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using this as a way to grow your discord, where you can virtue signal and blast anyone with opposing views on any topic. Fitting. Part of being an inclusive community is accepting people have different opinions about race and gender norms, btw. I'm pro LGBTQIA+ but I hate that the game enables hatred towards people who have not been exposed to enough people with different values to change their world views. You don't change the opinion people by excluding them, BTW. I mean... the LGBT community knows that all too well. You actually reinforce their unfounded beliefs. Also... it's a global game and cultural norms around that stuff is still changing. Stop banning players because of non-game related beliefs.
How about you answer feedback here, instead? With the RC quitting, why did you think it was a good idea to announce that they 'handed it to you'. Because based on all the data - you took it when your boneheaded moves drove the RC under a bus. And that was AFTER the apparent market manipulation. Your motives are incredibly clear, and I will no longer purchase your products. Hopefully others will follow suit, and show you at the checkout just how terrible your recent moves have been. How's that for feedback?
The issues they've mentioned are: 1) The tokens come from the marketing budget. They exist because there are ads. 2) We already have a token or aid in every single ad card, except for Arena ads that have to be double-faced for legal reasons. That said, they said they're trying new ways to distribute tokens, which hopefully is much more successful then relying on one random slot.
@@fernandobanda5734 putting an advertisement in an already purchased pack equals straight to the garbage can. It does nothing for them financially but a loss. Gavin that be a token instead increase the enjoyment of limited play which could increase returning players that could potentially bring friends and in turn increase profit.
Guess what... Gavin has no power. When corporate says they need to pull levers to make more money the directives will come down forcing every designer to make things happen to increase sales. Gavin is a middle manager and Aaron is an upper manager. Neither of them are actual decision makers. They are decision executors.
@@apeekintime Gavin and Aaron absolutely have power. Guess what... Hasbro doesn't design this game, people like Gavin and Aaron do. The people at Hasbro probably don't even understand the intricacies of the game. They just want to sell product. They don't care how it's done.
@@Dclem742 No one's claiming that the executive level people understand the intricacies of the game, but they absolutely don't have to. You don't have to know or care anything about Magic to say "we need to double up sales, so make these cards more powerful" or "we're going to be putting Transformers cards in the next set, so get designing those." Hell, it makes it a lot easier.
Idea: Crowdsource the bracketing to have a "Community Power Bracket" (similar to EDHRec's Salt score) with badges that signal "high variance" or other data anomalies. And then WOTC can come in and adjust cards (if needed) into the "WOTC Power Bracket", which becomes its "official" rating.
@@teamastral7682 I think this might work for some things like how bad certain cards make players feel, but not for power level. People are highly biased and most lack the game design knowledge needed to properly assess that. We have to remember that many players aren't as enfranchised as us. Their voices should be heard but making them as binding as those of more experienced and cold headed players is not a good idea.
@@_Ve_98 That's very true. It would definitely have to be some mix of things. Crowdsourcing stuff would probably give them at least the cards to look for if nothing else
Fully agree, crowdsourcing will eliminate bias by getting data from wide variety of perspectives. I'd say a decks level is defined by HOW MANY of those powerful cards are in your deck. I think we could learn from Canadian Highlander and use points. Assign 3 points to category 4 cards, 2 to cat 3, 1 to cat 2, and 0 to cat 1. Then total points in your decklist and just say that. Rule zero could be as simple as I run "30 power points" and "oh well I only have 10 in this deck, let me choose this one that has 32."
@@_Ve_98 100% agree, this is why I suggested that WOTC gets the final say. Lots of people might rank Thasa's Oracle a 1 or 2 if they've only seen it played in a Merfolk deck. But WOTC can then go in and adjust the rating to a 4. This way you can see what the community ranking is plus the WOTC ranking. This gives you a better picture than just a flat rating with no context. And as mentioned by others, cards that have high variance can flag WOTC to investigate... versus cards that everyone universally ranks a 1 or 4.
I think Aaron's comment about a single card not determining a deck's power level is correct. I just played with someone a few days ago who had a Vampiric Tutor in his deck, but the deck was basically just a pile of black cards that he liked with no real game plan, certainly not a power level 4 deck. I think this kind of thing is quite common - people sometimes include a card because they have it or for the "prestige" of owning it, but the rest of the deck isn't tuned enough to really take advantage of its power.
@@captianbacon I'd like to explore a point system. I think they dismiss it too quickly in this video. Yes, people would probably min-max it, but that could be part of the challenge of the metagame. I don't know if it would work for all players. I could see a lot of "less enfranchised" players coming to a Commander night with a deck and having no clue about the point buy system. That being said, I would be all for "beta testing it" - having certain Commander events in which decks must conform to a point system and seeing what games feel like. And while periodic point rebalancing of cards would probably lead to debate, I can't imagine they would be as controversial as the bans that happened last week.
Yeah, sometimes you open a cool card. I have several janky decks with Mana Drain in it because I happened to crack a foil one opening a Commander Legends pack, and I just think it's neat.
I think there's too much focus on getting a system 'completely accurate' to power level than just limiting exposure to annoying cards. I've not dealt with a lot of players who cared about losing quickly or slowly moreover whether they were dealing with specific annoying cards and strategies or combos. Having a deck with high power cards but that isn't very good in a high power card game is "a player's" problem. Having a deck with high power cards in a low power game is "the table's" problem.
Well, silver lining, having Gavin and Aaron on board here is about as good as we can get Still extremely disappointed in the small sector of the community for their abhorrent behavior after the recent banned list update, but at least there seems to be a genuine effort to try and move forward in a positive way
@Restokiki "This is how commander players behave." OK so like 70% of the community of the ENTIRETY OF MAGIC. STFU with your format elitism it's ridiculous also this wasn't a popular ban for 40-50% of the community it's not like it was only 100 ppl complaining.
I really like this idea. Besides it obvious upsides it also helps cultivating the idea that it might be cool to have your own builds in different versions like "This is my bracket 2 version of this deck, but I can add this handfull of cards and now Im able to compete in bracket 3".
I have begun building my commander decks with a sideboard. Obviously you can't interact with it in game but I have 10 cards if I want to power up, power down, or just throw in some funny jank .
@@juergenkohler97 yeah this was my thought - I too have a maybeboard of ~15 cards to swap in or out of each of my edh decks.. However, I'm sure there are plenty of players who only play with the precons without adjusting the deck, having some level of guided construction in the product itself would both help explain the bracket system to disenfranchised players and allow for that deck to be played at more tables.
Verhey is on the money. The problem with Commander for me is that decks have started to become more and more ubiquitous the more competitive games become. Like every blue player is going to run rhystic study, fierce guardianship and mana drain, every red player will run deflecting swat and dockside, black is always going to run vampiric and demonic tutor etc etc. A format that was meant to have all the fun variation becomes saturated with must have cards for each colour or risk being casual.
You ban them and more cards will take their places. The issue is with the size of the game. It’s gotten so big that there will always be a meta. People need to accept it and move forward.
@@SuperMurph1991 I disagree on your first statement about banning cards but more cards will take their place. When you ban a powerful and efficient card for example dockside, what is the next best thing on that spot? descent to avernus? ancient copper dragon? The power level of tournament staple cards are far more superior compared to a casual only level card, so in my opinion and in my experience, the ban and loss of a powercard will greatly effect a slot on your deck. So it's better to ban/remove cards in the format if it greatly imbalances the game.
That's why it's important to have your own group so that it does not follow the most optimized decks and meta. Games at LGS always become competitive at some point despite the commander being casual. That's why banning Mana Crypt and Lotus was good for games at LGS. Without bans you need friends in MTG 😆 We even play 60 card casual modern with universe beyond and commander cards to spice things up but with self-imposed bans and budget limits. This is the best Magic experience for me. Build whatever you want and match on the basis of power level. That's how Commander should work.
I've heard this take a lot from more casual players, and while ubiquity is definitely something we should stay away from, there are many decks in cEDH that opt out of running most of the cards mentioned above. Atraxa players for instance won't play Fierce Guardianship because they can't get their commander online early enough or consistently enough for it to be relevant.
My playgroup has been firmly in bracket 1 for almost 2 years. We arrived there from a very competitive, and cutthroaty arms-racey place 😅 Because we play other, highly competitive formats we've to keep commander casual. TL;DR - We keep our decks below $100 barring basics (TCG player low). - We don't play fast mana (we even dropped sol ring some time ago). - We don't play free spells (so no FoW or Fierce Guardianship). - We don't play tutors (unless they're really in flavour of the deck, like artifacts fishing for constructs, and goblins finding their kindred). - We don't play infinite combos (it's up for discussion as long as we're not all dead by turn 3 :P). - We try to limit stax pieces in our decks (Rule 0). No one play hardcore stax decks anymore. Just to summarize, the amount of fun cards we've already found (cause we're no longer play expensive format staples) surprised even us :) The sheer fun of finding replacements for the big cards is great, and we tend to keep quite big maybeboards. Other than that, just enjoy the format. Playing the game, with friends, is what is really important! See you in the Multiverse!
I already had a 4 Tier system which worked quite good, because it wasn't just the powerlevel but also how the player attitude is to that round: 1) Low power: weak precons, joke decks, let's test/learn 2) casual: my deck is as much fun for me as for you. Let's have fun board game night. 3) focused: our decks are well constructed, good synergies and answers, we play concentrated for the win, but it will feel fair and earned 4) high power: this deck is capable of unfair stuff and has expensive cards. Better keep a counterspell up. We are okay to start a new round after maybe 5 turns. Yes, technically cEDH would be tier 0, but that's a different beast.
The only issue I see with this is that it's power level only. We need a way to signal "hey, this card isn't broken, just extremely draining to play against". Maybe separating power and salt into two tier systems would be better even if it adds complexity. Otherwise people will bring miserable cards into their decks thinking they are good and have a terrible time.
For a tier system to work properly, EVERY card needs a tier assignment and there must be a system we can upload deck lists to spit out the average tier, with all cards accounted for- and that is the deck power level. Having one card shift a deck from precon lvl 1 immediately to a 3 or 4 isnt gonna work and isnt the same level as another with half the deck being level 3 cards. This is just a more complex rule zero that will lead to more issues.
@@FirewynnTV Hopefully, but thats not what it seems based on how Gavin was explaining it. The idea that one card can shift the power level on its own doesn’t sound like a good system.
@@FirewynnTVTo add to what you said, multiple recent precons also have, admittedly not optimized, infinite combos out of the box in addition to being able to start producing game winning lines outside of combo that early.
@@OzxGGIt’s not a good system. Admittedly, some cards are just generally over performers in absolutely any deck you throw them in. However the fringe deck community is a large portion of the population. I have a buddy that arguably runs jank decks, highly functional, but jank. His mono black decks, he runs tutors no differently to how green decks use ramp spells. To him, vamp tutor is exactly used as a rampant growth and whatever system is designed needs to have space for those kinds of brews.
you cant spit out an average.... the amount of different ways cards interact with each other through combos and other wierd and not so wierd ways makes a card game with over 20,000 cards ( and counting) literally impossible to see what the average power level of a deck is....the only way to make a bracket system is to say "hey these cards are the extremely unfun or unfair cards that do or can do broken stuff- 4s" and making your deck that number, i think people underestimate the rule zero talk and how this bracket system and rule zero pair nicely with each other, you cant say my deck is a 2 without mentioning the five 4 cards in your deck cause you will quickly be realized to be a liar and that in of itself is a deterrent for bad intentions, most people will most likely design thier decks based on what bracket they want that deck to be in, and some people may take that power level and add a few cards from the next tier but know what cards are in that deck and disclose that info when joining a play group....it makes rule zero talks more direct than just saying my deck is a 7 and no one having a clue what that really means
If Gavin wasn’t a wizards employee Sheldon would’ve had him on the RC. Let’s never forget that Sheldon’s primary vision for Commander was the social aspect first and game play second. So design should adhere to this founding principle as closely as possible. That’s why the bans that happened were necessary. Those cards, which 3 of the 4 we designed specifically for commander, fundamentally did not adhere to the commander mission statement. Don’t get me wrong, it’s fun to win but for you grinders out there, standard and modern are great places to be more competitive! And yes, maybe cedh should have its own governing principles to be run by.
