Should Commander Players Stop Going Easy On Each Other? | Dies To Removal 44 | Magic The Gathering 

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The Cedh player at my tournament store once told us, quote, "NEVER use a number to determine the power of your deck. Instead of saying 'its a 7 or 8' you should be saying 'on what turn does your deck usually start working?'" I think he makes a great point. Power level is completely subjective. My buddy constantly says "My deck's not that bad" then after watching him get infinite mana turn 6 I'm like "Riiiiiight"

"THE SICILIAN DEFENSE?!" I literally burst out laughing

Origin of the stax deck name: "The deck was named $T4KS, an acronym for "The Four Thousand Dollar Solution," and Stax its use of Smokestack to lock the opponent out of the game for good. The four thousand dollar part is due to the fact that before current proxy rules this deck cost nearly $4000.00 US due to the deck running eight of the "power nine" cards and a full set of Mishra's Workshops." from a 2005 article

It was definitely popular in StarCraft to play 3v3/4v4 "no rush" games. This was my favorite thing to do as a kid, letting everyone get together a MASSIVE 200/200 force with rows and rows of towers and cannons defending. These fights were absolutely epic. Of course some people would break the rule and rush in, but most of the time it let everyone make a ton of their favorite unit and try to break/sneak through.

The editing of this episode is absolutely fantastic. This comedy feels quite different, but you had me in tears throughout the episode.

The most interesting games I played is where a player clearly was ahead of everyone else and played as optimally as possible. But the variance in who was ahead on board shifted so much after the biggest fish was knocked down a peg. It made it unpredictable how the game would play out. It's the best way to play IMO.

I did a similar thing to the passing the deck to the right idea with my playgroup. I did a 'Blind Commander' night, everyone was asked to bring a at least one new deck that no one had seen before. They were told to write a short blurb about what the deck did. Then we took all the decks and assigned them randomly to people. We also had a bit of a scoring system, winning with the deck gives the winner 1 point, and the deck builder 1 point, but also at the end of the game everyone voted for the deck they liked the best. At the end of the night we gave away some prizes to the one with the most points.

35:17 as a fellow merfolk player, I love seeing the professor spread the classic merfolk player tradition of hating elves.

I died after "I think I'm wounding that king on 2s?!"

Someone tell Prof that "wouldn't say boo to a goose" shows up in American books, specifically on page 24 of The Outsiders when Ponyboy describes Johnny. 😋

The answer to the question is the same as this question: "if the other players knew you didn't win when you could have, would they feel good about it?"

A part of my gameplay philosphy is optimizing play around a single question: "what can I do to make the game more spicy?" Because it's not really about winning/losing a lot of times, but rather HOW I, or an opponent, win that really makes games fun and memorable.

Before I moved away from the area I had an amazing playgroup- most of the time it was casual commander with some really inventive deck ideas (that didn’t always work, but were fun). About once every 2-3 months when we got together it was “no holds barred” commander- just the most degenerate cards and combos we could come up with. Other people at our LGS would gather around and watch the salt fest unfold. Every once in a while it’s a refreshing change of pace.

"Commander works better when it's not the main format!" YES! Thank you for saying the quiet part out loud!!!!! Give me my pauper, my standard, and my limited.

I've said it before, I'll say it again: Commander is not a format in the way Standard or Legacy are formats. It's why the banlist is not 'complete', and why it is trivial to make a 'broken' deck. It's a guideline for you to design the kind of game you want to play, and the issue is we have pickup games where people have different expectations.

My self-reflection became me realizing it isn’t that I dislike infinite combos, it’s that them tutoring for the same combo because that’s what their 100-card deck is meant to means it’s a predictable experience with little interaction. I like how varied a game of Commander can be. Those that lay back with little to no interaction while they ready their combo each time goes against the fun of interacting with multiple decks of 100 cards when they finish it briefly the same way each time. Then the game does become just telling a story about targeting the one player before they do their thing.

There's something to be said about opening hand in relation to "power level." There is an, albeit small, percent chance that a deck will draw an ideal hand at the start. That doesn't mean that I misrepresented the power level, I just happened to have an ideal starting position.

