Pleasant Kenobi: "Commander can't support draft ecosystem, and that hurts the stores" WotC: "2020 we release Commander Legends, a Commander draft product"
@@RrraverCrow This is why i believe everyone should make their own cubes and save their money. If you really want to play your cube with randoms, proxy the whole thing to disincentivise theft. Anyway, that's how I roll, packs are just too expensive :(
For me, I like the strategy of Draft and I like the player expression of commander. I am tottaly down for draft Commander, two great flavors (for me) that I have always wanted to go together.
Something that you didn't mention about the accessibility of Commander, but is a huge deal to players like me: Singleton Format. I am a kitchen table casual who doesn't have a ton of money and is new to the game, and accessing a playset of key card(s) is sometimes out of my means. I have the pool of cards I have, and don't get new cards super often, so a Singleton format that lets me get the most use out of what I have is amazing for me.
This is the big one for me too. I have a Vampiric Tutor. It’s great in my Anje edh decks. There’s no way that I would want to buy 3 more of them for a Modern deck. That 1 copy can slide into any edh decks I own, and only needing that single copy for my entire collection is a big reason why I paid for it in the first place. I’ll never own 4 Teferi, HoD, but I’ll be glad to pick up 1. I have a Sword of Feast and Famine, but I’m not dropping $60 per card to have a play set. Budget matters to the vast majority of players, and singleton formats lets me own more decks than any other 4-card formats (aside from pauper).
@@Aldrnari956 That's awesome. I hope to get my hands on a Vampiric soon, if for nothing else than I love playing Black. Even with decks that are 60 cards, it does seem that the singleton factor helps the budget immensely.
This is exactly why I love this format. I have been playing since 1995 and have always been just kitchen table casual with my deck making. And over the years I’ve collected a ton of random card of different power levels, but maybe one or two of each. Not enough to play legacy or vintage, I could never been competitive in modern because of how specific the meta is and standard right now is as expensive as modern and it’s insane. But with EDH I can make decks of all different power levels and play my favorite jank and still have fun. Like my Atogatog deck where the goal is to sac my entire board state to atogatog and swing out.
@@Aldrnari956 this is why I sprung for the price of a Gaea's Cradle; I use a checklist system that allows me to use a single copy across all of my decks and it is so much easier to stomach high prices on older cards when you don't need so many copies.
Socialism or Barbarygmos but you don’t need 4 $60 cards to make a decent deck. Check out commanders quarters, you can make fun focused decks for pretty cheap. In modern and standard if you don’t drop $100 bucks on lands alone (or much much more) you can build whole decks for less than that.
Beginning of the episode: this was recorded before next year's commander products were revealed, so we didn't talk about them. 34 minutes into the episode: Vince predicts Commander Legends.
Former full-time competitive pokemon player here that's converted to casual commander. The most appealing thing to commander to me is its actually a hobby, not a second job. When you play at the highest competitive level, you have to make sure you are spending a certain amount of time each week. Testing different matchups and then you have tournaments every weekend. Commander however...I can build whatever I want, show up to commander night, and just play them. I can do whatever I want and have a reasonable chance to win and I will for sure have fun. That to me is why commander is the future of magic. It's what it should be, a hobby.
@@brandonguffey5959 My favorite is when two people have rhystic study AND smothering tithe. Using the tithe mana to pay for drawing the card to the other player's rhystic study.
Hey professor, just wanted to say that your channel got me into magic recently and commander is definitely the best mode. Epic games and a roaring good time with friends! If I had friends.. :'(
Both LGS's and colleges/universities usually have their own playgroups, and if they're running them as drop-in groups, they usually have facebook groups. Worth looking into. And even if there's no dedicated commander, or even Magic group for your local LGS, it's worth checking the store's facebook group and ask if they have a consistent commander group playing there. If you don't live close to an LGS, or a college, or a university, you may want to resort to playing online. There are plenty of reddit/discord groups playing over the internet, either via MTGO, via Cockatrice/Xmage (free clients), or in paper via voicechat and webcam. There's always a solution :)
Welcome aboard! Check in with any local card shops in your area to see what kind of Commander schedule they support. If there are no card stores in your area MTGO is always an option. Sure it may be online, but digital cards are on average cheaper than paper, MTGO supports the Commander format, and there's always people online to play against.
While Commander precons aren't the place for fetchland reprints, they really should make a habit out of putting shocklands in them to help keep the prices down in-between Ravnica sets.
There are so many good lands besides the shock lands, that havent seen any printings in commander products that i dont think we need more shocks in a while. Finishing the battlebond land cycle and reprinting some fast lands in low curve decks would be awesome.
@@vekeuimonen11 There's really no reason why they couldn't both reprint THE modern-era duals (shocklands) regularly and also dedicate slots to more obscure lands and to finishing up cycles. Blood Crypt and Sunken Ruins could both go into a Grixis deck, alongside maybe a new blue-red multiplayer land.
@@JediMB if there were that much value in the lands it would cause other problems. Also shock lands will go down in price a little after standard. For the most played land across all formats they are very reasonably priced right now. Hopefully we get atleast 1 breeding pool reprint in some standard product before they rotate to bring it back to level with the other shocks.
@@vekeuimonen11 The only reason Sunken Ruins is fairly valuable is because it's from Lorwyn and hasn't had a non-Expedition reprint. If they start actually reprinting these things they're going to go down in value fast. This shouldn't be any more problematic than the shockland and temple prints in the Brawl decks. And, like I said in the OP, part of the point of regularly reprinting these most-played lands is to stop the prices from creeping up again between next year's rotation and whenever Ravnica 4 is released. This is a long-term plan and not just about how much shocklands will be worth 12 months from now.
Well... I am a commander player and I love cracking packs. I draft with my friends, like... ''fun'' drafts, where one person buys the packs for everyone, and keeps all the cards at the end, but the spirit is very fun this way. No pressure to keep the cards for money or so... And this way I gain useful or even less useful cards, new commanders with a special context I obtained them and so... I love attending to prereleases, and open boxes... And I don't think I'm the only one! Even as commander players I think we can enjoy the feeling of cracking packs, and enjoying a fun draft which is a pretty close format to commander, when played casually. So I won't by any way make my lgs die, buying and singles, and precos, and even new products...
While that certainly can be true, any survey that isn't a badly veiled manipulation tool usually is proceeded by extensive research, to make sure to ask questions that people want to answer, or is designed in straight-forward way, along the lines of "These are the ideas we have, that we have checked for viability on our end, and now we just need to check the viability with out customer base".
I’d love to see a vote to determine 4 content creators to make the precons one year. Give them the new commander and 15-19 new cards, probably have a cannot use card list, but let the players pick and creators create.
Don't think that's a good idea unless you know content creators that are game designers/developers. Otherwise you don't want e.g. surgeons building a house for you
They did something similar with the brawl precons I believe. It was actual players though instead of content creators though but I mean most content creators of mtg are players so
Zachary Lyons the play test team and designers are magic players for sure but the idea is more about us being a part of it and the content creators we watch everyday being a part of it, just one time.
Joshua Jones if you have a webcam there is a discord server where you can find commander games at every power level 24/7 and play paper magic online with people. Some of the games are a bit formal but I’ve met some cool people.
