My friend used to play a deck of 99 basic lands with Kenrith as the commander and an Obosh companion. The plan was basically to make deals and group hug your opponents to stay alive until it was a 1v1 then put a bunch of counter and Kenrith and go for a commander damage with with Obosh there to help push damage. That deck picked up wins more often than it probably should have just by being completely transparent with what it was doing.
Thats genius, it puts the social aspect of EDH on display and how absurd it can be as a "competitive" game. Even tho he build his deck like dogshit and openly admits that to his opponents, he can essentially gaslight his way to victory just by whining and being annoying at the table. I used to do something similar with ashling the prilgrim or ragavan, build 99 basic lands.dec and then complain every time someone attacks me that im "just the lands meme guy".
@@ich3730 yes it is genius but mostly because a lot of edh players are fucking retarded. just turn your creatures sideways and if there's free damage to be dealt deal it. that really helps against such decks. also also: if such deck was in my meta all my decks would run cards like darksteel mutation and alike. and I'd just wait until it's a 1v1 and just cuck their commander. maybe remove it first if it already got counters on it.
smol bean syndrome is my pet peeve, its like people forget that this is a game where you summon monsters to bonk eachother, im gonna bonk you, dont take it personally, this is just a bonking game
Bonk at the people who are actually scary force them to use resources so when it matters they don't have those resources to protect themselves or deal with you
I mean it depends, ive routinely been bonked whilst one other person at the table is being ignored. I have had bad luck where I have openly admitted to getting mana screwed and they still focus me
My friend group use to unintentionally deploy the smol bean strategy but we’ve made a decision last year that if it’s like turn 5 and a person hasn’t played a creature yet, then sure swing at them, atleast then it’ll incentivise them to fix their decks. Theres this stigma that you shouldn’t take someone out early because then they can’t play for the rest of the game, but by being ruthless and killing whenever you can, it’s resulted in us being able to actually play more than 1 game
I have only played commander once and my deck was just random jank I had put together from drafts over the years. My friend told me I would stand no chance against his deck which he had been building for a few years and had roughly 1.5k worth of cards. I went through with playing and while I only managed to play like 4 cards before he fucking slaughtered me, I had a lot of fun
The funny thing is, most of the time I have ever done the "I'm a smol bean" is when there is clearly a bigger threat on the table and someone decides to target me. Even I will be like "hey, I get that said card can become a problem... but there is a 15/15 with infect on the field and he can give it unblockable... so wtf are you coming at me so hard right now?!".
Yup, whenever I’m asking somebody not to attack me it’s usually because I want somebody else’s life total to go down, not because I’m trying to preserve my own.
The number of games I've seen where the player removing my stuff or wiping the board loses on the next turn to the threat I was trying to warn them about is too high. Yes, I have 40 power on board but that's just about lethal on him and I need to kill him on my turn or he's winning the game.
@@adamrobinson6951 same with me. I have said many times "guys, he's about to win... I'm trying to stop him. So why have you all aimed your stuff at me? I can't win yet... we should work together if you want to have a chance to even win". And then we all lose and they all have the shocked pickachu face on and are like "we didn't know...".
@@adamrobinson6951 that reminded me about one of the two or three games that the maelstrom wanderer won alone (not on a team and that guy play it a lot) was when a guy casted blasphemous act to destroy my ancient forgotten (he was at 12 toughness) and other things, so we wasn't able to focus on him quick enough (which happens most of the time when he plays that commander)
"Fight the Table" is such a great way of viewing the format. A few years ago I had this Yeva, Nature's Herald deck I was never really happy when playing, and I couldn't figure out why. It scratched all my itches -- it played aggressively, it used an unusual commander to frequently surprising effect (slamming Green Dragon or Spore Frog during combat, etc.) and it did all the ramping, drawing, and attacking I needed it to do to win. On reflection and seeing this video, it seems clear to me now that it was all about how it played to my opponents. They were vastly overestimating the deck's power because flash SEEMS like a scary keyword to have on creatures, and to them my empty or lackluster board state could always become their worst nightmares, instead of the reality which was the deck did a little ramping, played some creatures, and attacked. In essence, my deck was lying to my opponents about how scary it really was. I rebuilt it as Toski and it's been all the better for it.
If your opponents think a monogreen deck has some kind of hidden plan to win out of nowhere that doesn't include putting big dudes in play and turning sideways, you need better opponents.
@@garak55 I dunno, I thought it was funny to run G/W (rhys), make a ton of mana dorks, and then just nuke the entire board state with Nullmage shepard and aura-shards combined with Lattice/Liquimetal, mill them out with a ton of mana, or sacrifice my tokens I just made to make everyone mill out. It was a green deck for the ramp, mana, and creature tutoring, but it was mainly meant to stax, mill, and nuke. Jank as hell but funny when it executed.
There's a guy in my playgroup who is generally the threat with explosive combos but he adopts a "you die first" anti-threat argument. Which works surprisingly well.
This channel has put into words issues I've had with my decks, deckbuilding, and across different playgroups, in a perspective I never saw but that feels logical and makes sense. Thank you for your work!
That's not always the case in my experience sometimes the person getting attacked is it's only being attacked because they're open and attacking them will allow the deck to do things like combat damage/attack triggers or life gain
@@zombieslayer2016 oh that's just playing the game and trying to bump value. I'm more or less talking about "shooting to kill" as if trying to bump someone out.
Yeah my experience is that a lot of times though people just want to hit *somebody* to get some kind of value for themselves. My Rakdos, Lord of Riots deck needs to deal damage to someone just to be able to play the commander. My friend's Gishath deck needs to hit somebody to cheat out dinosaurs. The same friend's Isshin deck needs to attack to get value off its double triggers. Interactions like these are really common in my pod, someone is looking to attack and it doesn't really matter who it is. So they're going to hit whoever is open. A really common question at our table is "Who's got blockers?" or "Who's got flying?". For that reason I started running a lot of flying deathtouch creatures like Baleful Strix and Stinkweed Imp. So not only can I say "I have a flying blocker" but "You will lose something if you attack me."
My friend uses smol bean syndrome all the time which is hilarious in its own way because we all know his strongest deck is an Earthcraft/Squirrel Nest/Parallel Lives/Goblin Bombardment combo and the deck's whole purpose is to stall out until he assembles the pieces or dies trying. No wonder we all hit him for damage before his shields go up! I really appreciate the videos you've made, they make me rethink a number of my own deck-building decisions, and I'm probably going to adjust a couple of them as a result. I definitely need better focus in my decks.
My Child of Alara reanimator deck is all about 'fight the table'. I realised a decade ago that it was more fun to win while openly telling people that I was trying to crush them all. No politics, no combo out of nowhere, but pure synergy and value.
Yeah me too, specially because i have a lot of scary commanders like Zacama, Tiamat, Korvold, wich put a target in my back as soon as the game starts and usually when the table kills me im 1 turn away from a win
Nice video, my playgroup are kind of wierd in that we encourage each other to attack since noone is particularly aggressive as a person, we also acknowledge the archenemy title when it is given to us, even when it usually means last place. I only play commander with friends and it's a lot easier to be as open as possible.
The Smol Bean and transparent gameplan hit the nail on the head for me. My decks are always exclusively built around one aspect of the commander. So an anikthea deck with 35 lands and 64 other enchantments. Preferably big ones and ways to get extra token copies. The plan couldn't be more obvious, as the other player can always see which enchantments go to my graveyard before I resummon them. Then I tend to pull the Smol bean card - because I just got my last 6 enchantments I played blown up immediately so I don't get hit by every creature my opponents have available. And then the removal runs out, I play her for the 7th time and suddenly I have 6 copies of "Song of the worldsoul" and lethal damage on board. I'm always playing with the same friend group and they apparently aren't that tired of my shit that they would kill me before I do my crazy turns. Even though I'm probably sitting around a 50% winrate on our table.
I've been to about 20 different LGSs over the past year and let me tell you that these logical, analytical people you're playing with are not the norm. I've spent more time explaining to the other aggro deck that we can't be wasting resources on each other while the other two ramp decks do nothing than I'd like to admit.
I have been in several pods where I am looked at poorly for playing the game. They cry foul when I attack or when I aggressively try to control a known powerful deck.
Its problem when you only pull out your control deck because you heard that another deck is at the table. Thats called meta gaming, And you’re targeting another player specifically to ruin their chances if you do that, which is uncool. Don’t be “that guy”
No, it's a problem when a known deck goes unchecked. If I pull out a deck specifically because I know what commander someone is playing...it's warranted
@@nicks4802 oh no, you misunderstood. I don't meta game. we only reveal our commanders once we have already picked what we are playing. Most of my decks run a healthy amount of interaction because most of the people i play with use infinite combos.
@@misterfox6094Yeah I can't wait to sit down at a table after driving 35+ mins to get there to see a guy sitting across from me pick the deck specifically made to keep mine from playing at all.
@@danielharrison2383 yeah that’s the thing that kills me if you have an infinite combo in your deck and you play the smol bean It’s just being manipulative and praying on the social convention to help you win On the other hand a lot of times people thread assessment is terrible and they want to blow up your thing because you did something to them last game or they just paying attention and don’t understand what kind of position somebody is in that case I think pointing out other peoples board states and positions is valid
Me: dont attack me. Them swings their lethal commander. Me: kills their commander. Them: I wouldn't have attacked you if i knew you were gonna kill my commander! Me: I told you not to attack me.
I only Smol Bean when: 1) My opponent is choosing who wins or loses the game (so I gotta convincing him to let me win so I can stomp him later) 2) My opponent is casting removal on my shit when someone else is popping off way crazier. Like I'm trying to deal with this guy's shit over here and you're gonna do that to me? >:(
Green or black are both really solid for consistent threats. But white can also be really effective at fighting the board with stacks but it’s harder to push early without abusing parallel effects like a harmonious archon combined with anthems.
Green or black are both really solid for consistent threats. But white can also be really effective at fighting the board with stacks but it’s harder to push early without abusing parallel effects like a harmonious archon combined with anthems.