The most frustrating games of magic for me are when 3 players collude before the game, but AFTER the decks are picked, to not let you win. So by turn 2 or 3 you are knocked out of the game and then they play 3 player commander basically. This usually happens if I won the previous game, regardless if I pick my worst deck. The players just don't want it to be possible for you to win again.

It's interesting to reflect that the largest influence to Richard Garfield when he designed the 2 player duel of MTG was Cosmic Encounter, a 3-6 multiplayer experience with wildly asymmetric player powers and take-that cards that relies on coalitions to keep the powerful player in check. I would rec all commander players get in a game or 2 of Cosmic and experience the silly, lighthearted, chaotic atmosphere that was once recessive in the DNA of magic, only to flower full force with the commander format. One lesson that can be learned from it for the commander table is to not get too worked up about different "power levels" at the table, *embrace the inevitable asymmetry* of commander; there are many games to play where everyone starts in a balanced position. Commander is not one of them! Team up on players with stronger positions to check their strength, don't be like the young prof and nuke Josh Lee Kwai's enchantment for aesthetic enjoyment. Learn to ride the flow and balance of a chaotic, silly game.

Whoever edited this one did a great job. It was fun and engaging the whole way through, playing around with and emphasising Prof and Vince's discussion without taking over

The skit was pretty great. And I like the idea that Vince just manifested those dice out of the aether at the end.

"Wouldn't say boo to a goose" is a pretty popular saying over here in the UK to describe someone of a quiet/timid/shy demeanour.

I think a large part of having fun is when you talk at the table. The most fun I have is when talking with the people I'm playing against, not just playing spells and seeing what my deck is dealing me during a game. I really enjoy thinking outloud, evaluating threats, discussing what we, as a table, can do against those threats whilst everyone still aims to win. I don't play CEDH, but hearing that those sort of conversations happen at those tables makes me more interested in playing it!

Never thought I would hear the Professor say what we have been saying for some time: "cEDH is the inevitable future of commander" 🥳 Your analogy on Civ VS Starcraft is incredible too! 👌

One thing I"ve noticed about myself, is if I have a "competitive outlet" so like playing pioneer, FAB, something, i generally have more relaxed commander experience because I've had a way to get those gotta win urges out in another way.

I'd say "stop going easy on each other" is misleading, as it implies that sparing another player is "going easy"; often killing a player isn't the right choice because it'll use resources / turn other players against you / reduce available blocks etc. and in those cases it's more beneficial to spare them (or better yet, make a deal!). Also, I'll generally spread damage around in early game instead of attempting to eliminate a player because it's more fun when everyone gets to do their thing. That said, there are, of course, plenty of situations where knocking someone out is the right play, and I won't hesitate to do so when that's my evaluation.

I ALWAYS have a pre-game conversation with my opponent, whether it's Magic, Warhammer or any similar game. The idea is just to see what sort of game people are looking to have, what sort of skill level they're at, etc. Maybe it's the warhammer player in me, but I just see that conversation as fundamental to setting up a fun experience for everyone. Games are about having fun, and we have a responsibility to each other to help each other have fun.

The most unmanageable situation in commander is when someone brings one of those fast combo decks that can go off at any point after turn 2 or 3 but complain when they get focused down from the get go like they should.

@8:33 What the professor is describing here is known, in some other sports, as "Good Sportsmanship". That is always playing your best game to your best ability and not intentionally 'throwing' or making a poor strategic decision. It can be seen as being disrespectful of your opponents and the game itself.

Only 6 mins in and I've already jumped back like 5 times, editing and jokes are on point this episode Edit: I'm a Scot and would never say; "He wouldn't be caught saying boo to a goose", that's some peak twee Englishness.

My favorite deck is angel tribal and I'm happy playing it whenever I can regardless if I win or not. Even if I lose I can live happily knowing that my deck affected the game in a fun way.

My suggestion is to have a small variety of decks (if you can afford it). My deckbox can hold 5 decks, so I have 2 cEDH decks, 2 regular decks and 1 slightly upgraded pre-con deck. This allows me to dial in my power level to other players at the table.

