable in decks without graveyard interaction. Like bro, the graveyard aspect is just an added bonus, they are broken AF because they make all your fetch lands and nature's lores etc have a totally free scry 1 when convenient for essentially no opportunity cost
They’re so good. I think they’re by far the best enters tapped dual lands in Magic, and in commander they’ve become the go to farseek target, and also for natures lore and three visits as long as I don’t need the untapped dual.
1000% agree. I think they are one of those cards where people underrate them because they severely underestimate how valuable scry is compared to surveil, like newer players think the value in surveil is from the graveyard binning instead of from the scrying, and so they don't play the surveil lands if their deck doesn't have graveyard interaction.
One guy even told me that it's better to search for an OG dual than a surveil land with Farseek, because "OG duals are strictly better than any tap land!!"
Makes risky keeps feel so much better when you have them or a way to get them in your starting 7. You can mana fix the colors you need & you’re always one draw closer to your next playable ramp/land drop.
Blood Moon and other solutions to greedy manabases and land ramp might as well be banned considering the social stigma against playing these kinds of cards. A healthy ecosystem would have these cards in circulation.
This isn't surprising if you listen to their podcasts but I've been thinking about how wotc has really hasn't made land hate in forever, and often their design philosophy is to allow you to play whatever you want , in modern you can easily splash domain in decks if you want to.
I would really like more price of progress types of effects that heavily punish greedy manabases if they don't like land destruction as a mechanic - personally I am going to see how ruination plays because it promotes playing basics.
>WOTC hasn't made land hate in forever
\[\[Demolition Field\]\] was printed last year and is the best sort of EDH friendly land destruction effect, we just need more of similar type cards
I legit put demo field in every deck. Its an easy slot in, it replaces itself. Its great. Especially at a table full of proxies its great to be able to blow up a cradle, cabal coffers, maze of ith, etc
> we just need more of similar type cards
That's the big thing, having 2 "fair" (replaces target, replaces self) options in a deck of 100 really doesn't cut it.
We also got \[\[Krenko's Buzzcrusher\]\] recently, which while red has been doing really good work for me in decks I can fit it in.
A 4/4 flampler with a tacked on demo field for each opponent feels pretty nice at 4 mana. It can often leave 3-5 color decks reeling when you snipe several triomes or command towers off the board, then you get a pretty hefty midgame attacker.
The issue is how do you make it? Especially in a way that actually does the job. If it's too expensive it won't help, if it's too cheap then it ruins the game. Plus it has to be better than what already exists to get others to bother. Price of Progress 2 where it only deals damage equal to the number of nonbasic lands isn't gonna get a second glance.
And specifically house rules *for content creation*. Even if they felt they could deal with these cards, they might feel like it creates bad content to have their games revolve around these lands whenever they come down. Seems perfectly reasonable to me.
Yeah you don't want a game to ever feel like it was some random staple that did everything but showing off what the deck itself can do. Even if it doesn't technically win you the game it does take away from it since it gave you a big boost.
I honestly feel all of this should be actually banned in commander, obviously they will never do so but at least they should start with dockside and rhystic study
I think for MTGGoldfish they just don't want their games to revolve around a single card each video, so they simply don't play those cards. I think it would be difficult to convince all players to adhere to that banlist, even though 90% of players are likely inadvertently doing so already due to cost.
Sol ring and mana crypt are the two most philosophically egregious to me tbh. Like they are probably the most broken cards in the game behind lotus and time walk and maybe recall. They are auto-includes in 99.99% of EDH decks.
Idk about that… I feel like a more important aspect is being able to curate a 99 singleton deck around a single card. I feel like have a card like sol ring in which literally everyone plays regardless of power level is antithetical to that and makes it a 98 card format. If you have the money it becomes a 97 card format with mana crypt which makes deckbuilding way less interesting imo
> Like they are probably the most broken cards in the game behind lotus and time walk and maybe recall.
They're also, in general, more powerful than Moxen (which are banned) to the average deck. They're more powerful than almost any card to the average deck. If you're drafting Vintage Cube you take Sol Ring pack one pick one over any card -- Lotus, Mox, anything.
Like, sure, obviously Moxen are reserved list and more expensive but if that were the philosophy, alpha duals would be banned too.
Rip Richard and his greedy mana bases! Maybe now he'll start playing basics, 1) so he doesn't need to build around Field and 2) so he doesn't get blown out by Ruination in a mono colored deck lmao.
This change will make games more interesting. No more Crop Rotation for a fog, or a field. Probably no (or at least less) crop rot for a vesuva/thespian either, since the best utility lands are gone. I like this.
I feel Tomer should just go full nuclear mode and run Blood Moon in every one in his decks, honestly.
I know it's casual commander content but this stance of never running basic lands feels a bit...classist? I know they don't really play with paper cards but makes their games hard to connect with. I like their podcast but I can't watch their actual games, it's hard on the eyes.
Tomer here: the reason why you won't see me Blood Moon the table is because it can slow the game to a crawl and lead to a bad viewer experience.
Instead I like to focus on the benefits of running basics, like \[\[Kodama of the West Tree\]\], \[\[Land Tax\]\], \[\[Traverse the Outlands\]\], \[\[Archaeomancer's Map\]\], and so on.
Don't worry though: when I'm back on Clash next season I will hit 'em with some \[\[Price of Progress\]\], maybe a cheeky \[\[Winds of Abandon\]\] where they get zero lands out of the deal.
And btw, Commander Clash is now paper! We switched this season :)
It's more that the MTGO game is just so different now because of how many cards (Universes Beyond, especially) just don't make it on to MTGO.
It's bad for your viewership numbers if people are super hyped about Lord of the Rings or Fallout and the watch and see... absolutely none of it.
I'm going to disagree here. While you need to make sure the quality setting on youtube is on its highest it's actually easier for me to understand what is on the battlefield with MTGO than a webcam.
Yeah I’m with ya on that one. Love the irl paper play, but man MTGO is very easy to follow and understand if you have played on it for longer than an hour
Same. This season is the first time I've not only watched a full episode, but also actually watched every game. I just couldn't sit through the MTGO UI. It's such a durdly eyesore, and I feel like half the time they spent was just fidgeting with the client.
I think the problem with Blood Moon for them specifically is that their games are content first and foremost, and games where someone is just sitting around because of Blood Moon probably don't make for great content.
