It's Okay To Cut Good Cards | Magic: the Gathering | Commander 

I am in awe of Joey's ability to think from every type of player's perspective. His superpower is the opposite of solipsism if there is a word for that.

This is why I use the phrase "Play Memes, Not Bombs" when I'm struggling to cut a card.

I truly appreciate the edhrec take of "the game is nuanced" rather than 'PLAY WHAT WE SAY IS GOOD' 🙏

This happened to me Monday night - playing Gonti in a mid power game. My deck was appropriate and we were having a good game, then I drew Necropotence...I said to myself 'this isn't the right game for this.' this video helps me realise that feeling comes up every time I draw it..mso it's coming out! Gonna add Stunning reversal instead, cards hilarious!

Remember, there are no prizes, and losing is fun

Instead of cutting staples like Smothering Tithe or Cyclonic Rift, I’ve just stopped adding them to the decks I build

My philosophy has changed from focusing on winning the game to on HOW I win games. It's done wonders for my deck building and gameplay

Another thing to consider is that people tend to remember your most powerful games more clearly. By playing just a couple of powerful cards people will start treating you as though you always have them in hand, even if you are durdling that game.

It was a big step to cut Doubling Season from a Grumgully Tokens deck. Turns out token + 1 counter is enough net value to not need double of both for 5 mana. Switched it for Kami of Whispered Hopes.

Optimal vs fun is the driver of my struggle bus, for sure.

This mindset is so refreshing. I came to this decision about removing Sheoldred the appocalypse in my Nekusar deck and dockside in my Henzi toolbox Torre. Play with what you like and makes for the best experience and the most fun in games !

The best wins for me are always the ones where I'm able to illicit a confused sounding "what are you doing?" Shortly followed by a "oh no..." Once they figured it out I do meet plenty of people who are super content playing a deck full of tutors and counters just hunting for a 2-card combo though. I think for some people a social game really is only about getting to say they won

This is why I like playing a minority number of old, weird, nostalgic, and fun cards. It's also why I don't hesitate to cycle out powerhouses.

I've been finding it alot of fun to brew and play without the big name big power cards. Also without tutor effects. Helps keep the power level in check. I don't feel the need to sandbag as much. As a bonus I can often fly under the radar a little, because i'm not the one with the 'kill me now' cards in play.

Thanks as always for your thoughtfulness when discussing topics like these ❤️

This video I feel goes hand in hand with your declutter your deck video. Both of those were huge pieces of advice that I needed as a new player, building decks that could handle the power level of my friends that have been playing for years.

That groany "oh" from my opponents is still a loud woah to me. Dubs a dubs.

Its very important to build decks thinking on what kind of games do you want to have instead of only thinking of cards. I been doing that and removed almost all tutors and cards that make my game go super slow (if possible). Playing from the top of my deck and have it surprise me is such a joy for me.

I had this realisation when using Epic Struggle. And I now aim to focus on fun and interesting wins, apposed to anti-climactic ones. I even went as far as dismantling one of my most sentimental decks (which I never played) to upgrade my most fun and favourite one.

I remember the first time I deliberately invested in a Rhystic Study. It spent over 6 months in my binder, never making the cut in any of my lists (and Blue is my currently most used color). I traded it in for stuff I actually wanted a few weeks back. I realized that I had an absolutely abysmal interest in putting my table through the gameplay loops it encourages. The only way I'd include it in anything, is if I build The Watcher in the Water. For every Dockside Extortionist, Cyclonic Rift and Smothering Tithe, there's a slot I'd just rather use on something more synergistic or simply more compelling to me. These cards are mechanically excellent, but I don't want them. I don't need them.

I just cut Sol Ring from my Niv-Mizzet Reborn deck and I feel good about it. I was watching an MtGGoldfish video about it and I believe Tomer made a great point about Sol Ring leading to more non-games, and I agree. It is off-theme, the most genetically powerful card, and it disproportionately skews games into archenemy scenarios.

Today I had the one ring out on turn 4 and got rhystic study out on turn 6 and it was amazing! My first time winning and which a classic infinite combo too! I couldn’t have asked for a more perfect and intense nail biter of a game for my first win at my LGS

It came to me a time ago, was playing a deck with some "stapples" (cyc rift, mana drain, smotherin tithe...) and i wasn´t having fun. So i made 2 decks from it, one called "answers" (azorius control/mill) and another called "questions" (jund aggro). "Questions" core idea is: i don´t play in response, i put questions on the battlefield so you have to answer it... And i have lots of fun playin the same way i played back in the day, just casting creatures and hitting by a lot! Some friends likes more the way that "answers" play, so i have to run it sometimes and it´s ok only if everybody at the game is having fun. Love your videos!

