Commander Hot Takes | EDHRECast 246 

I do love how your hot takes became very politely worded, reasonable observations.

My take: people should stop uploading decklists of unmodified precons

Hot take: your deck doesn't always need more removal, you just don't know how to use the removal you have effectively

My hot take is we need an EDHRec After Dark with Dana savagely spearing Redditors like it's post- Avacyn Restored standard and Searing Spear was going after Thragtusks

Frontiers can only be explored once before they're no longer a frontier. Well said 👍

Optimization on different axes... that's probably one of the most useful things I've taken away from an MTG video in a while.

Got also a hotpocket take: most people play too less cards that makes them giggle or at least smile from one side to the other side.

Regarding scooping: Played a pick up game with a buddy and a stranger. Buddy exclusively plays aggro. Stranger is playing giant spell slinger. Buddy builds a huge board with enough power to alpha strike the table by turn 5 or 6 when stranger plays glacial chasm. Buddy gets so mad and scoops saying no one should be allowed to play cards that keep you alive unless they can win that turn because waiting isn’t fun. Meanwhile I didn’t care, I lost in 3 turns anyway it’s not that long, and I learned “hey play a few ghost quarter effects if that’s something I need to worry about in my deck” Really find the l mindset that “you have to play aggro or I hate you” to be super shitty and I am disappointed in buddy tbh. Talked to him after but he won’t change his mind. I’ve had one or two experiences with ragequitting and they are all like this so I don’t have a good opinion of rage quitters. (Quitting when you can’t win or going to the next game because it’s not fun is different, I’m talking ragequitting and complaining)

I love how you guys care about the game experience of everyone at the table. This is exactly what I want from the EDH community.

Here's another take Winning is based actually. Id much rather the game end "early" and we can shuffle up again that get trapped in a long grindy game where no one is afraid to take any risks or feels bad about taking opponents out. Don't feel bad about winning. Its what we came to do

My hot take is Armageddon is a fun card and a legit strategy if you use it as a win con. If you use it and the game goes on for a year that is a problem.

Dana's love letter to Midnight Clock starts at 11:30.

Started watching this channel a few weeks ago beacuse of that shuffle up & play epiosode. yall are a great bunch eith awsome chemistry.

My hot take is that this content deserves to be engaged with.

I miss battle cruiser style commander. I have some decks that can hang witch cEDH decks, but honestly I have way more fun at lower power levels cause I see & use cards that don't usually make the cut & it's honestly an amazing time & brings back the "kitchen table magic" feel for me.

I wholeheartedly agree with the 3CMC ramp thing, but I see where they’re coming from. The CMC of ramp is extremely important, especially considering your commander and strategy. For example, I cut a bunch of 3 mana ramp like cultivate and kodama’s reach in my Arixmethes, Slumbering Isle Sea Monster deck for a bunch of two mana ramp and it made it run 30% smoother.

One helpful way of thinking about 3 MV ramp, particularly rocks, that I wish more people would use rather than the tired "efficiency" arguments, is to flip your perspective on what the card does before analyzing it. By that I mean that you should stop thinking about Midnight Clock as "an inefficient rock that makes up for it by letting me wheel" and start thinking about it as "a delayed wheel that gives me time to preemptively dump my hand out while also tapping for mana in the meantime", and similarly Cursed Mirror is "a temporary hasty clone that turns into a rock at end of turn instead of being sacrificed", in the case of land ramp, think about how something like Kodama's Reach lets me push the potential issue of missing land drops a turn into the future where it will likely not matter as much. I run Patriar's Seal in my Araumi deck because it allows me to untap and reuse my commander, the fact that it also happens to be a mana rock if I need it to be is just gravy, and I run Decanter of Endless water in my Sythis deck because I draw a bajillion cards and so having redundancy with "no max hand size" effects is handy, and if it helps me cast something later then that's great

There is a thin line between being considerate of the tables time and just bullying people into never playing things you don't like. It's fine when its hard locks and MLD with no wincon. But people will try and legislate out decks with too many counter spells or "too much ramp" and that's probably a step too far.

