My guy i dont understand how you dont have more subscribers. Your videos are great and super insightful. Keep up the good work and good luck to you as your channel grows
@@BasedDeckDept Thanks for responding it's nice to know you are putting in a lot of effort and overall I felt your video was quite well made keep it up. (:
I'm passing this video around, your philosophy is basically the exact same as mine, I was watching the video yelling "THAT'S WHAT I SAY TOO!!" Good stuff my dude.
I play a lot of Apex Legends, a battle royale shooter where similar to Commander, you should statistically be losing most of the time. Most of the very best Apex games I've played have ended in losses, so it prompts the question: What makes a good loss? How can you ensure that a game that ends in defeat was to some degree fun for you? For me, it's interaction (did we get into a few scuffles along the way?), it's having options (did we have multiple chances to fight, flee, or reposition?), and did we stick it out to the end (where choices feel more consequential, with heightened stakes?). Oh, and of course, did we communicate as a team? Games where we fought, retreated, got to the final five squads, and communicated well...are pretty much *guaranteed* to be a good time. I think all of those apply to Commander and good deck building. Taking game actions in response to others' game actions, using flexible/modal spells creatively rather than having other players' swingy actions always dictate game flow. Having a *resilient* deck that'll help you get to the final showdown, rather than glass cannoning yourself to last place. And finally, avoiding those solitaire/battlecruiser games that essentially ignore the fact that you're playing with real human beings.
This was a great video - and it came just at the right time, as I was locking in my first (honestly pretty boring) Selesnya +1/+1 Counters deck. I'm gonna take another major pass at it with your ideas in mind!
@@gpwaltz Great thoughts friend 🤜🤛 And good luck with the +1/+1 build. At it's core, boring is how I see a counters deck as well, but I'd say some time spent looking for interesting cards on scryfall may help that a lot. In some decks, I love pump effects as they make combat all kinds of fun. Perhaps there's a similar angle with counters. That could be very different
I'm on all your points. Took me years to arrive at those conclusions but I'm 100% behind that (except maybe the Sol Ring situation, that I believe, is a deeper problem) Only thing I'd add : "Remember who you play with, and try to build accordingly" Making decks to play with a specific, catered pod and building for playing with strangers at an LGS is 2 very different things. One allows you to discuss more freely from one game night 'til the next about power level, what every one wishes for, etc. The other bring people with varied opinions on the matter, play with them once, and maybe never see them again. When you only have the "strangers" situation, try to be prepared : - Take multiple decks with varied power level. Having 1 Precon, 1 Casual "Pet" deck and 1 Strong deck should cover all your needs. You only have 1 deck ? Bring cards to swap in so that every situation is met with possible answers ! (AND PROXY THOSE, NO ONE CARES !) - Never hesitate to not accept a game when you feel like they don't match your style. No game is better than a bad game. They're all going cEDH and you only have an updated precon ? Wait for another group, don't waste time and effort for a bad experience.
Based points all round. Joey from EDHRec has made some great content about walking away from games, at the start, or during the game and I'm here for his sentiments about it 🔥And couldn't agree more re LGS vs friends. I play in very few LGS situations for that reason, but your point is very valid. annnnnnnd as for Sol Ring, that's a video in itself I strongly believe no card is the problem, it's people that cause the problem
I have a $50 Jasper Flint deck that I pull out sometimes, and every time I do, I end up saying to someone "If you didn't want to lose to X, you shouldn't have put it in your deck." Most recently X was Ghalta, Primal Hunger which I played as a massive blocker to wall out the dino deck from killing me. My personal favorite was when I reanimated an Atla Palani player's Void Winnower, who had a bit of a tantrum about how he couldn't play the game anymore before ragequitting a couple turns later. It's an interesting thing to watch, how unpleasant people realize their cards are when suddenly someone else is playing them instead. I don't pull this deck out very often anymore, I initially built it to play against newer players to match the power level of the table, which it never really does.
You are the hero we deserve 🤜🤛 And couldn't agree more that it's always the people who play the worst cards, in the worst faith, that complain the loudest when the shoe is on the other foot. Keep up the good work soldier
I've been workshopping a copy deck for the same reason. I don't really want to take people cards (respect that you do!) but playing other people's cards as a way to show them what they do. Also, the copy character in any fanstasy/anime is my favorite almost everytime
BLESSED MELEK POSTING my casual Melek list i have in paper required 0 trading, plays a ton of cards no one has ever wanted to play (i just cut searing winds for example) and it makes them at least nearly playable or cracked. it feels SO good to play crummy cards at a good rate, and make people go "oh, your commander says THAT?"
Haha my fellow Melek enjoyer 🤜🤛 He's so good isn't he. Agree it's incredibly fun playing all these random, yet fantastic cards for far less than they should. Whilst not a random card, I love nothing more than casting Traumatize on myself for almost no mana and turning Melek into a 25/25
@@BasedDeckDept Unfortunately for this "everyone gets to have fun :)" mentality, he's also incredibly good at theft and land destruction. And I am 100% that person. Lands have had it too good for too long, I'm coming for your ancient tombs and I'm keeping your Jin-Gitaxias
@@gammarayrjs If anyone is out here playing broken utility lands thinking they're free of persecution, may the long arm of the law, Sherriff Melek take them right to jail
I love building decks that is are all about funny things like Bernard ginger sculptor and Ygra. However since I can't have them as the commanders, I have to find commanders that either benefit me or just have the colors. I'm currently thinking about how I'm going to build a Wick the whorled mind deck. My current pet deck is Denry Klin editor in chief. I recently built a five color vehicle deck. I love building crazy gimmick decks
@@gpwaltz I ran Kyodai for the flash indestructible feature. I bought a Ramos but I never really played the commander aside from niche circumstances. I'm actually excited for more vehicles and hopefully more cards for a faster deck
9:30. this is my point with my Main deck. Sméagol helpful guide. I run 31 lands. why? I take other people lands. Online, everyone says this deck should be "landfall or sacrifice" some even mix. THIS IS A BAD THING! it means you are playing to much different stuff and you cannot make it work. this is why the next thing you hear is "I wish he had access to blue" or my personal hate "he just does not do enough". the deck needs to be a ring attempt deck with some minor fun things thrown in. By building around the ring attempt ability. Semgol can do what Semgol does. go crazy and I added in extra draw cards so I can spam big spells and use cards that give me a +net in advantage. (Things like, "Last march of the ents" and Thunders debut"). this is also why I love playing against strax players. Ok I can only play one card. let me throw 3 Nazgul's down all at once and go UwU :D out of all the ring attempt cards available in black and green. I am not running 4. One because I don't want infinite combos and the other 2 are when they die. It's just not good with the strat. My deck goes on a card drawing rampage and as a yugioh player at heart. I love. and it plays to my strengths as a TCG fan.
Love this, and love Smeagol. I ran him in my Meren deck for a while, but recently cut him because he wasn't doing enough of what I needed, which hurt, because I love what he does. Couldn't agree more on contextual rules for your deck, like the 31 lands. Best thing one can do for oneself is ignore what others think if it's not helpful or relevant :D
i support the idea that one should build a deck that is fun to play against and that the better games people have are those that are interesting rather than those that they win. whe it think is important to point out though is that a great story is born is stuggle. commander games are no different. the secret to an interesting game is not what decks you play and specifically having a deck that is interesting and unique. it is about playing to succeed while removing the attachment the game has to your self worth (a big problem in tcg games for some reason) and being satisfied with a loss provided it was an interesting game. i prefer playing a more optimzed deck and like including good staples where i can. this does not mean that i need a demonic tutor in every one of my black decks, and trust me i know it is boring to lose to the same combo every time. but when a win comes in an unexpected way that is satisfying. i honestly think we all need to work on our social skills more and learn that games where we are proud to be obliterated by a hamster that hits as hard as saitama from one punch man and congratulate the opponent sincerely will lead to far more fun in a game. (and yes i have lost to the same boo hamster deck many times as getting hitt witha 30/30 trample with hast tends to take me out pretty quickly.) if i had to critique the video in any way i would say try to remove the "based" component from it. in truth there is no deck that is more "giga-chad" than another, and using that lingo and those kind of jokes is more off putting imo that funny. just my own thoughts though
Thanks for the input. Love the sentiment re social skills, as that's where 99% of the problems in commander come from. As for based feedback, that's a bit of a challenge given my channel name but in context of the video, it seemed fitting for the thumbnail more so than anything else 👍
I agree that Commander is a social game first, and people who only try to win miss much of the enjoyment; however, I will always run Sol Ring. That high of going Sol Ring, Arcane Signet turn 1 is godly. Does it make me a target? Sure, but god damn, it feels good.
