Fantastic video! Really love hearing the concept of CEDH from a newcomer's perspective! As an enfranchised CEDH player, it can be difficult sometimes to look at the format at this level and without bias. You pointed out its upsides and flaws very well! You've gained a new subscriber today. Keep up the great work! Looking forward to more.
One crucial thing about cEDH that makes the format unique is that it's a competitive format with a banlist, but the banlist is not made or curated for the formats meta at all. The Modern banlist is basically created by letting the best players try to "break" the format and then ban the cards that are so dominant that the meta can't adjust to them. If this was the case for cEDH then it's very likely that Dockside, Underworld Breach and Consult/Pact would be banned which could lead to more diverse win conditions, or Mystic Remora banned leading to more diverse draw engines etc.
CEDH has too many strong engines to ban them all (you would essentially have to ban all of the ultra-fast mana, all of the strong tutors, all of the strong 1 mana draw engines etc.), but Thoracle really is the biggest culprit, imho. The fact that removing Thoracle in response to the trigger is completely useless blanks a lot of options that are open to stop many other combos in their tracks, making the format revolve much more around counters, stax effects and - at times - stifle-effects than it otherwise would. I really think Thoracle should be banned in Commander, it's not a casual card in the slightest (Dockside, at least, sees play in some casual pirate or golbin decks and is much weaker against usually Green-based battlecruiser decks that mostly ramp with lands) and it's also really problematic in CEDH.
Counter point: you can call yourself or a format 'competitive' all you want, but it doesn't make it actually a competitive format. cEDH is still casual players playing a casual format, they are just power gaming within a casual format with an extremely unbalanced and permissive ruleset and banned list that isn't concerned with creating or maintaining a healthy competitive meta, and the severe lack of ecological diversity in cards is a predictable outcome of that. For some reason, cEDH players just really needed to adopt a name for themselves that's full of pretension and sounds like delusions of grandeur coming from a group of people that by in large haven't ever and don't ever plan on stepping foot in *actual* sanctioned high level play of *actual* competitive 1v1 formats. Hell, French/Duel EDH is already a significantly more serious and honest attempt at creating a competitive format version of EDH and cEDH players have had the option to play French for *years* now if they were really serious about their claims of being competitive players that just want a version of EDH with rules and bans made for there specific needs. The fact that they don't is something that all their actions and words are held up to like a mirror IMO, and makes what they say they want, but don't do, end up making them seem exceptionally dishonest about what their real desire is; which seems like a weird thing to do about something with no stakes at all like EDH....but then again people are often so attached to appearances and cultivating a specific persona that feeds their ego and maintains there ideas about themselves that they will do some amazing mental gymnastics over how they want to play a game vs the labels they want to claim about their place in the game. There are certainly cEDH players that more honest about what they really want, that they really just want to play powerful broken stuff, but simply continuing to use the name cEDH means there's always a thin layer of cosplaying as competitive players. Which is really the thing that I think drives most of us nuts about the average cEDH player: it's pretension. The claim to high level play or competitive play from people mucking about casual and bowling strikes with the bumpers up. The often implied and many times outright stated belief of lots of cEDH players that there is an *inherent* skill floor difference between them and other EDH players derived *solely* from the power level they choose to play casual at. They they are smarter and/or better at the game because they choose to play obviously powerful and linear cards and decks in casual, and conversely that other players are bad because they aren't good enough at the game to play those cards and decks. It's not all cEDH players, but it's more than enough, and it's generally those cEDH players that only engage with MtG via cEDH and play no other formats or power levels. tl'dr: cEDH is just multiplayer casual like the rest of multiplayer casual. Casual is still sandlot baseball if you play it with bats, Gundams, Death Stars or 007 miniature lasers; no differences in how you play a casual format will ever make you a competitive or pro player any more than showing up to game of pick-up basketball wearing an Iron Man suit will make you an MLB player.
This is such a weird take man. CEDH is not a distinct format, it is just a word people use when playing EDH decks that use the best cards in the card pool. EDH is also not competitive, you can play it competitively but to call it a competitive format is to not understand competitive integrity. EDH is a free-for-all format which means there is a lot of good faith that is required to actually play fairly and competitively i.e. no collusion, no kingmaking, no targeting. These things are impossible to curate which means it’s incredibly easy for people to cheat and play dirty with no reasonable mechanism to stop them, unlike 1v1 formats. Not to disparage anyone that likes playing top tier decks but you need to come back to reality and realize that this is a casual format. There are no high level tournaments, nor will there ever be because of the issues I listed above.
I think you hit the nail on the head with your rule 0 statement: casual commander is wildly unbalanced if expectations are not put forward. And it’s the reason why I typically don’t like the rating system for commander. “Oh your deck is a 7?” What constitutes a 7? No one rocks up to the table and says “yea I have a power 3 deck”, it’s that clear expectation that I enjoy about cEDH. It’s about playing to win, that’s the mindset. I’ll never forget the guy who played karametra and absolutely destroyed our table because he knew how to play to win. Good pilots can maneuver any deck so long as that deck has a play to win .
This is why I play Magda Land Destruction at my LGS. I pulled a 60% win rate and warped the meta so much that people built mono-coloured decks with basic lands, because I wouldn’t blow up basics.
I played with 2 cedh players the other day, and they were some of the friendliest guys Ive met at the store. Their decks were brutal against mine, often winning on turn 3-5, but it was smfun playing against a table that wasn't getting salty about the cards I played that normally would accumulate salt.
The little line on talking to your fellow commander games spoke true to me. Back when i played Magic i always asked if they where using strong or more friendly and casual EDH decks, Depending on what they answered opt'ed what deck i picked. Something that will try and win, Or something that was goofy and fun.
I think cedh is very exciting to watch and players ability to pilot the deck can really be the deciding factor. My one issue is places trying to make cedh tournaments that are sanctioned so no proxies are allowed. You lose the core of cedh when it’s now your wallet deciding the power of your deck.
At our table were aware some decks we make are not fun for others at the table. But we generally play those decks once or twice and seeing them pop off is fun at times, i think alot of people take salt to personally or too far rather than having a joke with friends.
"Winning" is when you get invited back to play again. Hope you enjoy telling people about all the other losers you beat ten years ago for the rest of your life 😂
@PeteCarroll-12-16 I win every day man - I just don't explain my decks for 10 minutes before each game , we just enjoy playing more than complaining in my hood
I've always been quite interested in CEDH ever since I joined a game with my casual omnath locus of creation deck and won because no one was prepared for just a casual landfall deck. It showed how there's definitely plenty of room to still be creative in the format.
One thing I really appreciated about this video? It confirmed to me that all the people on mtgo complaining to me that my 5-7 decks are really CEDH are indeed batshit crazy.
i gravitated pretty early to cedh since i am used to play magic competitivly. And while i see the the argument of playing edh as a casual format i think the deckbuilding is kind of weird. Forcefully trying to limit yourself from using specific cards took away a lot of the fun, that a more or less vintage format brings to the table. I am not prohibited from playing some whacky brew at cedh - hell i even might win a game with it because the other 3 decks exaust all their interaction and my stuff slips through. I just have to know, if i show up with suboptimal cards i have a lower chance to win, like in every other magic format. The shere powerlevel can be really fun and the interaction is usually great. Regular edh games often accumulated to boardstates with 40 + permanents on board that nobody could handle anymore rules wise. CEDH breaks down magic to a simpler form i think. heres is my ramp, here is my wincon, can you beat it yes, good your turn, you cannot cool, lets shuffle up for the next game. Thats what every magic game boils down to in the end you just have a 40 minute war over board presence in between. Your video is very accurate and explains the format and its merits and also its drawbacks pretty accurate!
Very good Videos. I Ppay mostly Casual EDH since 2014 but from time to time watched many Videos and also played some cEDH. I still have an Tasigur the Golden Fang Deck and Yisan the Wanderbard. Your Observation and your guest are really pinpoint my experience. I still win with these Commander. New cEDH Players don't really know what to look out for. The Matchup ist very important. Yisan perfoms really well, with a Winota Player. Since both Decks also play many Stax Pieces. Also the fact, that at some point the people rannout of answers. I am building a Deck with Sissay 5 Color.
This video got me thinking about whether cEDH would benefit from taking a queue from Canadian Highlander, and making some sort of a points list. For the unfamiliar, CanLander is a 100 card singleton format, like commander, but it's 1v1 20 life, no commander, and the card pool is the same as in vintage (ie no ban list). Instead, powerful cards are assigned point values by a council, and each deck gets 10 points to spend on cards. So even though Ancestral Recall and Black Lotus are both legal, you can't play them both in the same deck, because Ancestral is 8 points and Lotus is 7. Implementing a similar system for cEDH might mean that, for example, you could still have Thoracle or Ad Naus be your primary win con, but running those would mean that you don't get to run, say, Sol Ring or Mana Vault. This would bring the power level down, and the card diversity up, without sacrificing the social benefits of "everyone is going all out" that were mentioned in the video.
6:54 that IS the rule 0 conversation. It's implied, just how it's implied at a modern tournament. 10:15 this is 100% the best part of cEDH imo, there are no rules, and the format isn't solved, it's settled. If you stir up the muck at the bottom of the pond by jamming your weird deck into it, the muck will settle differently at the end of the day. 12:51 cEDH isn't a format, it's a way to play EDH. All of the issues of cEDH are issues of EDH ultimately. The only reason that CEDH (for fun edh) doesn't look like cEDH is because the goal isn't winning, it's fun, so people play lots of unoptimal cards that they feel are cool.
For me, the homogony of the cEDH format is the largest driving factor is why i stay away from it. I did similar things to you, except i simply looked at top 50 cEDH lists and saw how many cards in these lists are considerred "staples" and had no meaningful interaction with the rest of the deck. Generally, over 60% of non-lands fell into this category. This kind of gameplay is uninteresting and samey and you saw that in just a dozen games. casual edh needs a regulated way to grade power level and it will be the best format in the game, bar none.
It reminds me of the top level of competitive Pokemon now, and I mean the Video Game (VGC) and not the card game. Currently with one legendary each, it's a lot like the Commander you build around. And for the other five slots on the team, you really need to optimize. At the most recent Regional Championship, on Day 2, Incineroar was on more than 70% of teams, etc.
The perfect illustration is the goal/power level comaprisons you showed. That encapsulates the issues in EDH as a format perfectly. cEDH is a perfect example of a perfect Rule 0 conversation. Everyone going in has the same goals and clearly understands the power level they're getting into. This is why effectively and clearly communicating your goals at the start of any EDH game is important. The 1-10 power scale is mostly useless without qualifiers and clarifications being added. You have to have an actual conversation with people and be honest. What causes saltiness a bad feels in casual EDH is missing that open and honest communication beforehand. Channels like MTGGoldfish had a conversation about splitting the formats and every single one of the hosts complained about rule zero while unconsciously arguing and showing why rule zero must exist and how effective it can be when used properly.
With powercreep going up for profits, cEDH might soon stand for „casual“-edh. Seriously though, one guy in our group is optimizing his one favorite deck and on his journey he is tapping into cEDH territory to squeeze out more power. yet, he is totally oblivious to the fact that tutoring a two-card-win-combo in a casual environment is absolute salt-move and sacrificing the uniqueness the deck once had. I‘m building now my own cEDH-Deck to provide him with an appropriate challenge since he loves playing his deck so much.
I think the main problem with not just cEDH, but EDH in general is that the banlist is waaaaaaay to small. Why are any doubler, tripler, and copiers allowed in a format that very quickly gets out of control.
