i dont think so. If you say 2... you know what people mean. You can look at the list and just know certain cards that are legal vs not. if you dont wanna play against 3 cards. BEFORE YOU GO TO LOCALS... just change your deck.
Well, yes in theory. But in practice what even is a 2 if it can have Ancient Tomb in it? I think we're going to see more "My deck is philosophically a 2" at which point we're back to "A 7 in my playgroup is different from a 7 in your playgroup"
With decks being shuffled randomly, I guess that all the other level 2 decks are okay until a level 2 card is cast way sooner than expected thanks to the boost from Ancient Tomb for example. I’m fine with a classic Colossal Dreadmaw attacking me on turn 5 or 4 after an opponent ramped, but on turn 3 or 2 somehow I’ll feel quite differently about it if everyone agreed to a casual game beforehand and it turns out that things escalated quickly thanks to a randomly strong card thrown in the mix. Does that make sense?
@@RedBobcatGames the difference is now you have to announce the outliers and the table has to opt in. Instead of everyone saying mid power and someone getting salty because a card they consider high power hits the table. Now there is a base line for where cards will be. Agree or disagree with placement, there is now a standard placement. It will likely lead to less salty moments from unclear expectations from rule zero chats.
5:19 The way WoTC wants to do this system eerily reminds me of how Pokémon showdown/Smogon singles does it’s tiers. Extremely lengthy explanation, so beware. The TL;DR is the meta games are made up of different tiers, and are separate from one another, the highest tier allowing most Pokémon, and lower tiers banning Pokémon that are used in higher tiers. You have Ubers, Over Used, Under Used, Rarely Used, Never Used, Perfectly Useless, and zero use (Acronymed as OU, UU, RU, etc.). There are also other formats like Anything Goes and Little Cup, but it’s not too relevant to the discussion. As an example, currently Dragonite is tiered OU, while Tyranitar is considered UU. This means a team with Dragonite can only be played in OU or Ubers, while a team with Tyranitar can be played in UU, OU, and Ubers (as long as there’s no other OU or Uber Pokémon on your team). This is kinda how WoTC wants to do commander, however there are some major differences between these systems that shows why smogons system (mostly) works and why the bracket system will not. 1: The way showdown does its tiers is an active process based on usage. The theory is that the best players with use the best Pokémon, therefore if a Pokémon gets high usage, it should be in a higher tier. This is encapsulated with their monthly tier shifts, where depending on usage stats, Pokémon will move up and down tiers. Magic can’t reasonably do this, the card pool is too deep, and the data is too shallow. 2: Pokémon teams only have 6 maximum slots, not 100. This means an OU Pokémon is 17% of your total “deck” strength, instead of 1% like in magic, leading it to be overall more impactful in the wider meta. A single vampiric tutor in a precon won’t do as much damage as a Dragonite in a UU team. 3: Pokémon showdown is FREE TO PLAY, so there is no financial incentives for any party to actually engage with the game. A banned Pokémon does not have real life financial consequences, a banned magic card does. You’re not required to pay $100 for your Dragonite, unlike for dockside. 4: There are 7 different brackets in Pokémon, not 4, and they’ve been added overtime as the game has gotten more complex. Considering there’s only around 1,000 Pokémon compared to magics nearly 30,000 cards. 4 Brackets simply doesn’t feel like enough to encapsulate the entire complexity of magics card pool. 5: The tier system isn’t perfect with Pokémon either. There have been times where Pokémon who don’t belong in high tiers get bumped up because people use them and just become unusable. Likewise in the reverse, there are Pokémon who have to put into what’s called “Borderline” which means they don’t have enough usage to be in the upper tier, but are too strong for the lower tier, so they kinda just hang in limbo, and don’t have a home. (Often this creates a new tier) There is significantly more to this comparison and they are definitely not one-for-one, but it’s already long enough. The end conclusion is the bracket system is similar to tiers, but but lacks the infrastructure and structure of the game to function the way WoTC wants it to.
Another reason is that MTG is a synergy and combo based game, a good deck with junk cards could beat a bad deck with unrelated good cards and no overall strategy. I'm not sure what Pokemon is like because I've never played it, but it sounds like a game where individual card power matters way more.
@@ChaffyExpert it’s important to distinguish I’m talking about the actual Pokémon games, not the card game. But yes your statement still generally applies. “Card” power is way more of a focus in singles because you have less slots, so each Pokémon needs to carry a ton of weight relative to MTG.
I really like that comparison, and to add to it a lot of Smogon bans take place after a suspect test, rather than just being the decision of the relevant council so people who play both with and against something problematic have at least some say in whether it stays or goes.
If you haven't been hearing much about Duskmourn, I might as well say something about it: drafting it on MTGA was, and is currently, an excellent experience, even after 10+ drafts, and, while this is a matter of personal preference, I ended up largely enjoying the aesthetics of the set, save for a few select eyesores. Manifest Dread turned out out be an excellent mechanic with tons of emergent depth, and I have largely enjoyed the impact some DM cards had on the decks in my EDH playgroup. P.S.: I am a huge dog person, but crabdate > pupdate
I agree, about the Crabdate. I was just thinking of people that didn't see the last video but may watch this one. I didn't want to explain it again, and I think my dropping the word "Crabdate" without explanation at the beginning of a half hour video may have put people off haha. "Pupdate" is just a letter away from "Update" so i think new people could get it easier
Duskmourn sealed was a blast. I hadn't done a sealed since TBD, and I loved the variety of viable strategies besides just "run more creatures". I had a nice UR rooms deck that was pretty solid.
As someone who's working in game development, or game design specifically, the brackets presentation feels like the kind of thing you'd talk about during a meeting or talking a colleague to show you're working on it and are trying different things to see what sticks. "I've had this simple idea but it has problems" is a good starting point for poking others for ideas and establishes what's been explored already, which is exactly what you want to talk about when discussing with your other designers, but not as great as presentation for the public where they're likely to stick to all your words as something of a committment to an idea. I'm not surprised when they only have two days to throw something together they're defaulting to this. EDIT: I guess I probably should have waited until watching more to comment. Anyway I think it's a bit more evident that this is really more of a "putting what I have out there for discussion" than a proper presentation for the wider audience. I have had similar talks behind the scenes, even the best designer can sound a little lost while in the middle of the design process, it's just that what you usually end up seeing is the final product, or if you're with behind the scenes a show of progression between the different ideas. I think it really shows the thing has been thrown together VERY quickly to tell people: "Hey we're doing something with this!"
Absolutely. Every game design discussion I've ever had starts with something like "so here's an idea, here's a few of the limitations I've noticed, here's how I think we might want to design around them".
Oh yeah, I agree. This very much seems like a first draft, which I understand why they've shown us it, but also it doesn't change the fact that it seems like only a vauge idea at best
Blake, Gavin and Aaron said in the beginning of the video that they had no idea how the commander format should be managed which shouldn't be surprising. They have little data to go on (no, EDHREC is not dependable because they go off of decklists posted and not necessarily played unlike tournament lists) and it is about vibes. Remember, this stream was made days after WotC was given control over a format they had no wish to take over but were absolutely fine designing and selling cards for while letting another group manage it. It's not surprising that their (early) ideas are not well thought out. These are raw ideas that are coming from an unenviable position days after a debatably bad banning.
Oh yeah, like I say I honestly don't know what else they could have done. Putting out that stream was probably the best choice, but they're also a megacorporation putting out a public statement, and so what they say should be analysed. Two things watching this that I found were enlightening (but didn't mention in the video), 1. at the start they made a point about how Gavin was there because the community liked him, which I think proves they knew they needed a friendly face to sell the message. And 2, it really highlighted that for all these years they've been printing cards directly into a format they don't understand. Kind of explains why so many cards are in the conversation over needing to be banned
But if all you have is raw ideas, than don't but out a "concrete" statement, have the guys around a table video/podcast and let them "free flow" (obv with corporate oversight, don't want them to hurt future profit margens with what they say); but X amount of people in front of a camera, let them prate around for 45min and upload that, it creates space to syphon ideas of the community and let your future process be influenced, while not pigeonholing yourself and after taking some time to formulate ideas and trying to pick them apart, present them to the public with some conflidence, instead of the semi-stance they are taking rn, people are already insecure in them taking over and them babbling AND presenting less than half-baked ideas, is not helping that, for me it makes it so so much worse; honestly said, I would have preferred the RC communicating that because of the abuse received they are considering handing over the format to WotC, I believe it would have floored a whole bunch of people right quick, no we are in the malarkey
@@RedBobcatGames Having Gavin on the stream is not just having a friendly face for reassurances from the public, he also has had a hand in designing commander product over the years. Commander 2017 and a watered down version of his personal deck that was sold as a Secret Lair come to mind. He has even discussed commander design over the years with Melissa DeTora who I believe is the head of commander design today over on his TH-cam channel. Having someone in the creative process of these products is only natural.
Also to add onto it is that they don't have data because the former organization 'managing' the format specifically didn't gather data on it and was going off of vibes too.
Yeah, I'm totally gonna still use Scryfall to search stuff. The +2 Mace thing should be hilarious if only I could actually find the damned card on the Gatherer lol.
They are wilding if they think the bracket system as they presented can replace the power level scale. My playgroup don't really have fetch lands or shock lands on their decks because, as they are great, staple cards, they are just too expensive for the value they add. However in turn this limitation makes so the mana base of our decks is just generally weaker then the ones that include it. But according to the bracket system, even the strongest dual colored lands are still bracket 1, so there's no difference between decks with every fetch and shockland and decks that run the life-gain taplands or the nap lands This system sounds more like a way for them to bring back mana crypt and jeweled lotus in a way that doesn't piss off the people who value competitive integrity over market gains
exactly, they didn't acknowledge at all that a mana base is a big contributor to how strong a deck is. its even wilder that they didn't acknowledge that as a contributor to deck power because they already know that, Its what separates Standard and Modern (there are lands they will just never put in standard because they make mana bases too good) and the reason the Fetch Lands were auto banned in Pioneer.
I think the Bracket system is meant to be an easier way to describe your deck. With fhe power level system, its so vaigue and undefined that most peopke jsit say "my deck is power level 7 but..." Etc etc. Saying "my deck has one bracket 3 card and about 10 bracket 2 cards is a lot easier to get a general sense of power level.
Yeah. I don't think you have to say is "my deck is a 3." I think we'll say " My commaner is X, and I have Y bracket 2 cards and Z bracket 3 cards. Everyone good?"
I'd agree, but as they pointed out they're likely not going to be bracketing cards and instead just leaving it up to guidance and philosophy. Which then opens up the conversation of "Hey, I thought you said this was a 2 but you're running X & Y and they always felt like 3s to me"
@@RedBobcatGames What they said about guidance and philosophy to me sound like they're going to bracket like 2,000 of the most played cards, but if you play Titania's Song as a board wipe for artifact tokens it won't be on the list. Likely because the man-hours to categorize every card would be too expensive, or "wasteful".
I have issues with ‘my deck is a 7’ stuff because when I’m playing Goldfish my decks can go crazy, but every plan fails when it encounters the enemy. I even put together a Tergrid God of Fright deck… on paper it should be devastating but in practice it’s my weakest deck because Tergrid gets countered and killed immediately
In Old School, they have a variant called: "X points". Most relevant cards are worth some points, your deck can't have more than 10 points and things are arranged so that, for instance, you can't run all the power 9. It's a system used in other domains as well (for instance, fighting games) but I don't see how it could work with all the cards available in EDH.
I might be getting it wrong, but I feel like all they're trying to do with the bracket system is make rule zero conversations easier, and at worse will be something most if not all players will ignore, or just a tool similar to the power level system. The only things I'm really scared of by WotC taking over Commander is releasing pruducts that will be harmful to the playerbase because they found a new way to profit of off the knowledge they'll gain from being in control of the format, and/or changing the banlist in such a way that people will have to ignore it and make rule zero conversation infinitely harder.
This is how i see it. brackets just give a more on rails way to talk about rule 0. people who didnt rule 0, still wont. people who did will then fall into the camps of people who do keep up on bracket cards and people who dont. and the previous group will just say "Im a bracket x with so and so being inclusions from higher brackets" over some kind of rigid power structure. while the former will just keep to a more traditional rule 0 talk. The monetizong company being in control of the popular format sounds as thrilling as limiting SL prints because the sense of scarcity looks better on paper to shareholders.
Oh yeah, I'd be amazed if we don't see some decisions from WotC that are good for them and no one else. My corncern over the bracket system is that by the sounds of it they won't go far enough in categorizing the cards, leaving things open to discussion which (and maybe I'm wrong) will be more of a tool for arguments than anything else. "Hey you said this deck was a 1, and I know they're not listed but I feel like X & Y together really make a 3" for instance
@@RedBobcatGames no worse than miss labeling your deck on the power level scale. You'll get a "whoops I didn't mean that" game every so often but it will course correct like it always has. And where it doesn't you now know someone you don't game with.
@@RedBobcatGames I agree that if they go out of their way to catagorize cards they should do it for all cards, but that does make me lose confidence in if it will have any impact, because I'm doubtfull that they'll put enough time into doing it right/thoroughly enough. We'll have to see and wait how much afford they will actually put into the system
The brackets system sounds a lot like the Pokemon showdown rankings, which is good for me because I really like it. This concept of giving space to less popular pokemons/cards to shine without outright banning the strongest most oppressive ones Is one that my "love to craft theme decks, but understand that I'm actively making unoptimal deckbuilding decisions" loves. However it really sounds like they are strugling at that with the whole "some combos will be ranked separately from their components" and the "the strongest Dimir land, and proclaimed strongest card of the game, is somehow on the lowest bracket". The former sounds like clutter that will just overcomplicate things further and make this system impossible to maintain, and the latter defeats the whole purpose of the bracket system, with the weaker, less popular cards still being overshadowed by cards that have no buisness being in the lowest brackets
The problem with the Smogon tiers is that they're based entirely on usage metrics, or power levels. Ubers are based on power, everything else is usage based. Without actual tournament data, you're going to have a bad time trying to implement it.
@@Ornithopter470 Yeah, usage based tiering works because Smogon has something concrete to go off of, usage data. If a pokemon is being used heavily in a tier, it must be good in that tier, period. However, you can't really get usage data for commander and even if you could, do you really want to do a usage based tier list? Like, lets say that cultivate appears in half of all green commander decks, and commander decks that have access to green make up 10% of the commander meta, meaning that cultivate would be 5% of the meta. If we assume that the current commander meta is the equivalent to Overused, aka tier 4, that would make cultivate a tier 4 card. I will readily admit I am not a heavy MTG player, but I am pretty certain that would be utter insanity and nobody is going to stand for that (I will also admit this hypothetical makes a lot of assumptions about a format I only have a very casual understanding of). However if you aren't going to do tiering based on card usage, what are you going to base these power brackets off of? Vibes? The reason why Smogon does usage based tiering is because there aren't many metrics you can actually use to describe the power level of a card/pokemon. The power bracket idea is incredibly underbaked and I don't see an obvious route they can take it without causing a lot of confusion.
@@RedBobcatGames The problem seems to be that Blake, Gavin and Aaron only got the cliff notes and have to guess today's UBER, OU and UU tiers without having played pokemon since RBY...
Keep also in mind, this is the tier list that puts Armageddon (a powerful card that ultimately loses a lot of its bite in EDH except as a counter to specific strategies as being one of the strongest cards in the game, while I very highly doubt that all of those incredibly powerful lands will get higher than the second lowest tier at best.
