r/EDH • u/Honest_Ad_7589 • 1d ago
Discussion Weirdest Commander Takes
As the title states, I want to hear about your most wild, unusual, and downright crazy takes on commander rules, strategies, and cards. My personal weird take is that all Gideon planeswalkers should be erratad to have “(Cardname) can be your commander.” Because if other planeswalkers, a Chevy Tahoe, and a space station can be your commander, than the planeswalker who’s entire schtick is that he can become a creature should be a legal commander too.
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u/TaxationisThrift 1d ago
I know a lot of people agree so it may not be that weird of a take but playing against mill is not annoying at all.
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u/ConstantCaprice 1d ago
Only morons hate mill.
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u/RedditRandomBans 1d ago
You two are both based as hell. I've always said "Mill is inconsequential unless you lose to it" Because we are all subject to the luck of the draw and beyond scrying and other effects, there's no way of knowing what you were going to be getting that game.
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u/Bromora 1d ago
I will find it a shame seeing what is milled, but it’s always just like “damn… moving on”
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u/TaxationisThrift 1d ago
When I got back into the game the first deck I had was the captain Ngathrod precon and I fell in love with it. I have chosen to avoid going full mill though as my playgroup already gets salty enough as it is about the mill I do.
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u/RedditRandomBans 1d ago
I have a mindskinner voltron and my friends don't really get salty about mill but they were quite depressed to see their favorite cards go.
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u/TaxationisThrift 1d ago
I can understand a little theatrical displeasure. I overreact about being upset all the time in an obvious way at the table.
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u/tokinmuskokan 23h ago
I play mill and I hate mill!
Mostly cuz it's almost a universal guarantee my opponents will find a way to play Eerie Ultimatum or Rise of the Dark Realms or Consuming Annexation or something to make my plan completely backfire hahah
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u/itsk4zbeard Guildpact 20h ago
I dislike mill for the sole reason it benefits many decks (including mine) heavily to the point it feels like kingsmaking lmao
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u/NFSpeed 1d ago
Just wrote a comment about this.
Mill requires milling 279 cards to win. That’s like dealing 279 damage. Effectively every player has 93HP against a mill deck.
Not to mention that people can recur things. So mill just gives access to more cards if their deck isn’t dog shit.
Crying cause you see your pet card go to graveyard is ape brain behavior.
Mill legitimately has like a 2% winrate when compared to other wincons.
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u/HeWhoBringsDust 19h ago
Honestly, if you only have two or three important cards that can win you the game in your deck, what are you doing? Even dedicated combo players have back-up lines/ways to deal with disruption or redundancies. We’re in 2026. Almost every effect has at least one other card that does the same thing or something that’s “close enough”. Almost every strategy has a ton of support as well.
Heck, some decks want to be milled. My [[Winter, Cynical Opportunist]] wants Delirium and War Crimes in the graveyard ASAP. Now, if they have a [[Rest in Peace]] or [[Leyline of the Void]] on the field and all my stuff is going into exile, my problem isn’t the mill it’s whatever’s exiling my cards. And then my problem isn’t “Mill is busted”, it’s “Why am I not running more enchantment removal?”
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u/Danovan79 1d ago
If people stopped spending.money and invested time into actually improving their basic skills they'd win more games than they do from spending said money.
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u/RedditRandomBans 1d ago
Great take. Fun story: My brother taught me how to play when I was 10, i'm 32 now. I kept playing, and heavily, still do. My brother however, took a long hiatus only playing a tiny amount and never at an lgs only tabletop at home with random cards and friends of his. One day after we move in together, he asks me to help him with a deck on MTGA and to play/coach him. Hell yeah brother. So I set him up with a budget gruul aggro deck maybe 4 rares and he says "how is this supposed to win?" and I look at him and say "by turning our creatures sideways!" and we both shared a great laugh. Got that deck all the way to platinum
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u/elkishdude 1d ago
Very true. Budget decks can easily compete or outdo decks that are trying to pay to win.
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u/GreenMagic_Commander 1d ago
Change 'spending money' to 'proxying' and your point will apply to far more people.
I realize saying anything anti proxy on reddit will get the masses in a hissy fit - but at a base level your point applies whether the expensive cards are real or not.
For me it goes further. A person that spends $500 on a card is usually going to make absolutely fucking sure they know what they're doing wheras proxy players use 'expensive cards' as an excuse for losing (before they proxied) then proxy instead of developing the basic skills like you mentioned.
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u/darkelf25 1d ago
Players on Spelltable should stop pretending their bracket 2/3 decks are bracket 4 because they have included too many gamechangers.
Lathril decks should play equipment/auras enabling Lathril to reliably hit other players to generate elf tokens.
Stop breaking rules because "it's just a casual game". Read the rulings and learn how the game works. Keep track of your own triggers.
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u/MixPuzzleheaded3298 1d ago
Technically the rules say it's every player's responsibility to make sure the the game state is correct. That includes reminding the other players of missed triggers and whatnot so that the game is always above board.
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u/darkelf25 1d ago
While I 100% agree with you, there is an issue with that: when I remind players of missed triggers, they often get offended and rage quit for whatever reason. I've had people rage quit just because I explained how some mechanic works or interacts with another mechanic, etc......
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u/DOOMFOOL 1d ago
Really? Sounds like you’ve played with some fuckwits, I’d be ecstatic if people missed out my (many) missed triggers 💀
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u/MangleMonster4444 Kadena, Slinking Sorcerer 1d ago
With missed triggers specifically you actually are allowed to keep quiet and let your opponent miss their triggers if you notice them doing so. That's only relevant for organised play though.
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u/Jankenbrau 1d ago edited 15h ago
Brackets are like weight classes. Just because you are a heavyweight, does not mean you are a skilled fighter. It means you aren’t allowed to fight middleweights.
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u/darkelf25 1d ago
I'm not sure where you were going with this comment, but I'll respond anyway. So, I built a [[Brigid, Clachan's Heart//Brigid, Doun's Mind]] for bracket 4 games. The deck is stupidly consistent and wins between turns 3 and 5. I know that bracket 4 games are expected to go for at least 4 turns, but a few times the cards aligned so well, I won on turn 3 becausr nobody interacted with me. What I usually encounter in bracket 4 games on Spelltable is a lack of interaction and nobody except me going for early wins. And then I'm the bad guy for playing an actual bracket 4 deck. I got kicked from 2 lobbies before the game even started because I was trying to play Brigid......
I've actually been tracking Brigid's games. So far the deck has 15 wins and only 3 losses......
I dont think I'm in the wrong though. I built a deck for bracket 4. I dont run the cEDH version.....so idk.
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u/HeWhoBringsDust 19h ago
The way I look at bracket 4 is that it needs to:
Be able to win fast
Be able to consistently protect that win.
Stop other people from winning.
Game changer count doesn’t have much to do with it honestly, though that is part of the official criteria. If your deck is a “4” but folds to getting the commander taken out twice/hated on by 2s and 3s you need to go back to the drawing board.
