This is something that just slapped me in the face. Forgive me if this is already a thing somewhere and I just missed it.

Anyways, as the topic says, I'm toying with the idea of a 4CMC+ variant. Not sure if I want to stick with 4+ or go to 5+ or maybe even 6+.

The concept is straightforward enough, you can only use (nonland) cards/generals with CMC 4+ or higher.

To me, this has potential but I wanted feedback before I invest a lot of time into checking everything out. See if there was any interest, what you'd like to see, what you don't want to see, potential problems.

I believe this concept could be a success for a few reasons:
A) Tiny Leaders was a thing, this similar (arguably better)
B) Larger card pool to draw from (over tiny leaders)
C) Potential to be less competitive due to the nature of slower decks
D) Encourage people to play bigger, hay maker spells, spells that are otherwise overlooked because they're not hyper efficient
E) This would perhaps solve a few of the complaints some players have with select trouble cards
i) Fewer tutors
ii) Fewer counter spells
iii) Fewer mana rocks/ramp (no Sol Ring, Mana Vaultomb, Signets, Farseek)
iv) Access to fewer generals (No Derevi, Clique, etc)

This would also speed up the first few turns of the game where not a lot is happening anyways (typically) and get you to the meat and potatoes of the match sooner. Couple this with not having access to nearly as mean hyper efficient cards it's possible it reduces the competitiveness of decks (though won't remove them entirely)

I feel like a lot of this fits the spirit of EDH. I mean, regardless I'm going to give it a shot and report back but once again, just wanted some extra input (Which is more ideal? 4/5/6+)

Thanks for you time

Coming Soon:
A list of all the generals that are available and/or banned with a list of all those at 4-6 CMC for sure to compare tiers
Potentially a list of common/popular cards in each 4-6 tier that would be affected.

Edit: Leaning into 4cmc+ for simplicity and it would allow all of the new 4 color generals

List of Generals Sorted By CMC:
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/list-mul ... &sort=cost

Edit: This is much less time/space consuming lol

still remain with 100 cards (in total) or will be more cards?

http://www.starcitygames.com/article/30 ... emoth.html

This "behemoth" never went anywhere because it probably could never be a good format.


Tiny Leaders is also all but dead. "Was" being a key word here.
Similarly;

Being better than TL is not really a good judge if this is worth investing a lot of time into developing.


Any format is what you make of it, in the end. This format is designed to be for casual players but it doesn't stop competitive players who are fascinated by multiplayer/commander zone/high life/singleton (or just like to compete in all formats in general).
It has the potential to be less competitive but i think the opposite is also true (though not likely)


Do you experience that people cannot already do so? I see people do so when they please, and not do so when they want to be more efficient and have a tight curve. Essentially, what you are enforcing is "SOME of the most efficient cards are 3 or less mana, we will have LESS of the most efficient cards".
This doesn't sound like a solution to me. You'd have better luck pitching a new format, that's almost identical, but has a different ban list. At least that way allows people to test with you and not create new decks in the process.


Counterspells are very very good in certain quantities but i've never heard they were problems for this format. They are usually 1-for-1's to begin with, and that's not really great for you in multiplayer.
Forcing players to play at 4+ cmc doesn't mean they won't play counterspells, it means there will be more Rewind, Contradict, Cryptic Command, Mystic Confluence, Dismiss and whatever else draws a card. In this format, those cards are at least good or better than some of the 2-3 mana spells that are 'problems' right now. Wanting to counter spells will not go away just because they cost 4, when everything costs 4 anyway.

Like i mentioned i believe earlier, i think you'd be better off with a format that bans these. Or a house rule, which this format effectively is in a larger way.
You're creating a format where no one does anything but draws for the first 3 turns. There's so little ramp at and after 4 i'm not really sure it could exist meaningfully, and it's a strength normally attributed to one color that it would now lose.


Again, less really does not translate laterally to 'better'.
And Clique is just a mono-blue deck, i can't even imagine the harm in that. It's etb affects one person at a time, one card at a time. If Clique were banned, mono-blue players could still play the same deck anyway.


If nothing is happening anyway, then you are not speeding anything up. If nothing is happening anyway, then this is the same speed still. You're only gimping a ton of cards that are strong but totally acceptable. There are a lot of cards with unique or very uncommon effects at those cmcs anyways, which sounds like a net negative.

But you're not at the meat and potatoes much sooner. The first spell of the game simply costing 4 mana doesn't even in itself mean meat and potatoes. You still have to set up at turns 4, 5, and 6.