Anecdotal evidence, sure, but I disagree with the idea that the power level system and Rule 0 conversations were working just because people are playing Commander. I do not like Commander, if I had my way, I wouldn't ever play it- largely because of the power levels and the rule 0 conversations. Again, this is anecdotal evidence at best, this probably speaks more to my play group than to the format as a whole but I'd wager that I'm not the only person in this position. I only play Commander because everyone I play Magic with has tried to force-feed the idea that it's the objective best format and are rarely willing to play anything else. "Okay," I thought, "I can't complain too much, I do prefer casual Magic to competitive Magic and having access to every card could be fun." During Rule 0 my group tells me I can't play silver border or land destruction, I think "Fine. Makes perfect sense, those sorts of decks aren't often fun to play against, especially if you don't have a similar deck." So I build a different deck and play a few matches. I get really fucking sick of seeing Sol Ring and Arcane Signet on the field, so I put in some extra artefact destruction and play it. Get told that I can't do that because it's "basically the same as land destruction." Now I'm starting to get annoyed. I build some jank decks that are kinda fun for various reasons- lore, or combos that are hard to assemble if they pull off, etc- and I'm told it's not fun to play against a weak deck because the game ends too quickly. Now, I'm having to play this format I don't even want to play, and I don't even get to participate in the creative deck building that is supposed to be the main draw of it. On top of that, yeah. "My deck is a 7" is a VERY real issue. And it's not like I'm entering an existing play group who'd already put together all these rules- I introduced these people to Magic in the first place, then they played with a few other people and decided that this very specific version of Commander is the only valid way to play, so my options are play Commander or not play Magic. Well, even after all of this I don't HATE Commander, and I love Magic, so I deal with it. But that doesn't sound like a healthy format to me, and again, I'd bet I'm not the only person having this issue. I'm not saying that I think WotC is going to fix anything, I agree with basically every other point in this video (as I often tend to agree with your videos, I am after all quite an enthusiastic subscriber of yours, so I hope this doesn't come off as rude). My point really is just that it's kind of a weird position for anyone to be in, Commander is a very strange format to have in a card game like Magic, and it's very very weird that it's popular to the point of essentially being the default.
I don't think you were rude at all and your comment was very welcome, thank you. I hope you don't mind me saying, but from the outside, it sounds to me like the playgroup aren't really listening to you and are maybe using rule 0 as a cage to box you in. For instance, I've not heard someone say that removal is unwelcome from a game because it's the same as land destruction. I just flatly disagree with that. At which point though, if it were me I'd ask if after we've played a game the way they like, if we could play a game the way I like. Compromise a bit. Maybe if they tried it they'll even learn to enjoy it. If not, and I'm not having fun I'd probably try to find a new group honestly. Which sucks, but that is also a part of rule zero. Figuring out if people are going to gel
It’s just Rule 0 removing the bottom of the 10 scale. “Everyone is a 7” isn’t true, I ran 2-4 decks all the time! My theme decks aren’t there to win, and will just sit around and do their thing until someone does anything to disrupt it and will never win unless the entire table is doing the same thing. For some of us winning isn’t the goal, it’s to assemble the entire fellowship of the ring, or it’s to get all 69 lands in the deck on the battlefield, or to make one of every artifact token I could get a hold of, or etc etc etc
Now see, I pick and choose my battles because I like to come and chat to people in the comments. SO, I didn't say this in the video but I completely agree with you. I'd say every deck I have is between 2 to 4 and nothing more powerful than that. I agree, the idea no the first few levels don't matter is just wrong, but that would have been a whole other video I suspect
@@RedBobcatGames right? Low power Magic can be fun! Years and years ago the lgs near me made a side quest edh format with like six posted quests that changed every week, and the goal was over a week you tried to complete all the quests. My favorite I completed was “Beast’s Castle” which was “Attack with 1 of each permanent type, no doubling up” which was really fun. Before Theros, it was not easy to attack with an enchantment.
@@JohnnyYeTaecanUktena I play ttrpgs, these don’t have anything to do with each other. It’s an alternative goal like any other. Do you tell that to people that do Nuzlocks in Pokémon?
I REALLY liked the way Ravnica Remastered was designed I think taking a step toward printing new alt arts of Sol Ring is a win I'm glad to hear we're going back to Lorwyn I think the return to Kamigawa was a raging success I may be wrong, but I think card quality is on the uptick I forget his exact name, but I like that Zagroth Chaos Rider devil man from the Jumpstart decks Oh, I think Jumpstart was an excellent idea! I like that they reprinted Thalia, and that they gave her new art I like that they created Universes Within versions of those Walking Dead cards I like the setting of Bloomburrow This was difficult, and even some of these I would say have aspect that they bungled, but here. 10 things I can praise them for (sort of)
I saw this mentioned elsewhere and I agree with it a lot rather than whatever obfuscated nonsense that is being with trying to explain it. If the bracketing system was designed to reflect the current layout of 60-card formats by creating Standard-EDH, Modern-EDH, Vintage-EDH, Legacy-EDH (not exactly reflective terms or exact representation but you get the idea). This would better expand the importance of commander in simple terms rather than trying to bring every jargon associated with commander, CEDH, combos etc., into the mix.
19:45 if the power level cruncher is api driven it can be integratedninto archidekt so that archidekt automatically tells you the “wotc rating”. So long as its simple like that, i wouldn’t mind it. Managing your decks and collection using these tools is a good idea for keepijg track of things.
I for one don't, but I can see intergration with other tools being a benefit. Sadly for me, I don't use any. When I build a deck the most digital it gets for me is looking cards up on scryfall and maybe writing it down in a google docs
I've said it before and I'll say it again. I honestly think a weighted average and weighted point system would be nice together, though it may be complicated. (I really like numbers) Each card would have its power level and an associated weight that shows how influencial (for lack of a better word) the card can be on the game/deck building as a whole. Then, during pregame when discussing deck powers, you could give the weighted average to give an idea for how strong the deck is and also give the total points to show how influential the cards are. Basic lands would have a weight of zero, not affecting the average but will reflect in the point total (meaning decks with many basic lands will tend to have lower point totals than decks with fewer of the same weighted average). Sol Ring would have a high power but weight of 1 as it is a powerful card but more decks tend to use it than not. And you could give other powerful cards the same power as Sol Ring but also give them a high weight to reflect its high influence. You could even return some banned cards and just give them a high power and ridiculously high weight so that people know what to expect. The only issue I see aside from complexity would be with assigning weights to middle power cards. (Low power cards would have a higher weight depending on how many cards there are that are better than it and how easy they are to replace as they are in many cases not objectively good.) Side note: this could make a new type of deck what has a really low average but a higher than normal (for that power level) total that is just filled with what are objectively some of the worst (or easily replaceable) cards in magic.
If you want to hear about Duskmourn, let me tell you my tale. I mostly engage with this game through Arena's best of one ranked queue. 2 days after the release of the set I reached Mythic rank with a mono red aggro list that runs 17 lands, 4 leylines, and can quite often kill on turn 2. Its honestly been a blast, but I imagine it getting old for people who don't figure out how to play around that behemot of a standard deck.
I mean, you know a format is fast when you end up cutting monastery swiftspear from your low to the ground aggro list, as it just doesn't make the cut anymore.
After years of separating friends with technology and only talking to your family in text and Facebook reactions we now want you to work on your communication skills - "WoTC"
@brunop.8745 True, but WotC certainly lean into it. The lack of physical how-to guide for instance is an example, and I think even a lot of their recent card designs betray a "digital first" mind set
The bracket system sounds really good to me, i think it is a toxicity score more than anything, going against strong decks isn’t really that frustrating if it wins in a simple creature based way. I don’t think finding what part of a combo is that hard usually either, oracle is clearly the enabler because it says win the game. Also 1-4 is a very small fange so it isn’t too vague. I think one card being able to change the score is good because it makes people less encouraged to get some super strong combo card which wins the game out of nowhere when the rest of their deck plays completely differently.
Yeah, I mean I hope they go all the way with it and actually pull it off. This, one foot in, one foot out approach I don't believe will work though. They either need to actually bracket the cards, or leave it all to guidance and philosophy I suspect
I keep saying this won’t work. Every deck was a 7, now they’ll all be 3s. People like to responded with “nuh uh, the brackets are more concrete than “my deck is a 7””, but I don’t think there’s ever going to be a way that this system is implemented well enough where it’s even universally accepted. Players who just have precons or don’t pay attention to mtg drama won’t know what the heck you’re talking about when you say “hey that’s cheating, you used a bracket 4 card!”, and different decks/players with different cards can play in the same pod, regardless of brackets. I’d play my brother’s goofy deck with a Vamp tutor in it against my Goreclaw deck with no bracket 4 cards and I’d kick the snot out of his deck. It’s good that WotC is brainstorming for ideas on how to improve the format, but this one isn’t it, they need to go back to the drawing board and come up with something else
This bucket system mades me sad, because I recently bought a box of Dominaria remastered and pulled all of the tutors, which promptly went into all my precon and loose tribal decks I've been putting together with standard cards to teach my friends to play and every now and then I take into the LGS for a friendly game. My deck may have a vampiric tutor for bling, but its still just an honest to God mimeoplasm deck, and now I have to take out this exciting new card I was lucky enough to pull or get crushed by CEDH decks worth more than my entire collection.
Now that I've finished the video, I'm going to leave my thoughts on one thing... I've never had a good 1-10 scale conversation. Every single time someone asks "what's the power level?" I always say "I don't know how to answer that." then follow usually that up with "I'm going to tell you the commander and 3 or 4 words about the decks I wanna play." The best and most recent time I said this, the player WHO ASKED was stunned and said "I... don't think I even know how to answer that either." On that note, I'd like to leave a few short deck descriptions here. In my playgroups, the other players would pick which one sounds interesting and I'm happy to play it. Ashaya, Soul of the wild - Landfall Green Stompy Judith, Carnage Connoisseur - Lifegain in Rakdos The Second Doctor and Leela - Everyone's drawing cards Don Andres, the renegade - Steals your things Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar - Arby's Theme deck. Rukarumel, Biologist - Kindred Commanders, the deck. The Mindskinner - Combat damage mill
I was actually flabbergasted at how unprepared they clearly were to take over the format. How could they not have foreseen this inevitably happening and have been laying groundwork months if not years ahead of time. They literally hadn't considered it until the moment it happened and I'm beyond baffled by that. Me, as some dude on the internet has a document of what I'd do Day One if I was given full control of the format. Absolutely mindblowing.
The bracket system would get me back into commender. (only pauper player now) Building bracket level 1 deck and beating bracket 2 and 3 seems fun. Interesting challenge.
the bracket system is a clone of the smogon tier system for pokemon. it was well meaning, but smogon university community has been the bane of pokemon metagaming. especially made worse when people try to forcefully enforce them.
Yeah, honestly I can only really see this bracket system being used by toxic players to disallow people to run certain cards. Especially if it's left to philosophy instead of hard numbers
@@RedBobcatGames If someone wants to be toxic they'll find a way. (poor people) And I don't want to be toxic with it I'll say in rule 0 what I go for. (Rule 0 will still be the base of EDH no matter what, I hope) "this deck is build to ridicule the buckets and play the most broken stuff in tier 1" PS: Played EDH 3 years ago. IDK how's the format
I for one agreed with the banlist by the RC and would HATE to see wizards go back on it. Not only because I agree with the bans due to price, power and rifts those cards cause, but in light of all the harassment and anger, it shows the format needs a sterner hand to steward it. With that said, as much as Gavin is a dear friend to members of the online community, he's still a wizards employee and his card track record, power creep ain't going away any time soon, they might whine about people rubbing Nadu in their face but until the upcoming sets reflect the lessons learned they need to be reminded why the community doesn't trust WOTC. Also screw them, Smothering tithe isn't a design mistake like Arcane Signet, it might go in any deck with white but what else does white have to actually ramp? White catches up and equalizes, which is fine but tithe is the ONE card that ramps, god forbid they give white anything while green keeps getting the whole pie.
I did actually think something similar about smothering tithe. I can see where they're coming from as it is VERY good, but also white doesn't have much else going on so, you know...
This video is so well made and detailed. Instantly made me remember I’ve been enjoying your content without subscribing for too long (a crime which has been corrected) have a good day
I hope they get it right, because if done well this could be a great tool for exactly that. I just don't have much faith, but am hopeful to be proven wrong
You just don't get it - it's a clearly delineated, mathematical, codified, malleable, esoteric, socially driven nonsystematic system. I think its too brilliant to fail.
This is only tangentially related, but I personally think that one of the biggest mistakes the rules committee made was having a "ban list". In most formats a card being banned means you can't play with it but because commander is overwhelmingly played casually, any banned card can be rule 0'd back into the game. Using the list to set the expectation that many groups won't let you play with the card and that you should bring backups would be more accurate than setting the expectation that you can't play with them at all. I think changing the name would help set that expectation. Something like "The Hall of Shame" could work. Or just "The Salty List".
Yes, I agree. And I both appriciate it, and feel a bit bad about how critical I've been. But they asked for feedback, this is my best method for that and honestly what they have right now I don't think will work
I'm optimistic about the 4 bracket system. I think it's simple and easy to implement. The 1 thru 10 system failed it will be nice to try something else. Enjoyed hearing your feelings on it.
I think this will be a TOOL for rule zero convo. If you are playing at a lower power game(1~2) but you have a higher power card like winter orb, it helps you know which cards to mention. I have played with commander with point systems and I found that that did a great job to find power level and this seems like a more practical way to do a similar thing with in paper play
Haven't finished the video yet but I'm actually a big fan of assigning a point value to every card. I've had this discussion with my coworkers and they explained that wouldn't work with a Thoracle combo because the points would be lower than you'd expect. I countered with the fact this just points that the card is too powerful and needs banned. If a deck with a much lower point score is consistently beating ones with higher scores that means shows something is too powerful in the lower point deck individually.
I'd agree that a points system would probably be good for the game, but I don't see how they could effectly pull it off and by the sounds of it they're not aiming too. Which I think is mostly my concern
@@RedBobcatGames I agree I don't envy their position. They're not going to make anyone happy with any of their moves. The RC basically tossed a live grenade to WOTC.
@@Mako276 if anything if they stick with this stupid system that would only makes things worse Thassa's would be quickly reranked a 4 even without the demonic consultation combo as there is no way it can be a fair card since it can combo with too many things that can get rid of your deck such as Mirror of Fate that exiles your deck when used
I think the professor has proposed the best alternative with a point based system. Where you can get a general feeling for power level by the total point score of a deck. Sort of like Canadian Highlander except way less restrictive. 95% of cards are worth 0 points. Some cards like Demonic Tutor or Vampirc tutor are undeniably powerful, in his example he set them to 9. Thassas's oracle alone could be a 2, but include Pact or Consultation and all three become 10s. The most important idea coming from the professor in this regard is that rather than being a system designed to restrict you, it's a system desgined to be informative and allow some wiggle room for powerful cards. While I see that while it certainly introduces an element of complexity, I think magic players are smart enough to adapt and it makes the rule 0 conversation easy to have. Example: P1: Hey, lets play decks around 25-30 pts? P2: Sure, but can I play my new 45pt deck with no 2 card infinite combos? And then the table gets to make a rather informed decision What I like most is that it shifts the responsibility for rule 0 onto every individual. I think it's at least worthy of beta testing.
Yeah like, there's also the commanders themselves to factor in. I have an ancient tomb in my Traxos deck, which in of itself has a lot of other "high value" cards in it, but all it does is slap equipment onto a guy who is trying to punch you in the face. In a 3 person game, it can legit be scary if people do not have like, a single vandalblast. Or goad him and force my hand and blow him up later. A mishra's worshop would be a hell of a points increase, but in the long term it wouldn't do much for what the deck does. Granted I haven't played regularly in years, and haven't dropped a lot of the new stuff in it that might give it a bit more edge, but by the function of Traxos, it's not going to explode into 50 1/1s with menace unexpectantly.