Really enjoyed this episode! The points about optimizing decks for things other then power or win conditions were great, and I loved, loved, loved the point about not feeling obligated to play games that aren't what you're looking for. Coming from 40K, so many people seem to end up having a bad time because they don't take the opportunity to have a pre-game chat to establish expectations. It's crazy to me that people are willing to spend an hour or two suffering through a bad game experience but wont take 5 minutes to just establish some expectations before starting the game. Keep it up lads!

My hottest take. Commander used to both of these two rules. 1. You can't include cards in your deck outside of your commanders color identity. 2. You can't make make mana of a color outside your commanders color identity (if you would it becomes colorless). The second rule was removed. They should have kept it and removed the first one instead.

You guys are quickly becoming my favorite edh content, I agree with so much of what you guys say. My hot take is that people need to run more Artifact and enchantment removal. It is mind-boggling to me how people in a mono red deck refuse to run unstable obelisk or meteor golem because they think that there is never gonna be a time where someone plays an enchantment that only they are going to care about. This is bad logic. You should always prioritize interaction.

Something I like to say is "Don't play powerful cards if you don't want your opponents to use them in turn." I like to play the occasional theft deck, and whenever my opponent groans when I reanimate their Avacyn, my immediate question is "Why are you playing this card if you think it's miserable to play against?"

In the past, Dana mentioned prefacing games with “I have an ABUR dual in here, but it’s not that kind of deck.” Now that they’re pulled, he doesn’t have to worry about raising eyebrows for playing one land worth the average deck’s total price.

I agree about the idea of so-called "auto-include" cards. There's so many "good enough" or even "decent, but not 'staple'" cards that should be looked at in different decks because you will always get the end result you want out of that card. For example, the card Lofty Denial is just a good counterspell in decks revolving around flying matters. You don't need to run Counterspell et al. in every blue deck because some blue decks have access to better versions of that effect. Metallic Rebuke is incredible in decks centered around artifacts, for example.

my hot take is to stop running more than a couple of tutors if you claim to be playing a casual game. embrace a bit more variance.

Last week I had a game with someone who is known to build unfun decks. He brought his new deck, and I asked if it's another unfun deck. He said, "no, I just wanted to play this silly commander from Legends". Well, on turn 5 playing my sacrifice deck he played Teregrid. Then the turn after he played Windfall. I left the table when he tried to claim "it's just some value". When I last looked at the table he had Narset, Parter of Veils with Teferi's Puzzle Box out. I do not feel bad whatsoever for leaving a game which was not the game I had agreed to enter.

It's official, Joey has joined the Dad joke side of the Force

I always love having the input of your three on EDH, it's some of the best content and discussions on the format around. I know I get annoyed when people try to tell me what I should have done, or even worse, "you should really run this card instead" and it's format staple #48. I can only imagine how bad it is when your gameplay is livestreamed or recorded. A good reminder for me to not be that guy myself. Also, definitely gonna go find some copies of Deglamer, thanks Dana! That's a really cool one, especially with lots of indestructible gods still running around.

Discovered you guys recently and just wanted to say how much I enjoy your discussions - fun, insightful and eloquent. Thanks so much guys and keep it coming!

Thanks for the good vid. The truth is, most of newer generation Commander players opt to build around "win more" deck techs compared to the pre-Commander era EDH where most decks doesn't rely on power cards but more on themes and what makes them more sociable on the table. Which I prefer. I can't really say on the western or european regions on what their meta is, but here in my region (Philippines) most people here have Cedh mindset where even the simple casual tables have combo win cons.

My maybe-hot take is that players need to stop treating optimization as indicative of power level, and that powerful cards account for unfair matchups far more than someone having a more optimized manabase or removal suite.

I remember some advice I heard on Jim Davis’s channel (go check it out if you like non-commander MTG content; he was also on Shuffle Up & Play) to always assume your opponent knows what they’re doing and to use that assumption to try to figure out why they’re doing it. Assuming you know best can bite you, both in a game and out of it.

