I play edh with my wife and buddy, both of which are more casual players. I play more competitive formats so I feel like I have a huge advantage coming into these games just based on the difference in skill level/threat assessment. I found that in order to keep things fun for everyone in the evening, I sometimes have to nerf my strategies. Whether that means not always insta-killing a threat, or just being honest about what I plan to do. I find that sharing information and consulting my opponents on the best play, leads to more fun games.
Same thing for whe I play my Jumpstart cube with my gf or people who know the rules but don't play Magic actively...at all.. However I'm not a very good liar and I suspect they know I'm going easy on them. Sometimes though they just roll two synergistic, powerful decks and roll TF out of me. I actually LIKE when that happens.
This. I don't actively hold back, as I feel it would be a bit insulting for them to know I'm able to win and just chose not to, but I vocalize my thought processes and assessments. Not to push people to do things or play their decks for them, but to just let people in on what I'm thinking as far as my own strategy is concerned.
Yeah I tend to be the same way a lot of times. Especially when it comes to things like keeping track of triggers or how someone sequences a play. At the end of the day, I just want everyone at the table to have a good time, and if everyone's deck gets to do it's thing at least once that feels like a win to me.
Being open about how your deck works honestly just evens out the playing field since more experienced players already know this, it just brings more casual players up to speed. I played Harmonic Prodigy in my Zaffai, Thunder Conductor deck and a friend tried to remove another creature on board. I literally said "I think you should remove my harmonic prodigy, it's the best thing on board and could really let me pop off," and it massively improved the game.
@@alfred8936 very much this. i also find pulling punches insulting. also it does not help with gaining experience as a player as it is based on fake information.
so you stall your mana acceleration to remove one land a rotation of the table. Such badass. Very cool. The actual Chad move is to play Death Cloud and Pox and keep it to yourself because they don't "destroy" lands.
One of my favorite commander mini-games/stretch goals, is collect the sol rings. Feels great having 2 of your friend's sol rings in your grasp. 3 is, you're gonna get hunted, but it doesn't matter if you win anymore. You've already had the sweetest victory there is.
I used to play EDH in a group where doing basically anything in game was taboo, turning every match into a 3 hours battlecruiser slogfest. It sucked, playing become a chore and when you eventually got killed you got the privilege of waiting like 2 hours before the game was over to get back into it. I now have extremely strong feelings about this whole 'taking it easy' on the table, the faster the game is over, the faster we get to play more and more interesting magic!
This is what turned me off completely from commander in the first place, I feel like if that's what people are after, maybe we should just be playing like a Big fancy euro board game instead of magic.
my first playgroup had the opposite problem of "I'm so scared anyone will establish a boardstate I run 12 wipes" which also led to excruciatingly long games which then devolved into everyone playing combo to game the meta. I quit playing with them when COVID hit and never looked back.
I love playing cEDH for this reason. I absolutely love playing EDH casually, with silly strategies and weird cards that don't work anywhere else, but I go into those games never expecting to win; only expecting to have fun. cEDH takes away most of the potential salt, though. The "rule 0" is "play the best deck you can and try to win, no holds barred." You've got a meta that evolves as frequently as new sets come out, but only slightly, and you've got a healthy mix of weird/fringe decks that seem innocuous at first, but end up flipping the meta on its head for a minute. I'm not saying all cEDH players aren't salty, but it's nice knowing everyone has the same expectations coming into a game, and I seldom walk away from a cEDH game feeling salty. Thank for the video, Vince. I'm grateful for my established playgroup whenever I see situations like this!
I love high power games, I find the social contract a crutch for people to be bad and salt more than actually improve their experience. I especially love the cEDH mentality with lower end decks. People respect the plays way better and actually make interesting assessments of the table.
one of the hardest things about commander is under standing the playgroup. If the playgroup is mismatched it causes a bunch of problems, I really feel for the Chatterfang player because I've been in the same situation. One player at the table says "this guys deck is really strong" the first time I go to play it with the group, and that game my commander gets literally 3 removal spells thrown at it the first time I cast it, and 3 counterspells the second time I cast it. Locking someone out of the game just because another person at the table is very unfun for that player, especially if the player who convinced the entire rest of the table to lock me down was playing a deck just as strong and steamrolls the game without even a single piece of removal being spent on his board other than mine.
Getting into what you're saying about being self reflective, I will often ask my group what decks they're planning on playing before I decide to play certain decks I've made since I already know it'll be an uphill battle at the table. Sometimes we'll all talk about what kind of game we even want (i.e. aggressive and quick or more chill) and maybe that means letting someone keep their good early setup to react to a bigger thing later.
I very regularly will adjust how I play magic when I know my friends or wife are really excited about a certain card or a new deck. Im generally a much more competitive player but as long as we have a proper rule zero conversation Im more than happy to adjust how I play to meet the expectations of the pod.
Thank you for this video! Honestly it's this kind of limiting behavior that takes all of the fun out of commander for me. I love playing midrange and because of this I try to build with an out for any situation. I never try to hate anyone out or shut them down but I do have interaction and that has visibly taken the wind out of people's sails t the point I rarely play with strangers anymore. I mostly play with friends because they don't get upset. I can only play like once a week so it feels awful if it always feels like I can't have interaction without someone feeling bad. I play commander because win or lose it's fun not because my deck has to go off every game
The Chatterfang thing actually feels way worse. Going into the game and preparing everyone for someone to be too powerful before the deck has ever been tested in a goup environment is very much a dick move. First you don't necessarily know it's too powerful, and if someone is newer or more casual you don't know if they'll be able to take advantage of all the synergies and stuff anyway. Long story short technically correct and socially acceptable are two very different things, and that makes Commander a lot more contentious, which makes it easier for someone's expectations not to be met. Both for prioritizing better technical play and for prioritizing etiquette.
@@c_nrad Exactly! Unless they were running a CEDH deck it's not like the table is getting stomped on like turn 3. And if the game does end that quickly you can actually shuffle up and either be prepared or they can play another deck
@@atevalve no idea what you’re talking about-all I’m saying is if I know your deck is way better than everyone else’s I’m not sitting on my hands and letting you crush everyone just to make you feel good.
I honestly really relate to that Chatterfang deck mention. Chatterfang was my second deck I ever built and because the commander is strong everyone assumed the deck was insanely strong. It took me genuinely over 4 months to actually test it without being focused.
I also relate to chatterfang, but for me, it was actually the opposite. Everyone thought the deck was going to be bad, but I ended up destroying the table , I was playing against omnath , kaalia, and edgar markov
If you have a friend in that group that understands the game well, next time you build a deck, ask them to flip through it and give an opinion on if it’s too strong for the table. Having another player that is essentially an opponent saying your deck is a good match up vs 3 players assuming your deck is OP due to the one card they can see can really make a difference on how they spend their interaction and combat steps. I’ve been building meme or theme decks a lot lately as the other players in my group get better at the game and grow their collection, and they can tell when my friend has made a monster when I end up with a control deck at the table lol.
You could always Goldfish. To be brutally honest with you, because somehow PK's comment threads are f*cking hug boxes, if you were a stranger and said "I'm playtesting my Chatterfang deck" I wouldn't go easy on you because you *claim* to be playtesting. CF is half of an infinite combo in the commandzone with many tutors in both it's colors to get the pieces. IDGAF if you're playtesting" I'm not eating a giveaway loss because you didn't goldfish. I'm holding up removal for the microsecond you put a combo piece or tutor on the stack. I play to have fun and part of that fun is stopping other people trying to win the game/ trying to win myself. You brought that whole experience on yourself by figuratively putting a gun on the table and expecting your opponents to take you lightly because you said you weren't a threat.
I was playing Jhoira artifacts, a buddy was playing new Mishra, and another friend was playing Meren. T2 Meren plays ouphee-huge blow that makes me and Mishra both say “oof”. It sucked, but created an interesting challenge as Meren kept bringing it back, as a Meren deck would. But honestly kept both of us at bay is this Meren deck was “powered down”, so a bit slow. Despite the challenge it added a really interesting dynamic to the game and was one of the funnest games I had played in a while.
I saw that Reddit thread and couldn't really work out how to word my thoughts. If you want to test a new deck and have it 'just do its thing', you don't need an opponent who doesn't kill your Sol Ring. That's what goldfishing is for. Having someone sit opposite for you to 'test out' a deck naturally invites the idea of testing out the deck AGAINST another player/interaction.
Exactly, only issues I can see is say your opponent gets a god hand and combos off earlier than usual or just gets really really lucky with answers. But there's a great solution to that, play another game. If the same issues keep popping up then it's pretty likely they're real issues. After game 6 of losing to a board wipe you should make your deck more resilient to them. Part of it is honesty user error mixed with people not wanting to be interacted with at all until they get to win.
This, exactly! I always test my decks by playing in real pods and seeing what the deck can do and can’t do in real play interactions. Recently I built two decks: Magnus and Toralf. Magnus wins games. He’s expensive to get out so I run more mana to recover from board wipes which are a big hinderance. I run treasures despite their lack of direct synergy because of this mana problem and because they fuel my x spells. Counterspells are also useful to prevent untimely boardwipes or commander removal. I also run a ton more creature token makers to shore up the strategy and run multiple spells that can end games with enough setup. It’s main weakness has been my lack of cheaper card draw as much of it was put into x spells or expensive ones that stop working well without the commander, something I have to note for future tuning. Toralf was more odd. It doesn’t do much for part of the game outside of finding ways to give opponents more creatures or otherwise finding ways to stockpile mana and then finally casting the commander and firing a big damaging boardwipe. Only 1 or 2 are necessary with enough setup but if it needs 2 it can be hard to close games. Before WOE came out I was considering a total retune of its draw suite as I found it severely lacking. Even now since I took a long time building it I want to keep it around, but a newer card has a more efficient playstyle and have considered taking out the Toralf shell and leaving the mono-red engine in; snow mountains + extraplanar lens (thanks cheap reprint!) plus replacing the board wipes with targeted burn spells and draw. Even some cards of the Toralf deck like brash taunter still fit in the shell so the most I lose out on are the big boardwipes most otherwise don’t use (hence the hesitation to tear the deck apart). But these are issues that can only be seen by playing and seeing how the deck holds up against anything as simple as a single board wipe!
Something that newer players like the poster do is they overextend or play cards because they can cast it. It’s something you can only really understand through experience, the poster should held to the Sol Ring until they can use it.
I think sol ring is a bit of an overheated card in casual commander. I remember one game where I had a sol ring and a thran dynamo on my side of the field and one of my opponents decides to blow up the sol ring with generic artifact removal. To this day I’m still astonished that this happened.
I don’t get bitter about it since Sol Ring is such a common card and so easily accessible. People just get salty when they don’t draw theirs. Nobody hates on green for ramping like no freakin tomorrow.
That's why I run less mana rocks. Also has the added benefit of increasing number of dead draws for the opponent. He's packing removal for a thing you don't play
15 year mtg player here, am I the only one that finds Commander waaaaay less casual than Standard? I've started playing a lot of Planechase lately of all things as it adds the randomness that commander provides with its varied deck construction without having to constantly read 400 different card variants.
Talk with your playgroup about it. You can have as casual or competitive commander games as you choose to have. If you want more casual commander games, build more casual commander decks (less staples/BES cards and more flavor or pet cards) as well.
@@vapixdarmana4428 Yeah exactly, I tend to not participate in the really competitive commander groups I know as they throw a fortune at the game keeping up with the meta, I'll just play games with people as they get taken out, win win.
Yeah i agree. The planar dice is the only thing keeping the player with the wordiest commander from just outright winning because word soup. Its like, when i see somebody sit down at the table playing a commander with 4 keywords and a paragraph under them, i know for a fact the game probably wont be fair compared to what the other players are playing. Theres always 1 person who plays the table meta and waits to choose their deck after everyone else has so they can take benefits like a sneaky weasel. If you dont have a word soup commander yourself, the only thing that’ll help you win are some good planes and a few good rolls on the planar dice. Puts the game back into the hands of chance and fate, instead of the wordiest card owner and whoever has the deepest wallet/access to a credit card
Standard isn't casual. People often study cards before even the prerelease to find optimal picks and such. The fact that you can't go in blind many times means the format isn't as casual as you may think.
We started having issues with players having others targeting before games started so we had to make a gentleman rule to not do that and only do it once a board/combo starts. Another thing we do is have group pairing based on what decks people have. For example, CEDH, High Power, and Casual. I review decks people play and advise them what pods to play in and this has made a big change for the community in our area.
sounds tedious and a waste of time. reason why I never carded about edh , we just played, and dont care about the concept of casual , also pods dont exist here[about 10 yrs ago. 20 people would play at midnight at del taco.
Random shout out for Elden Ring. I love it. On balance: Rock-Paper-Scissors is technically balanced, but WILDLY polarized. Balance is important and good, but when it results in deep polarization you end up taking away agency -- and agency is where the fun resides. MTG (Commander especially) has gotten mighty polarized with the inclusion of more and more mechanics and strategies that are powerful because they are "disrupted by simple hate bears." If you're looking to balance a competitive environment, that's fine. If you're looking to balance a FUN environment? Well, the 3-on-1 Chatterfang situation demonstrates the problem with that polarization.
@@brick4939 I'm not sure I understand the question, but if you want to learn more about how games work I highly recommend looking into game theory (the study, not the UA-cam channel). Start here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_theory Hope that helps!
@@TheBlitzgundamin my experience, that just leads to getting pounded by all the other players because you got too much value. Even though you don't have a real board state yet.
@@cheesy_87 that's also true for my experience though, and then I make it extra salty for them on my next turn as vengeance... unless one of my opponents would like to make a deal.
The only rocks I play on curve are the ones that come in tapped. If I can’t capitalize off a Sol Ring, I’m just asking for interaction, and sometimes maybe that’s what I want when playing bombs.
Speaking as someone who basically doesn't know shit, the thing that rubs me wrong about the Chatterfang deck issue is that, the way it sounds to me, this was someone telling the table to focus down one player before the first game even started. Sure, if a player's deck is too strong for the environment it's in, it makes sense to dogpile them; or better yet, to tell them that the deck is too strong and it's not gonna be an enjoyable game. And if everyone else at the table has already seen the deck in action, they'll know to keep it in check. But if not, then like. Let them get a game in. If the deck really is way too powerful, that's either gonna show during the game, at which point everyone else can still team up against them, or if it wins way too fast, the game's over quickly and everyone will have time for another game. That way, they can watch their powerful deck go off, and everyone else will actually know first-hand that it's powerful - rather than just one person ahead of time saying so, thus effectively going "nah let's just make it so one person doesn't get to play the game". Either way, it's probably a topic for "fucking talk to each other". Going somewhere to play games and have fun together with a friend (or in this case, partner) and then telling everyone else to team up against them is a shitty thing to do; if you have an issue with what they're doing, talk to them ahead of time.
After playing high level yugioh for 15 years, i got introduced to commander this year. It was very easy for me to see problem cards and synergies really quick and i like making decks that have answers. Sometimes chaos warping a rooftop storm or countering a commander IS the right play and although it is a casual format you cannot always expect other players to have the answer. Ive played Slivers for 6 months now and my commander is a removal magnet and I just know that everyone at the table is making the right choice so it hardly bothers me. When there is a huge skill gap between people at the table i reasonably think you can hold that sol ring until turn 4 or cast your commander a bit later just to ensure that other ppl "get to play first"
I have a policy for my own personal play: if one of the players is playing a new deck OR is generally new, I do not focus them or counter what they’re doing outside of certain things.