With everything at 4+cmc, you are only casting 1 single spell per turn maximum until turn 8 (unless you play Skyshroud Claim and Thran Dynamo type stuff which seem incredible). So by start of turn 6, there MAY be 8 permanents in play. I don't think we can say there is a specific golden number of permanents that have to be on the field to qualify as "meat and potatoes gameplay", but i surely think having two turns of action with 0 board state doesn't qualify, for example. Everyone would still be at 40 life minus one attack and a couple of fetches on turn 7, it seems like.

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This format also kills literally every single tribe in the multiverse. Maybe not Giants, Treefolk, and Dragons? Although they still lose a handful of decent stuff each, and Treefolk totally lose Doran and the fatbutts theme, which was their usefulness.

Some of the very best (or let's say, what i IMAGINE you would consider a problem) commanders are 4+ cmc anyway. Most are 4+ cmc anyway. Edhrec's top 21 commanders of all time includes a mere THREE =<3 commanders.

Because of the high cmc restriction, you can virtually only play one spell per turn the whole game, unless you pack all the 4cmc mana ramp/rocks. This means if you ever want to hold up removal or a counterspell, everyone knows without a doubt what you are doing. Which is bad, because there should be some uncertainty. Having 2 mana up does not always means someone has a plan, often it can mean they just had 2 more mana than they needed to spend.

This doesn't just kill ramp, it kills mana fixing. (signets, Burnished Hart and Chromatic Lantern variants, Kodama's Reach). Even though you start your action at 4 and 5 mana, many players can't afford suites of shocks and fetches for all their decks and these are all budget-friendly and inclusive. Suppose Bad River becomes a little bit better here lol.

Kill a lot (7 out of 15, so half) of partner commanders, which aren't necessarily more important than non-partners, except there's not many of them in the first place (relatively).

100 cards. Keep it simple.

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Let me just start off by saying that it looks like this format is of little to no interest to you so keep that in mind. That being said, I appreciate all this feedback/info and really appreciate the link. Seems like this article covers everything I was getting at but better, so thanks for that



I understand that it's practically dead, my point was that the interest in a CMC variant was (and probably still is) there. Referenced larger card pool because of how many more options it opens up. Having more choices is almost always better than having less. For instance, the number of playable commanders increases exponentially.

Furthermore, as I stated before, I'm going to develop/playtest this regardless because well you never know.



Agreed, anything is possible.



Sure SOME people play SOME big spells but most of the time people are going to choose a less interesting and/or cheaper alternative as long as it serves the same purpose. If you restrict decks to 4/5/6+ CMC it opens up and perhaps forces people to explore lesser known options rather than just stick in the aggressive costed staples (though the higher costed staples would surely be more prevalent). As I said, it encourages people to think outside the box, even if only a little. The current banlist should be fine, I'd want as few changes as possible for simplicity.



Listen (look), as a general rule, I have no problems really with EDH as it is. I love it and I don't think I'd change anything, a lot of the points I made are directed at people who have and continue to voice complaints. I was just pointing out some of the would be benefits for those people.

Anyways, I've seen people complain if a deck has more than 2 counter spells in it, some that say no more than 5 and others who just don't care one way or the other. As you said, counter spells wouldn't go away but they'd get more interesting and would make it harder counter spells* (more on this below).



Yeah, some people would still have 5 minute turns doing nothing other than trying to pick which land to fetch. I get what you're saying but the only other alternative would be to start everyone with 3-4 basic lands (which is a bad idea, right? You know, being able to cast your commander on what's essentially turn 1) and that I don't see being healthy for this variant. Everyone only playing/fetching lands the first few turns is the lesser of evils here.

There's plenty of ramp at and after 4, you just never see it because more efficient spells take their place. This would bring those into the fold more often. Green would still be excellent at ramping because now instead of getting one land, you're getting 2-3 land (which could be stronger than it is currently given the nature of this variant)



The less was alluding to the fact that a few of the strong generals would be gone and once again, you'd still have more general options than Tiny Leaders.

I picked Clique because I've seen/heard a few people complain about it, not because it's a powerhouse.



Fact: If no one has anything other than land to play the first 4 turns, then they'll go by quicker. As it is now, some decks and/or lucky starts can make even turn one last 5+ minutes. Have you ever played against a good elf tribal deck? Turn 2-3 at the latest and you can easily see 5-10+ minute turns. Again, not a slam on elves, just that some people find ways to drag out even the simple act of fetching a land. Mix in some other actions and it can really slow down what should be quick turns.