Joshua Jones it’s how I play magic when I can’t get anyone together. And the community is genuinely great. Obviously not all of it is great, but it is super fun
Every time one of the partners use an ability, flip a coin: If it's heads, it puts a +1/+1 counter on the other. If it's tails, it put a -1/-1 counter on the other? :P
WotC has finally acknowledged that Commander/EDH is the most popular format, period. Certainly a more fun/interesting format than Elk Standard. I went to CommandFest Chicago. It was so much fun, and I want it to continue being a thing. Edit 2: The amount of Vorthos (as from the expressiveness PK talked about) in my decks is...legendary. My Gishath deck has all basics as foils from Ixalan block. Edgar Markov has all basics as foils from original Innistrad and Shadows over Innistrad. Atraxa infect has all (9) basics being foils from Scars block. I have the Edgar, Atraxa, and Arahbo deck boxes and sleeves. I have an Atraxa and a Gishath playmat. Because if I can't win the game, I will win for being on theme. Also, my decks are mostly bling'd out as well, with 3/4 being over 90% foil (Edgar being 99%--Path of Ancestry is the only non, but it is signed by Alayna).
What do you mean "finally"? They've been pushing more and more marketing and development of Commander products than they have for eternal formats. Hell, even every standard set that they released now feels like a mini Commander set with how much they're trying to push legendary creatures and "multiplayer matters" cards. Also, hasn't WotC released a Commander product every year since like 2013 lol, so using the word "finally" doesn't really to me
@@buddieschiknful There's a difference between putting out a product and admitting a truth. With Commandfest and 2020 essentially being Year of Commander, Elks of the Coast has, albeit begrudgingly, admitted that their beloved cash elk of Elk Standard is not what will make them all that Elk money--especially when everything is now an elk.
@@BAAWAKnight And I totally get that, I've always hated the cash grab model that standard has been based off of. As an eternal player, however, it sucks to see WotC cater so hard to the community that I'm already having to compete against for eternal staples while they turn a blind eye to those formats.
@@lorvincent Im pretty sure Prof has wanted a new Sengir for a while, im not sure he was intending to "make a call", but if we was it sure was some omniscient shiz
The hard cut after "YOU have a RUclips channel!?" was the perfect ending, and the opening skit was the perfect beginning. Not really a commander player, but enjoyed the discussion. Thanks to both of you and the rest of the team for your time and effort.
Re: Commander w/ "Randomizer" Booster - I tend to agree that this would be a big mistake if this was the only place you could get those cards. That said, consider the following scenario: 1) Assume WOTC has gone back to the tradition of printing 5 "normal" commanders in the 3rd quarter, aimed at "selling out" for Christmas. And they're good. 2) As an additional, alternative product, associated with one of their Standard sets, they release, say, 2 commander products. In these products you'll get two Partner Commanders - one FACE commander, and one hidden commander. a) The FACE commander is a single color, original to the commander set, with the "Commander" set symbol. b) The HIDDEN commander is a (R) from the current standard set, available in standard boosters. c) The HIDDEN commander comes with 30 cards - all the same for that hidden commander - from the standard set - 10 basic lands, 10 (C) or (U) from the standard set, and then 9 (R) or (M) from the standard set that fit with that hidden commander's theme, one of which would be the "2 color combination" alternate commander for the set; meaning there'd be 6 (R) or (M) commanders legal in standard. There would be 2 FACE commanders/decks, but 3 HIDDEN commanders/"included in the standard set/standard legal" commanders; meaning that you could end up with one of 3 pairs for each FACE commander. 3) The "base" 70 cards has enough mana fixing to help you play your "minor" color. 4) Also, assume the relevant standard set is deeper than normal; this is to say that the 18 or so standard-legal color-specific cards would be tight enough to supplement that deck. Final Note: I realize this is incredibly narrow design space that could go wrong. But I think it'd be kind of funny to play commander where I'm playing FACE B Graveyard commander and R Sneak Attack commander, against others who are playing FACE B Graveyard commander and U Mill commander, or Face B Graveyard commander and G Giant Fatties (that are great to reanimate) commander. Mind you, this would probably be better explored during a really tight Commander Draft set - more like Modern Masters than Dominaria, that is. And none of this "20 card pack" nonsense.
Can you guys make an episode on commander cubes? I've built my first one, played it three times now and had a blast, my friends were suprised on how well it played. I had listened to CMDR-central and EDHreccast talking about the charity draft during many of their podcasts and commanders brew ep 199.1. I picked up a lot of tips during that episode. Like: draft a commanderbooster and then draft 6 boosters. 5 commanders pr commanderbooster and 15 cards pr regular booster. 5 colour commanders are "Mythic rares" because they enable you to pick cards from the whole pool. Decks are 80-100 cards. Usually 80 :) Nice thing is: You get to brew and play in the same session. You get to use all your half-finished projects and other cards from your binders. You determine power level. You can exclude cards like cyclonic rift. You can include fair non-broken unstable cards. I personally run a pool of 60 commanders. And eatch player gets a booster of five at the start of the draft. For three games we had Jodah and 5-colour Niv-mizzet show up twice. And all the others beeing different 2-3 colour commanders :)
At the end of the day I enjoy commander it's what kept me playing magic to this day and I feel it offers me the freedom to build decks that Express what I like about the commander I am playing at the time (chainer for life). And I feel commander is more open to all kinds of players.
I have been a MTG player since my junior year of high school some 6-7 years ago. I graduated and had no one to play with for 5 years. I finally got a bunch of cards and made about 4 commander decks and invited my friends to play. After 1 year of trying I have finally got them hooked and now regularly play games every week. Took me a bit but my friends have finally appreciated the beauty of commander.
I'm actually a bit surprised they haven't made a commander-specific fetch land yet. Like... enters untapped, tap and sac to search for a basic and put into play untapped, if you control your commander you can search for any land with a basic land type. Print it in every main-line Commander product like Sol Ring. Sure you could still only have one in your deck, but it fills a niche.
@@sonofchlar6144 It's not. Having one more fetch in your mana base won't make a measurable difference, especially in a multiplayer game. Unless you have a specific land-based deck strategy (Tatyova, Gitrog, Windgrace, Golos, etc) or you have a specific need to be able to shuffle your deck frequently, you don't even really need the fetches for your deck to run smoothly if your deck is 3 or less colors. Deck-thinning is only a marginal advantage in 60-card formats, and it matters even less in commander.
John Kendall that or having it cost 2 or 3 life instead of 1. That way standard/modern/pioneer players wouldn’t run it and hopefully the price would be lower
@@GM-rs2fv It's a commander product. It's literally not legal in any of those formats. And it could only fetch a basic in Legacy/Vintage which isn't that useful in those formats.
I think the fact that they announced a commander draft set with Commander Legends (i know the episode was filmed before the announcement) is showing that WotC is planning to take some cash from commander players on events.
21:17 - He's only EDH Quarters on Twitter due to character limit. Actual channel is Commander's Quarters. His older videos are in the $25 range, but he swapped to a $50 model a while back to account for more "commander and shipping included" prices.