I do the same, If your learning a new deck I will avoid messing with it to a major degree in the first couple rounds just so the player can see how it actually runs. Same for a new player who doesnt get all the rules. I rather people learn than just get smacked down.
If you build your deck to do a specific thing, part of that is you need to be able to deal with the things that stop the specific thing you're trying to do. If your entire deck is centered around artifacts, you have do be able to deal withh collector ouphe and null rod. If your entire deck is centred around your commander, you have to be able to deal with oubliette and drannith magistrate. This is just a basic deck building thing.
I think casual commander has this really interesting thing where it is the main way lots of people play magic because they like that it can be silly and not focused on winning, but those qualities actually make it really really hard to build decks for. In formats where the goal is to win as efficiently as possible, deckbuilding is very straightforward (those decks may be intricately tuned or have complex strategies, but they always know exactly what they are trying to do). In casual commander there's way more factors that need to be considered, like making your deck's power consistent (so the other players can respond to your deck proportionately), making it fun for other people (and even then, some things will make one player upset but not bother another), and then do whatever cool thing you want to do (which could very easily interfere with the other factors). When I hear a story about someone's sol ring getting blown up or their chatterfang deck being targeted, it makes me think that there's probably an issue with the deck in one of these regards. That being said, this is where the social aspect comes in and things get super complicated, just because her deck has these flaws doesn't mean she should be forced not to have fun with it (like I said, deckbuilding for casual commander is super hard, I bet most people's decks have these problems). I think those are harder to pass judgement on because we're missing so much context that's essentially impossible to learn.
Dang, that was a cute baby... Edit: Also, our poster's bf is a pud. Snapping a Sol Ring early is mean but strategic. But politicking a table to focus down a deck before it does anything is metagaming and pathetic. So again, pud.
Yeah, destroying an early Sol Ring in a game of 1v1 magic is perfectly defensible; it's kinda fucked if you're setting up your GF to fail by politicking a table though.
Them killing the sol ring was eh what ever but the problem is the angel deck is still just a precon, it was never meant for a 1v1 and if there were no upgrades then the BF should have used a precon. I have the same deck I played against my friends Eldrazi precon and we knew going in it could be good or bad as both were not meant for a 1v1 but we played those specifically because they were both precons. The dick move was not paying a precon the bigger dick move was what you said about politicking before the game.... like bro... you're trash.
You know a game is in a degenerate state when you have to have a conversation beforehand and agree to not make it suck. And yes, I know this occurs in other games with ill-defined rules such as a certain one involving "space marines". Sidebar: Honestly, I'd rather have a Sol Ring in Commander vs. a Black Lotus. I was shocked to see them reprinting it back in the day. I had read an article (I think it was in Scry) that talked about how the designers of that time disliked Sol Ring because it gave you a lot more than you invested in terms of mana (Moxen and Lotus in the same boat). Then they printed Grim Monolith. /eyeroll
I feel enchantment decks like Sythis are very strong most of the time because people don't play with enough removal spells that target enchantments. Mostly people focus on creatures and artifacts. I've been trying to ideally use cards that can target any permanent but also with my meta playing more and more enchantment-themed decks I've also started to play cards that sweep all enchantments as well as other permanents like Austere Command/Farewell/Fracturing Gust, etc.
I'd feel like this was a more valid argument if EDH had a sideboard. Most games Tranquility is a dead card and I'm wasting a slot in case I play a sweaty tryhard/ easy mode player playing Enchantress? Naw, I'd rather either migrate to another pod or, do what I actually do, and put in enchantment wipes while claiming to be playtesting new pick-ups or moving one-ofs from another deck. When MTG hits critical mass of "remove target nonland permanent" cards we can talk but in the meantime Enchantress is a pod-warping archetype with not enough *good* removal available to claim it doesn't give you an inherent advantage against most decks.
@@lracseroom8286 Enchantress dominates in low power pods because players don't play enough threats, and creature-meta devolves into 10 creatures per player in a cowboy standoff. Why bother removing the enchantments when you can remove the player?
I usually like if not mono B then decks that are heavily black, followed by blue. Usually my deck has essentially zero ways to remove enchantments. Or if it does then very few and usually not the best, and having to permanently hold up a counterspell feels kinda bad. Some colors just aren't really equipped to deal with it. My friend has a shrines deck and if I don't have enchantment removal then I feel the need to kill him asap
So, I started playing the game right around original Theros, so if there's one thing I've learned the hard way, it's to have answers to enchantments (and preferably exile based). Indestructible haymaker gods that are only sometimes creatures really taught me to value having a variety of answers, and to make them versatile and/or playable some other way. If my answer can only answer one type of thing or it doesn't cycle/cantrip, it needs to be really effective and efficient at being an answer.
@@Red-Tower Besides, arguably, Purph all the old Gods have been power crept from relevance. Against Purph I usually answer with aggro or resource denial. You play Purph? Cool, I play stuff that hoses rocks and treasures. An eye for an eye.
When I first started EDH I was playing in the deep end right away with the beginnings of CEDH. I played numerous games but came to note a certain trend in card/deck choices which led me to realize that CEDH uses a fairly small pool of niche cards that are highly efficient. I almost fell into this ''trap'' and my deck building became boring, there are thousands of cards in MTG; I wanted to explore and have fun. I found a new group and toned down my decks and now have more fun and don't seem to be stuck with a single group like the CEDH group is on FNM. Every game has the potential to make us stronger with the knowledge we learn through reflection. What we do with that knowledge while that is a different matter LOL :P
That's some great self-reflection and reflection on the game of Magic. The reasons I play commander are for the fun of playing with lots of people, playing cards that don't have a home anywhere else, and the unique ways each person builds and plays their decks. So yeah, I never had an interest in cedh because it's basically optimizing a few specific strategies/combos using the same few cards in every deck and just boils down to 4 player vintage/legacy.
My wife and I play 1v1 commander all the time. Games are usually faster and it’s been a good way to quickly pick out weaknesses in our decks. Playing 1v1 means you are getting your opponent’s full wrath overall I think it makes us better players. Maybe not though, who cares, it’s a game. Swing big and have fun.
I feel these kind of problems arise from new players first contact with Magic being Commander. I played 1x1 for way longer than multiplayer, and having my stuff countered/milled/destroyed/discarded is just a normal part of the game. Just because a format is "casual" does not mean you shouldn't interact with stuff on the board. Hell, Mario Party is casual, but I will still try to screw you over on the minigames to win!
I feel like commander players can be so sensitive about the game. Commander really warps your thinking about deck building when you first enter the game because there are so many unwritten rules and the insane power level of the format.
I think it comes down to this. As an existing player when you see a new player start to come to games do you want to chase them away or be inviting to the play group. If you want to chase them away then play your best of best. If you want to make them feel welcomed and wanting to play with the group, then play more fun when they are around.
Yea people don't usually play modern and complain their opponent surgical extraction'd their win con. Usually you concede or go to your secondary win con
@@michael83479 Some do. They often don't come back to play that format. Some people don't like ruthless play and they find out some competitive formats have more of that than they like. That's ok, they tried it and didn't like it. But as for EDH, ask yourself this: do you play it to make friends or make money/prize?
Even a hyper competitive deck can slow it’s roll. It is 100% on the player to make the choice of whether they want to steamroll everyone every time regardless of level or if they want to get more games in and have fun. I run a Thoracle combo in my Jeleva deck and I can tutor it out pretty easily. But I have more fun with my friends when I don’t go that line unless I really want a win for the day. It’s more fun to meet at the table again than have everyone not want to play anymore.
that has it's limits. At an LGS recently and at a table of 4 it was 3 upgraded precons and an absolute charmer of a guy (sarcasm) who played Blue Farm as "it was his only deck". After the second game we just booted him from the pod. F*ck him.
Constant debates and arguments about how players should play this format is really starting to kill my interest in the only format I care to play. No matter what side of the table you are on with things like this, you are the villain in someone else's story. Sometimes your deck has cards that you see that tax or turn off things. Sometimes you see a board wipe and make someone feel bad for not having a haste enabler, but made infinite tokens. Some people touch themselves and go nowhere for 10 minutes because they are playing lands or storm or wheels. I agree with this video. Everything is down to individual responsibility to prepare for cards that they are weak to and understand that if you refuse to change, you cannot expect different results in other games.
My desire to do mana removal scales with the power level of the opponents. The boyfriend doesn't come off great, introducing a new player to commander and then rolling them in 1v1. I understand the OP's salt and think it's generally a good idea to let people expose themselves as spikes before you nuke them from orbit.
Didn't really seem like her first game. She said they played every sunday. A Sol ring isn't some casual whatever card. It's on the same powerlevel as lotus and moxen
@@michael83479 Sol Ring is a bit special due to how it comes with I believe every commander precons, and so new players and old players alike accepts that its here and. Especially with how common it is at every table, it might not be casual, but I think it's not something to get bent over with. In general, "casual" isn't very well defined concept, but I think a card less than 2 dollars, and most players that only have precons would have it, really I think makes it a great "powerful casual card". Also, while this seems a bit different for every table, but I think someone opening t1-2 Sol ring is a very exciting and spicy thing to happen, allowing for many dynamics, and cool things to start kicking really fast. It also goes both ways, just because someone played a sol ring doesn't mean their deck will necessarily beat yours anyhow. The game is a lot about piloting, some luck, and the other 99 cards in any given deck.
Also keeping 6 drops and a sol ring is not a good keep because you assume its going to stay around. But as you learn the game, you shouldnt always think best case senerio, you also think worst case too. I wouldnt not have kept that hand knowing its too reliant on sol ring and would mulligan
About Armageddon, I'm shifting to an opinion that people SHOULD play more mass land removal, because massive land ramp is basically the only strategy without a good counter, as long as we keep saying mass land removal shouldn't be used. Just don't use it all the time and things are fine.
I play collector ouphe in almost all my green commander decks. I've had people get salty over it before and hopefully showing them this video will help.
I know we've talked about proxies so much already, but please proxy commander decks. It's a great way to test-drive a deck to see if you like the playstyle and to see if it plays well in your pod. And if you proxy out a strong chatterfang deck and now you don't want to play it anymore, well losing a pile of proxies (hopefully) won't feel that bad. Or other players can proxy out stronger decks to compete with you.
proxying is the best way to play magic imo. i play almost entirely on cockatrice, an online program thats free and gives access to all the cards on scryfall. when theres no financial investment in your list i find it leads to a much healthier, growth oriented mindset
Problem: Most people who proxy, in my experience, "never get around" to actually buying the cards so they're playing a 2 thousand dollar deck they paid a few bucks for and I'm playing a 600$ deck with real cards annd it just kinda feels like they're cheating...because they are.
I love angel decks, main reason am building the powerpuff decks 1 mono white with giada other are {w} with red then green then blue then black all having main angel theme with a variance in play stye thus making my decks feel nice and not repetive.
I was in one of these threads a few weeks back and someone pointed out that the EDH format philosophy emphasizes a nebulous concept of 'fun' and 'casual' that you're trying to align with and so many people have so many different views about what that means (which is reflected in the deck power level discussion idea that everyone thinks their deck is a 7/8, etc). In a competitive environment you're optimizing all your plays and that is the yardstick - in EDH the yardstick is everyone's level of 'fun' which warps the play dynamic in a huge way...
I don't play Commander a lot...but it just seems like no one cares about winning BUT there ultimately HAS TO BE a winner. Just because someone plays Magic against you doesn't ruin the game. Regardless of which format you play -- reducing your opponents life total to zero is the entire point of the game. I think you can play for fun and still come in trying to win. There's just a bit too much emotion, at times, in games of Commander.
People 100% care about winning. It's just that they want to win their way, and anyone who doesn't align with that is 'ruining the game'. Nor is this a 'Commander' problem. Go ask about Burn or Ponza in the Pauper community and you'll hear some interesting feedback.
Being a "casual" format doesn't mean its not a powerful one. The two are not mutually exclusive. It doesn't have to be about who spent the most money on their deck either, there are TONS of resources out there to make BROKEN decks for less than it costs to buy a precon. The discussion of "to proxy or not to proxy" has come up in my play group lately too, mostly surounding high-cost staples like Sliver Hive, Rhystic Study and Buddy, and Smothering Tithe. I will never have an issue with someone proxying cards in Commander, nor will I begrudge then targeting my engine pieces. I do it too them just as often. Players need to learn some resiliency. You loosing the game doesn't make you less of a person any more than them winning makes them a better person.
I mean I have a mite beck that as soon as I get more then 9 mites I am the target that instantly gets killed (cuz mites can’t block). You can’t be mad at getting targeted for having a good deck. It only annoys me when the whole table or one player specifically tries to shut your game down when there are WAY better options on the table
People complaining about other player's threat assessment always makes me a bit wary. Your opponents know what to be afraid of. The better option for you is not always the better option for your opponents.
Presenting threat is a big part of closing games. You have to be a little sneaky. Nobody in their right mind is going to look at 9 potential poison counters and say "yeah, I can handle that if it comes my way". Some mechanics are much more obvious in their threat than others. The person drawing 4 per turn from an untouched rhystic study sitting behind a Smothering Tithe with a wall of counterspells PROBABLY is more threatening, but you have a loaded gun pointed at their head, and you're slow on the trigger.
@@mrpandabites no, I find most casuals have shit threat assessment. I’ll be sitting with a do-nothing creature in play while an opponent has the loaded gun and the idiots will scream that I have a creature that simply does something inconsequential or otherwise only gives marginal value. I’ll have something for marginal card draw and they’ll kill it for being petty because I answered a threat from them 5 turns ago while a different player is clearly setting up with MUCH more advantage. Sometimes I cyce-rift to reset the board because I’m BEHIND and I’ll get targeted as if I have anything more than mana rocks and a creature that etb’d 3 turns ago. I’m much more forgiving of people interacting with me if I showed a much more dominant position all game, like while piloting Prosper or Elminster or Ohrvar, but not when there’s a much more present threat they’ve demonstrated being blind to or ignorant of even after I accurately point it out. I’m not mad when someone finds a way to nuke my sensei’s top, but not when that removal should have hit the opponent’s ashnod’s altar or other such combo piece (discounting when said top IS the combo piece but as I don’t have citadel in my Prosper it hardly counts). I also keep a few precons or near precon-level decks for play with casuals but let me tell you even some veteran players have zero idea about threat assessment while even playing those. If anything those games are where I suffer the most from petty bs. The people that brew and play more powerful decks are far more situationally aware and games are actually fun because people are actually doing shit to win. Casuals that want to win are far better players than those just looking for something *too* casual. They’re better off playing Catan or CAH for slow and more socially cooperative experiences with a dash of winning as a spice.