Underrated comment. I recognize the frustration, especially with people investing in chase cards for a given format. But it was kind of obvious why those cards were banned, they violate the ubiquitous stance that you obviously should have for a format like commander or they’re clearly overpowered. It’s unfortunate that the decision was so divisive but it really was only wrong from a financial perspective. You can’t tell me the game is more fun because of lotuses (I guess you can, but it’s not something I imagine a largely casual gamer community would enjoy as much as not having them).
Banning mana crypt, a card legal after the first year of the concept of EDH existing, after 20+ years of power creep, was necessary? Not the cards that win you the game turn 2 or so?
@@jonaingo29 the question you’ve got to ask yourself and be honest about is, if your powerful cards consume a large amount of the time equity from the group or create an unbalanced board state quickly without exhausting many of your resources, then is it really a good or “fun” social interaction/experience for the group? Again, the main focus of commander as Sheldon intended was predicated upon social interaction first, then game play second.
Another important aspect of deck power level in a singleton format is consistency. Having one single counterspell in the deck is not the same as having 15 counters. Same goes with tutors, rituals, ramp spells, removal, extra turn spells, etc.. Consistency increases the power level of a deck significantly. So the bands could also consider the redundancy of cards in a certain bracket, instead of a single card.
Agreed, I don't think defining your decks power level based on the ONE highest power level card is the way to go. I'd say a decks level is defined by HOW MANY of those cards are in your deck. I think we could learn from Canadian Highlander and use points. Assign 3 points to category 4 cards, 2 to cat 3, 1 to cat 2, and 0 to cat 1. Then total points in your decklist and just say that. Rule zero could be as simple as I run "30 power points" and "oh well I only have 10 in this deck, let me choose this one that has 32."
I do think it's important to note pregame discussion is still a thing and these brackets are just guidelines/ a tool they may implement for convention's or at the convenience of LGS pairings. This is not a strict ruling change.
I'm kind of let down by the vitriol shown by this community. I'm not a big fan of this change, but I am just hoping that the future of commander is more in the hands of players rather than the hands of investors and not driven by money and profit.
@@dicegamer3466I personally like the change. Not because I had anything against the RC or CAG, but because I am a firm believer in accountability. Now for both the good and bad decisions, Wizards is the first and only stop for high fives and finger pointing.
It doesn't matter if you support the bans or not. It doesn't matter if you like WOTC taking control of Commander or not. We're in this situation because idiots couldn't handle being told how to play, and threatened people's lives over a game. Let's see how things go, and then make rational decisions with our hobby.
Very rational and thoughtful discussions. I think having specific cards defining the brackets is probably the easiest method, it's 1 or 0, easy to identify. But you should consider "what turn your deck is usually trying to win". It's a little harder to identify, especially for new players with no goldfishing experience, but I think is more accurate for defining the experience. But I know no method is perfect; a land destruction deck may try to win turn 10 but through a slog of a game. Just worth considering I think.
The tier system makes sense, but why not adopt something like salt scores for rating individual cards and aggregating the total score for the entire deck to determine which tier any given deck belongs in? The community has been providing feedback for years through these sites, so some of that precursor data is available for your research team to browse. Hopefully those sites get consulted and/or brought into the fold to help stand all this up.
I am excited about the new categories! It is gonna make deck building more fun and games more balanced. I don't like having to put in powerful cards just in order to hang at the game store.
Tbh it only lacked nuance because everyone had their own feeling about a card, this will add a 'physical' backing to cards power levels but unfortunately it seems to be only in "how fun is this to fight" and not a casual to cedh slide scale
The best option IMO is a points system similar to Canadian Highlander (minus point limit per deck), paired paired with a tier system. Cards ranked 1-10. Weaker cards not even ranked. Cards ranked 1-10 would add their rankings number of points to your decks total number of points. Then your deck falls in 1 of 4 tiers based on total points.
No wait! each card falls within a bracket umbrella -> so you know right away "my power level is a 100" let's say, so that person is playing only cards from bracket 1 // on the opposite hand, if the hand is "400" ... well, that's it :) Not perfect I know, but is combining in a way the points from Canadian Highlander with this bracket system :)
The issue I see with this is the cohesiveness of the deck if I run ancient tomb vamp tutor demonic tutor mystical tutor enlightened tutor worldly tutor Gamble Jeskas will In my five color kenrith one drop creature deck My point spread is going to be like 50 but my deck is a 3. It starts and ends with people being honest about how good their deck is and if they lie game 1 either switch decks or leave the pod And if people feel the need to lie about their Decks power level to win games to feel better about themselves, those people will find less and less people to play with
I think cEDH should be similar to vintage. Loads of expensive cards that are difficult to access. Get some extra cEDH folk in and try no banlist. Some cards just don't work well in a multilayer game. Should be level 5 where everything is ok. Nothing should be squinted at in a cEDH game as that's what you sign up for when you sit down.
I've always understood cEDH as playing the.most optimized deck within the banlist/rules of commander. So I don't think it makes sense to have a separate bracket for cEDH. I think the brackets actually add a potentially interesting wrinkle to cEDH: namely, cEDH restricted to cards below any given bracket (as long as the brackets are rigorously enough defined). I think it would be really interesting to see how the cEDH meta varies with the bracket.
@@voluntarism335 Vintage has about 15 competitive viable decks. It's a small metagame but that doesn't make it less fun. It's more focused and sideboarding is much, much easier than other formats. If cEDH becomes a new format with a much smaller banlist, I'm sure there will be at least as much variation as vintage.
@@JohnFromAccounting "Vintage has about 15 competitive viable decks. It's a small metagame but that doesn't make it less fun." Wrong it does make it less fun I quit playing that format because of it, most matches felt like randomized slot machines where you can just lose instantly.
Gavin is great and has a great point regarding ubiquity, but don't we think it´s already too late? Haven´t we already reached a very high point for ubiquity? We have more than 10 2mana mana rocks, we already have super efficient removal in most colours and the same for the lands for every colour combination. How can ubiquity be solved unless we make it a rotating format or we ban most of the staples?
My rule zero questions I like to ask are: Does your deck wins through combo or combat? How many tutors? And generally on what turn can you win? Decks that win before turn 7 are very strong, between 8 and 10 is medium, and beyond that is lower powered.
the baseline of rule 0 should be like: do you play 0 cost mana rocks? do you play free interaction? can you make infinite mana? and then if somebody either does or does not you pull out a deck that goes accordingly
@@sabersaurus7018 If the stax locks everyone it could be considered a win. If not everybody is locked then there is a chance to break out of the lock and take the game from that player meaning it wasn't super powerfull, was just slowing the game.
Please please please get Rachel Weeks on the comity! She has a great grasp of the balance and understanding of the spirit of commander. Also, Joey from the EDHREC podcast would also be amazing on the group at they have in-depth psychological discussions behind deck building.
The people have to want to do it too. Overseeing something like Commander is a thankless job that you don't get paid for and take all the abuse from the community when people don't like a decision you make AND every decision has people who don't like it. I don't blame anyone who doesn't want to take that on.
15:12 Instead of numbers for brackets, use Taco sauces! Light, mild medium and spicy! The only problem I see with numbers is that I feel like I always should define _one being the worst/smallest_ (or the opposite). You already know what spicy feels like so no need to explain the scale!
Only problem I see with all of it is the guy who puts 5 dollars worth of upgrades in their precon and wipes his playgroup. Then calls it a cedh deck. So you end up pstomping unintentionally. They’ll say spicy. And you play spicy. And it ended up being mild.
will precons be assigned a bracket placement? For instance, in premium commander precons such as secret lair, mh3, or commander masters, these are generally higher power level than the average precon. Will these be labeled as a, say, 'bracket 3' while other precons are labeled as a 'bracket 1,' and will these bracket placements actually be outlined on the product? In fewer words, will different precons be different bracket levels and will it tell me what bracket level the precon is?
There are numerous problems with trying to establish these Power Brackets. Wording such as "precon level" is becoming incredibly confusing because of premium precons, power creep and straight up disproportionate power level between precons. If I try to tell my playgroup to bring precons that night, I have to very specifically say no, not the Commander Masters or Modern Horizons 3 etc. If you go to a store with strangers, that understanding may not be there. There are plenty of decks I play that are janky and I throw some powerful cards in simply to make their thing work. I don't want to spend tons of time explaining why I decided to use a few power bracket 4 cards in a deck targeted to be a power bracket 2 deck. Weight and combination of cards would need to be thoroughly considered, and it seems like an impossible task when there are 27,000+ unique cards.
What i dont understand and I feel like it was addressed briefly from Josh Lee, was the process of how cards were banned by RC. From what I know, they would communicate with wizards about the cards they would ban and wizards would know in advance. The cards that were banned were reprinted so many times in the past year. If wizards knew of the upcoming bans, why would they continue reprinting the cards? If it’s revealed they knew prior, I seriously don’t believe they respect the health of commander at all.
I don't think we need 2 banlists, but I do think that having a supplemental list that fleshes out your power level would be interesting. For a topical example, suppose the new bans (aside from Nadu ofc) weren't implemented but in order to qualify for a power level 2 deck you could have 1 of those 3 cards, but no more than that. A singleton version of a restricted list, essentially.
Someone buys a Pre con and and 1 pack of cards, they pull a Vamp Tutor and toss it in the deck. They now have a Level 4 deck. Conversation opener or not, that puts us right back where we were. On top of that, as now when you make pre cons, a number will have to be stamped on the box for where each one falls on top of that, as each new set comes out every card shifts, every card needs to be check at min and then a bunch may or may not shift brackets, so then how stable are the brackets/numbers. IF you do this bracket thing, do not go by the "salt sore" as that is just judging based on feels bad, not what deck it is in, how it works with the deck, esp as players remember 2 decks in total the one that was original or the one that crushed them.
Why would you want to play level 4 with a precon, just don't put in vampiric tutor and stay at level 1 It would be like putting a rare/mythic in a pauper commander deck and then trying to play regular commander with it, vampiric tutor would just be a card not compatible with low level play
@@Robin-uc9nx My point is someone aka a kid or someone brand new to the format would/could easily do that and then end up in the deep water. Yes the convo helps but untill we see its final form and pratice were just don't know yet. But also someone saying well I can play but all I got is a pre con with a few mods may or may not work in a good way. But again the next step that we can't see is the discussion point of it. Not dissmissing what you're saying at all, just saying in practice with the plan needs to be figured out more.
@@Robin-uc9nxThat’s not entirely true though. Jank builds absolutely do exist and whatever system is created has to account for the creative ways people use the existing intricacies of the color pie to accomplish what they are after. If you have two players each playing mono colored decks. The mono black player uses vampire tutor to search for a swamp. The mono green player uses rampant growth. They both ramped, no funny business was had. I fully understand that vamp tutor is not normally used in this manner but the fact that it can be should be considered. To me, the most important measure of how strong a deck is how it utilizes its resources accomplish whatever “its thing” is.
@@inresponse8331let me nitpick a bit. how does someone "ramp" with vamp vs rampant growth? one is card neutral and gives you additional land in play while the other makes you down a card, lose life and you still need to use landdrop to put land into play. that example makes vamp look very bad vs rampant. ;) but i get the point and agree. having specific card in deck should not unconditionaly put deck in certain bracket. instead of list of cards for brackets using descriptions of effects for guidelines would be more useful and require less maintenance. eg "multiple efficient tutors used to find efficient combo pieces" is much better than just "vampiric, demonic, consult, enlightened".
I think, if the power bracket comes about, they should do an average of all the cards in their deck similar to EDHRec's or Archidekt's salt scores rather than 1 card out of the 99 determining the bracket score.
@mtg @magic As far as getting community feedback on a regular basis, is there a plan to have a member of the new RC be regularly involved in the official public discord, wherein public feedback can be collated and brought up to the whole (new) RC group?
Really like the ideas you’ve proposed so far. I think banned cards in Commander should only be those that actively break the way the game works like Lutri. I like being able to play with my powerful cards and to play with my less powerful cards depending on the group. Making the social and pre game discussion on deck level more streamlined is really the way to go and to be pushed. WotC being in control can hopefully help push and promote that to the masses
How does the description "can easily go in any deck" not apply to Vampiric Tutor? It requires no deckbuilding restriction, you can add it to any black deck without a problem.