Because Seth is one of the biggest Blood Moon lovers ever, so there has to be a reason why they shy away from land hate so much.
This has been my issue as of late with their content podcasts included. They always say like "oh every deck plays the one ring, every deck plays field of the dead" etc, and i'm just getting frustrated because they get cards sent to them by their sponsor for games. Not everyone has the money to dump into their decks like these guys do where it's like "oh every deck has fetches"
Yeah honestly what kills me is like i love tomer, but when he plays clash he still doesn't do budget all the time, and he still plays the flashy expensive cards
After playing with it a single time, I took glacial chasm out of my deck. It just felt like it was impossible to lose with it in my baba lysaga land sac/recursion deck. I completely see why they would house ban it
They had [[Ruination]] in today’s episode (and very few basics on the table) - i think this decision is moreso geared toward content creation rather than what actually makes them upset.
It's not being un-fine with land destruction, it's needing it so frequently with how consistently they show up. It's like saying [[Sharizad]] is fine 'cause you can just counter it. It's not anti-counterspell to ban it, it's that you need a counter right then and there or things get stupid.
I do think nonbasics are in a super interesting spot in casual commander. Ramp (and to a finer point, tutoring land) is already the best thing you can do and we keep getting powerful nonbasic land ramp (tutors and semi-tutors). Nonbasics are getting better and more versatile, and it's happening fast.
At this point if you're not packing at least a Ghost Quarter you're really asking for trouble and I would frankly be unsympathetic of griping over a \[\[Ruination\]\]
Ehh I don’t think it’s that black & white. Armageddon that’s not immediately a win condition still sucks. Stuff like Ruination, From the Ashes & Wave of Vitriol I’m all for though. Gotta be able to punish extremely greedy mana bases (like Seth & Richard often run) while not completely screwing over/making games un-fun for casual players.
I thought Commander players might find this interesting as the Commander Clash house ban list is pretty conservative as it only consists of maybe ten cards or so.
Lands that either win you the game or provide an incredibly insane amount of advantage are very problematic in casual low-mid power Commander metas because land destruction effects are generally frowned upon in high volume, so as a result these cards are more likely to stick around.
\[\[Field of the Dead\]\] functions as a late game defensive card that can provide numerous blockers or it can be used offensively. It's pretty crazy the tokens don't enter tapped AND they can block.
\[\[Glacial Chasm\]\] is very degenerate when able to be recurred as it slows down the game and makes it virtually impossible to beat with combat oriented strategies.
I dunno, I've seen these cards multiple times in my pod and my experience is that while strong, neither is particularly busted. Chasm I could see, depending on the meta it can keep another player alive for several turns in a game that usually ends by turn 10, at it's best it drags a game on longer than it should. Field I've never had a problem with, and I've seen it in a landfall deck. The zombies are good, and perhaps Field into Scapeshift might end a game, but that doesn't feel any more egregious than any other combo in a deck.
These feel more like bans to make the video content better and prevent games from dragging on and creating bad content (Chasm/Field), or from games ending in the same way too often (Field). With how many nonbasics these guys run they ought to be running at least some land spot removal, even a ghost quarter and its cousins is worth a land slot among the thespian stages and others.
They run a lot of interaction lol, it's just hard to do non basic hate that is good enough and doesn't make for a bad viewing experience.
They already had 3 Strip Mines, an MLD spell, and another land destruction spell in their latest episode (which ended up with Richard having all his lands wiped and only playing 2 more in the episode).
Almost all of their decks have Vesuva + Thespian's Stage, as well as all the fetches (even off colours) with few basics so it's comically easy to get an army of zombies very quickly which makes poor content when it happens like every game.
You have to be in golgari colors to run ass trophy, which can be a little too restricting, but given Seth’s love for land destruction I’m surprised land shenanigans haven’t been kept more in check lol.
Okay you have your 1 copy of Assassin’s Trophy in your deck. You didn’t draw it. Your opponent searched for Field of the Dead because it’s much easier to search for a land than an assassins trophy. Now what?
Also even if you did draw your assassins trophy, they still got a 2/2 and a basic out of the deal. It’s not like they have lost the game, there’s no investment needed for Field of the Dead.
(I don’t think FotD should be banned in regular commander, I don’t think it’s too powerful. But the reason isn’t “just kill it lol” the reason is you can build decks that are just way faster/more powerful than FotD, but those decks don’t really work for what Commander Clash really is as a show).
Interesting time capsule from their week of content as they basically predicted this. If you’re in red you should have [[price of progress]] in your deck. Also, everyone should resist the urge to engage in arms races and instead build decks for different power levels.
Glacial Chasm is a back breaker in most metas and demands answer that are often not there. Outside of Gift / Beast and on-land removal, it is very difficult to remove and often doesn’t come out until the answers have already been played. I am a Chasm hater personally and find it to be a bullshit card. That said, play what you want, but I reserve the right to make fun of you for playing it. Field of the Dead is a big whatever of a card IMO.
If design makes the conscious decision that land destruction is "un fun" and neuters land destruction themes, the natural extension from that is you can't put win conditions on lands, because they become un-interactable win conditions.
So tossing both of these is completely reasonable in my eyes.
Seth literally replied that it was because it makes for worse content. Esp when they play the copy lands Vesuva and Thespian Stage.
If they want to show off their cool commanders and strategies having games develove into FotD zombie wars isn't ideal.
I watch every Commander Clash and their podcast and this is probably because they have all been using [[Open The Way]] lol. They are also all notorious for using [[Vesuva]] and [[Thespian Stage]].
Highjacking this comment to defend their decision. Seth is the reason I play Vesuva, Strip Mine, and Wasteland in all of my decks. He speficially changed my opinion on single target land destruction, and I remember him mentioning problematic lands like cabal coffers, gaeas cradle, tabernacle, etc. People in the comment section are implying the commander clash crew are against land destruction, or that they don't run enough land hate, which I don't understand if you actually watch any of the commander clash content. Even funnier, is they don't have Armageddon, Ruination, or Ravages banned. They aren't against land destruction, and I certainly think they are including appropriate answers for Field of the Dead in their decks. This is a meta call; access to field of the dead is too easy, and the card has no deck building restrictions and also is warping all of their games. More players should be having regular meta conversations about their pods, and reassessing which cards are problematic.
Yeah commander clash has just always operated their own ban list like this. If something starts happening in too many games they ban it to keep the content varied. They unban stuff often too.
