Average Commander: Karn, Silver Golem and Kozilek, the Great Distortion

I've been tracking "average" commander decks since the beginning of the year. I'm fascinated with the idea that EDHREC.com can produce a deck list for a commander that represents all of the most popular choices made by players.

It's not entirely clear what the algorithm is doing over at EDHREC when asked for an average commander deck, but after watching it for a while I'm guessing that it is taking couple of passes at trying to figure out how often certain cards appear. For example, maybe it's taking every card from every deck for that commander and putting it into one giant list, then counting up how often each card appears and producing a list of the top 99 cards. It's possible that the system is somehow weighting newer decks in the database more heavily. It's also possible that the system is grouping the cards by type and finding the average number of times cards of that type appears, then finding the top cards of that type to make a list of 99 cards.

Since I'm playing Karn, Silver Golem right now I've been watching that commander list change over time. And, I've been interested in swapping for Kozilek, the Great Distortion because sometimes getting my entire board blown up by artifact removal is tedious. I'm interested in tracking both the "cheap" and "regular" budget versions of the average decks for these commanders. The "cheap" decks appear to be simply the bottom 10% of decks for that commander, which are then averaged using the same method.

I suspect that these list have a lot of pressure to remain stable. Unless a player goes back to an existing list and updates cards as they change, the list will continue to exert pressure on the average. My understanding is that EDHREC pulls deck lists from several sources.

Here are links to the current average commander decks for these commanders. You can switch between "budgets" from that page.

• Karn, Silver Golem
• Kozilek, the Great Distortion

Here's the first quarter recap with some commentary.

Karn, Silver Golem (Average Budget Deck)
The number of decks in the database increased from 181 to 228 over the first quarter. The average price of the deck from TCGPlayer Direct over this same period ranged from $563-$643. Scrapyard Recombiner was tested early in the quarter, but has since fallen out of favor. Meteor Golem and Wurmcoil Engine have both fluctuated. I'm surprised that Meteor Golem does not consistently make the cut. Paradox Engine came off the list due to it being banned, and was replaced by Vedalken Orrery. The land count increased by one during the quarter, with Labyrinth of Skophos joining the list.

Karn, Silver Golen (Cheap Budget Deck)
The number of decks in the database increased from 18 to 22 over the first quarter. The average price of the deck from TCGPlayer Direct over this same period ranged from $101-$120. Arcbound Crusher was an early choice that was dropped entirely. Golden Guardian was recently replaced by Voltaic Servant. All Is Dust finally made the cut at the end of the quarter. Ghirapur Orrery replaced Semblance Anvil at the end of the quarter as well. Brittle Effigy replaced Swiftfoot Boots. Elixir of Immortality traded places with Unwinding Clock during the quarter several times. Blasted Landscape was cut entirely. Radiant Fountain bounced in and out of the list. Phyrexia's Core made a brief appearance. Mystifying Maze joined the list early and stayed in place.

Kozilek, the Great Distortion (Average Budget Deck)
The number of decks in the database increased from 903 to 1135 over the first quarter. The average price of the deck from TCGPlayer Direct over this same period ranged from $425-$503. This list is relatively stable, but there have been a few changes. Gruesome Slaughter joined the list early in the quarter and has remained ever since. Shadowspear replaced Quicksilver Amulet. Blasted Landscape got cut early in the quarter and never reappeared. Labyrinth of Skophos replaced Mystifying Maze.

Kozilek, the Great Distortion (Cheap Budget Deck)
The number of decks in the database increased from 90 to 113 over the first quarter. The average price of the deck from TCGPlayer Direct over this same period ranged from $70-$79. This list is also relatively stable, possibly because it was featured on Commanders Quarters. Crashing Drawbridge joined the list, replacing Tamiyo's Journal. Sequestered Stash appeared and then disappeared over the quarter. Labyrinth of Skophos replaced Sea Gate Wreckage recently.

Old School MTG: Mono White Prison Shops

For the second deck of the year (March/April), I'm revisiting Mono White Orb Prison. I'm still working through Shops+Colors this year with a total of six decks planned.