I think that what they wanted to express is "Can it easily be found in a deck of any power level". You can totally make a bad vampiric tutor deck, but it boosts consistency so much that it will quickly increase power level unless you actively compensate for it. Still. They need to define it more.
Thanks for putting the time to bring back peace of mind in the community. I, of course, feel very sorry for what happened to our iconic and dedicated commander advisors. About the brackets, I'm a bit concerned about the tutors. Although Vampiric/Demonic Tutors are powerhouses in a high power deck letting you find your best fast mana/removal/combo piece when you need them, it's definitely less the case in an average precon/bracket 1 level deck. The tutors are awesome in janky builds like "hidden commander" ones without making them exactly "powerful". My idea : not putting them in a dedicated bracket but stating that, for instance, 3+ tutors in your deck raises it one level or smth. Thoughts ?
I think power level of a deck should be determined not by the individual cards, but by what the deck can do. I think the 1-4 system should ask things like: how many infinite combos do you play? What turn does your deck usually win by? How many high salt cards does it contain (which can be a long list of cards including all cards which people should be warned of ahead of time)? How many tutors do you run? Then, given the answer to those, your deck is a 1-4 (or 1-5 or whatever). This way, a deck that has 3 infinite combos, has multiple salt cards, and wins turn 5, can have a score of 4, and will likely match up somewhat well with a deck of score 3, which has 1 infinite combo, wins by turn 5, and plays 1 salt card.
Recommendation on how to get information on commander: Make Arena 4 player with a commander format. For deck scoring, there should be 3 factors. Consistently, efficiency and intent as discussed on the first episode of the spike feeders podcast. This would have to be an algorithm that can be given to all deck building websites and that would work within Arena and MTGO
I think the best way to test "deck level" should be associate each card with a number of power then you take the highest 10 cards of your deck or top 10% so if your top 10 cards are 4 4 4 4 4 3 3 3 3 3 then your deck is a 3.5 if your deck is a 4 4 3 3 2 2 2 2 2 2 it's ~ 2.5
I've said my preference would be points associated with every card and if your deck goes above X total points it is a level Y system, but I like this version too, I hate the WOTC format idea, it should NEVER be based solely on your top card
Seems also like a good idea but the big advantage of using: top card = your bracket, is that its instantly checkable, if someone pulls out a tier 4 card during the game, you know that they are not in the right bracket
Bracket system, number followed by letter after bracket 3, example bracket 1, home-brew with power level 1 cards and unmodified pre-cons, bracket 2, home-brew with power level 2 cards, modified pre-cons 10 cards or less only power level 2 cards, 3a = modified pre-cons < 10 cards all power level 3 or lower, 3b = modified pre-cons > 10 cards power level 3 or lower, 3C > homebrew / pre-con with 25 or > cards at power level 3, etc…
Bracket 4 (or whatever the top one will be) needs to have all/almost all cEDH win conditions. Many players (mtgo data can prove this) set up commander games by describing the power level as "non-cEDH". Obviously, that excludes literal cEDH decks, but i think its obvious that most players assume that it also excludes decks that arent good enough for cEDH, but win in the same way. Nothing hurts more than setting up a non-cedh game and losing to Thassa's Oracle with Demonic Consultation, and that also applies to losing with Leveler and Laboratory Maniac. This is the reason why cEDH win conditions absolutely must be in the top bucket
To the people that threatened the rules committee with death because they made an understandably frustrating decision, please get professional help. Obviously you have a right to be mad about whatever you want, reasonable or not. But you need to wake up if you think it’s acceptable to threaten people, especially for something trivial like a predominantly casual variant of a card game.
Oh good I made it here before the “show me the receipts or you’re virtue signaling” cretins. Papa bless. This type of behavior should not occur. Emotional responses to collector items are understandable. Taking it out on ANYONE is not. Get your shit together folks. Y’all are grown ass adults. This is a game first and foremost. Nothing more. Don’t delude yourselves.
If any frustrated children threaten my family because they lost $200, you can't take it seriously! I think people forget which community we are in. Professional streamers and employees have to expect something like this and not immediately pull their tails!
One thing i didnt see brought up when talking about power levels, is overall cmc. Sure, you can have a bucket systems to determine kind of what power level youre playing.. but i think if you simply sat down and said "my cmc is 1.2" i would have a pretty good idea of the type of deck im playing against.. specially if my deck is a 2.7 cmc... obviously in certain decks like Kaalia of the vast will have a high cmc, but here is where you can make the distinction that, sure its high cmc but tuned to run as if it had a 2.1 cmc. I truly believe this would be easier than trying to sit down and telling me... my deck is a 4 cause i have Ancient Tomb and Vampiric Tutor.
Tier List = Won’t Work Base power level on how fast a deck can win instead. Otherwise, Wotc should simply look at the Ban list and decide what should stay or go, or what other cards need a ban
Brackets 3 & 4 should have a separate ban list. Casuals can have the current ban list in brackets 1 & 2. Seems like a win/win to me. Walk up to the table, ask what brackets you're playing and choose your deck accordingly .
I think making a bracket system for the commanders will also help. It will determine the decks power level in addition to its components. I also think that the bracket system might be a good idea then maybe add the points of each card in the deck then having a limit like Bracket 1 - 20 pts, Bracket 2 - 40 pts, Bracket 3 - 70 pts, Bracket 4- 100 pts and then Bracket 5 as CEDH and players will say "I have a Brago Bracket 3 deck with 60 points of power cards." That will specifically determine a decks power level imo.
That bracketing system needs some work for sure -- good that they realize this. A lot of decks out there just have one or few of those higher tier cards, but that does not make them higher power level decks at all. They'd get seriously smoked at a table with heavy decks. With the huge amount of variations that can be built in a commander deck, this is going to be a tough system to design and make people happy. Also, how will future pre-constructed commander decks be sold -- will there be multiple levels of power available for purchase instead of just different themes?
Bracket idea (deck rating = total value of cards via point system) Examples of cards rating: 0 Point - Basic lands 1 Point - Enter tapped nonbasic lands with no abilities or land types / Vanilla creatures with power 4 or less 2 Point - Enter tapped no basic lands with ETB ability / Vanilla creatures power 5 or higher 3 Point - Enter tapped nonbasic lands with land types (Fetch-able) / Sorceries (General) 4 Point - Enchantments that provide some benefit ex: Anthems / Phyrexian Arena - Instants (General) 5 Point - Conditional tutors 3 CMC or more ex: Cultivate / Fabricate 6 Point - Enchantments that provide significant value ex: Rhystic Study / Sorceries or Instant that could potentially win the game on the spot or heavily warp a game state or battlefield 7 Point - Conditional tutors 1-2 CMC ex: Enlightened Tutor / Worldly Tutor 8 Point - Unconditional tutors 5 CMC or more / 0 CMC Counterspells 9 Point - Unconditional tutors 3-4 CMC / 0 CMC mana neutral rocks 10 Point - Unconditional tutors 2 CMC or less / 0 CMC mana positive rocks Examples of Tier Rating Systems Option 1 Tier 1 - (1-200) Weak - Precon (Pre Commander Era) Tier 2 - (201-400) Medium Precon level / Casual Tier 3 - (401-600) strong Precon / Medium Unoptimized Tier 4 - (601-800) Strong Focused Tier 5 - (801-1000) High Power - cEDH Or Option 2 Closer to the old system (Preferred) Tier 1 - 1 - 100 Tier 2 - 101 - 200 Tier 3 - 201 - 300 Tier 4 - 301 - 400 Tier 5 - 401 - 500 Tier 6 - 501 - 600 Tier 7 - 601 - 700 Tier 8 - 701 - 800 Tier 9 - 801 - 900 Tier 10 - 901 - 1000
Seems like the tiers need to cater towards how a deck performs rather than individual cards. Even during this discussion it already seems murky trying to discuss reprints and power levels of each card. Plus, are they going to do this for every single card? I think a deck performance tier list would be easier to construct and make more sense
Honestly, I think they should have no official banned list or have something akin to sub-formats within commander. Commander is an entirely casual format with no wotc sanctioned events. It feels weird to say players can't use cards in Commander that were specifically printed for Commander (like Jeweled Lotus). If you wanted banned lists maybe sub-formats? Type 1: Basically, cEDH maybe no bans except dexterity cards and ante cards Type 1.5: Maybe ban anything that's on the reserved list Type Modern: Commander with modern legal cards Type 2: Commander with a rotation like Standard idk... just thinking out loud here =p
Honestly great to hear the thought and time these people clearly put into their work and the game we all love. Wonderful stuff putting this video out and so quickly. A wishful throught, but i wish they'd openly express their thoughts and strategy on powercreep in cards in a video as candid as this, because I don't know how they intend to make the game last forever if they keep power creeping sets like this. There must be a logic and a strategy there, but I just can't see it.
@mtg The bracket system has potential, but I think it would make sence to go with the arithemtic mean of all the cards in the deck. A high mean indicates to the other players that is more likely to create gamestates they might not like to see as much. However this will probably only make sence if a lot of popular cards end up in higher brackets. But I dislike the idea, that a single card could be indicator for my decks bracket.
There are already third-party sites such as commander spell book that have combos and said combos are tagged with whether they infinite, and if they are, what type of infinite is it is it infinite man infinite card draw infinite damage towards players towards creatures or infinite bounce. Leveraging a site like that, which is run by the community would help a lot in terms of finding high-powered combos in decks. Because I do believe that just having a demonic tutor in a “every art piece has a chair” deck should not make the deck fall into the highest category. I know that the one through 10 scale that we currently have as far from perfect, but the fact that we are looking at the deck as a hole as opposed to whether it runs particular cards speaks volumes. Another example would be running an “All Urza/[Meta]Thran” deck, where yes you would have powerful cards like his lands, and even the mono, blue legend, but you are also running all the less broken cards like Thran Weaponry. I think that you were on the right path to making tutors have a higher number, but I do think that this should also include land, tutors, like Polluted Delta. I’m not saying to make cards like fetch lands, especially such as Evolving Wilds, Count as a four, but they should be at least two. If the reason that you don’t put tutors in pre-cons is because you don’t want people to be looking through their deck as often then that has to be taken into account. Also, if you’re worried about cards that give the same play experience over and over again, land tutors also, have this impact. Conversely, cards like Broken Bond rely on the caster already having a card in their hand, which will not always be the case.
RIP Sheldon. It's a shame it's come to this. And everyone in the community that made this happen, should be ashamed. Gavin being involved gives me some some hope, though.
Agreed. We shouldn't be surprised, though. The kind of people that MTG attracts stereotypically does not do well with a) negative emotion processing and b) communication with other people face-to-face. While I think these people are (hopefully) a minority, they were enough of a majority that basically forced these faces of the format that we love to either continue in their volunteering OR protect themselves from death threats. People are dying in Ukraine and the Middle East, and yet some people who are extremely lucky to not know what it's like to have their home shelled think it's ok to get this angry about ink on cardboard. It's insane.
In China, players already use a bracket system: Party, Battle, Challenge, and cEDH. Party refers to new player decks, precons, just for fun, no combo win decks. Battle contains maybe a combo or two, no fast mana, ''optimized'' decks, a wide range of power level. Challenge might contain a number of combos, some fast mana, more of a 'play to win' mindset. cEDH is its own thing. I think these are still a bit vague, though, so I would welcome a four bracket+cEDH(+tEDH) system. I think a bracket ideology with card examples for each bracket would be a great start.
I don't think defining your decks power level based on the ONE highest power level card is the way to go. I'd say a decks level is defined by HOW MANY of those cards are in your deck. I think we could learn from Canadian Highlander and use points. Assign 3 points to category 4 cards, 2 to cat 3, 1 to cat 2, and 0 to cat 1. Then total points in your decklist and just say that. Rule zero could be as simple as I run "30 power points" and "oh well I only have 10 in this deck, let me choose this one that has 32."
Well, I've sold my 4 crypt, 1 dockside, 1 jeweled lotus already. Sold my 1 of my 3 Gaeas cradles, 3 duals out of 19. For any of you out there that haven't played as long as I have, (2002) The Fox is in the hen house.. We had it great when we had Sheldon and I would bet my Timetwister that he would be rolling in his grave after seeing this.
