Our Experience With Commander Magic
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 18 окт 2023
- An Indie Dev and a AAA Dev discuss the Commander format, or EDH, of Magic: The Gathering and what our personal experience has been with the format. From kingmaking to powercreep we'll take you through the pitfalls of the format and discuss what a game designer can learn from Commander Mtg.
Join the Distraction Makers Discord: / discord 
Игры
I think the main thing about Commander is that it's heavily group dependent on whether or not you have fun. Personally I think 1v1 is more suited for a game shop or convention setting where you generally do not know your opponent personally, while Commander is more suited for a group of friends that understand to not get too into their feelings if they lose.
I only play Commander with friends (different groups) and still have a miserable time every time :/ It's the game, not the people
@@paulmallet3104it’s not the game, it’s you
I just don't want to play a game where my friend or a stranger can wake up and choose to ruin the experience for everyone by simply including a card like Decree if Annihalation
This!!
@paulmallet3104 if you are the only constant when feeling miserable than the problem may lie within you. Once you sit down at the table to play there are no adults anymore, everyone reverts to being his inner child. You need to work on your emotions and how to communicate them better to your friends.
I've found commander to be a lot more fun when playing with people that have significant experience in normal formats. Commander doesn't really encourage having skills like good deckbuilding, mulliganing, or threat assessment, so that can make for a frustrating time. For instance, I distinctly remember one time playing where one opponent was clearly setting up an infinite combo, and I needed help to break through their defenses to stop it. The rest of the table refused because the guy hadn't swung at them with any creatures, therefore he wasn't a threat. The guy won on the next turn.
Haha yeaaah. This is the exact scenario that shows the format rewards inaction until you can just win. It’s a weird play pattern.
i started putting goad in my decks. basically a pre-emptive fog that makes the table do something besides turtle into a win con.
You were just playing with noobs 😂
@@alessandrobrendolan9620 I don't disagree there, but noobs have gotta learn to take heed of a warning lol
@@distractionmakers the community that hates the most combo decks is the one that enables them the most. Irony
I’ve found myself enjoying Commander more by simply embracing the role of the archenemy. I never feel bad for being “singled out” because naturally the other players would target me when I’m the biggest, most obvious threat, and nobody else has to feel like they’re being picked on for the same reasons. And while I might put myself at a disadvantage by doing so, that also frees me to just go all-out instead of having to dance around trying to win without looking like I’m trying to win. And if I lose, it doesn’t feel too bad because I knew I was up against steep odds to begin with.
I do feel like it’s a better experience when everyone is clear about the position they are in when playing with a new group or a new deck.
I do the same thing. I make all my decks knowing that I will be targeted. It allows me to just go supermassive and play some very off the wall Timmy stuff (the best things in magic). Most fun I have ever had was putting 20 ramp spells in a deck and casting 6+ drops from turn 4 onwards.
That's kind of a good place to be, but it's hard to achieve when everyone's available decks are of a similar powerlevel. Especially when that level gets arms-raced to the very top, and suddenly you can't really be that archenemy anymore without breaking "rules" aka combo winning on the first few turns or hardlocking the table.
Its the way it should be, if you dont wanna get singled out then politic. If you dont politic then dont get mad when others do and its at your expense. Like people forget spite is a thing. Id rather be in the final 2 players than get killed first
Everyone I hear say that just uses it as an excuse to run the edhrec top 100.
For me the main things that have helped the most with enjoying commander are learning to not care much about winning and focus more on creative deck building, as well as finding a group that generally feels the same. At this point commander feels to me like an in depth solo deck-building game with what amounts to a low stakes party game as a pay off. I spend vastly more time building decks than I do playing them, because that's really what interests me about the game, and the actual games feel more like a reason to get together with friends.
Nearly every time I've gone outside my main playgroup, I've found that there are a lot more issues, because as it turns out most people don't see the game that way.
Deck building does feel like the best part for sure.
What's the point then? You get great deck building by going into sealed formats, drafts, Standard and Pioneer.
What's the point of "great deck building" if going solo? All you achieve, besides hurting your finances, is the worst/best deck ever.
@@errrzarrr Commander allows for more unique and high concept decks, as well as being a more social format. Limited environments test your deck building abilities under heavy restrictions, and that can be fun (i personally love limited) but commander allows for more self expression and freedom than any other format. For a couple examples, I've seen a deck that uses a really weird combo that uses a number of cards in the double digits to turn the whole game into uno, I've seen decks based on the movie ratatouille, I'm currently working on a deck based on minecraft, etc.
Commander as a format is really good at allowing for the weird janky or just blatantly unserious game styles to have a chance, since so much of the game is about playing the table, and since being ostensibly not the threat can itself be a huge advantage
Enjoyable games of commander require: Table banter + timely turn taking. Outside of that throw them hands. The worst games of commander are the ones where people aren't talking or wandering off to look at the singles counter, or on their phone (sometimes with earbuds in), or playing their switch, or taking excessively long turns.
The problem is the format and commander communities allow that. Is the low-effort mindset at full throttle
I've only seen some younger zoomers playing phone games while playing mtg. Is this actually a bigger problem somewhere?
The whole “hurt feelings” dynamic is what really drove me away from casual Commander as a format. I only really play casual with with my close friends because they know what kinds of decks we all have. The competitive player in me hates making suboptimal plays, so I mostly play Magic’s Modern format and CEDH these days.
It's kind of a sad state of affairs when the most popular format of the most popular card game has to contend with "hurt feelings" in order for anybody to have fun.
@@alexspeedwagon3701the FFA nature forces people to strategize and cooperate with their opponents, it turns into a game where diplomacy is just as important as your strategy, where 1v1 doesn’t require any compromise. I can take these types of things in jest but I could understand why some would find it annoying, especially if you were playing with some bad personalities
I think it comes from people having no experience in any 60 or 40 card format and bumbling about in EDH as a first exposure to mtg. I contend that if you were playing in standard while thoughtseize and rhinos were legal or while modular was a thing, there is no way you can get your feefees hurt at an EDH table.
When I think about when I really enjoyed Commander the most, it was when I had two groups. One made up of friends where we'd been playing together for months and years, and the other was a weekly game day meeting at a board game bar. So either a group that knew each other and what we enjoyed and did not enjoy, or people meeting up to responsibly have adult beverages and appetizers while sending dragons at each other. When I tried new groups after leaving those (because people moved or pandemic restrictions) the spark wasn't there for me, and I realized it really was the social element. I never really enjoyed Commander primarily for its gameplay elements, first and foremost I loved sharing the game of Magic with other people who enjoyed it as much as I did. You want to include all your friends, but if we're splitting into our own games we're not in the SAME game like we would be in Catan of King of Tokyo. Commander provided the best framework to bring everyone into that one game. Realizing that made me really believe in Commander as the social experience. Board game Magic. And I've seen a lot of complaints about other players over the years from people who weren't recognizing that social dynamic. EDH was invented when Judges wanted to bring silly theme decks and hang out TOGETHER and I think that's missed by a lot of players.
So basically mood/same/agreed. Awful way to play Magic. Great way to hang out with Magic-playing friends.
Commander only works if everyone is on the same page philosophically. The rules don't support balanced or fun outcomes
The last time I played the game at a game store was 1995. The guy was preparing for a tournament and his deck was a burn deck that won on turn ONE... consistently. Between that and some of the people I was interacting with at the time, I dropped out. Thousands of dollars of cards sat in my closet. When I found out about Commander, I realized that is more of what I always wanted in the game, so I'm back. And I'm lucky enough to have married a woman who likes to play MTG as well. Oh, and the guy was in a tournament to win a box of Homelands. 'nuff said.
Highkey feel like cEDH is the optimal way to play EDH not because it's tryhard, but because if everyone is actively trying to win the game, no one gets mad when someone actually does. Plus it's very proxy friendly and thusly- ironically- very accessable.
I tend to agree.
highly agree. Casual edh tends to be way too broad. "Casual" just does not explain what exactly the play experience will be nearly enough, and as soon as people start saying "no infinites" or "no phyrexian bs" etc etc, you just know that it's going to be a game with some salty players. Like, if you are going to be annoying about how I choose to win the game of magic within legal mtg commander format means, maybe the game of magic isn't for you?
And just to add about calling it a "casual edh" game, it can mean so many different things based on who you talk to. Does it mean we are using straight out of the box precons? What if my precon is a better precon than yours, are you gonna be salty cuz I have the Eldrazi one? Does it mean no infinites, but I can still play strong cards like Dauthi, Dockside, Esper Sentinel, Rhystic? Ok I am not playing any of those but my deck is a tuned 6-7 powerlevel with fetches. Are you gonna be salty because my manabase is better than yours? I honestly can't stand the players that will find any way to make excuses as to why they are the victim to someone "pubstomping" them in a casual edh game.
I think an agreed upon very low budget (10 to 30 ct per card avg) helps a lot.
If you can fit your infinite into the budget AND have ways to go look for it AND have the average card quality of your deck be good enough to not just die on the spot, congrat you deserved your combo win.
People can play everything, combo aggro, tron whatever, it's just inherently gonna be slower and less complex.
I think for most people the whole point of commander is to not be optimal, and its for those reasons a lot of commander players don't agree with people trying to point out flaws in the format. The flaws or sub-optimal way the game is played is why what commander players want.