This deck is based entirely on JACO's deck posted at Eternal Central. I'd run the Black Lotus if I had one. A Wrath of God or two would be good, too. I don't have any with the old school artwork, so I swapped in a few cards, like the Forcefield and the Archaeologist. If I'm not going to run those cards in this deck, I'm not sure where I would run them. A part of playing old school is playing the old cards you have, so it's nice to see them show up. I will say that the deck feels land/mana light. I keep feeling like I'm always hoping to draw a mana source off the top.

Prison is not my favorite play style, either playing for or against. Losing to prison feels like bad beats. Winning with prison feels tedious. I have nothing against prison players. The games can be intricate, which is it's own kind of fun. A lot of aggro-on-prison matches come down to one or two key choices by the prison player of when to pull the trigger.

With everything going on in the world (pandemic), I don't anticipate actually getting to use the prison deck in a traditional game of old school. Instead, I'm just using it for games around the house with my family. They play decks with more recent cards. Here are some pictures of us in a three-player game. I ended up coming back from 1 life to win. That's a fairly typical story with these kinds of prison decks. You run your life total down to try to find opportunities for card advantage until you turn the corner. That's what happened here.

Three players!

Looks like Old School to me.

Earlier this month, I tested out an aggro mono white shops build because I love to swing with robots. But it ended up feeling like a worse version of the colorless or blue builds. It was nice to have the Swords and Disenchants for tempo/removal, though. In the few games I played with it, it didn't feel like it came together. Here it is, for reference.

 

Old School MTG: Why Are Cards Banned and Restricted in Old School MTG? Part 4

In this part of the series, let's take a look at the categories of cards that are on the banned and restricted list and how they are grouped. There is not a unified banned and restricted list for all Old School formats, but there is a general consensus around many of the cards that appear on the various lists. This series of posts is about why these cards appear on these lists and how nostalgia plays a role in those inconsistent decisions.

Banned Cards

We do not use ante for organized tournament play. All cards that reference ante are banned.

• Bronze Tablet
• Contract from Below
• Darkpact
• Demonic Attorney
• Jeweled Bird
• Rebirth
• Tempest Efreet

Note: Ante cards are banned simply because players generally agree that playing with ante is unfun, despite it being part of the game when it was originally designed.

Fast Mana

Cards that allow players to work around the “one land per turn” rule can lead to games that are inherently unbalanced by reducing the opportunity for counterplay. Cards in this category are restricted.

• Black Lotus
• Mox Emerald
• Mox Jet
• Mox Pearl
• Mox Ruby
• Mox Sapphire
• Sol Ring

Card Advantage

Individual cards that allow players to work around the “one card drawn per turn,” especially at rates that are wildly unbalanced to the cost, can lead to games that are inherently unbalanced by reducing the opportunity for counterplay. This includes cards that produce the inverse effect (e.g. Mind Twist). Cards in this category are restricted.

• Ancestral Recall
• Braingeyser
• Library of Alexandria
• Mind Twist

Restricted Card Access/Reuse

Cards that allow players to work around the “restricted card” rule by effectively granting access to more copies of these cards can lead to games that are inherently unbalanced by reducing the opportunity for counterplay. These cards are restricted.

• Demonic Tutor
• Regrowth

Ubiquitous

Cards that would otherwise appear in every deck and reduce the opportunity for deck and playstyle diversity are restricted.

• Chaos Orb

Note: The same argument can be made for a card like Mishra's Factory, a colorless land that appears as a four-of in many decks in the format.

Degenerate Combinations with Other Cards

Cards that are not problematic individually, but where in combination lead to uninteractive games, reduce the opportunity for counterplay, or lead to a low effective winning turn are restricted. The issue is with consistency of producing the degenerate effect. Through restriction, these degenerate combinations manifest less frequently. 

• Balance
• Channel
• Mana Drain
• Time Vault
• Time Walk
• Timetwister
• Wheel of Fortune

Card-by-card explanation of Degenerate Cards

Balance - Control-style decks can engineer game states where Balance becomes a Wrath of God and Mind Twist for a total of 2 mana. In multiples, the card can be used in combination with fast mana and The Rack to create a deck with a low effective winning turn.

Channel - In combination with fast mana and X-costed direct damage spells, Channel can be used to create a deck with a low effective winning turn.