Can i suggest a virtual seat in the new rc for a community vote, a poll of some kind where the community can vote as a whole and it counts as 1 vote or 2 depending on the number of seats in the rc
Pausing half way through to make a comment about to Tier Bracket you are all working on. I would highly recommend possibly including some level of "how to discuss what my deck is doing." What I mean by that, is I have found the most success in getting a pod together by asking people "What are you trying to do." For some decks it could be making a lot of tokens, dropping something like an eldrazi monument, and going wide. Other decks, such as something more in the high powered end is "I want to have these pieces on board to pull x combo." I think outside of cedh (which at least in my experience/ opinion really is just a term do say "do what you will and try and win") I think most decks having a 1 or 2 sentence blurb can also help in facilitating these discussions. An example for my casual deck is something along the lines of, "My Omo deck is trying to abuse extra land drops, along with everything counters to make a large board that can be buffed via lord cards and large mana pump spell dumps. It can win by around turn 7-8 by itself." My concern is that putting cards into a tier list can do a poor job of giving players a false sense of victimization around cards. I think that part of the nuance and complexities around this is that cards functions together severely outweigh the value of an individual card. That Omo deck has no Sol Ring or mana positive rock, but because it plays 7 extra land drop cards, I often can outpace opponents who do have one, even by turn 4. Some questions, that though you may not have the answer to, could be good to ask while we look for a tangible solution; "Is there a way to advertise clear common strategies/ mechanics to help identify tier brackets?" "Is there a number of cards in a deck that define its tier, and what is that? Probably not 1, but is it 2...3...4...?" "What resources does this develop for the community that can help ease the discussion? (and if I can quickly say, I think in some ways literally writing pointed questions to be asked around a table before the game start may be a more helpful than a list of cards and brackets)" Lastly, thanks to you and the team, and everyone from the RC, CAG and larger community as a whole that has stood by our community while people attacked and threatened members. I am sad to see this as the solution, but hopeful, as I have faith in you all over at Wizards to help find a solution in these murky waters. Stay safe, and thanks for taking the time to read my rambling nonsense if you've made it this far. Cheers to you!
@goodmorningmagic @mtg About the brackets system: Will have you consider the interaction between cards in the bracket level of the deck? Cause it is not the same a tutor in a crab deck than in a good stuff deck. This question affects combos and tutors specially, and maybe others. I suppose you are digging into it. Another consideration: with each new set you'll need to assign bracket level to some cards, which will make the list longer and longer with each set you release. How will you manage that problem? Thank you so much and have fun :)
I think it's clear that even the game designers don't want to wear the burden of this crown. They truly know that wasn't what was best for the format, but was best to save the individuals for whom love this format more than any of us. and to the people in the building at WotC, I'm... sorry. I'm sorry for when the day comes when you will have to act on profit over the health of the format. I'm sorry for when that next design mistake comes and it just has to live in Commander because... it sells packs.
I want to know how many of these cards will it take to determine the power level of the deck. Because one card can't determine the power level of the deck.
The bracket is interesting for card power, especially in precons. To my group and personal experience at LGSs the deck power level is usually better evaluated with your winning turn. I could have a bracket 2 and win on turn 6 or a bracket 4 that dillydallies and wins on turn 10. So, at what turn are you expecting the game to end?
I respect the transparency and communication commitment... helps with trust because the format was in essence supposed to be "sheltered" from magic proper. But at this point may be a necessary evil to keep the peace.
Examples of lotus petal and ancient tomb belong in the tier 3- “high power” While these types of cards do go into most cedh decklists, these are simply some high power mana accelerants and many lower power commanders like these cards for some clunky cards that would otherwise be difficult to cast
I think 4 is the new 7. The sliver precon without alterations cant be a 1. Also the painbow deck was unpopular in my group because it was fast, efficient, and mana cannons controlled the board. Also, captain n'gathrod has been an archenemy style deck since i bought the precon. There has to be a wider range than just 1-4. Any optimized deck that has good synergy will effectively function as a 4 and precons maybe a 1. I think it is polarizing rather than defining.
The bucket system would work amazingly with sorting by efficiency. Think of Dual Lands. OG duals would be tier 4, shocks tier 3, triomes and duals that come in tapped but have the land types in tier 2, then gates and tap lands tier 1
I do hope that WotC does what the RC mever managed to do: create a solid foundation to Commander. The rules need to be clear, 'unwritten rules' are not a pro, they are the workaround for a huge problem in the Commander fomat, if you cna even call it a formst.
I shared this on an mtg goldfish vid. But we should have a chart with what tier a card is add up each number all your cards are and divide by 100. This won't take into consideration random synergies but will help with a more consistent rating
I feel a great starting point for Bracket 3 (or 1-2 lower than the highest bracket, if the numbers end up going higher) is looking at EDHRec's salt list
Here’s how I feel like I’m going to look at it. Bracket 4: cEDH, mass land destruction, stax Bracket 3: minor land disruption, mid-high budget, high salt cards (rhystic, tithe, elesh, 1ring, that vibe) Bracket 2: Focused gameplan, creative/powerful synergies, low-mid budget, at least 7ish turns, the good precons Bracket 1: Haha funny, most precons, budget stuff This intentionally does not mention interaction, removal, card draw, board wipes, fast mana, or tutors as I think those are all elements that can be run in a Bracket 1 deck and that scale effectiveness with the power level of the rest of your deck.
The more I read comments the more I am convinced they just need to bite the bullet and make separate formats. People that want to play competitively should be able to do so without restrictions that are based on the ‘feel’ of the game. Conversely, many don’t want to be forced to play against obnoxious or overpowered cards; commander is predominantly casual, so it’s unfair for those players to have deal with stuff they didn’t want in the first place.
I think the bracket system should be a pseudo banlist. Bracket 4 - anything goes (or closest to it) Bracket 3 - some cards off limits Bracket 2 - B3 restrictions plus some additional cards Bracket 1 - B3 & B2 restrictions plus some more cards off limits This can help keep the cEDH groups keep their power cards and keep casual groups casual. I think the list would be shorter for cards you can't play compared to cards you can play for a bracket.
My only concern would be whether things like a tutor are not dramatically improving a deck but rather just making an otherwise pile of garbage actually work lol
@mtg I am a high-powered/ cedh player. That's how I started in commander. My first group always focuses on cedh/ high-powered but I also understand edh players do need slower games they don't Ld a ton of fast mana because the games are longer then in a high-powered/cedh decks will the new power stestom means they can't mix
I almost like the 4 tier bracket system, but I think it needs some refining. Perhaps instead of just stating "You have a tutor you are a 4", it should be each of the "staples" in the format should be assigned a value like they have now. You then add all of those points up. So say you have a deck with a couple tutors, maybe a Swords or generous gift or something, eventually it adds up to a value of 73 or something like that. So you can either say "Hey I am a 73 what is everyone else?" Or something like Decks with value a-b are rank 1, c to d are 2, y-z are 83 (arbitrary number)
Reply to edit cause I thought about something else after. This also helps solve the "whats cEDH level" Values x-y are considered low power cEDH or something like that. And if a card gets to be so prevalent and game winning, that perhaps it gets moved and shifted up or down if its not performing in the format well
I hope the new bracket/power data actually makes it to data stored on each card in gatherer so that other apps like Moxfield, Scrfall, etc, etc can actually pull in that data and use it.
Are you guys going to fix the Amazon problems with DuskMourn? Many of us have ordered product especially the 4 commander deck and only got sent 1. So that needs to be addressed.
They should definitely fix this! I, like many others, also pre-ordered the 4 deck bundle through Amazon. I only received 1 deck, and the only option they gave me was to send that 1 deck back to them then wait for a refund. So, after pre-ordering and waiting, I'll have no decks and have to wait weeks for my money back.
My thought is something like this: S-Tier (banned cards could instead become S-Tier, kind of like Living Legend in Flesh and Blood, except for there could be S-Tier tournament support) A-Tier (competitive) B-Tier (strong) C-Tier (mid) D-Tier (casual/pre-con) S-Tier/A-Tier could function kind of like Vintage/Legacy for Commander. Perhaps cards from the Reserved List could all be A-Tier/S-Tier. Perhaps there could be a Modern commander variant. Perhaps cards need to be on this list as choice-restrictions, for instance: Basalt Monolith (C-Tier) Rings of Brighthearth (C-Tier) however if your deck runs both Basalt Monolith and Rings of Brighthearth, maybe that combo is recognized as B-Tier. Maybe certain cards can only be run together in S-Tier/A-Tier. There are a lot of things to consider all around but I'm interested to see how this all will go.
Up until now I've always thought Blake avoids asking WOTC staff tough questions but he started off with them today so I am pleasantly surprised. I do think Aaron is right, the longevity of this game is the community wanting to play. There's money to be had if they keep following that core principle.
For a rating system, maybe each tier is given a set amount of points and each high power card is given a point value. That way as your tier goes up, you can run more high power cards and you consistently do more broken things.
To provide feedback and share your thoughts on the things discussed in this episode, please consider joining the official Magic Discord and sharing your thoughts in the "Commander_News" channel: discord.gg/wizards-magic
using this as a way to grow your discord, where you can virtue signal and blast anyone with opposing views on any topic. Fitting. Part of being an inclusive community is accepting people have different opinions about race and gender norms, btw.
I'm pro LGBTQIA+ but I hate that the game enables hatred towards people who have not been exposed to enough people with different values to change their world views. You don't change the opinion people by excluding them, BTW. I mean... the LGBT community knows that all too well. You actually reinforce their unfounded beliefs.
Also... it's a global game and cultural norms around that stuff is still changing.
Stop banning players because of non-game related beliefs.
How about you answer feedback here, instead?
With the RC quitting, why did you think it was a good idea to announce that they 'handed it to you'. Because based on all the data - you took it when your boneheaded moves drove the RC under a bus. And that was AFTER the apparent market manipulation. Your motives are incredibly clear, and I will no longer purchase your products. Hopefully others will follow suit, and show you at the checkout just how terrible your recent moves have been.
How's that for feedback?
Just bring back the damn lotus.
Gavin, Blake, Aaron..... Stop making 0 CMC mana artifacts.
Hope that helps. :)
Unban Golos!
Can we stop printing advertising cards in packs to make room for more tokens? Asking for my limited player friends.
I draft and 2/3 packs have a token in them which is far far more than it used to be
man i hate adverisement cards. if you HAVE to do them, make the backside a token or whatever.
The issues they've mentioned are:
1) The tokens come from the marketing budget. They exist because there are ads.
2) We already have a token or aid in every single ad card, except for Arena ads that have to be double-faced for legal reasons.
That said, they said they're trying new ways to distribute tokens, which hopefully is much more successful then relying on one random slot.
@@fernandobanda5734 putting an advertisement in an already purchased pack equals straight to the garbage can. It does nothing for them financially but a loss. Gavin that be a token instead increase the enjoyment of limited play which could increase returning players that could potentially bring friends and in turn increase profit.
The ad cards are so funny. I already play the game. Why are you advertising to me 😅
I Trust Gavin, I don't trust Hasbro corpos.
Guess what... Gavin has no power. When corporate says they need to pull levers to make more money the directives will come down forcing every designer to make things happen to increase sales. Gavin is a middle manager and Aaron is an upper manager. Neither of them are actual decision makers. They are decision executors.
@@apeekintime Gavin and Aaron absolutely have power. Guess what... Hasbro doesn't design this game, people like Gavin and Aaron do. The people at Hasbro probably don't even understand the intricacies of the game. They just want to sell product. They don't care how it's done.
@@Dclem742 No one's claiming that the executive level people understand the intricacies of the game, but they absolutely don't have to. You don't have to know or care anything about Magic to say "we need to double up sales, so make these cards more powerful" or "we're going to be putting Transformers cards in the next set, so get designing those." Hell, it makes it a lot easier.
@@apeekintime I think there's such thing as too _much_ pessimism. Yes, Gavin is a decision executor, but he (and Mark and Aaron) do have _some_ sway.
Hasbro has owned mtg since 2001. What happened in 2003 that was so game ending? It's WotC itself don't blame hasbro.