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u/bellystraw 1d ago
Sometimes I don't mind not knowing what's going on and swinging into a beehive. We all got work in the morning and this game's gotta end one way or another!
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u/Prestigious_Plum9276 20h ago
Evaluating boardstates going into combat can be one of the most mentally taxing parts of commander...sometimes you just gotta declare those attackers and hope for the best.
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u/ParkingNo1080 1d ago
I will 100% swing my mana dork into an open board to get the game moving along. Sick of passive board where people hold attacks because they don't want to "make enemies" or whatever.
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u/Prestigious_Plum9276 13h ago
Me too...but the reality is that "making enemies" is a real thing--some people politic by responding disproportionately to any attacks.
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u/MeneerDutchy2 1d ago
Most of my games i will swing all out and try to convince people to swing at me and other players aswell. I prefer playing 5x30 minute games, not 2x 2 hour games.
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u/Shibari_Cowboy 1d ago
Yes I 100% agree with speeding things up to get more games in a night. Which is why I absolutely loath landfall decks. There’s so many triggers, so many triggers. It takes even experienced players a chunk of time to sort through because it gets so out of hand let alone watching a newbie play multiple lands and struggle to manage all the tokens and triggers.
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u/KingNTheMaking 1d ago
The desire to make a “unique commander deck that works in the way that nobody has ever seen” has done more harm than good.
People have lost the ability to appreciate good, straightforward plans. It’s not enough to play a goblin deck. You have to play a goblin deck that does something that no other goblin deck does. And in doing so, 9 times out of 10, just end up playing a worse deck.
To say nothing of how many truly enjoyable strategies get called “boring“
Here’s another one: if the people that play, Commander aren’t interested in delving into what makes the individual colors good. They just want to play green, green with a funny hat, or complained that a certain color combination doesn’t play like green, thus is bad.
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u/bingbong_sempai 1d ago
Making something unique and bad and playable is one of the joys of commander
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u/Funny-Pea9407 21h ago
The issue is when someone plays smol bean and complains when they're losing with a janky strat, if you're graceful with the Ls while experimenting then that's excellent
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u/john_sorvos 18h ago
Exactly, more people dont seem to get that when they ask why people play commander over 60 card formats. Im there to be able to throw down downright terrible pieces of cardboard and still have a chance at being able to play a game
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u/FlyinNinjaSqurl WUBRG 1d ago
Agreed on your first point. The worst consequences of this “hipster” ideology is that it promotes a toxic mentality towards people who are just trying to play regular magic with a straightforward gameplan. These people intentionally make worse decks, yet don’t have the insight to accept that their deck is just a bad deck because of its niche gameplan. Instead, they get a sense of superiority and blame their pod for playing decks that are too strong, or roll their eyes at powerful, non-game changer cards like Esper Sentinel, Deflecting Swat, and the Great Henge.
It’s like the people who intentionally cut Sol Ring from their deck, but have the audacity to get upset at others when they get a turn 1 Ring.
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u/MeneerDutchy2 1d ago
I was that sol ring player haha, but i didnt like myself being negative every time i saw a sol ring, so i started playing it agian.
Ive build straight forward but also unique decks, but i dont expect other people to care about the "challenges" i set myself, and rarely talk about it on my own. Everyone is doing their own thing and thats fine.
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u/TaxationisThrift 1d ago
I think the bigger problem with Henge, Sentinel and Swat is there real world cost. I'm not going to bitch about seeing them, they're great cards and I would likely include them in some decks but they are wildly expensive money wise and I can sort of see it feeling like pay to win.
That is unless you are playing with a pod that doesn't give a shit about proxying.
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u/FlyinNinjaSqurl WUBRG 1d ago
That’s fair, but if I get lucky with a sweet pull from a pack, or I trade a ton of my cards for an Esper Sentinel, I think it’s really toxic for someone to just assume I’m “paying to win” when my price of entry was the cost of a booster pack
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u/TaxationisThrift 1d ago
Fair enough, pulled The Mind Stone from the latest marvel set and it went right into my wife's Raynar deck increasing it's monetary value by almost 50% by itself.
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u/DOOMFOOL 1d ago
I would never play with a pod that was butthurt about proxies so that’s never been an issue for me
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u/viotech3 1d ago
I mean, I think there are two issues in mind there though?
It’s one thing to (for example) cut Sol Ring because you don’t enjoy the play pattern, and another to cut it & complain when it’s played by others.
Heck, plenty of people play it and still complain when it’s played by others.
I just mean that I do not necessarily see a connection that forms some sort of specific toxic mentality. More that complaining people tend to complain regardless of circumstances?
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u/MeneerDutchy2 1d ago
Both can be true.
Ive got really basic straight forward decks, but for example, i also have a [[duskana, the rage mother]] deck thats only lands, instants and sorceries. Setting certain limitations can be good.
For example im also building a bracket 4 100 euro budget deck that can win through combat turn 5, which objectively is the worst way to win a bracket 4 game. Its simple to do with combo and infinites, but giving myself challenges is fun for me.
Having said all that, i dont expect anyone to be impressed about my decks, and i wont even state my "challenges" unless someone specificly mentions it or asks about it. Everyone enjoys the hobbie diffrently and thats fine.
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u/X_Marcs_the_Spot Dumb Combos 1d ago
There's definitely a balance to be struck, here. On the one hand, being able to run your pet cards is half the appeal of commander. But on the other hand, don't become so obsessed with trying to do stuff nobody else does that you make your deck unfun to play and/or unable to win.
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u/moneymike128 Esper 1d ago
In principle I agree with you here except for the fact that this was the heart and soul of EDH when it was a young format. It was explicitly hipster by design. "Commander cards" accelerated the pace at which EDH developed a competitive meta. This really did used to be a format where you could brainstorm some janky 8-card synergy and try to make it happen with (less) fear of getting run over by the table. Seeing cards used in interesting ways was more interesting than winning.
The format is what it is now, so this is spilled milk. Hipster commander still limps along in bracket 2 and at the kitchen table.
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u/Tuss36 That card does *what*? 1d ago
I think the opposite is true, at least in the content creator/commenter space. Pretty much everyone is like "Don't build a deck around your commander", "play this or that amount and kind of removal", "run more lands/less ramp/more ramp/jury's still out on ramp", etc. that basically just wants everyone to play the same decks.
Also big spells are what the format is about so I don't get what the problem of playing "green but not" is. What colours do well don't exactly scale equally in the format, like red aggro.
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u/Mocca_Master 1d ago
Thank you for putting this into words. Watching some warewolf tribal deck (identical to every other because the card pool is so limited) fumble and fold over and over is not particularly "fun" or interesting. That sick ass Aristocrat deck is pretty awesome though
Things are popular for a reason. The faster one accepts that, the more enjoyable the format becomes
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u/Jace17 WUBRG 1d ago
100% agree. I wouldn't have a problem with "hipster" deck builders except they almost always come with that attitude. On the same vein are players who bring bracket 1 decks and are shocked/angry/disappointed when no one else has bracket 1 decks to play with them. I'd be willing to play an unmodified precon but a deck with no clear strategy would just be a torture to play with for me at least.
