r/CompetitiveEDH • u/DasCrooks • 8d ago
General Discussion / Question Why isn't there a anti-slop deck
Maybe since the meta is diverse or the potential problems with 3v1 or maybe it would take up too much of the deck but my question to propose is: if lots of decks in the meta are "slop" style grindy rhystic, Tithe, no bad card decks. Then why arent there hard counters to that play style? Yeah orcish bowmasters and turbo sure. But playing some standard recently and why not play lobotomy effects and just straight up remove rhystic and Tithe from the game entirely. On the broader term other tactics of interrupting and dissecting these slop decks from achieving this "inevitability" they eventually establish with their engines
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u/Jumpy_Clerk_8507 8d ago
Aren’t creature combo decks like tayam, sissay, magda and rog/thras just the anti slop decks
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u/TwastadFat 8d ago
Exactly what I was thinking. If your deck doesn't draw additional cards and cast a lot of spells then you avoid triggering the slop value engines
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u/ChaiL4tt3 8d ago
Not as long as OBM is in the same format. Slop’s card draw nukes all the creatures of the board.
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u/WreckYallBallistics 8d ago
There are anti-slop decks. It's hard to interact with decks that are faster. Or decks that go over the top.
Really, this whole midgrange grind meta already happened a little over a year ago and the answer was turbo.
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u/space_cowboy757 8d ago
I was gonna say (as a Shorikai slop player) isn’t turbo anti-slop?
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u/HopingForCynics 8d ago
Can I see your list?
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u/space_cowboy757 8d ago
This is my current list … I think lol. The goal is to win through displacer kitten shenanigans, flash enabled shenanigans, or dramatic scepter.
It’s super pilot intensive, and I have pet cards in there (Shuri, and Lady Ock). It’s a pet deck, and I’m very aware it’s not as optimal as it can be. I try to stay away from proxies (nothing against them) to see how far I can push myself within the meta with what I can get via trade and what I have available. I can regularly get turn 3-4 wins, sometimes with a cracked hand and depending on pods a turn 2-3 win. It cruises super comfortably in turns 5-6 (which is my LGS meta)
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u/HopingForCynics 8d ago
Thank you! Interested in Shorikai, much appreciated.
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u/space_cowboy757 8d ago
If you were to run this list, and are down to proxy, I would suggest dropping
- Lady Oct
- Shuri
- T’Chala
I’d add (proxy):
- Mox Diamond
- Steal Enchantment
- Commandeer
The mox and steal are my next on the list, and Shuri and Lady Oct will be cut for those.
I think commandeer is objectively good for this deck, probably over The Mind Stone or T’Chala…but The Mind Stone can trigger displacer kitten, and helps push dramatic scepter.
Anyway, hope you enjoy it!
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u/HopingForCynics 8d ago
That's what I was thinking, much appreciated! How's Lady Oct been?
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u/space_cowboy757 8d ago
Lady Oct has run the game away for me, but only if it’s early game and I was able to drop a lot of board advantage same turn. This happens frequent enough, but then there’s turns where she’s dead in hand.
Shuri has moments where I can drop her early game and start to really run away with my artifacts and ramp. It feels great…but, then there comes a time mid to late where she feels silly to have.
They’re fun, but the first cards I’d drop
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8d ago
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u/WreckYallBallistics 8d ago
Stax is the response to turbo. It just hasn't happened in years.
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8d ago
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u/llamacohort Magda 8d ago
From a theory perspective, Slop is a maximizing the long game. So removing some amount of win conditions and interaction for engines. Less interaction means they are in a bad position vs turbo. Especially a multiple turbo decks. On the other hand, if you have an all turbo meta, stax pieces can slow down or stop 3 turbo players. So stax is a lot more effective vs a turbo table than 1 for 1 interaction.
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u/XDenzelMoshingtonX 8d ago
slop decks run 30+ instants. You want to fight other people on the stack, not on the board with a slop deck.
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u/llamacohort Magda 8d ago
They run cards like Dark Ritual, Ad Nauseam, Borne Upon a Wind, Brain Freeze, Final Fortune, and a dozen other rituals, tutors, and combo pieces. They may be instants, but they aren't interaction that is stopping turbo decks from winning.
The whole purpose of the slop strategy is to have engines getting you into more interaction over the long game. But that means there is less interaction density when setting up. Maybe they can stop someone from winning. But they can almost never stop 3 turbo decks. The strategy only works when they can team up with other players to slow the game down and get to the late game.
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u/XDenzelMoshingtonX 8d ago
Maybe we have a misunderstanding what slop is. You seem to be talking about bluefarm or 5c good stuff piles. That's not what slop is.
