Commander has an Ugly Sweater Problem
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- Опубліковано 28 сер 2024
- I've got 300 favorite Commander cards, and I want to tell you all about them - but first, we've got to address the ugly sweaters in the room...
My Decks:
Naban - bit.ly/NabanWi...
Raphael - bit.ly/Raphael...
Satsuki - bit.ly/Satsuki...
Become a Lore Mage: bit.ly/Patreon...
Hello! Thanks for checking out my video. I was really unsure how people would react to this type of content, but it seems y'all enjoy the story behind the cards even when it doesn't involve planeswalkers and Phyrexians!
That said, I want to address a few of the more common questions and feedback I've seen in the comments:
1) "That sounds like a YOU problem" / "Just play another format" / "Just add more restrictions" / "Just find a different playgroup or have a rule 0 talk" - Well, based on the overwhelming amount of comments agreeing with my identification of an ugly sweater problem, it's not just a "ME" problem. I also feel like EDH had enough restrictions already in place to make it interesting (singleton, color identity, etc) so adding more feels like it's putting an extra burden on me, when I already found a format that I enjoyed. Different groups and rule 0 don't really help when most of my play time is online through Arena (where historic brawl fills in for true Commander) or in Convention settings (like when I go to Philly in February. I can't expect to ask everyone to change their deck to match my own level of play before every game, can I?)
2) "You just don't like good cards." - Not true. I don't mind playing powerful and competitive cards. My criticism of ugly sweater cards is that a lot of them are just generically good and don't encourage variations in either strategy, or selection. Let me bring up Historian's Boon again as my example. It cares about Sagas, but the way in which it does so is very bland. It just gives you a free angel after every saga. Why an angel? I don't know. There is only one saga (to date) that makes an angel token. I feel like they just decided a 4/4 would be good enough, but not so good that they couldn't sell me a slightly better card in another year or two.
I feel like Historian's Boon would be a much more interesting card if it either cared about the CMC of the saga that just finished (so maybe I get a bigger token from bigger sagas, thus encouraging me to play bigger ones, at the risk of throwing off my curve or losing to aggressive decks) OR maybe it gave me a variable number of tokens, perhaps based on how many sagas were already in my graveyard (now I can try to spam lots of cheaper sagas, or find a way to self-mill. Options!)
But as it stands, Boon is just...fine? I play it and it just makes all my other sagas better, and just better enough that I get to stay in a multiplayer game, but not so much better that they can't sell me something more powerful down the road.
Compare this to Satsuki, who cares about sagas in a bunch of interesting ways! Do I tap her for her ability, or do I use her to block? If I use her to block and she dies, I might get a saga back, or get to reset one of my flipped ones from Neon Dynasty. Each time it is a different decision, each time resulting in a wildly different outcome, each time giving me a different commander story.
3) "But your other decks are tribal decks and those are all built with self-contained strategies" - Well, again, the whole point is that there are trade offs, and no clear best answers. Naban does work with other wizards, yes. But he's only blue, so I only get to use wizards in one of the game's five colors. And, he only doubles up triggered abilities, not activated or static ones. So I have to thread the needle very carefully and pick wizards that are also blue and have triggers that Naban can double. These are meaningful restrictions, which to me leads to a more fun and interesting deck than one that uses, say, Panharmonicon to just double everything in every color.
4) "It's actually an internet problem. I blame EDHREC!" - Well, the internet has certainly helped players identify popular and winning strategies with an ease that we could only dream of in our magazine days. But I still think the hive mind tends to zero in on "best" answers, and since so many of the ugly sweaters are the best answer, it makes it feel like they are everywhere, and thus, the once wild creative landscape of EDH becomes homogenized. I don't think this is the fault of EDHREC. I think when WotC makes cards that are so obviously best-in-class, then of course those are going to rise to the top. It didn't take EDHREC for the community to realize Teferi's Protection is a staple for just about every deck that makes white mana, right?
5) "Skip to (time stamp) for the actual thing" - Well, this isn't TikTok. Everything leading up to my discussion of the ugly sweater problem is relevant. I tell stories for a living, and this channel is all about the stories behind the cards. I'm not going to apologize for it, since plenty of other people seem to actually enjoy the journey over the destination - but if you're one of the people who don't, that's also fine. Just don't assume the experience is better for anyone else by letting them skip to what YOU think is the "important" part. From the perspective of the author, it's all important.
I've been saying it for a bit, but a lot of the legendary creatures from recent sets seem just generically cool, but not really fun to build around.
I think my favorite recent commander is Meria, Scholar of Antiquity, because it's about trying to find a balance between low cost artifacts and cards with actual value. More often than not, if I make it to the late game, it's usually because most of the 0-1 drops in the deck are equipment like Paradise Mantle, Accorder's Shield, and Bone Saw, and I just end up in more of a Voltron strategy, which is a unique enough take.
I pride myself on building decks that I like, not ones that are necessarily good.
For example, some of my current commanders and their themes are:
Tiamat: Tribal Tribal
Spicy choices: Amrou Scout and Blightspeaker.
Marneus Calgar: Card Draw, Aggro, and Tokens
Spicy choices: Phenax, God of Deception, Archangel of Strife, and Skirsdag High Priest.
Teneb, The Harvester: Double Strike, +1/+1 Counters, Lifegain, Voltron
Spicy choices: Prowler's Helm and Hot Soup
Riku, of Two Reflections: COPY TOKENS!!!!
Spicy choices: Tiller Engine, Junk Winder, Combine Chrysalis, and Exalted Flamer of Tzeentch
@@Kuryux I appreciate your eagerness, but comments like this stress me out. We don't even have the full card image gallery yet, but I feel like I'm letting fans down by making them wait even though it's something entirely out of my ability to control.
for me the biggest problem I have a newish commander player is the "hidden rules" and arbitrary power levels. I've gotten ran off from tables quite a few times for piloting decks or using strategies that others at the table didn't agree with despite using relatively low powered commanders. It feels like as a player that just likes to netdeck and play other people's brews that I have to constantly walk on eggshells to avoid playing some unspoked "bad feels card" and it completely sours my mood with the format in it's entirety.
it just feels really unwelcoming as a format for someone wanting to break in to the game
@@fencingfireferret1188 Generally, people only get upset when they can't play the game, so you're either using stax, mass land destruction, or as indicated by your idea of "arbitrary power levels", you're playing decks that are significantly stronger than the average for the pod and so end the game before any other decks can start playing.
It concerns me somewhat that you think a commander can set a hard cap on the power level of a deck.
There's been a famous quote that applies to almost any and every conceivable game that mainly hinges on the direct competition between players or NPC's as the main game mechanic; "Given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of a game. One of the responsibilities of designers is to protect the player from themselves."- Soren Johnson and Sid Meier, designers of the Civilization series.
And beware because there will be some that will say "but but optimizing is fun", "Wining is fun", and so on.
Is more about "what kind of player you want to play your game". And desing around that.
WotC knows (and blizzard, and all these companies that greed upon money) that the "play to win, because wining is fun" kind of player is larger than the "just play for fun" player.
In this world the paytowin players is larger... or they buy more. It's the sad true... and i would add that, a game's future is in the hands of it's creators. If they care more about atmosphere and Lore and enjoyable play, or if they care morr about money.
The course will continue this way for Magic, just because Hasbro.
@@arturom31 This reminds me of an acquaintance in my local commander group, and how their play style heavily contrasts to mine. They're pretty much a cEDH player at this point, but our group is relatively balanced. I mentioned (as I tend to) how I feel like the Annihilator mechanic is the only one that makes the game unfun for me. To which this player kept saying "Annihilator is a based mechanic" and kept lauding it. Winning *is* fun, sure, but I've never been one of those fully optimizing/infinite combo players.
Excellent quote. I remember a design story that MaRo has told a number of times about development for the silver-border set, Unhinged. He came up with the "Gotcha!" ability word which would go on cards where if the card was in the right situation, and an opponent did something described on the card, the owner of the card could say "Gotcha!" for a mechanical benefit. He had designed the mechanic with the expectation that people would play casually and goof around as they always do when playing a game together, and now and then players would benefit from "getting" an opponent; somebody in design, I don't remember who, tried to warn him against including this mechanic, but it saw print, and the consequence was that players would play to win, not to have fun. This meant that people playing unhinged, not knowing what every card does or whether they might do something that was the condition on one or another "Gotcha" card, they played incredibly stoicly and quietly and unobtrusively, trying as hard as possible to avoid giving up any advantage, ruining the opportunity to have fun and to use the cards they opened.
@@EmmettMcMullan oh wow. I got tons of Unhinged cards in middle school, and had no idea what a problem that mechanic caused.
That terrifies me. So, anti competition. No one can be good, we all have to win equally in this socialist atmosphere and everyone needs a trophy, or we did not do our job.
I knew Marxism was coming for gaming a long time ago. I just wish there was more time before it consumed everyone.
100% agree. Before Commander, legendary creatures tended to be story-focused characters with a unique ability (since there could only be one on the battlefield). WotC didn't create them with "commanding a deck" in mind, but rather created with the idea of "how do we express this character's lore in game mechanics terms?"
Nowadays, it strongly feels like the other way around - WotC is making legendary creatures left and right with specific Commander strategies in mind, then coming up with an excuse to include them in the story afterwards.
They had been doing that with planeswalkers for over a decade now.
I feel the same with Mythic Rares too, back when I had about 500 cards I had 3, and thought I was really lucky, now I'm at 2000+ and I have over 40 npw
"Oh, and let's throw in 'and draw a card' to make sure it's competitive with other commanders."
I hate how legendary creatures don't feel legendary anymore.
You search for any lore on the first batch of legends and you'd find literal novels dedicated to that person. Now it's just a random dude with a name and a quirky background.
I'm not advocating for novels for each legend, but at least make them feel important, threatening and/or really uniqie
I'd just wish they would make some more interesting legendaries rather than all these "this type of strategy doesn't have the perfect commander for it, so let's make one" designs. Nekusar, I feel, is a particularly annoying example.
Making your decks work with cards that are not already designed to work together is what commander was. When wizards was designning cards for the 60 formats. Now that they design cards for 100 singleton decks, they have robbed us from the spirit of the format. Because from the start the cards were being used in an unconventional way. Now we are using them in the way hasbro tells us, and is just not the same.
also corny and funny self-made decks get dumpstered now even by the precons where thos decks were kind of the appealing part about the format
This has been my feelings on the format for years and is a really strong reason why I'm thinking about selling my decks. Commander shouldnt have staples like it does now and I just cant keep up
@@steakatron I feel that, it's why I use proxies alot of the time
Precisely this. Designing cards for the format ruined the format.
