It's Time To Have The Rule 0 Talk | The Commander Pregame Discussion | Magic: The Gathering 

That's just RU-vid becoming self aware and hating on you giving tips like these out for free...

Casual, fair magic is the only magic

It was a great video deck tech, actually

Hate to hear about the censorship Prof.! Keep up the phenominal content!

I did watch it. It was good satirical fun. I hope you more videos like that: some people play the game for fun, others to win, and others to do both. Now...is there a way I can play commander online?

Too true!

and jank

And "new player who doesn't know what EDH is," bringing garbage commons worse than even the oldest precons.

Yes! Our playgroup just go for the Cedh without the reserved list cards. And it is still sooo far over the power level of a "7"

@@centurosproductions8827 there's no reason to personally attack me

That had me dying haha. I fully agree with that point though. Everyone in edh has a different idea of fun and that often leads bad feelings or conflict between players.

The players, the RC, Sheldons bad takes. top 3 biggest problems with Commander.

@@deionsamuels3812 For me, it's about player attitudes. I've been in Magic for about a year now and I've met two types of people so far: super awesome people who want to have a fun time playing an amazing game. This is about 80% of the playerbase. The other 20% are complete degenerates in one way or another. Toxic, rude, morbidly obese with poor hygiene (I have chonker friends; none make me move my seat over if I sit next to them!), arrogant, egotistical, take your pick or mix and match. I love this game but sometimes the people.... holy MOLY. Most "Rule 0" disputes that actually feel bad are because one of the players involved is an asswipe.

@@nimmer4749 You've only been in magic about a year eh? I've been in it much longer... It's a lot more than 20%, that or I've been extremely unlucky. Can't tell you how many times I've heard "Play better cards, your deck sucks." I know how to play competitive magic and I find it very boring and repetitive so I play value and fun jank.

@@ryangainey94 Ah sorry to hear that. It might sound arrogant but I find my city's populace exceptionally nice, I'll never move away from here, so I think I just lucked out.

Great pleasure to see you here, Joe! Hugs from the cEDH community and thank you for popularizing pregame talks :D

hope you invite the prof and budget thor back in IHYD.

Make sure you “fix” that Lorehold deck.

@@matchiu92 They will definitely be back!

@@darkzero3 It's been thrown in the trash LOL

That's not far off!

"Oh, you all brought baseball bats? What am I supposed to do with this M4-A1S?

@@Qril Not much against my Tiger tank =D

Group Hug anyone.

@@Deum-Immortalem btw I covered my jacket with knives

"How does your deck win?" "... I don't understand the question"

Wait, you’re supposed to win(

@@jamescampbell2353 But I play Pheldagriff...

New player: do you politic? Me: GROUP HUG

@@dif4797 so do I, there is always a way to win.

Fun has been cancelled

"I'm not saying you CAN'T play Magic if you play stax, I'm saying be prepared for no one to want to play with you"

L o l

@@alexandercandicedad1355 But Stax is so much fun

@@bestaround3323 fun is highly subjective.

Hidden information is one of the big points of a the game. An experienced player can usually tell what a decks up to unless the pilot is actively hiding what the deck is. Like the command zones Cromat Nekusar would be in that category.

I think honestly those folks should at least share broadly what their decks are like. It's not like you're asking for a decklist. If I'm going to be playing a game for 2 hours, I at least want a sense of what that's going to be like and if it's not a play style I enjoy playing with (stax, MLD), then I'll politely excuse myself or request to switch decks if possible.

If the group is cilled.. then I dont mind share some info so they have a feeling about the deck, or if they share info then I will too

I've noticed that, too. I've been playing mtg for 5+ years, I know when to counter an ad nas or that I don't love sit across from whatever dumb stuff you're going to have Gitrog do. I can easily reveal my deck's type and power level while still retaining the mystery in the 100 cards I'm bringing to the table, but there is a group of people that seem to struggle with this.

Oh, that sounds frustrating, I'm sorry to hear that. I understand that some players would like to play with everything being a surprise, but for a casual no-stakes game it's also reasonable for someone to want to know what they're playing against and it sounds like the players where you are just aren't open to that. I hope you find a group you can enjoy commander with.

Same hopes. It will make humanity better

I mean, yes, but it's a lot easier for players to assemble a deck worth like $150 to meet the lower power level than it is for one player to assemble a $5k deck to meet the higher power level, which is why I think most people focus on only the higher power decks.

