Top 8 Mistakes To Avoid In Commander | Commander Clash Podcast #51 

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I'm convinced they are all gaslighting Tomer over Rhystic Study lmao

Poor Tomer trying to speak sense to a room full of madlads. He's 100% right on that Rhystic Study debate.

I started taking Richard's advice and not use my removal unless it's being directed at me. And I've seen the person with the Sol Ring, Rhstic Study, Smothering Tithe etc... just run away with it because they get so far ahead they have answers to my removal by the time their agro is directed at me. I'm with Tomer on this one, remove the problems before they become an even bigger problem. If that means I have to use my resource to help the table out then so be it. Plus playing more interaction is more fun than playing solitaire.

I like how Richard talks about technical play and good threat assessment being more important than politics than 5 minutes later is arguing that you should use politics to remove the rhystic study player rather than dealing with them yourself. The problem with the latter argument is that it is classic fallacy of the Commons. If everyone assumes it is in their interest not to be the one to deal with the problematic thing, than no one removes it and that player wins.

100% with Tomer on Rhystic Study. This card single handedly wins games, and does so in a way that often goes kind of unchecked. It's not a buff creature that kills you dead and it usually doesn't combo, but you just never go low on cards ever anymore. The Rhystic player now never misses another land drop for the rest of the game and has a full grip at all times. And you only really get one chance to remove it. If you wait too long, the person will have gotten enough value out of it that it doesn't matter anymore. I agree fully that you should hold removal as long as possible in most cases, but there are just certain engines where you either stop the train asap or the single-target removal spell you got in hand becomes completely useless. And Rhystic Study is just one of those cards.

Tomer, you might not see this, but know that I'm 1000% with you on rhystic study. This IS bizzaro world

The table is literally so jaded by Tomer's logic that they actually think it's fine to leave the Rhystic Study and lose on the faith that someone else will deal with it lmao it's peak tragedy of the commons, the commons being Tomer's removal.

Tomer thank you for being the voice of reason in the wasted removal discussion. The story of Crim holding onto removal and not using it for the planeswalker ult and losing perfectly encapsulated your argument to me! Holding on to the removal literally lost the game

I would watch a video where the 4 of them try to play a game as a single player against 3 randoms. And listen in on their discussion on what to play and when.

I like how they're going on about the power of Richards politic-ing and his ability to downplay his own threat level, only to have Richard immediately step in to down play how powerful his politic-ing is

Not removing the player that says "I'm just drawing cards" if they aren't dealing with threats on the board. Not removing the Rhystic Study/ Smothering Tithe/ similar effects player. Not removing the player that isn't playing around Smothering Tithe/Rhystic Study

Tomer, I am with you. I died one thousand deaths listening to your mates talking about removal.....

That rhystic study discussion is so funny, the group advocates for not dealing with the rhystic but they don't ever address the fact that they don't ever pay for it while they think they're "ganging up" on the rhystic study player. I gotta agree with Tomer here, at least he's being realistic in his context of the playgroup. If people actually pay the 1 then it's fine to let it go, but the clash crew will never ever do that

The number of lands should be linked to your card draw ability; being land flooded with an empty hand feels super bad.

The thing about the Removal Discussion and the panel's response (particularly Seth's) is how most of them operate under the assumption that the best removal spell is the one in your hand because it supposedly gives you the most options. A better way to look at it (and the way Tomer does it) is that the best removal spell is the one that minimizes the threat of losing at any given time. I like Tomer's method much more because it can be more "accurately" assesed! You just need to look at the current board state and know the player's archetype to roughly calculate the best course of action, instead of relying on unknown variables.

When Richard argues that it's a bad play to remove his turn 1 lotus'd commander are we really supposed to take that seriously

I agree that players are playing too few lands, but I genuinely think that running over 40 lands in a non landfall deck is crazy.

