I just read an easy way to classify power levels in an intuitive way: - Low: if you feel the need to ask if someone has a deck as weak as yours (Nissa tribal, random cards I had at home). - Mid: If you feel comfortable bringing the deck to most tables. You may need to bring out a stronger deck next time, but you are not gonna make anyone miserable (Upgraded precons, most well built decks with budget restrictions or fun non optimal inclusions). - High: if you feel the need to ask an unknown playgroup whether their decks are as powerful as yours (Optimized decks with little budget restrictions or decks with a very strong wincon). - Cedh: fast mana, best interaction and wincons. You wouldnt play this in a non competitive table. Works for me. Although you probably need an idea of the powerlevel in your local meta.
how would you classify say an Ur Dragon style deck. battle cruiser esque. where it loses to high tier decks but beats all mid-low tier decks that generally don't have the removal to hate it out? it essentially is itself mid power but it beats most mid powered decks while not being high tier itself. you wouldn't play it in a high tier game because you will lose most likely or have a bad time being removed to oblivion. but playing it in a setting that allows it to breathe essentially crushes the others.
@@brennanlable this would just be a well built mid power deck. You answer your own question by saying you wouldn't want to bring it to a high power table but it's clearly too strong for low power. Beating most mid power decks you face doesn't mean it's not mid power, just means it's better than what you're facing and those decks might not be playing cards they should to compete with you or the players aren't answering the correct cards.
My problem with the 1-10 power-scale system is that everyone's deck is a 7. I really liked how Dana split it up. It's really similar to how I like to split it up (low power, mid power, high power, cEDH) and I agree that the names gives you a much better idea than a number. The guys at the Command Zone when presenting this even admit that the point isn't to match the number but get it in the ball-park. Just giving it a name rather than a number I think does that a lot better.
I also really love how the names (casual, focused, optimized, competitive) give richer meaning to the tiers. I think in the description of the tier, we should include how many turns they typically win in. Then, it will be a lot more intuitive.
What I have noticed throughout the years is that we tend to think about 1-10 scales like school grades, where a ‘C’ is average, so 0.7-0.79. This only leaves 3 numbers above “average”. Whereas, in a 1-10 scale, 5 should be “average”.
I feel like their mid power level is extremely large like if you're any better than a pre-con and not a combo deck with a bunch of tutors you're mid and you can be up against a wide range of power in there in my experience
Their mid bracket has the same problem as the 6 on this power scale. Way too many decks, starving the High and Battlecruiser brackets of players. Mid itself has such a wide range of power that I don't bother playing it.
@@Winterhe4rt they have a multi page write up on the power level differences linked to the discord welcome channel. It explains cards you expect to find at each level and synergies / strategies and efficiency, plus interactivity. I tried to introduce this to my playgroup though and they told me it was too complicated and just wanted me to assign a number. (I have yet to successfully guess a number for any of my decks)
Nice episode! Completely agree with this in terms of scrapping the confusing/ambiguous numbers thing and just having casual, focused, optimised and competitive as the categories. It makes things much clearer and it easier to call out those who purposely, or even accidentally, misled those about their deck’s power level. Simply because rather than a number we have a clear label on the tin!
I think the popularity of power level 6 and 7 originates from a mix of the price of "gatekeeper cards", i.e cards that would instantly up the power ranking of a deck and would be an obvious inclusion if they didn't carry a 25$ or higher price tag, and people wanting to play cards, they know are not the best option available, but they have a strong emotional attachment to certain cards, or wanting to make kinda janky cards work. I try to put my foil Lightning Reaver in pretty much every deck i build, just because i like the card and if it works out, it is fun.
Mana base should definitely be one of the criteria by which we judge power levels. Basics and tapped lands, untapped lands like shocks and battlebond, fetches, and duals, are 4 tiers of very clear power differences.
Two thoughts: 1. I don't think I'm going on a limb here when I say that thanks to the Internet and access to resources like EDHREC, nearly all playgroups will have a natural progression towards focused and optimised decks simply because building and playing EDH decks take time and money. 2. I like the turn estimate to gauge the power level (by what turn will your deck decide the game?) because it filters out the troll-y chaos decks that can't give an actual answer as well as the super-casual decks that don't really care when the deck can go online. Focused and optimised decks can win by turn 10, while cEDH post-Flash can reliably win by turn 4
Just want to point out that the "pregame conversation" is Rule 0. Sheldon went over it and cleared up misunderstandings as best as he could on his new series.
I would have a video idea for Joey: Everything artistocrats. So you as the master of necromancy take an unusual commander or color combination for a reanimator/artistocrats deck and try to build such a deck around it. It does not have to be a final brew, but some rough ideas, hidden gems and so on. How you could make such a deck possible. Some examples i could imagine for such a brew: Teshar as a non-combo aristocrats deck, mono-white reanimator, Gadruk aristocrats, and so on. Just throwing it out there ;)
"How does your deck play?" A: "Oh, it's a weak combo deck." B: "Mine's trying to be a strong combo deck." C: "Well mine's a moderate tappout-control deck." D: "Mine's a moderate aggro deck." Z: "My EDH deck is trying to be [strength] [archetype] deck." But the focus on what you're trying to do at deckbuilding.
A subjective scale is going to be flawed although quite useful. I think a count of the important measures of a strong deck should be part of the conversation - tutors or power 9s, infinite combos and "I win/you lose" combos
I feel the power levels need to worked out a little more the 1-10 power scale doesn't work in the space of the real world. power levels should be more of something like: Casual: these are decks that are either pre-cons or decks that are designed in a less powerful consideration. these games will last 12+ turns Mid: these are decks that have been pre-cons that are slightly upgraded or decks that do not have optimized lines of play. these games will last 10-12 turns Optimized: These decks have known strategies but may not have a fully optimized list or strategies that are known as high power. These games will last 8-10 turns High Power: These decks will have optimized mana bases, removal, and lines of play. These games will last 6-8 turns cEDH: This is the top tier of power level and have the most efficient lines of play. Games will end in 2-5 turns.
Describing decks in terms of turn power is also tough, my animar deck has the potential for a t2/3 win but it's very tough and will be interacted with. Even bloodpod a top tier deck usually goes to t8ish before it wins the game.
Hey guys great job on reporting on this. I really like that idea of combined power levels 1-3 or so, since as you pointed out there are so few decks and games that actually fire at that power level.
I really enjoyed this episode! Especially that it was a more open discussion and to a lesser decree tied to stats of edhrec. I really appreciate episodes like this from time to time.👌
The power level is one part of the discussion, how you play it is the other. I have always liked the 5-6 level because I can usually choose to play "down" when facing pre-cons/ beginners....so I try to have some way (e.g. tribal subtheme) to not have to play that game winning combo if it is clear that the table is underdeveloped and the folks are still engaged and having fun. That is why I steer clear of building cEDH decks.... i use modern for that fix...... : )
My Otrimi clone, Kenrith politics, Yarok thief and Feather decks(in order of best to worst) all would fall into Shenanigans, but are also range from 7 to 4 on the current scale. Ayara is Optimized on your list, High Power on the current list. And Windgrace is considered Competitive, if only because of little Land Destruction, but I'd rank it Optimized at best on either list. That said, I do like the idea of a Shenanigan category.
I’ve always felt like I’m in a weird spot because my deck is an extremely optimized Mayael list.. but it’s also Mayael. So the power level is limited by the strategy.
Mayael always ends up feeling like a coin flip. Either you drop bombs and become THE threat, or you get screwed over. And that's based on every Mayael deck I've ever played against.
I absolutely will state when I'm running a deck 5 or Lower. For example I have a narsett group hug deck that's a 1 and several other 1s and 2s. Ty this discussion helped me better express my feelings ( :
I really like this new scale, it seems to fit better with what I've experienced as I continue to make decks and play with local pods. Months ago a friend and I tried rating our decks according to the old Command Zone system (how many turns does it take to win uninterrupted) and came to the conclusion that we had similarly powered decks. After playing together for a few months I think he's won something close to 75% of games at our LGS and I'm
Great episode I rank my deck on a scale of, "13 - n" where N = "How many turns does it take to win against a goldfish" to determine average power level
Would like to see wizards of the coast include a pregame questions card along with the phases of game play card. Questions like these are great! 1. What is your commander and how does it synergize in your deck 2. What's your most powerful card or favorite card 3. By what turn does your deck unleash. Or, what turn do you expect to win. 4. How does your deck compare with a precon. 5. What are you after in a game (i.e. is your deck a) casual, b) focused, c) optimized, or d) competitive)? You could also rate each category on a 1-5 scale ... For example, my version of the Gavi nest warden cycling precon has a mixture of casual, focus, and optimization, with some competitiveness... I'd rate it a 3-3-2-1 out of the box it was probably something like 4-1-1-0 I think depending on how much focus or synergy is put into the cycling theme, the deck becomes slightly less casual and more focused and slightly more competitive. Also, with all the non-basic land upgrades my deck becomes more optimized which again makes it less casual and more competitive. Some of my themed/focused upgrades were more casual, however some of my land optimizations were competitive. Hope this sparks conversation and maybe more ideas on standardization of power levels.
