Do Casual Players Need to "Git Gud"? - MTG Commander
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- Опубликовано: 10 мар 2022
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I genuinely believe that we as an MTG community can improve - but not necessarily in our "pro play" or card choices. More so, some self-reflection will go a long way to improving the conversations we have around Magic, as well as the Commander that we play.
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Had a very frustrating experience talking with someone about cascade in EDH. How they felt it was the most broken mechanic ever. Worse then storm and the like. When i asked what they ment, he said apex devastator. To which i replied, yeah. Cascade is powerful on a card that costs 10 mana and cascades 3 times. It doesnt mean cascade the mechanic is broken, it just means that 1 card is insanely powerful. He refused to see it that way. When i suggested cards for him to play around it he dismissed them outright and insisted his 4 thousand dollar deck didnt need improvements.
Pfffft doesn't run timetwister in his deck? what a noob that guy.
Cascade is an insanely powerful mechanic, however. I dont know about the term "broken", but there's a reason it's sat at a solid 7 on the storm scale for a long time. I think compared to other abilities (much like Dredge and Storm), it is genuinely less powerful but that doesn't deteriorate from the fact Cascade is pretty friggen strong compared to a lot of other keywords.
This is exactly the entire point that PK is making and that alot of reasonable people are sick of. The crying and temper tantrums of EDH players not getting their way are completely unecessary. EDH players Dismissing this as "you're just playing with the wrong people" is wrong and exacerbating the problem even more. Just because you live in this bubble where your playgroup is good doesn't meant everyone else also has a healthy playgroup or even a playgroup at all, and I guarantee you will encounter this sort of toxic behavior in the wild when you play with strangers at some point. Because if you wouldn't encounter this behavior very often then this video wouldn't exist and neither would the thousands of people over the years who have also stated or agree with the message it brings which as we can see is still a "hot" take rather than a legitimate concern and criticism.
The funny thing is that I think Cascade is actually at its least broken on Apex Devastator. Being able to use cascade spells to consistently hit certain spells or to hit spells that can't normally be cast? That's quite a bit more powerful than casting four random spells off the top of your deck.
Someone who thinkgs cascade is broken knows nothing of Gitrog or Stax decks.
My best friend who I got into Magic with has always loved playing stax, Lantern Control and all these decks that draw so much anger from people so growing up I played against that kind of deck a lot and while if Im honest I did get a little frustrated at times I also learned to love playing against those decks. I still enjoy playing against his Lantern Control deck years later and I get better at playing against land destruction in EDH because of them. They are also a super friendly and nice person and a good player of the archetype in my opinion which does really help when you are playing these decks. Just wanted to share a memory.
I think the 'git gud' question is really two separate things rolled into one.
At the base level - do you need to get better to enjoy Magic (or to let those playing with you to enjoy magic)? No, not really. As long as you're content with losing, or maybe not pulling off your 'epic' 17 card combo, then there's nothing wrong with being a mediocre (or worse) Magic player.
But the key there is what gets to the second question - you need to be 'content with losing'. If you don't want to figure out how to play around RIP or countermagic, or Hatebears? Then don't. But at the same time, recognize that it's going to mean that you're going to lose more than you would otherwise, and don't complain about it.
There's no need to skill-up if you don't want to skill up. If all you want is to make a pile of cards and play them, then do that! You don't need to learn better sequencing, or deck-building, or tricky combat math.
But if you choose not to skill up, then the other side of that coin is letting other people enjoy getting better, and not being salty when you win.
Git Gud? Nah. Git Less Salty? Heck yes.
While I agree with you, I think this emphasizes the importance of finding the right play group. If you don't play competitively (like me) go find people who play the game at a similar level (whether that's because of budget constraints, the lack of desire to explore the intricacies of the game, or anything else) you'll have a lot more fun playing magic the way you enjoy it.
You could have those counter strategies figured out and still not prefer them. I think it is more often the case that people already know the rules and what cards are required to meta shift, that it is that people are just not willing to change to prevent losing.
And I don't think we should reduce peoples' concerns to just "salty". As that is more often a misrepresentation of a valid concern someone might have. Especially a friend.
One time I tried to explain why I enjoy cEDH by saying that I enjoy the process of self-improvement that I put myself through in order to get better at the game (I only play EDH and cEDH).
The response I got was that words like "improvement" and "better" imply that my way of playing is superior and I should stop describing my experience that way.
I think that at a certain point, some kinds of casual players are simply too invested into demonizing competitive players to ever really receive this kind of message.
cEDH has an important existence within the Commander metagame, and the push back for it from the casual crowd is deeply rooted in the fear of it overshadowing the casual identity of EDH.
It's a game and you don't get anything from being competitive for this game.
@@AutarchAlex I'm actually of the opposite opinion, I quit yugioh because I got tired of the overly competitive nature and pushed new products making the new top meta decks every 3-4 months. What I loved about commander when I started about 2 is years ago was that I could build a deck and not change it for 5 years and it still be viable, but now with power creep in card design and an spreading of the competitive mindset that is no longer true a 5 year old power 7 deck would struggle to get a win against recent precons. The increase in cEDH seems to be pushing the average casual deck to being more competitive than fun.
More toxic casual players exist then competitive ones
@@doublestarships646 Most games aren't big like Magic, so you don't "get" anything from playing them competitively. Despite that, they often have thriving competitive communities. People play games competitively without reward because they enjoy it.
I recall an EDH game where I got shut down by Blood Moon. I had recently upgraded my mana base and I was in Grixis, so enchantment removal was sparse (this is before black got mediocre enchantment removal). that and a game against my friend's Iroas deck both solidified my view that decks should run interaction, and I personally want the largest variety of interaction available in my colors.
I don't think that either of those cards warrant a ban, but I can see how Iona could be an issue for certain decks and actively blocks any interaction. you can't build around that, best you could do if you happen to be on a mono-color deck and the Iona player wants you out of the game would be to convince another player to help let you play.
I've also played games where I have Cyc Rift in hand and decide not to cast it because of the out-of-game backlash it could evoke. looking at the last episode of IHYD, Kibler cast Armageddon (without much of a backup gameplan, to be fair) and the table lost their marbles (even Olivia, who had the ability to replay a bunch of lands anyway). there shouldn't be so much stigma against some of these cards, and that stigma has historically kept white and red from playing at the same level as other colors. they both have strong equalizing/prison tools, but that goes back to the point that players don't play as much interaction as they could/should. the same players who look around the table and ask "does someone have a counterspell for that?" or "I hope someone draws a board wipe" will complain when you counter their big threat or wipe their board.
A lot of casual commander players have never had Karn Liberated exile their second land on the draw and it shows. You hit the nail on the head: you don't have to aspire to be on the pro tour, but you have to learn that there are answers to everything. When you get answered cleanly, like in your RiP and Muldrotha example, it will be less than fun, but you must understand that these cards having back and forth is game interaction and it's the reason Magic's been around as long as it has. These are good things. So many stories about "pubstomping" and "sweatlording" come from someone unwilling to engage with even basic strategy.
But probably not as many as legitimate stories about pub stomping. We know the rules, we know what is needed to strategize. But I think it is tricky to claim that pubstomp stories tend to be fake because then we will come to disbelieve them. Communication before the most chaotic tabletop game ever created is essential, and an openness about that is important.