Hard agree with everything except sol ring. Early sol ring does provide a big advantage at the start but I believe such an advantage leads to more interesting and varied game states rather than just ruining it for all that didn't draw sol ring. It becomes problematic when you stack fast mana like crazy but just sol ring is chill and usually foreshadows the enemy of the table. Love your insights though bro 💋
Haha to quote my friend in the game I'm playing right now, Sol Ring is ok except when it's Sol ring into mana rock 🤣 glad you enjoyed the video 🤜🤛 fortunately Sol ring ain't going anywhere so you're quite safe
Great video, but there is one problem that got me so many times - if you build interesting deck with not so flashy/unussual cards, there is always one guy that lie about his power lvl deck and fuk whole table with "good" cards. Just be sure that whole table is on the same page if you want play slower, more casual game.
i try to avoid remake the same strategies when making new decks, but whenever i dont eat my veggies and skip on powerful staples instead of the table going "whoa those are cool niche cards" instead they go "whoa those are less powerful cards you'll be easier to curbstomp". cutting consistency pieces for goofy unseen cards is not good advice even if in theory it feels like you'll get unique gamestates. more likely than not you'll just see maybe 1 of these cards each game and do not much of anything most of the time
Thanks for watching 🤜🤛 I think there's a middle ground of vegetables vs tasty food. If you go and look at some of my recent budget brews I've made, you're going to recognize many of the cards, but you're also going to see a bunch you've probably not seen before. The ones that you do recognize fit perfectly in that specific deck. All of the decks punch well, well, well above their weight and don't lack power (my mtg origin story is that of someone that loved competitive deck brewing). I think the key thing here to highlight is that when I say interesting and unseen cards, I don't mean goofy / bad cards as I'm a firm believer that if people build bad / underpowered decks, that they're never going to have a good time, regardless of flavour.
Incredible video! We need more people thinking about commander in this way. I want to add a few things though. I'm going to use the Kemba Kha Enduring deck I recently built for my extreme budget pod as an example (15 euro budget) #1: Go out of your way to build archetypes in non-typical ways. (for example: looking for commanders that change things up or building it in the "wrong" colors) Kemba is an equipment commander, which typically just means voltron. But Kemba wants you to distribute your equipment over as many cats as possible, so that you can enjoy a free equip and +1 boost. This completely changes your card choices and transforms the DNA of the deck. You want to go wide with cats and cheap equipment and you don't care for equip costs, which all plays very differently from typical equipment decks #2: Play cards that win against cards your deck loses to. What does a go wide deck lose against? Board clears. So I play cards that save my team, like Resistance Reunited. What else can it lose to? Decks that go taller than it and snuff it out before it can get there. So I play efficient creature removal specifically and ONLY to target things that are too big for the deck to deal with reasonably, like Valorous Stance. This results in me being to put up a fight in the face of problematic cards or decks instead of folding at the first sign of resistance #3: Make your interaction/card draw fits into your decks strategy (The video already touched on this one, but I want to articulate it a bit more) In my deck ALL of the card draw cares for or is the form of equipment and all but 1 of my removal pieces are either also cats, equipment or protection. I also don't play a single board clear in this deck either, instead opting to use Declaration in Stone to deal with token/copy decks, which also acts as a fine removal spell outside of that. With a focused Interaction package like this I very often have access to what I need #4: Redundancy. Make sure you run important effects multiple times or, if you can't, play a lot of recursion. My deck plays Auriok Windwalker, Brass Squire and the horribly expensive Puresteel Paladin for the times when my commander isn't around, since I always need access to a way to get around the high equip costs of my things. I also play effects like One Last Job to make sure they stick around #5: Most importantly of all: build on a budget. At least once. It naturally nudges you to include cards you'd normally never consider and exclude staple cards because of their price tag. You definitely don't have to go as extreme with it as me, but limiting yourself to something like 50 euro is already plenty Again, great video. Love your stuff!
I’m late, but I have built a non fun Nekusar spins the wheel deck that involves dealing damage by drawing, discarding, and having cards in your hand, also it has counters that make you draw
i got a guy in my playgroup that runs cards like cyclonic rift, mana drain and fierce guardianship in all his blue decks when all i play is slightly upgraded precons 🤠
From the thumbnail I expected a very frantic video with a bunch of fake enthusiasm, but instead it's well thought out, calmly and well presented and above all else highly informative in terms of making the game fun! Good job, you earned yourself a subscriber!
Yeah that's a social challenge in commander as old as time. People don't like seeing their precious cards leave their library. Communication is the only thing that can fix that. What don't people like? Why don't they like it? Are they actual issues or just perceived issues? For example if someone isn't milled out, those cards in their graveyard may as well still be in their library because they wouldn't have drawn into it. Either way they wouldn't play them. Sometimes play groups just need a big old dose of commander group therapy
@@BasedDeckDept yeah my issue is maybe a communicate to clearly cause I try to outline what the deck does, combos, etc. but since no one else does that for their decks it seems like I end up the big bad right off rip just cause people know what my deck could do
I appreciate this video for how similar an approach to deck building and game philosophy. It's part of what got me to pick up Rielle the Everwise after playing about a month of Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain. I wanted to draw lots of cards but I also wanted quicker turns so opponents wouldn't get too bored or frustrated. Turns out, she's really quite good to play. Built in power ramping so you can dome someone for lethal commander damage in one to two hits, unique draw mechanic which capitalizes on Izzet's plethora of looting/rummaging, and discard as an additional cost spells/abilities. This lets you turn something like Rites of Refusal into a Counterspell that is also a Tolarian Winds.
An analogy I use is, when you sit down to watch an epic movie you don't want to get a sitcom, or especially a tiktok video. On the topic of challenge i see it like a video game, the first time you play it it's ok to play on easy mode, but the real challenge is to beat it on legendary mode. To do this things like using sub rate generals and by cutting tutors/staples. One thing you mentioned was being hyper focused on theme and I don't agree, one thing I tell newer players is to have verrying archetypes spread across the color spectrum but imo the decks i play the most are rather generic in theme because they are the most easily tweaked through time and feel the freshest. but yes play fun flexible cards and you will have fun varying games. And don't forget your grave hate kids🙃
Even the way I built Chaos was designed to make it more fun, where i throw a spanner in the works like a challenge and players can choose to fix or ignore the problem presented.
Some of my favorite commander exclusive legends in recent years were the exclusive ones in Capenna! Those decks were very silly anyway considering the mechanics they decided to focus on(typically being lots of group interaction, even if Tivit has sort of ran away with that idea). But Vazi, Keen Negotiator might genuinely be one of my favorite casual decks and works both as a “kingmaker” deck and a group slug deck all at once. I’m always reminded of a game where it came down to myself and another player and a 12 counter Descent into Avernus trigger would have killed us both and left the game in a draw. And then he countered the trigger on the stack and killed me 😂 the whole store collectively booed him for ruining the fun and we still joke about it from time to time
To add, while I’m sad about the loss of Dockside for my mono Red cEDH deck, I think losing it for Vazi is the biggest gutpunch 😭 it was the easiest way to make a ton of treasures and hand them to other people while giving me an option to win later in the game if it drags on
My favorite deck is my slivers which I intentionally nerf my play style to maintain being "lore accurat". I use gate lands to represent the cities they have spread to and taken over, play passively unless provoked or get to a critical mass and need to "expand the hive", only play my queen if it comes out naturaly and have several tutors in the deck that are all in there for the single purpose of finding possibility storm and letting the hive decide what it needs to thrive. I have never recived complaints and actually have people in my local area building other "lore accurate" decks.
I agree with most of your thoughts, I sont have many copies of powerfull cards and with my 18+ decks I have to chose which cards fits which deck. But I do play those powerfull cards just not all in a few decks rather than a few in each deck. This makes my decks a little bit more powerfull but doesnt make it unfun. Also I have a playgroup which will tell you if a card or a deck is not fun and will attack you first if you keep playing it.
"Damn that's cool" has been Marina Vendrell for me lately, from the Duskmourn set. Just spending my game unlocking, locking, and re-unlocking doors for their wild effects with 44+ enchantments in the deck Marina can hit for her ETB has been hilariously good fun.
The idea of using flexible cards really spoke to me. Aside from Beast Within and Generous Gift, I also use cards like Divide by Zero, Oblation, and Supreme Will. I tend to value flexibility over efficiency, which is why I'd never run something like Path to Exile or Swords to Plowshares. Great video!
Glad you enjoyed it Thanks for watching 🤜🤛 Playing flexible cards is such an important concept. Glad it resonated with you! Don't sleep on Path to Exile though. In the right deck you can exile your own token or a creature that you want to die and ramp a land. Rampant Growth for a single white mana isn't bad and pretty flexible
I see sol ring as an okay card. I mostly run Exploration, which I feel as a way better card! I only have sol ring in a few of my decks. Because the decks need lots of mana.
I find that building with limitations also helps a lot with making the deck building process more fun, and can create moments in games that are truly legendary. I was running my 5 color pure spellslinger deck, and an opponent running Lonis looked at my empty board and assumed that I've been having the worst draws and most of my good creatures are still in my library. They used up like 20 clues trying to look for creature, and found nothing but lands, instants, and sorceries.
Love that. Yeah I think limitations are great. Like my Simon Wild Magic Sorcerer deck where every instant or sorcery has to be 3cc or above. It's obviously tied mechanically to him, but it's more fun that way than running mana drain.etc.