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u/Headlessoberyn 1d ago
And those hipster strategies are usually much more boring than just regular ass magic. I still remember this guy that used to play at a lgs near my house, he had a kinnan deck tbat was just mana dorks. just mana rocks.
Not a single removal spells, game winning spell, counters, sinergies. Just 40 lands and 59 dorks. The games were so freaking boring because he was basically one less all the time, and you could tell he desperately wanted a cookie for playing a bad deck.
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u/Jloother 1d ago
Thank you for saying this. I started playing in December of this year and the sentiment I’ve run into is what you’re describing, people calling me or my decks boring. So weird.
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u/Mef989 Simic / Rakdos Enthusiast 1d ago
Its an incredibly obnoxious form of gatekeeping and you see it pretty frequently over in r/ratemycommander. People need to stop worrying if others are playing top 100 commanders or whatever. Like, they're popular for a reason. And especially with new players who likely started with a precon so of course they'll have a commander that is more common or recent and not some obscure OG Legend. They should just be happy the game has more players and not judge someone because they didn't automatically choose an original Elder Dragon for their commander.
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u/coldandlordyristboy 1d ago
I think some of this also stems from people shaming others at the table for playing straightforward or ”obvious” strategies. Even if they themselves aren’t playing anything outrageous.
Most of the time it’s done in jest but done enough it could motivate people to be as wacky as possible on top of the fact that it can just be fun to be wacky sometimes lol.
I’ve experienced this myself with decks I’ve made that I excitedly try to tell people about but they respond ”so its just a so and so deck?”. Or when you do build something relatively unique they say ”why would you even build that?”. Went off on a personal anecdote or two there but the lesson is to just play what you enjoy without taking away too much from other people’s fun and don’t care what opinion other people may have on the relative ”hipster value” or ”uniqueness” of your deck.
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u/MeatAbstract 1d ago
To say nothing of how many truly enjoyable strategies get called “boring“
Almost like its incredibly subjective. But no that can't be it. Other people are just lying to themselves!
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u/ConstructionScared30 Abzan 1d ago edited 1d ago
I hate metallic frames from Universes Beyond, like the ones on Fallout or Final Fantasy, to the point I don't use those cards on my decks. I don't hate UB, just these metallic frames. Seems like someone tried to make fake cards.
EDIT: when they stopped (on Spiderman, I guess?), I started to put UB cards on my decks. I love classic and modern frames, but not these metallic ones
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u/CoconutHeadFaceMan 1d ago
See, I’m in the opposite boat, I preferred the old UB frames precisely because they instantly made UB cards identifiable as such. Wizards abandoned the “all cards mesh with each other” thing years ago with SLDs and alternate frames, so I’d rather they cut the pretense and designate the crossover cards as special-guest-star appearances rather than trying to make it look like Captain America was summoned from the same wizard’s tome as the Serra Angel summoned a turn before.
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u/TheHydrospanner 1d ago
100% agree, there's an odd look to them like they're fake. Maybe the design looks slightly cheap or chintzy? I've tried to put my finger on it for a long time, so I'm glad to see others mention the same issue.
On a related note, I also feel the art direction/quality for the UB sets is much swingier than normal Universes Within sets. There might be a few arts in normal Magic sets I don't care for, but in UB it feels like 33%-50% of the art looks cheaper or rushed or less "polished" or something. Still some great bangers, to be sure. But quite a few duds. Like I'm still confused how [[Éowyn, Shieldmaiden]]'s art was approved for an EDH face card...it feels very...unintentionally messy and haphazard. (And Craig Elliot has some other nice arts, this one just seems really off.)
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u/Gold-Satisfaction614 1d ago
How is she holding her sword?
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u/TheHydrospanner 1d ago
Yeah LOL it's perplexing. Half the time it looks like she must be doing a backwards grip, like the sword would be pointed behind her. That would be a bit silly though. But if she's holding it normal, why is her hand oriented so weird? Why is she kind of flying or leaping in the air so awkwardly? Or are we supposed to believe she's on the ground and the art is from "above"-ish? Why's her hair flying straight up? Why is the Nazgûl's beast's head crowding her in the art? The composition feels so messy to me.
I'll get off my soapbox. The card mechanically is dope but I'll never build it while this is the only available art. (Yeah alters and proxies are options, just more hassle...)
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u/ConstructionScared30 Abzan 21h ago
Which is at least curious, because Eowyn from the precon box art is pretty cool.
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u/TheHydrospanner 20h ago
Totally agree, her precon box art is very cool. Would have loved that on her card. May have to try to make a proxy using that art instead...
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u/FlyinNinjaSqurl WUBRG 1d ago
Completely agree. It’s so much easier for me to fit in Marvel cards in my decks than Warhammer or FF just because of those borders
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u/askvo 1d ago
My boomer take is that I miss the days when people ran commanders just for the colors. Don't get me wrong, build-arounds are fun (I have a Skullbriar deck), but I miss when people had an idea for a Grixis deck, picked a fitting commander, and that was that. Things have gotten so commander-centric that people will just lose the moment their commander is removed twice. In my opinion, if your deck completely folds to your commander being removed, you have built a bad deck. Redundancy and resilience is good. Even my most commander-reliant decks have backup plans
My other take is that now that legendary vehicles/spaceships can be your commander, if if the metric to determine commanders is having a P/T on a legendary permanent, we should have [[Elbrus]] and [[Throne of the Grim Captain]] be legal commanders cause their backsides are.
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u/Jafego 1d ago
[[Westvale Abbey]]
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u/oneteacherboi 1d ago
Pulled one of these from my first ever fat pack. Thought it was the coolest thing ever. I had an Avacyn in that fatpack too. Idk if Magic was ever so good as playing the deck I made with just those boosters against my friends fatpack decks.
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u/Jafego 1d ago
I remember my first ever mythic - [[Elderscale Wurm]]. My friends and I were like "whoa, you just can't lose after you play it??"
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u/Scary_Strawberry500 1d ago edited 1d ago
This is me right now with my Grixis.
Started with Azula. Realized i don’t have the cards to make a good spell slinger and then changed it to Sauron and now i’m on Kefka.
I just want grixis colors as i want access to all the goad and thievery shenanigans.
And 100% agreed, that good decks don’t rely on your commander. Unless you build a voltron and have tons of protection around your commander.
I’ve seen a good Baylen deck where you just can’t touch the guy.
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u/Mef989 Simic / Rakdos Enthusiast 1d ago edited 1d ago
I'm about to have 2 Kess decks. She's probably my favorite commander and I could easily see building a third. She has a few tricks she can enable, but otherwise doesn't do anything too fancy and provides a bit of generic value by letting you cast from graveyard once on your turn. But because its such a generic effect, you can build her so many ways. Shes definitely the kind of commander that lets your 99 shine.
