On the "No one will meta game against you like your brother" topic, there's literally a top Yugioh player who got his start by building annoying control decks to counter his son. They started going to locals and discovered the strategy was a lot more potent than anyone expected.
Jeff Leonard is a legend, he did this not just once but with two decks! And the coolest thing was that his son helped him test a lot and he even managed to become a niche microcelebrity in the community and he's just so swell that, even if he plays decks that are considered toxic, he's just appreciated by everyone. Also I think he's one of the very few people who managed to win with exodia on a feature match of a big tournament! Jeff Leonard is the goat
When y'all touched on the experience difference between one time hate vs persistent hate, it just kinda made me think about how there seems to be a lot of "can dish it, can't take it" players who will choose the persistent hate option because it seems better but then groan when a persistent hate piece is used against them by another player. Empathy seems to be an important skill for healthy edh games. For example, there's someone I regularly played with that had a Jodah deck, and playing Back to Basics against him makes him groan since he has very few basic lands. But on the other hand he's running cards that are very punishing against opponents for playing the game like the original Vorinclex and Jin-Gitaxias, so it becomes a problem of "does he get to play the game, or does everyone else?"
Had a friend with an Eldrazi deck that ran Void Winnower and every time it hit the table there were collective groans while he smirked his shit eating grin. I picked up one of my own and put it in a very fast reanimator deck and the card was no longer ok for him. He never took it out of his deck, instead he bitched about it until he just went to another play group. The first night he wasn't around that card went away forever and there was never a problem with it again. I personally run both OG jin and Vclex in my Uro deck but those are my win conditions not just a f*ck you because f*ck you card
I feel people have seemingly arbitrary lines for what is appropriate. The diversity of strategies in this game is what makes it interesting. A bit oversimplified, but I think that it is important for the playgroup to decide if they want to play checkers or chess. I don’t run MLDs or such in general, but every resource and strategy that becomes sacrosanct dilutes the game in many ways. Mtg boomer by most standards for context.
It is just more powerful to do so. I think is okay as long as the rest of the table is ok with it and everyone is playing at that high power level. Definitely something to give a heads up in the pregame talk.
I was with you until Back to Basics. I think every deck should be able to play spells within it's color identity, and within reason. You can brew a Jodah deck without pieces that shutoff other players for sure too. I don't think we actually solve discrepancies with additional punishment. I think the person NOT playing those pieces is the solution to not wanting to play against those kinds of things. To me, 2 wrongs don't make a right. I had a friend once take his cEDH deck into casual pods because he thought the store was not cracking down on pubstompers enough. Becoming part of the problem will not eliminate that problem. Actually talking will.
My example of a Metagame move i’ve made: My friend had a Rankle Master of Pranks deck, it was very Grave Pacty. I started running cards like Sigarda, Host of Herons in my Naya deck. She didn’t really add much to the strategy of the deck, but she sure helped me stabilize a board when I otherwise would have constantly been losing resources. It made the Rankle player kind of an asset, because he was drawing the other two players’ aggro, while i just hung back with Sigarda and snuck a win in. I guess all this to say, I don’t necessarily try to metagame to shut down players from doing anything at all, i just make it harder for them to do the thing to me. ghostly prisons for go wide decks only stop them from punching me etc.
"Nobody will metagame against you like your brother," truer words have never been spoken. My brother lives nearby and we both got back into magic/into edh at the same time. We definitely did build around strategies the other used for a while, lol.
maybe a way to think of it is there’s different levels at which meta operates, and a lot of this discussion of when it is and isn’t appropriate to metagame has to do with at what level is the metagaming happening: •deck/card meta (eg. building with a specific deck/card in mind, like your friend’s kykar tokens deck or ad nauseaum) •player meta (eg. building with a person’a general playstyle and habits in mind, like joey’s love of graveyards) •playgroup meta (eg. the people you play with regularly, probably your kitchen table group) •community meta (eg. your lgs) •format meta edit: liiiiiterally what dana talks about at 54:48
I think the "EDH doesn't have a sideboard" is actually a great argument for metagaming. The game is designed to be interactive, and when you play regurally you know what you are likely to see more often than not. Choosing to take up one of your valuable 99 slots can be an exciting risk/reward when it works, but there is a possible cost of a really dead card (or a card people hate and turn on you for). But at the end of the day, if I know I'm likely to face shenanagains that I can metagame I'll do it and enjoy the look on my opponents face when they realize there is pushback to what they are doing.
Something I've often thought about for metagaming is that you push people toward or away certain things when you metagame. Let's skip the big metagaming things, rest in peace or collector ouphe level cards, say its a creature heavy meta and you play a bunch of boardwipes. Makes sense, crushes the already pretty weak creature decks, wins games. Synergizes with ramping up and ignoring the board. But then the appropriate metagame response is to play combo. Not only is your deck bad against it but its just a better strategy than yours or those creature decks, so you're pushing someone to do something that your decks probably couldn't handle anyway. The people I know who metagame heavily against creature decks with tons of wraths absolutely hate it when I play quick combos, and I try to talk it out with them about how I can't really just ram my face into boardwipe tribal, but it doesn't seem to get through that they're incentivizing me to play something they hate to play against. Your metagaming choices create the meta and you should only do them if you're happy with that meta that is created.
My take: 1. Don't play unfun cards that stop the game. E.g. exiling graveyards is fun, but preventing graveyards from existing isn't (especially when the effect is on a non-creature making it harder to interact with). Red Elemental Blast is fun, Choke is not. 2. Don't target a particular person with meta cards unless they win a lot. 3. Remember that sideboarding is not allowed in commander. Putting enchantment removal in your deck is fine, but you can't do it pre-game when you see that you're facing an enchantment deck.
On that last point I'd argue it's fine *post* game. If I felt my deck was missing in an area, I don't think anyone should come over and say "hey don't swap out cards until you get home!" nonsense. I bring extra cards/side board when I want to swap out cards to either power it up or slow it down if the store is having the typical near-CEDH power levels or just jank.
When I first got back into the game, my friend played a nasty Superfriends deck so I included Vampire Hexmage in my Meren deck. It’s never left, as it’s turned out to be a versatile silver bullet against lots of other strategies, like another friends Owen & Blue counter soup deck. If nothing else it’s a self-sacrificing creature to add experience counters for Meren, so it’s never a dead card, which are the kinds of hosers I like to have.
Meren is the perfect deck to add all those toolbox-y silver bullet singletons since there are many ways to tutor them up and reuse them whenever needed
I like the approach of running tech cards in your deck primarily for synergy. I run Orcish Bowmasters in my aristocrats deck because it creates multiple Amass triggers on the stack whenever someone draws multiple cards, so I can sac the Orc Army in between resolutions of the Amass triggers for value.
24:29 I'm curious as the slight hesitation about Ring of valkus with obekka. It grants haste and it will by hitting once just immediately start making the number of upkeeps you get ridiculous. If you put the ring on her and hit you immediately get three upkeeps which is three more counters from The ring. And next turn you get nine upkeeps that sounds like a win and also like a three-shot Commander damage kill
My personal philosophy with silver bullet effects is that they should take care of a problem that would limit my deck's ability to do the thing. For example, I use Bonds of Mortality as a budget answer to indestructible creatures in my deathtouch deck, or Arcane Lighthouse in The Scorpion God.
I’ve started putting homeward paths in all of my land bases because every deck one of my friends in my regular group playing either gives away detrimental stuff or steals stuff one way or another.
Even if people aren't playing dedicated theft decks, there are just so many cards now that steal incidentally, while also being standalone good cards. Etali, Ragavan, like, there are loads of examples.
The most important rule to guide you when you're not sure if you're being out of line, always try to build decks that you'd enjoy losing to, and don't build decks that you'd hate to play against. If you don't like losing to a Static Orb then don't play things like Static Orb yourself, this is basic empathy but many people struggle with it into adulthood. The only complication to this rule is that some people (like Crim for example) enjoy a wider range of archetypes, and these people don't mind losing to Chaos, or Stax or whatever, for such players I think they should be up front about what they are on during Rule 0, if you're a Chaos deck that runs 9 wipes then you should probably mention it so people don't bring out their janky aggro decks and just cast creature into wipes all night. I feel different about hate/punishment effects that are 'one and done', even a cruel one like Omen of Fire can be fine in Casual, but I would look at you pretty funny if you played a Choke in Casual. Similarly I wouldn't be jazzed to see someone drop a Rest in Peace in Casual, but who cares about a Bojuka Bog (or Rakdos Charm, a card I've grown to love, even if it's mostly worse Shatter) now and then? Aura Shards is about as fun as using #20 sandpaper to wipe your ass, it's either a complete blowout or it does absolutely nothing. It wouldn't be such a problem if it wasn't such a 'pick me' for token swarm decks!
I totes agree, and will refer to an earlier comment I posted about some 4 hrs ago... which the whole comment revolved around make them have the answer. if your answers or solutions to problems dont have answers at a random table then they are probably not an effective deck design. for instance board wipe tribal vs having a few board wipes as solutions to large game states.... there is nothing reasonably wrong to having board wipes, but a board wipe tribal which results from you playing an artifact heavy deck because it is the cheapest mana solution available to your archetype which requires counterspells as the most reasonable solution to stop you from doing your thing is not a reasonable ask from the make them have an answer mantra..I do genuinely think that crim has an effective and valuable mindset about what he loses to, but I also think that with reasonable deductive powers it results from the fact he typically plays blue option deck and a draw go strat which requires little commitment to the board. as well as his threat assessment is very good. so while I commend his mindset I think it is a result of a vacuum and I don't think it is reasonable to apply to every player or strategy.
