Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About cEDH But Were Too Afraid To Ask - Untitled MTG Podcast #4 

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HUGE thank you Prof for having us on the show! Had a fantastic time talking about this format that we love so much!

Ryan's sock game almost rivals your own!

"We're very proxy-friendly. We want to fight the player, not their wallet" My respect for CEDH just went way up

0:57 - What is cEDH? 11:35 - How long is the average cEDH game? 15:04 - Gamplay difference between cEDH and standard EDH. 16:17 - Example win in cEDH. 25:55 - The "Hulk" in the room. 34:49 - Why would cards get banned for reasons separate to cEDH/EDH, despite their rules being the same? 41:04 - How compatible are cEDH decks with regular powered EDH decks? 46:40 - Other misconceptions about cEDH? 53:19 - How to get started in cEDH? 1:00:14 - Is there a competitive merfolk cEDH deck?

I don't know if the professor took The Command Zone as an example of "what not to do", but i really enjoy that the main topic starts in the first minute of the video

This may be the single greatest thing to happen to cedh, ever, in terms of growth. Thanks Prof for being a real one!

Can’t believe prof got Godo, Bandit Warlord as a guest.

Ive only noticed now but jesus prof is such a good host, asks REALLY good question and also clarifies his respondees answers

I really like Ryan's point about how cEDH is its own metagame and that it is not actually equipped to deal with more traditional stompy or go-wide token strategies. As an example, a good friend of mine recently built what I would call a semi-competitive Kess Consultation combo deck and it has struggled against our playgroup despite being "competitive" in the sense that it is an efficient combo deck. It turns out that if you play something that threatens to win the game it becomes very hard to actually win when you are effectively the Archenemy of the table and have three opponents working to stop you. Even though it is probably stronger overall, it isn't built to deal with Wort Goblins or Boros Angels smashing face while it desperately tries to keep a Lab Man on the board...

I alway's said, the most important thing is that everyone is on the same page.

I laughed harder than I should have when he said "there sure isn't" lol

Oh, I love the end credits joke.

Typical cEDH player! Brings his sock A-game when guesting on Untitled MTG Podcast.

I am a big PwP fan, Ryan, you did a great job explaining and outlining the philosophy of cEDH and dispelling the rumors about it. We all love fun as much as every other EDH player, we just want fine-tuned fun.

I play both casual and competitive EDH and I can say I'm truly happy with this video and the representation here. Thank you both sincerely for the words of wisdom and attempting to clear the confusion and misnomers

This is such an awesome discussion, never thought I'd be interested in the world of cEDH but here we are. Ryan was an excellent guest, will be checking out their channel. Good stuff Prof

There has to be a secret cabin in tolarian community college that hands out socks.

Very solid video. Thanks to you, Prof, for having someone on the podcast who's an active part of the cEDH scene, and thanks to Ryan for representing our community so well! I'm glad that this piece of content exists now, and I hope many of the people who think cEDH shouldn't be a thing will see it and take its contents to heart. We're all here cause we love Magic, and we want EDH to be as good and enjoyable of a format as it can be.

My two cents regarding this. Ryan did well on this and dodged a couple of bullets where he easily could've started a shitstorm among casual palyers, had he worded his answers differently. So props to him and thanks Prof for letting him on the show. I started out as a casual player back in 2017-18. I played casual edh for about a year before getting introduced to a more higher power meta and from there eventually moving on to cEDH this past year. I can't say I miss casual EDH much. I do still play it sometimes at one of my LGS but that's maybe once or twice a month. cEDH I play at least once or twice a week. We have a very healthy and growing cEDH community, but we don't "hate" casual EDH or the people playing it. Rather we try to give them a chance to play at our tables with proxied decks if they ever wanna try what cEDH is like. My own issue with casual EDH is that the decks tend to be very revolved around random chaos and rng effects. I don't like sitting hours in a table full of non-optimized decks (casual decks can be built well without them becoming "cEDH") and people just draw passing because everyone is in top deck mode with 20 lands in play and nothing to do with them. I also find that a lot of (not all) casual players tend to get very, very salty insanely fast if something doesn't go in their way. Not talking about pub-stomping here. Some players just don't really know how to build decks or to deal with threats, which ends up costing them the game, and then they take it super personally and hate-counter all of your stuff in the next game, and many games after that, because you DARED to kill their Edgar Markov and his precious vampire tokens on turn 24. It just gets exhausting and the toxicity tends to bubble up fast. I have never had any negative experiences in cEDH pods though. People are very calm and collected, and there's no unnecessary saltyness (not talking about being jokingly salty) going on. And everyone just jokes around the entire game while we're playing. People are just relaxed but still remain focused on the game itself without it getting too serious. It's the most fun I've had playing magic, ever. And this last year has been an absolute blast! That's thanks to cEDH and the cool playgroups I have the luxury to play with.