What is all this about messy rule zero conversations like it is a chore? I've never had any issues discussing what people are trying to get out of a game. And because the focus isn't about absolute effecency and perfectly designed decks, the winning and losing "salt" isn't really there, everyone I've played with recognizes luck is part of the game and usually love seeing explosive plays with powerful cards and don't expect to win every game. There have been a few incidents with people I don't play with regularly but I have experienced much more salt when I sit down to a designated cedh table where everyone almost seems stressed if there deck doesn't perform optimally. I think it mostly comes down to the pod your playing with, not the brand of edh you escribe to.
i play a couple cedh games a month on cockatrice but i don't like using cards i don't own so i don't use a lot of cedh staples and i'm at a clear disadvantage. however it is a great place to play with cards i don't think are appropriate in casual and degenerate shit. i don't win often but it's brutal when i do, usually with a displacer kitten + coveted jewel but my favorite is stealing all the lands with an infinite agent of treachery. more often than not i try to at least screw one player out of winning with some interaction before losing to dockside extortionist
This makes a lot of sense, but also, despite being a simic player myself.... I hate counterspell, so much. why is 15% of the playable cards in a commander deck saying "no you don't get to do that at all"
Oh hey, small world. It was cool to hear you talk about your cEDH Jace deck, as my biggest bugbear with cEDH is the homogeneity of decks I was running against. Might give it another try sometime
@@milkydoesstuff1828 Except as discussed in the video, ban lists are catered to the format to provide variety and structure to the format. Cloudpost decks from 2011 can still beat Rakdos scam today with a decent win percentage despite being way out of date. It's banned in Pauper and Modern because it's one of the strategies that does take over the format. Same with how Fury needed to go to open up more potential for creature decks again, except they printed Bowmasters which had basically the same impact on creature decks but was less likely to 4-for-1 your ass. Top is still an exceptionally strong card and would show up all over the place in Modern, but it creates a miserable play experience of *regularly* going to time in every game of every match you play with or against it. The commander banlist's sole focus was and is currently stated to only be concerned with unfun play experiences or play patterns. There's no consideration for actual balancing. Calling it cEDH is kind of silly and to a lot of people comes off as pretentious. You're fundamentally avoiding the behavioral pillars of the format but still tying yourself to it by name and some people who use this term go even further and imply they should also be catered to in a format that wasn't made for them. A decade ago you just said you had high power decks and everyone knew to expect lots of combo-y horseshit and as much quick mana as was possible. Now the cute little community needs a shibboleth to say the same thing just saying high power decks meant in 2011.
Play both, love both. But if I'm not playing cEDH I do highly prefer high power because I want to play decks and play vs decks that can close the game out. I hate when games drag on.
@@mcculloughfamily6984same. Unless I’m playing with a group or 1v1 where I’m mostly playing for the conversation, I find the standstill that most people’s decks end up at quite boring. That’s why combos are fun for me
Very simple. In EDH there are like 30,000 legal cards, and 15,000 of them are viable. In cEDH, there are 30,000 legal cards, and 500 of them are viable.
@machina188 In cEDH, it's very well documented, which cards are good enough, and what cards aren't good enough. In cEDH, you, for the most part, can't really get away with playing "janky" or "pet" cards that would be fine in casual or even higher-powered EDH. If you want to stay hyper-efficient and compete against other decks that are all doing their best to win.
Isn't every game of EDH competitive? I started playing EDH in 2011 with a playgroup who'd been playing since 2006 and like, cEDH just means the most expensive build to us now. But what EDH game isn't a competitive competition with 1 winner in the end? Like if you actually fall in love with this game, your card evaluations and deck building logic does start to dwindle down what cards and commander's you'd even consider as years go by, 99 cards is not a lot... good cards are purposely few and far between in WotC card design. Like, there is a power ceiling that is rarely broken, and most cards are purposely designed to be "bad cards", you can maybe find a Mark Rosewater Drive to Work from 2011-2014 where he explains what "bad cards" are and their goal to make bad cards more fun in the future. Budget magic is better than ever though. I think breaking up EDH into Budget EDH, EDH and then cEDH (just the most expensive builds possible, which should mean the most powerful cards, which are designed to be scarce) should be how the community talks about EDH. I swear this EDH vs cEDH is just weird semantics. Like in 2011-2015, in Nor Cal you could find EDH tournaments with $5 entry fees with the money turning into store credit for the winner. People would bring their "tournament decks" and if they won that week, or the final table decided to split, they would use the store credit to help build another "tournament" deck. People weren't showing up to those with $5,000+ decks... that often... like, it was just the best decks lgs players had, coming together on a Wednesday, playing EDH for a chance at like $10 - $40 store credit. There are real chess similarities with Magic: The Gathering...like there are a finite amount of game pieces, like...mastering a game means learning it... like if you don't understand the concept of Philosophy of Fire in Magic The Gathering, then like, you're probably having fun just doing jank, clueless to how card evaluation works. Isn't understanding a game fun? Or is that not true anymore? Ignorance is the real bliss in games?
@@matthewbryant2972 There's a very real difference in a cEDH tournament with strong prize support and a fun weekly local. The second is competitive on the surface only. Some might enter just to test out some neat new build they've made, or run some jank they're just itching to run. People would like to win, but winning is hardly the overall goal. At something with a 30-50 dollar entry fee though? No pet decks, very little jank except from the brewers that are crazy people. Expect the 5000 deck en masse if there's real prizes on the line. There's definitely something to be said about ignorance is bliss, a lot of the hate cEDH draws is the distain of what magic looks like when the curtain is pulled back. No, it's not balanced, or even particularly varied if you're trying to win. There's a very definitive list for whatever colors you run, and little to no room for deckbuilding expression. And that's okay. But for casuals, especially longtime players, it can be jarring.
@@bretts3046 I mean you technically could it is just highly unlikely that you will win often as sometimes you will win it happens. But for the most part there is usually room for A pet card or two, especially if the card is very useful in general like Karn the Great Creator even if not running a stax deck as he shuts down your opponents artifacts their main mana source and can just simply pop their 0 cost fast mana Now Karn is better than playing a Null Rod simply because he only affects your opponents artifacts not yours meaning you have massive mana advantage and tempo
As a cEDH player, this was a very gracious representation of the format; as a fan of yours I didn't expect something bad, but I was a little unsure with the title you presented. Thanks for the video
Same. The title was unnecessarily incendiary, but he did a good job presenting all sides of the equation. The only thing I think he didn't touch on was that, even though decks can look homogenous, the playstyle can massively change how it plays in practice. Kenrith decks come in all flavors and often share a lot of core cards, but the 15-20 flex slots dedicated to personal playstyle can make them actually play wildly different, despite the apparent homogeneity.
@@edhdeckbuilding I prefer to treat it as a different format. Yes, it is Commander, but come on, I think we can agree a cEDH Najeela x cEDH Yuriko x Casual Ayula x Casual Wilson/Tavern Brawler would be a really unbalanced and unfun table. Treating cEDH as a different format help me explain people the absolute difference those decks have.
Yep. The "benefits" mentioned in the video aren't ones distinct to cedh becausse it somehow bypassess rule 0, rather they're outcomes that manifest from the use of rule 0, which "cedh" is simply a permutation of
I expected to be mad, but am 100% on board and agree with most all of this. I play both and feel like applying lessons learned between the two has made my games more fun overall
You should do a video about pauper commander, or PDH. I recently got into it and it has roughly the same arguments for it that cedh does, no rule 0. But it ALSO has a much wider card variety because of how limited you are in power level
I've had a lot more fun than I expected with a spur of the moment pedh deck than I ever expected. Zoyowa has really forced some players to think, and I loved how the table reacted when I cast Phyresis for the first time
@@SLVYER1I was about to say “oh, “”only”” five hundred, you say”, but then I remembered that’s not an unreasonable amount of Pokemon to know when quizzed. And I still have enough memory for Magic. Meanwhile a modern Yugioh card, if it’s readable to begin with, reads like a legal document that can OTK if you read the fine print
@@dragoknighte48More like they don't read because most cards say "search other card that searches other card that searches other card that summons other card that goes into generic extra deck wincon". It's an overly consistent soup of combo turns that effectively FTK the opponent if they don't open what is essentially a free cast counterspell (and that's usually not enough), a Wrath if they know they're going second post board, and their own combo for the crack back. There's a reason a lot of players prefer to play a time locked format from 2010 instead of 2024 Yugioh.
My pipeline from casual to competitive EDH came from bad experiences playing on TTS and Spelltable. Removing the feelsbads or salt by just sitting down and playing to win is how I like to approach any game of magic.
It’s how every single other format of Magic is played, so it’s kinda odd when casual heads try to say it’s not fun or it’s weird to play it competitively. Like bro it’s just playing commander with the card pool you have ?
@@RINNECODAthe issue is most games in general are played that way but casuals try to warp the expectations to their likes and wants. Imagine going to a football game where people “play for fun” like what?
@@aR0ttenBANANA I mean Sunday leagues and beer leagues exists for people who just wants to enjoy the sport and play because they think its fun, some teams don't even have coaches and they definitely not train optimally to win these games. So if someone like Leo Messi would show and run circles around these people i doubt people would enjoy that if it happened every week, just so he could feed his own ego. Or Connor McGregor would show up at the local dojo tournament and start beating the shit out of the local guys and claim they suck and shouldn't complain because it's a competitive environment. It's being completely tonedeaf and sometimes makes me wonder if people are just not completely dishonest and try to gaslight people into agreeing upon an environment of play they didn't want to play in.
this was a very good video. i had no idea from cedh until my friend invited me for an evening to play one of his decks. it was cool. but after 5x win with the same combo, i had seen it all. its a good format for its own. it shud never appear in a normal commander table.
Great video, and overall a solid presentation of the format's upsides and downsides. As you said, the overarching issue with casual games not being fun is misalignment of expectations. There are several main forms it takes and it doesn't simply boil down to power level differences. You hit on this, and a lot of the discourse tends to gloss over it. For me, the most egregious offender for polarized experiences is the idea that a game of EDH should be an hour or more and build up an epic boardstate. In the majority of cases, it ends up being a slog where people are too afraid to just win and "end the fun." Thankfully, this trend seems to be reversing somewhat. People have become more willing to accept that it's usually more fun to play a few faster games for a more rounded overall experience.
Really good video. I have so many comments but I will just say you are correct with modification. But still your correct. I think it was really good to have someone come and say something short about it.
also, i completely agree and like the idea presented of rule zero. something that ive taken away from my play at competitive to casual tables is the mindset of 'let people play whatever'. i always tell people that they shouldnt complain about what cards are on the other side of the table. you can ask them to change decks, remove yourself from the table yourself, etc. but whining or complaining reduces fun for everyone.
I usually find another pod. People who knowingly play power decks at casual tables are usually there to feed their egos. They know what's expected, lie about their deck, then scoff when someone objects. They can go to perdition.
@FallenStarFeatures doesn't matter bc you can play casual decks with competitive mind set. It's the players skill level/reach these kids will still whine
This channel constantly surprises me. I wouldn't have expected cedh to be a conversation had here. But you covered it excellently and I'm hoping you continue to grow deservedly to the size of a channel benefitting the quality of your arguments and videos. Good luck.