Arixmathese is a commander that has stuck with me and probably been the most consistent fun I've had with the format, and I'd say transparency and fighting the table are both why. What it says in the tin is what you get. Major ramp, big sea creatures, and a handful of blue shenanigans like bounce and card draw. It has tools needed to deal with the situation should I suddenly find myself as the target, and can generally be read by everyone at the table based on the boardstate. What a well worded, informative video.
I don't think this really matches my experience of the format. My favorite comparison point was when I had made 2 decks, Atraxa infect, and a Raff, Weatherlight Stalwart deck based on twiddling lands. Of the two, Raff is just the better deck. Better strategy, better commander, and also.. people think its worse. Atraxa shows exactly what she's doing, and tries to work directly toward a win condition. There's very little hidden there. Every game was a huge slog where people wanted to stop me at all costs. The raff deck? Spellslinging token payoffs + weird white land ramp and lands that tap for more than 1 + twiddle effects. Very weird and techy, way better than the atraxa deck, was almost never the focus of the table. Which mostly meant free wins because nobody tried to stop anything I did. And I know the obvious thing here is "people hate infect", but I think this comparison is just as true for any of my decks that were trying to hit people with creatures, vs. ones that aren't. I definitely think that keeping your threat from being visible makes it easier to play the game.
Same for me. The argument that when people dont get what or why you are playing spells they get scared and thus attack you has never happened to me. When people dont get it they will just ignore it but if you have obvious strong board state that will make you the target
Maybe it depends on the experience level of the table? If someone's not building resources on the battlefield (creatures, stax pieces, value pieces and draw enchantments, etc) then I have to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they're chugging towards some other win condition. Maybe they're digging/tutoring/drawing for combo pieces, I can't know exactly. If my deck isn't set up (or my hand isn't) to interact with combos at instant speed on the stack then turning creatures sideways proactively is all I can do.
All my casual decks deliberately can’t do the sudden synergistic/infinite wins out of nowhere. Instead I have opponents trying to figure out what I could possibly be hiding because removing their cards and deploying beaters each turn makes them paranoid. TL;DR great video!
and then after many turns, theyre going crazy trying to figure out your strategy and you point out theyre at 12 life from all the nickel and dimes over the game. "What? you can win over time?"
I think another important element of deck consistency is cardpool? As weird as that may sound, it's actually a fairly narrow slice of mechanics that are benefited most by Magic's immense cardpool, and trying to build around mill is inherently more likely to be consistent than a "splice onto arcane" deck. Proliferation of one-size-fits-all mechanics like Morophon can mitigate these on some simpler levels, but especially when exploring novel mechanical spaces like Mutate, Splice, Power/Toughness Inversion, Moving Counters, and double especially when exploring those mechanics in a limited color identity in a singleton format, that's often either nowhere near enough, or just simply eclipses the intent of the original mechanic. I've built hundreds of decks in my time playing magic, and left hundreds more on the cutting room floor, and a problem I often run into is 'does this archetype even exist yet?' - sometimes only finding 10 or 15 cards that actually support my main synergy. When the team at WotC is exploring design space, this problem compounds upon itself, as overlooked and underutilized mechanics have a tendency to remain so, while popular mechanics will see "a new twist" or simply power-crept versions, new lords for particular subtypes, and, well, a lot of the stuff mentioned in the Cycling video on this channel. This is further exacerbated by the shift away from the block structure, which has resulted in a lot of one-off mechanics that never get the time or support to shine, and are then promptly abandoned in favor of bringing back the same rotating cast of a dozen near-evergreen archetypes. Holes are dug deeper and deeper, in some cases, new mechanics are even stapled onto existing archetypes rather than being given their own room to thrive, creating a design space less akin to a developed landscape and more akin to a series of cavernous pits, all labeled and reinforced courtesy of EDHrec.
You don't have to have 30+ playable cards in an archetype to make a deck that seems consistent, but you'll probably have to add a sub-theme or two to fill it out, unless you're willing to go a little heavy on cards selection or removal/interaction. 10-15 playable cards or so is already a quarter of your non-Lands, you can expect to see a couple every game. Just don't fill your blank spots with Sanguine Bond or Exquisite Blood, just because you've got a vampire/lifelink sub-theme and have a copy of each from opening random prize packs. It's such an easy trap to fall into. I slotted them right into my garbage-tier Anowon deck.
But also if you like those kind of decks that’s ok those kind of decks can be really fun. Just make sure the people you’re playing against our aware and OK with that kind of game.
Excellent video on commander theory and praxis. 100% agree that this is a great way to play agains newer player but would also like to say that it's a lot of fun to get to figure out what your opponents are doing once you get a couple of years under your belt
@@nonsuperimposableletting newer players know about obscure instant win combos is not the same as being completely transparent! I feel like you misinterpreted the video. You dont need to pull a fast one on people who didnt even know what to play against. How is that fun? You don't telegraph every play, you still can bluff/lie/politic without being obtuse about how your deck plans to win in an average game. I was once a newer player and KNOWING that my opponent has half of their combo on board and figuring out what i can do to win around it or stop them is fun. Random wins out of nowhere are not fun, as a player who has been on both ends of that interaction. You can still play however you'd like, no one is stopping you.
This explains how I like to play commander very well. Good job with the video. I realized awhile ago that a big part of what makes turn-based games fun, is being presented with a problem and then being given a chance to figure out a solution to it. A deck which combos off out of nowhere, at a table which isn't ready with interaction to deal with it, violates that. The other players had no chance, they just suddenly lost. This is why I've been making decks which have to build up some kind of obvious board state to win or which give the other players at least one turn before winning. Even having a game ending combo being playing out infinite creatures without haste is a much better win con, since it at least gives your opponents each a turn to try and find a board wipe or other way to stop your attack. I for one really enjoy those final turns where I know how my opponent is going to win next turn and am desperately trying to figure out and assemble my deck's answer to it. I also like building consistent and transparent decks which have to build towards a win, since it means I can play to win and have fun without completely crushing my opponents and actually give them a fun experience. I enjoy understanding the threat my opponent's decks present and trying to combat them, so I want to give others the same experience.
Thanks for the advice. I've noticed I've been getting frustrated playing jank, even while acknowledging it's jank, because I frequently enjoy ridiculous synergies that basically ask for no interaction from the opponent. But I realize now I might as well try some more down to earth strategies for a change, so that I can feel like I'm not just getting disruption after disruption to my game plans with few ways to comeback.
I Play Magic since 16 years and watch yt videos for mtg the same amount of time and I really like the depth of your videos and the slow paced way you talk.
This is some great advice for deckbuilding ideology! I Always make sure to ask what everybody is playing, what their decks are trying to accomplish, and general power level when sitting down at a table. Helps avoid blowout games where you are playing something goofy and your opponent is trying to combo off asap IMO.
I have never had somebody explain this theory/ gameplay style back to me before: Enjoy your GD sub. Well done. An upside that you touched upon: I play a lot of pickup games at my FLGS and that includes a lot of new players and a lot of fellow regulars. Playing like this is just, straight up, pro-social and encourages fruitful tabletalk. It's the same kind of gameplay mechanism that open politicing encourages and builds a reputation for honesty and good advice. It's fucking lovely social output sometimes.
I recently got into Magic after 3 years of interest, and I've been enjoying going through your videos and learning some good tip for deck-building and how to play the game. I originally was more interested in Standard, but commander has caught me in its allure and I've had some fun with it. I made my first homebrew recently using Kambal, Profiteering Mayor that's very clear in what it wants to do. I call it the "Silly Straw" deck because it sticks a silly straw into your vein on turn 3 and asks you how long until you remove that straw and it becomes the Serious Straw. It's a massive token-gen and drain style deck. It's been a blast to play and see how some people are getting progressively more worried that they've been drained for 20 life before they have done anything significant with their commander and I'm sitting pretty at 54 life tanking a 12/12 hydra.
When I watched your EDH red video I did not realize that this was the beginning of regular videos talking about the difficult, less obvious, and/or controversial topics in my favorite format. I will gladly get on the patreon train for more MS Paint EDH soap box content 👌
I think I generally use fight the table ideology nowadays. Years ago I tried to angle shoot and act weak to sneak in a win, but I find it much more satisfying to just announce "Unless someone stops me, I probably win next turn." I feel it's necessary to be open with how well I'm doing, or can do shortly, since I tend to play higher power level decks than the rest of the table
I'm going to preface this with I wholeheartedly agree with the fight the table ideology, and for the most part have already been doing your suggestions in playing transparently. But you've just made me realize how much I favor decks which are opaque about when they are in pole position. A few of my decks have more moving pieces across multiple zones for most players to keep track of, some of them are just avoiding dying until it hits critical mass for ultra late game control without ever building a scary board, or suddenly go from second place incremental synergy pieces to very far in the lead.
@@xaropevic7918 Sort of. Though I realize that I consider very few nonland permanents to be boardless, and that might not be how others would classify it. But the core is draw go control with a short interaction window combo finish. (I loop turns when I hit 13 mana.) The biggest difference between 60 card and commander is that it needs mass bounce, tap down, or fog once or twice every game. How many cards slots that is entirely depends on the card velocity. These are my priorities for playing this sort of a deck: -As long as you're alive you're still in it -Land drops are the priority -Don't counter more than nessasary -Wait as long as possible to attempt the combo The deck is redundant, but I find navigating the puzzle of commander games to be unique and exciting every time.
Embrace the 3 C's. Colors, Cards, Creatures. Do their deck's colors suggest you need to put pressure on them? Do they have enough cards in their hand or a good card advantage engine? How many creatures can they block with and would you benefit from trading with some of those blockers?
Definitely no video uploaded before this one, and this definitely wouldn't have been my comment on that video Most of my decks fall under the very fair and straightforward category, with a sort of escalating and obvious threat on the board. I generally turn into the main villain of the table, which is good because my deck is also probably the best constructed in terms of power and ability to win the game. Being the villain is actually quite the fun experience, since, even if you don't win, you still significantly impact the game every time. I do have a deck I'm working on for Slimefoot, the Stowaway that sort of breaks my rule but not really. It's a sort of hyper land-ramp deck using untapping abilities and auras that let lands tap for extra mana to just make a shit load of saproling tokens. Basically I want to reach 160 mana sunk into the ability as fast as possible, which will generally not be that fast. I think it's a lot more fun to play a deck like that.