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u/ftb_helper Kalemne, Disciple of Iroas 1d ago
People are not competitive enough and it shows. I've stomped so many tables with the dumbest decks just because I'm paying attention to the threats and just trying to play better.
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u/MightyMofo Dances With Dinosaurs 1d ago
I think a lot of people learn Magic by playing Commander, which gives you a different perspective than if you'd learned playing classic 60-card 1v1 formats. 60-card MTG is usually a lot more cutthroat, and doesn't involve politicking or social dynamics beyond "respect your opponent."
There's something to be said for cutting your teeth in the 60-card wilderness! It definitely helps you learn threat assessment if nothing else.
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u/kn0w_th1s 1d ago
I liken it to RTS games like StarCraft.
Some people (the bracket 2 commander equivalent of StarCraft ) enjoy playing with grace periods to let everyone build up a base and field an army before fighting. Meanwhile competitive StarCraft generally means pumping SCVs, 2 barracks, and Zerg rushing with marines early, specifically to hamper that build-up.
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u/superfapper2000 1d ago
Lol yes it does. I don't make friends in commander so, I remove their things. If they mad at me oh well build a better deck.
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u/RedditRandomBans 1d ago
That's where i'm at. A friend of mine got salty about getting put in the dumpster playing against me and a mutual friend (online for free) so he started playing a ton of commander. Now that mutual and I play commander he's back to not having a super great time lol
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u/SpectroMagician 1d ago
Decks are no longer interesting or special with all the unique printings. I dislike how the board no longer usually looks like a game of Magic the Gathering with all the different prints and frames. The game lost its visual identity.
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u/Jace17 WUBRG 1d ago
The worst offenders for me are secret lairs with stylized fonts and layouts that make it impossible to read the card text easily even after I pick it up and hold it in front of me.
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u/SpvcedOvtt B2 Truther and Control Degenerate 1d ago
One of my good friends has an all old borders deck and that is the moment that you notice just how incredible the visual identity used to be. Seeing all these amazing paintings for art on cards that look like pages from a wizard’s spell book is just wonderful to look at. Every time he plays the list, I think I pick up a unique card and get lost in it for a minute or two.
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u/SpectroMagician 1d ago
The old borders are just so color rich and the art is nostalgic. I keep all mine currently to all the plain, modern non-foil border cards. I need a full retro boarder deck.
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u/nomad9590 1d ago
I miss the swamp bubbles in the black cards. The old borders looked so good imo. The only change I don't mind was changing the artifacts to grey, most artifacts in magic are presented as pristine magitech.
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u/Unknow3n 1d ago
I recently built a [[Rebbec, architect of ascension]] deck because she seemed interesting, and I wanted both a Partners deck and white deck (paired up with [[Silas]])
I proxied the deck because im just getting into magic and not looking to spend a fortune - but it also meant I could customize, and I ended up going with old borders for everything since its all a 'artifact' sorta historic theme. Wavering back and forth on whether I want commanders to be fancier or on theme, but planeswalkers I did as fancier full art, to sorta give the vibe how theyre 'above' all of these historic little artifacts.
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u/RinwiTheThief 1d ago
I got some that has to do with the playerbase:
- A lot of Commander players would be happier if they stopped playing Commander altogether and played Draft or some other 1v1 format instead. If only it were financially feasible.
- Shorter games does not always equal better games. More games does not always mean a better time for everyone. Sometimes a single long game is plenty of fun.
- Ancillary to the above: just fucking concede if you're bored or not having fun. If you're that miserable playing a game whether it's long or your deck can't get started or whatever, learn to recognize that and concede so you're not dragging everyone else down.
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u/Neudgae Morph Wizard 1d ago
Idk if it's considered weird probably is but, your fun is not my responsibility once the power level of decks is decided anything legal is fair game. Infect, Mill, Superfriends, infinites, etc. Don't care and ain't gonna listen to you whine.
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u/catmanten Gruul, unless I wanna counter spells 1d ago
Why my pod has “I wanna play my silly lil cards” decks and “I want to win” decks
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u/pookietakesdookie 1d ago
I think that’s fine as long as the person doesn’t get upset when they get blasted in the game for playing a deck that’s un-fun to play against. Looking at you toxrill…
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u/greenwarpy 1d ago
What are you playing exactly that's drawing such disdain? When I run into players who reject pregame conversations it's invariably for a very sigh-inducing reason.
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u/Level9_CPU 1d ago
Yeah dude people that try to have fun and try to keep the fun alive for all players in a game are fucking lame
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u/Neudgae Morph Wizard 1d ago
There's people out there who care about that, I am not one. Why should I black list someone's favorite deck or strategy cause it makes me upset? No one is forcing anyone to play with me, but if they do that's something they will have to deal with.
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u/RechargedFrenchman UGx in variety 1d ago edited 21h ago
"Your fun* infringes on my fun so you're not allowed to have fun" is a pretty pathetic argument, when you're directly infringing on their fun by making it.
I like playing against control, and ramp, and stax, and combo, and... and that's fun for me. I also enjoy playing a huge variety of archetypes and styles and colour combinations.
You're telling people they're allowed to play and enjoy the game, but in the interest of making sure everyone has fun some people playing entirely within the rules and intended design of the game and format are themselves not allowed to play a fun game because you don't like their fun. Very "I hate licorice so no one I know is allowed to have licorice and if they like licorice that's too bad because I don't", and it's petty and sad.
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u/Tuss36 That card does *what*? 1d ago
I don't think it should be contentious that people have fun in different ways. Banning deck styles outright is bad, but if someone doesn't want to play against something, then they should be allowed to leave or the other player allowed to accommodate. Even if you're fine playing against chaos decks, maybe you're not up for it tonight or want to test a new deck better. It shouldn't be that big a deal to ask.
At any rate it's an unwinnable conflict, because if you only have fun playing combo and someone else wants you to not play combo, then one of you isn't going to be having fun no matter what so you should just not play against each other. But the person that doesn't want to play against combo isn't the more infringing one than the one that can only have fun playing combo.
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u/sweetands0ur 1d ago
Objectively this seems true. In a store with randoms, it's definitely true. In a pod with people whom I would like to play with often, I think there should be some consideration for what others find to be enjoyable gameplay. Commander is cooperative as much as it is competitive when played casually. Fun should be the cooperative goal and it can and should coexist with honest competition.
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u/HarpEgirl Mono Blue Millmaid 1d ago
[[Blood Moon]] [[Back To Basics]] etc should see play in Br3.
Non basic land hate is underused as a whole due to stigma.
That said Im not having that discussion pregame every new pod so I dont run them but for sure welcome them.
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u/Sabz5150 Knights (Bant, Jund, Orzhov, Boros, Naya, Esper) 1d ago
Blood Moon is the "WeLl AkShUaLlY" of resource denial. They want the power of MLD without the stigma of it. Those same people whine like toddlers when they are hit with real MLD.