Agreed. And some of the complexity can be mitigated by community tools like Moxfield and Archidekt, which would almost assuredly be made capable of crunching the numbers for you as you build your deck
Hilariously, this has been a system in xmage for years Now, admittedly, it isn't great it's more like salt rather than power, but it's a good direction
That makes sense but what about decks that have mostly or all point 0 cards, but an overall strategy and synergy that utilizes them to the max. As an example, my Sythis deck started out with really bad cards, but still consistently best pre-cons by a large margin, the whole deck would probably be like 0 points because I just scraped it together with whatever I had on hand after ordering Sythis online.
Here is my barely thought out idea to make Commander (a format I do not even play) better. The tier system as mentioned at the start is the perfect starting point. Make a website to submit your deck and have it calculate your tier based off your highest tier card. Then list number of cards per tier in the deck. That way play groups can say "1 tier 4 card allowed, 2 tier 3s, 5 tier 2s per deck" or whatever they feel like. Have the website show the most powerful cards in deck and maybe show which cards combo together. Then allow all that info to be printed onto a slip of paper that can fit in a deck box so players can share a summary of their deck with the play group (or just show the deck summary on their phone). If you make a tiering system, make sure players can review the deck easily to allow it at their tables, provide as much data points as possible to judge a deck's strength without enforcing hard rules on what is fair. Just give players data and let them decide. Additionally, use player polls and general community opinions on cards to help in tiering. What players think is strong is more important than hard winrate and power. Ban cards that dominate the format, and tier cards that might affect players having fun.
I like the idea, but I would never play it! You lost me at "submit your deck" to a website. I don't want to have to go online or print anything off to play a card game. The whole "no physical how-to guide" thing they mentioned in this stream really rubbed me up the wrong way specifically for instance. I'm too old for any of that haha
The idea I got out of all of this is that commander is more or less being split into 4 formats but the lines between them are fuzzy. Different groups and events are likely going to be different levels of strict but if you make a deck that is all 2s but with one 4 you should mention it but you need to be prepared to sub it out. The brackets are all about hard coding a shared understanding in a shared language.
As someone who’s had over five feel-bad moments about infinite combo decks when I don’t have a counter spell and/or open mana for it in time for a “low level” game with strangers at a locals (which I’ve since moved from after unsuccessful discussions), I think that yes, Wizards ought to keep an obnoxiously long list of combos ranked for anything on Spellbook or not bother at all. My friends and I will die to a Thoracle combo in a “merfolk meme deck” just as easily as a Bazing Sunsteel + Copy Artifact on an indestructible creature for example.
I mean, yeah. That's kind of where I'm at. Either do it or don't do it at all. My issue isn't so much with the bracket system, but their seemingly half hearted approach to it
@@RedBobcatGames Agreed, it does not bode well as you pointed out -great use of the examples from the Wizards video by the way. Let's cross our fingers and brace for impact.
The problem with commander right now is the fact that everyone builds around the commander and what it can do unless you are playing CEDH. WOTC needs to print a few control based recons for people. Showing permissions, hate bears, and stacks deck are welcome in the format despite the salt can help people expand how they think about building decks
I honestly don't know if even this would have been as much of an issue before they started making "Made for" commanders. To me, it feels like once they started making cards that filled the gaps and decks became less jank, that's when we started seeing issues. Though I admit that may be rose tinted glasses there
Duskmourn is a super fun set. I'm surprised actually. I've done a sealed and 3 drafts of it already and the experience is varied and feels pretty balanced. Rooms are also a pretty cool mechanic and I think more intuitive than split cards.
I unironically call my deck a "3 or 4" it has a bunch of individually powerful cards in it, but it deliberately is very vulnerable to disruption and interaction It's very slow, very fragile, lacks ways to reliably close out a game, and loses more than 3/4ths of games it's in but I enjoy playing it it creates nice and tense situations in my playgroup as people figure out how to not lose to it together Also, Red Bobcat is my favorite MTG youtuber
Oh well thank you very much! There was already WAYYY to much in this video, so I didnt make the point, but yes I'm the same as you. When he said the first few levels don't matter I would diagree. I'd say all my decks are a 4 and no higher
Wotc: "All players claim all their decks are 7s" Me, who has a couple decks that I just don't use unless I know we're playing a higher power game: "They do what?"
I like the idea of the new power level system because it takes the current arbitrary number system and gives players a quantifiable way to discuss their deck's power level in short hand. "Ur-Dragon, but it's a 7, I swear!" is a lot more arbitrary than "It's a 3, but only because I included this one card--and only because it's an 'oops all artist' deck. Are we good?". And if someone lies about their deck or is delusional about their deck's power level, you can point out exactly why and how--in a way that new players can understand. It's reductive, and clunky, but that's how shorthand always looks. The question is whether or not it sends the right message--and I think it does! It's certainly in line with how the RC talked about the rule 0 discussion, and I see it as a way to facilitate that, while also carving out an integrated spot for CEDH! Now, I hadn't watched that stream, and you're right! The comments are...worrying. And I don't think they see the tiered system the same way as I do. 😅 I also think Magic players are a degenerate group that will generally try to break any rules you give them--just because they can. (Myself included) So I'm curious to see how it goes. I certainly think it will be more effective than "my deck is a 7." Thanks for the video!
We're going to see a hard fork in Commander. There will be a WOTC official rules format and a Sheldon Era format. While WOTC taking over was indeed inevitable, I also think WOTC doing something that will piss off major figureheads in the format. Lines will be drawn, and we'll have something like "Classic Commander" and "Modern Commander". Then when you sit to play commander with someone new, you'll have to have rule 0 conversation by default making all of the drama revolving WOTC's handling of the format null.
Good video! I think Wizards committed to saying this idea way too early. Magic's complex interactions make it almost counterproductive to try and stick individual cards into some kind of tiered system. The perfect point to this was brought up early in the video with Thassa's Oracle and Demonic Consultation: on their own they have some impact but they function at maximum efficiency when put together. To say its a tough problem to solve is an understatement, but I don't think this bracket idea is going in the right direction, especially if it leads to unbanning highly problematic cards like Hullbreacher.
1: Kaalia of the Vast: is a perfect example of a variable power level commander. I recently took out most of the dragon cards from the deck as it was just too cheesy. (Never lost a single game with it.) With less dragons (given how cheesy dragons by themselves are now) it's a lot more fun for everyone. Still win with it but the games are much closer. Point being, Kaalia is very dependent on the 99 for it's power level. 2: Shauku, Endbringer. In most decks it's (arguably) an actual negative value. Put Shauku in a deck with an Eon Hub, Glacial Chasm, Corpse Dance/Worthy Cause and the like, and you've got a powerhouse of a card. Combos MATTER!
Honestly I think if there were no rules attached to it and the bracket system was just "a lot of commonly powerful cards we put into buckets so you know generally what to expect of them and to help give some universal language to ground what a 7 is" is a really good concept! But trying to wuantify it any further makes the whole system too convoluted and messy.
People should stop listening to WotC or a group of random strangers telling them how to play cardboard they payed for. Just like DnD you can have house rules and can cater the game to match your play groups style. It's bizarre to me that people need to be told how to play EDH. I guess this is the price you pay when you take a casual format and let the net Deckers and Spikes show up. EDH has lost its identity as a format and has just become something closer to FNM modern/standard where your fitting in the "best" cards in slot. You all have failed to realize what made EDH a format we loved. I'm happy I have a small play group of friends who really don't follow modern "commander" trends. If you want to enjoy EDH like we used to try returning to the format from 8-10 years ago. All the cards printed after that are banned. Enjoy your fixed format. Oh and stop playing EDH at an LGS FNM night and try a kitchen table with the people you like to game with.
I get the feeling this is the way things will turn out regardless. I just can't see the current course panning out, and kitchen table will be the only way left to play
It sounds to me that if a game winning or infinite combo has a certain value, then the most solid card in the combo (i.e. Thoracle, since it combos with several cards and is harder to answer than Jace, Unraveler or Lab Man) should be the card that gets the bracketing, and lesser versions getting the lower brackets.
12:44 Little confused by "powercreep sells" comment, sure in the case of jeweled lotus. Maybe I'm being a bit pedantic here, but can you really point to mana crypt as an instance of power creep when it has existed as long as EDH itself? Same goes for sol ring, really I think the community's sentiment is that they want whoever is in control of commander to pick a side, either we are doing fast explosive mana or we aren't. And if we are there would be a lot less complaints if WoTC's reprint philosophy around other fast mana like crypt, lotus, legal moxen, etc was frequent enough that those pieces would be accessible to as many players as sol rings are. (but I'm not naïve enough to think Hasbro would ever let them do that).
Oh sure I'd happily say older, more powerful cards like Mana Crypt are instances of power creep. Not necessarily in that they are new, but in that their wider introduction into the format raises the power level of that format overall if widley adopted. And if not widely adopted, then they remain overpowered chase cards which will creep the power of a playgroup, rather than the format as a whole. Mana Crypt has always been a thing, yes. But WotC knew full well what people's reaction would be to seeing it reprinted collector boosters, even in very rare numbers. But by putting it front and centre of the marketing they get to have their cake and eat it. They get to make it seem like they're reprinting over powered cards without actually printing them enough to change the balance of power in the format, thus keeping them overpowered, chase and expensive.
@@RedBobcatGames I really don't disagree with a single thing you said in your reply. as I said in my original message "WoTC's reprint philosophy" is the reason sol ring is a bulk uncommon and crypt was/is a 150+ USD card. I think I just disagree with the semantics of labeling mana crypt as an instance of "powercreep" because if the supply of the card hasn't changed meaningfully enough to effect it's price and the text on the card hasn't changed, where is the "creep" of the powercreep exactly? It's just an example of "power" no? You used the example of a new player would hate the bracket system, having to download an app just to make sense of the physical product they just bought etc. My point is doesn't content creators, such as yourself, using terms like "powercreep" to describe cards older than this format cause similar confusion? At least based on how the term "powercreep" almost always refers to new features of a game that are disruptive in some way.A Again I agree with your main points, and I've been saying I'd like to see commander just ban all fast mana (including sol ring) rather than only banning a select few pieces of it. And I wish WoTC's reprint philosophy didn't allow card prices to go about 40-50 USD. But those are just my opinions.
About whoever still believes in Nadu being a mistake (as well as Santa Claus's existence), remember that Scute Swarm was also reprinted in Modern Horizons 3.
I actually like the idea of putting out the very skeleton of the bracket system and letting the community go to town because it lets them hear criticism before they have put so much work in that shareholders won't let them change it for lost time or they are too dedicated to an idea and don't WANT to change it.
I think of the bracket idea as simply an extension of the old RC ban list. The original ban list was intended as a suggestion about the types of cards that can ruin games of commander. They emphasized that the pre-game conversation should include discussions about the TYPES of cards on the ban list. What the old ban list lacked was a ranking for the power level of the banned card types. Many complaints about the brackets I've heard are 'we don't need this' and 'it doesn't solve the problem of balancing games of commander'. This is absolutely correct, however the old ban list didn't solve those problems either. Let's be honest and admit that commander has a balance problem and its hard for players to communicate what kinds of games they want. Everyone has different understandings of salty and fun. Some people don't know what battle cruiser means. Some people think CEDH means high power or the vibe of cut-throat decision making. Pre-game conversations often failed commander players in the past because they don't have a common understanding about what kinds of games can happen. The brackets provide a standard format for people to start this conversation. It's an attempt at making an actually useful version of the 1-10 power scale. I would love a comprehensive ban list for commander. But with so many cards in existence, and so many new cards being made, who's going to update the list and test everything? It's not worth anyone's time for a casual game. Philosophical frameworks are a good middle ground for people who actually care this much. Remember that many commander player's didn't even know a 3rd party rules committee created the ban list. 4 overall groups sounds like a good start. Something like: precon/brew, battle cruiser only, combo wins welcome, meta/high salt What do you think: Is the banlist enough? Can brackets remove the need for a ban list? Will casuals remain unaffected by those on the ivory tower? My answers: no, yes, yes I think commander players are understandably afraid of change. We're not going back in time to the RC days or the days before direct-to-commander card design. Give the designers at wotc the chance to add to the conversation about improving the banlist, and commander balance. They're going to power creep as always, but they still make a game you care to discuss and play
I want to push back a bit against your comfort saying there has been no discussion of Duskmourn. I think its unfortunately easy to slip into doomer ideology that everything is dying and shit now - and while I'm never going to disagree there are plenty of issues here with the speed of releases and the general lack of savoring the flavor and time in sets... I think your perspective of who you are looking at matters greatly here. I have watched a bunch of videos of magic streamers I love play Duskmourn, I've seen some really great decks designed from this set! I have myself designed 3 decks that I am really excited to play in person. Thankfully I would say your space isn't toxic like others where they just want to shit on WOTC and all the comments are angry nerds who dont even wanna have fun anymore. But me and my friends have been enjoying and discussing Duskmourn a lot! For me its one of my favorite sets I've had in a while. Sooooo again I don't know who you consume for your statement of "no one is talking about it" - but I will challenge you to be more precise in your language as I respect your writing and insight!
Yeah, a set not being talked about is mostly a good thing imo. The MTG community mostly talks about things it doesn't like. Duskmourn is simply an average set, like many have been before it. It does a few cool things, it does a few uncool things, and it's about as fun as a normal standard set is - a lot of sets are actually fun once you ignore the controversies. Sure, it would have been nice if Duskmourn had been so great that big online creators couldn't stop raving about it, but it's OK for it to just be good enough to not be noteworthy.
Yeah fair enough. That's good to hear actually. Yours is one of the first few comments I've heard mention it, but then as I say I'm not particularly taken with the set so haven't really been seeking discussion of it out, AND 2 very long videos back to back about all this commander breaking news has sucked a bunch of my time and attention anyway. I'm glad to hear it's a good set though. I understand WotC have been nailing it lately even with the sets I didn't play much of. Thank you for the comment
@@RedBobcatGames I often am trying to be a better writer myself and whenever I can spot myself sliding into easy assumptions I try my best to step away and really look at "what if someone tried to pin me on that statement" - and clarify my language. But yeah I mean I am empathetic for you as you are set on making this a production and passion you want to be able to continually talk about exciting things! Maybe you need to give yourself some space to help relieve that sense of exhaustion you have? A break, who knows. Some brisk air for your mind - read a book or play a video game to just separate yourself from MTG. I get to be the person Mark Rosewater once contentiously referred to in his "if you dont like it dont play it!" identity. I literally completely let Assassin's creed and fallout pass me by, though I grabbed some singles for cheap. On Thunder Junction and Bloomburrow I basically did one event and peaced out. For me I play standard and it's a really great time! Commander is awesome but kind of a messy thing for me to focus on, competitive 1v1 lets me really savor that thrill and I play arena daily! Just casual stuff and some drafts, so y'know I'm focusing on myself having fun above all - I've been going to regular events cus I want to compete in December's store championship. I hope you can find that way for you too! I think writing in your sphere needs to levy between critique of existing structures - and stuff that really excites you! Like your X-Men speculation video. Just being a nosybody! Cheers
I genuinely cannot find +2 mace at all. Even excluding the name entirely, assuming the "+" is messing it up. Even looking for all white artifacts in the set doesnt turn it up
The best reasoning i have heard is giving cards points to cards. Like thassa's orical could be a 7 point and depending on the agreed upon difficulty like say every gets 10 points so you could run thassa's then another 3 point card. The issue would be what break points to agree upon. But i think that seems a bit more reasonable. My other thought was just limiting cards to time frame, but then its not an infinite format so idk. I havent really even played any real commander games
I appreciate the WOTC are very much brainstorming at the moment, and as a brainstorm, a bracket system is not a bad start. I'm open to seeing where this goes, and I think they do have a chance to avoid making a terrible choice, even if profit incentivises them not to. And realistically, anything they come up with is absolutely going to be vibes-based, because that's how rule 0 really works - we've never objectively assessed power level, we just know what makes our eyes roll and try to avoid that stuff. We're also not checking each other's decks - we trust players to approach the game honestly; we don't even know for certain that their deck is singleton when we're playing casually. So I think you can actually do a vibes-based tier system, as long as you're not trying to make it a hard and fast banlist. You put "Thassa's Oracle + Demonic Consultation" in tier 4 with the implicit understanding that it's intended to be representative of a number of Thassa's Oracle combos, and with the expectation that players will be honest about calling their deck tier 4 when they use a Thassa's Oracle turbo combo, regardless of the exact combo used. This is the same expectation we're already operating on, but I think this approach would be a bit clearer for new players than the X/10 system that relies on opaque calculation tools or personal experience. Definitely not using an app though. I would like to see a tier list system like this that helps me to have a productive conversation with the people I play with, but it's absolutely vital that it's something simple enough that it can be largely memorised. If it requires maths, it's not going to work for me.