Right. A lower power level means you might be the one not having any fun. I can't tell you the number of times I've wound up bringing a toothpick to an interstellar death star war. (Hey, knife to a gunfight is pretty dated and if you're any good aim with a throwing knife or good at dodging bullets you might survive)

Yeah, it's not a lot of fun boxing with a pacifist, or a person who has no arms and legs. Don't be 'that guy' bringing a bad 7 to a cEDH table, it's just not fair to other people. They came to hunt tigers, and BAM! all they see is a kitten, just no thrill there.

@@mightyone3737 Thing is I have both kinds of deck, but if you come in expecting one kind and you get the other... Disaster strikes

@@mightyone3737 Okay, but what if you don't have the money for a cEDH table and all the other pods are full? Like I said earlier, it's far more likely that someone can't afford a $5k deck than the rest of the group can't collectively afford $500.

This is important - with the talk about Planechase possibly returning with commander precons, I assume a lot more of commander games will play with the addition of planes. The added complexity is sure to disrupt the flow of the game if some of the players are not comfortable with piloting their own deck having to consider the effects of the planes on top.

@@DarthTUK Yea some time ago me and some friends tried planechase for the first time. In short: we ended up skipping a single players turn 3 times with a combination of morph effects and planechase effects. We are very close friends, so we had a good laugh about it, but i Can imagine under different circumstances, skipping 3 turns for someone would produce a fuckton of salt(and i would not blame them).

he's awesome!

@@TolarianCommunityCollege Aww shucks :)

Check out his youtube content!

Ight ima head out

My roommate has that deck and doesn’t understand why he’s always targeted

How many mulis do we get?(Where is that homeward path..)

I packed a Tergrid, sleeved up the deck in a day, had everything lying around for it. I shuffled it up, played a test game, put it up on a shelf and it's still sitting there. I will stick to my Balthor, the defiled demon tribal deck for mono b fun.

Thats how I feel with lathril in my group (I broke the game with her )

hahaha right

As far as I'm concerned, silliness is the entire point of commander.

Amen

Janky decks are fun as fuck. Hah it's just a bummer when others make 100% proxy decksm

That doesn't sound very fun. If you're on spelltable I'd love to play some games with you. Are you on Discord?

One store near me actually made a rule against this, the so called “lucky seven rule”, that nobody in commander can go infinite in any way before turn 7

@@thenintendoguy643 but you can smack my face on turn 4 with commander damage. I don’t know why inf get that much hate. I don’t like t4 decks either but the way I loose is just the same annoying thing.

@@kevin_Masters that’s why I play decks that stall the game out. Mono blue control kinda stuff

@@thenintendoguy643 I used to be my thing to (more like esper because I needed fieldwhipes and consistency but my playgroup started to play less and less removal and look at me If there was a problem and smack me if I solved them as a problem. Then I built an aggro combo deck to show them how lame there decks where but it went of faster. I loved to say start playing removal. For a period I tried to establish roles on the table and players to pick their deck accordingly. Like aggro, combo, tempo and control. This should create a balanced game play experience and development as a player and builder.

Nice nice, I really wanted the post credits where the professor is just relaxing.

Sounds good, always be honest with how quick your deck can win. Some games last for hours and some minutes as you already know. The quicker your deck wins, the more powerful. Always mention that to ensure everyone realizes what kind of game it will be.

Quick: Goro OTK Slow: Kefnet OTK

Quick game? Witherbloom tokens. Slow game? Tiamat Dragon tribal. Casual game? Shadrix Politics, Farideh D20s matter, or Averna Cascade tribal. Competitive game? Tergrid Aristocrats or Nevinyrral Stax. I've got answers for almost anything anyone could want xD

@@wildcardalbedo Extremely funny and janky but still works because of op commander? Tatyova with 65 lands!

Aesi... More. GAS.

Quick: Edgar, Golos, Krenko, Godo Mid: Adrix and Nev, Melek, Atla Palani, Karametra, Ardeen and Rograkh Slow: Meren (But usally wins)

He's the best!

@@TolarianCommunityCollege :-D

BEAR FORCE ONE!

Thanks !

“It’s an upgraded precon guys!”

“I’m just playing Lonis guys!” Pukes out Urza, Kinnan and Koma. Haha love the guy.

I tend to do that just because I tend to be humble. Which is part of the issue with trying to figure out power levels.

Please do!

