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The Cubeamajigs are really bad. Mine have fallen apart after 3 uses. They are flimsy and a D grade in my opinion. I dropped $400 on Podamajig and Cubeamajigs. The Podamajigs are fine, but do not buy the Cubeamajigs repack.
I still suspect that wizards of the Coast intention is to officially sell CDH precons. And that's why they want to get a handle on it. This well, Commander in general. Because, it seems to run rampant a lot lately. And it would be nice if they found a way to financially streamline CDH for the purposes of new players who actually want to get into it you know? And yes, I know that's got to be a challenge, considering the usual stuff that is implied in CDH. When at any cost, etc.
Wow, I actually just discussed this idea with folks at my LGS last night. Mostly in jest, but the prevailing thought was that it puts a lot of onus on the players to keep track of the point values of their deck, during and after construction. If the format managers changes point values frequently, it could be frustrating. Still a better system than "everything is a 7", though.
This isn't going to matter to most people though, it is for the more enfranchised. Random people looking for a game won't need to know their point totals all the time, the main point is going to be having the pregame conversation. "Hey, can I join your table?" "Sure, got any particular point total in mind?" "What are points?" "Okay, well do you want a quick game or a longer game? Are you trying to do something cool?" As with all things, COMMUNICATION is the key. Liars get a one and done and if they win first, just do as Sheldon would and continue the game with the rest of the table.
It would be a small adjustment and just become the norm. Once your deck is entered, the system could tell you what the point total is without further tracking.
Any point system won't work since every deck will be a 7 since that is what players say there deck is because they are lazy. This will push people out of playing the game. Casual commander needs the least amount of feedback.
We also need to look at the pitfalls. With a range of 1-10 of possible points per card, it's harder to sum up the values in your head (too many cards and too many possible points). For online lists, this is easy. Decklist apps can calculate this no problem. It becomes harder for people who don't keep online lists or don't pay attention to banlists. The above are also true for the bracket system. For both, it'll come down to how many cards people need to pay attention to. In general, the fewer "things" people need to keep in mind, the more receptive they will be of said system. We also have to remember that Commander is a social game and it's really easy to have feel bads even when everyone in the pod adheres to the max point games. Let's say the pod only wants a 20 pointed game. If the sum of Thassa's Oracle and Demonic Consultation is 20, then all cards in the deck can be unpointed and this deck would be valid for a 20 pointed game. This is a cEDH combo and some people really don't like losing to it. Even if it happens in 1 game out of 50. Also keep in mind, Thoracle alone doesn't win you a game. There's no need to point Thoracle but Thoracle with Demonic Consultation is strong. The point system works for Canlander b/c it's a 1v1 so the game dynamics are different. Canlander can get away with not pointing lots of cards. Not sure the same can be said about EDH. Just my two cents.
I love a point system but I would go further in fact. For me a 0 point shouldn't be the default for most cards. 0 should be reserved for basic lands and very bad cards so that a 0 point deck would be really rubish. Of course the scale would have to be wider which I think is more representative of the power level differences between cards (maybe 0-20). But yeah, I'm just a morron that doesn't know nothing about game design but the idea of playing 0 point decks in this system sounds super fun.
If the WOTC ranking system doesnt seem to hold, my group will use this version of a system. The Collegiate Commander Ranking System or maybe we will call it Brians Law lolol.
As a person who struggles with ambiguity, I love it. The open-ended, “descriptive” nature of this solution still allows for friends to just play how they want.
but if you play with friends, can't you just play like you want anyway? it's not like if you pull out a dockside or jeweled lotus ind a friendly match that wizard sends the pinkerton's to break your kneecaps or something.
@@garaktartv3647 True. It’s also nice to have some understanding about how long or short the game might be. Finding a way to balance with friends is useful for me
@garaktartv3647 I think the issue is some people (mostly older mtg players, those accustomed to various formats) prefer to have predefined parameters within which to brew and not win by simply playing better cards than their opponents. Yes we can play how we want, but I want a ceiling for how hard I can maximize my potential, and not wind up playing against two of my friends who are playing precons. With this point system, I can point to a tier and say, "OK you chose to play in here, so if I stomp this game, I simply outplayed my opponents- no ambiguity involved. They disagree? Ok, let me play my deck that has less consistency due to less total points of card power level. This really boils down to a different type of player mindset- the new age commander player who just wants to have fun with his friends, and the OG player who just wants to have fun with his friends but also win at all costs. MTG started out as a competitive staredown 1v1 game after all. The point system is a fantastic approach to giving concrete parameters by which to players can confidently compete with any nuance.
The only problem I see with a system like this is that it requires a lot more work/upkeep from the player, which might be overwhelming for the more casual ones. Brackets look like they will be more restrictive, yes, but a pregame conversation that goes "Hey, I have a couple of bracket 4 cards in here, but really this is a bracket 2 power level" seems easier to me than what a full point system would
I think a hybrid system might actually be the solution then. A simple bracket system for fast and casual, then a detailed point based system for those deeper into the game. Maybe we even just let wizards do the bracket system and have a point system curated by the community. That would help draw the line between the simple and complex ways of playing the game, and I don't think the distinction would cause too much confusion.
Say, this sort of time-intensive, passion-based, and constantly-changing systems seems like the sort of thing we’d want a “rules committee” to be managing. Shame we don’t have one of those.
I think for most casual players or even new players, it'll always be a learning curve no matter where they play. For example, when I first started, I didn't understand the inherent power of tutoring for ANY card in my deck until a player groaned at the table when I Vamp Tutored. They assumed I was grabbing a combo piece or something.
Exactly. We dont even know what the bracket system will look like yet since we only saw an alpha mockup... people arent even giving it a chance. Iterations after we get it is the way forward not proposing tedious points systems or whatever else.
@@funforger This is true, but we can still somewhat control how steep the curve is. Commander is already deceptively hard to get into, like in your example, so I'd avoid a system that makes it even harder
11:28 I would prefer if precons weren't at the lowest tier, because that would limit the types of reprints we would get in those decks. Maybe 1 is the "jank" tier, so precons fall into different tiers depending on their reprints 🤔
I don't know... They already said they never plan on putting cards in bracket 4 into precons, meaning that some cards will never be put into them, like demonic or vampiric tutor. Point being: Some cards will never be printed in pre-cons, and wizards basically said that up front. I feel like 0-10 point decks are jank decks in the system, and like prof said, it would take time to figure out what is or isn't pointed in the first place.
Definitely. One thing that's bothered me for a while when people talk about precons in discussions like these is that people tend to default assume they're the lowest power decks and all about the same power level, when neither is very accurate. Even within the same set, precons can vary in power level, and especially if you look at older precons compared to modern ones, there can a huge difference. Some precons may be poorly built enough to warrant being in the lowest tier alongside janky theme decks, but many of them are strong enough to be in tier 2 or even 3 (looking at you, Stella Lee).
@@universebofficialchannelThey already printed at least two precons with a bracket 4 card, since Jeska's Will was in the Baldurs Gate exile precon and in the Karlov Manor boros goad deck. Same is true for bracket 3 with Akroma's Will in the dino precon.
no it only limits the number of them. if precon is sub 25, depending on what other cards are in the deck you could get a vamp tutor, the one ring, and a 5 point card packed in. that would never happen but it shows that they have flexibility even in precons.
@@jojobetzler3732Ah, but that was before they had full true control of the format. However...those cards can literally sell the pre-cons so I guess we'll see in the next set (that has pre-cons)
If it's implemented in an app like manabox your camera can recognize the cards, add them to the deck, and give you the score in less than couple of minutes
"rate every magic card" They say this as if 85% of the cards in this game haven't been power crept to uselessness or, at best, a niche use in certain edge case decks.
I really hope this video gets to Gavin or someone at Wizards. This is much better than the bracket system and more representative of a deck's power level. Thanks Prof !!!
Once again prof coming in with a well thought out and explained solution. I love the descriptive not restrictive is very important to get across your version presented is simple enough to be easy to use but granular enough to be extremely helpful
It's funny cause before the ban announcement I was trying to put together a point system like this to mention to my playgroup to help experiment with decks building. It'd be neat to see the community talk about this idea more and independently try it out imo
The day of the takeover announcement I had several thoughts about a points system. No clue about the one Canlander uses, but I figure it doesn't even have to be that complex. Treat it more like war games, where your table agrees on a point total.
That works for wargames, but has yet to work for any TCG. Several companies have tried, and failed to gain a playerbase. Austin Powers, Sailor Moon, Naruto and Hyperion are quick failed TCGs that utilized point systems in their deck construction rules.
@nobodyshome6792 Yeah, I never landed on a satisfactory way of keeping track. I play HeroClix, and with those, the values are on the table. As we would say, "reading the dial explains the dial", but there's not a good way to, at a glance, ensure your deck isn't lying about its point total. At least without turning every home table and LGS game night into Pro Tour Registration.
Should be more of a point spread like prof said. A 42 point deck and a 39 point deck are probably going to play well against each other. A 42 point deck versus a 95 point deck probably won’t be that fun for the 42 point deck person. Points don’t have to be even or bracketed even with a point system. It also allows tourneys to work for cEDH. For example, the tournament point limit is 70 so everyone knows what the power level is. You probably don’t want to go to that tourney with your 33 point deck.
@@trident042 HeroClix is still going ? Holy hell... I earned every LE from release until 2004. Had every Tournament Gift piece as well. It wasn't really my thing though, my friends and roommates loved it. All of that was stolen by those very roommates but that is neither here nor there. HeroClix, like those wargames you mentioned, all have easily verifiable points. And those points are pretty much Static and do not change. I entirely forgot about HeroClix. Wasn't particularly my thing, but I did play and became a judge for it. (I was also a judge and pro-level player for Magic along with being in the Guru program, a Professor and Judge for the Pokemon TCG and a Judge for thr DragonballZ TCG). Granted I did enjoy the other version of HeroClix, with the Steampunk/Magic/Fabtasy genre. (Forgot the name of it....)
EDHRec already does something incredibly similar to a point system with their Salt Scores. The community votes on cards, and decks are assigned a Salt Sum in the Archidekt deck building website using the Salt Scores of every card in the deck. Unfortunately Salt Score only integrates with Archidekt right now, but EDHRec is already perfectly positioned to do something like this. It would take some tweaking but it could work.
The problem with salt score is that it treats cards based on perceived power rather than actual power. Any point system based on feelings is already bad. People vote for cards that are salty based on the emotions they felt when it was played into, not how much impact it actually had on the game. Points need to be more objective than that. I do think salt score should be considered in the overall rating for sure, but it should be one of many metrics, not just the sole metric. If we use salt score as the sole metric, you'd never be able to build a non cEDH mill deck despite mill actually being a pretty bad strategy in a 4 player format.
