The Real Reason Commander Players Don't Play Removal 

On the point of land destruction, my experience is that people generally don't mind targeted land removal - arguably one of the reasons that beast within has been a staple for so long is that it targets anything, lands included. The issue is mass land destruction, or blowing up lands as a thing your deck just does all the time. It takes interesting games and grinds them to a crawl. That said, you guys are correct about the concept of giving something "social hexproof" being problematic. But any time I've ever strip mined a cabal coffers or ancient tomb the table is cheering, except for that one guy, but fuck that guy

So as someone who has enjoyed listening to these two, and as someone that enjoys a commander game now and then - it’s interesting to me how much they analyze why they believe commander does work. Here are my disorganized thoughts: 1. Commander is a three-body problem. 1v1 is difficult enough to ‘plan’ around, but 4 players choosing from hundreds of thousands of cards is going to be a shit show. It’s simply not risk or catan that has 3 options. This is near-infinite options. And I think that’s what people like about it - there’s a mystery box of promise that you’ll see something interesting, stupid, funny or clever, and you’ll be inspired to go home and play with an idea you saw. 2. Besides this episode they talk a lot about how some of the options “feel bad” or how threat assessment comes into play. The social element here can’t be understated. You must first make sure everyone is on the same page. Everyone has to be cool with how petty or how friendly the decks are. The other part of this is yes- playing a card may put a big target on your back - so you’ve got to work the table and sway your opponents minds. I’d argue that most of commander IS that social experience. A weaker deck can come out ahead because two titans at the table decide to battle it out to sweep the weaker, but leave themselves too vulnerable after. 3. My buddies that play commander are from vastly different levels of experience, and I feel like commander evens the field. I like the feeling that we all have a reasonable chance of winning, but that there’s so much table talk and rules lawyering and fun argument that it makes my friends who don’t play as much better players too. Anyways. Thanks for coming to my TedX talk. I will not validate parking.

A board game that leans into the problem beautifully is Inis. It is the king of "you deal with the problem." "No, you deal with the problem."

this incentive structure is what i feel is most disappointing about every battle royale game. fighting is almost always the wrong choice because you spend your resources AND risk dying, losing instantly. but, fighting is the fun part of the game, so players feel like having fun is the wrong way to play. and it also means when you play to win, another player/team forcing a fight on you (because fighting is fun) feels almost like griefing. they're doing something that hurts both you and them, and only benefits the potential third team who isn't involved. and that just breeds resentment and frustration among your community...

To everyone who falls too deep into the idea of "hurting themselves" with 1-for-1 removal, please remember this: Losing because you packed insufficient spot removal gives you much more card disadvantage than going down the removal spell.

Commander is complicated Munchkin.

Something else is in a 1v1, you don't remove the you can fairly safely assume that suckers turning sideways and straight for your face. In commander, it starts out as a 1/3rd chance is coming at you but 2/3s chance it's going somewhere else which can be influenced by the ever present politics and it's basically like you had the on your side. Why would you spend your cards to remove something that can help you?

During my time working on my lgs I helped a lot of players on their commander decks and the usual frase I would use is "how much interaction you play? Retorical question, double it." The problem in more casual commander is not noticing that the best way to win is stopping you friends of winning.

Honestly I think the core issue that’s wrong with Commander is that the inclusive aspect is antithetical to what the core game is, and that issue is exemplified by the culture of players who see the format as a “board game version of Magic” If each player didn’t have their own respective life totals, then it would be understandable why the community acts the way they do about Commander. But at the end of the day, the game has to end, and there has to be three losers no matter what. It truly is a shame that new players are introduced to MTG through Commander, without having any understanding of the inherent etiquette of creature battler card games. Instead, they learn that Magic is a safe-space-simulator, because of the modern culture surrounding Commander. It’s pretty much just “good vibes bro” which itself is fine, but WOTC’s decade-long push to prioritize Commander over Constructed is that now Constructed players either have to cater to handicapped pods/playstyles, or exclusively play CEDH.

