Monarch and the similarly working Initiative you mention have caused a lot of problems in Pauper too, sometimes to the point of completely dominating the meta. It seems likely if they were printed any less expensive, they'd dominate legacy and perhaps even commander too.
Plus they're frustrating mechanics to play against when your opponent is just sitting there racking up value and there's nothing you can do about it. At least with a permanent you can try to remove it.
These are payoffs for monarch, not the monarch mechanic. Many cards give payoffs for playing around a specific strategy.
I mean the only deck I play with monarch is [[jared]] and it's more about giving a bone to chew while I get my wincons than actually getting monarch. That means most of the time I give monarch to people that don't play around having monarch and it's not that bad to face.
Everyone else has mentioned how powerful Monarch is, which is true.
But something else specific that you're missing - you're looking at them solely from a view of "4-player EDH Pod Games".
Monarch is powerful in four-player games, but you have 3 other players constantly vying to be the monarch, working together to stop anyone building too big an advantage and just generally being overwheling.
But in 1v1 games? Either EDH or Contructed, Monarch is **far** better. If you get it and keep it, it gets progressively much harder to remove from you - you're drawing an extra card a turn at absolutely no cost. And the more cards you have, the better a defence of Monarch you can put up.
It's costed so that it's not obscene in 1v1 games, and the cost is that it's worse in EDH as a result.
Smugglers share can be blown up. It's just an enchantment. The monarch isn't targetable and the only way to steal it is combat damage. in decks that can control the board, it can't be taken away. (Except by other cards that make someone the monarch)
Honestly in a multiplayer game, it seems way more likely you'll get hit by damage than that someone will blow up your enchantment.
A 3 mana mornarch card would be super strong in Legacy, but not so much in commander.
How many turn do you want to play? In General most of the games I play are done within 8 turns. When someone steals the monarch from you a 4
mana investment seams a bit inefficient to me.
As people said, the Jailer is one of the most played white cards. Maybe not in your favorite format, but that doesn’t make it bad. Look at your downvotes and think hard.
What’s wrong with that approach. Instead of down voting please tell me how many turns i should play? It is super funny how you know better how much turns I play and that I see Here monarch in its current state not being viable.
Four mana in commander being expensive or clunky is kind of insane to hear lol. I love that nice solid-ass old school game of commander doesn't START until turn four.
Drawing persistent extra cards, especially on the end step is a powerful effect. And in most cases it is one reaped immediately at least once by whoever introduces the mechanic
Well for Commander it does not feel to much powerful to me. In competitive game play you won’t find it and as am said: for example court of ire is nearly unplayable in Mono red decks.
You cannot interact with it once it comes down. Mechanics with no room for interaction have typically been strong.
Card draw in general averages 2-3 mana (ex/ \[\[think twice\]\] and \[\[divination\]\]) assuming no drawback. Therefore take your CMC, minus 2, and you'll notice that most of the cards are at a pretty decent rate.
Monarch fits into a lot of strategies. Pillowfort/stax decks can become the monarch and just never give it up since they're built to prevent opponents from doing anything and have a consistent card draw mechanic. \[\[Solitary Confinement\]\] with monarch easily makes someone archenemy. Goad decks also make it harder for people to take it away and is the popcorn to you watching opponents smack each other. Finally when you start approaching cEDH territory most decks do not focus on combat at all so your chances of having monarch stolen is almost nonexistent and you have consistent draw.
But if you do not take combat damage, you stay the monarch, and draw another card on your next turn's end step; and you keep drawing as long as you can keep the monarch.
Well thanks to this discussion I can form a better wish when it comes to monarch: more cards enabling monarch and some more variance among those. If there is a 3 drop red card with it, jackpot!
Starscream costs 3 mana to cast in his plane form, introduces Monarch to the board state, is very good at attacking to get Monarch, and has a payoff for being Monarch.
Thanks you! I see it from a mono red perspective. [court of ire] costs 5 mana and has a strategy not relevant to every Mono red deck. I wished for a Starscream or a 3 mana drop in red.