I prefer to refer to commander as a social format rather than a competitive or casual one. I'm here to interact with you, please interact back. Attack me, destroy my things, give me Humble Defector, interact with me however you want, please don't just sit there playing a game of solitaire where the rest of the table is irrelevant. I don't care about winning or losing, this is true to an extent many people would find hard to believe, I just want to play with everyone else. I love chaos, but don't roll a die to decide who to punch, pick someone, do you think they're likely to become a threat soon? Perhaps you're holding a grudge from a previous game? Maybe they'd just be more annoying to deal with later? I don't care what your reason is, it can be petty and spiteful, but please make it personal, not just a die roll.
I'm on this wavelength. I feel like a lot of people who don't like Commander just don't like politics and social games. I've often said that I see Commander like DnD, it's a collaborative experience, and everyone needs to work together to make it fun.
I think some people just don't get that, and want to play it like it is a winner take all competitive format.
@@shorewallif you want to play social games or role games there's DnD, Scrabble, Uno. If you want to hoard resources and amass riches for long hours for the sake of it without getting hurt, there's Monopoly.
There's no point in turning MTG into Monopoly or Uno. No one enjoys it anyway, and it will destroy it
I think saying commander is broken isn't a hot or complex take. The Professor says "the format is broken and it's up to the players to act like it isn't". Cultivating a shared philisophy/goal with your playgroup is how you make it fun. The rules don't support balance or fun and the dissonance between what players consider fun or fair is where frustration arises.
The issue there is "philosophy" isn't part of the game. Not commander philosophy for sure. Even worse, Rule-0 and Social Contract aren't part of the game either.
Want to know more? MTG wasn't designed as a multiplayer free-for-all game, trying to make it like that makes it worse for anyone involved.
@@errrzarrrexplain to me why some cards say "opponents" on them. Magic is nothing if not a constant state of changes and adaptations. Multiplayer might not have been the original intent within its design, but it has been changed significantly to adapt to that environment.
@@errrzarrr philosophy is quite literally the crux of the color pie, "not part of the game" my *****
I think the biggest problem is "made for commander" cards are now becoming the most played cards in the format. Extremely cringe.
EDH was fun when it was about putting square pegs in round holes, going back in time and finding old cool cards that do what you want to do. Now every color can do everything, there are infinity-1 legendary creatures with crazy abilities for any color combination that you can think of and you can go and copy paste edhrec like 90% of the player base. Ultra cringe format.
Commander being sub-optimal is the whole point of commander. If people exploit the flaws in negative ways then most of the time they are the problem.
It is so refreshing to hear you talk about things that I have been thinking about for so long. Most people around me who play Magic are so fully on the Commander train that criticizing it at all or suggesting a different format is almost seen as heretical.
Some people do seem to have an aversion to any critique on the format 😆. At the end of the day I think we would all rather hang out with our friends than not, but it has felt, for us, like that means accepting commander’s downsides. We did get a booster draft to happen once though. 😄
People aren't happy when I ask them to stop doing something they enjoy to invest time, money, and energy into doing what I want them to. Imagine that...
🤦🤦🤦
I can only imagine how that conversation goes... " Okay so I know that you spent loads of money, time researching, and energy tuning a deck that perfectly reflects your personal style, but why don't you just abandon it and play what I want to instead?" What could possibly go wrong?
😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣
@@majinvegeta6364 Yeah how dare they have different tastes as their friends? Don't they know that opinions are bad?
Really enjoy hearing your thoughts, one nitpick at 23:49 you said activating a Mana ability redoes priority but that's not true you can priority bully by forcing the player last in priority to answer something or else everyone loses the game
It sounds like Commander plays more like D&D, you need to be there for it. Chaos and discussion and all the socialization of it is part of it. Your health is so high cause it’s a resource and crazy shenanigans can very easily happen. I very much understand the idea of becoming the target can slow commander to a crawl and you get that speedwalking analogy. I feel like monarch and goading is made to speed up the otherwise more slow and “political” game of commander. I find it very fun sometimes to just throw everything out there anyway. This is coming from a very casual standpoint. I recently started commander deck building online and even more recently got my first precon. Being the “agent of chaos” at the table puts you in a fun and weird position. All the extra stuff of commander I think just comes with it. You just have to wanna have fun with it. There’s that “session 0” thing. ACTUALLY they literally have “Rule 0” where you basically play D&D and make up your own rules to help support a fun environment. I like it. It’s the way I’ve made my relationship with Magic and the logic game and deck building to piloting. I get it’s not for everyone, and it VERY much lends itself to the most negative experiences cause it’s the most human form of magic. There’s the most human influence, the most social activity, the most emotion. You’ve gotta have the mindset. Of course that’s just my two cents. I’m just a man.
My experience is that being the "agent of chaos" puts you in the fun and unique position of being very much hated and overly targeted. Not a position I personally enjoy.
5 player commander with the "kingdom" variant is peak commander actually
We’ll have to try this!
I would like to know more about this variant. I'll go look it up next. Wondering if it is the same thing but different name as Pentagon.
@mrcatchingup the way my group plays kings is like this
Shuffle 5 lands, 1 plains, 1 forrest, 2 mountains, 1 swamp.
Each player picks one.
Only the plains is revealed, that player is the king and starts at 50 life
The rest of the roles are secret
The forest is a guard, who has to protect the king
Mountains are bandits who have to kill the king
Swamp is the assassin who has to kill everyone
@@HealedCoyote997 In this game mode do you allow people to disclose their roles? I imagine if the bandits just said, "I AM THE BANDIT" and then the other one revealed they were the bandit as well, it takes a little intrigue out of the game.
@@wierdpocket roles are kept secret in good faith of other players.
I moved to commander after rotation largely because I felt more freedom and creative expression in deckbuilding, my cards didn't rotate, and I didn't need to find 4 of the most expensive cards.
In the years since I'd be hard pressed to say I've spent less on Magic by playing commander but it was one important motivation for me when I started, and honestly after the vast vast majority of the cards that I'd spent time, money, and creative energy acquiring became unplayable due to rotation it was actually the only choice for me.
And I think that's why commander is super popular. I enjoyed 1v1 Magic a LOT but there were definitely frustrations. Games with the same deck became samey, the arms/skill race plateaued, sometimes my opponents/strangers at the LGS were.... less than friendly, and keeping up was expensive even when I had no aspirations to play at higher competitive levels.
It sucks that there's a huge, extremely cool, side of the game that gets underrepresented and underappreciated as a result, but I think the alternative to Commander for tons of people who play it, is to not play magic at all.
I hear ya, rotation is a double edged sword. We have a video coming up about this very thing.
The problem with no rotation is that WOTC is power creeping Commander now. Kitchen Table Magic is the best magic, always was.
You don't need Commander for that. With Pioneer and Modern you still get +12 years of your cards.
You say you don't want to spend in 4 cards. Yeah, no, in commander you have to buy around 8 of the same card. Same effect, different name.
@@errrzarrr The best MMO in the world is still worse than WOW if all your friends are playing WOW
To me the greatest appeal to Commander was that it was a format where a lot of cool big bombs that were not viable in standard were viable in that format. You could express yourself a lot more and play more cards that simply are cool but not necessarily optimal. That and the creativity and problem solving behind trying to figure out how to build a deck around certain legendary creatures that were not designed for a format like that.
Nowadays with cards being designed for commander and a lot of commanders having a very clear direction on how they want you to build their decks, it removes a lot of the fun from the format
I agree that WOTC focusing on Commander was the worst thing for it.
cEDH isn't a different format, it's an approach. By definition cEDH uses exactly the same rules as EDH, it's just played as cutthroat and efficiently as possible. If you tried to make a "competitive" commander format that was different to EDH then fine, but it wouldn't be cEDH
it uses the same literal rules but the social rules are entirely different
It just plays edh better
@@Lismakingmovie except they arent. The social rules are the same but players are just being honest about their intent.
CEDH still has bluffing, political plays, the social aspect, certain taboos you dont do, etc. but these are all founded on tangible game elements rather than taking advantage of significant skill and experience differences and making excuses.
In a lot of ways EDH would be better overall if players all came to the table with the CEDH mindset as it isnt even a competitive one, its just the mindset that is default to every other format of mtg.
@@podrekreinhard the only taboos i know of it is trying to rule 0 and playing winconless stax oh and spite plays which often times do end up being king making
The distinction is valid and, more important, needed. Not because of the cards involved are any different, but because of the mindset. One is low-effort dont-hurt-my-feelings multiplayer format(which MTG isn't meant to be multiplayer) and the other is 1v1 do-your-best format. The difference between EDH and CEDH is more than standard vs EDH.
I think the only way to consistently have fun in commander is to have a core playgroup that has the same shared goal. In my main group "Jank Gang" we love seeing each other's deck building and weird combos and we will skip powerful, game winning plays because we just jave to see what will happen if we give someone that one extra turn.
However when I'm outside of that, my experiences vary wildly. No matter how many people tey to tell me what "lvl 7" means on spelltable if i join it i can see someone violating evwn that paper thin definition of trust.
In person its a lot better. If im not playing with my main I have several decks depending on everyone else's styles. And we seem to be the group beginners gravitate towards and we welcome them and alter our decks we play and how we play them to teach rather than troujce or show off.
Commander is, to me, at its best experimentation. And when you decide to standardize that those are the games i feel have the fus sucked out of them.
Great discussion. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for your insight. It does feel a bit like a jam session haha and sometimes the vibes are just off.
