I guess I'm lucky enough to play with a group of regulars where being attacked early is interpreted as being a fault of the defending player for being open enough to attack into. That and the game has to actually end at some point so we can shuffle up and play more games.
100%. I will attack every turn I can. If someone wants to see their engine come together, they should pack defenses or removal. Interaction is what makes MTG what it is. There are tons of other board/card games where you can build and pop off uninterrupted.
honestly getting attacked early can even be a good thing, a lower life total can make you appear less threatening when people are throwing interaction and bigger attacks around.
With newer players or unfamiliar players maybe this is true, but i feel like with dedicated players who recognize this fallacy or a consistent playgroup that doesn’t just blindly trust decks that can rapidly pop off while looking nonthreatening this really no longer applies pretty quickly. Commander players can (occasionally) think critically, and i think damage where its available is totally understood with anyone above an extremely casual environment. (EDIT: You said that lol my bad)
This is true. Newer players might have a "but why" mentality that needs an explanation. Generally I'll attack into a lifegain deck early, with the explanation being that the lifegain deck can rally better.
One thing I wish you guys talked a bit more about was the increase in attack triggers/combat damage triggers that WOTC has been doing. I think prior to 2020 there were not so many of them, but ever since then there have been a ton of commanders that say "when I attack, you get some benefit", or "when a creature deals combat damage, you get a benefit". These sort of commanders are fairly popular as well, and I think that oftentimes they don't cause the same issue as what you two outlined in the video. If someone swings 3 damage at me because when they do so they get to, for example, make a token, then I'm not annoyed at all because I just understand that it's a core part of their gameplan
As I've said many times before and will keep saying: The less you actually do in any game of commander the more optimal your plays are. You are playing commander at peak efficiency when you are not playing the game at all. Legend has it the world champion of EDH has not played the game in like 50 years or something. At all!
Your channel has been instrumental in helping me get new (we’re all over 40) players of table-top games to consider Magic. Additionally, your videos have been instrumental in my own experience with all games (not just Magic) by giving me quality philosophical jump points to see the larger picture in how games are played. Basically…I appreciate you and the work you do. I also appreciate your art, but I can’t justify buying a Dockside. Well, not yet anyway.😅
A diverse meta with a combination of aggressive, combo, and value gameplans fixes the action bias problem because there is an inherent tension between each deck's desired tempo. Action bias mainly becomes a problem in games where 3 or more decks have are playing the same incremental value gameplan.
My suggestion is: attack the grouphug player. Unless you take more adventage from him, he should be a target, since they will always have ways to hinder attacks later on and their wincons are mostly uninteractable outside of counterspells.
I feel this only works if everyone's deck is on an even power level! But that is almost never the case. Without any information other than the commanders, we can assume that the mono black deck will likely use it's life as a resource more than other decks. Not attacking that player is inherently more beneficial for them than other players. The same can be said about any control deck. When you play cheap utility creatures that 4 or 6 damage a turn chipping really important. I think you should almost always get in for chip damage at any slower control deck since they will be strongest late game
Hey trinket love your videos! I think part of understanding this advice is in the way we see the optimal play pattern of commander. Playing most optimally isn’t what everyone wants but from a resource management perspective being able to increase your own economy without interruption is what the system of commander incentivizes. If you attack early and that player then removes a value piece for you as a consequence you were much better off not acting at all. You and that player are down resources in relation to the other two players.
hi TrinketMage! in my playgroup (upgraded precon power level) people treat you attacking them somewhat personally. so you could of course do the "optimal play" and turn people on you/make enemies early, but that would mean you're 1v3'ing a game where your deck is generally not 3x more powerful to possibly outvalue 3 other decks basically this sort of politics in commander ALWAYS restricts your plays and you can't just go properly all-in and make optimal plays like in normal 1v1 Magic, because you WILL immediately get shut down/eat the removal as the biggest threat and eventually lose
this problem probably goes away when a group has good threat assessment and when there's a clear way to prioritize aggressive actions. attack the black player cuz ad naus and necropotence and all that stuff. aggress the winning player to deny a win. the grudge might come up when there's no clear targets but there's always a better way to play than to hold a grudge. it's also worth it to condition someone away from retaliation when it just never works. if someone says if you attack me i will later target you to both our detriment, that's gonna work if and only if people respond to that blackmail and the incentive to follow through with the blackmail simply does not exist when nobody respects the blackmail in the first place.
Guys, I love your videos and I appreciate that you are going into the different aspects of Commander Magic, please though, I wanna see more videos specifically about magic and card game design and less about the various aspects of commander.
Thats the entire point of attacking early. It starts a tit for tat and also starts the ball rolling, while you can then say "i was stopped and am no longer the threat".
With regard to attacking early…it really depends on the deck. I find the decks I play that allow for immunity during my build up (say with the Timey Wimey suspend feature) attacking early is not only drawing unneeded attention early on, it also forces me to put resources into aggressive attacking and the inevitable defending that prompts, that I could be investing in the larger, long term “big thing” that deck does. Where it really gets dicey is when attack triggers are the core of your deck (say treasure creation upon attack or attack perks like energy in the Satya deck), attacking early when defenses are low allows you to ramp the alternative resource your deck leverages.
While you're right that attacking early isn't the optimal play, it's my favorite way to punish greedy decks with little interaction (in my regular pod at least).
I destroyed someone’s Ruby Medallion in a game a few weeks ago and they proceeded to rage and target my board for the rest of the game. I only killed it because he was running a mono red burn deck and was so far ahead we all needed a way to slow him down a bit. Very next game he brought that hate with him…
once again pointing out that Oathbreaker solves a lot of this. Since there are now planeswalkers that enable spells, you are way more incentivized to be aggressive towards them to shut off access to that possibly game winning spell. And everyone has half the life so 3-4 damage from each opponent on a turn cycle is half your life if you don't have blockers.
@@distractionmakers I think the format design is really interesting for Commander. I think a lot of people have said (including this channel) that Commander is less of a format, and more like a different game built with Magic Building blocks. Kinda like Fallout New Vegas compared to Fallout 3. Commander subformats like PrEDH, cEDH, Oathbreaker, Tiny Leaders, Pauper EDH, etc. are interesting ways to segment down a gigantic game space. Even Rule Zero is basically creating a multiverse of Commander Formats, as each playgroup can potentially play a slightly different format of Commander. I think Fans need to take ownership and responsibility for building the format they want, and not just leave it up to chance, or WOTC. (I also think Proxies and Cubes are part of this fan ownership that needs to happen.) Personally, y'all are making me want to create an EDH subformat. The way you talk about game design is empowering, because knowledge is empowering. Instead of taking what we're given, we can think about what is, and iterate something new.
Last night I played a game of commander with my couple of friends. One of whom is new, and the other a casual that I introduced to the game about 5 years ago. I played the Boros goad precon and the new player played a sultai counters deck. So he juiced up a bird to a 5/6 about turn 4. I used my commander to goad it. Making it attack the other player. At the end of the game, the other player complained a lot, saying very loudly he was "targeted out of the game" By being attacked 3 times by a 5 power flier. I understand that taking 15 from one threat sucks. But you don't just get to win the game for free. And even then, it's just damage. He then complained that his mana doubler was removed when all he had was mana. And I said "I don't know that." So somehow by being attacked for less than half of my friend's life total kicked him out of the game and having a broken threat removed was targeting. This is why I think commander is almost bad for the game. In 1v1, the bad beats only come from truly bad luck or good plays from the opponent or bad plays from you. There's not this oddly social situation where taking 15 is "being taken out of the game." It baffles me because it blatently isn't true. But commander does not teach fundamentals of the game correctly. With all this said, Attack early and start teaching players to play the game right
I disagree that Commander doesn't teach fundamentals of the game correctly. You are correct in that it doesn't teach traditional 1v1 Magic well. That's because Commander isn't Magic. It uses Magic cards and Magic rules, but it is very much it's own beast. I don't think that enough people understand this concept. You can jump from Vintage to Legacy to Modern to Pioneer to Standard to Pauper and still be playing the same game. Sure, the cards change, the meta changes, and the "feel" of each format changes. But it's all still Magic. The same can't be said of Commander, even if it were to be played in a 1v1 format. It alleviates some of the issues with politics and it makes abilities like Goad completely useless, but even then it is still very much a different game.