I've always found it fun to make a deck that has an inherent flaw to it, like my latest creation Emry, Lurker of the Loch that is only swords, stones, knights and water themes. Figured it worked with the whole "Lady of the Lake" style art on the card. Is it the most tuned artifact draw Emry deck? No, but I do get to play things like Lodestone Bauble which would never see play for any reason otherwise. Or Dark Sphere because it at least looks like a stone.
Thanks for watching 🤜🤛 This is the exact novelty I meant. One does have to balance power a bit, or play decks like that into similarly powered decks, but love the sentiment.
Put netherborn phalanx in my henzie deck mostly for transmute. The other day a buddy made 140 tokens with his cadira deck. Phalanx was the perfect answer amd every one at the table was going crazy that we didnt lose to cadira
Hoyl hells, its neat to see another person taking the base philosophy of commander back into focus. I am arguing so much with my playgroup, why I use the more complicated to use/ not best in slot cards for my decks. Or try to argue why I want a good game, not a win per se. Great video! /edit: also looking through scryfall for suiting cards is super fun. I just love that site.
Thanks for watching friend, glad you enjoyed it 🤜🤛 Time to send this video to your play group to grow the based department I feel your pain. I'm very lucky with my playgroup, though we've gone through our own developments which is a video in itself I think. And re philosophy, given the recent announcements and vitriol aimed at the RC, it's more important than ever that where we can, we remind people this is supposed to be the fun, social format about connecting with people. There are tons of formats focused on winning.
After 1 month of playing Ms. Bumbleflower and trying to win with aprouch of 2º sun or big +1/+1 flying creatures, I just tried last week to deck my guys cloning force fruition a bunch 😂😂😂 that was glorious, off course I lost but it was really fun having the elf deck not making math about how much damage he could do instead how many elfs he could play 😅
Great video! Turns out I love deck building more than I love playing the game itself! Only been in the hobby for 3 years or so. Anyway, thanks for sharing!
Glad you enjoyed it. Thanks for watching 🤜🤛 And yeah I'm in the same boat. It's actually why I made this channel and why I started with deck brews. Building decks and talking about building decks is what I enjoy most about MTG, and playing commander to me is literally social fun + deck testing
Definitely number 7. I have nothing against proxies, but one regular opponent proxies the 'best in class' into every deck they run, to the point of predictability when they tap mana. It's kinda disappointing. I far prefer to ask 'can I read that card I haven't heard of?"
Thanks for watching 🤜 🤛 Yeah I share that sentiment. We'd all be better off if everyone learned that stronger doesn't equal better or more fun. Share this video with them and hope the based department rubs off on them 😁
Hello? Based department? Yeah I have a guy here that claims to be you. Wait that IS you? Oh okay. My philosophy is that if it doesn't serve the theme or is vegetables, it doesn't need to be in. Ive recently finished a Stella Lee deck I was talking about in the comments of your video on it, and being constrained in what combos i was including helped to not go off the deep end in making every card a combo piece in an infinitely complex web of combo lines.
Yeah I 100% agree with you on that. Once you've decided very specifically what you're doing, you go all in that. Sounds like you'd also appreciate my recent video on cutting cards. Similar sentiments in there.
Agree with all your points. I like to think of my deck as a story telling device. I’ve had many people at my LGS and conventions all tell me stories of something cool that happened in their games. I wanna enable more stories to be told. An unexpected card,a well timed gotcha…I want everyone to leave the game happy and talking about fun moments
agree with everything, another personal deckbuilding and card selection rule I have is flavor above all else. Are there better board wipes for my curse deck besides curse of swine? yes. Will I be running it anyway? 100%
I'd love to make a fun deck like this. What are some less common commanders that promote heavy interaction? Is there a place I can search for a commanders that fit the bill? Most of my friends have the ability to spend more on cards than I can, so I work out miracles with reliable precons or cheap decks I've found online that other people have put together. It'd be cool to be able to make my own fun deck.
I think you can work in a lot of interaction with pretty much any commander to be fair. Definitely some commanders appreciate it or enable it more than others, but yeah, there's plenty of flexibility. As a starting point though, these are two that I built recently that I love. Also both $50 Melek ruclips.net/video/BvLR11BVoa0/видео.htmlsi=YEs7maYHTU0C-rdU and Galazeth ruclips.net/video/FaYrMDP8FPU/видео.htmlsi=e_0oBP36RwxzKj6P
This is the attitude I want to see in EDH in general, but ironically it is also exactly why I think the EDH ban list is idiotic and should only address issues in cEDH. All the casual tables will rule zero anything they don't like anyway.
I have a hard rule to either be entirely "friendly" towards my other players, or to go out of my way to make their experience horrendous. That is to say, in the first kind of deck I will actively never choose anything that taps and stuns, discards cards, exiles many cards with ease, removes lands and so on, whereas in the latter deck I know that I will conciously be making enemies and turn myself into the archenemy of everyone with no chances of alliances or diplomacy, usually at the cost of inflicting a lot of damage on everyone. And once I'm dead you suddenly have 3 players left, usually at 1/4 (hopefuly) of max hp looking to slug it out for the win. I stick to the latter kind of deck when I know everyone is playing extremely intriguing fun decks (aka decks that are all about gaining life and not attacking, leading to 3,5 hour snore..- I mean laughter fests). i'm glad i came across this video btw, subbed!
Great sentiment. I think about it very similarly. I have some decks that I bring out in games that we affectionately refer to as a good time not a long time games. Like my Eldrazi deck, my Ur-Dragon deck, or surprisingly, my John Benton deck. The latter being very fun but arguably the most powerful/aggressive. Glad you enjoyed the video
Glad you enjoyed it Shhhhhhhh we snuck that one under the radar For real though, Hulk is very strong, and definitely a 'higher power card' but to me its the same as any tutors. They're only as strong, or as bad, as the cards they're fetching. In Meren, I run no infinites, so Hulk is a strong card advantage tool that can generate wins over 4-5 turns, not single turn combo wins. That to me makes him medium power in my use case. But also, shhhhhhhhh
Poor Tergid... I wrote the script before the bans, and couldn't be bothered to change it. But clearly I was onto something. Time to go buy a lottery ticket.
I play exactly the same way! The unfortunate reality is that most people will, over time, buy more and more cards and naturally gravitate towards power creeping their decks. It takes a really seasoned player looking for novelty in unusual places to get this approach, as any new player will find novelty in busted cards and go for those first.
Thanks for watching 🤜🤛 And yeah, I just made a note about making a video about this topic. Getting more people from point a to b, and skipping the whole "play as much power as possible" stage will do the community a great service
This is like the 4th channel I’ve seen where someone puts a crude animated character. First the stick man. Then the metal mask. Then the avocado. now this. Wtf.
Glad you enjoyed it Thanks for watching 🤜🤛 Boomerang is an OG, how dare they! To be fair there are so many good bounce spells now that it is power crept out a little, but hey, if it works, it's still an incredible and versatile card.
Yeah I can probably do a whole video on the development over time of dynamics of a play group and how that affects decks going strong vs interesting. Glad you enjoyed this, and thanks for watching! Share it far and wide to get your friends and play groups to build based decks
Hot take: Taking cards like mana crypt and sol ring out unless they're actually needed is good deck design. Commander players are bad at deck design so the cards got banned. They didn't need to be banned. The players are just bad.
@@revelmonger the cards themselves are never the problem, so I agree. There is a much longer conversation about the player base being unable to self manage hence the bans, but again, I agree with you. There is nothing wrong with playing strong cards in the right context and in the right pod. That's basically what point 10 is about. People letting other people down.
This is how I build my decks, except I only use cards I got at home. So it makes me become even more inventive in what to include. It's fun and makes me appreciate my decks more than slap a staple bundle into every deck. There are tons of underplayed cards that needs a home! I can also recommend reducing board wipes and add more "I'm gonna eff you all up" cards as it speeds up games and makes them explosive. I, and many others groan when games takes a long time after 3-4 board wipes. Rather having a couple faster epic action games than slug fests.
Thanks for watching 🤜🤛 the board wipe point is a fantastic one and I should have mentioned it. I've advocated for less board wipes for ages and my play group thankfully agrees
@@BasedDeckDept yeah and also of you instead of board wipes, include board protection, you can anticipate a wipe and come out swinging like a mad champ haha.
Insanely well tought out and executed video, great work man. I really adore your philosophy of deck building and playing edh as a whole. i find often myself searching for cards that are explicitly powerful and make my deck strong, but for decks with very weird or cool types of interaction. for example i love my mazzy deck, were a briar shield turns into a stupidly good card. and of course, i could look such cards up at edhrec or other sources, but i found that card while looking through a friends old mtg collection, and that just feels awesome. keep up the great work!
@@vinz4015 Thanks friend. Glad you enjoyed it! 🤜🤛A lot of the magic of commander is finding people that share a similar philosophy about how to play, or what they want out of a game. Finding great cards that are a 10/10 in a very specific deck, and getting to hare that experience with others is such a good time.
I think it can be hard for people to build unique decks due to so many cards being essentially the same thing. There are a lot of reprinted cards, and it can be difficult to sift through the massive list of options. So instead of finding interesting and unusual cards, most people end up with the same cards that are only different in name.