I have a a U/B faery tribal budget deck. Due to the budget restriction in my play group, Cyclonic Rift is not in my main deck. But once (and likely never again) we were playing for almost two hours the same game, my board state was great, and I draw a Fae of Wishes/Granted. I played Granted, wished cyclonic rift, wipe the board and finished the match! It was an epic conclusion to a great match.

Amen! I took out tutors from all my decks, as I had the feeling that every game felt the same. After buying some expensive staples and knowing that I have them, should I need them, I found out that it actually is super fun, to build in budget alternatives and pulling them off successfully. I guess I am now currently leaving behind the "optimize everything into oblivion " phase and starting to choose cards, not for maximum efficiency but for fun, interaction and flavor

See I love making sideboards for some of my decks in this case. My God-Eternal Oketra and Glissa the Traitor decks are my "I can play power level 8 if need be" decks. Oketra has Drannith Magistrate, Serra Ascendent, Esper Sentinel, Ranger Captain of Eos, and Glissa has Mox Opal, Mana Crypt, Mindslaver, etc. Sometimes just to tune the deck down slightly I'll side them in for alternatives if the game I'm playing is a different power level

Such a good video and good perspective. Great job, thanks for making me not feel as weird about this as I have when it happens. Really did hit home. Great thought changer, 10/10.

I actually did this with my Mairsil the Pretender deck. I got tired of always tutoring up the same few cards to win and so I took out the tutors and added more draw/surveil/etc effects. Still works like a dream, but the wins come in many more different ways! This is great advice.

This is the reason I advocate for sideboards in EDH, to adjust the powerlevel up or down to better fit the group we are playing with.

Great video. I had this experience 2 days ago and i could use some insight from the community: I'm playing a gavi nestwarden cycling with a quite fair game plan: draw cards, create tokens and ping oponents with an extra wincon and value engines that are the ones i'm finding troublesome. In this game i ramped into a turn 3 smothering tithe. Starting my turn 6, i had windfall and approach of the second sun in hand with 5 lands and 6 treasures in play. It fell bad to play it so i just stated to my friends "i could win this turn, but i won't" so i just played the windfall for value. My friends apreciated the gesture, since had just started developing their board state. I did not win that game, but we all had a good game. My sensation is that i need to cut one of those 3 cards, but i don't know which. I read your suggestions.

My struggle is that I'm playing in pickup games, I'll have some bombs that I need when I randomly jump into a stronger pod, but I have been in situations where I pull a bomb in a lower power group and I don't wanna play it and ruin the fun. I feel like I gotta leave it in there.

This is me with Craterhoof in my Phylath, World Sculptor deck! I found that the best way to play the deck was "Phylath on 6 & make some plants, where if i get to ever untap I just win"

Recently I was trying to put together some decklists which would be both low-to-mid powerlevel and ideally inexpensive to make, with the goal of leading to fun games for everyone in a low-power playgroup. And I found that, whenever I had a Red-Blue deck, I would inevitably put in either Niv-Mizzet, or a curiosity type effect... and then feel the urge to put in the other respective combo piece. I mean, I already HAVE the other piece, and this card fits well in the deck too, soooo... But winning out of the blue with that combo like that would certainly not feel like a satisfying conclusion to the game. Not quite the same thing, since neither of these two cards is usually an instantly game-deciding powerhouse that will get you scoffed at, but overall a similar energy.

I love how these videos are usually just “Your feelings are valid, so yeah, do what you want.”

I came to this conclusion a while back with the original praetors. I hated playing against all but Urabrask, but had a couple copies of them in decks. Except Vorinclex, he's just mean :) Anyway, what I found was that I needed to play cards I enjoyed losing to (as your podcast has said).

This is exactly how I felt about Confusion in the Ranks in a Norin the Wary deck. It felt weird not wanting to play the exact kind of card that the deck was built around. But it's such a lockout card that I'm sure is really frustrating to deal with

There is a specific "combo" in my sea-creature themed Aesi deck where I cast Whelming Wave to clear the board, then play Eternal Witness to get it back, rinse and repeat. I hate the annoyance it gives my opponents, but sometimes I need some extra turns to get to lethal damage. It's definitely on the cutting room floor, but I'm uncertain what I need to do to make the deck casual friendly while powerful enough to play some good games.