Im gonna say something you might not like to hear… Right off the bat, I don’t like what you were doing. By the sounds of it, you knowingly played a goad deck in a 3 player game, despite the obvious problems that would cause. One player is being locked out of ever being able to attack you, just based on the premise of the deck. In a 4 player game, its balanced, But in a 3 player game, you’re essentially turning it into a 2 player game where one player is forced to help you. It became a 2v1. And let not pretend you didn’t know thats what the deck does. Bit of a poor choice to choose to play that deck, in a 3 player game, when you’re not looking to upset at least 1 other player…. You’re not a victim of somebody else “just” not liking what you did. You did something that, in my opinion, isn’t a likeable thing to do. If you guys all agreed to play your best “shit-disturber” decks, thats cool. But if the other 2 guys sat down to play a casual game, The calculated decision to play a deck that’ll unbalance the already tweaked nuance of a 3 player edh match is one with obvious repercussions. Not saying you did anything on purpose, But it sounds like you tried to mess with your friends and it had repercussions. Its the same thing when as when you were a kid and somebody said they were good at mortal kombat, only to keep spamming scorpion’s spear move over and over….. You wonder why your friend wanted to play a different game that day after you did that to them. Theres a certain level of etiquette involved with edh, and that etiquette carries different nuances depending on how many players are in the game. You ignored the etiquette and the nuance of what it means to play a 3 player game of non competitive edh, and of course your friend had an issue with it. Again, I don’t mean any offence at all, But I absolutely see why your friend doesn’t like what you did. It almost seems calculated. Like making a crude joke about a certain demographic of people, right in front of somebody of that demographic. A tasteless move. One that’s typically done deliberately, if not by somebody blind to their own ignorance. They could’ve asked you to not play the deck, but do they really have to do that? Some people are uncomfortable telling others to not be on bullshit trying ti ruin the game because some folks take being called out and told to stop poorly. Thats why the police issue sound complaints instead of the neighbour… because the noisey neighbour might act like a fool over being told to quiet down. They let you play it, then voiced their concerns after letting get away with having your fun. They aren’t salty, they’re tired of the bullcrap lol they just want a normal game of commander without you doing something to take advantage of how many players are at the table. If there were more than 4 players, would you jump at the chance to play a deck that can make X amount of (insert in-game item) scaled to the number of players, to take advantage of that too? I’d certainly hope not. But yeah, that was a poor choice. I ditched a playgroup because there was a guy who did crap like that. Your friends might just start playing without you if you’re not careful lol they have every right to just not call you and invite you if they don’t like how you play. If they play at your house, they don’t have to, They can go play 1v1 at the local McDonalds and leave you by yourself…. That does happen. A card game CAN ruin a friendship. this isn’t me telling you how to play cards, or what deck you can or can’t play, This is me telling you to *treat your friends better if they’re your friends*
@@nicks4802 lol, literally eveything that you typed is why Commander is bad. Speaking of bad, if you couldn't be Scorpion Spear and Teleport Spam, then you either need to practice a lot more, or give up on fighting games. 🤷♂️🤣
I have a goad deck, too. It is simply not fun in a 3-player format. 4-player you still give them some kinda choice, which makes them annoyed but still not to the point of them having to continuously swing at the same person against their will. That is the reason I never play that deck in 3 player
At the end of the day it’s almost always about mana, kneejerk reaction idea is to maybe committing a crime or dealing combat damage to a player gives you a treasure token once per your turn
I like your idea of trying to incentivize attacking. I fully believe in proactive gameplay. Monarch and Goad are amazing mechanics. I think we need to create a Mario Party style board game for Commander.
I wonder if this has anything to do with part of the frustration with Poison I hear from commander players sometimes. That player has to attack early to get each opponent poisoned at least a bit.
While I agree with the psychology I disagree with the conclusion. You SHOULD attack early to make life matter. Was just in a game where had I been attacked even a single additional time I would not have won. Swing!
This is kind of a Prisoners' Dilemma situation. If you squint. But analyzing it further: The crux of it comes down to the player who was attacked deciding whether a threat of retaliation is going to be called as a bluff, and whether following through on the threat is worth it to enforce their ability to rattlesnake in the future. For a single game, I think it is the general case that the defending player would initially be expected to rattlesnake as free EV (unless there is a social dynamic that instantly gives the table distaste for them and they would rather reserve the silver tongue gambit for later), but then the attacking player should call the bluff having already selected the most optimal target to attack, and the defending player should not follow through on the threat. Because as the player with agency on the retaliation, spending your removal, etc. on a suboptimal target is definitionally a negative value proposition at the point you make that decision. The evolution of this is probably just to take your early small lumps from a random utility creature without making everyone go through the extra burden of quibbling about it. Angle shooting every point of damage from the jump in every game seems more likely to be net negative for your ability to politic and everyone's enjoyment of and willingness to sign up for games over time. Just accept your friend's gameplay decision with grace instead of immediately trying to manipulate them; twiddle your life total die, and move on with the game. (If you're in the specialized playgroup full of people who all love minmaxing on heavy politics from start to finish, you already know that's you, and you don't need to argue about it to the average case; just keep playing and having your fun, and maybe do a check-in every so-often to see if everyone still feels that way, or make an effort to go easy on it whenever you welcome a new face to the table.) Also, there are some that say "don't be a coward and use a die to roll for who you attack" but I say it's worth considering as an option available to the table in order to short-cut this bluff-intimidation thing. The defending player will not be arguing with you; the die result is not simply an abdication of responsibility alone; it is a declaration of intent to pre-empt bluffs. If someone is liable to get upset over the RNG 3-way-split of who a random 1/1 goes at in the opening turns ruining the integrity of the game, I think they should re-evaluate the scope of that RNG over the RNG inherent in signing up to play a free-for-all Singleton card game with four decks present. Turn order, opening hands and draws are going to dwarf the influence of that point of damage. That said, it's probably more conpelling to discuss the table matchup's influence over early attack positions *either very briefly in the moment, or after the game*. But the old die trick for the icebreaker exists as a resort if your group finds themself stunlocked over this. Trying to pin down the attacking player on this political point relentlessly is not all the way to mana-bullying, but it seems to approach that kind of realm to me.
Or attack early and hard. I had a Kaalia deck that had no issue with that. I took it apart as it kinda felt bad taking 1 person out at a time but the fact was they didn’t have time to retaliate against me as I’d focus them out, so to me well built aggros only issue is taking one person out too quickly. Which can be very unfun and make things less interactive.
'Guns' Application to MTG - Raid - when your creature deals damage to a player, you may add one mana that a land they control could produce. Tap that land and place a stun counter on it.
Variations - 1. only creatures with haste have raid 2. player may raid instead of dealing damage 3. Raid activates for each creature, or just once per turn
Unfortunately, biases are hardy even in competitive. And if you are miraculously able to play rationally... how about the fourth best player in the game?