@@patrickcamus2842 Depends entirely on the feelings of the voters, I think historically combo pieces do genereally get a higher salt score than similar cards that arent part of a combo. It also depends on how easy the combo is to pull off, eg thassas oracle =2.82 whereas pestermite = 0.5
Salt and power are not always the same. Some cards are salty because they basically make one player a spectator without hindering the other opponents. Others just make the game drag out unnecessarily, or prevent opponents from doing their thing without actually winning the game. Someone might be salty if you’re playing a deck with 1000s of dollars worth of expensive old/rare/special edition cards, even if the deck isn’t that strong. Some cards are very powerful, but not very salty. But on the other hand, I think I’d rather play against a high-powered low-salt deck than a high-salt low-powered deck, so maybe a salt scale would be a better solution.
I love your videos. I respect the way you speak to your audience. Too many content creators speak as though they have all the answers and their opinions outway others. You present your opinions in a more open form, allowing for the discussion and inclusion of other people's views.
I love when The Professor does these styles of videos. They're so well explained and thought out, and clearly leave room on the table for discussion, which is highly encouraged. Shuffle Up and Play is fun and all, but I think videos like these are where The Professor is at his best
Don't worry, WotC didn't stop liking money. They will print bracket 4 worthy cards in precons, and call them bracket 1 until the warehouse is clear of them.
Considering most of the cards that would get points wouldn't be reprinted in a precon, there is no issue in printing a new top bracket in a precon. The whole "this one card will put your deck in a certain bracket regardless of the other cards" will never work, they'll see it soon enough and trash the idea, otherwise 80% of decks will be in the top tier and have wildly different power levels.
Yeah, if they follow the descriptive point system, you could afford to have one top tier card in each precon. The trick is designing the decks with only one...
Having a combo be apart of a group point system makes sense. It’s upfront and gives the other players a heads up there’s an instant win combo, if the deck happens to have one.
Combo doesn't mean an instant win in all cases. Many combos require late game, tons of pieces assembling and can be disrupted. Timmy's stay belive combo is look I win 😆 😅
Back when I played Yugioh (2003-2011ish), it was very helpful for me to be able to look at the limited/restricted list in order to see cards that were not banned but were powerful enough to be looked out for in the meta and many of those cards were staples that were able to be powerfully incorporated into a wide range of decks. I think a points system like this would similarly be a way to highlight powerful cards to newer players and make them aware of potential staples and meta defining cards and as such I think it is a great idea.
14:46 I feel like this is the exact moment this system starts to fall apart. If the point value of a card is dependent on what other cards are in the deck then we've opened up a hole of infinite complexity. I think it might be fine if we point certain A+B combos together (like Thoracle + Tainted Pact is a 10 even if Thoracle is a 2 and Tainted Pact is a 1) but I'm not sure this will get everything and if we're talking about contingent A+B+C+D situations it will devolve into a big mess. I also worry a lot about how easy any system would be to explain to new players. A complicated point cost system feels like the type of thing which can make inexperienced eyes glaze over. If a player buys a precon and sits down to play and gets asked "how many points is your deck?" by people they don't know I can see that not being a great introduction for them. All this having been said, I think this is much better than the tier 1-4 system Wizards mentioned. The very idea that Sol Ring would just be exempted from tiering shows the whole problem with that system. It's gonna be so arbitrary and not serve the majority of Commander players, pretty much no matter what the tiers end up being. We should be mining in this direction.
I think that's when we go "okay. Thoracle is a game winning combo card." And as a result, its a 7 point card. It's not a new card so players would be going out of their way to play it. The big thing here is balancing the card with the combo enablers like consultation
@@ItsDKoda Yes, that probably does work for Thoracle, but not for Curiosity, as Prof mentioned. At some point you have to draw a line between busted combo card and card people might reasonably play in a deck where it doesn't go infinite. How do you point Pili-Pala? Ephemerate is in some infinite combos. What about Manifold Key? It's hard to find one complete answer to every card in Commander. I guess part of the issue is that even if we're pointing a fraction of the cards in the format, it's probably a point value on several hundred cards.
having 2-card combos that are worth more points is pretty easy to handle if the points system is built into online deck tools; most people who are likely to know and care about a points system are also enfranchised enough that they're likely already using a site like Archidekt to manage their deck lists, which could easily implement a system that lets you know what tier your deck is in.
@@vincenturquhart1370 The issue is that power level is conditional. Sanguine Bond is a slow card that does nothing by itself and is too slow for many CEDH pods, but it has an enormous amount of infinite combos and value added synergies that can be packaged with it. So, what is the power level of the card? Well, its conditional.
I’m impressed with Prof’s proposal, and I can see how it would absolutely resolve a number of the existing issues with rule 0 conversations, etc. It would be an enormous amount of work to prototype and test, but there are existing sites that document combos, and deck building sites that can help with the calculations.
My initial thoughts are: yes, but it would take a lot of work. Unless you have a dedicated team going through old cards and every new card released to assign a number value to it, with possible number changes based on community feedback, it would prove to be next to worthless.
I mean you would probably only care for known 'powerful' cards. As for the new ones, they already do this for Arena, so besides the initial effort this shouldn't be hard to maintain at all.
The line between 3 and 4 appears a bit blurred, but I really like the clarity you're providing to the conversations before a game. Thank you for the help!!
This is by far the BEST idea I have heard. It would guarantee that you are playing in a pod with similar decks. I hope this idea gains traction. Thanks Prof.
Doesnt Arena use a points system for matchmaking under the hood already? They just havent chosen to be transparent with that system. Would be easy enough to just take that system public and implement a new ranking specific to commander format.
They do, and in the stream about the bracket system they revealed that Brawl brackets decks into four tiers (based on the points) already. Now, does a strict points-based system work? Based on the big difference in power level I see (and that's ignoring minmaxing attempts, because minmaxing will always exist with any system), I doubt it...
I love this idea but one thing I didn't see addressed that I feel the bracket system solves is that the point system isn't nearly as verifiable, and is a lot easier to misrepresent. Let's take the Ancient Tomb example with a player that's intentionally misrepresenting their deck's level: Descriptive Points: A player says that their deck is less than a 20 because it has Ancient Tomb at a 7 and a few other high-cost cards, however they actually stuff in several 4-5 point cards to make it closer to a 50 but they only draw a couple each game so it's not obvious that they're misrepresenting their power level. No-one can really verify during the game that the player's deck actually is around 20 unless they start counting the points manually, so the player gets away with it. Bracket: A player says that their deck is a bracket 4 with Ancient Tomb but otherwise is a 2. Then later on whenever they play a different card that's bracket 3 or 4 the other players can bring it up and ask them about it, and can figure out the player is intentionally mispresenting their deck's level. This is really the only thing I see negative about the descriptive points system, everything else I absolutely love.
This is a very eliquent way of explaining the obvious pitfall as i see it. With friends none of this tier/points/rule zero matters. This is being implemented because commander is basically the only format you can play with strangers at the LGS, needs to be simple and easy to enforce.
I get that but I also think that if someone wants to hide their sol ring up their sleeve before starting a casual commander game, I'm probably not going to be policing them closely enough to notice. I would rather have a better deckbuilding experience than worry about one more way someone might cheat at a low stakes game. IDK maybe other tables are more ready to deal with cheaters than mine.
I think a point system is a good start, but is going to run into one significant problem, the same problem you'll always run into: How accurate is it going to be? Some people are going to optimize the hell out of it, others are going to run a pile of cards that, while it works together, is not optimized. Some people are going to fly specifically under the radar to ruin peoples times. Also, Jank decks are going to feel... So much harder to actually assign power levels to. As someone who likes brewing absolute jank in the worst possible way, I feel like this would make it much harder to sit down. Then again... Its already hard so this might be a more equitable approach since there's a lot more room for discussion.
It seems like if you're discussing your points, specifying "this is a pile of cards worth 60 points" would still give a good idea of what you're working with. In contrast to "I have put time into optimizing this 60". I'll absolutely look at those two point totals differently, but I'd still think the "pile" of cards can have some good hits.
It's to be expected that someone will optimize or exploit any system created. The solution is just to not play with that person. It's a lesson we learn as children. If you want people to play games with you, you better not be a dick while playing
Putting this out there for everyone: You are under zero obligation to 1) continue a game against a troll, or 2) play with them again in the future. You can scoop and find another table or you get the other two players to give the troll the win and continue to play for "second" place. As for Jank decks, most of them should be 0-10 points, I'd imagine. Set your table's Point Limit low and jank eachother off!
An optimized deck with 49 points is going to be less oppressive than an optimized deck with no restrictions. I think we just need a simple system that narrows the gap some.
Prof. Always great philosophies on mtg. So often you voice my exact thoughts into the world were people that might be able to do something about it can hear them. Thanks for your work!
No-cap points limit is VERY cool. Different points in different categories is also interesting! Card advantage, acceleration, and some other categories having points in their own areas is a really granular way to define deck power on the same page as everyone else too
@@keldone3186 I've already heard it happen I play mid level casual, and the cedh table needed a 4th, so, we played decks down at my level. Then I had to go roll for a DnD one shot coming up and told them "thanks. Yall can do your thing now." (I know all these guys. None of us are randoms) they were deciding what to play and a guy mentioned the one ring. We started joking about tiers. Then talking about how they couldn't even sit at a table I'd be at. if we went with tiers, even with their "mid decks," they would never be allowed to play with me. We play all the time. On dnd night, they're one of 2 tables. And I'm at dnd for my kid every week. The way it is now, we decide if we want to play with each other. Our decks don't.
While I find it very interesting to find more ways to standardize a power level system is that there are way, way, WAY too have variables. Single cards having a certain value to them doesn't work across the board, as many become much more powerful when combined with other cards of lower power as well. There's no real way to account for every combination possible and really this would break down to signing a standard value to rocks and lands, since they are the most universally utilitarian. The BIGGEST variable that can't be accounted for, even though this tries to, is emotional. Players are simply unable to be reasoned with when it comes to deck power. I entered a pod wanting to play 7-8 and I decided to play the Hakbal precon with only one addition, spelunking. I figured there's no way Hakbal is an actual 7, but it's what I wanted to play And I'm okay trying to punch up from time to time. After a decent start what was by no means insane, one of the players cursed me out, called me slurs and quit aggressively. No amount of explanation or discussion calmed them down. That is by no means a rare experience and is the same in person or online. There's simply no system that will actually stop people from thinking they're supposed to win and everyone who beats them it's playing an overpowered deck.
The major problem with a Tier/Point system, is that there are a lot of cards that are crap by themselves, but the moment you add in ONE card or combine them with others, they become lethal like Hullbreacher and Wheel effects. They end up doing very nasty things, without the card itself being very good.
Professor did mention changing the point value of a card if a combo piece is in the same deck, but that could become confusing. Hopefully Wizards can think of a solution to that.
It does seem hard to police so many lethal combos/engines with points. Maybe something like a flat "all two card lethal combos" at 10 points each could work. But it's probably just better for play groups to self police this and allow lethal combos or not.