Mana Drain - Control-style decks can use Mana Drain to counter a strong threat and then use the mana on the following turn to effectively win the game.

Time Vault - In combination with Twiddle, Time Vault can be used to take multiple turns in a row. This combination of cards produces an overwhelming amount of card advantage with no opportunity for counterplay.

Time Walk - This card is undercosted for the effect. At worst, it replaces itself and provides a full untap for a total of 2 mana. At best, it can be used in combination with other cards to produce multiple turns in a row with limited opportunity for counterplay. It also effectively breaks the “one land per turn” rule at a very low cost, albeit by giving the player more than one turn in which to play lands.

Timetwister - In combination with fast mana, this card can be used to reduce the effective winning turn for one player with limited opportunity for counterplay. If this card is cast early in the game, it is also possible to effectively stop your opponent from playing depending on the cards they have redrawn. Consider a turn 1 Timetwister on the play in combination with fast mana. The opponent redraws a new hand of 7 cards that may not contain a playable spell/mana mix. In this case, the opportunity for a mulligan has already passed, locking the opponent into that hand and producing an effective win for the caster.

Wheel of Fortune - Similar to Timetwister, this card in combination with fast mana can reduce the effective winning turn for one player with limited opportunity for counterplay. 

Why Are Cards Banned and Restricted in Old School MTG: Part 1
Why Are Cards Banned and Restricted in Old School MTG: Part 2
Why Are Cards Banned and Restricted in Old School MTG: Part 3

Why Are Cards Banned and Restricted in Old School MTG: Part 4

Old School MTG: Why Are Cards Banned and Restricted in Old School MTG? Part 3

We've spent the first two parts of this series exploring fundamental game concepts and how they interact with the banned and restricted list. The idea here is that the banned and restricted list exists because some cards are unfun. These cards are unfun because they limit counterplay. As a game, Magic has to meet a certain threshold of fun to be viable. The card pool in Old School does not rotate, so the method we have to ensure that we meet a certain threshold of fun is to use the banned and restricted list. However, due to nostalgia, we apply the banned and restricted list inconsistently.

Based on how cards are developed now, we know that some of the original game concepts are unfun for many players. These includes things like ante, land destruction, and random discard. We know that these concepts are unfun, but let's look at why that is so.

Imagine if this card existed in Alpha:

Eric's Ancestral Time Lotus
(0)
Artifact
When ~ enters the battlefield, draw three cards. Take an extra turn after this one. (Tap), Sacrifice ~: Add three mana of any one color.

Broken, right? Clearly. Except, is it? Well, of course it is. It's three of the most broken cards in the game bolted together. But what makes them broken? What makes Ancestral Recall, Black Lotus, and Time Walk so good? Two things: 1) Context and 2) Fundamentals.



Context
Cards are only good or bad relative to one another. You can only evaluate a card in comparison to the rest of the cards in the card pool. If basic lands tapped for three mana instead of one mana, Black Lotus would be less good than it is in a game where basic lands tap for only one mana. In other words, if you showed a Black Lotus to someone who has never played Magic before and asked them if it was good or not, they would literally have no context for evaluating that question.

This is important because in Old School we are stuck with the cards as they were originally designed and the card pool is fixed. New cards are not being added to the format without changing the format. This means that a card like Black Lotus will always be good in context. There is no scenario where a new card will be printed to bring power levels in line with Black Lotus.



Fundamentals
So, we know that Black Lotus is a good card relative to other cards in the sense that it makes other cards better. Why? Because the game has a fundamental "one land per turn" rule that acts as a speed governor on the way the game develops. In general, players only have access to one additional mana per turn. In practice, it is often less than one additional mana per turn due to the random distribution of lands in a deck.

Black Lotus breaks this rule, but in a profoundly distorting way by giving a player access to three additional mana in a single turn. In a game where spells are balanced mostly by mana cost, moving one player ahead by effectively three turns has a dramatic effect on what is possible. When a player moves ahead that quickly relative to the other player, it severely limits the opportunity for counterplay.