“Your deck should be visible and you should hold everyone’s hand” not in love with this sentiments it’s limiting to deck building, I mean to a degree ur right people don’t like what they don’t know and I will say a lot of newer players make bad calls because they can’t figure things out. I also def see a bunch of sbs at my table where I know people are bluffing and are full of shit and it’s annoying. Cant pretend I’m completely innocent I know I’ve def complained myself but only when it seems like they just have bad threat assessment, the only time I get annoyed w plays that target me is when the player making them is doing so to everyone’s detriment.
Henzie is such an easy deck to run it you wanna use this to your advantage. "hey, my board is empty except Henzie. I'm not doing much right now" *blitzes an Ancient Copper Dragon*
My transparent decks perform so much better than they have any right to. My Balan deck where I just slap down another piece of equipment each turn and basically say “just you wait until I get to 6 mana” basically gets ignored until turn 6 because everyone knows the deck does basically nothing until it gets to 6 mana. My Kellan, removal deck tends to generate remarkably little hate for removing things (although it definitely still generates some) because everyone knows I’m running 40 pieces of targeted removal and half a dozen board wipes. Yet my Magar of the Magic strings deck with its confusing weak janky reanimator gameplan usually gets rushed down because no one knows that I was a whole turns away from actually doing anything.
While I get why being transparent with what your game plan is can make it less frustrating for the rest at the table, I feel like a lot of commanders themselves are pretty transparent on what they do. For example Brudiclad (which is one of my pet decks tbh) pretty clearly is about copying tokens and swinging for lethal in a turn. Izzet does not have a lot of mass token generating effects so a lot of it is down to creating clones and generic tokens like treasure or food. So when I play Decent into Avernus or Brass's Bounty it should be pretty obvious what I'm trying to do. Even if I don't have a lot of creatures on the board, by seeing all the setup it should be pretty easy to guess that unless you deal with the setup pieces you will have a threat on your hands. So I don't get too salty when I get swung into or targeted even though I don't have a ton of creatures on the board.
love hearing your thoughts on edh while i plan on building my very 1st commander deck!! great points and explanations, plus i love learning new cards (new to me) that you mention in each of ur vids :D
Just came across your videos and I'm really impressed. I was playing for a lot of years before I started deliberately removing combos and staples like sol rings from most my decks. it really does lead to overall better games. One thing that might make a good video that I haven't seen people talk about is people with too many decks. I've seen people run into lots of problems: 1. they don't really understand how their own decks work or how their cards interact. 2. they don't have good opportunity to playtest and tune their decks. 3. the rest of the table can't keep track what their decks do and relative power levels
My play style is often the complete opposite: "Come at me bro" with a full grip and open mana. Ironically, this actually works better than downplaying my board state since most players don't want the smoke.
A game I remember, not magic but a board game, that ended hilariously because people did the "some else will deal with this". The game is about murdering an old man to get his assets, at any time there are no witnesses of your attempt and you can actually attack him you can try it. Though when you do other players can play cards to go nope and have to build up enough to prevent it. Different weapons in different locations need more or less nope to prevent the attempt, like kicking him off the balcony with a noose requires 20 and "poking him in the eye" (which can be done when you don't have a weapon) requires 1. someone tries the "poke him in the eye" just due to random chance setting up an attempt and they didn't have a weapon. Three other players who declare in turn order if they will interfere. Player 1 big hand of nopes doesn't interfere. Player 2 big hand of nopes doesn't interfere. Player 3 had no nopes so can't interfere. Game that usually takes a couple of hours ended in 10 minutes.
I experience this between my Animar and Hinata decks where despite Animar being objectively an stronger deck he tends to get left alone more because when he isn't doing well they are more certain of it, whereas Hinata keeps all of her war crimes in your hand. They never know when that Comet Storm is coming, but watching Animar's counters go up is a more visible and easier to understand threat. One is a straightforward beater and the other is a spooky magical goat.
I have played Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider with a lot of planeswalkers and I usually become the archenemy the moment I put a planeswalker after my commander. I supposed everyone knows a mono green deck would put a lot of big creatures and win with that but I made this deck to win with helix pinnacle and use big creatures as defense instead.
I've never heard it called planeswalker party, I've always heard that deck archetype called "Superfriends". But having played a superfriends deck for quite a while myself I will speak from my experience and say that if you play superfriends you are absolutely enemy number one. People *hate* planeswalkers, and you will find that keeping even a single one of them alive for a turn cycle against 3 other players is quite a chore.
@@solbradguy7628 ill be honest, I meant superfriends but the planeswalker party precon has somehow taken over my brain as the 'official term', my b xD I suppose if any, Chandra tribal would be the best in terms of a 'face up playstyle' superfriends deck since more of her stuff is dealing damage and making red mana to deal more damage but that is very fair. I think the issue is most superfriends decks end up being partially stacks so people dont kill the planeswalkers.
I agree that this is great advice. I also believe there is a lot of joy to be had in playing decks that feel completely different to play each game: my ideal deck to play is one that rotates between being a midrange, control, and or combo deck depending on my draws and my opponents.
My usual response to someone with good attacks/potential to kill me is just "I will not beg for mercy." It rarely works but I like to think it's a little more dignified.
I have a deck that USED to be just a g/b deck with the joke being it only has ONE swamp to work with and somehow win, but it was designed for 100-card singleton 1v1, not EDH, so I took the Sapling of Colfenor I had in it and made it my commander, and all of a sudden people were getting upset that they couldn’t tell what my deck’s end goal was as they were losing to it, just because it was meant to have many wincons that could show up at any time. Needless to say, it made for an interesting table any time I brought it out.
Your fight the table style decks makes me think of my Henzi Deck. It’s just big ramp, into bigger creatures, sacrifice big creatures into smaller big creatures and finally try to reanimate the biggest ones.
Me watching a video about mtg theories Also me knowing damm well Im going to be screaming ''dont kill me I can do something funny next turn'' when im at 1 hitpoint
I like this, it's just talking about deck construction and playsyles in a generally intelligent way. I feel like I'm usually the bad gal at my EDH table because my decks are consistent, and even though I tell people straight up what I'm doing they don't always have the game pieces to stop me. I like building my decks this way, where they're focused and clear, and I think this is good advice as to how my friends can understand what I'm doing
Great points! I played some very frustrating games recently with random people because they either played deceptively, or didn't know how to talk about their deck. One guy seemed to have 5-6 decks that were most likely all very optimized, because he said pick a number 1-6. The thing I said I really didn't want to see was board wipes all the time. He eliminated his Child of Alara deck, but still, the table was very mismatched. I tried not to outplay the precon player in the pod, but this new guy was clearly trying to hyper optimize every deck.
I totally agree with you about building and playing with transparency, playing towards your goal every turn isn't something suspicious to your opponents, and while they take it seriously you aren't likely to make anyone angry if you aren't an immediate threat I have a very pertinent funny story of an old commander buddy We had a dedicated group at that point and would regularly have 4 or 5 player games of commander, and this guy wanted in, but he had no idea how. So, my friend looked through his cards, and helped him built himself a deck. Dragonlord Ojutai. We used to call it the "completely nonthreatening rise of ojutai", it would take games outta nowhere just by playing fair magic - stick ojutai, save up counterspells, strap him with enchantments, profit? But it wasn't flashy enough for him, so he saves up and buys a budget infinite combo commander list - Mikaeus, the Unhallowed. Just Mikaeus and combo pieces - nothing else. Totally arbitrary and abstruse - and every time his commander hit the table, he would be surprised when we'd group up to keep him in check. The conversation in the game is just too scary, like "Oh, so Mikaeus is out so if we let this turn go around and he has *X* and *Y* or on a rare chance just *Z* alone he could kill all of us like *THAT* " Instead of refining his ojutai deck he stubbornly played the mikaeus deck every time, to the point where he started to just play Destiny when he got knocked out first....
Good to know I do very well in making my decks transparent. Almost all my decks are synergy focused with the commander and aren’t “bursty” as you called it. Maybe not battle cruiser style decks as your Glisa deck is but still cards in hand, untapped lands, and creatures in play are a great indicator of how well the deck is doing. I think it’s due to how I heavily play into synergy so if my commander’s in play, they’re the threat. My best example is my Darien, king of Kjeldor deck and my Karn, Legacy reforged deck. Darien is “I take damage, make tokens, and gain that life back” so most pieces will follow that suit, pump those tokens, or protect my stuff. Karn is even more straightforward, I get tons of mana and play big artifacts, the more artifacts in play the better the deck is doing. My Oloro, ageless acetic deck though wins at “fight the table” it is minor stax, control, and voting, designed to be a slow burn nightmare. It excels at making everyone at the table want to kill you and that is fun since you can also give back to them in a group hug style if they play your game, no silly combos, just good cards.
This is a good description of my play style (SBS). But instead of politicking to try to dissuade attacks, I just board wipe. One of my most threatening decks is my O-Kagachi Dragons deck. I'll make consistent land drops, ramp, then board wipe once everyone has deployed most of their cards in hand. I could try to tell everyone that "I'm not doing anything," but I find it more fun to say "Yeah, fair, I'll take 20" and then exile all their creatures so I don't take any more. I think the important part is not being sneaky. If you're really honest about what you might do, and how close you are to it, people will likely forget about how you swung for 90 last game. Playing politics is fun, and so is popping off, but you can play SBS-style and still be fair and casual if you help others out with their threat assessment.
I have been playing magic for only 3 years but I feel like these is another Smol Bean Syndrome where a player introduces effects to the game that turns the other players consistent decks into completely inconsistent ones making everyone else real smol beans. Effects that limit combat, get rid of phases, consistently negates all damage, come from commanders untouchable in the command zone(like eminence), or creature gifting that breaks your deck (Demonic Taskmaster, Abyssal Persecutor) as an example.
