8:44 "It would be as if Standard format was called Competitive Standard or Standard." I have done almost exactly that in kitchen table games before. Pairing up people randomly and paying the winner has an effect on how players approach games.
I've kind of become disillusioned with rule zero. I'm an attrition style player when I play competitively (which is rarely). I like winning by grinding my opponents out. However, when I came to the commander, I gathered that was frowned upon. So I didn't mind building to fit that paradigm, everyone gets a chance to do a thing. However, after the many times I got blown out, sat through 20 minute storm turns, or ran over by massive boards only to get lectured about how the group slug cards or slow down cards I would normally play are bad feels I realized something. Rule 0 tends to be a weapon used by players of certain playstyles to choke out strategies that would negatively affect them. I certainly complain about stuff I don't like, thats just human nature but I definitely do my best not to try and push people to change what they play. Edit: I realized I need to clarify my friend group I normally play with taught me this lesson by just playing what they want to play and pushing me to do the same (play what I want to). The Rule 0 weaponization I'm referring to is out in the wild, the kind of rocket tag that develops because the Gishath player effectively bans containment priest or the storm player won't play with any deck that even looks like it might interact with them. Edit×2: I think people assume I meant I still built those decks anyway. To clarify again, I was avoiding building those decks to fit what people said was fun. I've progressively stopped building decks that others tell me are fun and started building things I actually find fun.
I've started putting more stax pieces in my decks as counter measures to these massive value piles people want to put down and so far its made games way more tense and focused. Much more political too. I rarely win with my slow down kind of decks but it's always gratifying making people actually come up with coherent gameplans to overcome the challenges.
It's real interesting to see the diversity of exhaustion with Rule 0. It seems like, if we're having this conversation, we don't want to play CEDH. But then, if we aren't, there is an absurd variety of cards that can constitute our decks. I don't think we're going to find some perfect set of rules or bans that can create a good pod. Communication is the only way and that's Rule 0 to me.
Exactly. It doesn't matter what rules you set, if you are playing casually, meaning not for stakes, then it is about adjusting the experience to the group. It is best with close friend groups. That's all casual magic though. I think there are a lot of salty refugees from other formats who have been abandoned by WOTC. That's the real problem.
Rule 0 isn't always about an imposition of limitations though. I use it more as discovery to set expectations so the game doesn't feel lop sided. For example, I'm not going to play jank if my opponents are playing fast mana with two card combos and tutors. I'll just ask to switch to a deck that can interact with that type of gameplay. 90% of the time, the salt comes from someone obfuscating their intent and running thoracle into precons.
Gavin's thought about rule zero being reactionary brings to mind the "results-oriented thinking" phenomenon which a lot of MTG pros have written about over the years. The idea is that casual players tend to draw sweeping conclusions with small sample sizes. The problem is that EDH is a casual format, designed for and catering to casual players, which means it inherits the negative effects of these beginner mental traps.
i’ve always maintained that the commander format is the refuge of bad players who lack understanding of the fundamental game concepts required to play constructed or limited. the concept of a ‘rule zero’ shouldn’t even exist in a real format. just by merit of its existence, rule zero is the ultimate hallmark of casual play.
commander was in no way designed to be casual, this is an effect of mostly casual players playing it. on the contrary the idea of building a singleton deck amongst the cards of history is definitionally not casual and requires experience and knowledge to do.
@@jarad9946 This is true. I played a few times with Canadian judges when it was just EDH with no commanders. The whole point was for the judges to play with a bunch of cards from the entire life of the game and create strange interactions to test their knowledge of the rules.
@@jarad9946 Yep. It was originally designed to be a "fun" thing for judges to do when they had time during events, and to help them test their knowledge of differing card interactions across a vast array of differing sets all with their own differing design directions and card ideas. Sooooo... Peak complexity. Not really what you would call casual. Or a lot of times "fun." A high level Magic the Gathering judge's idea of "fun" is likely VERY far removed from the average person looking to pick up Magic as a casual, once every couple weeks/months kind of game.
I feel like rule zero is more and more used as an excuse for the rules committee to not attempt to make the format better. Rule zero is just touted as this panacea to all the issues anyone could have with the format.
Ya, the rules committee needs to set harder rules with an updating banlist to help with deckbuilding. Rule zero happens AFTER the deckbuilding step, so it doesn't actually help with a very important aspect of the format. And without sideboards being "legal," how are you supposed to adapt your deck on the fly to different rulesets & playgroups? The only solution is to build (and bring) a deck for every potential situation you can think of.
@@seandabomb of course the issue with a harsher ruleset and ban list is that well Commander is a casual format and lots of people have different ideas of what casual is. i mean hell even bans like lutri were contentious and golos despite being the de facto best commander for casuals caused massive uproar when he was banned. so if they suddenly make sweeping changes and ban a load of cards like they should plenty of people are going to be pissed. like the best way to do things would be like the tiers in Pokémon where everything is set into tiers based on usage and power but that's nigh impossible to do at this point. So the RC just sits because balancing for such a wide variety of expectations is impossible. Hence why i think CEDH should be the way the banlist is constructed. ya ban all the stuff that warps cedh games like tutors, fast mana, and the one ring/rhystic study or other absurd card advantage engines and those cards are no longer incidentally ending up in casual tables. you want to have more bans? separate it out like Pokémon tiers cause really the only way you're going to have a ban list that satisfies most people is if you define the power levels you want and then treat them like separate formats.
@@Lernz1 we arguably don’t need a rules committee. the rules committee contributes almost nothing to the format and the banlist doesn’t even get updated. if the rules committee had any kind of value, they would have banned a lot of cards by now and created a separate banlist for cedh
I don’t think I’ve heard you talk about the biggest design constraint for casual formats, which is, imo, that everyone should be able to play with whatever cards they already have. Commander is pretty much the only format where if you get a shoebox of 1998 cards from a friend, you can still play, and imo that’s a big reason it has grown. Rule 0 and many other things in commander feel like a response to this requirement.
Yup. I think this happens subconsciously a decent portion of the time too. Not playing enough lands and then changing the mulligan rules, things like that.
@@distractionmakers I was a victim of this since I used to play with a group that was just unlimited mulligans and I started running 32 lands and 10 ramp as my mana base and would get mana screwed more often. Rule 0 made me a worse player building worse decks. Going to 36 and 8 ramp made my deck significantly more consistent and likely my casual decks should be closer to 40 and 7(in a 3 color deck all signets, talismans and sol ring).
Rule 0 works in genereal for my playgroup, and we overall basically dont play combo. It is very Battlecruiser (which i love), but in turn, the pod is filled with Kardurs, Disrupt Decorum, Reigns of Powers and downright a whole Goad Deck around the MKM Precon and that one Izzet Dragon. I think that is just the natural flow of deckbuilding in a consistent long-term playgroup, maybe we should open the Combo-Door a little.
@@EpicWin1337thats not bad, i think it also depends on your top end on the mana curve. My cEDH deck used to be like 30 lands and 12 rocks and i almost never got mana screwed on regular mulligans
I play multiple TCGs competitively. Commander, even cEDH, is, by far, the worst format to play competitive specifically because the rules committee doesn't do its job, which is to balance the format by banning/unbanning cards and, importantly, sharing the rationale behind those bannings. Instead, they simply say "use rule 0." This is starkly contrasted by the Pauper rules committee, which is, by far, the fastest acting, most thorough, and most transparent rules committee for any TCG or TCG format I've ever played. I've stopped playing all formats of Magic that aren't Pauper, because the format is pruned so well that every deck is fun to play and is strong, and those that aren't receive well-considered action from the rules committee. Edit: clarified the connection between rule 0 and the rules committee for EDH.
I played tennis in high school and learned to play pickleball recently. It struck me how the rules and equipment of pickleball structurally forced the game to be lower intensity than tennis. It reminded me of commander and how I feel there needs to be some sort of additional structure in order to avoid a lot of the bad feels that arise from the mismatch of expectations. Part of what has helped me is to proxy all of my decks: it makes adapting to a playgroup’s power level easier if I have a bunch of decks I didn’t break the bank for. Additionally, my playgroup does a precon league where we all start with a preconstructed deck, and the losers each round get a $5-$10 budget to upgrade their deck. It’s a system that works pretty well to have everybody start from roughly the same place, but even with that there are some contentious conversations about what the goals of the league are and whether degenerate combos should be allowed (they’ve mostly been held at bay by the threat of mutually assured destruction-people don’t want to play against degen combos, so they don’t put any in their own decks).
about pickleball and the recent popularity of the commander format, i think these kinds of trends signal an age of the lowest common denominator. because real life gets harder every year, people are trying to find ways to make as many things as easy and as accessible as possible in order to conserve their effort for more important things. you can’t really blame society for moving in this direction, but the result is that people are increasingly moving away from more fulfilling and skill-intensive practices in all aspects of their life, which leads to a permeating sense of dullness and listlessness for everyone involved as we slowly starve ourselves of more emotionally fulfilling experiences.
We have a group (4 people with a WIDE range of playing experience, spare money to spend, depth of card, collections, etc) that doesn't explicitly have a rule 0 at all, but have found a fun way to play that keeps everyone the same level despite that. We play one a week or sometimes every other, and we do a new deck building challenge every time, rotating who gets to choose the challenge for the next game. We have done $50 budget, mono color, movie theme where every card must be justified by name/art/flavor, only God creatures as commanders, decks based on a specific mechanic/key word, and even a 2 headed giant commander game that was demons vs angels. It's worked WONDERFULLY. It gives everybody an opportunity to do the "thing" that they find fun, use tons of cards in their collections that would have otherwise not seen play, hone your general deck building skills, etc etc. I can't express how much this has changed the game and kept things fun, fresh, and on an even level between players
If you just looking to play commander and hang out pre cons only is the way to go. We do a roulette wheel sometimes and decide whos playing what at random. Take precons that are too strong or too weak out of the pool by group agreement.
As a YuGiOh player, I'm pretty sure this is just a problem with an eternal format in a casual setting. A new player coming into the game just has too many options to pick from, and most of them are bad.
Exactly, new players shouldn’t even touch commander. It doesn’t teach the fundamentals of the game well, matches last forever and you rarely play most of the cards in your deck. If wizards doesn’t focus on 1v1 60 card Magic it will warp into some strange overly complicated role play deck builder.
And yet - casual commander remains one of the most successful and popular formats . I’d say the new precons are the options most new players choose - and they are OK
Yugioh's solution is to simply not have a casual setting which is infinitely worse than EDH's slapdash leaky-roofed attempt at one. At least with EDH there's an expectation that you can come in and discuss the kind of power level you want to play at. While that isn't perfect and there's always some friction there, there's a hell of a lot more friction when you try to ask a Yugioh player if they want to play something casual. Because there's no such thing unless you play a time locked format where the complexity is lower.
@@geek593 There's no 'casual' format in ygo, but it's pretty normal for players to have a favorite 'bad old' deck. You still have the same problem as EDH where it's hard to gauge how powerful one deck is compared to another, especially because some decks will get absolutely hosed by one card.
Rule zero does create more problems in my experience. Many players use rule zero as a way to manipulate the game rules in a fashion they want. It's not based on logic, good reasoning, sensical explanation or any kind of rational position. Rule zero seems to be used in a way to stop people from playing strategies or playstyles they specifically dislike. One rule set and only one. It's the only way that makes sense.
My cynical thought is that that rule zero functions as a way for people to abuse social systems to increase their winrate. Politicking in-game is the face-up version of this, but it can also manifest outside the game, either consciously or subconsciously. e.g. if I guilt the table into "no board wipes" it tips the balance towards me, the go wide deck. The goal of casual edh is still to win the game, just in a manner that utilizes social dominance as well as mechanical dominance.
Why are you making this an issue? If my friends and I make rules for our commander games that have no substance outside our 4 man playgroup and being well aware that whenever commander is played with other people, official MTG rules apply, literally how does this affect YOU? Please tell me, I can't wrap my head around it. If your friends play with rules you are not okay with, talk to them or if all fails get other people to play with, simple as that. To me it looks like you are the problem: if you can't adapt to what the majority wants, stop making this some meta-issue that needs to be adressed in the community by trying to cancel rule 0. It's not going to happen. And this is also directed towards the original video here. It's clear YOU, the makers of the video, are the ones that have a problem with other people having fun playing the game they deem more interesting and/or balanced than what magic provides. You will most likely never play with these people so why make a whole ass video about it? It's not your problem, period.
@@JPN-k6c rule 0 and it's complaints is purely for going into a random card store and playing random opponents and expecting to have any degree of fun on the other side. If it's you and your friends no one really cares what you are up to.
@@TheTurophile you clearly don't know how rule 0 works. it obviously has to be collectively agreed on. if a single person begs the whole group to play with no board wipes and everyone else approves, you're basically saying that you are okay with that guy most likely winning the game, it's literally your fault and yes, you made the game shit with that decision. that's not rule 0 anymore, this is letting someone else win because they were crying about boardwipes which are a completely normal and needed part of the game. rule 0 to me and my friends is more like everyone getting a handful of free mulligans without having to draw 1 less card each time like in the official rules. I don't feel hurt by this rule and no one else feels either, so we all agreed to play like that and nobody bats an eye, a win-situation for everyone if you will. and that's exactly how it should work. and we are also aware this is not how we are playing against strangers.
My play group for the longest time would stick to the RC's banlist. As of late, one of my friends who is a dedicated EDH player has started making use of rule 0 to allow me to run Lutri because he recognizes that I greatly desire to run him in the 99 or as the commander. I think the Companion rule is absurd and its allowance in EDH while excluding lesson spells in the side deck is annoying.
Rule 0 is something that is implicit in any game you are playing with a casual group. There is no outer entity enforcing you play with the rules as written if your not playing at a formal event. What the RC have done by formalizing it as rule 0 is just giving themselves an excuse to not bother balancing the format or even coming with a consistent standard by which to ban cards
i think rule 0 shouldnt be "lets try to adapt to what everyone wants from this game" but more "lets be transparent what we all want from this game, what we intend to play, and if theres a new player with a single poorly optimized deck at the table maybe we dont bring out our strongest deck" (yes ive been traumatized by joining a table where the same guy won 3 times in a row with infinite combos)
I agree, that's usually how any conversation I've ever gone has happened. It really feels like people who have issue with rule zero as a concept are people who are failing it basic human interaction.
@@The_shadow_who_laughs It's always people who consider the format to be less than 60 card constructed. It's not really a knock against these people since I feel the same way when I want to shift into competitive mode, but there's nothing more exhausting than playing a multiplayer game with one guy who can't wipe his sweat. It's like sitting down for some 4 player Smash with one guy who has 10,000 hours and a decade of locals wins.
@geek593 😆 yeah, the "think what you're taking away from the competitive player" part immediately made me think of what the competitive player takes away from the weaker players by curb stomping them every week in 2-3 turns
@@The_shadow_who_laughs This is unironically why Yugioh died in my area. There was nowhere for new players or casual players to play so they just left for other games. This isn't something you should expect players to arbitrate but rule zero is an actual attempt to do so and for that I consider it crucial to the experience of Commander. Otherwise you have to leave it up to the rules committee or the developer to curate gameplay and they just can't do that in a way that makes anyone happy.
The point that standard being considered 'competitive standard' only is absurd, is absolutely valid. I think that standard, or any format for that matter, may be played as casually as you want. A format in Magic is basically just a differently sized card pool (with a ban list that goes with it) and other than commander, no formats impose any restrictions on deck building, the amount of players or the level of competitiveness. You can 100% play standard, modern, pioneer, legacy, vintage or pauper casually. Or you can disregard formats and ban lists altogether and just play with whatever cards you want or have (as long as the person or people you're playing with are fine with that).
I'd argue that any time you do a rule zero, you're no longer playing the original format: you're creating your own format. It might be *based* on Standard or commander and aim to be more casual but you sitting down to agree on something on top of what's the format rules, that's you creating a new format.
@@dimitriid Yeah but, as I said, formats are just differently sized card pools. They don't have specific rules other than the standard Magic rules (except for commander which is more or less a different game). I think introducing a rule zero is just an aspect of casual play that players can either choose to utilize or not but that doesn't change the format they're playing as long as they adhere to its card pool. Playing a format casually may encompass many different things such as whether the players would respect the ban list or how many people are playing the game. For example, participating in a prerelease is technically playing standard but is very much a casual way of playing.
@@Dimitar_Tsanev Except the restriction in Prerelease is that you can only play cards you've pulled, which is why it' is, by Wizards of the Coast, labeled as a completely different format called "Limited". All the cards may be Standard legal, but you do not have a choice of your card pool, so it falls under the "Square is a Rectangle, but a Rectangle is not a Square" umbrella of logic. In fact, a restriction to the card pool you have access to is a massive change in ruleset, one I would argue is even more polarizing that a banlist ever could be, because your opponent could be playing a powerful card that you have no access to. The same can be said about "Casual Commander", which is the argument they're making in the video and that Dimitriid is making: by imposing new restrictions, you HAVE altered the card pool in a way that fundamentally changes the number of possible gamestates. For example, by Rule 0-ing out Stax pieces, you immediately increase the pontential of Combo players to run away with games, altering the meta in favor of those strategies. These alterations have real consequences for how players build their decks, and thus do not constitute the same format.
@@evanprimeau3810 That's perfectly reasonable and, with your comment in mind, I agree that the prerelease example I gave maybe isn't that good. I'm still not convinced that limiting or altering the card pool of a specific format by say, limiting the use of specific cards via rule zero, can be considered that much of a fundamental change to the format. And if it is, why wouldn't we still just call it a casual version of that same format? That is if we're still playing within the confines of a specific format's card pool and we're more or less altering the ban list by adding or removing cards from it. Yes, this version of the format may still play significantly differently compared to the competitive version but I feel like it would still be the same format. Although, this makes me think. For example, if playing modern, with alterations allowing for cards that would otherwise be banned. Would this be considered casual modern or just playing kitchen table Magic using the modern card pool. And what's the difference.