Restricted Cards
With a few exceptions, every card on the restricted list is there because those cards create an unfun experience. The reason why they create an unfun experience is because these cards are imbalanced in context to other cards in the card pool and/or fundamentally break one of the rules of the game so drastically that it limits the opportunity for counterplay.

(In)Consistency
So, why aren't the restricted cards banned then? Nostalgia. More players consider the unfun experience of being on the receiving end of these cards better than removing those cards entirely from the card pool. The trade-off we make is although these cards are clearly broken, we restrict them to only a single copy per deck instead of the typical four copies. This increases the variance of having access to these cards in a given game of Magic.

Why Are Cards Banned and Restricted in Old School MTG: Part 1
Why Are Cards Banned and Restricted in Old School MTG: Part 2
Why Are Cards Banned and Restricted in Old School MTG: Part 3
Why Are Cards Banned and Restricted in Old School MTG: Part 4

Old School MTG: Why Are Cards Banned and Restricted in Old School MTG? Part 2

Let's talk about the concept of "unfun." I'll bet that a lot of readers bristled when they read in my last post that the banned and restricted list ultimately exists because some cards are not fun.

Magic is a game. It's a leisure activity. Some people play competitively, but there are a countless number of other competitive game alternatives. For Magic to continue as a game, it has to meet a certain threshold of fun. Otherwise, it wouldn't exist. People wouldn't play.

These posts are written from the perspective of Old School MTG, but it would be foolish to disregard the developments in the game in the years after the early sets were released. It is clear that some of the original concepts were not fun for a majority of players. They were either removed entirely or revised to make them more acceptable.



Ante
As a reminder, the game was designed with the concept of ante. Enough players did not like playing with ante, that ante cards are banned in almost every format. The game designers responded to what the players found "unfun" by no longer designing ante cards for the game.




Land Destruction
In the early sets, destroying lands was part of the game. Simple land destruction spells were printed in multiple colors and at relatively low mana costs. A land was even printed that destroyed a land! This meant that a viable strategy for building a deck was to focus on destroying your opponent's lands, effectively stopping them from playing the game.

This is a clear example of a strategy that allows for limited counterplay. For the most part, tapping lands for mana is fundamental to the game. Denying your opponent lands is a viable strategy, but is it fun? History suggests that for many people, being on a receiving end of land destruction is not fun. We know this because as we review more recent card designs, land destruction has either been entirely removed or modified to the point that it is no longer recognizable as land destruction. The focus now is on cutting off an opponent from a color of mana, punishing greedy mana bases, or stopping lands that produce multiple mana per turn.

In other words, as the game has evolved, the message from many players that land destruction is unfun has been heard by the designers. Recent designs no longer contain this design element from the early sets. Land destruction has been "shadow banned" by the rotation of sets, an option we do not have available to us in Old School since sets do not rotate.



(Random) Discard
Similarly, in early sets, random discard was part of the game. This worked much like land destruction in that if you were hit with an early random discard spell, it was entirely possible that your only lands could be discarded from your hand. This effectively locked you out of the game for several turns, resulting in limited possibility for counterplay.

Again, this was a viable strategy built into the early game design. But it's one that has been heavily modified in more recent designs. Now, discard spells are highly focused or restrictive. They often includes choices made by one or both players.

Designers again understood that players do not want to be locked out of the game by random discard and created cards accordingly. Random discard has been "shadow banned" by the rotation of sets. Yet, in Old School, we still have access to this strategy as sets do not rotate.



(In)Consistency
What we have here is an inconsistency. As Magic has continued to grow in popularity and more players have joined the game, the designers have become more sophisticated about creating environments that downplay unfun elements from the original design. This includes things like Land Destruction and Random Discard.

In other words, if the original game was remade today knowing what we know now, Ante, Land Destruction, and Random Discard would look very different than they did. They would look more like modern designs. The reason is that these game elements are inherently unfun for many players. Given the way that the game is designed, especially around a combination of a random distribution of lands through your deck and being only able to play one land per turn, any strategy that can consistently remove those lands in your hand or in play will make for lopsided games with limited opportunity for counterplay.