Idea: Crowdsource the bracketing to have a "Community Power Bracket" (similar to EDHRec's Salt score) with badges that signal "high variance" or other data anomalies. And then WOTC can come in and adjust cards (if needed) into the "WOTC Power Bracket", which becomes its "official" rating.
I really like that actually. Commander is a very community focused format and that would help
@@teamastral7682 I think this might work for some things like how bad certain cards make players feel, but not for power level. People are highly biased and most lack the game design knowledge needed to properly assess that.
We have to remember that many players aren't as enfranchised as us. Their voices should be heard but making them as binding as those of more experienced and cold headed players is not a good idea.
@@_Ve_98 That's very true. It would definitely have to be some mix of things. Crowdsourcing stuff would probably give them at least the cards to look for if nothing else
Fully agree, crowdsourcing will eliminate bias by getting data from wide variety of perspectives. I'd say a decks level is defined by HOW MANY of those powerful cards are in your deck. I think we could learn from Canadian Highlander and use points. Assign 3 points to category 4 cards, 2 to cat 3, 1 to cat 2, and 0 to cat 1. Then total points in your decklist and just say that. Rule zero could be as simple as I run "30 power points" and "oh well I only have 10 in this deck, let me choose this one that has 32."
@@_Ve_98 100% agree, this is why I suggested that WOTC gets the final say. Lots of people might rank Thasa's Oracle a 1 or 2 if they've only seen it played in a Merfolk deck. But WOTC can then go in and adjust the rating to a 4. This way you can see what the community ranking is plus the WOTC ranking. This gives you a better picture than just a flat rating with no context. And as mentioned by others, cards that have high variance can flag WOTC to investigate... versus cards that everyone universally ranks a 1 or 4.
22:44 please consult Play To Win, they're a pretty damn good presentation of the cEDH community in my opinion
I second this
I third this
Fourth. Love watching them
Fifth
Sixth. No experience playing cedh but watch most of their videos
I think Aaron's comment about a single card not determining a deck's power level is correct. I just played with someone a few days ago who had a Vampiric Tutor in his deck, but the deck was basically just a pile of black cards that he liked with no real game plan, certainly not a power level 4 deck. I think this kind of thing is quite common - people sometimes include a card because they have it or for the "prestige" of owning it, but the rest of the deck isn't tuned enough to really take advantage of its power.
Exactly why this system kinda sucks we should use a point system
@@captianbacon I'd like to explore a point system. I think they dismiss it too quickly in this video. Yes, people would probably min-max it, but that could be part of the challenge of the metagame. I don't know if it would work for all players. I could see a lot of "less enfranchised" players coming to a Commander night with a deck and having no clue about the point buy system. That being said, I would be all for "beta testing it" - having certain Commander events in which decks must conform to a point system and seeing what games feel like. And while periodic point rebalancing of cards would probably lead to debate, I can't imagine they would be as controversial as the bans that happened last week.
Yeah, sometimes you open a cool card. I have several janky decks with Mana Drain in it because I happened to crack a foil one opening a Commander Legends pack, and I just think it's neat.
@Kbaby521 ya why I had mana crypt in decks I got a mystery booster so I'm gonna put this 80$ card in every deck I play because it's fun.
I think there's too much focus on getting a system 'completely accurate' to power level than just limiting exposure to annoying cards. I've not dealt with a lot of players who cared about losing quickly or slowly moreover whether they were dealing with specific annoying cards and strategies or combos. Having a deck with high power cards but that isn't very good in a high power card game is "a player's" problem. Having a deck with high power cards in a low power game is "the table's" problem.
Sell complete token packs for each set, they're as vital as basic land station for limited play.
Well, silver lining, having Gavin and Aaron on board here is about as good as we can get
Still extremely disappointed in the small sector of the community for their abhorrent behavior after the recent banned list update, but at least there seems to be a genuine effort to try and move forward in a positive way
the ones sending death threats really need to go touch grass or something
This is how commander players behave, I'm confused why people are shocked.
@@Restokiki You're right, every single commander player sends death threats. Every single one. EVERY. SINGLE. ONE.
@Restokiki "This is how commander players behave." OK so like 70% of the community of the ENTIRETY OF MAGIC. STFU with your format elitism it's ridiculous also this wasn't a popular ban for 40-50% of the community it's not like it was only 100 ppl complaining.
if brackets do happen - it'd be cool to have pre-cons with more than 99 cards so that you can modify the power level of the deck
I really like this idea. Besides it obvious upsides it also helps cultivating the idea that it might be cool to have your own builds in different versions like "This is my bracket 2 version of this deck, but I can add this handfull of cards and now Im able to compete in bracket 3".
@@juergenkohler97 who doesn't have a maybeboard these days :D ?
@@op1ekun81 precon owners?
I have begun building my commander decks with a sideboard. Obviously you can't interact with it in game but I have 10 cards if I want to power up, power down, or just throw in some funny jank .
@@juergenkohler97 yeah this was my thought - I too have a maybeboard of ~15 cards to swap in or out of each of my edh decks..
However, I'm sure there are plenty of players who only play with the precons without adjusting the deck, having some level of guided construction in the product itself would both help explain the bracket system to disenfranchised players and allow for that deck to be played at more tables.
Verhey is on the money. The problem with Commander for me is that decks have started to become more and more ubiquitous the more competitive games become. Like every blue player is going to run rhystic study, fierce guardianship and mana drain, every red player will run deflecting swat and dockside, black is always going to run vampiric and demonic tutor etc etc. A format that was meant to have all the fun variation becomes saturated with must have cards for each colour or risk being casual.
You ban them and more cards will take their places. The issue is with the size of the game. It’s gotten so big that there will always be a meta. People need to accept it and move forward.
Your stance here amuses me simply because those are the exact reasons I DO NOT RUN THOSE CARDS hahaha
@@SuperMurph1991 I disagree on your first statement about banning cards but more cards will take their place. When you ban a powerful and efficient card for example dockside, what is the next best thing on that spot? descent to avernus? ancient copper dragon? The power level of tournament staple cards are far more superior compared to a casual only level card, so in my opinion and in my experience, the ban and loss of a powercard will greatly effect a slot on your deck. So it's better to ban/remove cards in the format if it greatly imbalances the game.
That's why it's important to have your own group so that it does not follow the most optimized decks and meta. Games at LGS always become competitive at some point despite the commander being casual. That's why banning Mana Crypt and Lotus was good for games at LGS. Without bans you need friends in MTG 😆 We even play 60 card casual modern with universe beyond and commander cards to spice things up but with self-imposed bans and budget limits. This is the best Magic experience for me. Build whatever you want and match on the basis of power level. That's how Commander should work.
I've heard this take a lot from more casual players, and while ubiquity is definitely something we should stay away from, there are many decks in cEDH that opt out of running most of the cards mentioned above. Atraxa players for instance won't play Fierce Guardianship because they can't get their commander online early enough or consistently enough for it to be relevant.
Thank you for the transparency as you move forward with the commander format. Wishing you the best of luck in this endeavor!
My playgroup has been firmly in bracket 1 for almost 2 years. We arrived there from a very competitive, and cutthroaty arms-racey place 😅
Because we play other, highly competitive formats we've to keep commander casual.
TL;DR
- We keep our decks below $100 barring basics (TCG player low).
- We don't play fast mana (we even dropped sol ring some time ago).
- We don't play free spells (so no FoW or Fierce Guardianship).
- We don't play tutors (unless they're really in flavour of the deck, like artifacts fishing for constructs, and goblins finding their kindred).
- We don't play infinite combos (it's up for discussion as long as we're not all dead by turn 3 :P).
- We try to limit stax pieces in our decks (Rule 0). No one play hardcore stax decks anymore.
Just to summarize, the amount of fun cards we've already found (cause we're no longer play expensive format staples) surprised even us :)
The sheer fun of finding replacements for the big cards is great, and we tend to keep quite big maybeboards.
Other than that, just enjoy the format. Playing the game, with friends, is what is really important!
See you in the Multiverse!
I already had a 4 Tier system which worked quite good, because it wasn't just the powerlevel but also how the player attitude is to that round:
1) Low power: weak precons, joke decks, let's test/learn
2) casual: my deck is as much fun for me as for you. Let's have fun board game night.
3) focused: our decks are well constructed, good synergies and answers, we play concentrated for the win, but it will feel fair and earned
4) high power: this deck is capable of unfair stuff and has expensive cards. Better keep a counterspell up. We are okay to start a new round after maybe 5 turns.
Yes, technically cEDH would be tier 0, but that's a different beast.
The only issue I see with this is that it's power level only. We need a way to signal "hey, this card isn't broken, just extremely draining to play against".
Maybe separating power and salt into two tier systems would be better even if it adds complexity. Otherwise people will bring miserable cards into their decks thinking they are good and have a terrible time.
For a tier system to work properly, EVERY card needs a tier assignment and there must be a system we can upload deck lists to spit out the average tier, with all cards accounted for- and that is the deck power level. Having one card shift a deck from precon lvl 1 immediately to a 3 or 4 isnt gonna work and isnt the same level as another with half the deck being level 3 cards. This is just a more complex rule zero that will lead to more issues.
@@FirewynnTV Hopefully, but thats not what it seems based on how Gavin was explaining it. The idea that one card can shift the power level on its own doesn’t sound like a good system.
@@FirewynnTV What precons win on turn 5?
@@FirewynnTVTo add to what you said, multiple recent precons also have, admittedly not optimized, infinite combos out of the box in addition to being able to start producing game winning lines outside of combo that early.
@@OzxGGIt’s not a good system. Admittedly, some cards are just generally over performers in absolutely any deck you throw them in. However the fringe deck community is a large portion of the population. I have a buddy that arguably runs jank decks, highly functional, but jank. His mono black decks, he runs tutors no differently to how green decks use ramp spells. To him, vamp tutor is exactly used as a rampant growth and whatever system is designed needs to have space for those kinds of brews.
you cant spit out an average.... the amount of different ways cards interact with each other through combos and other wierd and not so wierd ways makes a card game with over 20,000 cards ( and counting) literally impossible to see what the average power level of a deck is....the only way to make a bracket system is to say "hey these cards are the extremely unfun or unfair cards that do or can do broken stuff- 4s" and making your deck that number, i think people underestimate the rule zero talk and how this bracket system and rule zero pair nicely with each other, you cant say my deck is a 2 without mentioning the five 4 cards in your deck cause you will quickly be realized to be a liar and that in of itself is a deterrent for bad intentions, most people will most likely design thier decks based on what bracket they want that deck to be in, and some people may take that power level and add a few cards from the next tier but know what cards are in that deck and disclose that info when joining a play group....it makes rule zero talks more direct than just saying my deck is a 7 and no one having a clue what that really means
If Gavin wasn’t a wizards employee Sheldon would’ve had him on the RC. Let’s never forget that Sheldon’s primary vision for Commander was the social aspect first and game play second. So design should adhere to this founding principle as closely as possible. That’s why the bans that happened were necessary. Those cards, which 3 of the 4 we designed specifically for commander, fundamentally did not adhere to the commander mission statement. Don’t get me wrong, it’s fun to win but for you grinders out there, standard and modern are great places to be more competitive! And yes, maybe cedh should have its own governing principles to be run by.
Underrated comment. I recognize the frustration, especially with people investing in chase cards for a given format. But it was kind of obvious why those cards were banned, they violate the ubiquitous stance that you obviously should have for a format like commander or they’re clearly overpowered. It’s unfortunate that the decision was so divisive but it really was only wrong from a financial perspective. You can’t tell me the game is more fun because of lotuses (I guess you can, but it’s not something I imagine a largely casual gamer community would enjoy as much as not having them).
Banning mana crypt, a card legal after the first year of the concept of EDH existing, after 20+ years of power creep, was necessary? Not the cards that win you the game turn 2 or so?
@@Vernas_Rthe cards that win you the game on turn 2 are a lot harder to cast if you cant speed them out with a mana crypt.
So if my ideal social experience involves powerful cards then I'm not welcome in the commander community? Yikes.
@@jonaingo29 the question you’ve got to ask yourself and be honest about is, if your powerful cards consume a large amount of the time equity from the group or create an unbalanced board state quickly without exhausting many of your resources, then is it really a good or “fun” social interaction/experience for the group? Again, the main focus of commander as Sheldon intended was predicated upon social interaction first, then game play second.