I don't if I really have this feeling (definitely not much, if I do). But recently I was working on building my Satoru the Infiltrator deck, and I have a few Rhystic studies, which I love to run in decks such as Queza Augur of Agonies. But for Satoru, it didn't feel right, so I didn't put it on the list. So I totally get it with the case-by-case (deck-by-deck) scenario.

I try to lean into more flexible power house cards for many of the reasons you mentioned. Something like Toxic Deluge is certainly a really strong card, but I like it because I can decide to only pay 1 life and knock a bunch of goblins off the board without resetting everyone and drawing their ire. Or tutors for instance. In a more casual game, I'll use them to search up a silly card or something that might make a fun interaction on the board. Or I can use it in a higher stakes game to grab a win con. I spose you can always cast Cyclonic for its single target version but it's such an infamous card you might get a few quizzical looks.

Perfect advise.

Love this video. It hit hard even the idea of you not comming out of the closet because someone else wanted to have a say. Love you for being you and giving us the advice we need to hear. Thank you for all that you do 😊

Same same. I played my Demonlord Belzenlok deck for the first time, and had both Demonic Tutor and Exquisite Blood in my hand. They felt like dead cards, because it just wasn't right to combo off in that game. I kept the tutor for theme, but EB and SB are gone. I ordered a Griselbrand instead. 🙂

There's a lot of variety with cards. Ive been a big staple type of guy but recently ive been putting restrictions on my deck building and its getting more variety of cards that you may not typically see. For example im running Strefan. Primarily Counter synergy / attack focused with ONLY vampires or creatures that can identify as Vampires. Cut nearly all aristocrat strategy. But also still have some bangers like the one ring, expensive mana base, etc. I love high power so its hard to steer away from bombs.

Hair was on point this episode!

It's always nice to find a deck that feels right for the powerful cards. Sure it can go many places, but it's nice to find the deck where it feels like it really belongs whereas some place else we can run a Verdant Mastery instead of a Smothering Tithe.

There’s another element to this: the expensive staple might just not fit the deck. For example, I saw a Sensei’s Divining Top in a Varina deck. Why. You attack you draw five cards, what difference does the order make? Cyclonic Rift - card is great, but does this deck pass turn with seven mana open?! Too often cards are put into decks for the amazing things they do in other decks, not for what they do here.

I've come to a point where only my strongest decks and my weakest decks run good tutors, just to avoid having those "feels bad to this, but..." moments in my middle of the road decks. I find it's more fun to design a tree of options around the rogue Demonic Tutor in a bad deck rather than having a dedicated two or three targets. Makes it feel dramatic, like the underdog is clawing for a chance at victory. Demonic Tutor isn't nearly as much if a bad guy card if its real purpose is to find an answer to a dangerous board as opposed to finding the danger.

Thank you, Joey. I needed to hear this today 😂

Started cutting tutors from my decks to make the games more unique. Also cut Cyclonic rift since it's usually just an unsatisfying way to win a game.

Tip for avoiding this: have a small "sideboard" of powerful cards rather than taking out completely. Use it to adjust as needed to the pod you're in. In my favorite deck, Sefris of the Hidden Ways, I have a sideboard of one card: Reveillark. It completes multiple infinite combos so is a very powerful card. I "sideboard" it in when playing a high power game and take it out when not. Let's me play that deck more without the feel bad of pubstomping while otherwise hanging with more powerful decks when I want to. More people can do that if they get these feelings.

I had an opening hand the other day with entomb and animate dead. It was a friendly game so I went for a value card instead of real beater. Totally feel this video, happens all the time

I was feeling bad about playing fetch lands and a faster manabase while everyone else wasn't using them, so i ended up changing my manabase, in which it became more fun to play and i feel no remorse to cutting it, expensive doesn't necessarely means better.

Rift is actually a really interesting example here as it has a use case even if the full bounce is too strong for the current game, that I think helps justify it even in lower power, and that’s just two mana bounce something.