Richard and Crim are the guys who let the opponent go off with Bolas' citadel and necropotence and try to get the other players to deal with the problem

I'm so here for Crim's argument about playing your pet cards. If I'm playing a deck with green, Colossal Dreadmaw will probably be there lol

On the removal discussion, if you guys are not memeing, you have to take into account: Your meta is not a combo/value engine meta. You are playing fun/janky decks that showcase a creative idea rather than focusing on winning. I watch ALL CClash every week and I have fun watching it. However, this is nowhere near the lgs experience, high power or even mid-tier meta games. You have 2 durdling players (Seth and Crim) and Richard who just sits there doing nothing until he wins with turtles. The only ones winning or playing real value engine decks are Tomer and Phil and get removed early in the game. Once you have 4 Tomers on the same table, you NEED removal bc everybody is a threat. It is absurd to think that fogs will save you more often than removal or that Rhystic leads you to lose the game. Richard literally said "you're helping them when you don't give them cards bc they don't become the threat". What is this reasoning??

Here's the Frank Karsten article I referenced: strategy.channelfireball.com/all-strategy/mtg/channelmagic-articles/how-many-lands-do-you-need-to-consistently-hit-your-land-drops/ And here's the Frank Karsten article on mana sources: strategy.channelfireball.com/all-strategy/mtg/channelmagic-articles/how-many-colored-mana-sources-do-you-need-to-consistently-cast-your-spells-a-guilds-of-ravnica-update/ Here's the latest update but you need a membership to read it: strategy.channelfireball.com/all-strategy/mtg/channelmagic-articles/how-many-sources-do-you-need-to-consistently-cast-your-spells-an-iko-update/

Honestly, Tomer should just not interact with those rhystic studies effects until everybody see how unfun it is and how it warp the game if not interacted with. It basically says, if you don't interact with this, most of what you do won't matter at all. Kinda like what Seth thinks about Ugin in 1v1.

#1 Letting Richard talk you into believing that he isn’t the biggest threat. #2 Talking yourself into believing that Richard is definitely the biggest threat.

Clearly the biggest mistake is not running more Dowsing Daggers and Hedron Archives

I'm with Tomer on removal. Richard, Seth, and Crim seem to completely miss Tomer's point about removal. Obviously it is better to let someone else use their resources to deal with a threat rather than using your own, however if you don't remove the threat in a timely manner and allow the controller of that threat to accumulate value off said threat (e.g. smothering tithe or rhystic study) the value of removing the threat becomes worse and worse. Waiting around with the hope someone else addresses the threat is fine, but if you have the removal and the player controlling the threat is about to benefit from it, it's time to remove it. Another consideration is your deck's goal. Rest in Peace played by the mono white deck may mean very little to the selesnya life gain deck at the table so the odds of them removing it is near 0, but if you are on muldrotha and have removal in hand, it's not a waste to remove that threat since it's a threat to your entire game plan. There's also the concern of another threat being dropped after removing the previous threat. It's gonna happen. I know it does in my games of commander, but that also doesn't justify leaving a threat on the table. I don't know that I ever agree with Richard's take on things. Richard's play style only has a chance of success because other players have removal to address the real threats at the table. His decks always seem to be slow, lack any meaningful threats, along with being incapable of addressing the actual threats on the board. His success hinges on other players actually playing interaction. If everyone ran these solitaire type decks in commander clash, but just ran decent ramp and card draw, Richard would never keep up and never have an answer. Ultimately context matters when it comes to removal, but removing a threat before the controller of it can benefit isn't something I see as a waste. Sure, it's a 1 for 1, but leaving the threat is more than likely worse than being down a card.

24:00 Seth has been playing against Rhystic Studies for literal years, and he still hasn't grasped the dynamics of this card, or how to play against it. Edit: Nvm nobody other than Tomer gets it. By their logic I don't understand why they are playing removal in the first place. It seems to always be a losing proposition to answer anything.

I agree with Tomer at 25:50 ish You can remove Rhystic and Politic at the same time. Crim says to jam cards, but if you aren't paying they will draw counters for your wincons and if they are playing good they will hold onto those rather than counter whatever you jam. It does depend on the turn though, less than turn 4 and I would kill the Study, you can still get blown out from a Bojuka bog which feed the swarm won't protect you from. Argument they are making to not remove the rhystic is they same that someone would make to not remove my Storm-Kiln Artist. Since it isn't the win con it's not worth it, many times it is more valuable to disrupt your opponent's game plan before it gets too far along. Once I have 20 treasures or the Rhystic player has drawn 20 cards it is too late those are win cons for those decks, that's why they run them in the first place.