I think they're trying to go somewhere in the middle with it. The lower tiers won't need an app because it'll be vauge, and the higher tier cards will have numbers that need to be crunched. I guess I just don't see that working though, as it seems like the worst of both worlds
i like these videos! i think it would be cool if when youre doing a pull quote from a video if you could show that person saying it so we can get a little more of their inflection and tone
Yeah, I've thought about that and I see it done in other videos a lot, but I'm sort of on the fence about it. I kind of don't want to, because I don't really want to be stealing someone elses upload, and so by reading the quote myself, I'm not including tone meaning I'm leaving a big part of the message off the table. Hopefully, kind of encouraging people to actually go watch the original and not just me talk about it. But also, by not including a clip I am potentially skewing what someone said in a biased fashion. I'm really not sure, but doing it the way I have been feels... the least wrong, if that makes sense? It's also weirdly both more and less work doing it this way
@@RedBobcatGames yeah you should definitely do what you feel comfortable with, but i do think that within the context of these videos you're like, morally in the clear to use the clips. you're pulling quotes and doing your own commentary on them, i think that's a totally reasonable and expected thing for an opinion piece video to be allowed to do.
i'm okay with your last conclusion (and i liked the "pupdate" section), but at the same i kept reading so many news, "news" and opinions from many people on twitter that i skipped the rest of the video. (and in reference to the pinned comment, i just use scryfall, only scryfall and forever scryfall)
The reason they're being so vague, the reason the idea is half-baked, is because they're crowdsourcing the solution. We're now in the Research and Development phase. We are participating in the R&D of how EDH power levels should be solved.
TBH if it was anything other then a large corporation like WotC, I wouldn't mind that at all, since it was a community format driven by the community. But since it's WotC and I don't trust them farther then I can throw their whole organization at once, I mind it a lot. They're 'going to take feedback' and put as much corporate capitalism into it as possible, to maximize profits.
@@leadpaintchips9461 Yeah, like all these conversations about brackets are for sure informing their decision making = good. However, the ideas that have the most potential for exploitation and profit are going to be likewise adopted = bad.
I find it sad that they say commander decks at 1 to 6 didn't exist, they are less common becasue most people try to play at 7 and last years precons are 7 or high, soo it becomes a starting point, but they were jankier decks and card made with draft shaft that were on those lower power and the bracked sistem in invisibilizing them.
Well, it's not like rule 0 worked before. The brackets won't be that much better, if at all. However, the concept of defined brackets is as interesting as it is arbitrary. I for one welcome the new 4 cedh bracket format. Cant wait to optimize the hell out of bracket 2
I'm happy to know they are quick to tell us that they will insure people with lots of money could still buy into power in any bracket right away. Gives you more trust in what they say by not pretending like they are making a system that would actually stream people into fitting power brackets actually. Because I'm sorry but fetches are still kind of expensive and the consistency they give is powerful
I don’t think the bracket system will even worked with the way they are planning it. Swords to plowshares isn’t a 1, but they need to make it a 1 to keep printing it in precons.
People don't seem to get that brackets aren't meant to evaluate the power of your random deck list. Think of it more like four cedh ban lists. Your precon with an ancient tomb is still a 4, it's just a bad 4. The point is to optimize the power of your deck WITHIN your chosen bracket.
I mean, this works IF they bracket every card. If not, how are you supposed to know for sure which bracket you're in? If it's all guidance and philosophy, at what point do you optimize so much that you go up a bracket?
i think even ou statistics might be perfect, but not in conjunction with the new 4 power tiering system. 4.5% usage rate being the cutoff for being in higher tiers might actually be even better for commander because decks have 100 cards, not 6
I played quite a bit of the old Pokémon digital client before it was shut down, but I'm unfamilar with Showdown or the OU system. If you don't mind me asking, how does it work?
@@RedBobcatGames OU (meaning "overused") is defined by the objective framework of "if you play at least X games per day, you are at least Y% likely to see this pokemon at least once". It takes a comprehensive data set to make this work, which Commander will not have.
@@RedBobcatGames the smogon community has two methods for tiering pokemon, usage based and community based. every month, pokemon showdown is updated to accurately represent the tiering set by smogon, using data from the previous month. you can find this months data by googling "Data Usage-Based Tier Update for October 2024 Smogon" to get an idea of what that looks like in more detail outside of what im about to tell you. to start, the standard metagame played using smogon rules is [current generation] OU, which stands for Over Used. below OU are Under Used, Rarely Used, Never Used, and PU, which was originally a joke tier that gained enough popularity to become smogon standard last generation. each tier's pokemon are generated during the first 5-6 months of the new generation, beginning with OU. from OU, any pokemon with less than 4.5% usage on all teams and all games from the first month are dropped to UU, the next month all pokemon in UU with less than 4.5% usage are dropped to RU, and so on and so forth until PU. any pokemon with less than 4.5% usage in PU is dropped to either ZU or Untiered, though we'll just say untiered (ZU is the new joke tier in the vein of PU previously). at any given month, if a pokemon in UU is used at a rate of
@@MagnusvonYoshi why do you think they would not have that data? sure, they wont have any game played outside of official methods, but if they want to support commander then they can add commander functionality to MTGO or actually finish Arena, which has brawl. instead of the ramblings described as the bracket system, would you *not* want the comprehensive rulings of the smogon community?
I mean what do you expect? This is the equivalent of suddenly becoming a king in a giant empire when you are in fact not interested in the throne at all, still feels unreal. It' 2 days after the RC debacle after all. But i appreciate WotC for trying because it's clear that Wizards are not interested to control the format directly but the key to the format was shoved to wizards when the RC are getting doxxed and death threats after all and Wizards had to do something. Also about the ban list, I FUCKING CALLED IT! I am not surprised if there will be changes for the sake of selling a set.
EDH really needs a plurality of benchmarking tools rather than a tier system. Many EDH players bring several decks, so you really want to make an informed decision about what combinations of decks available for a pod to play are the most fair. This doesn't need to be perfect; it just needs to give players an organized ballpark. I think that the ideal way to benchmark a deck is to upload your entire decklist and for a computer to give you a current score based on each individual card and any combos it detects. This is far too complex to do by hand, but would actually be a good first-order approximation of how the meta currently sees your deck, and would be quite easy to change in real time. WotC could straight up automate it with player feedback on salty cards or MVP cards from game victors. Below that would probably be a Points system. You categorize your deck based on how many points it was built with, with different power brackets having different point maximums. This would inherently ignore combos, but as this is not the "best" benchmarking tool, you don't have to be precise. Below even that is the self-assessment 1-10 scale. This is inherently not accurate, but it is better than nothing. And realistically, experience playing a computer-benchmarked deck against a Points-benchmarked deck against a self-assessed deck will quickly tell you how these approaches compare. And I think that's the trick most people are missing; you don't need to upload your decklist to a computer to give you an objective score. You need to play 5-6 times against someone who has.
Sure, but I honestly think even the suggestion people need to run their decks through a calculator will put people off. It may be the line for me honestly
Oh, and to clarify. I understand that's not what you were saying. I'm just making a point that if perception changes and it seems like you're supposed to run your deck through an online tool (even if it's not a requirement) it will put people off. I think the atmosphere of the game will change
I sort of like this splitting it into different more or less powered formats and you can pick which metagame you actually like, if each level is treated more as more or less strict ban lists instead of a way to accurately pick the power level of a deck. Cause for that it seems kinda pointless to try and do it in any practical way that isnt extremely involved for everyones short of inventing some bonkers complex and likely still flawed to almost being useless tool you import your decklist into and it spits out a number.
I mean there's just EDH power level calculators online that you can use if you want a deck as input and a number as output. They're not perfect but better than nothing.
They should just make a format specifically called "casual commander" and ban everything unfun and broken...like a 100+ card banlist. Id make if for them easily.
I kinda like the tiers in away. But they are going all wrong with it. They should judge a card by itself instead of a combo. What i feel they should do it label each card from 1 to 5, and when building a deck, max points are 500. So, for example. You have a deck that only has the commander that is a power 3 and vampiric tutor, and imperial seal that are power 5 and the rest basic swamps that are power 1 your decks power is 110 out of 500. Now, how to vote on the power of a card would probably have to be done by the players.
I love the brackets, since they will fix a long lasting problem of mine, which are the monolithic commanders. Legendary creatures which are way too oppressive for casual and too meme for cedh, so they were wondering the tables saying things like a 7 or an 8 on a good day. These are creatures like miryim, voja, yuriko, jodah, slivers, etc etc all commanders which when they are allowed to do their things, they take over the game way too quickly. Now slap them in bracket 3 and you can find pods which will be prepared to fight on equal grounds, since even budget builds of such commanders were simply pubstomping
I too would be on board with this, IF that's what they're doing. But by the sounds of it, most cards won't actually be bracketed which kind of defeats the point in my opinion
To the points of this specific video, I'm at a point in my life where I'm not a fan of pessimism towards designers/developers. Yes, separating corpotations from profit margins is nigh impossible, and yes, this was a quickly put together presentaion attempting to quell anxieties of the community (one that perhaps didn't help everyone); however, as you pointed out, what could have they done in this situation? They were thrust into having Commander under their thumb, and they must be aware WotC isn't particularly popular with the playerbase, so putting together a quick talk to present their initial thoughts is just a good idea, one I don't think came from the Hasbro overlords who frankly couldn't give less of a fuck. It's a good sign, in my opinion, that they wanted to give us the players some peace of mind. It just makes sense to me, even if the ideas aren't baked enough. To those ideas, yeah, this was, once again, a quickly put together presentation, plus they were showcasing a system which I'm fairly certain the RC was already working on before the ban announcements. At least we know something is in the works, ans I take their off-the-cuff rethinking as another good sign. They will work on this, they will listen to feedback, and my gosh is there a lot of feedback. Moreover, as I said in another comment, this is a communication tool, not a restrictive banlist. So, does it matter if they fuck up? Maybe, but at least they're doing *something*. I do want to point out two things from the video: 1. When Gavin talks about their takes on bans, it was pretty obvious to me that what he means is that they're not going to be often revising the banlist, but they will take an initial deeper look at the banlist as it stands. 2. When Aaron mentions that the power level system doesn't work because every deck is a 7, yeah I mean, he's right though? There's no definition of what a 7 is, and as anecdotal evidence, a couple days ago I was testinh my setup for Spelltable, and from about 12 listings, there were some cEDH and then some "EDH 7-8". But like, really, for real, seriously, what is a 7? Sure the bracket system as it was outlayed isn't perfect, but it gives you a much better general idea than this nebulous 7. Ah, there was also a point about WotC-run digital tools, which, yeah they generally suck, but the community has already made a buttload of tools. Integrating a bracket calculator into Archideckt and Moxfield and such will be, I'm pretty sure, done in a jiffy. Finally, I personally like the TCC points + tiers system from one of their recent videos, so wouldn't mind if something like that came about. And uh, finally finally, I actually mostly just play precon commander and 60 card pauper, so perhaps take my words with a grain of salt, there has just been so, so much discourse it's hard not to pitch in.
No, feel free! They asked for feedback and I at least think it's all valid. I agree with your points too. Though as for what you said about every deck being a 7, while you are also right there my concern is that they haven't fixed the problem. Every deck is a 7 because there are no hard and fast rules, but that's not what this bracket system is UNLESS they list every card and combo. But, that doesn't seem to be the plan, so by leaving it up to philosophy and guidance, I think the issue of every deck being a 7 will remain unchanged... even if 7 is now a 3 haha
I just wanted to compliment you for these great videos in a meme style by implying that the definition of quality is watching your channel. However, it seems that each attempt has been deleted/ shadow banned.
This shows more than anything that they don't even understand the game themselves. Any card's power level could go from really weak to extremely strong or game ending, depending on the rest of the deck. The old power system was vague enough, but based on a simple way of determining power- which turn does the deck tend to win on. Putting cards in a bracket system for a game that is 100% about synergy and combos is flawed to begin with. It's kind of you have to take the deck as a whole. I haven't played Pokemon like the other people talking about how it's like their system, but it sounds like that's a game where individual card power is all that matters. Which is not the case with Magic.
![[DRIP] ‘Love, Maybe’ PREVIEW](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/U7hwHp95m1k/mqdefault.jpg)
17:43 Want another fun game? look up Sarkhan, Wanderer to Shiv
I'm doing that right now
HA! THAT'S FANTASTIC! Oh good spot, that's amazing stuff. Excellent!
Ahh sarkhan, selfless cathar.
Sarkhan's Scorn also doesn't show up
"My deck is a 2" is going to become the new "my deck is a 7"
i dont think so. If you say 2... you know what people mean. You can look at the list and just know certain cards that are legal vs not.
if you dont wanna play against 3 cards. BEFORE YOU GO TO LOCALS... just change your deck.
Well, yes in theory. But in practice what even is a 2 if it can have Ancient Tomb in it? I think we're going to see more "My deck is philosophically a 2" at which point we're back to "A 7 in my playgroup is different from a 7 in your playgroup"
With decks being shuffled randomly, I guess that all the other level 2 decks are okay until a level 2 card is cast way sooner than expected thanks to the boost from Ancient Tomb for example. I’m fine with a classic Colossal Dreadmaw attacking me on turn 5 or 4 after an opponent ramped, but on turn 3 or 2 somehow I’ll feel quite differently about it if everyone agreed to a casual game beforehand and it turns out that things escalated quickly thanks to a randomly strong card thrown in the mix. Does that make sense?
@@RedBobcatGames the difference is now you have to announce the outliers and the table has to opt in. Instead of everyone saying mid power and someone getting salty because a card they consider high power hits the table. Now there is a base line for where cards will be. Agree or disagree with placement, there is now a standard placement. It will likely lead to less salty moments from unclear expectations from rule zero chats.
@@matd2892 My thoughts exactly.
I appreciate that when you're talking about what others said in videos you provide a timestamp, feels like a proper way to cite a youtube video
Thank you. I try to do things what I feel to be right as often as I can
I love how dates went for YY.MM.DD to YY.DD.MM to MM.YY.DD and keep shifting on every iteration, nice attention to detail.
Thank you, thank you!
Just use iso YY MM DD
@@J_Stockhausen as a computer scientist, it's easy to sort stuff this way!
@@J_Stockhausen I’m with you, but tell that to economists and accountants. Watch them rage.
Iso is YYYY/MM/DD
5:19 The way WoTC wants to do this system eerily reminds me of how Pokémon showdown/Smogon singles does it’s tiers. Extremely lengthy explanation, so beware.
