The Casual vs Competitive Debate w/ Kyle Hill I The Command Zone 313 I Magic: the Gathering 

Thanks for having me back bois! Love talking with you and all things EDH

Absolutely fantastic episode. Kyle, Josh, and Jimmy knocked it out of the park with the representation of the CEDH community. Fantastic job navigating the VERY turbulent waters of that topic. Major props and thank you so much for this wonderful episode!

cEDH players: If you like this video and you want Josh and Jimmy to know that, remember to thumbs up and share this video with your friends. Some thoughts: At 13:17 Kyle says there's no social contract, and goes on to clarify that there's no prior spoken or unspoken agreement that certain strategies like land destruction are de facto off-limits. I personally think that these things are true, but there's more to the social contract than just specific disallowed strategies. I think there's a strong emphasis in both play environments that everyone should have a good time, but in the cEDH environment people have already agreed on a common framework for what that looks like. People often say that cEDH is about not caring about their opponents having a good time (which would be the true absence of a social contract), but I actually care very deeply about my opponents having a good time. If I think they're not going to have a good time playing against my cEDH deck I put it away and play something else. Kyle goes on to explain this later on at 45:30. I definitely agree with the explanation, I just wouldn't use the title "no social contract". At 24:55 Kyle raises a really interesting point that I wish he would have expanded on! The idea that some things are "not competitive" is really pervasive in the cEDH community. You hear a lot of people talk about viability and whether things are good enough. Just because something isn't a 10 doesn't mean it's appropriate for casual tables! At 51:27 Kyle says you need foils if you want be at the tippy top of the format and I would agree with him. Foil islands tap for UU and I won't respond to anyone who says otherwise. I've never felt closer to Kyle than I do when he admits to being bad at limited at 56:50 I LOVE the explanation at 59:00 that Commander flexes different muscles, and I would 100% agree. When people say "Why don't you just go play Vintage", my answer is usually that I don't like Vintage and it doesn't flex the same muscles that cEDH does. 1:04:00 I got SO excited when Kyle started talking about when Spike Feeder came out and am devastated that he was talking about the card and not the handsome gentlemen on RU-vid. Overall I think this was a very balanced and comprehensive look at some things that a lot of people don't understand! Would love to see more Kyle on the cast in the future!

I really feel a need for an episode with Kyle v The Professor v Jimmy v Josh

Kyle Hill reminds me of that guy always telling me my men's bodywash is synthetic trash in recent youtube ads.

Phelddagrif came up a couple of times, and I just want to mention that there is a cEDH deck called Hippo Hulk. It gets infinite mana and a Suture Priest, then drops infinite hippos on its enemies. It is by no means top tier, but its is a sight to behold.

Someone told me the main difference between cEDH and casual EDH (which Kyle mentions briefly in this episode): casual EDH has big and crazy board states; cEDH has big and crazy stacks. I play both styles and I've found this to be true. Thanks for accurately representing the differences and similarities between these styles of play, y'all!

Such an awesome episode!! Love what Kyle was saying around 45:00 about what cEDH does is immediately levels the playing field. My 8 and someone else's 8 can be very different, But a 10 is a 10. We all have the same intent. WE'RE ALL PLAYING TO WIN

Here's the layout Casual EDH: if that's the way you want to play then that's fine Competitive EDH: if that's how you want to play then that's fine Pubstompers: you don't belong to either of these groups and you are toxic

"Casual, Serious and cEDH" i agree with the addition, you can't have black and white without the gray area

Jimmy should make a Godo helm of the host deck

JLK: "..CON--" Kyle: "..of Tarkir" 😂😂😂

I really dislike when people say cEDH is not fun. It’s a different type of way to play. It’s competitive in the sense of the flow of the game. It doesn’t necessarily mean it’s serious. In fact in cEDH there less salt, because its expected to do thing that break the “social contract”

As a magic player, but Commander newbie, I started hating on "Cedh" decks cause some... buttholes in my LGS always wanted to play with my friends and I and our recently open Anje, Sevinne and Kadena decks with their OP Reaper King or Grand Arbiter Augustin decks all the time; and of course they roflstomped us and it was no fun. Later I learned that those were not actual Cedh decks, and they were "Make me feel good for wrecking newbies" decks. Now that I've gotten more into commander, and have more optimized decks, I dont hate Cedh, it's totally okay as a "sub format", I just wouldn't be able to get into it since as a college student, my budget is very low and Vampiric Tutor and Force of Will are not budget-friendly at all. Great episode!