Reminder: maintaining card advantage is more important than going down a card to not lose :^)

It's a big problem in Worms. If you allow Jetpack, it's just going to create a kingmaker final 3.

04:09 "Games, uh, simulate real-life..." Harry S. Truman played board-wipes... two of them. Just not globally as some scientists originally feared might occur. If he were alive today, he might lean more towards playing Cyclonic Rift rather than Farewell.

I tend to include 10 pieces of single (or multi-targeted) pieces of removal and 2-5 board wipes in my decks and I try to include Beast Within and Generous Gift style cards in any deck that could support them because of their versatility in being able to hit any permanent, lands included. I've been on the receiving end of many Strip Mine loops and other single targeted removal for my Cabal Coffers and the like, so I am all for targeted land destruction. One of my favorite experiences of land destruction was when I was stuck on 3 lands into the late game while one of my friends, who had been ramping the whole game, decided to target all 3 of my lands with their Terastodon, blowing up my only lands as a joke, despite their being other viable threatening targets in the game. Sometimes removal will help win you the game by removing a big blocker or a key piece of an opponent's preventing you from winning. Sometimes removal will save you from outright losing, hopefully keeping you around to eventually win. Other times, you can kick your friend when they're down or blow up a friend's favorite card that had little to no bearing on them winning or not and they just wanted to play their pet card. My point is, just play removal of all kinds and play more of it. Commander games are more interesting when there's interaction instead of everyone playing solitaire.

The thing with Commander is that it also has the intent of "I get to use the cards in my collection" so it's kind of stuck with the rest of Magic

I guess I just naturally work around this in deck construction. I find ways to use my good cards as removal and have modular cards much more than was intended. More options in the same 100 cards and then I can just run removal for "free" the cost is just deck construction

The more you bend rules to be "fun" and "social", the less fun and social it is. I've seen people arguing bitterly about these _non-written rules_ instead of actually playing and having fun. At our LSG we have this year more fights than we have had in the last DECADE. Yes, fist fight about "fun" and non-existing rules

I keep imagining a king of Tokyo style of commander where a player is always king. Who that player is can change throughout the game, much like the monarch, haven’t decided how. But, the kings creatures all have myriad and their single target spells/abilities get copied for each other player. A constantly changing archenemy

Im 9 minutes into the video and you also havent mentioned one of the core issues of edh. threats have become stronger but removal has more or less stayed the same. the only thing that has gotten better in a vacuum and because threats have become stronger: boardwipes. because of the 1vs3 uphill battle Im much more incentivized to deal with all players at the same time. but this is only true if all decks are equal. if my win conditions or threats match my opponent then we can trade threats. but if my win condition is weaker then even if I use removal wether its inefficient single target removal or boardwipes im still gonna be behind.

Something on removal spells too is I think too many removal (when used) is used on 1 for 1 or complete removal. there are mini sweepers like dismantling wave which I’ve pushed friends to run more. It’s a 1-3 ratio and puts you more in line with 1v1 removal. Something also is unlike a board wipe like farewell you don’t reset the game essentially and rather gain a mana /temp advantage.

Yeah, fundamentally correct take, at least within the first minute of listening. Single target removal is card disadvantage in a 4 player game. I'm mostly on board wipes and fogs, with one or two instant speed single targets for emergencies.

The monarch mechanic except its for permanent destruction.

~2:30 you allude to this in a bit but, after a few games against decks like that, you kind of have to treat them like they're a threat all the time. Every deck ends up reaching a point where they win if they untap, those decks just need less on the field to do it. My point is you can absolutely threat assess against a deck that has nothing on the board. Don't get me wrong, the lack of permanents definitely helps obfuscate your power level, but understanding the plan of the deck and the player matter way more.

can we see the cat?