As an 'outsider with some experience' such as yourself, I have a somewhat unique perspective on the whole 'cEDH is a best-case example of rule 0 working' premise. Now, to preface - I abhor rule 0 and feel it is a lazy excuse the RC uses to avoid making rules and a banlist that actually WORKS for the segment of the EDH community that needs it the most: random pick-up games in public. I have long held that the RC's claim that a slim banlist works better for private groups is irrelevant because those private groups both didn't NEED anyone to tell them they could house rule things to their liking and could more easily work down form a more restrictive ruleset than having to build infrastructure for a more restrictive one anyway. That being said, I posit that cEDH is NOT an example of 'rule 0' working. It is an example of the opposite, in fact: that rule 0 DOES NOT work and the only way to get salt-free games is to toss out the premise entirely and use the rules completely as written and accept everything within as fair game. The problem is, as you pointed out, this means that the options available are limited by the fastest decks and if you cannot present a threat or an answer in time, your strategy is not viable - and the more pressing problem if cEDH grade win conditions showing up outside of tables prepared to respond to them.
The commander banlist is honestly a joke at this point. So many of the cards are just slightly better versions of legal cards in the format already and there are so many cards it would be better off without.
That cEDH has a more limited card pool is an advantage to the subformat's enthusiasts, and is something that the subformat's intent is angled specifically to encourage. The issue is that this attitude then bleeds both into more casual play and into actual card design, whereby increasing power creep homogenizes the format more than ever before paradoxically at the same time as more cards are being printed into it than ever before. Rather than being seen as a parallel to 60-card, which aught to be an eternal format curated into separate intended power-level dimensions, Wizards increasingly behaves as if EDH is somehow self-regulating. What you ultimately get then is a rudderless ship which seems impelled towards salt and frustration, outside of cEDH pods - because cEDH has a defined play philosophy. Rather than emulating this success, and laying out separate play philosophies for different levels of power, "Rule 0" has been tossed around as a byword for "we don't really feel like doing anything to cultivate the game's most-popular, most-fragile format."
I started playing mtg again bc a close group of friends was playing commander. Playing w/ them was fun, but I ended up never getting into the format otherwise bc I get the impression it's just salt everywhere. I know what I'm saying it's an exaggeration, but it just seems like a bunch of people not having fun because they're annoyed by anything anyone does because that makes the game unfun. It's like every time I come close to a group of edh players I overhear they shit talking someone else on those grounds (and it seems like the environment is very toxic). I get the idea of playing for fun as a break from the very competitive mindset, but for me it's some aspect that has been always present in lgs small tournaments anyway. The problem I see w/ edh is that aspect is "enforced", while the idea of "fun" is very subjective. eg: I made a cool (for me) proxy deck, really didn't go overboard w/ power level (for me), but I'm using (a lot of) dual lands. If I don't win, nobody has a problem w/ it. If I win everyone is salty bc I'm using a lot of expensive lands that I don't have. But in my head I'm just removing the literally most unfun aspect of the game, which is getting mana screwed lol Meanwhile, started playing pauper. The community is great (and from what I see it's kinda like that everywhere). Every week there's a small stakes tournament at the lgs, a lot of people show up with crazy brews and have fun. But nobody has a problem w/ losing to an annoying control or being run over by a t1 aggro, because they are supposed to be there. The fact that those tier 1 decks are gonna be there also make the deckbuilding more interesting (for me), cause you have to somehow be prepared for them. And virtually every week there's a very unorthodox build that does well in the tournament. Everybody is having fun, while not forcing anyone else to abide by their own idea of fun. People are also very welcoming/helpful towards new players, which is something I see way less at edh tables (for a supposedly casual format, everybody I see behaves like they're at the finals of a pro tour). This is a long text just to say that everything you said about cEDH reminds me of the pauper community. Even the part where no matter the build you're gonna run some of the staple efficient cards lol. And even though it has "competitive" in the name, the vibes seem more true at heart to what edh is supposed to be. I'll probably try some games online and see if I get into the format. Thanks for the video!
@@BingbongRecto a game of chess or a match of street fighter 2 Ryu vs Ryu are really enjoyable experiences, so similar game pieces doesn't make a game necessarily bland or boring Love cEDH and casual EDH, it is just that they are completely different social experiences, people who like tennis doesn't necessarily likes badminton or vice versa
We started playing cEDH in our playgroup and to me the biggest takeaway other than the exact thing you talked about (proxie friendlyness and powerleveldiscussion/salt) was: All the same wincons dont make it boring, as many of us thought. Its not to defend the format from accurate observations like you did, but the thing we noticed is that the wincon is not what this game is about. When somebody has a win, noone cares how the win is "named". Wether its oracle, breach or any other combo. The focus is on the path to get there. Talion dimir control vs for example tymna/malcom share the main wincon. They also share probably like haft the spells at least. But you gameplan and priorities are VASTLY different. And also timing and reading the table are a critical factor for success. And thats really what makes this format. Casual games can sometimes be on the one extreme of "everyone plays their deck like its moxfield, because there is no interaction happening". cEDH is the complete opposite. Every deck can present a win reasonably fast and reliable. Its all about the interaction and the decks are stuffed with that. That will shift the factors for a win vastly. In casual luck at the draw, maybe a "better constructed deck" and maybe randomly having an interaction up can decide games. In cEDH literally 1 mistake on where to point a counterspell or interaction can end the game within the same turncycle. So the focus is much more on the players. We are still a mostly casual playgroup, but this reality did totally beat up on the idea many of us had that "cEDH is boring because its all the same cards". We didnt see the product of that reality because since its "all the same cards" the decisions become so much more relevant. And to me that is the biggest difference and an opportunity to improve as a player (wich will also help you in casual). You will not learn from mistakes you make in how you spend your interaction if they dont get punished. In cEDH they WILL get punished almost certainly. To trinket mages point: We as newbies obviously got our foot in by basically copying decklists of stuff that looked interesting, read primers, watched deck techs and then proxied the deck. But we did avoid picking from the top of the top. And that means there is A LOT of options and staying away from those few decks makes so much more decks stay viable. We are certainly not at a level where people have their "pet deck" that they have piloted for years. But we all did manage to find decks that fit the general themes and playstyles we like and its not a table of 4 oracle decks. Its great fun giving it a go. Printing out some cEDH decks with your friends, local playgroup or whatnot costs basically no money at all. Before hating on sth, giving it a shot first is always worth it and it really expanded our understanding of the game.
I recently had my perceptions of cEDH turned on their head because of exactly what you are saying here. I always thought of the cEDH variant in terms of how top tier 1v1 play works, completely missing the fact that you have MORE THAN ONE OPPONENT. I realized just how much strategy that takes to navigate - not just the mechanical considerations, but the social ones as well. Bluffing and reading skill goes through the roof.
The best part about cEDH is that you get to sit at a table where everyone wants to play good cards and win. Don't get me wrong, I've played a kinda slow Enchantress Commander deck for over 10 years at this point as one of my main ones, so I was down for the slower more casual tables for a long time... but these days I prefer to avoid those kinds of games. Prolonging the game needlessly, barely anyone actually playing interactive cards, getting upset at sweepers/counterspells etc. - there's a lot of bad experiences to be had at casual tables that I try to avoid.
The idea of a casual table still irks me, to me the only casual table I ever played at was kitchen table, losing to my roommate night after night with his gruul "banding" deck playing my 300 card Nikol bolas deck that was really just half the cards I owned stacked together. I remember we went to the card shop once and he was so happy to get his tapped dual lands and splurged on a curse to double damage. There is nothing casual about meeting up with strangers or acquaintances for an mtg night, as much as public at large may wish for it to be true. This is just a slightly watered down FNM only your less likely to have a judge catch Timmy move his combo piece to his graveyard in his reanimator deck
There is one gameplay advantage cedh has over casual edh: it has a clearly defined meta, so you can confidently run anti-meta techs. Rule of Law and Red Elemental Blast are *guaranteed* to be effective. Possibly against all three opponents. EDIT: yep, Trinket Mage confirmed it.
Played a game of CEDH where a Kinnan player had a consecrated sphinx turn . A Rowan scion of war player decided to play a wheel of fortune making the kinnan player draw 51 cards. He won the turn after and we laughed, shuffled up and played again. Now I have an orcish bowmasters!
The only thing I disagreed with is that in cEDH you have to present a turn two win. That is actually a lot less common than you'd think, and there are plenty of top decks where they literally can't present a turn two win. Midrange and control styles are definitely a thing, and because everyone is packing interaction, even if you go for the win on turn 2, you're usually going to get stopped.
I've shifted to preferring CEDH, everyone is playing on the same level for the most part. It does feel far more limited with card choices, but for me that is a good thing as I don't have a lot of money to spend on magic.
Something also worth mentioning about cEDH is that it’s a terrible tournament format, logistically. The time limits on matches make certain strategies and cards less viable. Decks that might be able to lock in the win but fail to actually win within 90 minutes will just cause a draw for the table. This means that only specific archetypes (UBx decks with tutors and compact combos) are equipped to really play a tournament.
I've been looking at cEDH on and off for a few months, but never saw more than the surface level. I'll have to look into it more, this is really interesting summary
I’ve had a very similar experience with Tiny Leaders Reborn. However, the advantage of that format is that it’s very young, so the meta is still undecided.
Really great video! I play casual EDH too, but my favorite mode is cEDH for all the reasons you listed: High-speed games with lots of interaction, no/little salt, and being allowed to do the strongest/meanest(not mean to people, but mean to their ability to play) things you can think of if it helps you win. But at the same time, it has its flaws as a format, many of which you outlined here. Another flaw is that the ban list isn't catered to a competitive format. I'm of the opinion that the ban list should be even smaller, but I can also see a world where the ban list should be expanded to hit some of the cards that are so ubiquitous because of their power level. (But, if the format were slowed down too much, it would also lose much of its allure.)
I stopped playing commander entirely because my goals and the goals of the people who play in my city are very different, they have this weird idea that tribal decks are inherently balanced, like they don't run interactions or board wipes, and I play a midrange reanimator/clones deck( not clones in clones, but in creating copies of my creatures) and I put a lot of interaction to protect my plays, and now I'm at a crossroads, I can take out the interaction and stuff my deck with board wipes and steam roll everyone, or I can continue to have a lot of games were someone just draws their most efficient creatures and kills everyone, or the beautiful games were everyone bricked and I can't hit anyone because I would be a try hard, it's like I just wanna have a fun and interactive game, and I just can't do that
No one is going to be happy in EDH. The cedh group i used to play in get upset if a player doesn't "play optimally" in the interest of the pod. There was a game where I had Glen Elendra out and I could combo out if I got to untap. The player next to me played a High Tide and I declined the opportunity to counter it with Glen because I wanted to save it to protect my wincon. The next player with priority countered it, and got upset because I didn't use my Glen to stop the High Tide. He was saying that it was my responsibility, and that I was griefing/trolling the table by not playing by cedh standards.
@@Sapreme this is wild, I mean you were playing to win, like you literally made the best decision for you in that situation, and they got mad? Like if you're playing cedh the objective is to win, not help the table, that's a casual mindset, and there's no problem in playing casual, but a table doesn't become competitive just because the cards on it are powerful, I believe that even if everyone is using suboptimal cards that table is still competitive if everyone has the right mentality, it's really cedh in the traditional sense, but anyway what I'm trying to say is that your table appears to hold on to social rules used in casual games, but applying it for competitive decks, which is a weird way to play imo, but you everyone has fun their own way
A weird phenomenon of cEDH is that many of the staple cards require opponents using strategies such as: Tutors Graveyard interactions Low toughness/high value creatures Card draw Multiple actions in a single turn etc. Which can result in the cEDH deck having reduced efficacy against strong, but more "basic" decks.
