@@HanDaimond turn one - forest - mirrir’s guile - sol ring - mana crypt - roaming throne … for an Animar deck.. Kediss, Emberclaw Familiar & cavern of souls … all opening hand…. That’s turn one threat
I can’t stop laughing. I had to watch a second time to make sure it wasn’t part of the ad that played immediately after the video. Two watches and comments. This is peak engagement.
I don’t necessarily think commander specific cards are a problem. For me it’s jamming as many cards as possible into standard legal sets that you can look at and say “well that was clearly made for commander”. I think as soon as they started releasing 2-5 commander decks with every standard legal set, as opposed to a singular commander release every year, that’s when shit went wrong for me
I don't think that designing cards for commander is inherently problematic, but they took it way too far. It infuses every set now which is silly. However, if we received the occasional set like Conspiracy or Commander Legends, they would stand out more and be cooler.
This^^^ Printing cards for commander isn't the issue. Making every set cater to the format and designing the entire game with that format in mind is the problem. Putting out a single commander set that is at least modern legal once a year and supporting the existence of the format that way would have been fine. Putting out commander decks for almost every single product released is the mistake. Maybe even adding one or two cards that are clearly made with commander in mind in released sets could have even been fine. But... Hasbro is going to Hasbro. They have to hit those quarterly projections and Wizards has been a money printing machine for them. They're going to milk whatever they can to puff up that bottom line.
To expand upon the "Highlander" part of EDH, it's a reference to the 1986 Highlander film where immortal warriors fight to the death since "There can be only one" and there can only be one of each card in the format.
My friends and I have been playing since 1994. We love the social aspect for all formats we have played - standard, two headed giant, emperor, five pointed star, Chaos, Commander, and Bot deck matches
Unfortunately I think a lot of competitive first players have wound up in commander due to it being the most common format and WoTC basically borking every competitive format
The real problem with Wizards designing for commander is the ultra-synergistic commander-only cards that are so brainlessly powerful that the deck plays itself. It’s why I took apart Korvold, for example.
I dislike kovald but I get its design space. For a newer player to be able to relevant in a pod the deck has to be so strong. Needs to be playable out of the box playable. It is easier to increase the commander power and do a less powerful 99. This also gives the new player flexibility in changing the 99. A challenge becomes when enfranchised players use these commanders. Now we can add stronger 99 cards to the deck which significantly increase the decks power.
I think Wizards initially created the problem by accident. Standard was completely out of hand, unaffordable, keeping track of the rotations became a nightmare, and power crept to the moon. So everyone jumped ship to Commander or Modern. But instead of admitting to themselves that they screwed up standard so badly, they turned that behavior on Commander and Modern - To the point where the powercrept everything feels almost malicious, as if they seek to punish those that they drove away in the first place It was great when wizards only made a set of commander decks once a year with only about 30 new cards across them. It also gave players access to older cards that otherwise would never see a reprint otherwise. And I disagree, cards that reference Commanders are fine, but they should be made with far less frequency and far more caution. Look at Command Beacon, it's a reasonable card that doesn't solve all the problems of a monolithic commander deck, but it acts as a little relief at the cost of a land.
100%. WOTC turns everything to shit. They ruined Standard with their attention, and then they turned their attention to Commander and Modern, and are ruining those formats with their attention. We may not agree on the why, but we all know it is definitely happening.
I think if you have a dedicated playgroup a lot of these inherent issues work themselves out. For example, I had a Jodah deck for awhile, but once it was clear how busted he is (I even tried to make it less busted: I had a brick of sleeved multicolor legends that didn’t necessarily work well together that I let them randomly each pick 10 of before the game and I’d shuffle them in without looking. Still dominated.) well, I don’t play Jodah anymore because I was instantly the target and they said it wasn’t fun to play against. The bigger problem is playing with strangers who have different ideas on what power level is and what a game should look like. Which makes rule 0 all that more important. However, people, especially 3 people you just met, might not agree on what rule 0 rules should exist. I mean, it’s definitely an oddball because going into, say, a game of modern, you expect your opponent to be playing what they feel is the best deck. But commander, if someone is playing the “best deck” (if that even exists) they’re immediately the archenemy. Not much to do to fix it other than try and play with the same playgroup and work things out over time. Which isn’t always possible and you’re pretty fortunate if you can do that.
Yeah, that's why I really don't like any format except for Kitchen Table Magic with friends. I'm never gonna play a meta deck, so I feel underpowered. I think Limited should be the baseline for Magic and Magic design, since it is the most equal format. And then we can take it from there.
Obviously just need to ban every card that wasnt printed in a standard legal set. That will most definitely fix every single issue and no one can complain about anything at all.
I feel like the social aspect being a problem sometimes isn’t a problem with the format. It happens with anything that has a form of social interaction. It’s more a personal issue. If a person starts taking the game too seriously, just stop playing with them. It’s a matter of holding individuals accountable.
TL;DR: Talk to each other before the game already holy crap. Here's the real inherent issue: there is no "default way" to play Commander but people will pretend that there is. It's perfectly valid to build around your commander. It's perfectly valid to have your commander there only for flavor or color identity. It's perfectly valid to deckbuild and play to win. It's perfectly valid to deckbuild and play to show off the jankiest cardboard rectangles you can possibly find. It's perfectly valid to play a bunch of tutors to make things as consistent as possible in a 100 card singleton format. It's perfectly valid to play 0 tutors and embrace the hell out of the randomness of a 100 card singleton format. All of these options and every permutation of what persons ABC and beyond think of as fair and proper, are all valid. We just have to TALK TO EACH OTHER before starting the game so that we all have fun playing it. The "intent" of the original format doesn't matter at all at this point either. EDH started as a bunch of judges blowing off steam in downtime. It was the pet format of a small, regular playgroup that gradually expanded and morphed into what it is today. The instant it became acceptable to run any legendary creature the "original intent" was completely out the window. Unless you've played the og rules with actual Elder Dragons, you've not actually played "according to the original intent of the format," and it's silly to claim otherwise. The biggest part of the "original intent" that gets spit on constantly is Rule 0. Talk with your group. All of this appeal to tradition and claiming that most people want Commander to be casual. But what does that mean? Who actually defines casual? Ask 20 Commander players and you'll get 20 answers. We've got to talk to each other before shuffling up and stop getting pissed at each other when something that we don't like and *didn't talk about* gets played. You don't have a problem with actual cEDH. What you have a problem with is someone violating your definition of casual. cEDH as a "style" really boils down to one thing: win at all costs. It's a shorthand for the Rule 0 conversation that should be happening before every single game. If we sit down to "play cEDH," we're all saying "I'm playing to win, I expect you to as well. Don't pull any punches -in your deck building or your gameplay, I won't either." Playing to win is far from exclusive to cEDH, so that's not the cardinal sin. The vast majority of players sit down and play to win. They might not stress about it. They might not use the most "efficient" or "powerful" ways to win, but most people aren't sitting down with the express goal of losing. And playing for fun and to win aren't mutually exclusive. You can still have fun when you don't win, even if you *tried* to win. Your casual game is getting ruined by not discussing everyone's definitions of casual to start with *in detail* to establish the social contract, or by people who will cheat to win. Think of every rule for a "casual game" in your mind, now think about just how many damn edge-cases there are that would get around those rules and still wreck the table. That's a pubstomper who is cheating the social contract and they'd do that in any game, in any format with any tools they could get their hands on. You'll never get rid of that last group of people entirely and it is *not* exclusive to Commander. It happens in every format. You can make *significant* improvements on the first part though by just talking before the damn game. You can't accidentally break a social contract that doesn't exist.
You're talking a lot and not saying anything. It's not like everyone has 20 decks for every power level and playgroup, and also not like everyone has infinite choice in who they play with. Also, not everyone is socially skilled or confident. So things like the Commander ban list, and WOTC power creep, absolutely flow downstream and affect people's games and pods. WOTC is killing Magic with power creep, because they just want to maximize short term profit. They don't care about 10 years from now.
Casual is very people proxy and has people pro all of the things you've said. It just requires a conversation. There is close pay to win, and the masquerade as a casual deck with est cedh cards and strats without warning the table.
The original format was just called "Highlander" and it started at tournaments in the 90s before there was any such thing as an Elder Dragon. Back in the day you would sometimes have hours between games and Highlander existed to make fun, creative, janky decks that did weird and interesting things that you couldn't actually do in tournaments. EDH is built on a fountain of fun and jank and it's as anti-competitive in it's spirit as it gets.
I don’t upgrade cards in commander decks unless they are a significantly an upgrade to something I’m already doing or if it gives my deck access to ability it doesn’t have, but still interacts with what the deck already does. I just gave an example over on the EDHRec video about FOMO how I added Rowan, Scion of War to my Licia deck. I intentionally lose life to gain it back (which is the most efficient form of life gain) and the deck is something like 70% black/red. She gives me an added benefit to losing that life that the deck didn’t already have and acts as a back up if someone deploys a card to shut down life gain. When it comes to my 60 card decks, I’m constantly tweaking them since most of them are common and uncommon variations that support an already established theme.
I think they SHOULD make cards for commander, and cards that refer to the commander/command zone... In COMMANDER products, released once a year. The rest of magic should remain being designed for standard. And my commander deck building rule is: My deck has a thematic OR a central mechanic. EVERY single card in the deck, aside from lands, should fit into that.
Yep, totally agree! And I love the part about flavouring your decks with a theme. Otherwise it is just gonna be like some game knights episode where things are like: "I play this awesome Bant commander deck from Baldur's Gate, but I got rid of 40% of the cards to make room for the typical blue power staples you see in every game: Rhystic Studied, Mystic Remora, Cyclonic Rift, Consecrated Sphinx..." This is why I try to several decks, some are just full of High Budget power creep shit, others are very flavourful (which are the decks my friends most enjoy to play with.)
Yeah I wish it was more casual. Even in my own pod. We're playing really high power now and games don't make it to 6 or 7. It's kinda inevitable without a ban list. It's gonna be an arms race
It's taken about a year and a half for my pod to find equilibrium. All it takes is one player to skew the game toward competitive. A bit of a prisoner's dilemma, isn't it?
My issue with the format is that there really isn’t as much variation as ppl think. You’re really just building your variation of a value engine that results in one big combat step(s) or combo that burns/drains the table
The only other way to play would be everyone grinding and chipping at each other for a little bit of damage at a time until there's one person left. The variance is EDH is how we choose to go about achieving the win by combat or combo. Some decks do win by slowly milling or hitting their opponents turn after turn.
The solution to the design issue is simple : 1. restrict new commander cards to commander precons and non standard legal sets. 2. do more to support to standard and fix it even if it means severe ban hammer drops. That said even if they stop purposely making cards aimed at commander in standard legal format there will always be a few here and there that catch on in the format.
I want to try something. What will it do to a game night, if I accept every decision another player makes without commenting it in any way? No complaining, no convincing, no politics. Will it be more or less fun this way?
Very much appreciate your take, Demo. I like that you went back to analyise the roots of the format. I definitely think we have to deal with the reality of today, but im with you 💯. Casual was the reason for commander, so you could have decks full of 6 drops 😂😅 Your explanation of wizards/hasbros is totally accurate too. But the cropbros wanted this, to some degree. Push power to make money. The corporate ensh1tification of business. Extract cash at the cost of value, rather than earning profit for value. Lol burp
Love your content Demo 🤟 that being said I still think there's two flaws here. First : I don't think the bad social aspect of commander is innhently an edh issues but a rather social/community one. What I mean by that is what we experience in the commander format is the same in every entertainment media that have a strong social aspect. It's more a people problem than a game problem. Second : I believe that if WOTC woudn't have go towards designing cards for the edh format. We woudn't have those high cost multicolors legendary creatures with fun build around cause the leading formats would have been competitive, the powercreep would have overflow mtg with overpowered low cost generic cards.