I also think it's good for those of us who have played for a while to keep in mind how we ourselves were affected by losses and salt and bad feels back when we got wrecked the first times, and if the more experienced player who stomped us then, had anything helpful to say or were a GitGud jerk about it.
I was lucky enough that people in my LGS would just go "yeah, I remember the first time that happened to me, I got super frustrated too, but hey, you get used to these things and you learn to put up a fight and play around them. Play again?"
I'm still a budget player, and I'm pretty sure I've reached my middling potential in mtg, but that shouldn't stop me from letting other people have their fun.
I've found that the number 1 thing is always to just keep searching for players around your level and deck building capabilities and to not take it personally if you run into a mismatch. It's really difficult to gauge those things and a mismatch in a group can happen through pure communication and with no one having any ill intent at all.
ive been playing for less than a year and ive won 1 game of EDH. ive lost like 50 times. never once got salty. its like being mad you cant shred a guitar solo 3 months in. get over yourself, its a game
Yes.
And also they need to chill on their need to flex.
And also their need of adding more people to their cult.
And also to chill with the flex. It's okay to flex but chill.
And also they should treat themselves about their foil addiction
There’s a reverse aspect as well.
I play in a meta that likes combat. There is one Meren player who gets out Shelodred a lot. When this happens, the table tends to gang up on them until sheoldred/graveyard is exiled or meren coats too much to recast. They get irritated. In this case, it’s not the other players that need to “git gud”. The table has adapted and can deal with an interaction that was problematic. However the Meren player hasn’t realized that they need to “git gud” as well and have plans for when their favorite grindy value-combo gets taken out.
You can build good low power decks. If I play all eldrazi titans, high cost demons dragons and angels with no ramp draw interaction that is a bad deck and a low power deck.
If I run krark combo with no interaction that is a bad deck and a high power deck.
Furthermore, if I run a low power deck that just wants to make 1/1 creatures efficiently and swing a lot, and in said deck I run draw, interaction and ramp it is a good deck and a low power deck.
Excellent vid Vince! I think you got it right on when discussing the need to be right above the fundamentals, that understanding of the game in its flow and interactions. Honestly if you're going to spend any significant amount of time in a hobby I feel this should be your floor. Improving can come at whatever pace you want, but getting to the initial flow of it is important.
I agree. I expect people to be reasonable and play nice with each other but once I hear the "you cant play (insert archetype) because I don't like it" then that's when they need to get gud.
The thing with RiP is that I think it's a sledgehammer answer for a format of precision. I used to play RiP in my white decks because it was such an efficient answer to my friends graveyard decks, but it lead to a play pattern where one deck just sat around, having gotten rekt and then was unable to do anything because they hadn't drawn their removal. I switched RiP out for one-time use cards like Soul-Guide Lantern and Scavenger Grounds and found that it allowed me to punish the graveyard decks without making them "land, go" until someone drew removal.
I mean, this just seems like a problem of hyper-focus to me. A graveyard deck should, of all decks, anticipate 'what would happen if I lose access to the graveyard' and not only have answers too that but also other things to do in such situations.
This seems like they just built their deck poorly. If you play a graveyard deck you should expect permanent hate pieces.
I really like the point you're hitting home about being self reflective and checking yourself. I think that is a great first step in the right direction
My local group barely plays any form of (especially board centric) interaction.
Like... a board wipe per deck... Maybe...
No ways to interact with enchantments other than countermagic, no hard hitters to graveyards other than maybe a Bojuka Bog with no tutor for it... The list goes on.
A guy at the shop actually said to me "you know, I think this may have been the most fun I've had with commander in a good bit because and actually stopped me from just racing to a combo or actively disrupted my board state. I had to do more complicated decisions and that was fun."
Because if you just assemble your combo pieces or whatever, the meta of the group just lets you have it.
So, I built a deck centered around "do something about me, and do it quick, or just die".
Troublesome creatures like Praetors, Platinum Angel, and Eldrazi in a onslaught against all 3 other players.
If your deck is fast... You win.
If your deck has ample interaction and countermagic... You win.
If you run Draneth Magistrate or Opposition Agent or play stax... You win.
But if you just durdle around and do as you please not interacting with my board (and not fast mind you), you die.
There are 3 people all archenemying me, that action economy should be ample enough to kill me and then proceed with the game.
The deck has no "I win" combos in it, but it doesn't need them because nobody wants to spend a bit of their deckbuilding on ANY form of interaction that isn't directly a part of their commander's "game plan".
Really the deck looses to itself more than anything (the mana base is REALLY pushed into the floor for how top heavy it is and thus not getting to 7 mana is kind of a death sentence... Buuuut I need to loose sometimes or people get really upset so I won't fix it).
All I want my local group to do is play the game.
Interaction is part of that.
Please play it.
Otherwise I'll just abuse the fact I know it isn't there to do dumb stuff I shouldn't be getting away with until you fix it.
I love commander, but sometimes... It's frustrating.
I just want to have some back and forth.
I started playing commander less than a year ago and when I started, I sucked. I have dived in deep and learned a lot and improved. Now I try to help other players to improve their decks.
I think another thing is that people over-synergize their decks into one single strategy in edh so a single hate piece can wreck them- hate pieces (that people refuse to play against) push people to build a bit more general and have more flexible answers to not get wrecked.
And the balance between full synergy and reactive balance is a super interesting deckbuilding axis that more hate cards fosters
That's a problem I have, if someone plays a narset my niv mizzet deck just stops working
Drannith Magistrate destroys my Vega, The Watcher deck.
But with a sideboard less format you can sometimes get away with it.
To be honest, though, I personally love overtuing decks to a detriment. Its extremely fun to know that, no matter what the next card is on your library, it will be helpful in some way to the strategy on your side of the board. Plus, i personally find alot of removal cards in general not fun to play againt my opponents, as id rather not shut them out of the fun im trying to have. Whether or not they are "shut out" of the fun in actuality doesnt matter; if they dont destroy my permanants fast enough i get to wreck shop.
Thing is, I just dont complain when i get wiped because someone was actually playing the cards my nekusar deck gave them. While i do think kenobi missies a huge point in the idea that well.. magic can get really expensive, and some people just do not have the money to build something powerful enough to run against other decks whether or not they want to, i belive that people do kinda need to let stax/land destruction/extreme aggro players just play the game, and that they need to try to learn about how to deal with them.
Actually, a way i mitigate that with my friends is by just posting our deck costs. We decided that our decks, whever we make them/edit them, need to stay somewhere around the 100$ point. They can be over, but they should be near 100$ total. That way, the players who dont have the money to play the game with the most broken cards they can will still be able to find some success, because no one is coming out with a 7000$ deck that wins turn 4.
Im genuinely suprised people dont talk about the cost of cards when playing amongst friends and local playgroups- its not a perfect way to summarize how good a deck is as prices for cards fluxuate, but its INFINITELY BETTER than just saying "oh yeah my decks a 7" and assuming anyone at the table knows what that means. Telling people a deck costed 300$ is alot more information than a 7/10.
That's the beauty of being able to concede whenever you feel like it. Especially for Commander. Playing a deck you love but someone across the table played the 1-2 cards that completely locks your deck's strategy out of the game and you have no realistic answer? Shuffle up for the next game. Too many people seem afraid to just concede and move on to another match. Same principle with certain win-cons. If you're taking extra turns but have a specific win strategy already planned out to make use of those extra turns? Cool. "My deck just takes infinite turns until I draw a win-con or slowly whittle everyone down agonizingly over 50 single-player turns" however is a scoop. I'm playing MTG not solitaire. If you wanna play solo player games do it at home.