@edhrecast is there a way to find out for each commander, which cards are most unique to it? For instance, Urban Burgeoning is played in only. 2.49% of Omnath Locus of Mana decks. So it doesn't even show up on the Omnath page. However, Omnath is the second from the top commander for Urban Burgeoning (after Estrid) I'd be very interested to know what other cards, for instance, have Omnath as one of their top commanders, even though they aren't one of his top cards.
Here's what my playgroup uses: 1. Weak: The decks is mainly for fun, probably doesn't have rare lands, limited removal, most cards are "crap rare" strength. 2. Normal: The decks that you generally build which have decent cards and a strategy 3. Strong: Decks with global removal, infinite combos, combos that impact multiple players etc
I do like the idea of explaining what the goal of your deck is (or isn't) before playing when your on the Focus/Optimized group; especially when playing against new players. Here is my take on some of those categories: * *Casual* * Pre-game discussion tend to matter less as casual deck tends to have less interaction with other decks. I think a bare description of the deck is enough: it's a precon, a design-theme deck (lady's looking left, avenger theme)... That information + the commander should be plenty enough to enjoy a good game. * *Focus* * Focus deck are deck with a general idea / play-theme (tribal, +1c, superfriend...). They are designed to play a 8-12 turn games; with board-wipes, and way to bounce back from one. Between focus and optimized, this is probably the category which requires the most pre-game talk. If one deck is graveyard base, and it's facing a (mill+graveyard hate) the game is not going to be fun for the graveyard base deck. A good brief description of the deck strategy is very welcome here. Kind of what they do at the beginning of each episode of CommanderVS. If your deck has expensive cards like: Mana Crypt, Mana Drain etc... let you group know about it. I would divide the focus category into the following sub-categories: - First time(s) playing the deck -- Can't really tell how good/bad it's gonna be; you may need time to think about your move... trying a new deck idea... etc... - General focus deck: Not too many cards out of the spectrum of what the deck wants to do; a bit tuned up, but you're not really focusing your effort to make it better... But the deck was play-tested a few times and the strategy is known to work. (This category also includes decks which haven't been updated for the past 2+ years... I.e: not really tuned to the new power-level) - Refined focus deck: Deck you really love, and keep improving, re-tuning it after every game. * *Optimized* * I except somewhat less talk that in the focus category, rather: what the average power level of your cards? Even an "average cost ( one-mana-land cost excluded )". Optimized decks are refined-focus decks with consistent way to "pop": it could be through infinite loop... self-decking, ... But can also be through fast damage burst style often after a infinite mana-loop. They tend to have fewer board-wipes and more spot-removal, spot interaction to prevent other decks from combo-ing off. This category is for decks with "one-turn win" out of nowhere if not stopped. Two sub-categories: - Fairly optimized: Mostly limited by the cost of cards... built to win. - Highly optimized: The only thing which prevent this deck from being competitive is that commander/theme is not good enough yet to be consider competitive level. * *Competitive* * Obviously you don't want to mention the goal of your deck granted it's often gonna be quite obvious :D The commander(s) itself(themselves) will define the power level of your deck in that category.
I'm curious how totally accurate the numbers are on a whole. As this is an event, how much of the people that brought decks that were on average stronger than the other decks they have. A super interesting video, and I'd love to see this looked into more!
From my own experience Power level defines by mainly 1. How the deck win the game? What combo they choose to end the game? High power deck usually choose the combos that require less pieces to assemble, less mana to cast and also choose combos that hard to interact with. 2. Speed of the deck, what mana base cards they choose. But this won't thoroughly defines the power. I saw so many decks that fast but not that cutthroat. 3.Interaction cards and disruption they choose. Cards must match with their current meta they are playing with. 4.What general the deck running? Is that deck running general that creates card advantage, color identity advantage or strong gameplan? For example, Tymna&Thrasios/ Urza/First Sliver/ Sisay/ Zur definitely stronger than Kaalia/ Atraxa/ Maelstrom Wanderer/ Karlov/ Etc.
i think the scale is fine, the descriptions are just flat out wrong. it should be... 1-2 = you put random cards together in your commander's colors 3-4 = you made a runnable deck that follows the typical framework of a commander deck 5-6 = you made a deck that follows the typical framework of a commander deck while somewhat focusing on 1 or more themes, mechanics, or flavors with few to none of the top level cards 7-8 = you made a deck that maximizes on how a deck runs while focusing on a specific theme or set of mechanics with *some* or *most* of the top level cards available 9-10 = you made a deck that maximizes on how a deck runs while focusing on a specific theme or set of mechanics with *only* the best cards available with the intention to win as quickly and as easily as possible I'm not a competitive player when it comes to MTG so especially lemme know your thoughts on 9-10 1-2 you can call these "Welcome to Commander" decks 3-4 you can call these "Silly/Jank" decks (I don't wanna call this "casual" cuz commander is a format that's casual by nature and most of the community does not play cEDH) 5-6 should stay being called "Focused" decks 7-8 you can call these "Amped" decks (cuz they're not really optimized, cEDH decks are optimized) 9-10 should stay being called "Competitive/Optimized" (whichever you prefer) *If you liked my idea, message me on my youtube channel for gaming consultations. I charge $1 million per idea/feedback* :P
I'm a disk golfer, Innova has ratings for all their disks. Speed, Glide, high speed turn, low speed turn. And it shows up on a disk like this:. Vulcan: 13,5,-4,2 13 is one of the fastest disk ratings 5 is one of the highest glide ratings -4 is an extreme Right turn during flight 2 is a generous left turn during end of flight I think wizards or edh, should come up with power level stats. I like to know the following: How focused is your deck theme or how well does your commander synchronize with your deck? How optimized are your lands? How much does the deck interact with other players (either assist, destroy, manipulate, counter, or board wipe) Lastly, how accessable is your win condition...
Everytime someone asks me what the power level of my deck is I say, I have no idea. It's build mostly out of cards I had at the house. Then they target me first because my commanders a sliver or kirrik :(
Maybe you could create a formula to help people determine power level... Let's say these are the inputs 1. Number if combos in the deck 2. Number of top 10 cards from EDHREC in the list (this could be larger or smaller) 3. Number of Mana accelerants in the deck 4. Deck average converted Mana cost 5. Commander's ranking on EDHREC All of these rated 1-5, and plotted on a pentagram graph This would by no means be a perfect way of collecting data and may in fact skew EDHREC towards competitive play but you see how with these inputs or similar ones it should be possible to get a much closer estimate of power level depending on what you consider powerful. Some strategies may be more or less 'powerful' on paper than in reality but it could still be a useful tool.
I agree with the assesment that numbers just aren't good enough. I remember playing over Discord and pulling out my Golos Tribal deck and I consider that deck just around a 5 or 6 its a silly Timmy deck where I seek basically every possible way to cheat dragons out and never hard cast a dragon, but thats it. Its just stompy its has nearly zero interaction it just seeks to pop out dragons. But the guy I played agaisnt brought out Anafenza and claimed it was a 7. But it just came down to his deck didn't have alot of mass removal so my deck felt reeeeeally strong when I could pop out 2 to 3 dragons a turn and he could only maybe kill one at a time. I got called out in that game for being too strong but in my meta with my friends we are board wipe happy and that deck can really stumble if I get board wipe too many times. Even the words casual and competitve can get misconstrued. Someone who has a pub stomper deck might think its competitive and bring it to a cEDH table and get completely obliterated. I think discussion is the most important thing you can do to really wring out how strong your deck is and while numbers and categories can be helpful for large scale events like Command Fest they aren't practical for smaller gatherings.
ok, to add to this: ive recently brewed a "spell thief" deck, that revolves around stealing the cards of opponents with things like psychic intrusion. ofc i've focused it somewhat and it can "win" with it's own resources. but if i hadn't optimized it, and went full in on (i shall play as many things that my opponents own) it would essentially be a 2 on the old scale. its essentially using limited resources but can yoink a combo from an enemy deck to win with that, but in a vacum, it would have 0 wincons.
19:00 I feel it. I have a Derevi deck and literally every time I play it, I say "hey, it's not hardcore counterstax. It's just a bunch of Investigate cards!
My first deck was a 1 power... I played Noyan Dar and only used cards I owned... I had probably about 3 to 5 booster boxes of commons and uncommons, and maybe 3 rares that were in the right color Edit: I played that deck once and started playing commander again using friends decks Years later I started building decks, and buying cards for them
My meta has an established scale that we use: Casual (includes jank and decks with pet cards), Focused (no pet cards, very synergistic, but on a budget with an informal cap around $200), Optimized (no budget cap, peak efficiency for every card slot, up to 2 infinite combos as secondary win-cons), and cEDH (no restrictions.) I love this system because if we have a new player they can play BOTH casual and focused at our table because we have decks that are at the same level as decks almost everyone can build on a budget. Super inclusive and it makes it so new players don't feel like they're forcing us to play "down to their level" that some people feel when using the 1-10 scale. I'm with you guys (no more #s!!!)