I started listening to/watching the EDHREC podcast about a week ago and watch about 20 episodes. And 1 I love Matt and dana's dad jokes and Joey's reactions to them 2 I've seen Joey on several different shows and I have to say he's my favorite person in the MTG space/content creators :)

Hot Take: Precons are easy to beat with things that just goes over the top of creature board stuff, since they generally don't play enough interaction do meaningfully interact with the gameplan of other decks.

Oh no what did I do to you Otto does include things in decks😢

My hot take is that people play too much ramp or advocate for too much ramp in general. Don't get me wrong, I think ramp is important, and I think the vast majority of decks should have it, but I think your average deck would be better if 2-3 of the ramp spells were replaced with card draw spells. They help you hit your land drops/ramp spells and are not dead draws late in the game. I also think decks like Edgar and Millicent, that just want to curve out just want a lot less ramp then most other decks, I'd you want to be spending your first 2-3 turns proactively playing creatures, ramp is much worse for your deck.

Should have called this episode “Challenge The Status Quo”

About the ABU duals, I forget they exist sometimes, mainly due to price obviously but there's so many other dual lands that you can play for a fraction of a price

Legends are so prevalent I think it's past time for board wipes that specifically target legendary permanents to be printed.

Very nice points made Gentlemen thank you guys. A lot of people feel it's hard to walk away when other's are wanting something else. Great video

Loved the healthy and balanced dialogue on printing for CMDR and exploration of the Format. Mature nuanced views.

I like the idea of the wild west frontier games... ...where one guy has the bling'd out tank of a deck which could be traded for a used car, someone's playing group hug with secret group slug, one's playing an unassuming value deck with explosive win-cons, and there's the one dude who acts as the low-budget agent of chaos to wreck shop with a dredged up shopping cart of a deck worth a fraction of the gilded god deck. Sometimes too many expectations and excessive voiced concerns homogenizes the experience. Sometimes the right spice is being blissfully unaware of how a game will go and figuring it out as you go along.

Another thing critical commenters don't consider is that sometimes there's editing involved we don't see. Perhaps someone caught a mistake and had to reset the board to a previous state and that portion was cut from the final version. The players may still have some previous information that's no longer accurate in the back of their minds. Same goes for if they take a few minutes off for a bathroom break. The RU-vid final videos are also much shorter than the game actually is. Every play is so much clearer to that audience than to the players involved. And, of course, the benefit of hindsight. There are thousands of "incorrect plays" that end up getting no comments because they just luck into being good because of what happens after. Results-based thinking is misleading. It's just useless feedback in dozens of ways.

I got to admit I am working on some of these behaviors myself and trying to better social player

Talking about the deglamer vs natures claim thing I could definitely see why the added utility of being able to hit indestructible artifacts could be seen as a draw to deglamer, but ultimately I think it's more about how the deck wants to play that matters. If I'm playing a big stompy deck that wants to utilize most of my mana on my own turn I would find nature's claim to be a lot more desirable as I'm less likely to have two open mana than I am to have 1. SImilarly, if I'm playing a deck that wants to do most of my things at instant speed I think holding up deglamer at 2 mana is almost inconsequential as if you don't end up casting it you are just going to do what you were going to do anyway. I think more people should try out deglamer and see how it works though as it's a very strong piece of tech and I'm excited to try finding some decks to try out more myself.

Hot take: Eminence is only a problem because there aren't enough cards with it. If they printed more new cards with it, plus added some generic color-specific options to retrofit onto existing cards, it'd be a popular option. (Personally, I like the idea of Imminence effects coming with deckbuilding restrictions like Companion cards)

This stuff is why edhreccast is such a positive and enjoyable thing to listen to. So much of the content out there is just so so negative. I just want to hear people being excited about cool cards, but in a realistic and experienced way.

Really loved this one. Only the second pod I have listed to from you and you seem to run the same kinda game I want to play. "I hate your deck" is a pod I can't get behind. I am enjoying. Keep it up!

My friends are all obsessed with ABU duals and I keep telling them they are just not that good to justify the price.