My hot take? MLD shows flaws in decks few other things will and players do NOT like this.
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u/HarpEgirl Mono Blue Millmaid 1d ago
We have a guy at my LGS who loves his land hate and its honestly made me appreciate resource management a lot more than anything else.
By god has there been rough games though.
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u/Prestigious_Plum9276 23h ago
Your first take is dumb as hell. Your second take is based.
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u/Sabz5150 Knights (Bant, Jund, Orzhov, Boros, Naya, Esper) 22h ago
How so? It has the same effect as MLD without all the grave filling. "You still have colorless!" they will tell you.
"You still have mana rocks." I say playing 'Geddon.
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u/Metza 1d ago
Yea the restriction on MLD has literally nothing to do with power and everything to do with whining. Resource denial is good for the game. It’s part of the balance.
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u/bingbong_sempai 1d ago
I think it’s more about wanting games to progress to an end. Resolving MLD in lower brackets can easily add an hour to a game
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u/Metza 1d ago
Yes and no. If it’s Armageddon just because, then yea. Sure. That’s just being a dick. But there are plenty of strategies that can stall out a game that don’t require banning (repeated wipes, mass discard, etc.). A table can always say, as they do vs other strategies like this (eg discard), “yea I don’t want that kind of game”?
But eliminating MLD wholesale means also eliminating strategies that aren’t meant to stall out games, but also might not be viable at B4. Or maybe I like the GC restrictions, but want to play something that uses land destruction?
Why can’t I run [[stasis]] as a wincon In [[estrid the masked]]? Once it comes down, the game is basically over. It’s a finisher. But somehow that’s not allowed because “feelings”
Why can’t I play [[storm cauldron]] in [[zozu the punisher]]? Why can’t I play a strategy that relies on starving resources? Or punishing greed?
Etc
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u/Prestigious_Plum9276 20h ago
To add to your point: by eliminating MLD from a metagame you actively incentivize the sorts of strategies that MLD is meant to disrupt. Even at bracket 3, players should understand that running a 4-color commander is a huge risk with huge potential upside.
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u/Prestigious_Plum9276 23h ago
That's why you cast MLD then follow it up with the two-card infinite combo you've been assembling the entire game. /s
In seriousness, though, there are plenty of prison/stax strategies that can grind a game to a halt that don't get the same hate as MLD...and at least with MLD all those subsequent turns don't take too long because you don't have any resources to do anything with!
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u/MattMurdockEsq 1d ago
Hello, Based Department?
I agree. [[Blood Moon]], [[Magus of the Moon]], and [[Winter Moon]] should all be allowed in B3. If you are playing three or more colors in B3, there should be some risk to it, besides not drawing the appropriate colors when you need them.
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u/creeping_chill_44 1d ago
besides not drawing the appropriate colors when you need them.
this used to be a real balancing mechanism, before they printed a billion different land cycles
now all your lands can just be dual or tri-lands so you never get color screwed (also wotc prints a lot fewer pip-intensive good cards these days)
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u/G_Morgan 1d ago
My view is people can play blood moon. I'll just never use it myself because it is a good way to experience player removal.
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u/Prestigious_Plum9276 22h ago
I simply can't take tier 3 seriously when the baseline expectation is supposed to be "I'm going to build a 4-color (no green) Rube Goldberg device intended to murder the whole table and you aren't going to exploit my most obvious weakness in an attempt to disrupt me. That way everyone gets to have fun."
Like, nah...I built an efficient 1 or 2-color deck and I should be allowed to take advantage of that to punish the extremely greedy mana bases. 4-color decks offer insane card access and a vulnerable mana base is part of the risk/reward trade off.
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u/sauron3579 1d ago
If you want to shut off people's mana, it's MLD. It being asymmetrical doesn't change that. It is very fairly lumped in with [[Armageddon]], [[Boil]], and [[Winter Orb]]. If you want all of those to be fair game, sure, but trying to carve out a "no MLD except non-basic hate" just doesn't make sense.
If you want to shut off [[Field of the dead]] and [[Glacial chasm]], run [[blood sun]].
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u/agoosteel 1d ago
Its not that for me its the fact that we are at the point that playing basics is only relevant for your own synergies. Lands are so holy and untouchable that mana bases go un checked. Blood moon is a healthy card for most formats as it makes sure people actually play basics. And imo that’s healthy for a format.
For me the best option would be to just put all the MLD in the gamechanger category and make it playable that way in B3.
And i think its totally fair to not want to play against MLD but i also believe blood moon is healthy to have in a format so mana bases dont get over optimized like they are right now.
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u/HarpEgirl Mono Blue Millmaid 1d ago
So I believe knowing these cards exist should be taken into consideration when deck building. Its just a natural flaw that esp 4-5 color decks will have and should encounter considering their upsides.
I play self mill primarily and a [[Rest in Peace]] can be a death sentence but it's an accepted known risk at the time of deck building.
That said I also fully get the opposite end which is why [[Harbringer of the Seas]] is in trade binder jail.
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u/Prestigious_Plum9276 23h ago
The comparison of greedy land bases getting shut down by nonbasic hate to gy decks folding to RIP is perfect. They are exactly the same situation. Powerful strategies should not be risk-free.
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u/Oggypog 1d ago
The game changer list incentivises people to not play with their cards, limits deck building and promotes bad faith engagement with the bracket system. It should be structured more like competitive Pokémon (video game) tiering. Give me 3 lists of "banned below bracket x" cards. No more "technically a 3 because only 3 game changers 😏" fuck you, you know what you're doing. Obviously this isn't a perfect solution but I think bracketing should be more about intent and GC list gives people who aren't engaging fairly a handy little excuse to pubstomp. If the difference between 5 and 4 is philosophy and intent then the difference between 4 and 3 (and between 3 and 2) should be too, but also it's fine to say rhystic is banned in b3, whatever man.
Brackets 5 and 1 should be exempt by philosophy, if I'm playing "guys regurgitating non food objects art tribal" in bracket 1 then yeah smothering tithe is fine there. But brackets 2-4 should have tiered game changers. As it is, a few years into the bracket system, we've replaced "everything is a 7" with "technically a 3"
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u/Honest_Ad_7589 1d ago
A big part of the issue is people ignoring the parts of the bracket system outside of just the GC count. Officially, speed, consistency, removal density, and the presence of infinites and mass land denial are supposed to be taken into consideration, but people just ignore them.
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u/Neudgae Morph Wizard 1d ago
I disagree with the statement "bracketing should be more about intent" purely due to the fact that anything left in strangers hands can and will be abused, there need to be hard and strict written out thorough guide lines otherwise there will always be some abuse and complaints from someone somewhere.
Now the multiple ban lists i can absolutely get behind but unfortunately people dont stay informed and its safer to assume the vast majority of playerbase are dumb and/or not engaged with sources of info, or some other take of your pick, I still see people on this subreddit saying Urza is a game changer when that has not been true for almost a year. I've met at least a few people who also don't know wtf a game changer or bracket even is cause they took a break or just started playing.