I like the idea, as it also works with balanced play versions of things I've played before. As an example, MvC2 has a tournament style Ratio System which assigns points based on the tier list, and you build a team with a max of 7 points, and it stops you from just using the S-tiers (Roll is -1 for being the worst in the game).
Well thought out. My spouse and I were discussing many of the nuances you brought up including how a card by itself vs with a combo piece or multiple combos changes things. There is also a totally undefinable issue of player skill. My spouse can pilot a LVL 2/3 precon better than many can pilot their LVL 4 decks
Awesome to see this, I've been banging this exact drum for the past couple of weeks. That being said, for this to work, pointing the fewest number of cards possible is crucial to the system's success. Simplicity is key, people need to be able to fully digest this system without a point reference on hand at all times. So that being said, things like the fetchlands really aren't appropriate to point.
I think this would hypothetically work better than the almost Smogon-like system they seem to be suggesting, but it would definitely be a lot of work to get rolling and spinning. Even still, i like the idea, definitely worth trying at a table
@TolarianCommunityCollege Tiers are an unnecessary complication for this proposed 'point levels' method. A simple mention of deck points would immediately inform the table what kind of game is expected (i.e. Let's keep it between 50 and 60, you could even assign tables accordingly). I also believe 'context related' point scales are too confusing. A two-card combo should simply have a 20 point tax which would lessen for three-card combos. Anything higher should be considered the will of the gods and not taxed, whereas a combo piece in the CZ should be appropriately taxed. This would negate a need for a list of combos and simply require counting any combo in a deck and assigning the appropriate tax.
I think you overestimate the ability of people notincing how many combos especially in the build process of commander decks that many people run for years, changing one or two cards eveyonce in a while and later figuring out, HEY this addition + this other change i made 8 months ago are actually comboing off together !
@@ammaq I understand your argument. I think you'd have to agree though that there's a difference in thought process when building a jank deck vs a competitive deck. Three counterpoints: 1-it's a casual format 2- if unnoticed it can be reported once realized (see 1) 3- if we specifically put combos in a deck we can count them as well; accidental combos are a thing that can easily be remedied (see 2)
I kinda like the idea of points now. It feels like the system that WotC kinda wants to implement, but more thought out and not limited just to brackets. Great work prof, this feels like a pretty good start!
Point system basically works for super low end and the super high end. Yea a cEDH deck might have like 1000 points, as all the cards are a 10. A precon might have some random amount of points, as some decks have simply better cards then others, even in precons the synergy level is vastly different. Take an Urza Precon, it has quite a lot of synergy build in, that deck basically starts as a 2 or even a 3, compared to other more janky precons that barely hold above water. The Eldrazi precon is also quite powerful and does things that most Precons wont compete against. The cards in between 1 and 10 are the ones that are most fuzzy, as almost any card depends on the synergy in the deck. A Chrome mox for example is actively BAD for almost any deck if you arent specifically a combo deck that benefits from the speed (as otherwise, you better play any Talisman, as they accelerate you and dont come with an inherent 2for1 disadvantage, which is a horrendous cost for 1 mana). Reanimate for example is in a lot of precons, but its only really busted if you have something gamebreacking to reanimate and get it fast. ---- The real problem comes with the "synergy" cost changes of cards and taking combos into account that then somehow change the value of a card. Magic has many combos and you need to be aware of them and rank them, it really doesnt work as nicely in practice. For a format that is competitive a point system works better, as people actively compete against each other to build the best deck for the points they can use. In the end, people will still try to build the strongest deck, using the least amount of points, so they basically CHEAT the system, making their deck look weaker, but it really performs much better. That said, every system is inherently flawed in that aspect.
I agree with this. I think in a perfect world, players can compare point totals and can share a balanced play experience. But the reality is that there are plenty of variables, outside the quality of the cards themselves, that affect a person's deck. Synergies create a dynamic point system which defeats the purpose of ranking your deck. If you're playing a labman/oracle strategy, there are plenty of ways to do it without needing the one sequence of cards that everyone would consider a 10. That means that this puts the burden back on the player to be honest about the deck they intend to play with the group. And if we use WoTC's proposed bracket system. Me adding fast mana, and nice lands qualifies my deck as a bracket 4, when really, I just wanna play my Progenitus before I die to an Anowon Lil Weenies Mill deck. The perfect system is for people to experience bad games in commander and understanding that sometimes it's just gonna be shit for you. Also be honest about the type of experience you're looking for.
I find the biggest problem being ignored is when that oppressively powerful card is sitting in the command zone. For the bracket system to function higher power commanders have to be bracketed. Same for any point system. However, this significantly restricts playing them in the deck list.
This seems like the best of both worlds in terms of solutions. Only drawback, as you mentioned, is the amount of work that'd have to be put into rating and calculating the point costs of decks and cards. But once you pass that initial hurdle, it seems like it'd be an evergreen system for managing deck power. Hope WotC adopts something along these lines. Maybe the bracket system could have a rule that decks can run "x" cards above their tier, and the number would be influenced by the difference between tiers?
That's an amazing system. That's what I was waiting for the WotC to make. Thank you, Prof, I hope the WotC will hear you and do something close to that system or even will do that exact one.
I really like this idea. It makes deck rating more specific and universal, and it is so much quicker to say "my deck has x points" than to get into the intricacies of mana base and combo potential. I honestly don't think context dependent points would be too confusing, either; loads of people use online deckbuilders or at least card catalogues that would make looking up card values pretty easy.
Great video. It's clear you put thought into the system, and how to communicate it. I'm not sure if it's perfect, but I think it's good enough to test/open up to wider workshopping.
This is a really good idea and something that's a lot more feasible now than it would have been when Commander started. Since everyone has a smart phone these days, someone could just make an app that records your deck's power level, making it child's play to know it.
I love this idea, Prof, implementing a points system in this way would 1) help to create a common language with which players can communicate more clearly, and 2) allow players to unashamedly play their favorite cards (which is nice since many of our favorite cards aren’t cheap).
I honestly think a weighted average and weighted point system would be nice together, though it may complicate things a bit. Each card would have its power level and an associated weight that shows how influencial (for lack of a better word) the card can be on the game/deck building as a whole. Then, during pregame when discussing deck powers, you could give the weighted average to give an idea for how strong the deck is and also give the total points to show how influential the cards are. Basic lands would have a weight of zero, not affecting the average but will reflect in the point total (meaning decks with many basic lands will tend to have lower point totals than decks with fewer of the same weighted average). Sol Ring would have a high power but weight of 1 as it is a powerful card but more decks tend to use it than not. And you could give other powerful cards the same power as Sol Ring but also give them a high weight to reflect its high influence. You could even return some banned cards and just give them a high power and ridiculously high weight so that people know what to expect. The only issue I see aside from complexity would be with assigning weights to middle power cards. (Low power cards would have a higher weight depending on how many cards there are that are better than it and how easy they are to replace as they are in many cases not objectively good.) Side note: this could make a new type of deck what has a really low average but a higher than normal (for that power level) total that is just filled with what are objectively some of the worst (or easily replaceable) cards in magic.
I had been thinking much of this myself. I think this is a much more reasonable approach. The tiers and brackets and all of that may be better off as something other than 4, but the approach using points that augment as combos are discovered seems like the right one.
I’ve been talking about a points list for years. This is EXACTLY what the format needs. I just wish the points would be in control of a player-made 3rd party and not a company.
Love this idea! Points seems like a perfect way to get a granular measure of power level, and we already have a basis for the system from Canlander. Plus you don’t have to sort every card into a bracket, just point the strongest cards and call it a day.
I first want to thank you prof for all the content and information. You’ve truly helped me grow as a Magic player over the years. And as you said in your sit down with JLK you are wonderful for creating a larger voice for all of us out here. Since they’ve first announced this potential new system I thought that having a total number of points being your power level indicator would be better than having a card or two determine your whole deck. I think this would be an easy enough and potentially less confusing system to try to communicate with others. It also opens up the door for groups or events to set a limit for certain games. I do however have a problem with the conditional points. While I know that a lot of people are on all the apps and websites it may not include everyone, especially the newer players out there, who I feel this whole initiative was pointed at in the first place. By saying that this card is X points but then when it’s combined with another card it’s actually Y points opens up the door for a lot of misunderstanding, confusion and potentially hurt feelings in case someone were to miss this when putting their deck together.
The first time I was introduced to a point system in a card game was the netrunner reboot. To explain it simply, different colored decks in netrunner could have a limited number of cards outside their colors, restricted by how many points those cards were worth. It was an interesting mechanic. If there was a place I could drop my deck into and it would just give me a score I'd absolutely reference it. Even if it can't account for the small cards and how your deck works beyond the good stuff and staples, it could still be a useful metric. It could also encourage people to build more uniquely to avoid being marked as a high powered deck. I could see that being a single edged sword, but it would be interesting to see play out.
This almost exactly the system that was floated as an idea when discussing with some of my game designer friends what they thought a good new ranking system for decks would be. While you could still certainly end up with some weird edge cases, but it would likely stick to illustrating the power curve pretty accurately.
I think this is an interesting approach, I've always wondered how a point system could clarify levels. I also like the idea of contextual considerations to points.
I want to say something fun or interesting about the idea, but I'm just enthralled by the suit combo today. Just pitch perfect, love the crushed brown on green and red.
I gotta say prof, i really like your proposition for a points system. I also like the idea of it being more of a guideline rather than a set of hard and fast rules because it'd be really difficult for new people to get into the game if a hard and fast rules system for power levels was the first thing they're faced with. First and foremost, commander is a social format and it should remain as such i think. Its all about that ever important pre-game conversation where it's established who wants to play what in terms of the kind of game they're looking for. It also gets around the problem of people simply lying about their deck's power level. I like this new system, it seems intricate yet it preserves the fun social side of commander so I'm all for it.