Im gonna need that Glissa decklist. My decks have always been kind of gimmicky and so have the decks in my playgroup. I'd love to see a transparent decklist and learn from it!
This video makes me want to build more decks around Sarevok, Deathbringer. Not only do more background decks need to exist because they're just cool but underplayed, but Sarevok is usually not trying to trick you about what's happening. It works as a pseudo-Voltron deck where buffing your commander is a big deal, but also incentivizes a little mini-game that different decks play differently. My first Sarevok deck was with Clan Crafter, so i could sacrifice artifacts for card draw and commander buffs while using blue spells to protect my commander.
This is a good concept. My trouble is with my Kadena Morph Combo deck. I do my best to be transparent without just revealing my hand and saying what my face down cards do, but naturally, being a resilient deck that has lots of interaction and hidden information, people aren’t the hugest fan of the deck. I am transparent with my combo pieces and how strong my synergy cards are, but people still tend to underestimate her until they get locked out of the game.
I've recently come back to commander and magic in general after 3-4 years (I played at university with my friends but now we can only meet once a year or so, so I had an old deck for special occasions, but nothing more). I've recently found a new group which is pretty chill in my town and I've made very clear every new deck I'm going to build will make the matches fast, because a big problem I had with commander in the past is described in this videos. Lots of times when friends just whined about how they were getting hit with nothing on the table (and sometimes they became very angry/annoying), but then suddenly played an emrakul or something similar and ended up winning. This videos sums up those matches very well.
I feel like there can be such a thing as being too transparent with your game plan. In my mind if people know your strategy and plan to remove it early before it becomes a big threat to them. Then you’re stuck to the big explosive power except you don’t have all that power as it was spent on the earlier turns and got removed. This is probably me over thinking it but it could be intresting
I’m a volunteer at a local high school and one of the kids there has a “mono-Green Morophon deck” where the deck only has basic forests for lands….and it’s actually Sliver combo
me and you have very different ideas about commander sadly. Yet you are spot on with your analysis of why people react they way the do. The problem is I want to play big janky things that is fun to me and it is frustrating when you I get over targeted because that one time I popped off. You give a solution to this but the solution is antithetical to what i consider fun decks. I am currently on a small break from edh because of my recent experiences of being over targeted. A player had previously saw the "full might" of my deck and then proceeded to consistently remove any possible threat I could have even when I was the least threatening on the board and even made a misplay that further messed with my board state and I ended up scooping as I wasn't being allowed to play the game. This is the same game where that person was berating another player for playing multi land destruction when they were being oppressive to the whole board just through other means. I was fully transparent what my deck was capable of it was a combo deck that requires several pieces to work and have a few really powerful pieces that can win the game but not out of hand. Yes you can work it from the angle you suggest and I think that makes fore a well streamlined experience but another would be better threat assessments by opponents. I'd love to see a video about that as well (you probably have and I haven't seen it . . .) After all that I do take a lot of what you say to heart but it still frustrates me because I have been playing mtg on and off since 1994 and I want to play all this lovely jank I have collected over the years and the best place to do that is in EDH yet over the years it seams less and less likely that I can do so. I am just coming off of a large hiatus because A) EDH was getting way to cutthroat in my area circa 2018 B) the pandemic. Now i come back and it is still bad yet it felt more tolerable in spite of power creep because not everyone seems to have mana crypt etc. from sets like eternal masters. If anyone reads through this entire mess ty and love to hear your constructive feedback.
I'm kinda reminded of a maldhound video. Specifically in how it mentions that every color in the game gets to cheat at Magic, but Green Specifically always seems to get away with it without getting anywhere near as much flak as other colors do. Fight The Table Ideology kinda shows some of why, Especially in regards to your example of a Ramp deck being transparent enough that people dont' get as paranoid about you until you have like 87 lands and you kill everyone with bears.
my main deck is a blue artifact deck. I use a lot of counters and fodder to survive the early rounds, before doing massive bursts of damage. I have tezzeret's gatebreaker as well, and no one I play with has any board wipes and the few artifact destruction spells are usually used to try and destroy my mana ramp or my staff of the mind magus so they can try and kill me before I am in a position to sacrifice tezzeret's gatebreaker. my favorite way to play is to wat too attack until I have enough on my board to take people out in one swing. I'm sure I could end games faster if I didn't do this, but it results in this small bean effect most of the time where everyone is focused on each other because the most I'm doing to harm anyone is bouncing their creature back if they target me while everyone else is slapping them down. At a certain point though, my deck snowballs and by the time people realize that I have quietly filled my battlefield to the brim and am very obviously about to play my biggest wincon, it's pretty much too late. I'm never deceptive about it either, everyone knows how my deck works and it's hard to ignore the guy who has chewed through half of his deck in 6 turns, but because I don't attack I'm almost always the smallest threat until it's too late.
I'm hearing this, and my mind immediately goes to "But what if I lie?". Like, I say I'm just a big unga bunga ramp deck, and clearly display some threats, but it's secretly a combo deck? Or I say I'm playing a value engine, then plop down some unbeatable lock. And, since I know that I might lie, I would also recognize that other people might lie as well. So, by stating your deck's goal, I might assume that you are being deceptive, and not only discount your plan, but assume that you have a much more nefarious plan in place.
I used to unintentianally do the "im just a small bean" thing with my Dino tribal Gishath deck, it had a lot of wincons and crazy cards but was inconsistant and easily stopable as is the nature of Gishath. I since then turned said deck into a really consistent beatdown deck, Pantlaza is now my commander and he enshures the early value i need. I build the deck in a way that all my ramp, carddraw and interaction is 4 mana or less, this way pantlaza will allways discover something usefull when he etbs, he dosnt need to stick arround after that but often does because people dont see him as an obvious threat. It has taken my table quite a while untill they realized that Pantlaza kills them just as fast as Gishath just by enabling other Dinosaurs... I love how consistent i made that deck and now try to build every deck with this kind of consistency in mind.
I play an Atraxa deck. The general theme is supposed to be "poison counters" with a subtheme of "big things with +1/+1" and a secondary wincon of "magistrate scepter + vorel, the Hull Clade". I struggle with this deck. Often times, people see it, they see Atraxa, and then I either get left alone and then go wild, or I get stimied. And unfortunately, the deck usually wins one of two ways: the magistrate scepter combo, or I give something poison and then whack an opponnent for 10 damage. Game over. I really like poison counters, so I think I'd like to revamp the deck to be more fun, and more "fight the table"-ish. Rather than smacking one opposing player with a ton of poison damage outright, ping each player for exactly 1 poison damage, and then put them on a proliferate timer. Now, I'm the enemy of the table because I no longer need to attack to win, and players are forced to interact with me each time I would try to proliferate, which I can do through creatures, spells, artifacts, even a land. Maybe i have one copy of Skithryx for ending games faster. Then I tell the table, "hey, I'll be playing Atraxa poison where my goal is to proliferate everyone to death." Does that idea sound reasonable?
My last game, I was playing etali: primal conqueror, and I had him flipped to the instant kill poison counter side. I decided I would roll to see who I attacked, and after that, I kept the dice to give everyone a sense of dread. If someone attacked me, I would take the dice off the table as a threat, meaning “if you do this, I won’t leave it up to chance who will die” it’s absolutely the funnest thing being absolutely feared by everyone.
I hate when a friend uses smol bean syndrome with commanders like Tivit, Seller of Secrets, Grand Arbiter Augustin IV or Teysa when I know he is just waiting for one more card on hand to win.
the table I've been playing with has been going "you know it makes the most sense to attack *" and then everyone agrees including the person getting attacked.
My friend used to play a deck of 99 basic lands with Kenrith as the commander and an Obosh companion. The plan was basically to make deals and group hug your opponents to stay alive until it was a 1v1 then put a bunch of counter and Kenrith and go for a commander damage with with Obosh there to help push damage. That deck picked up wins more often than it probably should have just by being completely transparent with what it was doing.
Thats genius, it puts the social aspect of EDH on display and how absurd it can be as a "competitive" game. Even tho he build his deck like dogshit and openly admits that to his opponents, he can essentially gaslight his way to victory just by whining and being annoying at the table. I used to do something similar with ashling the prilgrim or ragavan, build 99 basic lands.dec and then complain every time someone attacks me that im "just the lands meme guy".
That’s a diabolical idea for a deck and I adore it!
100% your deck design and politics need to be consistent.
a real "you wouldn't punch a guy with glasses" moment
@@ich3730 yes it is genius but mostly because a lot of edh players are fucking retarded. just turn your creatures sideways and if there's free damage to be dealt deal it. that really helps against such decks.
also also: if such deck was in my meta all my decks would run cards like darksteel mutation and alike. and I'd just wait until it's a 1v1 and just cuck their commander. maybe remove it first if it already got counters on it.
smol bean syndrome is my pet peeve, its like people forget that this is a game where you summon monsters to bonk eachother, im gonna bonk you, dont take it personally, this is just a bonking game
It's just a bonk away. Just a bonk away. Bonk away. Bonk away. Yay-a-a-a.
Bonk at the people who are actually scary force them to use resources so when it matters they don't have those resources to protect themselves or deal with you
I mean it depends, ive routinely been bonked whilst one other person at the table is being ignored. I have had bad luck where I have openly admitted to getting mana screwed and they still focus me
I know he’s saying words, but all I’m hearing is “this is how bottoms play, and this is how tops play”
More like Low T vs High T
Oh so this is like a gay thing? Pass
not necessarily, topping and bottoming can be for everyone :D
yeah, girls are bottoms if they take it and they are tops if they femdom
How do I play like a switch? 😂
My friend group use to unintentionally deploy the smol bean strategy but we’ve made a decision last year that if it’s like turn 5 and a person hasn’t played a creature yet, then sure swing at them, atleast then it’ll incentivise them to fix their decks. Theres this stigma that you shouldn’t take someone out early because then they can’t play for the rest of the game, but by being ruthless and killing whenever you can, it’s resulted in us being able to actually play more than 1 game
I have only played commander once and my deck was just random jank I had put together from drafts over the years.