The TL;DR is the meta games are made up of different tiers, and are separate from one another, the highest tier allowing most Pokémon, and lower tiers banning Pokémon that are used in higher tiers. You have Ubers, Over Used, Under Used, Rarely Used, Never Used, Perfectly Useless, and zero use (Acronymed as OU, UU, RU, etc.). There are also other formats like Anything Goes and Little Cup, but it’s not too relevant to the discussion.
As an example, currently Dragonite is tiered OU, while Tyranitar is considered UU. This means a team with Dragonite can only be played in OU or Ubers, while a team with Tyranitar can be played in UU, OU, and Ubers (as long as there’s no other OU or Uber Pokémon on your team).
This is kinda how WoTC wants to do commander, however there are some major differences between these systems that shows why smogons system (mostly) works and why the bracket system will not.
1: The way showdown does its tiers is an active process based on usage. The theory is that the best players with use the best Pokémon, therefore if a Pokémon gets high usage, it should be in a higher tier. This is encapsulated with their monthly tier shifts, where depending on usage stats, Pokémon will move up and down tiers. Magic can’t reasonably do this, the card pool is too deep, and the data is too shallow.
2: Pokémon teams only have 6 maximum slots, not 100. This means an OU Pokémon is 17% of your total “deck” strength, instead of 1% like in magic, leading it to be overall more impactful in the wider meta. A single vampiric tutor in a precon won’t do as much damage as a Dragonite in a UU team.
3: Pokémon showdown is FREE TO PLAY, so there is no financial incentives for any party to actually engage with the game. A banned Pokémon does not have real life financial consequences, a banned magic card does. You’re not required to pay $100 for your Dragonite, unlike for dockside.
4: There are 7 different brackets in Pokémon, not 4, and they’ve been added overtime as the game has gotten more complex. Considering there’s only around 1,000 Pokémon compared to magics nearly 30,000 cards. 4 Brackets simply doesn’t feel like enough to encapsulate the entire complexity of magics card pool.
5: The tier system isn’t perfect with Pokémon either. There have been times where Pokémon who don’t belong in high tiers get bumped up because people use them and just become unusable. Likewise in the reverse, there are Pokémon who have to put into what’s called “Borderline” which means they don’t have enough usage to be in the upper tier, but are too strong for the lower tier, so they kinda just hang in limbo, and don’t have a home. (Often this creates a new tier)
There is significantly more to this comparison and they are definitely not one-for-one, but it’s already long enough. The end conclusion is the bracket system is similar to tiers, but but lacks the infrastructure and structure of the game to function the way WoTC wants it to.
Another reason is that MTG is a synergy and combo based game, a good deck with junk cards could beat a bad deck with unrelated good cards and no overall strategy.
I'm not sure what Pokemon is like because I've never played it, but it sounds like a game where individual card power matters way more.
@@ChaffyExpert it’s important to distinguish I’m talking about the actual Pokémon games, not the card game. But yes your statement still generally applies. “Card” power is way more of a focus in singles because you have less slots, so each Pokémon needs to carry a ton of weight relative to MTG.
I really like that comparison, and to add to it a lot of Smogon bans take place after a suspect test, rather than just being the decision of the relevant council so people who play both with and against something problematic have at least some say in whether it stays or goes.
If you haven't been hearing much about Duskmourn, I might as well say something about it: drafting it on MTGA was, and is currently, an excellent experience, even after 10+ drafts, and, while this is a matter of personal preference, I ended up largely enjoying the aesthetics of the set, save for a few select eyesores. Manifest Dread turned out out be an excellent mechanic with tons of emergent depth, and I have largely enjoyed the impact some DM cards had on the decks in my EDH playgroup.
P.S.: I am a huge dog person, but crabdate > pupdate
I agree, about the Crabdate. I was just thinking of people that didn't see the last video but may watch this one. I didn't want to explain it again, and I think my dropping the word "Crabdate" without explanation at the beginning of a half hour video may have put people off haha. "Pupdate" is just a letter away from "Update" so i think new people could get it easier
Duskmourn sealed was a blast. I hadn't done a sealed since TBD, and I loved the variety of viable strategies besides just "run more creatures". I had a nice UR rooms deck that was pretty solid.
As someone who's working in game development, or game design specifically, the brackets presentation feels like the kind of thing you'd talk about during a meeting or talking a colleague to show you're working on it and are trying different things to see what sticks. "I've had this simple idea but it has problems" is a good starting point for poking others for ideas and establishes what's been explored already, which is exactly what you want to talk about when discussing with your other designers, but not as great as presentation for the public where they're likely to stick to all your words as something of a committment to an idea.
I'm not surprised when they only have two days to throw something together they're defaulting to this.
EDIT: I guess I probably should have waited until watching more to comment. Anyway I think it's a bit more evident that this is really more of a "putting what I have out there for discussion" than a proper presentation for the wider audience. I have had similar talks behind the scenes, even the best designer can sound a little lost while in the middle of the design process, it's just that what you usually end up seeing is the final product, or if you're with behind the scenes a show of progression between the different ideas. I think it really shows the thing has been thrown together VERY quickly to tell people: "Hey we're doing something with this!"
Absolutely. Every game design discussion I've ever had starts with something like "so here's an idea, here's a few of the limitations I've noticed, here's how I think we might want to design around them".
Oh yeah, I agree. This very much seems like a first draft, which I understand why they've shown us it, but also it doesn't change the fact that it seems like only a vauge idea at best
Blake, Gavin and Aaron said in the beginning of the video that they had no idea how the commander format should be managed which shouldn't be surprising. They have little data to go on (no, EDHREC is not dependable because they go off of decklists posted and not necessarily played unlike tournament lists) and it is about vibes. Remember, this stream was made days after WotC was given control over a format they had no wish to take over but were absolutely fine designing and selling cards for while letting another group manage it. It's not surprising that their (early) ideas are not well thought out. These are raw ideas that are coming from an unenviable position days after a debatably bad banning.
Oh yeah, like I say I honestly don't know what else they could have done. Putting out that stream was probably the best choice, but they're also a megacorporation putting out a public statement, and so what they say should be analysed. Two things watching this that I found were enlightening (but didn't mention in the video), 1. at the start they made a point about how Gavin was there because the community liked him, which I think proves they knew they needed a friendly face to sell the message. And 2, it really highlighted that for all these years they've been printing cards directly into a format they don't understand. Kind of explains why so many cards are in the conversation over needing to be banned
But if all you have is raw ideas, than don't but out a "concrete" statement, have the guys around a table video/podcast and let them "free flow" (obv with corporate oversight, don't want them to hurt future profit margens with what they say); but X amount of people in front of a camera, let them prate around for 45min and upload that, it creates space to syphon ideas of the community and let your future process be influenced, while not pigeonholing yourself and after taking some time to formulate ideas and trying to pick them apart, present them to the public with some conflidence, instead of the semi-stance they are taking rn, people are already insecure in them taking over and them babbling AND presenting less than half-baked ideas, is not helping that, for me it makes it so so much worse; honestly said, I would have preferred the RC communicating that because of the abuse received they are considering handing over the format to WotC, I believe it would have floored a whole bunch of people right quick, no we are in the malarkey
@@RedBobcatGames Having Gavin on the stream is not just having a friendly face for reassurances from the public, he also has had a hand in designing commander product over the years. Commander 2017 and a watered down version of his personal deck that was sold as a Secret Lair come to mind. He has even discussed commander design over the years with Melissa DeTora who I believe is the head of commander design today over on his TH-cam channel. Having someone in the creative process of these products is only natural.
Also to add onto it is that they don't have data because the former organization 'managing' the format specifically didn't gather data on it and was going off of vibes too.
@@leadpaintchips9461 the thing is, how do you gather data that you can rely on, without people skewing the reported data to their liking?
Yeah, I'm totally gonna still use Scryfall to search stuff. The +2 Mace thing should be hilarious if only I could actually find the damned card on the Gatherer lol.
Scryfall ALL the way, I love it
They are wilding if they think the bracket system as they presented can replace the power level scale.
My playgroup don't really have fetch lands or shock lands on their decks because, as they are great, staple cards, they are just too expensive for the value they add. However in turn this limitation makes so the mana base of our decks is just generally weaker then the ones that include it. But according to the bracket system, even the strongest dual colored lands are still bracket 1, so there's no difference between decks with every fetch and shockland and decks that run the life-gain taplands or the nap lands
This system sounds more like a way for them to bring back mana crypt and jeweled lotus in a way that doesn't piss off the people who value competitive integrity over market gains
exactly, they didn't acknowledge at all that a mana base is a big contributor to how strong a deck is. its even wilder that they didn't acknowledge that as a contributor to deck power because they already know that, Its what separates Standard and Modern (there are lands they will just never put in standard because they make mana bases too good) and the reason the Fetch Lands were auto banned in Pioneer.
I mean, they kind of did acknowledge it by saying Polluted Delta is going to be bracket 1. Which, honestly is kind of the worst answer haha
I think the Bracket system is meant to be an easier way to describe your deck.
With fhe power level system, its so vaigue and undefined that most peopke jsit say "my deck is power level 7 but..."
Etc etc.
Saying "my deck has one bracket 3 card and about 10 bracket 2 cards is a lot easier to get a general sense of power level.
Yeah. I don't think you have to say is "my deck is a 3." I think we'll say " My commaner is X, and I have Y bracket 2 cards and Z bracket 3 cards. Everyone good?"
I'd agree, but as they pointed out they're likely not going to be bracketing cards and instead just leaving it up to guidance and philosophy. Which then opens up the conversation of "Hey, I thought you said this was a 2 but you're running X & Y and they always felt like 3s to me"
@@RedBobcatGames What they said about guidance and philosophy to me sound like they're going to bracket like 2,000 of the most played cards, but if you play Titania's Song as a board wipe for artifact tokens it won't be on the list. Likely because the man-hours to categorize every card would be too expensive, or "wasteful".
Easier way? nah just say "My deck's a 7" like usual as everyone says their deck is a 7
I have issues with ‘my deck is a 7’ stuff because when I’m playing Goldfish my decks can go crazy, but every plan fails when it encounters the enemy. I even put together a Tergrid God of Fright deck… on paper it should be devastating but in practice it’s my weakest deck because Tergrid gets countered and killed immediately
In Old School, they have a variant called: "X points".
Most relevant cards are worth some points, your deck can't have more than 10 points and things are arranged so that, for instance, you can't run all the power 9.
It's a system used in other domains as well (for instance, fighting games) but I don't see how it could work with all the cards available in EDH.
I might be getting it wrong, but I feel like all they're trying to do with the bracket system is make rule zero conversations easier, and at worse will be something most if not all players will ignore, or just a tool similar to the power level system.
The only things I'm really scared of by WotC taking over Commander is releasing pruducts that will be harmful to the playerbase because they found a new way to profit of off the knowledge they'll gain from being in control of the format, and/or changing the banlist in such a way that people will have to ignore it and make rule zero conversation infinitely harder.
This is how i see it. brackets just give a more on rails way to talk about rule 0. people who didnt rule 0, still wont. people who did will then fall into the camps of people who do keep up on bracket cards and people who dont. and the previous group will just say "Im a bracket x with so and so being inclusions from higher brackets" over some kind of rigid power structure. while the former will just keep to a more traditional rule 0 talk.
The monetizong company being in control of the popular format sounds as thrilling as limiting SL prints because the sense of scarcity looks better on paper to shareholders.
Oh yeah, I'd be amazed if we don't see some decisions from WotC that are good for them and no one else. My corncern over the bracket system is that by the sounds of it they won't go far enough in categorizing the cards, leaving things open to discussion which (and maybe I'm wrong) will be more of a tool for arguments than anything else. "Hey you said this deck was a 1, and I know they're not listed but I feel like X & Y together really make a 3" for instance
@@RedBobcatGames no worse than miss labeling your deck on the power level scale. You'll get a "whoops I didn't mean that" game every so often but it will course correct like it always has. And where it doesn't you now know someone you don't game with.
@@RedBobcatGames I agree that if they go out of their way to catagorize cards they should do it for all cards, but that does make me lose confidence in if it will have any impact, because I'm doubtfull that they'll put enough time into doing it right/thoroughly enough. We'll have to see and wait how much afford they will actually put into the system
The brackets system sounds a lot like the Pokemon showdown rankings, which is good for me because I really like it. This concept of giving space to less popular pokemons/cards to shine without outright banning the strongest most oppressive ones Is one that my "love to craft theme decks, but understand that I'm actively making unoptimal deckbuilding decisions" loves.
However it really sounds like they are strugling at that with the whole "some combos will be ranked separately from their components" and the "the strongest Dimir land, and proclaimed strongest card of the game, is somehow on the lowest bracket". The former sounds like clutter that will just overcomplicate things further and make this system impossible to maintain, and the latter defeats the whole purpose of the bracket system, with the weaker, less popular cards still being overshadowed by cards that have no buisness being in the lowest brackets
Yeah, listening to their thoughts really underlines how what they're suggesting, in the way they're suggesting it clearly won't work
The problem with the Smogon tiers is that they're based entirely on usage metrics, or power levels. Ubers are based on power, everything else is usage based.
Without actual tournament data, you're going to have a bad time trying to implement it.
@@Ornithopter470 Yeah, usage based tiering works because Smogon has something concrete to go off of, usage data. If a pokemon is being used heavily in a tier, it must be good in that tier, period. However, you can't really get usage data for commander and even if you could, do you really want to do a usage based tier list? Like, lets say that cultivate appears in half of all green commander decks, and commander decks that have access to green make up 10% of the commander meta, meaning that cultivate would be 5% of the meta. If we assume that the current commander meta is the equivalent to Overused, aka tier 4, that would make cultivate a tier 4 card. I will readily admit I am not a heavy MTG player, but I am pretty certain that would be utter insanity and nobody is going to stand for that (I will also admit this hypothetical makes a lot of assumptions about a format I only have a very casual understanding of).
However if you aren't going to do tiering based on card usage, what are you going to base these power brackets off of? Vibes? The reason why Smogon does usage based tiering is because there aren't many metrics you can actually use to describe the power level of a card/pokemon. The power bracket idea is incredibly underbaked and I don't see an obvious route they can take it without causing a lot of confusion.
@@RedBobcatGames
The problem seems to be that Blake, Gavin and Aaron only got the cliff notes and have to guess today's UBER, OU and UU tiers without having played pokemon since RBY...
Keep also in mind, this is the tier list that puts Armageddon (a powerful card that ultimately loses a lot of its bite in EDH except as a counter to specific strategies as being one of the strongest cards in the game, while I very highly doubt that all of those incredibly powerful lands will get higher than the second lowest tier at best.
Mornin' all
Good morning!
Anecdotal evidence, sure, but I disagree with the idea that the power level system and Rule 0 conversations were working just because people are playing Commander. I do not like Commander, if I had my way, I wouldn't ever play it- largely because of the power levels and the rule 0 conversations. Again, this is anecdotal evidence at best, this probably speaks more to my play group than to the format as a whole but I'd wager that I'm not the only person in this position. I only play Commander because everyone I play Magic with has tried to force-feed the idea that it's the objective best format and are rarely willing to play anything else. "Okay," I thought, "I can't complain too much, I do prefer casual Magic to competitive Magic and having access to every card could be fun." During Rule 0 my group tells me I can't play silver border or land destruction, I think "Fine. Makes perfect sense, those sorts of decks aren't often fun to play against, especially if you don't have a similar deck." So I build a different deck and play a few matches. I get really fucking sick of seeing Sol Ring and Arcane Signet on the field, so I put in some extra artefact destruction and play it. Get told that I can't do that because it's "basically the same as land destruction." Now I'm starting to get annoyed. I build some jank decks that are kinda fun for various reasons- lore, or combos that are hard to assemble if they pull off, etc- and I'm told it's not fun to play against a weak deck because the game ends too quickly. Now, I'm having to play this format I don't even want to play, and I don't even get to participate in the creative deck building that is supposed to be the main draw of it. On top of that, yeah. "My deck is a 7" is a VERY real issue. And it's not like I'm entering an existing play group who'd already put together all these rules- I introduced these people to Magic in the first place, then they played with a few other people and decided that this very specific version of Commander is the only valid way to play, so my options are play Commander or not play Magic. Well, even after all of this I don't HATE Commander, and I love Magic, so I deal with it. But that doesn't sound like a healthy format to me, and again, I'd bet I'm not the only person having this issue.