We liked the C11 decks, however, we were at the time already realising Wizards' was printing new cards with EDH/multiplayer in mind such as Consecrated Sphinx and Avacyn, Angel of Hope, a development we were fearful of at the time because such cards were so much stronger and thereby skewing the entire game as they were copied, reanimated, stolen, etcetera many times during a single game. This soon turned into a dislike of Wizards' designing for Commander. It was never tied to the precons, those tended to get a positive response for a long time. Far more so it was tied to cards for it in normal sets.
when i play commander, the most exciting thing for me is seeing a card/commander/interaction ive never seen before, couldnt agree with this more. i save my competitive instincts for drafting hahaha
The biggest issue with commander is that it has become the default way to play magic so a ton of new players who just don’t get the fun of not winning. When it wasn’t the default format it was just about having fun in between rounds etc. Most people that play commander get super salty about everything.
We've been drifting back to a Feldon's Caney 1990s melee kind of Magic. Commander has gotten to be almost a separate game, and it never really caught at my place
Naturaly people will try to optimize. The direction of the optimazation is key here. Optimize for the social? or for power & efficency? If there is just a drive for power & efficency you will end up in cedh
Prior to playing EDH I would play multiplayer mtg with modern or standard decks. I had a Lwyorn trefolk deck, a standard zombie deck, and a dragon artifact deck. It was honestly so much fun. Enjoyed it more than EDH. However, those players now played EDH. That said I have 1 EDH deck with Doran as my commander for my tribal trefolk.
"They weren't meant to played in commander, there wasn't a commander format", well obviously things can't be designed for a format that is yet to exist. But just as obviously, once that format does exist, cards will, and should, be designed for it. As for what commander is? Casual commander is about the journey, not the destination, competitive is about the destination, not the journey.
Another note; the internet is a huge reason as to why we have all of these infinite combos, cards you must buy, and endless other hivemind conclusions. But you can't change that for them, just remember to be creative.
There will always be most popular commanders. We can see these with EDHREC. The data may be telling a different story. It counts how often a decklist is posted online. It does not track how often a commander is actually being played. People tend to have multiple decks-likely play those decks as well. These lists aren’t the top commanders and staples. I play mostly mtgo. The cards are accessible and cheaper. You see a wide range of commanders and staples. It would be nice if mtgo could track what commanders/how often are being played
I like the idea of not having cards that say "Commander" on them... That could be a good idea for rule zero - to get around some of the stupid, sweaty cards Wizards seems hell bent on warping the format with. I'm personally leaning towards the format of Pauper Commander for the same reasons of helping to preserve a casual play style. I love the Trinket Mage's stuff - I haven't seen that video of his, but I gotta check it out now. Also, belching on the outro is the perfect punctuation for a video.
I like the idea of PreDH, where only cards before the first commander precons are legal. For me, I'd put the cutoff at before Magic Origins, since that is when set design started designing for story, instead of balance, and we saw the result with more bans and needed bans then ever before.
@@shorewallis this a thing? If it's not we need to make it a thing. I don't hate the new sets, don't get me wrong, but the old commander has a ✨ vibe✨
I would like to see a budget format like "five-below" become more popular (cards over $5 market value are illegal) That would get rid of most of the highly competitive and frustrating-to-play-against cards. Wish RUclipsrs would make videos covering the merits of five below to bring awareness to more players.
Funny how i love casual commander and my favorite product are the 10 unique percon cards: after the free spells cycle every cards was niche and interesting here some I love: -sudden sbustution - redemption arc -from the catacombs -firemane commando -nesting dovehawk -spawning kraken -rootwaver druid -cartographer hawk -cliffside rescuer -Spectral arcanist -otherworldy escort -Gray host reinforcement -shadow kin -burp
It would help if they just slowed down with new releases and made less “commander focused products”. Give people some time to explore the cards in the sets and enjoy the decks they’re brewing.
To be fair i agree that commander needs to maintain the casual standing. Ive come to the conclusion that precons wizards print are more or less balanced and super fun to play in pods that all play precon. The issues start when custom decks come into play adding all the staples and overpowered bs that makes it less and less fun to play. I also play CEDH and have 3 decks for that format and its fun to play as long as the whole table is playing that way.
I actually like the cards that reference Commander because they are useless in 60 card formats. So they can print power-crept cards without completely ruining 60-card Eternal formats.
Personally I try to mediate. With my playgroup we use our own banlist, we don't play Sol Rings for instance. Among them, it's me and another friend sticking to an underwhelming approach. It's more fun when we win, and it happens quite regularly, despite our rather budgety approach. Then, since I wanna test my decks outside the regular pool, I make those few adjustments (if needed) and go out in the wild, looking for same level decks to contend with. I won't complain when loosing to the usual Craterhoof Behemot. All problems can be resolved thanks to the social aspect of the game which must be preserved. Then, of course it pisses off to see such a cool idea being spoiled by its commercial exploitation, but I don't wanna have my fun ruined: I just try not to encourage that route by not buying official products (only secondary market singles/proxies for the most expensive ones) and by showing almost no interests for latest cards, etc.
Recently my group had been getting a lot more competitive, and we made the decision to dial it back a lot. This meant not putting the auto include staples in every deck and aiming more towards what the deck is trying to do. Not putting in cards that are so powerful they outshine what youre doing, but use flavorful ones that you wont see in every list. Its a lot more fun seeing wacky stuff people find across the table instead of fierce guardianship, deflecting swat, and we’ve even been cutting out sol rings. I hope everyone finds their own way to have fun, and experience different flavors of the format!
its so much more fun too, i love when someone at my table says "What is THAT card, I've never heard of that before". You have so many cards at you disposal playing commander, why stick to the most busted and most popular?
The Professor from Tolarian Community College recently put out a RUclips video explaining the importance of Threat Assessment in EDH / Commander which I urge you guys to go check out. My personal issue with the format in general is that it doesn't really incentivize players to play at the LGS like competitive formats do where there's an actual reward for playing. What If there was a reward for playing EDH / Commander at your LGS? I'm fully aware that it's supposed to be a Casual format while you're still going to have players who want to play it Competitively as well. Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro and the EDH Rules Committee can deny this all they want but that doesn't change the fact that it's a reality.
See, the reason that happens is that most of the times that is too expensive to do. You might as well be playing modern or legacy, who have outrageous costs for decks, and money that literally not even the richest of us have. The only reason CEDH can exist is because tournaments for that are unsanctioned, and thus, most will use proxies since they are allowed. However, for formal events, that is literally not a choice, since wizards have a really bad problem with proxies, to the point that it has been heard that stores have gotten warnings for posting video content with proxies, so that goes out the window, too. Also, there is a competitive environment, actually, as i mentioned before, CEDH. So, really, they created a space for themselves, which is alright. In the end, it feels a bit too on the nose to say "oh they can deny it but it's a reality", when really, no one considers it a reality. Except the players who created the environment for that. As you said, it is incentivized that people actually play casually. It IS the nature of the format that literally everyone that plays EDH agrees with (again, CEDH is almost considered a different world, lol). Also, there have been LGS who have done commander events and commander tournaments. But even then, the social aspect is very much present, with each store having a general power level range that exists in it, so everyone can have a good time. Does that mean you probably need to find an LGS that suits your level, which might be a chore? Yes. Is it however, a good way for everyone to find the environment they wanna thrive in? Also yes.
@@theodoregeorgiou4565 Except cEDH isn't taken as seriously as Casual EDH / Commander at least not since the release of Commander Legends when the power creep from Hullbreacher was quite evident when paired with Timetwister and other Wheel effects and since then Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro's design team have been pushing away those who design for cEDH and more in favor of Casual EDH / Commander. Modern Horizons 3 seemed to break that formula. Though I have watched streams of cEDH games only lasting 40 minutes compared to 1 to 2 hours in Casual EDH. The difference between the two formats is that mana curve is everything when it comes to cEDH. If the majority of cards in your deck don't have a mana value of 3 or less then you're going to be left behind. cEDH incentivizes players not to run high mana value cards unless they have alternative costs where you can cast them for free.
@456jm well of course they are gonna go on and create what gets them more money, it is a problem but not much you can do about it lol. But then again, I think you went on and ignored most of the other points lol. Again, playing competitively in this format is brutal, money wise. It is not accessible at all when it has to do with wizards sanctioned events, since proxies are obviously disallowed. As someone who has played in a couple of modern tournaments as well, though, I can tell you that even they know the format is exceedingly expensive, to the point that the decks i have seen in those tournaments are good, no question about that, but competitively speaking it is nowhere near the competitive decks you see at bigger events, because as we said, it is bloody expensive. At best it is high power. Again, the most competitive sides of the format are not feasible. Again, shops do events for edh, but in the end you have to find the power level that is to your liking for the stores, which is tedious, but it is the best way you can do an event for a format like edh, which is in the end, a social and casual format.
Boggles my mind how people complain about too many good cards or too many legends. How can that possibly be a down side. I love all the product. So many fun new cards to play with. I love when wizards prints powerul new toys. Gets me very excited for new sets. I dont understand the negativity
my view: i don't think designing cards for commander is inherently bad, the problem was tying commander products to every single set available. too much product, too many new cards, the fatigue is real. tying commander decks to standard sets IMO has been a huge misstep. instead they should have kept the yearly 5 deck commander product so that they could innovate on historically obscure or under-utilized mechanics. (think clash or bloodrush) with that in mind, the new cards that iterate on these mechanics should be strictly non-commanders, to avoid a go-shintai situation. commander masters should be a reprint-only set, and done yearly. i think doing this could benefit and fix most of EDH's problems.
I've played 60 card with 2v2,3v3, 5v5, 5 player where it's all vs all I've played commander where it's 1v1. When I played more 60 card I never went with modern or standard. I didn't play with just the new sets and put the cards not used in modern away. I've always played casual except for playing in 1 or 2 tournaments.
Love the outro 👌 keep it Someone in my playgroup said a few weeks ago that he noticed that the games are shorter and end with some comboi stuf a lot lot more than the years befor ( funny that it was the guy with 40 high power decks). And he said that it took out some fun. It's a problem i talk about for many years. I always say 'how about building a interesting deck which makes fun to play against'. Everybody agreed that the powering up thing is not mich fun. One week later there where some spoilers for MH3 and everybody was talking and cheering about all the super card and that they are buying boosters and singles and so to get the cards. I feel out of the sky 🤯 I realy don't understande why people are excited about irresponsible stupid powerful cards which drayn the fun out of the game.
My genuine prediction is that the players will just make a new format, and then wizards will print for that, and then people will make a new format, and then wizards will print for that, and then players... Either that, or cube takes over.
Love your attention and that we both have a similar card tast. My most beloved card in commander is for an example "Word of Command" But I have a big disagree with your rule number one: Don't make yourself a target That is a Rule for Sissy-playing. It is more effektive when someone targetinng you, to rip the shit out of him/her so that even the people of the next 2 table become afraid to look on your board in the wrong way😇
So maybe it would be interesting to give two options a try: first a commander format where only cards are allowed which are not printed in commander sets only, or second: a format whre only cards are allowed that where printed in these sets. Could be fun, but I don't know, if this fixes anything
Personally I don't think most players want a casual environment. In most games I play it is very evident that at least half the players really want to win, and whenever I hear casual thrown it it is usually in response to their gameplan being disrupted. I think A LOT of EDH players will build their deck incredibly "competitively" short of actually being a CEDH deck, filling it with staples, incredible expensive card draw etc and all they are missing is a mass of tutors and fast mana, but then during the actual game they fall back on casual to shield them from any criticism. The biggest problem with EDH is its godawful playerbase.