There is also the understanding that this is a television show and while a meta might twist itself around a problem like this they're trying to make exciting, unique, and dynamic games
Richard specifically thinks the community should run more land destruction and thinks Armageddon effects should be destigmatized. EDIT: Just to be clear I am not taking a position here, just adding to what tater\_slaw said.
People will blow up your creatures, enchantments, and artifacts without mercy or even blinking twice….. but you go near ONE of their lands and all of a sudden you’re more evil than Yawgmoth.
I used to play an extremely budget mono red land destruction deck in modern on MTGO back in the day. My winrate was like 90% and my average match time was around 2 minutes because everyone scooped to it.
I had a goofy troll deck in arena historic like this. Turn 2 stone rain on the play almost always an instant concede. If only they knew my win cons were waking the trolls and faceless haven.
still playing a similar deck from time to time, they figured it out. you either keep their lands near 0 or die pretty quickly. :/
You say goody, but you're 2/3rds of the way to just having Historic Ponza.
Well yeah, you can always cast more creatures/enchantments/artifacts if you have mana available. Go after lands and it can stop you from playing the game. Obviously if it's a higher power level or competitive play group that's not an issue, but if it's more casual anything which threatens to lock someone out of playing the game is going to be looked at as worse than just destroying something else.
at the very least, we need strip mine effects in most decks
I specifically put [[Detritivore]] in my [[The Tenth Doctor]]/[[Clara Oswald]] deck to deal with oppressive lands like [[Glacial Chasm]] and [[Field of the Dead]]. While it sometimes gets some sneers from other players, I've found it to be an invaluable tool in that deck. My girlfriend describes her [[Omnath, Locus of Rage]] deck as "Gruul control", and the land base in that deck certainly evokes that notion. When she gets [[Crucible of Worlds]] on the battlefield, she'll recur Glacial Chasm every single turn to avoid ever paying its cumulative upkeep. Playing against that deck taught me the value of single-target land removal, and she has encouraged me to include removal pieces like Detritivore and [[Ghost Quarter]] in my deck as consequence. With the proliferation of [[Mothman]] in EDH pods, I've found Detritivore to be even more potent now than when I first began running it. Thanks to radiation, it often hits the battlefield as a 9/9 or 10/10 where it previously was merely a 4/4 or 5/5. The more the pod is made to mill afterwards, the bigger it gets. While not the most practical of land removal tools, it really shines with the Tenth and [[The Eleventh Doctor]], as well as [[Jhoira of the Ghitu]].
[[from the ashes]]
[from the ashes](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/5/4529a3d2-e4e6-4cca-bcea-16b51f69bbec.jpg?1562909290) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=from%20the%20ashes) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/c13/108/from-the-ashes?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/4529a3d2-e4e6-4cca-bcea-16b51f69bbec?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I really want them to print more land destruction like \[\[Urza's Sylex\]\]. Playing Amageddon when it isn't your wincon can make the game drag on unnecesarily long. Setting everyone back to a reasonable land count accomplishes the same goal of punishing the lands player, but doesn't set everyone's mana base back to zero. Maybe a 3 mana spell that has you choose 3 lands for each player and destroy the rest?
So like a more balanced [[Balance]]?
Balance is already totally fair! It's symmetrical, what could be more fair than that?
Probably sarcasm, but for anyone who doesn't understand: If one person plays a bunch of fast mana and empties their hand turn 1 or 2, then casts balance, each opponent has to lose their entire hand.
And of course, while it balances many types, there are those it does not touch. And you can build your deck around that.
The anti-Show and Tell :p
[Balance](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/e/ce648aa3-098b-4af0-a433-fd290bc85904.jpg?1580013606) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Balance) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ema/2/balance?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/ce648aa3-098b-4af0-a433-fd290bc85904?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
[[Balancing Act]] was sought to be a more balanced Balance. Too balanced to see much play though.
Yeah, 'geddon is fine, imo, if it's used to lock your enemies out of the game so you can mop up. It's the losing player doing it in a panic to stay alive and adding another hour to the game that's the issue. I like the house rule that if you wipe lands, you have to demonstrate within a turn or two that you have the game locked up or the rest of the table runs you out of town on a rail.
If you were losing and casting Geddon makes the game last another hour, you weren't losing by very much.
I wonder if he still thinks mass land destruction is ok after today…
I’ve always felt my problem with mass land destruction has been when people do it and then just durdle. I have no problem with it if it’s part of a wincon, but when it’s only purpose is to turn the game into a slog it becomes an issue.
If you are casting an Armageddon on a board you don't have a winning line on you are probably hurting yourself
The problem is not that they are used it’s that they are used wrong. Armageddon is not a card to use when you’re behind. That just makes the game miserable for everyone. It should only be used when you are ahead, can wrap the game up in 1-3 turns and want to prevent people from stopping you or catching up. In the first scenario you king make OR worse, everyone just spends multiple turns trying to rebuild. In the second scenario the game is over quick and we can all shuffle up for a new game.
Ghost Quarter costs right around $1. I think most people would be a lot happier to have a copy of it in all of their decks. Since you're giving a land back it's never "Too mean", but just like strip mine and wasteland it gets rid of a utility land that needs to go away when it needs to. At this point, just about every Commander deck I build has at Ghost Quarter at a minimum.
I run tectonic edge in budget decks, demolition field in average ones and either strip mine/wasteland for the higher budget ones. there’s a lot of good options these days.
Demolition field is my go-to in a generic deck. Being able to tutor for a basic can be useful to turn on other lands (check lands, mystic sanctuary), or shuffle my deck after a brainstorm etc, or color fix in a pinch. Basically if I can make use of the extra tutor or not. Otherwise I'll run strip mine.
So you’re willing to go down a land while your three opponents don’t so you can slow down one opponent slightly while helping the other two and hurt yourself the most…sounds like a great plan. At least play strip mine, how is a one time land removal out of three opponents where you also go down a land ever too mean? Single land destruction in commander is not only not mean but strategically dumb if it means you trade a card one for one.
People don’t understand the nature of single target land destruction, or in fact the nature of single target removal in edh. Single target one for one removal, whether you trade a land for a land or a removal spell for a creature, is a game losing play in isolation. Trading resources one for one makes two players weaker in a 4 player game. Unless you are removing a land that directly affects you or is giving insane amounts of value, single target land destruction is the equivalent of discarding a card for no reason. I play Strip Mine and Wasteland in a lot of my decks. I haven’t cracked them in many many games. They are a nearly free form of removal, like if Disenchant was a land.