OH MY GOD, YES! I've been saying this for years. I find cEDH commander SO boring and I think it was Playing with Power that awakened me to this fact. Guy was playing a Volrath deck (the tricolor one) and I thought he would be using something along with the commander but the commander itself didn't even entered the battlefield, he won with Thassa + Oracle. cEDH is not commander, it's literally singleton restricted by color.
Excellent video! I've learned some important things from the discussions down here: 1) "Casual" players are all scrubs who whine and get salty about everything they don't like. 2) "cEDH" players are all entitled tryhards who will pub stomp their own mother for a W. 3) Nether of the above is entirely true, but too many players _believe_ that one of then actually _is_. 4) The players who _do_ behave as 1) or 2) will ultimately self-select themselves out of people to play with.
The reduced salt level is what drew me to cEDH. I have my personal brew that does great against meta decks even after the players against me understand my deck. If you want to brew yes, you're really limited to the best cards... But and this is a big but, some very casual cards turn into amazing competitive cards when they synergize with your commander. My brew is Francisco/Akiri+Lurrus by the way.
If I got into commander, I would feel compelled to play cEDH just to avoid the thing I hate most about commander: needing to cater to everyone else's needs. At least in cEDH, there's a definitive meta and staples, and no one is going to get their feelings hurt based on your card selection. In no other format is there this weird unspoken agreement that you need to be on the same power level as everyone else: how the hell am I supposed to sit down and play with strangers in this format? Am I really expected to have at least 5-10 commander decks of varying power level, and make my selection solely on that? I'd prefer to be able to sit down and play the deck I want to play, not the one that caters to my opponent's specific preferences. I'm not a waiter.
Shoot, maybe I should change to cEDH. I've never played it, because I always figured I couldn't afford to, but my primary complaint about regular EDH is the socially-enforced "play the way everyone else plays" mentality. It sounds like cEDH would both have more tolerance for my "let me play however I want to" mindset and be more tolerant of me proxying all the good cards I once owned but had to sell to pay the bills. And I bet I'd never get any complaints for running 7 infinite mana combos.
Believe me, as cEDH players we want to play against your skill, not your wallet. And bring your best to the table: the fun is in the challenge. Good luck ❤
@@RafaelAAMerlo I've quit entirely. I haven't even played a game since 2013, and I'm just torturing myself holding out hope that if I just keep trying I'll find someone to play with.
Downvoted for clickbait title. You deflected criticisms and turned some into praises of the format. That's all well and good, but nowhere did you address the most glaring problem with cEDH: Wizards of the Coast. 100% of the rapid homogenization that has occurred is because WotC can't help but fuck up the format and the rules committee are a bunch of spineless yes-men. 2 color partners, Dockside, and ThOracle are just the big ones. They never let the format breathe and develop organically because they have to push more product.
This is also an issue in EDH... Every EDH deck runs the same homogenized powercrept cards to do the same things, there might be more variety because there are more viable archtypes, but they don't vary by much and every archtype (which there are like maybe a total of 10 archtypes) run exactly the same cards. Token decks all run the same support cards, Tribal decks all run the same support cards, Instant/Sorcery decks all run the same support cards... The only difference is that cEDH has less archtype variety, but the issue is the same on both formats.
Non-MTG player here: card diversity is not all that important. There are lots of one deck formats that are deep and engaging. There are lots of diverse formats that suffer for it: when you can only tune your deck for a handful of matchups, decks that fall outside of that handful tend to result in non-games. Sometimes entire archetypes are invalidated - maybe anti-aggro is a fool's errand because there are multiple aggro decks that operate on completely different axes, maybe there are too many viable midrange winconditions to expect to control them all, etc. It's certainly not the proxy variable for format health that you seem to assert it is. Besides, EVERY competitive game centralizes - it could be chess, street fighter, Pokémon, basketball... it really is just a function of people trying to win and time that gives certain ideas their gravity, and to compete is to be complicit in this. Now, I absolutely cannot speak to cEDH in particular. Maybe it's great, maybe it's fine, maybe it needs help, maybe it's doomed on concept. I can tell you, if a yugioh format has more than one tier 1 deck and 20% of your deck is staples, it's either one of the healthiest, most enjoyable yugioh formats of all time, or it is in its infancy. Also, I want to go on record: multiplayer table dynamics are NOT inherently casual. I don't know that you said as much, but others certainly have, and I want to dispel the notion. Games like Risk or Catan function immaculately as competitive games, not just "despite" table dynamics, but in concert with them. Anyway, I don't wanna come across too antagonistic. This is a great video - the way you go from preconceived notions to first impressions to a veteran interview is admirable, treating them like completely independent sources of information as a way not to succumb to bias. Cheers
Off meta cedh is amazing, Play a tier 2 deck that punches up like stax or combat. Its more fun than you think to play your best high power into that meta
For anyone who's interested in cEDH, I'd highly recommend Comedian mtg's channel. He does a lot of meta breakdowns and tournament reports which can give you a lot of insight into the format.
the singleton aspect of EDH is meant to augment diversity, but ends up playing against it. also, the main issue with cEDH is that the banlist is absolutely terrible and it doesn't do a reasonable job at making the one and only viable strategy, which is to combo, weaker.... at the end of the day, 4player EDH is objectively just a really, really bad competittive format.
to be fair, of couse it's combo. The Point is that Aggro can't win because there is 3 other player to kill and they can't kill everyone before they combo, Control can't counter everything and win vs 3 player without them comboing. Midrange don't even exist in this format
Ngl kinda confused about the title choice, it feels like you didn't really go into any "problems" with the format and more just gave a good overview of it, something akin to a beginners guide almost.
He did go into the the problem of cedh. That being diversity. The section where he compares the top 10 in cedh and the cards all of them share + plus their win cons.
@@astrograph7875 he explained not all pods are combinations of those top 10 decks and that you're not necessarily obliged to play those versions like Trinket Mage mentioned. There's a meta but you can play the meta with anti meta strategies. I don't like the format but I came out of the video with a more positive outlook on it.
@@astrograph7875 what these other guys said. But in seriousness, what he did is essentially taking a look at the "top 20 commanders on EDHRec", you know, and I know, that those aren't the only commanders people play, but they are the ones that are most popular, mostly bc they are powerful.
CEDH also allows proxies - allowing anyone to create , play and try any deck or strategy for a reasonable price. Once you see enough "casual" players with proxy Rhystic Studys and Mana Crypts you start to wonder what casual even is anymore bro 😅
I lean more towards Cedh because the social contract of the game is understood and once a win happens, you can be back into another game. Outside of my usual casual play group, trying to find casual edh variance, comes with salt and toxicity unfortunately. Not in all cases but it happens more often than not.
Good vid, describing casual vs competetive in every format in every cardgame. My storeowner goes on competetive pokemon events with me and it´s always the same conversation: "Dad I wanna play my hisuian Arcanine deck, all the meta stuff is bland and boring"... "go for it son, just be aware you´re going to lose, a lot." Of course off meta picks are a thing, as neither lists nor players are well adapted to them, but building a good offmeta deck is about as time and skill intensive as cardgames get. What I´d like to see in stores is budget cEDH. Build the most powerful deck you can, on a 50€ budget. Of course, we could impose other deck building restrictions as well, like it has to be monocolured or domain, so long as they are the same for everyone and the premise is to try and win. I´m sure there would be a lot of moments of "Wow, you came up with that?" in that format and no one would mind having a bunch of super cutthroat budget decks at the end of it all.
My experience with yugioh back in the mid '00s is that if you were not playing the meta and instead playing fun it meant you lost. Then I tried the meta wasn't fun so I left the game forever.
@@josephrion3514 Makes a lot of sense, If you don´t like the meta you´re better off changing format instead of hanging on to a pet deck that makes you lose...
Yeah, I've refused to play a meta deck any of the handful of times I've actually gone to magic events at the store and given myself a $15 or 20 budget, and honestly I perform pretty well! The thing about following the meta is that a very small set of cards get expensive, and a lot of _almost_ tier 1 cards just end up as bulk. I walked into an MTG Standard tournament with a $13 deck and came close to winning, and everyone was running meta lists.
Also as a result of the Win cons being combos it further plays into one of edhs biggest design flaws. You are encouraged to do nothing because the first person to thassa might get it countered meaning the second or third thassa might be less contested. Not necessarily a problem but definitely not for everyone.
As an exclusivity casual player, I ragequit one of my most recent EDH games when one of my opponents started taking half a dozen turns in a row, with a slow deck. I came to the table to play the game, not to watch someone else play solitaire for ten minutes. These kinds of conversations and aligning of expectations are necessary for a game to be fun.
As someone who's pet card is Counterflux, one day I dream of bringing that to a CEDH table, and seeing everyone's faces when I overload it because the stack is overflowing with cards
Fantastic video! Really love hearing the concept of CEDH from a newcomer's perspective! As an enfranchised CEDH player, it can be difficult sometimes to look at the format at this level and without bias. You pointed out its upsides and flaws very well! You've gained a new subscriber today. Keep up the great work! Looking forward to more.
Thank you! I appreciate the praise, and I also appreciate the high quality cEDH gameplay content :D
He insulted you, clown. Called you a newcomer and you liked it. 😅
One crucial thing about cEDH that makes the format unique is that it's a competitive format with a banlist, but the banlist is not made or curated for the formats meta at all. The Modern banlist is basically created by letting the best players try to "break" the format and then ban the cards that are so dominant that the meta can't adjust to them. If this was the case for cEDH then it's very likely that Dockside, Underworld Breach and Consult/Pact would be banned which could lead to more diverse win conditions, or Mystic Remora banned leading to more diverse draw engines etc.
I still think building a competitive format using the commander banlist is kinda derpy
CEDH has too many strong engines to ban them all (you would essentially have to ban all of the ultra-fast mana, all of the strong tutors, all of the strong 1 mana draw engines etc.), but Thoracle really is the biggest culprit, imho. The fact that removing Thoracle in response to the trigger is completely useless blanks a lot of options that are open to stop many other combos in their tracks, making the format revolve much more around counters, stax effects and - at times - stifle-effects than it otherwise would. I really think Thoracle should be banned in Commander, it's not a casual card in the slightest (Dockside, at least, sees play in some casual pirate or golbin decks and is much weaker against usually Green-based battlecruiser decks that mostly ramp with lands) and it's also really problematic in CEDH.
Counter point: you can call yourself or a format 'competitive' all you want, but it doesn't make it actually a competitive format. cEDH is still casual players playing a casual format, they are just power gaming within a casual format with an extremely unbalanced and permissive ruleset and banned list that isn't concerned with creating or maintaining a healthy competitive meta, and the severe lack of ecological diversity in cards is a predictable outcome of that.
For some reason, cEDH players just really needed to adopt a name for themselves that's full of pretension and sounds like delusions of grandeur coming from a group of people that by in large haven't ever and don't ever plan on stepping foot in *actual* sanctioned high level play of *actual* competitive 1v1 formats. Hell, French/Duel EDH is already a significantly more serious and honest attempt at creating a competitive format version of EDH and cEDH players have had the option to play French for *years* now if they were really serious about their claims of being competitive players that just want a version of EDH with rules and bans made for there specific needs. The fact that they don't is something that all their actions and words are held up to like a mirror IMO, and makes what they say they want, but don't do, end up making them seem exceptionally dishonest about what their real desire is; which seems like a weird thing to do about something with no stakes at all like EDH....but then again people are often so attached to appearances and cultivating a specific persona that feeds their ego and maintains there ideas about themselves that they will do some amazing mental gymnastics over how they want to play a game vs the labels they want to claim about their place in the game. There are certainly cEDH players that more honest about what they really want, that they really just want to play powerful broken stuff, but simply continuing to use the name cEDH means there's always a thin layer of cosplaying as competitive players.