I got into EDH right before it became officially Commander. Between graduating college, getting married, moving, etc. I sold all my cards and got into the board game hobby. I'm just getting back into EDH now. It is really interesting to me to see how EDH started and where Commander is today. I look forward to getting back into the format but I most definitely am going to be making proxy decks and figuring out a play set of 4-8 decks that seem balanced together, almost like a "board game" of EDH for many of the reasons listed in this episode. I hope the pod we are currently getting together can find a balance. I believe much of the board game hobby will be able to benefit this issue EDH/Commander is facing today. Really is a shame to think so much money goes into this fun format and it's wildly unbalanced/crazy/etc. That's what we loved about it back in the day. We didn't take it too seriously. We did goofy things. We had insane combos. The fun was dealing with that stuff and seeing who was going to win. The fun was tinkering with your decks to make it better when they were played in your play group. Not spiteful or anti fun. But balance each other out. I'm thinking of aura shards warping EDH and needing a lot more spot removal for enchantments because that card would literally win the game. Or finding value in playing counter spells to stop combos/win conditions (as opposed to countering a mana rock to stall out a person's deck and make it unfun). etc. Thanks for the amazing content, as always. Looking forward to digesting as much of this as I can to get up to speed in the format.

The editing on these last several Dies to Removals have been as good if not better than the actual discussion, great job to everyone

My friend and I both name our decks after songs that thematically fit the deck. We have a playlist of songs and will randomly decide which deck each of us plays.

I feel like saying "This should be an open and diverse format with no rules and a very limited ban list, just don't grief each other" is exactly where Commander was pre-2013 before the first Commander products, and since then we've basically had a continually expanding conversation about what qualifies as griefing, and how to maintain deck diversity in the format. I don't think we can solve anything by saying "Let's stop being so picky, it's ok to lose as long as you aren't being griefed" because we will just end up all having a different definition of griefing and restarting the cycle (We go from "land destruction is unfun" to "fast mana is an unfair pay-to-win advantage" to "combos end the game too quickly" to "I just don't like that card"). There's also the issue of arguing against a ban list, but then bemoaning the homogenized format that results from everyone identifying the best cards that you would just be incorrect to leave out of your deck, and putting them in every deck (which leads as well to naturally promoting those commanders that interact best with those all-star staple cards that you have to run anyway, which then creates repetitive gaming experiences against the same few commanders all the time). My experience with Commander is that it is really only fun in regular play groups that can find a consistent power level they like to play at, and using deck construction rules or expansive ban lists to maintain it if they have to. This is not practical if your intention is to go to your LGS and get some pickup games, but it does promote fun multiplayer Magic experiences within a play group, I find. I just don't think Commander can stand on its own as a universal casual format (CEDH being a different format with different expectations).

I think a lot of the problem in EDH at the moment is a lot of people trying to use systems as a substitute for empathy. Ban lists and rule 0 discussions and power level and yadda yadda yadda, all of it as an attempt to codify and systematize human interaction, because people think it's easier than just... thinking about what other people are feeling. And I don't mean "let other players do whatever they want in game." That's just another thoughtless knee-jerk system. You don't solve this problem by just setting a new default thing in your head. You solve this problem by looking to have a good time, and looking to give other people a good time, and trying to get those two goals to mesh together. That's difficult to do with three strangers, for sure, but that's why Commander is a game mode best enjoyed with friends. But that doesn't mean try and remove that element from your experience with a list of decrees, that means actually try and *make some new friends when you sit down to play.*

Commander players should go big. Few days ago in our pod a friend of mine was doing Green things, his turn was after mine and he was going to Untap with enough damage to lethal the board. So I blasted him for 30 damage and player removal. You gotta do what you gotta do.

So I'll say a reason I'll play sub optimality on purpose is if I'm playing with a friend who put something fun in their deck and finally got a chance to use it, I usually leave whatever it is out for a round. It's always a great feeling when an upgrade hits the table and that's immediately crushed when it's removed right away

Or how about this. A player wins with their two card combo. The rest of the players say "Well done, you win! We're going to carry on as though you didn't and continue the game. You can sit there and watch if you like."