@@todeshorst1697 I watched the command zone's statistics episode a while back and while I wish $ was not a factor in power level, it is. That's why my group all sat down and decided where that cap would be for us between focused and optimized. It works really well for us but that's just my group! Every meta is different and may have a different cut off or even none at all. Whatever works :)
CEDH: Wins on turns 1-4. Through any means. Casual: Wins turns 6-8. Banned-0 Mana rocks, 0 Mana counters Partially welcome- Stax, infinite combo, land destruction, two card combo, tutors. Jank: Wins turns 10+
Issue I have with the number scale and the other suggestions is I feel like there’s a wider range of disparity in the 6-7, 6-8 range than the scales I’ve seen allow.
i want propose an algorithm to evaluate the power level of a commander based on the decklist, it uses category that EDHREC already has,imo it can be used to all the intermediate category (casual,focused and optimized). if your deck contains more dual untap lands than dual tap land(+1) if your deck contain combo (+#combo) if your commander is a piece of a combo(+2) if your commander allow you to:ramp, make card advantage or tutor (+3) if your commander use a suboptimal theme (-1,-2,-3 depending how deleterious it is) (+#tutors/2)rounded down (+#0manarock/2)rounded down (+#staplesfactor/2)roundedup the steples factor is the number of staples card based on a list that contains for example the 30 or 40 most powerfull cards. for example this is a list that i thought :rhystic study,Consecrated Sphinx,Craterhoof Behemoth, Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite,Linvala, Keeper of Silence, Oracle of Mul Daya, Seedborn Muse, Serra Ascendant, smothering tithe , Cyclonic Rift, Force of Will, Mana Drain, Pact of Negation, Gaea's Cradle, Maze of Ith, Strip Mine, Blood Moon, Exploration ,Grave Pact, Land Tax, Leyline of Anticipation, Luminarch Ascension, Necropotence, Sneak Attack, Sylvan Library, Doubling Season, expropriate, torment of the hailfire, tooth and nail, extra tun spell, toxic deluge, wheel of fortune, grim monolith, Sensei's Divining Top, Sword of Feast and Famine,sorin markov. Obviously you can change the categories, add or remove them, or change their importance. change the card list of staples. Sorry if there are mistakes , but english is not my first language.
a very enlightening commentary on the data. the part about stigma was especially poignant. hopefully the community and luminaries recognize the weaknesses of the numerical system and normalize a simpler, more useful system, so we can enjoy games with each other more.
I think it would be nice to code power levels associated to individual cards on EDHREC. Then after you build a deck, it will average out a power level for you. Also could recognize combo cards, or win cons and rate those appropriately. An example would be a basic land costing 0, but a dual land cost 3, a shock cost 2, or a tap land cost 1 point. A divination would maybe be a 0 or a 1, but cyclonic rift would be a 9. Obviously this needs to be refined, but I think having a power level suggested after building a deck would be great. You could even code it to suggest cards to cut or add to raise or lower power levels.
When i heard the words nominal and ordinal i flashed back to college cementing the perception that joey is some type of huge math nerd. The only time math should show up in magic if someone decides to run gisella when people are trying to assign damage. (pro tip you can run fiery emancipation in that deck for more math!)
In terms of the person who is intentionally lying/vague about their deck's power level - it's important to recognise that the purpose of the scale is to prevent people accidentally pairing up against decks that are very different power levels to them and produce fun games of EDH. The person lying isn't interested in that in the first place. The only way to prevent playing with people who intentionally lie about their deck's power level in order to stomp people is simply to not play with them again (or perhaps warn them the first time if you want to keep playing with them).
casual player here that's been playing since 95. I usually say my decks are 7s but by CF #'s I should be 5-6. I like Sheldon's what turn do u win by standard but it doesn't work well for control decks. I personally like to discuss the cards that aren't in my decks prior to playing. Telling people that I don't play tutors, sol ring, mana crypt etc. tells a lot about a deck. Another way is to guess cards in other decks to gauge power level. If I see prosh at the table and guess food chain/ asnod's alter, the answer will say a lot. Another good discussion is to discuss combos in your decks that may or may not be in them, ie in my karn deck I let people know i'm not playing mychosynth lattice,or in my kiki deck I'm not playing zealous conscripts. Probably the best way to more accurately depict level is to have a list with ten different categories rather than 5
if you narrowed the categories down to four, I'll do you one better, take each category and slap an upper, middle, and a lower next to it. but I absolutely agree, that's only the first, conversation still need to be had.
For that power level scale. Many of my decks are focused and have plenty of infinite/game winning combos. But then my Thassa deck that I have is just going to sit there and steal everything. Nobody else at the table gets to have their cards for more then a turn and it's mono blue so I have plenty of disruption/protection. There's no infinite or game winning combo. I just slowly generate value by robbing others of their cards. Most would consider this (5-6 on the list) stronger then my other (7-8 on the list) decks. My Feather deck as well. As long as my commander sticks on the board, I have so many protection spells and board clearing spells that will just come back to my hand every turn that the deck ends up really hard to deal with. There is no infinite or game winning combo other then maintaining card advantage. While I think it's better then nothing to go by, I do think that considering the speed that it takes to put together your infinite/winning combo is more important then it being there in the first place.
A little late to comment here. However I think it is worth the discussion to bring up that skill and knowledge also have a big effect on certain power levels with decks. For example the meta i play in is pretty much all cedh decks. Thats how I was introduced to the format and really was quite difficult to adapt to. That being said my first deck was an Atla deck that was very underpowered to my counter parts but understanding the interactions that occurred in the game allowed me to win sometimes. I now play najeela to bring my win percentage up with the other decks around but I don't know the interactions nearly as well as my first deck which brings by most accounts a really strong cedh deck to little more than what my less optimized Naya deck can pull off.
With the release of Pramikon, Sky Rampart, my brother built an entirely walls deck. Only creatures were walls. Just because. It was horrible and he knew it but it was funny. Def 1-2 lol
Maybe something like this could work Casual - For Fun Focused - Has good synergy cards without any unli combos Optimized - Has unli combos with few high power cards + some tutors Competitive - Pushed to the limits, has 3-4 turn combos + multiple cheap tutors
I opened I VIP box I got today and the box topper were garbage: crop rotation and council's judgment. But I got a foil mana crypt which is like 250 dollars so :pog:
I feel like there are a lot of people who want to say that MtG is a safe place for them, and so when people sit down to ask what is the power level, no one wants to admit that they're a 2 or 4 or whatever because they don't want to be associated with a "low" number. A lot of players I bump into as a woman want to show their knowledge of MtG through various ways, their foiled decks, or even saying "I'm so skilled that I'm not a lowly 4, I'm totally a 6!" when it may not be the case. Having some vulnerability and starting the discussion off like "I'm more than willing to start a game with 2 or a 3" is really good but also having the conversation with the rest of the MtG community about how to not treat those numbers with scorn is due as well. A lot of the time that's how we see other decks either flop or win, so if we want to accept other people from other parts of the community, then it's going to be a long and painful process.
I never really thought about power level, and all mine are pretty much the same - pretty much in the middle. Some good cards, if I have them, but I try and stick more towards a theme than trying to win. For example, I have a zombie deck, and it has the Rooftop Storm + Gravecrawler combo that can go infinite. It's there, but really only because all the cards that work with it are good cards. It also has Mikaeus, but not Triskelion or Ballista (because they aren't zombies). The whole "play a bunch of tutors to get all your combo pieces and win" style is really boring to me.
I definitely agree with all the conclusions from this. Way too many decks are concentrated in the 6-7 range to be able to make any conclusions about a deck's power. I've also thought that the turn clock idea doesn't always work well because almost all my decks regardless of power level can win around turn 7 "when completely unopposed." You can play significantly different, not just faster, if you know no one will block your swings or remove/counter your cards.
An example of a deck that doesn't really fare well in the power level discussion: Siona auras is not a super strong deck, but it sometimes wins as early as turn three without even trying (with the Shielded by Faith combo). I have no idea how I would rate Siona's strength--5 with a possibility of 9?
Very good conversation Very good points For some casual focused decks i do express this deck gets there turn 10 for example. Or this group hug deck happens to run duals and timetwister but its casual. Or my Azusa its strong but no infinite combos etc. Every deck is unique. A bit of info provides a welcoming challenge bc you cant dismiss your deck nor place yourself in position of Arch Enemy that tends to happen amongst groups time & time again.
my mind went right to a SABCD format with s being the cedh level(and to get more complicated something like A+, A, A-.....too complicated), but that does nothing to address the problem just relabels it. the simplified version suggested on the video was good, but what we need is a way to grade our decks. say you start with a number say 50 then add or subtract points based on content. a combo is +1 for each one in your deck. infinite combo +5(as an example) more points if different cards can start your combo. land base will give points if better options used. "power cards" would add points. tutors would add points. synergy, etc. cards can also subtract points say you want to use a card you like but it adds nothing to the deck. Greater minds then mine would have to come up with the system. the point system if it could be made to work and could be used by anyone with just a little help could work. a 1-100 scale and say if 65-74 was a C level deck a 66 would be a low C and a 70 would be a solid C. the main problem besides being to complicated would be someone would have to give a point value to common elements. how many points for a mana crypt and should it be the same in every deck. in one deck it could be great, another really just there, and in another broken. you would have to practically write a manual for deck evaluation. i keep seeing it something like building a role playing character an extra point of dex, 5 points in str... rambling now i just want a character sheet for my decks figure out what the 6 stats are for a deck and a method to rate the catagories. a 16 in "DEX" means a lot of instants or counterspells. now i am really off somewhere and have to stop.