What if the precon list for a deck remained constant, but then you got 15 random foils for the deck? And the chase would be a high end reprint in foil, like a fetch, or a shock, or an alt art commander? 5 buck markup? I think that could be awesome
I don't think Commander is killing Magic, but I do think WotC focusing so hard on Commander is bad for both Magic as a whole and for the Commander format. They found out it's the most popular and have gone so hard in on it that it affects everything. Another podcast I listen to, The Mana Pool (one of the longest running MtG podcasts there is), just this week had an episode on how almost all of the recent legendary creatures are either hyper focused and if you want to make a commander deck with them you have pretty much one real path (like Kadena you run morph, that's it, just all the morphs), or they're so broadly powerful you can just run every good card in those colors and be strong. Gone are the commanders that gave you an idea but didn't force it. They do a thing they call Story Circles where they pick a commander and each host takes a turn picking a card to add to the deck, which then gives everyone else ideas and they all kinda brain storm the start of a deck. Now that they stream on Twitch, they even let the chat add in a few cards as well! But they hadn't done one in over a year because they didn't feel like it could be real self expression or interesting to build around most of the new legends. They ended up doing one with Kykar because it was the most open with some different ways to build, and it was a lot of fun. But that's become the exception, not the rule for legends now. While I'm opposed to planewalkers being commanders, I think they would currently be better than most of the modern legends for this kind of self expression in the format. Although with the advent of brawl now actually somewhat taking off, I'm afraid of even them becoming so focused as to not be great for mulitple deck builds but instead becoming homogenized as well. Sorry for the novel but I do think it's important. Great episode guys.
What I love as an EDH player is seeing all the crazy stuff people can do and get away. In my playgroup, we all range through a wide area. We all have a deck or two that could be competitive, and we have played small tourneys with them. But we also love our jank. We all have one deck where we allowed one banned card. Of course someone has emrakul, one has lotus, but my favorite is my best friends coalition victory deck. He doesnt go go for big crazy stuff that often. He plays a lot of jank decks, looking to make them work, like a colorless control deck under Hope of Ghirapur. He's one of the best magic players I know, could probably go to the big time tournaments, but he just plays stupid stuff because that is what he loves. EDH really does let people express themselves in fun ways. Commander is the reason I still play regularly.
@@dingdongs5208 to see what these players do with the stack constantly and get game feed back is really cool and its still edh so we see the broken combos of cards which werent supposed to interact just at their prime. that for me is seriously entertaining so...
For me, Commander is a strictly social format. The reason why I play it is to have a chill time with some friends and have fun with self-expressive decks. If I want to be competetive, I dont try it with something that depends on drawing the right card in the right moment, e.g. MTG, but something like my job or martial arts or other sports or even smash bros. And even if you want to go for competetive magic, why would you choose the format with he literal highest variance (aside from canadian highlander) in the game, e.g. the least skill dependent format. I'm not talking about cEDH players playing for themselves and not bothering normal players, I'm talking about rich dimwits slowly power creeping a meta up with always slightly stronger cards, and people who play degenerate combo/control decks to make a meta "healthier", thus either having us spend more money to keep up, or push casual decks/players and jankier builds out to not be able to play anymore. Thats why I love my chill meta, almost exclusively budget decks or self-expressive decks, nobody plays degenerate decks except for hating out people knowingly pulling out decks too strong for that meta, and we just have a good time playing cards we own. In commander, I look for chilling out after my study and sport regement, its more productive and way more skill-dependent to be competetive elsewhere, even of its modern or legacy.
Im new to Magic I've been playing just a few months at most and I bought a commander 2019 deck just to try commander and has been so much fun, everyone in my locals prefer playing commander the most so now I can play with them and is really my favorite format so far
Ehh, Commander has answers to Oko that other formats (aside from legacy/vintage) dont. Whats oko going to do against an 8/8 hexproof demon casted on turn 4 using k'rriks effect or just mana rocks that can be given haste Or a tutor into removal Or archetype of endurance (everything you control has hexproof your opponents cards lose and cant gain hexproof) Or one of the other thousands of answers Commander is Okos weakest format by far Hell even in pioneer hes not having that much of an impact because a lot of decks in the format mainboard answers anyways. This isnt like standard or a combo format like modern where you have to side in answers commander has answers built in to every deck
@@V2ULTRAKill I don't know if this is what OP meant, but I took it as "leave it to WotC to eventually print new chase cards to ruin a good format." I'm concerned the new amount of cards coming out due to the popularity of EDH will throw in a large number of new staples and we will eventually have our own kind of elks to deal with.
I had a lot of fun at the command Fest! When they ask for feedback then one thing I told him was we want to Main Event! Especially us more competitive players. I don't know why they haven't done another one since the one in Vegas was very successful.
Prof “I love commander and how it’s flows and is casual and everyone’s happy Planeswalker fan: so you won’t mind if I can have my Jace Guildpact as my commander Prof: REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
Our lgs is exclusively edh. Dude there's about a group of five or so ppl that will consistently crack 20$+ packs, masters, onslaught, mirrodin etc. As well as singles. I'v it's all in how you market your store and how engaged the player base is. I love "dies to removal" best mtg show! Cheers.
I made a friend at my LGS. The gambler addiction is strong in him. I’ve seen him give cards away for cash to be able to eat that night because he is so broke. Then take that $20 and use most of it to buy new packs and only keep 5 bucks for a hungry-man. I’ve seen him crack packs for his decks both standard and EDH decks, trade key components for these decks to crack more packs. While not owning a mat or sleeves for these decks. Saying all the while he can afford these things..... How should I approach him about these problems??
Last Weekend was the Commandfest in Chicago, and while I was there the only complaints I heard around were the fact that there were a lot of people who were competitive dipping into the semi-competitive slots in order to get more tickets. I cannot speak for other Commandfests as this could just be unique to those who attended Chicago, but this was a major issue. While I had a fun time that weekend besides one game, a fellow player at my gamestore had a terrible time attending due to these kinds of decks circulating the semi-competitive tables. Otherwise, it was just commander and commander varients that were located at the event, at least in Chicago, but it would be worth a try, especially if someone has a commander cube.
What we really need is a Time Shifted style border Sol Ring promo, with the ability to be foil or non-foil. That old art has yet to be topped but it does not look like it belongs with the new border at all, so promo where they did that always looks out of place to me. But a cleaned up old border with HD cleaned up version of the old art? Fucking *chef hand kiss*
Interesting thought about the Commander Precon with boosterpacks in them... Sell the Precon decks as they are now, and then sell precon dedicated booster packs - Create a pool of about 75~ or so cards that ALL cards of that pool would work in the chosen precon deck, and sell booster packs of those cards. I love the precons, it allows me and my casual friends to stay on a same page without much effort. If we could all spend a little bit of $$ to buy 15/30/45 cards that would all be guaranteed in the color scheme of our chosen deck, and give us the freedom and creative flexibility to modify the deck to our liking, I'd buy those boosters in a heartbeat. Since the decks typically have 3 or so cards that can be used at the commander, the cardpool of the packs could be a bit wider, allowing the user to change the theme of their decks slightly, tailored to the commander (1 of the 3 precon commanders) of their choosing.
I believe the precostructed decks with a random part could be done in an interesting way. New cards and manabase are fixed, but you get X random slots with support cards (reprints) that let push your deck strategy in a certain direction or another.
I have a work group, we have a theme for building (the Dragons Primeval and Chaos Primevals) on a $50 budget for the deck total, minus the Commander. It works, is fun, and cheap even if you buy your entire deck, instead of making from what you own.
i want to be exited about commander legends i really do but i just know it's going to be 15-20$ a pack and therefor i will not buy a single pack nor draft it :( they should be 4.99$ and until they do make them the price they should be ill just get the odd singles i need.
For reference on the power levels of Crypt and Ring. I play an odd little format called Canadian Highlander. Its a competative 100 card singleton format, that uses the vintage banlist but puts points on very powerful cards. Its 10 points to a deck. All the old moxen are 3pts. Sol Ring and Crypt? Pointed at 4. Both are crazy powerful, both should probably be played in the most efficient commander decks, one is 2 bucks and the other $350. Point is, commander's official banlist doesn't make a lot of sense, and Wizard's reprint policies make even less.
