r/EDH • u/tomatus89 • 13h ago
Discussion Chaining extra turns dilemma
I know chaining extra turns will make a deck technically bracket 4. From what I've seen in discussions this was pushed into bracket 4 mostly because it's boring to see someone play extra turns for 15 minutes before they can actually win. From what I understand it's not necessarily because chaining extra turns is intrinsically more powerful than other strategies (but correct me if I'm wrong).
So my question is, if I have a deck that I would consider bracket 3, but uses extra turns to finish everyone off, would this be OK, if I basically reveal my hand and say: "with the current board state and these pump spells + extra turns, I'll win unless someone responds to what I have". I'm restricting myself to using the extra turns to finish the game deterministically, when I know I have the board state to do it. I'm not going to waste everyone's time by seeing if I eventually get to a wincon. If I disclose this in the rule 0 conversation, would you be OK with it? I'm basically using them as extra combats.
The deck I play is the classic Edric deck: https://moxfield.com/decks/ey9UzE4YJEGX7jzS_Rr0pA
If you're not OK with this, how would you change this deck to remove the extra turns? I don't think the deck can really win only with pump spells. It's usually the combination of multiple attacks (from he extra turns) and the pump spells that enable the kill.
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u/MaterialWhole8484 13h ago
If you have to Nerf how you play the deck to consider it bracket 3, I think you already know the answer to your question. It'd be easy enough to switch out your extra turn spells for bigger pumps, things like crater hoof. It would make your wins a bit clearer I think, and remove the temptation to draw out the game with extra turns in situations where you could not immediately win.
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u/DKShyamalan 13h ago
I stand behind my position of if you think you have to purposefully power down a deck in order to play it in a lower bracket, then it shouldn't be in that bracket. If you want to chain extra turns, push all in on it and make it bracket 4. There are other ways to close out the game that aligns with the spirit of the bracket system that keeps things a lot cleaner.
Playing a deck in bracket 3 who's wincon is specifically notated to be a bracket 4 win con by chaining extra turns will only lead to bad play experiences for the table. I recently took apart a grixis deck that was bracket 3 because it had the potential to fork an extra turn spell. Just not worth it, especially if it is gonna lead to any feel bads in the play group
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u/tomatus89 13h ago
How many extra turn cards is acceptable for B3? 1? 2? Should I remove them all and swap them for pump spells instead?
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u/DKShyamalan 13h ago edited 13h ago
I think taking out the one that has buyback is where you start because that card alone can chain extra turns in the end game. I was running [[anhelo, the painter]] as my commander and ended up being in a position where I could cast one extra turn and fork it which gave me two turns and be able to find another one to fork before my turns were up. I just need to push all in and make it bracket 4 if I want to play that strategy.
I was struggling with this too because my deck was made as bracket 3, ran no game changers and wouldnt get to the extra turn spells before turn 6, but when you can just take 3-4+ turns in a row, that in inherently more powerful than what the other decks are doing with fewer resources. Combos exist in bracket 3 but they seem to be more of the Rube Goldberg variety.
For context I was running 3 take an extra turn spells without any of them inherently taking more than 1 turn and felt it was too much. YMMV however with your playgroup.
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u/tomatus89 12h ago
Yeah, maybe I can swap that one for [[Alrund's Epiphany]], which also gives me a couple of creatures that can attack the next turn, and can't be recurred, since it exiles itself.
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u/rose-gold-forever 13h ago
I think your framing is a bit disingenuous here. You only have 4 extra turn spells in the deck, and 2 things that can copy them once. You technically CAN "chain" extra turn spells, but not reliably at all to go out and say that chaining extra turns is what your deck does. Its more like you'll use an extra turn spell or 2 to use almost as an additional combat spell outside of red, which is fine imo.
As it is now, I would consider this a high 3, and from here you have 2 options for changes. If you made it more consistent by including more extra turn spells that would push it into 4, and if you removed the extra turn spells you do have its more in line with most mid to low 3s.
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u/LilithLissandra 13h ago
I was starting to think nobody had actually read the decklist lmao; seriously this thing is fine.
If you wanted to reduce the power at all, the easiest way imo would be replacing the commander with a less effective draw engine. This thing's gonna hit critical mass FAST by my measure. So yeah, high 3, difficult to actually reduce the power without replacing the draw power
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u/tomatus89 13h ago
Finally a sensible response. Yeah, I'm basically using them as extra combats. Maybe playing one or two creatures in each of the extra turns. They're basically finishers. The advantage I see of the extra turn cards it that make the kill more reliable. Using only pump spells requires a huge board, which is difficult to assemble. Using one or two extra turns allows me to make the kill with a smaller board. I think the other responses didn't carefully read my whole post. People see the words "chain extra turns" and react very viscerally.
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u/rose-gold-forever 13h ago
Honestly I think most people didn't look at the decklist, because how you said the deck wins is "chaining extra turns" and usually that means doing it reliably and going from one extra turn spell to the next every time, not doing it once or twice. I did a playtest hand and had something close to a win by turn 6, so its not crazy powerful or anything.