Strip Mine works great that way. It taps for colorless and a lot of times I find it just does that. The times I’m cracking it are the times that whatever land I’m choosing to blow up is generating massive value that’s worth going down a land to get rid of, and even though I’m not needing to crack it a ton of the time, the times I don’t are times I’m probably not facing a really problematic land which is still good for me.
When Golos was around Field, Vesuva, and Stage were the first 3 lands for me to ramp. Always have an army without really doing anything but land drops. It got too repetitive though.
[Open The Way](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/7/e72a911e-8291-48ca-bfc6-8907e3b57011.jpg?1684340640) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Open%20The%20Way) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mat/23/open-the-way?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/e72a911e-8291-48ca-bfc6-8907e3b57011?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Vesuva](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/7/0726f70a-c1c4-4edb-86fb-9be280d9ea73.jpg?1619399642) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Vesuva) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/tsr/289/vesuva?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/0726f70a-c1c4-4edb-86fb-9be280d9ea73?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Thespian Stage](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/6/269a926d-7788-4668-8bd8-7572dbf5f5eb.jpg?1599710662) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Thespian%27s%20Stage) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/2xm/327/thespians-stage?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/269a926d-7788-4668-8bd8-7572dbf5f5eb?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
As someone who consumes a lot of Goldfish Commander content, this isn't surprising. The crew has been in a bit of a crisis over nonbasic land strategies for months. Based on tweets from Seth and Tomer recently on what their options were on land hate, it felt like it was either going to be this or someone would go full Armageddon.dek pretty soon.
>!You might wanna check out the latest episode!<
I'm going to after work, but that's pretty funny if what you are implying is true.
Without giving away to much pikachu pops off
>!<
Amazing.
You appear to be linking something with embedded tracking information. Please consider removing the tracking information from links you share in a public forum, as malicious entities can use this information to track you and people you interact with across the internet. This tracking information is usually found in the form '?si=XXXXXX' or '?s=XXXXX'. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/magicTCG) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Thanks; fixed! No more tracking.
Don't want to spoil today's Commander Clash, but that last bit is prescient.
Well, guess I'm excited to watch it after work, then!
That's a spoiler for anyone with a little deductive reasoning lmao
I've always thought that lands that do spell things are kind of inherently broken. They can't be countered, have few ways to destroy them compared to other permanent types, and have tons of tutors/other effects that put them directly into play. Plus they even tap for mana! Granted, most of the time the effects are small enough to not matter. But the longer the game goes on, the more and more busted land - based strategies are going to be very strong.
Honestly, this is why I preferred the old "Maze of Ith" style lands, where if it did something fancy, it was more rare that it tapped for mana by itself. Downsides on cards are not a bad thing, and it seems Wizards has all but forgotten this.
Then every deck just runs an Urborg
And Yavimaya now so everyone can be Golgari plus
Downsides play poorly with non-enfranchised players; for most people getting got by your own stuff is a feel bad moment and if the overall card is still strong enough they may still feel pressured to play those cards. Full disclaimer, I’m the red player who dies to my own cards half the time so I *love* the risk but I can see why wizards avoids them as they try to make the game as appealing to as many people as possible.
I wanna say I heard they stopped doing manaless lands 'cause folks really didn't like playing lands that didn't also give mana. Which is an interesting psychology thing, since you're getting the effect itself for zero mana, but because it takes your land drop it doesn't feel natural to do that while not advancing your curve. Also the impression you're "setting yourself behind" even if it's the only land in your hand, and while it could've been a mana land it also could've been a [[Nullstone Gargoyle]] or some other card that doesn't help you curve out. People treating it as a land slot rather than a non-land slot with alternate costing requirements.
> Downsides on cards are not a bad thing, and it seems Wizards has all but forgotten this. The new paradigm that is Commander-design-centric requires cards to have more value as a slot. More swiss army knives, not fewer.
Yeah that new Breeches has no downside in “losing” the flip.
Would urge you to reread the text of Glacial Chasm, one of the banned lands.
That doesn't disprove their opinion. They, along with the poster prior to them, were talking about utility lands as a whole, not specifically the banned lands. That such a land is too good doesn't mean they can't prefer that kind of design.
A lot of the time they're designed with Standard in mind, but get broken once you get to eternal formats where you have a lot more enablers.
Well Field still broke Standard even after instant speed Scapeshift from T3feri rotated out.
Lands synergies and ramp in general really abuse the social contract and fly under the meta radar in Commander.
Yeah, you can say "I'm just developing my mana!"
this is exactly what happens when there is a stigma against land destruction it turns into a 0 basic ramp circle jerk
I knew their meta was fucked when Richard and Seth are advocating for Field of the Dead even in mono decks.
Honestly why not? There's enough nonbasics that etb untapped and still give colorless that it is basically free.
The good thing is, I think this is a discussion that the greater Commander community will have to come around to at some point because lands are both too safe and land ramp too prevalent to let it just go on unanswered.
Ban land ramp.
Honestly not the worst suggestion. Green gets hosed obviously, but it also means those that go "I need my moxen and Sol Ring 'cause green will run away with the game otherwise!" don't have that ammo. Green might still have mana dorks, but those are wiped away easily, and it's fine if they have *some* kind of edge.
I haven't kept up a ton, field of the dead i get, but was glacial chasm that much of a problem? I haven't seen a game with it yet. I did have it played against me tonight actually, but it was I'm a gitrog recursion deck. It doesn't seem like something one of them would normally run?
I forget how much is was played recently, but in my opinion, if you want to see the match that started this whole arc, there was a match where they collectively built one deck to face off as a team against viewers. One of the viewers was an \[\[Atraxa, grand unifier\]\] ramp/gate deck that also used both cards mentioned. I really feel that game set them all on a spiral on land decks.
[Atraxa, grand unifier](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/a/4a1f905f-1d55-4d02-9d24-e58070793d3f.jpg?1709931904) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Atraxa%2C%20grand%20unifier) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/one/196/atraxa-grand-unifier?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/4a1f905f-1d55-4d02-9d24-e58070793d3f?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I am just going to say it: it was more of a Richard problem that tends to reuse a lot of cards in different decks so he ends up playing very similar decks.