I really, really enjoy your channel and subjects. Thank you

My problem is that there’s a lot of mutually exclusive kinds of things that need dealing with. Creatures are easy enough, but they’re liable to come back from the graveyard and undo your play. And sometimes they come in army form, which laughs at spot removal. Artifacts show up pretty reliably as mana rocks, but they’re not always the threat. Enchantments appear less, but they’re much more likely to be important to the game plan when they do. Spells? Good luck if you’re not in blue. And then there’s lands. Is something flickering? Exploiting ETBs or death triggers? Do you need kill spells, ghostly prison effects, board wipes, protection, graveyard hate, counterspells, or other hate pieces? Who knows whether it’ll be your game-winner or a dead card? That just doesn’t feel fun to me.

I've generally only had pretty bad experiences with Commander because of the fundamental way in which you need to be playing with a group of people who agree to play in a specific way before the game for it to work, and it's interesting to me sometimes to see how different a lot of people's time with it is. I think that even if your goal is not to win the game, what I want to get out of the game is an interesting set of interactions - I'd like to get to make meaningful decisions. One of the crazy and kind of insidious things about the negative externalities situation is that it can screw you over even if your job isn't to try to win at all costs! Any time and effort spent targeting someone else is resources you could have been spending on doing your goofy value play or whatever that you wanted to pull off. If your only goal playing the game is to try to get to your interesting silly thing you came up with and wanted to build your deck into doing... then you're ALSO incentivized to focus on yourself because if you remove stuff you don't really get to develop much. Ironically though by doing this you often end up unable to do the things you wanted to do anyway, since if you progress too much people target you, and if you don't interact too much it's likely someone else is going to combo off or whatever and instantly ruin your attempts to achieve something. It's a really tricky situation

I would say land destruction stigma is primarily against mass land destruction or repeatable loops, people dont really flinch at things like a ghost quarter, or removing a problematic land.

My first Commander deck was a removal-only Toshiro Umezawa deck. I had a lot of fun just getting in the way of people! To this day, I would rather play a mostly-removal-only Deck (and enjoy it over "trying to win")!! Still, I learned that first game that not everyone likes Removal, even if I did.. specially in the form of "Death Cloud" 🤷

speaking of people having this grudges, i have a friend who works in our lgs who when i told her that i want to play commander with her because i want to see what she would build in commander, she told me that she wants to play with us to beat someone that comes to the shop who gets to her nerves. people can have grudges against people they haven't even played a game with before. and if you ask me if board games gives us the opportunity to punch someone in the face without having to be violent, that is a great new application i couldn't have thought of. :p also something that many don't do in commander because we try to be kind is that even when we could take someone out of the equation with one removal we don't do because we want to be kind and let them play the game. which is good practice as a human being having a social interaction and a terrible strategy to have around the table.

in my newest deck, I somewhat solved this one for one problem by having a deck based around small creatures / artifacts, where most of my removal package is boardwhipes that destroy every big creature / up to a certain amount of total power etc.

I didn't run removal in high school because I was over-conscious of effects that would steal my cards. So whatever removal spells I did run couldn't hit anything I had in my deck.

i think itd be interesting to see more Battlebond style effects like, expensive removal or board wipes that allow other players to help, and maybe do something like draw cards if you provided mana

I wonder if you ever played Forgetfull fish, another really fun format played with mtg cards that, in my opinion lends itself way better to the mtg mechanics.

Back in the 90's we called this the "Mario Party Effect." Everything is incredibly social but at the end of the day it is a 4-person FFA and only ONE can win. Kids strangled each other with controller cables and rubbed a patch of our skin clean off the center of the palm to win.

Do you think the addition of benefits for targeting opponents' stuff (Hinata, the new Marchesa, etc.) helps to shift this balance? I think the crime mechanic is an attempt to get players to be more "proactive" by giving an additional benefit (card advantage, cheapen the target, create zombies, etc.).