#1 Play what makes you happy #2 people need to understand i can't just let you win. A buddy with the 5 colour Jodah The unifier can't really pout when I blood moon him. That deck is so explosive no matter how you build it that slowing them down is the only way to have time to develop.
Perfect timing my friends! Home sick from work today, but finally recovering - and about to do some chores. Time to put on my podcast and go to work! 💗
I used to have a buddy that packed a few pieces of mass land destruction in his "boardwipe tribal" deck. Yes, it was about as fun as it sounded. It lead to me meta picking cards like Second Sunrise to ease the blow. Unfortunately, this was before Teferi's Protection existed, but we made do!
@EDHRECast - I've started using Eye of Singularity in my decks that splash white where I'm not creating any tokens and it really helps keep the table honest it even turns people playing their Sol Ring into a removal piece when there's already a Sol Ring on the table. 🤣
Not to mention the shenanigans to be had with clone and copy effects.^^ Not to mention that things such as treasures and clues are prevalent enough that it will seldom NOT be useful.
If Orcish Bowmaster punished players for drawing extra cards it wouldn’t be so bad. When my creatures get nuked because another player drew cards, that’s the real feels bad. That’s a card I’d love to see just go away.
I think you have 2 play groups. The friendly casual ones where they don’t meta game and the borderline CEDH groups where everyone meta games. As soon as one player goes down that rabbit hole, everyone else follows.
I started out in a more cutthroat EDH group, and I didn’t really realize how competitive it was until I moved to a new city and just went infinite by turn 6 every game.
My favourite example of metagaming is one friend in my playgroup gifting us all mass-enchantment removal cards every year to deal with his Sythis deck... Which we never end up playing!
I would describe meta gaming as COUNTERING a specific person or the most common strategies. I feel like meta gaming is directly at odds with the word casual. There's a difference between looking at your games and shoring up some weaknesses in your deck and looking at the field with intent to abuse an opponent's position. Neither is incorrect, necessarily, but just in the same way I wouldn't mana/priority bully at a casual game, I wouldn't meta game.
I find that metagaming gets frustrating when you feel like you HAVE to do it in order to have a fair shot. In current standard, I feel like every removal spell needs to be evaluated on the metric "does this kill Sheoldred at instant speed?" and if the answer is no, you play a different one. In commander, if I play my Muldrotha deck and just happen to land in a pod that doesn't run graveyard removal, my opponents often end up feeling frustrated because nothing they do short of outright knocking me out of the game me actually matters. That's part of why I don't play it that often anymore.
Completely understand, most players consider removing the commander is easier and more reliable to get to happen than graveyard hate, i truly do wishthey made more bajuka bogs effects on lands, maybe even give them land types like forest island plains etc. so that the commander wouldnt be kill on site worrysome.
I will never take out Ring of Valkas from Newbeka, the haste enabling plus the self acceleration of upkeeps from the power boost is extremely powerful. But the Initiative is also in there because it’s not only fun but strong.
There is also a metagaming level above individual cards and players. How much and what type of removal and threats people play should impact how you build decks to compete and also police the table. Is your play group helpless against non creature win cons? Maybe be the player that puts 2-3 extra counterpells in all your decks. Do people you play against only win with combat damage? Fogs might get better
I'm so glad to hear the graveyard aficionado saying that everyone should play graveyard hate. So many folks forget that literally every color can utilize the graveyard in a meaningful way. We all know about black and green. Blue and red can both grab instants and sorceries, not to mention that they're the primary colors for flashback. White can reliably get back any permanent with mana value 3 or less, as well save anything that died this turn. Graveyard hate needs to go in literally every deck.
Anti-graveyard tech was just ingrained to me when I started commander. By the time I have a playgroup, one guy loves the ‘yard and I’ve stopped him enough times to get a grudging respect from him!😂 I’m the soul guide lantern guy, I’ve stopped an alpha strike via anger, stopped a ghalta from dumping his hand onto the field, and time walked a crucible of worlds player.
What?! Of course edh players metagame! All one has to do is examine the amount of interaction pieces in an average commander deck between now and say 6 years ago. No sane person adds board wipes, removal, counter spells, token hate, grave yard hate etc….to their edh deck bc it’s fun…..it’s bc it’s necessary. That being said most of my edh experiences have been good…..some peeps have a little salt and might scoop when someone makes a big play but other than that things go as expected.
Another great video guys. Another form of metagaming I can think of is card versatility such as stroke of midnight vs generous gift. I don't see that many high powered lands so I will run som over gg but I know another play group might have that reversed.
Rampaging Yao Guai is my new anti-Treasure/artifact token tech since for 3 mana you get a decent body that can wipe them all or you can pump it more to take down a bigger threat. Additionally Confounding Conundrum is much better anti-ramp tech to me than something like mass land destruction since any additional lands they put into play get bounced back to hand!
A note on the Obeka challenge: adding a bunch of initiative cards will 100% make the deck stronger, just know that it will also make the deck much less fun as it can lead to you taking extremely long turns. The best effects are the ones that you can just multiply up to the number of extra upkeeps e.g make 5 thopters all at once rather than just making one. With the initiative you have to go through every single upkeep one at a time and go through each trigger one at a time, shuffle, re-shuffle etc etc.
Maze Of Ith and Homeward Path in every deck. These were 'metagame' choices i made, based on my small play group, that seem to have worked out well for me on the rare chance i can make it to an LGS and play with random players.
I have folded a few opponents with maze if ith. Also I think it's called "tower of the magistrate" a land you pay one and tap gives target creature protection from artifacts until end of turn. Is fun vs voltron or artifact creatures.
I know of a game where a friend of mine played Obeka with Ring of Valkas early. She won on turn 5 and it wasn't even close. She attacked a player who made an all-planeswalker deck that didn't have enough blockers to stop the Menace, and after a couple of turns, she was getting like 16 upkeeps with Skyline Despot making dragons and Descent Into Avernus making her a buttload of treasure and killing everyone. The game prior, without Ring of Valkas in hand, the deck basically did nothing but sit there and die to a monowhite equipment deck. I think it's only going to get more popular, because if you don't have the removal to get rid of it and she has one player she can swing at in any way, she either forces painful blocks or gets exponentially better every turn, and it's even faster if she gets Ring of Evos Isle equipped too.
I have several Initiative cards in my Obeka deck and quickly get to cycling through the dungeon multiple times each turn. I have all 3 of the rings that give +1/+1 and love the buff because it just makes her give more upkeeps every turn.
Between Pantlaza, First Sliver, Yodah and various spellslinger decks, I can't keep up. So I have begun playing stacks cards to slow them down to a reasonable speed. Worth it, every time.
I think I'm personally really good with metagaming. If I need a silver bullet, I will pick something effective but reasonable, that doesn't completely stop the deck (rest in piece, ouphes). I also try to build and pick decks that I feel are fun matchups. You like fighting monsters? I make sure I have monsters. My most successful deck was a BBEG Lich deck, complete with a cartoon villain voice. Oh also, I'm the artifact guy. I adjust my decks so that nobody feels the need to metagame me out. There was also a time when vandalblast was just autoinclude everywhere, so I metagamed against that card specifically with mental misstep.
Your comment about adjusting decks so that your opponents don't feel the need to metagame you out feels like more people should be doing that. Building decks where the choice is metagame or lose is going to mean that your opponents are going to tech that deck out.
@@leadpaintchips9461 oh yeah my goal is that *everyone* on the table has fun. I consider a good player/deck to be when people agree to play against it more than once
i don't like the idea that you have to be bound by the "chillest vibe haver" at the table. the "bro that isn't the vibe" players are, in my experience, the ones with the egregious decks that exert enough pressure on the meta to make players add silver bullet answers to their decks in response. its not just "bro let me play my cards," you also have a responsibility to recognize if you are the one instigating the metagaming.
There seems to be alot of hate in this episode for hate pieces and punishers, but shutting you down is part of alot of strategies. For alot of players you cant give them the chance to do their thing, 'cause then you cant do your thing. Things like blood moon and wintsr moon isnt about about 'theme' its about slowing people down or stopping then to push the personal plan. Plus, wraths are fine as long as youre doing something to puah with them. I run five in my Sgorikai liat and those games dont take forever because its part of the plan to be able to clean the boatd to get in easisr.
If it gets to the point where the only counter for a deck is a hard counter (like the example you give), it's probably more apt to have a discussion about power level than about what hate pieces are okay.
@@melephs_cap Very true, but unfortunatley the power level sometimes isnt di a covered until everyone starts playing. People arent always so good with those discussions. I do agree that is a topic more about power level than hate pieces. Im juat saying that hate pieces and punishers ARE some peoples theme and strategy.
If the person who says they are the chillest one at the table and actually aren’t are an issue. But I will continue to be the chillest and funnest at the table, no matter the stereotype.