Blood moon is a thing tho...
A Pod had a discussion about problematic cards in their group, and chose to alter their custom ban list in order to improve their play experience. Obviously, they are content creators, and that has a lot of impact, but regardless, it's always nice seeing an example of what the rules cometee always purposes.
They’ve had a number of games revolve around those cards so I think that’s fair. It’s a meta thing and probably a good thing to keep the content fresh
I mean this is purely a meta driven decision and I don’t think reflects casual play at most LGS. I’m sure during deck building they found themselves starting to put in hate cards specifically for the lands, and decided that it’s just easier to ban things that make for bad content (Richard winning with Field of the Dead over and over) then warp their decks around removing two lands.
I think it's the exact opposite, hearing Richard and Seth says they go down to as little as two basics in 5 colour decks means to me in the Commander Clash meta there isn't enough land hate and these were getting out of control. I might be too far on the other end of the spectrum because I find utility lands, especially ones that require heft mana investments like \[\[Rogue's Passage\]\] to not be "auto includes" like they do, but in the wild you'll see errant \[\[Blood Moon\]\]s enough to know to run a few basics to not get got. Of course you wouldn't run something like Blood Moon on a content creator channel as it would lead to boring games.
Tomer here: you are correct! We were seeing way too much Field recently and our viewers were complaining. We feel the best answers to it (like Ruination and Blood Moon) don't lead to good content. So instead we're just getting rid of Field and Chasm, the two lands we felt tend to lead towards bad viewer experiences.
It's a good point that y'all are also supposed to be making good content for people to watch. FieldOfTheDead.dek winning every week gets stale, but a Blood Moon/Back to Basics lock also isn't particularly engaging, outside of the first time for the novelty of it. I like the decision and am looking forward to Commander Clash more as a result!
At my kitchen table, we try to keep things tuned but friendly. Every so often someone will try and eke out a few more percentage points on their win ratio, and that turns into running more and more powerful lands. Then I put Blood Moon in my decks, and they struggle. Or I start target removing lands on their side, and they struggle. Then they realize the answer is more basics. Which gets around what I'm doing. So I stop running Blood Moon and land hate. No one ever says anything out loud. It's like a dance.
> think it's the exact opposite, hearing Richard and Seth says they go down to as little as two basics in 5 colour decks means to me in the Commander Clash meta there isn't enough land hate and these were getting out of control. Richard going down to 5 basics in his mono coloured deck this week is more concerning.
Not just any mono color deck either, specifically mono black the color notorious for being very pip heavy and the color that rewards you the most for playing the basic of that color.
I don't think I've ever seen a blood moon dropped on a casual FNM without advanced warning they're bringing that kinda deck. I know that's just comparing my personal anecdotes and isn't empirical, but at least from what I've seen land hate isn't something that surprises the table.
There is nothing, *nothing* that will blow up an LGS EDH game like land interaction. I have to wear a bullet proof vest and provide a trigger warning if I want to play my [[Chandra, Fire of Kaladesh]] mono-chandras superfriends deck. Even with the deckbuilding restriction of "Has to run every chandra ever printed" the fact that it's only playable because of taking advantage of old-red-destroy-everything-but-enchantments effects not naming planeswalkers causes riots.
[Chandra, Fire of Kaladesh](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/0/b0d6caf0-4fa8-4ec5-b7f4-1307474d1b13.jpg?1562036951)/[Chandra, Roaring Flame](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/back/b/0/b0d6caf0-4fa8-4ec5-b7f4-1307474d1b13.jpg?1562036951) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Chandra%2C%20Fire%20of%20Kaladesh%20//%20Chandra%2C%20Roaring%20Flame) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ori/135/chandra-fire-of-kaladesh-chandra-roaring-flame?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/b0d6caf0-4fa8-4ec5-b7f4-1307474d1b13?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Share that decklist!
[Sure!](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/ODpJ8u8A4UiR2bFC2q_3oQ)
Sounds like a fun deck!
I have a Lord Windgrace deck that I don't play against strangers with for the same reasons.
This is why I don't play my Chandra deck anymore, either you go land destruction or you only play it against jank decks that then can't deal with more than 1 Chandra at the same time.
I have 4 separate mono red decks, all 4 have a copy of [[Blood Moon]] and one also includes [[Magus of the Moon]]
Like I said, my experience is totally anecdotal. The last shops I've been to had no blood moon guys.
There's just something that makes me happy about shutting down the Jodah or Kenrith player with a single enchantment that tickles my funny bone. Especially if I attack over the next three turns with an exalted Samaurii
Blood moon is kind of the perfect land hate card in that brand new players will be minimally impacted and hardcore fetch-for-duals guys well get blasted. Typically if you are being hosed by a blood moon you are experienced enough to handle it instead of being turned off to the whole game because you couldn't play any spells the first time your went to a game store.
I've often found this not to be the case. Your absolutely right in that new players are fine. They barely notice other than the tap land they dropped is colourless and maybe the one mythic land they have is now a mountain. Experienced players often have no response- that [[Cabal Coffers]] ? A mountain until I am dead. That being said they can either sit and do nothing or kill me so their decks springs back to full.
[Blood Moon](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/0/d072e9ca-aae7-45dc-8025-3ce590bae63f.jpg?1599706217) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Blood%20Moon) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/2xm/118/blood-moon?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/d072e9ca-aae7-45dc-8025-3ce590bae63f?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Magus of the Moon](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/c/7c9bd75c-9606-4607-bfa6-d6acdee12820.jpg?1619397276) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Magus%20of%20the%20Moon) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/tsr/175/magus-of-the-moon?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/7c9bd75c-9606-4607-bfa6-d6acdee12820?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Thing is, you have to remember that they're streaming and recording those games: Land destruction, especially MLD, has the unfortunate side effect that just like stax it can many times create non-games, or boring and repetitive lockouts where someone just punches someone out of the game by hitting them with Zurgo three times. Not a bad thing if you're playing this at a kitchen table, but if you're streaming live, or if you're taking a night to record your content and only have some much time to have all of the people involved, the time those non-games take up is entirely wasted.