I can definitely see where the poster is coming from. I think part of the problem has to do with how it feels to have a mana source removed vs, for example, having a creature removed. Sol Ring's legality leads players to think of it as a utility, as little different than a land, when in reality Sol Ring facilitates play that seems incongruous in power level with average plays. The person accelerating out their 5 and 6 mana angels isn't doing the same thing as someone threatening to execute a winning combo on turn 2 in a cEDH game, but their plan might still be more difficult to play against than they realize. I think WotC should also do more to encourage people to play more lands in Commander. It's not uncommon to see casual decks that play mana acceleration despite not reliably being able to hit a fourth land drop naturally. Since lands are more difficult to interact with than artifact ramp, it might lead to more fun games if more players focus on making impactful plays on curve.
okay the sol ring thing? I can see that, it's rough but okay. Politicking in the pregame to gang up on her Chatterfang deck though, that's reminding me a lot of the guy I knew who used to play poker with his friends and would go so hard into it that, mysteriously, nobody wants to play with him anymore. Dude is going to end up with either a partner who no longer plays magic, or single.
For my own mental health, I have to mute EDH/Pod/whatever on Twitter. It's like no one wants to play Magic. They just want everyone to show off what their deck does with no resisitance and one person randomly wins. And like, in a home pod, there can be a ton of house rules/deck building restrictions/etc but like, if you out to a store and get blown out (even after R0 discussion) that's not some heinous crime. That's Magic.
90% of time I think saltiness, especially from newer players, comes from poor threat assessment, which mainly comes with experience for any format. It can be hard to explain to new players why a zulaport cutthroat can be scarier than a 10/10 Trample creature, and a lot of times, it'll take a while before they understand. However, I do think it's important to play with people's feelings in mind. My philosophy has moved away from winning in edh to making the biggest impact. The two can overlap but sometimes this means teaming up against the player in the lead and using all of your resources to give the last player a shot at winning. It makes for good memories
I call it my “enforcer” play style where I will tame and politic against the king at the table and assist who is struggling. I don’t care much for winning as I do about the play experience. Having said that it’s a fine line avoiding “kingmaking” myself, unless it happens to be me 😊
My playgroup is pretty experienced with years under our belts. We don’t do the “rule zero” because we understand who is the biggest threat by what is on the board and we each understand that the game state shifts constantly and can surmise what strategy the other is going for. When it comes to new players, as experienced players, we should help them along more than just stomp on them. If someone is not having fun they are less likely to return to the table.
Рік тому+3
I agree. If you have a playgroup, you should address the questions of fast mana and many other questions when you encounter game states or cards that seem too oppressive or unfun regardless of how they are used. Curating a playing environment in such a way will help a lot. But that only applies for a set playgroup. When you play at your LGS, having those conversations will have a much lesser effect, as the people with whom you play will most likely change (otherwise, it would be a playgroup even if you gather at your LGS). I dislike fast mana and have started to take it out of my decks, and I would advise others to do the same instead of playing arms race if you want the people around you to change.
Commander has definitely warped our perception of the game. I have been playing for a pretty long time and grew up on kitchen table/lunch room magic. You would build at least 60 card deck, run no more than 4 copies of a card, and that was about it. Looking back on it these were the most casual games in existence. I loved sol ring and ran 4 of them. My big payoffs were howl of the nightpack and verdeloth the ancient. I remember I built a red burn deck with repercussion in it and some POS named paul got super whiney and said to me "This card is older than my nephew. You shouldn't play cards older than my nephew." People have different ideas of what is fun and what is casual. I do think commander has warped out senses a bit. Here comes my hot take: I think Commander and deck building for Commander has made a larger percent of the player base worse at magic and deckbuilding. I think when you build 60 card, to play in standard or whatever, you approach it with a different mindset about you know, winning. You don't need to be sweaty, but you are supposed to win. You think about the best ways to do that. When you focus on only commander, you focus on how to have fun, which is awesome. But it does mean that especially newer players don't learn about running interaction. They just assume everyone is here for the same fun they are. Which is untrue. We need to have realistic expectations for how games will work, and that comes from playing a more "competitive" format. Ironically I think commander has become way more competitive than the old lunchroom magic ever was. So back when you would have your 60 card deck right? You would sit down and play with someone, and then someone else would just join you. Then another and another. We could have 5-6 player games, but it didn't take hours. Now if you try to do a 5 pod of commander people get this look on their face like you just asked to bang their sister. So yeah, commander has warped our senses a bit. I think it may be too late though, it's too ubiquitous.
I think the Commander-ization of Magic has been a huge negative for the game overall -- not just in how the average Magic player builds and thinks but also in the card design. But hey, it brings in the money, I guess.
"You don't need to be sweaty, but you are supposed to win" if you're not sweaty you don't win, those formats all require playsets of stupidly expensive cards to be competitive at all. commander players only play for fun and new players never learn about interaction? you get the death stare for wanting to do a 5-player game? where did you get this from, exactly? you're making a lot of spurious generalizations. how it it harder to build a 60 card deck with playsets than a 100 card singleton deck? I have to look at more than ~10 individual cards and i don't have the crutch of playsets of all the best cards to rely on, i have to individually evaluate every card and how it synergizes or doesn't with every other card in the deck. i can't just jam all the fetch lands and splash whatever format staples i want unless my commander's identity allows for it. 60-card formats have the sweaty cookie-cutter builds, not commander.
@@themoops4006 He wasn't talking about decks you build to take down a 5K, he's talking about the old, forgotten days of "kitchen table" 60-card magic - something I'm nostalgic for as well. If you don't think Commander has sweaty cookie-cutter builds, you aren't paying attention. If I see an Ezuri, Claw of Progress deck at the table, I'm confident I can name 50% of the spells in their deck at minimum, and their win con is rushing to find Sage of Hours. Everyone splashes "format staples" if they can afford them, and Commander has a plethora. Deadly Rollick, Fierce Guardianship, the oft-maligned Sol Ring, Command Tower, Reliquary Tower, etc. etc. I can also confirm that most of the problems he discusses about Commander playgroups are part of my experience as well. If you have avoided that, I'm genuinely glad for you, but as far as I can tell, he is far from an outlier.
@@trdl23 the fact that commander decks have ~62 different individual cards and pull from a much larger card pool means they're inherently less "cookie-cutter" than decks that have ~10-15 different individual cards plus a sideboard and a smaller card pool. and on top of that there are hundreds and hundreds of commanders. its just math. to argue commander isn't the least-sweaty constructed format right now is ridiculous it has by far the lowest barrier to entry financially and offers the most variance in deck choice and deckbuilding. obviously commander has staple cards like fierce guardianship and deadly rollick but decks aren't nearly as reliant on any individual card as they are in other formats. its only a single card out of 100 i probably won't even draw it most games. in other formats where the deckbuilding is much more narrow missing multiple staple cards hurts the deck a lot more especially when it needs playsets. i feel like i have a lot less wiggle room in how i build rakdos midrange in modern if i want to be relatively competitive as opposed to og atraxa in commander. can i get away with not running any copies of ragavan, bowmaster and bloodstained mire and run something else in their place? i can play atraxa and still mop the floor with everyone without rhystic study, smothering tithe, deadly rollick, fierce guardianship, fetches and shocks etc. you said it yourself these cards get "splashed" into commander decks when the player happens to have them, they don't need to buy four copies of each for the deck to function meaningfully this works very much against your argument that commander is the sweat format. my experience with commander hasn't been much different from my experience playing casual 60-card kitchen table magic years ago. back then i built whatever i wanted outside of what was banned or house ruled, we'd sometimes play big multiplayer games that would take a long time, we played casually. same applies now that im playing commander so i don't really know what you guys think has been taken away from the game. i think you're just making a lot of stuff up in your heads and projecting that onto the broader playerbase.
@@themoops4006 I believe you when you say your experience has been positive. I would ask you also to believe us when we say that ours has not, and not to assume we are "making a lot of stuff up in our heads" simply because it doesn't align with you. You are correct that Commander has the lowest barrier to entry of all "formats" - god knows they have enough precon products rotting on LGS shelves. Just today, I smashed a pod of decently tuned decks with my Goreclaw deck I built out of whatever junk I had lying around and a few cards from the bulk rare bin. That's how we old-school judges used to build our decks, especially showing off obscure cards we loved. I taught people what Thicket Elemental was today. However, a lot of casual play didn't involve "formats" at all. As with any format, players will find ways to optimize. EDHRec, et al. has made netdecking and "sweating" as common in this format as in 60-card constructed if you play with randos. I know the refrain is "find the right group," but too often those group devolve into arms races within a couple of months and people fixate on their instant-win combos. You seem to have dodged that bullet, and I envy that. Like you said, back in the day, people built what they wanted, and sometimes playing a deck that relies on consistency is itself creative and fun. I don't mind that Commander is a choice. I mind that Magic's design has twisted it into being the **only** choice.
In my hapatra token deck, I had similar problems with wrath effects. And that's why I use a lot of board protection, and you would be surprised how much there are in green/black. Especially warping wail, being able to counter sorceries, which majority of boardvipes are. others are golgary charm, heroic intervention, and wrap in vigor. There's also Wail of the Nim, but it's the worst one, and 4 boardvipe protection is overkill.
To be fair, the collector ouphe issue WAS talked about in turn 0 talk, and the ouphe player metagamed and specifically picked a hate deck for that strat
Yep. And once it was removed, they killed the pod. They used the rule 0 convo to target the equipment player and pub stomp. I’m actually really disappointed none of those things got addressed
I came back to the game in January 2023 after having last played all the way back in Legions; I have always felt it is a massive social faux pas to mess with someone mana base if it is something like lands and sol ring. While sol ring is good in every way, it feels almost unnecessary and akin to bullying to target it; obviously there are sometimes exceptions to the rule but it’s very FeelsBadMan.jpg when someone targets you early in the game while you are playing what is clearly designed to be a fun and thematic deck. Sometimes it’s the right call to play your 8/10 deck like a 6/10 deck when someone (especially your partner) is trying out something new; it’s called reading the room and being polite. Who cares if you lose while someone’s tries their new deck and you decided to play a little friendlier? Rerack after and then play appropriately.
Personally the biggest part of this post I personally see weight to this newer players discussion was the fact that when they brought it up to the playgroup to talk about it, there wasn't a "Ahh that's rough" or "Dang that sucks," the response was "Well that was kind of dumb of you to keep that hand wasn't it 👁️👁️". Which if that ever happened to me I would also be understandably salty.
Maybe your friend groups are different but I've seen my friend keep a 2 lander that doesn't work out and we're all like your fault bro, that's what mulligans are for. If you get salty cuz people told you that you kept a bad hand that got easily countered maybe grow thicker skin then. Unless I missed the part where their friends were making fun of them all night, ostracizing them and that was the culmination of it. Whatever, it was 1 game of commander there's more to be played.
@@michael83479 i got btfo'd years ago by keeping a 1 land hand, a sol ring, and multiple 3 drops that fixed my mana, and i got mana-tithed by the mono white player who also kept a 1 land hand that did so exclusively to counter t-1 sol rings. We all laughed, and me and that guy obviously lost since we both got landscrewed
There was a UA-cam video talk about how sol ring being cheap is a problem for this very reason. It is hard to separate cedh and lower end decks. I believe it was talking about budget in commander.
I love my group. We rarely have issues. If someone made a new deck we tend to ease up on them for a sec to kinda see what the deck can do. Of course if you turn 1 sol ring it's on sight still.
If it's the first time the deck is being used, I'd just wait until they hit 4-5 land before destroying it. Tell them something "I can blow it up now. But as long as you agree not to counter my destruction, I'll let you tap it 3 times before I do."
i've seen some very high-strung cEDH players that want you to sequence perfectly and make optimal plays (like choosing removal targets, counterspell usage, etc) but otherwise, yeah.
Pft. Yeah, right lol I've seen grown men cry in tournaments because they missplayed or had an interaction countered. At least I can agree that most people in cedh, know what they're playing into.
The people you both mentioned while agreeing that what I said is generally true are the exceptions. The attractive part of cEDH are that there are way less of them than you’ll run into in random casual pods, and they’re usually the most fun to play casual games with too.
I always feel bad for destroying people's Sol Rings, I usually try to remove anything else before I go for people's Sol Rings. It's just a rule that I impose on myself
I completely agree with everything you said. Recently I got into a new play group up until now I was like everybody take as many mulls as you need don't worry. My opinions on mulligans have changed. The store rule is any amount of free mulls necessary. A dude I was playing with brought a wubrg dragon deck. He told us it has 27 lands in it. I said I wouldn't build my deck like that.(you built that deck wrong.) first turn land sol ring signet! People abuse these rules they build their decks incorrectly they take advantage. I try abiding by the 1 mull rule but even I abuse it to try and get ramp in and all colors in my opener, at least I build my deck with this in mind making it statistically likely that I will get ramp from those 2 opening trys. I also don't build/ play decks I wouldn't want to play against. These rules seem easy build, based off of how you want to play but the games filled with lackwits and greed mongers.
(Commenting before I’ve finished the video.) When I have a friend who is trying a new deck I purposefully choose a deck to play that I think THEY will do well against. It’s cools seeing a new deck or strategy go off. When I play I don’t go easy. I still try to win. Hell it’s great to win against the odds. But winning isn’t always as fun as seeing a new deck go off in a way you haven’t seen before. At the very least I won’t ever counter a new deck. I’m not being out out my artifact hate Kibo deck against a players new out-the-box Phyrexian Artifact deck.
I think we have reached the point where people jumping into Commander have absolutely no idea how mtg is played and don’t want to learn. Perhaps it’s a combination of Arena handling the rules for you, and Commander pushing the idea of playing solitaire but it’s definitely noticeable.
Don't blame this on Arena. Arena not only teaches you how Magic is actually played way better than being taught wrong by some old dude who's been playing wrong for 25 years, but Arena literally only has 1v1 and teaches you how to play competitively.
I've heard this a couple times but as a newer player who got in through Arena (and now plays a lot of paper too) I just don't buy it. It was a little jarring getting used to doing everything myself, but when it came to my first game I just watched how everyone else did it, asked questions and picked it up quick. I don't think I'm especially clever, most people are probably in a similar boat.
I absolutely agree with this post. Not only does it make people better players, but it also makes them better human beings if they're more self reflective. I always see a bunch of posts online of people whining about what other people do, when the very first thing they should do is ask what they themselves should be doing different. I learned long ago that trying to have the world adapt to you is an unwinnable battle. It's just better to accept that you have to adapt to the world.
I dont think you got around to the point of them keeping a "bad hand." But overall i agree with the commentary. Ive been struggling a bit in the group i play with for a variety of reasons. Part is due to the range of cards i personally have access to, part is how casual or refined some of my decks are, and part is just how im regarded as a person at the table by the other players. I typically dont win, and many of those times im first one out and waiting another hour for a game to finish. This ruins the experience for me, but i shuffle up and play in the next one anyway because i really do like the game despite the hate i garner. I also have 15 or so decks to choose from, and those range in power and synergy. Often times, its not a matter that i choose a lower power deck, im just seen as persona non grata and focused down before i even get a board state. I feel for the person who vented their frustrations. Sometimes it is a bit one sided at the table, but i agree its also necessary to communicate with the group at hand before games get up to speed
@@Blacklodge_Willy Torbran burn, Darien soul sisters, Muldrotha, Arjun wheel, Phenax mill, First Sliver, and i just recently slapped together Urtet. Urtet is the only one i actually slotted fast mana beyond Sol Ring into. The rest are just refined by years of play-testing and expanding my overall collection.