The hardest part about playing hatebears is most opponents dont understand my bears are your friends. More players really need to consider the table.

After playing commander for about seven years now, I can safely say that an unanswered Rhystic Study is one of the quickest ways to lose a game in the history of the format. If I'm the one playing the Rhystic, I want nothing more than for everyone to let it sit there and hold their removal for my follow up plays. Beacuse by that point, I'll have all the interaction I need to fight through it. I might be a bit bias from playing so much CEDH, but Tomer is %100 right about Rhystic Study.

That pleading by Crim to play your pet cards was really wholesome. I've been a Magic player since '99 and was eventually going down the rabbit hole of working on some commander decks myself lately. After creating some super optimized decks at first, I started building decks revolving around weird, funny themes or just cards that I loved as a kid, and those have actually turned out to be the decks I'm looking forward to pilot the most.

The person that draws the most cards typically wins the game. Advancing your board means nothing when another player is drawing a bunch of cards and has all of the pieces

As a player of old janky pet cards and theme decks I stand with Seth here. We have a player in our pod who’s a good stuff player and it is soooo satisfying to beat him with nonsense :)

I am 100% with Richard about fogs. Including a fog or two in decks that can use them well has gone so well for me.

On the Don’t waste removal topic, I think it’s a conversation of competitive vs casual. Sure, it’s the “correct” play to save your removal and let someone else deal with it. But I feel like that’s no what I’m trying to get out of a commander game. Sure I like to win, but it’s more about the enjoyment of the game and the social aspect of playing together, as a group. It’s the “correct” thing to just remove a player if you have the chance, but oftentimes you don’t because you still want to play with that person rather than them sitting there forever not doing anything. EDHRECast did a podcast talking about what do you want out of a game of commander, I think that would be a sweet podcast for you guys to do! Are you looking to just win? Or are you looking to enjoy a fun game, so new unique decks, and see if you can still win. Just a thought!

Rhystic study is one of those cards that can just win the game in time. Necro is another similar card. The momentum they create just wins game. I love how Tomer mentioned Niv Mizzit. Whenever I see this card in play it dominates & can just get you there.

@MTGGoldfish Commander It seems like at the core of your arguments you guys are in a sense dealing with the what’s know as the Prisoner’s Dilemma. Tomer is assuming all players will do what’s best for everyone, but everyone else (as do most) come to the conclusion they should do what’s best for them.

The fact obscuring haze stops all damage not combat damage makes it amazing

Playing a lot more Cedh recently and a common issue is considering the entire table. P1 has a Thalia in play, so P2 kills it because it's slowing their progress, P3 proceeds to storm off because the Thalia is gone now.

If everyone was playing Commander like Richard it would just be a 4 player solitaire since no one wouild have any interaction. "Someone else should take care of it" would be the Pod Motto every game.

Tomer: "We're friends, right, Seth?" Seth: "We're friends, right, Tomer?" Crim, to anyone: "I'll be your lieutenant!" Richard: "Politics isn't important." Everyone else: "Strongly disagree!" It would be interesting if you played a game where no one did any politics. Just talked about home owner insurance if the itch got to be too much. Just to see how the game plays out.

The talk of "don't waste removal" makes me think of one of my favorite articles from Reid Duke where he talks about his "lineup theory" of removal

Tomer should play rhystic study in every deck next season now. Though it might happen, that they realize, that there is no Tomer to hate on it so they remove it or pay the one.

I always consider having a random fog effect in all my decks, especially when it synergizes with my theme: Dawn Charm, Riot Control, Prismatic Strands, Spore Frog, Kami of False Hope, Frontline Strategist, Angelsong, Tangle, Moment's Peace, Darkness, Sudden Spoiling, Selfless Squire...

On the removal discussion: I am reminded that having the second best deck at a table made me much more likely to win for many years. I believe it to still be true in casual circles.

It's frustrating that Richard will never admit any of his takes are wrong despite living through multiple instances where he has been proven incorrect.