@@edhdeckbuilding huh.. my problem is I thought I started playing before they made pre-cons… that’s not true I guess cuz I started ..2014 when Prophet was still legal… that was some fun stuff.. for me but then my Animar deck wasn’t that refined. I know, I know- don’t be the threat… I’ve played mostly 1v1 & don’t mind looosing due to the fact if everybody doesn’t kill me.. I will win I’d be honored if you checked out my deck. Got plenty of low drop cheap stuff- you’d prob find use for. Removal is big for me too, good sir. (I don’t have any infinite combo junk just synergy) 1 Animar, Soul of Elements 1 Bristly Bill, Spine Sower 1 Roaming Throne 1 Spark Double 1 Forgotten Ancient 1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker 1 Imperial Recruiter 1 Kediss, Emberclaw Familiar 1 Painter’s Servant 1 K-9, Mark I 1 Champion of Lambholt 1 Sun Quan, Lord of Wu 1 Karlach, Fury of Avernus 1 Lightning Greaves 1 Ogre Battledriver 1 Urabrask the Hidden 1 Maelstrom Wanderer 1 Apex Devastator 1 Shadowspear 1 Legion Loyalist 1 Pathbreaker Ibex 1 Craterhoof Behemoth 1 Kodama of the West Tree 1 Mana Crypt 1 Sol Ring 1 Birds of Paradise 1 Delighted Halfling 1 Sakura-Tribe Elder 1 Cloud of Faeries 1 Nature’s Lore 1 Dockside Extortionist 1 Nissa, Resurgent Animist 1 Vizier of the Menagerie 1 Sowing Mycospawn 1 Saryth, the Viper’s Fang 1 Defiler of Vigor 1 Mirri’s Guile 1 Sensei’s Divining Top 1 Faerie Mastermind 1 Pollywog Prodigy 1 Sylvan Library 1 Rhystic Study 1 Twenty-Toed Toad 1 Shaman of the Great Hunt 1 Guardian Project 1 Beast Whisperer 1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor 1 Ohran Frostfang 1 Shamanic Revelation 1 Tatyova, Benthic Druid 1 Consecrated Sphinx 1 Disciple of Freyalise 1 Kozilek, Butcher of Truth 1 Evolution Witness 1 Siren Stormtamer 1 Spellskite 1 Azure Beastbinder 1 Tyrant Guard 1 Hydroelectric Specimen 1 Hope-Ender Coatl 1 Endurance 1 Glen Elendra Archmage 1 Terror of the Peaks 1 Silverback Elder 1 Cyclonic Rift 1 Balefire Dragon 1 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger 1 Command Tower 1 City of Brass 1 Mana Confluence 1 Exotic Orchard 1 Cavern of Souls 1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx 1 Misty Rainforest 1 Wooded Foothills 1 Scalding Tarn 1 Prismatic Vista 2 Forest 2 Island 2 Mountain 1 Urza’s Cave 1 Gaea’s Cradle 1 Minamo, School at Water’s Edge 1 Yavimaya Hollow 1 Kessig Wolf Run 1 Strip Mine 1 Shifting Woodland 1 Cinder Glade 1 Breeding Pool 1 Stomping Ground 1 Steam Vents 1 Cascade Bluffs 1 Fire-Lit Thicket 1 Flooded Grove 1 Dreamroot Cascade 1 Rockfall Vale 1 Stormcarved Coast
@@edhdeckbuilding hmm maybe you took it off that’s fine but I lost my deck and was mainly saying you were right. I started when Prophet was still legal so 2014 or so.
just discus before every game what type of deck peoples would like to play. Try to have a deck ranking system which everyone follows. Try to have a deck for each rank. So if someone says, i would like to play a 6, then everyone should try to play a 5-7 deck. Keep some of these nice precons sleeved, I have all the 40k sleeved as they were sold no upgrades at all, and it is a good thing to have if everyone want a bit slower but fun game. But if the rate of power creep continoues I am not sure how the game will be able to be fun anymore. As Demo points out, the core issue is that they are designing for commander nowdays which means they have to power creep if they want to sell cards. At some point, hopefully sooner than later, they should try and stop with this madness and takes a few step backwards. But since they are a public traded company, this will most likely not happen, and I think here lies the core problem. Someone with a shitloads of money should buy out the company and take it private and start to focus on the game and not on the share price.
What is a 7 deck? Does everyone agree? And does everyone have 10 different decks for different power levels? Or we can only play with precons? These solutions don't really work except in established groups, which are comfortable talking these things out. I think a solution is to ban new cards into Commander. Cut it off at some point. I usually like putting a cut off point at Magic Origins, when they started designing for story reasons and not game balance reasons. Then you can say, all cards from Origins until the end of the Phyrexia storyline. And then another block for the post Phyrexia era. And as the other comment said, Competitive types need their own healthy formats to grind wins in. I thank god for whoever came up with the idea of cEDH, to quarantine the Spikes. But I think they would be happier in healthy modern and standard formats.
@@shorewall If you google for images and search for "a guide to power levels in edh", the first hit or at least some of the first ones provides a nice picture. The main idea for me is the turn count i.e. how many turn does your deck requires to threaten a win. I believe this is a quite good way of ranking a deck. One can goldfish, either in paper or through some of the webbased deck builders, and figure out how "quick" your deck is. This works best with decks that actually have a clear plan for how to win. Either combo, some kind of lock or a type of alpha strike. But this has helped me with judging my decks. But as i wrote, people would need to agree on the way of ranking a deck.
From my perspective, I'm mixed on it. Because while I admit that designing for Commander has its issues in other formats, we've also been getting some absolutely superb sets with things like Bloomburrow, Caverns and Neon Dynasty. Design has certainly been hit or miss, but when we get build-arounds that are just really fun and interesting, it's hard to hate them too. It's only when the Legendary is powerful but boring where I have the most issues because it feels built towards being exploitable and you know how they'll exploit it
To me the power creep alone has runed a lot of the fun of Magic. Really disheartening to come up with a fun idea and try to find cards to make that idea happen, only to find a single card that does everything your trying to do. It is getting really hard to build a deck that does not have infinite combos in it. The power creep is starting to ruin the fun of deck building.
We gotta take back control. WOTC is drunk. They don't care anymore. We need to police and create sub formats that ban and restrict cards and even mechanics.
@@edhdeckbuilding I've wanted to thank you for a long time for your tireless work and your great pronunciation. As a German, it is difficult to understand everything when native speakers don't make an effort. That's not the case with you. I enjoy listening to you and it's easy to understand you. The end of the video in particular was understandable across countries.
I first started playing Magic in the Revised/Arabian Nights/The Dark era. Last week I played in a pod in which the next most experienced player started playing during the new Kamigawa set. 😵💫 You should have seen their faces when I explained the Tuck rule. 😂
Me and my friend both play ''duel commander'' since we play vs each other. We still use 40 life. No rule 0 except dumb stuff like nadu. Combo are fine.
I see both sides tbh. I don't like the super broken and pushed cards like Jeweled Lotus and such. But also, having built decks from the before times, cards like Command Tower and Path of Ancestry and a whole bunch of other tech honestly make a lot of the jankier strategies significantly more playable. I like having stuff that interacts specifically with commanders that actually help integrate the format better. The power-creep is obnoxiously bad but there's also a thousand other quality of life improvements that have definitely made the format better to build and play in imo.
Funny, i was just thinking about how your 'cards you should be...' series seemed really underpowered and i thought it was interesting that you would suggest cards like that. It makes me, more and more, want to watch your gameplay videos, because they must be very casual, and fun. Literally just played with a group that two of them consistently had game ending cards in hand constantly, and the other three, me included, had very sluggish and casual decks. To which i tried to do politics with, and he just said 'i hate politics, i don't do it' which told me he doesn't play casual, regardless of what he says cause two turns later, guess who won? I don't think the inherent problem is the social aspect, i personally believe it's the 'lack' of wanting to interact with anyone else that is the problem. 'I play my deck and win' mentality that was a part of other formats. It was good in them, because you wanted to win fast, but commander wasn't designed with that in mind, and it's crept in over time
I too have been preaching that WotC signed Commander's death certificate when they started printing cards for the format. You know what I've found to be super fun recently? PrEDH. No cards printed after 2010 go into my deck. Let's get this migration moving! #predh
I like the name… I think there might actually be something like that already in place. But way too far bro. There are a ton of non commander specific cards printed in regular sets that are perfectly fine and make the format nice and diverse that came out after 2010.
My own idea for eras is 1) everything before Magic Origins, where they started designing for story instead of balance, 2) Origins to the end of the Phyrexia storyline, where they actually cared about the story events and planes still had an identity, and 3) everything post Phyrexia storyline, where they just have any character on any plane, with no rhyme or reason, rampant power creep, and 200 legends per set.
I don't think I would've even gotten into Magic the Gathering until commander existed and especially after the commander precons existed. 1-on-1 magic is great for a niche audience. And I'm sure that audience is afraid of change. But if a company doesn't change and grow, it'll die out. How many players can realistically afford to support a company for decades? Keep those profit margins up for decades? It really wasn't realistic. Commander injected new life and new playerbase to the game. There's players the only play commander. There's RUclipsrs, Twitch streamers, and in game stores players that ONLY play commander. Some people might want to gatekeep their Magic the Gathering but are they really doing that for the best interest of the community or the game?? Are those gatekeepers being selfish, thinking selfishly, and really afraid of Magic the Gathering no long being what it was decades ago?
i prefer CEDH over casual. Its more interesting to see how people are building their decks, and also its a good learning experience. I think people get salty about CEDH decks because they either dont understand how to build competitive decks, or they cant learn from their losses. When i build my competitive decks i look at a lot of modern/standard cards because theyre typically cheap in mana value and inexpensive to obtain. Modern was never really fun for me, the singleton format is much better and more interesting imo, so we started building decks that met in the middle of the two formats.
and building competitive decks is easy. you just play all the best cards. in fact you can essentially just copy\paste whatever the best deck currently is.
@@edhdeckbuilding IF youre playing Blue, Thoracle is the typical free wincon that youd expect but ive played against plenty of decks that dont use blue at all. Its easy for some people to build comp decks, but youd be surprised how many times ive sat down at my lgs with the “cedh” players and absolutely stomp them, and i dont even consider myself a great deck builder. I run Chatterfang as my competitive deck, so no blue shenanigans there, but i run numerous infinite combos in the deck that make hard to deal with. Friend of mine plays Nekusar(without Thassas) and its brutal. So i know what youre saying, but running the best cards sometimes prompts your opponents to what youre trying to do so we stay away from a lot of them. Your videos have brought numerous cards to my attention that my table runs now and it catches people off guard to the point it turns the tide of a game because people dont know how to deal with them.
@@edhdeckbuilding I understand that, but if youre competing and trying to win as fast as possible then whatever works, works. I dont run Thassas in any deck, but since i know about it im constantly on the hunt for cards that make my deck run faster and mean enough to beat it. Ive lost to Thassas/Demonic Consultation a handful of time but that doesnt make me less inclined to play the format, or mean that i havent beaten it already. Its not some invincible combo.
My problem with the "there's no difference between Commander and CEDH" argument is how people use it to make CEDH sound like it is THE way to play commander. There are SO MANY REASONS not to play EDH competitively, not only is it how the format was intended, but there are more viable cards, and more viable decks. Some of us don't like combo. Some of us like jank. CEDH is too expensive unless your whole deck is proxies. Magic shouldn't be pay to win anyway, especially if I just want to hang out with my friends. I want to play the draft chaff I have lying around. I like the combat part of Magic. Need I go on? If you call it a different name, then it's a different format. It doesn't matter if they share the same rules or the same banlist.