I just set myself up as archenemy in pods with new players, no matter if i'm playing my durdly lowest power deck i tell them i'm probably the threat. If i get beat down great, as long as they had fun beating me down i'll have had fun trying to stay alive
I do the same thing but without the declaration. I'll rush out some annoying pings/unoptimized removal to get everyone hitting me with something every turn. Either they kill me or someone else becomes an actual threat but it was fun either way.
I run an LGS, we had a group of 4 playing socially, when P1 decided to drop Notion thief into play, the warning lights began. So P2 cloned it, P3 cloned it also, each player trying to scoop the previous player to the card draw. P4 offered a 3 card method to remove all of the notion thieves from play so they could at least play a decent game. Socially contracted, the players all agreed, (it required dumb blocks but P234 didn't want notion thief in play at all. P1 on their next turn immediately reanimated their notion thief, cast teferi's puzzlebox, then cast windfall. The table opted to just eject that player from the game as they were mocking the other players for being such fools as to trust them. Funnily enough, P2,3 and 4 players are getting more and more into competitive 1v1 formats and playing EDH as the casual "there's 3-5 of us, let's have a game" as opposed to "Welcome to the commander the gathering night, there are no formats, only 'mander" mentality we see.
Gotta be ready for everything. The other day I was playing and one if my opponents played something to search others decks for an instant or sorcery. He then asked who has a board wipe? The others didn't know. I said mine definitely has a few, because all of my decks have a few. Even though I haven't played this deck in a while. I'm prepared with interaction
This is the same thing as people complaining about their commander being removed. Like if you build a monocolor deck like selva hydras for example, your deck NEEDS your commander to function. If selva gets removed your game plan is set back a lot but like you have to expect that. The table can’t be expected to just let you ramp out a 15/15 turn 3. If you make a greedy deck that relies on 1-2 cards, expect those cards to be interacted with 95% of the time and don’t be upset because you were the one that choose to play a greedy deck
yeah any deck I have that relies heavily on the commander runs lots of ramp, protection, counterspells if Im in blue, etc. Heck, I play Tibalt's Trickery in W/R Bruenor just to protect the boi.
I definitely empathize with them, it really sucks getting targeted down by your group. I made a pretty low power atraxa deck with a really complicated and goofy combo in it and after I told my group about it they targeted me down REALLY hard, game after game. It got to the point where I was visibly upset, nearly crying, because I hadn't gotten past turn five in almost two hours of play time. If my partner wasn't there for me to sit with and whine to about it, I probably would've turned into the joker
one more thing people should understand that the point of the game is essentially to build your deck well and pilot your deck well so aside from things like blind draws being unlucky it is kinda on you to keep the game going and also you are responsible for each other's experience in commander games
i take this "what can i do better" to heart. i am widely accepted to be the archenemy. like we play EDH but even then im still archenemy. i tune my decks for turn 7 for my playgroup. to make the overall experience better, im as honest as i can be. if someone is asking what they should blow up and they're new, ill give them all options and then openly admit that my enchantment, artifact or creature is the biggest threat at face value...or ill be honest about my intentions (again, if they're new) another thing i minimize is infinite combos. i might add 1 or 2 but my goal is not AIMING to assemble the combo as the primary wincon, just as a side piece. or only add combos that aren't auto win. just infinite mana or card draw, or give 1 turn clocks once its assembled. and finally, ill be very vocal about EVERY thing i do. "tap 2 mana to cast dockside. any responses?" AND I TAP MY MANA ALL THE WAY SO THERE'S NO CONFUSION or ill move to combat, at the beginning of combat this, thos and this triggers, any responses? ok ill do x y and z then declare attackers....etc" this guarantees that everyone at the table knows what im doing and can see that everything is legit. so i dont catch shit for "being sneaky and thats how all those things happen, bc no one heard you so no one could respond" no, if im BBEG at the table, i demand and give off big main character energy"
Funnily enough about the 2 mana hate bear shutting someone down, I felt kinda bad a couple weeks ago. A friend was playing a somewhat greedy hand, and I also kept a greedy hand. But that greedy hand was a "Sword of Forge of Frontier + Thalia, Guardian of Thraben with the grim monolith to push both of them out but not enough lands to actually pay the rest of my hand." And the Thalia, depressingly enough, shut them off because the extra mana punished their greedy hand. And then ultimately i took two misses on my Forge and Frontier to not hit a land. So I had basically brought the both of us down, and let the other two players grow WAY stronger during the early parts of the game. It ended up going okay later, but a dumb play of my Harmonious Archon just gave the game to the naya tokens deck while I was trying to stymie the bleeding from the large demon tokens the Abaddon warhammer precon pushed out. (ended up removing Harmonious Archon once I got the white Court from WoE it was that bad of a play.)
I had someone recently screech “this is just the dies to removal argument!” when he complained about Drannith Magistrate, and I asked if Magistrate was often sitting untouched the whole game as he implied, or several turns. He kept refusing to specify. He also kept ignoring questions on if people should have redundant effects similar to the commander. (Think Lathril being the only source of elf tokens vs additional sources.). I’ve never been bothered by an opposing Drannith because there’s other spells I can play and cast, but some people start getting nasty the moment I say I’m fine with opponents playing Drannith.
1v1 commander is a really different game. My cousin wanted to try his werewolf deck and asked it to play against any prebuilt decks I had as the ones I had built were on a different budget than the ones his playgroup had set for themselves. Luckily I had the two sided secret lair deck and played him with that. I had a lead over his deck until he played Ezuri's Predation. At that point without a boardwipe I couldn’t build back to win and lost in a turn or two later. Some deck are meant to be played with 4 players and can’t live until solo focus/other taking care of issues that arrive.
This is kinda the reason why I think, in spite of being the casual format of MTG, Commander is very brutal for a beginner. It is a casual play-space, but it's one I think you get the most out of when you're already in the know. Even beyond just the innate challenges of a 100-card singleton format, the politics that surrounds Commander is a whole game you need to learn to play within the game of Magic you're already learning. You have to balance things like tempo and momentum in a way that takes alot of finesse that a new player won't have. Overplay and you explode, because you got ganked by the whole pod. Stall too much and you end up as collateral in the arms race surrounding you. It's a pretty advanced talent to require and I don't think it's something you can "just play without," because stories like this would otherwise not be so commonplace. Even in more chilled pods, it's just a natural reflex to "Get rid of the thing that's gonna win." This was how I saw it when getting in. I played a bit of standard and got to do some sealed decks before most people I played with just veered into commander. Most of the time, I felt like a rat at the foot of titans, slinking past and hoping to poke some meager dents into their armor. I adapted of course and found in it a love for highly recursive decks that grind the opponent to the nub by refusing to stay down, usually ending the game with enough board-presence and value that no amount of wipes can fully scrub me off the map (a.k.a, the golgari grindset). However, this is the perspective of a very core audience member, who had spent years by that point grinding Yu-Gi-Oh and generally approaches learning new things with the expectation that improvement happens over months upon months of getting beaten to the ground. Even then, I still don't think I'm very good at commander, though part of that is also that I actually just don't have the taste-buds for the political game and would rather just play legacy instead.
I agree that it's complex, or at the least requires mutual understanding which can be hard to come by, especially when playing with strangers. multiplayer games of any kind are generally harder to master, whether it's a video game or a board game or a game with complex rules interactions (not to mention complex social interactions) like magic
I agree that people should be more reflective when it comes to gameplay and deck building, but it goes both ways. "Maybe I should be less reliant on X aspect of the game so I don't get blown out by Y" is important to consider, but also "Maybe I don't need to run Y because it scarcely matters 80% of the time, and makes people I play with upset whenever it does work" is another vital form of self reflection that a lot of people in this comment section seem completely unaware of. If you're in Green and you want to hate out Treasures just run Veridian Revel or something.
A similar situation happened to me with this exact precons. One of my friends bought the precon and the first night he played it we ended up in a situation where I couldn’t really deal with flyers on board so i was forced to remove them. I ended up removing his board a few times. I felt bad and he was obviously salty but at the same time didn’t just want to lose. Later i was thinking if there was a better way to handle it but I couldn’t really come up with anything.
The solution is managing your feelings here. He presented threats to you, and you had answers. What is the problem? Any rational self-interested person would respond that way. Pre-cons can lead to notoriously grindy situations. Thats not you being impolite to your friend, that's just how the decks run.
He should of balanced his gas with the threat of wipes. I keep a minimal enough board state to be strong and keep gas just in case. If you misplay all your cards to multiple board wipes, it's a learning opportunity.
This is the exact reason I like CEDH, no feels bad no misunderstanding, no miscommunication. Everyone knows what they signed up for and what to expect. It's also super cheap because the CEDH community almost universally allows proxies.
THIS! I switched to cEDH a few years ago and I do not miss the salty cry babies at my local "normal" EDH tables. Fair point "they" were absurdly salty - to a point were people got flamed for running Mana crypt and Ancient tomb. But still cEDH has such awholesome crowd playing it unlike EDH.
I think a counterbalance can be found in cEDH tables. You get hyper flamed on for misplaying, as if that makes you somehow not a true cEDH player. Partly because since everyone wants to win, you misplaying can inadvertently cause one other player to also be locked out of the game.
Well, to a point I get it. You can't just blast counter spells left and right then let the infinite combo through. Make decisions as best as possible with the information you have but if you're misplaying cards a lot, you deserve a couple of words at least.
Do the people spreading this gospel ever consider that people might not want to play cEDH? Specially when they see how shallow the card pool is? Also having to play feels bad cards and against them? IMHO, this is worse advice than "run more removal", because it is far more manipulative than real advice. Tone-Deaf cEDH players 😂
I learned how to play magic in 1v1 commander and let me tell you.... My husband was not gentle when I first started and we really had to work on our communication. I do think it's ok (and maybe even preferred) to play suboptimally when playing with a new player.
One time a friend played a Sol Ring into Arcane Signet which resulted in a turn 2 Nekusar. The table all kind of groaned at it and he just looked at us completely confused as to why we didnt like his turn one or turn 2 plays.
You built Chatterfang, an infamous combo Commander that oppresses entire tables. You also Turn 2 Sol Ring'd. Those were both the right plays. As for the Ouphe player, they play a Stax deck themselves, so malding over Ouphe shutting off a Voltron deck is a "What else did you expect?" moment.
To me, there is nothing with lower stakes than 1v1 commander while waiting for a pod- it’s more about letting people goldfish with a bit more reactive environment
I'm going to give some advice that can be used both in commander and in relationships, that is communication. In this case, this problem could have been avoided if either the boyfriend or girlfriend would have said something along the lines of "please don't target my sol ring or I won't target your sol ring and in return I will do X". I am very competitive; my wife knows it and understands that she is a valid target when we play. However, I am aware that certain plays may cause problems so I simply communicate what I am going to do, give my reasons, and see if we can come to an acceptable agreement.
Problem is, they were sitting down for a 1v1 game while they waited for other people to finish. There is nothing you can do in 1v1 that could offset someone's desire to Abrade a Sol Ring. You can't offer to deal with a different player's stuff etc because there isn't another player.
@@JamiesonLock even if it's a 1-on-1, they are in a friendly match and not in a tournament where there is a prize or money involved. You can still talk to your opponent, especially if it's your significant other. ESPECIALLY, if they built a new deck and want to try it out.
I see what you mean however I think what she expressed wasn’t necessarily she’s mad that the things she’s dependent on are being removed, more so she’s expressing that the way her play group plays isn’t something that is good for a casual player. She said she’s fairly new and just got a new deck to play with them and they aren’t necessarily being considerate in that. I know we usually would say “you need to run more of…you should expect players to…” but with newer players they want to be immersed and it’s up to us for that to really drive home because it’s a social game. If I had done the most optimal strategy against my friend who just bought his first precon, that isn’t going to help him love the game. What I did was I just played cards that boosted my own board and let him play his cards for him to see what he could do, not give him the win but let him run with the deck. Now that he’s fallen for the game and is learning we now do more optimal plays because we got to a point where if one player lags for a turn or two the other with increase their board tenfold and win quickly.
Zooming out one step further, folks need to realize that sometimes, it just isn’t your night. Bad matchups, bad draws, things not going your way…it happens. Everyone gets salty once in awhile too - we’re not all chipper influencers saving our best material for the cameras. Chill out, meet people where they are, and don’t take what happens in a fantasy card game too seriously.
We had this problem of crippling a deck in the first couple of rounds with a play like this, we have introduced a restart mechanic, when something like this happens we just restart the game so everyone can play instead of sitting there going draw-go without playing anything.
If you think T1 land, Sol Ring makes the table look nervously in your direction, imagine the piles of delicious, delicious salt that comes from T1 land, Sol Ring, Mana Crypt, Teferi's Puzzle Box...
I literally had 2 games yesterday where we flung across all players 10+ removal spells between two players and the others had one removal spell each (a path and a black gearhulk). There also someone played the angle deck and was a little frustrated why we kept removing his big bomby game win threating angles
I play edh with my wife and buddy, both of which are more casual players. I play more competitive formats so I feel like I have a huge advantage coming into these games just based on the difference in skill level/threat assessment. I found that in order to keep things fun for everyone in the evening, I sometimes have to nerf my strategies. Whether that means not always insta-killing a threat, or just being honest about what I plan to do. I find that sharing information and consulting my opponents on the best play, leads to more fun games.
Same thing for whe I play my Jumpstart cube with my gf or people who know the rules but don't play Magic actively...at all..
However I'm not a very good liar and I suspect they know I'm going easy on them.
Sometimes though they just roll two synergistic, powerful decks and roll TF out of me. I actually LIKE when that happens.
This. I don't actively hold back, as I feel it would be a bit insulting for them to know I'm able to win and just chose not to, but I vocalize my thought processes and assessments. Not to push people to do things or play their decks for them, but to just let people in on what I'm thinking as far as my own strategy is concerned.
Yeah I tend to be the same way a lot of times. Especially when it comes to things like keeping track of triggers or how someone sequences a play.
At the end of the day, I just want everyone at the table to have a good time, and if everyone's deck gets to do it's thing at least once that feels like a win to me.
Being open about how your deck works honestly just evens out the playing field since more experienced players already know this, it just brings more casual players up to speed. I played Harmonic Prodigy in my Zaffai, Thunder Conductor deck and a friend tried to remove another creature on board. I literally said "I think you should remove my harmonic prodigy, it's the best thing on board and could really let me pop off," and it massively improved the game.
@@alfred8936 very much this. i also find pulling punches insulting. also it does not help with gaining experience as a player as it is based on fake information.
This is why i play strip mine and crucible in every deck, because theres a finite amount of fun in every game and im gonna have all of it.
lmao
so you stall your mana acceleration to remove one land a rotation of the table. Such badass. Very cool.
The actual Chad move is to play Death Cloud and Pox and keep it to yourself because they don't "destroy" lands.
dust bowl here
I play it in my azusa deck just in case I get annoyed by someone.
@@lracseroom8286don't understand turn two casted smallpox
One of my favorite commander mini-games/stretch goals, is collect the sol rings. Feels great having 2 of your friend's sol rings in your grasp. 3 is, you're gonna get hunted, but it doesn't matter if you win anymore. You've already had the sweetest victory there is.
The real Lord of the Rings.
Even better is to send em all to the shadow realm with Farewell
One ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.