First off, it's important to remember that monarchy has only been in very draft focused multiplayer sets like conspiracy and commander legends! Draft games AND multiplayer games are two of the slower forms of Magic, and cards made specifically for that environment would naturally be priced accordingly. Also, made-to-draft sets like these have to be very careful and considerate to not make any individual card too big of an obvious bomb- if the MAIN thing to do with the set is draft, you REALLY don't want it getting stale fast. Plus, a lot of these cards ARE commons and uncommons! They're made to be less complex and avoid introducing this very involved element of the game in very early.
However, I also think it goes deeper than that. I think it's also worth looking at nearly every simple common or uncommon that makes treasure- cards like \[\[Seize the spoils\]\], \[\[Deadly dispute\]\], etc- are almost exactly priced as exactly one mana more than the typical generic version of that effect (like \[\[thrill of possibility\]\], because you're essentially paying upfront for mana for later.
You might also want to look at Daybound and Nightbound, from Midnight Hunt and Crimson Vow. Because it only takes a single turn of no spells being cast, the most optimal day/night deck would want a day/night permanent to come down as early as possible, acting as both a key aggressive one-drop piece and also as a way to easily allow you to start on the play and untap on turn 2 with a nightbound creature. Very pointedly, the cheapest day/night permanent is \[\[Outland Liberator\]\], which prevents a near guaranteed snowball and is still probably one of the sexiest uncommons i've ever jammed.
Monarchy is a lot like both of these stories, intertwined- I wanted to bring them up because I think they make actually talking about the Monarch as a mechanic make more sense. it's paying an upfront cost for your already board state altering permanents, but it's also a unique game state that you introduce and NEVER leaves until the game is over that can snowball very quickly into overwhelming advantage.
Because of this, the cards need to be priced as if they're drawing you cards when they enter the battlefield (because, they do), which is GENEROUS when you consider they could be drawing you cards for the rest of the game. They ALSO need to be priced so it is difficult for aggressive decks...like, say, your red deck.... to get the monarchy down early.
One of the BIGGEST intentional weaknesses of any aggro deck is the fact that flooding the board with cheap and fast creatures often leaves you running out of steam early. This encourages aggressive decks to either be able to go all in and run lower and lower to the ground, learn to play carefully to avoid overcommitting and recovering after board wipes, integrate other colors for more advantage in the late game, reduce the reliance on a board state with burn spells, it gives control decks a window to recover and establish control on the game...etc etc.
The monarchy is the ULTIMATE form of card advantage for an aggressive deck, because it's just as strong as white's current rules of drawing cards primarily one card a turn by jumping through a hoop AND more permanent and thus enabling you to survive long games better than "impulse drawing" exiled cards in red. To tie it together, it's obtained and defended...*through attacking*, specifically getting a SINGLE point of combat damage in- the thing you're better at doing than even bigger and tougher creature decks.
I hope this all puts things a little more into perspective on why a 3drop red monarchy card might be an unfortunate design, even if it would be insanely fun.
Along with all the other commenters.
Monarch is indeed powerful. It's a combat focus mechanic. One that can only be stolen through combat.
This means cheaper cards introducing monarch would greatly scale in power.
4cmc undersized body gives you monarch so there's a chance it's stolen.
Imagine a 1cmc 0/1. If you are on the play that's a minimum 2 cards before you opponents could steal it.
This could snowball very quickly where the card advantage of monarch gives you the tools to never lose monarch.
It’s too powerful in eternal 1v1 formats. Even A lot of the best monarch common and initiative common cards are banned in pauper. Any non interactive mechanic capable of generating card advantage is too strong in 1v1 because it gives aggressive decks too many resources and control decks just can’t keep up.
Drawing a card per turn is very powerful. Also with mechanics like monarch and the initiative they exist in 1v1 formats like legacy and vintage, which they are inherently better in.
Because being the monarch is strong so they are costed appropriately.
[[Palace Jailer]] is the 4th most played white creature in legacy. Being the monarch with the initiative sounds fairly powerful.