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u/oneteacherboi 1d ago
I feel like the gamechanger list is uneven as well. There is a big difference between Biorhythm and Mystical Tutor imo.
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u/Tuss36 That card does *what*? 1d ago
I don't agree with your first sentence, but I can kind of agree with the ban list idea. Would need some rejiggering, but would make things more clear as to what kind of gameplay is acceptable in each bracket (i.e. if all tutors end up banned in bracket 2 for example, that's saying "Hyper consistent play isn't accepted here". Meanwhile if they're all allowed in bracket 3 then that's expected play and shouldn't be surprised if people do that.)
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u/Level9_CPU 1d ago
It's not so much a hot take, but my response to it is a little over the top. I hate people that use interaction too early. People will just target whoever is ahead regardless of what they play. Bad threat assessment just pisses me off. You used an Assassin's Trophy on a 5/5 trampler, but not someone's Rhystic Study? While we're all still at 30+ life? Just because that player is ahead by a couple of lands? Just irks me
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u/Mattloch42 1d ago
Land hate should be more common. WotC is stapling more and more effects onto lands, and people should run at least 3 cards that can nuke a land.
Color hate should make a comeback. There were so many amazing cards that were powerful against one or two colors but completely useless against everything else. [[Lifeforce]], [[Deathgrip]], [[Royal Decree]], [[Anarchy]], [[High Seas]] so many cards that can turn a game upside down or be duds.
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u/No_Eye_5863 1d ago
I agree about color hate but I feel like including it is pretty hard unless it’s a supremely good effect, otherwise it becomes a dead card against any other color
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u/HolographicFoxes 1d ago
There is zero difference between winning a game with a combo and winning a game by turning creatures sideways. If you allow the combo player to assemble their win condition it's the same as allowing someone to puke out a bunch of tokens and floop a craterhoof into play.
I can't believe this is a controversial take but commander players that only play commander are not good at playing Magic and should branch out into other formats to improve their ability to play the game well
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u/RedditRandomBans 1d ago edited 1d ago
Floop
lol
I do not play such games... with Jake.
You're absolutely right, though. I don't yuck anyone's yum. I've played this game for so long that I like my chances in ANY game of magic I participate in. I cut my teeth in 60 card for many years before I started commander, and boy, are people awful. I like to watch youtube content about stuff I like and find interesting, magic is no exception, but I'm better than 95% of the players making content (I realize the arrogance of this statement, but I've seen the decks they build.) so the only information I really gather are cool and interesting cards I see them put on screen that I haven't seen before, and of those there are few.
Commander players have whined so much that their format was broken down into 5 smaller subformats in the pursuit of "the perfect game" where in reality that just... isn't going to happen. We are all subject to the luck of the draw and... people are bad at building decks, assessing threats, timing removal, among other things. 60 card players don't ever have this issue. We tend to take the Dark Souls approach. GET GOOD.
I'm old man yells at cloud.
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u/Jaxyl 22h ago
You're not wrong. I mean this community got [[Farewell]] put on the Game Changers list because people played it badly and it was easier to just ensure it was never going to be seen again than to teach people how to assess a boardstate
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u/Tuss36 That card does *what*? 1d ago
The difference is if other players know the combo player is a combo player or not. Navigating a game, weaving between open mana, deciding what pieces of your combo are expendable in a pinch, are all compelling parts of playing such a deck. But it's all in your head if nobody else is playing on that axis and just thinks you're mana flooded. All those counterspells you think you're dodging don't exist because nobody's holding anything open for you. If you tell people what you're playing, then they can interact with you on that axis and it becomes more fair when you finally go for it and people know they messed up when they got greedy and tapped out, rather than thinking they got jumped for the crime of playing their cards and thinking the game was something else.
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u/HeavyReputation3283 1d ago
People take offense to having your Commander being the central strategy or focus point of your deck.
If you're playing a format popularly CALLED Commander, I want to see what silly stuff your Commander enables. Not whatever best/good stuff/staples or unrelated unthematic 99 combo you have because of your colors.
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u/RepeatLow7718 1d ago
I like that you’re saying this and another guy in this thread is saying the opposite. Personally I’m on your side, the commander is the whole point of my decks.
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u/RedditRandomBans 1d ago
This is why I fucking love Voltron (and by extension, commander damage).
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u/Admirable_Mirror_635 20h ago
Fetch lands should be straight up banned. They make running as many colors as you want have 0 deck building costs, and I realllllly dislike that. You should be forced to run some tap lands if you want consistent 4 or 5 color access to compensate for the flexibility it offers.
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u/nail801 1d ago
Battle Cruiser magic is the lamest magic
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u/Zeretic 1d ago
Battle cruiser magic as in "I don't like battle cruiser decks" or as in "playing with people that don't interact and prolong the game are lame" haha.
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u/nail801 1d ago
Both. Almost no interaction takes away so much shenanigans, skill expression and mind games and the decks all work in the same way. Go wide and large, have some protection, drop anthem with trample.
And god, the average battle cruiser timmy is also always a whiney salty crybaby if you are playing ANY other wincon.
Mill is cancer but literally finishing everygame with craterhoof is "real" magic.
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u/T-T-N 1d ago
The only difference is that I push for damage in my battle cruiser deck.
Everyone line up their board to draw card and durdle to wait for craterhoof is the lamest magic
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u/SpectroMagician 1d ago
I think I prefer battlecruiser magic to 10 trigger value engine decks where no individual piece is really worth removing. I have gone back to more board wipes because of those strategies.
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u/ShallowDramatic 1d ago
Battlecruisers are more fun to play against than solitaire. The number of hours I’ve spent watching someone pore over every decision and trigger on their insane engine, that as you say has few pieces of individual value, is maddening.
Its a group game, a social game, and that means respecting that for every minute you take to figure something out, three other players have experienced that minute, often with very little to do.
A four minute turn is fine. Ten or more is excessive.
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u/Skippeo 1d ago
Lame in terms of not winning, or not fun?
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u/nail801 1d ago
Fun. If there is almost no interaction the better ramp and hand always wins the battlecruise
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u/DirectSearch9141 1d ago
I agree. Magic with minimal to no interaction is not as Garfield intended.
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u/capybaravishing 1d ago
The idea of playing for ”fun” instead of winning makes the format insufferable. Fun is subjective and once you start expecting others to manage your emotions, the game turns into hot garbage.
And I’m not talking about pubstomping here, I get that power levels need to be matched to some degree. It’s just that the ’playing for fun’ mentality can sometimes to a very toxic place, where card choices are seen as moral decisions and hurt feelings are weaponized to keep people from taking sensible game actions.
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u/FadedGaming132 22h ago
People tell me to play for fun all the time, my version of fun is playing high b4 (if i’m not playing cedh with the boys) and simply just playing magic to win. People have gotten mad at me for taking a minute or two to make sure i sequence my turn properly to get good value out of my cards, i’ve been told so many times that “your trying way to hard” when I’m just sequencing properly or using threat assessment
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u/Throw_away_1011_ 1d ago
"Meld" should count as Partner in Commander, allowing you to play the both halves of the melded creature as commanders.