I think like many Cedh players you are confusing playing only to win with playing to win. If your deck is so imbalanced, that you can expect to win every game, but were you to switch decks, you would expect to lose every game, that is imbalanced not "competitive". Think of it like professional boxing. EDH is boxing with weight classes. The fights are balanced and entertaining. CEDH is the heavy weight class only. It might be a good fight or it might be a total mismatch and over in 10 seconds. While EDH players are playing to win in the game (to the best of the ability of their selected deck), they are doing so through competitive and balanced play, not simply selecting a deck that is unfair based on the decks other players have available.

@@Dragon_Fyre Neil, I think you are confusing what I said with what you intended to read. What you wrote is mostly unrelated to the points I was making, and starting a conversation the way you did is somewhat rude.

I don't think rule 0 has anything to do with CEDH lol

@@UnexpectedDanger We do. A lot of people pays attention to the way the RC (mis)treats our community, so a lot of us use the pregame talks to check if an alternative banlist will be used. And besides that stating what strategy are you playing and knowing what are the decks you're playing against (with decklist access) is almost a given.

@@RafaelAAMerlo I was responding to one specific point that you made, which was quite clear. I was simply disagreeing with you; I dont believe I said anything rude or insulting.

You are so welcome!

Heres the thing, if you are feeling bad likely it's not there decks that are the problem -_-

This. I don't wait to see how good that sliver deck is.

Slivers will always be arch enemy...my God I truly hate that deck.

My sliver queen is the pride of my collection. Either goes fully ham or flops like a fish. No in between lol

It's always Archenemey, even why I play the group hug version of my Pheldagriff deck.

Yeah, going just a little stronger than a precon, IE making it more focused, makes the game more fun. Going beyond that just ruins the game.

my friend only lost one time in our group with the unupgraded precon

my old lgs owner played wolf tribal lmao.

EDH is a terrible format, and I'm tired of pretending it isn't.

@@coltonkinder1424 ok

Is it really too much to ask to have a format with a predetermined number of rares and mythics? I really feel like that's how the game is designed. But NOPE.. you either play in singleton formats specifically designed for the biggest and largest spells to flourish or you play Pauper and get NOTHING and you'll like it!

@@VagabondTE Do you not have a playgroup that feels the same way?

@@coltonkinder1424 This should be repeated early and often. The only thing worse than Commander is the discourse surrounding it. It’s like a religion in which you must follow the sacred EDH scriptures in order to play it the “right” way.

if your playing urza, I think everyone has an idea of what happens at this point. "There's no such thing as a low power urza deck" Josh Lee-Kwai from the command zone when trying to build a friendly urza deck for game knights (he gave up, it was just too good)

They actually do have the rule 0 discussion but they don't film it and include it. They play 1-2 games in advance to see how balanced the decks are before proceeding to the main event.

@@Dragon_Fyre my point is they need to show it as to get more people into doing it

I disagree with that addition to the show. Command zone episodes are about entertainment, not teaching people the game. Adding a boring repetitive convo to the start of each episode would not be a valuable addition IMO.

Game knights is about entertainment, thsts why I said extra turns which is more about gameplay

I agree that it's less of a highly edited show, but it's not a how to play show either. It's still gameplay entertainment so I think it would get old very fast.

We've always had boundaries at Magic. Please don't ever touch my cards vs You are free to read my cards. Dice for Life totals is fine vs not fine. The art on that token borders on porn vs cool tokens. Rule 0 simply says clear these sorts of things out before you play, especially if you arent using a judge. "Just call a judge" to get oracle text or deem a card marked vs not, doesnt work if there is no judge.

That's what the world is becoming.

​@@FitGuyAZ577 That comes from every individual wanting their idea of fun to be accepted and facilitated by everyone else. Don't be part of that problem. Time to rediscover how to fit in with any group instead of demanding that every group fit itself to you.

That is just the fastest race power level scale. Control decks can be strong but will be a 10+ but will win 90% of the time if it is in games like it is a 10+

@@kevin_Masters they key point being uninterrupted. A very powerful control deck still needs to establish a win to establish power level.

I feel as long as the players are using threat assessment and table politics this should not be an issue. Just because someone talks about having something nasty in the deck doesn't mean the table hyper focuses them. If they are behind on lands or having a rough start that wouldn't be in the spirit of commander to rush them down because of the pregame talk. There should be constant social interactions throughout the game. The real reason we are all playing the game is to have a good time :)

You are assuming nobody has intercation in thier decks and the variance of things like explosive early turns doesn't make people's focus change.

@@albertoftw The people who "need" Rule 0 like described in this video tend to run suboptimal decks that don't play a lot of interaction. So, yes, I'm assuming they aren't running enough interaction. The average EDH player isn't that good at building decks, and typically won't have an established collection with which to build a deck from.