That's what I said. In my group we've cultivated the same aim for years now, but we have one player who shows up sometimes with very different philosophy and the games always break down. The base rules don't support balance or fun, the players have to
The problem with Commander is there’s typically no “danger”. In 1vs1 if you stumble on mana you are in big trouble. If the opponent has an aggro deck you could die in the first few turns of the game if you don’t get your defenses up. Not so in Commander, you go ramp, ramp, ramp, deploy threats. No fear of dying in the first few turns, no need for early defensive measures to survive an onslaught.
That has been my experience as well. Either the power level is too low, and there is no tension for a long time, or it's so high it becomes a Mexican standoff until it suddenly ends in a very confusing way.
There is no single mistake or action you can usually point to when you think about it as a game, so it doesn't appeal to me on that level.
yeah, Pauper Commander uses 16 commander damage and 30 health explicitly so Aggro decks can literally function, which they can't in traditional Commander
@@Crushanator1 now we’re talking 🙂
I'm failing to see the problem? It's a forgiving mode that doesn't punish you for being unlucky. Everybody gets a fair chance and if you are in the lead, and you're a tiny little bit smart, you'll attack the guy who's behind just to make sure that he's close to everyone else in terms of life. Actually you can go a step further and 1 shot them before they throw some boardwipe because they're still on an empty board by turn 6. World's your oyster.
I don't think players have a bit of wiggle room is a bad thing. I personally dislike 1v1's in any format because most of the time if some gets an advantage it decides the game right then. If I miss a land drop or something (which is mostly out of the players control) it really sucks to watch your opponent get ahead in 1 or 2 turns then boom its over.
I’ve solved the problem of king making (maybe) by crating decks that kill everyone at the same time. Either burn, aristocrats, mill, etc. essentially I will either win or lose. No in between, no way to directly kingmake, and embracing if I am targeted down once the table realizes I’ve a assembled a win.
That would surely help!
He'll yeah! Be the bad guy! Make them have it! KILL ME!!!
I take it as a compliment when I get ganged up on and brutally murdered. It means they fear my deck and how I play it, and that if I get ahead I will take everyone down.
Not that my deck has to be MORE powerful than others, but slamming a Manabarbs on turn 3 is the most archenemy thing and I love it
You guys nailed it. U really articulated a lot of my feelings in ways I could never put into words
Try star! 5 player match and you can only attack the two players opposite to you. Your left and right are not opponents but you are basically “racing” to knock out the people across from you. A player wins when both their opponents are defeated. A really fun variation if you haven’t tried it
Interesting! We will have to try this.
@@distractionmakers you still get king making situations but it does solve the inaction problem because being proactive is way stronger in this version. Lmk what you think if you try it!
I think part of what makes commander so popular is the fact that it really appeals to people who are highly interested in the cards themselves - i.e. a cool character, a weird effect, pet card/combo. As someone who got into magic mainly via commander but also enjoys optimizing deck building and playing in an optimized way, it is always a bit disappointing to love a certain card, archetype, or character and see that there are basically no viable options for them in the various competitive formats. I want to get into pauper lately to just be able to play an optimized competitive format, but I know I'll always come back to commander to play Drana in her various cards. It sucks to have a game deriving its game pieces from various stories and rich character design - see those characters and get excited about them/the art/etc, and then not really be able to use said characters/art pieces.
Also to add, the format restricting decks to be singleton I think helps to make the deck feel more "storied" and rich than just playing a 60 card kitchen table style of magic. Of course, nothing is stopping you from making your deck a singleton one there, but having there is some appeal in having singleton writ into the rules everyone agrees upon. On top of that, with 99 cards there is way more room to fill up the deck with a wide variety of cards that really appeal to you beyond just a gameplay standpoint. I really think it is a culmination of these things that has made commander so popular, not really just proliferation of commander content.
That is 100% a huge part of the appeal. I have different feeling towards my commander decks and 60 card tournaments decks, though both feel an expression of the way I like to play.
Playing with experienced friends, competitive 1v1 players and cedh playsrs provide the best experience. Hardly any saltiness.
You touch on this a little in the video but I think people forgot the concept that you can play multiplayer without Commander. You can play singleton without Commander. "The Monarch" and the term Archenemy both originally come from non-Commander multiplayer products. Anything people like about Commander, including playing Commander, could be achieved without WotC printing 500 new legendary creatures a minute.
My friends only know edh, so I'm introducing them to pauper cube soon.
The fix for commander is cEDH.
It's Commander with a set rule 0. "Do anything, without lying or cheating, to win the game". Everyone goes in with the same expectation, so there are no hurt feelings.
I wonder if there are variants lower down the power scale where you get to play with a "fixed" rule 0 which gives a fair play experience and sets a productive culture of play?
lying is a part of cEDH, when making deals you are going to need to consider it
if you play with the same'ish people you can start banning cards. like thassa/consultation/breach and you end up at an imho sane power level. I enjoy the decks played on mtgthestack (an edh channel)
I think Multiplayer Commander should have 30 to 35 point starting life totals. This gives more aggressive decks the opportunity to actually steal a kill in the early game. Red and White have suffered as colors simply due to the life totals being so high.
15 life points. If 60-cards 1v1 formats start with 20, then there's no reason for a 100-card multiplayer start with more than that.
I do think commander is more accessible*
Mostly because it is singleton. I like to slowly shop for cards, I once had a standard deck, and you can't really do that with such a deck, as you will probably want playsets of most cards, this means its all or nothing a large part of the time.
In commander, building a deck (assuming it is casual), is quite easy, as you pick the commander, then add 40 lands, 10 mana rocks, 30 synergy pieces and a good deal of preffered card draw, removal, beatsticks, a few pet cards and you are done.
In 60 cards format, you generally don't have this one card that is the core of the deck, and its focus can "drift" over time.
Also, a great way to get an idea of power level is to say "what turn does your deck aim to win" and if its a control deck, then the table can gang up anyway if it where to become a problem.
Everybody's deck is a seven, but my spirits wins turn 8, my urza wins turn 5 and my emralkul wins turn 11+ (if it gets to do the thing)
That windows alert sound at 4:07 really got me every time hahaha.
Nice video guys
Commander cube helps with the power level issue. Cube in general is a wonderful way to play, single or multi-player.
As for king-making, I’m not seeing such a high rate with this issue in my games or from content creators. It could be concerning if there were stakes/prizes.
I run a commander league at my lgs and we’ve implemented a “points” system to help encourage more silly and casual play. Every week has new achievements based around archetypes like graveyard shenanigans or spell slinging! Having a system to decide “winning” that’s not just kill everyone else has helped band-aid over a lot of issues that, ya’ll are very correct to point out, are inherent to the format
I really like the Star Wars Unleashed approach: as soon as one player dies, the winner is the one with highest health. That's it. It really changes the kingmaking problem and makes the game feel more fair for everyone (assuming everyone tries to win the game and not give up and "kingmake")
I think 2 big things here. The first is that I wouldn’t even consider edh the same game as 60 card constructed versions of magic. The difference in difficultly due to deck building and mechanical/meta game depth leaves so few similarities with 60 card constructed. The second point is that all the hurt feelings and understanding the meta/mechanics is mostly solved by diving head first into CEDH. After working through a true 4 player free for all where there is common understanding that feelings don’t matter as long as there is a winner, going back to casual edh and playing low stakes becomes trivial
cEDH is a boring, solved format where everyone just tries to cast thassa's oracle on turn 2. If I wanted to subject myself to that, I'd play legacy.
I enjoyed the conversation. I’m excited to show you guys what my game can bring to the multiplayer format of card games 😎
I think the worst thing that EDH/Commander ever did to the game of Magic, and to many player's ability to enjoy the format of EDH itself, was how it grew so much that it pushed out any and all other forms of casual play, both in terms of playing 60 card casual and in terms of the implied focus on specifically 4 player free for all games removing the thought of basically any play variants like Star/Color Star, Emperor, Secret Ally, etc., from the vast majority of player's minds.
Prior to the height of EDH's popularity and it eclipsing all other kinds of play in most groups, there was significantly more variety in the types of games we played because you would play 60 card casual and EDH in the same day at a minimum, and people were more open to mixing things up with things like Vanguard, whereas by the time Planechase was introduced people seemed to barely acknowledge that anything outside of just 4-person FFA pods existed and not terribly interested in jamming a game of anything but that.
I think part of it is that WotC never really endorsed a particular kind of play pattern or style in casual prior to embracing EDH as a vehicle for more profit. So there was no implied 'correct way to play casual' and casual players had to define that for themselves. Ever since WotC started supporting EDH though, there has been implicit and sometimes explicit statements in their products and information surrounding them that 4 player FFA is the summation of what casual MTG play is. Which means that every single player that started around that time or after has come into the game with the casual already in a box with specifically defined borders defining how you play casual MTG.
That's before you get to the fact that 60 card casual play had a much more defined line in the sand that separated casual play from competitive play; probably because there was a clear distinction between casual and sanctioned play because casual wasn't a format and competitive play took place in formats, and that there was constant easy availability of sanctioned play in most places. If you wanted to try to be a real competitive player you sleeved up a Standard/Extended/Legacy/Modern/etc list and played in tournaments to earn that title. You didn't just sleeve up a non-banned list Vintage list and play it in 4 player casual pods and call yourself competitive; you would have been rightly laughed at for that behavior the same way we should react to cEDH players calling themselves competitive for doing essentially the same thing. I think EDH being a format gives the illusion of meaningful restrictions that those sort of players use to legitimize what is basically just power gaming in casual, combined with no well defined and supported 100 card or otherwise singleton format sanctioned play and there is no where to tell those players they should be playing that way with those sort of decks and you have blurred that line between casual and competitive play. If Canadian Highlander or French/Duel EDH had sanctioned tournament play set up I somewhat doubt cEDH would have the hold on the conversation about Commander that it does.