Who your commander is also influences the table, whether you realize it or not. If you show up with an Ur-Dragon deck people are going to make threat assessments before the game even starts. Removing a commander can feel pretty bad (for both parties), especially when it's central to a gameplan. It basically offsets you by 2 turns, and can leave a player feeling ostracized from the game. We can say in the abstract that protecting important pieces is part of a player's job, or that having synergy centralized around a single card is bad deckbuilding, but the amount of popular deck techs I see that require the commander to be on board for multiple turns has developed a culture where removing commanders is taboo.

There's two types of players and one is far more common than the other. You're either a "smoll bean syndrome" player or you see "being the threat" as a compliment. Everyone always underestimates their board state and overestimates their opponents. Seriously though, if you're playing one of those "top rated commanders on EDHREC" don't be shocked when people come at you. I'm already paying my respects to the poor soldiers who are getting that upcoming eldrazi deck for an exorbitant amount of cash just to be the threat the entire game and complain about being the threat the entire game.

My family finally decided they wanted to learn MTG during lockdown. Once we started playing EDH after about 3 games of me having Rhystic Study, everyone now either always destroys it immediately or pays the one. They definitely learned how good card advantage is. Lol

Great video, guys.

I hate that the more removal i run the less my deck even works Until i tuned my dino deck to be the aoe board wipe deck, i didnt really have a deck that interacted enough

I really wish WotC had put more time into trying to develop some kind of 3v1 game like Archenemy, or just a PvM co-op game where three people fight against a boss deck, because the expression and flavor of Commander deck building is so fun and engaging and expressive, but playing a competitive game incentivizes playing in a way that doesn't align with the original design goals of that kind of format.

commander is like those party game where a guy just wait the whole game not moving and steal the crown when the timer is about to hit zero.

10:30 - i've definitely had all those feelings about the 1-1 nature of removal but now I've started treating them like extra turn spells. Might just be how our games play out, but often enough a well timed removal spell means I get to untap where I might not have otherwise. Harder to evaluate the proactive removal spells, but at the later turns, the removal/turn ratio is pretty good.

Great episode. Realizing how my "small bean" persona and inaction techniques helped me win many games. 🧠

I completely agree with this. I have so many games where I have removal and just… don’t. Or at least until this massive threat is coming at me. It’s not even me purposely doing this it just happens. It’s one of the many reasons I move more and more to 60 card formats because I’m not a fan of the inaction commander rewards.

I think also in commander when you run removal it nearly always the same card and you play commander you want to play different cards doing different things

I run massive quantities of interaction and am terrible at trying to utilize “small bean syndrome”. I took a bunch of cards in my collection, and listed the ones that did at least two of four: * remove/reduce the value of cards in opponents’ hands/the stack * remove/reduce the value of cards in opponents’ battlefields * add more playable cards to my hand, graveyard (ie flashback), exile (ie impulse) * cause damage/life loss This meant I had a lot of spells providing new cards/interaction while being able to pressure life totals. Then I made estimates of each card’s card advantage in Excel, and scored them in two groups: * card advantage per card spent * card advantage per mana spent As a result, I’m usually playing a 3-for-1 at a minimum when interacting with opponents. I’ll slam interaction aggressively since a lot of my cards give me board presence and interact with opponents such as Massacre Wurm. The downside has been a higher average mana value in decks since I’m forcing each card to do more on its own, but its quite fun.

I only play removal, creatures always die what's the point of playing them

I tend to run removal light as a player. Many of my decks run none at all. But it's mostly because of my design philosophy of "you have your fun. I'll have mine." Is you sit down with a hardcore masturbatory win and on turn for deck, no one has fun.

$1 Best Card is Volcanic Offering, Destroy 2 lands and deal 4 damage 2 times, you get to pick half the targets and pick and opponent who will pick the other half, None of these effects can target you. It is political harms 2 players and allows someone to play catch up or king make. If there is a clear threat and a person who is resource rich it allows you to deal with both problems simultaneously.