As a cEDH player, THANK YOU! I'm tired of people believing that cEDH is out to ruin fun for all the non-cEDH players, and getting aggressive about the merest mention of cEDH.

I don't play cEDH but I love watching it. PlayingWithPower is probably my favorite youtube channel

i'd like to have a roundtable discussion with cedh folks sometime so that we can have hyper casual and hyper optimized have a reasonable understanding of each other in one place.

As a cEDH player, I love this video. Ryan has done an amazing job of educating the masses on what cEDH really means. Good job Professor and Ryan!

God this video is a blessing too my soul. I always hear so much missconceptions online about cedh and it really started to bother me. Really great video.

On the subject of proxies, I usually trace out the size of a magic card on a piece of paper, write out the full name, card type, mana cost, and easy to understand versions of the effect, then slide it into a sleeve with a card. I find that it works really well, even if it does make my hand hurt

Okay, the proxy-friendly thing totally surprised me.

Never thought I want to play cEDH. Now I'm brewing Najeela tempo ultra budget xD. Cant afford real cEDH, but budget works too

Came here to give the Prof Huuuuuuge props for doing this. Thanks for showing this content. It has been great.

Never wanted to play commander, but am going out to start building a cEDH deck now. Thank you for this top quality content

Strong sock game coming from both armchairs here.

It's nice that Ryan actually took the time to explain that CEDH players are not just Game-Tyrants, that they still enjoy playing the format as friends or normal human beings, but to a more efficient/powerful degree

So basically a "CEDH" stereotype that people generally think of are people who intentionally build a CEDH Deck (from a deck list online most of the time) and internationally bring it to a table and give no knowledge to the rest of the table and overwhelmed everyone and made the game not fun but the majority of CEDH player would let the people know and might offer a 1vs3. Thanks prof for the education and clearafication with a CEDH player. Going to hit some of the links now.

I really appreciate you going out there with the intention to directly represent the whole EDH community through talking to not only casual but also cEDH players. I think the format is going through some growing pain schisms right now and I hope the open discussion will help people see we're all playing the same format we love just at different power levels

Finally you let this crowd get heard. Your move, Command Zone. EDIT: My stance is that cEDH should be mentioned and promoted more (and it's a tragedy that there has never been a cEDH Game Knights), but I don't want the RC to make ban decisions specifically for cEDH. Commander is the only real constructed format that casual players have. If I want to play Flash in my Esper flicker deck, I should be able to.

There are maybe 4-6 cEDH players at my LGS and they're honestly pretty great guys. I got to play one round with two them (they were playing Gerrard, Weatherlight Hero and Kykar). I was playing my Arcades deck and a fourth, non-cEDH player was playing Syr Gwyn. It was a pretty interesting dynamic where they initially started just going for their combos, then realized that they needed to start reacting to what the non-cEDH players were doing. To this day, I'm still living for the excitement and high five i got from the from the Kykar player when I Plasm Captured the Gerrard player's combo piece. PS: The guy playing the non-cEDH Syr Gwyn deck won.

Thank you prof for making this video! The cEDH community definitely appreciates it. Personally, switching to cEDH was the best decision my playgroup ever made. There used to be so many feel bads that we encountered when someone would play a certain card or counter my commander or destroy my land, etc. but with cEDH we all have the same expectation that we are playing to win so we don’t get upset when things like that happen. Just relieves so much tension. Thanks again prof!

Just getting into cEDH so this is timely for me Prof. Now if they will just reprint fetch lands ...

It's not on the banlist so it's fair...damn I need a cedh group. Thats the way I want it

Great episode! Its awesome the Prof is enthusiastic about/supports cEDH.

"There sure isn't" 😂🤣🤣🤣😂

If Flash were banned today, I don't think there becomes an automatic "we need to ban the next best thing." Flash Hulk is miles better than any other combo present right now. I had 1 land plus a mana dork and was just waiting to flash hulk until i was convinced everyone was out of counterspells. And i can do it at instant speed with your win condition still on the stack. So yeah if Flash gets banned, I don't think the next best thing is nearly as good as flash, and is probably much more answerable.

You've been doing a great job on these EDH interviews, Prof! Thanks =D

Love this video! Glad we have such a positive discussion on cEDH, helping others understand what it's all about!