It was hilarious watching people figure out how to break cards like the original Mishra, which was not remotely designed for this format in the first place.
@@henkdachief My weird janky decks Do at least manage to keep up with a precon and that's what makes me proud of it
I think part of the ugly sweater problem is that Magic changed its focus group for sets to the more popular format.
Commander was gaining popularity because it was casual, less competitive, and required searching your collection for something dumb that works. Before covid, the sets released for magic were focusing on an audience of standard players, and when the new cards focused on the standard meta, standard and commander flourished because both were well-nourished. I think of it like two plants on a hill, if you water the plant at the top of the hill, the water will inevitably flow to the other plant. It may be harder to walk to the top, but both plants will bear fruit, and it'll be worth it. At some point during covid, they stopped watering the plant up the hill, and now the one at the bottom is drowning, so fully flooded with water that it's suffocating it. It can still bear fruit with the excess of water, but it's definitely going to be weaker from lack of other important nutrients that it needs.
Now that magic focuses on commander, standard (at least in paper magic), is more or less dead, and commander is robbed of the "ugly sweater" finding you used to have to do that made the format so quirky and unique. It's a real shame!
You can still "search you collection for something dumb that works" as long as your playground is on board. It was always the same.
Take the initiative and propose this to your group, you'll enjoy the change as much as them. Take for example Tolarian Academy playing 50$ budget EDH.
@@DayOfCasual If you have a recurring playgroup instead of random pick up games. And as we go further into this design space, what people will have just lying in their binder is this purpose built stuff and less of the jank.
Commander being popular isn't about humble casual games, it's purely the fact that it is sandbox and the highlander aspect often makes games unpredictable. The commander decks people don't like are the ones that do the same thing every game, regardless of if they are super sweaty combo decks that win t3 or a terrible deck that somehow does the same thing over and over.
A lot of people experimented with commander for the versatile and sandbox nature and realized just how restrictive the other formats are. It's really ironic that a highlander format is more sandbox and less restrictive than the other formats.
Legacy is full of very predictable decks that do the same thing and win/lose by turn 3.
Modern is full of the same few engineered decks that dominate.
Standard at the competitive level is seen as bland because due to the smaller card pool and the fact that most cards in a set are terrible by design... it's quick for the most effective decks or frames become figured out quickly and the same deck or two dominates everything.
Funnily enough the nearly vintage highlander format is more diverse at the highest competitive level and the games often play out very differently. The four of limit actually seems to of hindered the game as the meta became: min deck size to ensure you have the highest chance of drawing the exact stuff you need, plenty of deck-thinning, the same win conditions and the fact that you're lowest possible chance of drawing the exact card you need is 6.6% (which seems low but is actually quite high and gets bigger as the game goes on).
Commander is that sandbox game mode and most importantly... it lets more than two people play. If you;re playing a game with one person and all of your friends are all playing in one big game, you're going to suffer fomo. That is the BIGGEST reason.
All of these reasons culminate into a really fashionable design that is highly appealing.
The issue is not that commander is taking over magic... it's that magic is marketing standard because it's the one format that benefits THEM the most.
Standard is terrible for newer players for a myriad of reasons:
-Standard products are increasingly expensive and the value of standard cards are notorious for plummeting.
-Standard cards are the cards most likely to be owned, meaning that peoples folders are more likely to be flooded with standard cards that makes trading hard if you only have cards everyone already has, especially because the cards newer players have that are in standard that other people don't have are likely to be ones those people are not interested in.
-Standard has the lowest card pool with most cards being intentionally designed as draft chaff which makes the most optimal decks that dominate are easily figured out and net-decked to oblivion, often the reason the same few decks dominate the highest level of play is because the pool is so limited that the top decks can only be countered with cards and strategies that either perform terribly as a general deck or are so bad their only niche is a counter. Experienced players and those that spend a fortune on standard product often dominate standard tournaments and newer players really struggle as a result.
-Standard is not as social as edh.
@@jumpkicking You got a lot of good points, but WOTC is ruining Commander by printing overpowered crap for Commander.
@@shorewall True, but the most recent sets have given me some hope. Dominaria United and BRO struck a good balance, I feel. And ONE appears to be a set geared more for standard, while at the same time not skimping on interesting legendries (like Skrelv, the best boy). They just have to stop making commander specific cards lol
Ah, the "Too many shrines" problem for me.
For the longest time, I personally advocated for a new cycle of Shrines, having been a huge fan of the original Hondens. Then the Sanctums were announced, and I was ecstatic. Finally, Shrines were playable!
And then the Go-Shintai were announced. And suddenly, Shrine tribal was obnoxiously common.
It sounds like one of those "Gone Horribly Right" situations
Same thing happenned to me. Had a Sisay Shrines deck. Granted, not SUPER-original, but i was kinda proud of having built a deck with tutoring the perfect shrine at the perfect moment...
The Go-Shintai happenned. And 10$ Sheine token. I'm still building the new version, but can't close the lid on it. It's like it's not mine anymore.
So what were the commander options for shrines pre-Go-Shintai, and why is it Sisay? Weird example tbh, Shrine decks weren't all that more varied in the commander department. The problem isn't that the Go-Shintai were that strong or optimized, it was just that they put a spotlight on Shrines and reminded people that they existed.
It's funny that you posted this just now.
A couple of days ago I realized that I'm getting kinda burnt out by Commander, because I also like to make unique and personal decks with a theme. For example, I always wanted a vampire deck but I also don't want to build the same deck everyone has so I chose "Edgar, Charmed Groom". It's a color-combo I don't have yet, has a fun unique spin with his transformation into his coffin and has a cool Dracula artwork which I used.
But since it's not the RBW Edgar Markov or some other popular vampire it's not exactly that great. Not only do I rarely win, I don't even get my deck to just have some fun turns.
Now I'm in the dilemma of choosing between building weird, janky but personal decks that are cool to look at but get stomped immediately or getting good games with the same boring decklists everybody copied from edhrec.
I'm a lore-fan and storyteller as well. Back when I played Yu-Gi-Oh! 15 years ago my motivation wasn't to have the best deck, but to create a deck around a persona. I loved how there were these side characters in the anime with their oddly specific theme decks.
THAT was what I wanted. So when I returned to TCGs in 2018 with MtG, that was my motivation as well. If I just wanted to push the best game pieces around I'd play chess.
These cards have artworks, creature types and flavour text for a reason. They are why I play. But if I have to stuff my Zaffai deck full of weird-science Izzet cards and lose the magic art school-theme along the way, why bother?
I made a kynios deck that was all creature generating enchantments until I found mass land removal or warp world
I definitely feel this point when I go to an lgs, but I am lucky enough to have a close friends that play magic as well. The great thing about that is we all understand for the most part what kind of game we are looking for. If my friend pulls out his 5 color guilds of ravnica deck, I know to pull out one of my weaker decks and have no problem with that. Hopefully you can find a playgroup that will help you enjoy your theme decks without having to deal with getting stomped out.
You should ask your friends to bring some lower powered decks so you can have fun with weirder out-there decks together! We should encourage more people to make intentionally "worse" decks for more chances to use those less powerful commanders or themes.
dude, just talk with whoever is your player group and set rules on deck power and such.
Besides discussing power-level and deck construction with your friends, see if they would be interested in playing "battle box" -style Magic, where you maybe create four to six different decks you like all at about the same power-level--maybe sub-optomize the high-powered themes you like down to whatever the lowest one in the set--maybe that Homarid Tribal deck and play those out of the box.
Almost everyone who regularly plays Commander (or any of the other Commanderesque games like Brawl or Multi-player Tiny Leaders) probably has about a half-dozen decks with ideas for more, so maybe you could lure some of your friends into do the same. Maybe one of you builds some hyper competitive cEDH decks, and another creates a group of silver-boardered decks, and someone else loves making decks set in Ravnica, allowing everyone the chance to play the sort of Magic that they'd like every now and then.
It can be fun to play other people's decks (even blind sometimes), and you could just decide as a group whose Box and which decks (maybe at randomw) you want to play.
The TL;DW of leaving TCGPlayer is Ryan's wife's company moved to Texas. He asked if he could work remotley and continue doing it. They initially said that's fine, then they let him go out of nowhere 4 weeks before the move.
That’s not the TL,DW, that’s just the preamble to the core theme of the video; make decks you love to play and love to look at, for story, theme, or aesthetic concerns above, and in harmony with, deck synergy.
And make them your own, customise them, against even the pre-made/designed products that elicit retro as a selling tactic or when there packaged baked full of nostalgia. Think retro frame reprints etc…
@@positivecontacts it's the TL;DW of him leaving TCG Player which he said he didn't want to get into in this video but had in a previous livestream.
I have worked with tcgplayer before, and they do things very bluntly.
@@sethzard Oh my I completely misunderstood, I appologise. Thanks for not biting my head off!
It’s fun to hear stories like this, they are as much a part of the life of the game as any lore. Also shout out Rochester! It’d be super cool to see you at a store some day and share a game of magic. Flavor above all is the way to play.
You managed to put a very specific feeling into words, and I appreciate that a lot. I had an Ur Dragon deck since 2017 when the precon came out, and it was pretty generic with big beefy dragons and reanimation spells. So, in order to make it a bit more unique I entirely took out black and white out of the 99, along with most of the legendary creatures and made a very strong clone subtheme, and I was very excited about it. A few months later Myriim came out, and while I was really excited about it, there was a bit of a sad undertone to what I was feeling, that I couldn't quite place until I watched this! Great video!
I don't know what the new player experience is like these days, but I ran face-first into this phenomenon in fast forward back when I first started. My friends and I had only started playing recently, and switched to EDH pretty quickly. At first, our decks were mish-mashes of anything we could find under the display counter at our LGS, or in giant boxes of bulk rares. It was a blast seeing everyone piece together decks vaguely resembling thematic or mechanical resonance out of bits of twine and old bubblegum.
Eventually, though, we became more familiar with the wider community and started learning the things that were "supposed" to go in our decks, and it became impossible to keep up in power level without following at least some advice. Being relatively new players, we were pretty terrible deckbuilders. Nearly any card that one of us would choose could be upgraded for a nearly objective improvement. All it cost you was your soul.