Lot’s of infinite/fame ending combos on the higher powered scale? lol, people use few game ending combos in high-tier lists. What’s in abundance are the high quality tutors. Those are the ones that add consistency. Stuffing too much unli combos is actually detrimental in the higher levels.
Maybe use the numbers but use them within each category? Like, my Karador is Focused but it is a 9 within that descriptor. It doesn't have any "infinite combos" and it has win conditions like Living Death but not "lots" of "game ending combos". At the same time it is more controlling and wins most of the time. Would say my Riku deck is Optimized but a 5 in that as it has quite a few but tuned down to not be obnoxious or oppressive. Wins a little less than 50/50.
I think EDHREC would benefit from an additional filter for “power level”. Budget kind of does that but not entirely. Many commanders have a broad spectrum of power levels and I may be looking to build a casual build vs a higher one. Then I could filter and see cards / decks that fit within those parameters. Especially for newer players / deck builders.
To build on your idea, I would like to see EDHREC calculate the power level of decks. Example: Let's say I choose Goblin Tribal and then select Krenko as the commander, select 'Cheap' as the budget then click 'Average deck.' I would love to see EDHREC add the power level to the generated deck list. I really have no idea of the complexity of making my suggestion happen, but since I really have no idea of how to calculate power level on my own, this addition would be a big help! Of course the next issue is actually playing the cards correctly and not lowering the power level because of my own piloting mistakes..... :)
Seeing that EDHRec already has a salt card list how about amend the list with other flavors like sweet and try to come up with decks that actually are tasty? Or provide a wholesome meal? (bread and butter, fish-n-chips, pretzels and beer, meat and potatoes, pasta and tomato)
My one playgroup that I loved before covid. You could only use precon with a value cap of 200$ total from card kingdom prices. We use to use tcg mid but folks have been screwing with those nbers. I love it because taking a precon and basic can add one card or about 10 to 20. Depending on how you spent budget and value of the deck. Seriously some of the older ones your budget smaller.
I know this is 2 years old but here’s your problem. Almost EVERYONE at your local shop (here in SD it’s insane) is going to undervalue their deck. Stacks, burn, duels etc. I use the Atarka scale. Person shows up with “low power deck” if you knock them out with basic atarka you’ll see real quick how powerful the deck was because of how mad they get and immediately go towards their turn 2 killer.
I would still say to keep 9s and 10s seperate, they are low, but when you sit down at a table the difference between a nine and a ten is massive, it is the difference between turn 0-3 infinate mana win and turn 2-5 infinite mana wins
I had the thought awhile ago that it would be nice if every card in the game had a power level associated with it, kind of like the points system used in Canadian Highlander. It would be like if you put the Salt Score feature on every card but people voted 1 to 4 (Casual to Competitive). Then you could add up the points of your whole deck and get a value for its power level. Now on the other hand, the whole point of this scale, as you said, is to quickly establish what level everyone is on. Some new players would have no idea what you're talking about with the numbers. For that I think that power level is more about your intent with the deck than the actual cards. Do you want to have fun and play something silly, or do you want to play the best possible game? For that, I agree with you guys, lets ditch the numbers and just call them Casual, Focused, Optimized, and Competitive. Being able to vote which category a card typically goes into might still be a cool feature, but I'd just show something like number of votes or percent for each category.
The problem with this though is that cards with a grade would only be a reflection of the card in isolation of other cards. The reason combos are so powerful is because of the interaction between cards, not an otherwise simple card. Flash is a great example. Never saw much play in casual edh but it was the most powerful card in cEDH because it it's interaction with the rest of the combo
I don't like the "What turn do you expect to win on?" as a judge of power. There are lots of decks that don't win quickly but can disrupt their opponents enough that they are very powerful.
the indian have invented the number zero btw it was a great invention in math it did a revolution because people doesnt had the concept of void, none or null representation in math (it was a long long time ago)
The problem is that there is a distinct difference in the power level of the cards and the skill level of the player. E.g. a higher skilled player with a "level 8" deck can win against a lower skilled player with a "level 10" deck. There is no skill factor to this. Most people compare decks with their skill level in mind.
The main problem with power levels is matchup. If rock paper and scissors are all equally powerful, each would beat the other at equal rates instead of 100% against one and 0% against the other. In commander if you go against something that unequivocally beats you...power level didn't help you. Another example is voltron (or even CEDH type strategies with only 1-2 important creatures, like Urza or Thrassios) against Dictate of Erebos effects. Joey against graveyard hate. Fire pokemon against water types.
The power level is tough I find it is about your play group. I would find it's helpful to have a power level for your Commander and a power level for your deck. It be helpful like say my commander golos is a 10 but the deck power level is 7 or my commander is anje Falken ralth at a power level of 7 but my deck is a 5.
I definitely do in mine! I pulled a Mana crypt in a mystery booster and my partner and I were debating which deck should get it. We ended up putting in a deck that used it for reasons people don't usually give a second thought too! Coin flipping. It went in my chaos coin flipping deck XD that felt like the most fair place for it!
Kinda? Here's my logic; I could run a Crypt in a casual deck and not radically shift the power of the deck in 90% of games. However, the ability to drop it against people who probably aren't running one coupled with the edge doing so provides is such that it would make me feel uncomfortable. So while you could do it I personally wouldn't feel right running it even if the argument can be made the power level remains roughly constant. That's me though, just sharing how I'd view in in my own decks.
on that scale my Winota, Marwyn, and Bruvac Deck are all like 6 power. And yet Marwyn and Winota will win between 6-8 with no interaction. Bruvac is a bit slower but has more combos so could be rated higher. Winota for example has a bunch of Janky Humans but work really really well with Winota. I can agree scale is a bit off.
Hay mucha diferencia entre entre focused y optimized, en lugar de los 1-2 deberia haber uno nivel intermedio entre focused y optimized, ya que a veces uno en su mazo corre un par de combos infinitos pero no tutores por el costo de estos ultimos, lo que implica que no seran tan consistentes y por tanto el mazo sigue siendo focused, o el simple hecho de tener la suerte de tener una dual-land o una mana crypt no implica que solo por esa carta tu mazo focused se vaya a terreno optimized.
Not a good way to judge. I've built Pauper Talrand and Pauper Athreos (nothing but commons other than the commander). Neither is close to a 1 or 2. A focused Pauper build may be deliberately limited in power, but it's still going to trash precons and give casual and even some focused decks a run for their money.
I just read an easy way to classify power levels in an intuitive way:
- Low: if you feel the need to ask if someone has a deck as weak as yours (Nissa tribal, random cards I had at home).
- Mid: If you feel comfortable bringing the deck to most tables. You may need to bring out a stronger deck next time, but you are not gonna make anyone miserable (Upgraded precons, most well built decks with budget restrictions or fun non optimal inclusions).
- High: if you feel the need to ask an unknown playgroup whether their decks are as powerful as yours (Optimized decks with little budget restrictions or decks with a very strong wincon).
- Cedh: fast mana, best interaction and wincons. You wouldnt play this in a non competitive table.
Works for me. Although you probably need an idea of the powerlevel in your local meta.
how would you classify say an Ur Dragon style deck. battle cruiser esque. where it loses to high tier decks but beats all mid-low tier decks that generally don't have the removal to hate it out? it essentially is itself mid power but it beats most mid powered decks while not being high tier itself. you wouldn't play it in a high tier game because you will lose most likely or have a bad time being removed to oblivion. but playing it in a setting that allows it to breathe essentially crushes the others.
@@brennanlable this would just be a well built mid power deck. You answer your own question by saying you wouldn't want to bring it to a high power table but it's clearly too strong for low power. Beating most mid power decks you face doesn't mean it's not mid power, just means it's better than what you're facing and those decks might not be playing cards they should to compete with you or the players aren't answering the correct cards.
Guys... I’ve had the worst day in long time. Thanks for putting out a new episode today. I needed this distraction. Thankful for you boys.
Remember, it’s not the worst day ever, just the worst day so far
Thanks, Dalton.
@@daltonwakeup9537 you have no clue how much I needed that right now
I hope everything is okay/will get better!
Sucks my dude, hopefully if you ever hit bottom it means there's only ups coming!
I like the Casual, Focused, Tuned and Competitive scale. Just 4 easily understandable categories
My problem with the 1-10 power-scale system is that everyone's deck is a 7.
I really liked how Dana split it up. It's really similar to how I like to split it up (low power, mid power, high power, cEDH) and I agree that the names gives you a much better idea than a number. The guys at the Command Zone when presenting this even admit that the point isn't to match the number but get it in the ball-park. Just giving it a name rather than a number I think does that a lot better.
I also really love how the names (casual, focused, optimized, competitive) give richer meaning to the tiers.
