Regarding the sleeves number: if you buy 3 packs of 100 sleeves you get 300 which is the amount you need for 4 constructed decks with sideboard (75 x 4 = 300). I started playing MTG way before Commander was a thing and I remember in most cases sleeves were sold in packs of 50, so you still needed 20 for a constructed deck. One way or another Dragonshield & co. are going to force you to buy as many sleeves as they can.
Jokes aside, almost entirely good points about commander, but I still think the longevity of magic is going to come from commander. Ultimately, whatever gets more people to play the format is king
Lolz true though me abd my friends only started playing magic recently and we're only playing commander rn cause we can play as a group and it's more fun. Maybe as we play more we'll play other game modes though
I dislike Commander pretty harshly, but always feel like I’m trying to kick someone’s sandcastle when discussing why. I am glad that people enjoy the format. And I *am* jealous that fans of it get to play the game the way they want. Here is what I don’t like: 1) It is never my turn. Obvious hyperbole, but the game is more fun for me when I get to ya know… do things. More players means more sitting around. 2) I win less. Is it the only thing that matters? No way, but I definitely enjoy winning more than losing. There are 3 losers in a 4 person pod. 3) No one can agree on the rules. The unwritten ones. Is it okay to win with Thoracle combo while this other guy is trying to win through combat damage? I’m not sure and it’s pretty hard to get 4 people to have the same answer to this beforehand. I’ve heard commander described as “We’re all power walking and arguing about who is running.” If your group is locked in step on power matters, then you’re one of the lucky ones because not everyone has an agreeable group to play with. 4) Card variety-for a format where almost everything from the 30 year history of the game is legal, people sure do play the same cards constantly. This is not so much something the format does badly as something that it should be great at and it just never works out that way. Instead it’s Rhystic Studies and Smothering Tithes and Cyclonic Rifts and Craterhoof Behemoths as far as the eye can see. 5) Aggro decks in Magic are cool and don’t really get to exist. Every format will have its unplayable cards, but it’s such a bummer that well-costed beaters don’t have a place in commander. Every card needs to be ramp, card advantage, or a finisher. There are a lot of awesome cards that fall by the wayside because attacking your opponents for 120 damage is not a reasonable goal. 6) Politics are a fine gameplay mechanic, but they are not part of the game I grew up loving. When tight play becomes a liability because you might look like you’re getting too far ahead, the game is leaving the space that I want to be in. All of the above are matters of taste. Many of these “negatives” that I might list are some of the things that commander lovers might enjoy most about it and that’s okay! But there is one thing about the rise of EDH that I can’t seem to get across which I find to be the most resentable… 7) I like other formats and it is much harder to get any games of them in because commander has swallowed up all of the LGS play. You used to be able to play some standard games just by rolling into the shop with a deck, but this has been completely usurped by EDH. Now to play 60 card formats, I have to show for a 7pm event on a weeknight and hope enough others had similar plans. Commander speaks to people and is wildly successful as a result, but the thing I enjoy used to exist and I *do* feel that commander is partially responsible for its disappearance. Please appreciate what you have, EDH players.
Just my few cents on being a long-time Commander player who plays decks across the precon-CEDH spectrum: 1. There are two MAJOR MISCONCEPTIONS/MISUNDERSTANDINGS about the format, and both of them have to do with power level: -The number scale is a joke and the absolute wrong way to estimate and describe the power level of a deck. The scale means nothing on its own, and because people have constant disagreements on what is strong and what isn't, the number scale doesn't stop people from misrepresenting the power levels of their decks to other people. The number scale is almost single-handedly responsible for all Rule 0 miscommunications when people to sit down to play. We have to stop defaulting to the number scale in Rule 0 discussions. Describe what your deck does, how it executes its gameplan, and what turn(s) it aims to win by CONSISTENTLY in the *MOST CONCISE WAY* possible. "My deck is a 7" doesn't cut it. -The perceived dichotomy of casual Commander and CEDH is wrong and in reality doesn't exist. People generally want to believe it exists because casual Commander is still by far the more popular way to play the format and fits the intent of the format philosophy more, but CEDH still uses the same exact banlist, the same exact format restrictions and rules, and plays using the same pool of cards. CEDH is merely a term to describe the top-end of the format, and this term exists because Commander is a primarily a casual format. It's the same as if you have a jank Modern deck that you just play for fun, and feel the need to add a descriptor for it, because you aren't exactly playing the format like everyone else does. CEDH and casual commander are literally two ends of the spectrum of the format, and should be recognized as such. The only thing that is different about CEDH is the mindset players have, and the lack of a need to have a Rule 0 discussion. 2. Commander isn't for everyone, and it shouldn't have to be forced to be the format for everyone. If people dislike Commander as a format, there are mostly likely other formats within Magic that have a bigger draw for them, and that's what sets Magic apart from any other TCG. Magic has diverse sanctioned tournament formats, as well as a plethora of community formats just like Commander that see varying degrees of play. 3. About the Commander experience, here's what I've come to conclude is the best way to achieve for yourself the best experience you can possibly have: CEDH is a great way to play with randoms because the term "CEDH" is the Rule 0 discussion. No salt, no bad blood, just four people playing their best, fastest, most powerful decks and trying to win. Casual Commander is best played with friends, or a stable playgroup. Playing casual Commander with randoms is how most horror stories about bad Commander experiences unfold. 4. I also happen to play Modern. My perspective on Commander vs. 60-card constructed is this: both types of format cannot escape the inevitable variance that Magic inherently has. 60-card constructed formats have the 4-copy rule, which can boost consistency noticeably, but you are always going to have very different games, even if you have two decks playing the same matchup, because Magic inherently has a high level of variance. Singleton formats that have Vintage-level card pools like Commander and Canlander solve the variance issue differently by using cards with highly similar effects and an increased amount of tutors, but these formats will always have a higher variance due to larger deck sizes. This should be very common-sense, and is especially true for Commander since you have 3 opponents. The main drive behind Commander's high popularity as a format is because of the high level of variance in gameplay, no matter how consistent you try to make your deck, CEDH included. 60-card formats can get quite stale in comparison when your deck achieves its game plan exactly the same way most of time, and given enough reps, decks can quickly get boring to play. 5. Player Elimination usually feels less bad nowadays than it used to. Cards have become more powerful, and by extension, decks have become more powerful across the board. Slow wins are a lot less common than before, and if someone is eliminated usually the game ends shortly after. If turns go long, it's either because of a complicated boardstate, or the inexperience of the player hindering them from progressing through their crucial/game-winning turn faster. I feel it is quite common for casual Commander players to stumble through turns without thinking three turns ahead; in my experience playing Commander, many casual players struggle with dealing with extra complicating factors because they don't think too much about possible plays their opponents might do. "I didn't see that coming", "What do I do now" and "do I have a line here" are phrases I commonly hear when playing at casual tables, because thinking through play patterns can get tiring and make the game less fun for casual players. Competitive formats and the mindset that comes with playing CEDH warrant putting in more thought, so it is less common to encounter these issues in those scenarios. Thanks for reading my essay.
I don’t know where you’re playing Magic but where I’m at, the dichotomy of CEDH and casual definitely exists. I don’t want to play against people who find CEDH fun and I hate playing against those who choose to bring their most powerful decks to an Edh night that costs a dollar to play. And many people would agree
@@RoninRose541 Probably could have expressed it a little bit better, but what I meant by the dichotomy between CEDH and casual commander not existing is that fundamentally CEDH is just the top-end metagame (in terms of power level) of the Commander format. A lot of people seem to think that CEDH and casual commander are different formats, or if they don't, they treat the two as such. My argument is that they are just opposite ends of the power level spectrum within the same format. Sorry if that wasn't clear enough.
In my case, I would have picked up magic if it wasn't for commander. Got really tired of yugioh due to the same competitive nature and commander allows me to take it less seriously and spending large amounts of money is now optional instead of being the default.
Optional????? I don't know where or who you play commander with but they must be pretty polite. I have taken out second mortgages just to make sure I get to play. It's exactly like trying to play legacy but made even worse by 2 more people.
@@GamingWorld12 most if not all of my decks are less than a hundred, if u wanna spend thousands to become hyper consistent, u gotta keep in mind most people dont
@@GamingWorld12 literally no one's forcing u to do all that lol, somebody already said that most decks r worth 100 bucks plus there r plenty of decently powerful 15-20 budget builds, reevaluate lmao
@@mechanophiliac it's more of a comment on local edh meta there is no room for low power decks so I kinda am forced to play my most expensive decks or go home
Try cube. It's cheaper and better. Not that set limited is bad, it's also great, but shit cube is another level. Edit: you can play almost any format with cube, even commander, I've been playing commander cube for the past months and it's a blast every time. Takes away from the lame decks we see all the time in normal commander.
Strange how the defense for Commander here is the board game mentality, where for me the biggest *problem* with Commander is that it absolutely fails at the board game mentality. A good board game is appropriately paced for its duration, and keeps you far more consistently engaged. If you can comfortably order food, pick it up, and start eating it all before it's your turn again with nothing of value being lost (which has happened to me before, by the way)... that's a failure of a board game.
If we're palying games for "social" aspects, there are so many other cool games. Some might even say better games than Commander. IMO, when looking for more "social" ways to play more laid back games of Magic, with the emphasis on the "Gathering" - cube is THE format.
I'm so happy to see a video where someone speaks up against EDH/Commander, I've never liked it, I'd rather play multiple rounds of any other MTG format in the time it would take to play a game of Commander. Also, if I want a multiplayer "more social" game, I'll get a boardgame out.
This video has the same energy as someone saying mmos suck because they only play competitive shooters against 14 year Olds daily and can't fathom not being competative
I'd argue that the issue is that Commander sucks as a casual format too. Not everything needs to be competitive, but it should be good at its aim too. And that's what the video is arguing.