I do like this better than the proposed tier list. Love the fundamental of "descriptive not restrictive" which 100% needs to be the core any solution. However, there is a severe under appreciation for how complex and deep the commander format is in particular. There is a reason the MIT Institute back in 2019 called MTG the most complex game in the world with Commander being by far the most complex format. And that was when we had "only" 20K unique cards and FAR fewer commander options. I'm sure a statistician could come up with a number that few would even be able to conceptualize to illustrate how hard it's going to be to quantify a single deck's power level relative to all other possible decks. But I'd venture to say it is more like that everyone commenting on this video is going to be struck by lightning this coming Friday than to accurately achieve such a rating. And that is only considering getting this up and going for how things are now. Each new set brings more than new cards. It also brings new connections and interactions between cards adding exponentially more complexity to work through. It isn't cumulative upkeep, it is exponential upkeep. I am not to saying there aren't solutions to this challenge however. I am a CPA and live in two different worlds that govern my work. Tax Code and US GAAP. The Tax code is an attempt to quantify a complex system and is famously difficult understand. There are exceptions on exception on loop holes on loop holes and no single person on this planet knows them all. On the other hand US GAAP's approach to a complex system is to allow for the depth and complexity and fill in the gaps with human judgement. This has its own challenges of course, as human judgement is only as good as the humans applying it. But from a resource perspective, this is far more feasible as our human minds are still our best tool to make decisions related to complex systems (though AI is making real in roads there now). I have confidence this judgement approach works well because this is what we do at my LGS in Reno, NV for Commander that I help run. It is a group of 125+ players that we apply a judgement criteria to decks power level by setting out a few broad structures (i.e. no infinite combos or no more than 1 extra turn in a game) and fill in the rest with human judgement during Rule 0 by asking questions covering fundamental elements that make decks overtly strong or not (i.e. # of tutors, # of fast mana cards, how much interaction, how many free spells, etc..). Players can lie of course, but eventually the game is played and if they lied it'll be shown. If the lying persists, someone from leadership will talk with them. If it continues to persist still they will eventually be asked to leave for a lengthy but not permanent amount of time. This does take considerable effort to get this going for the community. But once the culture is attuned to this approach and new players are up to speed, it is easier to maintain and is very flexible to adapt to whatever Hasbro has WotC do to Commander. While the above is the basic fundamentals of how we accomplished balanced game play for Commander, there is a lot more to this system we have for our LGS. We have spent years fine tuning this with the help of a lot of brilliant people. If ever asked, we'd be thrilled to share what we have built as we feel it is a solution to this nagging issue with Commander and aligns heavily with Sheldon's vision to this great game.
I've been thinking about something like this ever since they announced the brackets system. Making deck tiers equal to the highest point card in the deck barely communicates anything about the actual power level. But *totaling* the points of an entire deck gets so much closer. Bonus points for perfectly describing a tier my decks fit in. I never have any idea where my decks fit, but they're all built in the spitting image of that Tier 3 you described so I'm running with that. Heavy synergy, generic good stuff and pet cards excluded, and Tawnos can have a Mox Opal as a treat. XD
Everytime the professor makes a video about his ideas of something magic, I can only remember the meme of the guy giving a good idea for his boss and the boss throwing him out of the window.
I have similar ideas, mainly it's best kept at broad strokes with a 1-4 point system with every card, possibly excluding basics, at least a 1 and you count the total number to get a power level. I like the mantra of descriptive, not restrictive a lot.
I see the bracket system more as a conversation starter than a "grading" system. That's why it also makes sense to let one card determine your bracket, since that forces you to call them out. Also it seems to be easy and simple.
Wow professor.. That's a very good idea. I really enjoy the way canlander implements the point system, but your idea is pretty good. In addition combos could also receive points and it's pretty easy to find which are the most common with help of tools like edhrec.
I like everything said here. I also like the idea of just saying “this is a 20 point game” and everyone’s deck has to be 20 points or less. Then there aren’t tiers and each pod agrees on what the point limit for the match should be. You could have everything from 10 to 1000 point pods. I really like profs idea of flexible point values if the combo is in the deck or not. Really adds some flexibility to deck building.
Great video prof, and as others have also said in the comments, I too have been thinking about a very similar system for Commander deck ranking. It makes great sense and should be easy to implement with the assistance of a free app (e.g. Moxfield type) which can not only calculate your deck ranking, but potentially assist with the adjustment or balancing of card ranking if game results are submitted to a database. LGS commander tier tournaments sound like a fun step into the future of the game, also encouraging an additional, creative level to deck building. Bravo!
02:20 Gavin already talked about a Canadian Highlander-like Point System during their 1st October WeeklyMTG stream (29 minutes in). His arguments against it were: - points don't give any direction for the play experience, since every deck can still have any card in it - a point system encourages min-maxing all your decks, making EDH more competitively oriented than intended
I’m all for the point system and think this is probably the best version of it. I have been playing magic for 12+ yrs and have a fair collection of cards with some but not all powerful cards in my decks. I’ve been building and playing commander for around 10 years and while I do slot some powerful cards in I’m definitely not at cedh level. I think this point system defines the power level of a deck best as the total tally of powerful cards determines which bracket a deck is. Thanks Professor, I have been asking the question if a point system would work and you have described it very well.
Yeah. This is the best idea. Anyone that's worried on the "stress" of tracking, I imagine if this became our normal approach the apps we use (ManaBox, Moxfield, etc.) would keep track of this in the info tabs of the decks. It for sure is the best way to have a turn 0 without slamming my head on the table.
This is awesome. I love this. My daughter and I play commander at our LGS every Friday. I have a huge problem guaging power level. One week my Baylen deck takes out the table the next I forget to put black in Isshen. The point system would laser focus power levels. That would be awesome!
I really love this idea! In my opinion they could completely do away with the ban list except for the obvious stuff like anti cards. This could also make for fun deck building challenges like trying to build a good deck with zero points.
Your video brings up an excellent point about how evaluating deck power level is not the same as evaluating card power level. Cards exist on more of a spectrum of power level than decks do. In my opinion I think having less power levels for decks than individual cards is a good start for a solution to making rule 0 more streamline. However, I think that an unrestricted points system in a 100-card singleton format as described in your video doesn't FULLY describe how dense a deck is with power. For example, a deck with thoracle combo and 96 other cards that are 0 points will not be able to hang with most other decks that are 30 points (using the values you used in your video). If we describe a deck using a fraction of the total points within our deck over the total number of cards that have point values it can better describe the density of powerful cards within the deck. This is important because MANY jank or less powerful strategies rely on strong staples to lift up their deck to make it feel playable to that player. Just describing that deck using points will push it into a higher tier than it probably plays. This way might be more complicated but I think it better describes a deck than just a point system. Using my method players at the table know what your chances of drawing a powerful/signpost card are, and the average strength of that card. This would require more integration with deckbuilding sites so it's easy for players to have access to the correct numbers for their deck, but I think this method could be a more transparent way to describe a deck than JUST a bracket or point system. This way wizards and the team that builds precons can still put powerful cards like sol ring, mizzix's mastery, and jeska's will into precons without changing the power level significantly. Precons are strong these days and I don't think they are necessarily the bottom of the power level scale anymore. In conclusion prof, this was a great video and im very happy to see that you are trying to contribute to the conversation in a positive way.
Personally I love this idea! I think it opens up fantastic ways of discussing power levels, my playgroup tends to play precons/upgraded cons and instead of just saying oh I added $40 to my deck so now it'll play like a $100 deck..we could say, mine went from a 35 out of the box, to a to a 50! It might not be perfect as you mentioned, but I think if we (you) put some more thoughts out there, I would be more than happy to include this in our pod's discussions!
I think this is a great idea and could be easily implemented by sites like moxfield etc. It could be a bit tough for folks who just build offline but I think in general this approach makes more sense than no system at all or a janky 4 tier system where one card can bump your deck up a rank. Great idea, Prof!
I think this is an excellent suggestion. While I also liked the Canadian Highlander points system, removing the cap to just assign a value to your deck is really uplifting that concept and makes it a better fir for Commander. I very much prefer the suggestion to brackets.
This point system is exactly what i comment on one of your videos discussing the ban list Like i said in that video and app or page to put your deck and summs the points considering if some cards combo it goes up it would be helpful
I agree and like this idea. The big thing i would like the system to get away from, is the idea of one card instantly throwing your power level up higher, when the remainder of your deck is low power. The deck power level should account for all the cards and allow decks with certain cards get a slight bump, but not instantly tossed into higher brackets. Like mentioned in the video, with the tomb-theme example.
I think a points system is a great place to start. It has a lot of advantages over a banned list-only system. Changing the point value of a card is much less devastating than banning it outright, and adjusting points can be done much more regularly and without the other baggage that comes with bans like making a precon illegal. I don't think you even need to worry as much about combos or cards that are especially powerful in a certain situation. A deck that's all 0s but has Thassa's Oracle and Demonic Consultation as its only points is not going to consistently pull off or accelerate that combo. Someone looking to exploit that sort of thing is going to have other cards that probably would be pointed like tutors and fast mana. If decks still feel out of line the points can continue to be pushed upward. Thank you for the video!
As a warhammer 40k player who's used to a point system I like this. People would get used to keeping track of their points pretty quickly. I like that it's not restrictive. It's definitely a better way than "Oh I think this deck is a 7".
I think the bracket system meshed with the command zone power level system makes the most sense to me, so there's ways to help reduce easy power spikes in decks so the power level feels more accurate as a representation. I had a gandalf the grey brew that i never wanted to put together because it was either winning in 4 turns or spinning wheels for 10+ turns in testing, which means it would have power spikes where it wasn't suitable for a 6 level table, but inconsistencies that made it outclassed in a pod of 8s. I think there's a world where the bracket system helps check those kinds of variances within a deck itself
from "my deck is a 7" to "my deck is a 3" I jest, this system is very appealing! I'm cautiously optimistic for the brackets system, as I feel it may hit the right balance between regulation and rule 0, but this is almost exactly what I'd be looking for outside of a trusted playgroup
Good thoughts! As an engineer and sub-par deck brewer, I shudder at the thought of how much time bookkeeping and calculating the summation of each deck will take. My decks change fairly frequently and my response to power level would reduce to a simple shrug in your proposed case. I believe a performance based power level would be more helpful (win:loss ratio), where precon is = 75%. My proposed idea would have issues with relativity, but that could be ironed out.
An addition that could be done, is cumulative points if you lean into something that is inherently strong. Examples could be adding extra tutors for consistency, having more ways to combo out etc.
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I still suspect that wizards of the Coast intention is to officially sell CDH precons. And that's why they want to get a handle on it. This well, Commander in general. Because, it seems to run rampant a lot lately. And it would be nice if they found a way to financially streamline CDH for the purposes of new players who actually want to get into it you know? And yes, I know that's got to be a challenge, considering the usual stuff that is implied in CDH. When at any cost, etc.
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@@markusreed5447 Im in Ireland the Cubeamajig is €37.95, shipping is €42.95.
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Wow, I actually just discussed this idea with folks at my LGS last night. Mostly in jest, but the prevailing thought was that it puts a lot of onus on the players to keep track of the point values of their deck, during and after construction. If the format managers changes point values frequently, it could be frustrating.
Still a better system than "everything is a 7", though.
The points system would be built into Moxfield and Archidekt in no time.
@pjg5102 Probably, but for those who don't use them or faithfully update their decklists it could still be an issue.
This isn't going to matter to most people though, it is for the more enfranchised.
Random people looking for a game won't need to know their point totals all the time, the main point is going to be having the pregame conversation.
"Hey, can I join your table?"
"Sure, got any particular point total in mind?"
"What are points?"
"Okay, well do you want a quick game or a longer game? Are you trying to do something cool?"
As with all things, COMMUNICATION is the key. Liars get a one and done and if they win first, just do as Sheldon would and continue the game with the rest of the table.
It would be a small adjustment and just become the norm. Once your deck is entered, the system could tell you what the point total is without further tracking.
Any point system won't work since every deck will be a 7 since that is what players say there deck is because they are lazy. This will push people out of playing the game. Casual commander needs the least amount of feedback.