'I only play with ultra-pros' Ever heard of dragon shields

1:05:21 Hard disagree, I've cast Yawgwill hundreds of times now and I still make a big deal out of it every time, it just feels good casting old super powerful cards, it feels like some ancient forbidden magic.

Before I even start the pod. Both are valid. Don't pub stomp. RULE 0 People! Learn how to evaluate your decks. Built multiple decks at different levels.

Kyle: "The name of the [cEDH] game is speed" Me, a Blood Pod player: "Can't hear you over this Trinisphere and Thalia, bud."

This video makes me wanna see a cEDH episode of Game Knights! (Be that with Kyle, or some of the Spikes, or Playing with Power, or someone else) I wanna see Jimmy and Josh play cEDH!!!

Prof and Ryan from Playing with Power arrived at a good conclusion in this discussion. Everyone plays to win, cEDH is just a deckbuilding mindset.

I agree with Jimmy we need a "Serious" category. I feel I fall in that area with most of my decks. 1-5 Casual, 5-8 Serious, 9-10 cEDH.

@1:17:23 Kyle: At the bottom it says in big bold letters, the creators of this list unida- udina-.... Josh and Jimmy (simultaneously): Unanimously?

I'm basically the EDH grandpa of Seattle at this point, and over the years I've noticed a couple things that divide the community: 1) The power level scales that people use are horrendously mismatched: Y'all have espoused your scale for a while now, and it seems to have caught on, but unfortunately you've now got every casual player claiming 7-8 and have shoved every powerful deck into a tiny little box at 9-10, while no one in the entire world is claiming the bottom of the scale. Once you play at the top end, you can see that competitive decks occupy a much broader scale than casual decks. I've got what I consider a very distinct 6, 7, 8, and 9, but a lot of my casual players would yell at me and say that they're all 11s because they haven't seen the peak. Meanwhile all the '7s' people run aren't meaningfully more powerful than precons. As a community we really need to have an honest discussion about power level instead of using it to stigmatize stronger decks by pigeonholing them. Honestly? Having watched Game Knights since the beginning, I'd say that y'all are closer to a solid 4-5 most days than a 7. The average player is around a 5, and pretending that the bottom of the scale doesn't exist while cornering all the powerful decks into 9-10 is problematic. 2) Players tend to get super nasty whenever they see someone with a stronger deck than theirs, cEDH or not: Literally the nastiest players I've ever met are 2DH players. A couple individuals aside, the lower you go on the power scale the meaner and more aggressive people get when you do something powerful. I've no joke had someone yell at me and earnestly call me a horrible person for playing a blue deck, and he goes way out of his way to aggressively target me any time we sit down together. Meanwhile every cEDH player I've played with has been super chill and we shoot the shit while trying to wreck each other for hours on end. I understand that there's a stigma that competitive players love to pubstomp, but that couldn't be further from the truth. Interaction is the entire reason the game is even fun, and pubstomping isn't fun for anyone. If you get crushed by a rando with a much more powerful deck, rest assured that they didn't enjoy it either. There's a reason why most competitive players wind up adding lower and lower powered decks to their roster, because they really just want to have a good game regardless of who they're playing with. Edit re: the ban list discussion: Since the RC doesn't make decisions based on data, arguing that you shouldn't ban something if it only affects a certain threshold of people is completely pointless because no one will ever do that math. The real question that needs to be answered right now is 'does banning problematic card X hurt anyone?' Casual players really don't play the cards that competitive players want banned, so there's nothing but upside to banning problematic cards.

I have no interest in cEDH personally but this was still a great and entertaining episode that I found very informative.