@@sylinminoIdk, commander is pretty good at being casual in my eyes. Yes, my experience is a little flawed, because I mostly play with a consistent group of friends and not randoms, and I won't speak for all the possible experiences in the world, but as a game for a group of 3-4 people commander is only rivaled by arkhem and some other really thought out games
@@Russian_engineer_bmstu I'm curious how y'all build your decks then to keep it fun. Because in 90% of my scenarios, with friends or strangers alike, the game usually goes like this: 1. 3-5 turns of very slow and minimally interactive setup tempo turns 2. One person gets their infinite combo/game breaking board state first, no one else does. 3. Does someone have the instant to counter it? If no, the game ends and basically no one got to play except the one player who won playing mostly solitaire. If yes, the game continues and that one player is deflated because their deck couldn't do the cool thing they've built it up completely to do 4. Repeat steps 2-3 until players are eliminated very slowly and have to watch the rest go by for as long as it takes (sometimes 1 turn. Sometimes 2 hours). I've fallen off Commander because as diverse as the decks are supposed to be, games would start to play astonishingly similar to each other, and in the least interactive way possible. Maybe you and your friends avoid making those types of decks completely though
@@sylinmino oh well, we each have some decks, that are roughly equal in groups, so before starting we ask around if someone wants to play one specific deck of theirs, if there is someone who does we all roughly align to that, if not we choose semi randomly. We have roughly 3 lvls of decks 1) pretty casual, slightly uped precons, new unpolished decks Where games go up to turns 11-12, and well, roughly what you get with precons but in greater variation. I have monored karlach deck in here, necron precon, and monoblack vampire deck. My friends' notable decks around here are lim-dul the necromancer, Mila "Chandra tribal", feather the redeemed blink deck and 3 mana tatyova. 2)somewhat optimized 7-8ish, with like top 100 or so commanders, but on a budget. We have a krenko deck, light paws deck, meren, atraxa etc, and end games by turn 6, mainly in combat, or sometimes aristocraty suction. Not high on interaction tho, generally, if we disregard stray grave pact 3) dickish decks 3 out of 4 of us have thoracle decks, and we sometimes play that. The other guy has his grand arbiter deck for this. And tegrid deck And we cycle through the options depending on what people wanna do, so it's not getting to stale +proxy friendly +open decklists
@@Russian_engineer_bmstu Sounds like y'all have a good system worked out and I applaud y'all for it. That being said, it does require a lot of coordination and a lot of rule 0 curation to work, and we simply don't have all that when you play Commander outside that safe environment. We can definitely be entitled to our two experiences, but I think you should at least be able to concede that someone disliking Commander for the reasons in this video don't just mean he doesn't like casual play and thinks everything should be competitive.
I haven't even watched the video but I've grown from being indifferent to commander and viewing it as just another way of playing Magic to actively hating it more and more with each new card I see printed EXCLUSIVELY for commander. I hate that the hype around it was artificially built and inflated over the years by content creators and that this has lead to wizards basically mostly catering to it nowadays. I hate that there's a chance that the mythic I pull in a regular booster might be unplayable outside of commander. I hate that it's talked about as a casual format when it's anything but casual with its highly specific and strict deck building and forced multiplayer. I hate that it's not separated from the main game even though, given all the differences, one can call it a whole different game. And not being considered as at least a separate product line, it parasitizes on the game by deluting the overall card pool with cards that can not be used for any other type of game. Commander was created by people playing the cards they had lying around and these cards were able to be used in all kinds of games but a card such as Commander Sphere and other cards that specifically reference 'your commander' or are obviously created with commander in mind because their effect simply aren't viable anywhere else are too much for me and I absolutely hate that this is the situation we're in.
I'd like to add that everything that people praise commander for is and has always been available in casual 60 card constructed games. You want to play a singleton deck? No problem-you can but you're not forced to. You want that deck to be 100 cards? No problem but you're not forced to make it 100 cards specifically. You want to play with more than one other person? Multiplayer magic has always been a thing and I don't know why people only associate it with commander. You can just gather 3,4 or however many people you want, each one with a deck that they've built with no restrictions other than what the table has agreed to and play as casually as you like. You're not all forced to play 100 card singleton decks. Also, I don't see how playing one on one necessarily makes the game competitive. I've played nothing but casual one on one games my whole life and it's always been fun. If we're talking about the cost, well I've always been borderline poor, so I've never had much or any money to invest in Magic. And still, I've gathered a collection of mostly commons and uncommons with the occasional rare or mythic. I'm also playing my 60 card casual games with people in similar situations and it's never been a problem. Commander isn't necessarily cheaper than any other way of playing the game and doesn't solve the price of admission issue that Magic has in general. And last but not least, it's definitely not easier for new players to learn than 60 card Magic as well.
@@GatheringGamesHaving now seen the video, I think that the points you're making are not inherent problems with the commander format. I mean, you don't like long games and like the competitive nature of Magic so you can just not play commander but commander itself is not a problem for you. What I don't like about commander is that at this point it's taking over the game and commander specific cards are not only being printed but they're printed in ever increasing quantities which to me is equivalent to putting Pokemon cards in Magic boosters so to speak. It's also falsely advertised not only as A casual format but as THE casual format and providing new players who know nothing about the game with this information is limiting them tremendously because there are literally no limits to the ways you can play Magic casually and it's definitely not limited to 100 card, singleton, multiplayer games.
My issue with cost arguments in EDH is that you need to have multiple decks to meaningfully have a Rule 0 conversation. I don't particularly want to play at the precon level forever, so that's been a major turn-off for me.
every game with a winner, including even things like cards against humanity, are competitive. they can also be sociable. playing to win doesn't mean you aren't also having fun - this goes for both edh and 60 card formats.
Commander isn’t always about winning tho, maybe it’s just to show off some fun combo, or to have fun with friends. CEDH is about winning, but I can’t think of any moment when playing casual commander that I’ve been sad to lose
@user-dp4gp5qc3o typically if it's a "fun combo" or any combo in general, it's meant to win or lock the game in which no one wins. If you are building toward a combo you are inherently trying to win. I don't get sad losing commander because I don't connect it to something that gives monetary gains in which cedh connect to tcg player and winners tend to get packs as rewards.
Commander players need to stop bashing people who enjoy the original formats that this game was designed around. The game wasn't designed around commander and it can't be. Someone needs to make a new TCG game with commander in mind from the ground up. The format is inherently flawed and as time goes on, the power creep is going to become unsustainable. It will eventually devour commander whole, and then what? All the other formats will be dead and then MTG will die with commander. Don't be selfish. The best way that commander can endure is for commander players to push WotC to NOT design the game around them and to design it around Standard and other Limited formats. Commander is and was best when WotC wasn't designing MTG around it.
I am a commander player through and through. I started playing magic back in 2005, but I grew to resent the repetitiveness and the lack of engagement with your friends as deckbuilding became more streamlined. The internet's introduction into the magic experience made me hate that I knew I would see nothing new in most game experiences. Metas existed prior, for sure, but even those could be played with. Space for creativity felt like it was being snuffed as everything became more tuned. With more tuning too, I just found people being less interested in the experience. I couldn't shoot the breeze and talk with my competitors much. Might've been what little environment I could see but that's what I was seeing generally in the space from my lens. I stopped playing. I came back with Ikoria and learning about commander as a format. I've never loved magic more. Many do over rely on EDHREC and net-decking, and they can enjoy those, but I know I will see new things AND I can stand up and find a space to play with experimental decks and design and have a space. And most important of all, I can talk with my competitors. Conversation felt appropriate again. Love it. ALL THAT SAID. I think most commanders players actually agree with what you said. On a philosophical level, MOST of us who have played commander for more than a year really wish they'd stop making commander specific cards at such a frequency. It should be contained to a set every once in awhile. Hell, in my personal take, I think the eternal only cards are being made too frequently. Making cards regularly that are built to compete with all of a game's history of cards is exactly how Yu-Gi-Oh got to the point it is today. It can be okay to push beyond standard every once in awhile, but when new eternal cards are technically being introduced every set and we get 2-3 eternal sets a year, it's excessive and game warping. While most players agree they need to hit the breaks a bit with eternal/commander products, most of them still experience one important aspect, FOMO. If you don't engage with every product, especially the hyped eternal ones, you get left behind. As casual as commander is, new release, ESPECIALLY eternal releases like MH3, still warp the format even at lower levels. WOTC has a lot more power over the non WOTC format then they like to admit. Sol Ring, one of the strongest mana sources in all of magic, are acceptable at the lowest level of play PURELY because they're included in every WOTC printed precon, not because they're a fair card at a lower level.
I hate commander. I've been playing since the 90's and commander is far and away the least interesting format for me. Obv to each their own, but with that said MTG was inherently a competitive outlet for me, not a social one. When I want to socialize, I find alcohol (just as an example) to be something that helps me accomplish the task of "socializing". But there is a reason that MTG isn't colloquially called "social lube". Imo MTG is fundamentally DESIGNED to be competitive. If you want social, I have ALWAYS found D&D to be much more helpful. Rather than working AGAINST those you're playing with, you work TOGETHER. Literally a fundamentally more social experience. Again, to each their own, but I do roll my eyes when folks talk up how beneficial a game of commander is to socializing. It feels like window dressing to a scene where people already are socializing at best, without driving the social experience whatsoever. If others have different experiences, that's chill: have fun w/ it but holy cow is it boring to me. If i wanted to casually do something with people to socialize there are about 99,999,999 other things that come to mind first: watch a movie, get food, do drugs, drink, have sex, explore nature, etc. Clearly commander helps ppl get their rox off w/ commander and, again, that's cool, let 'em but dear lord lets stop pretending that it's fundamentally 'better' than standard. Basically commander is fundamentally casual and standard is fundamentally competitive. If magic is fundamentally designed to be competitive, then the gameplay itself will only synergize when the format best matches card design. Just my take
I don’t dislike commander coming from 60 card format background, but I hate that I can play cards acceptable on the banlist that might be psuedo banned at LGS depending on the pod. Makes me very anxious playing against strangers where I wouldn’t feel bad/anxious doing anything in normal constructed envirnments
A Magic player that only plays commander is like a video game player that only plays Mario Party , nothing wrong with that but it is disheartening as someone who enjoys the competitive aspect of games to know thats the majority of the Magic player base.
You can casually play a game and still want to win. The fact that the best player and best deck doesn’t win is part of the draw. Consideration for the other players at the table and their experience is part of the draw. You can lose and still have fun. This man is a fool.
That sucks for me then, because the thing got me into mtg in the first place was that in constructed better player and better deck always wins, and I loved that, I hate players not playing for winning.
i really dont enjoy any non-singleton formats ive ever played: standard, yugioh, legends of runeterra, hearthstone etc. Dealing with an enemy's card and knowing that the exact same card wont be coming back, and that they have 99 other possible cards. Even with cards that have the exact same effect, cmc, everything is the same there are usually not more than 4 of them. Which makes up a much smaller percentage of a 100 card deck than 4 of the exact same card (plus any more of other cards with the same effect that are still legal) in a 60 card deck. Which I think is also why people dont really like combo decks and tutors, because you're usually playing the exact same sequence of cards to get your wincon, and in some cases it is literally the exact same combo every time.
That's literally what the constructed formats are all about, pull off the same most efficient wincons every single game, the 4x everything gives you consistency in the strategy.. I really just think commander players are not the same type people compares to constructed.
@@neenee-bs3jc but I would argue that having fun throwing together an off meta pile is way easier and funner to build/play in 1v1 then it has been in edh in quite a long time. I believe this idea that the commander is "budget friendly" is why so many people have a bad time not realizing the number of staples and out of print stock they have to purchase for each individual deck just to even play at all at most tables.
@@GamingWorld12 Completely disagree its silly. EDH is the only format with deck powerlevels and where the intent in most "casual" games is to have fun and not compete. You do not need every 100dollar+ mana rock or 50 dollar counter spell to play a powerlevel 1-8 deck and still win. This is why commander is popular, cause you can actually play the cards you pull out of packs instead of having to buy the best ones 3 more times and then not play the rest of the cards you pulled. Commander also became less budget friendly as it became more popular but its still miles ahead of any other format except pauper.