I also usually don't have a great time playing commander, even with friends. Usually its a powerlevel problem. I do think that cedh solves most of the problems I have. Everyone is just playing the best deck they can and trying to win. I haven't come across the issue of two people teaming, but a "fix" is to just not play tournaments. Just play the best edh you can, same as other formats. Probably some of the most fun I have in cedh is trying to make something bad viable.
I really appreciate not having to chase playsets of expensive cards for singleton. The ban list for commander is dumb though. There are legal cards that are much more broken than "Gifts Ungiven", and many of them are commanders!
The ban list isn't based strictly on power, that's why it's weird compared to WotC's official banlists. Even then, the banlist isn't held to much standard when it's encouraged to discuss with your group about what cards are/aren't okay to play.
I find commander is more expensive ultimately. Theres more of the really pricey cards and 60 vs 100.
Its not like the average person us making pauper commander decks, everyone is still loading as much bling as they can
@@KyleTremblayTitularKtrey But thats the point, isnt it? EDH is expensive only if you want bling. Since its a casual format and doesnt have sanctioned tournaments, there is nothing preventing you from using proxy cards.
@ich3730
Eh didn't even need proxies to be cheap. It's only more expensive than standard.
It's a legacy legal card pool where people bling out and build a dozen decks.
It's very simple to have $100-$200 decks. Which is comparable to decks in std/pio/budget modern.
Very early Magic did have FFA multiplayer in mind. That’s mostly how we played in the mid 90s, us casual non-tournament players that is.
Gavin here. Yes! I have played a lot of casual 60 card multiplayer in my college days and have fond memories. I think the actual support of the format (now commander) has led to a host of issues with magics core design principles, but that’s probably a new episode.
@@distractionmakers, I think designing specifically to Commander has created a host of issues that just designing cards for multiplayer play does not.
For the record I mostly agree with you all that Commander is a problematic format, but I do not think that that is tied to it being a multiplayer format.
Interesting, Im curious to hear more about what you think are the main issues with commander vs casual multiplayer?
Early magic definitely did not have multiplayer in mind. You can tell by the card wording. They very often mention "your opponent".
I played multiplayer magic in the 90s. It was kind of terrible. We still did it, because...we wanted to play magic together and not a bunch of 1v1 games next to each other.
Starting at 40 life is what makes commander work. In college in the 90s we played "5 turn wall" or "10 turn wall" where you weren't allowed to attack or target people's stuff for that long. That way someone wouldn't get attacked for 3 by 4 other players and effectively start the game at 8 life.
Simply doubling everyone's life total is a much better fix.
Sure, power level discussions aren't great, and sometimes you run into someone with a banger of a deck that you just lose to... But that happens *way more* in 1v1 formats. In commander, if someone is way ahead, it becomes 3v1. In 1v1.... You just lose.
It sounds like you haven't had good playgroups with commander, and that sucks. But even when I go to my LGS to play, it's still pretty good. Nobody attacks the mana screwed guy. Sure, he's open, and maybe you poke him for 1, but you don't full swing, because that's just mean.
I think multiplayer is the best way to play magic. I generally don't want a 2 player game. I have more than one friend. How often do you break out 2 player board games with your friend group? Probably very rarely.
King making can be a problem, but for me it has been pretty rare. I would say that if you consistently have a problem with King making that you need to talk to those players and maybe just not play with them anymore. King making is just unsportsmanlike. It's being a spiteful jerk.
So... While there are problems with commander, I think most of them are social and similar problems exist in other formats.
@@NateFinch , cards like Syphon Soul, Earthquake and Hurricane, to name a few beg to differ with you. So what if elements of the early game's templating didn't think in terms of multiplayer, enough of the cards were designed with that in mind. Look at the wording between ABU Wheel of Fortune and Revised.
I played exclusively multiplayer Magic through out the 90's. Never had any house rules. We had a blast. Killing everyone with Hurricane was my jam. If your experience differed that is too bad, but IMHO those days the games were great fun.
My multiplayer play groups have been great, it's just what I've observed beyond that is where I draw my critique of Commander. I'm just bitter that the only way people play multiplayer anymore is Commander, and I think that that is a great disservice to the game.
My friends got me into magic. Specifically the Lord of the Rings set. They got me a couple precons on my birthday and we were off to the races.
Although I was new to Magic and still grasping all the rules/mechanics, commander ate away at me. Seeing that each match took roughly 2 hours was the big red flag for me.
Massive board states. Dozens of triggers across the table. Multiple board wipes. Every game seemed to have the same plays. You could see the winner almost a mile away. I never felt satisfied after a game of commander. There are so many things that are off with this game type.
Then I got introduced to cube and draft. 40 card decks. 1v1. Games can last 5-10 minutes. Some of the most fun I’ve ever had. I now only cube.
I'm glad to hear that. I was just saying in another comment that anyone can build a commander deck, but a commander game is not for beginners. Multiple players, which is exponentially more complex, and big mana which leads to crazy amounts of counters, tokens, triggers to keep track of.
Draft is really what MTG was designed around, with the rarity system.
Another example of why Commander should never be the first thing new mtg players get into to.
~15:00 you might be getting to this later but one of the first things my group learned is that the guy thats sitting there doing nothing is usually the ticking time bomb we have to kill even if they dont look like theyre doing anything. Which is its own problem because sometimes they actually got nothing. But then I'd call that a misevaluation of the threat. And/or just a problem combo decks face and that player will learn that aspect of combo decks. And on and on and on
I tend to have fun in commander, but i really wish it wasn't as all-encompassing as it has become. Nowadays, if you go to a LGS or gamesclub for Magic night, everybody's just bringing commander decks, so I won't find opponents for anything else, so i stopped bothering to bring or even build other decks - which of course now makes me one of the guys who are only available for commander, reinforcing that kinda vicious cycle. I want fast games, aggro decks, no "why attack ME?" to be a thing again.
Well after listening to the complete podcast, I must say i have very different experiences. Commander is far the best thing that really rejuvenated our magic group, it is fun to come up with decks, it is fun to clash against each other. There are great plays, and good variety, and we all try our best to build the strongest decks. Yes, that does include like 20 mana artifacts with the usual stuff, sol ring and so on, but still, there is still a big variety. And if you happen to build a bad deck, then you can just laugh at it and try a better one next time.
Initially we played magic with the usual rules (4 copies of each card), and THAT was boring. It was fun to play for a while, but after like 20 rounds vs the same deck your friend had, you kinda predicted what will happen. Then we played highlander (min 100 cards, no copies except basic land), and it was a lot better, but something was still missing. Having a commander is both good thematically, as it gives a direction, a sense of theme to your deck, a flavor. And it is good from a gameplay perspective, as it is somewhat of a reliable card, that gives a good counterpoint of the unreliable nature of the highlander deck.
Mavbe our experiences are different because we always play as a close group of friends who know each other for decades, but we almost never see these problems you mention with kingmaking and different power levels. If one person is a kingmaker, we all see what it is: that person lost, and might as well flip a coin who won, not a big deal. If one person is more powerful than the others, he will be the first target. And if he still wins, good for him, we laugh at it and drink a beer.
It seems that commander is highly group dependent and we just happen to fall into an area where our group dynamics aren’t lining up. As game designers our discussion was meant to think about how that might be solved and shine a light on this issue for others who might be feeling the same way, but unable to voice their concerns.
@distractionmakers yeah, most of my group ONLY wants to play commander now, but we're friends first. We can play Samurai Swords (nee Shogun) or Diplomacy and still be friends, so Commander is fine.
I have tried playing with randos, and the results are mixed.
@@distractionmakers That would be a more poignant discussion on how the very nature of commander is more like a ttrpg than traditional 1v1/competitive magic and how that nature prevents commander from being a format where you can just show up at your LGS at hop into a game with total strangers.
Great conversation!!
I think Forrest nail it close to the end of the episode talking about doing silly things and aiming for the expirience. That'is where the fun of commander it is found.
As as 4p format that the game wasnt created to balance, it cant be balanced by the rules. Only the social aspect of this social format can. From a designer's mind view or a competitive player's mind that's aweful as "quality game design", and horrible as "the magic expirience", therefor a lot of frustration comes in, as you expressed.
All the joy comes when you stop asking the apple tree to give you plums. Commander it is a social format made to be doing silly things with your friends, caring about their experience and yours too, the objective it is to have fun ALL TOGETHER, someone will win because the 1v1 game was design to, but it is not the objective. So joking, kingmaking, betrayals, teamup, epic sacrifices, and flavour plays feels right and joyful when you just want to laugh and dont take it too seriously and do suboptimal plays for flavour or good mood of the table.
So...bring that salamender tribal deck and the booby trap deck against emrakul scion token tribal and ups all ladies with hat tribal to spark some joy!
I totally agree. Commander is meant to be silly. It is a collaborative experience, like DnD. As such, it is every player's responsibility to make sure everyone is having a good time. It is casual, it is low stakes.
I think the problem is that it confuses Spikes who get their fun from competing and winning.
@@shorewall Absolutely, it is hard to grasp and enjoy edh's fun vibes if you come with a Spike mentallity all along
There is also the opposite of king making. “I may not win, but I can make sure you won’t.”