Cedh is Edh with a fixed Rule0 that sound like this "Everybody wants to win as fast as possible and everything within the rules is allowed" When you don't want to play that way, don't do it... But stop calling cedh another format. It's still Edh
@@Konfekt13 You are the wrong one. I would argue that EDH is actually functionally infinite formats, defined by their rule zero. cEDH is just one of those formats. If we went to play standard, but we decided to make it singleton, that's not standard anymore. If we play Commander, but say no infinite combos, that isn't Commander anymore. That is an offshoot format. Taking a format that is designed to be casual by every mechanic, from higher life totals, singleton, multiplayer, eternal format, and trying to make it competitive, that isn't Commander anymore. That is your own format. How are the tourists to Commander trying to come in and dictate how the game is supposed to be played? There is no problem with the existence of cEDH. The problem happens when you pretend that what you are doing has anything to do with the intentions and design of the Commander format.
I think adding a points system where you gain or lose points by achieving certain game states or performing certain actions would be good for incentivizing people to not just play cEDH or something close to it. Some LGS's have a points board for organized EDH where say you lose a point if you play Sol Ring turn 1, or get 3 points for saving another player from elimination. I think it'd be cool if WOTC made like a points deck that you shuffle and lay out a certain number of cards with specific parameters that apply to everyone for that game.
Dude whatever I love the variety in commander I’ve played about 7 games so far and I won 1 time. Who cares?! You don’t have to win to have fun. I find it bizarre people complain about certain cards in a singleton format.
You won't notice that kind of issues when you're a new player; At that stage you won't see things that more enfranchised players care about because your experience just isn't comparable. As time goes on and you gain a wider understanding of the format, you'll start to notice things more and eventually form your own opinion on those topics. But until then, you should definitely enjoy the format as you do, you likely have a ton of great things to see and do!
I don't know, I think there's at least room for discussion about how certain cards are unhealthy for the game. It allows players to learn from other players. Maybe you didn't realize Dockside Extortionist would get you 10 mana on turn 5, and you weren't trying to be competitive to begin with. It leads to really swingy decks that either do nothing or do everything. I don't just dislike playing against the tryhard player who wins because of a expensive card, I dislike BEING that player. Especially if it was an accident. Deck consistency breeds confidence, and confidence allows you to be transparent with what your deck can do. And that, in my experience, is the fastest way to keep players from being salty. I gotta say, though, overall I'm with you. I used to be a big complainer, and you have WAY more fun when you're not so bent up about winning.
@@goldcreeper7376 I’m not entirely new. I played a lot from 96-06 but just got back into it. Still have SOME of my good cards but the power creep especially on creatures since 06 is wild. Pretty much all creatures now seem broken to me so I’m like hey whatever. Maybe if there was more at stake I’d care but at my LGS it’s pretty much everyone gets a free pack or something. The stakes are nonexistent. I’m really lucky though because I was able to trade some insane older cards I had multiple of to get things like Sheoldred the Apocalypse and the One Ring. As the first person in my group to play Necropotence back in the day Sheoldred is just so outrageously broken in my mind… Yes it dies… Instantly. Every time. 😂 But I’m having fun
I miss the time when my playgroup was more casual. Nowadays they play infinite combos and turn 3 ending commanders. Now you have a handful commanders that you could play otherwise you weren't able to play your deck...
Hard disagree with this take. Making cards for commander makes sense. Making cards that reference commander make sense. You've always had cards that won't work in your deck because you don't include the target or trigger. How is this different? And the super powered commanders are taken care of by the social dynamics. Sure you can play it once or twice, but if you wanna keep playing with your buddies then your gunna have to make a different deck. I don't get MTG gatekeepers.
Wait! 'Competitive'? That's what the 'C' in CEDH stands for? I thought it meant 'Casual'! I need to totally rethink my multi-thousand dollar decks now!
It's funny, you call stuff problems, yet name the stuff that makes the game fun. The "why you targetting me?" Is not an attack, it's a natural response to a board being hard to read at a glance. Politicking, manipulating, or actively just helping are amazing parts of the social aspect. Decks being built around the commander or not, how's that a problem? Oh wait, clickbaot, now i get it
Rule 0 is bullshit. Politics is bullshit. "Casual" is complete horse shit in my over a decade playing commander because people play what they want. If people own powerful cards they will play them. Most players want to win, no matter what they tell you. Sure, it can be interesting because you can play "neat? cards, but most people don't do that. Its even worse these days because WotC designs cards FOR edh. Also, edh pr multiplayer makes Magic bad because Magic is designed as a 1 versus 1 game. Edh makes one for one removal/countermagic actively bad. Edh also inscentivizes non attacking, and, instead building advantage engines which stalls games.
So, what was your argument? Commander was designed to be a casual format, so cards shouldn’t be designed for it and players shouldn’t play (as?) competitively? First of all, I like your content Demo and that’s why I’d bother to comment at all. That being said, this video seemed like an incoherent rant about what commander is and you didn’t really highlight one specific problem in your first half of the video. In fact I was super confused when you suddenly added “issue #2” on screen. I thought to myself, “where was issue #1?” You were explaining what commander was and the only thing you highlighted was the rules differences for deck building and players crying about not being attacked. You mentioned politics, mentioned cEDH exists but isn’t the majority of what players play. I think you’re saying edh should be a casual format. But then its weird bc you made it seem like the social/political parts were possible problems? I think you were trying to argue these elements were casual and therefore the format should stay casual. And the second issue you had was about card design. How they’re printing more powerful cards (here’s where im putting words in your mouth to maybe make this make sense) “but edh is a casual format, therefore they should stop/ stop playing those cards”. Despite having every right to your opinion, your argument is just not great. Saying that edh was made as a casual format therefore players should keep it casual is vague, doesn’t mean anything, and ultimately never gonna happen. Aside from the cEDH crowd that wants to play the best decks competitively with no holds barred, even “casual players” optimize to oblivion now. They’re trying to eke out every tiny percent increase in power. They’re playing generic staples that have been there forever. I literally played a game last night, “casual” game. I played against an aesi landfall deck and it was the most boring thing to play against. Defense of the heart into cratehoof + avenger of zendikar. These cards existed before Wizards started turboing out cards exclusive to commander. This person clearly went to the very casual extremes to the point it bored me. Tutored for the two most generic spells in green. With a powerful card jot designed for commander. A casual game with nearly the most optimal options for that “side” of the format. Point is players will always optimize and improve their decks. It’s why we as players play card games rather than games that are more luck oriented like blackjack or poker. We’re drawn to it. It’s human nature to tinker, experiment and improve. Sure wizards is facilitating the optimization but as players we can’t do much design wise and bc the rules committee won’t a ban anything we’re stuck with the consequences until edh dies, which might be soon.
Play anything you want is one of the things that leads to the biggest arguments and contention in a commander game. I want to play no game winning combos but I want to play the power nine in my deck, the other player wants all those banned and thinks it’s unfair that they’re inaccessible but they play a worldgorger/animate dead combo on turn 3. And the other two want to play jank but they can’t keep up. No one is happy… what are you gonna say in a rule zero conversation to that? If, somehow, everyone manages to agree on playing this mismatched game after wasting the time arguing about it and the room getting tense, then likely one player will get hated out of the game from the get go and get their feelings hurt… and don’t say, “big whoops, they’re just being cry babies.” People want to play commander for all sorts of personal and social reasons, and if they’re not having fun and they feel like they’ve wasted their time, that hurts them, the play group, the store who gets him and his business, the format, and the game overall. We should care about everyone having a good, balanced, experience when playing the game. Hence the “casual” part of the conversation. It doesn’t mean everyone do what they want, it means the format should be lighthearted and fun, not stressful and frustrating like competitive magic can very easily become.
Rule no. 1, Don't make yourself a target
Players: Turn 1 Sol Ring
@@HanDaimond turn one - forest - mirrir’s guile - sol ring - mana crypt - roaming throne … for an Animar deck.. Kediss, Emberclaw Familiar & cavern of souls … all opening hand…. That’s turn one threat
That burp at the end should be how every video ends.
I can’t stop laughing. I had to watch a second time to make sure it wasn’t part of the ad that played immediately after the video. Two watches and comments. This is peak engagement.
Everybody here thought it was me! I had to play it again to prove them wrong!
Agree🎉
It was hilariously, unexpected
Yes
I don’t necessarily think commander specific cards are a problem. For me it’s jamming as many cards as possible into standard legal sets that you can look at and say “well that was clearly made for commander”. I think as soon as they started releasing 2-5 commander decks with every standard legal set, as opposed to a singular commander release every year, that’s when shit went wrong for me
I don't think that designing cards for commander is inherently problematic, but they took it way too far. It infuses every set now which is silly. However, if we received the occasional set like Conspiracy or Commander Legends, they would stand out more and be cooler.
This^^^
Printing cards for commander isn't the issue. Making every set cater to the format and designing the entire game with that format in mind is the problem.
Putting out a single commander set that is at least modern legal once a year and supporting the existence of the format that way would have been fine. Putting out commander decks for almost every single product released is the mistake.
Maybe even adding one or two cards that are clearly made with commander in mind in released sets could have even been fine.
But... Hasbro is going to Hasbro. They have to hit those quarterly projections and Wizards has been a money printing machine for them. They're going to milk whatever they can to puff up that bottom line.
I Remember when "preconstructed decks" were 60-cards decks with ONLY cards from that set specifically.
No new cards to chase.
Just the set
To expand upon the "Highlander" part of EDH, it's a reference to the 1986 Highlander film where immortal warriors fight to the death since "There can be only one" and there can only be one of each card in the format.
One of the best movies and tv series of all time ❤❤❤
honestly they shoulda stopped at the one movie. going past that didn't make a whole lot of sense.
@@edhdeckbuilding I thought the series was well done...but to each their own...I do agree that more movies were unnecessary though
@@edhdeckbuilding "THERE SHOULD HAVE BEEN ONLY ONE!"
My friends and I have been playing since 1994. We love the social aspect for all formats we have played - standard, two headed giant, emperor, five pointed star, Chaos, Commander, and Bot deck matches
Some of those I haven't heard of before can you explain
@@lyndsaypeters5981 which ones in particular ? My friends and I designed some
@@lyndsaypeters5981which ones in particular?
Unfortunately I think a lot of competitive first players have wound up in commander due to it being the most common format and WoTC basically borking every competitive format
100%. I feel bad for them. I'm glad cEDH is catching on, so they can self-quarantine.
@@shorewall though I wonder if they’d be better served playing legacy or Canadian highlander.
The real problem with Wizards designing for commander is the ultra-synergistic commander-only cards that are so brainlessly powerful that the deck plays itself. It’s why I took apart Korvold, for example.
That’s why I have said that Commander is both the best AND worst thing to happen to the game.
I dislike kovald but I get its design space. For a newer player to be able to relevant in a pod the deck has to be so strong. Needs to be playable out of the box playable. It is easier to increase the commander power and do a less powerful 99. This also gives the new player flexibility in changing the 99.
A challenge becomes when enfranchised players use these commanders. Now we can add stronger 99 cards to the deck which significantly increase the decks power.
I think Wizards initially created the problem by accident. Standard was completely out of hand, unaffordable, keeping track of the rotations became a nightmare, and power crept to the moon.
So everyone jumped ship to Commander or Modern. But instead of admitting to themselves that they screwed up standard so badly, they turned that behavior on Commander and Modern - To the point where the powercrept everything feels almost malicious, as if they seek to punish those that they drove away in the first place
It was great when wizards only made a set of commander decks once a year with only about 30 new cards across them. It also gave players access to older cards that otherwise would never see a reprint otherwise. And I disagree, cards that reference Commanders are fine, but they should be made with far less frequency and far more caution. Look at Command Beacon, it's a reasonable card that doesn't solve all the problems of a monolithic commander deck, but it acts as a little relief at the cost of a land.