I'm not saying that I think WotC is going to fix anything, I agree with basically every other point in this video (as I often tend to agree with your videos, I am after all quite an enthusiastic subscriber of yours, so I hope this doesn't come off as rude). My point really is just that it's kind of a weird position for anyone to be in, Commander is a very strange format to have in a card game like Magic, and it's very very weird that it's popular to the point of essentially being the default.
I don't think you were rude at all and your comment was very welcome, thank you. I hope you don't mind me saying, but from the outside, it sounds to me like the playgroup aren't really listening to you and are maybe using rule 0 as a cage to box you in. For instance, I've not heard someone say that removal is unwelcome from a game because it's the same as land destruction. I just flatly disagree with that. At which point though, if it were me I'd ask if after we've played a game the way they like, if we could play a game the way I like. Compromise a bit. Maybe if they tried it they'll even learn to enjoy it. If not, and I'm not having fun I'd probably try to find a new group honestly. Which sucks, but that is also a part of rule zero. Figuring out if people are going to gel
It’s just Rule 0 removing the bottom of the 10 scale. “Everyone is a 7” isn’t true, I ran 2-4 decks all the time! My theme decks aren’t there to win, and will just sit around and do their thing until someone does anything to disrupt it and will never win unless the entire table is doing the same thing. For some of us winning isn’t the goal, it’s to assemble the entire fellowship of the ring, or it’s to get all 69 lands in the deck on the battlefield, or to make one of every artifact token I could get a hold of, or etc etc etc
Now see, I pick and choose my battles because I like to come and chat to people in the comments. SO, I didn't say this in the video but I completely agree with you. I'd say every deck I have is between 2 to 4 and nothing more powerful than that. I agree, the idea no the first few levels don't matter is just wrong, but that would have been a whole other video I suspect
@@RedBobcatGames right? Low power Magic can be fun! Years and years ago the lgs near me made a side quest edh format with like six posted quests that changed every week, and the goal was over a week you tried to complete all the quests. My favorite I completed was “Beast’s Castle” which was “Attack with 1 of each permanent type, no doubling up” which was really fun. Before Theros, it was not easy to attack with an enchantment.
@@Veelofar That just sounds like you need to play D&D instead
@@JohnnyYeTaecanUktena I play ttrpgs, these don’t have anything to do with each other. It’s an alternative goal like any other. Do you tell that to people that do Nuzlocks in Pokémon?
@@Veelofar What you said is that your goal is not to win but to have an experience and that is the same for D&D
Wasn't the idea for a deck rating algorithm an April Fools joke on EDHREC one year?
Tell me 10 things WotC didn't blunder in the last 10 years.
They kept Hasbro afloat ten years in a row.
They didn't blunder, but it's not a good thing either...
I REALLY liked the way Ravnica Remastered was designed
I think taking a step toward printing new alt arts of Sol Ring is a win
I'm glad to hear we're going back to Lorwyn
I think the return to Kamigawa was a raging success
I may be wrong, but I think card quality is on the uptick
I forget his exact name, but I like that Zagroth Chaos Rider devil man from the Jumpstart decks
Oh, I think Jumpstart was an excellent idea!
I like that they reprinted Thalia, and that they gave her new art
I like that they created Universes Within versions of those Walking Dead cards
I like the setting of Bloomburrow
This was difficult, and even some of these I would say have aspect that they bungled, but here. 10 things I can praise them for (sort of)
The limited formats have been great for a decade. Its upsetting how hard it is to play limited in paper anymore
I saw this mentioned elsewhere and I agree with it a lot rather than whatever obfuscated nonsense that is being with trying to explain it. If the bracketing system was designed to reflect the current layout of 60-card formats by creating Standard-EDH, Modern-EDH, Vintage-EDH, Legacy-EDH (not exactly reflective terms or exact representation but you get the idea).
This would better expand the importance of commander in simple terms rather than trying to bring every jargon associated with commander, CEDH, combos etc., into the mix.
I like all the Red Bobcat's videos
Thank you very much!
19:45 if the power level cruncher is api driven it can be integratedninto archidekt so that archidekt automatically tells you the “wotc rating”. So long as its simple like that, i wouldn’t mind it. Managing your decks and collection using these tools is a good idea for keepijg track of things.
Archidekt already has a an EDHREC salt score accumulator, do you really think WotC can do better?
I for one don't, but I can see intergration with other tools being a benefit. Sadly for me, I don't use any. When I build a deck the most digital it gets for me is looking cards up on scryfall and maybe writing it down in a google docs
I've said it before and I'll say it again.
I honestly think a weighted average and weighted point system would be nice together, though it may be complicated. (I really like numbers)
Each card would have its power level and an associated weight that shows how influencial (for lack of a better word) the card can be on the game/deck building as a whole.
Then, during pregame when discussing deck powers, you could give the weighted average to give an idea for how strong the deck is and also give the total points to show how influential the cards are.
Basic lands would have a weight of zero, not affecting the average but will reflect in the point total (meaning decks with many basic lands will tend to have lower point totals than decks with fewer of the same weighted average). Sol Ring would have a high power but weight of 1 as it is a powerful card but more decks tend to use it than not. And you could give other powerful cards the same power as Sol Ring but also give them a high weight to reflect its high influence. You could even return some banned cards and just give them a high power and ridiculously high weight so that people know what to expect.
The only issue I see aside from complexity would be with assigning weights to middle power cards. (Low power cards would have a higher weight depending on how many cards there are that are better than it and how easy they are to replace as they are in many cases not objectively good.)
Side note: this could make a new type of deck what has a really low average but a higher than normal (for that power level) total that is just filled with what are objectively some of the worst (or easily replaceable) cards in magic.
If you want to hear about Duskmourn, let me tell you my tale. I mostly engage with this game through Arena's best of one ranked queue. 2 days after the release of the set I reached Mythic rank with a mono red aggro list that runs 17 lands, 4 leylines, and can quite often kill on turn 2. Its honestly been a blast, but I imagine it getting old for people who don't figure out how to play around that behemot of a standard deck.
I mean, you know a format is fast when you end up cutting monastery swiftspear from your low to the ground aggro list, as it just doesn't make the cut anymore.
I did indeed pause the video and tried to look up +2 mace with my magic companion app. No card found
After years of separating friends with technology and only talking to your family in text and Facebook reactions we now want you to work on your communication skills - "WoTC"
I mean that wasn't really their doing that's just society right now
@brunop.8745 True, but WotC certainly lean into it. The lack of physical how-to guide for instance is an example, and I think even a lot of their recent card designs betray a "digital first" mind set
@@RedBobcatGames you got a point there
The bracket system sounds really good to me, i think it is a toxicity score more than anything, going against strong decks isn’t really that frustrating if it wins in a simple creature based way. I don’t think finding what part of a combo is that hard usually either, oracle is clearly the enabler because it says win the game. Also 1-4 is a very small fange so it isn’t too vague. I think one card being able to change the score is good because it makes people less encouraged to get some super strong combo card which wins the game out of nowhere when the rest of their deck plays completely differently.
Yeah, I mean I hope they go all the way with it and actually pull it off. This, one foot in, one foot out approach I don't believe will work though. They either need to actually bracket the cards, or leave it all to guidance and philosophy I suspect
I keep saying this won’t work. Every deck was a 7, now they’ll all be 3s. People like to responded with “nuh uh, the brackets are more concrete than “my deck is a 7””, but I don’t think there’s ever going to be a way that this system is implemented well enough where it’s even universally accepted. Players who just have precons or don’t pay attention to mtg drama won’t know what the heck you’re talking about when you say “hey that’s cheating, you used a bracket 4 card!”, and different decks/players with different cards can play in the same pod, regardless of brackets. I’d play my brother’s goofy deck with a Vamp tutor in it against my Goreclaw deck with no bracket 4 cards and I’d kick the snot out of his deck. It’s good that WotC is brainstorming for ideas on how to improve the format, but this one isn’t it, they need to go back to the drawing board and come up with something else
Yep, I believe I agreed with every word you just said. Spot on my feelings too
if only there was an organisation that has been collecting data on how ‘salty’ each card is…
This bucket system mades me sad, because I recently bought a box of Dominaria remastered and pulled all of the tutors, which promptly went into all my precon and loose tribal decks I've been putting together with standard cards to teach my friends to play and every now and then I take into the LGS for a friendly game. My deck may have a vampiric tutor for bling, but its still just an honest to God mimeoplasm deck, and now I have to take out this exciting new card I was lucky enough to pull or get crushed by CEDH decks worth more than my entire collection.
Game Designers would rather create a whole new scoring system than just socialise
Honestly, no news is good news when it comes to the glut of mtg products. Silence is golden with this wagon train of endless sets.
Tell me about it! It's been mad this last month
We should be rating players, not cards or decks.
If your netdecker rating or tryhard delta is too high you go in the corner with the other clods
This would be quite funny actually. Maybe that app they're talking about should count W/L rates
Crabdate > Pupdate
Agreed honestly
Now that I've finished the video, I'm going to leave my thoughts on one thing...
I've never had a good 1-10 scale conversation. Every single time someone asks "what's the power level?" I always say "I don't know how to answer that." then follow usually that up with "I'm going to tell you the commander and 3 or 4 words about the decks I wanna play."
The best and most recent time I said this, the player WHO ASKED was stunned and said "I... don't think I even know how to answer that either."
On that note, I'd like to leave a few short deck descriptions here. In my playgroups, the other players would pick which one sounds interesting and I'm happy to play it.
Ashaya, Soul of the wild - Landfall Green Stompy
Judith, Carnage Connoisseur - Lifegain in Rakdos
The Second Doctor and Leela - Everyone's drawing cards
Don Andres, the renegade - Steals your things
Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar - Arby's Theme deck.
Rukarumel, Biologist - Kindred Commanders, the deck.
The Mindskinner - Combat damage mill
7.77k subs right now
(leaving this comment for future reference for when you overtake Tolarian Community Colledge in subs)
Haha, I doubt it but here's hoping
I was actually flabbergasted at how unprepared they clearly were to take over the format. How could they not have foreseen this inevitably happening and have been laying groundwork months if not years ahead of time. They literally hadn't considered it until the moment it happened and I'm beyond baffled by that. Me, as some dude on the internet has a document of what I'd do Day One if I was given full control of the format. Absolutely mindblowing.
The bracket system would get me back into commender. (only pauper player now)
Building bracket level 1 deck and beating bracket 2 and 3 seems fun.
Interesting challenge.
the bracket system is a clone of the smogon tier system for pokemon. it was well meaning, but smogon university community has been the bane of pokemon metagaming. especially made worse when people try to forcefully enforce them.
Yeah, honestly I can only really see this bracket system being used by toxic players to disallow people to run certain cards. Especially if it's left to philosophy instead of hard numbers
@@RedBobcatGames If someone wants to be toxic they'll find a way. (poor people)
And I don't want to be toxic with it I'll say in rule 0 what I go for. (Rule 0 will still be the base of EDH no matter what, I hope)
"this deck is build to ridicule the buckets and play the most broken stuff in tier 1"
PS: Played EDH 3 years ago. IDK how's the format
Wow. I had quite liked the brackets idea until this video. You smashed it. You put together the most coherent arguments in the community.
Oh, well thank you very much
I for one agreed with the banlist by the RC and would HATE to see wizards go back on it. Not only because I agree with the bans due to price, power and rifts those cards cause, but in light of all the harassment and anger, it shows the format needs a sterner hand to steward it. With that said, as much as Gavin is a dear friend to members of the online community, he's still a wizards employee and his card track record, power creep ain't going away any time soon, they might whine about people rubbing Nadu in their face but until the upcoming sets reflect the lessons learned they need to be reminded why the community doesn't trust WOTC.
Also screw them, Smothering tithe isn't a design mistake like Arcane Signet, it might go in any deck with white but what else does white have to actually ramp? White catches up and equalizes, which is fine but tithe is the ONE card that ramps, god forbid they give white anything while green keeps getting the whole pie.
I did actually think something similar about smothering tithe. I can see where they're coming from as it is VERY good, but also white doesn't have much else going on so, you know...
This video is so well made and detailed. Instantly made me remember I’ve been enjoying your content without subscribing for too long (a crime which has been corrected) have a good day
Well thank you very much, you have a good day too!
I thought their ideas were great. It'll likely help my play group tremendously. We have a lot of trouble pairing up decks to have a balanced game
I hope they get it right, because if done well this could be a great tool for exactly that. I just don't have much faith, but am hopeful to be proven wrong
You just don't get it - it's a clearly delineated, mathematical, codified, malleable, esoteric, socially driven nonsystematic system. I think its too brilliant to fail.
This is only tangentially related, but I personally think that one of the biggest mistakes the rules committee made was having a "ban list". In most formats a card being banned means you can't play with it but because commander is overwhelmingly played casually, any banned card can be rule 0'd back into the game.
Using the list to set the expectation that many groups won't let you play with the card and that you should bring backups would be more accurate than setting the expectation that you can't play with them at all. I think changing the name would help set that expectation. Something like "The Hall of Shame" could work. Or just "The Salty List".
honestly, as presented, this won't work. while I'm sure they know that too, I'm glad they are being so transparent about their process.
Yes, I agree. And I both appriciate it, and feel a bit bad about how critical I've been. But they asked for feedback, this is my best method for that and honestly what they have right now I don't think will work
Commander is dead and we killed it
I'm optimistic about the 4 bracket system. I think it's simple and easy to implement. The 1 thru 10 system failed it will be nice to try something else. Enjoyed hearing your feelings on it.
I think this will be a TOOL for rule zero convo. If you are playing at a lower power game(1~2) but you have a higher power card like winter orb, it helps you know which cards to mention. I have played with commander with point systems and I found that that did a great job to find power level and this seems like a more practical way to do a similar thing with in paper play
Haven't finished the video yet but I'm actually a big fan of assigning a point value to every card. I've had this discussion with my coworkers and they explained that wouldn't work with a Thoracle combo because the points would be lower than you'd expect. I countered with the fact this just points that the card is too powerful and needs banned. If a deck with a much lower point score is consistently beating ones with higher scores that means shows something is too powerful in the lower point deck individually.
I'd agree that a points system would probably be good for the game, but I don't see how they could effectly pull it off and by the sounds of it they're not aiming too. Which I think is mostly my concern
@@RedBobcatGames I agree I don't envy their position. They're not going to make anyone happy with any of their moves. The RC basically tossed a live grenade to WOTC.
@@Mako276 if anything if they stick with this stupid system that would only makes things worse Thassa's would be quickly reranked a 4 even without the demonic consultation combo as there is no way it can be a fair card since it can combo with too many things that can get rid of your deck such as Mirror of Fate that exiles your deck when used
I think the professor has proposed the best alternative with a point based system. Where you can get a general feeling for power level by the total point score of a deck.
Sort of like Canadian Highlander except way less restrictive.
95% of cards are worth 0 points.
Some cards like Demonic Tutor or Vampirc tutor are undeniably powerful, in his example he set them to 9.