It's also an etiquette thing that your playgroup needs to discuss. If you're the only one at the table running hate strategies specifically because you know what people like to play, you're gonna get a bad table rep and you don't get to come crying to the group about how you're being targeted all the time when you're the only one actively trying to prevent other people from having fun in a casual setting. Idk when the term CEDH came around but back when the only competitive EHD was 1v1 using the French ban list when Edric was disgusting instead of just good, but that's the environment where you don't have to worry about what you bring to the table. People are expecting you to play specifically to win, not just have fun playing your favorite tribes, or strategies, or cards.
Commander generally is highly dependent on your local meta. Let's say your crowd is playing tons of recursion and graveyard strategies, you need to prepare for that. But while it seems like a good idea to generally be able to deal with that sort of thing, it's not if you are not facing these strategies, because then it just means that you're wasting card slots that could be used more effectively towards winning or for defending against what your group does put into their decks.
The same is true for psychology and threat assessment. It's what makes the game so fun for me. It's not so much about figuring out the game as it is to get to know the people well enough to provide a fun experience for yourself and them.
If they're calling for bans, then yes. The ban tergrid crowd absolutely needs to git gud
I think it completely depends on the level of time and financial investment each person is putting into the game, if you don't have very much money to burn on cardboard and you only think about or play Magic every month or two at a board game night, then you're absolutely justified in asking your friends to take it easy on you and stick to just precons or something similar. But, if you have a playgroup where everyone is keeping up with new releases and constantly building and upgrading their decks, then it falls on each player to build their deck well and learn from the experience if they get blown out by something that counters their current list, and also determine if they played wrong, built their deck wrong, or just got unlucky.
As I always try to make abundantly clear to folks in m group: proxy.
I may have all the cards in cardboard; but if you don't have that cash or luck, then grab a sharpie and a basic land, congrats now you own a Rhystic Study. Let's play.
When it comes to deckbuilding outside obtaining the carboard, ask. Someone either on the internet or in person will help so long as you ask nicely (not everyone, but more than 0). [likely someone before you has asked similar if not the same]
The experience thing only gets better with invested time, that is the nature of improvement. However, hopefully now that you're not gatekept by cash and have at least a better informed idea on deck building, the investment for experience (and playing the game) can be more of that time than wasted on the rest.
Magic is really fun. Magic can be played on a time crunch. Magic can be cheap (outside of tournament play). Don't be put off by things that can be circumvented or mere peer pressure. Magic is difficult, but it doesn't have to be daunting, that's part of the fun.
Play Magic. Have a good time.
I legit had a guy decide my deck was totally CEDH.
No, the wincon was not Consultation + Oracle, no the wincon wasn't Storm, or Bolas' Citadel + Aetherflux Reservoir.
The wincon was...attack. With hard to block creatures. Equipped with Swords. Backed by good counterspells.
For anyone who played through the nightmare time that was Cawblade, but never played commander I can see where that might come from honestly.
@@kylegonewild Oh. Ohhh.
So I guess CawBlade gave a few people some PTSD. It was a Breeches and Malcolm deck in any case. Mostly Flying, Menace, and unblockable Pirates...and THAT MONKEY.
Maybe handing Ragavan a Sword was a little much.
It's easier to run answers to hate pieces (universal removal) in EDH than it is to run actual hate pieces, especially when you play without many tutors in a deck.
Nonetheless, it is a format without sideboarding so in a random pod situations that shut down your deck are going to happen if you allow it with how you build your deck, so you have to prepare for them - e.g. have a plan for after board wipe with your tribal deck.
Still, I hate stacks/prison decks :P
It's all about expectations and communication. I have a couple decks that do really mean things to the table. There's *always* groans when I Boseiju an Apocalypse on turn 5 and reset the entire board state with my conveniently about to ETB next turn Greater Gargadon. K'rrik storm comboing off, or dropping an uncounterable TOH for X = whatever I want, or infinite life drain through a dozen different ways wins me games but feels cheap if what was pulled out against me wasn't meant to be able to deal with that level of comboing. This is why I talk extensively to my local groups about what my deck is and isn't capable of accomplishing. "This Esper Artifacts can steal your board including lands or infinite destroy your permanents pretty easily" sets a much different tone than "It's Gruul ramp but I don't run Craterhoof or Primal Surge or Old Gnawbone or Xenagos."
I think learning the mechanics of the game are extremely important and I'll go out of my way to help people, answer questions, or seek clarification when I'm unsure about really specific interactions. Understanding how to build a well balanced deck is good, but it's not necessary for casual commander. I don't tell people what they can and cannot play, however if someone is dragging the overall experience of the playgroup down I will shift focus exclusively to preventing them hampering the experience of others. The amount of times someone has become a whining, petulant child because "the whole table just targets me every time >:( " while metagaming everyone else's decks and complaining everyone else is just bad at the game is mind boggling. Yes, yes, winning *IS* the fun part for some people, but for many playing commander it's about the collective experience not the individual. How many of the people who got into this format after the concept of CEDH became a thing and enticed them have ever even played a 6-man, 3-way, Planeschase Two-headed Giant EDH with themed synergistic decks? I'm willingly to bet *very* few. 1v1 competitive stuff or pod FFAs with prize support is different. The expectations are different. People need to set expectations before they offer their deck for cuts in a social format like commander.
This is partly why I think it's a dumb idea for Wizards to axe sponsored tournaments with traditional formats like the Pro Tour. Releasing commander cards in regular sets is a bad move for the health of both playstyles. They're purposefully releasing really powerful commander cards instead of just the odd few cards each year during a yearly Commander precon batch. The beauty of commander once was finding uses for janky cards unusable in 60-card constructed or limited formats. Nobody is playing Door to Nothingness in Modern or Legacy or Draft except brewers who get more of a kick out of seeing a deck work than winning, but I see it in commander from time to time as just a slot-in for a 5-color deck because why not?
Watch a guy get salty as hell bc his GWB graveyard deck got shut down bc of a Rest In Peace tutors and we are like oh okay now you can go get an enchantment removal card. He didn’t play anything…. How am I supposed to feel bad about that
And thats why commander is an ass format. Everyone wants to play with themself and make 3 ppl watch and get salty when someone stops them or does something of there own thats dumb. Thats why comptetaive formats are a million times better. Your trying to win, you expect your opponet to try and stop you and its all on you weather you win or lose.
@@Dragracingduleist Commander players like to spend alot of time and money just to be miserable.
@@Dragracingduleist Commander is a great format. MTG players have ass social skills and can't properly articulate the expected play experience at the table before sitting down. There's a big difference between willingly choosing to play a deck that's hampered in a casual setting because you enjoy certain cards or strategies and not understanding how to build decks, or how the mechanics of the stack, phases, or layering works. Me wanting to play Kingmaker at a table of 5 by playing a deck with no specific win-cons but lots of love for the table is impossible in competitive formats.