@@neenee-bs3jc I have never had these problems with budget brews or n 1v1 playing for over 15 years and I have had this problem 10 times or so in the last year in edh because people's idea of "power level" is whatever they think is fair. I don't mean for this to be rude but I guess it's probably a skill gap problem.
With the exception of Wizards focusing way too much on commander, all the reasons he states that commander is bad is why I like it. I loved commander when Wizard ignored it, now they are over milking the cow and it's left a sour taste in everyone's mouth.
"wanting to and playing to win" is not the same as "competitive". I think that's the big take away from this topic. Commander is casual and because of that is the most popular format because 99% of the player base has no intention of playing professionally or even trying. That said, building your deck to be efficient and powerful and trying to win the game is not "competitive" in the sense that it's being used here. There are the CEDH players but they are quite the minority of the community. It's just like any other board game. You get together with friends, you try to win, if you lose, that's fine too.
Guy on the right sounded like what ppl made up as strawman of those "Competitive 1v1 only"-players. Other TCG simply do 1v1 better and novelty of EDH is only thing that makes MTG worth engaging with
Bro there are not tcgs that do 1v1 better. If you name hearthstone or something you are a joke and thats coming from someone who used to farm for legend rank every season lol
the point made at 4 min where u say the point of learning to be fine with failing not being in commander shows you have no idea what commander is, how could u not learn to be ok with failure in a casual format where out of 4 players 3 lose, thats like going into a shop and saying "the point of paying extra for convenience is lost on delivery apps" thats legit one of the greatest upsides of commander, it helps you learn to enjoy failing almost as much as winning it puts more emphasis on the game rather than the outcome, so long as you arent talking cedh where everything is win at all costs, which is why cedh is a completely different beast from normal edh.
I hate the "commanderification" of magic. It just seems like so much of magic is focused on commander nowadays. I mean hell, thats what caused fucking companion. Then WOTC tries to push cards specifically for commander which starts to remove the deck diversity that made commander special
Staples are making "casual" games not so casual. It's definitely stepped away from the jank cards doing cool things format you're saying it still is and it just isn't. Power creep and just a focus on commander makes them make more commander centered cards which goes against the whole argument that it's the format for these lesser played strategies. Ramp for green is too strong and nobody does a thing about it cause they think they're not doing anything. So unless your playing big green flood the board you just can't hang. And I say that because of how bent out of shape people get when playing against combo. There is way less deck building expression than people are realizing. And sure if you're all about doing your thing and playing fun flavor decks or jank, it just hasn't been fun to do when other decks feel more "meta" and if you think there isn't a meta in EDH you're not paying attention. It also isn't the players fault. If Wizards didn't make commander centered cards it probably would still feel like how it used to but now there are pushed commander cards that are powerful that make the format have staples that make the "casual" format not so casual anymore. Anyway play draft, cube, sealed. I wish people would do this more cause it'll be way healthier for the games longevity I feel and they're so much more fun and casual than commander is now. (also commander is the worst way to teach new players magic and that's objectively true)
If commander was actually casual people wouldnt have rule zero. Rule zero is them attempting to make a nebulous 'meta' that is underpowered compared to normal meta. Its the feels good social meta. And that is competitive. If they actually were playing socially they wouldnt mind when someone tried some crazy shit and turned the game into archenemy
one thing I have to say, people are almost obligated to play Commander, finding a Commander game on my LGS is easier than any modern pauper standard or any shenanigans that lead new people to it instead of leading into another competitive format. Mixing everyone in one format…
“The best part of the game isn’t the game” because the game sucks, commander is boring as fuck is a literal piece of crap, just because I’m throwing my magic cards against a target I’m not calling it a format
Great video again guys. 👍 The controversy!!!! I can relate to both sides of your arguments. I find playing Commander with a some groups is a bit of a chore, and long turns can are boring (spoken as someone who can take long turns went playing curtain decks), but with other groups Commander can be hilarious. I've fallen out with Commander a few times, and not long ago, one of my Magic friends challenged me to make a budget deck. Doing this reignited a bit of my passion for the format again, so my advise Fez, make a budget deck!! I also, see what you mean about only thinking about winning. You can usually tell, at least in our group, by about turn 4, who is playing to win, and I'm with Fez on this, cos I tune out of the game at that. I say to others when we play, that I'd rather lose a fun game, rather that win a boring one, and that for me, a fun game depends one the player all wanting the same thing, so I agree with Sahd, that it's better to play with friends and not a bunch of rando's, however, I've made so good friends at Commander nights playing with people I didn't know before the game started. Anyways, I'm rambling, so I'll end this here. Again, great video guys, keep them coming!!!
I can relate to this statement a lot and agree in our group I can certainly say we are all guilty of things mentioned within the video. I believe with anything that has been built on the premise of competition and winning is hard to pull a casual none competitive formats without it bringing the competitiveness inside us out making these casual formats hard to stay non competitive. I think also putting the milking side of magic aside the products they produce are outstanding!
Budget is really the best way to play commander. My pod recently made 10 $25 budget decks to play against eachother,each based off a Ravnica Guild, and it's been the most fun I've had with Magic in years. Sick of seeing Smothering Tithes, $100 lands and Cyc Rifts? Play budget.
The point of 40 life is to force aggro out of the game and make every deck lategame loaded. Aggro is needed to keep greedy decks honest. Midrange is needed to keep aggro in check. Control is needed to outscale midrange. Combo is there to dsrk horse. Take aggro out, you lose midrange too and make control op. So then its control vs combo. 😂
I recently got back in MtG purely because of Commander. It’s such a fun board game-ish experience. Just don’t get too competitive, you can remind yourself and your circle that if things get too heated. Focus on having fun bluffing and negotiating around the table 😂
TL;DR: If you want to lose friends over petty arguments, play Commander. If you want to have fun playing a casual game, play Judge Tower. I used to love the format, but after playing it during the pandemic I came to a realisation that all it is is the same three strategies expressed in slightly different forms: infinite combo, flooding the board with creatures or some form of alternate wincon. My main gripe with the format is that games are often extremely long (I'm talking 3+ hours), and I just can't see myself playing _the same round of a game_ for 3+ hours, I'd rather play 3-4 quick games with different decks and whatnot, or switch to some boardgame. Then there's whining. There is _always_ someone at the table who is complaining about somebody's decision, "Why are you attacking me and not them?", "Why did you kill/arrest/transmogrify my creature?", "Why are you countering my spell?", "Why did you bring a deck that has boardwipes/land destruction/infect/ to the table? IT'S A CASUAL FORMAT!!!" etc. Maybe I'm just too introverted, but I don't understand how people can tolerate this obviously toxic behaviour and call it a fun pastime. It's just a game, but people treat their game pieces like some sort of treasure way too often. Lastly, the sheer complexity of the board states is often too much. Everything often looks like the board is a giant a Rube Goldberg machine with lots of triggers and things happening seemingly everywhere, but in actuality it doesn't do much. If you want to look at really cool card interactionss, try playing Judge Tower with 6 players and Gleemax and Mass Hysteria on the table instead of this abomination of a format that pretends to be casual. P.S. Commander has become what I feared it to become -- one of the worst forms of introducing new players to the game. In theory, you give new players a precon, explain the basics and let them wing it. In reality, you always see someone spending minutes to decide what to do on their turn because they are reading the cards with 7+ lines of incredibly confusing text on them and can't understand what they do. And even if they manage that, the understanding often turns out to be wrong or woefully incomplete, which creates even more confusion.
Honestly having been in magic environments that were predominantly commander and it sucked, its fun for a casual game here and there but it rarely feels skill testing and doesnt really provide the self actualization that being good at magic does when you win even a small tournament.
@GatheringGames you guys should do a tier list of wotc rules and competitive paradigms (incorporating the ban list, switching to the players tour structure, hof management, printing for commander etc) That one I'd watch, I feel like you'd need to rescale the tier list with "acceptable" as s though
In my opinion, commander is an unholy abomination, twisting a game into something that it was not made for. On the other hand, me and up to 4 uni friends play with however shows up every break. When it comes to specifics, you note that cedh is a different format, I personally disagree, it would be like saying a casual deck that is modern legal, and a modern deck are in a different format. Of course they should not be matched, but they are both 60 card decks, 4 copies, etc. I personally have seen decks that are in this awkward gap, strong enough to be called cedh, but lacking in some aspects to be truly up there. Take for example you explanation of an cedh deck "all about milling", yes, they did play the fast mana and carddraw, however mill is not that great of a win condition, unless it is a combo, I presume when you say "mill" it means decking your opponents instead of exiling the library and slamming thassa's oracle. I don't know if the deck you showed as an example is the deck in question, it surely has some powerful cards in it, however I would say that Timetwister and bob is not what makes a cedh card. Raising tutors is indeed a valid point. If I where to play advocate of the devil I would say that the mill player thought "I would like to make a mill deck, mill sucks in commander, as I have 3 opponents, each with 100 cards, and it is poorly supported in commander, so I should level the field, and put in the best draw and mana I have, then it will be a fair game". This of course did not work out. Should the mill player have a better grasp on what their deck does and when it is appropriate to bring it, probably yes. Is it cedh, probably no. I understand that the picture of the boardstate is an exaggeration, as it is rules violation on multiple levels. Commander games do indeed get quite complicated, however most of the time it is possible to at least get a decent idea of what everybody is doing. Take for example the voltron commander, as someone with a Sram deck, it is important to reduce the pile to something like: he is in total a 12/12 with hexproof, first strike, lifelink, vigilance and protection from green and blue, most of his stats come from a, most of the keywords come from b. As long as everybody is transparent, boardstates should be somewhat understandable. As a control player, I do somewhat agree that commander ruins the off turn interaction, in addition to the architype as a whole, as someone who prefers to set up a value engine and outgrind my opponent, doing so against 3 decks is practically impossible. Similarly, keeping up interaction on 3 turns is not the most realistic. This however makes it even more important to plan out when you use removal and instant speed shenanigans when it really matters. As even in commander, you won't get away with playing none. When it comes to deck cost, the shown example once more is a joke. I would however disagree when it comes to precons. For newer players, yes, for gamblers/investors, probably since some precons sell for less than the cards in it. However I prefer to order singles and stick to a budget, where it is possible to make a decent casual deck for 20-50 bucks on most themes. When it comes to upgrades, sure, duals are the best option if you want to play cedh, however there is many a mana base possible on a decent budget. Even more so, if you really feel slighted by the expensive mana bases, maybe run some nonbasic land counters, a good ruination will only run you 3 bucks on cardmarket, and it can blow up thousands of bucks worth of lands. Shenanigans aside, of course every budget deck, if there was no budget, has upgrades. However even with a budget, the casual nature where the most powerful person is kept in check by the 3 others (if at least 2 people decide to bring interaction) means that if one deck overperforms by a little, it should be fine. Funnily enough, the form of commander that is even more budget friendly than a 15 euro budget deck, is cedh, as a large part of the cedh community accepts proxies, since the format is about playing against the strongest deck your opponent can bring, no limitations. Personally I think using proxies (often printed out cards with a basic land behind) is an acceptable way to play. Singleton is an high variance unbalanced experience. I would personally disagree. There is a famous talk from Richard Garfield, about how high variance does not mean unbalanced or without skill (think poker, or mtg). In addition, a well build commander deck has consistency, sure, it will see different cards every game, however if you run enough cards that consistently put cards in your hand, even if they all do it in different ways, you still get to play cards. When it comes to tutors, I think they defeat the point of singleton and are not great in commander. "when it is so random, you can never get that feeling of, I just had a great play there". I would disagree. As said before, even in an environment with high variance, playing optimally can still require skill and be impactful. I personally try to see one thing I could have done better after every game of commander, and often times I find a misplay that could have made a difference. When it comes to deckbuilding, you can get consistency by playing enough cards that fill carddraw, ramp, and core. Not to speak of the fact that every commander deck has access to its commander, making them way more consistent and informing a game plan. One of my favorite things about commander is how the singeton nature makes it easier to switch around cards. I tinker with my favorite deck weekly, replacing a card that underperformed or I found lame by one of the 40 alternatives in my maybe board. In a 60 card deck, that only really runs 10 different cards, maybe 15 if they are not all playsets, what am I going to pull out? In addition. If I pack or get my hands on a card that fits perfectly in one of my commander brews, I get to put it in, and be content. While if I acquired a card for my standard deck back in the day, I had the feeling it was suddenly incomplete, as I needed 3 more. This might be unique to the way I build decks though, throwing together a pile of garbage with an initial injection of 10 or so synergy pieces, and over time trade or buy additions that get put in. When it comes to time, I am the person who likes having a 4 hours grind fest, although ever since we play in the uni breaks and only have one and a half hours, it needs to go a bit faster. If time is an issue, there is no problem with taking out the faster decks though, and one hour to 1.5 hour games are consistently possible. I do prefer the longer games though, I guess not everybody likes it, that is not a failing of commander in my opinion, but a thing of preference. I do think one of the best things of commander is that it is supposed to not exist. What I love most about commander is digging though old, janky cards, finding the 5 that have a specific, synergistic enough effect to make up for the power creep. There is no feel like finding about magus of the unseen in your blue artifact sacrifice deck. Finally, if you are a player that likes competitive, budget, high power and consistent gameplay, where blue is your favorite color, maybe you should try cedh? Find a group that is okay with proxies, and see if it is something for you. TLDR: casual commander is weird, not everybody is going to like it, however it does have redeeming features, getting into specifics would require the above, didn't expect it to get this out of hand.