@@Dimitar_Tsanev Under the line of thinking that adding or subtracting a single card from the format doesn’t significantly change it, I’d like to offer forward Black Lotus. Imagine a world where Black Lotus, like Gaia’s Cradle, was a wildly expensive- but Commander Legal- card. Could you imagine just how drastically it would change the format, by itself, by simply existing in every single deck that could afford it? A single card isn’t to be underestimated, but what we’re talking about with “Casual Commander” is far more than just a single card: oftentimes, it will be THOUSANDS of cards that players will inadvertently restrict from their games by saying “No infinite combos” or “No cEDH viable Commanders”, not to mention “No Fast Mana”, “No Infect”, etcetera. Do you know how many cards go infinite in Magic the Gathering, even just accidentally? I hear the “No infinites” rule all the time, and that’s usually combined with a soft ban on alternate win conditions like Lab Man or Thassa’s Oracle. I’d venture to say that a format without all of those hundreds, maybe thousands of cards being allowed is quite a different format.
In cEDH, people celebrate gamewinning plays because the GOAL of cEDH is to win as fast as possible. The goal of a casual edh table is vastly different and can vary from table to table. Not everyone likes playing cEDH.
I believe the point they were making in the video is that cEDH is what normal commander looks like based on the rules the designers have made just like how every other format in magic is played to win and push the limits of the cards available. Playing anything other than cEDH / High Power is in many ways adjusting the fundamental rules of the format to suit a different play pattern by soft banning certain cards and strategies. If you rule zero no two card combos for example, you are imposing a subjective social contract as a 3rd party to alter the rules of the format which inherently makes it further from “the original design”.
@krimson459 this would make sense if low power edh wasn't constantly promoted as THE way to play edh. WoTC has printed sealed products for other formats, and you can definitely see the difference. Challenger decks have shown that, when promoting competitive formats, sealed products are focused on winning in that format. They don't always have all of the pieces, but they give players a foundation of a high power deck to jump into the format with. The opposite is true for commander decks, which have almost always been incredibly low power, especially as compared to high-powered edh or cEDH. This is because the soul of the format has always been in the low power format that incintivizes fun social interaction over "who can combo the fastest." That has NEVER been the "original design" for commander. It was always the point to avoid being other formats.
CEDH is also full proxy . And I’d say it’s more about winning rather than winning fast . Recently it’s also about causing drama and taking yourself too seriously at “tournaments “
@@christopherealy8025 That isn't exactly the correct takeaway from that analysis though. WotC actively sells their precons with the financial aspect in mind, like no shocks, fetches and that sort. They easily could, but they don't. Which also, in part, showcases why selling cEDH precons simply isnt feasible. Staples are expensive, on the reserve list, and constructing decklists for cEDH isnt exactly easy either. Part of why the cEDH format is very, very proxy-happy, and I'm sure that WotC are aware of that too. So yeah. Not that what you say is wrong, its just a deeper issue than power showcase.
I really hate rule 0 because it gives WotC a premission structure to have the RC not ban cards, while not putting WotC on the blog post. A blind pod in a store isn't a homegame between friends and shouldn't have to rule 0 things.
They also put combo pieces into Precon decks - setting up players to get hated for playing “unfun” cards . Dockside Extortionist was originally in a precon . I still love commander tho 😊
All these problems stem from pick up games with strangers. Pick up games are for cedh. Casual commander should really only be played in a closed group. It’s a format with a banned list, and then a secret socially additional banned list at the casual level. It’s practically impossible to do a pick up game with 4 strangers and not have it be bumpy
You're not wrong: I just doubt Commander as a format would be as big as it is right now if there was never *any* games picking up games with random people: That's really how people who like mtg meet and learn to play *any* magic format commander included. Now to be super clear: I've got no problem if after you meet other players at a FLGS and learn the format you decided to *close* that group up and be way more selective about anyone else joining that pod that's entirely your prerogative. I'm just saying if there was no initial approach with strangers, statistically, you wouldn't even be commenting about commander today you would have just picked a universes beyond started deck and played a few rounds with some other, non-mtg playing friends. Not that this is you personally of course but most people, that's how they actually get to know magic today: pick up a commander product at a FLGS and play with random people who are equally enthusiastic about your new found hobby. All we're saying here is that *I'd be great if the format leaders on the Commander Rules Committee would do even more to foster those initial interactions* so that rule zero wouldn't be any kind of controversial patchwork solution to a lack of official moderation on a widely variable and extremely expansive format and it would instead be a tool for groups of like-minded people to refine what they want out of the format instead of having to sequester themselves away from any other fans of the hobby intentionally like you're suggesting: Less reliance on rule zero and more official bannings would *HELP YOU* apply rule zero more broadly and help casual players meet up more easily.
My view about "casual", or what I avoid in MY decks, but don't expect anyone else to do the same: No tutors, No ultra fast mana (just SolRing and not always), No free Spells. When I win versus a ManaCrypt/Tutors/Docksides/etc with my unusual cardpool, I feel in heaven 😹
“Commander only works because we all pretend it does” TCC. Commander is fundamentally broken. Without rule 0 the ban list would have to balance the format somehow. RN I would say the format is completely unbalanced due to mainly, fast mana, but also due to how certain cards behave in a 4 player context. See Rhystic Study and Remora. Some cards just give wayyyy too much value.
I think the concept of cards or interactions between your own cards behaving different in commander is actually what makes it more interesting. The affected players can work together to simply destroy an enchantment OR they all go solo (then let that player draw or anything) and retaliate later by focusing him. These politics are what makes it so refreshing atleast in my opinion and experience.
Rhystic study is a weird example because... If players respect it and play correctly, it's really just says "your opponents' spells cost 1 more". Which is good-ish at 3 mana, but not nuts. It's when somebody doesn't understand just how powerful that drip of extra cards actually is that it becomes a problem. People don't really connect the "he drew an extra card four times" with the "those extra cards killed me five turns later"
I think a definition of the term being discussed would be the ideal way to start a conversation about what rule 0 is and isn't. Most of what you're talking about isn't actually part of rule 0, but rather a kind of house rule.
I guess I'm one of the few rule 0 works for. We have a pod, our pod shuffles often and we play with lots of randoms. Our rule 0 is typically, casual decks around slightly upgraded precon strength, no infinite combos, and minimize tabletop politics. This typically works very well and 90% of our games are fantastic. We also have a no rules pod, this is where I see many more people dip or get frustrated because they feel like they're wasting their time or there's decks they can't compete with.
I liked the disclaimer at the beginning letting me know the video was not about playgroups where rule 0 is working. I am grateful to my D&D experience and casual commander experience to give me the perspective to treat Rule 0 as a Cooperative exercise. The pod wins the cooperative game if we setup an enjoyable game. The competitive game is always secondary.
Basically, Rule 0 is great for pods who everyone have the same "wavelenght". With strangers almost aways leads to a bad experience for someone, but to be fair, do ANYTHING with strangers and you have a chance of having a bad experience.
The more I look at it, the more I become convinced that Commander should just not be played to the degree that it is - that such intense focus on it brings out the worst parts of Magic as a whole, with regard to how it's different that any other board game.
4real. When EDH is the only format you play, the format have to do it all, you compete, do whacky combos, play silly cards, talk politics, play big dinos. And sometimes all of those with the same deck
If you don’t like it, don’t play it. Saying other should people should stop doing something they like because you don’t like it, is the exact thing this video is trying to criticize rule 0 for.
Commander especially fails when compared to regular 2-hour long board games. I'd rather play Cosmic Encounter, still wacky with lots of wild combos. And still political with the allies mechanic. The best part is no one can wake up in the morning and decide to pack a deck to frustrate everyone else when you play a boxed board game.
@@Lusk1993not only does it fail as a 4 player game, the 1v1 version is 10~ minutes and commander is 90 minutes. The game is too long and early game draw dependant. Did you draw a ramp spell in your first 10? Cool you get to play the game, did you miss your 4th land drop after starting a 3 land hand? Oh well, get fucked. Sit there for an hour watching everyone else play the game as you continue to fall behind. Or worse, did you get knocked out by the voltron deck turn 5 but then a farewell came down turn 6? Sit there for an hour not playing the game you came to play. Magic is not designed as a 4 player game, it fails in this respect.
I think it's important to note here that Commander/ EDH started as a casual format among judges as you've mentioned on the channel. It's far more inconsistent by design and taking it competitively is antithetical to how the format started. From my experience the format is simply not good anymore to play with random people because it's skewed into this more competitive side where there's now massive power imbalances and expectations are so spread out from people who want to play basically cEDH and the people playing the way it was originally. These two formats are wholly different and should be treated as such, commander is designed in a way to be casual. Standard and other 60 cards are designed to be competitive that's why we don't say Standard and Competitive Standard. The format itself is setup in a way to not have ambiguity, the concept of cEDH is far newer than EDH and has made just doing pick up games with people you don't know at a LGS or convention a generally poor experience. I know when I bring a Standard deck to an event i may not know people but we are at an understanding implicitly about how the game will be.
@@distractionmakers Oh for sure the design wasn't restricted in any real way because the way it started had all these implicit restrictions among these highly experienced judges, which made sense in that context. I think the issue really is that it's such a broad range of power levels and expectations even within commander excluding Comp which makes it so hard for random groups to have a good experience.
You’re definitely right that other formats were designed to be competitive, but I still think it makes sense to adopt “Competitive Standard/Modern/Whayever” (or casual Standard), because there’s nothing stopping those formats from being played at a lower power level if there’s interest in doing that.
I skimmed through the comments and could have easily missed missed this but Canadian Highlander is not a form of Commander. Its is 100 card singleton but its more in line with legacy. With that being said all your points would still be valid regardless of format. 10/10 episode as always, love listening to you two talk.
This video is not for me, I have found pods that I like playing with and pods that I don't enjoy, rule 0 allows the player to adjust the games to the setting they want and to avoid games they might find unfun, same for pregame conversation, for example stating that one player only have one hour to play makes the players pick their faster decks.
What does being accommodating for someone short on time have to do with anything they said or rule 0? I think the larger point was that people can and do end up robbing themselves and others of some of the greatest joys in magic. Say you lose to a card or line of play that you aren't prepared for. In any other format your only option is to shake off the loss and get back up to keep trying again and again to grow and learn as a player while experimenting with new cards and strategies you otherwise might never have tried until you earn that victory and defeat whatever you couldn't beat before. You can't put a price on that feeling, it's absolutely incredible, and so many casual commander players ruin their own development and experience by instead deciding "I hate losing, therefore I hate ____, my rule 0 is to avoid playing against whatever that thing was ever again so I can go on living a sheltered existence in the hand holding bubble where my playgroup lets me win so they don't have to hear me whine".
😢 me too, a few years ago. I had moved and just couldn’t find a big community that was down to compromise and have fun together. There was a smalllll handful of players that had a chill cEDH session once a week, but yeah. Eventually I just stopped playing commander, I still miss it
Gj, you figured it out 😂 Honestly tho, the best way to play magic is the simple “everyone is on the same page that this game is about beating ur opponent in the most crushing way possible” All the rest is ppl sitting around a table with chessboards and going “horse go brrrr” rather than actually trying to win
The biggest challenge for Commander re: Rule Zero is that CEDH IS EDH in that precise sense of how all other formal formats work. Commander is the one major format that's trying to wrangle all the copious "kitchen table" metagames into a cohesive whole. I think that the challenge intrinsic to this is that there's no clean way to try and delineate subformat metagames where you won't hurt some players' feelings in the process, and there will always be the "best card/strategy" in any ban list definition fallout, never mind synergies, new cards, etc.
Reminder that "rule 0" exists in casual games of Modern, Standard, Pauper, etc. The MaRo Psychographics were invented BEFORE EDH even existed. These disparate psychographics used to have to play together in 1v1 formats too. Rule 0 used to be "what kind of deck are you playing?" and you would pick something at a similar power level to make the game interesting. It's different and more complex at an EDH table because it's 4 players, but it's not unique to EDH. It just has a name now.
Yep, I don't understand the salt about Rule Zero. It's always been around, and it is inherent to non-formal games. Blame WOTC for abandoning 1v1 formats, not Rule Zero.
11:54 its funny you mention video games, because with the re-release of Marvel vs Capcom 2 I've been thinking about how that game kinda parallels commander. There's so many cool characters and interactions, but then you have characters like Magneto/Storm/Sentinal/Cable who are essentially cEDH and you have all these other people that just want to play with Ryu/Wolverine/Gambit or whatever other bad characters they like and think that the others are "unfun" etc. You basically have to have the Rule 0 conversation on the character select screen and figure out how you're both going to play for you both to have fun. But in the end, if there was no rules, everyone would just play these top-tier teams to win and that is essentially what the tournament scene is like and boxes out the casual players.
Our rule zero was very simple. We are all in college so w said that your deck can not be over 100€ (card in Normal print and near mint as card standard) We don’t play extra turns cause in most times on our power level they only theme to give u a lead and not close the game and everyone who plays an eldrazi who has his funny special keyword we jump him in the parking lot. The rest is all open and to be honest it worked great. We just test a lot more and are a bit more creative in our approach but there are enough combos and fund decks to build
IDK why so many people ban combos. Combo is the most respectful way to win a game of commander. If you try to win by attacking with creatures, you inevitably boot players from the game one at a time, and that can lead to half-hour or more points where one or two player(s) is/are out of the game and just waiting for everyone else to finish. People know this, and they resolve this by playing suboptimally (spreading damage and not "focusing" one player). No game should ever punish players for playing optimally. Optimal should be the most fun, that being false is the mark of bad game design. Combo does not have this issue. It is the optimal way to win, and it wins all at once. There is no downtime for the player who lost first.
Yes. I don't play commander but I do play a lot of 60 card games with more than 2 people and when everyone understands we are all playing to win it makes the game better. Especially because if you get targeted down it doesn't feel personal in the way it can without that shared understanding.
Because they don't include anything in their deck that can deal with combo. They want to punish other players for their failure to make a well rounded deck.
@@JohnFromAccounting Because it's stupid to think that someone is gonna just be able to have their out for a specific combo out of a deck of 100 singleton cards. It's normal for people to have blockers. There's a difference.
Any time there's a complaint about a mechanic in DnD5e the response is usually "It's okay, you can just homebrew that rule." That seems like a resonable ask at first, but how many times do I have to homebrew a fix or even whole systems before I can just say I would just like the game to be well designed? The rule 0 conversation feels very similar. If you're not happy with the game as it is to the point you have to bend over backwards to make it work for you then just play something else.
The name given to that idea on the WotC forums was "The Oberoni Fallacy". Basically "It's not broken because it can be fixed" instead of just agreeing that something is currently broken.
Cedh fixes it, rule zero is do broken stuff, be unfair to each other, try to win and have fun while you do it. It falls down in a tournament setting but for any pick up games it's very easy. As an addendum my personal deckbuilding rule is amongst my 5 edh decks i don't run a single card more than once and i don't run any cards in my cedh decks in my casual, it makes me work harder to find on theme versions of cards for those decks and powers them down as a byproduct. I don't really care if i win a casual game but the restriction makes me happy when i do get a win against the guy playing all the good cards.
@@Cybertech134 there being thousands i the first place is a symptom of the problem. You don't have to play the best deck to play cedh, any commander can be cedh-ified but some are better than others. Cedh is a mindset and playstyle, not a tournament meta.
My biggest difficulty is selecting the right deck, I have something not quite cedh, quite a strong deck, Yawgmoth, I have a highly optimized Lurrus artifacts deck, it can combo, but generally goes for value until it can get big things down And then I have a precon level zombies deck. The difficulty is, I can't peek into my opponents deck, if someone shows up with a commander that could reasonably be anywhere from "my favorite modern card" to "fringe cedh", and they say that their deck is strong, a solid 8, but definitely not cedh. What deck should I pick. If I pick my strongest, I might feel bad if its overkill. However if I pick a weaker deck and lose by a landslide, I will feel like I lost because of my deck selection.
I think you guys are making some good general points, but I also think that there's some really irresponsible framing going on here; rule zero is not by default a list of restrictions and concessions, and the term being conflated with "I have a quirky change to the ruleset" is the worst thing that ever happened to EDH discourse. The average "rule zero" discussion is not the abberant "no boardwipes" local meta, by and large most people just play the game without reddit horror stories. Yes, a "no infinites" rule takes away from the experience a combo player might want, but I find it incredibly frustrating that the community writ large treats these as some sort of ever-present boogeyman that's at every table when they really aren't, most people are just playing with their friends. The problem isn't rule zero, the problem is and always will be TCG players having differing expectations.
you're like one of the only people in the comments here who seems to actually know what rule 0 is. the decks i build tend to be around the 100-200 dollar mark, and i play with a lot of people who have modified precons, who usually have only a year or so experience, and i never hear "no blue, no counterspells, no board wipes, no stax". Real R0 is, like, people being okay with infinite mull to 7s, or, "hey my commander is silver border/acorn stamp, but you're not gonna have to balance things on your head, lol". If someone imposes a weird restriction on you, you are in fact allowed to discuss it with them, and if they stand firm, you don't have to play with em! You probably wouldn't want to anyway.
@@violetto3219 Yeah, it's insane. I don't like the pushed narrative that Commander is full of "unwritten rules" as though everyone out there was compelling others at their LGS to play along with their Elesh Norn/Jin-Gitaxias rule zero partner pair. It's absurd, horror stories exist but even with the notoriously bad communication skills among TCG players, 99% of us just want to play the game and rule zero amounts to which deck gets picked.
The core issue is that there is no managed ban list. The original banlist just isn't built for the current experience. Rule zero is a horrible thing that exists to handle that. Just make a good banlist for your community
@@bobthor9647 Fast mana, some dominant silver bullet stax pieces like Tergrid that unfairly shut down swathes of the format, Field of the Dead, Ad Nauseum, Thassa's Oracle, and pretty much everything else that's so powerful it sees consistent play in cEDH. cEDH should be its own format and there should be a push to desalinate the salt list for casual EDH.