Another important aspect of deck power level in a singleton format is consistency.
Having one single counterspell in the deck is not the same as having 15 counters. Same goes with tutors, rituals, ramp spells, removal, extra turn spells, etc.. Consistency increases the power level of a deck significantly.
So the bands could also consider the redundancy of cards in a certain bracket, instead of a single card.
Agreed, I don't think defining your decks power level based on the ONE highest power level card is the way to go. I'd say a decks level is defined by HOW MANY of those cards are in your deck. I think we could learn from Canadian Highlander and use points. Assign 3 points to category 4 cards, 2 to cat 3, 1 to cat 2, and 0 to cat 1. Then total points in your decklist and just say that. Rule zero could be as simple as I run "30 power points" and "oh well I only have 10 in this deck, let me choose this one that has 32."
I do think it's important to note pregame discussion is still a thing and these brackets are just guidelines/ a tool they may implement for convention's or at the convenience of LGS pairings. This is not a strict ruling change.
I'm kind of let down by the vitriol shown by this community. I'm not a big fan of this change, but I am just hoping that the future of commander is more in the hands of players rather than the hands of investors and not driven by money and profit.
With Wizards engineering this take over, it will only get worse, I'm afraid.
The live chat during the video was disappointing personally and disheartening to see. So many calls for unbans and cheers for the change.
@@dicegamer3466I personally like the change. Not because I had anything against the RC or CAG, but because I am a firm believer in accountability. Now for both the good and bad decisions, Wizards is the first and only stop for high fives and finger pointing.
@@dicegamer3466 no
It doesn't matter if you support the bans or not. It doesn't matter if you like WOTC taking control of Commander or not. We're in this situation because idiots couldn't handle being told how to play, and threatened people's lives over a game. Let's see how things go, and then make rational decisions with our hobby.
Very rational and thoughtful discussions. I think having specific cards defining the brackets is probably the easiest method, it's 1 or 0, easy to identify. But you should consider "what turn your deck is usually trying to win". It's a little harder to identify, especially for new players with no goldfishing experience, but I think is more accurate for defining the experience. But I know no method is perfect; a land destruction deck may try to win turn 10 but through a slog of a game. Just worth considering I think.
The tier system makes sense, but why not adopt something like salt scores for rating individual cards and aggregating the total score for the entire deck to determine which tier any given deck belongs in? The community has been providing feedback for years through these sites, so some of that precursor data is available for your research team to browse. Hopefully those sites get consulted and/or brought into the fold to help stand all this up.
Yea the salt scores are a great data set they could pull from
I am excited about the new categories! It is gonna make deck building more fun and games more balanced. I don't like having to put in powerful cards just in order to hang at the game store.
My concern with the new power scale is that the "it's a seven" scale already lacked nuance and this sounds like it could have even more blind spots.
Tbh it only lacked nuance because everyone had their own feeling about a card, this will add a 'physical' backing to cards power levels but unfortunately it seems to be only in "how fun is this to fight" and not a casual to cedh slide scale
The best option IMO is a points system similar to Canadian Highlander (minus point limit per deck), paired paired with a tier system. Cards ranked 1-10. Weaker cards not even ranked. Cards ranked 1-10 would add their rankings number of points to your decks total number of points. Then your deck falls in 1 of 4 tiers based on total points.
No wait! each card falls within a bracket umbrella -> so you know right away "my power level is a 100" let's say, so that person is playing only cards from bracket 1 // on the opposite hand, if the hand is "400" ... well, that's it :)
Not perfect I know, but is combining in a way the points from Canadian Highlander with this bracket system :)
The issue I see with this is the cohesiveness of the deck if I run ancient tomb vamp tutor demonic tutor mystical tutor enlightened tutor worldly tutor Gamble Jeskas will In my five color kenrith one drop creature deck My point spread is going to be like 50 but my deck is a 3. It starts and ends with people being honest about how good their deck is and if they lie game 1 either switch decks or leave the pod And if people feel the need to lie about their Decks power level to win games to feel better about themselves, those people will find less and less people to play with
@@MatthewRyanDP I hate the break the news to ya but if you run those cards in a Kenrith Deck it is not a 3. lol
@@davidskinner570 this kind of thinking is why the rule zero talk doesn't work people are either too salty or too narrow minded.
@@davidskinner570 I'm also referring to a 3 on their 1-4 bank system not power level 3
I think cEDH should be similar to vintage. Loads of expensive cards that are difficult to access. Get some extra cEDH folk in and try no banlist. Some cards just don't work well in a multilayer game.
Should be level 5 where everything is ok. Nothing should be squinted at in a cEDH game as that's what you sign up for when you sit down.
Bad Idea.
No banlist would be a 100% homogenized format with everyone running 5 color blue soup decks, no thanks.
I've always understood cEDH as playing the.most optimized deck within the banlist/rules of commander. So I don't think it makes sense to have a separate bracket for cEDH. I think the brackets actually add a potentially interesting wrinkle to cEDH: namely, cEDH restricted to cards below any given bracket (as long as the brackets are rigorously enough defined). I think it would be really interesting to see how the cEDH meta varies with the bracket.
@@voluntarism335 Vintage has about 15 competitive viable decks. It's a small metagame but that doesn't make it less fun. It's more focused and sideboarding is much, much easier than other formats. If cEDH becomes a new format with a much smaller banlist, I'm sure there will be at least as much variation as vintage.
@@JohnFromAccounting "Vintage has about 15 competitive viable decks. It's a small metagame but that doesn't make it less fun."
Wrong it does make it less fun I quit playing that format because of it, most matches felt like randomized slot machines where you can just lose instantly.
How long has WotC been planning to take over the commander format from the RC?
Gavin is great and has a great point regarding ubiquity, but don't we think it´s already too late? Haven´t we already reached a very high point for ubiquity? We have more than 10 2mana mana rocks, we already have super efficient removal in most colours and the same for the lands for every colour combination. How can ubiquity be solved unless we make it a rotating format or we ban most of the staples?
It's a social format, you can decide what to put into your deck.
okay, comment section: Be KIND. Be COOL. and keep it CIVIL.
Maybe
Indeed, perhapse
Magic & Barbershop crossover??? I love it!
reeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
something something reserved list
something something stax
magic community is so soft and full of feels. get over yourselves
Hearing Gavin talk about avoiding ubiquity was very very reassuring of the direction they want to go. Love this discussion, thank you
My rule zero questions I like to ask are:
Does your deck wins through combo or combat?
How many tutors?
And generally on what turn can you win? Decks that win before turn 7 are very strong, between 8 and 10 is medium, and beyond that is lower powered.
So a stax deck that locks everyone out for 12 turns is low powered?
the baseline of rule 0 should be like:
do you play 0 cost mana rocks?
do you play free interaction?
can you make infinite mana?
and then if somebody either does or does not you pull out a deck that goes accordingly
@@sabersaurus7018 If the stax locks everyone it could be considered a win.
If not everybody is locked then there is a chance to break out of the lock and take the game from that player meaning it wasn't super powerfull, was just slowing the game.
Please please please get Rachel Weeks on the comity! She has a great grasp of the balance and understanding of the spirit of commander. Also, Joey from the EDHREC podcast would also be amazing on the group at they have in-depth psychological discussions behind deck building.
The people have to want to do it too. Overseeing something like Commander is a thankless job that you don't get paid for and take all the abuse from the community when people don't like a decision you make AND every decision has people who don't like it.
I don't blame anyone who doesn't want to take that on.
15:12 Instead of numbers for brackets, use Taco sauces! Light, mild medium and spicy! The only problem I see with numbers is that I feel like I always should define _one being the worst/smallest_ (or the opposite).
You already know what spicy feels like so no need to explain the scale!
Only problem I see with all of it is the guy who puts 5 dollars worth of upgrades in their precon and wipes his playgroup. Then calls it a cedh deck. So you end up pstomping unintentionally. They’ll say spicy. And you play spicy. And it ended up being mild.
will precons be assigned a bracket placement? For instance, in premium commander precons such as secret lair, mh3, or commander masters, these are generally higher power level than the average precon. Will these be labeled as a, say, 'bracket 3' while other precons are labeled as a 'bracket 1,' and will these bracket placements actually be outlined on the product?
In fewer words, will different precons be different bracket levels and will it tell me what bracket level the precon is?
There are numerous problems with trying to establish these Power Brackets. Wording such as "precon level" is becoming incredibly confusing because of premium precons, power creep and straight up disproportionate power level between precons. If I try to tell my playgroup to bring precons that night, I have to very specifically say no, not the Commander Masters or Modern Horizons 3 etc. If you go to a store with strangers, that understanding may not be there.
There are plenty of decks I play that are janky and I throw some powerful cards in simply to make their thing work. I don't want to spend tons of time explaining why I decided to use a few power bracket 4 cards in a deck targeted to be a power bracket 2 deck. Weight and combination of cards would need to be thoroughly considered, and it seems like an impossible task when there are 27,000+ unique cards.
What i dont understand and I feel like it was addressed briefly from Josh Lee, was the process of how cards were banned by RC. From what I know, they would communicate with wizards about the cards they would ban and wizards would know in advance. The cards that were banned were reprinted so many times in the past year. If wizards knew of the upcoming bans, why would they continue reprinting the cards? If it’s revealed they knew prior, I seriously don’t believe they respect the health of commander at all.
To make money
WotC plans about 2 years out. If the RC gave them a year of notice, the reprint had already been decided for about a year.
What do you mean by reprinted so many times? I remember them reprinting these cards once each to date.
I don't think we need 2 banlists, but I do think that having a supplemental list that fleshes out your power level would be interesting. For a topical example, suppose the new bans (aside from Nadu ofc) weren't implemented but in order to qualify for a power level 2 deck you could have 1 of those 3 cards, but no more than that. A singleton version of a restricted list, essentially.
Someone buys a Pre con and and 1 pack of cards, they pull a Vamp Tutor and toss it in the deck. They now have a Level 4 deck. Conversation opener or not, that puts us right back where we were.
On top of that, as now when you make pre cons, a number will have to be stamped on the box for where each one falls on top of that, as each new set comes out every card shifts, every card needs to be check at min and then a bunch may or may not shift brackets, so then how stable are the brackets/numbers.
IF you do this bracket thing, do not go by the "salt sore" as that is just judging based on feels bad, not what deck it is in, how it works with the deck, esp as players remember 2 decks in total the one that was original or the one that crushed them.
Maybe if no one in the pod has social skills, or the ability to self reflect.
Why would you want to play level 4 with a precon, just don't put in vampiric tutor and stay at level 1
It would be like putting a rare/mythic in a pauper commander deck and then trying to play regular commander with it, vampiric tutor would just be a card not compatible with low level play
@@Robin-uc9nx My point is someone aka a kid or someone brand new to the format would/could easily do that and then end up in the deep water. Yes the convo helps but untill we see its final form and pratice were just don't know yet.
But also someone saying well I can play but all I got is a pre con with a few mods may or may not work in a good way. But again the next step that we can't see is the discussion point of it.
Not dissmissing what you're saying at all, just saying in practice with the plan needs to be figured out more.
@@Robin-uc9nxThat’s not entirely true though. Jank builds absolutely do exist and whatever system is created has to account for the creative ways people use the existing intricacies of the color pie to accomplish what they are after. If you have two players each playing mono colored decks. The mono black player uses vampire tutor to search for a swamp. The mono green player uses rampant growth. They both ramped, no funny business was had. I fully understand that vamp tutor is not normally used in this manner but the fact that it can be should be considered. To me, the most important measure of how strong a deck is how it utilizes its resources accomplish whatever “its thing” is.
@@inresponse8331let me nitpick a bit. how does someone "ramp" with vamp vs rampant growth? one is card neutral and gives you additional land in play while the other makes you down a card, lose life and you still need to use landdrop to put land into play. that example makes vamp look very bad vs rampant. ;)
but i get the point and agree. having specific card in deck should not unconditionaly put deck in certain bracket. instead of list of cards for brackets using descriptions of effects for guidelines would be more useful and require less maintenance. eg "multiple efficient tutors used to find efficient combo pieces" is much better than just "vampiric, demonic, consult, enlightened".