I am a Commander player only. I crack packs just because I enjoy the gamble and the hope to get something cool foiled or at a price of a pack get something that I would never buy singly. I love to buy and crack booster boxes to see what I get. Any foils I have are from booster packs/boxes, I never purchase foil singles or buy single cards that cost more than $15, so if I have something of that price or higher, its usually from cracking packs or a box. I agree it's not worth the money I spend, but sometimes it pays off and I love doing it.
My LGS is now hosting free FNM.. I hear they can’t get it to fire most weeks. But every week on Wednesday there are 15-25 commander players that pay for $1 pods. We get a pack and a fnm prize pack to split, everyone gets something. We play to win then switch decks and play casual until close.
I like commander because of the amount of strategies. Like, i like tribal. So of course i built a sliver deck. This thing cost about 900. (Thanks, queen and legion) it was undefeated in my play group for a while. Then my buddy built a Nekusar deck for about 200 and just WHOOPED MY DECK. I cant compete when i don't have a hand, it was genious.
For the topic of reprints in commander products, I feel like this year got the price level right, just not the cards. Put in all the stables that every deck wants that are around 2-5 dollars. I'm talking cultivate, reliquary tower, signets, etc. It keeps the price of the product from spiking due to one or two high value reprints, but still keeps the reprints relevant, and the stables easy to acces for new players.
Just here to remind you fine folks that EDH is not nearly as popular outside the US. In Japan it is way easier to fire up Legacy events than Commander ones. Preconstructed decks only sell when cards with potential for Legacy are included. Sol Ring is easily found for less than 100 yen and precon generals seldom sell for more than 500 yen. There is a variety of reasons for this, mostly that Japanese players only care about organized play (and consider "casual" a dirty word). There is also a cultural barrier in the sense that there is no custom to invite people over for a game night or for pretty much whatever, which hinders the growth of a casual player base (players that WotC frequently refers to as "silent majority"). Making EDH the future of Magic means alienating the 2nd largest market for MtG and I am afraid that their only way out in Japan is to somehow make EDH part of organized play and hold some amount of high level tournaments featuring the format.
What Professor said about the 22 years old student having almost all the deck but no fecth lands is exactly me, 19 years old brazillian student wanting Misty Rainforest or/and Scalding Tarn to transform my UW control into Jeskai or Bant.
This is a very informative podcast and I agree with both sides of the discussion, commander needs the other formats to survive and to help make cards accessible for commander players. There is a really good magic store in my area where you can get packs, singles and all of the accessories to play, you can trade in cards for in store credit and of course they have the FNM events and nights set up for other formats like pauper, commander,, brawl and pioneer. The magic community is an intertwined beast that depend upon each format and playing style to feed each other and the survival of paper is in the hands of the players and local card shops that support each other.
Also I have held a very unpopular opinion that I'd argue that if it weren't for the stupid ass reserved list that black lotus could be legal. If they deem sol ring and mana crypt fine then I would say fine with black lotus. Not saying it wouldn't be absolutely broken but it's a broken format so whatever. But even in that situation I still would never unban the original moxen because the simple fact that they have color identities. This means that 5 color decks would get the biggest boost from them being legal and 5 color good stuff already has enough advantages just because it gets to play all the best cards from every color, and now it would also get 5 moxen. Meanwhile mono color decks, which already suffer in power level from the restrictions of the format now also get even more screwed because they can only run 1 of the 5 moxen per deck making them fall even further behind the curve. At the very least black lotus would be equal footing across all colors and color combinations.
I love how he mentions "EDH quarters". The channel is actually commanders quarters... He says hes a big fan where he makes $25 decks, however mitch doesn't do $25 decks anymore because it was too difficult and now does $50 decks.
Pleasant Kenobi: "Commander can't support draft ecosystem, and that hurts the stores"
WotC: "2020 we release Commander Legends, a Commander draft product"
Yeah, I really wish WotC would get their heads out of their own arses and stop pushing Draft as the primary focus for products.
@@MadMage86 It's their mediocre excuse to sell reprint packs for 3 times the price while paying the same out of pocket to produce them.
It's the intended way to play MtG and allows them to rationalize random packs for gambling laws
@@RrraverCrow This is why i believe everyone should make their own cubes and save their money. If you really want to play your cube with randoms, proxy the whole thing to disincentivise theft. Anyway, that's how I roll, packs are just too expensive :(
For me, I like the strategy of Draft and I like the player expression of commander. I am tottaly down for draft Commander, two great flavors (for me) that I have always wanted to go together.
Never seen a Dies to Removal episode before. I’m 97 seconds in... I’ll never miss one again!
Cheers!
Something that you didn't mention about the accessibility of Commander, but is a huge deal to players like me: Singleton Format.
I am a kitchen table casual who doesn't have a ton of money and is new to the game, and accessing a playset of key card(s) is sometimes out of my means. I have the pool of cards I have, and don't get new cards super often, so a Singleton format that lets me get the most use out of what I have is amazing for me.
This is the big one for me too. I have a Vampiric Tutor. It’s great in my Anje edh decks. There’s no way that I would want to buy 3 more of them for a Modern deck. That 1 copy can slide into any edh decks I own, and only needing that single copy for my entire collection is a big reason why I paid for it in the first place. I’ll never own 4 Teferi, HoD, but I’ll be glad to pick up 1. I have a Sword of Feast and Famine, but I’m not dropping $60 per card to have a play set. Budget matters to the vast majority of players, and singleton formats lets me own more decks than any other 4-card formats (aside from pauper).
@@Aldrnari956 That's awesome. I hope to get my hands on a Vampiric soon, if for nothing else than I love playing Black. Even with decks that are 60 cards, it does seem that the singleton factor helps the budget immensely.
This is exactly why I love this format. I have been playing since 1995 and have always been just kitchen table casual with my deck making. And over the years I’ve collected a ton of random card of different power levels, but maybe one or two of each. Not enough to play legacy or vintage, I could never been competitive in modern because of how specific the meta is and standard right now is as expensive as modern and it’s insane. But with EDH I can make decks of all different power levels and play my favorite jank and still have fun. Like my Atogatog deck where the goal is to sac my entire board state to atogatog and swing out.
@@Aldrnari956 this is why I sprung for the price of a Gaea's Cradle; I use a checklist system that allows me to use a single copy across all of my decks and it is so much easier to stomach high prices on older cards when you don't need so many copies.
Socialism or Barbarygmos but you don’t need 4 $60 cards to make a decent deck. Check out commanders quarters, you can make fun focused decks for pretty cheap. In modern and standard if you don’t drop $100 bucks on lands alone (or much much more) you can build whole decks for less than that.
Beginning of the episode: this was recorded before next year's commander products were revealed, so we didn't talk about them.
34 minutes into the episode: Vince predicts Commander Legends.
Pretty nifty, huh?
@@TolarianCommunityCollege And your hair is proof that you recorded this beforehand!
Insider trading through his sources at CFB. #tinfoilhat
The the professor predicted a card in it(baron sengir)
Looks like Prof cast the Flashback cost for Hair 😉
Kurtis Merrill honestly didn’t even notice till I found your comment deep in the bowels of this comment section hahahahaha
Only until end of turn,then exile hair.
"Have you seen Mishra's Workshop Recently or Tabernacle?"
Well, I did just watch the newest Commander's Quarters so... yeah! Nice timing, gents!
Commander's Milions please.
Commander's Quarter Millions.
Former full-time competitive pokemon player here that's converted to casual commander. The most appealing thing to commander to me is its actually a hobby, not a second job.