One for ones in a 4-player game does feel bad. Thats why you gotta run removal that targets each opponent or have multiple targets.

So I like to play a decent amount of removal, but I have 1 deck with next to none, and it's a landfall value engine thing. Doesn't look threatening when all I have is lands. Small bean syndrome wins me so many games. 😊

Optimal commander play is cedh, and you learn the hard way that removal is a trap and sandbagging is king. Never interact to not lose, only interact to win. Boardstates are for casuals.

My pod has gone thru an evolution of a couple boardwipes/removal because we were new, to everyone being salty and adding alot of removal with everyone being miserable fairly often and just not wanting to play things or throwing a game to action bias/kingmaking, to back to a few pieces of removal because it's way better to do something that advances your wincon instead of wasting cards on removal. Our games have been much more balanced since.

Casual Magic vs Tournament magic all comes down to one question. If your opponent doesn't want to play anymore and scoops because you made a good play and or they didn't or because you got lucky and or they didn't, do you count that as a win? Meaning: are you more concerned with winning a game, or are you focused on everyone having a good time? Hopefully you can win your matches AND help everyone have a good time in the process, but when push comes to shove, and you have the opportunity to make that game winning play, are you more likely to let your opponent win, or to take the win. This is a very real question, and in casual settings, letting your opponents win sometimes is not just recommended, it is essential to building a MtG community. It's something no one talks about, but what people are really saying when they complain about power level is "It's not fair. I'm not having fun. Why won't you let me win sometimes." I think the most important part about transitioning from competitive games to casual games is knowing when and how to reward your opponents for playing well by letting them win sometimes. After all, they're not going to have any fun if they just lose game after game even when they think they are making all the correct decisions.

I can't tell you how often I win EDH games I don't "deserve" to win. I play the small bean, pay my taxes and make sure someone else is always looking more dangerous than me. I play the subtle political game: I don't make deals with people very often, but I do make casual, indirect references to who the overt threats are while holding removal (or protection) for when it's about to hit the fan. I also play humble or I should say I do my best to sound and look humble and smile a lot and sit back watching people go for "the threat" and not the evil behind smiling eyes.

Distraction Makers = Kendrick. Commander = Drake.

Welcome back to We Hate Commander with Forrest and Gavin! BTW big fan, love this channel!

It's like chess. You just have to live long enough to play your win con. New players tend to react, to go after the player who k8lled their goblin...

pretty much what has been said by me since 2017 and why I don't touch it anymore. Its just not built for it xD, 1v1 is the way to go.

After watching this video 2 weeks ago I paid closer attention to which decks play removal and which don't. In my experience they all did but some only had it in there incidental to their theme. Treating those as not playing removal I realized that without exception they did not win. Well timed removal or key target removal enabled another player to dismantle the leader or potential competitor and seal the deal. In short, I thought this take was weird when I heard it and based on my next dozen+ games I think this is a hot take that should be passed.

I only every run removal that is reusable. Or one sided board wipes. I care more about setting my own momentum up, and will usually only interrupt to stop a game winning combo or save myself from death. As long as you aren't actively winning, making me lose, or clearly going to ve unstoppable in the future, why should I step in and play removal?

ITT all the worlds greatest cedh players who absolutely play "a lot" of removal

To me the elephant in the room that disproves most of this is counterspell. They are all (very few exceptions) 1 for 1, and yet because of them blue is considered the strongest color. So if interaction benefits opponents more than yourself, blue literally has so many single target interaction, how do we reconcile these two trains of thought?

Generally for whether or not I target someone for doing nothing: is the person still doing fine for mana 😂 if they're missing land drops and not ramping, I'll assume it's a bad hand. If they seem to be doing well for mana, I'm a lot more concerned about them sitting back doing nothing

Playing an Outlaws deck justifies targeted removal.