As someone who used to be a Spike/Johnny. But is now a Timmy. I have to say it's really easy to look down on rule 0 when you enjoy playing at high power. I personally don't (anymore). And because winning is inherently fun, it pushes players to make their decks more powerful, consistent, and efficient. And without rule 0 there's nothing pushing in the other direction. Without rule 0, there would be a large percentage of player that I could never have fun playing with, including all of my personal friends.
As an adult we all learn two things very quickly: communication is very important, and communication is very difficult. People who struggle with rule 0 and compromise I'm willing to bet struggle with their personal relationships; something that requires immense communication and compromise. Just like personal relationships though, there is nothing stopping either party from getting up and walking away when they find out they are fundamentally incompatible.
I have never experienced hard rule zero ("no mass land destruction allowed"), but I had many pregame conversations to set the expectations, the power level and the competiveness. My issues are that when you play for the first time with other people you don't know the budget and the experience of the players, and it's very important to protect those who are starting playing magic ("this card make me lose life!" - mana crypt) and limiting the whales overoptimizing the decks (fast mana fast mana tutor fast mana thassa's oracle next game?) when it's just the only evening I can play magic for this month
This. Preserving the playgroup is the priority. If you have 4 guys who want to play cEDH, there's no problem. But if you have two guys who want to play cEDH, and two guys who want to play jank or precons, that group isn't going to last. That is reality.
Good vid! I think rule zero can be important sometimes in games that aren't in a regular group. I regretted not rule zeroing at my lgs when someone brought Horobi against my equipment deck, basically shutting down the whole thing. The strategy to deal with that on my end was to aggressively target him and his commander, and he was clearly ticked off that i was targeting him rather than the enchantments player who ended up winning. Thing is, i couldn't do anything to the enchantments player because he was preventing me via his commander existing. I don't think it was a fun game for either of us.
I added a single infect creature that just happens to be unblockable in my ezuri plus one counter deck(swell the host), so I have a random chance to win because the power level is too high and now I'm the bad guy. So maybe we should find a middle ground between me finding a solution and me imposing things upon people.
My primary use case for rule 0 is just to play, or let other people play, decks that fall outside of the rules of the game. for example, Acorn commander. or I have a deck helmed by Tamanoa but despite them seeming like they would be a legendary creature, they aren't.
The only time I see rule 0 in a positive light is when it adds to the game (i.e. allowing a certain planeswalker as a commander, silver-border cards, or even custom/sharpie cards), not when it takes away from the game (i.e. no "stax," no combos, no mana-positive rocks). My one pet peeve with rule 0--and I should note it's not generally a problem--but I hate seeing it used to stop interaction.
The only rule zero deck I have is vampire Wedding. Edgar the Groom and Olivia the Bride as partner and all the card are from that set with the alt frames. If anyone has a problem with them as partner commanders, I offer to use the Edgar with Eminence as the face commander...no one ever questions the bride and groom partnering.
To touch on the original point, involving the “table with Timmy, Johnny, and Spike” rule 0 only hurts the Spike. Most issues in Commander boil down to someone at the table wanting to play more “competitively” or higher power than the others, and Rule 0 is used against that (note: commander is inherently uncompetitive and I will die on this hill). Most decks can play just fine with each other, but without a rule 0 conversation there are many players who will abuse the fact that people are just wanting to play pet cards and decks to farm wins for their ego. EDIT: that’s not to say that people don’t abuse rule 0 to make worse decks, but the idea of Rule 0 isn’t inherently bad
I think most people's problem with rule 0 isn't actually the rule itself, it's that there isn't enough of a shared idea on power to actually communicate effectively most of the time. I play almost exclusively jank/meme decks in commander (which is why I love the format to begin eith) though they aren't exactly terrible decks in terms of power, and all have an upper limit of 90$ budget. Last week me and a friend went up to our LGS and played with someone who also said they played a lot of jank, which we assumed would be rather low power like ours. This person proceeded to turn 1 Urzas Saga -> Mana crypt and then went infinite turn 5. The guy was chill enough when we asked about how his deck was at all jank, and explained that at his normal lgs, his deck *is* considered a meme deck since there it's almost exclusively cedh and just expected our store to be the same. Deck strength is largely relative, and pregame conversations are important to make sure everyone is at least playing the same game. Obviously people will sometimes take advantage of that to hurt spike, but without it everyone else suffers instead.
@@milii113 Well put! Obviously there's people on both sides of the scale that abuse things, but overall I think that it's a good thing to have a conversation about deck budgets and when they try for a win, and if there's anything people don't want at the table (stax)
@@arvinsim right, and so due to a rule 0 conversation, you can decide to not play at a table you don’t like, before the game starts! If you don’t like the pod, you don’t have to play with them, and vice versa.
@@KismetRegret In theory, it works. In practice, it's exclusionary. I end up playing in constructed formats more because a lot of people in EDH only play with their dedicated playgroups. If the banlist were curated better, it would be easier to get onboard with strangers.
I play a late-game, lifegame deck with lots of pillowfort cards that prevent me from getting attacked. Since way back in the day, my deck included the two-card infinite combo between Sanguine Bond and Exquisite Blood, which results in everyone taking infinite damage and me gaining infinite life off of 1 point of lifegain. I was told via rule 0 to remove this combo and to prove my point, I did. The end result was that I won a few games by draining the entire table for 1 life per turn. From 40 to 1 across 40+ turns. This took over 4 hours and then the table came to realize that a combo made up of two 5-mana enchantments is perfectly fine. They can interact with it in response and they should be bringing removal. And if I ever am in the dominant position to cast both enchantments with a life trigger AND a backup counterspell, then maybe it's fine for the game to end and we can just play a new round instead of forcing me to drain everyone for 1 across 40 turns.
If you're able to drain 3 other players 1 life per turn with impunity, then the entire pod is the problem. It's not even a question of PL but of deck design.
Lol. So If they remove your Infinite Combo by exiling either card, the game goes for 5 hours? No offenes man, but that just sounds like an absolute nightmare. I would not play with your deck, infinite combo or not. The deck just sucks. If after a single removal all your deck can do is stop everyone from progressing, better stop playing at all.
Where did I say that was the only way to win in the deck? I did that to show them how stupid the "combo panic" is. If your players say the words "combo is stupid because the game ends to quickly" you show them what a long game really looks like. You win plenty of games off of swinging with an Archangel of Thune with two Sanguine Bond effects on the board or by paying 50 with the old Aetherflux.
@TheTexasDice "My friends think comboing wins the game too quickly and out of nowhere, so let me just do the complete opposite extreme, because the middle ground doesn't exist. I can't win the game in 10turns through gradual buildup, I either have to win in 5 or 40." - your logic in a nutshell
I think part of it is that, at least to me, EDH was seen as a format where you could simply play the cards you owned but were no longer playable in standard. That fun and often powerful interactions were cool if you happened to find them but ultimately not the main focus. Nowadays with wizards making cards specifically to be good in commander, there’s a lot of incentive to just invest in those newer often more powerful cards, which in turn can prompt people to want to use rule 0 as a tool to make sure they can keep play with those older cards and still have a chance at winning. Definitely wouldn’t say that’s a good use of it though.
I think you guys will get a lot of shit for this episode, but I completely agree with your points. I really believe blurring the line between player and designer/developer is dangerous and rule 0 is a great example of this
Not sure I would say it's dangerous, but I would instead say that there needs to be far more *intention* behind it: I don't think rule zero is inherently negative if the presuposition was that this would be a fun idea to try a bit outside of a format that *already works* out of the box: If you didn't *NEED* rule zero to just play and match with strangers without feeling overwhelmed by wildly disparate power levels then people trying their hands at designing their own subformats would have a lot more success because only those who actually want to engage with that aspect would instead of most players feeling like they *have to* engage with designing because their experience with the default commander rules set is too inconsistent for them to approach without having fairly negative outcomes.
@@dimitriid I am not a developer so take this with a grain of salt, but I think if a component of the game only works when people are using it responsibly/with the right intentions then it's a bad game component. Rule 0 plays fast and loose with the legal card pool, but it really is a game component. Players should have the freedom to explore the limits of the game they are given and asking them to put self-limiters is a recipe for misunderstanding and exploitation. Imagine a magic format where you can decide how much mana the spells should cost. It would certainly open the door to new decks and cards, but it quickly becomes a mess as people want to discount their pet cards and upcharge their hated cards. Designers and developers have the privilege of setting those costs because their goal is divorced from the performance of their deck. It is unfair to the players to ask them to be developers and bear that responsibility
Indication that rule zero isn't working for (almost) anybody: The sheer amount of discussion around commander rule zero. In other words: it makes no sense that rule zero would continue to work while the format changes and power increases with each passing expansion and the rules committee does nothing to actually shape the format into what their idea of casual, welcoming environment should be: I don't really need the super powerful cedh staples to still create stuff like infinite combos out of really common, recently released cards (See: Nadu, Stella Lee both doing turn 2-3 infinites with cards that were previously not even playable on a cedh table) WotC will not stop the power creep because it sells cards but you will only find it more and more difficult to 'Rule zero' your way into the by now idyllic casual environment you want without some cards and mechanics actually getting banned by some form of consensus or alternatively, embrace competitive edh and adapt your strategies and decks: you might still have a lot of fun if you stop hanging up to 2020 era commander 'casual play'
Thank you for speaking some sanity into this conversation. I don't really play commander but I love Cube and play a ton of other board games, and this same concept applies so often. Those don't always have time 0, but the concept of players trying to change the rules of a game or resigning themselves to being miserable based off of not liking a single experience is so prevalent. For example the last time I cubed with my group, I had a few responses afterwards where a couple players felt very strongly that a couple specific cards that beat them should be banned. When I looked at their decks they had almost no interaction and were not very cohesive. But instead of trying to draft better or look for solutions, they just wanted the card banned. Another player played against one of those cards and had no issues because he built a better deck that was able to handle it. Especially in cube, where everyone has the same chance of getting all the cards and the whole list is available ahead of time, I don't understand this mindset. Sure if we draft it four times and one card is a clear power level outlier I will change the list, but one player having a bad experience against the card when others had no trouble dealing with it indicated that the players just need to improve. In other board games there have been so many times where players in their very first time playing will complain that a certain mechanic or character is broken because it's their first time playing and they don't have the game knowledge to deal with it or to maximize their own character, and some players I've played with straight up refuse to play certain games because they think that having to play a game repeatedly to get better and achieve a higher level of play is indicative of bad design. That's a common thought online as well, that if a game requires too much investment and "I had one bad experience so instead of trying to get better in just going to give up on this game forever", then it's totally a good and acceptable mindset to have. Root and Arcs are two games that particularly come across this way in my experience - which are both from the same company as Fort that I see on the table there!
I have played with a wide variety of groups over the years and in my experience it is always the newest and least experienced players who push for a more substantial rule zero conversation and rules adaptation. This has always had me scratching my head a little because these casual inexperienced players are choosing to bend the rules for their “enjoyment” instead of actually learning the game and playing the format like all of the others. I do think there is a place for casual commander, the cEDH community is the tiny minority of the playerbase for a reason, but there HAS to be a better way to experience casual commander without having to impose arbitrary in the spot house rules from players that don’t even fully understand the game yet.
People who think rule zero is the greatest thing ever should really just make a cube. You have a vision for the game? Put it to practice, test it, iterate on it, improve it, you'll never see the game the same way.
One of the things I really love about EDH is the fact that the multiplayer nature of the game helps balance it. If one person if playing something way too strong everyone can simply team up on that person. The one thing I don't tend to like is free counterspells and cards that produce more mana than they cost. If it were up to me they would be banned but they aren't so I simply have to deal with it.
When I was playing a lot of commander in college (2016-2019ish) the only thing we used rule 0 for was to take things OFF of the banlist just to see how we felt about it or like if it recently got banned (Paradox Engine comes to mind) and people didn't have replacements yet. I also started that stretch with a nearly unaltered Nekusar precon and was getting my face kicked in everyday until I got better and it was awesome.
Rule Zero is inherent to informal games. cEDH is the result of rule zero, not its absence. Only Formal Events don't have rule Zero, because you do not have the option to homebrew rules.
I can't actually imagine a commander game session without rule 0. Like we sit at a table with a bunch of precons, one player brings an optimized Yuriko or whatever to the table, he wins 5 times without anyone else doing anything and then everyone goes home cause that's boring? I genuinly feel like opponents of rule zero don't recognize that they actually use it a lot in their games or they have a pod that's already entirely in agreement with each other in which case good for you i guess.
The unspoken Rule 0 is you simply kill the Spike. If you can’t threat assess as a group and focus down that player (either through the inability to do so or the incapability to do so) you eject them from the pod, or have a talk with them. I’ve seen people who get lucky and win every match in a day, either through good draws or politicking and I’ve seen players who win every match by consistantly playing the same hand every game and winning on turn 4. You need to be able to spot that difference.
@@Garl_Vinland An optimized deck will win through a pod of precons, even if everyone hates on him. And beyond that playing 3 vs 1 isn't as fun, kinda removas the politics aspect from the game. And ejecting them from the pod and talking to them is Rule 0 conversation.
@@Garl_VinlandAs someone who has brought cEDH decks to casual games (on my opponent's requests, dont hate), killing the Spike by turn 3-4 isnt exactly the easiest thing in the world. Resolving Ad Naus on 25 life instead of 35-40 does hurt the Spike's winchance, but not so much that the inherent pace and consistency of the deck doesnt run away with the game. Back when when my group did some cedh archenemy style games, my Kess list (at the time the best Grixis storm commander) had 2 losses in well over 10 games. And those losses came down to pure bad luck with draws. Put simply, hunting the Spike with precons wont do anything. The power differential is simply too large.
One of the things that drive me crazy isnt rule 0, its the people who arent honest about what they're bringing to the table. Whether its before or during a game. I had a pod of 4, 1 of which playing artifacts and idr what it was at the time but it was basically an infinite combo that they were assembling, and i said to the table theyre doing this thing unless someone stops them. And the artifact player got upset and was like "well how do you know thats what I'm doing?" And i said you have X and Y and if youre now playing Z you'll do this thing. I already know how this combo works. Another incident of a 4 pod, with an mono G ezuri player and 2 PRE CONS. Ezuri player goes off with mana vault,crypt etc and then gets mad that i continued to stop him from steam rolling the table. Like buddy you've threatened to win on turns 3-7 and the pre con players have done jack squat this whole game. Guess where all my interaction/removal is going
You're 110% spot on about the reactionary part, and I have a great anecdote to back it up: When we were teenagers, my friends and I had a consistent, casual pod, with the only rule being "No infinite combos". The problem, was that one of us was playing an incredibly efficient, grindy Glissa the Traitor list. And although all of us agreed to the rule, what we didn't realize was that by house-banning infinite combos, we also banned the *primary* deck archetype that would've kept something like that deck in check (since it was just about as close as you can get to aggro in edh without infinite combos). Now, I appreciate every bit of the old, hostile MtG design: stax, lock pieces, it all has its own unique charm, once you get past the reactionary "This sucks" feeling. tl;dr Many old MtG cards and mechanics were the definition of an acquired taste; instead of spitting it out and swearing off it forever, maybe try acquiring it?
Stax and lock pieces measurably make the game drag on in an unfun state and make the game last longer than it should. We're all adults with busy lives and I'm not setting aside time just so you can jail my deck and let me do absolutely nothing. I just won't play with you again if that's the respect you have for others' time.
9:02 nooo not dumb! That is such a concise phrasing of something that took me years to realize! “My personal cEDH experiences” vs “my personal EDH experiences” were just like this! (The internet and discussions of the differences are not necessarily the same as my personal years of playing in these “formats”)
You should give some more thought about using rule zero. Like you, I hated it for the longest time and rejected it for years. But in the recent past, I’ve learned to love rules zero and use it to enhance my casual and competitive games. Casually, I use the fan-made expansion Commander Adventures to add objectives to my commander games and introduce variety to the typical play pattern of last player standing. Sometimes I even throw in planechase, archenemy, silver-borders, and more! Competitively, my group uses the Conquest Commander format for flexibility in strategy, increasing the viable cards/commanders, reducing the luck in drawing 'power'. Miniature gamers, Board Gamers, and RPG gamers all embrace house-rulings to improve their casual and competitive play. To me, it seems like the TCG players are more close-minded in their knee jerk refusal to even entertain any house rules.
house rules really work best with a sturdy home game. rpgs and wargames get away with it BECAUES they mostly play with the same people every week. commander players are often sitting with players they don't know. and when that happens in those other games you end up wit the same rule 0 isues described in teh video.
@@Grimmlocked Not really. I remember than 40k tournaments banned multiple factions and units when 10th edition released because they were unbalanced. These were unofficial house rules for tournaments with cash prizes that was hosted in the public for players who likely did not play with each other in the past. For DnD, there are many, many, many house rules that became so ubiquitous that the majority of the players adopted them (or a variation of them). Some DnD players have multiple groups, or play multiple games with different GMs. Some house rules are the same, some are different. These players are capable of handling altered rulesets between unfamiliar playgroups. There's no reason why commander players can't either.
The only rule zero discussions i usually have are: "im playing a precon, does that work for yall?"(me) Or "im playing CEDH because i want to win the pack for winning the first game. Ill switch after i win." Other than that, not really a need for rule 0.
The problem with this stance is that sure, ruling things out does hurt the game for the people who like them... but *someone's* getting a negative experience either way, and there's nothing wrong with asking. If you've got exactly four players in your group, then sure, that kind of sucks for the player who loves going infinite or whatever, but if the group wants to keep playing together, it kind of has to bring things down to the lowest common denominator. If there's someone there who doesn't have the time to keep up with the same level of skill/deckbuilding improvements that the others are managing, the group has to choose: Either limit the power at the table, or let the weaker players drift away. It's not a black-and-white "No, you don't get to do this because I don't like it." It's much closer to "If you keep doing this, I'm not going to be able to enjoy the game, and presumably if we're friends you *want* me here, so could we step it back a bit?"