When you play at the highest competitive level, you have to make sure you are spending a certain amount of time each week. Testing different matchups and then you have tournaments every weekend.
Commander however...I can build whatever I want, show up to commander night, and just play them. I can do whatever I want and have a reasonable chance to win and I will for sure have fun. That to me is why commander is the future of magic. It's what it should be, a hobby.
"Throw them in the spike pit" looks over and see 4 people sitting around a table fast shuffling their hand asking if they paid 1 mana for the study.
There was a guy at CommandFest Chicago wearing a t-shirt with "Are you going to pay 1 for that?" about 7 or 8 times down the shirt.
Or 2 or 4
My new favorite is asking people if they're going to pay (2) for smothering tithe.
@@brandonguffey5959 My favorite is when two people have rhystic study AND smothering tithe. Using the tithe mana to pay for drawing the card to the other player's rhystic study.
Hey professor, just wanted to say that your channel got me into magic recently and commander is definitely the best mode. Epic games and a roaring good time with friends!
If I had friends.. :'(
Cheers friend!
Your nearest LGS should have commander events every now and again, that'd be a great place to start.
Just play MTG Arena, no friends needed and you dont have to waste money on paper cards. Paper is dead.
Both LGS's and colleges/universities usually have their own playgroups, and if they're running them as drop-in groups, they usually have facebook groups. Worth looking into. And even if there's no dedicated commander, or even Magic group for your local LGS, it's worth checking the store's facebook group and ask if they have a consistent commander group playing there.
If you don't live close to an LGS, or a college, or a university, you may want to resort to playing online. There are plenty of reddit/discord groups playing over the internet, either via MTGO, via Cockatrice/Xmage (free clients), or in paper via voicechat and webcam. There's always a solution :)
Welcome aboard! Check in with any local card shops in your area to see what kind of Commander schedule they support. If there are no card stores in your area MTGO is always an option. Sure it may be online, but digital cards are on average cheaper than paper, MTGO supports the Commander format, and there's always people online to play against.
"YOU HAVE A RUclips CHANNEL?" straight to credits got me cackling.
While Commander precons aren't the place for fetchland reprints, they really should make a habit out of putting shocklands in them to help keep the prices down in-between Ravnica sets.
There are so many good lands besides the shock lands, that havent seen any printings in commander products that i dont think we need more shocks in a while. Finishing the battlebond land cycle and reprinting some fast lands in low curve decks would be awesome.
@@vekeuimonen11 There's really no reason why they couldn't both reprint THE modern-era duals (shocklands) regularly and also dedicate slots to more obscure lands and to finishing up cycles.
Blood Crypt and Sunken Ruins could both go into a Grixis deck, alongside maybe a new blue-red multiplayer land.
@@JediMB if there were that much value in the lands it would cause other problems. Also shock lands will go down in price a little after standard. For the most played land across all formats they are very reasonably priced right now. Hopefully we get atleast 1 breeding pool reprint in some standard product before they rotate to bring it back to level with the other shocks.
@@vekeuimonen11 The only reason Sunken Ruins is fairly valuable is because it's from Lorwyn and hasn't had a non-Expedition reprint. If they start actually reprinting these things they're going to go down in value fast. This shouldn't be any more problematic than the shockland and temple prints in the Brawl decks.
And, like I said in the OP, part of the point of regularly reprinting these most-played lands is to stop the prices from creeping up again between next year's rotation and whenever Ravnica 4 is released. This is a long-term plan and not just about how much shocklands will be worth 12 months from now.
Noooo I don’t pay the f@&$ing one! 😂😂😂 these skits kill me.
Well... I am a commander player and I love cracking packs. I draft with my friends, like... ''fun'' drafts, where one person buys the packs for everyone, and keeps all the cards at the end, but the spirit is very fun this way. No pressure to keep the cards for money or so... And this way I gain useful or even less useful cards, new commanders with a special context I obtained them and so... I love attending to prereleases, and open boxes... And I don't think I'm the only one! Even as commander players I think we can enjoy the feeling of cracking packs, and enjoying a fun draft which is a pretty close format to commander, when played casually. So I won't by any way make my lgs die, buying and singles, and precos, and even new products...
Same. Drafting is my second favorite format and cracking packs is just fun all around
The problem with ALL surveys is that the questions limit the answers so it's already targeted and constricted
While that certainly can be true, any survey that isn't a badly veiled manipulation tool usually is proceeded by extensive research, to make sure to ask questions that people want to answer, or is designed in straight-forward way, along the lines of "These are the ideas we have, that we have checked for viability on our end, and now we just need to check the viability with out customer base".
I’d love to see a vote to determine 4 content creators to make the precons one year. Give them the new commander and 15-19 new cards, probably have a cannot use card list, but let the players pick and creators create.
a good idea
Don't think that's a good idea unless you know content creators that are game designers/developers. Otherwise you don't want e.g. surgeons building a house for you
They did something similar with the brawl precons I believe. It was actual players though instead of content creators though but I mean most content creators of mtg are players so
Nick Kowalski you’re correct in a sense, I used the wrong word... I meant curate the deck list. Not actual develop any new cards.
Zachary Lyons the play test team and designers are magic players for sure but the idea is more about us being a part of it and the content creators we watch everyday being a part of it, just one time.
I live that “love commander but can’t get games” life. You two make a great team, thanks for the great conversation, as always.
Joshua Jones if you have a webcam there is a discord server where you can find commander games at every power level 24/7 and play paper magic online with people. Some of the games are a bit formal but I’ve met some cool people.
C R whaaaaatttt. That sounds like a thing.
Joshua Jones it’s how I play magic when I can’t get anyone together. And the community is genuinely great. Obviously not all of it is great, but it is super fun
What’s the discord group name? Probably just find it on reddit
@@2236UmbrellaCorp I may be wrong, but I believe it's "PlayEDH".
You two would be in the same deck together with the partner rule.
Every time one of the partners use an ability, flip a coin: If it's heads, it puts a +1/+1 counter on the other. If it's tails, it put a -1/-1 counter on the other? :P
@@cutecommie cant forget the bees
WotC has finally acknowledged that Commander/EDH is the most popular format, period. Certainly a more fun/interesting format than Elk Standard.
I went to CommandFest Chicago. It was so much fun, and I want it to continue being a thing.
Edit 2: The amount of Vorthos (as from the expressiveness PK talked about) in my decks is...legendary. My Gishath deck has all basics as foils from Ixalan block. Edgar Markov has all basics as foils from original Innistrad and Shadows over Innistrad. Atraxa infect has all (9) basics being foils from Scars block. I have the Edgar, Atraxa, and Arahbo deck boxes and sleeves. I have an Atraxa and a Gishath playmat. Because if I can't win the game, I will win for being on theme. Also, my decks are mostly bling'd out as well, with 3/4 being over 90% foil (Edgar being 99%--Path of Ancestry is the only non, but it is signed by Alayna).
What do you mean "finally"? They've been pushing more and more marketing and development of Commander products than they have for eternal formats. Hell, even every standard set that they released now feels like a mini Commander set with how much they're trying to push legendary creatures and "multiplayer matters" cards. Also, hasn't WotC released a Commander product every year since like 2013 lol, so using the word "finally" doesn't really to me
@@buddieschiknful There's a difference between putting out a product and admitting a truth. With Commandfest and 2020 essentially being Year of Commander, Elks of the Coast has, albeit begrudgingly, admitted that their beloved cash elk of Elk Standard is not what will make them all that Elk money--especially when everything is now an elk.