@@kylegonewild i guess my question is why in the world would you ever want to do that? Games are ment to be won otherwise you wouldnt keep track of life totals. I dont get investing time, money and energy into something thats more or less meaningless. I dont bring my racecar to the track with the intention of just having fun, im there to win a race. Do i have fun? Yes, unless the rods end up in the oil pan and even then its fun until the motor lets go. I also dont play football with the intent of just having fun, i want to win it doesnt matter if im playing in the local league vs teams that are bad or in travel tournaments vs guys who played in the NFL, im there to do everything within my power to win. The whole casual "just for fun" mindset just makes no sence to me at all. Id rather play 1 modern GP and be done with magic forever after where i have a goal, put in the work and have full control over a win or a loss as oppose to playing 1 million commander games that are completely meaningless. And maybe thats just my mindset but if im put into a setting where theres a winner or loser, im gna do my best to win idc if im playing vs reid duke and gota play outa my mind to have a chance to win, or pass rushing vs a guy who is 5'8 175 and im gna spend the next 2hr making that guy hate life. I want to win, if i dont its not the end of the world but why keep score if winning didnt matter
@@Dragracingduleist "Why keep score if winning didn't matter?"
I never said it didn't matter. I'm not always playing to win. I know this is a wild concept to some people somehow but it's not unique. When I play board games with my baby brother I don't try to stomp his ass. If I win, I win but I care more about him having fun and will play suboptimal to see him smile. If you don't like social formats don't play them lol. You can't even seem to comprehend you can play competitive games for the play experience, not just the win condition. Being Kingmaker feels great. Snatching victory from someone's clutches and guaranteeing it for someone else. Lot of fun to play politics at the table. If I care about winning I play different decks, smaller pods or 1v1. It feels cliched telling what I presume is a fellow adult but not everything is about winning.
Love the progress bar in the ad. So much I didn't skip it ... This time
I had a friend who used to get annoyed by counterspells and the constant removal that would target his commander. He was annoyed with us at first and groaned, but he was mature and reasonable, and so when I offered to trade him a rhythm of the wild and a blossoming defense that I just had sitting in my binder, we worked out a fair deal and now he has those 2 cards and some other answers he picked up himself. This is what's fun about playing magic in a play group. You identify the situations you end up in often in games, and you prepare for them with changing your deck or by changing your style of play to account for that. That is a lot of fun, and i personally feel that anyone who would've said that we needed to stop running so much removal and counterspells and not changed anything is missing out on fun. Especially if someone who plays games weekly and is an active magic player. Although I must be honest, I do think that all of us people complaining about other people complaining are being a bit hypocritical lol.
The reason I think cards like cyclonic Rift and expropriate shouldn't be played *in my playgroups* is not for a lack of me wanting to answer it, it's because I know that if I make my decks better to answer cards like that, it's a slippery slope. I like commander at a relatively low power level. I don't actually think stax is bad for the foemat, but I also don't think it's good for my playgroup. At least not in mass quantities
Really amazing video and super relevant
I think one of my favourite games was when there were a couple of serious decks on the one end of the table, and me and another guy with our tribal decks on the other side, laughing as they had an epic back-and-forth battle while we were just dicking around with Pirates and Zombies.
Inevitably the one guy lost and we were forced to deal with the problem we'd dismissed as not our issue (that being a Jhoira popping off) but we had a great laugh. I think that's what it should all be about!
"I don't want to git gud. I want to turn people into dinosaurs." :P
Ah Commander, the format for everyone and every playstyle.
Just not : Theft, Mill, Hand Destruction, MLD, LD, Stax, Hatebears, Superfriends, Control, Fast Mana, or Coin Flips.
It's fun to watch people say "Oh yea you can play whatever. But not in our Play Group. Go find some other PG. It is very interesting to see the discrimination that Commanders Social Contract allows. And we indoctrinate our new players with it. Then they go on to perpetuate the discrimination.
Fascinating how Commander Mirrors real life isn't it.
Best comment!
I agree with you about learn how to play around hate cards and running answers for them. New and casual players lack this experience. I used to play competitively and had a similar discussion with my EDH play group.
Brewing jank and funky stuff for Casual EDH is the entirety of Friday Night Magic at our LGS. My highlight of the week.
Every now and then I ask if i can tryout completely 'blind' without knowing the deck's content. Any of the other people at the Store 's decks. And have a blast learning their playstyle. Or at times playing a Deck that is clearly a year beyond my budget. And having a blast with those
Man, this video was therapeutic to listen to
I think it's all about expectations; I'm going to be a bit annoyed if someone starts looping Plaguecrafter with Meren if we've agreed to play a low power/battlecruiser game, but I'd be equally annoyed if someone plays a deck that can't pull its own weight at a cEDH table.
Then there are the true casual EDH players who play their precons once in a blue moon, I wouldn't expect them to keep up with new cards or the shift in a group's meta - I've a couple friends like this (who mostly play competitive 40k/AoS), we take out our precons when they turn up.
For anyone who plays a good amount of EDH, I would expect them to get to a point where they can start planning their turns during their opponent's turns, and read a fairly simple boardstate with ease.
Yeah there's a big difference between "I sorta know how this game works and I play 4 times a year with my cousin's friends" versus "I am a heavily invested, knowledgeable EDH player who plays at low power levels."
My friend and I are going to our first 40k tournament next week. He's playing either Grey Knights or Dark Angels, and I'm playing Ultramarines. I fully expect to be absolutely wiped off the table, but I play the blue bois because I like them
A good example in my playgroup, I use damage prevention in many of my decks and it frustrates many of our players as they think it's something I fetishise but is more often than not a tactical advantage in my colors, leaving them open for further action.
There is a key element to accessibility that is too often overlooked: intuition. Or, does the thing do what I expect it to do?
I got this insight from Maro, from somewhere in his Making Magic series. His favorite example was 'flying' as a mechanic because it is incredibly intuitive, to the point that it's almost impossible to misunderstand.
Not that I actively play the game, but I feel part of where card design has gone wrong in recent times is when cards do stuff and there's no good reason why (or, rather, it's happening far more often and with more consistently overbearing effects than it ever has). This is most apparent with blatantly overloaded cards that just do a lot of things, but there's also cards like Thassa's Oracle where the effect and the thematics can't really line up, because the card mechanically isn't really trying to portray an in-universe concept or entity (powerful or not), it's just doing a powerful thing for the sake of it. Lurrus is like that too. (On the other hand what Oko does is intuitive enough thematically, just wildly overpowered within the context of MtG's ruleset)
I don't feel that almost any video games answer that question well either. Crucially, there's a lack of consistency within most games as to what is and isn't interactive and how certain entities are going to act, but also between different games (that are comparable in genre and scope, of course). Naturally this becomes exponentially more difficult to keep under control as game complexity increases (and of course MtG is waaaaaay past the point of no return in this regard), but it needs to be part of the discussion.
I am 100% on the side that difficulty is part of the design and provision of an interactive experience. However, difficulty can come in many forms and intuitive design of mechanics and interactive elements and entities alleviates difficulties in understanding, anticipating, and reacting. I'm enjoying Elden Ring, but it makes the same blatant mistakes in this area that I feel all From Software games have; namely, that I can't really intuit what any given enemy or boss is going to do. There's no consistent pattern of physics (or magical physics) or physiology or anything that I can draw from. There's plenty of elements visually recognizable from the real world, but no consistent pattern as to how they'll act compared to how they do in the real world. I enjoy Elden Ring unlike any other From game precisely because it allows me mental space to overcome these issues, that their other games don't. I can usually run, regroup, and figure things out, or just bail and do something else entirely.
