andrew

I like the unbans, but this is about as close to "no changes" as they could get without explicitly making no changes. Really was hoping for more unbans at least!

The explanations are very thorough and it does feel like they have a pretty good handle on the current state of the formats, which is nice. I still think they're wrong about [[Orcish Bowmasters]] and to a slightly lesser extent [[The One Ring]] though.

I think Bowmasters is not fine in Modern/Legacy and I still think The One Ring is just going to increasingly become oppressive. Yes it's at their "4 mana threshold" and it's not one archetype dominating with it, but I think its ubiquity is probably a downside and that we're going to see it clogging up games everywhere. Really curious and interested to see how the formats evolve!

You’re totally right about keeping a positive attitude and I think thats a great frame to have, particularly when we don’t know much about the sets. It’s definitely how I’d like the general sentiment to be here.

I hate(d) to be negative in this thread but from what we do know (2 new IPs for UB sets and another Modern Horizons) it’s hard not to be disappointed; I understand others like them but I just don’t think they’ve been good for the game and I’m frustrated that so much effort is now going into them.

I’m hopeful about the two haunted house sets and Bloomburrow though.

Wow I legitimately thought this was fake at first. Bloomburrow looks like it could be fun but really not loving more UBs and what seems like 0 connection between sets anymore. Another Modern Horizons as well, yikes. Hate that just none of this really appeals to me.

My prediction (sadly) is no changes to any format.

I mostly follow Legacy and Modern and don’t think Legacy needs anything really. Modern, though, feels really unfun for me and has since MH2 really 😞 I’d personally love to see the evoke elementals eat bans, among others too as I just feel a lot of those designed-for-Modern cards were a mistake.

I’d also love for [[Splinter Twin]] and [[Birthing Pod]] to come back, admittedly because I love those cards and think they’d be really fun/fine given how Modern has changed.

Not sure how I feel about Bowmasters and The One Ring, I’d love to hear how others feel about these two. The One Ring feels way too pushed and like it creates a subgame as soon as it hits the board, quickly snowballing. I can’t see it eating a ban on Monday, particularly given LTR is still actively being sold, but I think it does have a target on its back.

But that's the whole reason I'd want to play them 😜

Oh dang I totally misread that! Thanks for the note.

One of these that can pull from the graveyard would be cool though.

This is great, I didn’t know at least half of these existed.

Too bad Ashiok’s Forerunner is a rare, would have loved to annoyingly chain those in limited.

Agreed on all 3 points, particularly your first on their commander focus. I've never considered the color pie corruption via Commander too but that makes a ton of sense.

I think when they started printing directly to Commander—as opposed to letting cards printed for standard sets trickle down naturally to Commander--they introduced immense issues to both Commander and regular formats. It's a format designed for 4 players and an eternal one that they need to now "rotate" with increasingly powerful cards. Not only does this corrupt the spirit of Commander (finding new uses for cards that never got played elsewhere), it cannot work with 2-player constructed formats and has caused a ton of issues there.

I just wish they'd go back to only designing cards for Standard and limited, and let the eternal formats (Commander included) get them naturally. Sadly it just is never going to happen, it's too big a cash cow.

Aw man now I really want this 😞 What a great idea for a commander precon

This doesn't directly answer your question on paring the big pool down, but I bookmarked this a while ago that had a pretty good overview of EDH deckbuilding basics that might help, including numbers on how many of each category to go with: https://www.archidekt.com/decks/1048638#EDH__Deck_Template_(read_description_at_bottom) (and original source). It links to a separate guide on lands too which is helpful.

In general I think it's really helpful to set a goal at the beginning. Are you building a deck to primarily have fun and/or explore a theme, do you want to try to be competitive, etc. I tend to choose the cards that I enjoy playing over those that might be "strictly better," for instance, particularly ones that I have nostalgia for. I also tend to build around themes/tribes a lot which naturally limits the pool.

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