@@BasedDeckDept I really like your idea of using Scryfall to search keywords and card types, but then going back to EDHREC to find anything you obviously missed.
Finally, someone who builds decks like me? But how do you decide how to whittle your list of 300 cool cards that fit in the deck down to only the 60 or so you need? Definitely agree with you about Sol Ring. Wish it gets banned one of these days, as you can't really convince everyone to not play it, even with a friend group. I've tried
Oh boy do I have a video just for you. Quite literally the previous video I made. I'll likely make another about the mechanics of a new build, but for now this should help somewhat ruclips.net/video/9HXF108iTgc/видео.html
@@BasedDeckDept lol it just fun too do it’s not a storm deck but sometime it does it mainly takes infinite turns. And in my play experience playing at shops players seem to actually find it fun. And they expect infinite combats but not turns so pretty wacky and it’s a like a six card combo
Vintage, Legacy, Modern, Pioneer, Pauper. It's not like there aren't enough competitive formats in MtG. "Competitive" players want to make everything about them.
@@MrHamerb I think tutors are only as guilty at being boring or powerful as the cards they are targeting. When people are building bad decks and throwing in the most expensive, powerful staples and targeting those with tutors, it's not surprising that the tutors are bad and boring. Tutors targeting interesting or fun cards and reduce the path to interesting and fun things.
11:35 alternate solution: everyone starts with a Sol Ring in the command zone. That way everyone has access to it on turn 1 and everyone is on an even playing field.
Yeah I've heard that suggestion. I think that's not as good as just not running it, because it means that anyone with more colourless mana, be that in the command zone, or in their 99 will benefit from it, and it will warp people to build decks around it. Running a 3cc, 3pip commander when someone else can cast their 5cc Kenrith, Korvold, Pantlaza on turn 3 as well because of a Sol Ring I can't use as well would suck. Fortunately there's absolutely no reason that you and your play group can't rule 0 that though, which you should if you all like that idea
@@BasedDeckDept its difficult to get a social consensus of folks to not run it, even friends....trust me ive tried lol. I kinda have my own rule to limit my sol ring use: if it can't help me cast my commander, i dont run it. Which means any commander I run that doesnt have a 2 generic cost (or more) doesnt get the Ring. So stuff like Kunoros, Radha, or Yidris dont get it. But stuff like Korvold, Locust God, or Hazoret does. I havent yet gotten my play group to try the "sol ringin command zone" idea. If we ever try it ill let you know how it goes. I thought about the warping nature of people building their deck around it as well - while that might be unbalanced in a normal pod i think specifically making a format around it might b something worth trying. Especially if the Rules Committe aint gonna be banning it.
@@vileluca Yeah it's a really tricky one and getting a group of people to agree to one thing is typically very hard. Definitely not saying any potential solution is a bad one. We got to a pseudo solution in our play group. Some people would run Sol Ring but we agreed that when you have a Sol Ring start it just skews the game and power level, so in some games we rule zero that if we get it in our opening hand, we mulligan it back. This obviously requires trust in the playgroup, but if there are people trying to abuse a system, we don't have a problem with the system we have a problem with the people
#7 is the reason I was/am disdainful of proxies so much. Nobody ever proxies a suboptimal card - it's always Rhystic Study, Cyc Rift, or Smothering Tithe. It's always the same staples in every deck.
I tend to agree that people get drunk on power and proxy all the broken and expensive cards. This also speaks to #10 about playing cards you'd want to lose to. The problem isn't the proxies, but the people making selfish choices as opposed to social ones. Mentality/baggage/social dynamics is probably a whole video by itself, because it's why I rarely play with strangers that have no 'reputation to uphold' in LGS or online spelltable environments.
I disagree. I love to proxy cards, and I love to repeat (some) cards. I'm always looking for the weirdest hipsterest commanders that no one at the table has seen. I don't have all the cards and proxying makes trying them before I buy them feasible. I own two Radiates, but I am not going to buy more rn because they aren't cheap, but they aren't "optimal", but when I have it in my hand I'm super invested waiting for the perfect moment to turn someone's incremental value play into something that will make the whole table remember the game. Proxying isn't bad because boring people will use it to make boring decisions. It's super cool because fun people can choose to make fun decisions that their income tax bracket wouldn't otherwise allow.
@@BS-bv5sh Just to be clear, I have no issue with proxying, and I do repeat cards if it makes sense for the decks, but I do tend to cut back on copies across decks unless it's a 10/10 banger for that specific deck
@@BasedDeckDept my opinion on proxies has definitely softened lately, because less money going to WotC makes me happy these days. If you want to run these cards in your stronger decks sure. My issue is that if you run the most optimal cards in every single deck then the rising tide makes all your decks around the same powerlevel - i prefer having a power range so i can tune what im playing to my social environment. If we want to play sweaty sure i'll pull out my Kenrith or Korvold and pubstomp the table on turn 2. But i shouldn't have to feel like i must play those decks to have a chance at winning at all.
_"It's not impressive just because it works, it's impressive if we all ask to see it again"_
-Mauldhound
As he often is, Maldhound is based.
My guy i dont understand how you dont have more subscribers. Your videos are great and super insightful. Keep up the good work and good luck to you as your channel grows
🤜🤛 thanks!
Seeing this comment makes me realize I haven't subscribed
I fixed that.
@@ryuku2 ❤
It's because he didn't put the Gigachad in the thumbnail until now.
@@Charlemagne_III TRUE. If only I'd known sooner
I'm finding it very hard to read that font, anyone else experiencing the same??
Thanks! I am planning on changing it, as I agree
@@BasedDeckDept Thanks for responding it's nice to know you are putting in a lot of effort and overall I felt your video was quite well made keep it up. (:
@@TheChickenLord072 Thanks! Appreciate it. 🤜🤛
I'm passing this video around, your philosophy is basically the exact same as mine, I was watching the video yelling "THAT'S WHAT I SAY TOO!!" Good stuff my dude.
Based commander community rise up 🤜🤛 Glad you enjoyed it. Hopefully you enjoy the next one equally as much
I play a lot of Apex Legends, a battle royale shooter where similar to Commander, you should statistically be losing most of the time. Most of the very best Apex games I've played have ended in losses, so it prompts the question: What makes a good loss? How can you ensure that a game that ends in defeat was to some degree fun for you?
For me, it's interaction (did we get into a few scuffles along the way?), it's having options (did we have multiple chances to fight, flee, or reposition?), and did we stick it out to the end (where choices feel more consequential, with heightened stakes?). Oh, and of course, did we communicate as a team? Games where we fought, retreated, got to the final five squads, and communicated well...are pretty much *guaranteed* to be a good time.
I think all of those apply to Commander and good deck building. Taking game actions in response to others' game actions, using flexible/modal spells creatively rather than having other players' swingy actions always dictate game flow. Having a *resilient* deck that'll help you get to the final showdown, rather than glass cannoning yourself to last place. And finally, avoiding those solitaire/battlecruiser games that essentially ignore the fact that you're playing with real human beings.
This was a great video - and it came just at the right time, as I was locking in my first (honestly pretty boring) Selesnya +1/+1 Counters deck. I'm gonna take another major pass at it with your ideas in mind!
@@gpwaltz Great thoughts friend 🤜🤛 And good luck with the +1/+1 build. At it's core, boring is how I see a counters deck as well, but I'd say some time spent looking for interesting cards on scryfall may help that a lot. In some decks, I love pump effects as they make combat all kinds of fun. Perhaps there's a similar angle with counters. That could be very different
Omg, another magic player that thinks commander is social and should be fun for everyone. I found my people! Finally!
One of us. One of us. One of us. 🤜🤛
Love your videos. Please keep it up. I follow a lot of magic RUclipsrs but you always have something unique and interesting to get my wheels turning.
🤜🤛 thanks friend, glad you enjoyed it.
I'm on all your points. Took me years to arrive at those conclusions but I'm 100% behind that (except maybe the Sol Ring situation, that I believe, is a deeper problem)
Only thing I'd add : "Remember who you play with, and try to build accordingly"
Making decks to play with a specific, catered pod and building for playing with strangers at an LGS is 2 very different things.
One allows you to discuss more freely from one game night 'til the next about power level, what every one wishes for, etc.
The other bring people with varied opinions on the matter, play with them once, and maybe never see them again.
When you only have the "strangers" situation, try to be prepared :
- Take multiple decks with varied power level. Having 1 Precon, 1 Casual "Pet" deck and 1 Strong deck should cover all your needs.
You only have 1 deck ? Bring cards to swap in so that every situation is met with possible answers ! (AND PROXY THOSE, NO ONE CARES !)
- Never hesitate to not accept a game when you feel like they don't match your style. No game is better than a bad game.
They're all going cEDH and you only have an updated precon ? Wait for another group, don't waste time and effort for a bad experience.
Based points all round. Joey from EDHRec has made some great content about walking away from games, at the start, or during the game and I'm here for his sentiments about it 🔥And couldn't agree more re LGS vs friends. I play in very few LGS situations for that reason, but your point is very valid. annnnnnnd as for Sol Ring, that's a video in itself I strongly believe no card is the problem, it's people that cause the problem
I like small magic content creators that use fun graphics. Subscribed and liked at 20 seconds, we'll see how the rest goes.