As an almost exclusively cedh player, I loved this episode. Overall a good contribution to the growing amount of content addressing the many misconceptions surrounding the idea of cedh. Thanks!

Interesting to see several sites start this topic almost simultaneously, guess we are all preparing for this "Commander Year". 1) Make multiple decks so no matter which group you join you will have something to play with. 2) Don't be toxic.

I'm happy to see more disdiscussions around cedh its makes getting into easier

The way I've always described it is, EDH = WWE, cEDH = MMA

I just want to say that cEDH games can be also really long, especially against stax. Yes most of them are faster, but not always.

It's an important conversation. I'm by no means a serious CEDH player, but it's a slippery slope because I like deck building and if there's a "best card" for a slot I can't see a reason to not include it. first 3 mana mana rocks become 2s... then your diabolic tutors and masterminds acquisition becomes demonic and vampiric tutors. Cabal stronghold becomes a coffers.... and before you know it you own a Gaea's cradle, a mana crypt and you're eying up power artifact for a grim mololith combo.

I think the "if a card only effects 5% of the people playing, why ban it?" mentioned at 1:17:50 argument for Flash should have been applied to cards like Iona (who didn't affect anyone, at all.) Great episode! :)

Regarding potential Fish Hulk bans, something needs to go. It's warping cEDH. The question is what? Banning any of Flash, Oracle, or Hulk would either nerf or eliminate the wincon, so the question is what knock--on effect would it have on casual? Banning Flash would have no effect on casual as it is simply not played. Banning Oracle would have only a minor effect on casual as it tends to just act as an extra copy of Lab Man, like Lab Jace. Banning Hulk would have a significant effect on casual, as that is played in G/X sacrifice/reanimator decks. In my experience, a Hulk hitting the board means that player is about to win outright (tutoring for 3-4 creatures and just putting them straight in), and it's very unfun, so, just on a personal level as a casual player, I'd reban Hulk, as it would rediversify competitive *and* de-competitive-ify casual. Alternatively, if you feel Hulk is fine in casual, ban Flash.

I feel like there’s something to be said(and I’m not sure how to categorize it but it occurred during the debate portion about being a better player) about the interactiveness experienced between cEDH players in that if you listen to banter between say, the Spike Feeders, as they narrate their turn you hear “I would like to...” or “Can I...” as opposed to a casual “I’m going to...” or “I WILL play...” because as a casual there’s maybe a sort of entitlement or expectation which affects the experience of the game whereas with competitive there’s a careful consideration and appreciation for every play(sorry if that came out wrong).

Cool shout out to Casually Competitive, it's a very solid and fun channel

One line anyone familiar with the cEDH subreddit read this before "Be excellent to each other". I have this mindset attempting any kind of socialising and I love to see it preached effectively here, well done everyone!

I think alot of the issues ive come across with CEDH as a casual player is that some people are just CEDH players at heart and do not know how to tune a deck down. An example: One of the players at my LGS is just your stereotypical spike, always makes decks that are 10's, money is no object etc. etc., well the thing is he realizes (finally) that people dont like playing with him because he ONLY has CEDH decks and most of the LGS has at the very most a 7 or low 8 in terms of power level when it comes to their decks, so he always wins, roflstomps the table and everyone has the feelbads. Here is the problem though, he tried to make a deck for casual commander play. This thing in HIS mind was "tuned down". He still combod out on turn 4 for 4 straight games. I looked at his deck and i had to go ".....i dont think you understand what it means to be casual man. this is basically just 'weaker CEDH'." And he was genuinely confused. I had to sit down and explain that alot of what he had was just high cost (money wise) hard in the paint CEDH and showed him a few of my decks. My decks are by absolutely zero means CEDH material and i dont want them to be, but they are still strong and can still go off, just at a slower pace than a CEDH deck. He is just a CEDH player with no CEDH players to play with and thats what he wants from the social contract, all out no holds barred EDH gameplay and i cant fault him for what he enjoys. Long example aside, the point im getting at is: When you bring CEDH to a casual table, thats where alot of players get those bad memories. If someone like the spike feeders would discuss with the CEDH community in general that they should check with pods at LGS if they are playing CEDH or not before sitting down to avoid these horrible miscommunications that would help TONS with this issue. If you sit down with your CEDH deck at a casual table, you best be ready to be at a completely disinterested table because they have no hope to compete with you and your social contract is vastly different from their own. Or at the very least, make a deck that you can bring out for casual tables. it can have one or two expensive cards (gaia's cradle etc.) but just tone it down enough so the casual tables can compete with you in the event there arent any CEDH players at your LGS that day.