There’re situations for me that it is more of a strategic shift of generically good for another more potent synergy that wins me more games. I have been experimenting with cutting Demonic Consultation and Tainted Pact out of my T&K list in favor of more powerful 1 card win cons and the deck felt way better just because I have the liberty of time to wait and draw protections for those win cons. It’s invigorating to be innovating new ideas.

in the end it mostly depends if the group you are playing with is all about winning (perfectly fine btw) or plays mostly just for fun and the cool interactions and social interaction. if its all about winning, then play the bomb and otherwise play what you think leads to the most fun for everyone involved

I understand this idea and I love playing more janky cards than good cards most of the time. I brew a lot of weird decks including a lot of interesting storm decks in various colors. A couple of my favorites though are my mono white Ao deck where I played every zero mana rock (including the suspend ones) just because I could cheat them into play off of Ao’s death trigger, and my mono white Preston the Vanisher white weenie reanimator where I forbod the main plan of Preston as a blink commander and take a different more interesting turn whee I try to sac loop spirited companions and kami of false hopes for value. I very much enjoy play weaker more fun cards over powerful ones.

I'm a big believer in mainly using staple cards if they fit your deck's theme. I played a game once when someone was playing a mono green deck but they dropped an Urborg on the field which left me super confused cause it didn't really add anything. I only own 1 copy of Rhystic Study and if lives in my Gwafa tax deck because its whole purpose is to tax people for doing anything. Same with Smothering Tithe and Esper Sentinel. They're commander staplesbut I feel weird running them in anything other than said tax deck. And on the point of pulling punches: I'm currently teaching a friend of mine how to play using mono colored decks, and instead of, I guess, pulling punches, I moreso make a point to guide him on what kind of plays can be made at certain points of the game and so far, he's stomped me almost every time LOL

I love Joey's approach to these topics. I don't necessarily agree because I love playing strong magic cards, and I love playing competitive games where everyone is trying to improve/constantly grow power levels. However, Joey is great at expressing that this is just how HE prefers to play and the video is simply a discussion on why he feels this way. I may not agree, but I can appreciate the perspective! Hell, it somewhat inspires me to make a more "4-fun" deck outside of my powerhouse decks just to try out at a casual table some time.

For me, cutting overpowered cards isn't that hard. But what's hard is cutting the moderately expensive cards that are just really great synergy. My playgroup has mostly people playing budget decks, rarely playing any cars over a few dollars. Whereas I am willing to spend up to $10-$15 per card. And that always makes me feel self conscious... but it's also really hard when the few $10+ cards in the deck are also some of the best. Not even talking about generically good cards, just that one or two super synergistic cards for this one deck. But. Just recently bought cards for three decks and paid about $60 total for all three decks. And man, that felt really good. To get basically three full decks for that price? Feels amazing, and really counteracts some of the FOMO of not getting the more expensive cards.

Play time stop after attackers have attacked but for blockers are announced. When the archenemy opponent is forced to attack with all creatures.

My general philosophy is to find janky homes for power cards. An example is Doubling Season in my Ich Tekkik/Livio splicer and golem deck.

Ghyrson Starn very quickly became my favorite deck and I built it after only a couple of tests. I very intentionally left out Manabarbs and Burning Earth when I built it, though. I may be degenerate enough to run Caltrops and Circle of Flame but at least those are really only defensive measures. Barbs and Earth just felt needlessly oppressive and hugely unfun.

Couldn't agree more Joey.

Another aspect of this topic: these powerful cards probably are out of line with the rest of the deck. So when you sit down and talk about your expectations, and then YOU draw your super powerful card, the table feels that you have misrepresented your deck. Thinking about it like this made me take another look even at cards like cornerstone of the format, Sol Ring. For me, it's much more fun to have a synergistic build of 99 cards that all do something for my Gameplan, rather than 95 of those and 4 busted cards that basically win on the spot. This doesn't mean I never play the bombs, just that I'm more deliberate where I feel they are appropriate.

I've found myself cutting good cards for another reason as well - especially Smothering Tithe and Doubling Season (a pair of cards I really like, my Smothering Tithe came from the one pre-release I've made it to) - but during the goldfishing phase of each deck build, I seem to run into a point where I realise I keep not casting the card because the deck can't handle the hate it'll draw. Which I guess is kinda the flip side of what you were talking about here. That said - Doubling Season is staying in my Cadira deck purely for the sheer entertainment of accidentally drawing about 130 cards in a turn (Rite of Harmony, several tokens on field already, Cadira (and the rest) attacks in, Rabble Rousing triggers, I realise I forgot Doubling Season was in play :D ) Side note - I wish we lived in a world where you didn't need to not care about people's opinions to come out of the closet...