This really doesnt seem accurate. It's not that people are imposing overpowered things on filthy casuals, it's that they are playing things that elicit an emotional response. You dont need to play catch up financially when the opponent has day of judgment or counterspell, you just need to play better. Asking other people to play badly and deckbuild badly because you dont want to learn to play better is what we're talking about. It's super duper immature
@@freddiesimmons1394 But it does mean not "tryhard". If you're tryharding in a free-for-all 4-player game of Smash, you're just an imbecile. That's as casual as it gets.
I've been playing magic for about 5 months. I played commander for 2 and now only play draft and constructed. Commander seems fundamentally flawed to me because of rule 0. I want to grow and become progressively better within the rules that were designed for the game in the first place. I've been playing $3 decks using cards from years ago and its felt far more reward than the time of spent playing commander. Highly recommend Beaver Forces from TCGdecks, white weenies ftw
You could get a Precon and add proxies or a few great cards - try to make it good . Or so sealed with 4 Precons and make the best deck you can . Or make a whole deck proxy with mpc . I’ve found making decks and played against other good players improves my game even after 30 years
My only goal at Rule 0 is to feel like I have a chance in unknown pods. The problem is that it’s really difficult to have a meaningful outcome. Three players can all agree on decks and the type of friendly game we want, fourth player pulls out a comp deck and we’re screwed. I don’t have super high power decks and am not a competitive person generally, so don’t really want to play in to that power level. I’ve struggled to find a good medium between, play the cards you want to play and please don’t play that deck cause I’d like to feel like I might be able to win sometime
Question? If you are play testing a competitive or near competitive deck...why would you want to play with sub optimal decks and precons? How is that "practice" ? Yall didt mention that people look for gratification and social exceptance from "winning games"
For real, the issue is people who only want to grind wins, smurfing at tables with people playing jank and precons. Get over yourselves and play a competitive format!
You guys briefly mention that the social contract doesnt really apply to videogames because their rules are programmed in, but honestly Rule 0 has always reminded me of fighting games. There are plenty of people with the mindset of, for example, "throws are cheap, no throwing" or "xyz character is cheap, I refuse to play you if you play them." While sometimes communities will have to make bans and rulesets to address legitimate issues with a game (i.e. sf2 akuma literally intentionally being way, way better than everyone else), most of those people are just going off vibes/ whatever hurt their feelings and refusing to actually learn and grow. Ppl act like competitive players are super anti fun, but in reality competitive players are the most likely to put up with whatever dumb stuff you throw at them and search for a solution, whereas newer players are the ones more likely to get defensive and throw out "thats cheap" to defend their egos.
I can understand that analogy. A playgroup with functional rule 0 is like playing on your home console with your mates. Do whatever you want. But you aren't going to show up to the arcade and start telling randos "no throws" or what characters than can and can't play. If your pod is only your friends, do what you want, but otherwise don't be telling others how to play the game at your LGS.
Most of the conflict in casual commander is caused by “win at all cost” spikes sitting down in casual pods and getting upset when those pods clearly state that the type of fun they want to have doesn’t align with their own. A valid rule zero is any ruling that improves the overall fun at the table, which changes from pod to pod. Idk, maybe I’m just a more mature player who plays with other mature players, because we don’t really care who wins, we just want interesting narratives to emerge from interactions at the table. Because casual games are more than anything social experiences the desired outcomes change depending on the pod, as long as all the decisions aren’t driven entirely by ego, then you’ll usually have a good time. A lot of established players have multiple kinds of decks for this exact reason, so they can match the type of fun that other people want to have. It’s fine to not have fun at every random pod you sit at, but if you can only have fun in one type of pod, then that says a lot about the kind of person you are.
Rule 0 exists rather explicitly to hamper the power of competitive spikes, it's also the only way to reliably make sure that Timmy decks can find fair competition. There are people who take things too far, I've certainly had a few people I've played whine about their snowball commander getting removed, but the *vast* majority of the time if there is conflict its a problem with power level disparity or very abrasive playstyles that ruin the fun of everyone else at the table. There is a massive difference between "I don't want anyone to play counterspells" and "Your $1500 control deck that doesn't allow anyone at the table to play the game by turn 3 isn't fun to play against". People conflating the two are disingenuous at best.
Spikes will ruin all the fun if you don't restrict them a little. This is a format for everyone BUT Spikes, yet the Spikes keep trying to take it over and make it all about them. We even gave them their own little section called "cEDH" and it wasn't good enough for them. They just gotta sweat all over the people just trying to have fun.
Here is the big difference between Cedh and say legacy. The ban list of legacy is based around completive play. The band list of EDH is based around the vides of a group that thinks players should regulate their own pods
My groups “rule 0” is only the separation of our most competitive decks and our janky mid-lower tier decks. So far no one has complained after we as a group together separated up our decks. I hate “free” spells and two card infinite combo. But I would never ask to ban such cards or plays. That being said, I do hold a grudge against these plays and am usually out for revenge. I’m aware grudge playing is foolish if you’re trying to win, but stopping another player from winning can feel like a win in itself. And that’s the difference between CEDH and EDH. Competitive players are only trying to win the game for fun. Non competitive players are trying to have fun in whatever way they want. Winning, revenge, kingmaking, or whatever seems amusing in the moment.
We tried to rule 0 to fix our play group. Everything we tried someone always got annoyed with the choices. I particularly like for us to build to a crazy turn and we all get to show off our decks. Everyone else is just trying to win as fast as possible andasome are designed to stop others from playing. When I do play with them, they usually tunnelvision me to get me out first. They say it's because I'm the best player there, or it's cause I got them all into it so it's not fair if I win. I have only some in last for the past 2 years. In attempt to make me less the target, I am building a deck that has no combos, no bombs, no swing spells, all my creatures are vanilla with higher toughness. thing non-land and non-creature is either a ramp spell or a fog effect. Aiming for a solid 3rd place at least here.
@@spartanlink_047 I'm sorry, that sounds awful. I hope you can get them to play something else or at least find different people to play Commander with.
I think rule 0 is vastly misunderstood among commander players. It doesn't always have to take away from other players, and it can be used to just make the game better for everyone involved. My favorite personal experience with a rule 0 conversation was someone else had an Ebon Praetor deck. Funny old creature, isn't a legendary creature (though it does feel like one), so technically not a legal commander. That guy played his deck, everyone had a great time. Win-Win. I agree, it shouldn't be used to create compromises, and pre-game talk is often muddled with Rule 0 discussions as well.
I wish brawl was more common in person format, limiting the card pool to standard rotation would smooth out alot of the pain points imo. You basically demonstrated the inevitable arms race with commander when you explained how you optimised your deck abit to keep up with the pod, eventually someone gets left behind and salt occurs.
At my table we hardly use rule 0, instead adopting the mantra 'stax is a legitimate strategy' to indicate everything has its place. Because not everyone in our group can play all the time, we often end up with 3-person pods; here we noticed how 3 person multiplayer games drastically shift the tempo and the power balance. With a four player game, if one player keeps doing a blowout, there's 3 other people who have the responsibility of shutting that player down; and if 3v1 doesn't work, then we haven't run enough interaction between us, and because it's 3v1, you don't generally need to run as level of an interaction/gameplan ratio in your deck anyway so you still have ample room for your own sick pirate ship gameplan. This also applies somewhat to power levels; two stronger decks can hold Combo Johnny in check while the 'most casual' deck has the time to build up and contribute. I've won with my subpar deck so many times this way that it becomes a bit stale, but a pod where this can happen I feel is a dynamic enough pod that you can change it up easily and have fun. I also generally opt to help the losing player, because I might need their presence later. In conclusion, every deck is valid if everyone is interested in playing the whole game tactically, politically and casually; not just in winning. Ditch power levels, ditch rule 0, and be open about what makes you salty after the game (mostly it's flooding).
The only issue I'm hearing here is that people with different ways of enjoying the game are trying to play together. You can't change the rules to make all those people happy, hence you find a table that fits your meta/style
"The game os what the rules are, not what the playets have decided it is."- a cool podcast some time ago. Rule 0 allows players to make rules, which will be based on what they decided it to be, therefore turning the game into what they decided it to be. (For better or for worse)
I think a big issue in general is that every single time I see players try to change the rules with Rule Zero it's self-serving. A lot of people are afraid to win because they don't want to be 'That guy', or because 'Well, my combo didn't go off yet'. So instead they'll sit there with a winning board state, refuse to do anything with it, then if you dare interact with the other players at all you're 'ruining the game'. I had a guy get Hydra Broodmaster off with Volo and some ridiculous Nykthos mana (I think it was something like a 36/36). So I attacked him with my angels, and he got *mad* at me for attacking him instead of anyone else when no one had anything immediately lethal out.
Yeah, the idea that every game should be epic and everyone “gets to do their thing” is an issue, or at least something that masks underlying issues. When the stars align and everyone is relatively close in terms of deck power (and matchups on the off chance it’s not 4 midrange value engine soup decks), it can work out. More often than not, however, you just end up in 2 hour long purgatory where no issues are revealed and no one can really gain any knowledge of how to adapt to make future games better.
You just gotta find your good vibe tribe. Every pod isn't for everybody. You just gotta play around and see who at locals enhances your experience, and who reduce it.
In my mind, rule zero is assessing the vibe and trying to play decks/in a way that fits a shared one. At my lgs, I'm just tryna know what to look out for and play accordingly
This reminders me of pauper commander which just comes off as someone’s weird rule zero not as a way to keep the game cheap, but a way to keep the game extremely slow and “casual”
Incredibly my play group has never had a rule 0 conversation and honestly it's just always worked. No one gets mad or upset when someone wins regardless of how they win. If you walk away from a game salty that you got combo'd out or died to infect instead of thinking on how you can improve your deck, thats on you.
I think there's a difference between rule zero v game preference discussions. Rule zero, can this planeswalker be my commander. Preference, no fast mana or infinite combos.
I think the only Rule 0 discussions I've ever had with people with paper Magic have been people asking if they can use proxies or silver border/ custom / banned cards. I think my experiences sitting across from proxy Mishra's Workshop / The Tabarnacle at Pendrell Vale / Nether Void kind of stuff that are usually practically soft-banned due to the high prices on the cards felt the most like some kind of betrayal, like maybe you should have said you were proxying a $20k deck instead of just a couple cards. And then comes the arms race if you play regularly with those folk. I think there's some validity in coaching and molding a best of 1 format like Commander that has no sideboarding phase. It's just a lot of work and allows for very little flexibility in letting players jump into your game. I think telling people you're not playing CEDH is usually good enough to keep them from playing some kind of storm or thassa's oracle deck, but people still do this.
Agreed there, though there is still a wide range outside just cedh. I've had people unironically sit down at my pod and tote their deck as "highly optimized jank" and throw cards worth 3x my entire deck in the first turn.
Why does it matter how expensive the actual cards are? That's the entire purpose of proxies: to ignore that. Either proxies are allowed or they're not.
When I say things like “no infinite combos” in a Rule 0 conversation, I am talking about power level, not playstyle preferences. If I said that and your response was “My deck is built around a 5-card combo that I usually assemble around turn 7” then I would be totally fine playing against that with a casual deck, because both of us are looking to win around the same time. You want to pull out your two-cared combo infinite turns deck? Great! Let me at least play a deck that is playing the cards I would need to possibly counter that instead of the jank piles I play at a more casual table. I feel like the idea that Rule 0 is bad because it limits what people like about the game is so off the mark.
Hear hear. On MTGO I used to start a pod with the description: No Expropriate. No Torment of Hailfire. I think there's a fine meta for people who like them. But I'm not packing appropriate answers. And if it I did, then I would ROFLTStomp my normal playgroup. Time place and expectations, can't just bust out a Reaper King blow everything up in just any pod, even if it's technically the same power level as my other decks. It just doesn't engender the same vibes.
It matters more with what mindset rule 0 is made. My playgroup uses something along the lines of: "1. Use as many proxies of anything as you want. 2. Your deck has to have some intended way to win and you that you will use, no building a combo deck and then not going for the combo 3. You should have an idea on what turn on avarage you win against 3 goldfish, so that we can all sit down with similarly powerful decks." though you can skip 3 if your deck isn't going to win before turn 7, but at that point you should know that you chose to bring a probably underpowered deck. And our table has a timmy who plays commanders or decks because he likes them without thinking of their inherent power, a more casual who ends up building pretty powerful decks and then ends up taking forever on his turns because he isn't as invested or plays as much and me and my little brother who fall more into the johnny/spike category. If course I also tell other people who want to play that that is how I build my Decks and ask if they want to play against it.
The whole "casual Standard" vs "just Standard" thing comes up ALL THE TIME on the Eternal format subreddits, it's crazy. "This card should be banned, it's too OP" "Why? Data says it's fine" "Well my T5 shitty Elves deck gets hosed by it! It should be banned!" Same exact logic behind T0 conversations lol
Really good video today guys. Feel like a lot of content creators make rule 0 as magical that makes the game better. I try to have a rule 0 chat every time I play with people. Usually it ends up with 3 strangers staring at me and be like “sounds cool” after I describe my deck and power level. My first real deck I built was a Niv mizzet deck because he was always my favorite card and I ran him in standard for years. I remember one game I played a control/political game extremely well, and was able to stall the game enough to get a curiosity combo and burn everyone down. The group let out a sigh and asked if I felt good? I came to the realization casual commander players hate control and combos and you have to win through combat. So I made a sword of X and Y equipment deck, and now I have to hear people bitch about the swords.
So I can't speak for anyone other than myself... But what I would groan about there isn't "all combos" being bad. It's "a two card combo where one of the cards is your commander" plus "the combo piece is clearly there to instantly win and do nothing else." Like, someone going "I managed to stick these pieces that are good on their own and combine to win the game" make me go "ooh, that's nifty" Someone going "I drew my one card that ends the game off a normal board state" does indeed make me go "was that fun for you?" (Edit: particularly when it feels disconnected from whatever else is happening that game) Because the only effective answer to having that threat in someone's deck is to kill them as quickly as possible (and then they're sitting there watching everyone else play. Like, casual-ish culture discourages it. I feel bad rushing down one guy, even if it's deserved.) I can't always be holding up instant removal, I have two other opponents that are ALSO setting up degenerate things and I need to stop their combos and synergy pieces too. Edit again: if they don't like control, though, I have no sympathy. It's a core part of the game, supposed to be viable at all power levels. They should learn to fight through it.
@@someguy1ification I agree, it ultimately lead to me disassembling the deck because of the social dilemma it would put me in as I learned more about the format. But it does kind of match what “rule 0 has taken from me”. I don’t get to play my favorite card and I’ve tried like 3 other Izzet commanders and I just don’t really enjoy them as much. So I’ve had to alter the way I play the game because of what others groan about. But I do play for fun and hanging out with people so I get it, just an interesting dilemma I’ve only ever seen in this game.
The only part that should be a default rule is to REMOVE COLOR LOCKS FOR DRAFTING COMMANDER! This way you can draft commander in each set, ever. As long as you allow rare/mythic creatures to be commanders too due to many sets lacking legendary creatures
My rule zero conversation only involve two questions. How fast do you win and do you have infinite combos? I then use that to pick from about 4 decks I carry with different power levels. There have been mismatches but I usually stick around for more than one match so if I stomped them too bad I apologize and pick a weaker deck and if I got stomped I go up in power.
You mentioned Canadian Highlander a few times in the same breath as EDH, but it is a completely different format ^^ it's also eternal, but it's 1v1 20 life bo3. The points list is used to balance only the most busted cards in all of magic (e.g. moxen, flash, thoracle) and is regularly adjusted to reflect the meta.
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Excellent 20 minutes on the commander format.
“if 4 strangers could get together and agree on what’s fair, we’d have world peace.” - Matt Grenier
8:44 "It would be as if Standard format was called Competitive Standard or Standard." I have done almost exactly that in kitchen table games before. Pairing up people randomly and paying the winner has an effect on how players approach games.
I've kind of become disillusioned with rule zero.
I'm an attrition style player when I play competitively (which is rarely). I like winning by grinding my opponents out. However, when I came to the commander, I gathered that was frowned upon. So I didn't mind building to fit that paradigm, everyone gets a chance to do a thing. However, after the many times I got blown out, sat through 20 minute storm turns, or ran over by massive boards only to get lectured about how the group slug cards or slow down cards I would normally play are bad feels I realized something.
Rule 0 tends to be a weapon used by players of certain playstyles to choke out strategies that would negatively affect them.
I certainly complain about stuff I don't like, thats just human nature but I definitely do my best not to try and push people to change what they play.
Edit: I realized I need to clarify my friend group I normally play with taught me this lesson by just playing what they want to play and pushing me to do the same (play what I want to). The Rule 0 weaponization I'm referring to is out in the wild, the kind of rocket tag that develops because the Gishath player effectively bans containment priest or the storm player won't play with any deck that even looks like it might interact with them.
Edit×2: I think people assume I meant I still built those decks anyway. To clarify again, I was avoiding building those decks to fit what people said was fun. I've progressively stopped building decks that others tell me are fun and started building things I actually find fun.
I've started putting more stax pieces in my decks as counter measures to these massive value piles people want to put down and so far its made games way more tense and focused. Much more political too. I rarely win with my slow down kind of decks but it's always gratifying making people actually come up with coherent gameplans to overcome the challenges.
You need to find another play group that's just wild that storm (a design mistake) is complaining about being pinged
This. I have only ever seen it used in this manner.
Agreed. That's why I don't agree with the MLD and stax hate if it is a core part of a decks' strategy.
@ccctonelarone
Thankfully, my home group is pretty much a "do whatever" kind of group. But out in the wild, it can be a whole other thing.
It's real interesting to see the diversity of exhaustion with Rule 0.
It seems like, if we're having this conversation, we don't want to play CEDH. But then, if we aren't, there is an absurd variety of cards that can constitute our decks.
I don't think we're going to find some perfect set of rules or bans that can create a good pod. Communication is the only way and that's Rule 0 to me.