Very few of the issues in this video are exclusive to Commander. Power level differences, along with differing expectations for what kind of game you're playing, are a potential pain point of every non-tournament game.

@@johnromero6315 True but it doesn't stop Commander players from thinking they have a monopoly on "casual".

Simply not true, even if we ignore precons and below and CEDH, there's still a massive, nebulous pool of decks in between where some decks win on turn 4 and others on turn 10 if they draw well. I don't know if this can be reconciled even with hundreds of bans.

@@nicholashowie5829 The problem isn't that powerful cards exist, it's that some cards are so vastly powerful that they warp the game around them. Basically every player can afford Sol Ring but that doesn't mean the format is better for it being in. A turn 1 Sol Ring, Mana Crypt, etc can completely invalidate whatever rating you gave your deck in the pre-game talk - they can turn a deck that's normally a 5 into a 7, or a seven into an 8, etc. And the rules committee hides behind rule zero, saying "if you don't like the gameplay those provide, then rule 0 them". However, rule 0 makes it difficult to bring your decks to events, other stores, or anywhere outside your play group and have fun without having to also carry around a bunch of extra cards to swap in and out. So everyone just defaults to the published banned list, which is ineffective as I've said before.

@@Thyeggman the power level problem really isn't about good starting hands, if a table can't handle a player starting sol ring, then chances are the lucky players deck was too powerful in the first place, and this is usually due to a generally higher card quality than just starting sol ring. For example, my Animar deck isn't quite CEDH, but too strong for most casual tables, I usually win turn 5, no fast mana required. No deck that's actually a "6" is gonna win against that even with their turn 1 sol ring, arcane signet. My point is that even banning the absolute best cards will have little impact on bringing power levels closer, save for lowering the CEDH ceiling a bit. There's just too many good cards that create impressive (oppressive?) combos. The issue with leaving power level issues to the RC in the first place is that ban lists typically only impact the highest level of play.

EDH discourse has become insufferable. I hope the bubble bursts sooner rather than later.

Everthing that's wrong with EDH?? Maybe if you continue playing a deck that people in your playgroup don't enjoy playing against then maybe play another deck once in a while how is that unreasonable? Again EDH is a social casual format is not always about just YOU or I is about maximizing EVERYONES good time. There's other formats for what you are suggesting

The key is to find the players that love the experience you want to have. I used to have a Mina and Denn MLD deck, the kind that cycled MLD frequently because it didn't hurt me. Understandably not everyone wants to play that experience, but when I asked a new playgroup, sometimes I would have them all pull out decks they think can get under or over what I am doing and we all have a blast. Other times I play purphoros goblins, because hey, that's fair magic right?

This is completely misunderstanding the point of rule 0 entirely, which is the biggest problem of EDH being the most popular mtg format at the moment. No three players are forced to play against a stax/mld/handlock/etc. if that's not the experience they're looking for, whether at an LGS or your common playgroup. If you don't like to play different strategies and/or adapt to different player types when it's being discussed, maybe playing games isn't the hobby for you either. Maybe try model building.

@@Seanr670 Imagine a game of basketball where a player didn't like the fact that he didn't get any rebounds because he was shorter than the another player. I don't know of any reasonable reality where we would suggest the tall player to "not get rebounds" or "is not allowed to play with us because we're not having fun". But in EDH this is what Rule 0 has become. I don't dislike the intent behind Rule 0. Please, in your playgroups have discussion amongst friends but at the same time it is not an excuse to exclude others because of your personal preference of how Magic should be played. We all know monsters who play mill decks. But hey it's what they like to play so let them play it. We as a group should not decide that we don't like viable and legal aspects of the game and expect others to buy/build a new deck to accommodate. And honestly, most games are won and lost by misplays. Yes, decks can fall into good and bad categories but if you really look at "feel bad losses" you would probably find that most players didn't play optimally/misread board states/made bad deals, etc. And hey, mana screw is a thing too. What most players need to do is learn to play around other strategies. If someone keeps showing up with the same deck it shouldn't be too hard to shut them out of the game. It's how the game works. No one's decklist is the Gospel and someone shouldn't have to not play with their toys because someone else has decided they "don't like them".

I hope you can find a solution or a more suitable playgroup, homie. Wish you and I could sit down to a game.

It happened with my playgroup recently but a few months ago we all realized that it makes the game unfun for everyone so we changed to the general agreement that we only play CEDH decks once a game out of our like 10-15