We often play commander, either in ffa 3, or 2v2 formats. Our ffa3 format is called "politics", basically it goes like this: anyone can attack anyone, and the moment one player loses, the player with the highest health wins. This in theory makes it so that the 2 weaker players will always go against the higher life total player. It often works like intended, not always, but often enough. Also it makes sure all players are always playing, there is no "i lost but the game still goes on so i just browse 9gag on my phone" situation.
Also the "why are you picking on me" moments aren't very serious at us, as usually one deck is stronger than the others so the player that plays that deck kinda accepts that he will be the first target, and because of the dynamics, there is often an obvious target for removals and such. It also fixes the problem with one player having a far stronger deck, because after the first two games he will be the obvious target to beat down to 3 hp as fast as possible :)
About kingmaking, we usually go like this: the kingmaker will make the player "king" that has less wins on that night.
All good ideas. I think part of the issue that arises for us is the player who has the best deck doesn’t think they do or they don’t want to admit they do. Most times this is labeled as a threat assessment problem, but I think that is an easy way to dismiss that threat assessment is a very difficult and nuanced skill that even very experienced players can easily get wrong.
@@distractionmakers100% it promotes gunning for the weakest player and racing to one-shot
im kind of surprised no one ever did the League of Legends thing with commander. where they created the same game but stoped using the original engine (in LoL it was a modded map for Warcraft)
There are other TCGs--have people made EDH variants for Pokemon, FaB, etc? It sounds like you'd need to launch a competitor to MTG to get to step one of this plan, and that's much harder than launching a competing video game to Warcraft III.
Shadowverse Evolve is soon to release Gloryfinder (Its own Commander format).
When you want to be middle rung, not first or last, I found picking the decks you have the best temperament towards and elevating them a little while targeting your opponents you have a harder time dealing with.
Ie the Voltron deck that can’t punch through your defenses gets a little help to be scary, while the combo deck has a few key card ripped out from u see them while they get beat down.
Once you get into a 3 player game, turn the corner, table and chairs and take first by running the second place player to the morgue
Would three player commander work better?
I am new to Magic (coming up on a year). The pressure to play nothing but commander is nuts (in my experience).
The most frustrating thing about commander is every reason YOU may not like it is a reason someone else does.
I hate the 1v1v1v1, I hate having to know a dozen set mechanics, I hate how crazy the board gets and all the counters and combos...but that's why people love it.
Play limited, even online on areana or MTGO. You will become a better player in the long run and understand the rules better. Commander encourages sloppy play.
Second the idea to try limited. The fact that the scope is smaller makes is a lot easier to start learning how to build a deck and execute a gameplan. I actually learned magic on vintage cube, which is not necessarily what I would recommend but is the only form of magic I find fun to play, and I did find the limited scope of only having 540 cards to understand fairly helpful.
Commander has to be one of the worst ways to learn the game. Ever card in magic is an option to add to your deck, you have to make 100 card decks that function, you have to understand all the unspoken rules of the format, and also make sure your goals align with your groups. It is complexity overload, while also being way longer, than 1v1, which makes it harder to learn iteratively. I also personally cannot stand commander, but that's mostly because I do not like games that are neither fully competitive or fully cooperative, so I'm not unbiased here.
would reinstating the Tuck rule and the old Legends rule make for better, worse, or just different Commander games?
I think both of the rules changes ultimately work in commanders favor. Being locked out of your commander isn’t really part of what commander is promising players with its rules.
Power level does work if you have a playgroup that's aligned on what it means. The problem with that though is it creates a balance that can also result in longer games too.
Cedh tournament grinder here. I think you opinions about edh and cedh are interesting and not generally how ppl view the format(s) but i also think cedh does address most of the problems youve outlined about edh.
I agree that cEDH at least reaches a place where everyone has consented to the same experience. Collusion is really the issue in competitive free for all, but that hasn’t stopped sports like American football from becoming very popular. Though, the execution of that collusion in a turn based environment is much easier.
@distractionmakers legit question, do you think collusion is an inconvenience or a problem? I see it as more of an inconvenience. In Swiss rounds, if two or more ppl can collude to decide the winner, that would be unfortunate but not catastrophic. Then if that same group of ppl make it to top 4, they would then have a chance to be a position to collude but making it to top 4 is an accomplishment by itself, let alone getting two of the same testing group in a single top 4.
@@thelongboardguru_i.t.6096Coming from 60 card competitive play I think it's a huge problem. In 60 card teams of 10+ players work together to determine what decks to play for the tournament. These teams will often concede to each other during the swiss if they are paired up to whoever has the best chance of winning. If those team member's odds of being in a pod together are x3 you're looking at a huge chance for those players to collude to win games which gets worse as match making pairs winners together if it's a group of skilled players.
@distractionmakers I don't know that I agree but I'll def be thinking about it more now
23:42 "if you tap mana, you pass priority around again". I don't think so. You need to place a spell, activated ability, or triggered ability on the stack. For example, if you tap City of Brass and pass, players will now be asked to respond to the "it deals 1 damage to you" trigger
Great talk, you guys, just wanted to point this out
Unfortunately we are correct - It’s called mana bullying. Here’s an article that explains it: commandersherald.com/the-kingmaking-nuance-social-complications-in-tournament-multiplayer-magic/
@@distractionmakers thanks! I'll educate myself before correcting people next time!
@@distractionmakers I've read the relevant part of the article and it makes sense now! I guess I'd been operating on my understanding of how priority works on Magic Online. I'll read more about it, thank you very much 😄
I think the banlist helps a lot in having a great game experience. As you said, Commander is a format where people can be really frustrated (about the outcome of the game or a specific play), and the banlist is an indication what players should not play to make the game still fun. It’s probably imperfect but it’s a good start. And since it’s a casual format it would not make sense to have a banlist too long.
As for the frustration that player might experience during commander games, it relates to our attachment to our deck, and the time and « love » we spend building it. So in a sense it’s a good indicator of how invested we can be in the deck we built
What banlist? Signpost banlists do not work as people still play cards that are similar to the ones banned no matter what
@@JohnnyYeTaecanUktena
this.
"Signpost bans" are total nonsense. We aren't in 2008 when Commander was still basically a folkway. It's not a loose cultural practice. It's the biggest Magic format. WotC openly designs with commander in mind, even in ostensibly non-commander sets, and has done so for over 10 years now. It is completely absurd for the RC to stick their head in the sand and pretend this isn't Magic's cashcow, played at LGSs more than on the kitchen table, in blind pods and on spelltable. It's not just playing with friends over beer and pizza, it's a format that you can reasonably get pickup games for *anywhere*.
Rule zero might "work" in personal friendgroups but, like, my friends and I have been chaos drafting and making up our own formats and running Swiss rounds over dinner for years. We didn't need permission to do that. People are gonna rule zero anyway.
When I'm at my LGS I would enjoy a format that wasn't a fucking disaster to gauge what kind of experience I'm going to have with strangers. My friends and I are good - we know what we find fun. But for the banlist to be a series of light "suggestions" that has gone mostly unchanged since people were jamming Rings of Brighthearth in every single deck because games were all durdley valuefests is a joke. Claiming that the format is "unmanageable" because the size of the card pool is just a lie. They would not bother with a list at all if that were the case. Dockside is an obvious problem. Rhystic Study is one of the worst designed cards of all time, both on power level and game experience. If you don't want people doing mass land destruction, it's not that hard to compile a list of mass land destruction. Having an imperfect solution to the problem would at least mean they were trying. They've genuinely thrown their hands up.
A strong banlist and letting people rule zero out of it makes more sense. It is way more reasonable for people to opt-in to stuff like MLD through rule zero than it is to get partway through a game and learn that the assumed social agreement failed because someone's combo had an insufficient number of pieces to be "casual" or that Strip Mining a Cabal Coffers was over the line.
Moreover, a lot of cards on the list are jokes. I'm not clamoring to get Coalition Victory back - I think it sits in a band of power where it's bad, but will still probably make someone mad - but it's presence on the banlist is both setup and punchline at this point. It probably wouldn't make the game better to unban it (it's just a boring alt-wincon) but that it ever made it onto the list is probably more a testament to someone on the RC being salty than anything else.
It's like being constantly gaslit to be told the banlist is fine when, if you've ever played a pickup game ever, you know the current framework of "talk go the people you're gonna play with" quickly hits the brick wall of "my deck is a 7" and "yeah, I'm playing Tivit but like. It's not like that. I am playing time sieve but like... I don't have tutors."
@@al8188 To me weither a deck is a 7, 8, 9, 10 it is all a mindset thing as casuals don't play with a competitive mindset so they can't tell how good some cards actually are they can just tell you if they like or hate a card based off of vibes. I can tell you now it is easy to turn any deck into a 10 and granted they won't win by turn 4 however they will still be competitive as control is still a competitive architype that sets out to delay the game for their win con not win as fast as possible
Personally i say the format should be balanced around the competitive players since it is pretty much there in frame work already as everyone takes the banlist as gospel even though it is supposed to be a sign post list. Though if people knew what was good or why a card was good then casual would be so much better as then people won't accidently play stuff like Nadu in pods where power level is supposed to be lower than a 8
I am serious a lot of the balancing issues is because people do not know what the cards do and do not care to look it up as they see something they think is cool they just play it to realize it was better than they thought
Small correction: using mana abilities (such as tapping a land) does not affect priority:
605.3b An activated mana ability doesn’t go on the stack, so it can’t be targeted, countered, or otherwise responded to. Rather, it resolves immediately after it is activated.