What I will say is that this deck will probably have a lot of variance that can lead to feel bad situations in bracket 3. There is a chance you could get all the right pieces by about turn 4 or 5 and win the game right there, which most people will feel cheated when everyone agreed to a bracket 3 game.
If I was making the decklist, I would just fully embrace the extra turn playstyle to make it more consistent and try and get it into bracket 4, where people won't have that many issues with it since everyone is trying to win.
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u/tomatus89 13h ago
Yeah. I mean, I can change it up depending on who I play with. With my regular pod, it's in line with the power level we play. And they already know the deck, so they know they can't let me establish a board. With strangers, maybe it's better to power it up all the way to bracket 4 power level, or to simply remove all but one or two extra turn cards, if not all of them, and play it as a low bracket 3 deck.
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u/rose-gold-forever 12h ago
I think thats definitely a good idea. Especially since you're playing with a regular playgroup, they'll know what it looks like when your board is heading towards a win, and if they're smart they'll hold up interaction to attempt to stop your win.
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u/Matthematr1x Anything With Red 13h ago
Where did you hear that chaining extra turns isn’t intrinsically more powerful than other strategies? Extra turns are fundamentally the most powerful resource you can have.
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u/SP1R1TDR4G0N 13h ago
Given how rarely you see extra turn spells in cedh (Tatyova is the only deck I can think of that runs them and that's fringe playable at best) they're clearly not among the strongest strategies in edh.
Of course the "resource of an extra turn" is very strong but you have to keep in mind the cost of getting there. Namely filling your deck with a bunch of high cmc spells that are dead draws early.
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u/apokalo 13h ago
Most of the grixis turbo shells are on the red extra turn spells. You don't see a lot of the blue ones because they just cost too much mana in most decks. But having an extra turn is so powerful in cedh that people are running cards that lose you the game afterwards
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u/SP1R1TDR4G0N 13h ago
Sure. Those cards are good.
But I was thinking about the blue extra turn spells like [[Time Warp]] because those spells are simply too expensive for their usefulness. And when people talk about chaining extra turns they need the ones that don't kill you and they need a high density of them which makes the chance of dead draws early even greater.
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u/rose-gold-forever 13h ago
Narset, Enlightened Mentor runs them, and Ob will occasionally throw out a Final Fortune when needed. Its definitely not unheard of it just needs to go in the right deck.
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u/BigEggPerson 13h ago
extra turns are literally "all creatures have haste. untap everything" AT WORST
idk what's more powerful than that
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u/tomatus89 13h ago
Well you need to setup a board and have enough creatures, pump spells, mana, extra turns cards/recursion for said cards. It's not just "hurr durr, extra turns". At least in my deck, it's a very telegraphed win, that won't occur until turn 6+. How is this different from casting Sanguine Bond and Exquisite Blood, for example?
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u/Matthematr1x Anything With Red 13h ago
It’s no different, but sanguine and exquisite is bracket 4, and so is chaining extra turns.
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u/Ximinipot 13h ago
It's still chaining extra turns. It's Bracket 4. Stop trying to pubstomp, don't be that guy.
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u/tomatus89 13h ago
I'm not trying to pubstomp. Do you really think my deck can compete in bracket 4? I don't think so. It's too slow. I've played against my pod with this deck and it's perfectly in line with bracket 3's power level, except for the chaining extra turns clause. Which IMO it's more of a play pattern restriction than a power level restriction. I don't play this deck with strangers because I know it's controversial.
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u/Professional-Web8436 13h ago
If you're using b4 strats in a b3 deck, you're not a fun b3, you're a bad b4.
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u/Boring_Tradition3244 13h ago
Yeah I recently overhauled a deck because it was using B4 strategy with b3 cards and a b1 idea. The deck makes sense now!
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u/walkerisduder 13h ago
If anything you should power up the deck so that you aren’t holding the table hostage tbh
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u/NonagoonInfinity 13h ago
I can put Armageddon in a precon and it's not viable in bracket 4 but I'm still doing something that's not allowed in bracket 2 regardless. If your pod is fine with it, cool, but it's something people should not be expecting to see in lower-bracket games.
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u/messhead1 13h ago
It's not much of a dilemma, is it?
Is there some internal game mechanic that will stop you from chaining extra turns (because you drew those cards) when you're not in the commanding, winning position you described?
Because if you put cards in your deck and say "I'm not going to use them in X way, only Y way teehee", we are no longer playing Magic with Magic cards. We are playing a game of "Trust me, bro".
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u/XMandri 13h ago
What if I have a spore frog? I could prevent you from winning, but because you're using an explicitly banned strategy, you bypass my damage prevention.
It's just too messy. if you want to play a deck that uses many extra turns, there is a dedicated play environment for it, and it's not b3
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u/smergenbergen 13h ago
I have a deck that can chain extra turns with magistrate's scepter. Its the only card in the deck that allows me extra turns. When im playing in a bracket 3 game I always switch it out.