It's not even always about difficulty, it absolutely applies to satisfaction too. An appropriate example is Breath of the Wild, being so excellent itself and with Elden Ring clearly having taken so many cues from it. But the weapon durability is such a controversy because it simply isn't intuitive that most of the weapons would break so fast, certainly not the more powerful weapons clearly constructed from quality materials.
I remember the first time I rolled a joint, it was the social contract that led me to that moment.
You can't just piss and moan about stuff if you're not prepared engage, reflect and improve.
My philosophy has always been that if a card is legal in a format, then a player of that format needs to come to terms with the fact that it could potentially be played against them. If they cannot do this or simply refuse to, that's not the opponent's problem.
The blame for a lack of preparedness for hate cards, stax, countermagic, etc rests solely on that unprepared player, no one else.
Beautifully said!
My favourite deck to play over the last year is Teshar, I expect the grave hate and pack removal for it. I even carry a dawn charm to deal with some graveyard cards and curses.
I feel like nothing shows the epitome of this point more than the discourse on TikTok of people claiming that, if you assemble a combo, that you don't know how to pilot, you should just win anyway, which is ridiculous.
I like the explanations in this video.
Here’s your comment to help with the algorithm Vince.
After I had played magic for about a year I realized there will simply always be cards I dislike and I’ll live with that. It’s up to me to deal with them, or push myself to be an environment that won’t have those cards as much. Therefor I’ve never told or even asked someone to play a card of a certain type, because I know while I don’t need to be optimized, I need to find the flaws in my decks game plan and try to find ways around it.
Really interesting point you (Or I suppose your friend) makes about stepping up to make the experience better for the whole table. And I think it relates very strongly to how matchmaking works in arena, or just games in general.
For casual magic or DnD, we want to play with our friends, but the problem is that complex and strategic games *like* mtg and DnD, simply run better when people are at a similar skill level. And that's just something you can't promise with your friend group.
No DND and mtg are completely different and you can have fun with noobs in DND aslong as they start with the party at lv 1 my crush is playing DND with us right now and has no clue what she is doing she has her twink elf mage and a decent backstory she's useless in combat but made her char about talking and funny interaction while still being a decent cleric / multi use mage. If I tried to show her magic it would be a problem because she would actually be useless
I am really glad to hear you speak on this.
I think this is so so important for commander and magic as a whole. Especially if you have a commander night with random people each time. People are wanting to have all their own fun in a vacuum not realizing that Magic is a strategy game played against other people with winners and losers. The "rule zero," is nonsense to me, it only shows that people are wanting to play something quite different. Since competitive magic is gone, new players have no real idea that magic is a game of me versus you and whatever it takes to win with a legal deck is fine. When you show up to a modern or legacy game, you know that each person is there to win. Losing is frustrating, but growing through that without throwing tantrums is just part of growing up.
Commander's causal nature is killing any desire I have to play magic at all.
I would love to here more on this topic and how competitive magic and older formats going affects EDH.
I was going to make a reply here, but this pretty much sums up everything on my mind about this. I'll add that the fact that "fun" and "competitive" are now seen uncritically as antonyms of one another in the context of Magic is something I find worrisome. Outside of a few edge cases, Magic is still a game that's traditionally understood to have win conditions, and when people flout the notion of winning having any relevance, it completely warps the gaming experience. It's a waste of my time to play against people who are unwilling to adhere to what I see as the most fundamental construct of Magic, that it's a game. Once people stop making an attempt to use the rules and pieces of the game to fulfill win conditions, it ceases to even be a game, but more just a prop for hanging out or even oddly complex performance art.
Due to COVID, I find myself in the curious position of (A) having played exactly 2 games of EDH in early 2020, using the same crudely assembled deck, and being the first player to get annihilated each time; and (B) since then, creating a total of 6 very different decks. Having actually played so little then, I’m quite willing to play against any type of deck I’d come across, for gaining more experience, particularly with varied levels of play over time, and even against decks that seem abhorrent to me from the start (e.g., stacks, MLD). So, I’d say bring on the Winter Orbs and Armageddons - call me naive (as I very well may be), but trying to find ways to play around them actually seems like part of the fun!
My playgroup has a take 1 list that goes on top of the ban list. Has made decks a lot more unique and we don't run into the same interactions every game. With the pushed cards printed recently, there are to many auto includes without making your deck weaker by not taking them. You can pick 1 auto include and build the rest of your deck with lesser known cards.
I think people in general should remember before saying "this or that card ain't fun" that sometimes your idea of fun directly contradicts what someone else thinks is fun. People will rail against you for having an infinite combo in your "casual" EDH deck, but had you not made your combo the board would have been totally stalled for the next half hour. Games need to end at some point, and those players that chose not to have any interaction at all need to remember that them getting hosed by someone else as a result is ultimately their own fault.
Had my first game of warhammer last week. Got my head kicked in by some Black templar but i honestly just enjoyed getting a game in and trying to better understand the rules I read. and honestly this whole Idea of don't call to ban things because you haven't learnt top figure them out yet really resonates with me. when I sat down to play that game I didn't event know what the rules where for his faction never mind knowing how to counter it with my necron's so it was very much I expect to loose here but I can at least learn from this.
I honestly say to new players, dive into content like this, find out the speed you would like your decks to be and find out what the current card metas eitjer are or to match up against.
...An Elden Ring Universes Beyond set would probably be fucking wild.
I could see a Marika and Radagon dual-faced card that's Red on Radagon's side, and White on Marika's, where if you get tired of satisfying Marika's "become a creature" condition, you can instead just flip her and get Radagon to smash face.
When I started mtg I got frustrated when my opponent used removal. I now have the mindset that rest in piece creates a problem for me to solve.
I think that people that have the mindset that gy hate/mill/board wipes are unfun or that their opponents will not try to stop them from winning will find most edh games frustrating: it is the nature of the game to answer your opponents plays (and decks/strategies) and you likely will only win around 25% of edh games.
As usual, speak with your edh group if you think some strategy is unfun
@9:05
This is Commander versus other mtg formats for me: when it comes to standard or modern or limited formats I'm playing to win. I'm using all the tools available to me, I'm fairly deep into the strategy, there is very little an opponent can do (within the scope of the rules) that is "not okay".
When I play Commander it's much more cathartic than competitive; I just wanna sling some spells.
This just emphasises the need for a good rule zero talk:
.... this is what my deck is going to be doing, are any of those decks likely to shut me down & stop me from playing mtg?
Are all the decks at a similar power level?
Is everyone on the same page about the type of game we want to have?
Sometimes you gotta switch decks either because of a power level mismatch or because one or more decks at the table is going to cause a very un-fun experience for some of the players.
Sometimes players at the table want a different kind of game than you do, and the best thing you can do is leave that table & find another one.
I would really like to see more people come to terms with hand hate, mill, and land destruction in the EDH community. I have played decks with Fall of Thran and Armageddon and I tell people during the rule zero conversation that that particular deck wants to destroy all lands and then pummel my opponents while they try to rebuild.
Whenever I actually play the land destruction people still talk about scooping or conceding after a turn.
It's like people don't believe you can bring dirty evil mechanics like the ones I talked about above into commander.