THIS
The soul gets lost. If I want to keep up with my friends my decks will have to look like every edhrec list ever because as soon as you start replacing generic, boring staples with personal favs that fit your theme, your powerlevel just drops 3 points.
just ask your playgroup to play with lower power level decks, maybe make a rule to only build decks with your big stacks of "twine and old bublegum" i think it would be fun ! communication is key !
@@Aubsty I think it's better to divide decks into the two styles rather than ban one or the other. If people in the group are enjoying the optimization of their decks, you want to preserve what they want the same as what you want. Play some low power games, play some high power games. They're more fun separate than they are forced together when they shouldn't be. Perhaps consider proxies for the high power decks if someone wants to dump money into their deck but the others' don't.
I totally agree commander has become a game of staples. I think it’s the reason me and my roommate forced each other to dive into bulk first when making decks, it’s where I start my creative process. My O-kagachi deck, is based around giving away a goaded commander, because I saw all the goad enchantments in bualdurs gate
I agree on the game of staples that EDH has become especially CEDH which is basically a thousand cards out of ten thousand cards that are optimum. When Pioneer format came out my buddies and I thought why not just make EDH decks that are Pioneer legal? Quite surprisingly powerful despite not having the ''staples'' :P
@@mr.mammuthusafricanavus8299 Pauper commander is a thing already.
I completely see what you mean, but part of the reason I personally got into commander was because of this effect. My favorite card type is walls, and while I had fun trying to make walls work in weird ways, it wasn't until Arcades the Strategist came out that I really fell in love with the format. It's tailored made to the strategy but from the stable foundation Arcades gave me I've built things like artifact defender storm, flying defenders, and wall tribal which I really wanted to do for a long time. Even with Arcades I'm still trying walls in other decks like the new Geralf, The Fevered Vision, and Hans Erikkson. I have both the tailored option and the ones I have to work for and it's all fun to me.
What a great analogy! As someone who remembers the days of admiring the people who had those fantastic sweaters from their grandparents or thrift store, I distinctly remember the first “factory made” ugly sweater. Yea I admit I thought it was cool/crazy that a company would do this but then… the next year they were EVERYWHERE and let’s be honest that’s when something becomes way less cool.
I realized this just the other day when the new Myr legend was spoiled. It didn't feel a natural, organic card; it felt forced, custom-made for Commander, and if I were to build it it would be just like everyone else's. It takes away the Magic (pun intended)
I can definitely see that. Myrs were something that you had to work to make good, and now, you dont have to. My friend's Myr deck is a partner commander of Sidar Kondo and Silas Renn, which according to EDHRec, isnt really something that people do. But it works surprisingly well!!
@@bru4773 Now I want to build a rule-0 5-Color-Myr Battlesphere-Theme deck 🤣
I can see where you’re coming from but honestly, I don’t mind that. I’ve wanted a WUBRG myr commander for ages and now I have one.
I don’t agree at all with any of the comments saying stuff like “stuff being designed for commander robs the magic”. Like I get the point but IMO the problem is rapid set release, not designing things for the format
I've wanted to build a myr commander deck since darksteel, but could not without extreme compromises until now.
This commander has gotten me the most excited for a new card in years. And at that, I've already considered several ways to build it, from focusing on artifact untapping for infinites, to pure myr Beatdown to a more tempo/control style.
I feel this way about that awful Shrines commander they designed for Neon Dynasty.....forcing some kind of "creature shrine" type
This video reminded me of my favorite commander deck, an Ixalan merfolk deck where every card is from the Ixalan block, even the lands. Not only are they all from those two sets, but I only included cards that had Merfolk in them or could be justified merfolk-y enough. The deck was so much fun to build, and while it's not the best I just love the deck for its theme and look. I can't wait to return to Ixalan so I can update it.
I don't get why it has a Rabiah Scale of 5. Thematically, it offered some really fun tribes to play with. Pirates were a blast to play, Dinos were a hot thing for several sets, and even the WB themed Vampires were interesting enough to make their own unique splash as Knights and Soldiers. Mechanically, it introduced Explore and Treasure, two terrific themes, as well as help cement Vehicles and Flip cards into the game.
All I can think of to justify the 5 is that it came on the coattails of some broken cards in Standard that were still stifling the format when Ixalan came around, so the cards felt overshadowed.
@Jeriah Nimo We are confirmed going back though.
I recently stepped back from playing arena and buying standard sets releases on launch, purposely getting behind 2 sets, after going overboard on most of the sets of 2022. I was quickly building up a huge collection, 8 commander decks, another 5 started and collecting "staples" I'd see people using online for the sake of having them. My goal was to make better use of the cards I already have, not feeling like my decks aren't good enough compared to people with bigger budgets and more time to actually play.
This video is a great example of being mindful about how you're interacting with your hobbies, and how they're affecting you - it's easy to get caught up in over consumption and thinking you need to have this or that to have a good time, but Ryan's approach here shows how rewarding it can be to set that goalpost to a personal thing vs the generic "best" thing. Figuring out how to remove the artificial hurdles you've set up for yourself between you and enjoying playing, building, organizing or however else you can turn your cardboard into a bit of joy is the best thing you can do for yourself.
Great video, as always.
Yes, I do feel it Ryan.
I also started with commander decks that I filled with cards I love and want to find a home for... Then as I naturally wanted to slowly iterate and improve them, I ended up looking around me on what my decks and the decks I was seeing online had become :
Most of them are ... first and foremost a pile of all the best cards (the player could afford) in the colors of the deck, then the bests in that given theme / strategy and that leaves little to no room for cool stuff and innovation. And how painful it is to me. I'm so rarely surprised or impressed by someone's idea and it's becoming pretty boring.
That is why I've been voluntarily de-optimizing some of my decks that I initially built out of love for some specific cards to make room again for my favourite cards there and started a new deck on a pretty underwhelming mechanic (boo me, it's attractions). Because not only it's about the card but also the whole format isn't about just winning to me. I mean I wouldn't like never being close to winning ever, but I'm still very happy when my deck had the opportunity to do what it wants to do even when I loose
I've been considering a combination ticket/attraction deck but haven't figured out how to do it yet; closest I've got is Prize Wall in my Arcades Nuts deck so I can get the Squirrellink ability sticker on something.
@@Trogdorbad I barely ever play blue and was looking for a way to build a spellslinger deck that woud make me interested and add something different to my decks.
The one I'm working on is Myra, that allows a bunch of cool tricks that I'm excited to try. Right now i'll tryto make it work with value and burn (which is surprisingly hard without X spells).
I also considered stickers but I'm afraid they'll end up not sticking anymore and then loose them. And just the though of like priting them to just make them some kind of markers... I'll be honest I think I'm too lazy for that. OR I would need to find something veeeery cool and unique to justify that ahah
@@gael_le_cruel Iirc you can also just write them on a piece of paper and that's actually a legal way to do it too
@@Trogdorbad Yup too lazy for that. And I believe it would ruin the fun that would drag me into that.
I really want to give my creatures silly hats and funny names.
But hey I might just still do that someday. I honestly kinda hope they'll add some extra support for this mechanic. Not to the point where it bleeds into other formats as the Initiative did, but I mean... Currently the only commanders that works with them is Ambassador Blorpityblorpboop and it's nothing too exciting imo
@@gael_le_cruel Fair enough; I don't usually like to proxy stuff because it just feels Off not having the actual card. I've made some exceptions recently for stuff that's expensive and/or I only have one of, and then make it worth my time by having fun drawing art for it (using the blank cards for DFC tokens that they've been putting out) so I can at least have decks function as intended. Or for stuff like Sol Ring where I just don't feel like paying for more copies but sometimes the deck just Needs It lmao
I think I generally agree with the frustration, and the appeal of the diamonds in the rough search, but I also think we as players need to recognize what a non-rotating format like commander means with constant new sets. Like you said, it's frustrating to find an easy deck-design out when you enjoy the search process, but that's just going to happen more and more as new cards by necessity slowly fill the design space of possible cards. I think you can get around this by forging your own restrictions (like my friend's deck which requires Rebecca Guay cards if it's possible to play them in that color), but we do have to realize that there's only so many new ideas that we can see without crowding the design space into overspecialization. With a very slow ban list and a very fast flow of new cards, commander is only going to go more into that direction. All the same, make a deck based off your own feels.
While I agree this can be a problem, I think having options is important. Yes it is certainly possible to design commanders that over centralizing their niche, for example what mardu Edgar did for vampire tribal, I think that having niche options for decks is important to keep decks on a closer power level. To go with your analogy, some times niche deck ideas are missing the sleeves of the sweater compared to their more mainstream partners. There is certainly a tightrope to be walked here but with the number of different cards coming out, WOTC has done pretty well on average. Also important to remember, not every player has the luxury of being able to comb through the entirety of the magic catalog so ugly sweaters sometimes are the cards that allow decks to be created in the first place and more decks often translates into more games from everyone.
I think EDH and other kinds of magic have an ugly sweater problem as you described, but in my own play experience i think that it has an even bigger problem with the proliferation of knowledge about the game and access to cards. The happiest I have been playing magic has been when i am playing Fun and jank decks with other people playing fun and jank decks, but that is something I havent been able to do probably in half a decade or more. Once i was out of Highschool and I was playing with people who had jobs, who read articles about decks and the meta of the various formats they played, it all started to go down hill for me.
I think the real turning point in how much I play magic was near the end of college, a little ways before the pandemic. I was trying to put together a budget version of a meta deck that I thought would be fun, and i was looking for trades at my lgs. I was walking from table to table before events started asking people had copies of a particular creature, and one guy Looked me dead in the face and said "I dont have any, why would I want to play with such a bad card?" before returning to look at his phone. Like, yes that guy was just kind of an ass, but it also was kind of representative of the environment i was playing in, an environment I was forced to play in because I didnt have another place to play at. the message was pretty clear, the people around me were playing to win, and if I wasnt playing to win just as hard I never was going to.
