Turning Commander Into a Performance with Rachel Weeks | Casual Magic Ep. 229 

I love Rachel's deckbuilding philosophy and outlook for the Commander format. I stopped watching the Command Zone podcast for a year or two and jumped right back in when Rachel joined as host. She is a breath of fresh air among all of the optimization attitude of the format.

Rachel must be one of the best things that ever happened to the community. I can't think of someone that is more universally loved by the player base, probably the face of the format. She's kind, funny, clever and basically everything most player wish they could be. I hope she knows the amount of love that is coming her way, she deserves it.

Rachel is without doubt my favourite magic personality. Super smart and skilled player with a fun, casual approach. Honestly such a role model for new and long-time players!

Rachel is the absolute best. She was one of the first folks to ever commission me to illustrate their commander. Drew Aeve Progenitor Ooze!!

Great guest and conversation, as always

Rachel you say you're doing your best and it's more than good enough. I've always found your incite clear, concise and informative. Keep up the good work

I truly feel like Rachel is MTG Commander Royalty. I love me some Rachel Weeks! Thank you all for sharing your hard work and fun character with us all. 🙏🏽 Shivam so wholesome and a joy to spend time listening to your show.

A new game store opened up in my city, and my play group got together and got to know the owner. We wanted there to be a store where a person who has never played magic can go and learn and have a good time, while other established players can do their thing too. I agree that game stores can be a difficult environment to navigate, especially as a new player, thats why we try to make ours a place where a player can come in with nothing and no experience, and leave having at least an idea of the basics, a deck box, and ideally deck that they can practice with and make their own

‘Special guest Rachel Weekes!? She’s one of the hosts!’ ‘Oh, it’s Casual Magic.’

I nominate Rachel for President of EDH.

16:48-17:14 is why i have been enjoying CZ these days.

Using an LGS as speed-dating for Commander Pods is an interesting concept. It feels like that sometimes with rotating groups when people come or go after a game, whether that be for time reasons, or wanting to play against other people. You get to see a variety of different playstyles that way

The Command Zone was always just background noise to me while I was doing other stuff. But ever since Rachel became a host, I started paying a little more attention whenever she was on. Just having a different perspective there really helped me be more interested in the show. As for other topics you guys touched on, i can't find any folks who want to meet up outside of LGSes. Maybe it's a me problem? I don't know lmao

Great conversation! New Listener to the show. "The Masses" tend to not give good deck advice in my opinion because at least here in my city a lot of people do not play with a regular pod and just random people here and to be frank they tend to build and play a$$hat decks that are not fun to play against but regularly win so the question actually becomes "Do you want to have fun or to win? ..because this is how you win" Save me from min maxers 😂 I have been curating my pod's playstyle for almost a year and we don't always play the most powerful decks but we have a lot more fun! 😉

Dream team podcast right here

Rachel Weekes and Dan Sheehan are two folks who were insanely influential in the magic player I am today! I’m insanely grateful to Rachel!

Rachel yeah yeah yeah!!! No one I look up to more when it comes to Commander philosophy

I genuinely strive to be like Rachel in how she approaches edh and just gathering in general

Like they said, Sheldon knew what he was doing when he put together these two groups. We need people who see Commander for what it should be, a source of fun and joy for us all. Some make it to be a competitive thing, and I disagree with that mentality but fully encourage all people to follow my #1 Rule: Play the game the way you want to play it. If it brings you joy, then do it. Especially... ESPECIALLY, if you see Visara the Dreadful and get giddy about making that deck. I got... way too excited when she said her sister wanted to do it, despite Visara not being a great choice. Play what makes you happy! People having true fun are fun for others to be around.

It's always good when you get to do what you like for work. Thank you Shivam and Rachel for being parts of this comminity. Rachel, ypu being on command zone helped greatly in my enjoyment of it.😮

I was a person who was outgrowing the command zone..... until rachel joined and started hosting. I've disagreed with the style that jimmy and Josh play for a while and rachel is closer to my deck building and brewing philosophy.

Around 18:30 your instincts are right that universal power levels are impossible and that the context of the pod matters most. I would add a little clarification though. When you consider universal power level it isn't meaningless simply because some cards are stronger than others. So it's more like it matters much less than most people in these discussions understand, and first priority and importance should be given to your pod and your group preferences. Anyways this was a great episode, thank you for doing it!

Yay Rachel!! 😃

47:00 I think there are international laws prohibiting a pod of 4 people who play like me.

Rachel has so much rizz

🧔‍♀✴👶

I stopped watching game knights much like I stopped watching shuffle up and play. they felt too scripted for my liking. as though there was supposed to be one clear winner from the very beginning.

Man you have your own channel too??? More cringe. 😢