Disclaimer: [insert legal disclaimer into bracketed area henceforth referred to as ‘here’]
There are a lot of commanders I won’t build for a lot of reasons. Whether it be because they’re too powerful, too mainstream, or simply too Naya (insert self-referential humor here)… but there’s one reason I avoid commanders that I don’t hear a lot of people talk about. So I’m going to talk about it. It’s my blog and I’ll do what I want to.
Boolean decks: the “on or off” problem.
Consider the following:
What do these two objects have in common? Both can be used to control the lights in your home. The one on the left is perfectly serviceable, but it has just two options: “on” or “off.” The one on the right has a whole gradient of options and, provided that your light fixture can support it, can thus provide a whole range of brightness options for your domicile.
When it comes to the lights in your home, there’s a good chance you don’t really care about the added functionality of the light switch, but when it comes to your EDH deck I think there’s a good reason why you should want your deck to look more like the second option.
Casual Play
There’s a lot of separation between how different people define casual. For me, a big part of what makes something casual is a willingness and desire to let/allow a little bit of your opponents’ gameplans to work. Countering commanders, stax, and MLD are often considered faux pass in casual because they prevent your opponents from doing stuff. The game becomes, then, trying to use threat assessment to hit/remove/counter exactly what you need to prevent your opponent from running away with the game, without preventing them from feeling like they’re not playing the game at all. It’s a fine line, and it’s easily broken.
The question “what if the one thing that lets my opponents play the game ALSO lets them run away with the game?” Is the essence of the “on and off” problem. Proper threat assessment says that you should remove the threat, but a casual mindset says that you should let them play the game a little bit.
Feast or Famine
For a more competitive-minded player, that may be less of an issue (since the desire to let your opponents do a little bit isn’t inherent to competitive play). But I have heard this problem in several different terms over the span of several different games. In League of Legends, for example, it’s often called “Feast or Famine.” Like with our light switches and decks, a “feast or famine” champion is a character that is super good when they are already ahead (and can win the game by themselves), but when they are even a little bit behind they basically can’t do anything. It’s all or nothing, and for many league champions, this lack of flexibility causes them to not see very much play, especially in tournaments where that utility could change the course of an otherwise losing game.
Examples
Alright, I’ve stayed in the ethereal cloud long enough. It’s time to pull out some examples. I think that one of the most obvious examples is Kaalia of the Vast.
Infamously KOS (Kill on Sight), a category of commanders that has a lot to do with this problem, Kaalia presents your opponents with two options. “Kill Kaalia, or die to an onslaught of demons, dragons, and angels - potentially even 1-hit-kill with Master of Cruelties.” Which is fine, a 2/2 body is easy enough to remove and Kaalia’s virtually never been overpowered. But the consequence of that is that your deck will now do one of two things “Either attack and drop so many angels, demons, and dragons that your opponents will wish they didn’t let Kaalia live, or get Kaalia killed and do nothing for a few more turns.” When your hand is filled with notoriously high-cost creatures like Angels, Demons, and Dragons, there’s rarely an in-between where you can have your game “a little bit.” You’re either “on or off” and it’s not entirely in your control - the person across from you deciding whether to Disfigure it because it’s the right play or to leave it out because you haven’t won a game all night is the person who most often will get to decide if you play at all, not you.
There are a lot of variations of this problem. There are commanders that feel like they’re “too on or off but are easy to keep on” like Urza, Lord High Artificer. There are commanders that can randomly fail like Narset looking for extra turn spells. There are commanders that aren’t even KOS but their strategies require you to run a bunch of unique cards that are useless if you don’t have your commander out, such as Doran, the Siege Tower, or Blim, Comedic Genius.
Avoiding the Lightswitch deck.
Alright, if I’ve sold you on trying to avoid this sort of play, I’ve got a few tips for you. First, you’ll have to ask yourself a question that old commander players had to ask themselves frequently: “what does my deck do if my commander stops being an option?” This was a very popular question to ask especially pre-tuck-rule-change (that is when a card like Spell Crumple could put your commander on the bottom of your deck).
Second, I recommend stocking up on the commander classics. Removal, card draw, and ramp. These pillars keep your deck running smoothly and all three can sort of alleviate the symptoms of this. Ramp helps you re-play your commander more (or lets you cast those Angels, Demons, and Dragons of your deck), Draw lets you find more things to do, and Removal lets you last long enough to do it (plus, I always feel like I’m playing the game when I’m threat assessing for a removal spell).