Which is really the thing that I think drives most of us nuts about the average cEDH player: it's pretension. The claim to high level play or competitive play from people mucking about casual and bowling strikes with the bumpers up. The often implied and many times outright stated belief of lots of cEDH players that there is an *inherent* skill floor difference between them and other EDH players derived *solely* from the power level they choose to play casual at. They they are smarter and/or better at the game because they choose to play obviously powerful and linear cards and decks in casual, and conversely that other players are bad because they aren't good enough at the game to play those cards and decks. It's not all cEDH players, but it's more than enough, and it's generally those cEDH players that only engage with MtG via cEDH and play no other formats or power levels.
tl'dr: cEDH is just multiplayer casual like the rest of multiplayer casual. Casual is still sandlot baseball if you play it with bats, Gundams, Death Stars or 007 miniature lasers; no differences in how you play a casual format will ever make you a competitive or pro player any more than showing up to game of pick-up basketball wearing an Iron Man suit will make you an MLB player.
@@StrongButAwkwardsomeone’s very mad that people want different things out of the format than they do :)
This is such a weird take man. CEDH is not a distinct format, it is just a word people use when playing EDH decks that use the best cards in the card pool.
EDH is also not competitive, you can play it competitively but to call it a competitive format is to not understand competitive integrity. EDH is a free-for-all format which means there is a lot of good faith that is required to actually play fairly and competitively i.e. no collusion, no kingmaking, no targeting. These things are impossible to curate which means it’s incredibly easy for people to cheat and play dirty with no reasonable mechanism to stop them, unlike 1v1 formats.
Not to disparage anyone that likes playing top tier decks but you need to come back to reality and realize that this is a casual format. There are no high level tournaments, nor will there ever be because of the issues I listed above.
I really appreciate this video. I am casual 'til I die, but I pay attention to cEDH because I find it super interesting.
Hoo, boy, what a topical video reccomendation given recent events...
cool video, im a sweaty modern player and i appreciate the breakdown of cedh
I think you hit the nail on the head with your rule 0 statement: casual commander is wildly unbalanced if expectations are not put forward. And it’s the reason why I typically don’t like the rating system for commander. “Oh your deck is a 7?” What constitutes a 7? No one rocks up to the table and says “yea I have a power 3 deck”, it’s that clear expectation that I enjoy about cEDH. It’s about playing to win, that’s the mindset. I’ll never forget the guy who played karametra and absolutely destroyed our table because he knew how to play to win. Good pilots can maneuver any deck so long as that deck has a play to win .
The goal of edh should be trying to win while having your opponents ask to read your cards as much as possible
This is why I play Magda Land Destruction at my LGS. I pulled a 60% win rate and warped the meta so much that people built mono-coloured decks with basic lands, because I wouldn’t blow up basics.
funny that this popped up in my feed, after i played against you on cockatrice a few days ago
I played with 2 cedh players the other day, and they were some of the friendliest guys Ive met at the store. Their decks were brutal against mine, often winning on turn 3-5, but it was smfun playing against a table that wasn't getting salty about the cards I played that normally would accumulate salt.
The little line on talking to your fellow commander games spoke true to me.
Back when i played Magic i always asked if they where using strong or more friendly and casual EDH decks, Depending on what they answered opt'ed what deck i picked.
Something that will try and win, Or something that was goofy and fun.
Thumbnail going hard now post bans lmao.
I think cedh is very exciting to watch and players ability to pilot the deck can really be the deciding factor. My one issue is places trying to make cedh tournaments that are sanctioned so no proxies are allowed. You lose the core of cedh when it’s now your wallet deciding the power of your deck.
Human discovers what “meta” is 🤯
For me Magic isn't made more fun by worrying about if other people have fun- its a new chore that wasn't there when I played in 2015
At our table were aware some decks we make are not fun for others at the table. But we generally play those decks once or twice and seeing them pop off is fun at times, i think alot of people take salt to personally or too far rather than having a joke with friends.
"Winning" is when you get invited back to play again. Hope you enjoy telling people about all the other losers you beat ten years ago for the rest of your life 😂
@PeteCarroll-12-16 I win every day man - I just don't explain my decks for 10 minutes before each game , we just enjoy playing more than complaining in my hood
I've always been quite interested in CEDH ever since I joined a game with my casual omnath locus of creation deck and won because no one was prepared for just a casual landfall deck. It showed how there's definitely plenty of room to still be creative in the format.
Collab with TrinketMage, right on 🤘🍻
One thing I really appreciated about this video? It confirmed to me that all the people on mtgo complaining to me that my 5-7 decks are really CEDH are indeed batshit crazy.
i gravitated pretty early to cedh since i am used to play magic competitivly. And while i see the the argument of playing edh as a casual format i think the deckbuilding is kind of weird. Forcefully trying to limit yourself from using specific cards took away a lot of the fun, that a more or less vintage format brings to the table. I am not prohibited from playing some whacky brew at cedh - hell i even might win a game with it because the other 3 decks exaust all their interaction and my stuff slips through. I just have to know, if i show up with suboptimal cards i have a lower chance to win, like in every other magic format.
The shere powerlevel can be really fun and the interaction is usually great. Regular edh games often accumulated to boardstates with 40 + permanents on board that nobody could handle anymore rules wise. CEDH breaks down magic to a simpler form i think. heres is my ramp, here is my wincon, can you beat it yes, good your turn, you cannot cool, lets shuffle up for the next game. Thats what every magic game boils down to in the end you just have a 40 minute war over board presence in between.
Your video is very accurate and explains the format and its merits and also its drawbacks pretty accurate!
My two favorite new commander creators on one video!
Very good Videos. I Ppay mostly Casual EDH since 2014 but from time to time watched many Videos and also played some cEDH. I still have an Tasigur the Golden Fang Deck and Yisan the Wanderbard. Your Observation and your guest are really pinpoint my experience. I still win with these Commander. New cEDH Players don't really know what to look out for. The Matchup ist very important. Yisan perfoms really well, with a Winota Player. Since both Decks also play many Stax Pieces. Also the fact, that at some point the people rannout of answers. I am building a Deck with Sissay 5 Color.
The real issue with commander is the people who play it politicing all game long
Over lap is common in normal edh. Every deck* will have arcane signet, sol ring, command tower, path of Ancestry, bond lands, ect.
This video got me thinking about whether cEDH would benefit from taking a queue from Canadian Highlander, and making some sort of a points list.
For the unfamiliar, CanLander is a 100 card singleton format, like commander, but it's 1v1 20 life, no commander, and the card pool is the same as in vintage (ie no ban list). Instead, powerful cards are assigned point values by a council, and each deck gets 10 points to spend on cards. So even though Ancestral Recall and Black Lotus are both legal, you can't play them both in the same deck, because Ancestral is 8 points and Lotus is 7.
Implementing a similar system for cEDH might mean that, for example, you could still have Thoracle or Ad Naus be your primary win con, but running those would mean that you don't get to run, say, Sol Ring or Mana Vault.
This would bring the power level down, and the card diversity up, without sacrificing the social benefits of "everyone is going all out" that were mentioned in the video.
6:54 that IS the rule 0 conversation. It's implied, just how it's implied at a modern tournament.
10:15 this is 100% the best part of cEDH imo, there are no rules, and the format isn't solved, it's settled. If you stir up the muck at the bottom of the pond by jamming your weird deck into it, the muck will settle differently at the end of the day.
12:51 cEDH isn't a format, it's a way to play EDH. All of the issues of cEDH are issues of EDH ultimately. The only reason that CEDH (for fun edh) doesn't look like cEDH is because the goal isn't winning, it's fun, so people play lots of unoptimal cards that they feel are cool.
For me, the homogony of the cEDH format is the largest driving factor is why i stay away from it. I did similar things to you, except i simply looked at top 50 cEDH lists and saw how many cards in these lists are considerred "staples" and had no meaningful interaction with the rest of the deck. Generally, over 60% of non-lands fell into this category. This kind of gameplay is uninteresting and samey and you saw that in just a dozen games. casual edh needs a regulated way to grade power level and it will be the best format in the game, bar none.
It reminds me of the top level of competitive Pokemon now, and I mean the Video Game (VGC) and not the card game. Currently with one legendary each, it's a lot like the Commander you build around. And for the other five slots on the team, you really need to optimize. At the most recent Regional Championship, on Day 2, Incineroar was on more than 70% of teams, etc.
Boys he cracked the code. He invented Meta, bravo
The perfect illustration is the goal/power level comaprisons you showed. That encapsulates the issues in EDH as a format perfectly.
cEDH is a perfect example of a perfect Rule 0 conversation. Everyone going in has the same goals and clearly understands the power level they're getting into.
This is why effectively and clearly communicating your goals at the start of any EDH game is important. The 1-10 power scale is mostly useless without qualifiers and clarifications being added. You have to have an actual conversation with people and be honest. What causes saltiness a bad feels in casual EDH is missing that open and honest communication beforehand.
Channels like MTGGoldfish had a conversation about splitting the formats and every single one of the hosts complained about rule zero while unconsciously arguing and showing why rule zero must exist and how effective it can be when used properly.
With powercreep going up for profits, cEDH might soon stand for „casual“-edh.
Seriously though, one guy in our group is optimizing his one favorite deck and on his journey he is tapping into cEDH territory to squeeze out more power. yet, he is totally oblivious to the fact that tutoring a two-card-win-combo in a casual environment is absolute salt-move and sacrificing the uniqueness the deck once had.
I‘m building now my own cEDH-Deck to provide him with an appropriate challenge since he loves playing his deck so much.
So sorry uh in conclusion... what was the problem with CEDH?
I think the main problem with not just cEDH, but EDH in general is that the banlist is waaaaaaay to small.
Why are any doubler, tripler, and copiers allowed in a format that very quickly gets out of control.
you should draw some more staple cards, id love to proxy them to run in my decks :)
canadian highlanders point buy system really makes more sense if we are using a format without a true banlist
an efficient deck will always beat a themed deck
What is all this about messy rule zero conversations like it is a chore? I've never had any issues discussing what people are trying to get out of a game. And because the focus isn't about absolute effecency and perfectly designed decks, the winning and losing "salt" isn't really there, everyone I've played with recognizes luck is part of the game and usually love seeing explosive plays with powerful cards and don't expect to win every game. There have been a few incidents with people I don't play with regularly but I have experienced much more salt when I sit down to a designated cedh table where everyone almost seems stressed if there deck doesn't perform optimally. I think it mostly comes down to the pod your playing with, not the brand of edh you escribe to.
Imagine playing a 100 card singleton format to play different cards and you play the same cards your opponents are playing
i play a couple cedh games a month on cockatrice but i don't like using cards i don't own so i don't use a lot of cedh staples and i'm at a clear disadvantage. however it is a great place to play with cards i don't think are appropriate in casual and degenerate shit. i don't win often but it's brutal when i do, usually with a displacer kitten + coveted jewel but my favorite is stealing all the lands with an infinite agent of treachery. more often than not i try to at least screw one player out of winning with some interaction before losing to dockside extortionist
This makes a lot of sense, but also, despite being a simic player myself.... I hate counterspell, so much. why is 15% of the playable cards in a commander deck saying "no you don't get to do that at all"
Tried getting into cEDH because my friends love it, my god it's miserable. Same games over and over.