Let me know whether you made the right life choice friend
I have a $50 Jasper Flint deck that I pull out sometimes, and every time I do, I end up saying to someone "If you didn't want to lose to X, you shouldn't have put it in your deck." Most recently X was Ghalta, Primal Hunger which I played as a massive blocker to wall out the dino deck from killing me. My personal favorite was when I reanimated an Atla Palani player's Void Winnower, who had a bit of a tantrum about how he couldn't play the game anymore before ragequitting a couple turns later. It's an interesting thing to watch, how unpleasant people realize their cards are when suddenly someone else is playing them instead. I don't pull this deck out very often anymore, I initially built it to play against newer players to match the power level of the table, which it never really does.
You are the hero we deserve 🤜🤛 And couldn't agree more that it's always the people who play the worst cards, in the worst faith, that complain the loudest when the shoe is on the other foot. Keep up the good work soldier
I've been workshopping a copy deck for the same reason. I don't really want to take people cards (respect that you do!) but playing other people's cards as a way to show them what they do.
Also, the copy character in any fanstasy/anime is my favorite almost everytime
Mind sharing the deck?
Ah another person that use the japanese draw pngs on videos, you know what its good
I am nothing if not a sucker for anything Japanese influenced
Build with
1) companions
2) friends with
3) adventures
4) dungeons
5) loops that result in draw everytime
Got it 👏🏽
BLESSED MELEK POSTING
my casual Melek list i have in paper required 0 trading, plays a ton of cards no one has ever wanted to play (i just cut searing winds for example) and it makes them at least nearly playable or cracked.
it feels SO good to play crummy cards at a good rate, and make people go "oh, your commander says THAT?"
Haha my fellow Melek enjoyer 🤜🤛 He's so good isn't he. Agree it's incredibly fun playing all these random, yet fantastic cards for far less than they should. Whilst not a random card, I love nothing more than casting Traumatize on myself for almost no mana and turning Melek into a 25/25
@@BasedDeckDept Unfortunately for this "everyone gets to have fun :)" mentality, he's also incredibly good at theft and land destruction. And I am 100% that person. Lands have had it too good for too long, I'm coming for your ancient tombs and I'm keeping your Jin-Gitaxias
@@gammarayrjs If anyone is out here playing broken utility lands thinking they're free of persecution, may the long arm of the law, Sherriff Melek take them right to jail
I love building decks that is are all about funny things like Bernard ginger sculptor and Ygra. However since I can't have them as the commanders, I have to find commanders that either benefit me or just have the colors. I'm currently thinking about how I'm going to build a Wick the whorled mind deck. My current pet deck is Denry Klin editor in chief. I recently built a five color vehicle deck. I love building crazy gimmick decks
Love this. You are the person commander is perfect for as a format ❤
Nice! Who's your five-color vehicle commander(s)? Bet you'll get some major new tech on the next mainline "death race" set.
@@gpwaltz I ran Kyodai for the flash indestructible feature. I bought a Ramos but I never really played the commander aside from niche circumstances. I'm actually excited for more vehicles and hopefully more cards for a faster deck
@@gpwaltz that is surprisingly an archetype I have yet to touch. I'll have a think 🤔
@@BasedDeckDept don't forget the mount mechanic that started in thunder junction that probably won't get any more attention not for a while at least
9:30. this is my point with my Main deck. Sméagol helpful guide. I run 31 lands. why? I take other people lands. Online, everyone says this deck should be "landfall or sacrifice" some even mix. THIS IS A BAD THING! it means you are playing to much different stuff and you cannot make it work. this is why the next thing you hear is "I wish he had access to blue" or my personal hate "he just does not do enough". the deck needs to be a ring attempt deck with some minor fun things thrown in. By building around the ring attempt ability. Semgol can do what Semgol does. go crazy and I added in extra draw cards so I can spam big spells and use cards that give me a +net in advantage. (Things like, "Last march of the ents" and Thunders debut"). this is also why I love playing against strax players. Ok I can only play one card. let me throw 3 Nazgul's down all at once and go UwU :D out of all the ring attempt cards available in black and green. I am not running 4. One because I don't want infinite combos and the other 2 are when they die. It's just not good with the strat. My deck goes on a card drawing rampage and as a yugioh player at heart. I love. and it plays to my strengths as a TCG fan.
Love this, and love Smeagol. I ran him in my Meren deck for a while, but recently cut him because he wasn't doing enough of what I needed, which hurt, because I love what he does. Couldn't agree more on contextual rules for your deck, like the 31 lands. Best thing one can do for oneself is ignore what others think if it's not helpful or relevant :D
@@BasedDeckDept well it helped it being my first deck. It allowed me to see without the constraints of a magic player and from a Yu-Gi-Oh player view.
Haven’t watched this yet, but I’m very excited to as this is my most important thing to consider during deck building
Great video and that's not just cuz I share almost the exact same deckbuilding philosophy, lol. You've earned a sub, good sir.
🤝 Glad you enjoyed it friend. Hope you enjoy the next one
@@BasedDeckDept for sure!
i support the idea that one should build a deck that is fun to play against and that the better games people have are those that are interesting rather than those that they win. whe it think is important to point out though is that a great story is born is stuggle. commander games are no different. the secret to an interesting game is not what decks you play and specifically having a deck that is interesting and unique. it is about playing to succeed while removing the attachment the game has to your self worth (a big problem in tcg games for some reason) and being satisfied with a loss provided it was an interesting game. i prefer playing a more optimzed deck and like including good staples where i can. this does not mean that i need a demonic tutor in every one of my black decks, and trust me i know it is boring to lose to the same combo every time. but when a win comes in an unexpected way that is satisfying. i honestly think we all need to work on our social skills more and learn that games where we are proud to be obliterated by a hamster that hits as hard as saitama from one punch man and congratulate the opponent sincerely will lead to far more fun in a game. (and yes i have lost to the same boo hamster deck many times as getting hitt witha 30/30 trample with hast tends to take me out pretty quickly.)
if i had to critique the video in any way i would say try to remove the "based" component from it. in truth there is no deck that is more "giga-chad" than another, and using that lingo and those kind of jokes is more off putting imo that funny. just my own thoughts though
Thanks for the input. Love the sentiment re social skills, as that's where 99% of the problems in commander come from. As for based feedback, that's a bit of a challenge given my channel name but in context of the video, it seemed fitting for the thumbnail more so than anything else 👍
@@BasedDeckDept i did consider that. the video was insightful and i hope you cnotinue to get more traction with your channel
@@Ghost-Toast819 Thanks again for the input, and for watching! It's always appreciated
I agree that Commander is a social game first, and people who only try to win miss much of the enjoyment; however, I will always run Sol Ring. That high of going Sol Ring, Arcane Signet turn 1 is godly. Does it make me a target? Sure, but god damn, it feels good.
And luckily there's nothing stopping you from doing so
Hard agree with everything except sol ring. Early sol ring does provide a big advantage at the start but I believe such an advantage leads to more interesting and varied game states rather than just ruining it for all that didn't draw sol ring. It becomes problematic when you stack fast mana like crazy but just sol ring is chill and usually foreshadows the enemy of the table. Love your insights though bro 💋
Haha to quote my friend in the game I'm playing right now, Sol Ring is ok except when it's Sol ring into mana rock 🤣 glad you enjoyed the video 🤜🤛 fortunately Sol ring ain't going anywhere so you're quite safe
Great video, but there is one problem that got me so many times - if you build interesting deck with not so flashy/unussual cards, there is always one guy that lie about his power lvl deck and fuk whole table with "good" cards. Just be sure that whole table is on the same page if you want play slower, more casual game.
Yeah this very much relies on playing with good people.
i try to avoid remake the same strategies when making new decks, but whenever i dont eat my veggies and skip on powerful staples instead of the table going "whoa those are cool niche cards" instead they go "whoa those are less powerful cards you'll be easier to curbstomp". cutting consistency pieces for goofy unseen cards is not good advice even if in theory it feels like you'll get unique gamestates. more likely than not you'll just see maybe 1 of these cards each game and do not much of anything most of the time
Thanks for watching 🤜🤛 I think there's a middle ground of vegetables vs tasty food. If you go and look at some of my recent budget brews I've made, you're going to recognize many of the cards, but you're also going to see a bunch you've probably not seen before. The ones that you do recognize fit perfectly in that specific deck. All of the decks punch well, well, well above their weight and don't lack power (my mtg origin story is that of someone that loved competitive deck brewing). I think the key thing here to highlight is that when I say interesting and unseen cards, I don't mean goofy / bad cards as I'm a firm believer that if people build bad / underpowered decks, that they're never going to have a good time, regardless of flavour.
Incredible video! We need more people thinking about commander in this way. I want to add a few things though. I'm going to use the Kemba Kha Enduring deck I recently built for my extreme budget pod as an example (15 euro budget)
#1: Go out of your way to build archetypes in non-typical ways. (for example: looking for commanders that change things up or building it in the "wrong" colors)
Kemba is an equipment commander, which typically just means voltron. But Kemba wants you to distribute your equipment over as many cats as possible, so that you can enjoy a free equip and +1 boost. This completely changes your card choices and transforms the DNA of the deck. You want to go wide with cats and cheap equipment and you don't care for equip costs, which all plays very differently from typical equipment decks
#2: Play cards that win against cards your deck loses to.