I think the what’s happening with the rhystic study conversation is that tomer thinks of the situation as “I remove the rhystic or they win” and the rest of the crew thinks of it as “Someone else will”. The highest upside play is to assume someone else will and you keep your only “get out of jail” card in your hand. But to tomers point of view, if no one else removes the rhystic study, that player is strongly advantaged and the *net* gain in win percentage for you personally goes down.

I’ve been watching a lot of these episodes and I am a total Richard. I agree with almost all of his “controversial” stances LOL!

I strongly disagree on the land argument if it's turn 12 and you're spending 10 mana to play your commander and pass, you've lost. You can't build your deck around "what if I am incredibly behind and can't do anything?'" you should play to win, not to try and barely scrape off when you've pretty much lost Sure if your mana curve is really high you can't afford to play 34 lands, but that's not really a land problem, it's a curve problem

Tomer you are too good for this table. 👏

Aside from generic deckbuilding improvements (having more ramp, card draw, etc.), the two most impactful things I’ve become better at are being smarter with removal and being careful to not put a target on my back if I can’t back it up. So deploying threats in a much more patient, timely manner will help anybody win more.

sometimes, i feel like tomer is the only person being sensible

I love Richard's point of Tight Play over Politics. When I first started - I relied on politics heavily and would always lose. After some time I decided to made a Shadrix deck and learned how to finesse when necessary and deploy the right threats at the right time. It's about finding that balance and always knowing how to make yourself the unsuspecting threat.

Regarding the Fog discussion, I think Obscuring Haze is grossly underrated. Most people forget that it's a one-sided fog - not only does it protect you, but it can also lead to your opponents' creatures getting destroyed in the process. I have it in my Fynn, the Fangbearer Deathtouch tribal deck and it can completely turn the tide of battle for free.

Running a random fog/darkness is a fantastic mind game trick against your friends since they become aware of the fog in future games. You can typically politic the aggro player into hitting you with less damage/creatures with the hint that you might fog them if they attack you all out. I've used this to absolutely trick a crater hoof player into not even attacking me, thus using the potential fog as a way to kill two other opponents. If I have it in hand or not is a different issue haha.

Blessed Respite is a good fog I have been including a lot more. The thing with modern EDH is that so many things are threats, it's not possible to remove them all and that makes fog better. You don't need to remove them, just hold up 1 mana and you can prevent lethal which may buy you enough time to win the game.

I think its a good point about removal. In 60 card formats, I think it is generally a good bet to be a lot quicker on the removal, because those games tend to revolve a lot around tempo or getting some crazy combo going, which what you are removing is probably a piece of. However, in commander, not that tempo is not valuable, but purely going for tempo often means you will fizzle out mid/late game (at least in my experience). You can dominate early and knock one person out, but then you'll run out of resources to deal with the rest, who were just sitting back and letting you deal with the other player. Once you get down to only one other player, at that point tempo is pretty much all that matters. But while there are three others, I think it often pays to take a wait and see approach. Let the board develop and see what is going to be the true threat mid/late game, and then take that out at the right time to benefit you the most. I'll have to get better at that.

The thing you all missed about fogs is that if you don't do anything else your opponent just untaps and does it again next turn, if you know you'll have a plan for what to do after a fog they can be affective cards but you cant just play them in leu of real interaction.

I run 36 lands in 95% of my decks and I don't have an issue. My outline for a deck is 1-2 commanders 50-51 cards, 12 ramp and 36 lands

On the wasted removal discussion, a lot of talk about card advatange and win percentage but Tempo and mana efficiency matter as well. If one of your opponents taps out for some impactful spell and you remove it denying them value you basically undid their turn for a fraction of the mana they spent. Timewalking even just one opponent is pretty strong. Sometimes setting your opponent back and having an impactful turn afterward is just enough to put you really far ahead. I've played a lot fo blink decks and bounce/removal effects are super strong because while other people are spending their turns playing their commanders, you bounce their commanders setting them back a turn and delaying their game plan. By the time they get back you're having a multi-spell turn and getting value out of your board.

I think the logic Seth is going for is this: Scenario 1: (Rhystic Study ignored) Rhystic Player Win (40%), Other Players (20%) Scenario 2: (You Kill Rhystic Study) Other Players Win (27%), You Win (19%) Since you disadvantage yourself by burning removal, perhaps holding back is the correct choice when playing to win.