My hot take is that giving opponents resources in any deck (including non-political decks) is good frequently enough to run cards that benefit your opponents. Secret rendezvous, jailbreak, and Skullwinder are incredibly good cards and the reason that they don’t work for people in metas outside of super high power and cEDH is that people are picking the wrong players for the benefit. Archenemies are a real thing in commander, I feel now more than ever in my 7 years of playing, and helping your opponents find answers to spend their mana on benefits you because you don’t waste your mana on it.

Targeted Land Destruction is fine, also feel that things like Path to Exile and Imprisoned in the Moon could count as ramp in certain deck (while staying removal from mid game on)

As a content creator I couldn't agree more on the haters moaning about misplays. We're all human and we all make mistakes, it's just some people can't see it. Great videos guys!

You made it 3 years before your kid outsmarted you? 😮. Jealous, mine got me beat out of the womb

I have a hot take about content generators: many don't make enough research before having an opinion, not to mention the negative takes some make, there is a tensión between making a channel grow and encouraging your viewers a good game experience. It is not your case guys, but is very evident in some others.

My hot take is that reducing the power of decks while still leaning into the theme is more fun than improving it.

To support Dana’s last take, I used to have a naya MLD/landfall deck that ramped a lot then blew up all the lands then use splendid reclamation effects or indestructible effects to make it one sided

I agree with every take. Here's mine: the RC has never missed. As far as I'm concerned, they've had a perfect track record. Even when I disagreed with them in the moment, I was wrong in hindsight.

Mana Barbs is a way better solution to green ramp than mass land destruction.

I have won games with nyleas colossus in incredible fashion

Here is my hot take, commander is better enjoyed when you treat the game more seriously and try to win once the game has started. I am not saying that you have to make CEDH decks, in fact my point has nothing to do with deck building, build whatever deck you want, but once the game has started do you best to be strategic and make optimal decisions. There are very few things that make me salty in games, as they are just games, but one of the few things that does is when my opponent voluntarily gives up an opportunity to win. If they missed it or legitimately thought they couldn't that's cool, but when they know they have the win and pass it up it makes me feel like we are no longer playing the same game anymore, as effectively anything that happens after can be disqualified later with the thought that they already had the win.

Relic of Legends is easily the best 3 mana ramp out there right now.

Actually had that tutor thing happen with my golgari deck. I started out with something like 8 - 11 different serchers and tutors in the deck and not only was it very boring time wise, it was a real chore to constantly go into the deck and try to find the card that would be best for that turn every time. Now that former meren deck has been turned into a gyome chef deck and its my dear baby.

You guys are awesome! Keep up the great work boys!!

My hot take is that playing at a lower power level is more fun... That are no free counters, no fast mana, no stax, plenty of 3 cmc mana rocks, plenty of pet cards, less need to play staples, more commanders are viable options

I watch magic gameplay for the enjoyment and to see different interactions that I've never thought of and how to incorporate them in my style

Yeah I noticed that I was not hitting my land drops in my deck, I looked at my deck and it turned out that I had slowly cut all my can trips like ponder, preordain and impulse and the like, I put them back in and my mana has been a lot better since.

Deglamer is such a sweet card, even Archivist of Oghma agrees!

Defensive cards are an integral part of magic; my excuse for running fog tribal lol

I also hate the anti-3MV ramp sentiment, there's so many decks that want the 3MV ramp that has a little upside, like Cultivate, Midnight Clock, Cursed Mirror, Heraldic Banner, Crowded Crypt, etc. Some decks really want these!

I have a Spirit of the night deck. All mana rocks are good mana rocks when the commander costs 9. Especially things like dreamstond hedron and coveted jewel that also draw me cards. I’ve also legitimately killed people in both standard and EDH with some keyrunes. Hot takes: Keyrunes are underplayed and are bangers.

I don't have an issue with mass land destruction if it's your win condition. Something like Fall of Thran with exile opponent graveyards or you make all your lands indestructible.