I hate how succinctly you sumerised the biggest migraine of Commander: fear of engagement. I actually see this with the youngest (a twenty something) player of our group; he builds to go off with minimal insulation because who'd be dumb enough to try and win by Agro or Damage when the table would just ground pound the problem. And I hate how he's right. Anymore, about every table I sit at is aiming to sit there gently jerking each other off with one hand while whittling a shiv with the other (in plain sight). Then you counter or remove a piece of someone's board, they either succeed or fail to curbstomp you, and regardless they b***** & bawl about you stopping their glorious 378 step plan. No offense meant, but Magic players and Commander players really are different breeds.
"Anymore, about every table I sit at is aiming to sit there gently jerking each other off with one hand while whittling a shiv with the other (in plain sight)." Lol, I love this analogy.
I suspect that incentivizing action is the solution here. Also directing action towards winning faster while self balancing against the one who is ahead. It’s tricky but can be done
It’s true if there is a way to have everyone incentivized, but playing a commander who is incentivized to attack seems to just make me seem like the aggressive player who needs to be attacked back when other players have commanders popping off without attacking
@@connor5187 That is the crux of the matter. We need to come up with a way to incentivize everyone to attack. That's what OP and the channel are saying.
Getting attacked early or receiving a free attack just prompts a "I guess I'm the threat here." Response then buff a third party creature or do something beneficial to the third
I've been working on a low-mid power Rogue deck with blue/black Sygg at the helm, and I think it would be considered a tempo deck. I wanna chip away at people with cheap, evasive threats and remove big threats and engine pieces that prevent my plan from working. I recieve a lot of grief about hitting peole with my dinky unblockables even when someone else at the table can hit for like 20 in the air with a couple creatures and still have some shields up. i definitely have had some sense about this concept but i appreciate hearing it put in theory. i want to hear how people can mitigate or punish action bias for aggressive strategies
Well… I think the bad news is there isn’t really a good way to mitigate this problem. Goad does a decent job. A commander like slicer does an ok job. But none of those play styles are what you are describing.
Any advice for people with commanders that do their thing when attacking? For some reason I find all the commanders I want to build around have specific attacking or damage dealt effects. So I end up getting people mad I’m attacking them, and I’ll also find myself going after the person already down the most a lot because I don’t have the power to attack the big threats. I feel bad doing that, but if I want my Voja deck to get its benefits and be able to take on the big threats later, I need to attack with it every chance I can
Honestly, the best you can do is make a deal with another player so you get to deal damage to them for some other kind of benefit. Maybe others will have better advice, but I almost never play commanders that need to attack for this reason =\
You just gotta go for it. Picking an aggression dependent commander makes some of your decisions for you. My experience though is you should do three things first: pick a side, and endear another player to be on that side; plan to be the archenemy, and design your deck to fight everyone when the jig is up; finally, expect to get your teeth kicked in every now and then, because even the best plans go awry.
I'd say the easy answer is combat trick spells, Voja has RGW so you can drop simple and easy pump spells to get over the big threat blocker by surprise with power/first strike, or sudden indestructible, deathtouch/regenerate is in green not just black I think, you could even pack some destroy attacking/blocking creature white spells to destroy the blocker before it can hit voja. idr the name but there's also a land that can pay 0 and tap to untap an attacking creature and remove it from combat, which any time there's a big enough threat you can use it to stop that instead of getting voja's attack trigger, or even protect someone as an act of politics. You can make your goal with voja to be attacking anyone safely rather than just attacking the weakest player to kick them while they're down because voja only needs to declare the attack not deal damage to the player, and all the combat trick spells will tend to function similar to removal for bigger threats until the table gets savy and lets damage through because the damage is less important than the creature, allowing you to start bluffing with cards in hand and just getting free attacks.
Always attack. It incentives people to do so, gets the game going. You know when someone isn't gonna chump block with a creature that benefits their end game.
I e seen action bias cause players to leave a table from frustration. It’s a real issue in commander for players who know how to threat assess correctly. They get triggered when others “misevaluate”.
Creature combat decks which try to curve out are just unplayable in Commander. The format is designed for people who like playing Enchantress mirrors, fake control decks with limited/no counterspells, and ponderously slow mass destruction/bounce effects.
more people need to stop being scared of early damage. I've seen a lot of people online seem to love goad as a mechanic because of this, but personally, I hate it. It's a cowards mechanic, especially on mass boardwide goads. Forcing people to have to attack is good, but the moment you get to the part where it says "except me" it's reveling in the most toxic part of small bean syndrome. literally, "You guys gotta speed up the game and start swinging so life totals drop and resources get burned, except me, I get to stay safe and keep building resources because you can't attack me"
Ooh, so I should not attack with my 1/2 turn 3 even if its a free attack? Also about goad, way to often has someone removed my 2 mana dude that goads someone every turn over the 8 mana big dumb dino that I want to goad because it hurts
That is why a lot of players try to roll or something like that to attack early, but it literally does nothing to solve the bias, if anything does the opposite. In game economics you argument is correct, you want to spend resources to advance your game. BUT, there is an element there you didn't consider. When you interact with you opponents stuff what you are investing in is tempo. You are not allowing the game to get ahead of you. The strategies and elements are not linear in commander.
The issue is that you spent the resources to pull someone else down instead of move yourself forward. Think of it this way: Player 1 has four lands. Everyone else has 3 lands. Everyone has 4 cards in hand. You spend 1 card to remove 1 of player 1’s lands. Everyone now has 3 lands and 4 cards. However, you have 3 cards. If instead you spent your card to get a land, you now also have 4 lands where the two other players have 3.
@@distractionmakers But games are not simply won off of having more lands and cards than everyone else. Instead it is a game where everything has a contextual amount of power, or none at all. If an opponent has many creatures, enough to kill me, but I have moat, the only thing they can do to make all of that matter is to destroy my moat (or give their creatures flying), in such a case there is a very limited amount of things I need to worry about maybe I should target their card draw specifically. Also if an opponent has lots of ways to buff tokens, so much so that even just 5 or 6 tokens could kill me, then killing their token producer will make all those buff cards worthless. Or in the case of plaguecrafter type effects, I may be knocking every opponent down a notch. My removal may also be repeatable, in which case I don't go down cards, just opportunity cost. Another case would be I have a win condition that is not easily accelerated, or requires the board to mature to a further game state, simply ramping may cause me to lose before I reach the state I need, like keeping my commander around for an extended period of time, or assembling a combo, in such a case taking out key pieces or pushing down whoever's ahead will help me towards that goal.
@@auberry8613 go watch the previous videos on this channel that explains it. this video is more of a follow up that only discusses player psychology and how it applies within the context of edh theory established beforehand.
@@distractionmakers I agree with the premise there, I'm adding a layer to it. This mentality of advancing your board not removing things is exactly what make so many people have a lot of grudges, because they are treating their resources without thinking about tempo and pace. A good example of this is dealing with some red alert combo pieces like an altar. It ir not about advancing cards on board or cards in hand when with one more card they win. This measuring who has the better board state approach is very detrimental because cards don't have the same weight based on the time of the game. For example a sol ring is amazing but drawing it late game with 10 lands already is bad, while on turn 1 it's the best play of the game. Tempo is a determining factor and most well used removal has this in mind, especially the ones that are not card disadvantage like a sheoldred addict or pick your poison. The problem is that most players are not patient enough to save removal for what matters.