Bring Kyle back on game knights 👌🏾🙏🏽

Maaaaan I'd love to see a game knights with some competitive Deck! Would be amazing to see Jimmy n Josh playing competitive!!!

Tl:dr of the episode... Both are good but everyone needs to play at the same-ish power level in a game

Wooooooah Kyle's here!! Good luck on the new channel, Kyle

Someone needs to make an EDH Deck power level calculator where you plug in your deck list and it gives you a power estimate from 1 - 10.

I love the channel. My roommate got me into magic about 2 months ago and I love it. Your content is great for new and veteran players. Thank you

"Casual players aren't putting Flash into their Muldrotha decks." I may need to re-evaluate my life choices.

As a casual player, I am very thankful for this video. My interactions with cEDH decks have mostly been through "Pub Stompers" than real cEDH. I know that cEDH is naturally a different beast than what I come to the game for, but it is a viable format and a very fun way to play as well. It has become a dirty word in most play groups, even as many try hards mirror competitive strategies. The worry that many casual players I've met has been the corrupting of the format: Moving towards more expensive cards and more toxic play styles. cEDH is a convenient boogieman, bt is not the source of either of these issues. I can't play cEDH because I don't make the money to afford those decks, but I aim to be able to keep up with budget options. To test my deck building skills with the resources I do have. However, I also do enjoy a more laid back style. I love using under used and under appreciated cards. ALSO: Love the idea of the third tier of play. "Serious" is a great descriptor for players who aspire to play to win but don't have the budget or the tight tuning of cEDH.

1st let me say I ❤️ you guys 2nd I have 3 boys they are growing up in 20’s baby boy is 18. Surprisingly to me they started with their friends table top magic I hadn’t played magic since like 1996. So a couple years ago we and they started playing commander I was all in and relearning. In the debate over casual vs cedh our group has evolved from jank to casual to a little optimized and I see we are headed towards a more powerful commander meta and I have loved loved loved watching “the boys build and work on decks” that may not be specific to my meta but it is my meta we look forward to seeing nuisances that have been added. Of a deck you played last game I travel for work so I don’t get into the play group with months intervals. I see that crater hoof can go into my tatyova now and nobody blink a eye. So the destination isn’t the goal it’s the journey. Love y’all I have a weird meta

I am on team I Want To Play A Game of MTG with Kyle Hill. One of my favorite RU-vidrs and possibly one of my favorite human beings on this planet even though I've never actually met him ^_^

Great to see Kyle back with the Command Zone boys. Hopefully we're about to get some Kyle Hill on Game Knights action.

You know what I most like about your Podcasts? Your social way to treat each other. For example when Jimmy wanted to introduce a thrid cathegory and Josh rejected that on air, Jimmy wasn't mad or anything. He just smiled said "let's keep going" and keeps being happy. I know so many people who would have had a toxic reaction in that situation. I also know so many people who would have said it in a way ruder way than Josh did. Also the way you talk about cedh and that no matter which of both you like it's okay, your whole podcast is all about respect, tolerance and manners which is why I really enjoy watching your videos!

This is probably the best episode Command Zone has ever done. Great job guys!

Just building my first cEDH deck: Kess consultation. ;)

So.. did the Void keep Kyle imprisoned because it contained an Immortal Sun?

I think cedh does make you a better magic player. All of the counter arguments jimmy and josh had were not about the physical act of playing magic cards. I see what point you were trying to make Kyle.

Always a pleasure to see Kyle on the show.

