Hey Zoners!
It's another glorious Thor's Day here with your favorite Commander-playing Uncle on your second or third favorite blog, The General Zone.
Today we've got an oddly-vague-but-secretly-specific topic I want to talk about.
Restrictions.
See what I mean?
There are a lot of different kinds of barriers at the Commander table. "Banned Lists","Social Contract Issues", "Formats like Pauper or Dollar General"-- These are all things that effectively help to limit the 20,000+ card pool we have access to as "Highlander-ers."
Cause that's the secret folks- The bigger card pool, this thing that actually draws us to EDH, is also the very thing that also makes it drastically different from building 60-card decks. There's almost too many options for the newer Commander player to handle, and I know from experience I wasn't "conditioned" to think this way when I transferred to the format four long years ago.
Which is why I'm here to help. One of the things that I've been doing over the past year to help me in the deckbuilding process is to create extra, semi-fun "Restrictions" for my deck designs.
What Are Some Good Restrictions?
I) Staple Removing
The simplest way to begin creating restrictions for yourself is to take cards away from yourself that people consider to be "Staples."
I picked mine not just by my own personal preference for cards, but by the trends of cards I was seeing at the table. Blue, Black, and Green are the most common colors I see in my playgroup, and I wanted to change people's expectations when it came to the cards we were playing.
Phyrexian Arena, Exsanguinate, Stuff in the Rampant Growth/Cultivate/KoKo Baby suite, Counterspells-- These are all cards that I've built around, and with great results.
Greel hardly misses Arena thanks to the Sign In Blood package.
Glissa T's abuses her Eggs for ramp and extra value, giving the deck more shape.
I've even done this in Pauper. Spoiler: Not playing Ulamog's Crusher is actually better in some decks.
II) Spell Type Dichotomy
Cutting a certain spell type is a weird strategy, but my brain already functions this way, so I just roll with it.
The easiest dichotomy you can create is between Artifacts and Enchantments. If you play Artifacts, try not to play Enchantments. Many successful Artifact-themed decks don't get value from the other type, and vice versa.
Enchantment Voltron decks like Bruna probably don't want anything that isn't an enchantment, while Glissa T's, Memnarch, Mishra, JorK, and other Artifact heavy decks probably don't want to see enchantments.
Creatureless can be a fun challenge, and I've gotten really close to an Enchantment-and-Sorcery-Free Braids deck. There's one dadgum Fabricate standing in my way.
So it is possible to cut two types. Just don't cut Land or Instants. Ever. This is not a winning attitude.
III) Tribal
Probably the most common thing you'll see, so I only mention it to tell you I am aware of it.
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| The Big Lebowski explains and rationalizes approximately 40% of my life. |
Elves, Goblins, and Merfolk are fairly successful decks that translate well from 60-card. I don't think I've seen a deck yet that was successful and went full tribal. If you're building it to win, you'll probably be playing an outlier or two.
IV) Borders/Block Theme
A few guys on CommanderCast have done some hardcore deckbuilding challenges with borders.
White Border, Black Border, Old Border- These are all great ways to challenge your knowledge of the card pool and get some experience with other cards.
I haven't done this type of challenge, and I wouldn't be opposed if others were doing it with me.
Block Theme, on the other hand, seems kinda like Standard. I guess if I slightly modified all 5 of the Kamigawa Kirin Spirit decks I made a while ago it might work. Again, they'd probably need to be played together though.
V) Choose Your Own Adventure
I always liked the way "Choose Your Own" this sounded versus titling this "Miscellaneous," because it really is the spirit of this particular area of Restriction.
There are a lot of different ways to organize and create challenges. In my old Doran deck I made sure all my creatures had power less than or equal to toughness.
I've seen people try to create pop culture themes too. Chandler is a pretty obvious "Friends" build me around, and Homura is most certainly "The Dude."
Other cool themes include actually creating "Story" within your deck. This on-hold Llawan deck has a sort of "Ocean Treasure" theme, where I'm sporting Swords, Academy Ruins, and all manner of awesome janky creatures, like actual Narwhal and Killer Whale.
Tribal limitations make things difficult, and this is a way to help you write yourself out of tribal while still keeping an imposed presence.
Hopefully, if we're all glass "Half-Full" here, we can see this as a fun way to do things, change up our metagame, maybe even get some others to tag along.
If you're not this kind of person though, let's do a quick little examination of when and where Restrictions will work well.
Ways Restrictions Work Well
I) They're not the reason you build the deck
The ever-wise Oscar Wilde once said, "It is with the best intentions that the worst work is done."
Tribal is hard to build because it is the first thing that is often thought of when a person picks out a Commander.
Do yourself a favor. Pick out your Commander first. Add a few cards, and see what you've got. Let the restrictions become more clear as the deck building progresses.
When you're in a marathon, the finish line isn't always in sight. Unless you're starting at the ending point, of course. I don't know how marathons work though-- just metaphors.
Don't set your goals too early though. Let them come to you.
II) They're not instrumental in totally inhibiting deck design.
Grandpa Growth has always been adamant about creating restrictions that force you to play on a "sub-optimal" level.
I agree. It is economically viable that we should attempt to create great decks, and it is almost imperative we do so.
I mentioned earlier Glissa T's. By not playing the Cultivate package, I was able to find another way to both find an answer to my ramp and create a unique set of value within the deck by using its inherent competitive advantage. No one gets artifacts out of the bin better than Glissa T's.
Similarly, the lack of enchantments in Braids also plays to her strengths. She can't put Enchantments on the battlefield, and why should I hard cast them when I need more Threats?
Be a little more like Captain Kirk. Stop believing in "No-Win Scenarios." Screw the Kobayashi Maru.
III) There are ways to break them, and you know when to do it.
One of the wisest things any writing teacher ever told me was, "A good writer can get away with anything on the page."
There are a multitude of tricks, like Restrictions, and using them is just as important as the idea of not using them. EDH Nihilism. Maybe it's a thing.
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| More Lebowski Refs. I told you. |
I've got my first five color deck currently in the works, and I've got several gimmicks in it- Mostly basic lands, One like-colored mana symbol in CMC, etc. It's complicated, and I don't want to spoil that yet.
Point is I don't know what rules I'm going to have to break, or when I'm going to have to break them. If deckbuilding is as fluid a process as I make it out to be, some of these rules won't be there after I've tested it out and tuned it.
So don't stay tied down to your rules. They're fun, they're creatively inspiring- but don't let them rule you and your design.
Often the end product of a good deck results in something that you never expected. Try to get there. It's great.
Well, I've gone and talked too much for today. Comment if you dare.
Saturday will be our 20th episode of The Stack. So be sure to celebrate our milestone by doing something that would result in someone saying "YOLO!"
Until then, and then afterwards, don't let anyone else say YOLO.
Because YOLO.
-UL
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