I’m really liking all the cEDH stuff that’s available right now. So many awesome channels/content creators on the topic!

Thrilled to see my favorite way to play commander being discussed with/by the Professor!

This was really good. Enjoyed the conversation more than I expected too. Now I don't plan on jumping into cEDH myself however, I now have a greater understanding of the playstyle. Thank you

Awesome work prof, you are the only channel not afraid to welcome other community members/channels, even if they don’t share your particular style. Love playing with power content too, keep it going guys!

Ryan Street ~ "There sure isn't" best quote of the whole episode!

Professor, I just wanted to voice my opinion of your new trend of long format podcasts with a variety of guests. I love it.

Absolutely excellent interview. Great questions, great answers, great information.

Two things I wanted to say: 1) I have played a number of fun games where someone had the clearly best deck. As long as the communication is there, it can be a great experience. 2) I love PwP. I was just looking for more good commander play channels and wasn't particularly into cEDH, but the quality of the content was so good that it got me hooked.

Best video to listen while I'm sorting a bunch of my cards, thanks Prof

Me: Turn 1 Sol Ring Everyone else: Kill Him!!!!!!!!! ♠

Thank you both for this video. People have such misconceptions about edh at the competitive level. I just hope people are able to take it in and forget what others have said about the format.

Great content Prof!! keep doing more cEDH talks like this. i find it very interesting and fun to hear. Keep up the good work Prof! love ya

I’d recommend Elder Dingus Highlander! The channel is really cool cause they play all kinds of commander, including CEDH. Really fun channel

This new podcast format is very enjoyable. Mtg content at its core, without the glitter and shine other "grown" channels have now.

kudos prof for having part of cedh community in ur video and hearing our side. hope this dispel the stigma.

This was extremely well prepared and high quality in both audio and content.

Sweet, two of my favorite MagicTubers in one video!

The commander meta in my area is getting more juiced (3 stores). I'm finding it harder to enjoy playing casually or with pet cards. The timing on this video is great. I was making the decision to become more spikey or find a way to cope with the new power level.

I play both and love playing each. Playing both edh and cedh definitely opens up your mind to different interactions and tons of new experiences. I reccomend trying both out.

I love that you did this prof. Ryan is a gem, great guest.

What a very informative video. Thank you.

Pretty excited for the episode with The Spike Feeders

Been watching your videos for a while now in prep of getting into the game and boy have you helped. I found you through a video you did TeamAPS and it really peaked my intrest in magic. I used to be really into yugioh but I've fallen out over time and now I'm all in with magic and now I'm ordering singles for my commander deck.

Wonderful video. Clear concise and contentious arguments

I was just waiting for Ryan to rep his Godo. Probably my favorite deck on PwP. :)

Been looking forward to this!

My biggest gripe with cEDH is not that it exists, but rather that its methods and principles (compact, low CMC combo wins) get applied to casual/budget lists and put a fairly short clock on your average game. You can either run sleek interaction (like cEDH decks do) or die. The durdle of Commander has basically disappeared entirely, and I have always liked durdle. Durdling with faster strats means slow strats can get involved. The four-player pod becoming the standard has only furthered this trend, since you're more and more likely to have answers.dec in your pod as you add more players. I recognize that many players roll their eyes at durdling, but fun is subjective. It was nice to have a home for a few years. I enjoy having a place where Moonfolk tribal has the chance to win. It'd be nice if strategies that were fine-adjecent a couple years back still kept pace with the average table. The psychonaughts from cEDH are out to have fun, same as us, and aren't looking to ruin anyone's time, but their influence is absolutely accelerating the arms race inherent to Magic (but relatively foreign to Commander, historically)

Thx Professor for helping spread this lovely format - Greetings from a casual cEDH player :)

42:00 i had an issue with this at a GP last summer. They had regular commander pods with minor price support. At the start of the pod I would ask if people were here to play cedh or edh, because i had seen a lot of games where maybe 1 or 2 players had a cedh deck while the rest did not. I brought deck of varying power levels and i did not want to be the only person in a pod to play cedh. Whenever everyone said they just played regular commander i would grab something fun. I had one of my best casual edh games there. There were however two players which very much did not want to have fun. The first said he played an anti cedh stax deck, but it locked most players out and then he went infinite on turn 6 or so. His deck certainly wasn't cedh level though. But then there was the girl. She puts general tazri on the table. I ask her if she is playing cedh, the other 2 in the pods had slightly buffed precons. She said no, and i grabbed one of my control heavy decks. She ofcourse went off on turn 4 with foodchain.