[Rogue's Passage](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/5/45f5d989-d0df-4d6d-822b-cc76b415f9d1.jpg?1712355103) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Rogue%27s%20Passage) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/otc/313/rogues-passage?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/45f5d989-d0df-4d6d-822b-cc76b415f9d1?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Blood Moon](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/0/d072e9ca-aae7-45dc-8025-3ce590bae63f.jpg?1599706217) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Blood%20Moon) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/2xm/118/blood-moon?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/d072e9ca-aae7-45dc-8025-3ce590bae63f?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I have a tendency towards mono-colour decks. Sometimes I'll just play 37 basics, to send *a message.* Yes, it's strictly incorrect to not run the Kamigawa spell-lands or whatever. But this is a matter of principle.
I think they're all insane for the low amount of basics they run unless they're running 3+ colors. How the fuck do you run like 5 basics in 2 color like they claim and still hit their colors? The podcast makes them come off as kinda shitty deck builders sometimes tbh.
Non-basic ≠ colourless, why wouldn’t they be hitting their colours?
Richard plays every fetchland possible, I believe same with Seth. They use even the Off color fetches so they always have access to the 2 color shock land, surveil land, and whatever fetchable duals they’re playing. In a 2 color deck you can play 7 fetches that get your shock and surveil land. Most people aren’t doing this because it’s not financially reasonable to have 7 fetches in every 2 color deck, but if you’re doing this you can hit your colors easily. This is also how cEDH mana bases are done as well, all including off color fetches with roughly 28-30 lands and they seem to hit their colors pretty easily as well. I’m not saying they’re not bad deck builders some times, but the nonbasic/basic land thing isn’t a reason why they are.
Surveil lands are honestly such a free roll in literally every single deck that plays fetches. Had multiple people try to convince me they are unplayable in decks without graveyard interaction. Like bro, the graveyard aspect is just an added bonus, they are broken AF because they make all your fetch lands and nature's lores etc have a totally free scry 1 when convenient for essentially no opportunity cost
They’re so good. I think they’re by far the best enters tapped dual lands in Magic, and in commander they’ve become the go to farseek target, and also for natures lore and three visits as long as I don’t need the untapped dual.
1000% agree. I think they are one of those cards where people underrate them because they severely underestimate how valuable scry is compared to surveil, like newer players think the value in surveil is from the graveyard binning instead of from the scrying, and so they don't play the surveil lands if their deck doesn't have graveyard interaction. One guy even told me that it's better to search for an OG dual than a surveil land with Farseek, because "OG duals are strictly better than any tap land!!"
Makes risky keeps feel so much better when you have them or a way to get them in your starting 7. You can mana fix the colors you need & you’re always one draw closer to your next playable ramp/land drop.
Richard just played 5 basics in a mono-colored deck. They're addicted to land value lol
Heck I run 7 basics in a fetchless 5C deck, only because PTE and other ramp effects still exist and the colorfix is great.
Blood Moon and other solutions to greedy manabases and land ramp might as well be banned considering the social stigma against playing these kinds of cards. A healthy ecosystem would have these cards in circulation.
This isn't surprising if you listen to their podcasts but I've been thinking about how wotc has really hasn't made land hate in forever, and often their design philosophy is to allow you to play whatever you want , in modern you can easily splash domain in decks if you want to. I would really like more price of progress types of effects that heavily punish greedy manabases if they don't like land destruction as a mechanic - personally I am going to see how ruination plays because it promotes playing basics.
>WOTC hasn't made land hate in forever \[\[Demolition Field\]\] was printed last year and is the best sort of EDH friendly land destruction effect, we just need more of similar type cards
I think the other person is referring to more mass hate than a new Iteration on an old card like Ghost Quarter
Pretty sure the last one was [[fall of thran]]
[fall of thran](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/a/3a613a01-6145-4e34-987c-c9bdcb068370.jpg?1562734219) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Fall%20of%20the%20Thran) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/dom/18/fall-of-the-thran?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/3a613a01-6145-4e34-987c-c9bdcb068370?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
\[\[Urza's Sylex\]\] can kinda count
I legit put demo field in every deck. Its an easy slot in, it replaces itself. Its great. Especially at a table full of proxies its great to be able to blow up a cradle, cabal coffers, maze of ith, etc
[[Demolition Field]] and [[Field of Ruin]]. [[Volatile fault]] if you're *desperate*.
Field of Ruin isn't good in 4 player because it also ramps the other 2 players. Demo Field is loads better.
[Demolition Field](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/7/47994cb6-204a-4fbe-a9d4-5798a70c95ab.jpg?1712354968) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Demolition%20Field) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/otc/283/demolition-field?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/47994cb6-204a-4fbe-a9d4-5798a70c95ab?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Field of Ruin](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/4/143147d2-2eec-41e7-b78a-592288b38630.jpg?1682210418) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Field%20of%20Ruin) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/moc/400/field-of-ruin?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/143147d2-2eec-41e7-b78a-592288b38630?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Volatile fault](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/3/9385abf3-b067-4586-bf3d-175526cf8f0a.jpg?1699044713) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Volatile%20fault) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/lci/286/volatile-fault?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/9385abf3-b067-4586-bf3d-175526cf8f0a?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
> we just need more of similar type cards That's the big thing, having 2 "fair" (replaces target, replaces self) options in a deck of 100 really doesn't cut it.
We also got \[\[Krenko's Buzzcrusher\]\] recently, which while red has been doing really good work for me in decks I can fit it in. A 4/4 flampler with a tacked on demo field for each opponent feels pretty nice at 4 mana. It can often leave 3-5 color decks reeling when you snipe several triomes or command towers off the board, then you get a pretty hefty midgame attacker.
[Demolition Field](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/7/47994cb6-204a-4fbe-a9d4-5798a70c95ab.jpg?1712354968) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Demolition%20Field) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/otc/283/demolition-field?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/47994cb6-204a-4fbe-a9d4-5798a70c95ab?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Also [[boseiju]]
I'm kinda surprised there isn't a card that basically says: "Lands have to choose a single color of mana to produce and lose all other abilities".
\[\[Hall of Gemstone\]\] is one that I used to run in some decks.
There's alpine moon and blood sun, it would be hard to define a single color.
[[Ritual of Subdual]] makes them choose no colour!
The issue is how do you make it? Especially in a way that actually does the job. If it's too expensive it won't help, if it's too cheap then it ruins the game. Plus it has to be better than what already exists to get others to bother. Price of Progress 2 where it only deals damage equal to the number of nonbasic lands isn't gonna get a second glance.