I am very much have the impression that the: "casual first, everyone needs to do their thing" mentality is the very vocal minority on the internet that is perpetuated by certain content creators. Ive been playing since 2016 and in real life Ive only ever encountered 1 player that had this sentiment in commander. (Who also said that Approach of the Second Sun was a broken card because he only had 1 counterspell in his grixis deck 🙃)

I have protection and removal sorta being opposite ends of each other depending on the deck. If what I'm doing so powerful or fast I can out race anything the opponents are doing I typically prioritize protection you sandbag your removal for must answer issues that stop you from winning. If your deck is sorta grindy and you need to get to the late game you need removal period. Counterspells are unequal and serve both. Stax for me has been the answer. They typically eat removal from your opponents gives your busted stuff free range and develop your board. I'm typically considered the responsible player in my play group and i usually have removal for pivotal points in game. Magic will always be a tempo game and doing nothing and running less removal will make you lose more games. You give up a lot of agency of dictating how the game plays out.

And then there's me, who packs 10-14 pieces of targeted removal and a sweeper or two in every deck.

Having a policy of retaliation is not necessarily a bad idea when competing in a series of games and that reputation causes other players to not target you even when it would technically be “optimal”

It's tactical restraint, but it's also a risk if you let other people get too far ahead of you to the point they can't be stopped.

If you are doing nothing and stocking up on cards, the correct play is to poke you and make you use the cards. That's how a multiplayer meta self regulates.

🧅 Magic has layers, Ogres have layers !

The TL;DR: *Politics*

I think my games of Commander are way different than yours

How is it that my favorite new podcast is all about my least favorite card game? 🤔

Commander has three unwritten rules i feel like. 1. You can build a consistent deck. 2. You can build a powerful deck. 3. You cannot build a consistently powerful however as it goes against the "spirit" of the "format"

Commander players do not _being the target_ of spot removal. Everything is allowed as long it doesn't meddle with their plans

The life totals are problem, spot removal and burn is balanced on 20 life in commander you have to face 40 and 2 extra opponents this makes creatures and burn way worse. Imagine if a bolt delt 18 damage that would be where the power needs to be to have comparable power.

i hope the standard for lgs play can one day reach "everyone plays to win openly and honestly" the idea of sandbagging your own threat level at a casual table being nornalized and accepted by self proclaimed casuals is mind boggling to me. it would be far more fun if everyone played like it was a 3v1 format.

Commander at the casual level is political, and those politics are a resource that offsets that negative externality. I spend my resource to remove a threat, but I negotiated with the other players who would also have reason to use their resources to remove the threat to gain some sort of benefit in exchange for me being the one to spend the resource. If we all have a way to kill the problematic creature, I’ll go ahead and spend the resources and in return you owe me something so you don’t have to. On top of that it is preferable to spend the resources to remove the threat yourself than to worry about losing a relatively small amount of value to the table. Yes card advantage is a huge value but if I try to preserve that 1 card worth of advantage and the threat ends up running away with the game, that 1 card isn’t actually worth it. I saved my resources and lost the game. I have never once heard someone say that they avoid running interaction. There are 3 things that you can do in every color: mana ramp, card draw, and interaction. You produce a larger amount of mana to afford to play the interaction spells, you draw cards to have the interaction, and you use the interaction to stop your opponents’ threats. The only difference between casual and competitive interaction is the mana cost and return value. Cheaper spells so you can focus more on draw than ramp, spells that also grant some return value to offset that externality. Etc. There are interactive spells that give you and/or your opponent some amount of return value because of that idea of negative externality, beast within, generous gift, assassin’s trophy, etc. the biggest of which is arcane denial. Doing the math on the negative externality for me countering your spell is that I spent a card and you spent a card and nothing changed on the board state so the other two players have gone up in card advantage by not doing anything. To offset that arcane denial gives you both cards back so you can maintain the card advantage. Path to exile and assassin’s trophy both let the victim player search for a land. Beast within, generous gift, stroke of midnight, swan song, all give the player a creature in exchange for that interaction. No high power level commander deck is going to skip out on interaction of some kind. It’s infeasible to expect that you’re going to do your thing uninterrupted faster than your opponent who is not going to be interrupted will do theirs.