With regards to scooping following mass land destruction:
(I want to preface this by saying that I don't have a problem with mass land destruction (just in case the rest of the post gives you that vibe))
Once you execute your mass land destruction & you have a suitable board position following that, then you have won the game. If the other players at the table want to scoop up & start a new game then that is just fine, because you have won.
Nobody needs to spend the next x amount of turns with futile attempts to rebuild whilst you pummel them, because that part of the game is probably only fun for 1/4 of the table.
I don't have a problem with mass land destruction, but I do have a problem with the expectation that the game should continue after it has been properly executed. You've won, just take the win, then everyone can start a new game.
@@namdoolb That's completely fair. I agree that if you Armageddon and have no way to close out the game no one is obligated to sit there and watch you durdle.
I'm moreso talking about a few players I've sat down with in the wild that don't even wait for everyone to go around the table to see if anyone has answers or a crazy play to turn it into a blowout moment.
I personally run decks that do one thing, and do it *REALLY WELL*
My pet deck at the moment is a Mono-green Draw deck, using Masumaro, First to Live in the command slot.
The deck is made to ramp, draw, and play a creature that gets bigger based on my hand size, give it trample, and swing.
That's it. It runs just enough interaction to get rid of stuff that prevents me from swinging, and Ram Through as a secondary win condition against stuff like, say, recurring Fogs, or anti-combat-damage effects.
But the deck is amusing, fun, and it's getting to be known around my LGS as "That one monogreen deck he runs", and while it occasionally god-draws and I murder someone on turn 5 or so, that's about it. It does it's thing, and typically I attempt to mill myself to death by drawing 120 cards, if I do end up playing my big draw spells and killing two of my opponents. Because the deck is dumb and stupid and doesn't work until SUDDENLY it kills someone.
do you have a decklist that sounds like a ton of fun, it also seems like the thing that you just cant be mad at, I would want to lose every game to a 40/40 creature with trample tbh
One of the big things EDH players need to learn on the journey to getting gud, is that it's fine to be off meta with pet cards. But you better back those up with powerful core cards and learn how to pilot the deck against multiple different strategies.
Gosh if more EDH players did self-reflect, I would have to ask "But how do you plan to *win*?" so many fewer times.
Oh also FromSoft games have long had accessibility options upfront (you've *always* been able to set in-game brightness).
One thing I think people don't think about is that while hobbies and gaming are for everyone, not every hobby and game is for everyone. Difficult hobbies do have a right to exist. I love the Project Moon series for example (Lobotomy Corporation, Library of Ruina, and the upcoming Limbus Company) and those experiences simply wouldn't exist in a world where every game had to cater itself to every person. The problem is that some people refuse to accept that something may just not be for them. A recent evidence of that I believe comes with the folks that review bombed YuGiOh Master Duel because they'd rather tank the score of a legitimately great simulator (that is miles ahead of MTGA btw) rather than admit to themselves that they just don't like the game of YuGiOh in current day (which is completely fine, in fact Konami allows folks to now sanction tournaments in older formats through Time Wizard.)
To cite Sheldon Menery himself during the state of play this year: "The health of other and competitive formats directly affects commander"
Some pods like battle cruiser. When you keep pushing the power level you begin an arms race and then everyone becomes a sweat lord. We don't want to play standard. Does anyone remember kitchen table magic..
I think that information access today from websites, youtube content creators, stats, teaching us what cards are more effective/good/meta have a massive effect on how people play.
The personal enjoyment of trial and error is lost. Remember the feeling wanting to test that (jank) card nobody uses. Then learning afterwards why.
Casual EDH now has become something that favors ruthless efficiency vs personal creativity or those who express artistically (tribals or the kind). And I haven't even started with people with financial or access problems.
This is one of my favorite videos you’ve ever made. How would you feel this applies to a player who only plays non-Commander formats at FNM, and has no aspirations to compete higher than that?
I can understand the frustration, before in EDH it was whatever jank you could put together into a semi cohesive deck. Now with Wizards printing cards specifically for the format we have an arms race between players who dont necessarily play competitively but still want to play powerful stuff in their deck. Not that that is a bad thing, its just that decks can now be made better and have less variance to them with many cards that do the same or very similar things and that's changed the format, in some good ways and some bad ($$$). Its just an evolution from what it was before (and a cash cow for Wizards), but it has kind of left those first group of players behind and in the casual dust bin.
So well said.
Honestly yeah you're on the money. No one needs to be a sweaty about a casual format but folks do need to take it with a grain of salt, pun fully intended, or learn to manage their expectations. There is an answer for virtually everything in this game, you don't need to melt down if someone plays a card that affects you badly, either manage it moving forward or take your lumps. Or accept that you won't win every game. Even good players are lucky to win 25% of the games they play, its not a big deal. You can pkay almost any cards you like, but it ought to be pretty implicit that with that comes a vast degree of success in terms of winning.
While I'm being curmudgeonly, and another thing - I'm sick of the Stax Witch Hunt. Stax CAN be miserable, but not every hate bear or control piece can be equated with stax. Some of those pieces are milk toast compared to winter orb, and some of them are there to stop the simic value player from going off. You sorta need them.
I was literally just discussing this with my EDH Discord playgroup. Learning the game enriches the experience for EVERYONE PLAYING. Don't just hold grudges against a card or archetype because you refuse to study a little bit, whether it be card types, color combinations or the archetypes they could present.
Cool not every one can spend a thousand dollar on a card need for your deck to stop a mass produced hate card this is why I never touched card games
You nailed it. New players literally DESPISE counter magic, discard, and mill.
I never understood the bizarre hate that removal and combos especially garner. Stax I sort of understand, but only if it’s poorly built stax that just lets no one play and doesn’t have its own win condition. If it’s a hard control combo win style deck, I fail to see why it garners such ire. For hard and fast combos, I’m always in the camp of “oh sweet your deck fired, cool lets go again.”
Mill is just weird. It’s neither good nor especially powerful, I guess people just run zero recursion or graveyard interaction…? But removal is key for the game having a real proper excitement curve. The state of the game pushes and pulls, and there’s a real feeling of tension when removal is at play. Countermagic getting hate especially confuses me. I was taught the game by an Izzet Tempo aficionado, and I had a period of time where I hated countermagic as a new player who loved Selesnya, but then I realized that it’s effectively worse removal than what most other colors have, due to its time sensitive nature. If you don’t sequence right as the countermagic player, you can end up with a huge problem on the board that you could have dealt with but failed to because of a misplay. Whereas if you have permanent removal like path to exile, you can extend as far as you like and always tap out, and then just nuke the thing on your upkeep. Some people are just prone very powerful negativity bias. It’s a personal attack when you path or swords their enormous game ending creature, but if they point the same thing at your combo it’s not a problem or they’re doing the table a favor. It’s wild. I’ll sit in my corner playing Bant stompy enchantress, drawing lots of cards and building my own big dumb idiots lol. Maybe I had to learn to not care about taking removal personally when I get 2-for-1’d or worse on my aura’d up creatures or something… man I’d have had a stroke by now if I let myself get worked up.
I once lost a game because I somehow didn’t include any enchantment removal in my deck, which I drew through the entirety of. I wasn’t upset with the enchantment shutting down completely, but my lack of answers to problems I know are frequently played and my poor deck building.
I agree with what you are saying. Commander players are always concerened about their own fun and not about improving their deck building and play style.