This feels like a solid structure. The depth and breadth of this system is impressive and descriptive. Damn well done Prof.
unban golos.
We also need to look at the pitfalls. With a range of 1-10 of possible points per card, it's harder to sum up the values in your head (too many cards and too many possible points). For online lists, this is easy. Decklist apps can calculate this no problem.
It becomes harder for people who don't keep online lists or don't pay attention to banlists.
The above are also true for the bracket system. For both, it'll come down to how many cards people need to pay attention to.
In general, the fewer "things" people need to keep in mind, the more receptive they will be of said system.
We also have to remember that Commander is a social game and it's really easy to have feel bads even when everyone in the pod adheres to the max point games. Let's say the pod only wants a 20 pointed game. If the sum of Thassa's Oracle and Demonic Consultation is 20, then all cards in the deck can be unpointed and this deck would be valid for a 20 pointed game. This is a cEDH combo and some people really don't like losing to it. Even if it happens in 1 game out of 50.
Also keep in mind, Thoracle alone doesn't win you a game. There's no need to point Thoracle but Thoracle with Demonic Consultation is strong.
The point system works for Canlander b/c it's a 1v1 so the game dynamics are different. Canlander can get away with not pointing lots of cards. Not sure the same can be said about EDH.
Just my two cents.
BOOOOOOOO
I love a point system but I would go further in fact. For me a 0 point shouldn't be the default for most cards. 0 should be reserved for basic lands and very bad cards so that a 0 point deck would be really rubish. Of course the scale would have to be wider which I think is more representative of the power level differences between cards (maybe 0-20). But yeah, I'm just a morron that doesn't know nothing about game design but the idea of playing 0 point decks in this system sounds super fun.
If the WOTC ranking system doesnt seem to hold, my group will use this version of a system. The Collegiate Commander Ranking System or maybe we will call it Brians Law lolol.
One of the few people talking within a controversial time for the game that is very easy and respectful to watch. Thank you for being so thoughtful
As a person who struggles with ambiguity, I love it. The open-ended, “descriptive” nature of this solution still allows for friends to just play how they want.
but if you play with friends, can't you just play like you want anyway? it's not like if you pull out a dockside or jeweled lotus ind a friendly match that wizard sends the pinkerton's to break your kneecaps or something.
@@garaktartv3647 True. It’s also nice to have some understanding about how long or short the game might be. Finding a way to balance with friends is useful for me
@garaktartv3647 I think the issue is some people (mostly older mtg players, those accustomed to various formats) prefer to have predefined parameters within which to brew and not win by simply playing better cards than their opponents. Yes we can play how we want, but I want a ceiling for how hard I can maximize my potential, and not wind up playing against two of my friends who are playing precons. With this point system, I can point to a tier and say, "OK you chose to play in here, so if I stomp this game, I simply outplayed my opponents- no ambiguity involved. They disagree? Ok, let me play my deck that has less consistency due to less total points of card power level. This really boils down to a different type of player mindset- the new age commander player who just wants to have fun with his friends, and the OG player who just wants to have fun with his friends but also win at all costs. MTG started out as a competitive staredown 1v1 game after all. The point system is a fantastic approach to giving concrete parameters by which to players can confidently compete with any nuance.
The only problem I see with a system like this is that it requires a lot more work/upkeep from the player, which might be overwhelming for the more casual ones.
Brackets look like they will be more restrictive, yes, but a pregame conversation that goes "Hey, I have a couple of bracket 4 cards in here, but really this is a bracket 2 power level" seems easier to me than what a full point system would
I think a hybrid system might actually be the solution then. A simple bracket system for fast and casual, then a detailed point based system for those deeper into the game.
Maybe we even just let wizards do the bracket system and have a point system curated by the community. That would help draw the line between the simple and complex ways of playing the game, and I don't think the distinction would cause too much confusion.
Say, this sort of time-intensive, passion-based, and constantly-changing systems seems like the sort of thing we’d want a “rules committee” to be managing.
Shame we don’t have one of those.
I think for most casual players or even new players, it'll always be a learning curve no matter where they play. For example, when I first started, I didn't understand the inherent power of tutoring for ANY card in my deck until a player groaned at the table when I Vamp Tutored. They assumed I was grabbing a combo piece or something.
Exactly. We dont even know what the bracket system will look like yet since we only saw an alpha mockup... people arent even giving it a chance. Iterations after we get it is the way forward not proposing tedious points systems or whatever else.
@@funforger This is true, but we can still somewhat control how steep the curve is. Commander is already deceptively hard to get into, like in your example, so I'd avoid a system that makes it even harder
11:28 I would prefer if precons weren't at the lowest tier, because that would limit the types of reprints we would get in those decks. Maybe 1 is the "jank" tier, so precons fall into different tiers depending on their reprints 🤔
I don't know...
They already said they never plan on putting cards in bracket 4 into precons, meaning that some cards will never be put into them, like demonic or vampiric tutor.
Point being: Some cards will never be printed in pre-cons, and wizards basically said that up front.
I feel like 0-10 point decks are jank decks in the system, and like prof said, it would take time to figure out what is or isn't pointed in the first place.
Definitely. One thing that's bothered me for a while when people talk about precons in discussions like these is that people tend to default assume they're the lowest power decks and all about the same power level, when neither is very accurate. Even within the same set, precons can vary in power level, and especially if you look at older precons compared to modern ones, there can a huge difference. Some precons may be poorly built enough to warrant being in the lowest tier alongside janky theme decks, but many of them are strong enough to be in tier 2 or even 3 (looking at you, Stella Lee).
@@universebofficialchannelThey already printed at least two precons with a bracket 4 card, since Jeska's Will was in the Baldurs Gate exile precon and in the Karlov Manor boros goad deck.
Same is true for bracket 3 with Akroma's Will in the dino precon.
no it only limits the number of them. if precon is sub 25, depending on what other cards are in the deck you could get a vamp tutor, the one ring, and a 5 point card packed in. that would never happen but it shows that they have flexibility even in precons.
@@jojobetzler3732Ah, but that was before they had full true control of the format. However...those cards can literally sell the pre-cons so I guess we'll see in the next set (that has pre-cons)
It’s always a good day when the professor uploads
Daaaaaaw. Thanks.
On my birthday, no less!
@@TolarianCommunityCollege Now don't get a big head... That would make putting shirts on more difficult.
Not those snazzy button ups haha
I told my local group about this exact system, they told me i was out of my mind and nobody would waste the time to rate every magic card.
Most cards would automatically be a 1 which would cut curating down significantky but it would leave likely thousands of cards left to rank
Your local group is correct.
If it's implemented in an app like manabox your camera can recognize the cards, add them to the deck, and give you the score in less than couple of minutes
"rate every magic card"
They say this as if 85% of the cards in this game haven't been power crept to uselessness or, at best, a niche use in certain edge case decks.
Most cards in Canadian highlander is assigned no points.
I really hope this video gets to Gavin or someone at Wizards.
This is much better than the bracket system and more representative of a deck's power level.
Thanks Prof !!!
Once again prof coming in with a well thought out and explained solution. I love the descriptive not restrictive is very important to get across your version presented is simple enough to be easy to use but granular enough to be extremely helpful
It's funny cause before the ban announcement I was trying to put together a point system like this to mention to my playgroup to help experiment with decks building.
It'd be neat to see the community talk about this idea more and independently try it out imo
The day of the takeover announcement I had several thoughts about a points system. No clue about the one Canlander uses, but I figure it doesn't even have to be that complex. Treat it more like war games, where your table agrees on a point total.
That works for wargames, but has yet to work for any TCG. Several companies have tried, and failed to gain a playerbase.
Austin Powers, Sailor Moon, Naruto and Hyperion are quick failed TCGs that utilized point systems in their deck construction rules.
@nobodyshome6792 Yeah, I never landed on a satisfactory way of keeping track. I play HeroClix, and with those, the values are on the table. As we would say, "reading the dial explains the dial", but there's not a good way to, at a glance, ensure your deck isn't lying about its point total. At least without turning every home table and LGS game night into Pro Tour Registration.
Should be more of a point spread like prof said. A 42 point deck and a 39 point deck are probably going to play well against each other. A 42 point deck versus a 95 point deck probably won’t be that fun for the 42 point deck person. Points don’t have to be even or bracketed even with a point system. It also allows tourneys to work for cEDH. For example, the tournament point limit is 70 so everyone knows what the power level is. You probably don’t want to go to that tourney with your 33 point deck.
@@trident042 HeroClix is still going ? Holy hell...
I earned every LE from release until 2004. Had every Tournament Gift piece as well. It wasn't really my thing though, my friends and roommates loved it. All of that was stolen by those very roommates but that is neither here nor there.
HeroClix, like those wargames you mentioned, all have easily verifiable points. And those points are pretty much Static and do not change.
I entirely forgot about HeroClix. Wasn't particularly my thing, but I did play and became a judge for it. (I was also a judge and pro-level player for Magic along with being in the Guru program, a Professor and Judge for the Pokemon TCG and a Judge for thr DragonballZ TCG).
Granted I did enjoy the other version of HeroClix, with the Steampunk/Magic/Fabtasy genre. (Forgot the name of it....)
@@nobodyshome6792I can’t believe there was an Austin Powers TCG, that’s amazing
EDHRec already does something incredibly similar to a point system with their Salt Scores. The community votes on cards, and decks are assigned a Salt Sum in the Archidekt deck building website using the Salt Scores of every card in the deck. Unfortunately Salt Score only integrates with Archidekt right now, but EDHRec is already perfectly positioned to do something like this. It would take some tweaking but it could work.
Does the Salt score treat combo cards as greater than the individual cards?
The problem with salt score is that it treats cards based on perceived power rather than actual power. Any point system based on feelings is already bad. People vote for cards that are salty based on the emotions they felt when it was played into, not how much impact it actually had on the game. Points need to be more objective than that. I do think salt score should be considered in the overall rating for sure, but it should be one of many metrics, not just the sole metric. If we use salt score as the sole metric, you'd never be able to build a non cEDH mill deck despite mill actually being a pretty bad strategy in a 4 player format.
@@patrickcamus2842 Depends entirely on the feelings of the voters, I think historically combo pieces do genereally get a higher salt score than similar cards that arent part of a combo. It also depends on how easy the combo is to pull off, eg thassas oracle =2.82 whereas pestermite = 0.5
Salt and power are not always the same. Some cards are salty because they basically make one player a spectator without hindering the other opponents. Others just make the game drag out unnecessarily, or prevent opponents from doing their thing without actually winning the game. Someone might be salty if you’re playing a deck with 1000s of dollars worth of expensive old/rare/special edition cards, even if the deck isn’t that strong. Some cards are very powerful, but not very salty.
But on the other hand, I think I’d rather play against a high-powered low-salt deck than a high-salt low-powered deck, so maybe a salt scale would be a better solution.
I love your videos. I respect the way you speak to your audience. Too many content creators speak as though they have all the answers and their opinions outway others. You present your opinions in a more open form, allowing for the discussion and inclusion of other people's views.