Thanks for having me it was fun working with you on this vid!
Oh hey, small world. It was cool to hear you talk about your cEDH Jace deck, as my biggest bugbear with cEDH is the homogeneity of decks I was running against. Might give it another try sometime
Love your collab with Snail too! ruclips.net/video/_ZZgh6V9OQ4/видео.htmlsi=HoblCo7D7nOszNuk
i see nothing but facts. coming from a casual and competitive player who thoroughly enjoys commander as a whole
Soo true
Same with anything competitive, everyone wants to play the best stuff therefore you get no variety
@@milkydoesstuff1828 Except as discussed in the video, ban lists are catered to the format to provide variety and structure to the format. Cloudpost decks from 2011 can still beat Rakdos scam today with a decent win percentage despite being way out of date. It's banned in Pauper and Modern because it's one of the strategies that does take over the format. Same with how Fury needed to go to open up more potential for creature decks again, except they printed Bowmasters which had basically the same impact on creature decks but was less likely to 4-for-1 your ass. Top is still an exceptionally strong card and would show up all over the place in Modern, but it creates a miserable play experience of *regularly* going to time in every game of every match you play with or against it.
The commander banlist's sole focus was and is currently stated to only be concerned with unfun play experiences or play patterns. There's no consideration for actual balancing. Calling it cEDH is kind of silly and to a lot of people comes off as pretentious. You're fundamentally avoiding the behavioral pillars of the format but still tying yourself to it by name and some people who use this term go even further and imply they should also be catered to in a format that wasn't made for them. A decade ago you just said you had high power decks and everyone knew to expect lots of combo-y horseshit and as much quick mana as was possible. Now the cute little community needs a shibboleth to say the same thing just saying high power decks meant in 2011.
Play both, love both. But if I'm not playing cEDH I do highly prefer high power because I want to play decks and play vs decks that can close the game out. I hate when games drag on.
@@mcculloughfamily6984same. Unless I’m playing with a group or 1v1 where I’m mostly playing for the conversation, I find the standstill that most people’s decks end up at quite boring. That’s why combos are fun for me
Very simple. In EDH there are like 30,000 legal cards, and 15,000 of them are viable. In cEDH, there are 30,000 legal cards, and 500 of them are viable.
Woah what's the difference?
@machina188 In cEDH, it's very well documented, which cards are good enough, and what cards aren't good enough. In cEDH, you, for the most part, can't really get away with playing "janky" or "pet" cards that would be fine in casual or even higher-powered EDH. If you want to stay hyper-efficient and compete against other decks that are all doing their best to win.
Isn't every game of EDH competitive? I started playing EDH in 2011 with a playgroup who'd been playing since 2006 and like, cEDH just means the most expensive build to us now.
But what EDH game isn't a competitive competition with 1 winner in the end?
Like if you actually fall in love with this game, your card evaluations and deck building logic does start to dwindle down what cards and commander's you'd even consider as years go by, 99 cards is not a lot... good cards are purposely few and far between in WotC card design. Like, there is a power ceiling that is rarely broken, and most cards are purposely designed to be "bad cards", you can maybe find a Mark Rosewater Drive to Work from 2011-2014 where he explains what "bad cards" are and their goal to make bad cards more fun in the future.
Budget magic is better than ever though. I think breaking up EDH into Budget EDH, EDH and then cEDH (just the most expensive builds possible, which should mean the most powerful cards, which are designed to be scarce) should be how the community talks about EDH.
I swear this EDH vs cEDH is just weird semantics. Like in 2011-2015, in Nor Cal you could find EDH tournaments with $5 entry fees with the money turning into store credit for the winner. People would bring their "tournament decks" and if they won that week, or the final table decided to split, they would use the store credit to help build another "tournament" deck. People weren't showing up to those with $5,000+ decks... that often... like, it was just the best decks lgs players had, coming together on a Wednesday, playing EDH for a chance at like $10 - $40 store credit. There are real chess similarities with Magic: The Gathering...like there are a finite amount of game pieces, like...mastering a game means learning it... like if you don't understand the concept of Philosophy of Fire in Magic The Gathering, then like, you're probably having fun just doing jank, clueless to how card evaluation works. Isn't understanding a game fun? Or is that not true anymore? Ignorance is the real bliss in games?
@@matthewbryant2972 There's a very real difference in a cEDH tournament with strong prize support and a fun weekly local.
The second is competitive on the surface only. Some might enter just to test out some neat new build they've made, or run some jank they're just itching to run. People would like to win, but winning is hardly the overall goal.
At something with a 30-50 dollar entry fee though? No pet decks, very little jank except from the brewers that are crazy people. Expect the 5000 deck en masse if there's real prizes on the line.
There's definitely something to be said about ignorance is bliss, a lot of the hate cEDH draws is the distain of what magic looks like when the curtain is pulled back. No, it's not balanced, or even particularly varied if you're trying to win. There's a very definitive list for whatever colors you run, and little to no room for deckbuilding expression.
And that's okay. But for casuals, especially longtime players, it can be jarring.
@@bretts3046 I mean you technically could it is just highly unlikely that you will win often as sometimes you will win it happens. But for the most part there is usually room for A pet card or two, especially if the card is very useful in general like Karn the Great Creator even if not running a stax deck as he shuts down your opponents artifacts their main mana source and can just simply pop their 0 cost fast mana
Now Karn is better than playing a Null Rod simply because he only affects your opponents artifacts not yours meaning you have massive mana advantage and tempo
As a cEDH player, this was a very gracious representation of the format; as a fan of yours I didn't expect something bad, but I was a little unsure with the title you presented. Thanks for the video
Same. The title was unnecessarily incendiary, but he did a good job presenting all sides of the equation.
The only thing I think he didn't touch on was that, even though decks can look homogenous, the playstyle can massively change how it plays in practice. Kenrith decks come in all flavors and often share a lot of core cards, but the 15-20 flex slots dedicated to personal playstyle can make them actually play wildly different, despite the apparent homogeneity.
@@damienbrandle4839😮ú
My stance on proxies is echoed by the cEDH community. I want to play against you, not your wallet.
6:48 The rule 0 conversation IS that you're playing cEDH. It's **technically** the same format as commander
i always find it funny how people talk about cedh like it's a different format.
@@edhdeckbuilding I prefer to treat it as a different format. Yes, it is Commander, but come on, I think we can agree a cEDH Najeela x cEDH Yuriko x Casual Ayula x Casual Wilson/Tavern Brawler would be a really unbalanced and unfun table. Treating cEDH as a different format help me explain people the absolute difference those decks have.
It's a different meta. At that level, you're playing to deal with the specific threats played at that level which also homogenizes cards.
Yep. The "benefits" mentioned in the video aren't ones distinct to cedh becausse it somehow bypassess rule 0, rather they're outcomes that manifest from the use of rule 0, which "cedh" is simply a permutation of
It's literally the same format minus all the whining.
I expected to be mad, but am 100% on board and agree with most all of this. I play both and feel like applying lessons learned between the two has made my games more fun overall
If u genuinely get mad about a video then it is probably time to touch some grass
You should do a video about pauper commander, or PDH. I recently got into it and it has roughly the same arguments for it that cedh does, no rule 0. But it ALSO has a much wider card variety because of how limited you are in power level
I've had a lot more fun than I expected with a spur of the moment pedh deck than I ever expected. Zoyowa has really forced some players to think, and I loved how the table reacted when I cast Phyresis for the first time
This all sounds very familiar for some reason.
Thank you for playing Yugioh Master Duel.
Everyday I hear a magic the gathering player cope about how many cards there are in their game when there are really only 500.
@@SLVYER1I was about to say “oh, “”only”” five hundred, you say”, but then I remembered that’s not an unreasonable amount of Pokemon to know when quizzed. And I still have enough memory for Magic.
Meanwhile a modern Yugioh card, if it’s readable to begin with, reads like a legal document that can OTK if you read the fine print
@@lancesmith8298 Terrified of templating and keywords.
@@lancesmith8298 It's why Yugioh players don't read, if you can't read it, it can't hurt you.
@@dragoknighte48More like they don't read because most cards say "search other card that searches other card that searches other card that summons other card that goes into generic extra deck wincon". It's an overly consistent soup of combo turns that effectively FTK the opponent if they don't open what is essentially a free cast counterspell (and that's usually not enough), a Wrath if they know they're going second post board, and their own combo for the crack back. There's a reason a lot of players prefer to play a time locked format from 2010 instead of 2024 Yugioh.
My pipeline from casual to competitive EDH came from bad experiences playing on TTS and Spelltable. Removing the feelsbads or salt by just sitting down and playing to win is how I like to approach any game of magic.
It’s how every single other format of Magic is played, so it’s kinda odd when casual heads try to say it’s not fun or it’s weird to play it competitively. Like bro it’s just playing commander with the card pool you have ?
@@RINNECODAthe issue is most games in general are played that way but casuals try to warp the expectations to their likes and wants. Imagine going to a football game where people “play for fun” like what?
@RINNECODA its not even a magic problem its all multiplayer vs games
@@aR0ttenBANANA I mean Sunday leagues and beer leagues exists for people who just wants to enjoy the sport and play because they think its fun, some teams don't even have coaches and they definitely not train optimally to win these games. So if someone like Leo Messi would show and run circles around these people i doubt people would enjoy that if it happened every week, just so he could feed his own ego. Or Connor McGregor would show up at the local dojo tournament and start beating the shit out of the local guys and claim they suck and shouldn't complain because it's a competitive environment.
It's being completely tonedeaf and sometimes makes me wonder if people are just not completely dishonest and try to gaslight people into agreeing upon an environment of play they didn't want to play in.
Completely agree with you on the "feelsbad" thing. It's what prevents me from playing casual commander in general.
this was a very good video. i had no idea from cedh until my friend invited me for an evening to play one of his decks. it was cool. but after 5x win with the same combo, i had seen it all.
its a good format for its own. it shud never appear in a normal commander table.
Great video, and overall a solid presentation of the format's upsides and downsides.
As you said, the overarching issue with casual games not being fun is misalignment of expectations. There are several main forms it takes and it doesn't simply boil down to power level differences. You hit on this, and a lot of the discourse tends to gloss over it.
For me, the most egregious offender for polarized experiences is the idea that a game of EDH should be an hour or more and build up an epic boardstate. In the majority of cases, it ends up being a slog where people are too afraid to just win and "end the fun." Thankfully, this trend seems to be reversing somewhat. People have become more willing to accept that it's usually more fun to play a few faster games for a more rounded overall experience.
Really good video. I have so many comments but I will just say you are correct with modification. But still your correct. I think it was really good to have someone come and say something short about it.
also, i completely agree and like the idea presented of rule zero. something that ive taken away from my play at competitive to casual tables is the mindset of 'let people play whatever'. i always tell people that they shouldnt complain about what cards are on the other side of the table. you can ask them to change decks, remove yourself from the table yourself, etc. but whining or complaining reduces fun for everyone.
I usually find another pod. People who knowingly play power decks at casual tables are usually there to feed their egos. They know what's expected, lie about their deck, then scoff when someone objects. They can go to perdition.
That's a cEDH attitude, which is perfectly fine for that format. Just don't complain when casual players ask you to find another table.
@FallenStarFeatures : yes. This.