What does a go wide deck lose against? Board clears. So I play cards that save my team, like Resistance Reunited. What else can it lose to? Decks that go taller than it and snuff it out before it can get there. So I play efficient creature removal specifically and ONLY to target things that are too big for the deck to deal with reasonably, like Valorous Stance. This results in me being to put up a fight in the face of problematic cards or decks instead of folding at the first sign of resistance
#3: Make your interaction/card draw fits into your decks strategy (The video already touched on this one, but I want to articulate it a bit more)
In my deck ALL of the card draw cares for or is the form of equipment and all but 1 of my removal pieces are either also cats, equipment or protection. I also don't play a single board clear in this deck either, instead opting to use Declaration in Stone to deal with token/copy decks, which also acts as a fine removal spell outside of that. With a focused Interaction package like this I very often have access to what I need
#4: Redundancy.
Make sure you run important effects multiple times or, if you can't, play a lot of recursion. My deck plays Auriok Windwalker, Brass Squire and the horribly expensive Puresteel Paladin for the times when my commander isn't around, since I always need access to a way to get around the high equip costs of my things. I also play effects like One Last Job to make sure they stick around
#5: Most importantly of all: build on a budget. At least once.
It naturally nudges you to include cards you'd normally never consider and exclude staple cards because of their price tag. You definitely don't have to go as extreme with it as me, but limiting yourself to something like 50 euro is already plenty
Again, great video. Love your stuff!
I’m late, but I have built a non fun Nekusar spins the wheel deck that involves dealing damage by drawing, discarding, and having cards in your hand, also it has counters that make you draw
i got a guy in my playgroup that runs cards like cyclonic rift, mana drain and fierce guardianship in all his blue decks when all i play is slightly upgraded precons 🤠
From the thumbnail I expected a very frantic video with a bunch of fake enthusiasm, but instead it's well thought out, calmly and well presented and above all else highly informative in terms of making the game fun!
Good job, you earned yourself a subscriber!
FIRST!
🤜🤛
Yeah, love my archangel gabriel deck i built... might not be the most efficient but its funny when it works lol... bring back rampage fr
Yeah but what if you both have fun playing mill and have fun playing against mill but thats not the general consensus in your usual pods
Yeah that's a social challenge in commander as old as time. People don't like seeing their precious cards leave their library. Communication is the only thing that can fix that. What don't people like? Why don't they like it? Are they actual issues or just perceived issues? For example if someone isn't milled out, those cards in their graveyard may as well still be in their library because they wouldn't have drawn into it. Either way they wouldn't play them. Sometimes play groups just need a big old dose of commander group therapy
@@BasedDeckDept yeah my issue is maybe a communicate to clearly cause I try to outline what the deck does, combos, etc. but since no one else does that for their decks it seems like I end up the big bad right off rip just cause people know what my deck could do
I appreciate this video for how similar an approach to deck building and game philosophy. It's part of what got me to pick up Rielle the Everwise after playing about a month of Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain. I wanted to draw lots of cards but I also wanted quicker turns so opponents wouldn't get too bored or frustrated. Turns out, she's really quite good to play. Built in power ramping so you can dome someone for lethal commander damage in one to two hits, unique draw mechanic which capitalizes on Izzet's plethora of looting/rummaging, and discard as an additional cost spells/abilities. This lets you turn something like Rites of Refusal into a Counterspell that is also a Tolarian Winds.
I really like these tips! I've sent it to my regular group, I think they'll agree.
First there was a snail. And now we have the frog. REJOICE
An analogy I use is, when you sit down to watch an epic movie you don't want to get a sitcom, or especially a tiktok video. On the topic of challenge i see it like a video game, the first time you play it it's ok to play on easy mode, but the real challenge is to beat it on legendary mode. To do this things like using sub rate generals and by cutting tutors/staples. One thing you mentioned was being hyper focused on theme and I don't agree, one thing I tell newer players is to have verrying archetypes spread across the color spectrum but imo the decks i play the most are rather generic in theme because they are the most easily tweaked through time and feel the freshest. but yes play fun flexible cards and you will have fun varying games. And don't forget your grave hate kids🙃
Even the way I built Chaos was designed to make it more fun, where i throw a spanner in the works like a challenge and players can choose to fix or ignore the problem presented.
Some of my favorite commander exclusive legends in recent years were the exclusive ones in Capenna! Those decks were very silly anyway considering the mechanics they decided to focus on(typically being lots of group interaction, even if Tivit has sort of ran away with that idea). But Vazi, Keen Negotiator might genuinely be one of my favorite casual decks and works both as a “kingmaker” deck and a group slug deck all at once.
I’m always reminded of a game where it came down to myself and another player and a 12 counter Descent into Avernus trigger would have killed us both and left the game in a draw. And then he countered the trigger on the stack and killed me 😂 the whole store collectively booed him for ruining the fun and we still joke about it from time to time
To add, while I’m sad about the loss of Dockside for my mono Red cEDH deck, I think losing it for Vazi is the biggest gutpunch 😭 it was the easiest way to make a ton of treasures and hand them to other people while giving me an option to win later in the game if it drags on
My favorite deck is my slivers which I intentionally nerf my play style to maintain being "lore accurat". I use gate lands to represent the cities they have spread to and taken over, play passively unless provoked or get to a critical mass and need to "expand the hive", only play my queen if it comes out naturaly and have several tutors in the deck that are all in there for the single purpose of finding possibility storm and letting the hive decide what it needs to thrive. I have never recived complaints and actually have people in my local area building other "lore accurate" decks.
That is fantastic 😁
I agree with most of your thoughts, I sont have many copies of powerfull cards and with my 18+ decks I have to chose which cards fits which deck. But I do play those powerfull cards just not all in a few decks rather than a few in each deck. This makes my decks a little bit more powerfull but doesnt make it unfun. Also I have a playgroup which will tell you if a card or a deck is not fun and will attack you first if you keep playing it.
Thanks for watching 🤜🤛 and it sounds like your playgroup passes the vibe check 😁
"Damn that's cool" has been Marina Vendrell for me lately, from the Duskmourn set. Just spending my game unlocking, locking, and re-unlocking doors for their wild effects with 44+ enchantments in the deck Marina can hit for her ETB has been hilariously good fun.
That sounds like a very unique play experience. Big fan
The idea of using flexible cards really spoke to me. Aside from Beast Within and Generous Gift, I also use cards like Divide by Zero, Oblation, and Supreme Will. I tend to value flexibility over efficiency, which is why I'd never run something like Path to Exile or Swords to Plowshares. Great video!
Glad you enjoyed it Thanks for watching 🤜🤛 Playing flexible cards is such an important concept. Glad it resonated with you! Don't sleep on Path to Exile though. In the right deck you can exile your own token or a creature that you want to die and ramp a land. Rampant Growth for a single white mana isn't bad and pretty flexible
I see sol ring as an okay card. I mostly run Exploration, which I feel as a way better card! I only have sol ring in a few of my decks. Because the decks need lots of mana.
Thanks for watching 🤜🤛
I find that building with limitations also helps a lot with making the deck building process more fun, and can create moments in games that are truly legendary. I was running my 5 color pure spellslinger deck, and an opponent running Lonis looked at my empty board and assumed that I've been having the worst draws and most of my good creatures are still in my library. They used up like 20 clues trying to look for creature, and found nothing but lands, instants, and sorceries.
Love that. Yeah I think limitations are great. Like my Simon Wild Magic Sorcerer deck where every instant or sorcery has to be 3cc or above. It's obviously tied mechanically to him, but it's more fun that way than running mana drain.etc.
I've always found it fun to make a deck that has an inherent flaw to it, like my latest creation Emry, Lurker of the Loch that is only swords, stones, knights and water themes. Figured it worked with the whole "Lady of the Lake" style art on the card. Is it the most tuned artifact draw Emry deck? No, but I do get to play things like Lodestone Bauble which would never see play for any reason otherwise. Or Dark Sphere because it at least looks like a stone.
Thanks for watching 🤜🤛 This is the exact novelty I meant. One does have to balance power a bit, or play decks like that into similarly powered decks, but love the sentiment.
Put netherborn phalanx in my henzie deck mostly for transmute. The other day a buddy made 140 tokens with his cadira deck. Phalanx was the perfect answer amd every one at the table was going crazy that we didnt lose to cadira
What can I say but incredibly based It's likely obvious that bunny reference of mine was also in relation to Cadira. Congrats on the memory friend 🤜🤛
Hoyl hells, its neat to see another person taking the base philosophy of commander back into focus.
I am arguing so much with my playgroup, why I use the more complicated to use/ not best in slot cards for my decks.
Or try to argue why I want a good game, not a win per se. Great video!
/edit: also looking through scryfall for suiting cards is super fun. I just love that site.