@@GamingWorld12 i don't thinks it's a fault of that either. it's a game with an objective winner and loser(s) so people will naturally want to win, and in turn people will get competitive. even if it was managed "officially" and not by the community and the official guidelines said "u hav to be chill and non-competitive" no one's gonna follow that lol
@@mechanophiliac that's not necessarily what I mean I more mean the things the general community will allow and not allow, as well as weird regional differences between player bases, and etc. I more just mean we all kinda need to agree to more consistent standards overall if we are going to agree this should be a premier and "casual" format.
It’s an over dramatic statement meant to drawn in the listener to very valid criticism of the format. Which these grievances can be boiled down to “my deck isn’t doing anything”
Wrong I also play pauper and modern, I was pretty how several times on the local pauper tournaments (top 8 from like 110 participants) And for having fun, commander is just straight up better (or pedh, played that too)
These are some good criticisms. I feel like a lot of people build their deck around their commander and then their commander gets killed 4 times and their deck does nothing. The best commander decks are the ones that don’t care if the commander dies. All these grievances are caused by “I’m not doing anything”
Commander is playing Magic wrong. There are better ways of being social... unless you are obsessed with Magic. In which case: get help. Seriously. If you are obsessed with any one thing, get help. It isn't healthy.
By your logic people who are obsessed with books or movies and tv need help. Or People who love baking and cooking need help. Yeah there are better ways of being social besides mtg, for those who aren’t antisocial. It’s no secret that most of the people who play magic are nerdy/weird/neurodivergent or whatever you want to label them and as a result, they’re ostracized and antisocial. Mtg and similar tcg/tabletop games allow those of us who are antisocial or awkward to meet up with people who we feel won’t judge/bully us for being who we are and it’s a way to meet like minded people who have been through similar experiences in life. In psychology, a healthy obsession is a productive obsession that can lead to a positive mental state help improve one’s mental health. Mtg is that for people. You must not have anyone or anything you enjoy based on your way of speaking and for that, I’m sorry.
@@AdamWhitehead111 ok buddy you’re obviously an angry individual. But you and I both know that people use the phrase “I’m obsessed with this” as a way to say “I really love this thing/activity.” Everyone has something they’re obsessed with. Including you. Whether it be something from your childhood or something your parents introduced you to. So before you start telling people they need to get help, maybe check your own mental health because it obviously isn’t in a very good state. I provided a concise critique of your comment and its flaws and your response was to lash out. You’re the one who definitely needs that help, dude. Seriously
1 v 1 formats are the most toxic ones for veterans and specially for newcomers, they are expensive, the player are arrogant and obnoxious "oh, you don't know this card? What a loser" C'mon man
I have had 10x more experiences like this at commander tables. Just 3 over paid sweaty nerds showing off how many collector boosters they can afford is not exactly what I'd call fun. At least in 1v1 if I don't like my opponents I know the game will be over somewhat quickly.
Bro complaining about the game going on for a while is crazy If you don’t enjoy playing or participating in the game, may I suggest trying something else? It sounds like this dude would REALLY enjoy solitaire. Just loves playing with himself while his opponent watches.
That sounds like commander, play for 5 minutes then twenty minutes later you finally get to play again. I play duel commander and leviathon way more fun and you don't have to wait 20 minutes to start your next turn.
There's a difference in that board games often don't last longer than an hour or so. If they do last longer, it's because they're designed that way. With commander, once you get past a certain threshold of time it starts to become a fatiguing mess. It's fine at the start, when board states are straightforward, when you're staring at 3 other players and they've got incredibly complex boardstates involving thousands of tokens, or some artifact based lock combo going on, it starts getting a bit much. Personally, I do like it when pioneer games go long, but I've never had a 60 card game go longer than 45 minutes (and I like it that way, 45 minutes is probably my tolerance as far as long games go). In essence magic is not really designed for such extreme extended periods of time such as the 2-3+ hours of just 1 commander game (magic was not really designed with multiplayer in mind either).
I would totally agree. except that the other constructed formats are so dogshit i prefer trying my luck with 3 random people of which there's probably 2 who are mentally challanged, than go trough a standard bo3.
The guy arguing commander sucks is constantly putting words in the other guy’s mouth. Only way he can win is to take control of the other guy’s words. He sucks
Commander is lower skill, commander players are lower skill, and commander decks are less well made more luck dependent. They also dont have sideboards. Thats all, its magic for people who want to play sim city in rts. Most people arent good at the game.
@@Russian_engineer_bmstubrother that’s why it’s the most popular format, bad players get to feel like they’re good. nothing wrong with that, i just wish it was separated from magic and became its own thing so whenever i find someone that plays magic it doesn’t mean they only player commander.
@@coolbirdo lmao, you must be such a high skill modern player "ugh, so I get this artefact into play, cast a 6 drop, get 4 predetermined lands, and try to win. Every time without variations. But sometimes I play summoning pact to get pt, so it's totally high skill" I also play modern and pauper, I did top16 local pauper events, I played the93 format, and theros-eldraine standard Nothing from those is harder then edh, and legacy costs a Lil too much for me Oh loooook, opponent played a single nonland permanent In any 60 card format you immediately know their entire deck list OR their deck is so fringe you can't reasonably loose (unless you yourself brought a weird brew or drew 9 lands in a row) Oi look, breeding pool into halfling. It's nadu Oi look, breeding pool into architects of will. It's living end Forest into map? Tron Urborg-grief-not dead after all(or whatever the latest one of those is) yep, black or rakdos scam. So hard. Such skill to play (I myself played rhinos lately, before that a coco deck)
I hate commander format because half (or all )of your booster pack's rares are just pure trash cards, bro all those portraits extended art legendary creatures in MH3 are tanking the values of the packs hard, it's in a way making buying packs more expensive for constructed players, because of the percentage of trash cards are way higher.
@@avatarofcloud If you have that much variance that in a Commander deck, that's a deckbuilding issue. It's not hard to find 7-8 cards that do similar things, which leaves the odds of finding a card about the same as a 4-of in a typical format -- especially with every tutor imaginable legal in the format.
@@BorkBigFrighten2ok so cedh. So you're asking me to pay 4 grand to play a "casual" format. I wish commander players understood how stupid this argument is
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Regarding the sleeves number: if you buy 3 packs of 100 sleeves you get 300 which is the amount you need for 4 constructed decks with sideboard (75 x 4 = 300).
I started playing MTG way before Commander was a thing and I remember in most cases sleeves were sold in packs of 50, so you still needed 20 for a constructed deck. One way or another Dragonshield & co. are going to force you to buy as many sleeves as they can.
I completely respect people who hate commander, all 30 people should meet up so they can actually play other formats for once
Jokes aside, almost entirely good points about commander, but I still think the longevity of magic is going to come from commander. Ultimately, whatever gets more people to play the format is king
😂
Lolz true though me abd my friends only started playing magic recently and we're only playing commander rn cause we can play as a group and it's more fun. Maybe as we play more we'll play other game modes though
20:33 It feels exactly the same every time. It is when playing you in pioneer specially when you play the two decks you made for pioneer!
I dislike Commander pretty harshly, but always feel like I’m trying to kick someone’s sandcastle when discussing why. I am glad that people enjoy the format. And I *am* jealous that fans of it get to play the game the way they want. Here is what I don’t like:
1) It is never my turn. Obvious hyperbole, but the game is more fun for me when I get to ya know… do things. More players means more sitting around.
2) I win less. Is it the only thing that matters? No way, but I definitely enjoy winning more than losing. There are 3 losers in a 4 person pod.
3) No one can agree on the rules. The unwritten ones. Is it okay to win with Thoracle combo while this other guy is trying to win through combat damage? I’m not sure and it’s pretty hard to get 4 people to have the same answer to this beforehand. I’ve heard commander described as “We’re all power walking and arguing about who is running.” If your group is locked in step on power matters, then you’re one of the lucky ones because not everyone has an agreeable group to play with.
4) Card variety-for a format where almost everything from the 30 year history of the game is legal, people sure do play the same cards constantly. This is not so much something the format does badly as something that it should be great at and it just never works out that way. Instead it’s Rhystic Studies and Smothering Tithes and Cyclonic Rifts and Craterhoof Behemoths as far as the eye can see.
