Pleasant Kenobi: "Commander can't support draft ecosystem, and that hurts the stores" WotC: "2020 we release Commander Legends, a Commander draft product"
@@RrraverCrow This is why i believe everyone should make their own cubes and save their money. If you really want to play your cube with randoms, proxy the whole thing to disincentivise theft. Anyway, that's how I roll, packs are just too expensive :(
For me, I like the strategy of Draft and I like the player expression of commander. I am tottaly down for draft Commander, two great flavors (for me) that I have always wanted to go together.
Something that you didn't mention about the accessibility of Commander, but is a huge deal to players like me: Singleton Format. I am a kitchen table casual who doesn't have a ton of money and is new to the game, and accessing a playset of key card(s) is sometimes out of my means. I have the pool of cards I have, and don't get new cards super often, so a Singleton format that lets me get the most use out of what I have is amazing for me.
This is the big one for me too. I have a Vampiric Tutor. It’s great in my Anje edh decks. There’s no way that I would want to buy 3 more of them for a Modern deck. That 1 copy can slide into any edh decks I own, and only needing that single copy for my entire collection is a big reason why I paid for it in the first place. I’ll never own 4 Teferi, HoD, but I’ll be glad to pick up 1. I have a Sword of Feast and Famine, but I’m not dropping $60 per card to have a play set. Budget matters to the vast majority of players, and singleton formats lets me own more decks than any other 4-card formats (aside from pauper).
@@Aldrnari956 That's awesome. I hope to get my hands on a Vampiric soon, if for nothing else than I love playing Black. Even with decks that are 60 cards, it does seem that the singleton factor helps the budget immensely.
This is exactly why I love this format. I have been playing since 1995 and have always been just kitchen table casual with my deck making. And over the years I’ve collected a ton of random card of different power levels, but maybe one or two of each. Not enough to play legacy or vintage, I could never been competitive in modern because of how specific the meta is and standard right now is as expensive as modern and it’s insane. But with EDH I can make decks of all different power levels and play my favorite jank and still have fun. Like my Atogatog deck where the goal is to sac my entire board state to atogatog and swing out.
@@Aldrnari956 this is why I sprung for the price of a Gaea's Cradle; I use a checklist system that allows me to use a single copy across all of my decks and it is so much easier to stomach high prices on older cards when you don't need so many copies.
Socialism or Barbarygmos but you don’t need 4 $60 cards to make a decent deck. Check out commanders quarters, you can make fun focused decks for pretty cheap. In modern and standard if you don’t drop $100 bucks on lands alone (or much much more) you can build whole decks for less than that.
Beginning of the episode: this was recorded before next year's commander products were revealed, so we didn't talk about them. 34 minutes into the episode: Vince predicts Commander Legends.
Former full-time competitive pokemon player here that's converted to casual commander. The most appealing thing to commander to me is its actually a hobby, not a second job. When you play at the highest competitive level, you have to make sure you are spending a certain amount of time each week. Testing different matchups and then you have tournaments every weekend. Commander however...I can build whatever I want, show up to commander night, and just play them. I can do whatever I want and have a reasonable chance to win and I will for sure have fun. That to me is why commander is the future of magic. It's what it should be, a hobby.
@@brandonguffey5959 My favorite is when two people have rhystic study AND smothering tithe. Using the tithe mana to pay for drawing the card to the other player's rhystic study.
While Commander precons aren't the place for fetchland reprints, they really should make a habit out of putting shocklands in them to help keep the prices down in-between Ravnica sets.
There are so many good lands besides the shock lands, that havent seen any printings in commander products that i dont think we need more shocks in a while. Finishing the battlebond land cycle and reprinting some fast lands in low curve decks would be awesome.
@@vekeuimonen11 There's really no reason why they couldn't both reprint THE modern-era duals (shocklands) regularly and also dedicate slots to more obscure lands and to finishing up cycles. Blood Crypt and Sunken Ruins could both go into a Grixis deck, alongside maybe a new blue-red multiplayer land.
@@JediMB if there were that much value in the lands it would cause other problems. Also shock lands will go down in price a little after standard. For the most played land across all formats they are very reasonably priced right now. Hopefully we get atleast 1 breeding pool reprint in some standard product before they rotate to bring it back to level with the other shocks.
@@vekeuimonen11 The only reason Sunken Ruins is fairly valuable is because it's from Lorwyn and hasn't had a non-Expedition reprint. If they start actually reprinting these things they're going to go down in value fast. This shouldn't be any more problematic than the shockland and temple prints in the Brawl decks. And, like I said in the OP, part of the point of regularly reprinting these most-played lands is to stop the prices from creeping up again between next year's rotation and whenever Ravnica 4 is released. This is a long-term plan and not just about how much shocklands will be worth 12 months from now.
Well... I am a commander player and I love cracking packs. I draft with my friends, like... ''fun'' drafts, where one person buys the packs for everyone, and keeps all the cards at the end, but the spirit is very fun this way. No pressure to keep the cards for money or so... And this way I gain useful or even less useful cards, new commanders with a special context I obtained them and so... I love attending to prereleases, and open boxes... And I don't think I'm the only one! Even as commander players I think we can enjoy the feeling of cracking packs, and enjoying a fun draft which is a pretty close format to commander, when played casually. So I won't by any way make my lgs die, buying and singles, and precos, and even new products...
Hey professor, just wanted to say that your channel got me into magic recently and commander is definitely the best mode. Epic games and a roaring good time with friends! If I had friends.. :'(
Both LGS's and colleges/universities usually have their own playgroups, and if they're running them as drop-in groups, they usually have facebook groups. Worth looking into. And even if there's no dedicated commander, or even Magic group for your local LGS, it's worth checking the store's facebook group and ask if they have a consistent commander group playing there. If you don't live close to an LGS, or a college, or a university, you may want to resort to playing online. There are plenty of reddit/discord groups playing over the internet, either via MTGO, via Cockatrice/Xmage (free clients), or in paper via voicechat and webcam. There's always a solution :)
Welcome aboard! Check in with any local card shops in your area to see what kind of Commander schedule they support. If there are no card stores in your area MTGO is always an option. Sure it may be online, but digital cards are on average cheaper than paper, MTGO supports the Commander format, and there's always people online to play against.
The hard cut after "YOU have a TH-cam channel!?" was the perfect ending, and the opening skit was the perfect beginning. Not really a commander player, but enjoyed the discussion. Thanks to both of you and the rest of the team for your time and effort.
While that certainly can be true, any survey that isn't a badly veiled manipulation tool usually is proceeded by extensive research, to make sure to ask questions that people want to answer, or is designed in straight-forward way, along the lines of "These are the ideas we have, that we have checked for viability on our end, and now we just need to check the viability with out customer base".
Joshua Jones if you have a webcam there is a discord server where you can find commander games at every power level 24/7 and play paper magic online with people. Some of the games are a bit formal but I’ve met some cool people.
Joshua Jones it’s how I play magic when I can’t get anyone together. And the community is genuinely great. Obviously not all of it is great, but it is super fun
@@lorvincent Im pretty sure Prof has wanted a new Sengir for a while, im not sure he was intending to "make a call", but if we was it sure was some omniscient shiz
Every time one of the partners use an ability, flip a coin: If it's heads, it puts a +1/+1 counter on the other. If it's tails, it put a -1/-1 counter on the other? :P
I’d love to see a vote to determine 4 content creators to make the precons one year. Give them the new commander and 15-19 new cards, probably have a cannot use card list, but let the players pick and creators create.