Tight play. Yes Richard!

Lol this group has such a fun dynamic i love it

The only thing I will agree with Richard on is that thier playgroup doesn't play enough creatures and that's why Richard wins as often as he does. Like the man admits he doesn't run targeted removal and would rather run fogs, of all things, over board wipes. The fact his win percentage is as high as it is completely astounds me

Things I’ve learned from the video when I’m a pod with tommer if another play casts a rystic study his win percent goes down and mine goes up

I definitely see removal getting wasted. However, there are some snowball-type cards / board states which you need to answer before they get out of control. I like Crim's point about how board clears are a powerful substitute because you can catch people trying to snowball and sometimes multiple people having a power race or, most importantly for the discussion, you can more easily delay using your removal so someone else might answer it for you. So the places to use removal: 1) If the thing is a significant problem to you and won't be answered by others. 2) If the person is about to win with it. 3) If the person is about to snowball out of control with the card. 4) (Board clears) When you can significantly set back opponents, by more turns than yourself. Something also to consider is if you're running a large number of board clears is sometimes taking the risk and letting a snowball piece sit on the battlefield can be worth it.

I think with Fog effects, you need more flexibility. Constant Mists has buyback. Crew mentioned Dawn Charm. I run Terrifying Presence and Winds of Qal Sisma in my Ghalta deck with the intent of using them on my turn to force through damage, but in a pinch I can use them defensively.

I've been playing with the idea that fogs can actually be a win con in aggro decks. It lets you alpha strike when normally alpha striking would leave you defenseless and you lose.