Digger the beard! Love you guys❤

I agree about walking away from a table, and did it a couple days ago. I was the last one to come up to a pod of friends getting ready to play, and noticed that 2 of the 4 of them were playing mill desks. I had played against these 2 decks the day before in a 3 pod, and was an unfun experience as they continually milled everyone and used Kozileks to refill their libraries while I could do nothing. I noped it and walked away.

I enjoy a lot of these discussions on the topic of EDH. I would enjoy if they get in our discussions on duel commanders.

Balance effects are the solution to green ramp!

Regarding the efficiency and the nature's claim example: in a Chatterfang deck I run the 3 mana version that creates a treasure (+ squirrel if the commander's out). Is it objectively worse? Yes. Is it more unique and fun? Hell yes!

Here's my hot take! In non-value engine style decks, Card Draw is actually overrated. Redundancy is where it's at. You'll find yourself taking turns off trying to draw something good, rather than actually getting something good. And that tempo loss can mean the difference between winning and losing.

Optimize for the social experience is such a great idea. I'll keep one deck for higher power/faster games just to scratch that itch, but the rest of my decks will follow that bit of advice. Keep up the great work!

Love the 3 mana rock with upside space that WOTC is exploring.

what you said regarding the legends is so true: I think almost all commanders I brewed this year (with the exception of Sidar Jabari) have been brewed by no one else in my playgroup- and some of those were even face commanders of precons at one point or another. But we are so oversaturated that they did not get the attention they would have got in an annual release. My (admittedly rather lukewarm) takes: 1. extort should count as Orzhov identity and be errata'ed accordingly 2. the new Atraxa should be considered for a banning, as she is working similar enough to Iona, in that she does not win the game but massively puts her controller ahead, is hard to deal with and pretty atrocious to play against. Yaay, engagement!

As usual, agree with Dana. Almond pancakes are gross. 32:19 concur. Green deck staple. 51:22 that exact advice was given to me last year when I sat down at my first how to play. As a new player, don't just jump in games just because I want to play. Some people won't want me and that's ok.

The boundaries conversation that Matt brought up is totally an important conversation to have. But I will say, the last time he brought it up, he was also a little heated and framed the issue differently. Which explains why there might have been responses to it. Making sure you select your experiences is very important skill to hone, yeah. But that is different than scooping at a time opportunistic for one's self, and detrimental to others. If there is an argument, then yeah, utilized the boundary. Make sure the experience is fun for you too. But I know this can be conflated with an opportunity for some players to try to ruin experience for 3 other people. The PRIOR conversation should be helpful in avoiding potential mishaps like this. SO I hope people don't just jump into a pod with anybody to expect all players will have fun without knowing what they are getting themselves into. Respectfully denying the setup for a game one thinks might not be what they are looking for is great.

My personal hot take: companions are fine, and more than that- they're fun (in EDH). I love brewing and crafting decks, and when I do I almost always place some kind of restriction on myself (eg. budget) to make the process more enjoyable and not just go on the EDHREC page for the commander and get all the best stuff, staples page and fill some gaps, save it to archidekt and call it a day. And companions are basically a payoff for building a sub-optimal deck, but it *feels* like I'm getting another commander. One of my favorite decks that I've made is a janky Sedris, the Traitor King deck with Gyruda as a companion, and I ended up using so many odd little cards in it because I was locked out of every odd mv staple; it made the deck a lot more fun to build for me. And one of my top absolute favorite decks I've made runs Kraum & Kodama of the East Tree as it's commanders, and then has Keruga as it's companion- so I feel like I've made a deck with 3 commanders! Is it optimal? Absolutely not- I'd be far better off running Keruga in in the main deck and having some low mv cards to even out my curve, or not run it at all really, but the deck is jam packed with cards I love and I like having an extra commander, what can I say? In other formats sure, companions are a bit funky to say the least, but there's a lot of design space to have more balanced companions, ones where you really would be shooting yourself in the foot if you want to have them as a companion; if WotC ever wanted to revisit the mechanic. But even if this batch is all we get thats fine by me- I think they're neat and fun.

The real answer to green ramp is confounding conundrum.