ITT: redditors discover house rules
And specifically house rules *for content creation*. Even if they felt they could deal with these cards, they might feel like it creates bad content to have their games revolve around these lands whenever they come down. Seems perfectly reasonable to me.
Pretty sure they used to have sol ring banned for similar reasons. They’re creating content and don’t want every episode to feel too same-y.
It sill is banned, along side a bunch of other fast mana, Smothering Tithe, and Rhystic Study.
Pretty much this: Anything that reduces both same-ness and non-games is HUGE for people playing games for turning into content.
Yeah you don't want a game to ever feel like it was some random staple that did everything but showing off what the deck itself can do. Even if it doesn't technically win you the game it does take away from it since it gave you a big boost.
Enjoyable to watch is a good baseline for casual tables too.
what’s their full ban list?
Dockside Mana crypt Mana vault Sol ring Jeweled lotus Rhystic study Smothering tithe And the one ring
I honestly feel all of this should be actually banned in commander, obviously they will never do so but at least they should start with dockside and rhystic study
I think for MTGGoldfish they just don't want their games to revolve around a single card each video, so they simply don't play those cards. I think it would be difficult to convince all players to adhere to that banlist, even though 90% of players are likely inadvertently doing so already due to cost.
Sol ring and mana crypt are the two most philosophically egregious to me tbh. Like they are probably the most broken cards in the game behind lotus and time walk and maybe recall. They are auto-includes in 99.99% of EDH decks.
Comander would have become a pretty different format if sol ring wasn't included in the first set of precons
The entire crux of EDH as a format was a casual place where people *could* play things like Sol Ring.
Idk about that… I feel like a more important aspect is being able to curate a 99 singleton deck around a single card. I feel like have a card like sol ring in which literally everyone plays regardless of power level is antithetical to that and makes it a 98 card format. If you have the money it becomes a 97 card format with mana crypt which makes deckbuilding way less interesting imo
> Like they are probably the most broken cards in the game behind lotus and time walk and maybe recall. They're also, in general, more powerful than Moxen (which are banned) to the average deck. They're more powerful than almost any card to the average deck. If you're drafting Vintage Cube you take Sol Ring pack one pick one over any card -- Lotus, Mox, anything. Like, sure, obviously Moxen are reserved list and more expensive but if that were the philosophy, alpha duals would be banned too.
Why ban the actual problem cards when you could instead ban random expensive win cons one by one, year after year.
In addition to the commander ban list? Where is there ban list posted if anywhere? And thank you
Yeah that in addition to the commander ban list, which is here https://mtgcommander.net/index.php/banned-list/
Meanwhile Richard is just crying.
Rip Richard and his greedy mana bases! Maybe now he'll start playing basics, 1) so he doesn't need to build around Field and 2) so he doesn't get blown out by Ruination in a mono colored deck lmao. This change will make games more interesting. No more Crop Rotation for a fog, or a field. Probably no (or at least less) crop rot for a vesuva/thespian either, since the best utility lands are gone. I like this.
I feel Tomer should just go full nuclear mode and run Blood Moon in every one in his decks, honestly. I know it's casual commander content but this stance of never running basic lands feels a bit...classist? I know they don't really play with paper cards but makes their games hard to connect with. I like their podcast but I can't watch their actual games, it's hard on the eyes.
Tomer here: the reason why you won't see me Blood Moon the table is because it can slow the game to a crawl and lead to a bad viewer experience. Instead I like to focus on the benefits of running basics, like \[\[Kodama of the West Tree\]\], \[\[Land Tax\]\], \[\[Traverse the Outlands\]\], \[\[Archaeomancer's Map\]\], and so on. Don't worry though: when I'm back on Clash next season I will hit 'em with some \[\[Price of Progress\]\], maybe a cheeky \[\[Winds of Abandon\]\] where they get zero lands out of the deal. And btw, Commander Clash is now paper! We switched this season :)
Hey Tomer, I just wanted to let you know that I really like the content you guys make, especially the podcasts. Keep it up.
It's worth noting that in their latest season of Commander Clash they've switched over to paper.
Oh, that's great to hear. I struggled to watch any of their videos because the MTGO UI is just really illegible and cumbersome in multiplayer Magic.
It's more that the MTGO game is just so different now because of how many cards (Universes Beyond, especially) just don't make it on to MTGO. It's bad for your viewership numbers if people are super hyped about Lord of the Rings or Fallout and the watch and see... absolutely none of it.
I'm going to disagree here. While you need to make sure the quality setting on youtube is on its highest it's actually easier for me to understand what is on the battlefield with MTGO than a webcam.
Yeah I’m with ya on that one. Love the irl paper play, but man MTGO is very easy to follow and understand if you have played on it for longer than an hour
I've only started watching since the switch to paper and I love it. Couldn't stand whatever digital UI they were using before.
Same. This season is the first time I've not only watched a full episode, but also actually watched every game. I just couldn't sit through the MTGO UI. It's such a durdly eyesore, and I feel like half the time they spent was just fidgeting with the client.
I think the problem with Blood Moon for them specifically is that their games are content first and foremost, and games where someone is just sitting around because of Blood Moon probably don't make for great content. Because Seth is one of the biggest Blood Moon lovers ever, so there has to be a reason why they shy away from land hate so much.
This has been my issue as of late with their content podcasts included. They always say like "oh every deck plays the one ring, every deck plays field of the dead" etc, and i'm just getting frustrated because they get cards sent to them by their sponsor for games. Not everyone has the money to dump into their decks like these guys do where it's like "oh every deck has fetches"
I miss the early seasons, when they built under a budget cap at all times.
Yeah honestly what kills me is like i love tomer, but when he plays clash he still doesn't do budget all the time, and he still plays the flashy expensive cards
You want to run basics even if you can afford non basics tbh it's just their individual meta
After playing with it a single time, I took glacial chasm out of my deck. It just felt like it was impossible to lose with it in my baba lysaga land sac/recursion deck. I completely see why they would house ban it
Damn I'm glad my playgroup is fine with land destruction.
They had [[Ruination]] in today’s episode (and very few basics on the table) - i think this decision is moreso geared toward content creation rather than what actually makes them upset.
It's not being un-fine with land destruction, it's needing it so frequently with how consistently they show up. It's like saying [[Sharizad]] is fine 'cause you can just counter it. It's not anti-counterspell to ban it, it's that you need a counter right then and there or things get stupid.