I think in the description of the tier, we should include how many turns they typically win in. Then, it will be a lot more intuitive.
What I have noticed throughout the years is that we tend to think about 1-10 scales like school grades, where a ‘C’ is average, so 0.7-0.79. This only leaves 3 numbers above “average”. Whereas, in a 1-10 scale, 5 should be “average”.
PlayEDH has a scale that I really like, BattleCruiser for the lower stuff, then mid, high, and competitive
I feel like they have a very specific understanding of these levels, so that there are quite a few decks that are none of these
I feel like their mid power level is extremely large like if you're any better than a pre-con and not a combo deck with a bunch of tutors you're mid and you can be up against a wide range of power in there in my experience
Their mid bracket has the same problem as the 6 on this power scale. Way too many decks, starving the High and Battlecruiser brackets of players. Mid itself has such a wide range of power that I don't bother playing it.
Thats sounds kinda aweful tbh. Why cant my battlecruiser deck be a mid or high tier deck? Also whats the difference between mid and high?
@@Winterhe4rt they have a multi page write up on the power level differences linked to the discord welcome channel. It explains cards you expect to find at each level and synergies / strategies and efficiency, plus interactivity. I tried to introduce this to my playgroup though and they told me it was too complicated and just wanted me to assign a number. (I have yet to successfully guess a number for any of my decks)
Nice episode! Completely agree with this in terms of scrapping the confusing/ambiguous numbers thing and just having casual, focused, optimised and competitive as the categories.
It makes things much clearer and it easier to call out those who purposely, or even accidentally, misled those about their deck’s power level. Simply because rather than a number we have a clear label on the tin!
I think the popularity of power level 6 and 7 originates from a mix of the price of "gatekeeper cards", i.e cards that would instantly up the power ranking of a deck and would be an obvious inclusion if they didn't carry a 25$ or higher price tag, and people wanting to play cards, they know are not the best option available, but they have a strong emotional attachment to certain cards, or wanting to make kinda janky cards work. I try to put my foil Lightning Reaver in pretty much every deck i build, just because i like the card and if it works out, it is fun.
I play Janky decks at every out of 10 except a 4. It's just how synergistic you want to make your deck.
Mana base should definitely be one of the criteria by which we judge power levels. Basics and tapped lands, untapped lands like shocks and battlebond, fetches, and duals, are 4 tiers of very clear power differences.
Two thoughts:
1. I don't think I'm going on a limb here when I say that thanks to the Internet and access to resources like EDHREC, nearly all playgroups will have a natural progression towards focused and optimised decks simply because building and playing EDH decks take time and money.
2. I like the turn estimate to gauge the power level (by what turn will your deck decide the game?) because it filters out the troll-y chaos decks that can't give an actual answer as well as the super-casual decks that don't really care when the deck can go online. Focused and optimised decks can win by turn 10, while cEDH post-Flash can reliably win by turn 4
There are cedh and casual strong decks that win past turn 12 9/10 fyi.
"What turn do you expect to win on?"
*looks at his sharuum spin-the-wheels-in-place deck*
"I don't"
Just want to point out that the "pregame conversation" is Rule 0. Sheldon went over it and cleared up misunderstandings as best as he could on his new series.
I would have a video idea for Joey:
Everything artistocrats.
So you as the master of necromancy take an unusual commander or color combination for a reanimator/artistocrats deck and try to build such a deck around it. It does not have to be a final brew, but some rough ideas, hidden gems and so on. How you could make such a deck possible.
Some examples i could imagine for such a brew:
Teshar as a non-combo aristocrats deck, mono-white reanimator, Gadruk aristocrats, and so on.
Just throwing it out there ;)
I am currently brewing my Bant Rubinia Soulsinger aristocrats. It. Is. Wierd.
@@petrseghman4283 That's exactly the kind of deck i am thinking about ;)
Basically you're telling me we should flatten the curve?
"How does your deck play?"
A: "Oh, it's a weak combo deck."
B: "Mine's trying to be a strong combo deck."
C: "Well mine's a moderate tappout-control deck."
D: "Mine's a moderate aggro deck."
Z: "My EDH deck is trying to be [strength] [archetype] deck."
But the focus on what you're trying to do at deckbuilding.
A subjective scale is going to be flawed although quite useful. I think a count of the important measures of a strong deck should be part of the conversation - tutors or power 9s, infinite combos and "I win/you lose" combos
Also lands
I think there are three power levels. Cedh: I am trying to win. Optimized: i am trying to win politely. Casual: I don't care about winning.
I feel the power levels need to worked out a little more the 1-10 power scale doesn't work in the space of the real world. power levels should be more of something like:
Casual: these are decks that are either pre-cons or decks that are designed in a less powerful consideration. these games will last 12+ turns
Mid: these are decks that have been pre-cons that are slightly upgraded or decks that do not have optimized lines of play. these games will last 10-12 turns
Optimized: These decks have known strategies but may not have a fully optimized list or strategies that are known as high power. These games will last 8-10 turns
High Power: These decks will have optimized mana bases, removal, and lines of play. These games will last 6-8 turns
cEDH: This is the top tier of power level and have the most efficient lines of play. Games will end in 2-5 turns.
by turns do you mean turns to win if a deck is unhindered by the others?
Describing decks in terms of turn power is also tough, my animar deck has the potential for a t2/3 win but it's very tough and will be interacted with. Even bloodpod a top tier deck usually goes to t8ish before it wins the game.
Hey guys great job on reporting on this. I really like that idea of combined power levels 1-3 or so, since as you pointed out there are so few decks and games that actually fire at that power level.
I really enjoyed this episode! Especially that it was a more open discussion and to a lesser decree tied to stats of edhrec.
I really appreciate episodes like this from time to time.👌
The power level is one part of the discussion, how you play it is the other. I have always liked the 5-6 level because I can usually choose to play "down" when facing pre-cons/ beginners....so I try to have some way (e.g. tribal subtheme) to not have to play that game winning combo if it is clear that the table is underdeveloped and the folks are still engaged and having fun. That is why I steer clear of building cEDH decks.... i use modern for that fix...... : )
Can anyone tell me where the art used in the background at 7:08 to 7:30 is from? I'd like to put it in my Minotaur deck, assuming it's a mtg card lol.
Suggested categories in rank order: Shenanigans, Casual, Journyman, Streamlined, Optimized, Competitive
My Otrimi clone, Kenrith politics, Yarok thief and Feather decks(in order of best to worst) all would fall into Shenanigans, but are also range from 7 to 4 on the current scale. Ayara is Optimized on your list, High Power on the current list. And Windgrace is considered Competitive, if only because of little Land Destruction, but I'd rank it Optimized at best on either list.
That said, I do like the idea of a Shenanigan category.
I’ve always felt like I’m in a weird spot because my deck is an extremely optimized Mayael list.. but it’s also Mayael. So the power level is limited by the strategy.
Mayael always ends up feeling like a coin flip. Either you drop bombs and become THE threat, or you get screwed over. And that's based on every Mayael deck I've ever played against.
I absolutely will state when I'm running a deck 5 or Lower. For example I have a narsett group hug deck that's a 1 and several other 1s and 2s. Ty this discussion helped me better express my feelings ( :
I really like this new scale, it seems to fit better with what I've experienced as I continue to make decks and play with local pods. Months ago a friend and I tried rating our decks according to the old Command Zone system (how many turns does it take to win uninterrupted) and came to the conclusion that we had similarly powered decks. After playing together for a few months I think he's won something close to 75% of games at our LGS and I'm
Great episode
I rank my deck on a scale of, "13 - n" where N = "How many turns does it take to win against a goldfish" to determine average power level
Would like to see wizards of the coast include a pregame questions card along with the phases of game play card.
Questions like these are great!
1. What is your commander and how does it synergize in your deck
2. What's your most powerful card or favorite card
3. By what turn does your deck unleash. Or, what turn do you expect to win.
4. How does your deck compare with a precon.
5. What are you after in a game (i.e. is your deck a) casual, b) focused, c) optimized, or d) competitive)?
You could also rate each category on a 1-5 scale ... For example, my version of the Gavi nest warden cycling precon has a mixture of casual, focus, and optimization, with some competitiveness... I'd rate it a 3-3-2-1 out of the box it was probably something like 4-1-1-0 I think depending on how much focus or synergy is put into the cycling theme, the deck becomes slightly less casual and more focused and slightly more competitive. Also, with all the non-basic land upgrades my deck becomes more optimized which again makes it less casual and more competitive. Some of my themed/focused upgrades were more casual, however some of my land optimizations were competitive.
Hope this sparks conversation and maybe more ideas on standardization of power levels.
@edhrecast is there a way to find out for each commander, which cards are most unique to it? For instance, Urban Burgeoning is played in only. 2.49% of Omnath Locus of Mana decks. So it doesn't even show up on the Omnath page. However, Omnath is the second from the top commander for Urban Burgeoning (after Estrid)
I'd be very interested to know what other cards, for instance, have Omnath as one of their top commanders, even though they aren't one of his top cards.