Exactly. It doesn't matter what rules you set, if you are playing casually, meaning not for stakes, then it is about adjusting the experience to the group. It is best with close friend groups. That's all casual magic though. I think there are a lot of salty refugees from other formats who have been abandoned by WOTC. That's the real problem.
Rule 0 isn't always about an imposition of limitations though. I use it more as discovery to set expectations so the game doesn't feel lop sided. For example, I'm not going to play jank if my opponents are playing fast mana with two card combos and tutors. I'll just ask to switch to a deck that can interact with that type of gameplay.
90% of the time, the salt comes from someone obfuscating their intent and running thoracle into precons.
Gavin's thought about rule zero being reactionary brings to mind the "results-oriented thinking" phenomenon which a lot of MTG pros have written about over the years. The idea is that casual players tend to draw sweeping conclusions with small sample sizes. The problem is that EDH is a casual format, designed for and catering to casual players, which means it inherits the negative effects of these beginner mental traps.
This is exactly it.
i’ve always maintained that the commander format is the refuge of bad players who lack understanding of the fundamental game concepts required to play constructed or limited. the concept of a ‘rule zero’ shouldn’t even exist in a real format. just by merit of its existence, rule zero is the ultimate hallmark of casual play.
commander was in no way designed to be casual, this is an effect of mostly casual players playing it. on the contrary the idea of building a singleton deck amongst the cards of history is definitionally not casual and requires experience and knowledge to do.
@@jarad9946 This is true. I played a few times with Canadian judges when it was just EDH with no commanders. The whole point was for the judges to play with a bunch of cards from the entire life of the game and create strange interactions to test their knowledge of the rules.
@@jarad9946 Yep. It was originally designed to be a "fun" thing for judges to do when they had time during events, and to help them test their knowledge of differing card interactions across a vast array of differing sets all with their own differing design directions and card ideas. Sooooo... Peak complexity. Not really what you would call casual. Or a lot of times "fun." A high level Magic the Gathering judge's idea of "fun" is likely VERY far removed from the average person looking to pick up Magic as a casual, once every couple weeks/months kind of game.
I feel like rule zero is more and more used as an excuse for the rules committee to not attempt to make the format better. Rule zero is just touted as this panacea to all the issues anyone could have with the format.
Ya, the rules committee needs to set harder rules with an updating banlist to help with deckbuilding. Rule zero happens AFTER the deckbuilding step, so it doesn't actually help with a very important aspect of the format. And without sideboards being "legal," how are you supposed to adapt your deck on the fly to different rulesets & playgroups? The only solution is to build (and bring) a deck for every potential situation you can think of.
@@seandabomb of course the issue with a harsher ruleset and ban list is that well Commander is a casual format and lots of people have different ideas of what casual is. i mean hell even bans like lutri were contentious and golos despite being the de facto best commander for casuals caused massive uproar when he was banned. so if they suddenly make sweeping changes and ban a load of cards like they should plenty of people are going to be pissed. like the best way to do things would be like the tiers in Pokémon where everything is set into tiers based on usage and power but that's nigh impossible to do at this point. So the RC just sits because balancing for such a wide variety of expectations is impossible. Hence why i think CEDH should be the way the banlist is constructed. ya ban all the stuff that warps cedh games like tutors, fast mana, and the one ring/rhystic study or other absurd card advantage engines and those cards are no longer incidentally ending up in casual tables. you want to have more bans? separate it out like Pokémon tiers cause really the only way you're going to have a ban list that satisfies most people is if you define the power levels you want and then treat them like separate formats.
If rule zero actually worked that well, then we wouldn't need a rules committee.
@@Lernz1 we arguably don’t need a rules committee. the rules committee contributes almost nothing to the format and the banlist doesn’t even get updated. if the rules committee had any kind of value, they would have banned a lot of cards by now and created a separate banlist for cedh
Is it wrong to assume the RC will act even less than they already have, now that Sheldon has passed?
I don’t think I’ve heard you talk about the biggest design constraint for casual formats, which is, imo, that everyone should be able to play with whatever cards they already have. Commander is pretty much the only format where if you get a shoebox of 1998 cards from a friend, you can still play, and imo that’s a big reason it has grown.
Rule 0 and many other things in commander feel like a response to this requirement.
The worst part of rule 0 is people using rule 0 to optimize their deck choice to gain an advantage outside of the game.
Yup. I think this happens subconsciously a decent portion of the time too. Not playing enough lands and then changing the mulligan rules, things like that.
@@distractionmakers I was a victim of this since I used to play with a group that was just unlimited mulligans and I started running 32 lands and 10 ramp as my mana base and would get mana screwed more often. Rule 0 made me a worse player building worse decks. Going to 36 and 8 ramp made my deck significantly more consistent and likely my casual decks should be closer to 40 and 7(in a 3 color deck all signets, talismans and sol ring).
Rule 0 works in genereal for my playgroup, and we overall basically dont play combo.
It is very Battlecruiser (which i love), but in turn, the pod is filled with Kardurs, Disrupt Decorum, Reigns of Powers and downright a whole Goad Deck around the MKM Precon and that one Izzet Dragon.
I think that is just the natural flow of deckbuilding in a consistent long-term playgroup, maybe we should open the Combo-Door a little.
@@EpicWin1337thats not bad, i think it also depends on your top end on the mana curve. My cEDH deck used to be like 30 lands and 12 rocks and i almost never got mana screwed on regular mulligans
Green players be like
I play multiple TCGs competitively. Commander, even cEDH, is, by far, the worst format to play competitive specifically because the rules committee doesn't do its job, which is to balance the format by banning/unbanning cards and, importantly, sharing the rationale behind those bannings. Instead, they simply say "use rule 0." This is starkly contrasted by the Pauper rules committee, which is, by far, the fastest acting, most thorough, and most transparent rules committee for any TCG or TCG format I've ever played. I've stopped playing all formats of Magic that aren't Pauper, because the format is pruned so well that every deck is fun to play and is strong, and those that aren't receive well-considered action from the rules committee.
Edit: clarified the connection between rule 0 and the rules committee for EDH.
RIP Gitaxian Probe though
I played tennis in high school and learned to play pickleball recently. It struck me how the rules and equipment of pickleball structurally forced the game to be lower intensity than tennis. It reminded me of commander and how I feel there needs to be some sort of additional structure in order to avoid a lot of the bad feels that arise from the mismatch of expectations. Part of what has helped me is to proxy all of my decks: it makes adapting to a playgroup’s power level easier if I have a bunch of decks I didn’t break the bank for. Additionally, my playgroup does a precon league where we all start with a preconstructed deck, and the losers each round get a $5-$10 budget to upgrade their deck. It’s a system that works pretty well to have everybody start from roughly the same place, but even with that there are some contentious conversations about what the goals of the league are and whether degenerate combos should be allowed (they’ve mostly been held at bay by the threat of mutually assured destruction-people don’t want to play against degen combos, so they don’t put any in their own decks).
Awesome idea!
@@patrickcreamer6791 I love the pickle ball comparison
about pickleball and the recent popularity of the commander format, i think these kinds of trends signal an age of the lowest common denominator.
because real life gets harder every year, people are trying to find ways to make as many things as easy and as accessible as possible in order to conserve their effort for more important things.
you can’t really blame society for moving in this direction, but the result is that people are increasingly moving away from more fulfilling and skill-intensive practices in all aspects of their life, which leads to a permeating sense of dullness and listlessness for everyone involved as we slowly starve ourselves of more emotionally fulfilling experiences.
Absolute opposite take for me
@@Garl_Vinlandwhy bother say that if you arent actually going to expand on it 😂
We have a group (4 people with a WIDE range of playing experience, spare money to spend, depth of card, collections, etc) that doesn't explicitly have a rule 0 at all, but have found a fun way to play that keeps everyone the same level despite that. We play one a week or sometimes every other, and we do a new deck building challenge every time, rotating who gets to choose the challenge for the next game. We have done $50 budget, mono color, movie theme where every card must be justified by name/art/flavor, only God creatures as commanders, decks based on a specific mechanic/key word, and even a 2 headed giant commander game that was demons vs angels. It's worked WONDERFULLY. It gives everybody an opportunity to do the "thing" that they find fun, use tons of cards in their collections that would have otherwise not seen play, hone your general deck building skills, etc etc. I can't express how much this has changed the game and kept things fun, fresh, and on an even level between players
If you just looking to play commander and hang out pre cons only is the way to go. We do a roulette wheel sometimes and decide whos playing what at random. Take precons that are too strong or too weak out of the pool by group agreement.
I love this idea!
As a YuGiOh player, I'm pretty sure this is just a problem with an eternal format in a casual setting. A new player coming into the game just has too many options to pick from, and most of them are bad.
Exactly, new players shouldn’t even touch commander. It doesn’t teach the fundamentals of the game well, matches last forever and you rarely play most of the cards in your deck.
If wizards doesn’t focus on 1v1 60 card Magic it will warp into some strange overly complicated role play deck builder.
@@darty788I've noticed most people who start playing commander before 60 card formats do not understand priority
And yet - casual commander remains one of the most successful and popular formats . I’d say the new precons are the options most new players choose - and they are OK
Yugioh's solution is to simply not have a casual setting which is infinitely worse than EDH's slapdash leaky-roofed attempt at one. At least with EDH there's an expectation that you can come in and discuss the kind of power level you want to play at. While that isn't perfect and there's always some friction there, there's a hell of a lot more friction when you try to ask a Yugioh player if they want to play something casual. Because there's no such thing unless you play a time locked format where the complexity is lower.
@@geek593 There's no 'casual' format in ygo, but it's pretty normal for players to have a favorite 'bad old' deck. You still have the same problem as EDH where it's hard to gauge how powerful one deck is compared to another, especially because some decks will get absolutely hosed by one card.
Rule zero does create more problems in my experience. Many players use rule zero as a way to manipulate the game rules in a fashion they want. It's not based on logic, good reasoning, sensical explanation or any kind of rational position. Rule zero seems to be used in a way to stop people from playing strategies or playstyles they specifically dislike. One rule set and only one. It's the only way that makes sense.
My cynical thought is that that rule zero functions as a way for people to abuse social systems to increase their winrate. Politicking in-game is the face-up version of this, but it can also manifest outside the game, either consciously or subconsciously. e.g. if I guilt the table into "no board wipes" it tips the balance towards me, the go wide deck. The goal of casual edh is still to win the game, just in a manner that utilizes social dominance as well as mechanical dominance.
Actual rule zero used to be “don’t be an a**hole”, so maybe that’s the actual problem you’re having, playing against a**holes.
Why are you making this an issue? If my friends and I make rules for our commander games that have no substance outside our 4 man playgroup and being well aware that whenever commander is played with other people, official MTG rules apply, literally how does this affect YOU? Please tell me, I can't wrap my head around it. If your friends play with rules you are not okay with, talk to them or if all fails get other people to play with, simple as that. To me it looks like you are the problem: if you can't adapt to what the majority wants, stop making this some meta-issue that needs to be adressed in the community by trying to cancel rule 0. It's not going to happen.
And this is also directed towards the original video here. It's clear YOU, the makers of the video, are the ones that have a problem with other people having fun playing the game they deem more interesting and/or balanced than what magic provides. You will most likely never play with these people so why make a whole ass video about it? It's not your problem, period.
@@JPN-k6c rule 0 and it's complaints is purely for going into a random card store and playing random opponents and expecting to have any degree of fun on the other side. If it's you and your friends no one really cares what you are up to.
@@TheTurophile you clearly don't know how rule 0 works. it obviously has to be collectively agreed on. if a single person begs the whole group to play with no board wipes and everyone else approves, you're basically saying that you are okay with that guy most likely winning the game, it's literally your fault and yes, you made the game shit with that decision. that's not rule 0 anymore, this is letting someone else win because they were crying about boardwipes which are a completely normal and needed part of the game. rule 0 to me and my friends is more like everyone getting a handful of free mulligans without having to draw 1 less card each time like in the official rules. I don't feel hurt by this rule and no one else feels either, so we all agreed to play like that and nobody bats an eye, a win-situation for everyone if you will. and that's exactly how it should work. and we are also aware this is not how we are playing against strangers.
My play group for the longest time would stick to the RC's banlist. As of late, one of my friends who is a dedicated EDH player has started making use of rule 0 to allow me to run Lutri because he recognizes that I greatly desire to run him in the 99 or as the commander. I think the Companion rule is absurd and its allowance in EDH while excluding lesson spells in the side deck is annoying.
Rule 0 is something that is implicit in any game you are playing with a casual group. There is no outer entity enforcing you play with the rules as written if your not playing at a formal event. What the RC have done by formalizing it as rule 0 is just giving themselves an excuse to not bother balancing the format or even coming with a consistent standard by which to ban cards
Favorite outro so far. Loved the fade to black.
i think rule 0 shouldnt be "lets try to adapt to what everyone wants from this game"
but more "lets be transparent what we all want from this game, what we intend to play, and if theres a new player with a single poorly optimized deck at the table maybe we dont bring out our strongest deck"
(yes ive been traumatized by joining a table where the same guy won 3 times in a row with infinite combos)
I agree, that's usually how any conversation I've ever gone has happened. It really feels like people who have issue with rule zero as a concept are people who are failing it basic human interaction.
@@The_shadow_who_laughs It's always people who consider the format to be less than 60 card constructed. It's not really a knock against these people since I feel the same way when I want to shift into competitive mode, but there's nothing more exhausting than playing a multiplayer game with one guy who can't wipe his sweat. It's like sitting down for some 4 player Smash with one guy who has 10,000 hours and a decade of locals wins.
@geek593 😆 yeah, the "think what you're taking away from the competitive player" part immediately made me think of what the competitive player takes away from the weaker players by curb stomping them every week in 2-3 turns
@@The_shadow_who_laughs This is unironically why Yugioh died in my area. There was nowhere for new players or casual players to play so they just left for other games. This isn't something you should expect players to arbitrate but rule zero is an actual attempt to do so and for that I consider it crucial to the experience of Commander. Otherwise you have to leave it up to the rules committee or the developer to curate gameplay and they just can't do that in a way that makes anyone happy.
The point that standard being considered 'competitive standard' only is absurd, is absolutely valid.
I think that standard, or any format for that matter, may be played as casually as you want. A format in Magic is basically just a differently sized card pool (with a ban list that goes with it) and other than commander, no formats impose any restrictions on deck building, the amount of players or the level of competitiveness. You can 100% play standard, modern, pioneer, legacy, vintage or pauper casually. Or you can disregard formats and ban lists altogether and just play with whatever cards you want or have (as long as the person or people you're playing with are fine with that).
I'd argue that any time you do a rule zero, you're no longer playing the original format: you're creating your own format. It might be *based* on Standard or commander and aim to be more casual but you sitting down to agree on something on top of what's the format rules, that's you creating a new format.
@@dimitriid Yeah but, as I said, formats are just differently sized card pools. They don't have specific rules other than the standard Magic rules (except for commander which is more or less a different game). I think introducing a rule zero is just an aspect of casual play that players can either choose to utilize or not but that doesn't change the format they're playing as long as they adhere to its card pool. Playing a format casually may encompass many different things such as whether the players would respect the ban list or how many people are playing the game.
For example, participating in a prerelease is technically playing standard but is very much a casual way of playing.
@@Dimitar_Tsanev Except the restriction in Prerelease is that you can only play cards you've pulled, which is why it' is, by Wizards of the Coast, labeled as a completely different format called "Limited". All the cards may be Standard legal, but you do not have a choice of your card pool, so it falls under the "Square is a Rectangle, but a Rectangle is not a Square" umbrella of logic. In fact, a restriction to the card pool you have access to is a massive change in ruleset, one I would argue is even more polarizing that a banlist ever could be, because your opponent could be playing a powerful card that you have no access to.
The same can be said about "Casual Commander", which is the argument they're making in the video and that Dimitriid is making: by imposing new restrictions, you HAVE altered the card pool in a way that fundamentally changes the number of possible gamestates. For example, by Rule 0-ing out Stax pieces, you immediately increase the pontential of Combo players to run away with games, altering the meta in favor of those strategies. These alterations have real consequences for how players build their decks, and thus do not constitute the same format.
@@evanprimeau3810 That's perfectly reasonable and, with your comment in mind, I agree that the prerelease example I gave maybe isn't that good.
I'm still not convinced that limiting or altering the card pool of a specific format by say, limiting the use of specific cards via rule zero, can be considered that much of a fundamental change to the format. And if it is, why wouldn't we still just call it a casual version of that same format? That is if we're still playing within the confines of a specific format's card pool and we're more or less altering the ban list by adding or removing cards from it. Yes, this version of the format may still play significantly differently compared to the competitive version but I feel like it would still be the same format.
Although, this makes me think. For example, if playing modern, with alterations allowing for cards that would otherwise be banned. Would this be considered casual modern or just playing kitchen table Magic using the modern card pool. And what's the difference.
@@Dimitar_Tsanev Under the line of thinking that adding or subtracting a single card from the format doesn’t significantly change it, I’d like to offer forward Black Lotus. Imagine a world where Black Lotus, like Gaia’s Cradle, was a wildly expensive- but Commander Legal- card. Could you imagine just how drastically it would change the format, by itself, by simply existing in every single deck that could afford it?
A single card isn’t to be underestimated, but what we’re talking about with “Casual Commander” is far more than just a single card: oftentimes, it will be THOUSANDS of cards that players will inadvertently restrict from their games by saying “No infinite combos” or “No cEDH viable Commanders”, not to mention “No Fast Mana”, “No Infect”, etcetera. Do you know how many cards go infinite in Magic the Gathering, even just accidentally? I hear the “No infinites” rule all the time, and that’s usually combined with a soft ban on alternate win conditions like Lab Man or Thassa’s Oracle. I’d venture to say that a format without all of those hundreds, maybe thousands of cards being allowed is quite a different format.