100%. WOTC turns everything to shit. They ruined Standard with their attention, and then they turned their attention to Commander and Modern, and are ruining those formats with their attention. We may not agree on the why, but we all know it is definitely happening.
The burp caught me by surprise. Thanks for the morning chuckle!
and thanks for sticking around to the end. i was curious how many people did.
I think if you have a dedicated playgroup a lot of these inherent issues work themselves out. For example, I had a Jodah deck for awhile, but once it was clear how busted he is (I even tried to make it less busted: I had a brick of sleeved multicolor legends that didn’t necessarily work well together that I let them randomly each pick 10 of before the game and I’d shuffle them in without looking. Still dominated.) well, I don’t play Jodah anymore because I was instantly the target and they said it wasn’t fun to play against.
The bigger problem is playing with strangers who have different ideas on what power level is and what a game should look like. Which makes rule 0 all that more important. However, people, especially 3 people you just met, might not agree on what rule 0 rules should exist.
I mean, it’s definitely an oddball because going into, say, a game of modern, you expect your opponent to be playing what they feel is the best deck. But commander, if someone is playing the “best deck” (if that even exists) they’re immediately the archenemy.
Not much to do to fix it other than try and play with the same playgroup and work things out over time. Which isn’t always possible and you’re pretty fortunate if you can do that.
Yeah, that's why I really don't like any format except for Kitchen Table Magic with friends. I'm never gonna play a meta deck, so I feel underpowered.
I think Limited should be the baseline for Magic and Magic design, since it is the most equal format. And then we can take it from there.
Obviously just need to ban every card that wasnt printed in a standard legal set. That will most definitely fix every single issue and no one can complain about anything at all.
But then I'd have less Treefolk cards for my Doran Treefolk tribal.
Good idea
I feel like the social aspect being a problem sometimes isn’t a problem with the format. It happens with anything that has a form of social interaction. It’s more a personal issue. If a person starts taking the game too seriously, just stop playing with them.
It’s a matter of holding individuals accountable.
TL;DR: Talk to each other before the game already holy crap.
Here's the real inherent issue: there is no "default way" to play Commander but people will pretend that there is. It's perfectly valid to build around your commander. It's perfectly valid to have your commander there only for flavor or color identity. It's perfectly valid to deckbuild and play to win. It's perfectly valid to deckbuild and play to show off the jankiest cardboard rectangles you can possibly find. It's perfectly valid to play a bunch of tutors to make things as consistent as possible in a 100 card singleton format. It's perfectly valid to play 0 tutors and embrace the hell out of the randomness of a 100 card singleton format. All of these options and every permutation of what persons ABC and beyond think of as fair and proper, are all valid. We just have to TALK TO EACH OTHER before starting the game so that we all have fun playing it.
The "intent" of the original format doesn't matter at all at this point either. EDH started as a bunch of judges blowing off steam in downtime. It was the pet format of a small, regular playgroup that gradually expanded and morphed into what it is today. The instant it became acceptable to run any legendary creature the "original intent" was completely out the window. Unless you've played the og rules with actual Elder Dragons, you've not actually played "according to the original intent of the format," and it's silly to claim otherwise.
The biggest part of the "original intent" that gets spit on constantly is Rule 0. Talk with your group. All of this appeal to tradition and claiming that most people want Commander to be casual. But what does that mean? Who actually defines casual? Ask 20 Commander players and you'll get 20 answers. We've got to talk to each other before shuffling up and stop getting pissed at each other when something that we don't like and *didn't talk about* gets played.
You don't have a problem with actual cEDH. What you have a problem with is someone violating your definition of casual. cEDH as a "style" really boils down to one thing: win at all costs. It's a shorthand for the Rule 0 conversation that should be happening before every single game. If we sit down to "play cEDH," we're all saying "I'm playing to win, I expect you to as well. Don't pull any punches -in your deck building or your gameplay, I won't either." Playing to win is far from exclusive to cEDH, so that's not the cardinal sin. The vast majority of players sit down and play to win. They might not stress about it. They might not use the most "efficient" or "powerful" ways to win, but most people aren't sitting down with the express goal of losing. And playing for fun and to win aren't mutually exclusive. You can still have fun when you don't win, even if you *tried* to win.
Your casual game is getting ruined by not discussing everyone's definitions of casual to start with *in detail* to establish the social contract, or by people who will cheat to win. Think of every rule for a "casual game" in your mind, now think about just how many damn edge-cases there are that would get around those rules and still wreck the table. That's a pubstomper who is cheating the social contract and they'd do that in any game, in any format with any tools they could get their hands on. You'll never get rid of that last group of people entirely and it is *not* exclusive to Commander. It happens in every format. You can make *significant* improvements on the first part though by just talking before the damn game. You can't accidentally break a social contract that doesn't exist.
You're talking a lot and not saying anything. It's not like everyone has 20 decks for every power level and playgroup, and also not like everyone has infinite choice in who they play with. Also, not everyone is socially skilled or confident. So things like the Commander ban list, and WOTC power creep, absolutely flow downstream and affect people's games and pods.
WOTC is killing Magic with power creep, because they just want to maximize short term profit. They don't care about 10 years from now.
Commander is really three overlapping formats, distinguished by card selection:
* Casual Commander - No: stax, infinite loops, land destruction. Budget-friendly, no proxies.
* Pay-to-Win Commander - Casual plus pay-to-win cards > $25. Proxies require permission.
* Competitive EDH (cEDH) - Play-to-win, nothing legal excluded. Proxies taken for granted.
Prominent promoters of Pay-to-Win Commander are WotC, online card dealers, and corporate-sponsored RUclipsrs.
Casual is very people proxy and has people pro all of the things you've said. It just requires a conversation. There is close pay to win, and the masquerade as a casual deck with est cedh cards and strats without warning the table.
The original format was just called "Highlander" and it started at tournaments in the 90s before there was any such thing as an Elder Dragon. Back in the day you would sometimes have hours between games and Highlander existed to make fun, creative, janky decks that did weird and interesting things that you couldn't actually do in tournaments. EDH is built on a fountain of fun and jank and it's as anti-competitive in it's spirit as it gets.
I don’t upgrade cards in commander decks unless they are a significantly an upgrade to something I’m already doing or if it gives my deck access to ability it doesn’t have, but still interacts with what the deck already does.
I just gave an example over on the EDHRec video about FOMO how I added Rowan, Scion of War to my Licia deck. I intentionally lose life to gain it back (which is the most efficient form of life gain) and the deck is something like 70% black/red. She gives me an added benefit to losing that life that the deck didn’t already have and acts as a back up if someone deploys a card to shut down life gain.
When it comes to my 60 card decks, I’m constantly tweaking them since most of them are common and uncommon variations that support an already established theme.
I think they SHOULD make cards for commander, and cards that refer to the commander/command zone... In COMMANDER products, released once a year. The rest of magic should remain being designed for standard.
And my commander deck building rule is: My deck has a thematic OR a central mechanic. EVERY single card in the deck, aside from lands, should fit into that.
Yep, totally agree!
And I love the part about flavouring your decks with a theme. Otherwise it is just gonna be like some game knights episode where things are like:
"I play this awesome Bant commander deck from Baldur's Gate, but I got rid of 40% of the cards to make room for the typical blue power staples you see in every game: Rhystic Studied, Mystic Remora, Cyclonic Rift, Consecrated Sphinx..."
This is why I try to several decks, some are just full of High Budget power creep shit, others are very flavourful (which are the decks my friends most enjoy to play with.)
Yeah I wish it was more casual. Even in my own pod. We're playing really high power now and games don't make it to 6 or 7. It's kinda inevitable without a ban list. It's gonna be an arms race
It's taken about a year and a half for my pod to find equilibrium. All it takes is one player to skew the game toward competitive.
A bit of a prisoner's dilemma, isn't it?
I stopped playing, I think I will just play and let the spikes win without any opposition once or twice a year just to see friends.
My issue with the format is that there really isn’t as much variation as ppl think. You’re really just building your variation of a value engine that results in one big combat step(s) or combo that burns/drains the table
The only other way to play would be everyone grinding and chipping at each other for a little bit of damage at a time until there's one person left. The variance is EDH is how we choose to go about achieving the win by combat or combo. Some decks do win by slowly milling or hitting their opponents turn after turn.
That sounds like Magic in a nutshell...
The solution to the design issue is simple : 1. restrict new commander cards to commander precons and non standard legal sets. 2. do more to support to standard and fix it even if it means severe ban hammer drops. That said even if they stop purposely making cards aimed at commander in standard legal format there will always be a few here and there that catch on in the format.
I want to try something. What will it do to a game night, if I accept every decision another player makes without commenting it in any way? No complaining, no convincing, no politics. Will it be more or less fun this way?
Maybe for the autistic types that just want to grind wins with no conversation.
I learned to play Magic in a casual 60-card environment. I don’t see Commander any more casual than ‘kitchen table’ Magic.
Very much appreciate your take, Demo. I like that you went back to analyise the roots of the format.
I definitely think we have to deal with the reality of today, but im with you 💯. Casual was the reason for commander, so you could have decks full of 6 drops 😂😅
Your explanation of wizards/hasbros is totally accurate too. But the cropbros wanted this, to some degree. Push power to make money.
The corporate ensh1tification of business. Extract cash at the cost of value, rather than earning profit for value.
Lol burp
Love your content Demo 🤟 that being said I still think there's two flaws here.
First : I don't think the bad social aspect of commander is innhently an edh issues but a rather social/community one. What I mean by that is what we experience in the commander format is the same in every entertainment media that have a strong social aspect. It's more a people problem than a game problem.
Second :
I believe that if WOTC woudn't have go towards designing cards for the edh format. We woudn't have those high cost multicolors legendary creatures with fun build around cause the leading formats would have been competitive, the powercreep would have overflow mtg with overpowered low cost generic cards.
We liked the C11 decks, however, we were at the time already realising Wizards' was printing new cards with EDH/multiplayer in mind such as Consecrated Sphinx and Avacyn, Angel of Hope, a development we were fearful of at the time because such cards were so much stronger and thereby skewing the entire game as they were copied, reanimated, stolen, etcetera many times during a single game. This soon turned into a dislike of Wizards' designing for Commander.
It was never tied to the precons, those tended to get a positive response for a long time. Far more so it was tied to cards for it in normal sets.
when i play commander, the most exciting thing for me is seeing a card/commander/interaction ive never seen before, couldnt agree with this more. i save my competitive instincts for drafting hahaha
I love ur videos between the underwhelming videos have given me so many ideas that I love to work with
The biggest issue with commander is that it has become the default way to play magic so a ton of new players who just don’t get the fun of not winning. When it wasn’t the default format it was just about having fun in between rounds etc. Most people that play commander get super salty about everything.
We've been drifting back to a Feldon's Caney 1990s melee kind of Magic. Commander has gotten to be almost a separate game, and it never really caught at my place
Naturaly people will try to optimize.
The direction of the optimazation is key here.
Optimize for the social?
or
for power & efficency?
If there is just a drive for power & efficency you will end up in cedh
Prior to playing EDH I would play multiplayer mtg with modern or standard decks. I had a Lwyorn trefolk deck, a standard zombie deck, and a dragon artifact deck. It was honestly so much fun. Enjoyed it more than EDH. However, those players now played EDH.
That said I have 1 EDH deck with Doran as my commander for my tribal trefolk.
"They weren't meant to played in commander, there wasn't a commander format", well obviously things can't be designed for a format that is yet to exist. But just as obviously, once that format does exist, cards will, and should, be designed for it.