I mentioned this exact idea to a friend two days ago.
NBDH: No Big Deal Highlander
I love when The Professor does these styles of videos. They're so well explained and thought out, and clearly leave room on the table for discussion, which is highly encouraged.
Shuffle Up and Play is fun and all, but I think videos like these are where The Professor is at his best
Hopefully this doesn’t mean "we dont print bracket 3-4 cards in Precons".
Don't worry, the next Trouble in Pairs and Dockside Extorsionist will be on bracket 1 (even tho they should be on 3-4) because they came in a precon.
It'd be too late for that anyways, they have Sol Ring in every existing precon already!
Don't worry, WotC didn't stop liking money. They will print bracket 4 worthy cards in precons, and call them bracket 1 until the warehouse is clear of them.
Considering most of the cards that would get points wouldn't be reprinted in a precon, there is no issue in printing a new top bracket in a precon. The whole "this one card will put your deck in a certain bracket regardless of the other cards" will never work, they'll see it soon enough and trash the idea, otherwise 80% of decks will be in the top tier and have wildly different power levels.
Yeah, if they follow the descriptive point system, you could afford to have one top tier card in each precon. The trick is designing the decks with only one...
Having a combo be apart of a group point system makes sense. It’s upfront and gives the other players a heads up there’s an instant win combo, if the deck happens to have one.
Combo doesn't mean an instant win in all cases.
Many combos require late game, tons of pieces assembling and can be disrupted. Timmy's stay belive combo is look I win 😆 😅
Back when I played Yugioh (2003-2011ish), it was very helpful for me to be able to look at the limited/restricted list in order to see cards that were not banned but were powerful enough to be looked out for in the meta and many of those cards were staples that were able to be powerfully incorporated into a wide range of decks. I think a points system like this would similarly be a way to highlight powerful cards to newer players and make them aware of potential staples and meta defining cards and as such I think it is a great idea.
newer to magic here just wanted to thank you for your friendly, clear and concise videos.
14:46 I feel like this is the exact moment this system starts to fall apart. If the point value of a card is dependent on what other cards are in the deck then we've opened up a hole of infinite complexity. I think it might be fine if we point certain A+B combos together (like Thoracle + Tainted Pact is a 10 even if Thoracle is a 2 and Tainted Pact is a 1) but I'm not sure this will get everything and if we're talking about contingent A+B+C+D situations it will devolve into a big mess. I also worry a lot about how easy any system would be to explain to new players. A complicated point cost system feels like the type of thing which can make inexperienced eyes glaze over. If a player buys a precon and sits down to play and gets asked "how many points is your deck?" by people they don't know I can see that not being a great introduction for them. All this having been said, I think this is much better than the tier 1-4 system Wizards mentioned. The very idea that Sol Ring would just be exempted from tiering shows the whole problem with that system. It's gonna be so arbitrary and not serve the majority of Commander players, pretty much no matter what the tiers end up being. We should be mining in this direction.
I think that's when we go "okay. Thoracle is a game winning combo card." And as a result, its a 7 point card. It's not a new card so players would be going out of their way to play it. The big thing here is balancing the card with the combo enablers like consultation
@@ItsDKoda Yes, that probably does work for Thoracle, but not for Curiosity, as Prof mentioned. At some point you have to draw a line between busted combo card and card people might reasonably play in a deck where it doesn't go infinite. How do you point Pili-Pala? Ephemerate is in some infinite combos. What about Manifold Key? It's hard to find one complete answer to every card in Commander. I guess part of the issue is that even if we're pointing a fraction of the cards in the format, it's probably a point value on several hundred cards.
conditional point values are a terrible idea for this.
having 2-card combos that are worth more points is pretty easy to handle if the points system is built into online deck tools; most people who are likely to know and care about a points system are also enfranchised enough that they're likely already using a site like Archidekt to manage their deck lists, which could easily implement a system that lets you know what tier your deck is in.
@@vincenturquhart1370 The issue is that power level is conditional. Sanguine Bond is a slow card that does nothing by itself and is too slow for many CEDH pods, but it has an enormous amount of infinite combos and value added synergies that can be packaged with it. So, what is the power level of the card? Well, its conditional.
I’m impressed with Prof’s proposal, and I can see how it would absolutely resolve a number of the existing issues with rule 0 conversations, etc. It would be an enormous amount of work to prototype and test, but there are existing sites that document combos, and deck building sites that can help with the calculations.
My initial thoughts are: yes, but it would take a lot of work. Unless you have a dedicated team going through old cards and every new card released to assign a number value to it, with possible number changes based on community feedback, it would prove to be next to worthless.
Not to mention the constant re-evaluation that would need to take place for so many old cards with each new release
I mean you would probably only care for known 'powerful' cards. As for the new ones, they already do this for Arena, so besides the initial effort this shouldn't be hard to maintain at all.
The line between 3 and 4 appears a bit blurred, but I really like the clarity you're providing to the conversations before a game. Thank you for the help!!
This is by far the BEST idea I have heard. It would guarantee that you are playing in a pod with similar decks. I hope this idea gains traction. Thanks Prof.
Doesnt Arena use a points system for matchmaking under the hood already? They just havent chosen to be transparent with that system. Would be easy enough to just take that system public and implement a new ranking specific to commander format.
It's been reverse engineered, not sure about the newest sets but we know the value of each card from MKM and before
Haven't played in a while, but I think they go by rank first and win-percentage second.
They do, and in the stream about the bracket system they revealed that Brawl brackets decks into four tiers (based on the points) already.
Now, does a strict points-based system work? Based on the big difference in power level I see (and that's ignoring minmaxing attempts, because minmaxing will always exist with any system), I doubt it...
You have to reevaluate cards for a four player game, but that would be a decent starting point
I love this idea but one thing I didn't see addressed that I feel the bracket system solves is that the point system isn't nearly as verifiable, and is a lot easier to misrepresent.
Let's take the Ancient Tomb example with a player that's intentionally misrepresenting their deck's level:
Descriptive Points:
A player says that their deck is less than a 20 because it has Ancient Tomb at a 7 and a few other high-cost cards, however they actually stuff in several 4-5 point cards to make it closer to a 50 but they only draw a couple each game so it's not obvious that they're misrepresenting their power level. No-one can really verify during the game that the player's deck actually is around 20 unless they start counting the points manually, so the player gets away with it.
Bracket:
A player says that their deck is a bracket 4 with Ancient Tomb but otherwise is a 2. Then later on whenever they play a different card that's bracket 3 or 4 the other players can bring it up and ask them about it, and can figure out the player is intentionally mispresenting their deck's level.
This is really the only thing I see negative about the descriptive points system, everything else I absolutely love.
This is a very eliquent way of explaining the obvious pitfall as i see it. With friends none of this tier/points/rule zero matters. This is being implemented because commander is basically the only format you can play with strangers at the LGS, needs to be simple and easy to enforce.
I get that but I also think that if someone wants to hide their sol ring up their sleeve before starting a casual commander game, I'm probably not going to be policing them closely enough to notice. I would rather have a better deckbuilding experience than worry about one more way someone might cheat at a low stakes game.
IDK maybe other tables are more ready to deal with cheaters than mine.
I think a point system is a good start, but is going to run into one significant problem, the same problem you'll always run into:
How accurate is it going to be? Some people are going to optimize the hell out of it, others are going to run a pile of cards that, while it works together, is not optimized. Some people are going to fly specifically under the radar to ruin peoples times.
Also, Jank decks are going to feel... So much harder to actually assign power levels to. As someone who likes brewing absolute jank in the worst possible way, I feel like this would make it much harder to sit down. Then again... Its already hard so this might be a more equitable approach since there's a lot more room for discussion.
It seems like if you're discussing your points, specifying "this is a pile of cards worth 60 points" would still give a good idea of what you're working with. In contrast to "I have put time into optimizing this 60".
I'll absolutely look at those two point totals differently, but I'd still think the "pile" of cards can have some good hits.
It's to be expected that someone will optimize or exploit any system created. The solution is just to not play with that person. It's a lesson we learn as children. If you want people to play games with you, you better not be a dick while playing
Putting this out there for everyone: You are under zero obligation to 1) continue a game against a troll, or 2) play with them again in the future. You can scoop and find another table or you get the other two players to give the troll the win and continue to play for "second" place.
As for Jank decks, most of them should be 0-10 points, I'd imagine. Set your table's Point Limit low and jank eachother off!
An optimized deck with 49 points is going to be less oppressive than an optimized deck with no restrictions. I think we just need a simple system that narrows the gap some.
Prof. Always great philosophies on mtg. So often you voice my exact thoughts into the world were people that might be able to do something about it can hear them. Thanks for your work!
No-cap points limit is VERY cool. Different points in different categories is also interesting! Card advantage, acceleration, and some other categories having points in their own areas is a really granular way to define deck power on the same page as everyone else too
I feel like everyone is going to treat this bracket system like a ban list.
yeah, pretty much.
it pretty much is though.
Maybe if people don't have any experience with real banlists in card games.
probably not lol 😂.
@@keldone3186 I've already heard it happen
I play mid level casual, and the cedh table needed a 4th, so, we played decks down at my level. Then I had to go roll for a DnD one shot coming up and told them "thanks. Yall can do your thing now." (I know all these guys. None of us are randoms) they were deciding what to play and a guy mentioned the one ring. We started joking about tiers. Then talking about how they couldn't even sit at a table I'd be at. if we went with tiers, even with their "mid decks," they would never be allowed to play with me.
We play all the time. On dnd night, they're one of 2 tables. And I'm at dnd for my kid every week. The way it is now, we decide if we want to play with each other. Our decks don't.
While I find it very interesting to find more ways to standardize a power level system is that there are way, way, WAY too have variables. Single cards having a certain value to them doesn't work across the board, as many become much more powerful when combined with other cards of lower power as well. There's no real way to account for every combination possible and really this would break down to signing a standard value to rocks and lands, since they are the most universally utilitarian.
The BIGGEST variable that can't be accounted for, even though this tries to, is emotional. Players are simply unable to be reasoned with when it comes to deck power. I entered a pod wanting to play 7-8 and I decided to play the Hakbal precon with only one addition, spelunking. I figured there's no way Hakbal is an actual 7, but it's what I wanted to play And I'm okay trying to punch up from time to time.
After a decent start what was by no means insane, one of the players cursed me out, called me slurs and quit aggressively. No amount of explanation or discussion calmed them down.
That is by no means a rare experience and is the same in person or online. There's simply no system that will actually stop people from thinking they're supposed to win and everyone who beats them it's playing an overpowered deck.
The major problem with a Tier/Point system, is that there are a lot of cards that are crap by themselves, but the moment you add in ONE card or combine them with others, they become lethal like Hullbreacher and Wheel effects. They end up doing very nasty things, without the card itself being very good.
Professor did mention changing the point value of a card if a combo piece is in the same deck, but that could become confusing. Hopefully Wizards can think of a solution to that.