5) Aggro decks in Magic are cool and don’t really get to exist. Every format will have its unplayable cards, but it’s such a bummer that well-costed beaters don’t have a place in commander. Every card needs to be ramp, card advantage, or a finisher. There are a lot of awesome cards that fall by the wayside because attacking your opponents for 120 damage is not a reasonable goal.
6) Politics are a fine gameplay mechanic, but they are not part of the game I grew up loving. When tight play becomes a liability because you might look like you’re getting too far ahead, the game is leaving the space that I want to be in.
All of the above are matters of taste. Many of these “negatives” that I might list are some of the things that commander lovers might enjoy most about it and that’s okay! But there is one thing about the rise of EDH that I can’t seem to get across which I find to be the most resentable…
7) I like other formats and it is much harder to get any games of them in because commander has swallowed up all of the LGS play. You used to be able to play some standard games just by rolling into the shop with a deck, but this has been completely usurped by EDH. Now to play 60 card formats, I have to show for a 7pm event on a weeknight and hope enough others had similar plans. Commander speaks to people and is wildly successful as a result, but the thing I enjoy used to exist and I *do* feel that commander is partially responsible for its disappearance. Please appreciate what you have, EDH players.
I applaud you know your tastes.
Play standard mono red my guy. Its what fils you
@@alexandreleveque8394 the problem is you can only do that on arena now. It killed paper 60 card.
@@brandonfritts6111actually standard is going crazy in my lgs, a lot of people excited about
Just my few cents on being a long-time Commander player who plays decks across the precon-CEDH spectrum:
1. There are two MAJOR MISCONCEPTIONS/MISUNDERSTANDINGS about the format, and both of them have to do with power level:
-The number scale is a joke and the absolute wrong way to estimate and describe the power level of a deck. The scale means nothing on its own, and because people have constant disagreements on what is strong and what isn't, the number scale doesn't stop people from misrepresenting the power levels of their decks to other people. The number scale is almost single-handedly responsible for all Rule 0 miscommunications when people to sit down to play. We have to stop defaulting to the number scale in Rule 0 discussions. Describe what your deck does, how it executes its gameplan, and what turn(s) it aims to win by CONSISTENTLY in the *MOST CONCISE WAY* possible. "My deck is a 7" doesn't cut it.
-The perceived dichotomy of casual Commander and CEDH is wrong and in reality doesn't exist. People generally want to believe it exists because casual Commander is still by far the more popular way to play the format and fits the intent of the format philosophy more, but CEDH still uses the same exact banlist, the same exact format restrictions and rules, and plays using the same pool of cards. CEDH is merely a term to describe the top-end of the format, and this term exists because Commander is a primarily a casual format. It's the same as if you have a jank Modern deck that you just play for fun, and feel the need to add a descriptor for it, because you aren't exactly playing the format like everyone else does. CEDH and casual commander are literally two ends of the spectrum of the format, and should be recognized as such. The only thing that is different about CEDH is the mindset players have, and the lack of a need to have a Rule 0 discussion.
2. Commander isn't for everyone, and it shouldn't have to be forced to be the format for everyone. If people dislike Commander as a format, there are mostly likely other formats within Magic that have a bigger draw for them, and that's what sets Magic apart from any other TCG. Magic has diverse sanctioned tournament formats, as well as a plethora of community formats just like Commander that see varying degrees of play.
3. About the Commander experience, here's what I've come to conclude is the best way to achieve for yourself the best experience you can possibly have: CEDH is a great way to play with randoms because the term "CEDH" is the Rule 0 discussion. No salt, no bad blood, just four people playing their best, fastest, most powerful decks and trying to win. Casual Commander is best played with friends, or a stable playgroup. Playing casual Commander with randoms is how most horror stories about bad Commander experiences unfold.
4. I also happen to play Modern. My perspective on Commander vs. 60-card constructed is this: both types of format cannot escape the inevitable variance that Magic inherently has. 60-card constructed formats have the 4-copy rule, which can boost consistency noticeably, but you are always going to have very different games, even if you have two decks playing the same matchup, because Magic inherently has a high level of variance. Singleton formats that have Vintage-level card pools like Commander and Canlander solve the variance issue differently by using cards with highly similar effects and an increased amount of tutors, but these formats will always have a higher variance due to larger deck sizes. This should be very common-sense, and is especially true for Commander since you have 3 opponents. The main drive behind Commander's high popularity as a format is because of the high level of variance in gameplay, no matter how consistent you try to make your deck, CEDH included. 60-card formats can get quite stale in comparison when your deck achieves its game plan exactly the same way most of time, and given enough reps, decks can quickly get boring to play.
5. Player Elimination usually feels less bad nowadays than it used to. Cards have become more powerful, and by extension, decks have become more powerful across the board. Slow wins are a lot less common than before, and if someone is eliminated usually the game ends shortly after. If turns go long, it's either because of a complicated boardstate, or the inexperience of the player hindering them from progressing through their crucial/game-winning turn faster. I feel it is quite common for casual Commander players to stumble through turns without thinking three turns ahead; in my experience playing Commander, many casual players struggle with dealing with extra complicating factors because they don't think too much about possible plays their opponents might do. "I didn't see that coming", "What do I do now" and "do I have a line here" are phrases I commonly hear when playing at casual tables, because thinking through play patterns can get tiring and make the game less fun for casual players. Competitive formats and the mindset that comes with playing CEDH warrant putting in more thought, so it is less common to encounter these issues in those scenarios.
Thanks for reading my essay.
I don’t know where you’re playing Magic but where I’m at, the dichotomy of CEDH and casual definitely exists. I don’t want to play against people who find CEDH fun and I hate playing against those who choose to bring their most powerful decks to an Edh night that costs a dollar to play. And many people would agree
@@RoninRose541 Probably could have expressed it a little bit better, but what I meant by the dichotomy between CEDH and casual commander not existing is that fundamentally CEDH is just the top-end metagame (in terms of power level) of the Commander format. A lot of people seem to think that CEDH and casual commander are different formats, or if they don't, they treat the two as such. My argument is that they are just opposite ends of the power level spectrum within the same format. Sorry if that wasn't clear enough.
In my case, I would have picked up magic if it wasn't for commander. Got really tired of yugioh due to the same competitive nature and commander allows me to take it less seriously and spending large amounts of money is now optional instead of being the default.
Optional????? I don't know where or who you play commander with but they must be pretty polite. I have taken out second mortgages just to make sure I get to play. It's exactly like trying to play legacy but made even worse by 2 more people.
@@GamingWorld12 most if not all of my decks are less than a hundred, if u wanna spend thousands to become hyper consistent, u gotta keep in mind most people dont
@@GamingWorld12 literally no one's forcing u to do all that lol, somebody already said that most decks r worth 100 bucks plus there r plenty of decently powerful 15-20 budget builds, reevaluate lmao
@@mechanophiliac it's more of a comment on local edh meta there is no room for low power decks so I kinda am forced to play my most expensive decks or go home
@@daltronius I understand that but my edh meta is mostly long term player and sweats so it unfortunately means my experience is often very different
I don't like doing homework 😂 that's why I still enjoy draft/prerelease , just turn up build and play + have fun!
the most successful players in draft are those who prepare beforehand though
I want to get into the draft but I'm so bad. Lol
Try cube. It's cheaper and better. Not that set limited is bad, it's also great, but shit cube is another level.
Edit: you can play almost any format with cube, even commander, I've been playing commander cube for the past months and it's a blast every time. Takes away from the lame decks we see all the time in normal commander.
For me, i play commander because the other formats are kinda dead in my area. I wish duel commander or Canadian highlander was more popular.
Sugar is THE WORST for you… -eats donut-
Strange how the defense for Commander here is the board game mentality, where for me the biggest *problem* with Commander is that it absolutely fails at the board game mentality. A good board game is appropriately paced for its duration, and keeps you far more consistently engaged.
If you can comfortably order food, pick it up, and start eating it all before it's your turn again with nothing of value being lost (which has happened to me before, by the way)... that's a failure of a board game.
If we're palying games for "social" aspects, there are so many other cool games. Some might even say better games than Commander. IMO, when looking for more "social" ways to play more laid back games of Magic, with the emphasis on the "Gathering" - cube is THE format.
I'm so happy to see a video where someone speaks up against EDH/Commander, I've never liked it, I'd rather play multiple rounds of any other MTG format in the time it would take to play a game of Commander.
Also, if I want a multiplayer "more social" game, I'll get a boardgame out.
Draft is King. I want to explore trying to make limited formats in other tcgs.
This video has the same energy as someone saying mmos suck because they only play competitive shooters against 14 year Olds daily and can't fathom not being competative
I'd argue that the issue is that Commander sucks as a casual format too. Not everything needs to be competitive, but it should be good at its aim too. And that's what the video is arguing.
@@sylinminoIdk, commander is pretty good at being casual in my eyes.
Yes, my experience is a little flawed, because I mostly play with a consistent group of friends and not randoms, and I won't speak for all the possible experiences in the world, but as a game for a group of 3-4 people commander is only rivaled by arkhem and some other really thought out games
@@Russian_engineer_bmstu I'm curious how y'all build your decks then to keep it fun. Because in 90% of my scenarios, with friends or strangers alike, the game usually goes like this:
1. 3-5 turns of very slow and minimally interactive setup tempo turns
2. One person gets their infinite combo/game breaking board state first, no one else does.
3. Does someone have the instant to counter it? If no, the game ends and basically no one got to play except the one player who won playing mostly solitaire. If yes, the game continues and that one player is deflated because their deck couldn't do the cool thing they've built it up completely to do
4. Repeat steps 2-3 until players are eliminated very slowly and have to watch the rest go by for as long as it takes (sometimes 1 turn. Sometimes 2 hours).
I've fallen off Commander because as diverse as the decks are supposed to be, games would start to play astonishingly similar to each other, and in the least interactive way possible.
Maybe you and your friends avoid making those types of decks completely though
@@sylinmino oh well, we each have some decks, that are roughly equal in groups, so before starting we ask around if someone wants to play one specific deck of theirs, if there is someone who does we all roughly align to that, if not we choose semi randomly.
We have roughly 3 lvls of decks
1) pretty casual, slightly uped precons, new unpolished decks
Where games go up to turns 11-12, and well, roughly what you get with precons but in greater variation. I have monored karlach deck in here, necron precon, and monoblack vampire deck. My friends' notable decks around here are lim-dul the necromancer, Mila "Chandra tribal", feather the redeemed blink deck and 3 mana tatyova.