As for what commander is? Casual commander is about the journey, not the destination, competitive is about the destination, not the journey.
Another note; the internet is a huge reason as to why we have all of these infinite combos, cards you must buy, and endless other hivemind conclusions. But you can't change that for them, just remember to be creative.
the internet has certainly made magic worse
There will always be most popular commanders. We can see these with EDHREC. The data may be telling a different story. It counts how often a decklist is posted online. It does not track how often a commander is actually being played. People tend to have multiple decks-likely play those decks as well. These lists aren’t the top commanders and staples.
I play mostly mtgo. The cards are accessible and cheaper. You see a wide range of commanders and staples.
It would be nice if mtgo could track what commanders/how often are being played
I like the idea of not having cards that say "Commander" on them... That could be a good idea for rule zero - to get around some of the stupid, sweaty cards Wizards seems hell bent on warping the format with. I'm personally leaning towards the format of Pauper Commander for the same reasons of helping to preserve a casual play style. I love the Trinket Mage's stuff - I haven't seen that video of his, but I gotta check it out now. Also, belching on the outro is the perfect punctuation for a video.
I like the idea of PreDH, where only cards before the first commander precons are legal. For me, I'd put the cutoff at before Magic Origins, since that is when set design started designing for story, instead of balance, and we saw the result with more bans and needed bans then ever before.
@@shorewallis this a thing? If it's not we need to make it a thing. I don't hate the new sets, don't get me wrong, but the old commander has a ✨ vibe✨
I would like to see a budget format like "five-below" become more popular (cards over $5 market value are illegal) That would get rid of most of the highly competitive and frustrating-to-play-against cards. Wish RUclipsrs would make videos covering the merits of five below to bring awareness to more players.
Funny how i love casual commander and my favorite product are the 10 unique percon cards: after the free spells cycle every cards was niche and interesting here some I love:
-sudden sbustution
- redemption arc
-from the catacombs
-firemane commando
-nesting dovehawk
-spawning kraken
-rootwaver druid
-cartographer hawk
-cliffside rescuer
-Spectral arcanist
-otherworldy escort
-Gray host reinforcement
-shadow kin
-burp
It would help if they just slowed down with new releases and made less “commander focused products”. Give people some time to explore the cards in the sets and enjoy the decks they’re brewing.
To be fair i agree that commander needs to maintain the casual standing. Ive come to the conclusion that precons wizards print are more or less balanced and super fun to play in pods that all play precon. The issues start when custom decks come into play adding all the staples and overpowered bs that makes it less and less fun to play. I also play CEDH and have 3 decks for that format and its fun to play as long as the whole table is playing that way.
The burp at the end of the outro 😂
someone caught it
I actually like the cards that reference Commander because they are useless in 60 card formats. So they can print power-crept cards without completely ruining 60-card Eternal formats.
Why do you think that cards that reference the comander or the command zone are bad?
Personally I try to mediate. With my playgroup we use our own banlist, we don't play Sol Rings for instance. Among them, it's me and another friend sticking to an underwhelming approach. It's more fun when we win, and it happens quite regularly, despite our rather budgety approach.
Then, since I wanna test my decks outside the regular pool, I make those few adjustments (if needed) and go out in the wild, looking for same level decks to contend with. I won't complain when loosing to the usual Craterhoof Behemot. All problems can be resolved thanks to the social aspect of the game which must be preserved.
Then, of course it pisses off to see such a cool idea being spoiled by its commercial exploitation, but I don't wanna have my fun ruined: I just try not to encourage that route by not buying official products (only secondary market singles/proxies for the most expensive ones) and by showing almost no interests for latest cards, etc.
golos ban was a dartboard choice ban mistake. we should never ban cards for being too good in a mid power game.
Recently my group had been getting a lot more competitive, and we made the decision to dial it back a lot. This meant not putting the auto include staples in every deck and aiming more towards what the deck is trying to do. Not putting in cards that are so powerful they outshine what youre doing, but use flavorful ones that you wont see in every list. Its a lot more fun seeing wacky stuff people find across the table instead of fierce guardianship, deflecting swat, and we’ve even been cutting out sol rings. I hope everyone finds their own way to have fun, and experience different flavors of the format!
its so much more fun too, i love when someone at my table says "What is THAT card, I've never heard of that before". You have so many cards at you disposal playing commander, why stick to the most busted and most popular?
The Professor from Tolarian Community College recently put out a RUclips video explaining the importance of Threat Assessment in EDH / Commander which I urge you guys to go check out. My personal issue with the format in general is that it doesn't really incentivize players to play at the LGS like competitive formats do where there's an actual reward for playing.
What If there was a reward for playing EDH / Commander at your LGS? I'm fully aware that it's supposed to be a Casual format while you're still going to have players who want to play it Competitively as well. Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro and the EDH Rules Committee can deny this all they want but that doesn't change the fact that it's a reality.
See, the reason that happens is that most of the times that is too expensive to do. You might as well be playing modern or legacy, who have outrageous costs for decks, and money that literally not even the richest of us have. The only reason CEDH can exist is because tournaments for that are unsanctioned, and thus, most will use proxies since they are allowed. However, for formal events, that is literally not a choice, since wizards have a really bad problem with proxies, to the point that it has been heard that stores have gotten warnings for posting video content with proxies, so that goes out the window, too. Also, there is a competitive environment, actually, as i mentioned before, CEDH. So, really, they created a space for themselves, which is alright.
In the end, it feels a bit too on the nose to say "oh they can deny it but it's a reality", when really, no one considers it a reality. Except the players who created the environment for that. As you said, it is incentivized that people actually play casually. It IS the nature of the format that literally everyone that plays EDH agrees with (again, CEDH is almost considered a different world, lol). Also, there have been LGS who have done commander events and commander tournaments. But even then, the social aspect is very much present, with each store having a general power level range that exists in it, so everyone can have a good time. Does that mean you probably need to find an LGS that suits your level, which might be a chore? Yes. Is it however, a good way for everyone to find the environment they wanna thrive in? Also yes.
@@theodoregeorgiou4565 Except cEDH isn't taken as seriously as Casual EDH / Commander at least not since the release of Commander Legends when the power creep from Hullbreacher was quite evident when paired with Timetwister and other Wheel effects and since then Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro's design team have been pushing away those who design for cEDH and more in favor of Casual EDH / Commander.
Modern Horizons 3 seemed to break that formula. Though I have watched streams of cEDH games only lasting 40 minutes compared to 1 to 2 hours in Casual EDH. The difference between the two formats is that mana curve is everything when it comes to cEDH. If the majority of cards in your deck don't have a mana value of 3 or less then you're going to be left behind. cEDH incentivizes players not to run high mana value cards unless they have alternative costs where you can cast them for free.
@456jm well of course they are gonna go on and create what gets them more money, it is a problem but not much you can do about it lol. But then again, I think you went on and ignored most of the other points lol.
Again, playing competitively in this format is brutal, money wise. It is not accessible at all when it has to do with wizards sanctioned events, since proxies are obviously disallowed.
As someone who has played in a couple of modern tournaments as well, though, I can tell you that even they know the format is exceedingly expensive, to the point that the decks i have seen in those tournaments are good, no question about that, but competitively speaking it is nowhere near the competitive decks you see at bigger events, because as we said, it is bloody expensive. At best it is high power. Again, the most competitive sides of the format are not feasible.
Again, shops do events for edh, but in the end you have to find the power level that is to your liking for the stores, which is tedious, but it is the best way you can do an event for a format like edh, which is in the end, a social and casual format.
Threat assessment is very poor most of the time in my experience. Its not even new people it comes from spite plays.
Boggles my mind how people complain about too many good cards or too many legends. How can that possibly be a down side. I love all the product. So many fun new cards to play with. I love when wizards prints powerul new toys. Gets me very excited for new sets. I dont understand the negativity
IMO, Commander is most popular due to the card population. Nothing rotates.
my view: i don't think designing cards for commander is inherently bad, the problem was tying commander products to every single set available. too much product, too many new cards, the fatigue is real.
tying commander decks to standard sets IMO has been a huge misstep. instead they should have kept the yearly 5 deck commander product so that they could innovate on historically obscure or under-utilized mechanics. (think clash or bloodrush)
with that in mind, the new cards that iterate on these mechanics should be strictly non-commanders, to avoid a go-shintai situation.
commander masters should be a reprint-only set, and done yearly.
i think doing this could benefit and fix most of EDH's problems.
I've played 60 card with 2v2,3v3, 5v5, 5 player where it's all vs all I've played commander where it's 1v1. When I played more 60 card I never went with modern or standard. I didn't play with just the new sets and put the cards not used in modern away. I've always played casual except for playing in 1 or 2 tournaments.
Love the outro 👌 keep it
Someone in my playgroup said a few weeks ago that he noticed that the games are shorter and end with some comboi stuf a lot lot more than the years befor ( funny that it was the guy with 40 high power decks). And he said that it took out some fun.
It's a problem i talk about for many years. I always say 'how about building a interesting deck which makes fun to play against'. Everybody agreed that the powering up thing is not mich fun.
One week later there where some spoilers for MH3 and everybody was talking and cheering about all the super card and that they are buying boosters and singles and so to get the cards. I feel out of the sky 🤯
I realy don't understande why people are excited about irresponsible stupid powerful cards which drayn the fun out of the game.
My genuine prediction is that the players will just make a new format, and then wizards will print for that, and then people will make a new format, and then wizards will print for that, and then players...
Either that, or cube takes over.
maybe i should like into cube
Love your attention and that we both have a similar card tast.
My most beloved card in commander is for an example "Word of Command"
But I have a big disagree with your rule number one: Don't make yourself a target
That is a Rule for Sissy-playing. It is more effektive when someone targetinng you, to rip the shit out of him/her so that even the people of the next 2 table become afraid to look on your board in the wrong way😇
So maybe it would be interesting to give two options a try: first a commander format where only cards are allowed which are not printed in commander sets only, or second: a format whre only cards are allowed that where printed in these sets. Could be fun, but I don't know, if this fixes anything
PreDH is people building decks using only cards printed before they started making commander decks and cards.
i think it's inevitable that another format rises in popularity eventually, just as commander did.
Your voice reminds me of Marc Maron. As always, good stuff.
heard that alot when i first started my channel.
A Lot
An Alot is a mythical grammatical creature, look it up.
Personally I don't think most players want a casual environment. In most games I play it is very evident that at least half the players really want to win, and whenever I hear casual thrown it it is usually in response to their gameplan being disrupted. I think A LOT of EDH players will build their deck incredibly "competitively" short of actually being a CEDH deck, filling it with staples, incredible expensive card draw etc and all they are missing is a mass of tutors and fast mana, but then during the actual game they fall back on casual to shield them from any criticism.
The biggest problem with EDH is its godawful playerbase.
Command tower has been around since long before pre-cons
command tower came out in the first commander set. C11
@@edhdeckbuilding huh.. my problem is I thought I started playing before they made pre-cons… that’s not true I guess cuz I started ..2014 when Prophet was still legal… that was some fun stuff.. for me but then my Animar deck wasn’t that refined.