I don’t disagree with the point about 3 mana ramp, but I get where it comes from. There are so many terrible/bad Manaliths you see in precons and whatnot that I understand the distaste. Cursed Mirror and Midnight Clock are great examples of good 3cmc rocks, along with Crowded Crypt and Skyclave Relic to name a couple. Not sure if Gatewatch Beacon makes the list, but it’s at least worth testing in Superfriends I think.

Marvelous episode guys, I'm always learning new things when listening to you all! MLD like Armageddon is ethically not ok unless you can guarantee to follow it up with a win in like the next three turns after. However, there are 2 cards on the ban list: "balance" and "Limited Resources" which kind of make me wonder if similar or redesigned cards like that would be "more fair"? Curious what others are thinking of this. Here's my take: if you ramp on creatures, artifacts or enchantments they can get boardwiped; if you ramp on land, the only risk you have is people blowing up a bounce land or a land that generates tons of mana or does something crazy (Gaea's Cradle, Nykthos, Field of the Dead, ...). I mean I love land ramp for this reason, but sometimes feels kind of unfair to people ramping other ways. - "Balance" can level the playing field on land mana, will make people go for a more spread range of types of ramp in one deck. Is kind of a reverse windfall in the way that people playing with 20 cards in hand will go back to the lowest in hand which could be 1-2 but could also just be 5-7. Will also level out the go wide strategies but favoring decks that focus on one creature.The only issue I have with it is the mana cost. Something like that should cost like 5-6 mana. - "Limited Resources" is MLD but you don't have 0 lands left to play with. You get to keep 5 lands which is usually enough to get going again. Way harder to take advantage of it as the caster to as it's sacrifice lands so indestructibility doesn't work against it. If the one casting had 12 lands for example and managed to keep his 12 lands in a way. Then the 3 opponents still have 3x5 lands and the one that cast it can't play more lands. On top of that, it's an enchantment that can be removed by a lot of spells these days and if people have more than 10 mana in a turn, they usually form synergies quite fast that makes them have loads of triggers which takes up a lot of time and often feels like soloplay.

3 mana effects that have the upside of tapping for mana shouldn't be played in your ramp slots.

Dana gives such helpful and insightful perspectives on Magic

Thank you for the music puns this time around! (Music teacher here) 😂😂

I like the idea to focus the person that ramps a lot. Ramping is delayed threat

I definitely get the optimal lands issue. Ever since I started hardcapping the cost of every land card in my deck - except for lucky pulls and stuff I already had - building decks was much more fun and cheaper too. Great lands smooth things out, but never feel as good as a great card. And for the price of a single Revised Dual that improves one deck by a few percent, I could get an entire deck with good cards, or a whole set of Universe Beyond precons to run a UB only game. I know which is going to give me more fun.

As always, top notch insights and banter gents.

I play a Gruul deck with land destruction, but I think most people who say MLD is bad for the format are just themselves bad at leveraging the effect, or have only played with people who are bad at leveraging the effect.

19:50 100% agree. I have a deck with the new Narset from Aftermath as the commander that's built around cantrips, blinks, and minion poopers, and my brother was like "you're in white you have removal" and I'm just sitting there like "I have Generous gift, Chaos warp, Reality shift, and every other instant in the deck draws me a card in addition to other effects." Like I built the deck my way, and I appreciate his advice most of the time, but mid game you can piss off lmao

Great episode! My hot take is that all plansewalkers are broken and should be harder to ultimate.

Rograhk and thrasios is the premium winter orb and static orb commander set up. Soulless jailer is the best new card for the deck since drafna.

Love the deglamer recommendation. I've been in so many games where destroying the problem artifact or enchantment doesn't address the issue. Great to know a card like that exists.

I will say korvold wasn't really designed for commander it was for designed to get commander players to buy into standard packs for brawl

My take is that "Staples" like Rhystic Study, cyclonic rift, Smothering Tithe, and Sylvan Library can hurt your deck building more than it's helps. They're fantastic cards but I feel it can lead to less creative deck building and then an over reliance on those very powerful cards. Taking those out encourages digging deep and finding synergistic ramp and draw for your decks that is very rewarding.

Also love the content thanks guys!