Don't think that's a good idea unless you know content creators that are game designers/developers. Otherwise you don't want e.g. surgeons building a house for you
They did something similar with the brawl precons I believe. It was actual players though instead of content creators though but I mean most content creators of mtg are players so
Zachary Lyons the play test team and designers are magic players for sure but the idea is more about us being a part of it and the content creators we watch everyday being a part of it, just one time.
WotC has finally acknowledged that Commander/EDH is the most popular format, period. Certainly a more fun/interesting format than Elk Standard. I went to CommandFest Chicago. It was so much fun, and I want it to continue being a thing. Edit 2: The amount of Vorthos (as from the expressiveness PK talked about) in my decks is...legendary. My Gishath deck has all basics as foils from Ixalan block. Edgar Markov has all basics as foils from original Innistrad and Shadows over Innistrad. Atraxa infect has all (9) basics being foils from Scars block. I have the Edgar, Atraxa, and Arahbo deck boxes and sleeves. I have an Atraxa and a Gishath playmat. Because if I can't win the game, I will win for being on theme. Also, my decks are mostly bling'd out as well, with 3/4 being over 90% foil (Edgar being 99%--Path of Ancestry is the only non, but it is signed by Alayna).
What do you mean "finally"? They've been pushing more and more marketing and development of Commander products than they have for eternal formats. Hell, even every standard set that they released now feels like a mini Commander set with how much they're trying to push legendary creatures and "multiplayer matters" cards. Also, hasn't WotC released a Commander product every year since like 2013 lol, so using the word "finally" doesn't really to me
@@buddieschiknful There's a difference between putting out a product and admitting a truth. With Commandfest and 2020 essentially being Year of Commander, Elks of the Coast has, albeit begrudgingly, admitted that their beloved cash elk of Elk Standard is not what will make them all that Elk money--especially when everything is now an elk.
@@BAAWAKnight And I totally get that, I've always hated the cash grab model that standard has been based off of. As an eternal player, however, it sucks to see WotC cater so hard to the community that I'm already having to compete against for eternal staples while they turn a blind eye to those formats.
Re: Commander w/ "Randomizer" Booster - I tend to agree that this would be a big mistake if this was the only place you could get those cards. That said, consider the following scenario: 1) Assume WOTC has gone back to the tradition of printing 5 "normal" commanders in the 3rd quarter, aimed at "selling out" for Christmas. And they're good. 2) As an additional, alternative product, associated with one of their Standard sets, they release, say, 2 commander products. In these products you'll get two Partner Commanders - one FACE commander, and one hidden commander. a) The FACE commander is a single color, original to the commander set, with the "Commander" set symbol. b) The HIDDEN commander is a (R) from the current standard set, available in standard boosters. c) The HIDDEN commander comes with 30 cards - all the same for that hidden commander - from the standard set - 10 basic lands, 10 (C) or (U) from the standard set, and then 9 (R) or (M) from the standard set that fit with that hidden commander's theme, one of which would be the "2 color combination" alternate commander for the set; meaning there'd be 6 (R) or (M) commanders legal in standard. There would be 2 FACE commanders/decks, but 3 HIDDEN commanders/"included in the standard set/standard legal" commanders; meaning that you could end up with one of 3 pairs for each FACE commander. 3) The "base" 70 cards has enough mana fixing to help you play your "minor" color. 4) Also, assume the relevant standard set is deeper than normal; this is to say that the 18 or so standard-legal color-specific cards would be tight enough to supplement that deck. Final Note: I realize this is incredibly narrow design space that could go wrong. But I think it'd be kind of funny to play commander where I'm playing FACE B Graveyard commander and R Sneak Attack commander, against others who are playing FACE B Graveyard commander and U Mill commander, or Face B Graveyard commander and G Giant Fatties (that are great to reanimate) commander. Mind you, this would probably be better explored during a really tight Commander Draft set - more like Modern Masters than Dominaria, that is. And none of this "20 card pack" nonsense.
Can you guys make an episode on commander cubes? I've built my first one, played it three times now and had a blast, my friends were suprised on how well it played. I had listened to CMDR-central and EDHreccast talking about the charity draft during many of their podcasts and commanders brew ep 199.1. I picked up a lot of tips during that episode. Like: draft a commanderbooster and then draft 6 boosters. 5 commanders pr commanderbooster and 15 cards pr regular booster. 5 colour commanders are "Mythic rares" because they enable you to pick cards from the whole pool. Decks are 80-100 cards. Usually 80 :) Nice thing is: You get to brew and play in the same session. You get to use all your half-finished projects and other cards from your binders. You determine power level. You can exclude cards like cyclonic rift. You can include fair non-broken unstable cards. I personally run a pool of 60 commanders. And eatch player gets a booster of five at the start of the draft. For three games we had Jodah and 5-colour Niv-mizzet show up twice. And all the others beeing different 2-3 colour commanders :)
What if the precon list for a deck remained constant, but then you got 15 random foils for the deck? And the chase would be a high end reprint in foil, like a fetch, or a shock, or an alt art commander? 5 buck markup? I think that could be awesome
I have been a MTG player since my junior year of high school some 6-7 years ago. I graduated and had no one to play with for 5 years. I finally got a bunch of cards and made about 4 commander decks and invited my friends to play. After 1 year of trying I have finally got them hooked and now regularly play games every week. Took me a bit but my friends have finally appreciated the beauty of commander.
What I love as an EDH player is seeing all the crazy stuff people can do and get away. In my playgroup, we all range through a wide area. We all have a deck or two that could be competitive, and we have played small tourneys with them. But we also love our jank. We all have one deck where we allowed one banned card. Of course someone has emrakul, one has lotus, but my favorite is my best friends coalition victory deck. He doesnt go go for big crazy stuff that often. He plays a lot of jank decks, looking to make them work, like a colorless control deck under Hope of Ghirapur. He's one of the best magic players I know, could probably go to the big time tournaments, but he just plays stupid stuff because that is what he loves. EDH really does let people express themselves in fun ways. Commander is the reason I still play regularly.
Last Weekend was the Commandfest in Chicago, and while I was there the only complaints I heard around were the fact that there were a lot of people who were competitive dipping into the semi-competitive slots in order to get more tickets. I cannot speak for other Commandfests as this could just be unique to those who attended Chicago, but this was a major issue. While I had a fun time that weekend besides one game, a fellow player at my gamestore had a terrible time attending due to these kinds of decks circulating the semi-competitive tables. Otherwise, it was just commander and commander varients that were located at the event, at least in Chicago, but it would be worth a try, especially if someone has a commander cube.
21:17 - He's only EDH Quarters on Twitter due to character limit. Actual channel is Commander's Quarters. His older videos are in the $25 range, but he swapped to a $50 model a while back to account for more "commander and shipping included" prices.