I know, I know- don’t be the threat… I’ve played mostly 1v1 & don’t mind looosing due to the fact if everybody doesn’t kill me.. I will win
I’d be honored if you checked out my deck. Got plenty of low drop cheap stuff- you’d prob find use for. Removal is big for me too, good sir. (I don’t have any infinite combo junk just synergy)
1 Animar, Soul of Elements
1 Bristly Bill, Spine Sower
1 Roaming Throne
1 Spark Double
1 Forgotten Ancient
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
1 Imperial Recruiter
1 Kediss, Emberclaw Familiar
1 Painter’s Servant
1 K-9, Mark I
1 Champion of Lambholt
1 Sun Quan, Lord of Wu
1 Karlach, Fury of Avernus
1 Lightning Greaves
1 Ogre Battledriver
1 Urabrask the Hidden
1 Maelstrom Wanderer
1 Apex Devastator
1 Shadowspear
1 Legion Loyalist
1 Pathbreaker Ibex
1 Craterhoof Behemoth
1 Kodama of the West Tree
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring
1 Birds of Paradise
1 Delighted Halfling
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Cloud of Faeries
1 Nature’s Lore
1 Dockside Extortionist
1 Nissa, Resurgent Animist
1 Vizier of the Menagerie
1 Sowing Mycospawn
1 Saryth, the Viper’s Fang
1 Defiler of Vigor
1 Mirri’s Guile
1 Sensei’s Divining Top
1 Faerie Mastermind
1 Pollywog Prodigy
1 Sylvan Library
1 Rhystic Study
1 Twenty-Toed Toad
1 Shaman of the Great Hunt
1 Guardian Project
1 Beast Whisperer
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Ohran Frostfang
1 Shamanic Revelation
1 Tatyova, Benthic Druid
1 Consecrated Sphinx
1 Disciple of Freyalise
1 Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
1 Evolution Witness
1 Siren Stormtamer
1 Spellskite
1 Azure Beastbinder
1 Tyrant Guard
1 Hydroelectric Specimen
1 Hope-Ender Coatl
1 Endurance
1 Glen Elendra Archmage
1 Terror of the Peaks
1 Silverback Elder
1 Cyclonic Rift
1 Balefire Dragon
1 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
1 Command Tower
1 City of Brass
1 Mana Confluence
1 Exotic Orchard
1 Cavern of Souls
1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Prismatic Vista
2 Forest
2 Island
2 Mountain
1 Urza’s Cave
1 Gaea’s Cradle
1 Minamo, School at Water’s Edge
1 Yavimaya Hollow
1 Kessig Wolf Run
1 Strip Mine
1 Shifting Woodland
1 Cinder Glade
1 Breeding Pool
1 Stomping Ground
1 Steam Vents
1 Cascade Bluffs
1 Fire-Lit Thicket
1 Flooded Grove
1 Dreamroot Cascade
1 Rockfall Vale
1 Stormcarved Coast
Siren Stormtamer is super underrated… another new one I took out mystic snake for.. Hope-Ender Coatl
Yeah my decks Got sum cheap usable stuff
@@edhdeckbuilding hmm maybe you took it off that’s fine but I lost my deck and was mainly saying you were right. I started when Prophet was still legal so 2014 or so.
@@edhdeckbuilding here’s the deck you would find some stuff you’d use.. even though this is a .. I’m the target deck
1 Animar, Soul of Elements
1 Bristly Bill, Spine Sower
1 Roaming Throne
1 Spark Double
1 Forgotten Ancient
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
1 Imperial Recruiter
1 Kediss, Emberclaw Familiar
1 Painter’s Servant
1 K-9, Mark I
1 Champion of Lambholt
1 Sun Quan, Lord of Wu
1 Karlach, Fury of Avernus
1 Lightning Greaves
1 Ogre Battledriver
1 Urabrask the Hidden
1 Maelstrom Wanderer
1 Apex Devastator
1 Shadowspear
1 Legion Loyalist
1 Pathbreaker Ibex
1 Craterhoof Behemoth
1 Kodama of the West Tree
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring
1 Birds of Paradise
1 Delighted Halfling
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Cloud of Faeries
1 Nature’s Lore
1 Dockside Extortionist
1 Nissa, Resurgent Animist
1 Vizier of the Menagerie
1 Sowing Mycospawn
1 Saryth, the Viper’s Fang
1 Defiler of Vigor
1 Mirri’s Guile
1 Sensei’s Divining Top
1 Faerie Mastermind
1 Pollywog Prodigy
1 Sylvan Library
1 Rhystic Study
1 Twenty-Toed Toad
1 Shaman of the Great Hunt
1 Guardian Project
1 Beast Whisperer
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Ohran Frostfang
1 Shamanic Revelation
1 Tatyova, Benthic Druid
1 Consecrated Sphinx
1 Disciple of Freyalise
1 Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
1 Evolution Witness
1 Siren Stormtamer
1 Spellskite
1 Azure Beastbinder
1 Tyrant Guard
1 Hydroelectric Specimen
1 Hope-Ender Coatl
1 Endurance
1 Glen Elendra Archmage
1 Terror of the Peaks
1 Silverback Elder
1 Cyclonic Rift
1 Balefire Dragon
1 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
1 Command Tower
1 City of Brass
1 Mana Confluence
1 Exotic Orchard
1 Cavern of Souls
1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Prismatic Vista
2 Forest
2 Island
2 Mountain
1 Urza’s Cave
1 Gaea’s Cradle
1 Minamo, School at Water’s Edge
1 Yavimaya Hollow
1 Kessig Wolf Run
1 Strip Mine
1 Shifting Woodland
1 Cinder Glade
1 Breeding Pool
1 Stomping Ground
1 Steam Vents
1 Cascade Bluffs
1 Fire-Lit Thicket
1 Flooded Grove
1 Dreamroot Cascade
1 Rockfall Vale
1 Stormcarved Coast
One giant ouroboros that's nonstop since commander sets make wotc so much money now.
just discus before every game what type of deck peoples would like to play. Try to have a deck ranking system which everyone follows. Try to have a deck for each rank. So if someone says, i would like to play a 6, then everyone should try to play a 5-7 deck. Keep some of these nice precons sleeved, I have all the 40k sleeved as they were sold no upgrades at all, and it is a good thing to have if everyone want a bit slower but fun game.
But if the rate of power creep continoues I am not sure how the game will be able to be fun anymore. As Demo points out, the core issue is that they are designing for commander nowdays which means they have to power creep if they want to sell cards. At some point, hopefully sooner than later, they should try and stop with this madness and takes a few step backwards. But since they are a public traded company, this will most likely not happen, and I think here lies the core problem. Someone with a shitloads of money should buy out the company and take it private and start to focus on the game and not on the share price.
this doesn't work, spikes are rampant and ravenous for cheap wins.
What is a 7 deck? Does everyone agree? And does everyone have 10 different decks for different power levels? Or we can only play with precons? These solutions don't really work except in established groups, which are comfortable talking these things out.
I think a solution is to ban new cards into Commander. Cut it off at some point. I usually like putting a cut off point at Magic Origins, when they started designing for story reasons and not game balance reasons. Then you can say, all cards from Origins until the end of the Phyrexia storyline. And then another block for the post Phyrexia era.
And as the other comment said, Competitive types need their own healthy formats to grind wins in. I thank god for whoever came up with the idea of cEDH, to quarantine the Spikes. But I think they would be happier in healthy modern and standard formats.
@@shorewall If you google for images and search for "a guide to power levels in edh", the first hit or at least some of the first ones provides a nice picture.
The main idea for me is the turn count i.e. how many turn does your deck requires to threaten a win. I believe this is a quite good way of ranking a deck. One can goldfish, either in paper or through some of the webbased deck builders, and figure out how "quick" your deck is. This works best with decks that actually have a clear plan for how to win. Either combo, some kind of lock or a type of alpha strike.
But this has helped me with judging my decks.
But as i wrote, people would need to agree on the way of ranking a deck.
From my perspective, I'm mixed on it. Because while I admit that designing for Commander has its issues in other formats, we've also been getting some absolutely superb sets with things like Bloomburrow, Caverns and Neon Dynasty. Design has certainly been hit or miss, but when we get build-arounds that are just really fun and interesting, it's hard to hate them too. It's only when the Legendary is powerful but boring where I have the most issues because it feels built towards being exploitable and you know how they'll exploit it
So basically, I really prefer if Commander-design allows for more interesting interactions than it being a straightforward and boring thing
To me the power creep alone has runed a lot of the fun of Magic. Really disheartening to come up with a fun idea and try to find cards to make that idea happen, only to find a single card that does everything your trying to do.
It is getting really hard to build a deck that does not have infinite combos in it.
The power creep is starting to ruin the fun of deck building.
We gotta take back control. WOTC is drunk. They don't care anymore. We need to police and create sub formats that ban and restrict cards and even mechanics.
The main problem is 20 to 40 new legends each set.
For real. I look back at older sets, and sometimes they had 5 or less legends in the whole set.
How is this a problem?? Shouldn't effect you at all
That outro though. Beautiful. 10/10 Execution
you listen to the usual music at the end and then... He gets Firebreathing +1/+0 for a Red 😂
i was curious how many people stuck around to the end
@@edhdeckbuilding I've wanted to thank you for a long time for your tireless work and your great pronunciation. As a German, it is difficult to understand everything when native speakers don't make an effort. That's not the case with you. I enjoy listening to you and it's easy to understand you. The end of the video in particular was understandable across countries.
@@ChristopherRaquet much appreciated
I first started playing Magic in the Revised/Arabian Nights/The Dark era. Last week I played in a pod in which the next most experienced player started playing during the new Kamigawa set. 😵💫 You should have seen their faces when I explained the Tuck rule. 😂
Me and my friend both play ''duel commander'' since we play vs each other. We still use 40 life. No rule 0 except dumb stuff like nadu. Combo are fine.
I see both sides tbh. I don't like the super broken and pushed cards like Jeweled Lotus and such. But also, having built decks from the before times, cards like Command Tower and Path of Ancestry and a whole bunch of other tech honestly make a lot of the jankier strategies significantly more playable. I like having stuff that interacts specifically with commanders that actually help integrate the format better. The power-creep is obnoxiously bad but there's also a thousand other quality of life improvements that have definitely made the format better to build and play in imo.
Funny, i was just thinking about how your 'cards you should be...' series seemed really underpowered and i thought it was interesting that you would suggest cards like that. It makes me, more and more, want to watch your gameplay videos, because they must be very casual, and fun. Literally just played with a group that two of them consistently had game ending cards in hand constantly, and the other three, me included, had very sluggish and casual decks. To which i tried to do politics with, and he just said 'i hate politics, i don't do it' which told me he doesn't play casual, regardless of what he says cause two turns later, guess who won? I don't think the inherent problem is the social aspect, i personally believe it's the 'lack' of wanting to interact with anyone else that is the problem. 'I play my deck and win' mentality that was a part of other formats. It was good in them, because you wanted to win fast, but commander wasn't designed with that in mind, and it's crept in over time
Rules teams won't ban anything
I too have been preaching that WotC signed Commander's death certificate when they started printing cards for the format. You know what I've found to be super fun recently? PrEDH. No cards printed after 2010 go into my deck. Let's get this migration moving! #predh
I have personally been loving Predh and pauper commander. So much fun
I like the name… I think there might actually be something like that already in place. But way too far bro. There are a ton of non commander specific cards printed in regular sets that are perfectly fine and make the format nice and diverse that came out after 2010.
My own idea for eras is 1) everything before Magic Origins, where they started designing for story instead of balance, 2) Origins to the end of the Phyrexia storyline, where they actually cared about the story events and planes still had an identity, and 3) everything post Phyrexia storyline, where they just have any character on any plane, with no rhyme or reason, rampant power creep, and 200 legends per set.
Precons were cool up until 2016 or so maybe. Total shitfest since making 2+ EDH deck cycles per year.
Cdh seems to just be the same cards but you just make room for the fast. Expensive mana. And expensive cheap counterspells.
Wow the intro has been slowed down a lot unfortunately
so i've always used the same intro. never changed it.