I love playing decks that steal or borrow my opponents things. It’s so funny to take their big beat stick and whack them with it.
I used to play EDH in a group where doing basically anything in game was taboo, turning every match into a 3 hours battlecruiser slogfest. It sucked, playing become a chore and when you eventually got killed you got the privilege of waiting like 2 hours before the game was over to get back into it.
I now have extremely strong feelings about this whole 'taking it easy' on the table, the faster the game is over, the faster we get to play more and more interesting magic!
This is what turned me off completely from commander in the first place, I feel like if that's what people are after, maybe we should just be playing like a Big fancy euro board game instead of magic.
@mollylong3571 they just wanna goldfish their decks but infront of others
my first playgroup had the opposite problem of "I'm so scared anyone will establish a boardstate I run 12 wipes" which also led to excruciatingly long games which then devolved into everyone playing combo to game the meta.
I quit playing with them when COVID hit and never looked back.
I love playing cEDH for this reason. I absolutely love playing EDH casually, with silly strategies and weird cards that don't work anywhere else, but I go into those games never expecting to win; only expecting to have fun.
cEDH takes away most of the potential salt, though. The "rule 0" is "play the best deck you can and try to win, no holds barred." You've got a meta that evolves as frequently as new sets come out, but only slightly, and you've got a healthy mix of weird/fringe decks that seem innocuous at first, but end up flipping the meta on its head for a minute. I'm not saying all cEDH players aren't salty, but it's nice knowing everyone has the same expectations coming into a game, and I seldom walk away from a cEDH game feeling salty.
Thank for the video, Vince. I'm grateful for my established playgroup whenever I see situations like this!
I love high power games, I find the social contract a crutch for people to be bad and salt more than actually improve their experience. I especially love the cEDH mentality with lower end decks. People respect the plays way better and actually make interesting assessments of the table.
one of the hardest things about commander is under standing the playgroup. If the playgroup is mismatched it causes a bunch of problems, I really feel for the Chatterfang player because I've been in the same situation. One player at the table says "this guys deck is really strong" the first time I go to play it with the group, and that game my commander gets literally 3 removal spells thrown at it the first time I cast it, and 3 counterspells the second time I cast it. Locking someone out of the game just because another person at the table is very unfun for that player, especially if the player who convinced the entire rest of the table to lock me down was playing a deck just as strong and steamrolls the game without even a single piece of removal being spent on his board other than mine.
Getting into what you're saying about being self reflective, I will often ask my group what decks they're planning on playing before I decide to play certain decks I've made since I already know it'll be an uphill battle at the table.
Sometimes we'll all talk about what kind of game we even want (i.e. aggressive and quick or more chill) and maybe that means letting someone keep their good early setup to react to a bigger thing later.
I very regularly will adjust how I play magic when I know my friends or wife are really excited about a certain card or a new deck. Im generally a much more competitive player but as long as we have a proper rule zero conversation Im more than happy to adjust how I play to meet the expectations of the pod.
Thank you for this video!
Honestly it's this kind of limiting behavior that takes all of the fun out of commander for me. I love playing midrange and because of this I try to build with an out for any situation. I never try to hate anyone out or shut them down but I do have interaction and that has visibly taken the wind out of people's sails t the point I rarely play with strangers anymore. I mostly play with friends because they don't get upset. I can only play like once a week so it feels awful if it always feels like I can't have interaction without someone feeling bad. I play commander because win or lose it's fun not because my deck has to go off every game
The Chatterfang thing actually feels way worse. Going into the game and preparing everyone for someone to be too powerful before the deck has ever been tested in a goup environment is very much a dick move. First you don't necessarily know it's too powerful, and if someone is newer or more casual you don't know if they'll be able to take advantage of all the synergies and stuff anyway. Long story short technically correct and socially acceptable are two very different things, and that makes Commander a lot more contentious, which makes it easier for someone's expectations not to be met. Both for prioritizing better technical play and for prioritizing etiquette.
On the other hand if she put 20 tokens into play everyone knows that her untapping means death. The warning might not have been necessary.
@@c_nrad Exactly! Unless they were running a CEDH deck it's not like the table is getting stomped on like turn 3. And if the game does end that quickly you can actually shuffle up and either be prepared or they can play another deck
You bring a broken deck I’m telling on you to the table, sorry not sorry
@@chargingbadger_ Glad to know a deck is busted when it folds to a wrath!
@@atevalve no idea what you’re talking about-all I’m saying is if I know your deck is way better than everyone else’s I’m not sitting on my hands and letting you crush everyone just to make you feel good.
I honestly really relate to that Chatterfang deck mention. Chatterfang was my second deck I ever built and because the commander is strong everyone assumed the deck was insanely strong. It took me genuinely over 4 months to actually test it without being focused.
I also relate to chatterfang, but for me, it was actually the opposite. Everyone thought the deck was going to be bad, but I ended up destroying the table , I was playing against omnath , kaalia, and edgar markov
If you have a friend in that group that understands the game well, next time you build a deck, ask them to flip through it and give an opinion on if it’s too strong for the table. Having another player that is essentially an opponent saying your deck is a good match up vs 3 players assuming your deck is OP due to the one card they can see can really make a difference on how they spend their interaction and combat steps.
I’ve been building meme or theme decks a lot lately as the other players in my group get better at the game and grow their collection, and they can tell when my friend has made a monster when I end up with a control deck at the table lol.
You could always Goldfish.
To be brutally honest with you, because somehow PK's comment threads are f*cking hug boxes, if you were a stranger and said "I'm playtesting my Chatterfang deck" I wouldn't go easy on you because you *claim* to be playtesting. CF is half of an infinite combo in the commandzone with many tutors in both it's colors to get the pieces. IDGAF if you're playtesting" I'm not eating a giveaway loss because you didn't goldfish. I'm holding up removal for the microsecond you put a combo piece or tutor on the stack. I play to have fun and part of that fun is stopping other people trying to win the game/ trying to win myself.
You brought that whole experience on yourself by figuratively putting a gun on the table and expecting your opponents to take you lightly because you said you weren't a threat.
I was playing Jhoira artifacts, a buddy was playing new Mishra, and another friend was playing Meren. T2 Meren plays ouphee-huge blow that makes me and Mishra both say “oof”. It sucked, but created an interesting challenge as Meren kept bringing it back, as a Meren deck would. But honestly kept both of us at bay is this Meren deck was “powered down”, so a bit slow. Despite the challenge it added a really interesting dynamic to the game and was one of the funnest games I had played in a while.
Commander players hate self reflection more than land destruction 😅 you're doing good work PK
I saw that Reddit thread and couldn't really work out how to word my thoughts. If you want to test a new deck and have it 'just do its thing', you don't need an opponent who doesn't kill your Sol Ring. That's what goldfishing is for. Having someone sit opposite for you to 'test out' a deck naturally invites the idea of testing out the deck AGAINST another player/interaction.
Exactly, only issues I can see is say your opponent gets a god hand and combos off earlier than usual or just gets really really lucky with answers. But there's a great solution to that, play another game. If the same issues keep popping up then it's pretty likely they're real issues. After game 6 of losing to a board wipe you should make your deck more resilient to them.
Part of it is honesty user error mixed with people not wanting to be interacted with at all until they get to win.
This, exactly! I always test my decks by playing in real pods and seeing what the deck can do and can’t do in real play interactions.
Recently I built two decks: Magnus and Toralf.
Magnus wins games. He’s expensive to get out so I run more mana to recover from board wipes which are a big hinderance. I run treasures despite their lack of direct synergy because of this mana problem and because they fuel my x spells. Counterspells are also useful to prevent untimely boardwipes or commander removal. I also run a ton more creature token makers to shore up the strategy and run multiple spells that can end games with enough setup. It’s main weakness has been my lack of cheaper card draw as much of it was put into x spells or expensive ones that stop working well without the commander, something I have to note for future tuning.
Toralf was more odd. It doesn’t do much for part of the game outside of finding ways to give opponents more creatures or otherwise finding ways to stockpile mana and then finally casting the commander and firing a big damaging boardwipe. Only 1 or 2 are necessary with enough setup but if it needs 2 it can be hard to close games. Before WOE came out I was considering a total retune of its draw suite as I found it severely lacking. Even now since I took a long time building it I want to keep it around, but a newer card has a more efficient playstyle and have considered taking out the Toralf shell and leaving the mono-red engine in; snow mountains + extraplanar lens (thanks cheap reprint!) plus replacing the board wipes with targeted burn spells and draw. Even some cards of the Toralf deck like brash taunter still fit in the shell so the most I lose out on are the big boardwipes most otherwise don’t use (hence the hesitation to tear the deck apart). But these are issues that can only be seen by playing and seeing how the deck holds up against anything as simple as a single board wipe!
Something that newer players like the poster do is they overextend or play cards because they can cast it. It’s something you can only really understand through experience, the poster should held to the Sol Ring until they can use it.
I think sol ring is a bit of an overheated card in casual commander. I remember one game where I had a sol ring and a thran dynamo on my side of the field and one of my opponents decides to blow up the sol ring with generic artifact removal. To this day I’m still astonished that this happened.
Maybe they thought you paid for that Thran Dynamo fair and square, lol.
I love when they blow up sol ring instead of Ashnod’s Altar 🤦♂️
My take is that unless you got a plan for that extra mana , it's no worse then any other ramp spell
I don’t get bitter about it since Sol Ring is such a common card and so easily accessible. People just get salty when they don’t draw theirs. Nobody hates on green for ramping like no freakin tomorrow.
That's why I run less mana rocks. Also has the added benefit of increasing number of dead draws for the opponent. He's packing removal for a thing you don't play
15 year mtg player here, am I the only one that finds Commander waaaaay less casual than Standard? I've started playing a lot of Planechase lately of all things as it adds the randomness that commander provides with its varied deck construction without having to constantly read 400 different card variants.
Talk with your playgroup about it. You can have as casual or competitive commander games as you choose to have. If you want more casual commander games, build more casual commander decks (less staples/BES cards and more flavor or pet cards) as well.
@@vapixdarmana4428 Yeah exactly, I tend to not participate in the really competitive commander groups I know as they throw a fortune at the game keeping up with the meta, I'll just play games with people as they get taken out, win win.
Yeah i agree.
The planar dice is the only thing keeping the player with the wordiest commander from just outright winning because word soup.
Its like, when i see somebody sit down at the table playing a commander with 4 keywords and a paragraph under them, i know for a fact the game probably wont be fair compared to what the other players are playing.
Theres always 1 person who plays the table meta and waits to choose their deck after everyone else has so they can take benefits like a sneaky weasel.
If you dont have a word soup commander yourself, the only thing that’ll help you win are some good planes and a few good rolls on the planar dice.
Puts the game back into the hands of chance and fate, instead of the wordiest card owner and whoever has the deepest wallet/access to a credit card
?
Standard isn't casual. People often study cards before even the prerelease to find optimal picks and such. The fact that you can't go in blind many times means the format isn't as casual as you may think.
We started having issues with players having others targeting before games started so we had to make a gentleman rule to not do that and only do it once a board/combo starts. Another thing we do is have group pairing based on what decks people have. For example, CEDH, High Power, and Casual. I review decks people play and advise them what pods to play in and this has made a big change for the community in our area.
sounds tedious and a waste of time. reason why I never carded about edh , we just played, and dont care about the concept of casual , also pods dont exist here[about 10 yrs ago. 20 people would play at midnight at del taco.
Random shout out for Elden Ring. I love it.
On balance: Rock-Paper-Scissors is technically balanced, but WILDLY polarized. Balance is important and good, but when it results in deep polarization you end up taking away agency -- and agency is where the fun resides. MTG (Commander especially) has gotten mighty polarized with the inclusion of more and more mechanics and strategies that are powerful because they are "disrupted by simple hate bears." If you're looking to balance a competitive environment, that's fine. If you're looking to balance a FUN environment?
Well, the 3-on-1 Chatterfang situation demonstrates the problem with that polarization.
This comment has been very enlightening for me, thanks! Do you have any recommendatiin for such game design knowlege?
@@brick4939 I'm not sure I understand the question, but if you want to learn more about how games work I highly recommend looking into game theory (the study, not the UA-cam channel). Start here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_theory
Hope that helps!
Good tip on hanging on to that SR until a later turn if you can’t do anything with it early 😊
until you have arcane signet in hand too
Or you can cast it a turn early (like turn 1), assuming you have a 2nd land by turn 2 and you can confidently cast your commander.
@@TheBlitzgundamin my experience, that just leads to getting pounded by all the other players because you got too much value. Even though you don't have a real board state yet.
@@cheesy_87 that's also true for my experience though, and then I make it extra salty for them on my next turn as vengeance... unless one of my opponents would like to make a deal.
The only rocks I play on curve are the ones that come in tapped. If I can’t capitalize off a Sol Ring, I’m just asking for interaction, and sometimes maybe that’s what I want when playing bombs.
This was one of the best MTG videos ever created.
Are you sure?
@@PleasantKenobiyea it was pretty good
@@hwowwhwoo It’s logical, adult, and gives good gameplay advice. Lol which makes it stand out as far as MTG videos.
capzilla
Speaking as someone who basically doesn't know shit, the thing that rubs me wrong about the Chatterfang deck issue is that, the way it sounds to me, this was someone telling the table to focus down one player before the first game even started. Sure, if a player's deck is too strong for the environment it's in, it makes sense to dogpile them; or better yet, to tell them that the deck is too strong and it's not gonna be an enjoyable game. And if everyone else at the table has already seen the deck in action, they'll know to keep it in check.
But if not, then like. Let them get a game in. If the deck really is way too powerful, that's either gonna show during the game, at which point everyone else can still team up against them, or if it wins way too fast, the game's over quickly and everyone will have time for another game. That way, they can watch their powerful deck go off, and everyone else will actually know first-hand that it's powerful - rather than just one person ahead of time saying so, thus effectively going "nah let's just make it so one person doesn't get to play the game".
Either way, it's probably a topic for "fucking talk to each other". Going somewhere to play games and have fun together with a friend (or in this case, partner) and then telling everyone else to team up against them is a shitty thing to do; if you have an issue with what they're doing, talk to them ahead of time.
After playing high level yugioh for 15 years, i got introduced to commander this year. It was very easy for me to see problem cards and synergies really quick and i like making decks that have answers. Sometimes chaos warping a rooftop storm or countering a commander IS the right play and although it is a casual format you cannot always expect other players to have the answer.
Ive played Slivers for 6 months now and my commander is a removal magnet and I just know that everyone at the table is making the right choice so it hardly bothers me.
When there is a huge skill gap between people at the table i reasonably think you can hold that sol ring until turn 4 or cast your commander a bit later just to ensure that other ppl "get to play first"
It feels pretty bad to sandbag cards in hand. I prefer to have several decks to more evenly match certain power levels. Proxying helps with this.
I have a policy for my own personal play: if one of the players is playing a new deck OR is generally new, I do not focus them or counter what they’re doing outside of certain things.
I do the same, If your learning a new deck I will avoid messing with it to a major degree in the first couple rounds just so the player can see how it actually runs. Same for a new player who doesnt get all the rules. I rather people learn than just get smacked down.