It sounds like some commander players need a similar cooperative format. Personally I have a horde deck built for this reason. This lets my kids and I jam our commander decks against the horde as a team. I've never been to a shop here we actually have a rule zero talk. Everyone tends to just play what they want. Sometimes after a player crushes a pod, the rest of us in the pod will just ask them to play again and grab a different deck closer to the one that just stomped us

When you mentioned putting powerful cards (mana crypt) in low powered decks to help them... Yes! I have built some mediocre decks that wouldn't be playable without beefing up with some tutors, fast mana, etc. It's great to make a bad idea work. And my groups love it.

The best scale for "do I want to play against this deck with my casual list?" seems to be the "salt" score by EDHRec :D

I have the mindset of matching power levels the best you can, so that the most impoverished player feels on even ground. but play the game like you're in it to win it.

Always make a deal with your opponents then betray them a turn later. - Jin-Gitaxias

for the first time, i completely agree with PleasantKenobi, stax is the most misunderstood word in magic! It’s used to describe both lock cards like static orb and taxing cards like Thalia. That’s where the misunderstanding comes in. Lock cards are a strategy people don’t like (e.g. karn+lattice) but they are a valid strategy. I think it’s fine that people don’t like it, akin to land destruction. Taxing cards are basically just tools you use to make everyone play fair magic. Instead of a player storming off on turn 4 when your deck needs to get to turn 6 to do the thing it wants to achieve, you are putting up a distraction that the storm player needs to defeat before they do their thing, which would hopefully buy you the time you need to do your thing on turn 6!

Love the video! Since we're on the ever-elusive topic of power level, I'd like to share a pregame question I've had a lot of success with: "What are your deckbuilding restrictions?" I find that most players are *excited* to answer this, since it lets them share of their creative card inclusions (and omissions) as well as talk about any overall theme of their deck! It gives players a *granular* way to talk about power level which actually clues one another in about potential gameplay sequences. If they can't think of any restrictions to tell you (or won't, but I haven't seen this yet) then you can assume it's the top end of what their Commander can do. Hope this helps someone out there get some great games in.

I love that even in the chaos of the opening skit the chessboard has already been setup wrong

I remember once I was playing a Karrthus deck against a grand arbiter Augustin IV deck, and my opponent was a little strapped for mana in the early game (no ramp or rocks, and his 3rd land drop was lotus vale); on my turn I showed my buddy I had an acidic slime and the only reason i wasn't going to blow up his only land was because i didn't want to be a jerk; he ended up coming back and winning that game and talked smack about it for weeks. since that day i have sworn to never take it easy on an opponent in game (i make exceptions for my friends who are just learning to play and don't have decks of their own so I can get them hooked on cardboard crack)

Vince misplayed there. Clearly Knight of the Reliquary can only move 2 steps forward and one sideways.

“Stax” as a term dates back to an old vintage/type 1 workshop deck, which owed the card Smokestack from Saga. The term Stax dates back to then, and refers to a vintage artifact prison deck.

I was playing commander the other day with a friend who is new to commander. He resolved a Ruinous Ultimatum and won the game. He was incredibly apologetic about it, which I realize he expected me to be angry that I lost in such a way. I felt like this was a great time to show a new player that I wasn’t going to be salty. I didn’t have an answer and that’s okay. He did what he wanted to and won in an awesome fashion. I don’t have to win to have fun and in commander sometimes I lose in horrible ways like that and that’s just how it goes.

Some of my favorite commander games were unspoken Archenemy games. I started to deck build around the idea of "I want to be the scariest thing in the board" and it really gave my playgroup a clear goal to play to which I feel most commander games lack beyond "let everyone do everything". Sometimes I would win, but most times I'd fall and people looked at their boards and were happy that they got to do something. Then they duke it out 3 players and the chaos was what I enjoyed.

Personally, the best games are when you had fun regardless of whether you win or lose. There is always the post game discussion revealing next draw, the hand, what my winning play would have been, etc. So in all fairness if the loss was legit without cheatin then even better for a new game sooner.

The stigmas come from the fact that losing feels bad, even in a 'casual' format. Most players have difficulty finding fun in any game they don't win. In commander, that means most of the time you lose, on average. Even if you can understand that intellectually, it's much harder to internalize.