Even playing EDH I have this problem, and its sort of pushed me out of playing altogether. I have a favorite card, Assault Griffon. it is a common that has been reprinted a couple times, but the version i love the most was the Gatecrash version. Whenever I get the chance to go to a new card store because i am visiting someplace ew, one of the things i try to do is buy out every copy of Assault griffon (any printing) that store has to add to my collection, which is now in the hundreds. I have a signed artist proof of the card, it sits proudly as the center piece of my binder. I have a framed sketch, one of the few pen sketches the artist did to test ideas out for the card before he sent his sketches to WoTC. I love Assault griffon, and the last time I felt comfortable putting it in a deck I was playing was probably 2015. As much as I love the card, and as well as I can sometimes pilot a janky deck (especially at my lgs where i am pretty familiar with the people and the local meta) it just isnt at a power level that lets me play it. There is no deck I can play where Assault griffon just wouldnt be crushed immediately, and I'll be honest thats not a fun time.
as the pandemic lifted, I have signifigantly reduced how much magic I play. I go play EDH once every 1-2 months, and thats it. To be even close to the powerlevel of the people i am playing with, i built a Chulane deck which is as close to CEDH level as I can get it on my limited budget. Last time I went to the store I lost every game I played. I would probably go every week if I thought that Tribal Griffons would be able to hold its own in a game, but it just cant. A lot of the card choices I find myself thinking about when I contemplate building a new deck are similar to what you were talking about, but usually I have to go the other way. I frequently dont get to play cards I think would be fun, because playing for fun sometimes means getting locked out of playing at all.
Oh man... my condolences... I would suggest just keep trying to meet people that have a similar mindset and form a new playgroup. I haven't played magic in years because of sweaty tryhards who's only win in life is paying tons of money to win at magic. My old jank decks from when I started playing when riku of the two reflections came out can't play against the newer cards/decks.
Thank you for putting such a fantastic analogy to such a persistent "problem" in mtg. I really felt this way that you explained when the Warhammer 40k decks came out. Way too many unique new designs that seem to force themselves to be required if you were to build something along the same lines. I have my fair share of commander decks that are cookie cutter copy and paste kind of decks, but I do greatly enjoy finding a theme that has yet to be discovered by the public, makes for a fun time.
I resonate with this intensely. All my favourite decks are based around themes outside the mechanics of Magic.
My music themed deck, my People of Color deck, my 100 alters deck.
Building these decks, the process of scouring scryfall for gems and cards I've never seen nor played before and then seeing the decks perform at tables and playout again and again has been the most satisfaction and fun I've gotten from magic for a long time.
Really loved hearing your side of this feeling and search for meaning in magic. Will defo save this video and rewatch in the future.
Thanks for your story! Also a big fan of having a small amount of decks! One has to feel the relief when taking apart all (but maybe one) deck at least once, it's like a fresh new start, letting old habbits and semi-finished ideas go.
So true!
I feel that the tailor-made product kinda ruins the experience, because for me part of the fun is seeing the mechanics of 1v1 applied to a 4 player game, My solution? Pioneer commander, that way I can search for playable cards and strategies in a different card pool and ignore some commander oriented mechanics that I personally feel overcomplicate or diminish my enjoyment of the game.
It's cool that you do that! I've gone the opposite direction! I limit myself to only old bordered printings. I have an atraxa deck that only uses cards that make stupid types of counters not seen anymore. Like Ictatacian Moneychanger. It's bad, but luckily my playgroup has also built deliberately jank decks, like white-border tribal.
I feel you Ryan. Still, I'm totally okay with taking that Historian's Boon into my own saga tribal commander deck, because it works so well with my own quirky take on sagas: I added just about every card that can continually take counters off of the sagas, to multi-trigger their chapters and oh boy will that be fun with Historian's Boon :D
By creating new cards and exploring design space, eventually all the creases are filled, but as for it being a problem, I don't entirely see it, does adding a card created solely for changing the tone of a previous card to make it a 'better' or 'optimal' choice detract from your personal expression any more or less than having Sol Ring or Command Tower in your 99?
would the answer lay in creating alternative visual tones for cards like sol ring, i.e. a Sol Ring with either an alternative name and/or artwork (i.e. being worn by a vampire for your vampire commander deck)?
I expected a list of cards wearing ugly sweaters 🤣, but Ryan makes a point. WotC prints 30 new Legendary Creatures/ Commanders per set release and they have to be different to the ones already in the attic (our collections).
I can agree and see the problem, but I got back into magic bc all the decks I wanted to make as a kid were now possible and not even that trash either. Also think of even more players who can play how they want with infinite possibilities with a chance for a friend group theme night or nostalgia mania. Loved the video and I'm just tossing my thoughts out here to learn more.:)
I agree. I'm a little disappointed there's so much designed especially for Commander. I appreciate adding "each opponent" to cards that would have otherwise been "target opponent", but 4 or 5 precons a year was fine.
I like the 15 precons a year because they often make new cards for less supported themes like Dice Rolling or Party or Go Wide Counters. And, more importantly, they reprint a lot of cards! It's a bit overwhelming to get so many, but I still enjoy them.
I feel you, but feel it's good that this exists. the responsibility lies with the players to decide what goes into their decks after all. Some cards specifically made for certain themes are needed to make certain niche themes viable at your typical table, while other more established archetypes will still have niche gems which are dependent on which commander you run.
Newer players tend to have problems building new decks, and small collections and having a safe set of "staples" that can let them hit the ground running helps new people get into the game before they really want to push their creativity in personalizing their decks.
This video is genius, and I think matches why my favorite commander deck right now is Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis. He’s explicitly designed for 60 card constructed, and at first glance isn’t very good in the command zone. You have to build a really unique deck that is specifically made to use him, rather than a pile of staples. It fits my brand of being powerful, but not common as a strategy. Thanks for the insight!
You're 100% correct. The combination of so many generically powerful cards and so much tailor made archetype-specific support has taken a lot of the identity away from Commander.
For all that want the "casual but fun commander" feel I can highly recommend the CANL format .
-No mana Positive Spells, Rocks, Creatures.
-no tutores
I think, Shivam over at the Casual Magic podcast is on your team. And I'm there with you. One of the powers of EDH is that it has multiplayer politics, some slow-running decks can sometimes hide in the shadow long enough to build engines. If you have the chance, EDH Boxing leagues are really fun for having a reasonably balanced "dig through the bulk" experience. I played one Boxing League and was able to build 2 decks from it.
I have a few decks that I've built and I usually play Weird Tribal Jank. I use budget and arbitrary restrictions to keep myself from worrying about optimization.
Great analogy to ugly sweaters, I love it! I’m working on a Prossh deck right now and running into the ugly sweater problem. I want to make something neat and unique, but Prossh has such a preset identity. This is just the video I needed to inspire me to make the deck my own. Thanks!
Fun story - you can really feel the nostalgia in there.
I always used a similar metaphor: that EDH was a "stone soup" format, where the fun is in seeing what happens when everyone brings their own random bits and pieces and mixes them together. Random cards, from random sets, old draft chaff and pet cards and forgotten archetypes that were never meant to interact. It's variance heavy and extremely casual, closer to kitchen table Magic than any real format.
But that can only really exist in private - once it becomes the de facto way to play the game, and everyone knows how to optimize it, that falls away. At this point I'm more on the lookout for the "next" EDH, the next weird niche format that can scratch the same itch.
I didn't get to the ugly sweater problem because I left MTG more than 15 years ago because of power creep. But I relate a lot to how you feel. I lost that magic feeling of searching my mixed bag of old cards to build an interesting deck because now they wouldn't stand a chance against the new cards which were way more poweful.
Absolutely great video. I couldn’t agree with you more. What I see happening in commander:
1) it’s becoming more competitive. People bring 8/10 decks that push as high as possible without being CEDH to be able to claim it’s “casual.”
2) it’s getting “solved” as you mention by the best cards.
3) the power creep is causing “meaner” play to be the norm and excludes more casual strategies.
4) more optimized decks = more expensive. Fewer decks to have in your collection, less diversity of decks to play.
5) more oppressive cards are normalized. Everyone’s running smothering tithe, mystic remora, Rhystic study… now people are drawing 5-10 cards per round and it’s just too much for non-blue decks.
6) the pool of new cards is overwhelming, even to players who are somehow keeping up.
In short - the experience is worsening for players. Commander was in a far better place 4-6 years ago. I quit magic.
1) True, but that is a player issue, not a Magic issue. People who bring broken stuff to a casual table have always and will always exist.
2) True to an extent, but people overvalue the word "solved". Often there's plenty of tweaking you can do, and you don't *need* to include every best cards if you want to stay on theme. This isn't a Magic issue, it's a people valuing their consistency over their theme whilst being unwilling to blame themselves for it.
3) The fuck is "meaner" play? Stax always existed, and interaction is at the heart of Magic. Casual strategies do just fine, people should just remember that casual magic doesn't mean interaction suddenly goes away. It's Magic, not multiplayer solitaire.
4) Proxies exist. Moreover, you can often still get close to optimized using budget options. Again, this boils down to a personal choice and the rules of your playgroup. Cheap decks can still win semi-consistently even at the height of cEDH tables.
5) One out of those three decks you listed is white. Other colors also have their own card draw options. Also are you *really* complaining about blue, the color of card draw, drawing a lot of cards? This isn't nearly as oppressive as you make it out to be.
6) This one I can agree with. The rapid release of new sets is just.. Too much.
In short - No the experience isn't worsening that much for players, players just have to make more choices on how powerful they want their deck to be and have to be more accepting of the choices they make. Commander is in a far better place than 4-6 years ago, if only because it's way easier to find a group that matches what you want out of the game.
I think these ugly sweater cards help people who build these more obscure decks to reach a certain power level, because you can still find really great cards that are people haven't seen before.
I loved hearing "lore" about the loremaster's life. You have a very pleasant form of narration!
I definitely feel the same about the ugly sweater issue with commander. I personally started playing magic via commander with the 2017 precons, however, I soon experienced this same issue with WOTC catering too much towards commander in the following years. There was no more sense of discovery or fun to me since all decks were becoming homogenized, due to cards designed for commander, edhrec, etc. The way I learned commander was literally kitchen table at my friend's house, but it stopped being that way a long time ago.