In my experience, I've played against some of the most degenerate decks ever and I've learned that Doing nothing is the most powerful thing you can do with your deck. I've gotten so many games while being "mana screwed" or "hellbent"

The idea is not “don’t play removal”. It’s “play removal smartly”. If there’s two card draw engines on the field, but one gives card advantage to everyone while the other is a rhystic study (aka only one person gets card advantage), which will you choose? Negative externality will occur on any situation, whether you don’t do something about it, whether you destroy one thing or another or both… all of these scenarios will affect the progression of the game, and knowing *when* to use removal makes you a smarter, better player than just slapping removal at every inconvenient situation you come across because you’re mad at my [insert card name here]. 😂

One of my last games had five board resets. Look, I'm not afraid of using my removal, but I am using to to forward my game and hampering someone else's. Or if I have to get rid of the jin gitaxis 1 player. I will throw a game to eliminate them and some other commanders. 😈

Same as some others. Commander players don't play removal? Even the traditional 3 pillars call for 10-12 pieces of targeted removal and 3-5 board wipes. That's 15% of the deck.

In commander you don't play removal to remove something, you play removal to not lose, it is a deck construction problem, there is nothing to solve from a game development standpoint. if your game plan is to just get under permission you go and build a deck like that. But if your deck is not fast enough and still lack interaction and lose? that is the deck constructor's issue, there are more than enough cards in the game to solve the "problems". Sure it cost you a resource, but there are plenty of ways to just draw more cards. Since it is a deck builder game with near endless permutations, it is also on the players to bring the tools they need to the game to experience what they want from the game. They are not passive players and need to actively contributing to the gameplay experience. I don't think it should be up to the developer to curate that experience, it kinda defeats the entire point of a deck builder game like commander to curate it too much, it limits the self expression which is the beauty of commander.

I think the part of commander you're ignoring is the political negotiating. Before you use your 1 for 1 removal, seek to negotiate with the other 2 players not involved and get a concession from them that makes it worth using your removal. You can also negotiate with the owner of the threat to leave it alone if they leave you alone and go after the other players. These negotiations are what makes removal not a negative externality. And many players find this negotiated interaction fun as well.

I think one-for-one removal being inefficient is a good thing for the game, because it is then used sparingly. This contributes to everyone "getting to do their thing", because you don't stop someone unless they are threatening AND they are coming for you. And if you do counter a game-winning spell without negotiating some benefits from the other two players first, that's on you. 😉 That said i can totally understand your frustration with commander from a design standpoint because the rules alone don't make for a fun game and it instead requires a number of conventions which vary by what people find fun. Having found a playgroup that is a great fit for me, i see this less as a problem and more as an intriguing oddity. For me a key part of finding the fun in commander is treating it more as a king of the hill game or maybe even something like a free-for-all show wrestling match, where the winner is the one who gets to do the most "cool stuff" in a dramatic fight. In that frame it can be rewarding to be the person who had a counterspell (or even better: mana tithe) at just the right moment. It's a good show, even if you don't necessarily win with it. One big challenge that remains is finding people with the same definition of "cool stuff" as you, since in the beginning you may not even know what you like.