2)somewhat optimized 7-8ish, with like top 100 or so commanders, but on a budget. We have a krenko deck, light paws deck, meren, atraxa etc, and end games by turn 6, mainly in combat, or sometimes aristocraty suction. Not high on interaction tho, generally, if we disregard stray grave pact
3) dickish decks
3 out of 4 of us have thoracle decks, and we sometimes play that. The other guy has his grand arbiter deck for this. And tegrid deck
And we cycle through the options depending on what people wanna do, so it's not getting to stale
+proxy friendly
+open decklists
@@Russian_engineer_bmstu Sounds like y'all have a good system worked out and I applaud y'all for it. That being said, it does require a lot of coordination and a lot of rule 0 curation to work, and we simply don't have all that when you play Commander outside that safe environment. We can definitely be entitled to our two experiences, but I think you should at least be able to concede that someone disliking Commander for the reasons in this video don't just mean he doesn't like casual play and thinks everything should be competitive.
I haven't even watched the video but I've grown from being indifferent to commander and viewing it as just another way of playing Magic to actively hating it more and more with each new card I see printed EXCLUSIVELY for commander.
I hate that the hype around it was artificially built and inflated over the years by content creators and that this has lead to wizards basically mostly catering to it nowadays. I hate that there's a chance that the mythic I pull in a regular booster might be unplayable outside of commander. I hate that it's talked about as a casual format when it's anything but casual with its highly specific and strict deck building and forced multiplayer. I hate that it's not separated from the main game even though, given all the differences, one can call it a whole different game. And not being considered as at least a separate product line, it parasitizes on the game by deluting the overall card pool with cards that can not be used for any other type of game.
Commander was created by people playing the cards they had lying around and these cards were able to be used in all kinds of games but a card such as Commander Sphere and other cards that specifically reference 'your commander' or are obviously created with commander in mind because their effect simply aren't viable anywhere else are too much for me and I absolutely hate that this is the situation we're in.
Such a great summary of my thoughts too! Thanks so much for writing this out. Please watch the video too 😊
I'd like to add that everything that people praise commander for is and has always been available in casual 60 card constructed games.
You want to play a singleton deck? No problem-you can but you're not forced to.
You want that deck to be 100 cards? No problem but you're not forced to make it 100 cards specifically.
You want to play with more than one other person? Multiplayer magic has always been a thing and I don't know why people only associate it with commander.
You can just gather 3,4 or however many people you want, each one with a deck that they've built with no restrictions other than what the table has agreed to and play as casually as you like. You're not all forced to play 100 card singleton decks. Also, I don't see how playing one on one necessarily makes the game competitive. I've played nothing but casual one on one games my whole life and it's always been fun.
If we're talking about the cost, well I've always been borderline poor, so I've never had much or any money to invest in Magic. And still, I've gathered a collection of mostly commons and uncommons with the occasional rare or mythic. I'm also playing my 60 card casual games with people in similar situations and it's never been a problem. Commander isn't necessarily cheaper than any other way of playing the game and doesn't solve the price of admission issue that Magic has in general.
And last but not least, it's definitely not easier for new players to learn than 60 card Magic as well.
@@GatheringGamesHaving now seen the video, I think that the points you're making are not inherent problems with the commander format. I mean, you don't like long games and like the competitive nature of Magic so you can just not play commander but commander itself is not a problem for you.
What I don't like about commander is that at this point it's taking over the game and commander specific cards are not only being printed but they're printed in ever increasing quantities which to me is equivalent to putting Pokemon cards in Magic boosters so to speak.
It's also falsely advertised not only as A casual format but as THE casual format and providing new players who know nothing about the game with this information is limiting them tremendously because there are literally no limits to the ways you can play Magic casually and it's definitely not limited to 100 card, singleton, multiplayer games.
My issue with cost arguments in EDH is that you need to have multiple decks to meaningfully have a Rule 0 conversation. I don't particularly want to play at the precon level forever, so that's been a major turn-off for me.
Commander actually ruined magic though, he's right.
every game with a winner, including even things like cards against humanity, are competitive. they can also be sociable. playing to win doesn't mean you aren't also having fun - this goes for both edh and 60 card formats.
Commander isn’t always about winning tho, maybe it’s just to show off some fun combo, or to have fun with friends. CEDH is about winning, but I can’t think of any moment when playing casual commander that I’ve been sad to lose
@user-dp4gp5qc3o typically if it's a "fun combo" or any combo in general, it's meant to win or lock the game in which no one wins. If you are building toward a combo you are inherently trying to win. I don't get sad losing commander because I don't connect it to something that gives monetary gains in which cedh connect to tcg player and winners tend to get packs as rewards.
I'm jeallous of Commander players
Commander players need to stop bashing people who enjoy the original formats that this game was designed around. The game wasn't designed around commander and it can't be. Someone needs to make a new TCG game with commander in mind from the ground up. The format is inherently flawed and as time goes on, the power creep is going to become unsustainable. It will eventually devour commander whole, and then what? All the other formats will be dead and then MTG will die with commander. Don't be selfish. The best way that commander can endure is for commander players to push WotC to NOT design the game around them and to design it around Standard and other Limited formats. Commander is and was best when WotC wasn't designing MTG around it.
I am a commander player through and through. I started playing magic back in 2005, but I grew to resent the repetitiveness and the lack of engagement with your friends as deckbuilding became more streamlined. The internet's introduction into the magic experience made me hate that I knew I would see nothing new in most game experiences. Metas existed prior, for sure, but even those could be played with. Space for creativity felt like it was being snuffed as everything became more tuned. With more tuning too, I just found people being less interested in the experience. I couldn't shoot the breeze and talk with my competitors much. Might've been what little environment I could see but that's what I was seeing generally in the space from my lens.
I stopped playing. I came back with Ikoria and learning about commander as a format. I've never loved magic more. Many do over rely on EDHREC and net-decking, and they can enjoy those, but I know I will see new things AND I can stand up and find a space to play with experimental decks and design and have a space. And most important of all, I can talk with my competitors. Conversation felt appropriate again. Love it.
ALL THAT SAID. I think most commanders players actually agree with what you said. On a philosophical level, MOST of us who have played commander for more than a year really wish they'd stop making commander specific cards at such a frequency. It should be contained to a set every once in awhile. Hell, in my personal take, I think the eternal only cards are being made too frequently. Making cards regularly that are built to compete with all of a game's history of cards is exactly how Yu-Gi-Oh got to the point it is today. It can be okay to push beyond standard every once in awhile, but when new eternal cards are technically being introduced every set and we get 2-3 eternal sets a year, it's excessive and game warping.
While most players agree they need to hit the breaks a bit with eternal/commander products, most of them still experience one important aspect, FOMO. If you don't engage with every product, especially the hyped eternal ones, you get left behind. As casual as commander is, new release, ESPECIALLY eternal releases like MH3, still warp the format even at lower levels. WOTC has a lot more power over the non WOTC format then they like to admit. Sol Ring, one of the strongest mana sources in all of magic, are acceptable at the lowest level of play PURELY because they're included in every WOTC printed precon, not because they're a fair card at a lower level.
I hate commander. I've been playing since the 90's and commander is far and away the least interesting format for me.
Obv to each their own, but with that said MTG was inherently a competitive outlet for me, not a social one. When I want to socialize, I find alcohol (just as an example) to be something that helps me accomplish the task of "socializing". But there is a reason that MTG isn't colloquially called "social lube".
Imo MTG is fundamentally DESIGNED to be competitive. If you want social, I have ALWAYS found D&D to be much more helpful. Rather than working AGAINST those you're playing with, you work TOGETHER. Literally a fundamentally more social experience. Again, to each their own, but I do roll my eyes when folks talk up how beneficial a game of commander is to socializing. It feels like window dressing to a scene where people already are socializing at best, without driving the social experience whatsoever. If others have different experiences, that's chill: have fun w/ it but holy cow is it boring to me. If i wanted to casually do something with people to socialize there are about 99,999,999 other things that come to mind first: watch a movie, get food, do drugs, drink, have sex, explore nature, etc. Clearly commander helps ppl get their rox off w/ commander and, again, that's cool, let 'em but dear lord lets stop pretending that it's fundamentally 'better' than standard.
Basically commander is fundamentally casual and standard is fundamentally competitive. If magic is fundamentally designed to be competitive, then the gameplay itself will only synergize when the format best matches card design. Just my take
Commander is the participation trophy format of mtg.
I don’t dislike commander coming from 60 card format background, but I hate that I can play cards acceptable on the banlist that might be psuedo banned at LGS depending on the pod. Makes me very anxious playing against strangers where I wouldn’t feel bad/anxious doing anything in normal constructed envirnments
A Magic player that only plays commander is like a video game player that only plays Mario Party , nothing wrong with that but it is disheartening as someone who enjoys the competitive aspect of games to know thats the majority of the Magic player base.
This is a perfect analogy!
You can casually play a game and still want to win. The fact that the best player and best deck doesn’t win is part of the draw. Consideration for the other players at the table and their experience is part of the draw. You can lose and still have fun. This man is a fool.
For real. One of my favorite things in Magic is watching my friends pop off.
That sucks for me then, because the thing got me into mtg in the first place was that in constructed better player and better deck always wins, and I loved that, I hate players not playing for winning.
I love this guy. Commander is for Betas and Constructed is for Alphas.
i really dont enjoy any non-singleton formats ive ever played: standard, yugioh, legends of runeterra, hearthstone etc. Dealing with an enemy's card and knowing that the exact same card wont be coming back, and that they have 99 other possible cards. Even with cards that have the exact same effect, cmc, everything is the same there are usually not more than 4 of them. Which makes up a much smaller percentage of a 100 card deck than 4 of the exact same card (plus any more of other cards with the same effect that are still legal) in a 60 card deck. Which I think is also why people dont really like combo decks and tutors, because you're usually playing the exact same sequence of cards to get your wincon, and in some cases it is literally the exact same combo every time.
That's literally what the constructed formats are all about, pull off the same most efficient wincons every single game, the 4x everything gives you consistency in the strategy.. I really just think commander players are not the same type people compares to constructed.
A lot of the cards in commander may have different names but do essentially the same thing, how is that different than playing a non-singleton format?
More different cards to play is more fun.
Maybe if you are exceptionally wealthy
@@GamingWorld12 Buying 4x of a 80 dollar card is more expensive than building an entire edh deck.
@@neenee-bs3jc but I would argue that having fun throwing together an off meta pile is way easier and funner to build/play in 1v1 then it has been in edh in quite a long time. I believe this idea that the commander is "budget friendly" is why so many people have a bad time not realizing the number of staples and out of print stock they have to purchase for each individual deck just to even play at all at most tables.
@@GamingWorld12 Completely disagree its silly. EDH is the only format with deck powerlevels and where the intent in most "casual" games is to have fun and not compete. You do not need every 100dollar+ mana rock or 50 dollar counter spell to play a powerlevel 1-8 deck and still win. This is why commander is popular, cause you can actually play the cards you pull out of packs instead of having to buy the best ones 3 more times and then not play the rest of the cards you pulled.
Commander also became less budget friendly as it became more popular but its still miles ahead of any other format except pauper.
@@neenee-bs3jc I have never had these problems with budget brews or n 1v1 playing for over 15 years and I have had this problem 10 times or so in the last year in edh because people's idea of "power level" is whatever they think is fair. I don't mean for this to be rude but I guess it's probably a skill gap problem.