Thanks for watching friend, glad you enjoyed it 🤜🤛 Time to send this video to your play group to grow the based department I feel your pain. I'm very lucky with my playgroup, though we've gone through our own developments which is a video in itself I think. And re philosophy, given the recent announcements and vitriol aimed at the RC, it's more important than ever that where we can, we remind people this is supposed to be the fun, social format about connecting with people. There are tons of formats focused on winning.
After 1 month of playing Ms. Bumbleflower and trying to win with aprouch of 2º sun or big +1/+1 flying creatures, I just tried last week to deck my guys cloning force fruition a bunch 😂😂😂 that was glorious, off course I lost but it was really fun having the elf deck not making math about how much damage he could do instead how many elfs he could play 😅
Taking the route less traveled is almost always the superior choice
Great video! Turns out I love deck building more than I love playing the game itself! Only been in the hobby for 3 years or so.
Anyway, thanks for sharing!
Glad you enjoyed it. Thanks for watching 🤜🤛 And yeah I'm in the same boat. It's actually why I made this channel and why I started with deck brews. Building decks and talking about building decks is what I enjoy most about MTG, and playing commander to me is literally social fun + deck testing
Definitely number 7. I have nothing against proxies, but one regular opponent proxies the 'best in class' into every deck they run, to the point of predictability when they tap mana. It's kinda disappointing. I far prefer to ask 'can I read that card I haven't heard of?"
Thanks for watching 🤜 🤛 Yeah I share that sentiment. We'd all be better off if everyone learned that stronger doesn't equal better or more fun. Share this video with them and hope the based department rubs off on them 😁
Hello? Based department? Yeah I have a guy here that claims to be you. Wait that IS you? Oh okay.
My philosophy is that if it doesn't serve the theme or is vegetables, it doesn't need to be in. Ive recently finished a Stella Lee deck I was talking about in the comments of your video on it, and being constrained in what combos i was including helped to not go off the deep end in making every card a combo piece in an infinitely complex web of combo lines.
Yeah I 100% agree with you on that. Once you've decided very specifically what you're doing, you go all in that. Sounds like you'd also appreciate my recent video on cutting cards. Similar sentiments in there.
Agree with all your points. I like to think of my deck as a story telling device. I’ve had many people at my LGS and conventions all tell me stories of something cool that happened in their games. I wanna enable more stories to be told. An unexpected card,a well timed gotcha…I want everyone to leave the game happy and talking about fun moments
Glad you enjoyed it, and yeah, we're on the same page. Thanks for watching friend 🤜🤛
I agree with the general sentiment in the comments- your channel is amazing and CRIMINALLY undersubscribed. Your videos are fantastic my dude.
Thank you friend. Glad you enjoyed it. There will be more where that came from 🤜🤛 Based gang rise up.
agree with everything, another personal deckbuilding and card selection rule I have is flavor above all else. Are there better board wipes for my curse deck besides curse of swine? yes. Will I be running it anyway? 100%
Big fan of that mentality (and also a big fan of the swine machine)
10:57 this one shot didn't age too well
I'd love to make a fun deck like this. What are some less common commanders that promote heavy interaction? Is there a place I can search for a commanders that fit the bill? Most of my friends have the ability to spend more on cards than I can, so I work out miracles with reliable precons or cheap decks I've found online that other people have put together. It'd be cool to be able to make my own fun deck.
I think you can work in a lot of interaction with pretty much any commander to be fair. Definitely some commanders appreciate it or enable it more than others, but yeah, there's plenty of flexibility. As a starting point though, these are two that I built recently that I love. Also both $50 Melek ruclips.net/video/BvLR11BVoa0/видео.htmlsi=YEs7maYHTU0C-rdU and Galazeth ruclips.net/video/FaYrMDP8FPU/видео.htmlsi=e_0oBP36RwxzKj6P
Absolutely loved this video. I like your insights and can't agree more. You definitely deserve more views. Please keep creating amazing content!
🤜🤛 Glad you enjoyed it and thanks for the kind words. Hope you enjoy the next one in about a week
Excellent video. Your point about ‘what does your deck want to do, and how many cards do all of them’ is especially potent
Thanks for watching friend, glad you enjoyed it
Excellent ideas! I really like the idea of EDH being like a DND game.
And they don't like sol ring, what's not to love?
🤜🤛 glad you enjoyed it! Sol Ring is fine, just a small crime not a major one 🤣
This is the attitude I want to see in EDH in general, but ironically it is also exactly why I think the EDH ban list is idiotic and should only address issues in cEDH.
All the casual tables will rule zero anything they don't like anyway.
🤜🤛
I have a hard rule to either be entirely "friendly" towards my other players, or to go out of my way to make their experience horrendous.
That is to say, in the first kind of deck I will actively never choose anything that taps and stuns, discards cards, exiles many cards with ease, removes lands and so on,
whereas in the latter deck I know that I will conciously be making enemies and turn myself into the archenemy of everyone with no chances of alliances or diplomacy, usually at the cost of inflicting a lot of damage on everyone. And once I'm dead you suddenly have 3 players left, usually at 1/4 (hopefuly) of max hp looking to slug it out for the win.
I stick to the latter kind of deck when I know everyone is playing extremely intriguing fun decks (aka decks that are all about gaining life and not attacking, leading to 3,5 hour snore..- I mean laughter fests).
i'm glad i came across this video btw, subbed!
Great sentiment. I think about it very similarly. I have some decks that I bring out in games that we affectionately refer to as a good time not a long time games. Like my Eldrazi deck, my Ur-Dragon deck, or surprisingly, my John Benton deck. The latter being very fun but arguably the most powerful/aggressive. Glad you enjoyed the video
I like this. All of this. I have a question, did we just all agree that protean hulk is an acceptable include in casual games?
Glad you enjoyed it Shhhhhhhh we snuck that one under the radar For real though, Hulk is very strong, and definitely a 'higher power card' but to me its the same as any tutors. They're only as strong, or as bad, as the cards they're fetching. In Meren, I run no infinites, so Hulk is a strong card advantage tool that can generate wins over 4-5 turns, not single turn combo wins. That to me makes him medium power in my use case. But also, shhhhhhhhh
in 10:57 "avoid cards that create bad play patterns"
3/4 cards shown are banned, is this some kind of messaging about what to do with tergrid?
Poor Tergid... I wrote the script before the bans, and couldn't be bothered to change it. But clearly I was onto something. Time to go buy a lottery ticket.
I play exactly the same way! The unfortunate reality is that most people will, over time, buy more and more cards and naturally gravitate towards power creeping their decks. It takes a really seasoned player looking for novelty in unusual places to get this approach, as any new player will find novelty in busted cards and go for those first.
Thanks for watching 🤜🤛 And yeah, I just made a note about making a video about this topic. Getting more people from point a to b, and skipping the whole "play as much power as possible" stage will do the community a great service
This is like the 4th channel I’ve seen where someone puts a crude animated character. First the stick man. Then the metal mask. Then the avocado. now this. Wtf.
Hopefully the quality of the opinions helped you ignore the powerpoint my friend
I definitely scry hard when using scryfall. It's how I found out the fun Guided Passage!
Guided passage is one of those cards that feels like such a treat to discover in a deckbuilding adventure
That slide at 11:00 aged well 😂
Great video btw, I really enjoy your content ❤
Hahahaha I know right. Thanks for watching 🤜🤛
Boomerang mention! It's so good and everyone tells me to cut it 😭
Thank you for this video!
Glad you enjoyed it Thanks for watching 🤜🤛 Boomerang is an OG, how dare they! To be fair there are so many good bounce spells now that it is power crept out a little, but hey, if it works, it's still an incredible and versatile card.
It always seems easier to build a strong deck than a fun deck. More videos like this would be awesome!
Yeah I can probably do a whole video on the development over time of dynamics of a play group and how that affects decks going strong vs interesting. Glad you enjoyed this, and thanks for watching! Share it far and wide to get your friends and play groups to build based decks
That frog cartoon was so cute tho :3
Hot take: Taking cards like mana crypt and sol ring out unless they're actually needed is good deck design. Commander players are bad at deck design so the cards got banned. They didn't need to be banned. The players are just bad.
@@revelmonger the cards themselves are never the problem, so I agree. There is a much longer conversation about the player base being unable to self manage hence the bans, but again, I agree with you. There is nothing wrong with playing strong cards in the right context and in the right pod. That's basically what point 10 is about. People letting other people down.
holy shit you are exactly like me! I only run sol ring in my eldrazi deck too! what are the odds! great video btw
@@JetNAmplify thanks friend, glad you enjoyed it. Sol Ring, like any card, has a time and place. Eldrazi is definitely one of those times and places 😁
Reminds me of my Dungeon Cascade deck. I call it Bump in the Night.
Dungeon cascade sounds like a great time
This is how I build my decks, except I only use cards I got at home. So it makes me become even more inventive in what to include. It's fun and makes me appreciate my decks more than slap a staple bundle into every deck. There are tons of underplayed cards that needs a home!
I can also recommend reducing board wipes and add more "I'm gonna eff you all up" cards as it speeds up games and makes them explosive. I, and many others groan when games takes a long time after 3-4 board wipes. Rather having a couple faster epic action games than slug fests.