I don't think Commander is killing Magic, but I do think WotC focusing so hard on Commander is bad for both Magic as a whole and for the Commander format. They found out it's the most popular and have gone so hard in on it that it affects everything. Another podcast I listen to, The Mana Pool (one of the longest running MtG podcasts there is), just this week had an episode on how almost all of the recent legendary creatures are either hyper focused and if you want to make a commander deck with them you have pretty much one real path (like Kadena you run morph, that's it, just all the morphs), or they're so broadly powerful you can just run every good card in those colors and be strong. Gone are the commanders that gave you an idea but didn't force it. They do a thing they call Story Circles where they pick a commander and each host takes a turn picking a card to add to the deck, which then gives everyone else ideas and they all kinda brain storm the start of a deck. Now that they stream on Twitch, they even let the chat add in a few cards as well! But they hadn't done one in over a year because they didn't feel like it could be real self expression or interesting to build around most of the new legends. They ended up doing one with Kykar because it was the most open with some different ways to build, and it was a lot of fun. But that's become the exception, not the rule for legends now. While I'm opposed to planewalkers being commanders, I think they would currently be better than most of the modern legends for this kind of self expression in the format. Although with the advent of brawl now actually somewhat taking off, I'm afraid of even them becoming so focused as to not be great for mulitple deck builds but instead becoming homogenized as well. Sorry for the novel but I do think it's important. Great episode guys.
Interesting thought about the Commander Precon with boosterpacks in them... Sell the Precon decks as they are now, and then sell precon dedicated booster packs - Create a pool of about 75~ or so cards that ALL cards of that pool would work in the chosen precon deck, and sell booster packs of those cards. I love the precons, it allows me and my casual friends to stay on a same page without much effort. If we could all spend a little bit of $$ to buy 15/30/45 cards that would all be guaranteed in the color scheme of our chosen deck, and give us the freedom and creative flexibility to modify the deck to our liking, I'd buy those boosters in a heartbeat. Since the decks typically have 3 or so cards that can be used at the commander, the cardpool of the packs could be a bit wider, allowing the user to change the theme of their decks slightly, tailored to the commander (1 of the 3 precon commanders) of their choosing.
@45:50 - What if the commander pre-con "booster idea" the random part of the pre-con was for sale as a special booster along side so that you can get many boosters that align with your pre-con deck theme so you can buy a few and build your best deck from a pre built deck and between the one pack given, or over time upgrade with four or five additional of the "focused booster" that was in the deck. Seems like an accessible pattern for upgrading decks. Maybe also used as boosters to upgrade brawl decks into commander decks... Eventually why not cycle between different "guild boosters" that are focused towards commander viable cards.
At the end of the day I enjoy commander it's what kept me playing magic to this day and I feel it offers me the freedom to build decks that Express what I like about the commander I am playing at the time (chainer for life). And I feel commander is more open to all kinds of players.
Im new to Magic I've been playing just a few months at most and I bought a commander 2019 deck just to try commander and has been so much fun, everyone in my locals prefer playing commander the most so now I can play with them and is really my favorite format so far
I believe the precostructed decks with a random part could be done in an interesting way. New cards and manabase are fixed, but you get X random slots with support cards (reprints) that let push your deck strategy in a certain direction or another.
So watching this video AFTER all of the commander spoilers we got, I am really curious as to your response to the commander draft idea I am currently at 46:14 and the professors response is great. I am all for it, but I also understand that it is random, but I like the idea of drafting a commander deck
I think the fact that they announced a commander draft set with Commander Legends (i know the episode was filmed before the announcement) is showing that WotC is planning to take some cash from commander players on events.
I had a lot of fun at the command Fest! When they ask for feedback then one thing I told him was we want to Main Event! Especially us more competitive players. I don't know why they haven't done another one since the one in Vegas was very successful.
What we really need is a Time Shifted style border Sol Ring promo, with the ability to be foil or non-foil. That old art has yet to be topped but it does not look like it belongs with the new border at all, so promo where they did that always looks out of place to me. But a cleaned up old border with HD cleaned up version of the old art? Fucking *chef hand kiss*
43:55 I'm a bit on the fence about randomising parts of commander precons. I think randomised art or randomised foiling would be cool, but I think that trying to randomise game pieces while retaining balance and not having moments like the fetchland/guildgate scenario you mentioned would be quite difficult. HOWEVER Getting a pack or two inside the box of your 100 card preset commander deck that contains random cards (possibly all foil, or 1 foil) from that series of commander decks would be a good addition. As long as they can do it without upping the price or without upping it by more than a few dollars, then it's a neat bonus. You already get a full, mostly functional (put more removal and interaction in the precons reeeee) deck with either cool new spice to try, bling replacements, folder fodder/pieces for new decks or trades/money towards upgrades. Just my 2 cents, what do you guys think?
This is a very informative podcast and I agree with both sides of the discussion, commander needs the other formats to survive and to help make cards accessible for commander players. There is a really good magic store in my area where you can get packs, singles and all of the accessories to play, you can trade in cards for in store credit and of course they have the FNM events and nights set up for other formats like pauper, commander,, brawl and pioneer. The magic community is an intertwined beast that depend upon each format and playing style to feed each other and the survival of paper is in the hands of the players and local card shops that support each other.
I'm actually a bit surprised they haven't made a commander-specific fetch land yet. Like... enters untapped, tap and sac to search for a basic and put into play untapped, if you control your commander you can search for any land with a basic land type. Print it in every main-line Commander product like Sol Ring. Sure you could still only have one in your deck, but it fills a niche.
@@sonofchlar6144 It's not. Having one more fetch in your mana base won't make a measurable difference, especially in a multiplayer game. Unless you have a specific land-based deck strategy (Tatyova, Gitrog, Windgrace, Golos, etc) or you have a specific need to be able to shuffle your deck frequently, you don't even really need the fetches for your deck to run smoothly if your deck is 3 or less colors. Deck-thinning is only a marginal advantage in 60-card formats, and it matters even less in commander.
John Kendall that or having it cost 2 or 3 life instead of 1. That way standard/modern/pioneer players wouldn’t run it and hopefully the price would be lower
@@GM-rs2fv It's a commander product. It's literally not legal in any of those formats. And it could only fetch a basic in Legacy/Vintage which isn't that useful in those formats.
Our lgs is exclusively edh. Dude there's about a group of five or so ppl that will consistently crack 20$+ packs, masters, onslaught, mirrodin etc. As well as singles. I'v it's all in how you market your store and how engaged the player base is. I love "dies to removal" best mtg show! Cheers.
I’d like to see some Commander boosters that could get you for example a nonfoil Atraxa or some other high value commanders/staples in booster or sets, but not like how they overcharged the ultimate masters, like charge the base price for the lowest priced cards you could get in a pack.
I am a Commander player only. I crack packs just because I enjoy the gamble and the hope to get something cool foiled or at a price of a pack get something that I would never buy singly. I love to buy and crack booster boxes to see what I get. Any foils I have are from booster packs/boxes, I never purchase foil singles or buy single cards that cost more than $15, so if I have something of that price or higher, its usually from cracking packs or a box. I agree it's not worth the money I spend, but sometimes it pays off and I love doing it.