I recommend playing the powerhouses but give your table outs. Examples: put enchanted evening and aura thief in your deck but don’t run any sac outlets or direct damage. Play torment of hailfire but don’t put copies on the stack or make it uncounterable. Or just let your table’s metagame evolve to learn how to reserve interaction for the game-ending threats.

I wanna bring my personal experience on this, with my newest commander deck I cut every payoff cards except 2 that 1) kinda work decently well alone 2) make the commander really go ballistic instead of a bit faster Deck is way more consistent now with the additional draw/interaction/ramp I fit in their stead

While I do agree with the Cyclonic Rift mental trip, if I'm in mono-blue, I'm running Rift, and don't feel bad about that. I also use cards like Filter Out and such because blue has a hard time dealing with enchantments/artifacts/creatures/ok, permanents.

I do this for a few years now. I don’t play Solr ring, i don’t like the artwork and it leads to these very inconsistent explosive games where you are so much more fast than others (aka the turn one Sol Ring) and that is the game people remember and think my deck is way stronger than it is. I usually play very low powered Decks they give me the most fun. So what i have been trying to do is building consistent decks at that power level and cut the high variant cards like sol ring. (Same for Dockside) …. I personally really like tutors if you don’t have these few extremely powerful cards since it means you can get what the situation for and not every single time the same card.

Joey, is it weird that when you started to say “you think if I cared what people think” I didn’t think you were mention coming out. I thought you’d mention making Syr Konrad lol

Tutors are usualy the biggest issue. Of course you can hold them if power level is low and often related to the experience you want to have with other players. But my strategy is different, I have plenty of decks for every level and if I love a Cedh commander, I also do a lower version to enjoy the mechanic with 100% other cards (basic lands not included)

One of my favorite questions is "Do i want to be the star of the game?" Something Dana has kind of helped me realize Rift is fine in my merfolk deck BUT raise the Palaceaids is just as good but it's not a boogyman card Single color decks that draw alot of cards instead of Arcane Signet try Vessel of endless water.

I find torment of hail fire feels a lot more fun/fair if you don’t run coffees/yawgmoth or a ton of treasures or something

An interesting way to think of it is that if you have a card in your deck that you actively don't want to play sometimes (outside of strictly gameplay reasons, I mean), it's kind of like you're mulliganing every time you draw that card. Like I genuinely think it's better for your winrate if you don't have cards like that in your deck.

I tried out the Thassa's Oracle combo awhile back because one of friends at my LGS had the pieces and wanted me to give it a shot. I played in a game at a fairly early turn winning that session. I, immediately, took the combo out of the deck because it legitimately felt awful winning in such a fashion against my friends. I still have the cards in case I wanna play cEDH, but I seriously can't stand that combo in any form it presents itself with.

I'm running a Sliver Overlord deck that can very effectively calibrate how powerful it gets based on what the Commander tutors out. I ended up cutting the Slivers that give 'Indestructible' & 'Shroud' because I just never wanted to search a way to make the game boring by turning off interaction. Same logic with replacing 'Slivers can't be blocked' with 'Trample'.

In my expirence powering/meme down your decks only works if your playgroups also gets influenced by this otherwise you get a worse feeling as having an unplayable card is much worse than getting your opponent hit with the ol' reliable. However when you find a niece card that does the staples work in you quirk strategy thats a fantastic feeling and get your opponents also exited but those honestly are a thing of the past since wotc is printing everything as legend narrowing deck building even more.

The #1 feature I want in Archidekt is the option to not see the price for each individual card. It definitely skews my evaluation, even when I try consciously not to let it "well it's expensive, so it must be 'better' than the other card I'm considering."

TL:DR Reevaluate all cards, even the ones you feel are auto includes in any deck sharing the color

I've been building a hat themed deck, and at first I was going to include dockside extortionist, because it's probably objectively tbe best creature in the entire game that is wearing a hat. But then I realised I would rather win with my janky hat cards than just blinking dockside over and over.

This is more for me reminding myself i dont need to win every game

I did this with Exquisite Blood, had the combo in a deck, won 2 games in a row with it and it felt very anticlimactic so I ended up holding it in the third game and I couldve easily won on turn 6 but it just felt bad, so I took it out and the deck wins in other ways so no big loss

4:44 go Joey!!!