Note on the obeka challenge: Initiative was actually the first place my brain went to when i saw the new obeka and built an entire deck around it when the commander dropped. Turns out when you put every single initiative card you can into the 99, you tend to complete the entire dungeon once or even twice every turn. Both me and my group were very impressed in the first couple games. However, as it got played more, the novelty started wearing off incredibly quickly. You pretty much always decide to put more counters on obeka on the second stage, the final stage going through ten whole cards of your deck means you end up seeing most of if not your entire library by time the game is done, and the creature you hit off of it gets large and hexproof so its also hard to even attack into it or interact with. Powerful stuff but it also lead to people rolling eyes a bit over time, including myself a bit. Not sure if this is just a problem with obeka in general because I haven't seen one piloted by someone else yet, but maybe initiative should be used in moderation
When I first got into Magic (and EDH) my buddy had an Atraxa counters/proliferate deck. I only had 1 deck, Anje Falkenrath, and would get stomped. So I did the only thing I knew to do at the time - pick up a copy of Thief of Blood! It felt so good to drop that against his Atraxa deck and make a 30+ power flying beater and take him out the next turn.
As a person who built an entire mono blackdeck because I pulled a Contamination ina random draft booster. I feel like understanding your meta and just how cut throat everyone around you wants to be can definitely make your games more fun! (I did take contamination out)
Back when I first started tatyova has just been published. The deck looked insane to me. And one day the friend who was playing it demonstrated a glacial chasm loop. I had managed to assemble infinite saprolings with ghave. Untapped with them and I could only look at his board waiting to lose. That day I decided to never rely on combat step again and honestly it is so hard for me to build combat only decks. I always end up needing at least a combo to efficiently close the deck. For me started from meta gaming and it solidified my play style to this day.
Another point for Dalek Squadron in Raffine decks ... You can pump the squadron with Raffine's conniving to make all of those tokens BIGGER! Granted, that may paint a target on the squadron but I can't imagine it would draw any more ire than Adeline or the like
So I’m a bit different. My playgroup was built from scratch with mostly new players. The downside, is that in most rules interactions, there are only a couple of us who even have a vague idea of what’s going on. Because of this, as they learn the game naturally over time, I find myself helping them meta-game against me, and then finding ways to break the interactions. For example, my favorite commander is stickfingers, I can one shot a play for 21 on turn 3-4. So I bought a ground seal, a RIP, tormud’s crypt, and built a custom selesnya deck with Kutzil that absolutely rips on counterspells and graveyard decks. Then I gave it to another player. After a few games I started finding out how to balance myself to survive against the extreme graveyard hate. So I have added cards like elixir of immortality and some instant speed retrieval. As a result, my deck is slower and more manageable for the table, but also more resilient to hate pieces. I’ve kind of been doing this with every deck in some way. I built a deck called “Death Beyond the Fog” on archidekt when the table started loving the commander damage route, and showed them why they need secondary win conditions 😂
Ill add my two cents to the Obeka discussion. The Rings, of Valkas, Xathrid, and Evos Isle; they are important because they are some of the only consistent ways to make Obeka bigger, which Joey himself led with that point when describing why Obeka is powerful... "if you can make her big..." This is how. Its subtle, but there arent a lot of great options for +1/+1 counters in Grixis, and this specifically works with her strengths.
if you're playing competitively, yes. there's a very good reason early pros always asked 'what's the metagame like?" before trying to say how well a particular deck would do in tournaments.
This is something my playgroup has had to work on a lot recently. We've recently been really prefering "speed bump" cards opposed to pure lock out "screw that guy in particular" kinds of cards. We all built our decks to do the thing its trying to do and its really not fun to never be allowed to do the thing so we've all backed off and in general things are healthier because everyone gets their moment eventually instead of getting their moment because the hate cards arent drawn
To the mass land destruction topic near the end: I don't think people *really* want to play mass land destruction to counter green, it's just an expression of frustration due to green not feeling the pain of half their mana being gone after a Planar Cleansing or similar where others that rely on mana rocks do feel that pain. If there was a spell that read "Destroy all artifacts/nonlands and then anyone that wasn't controlling any mana producing artifacts sacs lands appropriate to the amount of mana sources the others lost" that'd be what folks *actually* want. But because we don't have that and the ones that exist are mostly the nuclear option, folks feel it's worth the necessary evil due to previously mentioned frustration and lack of other options.
I think one thing to remember is the availability and general awareness to cards like Viridian Revel. If this was printed today then it would have a different impact on the game.
I have a feeling crim may or may not be responsible for that last bit bout mld and how it hits the green player, and the rest of the episode followed suit lol
There's a difference between running a card that allows me to interact in some way (like Bojuka Bog against a graveyard deck or Shadowspear when i know a friend has a Sigard(the one with Hexproof and anti edict)) and running cards that stop people from playing. If i know a friend is playing a graveyard deck, i wont't put in Rest in Piece, but i will definitely put in Scavenger Grounds and Bojuka Bog. If a friend has an enchtress deck, i want put in Aura of Silence, but i will include an extra enchantment removal
The difference for graveyard hate is that there generally are not good alternatives that incidentally deal with it. If you dont run a bunch of vandalblasts, artifacts are still generally dealt with by beast withins etc. Obviously its not as good, but it can still interact at some level.
slide note here : I think that putting "trch cards" in a deck that discards a lot (like for instance Lord Windgrace decks), tech cards are never really dead, cause you can always use them as fuel if they're "dead", ergo I think playing tech cards in a self-discard deck is all upsides. I don't know if tech cards are considered metagaming, but I felt that point made sense (can you tell I have ASD lol)
People metagame with decks in casual, not in deck construction “oh you’re playing reanimator so I’ll play my deck with the most graveyard hate in it” etc. People do it all the time
Not really. I play a lot of Graveyard decks and if every time I pull out a Graveyard deck you pull out an ANTI Graveyard deck I'm just gonna find Myself not playing with you cause I'm sick and Tired of you pulling it out every time Just cause you know I'm playing Graveyard.
@@cablefeed3738 sure that’s an option but people still do that frequently. They will wait to see what you play and pick a deck that tends to counter it
Metagaming is part of Magic the Gathering and it's something that should always be expected. I personally find it useful when deciding cards for the last couple of cards in a deck. For example, if your group is on a sweeper craze that might bias decisions towards Instants and Sorceries instead of permanents.
@EDHRECast Could run Urza's Sylex as way to reset the green ramp decks without going mass land destruction. "2ww tap Exile Urza's Sylex: Each player chooses six lands they control. Destroy all other permanents. Activate only as a sorcery. When Urza's Sylex is put into exile from the battlefield, you may pay 2. If you do, search your library for a planeswalker card, reveal it, put it into your hand, then shuffle."
Nope, i make them play it out to see if they actually know how to use it. Too many times where i made people play out a combo and they forgot how to actually do it since most people just scoop to it so they forgot how to actually execute the combo
100% had to do this exactly because my friends and I don't stop people from playing the game. If they win, they win. But, if it's not fun for the table, someone needs to stop it. Sadly, I'm the only blue player... so I run the "free" counterspells (forces, fierce, etc.) Just to stop instant wins. The game is more fun when I get to see the game played by everyone.
Many of the old Theros gods see heavy play in my circles and people around here also love their propaganda effects to the point where they even include bunch of them in their aggressive decks. My decks' removal suites have definitely started reflecting that environment. Anguished Unmaking, Despark and Crush Contraband are pretty good cards in general, but I don't think many other people consider cards like Deglamer, Erase or Barrier Breach super valuable. I've even run stuff like Forsake the Worldly and Guardian Naga occasionally. The first time I built a mono red Commander deck, ages ago, I ran Omen of Fire, Pyroblast and Burnout. Blue was just so popular and so much better than any other color during those days. Never gone to those kinds of lengths again after that.
I'd say that things like the ratio of graveyard interaction you have in your decks is a form of metagaming. You guys really bang the drum that it's an important form of removal, but that's because Joey builds 80% graveyard decks. In my local meta it's just not as prevalent; but theft decks are, so Homeward Path becomes that much more valuable. I struggle to imagine when people would consciously choose to not engage in metagaming in some form. It doesn't always have to come down to jamming as many silver bullet answers like Rest in Piece or Bane of Progress as possible. I liked Dana's distinction between metagaming to get an edge and metagaming to keep up. I've always been of the opinion that things like Blood Mood are "rude" for lack of a better word and this has made me reflect on my hardline stance. EDIT: can you tell I commented before finishing the video?
The way I tend to think about things like metagaming is in terms of "getting away with" and "punishing". If I consistently see someone pursue a strategy that is not being interacted with, I will decide not to let them get away with nobody interacting with them. Maybe, I would even go so far as to punish them for pursuing this strategy and assuming that they will be left alone in it. However, I would not want to punish someone for something that is not being "gotten away with". Unfair things illicit unfair answers, but fair things only require fair answers.
I dont understand how he doesn't understand a what seems like a single sports reference. Alot of it transcends sports. You just have to exist as a human to get most of them
Do you run cards like 'march of the machines' or 'leyline of singularity' in blue to deal with treasures or artifacts? - blue has an easier time removing creatures than artifacts: especially at instant speed.
Being the one friend that roped his other friends into playing Magic (and promptly wiping the floor with their cardboard), I deserve metagaming against me even when I play my lower power stuff. I'm still dangerous no matter which deck I play. Sometimes "incidental" types of punish just isnt enough, especially when the engine is already going. My only gripe is it feels unsafe to ramp using non-land options but even then most people dont play mass artifact or enchantment unless its a problem for their specfic strategy
Is it engaging with the metagame if I increasingly favour stifles in EDH as more triggered and activated abilities? I think maybe yes? Interesting topic to think about!