I think often when casuall players build their decks they don't play enough removal and most of the time only creature removal. When a friend of mine wanted to scrap his meren deck because he felt he was getting targetet with hate pieces I looked in his deck and he played no enchantment removal (not even rec sage etc)
and since I told him to include some of them his deck works way better against Rest in piece style stax pieces.
I myself had that problem when I started that I did not played enough of the right awnsers. But what helped me with deck construction was getting into cEDH. When I build my decks now I look at what they are weak against and what I can include to fight that weakness.
This is actually something I had to realize myself recently. I got into magic, learned the basics, and then switched to commander and my abilities stagnated or even atrophied. Now I'm starting college and I realized real quick with this new playgroup that I was letting people down with slow turns and not knowing even the basics of how a turn works, plus other various missplays. For us, we don't have a lot of time to spare with school and wasting that with a boring game where one guy isn't up to speed is awful, so I've really been motivated to learn more and improve myself and I think this video perfectly summarize how I've come to feel about the game and our duty as players to make the game fun.
I agree with the broader point, that we should reflect upon our feelings and understand them before we pick up our swords against certain cards or people.
However, what do we do when we acknowledge the irrational feelings and our hatred remains. I have an irrational hatred of people using steal effects in commander, something I’ve thought about a lot, and as a result I’ve become more accepting of other strategies, just not that one. I will never say theft effects should be banned or never be printed, but I don’t have to like or even play against them. Commander is more like a board game than DND, but that doesn’t mean there’s no social contract.
I play Omnath (R/G) and The Scarab God. The first leans very hard on searching lands with Omnath in play and second really wants opponents to have graveyards, but I would never complain that those things get shut off because I keep backup plans.
I do complain when my opponent plays a win by turn 5 deck against my casual deck and expect that to be normal EDH (my Scarab God deck is tuned for that, not my Omnath)
I only use the term "git gud" sarcasticallly with people who are already good at the game, usually it's a "u dun f*cked up there son" moment.
I would never say "git gud" to a new player, unless they're stubbornly refusing to listen to people's honest adivice.
I've been using/hearing the term "git good" and "get good, scrub" since at least the year 2004 in Halo 2 xbox online.
I feel like it was in use earlier, but I can't explicitly remember an older usage.
Yeah I'm a chill competitive gamer. I put a lot of effort into games but I rarely get emotional. Makes actual dramatic moments more impactful for me.
Okay so I have a deck I have been told multiple time to stop playing. It is just a UW control deck that is filled with cards like Rest in Piece and Stony Scilence. At FNM there is only 50 min rounds and while my commander Dragonlord Ojutai can kill people it usually takes longer than 50 min to kill 3 players.
Last night I was playing against a 16? year old who has decks like Muldrotha, Yoriok and the RUG spell doubling creature. Knowing that his decks are really strong I whipped out NOjutai. The other player in the game unfortunately got mana screwed and as such didn't divert my attention allowing me to just counter remove and disrupt his game play completely. Killing and countering his commander a multiple times then landing Dranith Magistrate. I ended up Ultimating Teferi who slows the sunset and quickly running away with the game, unusually quickly.
I feel like to some extent this time limit on game time at FNM is causing players to just forget to play removal at all especially wraths. Whille Mass land destruction and easy combos are banned as well as randomly Tergrid, God of Fright and Koma, Cosmos Serpent. But I swear most games I am the only person that uses wraths. I don't know how but people let me keep a Birthing pod in play in a different game last night.. its birthing pod if you don't stop it I will win.
This happened to me with confounding conundrum
I firmly believe that there needs to be a distinction between the skillsets for Commander, and for MtG as a whole. There are those who play EDH weekly, but are ignorant/unwilling to dive into rules or basic tactical lines within the game. As an example, how many times have we seen terrible attacks and/or blocks (or failures to do so)? I feel the commander world could use a Mike Flores (author of the (arguably) best mtg strategy article "Who's the Beatdown?") to help set common strategic and tactical languages, and that would help benefit everyone's game.
Ya, in my edh group, we keep up, but stay at a low enough power level that my Johnny shenanigans would still work at times. I definitely use a lot of threat misdirection in my playgroup by underrepresenting my state to which I'm threatening to the board, though usually it is because people in my group aren't aware of how the deck works at all.
This is an interesting conversation. Rest in piece is a very good example of a card I would hate to see when playing Chainer. Rakdos has very little enchantment removal and it shuts down most of what the deck is trying to do.
The deck still has big scary creatures, so the game can be played, and it’s important to learn to play around things. It would make the deck a lot worse, but in a 4 player games that might not always be a bad thing. I’d just saying dropping that in on the first time someone is playing their very first graveyard deck for the first time is pretty mean. You could re-build the deck to work around then card, but since a lot of strategies can be shit down I think being over-reliant in any one strategy is a bit of a risk going in to games anyway.
For elden ring, respawn at stakes of marika. They spawn you right in front of the boss door.
Finally a look at what Vince really is like around the six minute mark.
Muldrotha shouldn't be complaining about RIP. However, I feel Rakdos is a bit more justified. Like what, am I supposed to run Pharika's Libation in edh? And hope they only have one enchantment?
Feed the Swarm.
I play commander because I love tribal decks. Some of the decks are just bad. I still want to play with them for the silly cards. My favorite commander moments are when different players have cards out that do something wild and unexpected when they are out together. The unexpected chaos of those moments make me so happy.
Things that make it more fun for everyone is good.
To me its power creep within the group and what people agree on. I was playing a group where we all were on fairly even footing, then one guy dropped 400 bucks in cards. The rest of us didn't want to spend that much money so our decks stayed relatively the same while all of his kept spiking in power every time he got a paycheck.
When i use to play modern in a separate group it was the same. Our whole deck metas would keep shifting to counter each other. It wasn't about what deck we wanted to play, but what deck would beat the others. If they played creature pump, you played kill spell. They got protection from color? you go counter/ sacrifice/ remove enchantment.
The sniper should not complain about your bulletproof vest.
But the bullet proof vest is a 10k card worth more than an actual one and the sniper is the most basic attack monster with a funny twist 😂
i play smash competitively and edh casually. I love to talk about the "casual vs competitive" conversation. this is bc Smash is a casual game with a competitive side and magic is a competitive game with a casual side i sit in both and i like how you brought it back to elden ring the single player competitive experience is very unlike a multiplayer one. You feel as though you are fighting against the game's enemies, yourself, and the others who have gotten farther than you.
on a side note if you are a competitive person, doing something casually can b annoying, you feel as though you suck bc you arent at the level of one of your friends or you arent at the level that u personally want to be at.
love the video btw
I look at it this way:
If you don't like certain strategies, then find a way to counter that strategy. And you don't have to break the bank to do it. For example, a 60 cent Lavinia, Azorious Renegade will shut down a Narset, free cast, and cascade decks. $25 later and I built a well rounded strategy that deals with most deck types, including Narset and Sen Triplets. I think the only thing this deck can't handle is Hyper Mill. Just a few cards shuts down most strategies. I also built in redundancies in case pieces get removed.
I play very casual and I only bring out Lavinia when I want to either showcase the deck or if someone wants to be a hyper competitive Try-Hard player.
There was a Reddit Post pretty much saying this. Many people were against it, but thanks for posting this. PK.