With the exception of Wizards focusing way too much on commander, all the reasons he states that commander is bad is why I like it.
I loved commander when Wizard ignored it, now they are over milking the cow and it's left a sour taste in everyone's mouth.
Biggest problem with commander is the toxic casual crowd. They are the worst. "I'm not here to win": gets mad if you target anything of theirs.
People who dont like commander are just non casual players.
"wanting to and playing to win" is not the same as "competitive". I think that's the big take away from this topic. Commander is casual and because of that is the most popular format because 99% of the player base has no intention of playing professionally or even trying. That said, building your deck to be efficient and powerful and trying to win the game is not "competitive" in the sense that it's being used here. There are the CEDH players but they are quite the minority of the community. It's just like any other board game. You get together with friends, you try to win, if you lose, that's fine too.
Guy on the right sounded like what ppl made up as strawman of those "Competitive 1v1 only"-players.
Other TCG simply do 1v1 better and novelty of EDH is only thing that makes MTG worth engaging with
Bro there are not tcgs that do 1v1 better. If you name hearthstone or something you are a joke and thats coming from someone who used to farm for legend rank every season lol
the point made at 4 min where u say the point of learning to be fine with failing not being in commander shows you have no idea what commander is, how could u not learn to be ok with failure in a casual format where out of 4 players 3 lose, thats like going into a shop and saying "the point of paying extra for convenience is lost on delivery apps" thats legit one of the greatest upsides of commander, it helps you learn to enjoy failing almost as much as winning it puts more emphasis on the game rather than the outcome, so long as you arent talking cedh where everything is win at all costs, which is why cedh is a completely different beast from normal edh.
I hate the "commanderification" of magic. It just seems like so much of magic is focused on commander nowadays. I mean hell, thats what caused fucking companion.
Then WOTC tries to push cards specifically for commander which starts to remove the deck diversity that made commander special
Staples are making "casual" games not so casual. It's definitely stepped away from the jank cards doing cool things format you're saying it still is and it just isn't. Power creep and just a focus on commander makes them make more commander centered cards which goes against the whole argument that it's the format for these lesser played strategies.
Ramp for green is too strong and nobody does a thing about it cause they think they're not doing anything. So unless your playing big green flood the board you just can't hang. And I say that because of how bent out of shape people get when playing against combo. There is way less deck building expression than people are realizing.
And sure if you're all about doing your thing and playing fun flavor decks or jank, it just hasn't been fun to do when other decks feel more "meta" and if you think there isn't a meta in EDH you're not paying attention.
It also isn't the players fault. If Wizards didn't make commander centered cards it probably would still feel like how it used to but now there are pushed commander cards that are powerful that make the format have staples that make the "casual" format not so casual anymore.
Anyway play draft, cube, sealed. I wish people would do this more cause it'll be way healthier for the games longevity I feel and they're so much more fun and casual than commander is now.
(also commander is the worst way to teach new players magic and that's objectively true)
If commander was actually casual people wouldnt have rule zero.
Rule zero is them attempting to make a nebulous 'meta' that is underpowered compared to normal meta.
Its the feels good social meta.
And that is competitive. If they actually were playing socially they wouldnt mind when someone tried some crazy shit and turned the game into archenemy
one thing I have to say, people are almost obligated to play Commander, finding a Commander game on my LGS is easier than any modern pauper standard or any shenanigans that lead new people to it instead of leading into another competitive format. Mixing everyone in one format…
“The best part of the game isn’t the game” because the game sucks, commander is boring as fuck is a literal piece of crap, just because I’m throwing my magic cards against a target I’m not calling it a format
Great video again guys. 👍 The controversy!!!!
I can relate to both sides of your arguments. I find playing Commander with a some groups is a bit of a chore, and long turns can are boring (spoken as someone who can take long turns went playing curtain decks), but with other groups Commander can be hilarious. I've fallen out with Commander a few times, and not long ago, one of my Magic friends challenged me to make a budget deck. Doing this reignited a bit of my passion for the format again, so my advise Fez, make a budget deck!!
I also, see what you mean about only thinking about winning. You can usually tell, at least in our group, by about turn 4, who is playing to win, and I'm with Fez on this, cos I tune out of the game at that. I say to others when we play, that I'd rather lose a fun game, rather that win a boring one, and that for me, a fun game depends one the player all wanting the same thing, so I agree with Sahd, that it's better to play with friends and not a bunch of rando's, however, I've made so good friends at Commander nights playing with people I didn't know before the game started.
Anyways, I'm rambling, so I'll end this here.
Again, great video guys, keep them coming!!!
I can relate to this statement a lot and agree in our group I can certainly say we are all guilty of things mentioned within the video.
I believe with anything that has been built on the premise of competition and winning is hard to pull a casual none competitive formats without it bringing the competitiveness inside us out making these casual formats hard to stay non competitive.
I think also putting the milking side of magic aside the products they produce are outstanding!
Budget is really the best way to play commander.
My pod recently made 10 $25 budget decks to play against eachother,each based off a Ravnica Guild, and it's been the most fun I've had with Magic in years.
Sick of seeing Smothering Tithes, $100 lands and Cyc Rifts? Play budget.
The point of 40 life is to force aggro out of the game and make every deck lategame loaded. Aggro is needed to keep greedy decks honest. Midrange is needed to keep aggro in check. Control is needed to outscale midrange.
Combo is there to dsrk horse.
Take aggro out, you lose midrange too and make control op.
So then its control vs combo. 😂
I recently got back in MtG purely because of Commander. It’s such a fun board game-ish experience.
Just don’t get too competitive, you can remind yourself and your circle that if things get too heated.
Focus on having fun bluffing and negotiating around the table 😂
Just go play a fucking board game then, quit shitting up MTG.
Amazing how everything is important in commander except the actual game
TL;DR: If you want to lose friends over petty arguments, play Commander. If you want to have fun playing a casual game, play Judge Tower.
I used to love the format, but after playing it during the pandemic I came to a realisation that all it is is the same three strategies expressed in slightly different forms: infinite combo, flooding the board with creatures or some form of alternate wincon. My main gripe with the format is that games are often extremely long (I'm talking 3+ hours), and I just can't see myself playing _the same round of a game_ for 3+ hours, I'd rather play 3-4 quick games with different decks and whatnot, or switch to some boardgame.
Then there's whining. There is _always_ someone at the table who is complaining about somebody's decision, "Why are you attacking me and not them?", "Why did you kill/arrest/transmogrify my creature?", "Why are you countering my spell?", "Why did you bring a deck that has boardwipes/land destruction/infect/ to the table? IT'S A CASUAL FORMAT!!!" etc. Maybe I'm just too introverted, but I don't understand how people can tolerate this obviously toxic behaviour and call it a fun pastime. It's just a game, but people treat their game pieces like some sort of treasure way too often.
Lastly, the sheer complexity of the board states is often too much. Everything often looks like the board is a giant a Rube Goldberg machine with lots of triggers and things happening seemingly everywhere, but in actuality it doesn't do much. If you want to look at really cool card interactionss, try playing Judge Tower with 6 players and Gleemax and Mass Hysteria on the table instead of this abomination of a format that pretends to be casual.
P.S. Commander has become what I feared it to become -- one of the worst forms of introducing new players to the game. In theory, you give new players a precon, explain the basics and let them wing it. In reality, you always see someone spending minutes to decide what to do on their turn because they are reading the cards with 7+ lines of incredibly confusing text on them and can't understand what they do. And even if they manage that, the understanding often turns out to be wrong or woefully incomplete, which creates even more confusion.
Honestly having been in magic environments that were predominantly commander and it sucked, its fun for a casual game here and there but it rarely feels skill testing and doesnt really provide the self actualization that being good at magic does when you win even a small tournament.
This is the best comment so far. You summed my thoughts up so nicely there.
@GatheringGames you guys should do a tier list of wotc rules and competitive paradigms (incorporating the ban list, switching to the players tour structure, hof management, printing for commander etc)
That one I'd watch, I feel like you'd need to rescale the tier list with "acceptable" as s though
In my opinion, commander is an unholy abomination, twisting a game into something that it was not made for.
On the other hand, me and up to 4 uni friends play with however shows up every break.
When it comes to specifics, you note that cedh is a different format, I personally disagree, it would be like saying a casual deck that is modern legal, and a modern deck are in a different format. Of course they should not be matched, but they are both 60 card decks, 4 copies, etc. I personally have seen decks that are in this awkward gap, strong enough to be called cedh, but lacking in some aspects to be truly up there.
Take for example you explanation of an cedh deck "all about milling", yes, they did play the fast mana and carddraw, however mill is not that great of a win condition, unless it is a combo, I presume when you say "mill" it means decking your opponents instead of exiling the library and slamming thassa's oracle.
I don't know if the deck you showed as an example is the deck in question, it surely has some powerful cards in it, however I would say that Timetwister and bob is not what makes a cedh card. Raising tutors is indeed a valid point. If I where to play advocate of the devil I would say that the mill player thought "I would like to make a mill deck, mill sucks in commander, as I have 3 opponents, each with 100 cards, and it is poorly supported in commander, so I should level the field, and put in the best draw and mana I have, then it will be a fair game". This of course did not work out.
Should the mill player have a better grasp on what their deck does and when it is appropriate to bring it, probably yes. Is it cedh, probably no.
I understand that the picture of the boardstate is an exaggeration, as it is rules violation on multiple levels. Commander games do indeed get quite complicated, however most of the time it is possible to at least get a decent idea of what everybody is doing. Take for example the voltron commander, as someone with a Sram deck, it is important to reduce the pile to something like: he is in total a 12/12 with hexproof, first strike, lifelink, vigilance and protection from green and blue, most of his stats come from a, most of the keywords come from b. As long as everybody is transparent, boardstates should be somewhat understandable.
As a control player, I do somewhat agree that commander ruins the off turn interaction, in addition to the architype as a whole, as someone who prefers to set up a value engine and outgrind my opponent, doing so against 3 decks is practically impossible. Similarly, keeping up interaction on 3 turns is not the most realistic. This however makes it even more important to plan out when you use removal and instant speed shenanigans when it really matters. As even in commander, you won't get away with playing none.
When it comes to deck cost, the shown example once more is a joke. I would however disagree when it comes to precons. For newer players, yes, for gamblers/investors, probably since some precons sell for less than the cards in it. However I prefer to order singles and stick to a budget, where it is possible to make a decent casual deck for 20-50 bucks on most themes.
When it comes to upgrades, sure, duals are the best option if you want to play cedh, however there is many a mana base possible on a decent budget. Even more so, if you really feel slighted by the expensive mana bases, maybe run some nonbasic land counters, a good ruination will only run you 3 bucks on cardmarket, and it can blow up thousands of bucks worth of lands. Shenanigans aside, of course every budget deck, if there was no budget, has upgrades. However even with a budget, the casual nature where the most powerful person is kept in check by the 3 others (if at least 2 people decide to bring interaction) means that if one deck overperforms by a little, it should be fine.