I metagame, in that too many EDH players think that Commander is another word for 'nonbasic lands' so my decks run stuff that hammer nonbasics, from Blood Moon to Wave of Vitriol and all points in between. To a greater extent, all of my decks also include graveyard hate, even if it only incidentally hampers an opponent, instead of hammering commanders like Muldrotha.
I think the regenerate ring would be hit and miss. Most of the removal will either ignore it (Exile, Pacify, -X, Bury, Bounce etc.) or just time destroy removal for when you don’t have 2 mana. I think it is playable but far less useful than the hexproof ring.
@@Dragon_Fyre for sure, the hexproof ring is the best of the 3, but imo the regenrate one is better than haste since there are other (better) ways to get haste
@@francescognerre2408 The haste one is not great but can be underrated. The instant rewards from your Commander, particularly if you have hexproof will quickly take over the game if not immediately removed. With no other help, your Commander will get 2 counters, another on upkeep, then 5 counters, another on upkeep at which point just about any of the courts can win the game. For me, that’s better than being able to save my Commander from less than a 3rd of the removal I expect to encounter in a deck (if I have 2 mana free) where I am already going to add a lot of Hexproof or maybe a Darksteel plate or Mithril armour to guard my Commander given how important it is.
I’m a big Wave of Vitriol fan in mono green because it’s pretty meta agnostic (what pod is completely unaffected by sacrificing all artifacts and enchantments?) and it comes with a little bit of cheeky plausible deniability if you do happen to mass land destruct in the process. No, I’m not /trying/ to blow out greedy mana bases, how was I supposed to know the prismatic bridge player only had 4 basic lands in their deck? :)
In regards to Land destruction would you put Ajani Vengeant in same category as armageddon? as a planewalker it will take a few turns to get to his ult and I personally think its better to have it as an option even if you never use it and just use the - ability instead. What do you think?
i think anything attached to a planeswalker is fair game (except in a dedicated doubling season/ult on 1st turn deck) since they can usually be kept off the ult by swinging into them and incidental damage and having 3 opponents is quite the downside. unless you're playing staxy stuff like ensnaring bridge
I do have a player in my group you likes to play Zacama all the time so I did get a doorkeeper thrull cause I got tired of losing to that. It’s had mixed results as far as people answering it but the one player definitely doesn’t like it
I feel like there’s two separate conversations here: Should you play cards to counter specific kinds of strategies? Should you play stacks? And your answers seem to be “Yes if the number of unique decks you play against is small enough that metagaming is meaningful” and “No because it makes for uninteresting games.”
Bring Crim on for an MLD convo, he's got me convinced! But really, I do think more punishing cards need to be printed for the egregious mana and draw. Deal triple damage to each player equal to the number of lands they control or something. More natural balance type effects!
Not really. I just wouldn't play against people who don't want people drawing cards and playing lands. I'm here for everyone to do crazy shit, not for someone's crazy shit being to not let other people not play.
I get that, to each their own. But I didn't say winter orb or narset parter of veils. I'm saying you can do ramp and draw, but there's a price. Orcish bowmasters doesn't stop card draw, but it does make you have to think about how much you can draw. Natural balance makes everyone equal on land.
@@alexadams1151 Oh, if you're just talking about orkish bowmaster. Or one time wipes, then I'm completely fine with it like I'm someone who thinks balance should be unbanned. That's land destruction that I actually consider fair
On the mono red deck and blood mood I feel it's an auto include for me. Mono red has issues with certain types of removal, so why not attempt to deprive instead.
My first thoughts on metagaming would be in my experience that it leads to lots of feels bad moments because people often run hard counter basically Stax pieces to shut another deck down
That's literally the game. Is counterspell a "hard stax piece" that "shuts decks down"? Should you stop playing counterspells? Fuck no, if your deck calls for it. Adapt or lose
Dana’s playing land destruction against green is like moneyball was on point 😂 As a green player blow up my lands don’t kill selvala heart of the wilds making me 10+ mana a turn
I appreciate the moneyball-world series reference Dana but then 2/3 of the teams you mentioned had a couple of the biggest World Series droughts in the league.
I'm a little conflicted about metagaming when most of my games are played at a card shop where I can have like 30+ opponent opportunities. If I teched in a hate card for a specific strategy the odds are that it likely will be a dead card most games, and when it does happen to be useful against a player, it would make that player feel targeted and singled out by a hate piece that affects no one else.
Something that I wish people metagamed against me more often is graveyard recursion. There are so many times that I'm playing a game and my opponents complain that I have a mill card and then I learn their deck has no recursion in it to get back their lost goodies. Every single color in the game has some sort of graveyard recursion and there's no reason to not play at least one of it in your deck.
There is a wonderful mentality that i think is useful here but in regard to a lot of the comments seen in todays video as well as others. MAKE THEM HAVE THE ANSWER. this wonderful mentality encourages you to take risks and play your things knowing that stuff might happen to it (in the words of Ms. Frizzle "take chances, make mistakes, get messy :p) Subtly though this one little statement packs a lot of commander philosophies in one short sentence, and it means different things and is relevant in different ways to either comp edh or casual edh. In competitive it addresses without mercy the cutthroat implication of MAKE THEM HAVE THE ANSWER. But for casual it takes on a very whole new philosophy. First it implies that there are answers to everything, what it does not do on the surface but does imply is the grave disparities of how specific colors can actually answer them. Now it becomes, ALLOW THEM TO HAVE AN ANSWER!!!! the reason for this is that if you have to make them have an answer they can't have meaningfully..... then you haven't actually made them have the answer you have given them hopelessness. Yes someone might be able to answer them, yes the person affected might not have enough draw or enough answers but that is not that same as that you haven't actually given the player that it specifically is impacting a meaningful way to make them have the answer. So, with this new understanding in mind, we now reflect back on the original statement of MAKE THEM HAVE THE ANSWER and apply this to our deck building. When we are building our decks we should be metagaming for the playgroup we are building our deck for! If it is a random group does this card allow for every deck to play around in a meaningful way (make them have the answer) or is the specific purpose designed to take away the opportunity for people to answer me in a meaningful way? humility, bloodmoon/back to basics, contamination etc. only have one true answer which is counterspell because once they hit the board it can effectively stop any meaningful answer from specific decks. those should never be played at any random table. along these same lines cards like rest in peace have no answers in any meaningful way from mono black decks, these should never be played random tables. With time what has answers and what will be acceptable will change nothing stays the same for ever, what will never change though is that metagaming is essential. And i think that as players we can both grow as players and the strength of our community if we lived by the commander Philosophy MAKE THEM HAVE THE ANSWER!!!
I don't think at all levels is necessary to metagame. But you need to have responses for almost everything in a generic way: counters in blue, removal in black and white, fight spells in green, etc... Also, you need to play enchantment/artifact removal always, at least a few cards. Couple of board wipes here and there. Finally, having graveyard hate in the from of a land like Scavenger Grounds doesn't hurt a lot of decks and demoslishes graveyard decks
1:01:10 AND do you actually want to draw it in the case of that Gaea's Blessing lol My favorite thing is to find ways to stick it on top of my deck in response to mill effects. Shame it's a card in the ~63 that I usually can't justify running, even though I love it so much...
I think the only 'metagaming' I've done is steadily leaning in more towards exile-based removal over destroy effects, simply because of how much I'm seeing indestructible in my games. Whether its Xenagos commanders or people playing bastion protectors, I feel like I'm encouraged to exile, even if the spell has a higher CMC. I don't know if it really counts though, when its replacing removal with removal, and none of them are that specific.
On the "No one will meta game against you like your brother" topic, there's literally a top Yugioh player who got his start by building annoying control decks to counter his son. They started going to locals and discovered the strategy was a lot more potent than anyone expected.
Jeff Leonard is a legend, he did this not just once but with two decks! And the coolest thing was that his son helped him test a lot and he even managed to become a niche microcelebrity in the community and he's just so swell that, even if he plays decks that are considered toxic, he's just appreciated by everyone.
Also I think he's one of the very few people who managed to win with exodia on a feature match of a big tournament! Jeff Leonard is the goat
Anyone else who was known for Mystic Mine would be reviled but Jeff is just the coolest dude and impossible to hate.
Jeff is THE dad of YuGiOh, such a legend
When y'all touched on the experience difference between one time hate vs persistent hate, it just kinda made me think about how there seems to be a lot of "can dish it, can't take it" players who will choose the persistent hate option because it seems better but then groan when a persistent hate piece is used against them by another player. Empathy seems to be an important skill for healthy edh games.
For example, there's someone I regularly played with that had a Jodah deck, and playing Back to Basics against him makes him groan since he has very few basic lands. But on the other hand he's running cards that are very punishing against opponents for playing the game like the original Vorinclex and Jin-Gitaxias, so it becomes a problem of "does he get to play the game, or does everyone else?"
Had a friend with an Eldrazi deck that ran Void Winnower and every time it hit the table there were collective groans while he smirked his shit eating grin. I picked up one of my own and put it in a very fast reanimator deck and the card was no longer ok for him. He never took it out of his deck, instead he bitched about it until he just went to another play group.
The first night he wasn't around that card went away forever and there was never a problem with it again.