In cEDH, people celebrate gamewinning plays because the GOAL of cEDH is to win as fast as possible. The goal of a casual edh table is vastly different and can vary from table to table. Not everyone likes playing cEDH.
yeah i found the point about cEDH being "the actual game" a little short sighted
I believe the point they were making in the video is that cEDH is what normal commander looks like based on the rules the designers have made just like how every other format in magic is played to win and push the limits of the cards available. Playing anything other than cEDH / High Power is in many ways adjusting the fundamental rules of the format to suit a different play pattern by soft banning certain cards and strategies. If you rule zero no two card combos for example, you are imposing a subjective social contract as a 3rd party to alter the rules of the format which inherently makes it further from “the original design”.
@krimson459 this would make sense if low power edh wasn't constantly promoted as THE way to play edh. WoTC has printed sealed products for other formats, and you can definitely see the difference. Challenger decks have shown that, when promoting competitive formats, sealed products are focused on winning in that format. They don't always have all of the pieces, but they give players a foundation of a high power deck to jump into the format with. The opposite is true for commander decks, which have almost always been incredibly low power, especially as compared to high-powered edh or cEDH. This is because the soul of the format has always been in the low power format that incintivizes fun social interaction over "who can combo the fastest." That has NEVER been the "original design" for commander. It was always the point to avoid being other formats.
CEDH is also full proxy . And I’d say it’s more about winning rather than winning fast . Recently it’s also about causing drama and taking yourself too seriously at “tournaments “
@@christopherealy8025 That isn't exactly the correct takeaway from that analysis though. WotC actively sells their precons with the financial aspect in mind, like no shocks, fetches and that sort. They easily could, but they don't. Which also, in part, showcases why selling cEDH precons simply isnt feasible. Staples are expensive, on the reserve list, and constructing decklists for cEDH isnt exactly easy either. Part of why the cEDH format is very, very proxy-happy, and I'm sure that WotC are aware of that too.
So yeah. Not that what you say is wrong, its just a deeper issue than power showcase.
I really hate rule 0 because it gives WotC a premission structure to have the RC not ban cards, while not putting WotC on the blog post. A blind pod in a store isn't a homegame between friends and shouldn't have to rule 0 things.
They also put combo pieces into Precon decks - setting up players to get hated for playing “unfun” cards . Dockside Extortionist was originally in a precon . I still love commander tho 😊
All these problems stem from pick up games with strangers. Pick up games are for cedh. Casual commander should really only be played in a closed group.
It’s a format with a banned list, and then a secret socially additional banned list at the casual level. It’s practically impossible to do a pick up game with 4 strangers and not have it be bumpy
I have to agree. I've been struggling with this concept myself, and as much as we want casual pickup games, this is what makes the most sense.
You're not wrong: I just doubt Commander as a format would be as big as it is right now if there was never *any* games picking up games with random people: That's really how people who like mtg meet and learn to play *any* magic format commander included.
Now to be super clear: I've got no problem if after you meet other players at a FLGS and learn the format you decided to *close* that group up and be way more selective about anyone else joining that pod that's entirely your prerogative. I'm just saying if there was no initial approach with strangers, statistically, you wouldn't even be commenting about commander today you would have just picked a universes beyond started deck and played a few rounds with some other, non-mtg playing friends.
Not that this is you personally of course but most people, that's how they actually get to know magic today: pick up a commander product at a FLGS and play with random people who are equally enthusiastic about your new found hobby. All we're saying here is that *I'd be great if the format leaders on the Commander Rules Committee would do even more to foster those initial interactions* so that rule zero wouldn't be any kind of controversial patchwork solution to a lack of official moderation on a widely variable and extremely expansive format and it would instead be a tool for groups of like-minded people to refine what they want out of the format instead of having to sequester themselves away from any other fans of the hobby intentionally like you're suggesting: Less reliance on rule zero and more official bannings would *HELP YOU* apply rule zero more broadly and help casual players meet up more easily.
My view about "casual", or what I avoid in MY decks, but don't expect anyone else to do the same: No tutors, No ultra fast mana (just SolRing and not always), No free Spells. When I win versus a ManaCrypt/Tutors/Docksides/etc with my unusual cardpool, I feel in heaven 😹
Once you become a veteran player - having a bumpy pod is fine . I like to meet new people and teach people the game
“Commander only works because we all pretend it does” TCC. Commander is fundamentally broken. Without rule 0 the ban list would have to balance the format somehow. RN I would say the format is completely unbalanced due to mainly, fast mana, but also due to how certain cards behave in a 4 player context. See Rhystic Study and Remora. Some cards just give wayyyy too much value.
t2 luminarc ascension says hi
I think the concept of cards or interactions between your own cards behaving different in commander is actually what makes it more interesting. The affected players can work together to simply destroy an enchantment OR they all go solo (then let that player draw or anything) and retaliate later by focusing him. These politics are what makes it so refreshing atleast in my opinion and experience.
Rhystic study is a weird example because... If players respect it and play correctly, it's really just says "your opponents' spells cost 1 more". Which is good-ish at 3 mana, but not nuts.
It's when somebody doesn't understand just how powerful that drip of extra cards actually is that it becomes a problem. People don't really connect the "he drew an extra card four times" with the "those extra cards killed me five turns later"
To be fair, rhystic is good because of fast mana, and mystic is the same way
@@Grimmlockedremarkably fair magic as far as effects go
I think a definition of the term being discussed would be the ideal way to start a conversation about what rule 0 is and isn't. Most of what you're talking about isn't actually part of rule 0, but rather a kind of house rule.
I guess I'm one of the few rule 0 works for. We have a pod, our pod shuffles often and we play with lots of randoms.
Our rule 0 is typically, casual decks around slightly upgraded precon strength, no infinite combos, and minimize tabletop politics. This typically works very well and 90% of our games are fantastic.
We also have a no rules pod, this is where I see many more people dip or get frustrated because they feel like they're wasting their time or there's decks they can't compete with.
I liked the disclaimer at the beginning letting me know the video was not about playgroups where rule 0 is working. I am grateful to my D&D experience and casual commander experience to give me the perspective to treat Rule 0 as a Cooperative exercise. The pod wins the cooperative game if we setup an enjoyable game. The competitive game is always secondary.
Basically, Rule 0 is great for pods who everyone have the same "wavelenght". With strangers almost aways leads to a bad experience for someone, but to be fair, do ANYTHING with strangers and you have a chance of having a bad experience.
The more I look at it, the more I become convinced that Commander should just not be played to the degree that it is - that such intense focus on it brings out the worst parts of Magic as a whole, with regard to how it's different that any other board game.
4real. When EDH is the only format you play, the format have to do it all, you compete, do whacky combos, play silly cards, talk politics, play big dinos. And sometimes all of those with the same deck
If you don’t like it, don’t play it. Saying other should people should stop doing something they like because you don’t like it, is the exact thing this video is trying to criticize rule 0 for.
Commander especially fails when compared to regular 2-hour long board games. I'd rather play Cosmic Encounter, still wacky with lots of wild combos. And still political with the allies mechanic. The best part is no one can wake up in the morning and decide to pack a deck to frustrate everyone else when you play a boxed board game.
@@Lusk1993not only does it fail as a 4 player game, the 1v1 version is 10~ minutes and commander is 90 minutes. The game is too long and early game draw dependant. Did you draw a ramp spell in your first 10? Cool you get to play the game, did you miss your 4th land drop after starting a 3 land hand? Oh well, get fucked. Sit there for an hour watching everyone else play the game as you continue to fall behind. Or worse, did you get knocked out by the voltron deck turn 5 but then a farewell came down turn 6? Sit there for an hour not playing the game you came to play. Magic is not designed as a 4 player game, it fails in this respect.
@@Tvboy777 See my other comment where I say exactly this.
I think it's important to note here that Commander/ EDH started as a casual format among judges as you've mentioned on the channel. It's far more inconsistent by design and taking it competitively is antithetical to how the format started. From my experience the format is simply not good anymore to play with random people because it's skewed into this more competitive side where there's now massive power imbalances and expectations are so spread out from people who want to play basically cEDH and the people playing the way it was originally.
These two formats are wholly different and should be treated as such, commander is designed in a way to be casual. Standard and other 60 cards are designed to be competitive that's why we don't say Standard and Competitive Standard. The format itself is setup in a way to not have ambiguity, the concept of cEDH is far newer than EDH and has made just doing pick up games with people you don't know at a LGS or convention a generally poor experience. I know when I bring a Standard deck to an event i may not know people but we are at an understanding implicitly about how the game will be.
I think the real is that EDH wasn’t designed to be casual, it was stated it is casual without the design to ensure that would remain the case.
@@distractionmakers Oh for sure the design wasn't restricted in any real way because the way it started had all these implicit restrictions among these highly experienced judges, which made sense in that context. I think the issue really is that it's such a broad range of power levels and expectations even within commander excluding Comp which makes it so hard for random groups to have a good experience.
You’re definitely right that other formats were designed to be competitive, but I still think it makes sense to adopt “Competitive Standard/Modern/Whayever” (or casual Standard), because there’s nothing stopping those formats from being played at a lower power level if there’s interest in doing that.
I skimmed through the comments and could have easily missed missed this but Canadian Highlander is not a form of Commander. Its is 100 card singleton but its more in line with legacy. With that being said all your points would still be valid regardless of format. 10/10 episode as always, love listening to you two talk.
Thanks for the clarification. We were referring to their points system and how it works well for a singleton format.
This video is not for me, I have found pods that I like playing with and pods that I don't enjoy, rule 0 allows the player to adjust the games to the setting they want and to avoid games they might find unfun, same for pregame conversation, for example stating that one player only have one hour to play makes the players pick their faster decks.
What does being accommodating for someone short on time have to do with anything they said or rule 0? I think the larger point was that people can and do end up robbing themselves and others of some of the greatest joys in magic. Say you lose to a card or line of play that you aren't prepared for. In any other format your only option is to shake off the loss and get back up to keep trying again and again to grow and learn as a player while experimenting with new cards and strategies you otherwise might never have tried until you earn that victory and defeat whatever you couldn't beat before. You can't put a price on that feeling, it's absolutely incredible, and so many casual commander players ruin their own development and experience by instead deciding "I hate losing, therefore I hate ____, my rule 0 is to avoid playing against whatever that thing was ever again so I can go on living a sheltered existence in the hand holding bubble where my playgroup lets me win so they don't have to hear me whine".
My 'look inward' conclusion was 'stop playing Commander entirely.'
😢 me too, a few years ago. I had moved and just couldn’t find a big community that was down to compromise and have fun together. There was a smalllll handful of players that had a chill cEDH session once a week, but yeah. Eventually I just stopped playing commander, I still miss it
it’s just too hard to find a decent playgroup of good players. the game quality at your average draft night will probably be higher.
Mine was just to play with a small cluster of friends because hearing complaints about a counter or removal spell made the format such a slog for me
Gj, you figured it out 😂
Honestly tho, the best way to play magic is the simple “everyone is on the same page that this game is about beating ur opponent in the most crushing way possible”
All the rest is ppl sitting around a table with chessboards and going “horse go brrrr” rather than actually trying to win
The biggest challenge for Commander re: Rule Zero is that CEDH IS EDH in that precise sense of how all other formal formats work. Commander is the one major format that's trying to wrangle all the copious "kitchen table" metagames into a cohesive whole. I think that the challenge intrinsic to this is that there's no clean way to try and delineate subformat metagames where you won't hurt some players' feelings in the process, and there will always be the "best card/strategy" in any ban list definition fallout, never mind synergies, new cards, etc.
Reminder that "rule 0" exists in casual games of Modern, Standard, Pauper, etc.
The MaRo Psychographics were invented BEFORE EDH even existed. These disparate psychographics used to have to play together in 1v1 formats too. Rule 0 used to be "what kind of deck are you playing?" and you would pick something at a similar power level to make the game interesting.
It's different and more complex at an EDH table because it's 4 players, but it's not unique to EDH. It just has a name now.
Yep, I don't understand the salt about Rule Zero. It's always been around, and it is inherent to non-formal games. Blame WOTC for abandoning 1v1 formats, not Rule Zero.
11:54 its funny you mention video games, because with the re-release of Marvel vs Capcom 2 I've been thinking about how that game kinda parallels commander.
There's so many cool characters and interactions, but then you have characters like Magneto/Storm/Sentinal/Cable who are essentially cEDH and you have all these other people that just want to play with Ryu/Wolverine/Gambit or whatever other bad characters they like and think that the others are "unfun" etc. You basically have to have the Rule 0 conversation on the character select screen and figure out how you're both going to play for you both to have fun. But in the end, if there was no rules, everyone would just play these top-tier teams to win and that is essentially what the tournament scene is like and boxes out the casual players.
Our rule zero was very simple. We are all in college so w said that your deck can not be over 100€ (card in Normal print and near mint as card standard)
We don’t play extra turns cause in most times on our power level they only theme to give u a lead and not close the game and everyone who plays an eldrazi who has his funny special keyword we jump him in the parking lot. The rest is all open and to be honest it worked great. We just test a lot more and are a bit more creative in our approach but there are enough combos and fund decks to build
IDK why so many people ban combos. Combo is the most respectful way to win a game of commander. If you try to win by attacking with creatures, you inevitably boot players from the game one at a time, and that can lead to half-hour or more points where one or two player(s) is/are out of the game and just waiting for everyone else to finish. People know this, and they resolve this by playing suboptimally (spreading damage and not "focusing" one player). No game should ever punish players for playing optimally. Optimal should be the most fun, that being false is the mark of bad game design. Combo does not have this issue. It is the optimal way to win, and it wins all at once. There is no downtime for the player who lost first.
Hear! Hear!
Yes. I don't play commander but I do play a lot of 60 card games with more than 2 people and when everyone understands we are all playing to win it makes the game better. Especially because if you get targeted down it doesn't feel personal in the way it can without that shared understanding.
Because they don't include anything in their deck that can deal with combo. They want to punish other players for their failure to make a well rounded deck.
If you like combos - why not use the best ? Try some Cedh friend - you can proxy anything u want mpcfill
@@JohnFromAccounting Because it's stupid to think that someone is gonna just be able to have their out for a specific combo out of a deck of 100 singleton cards. It's normal for people to have blockers. There's a difference.
Any time there's a complaint about a mechanic in DnD5e the response is usually "It's okay, you can just homebrew that rule." That seems like a resonable ask at first, but how many times do I have to homebrew a fix or even whole systems before I can just say I would just like the game to be well designed? The rule 0 conversation feels very similar. If you're not happy with the game as it is to the point you have to bend over backwards to make it work for you then just play something else.
this is the big thing the ad&d players complain about with the rest of the OSR (It's the center of Old School Revival vs Old School Renaissance)
The name given to that idea on the WotC forums was "The Oberoni Fallacy". Basically "It's not broken because it can be fixed" instead of just agreeing that something is currently broken.
Cedh fixes it, rule zero is do broken stuff, be unfair to each other, try to win and have fun while you do it. It falls down in a tournament setting but for any pick up games it's very easy.
As an addendum my personal deckbuilding rule is amongst my 5 edh decks i don't run a single card more than once and i don't run any cards in my cedh decks in my casual, it makes me work harder to find on theme versions of cards for those decks and powers them down as a byproduct. I don't really care if i win a casual game but the restriction makes me happy when i do get a win against the guy playing all the good cards.
"fixes"
Being limited to a handful of viable commanders out of THOUSANDS is not "fixing" it.
@@Cybertech134 there being thousands i the first place is a symptom of the problem. You don't have to play the best deck to play cedh, any commander can be cedh-ified but some are better than others. Cedh is a mindset and playstyle, not a tournament meta.
My biggest difficulty is selecting the right deck,
I have something not quite cedh, quite a strong deck, Yawgmoth,
I have a highly optimized Lurrus artifacts deck, it can combo, but generally goes for value until it can get big things down
And then I have a precon level zombies deck.
The difficulty is, I can't peek into my opponents deck, if someone shows up with a commander that could reasonably be anywhere from "my favorite modern card" to "fringe cedh", and they say that their deck is strong, a solid 8, but definitely not cedh. What deck should I pick. If I pick my strongest, I might feel bad if its overkill. However if I pick a weaker deck and lose by a landslide, I will feel like I lost because of my deck selection.
Let me write out the script for your proxy video:
"Proxies are good!
Distraction makers... Woooo."
Fin.
Hahaha I’m gonna make this video.
Plus proxies from mpc on S33 custom game card are higher quality than Wotc cards in some cases 😇
I think you guys are making some good general points, but I also think that there's some really irresponsible framing going on here; rule zero is not by default a list of restrictions and concessions, and the term being conflated with "I have a quirky change to the ruleset" is the worst thing that ever happened to EDH discourse. The average "rule zero" discussion is not the abberant "no boardwipes" local meta, by and large most people just play the game without reddit horror stories. Yes, a "no infinites" rule takes away from the experience a combo player might want, but I find it incredibly frustrating that the community writ large treats these as some sort of ever-present boogeyman that's at every table when they really aren't, most people are just playing with their friends.
The problem isn't rule zero, the problem is and always will be TCG players having differing expectations.
you're like one of the only people in the comments here who seems to actually know what rule 0 is. the decks i build tend to be around the 100-200 dollar mark, and i play with a lot of people who have modified precons, who usually have only a year or so experience, and i never hear "no blue, no counterspells, no board wipes, no stax". Real R0 is, like, people being okay with infinite mull to 7s, or, "hey my commander is silver border/acorn stamp, but you're not gonna have to balance things on your head, lol". If someone imposes a weird restriction on you, you are in fact allowed to discuss it with them, and if they stand firm, you don't have to play with em! You probably wouldn't want to anyway.
@@violetto3219 Yeah, it's insane. I don't like the pushed narrative that Commander is full of "unwritten rules" as though everyone out there was compelling others at their LGS to play along with their Elesh Norn/Jin-Gitaxias rule zero partner pair. It's absurd, horror stories exist but even with the notoriously bad communication skills among TCG players, 99% of us just want to play the game and rule zero amounts to which deck gets picked.
The core issue is that there is no managed ban list. The original banlist just isn't built for the current experience. Rule zero is a horrible thing that exists to handle that. Just make a good banlist for your community
Conquest format says hello
What should they ban ?