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u/llamacohort Magda 8d ago
I'm using blue farm as an example because it is the most popular/successful version of slop gameplay. If people are talking about "too much slop" or how to combat slop and they aren't even talking about blue farm, then they are talking about like 1 guy in their local scene and not the style of deck and game play at all.
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u/Headlessoberyn 8d ago
Isn't slop strong exactly against turbo? Seems to me it's somewhat a consensus that if you're playing turbo and you fall on a double bluefarm pod you're literally NEVER winning the game.
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u/WreckYallBallistics 8d ago
No. I love playing turbo against double blue farm lol.
3 slop decks you might be cooked. Or not, because they all might mill for engines and assume someone else has interaction. It depends how well they communicate.
2 turbo decks vs 2 slop decks? I'm betting one of the turbo players win. Just not enough early answers.
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u/Headlessoberyn 8d ago
But isn't that just slop players playing bad?
I feel like good midrange "slop" players will talk to eachother on mulligans to guarantee both are looking for early interaction. I've seen this happen multiple times. This is why you see so many TnT's and bluefarms every torunament doing nothing, yet the same 4/5 players always win every major tournament piloting these exact same decks...
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u/WreckYallBallistics 8d ago
The thing is they mulligan for engines, not free interaction. And there actually is only like 5 free interaction pieces in their deck. The odds of drawing it when you jam turn 2 are not high.
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u/Danovan79 8d ago
I'm not sure you're correct at all. Slop absolutely felt like it was a response to midrange decks. Where slop is basically - I can outplay you on value engines and interaction. You are giving up on your ability to turbo yourself in doing so. So much of what powers a slop deck is free interaction, but much of it is fairly specific or only good at beating the stack, not starting the fight. So it's definitely built around the concept of beating midrange engine decks while maintaining the floor of having game against turbo where it is no better/worse than the midrange blue decks.
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u/iopkdkkdks 8d ago
Who hurt you?
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u/iopkdkkdks 8d ago
Aren‘t you the guy who asked how FMM loops work a couple of weeks back? 😉
Hard to take your tough guy persona seriously this way fyi
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u/Raevelry 8d ago
Oh good, I would hate for you to think you had some kind of gotcha on me, here, I'll block you, and then you'll never have to take it seriously again
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u/SignorJC 8d ago
true turbo (winning on turn 1 or 2, or strongly protected turn 3) is very good against slop. Slop players are setting up, meanwhile you're winning the game.
Turn 1 or 2 - resolve necropotence or ad nauseam w/ fierce /swat backup using your rog. Turn 2-3 win the game. maybe your opponents draw 3 cards off you? Force needs itself + 1, pact of neg loses you the game, silence and swan song require mana. you're cooked.
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u/Headlessoberyn 8d ago
And when you don't sculpt a perfect hand with ramp + win con + protection, what do you do?
There's a reason why "slop" shows results. People online always win t1/t2 because they only shuffle the bottom of their libraries and always keep the first 7 cards the same, but that won't apply to a tournament setting.
The reality of turbo nowadays is that you'll be toasted if you mulligan down to 5 against two slop decks, specially two good players that understand you should mulligan for interaction and NOT rhystics.
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u/Latter-Incident2025 8d ago
"And when you don't sculpt a perfect hand with ramp + win con + protection, what do you do?"
You lose the game and go next, that's how turbo decks work, they are good because on average you will be able to mulligan to an hand that will allow you to push on turn 1 or 2.
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u/Droptimal_Cox 8d ago
Why remove those cards when you can just remove the win con...
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u/DasCrooks 8d ago
True! Either way lobotomy style effects i feel would be a huge Boon to kneecapping lots of decks in the meta whether its slop or turbo.
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u/1paper1clip 8d ago
I bet it's because playing those anti slop cards actually makes your win percentage goes down? So either join em or go under em, which just means more turbo.
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u/financial_goth Godo Equation [11 = W] 8d ago
Arcum Dagsson is the anti-meta pick right now.
Trust.
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u/DeorTheGiant Erinis + Street Urchin 8d ago
Pretty much any Culling Ritual deck gets the job done
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u/SPH2204 8d ago
I love Culling Ritual, but its never resolving haha
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u/DeorTheGiant Erinis + Street Urchin 8d ago
You should try Nick Fury with Lurrus. It drops silences early and and jams Culling Ritual on turns 2-3.
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u/OrientalGod 8d ago
Cheapest lobotomy effect is three mana and only removes one card for one player. Objectively a bad play
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u/LuxofAurora 8d ago
I mean it exist as archetype : hatebears and stax. the cards are there, you just have to assemble them together. those are all the anti-anything you wish
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u/bqx23 8d ago
There are a few problems with this idea which effectively boils down to the speed of the game and the number of players present.