I think, if the power bracket comes about, they should do an average of all the cards in their deck similar to EDHRec's or Archidekt's salt scores rather than 1 card out of the 99 determining the bracket score.
@mtg @magic As far as getting community feedback on a regular basis, is there a plan to have a member of the new RC be regularly involved in the official public discord, wherein public feedback can be collated and brought up to the whole (new) RC group?
Really like the ideas you’ve proposed so far.
I think banned cards in Commander should only be those that actively break the way the game works like Lutri. I like being able to play with my powerful cards and to play with my less powerful cards depending on the group. Making the social and pre game discussion on deck level more streamlined is really the way to go and to be pushed. WotC being in control can hopefully help push and promote that to the masses
How does the description "can easily go in any deck" not apply to Vampiric Tutor? It requires no deckbuilding restriction, you can add it to any black deck without a problem.
Because it costs 50 dollars.
@@gameguru42392 Why should price play a role in power level evaluation?
I think that what they wanted to express is "Can it easily be found in a deck of any power level". You can totally make a bad vampiric tutor deck, but it boosts consistency so much that it will quickly increase power level unless you actively compensate for it.
Still. They need to define it more.
Thanks for putting the time to bring back peace of mind in the community. I, of course, feel very sorry for what happened to our iconic and dedicated commander advisors. About the brackets, I'm a bit concerned about the tutors. Although Vampiric/Demonic Tutors are powerhouses in a high power deck letting you find your best fast mana/removal/combo piece when you need them, it's definitely less the case in an average precon/bracket 1 level deck. The tutors are awesome in janky builds like "hidden commander" ones without making them exactly "powerful". My idea : not putting them in a dedicated bracket but stating that, for instance, 3+ tutors in your deck raises it one level or smth. Thoughts ?
I think power level of a deck should be determined not by the individual cards, but by what the deck can do. I think the 1-4 system should ask things like: how many infinite combos do you play? What turn does your deck usually win by? How many high salt cards does it contain (which can be a long list of cards including all cards which people should be warned of ahead of time)? How many tutors do you run?
Then, given the answer to those, your deck is a 1-4 (or 1-5 or whatever).
This way, a deck that has 3 infinite combos, has multiple salt cards, and wins turn 5, can have a score of 4, and will likely match up somewhat well with a deck of score 3, which has 1 infinite combo, wins by turn 5, and plays 1 salt card.
Recommendation on how to get information on commander: Make Arena 4 player with a commander format.
For deck scoring, there should be 3 factors. Consistently, efficiency and intent as discussed on the first episode of the spike feeders podcast. This would have to be an algorithm that can be given to all deck building websites and that would work within Arena and MTGO
I think the best way to test "deck level" should be associate each card with a number of power then you take the highest 10 cards of your deck or top 10% so if your top 10 cards are 4 4 4 4 4 3 3 3 3 3 then your deck is a 3.5 if your deck is a 4 4 3 3 2 2 2 2 2 2 it's ~ 2.5
I've said my preference would be points associated with every card and if your deck goes above X total points it is a level Y system, but I like this version too, I hate the WOTC format idea, it should NEVER be based solely on your top card
Seems also like a good idea but the big advantage of using: top card = your bracket, is that its instantly checkable, if someone pulls out a tier 4 card during the game, you know that they are not in the right bracket
Gavin's wearing a dope jacket
Idk about that. The colours are all over the place
Bracket system, number followed by letter after bracket 3, example bracket 1, home-brew with power level 1 cards and unmodified pre-cons, bracket 2, home-brew with power level 2 cards, modified pre-cons 10 cards or less only power level 2 cards, 3a = modified pre-cons < 10 cards all power level 3 or lower, 3b = modified pre-cons > 10 cards power level 3 or lower, 3C > homebrew / pre-con with 25 or > cards at power level 3, etc…
Bracket 4 (or whatever the top one will be) needs to have all/almost all cEDH win conditions. Many players (mtgo data can prove this) set up commander games by describing the power level as "non-cEDH". Obviously, that excludes literal cEDH decks, but i think its obvious that most players assume that it also excludes decks that arent good enough for cEDH, but win in the same way. Nothing hurts more than setting up a non-cedh game and losing to Thassa's Oracle with Demonic Consultation, and that also applies to losing with Leveler and Laboratory Maniac.
This is the reason why cEDH win conditions absolutely must be in the top bucket
Bring back the Banned-As-Commander list. I promise you the playerbase is intelligent enough to comprehend that there are 2 separate lists.
The same player base that has some amount of people that will threaten death over a card game?
To the people that threatened the rules committee with death because they made an understandably frustrating decision, please get professional help. Obviously you have a right to be mad about whatever you want, reasonable or not. But you need to wake up if you think it’s acceptable to threaten people, especially for something trivial like a predominantly casual variant of a card game.
Oh good I made it here before the “show me the receipts or you’re virtue signaling” cretins. Papa bless.
This type of behavior should not occur. Emotional responses to collector items are understandable. Taking it out on ANYONE is not. Get your shit together folks. Y’all are grown ass adults.
This is a game first and foremost. Nothing more. Don’t delude yourselves.
The sad thing is they won. Now WOTC will just print chase cards no matter the power level even if it hurts commander. 🤷🏻♂️
Immoral and actually illegal, especially death threats.
If any frustrated children threaten my family because they lost $200, you can't take it seriously! I think people forget which community we are in. Professional streamers and employees have to expect something like this and not immediately pull their tails!
So you saying you didnt mean it then? @@Ico-MTG
One thing i didnt see brought up when talking about power levels, is overall cmc. Sure, you can have a bucket systems to determine kind of what power level youre playing.. but i think if you simply sat down and said "my cmc is 1.2" i would have a pretty good idea of the type of deck im playing against.. specially if my deck is a 2.7 cmc... obviously in certain decks like Kaalia of the vast will have a high cmc, but here is where you can make the distinction that, sure its high cmc but tuned to run as if it had a 2.1 cmc. I truly believe this would be easier than trying to sit down and telling me... my deck is a 4 cause i have Ancient Tomb and Vampiric Tutor.
I made this two years ago and I haven’t updated it since but it’s a plug and play sheet that tells you how competitive your deck is based on 1-100
Link?
How come putting one high bracket card in your deck, makes the whole deck that bracket?
Tier List = Won’t Work
Base power level on how fast a deck can win instead.
Otherwise, Wotc should simply look at the Ban list and decide what should stay or go, or what other cards need a ban
Recommendations of tier names: Competitive Commander (or CEDH), Local Game Store Commander, Casual Commander, Introductory Commander.
LGS is all of the other 3 categories
Brackets 3 & 4 should have a separate ban list. Casuals can have the current ban list in brackets 1 & 2. Seems like a win/win to me. Walk up to the table, ask what brackets you're playing and choose your deck accordingly .
separating the format into 4 tiers is already making separate ban lists.
I think making a bracket system for the commanders will also help. It will determine the decks power level in addition to its components. I also think that the bracket system might be a good idea then maybe add the points of each card in the deck then having a limit like Bracket 1 - 20 pts, Bracket 2 - 40 pts, Bracket 3 - 70 pts, Bracket 4- 100 pts and then Bracket 5 as CEDH and players will say "I have a Brago Bracket 3 deck with 60 points of power cards." That will specifically determine a decks power level imo.
Disappointing that they admit Sol Ring is bad for the format but wont ban it. :(
I swapped out for sol talisman.: I am really happy about that
I don't know why we don't get rid of it. No one will care. If someone brings their precon, just let them play it.
That bracketing system needs some work for sure -- good that they realize this. A lot of decks out there just have one or few of those higher tier cards, but that does not make them higher power level decks at all. They'd get seriously smoked at a table with heavy decks. With the huge amount of variations that can be built in a commander deck, this is going to be a tough system to design and make people happy. Also, how will future pre-constructed commander decks be sold -- will there be multiple levels of power available for purchase instead of just different themes?
Bracket idea (deck rating = total value of cards via point system)
Examples of cards rating:
0 Point - Basic lands
1 Point - Enter tapped nonbasic lands with no abilities or land types / Vanilla creatures with power 4 or less
2 Point - Enter tapped no basic lands with ETB ability / Vanilla creatures power 5 or higher
3 Point - Enter tapped nonbasic lands with land types (Fetch-able) / Sorceries (General)
4 Point - Enchantments that provide some benefit ex: Anthems / Phyrexian Arena - Instants (General)
5 Point - Conditional tutors 3 CMC or more ex: Cultivate / Fabricate
6 Point - Enchantments that provide significant value ex: Rhystic Study / Sorceries or Instant that could potentially win the game on the spot or heavily warp a game state or battlefield
7 Point - Conditional tutors 1-2 CMC ex: Enlightened Tutor / Worldly Tutor
8 Point - Unconditional tutors 5 CMC or more / 0 CMC Counterspells
9 Point - Unconditional tutors 3-4 CMC / 0 CMC mana neutral rocks
10 Point - Unconditional tutors 2 CMC or less / 0 CMC mana positive rocks
Examples of Tier Rating Systems
Option 1
Tier 1 - (1-200) Weak - Precon (Pre Commander Era)
Tier 2 - (201-400) Medium Precon level / Casual
Tier 3 - (401-600) strong Precon / Medium Unoptimized
Tier 4 - (601-800) Strong Focused
Tier 5 - (801-1000) High Power - cEDH
Or
Option 2
Closer to the old system (Preferred)
Tier 1 - 1 - 100
Tier 2 - 101 - 200
Tier 3 - 201 - 300
Tier 4 - 301 - 400
Tier 5 - 401 - 500
Tier 6 - 501 - 600
Tier 7 - 601 - 700
Tier 8 - 701 - 800
Tier 9 - 801 - 900
Tier 10 - 901 - 1000
Seems like the tiers need to cater towards how a deck performs rather than individual cards. Even during this discussion it already seems murky trying to discuss reprints and power levels of each card. Plus, are they going to do this for every single card? I think a deck performance tier list would be easier to construct and make more sense
Honestly, I think they should have no official banned list or have something akin to sub-formats within commander. Commander is an entirely casual format with no wotc sanctioned events. It feels weird to say players can't use cards in Commander that were specifically printed for Commander (like Jeweled Lotus).
If you wanted banned lists maybe sub-formats?
Type 1: Basically, cEDH maybe no bans except dexterity cards and ante cards
Type 1.5: Maybe ban anything that's on the reserved list
Type Modern: Commander with modern legal cards
Type 2: Commander with a rotation like Standard
idk... just thinking out loud here =p
Honestly great to hear the thought and time these people clearly put into their work and the game we all love. Wonderful stuff putting this video out and so quickly.
A wishful throught, but i wish they'd openly express their thoughts and strategy on powercreep in cards in a video as candid as this, because I don't know how they intend to make the game last forever if they keep power creeping sets like this. There must be a logic and a strategy there, but I just can't see it.
Thanks for doing this! It’s good to see so many resources dedicated to getting community feedback.
I do like the idea of looking at the back of Precon and seeing a power level breakdown of the deck
@mtg The bracket system has potential, but I think it would make sence to go with the arithemtic mean of all the cards in the deck. A high mean indicates to the other players that is more likely to create gamestates they might not like to see as much. However this will probably only make sence if a lot of popular cards end up in higher brackets. But I dislike the idea, that a single card could be indicator for my decks bracket.
There are already third-party sites such as commander spell book that have combos and said combos are tagged with whether they infinite, and if they are, what type of infinite is it is it infinite man infinite card draw infinite damage towards players towards creatures or infinite bounce.
Leveraging a site like that, which is run by the community would help a lot in terms of finding high-powered combos in decks. Because I do believe that just having a demonic tutor in a “every art piece has a chair” deck should not make the deck fall into the highest category.
I know that the one through 10 scale that we currently have as far from perfect, but the fact that we are looking at the deck as a hole as opposed to whether it runs particular cards speaks volumes. Another example would be running an “All Urza/[Meta]Thran” deck, where yes you would have powerful cards like his lands, and even the mono, blue legend, but you are also running all the less broken cards like Thran Weaponry.