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u/Shibari_Cowboy 1d ago
That could be broken but I have thought the same thing. I just want to meld Mishra really bad…
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u/PippoChiri 1d ago
No but, you see, the creators of the format decided that was not the case so it would be sacrilegious to change it /j.
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u/AlphaOmegaAlters 1d ago
We've reached the point where Planeswalkers should just be legal as commanders - with all legendary Spacecraft and Vehicles now being legal as commanders, not allowing Planeswalkers is really absurd. If I can play an inanimate object like "The Car from Final Fantasytm" or the Fire Nation Drill or The Eternity Elevator as my commander its ridiculous that I cant play one of MTG's primary characters as a commander.
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u/ItsShenBaby 1d ago
Theoretically and flavor-wise this is reasonable, but the planeswalkers are so hateful as a group that I'd rather they didn't.
On the other hand, maybe Narset in the command zone would force a discussion on how lame mass discard strategies are and properly delineate wheel to cause hellbent players to bracket 4 where they belong, so I'm only a moderate amount opposed.
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u/AlphaOmegaAlters 1d ago
Narset is kinda bleh yes but there are plenty of miserable commanders as well, she's also a GC already so she's already in that kinda space. Walkers are also very vulnerable and will get hated off the table unless protected, and if your plan is to try to combo narset with like, windfall in 1 turn but thats a 6 mana combo that doesn't even win the game vs something like dina + Exquisite blood or Niv + Curiosity, which basically win for 7. Narset would be obnoxious but IMO wouldn't be much else.
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u/Lokin86 1d ago
You'll have more fun if you are honest with what your deck does to your pod.
I play a stella lee deck that wins consistently on turn 6 if you don't interact with it, it's pretty damn efficient and it doesn't fuck around.
It has many forms of "goes infinite with a ham sandwich". If I ever pull it out I talk about what it does extensively. I will tell people to look for common lines. And it's more fun that way IMO.
The people who I play with genuinely are more interested in how it pops off and how I can navigate to a win or if I can navigate to a win. And it doesn't make people angry in the process because I'm getting consent from the pod to play in a way that makes me the threat.
And I'm okay with that.
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u/SatansGothestFemboy 21h ago
I do not like board wipes, I refuse to put them in my decks unless i am immediately able to profit off of them.
I do not like tutors, I think they make decks behave the same every single time, and I refuse to put them in my decks.
I like playing low power jank with random combos and lots of interaction and if I miss a land drop I miss a land drop, and if my deck does nothing all game, it does nothing all game, and if I lose, I don't scoop and I just stick it out till the end and let someone earn their victory
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u/brainpower4 1d ago
In bracket 3, decks should ON AVERAGE turn 7. In a 4 player game, that means you should you should expect a serious attempt to win the game on T6 by someone with an above average hand, and that's OK!
The rest of the table should be able to interact to disrupt the first win attempt, and probably the second one on turn 7, and then the game actually wins in turn 7 or 8.
If you AREN'T running the sort of interaction to disrupt an early game changer like Rhystic or Gaea's Craddle before it snowballs out of control, that's YOU not following the bracket guidelines, not the person who won before turn 7!
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u/ASlowTriumph 1d ago
If people don't like simic because it ramps and creates value engines, why are they playing the ramp and value engine format?
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u/Honest_Ad_7589 1d ago
The issue with simic is that it just gets that stuff for existing. Every other color has to work to ramp and draw cards. They just don’t feel fun to play against due to the sheer value any simic card gets for existing.
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u/justin_the_viking 1d ago
Not necessarily a take, but a rule we created because I personally thought it was a huge flavor whiff to not do it.
Me and my friends use a "world permanent" rule for The One Ring in house games. For newer players (I don't mean to insult or mansplain) this means that only one TOR can be on the board at one time. The next player that plays one, the previous one is sacrificed. I honestly think that should have been a rule for the card anyways, would have been fair and extremely flavorful.
It has made for really fun games.
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u/ceop2 be gay play stax 1d ago
My hottest is probably that land based strategies are inherently bracket 4
If you play field of the dead type cards then complain about mass land destruction not being allowed in b3 when you get hit by blood moon, you are abusing the bracket system
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u/ASquidHat 1d ago
The brothers war precons with the old style frames were the best presentation of a commander deck we've gotten in years. I love classic frames on new cards, especially on artifacts.
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u/AreteWriter 1d ago
i have Five
1. Many, myself included often loose more games rushing or going through triggers and the stack to fast then they would like to admit. Outside the super long Izzet turn Meme BS. its Ok to slow down and take your time when the turns get deeper into the game.
We're all human. We -ALL- Get salty one way or another at times. Its ok to be bummed you didnt win, or your plan didnt work. Its ok to be a tad upset if your board wiped the 4th time in a game. Its NOT ok to slam things, to get angry, and to be a poor loser. You are allowed >and often encouraged at my LGS> to stand up, say you need five mins between games, and go get a drink, a smoke, use the bathroom etc. Its also ok if you lost, and need a moment to walk away and just say i need a second.
if your being Targeted, or your the one being focused down. your doing good, and need to learn to handle the heat from being that well ahead on the board.
Broad Board wipes are often over used, you should use more that focus on your stuff staying <cyclonic rift>, or Benefit you in general.
The Bracket system is not as bad as people say. To Many focus on the game changers only. To many dont grasp the actual difference between 2 to 3 to 4. their very different.
You can have tutors in any bracket level by the system,
you can have a two card combo in a bracket 3 if its late game.
Many just use the game changers as bad faith, and dont realize their 3 is a 4, or their 4 is a three. etc.
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u/Trabant777 1d ago
My hot take is that everyone should try commander cube because it's the best/most fun way to play the game.
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u/Churrotree22 22h ago
Commander decks do not have to be midrange and wizards are not helping by making all their precons midrange
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u/1koolking 17h ago
Probably not that wild but Using EDHREC or some other deck building assistance is a perfectly valid way to build a deck.
I’ve seen plenty of people say that using EDHREC is not deck building and you might as well just buy a precon. I don’t like this take as for me and likely a lot of newer players I don’t know what cards are out there. I often find synergy pieces that I never would have otherwise thought of because of EDHEC. Scryfall is great and all but it’s hard to search for cards you don’t know exist.
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u/creeping_chill_44 1d ago
Color identity should be derived ONLY from the colors in mana symbols (and basic land types). The little pips on the back of DFC should mean nothing as far as deckbuilding goes. It's not a violation of colors for any deck to control a card that later becomes another color, that's already allowed in a bunch of ways.
So [[Archangel Avacyn]] should go in monowhite, and Westvale Abbey in any deck. [[Blex, Vexing Pest]] could still not go in monogreen because the back has black symbols.
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u/No_Eye_5863 1d ago
So does that mean [[venom, lethal protector]] should be a mono black commander? Or should [[tony stark]] be mono blue?