That isn’t correct actually. I know it sounds ridiculous, but here are the relevant rules:
117.3d If a player has priority and chooses not to take any actions, that player passes. If any mana is in that player’s mana pool, they announce what mana is there. Then the next player in turn order receives priority.
117.4 If all players pass in succession (that is, if all players pass without taking any actions in between passing), the spell or ability on top of the stack resolves or, if the stack is empty, the phase or step ends.
701.Keyword Actions
701.20 Tap and Untap
701.20a To tap a permanent, turn it sideways from an upright position. Only untapped permanents can be tapped.
701.20b To untap a permanent, rotate it back to the upright position from a sideways position. Only tapped permanents can be untapped.
Tapping is considered an action and means priority is reset because a player took an action.
Here’s a video from a judge with further explanation: ruclips.net/video/oQ4Xnr-1f7U/видео.htmlsi=tNxGBMRr08z3boki
Honestly, I started with 1v1 magic and would prefer it, but commander is just what’s popular around me. That aside, I find many of people’s saltiness and complaints about “king making” come from coming into commander with the same mindset as 1v1. When your opponent is dead on board in a 1v1 with a kill spell in hand, they’ll concede without casting in because there’s no point. In commander, losing something to a kill spell from a dying player means you’re down a little more against 2 other players and has impact. The threat of that spell itself is the leverage the dying player has to not be beat down fast. It’s not kingmaking, it’s getting punishing the attacker for not playing politically proper and expecting people to act like you’re playing 1v1. The best way to play non-cedh commander basically to sandbag until eyes are off you and other people’s resources are low. Other than that, I’ve also seen salt due to power imbalance in decks, but that’s another issue.
Kingmaking:
I play for over 10 years EDH. Kingmaking is RARELY an issue. More so in 3 player games as it happens more often that 2 players are about equally dangerous/close to winning and one is already fucked. That one player can partake in kingmaking. In 4 player games this rarely happens. In all these 10 years I had only one terrible experience about this: it was a 3 player game (shocker) and player A and me were struggeling to survive against player B. It is A's turn and I tell him "Listen, I got an out for the both of us, you swing him now and I can finish him and we can decide this game between the both of us." Neither of us was in a per se better spot than the other and the game would've been undecided when player B was out. He proceeded to full swing me with all his creatures killing me in the process with the caption "At least I come in second." to which I lost my mind as he would've come in second if he attacked or did nothing to player B anyways. But he would've had a chance at first place. Not playing to win infuriates me.
Hitting the player who is in last:
Yes. Always. If you feel bad because you have no creatures and someone is swinging at you, you shouldn't be like "Oh but why me?!" remember: Everyone wants to win and you off the table means they are more likely to do so.
You should be like: "I should play more early blockers" or "I should mulligan better next time". This whole "I am sorry" comes from players exploiting the social contract and whining about being hit or targeted. But if you don't play anything but lands for 5 turns that means you have 7 cards of fucking gas in your hand and once you hit that magic spot you will unleash it all. If I can kill you before that, then that's the only sensible thing to do. Also, nothing stings more than being outvalued by the player you took pity on.
Game incentivises inaction:
Not exactly. The game incentivises building meaningless threats. What is a meaningless threat? If I setup an engine where I take 2 extra turns, generate 20 life and hit for 10 dmg each turn totaling to 30 but I hit each player ones... I only have demonstrated: This game can end in all of you watching me play with myself and kick you out slowly. But I have actually done NOTHING.
If I play turn 4 an aetherflux reservoir and it says "I shoot 50 dmg at you once I got to enaugh life" then I have done absolutely NOTHING but told everyone what my goal is and that I am dangerous.
If I draw 20 cards in one turn and pass... I have done absolutely nothing other than demonstrate I generate so much more value than anyone at the table that I am most likely to win from that. But I have done NOTHING for the game.
In all these scenarios I will get targeted as the "strongest" player. In all these scenarios I should've not done what I did. But that does not mean the game incentivised me to do nothing, but only to do things that actually impact the game.
Because:
If I play Aetherflux Reservoir and cast 17 spells after it I gained 152 life, so even if I was at 1 hp I would simply nuke the table and win.
Alternatively: If i am at particularly little hp and I cast Aetherflux and gain like 20 life and pass the turn, I at least got myself out of a pickle. If they remove Aetherflux now that's sad for me but at that point I am no longer a threat. If they don't they should look to remove me, because look above.
Lesson: Don't drop Aetherflux until it does something for you. Don't play "4 mana do nothing" spells. Especially not if they got essentially "I will kill you in a few turns" printed on them.
But you can still build your board, attack players, draw cards.
I feel like everyone was picking at me:
Either you were the strongest player or perceived strongest player.
Either you clearly missed the time to point towards other strong players who are not as obvious or you didn't play anything worthwhile in which case: Revise your deck. not nessesarily make it stronger by including more powerful cards but maybe just build it better?
I clicked through chapter 5 and I feel like... you guys don't really have any arguements here. I agree that EDH is not perfect and has its issues. 2 blokes with basically no experience in the format and a limited scope on game design (as it seems, many of my points can be made by someone with a relatively basic understanding of magic and game design) being salty over a format... I really don't need that, cya.
The scenario you described is exactly the issue. Commander incentivizes doing as little as possible to not draw attention to yourself and then winning in one turn. This is a play pattern that gets cards banned in 60 card magic, splinter twin being the best example. I’m glad you enjoy EDH. Clearly lots of others do as well, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t flaws in the format.
For my play group, its the experimentation and ability to play on stramge vectors that makes the format so fun. We constantly play things like budget leagues, uncommons only, precon leagues. The thing that makes the format tick is that it functions in the same manner as something like DnD where you're free to make your own fun within a system. More competitve formats don't exactly support that mentality and ability to create.
This is an interesting perspective. As someone who has played mtg at close to the highest level I can say it comes back around, but not quite in the same way. There’s a valley to get through with competitive play where you don’t quite fully understand the game enough for deckbuilding to be self expression, so you have to rely on net decks if you want to compete. Obviously deck building at that level is always competitively focused, but man is it satisfying to win a tournament with a deck you built yourself.
@distractionmakers that's very true, I'd say, and taking down Pioneer Locals with my Risen Reef/Master of Waves goof troop of a deck is a feeling that absolutely reaches the highest of highs in the same way that peak commander does. I think what makes it easier to lean towards that kind of experimentation and expression in Commander play is the stakes and the setting, yeah? Competitive play, by nature of just that word itself, I think gets into the average player's head as a bit more SRS BRSNS, and it's kinda hard to convince people in that headspace to just attempt whatever fun thing they've got in their head. By contrast, sitting down for a beer, a burger and a game with your goons is, on its face, a little bit more conducive to being a test bed.
I think I disagree w the idea that the game incentivizes you to do nothing.
I will preface by saying that commander as a format is just so large and there are so many game pieces that it can be difficult to effectively criticize without just criticizing the players of said game and their decks.
But I will continue by saying while you had a point in saying that doing nothing technically puts you ahead in cards. There are a ton of factors outside of card advantage that can win you or lose you a commander game.
Good commander players can recognize that if a player has done nothing but acrew card advantage over the course of a game that player is likely going for some sort of combo win or alternate win con. This will signal to the other players at the table to put pressure on the passive players life total.
Not all threats are visible through board state. Long rant but I find a lot of flaws in your criticism of commander.
🤓.
We’re talking from the perspective of our experience to give voice to players who are having similar experiences. It’s not to be representative of commander as an entire format in most instances besides us talking about what the systems design incentivizes. Players might not always act in accordance with the system incentivizes.
I quit my pod of Commander recently for this exact reason. Same player won every single game because he "wasn't a threat" until his infinite combo went off and he wins in one turn. The other 2 players stubbornly refused to ever do anything to him because he "didn't do anything to them". And since I always had to be the aggressor to try and shut down combo player, the other 2 stooges always targeted me. Such a toxic pod.
lol, im sorry to hear that@@kaedenparten9126
The main thing I love about Commander is the politics, trying to stay low, thrn jumping up top at the right moment.
My favourite deck is a Group Hug deck, which just pumps everyone else with cards, life and creatures, until they kill each other.
I think I’m going to give group hug a try! We’ll make a new video if it changes our experience.
That's why commander is conflicting for me, my favorite aspect is also the politics, but not all players enjoy being swindled haha
we like playing commander because we love playing as a group
As a cEDH player, I think the sub-format addresses one big problem faced across commander players: power level disparity. A lot of the salt from casual games comes from having imbalances in the power levels of the decks of the table. One player with more expensive, or a more comprehensive decklist tends to get away from the rest. In cEDH, since the deckbuilding philosophy itself encourages a certain level of power and card quality, there is effectively less salt at the table since everyone SHOULD be running reasonably optimized decks with some level of interaction. There's also less salt if, say, someone attacks the black player, or if three people gang up on the fourth guy to keep that one from comboing off. Kingmaking is absolutely still present at this level of play, but that's something that is solved by experience. cEDH's speed of play also makes it such that sometimes the way to keep another guy from winning in that moment is for you yourself to grab the win under everyone's noses.
If I have one gripe with commander and cEDH, it's that holding any event that isn't cEDH can result in salt, and holding *cEDH* events instead edges out players who don't have powerful expensive cards. cEDH's philosophy often means you want to be playing with THE BEST cards and with power comes price. In the area I play in, there seem to be two paradigms - proxy-friendly cEDH to allow people without a set of true duals or zero mana artifacts to actually play, or budget-restricted non cEDH as an attempt to keep power levels fair.