But yes, generally speaking you're right, no huge impact there. At least once people do start playing spells, every other player has a better chance of also having something big to compete with it.



Maybe but if that were the case, then it wouldn't be vastly different from how it is now. However, 4+ CMC spells often have a fair amount of power/effect. You're not getting pecked for 1 damage for 3 turns. You're getting slammed. But who knows, maybe nothing much would change, would be interesting to see the meta that developed.



I wouldn't say it kills all of the tribals but it definitely doesn't help them. As for those 'problem' commanders, I imagine quite a few would be weakened/softened without some of the lower cost cards they rely on today. For example, Prosh would lose Food Chain, Zur would be dead, Ezuri would lose Sage of Hours, etc. Not that those are all 'problem' commanders, just some of the ones that I've heard complaints about.



I suppose more people would be packing more of the bigger mana rocks (Thran Dynamo, Gilded Lotus, Dreamstone Hedron, lolMeteorite, Prismatic Geoscope)

*As for holding up a counter spell, how would it really be any different that someone with two untapped islands holding up a Counterspell? Oh right, you'd have to reserve a significantly larger portion of your mana to do so. Other than that, they'd be the same. Either you're bluffing, or you do have it. Sounds to me like if someone didn't have a counter and they held up 4 mana open with a land in hand they'd bluff you out. Sometimes you just gotta hope for the best and JAM.

Besides, at 4CMC+ you'd still see things like Commandeer and Force of Will so you're never truly safe.



This is something I'd like to avoid. The only other thing I could think to do would be if you have two (partner) commanders that you can only use them as long as their combined CMC was 4+ (which still cuts out a handful of combinations).

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Sorry for the terrible formatting. I do appreciate the feedback though. You made a lot of great points and I look forward to testing these and not just theorizing.

I think the biggest problem is what happens if someone doesn't hit their 4th land? They could just sit there for turns with no way to ramp if they happen to get unlucky

PLAY MOR LANDZ!!!!

If I were to play in this format I'd just houserule we start the game with any 3 basic lands in play before the draw/mulligan process. I have absolutely no desire to play through 3 rounds of "draw, land, go."

This also means guaranteed manafixing for multicolor decks, but when the format eliminates nearly all forms of mana fixing (except for huge green spells) and requires people start casting at CMC4, I think multicolor decks deserve that. Further since the format asks people to start casting at CMC4, I think it's fair to let people have a total of 4 lands on turn 1 virtually guaranteed, and that benefits even monocolored/uncolored decks.

I don't think this format would be fun without that rule, in fact, given ordinary "draw, land, go" play and no mana fixing would mean an uncomfortable number of games would effectively start with one person lagging 2-3 turns behind or being fundamentally unable to do anything due to their luck of the draw.

This format is billed as getting into the meat and potatoes sooner: doing that means decks don't get pressured to have 50+ cards in them, which means less meat because of more turns being spent drawing lands, which is against the goals of the deck; it also means we genuinely start at the meat and potatoes instead of playing through 3 "draw, land, go" rounds.


By including (iv) under (E), I'm interpreting this as meaning that fewer generals solves complaints about trouble generals.

At the time of posting, every commander on EDHREC's Top Commander list is CMC 4 or greater, except for four: Alesha, Who Smiles At Death, Thrasios, Triton Hero, Animar, Soul of Elements, and Derevi, Empyrial Tactician. This means most of the typical common bogeymen I've heard complaints about (Meren of Clan Nel Toth, Oloro, Ageless Ascetic, Kaalia of the Vast, Marchesa, the Black Rose) are alive and well in Titan EDH. Less common bogeymen (e.g. Gaddock Teeg, who people see as unfun from a mile away) get eliminated at least. Meanwhile a lot more unusual or niche commanders get removed.

You'd more efficiently solve trouble generals by putting them on a custom ban list that includes whatever ones you're thinking of.


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OTOH, at least this format would make Kalemne, Disciple of Iroas voltron really worthwhile. Get them out on turn 1 (with the rule above), start boosting them on turn 2.

Dragon Tribal would also be pretty amazing since you'll be pumping out powerful spells all through turns 1-3.

The people that made Tiny Leaders were apart of my play group. Most of us knew it was silly and that it wouldn’t last, so to mock them we “took” all the cards they weren’t playing and made a “new” format: Huge Heroes. Its like commander but only uses cards with cmc 4+ and a 150 card deck. If we needed to make “proxy” commanders they would be 4/4s.
It didn’t really get past the idea phase as we were just mocking our friends for their bad idea.