If you build your deck to do a specific thing, part of that is you need to be able to deal with the things that stop the specific thing you're trying to do. If your entire deck is centered around artifacts, you have do be able to deal withh collector ouphe and null rod. If your entire deck is centred around your commander, you have to be able to deal with oubliette and drannith magistrate. This is just a basic deck building thing.
This video helped me understand Commander much better, and why I do not have fun playing it.
I think casual commander has this really interesting thing where it is the main way lots of people play magic because they like that it can be silly and not focused on winning, but those qualities actually make it really really hard to build decks for. In formats where the goal is to win as efficiently as possible, deckbuilding is very straightforward (those decks may be intricately tuned or have complex strategies, but they always know exactly what they are trying to do). In casual commander there's way more factors that need to be considered, like making your deck's power consistent (so the other players can respond to your deck proportionately), making it fun for other people (and even then, some things will make one player upset but not bother another), and then do whatever cool thing you want to do (which could very easily interfere with the other factors).
When I hear a story about someone's sol ring getting blown up or their chatterfang deck being targeted, it makes me think that there's probably an issue with the deck in one of these regards. That being said, this is where the social aspect comes in and things get super complicated, just because her deck has these flaws doesn't mean she should be forced not to have fun with it (like I said, deckbuilding for casual commander is super hard, I bet most people's decks have these problems). I think those are harder to pass judgement on because we're missing so much context that's essentially impossible to learn.
Dang, that was a cute baby...
Edit: Also, our poster's bf is a pud. Snapping a Sol Ring early is mean but strategic. But politicking a table to focus down a deck before it does anything is metagaming and pathetic. So again, pud.
Yeah, destroying an early Sol Ring in a game of 1v1 magic is perfectly defensible; it's kinda fucked if you're setting up your GF to fail by politicking a table though.
Them killing the sol ring was eh what ever but the problem is the angel deck is still just a precon, it was never meant for a 1v1 and if there were no upgrades then the BF should have used a precon. I have the same deck I played against my friends Eldrazi precon and we knew going in it could be good or bad as both were not meant for a 1v1 but we played those specifically because they were both precons. The dick move was not paying a precon the bigger dick move was what you said about politicking before the game.... like bro... you're trash.
@@RefaTheGreat Right? Someone should tell him his insecurities are showing.
Chatterfang player needs to find a new BF. He seems like a Douche-Bag.
You know a game is in a degenerate state when you have to have a conversation beforehand and agree to not make it suck. And yes, I know this occurs in other games with ill-defined rules such as a certain one involving "space marines". Sidebar: Honestly, I'd rather have a Sol Ring in Commander vs. a Black Lotus. I was shocked to see them reprinting it back in the day. I had read an article (I think it was in Scry) that talked about how the designers of that time disliked Sol Ring because it gave you a lot more than you invested in terms of mana (Moxen and Lotus in the same boat). Then they printed Grim Monolith. /eyeroll
I feel enchantment decks like Sythis are very strong most of the time because people don't play with enough removal spells that target enchantments. Mostly people focus on creatures and artifacts. I've been trying to ideally use cards that can target any permanent but also with my meta playing more and more enchantment-themed decks I've also started to play cards that sweep all enchantments as well as other permanents like Austere Command/Farewell/Fracturing Gust, etc.
I'd feel like this was a more valid argument if EDH had a sideboard. Most games Tranquility is a dead card and I'm wasting a slot in case I play a sweaty tryhard/ easy mode player playing Enchantress?
Naw, I'd rather either migrate to another pod or, do what I actually do, and put in enchantment wipes while claiming to be playtesting new pick-ups or moving one-ofs from another deck.
When MTG hits critical mass of "remove target nonland permanent" cards we can talk but in the meantime Enchantress is a pod-warping archetype with not enough *good* removal available to claim it doesn't give you an inherent advantage against most decks.
@@lracseroom8286 Enchantress dominates in low power pods because players don't play enough threats, and creature-meta devolves into 10 creatures per player in a cowboy standoff. Why bother removing the enchantments when you can remove the player?
I usually like if not mono B then decks that are heavily black, followed by blue. Usually my deck has essentially zero ways to remove enchantments. Or if it does then very few and usually not the best, and having to permanently hold up a counterspell feels kinda bad.
Some colors just aren't really equipped to deal with it. My friend has a shrines deck and if I don't have enchantment removal then I feel the need to kill him asap
So, I started playing the game right around original Theros, so if there's one thing I've learned the hard way, it's to have answers to enchantments (and preferably exile based). Indestructible haymaker gods that are only sometimes creatures really taught me to value having a variety of answers, and to make them versatile and/or playable some other way. If my answer can only answer one type of thing or it doesn't cycle/cantrip, it needs to be really effective and efficient at being an answer.
@@Red-Tower Besides, arguably, Purph all the old Gods have been power crept from relevance. Against Purph I usually answer with aggro or resource denial. You play Purph? Cool, I play stuff that hoses rocks and treasures. An eye for an eye.
When I first started EDH I was playing in the deep end right away with the beginnings of CEDH. I played numerous games but came to note a certain trend in card/deck choices which led me to realize that CEDH uses a fairly small pool of niche cards that are highly efficient. I almost fell into this ''trap'' and my deck building became boring, there are thousands of cards in MTG; I wanted to explore and have fun. I found a new group and toned down my decks and now have more fun and don't seem to be stuck with a single group like the CEDH group is on FNM. Every game has the potential to make us stronger with the knowledge we learn through reflection. What we do with that knowledge while that is a different matter LOL :P
That's some great self-reflection and reflection on the game of Magic. The reasons I play commander are for the fun of playing with lots of people, playing cards that don't have a home anywhere else, and the unique ways each person builds and plays their decks.
So yeah, I never had an interest in cedh because it's basically optimizing a few specific strategies/combos using the same few cards in every deck and just boils down to 4 player vintage/legacy.
Every competitive format works with only efficient cards from a limited pool because that’s what it means to be competitive; speed and efficiency.
I'll take all your sol rings without a second thought.
My wife and I play 1v1 commander all the time. Games are usually faster and it’s been a good way to quickly pick out weaknesses in our decks. Playing 1v1 means you are getting your opponent’s full wrath overall I think it makes us better players. Maybe not though, who cares, it’s a game. Swing big and have fun.
I feel these kind of problems arise from new players first contact with Magic being Commander. I played 1x1 for way longer than multiplayer, and having my stuff countered/milled/destroyed/discarded is just a normal part of the game. Just because a format is "casual" does not mean you shouldn't interact with stuff on the board. Hell, Mario Party is casual, but I will still try to screw you over on the minigames to win!
I really have a lot of respect for how you phrase yourself. “Please remember: these are human beings” is just awesome. Much appreciate you PK ✌️😁
meh
I haven't even finished the video, but the editing at 2:25 where the Sol Ring gets shot made me nearly crap my pants laughing 🤣
I feel like commander players can be so sensitive about the game. Commander really warps your thinking about deck building when you first enter the game because there are so many unwritten rules and the insane power level of the format.
+1
I think it comes down to this. As an existing player when you see a new player start to come to games do you want to chase them away or be inviting to the play group. If you want to chase them away then play your best of best. If you want to make them feel welcomed and wanting to play with the group, then play more fun when they are around.
Yea people don't usually play modern and complain their opponent surgical extraction'd their win con. Usually you concede or go to your secondary win con
@@michael83479 Some do. They often don't come back to play that format. Some people don't like ruthless play and they find out some competitive formats have more of that than they like. That's ok, they tried it and didn't like it. But as for EDH, ask yourself this: do you play it to make friends or make money/prize?
Even a hyper competitive deck can slow it’s roll. It is 100% on the player to make the choice of whether they want to steamroll everyone every time regardless of level or if they want to get more games in and have fun.
I run a Thoracle combo in my Jeleva deck and I can tutor it out pretty easily. But I have more fun with my friends when I don’t go that line unless I really want a win for the day. It’s more fun to meet at the table again than have everyone not want to play anymore.
I totally agree. People need to be less restrictive of other players and what they can play.
that has it's limits. At an LGS recently and at a table of 4 it was 3 upgraded precons and an absolute charmer of a guy (sarcasm) who played Blue Farm as "it was his only deck". After the second game we just booted him from the pod. F*ck him.
so youd be cool with stax?
@@Frozirra strikes me as a "what I play if fair, what you play is bullshit!" type. Just a hunch though.
Constant debates and arguments about how players should play this format is really starting to kill my interest in the only format I care to play. No matter what side of the table you are on with things like this, you are the villain in someone else's story. Sometimes your deck has cards that you see that tax or turn off things. Sometimes you see a board wipe and make someone feel bad for not having a haste enabler, but made infinite tokens. Some people touch themselves and go nowhere for 10 minutes because they are playing lands or storm or wheels. I agree with this video. Everything is down to individual responsibility to prepare for cards that they are weak to and understand that if you refuse to change, you cannot expect different results in other games.
My desire to do mana removal scales with the power level of the opponents. The boyfriend doesn't come off great, introducing a new player to commander and then rolling them in 1v1. I understand the OP's salt and think it's generally a good idea to let people expose themselves as spikes before you nuke them from orbit.
Didn't really seem like her first game. She said they played every sunday. A Sol ring isn't some casual whatever card. It's on the same powerlevel as lotus and moxen
@@michael83479
Sol Ring is a bit special due to how it comes with I believe every commander precons, and so new players and old players alike accepts that its here and. Especially with how common it is at every table, it might not be casual, but I think it's not something to get bent over with. In general, "casual" isn't very well defined concept, but I think a card less than 2 dollars, and most players that only have precons would have it, really I think makes it a great "powerful casual card".
Also, while this seems a bit different for every table, but I think someone opening t1-2 Sol ring is a very exciting and spicy thing to happen, allowing for many dynamics, and cool things to start kicking really fast. It also goes both ways, just because someone played a sol ring doesn't mean their deck will necessarily beat yours anyhow. The game is a lot about piloting, some luck, and the other 99 cards in any given deck.
@@michael83479this whole discussion is bs if everyone in the world owns the damn card. If everyone can play it, nobody should have a problem with it.
Also keeping 6 drops and a sol ring is not a good keep because you assume its going to stay around. But as you learn the game, you shouldnt always think best case senerio, you also think worst case too. I wouldnt not have kept that hand knowing its too reliant on sol ring and would mulligan
About Armageddon, I'm shifting to an opinion that people SHOULD play more mass land removal, because massive land ramp is basically the only strategy without a good counter, as long as we keep saying mass land removal shouldn't be used. Just don't use it all the time and things are fine.
I play collector ouphe in almost all my green commander decks. I've had people get salty over it before and hopefully showing them this video will help.
Spoiler: it won’t help :)
@@Mushroomhaus0001 You're probably right but worth a shot I guess
1: I hate you :)
2: …#justterrorit?
If players don’t play any removal, it is on them. Also I hate and play the Ouphe. 😀
Ouphe is annoying but it's a 2/2 for 2. Might as well say you shouldn't play doom blade with that reasoning lol
I know we've talked about proxies so much already, but please proxy commander decks. It's a great way to test-drive a deck to see if you like the playstyle and to see if it plays well in your pod. And if you proxy out a strong chatterfang deck and now you don't want to play it anymore, well losing a pile of proxies (hopefully) won't feel that bad. Or other players can proxy out stronger decks to compete with you.
proxying is the best way to play magic imo. i play almost entirely on cockatrice, an online program thats free and gives access to all the cards on scryfall. when theres no financial investment in your list i find it leads to a much healthier, growth oriented mindset
Problem: Most people who proxy, in my experience, "never get around" to actually buying the cards so they're playing a 2 thousand dollar deck they paid a few bucks for and I'm playing a 600$ deck with real cards annd it just kinda feels like they're cheating...because they are.
Yeah, nah
@@lracseroom8286Skill issue
@@DemagogueBibleStudy people will just stop playing with you lol, proxy cards you're realistically going to buy.
That post and this video have set off a counter-circlejerk post on the sub. Truly peak discourse on the EDH sub.
I love angel decks, main reason am building the powerpuff decks 1 mono white with giada other are {w} with red then green then blue then black all having main angel theme with a variance in play stye thus making my decks feel nice and not repetive.
I was in one of these threads a few weeks back and someone pointed out that the EDH format philosophy emphasizes a nebulous concept of 'fun' and 'casual' that you're trying to align with and so many people have so many different views about what that means (which is reflected in the deck power level discussion idea that everyone thinks their deck is a 7/8, etc).
In a competitive environment you're optimizing all your plays and that is the yardstick - in EDH the yardstick is everyone's level of 'fun' which warps the play dynamic in a huge way...
I don't play Commander a lot...but it just seems like no one cares about winning BUT there ultimately HAS TO BE a winner.
Just because someone plays Magic against you doesn't ruin the game. Regardless of which format you play -- reducing your opponents life total to zero is the entire point of the game. I think you can play for fun and still come in trying to win.
There's just a bit too much emotion, at times, in games of Commander.
People 100% care about winning. It's just that they want to win their way, and anyone who doesn't align with that is 'ruining the game'.
Nor is this a 'Commander' problem. Go ask about Burn or Ponza in the Pauper community and you'll hear some interesting feedback.
Being a "casual" format doesn't mean its not a powerful one. The two are not mutually exclusive. It doesn't have to be about who spent the most money on their deck either, there are TONS of resources out there to make BROKEN decks for less than it costs to buy a precon. The discussion of "to proxy or not to proxy" has come up in my play group lately too, mostly surounding high-cost staples like Sliver Hive, Rhystic Study and Buddy, and Smothering Tithe. I will never have an issue with someone proxying cards in Commander, nor will I begrudge then targeting my engine pieces. I do it too them just as often. Players need to learn some resiliency. You loosing the game doesn't make you less of a person any more than them winning makes them a better person.
I mean I have a mite beck that as soon as I get more then 9 mites I am the target that instantly gets killed (cuz mites can’t block). You can’t be mad at getting targeted for having a good deck. It only annoys me when the whole table or one player specifically tries to shut your game down when there are WAY better options on the table
People complaining about other player's threat assessment always makes me a bit wary. Your opponents know what to be afraid of. The better option for you is not always the better option for your opponents.
Presenting threat is a big part of closing games. You have to be a little sneaky. Nobody in their right mind is going to look at 9 potential poison counters and say "yeah, I can handle that if it comes my way". Some mechanics are much more obvious in their threat than others. The person drawing 4 per turn from an untouched rhystic study sitting behind a Smothering Tithe with a wall of counterspells PROBABLY is more threatening, but you have a loaded gun pointed at their head, and you're slow on the trigger.
@@mrpandabites no, I find most casuals have shit threat assessment. I’ll be sitting with a do-nothing creature in play while an opponent has the loaded gun and the idiots will scream that I have a creature that simply does something inconsequential or otherwise only gives marginal value. I’ll have something for marginal card draw and they’ll kill it for being petty because I answered a threat from them 5 turns ago while a different player is clearly setting up with MUCH more advantage. Sometimes I cyce-rift to reset the board because I’m BEHIND and I’ll get targeted as if I have anything more than mana rocks and a creature that etb’d 3 turns ago. I’m much more forgiving of people interacting with me if I showed a much more dominant position all game, like while piloting Prosper or Elminster or Ohrvar, but not when there’s a much more present threat they’ve demonstrated being blind to or ignorant of even after I accurately point it out. I’m not mad when someone finds a way to nuke my sensei’s top, but not when that removal should have hit the opponent’s ashnod’s altar or other such combo piece (discounting when said top IS the combo piece but as I don’t have citadel in my Prosper it hardly counts).