I love watching cEDH. Never played it, but it is insane to watch the interactions

I play Cedh all the time, start my journey with Command Zone content and then Playing with Power and so on... but guys Cedh is not a different format by any sort of imagination for example if you go and play standard with your token deck with a bunch of cards it won't be competitive but will still be standard, same with Edh and Cedh, we play high power Commander with bug amount of interaction and we have a lot of fun, one of the things I never hear out when you talk about Cedh is "Theoretically you can win by turn 2-3 or 4" but do you try to win turn when you have your combo on hand? No ofc not, because most of the time all 3 enemies has interaction so you will never o close to never try to combo out with no plan by turn 2 or 3 just for "trying" for a couple of reasons: 1: If you try to combo out on turn 2-3 everyone has close to 6 cards in their hands and your combo will be at least 2 pieces so you gonna be down 2 cards and every card in your hand is not counterspell or you cant cast every card in your hand because you waste mana on your combo so most probably you gonna get stop and set room for other people to win. 2: The second people who will try after you will have a clear path if everyone is tapped out (including you for trying to go off too early) and he just win for: No more interaction or everyone cannot deal with it anymore) 3: Keep the balance until is the right moment, turn 3 could be the right moment to combo off ? Yes ofc, but if you will do it you have to think: Can be stopped? and how I will recover from that position if that happen? for sure if you have your combo and Force of will /Pact of negation/etc back up to cover your win then go and win but is not that easy to set up that hand in early turns. (Happens sometimes but for sure isn't like 99% of the time turn 2 wins, the other 3 people will mulligan until they have some protection to your thing). Really good episode, maybe JLK and Jimmy should play a little more Cedh to understand how it goes or brings Playing with Power to the show and they will explain exactly how it performs, I know you make your effort to calm down the community on this particular topic but you will never understand if you didn't give a real try.

Kyle: talk talk talk Jimmy: ......

I love this so much! I’ve been waiting to hear about Kyle and playing CEDH. So glad this is out ❤️❤️

I actually like the analogy of pick up basketball and league basketball. Such a great way to think about it. Either way, it’s basketball but the mindset is different.

I'm a combo player but still far from cedh but whenever I get my combos off people start saying I play cedh and they are super salty

I play casually but I love watching channels that talk and play cEDH. The neatest thing to me is cheap cards they notice that seems very viable to them and I compare those cards with what I play and also see in my games.

"Magic: The Gathering Johnson!" I just about died laughing. Love you guys and this show

Great episode. To the "deck diversity" con; as a relatively new EDH player, who enjoys watching cEDH content, I really noticed that a difference between EDH and cEDH is that often in cEDH decks are introduced as their playstyle, rather than their commander. E.g. I can say "This is my Ulasht, the Hate Seed" deck, but cEDH decks are often introduced as "Najeela Sushi Hulk" etc.

No debate needed, casual is love casual is life.

I think that the edh community needed this video. I think it is important for both playstyles to understand each other and for moments of honest communication (such as this video) to take place. I’ve definitely been ripped on for building powerful decks, even when i was upfront about it and told them what to expect. I hope this video can bring edh players from both ends of the spectrum together with a greater understanding of why this format was developed in the first place. I wish great games to all of you!

In my mind CEDH is basically a a deck building exercise. Building you deck to win at all costs is different then playing to win at all costs.

I'm excited for another Game Knights with Kyle :P, will Cassius be back to keep that rivalry going lol

55:27 why would it matter to crack your fetch later if someone else played vampiric tutor? I feel like I missed something here.

Personal Opinion as a cEDH Gitrog player: You want meta diversity don't ban Flash/Hulk, but instead Unban Paradox Engine. The ban on Paradox Engine affected at least 7 power 9+ commanders and it removed at least 3 of them from the T1 position. Edit: Also the Gitrog Primer is solid 20 minute read. Its not that hard to understand, but it sure is fun dredging a ton to draw your deck.