I always think of it in a mathematical sense: A creature I don't attack with can block multiple times, a creature I attack with can't block unless I untap it or it has vigilance. Furthermore, if I'm in the weakest position at a table, defense is far more important than aggression. The damage you inflict on the earliest turns is very relevant if you're building aggro properly, and in those cases you pretty much need to give up on defense entirely, but it's specifically something your deck needs to be structured around. If you have a bunch of aggressive curve fillers 1v1 style and they all become completely useless turn 4 or so because the board's full of big creatures, you're kinda stuck with aggro cards that don't do anything and are going to exit stage left into the next board wipe. It's part of why hitting face with mass burn can be way more meaningful than just putting creatures on board, a burn card might use the resources you could have spent on defense, but it doesn't have the downside of you having to give up one of its functions to use its aggressive one.
This is kinda dumb, failure to attack in the early game just artificially increases game length and commander games already take too long. Nobody should a grudge about 5-10 damage in the early game, play blockers if you don’t like getting attacked.
"Getting those early points of damage in; probably not worth it." Why would you choose bad sportsmanship as your way of demonstrating action bias? People getting salty and seeking revenge because you used the main ability (attack) of the main card in the game (creature) to knock 3 points off their 40 point life total early on is just them being a cry baby who is simply refusing to engage with not just an aspect but a major aspect of the game that they don't like, pressuring. There's no need to validate bad sportsmanship, immature behavior to make a point because ultimately it just detracts from that point. Bad players are somewhat of a problem in commander and it keeps a lot of people out of the format. “By bad” players I mean people who cry when they get poked for 1 by an Esper sentinel or when their spell is countered or they think a medium powered card like Gideon Jura is “cheap and takes no skill to win with.” I suggest not speaking to or for this type of player in a way that validates them. There are limitless factors in game design in regards to who your game is for and there is just no reason this type of player needs to be anything but ignored. A game and its guardrails can’t be for everyone and what better player to leave out than this? and in the context of a design podcast, think about what you’re saying about your own level of experience in MtG when you’re addressing malding scrubs as legitimate players well worth considering. A better example of action bias might be firing off your only removal spell at a mediocre target just because you want to use all your mana - just to take an action - before you untap.
God, the “I wanted to feel like my actions mattered so I took all my actions and now I’m bored without any say in the game and it’s all your faults.” Is the most vexing play style. I ligit watched someone run out 5 removal spells on non-issue creatures only to get spanked by a commander they now couldn’t deal with.
Have not watched or read any comments yet, but I will say with my whole chest that this take is factually incorrect outside of extremely low power casual tables. It is always beneficial to start your gameplan as soon as possible, especially if you want to win through combat
Oh, so, not only extremely low power decks, but also playing against a bunch of emotionally unstable children. I've only seen "action bias" from literal children, like 12-15 year olds. Commander is 1v3 without politics, treat it as such and I promise you will have more fun.
I think you guys maybe unintentionally or intentionally are making commander players worst at playing commander. I've been watching you guys for a several of months now, i do enjoy the content but i disagree with you takes about 40% of the time. Mostly when it comes to inaction and churning butter. From what I've seen maybe I have the wrong impression taking actions outside of churning butter are suboptimal. I have more or less the opposite approach, I think inaction looks weak and I'm more likely to aggress on weak players because they don't have the guns. I think CEDH is a guns format they run so much removal/protection because churning is very effective. Win con are 2 to 3 cards at most so most of the time you want to draw cards so you can interact. Players need to attack more life is a resource in game and in politics. You have way more political power over someone who has a low life total especially when you can kill them.
Well, there’s no problem with disagreeing with what we’re saying and if your play style is working in your groups that’s great. Our discussions are about trying to understand how the systems of commander are working across all games and what types of actions are incentivized by those systems. Our evaluation might be different than others and of course we could just be wrong.
I like how you guys use MtG / commander as a way to think about game design more broadly but I think you guys are actually getting a lot wrong to where it could potentially lead you astray. You're doing a lot of this psychology-guy stuff where you're trying to define things rigidly and categorically. I know Rosewater frequently expresses ideas in these terms and it's why I suggest not spending too much time on what Rosewater says not because he's "wrong" but because a lot of what he conveys is just not that useful. If something can be scientifically and mathematically described and laid out as a sort of blue print to be engineered and ultimately constructed, that will always be a more useful way to analyze that thing than describing it through a more abstract psychological and philosophical lens. So for example, when we look at guns vs butter as a dichotomy, we're missing a much bigger thing going on. My Rampant Growth is butter. It ramps me. Except I also have a field of the dead - and maybe a Terror of the Peaks. Now my butter, my ramp, is power on the board and removal, and this isn't just some exception I'm trying to provide. This is actually what commander is all about; eliminating the otherwise narrow roles of individual cards and their distinction from each other altogether by turning everything into modal effects that compliment each other. It's a form of synergy but it goes beyond something like the presence of a linear mechanic. A "low powered" deck is often less defined by weak cards or the absence of a curve in mind and more by its cards remaining isolated from each other and never straying from their narrow roles. The butter vs guns distinction should begin to fade by the mid game more or less. Game elements like this end up being too complex to functionally manage through things like simple categorization. It also becomes difficult to gauge player response because which players are we talking about? the ones who don't understand this stuff or the ones who do? I think it's important to explore things in a way that doesn't try to initially establish a premise of "A or B." I think that can sometimes screw up how people think about some of these concepts that tend to require a more nuanced, hands-on approach. I think it's fine to present our conclusions in simpler philosophical terms that are easy for people to understand but even then I think it's rare that we're going to be able to really put things in any rigidly defined compartments.
I don't think they dislike it. They even have a video called why commander is the best way to play magic. They just like to also critically evaluate it as well, and point out some of its shortcomings from a design perspective
lol trying to use any type of politics against me is futile. I’ll attack early especially if I’m using my Auntie Blight commander deck. You can say I chose not to attack me early on. Tough noogies to you cause I’m smacking you for triple or quadruple damage anyway. Being afraid cause the possibility of later game actions from my opponent won’t matter when they are dead and out of the game.
@@violetto3219 I'm aware! And as a limited player, while I do enjoy having my opinion constantly validated about why commander is bad I do wish they'd talk about things other than commander more often then they have been recently
I guess I'm lucky enough to play with a group of regulars where being attacked early is interpreted as being a fault of the defending player for being open enough to attack into. That and the game has to actually end at some point so we can shuffle up and play more games.
We always I hate you with no hard feelings
100%. I will attack every turn I can. If someone wants to see their engine come together, they should pack defenses or removal. Interaction is what makes MTG what it is. There are tons of other board/card games where you can build and pop off uninterrupted.
honestly getting attacked early can even be a good thing, a lower life total can make you appear less threatening when people are throwing interaction and bigger attacks around.
you forget that if i say im sorry really hard they will forget
With newer players or unfamiliar players maybe this is true, but i feel like with dedicated players who recognize this fallacy or a consistent playgroup that doesn’t just blindly trust decks that can rapidly pop off while looking nonthreatening this really no longer applies pretty quickly. Commander players can (occasionally) think critically, and i think damage where its available is totally understood with anyone above an extremely casual environment.
(EDIT: You said that lol my bad)
Yeah, this doesn't feel like a thing at a competitive level. Especially with table talk
This is true. Newer players might have a "but why" mentality that needs an explanation. Generally I'll attack into a lifegain deck early, with the explanation being that the lifegain deck can rally better.
Unfortunately, biases are hardy. And even if you are miraculously able to play rationally... how about the fourth best player in the game?
I came here to type this hehe. It's only just starting to become consistent in our group.
Another reason you should attack earlier that is because its more fun.