I've gone through this same experience in phases with my relationship to Commander. Thanks for producing this video and sharing the story. Knitting my own "ugly sweater" from scratch has turned out to be so much more rewarding to me than just seeking out the "strictly better" cards and putting them together by wrote. My version of your approach to minimalism was instead, in a way, a pursuit of maximalism, as in I want to have as much of my collection in a playable deck as possible. When I opened a good amount of Dominaria United, including the set booster and collector booster Legends Reimagined cards, I let them guide me towards crafting about ten new decks, all from cards I already owned from a collection I had just stowed away in boxes and binders. I went this route because I wanted to know that I could find novelty, I wanted representation of multiple different color pairs and card-type distributions, and because I almost only play commander in my own home with my wife and two friends we play RPGs with, so it wouldn't be an issue to have a big collection, if it's all just in my office, five steps away from the cards table.
I have also hit this wall. I started playing commander in 2012 and my decks were terrible. I fell into Jund because of how powerful it looked in standard and modern at the time so I built Kresh the Bloodbraided. It was full of cards I could afford at the time as a broke college student and over time I added more cards that I liked and were things I valued as fun or powerful. I have a lot of memories slowly discovering good cards for a Jund graveyard strategy that made me feel unique to my group of friends. I could probably write paragraphs about the changes and discoveries over the years of me playing it.
Since then, commander has evolved to where if you're not playing in an optimized way you're almost griefing your own play experience because you can't keep up with the table, even among friends. I proposed an idea to our group to try and make decks that do not have any cards printed beyond a certain year to give us a challenge to remake a deck with some of that jank we all love.
Its been about 9 years since I have played Kresh. I took it apart to try out new strategies and grow as a player. I plan to remake this deck in it's janky glory with this group project.
I hope everyone finds a way within their groups to capture that low-power, high-fun feeling again.
Love the analogy, and yes, the format is absolutely having this issue. However, I hope there is a shift on the way. Story Time!
I started playing Magic as a small child because my dad played, but it fell off my radar until I was in highschool. I played casually for awhile, then started playing standard competitively at my LGS right when the Scars of Mirrodin block began. I did that for about a year, realized I was a broke kid who could NOT keep up financially to remain competitive, and that quickly took the wind out of my sails, so I stopped playing again.
Fast forward to 2019. My playgroup jumped into commander back in 2019, and we all dove headfirst into playing it as if we were playing competitive Magic again. I actually started with cEDH, creating a Blood Pod Tymna/Tana and Selvala Brostorm deck. Now I was an adult and could buy it all. But… it felt wrong. Every game ending in infinite combos felt… empty? It just wasn’t fulfilling.
So, my playgroup as a whole has actually dialed back the power, purposefully built in jank or suboptimal cards, and has almost entirely eliminated infinite combos. Our games have become way more fun as a result.
The moral of the story for my experience is that it’s way more fun to win the game by animating Toggo rocks and beating the table down with a silly theme then it is to do another Kiki Jiki, Karmic Guide, Felidar Sovereign infinite combo, and I feel like many people who play commander are starting to feel this way. Or at least I hope they are.
I know this feeling very well and I always prioritize the flavor of the deck enfront his power.
I started to play magic with some friends in the Khans of Tarkir block, and indmediatly i focused my attention on the sultai combination of colors and the hydras from theros. When my friends moved out for their studyies i quitted the game for 4 years, until my ex-girlfiend and I broke up. Then i thought that maybe try to start again with the game would be a good form to distract myself and make a new playgroup.
I have only one commander deck, the commander is Muldrotha but it's not an avarage Muldrotha deck. My deck is full of hydras, cards from the Sultai brood of khans and big monsters and spells that i like to ramp and revive.
For me this deck represents myself, the combination of my old self, a teeneger that just began , and my actual self, a man that finished a biology degree and learned about some things of life. Muldrotha represents the capacity to revive and growth in every difficult situation. This quality is something that i admire and I try to apply to my lifestyle.
For this reason, no matter what, this Muldrotha deck will be my favorite deck forever, not only because i like the flavor and the archetype, because i see myself in the deck too.
I've never been able to really personally relate to other people's experience with commander. I didn't really start playing until I was a senior in highschool, around 2018 or 2019. I wouldn't really know what it's like to play and build decks prior to that, which means I was never able to build an attachment to "the spirit of commander" the way other people remember it. Commander, as it is now, is how it's always been for me.
The very magic deck I ever built was Varina, Lich Queen and built her as a generic zombie tribal deck. I didn't have any form of collection to pull from, so I'd either have to spend hundreds on booster boxes or packs to build that collection, or just looking online for singles on EDHrec and Scryfall. My Varina deck kinda represents something people seem to really dislike about the current age of magic, but my deck that I built so I could play with my friends is the reason I fell in love with magic in the first place. It goes against the spirit of commander that many people seem nostalgic for, but I didn't really know those rules at the time. Having a story to my cards, or a theme I had to strictly adhere to didn't really matter to me at the time, and even now I've never really developed much sentimental value towards that aspect of the game. I never really built my decks for story or sub themes, I've always geared my decks towards participating in a social game on an equal footing the best I can.
Seeing this kind of mentality online every so often always felt to me like a way of saying I shouldn't be allowed to play. Like being told my decks are wrong, go against cultural rules, and are making the game worse. It always makes me feel guilty and feel bad, but I don't really know what my options really are.
I agree with this wholeheartedly! I cannot tell you how frustrating it was to have spent over five years cobbling together a five color legendary dragons deck only to have WotC drop The Ur-Dragon a month later and have everyone assume I bought and tweaked the pre-con. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against buying and tweaking pre-cons, but my dragon deck is something special to me, it's the first five color deck I ever built, based off of a 60 card kitchen table deck my brother who taught me to play had made, which also happened to be the first five color deck I'd ever seen period. It was a labor of love to build and a fun story to share that now all too often doesn't come up at the table because five color dragons is now utterly pedestrian. I have similar feelings about Go-Shintai of Life's Origin, having always wanted to build a shrines deck and knowing that now, if and when I do, I won't get to gush about this obscure cycle of enchantments from Kamigawa and the subsequent cycle WotC slipped into a core set, because Go-Shintai is too perfect a Shrine commander, and now the deck is everywhere.
(This is coming from someone who recently just started playing magic in the year 2022)
Im a new player and although I dont know the history of magic as well as others might, as someone who just started playing commander it feels nice to know that there are pre-mades that allow me to just pick up and play the game without having to worry if my deck is usable or not. I dont have that luxury of having money let alone the many amount of cards that some people who played 10 years ago have, so having an entry point of just $20 to play a playable deck is a good thing actually. I know for certain that the overwhelming amount of cards that a commander deck can have and how interchangeable some cards might be can stress new players out and may be a turnoff for newcomers to try out the game. I dont think there is an issue with the "ugly sweater problem" since youre still very much capable of making your own deck and using it, with thousands of cards comes thousands of possibilities to create your own deck. Plus youre not obligated to buy these premeds, these have a target audience and thats not a bad thing either.
Very well put. Because of this problem of it being too easy to make decks, me and my friends have made a pact to never buy single cards, but only random boosters. That way we really have to go out of our way to trade with others and slowly collect enough for a working deck.
It is true that commander is now overloaded with tons of cards, strats, legends and value that its hard not to build a deck with all the "good cards" for any given archetype/theme/strat, but i just love that now if theres a certain theme or gameplan i want to play, i will find synergistic cards easier than in the past, allowing my deck to do what i want it to do properly istead of it feeling clunky or something like that. I built an Aminatou artifact combo deck that i love with all my heart and a combination of better classic power cards plus newer support and value cards just helped it go from miserable gameplay to "hey, now i can do stuff before i combo the f out of the game or lose"
I agree with this sentiment alot. I made up a list for a Vehicles commander deck pre-NEO, and had a lot of fun finding cards that accidentally fitted with the awkward strategy. Then NEO added some 15-odd auto includes to that deck and it completely killed my interest in the archetype. Where's the fun in building and playing that deck in an environment where the cards basically pick themselves? Now I'm glad I never built the deck in paper. The existence of the shelf-ready ugly sweater killed my interest in wearing the authentic old one.
I put together a nascar themed kykar deck just before NEO and I have been distraught by the sheer abundance of vehicle stuff now. I haven't really changed the deck since then, but I also haven't really been playing it. The novelty has been sucked out of it
So fun to hear your reasoning behind why you made certain choices. Not just looking for powerful cards, but ones you enjoy.
I appreciate the idea of putting a dragon in every deck!
I only got into Magic mid-pandemic, so I wasn't around to witness "The Before Time" in terms of power creep, more tailored Commander releases and "Perpetual Spoiler Season". My journey began when my friend introduced me to it via Tabletop Simulator. We started off with a table pre-loaded with a cube comprised of cards from Ravnica block and a couple of Core sets, and I picked Red as my first colour. To my own surprise, I got hooked almost overnight. Then when he introduced me to the concept that you can play decks with more than one colour at once, the next colour I played was White. From that point onwards, I became a Boros Mage.
My first Commander was Feather, the Redeemed, and it used a bunch of cards I was already familiar with from a Feather decklist for Arena's Historic format that I picked up from CovertGoBlue as a starting point. As I played more, improved as a player and very quickly learned more about the game and what was available, while looking for new commanders to play with I started to notice a pattern: Most of the other Boros commanders out there were either fairly weak, fairly boring, or both. A good chunk of them favoured Voltron strategies, and I found that I just didn't much enjoy the play pattern of piling a dozen equipments and auras onto one guy. And I was reading a lot of online discourse about Boros being the worst, least popular colour pair in the Commander format, and that kind of bummed me out.
That started to change with the release of Strixhaven. The set was themed around Enemy Colour pairs and Wizards took the opportunity to expand the mechanical identity of Red-White. We started to see more interesting card design. From that plane we got Velomachus Lorehold, Quintorius, Field Historian, Alibou, Ancient Witness, and of course Osgir the Reconstructor - who quickly skyrocketed to the top of the Boros Commanders page on EDHREC, surpassing even Feather and Winota in deck count.
That set seemed to be a pretty big success, because suddenly Wizards started to get a lot more creative with their card design in the Red-White colour pair. Midnight Hunt gave us Rem Karolus for Burn decks, Baldur's Gate gave us Myriad theme with Duke Ulder Ravengard, Cast-from-Exile theme with Liara Portyr, and all the Choose-a-Background commander pairings.
Then we get to Dominaria United, and we get my new personal favourite commander of All Time: Cadric, Soul Kindler. By this point I'd become attached to two deck archetypes: Legendary Tribal, and Token Copies. Wizards found a way to let me do both those things at the same time, and I loved it. I was absolutely thrilled to finally have a Commander that I felt really suited the playstyle I wanted to lean into without compromising. And to my surprise, very few people were talking about what I figure is a mechanically interesting, powerful build-around commander, which meant a lot of the build for that deck was my own exploration, along with suggestions from UA-cam videos and other players. So at least in the circles I run in, I've managed to get my wish while maintaining my own sense of identity and self-expression with the deck.