This is probably the best ranking system I've seen
Here's what my playgroup uses:
1. Weak: The decks is mainly for fun, probably doesn't have rare lands, limited removal, most cards are "crap rare" strength.
2. Normal: The decks that you generally build which have decent cards and a strategy
3. Strong: Decks with global removal, infinite combos, combos that impact multiple players etc
I do like the idea of explaining what the goal of your deck is (or isn't) before playing when your on the Focus/Optimized group; especially when playing against new players.
Here is my take on some of those categories:
* *Casual* *
Pre-game discussion tend to matter less as casual deck tends to have less interaction with other decks.
I think a bare description of the deck is enough: it's a precon, a design-theme deck (lady's looking left, avenger theme)... That information + the commander should be plenty enough to enjoy a good game.
* *Focus* *
Focus deck are deck with a general idea / play-theme (tribal, +1c, superfriend...). They are designed to play a 8-12 turn games; with board-wipes, and way to bounce back from one.
Between focus and optimized, this is probably the category which requires the most pre-game talk. If one deck is graveyard base, and it's facing a (mill+graveyard hate) the game is not going to be fun for the graveyard base deck. A good brief description of the deck strategy is very welcome here. Kind of what they do at the beginning of each episode of CommanderVS.
If your deck has expensive cards like: Mana Crypt, Mana Drain etc... let you group know about it.
I would divide the focus category into the following sub-categories:
- First time(s) playing the deck -- Can't really tell how good/bad it's gonna be; you may need time to think about your move... trying a new deck idea... etc...
- General focus deck: Not too many cards out of the spectrum of what the deck wants to do; a bit tuned up, but you're not really focusing your effort to make it better... But the deck was play-tested a few times and the strategy is known to work. (This category also includes decks which haven't been updated for the past 2+ years... I.e: not really tuned to the new power-level)
- Refined focus deck: Deck you really love, and keep improving, re-tuning it after every game.
* *Optimized* *
I except somewhat less talk that in the focus category, rather: what the average power level of your cards? Even an "average cost ( one-mana-land cost excluded )".
Optimized decks are refined-focus decks with consistent way to "pop": it could be through infinite loop... self-decking, ... But can also be through fast damage burst style often after a infinite mana-loop.
They tend to have fewer board-wipes and more spot-removal, spot interaction to prevent other decks from combo-ing off.
This category is for decks with "one-turn win" out of nowhere if not stopped.
Two sub-categories:
- Fairly optimized: Mostly limited by the cost of cards... built to win.
- Highly optimized: The only thing which prevent this deck from being competitive is that commander/theme is not good enough yet to be consider competitive level.
* *Competitive* *
Obviously you don't want to mention the goal of your deck granted it's often gonna be quite obvious :D
The commander(s) itself(themselves) will define the power level of your deck in that category.
I'm curious how totally accurate the numbers are on a whole. As this is an event, how much of the people that brought decks that were on average stronger than the other decks they have. A super interesting video, and I'd love to see this looked into more!
From my own experience
Power level defines by mainly
1. How the deck win the game?
What combo they choose to end the game? High power deck usually choose the combos that require less pieces to assemble, less mana to cast and also choose combos that hard to interact with.
2. Speed of the deck, what mana base cards they choose. But this won't thoroughly defines the power. I saw so many decks that fast but not that cutthroat.
3.Interaction cards and disruption they choose. Cards must match with their current meta they are playing with.
4.What general the deck running?
Is that deck running general that creates card advantage, color identity advantage or strong gameplan? For example,
Tymna&Thrasios/ Urza/First Sliver/ Sisay/ Zur definitely stronger than
Kaalia/ Atraxa/ Maelstrom Wanderer/ Karlov/ Etc.
Power level is such a difficult thing to nail down. Appreciate the discussion.
i think the scale is fine, the descriptions are just flat out wrong. it should be...
1-2 = you put random cards together in your commander's colors
3-4 = you made a runnable deck that follows the typical framework of a commander deck
5-6 = you made a deck that follows the typical framework of a commander deck while somewhat focusing on 1 or more themes, mechanics, or flavors with few to none of the top level cards
7-8 = you made a deck that maximizes on how a deck runs while focusing on a specific theme or set of mechanics with *some* or *most* of the top level cards available
9-10 = you made a deck that maximizes on how a deck runs while focusing on a specific theme or set of mechanics with *only* the best cards available with the intention to win as quickly and as easily as possible
I'm not a competitive player when it comes to MTG so especially lemme know your thoughts on 9-10
1-2 you can call these "Welcome to Commander" decks
3-4 you can call these "Silly/Jank" decks (I don't wanna call this "casual" cuz commander is a format that's casual by nature and most of the community does not play cEDH)
5-6 should stay being called "Focused" decks
7-8 you can call these "Amped" decks (cuz they're not really optimized, cEDH decks are optimized)
9-10 should stay being called "Competitive/Optimized" (whichever you prefer)
*If you liked my idea, message me on my youtube channel for gaming consultations. I charge $1 million per idea/feedback*
:P
I'm a disk golfer, Innova has ratings for all their disks. Speed, Glide, high speed turn, low speed turn. And it shows up on a disk like this:.
Vulcan: 13,5,-4,2
13 is one of the fastest disk ratings
5 is one of the highest glide ratings
-4 is an extreme Right turn during flight
2 is a generous left turn during end of flight
I think wizards or edh, should come up with power level stats.
I like to know the following:
How focused is your deck theme or how well does your commander synchronize with your deck?
How optimized are your lands?
How much does the deck interact with other players (either assist, destroy, manipulate, counter, or board wipe)
Lastly, how accessable is your win condition...
Everytime someone asks me what the power level of my deck is I say, I have no idea. It's build mostly out of cards I had at the house. Then they target me first because my commanders a sliver or kirrik :(
Maybe you could create a formula to help people determine power level... Let's say these are the inputs
1. Number if combos in the deck
2. Number of top 10 cards from EDHREC in the list (this could be larger or smaller)
3. Number of Mana accelerants in the deck
4. Deck average converted Mana cost
5. Commander's ranking on EDHREC
All of these rated 1-5, and plotted on a pentagram graph
This would by no means be a perfect way of collecting data and may in fact skew EDHREC towards competitive play but you see how with these inputs or similar ones it should be possible to get a much closer estimate of power level depending on what you consider powerful. Some strategies may be more or less 'powerful' on paper than in reality but it could still be a useful tool.
I agree with droping the numbers entirely and instead use descriptors as Jank, Casual, Focused, Optimized and Competitive to assess powerlevel.
I agree with the assesment that numbers just aren't good enough. I remember playing over Discord and pulling out my Golos Tribal deck and I consider that deck just around a 5 or 6 its a silly Timmy deck where I seek basically every possible way to cheat dragons out and never hard cast a dragon, but thats it. Its just stompy its has nearly zero interaction it just seeks to pop out dragons. But the guy I played agaisnt brought out Anafenza and claimed it was a 7. But it just came down to his deck didn't have alot of mass removal so my deck felt reeeeeally strong when I could pop out 2 to 3 dragons a turn and he could only maybe kill one at a time. I got called out in that game for being too strong but in my meta with my friends we are board wipe happy and that deck can really stumble if I get board wipe too many times. Even the words casual and competitve can get misconstrued. Someone who has a pub stomper deck might think its competitive and bring it to a cEDH table and get completely obliterated. I think discussion is the most important thing you can do to really wring out how strong your deck is and while numbers and categories can be helpful for large scale events like Command Fest they aren't practical for smaller gatherings.
ok, to add to this: ive recently brewed a "spell thief" deck, that revolves around stealing the cards of opponents with things like psychic intrusion. ofc i've focused it somewhat and it can "win" with it's own resources. but if i hadn't optimized it, and went full in on (i shall play as many things that my opponents own) it would essentially be a 2 on the old scale. its essentially using limited resources but can yoink a combo from an enemy deck to win with that, but in a vacum, it would have 0 wincons.
19:00 I feel it. I have a Derevi deck and literally every time I play it, I say "hey, it's not hardcore counterstax. It's just a bunch of Investigate cards!
My first deck was a 1 power... I played Noyan Dar and only used cards I owned... I had probably about 3 to 5 booster boxes of commons and uncommons, and maybe 3 rares that were in the right color
Edit: I played that deck once and started playing commander again using friends decks
Years later I started building decks, and buying cards for them
My meta has an established scale that we use: Casual (includes jank and decks with pet cards), Focused (no pet cards, very synergistic, but on a budget with an informal cap around $200), Optimized (no budget cap, peak efficiency for every card slot, up to 2 infinite combos as secondary win-cons), and cEDH (no restrictions.)
I love this system because if we have a new player they can play BOTH casual and focused at our table because we have decks that are at the same level as decks almost everyone can build on a budget. Super inclusive and it makes it so new players don't feel like they're forcing us to play "down to their level" that some people feel when using the 1-10 scale. I'm with you guys (no more #s!!!)
ah yes the old budget correlates to power idea
@@todeshorst1697 I watched the command zone's statistics episode a while back and while I wish $ was not a factor in power level, it is. That's why my group all sat down and decided where that cap would be for us between focused and optimized. It works really well for us but that's just my group! Every meta is different and may have a different cut off or even none at all. Whatever works :)
CEDH:
Wins on turns 1-4. Through any means.