Gotta say, one of my best decisions recently was replacing Dockside with There and Back Again in my Firkraag deck

i think the question here we need to ask our selves is am i building a deck arround my weekly playgroup , o r the whole lgs community near by . i have encountert many moments where "non staples" performed overall better in a varietie of games and sometimes staples just wont cut the deal in certain playgroups everyone is playing green and ramps via lands and is creature heavy, then dockside is definetly nothing for your deck (if you encounter them all the time )- i personaly build my decks in a way i can face any deck an have some kind of answer to it in it. Many powerhouse cards just set the tone on the game , because thats always be the way the deck will win. its the same with combos , my wife had just a bad streak in her playgroup and she was like like " maybe put a combo in it so i can sometimes win", i warned her that her gameplay will after that always be that , she didnt beliefe me and tryed it ... and it happened as foretold. (Sidenote: if you want to play combo play full combo^^). in generell having more juicy theme stuff plays in my opinion way better and more fun than having a 3 color artifact deck for example with 10 artifact based or synergystic cards and 60 high end staples from those 3 colors , there are many , many funny alternatives for each strategy most people woulnt even think of , i think exploring ALL the posibilities you have with each deck is more fun am brings even more game knowledge to you and makes you a better player , because you are now able to think outside of the box and create realy fun decks even with absolut busted commanders that are uniqe work extremly smoothe and strong but you are not that kind of threat with it that you need to be taken out on the spot ( a problem what many commanders over the last past years brought with them).

title sounds like it would be a banger (or bomb ;)) of a song

I always try to run the on-theme (or one-meme) card over the staple if I can help it. I play a lot of enchantress decks and I took Aura Shards out of my enchantress decks recently because the card can potentially just ruin someone's day. It's not quite at the level of Grave Pact in terms of the misery it can induce but, while it can keep OP artifact decks from popping off, it can also just incidentally hamstring other decks. I only run the card in more cutthroat games.

The feeling is caused by a mismatch in card to deck power. Having a 9 in a 6 deck feels odd because it is so far above the other players it feels disruptive to the pod. But if you're in a more tense game the 9 fits right in with the 9 pod.

Genuine question: How do people even play cyclonic rift, craterhoof, torment of hailfire, etc. type cards? They are so incredibly boring to win with and lose to. Is it really that hard to think outside of the box

I ramped up my Giada Font of Hope deck to near cEDH level and it became no fun to play. I took out the cards that feel out of place and put back in the fun pet cards I have grown to love.

I have a few decks that are earmarked "Killers" or "No fun allowed", and it's on these decks I will put all the nasty cards, and will only pull those decks out when the table agrees it's time for heavy hitters. I have cut a lot of the nastier cards from my more casual decks, especially when they don't actually play in theme/are just generic strong cards

Our group has a soft ban on knowledge pool because of the groan factor.

Unfortunately, the local meta in my region is infinite combos and very high powered decks. It isn't much fun to get wombo combo'd repeatedly.

I keep my “best of” cards in my mono colored decks. Mono color is so limiting that it’s worth having those bombs in there. Multicolored is great for finding those interesting and unpredictable plays. I’d rather win with everyone being baffled at what happened than the obvious ‘draw and tutor’ to win

I feel like this concept will become more relevant and take on a new meaning as more and more powerful cards are printed. In general, Wotc has been careful about power creep, but it's essentially inevitable. Even if it's just a few "staples" (knowing full well how many folks, including Joey and myself feel about that term) each year, I fully expect that the game will getting a point where cards like Cyclonic Rift are cut because they simply aren't good enough any more. If you're constantly upgrading your deck with each new set and playing each new staple, your deck can quickly lose its identity. Additionally, it may be hard to find a slot for that new weird card that looks fun. As players, getting comfortable with cutting powerful cards for whatever reason seems like a good investment in our fun with this game.

It is, in fact, okay to cut Sol Ring from all your decks if you and your friends consider it anti-fun. I didn't need encouragement, but I still greatly appreciate that somebody in the community is taking the time to consider this side of Commander. It's tiresome to hear people say "I have to run it." or "Everybody is playing it".

I've cut Grave Pack effects and the odd Eldrazi because they created unfun board states.

I’m in the camp of showing up to class prepared. If I don’t have an immediate benefit of Cyc Rift I’d sandbag. Maybe opponent A swings out at opponent B, I’m not getting in the way of that. Now if it’s pointed at me or their voltron is about to go all in and they tap out to equip/aura, then I will interact.

keep these types of vids coming mate

I took out Dictate of Erabos from my Wilhelt deck because it would’ve been too efficient after a few games and would’ve just had me win harder.