The only time I turn my attention away from players is when they get mana screwed for a couple turns, it happens to the best of us.

that opening sketch was amazing

Hot take: commander was healthier before edhrec and commander specific printed cards

Also, the reason that EDH has devolved in combo wins is because everyone has 40 life. Multiplayer in 60 card days was already a disadvantage for combat kills with 20 life each. 40 life is just too much extra padding and lets even not great combo decks played by not great players win a lot more than tuned aggro decks played by good players. I've felt the format should be 30 starting life for some time now. It's just too easy to combo in a format that can be singleton vintage/legacy if someone wants it to be. And the problem with the well established pool of 2-3 card combos means it's really pretty easy to end games before turn 5 *regularly* if that's what you want to do and you wouldn't even be in the casual mtg equivalent of playing sandlot baseball with death beams and mechs and calling yourself profession players that is 'cEDH' territory yet. And when it happens it doesn't generally feel earned or clever or interesting. It's more often than not an anticlimactic like "oh yeah, that one, again. You were able to wait until we interacted with each other an them play your commander+card combo through no interaction. Exhilarating." Give me the engine decks snowball or 4-5 card combos that require protection; I don't mind losing to that because it feels like there's some piloting necessary and it feels earned and it's hard for a 4-5 combo to be a overused trope of the format. That its turns EDH into a boring, repetitive and unimaginative pile of a few win conditions you see come up in the same colors of any deck where the person what's to just slot in the same efficient win con in the given colors. Which, like, feels bad man, and feels like people missing the point of casual play. Missed the point of experience theme and flavor and *variance*. When I wanted to have serious contests of playskill in a competitive format with established metas and decks that show up consistently I would play Legacy/Modern/Pauper. I play casual, EDH and 60 card before it, to explore interesting ideas in a sandbox.

The problem with 2 card combos is it effectively makes everything that happened in that game pointless. I know some people probably assume this is true of any win condition but its different with 2 card infinites. With infinites, you sit down to play a game, it's turn 7, everyone just got their engines online, people are interacting and removing stuff etc. and then one guy just says "Oh I play these 2 cards and they go infinite, any response?" and if no one has a response then the game just ends. It's super anti climactic and makes you feel like setting up your field and value engines was all for nothing because this guy drew into an infinite. I know the arguments are always "play more removal/interaction" or "how is that different than winning with an overrun effect" and the thing is that sometimes you dont draw the removal, or sometimes you used it earlier. I think the reason it feels so bad in commander is because everyone is always talking about EDH being more casual or longer games but 2 card infinites generally go against that concept. Honestly, I wouldnt mind them at all if everyone played cutthroat (which I prefer) but then that's basically cEDH, just feels like there are too many ideas of how a commander game should play out and not everyone agrees which creates these feel bads. It's hard to convey the feeling but I guess I'm saying, people want to play the game and play out what their decks do and infinites typically are independent of the game state and create a binary game state, you either have the answer or not.

I’ve always thought the conversation should be “how many turns to ideally win?” I’ve always liked to build decks that allow a game to go long just so hopefully everyone gets a chance to play out a bit of their decks strategy. Turns to win is a much more direct metric than some abstract subjective number grade Also, wouldn’t say boo to a goose is totally a British saying, I can see than applying to the Prof pretty well x

I disagree that commander isn't cooperative. It definitely is in the way that drafting is. You stay in your lane and do what's best to progress the game UNTIL you don't need the other players anymore and can eliminate them. When someone doesn't do that and actively makes bad decisions to grief people/cause chaos/etc. at the cost of progressing the game, that leads to an unfun experience.

I always love seeing you guys together. Great video. And I totally agree about not knowing what level your deck is. I have no clue what my decks are. I am new to the format, and I play to have fun. I am excited that I pulled a Mana Crypt so I want to play it in most of my decks.

I would eliminate crim unless it would make me vulnerable to a hit back. I dont think you can say Vince made a mistake if he was trying to stay on defense. Which apparently was a correct accessement since he did die to combat damage in the same turn order

I actually have "wheel of fortune" on one of those MDFC "proxy" cards, I love those things :')

I tend to agree with the “don’t hold back” idea, but I also get tired of seeing the same cliché combos win games when the combo cards have nothing to do with the Commander’s text or the overall deck strategy/theme they just get dropped into anything that happens have those colors.