Thassas's oracle alone could be a 2, but include Pact or Consultation and all three become 10s.
The most important idea coming from the professor in this regard is that rather than being a system designed to restrict you, it's a system desgined to be informative and allow some wiggle room for powerful cards.
While I see that while it certainly introduces an element of complexity, I think magic players are smart enough to adapt and it makes the rule 0 conversation easy to have.
Example: P1: Hey, lets play decks around 25-30 pts?
P2: Sure, but can I play my new 45pt deck with no 2 card infinite combos?
And then the table gets to make a rather informed decision
What I like most is that it shifts the responsibility for rule 0 onto every individual. I think it's at least worthy of beta testing.
Yeah like, there's also the commanders themselves to factor in. I have an ancient tomb in my Traxos deck, which in of itself has a lot of other "high value" cards in it, but all it does is slap equipment onto a guy who is trying to punch you in the face. In a 3 person game, it can legit be scary if people do not have like, a single vandalblast. Or goad him and force my hand and blow him up later. A mishra's worshop would be a hell of a points increase, but in the long term it wouldn't do much for what the deck does.
Granted I haven't played regularly in years, and haven't dropped a lot of the new stuff in it that might give it a bit more edge, but by the function of Traxos, it's not going to explode into 50 1/1s with menace unexpectantly.
Agreed. And some of the complexity can be mitigated by community tools like Moxfield and Archidekt, which would almost assuredly be made capable of crunching the numbers for you as you build your deck
Hilariously, this has been a system in xmage for years
Now, admittedly, it isn't great it's more like salt rather than power, but it's a good direction
That makes sense but what about decks that have mostly or all point 0 cards, but an overall strategy and synergy that utilizes them to the max.
As an example, my Sythis deck started out with really bad cards, but still consistently best pre-cons by a large margin, the whole deck would probably be like 0 points because I just scraped it together with whatever I had on hand after ordering Sythis online.
Here is my barely thought out idea to make Commander (a format I do not even play) better. The tier system as mentioned at the start is the perfect starting point. Make a website to submit your deck and have it calculate your tier based off your highest tier card. Then list number of cards per tier in the deck. That way play groups can say "1 tier 4 card allowed, 2 tier 3s, 5 tier 2s per deck" or whatever they feel like. Have the website show the most powerful cards in deck and maybe show which cards combo together. Then allow all that info to be printed onto a slip of paper that can fit in a deck box so players can share a summary of their deck with the play group (or just show the deck summary on their phone). If you make a tiering system, make sure players can review the deck easily to allow it at their tables, provide as much data points as possible to judge a deck's strength without enforcing hard rules on what is fair. Just give players data and let them decide.
Additionally, use player polls and general community opinions on cards to help in tiering. What players think is strong is more important than hard winrate and power. Ban cards that dominate the format, and tier cards that might affect players having fun.
I like the idea, but I would never play it! You lost me at "submit your deck" to a website. I don't want to have to go online or print anything off to play a card game. The whole "no physical how-to guide" thing they mentioned in this stream really rubbed me up the wrong way specifically for instance. I'm too old for any of that haha
The idea I got out of all of this is that commander is more or less being split into 4 formats but the lines between them are fuzzy. Different groups and events are likely going to be different levels of strict but if you make a deck that is all 2s but with one 4 you should mention it but you need to be prepared to sub it out. The brackets are all about hard coding a shared understanding in a shared language.
As someone who’s had over five feel-bad moments about infinite combo decks when I don’t have a counter spell and/or open mana for it in time for a “low level” game with strangers at a locals (which I’ve since moved from after unsuccessful discussions), I think that yes, Wizards ought to keep an obnoxiously long list of combos ranked for anything on Spellbook or not bother at all. My friends and I will die to a Thoracle combo in a “merfolk meme deck” just as easily as a Bazing Sunsteel + Copy Artifact on an indestructible creature for example.
I mean, yeah. That's kind of where I'm at. Either do it or don't do it at all. My issue isn't so much with the bracket system, but their seemingly half hearted approach to it
@@RedBobcatGames Agreed, it does not bode well as you pointed out -great use of the examples from the Wizards video by the way. Let's cross our fingers and brace for impact.
I mean high key they could just crowdsource power bracketing with those vague guidelines or go off secondary market value (for even more chaos)
The problem with commander right now is the fact that everyone builds around the commander and what it can do unless you are playing CEDH. WOTC needs to print a few control based recons for people. Showing permissions, hate bears, and stacks deck are welcome in the format despite the salt can help people expand how they think about building decks
I honestly don't know if even this would have been as much of an issue before they started making "Made for" commanders. To me, it feels like once they started making cards that filled the gaps and decks became less jank, that's when we started seeing issues. Though I admit that may be rose tinted glasses there
Duskmourn is a super fun set. I'm surprised actually. I've done a sealed and 3 drafts of it already and the experience is varied and feels pretty balanced. Rooms are also a pretty cool mechanic and I think more intuitive than split cards.
I unironically call my deck a "3 or 4"
it has a bunch of individually powerful cards in it, but it deliberately is very vulnerable to disruption and interaction
It's very slow, very fragile, lacks ways to reliably close out a game, and loses more than 3/4ths of games it's in but I enjoy playing it
it creates nice and tense situations in my playgroup as people figure out how to not lose to it together
Also, Red Bobcat is my favorite MTG youtuber
Oh well thank you very much! There was already WAYYY to much in this video, so I didnt make the point, but yes I'm the same as you. When he said the first few levels don't matter I would diagree. I'd say all my decks are a 4 and no higher
Wotc: "All players claim all their decks are 7s"
Me, who has a couple decks that I just don't use unless I know we're playing a higher power game: "They do what?"
Haha, yeah. Honestly for me I don't think I've got a single deck I'd say was higher than a 4
I like the idea of the new power level system because it takes the current arbitrary number system and gives players a quantifiable way to discuss their deck's power level in short hand.
"Ur-Dragon, but it's a 7, I swear!" is a lot more arbitrary than "It's a 3, but only because I included this one card--and only because it's an 'oops all artist' deck. Are we good?". And if someone lies about their deck or is delusional about their deck's power level, you can point out exactly why and how--in a way that new players can understand.
It's reductive, and clunky, but that's how shorthand always looks. The question is whether or not it sends the right message--and I think it does! It's certainly in line with how the RC talked about the rule 0 discussion, and I see it as a way to facilitate that, while also carving out an integrated spot for CEDH!
Now, I hadn't watched that stream, and you're right! The comments are...worrying. And I don't think they see the tiered system the same way as I do. 😅
I also think Magic players are a degenerate group that will generally try to break any rules you give them--just because they can. (Myself included)
So I'm curious to see how it goes. I certainly think it will be more effective than "my deck is a 7."
Thanks for the video!
We're going to see a hard fork in Commander. There will be a WOTC official rules format and a Sheldon Era format.
While WOTC taking over was indeed inevitable, I also think WOTC doing something that will piss off major figureheads in the format. Lines will be drawn, and we'll have something like "Classic Commander" and "Modern Commander".
Then when you sit to play commander with someone new, you'll have to have rule 0 conversation by default making all of the drama revolving WOTC's handling of the format null.
Good video!
I think Wizards committed to saying this idea way too early. Magic's complex interactions make it almost counterproductive to try and stick individual cards into some kind of tiered system. The perfect point to this was brought up early in the video with Thassa's Oracle and Demonic Consultation: on their own they have some impact but they function at maximum efficiency when put together.
To say its a tough problem to solve is an understatement, but I don't think this bracket idea is going in the right direction, especially if it leads to unbanning highly problematic cards like Hullbreacher.
1: Kaalia of the Vast: is a perfect example of a variable power level commander.
I recently took out most of the dragon cards from the deck as it was just too cheesy. (Never lost a single game with it.)
With less dragons (given how cheesy dragons by themselves are now) it's a lot more fun for everyone.
Still win with it but the games are much closer.
Point being, Kaalia is very dependent on the 99 for it's power level.
2: Shauku, Endbringer. In most decks it's (arguably) an actual negative value.
Put Shauku in a deck with an Eon Hub, Glacial Chasm, Corpse Dance/Worthy Cause and the like, and you've got a powerhouse of a card.
Combos MATTER!
Honestly I think if there were no rules attached to it and the bracket system was just "a lot of commonly powerful cards we put into buckets so you know generally what to expect of them and to help give some universal language to ground what a 7 is" is a really good concept! But trying to wuantify it any further makes the whole system too convoluted and messy.
Tier 0 should be Precons. The market for precons would go absolutely insane
People should stop listening to WotC or a group of random strangers telling them how to play cardboard they payed for.
Just like DnD you can have house rules and can cater the game to match your play groups style. It's bizarre to me that people need to be told how to play EDH. I guess this is the price you pay when you take a casual format and let the net Deckers and Spikes show up. EDH has lost its identity as a format and has just become something closer to FNM modern/standard where your fitting in the "best" cards in slot. You all have failed to realize what made EDH a format we loved. I'm happy I have a small play group of friends who really don't follow modern "commander" trends.
If you want to enjoy EDH like we used to try returning to the format from 8-10 years ago. All the cards printed after that are banned. Enjoy your fixed format. Oh and stop playing EDH at an LGS FNM night and try a kitchen table with the people you like to game with.
I get the feeling this is the way things will turn out regardless. I just can't see the current course panning out, and kitchen table will be the only way left to play
It sounds to me that if a game winning or infinite combo has a certain value, then the most solid card in the combo (i.e. Thoracle, since it combos with several cards and is harder to answer than Jace, Unraveler or Lab Man) should be the card that gets the bracketing, and lesser versions getting the lower brackets.
If they take the time to bracket every combination I can see it working. But I'm not sure that's what they're going to do
I haven't finished the video yet, but imagine a tier 5 of just banned cards like Golos or Emrakul.
12:44 Little confused by "powercreep sells" comment, sure in the case of jeweled lotus. Maybe I'm being a bit pedantic here, but can you really point to mana crypt as an instance of power creep when it has existed as long as EDH itself? Same goes for sol ring, really I think the community's sentiment is that they want whoever is in control of commander to pick a side, either we are doing fast explosive mana or we aren't. And if we are there would be a lot less complaints if WoTC's reprint philosophy around other fast mana like crypt, lotus, legal moxen, etc was frequent enough that those pieces would be accessible to as many players as sol rings are. (but I'm not naïve enough to think Hasbro would ever let them do that).
Oh sure I'd happily say older, more powerful cards like Mana Crypt are instances of power creep. Not necessarily in that they are new, but in that their wider introduction into the format raises the power level of that format overall if widley adopted. And if not widely adopted, then they remain overpowered chase cards which will creep the power of a playgroup, rather than the format as a whole. Mana Crypt has always been a thing, yes. But WotC knew full well what people's reaction would be to seeing it reprinted collector boosters, even in very rare numbers. But by putting it front and centre of the marketing they get to have their cake and eat it. They get to make it seem like they're reprinting over powered cards without actually printing them enough to change the balance of power in the format, thus keeping them overpowered, chase and expensive.
@@RedBobcatGames I really don't disagree with a single thing you said in your reply. as I said in my original message "WoTC's reprint philosophy" is the reason sol ring is a bulk uncommon and crypt was/is a 150+ USD card. I think I just disagree with the semantics of labeling mana crypt as an instance of "powercreep" because if the supply of the card hasn't changed meaningfully enough to effect it's price and the text on the card hasn't changed, where is the "creep" of the powercreep exactly? It's just an example of "power" no?
You used the example of a new player would hate the bracket system, having to download an app just to make sense of the physical product they just bought etc. My point is doesn't content creators, such as yourself, using terms like "powercreep" to describe cards older than this format cause similar confusion? At least based on how the term "powercreep" almost always refers to new features of a game that are disruptive in some way.A
Again I agree with your main points, and I've been saying I'd like to see commander just ban all fast mana (including sol ring) rather than only banning a select few pieces of it. And I wish WoTC's reprint philosophy didn't allow card prices to go about 40-50 USD. But those are just my opinions.
About whoever still believes in Nadu being a mistake (as well as Santa Claus's existence), remember that Scute Swarm was also reprinted in Modern Horizons 3.
I actually like the idea of putting out the very skeleton of the bracket system and letting the community go to town because it lets them hear criticism before they have put so much work in that shareholders won't let them change it for lost time or they are too dedicated to an idea and don't WANT to change it.
I think of the bracket idea as simply an extension of the old RC ban list. The original ban list was intended as a suggestion about the types of cards that can ruin games of commander. They emphasized that the pre-game conversation should include discussions about the TYPES of cards on the ban list. What the old ban list lacked was a ranking for the power level of the banned card types.
Many complaints about the brackets I've heard are 'we don't need this' and 'it doesn't solve the problem of balancing games of commander'. This is absolutely correct, however the old ban list didn't solve those problems either. Let's be honest and admit that commander has a balance problem and its hard for players to communicate what kinds of games they want. Everyone has different understandings of salty and fun. Some people don't know what battle cruiser means. Some people think CEDH means high power or the vibe of cut-throat decision making.
Pre-game conversations often failed commander players in the past because they don't have a common understanding about what kinds of games can happen. The brackets provide a standard format for people to start this conversation. It's an attempt at making an actually useful version of the 1-10 power scale.
I would love a comprehensive ban list for commander. But with so many cards in existence, and so many new cards being made, who's going to update the list and test everything? It's not worth anyone's time for a casual game. Philosophical frameworks are a good middle ground for people who actually care this much. Remember that many commander player's didn't even know a 3rd party rules committee created the ban list.
4 overall groups sounds like a good start. Something like:
precon/brew,
battle cruiser only,
combo wins welcome,
meta/high salt
What do you think: Is the banlist enough? Can brackets remove the need for a ban list? Will casuals remain unaffected by those on the ivory tower?
My answers: no, yes, yes
I think commander players are understandably afraid of change. We're not going back in time to the RC days or the days before direct-to-commander card design. Give the designers at wotc the chance to add to the conversation about improving the banlist, and commander balance. They're going to power creep as always, but they still make a game you care to discuss and play
I want to push back a bit against your comfort saying there has been no discussion of Duskmourn. I think its unfortunately easy to slip into doomer ideology that everything is dying and shit now - and while I'm never going to disagree there are plenty of issues here with the speed of releases and the general lack of savoring the flavor and time in sets... I think your perspective of who you are looking at matters greatly here. I have watched a bunch of videos of magic streamers I love play Duskmourn, I've seen some really great decks designed from this set! I have myself designed 3 decks that I am really excited to play in person.
Thankfully I would say your space isn't toxic like others where they just want to shit on WOTC and all the comments are angry nerds who dont even wanna have fun anymore. But me and my friends have been enjoying and discussing Duskmourn a lot! For me its one of my favorite sets I've had in a while. Sooooo again I don't know who you consume for your statement of "no one is talking about it" - but I will challenge you to be more precise in your language as I respect your writing and insight!
Yeah, a set not being talked about is mostly a good thing imo. The MTG community mostly talks about things it doesn't like. Duskmourn is simply an average set, like many have been before it. It does a few cool things, it does a few uncool things, and it's about as fun as a normal standard set is - a lot of sets are actually fun once you ignore the controversies. Sure, it would have been nice if Duskmourn had been so great that big online creators couldn't stop raving about it, but it's OK for it to just be good enough to not be noteworthy.
Yeah fair enough. That's good to hear actually. Yours is one of the first few comments I've heard mention it, but then as I say I'm not particularly taken with the set so haven't really been seeking discussion of it out, AND 2 very long videos back to back about all this commander breaking news has sucked a bunch of my time and attention anyway. I'm glad to hear it's a good set though. I understand WotC have been nailing it lately even with the sets I didn't play much of. Thank you for the comment
@@RedBobcatGames I often am trying to be a better writer myself and whenever I can spot myself sliding into easy assumptions I try my best to step away and really look at "what if someone tried to pin me on that statement" - and clarify my language.