I personally run both OG jin and Vclex in my Uro deck but those are my win conditions not just a f*ck you because f*ck you card
I feel people have seemingly arbitrary lines for what is appropriate. The diversity of strategies in this game is what makes it interesting. A bit oversimplified, but I think that it is important for the playgroup to decide if they want to play checkers or chess. I don’t run MLDs or such in general, but every resource and strategy that becomes sacrosanct dilutes the game in many ways. Mtg boomer by most standards for context.
It is just more powerful to do so. I think is okay as long as the rest of the table is ok with it and everyone is playing at that high power level. Definitely something to give a heads up in the pregame talk.
I was with you until Back to Basics. I think every deck should be able to play spells within it's color identity, and within reason. You can brew a Jodah deck without pieces that shutoff other players for sure too. I don't think we actually solve discrepancies with additional punishment. I think the person NOT playing those pieces is the solution to not wanting to play against those kinds of things. To me, 2 wrongs don't make a right.
I had a friend once take his cEDH deck into casual pods because he thought the store was not cracking down on pubstompers enough. Becoming part of the problem will not eliminate that problem. Actually talking will.
@@richardjohnson8991 I think you can find wincons that don't just shut down other players.
Thank you Joey, for immediately apologizing for Dana's mispronunciation. It was hurting me each time he said it. 😂
My example of a Metagame move i’ve made: My friend had a Rankle Master of Pranks deck, it was very Grave Pacty. I started running cards like Sigarda, Host of Herons in my Naya deck. She didn’t really add much to the strategy of the deck, but she sure helped me stabilize a board when I otherwise would have constantly been losing resources. It made the Rankle player kind of an asset, because he was drawing the other two players’ aggro, while i just hung back with Sigarda and snuck a win in.
I guess all this to say, I don’t necessarily try to metagame to shut down players from doing anything at all, i just make it harder for them to do the thing to me. ghostly prisons for go wide decks only stop them from punching me etc.
A cool tech if you don't want expensive (money AND mana-wise) angel in your deck, is Tajuru Preserver
@@Suavek69i def have one of those! Sigarda works for my purpose as doubling as an evasive beatstick, but i’ve certainly used Preserver in other decks
"Nobody will metagame against you like your brother," truer words have never been spoken. My brother lives nearby and we both got back into magic/into edh at the same time. We definitely did build around strategies the other used for a while, lol.
maybe a way to think of it is there’s different levels at which meta operates, and a lot of this discussion of when it is and isn’t appropriate to metagame has to do with at what level is the metagaming happening:
•deck/card meta (eg. building with a specific deck/card in mind, like your friend’s kykar tokens deck or ad nauseaum)
•player meta (eg. building with a person’a general playstyle and habits in mind, like joey’s love of graveyards)
•playgroup meta (eg. the people you play with regularly, probably your kitchen table group)
•community meta (eg. your lgs)
•format meta
edit: liiiiiterally what dana talks about at 54:48
I think the "EDH doesn't have a sideboard" is actually a great argument for metagaming. The game is designed to be interactive, and when you play regurally you know what you are likely to see more often than not. Choosing to take up one of your valuable 99 slots can be an exciting risk/reward when it works, but there is a possible cost of a really dead card (or a card people hate and turn on you for). But at the end of the day, if I know I'm likely to face shenanagains that I can metagame I'll do it and enjoy the look on my opponents face when they realize there is pushback to what they are doing.
Something I've often thought about for metagaming is that you push people toward or away certain things when you metagame. Let's skip the big metagaming things, rest in peace or collector ouphe level cards, say its a creature heavy meta and you play a bunch of boardwipes. Makes sense, crushes the already pretty weak creature decks, wins games. Synergizes with ramping up and ignoring the board.
But then the appropriate metagame response is to play combo. Not only is your deck bad against it but its just a better strategy than yours or those creature decks, so you're pushing someone to do something that your decks probably couldn't handle anyway. The people I know who metagame heavily against creature decks with tons of wraths absolutely hate it when I play quick combos, and I try to talk it out with them about how I can't really just ram my face into boardwipe tribal, but it doesn't seem to get through that they're incentivizing me to play something they hate to play against. Your metagaming choices create the meta and you should only do them if you're happy with that meta that is created.
My take:
1. Don't play unfun cards that stop the game. E.g. exiling graveyards is fun, but preventing graveyards from existing isn't (especially when the effect is on a non-creature making it harder to interact with). Red Elemental Blast is fun, Choke is not.
2. Don't target a particular person with meta cards unless they win a lot.
3. Remember that sideboarding is not allowed in commander. Putting enchantment removal in your deck is fine, but you can't do it pre-game when you see that you're facing an enchantment deck.
On that last point I'd argue it's fine *post* game. If I felt my deck was missing in an area, I don't think anyone should come over and say "hey don't swap out cards until you get home!" nonsense. I bring extra cards/side board when I want to swap out cards to either power it up or slow it down if the store is having the typical near-CEDH power levels or just jank.
When I first got back into the game, my friend played a nasty Superfriends deck so I included Vampire Hexmage in my Meren deck. It’s never left, as it’s turned out to be a versatile silver bullet against lots of other strategies, like another friends Owen & Blue counter soup deck. If nothing else it’s a self-sacrificing creature to add experience counters for Meren, so it’s never a dead card, which are the kinds of hosers I like to have.
Meren is the perfect deck to add all those toolbox-y silver bullet singletons since there are many ways to tutor them up and reuse them whenever needed
I like the approach of running tech cards in your deck primarily for synergy. I run Orcish Bowmasters in my aristocrats deck because it creates multiple Amass triggers on the stack whenever someone draws multiple cards, so I can sac the Orc Army in between resolutions of the Amass triggers for value.
24:29 I'm curious as the slight hesitation about Ring of valkus with obekka. It grants haste and it will by hitting once just immediately start making the number of upkeeps you get ridiculous.
If you put the ring on her and hit you immediately get three upkeeps which is three more counters from The ring. And next turn you get nine upkeeps that sounds like a win and also like a three-shot Commander damage kill
wow. that sounds like a fun deck to me.
If you like it you should put a ring on it!
23:30 Ring of Valkas is so good in Obeka to snowball more and more upkeeps that it is one of the top priorities to clone with Extravagant Replication
My personal philosophy with silver bullet effects is that they should take care of a problem that would limit my deck's ability to do the thing. For example, I use Bonds of Mortality as a budget answer to indestructible creatures in my deathtouch deck, or Arcane Lighthouse in The Scorpion God.
I’ve started putting homeward paths in all of my land bases because every deck one of my friends in my regular group playing either gives away detrimental stuff or steals stuff one way or another.
Even if people aren't playing dedicated theft decks, there are just so many cards now that steal incidentally, while also being standalone good cards. Etali, Ragavan, like, there are loads of examples.
The most important rule to guide you when you're not sure if you're being out of line, always try to build decks that you'd enjoy losing to, and don't build decks that you'd hate to play against. If you don't like losing to a Static Orb then don't play things like Static Orb yourself, this is basic empathy but many people struggle with it into adulthood. The only complication to this rule is that some people (like Crim for example) enjoy a wider range of archetypes, and these people don't mind losing to Chaos, or Stax or whatever, for such players I think they should be up front about what they are on during Rule 0, if you're a Chaos deck that runs 9 wipes then you should probably mention it so people don't bring out their janky aggro decks and just cast creature into wipes all night.
I feel different about hate/punishment effects that are 'one and done', even a cruel one like Omen of Fire can be fine in Casual, but I would look at you pretty funny if you played a Choke in Casual. Similarly I wouldn't be jazzed to see someone drop a Rest in Peace in Casual, but who cares about a Bojuka Bog (or Rakdos Charm, a card I've grown to love, even if it's mostly worse Shatter) now and then?
Aura Shards is about as fun as using #20 sandpaper to wipe your ass, it's either a complete blowout or it does absolutely nothing. It wouldn't be such a problem if it wasn't such a 'pick me' for token swarm decks!
I totes agree, and will refer to an earlier comment I posted about some 4 hrs ago... which the whole comment revolved around make them have the answer. if your answers or solutions to problems dont have answers at a random table then they are probably not an effective deck design. for instance board wipe tribal vs having a few board wipes as solutions to large game states.... there is nothing reasonably wrong to having board wipes, but a board wipe tribal which results from you playing an artifact heavy deck because it is the cheapest mana solution available to your archetype which requires counterspells as the most reasonable solution to stop you from doing your thing is not a reasonable ask from the make them have an answer mantra..I do genuinely think that crim has an effective and valuable mindset about what he loses to, but I also think that with reasonable deductive powers it results from the fact he typically plays blue option deck and a draw go strat which requires little commitment to the board. as well as his threat assessment is very good. so while I commend his mindset I think it is a result of a vacuum and I don't think it is reasonable to apply to every player or strategy.
#1 Play what makes you happy #2 people need to understand i can't just let you win.
A buddy with the 5 colour Jodah The unifier can't really pout when I blood moon him. That deck is so explosive no matter how you build it that slowing them down is the only way to have time to develop.
Perfect timing my friends! Home sick from work today, but finally recovering - and about to do some chores. Time to put on my podcast and go to work! 💗
I run an Obeka/Initiative deck. Packed with "take the init" effects, I often don't ever take it back through combat damage.