One thing I wish you guys talked a bit more about was the increase in attack triggers/combat damage triggers that WOTC has been doing. I think prior to 2020 there were not so many of them, but ever since then there have been a ton of commanders that say "when I attack, you get some benefit", or "when a creature deals combat damage, you get a benefit". These sort of commanders are fairly popular as well, and I think that oftentimes they don't cause the same issue as what you two outlined in the video. If someone swings 3 damage at me because when they do so they get to, for example, make a token, then I'm not annoyed at all because I just understand that it's a core part of their gameplan
That is a great point and a way WOTC is trying to push action in the format for sure.
As I've said many times before and will keep saying:
The less you actually do in any game of commander the more optimal your plays are.
You are playing commander at peak efficiency when you are not playing the game at all.
Legend has it the world champion of EDH has not played the game in like 50 years or something. At all!
Always attack… there have been so many games where just one creature attacking earlier could have changed the entire game.
Your channel has been instrumental in helping me get new (we’re all over 40) players of table-top games to consider Magic. Additionally, your videos have been instrumental in my own experience with all games (not just Magic) by giving me quality philosophical jump points to see the larger picture in how games are played. Basically…I appreciate you and the work you do. I also appreciate your art, but I can’t justify buying a Dockside. Well, not yet anyway.😅
Haha thanks!
Directions unclear, attacked for lethal on turn 3.
Haha that’s how you do it
A diverse meta with a combination of aggressive, combo, and value gameplans fixes the action bias problem because there is an inherent tension between each deck's desired tempo.
Action bias mainly becomes a problem in games where 3 or more decks have are playing the same incremental value gameplan.
I've never seen that "Noooo! I didnt deal you one damage, you shouldn't attack me!" work in real life. Only in command zone and shuffle up & play.
My suggestion is: attack the grouphug player. Unless you take more adventage from him, he should be a target, since they will always have ways to hinder attacks later on and their wincons are mostly uninteractable outside of counterspells.
I feel this only works if everyone's deck is on an even power level! But that is almost never the case. Without any information other than the commanders, we can assume that the mono black deck will likely use it's life as a resource more than other decks. Not attacking that player is inherently more beneficial for them than other players. The same can be said about any control deck. When you play cheap utility creatures that 4 or 6 damage a turn chipping really important. I think you should almost always get in for chip damage at any slower control deck since they will be strongest late game
Hey trinket love your videos!
I think part of understanding this advice is in the way we see the optimal play pattern of commander. Playing most optimally isn’t what everyone wants but from a resource management perspective being able to increase your own economy without interruption is what the system of commander incentivizes.
If you attack early and that player then removes a value piece for you as a consequence you were much better off not acting at all. You and that player are down resources in relation to the other two players.
hi TrinketMage! in my playgroup (upgraded precon power level) people treat you attacking them somewhat personally. so you could of course do the "optimal play" and turn people on you/make enemies early, but that would mean you're 1v3'ing a game where your deck is generally not 3x more powerful to possibly outvalue 3 other decks
basically this sort of politics in commander ALWAYS restricts your plays and you can't just go properly all-in and make optimal plays like in normal 1v1 Magic, because you WILL immediately get shut down/eat the removal as the biggest threat and eventually lose
Oversimplification: EDH/Commander is Munchkin played with Magic cards
this problem probably goes away when a group has good threat assessment and when there's a clear way to prioritize aggressive actions. attack the black player cuz ad naus and necropotence and all that stuff. aggress the winning player to deny a win. the grudge might come up when there's no clear targets but there's always a better way to play than to hold a grudge.
it's also worth it to condition someone away from retaliation when it just never works. if someone says if you attack me i will later target you to both our detriment, that's gonna work if and only if people respond to that blackmail and the incentive to follow through with the blackmail simply does not exist when nobody respects the blackmail in the first place.
Guys, I love your videos and I appreciate that you are going into the different aspects of Commander Magic, please though, I wanna see more videos specifically about magic and card game design and less about the various aspects of commander.
Thats the entire point of attacking early. It starts a tit for tat and also starts the ball rolling, while you can then say "i was stopped and am no longer the threat".
Ice breaker!
With regard to attacking early…it really depends on the deck. I find the decks I play that allow for immunity during my build up (say with the Timey Wimey suspend feature) attacking early is not only drawing unneeded attention early on, it also forces me to put resources into aggressive attacking and the inevitable defending that prompts, that I could be investing in the larger, long term “big thing” that deck does.
Where it really gets dicey is when attack triggers are the core of your deck (say treasure creation upon attack or attack perks like energy in the Satya deck), attacking early when defenses are low allows you to ramp the alternative resource your deck leverages.
While you're right that attacking early isn't the optimal play, it's my favorite way to punish greedy decks with little interaction (in my regular pod at least).
I destroyed someone’s Ruby Medallion in a game a few weeks ago and they proceeded to rage and target my board for the rest of the game. I only killed it because he was running a mono red burn deck and was so far ahead we all needed a way to slow him down a bit. Very next game he brought that hate with him…
It's not new, just more likely to run into such players in a MP game.
Sounds like the solution is to just not play with that guy
@@psatch22 random pods are random
Seems appropriate for mono-red.
How dare you use removal
my favorite commander podcast
once again pointing out that Oathbreaker solves a lot of this. Since there are now planeswalkers that enable spells, you are way more incentivized to be aggressive towards them to shut off access to that possibly game winning spell. And everyone has half the life so 3-4 damage from each opponent on a turn cycle is half your life if you don't have blockers.
The high life totals definitely contributes to this problem.
@@distractionmakers I think the format design is really interesting for Commander. I think a lot of people have said (including this channel) that Commander is less of a format, and more like a different game built with Magic Building blocks. Kinda like Fallout New Vegas compared to Fallout 3.
Commander subformats like PrEDH, cEDH, Oathbreaker, Tiny Leaders, Pauper EDH, etc. are interesting ways to segment down a gigantic game space. Even Rule Zero is basically creating a multiverse of Commander Formats, as each playgroup can potentially play a slightly different format of Commander.
I think Fans need to take ownership and responsibility for building the format they want, and not just leave it up to chance, or WOTC. (I also think Proxies and Cubes are part of this fan ownership that needs to happen.)
Personally, y'all are making me want to create an EDH subformat. The way you talk about game design is empowering, because knowledge is empowering. Instead of taking what we're given, we can think about what is, and iterate something new.
I love goading the table and then not being the problem lol
Last night I played a game of commander with my couple of friends. One of whom is new, and the other a casual that I introduced to the game about 5 years ago.
I played the Boros goad precon and the new player played a sultai counters deck. So he juiced up a bird to a 5/6 about turn 4.
I used my commander to goad it. Making it attack the other player.
At the end of the game, the other player complained a lot, saying very loudly he was "targeted out of the game" By being attacked 3 times by a 5 power flier.
I understand that taking 15 from one threat sucks. But you don't just get to win the game for free. And even then, it's just damage.
He then complained that his mana doubler was removed when all he had was mana. And I said "I don't know that."
So somehow by being attacked for less than half of my friend's life total kicked him out of the game and having a broken threat removed was targeting.
This is why I think commander is almost bad for the game. In 1v1, the bad beats only come from truly bad luck or good plays from the opponent or bad plays from you.
There's not this oddly social situation where taking 15 is "being taken out of the game." It baffles me because it blatently isn't true. But commander does not teach fundamentals of the game correctly.