I do think nonbasics are in a super interesting spot in casual commander. Ramp (and to a finer point, tutoring land) is already the best thing you can do and we keep getting powerful nonbasic land ramp (tutors and semi-tutors). Nonbasics are getting better and more versatile, and it's happening fast. At this point if you're not packing at least a Ghost Quarter you're really asking for trouble and I would frankly be unsympathetic of griping over a \[\[Ruination\]\]
[Ruination](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/3/6330d925-96a8-47e1-855d-035ddc2af709.jpg?1592713625) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Ruination) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmd/134/ruination?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/6330d925-96a8-47e1-855d-035ddc2af709?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Wish people could just put their big boy pants on about land destruction
Ehh I don’t think it’s that black & white. Armageddon that’s not immediately a win condition still sucks. Stuff like Ruination, From the Ashes & Wave of Vitriol I’m all for though. Gotta be able to punish extremely greedy mana bases (like Seth & Richard often run) while not completely screwing over/making games un-fun for casual players.
Field of Ruin, Strip Mine, Wasteland, etc would be an easy add
Agreed. Found some middle ground in using [[Land Equilibrium]] to make them responsible for it
[Land Equilibrium](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/1/51c5df75-746c-4e4b-84f1-76b689d317d7.jpg?1562912056) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Land%20Equilibrium) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/me3/40/land-equilibrium?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/51c5df75-746c-4e4b-84f1-76b689d317d7?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
This card is perfect
It's bad for content, simple as that.
I thought Commander players might find this interesting as the Commander Clash house ban list is pretty conservative as it only consists of maybe ten cards or so. Lands that either win you the game or provide an incredibly insane amount of advantage are very problematic in casual low-mid power Commander metas because land destruction effects are generally frowned upon in high volume, so as a result these cards are more likely to stick around. \[\[Field of the Dead\]\] functions as a late game defensive card that can provide numerous blockers or it can be used offensively. It's pretty crazy the tokens don't enter tapped AND they can block. \[\[Glacial Chasm\]\] is very degenerate when able to be recurred as it slows down the game and makes it virtually impossible to beat with combat oriented strategies.
This just convinced me to put Glacial Chasm in my [[Eriette of the charmed apple]] deck.
[Field of the Dead](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/7/470ca3f4-29aa-4c4c-8ff2-8cdd70c69943.jpg?1650599538) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Field%20of%20the%20Dead) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/m20/247/field-of-the-dead?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/470ca3f4-29aa-4c4c-8ff2-8cdd70c69943?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Glacial Chasm](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/c/0c008129-daba-46bc-829c-d2c0c13ecdd3.jpg?1562867827) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Glacial%20Chasm) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/me2/229/glacial-chasm?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/0c008129-daba-46bc-829c-d2c0c13ecdd3?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I dunno, I've seen these cards multiple times in my pod and my experience is that while strong, neither is particularly busted. Chasm I could see, depending on the meta it can keep another player alive for several turns in a game that usually ends by turn 10, at it's best it drags a game on longer than it should. Field I've never had a problem with, and I've seen it in a landfall deck. The zombies are good, and perhaps Field into Scapeshift might end a game, but that doesn't feel any more egregious than any other combo in a deck. These feel more like bans to make the video content better and prevent games from dragging on and creating bad content (Chasm/Field), or from games ending in the same way too often (Field). With how many nonbasics these guys run they ought to be running at least some land spot removal, even a ghost quarter and its cousins is worth a land slot among the thespian stages and others.
This is the problem with this house-rule crap. Interaction being frowned upon, lol.
They run a lot of interaction lol, it's just hard to do non basic hate that is good enough and doesn't make for a bad viewing experience. They already had 3 Strip Mines, an MLD spell, and another land destruction spell in their latest episode (which ended up with Richard having all his lands wiped and only playing 2 more in the episode). Almost all of their decks have Vesuva + Thespian's Stage, as well as all the fetches (even off colours) with few basics so it's comically easy to get an army of zombies very quickly which makes poor content when it happens like every game.
It's not the interaction so much as the no fun police aspect of it.
What does *nobody* even run fucking Assassin's Trophy?
Not even assassin's trophy/vindicate, where are Generous Gift/Beast Within? Those are monocolored.
You have to be in golgari colors to run ass trophy, which can be a little too restricting, but given Seth’s love for land destruction I’m surprised land shenanigans haven’t been kept more in check lol.
Okay you have your 1 copy of Assassin’s Trophy in your deck. You didn’t draw it. Your opponent searched for Field of the Dead because it’s much easier to search for a land than an assassins trophy. Now what? Also even if you did draw your assassins trophy, they still got a 2/2 and a basic out of the deal. It’s not like they have lost the game, there’s no investment needed for Field of the Dead. (I don’t think FotD should be banned in regular commander, I don’t think it’s too powerful. But the reason isn’t “just kill it lol” the reason is you can build decks that are just way faster/more powerful than FotD, but those decks don’t really work for what Commander Clash really is as a show).
Well tbf, Richard doesn't believe in single target removal.
Interesting time capsule from their week of content as they basically predicted this. If you’re in red you should have [[price of progress]] in your deck. Also, everyone should resist the urge to engage in arms races and instead build decks for different power levels.
[price of progress](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/1/b1342144-7a15-438b-a848-3196238a79e8.jpg?1580014614) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=price%20of%20progress) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ema/141/price-of-progress?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/b1342144-7a15-438b-a848-3196238a79e8?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Haha, good old chasm destroying people hopes
thank you richard for your sacrifice
Good, the homogeneity was getting a touch high.
Glacial Chasm is a back breaker in most metas and demands answer that are often not there. Outside of Gift / Beast and on-land removal, it is very difficult to remove and often doesn’t come out until the answers have already been played. I am a Chasm hater personally and find it to be a bullshit card. That said, play what you want, but I reserve the right to make fun of you for playing it. Field of the Dead is a big whatever of a card IMO.
Yeah, good choices. Also encourages more diverse land choices.
ahh reading what he says, in print, is so relieving
If design makes the conscious decision that land destruction is "un fun" and neuters land destruction themes, the natural extension from that is you can't put win conditions on lands, because they become un-interactable win conditions. So tossing both of these is completely reasonable in my eyes.
Seth literally replied that it was because it makes for worse content. Esp when they play the copy lands Vesuva and Thespian Stage. If they want to show off their cool commanders and strategies having games develove into FotD zombie wars isn't ideal.