Funnily enough, the form of commander that is even more budget friendly than a 15 euro budget deck, is cedh, as a large part of the cedh community accepts proxies, since the format is about playing against the strongest deck your opponent can bring, no limitations. Personally I think using proxies (often printed out cards with a basic land behind) is an acceptable way to play.
Singleton is an high variance unbalanced experience. I would personally disagree. There is a famous talk from Richard Garfield, about how high variance does not mean unbalanced or without skill (think poker, or mtg). In addition, a well build commander deck has consistency, sure, it will see different cards every game, however if you run enough cards that consistently put cards in your hand, even if they all do it in different ways, you still get to play cards. When it comes to tutors, I think they defeat the point of singleton and are not great in commander. "when it is so random, you can never get that feeling of, I just had a great play there". I would disagree. As said before, even in an environment with high variance, playing optimally can still require skill and be impactful. I personally try to see one thing I could have done better after every game of commander, and often times I find a misplay that could have made a difference. When it comes to deckbuilding, you can get consistency by playing enough cards that fill carddraw, ramp, and core. Not to speak of the fact that every commander deck has access to its commander, making them way more consistent and informing a game plan.
One of my favorite things about commander is how the singeton nature makes it easier to switch around cards. I tinker with my favorite deck weekly, replacing a card that underperformed or I found lame by one of the 40 alternatives in my maybe board. In a 60 card deck, that only really runs 10 different cards, maybe 15 if they are not all playsets, what am I going to pull out? In addition. If I pack or get my hands on a card that fits perfectly in one of my commander brews, I get to put it in, and be content. While if I acquired a card for my standard deck back in the day, I had the feeling it was suddenly incomplete, as I needed 3 more. This might be unique to the way I build decks though, throwing together a pile of garbage with an initial injection of 10 or so synergy pieces, and over time trade or buy additions that get put in.
When it comes to time, I am the person who likes having a 4 hours grind fest, although ever since we play in the uni breaks and only have one and a half hours, it needs to go a bit faster. If time is an issue, there is no problem with taking out the faster decks though, and one hour to 1.5 hour games are consistently possible.
I do prefer the longer games though, I guess not everybody likes it, that is not a failing of commander in my opinion, but a thing of preference.
I do think one of the best things of commander is that it is supposed to not exist. What I love most about commander is digging though old, janky cards, finding the 5 that have a specific, synergistic enough effect to make up for the power creep. There is no feel like finding about magus of the unseen in your blue artifact sacrifice deck.
Finally, if you are a player that likes competitive, budget, high power and consistent gameplay, where blue is your favorite color, maybe you should try cedh? Find a group that is okay with proxies, and see if it is something for you.
TLDR: casual commander is weird, not everybody is going to like it, however it does have redeeming features, getting into specifics would require the above, didn't expect it to get this out of hand.
Some people taking the game too seriously is *not* a fault of the format
It is a fault of how the format is managed by the community
@@GamingWorld12 i don't thinks it's a fault of that either. it's a game with an objective winner and loser(s) so people will naturally want to win, and in turn people will get competitive. even if it was managed "officially" and not by the community and the official guidelines said "u hav to be chill and non-competitive" no one's gonna follow that lol
@@mechanophiliac that's not necessarily what I mean I more mean the things the general community will allow and not allow, as well as weird regional differences between player bases, and etc. I more just mean we all kinda need to agree to more consistent standards overall if we are going to agree this should be a premier and "casual" format.
Thank you guys for this Video. I think commander kill magic
Fez needs to get into yu gi oh.
I actually already play it and really love it! 😂
Thanks so much for watching and commenting!
Calling commander the worst format stinks of jealousy and loneliness
projection incarnate
@@Dylnn17 me or you?
Been playing MTG since before Commander was a thing. Community was better before this dogshit format cursed the game with its presence.
It’s an over dramatic statement meant to drawn in the listener to very valid criticism of the format. Which these grievances can be boiled down to “my deck isn’t doing anything”
@@avatarofcloud P.U. That's one smelly comment
Yeah….commander sucks. Period. The format and most of the people who play it. People just stay stuck in on commander and play nothing else ever.
Wrong
I also play pauper and modern, I was pretty how several times on the local pauper tournaments (top 8 from like 110 participants)
And for having fun, commander is just straight up better (or pedh, played that too)
These are some good criticisms. I feel like a lot of people build their deck around their commander and then their commander gets killed 4 times and their deck does nothing. The best commander decks are the ones that don’t care if the commander dies. All these grievances are caused by “I’m not doing anything”
Commander is playing Magic wrong. There are better ways of being social... unless you are obsessed with Magic. In which case: get help. Seriously. If you are obsessed with any one thing, get help. It isn't healthy.
By your logic people who are obsessed with books or movies and tv need help. Or People who love baking and cooking need help. Yeah there are better ways of being social besides mtg, for those who aren’t antisocial. It’s no secret that most of the people who play magic are nerdy/weird/neurodivergent or whatever you want to label them and as a result, they’re ostracized and antisocial. Mtg and similar tcg/tabletop games allow those of us who are antisocial or awkward to meet up with people who we feel won’t judge/bully us for being who we are and it’s a way to meet like minded people who have been through similar experiences in life. In psychology, a healthy obsession is a productive obsession that can lead to a positive mental state help improve one’s mental health. Mtg is that for people. You must not have anyone or anything you enjoy based on your way of speaking and for that, I’m sorry.
@@RoninRose541 there is a difference between enjoying something and being obsessed with it. If you can not see that, I feel sorry for you.
@@AdamWhitehead111 ok buddy you’re obviously an angry individual. But you and I both know that people use the phrase “I’m obsessed with this” as a way to say “I really love this thing/activity.” Everyone has something they’re obsessed with. Including you. Whether it be something from your childhood or something your parents introduced you to. So before you start telling people they need to get help, maybe check your own mental health because it obviously isn’t in a very good state. I provided a concise critique of your comment and its flaws and your response was to lash out. You’re the one who definitely needs that help, dude. Seriously
@@RoninRose541 I'm not the one lashing out. You are the one throwing insults.
@@AdamWhitehead111 I never once insulted you. I formed a hypothesis based on the context of your diction. In no way did I ever insult you.
1 v 1 formats are the most toxic ones for veterans and specially for newcomers, they are expensive, the player are arrogant and obnoxious "oh, you don't know this card? What a loser"
C'mon man
I have had 10x more experiences like this at commander tables. Just 3 over paid sweaty nerds showing off how many collector boosters they can afford is not exactly what I'd call fun. At least in 1v1 if I don't like my opponents I know the game will be over somewhat quickly.
Commander is great. WotC power creep and special commander products have made it worse.
Commander is just a bad board game
ERRR wrong ❌❌
Bro complaining about the game going on for a while is crazy
If you don’t enjoy playing or participating in the game, may I suggest trying something else? It sounds like this dude would REALLY enjoy solitaire. Just loves playing with himself while his opponent watches.
That sounds like commander, play for 5 minutes then twenty minutes later you finally get to play again. I play duel commander and leviathon way more fun and you don't have to wait 20 minutes to start your next turn.
There's a difference in that board games often don't last longer than an hour or so. If they do last longer, it's because they're designed that way.
With commander, once you get past a certain threshold of time it starts to become a fatiguing mess. It's fine at the start, when board states are straightforward, when you're staring at 3 other players and they've got incredibly complex boardstates involving thousands of tokens, or some artifact based lock combo going on, it starts getting a bit much.
Personally, I do like it when pioneer games go long, but I've never had a 60 card game go longer than 45 minutes (and I like it that way, 45 minutes is probably my tolerance as far as long games go).
In essence magic is not really designed for such extreme extended periods of time such as the 2-3+ hours of just 1 commander game (magic was not really designed with multiplayer in mind either).
I would totally agree. except that the other constructed formats are so dogshit i prefer trying my luck with 3 random people of which there's probably 2 who are mentally challanged, than go trough a standard bo3.
The guy arguing commander sucks is constantly putting words in the other guy’s mouth. Only way he can win is to take control of the other guy’s words. He sucks
Commander is lower skill, commander players are lower skill, and commander decks are less well made more luck dependent.
They also dont have sideboards.
Thats all, its magic for people who want to play sim city in rts.
Most people arent good at the game.
Lol, what a cope
@@Russian_engineer_bmstubrother that’s why it’s the most popular format, bad players get to feel like they’re good. nothing wrong with that, i just wish it was separated from magic and became its own thing so whenever i find someone that plays magic it doesn’t mean they only player commander.
@@coolbirdo lmao, you must be such a high skill modern player
"ugh, so I get this artefact into play, cast a 6 drop, get 4 predetermined lands, and try to win. Every time without variations. But sometimes I play summoning pact to get pt, so it's totally high skill"
I also play modern and pauper, I did top16 local pauper events, I played the93 format, and theros-eldraine standard
Nothing from those is harder then edh, and legacy costs a Lil too much for me
Oh loooook, opponent played a single nonland permanent
In any 60 card format you immediately know their entire deck list OR their deck is so fringe you can't reasonably loose (unless you yourself brought a weird brew or drew 9 lands in a row)
Oi look, breeding pool into halfling. It's nadu
Oi look, breeding pool into architects of will. It's living end
Forest into map? Tron
Urborg-grief-not dead after all(or whatever the latest one of those is) yep, black or rakdos scam.
So hard.
Such skill to play
(I myself played rhinos lately, before that a coco deck)
@@Russian_engineer_bmstu play all the Mario Party you want, but I’m more of a Street Fighter guy
@@coolbirdo oooh boy, street fighter 4?
quick question: why is the supposedly worst format the most popular way of playing Magic?
I'll let you ponder that 😉
and yes, I do realize that most popular doesn't mean best, but there is correlation
The same reason why 5 finger death punch is popular and is one of the worst metal bands on earth.
I hate commander format because half (or all )of your booster pack's rares are just pure trash cards, bro all those portraits extended art legendary creatures in MH3 are tanking the values of the packs hard, it's in a way making buying packs more expensive for constructed players, because of the percentage of trash cards are way higher.
yes, because the format that actually requires strategy and thought is the worst.... straight up room temp IQ
There is no strategy or thought in regular commander, the variance between 4 decks will always result in the game coming down to luck and politics.
@@avatarofcloud If you have that much variance that in a Commander deck, that's a deckbuilding issue. It's not hard to find 7-8 cards that do similar things, which leaves the odds of finding a card about the same as a 4-of in a typical format -- especially with every tutor imaginable legal in the format.
@@BorkBigFrighten2 Slight correction about tutors... Gifts Ungiven and a couple other high-efficiency tutors are on the banlist.
You are bad at the game if you think this is true lol
@@BorkBigFrighten2ok so cedh. So you're asking me to pay 4 grand to play a "casual" format. I wish commander players understood how stupid this argument is
Scrubquotes
Precons are horrible value