Love Kyle! Bring him more often!

cEDH isn't necessarily always lightning fast

Thank you very much, for creating more insight into cEDH for the more casual players. Also LSVs beard at 42:00 is horrible :D

I think the best advice I can give to someone who wants to always have a deck they can play at any table is to have a good range and never bring your strongest deck to your first game with a new group. That first impression of "he's not that strong" is so much better for you than "that guy brought crazy shit last time". I can't afford a lot of decks, but I can share cards across them via proxies or just switching sleeves/cards around. I would recommend trying this if on a tight budget but still wanting to play powerful cards. Make sure you have a deck that you can play against precons/very new players/relatively jank stuff (run zero tutors, all budget lands, try to stick to 2 or less colors, have a theme), one focused deck that you can play at high powered casuals (you can always be arch-enemy if your judgement is off and that is okay), and one that is just your strongest thing you are willing to make for when there are those players that just wanna go strong. The best way for everyone to enjoy the experience is to have expectations set before the game starts. It's so substantial that I would say it's a better factor in everyone's enjoyment than anything you can ever do while you're deckbuilding.

Will Kyle do some Magic stuff on his channel?

Could somebody help me out by explaining what interaction Kyle is referring to at 55:20? Why would cracking a fetch manipulate an opponent's tutor?

59:38 Jimmy: "And we are considering CEDH to almost be its own format within Commander" Josh: "I think it really is" Yeah, there's no (or a different) social contract and although the intention is the same: to win and have fun, how these two goals are achieved are different. But at the same time I think it's a matter of powerlevel, it's not much different to compare a jank and a optimized deck. And they all can coexist, usually not at the same table, but with a good communication in the same playgroup.

I do enjoy having the shorter games for cEDH but the one thing my playgroup personally agrees on when we casually play is to not intentionally build decks that can end the game consistently before like turn 5 or 6 because then its like well darn my deck did not get to do anything.

I’m so here for more Kyle on Game Knights.

so back in the day I got the Inalla precon, added some altars and wanderwine prophet and my friends complained that the deck wasnt very casual. later on I found some friends who play cedh and they introduced me to the format and even helped me with finding the cedh database which directed me to the official Inalla discord and ever since then i have been learning more and more about the format.

The fundamental issue that separates the casual and competitive groups is the social contract. There are more than a few CEDH players who take that attitude of 'it's legal and I want to win, so I play it' and sit down at a table they either know to be casual in advance with their competitive deck, or aren't going to switch decks regardless for the simple reason that 'feel bads' don't matter to them. At one store I go to the entire meta is CEDH, and it's driven the casual players out of the store wholesale. The owner and all his players are fine with this, and that's their right, but it was pretty depressing to see dozens of people just stop showing up because every pod had at LEAST one player trying to go off on turn two or three every game. At another, there are a few CEDH players who show up regularly because they play to win, and winning is easy when nobody in the local playgroup has a deck tuned anywhere above a seven. Now, it's true that any group of people will have a certain chunk who are assholes. Some people just don't care about any social contract if they get to win more. But that attitude unto itself is pretty fundamental to competitive gaming in general, and it can be pretty hard for casual players to feel good about playing with competitive ones if the response they get when they ask if people have less 'win at all costs' decks is an exasperated eyeroll and the silent implication that their decision not to play the spikiest form of the format possible is not only invalid, but obnoxious. It doesn't help that the same ban list applies to both CEDH and casual EDH, but is clearly moderated towards a more casual play experience. I really feel like a lot of the contentious feelings between casual players and competitive ones would be alleviated if the two were separated into entirely different formats, with different rules and ban lists.

disclaimer about the 20 page gitrog combo primer: I'm 90% sure that at least 17 pages of that are about chains of mephistopheles

I just love when Kyle hill is there !!!

Finnish cEDH player here! We have a very vibrant paper cEDH scene here in Finland with lots of both interesting fringe brews and top tier strategies.

I'm a simple man. I see Kyle Hill, I click

My main issue with CEDH is cost. playing competetive will make you a better player in regards to making the most of every turn. in casual messing a turn up will rarely kill you.

Here from [THE FACILITY]

One thing to say in lines of budget/cost alot of cedh player don't care about proxies. The line of thought is that I don't care how much money you can throw at a deck I want to play a deck at 100%

1:31:30 Kyle reminds me of a young Handsome Jack.