I used to have a buddy that packed a few pieces of mass land destruction in his "boardwipe tribal" deck. Yes, it was about as fun as it sounded. It lead to me meta picking cards like Second Sunrise to ease the blow. Unfortunately, this was before Teferi's Protection existed, but we made do!
@EDHRECast - I've started using Eye of Singularity in my decks that splash white where I'm not creating any tokens and it really helps keep the table honest it even turns people playing their Sol Ring into a removal piece when there's already a Sol Ring on the table. 🤣
Not to mention the shenanigans to be had with clone and copy effects.^^
Not to mention that things such as treasures and clues are prevalent enough that it will seldom NOT be useful.
If Orcish Bowmaster punished players for drawing extra cards it wouldn’t be so bad. When my creatures get nuked because another player drew cards, that’s the real feels bad. That’s a card I’d love to see just go away.
I think you have 2 play groups. The friendly casual ones where they don’t meta game and the borderline CEDH groups where everyone meta games. As soon as one player goes down that rabbit hole, everyone else follows.
I started out in a more cutthroat EDH group, and I didn’t really realize how competitive it was until I moved to a new city and just went infinite by turn 6 every game.
My favourite example of metagaming is one friend in my playgroup gifting us all mass-enchantment removal cards every year to deal with his Sythis deck... Which we never end up playing!
I would describe meta gaming as COUNTERING a specific person or the most common strategies. I feel like meta gaming is directly at odds with the word casual.
There's a difference between looking at your games and shoring up some weaknesses in your deck and looking at the field with intent to abuse an opponent's position.
Neither is incorrect, necessarily, but just in the same way I wouldn't mana/priority bully at a casual game, I wouldn't meta game.
I find that metagaming gets frustrating when you feel like you HAVE to do it in order to have a fair shot. In current standard, I feel like every removal spell needs to be evaluated on the metric "does this kill Sheoldred at instant speed?" and if the answer is no, you play a different one. In commander, if I play my Muldrotha deck and just happen to land in a pod that doesn't run graveyard removal, my opponents often end up feeling frustrated because nothing they do short of outright knocking me out of the game me actually matters. That's part of why I don't play it that often anymore.
Completely understand, most players consider removing the commander is easier and more reliable to get to happen than graveyard hate, i truly do wishthey made more bajuka bogs effects on lands, maybe even give them land types like forest island plains etc. so that the commander wouldnt be kill on site worrysome.
I will never take out Ring of Valkas from Newbeka, the haste enabling plus the self acceleration of upkeeps from the power boost is extremely powerful. But the Initiative is also in there because it’s not only fun but strong.
There is also a metagaming level above individual cards and players.
How much and what type of removal and threats people play should impact how you build decks to compete and also police the table.
Is your play group helpless against non creature win cons? Maybe be the player that puts 2-3 extra counterpells in all your decks.
Do people you play against only win with combat damage? Fogs might get better
3:45 I love the idea of confounding Joey with a reference we KNOW he doesn’t know as the transition to Challenge the Stats
I'm so glad to hear the graveyard aficionado saying that everyone should play graveyard hate. So many folks forget that literally every color can utilize the graveyard in a meaningful way. We all know about black and green. Blue and red can both grab instants and sorceries, not to mention that they're the primary colors for flashback. White can reliably get back any permanent with mana value 3 or less, as well save anything that died this turn. Graveyard hate needs to go in literally every deck.
THANK YOU JOEY! The PAIN of the Day-Lek! Lol I could not cope. Glad you knew what was up lol 😂
Anti-graveyard tech was just ingrained to me when I started commander. By the time I have a playgroup, one guy loves the ‘yard and I’ve stopped him enough times to get a grudging respect from him!😂 I’m the soul guide lantern guy, I’ve stopped an alpha strike via anger, stopped a ghalta from dumping his hand onto the field, and time walked a crucible of worlds player.
Time Walk ? In Commander ?
Crim is so called out about MLD as “tech against landfall”
What?! Of course edh players metagame! All one has to do is examine the amount of interaction pieces in an average commander deck between now and say 6 years ago.
No sane person adds board wipes, removal, counter spells, token hate, grave yard hate etc….to their edh deck bc it’s fun…..it’s bc it’s necessary.
That being said most of my edh experiences have been good…..some peeps have a little salt and might scoop when someone makes a big play but other than that things go as expected.
Another great video guys. Another form of metagaming I can think of is card versatility such as stroke of midnight vs generous gift. I don't see that many high powered lands so I will run som over gg but I know another play group might have that reversed.
Rampaging Yao Guai is my new anti-Treasure/artifact token tech since for 3 mana you get a decent body that can wipe them all or you can pump it more to take down a bigger threat.
Additionally Confounding Conundrum is much better anti-ramp tech to me than something like mass land destruction since any additional lands they put into play get bounced back to hand!
Viridian Revel is an awesome card! Love hearing it get its flowers.
A note on the Obeka challenge: adding a bunch of initiative cards will 100% make the deck stronger, just know that it will also make the deck much less fun as it can lead to you taking extremely long turns. The best effects are the ones that you can just multiply up to the number of extra upkeeps e.g make 5 thopters all at once rather than just making one. With the initiative you have to go through every single upkeep one at a time and go through each trigger one at a time, shuffle, re-shuffle etc etc.
Maze Of Ith and Homeward Path in every deck. These were 'metagame' choices i made, based on my small play group, that seem to have worked out well for me on the rare chance i can make it to an LGS and play with random players.
I have folded a few opponents with maze if ith. Also I think it's called "tower of the magistrate" a land you pay one and tap gives target creature protection from artifacts until end of turn. Is fun vs voltron or artifact creatures.
I know of a game where a friend of mine played Obeka with Ring of Valkas early. She won on turn 5 and it wasn't even close. She attacked a player who made an all-planeswalker deck that didn't have enough blockers to stop the Menace, and after a couple of turns, she was getting like 16 upkeeps with Skyline Despot making dragons and Descent Into Avernus making her a buttload of treasure and killing everyone. The game prior, without Ring of Valkas in hand, the deck basically did nothing but sit there and die to a monowhite equipment deck. I think it's only going to get more popular, because if you don't have the removal to get rid of it and she has one player she can swing at in any way, she either forces painful blocks or gets exponentially better every turn, and it's even faster if she gets Ring of Evos Isle equipped too.
I have several Initiative cards in my Obeka deck and quickly get to cycling through the dungeon multiple times each turn.
I have all 3 of the rings that give +1/+1 and love the buff because it just makes her give more upkeeps every turn.
Between Pantlaza, First Sliver, Yodah and various spellslinger decks, I can't keep up. So I have begun playing stacks cards to slow them down to a reasonable speed.
Worth it, every time.
I think I'm personally really good with metagaming. If I need a silver bullet, I will pick something effective but reasonable, that doesn't completely stop the deck (rest in piece, ouphes).
I also try to build and pick decks that I feel are fun matchups. You like fighting monsters? I make sure I have monsters. My most successful deck was a BBEG Lich deck, complete with a cartoon villain voice.
Oh also, I'm the artifact guy. I adjust my decks so that nobody feels the need to metagame me out. There was also a time when vandalblast was just autoinclude everywhere, so I metagamed against that card specifically with mental misstep.
Your comment about adjusting decks so that your opponents don't feel the need to metagame you out feels like more people should be doing that.
Building decks where the choice is metagame or lose is going to mean that your opponents are going to tech that deck out.
@@leadpaintchips9461 oh yeah my goal is that *everyone* on the table has fun. I consider a good player/deck to be when people agree to play against it more than once
i don't like the idea that you have to be bound by the "chillest vibe haver" at the table. the "bro that isn't the vibe" players are, in my experience, the ones with the egregious decks that exert enough pressure on the meta to make players add silver bullet answers to their decks in response. its not just "bro let me play my cards," you also have a responsibility to recognize if you are the one instigating the metagaming.
Someone saying 'read the temp in the room' is kind of a red flag to me. 'The temp in the room' is differant for every person.
There seems to be alot of hate in this episode for hate pieces and punishers, but shutting you down is part of alot of strategies. For alot of players you cant give them the chance to do their thing, 'cause then you cant do your thing. Things like blood moon and wintsr moon isnt about about 'theme' its about slowing people down or stopping then to push the personal plan. Plus, wraths are fine as long as youre doing something to puah with them. I run five in my Sgorikai liat and those games dont take forever because its part of the plan to be able to clean the boatd to get in easisr.
If it gets to the point where the only counter for a deck is a hard counter (like the example you give), it's probably more apt to have a discussion about power level than about what hate pieces are okay.
@@melephs_cap
Very true, but unfortunatley the power level sometimes isnt di a covered until everyone starts playing. People arent always so good with those discussions. I do agree that is a topic more about power level than hate pieces. Im juat saying that hate pieces and punishers ARE some peoples theme and strategy.
If the person who says they are the chillest one at the table and actually aren’t are an issue. But I will continue to be the chillest and funnest at the table, no matter the stereotype.
Note on the obeka challenge: Initiative was actually the first place my brain went to when i saw the new obeka and built an entire deck around it when the commander dropped.
Turns out when you put every single initiative card you can into the 99, you tend to complete the entire dungeon once or even twice every turn. Both me and my group were very impressed in the first couple games.