Though I have certainly noticed the rise of staples in the other players around me, and I've been susceptible to it myself in the past - especially playing in an online environment where everybody has instant access to every card ever printed with just a few commands typed into the chat on a table with scripts that pull digital cards into existence directly from the Scryfall database. Just like that warehouse that Ryan mentioned while he was working with TCGplayer, except even moreso.
This reminds me of video games that have a "costume" mechanic that lets you customize how your character's equipment looks, but then most of the endgame gear appearances are parts of entire sets with intricate designs and patterns and color schemes that mean you can't mix and match and create your own look without turning into a garish clashing mess, so everyone just wears the premade full sets instead of expressing themselves with something unique to their character.
Totally agree - I have made several "sub-optimal" card choices for some of my decks purely b/c I want my own personality to show through the cards I play. Part of that is the nostalgia of some older cards, but also the jank uniqueness that comes from doing things like dropping Simulacrum to undo an opponent's last combat phase (instead of just dropping Darkness), or using roundabout ways to trigger an Ovinomancer over and over again (instead of running Pongify).
Ryan, I couldn't agree more with your assessment of the "Commander Xmas Sweater" problem. I had never cared for Simic because they all seem like generic good stuff decks that don't require any work to pop off.
But then Volo, Guide to Monsters was previewed and I thought that this was a super flavorful commander. I thought this card is a brewer's paradise and there will have so many versions of the deck assuming no creature types match! Even before AFR was released I went to work on finding obscure creature types with ETBs or valuable effects. I have even gone so far as to find cards with titles like "Fact or Fiction" for flavor wins in the deck. It is the 1 deck (no matter the new set) that I look for weird and fun creature types to see if they will fit in the deck.
The issue I find is that it looks like he has been broken wide open as far as the best cards to run. Also, EDHREC seems to show those exact cards in the list; most of which are ones that I found when brewing. There is a lot less variability than I previous thought there would be. I am doing whatever I can to make my deck stand out but sometimes it feels like there's not much wiggle room
Interesting point, I don't think Wizards giving support to these edh archetypes people find obscure is bad, it's more of an eventuality of printing cards for 30 years now. Eventually wizards will print cards for every archetype because over time they will be innovating and creating new cards. As time goes on, they will eventually print cards with new types and sill in the support around them.
I will admit when I was more into commander I found myself putting some of the same cards into my decks and expecting the same cards in everyone else's decks when I faced a certain archetype. After a while I picked up on the patterns of deck building and felt like most commander decks only had 20-30 card slots that could be different from someone else's deck.
I've taken a step back some years ago, but I like your points about whether individuality is truly achievable in the cards people put in their decks.
As somoene that has recently moved and slowed down playing paper over the past few months, this video really resonates with me. I've still got so many cards packed up I have no idea what to do with. While that may also be a small reason I haven't brewed nearly as much as I would've this past few months, brewing has really become more "on the rails" with so many strategies, as you said in the video, and it has really lost a lot of the fun it used to. Looking forward to all that you're working on for the upcoming set though!
As a Magic player who came in through commander, I love the format. While I do find the made for niche strategy cards a bit demotivating (go-shintai being a big no no in my book) I think there is plenty of untappy wells in this format. Pre-edh has been a deck building restriction I've been looking into which essentially limits your card pool before the first commander product. I just found a sweet combination of cards that let me do group voltron with ardenn and ludevic, where you give other players your equipment and create a war sandbox out of the battlefield. So I think the reward if digging through scryfall and finding really weird combinations of cards exists.
Im a big beliver in flavour over function, in like a 65/35 split. I see the optimal counterspells and stuff and kind of sigh. Even as a new player, finging a bomb from Tempest makes me super happy!
This problem is easily fixed just take a commander in an unexpected direction, this is how I build my decks. It keeps it fun and I can still put in the cards I enjoy, as well as surprise the table when they expect one thing from my deck and it delivers something totally unexpected
While I don't fully agree that everything nowadays is tailor made, I can see where you're coming from. I too like to build things that are unique and not what everyone else does. I don't look at decklists online or anything. I get excited when I find new cards myself by using my search app. I enjoy figuring out a unique strategy that just fits perfectly for a commander. My favorite so far is my Rionya deck that I made with every 3 drop "gain control of a creature" spell. That way Rionya gets more triggers from her ability and I get more copies of what I steal. It also, incidentally, is a way to deal with legendaries that I steal. There's uniqueness to be had in the little choices we make. Like you deciding on Boon over Sigil. I would have done the same honestly. Boon is so much more flavorful
I hear what you're getting at, but the ugly sweater problem has never felt like an issue for me when it comes to my own deck construction choices. Unusual, janky, or otherwise open-ended commander creatures still exist in MTG, and are still being made into unique decks all the time. If you want to look for them, you'll find them.
In many circumstances, I have found my favorite books, albums, and movies by spending some time looking for them, not by choosing a sample from a Netflix "recommended" playlist or a NY Times best seller list. The same goes for Commander - all you have to do is look. Almost every day, I discover < $1 bulk cards from the pre-modern era that offer my decks very specific synergies you won't find on EDHREC deck lists. And the constant stream of new cards being released means that new synergies between the old and the new are popping up all the time.
The real challenge, I've found, is making a commander deck that's unique, optimized, and affordable. Brewing decks within those limitations is half the fun of commander for me, and no amount of easy-to-build commander creatures being released every year is going to change that.
However, if you're the type of person who likes to play against new opponents in paper EDH all the time, then the ugly sweater problem is probably a bigger issue for you. Its probably annoying to face down what is virtually the same Krenko or Atraxa deck being using by new opponents, when you long for some matchup variety. I tend to play with the same 3 or 4 opponents, and all of us like to brew unusual decks. Due to that, I don't really experience the LGS aspect of the ugly sweater problem.
I understood the analogy and absolutely feel like people have the right to be fustrated, but I'll offer what might be a rare but real counter-example to give some perspective: Me.
I only got into commander about this time last year solely because it's basically the only format everyone plays at my university, so it's either that or nothing at all. I got myself a Millicent precon just after Christmas so I could tag along to the fun at last and the deck played fine, but it wasn't really "my" deck. I wanted to build something truly my own, like all commander players do, yet when I was scouring the options, none came along that really made me go "Oh I'd love that to helm my set of cards". I was this close to settling on Shorikai or Shu Yun after a month's worth of research, since I reckoned Narset would be quite hate-inducing as my first deck from scratch.
Then along came New Capenna, and my face lit up when Denry Klin showed up in the supplemental commander set: a blue-and-white cat that gives a boost to all your creatures so long as you can boost him, just like he would spread the news to those that read it so long as you feed him information. What a thematical win, and what a build-around! I instantly got hooked and quickly sorted out the deck, and it's been recieveing upgrades every set since. Before then, you couldn't really get a counters-matter deck solely in Azorius colours, and the most common options that do care about counters usually involves green, which again although I understand why it may be popular, isn't really what I would want to play; on the other hand, a lot of the cards in the set that were designed for this niche fitted quite nicely, some of them even vital to the deck's strategy. And all of this wouldn't have happened if Wizards didn't made some cards just for the archetype.
To sum it up, I agree that Magic does have an ugly sweater problem, where cards designed specifically for a certain playstyle are sprouting every where and kills the fun of searching up niche cards from the wide card pool the game has to offer; but like manufactured sweaters, somewhere on this planet, there might just be the person that would love the designs that just rolled off from the factory.
I feel like the Ugly Sweater Problem is a problem for enfranchised players and not for newer/less experienced players. For those of us who've been playing for decades, we're looking to explore new facets of old, forgotten cards. For the newer players, they're still learning the mechanical **depths** of the game and have 30 years of cards to go through to **explore** and **delve**. Those pre-packaged ugly sweaters might read "generic discard enabler #216" to us enfranchised players but to newer players that card says "let me introduce you to **Madness**."
I guess my point is that it's perfectly fair to recognize them as pre-packaged ugly sweaters, but let's not be snobs about it for those just starting their journey into collecting those ugly sweaters.
I certainly didn't intend to come across as a snob. I am totally fine with new players grabbing a precon and using it as their gateway into the format - but the question is, where do they go from there? Are the older cards enticing enough for someone to look backwards through Magic's history, or will they instead be looking forwards, at the next precon or Commander Legends set release instead?
My issue isn't that the "made-for-commander" cards exist. They clearly do serve a purpose, especially in attracting new players, as you pointed out. My problem is that the made-for-commander cards tend to overshadow everything else, and leave no incentive for those new players to move into the deeper end of the pool.
@@MagicArcanum I didn't mean to imply you were coming off as snobby, just meant it as a reminder that those of us who've been around for awhile don't have the same malaise when seeing cookie-cutter commanders.
There's definitely an issue with some commanders being just too superior to others and the ones added during the Year of Commander (and since) which specifically fit the bill are more egregious than others, but I really think it's a smaller issue than we realize. The last 2-3 years in particular we've had an explosion of possible commanders, but when I go through a list of them on Scryfall... most are not problematic.
I think the real issue is that we've just had such an increase in sheer volume of new cards that coincided with a new high-water mark in card power. So yes some of these commanders are stupidly good, but they were printed into an environment where we were also getting Oko and Winota and The Questing Beast and all these other cards that are much stronger than anything else we've had since the modern cardframe.
I've built 14 commander decks since entering the format and I think I almost enjoy the deck building more then anything else. But my absolute favorite builds were a Zurgo Helmsmasher voltron deck because zurgo was my first mythic card and I played it non stop. The other is a queen marchessa where every card is themed around politics and a kingdom with such bangers as assemble the legion and councils will. People should move away from 'stock' lists that have been perfected thanks to websites like edhrec and just make stuff they like and have fun with it.