Old School is a non-rotating format. We are stuck with the cards as they were designed and printed originally in those early sets. This includes game concepts that many players clearly find unfun. For some of those unfun concepts, like ante, we've all decided that we are fine simply banning the entire concept from the game. But for other concepts, like land destruction and random discard, those strategies are still available. Our only option to deal with these cards and concepts is the banned and restricted list.

Does it make the game more fun to continue to include these strategies? Arguably it does not. History has shown us that players do not enjoy these types of games and so these cards have been removed in more recent designs. But does it make Old School more nostalgic? Almost certainly, as these are the cards we remember playing and playing against.

Why Are Cards Banned and Restricted in Old School MTG: Part 1
Why Are Cards Banned and Restricted in Old School MTG: Part 2
Why Are Cards Banned and Restricted in Old School MTG: Part 3
Why Are Cards Banned and Restricted in Old School MTG: Part 4

Old School MTG: Why Are Cards Banned and Restricted in Old School MTG? Part 1

Old School MTG is a varied format. There is not a single set of deck construction rules. Instead, we have many different groups of players that use different sets of banned and restricted cards. Every one of these groups has reasons for why they've chosen a slightly different path for individual cards. So, let's take a look at some of the fundamental reasons why we have banned and restricted cards in our game.

A quick note before we dive into this. The concepts we're covering apply to the entire game of Magic. We have years and years worth of game development to draw on that we didn't have back in the day when we were figuring this stuff out. "Old School" MTG variations sometimes include more sets or target sets up to a certain year. In other words, you could argue that Tempest Block Constructed is Old School MTG, but that's not usually how we use that label.

The Banned and Restricted list can be broken into a few sections. These sections help to define why a card is on the list. At a fundamental level, these cards are on the list because they make the game unfun. There are many ways to get to a definition of "unfun," but that's the heart of the problem with certain cards and why we've chosen to put them on the list.



Ante
Take for example "ante" cards. They are on the list simply because we do not play with ante. The game was originally designed with ante, but players did not like the possibility of losing a rare or valuable card. So, ante cards are banned (and so is the ante rule).

It's important to keep in mind that the original game included the concept of ante. It was part of the design. In a way, ante balances the risk/reward relationship between including powerful cards in your deck. In a perfect world, where there is no cheating, there was a type of equity that a player would consider before including a card in a deck they were building. There existed a real possibility of losing that card permanently. We removed that equity when we removed ante; and in doing so, we removed the risk of card loss built into the original design.

I'm not saying that ante was good design. I'm saying that regardless of if we liked it or not as players, it was one of the balancing elements of the design to which we no longer have access.



Game Design
We have a few relevant concepts that have become better defined over the years of Magic design. One such example is "play patterns." Another example is "counterplay." These are concepts that are used more frequently now in recent banned and restricted announcements as explanations for cards that are added or removed from the list. Let's take a look at how they apply to our Old School format(s).

Play Patterns
A play pattern is simply how the game plays out given a certain set of inputs. This comes up many times in competitive play especially when the metagame has been solved and a set of "best" decks emerges. Players will talk about win percentages against a certain deck, for example. When you have two reasonably skilled players playing against each other with two solved metagame decks, the play patterns will be eerily consistent from game to game.

This isn't inherently bad. In fact, it is inevitable. As we are playing Old School with a fixed set of cards, the play patterns will become more ingrained over time. Known patterns of play will make certain match-ups more predictable than ever before. When you sit down with deck X against an opponent playing deck Y, the win/loss percentages will fall into a predictable range.

One objective of a banned and restricted list could be to include cards that increase the variance of viable deck archetypes. This creates more varied play patterns as there are more decks in the format and therefore more matches in the format. Ultimately though, with a fixed cards pool, all play patterns will become known.



Counterplay
The concept of counterplay is simply how much one play pattern can be responded to (or interacted with) by another play pattern. Cards that reduce interactivity reduce counterplay. Prison-style decks are an example of a strategy designed to ultimately reduce interactivity to the point that counterplay is impossible. There's nothing wrong with this strategy, but only if there is an opportunity for counterplay along the way.

To put this differently, if there is no opportunity for counterplay, there is no game. Cards and combinations of cards that result in a sufficiently low opportunity for counterplay are candidates for the banned and restricted list. One objective of a banned and restricted list could be to include cards that decrease the opportunity for counterplay.