I found this podcast insightful because I struggle with "optimal" deck building and so adjusting in deck construction for power level differences for me is really hard but I tend to hold my punches in gameplay instead which can sometimes lead to my demise on occasion but I enjoy longer games. What I usually do to limit power level is constrain to a budget most of the time and check for infinites.

Absolutely dying over the chess piece edit. Love the little flourishes!

On the idea that "Maybe this isn't for you." I agree to a point. I've learned that fighting games aren't for me. I've learned that Standard, Modern, Legacy, and other competitive Magic formats are not for me. Commander is SUPPOSED to be a casual format. It is for me. I'm not saying don't try to win the game. But I am saying stop trying so hard. If you want to combo off turn 2 or 3, that's fine. But let me know that's the game you want to play and I will opt out of the game. If you want to play hard stax, that's fine. But let me know and I will opt out of the game. The pregame talk is an important part of Commander.

I’ve come back to watch this intro so many times, it’s amazing. Thank you so much!

The opening anecdote is soo great in setting up this topic! Upping the production quality too... Show just keeps getting better

I'm a fan of the mindset (I think from Shivam) of "Don't build your deck 'to win', but play to win once you sit down with it."

The best games of EDH, to use a professional wrestling metaphor, are a rollercoaster of players repeatedly hitting finishers on each other and opponents repeatedly kicking out. As a result, the best games are when players come loaded for bear and don't pull their punches.

Amazing video~ I was rolling at the opening bit. Fantastic editing.

I think the biggest commander problem is honestly deck construction. And what I mean by that is that a lot of people find a commander they want to use, and then go on the internet to find all the cards everyone else uses for it, find the infinite combos that work the best, and that's what they run. A lot of people don't build decks anymore. My main commander is Atraxa, Grand Unifyer, but I didn't go online looking up some deck list for it. I saw what the creature did, knew what I wanted the rest of the deck to do, and put it together. In my friend group, we don't play with banned lists. We don't worry about what cards have been rotated out or anything like that. We find the best cards of what we have in front of us, and without the help of the internet, we build decks. It's truly what the game was meant to be, both commander and other 60 card formats.

"I'm wounding that King on 2s" got me! xD I'm guessing he was attacking with his Queen with a S8 Multi-melta on the King's T4. Unfortunately the King doesn't have any 4++, so he eats that -4AP, since he's not Imperium and doesn't get Armor of Contempt on his regular 3+.

As a funny thing, I can relate to the prof when he talks about his experience with Starcraft. I did exactly the same hahaha.

I've definitely noticed my enjoyment of commander games has gone up when I've focused more on seeing what'll happen and working with other players. It's kind of strange. The same people who complain about others playing too much like Spikes seem to focus too much on killing their opponents or building up towards killing their opponents and don't make use of them as a resources. Someone attacks you turn two because they have a one drop and you haven't played anything yet? Instead of immediately complaining and targeting them, instead, offer them a deal or just take the 1 or 2 damage. You could offer them something in return for not targeting you, helping you beat the other players. Alternatively, just taking the damage without retaliating will cause them to not be retaliating back. Your own cards aren't the only things you can use at the table. Something as simple as pointing out a card in someone's graveyard can be a game winning play. If you can get your opponent's to play their spells and attack with their creatures to remove threats to yourself, you'll pull way ahead. The best part about this: you could have an awful game where you mulliganed down to a small hand and can't find any lands and still be able to do this. Just talk to the people you're playing with and engage with the game in more ways than just playing your cards. Something which can help is to think back on games you've lost but liked the outcome of. How did they go? Seek to replicate that and build up towards that. If you can't think of anything like that, instead of playing to win, play to discover what this scenario is. Just taking a moment to reflect on something you're doing while you're doing it really helps with improving your enjoyment and discovering what you want or don't want from it. Another tip, there are usually about 4 players in a commander game. If your playgroups are going to be fair, you'll be winning 25% of the time. If you don't like that then you'll need to adjust why you play the format. On a different note, I really don't agree with that point about Gaia's Cradle. "Dies to removal" isn't a good argument for why a powerful card is okay, especially when it's in the land slot, a place where removal isn't as welcome/accessible. Ghost Quarter and Field of the Dead are pretty cheap but you can't expect those cards to always show up. Not every player has a removal spell in reserve for all these really powerful cards. Sometimes they don't draw them and other times they've already used them up on more reasonable threats. Just because there are situations where removal stops a card from going off, doesn't make all the situations where the card does go off when there isn't removal okay.

