In a format filled with old dual lands and expensive, low CMC artifacts, a new multiplayer format aims to shake things up: Conquest. Well, at least someone made an attempt.
I would describe this format as an EDH variant made by someone who is not a fan of blue decks and fast mana, who is tired of losing to Thassa’s Oracle and Demonic Consultation. Big deal in my town, down here in Brazil. If you don’t know what the Commander/EDH format is in MTG, this might not be an article for you.
So, officially:
Conquest is a new format, a more accessible alternative with its own rules along with a banlist focused on the competitive environment.
In other words, the goal of the format is to have a healthy competitive metagame in games with more than two players, and with decks that have different strategies operating at the same level.
Issues Seen in cEDH
• The committee that regulates the format carries out bans thinking about the casual, not the competitive.
• Diversity is small in competitive.
• It’s impossible to play Aggro in competitive, as your opponents have, together, 120 life.
• Most of the abused strategies in cEDH take advantage of starting with 40 life.
• Entering the format is almost impossible due to the high price tag of the reserved list cards.
• Commander damage is very complicated to adjust and calculate. [1]
I mean, sounds cool right?
In this spirit, Conquest appears seemingly as a natural consequence of an unimaginative metagame. So, It’s basically a “fixed” Commander with a few different rules. Commander damage is 12, total life is 30, there is no maximum deck size, you get to scry before the game starts, minimum deck size is set to 80 cards, and the reserved list is banned. Not only the reserved list, but a few other cards (including Sol Ring and Mana Crypt), but I’ll get there since that’s where some of my problems with the format starts.
I also fell like having a new format is better than having “house rules” at every LGS for EDH games, as It allows for some kind of fine tuning of the rules, so everyone can stick to what actually works.
At first, Conquest was great. Keep in mind, I live in Brazil, so as a sideproduct, Conquest allowed some folks to be more competitive on a budget. I have seen people take their Sol Rings out of a deck and be ready to go, even with what would be considered “weaker and casual” EDH decks. I have seen commanders like Charix thrive, or a comboless Varragoth. It first It was wild.
I played with more aggresive decks like Gitrog and Muldrotha, expecting to meet the competitive folks I knew from EDH tournaments, but even those guys decided to try new things and my “strong decks” really did not feel as strong. It was perfect, as I could try new things. Back when I was playing cEDH/EDH tournaments without house rules, It was “impossible” for me to play something other than Thassa’s Oracle + Demonic Consultation or Mikaeus + Walking Ballista, because I would have to buy new cards for a new combo, and I would probably lose to someone else playing the old combos. So, a fresh start was awesome. At some point EDH tournaments felt weird and I started only playing casual EDH. Around this time I got to try Conquest, and I was immediatly hooked.
But oh boy, It would not last long.
Remember the banlist I mentioned earlier? So, eventually some of It started to make no sense to me, as I played Conquest tournaments more and more, and the local community settled on “point based” tournaments between stores all over town.
In other words, there is now a reason to win at all costs to to accumulate points. For a while, no LGS in town was saved from this ongoing tournament deal. And even at the end of the tournament, a new standart was set.
So, to the banned cards…
Rhystic Study and Mystic Remora are banned because of how powerful It is, but not Esper Sentinel and Smothering Tithe.
Rhystic Study and Mystic Remora are banned for being strong blue card advantage engines, and they don’t have a limit on how many cards you can draw [1].
Players found ways to adapt to these restrictions, so banning blue draw engines made some decks not that great. People just got used to abusing other staples, so real deckbuilding diversity is pretty much not a thing in my local metagame lately.
In Brazil we have a saying that sums up this situation: “we exchanged six for half a dozen”.
Mana Crypt and Sol Ring are banned to promote a “slower game”, but everyone is playing Mana Vault and Gemstone Caverns. Actually I feel like Gemstone Caverns got more expensive here in Brazil because of the Conquest format, but don’t quote me on that.
Drannith Magistrate is banned, but yeah, Opposition Agent is totally fine for some reason. I kind of have a problem with that. I have died to voltron decks by turn 2 ou 3 in Conquest. It’s okay to punish black tutors, but since everyone is playing voltron and “voltron is cool and totally balanced”, no Drannith Magistrate as a protection for control decks.
Isochron Scepter and Food Chain are also banned to mitigate turn one combo finishers. So yeah.
…
Wait, I’m kind of okay with that.
The thing is, you just cannot advertise Conquest as a beginner/budget friendly format If everyone is playing Gemstone Caverns, Opposition Agent and Mana Vault instead of Mana Crypt and Drannith Magistrate. And I have seen It many times before, people here in Brazil saying how Conquest is cheaper and friendlier beacause “It fixes cEDH”, but honestly, anything is cheaper If you are setting old dual lands, moxes and fetchlands as a standart. Playing Opposition Agent, Mana Vault, Grand Abolisher, Esper Sentinel and Gemstone Caverns in every deck is not cheap at all, or diverse. It just makes the game feel dull and repetitive as cEDH felt not that long time ago, by the people who made Conquest to begin with. Playing Conquest nowadays is not cheap by Itself as It once felt.
And bringing the spirit of competitiveness to the Magic community in Brazil revolves a lot around budget, as we’ve already created entire Commander formats around a limit value for decks, like 500 and 100 brazilian reais (respectively around 100 USD and 20 USD as I’m writing this). The competitive meta of the conquest format easily goes over budget for the ordinary folk in Brazil.
“Cheaper” does not mean cheap, “more beginner friendly” does not mean beginner friendly. Playing MTG is not cheap at all. I say this as someone who has accumulated many staples over the years.
So that’s the thing, as the metagame settled, Conquest got It’s own problems similar to EDH. My experience playing a Conquest tournament now and last year feel vastly different.
Maybe I’m in the wrong here for expecting something else, people found whatever works best with the rules available, and now every Conquest tournament has people playing Tivit, Light-Paws and Winota. It’s more varied than cEDH, but I see the same cards every time I play these days.
This development from the point of view of creating a new format is great, from the point of view of criticizing the problems seen in the EDH, it is flawed to say the least.
Conquest allows for a thriving and new metagame that is exiting to be part of. It’s not cheap, but It may be cheaper at times. At the same time, the metagame promotes “tryhards” that are often more dedicated than in conventional commander tournaments. This is often odd, given the potential to change problems seen in cEDH.
I just cannot “blame” anyone for the metagame, as this is is kind of expected at a competitive level. In other words, in a competitive environment, that any LGS can be at times. And don’t get me wrong, I would still play Conquest rather than cEDH as a hobby. But thinking that Conquest started as a “fix” to cEDH, seeing the format with It own problems is, to say the least, not great. I found Conquest to be a satisfying middle ground between competitive and casual play, and now It became It’s own category of Competitive multiplayer Magic. Not something bad, just different.
Looking at It from another perspective, I could be absolutely wrong in imagining something different from what is seen today, on the other hand I get disappointed comparing my local metagame with what I’ve seen before. It’s not really a matter of something beign right or wrong, It’s just how I feel.
Maybe the format just isn’t for me and I should go back to conventional Commander, venturing into cEDH when I have the patience for it. Or maybe the format really needs some curation that may come with time If anyone else feels the way I do. Personally I would love to see more staples banned.
Ultimately, I appreciate the variety of formats available to distract me every once in a while, and I really appreciate the community.
I wish I could play Phelddagrif as a Commander on Conquest, please do something about It guys.