At the end of the day, Commander is a format of a GAME. Games have winners and losers and I believe that some commander players forget that.
There's plenty of unfun strategies, build a deck to defeat them. Heck, you've got 100 cards to deal with it. It's just too much. I think it waters the game down as a whole.
The example of Rest in Peace against graveyard decks is an example of counterplay. Which is a very important aspect of a trading card game. So your answer to the counter shouldn't be to get mad and ask others to not play it, but to have counterplay of your own to counter the counterplay. If you just allow your opponents to value off without any chance to be disrupted then the game gets stale real fast. Bans are a fair bit more controversial overall, since they can be good for the overall health of the game/format.
While others would disagree, I feel that Tergrid is a commander that should be banned because of how oppressive she is and now little counterplay there is against her besides killing her over and over again until the Tergrid player can't cast her anymore from the command zone. Yes, WotC is releasing more auras that "silence" creatures for lack of a better term, but they're few and far between. If she only cared about one or the other, she'd be fine. But the fact she cares about both discarded and sacrificed permanents, which Black loves forcing the opponent to do both of those, paired with how little counterplay there is against her is what makes her so oppressive.
My brother and I both had a kneejerk reaction to Jeweled Lotus when it was first spoiled, but soon realized that it isn't nearly as good as one might think. It's strong in the right decks, but that's just it. It needs to be in the right decks to be strong. Can't put it in any 3+ color deck and have it do exceptional work. The two decks we have where it would be good are my brother's Urza deck and my Korvold deck. Urza because it either lets him drop Urza on turn 1 or becomes a Mox Sapphire later in the game. While in my Korvold deck it can let me drop Korvold turn 3 or later on be a literal free sacrifice for Korvold. But other than that, it would maybe be decent in my Ur-Dragon deck, but still not amazing.
But I agree with you, self reflection is good. There are cards I have gotten mad my brother plays but on later reflection just means I need more counters to his counterplay, which I have been getting better with while building and upgrading decks. Keeps the games fresh.
Lol no answers to Tergrid, every grave hate cars counters Tergrid, RIP straight turns it off. I have a Tergrid deck and it has never preformed Favorablely everyone holds kill spells and counters to screw it, I only play it at tables where people are ok with it and I end up the player just sitting there doing nothing and watching everyone else play because they know how to handle the deck , you don't auto kill Tergrid you wait for an impact full play then kill it.
Tergrid isn't about the big plays. She is all about the small chipping away until she bleeds your opponents dry by discarding and sacrificing one or two things at a time. And there is only so much graveyard hate one person can run while also keeping their own gameplan functional. You're asking for an unattainable standard for the entire player base just because of how your play group plays.
Some people need to take too many game actions to win and take way too long to play. That is why it is more fun to play with good players.
the point about elden ring's respawn points you make is supported by stakes of marika existing in the game... they should have had stakes right next to boss doors/encounters in every single circumstance. in my experience so far that's true in a lot but not all cases and it's a bit weird that they'd introduce a convenience mechanic finally which isn't always convenient? lol
that's not even a difficulty based thing either, it's purely just to lessen frustration and inconvenience to allow people to just play the game even if they're dying over and over. difficulty itself is somewhat of a strange thing to talk about in a game like elden ring because you can do a ton of things to make the game easier for yourself but it's definitely still hard outside of specific cheesy things you can do particularly as a mage.
anyway I shall return to the video now, good stuff per usual
Ah... I think in the case of rest in peace for ME at least, I literally just got back into magic like last month and built my first commander deck ever after quitting back in 2007. I bought cards I thought were fun from over the years I missed to put together a cool monoblack deck which does somewhat revolve around graveyards, but is overall pretty casual and absolutely not optimized in any way since I picked fun and cool cards. If somebody kept playing rest in peace against me it'd be pretty annoying because I don't actually OWN another deck right now. I have the cards to rebuild my deck into a more stompy mono black deck but it'd require having to reorganize the deck every single time I played if somebody wanted to run a graveyard counter deck which is very annoying. I do have outs and cards to add to remove something like that so ultimately personally I'd probably swap a couple cards for more counters and call it a day but I can understand why somebody with limited cards would get annoyed. HOWEVER if you have multiple decks and all that I can't really see why you wouldn't just swap and move on with your game experience if the other people are RIGHTLY running counters and answers.
Good video! I like points made.
We have to adapt to the strategies presented against us.
Building better decks is not toxic. We just have to accept that sometimes, we need to be better
Do you hate mill? Put in a singular Regrowth-like effect in your deck. You will beg others to mill you in hopes that you draw that one card. Sevinne's Reclamation is a great starter pick.
It's not been my experience that people hate on cards that they can't figure out how to beat. I'll use me as an example just because I can't rightly speak for anybody else... but when I have an issue with a deck one of my friends has made... it's not because I don't know how to beat it. I know exactly what changes I would have to make to my decks to play around the new threat. It would take completely redesigning how my deck works, what the balance of cards in it is, what win conditions it uses... in short... it usually means I should throw my deck in the garbage and build a completely new one. The frustration that I am trying to express to my friend about the new deck he made is not "I can't figure out how to beat that so stop using it because losing is making me salty!". Instead, I am trying to express "I have this deck... I built it this way on purpose because this is how I want to play it... but your deck completely invalidates mine because the only way for me to deal with what you made is if I stop playing with what I made.... and I naturally don't want to do that." I don't ask my friend to take his deck apart, or stop playing it altogether, just to be aware that that deck isn't a good fit for how everybody else wants to play the game. In my playgroup, we are usually dealing with one particular guy who includes more than double the ammount of removal in each of his decks than any other player at the table does...
I play cedh online and more casual commander at my lgs and i find that the balance at my lgs is all over for this reason, people also seem to have some unusually high amount of hate for combos and loops when i look around at how broken ramp, nyxbloom ancient and seedborn muse can be at those casual tables.
that's probably more about time consumption though, the time poor get mad watching loops for ten minute turns
@@nicolechansawang4054 i can understand that somewhat but why encourage stalled board states if you are time poor. Also until you've seen a volo player with both seedborn and double nyxbloom trying to spend 9 mana per land per turn after they ramped to 12 lands on turn 9 and still not win you question if game ending combos really are the bogeyman of the casual tables.
Honestly adding like 15-20 interaction cards which is a number that I recommend will destroy/shutdown almost 80% percent of decks I have ever played against.
Think the point of the respawn points in Elden ring is to give you a mental opportunity to leave, get gear, and come back later.
I agree with everything in this video but I also think that this social contract goes both ways. This is only tangentially relevant but I figure I would post it anyway so you can haz some engagement. I think that when I sit down with my friends I want to have a good time. I and some friends and a couple of other people in my group have different focuses while playing. Namely I want to play and go off with my deck and have a fun back and forth with the table and the other people wanna win at all costs. This has been frustrating because they will do things like mull to five and decide to not play instead of playing it out with a suboptimal hand, or refuse to build decks that are at a similar power levels to everyone else's, or even hold long standing grudges about losing and get very very salty. This has caused the group to split and for some of those friendships to be strained or lost. Not saying winning is bad I love winning and not saying tutors and interaction are unhealthy (my decks are more interaction than anything else) and I don't think this rule applies to strangers at game stores either. I just think that when you enter a game with other people you should want the same thing out of the interaction. Sorry for the long comment if you read these. Love your content Vince!!!