@@BAAWAKnight And I totally get that, I've always hated the cash grab model that standard has been based off of. As an eternal player, however, it sucks to see WotC cater so hard to the community that I'm already having to compete against for eternal staples while they turn a blind eye to those formats.
Don't crack packs buy singles. That's my motto too! Lol
"Don't pack crack" is mine.
All I could think of is Gavin yelling “ITS BARON SENGIR” hahahaha
Given this was before the announcement, it was a good call on Prof's part.
@@lorvincent Im pretty sure Prof has wanted a new Sengir for a while, im not sure he was intending to "make a call", but if we was it sure was some omniscient shiz
Where can I watch this?
This aged very well
The hard cut after "YOU have a RUclips channel!?" was the perfect ending, and the opening skit was the perfect beginning. Not really a commander player, but enjoyed the discussion. Thanks to both of you and the rest of the team for your time and effort.
"Do you pay the one?"🤣🤣🤣
Why do people dislike this? Like he puts so much work into a video and people just say screw off for no reason.
"Put cards people want in the booster pack." 🤯
Re: Commander w/ "Randomizer" Booster - I tend to agree that this would be a big mistake if this was the only place you could get those cards.
That said, consider the following scenario:
1) Assume WOTC has gone back to the tradition of printing 5 "normal" commanders in the 3rd quarter, aimed at "selling out" for Christmas. And they're good.
2) As an additional, alternative product, associated with one of their Standard sets, they release, say, 2 commander products. In these products you'll get two Partner Commanders - one FACE commander, and one hidden commander.
a) The FACE commander is a single color, original to the commander set, with the "Commander" set symbol.
b) The HIDDEN commander is a (R) from the current standard set, available in standard boosters.
c) The HIDDEN commander comes with 30 cards - all the same for that hidden commander - from the standard set - 10 basic lands, 10 (C) or (U) from the standard set, and then 9 (R) or (M) from the standard set that fit with that hidden commander's theme, one of which would be the "2 color combination" alternate commander for the set; meaning there'd be 6 (R) or (M) commanders legal in standard.
There would be 2 FACE commanders/decks, but 3 HIDDEN commanders/"included in the standard set/standard legal" commanders; meaning that you could end up with one of 3 pairs for each FACE commander.
3) The "base" 70 cards has enough mana fixing to help you play your "minor" color.
4) Also, assume the relevant standard set is deeper than normal; this is to say that the 18 or so standard-legal color-specific cards would be tight enough to supplement that deck.
Final Note: I realize this is incredibly narrow design space that could go wrong. But I think it'd be kind of funny to play commander where I'm playing FACE B Graveyard commander and R Sneak Attack commander, against others who are playing FACE B Graveyard commander and U Mill commander, or Face B Graveyard commander and G Giant Fatties (that are great to reanimate) commander.
Mind you, this would probably be better explored during a really tight Commander Draft set - more like Modern Masters than Dominaria, that is. And none of this "20 card pack" nonsense.
When did the professor start speaking in 3rd person? LOL
The Professor likes his chicken spicy!
@@TolarianCommunityCollege Me too 😁
The "spike pit" part genuinely made me laugh
I feel the need to grab this low hanging fruit while it's still ripe. I am but a simple clout farmer.
Turn to 3/3 Elk, Episode 20
Can you guys make an episode on commander cubes?
I've built my first one, played it three times now and had a blast, my friends were suprised on how well it played.
I had listened to CMDR-central and EDHreccast talking about the charity draft during many of their podcasts and commanders brew ep 199.1. I picked up a lot of tips during that episode. Like:
draft a commanderbooster and then draft 6 boosters.
5 commanders pr commanderbooster and 15 cards pr regular booster.
5 colour commanders are "Mythic rares" because they enable you to pick cards from the whole pool.
Decks are 80-100 cards. Usually 80 :)
Nice thing is:
You get to brew and play in the same session.
You get to use all your half-finished projects and other cards from your binders.
You determine power level.
You can exclude cards like cyclonic rift.
You can include fair non-broken unstable cards.
I personally run a pool of 60 commanders. And eatch player gets a booster of five at the start of the draft. For three games we had Jodah and 5-colour Niv-mizzet show up twice. And all the others beeing different 2-3 colour commanders :)
Even RUclips's subtitle/captions can't understand what Vince is saying :) Still, kudos to you two.
Ahsoka was a commander. Obi-Wan was a general.
She was a commander at like age 14 too.
Hello there
Yeah the time twister one still gets me.
How does the community feel about pioneer brawl? I find that it could be one of the most interesting singleton formats
At the end of the day I enjoy commander it's what kept me playing magic to this day and I feel it offers me the freedom to build decks that Express what I like about the commander I am playing at the time (chainer for life). And I feel commander is more open to all kinds of players.
OG Chainer ftw
The back and forth at the beginning is gold.
That ending was just perfect
lmao that argument at the start of the video is great content.
really love the podcast, going in detail about many things going on
Thank you!
I have been a MTG player since my junior year of high school some 6-7 years ago. I graduated and had no one to play with for 5 years. I finally got a bunch of cards and made about 4 commander decks and invited my friends to play. After 1 year of trying I have finally got them hooked and now regularly play games every week. Took me a bit but my friends have finally appreciated the beauty of commander.
I'm actually a bit surprised they haven't made a commander-specific fetch land yet. Like... enters untapped, tap and sac to search for a basic and put into play untapped, if you control your commander you can search for any land with a basic land type.
Print it in every main-line Commander product like Sol Ring. Sure you could still only have one in your deck, but it fills a niche.
But then the people who can actually afford fetches can have Both and have an even better land base. It’s a difficult thing to balance.
@@sonofchlar6144 It's not. Having one more fetch in your mana base won't make a measurable difference, especially in a multiplayer game. Unless you have a specific land-based deck strategy (Tatyova, Gitrog, Windgrace, Golos, etc) or you have a specific need to be able to shuffle your deck frequently, you don't even really need the fetches for your deck to run smoothly if your deck is 3 or less colors.
Deck-thinning is only a marginal advantage in 60-card formats, and it matters even less in commander.
John Kendall that or having it cost 2 or 3 life instead of 1. That way standard/modern/pioneer players wouldn’t run it and hopefully the price would be lower
@@GM-rs2fv It's a commander product. It's literally not legal in any of those formats. And it could only fetch a basic in Legacy/Vintage which isn't that useful in those formats.
John Kendall well by your argument, why even print them if it’s not really making a difference. And the fact of the matter is, people will abuse it.
I think the fact that they announced a commander draft set with Commander Legends (i know the episode was filmed before the announcement) is showing that WotC is planning to take some cash from commander players on events.
21:17 - He's only EDH Quarters on Twitter due to character limit. Actual channel is Commander's Quarters. His older videos are in the $25 range, but he swapped to a $50 model a while back to account for more "commander and shipping included" prices.
Since becoming a stay at home dad your videos have definitely helped keep my adult brain sane! Great video as always, prof.
I like that the hypotheticals near the end basically predicted Collector Booster Sample Packs
Thank you for the info on the premium deck series of slivers. I have now subscribed and will never miss another episode. Thank you once again.
What if the precon list for a deck remained constant, but then you got 15 random foils for the deck? And the chase would be a high end reprint in foil, like a fetch, or a shock, or an alt art commander? 5 buck markup? I think that could be awesome
At first glance I thought professor had that super fast growing hair!