Already off the bat I disagree, I mean this probably hold true for casual commander but i mean just play cedh, it solves literally every issue you have. Removal and interaction are necessary and impactful tools that exist in every magic format. It doesn't "feel bad" to stop someone from winning the game because all players at the table are also trying to win the game. I don't see why commander is any different than any other magic format in that regard. When the cards played are impactful than interaction becomes equally impactful.

comment for alg

Hey! great topic! I disagree with your argument because of the following: I think most of the players who dont run enought removal are new players without the experience that is is needed, or players that are more excited about their gameplan than play removal. Ending up in not enough removal. The less are those superenfranchise players that think about this deep layer of game-player interaction and are competitive enough to make changes in theirs' decks to aling with it. Which are the less of all. Fron listening to most of your complains about commander in many videos I'm starting to think that commander it is not a format for you, at least as it was originated. Maybe because you are focused on winning or focused in solve game design problems. But you analize every aspect of commander with the frame of winning. Whem youstop thinking in just winning and more on funny interections, politics,jokes and so much more...this problem doesn't care :) You just play removal on a big creature that is gonna hit you or because it is funny that a great wurm with no legs has a "tragis slip" x'D Keep the good topics! enjoy!

This is the reason that group hugs decks win more. Players that add more removal cards are reducing the threats they can draw and spending turns without developing a threat. They do so for good reason: to protect their chosen strategy. But that strategy is worse than letting other players do the work for them. Group hug plays into the idea of letting everyone else kill each other and controlling the narrative that they aren't the threat. I started to dislike commander when I found out everyone was trying to act non-threatening while actually trying to win; the "small bean" thing. Salubrious Snail has a video called "My Playgroup's Best Deck is $20" about a budget deck that takes advantage of this same principal without being group hug. It does so by drawing lots of pump spells and holding them back to look innocent. I should build it to try to enjoy commander again

You can't say both that commander players don't play removal and also say that not using your removal is the best way to win. Packing enough removal and being judicious in its use is definitely a great way to improve your win rate. The guy that does nothing all game *sometimes* wins, but that's usually because the other players played poorly and didn't ensure they kept that guy at a similar life total as everyone else. I've seen way more people that do nothing all game and then just lose.

The central argument of why players don't play removal being: Bad players don't fully understand the concept of when or how to remove most efficiently. Therefore mechanic bad. Is the take I've least agreed with on this channel. Commander's problem is that there is NO pressure to improve. People will spend more money on cards to get an easy edge over their friends' playgroups, but I've seen so many in my lgs that are just not interested in getting better because all they play is this casual but expensive game

I think WotC design and the growing desire of competition in commander is VERY different from what the Commander RC and the "casual commander" design philosophy. As long as they keep pushing cards and not put in more balancing and limiting mechanics (that don't lead to bad gameplay) commander is going to move more towards cEDH because deck design has pretty much been solved. there are X slots for each mechanic and you can build a deck with 0 wincons but you aren't going to win much. Tutors seem either necessary or 100% ban worthy in commander and people in charge of commander rules haven't banned a card since golos/hullbreacher.

"i would just lie" again its really wierd that its socially acceptable to angle shoot at a casual table. thats what you're doing when you lie to get closer to a win, youre angle shooting at a casual table. and this does seem very common and normalized. idk what commander players want because their words and behaviors do not match.

This is actually positive externality. Your action (removal) gives a benefit to the other players. I'm the context of a competitive card game, this is a bad thing.

When players play removal they play like 15 board wipes because its the only value proposition. People wave the bloody shirt of Fierce Guardianship, a 1 for 1 that doesn't impact the board at all. Were no where NEAR having conversations about Mass Land Destruction. Commander is suffering from audience capture, it's clearly not a great format and is struggling under the weight of 30+ years of cards with a sudden influx in the last 5 years of people who are illiterate about game theory and systems.

Commander players getting real mad in these comments

To me it seems like they’re making a theoretical scenario that doesn’t happen often enough to discuss. I’d argue it’s not even a problem. This argument of “Doing nothing in commander is a winning strategy” is absurd and simply false. Maybe this is true if you play with a new group or new deck every time but even then. If on turn 4 or 5, and you’ve played only lands, then sure you will skip getting attacked (maybe). If anyone is playing any card that cares about attacking, (too many to list here), then suddenly you’re target number one. Literally a sitting duck with no defenders. That’s why commander is open knowledge. If you’re playing a commander that can combo then you’re definitely getting killed while “doing nothing”.