To be fair with over 30k unique cards in Magics history it is hard to say what are the best cards and sometimes power does not come with price as Sol Ring and Command Tower are the most affordable power cards anyone can have in competitive commander, like those two cards are seen as staples in competitive.
There are even some decks that since they have really broken tribes such as Goblin or Elves can cost around $20-50 USD but actually be competitive level even without a infinite combo, granted it would be a lower power on a competitive scale thanks to the price but the point stands that they can compete with the best decks. Honestly there is really not much difference between a good competitive deck and a bad competitive deck in EDH with the only major factor being consistency which can be destroyed with a disruption based deck
My only gripe with cEDH players are that a lot often only flock to proven cards or decks especially ones that get's top 16 in tournaments and not ponder the endless brews and not come up with their own deck ideas that are competitive. As there are endless combinations that you can think of even on a budget that would allow you to consistently win on turns 1-4 or even delay it if you are playing a control deck or stax enough for you to win but not run out the time on the tournament clock for rounds and such
Hell i am even sure that there is at least 1 person that has made a consistent competitive Chaos deck before because again the possibilities are endless when you do research and not just stick to proven cards. There are 3 types of cEDH players to me
1) those who want to win no matter what so they stick to PROVEN cards/decks that make top 16 anywhere in the world
2) those who don't really care and just wanna play without all the feels bad of casual (including not holding back or sandbagging your plays which you have to do in casual for some stupid reason) so they usually end up playing any competitive deck and actually have fun
3) and the Brewers. These people can either make the worst decks or the most Monstrous decks you have ever seen as after all the Codie decks were a brew once of someone taking it to a tournament for cEDH and seeing what it could do yet was not expecting it to dominate
If you ever hand a Brewer a stax deck to pilot you would regret your decision as they would be one of the best stax players as Stax requires knowledge of the game itself and guess what Brewers do all the time experiment and learn about the game way more than any other competitive player.
Bringing up King of Tokyo is interesting, since it is literally the creator of Magic the gathering making a free-for-all game with resource Management
Oh man, this brings be back to when I wrote my board game geek blog post on this in 2019. If you google board game alternatives to Magic Commander, you'll see the post. I cover most of the topics you covered here.
Great discussion.
Definitely feel the comments towards the end regarding the banlist and the transition for competitive players. I tried to get my group to try commander, we all made completely legal decks, played them against each other, and they all subsequently said the format was dumb and they have never wanted anything to do with it since. I play plenty of board games with these folks, and I am sure there is probably some set of decks that if we had used instead that fostered a better play experience, maybe they would buy into it more. Instead they got turned away forever by (in my opinion) a lazy implementation of a ban list. Their banlist works for people who don't need a banlist, and fails for people that do.
Another complaint I have is that it always kind of bums me out just how much Commander took all the oxygen out of the room as far as alternative formats. Before Commander hit it big, there were near constant discussions of cool alternative ways to play. They weren't all great, but there was people trying to come up with new ideas that you could take or leave. Once Commander hit though, it became an almost flood of "just play commander if you want to do something casual", and even when someone tried to make an alternative, it always had very large borrowing from commander (ie Tiny Leaders, Oathbreaker).
Last year I helped my friend make a game in his game design class in college for fun. I suggested the players were all simple but different from eachother and in get great, but we realized later than that is an specific character that basically couldn't win unless other players all kill each other. For that the target on his back is very low so he always survived and because of his ability of moving everyone through the map he could basically always kingmake anyone left alive. We ended up leaving him that way but all other characters have been able to win save for that one.
Interesting experiment!
I feel like some of the best Commander is played amongst 4 people who have experience in being a DM for a D&D campaign. When you have experience in being a DM, you have experience in trying to cultivate a fun experience for someone other than yourself. If everyone at the table is more into the fantasy and fun for the table, it's the ideal experience, in my opinion.
grudge magic, which kingmaking is part of, is just a part of multiplayer games, especially when it's the same group of people always playing together. collusion should be expected if actual prizes are on the line - or if someone in the pod is disliked by the other players. I have been in several games over the years where the conversation went like this: "if I attack you, you'll leave in a huff, so I attack you, you leave and we win." Its bullying, but it happens.
Can't really have a "competitive" game with those kinds of things there. I mean, you technically can, but it isn't rewarding.
Just as a point of reference, I've played Magic since the mid 90s and I used to play exclusively competitive 1v1 formats (Draft, Standard, Extended (RIP), Modern) and played these formats mostly via tournaments (FNM, PTQ, misc cash tournaments) but from about 2018 on I've played nothing but commander and very much enjoy the format. So with that out of the way I do think a big part of enjoying it is playgroup and local community dependent and having an understanding with your most regular playgroup about what is cool and what isn't. Also I think it is important to have a variety of decks built to play both so that you don't burn out and if your playgroup tends more competitive like ours does you can have some more newbie friendly decks so that you don't immediately turn off new players when they show up to play and thereby keep your gaming group growing and fresh.
Second, I do however think that Commander 1. isn't for everyone as some people are just never going to be cool with getting ganged up on and with other players making dumb/irrational plays and 2. Commander is a ROUGH format to start playing since it has so many more levels of complexity than the competitive 1v1 formats. For me, I love the extra complexity because I've played the game close to 30 years but if I was just starting it would likely be overwhelming at first. WOTC has really done themselves a disservice by letting 1v1 atrophy both because it hurts the ability for new players to start the game and also because there are a group of players that are just going to prefer that (and nothing wrong with preferring it, 1v1 is a lot of fun too).
I agree with your point that WOTC has fumbled by letting 1v1 wither. I think Commander games are a highly enfranchised format. Anyone can build a commander deck, but to play a commander game takes experience and wits, which you must build up over time.
Commander might be horribly unbalanced, but its still more balanced than the format it's really competing with, which is kitchen table magic. The same kind of "just slap together whatever you have" mentality, when applied to a 1v1 scenario, ends up being much worse than all the kingmaking and ganging up that goes on in commander, because of the self-balancing nature of a 4-player FFA game.
We reset the ‘power level’ with deck building when playing with friends that have collected for different lengths of time is Pauper Commander. We’re finding is a much more balanced game compared to regular commander.
I feel that many of the issues you experience are direct results of your own personal metas. Even a single player can skew a playgroup into having a bad experience and its much easier to say its a problem with commander or a problem with magic then to look a problem player in the eye and tell them their choices are leading to bad experiences for everyone else.
Commander became the most popular way to play MTG during the pandemic. This is not an accident. The problem with non-commander constructed is that in the absence of a sizeable playing community, regular 60-card constructed gets repetitive. Since the pandemic "ended", a few things have kept commander at the top:
1. the LGS as an institution still hasn't recovered, making it so many players still don't have an easy time finding a community. I feel this is especially true outside the US. I was recently in London, and there are like 5 places to play MTG in this 9 Million people city. Only 1 of them has daily events, the others have a weekly event at best. That's insane.
2. I think a lot of people simply got used to actually playing with their 3 friends, rather than going to an LGS and sitting across acquaintances.
3. I think many of the ones that did end up going back to an LGS, if they could find one, now had several commander decks that they felt attached to, and they wanted to play them, rather than start building a constructed 60-card deck.
4. Wizards gutted organized play (they are now trying to bring it back, little by little), and emphasized commander in their product lines.
When I was was a teenager we used to play “the assembly”. It was 5 players in a circle. The goal was to kill the 2 players in front of you. You would loose if the 2 players by yur side were dead. It’s an emulation of the color pie.
My first commander precon returning to magic was wilhelt, then i rebuilt it with all my stuff from over the years and bought some cool looking staples for it.
I ended up with a dimir deck that could accidentally turn 1 combo kill with free counterspell back up, so i downgraded it to a weird gates manabase in esper that was all zombie themed. It still wins a lot but all my power went into my cedh deck, still feels more than a 7 despite not running fast mana, free spells or tutors.
Edit: we also used to play attack left defend right with whatever decks we had and 10+ people
My group tried out 2-Headed Giant (2HG) with Commander decks last weekend. I personally had the most fun with commander decks that I've had in a very long time. I actually got to play a control deck and counter spells didn't feel like 3 for 1ing myself lol. I was stuck on 2 lands for the majority of the game, and still got to feel like I was doing something since I got to protect my partners cards. 2HG with commander decks is not commander, but I personally think its better lol. As someone that likes competitive magic as well as the janky decks and combos present in the format it tows the line very well. The decks are "designed" to deal with 3 other players already so 2HG makes it so you're only dealing with "2" players, and you have a partner to share the load. This leads to interesting threat assessment and resource management that couldn't really happen with conventional 60 card 2HG. It allowed the bombastic plays everyone wants from commander, or at least what I like, to happen without it feeling unfair and targeted (The stack had upwards of 8 spells on the last turn with everyone participating).
I would argue this is also significantly better for a newer or new player. God forbid a new player has to start playing magic with commander which is a whole other issue. They would at least understand that they have "1" enemy, and could consult with their partner about rules and decisions.
This isn't to say this is a real fix to any or all of the very real problems with commander. It's just the way I think I'm going to play the decks I have from now on.
2HG Commander sounds like a great time. We’ll give that a shot next time.
Commander was the only way i could play with my ancient collection and later i just continued
That is one of the best things about commander. A new use for tons of cards.
This was when commander was peak and called edh.
The second they started printing cards for commander you stopped seeing the lets use my old collection withiut having to invest in a vintage deck
I think the best way to play commander is limited. It can be a biased call once I am a draft player most of the time.