I don't think Commander is killing Magic, but I do think WotC focusing so hard on Commander is bad for both Magic as a whole and for the Commander format. They found out it's the most popular and have gone so hard in on it that it affects everything. Another podcast I listen to, The Mana Pool (one of the longest running MtG podcasts there is), just this week had an episode on how almost all of the recent legendary creatures are either hyper focused and if you want to make a commander deck with them you have pretty much one real path (like Kadena you run morph, that's it, just all the morphs), or they're so broadly powerful you can just run every good card in those colors and be strong. Gone are the commanders that gave you an idea but didn't force it.
They do a thing they call Story Circles where they pick a commander and each host takes a turn picking a card to add to the deck, which then gives everyone else ideas and they all kinda brain storm the start of a deck. Now that they stream on Twitch, they even let the chat add in a few cards as well! But they hadn't done one in over a year because they didn't feel like it could be real self expression or interesting to build around most of the new legends. They ended up doing one with Kykar because it was the most open with some different ways to build, and it was a lot of fun. But that's become the exception, not the rule for legends now.
While I'm opposed to planewalkers being commanders, I think they would currently be better than most of the modern legends for this kind of self expression in the format. Although with the advent of brawl now actually somewhat taking off, I'm afraid of even them becoming so focused as to not be great for mulitple deck builds but instead becoming homogenized as well.
Sorry for the novel but I do think it's important. Great episode guys.
What I love as an EDH player is seeing all the crazy stuff people can do and get away. In my playgroup, we all range through a wide area. We all have a deck or two that could be competitive, and we have played small tourneys with them. But we also love our jank. We all have one deck where we allowed one banned card. Of course someone has emrakul, one has lotus, but my favorite is my best friends coalition victory deck. He doesnt go go for big crazy stuff that often. He plays a lot of jank decks, looking to make them work, like a colorless control deck under Hope of Ghirapur. He's one of the best magic players I know, could probably go to the big time tournaments, but he just plays stupid stuff because that is what he loves. EDH really does let people express themselves in fun ways. Commander is the reason I still play regularly.
I love Dies To Removal! Keep up the great work lads :)
i suggest you watch playing with power for their cEDH games which are seriously entertaining
i watch them, the interactions are so brutal ahhaha
@@dingdongs5208 it can be both 😏
@@dingdongs5208 you have to check out their channel. The games are
I N S A N E
Also Spike Feeders
@@dingdongs5208 to see what these players do with the stack constantly and get game feed back is really cool and its still edh so we see the broken combos of cards which werent supposed to interact just at their prime. that for me is seriously entertaining so...
This is my favorite of all the Tolarian series. Please make a lot more Prof.
That's a lot of new Baron Sengir predictions for a video made before the new Baron Sengir was announced. Clairvoyant Professor confirmed!
And now he's bald. Only a matter of time before the wheelchair, and then he starts a school for other merfolk-players with powers...
For me, Commander is a strictly social format. The reason why I play it is to have a chill time with some friends and have fun with self-expressive decks. If I want to be competetive, I dont try it with something that depends on drawing the right card in the right moment, e.g. MTG, but something like my job or martial arts or other sports or even smash bros. And even if you want to go for competetive magic, why would you choose the format with he literal highest variance (aside from canadian highlander) in the game, e.g. the least skill dependent format. I'm not talking about cEDH players playing for themselves and not bothering normal players, I'm talking about rich dimwits slowly power creeping a meta up with always slightly stronger cards, and people who play degenerate combo/control decks to make a meta "healthier", thus either having us spend more money to keep up, or push casual decks/players and jankier builds out to not be able to play anymore. Thats why I love my chill meta, almost exclusively budget decks or self-expressive decks, nobody plays degenerate decks except for hating out people knowingly pulling out decks too strong for that meta, and we just have a good time playing cards we own. In commander, I look for chilling out after my study and sport regement, its more productive and way more skill-dependent to be competetive elsewhere, even of its modern or legacy.
I wish I had your playgroup
God I loved the energy in that opening, beautiful!
YOU HAVE A RUclips CHANNLE? -cuts to amazing music
Urza's Legacy was the set the introduced foils in packs.
Im new to Magic I've been playing just a few months at most and I bought a commander 2019 deck just to try commander and has been so much fun, everyone in my locals prefer playing commander the most so now I can play with them and is really my favorite format so far
The intro and credits music is so freaking addictive...
Just wait. The elks will come sooner or later.
morophon elk tribal go make it a reality
Ehh, Commander has answers to Oko that other formats (aside from legacy/vintage) dont. Whats oko going to do against an 8/8 hexproof demon casted on turn 4 using k'rriks effect or just mana rocks that can be given haste
Or a tutor into removal
Or archetype of endurance (everything you control has hexproof your opponents cards lose and cant gain hexproof)
Or one of the other thousands of answers
Commander is Okos weakest format by far
Hell even in pioneer hes not having that much of an impact because a lot of decks in the format mainboard answers anyways.
This isnt like standard or a combo format like modern where you have to side in answers commander has answers built in to every deck
@@V2ULTRAKill Or 0 drop counterspells, or hordes of hasty creatures, or [and so on ad infinitum]
@@xxhellspawnedxx exactly oko has no place dominating a format where Lili of thd Veil isnt even that crazy
@@V2ULTRAKill I don't know if this is what OP meant, but I took it as "leave it to WotC to eventually print new chase cards to ruin a good format." I'm concerned the new amount of cards coming out due to the popularity of EDH will throw in a large number of new staples and we will eventually have our own kind of elks to deal with.
I had a lot of fun at the command Fest! When they ask for feedback then one thing I told him was we want to Main Event! Especially us more competitive players. I don't know why they haven't done another one since the one in Vegas was very successful.
Prof “I love commander and how it’s flows and is casual and everyone’s happy
Planeswalker fan: so you won’t mind if I can have my Jace Guildpact as my commander
Prof: REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
I'm all for a casual game of basketball, but you can't use your soccer ball to play.
Our lgs is exclusively edh. Dude there's about a group of five or so ppl that will consistently crack 20$+ packs, masters, onslaught, mirrodin etc. As well as singles. I'v it's all in how you market your store and how engaged the player base is. I love "dies to removal" best mtg show! Cheers.
Hearing you talk about a successful LGS makes me smile. I love my local stores and support however I can.
where is it? :o
@@xChikyx Altoona PA
@@Survivalist-of-war ooohhhh
I made a friend at my LGS. The gambler addiction is strong in him. I’ve seen him give cards away for cash to be able to eat that night because he is so broke. Then take that $20 and use most of it to buy new packs and only keep 5 bucks for a hungry-man. I’ve seen him crack packs for his decks both standard and EDH decks, trade key components for these decks to crack more packs. While not owning a mat or sleeves for these decks. Saying all the while he can afford these things..... How should I approach him about these problems??
Wot thank you I will try this and see if it works
Not sure about the no shoes thing without a lit fireplace! Awesome episode!
Last Weekend was the Commandfest in Chicago, and while I was there the only complaints I heard around were the fact that there were a lot of people who were competitive dipping into the semi-competitive slots in order to get more tickets. I cannot speak for other Commandfests as this could just be unique to those who attended Chicago, but this was a major issue. While I had a fun time that weekend besides one game, a fellow player at my gamestore had a terrible time attending due to these kinds of decks circulating the semi-competitive tables.
Otherwise, it was just commander and commander varients that were located at the event, at least in Chicago, but it would be worth a try, especially if someone has a commander cube.
What we really need is a Time Shifted style border Sol Ring promo, with the ability to be foil or non-foil. That old art has yet to be topped but it does not look like it belongs with the new border at all, so promo where they did that always looks out of place to me. But a cleaned up old border with HD cleaned up version of the old art?