@FallenStarFeatures doesn't matter bc you can play casual decks with competitive mind set. It's the players skill level/reach these kids will still whine
@MrCenturion13 if they arent willing to swap after you ask and they understand the situation theyre causing, yeah they just arent worth playing with
This channel constantly surprises me. I wouldn't have expected cedh to be a conversation had here. But you covered it excellently and I'm hoping you continue to grow deservedly to the size of a channel benefitting the quality of your arguments and videos. Good luck.
cedh games are so fucking boring to watch it's unbelievable. it's always the same stuff lol
Best part of Cedh is to take a random deck and try to build it in the strongest way possible. Even mono colored deck can win from time to time.
people needs to understand its just a game not an stock invesment.
People are a lot more forgiving about getting locked out of games or dying to a combo, when every game takes like 30 minutes instead of 2 hours haha.
As an 'outsider with some experience' such as yourself, I have a somewhat unique perspective on the whole 'cEDH is a best-case example of rule 0 working' premise. Now, to preface - I abhor rule 0 and feel it is a lazy excuse the RC uses to avoid making rules and a banlist that actually WORKS for the segment of the EDH community that needs it the most: random pick-up games in public. I have long held that the RC's claim that a slim banlist works better for private groups is irrelevant because those private groups both didn't NEED anyone to tell them they could house rule things to their liking and could more easily work down form a more restrictive ruleset than having to build infrastructure for a more restrictive one anyway.
That being said, I posit that cEDH is NOT an example of 'rule 0' working. It is an example of the opposite, in fact: that rule 0 DOES NOT work and the only way to get salt-free games is to toss out the premise entirely and use the rules completely as written and accept everything within as fair game. The problem is, as you pointed out, this means that the options available are limited by the fastest decks and if you cannot present a threat or an answer in time, your strategy is not viable - and the more pressing problem if cEDH grade win conditions showing up outside of tables prepared to respond to them.
The commander banlist is honestly a joke at this point. So many of the cards are just slightly better versions of legal cards in the format already and there are so many cards it would be better off without.
That cEDH has a more limited card pool is an advantage to the subformat's enthusiasts, and is something that the subformat's intent is angled specifically to encourage. The issue is that this attitude then bleeds both into more casual play and into actual card design, whereby increasing power creep homogenizes the format more than ever before paradoxically at the same time as more cards are being printed into it than ever before.
Rather than being seen as a parallel to 60-card, which aught to be an eternal format curated into separate intended power-level dimensions, Wizards increasingly behaves as if EDH is somehow self-regulating. What you ultimately get then is a rudderless ship which seems impelled towards salt and frustration, outside of cEDH pods - because cEDH has a defined play philosophy. Rather than emulating this success, and laying out separate play philosophies for different levels of power, "Rule 0" has been tossed around as a byword for "we don't really feel like doing anything to cultivate the game's most-popular, most-fragile format."
Note that every single one runs blue. Now tell me, which color is the most powerful in EDH?
I started playing mtg again bc a close group of friends was playing commander. Playing w/ them was fun, but I ended up never getting into the format otherwise bc I get the impression it's just salt everywhere. I know what I'm saying it's an exaggeration, but it just seems like a bunch of people not having fun because they're annoyed by anything anyone does because that makes the game unfun. It's like every time I come close to a group of edh players I overhear they shit talking someone else on those grounds (and it seems like the environment is very toxic).
I get the idea of playing for fun as a break from the very competitive mindset, but for me it's some aspect that has been always present in lgs small tournaments anyway. The problem I see w/ edh is that aspect is "enforced", while the idea of "fun" is very subjective. eg: I made a cool (for me) proxy deck, really didn't go overboard w/ power level (for me), but I'm using (a lot of) dual lands. If I don't win, nobody has a problem w/ it. If I win everyone is salty bc I'm using a lot of expensive lands that I don't have. But in my head I'm just removing the literally most unfun aspect of the game, which is getting mana screwed lol
Meanwhile, started playing pauper. The community is great (and from what I see it's kinda like that everywhere). Every week there's a small stakes tournament at the lgs, a lot of people show up with crazy brews and have fun. But nobody has a problem w/ losing to an annoying control or being run over by a t1 aggro, because they are supposed to be there.
The fact that those tier 1 decks are gonna be there also make the deckbuilding more interesting (for me), cause you have to somehow be prepared for them. And virtually every week there's a very unorthodox build that does well in the tournament.
Everybody is having fun, while not forcing anyone else to abide by their own idea of fun. People are also very welcoming/helpful towards new players, which is something I see way less at edh tables (for a supposedly casual format, everybody I see behaves like they're at the finals of a pro tour).
This is a long text just to say that everything you said about cEDH reminds me of the pauper community. Even the part where no matter the build you're gonna run some of the staple efficient cards lol. And even though it has "competitive" in the name, the vibes seem more true at heart to what edh is supposed to be.
I'll probably try some games online and see if I get into the format. Thanks for the video!
As a cEDH player - this is absolutely accurate. I don't even feel the need for the incendiary title. It all feels very Fair and Balanced(TM) to me.
If your idea of balance is most people running samey decks
@@BingbongRecto What an odd thing to say in response to my comment.
@@BingbongRecto a game of chess or a match of street fighter 2 Ryu vs Ryu are really enjoyable experiences, so similar game pieces doesn't make a game necessarily bland or boring
Love cEDH and casual EDH, it is just that they are completely different social experiences, people who like tennis doesn't necessarily likes badminton or vice versa
sure but balanced? and u really compared cedh to chess huh
@@BingbongRectoYou're reaching to try and save face. It isn't working.
Make proper comments in good faith or please speak on a public forum. Thanks.
We started playing cEDH in our playgroup and to me the biggest takeaway other than the exact thing you talked about (proxie friendlyness and powerleveldiscussion/salt) was:
All the same wincons dont make it boring, as many of us thought. Its not to defend the format from accurate observations like you did, but the thing we noticed is that the wincon is not what this game is about. When somebody has a win, noone cares how the win is "named". Wether its oracle, breach or any other combo.
The focus is on the path to get there. Talion dimir control vs for example tymna/malcom share the main wincon. They also share probably like haft the spells at least. But you gameplan and priorities are VASTLY different. And also timing and reading the table are a critical factor for success.
And thats really what makes this format. Casual games can sometimes be on the one extreme of "everyone plays their deck like its moxfield, because there is no interaction happening". cEDH is the complete opposite. Every deck can present a win reasonably fast and reliable. Its all about the interaction and the decks are stuffed with that.
That will shift the factors for a win vastly. In casual luck at the draw, maybe a "better constructed deck" and maybe randomly having an interaction up can decide games. In cEDH literally 1 mistake on where to point a counterspell or interaction can end the game within the same turncycle. So the focus is much more on the players.
We are still a mostly casual playgroup, but this reality did totally beat up on the idea many of us had that "cEDH is boring because its all the same cards". We didnt see the product of that reality because since its "all the same cards" the decisions become so much more relevant.
And to me that is the biggest difference and an opportunity to improve as a player (wich will also help you in casual). You will not learn from mistakes you make in how you spend your interaction if they dont get punished. In cEDH they WILL get punished almost certainly.
To trinket mages point:
We as newbies obviously got our foot in by basically copying decklists of stuff that looked interesting, read primers, watched deck techs and then proxied the deck. But we did avoid picking from the top of the top. And that means there is A LOT of options and staying away from those few decks makes so much more decks stay viable. We are certainly not at a level where people have their "pet deck" that they have piloted for years. But we all did manage to find decks that fit the general themes and playstyles we like and its not a table of 4 oracle decks.
Its great fun giving it a go. Printing out some cEDH decks with your friends, local playgroup or whatnot costs basically no money at all. Before hating on sth, giving it a shot first is always worth it and it really expanded our understanding of the game.
I recently had my perceptions of cEDH turned on their head because of exactly what you are saying here. I always thought of the cEDH variant in terms of how top tier 1v1 play works, completely missing the fact that you have MORE THAN ONE OPPONENT. I realized just how much strategy that takes to navigate - not just the mechanical considerations, but the social ones as well. Bluffing and reading skill goes through the roof.
The best part about cEDH is that you get to sit at a table where everyone wants to play good cards and win. Don't get me wrong, I've played a kinda slow Enchantress Commander deck for over 10 years at this point as one of my main ones, so I was down for the slower more casual tables for a long time... but these days I prefer to avoid those kinds of games. Prolonging the game needlessly, barely anyone actually playing interactive cards, getting upset at sweepers/counterspells etc. - there's a lot of bad experiences to be had at casual tables that I try to avoid.
The idea of a casual table still irks me, to me the only casual table I ever played at was kitchen table, losing to my roommate night after night with his gruul "banding" deck playing my 300 card Nikol bolas deck that was really just half the cards I owned stacked together. I remember we went to the card shop once and he was so happy to get his tapped dual lands and splurged on a curse to double damage.
There is nothing casual about meeting up with strangers or acquaintances for an mtg night, as much as public at large may wish for it to be true. This is just a slightly watered down FNM only your less likely to have a judge catch Timmy move his combo piece to his graveyard in his reanimator deck
There is one gameplay advantage cedh has over casual edh: it has a clearly defined meta, so you can confidently run anti-meta techs. Rule of Law and Red Elemental Blast are *guaranteed* to be effective. Possibly against all three opponents.
EDIT: yep, Trinket Mage confirmed it.
I mean sure... but then just play Legacy or something man.
Maybe watch the video before commenting?
Played a game of CEDH where a Kinnan player had a consecrated sphinx turn . A Rowan scion of war player decided to play a wheel of fortune making the kinnan player draw 51 cards. He won the turn after and we laughed, shuffled up and played again. Now I have an orcish bowmasters!
LOVE THE COLLAB. I watch you and @trinket mage a ton. Love your approaches to commander
The only thing I disagreed with is that in cEDH you have to present a turn two win. That is actually a lot less common than you'd think, and there are plenty of top decks where they literally can't present a turn two win. Midrange and control styles are definitely a thing, and because everyone is packing interaction, even if you go for the win on turn 2, you're usually going to get stopped.
I've shifted to preferring CEDH, everyone is playing on the same level for the most part. It does feel far more limited with card choices, but for me that is a good thing as I don't have a lot of money to spend on magic.
Something also worth mentioning about cEDH is that it’s a terrible tournament format, logistically. The time limits on matches make certain strategies and cards less viable. Decks that might be able to lock in the win but fail to actually win within 90 minutes will just cause a draw for the table. This means that only specific archetypes (UBx decks with tutors and compact combos) are equipped to really play a tournament.
I've been looking at cEDH on and off for a few months, but never saw more than the surface level. I'll have to look into it more, this is really interesting summary
It was nice to see you two collab. I found both of you around the same time, and you both have really helped me get better at the game.
I’ve had a very similar experience with Tiny Leaders Reborn. However, the advantage of that format is that it’s very young, so the meta is still undecided.
I don't know Reborn, but I've had fun with Tiny Leaders in the past. It's just hard to find a pod.
Really great video! I play casual EDH too, but my favorite mode is cEDH for all the reasons you listed: High-speed games with lots of interaction, no/little salt, and being allowed to do the strongest/meanest(not mean to people, but mean to their ability to play) things you can think of if it helps you win. But at the same time, it has its flaws as a format, many of which you outlined here.
Another flaw is that the ban list isn't catered to a competitive format. I'm of the opinion that the ban list should be even smaller, but I can also see a world where the ban list should be expanded to hit some of the cards that are so ubiquitous because of their power level. (But, if the format were slowed down too much, it would also lose much of its allure.)