I will say, the ore-built, made-to-order commander cards DO absolutely serve a purpose, for people who... Just don't have a history with their cards. New players who want to make a graveyard reanimator deck, but don't have the history of familiar cards can build the latest Forgotten Realms myrkul deck without having to know the entire backlog of cards. This deck with absolutely preform well out of the box next to Sarah's fifteen years old Teneb the Harvester deck. It can get tweaked and added to and changed as time wears on, but it starts functional, rather than being a hundred cards someone got out of a booster box. Additionally, not everyone is a deck builder. Those cookie cutter decks are fun to play! Premade or meta, it feels good to do powerful things in magic, and people who don't eat breathe and dream Magic can still have a ton of fun for three hours on Saturday night without having to deck build for thirty hours during the week.
Do I think that the current absolute glut of commander-spexific cards is encouraging hemogeny, power creep, and ultimately a devaluation of cards and decks that people have loved for years and years? Yeah. But I don't think they should stop making those products.
I agree. Just the other day I was messaging a friend about how 2012 new commander player me would be overjoyed with how much material we have these days, but today me really misses the wonder and discovery of crafting something that I truly loved without feeling like the deck idea was handed to me. I would spend hours browsing through each older set to find unique additions to the decks I built to share with my play group. I'm grateful for all the legends we have now for various play styles, but that "magic" I used to feel back then isn't quite there anymore.
Two things that I suggest:
1) Build Mardu. Mardu has one of the best a varieties when it comes to choosing a commander. You also push out many of the “good stuff” staples that green and blue typically fall back on. No counter spells (or at least any worth running), no land ramp, no blue bs like Cyclonic Rift or Rhystic Study. There will be some staples, but I dare say that there’s few cards that couldn’t be replaced by something similar. Getting these decks to hum though takes WORK, which sounds like something you’d appreciate.
2) While you are doing your research for your decks, take this opportunity to go back and look at the older cards. Many of them have errata that completely changes the wording on them. I find Odyssey (set) to be an untapped gold mine of cards, for instance, many of which have never been reprinted. I also try to work in as many Revised cards as I can, seeing as that was the first set I played many years ago.
Hope this helps and remember that building and testing is just as much fun as playing the “finalized” version.
Rule 0 is the most important rule. Understanding and changing the power level of the play group is what makes the game balanced.
At some point i think designing cards that are specifically good in one archetype makes sense.
Imo The 'problems' are:
1.wotc designing intentionally powercrept cards for commander
2. The meta being more or less solved. Meaning the higher the powerlevel of your deck the more must includes/ less options you have
3. Single cards being assigned powerlevels. If i play something like senseis divining top at a low power table everyone starts complaining even if my deck is weak. This also, in a way, limits the card pool.
So i would argue more than half of the ugly sweater problem is caused by the players themselves, by either being competitive or overvaluing single cards.
It was neat getting to hear about the lore behind Ryan Gomez! When Wizards releases more updated stories for him, I hope you'll keep us in the loop! :P
For real, though, that was a fun storytime. Was very introspective and made me think about how I approach Commander, too.
Absolutely agree, I have a mix of both, decks I love because I built them, the ideas and theme only matter to me and the fun I can have at the table, win or lose (usually lose). Then i have the other decks, which are infinite combo monsters using the top tier cards in my collection specifically designed to win. The issue I have at my pod is that it can be very High level decks, as we have a usually one or two pure proxy players who have just printed out a latest net deck or similar, a player who has built his deck to win full stop, and one player who is just naturally talented at building really really good decks with all kinds of commanders (and has the luck of the gods on his side). So what'll usually happen is I'll bring two decks, and talk to the Naturally talented player. If he's playing his lower powered deck, I'll pull out my fun decks, and have a blast with bad cards but all telling a story, and lose. If he's playing something high powered, I'll bring out my powered up monster, but here's the important thing, have just as much fun aiming to win as best as possible! Thats how I've made an ugly sweater of net-deckers and spikes, along with a very very good player and me (a not good player), into something that is comfy and fun and makes me love magic!
I have never played Magic in an LGS, so the pressure of ever increasing power levels flies past me. I set myself a higher deck cap than you, 10, and have them spread out across power levels. More importantly, they fill different gameplay niches.
I have come to really appreciate having a balanced set of roles in a game of Commander - it's as important as a similar power level. The best Commander games have an arc. Every player gets to do something cool before the balance shifts, and that just happens way less often when everyone is playing the same style of deck - multi-player games just naturally don't ask the eternal question of "who's the beatdown?" as well, so having that nudged helps. It's a bit like picking a role at the start of a treacherous coop board game like Nemesis - everyone is playing their part for the good of the playgroup until they get you killed.
Others wanna play combo decks? I'll pick my Ephara Counterrebels to be the control or the new Esper Urza to be stax, so it's not just a multiplayer solitaire goldfish race. Table has a bunch of go-wide decks? I'll play my dual-colored only Niv or permanents-only Muldrotha midrange decks to make sure it's all not just one big board stall. Others playing a bunch of battlecruiser grindfests? I'll bust out my Tymna+Sidar Bearvengers and go aggro so they have some threats to kill. Everyone is playing blue? I'll be the combo with Malcolm+Ramirez Paupirates or Arixmethes Summon Bigger Fish, so there is tension about eventually tapping out. Others have weak and slow decks? I'll slam Zacama Snowy Dinos enchantress with all the group hug mana doublers so the fireworks can go off. Up for a higher powered game? Sure, I have a Yuriko aggro-combo lying around. And finally, for number 10, in case everyone is fine with it, I can unbox Gisela and the Seven Dwarves land destruction because lands that aren't basic Mountain are an affront to Grimni.
I have different issues with Commander (primarily because I prefer 1-1 play) but I totally understand where you're coming from.
IMO one solution might be finding a playgroup who is willing to build decks in a similar spirit to what you are trying to achieve. Part of the fun of kitchen-table Magic is defining your own meta, so really its all about finding people who agree. You could even instate a cost-based ban list which prevents the use of well-known powerful cards.
Also, whenever people express the desire to use the cards that are their favorite, I always recommend cube. Nothing can compare to the absolute joy of building a cube out of a massive personal collection. Getting to see your friends cast some of your favorite spells with a massive grin on their face is so amazing.
My solution is find commanders with more obscure text. Like commander's that utilize -1/-1 counters, boros or gruul spell slingers, just things you don't get to do a lot so you get to enjoy the wacky unique cards you don't see anywhere else. Or just find a commander that really speaks to you and build it and change it and really explore it fully. My favorite commander is Gyrus, Waker of Corpses. I've built it a couple times and taken it apart and rebuilt it and changed the major theme and finally have it in a place where I'm happy and whenever I play Magic I'm always playing that deck and testing the changes and blinging it out. I too had a flavor of the week phase and I've dropped out of it hard because I'm tired of having 14 decks but I only play four or five of them. Restricting yourself for flavor like you're doing for Satsuki is super cool and i love it, but Sagas just don't have enough support to focus so hard on them without pulling in some help from generic enchantment synergies. I'd say maybe bite the bullet for now and wait a little? Sagas are dope and they seem to be making them evergreen so it's a matter of time before they get more dedicated support. In the meantime, a foil Sythis or that angel enchantment you didn't wanna add would go a long way until you can replace them with better specific synergies.
100% agree. When I started playing commander back in 2018, it was tough to find cohesiveness between deck themes and usuable strategies that would be competitive with my play group. Now in 2023, It feels like decks are being made by all star cards that are getting released in the modern era and as a casual play it is tough to validate the purchasing of some of these allstars when the price tag can be over 50$ easily while still not fitting the deck theme but needing to be played to be viable (depending on play group).
Great Video! Loved the story and lore of your deck building. I have to par down my collection too!
Randomly stumbled on your video and it really hits home for me: I started out with commander when it was relatively new and played cards I enjoyed. Moved a few times and newer playgroups played more optimal cards and to keep up, I also changed my decks to include newer, more powerful cards. Except that now I find less enjoyment in my decks. I'm waiting for the powerful cards and combos but because they are not 'mine' they don't make me feel smart or provide enough fun.
I've recently decided that each deck should at least have some fun cards in them, even if there are more powerful versions. Als, the BRC decks also challenged me to make old border only decks (I was really shocked a lot of MTG channels were suggestion powerful new border cards for those decks. The whole point of those decks is that they are old border, and the decks are not that powerful compared to some other commander precons)
Wow this is a long reply, but just.. 'thanks', you explained with reasoning something I couldn't describe myself and gave me a good direction for me to get back into having more fun in Commander going forward
Glad you found the video. Thanks for taking the time to watch!
I made my first EDH deck was 2011. I played in 2 draft pods and won some additional Innistrad packs, and found myself with an $80 Liliana and a lot of zombies.
I traded the Liliana to the shop and got Grim Grin and every blue or black zombie or relevant card in the case. A friend who had way more money to spend on stuff like that tossed me a few useful cards, and then I added to that deck over the next few years before I stopped playing Magic.
When I jumped into Arena during the pandemic ten years later, I discovered Vito and looked forward to building a ED--ahem--Commander deck with him, but most of the joy was removed. My friends essentially told me a decklist of staples and well-known synergies, and I found myself feeling like I had to include them or else I was doing it wrong.
The one thing I love about Arena is, despite the limited cards and slews of opponents importing the same optimized decks (looking at you Rusko and Shrines decks), you can at least find moderate success and plenty of fun tossing together a creative Brawl deck. (How many names do we need for this format?)
I've been feeling off about commander and unmotivated to finish my latest deck for a while now. Thanks for putting a name to the feeling!
In my playgroup with friends we create jank commander decks with specifically underpowered cards. But we have strong decks as well. My jank deck was a wilhelt the rotcleaver zombie tribal with the restriction that every removal and card draw had to be on a zombie creature. The other devkbuilding ideas we had yesterday was commander pauper mix up. Only common cards are allowed except for the commander
Isn't it weird though that EDH was already a format with plenty of restrictions (singleton, matching your commander's color identity) and now we feel like we have to add more of our own restrictions to make things fun again?