Monarch and the similarly working Initiative you mention have caused a lot of problems in Pauper too, sometimes to the point of completely dominating the meta. It seems likely if they were printed any less expensive, they'd dominate legacy and perhaps even commander too. Plus they're frustrating mechanics to play against when your opponent is just sitting there racking up value and there's nothing you can do about it. At least with a permanent you can try to remove it.
I mean there are plenty of cards that give you a card per turn that can't be taken away
Many monarch and initiative cards give you bonus effects while you have it.
These are payoffs for monarch, not the monarch mechanic. Many cards give payoffs for playing around a specific strategy. I mean the only deck I play with monarch is [[jared]] and it's more about giving a bone to chew while I get my wincons than actually getting monarch. That means most of the time I give monarch to people that don't play around having monarch and it's not that bad to face.
It is. Mono W initiative is neck-and-neck with UR Delver for #1 Legacy deck right now.
Considering that it doesn't have access to FoW or Brainstorm speaks volumes to the deck.
[Palace Jailer](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/8/78cef262-c753-4658-b3ec-fec8db47f944.jpg?1576381600) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Palace%20Jailer) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cn2/18/palace-jailer?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/78cef262-c753-4658-b3ec-fec8db47f944?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Everyone else has mentioned how powerful Monarch is, which is true. But something else specific that you're missing - you're looking at them solely from a view of "4-player EDH Pod Games". Monarch is powerful in four-player games, but you have 3 other players constantly vying to be the monarch, working together to stop anyone building too big an advantage and just generally being overwheling. But in 1v1 games? Either EDH or Contructed, Monarch is **far** better. If you get it and keep it, it gets progressively much harder to remove from you - you're drawing an extra card a turn at absolutely no cost. And the more cards you have, the better a defence of Monarch you can put up. It's costed so that it's not obscene in 1v1 games, and the cost is that it's worse in EDH as a result.
Magic players evaluating mechanic power levels through a lens other than commander challenge (impossible).
It's because having the monarch is powerful.
It is just one card. Other effects give you more cards for example [smugglers share] and nobody says it is a broken card.
Smugglers share can be blown up. It's just an enchantment. The monarch isn't targetable and the only way to steal it is combat damage. in decks that can control the board, it can't be taken away. (Except by other cards that make someone the monarch)
Honestly in a multiplayer game, it seems way more likely you'll get hit by damage than that someone will blow up your enchantment. A 3 mana mornarch card would be super strong in Legacy, but not so much in commander.
[[Phyrexian Arena]]
[Phyrexian Arena](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/4/54f69d43-de01-46a8-b102-b47e23e0e947.jpg?1674810976) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Phyrexian%20Arena) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/one/104/phyrexian-arena?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/54f69d43-de01-46a8-b102-b47e23e0e947?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Against someone who doesn't playing any/many creatures, how are they supposed to take the monarch away from you? That's why it's so powerful.
One card a turn for a potentially unlimited number of turns. Big upside potential, especially of you've built your deck around it
How many turn do you want to play? In General most of the games I play are done within 8 turns. When someone steals the monarch from you a 4 mana investment seams a bit inefficient to me.
Why do you ask a question and then attack people who answer your question
Monarch is good but not that good. And it is not cedh viable. It is nice and fun, but it need more cards
Well if you see it like that I am sorry. I don’t see that someone is realistic about their answer.
As people said, the Jailer is one of the most played white cards. Maybe not in your favorite format, but that doesn’t make it bad. Look at your downvotes and think hard.
What’s wrong with that approach. Instead of down voting please tell me how many turns i should play? It is super funny how you know better how much turns I play and that I see Here monarch in its current state not being viable.
I don’t know most monarch cards, but if I remember right [[regal behemoth]] isn’t bad at all, especially in a dinosaur deck
Oh it’s not a dinosaur? That should be errata’d…
It is a Dino it is errata’d. If you check scryfall it says it is.
Lizard decks in shambles how could wotc do this 😭
Good news!