Fucking *chef hand kiss*
I went away from Modern and Standard to only playing Commander. That's the format I enjoy the most.
Interesting thought about the Commander Precon with boosterpacks in them...
Sell the Precon decks as they are now, and then sell precon dedicated booster packs - Create a pool of about 75~ or so cards that ALL cards of that pool would work in the chosen precon deck, and sell booster packs of those cards.
I love the precons, it allows me and my casual friends to stay on a same page without much effort. If we could all spend a little bit of $$ to buy 15/30/45 cards that would all be guaranteed in the color scheme of our chosen deck, and give us the freedom and creative flexibility to modify the deck to our liking, I'd buy those boosters in a heartbeat.
Since the decks typically have 3 or so cards that can be used at the commander, the cardpool of the packs could be a bit wider, allowing the user to change the theme of their decks slightly, tailored to the commander (1 of the 3 precon commanders) of their choosing.
A part 2 of this topic with the recent announcement of the increase in commander products would be really interesting.
I believe the precostructed decks with a random part could be done in an interesting way.
New cards and manabase are fixed, but you get X random slots with support cards (reprints) that let push your deck strategy in a certain direction or another.
Look at that beautiful mane! It will be back soon I guess :(
It was a necessary sacrifice for the greater good at least.
About 2 1/2 years likely
I have a work group, we have a theme for building (the Dragons Primeval and Chaos Primevals) on a $50 budget for the deck total, minus the Commander. It works, is fun, and cheap even if you buy your entire deck, instead of making from what you own.
Loved that you gave a shout out to Mitch at Commander Quarters
I’ve had him on an episode too. Watch my Zur video for maximum Mitch.
Oh I already have lol he is the man
Love the spike pit thing at 16:00 .
i want to be exited about commander legends i really do but i just know it's going to be 15-20$ a pack and therefor i will not buy a single pack nor draft it :( they should be 4.99$ and until they do make them the price they should be ill just get the odd singles i need.
D.W. Saurus slight markup I’ll bite a little, but if we see the $10 packs of masters sets, you can bet I’ll give the set a hard pass.
For reference on the power levels of Crypt and Ring. I play an odd little format called Canadian Highlander. Its a competative 100 card singleton format, that uses the vintage banlist but puts points on very powerful cards. Its 10 points to a deck. All the old moxen are 3pts. Sol Ring and Crypt? Pointed at 4. Both are crazy powerful, both should probably be played in the most efficient commander decks, one is 2 bucks and the other $350. Point is, commander's official banlist doesn't make a lot of sense, and Wizard's reprint policies make even less.
One of those is reprinted every year and the others will probably never be reprinted (reserved list😢)
I agree Professor, Commander is reaally the future of Magic.
"You have instagram account?!"
"You have a youtube channel?!"
I dont know why i never thought of bringing my Cube to a GP. New plan for the next event!
CommandFest Seattle was everything that I though & hoped it would be - plus a lot more! Great venue paired with professional staffing.
Loved it
First time watching the podcast after being a long time watcher of your videos. I loved this
Did you know? Elspeth is Spanish for “The Speth”.
Did you also know El-Hajjaj is also Spanish for "The Hajjaj"
I am a Commander player only. I crack packs just because I enjoy the gamble and the hope to get something cool foiled or at a price of a pack get something that I would never buy singly. I love to buy and crack booster boxes to see what I get. Any foils I have are from booster packs/boxes, I never purchase foil singles or buy single cards that cost more than $15, so if I have something of that price or higher, its usually from cracking packs or a box. I agree it's not worth the money I spend, but sometimes it pays off and I love doing it.
I love your work. Thank you for the honest and informed content. Keep up the good work.
P.S. The hair looks great!
My LGS is now hosting free FNM.. I hear they can’t get it to fire most weeks. But every week on Wednesday there are 15-25 commander players that pay for $1 pods. We get a pack and a fnm prize pack to split, everyone gets something. We play to win then switch decks and play casual until close.
I like commander because of the amount of strategies. Like, i like tribal. So of course i built a sliver deck. This thing cost about 900. (Thanks, queen and legion) it was undefeated in my play group for a while. Then my buddy built a Nekusar deck for about 200 and just WHOOPED MY DECK. I cant compete when i don't have a hand, it was genious.
For the topic of reprints in commander products, I feel like this year got the price level right, just not the cards. Put in all the stables that every deck wants that are around 2-5 dollars. I'm talking cultivate, reliquary tower, signets, etc. It keeps the price of the product from spiking due to one or two high value reprints, but still keeps the reprints relevant, and the stables easy to acces for new players.
I’m 4 minutes into this episode and it’s already my favourite
Just here to remind you fine folks that EDH is not nearly as popular outside the US. In Japan it is way easier to fire up Legacy events than Commander ones. Preconstructed decks only sell when cards with potential for Legacy are included. Sol Ring is easily found for less than 100 yen and precon generals seldom sell for more than 500 yen. There is a variety of reasons for this, mostly that Japanese players only care about organized play (and consider "casual" a dirty word). There is also a cultural barrier in the sense that there is no custom to invite people over for a game night or for pretty much whatever, which hinders the growth of a casual player base (players that WotC frequently refers to as "silent majority"). Making EDH the future of Magic means alienating the 2nd largest market for MtG and I am afraid that their only way out in Japan is to somehow make EDH part of organized play and hold some amount of high level tournaments featuring the format.
What Professor said about the 22 years old student having almost all the deck but no fecth lands is exactly me, 19 years old brazillian student wanting Misty Rainforest or/and Scalding Tarn to transform my UW control into Jeskai or Bant.
Prof's hair was digitally reinserted for this video.
This is a very informative podcast and I agree with both sides of the discussion, commander needs the other formats to survive and to help make cards accessible for commander players. There is a really good magic store in my area where you can get packs, singles and all of the accessories to play, you can trade in cards for in store credit and of course they have the FNM events and nights set up for other formats like pauper, commander,, brawl and pioneer. The magic community is an intertwined beast that depend upon each format and playing style to feed each other and the survival of paper is in the hands of the players and local card shops that support each other.
Always happy to see the two of you:-)
Vince and Proff: Says the words "planeswalkers as commanders'
Me: Did anyone say Oathbreaker?!
It’s hard to find people to play oathbreaker with in my area. It sucks
@@joelsherrer8784 Same. I can only really play when I go home to see family.
This series is rapidly becoming my favorite MTG content :)
The self-expression is one of my favorite parts of EDH
Also I have held a very unpopular opinion that I'd argue that if it weren't for the stupid ass reserved list that black lotus could be legal. If they deem sol ring and mana crypt fine then I would say fine with black lotus. Not saying it wouldn't be absolutely broken but it's a broken format so whatever. But even in that situation I still would never unban the original moxen because the simple fact that they have color identities. This means that 5 color decks would get the biggest boost from them being legal and 5 color good stuff already has enough advantages just because it gets to play all the best cards from every color, and now it would also get 5 moxen. Meanwhile mono color decks, which already suffer in power level from the restrictions of the format now also get even more screwed because they can only run 1 of the 5 moxen per deck making them fall even further behind the curve. At the very least black lotus would be equal footing across all colors and color combinations.
I love how he mentions "EDH quarters". The channel is actually commanders quarters... He says hes a big fan where he makes $25 decks, however mitch doesn't do $25 decks anymore because it was too difficult and now does $50 decks.
Precon: $45.
Foil Precon: $90. Prof says wouldn't buy.
All four foil precons for $500. Cost per deck: $125. Prof says maybe.