Unfortunately I was capped out of being able to attend command fest seattle I heard from a friend who attended that the event it was very disorganized and was not happy for what he shelled for admission
For the topic of reprints in commander products, I feel like this year got the price level right, just not the cards. Put in all the stables that every deck wants that are around 2-5 dollars. I'm talking cultivate, reliquary tower, signets, etc. It keeps the price of the product from spiking due to one or two high value reprints, but still keeps the reprints relevant, and the stables easy to acces for new players.
What Professor said about the 22 years old student having almost all the deck but no fecth lands is exactly me, 19 years old brazillian student wanting Misty Rainforest or/and Scalding Tarn to transform my UW control into Jeskai or Bant.
Hey Prof! What do you think about uncommon legendary creatures being able to partner with each other? Like Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker and Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive or Arvad, the Cursed and Syr Faren, the Hengehammer. I feel like we'd see cards that otherwise have difficult finding a purpose suddenly working well together. It could be a rules update called,"Commander: Lesser Heroes."
For me, Commander is a strictly social format. The reason why I play it is to have a chill time with some friends and have fun with self-expressive decks. If I want to be competetive, I dont try it with something that depends on drawing the right card in the right moment, e.g. MTG, but something like my job or martial arts or other sports or even smash bros. And even if you want to go for competetive magic, why would you choose the format with he literal highest variance (aside from canadian highlander) in the game, e.g. the least skill dependent format. I'm not talking about cEDH players playing for themselves and not bothering normal players, I'm talking about rich dimwits slowly power creeping a meta up with always slightly stronger cards, and people who play degenerate combo/control decks to make a meta "healthier", thus either having us spend more money to keep up, or push casual decks/players and jankier builds out to not be able to play anymore. Thats why I love my chill meta, almost exclusively budget decks or self-expressive decks, nobody plays degenerate decks except for hating out people knowingly pulling out decks too strong for that meta, and we just have a good time playing cards we own. In commander, I look for chilling out after my study and sport regement, its more productive and way more skill-dependent to be competetive elsewhere, even of its modern or legacy.
Agreed on that competitive feeling, Prof. I love the huge, splashy, janky spells and interaction of EDH but they don't mean anything if your opponents just let you do it. Pulling off something crazy means so much more when you've had to fight tooth and nail to get it
I have a work group, we have a theme for building (the Dragons Primeval and Chaos Primevals) on a $50 budget for the deck total, minus the Commander. It works, is fun, and cheap even if you buy your entire deck, instead of making from what you own.
On the note of self expression I literally built a "Golgari Royalty" deck just filled with flavorful Golgari cards. Literally every single Vraska planeswalker is in that deck. I just love Vraska.
About those premium decks: the foiling process literally hurt my eyes. I am serious. My friend got the sliver deck and I remember feeling physical pain in my optic nerves looking at the foiled tempest mountain. Sleeved they are safe to view. That being said you are right, the sleeved Purtid Imps from Graveborn don’t seem to have curled even though my foil Eldraine Fae of Wishes already has done so.
Professor, I plan on attending the DC MagicFest - hopefully i'll get a chance to meet you! I consider myself a Sliver Studies Major at the Tolarian Community College!
Prof “I love commander and how it’s flows and is casual and everyone’s happy Planeswalker fan: so you won’t mind if I can have my Jace Guildpact as my commander Prof: REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
Just here to remind you fine folks that EDH is not nearly as popular outside the US. In Japan it is way easier to fire up Legacy events than Commander ones. Preconstructed decks only sell when cards with potential for Legacy are included. Sol Ring is easily found for less than 100 yen and precon generals seldom sell for more than 500 yen. There is a variety of reasons for this, mostly that Japanese players only care about organized play (and consider "casual" a dirty word). There is also a cultural barrier in the sense that there is no custom to invite people over for a game night or for pretty much whatever, which hinders the growth of a casual player base (players that WotC frequently refers to as "silent majority"). Making EDH the future of Magic means alienating the 2nd largest market for MtG and I am afraid that their only way out in Japan is to somehow make EDH part of organized play and hold some amount of high level tournaments featuring the format.
Pleasant Kenobi: "Commander can't support draft ecosystem, and that hurts the stores"
WotC: "2020 we release Commander Legends, a Commander draft product"
Yeah, I really wish WotC would get their heads out of their own arses and stop pushing Draft as the primary focus for products.
@@MadMage86 It's their mediocre excuse to sell reprint packs for 3 times the price while paying the same out of pocket to produce them.
It's the intended way to play MtG and allows them to rationalize random packs for gambling laws
@@RrraverCrow This is why i believe everyone should make their own cubes and save their money. If you really want to play your cube with randoms, proxy the whole thing to disincentivise theft. Anyway, that's how I roll, packs are just too expensive :(
For me, I like the strategy of Draft and I like the player expression of commander. I am tottaly down for draft Commander, two great flavors (for me) that I have always wanted to go together.
Never seen a Dies to Removal episode before. I’m 97 seconds in... I’ll never miss one again!
Cheers!
Something that you didn't mention about the accessibility of Commander, but is a huge deal to players like me: Singleton Format.
I am a kitchen table casual who doesn't have a ton of money and is new to the game, and accessing a playset of key card(s) is sometimes out of my means. I have the pool of cards I have, and don't get new cards super often, so a Singleton format that lets me get the most use out of what I have is amazing for me.
This is the big one for me too. I have a Vampiric Tutor. It’s great in my Anje edh decks. There’s no way that I would want to buy 3 more of them for a Modern deck. That 1 copy can slide into any edh decks I own, and only needing that single copy for my entire collection is a big reason why I paid for it in the first place. I’ll never own 4 Teferi, HoD, but I’ll be glad to pick up 1. I have a Sword of Feast and Famine, but I’m not dropping $60 per card to have a play set. Budget matters to the vast majority of players, and singleton formats lets me own more decks than any other 4-card formats (aside from pauper).
@@Aldrnari956 That's awesome. I hope to get my hands on a Vampiric soon, if for nothing else than I love playing Black. Even with decks that are 60 cards, it does seem that the singleton factor helps the budget immensely.
This is exactly why I love this format. I have been playing since 1995 and have always been just kitchen table casual with my deck making. And over the years I’ve collected a ton of random card of different power levels, but maybe one or two of each. Not enough to play legacy or vintage, I could never been competitive in modern because of how specific the meta is and standard right now is as expensive as modern and it’s insane. But with EDH I can make decks of all different power levels and play my favorite jank and still have fun. Like my Atogatog deck where the goal is to sac my entire board state to atogatog and swing out.
@@Aldrnari956 this is why I sprung for the price of a Gaea's Cradle; I use a checklist system that allows me to use a single copy across all of my decks and it is so much easier to stomach high prices on older cards when you don't need so many copies.
Socialism or Barbarygmos but you don’t need 4 $60 cards to make a decent deck. Check out commanders quarters, you can make fun focused decks for pretty cheap. In modern and standard if you don’t drop $100 bucks on lands alone (or much much more) you can build whole decks for less than that.
Beginning of the episode: this was recorded before next year's commander products were revealed, so we didn't talk about them.
34 minutes into the episode: Vince predicts Commander Legends.
Pretty nifty, huh?
@@TolarianCommunityCollege And your hair is proof that you recorded this beforehand!
Insider trading through his sources at CFB. #tinfoilhat
The the professor predicted a card in it(baron sengir)
Looks like Prof cast the Flashback cost for Hair 😉
Kurtis Merrill honestly didn’t even notice till I found your comment deep in the bowels of this comment section hahahahaha
Only until end of turn,then exile hair.