“Stax” comes from the original stax deck, nicknamed “the four thousand dollar solution” because of its price tag. The idea was a control deck that could use permanents to proactively pin down three opponents. Started abbreviated as T$4KS, and then the t and the dollar sign got switched to form $T4KS. It spread by word of mouth and sounding it out it makes sense to write it with an s and an x. Thus, “STAX”. Although the original deck did include smokestacks, the name does not come from the artifact.

The origin of Stax is from the annuls of Vintage history, back during the days of Gro-A-Tog and Long.dec in the early 2000's. The name was originally $T4KS which translated to "The 4K Solution" (which is hilarious now because a single Mishra's Workshop is more than that) and was built with the idea of slowing down those decks in a big way. Smokestacks were in the deck, along with Tangle Wires, Goblin Welders and Sphere of Resistances, then Trinisphere and Chalice of the Void. It usually won between beats with Karn, Silver Golem and recurring Triskelion. Mirrodin also brought artifact lands and Crucible, which made the lock even more gross.

I personally think mass land destruction is fine, we are living in a time where mass artifact destruction is okay but to some decks like white/red is how they ramp, blowing all artifacts is blowing their lands effectively, i deserve the right to blow up their mana too, specially if they are green

Commander isn’t about winning, it’s about learning dozens of ways of winning.

I like prof’s idea for “pass your deck to the right.” That’s kind of what I’m trying to achieve with my One-of-Each-Color-Combo Deck collection, to get to the point where I can show up with the full 32 decks and just roll a dice or use a Random Number Generator to be like “everyone, here’s your deck for tonight.”

41:00 This is exactly what has happened to EDH; as modern and standard play decreased, players from those formats entered EDH and brought their desire for fast, competitive games with them. It would not be quite as frustrating to the older EDH players if we hadn't gone to EDH to get away from that experience in the first place.

I find it fascinating joking about long games being a never-ending Civ game considering a lot of us *want* those long ass games. The people who like multi-hour long games where you see lots of things from multiple people get pushed to the side and ridiculed because it's not "playing to win" or something. I'd much rather pause in the middle of a game that's been going 1.5 hours, step outside for a smoke, chat about life for a few minutes, come back inside and pick back up than sit down, get turn 3 Blightsteeled by Satoru or smacked with a turn 2 hasted Ulamog when I sat down at the table with Crab tribal or something. It's all about environment and expectations. When I pull out my combo decks the atmosphere is different. K'rrik will win the whole match in 4 turns. Stop me if you can. If you don't have something to match the table's power you can borrow a deck. Just don't be that guy who has absolutely no regard for the experience of others at the table. If you're gonna be that guy you can play 1v1 or another format. Those formats are fun in their own way and there's no expectation to care about the singular opponent's play experience since you both sat down with different expectations.

I love the phrase "don't try to win during deck building". Play your deck to the best of your ability during game play, but it's more fun for everyone if you don't go ham in the deck building phase. One of the most common pieces of advice I give to new Commander players at my store is to take certain high power cards out of their decks. Sure, Smothering Tithe is powerful, but can the rest of your deck support the hate it generates?

This is such a great video to explore the social aspects of this game we love so much. It’s truly fascinating that we want a game of commander to unfold in “a way we want it to”, but that way is often so loosely defined. I don’t mind losing a game, but I don’t want to be stomped. I love winning a game, but I feel guilty if I play too much power into opponents that cannot reasonably respond to me. It’s a weird dance we do, and y’all speaking so candidly about these things encourages us commander players to speak freely about what we want from a game. Wonderful video guys.

Yes, and it makes the pregame discussion all the more important. My group will match decks, play interaction, avoid durdling, etc. When I brought my brothers up in the format, I told them to always have removal/counters, winning combos, and I told them "if you can win, do it. The rest of the table will take care of themselves." Nobody wants to die slow over the course of three hours when they could shuffle up now and start over.