With all this said, Attack early and start teaching players to play the game right
I disagree that Commander doesn't teach fundamentals of the game correctly. You are correct in that it doesn't teach traditional 1v1 Magic well. That's because Commander isn't Magic. It uses Magic cards and Magic rules, but it is very much it's own beast.
I don't think that enough people understand this concept. You can jump from Vintage to Legacy to Modern to Pioneer to Standard to Pauper and still be playing the same game. Sure, the cards change, the meta changes, and the "feel" of each format changes. But it's all still Magic. The same can't be said of Commander, even if it were to be played in a 1v1 format. It alleviates some of the issues with politics and it makes abilities like Goad completely useless, but even then it is still very much a different game.
Im gonna say something you might not like to hear…
Right off the bat, I don’t like what you were doing.
By the sounds of it, you knowingly played a goad deck in a 3 player game, despite the obvious problems that would cause.
One player is being locked out of ever being able to attack you, just based on the premise of the deck.
In a 4 player game, its balanced,
But in a 3 player game, you’re essentially turning it into a 2 player game where one player is forced to help you.
It became a 2v1.
And let not pretend you didn’t know thats what the deck does.
Bit of a poor choice to choose to play that deck, in a 3 player game, when you’re not looking to upset at least 1 other player….
You’re not a victim of somebody else “just” not liking what you did.
You did something that, in my opinion, isn’t a likeable thing to do.
If you guys all agreed to play your best “shit-disturber” decks, thats cool.
But if the other 2 guys sat down to play a casual game,
The calculated decision to play a deck that’ll unbalance the already tweaked nuance of a 3 player edh match is one with obvious repercussions.
Not saying you did anything on purpose,
But it sounds like you tried to mess with your friends and it had repercussions.
Its the same thing when as when you were a kid and somebody said they were good at mortal kombat, only to keep spamming scorpion’s spear move over and over…..
You wonder why your friend wanted to play a different game that day after you did that to them.
Theres a certain level of etiquette involved with edh, and that etiquette carries different nuances depending on how many players are in the game.
You ignored the etiquette and the nuance of what it means to play a 3 player game of non competitive edh, and of course your friend had an issue with it.
Again, I don’t mean any offence at all,
But I absolutely see why your friend doesn’t like what you did.
It almost seems calculated.
Like making a crude joke about a certain demographic of people, right in front of somebody of that demographic.
A tasteless move.
One that’s typically done deliberately, if not by somebody blind to their own ignorance.
They could’ve asked you to not play the deck, but do they really have to do that?
Some people are uncomfortable telling others to not be on bullshit trying ti ruin the game because some folks take being called out and told to stop poorly.
Thats why the police issue sound complaints instead of the neighbour… because the noisey neighbour might act like a fool over being told to quiet down.
They let you play it, then voiced their concerns after letting get away with having your fun.
They aren’t salty, they’re tired of the bullcrap lol they just want a normal game of commander without you doing something to take advantage of how many players are at the table.
If there were more than 4 players, would you jump at the chance to play a deck that can make X amount of (insert in-game item) scaled to the number of players, to take advantage of that too?
I’d certainly hope not.
But yeah, that was a poor choice.
I ditched a playgroup because there was a guy who did crap like that.
Your friends might just start playing without you if you’re not careful lol they have every right to just not call you and invite you if they don’t like how you play.
If they play at your house, they don’t have to,
They can go play 1v1 at the local McDonalds and leave you by yourself….
That does happen.
A card game CAN ruin a friendship.
this isn’t me telling you how to play cards, or what deck you can or can’t play,
This is me telling you to *treat your friends better if they’re your friends*
@@nicks4802 lol, literally eveything that you typed is why Commander is bad. Speaking of bad, if you couldn't be Scorpion Spear and Teleport Spam, then you either need to practice a lot more, or give up on fighting games. 🤷♂️🤣
I have a goad deck, too. It is simply not fun in a 3-player format. 4-player you still give them some kinda choice, which makes them annoyed but still not to the point of them having to continuously swing at the same person against their will. That is the reason I never play that deck in 3 player
At the end of the day it’s almost always about mana, kneejerk reaction idea is to maybe committing a crime or dealing combat damage to a player gives you a treasure token once per your turn
I like your idea of trying to incentivize attacking. I fully believe in proactive gameplay. Monarch and Goad are amazing mechanics. I think we need to create a Mario Party style board game for Commander.
I wonder if this has anything to do with part of the frustration with Poison I hear from commander players sometimes. That player has to attack early to get each opponent poisoned at least a bit.
While I agree with the psychology I disagree with the conclusion. You SHOULD attack early to make life matter. Was just in a game where had I been attacked even a single additional time I would not have won. Swing!
I dont think most people do not know about Action Bias. In fact this is usually also part of the complaint.
This is kind of a Prisoners' Dilemma situation. If you squint.
But analyzing it further:
The crux of it comes down to the player who was attacked deciding whether a threat of retaliation is going to be called as a bluff, and whether following through on the threat is worth it to enforce their ability to rattlesnake in the future.
For a single game, I think it is the general case that the defending player would initially be expected to rattlesnake as free EV (unless there is a social dynamic that instantly gives the table distaste for them and they would rather reserve the silver tongue gambit for later), but then the attacking player should call the bluff having already selected the most optimal target to attack, and the defending player should not follow through on the threat. Because as the player with agency on the retaliation, spending your removal, etc. on a suboptimal target is definitionally a negative value proposition at the point you make that decision.
The evolution of this is probably just to take your early small lumps from a random utility creature without making everyone go through the extra burden of quibbling about it. Angle shooting every point of damage from the jump in every game seems more likely to be net negative for your ability to politic and everyone's enjoyment of and willingness to sign up for games over time.
Just accept your friend's gameplay decision with grace instead of immediately trying to manipulate them; twiddle your life total die, and move on with the game.
(If you're in the specialized playgroup full of people who all love minmaxing on heavy politics from start to finish, you already know that's you, and you don't need to argue about it to the average case; just keep playing and having your fun, and maybe do a check-in every so-often to see if everyone still feels that way, or make an effort to go easy on it whenever you welcome a new face to the table.)
Also, there are some that say "don't be a coward and use a die to roll for who you attack" but I say it's worth considering as an option available to the table in order to short-cut this bluff-intimidation thing. The defending player will not be arguing with you; the die result is not simply an abdication of responsibility alone; it is a declaration of intent to pre-empt bluffs. If someone is liable to get upset over the RNG 3-way-split of who a random 1/1 goes at in the opening turns ruining the integrity of the game, I think they should re-evaluate the scope of that RNG over the RNG inherent in signing up to play a free-for-all Singleton card game with four decks present. Turn order, opening hands and draws are going to dwarf the influence of that point of damage.
That said, it's probably more conpelling to discuss the table matchup's influence over early attack positions *either very briefly in the moment, or after the game*. But the old die trick for the icebreaker exists as a resort if your group finds themself stunlocked over this.
Trying to pin down the attacking player on this political point relentlessly is not all the way to mana-bullying, but it seems to approach that kind of realm to me.
Good analysis.
Or attack early and hard. I had a Kaalia deck that had no issue with that. I took it apart as it kinda felt bad taking 1 person out at a time but the fact was they didn’t have time to retaliate against me as I’d focus them out, so to me well built aggros only issue is taking one person out too quickly. Which can be very unfun and make things less interactive.
'Guns' Application to MTG - Raid - when your creature deals damage to a player, you may add one mana that a land they control could produce. Tap that land and place a stun counter on it.
Variations -
1. only creatures with haste have raid
2. player may raid instead of dealing damage
3. Raid activates for each creature, or just once per turn
Attacking and stealing mana is definitely interesting!