My friend told me I would stand no chance against his deck which he had been building for a few years and had roughly 1.5k worth of cards.
I went through with playing and while I only managed to play like 4 cards before he fucking slaughtered me, I had a lot of fun
The funny thing is, most of the time I have ever done the "I'm a smol bean" is when there is clearly a bigger threat on the table and someone decides to target me.
Even I will be like "hey, I get that said card can become a problem... but there is a 15/15 with infect on the field and he can give it unblockable... so wtf are you coming at me so hard right now?!".
Yup, whenever I’m asking somebody not to attack me it’s usually because I want somebody else’s life total to go down, not because I’m trying to preserve my own.
The number of games I've seen where the player removing my stuff or wiping the board loses on the next turn to the threat I was trying to warn them about is too high. Yes, I have 40 power on board but that's just about lethal on him and I need to kill him on my turn or he's winning the game.
@@adamrobinson6951 same with me.
I have said many times "guys, he's about to win... I'm trying to stop him. So why have you all aimed your stuff at me? I can't win yet... we should work together if you want to have a chance to even win".
And then we all lose and they all have the shocked pickachu face on and are like "we didn't know...".
@@adamrobinson6951 that reminded me about one of the two or three games that the maelstrom wanderer won alone (not on a team and that guy play it a lot) was when a guy casted blasphemous act to destroy my ancient forgotten (he was at 12 toughness) and other things, so we wasn't able to focus on him quick enough (which happens most of the time when he plays that commander)
Lmao the funny thing i had recently was where the guy running the 15/15 infect was trying to small bean himself.
"Fight the Table" is such a great way of viewing the format. A few years ago I had this Yeva, Nature's Herald deck I was never really happy when playing, and I couldn't figure out why. It scratched all my itches -- it played aggressively, it used an unusual commander to frequently surprising effect (slamming Green Dragon or Spore Frog during combat, etc.) and it did all the ramping, drawing, and attacking I needed it to do to win. On reflection and seeing this video, it seems clear to me now that it was all about how it played to my opponents. They were vastly overestimating the deck's power because flash SEEMS like a scary keyword to have on creatures, and to them my empty or lackluster board state could always become their worst nightmares, instead of the reality which was the deck did a little ramping, played some creatures, and attacked. In essence, my deck was lying to my opponents about how scary it really was. I rebuilt it as Toski and it's been all the better for it.
If your opponents think a monogreen deck has some kind of hidden plan to win out of nowhere that doesn't include putting big dudes in play and turning sideways, you need better opponents.
@@garak55 I dunno, I thought it was funny to run G/W (rhys), make a ton of mana dorks, and then just nuke the entire board state with Nullmage shepard and aura-shards combined with Lattice/Liquimetal, mill them out with a ton of mana, or sacrifice my tokens I just made to make everyone mill out. It was a green deck for the ramp, mana, and creature tutoring, but it was mainly meant to stax, mill, and nuke. Jank as hell but funny when it executed.
There's a guy in my playgroup who is generally the threat with explosive combos but he adopts a "you die first" anti-threat argument. Which works surprisingly well.
"Playgroup" just sounds soft, like you guys are going to go get manicures after you're done losing to combo boy
Ah the old "I have Aetherflux and 60 life, try anything and I'll nuke you in response" setup
@@Grombrindalso you’re triggered over a common phrase, and expect us to believe that you aren’t the soft one?
@@jonasharp3lol and he’s cosplaying as a character from warhammer on his public profile 😅
@@Grombrindal if you’re so worried about seeming “soft” that you’re too scared to use a word, then you’ve already failed
This channel has put into words issues I've had with my decks, deckbuilding, and across different playgroups, in a perspective I never saw but that feels logical and makes sense. Thank you for your work!
My response to being attacked is always, "You mean _I'm_ thd biggest threat here? Sweet!".
That's not always the case in my experience sometimes the person getting attacked is it's only being attacked because they're open and attacking them will allow the deck to do things like combat damage/attack triggers or life gain
@@zombieslayer2016
oh that's just playing the game and trying to bump value.
I'm more or less talking about "shooting to kill" as if trying to bump someone out.
Yeah my experience is that a lot of times though people just want to hit *somebody* to get some kind of value for themselves. My Rakdos, Lord of Riots deck needs to deal damage to someone just to be able to play the commander. My friend's Gishath deck needs to hit somebody to cheat out dinosaurs. The same friend's Isshin deck needs to attack to get value off its double triggers. Interactions like these are really common in my pod, someone is looking to attack and it doesn't really matter who it is. So they're going to hit whoever is open.
A really common question at our table is "Who's got blockers?" or "Who's got flying?". For that reason I started running a lot of flying deathtouch creatures like Baleful Strix and Stinkweed Imp. So not only can I say "I have a flying blocker" but "You will lose something if you attack me."
I do love respect damage.
being taken out early is a testament to what you can achieve, never believe anything else
My friend uses smol bean syndrome all the time which is hilarious in its own way because we all know his strongest deck is an Earthcraft/Squirrel Nest/Parallel Lives/Goblin Bombardment combo and the deck's whole purpose is to stall out until he assembles the pieces or dies trying. No wonder we all hit him for damage before his shields go up!
I really appreciate the videos you've made, they make me rethink a number of my own deck-building decisions, and I'm probably going to adjust a couple of them as a result. I definitely need better focus in my decks.
My Child of Alara reanimator deck is all about 'fight the table'. I realised a decade ago that it was more fun to win while openly telling people that I was trying to crush them all. No politics, no combo out of nowhere, but pure synergy and value.
the archenemy, nice
Yeah me too, specially because i have a lot of scary commanders like Zacama, Tiamat, Korvold, wich put a target in my back as soon as the game starts and usually when the table kills me im 1 turn away from a win
Embrace the archenemy my friend ! I dig it 😊
The raid boss technique is very fun.
Nice video, my playgroup are kind of wierd in that we encourage each other to attack since noone is particularly aggressive as a person, we also acknowledge the archenemy title when it is given to us, even when it usually means last place. I only play commander with friends and it's a lot easier to be as open as possible.
Me asking for mercy because I'm 1 turn away from locking the board into eternal war with my slow af Kardur Doomscourge starter deck:
The Smol Bean and transparent gameplan hit the nail on the head for me.
My decks are always exclusively built around one aspect of the commander. So an anikthea deck with 35 lands and 64 other enchantments. Preferably big ones and ways to get extra token copies.
The plan couldn't be more obvious, as the other player can always see which enchantments go to my graveyard before I resummon them. Then I tend to pull the Smol bean card - because I just got my last 6 enchantments I played blown up immediately so I don't get hit by every creature my opponents have available.
And then the removal runs out, I play her for the 7th time and suddenly I have 6 copies of "Song of the worldsoul" and lethal damage on board.
I'm always playing with the same friend group and they apparently aren't that tired of my shit that they would kill me before I do my crazy turns. Even though I'm probably sitting around a 50% winrate on our table.
3 v 1 when one person has a big scary deck is actually my favorite pod dynamic.
At least of you guys should should get a duskmourn precon and try arch enemy
I've been to about 20 different LGSs over the past year and let me tell you that these logical, analytical people you're playing with are not the norm.
I've spent more time explaining to the other aggro deck that we can't be wasting resources on each other while the other two ramp decks do nothing than I'd like to admit.
I have been in several pods where I am looked at poorly for playing the game. They cry foul when I attack or when I aggressively try to control a known powerful deck.
Its problem when you only pull out your control deck because you heard that another deck is at the table.
Thats called meta gaming,
And you’re targeting another player specifically to ruin their chances if you do that, which is uncool.
Don’t be “that guy”
No, it's a problem when a known deck goes unchecked.
If I pull out a deck specifically because I know what commander someone is playing...it's warranted
@@nicks4802 oh no, you misunderstood. I don't meta game. we only reveal our commanders once we have already picked what we are playing. Most of my decks run a healthy amount of interaction because most of the people i play with use infinite combos.
@@misterfox6094Yeah I can't wait to sit down at a table after driving 35+ mins to get there to see a guy sitting across from me pick the deck specifically made to keep mine from playing at all.
@@danielharrison2383 yeah that’s the thing that kills me if you have an infinite combo in your deck and you play the smol bean It’s just being manipulative and praying on the social convention to help you win
On the other hand a lot of times people thread assessment is terrible and they want to blow up your thing because you did something to them last game or they just paying attention and don’t understand what kind of position somebody is in that case I think pointing out other peoples board states and positions is valid
Me: dont attack me.
Them swings their lethal commander.
Me: kills their commander.
Them: I wouldn't have attacked you if i knew you were gonna kill my commander!
Me: I told you not to attack me.
I only Smol Bean when:
1) My opponent is choosing who wins or loses the game (so I gotta convincing him to let me win so I can stomp him later)
2) My opponent is casting removal on my shit when someone else is popping off way crazier. Like I'm trying to deal with this guy's shit over here and you're gonna do that to me? >:(
I learned from my great grandfather. I just point towards however is causing trouble and say I will help 😂😂😂
Correcting somebody’s thread assessment is totally valid, especially if they’re just trying to get revenge
AKA "Play green"
Green or black are both really solid for consistent threats. But white can also be really effective at fighting the board with stacks but it’s harder to push early without abusing parallel effects like a harmonious archon combined with anthems.
Green or black are both really solid for consistent threats. But white can also be really effective at fighting the board with stacks but it’s harder to push early without abusing parallel effects like a harmonious archon combined with anthems.
100% man. Absolute battle cruiser crybabies.
Arixmathese is a commander that has stuck with me and probably been the most consistent fun I've had with the format, and I'd say transparency and fighting the table are both why. What it says in the tin is what you get. Major ramp, big sea creatures, and a handful of blue shenanigans like bounce and card draw. It has tools needed to deal with the situation should I suddenly find myself as the target, and can generally be read by everyone at the table based on the boardstate.
What a well worded, informative video.