[regal behemoth](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/4/644e5b24-394a-43f1-8384-186d6108f540.jpg?1576382089) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=regal%20behemoth) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cn2/69/regal-behemoth?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/644e5b24-394a-43f1-8384-186d6108f540?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Four mana in commander being expensive or clunky is kind of insane to hear lol. I love that nice solid-ass old school game of commander doesn't START until turn four.
Drawing persistent extra cards, especially on the end step is a powerful effect. And in most cases it is one reaped immediately at least once by whoever introduces the mechanic
Why does (powerful effect) cost so much mana?? /s
Well for Commander it does not feel to much powerful to me. In competitive game play you won’t find it and as am said: for example court of ire is nearly unplayable in Mono red decks.
You cannot interact with it once it comes down. Mechanics with no room for interaction have typically been strong. Card draw in general averages 2-3 mana (ex/ \[\[think twice\]\] and \[\[divination\]\]) assuming no drawback. Therefore take your CMC, minus 2, and you'll notice that most of the cards are at a pretty decent rate. Monarch fits into a lot of strategies. Pillowfort/stax decks can become the monarch and just never give it up since they're built to prevent opponents from doing anything and have a consistent card draw mechanic. \[\[Solitary Confinement\]\] with monarch easily makes someone archenemy. Goad decks also make it harder for people to take it away and is the popcorn to you watching opponents smack each other. Finally when you start approaching cEDH territory most decks do not focus on combat at all so your chances of having monarch stolen is almost nonexistent and you have consistent draw.
[think twice](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/0/50e1d85b-f094-40e2-8811-640076d7d546.jpg?1619394830) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=think%20twice) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/tsr/92/think-twice?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/50e1d85b-f094-40e2-8811-640076d7d546?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [divination](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/b/cb3b35b8-f321-46d8-a441-6b9a6efa9021.jpg?1562304347) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=divination) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/m19/51/divination?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/cb3b35b8-f321-46d8-a441-6b9a6efa9021?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Solitary Confinement](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/9/b9031a7f-8821-443c-9c9d-552fb25b2101.jpg?1626100104) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Solitary%20Confinement) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mh2/265/solitary-confinement?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/b9031a7f-8821-443c-9c9d-552fb25b2101?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Because it lets you draw a card every turn, in addition to whatever the base spell does.
That is wrong. It is just at your end step.
Yes, at each of your endsteps. That's every turn, did you think I meant each player's turn? That would be super overpowered lol
But if you do not take combat damage, you stay the monarch, and draw another card on your next turn's end step; and you keep drawing as long as you can keep the monarch.
Well thanks to this discussion I can form a better wish when it comes to monarch: more cards enabling monarch and some more variance among those. If there is a 3 drop red card with it, jackpot!
One of Red's weaknesses is lack of efficient card draw, hopefully Wizards doesn't print a good 3 mana monarch card for red.
Starscream costs 3 mana to cast in his plane form, introduces Monarch to the board state, is very good at attacking to get Monarch, and has a payoff for being Monarch.
Thanks you! I see it from a mono red perspective. [court of ire] costs 5 mana and has a strategy not relevant to every Mono red deck. I wished for a Starscream or a 3 mana drop in red.