Former full-time competitive pokemon player here that's converted to casual commander. The most appealing thing to commander to me is its actually a hobby, not a second job.
When you play at the highest competitive level, you have to make sure you are spending a certain amount of time each week. Testing different matchups and then you have tournaments every weekend.
Commander however...I can build whatever I want, show up to commander night, and just play them. I can do whatever I want and have a reasonable chance to win and I will for sure have fun. That to me is why commander is the future of magic. It's what it should be, a hobby.
"Have you seen Mishra's Workshop Recently or Tabernacle?"
Well, I did just watch the newest Commander's Quarters so... yeah! Nice timing, gents!
Commander's Milions please.
Commander's Quarter Millions.
"Throw them in the spike pit" looks over and see 4 people sitting around a table fast shuffling their hand asking if they paid 1 mana for the study.
There was a guy at CommandFest Chicago wearing a t-shirt with "Are you going to pay 1 for that?" about 7 or 8 times down the shirt.
Or 2 or 4
My new favorite is asking people if they're going to pay (2) for smothering tithe.
@@brandonguffey5959 My favorite is when two people have rhystic study AND smothering tithe. Using the tithe mana to pay for drawing the card to the other player's rhystic study.
"YOU HAVE A TH-cam CHANNEL?" straight to credits got me cackling.
Noooo I don’t pay the f@&$ing one! 😂😂😂 these skits kill me.
While Commander precons aren't the place for fetchland reprints, they really should make a habit out of putting shocklands in them to help keep the prices down in-between Ravnica sets.
There are so many good lands besides the shock lands, that havent seen any printings in commander products that i dont think we need more shocks in a while. Finishing the battlebond land cycle and reprinting some fast lands in low curve decks would be awesome.
@@vekeuimonen11 There's really no reason why they couldn't both reprint THE modern-era duals (shocklands) regularly and also dedicate slots to more obscure lands and to finishing up cycles.
Blood Crypt and Sunken Ruins could both go into a Grixis deck, alongside maybe a new blue-red multiplayer land.
@@JediMB if there were that much value in the lands it would cause other problems. Also shock lands will go down in price a little after standard. For the most played land across all formats they are very reasonably priced right now. Hopefully we get atleast 1 breeding pool reprint in some standard product before they rotate to bring it back to level with the other shocks.
@@vekeuimonen11 The only reason Sunken Ruins is fairly valuable is because it's from Lorwyn and hasn't had a non-Expedition reprint. If they start actually reprinting these things they're going to go down in value fast. This shouldn't be any more problematic than the shockland and temple prints in the Brawl decks.
And, like I said in the OP, part of the point of regularly reprinting these most-played lands is to stop the prices from creeping up again between next year's rotation and whenever Ravnica 4 is released. This is a long-term plan and not just about how much shocklands will be worth 12 months from now.
Well... I am a commander player and I love cracking packs. I draft with my friends, like... ''fun'' drafts, where one person buys the packs for everyone, and keeps all the cards at the end, but the spirit is very fun this way. No pressure to keep the cards for money or so... And this way I gain useful or even less useful cards, new commanders with a special context I obtained them and so... I love attending to prereleases, and open boxes... And I don't think I'm the only one! Even as commander players I think we can enjoy the feeling of cracking packs, and enjoying a fun draft which is a pretty close format to commander, when played casually. So I won't by any way make my lgs die, buying and singles, and precos, and even new products...
Same. Drafting is my second favorite format and cracking packs is just fun all around
Hey professor, just wanted to say that your channel got me into magic recently and commander is definitely the best mode. Epic games and a roaring good time with friends!
If I had friends.. :'(
Cheers friend!
Your nearest LGS should have commander events every now and again, that'd be a great place to start.
Just play MTG Arena, no friends needed and you dont have to waste money on paper cards. Paper is dead.
Both LGS's and colleges/universities usually have their own playgroups, and if they're running them as drop-in groups, they usually have facebook groups. Worth looking into. And even if there's no dedicated commander, or even Magic group for your local LGS, it's worth checking the store's facebook group and ask if they have a consistent commander group playing there.
If you don't live close to an LGS, or a college, or a university, you may want to resort to playing online. There are plenty of reddit/discord groups playing over the internet, either via MTGO, via Cockatrice/Xmage (free clients), or in paper via voicechat and webcam. There's always a solution :)
Welcome aboard! Check in with any local card shops in your area to see what kind of Commander schedule they support. If there are no card stores in your area MTGO is always an option. Sure it may be online, but digital cards are on average cheaper than paper, MTGO supports the Commander format, and there's always people online to play against.
The hard cut after "YOU have a TH-cam channel!?" was the perfect ending, and the opening skit was the perfect beginning. Not really a commander player, but enjoyed the discussion. Thanks to both of you and the rest of the team for your time and effort.
The problem with ALL surveys is that the questions limit the answers so it's already targeted and constricted
While that certainly can be true, any survey that isn't a badly veiled manipulation tool usually is proceeded by extensive research, to make sure to ask questions that people want to answer, or is designed in straight-forward way, along the lines of "These are the ideas we have, that we have checked for viability on our end, and now we just need to check the viability with out customer base".
I live that “love commander but can’t get games” life. You two make a great team, thanks for the great conversation, as always.
Joshua Jones if you have a webcam there is a discord server where you can find commander games at every power level 24/7 and play paper magic online with people. Some of the games are a bit formal but I’ve met some cool people.
C R whaaaaatttt. That sounds like a thing.
Joshua Jones it’s how I play magic when I can’t get anyone together. And the community is genuinely great. Obviously not all of it is great, but it is super fun
What’s the discord group name? Probably just find it on reddit
@@2236UmbrellaCorp I may be wrong, but I believe it's "PlayEDH".
All I could think of is Gavin yelling “ITS BARON SENGIR” hahahaha
Given this was before the announcement, it was a good call on Prof's part.
@@lorvincent Im pretty sure Prof has wanted a new Sengir for a while, im not sure he was intending to "make a call", but if we was it sure was some omniscient shiz
Where can I watch this?
This aged very well
Don't crack packs buy singles. That's my motto too! Lol
"Don't pack crack" is mine.
You two would be in the same deck together with the partner rule.
Every time one of the partners use an ability, flip a coin: If it's heads, it puts a +1/+1 counter on the other. If it's tails, it put a -1/-1 counter on the other? :P
@@cutecommie cant forget the bees
"Do you pay the one?"🤣🤣🤣
I’d love to see a vote to determine 4 content creators to make the precons one year. Give them the new commander and 15-19 new cards, probably have a cannot use card list, but let the players pick and creators create.
a good idea
Don't think that's a good idea unless you know content creators that are game designers/developers. Otherwise you don't want e.g. surgeons building a house for you
They did something similar with the brawl precons I believe. It was actual players though instead of content creators though but I mean most content creators of mtg are players so
Nick Kowalski you’re correct in a sense, I used the wrong word... I meant curate the deck list. Not actual develop any new cards.
Zachary Lyons the play test team and designers are magic players for sure but the idea is more about us being a part of it and the content creators we watch everyday being a part of it, just one time.