Rather than worry about exact land numbers, I try to run the numbers on what I need for my deck to work, figured out via a hypergeometric calculator. My decks that don't like to miss land drops run higher land counts, my decks that are fine with doing that for whatever reason run fewer. My lowest is 28 + 2 MDFCs in a mono-Green deck which is fine with ramping and expects to have access to enough cards to hit it's 2nd drop reliably, with reasonable odds of getting to 3. The deck has lots of group hug draw in it, so it expects to have more than 1 card per turn, and if I can set up multiple group hug draw sources everyone else will be drawing a higher rate of lands in comparison, since they weren't counting on having access to 2 or 3 extra cards per turn, those high 30s land count decks don't actually love that, they have a lot of 2 land draws that clog things up, and if you can't play those lands, they are buffing OG Multani. Anyways, the deck probably should either run even more 1 mana ramp or run more lands, but it is viable as is, but it has +20 ramp effects of varying size. My highest land count deck is Tatyova, which runs 45, and I am confident it'd run better if I could find a way to sneak it up to 50 lands, especially if I added more Fetch lands. Still, I see countless Tatyova decks running slightly less to way less land, with mid 30s seeming pretty common, and they just run lots of ramp spells. I run very few ramp spells in my deck, I run 'land into play' creatures, especially ones that combo off with Retreat to Coralhelm, so I need to be drawing a lot of lands when I draw or I won't hit my extra drops, with Tatyova and 45 lands I don't actually guarantee I'll hit a land every turn, and I can (and do!) get shorted hard still, the deck is actively bad if it can't set a synergy pile up to draw into more lands, which lets me dig into a true combo. I run 38 in my two 5 colour decks, but both have janky mana bases. They both tend to hit WUBRG pretty quickly, but if they don't get access to Green it's going to be a slog usually, so I try to weight my lands towards Green as much as possible. Both of those deck like to hit lots of land drops, 38 means you expect to hit your 4th land drop most games, but your 5th is far from guaranteed, giving you a hint at how many lands you should be running in your Aesi builds (probably 50, maybe 55). The deck I have put the most effort into the mana base of is my cEDH deck, which runs an astounding 39 lands in Zur, along with 10 ramp rocks to help get Zur out early. I should have more rocks, and I'd run less basics if I didn't have Back to Basics in, but the base is reasonably reliable for a budget mana base. Politics vs Competence is an easy one, you'll never win if you're incompetent, but you will lose games if you don't know how to politic and you're in a very well balanced pod. If you're a bad player, being better at politics won't help generally, but I'd argue you can build in more political cards at the cost of making your deck slightly weaker, leverage cards are very powerful in actual practice, but if you don't know how to use them to their full effect, or 'waste' their ability on too small of a target, you won't win many games. If you're not good at target gauging, you can run lots of the 'removal on a stick' options out there, and they can take some of the weight off if you're worried about using your precious removal on the wrong thing, these will let you have another shot potentially, if you don't just lose due to your mistake. Removing too small of a target is mostly an issue when you're playing a deck that simply runs less removal, if your deck only packs 5 or less interaction spells, you REALLY need to be careful about when you use those cards, and you need to only remove things that will cost you the game for certain (and that won't be dealt with by someone else if I leave it alone). Removing Rhystic Study is probably not a bad idea, but removing something that is annoying (even somewhat painful), but isn't going to make it impossible for you to win is incorrect, you just let it be and hope someone else deals with it. This is how I look at it for cEDH at least, where I run a lot of interaction generally (but not much for that level of play, just lots compared to what a Goldfish would play generally). Drannith Magistrate is a perfect example, it's a card that is either horrifying to you or means relatively little, and if it doesn't mean a lot, you can let it sit, for example if you're got your Commander out already. I think my problem with Richard's 'run very little interaction' solution is that I often play fairly high powered games, where if I run less than 10 I might as well have not showed up for all I'll be doing, with a few exceptions for decks that are literally trying to combo off faster than it's opponents can (which can be salty if they think you're pub stomping), but these also have weirdly powerful removal solutions available, so even they can end up packing 'enough'. Do you count wipes as 'removal'? Some decks run less 'removal' but run extra wipes because it expects to need to deal with more than 1 creature at a time. My Pavel deck expects to need to keep a relatively clear board until it can reach it's big mana effects or it will lose, so it has lots of wipes and removal, so it can scale things as necessary to stay alive. Backup plans are a part of my problem, because my backup plans are sometimes so numerous. My Boros Weenie deck actually has Brash Taunter as a combo piece, but it has only 1 way to find the Taunter and digs poorly atm, so it's still mostly a Weenie deck. My Zur deck has umpteen win cons, and tutors to find them, but it also has 'backup' stuff that Zur can purely dig out that can potentially win games, so arguably you can 'over do it' with backup plans. Nothing like Tomer warning us about playing out half of a combo... But seriously, I actively look for combos/decks that can set up better, or that aren't obvious about what they're trying to do because the combo is multi-piece jank and even if 3/4s of it is out, nobody has any clue you have anything but a way to bounce and replay some lands to keep drawing lands. Look at who suffers most from an effect, but also look at how much you suffer relatively. If a play shoots your opponent in the foot, but they're standing on your foot, maybe it's not the best play? Strip Mine costing you a land drop matters if your deck cares about having more than 2 or 3 lands out, which most decks very much do. One of my favourite ways to win with Pavel is to use Thieves' Auction, where you not only look at how good of stuff you're going to be taking, you want to look at how bad of stuff you're going to stick other people with at the end of the resolution. Don't play your Auction too early, but don't wait until you're next to death unless there is a one card solution to your problem you can steal first. Pet Cards are fun and should be run, but you'll lose more games as you get more competitive. Most people don't play cEDH, but even in High Power you're going to lose some games if you straight up run 'bad in Commander' cards. I have decks that are Casual and are crawling with Pet Cards, but even my cEDH has some snuck in. What I've noticed is that a lot of cards that used to be good 10 years are pretty weak, and even pre-Eldraine is very weak in comparison, but I still run cards from the old days, because they are awesome cards to 'make work' in a deck. For the record, you can actually run Force of Nature still, it's still an 8/8 trample for 6, which isn't actually a bad deal. Paying GGGG is annoying, but you can also just take 8 and swing anyways, he's not a jerk, so you can play another beater. Will it win as often as Blightsteel? No, definitely not, but it'll be more fun to watch it do work. I'd go so far as to say 'have some Pet Card Decks', because that's a big part of what Casual is about, running not the best cards by an objective standard. I have some Legends Beaters as Commanders decks, which often have weird old stuff, these decks are surprisingly fun to play usually. It doesn't get much less pushed than Tobias Andrion, but if you can crew a vehicle the turn he comes out, he feels pretty good. I find running wipes are a great way to protect yourself, especially if you can count on having good odds of drawing another wipe afterwards. The 3rd wipe is usually going to have people getting salty, but that's because it's usually very hard to recover from. Stuff like Necromantic Selection are really good in a deck like that, where you also get back the best thing you killed, which could be extremely good potentially. Having blockers is nice though, my Pavel deck runs Uncle Istvan and a few other creatures that are good defensively, or make blockers that are good, even if it doesn't run many creatures it needs a few bodies to protect itself I find. I do find cards that hassle people for swinging at you can be decent, if not great. War Tax is amazing though, especially if you can make an ally somehow who you can count on not swinging at you, you can then make it a 2 on 1 while the 4th player can't swing, it's a nuts card. Flood also does good work, but only if it's the The Dark version. Fogs are bad, but really good ones are fine to have around. I run Spore Frog and Dawnstrider in my Meren deck, which tends not to like combat much. Fog is run IMHO because you just save your bacon from some single turn alpha strike, which also tends to mean that player is now doomed to the crack back. Obscuring Haze is better than usual not just for being free, it also is an ambush card provided you've got big bodies or deathtouch. Ambush cards are always fun, especially if you're not the guy getting Sudden Spoiling cast on them.