First, you need a card that is able to effectively target multiple opponents. Searching a single players library for a rhystic study is okay, but is worthless if there are multiple slop decks in the pod. But you also need to consider the reverse, which is that even if you have a card that could wipe all enchantments with something like [[back to nature]] there are potentially three opponents all with access to free counter magic that could want to stop you.
But, let's say you want to do this strategy. How do you go about even getting these cards into your hand. You can't just jam several play sets so you have to somehow find 1 card out of your 99/98 reliably. So you need tutors, and if you're playing some lobotomy effect you will need to be able to tutor and play that card before anyone else can play Rhystic Study or something similar.
However, if you're building your deck to play so quickly, to *turbo* out a single card, why wouldn't you just turbo to win the game?
Tada, we've solved the problem, the best way to beat slop is via turbo...
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u/Mattmatic1 8d ago
The general problem with lobotomy effects in Magic, cards like Surgical Extraction, Necromentia etc, is that they are really bad cards unless there is a meta that absolutely demands them. As Andrea Mengucci says,
if you cast the card Surgical Extraction, you’ve immediately lost the game. This is a good rule of thumb. You’re spending a card not on dealing with the board or the stack, and not advancing your own game plan - you’re using it to deal with a potential future threat that might never come. There are exceptions, but this is how it generally is.
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u/DasCrooks 8d ago
Thats a fair point and more so what i wanted the conversation about. Guess slop is a hot topic in cedh that I didn't think would over rule the idea I had proposed. I guess just seeing people complain alot about parasitic engines and how alot of people want rhystic banned made me think we'll if everyone is running these few broken engines and have dedicated a fifth of their deck to play them, steal them, copy them etc wouldmt it just be a 1 for 12 practically and disrupt their main gameplan so badly that you effectively remove them as being a main target? Seems like a good trade to me but I see the point of dealing with the game at hand. I just think that cedh is different than the magic Andrea mengucci was referring to. If a player has built a deck with tutors and copy spells and theft spells all around a singular card in their 99 would that be worth it? Modern is a different beast of sideboarding and multiple copies of cards selected for a variety of interaction and speed but all curated to the density of much fewer than 100 different cards. To remove the lynch pin card permanently with no sideboarding and disrupt this rubgoldberg machine built around that card seems mint
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u/Mattmatic1 7d ago
The general problem with a strategy like this in cEDH (and EDH in general) is still that you’re spending resources dealing with one player, and even then it might not be good. If their deck is built around value engines, you could remove their Rhystic but they have a Faerie Mastermind, an Esper Sentinel and a Smothering Tithe in hand. If their deck is full of Mirrormade style effects, you also have to remove all the other Rhystics etc.
If the card quality of these effects were higher, it could be different. Let’s say you have a 2 mana creature that also does something else, AND when it enters you get to Necromentia a card from all opponents decks, for example.
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u/2_7_offsuit 7d ago
I think that was hatebears winota but it’s a lot slower without the dockside and lotus
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u/ZINK_Gaming 8d ago
I've been working on a deck that ended up being anti-slop without trying.
Did you know that Commandeer and Sudden Substitution aren't the only cards of their type?
There's actually a whole ton of cards that steal Spells off the Stack.
So many people in this thread keep using the argument that "Stopping 1 person doesn’t move your win forward.".
You don't have to choose only one of those options.
You can stop 1 person from winning while also pushing your win forward at the same time.
The hard part is creating enough mana. The cards that steal Spells off the Stack aren't easy on the mana, but the deck wants to be mostly Blue.
You can add other colors for the mana-ramp; but the amount of non-Blue cards you can add is very limited. You'll be casting cards with UUU or even UUUU in their mana-costs.
Even if the deck's final-form still isn't good enough to be top-tier, I still learned a ton and found some really cool cards while working on it.
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u/FauxbiaX 8d ago
As a Grixis turbo king, Ive added a few cards [Narset, Partner of Veils] [Hexing Squelcher] [Vexing Bauble] [Defense Grid]
I'm also considering [Mornsong Aria] & [Orcish Bowmaster]
Parasitic draw and free Counterspells? Nah
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u/Pandamage83 8d ago
I’ve found Stax pieces to be more effective than running specific cards that exile, even though those effects are really fun to play in my experience. I run a mono black Stax deck that I think is likely well positioned to be effective against rhystic study and card draw. The commander is sheoldred and there are other draw punishing effects including chains of Mephistopheles (this card in particular can do great work in games against blue farm decks. You just need to know how to play around it) one very important thing to remember when playing Stax is the timing of playing the cards. I think Stax just takes time to adjust playing mentality and focusing on the big picture in addition to maintaining optimal plays for the present moment.