However, as it got played more, the novelty started wearing off incredibly quickly. You pretty much always decide to put more counters on obeka on the second stage, the final stage going through ten whole cards of your deck means you end up seeing most of if not your entire library by time the game is done, and the creature you hit off of it gets large and hexproof so its also hard to even attack into it or interact with. Powerful stuff but it also lead to people rolling eyes a bit over time, including myself a bit.
Not sure if this is just a problem with obeka in general because I haven't seen one piloted by someone else yet, but maybe initiative should be used in moderation
When I first got into Magic (and EDH) my buddy had an Atraxa counters/proliferate deck. I only had 1 deck, Anje Falkenrath, and would get stomped. So I did the only thing I knew to do at the time - pick up a copy of Thief of Blood! It felt so good to drop that against his Atraxa deck and make a 30+ power flying beater and take him out the next turn.
As a person who built an entire mono blackdeck because I pulled a Contamination ina random draft booster. I feel like understanding your meta and just how cut throat everyone around you wants to be can definitely make your games more fun! (I did take contamination out)
Back when I first started tatyova has just been published. The deck looked insane to me. And one day the friend who was playing it demonstrated a glacial chasm loop.
I had managed to assemble infinite saprolings with ghave. Untapped with them and I could only look at his board waiting to lose. That day I decided to never rely on combat step again and honestly it is so hard for me to build combat only decks. I always end up needing at least a combo to efficiently close the deck.
For me started from meta gaming and it solidified my play style to this day.
This is exactly why I've just done a video all about graveyard hate, so many cards and deck utilizes it without being a dedicated 'graveyard' deck.
Another point for Dalek Squadron in Raffine decks ... You can pump the squadron with Raffine's conniving to make all of those tokens BIGGER! Granted, that may paint a target on the squadron but I can't imagine it would draw any more ire than Adeline or the like
unfortunately wont buff the tokens since +1/+1 counters (or any other similar buff) aren't transferred to the myriad tokens
So I’m a bit different. My playgroup was built from scratch with mostly new players. The downside, is that in most rules interactions, there are only a couple of us who even have a vague idea of what’s going on.
Because of this, as they learn the game naturally over time, I find myself helping them meta-game against me, and then finding ways to break the interactions. For example, my favorite commander is stickfingers, I can one shot a play for 21 on turn 3-4. So I bought a ground seal, a RIP, tormud’s crypt, and built a custom selesnya deck with Kutzil that absolutely rips on counterspells and graveyard decks. Then I gave it to another player. After a few games I started finding out how to balance myself to survive against the extreme graveyard hate. So I have added cards like elixir of immortality and some instant speed retrieval. As a result, my deck is slower and more manageable for the table, but also more resilient to hate pieces.
I’ve kind of been doing this with every deck in some way. I built a deck called “Death Beyond the Fog” on archidekt when the table started loving the commander damage route, and showed them why they need secondary win conditions 😂
Ill add my two cents to the Obeka discussion. The Rings, of Valkas, Xathrid, and Evos Isle; they are important because they are some of the only consistent ways to make Obeka bigger, which Joey himself led with that point when describing why Obeka is powerful... "if you can make her big..."
This is how. Its subtle, but there arent a lot of great options for +1/+1 counters in Grixis, and this specifically works with her strengths.
if you're playing competitively, yes. there's a very good reason early pros always asked 'what's the metagame like?" before trying to say how well a particular deck would do in tournaments.
This is something my playgroup has had to work on a lot recently.
We've recently been really prefering "speed bump" cards opposed to pure lock out "screw that guy in particular" kinds of cards.
We all built our decks to do the thing its trying to do and its really not fun to never be allowed to do the thing so we've all backed off and in general things are healthier because everyone gets their moment eventually instead of getting their moment because the hate cards arent drawn
To the mass land destruction topic near the end: I don't think people *really* want to play mass land destruction to counter green, it's just an expression of frustration due to green not feeling the pain of half their mana being gone after a Planar Cleansing or similar where others that rely on mana rocks do feel that pain. If there was a spell that read "Destroy all artifacts/nonlands and then anyone that wasn't controlling any mana producing artifacts sacs lands appropriate to the amount of mana sources the others lost" that'd be what folks *actually* want. But because we don't have that and the ones that exist are mostly the nuclear option, folks feel it's worth the necessary evil due to previously mentioned frustration and lack of other options.
I think one thing to remember is the availability and general awareness to cards like Viridian Revel. If this was printed today then it would have a different impact on the game.
My favorite antigreen tech is Ankh of Mishra, especially off a first turn Sol Ring.
I have a feeling crim may or may not be responsible for that last bit bout mld and how it hits the green player, and the rest of the episode followed suit lol
If bloodmoon breaks your deck's back you have over relied on non-basics. It's the most innocuous enchant ever and people should get over it.
disagree with firmly
There's a difference between running a card that allows me to interact in some way (like Bojuka Bog against a graveyard deck or Shadowspear when i know a friend has a Sigard(the one with Hexproof and anti edict)) and running cards that stop people from playing. If i know a friend is playing a graveyard deck, i wont't put in Rest in Piece, but i will definitely put in Scavenger Grounds and Bojuka Bog. If a friend has an enchtress deck, i want put in Aura of Silence, but i will include an extra enchantment removal
The difference for graveyard hate is that there generally are not good alternatives that incidentally deal with it.
If you dont run a bunch of vandalblasts, artifacts are still generally dealt with by beast withins etc. Obviously its not as good, but it can still interact at some level.
slide note here : I think that putting "trch cards" in a deck that discards a lot (like for instance Lord Windgrace decks), tech cards are never really dead, cause you can always use them as fuel if they're "dead", ergo I think playing tech cards in a self-discard deck is all upsides. I don't know if tech cards are considered metagaming, but I felt that point made sense (can you tell I have ASD lol)
You should watch Money ball. It’s a sports movie that you don’t have to love sports to appreciate.
People metagame with decks in casual, not in deck construction “oh you’re playing reanimator so I’ll play my deck with the most graveyard hate in it” etc.
People do it all the time
Not really. I play a lot of Graveyard decks and if every time I pull out a Graveyard deck you pull out an ANTI Graveyard deck I'm just gonna find Myself not playing with you cause I'm sick and Tired of you pulling it out every time Just cause you know I'm playing Graveyard.
@@cablefeed3738 sure that’s an option but people still do that frequently. They will wait to see what you play and pick a deck that tends to counter it
Metagaming is part of Magic the Gathering and it's something that should always be expected. I personally find it useful when deciding cards for the last couple of cards in a deck. For example, if your group is on a sweeper craze that might bias decisions towards Instants and Sorceries instead of permanents.
@EDHRECast Could run Urza's Sylex as way to reset the green ramp decks without going mass land destruction. "2ww tap Exile Urza's Sylex: Each player chooses six lands they control. Destroy all other permanents. Activate only as a sorcery.
When Urza's Sylex is put into exile from the battlefield, you may pay 2. If you do, search your library for a planeswalker card, reveal it, put it into your hand, then shuffle."
Ring of Valkas in Obeka is also mostly for the Haste it provides! :)
“Here’s a Mizzix’s Mastery. Do I win?” Probably easier to just say yes instead of resolving the spell 😅
Nope, i make them play it out to see if they actually know how to use it. Too many times where i made people play out a combo and they forgot how to actually do it since most people just scoop to it so they forgot how to actually execute the combo
I've started playing much more non-basic land interaction (including Blood Moon) because someone in my pod LOVES playing Glacial Chasm.
There is a saying that goes: you should never be ashamed if you mis-pronounce something, it means you read it.
100% had to do this exactly because my friends and I don't stop people from playing the game. If they win, they win. But, if it's not fun for the table, someone needs to stop it. Sadly, I'm the only blue player... so I run the "free" counterspells (forces, fierce, etc.) Just to stop instant wins.
The game is more fun when I get to see the game played by everyone.
Many of the old Theros gods see heavy play in my circles and people around here also love their propaganda effects to the point where they even include bunch of them in their aggressive decks. My decks' removal suites have definitely started reflecting that environment. Anguished Unmaking, Despark and Crush Contraband are pretty good cards in general, but I don't think many other people consider cards like Deglamer, Erase or Barrier Breach super valuable. I've even run stuff like Forsake the Worldly and Guardian Naga occasionally.
The first time I built a mono red Commander deck, ages ago, I ran Omen of Fire, Pyroblast and Burnout. Blue was just so popular and so much better than any other color during those days. Never gone to those kinds of lengths again after that.
I'd say that things like the ratio of graveyard interaction you have in your decks is a form of metagaming. You guys really bang the drum that it's an important form of removal, but that's because Joey builds 80% graveyard decks. In my local meta it's just not as prevalent; but theft decks are, so Homeward Path becomes that much more valuable. I struggle to imagine when people would consciously choose to not engage in metagaming in some form. It doesn't always have to come down to jamming as many silver bullet answers like Rest in Piece or Bane of Progress as possible.
I liked Dana's distinction between metagaming to get an edge and metagaming to keep up. I've always been of the opinion that things like Blood Mood are "rude" for lack of a better word and this has made me reflect on my hardline stance.
EDIT: can you tell I commented before finishing the video?
The way I tend to think about things like metagaming is in terms of "getting away with" and "punishing". If I consistently see someone pursue a strategy that is not being interacted with, I will decide not to let them get away with nobody interacting with them. Maybe, I would even go so far as to punish them for pursuing this strategy and assuming that they will be left alone in it. However, I would not want to punish someone for something that is not being "gotten away with". Unfair things illicit unfair answers, but fair things only require fair answers.