I like that the hypotheticals near the end basically predicted Collector Booster Sample Packs
"Put cards people want in the booster pack." 🤯
WotC has finally acknowledged that Commander/EDH is the most popular format, period. Certainly a more fun/interesting format than Elk Standard.
I went to CommandFest Chicago. It was so much fun, and I want it to continue being a thing.
Edit 2: The amount of Vorthos (as from the expressiveness PK talked about) in my decks is...legendary. My Gishath deck has all basics as foils from Ixalan block. Edgar Markov has all basics as foils from original Innistrad and Shadows over Innistrad. Atraxa infect has all (9) basics being foils from Scars block. I have the Edgar, Atraxa, and Arahbo deck boxes and sleeves. I have an Atraxa and a Gishath playmat. Because if I can't win the game, I will win for being on theme. Also, my decks are mostly bling'd out as well, with 3/4 being over 90% foil (Edgar being 99%--Path of Ancestry is the only non, but it is signed by Alayna).
What do you mean "finally"? They've been pushing more and more marketing and development of Commander products than they have for eternal formats. Hell, even every standard set that they released now feels like a mini Commander set with how much they're trying to push legendary creatures and "multiplayer matters" cards. Also, hasn't WotC released a Commander product every year since like 2013 lol, so using the word "finally" doesn't really to me
@@buddieschiknful There's a difference between putting out a product and admitting a truth. With Commandfest and 2020 essentially being Year of Commander, Elks of the Coast has, albeit begrudgingly, admitted that their beloved cash elk of Elk Standard is not what will make them all that Elk money--especially when everything is now an elk.
@@BAAWAKnight And I totally get that, I've always hated the cash grab model that standard has been based off of. As an eternal player, however, it sucks to see WotC cater so hard to the community that I'm already having to compete against for eternal staples while they turn a blind eye to those formats.
The "spike pit" part genuinely made me laugh
Re: Commander w/ "Randomizer" Booster - I tend to agree that this would be a big mistake if this was the only place you could get those cards.
That said, consider the following scenario:
1) Assume WOTC has gone back to the tradition of printing 5 "normal" commanders in the 3rd quarter, aimed at "selling out" for Christmas. And they're good.
2) As an additional, alternative product, associated with one of their Standard sets, they release, say, 2 commander products. In these products you'll get two Partner Commanders - one FACE commander, and one hidden commander.
a) The FACE commander is a single color, original to the commander set, with the "Commander" set symbol.
b) The HIDDEN commander is a (R) from the current standard set, available in standard boosters.
c) The HIDDEN commander comes with 30 cards - all the same for that hidden commander - from the standard set - 10 basic lands, 10 (C) or (U) from the standard set, and then 9 (R) or (M) from the standard set that fit with that hidden commander's theme, one of which would be the "2 color combination" alternate commander for the set; meaning there'd be 6 (R) or (M) commanders legal in standard.
There would be 2 FACE commanders/decks, but 3 HIDDEN commanders/"included in the standard set/standard legal" commanders; meaning that you could end up with one of 3 pairs for each FACE commander.
3) The "base" 70 cards has enough mana fixing to help you play your "minor" color.
4) Also, assume the relevant standard set is deeper than normal; this is to say that the 18 or so standard-legal color-specific cards would be tight enough to supplement that deck.
Final Note: I realize this is incredibly narrow design space that could go wrong. But I think it'd be kind of funny to play commander where I'm playing FACE B Graveyard commander and R Sneak Attack commander, against others who are playing FACE B Graveyard commander and U Mill commander, or Face B Graveyard commander and G Giant Fatties (that are great to reanimate) commander.
Mind you, this would probably be better explored during a really tight Commander Draft set - more like Modern Masters than Dominaria, that is. And none of this "20 card pack" nonsense.
That ending was just perfect
Yeah the time twister one still gets me.
When did the professor start speaking in 3rd person? LOL
The Professor likes his chicken spicy!
@@TolarianCommunityCollege Me too 😁
The back and forth at the beginning is gold.
Can you guys make an episode on commander cubes?
I've built my first one, played it three times now and had a blast, my friends were suprised on how well it played.
I had listened to CMDR-central and EDHreccast talking about the charity draft during many of their podcasts and commanders brew ep 199.1. I picked up a lot of tips during that episode. Like:
draft a commanderbooster and then draft 6 boosters.
5 commanders pr commanderbooster and 15 cards pr regular booster.
5 colour commanders are "Mythic rares" because they enable you to pick cards from the whole pool.
Decks are 80-100 cards. Usually 80 :)
Nice thing is:
You get to brew and play in the same session.
You get to use all your half-finished projects and other cards from your binders.
You determine power level.
You can exclude cards like cyclonic rift.
You can include fair non-broken unstable cards.
I personally run a pool of 60 commanders. And eatch player gets a booster of five at the start of the draft. For three games we had Jodah and 5-colour Niv-mizzet show up twice. And all the others beeing different 2-3 colour commanders :)
Why do people dislike this? Like he puts so much work into a video and people just say screw off for no reason.
What if the precon list for a deck remained constant, but then you got 15 random foils for the deck? And the chase would be a high end reprint in foil, like a fetch, or a shock, or an alt art commander? 5 buck markup? I think that could be awesome
I have been a MTG player since my junior year of high school some 6-7 years ago. I graduated and had no one to play with for 5 years. I finally got a bunch of cards and made about 4 commander decks and invited my friends to play. After 1 year of trying I have finally got them hooked and now regularly play games every week. Took me a bit but my friends have finally appreciated the beauty of commander.
What I love as an EDH player is seeing all the crazy stuff people can do and get away. In my playgroup, we all range through a wide area. We all have a deck or two that could be competitive, and we have played small tourneys with them. But we also love our jank. We all have one deck where we allowed one banned card. Of course someone has emrakul, one has lotus, but my favorite is my best friends coalition victory deck. He doesnt go go for big crazy stuff that often. He plays a lot of jank decks, looking to make them work, like a colorless control deck under Hope of Ghirapur. He's one of the best magic players I know, could probably go to the big time tournaments, but he just plays stupid stuff because that is what he loves. EDH really does let people express themselves in fun ways. Commander is the reason I still play regularly.
Even TH-cam's subtitle/captions can't understand what Vince is saying :) Still, kudos to you two.
Since becoming a stay at home dad your videos have definitely helped keep my adult brain sane! Great video as always, prof.
How does the community feel about pioneer brawl? I find that it could be one of the most interesting singleton formats
Thank you for the info on the premium deck series of slivers. I have now subscribed and will never miss another episode. Thank you once again.
Not sure about the no shoes thing without a lit fireplace! Awesome episode!
The intro and credits music is so freaking addictive...
Last Weekend was the Commandfest in Chicago, and while I was there the only complaints I heard around were the fact that there were a lot of people who were competitive dipping into the semi-competitive slots in order to get more tickets. I cannot speak for other Commandfests as this could just be unique to those who attended Chicago, but this was a major issue. While I had a fun time that weekend besides one game, a fellow player at my gamestore had a terrible time attending due to these kinds of decks circulating the semi-competitive tables.
Otherwise, it was just commander and commander varients that were located at the event, at least in Chicago, but it would be worth a try, especially if someone has a commander cube.