It does seem hard to police so many lethal combos/engines with points. Maybe something like a flat "all two card lethal combos" at 10 points each could work. But it's probably just better for play groups to self police this and allow lethal combos or not.
I like the idea, as it also works with balanced play versions of things I've played before. As an example, MvC2 has a tournament style Ratio System which assigns points based on the tier list, and you build a team with a max of 7 points, and it stops you from just using the S-tiers (Roll is -1 for being the worst in the game).
Well thought out. My spouse and I were discussing many of the nuances you brought up including how a card by itself vs with a combo piece or multiple combos changes things. There is also a totally undefinable issue of player skill. My spouse can pilot a LVL 2/3 precon better than many can pilot their LVL 4 decks
Awesome to see this, I've been banging this exact drum for the past couple of weeks. That being said, for this to work, pointing the fewest number of cards possible is crucial to the system's success. Simplicity is key, people need to be able to fully digest this system without a point reference on hand at all times. So that being said, things like the fetchlands really aren't appropriate to point.
I think this would hypothetically work better than the almost Smogon-like system they seem to be suggesting, but it would definitely be a lot of work to get rolling and spinning. Even still, i like the idea, definitely worth trying at a table
@TolarianCommunityCollege Tiers are an unnecessary complication for this proposed 'point levels' method. A simple mention of deck points would immediately inform the table what kind of game is expected (i.e. Let's keep it between 50 and 60, you could even assign tables accordingly).
I also believe 'context related' point scales are too confusing.
A two-card combo should simply have a 20 point tax which would lessen for three-card combos. Anything higher should be considered the will of the gods and not taxed, whereas a combo piece in the CZ should be appropriately taxed. This would negate a need for a list of combos and simply require counting any combo in a deck and assigning the appropriate tax.
I think you overestimate the ability of people notincing how many combos especially in the build process of commander decks that many people run for years, changing one or two cards eveyonce in a while and later figuring out, HEY this addition + this other change i made 8 months ago are actually comboing off together !
@@ammaq I understand your argument. I think you'd have to agree though that there's a difference in thought process when building a jank deck vs a competitive deck. Three counterpoints:
1-it's a casual format
2- if unnoticed it can be reported once realized (see 1)
3- if we specifically put combos in a deck we can count them as well; accidental combos are a thing that can easily be remedied (see 2)
Prof, I love your Commander videos. They really make me want to get back into it!
I kinda like the idea of points now. It feels like the system that WotC kinda wants to implement, but more thought out and not limited just to brackets. Great work prof, this feels like a pretty good start!
Point system basically works for super low end and the super high end.
Yea a cEDH deck might have like 1000 points, as all the cards are a 10.
A precon might have some random amount of points, as some decks have simply better cards then others, even in precons the synergy level is vastly different.
Take an Urza Precon, it has quite a lot of synergy build in, that deck basically starts as a 2 or even a 3, compared to other more janky precons that barely hold above water.
The Eldrazi precon is also quite powerful and does things that most Precons wont compete against.
The cards in between 1 and 10 are the ones that are most fuzzy, as almost any card depends on the synergy in the deck.
A Chrome mox for example is actively BAD for almost any deck if you arent specifically a combo deck that benefits from the speed (as otherwise, you better play any Talisman, as they accelerate you and dont come with an inherent 2for1 disadvantage, which is a horrendous cost for 1 mana).
Reanimate for example is in a lot of precons, but its only really busted if you have something gamebreacking to reanimate and get it fast.
----
The real problem comes with the "synergy" cost changes of cards and taking combos into account that then somehow change the value of a card.
Magic has many combos and you need to be aware of them and rank them, it really doesnt work as nicely in practice.
For a format that is competitive a point system works better, as people actively compete against each other to build the best deck for the points they can use.
In the end, people will still try to build the strongest deck, using the least amount of points, so they basically CHEAT the system, making their deck look weaker, but it really performs much better.
That said, every system is inherently flawed in that aspect.
I agree with this. I think in a perfect world, players can compare point totals and can share a balanced play experience. But the reality is that there are plenty of variables, outside the quality of the cards themselves, that affect a person's deck. Synergies create a dynamic point system which defeats the purpose of ranking your deck. If you're playing a labman/oracle strategy, there are plenty of ways to do it without needing the one sequence of cards that everyone would consider a 10. That means that this puts the burden back on the player to be honest about the deck they intend to play with the group.
And if we use WoTC's proposed bracket system. Me adding fast mana, and nice lands qualifies my deck as a bracket 4, when really, I just wanna play my Progenitus before I die to an Anowon Lil Weenies Mill deck.
The perfect system is for people to experience bad games in commander and understanding that sometimes it's just gonna be shit for you. Also be honest about the type of experience you're looking for.
I find the biggest problem being ignored is when that oppressively powerful card is sitting in the command zone. For the bracket system to function higher power commanders have to be bracketed. Same for any point system. However, this significantly restricts playing them in the deck list.
This seems like the best of both worlds in terms of solutions. Only drawback, as you mentioned, is the amount of work that'd have to be put into rating and calculating the point costs of decks and cards. But once you pass that initial hurdle, it seems like it'd be an evergreen system for managing deck power. Hope WotC adopts something along these lines. Maybe the bracket system could have a rule that decks can run "x" cards above their tier, and the number would be influenced by the difference between tiers?
That's an amazing system. That's what I was waiting for the WotC to make. Thank you, Prof, I hope the WotC will hear you and do something close to that system or even will do that exact one.
I really like this idea. It makes deck rating more specific and universal, and it is so much quicker to say "my deck has x points" than to get into the intricacies of mana base and combo potential. I honestly don't think context dependent points would be too confusing, either; loads of people use online deckbuilders or at least card catalogues that would make looking up card values pretty easy.
You're always so reasonable and fair. It's so rare to see content like this online. You're an inspiration to me
Great video. It's clear you put thought into the system, and how to communicate it. I'm not sure if it's perfect, but I think it's good enough to test/open up to wider workshopping.
This is a really good idea and something that's a lot more feasible now than it would have been when Commander started. Since everyone has a smart phone these days, someone could just make an app that records your deck's power level, making it child's play to know it.
I love this idea, Prof, implementing a points system in this way would 1) help to create a common language with which players can communicate more clearly, and 2) allow players to unashamedly play their favorite cards (which is nice since many of our favorite cards aren’t cheap).
I honestly think a weighted average and weighted point system would be nice together, though it may complicate things a bit.
Each card would have its power level and an associated weight that shows how influencial (for lack of a better word) the card can be on the game/deck building as a whole.
Then, during pregame when discussing deck powers, you could give the weighted average to give an idea for how strong the deck is and also give the total points to show how influential the cards are.
Basic lands would have a weight of zero, not affecting the average but will reflect in the point total (meaning decks with many basic lands will tend to have lower point totals than decks with fewer of the same weighted average). Sol Ring would have a high power but weight of 1 as it is a powerful card but more decks tend to use it than not. And you could give other powerful cards the same power as Sol Ring but also give them a high weight to reflect its high influence. You could even return some banned cards and just give them a high power and ridiculously high weight so that people know what to expect.
The only issue I see aside from complexity would be with assigning weights to middle power cards. (Low power cards would have a higher weight depending on how many cards there are that are better than it and how easy they are to replace as they are in many cases not objectively good.)
Side note: this could make a new type of deck what has a really low average but a higher than normal (for that power level) total that is just filled with what are objectively some of the worst (or easily replaceable) cards in magic.
I had been thinking much of this myself. I think this is a much more reasonable approach. The tiers and brackets and all of that may be better off as something other than 4, but the approach using points that augment as combos are discovered seems like the right one.
I’ve been talking about a points list for years. This is EXACTLY what the format needs. I just wish the points would be in control of a player-made 3rd party and not a company.
Love this idea! Points seems like a perfect way to get a granular measure of power level, and we already have a basis for the system from Canlander. Plus you don’t have to sort every card into a bracket, just point the strongest cards and call it a day.
This may be the first workable idea I've heard about commander level balance since the inception of the format.
👏👏 Round of applause, Professor. Love it. Just gotta hammer out the points themselves and this is just what the doctor ordered.
I first want to thank you prof for all the content and information. You’ve truly helped me grow as a Magic player over the years. And as you said in your sit down with JLK you are wonderful for creating a larger voice for all of us out here. Since they’ve first announced this potential new system I thought that having a total number of points being your power level indicator would be better than having a card or two determine your whole deck. I think this would be an easy enough and potentially less confusing system to try to communicate with others. It also opens up the door for groups or events to set a limit for certain games. I do however have a problem with the conditional points. While I know that a lot of people are on all the apps and websites it may not include everyone, especially the newer players out there, who I feel this whole initiative was pointed at in the first place. By saying that this card is X points but then when it’s combined with another card it’s actually Y points opens up the door for a lot of misunderstanding, confusion and potentially hurt feelings in case someone were to miss this when putting their deck together.
The first time I was introduced to a point system in a card game was the netrunner reboot. To explain it simply, different colored decks in netrunner could have a limited number of cards outside their colors, restricted by how many points those cards were worth. It was an interesting mechanic.
If there was a place I could drop my deck into and it would just give me a score I'd absolutely reference it. Even if it can't account for the small cards and how your deck works beyond the good stuff and staples, it could still be a useful metric. It could also encourage people to build more uniquely to avoid being marked as a high powered deck. I could see that being a single edged sword, but it would be interesting to see play out.
This almost exactly the system that was floated as an idea when discussing with some of my game designer friends what they thought a good new ranking system for decks would be. While you could still certainly end up with some weird edge cases, but it would likely stick to illustrating the power curve pretty accurately.
I think this is an interesting approach, I've always wondered how a point system could clarify levels. I also like the idea of contextual considerations to points.
Assigning cards a point value to determine deck power level seems like the most accurate way to date to have the turn zero conversation.
I want to say something fun or interesting about the idea, but I'm just enthralled by the suit combo today. Just pitch perfect, love the crushed brown on green and red.
I gotta say prof, i really like your proposition for a points system. I also like the idea of it being more of a guideline rather than a set of hard and fast rules because it'd be really difficult for new people to get into the game if a hard and fast rules system for power levels was the first thing they're faced with. First and foremost, commander is a social format and it should remain as such i think. Its all about that ever important pre-game conversation where it's established who wants to play what in terms of the kind of game they're looking for. It also gets around the problem of people simply lying about their deck's power level. I like this new system, it seems intricate yet it preserves the fun social side of commander so I'm all for it.
I do like this better than the proposed tier list. Love the fundamental of "descriptive not restrictive" which 100% needs to be the core any solution. However, there is a severe under appreciation for how complex and deep the commander format is in particular. There is a reason the MIT Institute back in 2019 called MTG the most complex game in the world with Commander being by far the most complex format. And that was when we had "only" 20K unique cards and FAR fewer commander options.