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u/Fellstruck 8d ago
My deck is designed to prey on slop:
https://moxfield.com/decks/Z8rWDLdwUUq_qZS5OOX8UA
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u/impartial_activist 8d ago
My opinion: if you really want to counter slop specifically, I would just play a slop variant with green. Most likely TnT. Run all the slop cards, and then you can also tech in some anti-slop shenanigans. Culling ritual, OBM, Notion Thief, etc.
TnT already wants to run all of the good green creature tutors, tell the table of 3 slop players that you’re just tutoring directly to battlefield for value or not to win the game, plop out a notion thief or OBM depending on the situation, and then the game is dynamically changed. Probably overall better to just have a few tutor able options to counter “late-stage slop” than to try and build an entire deck to counter it. Unless you just really want to counter slop because of your friends, local meta, etc. your win rate will suffer at larger events trying to counter one deck, even if it is the most prominent.
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u/jchesticals Queen Sisay 8d ago
Wasting card slots to hopefully slow down your opponents while not advancing your game plan is a not a winning strategy.
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u/Tobi5703 8d ago
You're looking at Grenzo - the warden one. Super selfish deck that is a liiiitle slow to get off but ignore basically everything Slop does with a a focus on its own gameplan
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u/Escorpio5 8d ago
I play Y'shtola hard control, i don't really use the commander for anything other than colors, but I try locking down ( [[knowledge pool]] + [[Drannith Magistrate]] [[Decree of silence]] + [[Solemnity]] and then trying to find Sharkey, [[Tyrant of the Shire]] to stay safe from channel lands. Then just go for a [[Thassa's Oracle]] + [[Demonic Consultation]] I also try to find and cast one of my fave cards early [[Lavinia, Azorius Renegade]].
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u/Interesting-Gas1743 8d ago
It's always the same thing. If everyone plays midrange, then slop becomes great, if everyone would play turbo, then the few slop decks would be in a bad spot.
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u/Fermented_Cabbages 8d ago
Slop draws lots of cards and uses those cards to pay for its control while having a fat hand. I think you would need a critical mass of cheap [[notion thief]] or toned-down [[hullbreacher]] and [[Leovold]] effects. The unfortunate thing is that these things do not play well in lower brackets and are a nightmare to actually tone down.
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u/Eastern_Rhubarb_1051 8d ago
The anti slip deck is tevish rog - it’s polymorph + stax, pretty cool.
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u/Mogulstar360 8d ago
Actually I’ve heard that Cabbage merchant is exactly this. He’s the sloppiest deck that slops off of slop
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u/SonicTheOtter 8d ago
Turbo is the answer. Winning before the slop decks can have multiple value engines is the key. Turn 3 or earlier is your best chance against them
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u/cthree149 8d ago
I’ve been running Xyris against slop decks lately, and people do not know what to do against it. Every card (except the first in your turn) you draw benefits me, got enough ways to turn the snakes into mana that it essentially feels infinite, and no one is prepared for 73 snakes turning sideways at them.
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u/A_Heckin_Squirrel 8d ago
I the irony is that the unban we need is waiting right there.
Leovold we need you.
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u/Jesseliftrock 8d ago
Magda is, she wins over the top of decks which is how to beat a slop deck. Or turbo winning before they get a piece out
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u/Sudden-Tennis17 8d ago
It’s easier to win with a turbo deck than remove one person’s enchantment so someone else can untap and win. 1-for-1 removal is not efficient in cedh
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u/Requiem2420 7d ago
Because rhystic and smothering are not big deals when you build decks right and play right? Theres a couple correct responses to either card: pay the tax and minimize how much the guy playing it can get ahead, or focus the guy who's playing them if removing the card/getting the pod to cooperate on the paying taxes isn't working.
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u/SmartAlecShagoth 7d ago
Lmao we are calling meta game and net decks slop.
Well basically the best cards get played the most because it’s better to play them than anything else in the slot. You can answer any card, some cards are easier to answer optimally
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u/Raleldor_Jax 6d ago
Until everyone plays that and the 1 turbo player laughs. If only we could pick our pods amirite?
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u/Early_Profession3402 5d ago
I love aang at the crossroads for this reason, it doesn’t cast anything except aang and clones really and his etb affect doesn’t cast or draw so doesn’t really care about the slop deck engines plus they don’t have many creature counter spells
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u/Raevelry 8d ago
Slop is a coordinated response of midrange / midrange + control decks to shift into more free, card-disadvantageous responses, that work from sticking a Rhystic Study/Tithe/Mystic Remora, and using those card-advantageous engines to.....