21:17 - He's only EDH Quarters on Twitter due to character limit. Actual channel is Commander's Quarters. His older videos are in the $25 range, but he swapped to a $50 model a while back to account for more "commander and shipping included" prices.
lmao that argument at the start of the video is great content.
I don't think Commander is killing Magic, but I do think WotC focusing so hard on Commander is bad for both Magic as a whole and for the Commander format. They found out it's the most popular and have gone so hard in on it that it affects everything. Another podcast I listen to, The Mana Pool (one of the longest running MtG podcasts there is), just this week had an episode on how almost all of the recent legendary creatures are either hyper focused and if you want to make a commander deck with them you have pretty much one real path (like Kadena you run morph, that's it, just all the morphs), or they're so broadly powerful you can just run every good card in those colors and be strong. Gone are the commanders that gave you an idea but didn't force it.
They do a thing they call Story Circles where they pick a commander and each host takes a turn picking a card to add to the deck, which then gives everyone else ideas and they all kinda brain storm the start of a deck. Now that they stream on Twitch, they even let the chat add in a few cards as well! But they hadn't done one in over a year because they didn't feel like it could be real self expression or interesting to build around most of the new legends. They ended up doing one with Kykar because it was the most open with some different ways to build, and it was a lot of fun. But that's become the exception, not the rule for legends now.
While I'm opposed to planewalkers being commanders, I think they would currently be better than most of the modern legends for this kind of self expression in the format. Although with the advent of brawl now actually somewhat taking off, I'm afraid of even them becoming so focused as to not be great for mulitple deck builds but instead becoming homogenized as well.
Sorry for the novel but I do think it's important. Great episode guys.
Interesting thought about the Commander Precon with boosterpacks in them...
Sell the Precon decks as they are now, and then sell precon dedicated booster packs - Create a pool of about 75~ or so cards that ALL cards of that pool would work in the chosen precon deck, and sell booster packs of those cards.
I love the precons, it allows me and my casual friends to stay on a same page without much effort. If we could all spend a little bit of $$ to buy 15/30/45 cards that would all be guaranteed in the color scheme of our chosen deck, and give us the freedom and creative flexibility to modify the deck to our liking, I'd buy those boosters in a heartbeat.
Since the decks typically have 3 or so cards that can be used at the commander, the cardpool of the packs could be a bit wider, allowing the user to change the theme of their decks slightly, tailored to the commander (1 of the 3 precon commanders) of their choosing.
Watching in 2022, the year of commander and this is wild. So many correct judgments and yes, commander is absolutely the cash cow for WotC now.
This is my favorite of all the Tolarian series. Please make a lot more Prof.
Ahsoka was a commander. Obi-Wan was a general.
She was a commander at like age 14 too.
Hello there
I feel the need to grab this low hanging fruit while it's still ripe. I am but a simple clout farmer.
Turn to 3/3 Elk, Episode 20
@45:50 - What if the commander pre-con "booster idea" the random part of the pre-con was for sale as a special booster along side so that you can get many boosters that align with your pre-con deck theme so you can buy a few and build your best deck from a pre built deck and between the one pack given, or over time upgrade with four or five additional of the "focused booster" that was in the deck. Seems like an accessible pattern for upgrading decks. Maybe also used as boosters to upgrade brawl decks into commander decks... Eventually why not cycle between different "guild boosters" that are focused towards commander viable cards.
At the end of the day I enjoy commander it's what kept me playing magic to this day and I feel it offers me the freedom to build decks that Express what I like about the commander I am playing at the time (chainer for life). And I feel commander is more open to all kinds of players.
OG Chainer ftw
I love Dies To Removal! Keep up the great work lads :)
Im new to Magic I've been playing just a few months at most and I bought a commander 2019 deck just to try commander and has been so much fun, everyone in my locals prefer playing commander the most so now I can play with them and is really my favorite format so far
God I loved the energy in that opening, beautiful!
really love the podcast, going in detail about many things going on
Thank you!
I believe the precostructed decks with a random part could be done in an interesting way.
New cards and manabase are fixed, but you get X random slots with support cards (reprints) that let push your deck strategy in a certain direction or another.
Love the spike pit thing at 16:00 .
So watching this video AFTER all of the commander spoilers we got, I am really curious as to your response to the commander draft idea I am currently at 46:14 and the professors response is great. I am all for it, but I also understand that it is random, but I like the idea of drafting a commander deck
21:12
*The Commander's Quarters: th-cam.com/channels/-w5MNByr4SNy3z2232sj0g.html
First time watching the podcast after being a long time watcher of your videos. I loved this
YOU HAVE A TH-cam CHANNLE? -cuts to amazing music
I think the fact that they announced a commander draft set with Commander Legends (i know the episode was filmed before the announcement) is showing that WotC is planning to take some cash from commander players on events.
I love your work. Thank you for the honest and informed content. Keep up the good work.
P.S. The hair looks great!
CommandFest Seattle was everything that I though & hoped it would be - plus a lot more! Great venue paired with professional staffing.
Loved it
I had a lot of fun at the command Fest! When they ask for feedback then one thing I told him was we want to Main Event! Especially us more competitive players. I don't know why they haven't done another one since the one in Vegas was very successful.
What we really need is a Time Shifted style border Sol Ring promo, with the ability to be foil or non-foil. That old art has yet to be topped but it does not look like it belongs with the new border at all, so promo where they did that always looks out of place to me. But a cleaned up old border with HD cleaned up version of the old art?
Fucking *chef hand kiss*
43:55
I'm a bit on the fence about randomising parts of commander precons. I think randomised art or randomised foiling would be cool, but I think that trying to randomise game pieces while retaining balance and not having moments like the fetchland/guildgate scenario you mentioned would be quite difficult.
HOWEVER
Getting a pack or two inside the box of your 100 card preset commander deck that contains random cards (possibly all foil, or 1 foil) from that series of commander decks would be a good addition. As long as they can do it without upping the price or without upping it by more than a few dollars, then it's a neat bonus. You already get a full, mostly functional (put more removal and interaction in the precons reeeee) deck with either cool new spice to try, bling replacements, folder fodder/pieces for new decks or trades/money towards upgrades.
Just my 2 cents, what do you guys think?
Oh, you go on to bring up that idea. Serves me right for not finishing the video before commenting
A part 2 of this topic with the recent announcement of the increase in commander products would be really interesting.
This is a very informative podcast and I agree with both sides of the discussion, commander needs the other formats to survive and to help make cards accessible for commander players. There is a really good magic store in my area where you can get packs, singles and all of the accessories to play, you can trade in cards for in store credit and of course they have the FNM events and nights set up for other formats like pauper, commander,, brawl and pioneer. The magic community is an intertwined beast that depend upon each format and playing style to feed each other and the survival of paper is in the hands of the players and local card shops that support each other.
Best intro ever. I like Kenobi more and more lately
I'm actually a bit surprised they haven't made a commander-specific fetch land yet. Like... enters untapped, tap and sac to search for a basic and put into play untapped, if you control your commander you can search for any land with a basic land type.
Print it in every main-line Commander product like Sol Ring. Sure you could still only have one in your deck, but it fills a niche.
But then the people who can actually afford fetches can have Both and have an even better land base. It’s a difficult thing to balance.