Regarding lands, consider the fact that 17 lands is considered a normal amount to have in a 40-card limited deck. 17 lands in a 40-card deck is comparable to 42 lands in a 99-card deck. Similarly, having 24 lands in a 60-card deck is comparable to having 40 lands in a 99-card deck. So having 40+ lands in a Commander deck is pretty reasonable.

I would love to know if Richard would use a removal on conscricated sphinx

One Mistake I have been making recently due to not playing regularly in a long time. Not Knowing my deck very well, I was going against a Barrin deck a couple of weeks ago with my Tiamat dragons deck and forgot that the Baby Version of Slimgaur ALSO has Hexproof and would have gone a long way to shutting the Barrin player down since Barrin is only a 1/1.

I absolutely understand the point of running fog, even outside some recursive combos via buyback or spore frog. Just like you don't use removal on the first threat that presents itself, you also don't use fog at the first opportunity just to preserve some life. If you play it like that it's just a worse, conditional life gain spell. You use it when someone goes all in with some overrun effect on all their creatures or wants to voltron you to death with a beserked doublestriking commander and/or extra combat phases this turn. It's those moments where a Fog or cards similar to it are basically a timewalk for 1-2 mana. Aditionally it can also leave your opponent vulnerable to a counterattack if they tapped out for the attack and didn't expect you to survive for another round. Also there are a couple cards with fog that just have really good side effects. A card like tangle also prevents your attackers creatures from untapping on their next turn, leaving them vulnerable for two turns instead of one. That said, I wouldn't run more than 1 or 2 fogs in a commander deck unless my playgroup's decks are all relying on creature damage. A fog doesn't stop anyone from just blasting you with... say, a Torrent of Hailfire. (then again, not sure what green can actually do against that...)

If you don remove rhystic then you gotta make sure you pay the (1) Also remember if you cast 4+ spells while paying the (1) that 3 mana removal you have in hand would have been the cheaper more mana efficient option..

I agree with "EDHREC-ification" from Seth. An example is my Najeela deck, which is a competitive aggro deck. When you look at Najeela on EDHREC, you see a whole ton of five color staples and barely any warriors, when I'm just looking for cool, powerful warriors.

The number one Rhystic Studies debate channel!

Spirited Companion is totally a blocker!

For Crim, memeing is winning so the swords to ploughsares play was next level big brain magic

My biggest mistake is not going to the LGS to play EDH. I just mentally theory craft, scroll for good deal$ and dream of building decks. But never actually set aside time to go play.

The closest thing to a Secret Rendezvous+Fog is the new Your Temple is Under Attack from Baldur's Gate, which I've seen used to great effect already in my playgroup

I'm in a weird place on the "run more lands" discussion, I very rarely run more than 38 lands but do count mana rocks (I only use 2MV or less rocks) as half lands, so my "land count" is usually around 40-42. I also don't count MDFCs and Channel lands as lands because I won't actually be playing them as lands most of the time. Furthermore I am super-concious of my mana curve and always try to keep it below 3 on average. Just doing those few things has helped make my decks incredibly consistent, as a result I very rarely get mana screwed (it still happens, no build is perfect).