Maybe do lifelink when creatures deal combat damage to a player. But rules like these penalize decks without creatures that pursue alt win conditions
Raid is already a mechanic. It's an ability word that rewards you if you attacked this turn.
Unfortunately, biases are hardy even in competitive. And if you are miraculously able to play rationally... how about the fourth best player in the game?
I hate how succinctly you sumerised the biggest migraine of Commander: fear of engagement. I actually see this with the youngest (a twenty something) player of our group; he builds to go off with minimal insulation because who'd be dumb enough to try and win by Agro or Damage when the table would just ground pound the problem.
And I hate how he's right. Anymore, about every table I sit at is aiming to sit there gently jerking each other off with one hand while whittling a shiv with the other (in plain sight). Then you counter or remove a piece of someone's board, they either succeed or fail to curbstomp you, and regardless they b***** & bawl about you stopping their glorious 378 step plan.
No offense meant, but Magic players and Commander players really are different breeds.
"Anymore, about every table I sit at is aiming to sit there gently jerking each other off with one hand while whittling a shiv with the other (in plain sight)." Lol, I love this analogy.
I suspect that incentivizing action is the solution here. Also directing action towards winning faster while self balancing against the one who is ahead. It’s tricky but can be done
Agreed.
One of the reasons adding the monarchy to the game is always a pro-social move.
It’s true if there is a way to have everyone incentivized, but playing a commander who is incentivized to attack seems to just make me seem like the aggressive player who needs to be attacked back when other players have commanders popping off without attacking
@@connor5187 That is the crux of the matter. We need to come up with a way to incentivize everyone to attack. That's what OP and the channel are saying.
Getting attacked early or receiving a free attack just prompts a "I guess I'm the threat here." Response then buff a third party creature or do something beneficial to the third
I've been working on a low-mid power Rogue deck with blue/black Sygg at the helm, and I think it would be considered a tempo deck. I wanna chip away at people with cheap, evasive threats and remove big threats and engine pieces that prevent my plan from working. I recieve a lot of grief about hitting peole with my dinky unblockables even when someone else at the table can hit for like 20 in the air with a couple creatures and still have some shields up. i definitely have had some sense about this concept but i appreciate hearing it put in theory. i want to hear how people can mitigate or punish action bias for aggressive strategies
Well… I think the bad news is there isn’t really a good way to mitigate this problem. Goad does a decent job. A commander like slicer does an ok job. But none of those play styles are what you are describing.
Any advice for people with commanders that do their thing when attacking? For some reason I find all the commanders I want to build around have specific attacking or damage dealt effects. So I end up getting people mad I’m attacking them, and I’ll also find myself going after the person already down the most a lot because I don’t have the power to attack the big threats. I feel bad doing that, but if I want my Voja deck to get its benefits and be able to take on the big threats later, I need to attack with it every chance I can
Honestly, the best you can do is make a deal with another player so you get to deal damage to them for some other kind of benefit. Maybe others will have better advice, but I almost never play commanders that need to attack for this reason =\
You just gotta go for it. Picking an aggression dependent commander makes some of your decisions for you. My experience though is you should do three things first: pick a side, and endear another player to be on that side; plan to be the archenemy, and design your deck to fight everyone when the jig is up; finally, expect to get your teeth kicked in every now and then, because even the best plans go awry.
I'd say the easy answer is combat trick spells, Voja has RGW so you can drop simple and easy pump spells to get over the big threat blocker by surprise with power/first strike, or sudden indestructible, deathtouch/regenerate is in green not just black I think, you could even pack some destroy attacking/blocking creature white spells to destroy the blocker before it can hit voja. idr the name but there's also a land that can pay 0 and tap to untap an attacking creature and remove it from combat, which any time there's a big enough threat you can use it to stop that instead of getting voja's attack trigger, or even protect someone as an act of politics. You can make your goal with voja to be attacking anyone safely rather than just attacking the weakest player to kick them while they're down because voja only needs to declare the attack not deal damage to the player, and all the combat trick spells will tend to function similar to removal for bigger threats until the table gets savy and lets damage through because the damage is less important than the creature, allowing you to start bluffing with cards in hand and just getting free attacks.
Always attack. It incentives people to do so, gets the game going. You know when someone isn't gonna chump block with a creature that benefits their end game.
I e seen action bias cause players to leave a table from frustration. It’s a real issue in commander for players who know how to threat assess correctly. They get triggered when others “misevaluate”.
I think a lot of magic players are not really sociable, and it sucks that the only format that matters anymore is a casual social format.
Creature combat decks which try to curve out are just unplayable in Commander. The format is designed for people who like playing Enchantress mirrors, fake control decks with limited/no counterspells, and ponderously slow mass destruction/bounce effects.
I usually just attack the player with the highest life unless i need player removal.
Would a Pokemon TCG prize incentivize more active player?
0:08 I can't believe you even managed to shoehorn commander into this video, of all videos smh
more people need to stop being scared of early damage. I've seen a lot of people online seem to love goad as a mechanic because of this, but personally, I hate it. It's a cowards mechanic, especially on mass boardwide goads. Forcing people to have to attack is good, but the moment you get to the part where it says "except me" it's reveling in the most toxic part of small bean syndrome. literally, "You guys gotta speed up the game and start swinging so life totals drop and resources get burned, except me, I get to stay safe and keep building resources because you can't attack me"
Ooh, so I should not attack with my 1/2 turn 3 even if its a free attack?
Also about goad, way to often has someone removed my 2 mana dude that goads someone every turn over the 8 mana big dumb dino that I want to goad because it hurts
I like going aggro in edh. If I win its so much better, ig I lose its 1 v 3 usually
And also I dont have time for 2h + games anymore
>say they don’t hate commander
>next video discusses major flaw in commander
That is why a lot of players try to roll or something like that to attack early, but it literally does nothing to solve the bias, if anything does the opposite.
In game economics you argument is correct, you want to spend resources to advance your game.
BUT, there is an element there you didn't consider. When you interact with you opponents stuff what you are investing in is tempo. You are not allowing the game to get ahead of you. The strategies and elements are not linear in commander.
The issue is that you spent the resources to pull someone else down instead of move yourself forward. Think of it this way:
Player 1 has four lands.
Everyone else has 3 lands.
Everyone has 4 cards in hand.
You spend 1 card to remove 1 of player 1’s lands.
Everyone now has 3 lands and 4 cards. However, you have 3 cards.
If instead you spent your card to get a land, you now also have 4 lands where the two other players have 3.
@@distractionmakers But games are not simply won off of having more lands and cards than everyone else. Instead it is a game where everything has a contextual amount of power, or none at all. If an opponent has many creatures, enough to kill me, but I have moat, the only thing they can do to make all of that matter is to destroy my moat (or give their creatures flying), in such a case there is a very limited amount of things I need to worry about maybe I should target their card draw specifically. Also if an opponent has lots of ways to buff tokens, so much so that even just 5 or 6 tokens could kill me, then killing their token producer will make all those buff cards worthless. Or in the case of plaguecrafter type effects, I may be knocking every opponent down a notch. My removal may also be repeatable, in which case I don't go down cards, just opportunity cost. Another case would be I have a win condition that is not easily accelerated, or requires the board to mature to a further game state, simply ramping may cause me to lose before I reach the state I need, like keeping my commander around for an extended period of time, or assembling a combo, in such a case taking out key pieces or pushing down whoever's ahead will help me towards that goal.
@@auberry8613 go watch the previous videos on this channel that explains it. this video is more of a follow up that only discusses player psychology and how it applies within the context of edh theory established beforehand.