I think that you were on the right path to making tutors have a higher number, but I do think that this should also include land, tutors, like Polluted Delta. I’m not saying to make cards like fetch lands, especially such as Evolving Wilds, Count as a four, but they should be at least two.
If the reason that you don’t put tutors in pre-cons is because you don’t want people to be looking through their deck as often then that has to be taken into account. Also, if you’re worried about cards that give the same play experience over and over again, land tutors also, have this impact. Conversely, cards like Broken Bond rely on the caster already having a card in their hand, which will not always be the case.
RIP Sheldon.
It's a shame it's come to this. And everyone in the community that made this happen, should be ashamed.
Gavin being involved gives me some some hope, though.
Agreed. We shouldn't be surprised, though. The kind of people that MTG attracts stereotypically does not do well with a) negative emotion processing and b) communication with other people face-to-face. While I think these people are (hopefully) a minority, they were enough of a majority that basically forced these faces of the format that we love to either continue in their volunteering OR protect themselves from death threats.
People are dying in Ukraine and the Middle East, and yet some people who are extremely lucky to not know what it's like to have their home shelled think it's ok to get this angry about ink on cardboard. It's insane.
In China, players already use a bracket system: Party, Battle, Challenge, and cEDH.
Party refers to new player decks, precons, just for fun, no combo win decks.
Battle contains maybe a combo or two, no fast mana, ''optimized'' decks, a wide range of power level.
Challenge might contain a number of combos, some fast mana, more of a 'play to win' mindset.
cEDH is its own thing.
I think these are still a bit vague, though, so I would welcome a four bracket+cEDH(+tEDH) system. I think a bracket ideology with card examples for each bracket would be a great start.
I don't think defining your decks power level based on the ONE highest power level card is the way to go. I'd say a decks level is defined by HOW MANY of those cards are in your deck. I think we could learn from Canadian Highlander and use points. Assign 3 points to category 4 cards, 2 to cat 3, 1 to cat 2, and 0 to cat 1. Then total points in your decklist and just say that. Rule zero could be as simple as I run "30 power points" and "oh well I only have 10 in this deck, let me choose this one that has 32."
Well, I've sold my 4 crypt, 1 dockside, 1 jeweled lotus already.
Sold my 1 of my 3 Gaeas cradles, 3 duals out of 19.
For any of you out there that haven't played as long as I have, (2002)
The Fox is in the hen house..
We had it great when we had Sheldon and I would bet my Timetwister that he would be rolling in his grave after seeing this.
Can i suggest a virtual seat in the new rc for a community vote, a poll of some kind where the community can vote as a whole and it counts as 1 vote or 2 depending on the number of seats in the rc
Pausing half way through to make a comment about to Tier Bracket you are all working on. I would highly recommend possibly including some level of "how to discuss what my deck is doing." What I mean by that, is I have found the most success in getting a pod together by asking people "What are you trying to do." For some decks it could be making a lot of tokens, dropping something like an eldrazi monument, and going wide. Other decks, such as something more in the high powered end is "I want to have these pieces on board to pull x combo." I think outside of cedh (which at least in my experience/ opinion really is just a term do say "do what you will and try and win") I think most decks having a 1 or 2 sentence blurb can also help in facilitating these discussions.
An example for my casual deck is something along the lines of, "My Omo deck is trying to abuse extra land drops, along with everything counters to make a large board that can be buffed via lord cards and large mana pump spell dumps. It can win by around turn 7-8 by itself." My concern is that putting cards into a tier list can do a poor job of giving players a false sense of victimization around cards. I think that part of the nuance and complexities around this is that cards functions together severely outweigh the value of an individual card. That Omo deck has no Sol Ring or mana positive rock, but because it plays 7 extra land drop cards, I often can outpace opponents who do have one, even by turn 4.
Some questions, that though you may not have the answer to, could be good to ask while we look for a tangible solution; "Is there a way to advertise clear common strategies/ mechanics to help identify tier brackets?" "Is there a number of cards in a deck that define its tier, and what is that? Probably not 1, but is it 2...3...4...?" "What resources does this develop for the community that can help ease the discussion? (and if I can quickly say, I think in some ways literally writing pointed questions to be asked around a table before the game start may be a more helpful than a list of cards and brackets)"
Lastly, thanks to you and the team, and everyone from the RC, CAG and larger community as a whole that has stood by our community while people attacked and threatened members. I am sad to see this as the solution, but hopeful, as I have faith in you all over at Wizards to help find a solution in these murky waters. Stay safe, and thanks for taking the time to read my rambling nonsense if you've made it this far. Cheers to you!
You guys discussed CH and said it would be too much, but lowkey a tier system with individual cards is just a point system.
I want them to bring 4 players commander to arena
@goodmorningmagic @mtg About the brackets system:
Will have you consider the interaction between cards in the bracket level of the deck? Cause it is not the same a tutor in a crab deck than in a good stuff deck.
This question affects combos and tutors specially, and maybe others. I suppose you are digging into it.
Another consideration: with each new set you'll need to assign bracket level to some cards, which will make the list longer and longer with each set you release. How will you manage that problem?
Thank you so much and have fun :)
I think it's clear that even the game designers don't want to wear the burden of this crown. They truly know that wasn't what was best for the format, but was best to save the individuals for whom love this format more than any of us.
and to the people in the building at WotC, I'm... sorry. I'm sorry for when the day comes when you will have to act on profit over the health of the format. I'm sorry for when that next design mistake comes and it just has to live in Commander because... it sells packs.
I want to know how many of these cards will it take to determine the power level of the deck. Because one card can't determine the power level of the deck.
The bracket is interesting for card power, especially in precons. To my group and personal experience at LGSs the deck power level is usually better evaluated with your winning turn. I could have a bracket 2 and win on turn 6 or a bracket 4 that dillydallies and wins on turn 10. So, at what turn are you expecting the game to end?
I respect the transparency and communication commitment... helps with trust because the format was in essence supposed to be "sheltered" from magic proper. But at this point may be a necessary evil to keep the peace.
The fact that there are people in the commander community who threatened the rules committee is so embarrassing.
Examples of lotus petal and ancient tomb belong in the tier 3- “high power”
While these types of cards do go into most cedh decklists, these are simply some high power mana accelerants and many lower power commanders like these cards for some clunky cards that would otherwise be difficult to cast
I think 4 is the new 7. The sliver precon without alterations cant be a 1. Also the painbow deck was unpopular in my group because it was fast, efficient, and mana cannons controlled the board. Also, captain n'gathrod has been an archenemy style deck since i bought the precon. There has to be a wider range than just 1-4. Any optimized deck that has good synergy will effectively function as a 4 and precons maybe a 1. I think it is polarizing rather than defining.
Huge respect to these guys. It is reassuring to see that Gavin values a conservative and careful approach. Commander is not simple.
It's like Thanos getting the infinity stone. Nothing good will come of this. Wizards has shown no care for players in a long time.
The bucket system would work amazingly with sorting by efficiency. Think of Dual Lands. OG duals would be tier 4, shocks tier 3, triomes and duals that come in tapped but have the land types in tier 2, then gates and tap lands tier 1
I do hope that WotC does what the RC mever managed to do: create a solid foundation to Commander. The rules need to be clear, 'unwritten rules' are not a pro, they are the workaround for a huge problem in the Commander fomat, if you cna even call it a formst.
I shared this on an mtg goldfish vid. But we should have a chart with what tier a card is add up each number all your cards are and divide by 100. This won't take into consideration random synergies but will help with a more consistent rating
I feel a great starting point for Bracket 3 (or 1-2 lower than the highest bracket, if the numbers end up going higher) is looking at EDHRec's salt list
Here’s how I feel like I’m going to look at it.
Bracket 4: cEDH, mass land destruction, stax
Bracket 3: minor land disruption, mid-high budget, high salt cards (rhystic, tithe, elesh, 1ring, that vibe)
Bracket 2: Focused gameplan, creative/powerful synergies, low-mid budget, at least 7ish turns, the good precons
Bracket 1: Haha funny, most precons, budget stuff
This intentionally does not mention interaction, removal, card draw, board wipes, fast mana, or tutors as I think those are all elements that can be run in a Bracket 1 deck and that scale effectiveness with the power level of the rest of your deck.
The more I read comments the more I am convinced they just need to bite the bullet and make separate formats. People that want to play competitively should be able to do so without restrictions that are based on the ‘feel’ of the game. Conversely, many don’t want to be forced to play against obnoxious or overpowered cards; commander is predominantly casual, so it’s unfair for those players to have deal with stuff they didn’t want in the first place.
Wait till people find out there are actually more Bans in competetive formats
I think the bracket system should be a pseudo banlist.
Bracket 4 - anything goes (or closest to it)
Bracket 3 - some cards off limits
Bracket 2 - B3 restrictions plus some additional cards
Bracket 1 - B3 & B2 restrictions plus some more cards off limits
This can help keep the cEDH groups keep their power cards and keep casual groups casual. I think the list would be shorter for cards you can't play compared to cards you can play for a bracket.
My only concern would be whether things like a tutor are not dramatically improving a deck but rather just making an otherwise pile of garbage actually work lol
@mtg
I am a high-powered/ cedh player. That's how I started in commander. My first group always focuses on cedh/ high-powered but I also understand edh players do need slower games they don't Ld a ton of fast mana because the games are longer then in a high-powered/cedh decks will the new power stestom means they can't mix
I almost like the 4 tier bracket system, but I think it needs some refining. Perhaps instead of just stating "You have a tutor you are a 4", it should be each of the "staples" in the format should be assigned a value like they have now. You then add all of those points up. So say you have a deck with a couple tutors, maybe a Swords or generous gift or something, eventually it adds up to a value of 73 or something like that. So you can either say "Hey I am a 73 what is everyone else?" Or something like Decks with value a-b are rank 1, c to d are 2, y-z are 83 (arbitrary number)
Reply to edit cause I thought about something else after. This also helps solve the "whats cEDH level" Values x-y are considered low power cEDH or something like that. And if a card gets to be so prevalent and game winning, that perhaps it gets moved and shifted up or down if its not performing in the format well
I hope the new bracket/power data actually makes it to data stored on each card in gatherer so that other apps like Moxfield, Scrfall, etc, etc can actually pull in that data and use it.
Are you guys going to fix the Amazon problems with DuskMourn? Many of us have ordered product especially the 4 commander deck and only got sent 1. So that needs to be addressed.
They should definitely fix this! I, like many others, also pre-ordered the 4 deck bundle through Amazon. I only received 1 deck, and the only option they gave me was to send that 1 deck back to them then wait for a refund. So, after pre-ordering and waiting, I'll have no decks and have to wait weeks for my money back.
@@FirewynnTV do they not have a store on Amazon? That’s literally how I’ve been getting all my other product, because I live far away from an lgs.
My thought is something like this:
S-Tier (banned cards could instead become S-Tier, kind of like Living Legend in Flesh and Blood, except for there could be S-Tier tournament support)
A-Tier (competitive)
B-Tier (strong)
C-Tier (mid)
D-Tier (casual/pre-con)
S-Tier/A-Tier could function kind of like Vintage/Legacy for Commander.
Perhaps cards from the Reserved List could all be A-Tier/S-Tier.
Perhaps there could be a Modern commander variant.
Perhaps cards need to be on this list as choice-restrictions,
for instance:
Basalt Monolith (C-Tier)
Rings of Brighthearth (C-Tier)
however
if your deck runs both Basalt Monolith and Rings of Brighthearth, maybe that combo is recognized as B-Tier. Maybe certain cards can only be run together in S-Tier/A-Tier. There are a lot of things to consider all around but I'm interested to see how this all will go.
Sooo, my Lady Caleria is A-tier now since it is on the RL? Or Shauku Endbringer? Just get over the RL hate please...
Up until now I've always thought Blake avoids asking WOTC staff tough questions but he started off with them today so I am pleasantly surprised. I do think Aaron is right, the longevity of this game is the community wanting to play. There's money to be had if they keep following that core principle.
Add a bracket between 1 and 2 and the only card in it is sol ring. Or add a 0.5 bracket thats just without sol ring
Need a timestamp with the questions
For a rating system, maybe each tier is given a set amount of points and each high power card is given a point value. That way as your tier goes up, you can run more high power cards and you consistently do more broken things.