I don't think I would've even gotten into Magic the Gathering until commander existed and especially after the commander precons existed. 1-on-1 magic is great for a niche audience. And I'm sure that audience is afraid of change. But if a company doesn't change and grow, it'll die out. How many players can realistically afford to support a company for decades? Keep those profit margins up for decades? It really wasn't realistic. Commander injected new life and new playerbase to the game. There's players the only play commander. There's RUclipsrs, Twitch streamers, and in game stores players that ONLY play commander. Some people might want to gatekeep their Magic the Gathering but are they really doing that for the best interest of the community or the game?? Are those gatekeepers being selfish, thinking selfishly, and really afraid of Magic the Gathering no long being what it was decades ago?
100%
i prefer CEDH over casual. Its more interesting to see how people are building their decks, and also its a good learning experience. I think people get salty about CEDH decks because they either dont understand how to build competitive decks, or they cant learn from their losses. When i build my competitive decks i look at a lot of modern/standard cards because theyre typically cheap in mana value and inexpensive to obtain. Modern was never really fun for me, the singleton format is much better and more interesting imo, so we started building decks that met in the middle of the two formats.
people mostly build their decks the same though don't they? ever cedh game i watch seems to end with thassa's oracle.
and building competitive decks is easy. you just play all the best cards. in fact you can essentially just copy\paste whatever the best deck currently is.
@@edhdeckbuilding IF youre playing Blue, Thoracle is the typical free wincon that youd expect but ive played against plenty of decks that dont use blue at all. Its easy for some people to build comp decks, but youd be surprised how many times ive sat down at my lgs with the “cedh” players and absolutely stomp them, and i dont even consider myself a great deck builder. I run Chatterfang as my competitive deck, so no blue shenanigans there, but i run numerous infinite combos in the deck that make hard to deal with. Friend of mine plays Nekusar(without Thassas) and its brutal. So i know what youre saying, but running the best cards sometimes prompts your opponents to what youre trying to do so we stay away from a lot of them. Your videos have brought numerous cards to my attention that my table runs now and it catches people off guard to the point it turns the tide of a game because people dont know how to deal with them.
@@Luxorcist what you do personally, and what the majority of cedh players do, are not the same thing.
@@edhdeckbuilding I understand that, but if youre competing and trying to win as fast as possible then whatever works, works. I dont run Thassas in any deck, but since i know about it im constantly on the hunt for cards that make my deck run faster and mean enough to beat it. Ive lost to Thassas/Demonic Consultation a handful of time but that doesnt make me less inclined to play the format, or mean that i havent beaten it already. Its not some invincible combo.
My problem with the "there's no difference between Commander and CEDH" argument is how people use it to make CEDH sound like it is THE way to play commander.
There are SO MANY REASONS not to play EDH competitively, not only is it how the format was intended, but there are more viable cards, and more viable decks. Some of us don't like combo. Some of us like jank. CEDH is too expensive unless your whole deck is proxies. Magic shouldn't be pay to win anyway, especially if I just want to hang out with my friends. I want to play the draft chaff I have lying around. I like the combat part of Magic. Need I go on?
If you call it a different name, then it's a different format. It doesn't matter if they share the same rules or the same banlist.
Cedh is Edh with a fixed Rule0 that sound like this
"Everybody wants to win as fast as possible and everything within the rules is allowed"
When you don't want to play that way, don't do it... But stop calling cedh another format. It's still Edh
@@Konfekt13 You are the wrong one. I would argue that EDH is actually functionally infinite formats, defined by their rule zero. cEDH is just one of those formats.
If we went to play standard, but we decided to make it singleton, that's not standard anymore. If we play Commander, but say no infinite combos, that isn't Commander anymore. That is an offshoot format.
Taking a format that is designed to be casual by every mechanic, from higher life totals, singleton, multiplayer, eternal format, and trying to make it competitive, that isn't Commander anymore. That is your own format.
How are the tourists to Commander trying to come in and dictate how the game is supposed to be played? There is no problem with the existence of cEDH. The problem happens when you pretend that what you are doing has anything to do with the intentions and design of the Commander format.
I think adding a points system where you gain or lose points by achieving certain game states or performing certain actions would be good for incentivizing people to not just play cEDH or something close to it. Some LGS's have a points board for organized EDH where say you lose a point if you play Sol Ring turn 1, or get 3 points for saving another player from elimination. I think it'd be cool if WOTC made like a points deck that you shuffle and lay out a certain number of cards with specific parameters that apply to everyone for that game.
Dude whatever I love the variety in commander I’ve played about 7 games so far and I won 1 time. Who cares?! You don’t have to win to have fun. I find it bizarre people complain about certain cards in a singleton format.
You won't notice that kind of issues when you're a new player; At that stage you won't see things that more enfranchised players care about because your experience just isn't comparable. As time goes on and you gain a wider understanding of the format, you'll start to notice things more and eventually form your own opinion on those topics.
But until then, you should definitely enjoy the format as you do, you likely have a ton of great things to see and do!
I don't know, I think there's at least room for discussion about how certain cards are unhealthy for the game. It allows players to learn from other players. Maybe you didn't realize Dockside Extortionist would get you 10 mana on turn 5, and you weren't trying to be competitive to begin with. It leads to really swingy decks that either do nothing or do everything.
I don't just dislike playing against the tryhard player who wins because of a expensive card, I dislike BEING that player. Especially if it was an accident.
Deck consistency breeds confidence, and confidence allows you to be transparent with what your deck can do. And that, in my experience, is the fastest way to keep players from being salty.
I gotta say, though, overall I'm with you. I used to be a big complainer, and you have WAY more fun when you're not so bent up about winning.
@@thomaspetrucka9173 Hey if someone has a crazy overpowered deck I wanna see it go BRRRR 😂 I may not want to play it again but I want to see.
@@goldcreeper7376 I’m not entirely new. I played a lot from 96-06 but just got back into it. Still have SOME of my good cards but the power creep especially on creatures since 06 is wild. Pretty much all creatures now seem broken to me so I’m like hey whatever. Maybe if there was more at stake I’d care but at my LGS it’s pretty much everyone gets a free pack or something. The stakes are nonexistent. I’m really lucky though because I was able to trade some insane older cards I had multiple of to get things like Sheoldred the Apocalypse and the One Ring. As the first person in my group to play Necropotence back in the day Sheoldred is just so outrageously broken in my mind… Yes it dies… Instantly. Every time. 😂 But I’m having fun
yeah i'm not sure what i put in this video about winning, but that isn't part of the discussion.
I miss the time when my playgroup was more casual. Nowadays they play infinite combos and turn 3 ending commanders.
Now you have a handful commanders that you could play otherwise you weren't able to play your deck...
Keep Commander Casual!!
Hard disagree with this take. Making cards for commander makes sense. Making cards that reference commander make sense. You've always had cards that won't work in your deck because you don't include the target or trigger. How is this different? And the super powered commanders are taken care of by the social dynamics. Sure you can play it once or twice, but if you wanna keep playing with your buddies then your gunna have to make a different deck.
I don't get MTG gatekeepers.
I think the Universes Beyond card pool will get so big the format will split naturally,
I hate trinket mage...
Wait! 'Competitive'? That's what the 'C' in CEDH stands for? I thought it meant 'Casual'! I need to totally rethink my multi-thousand dollar decks now!
It's funny, you call stuff problems, yet name the stuff that makes the game fun. The "why you targetting me?" Is not an attack, it's a natural response to a board being hard to read at a glance. Politicking, manipulating, or actively just helping are amazing parts of the social aspect.
Decks being built around the commander or not, how's that a problem?
Oh wait, clickbaot, now i get it
that's why i call it a conundrum
Rule 0 is bullshit. Politics is bullshit. "Casual" is complete horse shit in my over a decade playing commander because people play what they want. If people own powerful cards they will play them. Most players want to win, no matter what they tell you. Sure, it can be interesting because you can play "neat? cards, but most people don't do that. Its even worse these days because WotC designs cards FOR edh. Also, edh pr multiplayer makes Magic bad because Magic is designed as a 1 versus 1 game. Edh makes one for one removal/countermagic actively bad. Edh also inscentivizes non attacking, and, instead building advantage engines which stalls games.
Wait. You used to complain a lot?
So, what was your argument? Commander was designed to be a casual format, so cards shouldn’t be designed for it and players shouldn’t play (as?) competitively?
First of all, I like your content Demo and that’s why I’d bother to comment at all. That being said, this video seemed like an incoherent rant about what commander is and you didn’t really highlight one specific problem in your first half of the video. In fact I was super confused when you suddenly added “issue #2” on screen. I thought to myself, “where was issue #1?” You were explaining what commander was and the only thing you highlighted was the rules differences for deck building and players crying about not being attacked. You mentioned politics, mentioned cEDH exists but isn’t the majority of what players play. I think you’re saying edh should be a casual format. But then its weird bc you made it seem like the social/political parts were possible problems? I think you were trying to argue these elements were casual and therefore the format should stay casual. And the second issue you had was about card design. How they’re printing more powerful cards (here’s where im putting words in your mouth to maybe make this make sense) “but edh is a casual format, therefore they should stop/ stop playing those cards”.
Despite having every right to your opinion, your argument is just not great. Saying that edh was made as a casual format therefore players should keep it casual is vague, doesn’t mean anything, and ultimately never gonna happen.
Aside from the cEDH crowd that wants to play the best decks competitively with no holds barred, even “casual players” optimize to oblivion now. They’re trying to eke out every tiny percent increase in power. They’re playing generic staples that have been there forever.
I literally played a game last night, “casual” game. I played against an aesi landfall deck and it was the most boring thing to play against. Defense of the heart into cratehoof + avenger of zendikar. These cards existed before Wizards started turboing out cards exclusive to commander. This person clearly went to the very casual extremes to the point it bored me. Tutored for the two most generic spells in green. With a powerful card jot designed for commander. A casual game with nearly the most optimal options for that “side” of the format. Point is players will always optimize and improve their decks. It’s why we as players play card games rather than games that are more luck oriented like blackjack or poker. We’re drawn to it. It’s human nature to tinker, experiment and improve. Sure wizards is facilitating the optimization but as players we can’t do much design wise and bc the rules committee won’t a ban anything we’re stuck with the consequences until edh dies, which might be soon.
issue 1: the social aspect is one of the things people love but also causes problems.
hence the term conundrum.
they invented a format to fix these issues and none of you wanted to play it (Brawl)
Wizards made brawl because they wanted to make money.
@@zeta280 They are a company. Their job is to create things that make money
@@zeta280This, let's not pretend Brawl was ever intended to fix anything 😂
I don't understand how anything you have said here is an actual "issue". Just play whatever you want, rule 0 solves basically all of this
Rule 0 doesn't exist, it a wishy washy thing, spikes will try to get cheap wins no matter how much you talk to them.
yeah rule zero is not the cure all people think it is.
Play anything you want is one of the things that leads to the biggest arguments and contention in a commander game. I want to play no game winning combos but I want to play the power nine in my deck, the other player wants all those banned and thinks it’s unfair that they’re inaccessible but they play a worldgorger/animate dead combo on turn 3. And the other two want to play jank but they can’t keep up. No one is happy… what are you gonna say in a rule zero conversation to that? If, somehow, everyone manages to agree on playing this mismatched game after wasting the time arguing about it and the room getting tense, then likely one player will get hated out of the game from the get go and get their feelings hurt… and don’t say, “big whoops, they’re just being cry babies.” People want to play commander for all sorts of personal and social reasons, and if they’re not having fun and they feel like they’ve wasted their time, that hurts them, the play group, the store who gets him and his business, the format, and the game overall. We should care about everyone having a good, balanced, experience when playing the game. Hence the “casual” part of the conversation. It doesn’t mean everyone do what they want, it means the format should be lighthearted and fun, not stressful and frustrating like competitive magic can very easily become.
@@edhdeckbuilding you said it brother.
@@Lit-erallyEveryone I'm not reading that man TF.