I think a part of edhrec’s effect (though Reddit and Discord contribute to it as well) is that centralizing knowledge means more people know “the best” cards for any given commander and they’re not afraid to tell you loudly and often. I’ve definitely cut a pet card for a more efficient one just to stop people from telling me I should run that latter card.

I'd extend the talk about backup wincons a bit further, to Commanders. I had a semi-group-hug deck that focused on shared ramp and draw, with the intention of winning via burn or Hive Mind. It had been a Kynaios and Tiro list when it was more group hug, but when I pushed it further into X spells I also changed to Kenrith so I could add Villainous Wealth (and no other B spells). But Kenrith stole the show, as he was almost always the most efficient means of progressing the game, and so the deck played very differently. It was very noticeably more powerful, but the play patterns took away from what I wanted the deck to feel like. So K+T went back in. I'm currently debating scaling the X spell side back down again, since there a bunch of new cards I haven't tried that fit in with the older game plan.

The pet cards discussion is very relevant these days. I find myself struggling to put pet cards into casual decks due to power creep from both the cards and playgroups. To an extent I somewhat choose stronger cards as pet cards as well. My favorite cards in the game are Curses which are so incredibly weak in my playgroup that I can't win with them. However, I include a curse or two in a lot of my decks - Opulence in every deck with red, bounty in some green decks, silence in white decks.

I find Fogs only useful when your playgroup is actually trying to win with combat. In those groups, however, fogs are absolutely devastating.

The number of lands issue is something I’ve faced for a while. I tend to play a lot of low average CMC decks (my lowest is 2.3, not cEDH but still), so I can usually get away with 35-36 lands ish

It seems Tomer is the only one who understands commander concept fully. The rest of the guys should stick with advices for 1vs1.

I have played EDH for 9 years now. I highly recommend that every EDH player puts together a deck with no removal at all in it! Try it out for a few matches and you will learn a ton! Learn how to play without it, how to win without it, how to interact without removal. It’s very fun, and it will teach you a lot about how the game works.

Not looking like the threat is the biggest piece of advice I can give. Running a commander that you like over one that is powerful can give you a higher win rate then if you had run the powerful one, holding threats and removal and not looking scary until you’re set up to win in a turn or two has won me many games.

The key to politics is be able to sway a decision when the options are close. When the option comes between your threat and another’s, you want to be able to influence the tiebreaker

Playing 40 lands is fukking krazy depending on how many low to the ground ramp spells you have

I think i've won 6 of my last 10 commander games, one or two have simply been hot draws but i know 4 of them at least were a combination of technical play and politics as well as not going off first. Using removal on things that combo or stop my deck, drawing plenty of cards and deflecting early attention. I do nomally announce a combo win the turn before i do it if i can though, so people learn a bit of target priority.

"Don't be afraid to play pet cards." One of my favorite brags is about the time I won on an extra turn spell in my Golgari Elf deck. Thank you, Seedtime!

Also after thinking of it, another mistake I think people make in EDH is not mulling Aggressively enough, especially in the London Mulligan era.

I feel like the discussion on number of lands is making some very false assumptions. Yes, you should be aiming to hit a land every turn of the game, even on T10+, but ideally you should also be DRAWING an average of 2, or even 3 cards/turn over a 12 turn game. What else are you spending that mana on? If you are at T10, your deck isn't functioning unless it has seen 30+ cards right? Well you have a 69% chance to see 10 lands by that point with 35 lands. Maybe it's closer to 60 when you factor in thinning from ramp and fetches, but I'd MUCH rather put a Harmonize in the deck than a 36th land, because I am building the rest of my mana base to support always having ramp on 2.

A great fog is moments peace especially if it is milled and people forget its in the graveyard

It's funny flipping back through older episodes and finding the exact moment that Seth is converted over to Team Fog.

Hi, could You link this article explaining how to calculate the amount of lands for a given amount of turns?

I’ve been running 34-36 in most of my decks, granted most of them include white and I include land tax and other things of the sort.

Hundred percent agree with the statement that *in general* players are running too few lamds.