overall I agree with almost everything that was discussed. My only real gripe is this distinction that somehow CEDH players are not also tournament grinders. My entry into the format was entirely because an LGS was not only hosting regular CEDH tournaments but also had an ongoing league with some relatively high quality prize support such as high value reserved list cards for wins. While I certainly get that most CEDH games are essentially just casual commander but with substantially more optimized and efficient decks, I do think this is exclusionary to a fairly substantial side of the scene which is tournament grinding. I've gone to major events and traveled around just to pursue the competitive end of the format. Dismissing that reminds me of how constructed Vintage is seen where it's not a "real" competitive format simply because the scene is so small. More stores and events are catering to EDH at the competitive level every year and brushing aside this aspect of the format is needlessly dismissive of the way many Magic the Gathering players enjoy the format. I enjoy grinding tournaments for Standard, Pioneer, Pauper, AND COMMANDER.

Fantastic video. Thanks very much prof and Ryan!

I feel the major distinction between the two is consistency. Casual wants 100 card sigleton format to create varied games with unique and even unexpected interactions. Every game is different. Competitive attempts to build a deck that will win fast 100% the same way every time.

I am one of the few people that ran Iona and I only really played it in my Angel Tribal Deck. I almost never saw Iona because if you want to lock the game out, Vorinxclex, Void Winnower, and Sire of Insanity all lock the game much better than Iona. Ive adjust by putting Chancellor of the Annex into that slot, its been a solid replacement but I disagree with the WHY it got banned.

Oooo! Love this episode!

This was an amazing video that really helps dispel the misconceptions surrounding cEDH. Well done.

I loved this video and I love watching Playing With Power. I play CEDH and in my state (Montana) the cedh community isnt large, but there is a yearly Commander Championship tournament and it always lures the best of the best EDH players for a chance at a cool custom deck box (among other prizes). Watching their channel helps me understand a lot of the interactions that happen at the tournament as I cant practice against them. Also loved this episode and I'm really digging this new podcast.

So how is Thrasios and Tymna simulator? As a cEDH player this is a joke for the rest of you out there.

The last question got me laughing in the floor XD XD... "There sure isn't"

This was nice to hear. It gets exhausting playing EDH of any flavor. So many people will spike on proxies then you say, "All good! I have decks with no proxies" and then they say "No! I DON'T want to play with your 'net decks!'" and nothing you say can convince them that a deck you own was built by you. It's really unfortunate that this growing mindset keeps people from enjoying EDH. EDIT: Not that anything is wrong with "Net Decking"

Wow this was very informative, made me look at it 100% different. Also found new channels to watch off this vid, thankyou 👍

-Proxy-Friendly -Less politics -Less salt -Less "emotional" plays -Good times with 100% optimization My initial thoughts on cEDH have been completely turned on their head. This was an amazing view on it and I'm glad I watched it. Definitely gonna try building something.

CEDH is Lawful Neutral. Casual is Chaotic Good. Don't @ me.

Prof you're truly a pillar of the entire magic community keep up the good work

Awesome talk! Thank you so much for such a great episode

The 43 thumbs down are Brawl players... Really enjoyed you guys shedding some light on what cEDH is and isn't! Who thought I could learn something from a Prof. :)

I love how you brought a CEDH member on the show after the last guest. He is awesome but he kept dissing CEDH.

Ryan has a very clear vision, it was awesome to hear how though out his answers were.

I loved the scenario about 1 cedh deck in a non-cedh pod. My friend Dustin would bring his cedh deck and when he declared that hed be playing it the other three of us would gang up on him in the goal of beating him before he could end the match. It was almost like its own game mode that i named “raid boss” and it was fun in its own way. It was a fair-ish 1v3 which was interesting

This discussion on cEDH is so much better than the last one with the guy who had absolute no idea what he was talking about

Ok, i just have 1 issue (and it's one we have in our group all the time). Can you call godo, edric najiela and such really aggro decks? Sure they attack but thats about as far as the similarities go. I started calling them combat combo decks since i feel it's a much more accurate description.

Thanks for doing this excellent episode prof!

I have no interest in cEDH but I am a fan of PWP. I have a better understanding of how cedh works now and will always watch but still don't want to play (I prefer battles on the battlefield rather than the stack). Respect to Ryan and his awesome work!

Really good interview. Great job professor, when are you going to have your prime time on Netflix?

You should have Mons from cEDH tv come on the podcast

Thanks Prof for the video and thanks Ryan for the great points. I will admit this one didn't feel just of the cuff but rather a bit planned which I have no problems is just found amusing.

Thank you for doing this episode