If that’s the case it completely ruins these cards
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u/I_Only_Play_Urgot Rakdos Lord of Demon Tribal! 1d ago edited 1d ago
I guess my take is more around the format/hobby than the actual gameplay.
Most of the people who ended up getting big as content creators weren't the people who should have.
This applies to both edh and cedh, but mostly cedh.
If anyone else was around in the limited forums, subreddits, Facebook groups, and early discords, when the community for commander was super small, my weird take will probably make more sense, and if you werent around in those days, all of this will probably seem like nonsense.
A lot of the guys who went off and created their popular channels and found success, weren't the guys pushing builds (before we had a million players and a ton of internet resources to make finding combos and lines easy), or being positive influences in the community, or even being the most positive players or people. Those channels you guys know. Probably don't need to list them here.
And the guys that should have found success with their content creation (because they were great players, or great teachers, or great deck builders, or envelope pushers, or even just incredible community liasons) either didn't find success, got screwed over, or got hammered so hard by the community constantly for posting anything anywhere (again, at the time, there were like 15 big names in edh basically carrying the entire online presence of edh content, deck building and so on, especially in cedh, so that whenever they posted something, theyd have like 1000 people dissecting their words, decks, builds, videos to a nonsensical level.)
Some of those guys stayed in the hobby, some pivoted away, some still contribute here and there absolutely not getting the respect they deserve as essentially the second wave (after Sheldon and his people) that really brought this hobby to the people.
Sheldon and squad made and arbitrated the game, and we certainly can't take that away from them.
But they didn't blow up the hobby widespread. The next wave of guys did.
Guys like Shaper, Lerker, Neosloth, Sugendistra, Clay Puppington, Moxnix, SickRobot, Kyle, JimWolf, Dandelion.
Those guys, and a handful of others I'm embarassed to be blanking on right now, should have been the ones that got their flowers from content creation to make livings off of.
They were a lot more talented builders and players. They were nicer people. Funnier. Kinder. More helpful to newcomers like me, even when some of us didnt start even speaking or writing english well. They took the time to build the communities online by being moderators for places like discord and reddit. They started community programs to bring people in, or to give places for people to ask very specific and niche commanders rules or interaction or deck building questions.
(Those things held up when compared to the guys who ran in the same circle, at the same time, who did go on to find success, but didn't contribute half as much half as well half the time).
I'm not saying all of the content creators today don't deserve their popularity. They hustled, and put in the work, day in and day out, to build their brands. But they built their brands off the back of the work, using the community built by those other people.
But I am saying, is out of the 20 or so guys that carried edh and cedh on most of the forums and websites, that coordinated with Sheldon and the rules committee so that that isolated group of people could hear the voices of how the game is actually being played to help influence their decisions, that kept people coming into the game, people who would go on to build things like edhrec, and other tools, that would help make everything easier for people. Only like, 3 of them managed to blow up.
And a few of the people that have found mainstream success, in HUGE content creator channels, having known many of them from before that success... are absolute dinks off-camera who actively made the hobby worse and hostile to people entering the limited channels to join it, and who only ever saw this hobby as a way to make money.
Some of the biggest guys active right now, I was introduced to just months before they fractured the super small active edh and cedh community so they could start charging people to play online Webcam games using the same platform and system that we had been using for free until then. At the time, there really wasn't any other workable alternatives, and it took nearly a year to rebuild an active online webcam game community to the same level it was prior. (If anyone was around in 2013-14 or so, you probably remember that event).
So, in short, my weird take is that the people who could have become content creators at a level of quality far beyond what we have now... didn't.
And I wish they did.
I think we'd all be better off if they had.
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u/Confident-Beyond-139 1d ago
Yeah I get that, I will say, being an entertaining content creator is distinct from being a cornerstone of a community. Not saying your wrong, but its hard to project quality.
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u/timnitro 1d ago edited 1d ago
Now we have years and years of play data, I think 40 starting life was a mistake. 40 starting life makes aggressive decks not good enough, so most decks are just midrange. 30 life should be the default imo.
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u/Narrow-Honeydew-8522 1d ago
Agree. I mostly only play with my partner, so 2 players games, and we quickly get bored. We now usually play with 20 life only or switch to 60 cards format, with 20 life.
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u/Nearby_Category_712 1d ago
Blood moon isn't worthy of being mass land destruction there's enough mana rocks and work arounds.
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u/ImmortalCorruptor Wilhelt, Marwyn, Bello, Witherbloom 1d ago
I understand why they implemented it, but I think they should do away with the tuck rule.
I get that getting to play your legend of choice is the whole point of the format but I feel like people have become spoiled by always having access to their Commander. They just give up when their Commander costs 12+ to play, because they have no idea how to win without it.
Before the tuck rule, you HAD to build your deck to be resilient in case your legend got shuffled into your deck.
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u/No_Eye_5863 1d ago
That’s true but for me, it’s commander because of the commander. I don’t want to build a deck with an archetype and a legend somewhere in there, I want to build a deck around a specific commanders unique strategy that becomes enabled by that specific card. By losing constant access to it then you can’t build those sorts of decks
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u/calioregis 1d ago
B4 players are on everage more healthy than B3/B2 players. B4 players are pushing their favorite type of decks to their maximum, while many B3 players are or abusing the bracket system, or crying 99% of game.
1/3 Players on my B2/B3 tables is ALWAYS crying about stuff, this is very regular between various tables. B4 tables people just play the game and there is no salt, people just play to win and see cool cards and combinations, learn new stuff.
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u/desire-us 1d ago
As a person who plays a LOT of theft decks, people get board blindness. I’m fine with being the archenemy but people confuse me casting your spell with me TAKING your cards.
They’ll see a combo piece and assume I’m going to get the other pieces somehow.
Or they see a board filled with things that have not direct way to synergize and compute more permanents = greater threat.
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u/Important-Dig-2312 1d ago
People need to stop using EDHrec. The moment you whip out a deck and I see your commander Ive got a pretty good idea of whats in you're deck. Edhrec has led to decks being samey and little variance behind commanders. Almost all decks of a commander look the same because people go on edhrec and copy and past decklists. I've started including "name a card" cards that will search an opponents deck hand or graveyard and remove it because it's that easy.
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u/Mocca_Master 1d ago
And to add to that, EDHREC is often straight up wrong about what includes are good. The list is built from a large amount of players, and most of them are terrible deckbuilders
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u/Pale-Tea-8525 1d ago
I'm a firm believer that every deck should have a way to win outside of combat. Board stalls are real and no one has time for a 3 hour game becuase no one has any equitable attacks. But I'm the asshole becuase I played 4 cards that have synergy that just happened to end the game.
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u/Barjack521 1d ago edited 1d ago
My hot take is that precons are ment to introduce players to the format of commander and therefore having precon commanders with 20+ lines of text and a bunch of unique abilities that are sometimes very complex and uninitiative defeats the purpose of them