But yeah I mean I am empathetic for you as you are set on making this a production and passion you want to be able to continually talk about exciting things! Maybe you need to give yourself some space to help relieve that sense of exhaustion you have? A break, who knows. Some brisk air for your mind - read a book or play a video game to just separate yourself from MTG.
I get to be the person Mark Rosewater once contentiously referred to in his "if you dont like it dont play it!" identity. I literally completely let Assassin's creed and fallout pass me by, though I grabbed some singles for cheap. On Thunder Junction and Bloomburrow I basically did one event and peaced out. For me I play standard and it's a really great time! Commander is awesome but kind of a messy thing for me to focus on, competitive 1v1 lets me really savor that thrill and I play arena daily! Just casual stuff and some drafts, so y'know I'm focusing on myself having fun above all - I've been going to regular events cus I want to compete in December's store championship. I hope you can find that way for you too! I think writing in your sphere needs to levy between critique of existing structures - and stuff that really excites you! Like your X-Men speculation video. Just being a nosybody! Cheers
I genuinely cannot find +2 mace at all. Even excluding the name entirely, assuming the "+" is messing it up. Even looking for all white artifacts in the set doesnt turn it up
The best reasoning i have heard is giving cards points to cards. Like thassa's orical could be a 7 point and depending on the agreed upon difficulty like say every gets 10 points so you could run thassa's then another 3 point card. The issue would be what break points to agree upon. But i think that seems a bit more reasonable. My other thought was just limiting cards to time frame, but then its not an infinite format so idk. I havent really even played any real commander games
I appreciate the WOTC are very much brainstorming at the moment, and as a brainstorm, a bracket system is not a bad start. I'm open to seeing where this goes, and I think they do have a chance to avoid making a terrible choice, even if profit incentivises them not to.
And realistically, anything they come up with is absolutely going to be vibes-based, because that's how rule 0 really works - we've never objectively assessed power level, we just know what makes our eyes roll and try to avoid that stuff. We're also not checking each other's decks - we trust players to approach the game honestly; we don't even know for certain that their deck is singleton when we're playing casually. So I think you can actually do a vibes-based tier system, as long as you're not trying to make it a hard and fast banlist. You put "Thassa's Oracle + Demonic Consultation" in tier 4 with the implicit understanding that it's intended to be representative of a number of Thassa's Oracle combos, and with the expectation that players will be honest about calling their deck tier 4 when they use a Thassa's Oracle turbo combo, regardless of the exact combo used. This is the same expectation we're already operating on, but I think this approach would be a bit clearer for new players than the X/10 system that relies on opaque calculation tools or personal experience.
Definitely not using an app though. I would like to see a tier list system like this that helps me to have a productive conversation with the people I play with, but it's absolutely vital that it's something simple enough that it can be largely memorised. If it requires maths, it's not going to work for me.
I think they're trying to go somewhere in the middle with it. The lower tiers won't need an app because it'll be vauge, and the higher tier cards will have numbers that need to be crunched. I guess I just don't see that working though, as it seems like the worst of both worlds
Wait... +2 mace is not included at all in gatherer? What the heck! Some database programing issue is my guess but that is just sad.
i like these videos! i think it would be cool if when youre doing a pull quote from a video if you could show that person saying it so we can get a little more of their inflection and tone
Yeah, I've thought about that and I see it done in other videos a lot, but I'm sort of on the fence about it. I kind of don't want to, because I don't really want to be stealing someone elses upload, and so by reading the quote myself, I'm not including tone meaning I'm leaving a big part of the message off the table. Hopefully, kind of encouraging people to actually go watch the original and not just me talk about it. But also, by not including a clip I am potentially skewing what someone said in a biased fashion. I'm really not sure, but doing it the way I have been feels... the least wrong, if that makes sense? It's also weirdly both more and less work doing it this way
@@RedBobcatGames yeah you should definitely do what you feel comfortable with, but i do think that within the context of these videos you're like, morally in the clear to use the clips. you're pulling quotes and doing your own commentary on them, i think that's a totally reasonable and expected thing for an opinion piece video to be allowed to do.
i'm okay with your last conclusion (and i liked the "pupdate" section), but at the same i kept reading so many news, "news" and opinions from many people on twitter that i skipped the rest of the video. (and in reference to the pinned comment, i just use scryfall, only scryfall and forever scryfall)
The reason they're being so vague, the reason the idea is half-baked, is because they're crowdsourcing the solution. We're now in the Research and Development phase. We are participating in the R&D of how EDH power levels should be solved.
TBH if it was anything other then a large corporation like WotC, I wouldn't mind that at all, since it was a community format driven by the community.
But since it's WotC and I don't trust them farther then I can throw their whole organization at once, I mind it a lot. They're 'going to take feedback' and put as much corporate capitalism into it as possible, to maximize profits.
@@leadpaintchips9461 Yeah, like all these conversations about brackets are for sure informing their decision making = good. However, the ideas that have the most potential for exploitation and profit are going to be likewise adopted = bad.
I find it sad that they say commander decks at 1 to 6 didn't exist, they are less common becasue most people try to play at 7 and last years precons are 7 or high, soo it becomes a starting point, but they were jankier decks and card made with draft shaft that were on those lower power and the bracked sistem in invisibilizing them.
Isn’t there a points based variant with an agreed upon sum for every deck?
Every card is X points, and your deck can't be more than Y points.
Well, it's not like rule 0 worked before. The brackets won't be that much better, if at all. However, the concept of defined brackets is as interesting as it is arbitrary. I for one welcome the new 4 cedh bracket format. Cant wait to optimize the hell out of bracket 2
I'm happy to know they are quick to tell us that they will insure people with lots of money could still buy into power in any bracket right away.
Gives you more trust in what they say by not pretending like they are making a system that would actually stream people into fitting power brackets actually.
Because I'm sorry but fetches are still kind of expensive and the consistency they give is powerful
I don’t think the bracket system will even worked with the way they are planning it. Swords to plowshares isn’t a 1, but they need to make it a 1 to keep printing it in precons.
People don't seem to get that brackets aren't meant to evaluate the power of your random deck list. Think of it more like four cedh ban lists. Your precon with an ancient tomb is still a 4, it's just a bad 4. The point is to optimize the power of your deck WITHIN your chosen bracket.
I mean, this works IF they bracket every card. If not, how are you supposed to know for sure which bracket you're in? If it's all guidance and philosophy, at what point do you optimize so much that you go up a bracket?
maybe they should try out the OU system like they do in pokemon showdown if they manage to get enough data.
i think even ou statistics might be perfect, but not in conjunction with the new 4 power tiering system. 4.5% usage rate being the cutoff for being in higher tiers might actually be even better for commander because decks have 100 cards, not 6
I played quite a bit of the old Pokémon digital client before it was shut down, but I'm unfamilar with Showdown or the OU system. If you don't mind me asking, how does it work?
@@RedBobcatGames OU (meaning "overused") is defined by the objective framework of "if you play at least X games per day, you are at least Y% likely to see this pokemon at least once". It takes a comprehensive data set to make this work, which Commander will not have.
@@RedBobcatGames the smogon community has two methods for tiering pokemon, usage based and community based. every month, pokemon showdown is updated to accurately represent the tiering set by smogon, using data from the previous month. you can find this months data by googling "Data Usage-Based Tier Update for October 2024 Smogon" to get an idea of what that looks like in more detail outside of what im about to tell you.
to start, the standard metagame played using smogon rules is [current generation] OU, which stands for Over Used. below OU are Under Used, Rarely Used, Never Used, and PU, which was originally a joke tier that gained enough popularity to become smogon standard last generation. each tier's pokemon are generated during the first 5-6 months of the new generation, beginning with OU. from OU, any pokemon with less than 4.5% usage on all teams and all games from the first month are dropped to UU, the next month all pokemon in UU with less than 4.5% usage are dropped to RU, and so on and so forth until PU. any pokemon with less than 4.5% usage in PU is dropped to either ZU or Untiered, though we'll just say untiered (ZU is the new joke tier in the vein of PU previously). at any given month, if a pokemon in UU is used at a rate of
@@MagnusvonYoshi why do you think they would not have that data? sure, they wont have any game played outside of official methods, but if they want to support commander then they can add commander functionality to MTGO or actually finish Arena, which has brawl. instead of the ramblings described as the bracket system, would you *not* want the comprehensive rulings of the smogon community?
I mean what do you expect? This is the equivalent of suddenly becoming a king in a giant empire when you are in fact not interested in the throne at all, still feels unreal. It' 2 days after the RC debacle after all.
But i appreciate WotC for trying because it's clear that Wizards are not interested to control the format directly but the key to the format was shoved to wizards when the RC are getting doxxed and death threats after all and Wizards had to do something.
Also about the ban list, I FUCKING CALLED IT! I am not surprised if there will be changes for the sake of selling a set.
Thiers one thing they can do pass it back to the commander advisory board
EDH really needs a plurality of benchmarking tools rather than a tier system. Many EDH players bring several decks, so you really want to make an informed decision about what combinations of decks available for a pod to play are the most fair. This doesn't need to be perfect; it just needs to give players an organized ballpark.
I think that the ideal way to benchmark a deck is to upload your entire decklist and for a computer to give you a current score based on each individual card and any combos it detects. This is far too complex to do by hand, but would actually be a good first-order approximation of how the meta currently sees your deck, and would be quite easy to change in real time. WotC could straight up automate it with player feedback on salty cards or MVP cards from game victors.
Below that would probably be a Points system. You categorize your deck based on how many points it was built with, with different power brackets having different point maximums. This would inherently ignore combos, but as this is not the "best" benchmarking tool, you don't have to be precise.
Below even that is the self-assessment 1-10 scale. This is inherently not accurate, but it is better than nothing. And realistically, experience playing a computer-benchmarked deck against a Points-benchmarked deck against a self-assessed deck will quickly tell you how these approaches compare. And I think that's the trick most people are missing; you don't need to upload your decklist to a computer to give you an objective score. You need to play 5-6 times against someone who has.
Sure, but I honestly think even the suggestion people need to run their decks through a calculator will put people off. It may be the line for me honestly
Oh, and to clarify. I understand that's not what you were saying. I'm just making a point that if perception changes and it seems like you're supposed to run your deck through an online tool (even if it's not a requirement) it will put people off. I think the atmosphere of the game will change
The more I look at the bracket, the less I think "smogon rules" and the more I go into "it's just the yugioh banlist. it's fine"
I sort of like this splitting it into different more or less powered formats and you can pick which metagame you actually like, if each level is treated more as more or less strict ban lists instead of a way to accurately pick the power level of a deck. Cause for that it seems kinda pointless to try and do it in any practical way that isnt extremely involved for everyones short of inventing some bonkers complex and likely still flawed to almost being useless tool you import your decklist into and it spits out a number.
great draft format, duskmourn is my favorite so far
I mean there's just EDH power level calculators online that you can use if you want a deck as input and a number as output. They're not perfect but better than nothing.
They should just make a format specifically called "casual commander" and ban everything unfun and broken...like a 100+ card banlist. Id make if for them easily.
I kinda like the tiers in away. But they are going all wrong with it. They should judge a card by itself instead of a combo. What i feel they should do it label each card from 1 to 5, and when building a deck, max points are 500. So, for example. You have a deck that only has the commander that is a power 3 and vampiric tutor, and imperial seal that are power 5 and the rest basic swamps that are power 1 your decks power is 110 out of 500.
Now, how to vote on the power of a card would probably have to be done by the players.
I love the brackets, since they will fix a long lasting problem of mine, which are the monolithic commanders.
Legendary creatures which are way too oppressive for casual and too meme for cedh, so they were wondering the tables saying things like a 7 or an 8 on a good day.
These are creatures like miryim, voja, yuriko, jodah, slivers, etc etc all commanders which when they are allowed to do their things, they take over the game way too quickly.
Now slap them in bracket 3 and you can find pods which will be prepared to fight on equal grounds, since even budget builds of such commanders were simply pubstomping
I too would be on board with this, IF that's what they're doing. But by the sounds of it, most cards won't actually be bracketed which kind of defeats the point in my opinion
To the points of this specific video, I'm at a point in my life where I'm not a fan of pessimism towards designers/developers. Yes, separating corpotations from profit margins is nigh impossible, and yes, this was a quickly put together presentaion attempting to quell anxieties of the community (one that perhaps didn't help everyone); however, as you pointed out, what could have they done in this situation? They were thrust into having Commander under their thumb, and they must be aware WotC isn't particularly popular with the playerbase, so putting together a quick talk to present their initial thoughts is just a good idea, one I don't think came from the Hasbro overlords who frankly couldn't give less of a fuck. It's a good sign, in my opinion, that they wanted to give us the players some peace of mind. It just makes sense to me, even if the ideas aren't baked enough.
To those ideas, yeah, this was, once again, a quickly put together presentation, plus they were showcasing a system which I'm fairly certain the RC was already working on before the ban announcements. At least we know something is in the works, ans I take their off-the-cuff rethinking as another good sign. They will work on this, they will listen to feedback, and my gosh is there a lot of feedback. Moreover, as I said in another comment, this is a communication tool, not a restrictive banlist. So, does it matter if they fuck up? Maybe, but at least they're doing *something*.
I do want to point out two things from the video:
1. When Gavin talks about their takes on bans, it was pretty obvious to me that what he means is that they're not going to be often revising the banlist, but they will take an initial deeper look at the banlist as it stands.
2. When Aaron mentions that the power level system doesn't work because every deck is a 7, yeah I mean, he's right though? There's no definition of what a 7 is, and as anecdotal evidence, a couple days ago I was testinh my setup for Spelltable, and from about 12 listings, there were some cEDH and then some "EDH 7-8". But like, really, for real, seriously, what is a 7? Sure the bracket system as it was outlayed isn't perfect, but it gives you a much better general idea than this nebulous 7.
Ah, there was also a point about WotC-run digital tools, which, yeah they generally suck, but the community has already made a buttload of tools. Integrating a bracket calculator into Archideckt and Moxfield and such will be, I'm pretty sure, done in a jiffy.
Finally, I personally like the TCC points + tiers system from one of their recent videos, so wouldn't mind if something like that came about.
And uh, finally finally, I actually mostly just play precon commander and 60 card pauper, so perhaps take my words with a grain of salt, there has just been so, so much discourse it's hard not to pitch in.
No, feel free! They asked for feedback and I at least think it's all valid. I agree with your points too. Though as for what you said about every deck being a 7, while you are also right there my concern is that they haven't fixed the problem. Every deck is a 7 because there are no hard and fast rules, but that's not what this bracket system is UNLESS they list every card and combo. But, that doesn't seem to be the plan, so by leaving it up to philosophy and guidance, I think the issue of every deck being a 7 will remain unchanged... even if 7 is now a 3 haha
I have a solution. Just play the game. :P
I just wanted to compliment you for these great videos in a meme style by implying that the definition of quality is watching your channel. However, it seems that each attempt has been deleted/ shadow banned.
This shows more than anything that they don't even understand the game themselves.
Any card's power level could go from really weak to extremely strong or game ending, depending on the rest of the deck.
The old power system was vague enough, but based on a simple way of determining power- which turn does the deck tend to win on.
Putting cards in a bracket system for a game that is 100% about synergy and combos is flawed to begin with. It's kind of you have to take the deck as a whole.
I haven't played Pokemon like the other people talking about how it's like their system, but it sounds like that's a game where individual card power is all that matters. Which is not the case with Magic.