@@sonofchlar6144 It's not. Having one more fetch in your mana base won't make a measurable difference, especially in a multiplayer game. Unless you have a specific land-based deck strategy (Tatyova, Gitrog, Windgrace, Golos, etc) or you have a specific need to be able to shuffle your deck frequently, you don't even really need the fetches for your deck to run smoothly if your deck is 3 or less colors.
Deck-thinning is only a marginal advantage in 60-card formats, and it matters even less in commander.
John Kendall that or having it cost 2 or 3 life instead of 1. That way standard/modern/pioneer players wouldn’t run it and hopefully the price would be lower
@@GM-rs2fv It's a commander product. It's literally not legal in any of those formats. And it could only fetch a basic in Legacy/Vintage which isn't that useful in those formats.
John Kendall well by your argument, why even print them if it’s not really making a difference. And the fact of the matter is, people will abuse it.
At first glance I thought professor had that super fast growing hair!
Our lgs is exclusively edh. Dude there's about a group of five or so ppl that will consistently crack 20$+ packs, masters, onslaught, mirrodin etc. As well as singles. I'v it's all in how you market your store and how engaged the player base is. I love "dies to removal" best mtg show! Cheers.
Hearing you talk about a successful LGS makes me smile. I love my local stores and support however I can.
where is it? :o
@@xChikyx Altoona PA
@@Survivalist-of-war ooohhhh
Prof's hair was digitally reinserted for this video.
I’d like to see some Commander boosters that could get you for example a nonfoil Atraxa or some other high value commanders/staples in booster or sets, but not like how they overcharged the ultimate masters, like charge the base price for the lowest priced cards you could get in a pack.
Urza's Legacy was the set the introduced foils in packs.
I am a Commander player only. I crack packs just because I enjoy the gamble and the hope to get something cool foiled or at a price of a pack get something that I would never buy singly. I love to buy and crack booster boxes to see what I get. Any foils I have are from booster packs/boxes, I never purchase foil singles or buy single cards that cost more than $15, so if I have something of that price or higher, its usually from cracking packs or a box. I agree it's not worth the money I spend, but sometimes it pays off and I love doing it.
Unfortunately I was capped out of being able to attend command fest seattle I heard from a friend who attended that the event it was very disorganized and was not happy for what he shelled for admission
For the topic of reprints in commander products, I feel like this year got the price level right, just not the cards. Put in all the stables that every deck wants that are around 2-5 dollars. I'm talking cultivate, reliquary tower, signets, etc. It keeps the price of the product from spiking due to one or two high value reprints, but still keeps the reprints relevant, and the stables easy to acces for new players.
Loved that you gave a shout out to Mitch at Commander Quarters
I’ve had him on an episode too. Watch my Zur video for maximum Mitch.
Oh I already have lol he is the man
What Professor said about the 22 years old student having almost all the deck but no fecth lands is exactly me, 19 years old brazillian student wanting Misty Rainforest or/and Scalding Tarn to transform my UW control into Jeskai or Bant.
Hey Prof! What do you think about uncommon legendary creatures being able to partner with each other? Like Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker and Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive or Arvad, the Cursed and Syr Faren, the Hengehammer. I feel like we'd see cards that otherwise have difficult finding a purpose suddenly working well together. It could be a rules update called,"Commander: Lesser Heroes."
3:28
Professor: I'm playing you!
"General" Kenobi: Like a damned fidle..
Hilarious interaction there xD
For me, Commander is a strictly social format. The reason why I play it is to have a chill time with some friends and have fun with self-expressive decks. If I want to be competetive, I dont try it with something that depends on drawing the right card in the right moment, e.g. MTG, but something like my job or martial arts or other sports or even smash bros. And even if you want to go for competetive magic, why would you choose the format with he literal highest variance (aside from canadian highlander) in the game, e.g. the least skill dependent format. I'm not talking about cEDH players playing for themselves and not bothering normal players, I'm talking about rich dimwits slowly power creeping a meta up with always slightly stronger cards, and people who play degenerate combo/control decks to make a meta "healthier", thus either having us spend more money to keep up, or push casual decks/players and jankier builds out to not be able to play anymore. Thats why I love my chill meta, almost exclusively budget decks or self-expressive decks, nobody plays degenerate decks except for hating out people knowingly pulling out decks too strong for that meta, and we just have a good time playing cards we own. In commander, I look for chilling out after my study and sport regement, its more productive and way more skill-dependent to be competetive elsewhere, even of its modern or legacy.
I wish I had your playgroup
I went away from Modern and Standard to only playing Commander. That's the format I enjoy the most.
That's a lot of new Baron Sengir predictions for a video made before the new Baron Sengir was announced. Clairvoyant Professor confirmed!
And now he's bald. Only a matter of time before the wheelchair, and then he starts a school for other merfolk-players with powers...
I buy a box as a new set comes out and see what fits or may be an upgrade for my commander decks.
Agreed on that competitive feeling, Prof. I love the huge, splashy, janky spells and interaction of EDH but they don't mean anything if your opponents just let you do it. Pulling off something crazy means so much more when you've had to fight tooth and nail to get it
I’m 4 minutes into this episode and it’s already my favourite
"You have instagram account?!"
"You have a youtube channel?!"
A+ content. Really enjoyed listening and watching this. Thank you!
I have a work group, we have a theme for building (the Dragons Primeval and Chaos Primevals) on a $50 budget for the deck total, minus the Commander. It works, is fun, and cheap even if you buy your entire deck, instead of making from what you own.
There should be a recap of all the intros in one video
This series is rapidly becoming my favorite MTG content :)
On the note of self expression I literally built a "Golgari Royalty" deck just filled with flavorful Golgari cards. Literally every single Vraska planeswalker is in that deck. I just love Vraska.
About those premium decks: the foiling process literally hurt my eyes. I am serious. My friend got the sliver deck and I remember feeling physical pain in my optic nerves looking at the foiled tempest mountain. Sleeved they are safe to view.
That being said you are right, the sleeved Purtid Imps from Graveborn don’t seem to have curled even though my foil Eldraine Fae of Wishes already has done so.
Professor, I plan on attending the DC MagicFest - hopefully i'll get a chance to meet you! I consider myself a Sliver Studies Major at the Tolarian Community College!
Prof “I love commander and how it’s flows and is casual and everyone’s happy
Planeswalker fan: so you won’t mind if I can have my Jace Guildpact as my commander
Prof: REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
I'm all for a casual game of basketball, but you can't use your soccer ball to play.
Just here to remind you fine folks that EDH is not nearly as popular outside the US. In Japan it is way easier to fire up Legacy events than Commander ones. Preconstructed decks only sell when cards with potential for Legacy are included. Sol Ring is easily found for less than 100 yen and precon generals seldom sell for more than 500 yen. There is a variety of reasons for this, mostly that Japanese players only care about organized play (and consider "casual" a dirty word). There is also a cultural barrier in the sense that there is no custom to invite people over for a game night or for pretty much whatever, which hinders the growth of a casual player base (players that WotC frequently refers to as "silent majority"). Making EDH the future of Magic means alienating the 2nd largest market for MtG and I am afraid that their only way out in Japan is to somehow make EDH part of organized play and hold some amount of high level tournaments featuring the format.