Thanks for taking the time to get this conversation going on this subject, I am pretty new to expanding out of my own play group at a recent magicfest and ran into the problem with floating inbetween the casual and competitive ratings. It was hard sitting at a competitive table and doing nothing, then trying a casual and running away with the games. Unfortunatly I got kind of turned off from attending future commander events due to how the "ratings" system worked on the vouchers in the Magicfest command zone. The "competitive" players were great to be around and very supportive, but in the casual section the salt ran deep during and after games if they lost. I am hoping this was just a one time thing and I would have a good time by either trying to bring more decks that spread the "power level" to fit into groups better.

is there even a competitive tournament for edh? I had no idea.

This was a great discussion, you guys. Thank you for including Kyle. In my opinion, if you change cEDH into it's own format with it's own ban-list you will still see competitive tables at Commander-fest. They are us, we are them; you can be both.

you get to play "the most efficent" cards

In my definition: EDH - A casual centric format intended to be played socially. CEDH - A vintage format version in EDH. EDH - The goal is to win, but was meant to showcase creativity, flavor and originality. Being able to create decks or themes unorthodoxically. Being unique and flavorful in a way that, cards that nobody plays make it possibly viable to be played and also makes an impact in people's minds. CEDH - The goal is to win, whatever means necessary. The mindset is to win in the most competitive way. Using the most strongest, fastest and most broken cards that are legal in the format. To use cards that are commonly seen in high level play. Both have the means to be competitive. Nobody plays MTG who doesn't want to win. But the difference is, in my perspective, EDH is intended to take advantage of MTG's whole history of cards. CEDH on the other hand, is like limiting your card pool to the only staples of the format. That being said, I don't hate CEDH, but I dislike pubstompers. For me, creating unusual decks that actually work makes me feel better. As a player and as a hobbyist. Just my cents. ;)

Before watching entirelly, talking about the comments of the first 15 min or so: I dont like CEDH not because of "oh he wants to play strong stuff/combo/whatever is competitive, buuu" What im afraid of is the word competitive personally, i come from multiplayer videogames and normally the version of the game that brings out the worst of everybody is the competitive side of it, also the puzzle methaphor is nice, i like solving the puzlle of how to do that, but i dont want my matches to always be the same, idk, also personally, CEDH feels like Pay to Win for me, i have yet to see a CEDH deck that is budget friendly, for me is like "i have the greatest amount of expensive cards, i Win"

I like some of the distinctions being made to differentiate power levels, but I feel like edh evaluations are running afoul of the same issue as rating beauty. Nobody wants to use the first 4 numbers, and therefore distinctions become more difficult to make, and disagreement becomes more prevalent. I would argue that our community should place the lowest power precon at power level 1, and rate up from there.

play CEDH on game nights

What I love about having Kyle on the show, aside from his incredible hair, is how well he articulates his ideas, he is prepared, and personally I love the quirkiness. Not that other guests aren’t prepared, or aren’t as articulate, but because of the type of content he has produced there’s something very seamless in the way he moves through discussion. To be fair, I share a lot of his ideology for how he likes to play, and I also enjoy his content so there can be bias at play here. Fantastic Episode to you all, and your team

This feels like a missed opportunity to bring on someone from one of the actual CEDH channels to talk about this

I think it would work out better for EDH to be in two different formats. CEDH could have most if not all cards unbanned. Where as EDH would have a ban list focused more on casual play and looking at problem cars.

(I watch the beginning) Um...

Excellent video. Thanks for highlighting this aspect of EDH. I personally experienced an interesting situation: as a cEDH beginner I found myself highly motivated to BECOME a better magic player in general. With less than a year of experience in EDH I obviously still have a huge lack of knowledge and expertise in the format. Experiencing massive beatdowns in my first competitive games highly motivated me to learn about more cards and more possible interactions. Of course this is a double-edged sword and can cut both ways. It can fear away a few personalities from this kind of play style. But the community is great and not at all toxic about new players trying to set a foot into this more competitive scene of EDH.