I also keep a few precons or near precon-level decks for play with casuals but let me tell you even some veteran players have zero idea about threat assessment while even playing those. If anything those games are where I suffer the most from petty bs. The people that brew and play more powerful decks are far more situationally aware and games are actually fun because people are actually doing shit to win. Casuals that want to win are far better players than those just looking for something *too* casual. They’re better off playing Catan or CAH for slow and more socially cooperative experiences with a dash of winning as a spice.
I can definitely see where the poster is coming from. I think part of the problem has to do with how it feels to have a mana source removed vs, for example, having a creature removed. Sol Ring's legality leads players to think of it as a utility, as little different than a land, when in reality Sol Ring facilitates play that seems incongruous in power level with average plays. The person accelerating out their 5 and 6 mana angels isn't doing the same thing as someone threatening to execute a winning combo on turn 2 in a cEDH game, but their plan might still be more difficult to play against than they realize.
I think WotC should also do more to encourage people to play more lands in Commander. It's not uncommon to see casual decks that play mana acceleration despite not reliably being able to hit a fourth land drop naturally. Since lands are more difficult to interact with than artifact ramp, it might lead to more fun games if more players focus on making impactful plays on curve.
okay the sol ring thing? I can see that, it's rough but okay. Politicking in the pregame to gang up on her Chatterfang deck though, that's reminding me a lot of the guy I knew who used to play poker with his friends and would go so hard into it that, mysteriously, nobody wants to play with him anymore. Dude is going to end up with either a partner who no longer plays magic, or single.
My bet is on single.
For my own mental health, I have to mute EDH/Pod/whatever on Twitter. It's like no one wants to play Magic. They just want everyone to show off what their deck does with no resisitance and one person randomly wins.
And like, in a home pod, there can be a ton of house rules/deck building restrictions/etc but like, if you out to a store and get blown out (even after R0 discussion) that's not some heinous crime. That's Magic.
90% of time I think saltiness, especially from newer players, comes from poor threat assessment, which mainly comes with experience for any format. It can be hard to explain to new players why a zulaport cutthroat can be scarier than a 10/10 Trample creature, and a lot of times, it'll take a while before they understand.
However, I do think it's important to play with people's feelings in mind. My philosophy has moved away from winning in edh to making the biggest impact. The two can overlap but sometimes this means teaming up against the player in the lead and using all of your resources to give the last player a shot at winning. It makes for good memories
I call it my “enforcer” play style where I will tame and politic against the king at the table and assist who is struggling. I don’t care much for winning as I do about the play experience. Having said that it’s a fine line avoiding “kingmaking” myself, unless it happens to be me 😊
My playgroup is pretty experienced with years under our belts. We don’t do the “rule zero” because we understand who is the biggest threat by what is on the board and we each understand that the game state shifts constantly and can surmise what strategy the other is going for.
When it comes to new players, as experienced players, we should help them along more than just stomp on them. If someone is not having fun they are less likely to return to the table.
I agree. If you have a playgroup, you should address the questions of fast mana and many other questions when you encounter game states or cards that seem too oppressive or unfun regardless of how they are used. Curating a playing environment in such a way will help a lot.
But that only applies for a set playgroup. When you play at your LGS, having those conversations will have a much lesser effect, as the people with whom you play will most likely change (otherwise, it would be a playgroup even if you gather at your LGS).
I dislike fast mana and have started to take it out of my decks, and I would advise others to do the same instead of playing arms race if you want the people around you to change.
when your opponent(s) play sol ring into arcane signet you already know youve lost
Commander has definitely warped our perception of the game. I have been playing for a pretty long time and grew up on kitchen table/lunch room magic. You would build at least 60 card deck, run no more than 4 copies of a card, and that was about it. Looking back on it these were the most casual games in existence. I loved sol ring and ran 4 of them. My big payoffs were howl of the nightpack and verdeloth the ancient. I remember I built a red burn deck with repercussion in it and some POS named paul got super whiney and said to me "This card is older than my nephew. You shouldn't play cards older than my nephew." People have different ideas of what is fun and what is casual. I do think commander has warped out senses a bit.
Here comes my hot take: I think Commander and deck building for Commander has made a larger percent of the player base worse at magic and deckbuilding. I think when you build 60 card, to play in standard or whatever, you approach it with a different mindset about you know, winning. You don't need to be sweaty, but you are supposed to win. You think about the best ways to do that. When you focus on only commander, you focus on how to have fun, which is awesome. But it does mean that especially newer players don't learn about running interaction. They just assume everyone is here for the same fun they are. Which is untrue. We need to have realistic expectations for how games will work, and that comes from playing a more "competitive" format.
Ironically I think commander has become way more competitive than the old lunchroom magic ever was. So back when you would have your 60 card deck right? You would sit down and play with someone, and then someone else would just join you. Then another and another. We could have 5-6 player games, but it didn't take hours. Now if you try to do a 5 pod of commander people get this look on their face like you just asked to bang their sister.
So yeah, commander has warped our senses a bit. I think it may be too late though, it's too ubiquitous.
I think the Commander-ization of Magic has been a huge negative for the game overall -- not just in how the average Magic player builds and thinks but also in the card design. But hey, it brings in the money, I guess.
"You don't need to be sweaty, but you are supposed to win" if you're not sweaty you don't win, those formats all require playsets of stupidly expensive cards to be competitive at all. commander players only play for fun and new players never learn about interaction? you get the death stare for wanting to do a 5-player game? where did you get this from, exactly? you're making a lot of spurious generalizations. how it it harder to build a 60 card deck with playsets than a 100 card singleton deck? I have to look at more than ~10 individual cards and i don't have the crutch of playsets of all the best cards to rely on, i have to individually evaluate every card and how it synergizes or doesn't with every other card in the deck. i can't just jam all the fetch lands and splash whatever format staples i want unless my commander's identity allows for it. 60-card formats have the sweaty cookie-cutter builds, not commander.
@@themoops4006 He wasn't talking about decks you build to take down a 5K, he's talking about the old, forgotten days of "kitchen table" 60-card magic - something I'm nostalgic for as well. If you don't think Commander has sweaty cookie-cutter builds, you aren't paying attention. If I see an Ezuri, Claw of Progress deck at the table, I'm confident I can name 50% of the spells in their deck at minimum, and their win con is rushing to find Sage of Hours. Everyone splashes "format staples" if they can afford them, and Commander has a plethora. Deadly Rollick, Fierce Guardianship, the oft-maligned Sol Ring, Command Tower, Reliquary Tower, etc. etc.
I can also confirm that most of the problems he discusses about Commander playgroups are part of my experience as well. If you have avoided that, I'm genuinely glad for you, but as far as I can tell, he is far from an outlier.
@@trdl23 the fact that commander decks have ~62 different individual cards and pull from a much larger card pool means they're inherently less "cookie-cutter" than decks that have ~10-15 different individual cards plus a sideboard and a smaller card pool. and on top of that there are hundreds and hundreds of commanders. its just math. to argue commander isn't the least-sweaty constructed format right now is ridiculous it has by far the lowest barrier to entry financially and offers the most variance in deck choice and deckbuilding.
obviously commander has staple cards like fierce guardianship and deadly rollick but decks aren't nearly as reliant on any individual card as they are in other formats. its only a single card out of 100 i probably won't even draw it most games. in other formats where the deckbuilding is much more narrow missing multiple staple cards hurts the deck a lot more especially when it needs playsets. i feel like i have a lot less wiggle room in how i build rakdos midrange in modern if i want to be relatively competitive as opposed to og atraxa in commander. can i get away with not running any copies of ragavan, bowmaster and bloodstained mire and run something else in their place? i can play atraxa and still mop the floor with everyone without rhystic study, smothering tithe, deadly rollick, fierce guardianship, fetches and shocks etc. you said it yourself these cards get "splashed" into commander decks when the player happens to have them, they don't need to buy four copies of each for the deck to function meaningfully this works very much against your argument that commander is the sweat format.
my experience with commander hasn't been much different from my experience playing casual 60-card kitchen table magic years ago. back then i built whatever i wanted outside of what was banned or house ruled, we'd sometimes play big multiplayer games that would take a long time, we played casually. same applies now that im playing commander so i don't really know what you guys think has been taken away from the game. i think you're just making a lot of stuff up in your heads and projecting that onto the broader playerbase.
@@themoops4006 I believe you when you say your experience has been positive. I would ask you also to believe us when we say that ours has not, and not to assume we are "making a lot of stuff up in our heads" simply because it doesn't align with you.
You are correct that Commander has the lowest barrier to entry of all "formats" - god knows they have enough precon products rotting on LGS shelves. Just today, I smashed a pod of decently tuned decks with my Goreclaw deck I built out of whatever junk I had lying around and a few cards from the bulk rare bin. That's how we old-school judges used to build our decks, especially showing off obscure cards we loved. I taught people what Thicket Elemental was today.
However, a lot of casual play didn't involve "formats" at all. As with any format, players will find ways to optimize. EDHRec, et al. has made netdecking and "sweating" as common in this format as in 60-card constructed if you play with randos. I know the refrain is "find the right group," but too often those group devolve into arms races within a couple of months and people fixate on their instant-win combos. You seem to have dodged that bullet, and I envy that.
Like you said, back in the day, people built what they wanted, and sometimes playing a deck that relies on consistency is itself creative and fun. I don't mind that Commander is a choice. I mind that Magic's design has twisted it into being the **only** choice.
In my hapatra token deck, I had similar problems with wrath effects. And that's why I use a lot of board protection, and you would be surprised how much there are in green/black. Especially warping wail, being able to counter sorceries, which majority of boardvipes are.
others are golgary charm, heroic intervention, and wrap in vigor. There's also Wail of the Nim, but it's the worst one, and 4 boardvipe protection is overkill.
To be fair, the collector ouphe issue WAS talked about in turn 0 talk, and the ouphe player metagamed and specifically picked a hate deck for that strat
Yep. And once it was removed, they killed the pod. They used the rule 0 convo to target the equipment player and pub stomp. I’m actually really disappointed none of those things got addressed
I am so here for this discussion.
I came back to the game in January 2023 after having last played all the way back in Legions; I have always felt it is a massive social faux pas to mess with someone mana base if it is something like lands and sol ring. While sol ring is good in every way, it feels almost unnecessary and akin to bullying to target it; obviously there are sometimes exceptions to the rule but it’s very FeelsBadMan.jpg when someone targets you early in the game while you are playing what is clearly designed to be a fun and thematic deck.
Sometimes it’s the right call to play your 8/10 deck like a 6/10 deck when someone (especially your partner) is trying out something new; it’s called reading the room and being polite. Who cares if you lose while someone’s tries their new deck and you decided to play a little friendlier? Rerack after and then play appropriately.
Personally the biggest part of this post I personally see weight to this newer players discussion was the fact that when they brought it up to the playgroup to talk about it, there wasn't a "Ahh that's rough" or "Dang that sucks," the response was "Well that was kind of dumb of you to keep that hand wasn't it 👁️👁️". Which if that ever happened to me I would also be understandably salty.
Maybe your friend groups are different but I've seen my friend keep a 2 lander that doesn't work out and we're all like your fault bro, that's what mulligans are for. If you get salty cuz people told you that you kept a bad hand that got easily countered maybe grow thicker skin then. Unless I missed the part where their friends were making fun of them all night, ostracizing them and that was the culmination of it. Whatever, it was 1 game of commander there's more to be played.
@@michael83479 i got btfo'd years ago by keeping a 1 land hand, a sol ring, and multiple 3 drops that fixed my mana, and i got mana-tithed by the mono white player who also kept a 1 land hand that did so exclusively to counter t-1 sol rings. We all laughed, and me and that guy obviously lost since we both got landscrewed
There was a UA-cam video talk about how sol ring being cheap is a problem for this very reason. It is hard to separate cedh and lower end decks. I believe it was talking about budget in commander.
Yep, I saw that one too, it was great. "The problem with budget cards" by Salubrious Snail
@@Bluepaccao thanks it was a good one
I love my group. We rarely have issues. If someone made a new deck we tend to ease up on them for a sec to kinda see what the deck can do. Of course if you turn 1 sol ring it's on sight still.
If it's the first time the deck is being used, I'd just wait until they hit 4-5 land before destroying it. Tell them something "I can blow it up now. But as long as you agree not to counter my destruction, I'll let you tap it 3 times before I do."
This is why I like cEDH, no silly unwritten rules or hurt feelings. The people are usually way more chill too
i've seen some very high-strung cEDH players that want you to sequence perfectly and make optimal plays (like choosing removal targets, counterspell usage, etc) but otherwise, yeah.
Pft. Yeah, right lol I've seen grown men cry in tournaments because they missplayed or had an interaction countered. At least I can agree that most people in cedh, know what they're playing into.
The people you both mentioned while agreeing that what I said is generally true are the exceptions. The attractive part of cEDH are that there are way less of them than you’ll run into in random casual pods, and they’re usually the most fun to play casual games with too.
cEDH players are worst than Vegans and Crossfitters.
I always feel bad for destroying people's Sol Rings, I usually try to remove anything else before I go for people's Sol Rings. It's just a rule that I impose on myself
I completely agree with everything you said. Recently I got into a new play group up until now I was like everybody take as many mulls as you need don't worry. My opinions on mulligans have changed. The store rule is any amount of free mulls necessary. A dude I was playing with brought a wubrg dragon deck. He told us it has 27 lands in it. I said I wouldn't build my deck like that.(you built that deck wrong.) first turn land sol ring signet! People abuse these rules they build their decks incorrectly they take advantage. I try abiding by the 1 mull rule but even I abuse it to try and get ramp in and all colors in my opener, at least I build my deck with this in mind making it statistically likely that I will get ramp from those 2 opening trys. I also don't build/ play decks I wouldn't want to play against. These rules seem easy build, based off of how you want to play but the games filled with lackwits and greed mongers.
(Commenting before I’ve finished the video.) When I have a friend who is trying a new deck I purposefully choose a deck to play that I think THEY will do well against. It’s cools seeing a new deck or strategy go off. When I play I don’t go easy. I still try to win. Hell it’s great to win against the odds. But winning isn’t always as fun as seeing a new deck go off in a way you haven’t seen before. At the very least I won’t ever counter a new deck. I’m not being out out my artifact hate Kibo deck against a players new out-the-box Phyrexian Artifact deck.
I think we have reached the point where people jumping into Commander have absolutely no idea how mtg is played and don’t want to learn. Perhaps it’s a combination of Arena handling the rules for you, and Commander pushing the idea of playing solitaire but it’s definitely noticeable.
Don't blame this on Arena. Arena not only teaches you how Magic is actually played way better than being taught wrong by some old dude who's been playing wrong for 25 years, but Arena literally only has 1v1 and teaches you how to play competitively.
I've heard this a couple times but as a newer player who got in through Arena (and now plays a lot of paper too) I just don't buy it. It was a little jarring getting used to doing everything myself, but when it came to my first game I just watched how everyone else did it, asked questions and picked it up quick. I don't think I'm especially clever, most people are probably in a similar boat.