I stopped playing commander entirely because my goals and the goals of the people who play in my city are very different, they have this weird idea that tribal decks are inherently balanced, like they don't run interactions or board wipes, and I play a midrange reanimator/clones deck( not clones in clones, but in creating copies of my creatures) and I put a lot of interaction to protect my plays, and now I'm at a crossroads, I can take out the interaction and stuff my deck with board wipes and steam roll everyone, or I can continue to have a lot of games were someone just draws their most efficient creatures and kills everyone, or the beautiful games were everyone bricked and I can't hit anyone because I would be a try hard, it's like I just wanna have a fun and interactive game, and I just can't do that
No one is going to be happy in EDH. The cedh group i used to play in get upset if a player doesn't "play optimally" in the interest of the pod. There was a game where I had Glen Elendra out and I could combo out if I got to untap. The player next to me played a High Tide and I declined the opportunity to counter it with Glen because I wanted to save it to protect my wincon. The next player with priority countered it, and got upset because I didn't use my Glen to stop the High Tide. He was saying that it was my responsibility, and that I was griefing/trolling the table by not playing by cedh standards.
@@Sapreme this is wild, I mean you were playing to win, like you literally made the best decision for you in that situation, and they got mad? Like if you're playing cedh the objective is to win, not help the table, that's a casual mindset, and there's no problem in playing casual, but a table doesn't become competitive just because the cards on it are powerful, I believe that even if everyone is using suboptimal cards that table is still competitive if everyone has the right mentality, it's really cedh in the traditional sense, but anyway what I'm trying to say is that your table appears to hold on to social rules used in casual games, but applying it for competitive decks, which is a weird way to play imo, but you everyone has fun their own way
Honestly, that's why I am thankful for my table. Sure theres bitching here and there but were allf riends so its chill and none of it too serious.
4/5 color is the bane of modern mtg
A weird phenomenon of cEDH is that many of the staple cards require opponents using strategies such as:
Tutors
Graveyard interactions
Low toughness/high value creatures
Card draw
Multiple actions in a single turn
etc.
Which can result in the cEDH deck having reduced efficacy against strong, but more "basic" decks.
OH MY GOD, YES! I've been saying this for years. I find cEDH commander SO boring and I think it was Playing with Power that awakened me to this fact. Guy was playing a Volrath deck (the tricolor one) and I thought he would be using something along with the commander but the commander itself didn't even entered the battlefield, he won with Thassa + Oracle.
cEDH is not commander, it's literally singleton restricted by color.
Excellent video! I've learned some important things from the discussions down here:
1) "Casual" players are all scrubs who whine and get salty about everything they don't like.
2) "cEDH" players are all entitled tryhards who will pub stomp their own mother for a W.
3) Nether of the above is entirely true, but too many players _believe_ that one of then actually _is_.
4) The players who _do_ behave as 1) or 2) will ultimately self-select themselves out of people to play with.
The reduced salt level is what drew me to cEDH. I have my personal brew that does great against meta decks even after the players against me understand my deck. If you want to brew yes, you're really limited to the best cards... But and this is a big but, some very casual cards turn into amazing competitive cards when they synergize with your commander. My brew is Francisco/Akiri+Lurrus by the way.
If I got into commander, I would feel compelled to play cEDH just to avoid the thing I hate most about commander: needing to cater to everyone else's needs. At least in cEDH, there's a definitive meta and staples, and no one is going to get their feelings hurt based on your card selection. In no other format is there this weird unspoken agreement that you need to be on the same power level as everyone else: how the hell am I supposed to sit down and play with strangers in this format? Am I really expected to have at least 5-10 commander decks of varying power level, and make my selection solely on that? I'd prefer to be able to sit down and play the deck I want to play, not the one that caters to my opponent's specific preferences. I'm not a waiter.
Shoot, maybe I should change to cEDH. I've never played it, because I always figured I couldn't afford to, but my primary complaint about regular EDH is the socially-enforced "play the way everyone else plays" mentality. It sounds like cEDH would both have more tolerance for my "let me play however I want to" mindset and be more tolerant of me proxying all the good cards I once owned but had to sell to pay the bills. And I bet I'd never get any complaints for running 7 infinite mana combos.
Believe me, as cEDH players we want to play against your skill, not your wallet. And bring your best to the table: the fun is in the challenge. Good luck ❤
@@RafaelAAMerlo I've quit entirely. I haven't even played a game since 2013, and I'm just torturing myself holding out hope that if I just keep trying I'll find someone to play with.
Downvoted for clickbait title. You deflected criticisms and turned some into praises of the format. That's all well and good, but nowhere did you address the most glaring problem with cEDH: Wizards of the Coast. 100% of the rapid homogenization that has occurred is because WotC can't help but fuck up the format and the rules committee are a bunch of spineless yes-men. 2 color partners, Dockside, and ThOracle are just the big ones. They never let the format breathe and develop organically because they have to push more product.
This is also an issue in EDH...
Every EDH deck runs the same homogenized powercrept cards to do the same things, there might be more variety because there are more viable archtypes, but they don't vary by much and every archtype (which there are like maybe a total of 10 archtypes) run exactly the same cards.
Token decks all run the same support cards, Tribal decks all run the same support cards, Instant/Sorcery decks all run the same support cards...
The only difference is that cEDH has less archtype variety, but the issue is the same on both formats.
Non-MTG player here: card diversity is not all that important. There are lots of one deck formats that are deep and engaging. There are lots of diverse formats that suffer for it: when you can only tune your deck for a handful of matchups, decks that fall outside of that handful tend to result in non-games. Sometimes entire archetypes are invalidated - maybe anti-aggro is a fool's errand because there are multiple aggro decks that operate on completely different axes, maybe there are too many viable midrange winconditions to expect to control them all, etc. It's certainly not the proxy variable for format health that you seem to assert it is. Besides, EVERY competitive game centralizes - it could be chess, street fighter, Pokémon, basketball... it really is just a function of people trying to win and time that gives certain ideas their gravity, and to compete is to be complicit in this.
Now, I absolutely cannot speak to cEDH in particular. Maybe it's great, maybe it's fine, maybe it needs help, maybe it's doomed on concept. I can tell you, if a yugioh format has more than one tier 1 deck and 20% of your deck is staples, it's either one of the healthiest, most enjoyable yugioh formats of all time, or it is in its infancy.
Also, I want to go on record: multiplayer table dynamics are NOT inherently casual. I don't know that you said as much, but others certainly have, and I want to dispel the notion. Games like Risk or Catan function immaculately as competitive games, not just "despite" table dynamics, but in concert with them.
Anyway, I don't wanna come across too antagonistic. This is a great video - the way you go from preconceived notions to first impressions to a veteran interview is admirable, treating them like completely independent sources of information as a way not to succumb to bias. Cheers
Off meta cedh is amazing, Play a tier 2 deck that punches up like stax or combat. Its more fun than you think to play your best high power into that meta
For anyone who's interested in cEDH, I'd highly recommend Comedian mtg's channel. He does a lot of meta breakdowns and tournament reports which can give you a lot of insight into the format.
the singleton aspect of EDH is meant to augment diversity, but ends up playing against it.
also, the main issue with cEDH is that the banlist is absolutely terrible and it doesn't do a reasonable job at making the one and only viable strategy, which is to combo, weaker....
at the end of the day, 4player EDH is objectively just a really, really bad competittive format.
to be fair, of couse it's combo. The Point is that Aggro can't win because there is 3 other player to kill and they can't kill everyone before they combo, Control can't counter everything and win vs 3 player without them comboing. Midrange don't even exist in this format
Ngl kinda confused about the title choice, it feels like you didn't really go into any "problems" with the format and more just gave a good overview of it, something akin to a beginners guide almost.
You could say he posed a question and answered it. The problem? There's none actually.
He did go into the the problem of cedh. That being diversity. The section where he compares the top 10 in cedh and the cards all of them share + plus their win cons.
@@astrograph7875 he explained not all pods are combinations of those top 10 decks and that you're not necessarily obliged to play those versions like Trinket Mage mentioned. There's a meta but you can play the meta with anti meta strategies. I don't like the format but I came out of the video with a more positive outlook on it.
@@astrograph7875 Even if all decks were only the Top 10, that wouldn't necessarily be a problem. A lack of diversity is also an upside of cedh.
@@astrograph7875 what these other guys said. But in seriousness, what he did is essentially taking a look at the "top 20 commanders on EDHRec", you know, and I know, that those aren't the only commanders people play, but they are the ones that are most popular, mostly bc they are powerful.
CEDH also allows proxies - allowing anyone to create , play and try any deck or strategy for a reasonable price. Once you see enough "casual" players with proxy Rhystic Studys and Mana Crypts you start to wonder what casual even is anymore bro 😅
I lean more towards Cedh because the social contract of the game is understood and once a win happens, you can be back into another game. Outside of my usual casual play group, trying to find casual edh variance, comes with salt and toxicity unfortunately. Not in all cases but it happens more often than not.
Good vid, describing casual vs competetive in every format in every cardgame. My storeowner goes on competetive pokemon events with me and it´s always the same conversation: "Dad I wanna play my hisuian Arcanine deck, all the meta stuff is bland and boring"... "go for it son, just be aware you´re going to lose, a lot." Of course off meta picks are a thing, as neither lists nor players are well adapted to them, but building a good offmeta deck is about as time and skill intensive as cardgames get. What I´d like to see in stores is budget cEDH. Build the most powerful deck you can, on a 50€ budget. Of course, we could impose other deck building restrictions as well, like it has to be monocolured or domain, so long as they are the same for everyone and the premise is to try and win. I´m sure there would be a lot of moments of "Wow, you came up with that?" in that format and no one would mind having a bunch of super cutthroat budget decks at the end of it all.
I just generally want to see more deckbuilding challenges at stores though.
My experience with yugioh back in the mid '00s is that if you were not playing the meta and instead playing fun it meant you lost. Then I tried the meta wasn't fun so I left the game forever.
I am also a fan of budgetary restricted formats. Encourages more creative deck building.
@@josephrion3514 Makes a lot of sense, If you don´t like the meta you´re better off changing format instead of hanging on to a pet deck that makes you lose...
Yeah, I've refused to play a meta deck any of the handful of times I've actually gone to magic events at the store and given myself a $15 or 20 budget, and honestly I perform pretty well! The thing about following the meta is that a very small set of cards get expensive, and a lot of _almost_ tier 1 cards just end up as bulk. I walked into an MTG Standard tournament with a $13 deck and came close to winning, and everyone was running meta lists.
Also as a result of the Win cons being combos it further plays into one of edhs biggest design flaws. You are encouraged to do nothing because the first person to thassa might get it countered meaning the second or third thassa might be less contested. Not necessarily a problem but definitely not for everyone.
can you please make portuguese subtitles? I need to send this to the max people I can 😂😂
I added them by having RUclips translate the English subtitles, hopefully the result is decent!
As an exclusivity casual player, I ragequit one of my most recent EDH games when one of my opponents started taking half a dozen turns in a row, with a slow deck. I came to the table to play the game, not to watch someone else play solitaire for ten minutes.
These kinds of conversations and aligning of expectations are necessary for a game to be fun.
As someone who's pet card is Counterflux, one day I dream of bringing that to a CEDH table, and seeing everyone's faces when I overload it because the stack is overflowing with cards
Once a player tries a real cedh deck, you might be inspired to build your own deck 😊it's fun 🤠.