I understood the moneyball reference! It was a great movie! I don't actually know anything about baseball, but his analogy made sense!
I dont understand how he doesn't understand a what seems like a single sports reference. Alot of it transcends sports. You just have to exist as a human to get most of them
Do you run cards like 'march of the machines' or 'leyline of singularity' in blue to deal with treasures or artifacts?
- blue has an easier time removing creatures than artifacts: especially at instant speed.
I don't run Choke as a color hoser.
It DOES however make for some great tech for Xolatoyac, particularly when paired with Quicksilver Fountain.
Being the one friend that roped his other friends into playing Magic (and promptly wiping the floor with their cardboard), I deserve metagaming against me even when I play my lower power stuff. I'm still dangerous no matter which deck I play. Sometimes "incidental" types of punish just isnt enough, especially when the engine is already going.
My only gripe is it feels unsafe to ramp using non-land options but even then most people dont play mass artifact or enchantment unless its a problem for their specfic strategy
Is it engaging with the metagame if I increasingly favour stifles in EDH as more triggered and activated abilities? I think maybe yes? Interesting topic to think about!
I metagame, in that too many EDH players think that Commander is another word for 'nonbasic lands' so my decks run stuff that hammer nonbasics, from Blood Moon to Wave of Vitriol and all points in between. To a greater extent, all of my decks also include graveyard hate, even if it only incidentally hampers an opponent, instead of hammering commanders like Muldrotha.
The rings are fairly good in obeka since the regenerate and hexproof are both fairly useful on someone who is going to be targeted a bit
I think the regenerate ring would be hit and miss. Most of the removal will either ignore it (Exile, Pacify, -X, Bury, Bounce etc.) or just time destroy removal for when you don’t have 2 mana. I think it is playable but far less useful than the hexproof ring.
@@Dragon_Fyre for sure, the hexproof ring is the best of the 3, but imo the regenrate one is better than haste since there are other (better) ways to get haste
@@francescognerre2408 The haste one is not great but can be underrated. The instant rewards from your Commander, particularly if you have hexproof will quickly take over the game if not immediately removed. With no other help, your Commander will get 2 counters, another on upkeep, then 5 counters, another on upkeep at which point just about any of the courts can win the game. For me, that’s better than being able to save my Commander from less than a 3rd of the removal I expect to encounter in a deck (if I have 2 mana free) where I am already going to add a lot of Hexproof or maybe a Darksteel plate or Mithril armour to guard my Commander given how important it is.
I’m a big Wave of Vitriol fan in mono green because it’s pretty meta agnostic (what pod is completely unaffected by sacrificing all artifacts and enchantments?) and it comes with a little bit of cheeky plausible deniability if you do happen to mass land destruct in the process.
No, I’m not /trying/ to blow out greedy mana bases, how was I supposed to know the prismatic bridge player only had 4 basic lands in their deck? :)
In regards to Land destruction would you put Ajani Vengeant in same category as armageddon? as a planewalker it will take a few turns to get to his ult and I personally think its better to have it as an option even if you never use it and just use the - ability instead. What do you think?
i think anything attached to a planeswalker is fair game (except in a dedicated doubling season/ult on 1st turn deck) since they can usually be kept off the ult by swinging into them and incidental damage and having 3 opponents is quite the downside. unless you're playing staxy stuff like ensnaring bridge
I do have a player in my group you likes to play Zacama all the time so I did get a doorkeeper thrull cause I got tired of losing to that. It’s had mixed results as far as people answering it but the one player definitely doesn’t like it
I feel like there’s two separate conversations here:
Should you play cards to counter specific kinds of strategies?
Should you play stacks?
And your answers seem to be “Yes if the number of unique decks you play against is small enough that metagaming is meaningful” and “No because it makes for uninteresting games.”
Bring Crim on for an MLD convo, he's got me convinced!
But really, I do think more punishing cards need to be printed for the egregious mana and draw. Deal triple damage to each player equal to the number of lands they control or something. More natural balance type effects!
Not really. I just wouldn't play against people who don't want people drawing cards and playing lands. I'm here for everyone to do crazy shit, not for someone's crazy shit being to not let other people not play.
I get that, to each their own. But I didn't say winter orb or narset parter of veils. I'm saying you can do ramp and draw, but there's a price. Orcish bowmasters doesn't stop card draw, but it does make you have to think about how much you can draw. Natural balance makes everyone equal on land.
@@alexadams1151 Oh, if you're just talking about orkish bowmaster. Or one time wipes, then I'm completely fine with it like I'm someone who thinks balance should be unbanned.
That's land destruction that I actually consider fair
So 2023 steal Joey's segue. 2024 leave him confused on references. 2025 why not both?
On the mono red deck and blood mood I feel it's an auto include for me. Mono red has issues with certain types of removal, so why not attempt to deprive instead.
My first thoughts on metagaming would be in my experience that it leads to lots of feels bad moments because people often run hard counter basically Stax pieces to shut another deck down
That's literally the game.
Is counterspell a "hard stax piece" that "shuts decks down"?
Should you stop playing counterspells? Fuck no, if your deck calls for it.
Adapt or lose
Dana’s playing land destruction against green is like moneyball was on point 😂
As a green player blow up my lands don’t kill selvala heart of the wilds making me 10+ mana a turn
I appreciate the moneyball-world series reference Dana but then 2/3 of the teams you mentioned had a couple of the biggest World Series droughts in the league.
I'm a little conflicted about metagaming when most of my games are played at a card shop where I can have like 30+ opponent opportunities. If I teched in a hate card for a specific strategy the odds are that it likely will be a dead card most games, and when it does happen to be useful against a player, it would make that player feel targeted and singled out by a hate piece that affects no one else.
Something that I wish people metagamed against me more often is graveyard recursion. There are so many times that I'm playing a game and my opponents complain that I have a mill card and then I learn their deck has no recursion in it to get back their lost goodies.
Every single color in the game has some sort of graveyard recursion and there's no reason to not play at least one of it in your deck.
No need to worry about blocks when you build Raffine as a shadow deck ;)
There is a wonderful mentality that i think is useful here but in regard to a lot of the comments seen in todays video as well as others. MAKE THEM HAVE THE ANSWER. this wonderful mentality encourages you to take risks and play your things knowing that stuff might happen to it (in the words of Ms. Frizzle "take chances, make mistakes, get messy :p) Subtly though this one little statement packs a lot of commander philosophies in one short sentence, and it means different things and is relevant in different ways to either comp edh or casual edh. In competitive it addresses without mercy the cutthroat implication of MAKE THEM HAVE THE ANSWER. But for casual it takes on a very whole new philosophy. First it implies that there are answers to everything, what it does not do on the surface but does imply is the grave disparities of how specific colors can actually answer them. Now it becomes, ALLOW THEM TO HAVE AN ANSWER!!!! the reason for this is that if you have to make them have an answer they can't have meaningfully..... then you haven't actually made them have the answer you have given them hopelessness. Yes someone might be able to answer them, yes the person affected might not have enough draw or enough answers but that is not that same as that you haven't actually given the player that it specifically is impacting a meaningful way to make them have the answer. So, with this new understanding in mind, we now reflect back on the original statement of MAKE THEM HAVE THE ANSWER and apply this to our deck building. When we are building our decks we should be metagaming for the playgroup we are building our deck for! If it is a random group does this card allow for every deck to play around in a meaningful way (make them have the answer) or is the specific purpose designed to take away the opportunity for people to answer me in a meaningful way? humility, bloodmoon/back to basics, contamination etc. only have one true answer which is counterspell because once they hit the board it can effectively stop any meaningful answer from specific decks. those should never be played at any random table. along these same lines cards like rest in peace have no answers in any meaningful way from mono black decks, these should never be played random tables. With time what has answers and what will be acceptable will change nothing stays the same for ever, what will never change though is that metagaming is essential. And i think that as players we can both grow as players and the strength of our community if we lived by the commander Philosophy MAKE THEM HAVE THE ANSWER!!!
dont tell people to run more initiative in obeka. I want to keep my obeka deck based around initiative more unique!
Since i play at an LGS and without a regular playgroup, i make my decks ready in general and not for any specific thing i know might happen
I don't think at all levels is necessary to metagame. But you need to have responses for almost everything in a generic way: counters in blue, removal in black and white, fight spells in green, etc... Also, you need to play enchantment/artifact removal always, at least a few cards. Couple of board wipes here and there. Finally, having graveyard hate in the from of a land like Scavenger Grounds doesn't hurt a lot of decks and demoslishes graveyard decks
1:01:10 AND do you actually want to draw it in the case of that Gaea's Blessing lol
My favorite thing is to find ways to stick it on top of my deck in response to mill effects. Shame it's a card in the ~63 that I usually can't justify running, even though I love it so much...
I think the only 'metagaming' I've done is steadily leaning in more towards exile-based removal over destroy effects, simply because of how much I'm seeing indestructible in my games. Whether its Xenagos commanders or people playing bastion protectors, I feel like I'm encouraged to exile, even if the spell has a higher CMC.
I don't know if it really counts though, when its replacing removal with removal, and none of them are that specific.
also it's permanent with the amount of recursion something dying doesn't mean you won't see it again 80 percent of the time