@@bobthor9647 Fast mana, some dominant silver bullet stax pieces like Tergrid that unfairly shut down swathes of the format, Field of the Dead, Ad Nauseum, Thassa's Oracle, and pretty much everything else that's so powerful it sees consistent play in cEDH. cEDH should be its own format and there should be a push to desalinate the salt list for casual EDH.
@geek593 what would you ban if you could only ban 1 card ?
As someone who used to be a Spike/Johnny. But is now a Timmy. I have to say it's really easy to look down on rule 0 when you enjoy playing at high power. I personally don't (anymore). And because winning is inherently fun, it pushes players to make their decks more powerful, consistent, and efficient. And without rule 0 there's nothing pushing in the other direction. Without rule 0, there would be a large percentage of player that I could never have fun playing with, including all of my personal friends.
As an adult we all learn two things very quickly: communication is very important, and communication is very difficult.
People who struggle with rule 0 and compromise I'm willing to bet struggle with their personal relationships; something that requires immense communication and compromise.
Just like personal relationships though, there is nothing stopping either party from getting up and walking away when they find out they are fundamentally incompatible.
I have never experienced hard rule zero ("no mass land destruction allowed"), but I had many pregame conversations to set the expectations, the power level and the competiveness.
My issues are that when you play for the first time with other people you don't know the budget and the experience of the players, and it's very important to protect those who are starting playing magic ("this card make me lose life!" - mana crypt) and limiting the whales overoptimizing the decks (fast mana fast mana tutor fast mana thassa's oracle next game?) when it's just the only evening I can play magic for this month
This. Preserving the playgroup is the priority. If you have 4 guys who want to play cEDH, there's no problem. But if you have two guys who want to play cEDH, and two guys who want to play jank or precons, that group isn't going to last. That is reality.
CEDH has an impicit rule 0 to try to maintain competitive integrity and finish games within a given time frame.
Good vid! I think rule zero can be important sometimes in games that aren't in a regular group. I regretted not rule zeroing at my lgs when someone brought Horobi against my equipment deck, basically shutting down the whole thing. The strategy to deal with that on my end was to aggressively target him and his commander, and he was clearly ticked off that i was targeting him rather than the enchantments player who ended up winning. Thing is, i couldn't do anything to the enchantments player because he was preventing me via his commander existing. I don't think it was a fun game for either of us.
I added a single infect creature that just happens to be unblockable in my ezuri plus one counter deck(swell the host), so I have a random chance to win because the power level is too high and now I'm the bad guy.
So maybe we should find a middle ground between me finding a solution and me imposing things upon people.
My primary use case for rule 0 is just to play, or let other people play, decks that fall outside of the rules of the game. for example, Acorn commander. or I have a deck helmed by Tamanoa but despite them seeming like they would be a legendary creature, they aren't.
The only time I see rule 0 in a positive light is when it adds to the game (i.e. allowing a certain planeswalker as a commander, silver-border cards, or even custom/sharpie cards), not when it takes away from the game (i.e. no "stax," no combos, no mana-positive rocks). My one pet peeve with rule 0--and I should note it's not generally a problem--but I hate seeing it used to stop interaction.
The only rule zero deck I have is vampire Wedding. Edgar the Groom and Olivia the Bride as partner and all the card are from that set with the alt frames. If anyone has a problem with them as partner commanders, I offer to use the Edgar with Eminence as the face commander...no one ever questions the bride and groom partnering.
I’m doing this but with Balthor the Stout / Balthor the Defiled.
Flavour > Power lvl 😅
To touch on the original point, involving the “table with Timmy, Johnny, and Spike” rule 0 only hurts the Spike. Most issues in Commander boil down to someone at the table wanting to play more “competitively” or higher power than the others, and Rule 0 is used against that (note: commander is inherently uncompetitive and I will die on this hill). Most decks can play just fine with each other, but without a rule 0 conversation there are many players who will abuse the fact that people are just wanting to play pet cards and decks to farm wins for their ego.
EDIT: that’s not to say that people don’t abuse rule 0 to make worse decks, but the idea of Rule 0 isn’t inherently bad
I think most people's problem with rule 0 isn't actually the rule itself, it's that there isn't enough of a shared idea on power to actually communicate effectively most of the time.
I play almost exclusively jank/meme decks in commander (which is why I love the format to begin eith) though they aren't exactly terrible decks in terms of power, and all have an upper limit of 90$ budget. Last week me and a friend went up to our LGS and played with someone who also said they played a lot of jank, which we assumed would be rather low power like ours. This person proceeded to turn 1 Urzas Saga -> Mana crypt and then went infinite turn 5.
The guy was chill enough when we asked about how his deck was at all jank, and explained that at his normal lgs, his deck *is* considered a meme deck since there it's almost exclusively cedh and just expected our store to be the same. Deck strength is largely relative, and pregame conversations are important to make sure everyone is at least playing the same game. Obviously people will sometimes take advantage of that to hurt spike, but without it everyone else suffers instead.
@@milii113 Well put! Obviously there's people on both sides of the scale that abuse things, but overall I think that it's a good thing to have a conversation about deck budgets and when they try for a win, and if there's anything people don't want at the table (stax)
Nope. I am as much as a Johnny as a Spike. But I don't feel entitled to be able to play cards. Magic is not Solitaire.
@@arvinsim right, and so due to a rule 0 conversation, you can decide to not play at a table you don’t like, before the game starts! If you don’t like the pod, you don’t have to play with them, and vice versa.
@@KismetRegret In theory, it works. In practice, it's exclusionary.
I end up playing in constructed formats more because a lot of people in EDH only play with their dedicated playgroups.
If the banlist were curated better, it would be easier to get onboard with strangers.
I play a late-game, lifegame deck with lots of pillowfort cards that prevent me from getting attacked. Since way back in the day, my deck included the two-card infinite combo between Sanguine Bond and Exquisite Blood, which results in everyone taking infinite damage and me gaining infinite life off of 1 point of lifegain.
I was told via rule 0 to remove this combo and to prove my point, I did. The end result was that I won a few games by draining the entire table for 1 life per turn. From 40 to 1 across 40+ turns. This took over 4 hours and then the table came to realize that a combo made up of two 5-mana enchantments is perfectly fine. They can interact with it in response and they should be bringing removal. And if I ever am in the dominant position to cast both enchantments with a life trigger AND a backup counterspell, then maybe it's fine for the game to end and we can just play a new round instead of forcing me to drain everyone for 1 across 40 turns.
It took you 40 turn cycles to win?!! Seems like a deck building error. Lifegain decks can easily drain 10+ life per turn
If you're able to drain 3 other players 1 life per turn with impunity, then the entire pod is the problem. It's not even a question of PL but of deck design.
Lol. So If they remove your Infinite Combo by exiling either card, the game goes for 5 hours?
No offenes man, but that just sounds like an absolute nightmare. I would not play with your deck, infinite combo or not. The deck just sucks.
If after a single removal all your deck can do is stop everyone from progressing, better stop playing at all.
Where did I say that was the only way to win in the deck? I did that to show them how stupid the "combo panic" is. If your players say the words "combo is stupid because the game ends to quickly" you show them what a long game really looks like.
You win plenty of games off of swinging with an Archangel of Thune with two Sanguine Bond effects on the board or by paying 50 with the old Aetherflux.
@TheTexasDice "My friends think comboing wins the game too quickly and out of nowhere, so let me just do the complete opposite extreme, because the middle ground doesn't exist. I can't win the game in 10turns through gradual buildup, I either have to win in 5 or 40." - your logic in a nutshell
I think part of it is that, at least to me, EDH was seen as a format where you could simply play the cards you owned but were no longer playable in standard. That fun and often powerful interactions were cool if you happened to find them but ultimately not the main focus. Nowadays with wizards making cards specifically to be good in commander, there’s a lot of incentive to just invest in those newer often more powerful cards, which in turn can prompt people to want to use rule 0 as a tool to make sure they can keep play with those older cards and still have a chance at winning. Definitely wouldn’t say that’s a good use of it though.
I think you guys will get a lot of shit for this episode, but I completely agree with your points. I really believe blurring the line between player and designer/developer is dangerous and rule 0 is a great example of this
Not sure I would say it's dangerous, but I would instead say that there needs to be far more *intention* behind it: I don't think rule zero is inherently negative if the presuposition was that this would be a fun idea to try a bit outside of a format that *already works* out of the box: If you didn't *NEED* rule zero to just play and match with strangers without feeling overwhelmed by wildly disparate power levels then people trying their hands at designing their own subformats would have a lot more success because only those who actually want to engage with that aspect would instead of most players feeling like they *have to* engage with designing because their experience with the default commander rules set is too inconsistent for them to approach without having fairly negative outcomes.
@@dimitriid I am not a developer so take this with a grain of salt, but I think if a component of the game only works when people are using it responsibly/with the right intentions then it's a bad game component. Rule 0 plays fast and loose with the legal card pool, but it really is a game component. Players should have the freedom to explore the limits of the game they are given and asking them to put self-limiters is a recipe for misunderstanding and exploitation.
Imagine a magic format where you can decide how much mana the spells should cost. It would certainly open the door to new decks and cards, but it quickly becomes a mess as people want to discount their pet cards and upcharge their hated cards. Designers and developers have the privilege of setting those costs because their goal is divorced from the performance of their deck. It is unfair to the players to ask them to be developers and bear that responsibility
Indication that rule zero isn't working for (almost) anybody: The sheer amount of discussion around commander rule zero.
In other words: it makes no sense that rule zero would continue to work while the format changes and power increases with each passing expansion and the rules committee does nothing to actually shape the format into what their idea of casual, welcoming environment should be: I don't really need the super powerful cedh staples to still create stuff like infinite combos out of really common, recently released cards (See: Nadu, Stella Lee both doing turn 2-3 infinites with cards that were previously not even playable on a cedh table)
WotC will not stop the power creep because it sells cards but you will only find it more and more difficult to 'Rule zero' your way into the by now idyllic casual environment you want without some cards and mechanics actually getting banned by some form of consensus or alternatively, embrace competitive edh and adapt your strategies and decks: you might still have a lot of fun if you stop hanging up to 2020 era commander 'casual play'
Agreed. Rule 0 is not enough. The RC should actively curate the format to make it work.
Thank you for speaking some sanity into this conversation. I don't really play commander but I love Cube and play a ton of other board games, and this same concept applies so often. Those don't always have time 0, but the concept of players trying to change the rules of a game or resigning themselves to being miserable based off of not liking a single experience is so prevalent.
For example the last time I cubed with my group, I had a few responses afterwards where a couple players felt very strongly that a couple specific cards that beat them should be banned. When I looked at their decks they had almost no interaction and were not very cohesive. But instead of trying to draft better or look for solutions, they just wanted the card banned. Another player played against one of those cards and had no issues because he built a better deck that was able to handle it. Especially in cube, where everyone has the same chance of getting all the cards and the whole list is available ahead of time, I don't understand this mindset. Sure if we draft it four times and one card is a clear power level outlier I will change the list, but one player having a bad experience against the card when others had no trouble dealing with it indicated that the players just need to improve.
In other board games there have been so many times where players in their very first time playing will complain that a certain mechanic or character is broken because it's their first time playing and they don't have the game knowledge to deal with it or to maximize their own character, and some players I've played with straight up refuse to play certain games because they think that having to play a game repeatedly to get better and achieve a higher level of play is indicative of bad design. That's a common thought online as well, that if a game requires too much investment and "I had one bad experience so instead of trying to get better in just going to give up on this game forever", then it's totally a good and acceptable mindset to have. Root and Arcs are two games that particularly come across this way in my experience - which are both from the same company as Fort that I see on the table there!
I have played with a wide variety of groups over the years and in my experience it is always the newest and least experienced players who push for a more substantial rule zero conversation and rules adaptation. This has always had me scratching my head a little because these casual inexperienced players are choosing to bend the rules for their “enjoyment” instead of actually learning the game and playing the format like all of the others. I do think there is a place for casual commander, the cEDH community is the tiny minority of the playerbase for a reason, but there HAS to be a better way to experience casual commander without having to impose arbitrary in the spot house rules from players that don’t even fully understand the game yet.
People who think rule zero is the greatest thing ever should really just make a cube. You have a vision for the game? Put it to practice, test it, iterate on it, improve it, you'll never see the game the same way.
One of the things I really love about EDH is the fact that the multiplayer nature of the game helps balance it. If one person if playing something way too strong everyone can simply team up on that person. The one thing I don't tend to like is free counterspells and cards that produce more mana than they cost. If it were up to me they would be banned but they aren't so I simply have to deal with it.
When I was playing a lot of commander in college (2016-2019ish) the only thing we used rule 0 for was to take things OFF of the banlist just to see how we felt about it or like if it recently got banned (Paradox Engine comes to mind) and people didn't have replacements yet. I also started that stretch with a nearly unaltered Nekusar precon and was getting my face kicked in everyday until I got better and it was awesome.
Rule 0 is fine. Everyone forgets that it’s also Ok to Rule 0 out Rule 0 and just say no.
Rule Zero is inherent to informal games. cEDH is the result of rule zero, not its absence. Only Formal Events don't have rule Zero, because you do not have the option to homebrew rules.
If rule 0 doesn't work, edh does not work, and if edh doesn't work, mtg today does not work.
When I played there was no rule zero ( took a break from 2016-2022) , and I only occasionally use it . Usually people at my store just start the game
I can't actually imagine a commander game session without rule 0. Like we sit at a table with a bunch of precons, one player brings an optimized Yuriko or whatever to the table, he wins 5 times without anyone else doing anything and then everyone goes home cause that's boring? I genuinly feel like opponents of rule zero don't recognize that they actually use it a lot in their games or they have a pod that's already entirely in agreement with each other in which case good for you i guess.
The unspoken Rule 0 is you simply kill the Spike. If you can’t threat assess as a group and focus down that player (either through the inability to do so or the incapability to do so) you eject them from the pod, or have a talk with them.
I’ve seen people who get lucky and win every match in a day, either through good draws or politicking and I’ve seen players who win every match by consistantly playing the same hand every game and winning on turn 4. You need to be able to spot that difference.
Cedh has no rule 0 lol its great because rule 0 bs anyway
@@Garl_Vinland An optimized deck will win through a pod of precons, even if everyone hates on him. And beyond that playing 3 vs 1 isn't as fun, kinda removas the politics aspect from the game.
And ejecting them from the pod and talking to them is Rule 0 conversation.
@@Garl_VinlandAs someone who has brought cEDH decks to casual games (on my opponent's requests, dont hate), killing the Spike by turn 3-4 isnt exactly the easiest thing in the world. Resolving Ad Naus on 25 life instead of 35-40 does hurt the Spike's winchance, but not so much that the inherent pace and consistency of the deck doesnt run away with the game.
Back when when my group did some cedh archenemy style games, my Kess list (at the time the best Grixis storm commander) had 2 losses in well over 10 games. And those losses came down to pure bad luck with draws.
Put simply, hunting the Spike with precons wont do anything. The power differential is simply too large.
@@MeowHoots cEDH is a result of rule zero, not its absence.
One of the things that drive me crazy isnt rule 0, its the people who arent honest about what they're bringing to the table. Whether its before or during a game. I had a pod of 4, 1 of which playing artifacts and idr what it was at the time but it was basically an infinite combo that they were assembling, and i said to the table theyre doing this thing unless someone stops them. And the artifact player got upset and was like "well how do you know thats what I'm doing?" And i said you have X and Y and if youre now playing Z you'll do this thing. I already know how this combo works.
Another incident of a 4 pod, with an mono G ezuri player and 2 PRE CONS. Ezuri player goes off with mana vault,crypt etc and then gets mad that i continued to stop him from steam rolling the table. Like buddy you've threatened to win on turns 3-7 and the pre con players have done jack squat this whole game. Guess where all my interaction/removal is going
You're 110% spot on about the reactionary part, and I have a great anecdote to back it up:
When we were teenagers, my friends and I had a consistent, casual pod, with the only rule being "No infinite combos".
The problem, was that one of us was playing an incredibly efficient, grindy Glissa the Traitor list. And although all of us agreed to the rule, what we didn't realize was that by house-banning infinite combos, we also banned the *primary* deck archetype that would've kept something like that deck in check (since it was just about as close as you can get to aggro in edh without infinite combos).
Now, I appreciate every bit of the old, hostile MtG design: stax, lock pieces, it all has its own unique charm, once you get past the reactionary "This sucks" feeling.
tl;dr Many old MtG cards and mechanics were the definition of an acquired taste; instead of spitting it out and swearing off it forever, maybe try acquiring it?
Stax and lock pieces measurably make the game drag on in an unfun state and make the game last longer than it should. We're all adults with busy lives and I'm not setting aside time just so you can jail my deck and let me do absolutely nothing. I just won't play with you again if that's the respect you have for others' time.
9:02 nooo not dumb! That is such a concise phrasing of something that took me years to realize! “My personal cEDH experiences” vs “my personal EDH experiences” were just like this! (The internet and discussions of the differences are not necessarily the same as my personal years of playing in these “formats”)
You should give some more thought about using rule zero. Like you, I hated it for the longest time and rejected it for years. But in the recent past, I’ve learned to love rules zero and use it to enhance my casual and competitive games.
Casually, I use the fan-made expansion Commander Adventures to add objectives to my commander games and introduce variety to the typical play pattern of last player standing. Sometimes I even throw in planechase, archenemy, silver-borders, and more!
Competitively, my group uses the Conquest Commander format for flexibility in strategy, increasing the viable cards/commanders, reducing the luck in drawing 'power'.
Miniature gamers, Board Gamers, and RPG gamers all embrace house-rulings to improve their casual and competitive play. To me, it seems like the TCG players are more close-minded in their knee jerk refusal to even entertain any house rules.
house rules really work best with a sturdy home game.
rpgs and wargames get away with it BECAUES they mostly play with the same people every week.
commander players are often sitting with players they don't know. and when that happens in those other games you end up wit the same rule 0 isues described in teh video.