Unfun
This is what I mean by cards being on the banned and restricted list because they are "unfun." Players don't like ante, so ante cards are banned. This has nothing to do with the individual ante cards and everything to do with the game mechanic of ante. In other words, the entire concept of ante is so "unfun" for enough players, that we do not play with that mechanic or any cards using that mechanic at all.

A format that consists of one or two best decks creates a limited set of play patterns. This is also "unfun," so cards are banned and restricted to increase the deck construction variance in an effort to increase the match variance and therefore to increase varied patterns of play.

Similarly, a format that consists of decks that create limited or no opportunity for counterplay is also "unfun." Games in a format like that are decided on a die roll. The player that goes first has an overwhelming advantage. Cards are added to the banned and restricted list to reduce the speed and consistency of decks with limited opportunity for counterplay.



Nostalgia
We have a glaring problem in Old School. The problem is that many of the cards on the restricted list are so degenerate that they should also be banned. But, we love those cards. They are iconic. With the exception of corner cases, Black Lotus makes every deck better. Why? Because it is off-the-charts broken. It always was.

The game only inherently had two ways to deal with the problem of broken cards. The card pool was limited. When the game was designed, it was entirely possible that your small play group would not have ever seen a Black Lotus. And if your small play group did happen to open a Black Lotus, it would have been one very strong card in a small pool of cards. Not one very strong card supported by the availability of every card ever printed.

The second way the game has to inherently deal with broken cards is the ante rule. If your Black Lotus was potentially up for grabs every game, you would have to weigh that possibility against the power of including the card in your deck. Without the ante rule, there is no reason to not include every Black Lotus you own in your deck unless we ban or restrict it.

Fast forward to today and we have neither of these inherent protections. Instead we have recognized that Black Lotus is too strong and have chosen to restrict it. Here's the interesting part. Black Lotus is still very, very broken, even though it is restricted; more so now that we have access to every card in the pool and years of understanding play patterns. Why isn't Black Lotus banned? Nostalgia. If we ban Black Lotus, does it still feel like we are playing Old School MTG? Probably not.

Because of Nostalgia, we are caught in a trap. Cards that are clearly broken are restricted from four copies per deck to one copy per deck when those cards should really be banned to both increase the deck variety (and therefore the play pattern variance) and to increase the opportunity for counterplay.

A Note About Swedish Rules
For better or worse, the Swedish Old School MTG rules have an extra layer of restriction that is not present in the other commonly adopted rule sets. In Swedish rules, the "reprint" rule is more much restrictive; notably, cards that are not printed in English and cards reprinted after Unlimited are not allowed. In other words, these significant restrictions place severe financial limitations on deck construction.

We can argue whether this approach to card legality is fair or elitist or any of the other words that have been thrown around, but looking at it from the point of cards they have chosen to be banned or restricted can help see why variations exist in these lists.

For example, if players are restricted to using only Alpha/Beta/Unlimited dual lands, the financial cost for a multi-colored mana base goes up considerably. It is more common in formats where Revised dual lands are allowed to see manabases that have access to every combination of colors the deckbuilder would want. It is more common under the Swedish rules to see non-optimal manabases, or to see deckbuilders gravitate to decks with less colors. This is a byproduct of a restriction not on the deck construction portion of Swedish rules, but rather on the card legality portion of the rules.

(In)Consistency
What we end up with is a fundamental lack of consistency in why cards are on the banned and restricted list. The complicating factor is Nostalgia. Cards that we know are a problem based on problematic play patterns are sometimes restricted when they should be banned. Other cards are banned because enough players simply do not like the play pattern. But many of us play Old School to relive the days when we played with these cards when they were new and we were still discovering the game. Many of the restricted cards are the cards we all chased after, in part because they were so powerful! Does banning these cards really make for better games? Maybe if those cards had never existed.

Why Are Cards Banned and Restricted in Old School MTG: Part 1
Why Are Cards Banned and Restricted in Old School MTG: Part 2
Why Are Cards Banned and Restricted in Old School MTG: Part 3
Why Are Cards Banned and Restricted in Old School MTG: Part 4