@@distractionmakers I agree with the premise there, I'm adding a layer to it. This mentality of advancing your board not removing things is exactly what make so many people have a lot of grudges, because they are treating their resources without thinking about tempo and pace. A good example of this is dealing with some red alert combo pieces like an altar. It ir not about advancing cards on board or cards in hand when with one more card they win.
This measuring who has the better board state approach is very detrimental because cards don't have the same weight based on the time of the game. For example a sol ring is amazing but drawing it late game with 10 lands already is bad, while on turn 1 it's the best play of the game. Tempo is a determining factor and most well used removal has this in mind, especially the ones that are not card disadvantage like a sheoldred addict or pick your poison. The problem is that most players are not patient enough to save removal for what matters.
@@zengamer321 I think those videos are too very flawed and are only engaging at "level 1" of game theory
I always think of it in a mathematical sense: A creature I don't attack with can block multiple times, a creature I attack with can't block unless I untap it or it has vigilance. Furthermore, if I'm in the weakest position at a table, defense is far more important than aggression. The damage you inflict on the earliest turns is very relevant if you're building aggro properly, and in those cases you pretty much need to give up on defense entirely, but it's specifically something your deck needs to be structured around. If you have a bunch of aggressive curve fillers 1v1 style and they all become completely useless turn 4 or so because the board's full of big creatures, you're kinda stuck with aggro cards that don't do anything and are going to exit stage left into the next board wipe. It's part of why hitting face with mass burn can be way more meaningful than just putting creatures on board, a burn card might use the resources you could have spent on defense, but it doesn't have the downside of you having to give up one of its functions to use its aggressive one.
Just don't play with fragile babies
Group hug is the best archetype for casual play.
This is kinda dumb, failure to attack in the early game just artificially increases game length and commander games already take too long. Nobody should a grudge about 5-10 damage in the early game, play blockers if you don’t like getting attacked.
Always attack early. Say it is for the good of the game state. Game has to end.
But attacking leads to fun games :)
"Getting those early points of damage in; probably not worth it."
Why would you choose bad sportsmanship as your way of demonstrating action bias? People getting salty and seeking revenge because you used the main ability (attack) of the main card in the game (creature) to knock 3 points off their 40 point life total early on is just them being a cry baby who is simply refusing to engage with not just an aspect but a major aspect of the game that they don't like, pressuring. There's no need to validate bad sportsmanship, immature behavior to make a point because ultimately it just detracts from that point.
Bad players are somewhat of a problem in commander and it keeps a lot of people out of the format. “By bad” players I mean people who cry when they get poked for 1 by an Esper sentinel or when their spell is countered or they think a medium powered card like Gideon Jura is “cheap and takes no skill to win with.” I suggest not speaking to or for this type of player in a way that validates them. There are limitless factors in game design in regards to who your game is for and there is just no reason this type of player needs to be anything but ignored. A game and its guardrails can’t be for everyone and what better player to leave out than this? and in the context of a design podcast, think about what you’re saying about your own level of experience in MtG when you’re addressing malding scrubs as legitimate players well worth considering.
A better example of action bias might be firing off your only removal spell at a mediocre target just because you want to use all your mana - just to take an action - before you untap.
God, the “I wanted to feel like my actions mattered so I took all my actions and now I’m bored without any say in the game and it’s all your faults.” Is the most vexing play style. I ligit watched someone run out 5 removal spells on non-issue creatures only to get spanked by a commander they now couldn’t deal with.
Have not watched or read any comments yet, but I will say with my whole chest that this take is factually incorrect outside of extremely low power casual tables. It is always beneficial to start your gameplan as soon as possible, especially if you want to win through combat
Oh, so, not only extremely low power decks, but also playing against a bunch of emotionally unstable children. I've only seen "action bias" from literal children, like 12-15 year olds. Commander is 1v3 without politics, treat it as such and I promise you will have more fun.
You guys play EDH to win games? That's cool I guess
I think you guys maybe unintentionally or intentionally are making commander players worst at playing commander. I've been watching you guys for a several of months now, i do enjoy the content but i disagree with you takes about 40% of the time. Mostly when it comes to inaction and churning butter. From what I've seen maybe I have the wrong impression taking actions outside of churning butter are suboptimal. I have more or less the opposite approach, I think inaction looks weak and I'm more likely to aggress on weak players because they don't have the guns. I think CEDH is a guns format they run so much removal/protection because churning is very effective. Win con are 2 to 3 cards at most so most of the time you want to draw cards so you can interact. Players need to attack more life is a resource in game and in politics. You have way more political power over someone who has a low life total especially when you can kill them.
Well, there’s no problem with disagreeing with what we’re saying and if your play style is working in your groups that’s great.
Our discussions are about trying to understand how the systems of commander are working across all games and what types of actions are incentivized by those systems. Our evaluation might be different than others and of course we could just be wrong.
I like how you guys use MtG / commander as a way to think about game design more broadly but I think you guys are actually getting a lot wrong to where it could potentially lead you astray. You're doing a lot of this psychology-guy stuff where you're trying to define things rigidly and categorically. I know Rosewater frequently expresses ideas in these terms and it's why I suggest not spending too much time on what Rosewater says not because he's "wrong" but because a lot of what he conveys is just not that useful. If something can be scientifically and mathematically described and laid out as a sort of blue print to be engineered and ultimately constructed, that will always be a more useful way to analyze that thing than describing it through a more abstract psychological and philosophical lens.
So for example, when we look at guns vs butter as a dichotomy, we're missing a much bigger thing going on. My Rampant Growth is butter. It ramps me. Except I also have a field of the dead - and maybe a Terror of the Peaks. Now my butter, my ramp, is power on the board and removal, and this isn't just some exception I'm trying to provide. This is actually what commander is all about; eliminating the otherwise narrow roles of individual cards and their distinction from each other altogether by turning everything into modal effects that compliment each other. It's a form of synergy but it goes beyond something like the presence of a linear mechanic. A "low powered" deck is often less defined by weak cards or the absence of a curve in mind and more by its cards remaining isolated from each other and never straying from their narrow roles. The butter vs guns distinction should begin to fade by the mid game more or less.
Game elements like this end up being too complex to functionally manage through things like simple categorization. It also becomes difficult to gauge player response because which players are we talking about? the ones who don't understand this stuff or the ones who do? I think it's important to explore things in a way that doesn't try to initially establish a premise of "A or B." I think that can sometimes screw up how people think about some of these concepts that tend to require a more nuanced, hands-on approach. I think it's fine to present our conclusions in simpler philosophical terms that are easy for people to understand but even then I think it's rare that we're going to be able to really put things in any rigidly defined compartments.
So unlucky that players can't attack their own life totals😂
Lorcana has entered the chat 😆
Black and Red players can 😂
For how much you guys dislike commander y'all talk about it a ton
It's a good nexus to base discussions about mechanics and interaction around
I don't think they dislike it. They even have a video called why commander is the best way to play magic. They just like to also critically evaluate it as well, and point out some of its shortcomings from a design perspective
lol trying to use any type of politics against me is futile. I’ll attack early especially if I’m using my Auntie Blight commander deck. You can say I chose not to attack me early on. Tough noogies to you cause I’m smacking you for triple or quadruple damage anyway. Being afraid cause the possibility of later game actions from my opponent won’t matter when they are dead and out of the game.
criticism is good and healthy
@@violetto3219 I'm aware! And as a limited player, while I do enjoy having my opinion constantly validated about why commander is bad I do wish they'd talk about things other than commander more often then they have been recently
I hate commander :3