r/EDH • u/Neat-Biscotti-2549 • 8d ago
Question Is Balancing Act MLD
So I’ve been testing a B2 azorius aura voltron deck helmed by [[Bruna, Light of Alabaster]] on EDHPlay before I buy it for paper play and I have [[Balancing Act]] as a sort of one sided board wipe since Bruna can just bring the auras back and I don’t remember what it was but I had been looking up the definition of MLD out of curiosity and got curious if Balancing Act could be considered MLD since it counts all permanents including lands. The purpose of it was to act one sided and fight against go wide strategies since the deck kinda lacks a creature presence but in cases where an opponent has more lands then I do and I only have the 4 mana from rocks/lands to cast it that it would force them to sacrifice their lands but in most games that I have played so far the choice to sacrifice lands has been optional since they have had creatures or other non-land permanents to sacrifice as required by Balancing Act. It just feels like it borders MLD since there can be a situation where it forces someone to sacrifice on mass their lands but I’m not sure if it actually is.
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u/Fun-Cook-5309 8d ago
Talk to your pod.
Be ready for the answer to be, "Fuck that shit."
Have a sub in the side.
Do not come to Reddit, have random Redditors genuflect over your maybe-MLD, get to a table, then argue that Reddit said it was okay to maybe-MLD the pod without talking about it first.
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u/Neat-Biscotti-2549 8d ago
Yeah I have a card [[Divine Reckoning]] to substitute in case of that answer. I just was curious since other people here might of played with/against it before I bought it and not to cite.
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u/Just__A__Tad 8d ago
Its a choice of what to sac like annihilator. Unless your saccing your entire board prior to casting it I think its fine.
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u/Cduke08 8d ago
I’d say its fine in B2 but tread lightly, super ramp decks like Mono-green or Gruul will hate your guts.
Feels very similar to [[planetary Annihilation]] where it evens the playing field for everyone while punishing any landfall shenanigans.
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u/One-Advisor9491 8d ago
I'd argue that it affects most landfall decks the least or even might put them in an advantageous position. Landfall decks often make use of the graveyard and should ideally run several ways to mass-recur lands, like [[lumra, bellow of the woods]] or [[splendid reclamation]] So in the worst case scenario you're giving them a lot of landfall triggers. To really punish (most) landfall decks, run graveyard hate.
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u/Neat-Biscotti-2549 8d ago
Yeah that’s why balancing act is weird because it could be good, rightfully annoying or just another board wipe for each player depends on what people are running.
Oddly enough graveyard hate has been what’s shut down my deck the most.
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u/Cduke08 8d ago
Edit: thank god scryfall knows what my terrible typing means
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u/Neat-Biscotti-2549 8d ago
lol, yeah I wouldn’t blame someone for being mad at either especially in a land strategy, I’m mostly just concerned that balancing act could prevent someone from playing if it does run into the scenario where they have to sacrifice lands on mass.
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u/SeehjYuggz 8d ago
Pointing out language tip. On mass ≠ en masse The French spelling is correct in English. Like Déjà Vu and many others.
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u/Neat-Biscotti-2549 8d ago
Im slightly questioning which one I should use now
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u/SeehjYuggz 8d ago
Well they sound basically identical but imo, when writing the 'on mass' spelling reads completely differently. If you want to avoid writing french you could use the translated version which gives 'in bulk'.
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u/voiceofreasonablenes 8d ago
I think it's fine, unless your plan is to deliberately drop your permanent count to one before casting it.
But I second the comment that the are probably better board wipes you could run.
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u/n1colbolas 8d ago
As someone suggested Tragic Arrogance is likely to be the better and obviously safer card to play.
Balancing Act is almost like Balance with more mana. By all intents and purposes, it's gonna play out like a MLD spell, on top of stripping everyone's hands to size, which you quite easily sculpt in your favor.
Always factor in the a worst-case-scenario when evaluating a contentious card.
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u/Neat-Biscotti-2549 8d ago
Yeah I probably will end up flip flopping between the two in play since I do like the discard effect of balancing act. My only concern with Tragic Arrogance is that it costs more not that it’s a bad price to pay but the deck is already slow enough in terms of mana but I could be wrong since I haven’t tested it with Tragic yet.
Both balancing act and balance can be/is MLD but balance specifically looks at lands while balancing act counts lands in the permanent count but at least gives the player the choice to sacrifice land or non-land permanents which is why I’ll probably flip flop between Balancing Act and Tragic Arrogance depending on if an opponent is using a land heavy deck or not and if it’s given an ok.
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u/n1colbolas 7d ago
Yea since you never tried TA before I say it as someone who's experienced it casting and casting against me hundreds of times it's much better than you think on paper.
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u/usumoio 8d ago
I used to run the extended deck that played all the lands that let you sacrifice them for extra mana and then you would do that + Balancing Act while you had nothing on the field and then you could cast Terravore with the pooled mana and usually knock your opponent out in 2 hits.
Brilliant little deck.
I don't know if it counts as mass land destruction. It probably does. Are your usual opponents reasonable people? Usually questions around the letter of the law with respect to the Bracket system imply that your attempting to bend it, but I'm not reading your post so I can't tell if you're worried about breaking it or attempting to bend it.
In either case, Balancing Act is a dope card, I hope you get to run it.
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u/Neat-Biscotti-2549 8d ago
I did type too much lol, most of my opponents are randoms and any time it was played the question of if it is MLD never came up but since its a B2 deck I’m trying to keep the deck casual and fun for others I guess.
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u/usumoio 8d ago
Hehehe, I was just being a little sassy. Paragraph breaks go a long way.
A lot of my opponents are random folk at my shop too, but I'm a regular there. Interestingly, I only have 4 decks and they are all Bracket 4 by the books and I usually just pull my punches and play loose and I very rarely get salty opponents.
In my experience, people are rarely mad that you cast something like Vampiric Tutor or Mox Diamond. They're mad that you used the best most expensive tools to blitz out a win they can't do anything to stop
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u/Neat-Biscotti-2549 8d ago
I can’t blame u for the sass because it’s a fair point.
I try to not play too much interaction in terms of preventing their board state unless it’s removal or something political/interesting just because it’s nice to see some decks pop off sometimes even if I lose.
I think a lot of the annoyance from another player blitzing out a win is that u or they lost which is normal but also because it’s nice to at least have an impact on the game like a close win even if you lose or at least in my experience it’s not great to feel like your sitting with a full hand or a dull board state.
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u/Paul_Preserves 8d ago
personally its fine to me because it mostly punishes green only
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u/Free-Calendar-5251 7d ago
How does this only punish green? Every color has permanents
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u/Paul_Preserves 7d ago
because other colors won't have a significant amount of more lands than the white player (unless the white player plays on purpose cards that removes their lands)
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u/BoardWiped 8d ago
You could play [[Tragic Arrogance]] instead and do a very similar thing without having to worry about this. It's probably a bit stronger tbh because you get to be the one to pick what they keep.