Thanks for watching 🤜🤛 the board wipe point is a fantastic one and I should have mentioned it. I've advocated for less board wipes for ages and my play group thankfully agrees
@@BasedDeckDept yeah and also of you instead of board wipes, include board protection, you can anticipate a wipe and come out swinging like a mad champ haha.
My motivation to play commander is to make my friends hate their life. :)
You either have amazing friends, or incredibly tolerant acquaintances :D
10:50 -- don't need to worry about not adding dockside, lotus or nadu ever again hoho
Thanks RC! Oh wait....
Solid.
Insanely well tought out and executed video, great work man. I really adore your philosophy of deck building and playing edh as a whole. i find often myself searching for cards that are explicitly powerful and make my deck strong, but for decks with very weird or cool types of interaction. for example i love my mazzy deck, were a briar shield turns into a stupidly good card. and of course, i could look such cards up at edhrec or other sources, but i found that card while looking through a friends old mtg collection, and that just feels awesome.
keep up the great work!
i just wanted to say i really like the style and pacing of this video, it is very nice to look at and listen to
@@vinz4015 Thanks friend. Glad you enjoyed it! 🤜🤛A lot of the magic of commander is finding people that share a similar philosophy about how to play, or what they want out of a game. Finding great cards that are a 10/10 in a very specific deck, and getting to hare that experience with others is such a good time.
I think it can be hard for people to build unique decks due to so many cards being essentially the same thing. There are a lot of reprinted cards, and it can be difficult to sift through the massive list of options. So instead of finding interesting and unusual cards, most people end up with the same cards that are only different in name.
Yeah, I tend to agree. Scryfall helps a lot if one learns to use it
@@BasedDeckDept I really like your idea of using Scryfall to search keywords and card types, but then going back to EDHREC to find anything you obviously missed.
Finally, someone who builds decks like me? But how do you decide how to whittle your list of 300 cool cards that fit in the deck down to only the 60 or so you need?
Definitely agree with you about Sol Ring. Wish it gets banned one of these days, as you can't really convince everyone to not play it, even with a friend group. I've tried
Oh boy do I have a video just for you. Quite literally the previous video I made. I'll likely make another about the mechanics of a new build, but for now this should help somewhat ruclips.net/video/9HXF108iTgc/видео.html
@@BasedDeckDept And yes, as you must well know, I was being conservative when I said 300
@@joedoe7572 Haha I know that feeling all too well.
This video uses very cute images and has a good message :)
Glad you enjoyed it Thanks for watching 🤜🤛
Hard agree with literally everything in this video
Glad you enjoyed it. Thanks for watching 🤜🤛
If you don’t have fun losing to equipment storm/infinite turns my condolences.
I've found a great way to counter storm decks is the little known tactic of getting up and going to play another game
@@BasedDeckDept lol it just fun too do it’s not a storm deck but sometime it does it mainly takes infinite turns. And in my play experience playing at shops players seem to actually find it fun. And they expect infinite combats but not turns so pretty wacky and it’s a like a six card combo
@@Bigsaucebig As long as people seem to find it engaging, it passes the vibe check, so that's all that matters
I agree. I subscribed already.
Thanks for watching
You cooked with this one
Thanks friend 🤜🤛 this is the first of hopefully many similar bangers
cEDH players should try out legacy or vintage tbh
Vintage, Legacy, Modern, Pioneer, Pauper. It's not like there aren't enough competitive formats in MtG. "Competitive" players want to make everything about them.
Good video. Subscribed.
🤜🤛 Glad you liked it. Hope you like the next one in about a week
fantastic! shared, liked and subscribed!
10/10 content and editing
@@MerlorMerlor Thanks friend 🤜🤛 Glad you enjoyed it
FROGS SUPREMACY!!!!
frogs ftw
Speak up lil bro
🤜🤛 based department rise up
based takes 100% agree
Glad you enjoyed it 🤜🤛
Really great video
🤜🤛 Thanks! Glad you liked it. Hope you like the next one in about a week
AGREE 100% all of it
Glad you enjoyed it friend, thanks for watching!
🤜🤛
I love this video.
Thanks for watching 🤜🤛 Glad you enjoyed it
Immensely based
Thanks for watching friend Glad you enjoyed it 🤜🤛
Loved the video!
Thanks friend, glad you enjoyed it. I imagine you'll love the next one too
No.
Yes.
Uber based
Based gang rise up 🤜🤛
One thing to also mention is removing tutors.
@@MrHamerb I think tutors are only as guilty at being boring or powerful as the cards they are targeting. When people are building bad decks and throwing in the most expensive, powerful staples and targeting those with tutors, it's not surprising that the tutors are bad and boring. Tutors targeting interesting or fun cards and reduce the path to interesting and fun things.
@@BasedDeckDept yes but with all the great cards printed recently many of those decks no longer need tutors
@@damonlouis6536 That's true. Definitely not advocating for tutors, as I run very few of the staple tutors. Just don't think they're an evil
11:35 alternate solution: everyone starts with a Sol Ring in the command zone. That way everyone has access to it on turn 1 and everyone is on an even playing field.
Yeah I've heard that suggestion. I think that's not as good as just not running it, because it means that anyone with more colourless mana, be that in the command zone, or in their 99 will benefit from it, and it will warp people to build decks around it. Running a 3cc, 3pip commander when someone else can cast their 5cc Kenrith, Korvold, Pantlaza on turn 3 as well because of a Sol Ring I can't use as well would suck. Fortunately there's absolutely no reason that you and your play group can't rule 0 that though, which you should if you all like that idea
@@BasedDeckDept its difficult to get a social consensus of folks to not run it, even friends....trust me ive tried lol. I kinda have my own rule to limit my sol ring use: if it can't help me cast my commander, i dont run it. Which means any commander I run that doesnt have a 2 generic cost (or more) doesnt get the Ring.
So stuff like Kunoros, Radha, or Yidris dont get it. But stuff like Korvold, Locust God, or Hazoret does.
I havent yet gotten my play group to try the "sol ringin command zone" idea. If we ever try it ill let you know how it goes. I thought about the warping nature of people building their deck around it as well - while that might be unbalanced in a normal pod i think specifically making a format around it might b something worth trying. Especially if the Rules Committe aint gonna be banning it.
@@vileluca Yeah it's a really tricky one and getting a group of people to agree to one thing is typically very hard. Definitely not saying any potential solution is a bad one. We got to a pseudo solution in our play group. Some people would run Sol Ring but we agreed that when you have a Sol Ring start it just skews the game and power level, so in some games we rule zero that if we get it in our opening hand, we mulligan it back. This obviously requires trust in the playgroup, but if there are people trying to abuse a system, we don't have a problem with the system we have a problem with the people
Un-set cards : / yeah no thanks, let's not promote those in general play.
Did I talk about un-set cards? Which ones? Worth saying though that I think un-set cards for the most part are absolutely fine in fun social games.
@@BasedDeckDept Saw in half is from unfinity, but is also monumentally based and super unique
@@bansamnow9521 TRUE! Though in my defense it was also printed in Bloomburrow Commander
#7 is the reason I was/am disdainful of proxies so much. Nobody ever proxies a suboptimal card - it's always Rhystic Study, Cyc Rift, or Smothering Tithe. It's always the same staples in every deck.
I tend to agree that people get drunk on power and proxy all the broken and expensive cards. This also speaks to #10 about playing cards you'd want to lose to. The problem isn't the proxies, but the people making selfish choices as opposed to social ones. Mentality/baggage/social dynamics is probably a whole video by itself, because it's why I rarely play with strangers that have no 'reputation to uphold' in LGS or online spelltable environments.
And thanks for watching!
I disagree. I love to proxy cards, and I love to repeat (some) cards.
I'm always looking for the weirdest hipsterest commanders that no one at the table has seen. I don't have all the cards and proxying makes trying them before I buy them feasible.
I own two Radiates, but I am not going to buy more rn because they aren't cheap, but they aren't "optimal", but when I have it in my hand I'm super invested waiting for the perfect moment to turn someone's incremental value play into something that will make the whole table remember the game.
Proxying isn't bad because boring people will use it to make boring decisions. It's super cool because fun people can choose to make fun decisions that their income tax bracket wouldn't otherwise allow.
@@BS-bv5sh Just to be clear, I have no issue with proxying, and I do repeat cards if it makes sense for the decks, but I do tend to cut back on copies across decks unless it's a 10/10 banger for that specific deck
@@BasedDeckDept my opinion on proxies has definitely softened lately, because less money going to WotC makes me happy these days. If you want to run these cards in your stronger decks sure. My issue is that if you run the most optimal cards in every single deck then the rising tide makes all your decks around the same powerlevel - i prefer having a power range so i can tune what im playing to my social environment.
If we want to play sweaty sure i'll pull out my Kenrith or Korvold and pubstomp the table on turn 2. But i shouldn't have to feel like i must play those decks to have a chance at winning at all.
First deck building principle for me:
Don‘t play any universes beyond cards.
Second deck building principle for me:
Let your deck tell a story.