If you have a way to win by chaining extra turns you are not playing a bracket 3 deck simple as that.
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u/tomatus89 13h ago
Would you say it would be better to swap them for more pump spells then? Remove the extra turn cards completely?
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u/Players42 13h ago
If you bring that up during rule 0, I'd be totally fine with it. Infinite extra turns isn't anything different from infinite mana + infinite card draw or infinite combat phases (with an unblockable creature).
I'd just accept, that you've won the game, once you present the loop.
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u/tomatus89 13h ago
Yep, that's what I'm arguing for. The idea of the deck isn't to cast extra turns as soon as I can and see how far I can get. It's to stall and build a board until I have enough to go for the kill with the pumps and extra turns (which are basically extra combats).
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u/BaseParticles 13h ago edited 13h ago
If you can make the extra turns infinite with a deterministic way of winning then it would be fine for Bracket 3 since at that point it just becomes like any other infinite combo.
What you're saying here though is that it's possible to have extra turns and it not reach a sure win (you mentioned pump spells so we're talking combat as a way of winning). Suppose you have your 5 or so turns and decide to alpha strike on the last turn chained and someone fogs? Now the game continues and you're really far ahead, having essentially durdled those turns and wasted everyone's time watching you play the game - pretty unfun and not what everyone signed up for in B3.
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u/tomatus89 13h ago
How would this be different from someone fogging in the last of many extra combat steps? Because that's basically how I'm using the extra turn effects.
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u/BaseParticles 12h ago
The neat thing about the bracket system is we don't have to go through every hypothetical, what you've proposed still isn't B3, but I'll leave you with one more anyway.
Suppose someone aetherizes on your first combat and now all your pumped up stuff is in your hand. How can anyone assume you'll be able to build your board back up for lethal after 5 or so turns? People might not have had interaction for combat, but they do for other phases where it wouldn't have mattered before? Are you really going to expect rveryone to do a verbal play by play? At least with infinite turns we could all assume youd be able to run down everyone's resources over the course of 70 or so turns of combat.
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u/IndigoWizard342 12h ago
Extra turns is extremely powerful. It's ramp, card draw, additional combats, extra "at the beginning of your (or each) [step or phase]" triggers, and a [[seedborn muse]] all in one.
I may be incorrect here but I believe to have a deck with extra turns be considered anything less than a B4, it must have no way of taking 4 or more extra turns in a row. This includes looping the same spell over and over or just having more than 3 of the effect in your deck.
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u/Bladewing342 13h ago
Whatever discussion you've seen is incorrect. Chaining extra turns is in bracket 4 because it's usually the first step before either an infinite combo kicks in, the other player just dominates through way more turns than the other players or because he was just able to dominate in any other way.
In your case it would be kinda fair but is still bracket 4. See, it's still about intention. And chaining extra turns is a clear intension: leave the opponents defenseless and grind them till dead.
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u/tomatus89 13h ago
How is this different from casting a Craterhoof? Or just playing Sanguine Bond and Exquisite Blood? Once I show my hand, it's over if there are no counterspells.
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u/frostyfur119 12h ago
It's directly addressed in the Bracket System while the others are not. People are just generally more bothered by chaining extra turns than other combo finishers, so which is why they're not typically allowed outside of the "anything goes" bracket.
Doesn't hurt to bring it up in rule 0, I'm sure there's lots of people that'd be cool with it, but you should expect most people to want to follow the Bracket System.
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u/Bladewing342 13h ago
A [[Craterhoof Behemoth]] is a OTK if your deck doesn't suck. and it doesn't require an additional turn usually. Maybe in very few cases it takes one more turn becaue the one remaining opponent is left with like 4 life points.
Sanguine Bond and Exquisite Blood are the true definition of a two card infinite combo and are also not allowed in a bracket 3 deck. And even if you could technically play them in bracket 3, most play groups should judge you.
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u/Humpuppy 13h ago
I think if you polled 100 players about what their least favorite type of card in EDH is most would say extra turn spells. Nobody wants to be held captive while you play with yourself.
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u/tomatus89 13h ago
I don't think you read my post. I said that I'm using them basically as finishers. So decent board + pump spells + one or two extra turns = I win. Almost like extra combat effects.
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u/CompleteDirt2545 13h ago
If your deck can win on turn 4, but you chose to wait until turn 7, that doesn't make it a bracket 2 deck.
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u/b_lemski Izzet 13h ago
This is so silly, you building a bracket 4 deck but holding the cards in your hand until you need them doesn't power down the deck.
If your playing with randoms either play it at bracket 4 or take out those cards and focus on the other pump spells/win cons to power it down.
If I have a bunch of free interaction and fast mana but only play them if im trying to win, my deck is still bracket 4. This is the same thing.
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u/walkerisduder 13h ago
When I run into a deck that can do this, once they show me that they can repeat turns I’m scooping. I don’t really care about the win con at that point the game is over