I’ve always thought of commander as a battle of supervillains. We are all building a doomsday device and we have to stop the others. Pulling the punches makes one game go on for hours. I want to play many games when I play.

The intro... Highly masterful. Kudos.

The editing on this episode is incredible. Great work all!

I go easy with My Yuriko deck sometimes at my LGS because they have a monthly point system for store credit where you get negative points for Thoracle and Killing opponents before their 5th turn. Tons of chances to play Doomsday or Enter the Infinite and I'm more likely to discard those cards just to not lose points.

14:00 - We see this in healthcare all the time. Things like the pain scale has actual examples attached for how you should feel. 10 is "Unspeakable pain. Bedridden and possibly delirious. Very few people will ever experience this level of pain." And we routinely had patients walk into the clinic demanding all forms of service claiming their pain is at a 10 all day. You'll never escape be able to escape that.

I pulled a punch once . A buddy of mine was playing Dimir horrors, summoned a Brainstealer Dragon; it was the first time he was popping off, so I let it stick around. Big mistake; the very next turn the other 4 players immediately cloned it. I had to spend like 5x the mana to board-wipe, instead of having spent the mana to clear the original dragon.

While I definitely agree one of the biggest issues with commander has been WotC designing cards specifically for it (I've been playing multiplayer magic since like 1996 and a big part of what I loved was you had to balance your play for more than one opponent, and you can't rely on having removal for everything,) for myself, someone who enjoys commander as a sometimes game, it has completely replaced any form of casual magic in the community. It's easy to say you can just play casually, but imagine going to any store or hang out with people and being like "Hey can we play a casual, 60 card multiplayer game? It will not happen. No one builds casual decks like that when they go to communal magic spaces. My favorite format is Planechase, but adding Planechase to commander, while fun with a group that knows how to play with it, like LRR when they have, it's mostly the equivalent of using all the house rules in Monopoly that makes the game just more miserable for everyone cause it never ends. Magic needs a casual community that isn't just playing the only thing, cause I love this game, and I don't want to play modern or pioneer or pauper. I want to play casual multiplayer games with a focus on having fun with people, and isn't just commander converging on cedh. I have one big suggestion to anyone like me who wants to play more casual magic but don't have access to a group to make whatever you find most fun work for everyone. It's not a fix all, it's far far from perfect, but I think it will help at least make games feel more interesting than they tend to currently, and that's remove every card that searches decks. If you can get games going where even decks that rely on a specific win con are going to at least be more interesting games if no one is tutoring up the same win every single game. I don't like Craterhoof, it's an uninteresting and not fun card really. But I would hate seeing it much less in games if it wasn't being Tooth and Nailed every time I do see it pretty much. Again, not a fix for the over all issues with the formant and community discussions around it, but it is very much in the spirit of what the original idea was, which is games that play out differently every time. Until WotC stops doing 14 commander products every year, and gives us something like Archenemy and Planechase every few years again, I don't think Magic is in a healthy place for it's casual community...

Haven't watched the video yet, but I'm about to. 100% yes. Play more counterspells, play more spot removal, play more board wipes, play more focused hate cards, and interact with each other instead of politely "popping off".

for how expensive and "casual and fun" commander is, it feels almost impossible to have any actual fun and play the cards I want to

I think a good discussion to have prior to playing with people you have not played with yet should look something like this: "What type of deck are you wanting to play with? Is it a Precon, an upgraded Precon, a homebrew, etc" and if it's something more than a precon, ask "What turn can you expect to be in position to knock a player out?" - Asking those two questions will take care of 90% of the pre-game deck talk and let everyone know what type of game they are walking into. If you're a player that has a very good deck and expects to win by turn 4/5, but everyone else has precons or slightly upgraded ones, then maybe choose something a little different to ensure everyone can have a good time. You do not have to go easy on them within the game because your deck choice has already done that for you. However, if they are okay with you playing whatever you want, then do that. The point is, people often do not communicate prior to playing and I think that causes the most salt than anything.

Old Frame only commander is what you were looking for 45 minutes in. It would be GLORIOUS!