I don't think this really matches my experience of the format. My favorite comparison point was when I had made 2 decks, Atraxa infect, and a Raff, Weatherlight Stalwart deck based on twiddling lands. Of the two, Raff is just the better deck. Better strategy, better commander, and also.. people think its worse.
Atraxa shows exactly what she's doing, and tries to work directly toward a win condition. There's very little hidden there. Every game was a huge slog where people wanted to stop me at all costs.
The raff deck? Spellslinging token payoffs + weird white land ramp and lands that tap for more than 1 + twiddle effects. Very weird and techy, way better than the atraxa deck, was almost never the focus of the table. Which mostly meant free wins because nobody tried to stop anything I did.
And I know the obvious thing here is "people hate infect", but I think this comparison is just as true for any of my decks that were trying to hit people with creatures, vs. ones that aren't. I definitely think that keeping your threat from being visible makes it easier to play the game.
The average casual player is absolutely ass at threat assessment
Same for me. The argument that when people dont get what or why you are playing spells they get scared and thus attack you has never happened to me. When people dont get it they will just ignore it but if you have obvious strong board state that will make you the target
Maybe it depends on the experience level of the table?
If someone's not building resources on the battlefield (creatures, stax pieces, value pieces and draw enchantments, etc) then I have to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they're chugging towards some other win condition. Maybe they're digging/tutoring/drawing for combo pieces, I can't know exactly. If my deck isn't set up (or my hand isn't) to interact with combos at instant speed on the stack then turning creatures sideways proactively is all I can do.
All my casual decks deliberately can’t do the sudden synergistic/infinite wins out of nowhere. Instead I have opponents trying to figure out what I could possibly be hiding because removing their cards and deploying beaters each turn makes them paranoid.
TL;DR great video!
and then after many turns, theyre going crazy trying to figure out your strategy and you point out theyre at 12 life from all the nickel and dimes over the game. "What? you can win over time?"
I think another important element of deck consistency is cardpool? As weird as that may sound, it's actually a fairly narrow slice of mechanics that are benefited most by Magic's immense cardpool, and trying to build around mill is inherently more likely to be consistent than a "splice onto arcane" deck. Proliferation of one-size-fits-all mechanics like Morophon can mitigate these on some simpler levels, but especially when exploring novel mechanical spaces like Mutate, Splice, Power/Toughness Inversion, Moving Counters, and double especially when exploring those mechanics in a limited color identity in a singleton format, that's often either nowhere near enough, or just simply eclipses the intent of the original mechanic. I've built hundreds of decks in my time playing magic, and left hundreds more on the cutting room floor, and a problem I often run into is 'does this archetype even exist yet?' - sometimes only finding 10 or 15 cards that actually support my main synergy.
When the team at WotC is exploring design space, this problem compounds upon itself, as overlooked and underutilized mechanics have a tendency to remain so, while popular mechanics will see "a new twist" or simply power-crept versions, new lords for particular subtypes, and, well, a lot of the stuff mentioned in the Cycling video on this channel. This is further exacerbated by the shift away from the block structure, which has resulted in a lot of one-off mechanics that never get the time or support to shine, and are then promptly abandoned in favor of bringing back the same rotating cast of a dozen near-evergreen archetypes. Holes are dug deeper and deeper, in some cases, new mechanics are even stapled onto existing archetypes rather than being given their own room to thrive, creating a design space less akin to a developed landscape and more akin to a series of cavernous pits, all labeled and reinforced courtesy of EDHrec.
You don't have to have 30+ playable cards in an archetype to make a deck that seems consistent, but you'll probably have to add a sub-theme or two to fill it out, unless you're willing to go a little heavy on cards selection or removal/interaction. 10-15 playable cards or so is already a quarter of your non-Lands, you can expect to see a couple every game.
Just don't fill your blank spots with Sanguine Bond or Exquisite Blood, just because you've got a vampire/lifelink sub-theme and have a copy of each from opening random prize packs. It's such an easy trap to fall into. I slotted them right into my garbage-tier Anowon deck.
I really like your magic philosophy. This has heavily inspired me to rework a few decks i have that "basically do nothing until they pop off"
But also if you like those kind of decks that’s ok those kind of decks can be really fun. Just make sure the people you’re playing against our aware and OK with that kind of game.
hillarious how much of this video applies to teamfortress 2 "friendlies"
Excellent video on commander theory and praxis. 100% agree that this is a great way to play agains newer player but would also like to say that it's a lot of fun to get to figure out what your opponents are doing once you get a couple of years under your belt
yeah id rather not be completely transparent about everything im doing, otherwise whats the point in even having hidden information?
@@nonsuperimposableletting newer players know about obscure instant win combos is not the same as being completely transparent! I feel like you misinterpreted the video. You dont need to pull a fast one on people who didnt even know what to play against. How is that fun? You don't telegraph every play, you still can bluff/lie/politic without being obtuse about how your deck plans to win in an average game. I was once a newer player and KNOWING that my opponent has half of their combo on board and figuring out what i can do to win around it or stop them is fun. Random wins out of nowhere are not fun, as a player who has been on both ends of that interaction. You can still play however you'd like, no one is stopping you.
This explains how I like to play commander very well. Good job with the video.
I realized awhile ago that a big part of what makes turn-based games fun, is being presented with a problem and then being given a chance to figure out a solution to it. A deck which combos off out of nowhere, at a table which isn't ready with interaction to deal with it, violates that. The other players had no chance, they just suddenly lost. This is why I've been making decks which have to build up some kind of obvious board state to win or which give the other players at least one turn before winning. Even having a game ending combo being playing out infinite creatures without haste is a much better win con, since it at least gives your opponents each a turn to try and find a board wipe or other way to stop your attack. I for one really enjoy those final turns where I know how my opponent is going to win next turn and am desperately trying to figure out and assemble my deck's answer to it.
I also like building consistent and transparent decks which have to build towards a win, since it means I can play to win and have fun without completely crushing my opponents and actually give them a fun experience. I enjoy understanding the threat my opponent's decks present and trying to combat them, so I want to give others the same experience.
Thanks for the advice. I've noticed I've been getting frustrated playing jank, even while acknowledging it's jank, because I frequently enjoy ridiculous synergies that basically ask for no interaction from the opponent. But I realize now I might as well try some more down to earth strategies for a change, so that I can feel like I'm not just getting disruption after disruption to my game plans with few ways to comeback.
I Play Magic since 16 years and watch yt videos for mtg the same amount of time and I really like the depth of your videos and the slow paced way you talk.
This is some great advice for deckbuilding ideology! I Always make sure to ask what everybody is playing, what their decks are trying to accomplish, and general power level when sitting down at a table. Helps avoid blowout games where you are playing something goofy and your opponent is trying to combo off asap IMO.
I have never had somebody explain this theory/ gameplay style back to me before: Enjoy your GD sub. Well done.
An upside that you touched upon: I play a lot of pickup games at my FLGS and that includes a lot of new players and a lot of fellow regulars. Playing like this is just, straight up, pro-social and encourages fruitful tabletalk. It's the same kind of gameplay mechanism that open politicing encourages and builds a reputation for honesty and good advice. It's fucking lovely social output sometimes.
Your channel has made my EDH decks way better. Ive been able to filter out a lot of cards for "boring cards" and be way more consistent.
I recently got into Magic after 3 years of interest, and I've been enjoying going through your videos and learning some good tip for deck-building and how to play the game. I originally was more interested in Standard, but commander has caught me in its allure and I've had some fun with it. I made my first homebrew recently using Kambal, Profiteering Mayor that's very clear in what it wants to do. I call it the "Silly Straw" deck because it sticks a silly straw into your vein on turn 3 and asks you how long until you remove that straw and it becomes the Serious Straw. It's a massive token-gen and drain style deck. It's been a blast to play and see how some people are getting progressively more worried that they've been drained for 20 life before they have done anything significant with their commander and I'm sitting pretty at 54 life tanking a 12/12 hydra.
"Aww come on, I'm not doing well this game!"
"Well... let me help you on to your next game.."
Bold of you to assume my rishkars expertise on turn 7 wont always draw 4 lands, 2 ramps and a mana rock, no matter the deck
I'm convinced this channel purely exists for him to talk about his Glissa deck
Your channel is fantastic, keep it up.
When I watched your EDH red video I did not realize that this was the beginning of regular videos talking about the difficult, less obvious, and/or controversial topics in my favorite format. I will gladly get on the patreon train for more MS Paint EDH soap box content 👌
I think I generally use fight the table ideology nowadays. Years ago I tried to angle shoot and act weak to sneak in a win, but I find it much more satisfying to just announce "Unless someone stops me, I probably win next turn." I feel it's necessary to be open with how well I'm doing, or can do shortly, since I tend to play higher power level decks than the rest of the table
I'm going to preface this with I wholeheartedly agree with the fight the table ideology, and for the most part have already been doing your suggestions in playing transparently. But you've just made me realize how much I favor decks which are opaque about when they are in pole position. A few of my decks have more moving pieces across multiple zones for most players to keep track of, some of them are just avoiding dying until it hits critical mass for ultra late game control without ever building a scary board, or suddenly go from second place incremental synergy pieces to very far in the lead.
Do you have suggestions for "avoid dying until you get to ultra late game control" without even building a board?
@@xaropevic7918 Sort of. Though I realize that I consider very few nonland permanents to be boardless, and that might not be how others would classify it. But the core is draw go control with a short interaction window combo finish. (I loop turns when I hit 13 mana.) The biggest difference between 60 card and commander is that it needs mass bounce, tap down, or fog once or twice every game. How many cards slots that is entirely depends on the card velocity.
These are my priorities for playing this sort of a deck:
-As long as you're alive you're still in it
-Land drops are the priority
-Don't counter more than nessasary
-Wait as long as possible to attempt the combo
The deck is redundant, but I find navigating the puzzle of commander games to be unique and exciting every time.
@@wazzledog1007 Thank you
My opponents after I search my library for 24 basic lands: "should we be worried?"
Embrace the 3 C's. Colors, Cards, Creatures. Do their deck's colors suggest you need to put pressure on them? Do they have enough cards in their hand or a good card advantage engine? How many creatures can they block with and would you benefit from trading with some of those blockers?