Thank you for putting into words what I've been feeling for years. I try to express my discontent with newer commander designs but never am able to really nail it. I miss finding a diamond in the rough and polishing it as my own
I see where you're coming from. Glad you're back in NY at get to visit and support the store you went to as a youngster. Funny that you didn't start building commander decks until 2019 but I'm glad you finally gave it shot. Commander brought me back to magic and puts all other formats put together to shame imo. I enjoy building decks almost as much as playing them. From tribal themes to underplayed cards no one ever sees, it's a blast. How could you only have 3 decks after years of playing? That doesn't even cover the basic strats and color combos. I don't play all of my decks(I have a few hundred now) and end up revising them after a few years but never do I take a deck apart. They all hold a special place for me as I spend weeks perfecting them before moving on to the next. I don't need them to win or be powerful, I just enjoy doing crazy things in magic that can only be done in commander for the most part. Even if I can win I like to show restraint and have a good game. Other people's enjoyment and time are important to me. Wish everyone felt that way
I remember showing up to a five player commander pod at comic con ($6 entry, everyone still at the table got a booster pack on each elimination) with my Animar deck which quickly turned out to be on a different level. I one-shot the elf deck, survived the crackback from three people, one-shot the Kresh deck with one creature but felt kinda bad, so I let the last two people get me without being obvious about it.
After that, I went home and rebuilt some of my decks much jankier, like my Riku deck that runs mostly whatever copy effects I could find.
I actually started in 2013/14, as I state at the start of the video. I just gave examples from some of the decks I had made over the time while I worked at TCGplayer (which was six years.)
And the whole point of the video is that for a while, I actually DID have decks covering every color and combination, and found it to be too many, so I've now changed my focus to having just three that I really enjoy.
@@MagicArcanum Apologies I watched this early and misunderstood. When you showed that your first mono colored deck was a 2020 option, I deduced you had only played other formats until then. I think it's great to only play decks you enjoy. I've only found a few I don't enjoy but then I'll just turn them into something else. I think it's great to have a myriad of play styles and power levels because you never know who you might be sitting down with, their expectations, etc.
Many content creators out there who cover exclusively commander usually only have a handful decks. It's considered a lot to have double digits. Then there are those of us out there that don't want the same things over and over as well. 3 decks isn't even enough to get 4 friends together and play unless they already own decks. Many decks are "bad matchups" for others and certain decks play similarly even if in different wedges or guilds. To each their own but I couldn't imagine going back to single digits. I'd miss some of the things I've spent years crafting. That's all I was trying to say. Not judging your choices. Thanks for replying and I appreciate the content. I really hope to visit my old LGS in Warner Robins Ga someday just like you did in NY. It would be overwhelming to step into Outer Limits comics and see the same 2 owners. Provided they are still there :)
Just to be clear - I do still have other decks available for friends or new players to borrow. Most are precons, because WotC sends me one or two each year in their marketing packages. I also still have a few of the older TCGplayer decks, too, but they're not really geared for multiplayer and so I've been slowly dismembering them for parts / trade value. I don't know if I'll ever be down to just the three I talk about in the video. I just know that for right now, those three are the ones I'm focused on making as perfect as possible :-)
MTG (or at least Commander) is designed as an ugly-sweater competition, if you want to win then you need to wear an ugly sweater to have the best chance at winning. It doesn't mean that you must wear an ugly sweater, it just means that you wear your cool pinup jacket at the risk of losing.
I've been totally having his same problem too! It infuriated my friend that I had a 7/7 vehicle with no "special ability" in my "vehicles are cool" Shorikai deck, and I eventually had to take it out because the deck just couldn't hit hard enough, even though I loved each of the really poor cards I had in it.
What a beautiful story, I'm very much agree with you. Good analogy with sweaters :) It's also much more fun to play against unique expressive decks than copy paste deck lists from internet
You just need to go weirder mate. I'm having a blast, with decks like:
- A clone deck built around winning with Biovisionary.
- A Germ tribal, built around blinking Living Weapon equipment with anthem effects on the board.
- A self-mill deck without mill, using The Reality Chip to cast my way through a deck of mostly 0 CMC trash artifacts.
- A changeling tribal using obscure tribal cards like Elephant Graveyard. (With Volo, Itinerant Scholar + Folk Hero as commander, giving massive card draw)
- A deck built around moving/adding/removing different types of counters to create unintended synergies. (Say, moving age counters from a creature with cumulative upkeep to Luxior, Giada's gift)
Great video, loved hearing about this topic and I somewhat agree that edhREC and commander releases every set homogenize some of the card choices players are making. But it seems to mostly affect newer players.
After traveling to magic30 and two more conventions besides, I am relatively surprised at the commander community. The decks I’m seeing are a lot more varied and creative than I gave the community credit for. I think the advisory board is smart to say this format is self policing. People talk a lot- if they find a strategy boring or played out, they let you know.
I feel like the proliferation of mindsets valuing the min-max of a deck takes away from the spirit of the format. However, now that cEDH is taking the reigns as the highly optimized multiplayer format, and people are still discovering all these wacky and fun interactions had between a few of the 20,000 possible cards… I believe the focus on the community, instead of the competitive edge, makes deck building and playing the game so much more fun.
I didn’t realize how much truth there was to this problem before you said it. I used to have a Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer and Feather, the Redeemed deck that I thought were unique but I consciously stopped playing them simply because they couldn’t keep up with my friend’s decks. Sad part is that until I saw this I’d come to terms with the fact that I’d just have to settle for more powerful commander’s and styles. Maybe I should take another look at old Brudiclad and Feather to see if I can still make them work? Playing a deck that will almost always lose is definitely unappealing, and it’s not like I net deck for my other commander decks, but I think I’ve definitely been lacking in that creative, unique function of late.
I'm a bit of a transplant from other formats, so I think I'm pretty representative of the newer wave of commander players... I don't really concern myself that much with trying to be unique. I play cards because I think they're fun. I'm probably not the first person to put any card of any of my decks into that commander. I don't play a ton of the boring staples that go into everything (say, Rhystic Study), but I'm not allergic to them if I think it'll make my deck more fun to play as or against.
So for example, my first attempt at iroas, I filled it full of sweet boros cards I had seen or played in standard and brawl. And it was bad, real bad. No chance of doing 120 damage to win a game. I took it apart, and over a year later I decided to make it again with a better understanding of the format. I included a bunch of those cards I wanted to play, but I also added in a bunch of support from good cards (serra ascendant, stoneforge mystic, value swords, aurelia the warleader, akroma's will, extra combats), and the deck is so much more fun to play now than it was before.
Based on that, if I'm working on a deck, I love seeing new cards that help make that deck function. I'm working on atraxa infect right now and seeing 4 total cards that get a poison on everyone, essentially copies 2-4 of ichor rats, is a godsend.
As someone who also moved before quarentine your tale rings home. Fortunately I always found my love in commander, its a high power karador deck very similar to your teneb build with some combos. I do agree with the ugly sweater problem. This is a deck I played for years, but after as prolonged break when I tried to build it again I'm finding there are so many new cards made like to always be played that basically not only the 99 slots are filled, I could make the deck over two times without repeating cards.
And this is exemplified at its purest with the free to cast cycle of cards that has fierce guardianship. While the rest of the cycle is arguably weaker, the fact that its such a balant design for commander only, and they are all so generally powerfull that why woudlnt include most of then in your decks? So now a commander deck with blue has already two slots for command tower and arcane signet, and a fierce guardianship, and so on, its just like you end up have a significant amoutn of slots of your deck already predesigned by wizards.
I think one of the biggest examples of this is Edgar Markov. At one time, you had to work to make a Vampire deck and they were ok at best. But then when Markov was printed, every vampire deck became clones of each other due to how good he was.
Excellent example, yes.
This is why I have so much respect for one Edgar decklist I found, because it wasn' any ol Edgar deck, it was Edgar and every card they could slot with a "sexy vampire lady" on it. That person is keeping the spirit of EDH alive.
I would term it less of a problem, and more of a change. Over time, both players and cards got better; as a result, playing with Horse Tribal or "all art must have a chair" decks got tedious rather than fun. When you don't know what better play is, the rift between jank and average decks isn't so massive; when you're able to easily see hundreds of optimized decks and how they interact, the rift is massive, and longtime players tend to feel that rift.
I think a better way to get closer to the "original EDH experience" is with stipulations that aren't strictly based on power level. Run events for your group - $100 (or whichever) budget, or "only cards printed prior to X set," etc. It still allows for optimization attempts, just at a lower level.
Not a big commenter but I was moved to my keyboard by your thoughts.
I completely agree about keeping the number of decks that you have small. Hone and love what you have instead of constantly churning out 'the new'. I also agree that flavour in deck building is key. Every deck needs a story which creates building restrictions that forces creativity. For instance, 'Creatures from the Black Lagoon' doesn't simply contain every good Black/Green card but rather only things that might be found in a swamp. These limits are as important as the cards in the deck.
However, while I loved and recognised your 'ugly sweater problem' analogy, I'm going to push back a little. Just like the sweaters, I love the breath and depth that new creations bring. They can create new memories of their own and in years to come they will bring their own memories and nostalgia.
Also, I have an extensive xmas nerd sweater collection (mostly fed by my partner) so maybe I'm just into having stuff.
I think it's also an internet problem. People netdecking their decks instead of searching for new combos on their own. I do use search engines like EDH rec or Scryfall for such and such mechanic or lore-fitting cards, but I try to avoid wholly copying decks from some "CEDH top8".
I mean, your example of avoiding Sigil of the Empty Throne and using Historian's Boon instead is exactly what I love doing when I create decks: not use the overly obvious card but a less-known equivalent that fits with what my deck wants to do.
This is definitely an ongoing issue, and I'm not exactly a long-time magic player (my first commander game was last year, and before that I'd only played in high school), but I've found a sort of work-around. Unless I either have some kind of personal exception (usually a commander I LOVE, or a card that I have some kind of connection to) all my decks consist of two types of cards: cards that have made their way into my collection through boosters/whatever else, and singles that cost almost nothing (like usually less than a dollar but it depends on the card/how badly I want it).
The way I see it, anyone with no budget and an internet connection can make the most effective deck using a list from edhrec and a bunch of expensive staples, but it takes some WORK to make something that can stay afloat with 50 cent cards and positive thinking. Not to mention, it makes your deck feel a lot more personal since it did require that creativity to get it to work. Admittedly a lot of this comes down to me not being able to justify spending $600 on a single piece of cardboard, but I think it's gotten around a lot of that problem for me at least.
This is it, I couldn’t figure out what it was but this is what I’ve been seeing, thanks for the connection
WotC really does not help people being creative with their commanders lately, especially when making 5-color easy-to-cast commanders that are tailor made for popular but once quirky decks. Most recent examples with Go-Shintai of Life's Origin and the upcoming ONC Myr commander.
I called them instant-noodles commanders, just add "water" (a quick Scryfall/EDHRec search) and a synergistic deck is ready to play.