Casual:
Wins turns 6-8.
Banned-0 Mana rocks, 0 Mana counters
Partially welcome- Stax, infinite combo, land destruction, two card combo, tutors.
Jank:
Wins turns 10+
Issue I have with the number scale and the other suggestions is I feel like there’s a wider range of disparity in the 6-7, 6-8 range than the scales I’ve seen allow.
i want propose an algorithm to evaluate the power level of a commander based on the decklist, it uses category that EDHREC already has,imo it can be used to all the intermediate category (casual,focused and optimized).
if your deck contains more dual untap lands than dual tap land(+1)
if your deck contain combo (+#combo)
if your commander is a piece of a combo(+2)
if your commander allow you to:ramp, make card advantage or tutor (+3)
if your commander use a suboptimal theme (-1,-2,-3 depending how
deleterious it is)
(+#tutors/2)rounded down
(+#0manarock/2)rounded down
(+#staplesfactor/2)roundedup
the steples factor is the number of staples card based on a list that contains for example the 30 or 40 most powerfull cards.
for example this is a list that i thought :rhystic study,Consecrated Sphinx,Craterhoof Behemoth, Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite,Linvala, Keeper of Silence, Oracle of Mul Daya, Seedborn Muse, Serra Ascendant, smothering tithe , Cyclonic Rift, Force of Will, Mana Drain, Pact of Negation, Gaea's Cradle, Maze of Ith, Strip Mine, Blood Moon, Exploration ,Grave Pact, Land Tax, Leyline of Anticipation, Luminarch Ascension, Necropotence, Sneak Attack, Sylvan Library, Doubling Season, expropriate, torment of the hailfire, tooth and nail, extra tun spell, toxic deluge, wheel of fortune, grim monolith, Sensei's Divining Top, Sword of Feast and Famine,sorin markov.
Obviously you can change the categories, add or remove them, or change their importance.
change the card list of staples.
Sorry if there are mistakes , but english is not my first language.
a very enlightening commentary on the data. the part about stigma was especially poignant. hopefully the community and luminaries recognize the weaknesses of the numerical system and normalize a simpler, more useful system, so we can enjoy games with each other more.
I think it would be nice to code power levels associated to individual cards on EDHREC. Then after you build a deck, it will average out a power level for you. Also could recognize combo cards, or win cons and rate those appropriately. An example would be a basic land costing 0, but a dual land cost 3, a shock cost 2, or a tap land cost 1 point. A divination would maybe be a 0 or a 1, but cyclonic rift would be a 9. Obviously this needs to be refined, but I think having a power level suggested after building a deck would be great. You could even code it to suggest cards to cut or add to raise or lower power levels.
Let's just have the categories that everyone understands:
Just for fun
Casual
Focused
Optimized
Competitive
I'm trying to build Cazur Ukkima atm. Is there a way to have a look at the mentioned +1+1 themed deck? :)
When i heard the words nominal and ordinal i flashed back to college cementing the perception that joey is some type of huge math nerd.
The only time math should show up in magic if someone decides to run gisella when people are trying to assign damage. (pro tip you can run fiery emancipation in that deck for more math!)
@Joseph, will you build 41 new partners commanders half decks for your smash up style format?
In terms of the person who is intentionally lying/vague about their deck's power level - it's important to recognise that the purpose of the scale is to prevent people accidentally pairing up against decks that are very different power levels to them and produce fun games of EDH. The person lying isn't interested in that in the first place. The only way to prevent playing with people who intentionally lie about their deck's power level in order to stomp people is simply to not play with them again (or perhaps warn them the first time if you want to keep playing with them).
casual player here that's been playing since 95. I usually say my decks are 7s but by CF #'s I should be 5-6. I like Sheldon's what turn do u win by standard but it doesn't work well for control decks. I personally like to discuss the cards that aren't in my decks prior to playing. Telling people that I don't play tutors, sol ring, mana crypt etc. tells a lot about a deck. Another way is to guess cards in other decks to gauge power level. If I see prosh at the table and guess food chain/ asnod's alter, the answer will say a lot. Another good discussion is to discuss combos in your decks that may or may not be in them, ie in my karn deck I let people know i'm not playing mychosynth lattice,or in my kiki deck I'm not playing zealous conscripts. Probably the best way to more accurately depict level is to have a list with ten different categories rather than 5
if you narrowed the categories down to four, I'll do you one better, take each category and slap an upper, middle, and a lower next to it.
but I absolutely agree, that's only the first, conversation still need to be had.
5-6 is the way I play commander I think can be fun playing with other players with interaction and a fair enviroment in commander .
For that power level scale. Many of my decks are focused and have plenty of infinite/game winning combos.
But then my Thassa deck that I have is just going to sit there and steal everything. Nobody else at the table gets to have their cards for more then a turn and it's mono blue so I have plenty of disruption/protection. There's no infinite or game winning combo. I just slowly generate value by robbing others of their cards. Most would consider this (5-6 on the list) stronger then my other (7-8 on the list) decks.
My Feather deck as well. As long as my commander sticks on the board, I have so many protection spells and board clearing spells that will just come back to my hand every turn that the deck ends up really hard to deal with. There is no infinite or game winning combo other then maintaining card advantage.
While I think it's better then nothing to go by, I do think that considering the speed that it takes to put together your infinite/winning combo is more important then it being there in the first place.
A little late to comment here. However I think it is worth the discussion to bring up that skill and knowledge also have a big effect on certain power levels with decks. For example the meta i play in is pretty much all cedh decks. Thats how I was introduced to the format and really was quite difficult to adapt to. That being said my first deck was an Atla deck that was very underpowered to my counter parts but understanding the interactions that occurred in the game allowed me to win sometimes. I now play najeela to bring my win percentage up with the other decks around but I don't know the interactions nearly as well as my first deck which brings by most accounts a really strong cedh deck to little more than what my less optimized Naya deck can pull off.
With the release of Pramikon, Sky Rampart, my brother built an entirely walls deck. Only creatures were walls. Just because. It was horrible and he knew it but it was funny. Def 1-2 lol
I really just think having a scale is a trap. I like the “What turn do you try winning and/or locking your opponents out?”
Maybe something like this could work
Casual - For Fun
Focused - Has good synergy cards without any unli combos
Optimized - Has unli combos with few high power cards + some tutors
Competitive - Pushed to the limits, has 3-4 turn combos + multiple
cheap tutors
Here’s my groups conversation...
“ you guys wanna play commander?”
*proceeds to play commander* 🤷♂️
I opened I VIP box I got today and the box topper were garbage: crop rotation and council's judgment. But I got a foil mana crypt which is like 250 dollars so :pog:
Just opened my first vip and everything was shit except the box toppers got a mana crypt and urza’s mine.
I feel like there are a lot of people who want to say that MtG is a safe place for them, and so when people sit down to ask what is the power level, no one wants to admit that they're a 2 or 4 or whatever because they don't want to be associated with a "low" number. A lot of players I bump into as a woman want to show their knowledge of MtG through various ways, their foiled decks, or even saying "I'm so skilled that I'm not a lowly 4, I'm totally a 6!" when it may not be the case. Having some vulnerability and starting the discussion off like "I'm more than willing to start a game with 2 or a 3" is really good but also having the conversation with the rest of the MtG community about how to not treat those numbers with scorn is due as well. A lot of the time that's how we see other decks either flop or win, so if we want to accept other people from other parts of the community, then it's going to be a long and painful process.
I never really thought about power level, and all mine are pretty much the same - pretty much in the middle. Some good cards, if I have them, but I try and stick more towards a theme than trying to win. For example, I have a zombie deck, and it has the Rooftop Storm + Gravecrawler combo that can go infinite. It's there, but really only because all the cards that work with it are good cards. It also has Mikaeus, but not Triskelion or Ballista (because they aren't zombies). The whole "play a bunch of tutors to get all your combo pieces and win" style is really boring to me.
I definitely agree with all the conclusions from this. Way too many decks are concentrated in the 6-7 range to be able to make any conclusions about a deck's power. I've also thought that the turn clock idea doesn't always work well because almost all my decks regardless of power level can win around turn 7 "when completely unopposed." You can play significantly different, not just faster, if you know no one will block your swings or remove/counter your cards.
@ 12:36 Hey, what card art is that from?
Power Play, it's a Conspiracy card
An example of a deck that doesn't really fare well in the power level discussion: Siona auras is not a super strong deck, but it sometimes wins as early as turn three without even trying (with the Shielded by Faith combo). I have no idea how I would rate Siona's strength--5 with a possibility of 9?
Very good conversation
Very good points
For some casual focused decks i do express this deck gets there turn 10 for example. Or this group hug deck happens to run duals and timetwister but its casual.
Or my Azusa its strong but no infinite combos etc. Every deck is unique. A bit of info provides a welcoming challenge bc you cant dismiss your deck nor place yourself in position of Arch Enemy that tends to happen amongst groups time & time again.