@@Grimmlocked Not really. I remember than 40k tournaments banned multiple factions and units when 10th edition released because they were unbalanced. These were unofficial house rules for tournaments with cash prizes that was hosted in the public for players who likely did not play with each other in the past.
For DnD, there are many, many, many house rules that became so ubiquitous that the majority of the players adopted them (or a variation of them). Some DnD players have multiple groups, or play multiple games with different GMs. Some house rules are the same, some are different. These players are capable of handling altered rulesets between unfamiliar playgroups. There's no reason why commander players can't either.
I have my own rule zero. I play a deck if I lose I grab better deck for the next game. If I win I grab a weaker deck for the next game
I love the fade out. It reminds me of the John Muhlaney joke about Ice-T listing off addictions in Law & Order SVU
The only rule zero discussions i usually have are: "im playing a precon, does that work for yall?"(me) Or "im playing CEDH because i want to win the pack for winning the first game. Ill switch after i win." Other than that, not really a need for rule 0.
The problem with this stance is that sure, ruling things out does hurt the game for the people who like them... but *someone's* getting a negative experience either way, and there's nothing wrong with asking. If you've got exactly four players in your group, then sure, that kind of sucks for the player who loves going infinite or whatever, but if the group wants to keep playing together, it kind of has to bring things down to the lowest common denominator. If there's someone there who doesn't have the time to keep up with the same level of skill/deckbuilding improvements that the others are managing, the group has to choose: Either limit the power at the table, or let the weaker players drift away.
It's not a black-and-white "No, you don't get to do this because I don't like it." It's much closer to "If you keep doing this, I'm not going to be able to enjoy the game, and presumably if we're friends you *want* me here, so could we step it back a bit?"
This really doesnt seem accurate. It's not that people are imposing overpowered things on filthy casuals, it's that they are playing things that elicit an emotional response. You dont need to play catch up financially when the opponent has day of judgment or counterspell, you just need to play better.
Asking other people to play badly and deckbuild badly because you dont want to learn to play better is what we're talking about. It's super duper immature
@@freddiesimmons1394 You might say it's...Casual?
@@shorewall i play smash "casually", as in i play bad characters in a funny way. But i do play to win. Casual doesnt have to mean "soft"
@@freddiesimmons1394 But it does mean not "tryhard". If you're tryharding in a free-for-all 4-player game of Smash, you're just an imbecile. That's as casual as it gets.
I've been playing magic for about 5 months. I played commander for 2 and now only play draft and constructed. Commander seems fundamentally flawed to me because of rule 0. I want to grow and become progressively better within the rules that were designed for the game in the first place. I've been playing $3 decks using cards from years ago and its felt far more reward than the time of spent playing commander.
Highly recommend Beaver Forces from TCGdecks, white weenies ftw
You could get a Precon and add proxies or a few great cards - try to make it good . Or so sealed with 4 Precons and make the best deck you can . Or make a whole deck proxy with mpc . I’ve found making decks and played against other good players improves my game even after 30 years
My only goal at Rule 0 is to feel like I have a chance in unknown pods. The problem is that it’s really difficult to have a meaningful outcome. Three players can all agree on decks and the type of friendly game we want, fourth player pulls out a comp deck and we’re screwed.
I don’t have super high power decks and am not a competitive person generally, so don’t really want to play in to that power level.
I’ve struggled to find a good medium between, play the cards you want to play and please don’t play that deck cause I’d like to feel like I might be able to win sometime
Question? If you are play testing a competitive or near competitive deck...why would you want to play with sub optimal decks and precons? How is that "practice" ? Yall didt mention that people look for gratification and social exceptance from "winning games"
For real, the issue is people who only want to grind wins, smurfing at tables with people playing jank and precons. Get over yourselves and play a competitive format!
You guys briefly mention that the social contract doesnt really apply to videogames because their rules are programmed in, but honestly Rule 0 has always reminded me of fighting games. There are plenty of people with the mindset of, for example, "throws are cheap, no throwing" or "xyz character is cheap, I refuse to play you if you play them." While sometimes communities will have to make bans and rulesets to address legitimate issues with a game (i.e. sf2 akuma literally intentionally being way, way better than everyone else), most of those people are just going off vibes/ whatever hurt their feelings and refusing to actually learn and grow. Ppl act like competitive players are super anti fun, but in reality competitive players are the most likely to put up with whatever dumb stuff you throw at them and search for a solution, whereas newer players are the ones more likely to get defensive and throw out "thats cheap" to defend their egos.
I can understand that analogy. A playgroup with functional rule 0 is like playing on your home console with your mates. Do whatever you want. But you aren't going to show up to the arcade and start telling randos "no throws" or what characters than can and can't play. If your pod is only your friends, do what you want, but otherwise don't be telling others how to play the game at your LGS.
Most of the conflict in casual commander is caused by “win at all cost” spikes sitting down in casual pods and getting upset when those pods clearly state that the type of fun they want to have doesn’t align with their own. A valid rule zero is any ruling that improves the overall fun at the table, which changes from pod to pod. Idk, maybe I’m just a more mature player who plays with other mature players, because we don’t really care who wins, we just want interesting narratives to emerge from interactions at the table.
Because casual games are more than anything social experiences the desired outcomes change depending on the pod, as long as all the decisions aren’t driven entirely by ego, then you’ll usually have a good time. A lot of established players have multiple kinds of decks for this exact reason, so they can match the type of fun that other people want to have.
It’s fine to not have fun at every random pod you sit at, but if you can only have fun in one type of pod, then that says a lot about the kind of person you are.
Rule 0 exists rather explicitly to hamper the power of competitive spikes, it's also the only way to reliably make sure that Timmy decks can find fair competition.
There are people who take things too far, I've certainly had a few people I've played whine about their snowball commander getting removed, but the *vast* majority of the time if there is conflict its a problem with power level disparity or very abrasive playstyles that ruin the fun of everyone else at the table. There is a massive difference between "I don't want anyone to play counterspells" and "Your $1500 control deck that doesn't allow anyone at the table to play the game by turn 3 isn't fun to play against". People conflating the two are disingenuous at best.
@@milii113 100% agree.
Spikes will ruin all the fun if you don't restrict them a little. This is a format for everyone BUT Spikes, yet the Spikes keep trying to take it over and make it all about them. We even gave them their own little section called "cEDH" and it wasn't good enough for them. They just gotta sweat all over the people just trying to have fun.
Here is the big difference between Cedh and say legacy. The ban list of legacy is based around completive play. The band list of EDH is based around the vides of a group that thinks players should regulate their own pods
Yep, it's why cEDH is a joke format.
My groups “rule 0” is only the separation of our most competitive decks and our janky mid-lower tier decks. So far no one has complained after we as a group together separated up our decks.
I hate “free” spells and two card infinite combo. But I would never ask to ban such cards or plays. That being said, I do hold a grudge against these plays and am usually out for revenge. I’m aware grudge playing is foolish if you’re trying to win, but stopping another player from winning can feel like a win in itself.
And that’s the difference between CEDH and EDH. Competitive players are only trying to win the game for fun. Non competitive players are trying to have fun in whatever way they want. Winning, revenge, kingmaking, or whatever seems amusing in the moment.
We tried to rule 0 to fix our play group. Everything we tried someone always got annoyed with the choices.
I particularly like for us to build to a crazy turn and we all get to show off our decks.
Everyone else is just trying to win as fast as possible andasome are designed to stop others from playing.
When I do play with them, they usually tunnelvision me to get me out first. They say it's because I'm the best player there, or it's cause I got them all into it so it's not fair if I win. I have only some in last for the past 2 years.
In attempt to make me less the target, I am building a deck that has no combos, no bombs, no swing spells, all my creatures are vanilla with higher toughness. thing non-land and non-creature is either a ramp spell or a fog effect.
Aiming for a solid 3rd place at least here.
Are you having fun?
@thebolas000 Not really, I kinda just sit there quietly until my turn and get it over as fast as possible so no one will get nervous.
@@spartanlink_047 I'm sorry, that sounds awful. I hope you can get them to play something else or at least find different people to play Commander with.
I think rule 0 is vastly misunderstood among commander players. It doesn't always have to take away from other players, and it can be used to just make the game better for everyone involved.
My favorite personal experience with a rule 0 conversation was someone else had an Ebon Praetor deck. Funny old creature, isn't a legendary creature (though it does feel like one), so technically not a legal commander. That guy played his deck, everyone had a great time. Win-Win. I agree, it shouldn't be used to create compromises, and pre-game talk is often muddled with Rule 0 discussions as well.
I wish brawl was more common in person format, limiting the card pool to standard rotation would smooth out alot of the pain points imo. You basically demonstrated the inevitable arms race with commander when you explained how you optimised your deck abit to keep up with the pod, eventually someone gets left behind and salt occurs.
At my table we hardly use rule 0, instead adopting the mantra 'stax is a legitimate strategy' to indicate everything has its place.
Because not everyone in our group can play all the time, we often end up with 3-person pods; here we noticed how 3 person multiplayer games drastically shift the tempo and the power balance. With a four player game, if one player keeps doing a blowout, there's 3 other people who have the responsibility of shutting that player down; and if 3v1 doesn't work, then we haven't run enough interaction between us, and because it's 3v1, you don't generally need to run as level of an interaction/gameplan ratio in your deck anyway so you still have ample room for your own sick pirate ship gameplan.
This also applies somewhat to power levels; two stronger decks can hold Combo Johnny in check while the 'most casual' deck has the time to build up and contribute. I've won with my subpar deck so many times this way that it becomes a bit stale, but a pod where this can happen I feel is a dynamic enough pod that you can change it up easily and have fun. I also generally opt to help the losing player, because I might need their presence later.
In conclusion, every deck is valid if everyone is interested in playing the whole game tactically, politically and casually; not just in winning. Ditch power levels, ditch rule 0, and be open about what makes you salty after the game (mostly it's flooding).
The only issue I'm hearing here is that people with different ways of enjoying the game are trying to play together. You can't change the rules to make all those people happy, hence you find a table that fits your meta/style
"The game os what the rules are, not what the playets have decided it is."- a cool podcast some time ago.
Rule 0 allows players to make rules, which will be based on what they decided it to be, therefore turning the game into what they decided it to be. (For better or for worse)
I think a big issue in general is that every single time I see players try to change the rules with Rule Zero it's self-serving. A lot of people are afraid to win because they don't want to be 'That guy', or because 'Well, my combo didn't go off yet'. So instead they'll sit there with a winning board state, refuse to do anything with it, then if you dare interact with the other players at all you're 'ruining the game'.
I had a guy get Hydra Broodmaster off with Volo and some ridiculous Nykthos mana (I think it was something like a 36/36). So I attacked him with my angels, and he got *mad* at me for attacking him instead of anyone else when no one had anything immediately lethal out.
Yeah, the idea that every game should be epic and everyone “gets to do their thing” is an issue, or at least something that masks underlying issues. When the stars align and everyone is relatively close in terms of deck power (and matchups on the off chance it’s not 4 midrange value engine soup decks), it can work out. More often than not, however, you just end up in 2 hour long purgatory where no issues are revealed and no one can really gain any knowledge of how to adapt to make future games better.
You just gotta find your good vibe tribe. Every pod isn't for everybody. You just gotta play around and see who at locals enhances your experience, and who reduce it.
In my mind, rule zero is assessing the vibe and trying to play decks/in a way that fits a shared one. At my lgs, I'm just tryna know what to look out for and play accordingly
This reminders me of pauper commander which just comes off as someone’s weird rule zero not as a way to keep the game cheap, but a way to keep the game extremely slow and “casual”
Incredibly my play group has never had a rule 0 conversation and honestly it's just always worked. No one gets mad or upset when someone wins regardless of how they win. If you walk away from a game salty that you got combo'd out or died to infect instead of thinking on how you can improve your deck, thats on you.
I think there's a difference between rule zero v game preference discussions. Rule zero, can this planeswalker be my commander. Preference, no fast mana or infinite combos.
I think the only Rule 0 discussions I've ever had with people with paper Magic have been people asking if they can use proxies or silver border/ custom / banned cards. I think my experiences sitting across from proxy Mishra's Workshop / The Tabarnacle at Pendrell Vale / Nether Void kind of stuff that are usually practically soft-banned due to the high prices on the cards felt the most like some kind of betrayal, like maybe you should have said you were proxying a $20k deck instead of just a couple cards. And then comes the arms race if you play regularly with those folk.
I think there's some validity in coaching and molding a best of 1 format like Commander that has no sideboarding phase. It's just a lot of work and allows for very little flexibility in letting players jump into your game. I think telling people you're not playing CEDH is usually good enough to keep them from playing some kind of storm or thassa's oracle deck, but people still do this.
Agreed there, though there is still a wide range outside just cedh. I've had people unironically sit down at my pod and tote their deck as "highly optimized jank" and throw cards worth 3x my entire deck in the first turn.
@@milii113 The ol' turn one sol ring mana crypt signet into turn two flip a coin Craw Wurm pass wouldn't bother me none
Why does it matter how expensive the actual cards are? That's the entire purpose of proxies: to ignore that. Either proxies are allowed or they're not.
When I say things like “no infinite combos” in a Rule 0 conversation, I am talking about power level, not playstyle preferences. If I said that and your response was “My deck is built around a 5-card combo that I usually assemble around turn 7” then I would be totally fine playing against that with a casual deck, because both of us are looking to win around the same time. You want to pull out your two-cared combo infinite turns deck? Great! Let me at least play a deck that is playing the cards I would need to possibly counter that instead of the jank piles I play at a more casual table. I feel like the idea that Rule 0 is bad because it limits what people like about the game is so off the mark.
Hear hear. On MTGO I used to start a pod with the description: No Expropriate. No Torment of Hailfire. I think there's a fine meta for people who like them. But I'm not packing appropriate answers. And if it I did, then I would ROFLTStomp my normal playgroup. Time place and expectations, can't just bust out a Reaper King blow everything up in just any pod, even if it's technically the same power level as my other decks. It just doesn't engender the same vibes.
It matters more with what mindset rule 0 is made.
My playgroup uses something along the lines of:
"1. Use as many proxies of anything as you want.
2. Your deck has to have some intended way to win and you that you will use, no building a combo deck and then not going for the combo
3. You should have an idea on what turn on avarage you win against 3 goldfish, so that we can all sit down with similarly powerful decks."
though you can skip 3 if your deck isn't going to win before turn 7, but at that point you should know that you chose to bring a probably underpowered deck.
And our table has a timmy who plays commanders or decks because he likes them without thinking of their inherent power, a more casual who ends up building pretty powerful decks and then ends up taking forever on his turns because he isn't as invested or plays as much and me and my little brother who fall more into the johnny/spike category.
If course I also tell other people who want to play that that is how I build my Decks and ask if they want to play against it.
My new plan is to have three deck types - Juiced Precons ( for ‘Casual’ pods) , High Power, and cEDH .
The whole "casual Standard" vs "just Standard" thing comes up ALL THE TIME on the Eternal format subreddits, it's crazy.
"This card should be banned, it's too OP"
"Why? Data says it's fine"
"Well my T5 shitty Elves deck gets hosed by it! It should be banned!"
Same exact logic behind T0 conversations lol
Really good video today guys. Feel like a lot of content creators make rule 0 as magical that makes the game better. I try to have a rule 0 chat every time I play with people. Usually it ends up with 3 strangers staring at me and be like “sounds cool” after I describe my deck and power level.
My first real deck I built was a Niv mizzet deck because he was always my favorite card and I ran him in standard for years. I remember one game I played a control/political game extremely well, and was able to stall the game enough to get a curiosity combo and burn everyone down. The group let out a sigh and asked if I felt good? I came to the realization casual commander players hate control and combos and you have to win through combat. So I made a sword of X and Y equipment deck, and now I have to hear people bitch about the swords.
So I can't speak for anyone other than myself... But what I would groan about there isn't "all combos" being bad. It's "a two card combo where one of the cards is your commander" plus "the combo piece is clearly there to instantly win and do nothing else."
Like, someone going "I managed to stick these pieces that are good on their own and combine to win the game" make me go "ooh, that's nifty"
Someone going "I drew my one card that ends the game off a normal board state" does indeed make me go "was that fun for you?" (Edit: particularly when it feels disconnected from whatever else is happening that game)
Because the only effective answer to having that threat in someone's deck is to kill them as quickly as possible (and then they're sitting there watching everyone else play. Like, casual-ish culture discourages it. I feel bad rushing down one guy, even if it's deserved.) I can't always be holding up instant removal, I have two other opponents that are ALSO setting up degenerate things and I need to stop their combos and synergy pieces too.
Edit again: if they don't like control, though, I have no sympathy. It's a core part of the game, supposed to be viable at all power levels. They should learn to fight through it.
@@someguy1ification I agree, it ultimately lead to me disassembling the deck because of the social dilemma it would put me in as I learned more about the format. But it does kind of match what “rule 0 has taken from me”. I don’t get to play my favorite card and I’ve tried like 3 other Izzet commanders and I just don’t really enjoy them as much. So I’ve had to alter the way I play the game because of what others groan about.
But I do play for fun and hanging out with people so I get it, just an interesting dilemma I’ve only ever seen in this game.
The only part that should be a default rule is to REMOVE COLOR LOCKS FOR DRAFTING COMMANDER!
This way you can draft commander in each set, ever.
As long as you allow rare/mythic creatures to be commanders too due to many sets lacking legendary creatures
My rule zero conversation only involve two questions. How fast do you win and do you have infinite combos? I then use that to pick from about 4 decks I carry with different power levels.
There have been mismatches but I usually stick around for more than one match so if I stomped them too bad I apologize and pick a weaker deck and if I got stomped I go up in power.
You mentioned Canadian Highlander a few times in the same breath as EDH, but it is a completely different format ^^ it's also eternal, but it's 1v1 20 life bo3. The points list is used to balance only the most busted cards in all of magic (e.g. moxen, flash, thoracle) and is regularly adjusted to reflect the meta.