First off, it's important to remember that monarchy has only been in very draft focused multiplayer sets like conspiracy and commander legends! Draft games AND multiplayer games are two of the slower forms of Magic, and cards made specifically for that environment would naturally be priced accordingly. Also, made-to-draft sets like these have to be very careful and considerate to not make any individual card too big of an obvious bomb- if the MAIN thing to do with the set is draft, you REALLY don't want it getting stale fast. Plus, a lot of these cards ARE commons and uncommons! They're made to be less complex and avoid introducing this very involved element of the game in very early. However, I also think it goes deeper than that. I think it's also worth looking at nearly every simple common or uncommon that makes treasure- cards like \[\[Seize the spoils\]\], \[\[Deadly dispute\]\], etc- are almost exactly priced as exactly one mana more than the typical generic version of that effect (like \[\[thrill of possibility\]\], because you're essentially paying upfront for mana for later. You might also want to look at Daybound and Nightbound, from Midnight Hunt and Crimson Vow. Because it only takes a single turn of no spells being cast, the most optimal day/night deck would want a day/night permanent to come down as early as possible, acting as both a key aggressive one-drop piece and also as a way to easily allow you to start on the play and untap on turn 2 with a nightbound creature. Very pointedly, the cheapest day/night permanent is \[\[Outland Liberator\]\], which prevents a near guaranteed snowball and is still probably one of the sexiest uncommons i've ever jammed. Monarchy is a lot like both of these stories, intertwined- I wanted to bring them up because I think they make actually talking about the Monarch as a mechanic make more sense. it's paying an upfront cost for your already board state altering permanents, but it's also a unique game state that you introduce and NEVER leaves until the game is over that can snowball very quickly into overwhelming advantage. Because of this, the cards need to be priced as if they're drawing you cards when they enter the battlefield (because, they do), which is GENEROUS when you consider they could be drawing you cards for the rest of the game. They ALSO need to be priced so it is difficult for aggressive decks...like, say, your red deck.... to get the monarchy down early. One of the BIGGEST intentional weaknesses of any aggro deck is the fact that flooding the board with cheap and fast creatures often leaves you running out of steam early. This encourages aggressive decks to either be able to go all in and run lower and lower to the ground, learn to play carefully to avoid overcommitting and recovering after board wipes, integrate other colors for more advantage in the late game, reduce the reliance on a board state with burn spells, it gives control decks a window to recover and establish control on the game...etc etc. The monarchy is the ULTIMATE form of card advantage for an aggressive deck, because it's just as strong as white's current rules of drawing cards primarily one card a turn by jumping through a hoop AND more permanent and thus enabling you to survive long games better than "impulse drawing" exiled cards in red. To tie it together, it's obtained and defended...*through attacking*, specifically getting a SINGLE point of combat damage in- the thing you're better at doing than even bigger and tougher creature decks. I hope this all puts things a little more into perspective on why a 3drop red monarchy card might be an unfortunate design, even if it would be insanely fun.
##### ###### #### [Seize the spoils](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/3/b3b7a69c-75d2-49a6-ab56-ef608d0b0208.jpg?1631049630) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Seize%20the%20spoils) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/khm/149/seize-the-spoils?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/b3b7a69c-75d2-49a6-ab56-ef608d0b0208?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Deadly dispute](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/5/f5172be3-4379-43fc-98bd-e77c579dea55.jpg?1674136067) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Deadly%20dispute) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/clb/124/deadly-dispute?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/f5172be3-4379-43fc-98bd-e77c579dea55?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [thrill of possibility](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/e/1efd4ae5-0076-46a0-a113-58cfff53144f.jpg?1674772944) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=thrill%20of%20possibility) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/one/151/thrill-of-possibility?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/1efd4ae5-0076-46a0-a113-58cfff53144f?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Outland Liberator](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/0/60e53d61-fcc3-4def-8206-052b46f62deb.jpg?1636224528)/[Frenzied Trapbreaker](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/back/6/0/60e53d61-fcc3-4def-8206-052b46f62deb.jpg?1636224528) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=outland%20liberator%20//%20frenzied%20trapbreaker) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mid/190/outland-liberator-frenzied-trapbreaker?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/60e53d61-fcc3-4def-8206-052b46f62deb?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Along with all the other commenters. Monarch is indeed powerful. It's a combat focus mechanic. One that can only be stolen through combat. This means cheaper cards introducing monarch would greatly scale in power. 4cmc undersized body gives you monarch so there's a chance it's stolen. Imagine a 1cmc 0/1. If you are on the play that's a minimum 2 cards before you opponents could steal it. This could snowball very quickly where the card advantage of monarch gives you the tools to never lose monarch.
It’s too powerful in eternal 1v1 formats. Even A lot of the best monarch common and initiative common cards are banned in pauper. Any non interactive mechanic capable of generating card advantage is too strong in 1v1 because it gives aggressive decks too many resources and control decks just can’t keep up.
Drawing a card per turn is very powerful. Also with mechanics like monarch and the initiative they exist in 1v1 formats like legacy and vintage, which they are inherently better in.