Definitely no video uploaded before this one, and this definitely wouldn't have been my comment on that video
Most of my decks fall under the very fair and straightforward category, with a sort of escalating and obvious threat on the board. I generally turn into the main villain of the table, which is good because my deck is also probably the best constructed in terms of power and ability to win the game. Being the villain is actually quite the fun experience, since, even if you don't win, you still significantly impact the game every time. I do have a deck I'm working on for Slimefoot, the Stowaway that sort of breaks my rule but not really. It's a sort of hyper land-ramp deck using untapping abilities and auras that let lands tap for extra mana to just make a shit load of saproling tokens. Basically I want to reach 160 mana sunk into the ability as fast as possible, which will generally not be that fast. I think it's a lot more fun to play a deck like that.
“Your deck should be visible and you should hold everyone’s hand” not in love with this sentiments it’s limiting to deck building, I mean to a degree ur right people don’t like what they don’t know and I will say a lot of newer players make bad calls because they can’t figure things out.
I also def see a bunch of sbs at my table where I know people are bluffing and are full of shit and it’s annoying. Cant pretend I’m completely innocent I know I’ve def complained myself but only when it seems like they just have bad threat assessment, the only time I get annoyed w plays that target me is when the player making them is doing so to everyone’s detriment.
Henzie is such an easy deck to run it you wanna use this to your advantage. "hey, my board is empty except Henzie. I'm not doing much right now" *blitzes an Ancient Copper Dragon*
Great info. I've always kinda built transparent decks without even thinking about it. And I usually tell whoever I'm playing with that
My transparent decks perform so much better than they have any right to. My Balan deck where I just slap down another piece of equipment each turn and basically say “just you wait until I get to 6 mana” basically gets ignored until turn 6 because everyone knows the deck does basically nothing until it gets to 6 mana.
My Kellan, removal deck tends to generate remarkably little hate for removing things (although it definitely still generates some) because everyone knows I’m running 40 pieces of targeted removal and half a dozen board wipes.
Yet my Magar of the Magic strings deck with its confusing weak janky reanimator gameplan usually gets rushed down because no one knows that I was a whole turns away from actually doing anything.
While I get why being transparent with what your game plan is can make it less frustrating for the rest at the table, I feel like a lot of commanders themselves are pretty transparent on what they do.
For example Brudiclad (which is one of my pet decks tbh) pretty clearly is about copying tokens and swinging for lethal in a turn. Izzet does not have a lot of mass token generating effects so a lot of it is down to creating clones and generic tokens like treasure or food. So when I play Decent into Avernus or Brass's Bounty it should be pretty obvious what I'm trying to do. Even if I don't have a lot of creatures on the board, by seeing all the setup it should be pretty easy to guess that unless you deal with the setup pieces you will have a threat on your hands. So I don't get too salty when I get swung into or targeted even though I don't have a ton of creatures on the board.
Just doing a thing isn't a threat though, and identifying the potential threats changes based on how much an opponent knows about existing cards.
Golgari is such a great battlecruiser color combination.
I play Tevesh szat with Kodama of the East Tree. I love it! Just big beefy guys.
love hearing your thoughts on edh while i plan on building my very 1st commander deck!! great points and explanations, plus i love learning new cards (new to me) that you mention in each of ur vids :D
Just came across your videos and I'm really impressed. I was playing for a lot of years before I started deliberately removing combos and staples like sol rings from most my decks. it really does lead to overall better games.
One thing that might make a good video that I haven't seen people talk about is people with too many decks. I've seen people run into lots of problems: 1. they don't really understand how their own decks work or how their cards interact. 2. they don't have good opportunity to playtest and tune their decks. 3. the rest of the table can't keep track what their decks do and relative power levels
I love "fight the table" ideology. Sometimes I win and it's a great story, or I lose and it's a great story.
My play style is often the complete opposite: "Come at me bro" with a full grip and open mana. Ironically, this actually works better than downplaying my board state since most players don't want the smoke.
You gotta drop the lists for the decks you talk about!
A game I remember, not magic but a board game, that ended hilariously because people did the "some else will deal with this". The game is about murdering an old man to get his assets, at any time there are no witnesses of your attempt and you can actually attack him you can try it. Though when you do other players can play cards to go nope and have to build up enough to prevent it. Different weapons in different locations need more or less nope to prevent the attempt, like kicking him off the balcony with a noose requires 20 and "poking him in the eye" (which can be done when you don't have a weapon) requires 1. someone tries the "poke him in the eye" just due to random chance setting up an attempt and they didn't have a weapon. Three other players who declare in turn order if they will interfere. Player 1 big hand of nopes doesn't interfere. Player 2 big hand of nopes doesn't interfere. Player 3 had no nopes so can't interfere. Game that usually takes a couple of hours ended in 10 minutes.
Really put into words what makes a fun multiplayer commander game! Knowing what’s going on and having a back and forth struggle as it develops
I experience this between my Animar and Hinata decks where despite Animar being objectively an stronger deck he tends to get left alone more because when he isn't doing well they are more certain of it, whereas Hinata keeps all of her war crimes in your hand. They never know when that Comet Storm is coming, but watching Animar's counters go up is a more visible and easier to understand threat. One is a straightforward beater and the other is a spooky magical goat.
I love the inclusion of the Great Aurora in your one combo example
I wonder how planeswalker party decks fit into this, since each planeswalker can do a lot of different things and thus is scary
I have played Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider with a lot of planeswalkers and I usually become the archenemy the moment I put a planeswalker after my commander. I supposed everyone knows a mono green deck would put a lot of big creatures and win with that but I made this deck to win with helix pinnacle and use big creatures as defense instead.
I've never heard it called planeswalker party, I've always heard that deck archetype called "Superfriends". But having played a superfriends deck for quite a while myself I will speak from my experience and say that if you play superfriends you are absolutely enemy number one. People *hate* planeswalkers, and you will find that keeping even a single one of them alive for a turn cycle against 3 other players is quite a chore.
@@solbradguy7628 ill be honest, I meant superfriends but the planeswalker party precon has somehow taken over my brain as the 'official term', my b xD
I suppose if any, Chandra tribal would be the best in terms of a 'face up playstyle' superfriends deck since more of her stuff is dealing damage and making red mana to deal more damage but that is very fair. I think the issue is most superfriends decks end up being partially stacks so people dont kill the planeswalkers.
THANK YOU FOR TALKING ABOUT THIS
I agree that this is great advice. I also believe there is a lot of joy to be had in playing decks that feel completely different to play each game: my ideal deck to play is one that rotates between being a midrange, control, and or combo deck depending on my draws and my opponents.
What deck would that be if i may ask? :)
My usual response to someone with good attacks/potential to kill me is just "I will not beg for mercy." It rarely works but I like to think it's a little more dignified.
I have a deck that USED to be just a g/b deck with the joke being it only has ONE swamp to work with and somehow win, but it was designed for 100-card singleton 1v1, not EDH, so I took the Sapling of Colfenor I had in it and made it my commander, and all of a sudden people were getting upset that they couldn’t tell what my deck’s end goal was as they were losing to it, just because it was meant to have many wincons that could show up at any time. Needless to say, it made for an interesting table any time I brought it out.
this is a man who deserves more subs! Too bad I can only give him one :/
Your fight the table style decks makes me think of my Henzi Deck. It’s just big ramp, into bigger creatures, sacrifice big creatures into smaller big creatures and finally try to reanimate the biggest ones.
Me watching a video about mtg theories
Also me knowing damm well Im going to be screaming ''dont kill me I can do something funny next turn'' when im at 1 hitpoint
I like this, it's just talking about deck construction and playsyles in a generally intelligent way. I feel like I'm usually the bad gal at my EDH table because my decks are consistent, and even though I tell people straight up what I'm doing they don't always have the game pieces to stop me. I like building my decks this way, where they're focused and clear, and I think this is good advice as to how my friends can understand what I'm doing
Krenko mob boss deck is my favorite example of a visible treat, even more so if the whole deck is built around him
Yeah, i have found that you need to play with people who actually politics instead of just hassling one player every game
Great points! I played some very frustrating games recently with random people because they either played deceptively, or didn't know how to talk about their deck. One guy seemed to have 5-6 decks that were most likely all very optimized, because he said pick a number 1-6. The thing I said I really didn't want to see was board wipes all the time. He eliminated his Child of Alara deck, but still, the table was very mismatched. I tried not to outplay the precon player in the pod, but this new guy was clearly trying to hyper optimize every deck.
I totally agree with you about building and playing with transparency, playing towards your goal every turn isn't something suspicious to your opponents, and while they take it seriously you aren't likely to make anyone angry if you aren't an immediate threat
I have a very pertinent funny story of an old commander buddy
We had a dedicated group at that point and would regularly have 4 or 5 player games of commander, and this guy wanted in, but he had no idea how.
So, my friend looked through his cards, and helped him built himself a deck. Dragonlord Ojutai. We used to call it the "completely nonthreatening rise of ojutai", it would take games outta nowhere just by playing fair magic - stick ojutai, save up counterspells, strap him with enchantments, profit?
But it wasn't flashy enough for him, so he saves up and buys a budget infinite combo commander list - Mikaeus, the Unhallowed. Just Mikaeus and combo pieces - nothing else. Totally arbitrary and abstruse - and every time his commander hit the table, he would be surprised when we'd group up to keep him in check. The conversation in the game is just too scary, like "Oh, so Mikaeus is out so if we let this turn go around and he has *X* and *Y* or on a rare chance just *Z* alone he could kill all of us like *THAT* "
Instead of refining his ojutai deck he stubbornly played the mikaeus deck every time, to the point where he started to just play Destiny when he got knocked out first....
I have a Glunch deck without a win condition that focuses on helping everyone at the table but me. Naturally I’m the first to die.
Good to know I do very well in making my decks transparent. Almost all my decks are synergy focused with the commander and aren’t “bursty” as you called it. Maybe not battle cruiser style decks as your Glisa deck is but still cards in hand, untapped lands, and creatures in play are a great indicator of how well the deck is doing. I think it’s due to how I heavily play into synergy so if my commander’s in play, they’re the threat.