I absolutely agree with this post. Not only does it make people better players, but it also makes them better human beings if they're more self reflective. I always see a bunch of posts online of people whining about what other people do, when the very first thing they should do is ask what they themselves should be doing different.
I learned long ago that trying to have the world adapt to you is an unwinnable battle. It's just better to accept that you have to adapt to the world.
I dont think you got around to the point of them keeping a "bad hand." But overall i agree with the commentary. Ive been struggling a bit in the group i play with for a variety of reasons. Part is due to the range of cards i personally have access to, part is how casual or refined some of my decks are, and part is just how im regarded as a person at the table by the other players.
I typically dont win, and many of those times im first one out and waiting another hour for a game to finish. This ruins the experience for me, but i shuffle up and play in the next one anyway because i really do like the game despite the hate i garner. I also have 15 or so decks to choose from, and those range in power and synergy. Often times, its not a matter that i choose a lower power deck, im just seen as persona non grata and focused down before i even get a board state.
I feel for the person who vented their frustrations. Sometimes it is a bit one sided at the table, but i agree its also necessary to communicate with the group at hand before games get up to speed
my decks arent that crazy too but my friends know i have windfall in my deck so yeah...
May I ask what decks you are referring to for context? What are you most commonly playing?
@@Blacklodge_Willy Torbran burn, Darien soul sisters, Muldrotha, Arjun wheel, Phenax mill, First Sliver, and i just recently slapped together Urtet. Urtet is the only one i actually slotted fast mana beyond Sol Ring into. The rest are just refined by years of play-testing and expanding my overall collection.
I just set myself up as archenemy in pods with new players, no matter if i'm playing my durdly lowest power deck i tell them i'm probably the threat. If i get beat down great, as long as they had fun beating me down i'll have had fun trying to stay alive
underated raidboss comment
I do the same thing but without the declaration. I'll rush out some annoying pings/unoptimized removal to get everyone hitting me with something every turn. Either they kill me or someone else becomes an actual threat but it was fun either way.
I run an LGS, we had a group of 4 playing socially, when P1 decided to drop Notion thief into play, the warning lights began. So P2 cloned it, P3 cloned it also, each player trying to scoop the previous player to the card draw. P4 offered a 3 card method to remove all of the notion thieves from play so they could at least play a decent game.
Socially contracted, the players all agreed, (it required dumb blocks but P234 didn't want notion thief in play at all.
P1 on their next turn immediately reanimated their notion thief, cast teferi's puzzlebox, then cast windfall.
The table opted to just eject that player from the game as they were mocking the other players for being such fools as to trust them.
Funnily enough, P2,3 and 4 players are getting more and more into competitive 1v1 formats and playing EDH as the casual "there's 3-5 of us, let's have a game" as opposed to "Welcome to the commander the gathering night, there are no formats, only 'mander" mentality we see.
Gotta be ready for everything. The other day I was playing and one if my opponents played something to search others decks for an instant or sorcery. He then asked who has a board wipe? The others didn't know. I said mine definitely has a few, because all of my decks have a few. Even though I haven't played this deck in a while. I'm prepared with interaction
One have failed to make someone play Magic, if they don’t want to play after one game.
Oh, I saw that post when it was new, didn't realise the discussion escalated that hard.
This is the same thing as people complaining about their commander being removed. Like if you build a monocolor deck like selva hydras for example, your deck NEEDS your commander to function. If selva gets removed your game plan is set back a lot but like you have to expect that. The table can’t be expected to just let you ramp out a 15/15 turn 3. If you make a greedy deck that relies on 1-2 cards, expect those cards to be interacted with 95% of the time and don’t be upset because you were the one that choose to play a greedy deck
yeah any deck I have that relies heavily on the commander runs lots of ramp, protection, counterspells if Im in blue, etc. Heck, I play Tibalt's Trickery in W/R Bruenor just to protect the boi.
I definitely empathize with them, it really sucks getting targeted down by your group. I made a pretty low power atraxa deck with a really complicated and goofy combo in it and after I told my group about it they targeted me down REALLY hard, game after game. It got to the point where I was visibly upset, nearly crying, because I hadn't gotten past turn five in almost two hours of play time. If my partner wasn't there for me to sit with and whine to about it, I probably would've turned into the joker
one more thing people should understand that the point of the game is essentially to build your deck well and pilot your deck well
so aside from things like blind draws being unlucky it is kinda on you to keep the game going
and also you are responsible for each other's experience in commander games
i take this "what can i do better" to heart. i am widely accepted to be the archenemy. like we play EDH but even then im still archenemy. i tune my decks for turn 7 for my playgroup. to make the overall experience better, im as honest as i can be. if someone is asking what they should blow up and they're new, ill give them all options and then openly admit that my enchantment, artifact or creature is the biggest threat at face value...or ill be honest about my intentions (again, if they're new) another thing i minimize is infinite combos. i might add 1 or 2 but my goal is not AIMING to assemble the combo as the primary wincon, just as a side piece. or only add combos that aren't auto win. just infinite mana or card draw, or give 1 turn clocks once its assembled. and finally, ill be very vocal about EVERY thing i do. "tap 2 mana to cast dockside. any responses?" AND I TAP MY MANA ALL THE WAY SO THERE'S NO CONFUSION or ill move to combat, at the beginning of combat this, thos and this triggers, any responses? ok ill do x y and z then declare attackers....etc" this guarantees that everyone at the table knows what im doing and can see that everything is legit. so i dont catch shit for "being sneaky and thats how all those things happen, bc no one heard you so no one could respond" no, if im BBEG at the table, i demand and give off big main character energy"
Funnily enough about the 2 mana hate bear shutting someone down, I felt kinda bad a couple weeks ago. A friend was playing a somewhat greedy hand, and I also kept a greedy hand. But that greedy hand was a "Sword of Forge of Frontier + Thalia, Guardian of Thraben with the grim monolith to push both of them out but not enough lands to actually pay the rest of my hand." And the Thalia, depressingly enough, shut them off because the extra mana punished their greedy hand. And then ultimately i took two misses on my Forge and Frontier to not hit a land. So I had basically brought the both of us down, and let the other two players grow WAY stronger during the early parts of the game. It ended up going okay later, but a dumb play of my Harmonious Archon just gave the game to the naya tokens deck while I was trying to stymie the bleeding from the large demon tokens the Abaddon warhammer precon pushed out. (ended up removing Harmonious Archon once I got the white Court from WoE it was that bad of a play.)
There is mercy in this dojo. Sweep the leg.
I had someone recently screech “this is just the dies to removal argument!” when he complained about Drannith Magistrate, and I asked if Magistrate was often sitting untouched the whole game as he implied, or several turns. He kept refusing to specify.
He also kept ignoring questions on if people should have redundant effects similar to the commander. (Think Lathril being the only source of elf tokens vs additional sources.). I’ve never been bothered by an opposing Drannith because there’s other spells I can play and cast, but some people start getting nasty the moment I say I’m fine with opponents playing Drannith.
1v1 commander is a really different game. My cousin wanted to try his werewolf deck and asked it to play against any prebuilt decks I had as the ones I had built were on a different budget than the ones his playgroup had set for themselves.
Luckily I had the two sided secret lair deck and played him with that. I had a lead over his deck until he played Ezuri's Predation. At that point without a boardwipe I couldn’t build back to win and lost in a turn or two later. Some deck are meant to be played with 4 players and can’t live until solo focus/other taking care of issues that arrive.
This is kinda the reason why I think, in spite of being the casual format of MTG, Commander is very brutal for a beginner. It is a casual play-space, but it's one I think you get the most out of when you're already in the know. Even beyond just the innate challenges of a 100-card singleton format, the politics that surrounds Commander is a whole game you need to learn to play within the game of Magic you're already learning. You have to balance things like tempo and momentum in a way that takes alot of finesse that a new player won't have. Overplay and you explode, because you got ganked by the whole pod. Stall too much and you end up as collateral in the arms race surrounding you. It's a pretty advanced talent to require and I don't think it's something you can "just play without," because stories like this would otherwise not be so commonplace. Even in more chilled pods, it's just a natural reflex to "Get rid of the thing that's gonna win."
This was how I saw it when getting in. I played a bit of standard and got to do some sealed decks before most people I played with just veered into commander. Most of the time, I felt like a rat at the foot of titans, slinking past and hoping to poke some meager dents into their armor. I adapted of course and found in it a love for highly recursive decks that grind the opponent to the nub by refusing to stay down, usually ending the game with enough board-presence and value that no amount of wipes can fully scrub me off the map (a.k.a, the golgari grindset). However, this is the perspective of a very core audience member, who had spent years by that point grinding Yu-Gi-Oh and generally approaches learning new things with the expectation that improvement happens over months upon months of getting beaten to the ground. Even then, I still don't think I'm very good at commander, though part of that is also that I actually just don't have the taste-buds for the political game and would rather just play legacy instead.
I agree that it's complex, or at the least requires mutual understanding which can be hard to come by, especially when playing with strangers. multiplayer games of any kind are generally harder to master, whether it's a video game or a board game or a game with complex rules interactions (not to mention complex social interactions) like magic
I agree that people should be more reflective when it comes to gameplay and deck building, but it goes both ways. "Maybe I should be less reliant on X aspect of the game so I don't get blown out by Y" is important to consider, but also "Maybe I don't need to run Y because it scarcely matters 80% of the time, and makes people I play with upset whenever it does work" is another vital form of self reflection that a lot of people in this comment section seem completely unaware of.
If you're in Green and you want to hate out Treasures just run Veridian Revel or something.
4:52 is art
A similar situation happened to me with this exact precons. One of my friends bought the precon and the first night he played it we ended up in a situation where I couldn’t really deal with flyers on board so i was forced to remove them. I ended up removing his board a few times. I felt bad and he was obviously salty but at the same time didn’t just want to lose. Later i was thinking if there was a better way to handle it but I couldn’t really come up with anything.
The solution is managing your feelings here. He presented threats to you, and you had answers. What is the problem? Any rational self-interested person would respond that way. Pre-cons can lead to notoriously grindy situations. Thats not you being impolite to your friend, that's just how the decks run.
He should of balanced his gas with the threat of wipes.
I keep a minimal enough board state to be strong and keep gas just in case. If you misplay all your cards to multiple board wipes, it's a learning opportunity.
I’m a fellow angels player and that’s kinda the problem with angels. You are reliant of mana rocks to make mana. Most angels cost from about 5-7 mana.
At lot of people who play EDH don't seem to understand that they're still playing a game where someone needs to actually win
Yes! let me play hatebears in EDH without judgement. Kataki just burning a hole in my binder
This is the exact reason I like CEDH, no feels bad no misunderstanding, no miscommunication. Everyone knows what they signed up for and what to expect. It's also super cheap because the CEDH community almost universally allows proxies.
THIS! I switched to cEDH a few years ago and I do not miss the salty cry babies at my local "normal" EDH tables. Fair point "they" were absurdly salty - to a point were people got flamed for running Mana crypt and Ancient tomb.
But still cEDH has such awholesome crowd playing it unlike EDH.
I think a counterbalance can be found in cEDH tables. You get hyper flamed on for misplaying, as if that makes you somehow not a true cEDH player. Partly because since everyone wants to win, you misplaying can inadvertently cause one other player to also be locked out of the game.
Well, to a point I get it.
You can't just blast counter spells left and right then let the infinite combo through.
Make decisions as best as possible with the information you have but if you're misplaying cards a lot, you deserve a couple of words at least.
Do the people spreading this gospel ever consider that people might not want to play cEDH?
Specially when they see how shallow the card pool is? Also having to play feels bad cards and against them? IMHO, this is worse advice than "run more removal", because it is far more manipulative than real advice.
Tone-Deaf cEDH players 😂
@@defectivesickle5643I have seen people get downright abusive over people making mistakes and calling it "King-Making".
I learned how to play magic in 1v1 commander and let me tell you.... My husband was not gentle when I first started and we really had to work on our communication. I do think it's ok (and maybe even preferred) to play suboptimally when playing with a new player.
One time a friend played a Sol Ring into Arcane Signet which resulted in a turn 2 Nekusar. The table all kind of groaned at it and he just looked at us completely confused as to why we didnt like his turn one or turn 2 plays.
"path nekusar"
You built Chatterfang, an infamous combo Commander that oppresses entire tables. You also Turn 2 Sol Ring'd.
Those were both the right plays.
As for the Ouphe player, they play a Stax deck themselves, so malding over Ouphe shutting off a Voltron deck is a "What else did you expect?" moment.
To me, there is nothing with lower stakes than 1v1 commander while waiting for a pod- it’s more about letting people goldfish with a bit more reactive environment
i KNEW this was gonna be about the collector ouphe thread
I'm going to give some advice that can be used both in commander and in relationships, that is communication. In this case, this problem could have been avoided if either the boyfriend or girlfriend would have said something along the lines of "please don't target my sol ring or I won't target your sol ring and in return I will do X". I am very competitive; my wife knows it and understands that she is a valid target when we play. However, I am aware that certain plays may cause problems so I simply communicate what I am going to do, give my reasons, and see if we can come to an acceptable agreement.
Problem is, they were sitting down for a 1v1 game while they waited for other people to finish. There is nothing you can do in 1v1 that could offset someone's desire to Abrade a Sol Ring. You can't offer to deal with a different player's stuff etc because there isn't another player.
@@JamiesonLock even if it's a 1-on-1, they are in a friendly match and not in a tournament where there is a prize or money involved. You can still talk to your opponent, especially if it's your significant other. ESPECIALLY, if they built a new deck and want to try it out.
I see what you mean however I think what she expressed wasn’t necessarily she’s mad that the things she’s dependent on are being removed, more so she’s expressing that the way her play group plays isn’t something that is good for a casual player. She said she’s fairly new and just got a new deck to play with them and they aren’t necessarily being considerate in that. I know we usually would say “you need to run more of…you should expect players to…” but with newer players they want to be immersed and it’s up to us for that to really drive home because it’s a social game.
If I had done the most optimal strategy against my friend who just bought his first precon, that isn’t going to help him love the game. What I did was I just played cards that boosted my own board and let him play his cards for him to see what he could do, not give him the win but let him run with the deck.
Now that he’s fallen for the game and is learning we now do more optimal plays because we got to a point where if one player lags for a turn or two the other with increase their board tenfold and win quickly.
Zooming out one step further, folks need to realize that sometimes, it just isn’t your night. Bad matchups, bad draws, things not going your way…it happens. Everyone gets salty once in awhile too - we’re not all chipper influencers saving our best material for the cameras. Chill out, meet people where they are, and don’t take what happens in a fantasy card game too seriously.
We had this problem of crippling a deck in the first couple of rounds with a play like this, we have introduced a restart mechanic, when something like this happens we just restart the game so everyone can play instead of sitting there going draw-go without playing anything.
If you think T1 land, Sol Ring makes the table look nervously in your direction, imagine the piles of delicious, delicious salt that comes from T1 land, Sol Ring, Mana Crypt, Teferi's Puzzle Box...
I literally had 2 games yesterday where we flung across all players 10+ removal spells between two players and the others had one removal spell each (a path and a black gearhulk). There also someone played the angle deck and was a little frustrated why we kept removing his big bomby game win threating angles