Sheldon Menery talks alot about When a deck does its thing more than what and how. The earlier turn your deck pop off/win, the better the deck is.
A friend has a potentially power 1 deck: Absolutely only cards from Ixalan. Including lands (yes, tap). It's super cool. But super slow.
I can imagine such a deck being a 3-5, since Gishath was in there. Ixalan was a set with very clear and focused themes; 2-3 color tribal.
10:55 I think Dana has it down. I feel this should be the standard oh how we talk power levels!
my mind went right to a SABCD format with s being the cedh level(and to get more complicated something like A+, A, A-.....too complicated), but that does nothing to address the problem just relabels it. the simplified version suggested on the video was good, but what we need is a way to grade our decks. say you start with a number say 50 then add or subtract points based on content. a combo is +1 for each one in your deck. infinite combo +5(as an example) more points if different cards can start your combo. land base will give points if better options used. "power cards" would add points. tutors would add points. synergy, etc. cards can also subtract points say you want to use a card you like but it adds nothing to the deck. Greater minds then mine would have to come up with the system. the point system if it could be made to work and could be used by anyone with just a little help could work. a 1-100 scale and say if 65-74 was a C level deck a 66 would be a low C and a 70 would be a solid C. the main problem besides being to complicated would be someone would have to give a point value to common elements. how many points for a mana crypt and should it be the same in every deck. in one deck it could be great, another really just there, and in another broken. you would have to practically write a manual for deck evaluation. i keep seeing it something like building a role playing character an extra point of dex, 5 points in str... rambling now i just want a character sheet for my decks figure out what the 6 stats are for a deck and a method to rate the catagories. a 16 in "DEX" means a lot of instants or counterspells. now i am really off somewhere and have to stop.
love this video i need more of this
Lot’s of infinite/fame ending combos on the higher powered scale? lol, people use few game ending combos in high-tier lists. What’s in abundance are the high quality tutors. Those are the ones that add consistency. Stuffing too much unli combos is actually detrimental in the higher levels.
Maybe use the numbers but use them within each category?
Like, my Karador is Focused but it is a 9 within that descriptor. It doesn't have any "infinite combos" and it has win conditions like Living Death but not "lots" of "game ending combos". At the same time it is more controlling and wins most of the time.
Would say my Riku deck is Optimized but a 5 in that as it has quite a few but tuned down to not be obnoxious or oppressive. Wins a little less than 50/50.
I think EDHREC would benefit from an additional filter for “power level”. Budget kind of does that but not entirely. Many commanders have a broad spectrum of power levels and I may be looking to build a casual build vs a higher one. Then I could filter and see cards / decks that fit within those parameters. Especially for newer players / deck builders.
To build on your idea, I would like to see EDHREC calculate the power level of decks. Example: Let's say I choose Goblin Tribal and then select Krenko as the commander, select 'Cheap' as the budget then click 'Average deck.' I would love to see EDHREC add the power level to the generated deck list. I really have no idea of the complexity of making my suggestion happen, but since I really have no idea of how to calculate power level on my own, this addition would be a big help!
Of course the next issue is actually playing the cards correctly and not lowering the power level because of my own piloting mistakes..... :)
Jim Bryant anything with Krenko is “OVER 9000!!!!”
Seeing that EDHRec already has a salt card list how about amend the list with other flavors like sweet and try to come up with decks that actually are tasty? Or provide a wholesome meal? (bread and butter, fish-n-chips, pretzels and beer, meat and potatoes, pasta and tomato)
My one playgroup that I loved before covid. You could only use precon with a value cap of 200$ total from card kingdom prices. We use to use tcg mid but folks have been screwing with those nbers. I love it because taking a precon and basic can add one card or about 10 to 20. Depending on how you spent budget and value of the deck. Seriously some of the older ones your budget smaller.
I know this is 2 years old but here’s your problem. Almost EVERYONE at your local shop (here in SD it’s insane) is going to undervalue their deck. Stacks, burn, duels etc. I use the Atarka scale. Person shows up with “low power deck” if you knock them out with basic atarka you’ll see real quick how powerful the deck was because of how mad they get and immediately go towards their turn 2 killer.
I think the 4 categories is great. I feel most video games with different difficulty levels have 4.
somebody link me that adeliz deck!
Can you do roon of the hidden relm as your new upping the average
I would still say to keep 9s and 10s seperate, they are low, but when you sit down at a table the difference between a nine and a ten is massive, it is the difference between turn 0-3 infinate mana win and turn 2-5 infinite mana wins
I had the thought awhile ago that it would be nice if every card in the game had a power level associated with it, kind of like the points system used in Canadian Highlander. It would be like if you put the Salt Score feature on every card but people voted 1 to 4 (Casual to Competitive). Then you could add up the points of your whole deck and get a value for its power level.
Now on the other hand, the whole point of this scale, as you said, is to quickly establish what level everyone is on. Some new players would have no idea what you're talking about with the numbers. For that I think that power level is more about your intent with the deck than the actual cards. Do you want to have fun and play something silly, or do you want to play the best possible game? For that, I agree with you guys, lets ditch the numbers and just call them Casual, Focused, Optimized, and Competitive. Being able to vote which category a card typically goes into might still be a cool feature, but I'd just show something like number of votes or percent for each category.
The problem with this though is that cards with a grade would only be a reflection of the card in isolation of other cards. The reason combos are so powerful is because of the interaction between cards, not an otherwise simple card. Flash is a great example. Never saw much play in casual edh but it was the most powerful card in cEDH because it it's interaction with the rest of the combo
I don't like the "What turn do you expect to win on?" as a judge of power. There are lots of decks that don't win quickly but can disrupt their opponents enough that they are very powerful.
the indian have invented the number zero btw it was a great invention in math it did a revolution because people doesnt had the concept of void, none or null representation in math (it was a long long time ago)
The problem is that there is a distinct difference in the power level of the cards and the skill level of the player. E.g. a higher skilled player with a "level 8" deck can win against a lower skilled player with a "level 10" deck. There is no skill factor to this. Most people compare decks with their skill level in mind.
when it comes to power level numbers, joey isn't here for it 😕
The main problem with power levels is matchup. If rock paper and scissors are all equally powerful, each would beat the other at equal rates instead of 100% against one and 0% against the other. In commander if you go against something that unequivocally beats you...power level didn't help you.
Another example is voltron (or even CEDH type strategies with only 1-2 important creatures, like Urza or Thrassios) against Dictate of Erebos effects. Joey against graveyard hate. Fire pokemon against water types.
So what you're telling me is meddling mage is really good against the edhrec cast crew
I would split it up this way
cedh aka highly competitive level
optimized
focused
casual
jank aka a pile of cards you almost randomly put together
The power level is tough I find it is about your play group. I would find it's helpful to have a power level for your Commander and a power level for your deck. It be helpful like say my commander golos is a 10 but the deck power level is 7 or my commander is anje Falken ralth at a power level of 7 but my deck is a 5.
Can I run mana crypt in a casual deck?
I definitely do in mine! I pulled a Mana crypt in a mystery booster and my partner and I were debating which deck should get it. We ended up putting in a deck that used it for reasons people don't usually give a second thought too! Coin flipping. It went in my chaos coin flipping deck XD that felt like the most fair place for it!
Of course!!
@@dorsalfin22 That's the same thing I did with my own Mana Crypt. That one card is worth more than the entire deck.
Thanks guys!
Kinda? Here's my logic; I could run a Crypt in a casual deck and not radically shift the power of the deck in 90% of games. However, the ability to drop it against people who probably aren't running one coupled with the edge doing so provides is such that it would make me feel uncomfortable. So while you could do it I personally wouldn't feel right running it even if the argument can be made the power level remains roughly constant. That's me though, just sharing how I'd view in in my own decks.
on that scale my Winota, Marwyn, and Bruvac Deck are all like 6 power. And yet Marwyn and Winota will win between 6-8 with no interaction. Bruvac is a bit slower but has more combos so could be rated higher. Winota for example has a bunch of Janky Humans but work really really well with Winota. I can agree scale is a bit off.
Hay mucha diferencia entre entre focused y optimized, en lugar de los 1-2 deberia haber uno nivel intermedio entre focused y optimized, ya que a veces uno en su mazo corre un par de combos infinitos pero no tutores por el costo de estos ultimos, lo que implica que no seran tan consistentes y por tanto el mazo sigue siendo focused, o el simple hecho de tener la suerte de tener una dual-land o una mana crypt no implica que solo por esa carta tu mazo focused se vaya a terreno optimized.
Pfft Joey dropping on us NOMINAL and ORDINAL scales into a video on wizard cards. Stop giving me flashbacks to high school statistics...
Think of the normal distribution!!!
My favorite power level is between 7 to 10
Talrand drake tribal! (I have one of those) :)
1: nothing but commons besides your commander, 2: nothing but uncommon a besides your commander. The only way I can look at those lol
Not a good way to judge. I've built Pauper Talrand and Pauper Athreos (nothing but commons other than the commander). Neither is close to a 1 or 2. A focused Pauper build may be deliberately limited in power, but it's still going to trash precons and give casual and even some focused decks a run for their money.