My best example is my Darien, king of Kjeldor deck and my Karn, Legacy reforged deck.
Darien is “I take damage, make tokens, and gain that life back” so most pieces will follow that suit, pump those tokens, or protect my stuff.
Karn is even more straightforward, I get tons of mana and play big artifacts, the more artifacts in play the better the deck is doing.
My Oloro, ageless acetic deck though wins at “fight the table” it is minor stax, control, and voting, designed to be a slow burn nightmare. It excels at making everyone at the table want to kill you and that is fun since you can also give back to them in a group hug style if they play your game, no silly combos, just good cards.
This is a good description of my play style (SBS). But instead of politicking to try to dissuade attacks, I just board wipe. One of my most threatening decks is my O-Kagachi Dragons deck. I'll make consistent land drops, ramp, then board wipe once everyone has deployed most of their cards in hand. I could try to tell everyone that "I'm not doing anything," but I find it more fun to say "Yeah, fair, I'll take 20" and then exile all their creatures so I don't take any more.
I think the important part is not being sneaky. If you're really honest about what you might do, and how close you are to it, people will likely forget about how you swung for 90 last game. Playing politics is fun, and so is popping off, but you can play SBS-style and still be fair and casual if you help others out with their threat assessment.
I always respond with "I wasn't gonna attack you, but now that you complained I will."
Heard you on a Facebook olshort and wanted to go to the source. Beautiful! Especially the drop!
I have been playing magic for only 3 years but I feel like these is another Smol Bean Syndrome where a player introduces effects to the game that turns the other players consistent decks into completely inconsistent ones making everyone else real smol beans.
Effects that limit combat, get rid of phases, consistently negates all damage, come from commanders untouchable in the command zone(like eminence), or creature gifting that breaks your deck (Demonic Taskmaster, Abyssal Persecutor) as an example.
Im gonna need that Glissa decklist. My decks have always been kind of gimmicky and so have the decks in my playgroup. I'd love to see a transparent decklist and learn from it!
archidekt.com/decks/5035210/glissacruiser
This video makes me want to build more decks around Sarevok, Deathbringer. Not only do more background decks need to exist because they're just cool but underplayed, but Sarevok is usually not trying to trick you about what's happening. It works as a pseudo-Voltron deck where buffing your commander is a big deal, but also incentivizes a little mini-game that different decks play differently. My first Sarevok deck was with Clan Crafter, so i could sacrifice artifacts for card draw and commander buffs while using blue spells to protect my commander.
This is a good concept. My trouble is with my Kadena Morph Combo deck. I do my best to be transparent without just revealing my hand and saying what my face down cards do, but naturally, being a resilient deck that has lots of interaction and hidden information, people aren’t the hugest fan of the deck. I am transparent with my combo pieces and how strong my synergy cards are, but people still tend to underestimate her until they get locked out of the game.
I've recently come back to commander and magic in general after 3-4 years (I played at university with my friends but now we can only meet once a year or so, so I had an old deck for special occasions, but nothing more). I've recently found a new group which is pretty chill in my town and I've made very clear every new deck I'm going to build will make the matches fast, because a big problem I had with commander in the past is described in this videos. Lots of times when friends just whined about how they were getting hit with nothing on the table (and sometimes they became very angry/annoying), but then suddenly played an emrakul or something similar and ended up winning. This videos sums up those matches very well.
I feel like there can be such a thing as being too transparent with your game plan. In my mind if people know your strategy and plan to remove it early before it becomes a big threat to them. Then you’re stuck to the big explosive power except you don’t have all that power as it was spent on the earlier turns and got removed. This is probably me over thinking it but it could be intresting
I’m a volunteer at a local high school and one of the kids there has a “mono-Green Morophon deck” where the deck only has basic forests for lands….and it’s actually Sliver combo
This feels like a hugbox, not for me personally.
me and you have very different ideas about commander sadly. Yet you are spot on with your analysis of why people react they way the do. The problem is I want to play big janky things that is fun to me and it is frustrating when you I get over targeted because that one time I popped off. You give a solution to this but the solution is antithetical to what i consider fun decks. I am currently on a small break from edh because of my recent experiences of being over targeted. A player had previously saw the "full might" of my deck and then proceeded to consistently remove any possible threat I could have even when I was the least threatening on the board and even made a misplay that further messed with my board state and I ended up scooping as I wasn't being allowed to play the game. This is the same game where that person was berating another player for playing multi land destruction when they were being oppressive to the whole board just through other means. I was fully transparent what my deck was capable of it was a combo deck that requires several pieces to work and have a few really powerful pieces that can win the game but not out of hand.
Yes you can work it from the angle you suggest and I think that makes fore a well streamlined experience but another would be better threat assessments by opponents. I'd love to see a video about that as well (you probably have and I haven't seen it . . .) After all that I do take a lot of what you say to heart but it still frustrates me because I have been playing mtg on and off since 1994 and I want to play all this lovely jank I have collected over the years and the best place to do that is in EDH yet over the years it seams less and less likely that I can do so. I am just coming off of a large hiatus because A) EDH was getting way to cutthroat in my area circa 2018 B) the pandemic. Now i come back and it is still bad yet it felt more tolerable in spite of power creep because not everyone seems to have mana crypt etc. from sets like eternal masters. If anyone reads through this entire mess ty and love to hear your constructive feedback.
I'm kinda reminded of a maldhound video. Specifically in how it mentions that every color in the game gets to cheat at Magic, but Green Specifically always seems to get away with it without getting anywhere near as much flak as other colors do.
Fight The Table Ideology kinda shows some of why, Especially in regards to your example of a Ramp deck being transparent enough that people dont' get as paranoid about you until you have like 87 lands and you kill everyone with bears.
my main deck is a blue artifact deck. I use a lot of counters and fodder to survive the early rounds, before doing massive bursts of damage. I have tezzeret's gatebreaker as well, and no one I play with has any board wipes and the few artifact destruction spells are usually used to try and destroy my mana ramp or my staff of the mind magus so they can try and kill me before I am in a position to sacrifice tezzeret's gatebreaker. my favorite way to play is to wat too attack until I have enough on my board to take people out in one swing. I'm sure I could end games faster if I didn't do this, but it results in this small bean effect most of the time where everyone is focused on each other because the most I'm doing to harm anyone is bouncing their creature back if they target me while everyone else is slapping them down. At a certain point though, my deck snowballs and by the time people realize that I have quietly filled my battlefield to the brim and am very obviously about to play my biggest wincon, it's pretty much too late. I'm never deceptive about it either, everyone knows how my deck works and it's hard to ignore the guy who has chewed through half of his deck in 6 turns, but because I don't attack I'm almost always the smallest threat until it's too late.
I'm hearing this, and my mind immediately goes to "But what if I lie?". Like, I say I'm just a big unga bunga ramp deck, and clearly display some threats, but it's secretly a combo deck? Or I say I'm playing a value engine, then plop down some unbeatable lock.
And, since I know that I might lie, I would also recognize that other people might lie as well. So, by stating your deck's goal, I might assume that you are being deceptive, and not only discount your plan, but assume that you have a much more nefarious plan in place.
Me missing my 8th land drop in a row
"It's okay boys I'm comin back"
The classic I do is put down something I don't need to keep and then say "this is one of my combo pieces" and watch the removal fly
I love being considered the archenemy, and playing through vicious hate pieces. It makes me proud of my deck.
I used to unintentianally do the "im just a small bean" thing with my Dino tribal Gishath deck, it had a lot of wincons and crazy cards but was inconsistant and easily stopable as is the nature of Gishath.
I since then turned said deck into a really consistent beatdown deck, Pantlaza is now my commander and he enshures the early value i need.
I build the deck in a way that all my ramp, carddraw and interaction is 4 mana or less, this way pantlaza will allways discover something usefull when he etbs, he dosnt need to stick arround after that but often does because people dont see him as an obvious threat.
It has taken my table quite a while untill they realized that Pantlaza kills them just as fast as Gishath just by enabling other Dinosaurs...
I love how consistent i made that deck and now try to build every deck with this kind of consistency in mind.
I play an Atraxa deck. The general theme is supposed to be "poison counters" with a subtheme of "big things with +1/+1" and a secondary wincon of "magistrate scepter + vorel, the Hull Clade".
I struggle with this deck. Often times, people see it, they see Atraxa, and then I either get left alone and then go wild, or I get stimied. And unfortunately, the deck usually wins one of two ways: the magistrate scepter combo, or I give something poison and then whack an opponnent for 10 damage. Game over.
I really like poison counters, so I think I'd like to revamp the deck to be more fun, and more "fight the table"-ish. Rather than smacking one opposing player with a ton of poison damage outright, ping each player for exactly 1 poison damage, and then put them on a proliferate timer. Now, I'm the enemy of the table because I no longer need to attack to win, and players are forced to interact with me each time I would try to proliferate, which I can do through creatures, spells, artifacts, even a land. Maybe i have one copy of Skithryx for ending games faster. Then I tell the table, "hey, I'll be playing Atraxa poison where my goal is to proliferate everyone to death."
Does that idea sound reasonable?
My last game, I was playing etali: primal conqueror, and I had him flipped to the instant kill poison counter side. I decided I would roll to see who I attacked, and after that, I kept the dice to give everyone a sense of dread. If someone attacked me, I would take the dice off the table as a threat, meaning “if you do this, I won’t leave it up to chance who will die” it’s absolutely the funnest thing being absolutely feared by everyone.
I hate when a friend uses smol bean syndrome with commanders like Tivit, Seller of Secrets, Grand Arbiter Augustin IV or Teysa when I know he is just waiting for one more card on hand to win.
In my playgroup, the weakest link usually gets targeted first
If everyone says, don't attack me, everyone is getting attacked if I can
the table I've been playing with has been going "you know it makes the most sense to attack *" and then everyone agrees including the person getting attacked.
We need to have a midrange counter for how many times snail says "midrange" in one video.