I really enjoyed playing CLB with my buddies. It was a format that was really meant to be multiplayer. There is a adjusted power level, there is incitives to attack and hold back, the game progress in a nice pace and there is also some room for politics (for those who likes that).
But it cannot just be a bunch of random cards put together as it is commander masters. We also have played that. It felt ok, but far far behind CLB experience, which we had played more than 4 boxes of joy
Cube your cards and draft commander with your friends! 🎉
I think the beauty in cEDH is how it addresses the rule zero conversation. Everyone has the exact same understanding and expectations going into the game. They play as efficiently as possible to win the game. This in turn eliminates any hurt feelings when we all know everyone at the table has the intention of playing to win and ideally making the most optimal plays in a given situation to further the game and not king make.
In my experience it has led to the most fun games where no one is blindsided or left feeling like their deck wasn't the right fit for the game. Does it have its flaws, yes, but the expectations and experiences are far more consistent.
Agreed. It also solves the player elimination problem because killing players 1 by 1 isn’t efficient.
that windows notif sound scared me
Hard disagree
Commander 1v1 usually just comes down to who has the most removal and the spikiest deck. In a four player game other players have more threats to deal with so it gives you more opportunity to build your board and do what you’ve designed the deck to do.
I wonder if some kind of shared-deck-format (like wizards tower or battle box) could be a solution.
They obviously didn’t took off.
But I really admire their philosophy: everyone can design their way of playing the game. But instead of each of these ways clashing together in one game you play them one at a time.
Getting my play group to draft is like pulling teeth. The excuses are always "it's too hard!" or "I just built this deck I want to play" and it frustrates me to no end. I have a great cube put together but it rarely hits the table unfortunately.
As a reletively new player to "paper" magic, all the preconstructed commander decks, plus only needing one copy of each card (especially the expensive ones) makes collecting for the game of commander attractive.
The difference between edh and cedh is that in cedh you're trying to win (by any means necessary) and in edh you're gol is to do cool stuff.
37:25 MTG Arena has a format that comes up occasionally that has each player Discover 5 at the end of their turn. For some reason Goblin Charbelcher is legal for this event. If the opponent doesn't have artifact destruction ready in turn 1, you win on turn 2 with Gilded Lotus.
I agree with the notion of "roleplay" with the idea of i build decks to make me out as the villan because one of my favorite game types if archenemy and i make my decks where im always the archenemy and it gives people a free pass to attack me and not feel bad
You definitely could keep up with a banlist. There are like 12 volunteers for it, but more than that there is a massive company that could hire like 2 people who only keep up with the ban list.
This all mostly applies to all multiplayer magic, but the fact that everyone conflates commander with multiplayer makes me think I must have been part of one of the only groups who were playing multiplayer magic before commander got big.
I definitely wanted to push back initially against many of the points you both had brought up, but found many of your explanations for your feelings to be extremely reasonable, though there are a few things I'd still like to say.
The first and quickest, is that I agree about the ban list for the most part. I think the way its managed is very silly and I'm not certain it actually accomplishes what they are hoping it does. Not only that, I think the "signpost" bans can often lead to exactly what you had said; just play the next best thing. That sorta leads into my next opinion.
I'm pretty staunch in my opinion that many of Commander's issues are resolved by the play group. I agree that Rule Zero tends to be a band-aid solution to them, but in my play group, there really isn't much need for the Rule Zero conversation at all. We've played Commander together for about 10 years or so at this point, and gone from starters to sweaty tryhards, and landed somewhere in the middle. We've all agreed on how we want to experience the game when playing together, and for the most part, all of our decks land in a similar place to each other without creating any extreme "feelsbad" moments. Sure, misjudgements happen in deck quality (either above or below expectation) but that tends to be easily resolved after that night of Commander, and I would say our group walks away satisfied with that night of games each time we get together, regardless of who won, how often they won, or what decks each person played.
All that said, I do think Commander is a fairly poor way to enjoy multiplayer Magic with people that you haven't cultivated many years of expectations with. It's definitely something that could stand to have more discussion around, an example of which being the resentment of being poked early while open or anything to that effect. I'm not sure there's an elegant solution to this problem, but discussion about Commander's issues is certainly a good place to start.
Lastly, draft is great, but can be expensive to do too often. I strongly suggest that anybody interested in both game design and draft create a cube. The right kind of cube can be made on a budget, or even if you decide to make a more expensive one, might be more affordable in the long term.
You have to think about it like mario party, it isn't about winning because the game fucks you up anyway in the end . It is about doing the silly little mini games with your buddies
EDH is heavily dependent on everyone having around the same power lvl, it also depends on politicking and social banter. If people are feeling bad about winning or loosing, then discuss with them on why it felt bad. I highly recommend playing all low powered decks, you don’t have to attack every turn. It is more about relaxing and hanging out with your buddies. It is highly dependent on your pod you play with, if one of you brings a mid power deck, one a high power deck and 2 low power decks and the lower power decks will loose to the high power deck every time. This is why everyone should play the same power lvl so they have a good time. If you want a more kitchen sink version of edh, I recommend checking out battle box!
Have you guys tried flesh and blood? It could be up your alley if you enjoy that more 1 on 1 experience over a FFA experience.
We have. We probably need to give it a second look.
We have a heuristic in our group, “when in doubt, do nothing.”
This video encapsulate everything I think about commander, I would also add what I think is the second "curse" of EDH : early player elimination.
If you approached me with a game saying it has Kingmaking AND player elimination, I would just run away, and no games are made like that anymore, but EDH gets a pass because people want to play their huge card collection and build even more decks (which is the most fun aspect of EDH for sure)
Oh also I forgot the most important : It is WAYYYY too long ! 2 to 4 hours per game is what makes it so miserable for everyone, the board states get too complex for anyone to care anymore and to a certain point people just want it to end.
It is pretty interesting that at the highest levels of the format (cEDH) players only play strategies that kill everyone else at once. Very rarely is single player elimination a problem. To me, that is telling that the ruleset isn’t quite right.
This might be a hot take, but my playgroup and I don't view commander as 4 player magic, we view it as playing with a commander deck. We play 1v1 and 3 player all the time, and it's great. We've even played alternate game styles like assassin or 3 headed giant with 5 and 6 player games, I've considered them all commander games.
I actually probably play more 1v1 and 3 player commander than 4. I play 4 at the lgs, but I play at my house and buddies' houses more.
We tend to enjoy ourselves more in 1v1 than 4 player as well.
@distractionmakers I agree with your main point; that magic is better 1v1, but games in general are about fellowship and "the more the marrier" is a valid.
I mean "the gathering" is in the title, and any card that says "target opponent" implies the possibility of multiple players.
My lgs has a very thriving and good community. Every once in a while i see some nekusar combo pile but most often the games are mid rangey back and forth kinda good threat assessment multiplayer magic. About 75% of the games end up with everyone managing to actually play their deck.
"Not caring how good my deck is and not caring if I win [is when I started enjoying commander.]" That was basically going to be my advice through the first 2/3 of the video.
Playing around with the rules in a private group is the way to play magic in commander format.
My group has dabbled in minimizing mana screw by placing land in a separate deck you can choose to draw from instead of your real deck, it worked and made it a tactical decision. Drawing another land is a trade off since you give up another nonland card. It just sucks to sit and watch everyone else play while you draw once per turn or wait for a spell in a land food. Helps bring parity while adding a gamble.
Then we also emphasize the politics in commander by making a round robin format... We don't have an accurate name for either... But aggression goes in a circle. You win by killing your target and you lose if any other person is killed. In a 3 way match its rock paper scissors but in 4 or more you get neutral parties that don't care if you're doing well, but they don't want your target too weak or too strong since respectively you could kill them easy and win or they could kill their target. Think of it as 1 kills 2, 2 kills 3, 3 kills 4 and 4 kills 1. 2 and 3 are neutral and 2 and 4 are neutral. 2 wants 1 to be weak but not enough for 4 to kill them. The whole point behind this was to speed up games. It got ridiculous when we played a 5 hour game on our one day off... No one wants to be the bad guy or look to strong or is going economy strategy... Now we can have a direct target, a reason to attack rather than bunker down.
All in all though magic is best when played 1v1. Vanilla commander didn't have enough reason to play politics when in three end 3 of the four WILL lose.
Sounds like you guys enjoy competition too much to truly enjoy commander one versus one magic is a solved format where there are like what ten playable competitive decks that have to be built exactly like this for them to work well enough to compete so basically no creativity then you sit down and if you know the Meta well you basically know who will win before even playing the game and nothing wild or weird is going to happen cause the decks are designed to win not do cool fun things yes there are politics and king making but I don’t see how that’s no more interesting and fun then sitting down and playing a very basic solved game that was interesting and fun in the 90’s but thirty years later seems like we want a little more out of our games which the complexity of commander offers us
Hmm… I’m not sure why you feel 1v1 is solved. There are individual decks that are tuned to fulfill a particular strategy and those are further refined depending on the meta, but what deck to choose to play isn’t solved and more cards are introduced all the time.
I think the biggest difference is in how often you get to “do the thing”. In 60 card, you’re doing the thing your deck is designed to do nearly every game and the interesting aspects are in how both decks do their thing while the other is doing theirs. Commander decks don’t get to “do the thing” nearly as often unless they’re built to subvert the intention of the format (additional variance through game rules) through tutors, tons of draw, etc. I feel this is often what leads to frustration in commander play. You didn’t get to do your thing, because someone else did theirs and won.