I'm sure a statistician could come up with a number that few would even be able to conceptualize to illustrate how hard it's going to be to quantify a single deck's power level relative to all other possible decks. But I'd venture to say it is more like that everyone commenting on this video is going to be struck by lightning this coming Friday than to accurately achieve such a rating. And that is only considering getting this up and going for how things are now. Each new set brings more than new cards. It also brings new connections and interactions between cards adding exponentially more complexity to work through. It isn't cumulative upkeep, it is exponential upkeep.
I am not to saying there aren't solutions to this challenge however. I am a CPA and live in two different worlds that govern my work. Tax Code and US GAAP. The Tax code is an attempt to quantify a complex system and is famously difficult understand. There are exceptions on exception on loop holes on loop holes and no single person on this planet knows them all. On the other hand US GAAP's approach to a complex system is to allow for the depth and complexity and fill in the gaps with human judgement. This has its own challenges of course, as human judgement is only as good as the humans applying it. But from a resource perspective, this is far more feasible as our human minds are still our best tool to make decisions related to complex systems (though AI is making real in roads there now).
I have confidence this judgement approach works well because this is what we do at my LGS in Reno, NV for Commander that I help run. It is a group of 125+ players that we apply a judgement criteria to decks power level by setting out a few broad structures (i.e. no infinite combos or no more than 1 extra turn in a game) and fill in the rest with human judgement during Rule 0 by asking questions covering fundamental elements that make decks overtly strong or not (i.e. # of tutors, # of fast mana cards, how much interaction, how many free spells, etc..). Players can lie of course, but eventually the game is played and if they lied it'll be shown. If the lying persists, someone from leadership will talk with them. If it continues to persist still they will eventually be asked to leave for a lengthy but not permanent amount of time. This does take considerable effort to get this going for the community. But once the culture is attuned to this approach and new players are up to speed, it is easier to maintain and is very flexible to adapt to whatever Hasbro has WotC do to Commander.
While the above is the basic fundamentals of how we accomplished balanced game play for Commander, there is a lot more to this system we have for our LGS. We have spent years fine tuning this with the help of a lot of brilliant people. If ever asked, we'd be thrilled to share what we have built as we feel it is a solution to this nagging issue with Commander and aligns heavily with Sheldon's vision to this great game.
Solid video. Simple and effective af. Congratz
I've been thinking about something like this ever since they announced the brackets system. Making deck tiers equal to the highest point card in the deck barely communicates anything about the actual power level. But *totaling* the points of an entire deck gets so much closer. Bonus points for perfectly describing a tier my decks fit in. I never have any idea where my decks fit, but they're all built in the spitting image of that Tier 3 you described so I'm running with that. Heavy synergy, generic good stuff and pet cards excluded, and Tawnos can have a Mox Opal as a treat. XD
Everytime the professor makes a video about his ideas of something magic, I can only remember the meme of the guy giving a good idea for his boss and the boss throwing him out of the window.
I have similar ideas, mainly it's best kept at broad strokes with a 1-4 point system with every card, possibly excluding basics, at least a 1 and you count the total number to get a power level. I like the mantra of descriptive, not restrictive a lot.
I see the bracket system more as a conversation starter than a "grading" system. That's why it also makes sense to let one card determine your bracket, since that forces you to call them out. Also it seems to be easy and simple.
Wow professor.. That's a very good idea. I really enjoy the way canlander implements the point system, but your idea is pretty good. In addition combos could also receive points and it's pretty easy to find which are the most common with help of tools like edhrec.
I love this so much! Can you please do Brunch with Gavin and hit him with the " Hey bro, crazy idea.." 😂😂
I like everything said here. I also like the idea of just saying “this is a 20 point game” and everyone’s deck has to be 20 points or less. Then there aren’t tiers and each pod agrees on what the point limit for the match should be. You could have everything from 10 to 1000 point pods. I really like profs idea of flexible point values if the combo is in the deck or not. Really adds some flexibility to deck building.
Great video prof, and as others have also said in the comments, I too have been thinking about a very similar system for Commander deck ranking. It makes great sense and should be easy to implement with the assistance of a free app (e.g. Moxfield type) which can not only calculate your deck ranking, but potentially assist with the adjustment or balancing of card ranking if game results are submitted to a database. LGS commander tier tournaments sound like a fun step into the future of the game, also encouraging an additional, creative level to deck building. Bravo!
I proposed this exact system last week! I love this idea.
02:20 Gavin already talked about a Canadian Highlander-like Point System during their 1st October WeeklyMTG stream (29 minutes in).
His arguments against it were:
- points don't give any direction for the play experience, since every deck can still have any card in it
- a point system encourages min-maxing all your decks, making EDH more competitively oriented than intended
I’m all for the point system and think this is probably the best version of it. I have been playing magic for 12+ yrs and have a fair collection of cards with some but not all powerful cards in my decks. I’ve been building and playing commander for around 10 years and while I do slot some powerful cards in I’m definitely not at cedh level. I think this point system defines the power level of a deck best as the total tally of powerful cards determines which bracket a deck is. Thanks Professor, I have been asking the question if a point system would work and you have described it very well.
Yeah. This is the best idea.
Anyone that's worried on the "stress" of tracking, I imagine if this became our normal approach the apps we use (ManaBox, Moxfield, etc.) would keep track of this in the info tabs of the decks.
It for sure is the best way to have a turn 0 without slamming my head on the table.
Well done.
Extremely well thought out 👏
This is awesome. I love this. My daughter and I play commander at our LGS every Friday. I have a huge problem guaging power level. One week my Baylen deck takes out the table the next I forget to put black in Isshen. The point system would laser focus power levels. That would be awesome!
Wow ! Love this idea !!! There could even be a world where a banlist is unnecessary if those cards are given enough points.
I really love this idea! In my opinion they could completely do away with the ban list except for the obvious stuff like anti cards. This could also make for fun deck building challenges like trying to build a good deck with zero points.
Your video brings up an excellent point about how evaluating deck power level is not the same as evaluating card power level. Cards exist on more of a spectrum of power level than decks do. In my opinion I think having less power levels for decks than individual cards is a good start for a solution to making rule 0 more streamline. However, I think that an unrestricted points system in a 100-card singleton format as described in your video doesn't FULLY describe how dense a deck is with power. For example, a deck with thoracle combo and 96 other cards that are 0 points will not be able to hang with most other decks that are 30 points (using the values you used in your video). If we describe a deck using a fraction of the total points within our deck over the total number of cards that have point values it can better describe the density of powerful cards within the deck. This is important because MANY jank or less powerful strategies rely on strong staples to lift up their deck to make it feel playable to that player. Just describing that deck using points will push it into a higher tier than it probably plays. This way might be more complicated but I think it better describes a deck than just a point system. Using my method players at the table know what your chances of drawing a powerful/signpost card are, and the average strength of that card. This would require more integration with deckbuilding sites so it's easy for players to have access to the correct numbers for their deck, but I think this method could be a more transparent way to describe a deck than JUST a bracket or point system. This way wizards and the team that builds precons can still put powerful cards like sol ring, mizzix's mastery, and jeska's will into precons without changing the power level significantly. Precons are strong these days and I don't think they are necessarily the bottom of the power level scale anymore. In conclusion prof, this was a great video and im very happy to see that you are trying to contribute to the conversation in a positive way.
Personally I love this idea! I think it opens up fantastic ways of discussing power levels, my playgroup tends to play precons/upgraded cons and instead of just saying oh I added $40 to my deck so now it'll play like a $100 deck..we could say, mine went from a 35 out of the box, to a to a 50!
It might not be perfect as you mentioned, but I think if we (you) put some more thoughts out there, I would be more than happy to include this in our pod's discussions!
Love this idea! If we need a “Bracket System”, I think this is the way to go about it!
I think this is a great idea and could be easily implemented by sites like moxfield etc. It could be a bit tough for folks who just build offline but I think in general this approach makes more sense than no system at all or a janky 4 tier system where one card can bump your deck up a rank. Great idea, Prof!
I think this is an excellent suggestion. While I also liked the Canadian Highlander points system, removing the cap to just assign a value to your deck is really uplifting that concept and makes it a better fir for Commander. I very much prefer the suggestion to brackets.
Love everything about this approach
This point system is exactly what i comment on one of your videos discussing the ban list
Like i said in that video and app or page to put your deck and summs the points considering if some cards combo it goes up it would be helpful
The point system is the only way that makes sense. Your examples are good and even reasonable from a point perspective.
I agree and like this idea. The big thing i would like the system to get away from, is the idea of one card instantly throwing your power level up higher, when the remainder of your deck is low power. The deck power level should account for all the cards and allow decks with certain cards get a slight bump, but not instantly tossed into higher brackets. Like mentioned in the video, with the tomb-theme example.
Do you have a list for the system described in this video? Would love to run that list by my decks and see how the points stack up!
I think a points system is a great place to start. It has a lot of advantages over a banned list-only system. Changing the point value of a card is much less devastating than banning it outright, and adjusting points can be done much more regularly and without the other baggage that comes with bans like making a precon illegal.
I don't think you even need to worry as much about combos or cards that are especially powerful in a certain situation. A deck that's all 0s but has Thassa's Oracle and Demonic Consultation as its only points is not going to consistently pull off or accelerate that combo. Someone looking to exploit that sort of thing is going to have other cards that probably would be pointed like tutors and fast mana. If decks still feel out of line the points can continue to be pushed upward.
Thank you for the video!
Rationale and well thought out. Like it!!
As a warhammer 40k player who's used to a point system I like this. People would get used to keeping track of their points pretty quickly. I like that it's not restrictive. It's definitely a better way than "Oh I think this deck is a 7".
I think the bracket system meshed with the command zone power level system makes the most sense to me, so there's ways to help reduce easy power spikes in decks so the power level feels more accurate as a representation.
I had a gandalf the grey brew that i never wanted to put together because it was either winning in 4 turns or spinning wheels for 10+ turns in testing, which means it would have power spikes where it wasn't suitable for a 6 level table, but inconsistencies that made it outclassed in a pod of 8s. I think there's a world where the bracket system helps check those kinds of variances within a deck itself
from "my deck is a 7" to "my deck is a 3"
I jest, this system is very appealing! I'm cautiously optimistic for the brackets system, as I feel it may hit the right balance between regulation and rule 0, but this is almost exactly what I'd be looking for outside of a trusted playgroup
Good thoughts! As an engineer and sub-par deck brewer, I shudder at the thought of how much time bookkeeping and calculating the summation of each deck will take. My decks change fairly frequently and my response to power level would reduce to a simple shrug in your proposed case. I believe a performance based power level would be more helpful (win:loss ratio), where precon is = 75%. My proposed idea would have issues with relativity, but that could be ironed out.
Brilliantly said 😌 thank you for all you do for this community
An addition that could be done, is cumulative points if you lean into something that is inherently strong. Examples could be adding extra tutors for consistency, having more ways to combo out etc.
Your idea seems pretty well thought out and I think that Gavin should take your council on this subject