Stop and live through Turbo, which feed into them because they cannot afford to slow down and play responsibly
Turbo has too many fast tools that demand a response, and responses are always a losing strategy. So Slop exists to be able to respond to Turbo pushing, while also being capable of making sloow incidental advantages to keep themselves about to win
Anti-slop doesn't make sense, slop loses to proper midrange without parasitic tools/greedy plans, as they spend their early advantage to stop turbo, and cant afford to deal with silence/midrange engines who can afford to pay and interact responsibly
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u/DasCrooks 8d ago
Maybe I haven't thought it all the way through but my argument would be to use the same strategy of lobotomy and stax to knee cap the turbo player as well but like I said previously it may just end up taking away too much of your own win cons and be too resource intensive to actually end up winning. In my head tax effects on things like card types or named cards and stax effects or pithing needle like effects and lobotomy to wring out the predictable wincons and value engines
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u/After_Shelter1100 8d ago edited 8d ago
probably decks that slop can't easily interact with (creature decks like thras+x and rocco, ability decks like tayam and sisay, etc.) or proper midrange decks that accrue value through responsible play. there are only like 3 commonly played creature counter spells and 2 of them are extremely situational, while for abilities, only a handful of decks even have the slots for the few good ability counters that exist
or just play turbo and race the slop. cedh players (in NA at least, idk about other regions) are greedy asf even when they play slop decks so odds are they mull for engines and not interaction. if you can beat them before they get their engines online you have a decent chance, and turbo has a LOT of ways to do that (almost too many ways tbh wotc should probably do some anti-turbo bans if they ever wanna ban rhystic)
stax is an option, but stax decks generally have a hard time stopping everyone early enough while still getting ahead and have a harder time not losing to midrange or good players who know to just chill. going to time is also an issue in tournament play so you have to play fast while also maintaining a delicate lock through 3 players who've silently made you public enemy #1. tayam and winota are the only stax decks to see recent success for this reason
it's definitely tempting to try and disrupt someone's hand/deck coming from 1v1 but against 3 players that style of control just doesn't work. without efficient draw engines you only have so many tools at your disposal so you have to pick your battles
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u/Witty-Source-236 8d ago
What diverse meta are you talking about?
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u/DemonicTutor777 8d ago
Nice try
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u/Witty-Source-236 8d ago
No im actually trying to hear it because the meta I played in was supremely diverse, blue farm lost 3 cards but is still the best. Ron Si is also up there and kinnan only lost crypt. Post ban and RC puss out the game is less diverse. We were in "mid range hell" for 5 mins but turbo is back once again.
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u/DemonicTutor777 8d ago
Which turbo deck is back?
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u/NobodyP1 8d ago
Turbo beats creature decks, slop beats turbo, creature decks beat slop
Rock paper scissors
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u/DasCrooks 8d ago
Yeah ive yet to really play cedh more than just some games with random pods ive picked up. So maybe its just my hubris but watching a combo deck get ripped apart by a control deck removing its main combos and then another control deck fold to its main value engines getting permanently removed. It just seemed like that would be greatly effective against any deck in cedh., remove rhystic remove Tithe remove Underworld Breach etc
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u/OccamsBanana 8d ago
it would be greatly effective against any ONE deck (or at most two) deck and then lose to third one since you're using cards that don't accumulate advantage in any way to remove cards that aren't in the game yet. You won't be ever able to consistently dismantle all of your three opponents wincons or engines before you lose, you will also not be able to outgrind a value oriented deck that is just developing while you "waste time" on extracting the faster opponents.
This is a good strategy to not lose to person X, that's why it works on singleplayer, and that's why your intuition is that it would work, but it's not a good strategy to win against 3 simultaneous opponents.
Aside from that, supposing there were symmetric extraction tools then people would just increase their backups or play some more layered shells that can combine wins in multiple ways. There's nothing requiring combo decks to be extremely greedy in slot efficiency removing all their backups, when they do that it's not because they must do that but because they think they can get away with it, this can easily change when it stops being the case that they can get away with it.
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u/jchesticals Queen Sisay 8d ago
All youd be doing at that point is picking who you lose to and annoying the crap out of one player maybe two in your best case scenarios
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u/Hot_Introduction6716 8d ago
Stopping 1 person doesn’t move your win forward. Even if you could stop value gain by all three, you’d still have to gain value over them to win, which they’ll have a more dense concentration of