A Guide To Playing Commander Online With Spelltable | Enjoy Magic: The Gathering Via Webcam

[@TolarianCommunityCollege]

Yesterday, I sat down with one of Magic: The Gathering's greatest professional players: Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa! PVDDR and I talk about the future of organized play and what it means to pro players such as himself. Check it out here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/nIO6hZ6Yipt2bpI

[@aidant9993]

We won, The fetches have been reprinted

[@EDHCoffee]

@@aidant9993 That's sarcasm right? reprinted as masterpieces will do nothing for the price tag.

[@aidant9993]

@@EDHCoffee yes it was sarcasm

[@ChavezSA]

Tolarian Community College LFG Prof! Let’s play some paper Pauper!

[@troaaxaltion]

Professor, I wanna get your camera mount. You promised a link my guy!

[@colinh5299]

@prof this video is an anecdote in how intrinsic to the community you’ve become. I reached out to my friends I haven’t been able to play with since lockdown and they all said they had also just seen your video and were already getting set up. Thanks for everything you do and stay healthy.

[@TolarianCommunityCollege]

That's really sweet. Say hey for me.

[@only1sn1not1taken]

I've heard the name of the program tossed around but I've never looked into it. After seeing how the program works and the card scanner (providing a much better solution to the thing I hated most about skype duels) has made me much more likely to check out the program. And yes....I said skype duels, I'm a geezer so what. I'll register with my aol or yahoo email too!

[@TonyCook7]

Couldn’t agree anymore

[@thepolkaslongneckedchicken]

The first time I used spelltable, my friend's cat interrupted the combo of his owner 😎👌

[@DeknasAnimated]

Nice unexpected counter 😂

[@giantdinoboy8264]

Cat stompy is the new meta.

[@Siegorius]

I'm guessing it had flash

[@randomperson-sn4rj]

A surprise for sure but a welcome one

[@bobby45825]

He just had the Artificial Reality version of Colossification.

[@infinitokens6748]

Thank you so much for the mention, Prof! We love seeing the cards on streams. They are also really helpful for stealing cards!

[@KingGameReview]

I used spelltable for the first time during commandfest. It was a lot easier than I expected - I need to try to make a point to play more.

[@avggmr]

Watching this a lot later then it debuted but just wanted to say how much I appreciate people and companies like this channel for giving us that kind of support when humanity as a whole needed it.

[@bulmadora]

Never clicked a link so fast

[@TolarianCommunityCollege]

yay!

[@Phyrexian79ers]

No kidding right. I was thinking about this yesterday to do for my friends and I and of course the next day prof delivers!!!

[@Mwarrior1991]

Until the full realization of the phrase "Aquired by Wizards of the Coast" dawns on you... :(

[@SmugLookingBarrel]

I think it's so heartwarming how players are coming together to still play, regardless of what woes the world brings.

[@MartindeRoo]

I remember making those 3d impressions of the bundlebox. My brother spread it over the internet and now months later, the famour professor is using them in his video. Hope this helps ppl with playing more paper magic with friends.

[@werbearjack]

My favorite part of the video is the showcase of different DIY webcam stands. MtG player today, McGyver tomorrow. And the build-in card scanner is just insane. Hats off to the developers of spelltable - this is really impressive.

[@Frostgiantbutsmall]

Seriously though, mad props to them!

[@metagodX]

One guy in my playgroup has a camera stand made out of lego. :p

[@RKlovecraft]

I wish i could play commander with the prof, i loved his Kassssseto gameplay at gameknights haha

[@colbyhoman7602]

"spelltable was acquired by wizards of the coast!" not so sure that's a positive, and kind of undermines the privacy promises made :/

[@aidanquiett668]

Also removed the price feature. Feeling like Spelltable is going to lose a lot of its value the second I get into it

[@DeknasAnimated]

"WotC is picking up SpellTable" Oh, i better make an account while it's still free.

[@emperoroftheeternal]

#virtualsleevesincoming

[@emperoroftheeternal]

@Norman Bergmaier I mean, coming to Spelltable, well aware of Arena ones... Perhaps they can also bring pets later on and charge us for it...

[@bobby45825]

It hurts, deep down, that you're probably right.

[@dokidokiDoro]

won't be surprised if they bought it to shut it down because it hurts everything they've been trying to set up online in... forever.

[@DeknasAnimated]

@@dokidokiDoro i could see that happening, they buy it, try "new and intuitive" angle and purposefully let it flop. Either way it makes them look bad so as much as they are capable, i don't think they will.

[@martintrabichet1606]

The prof's ending thoughts on the video brought some sorrow I did not expect =( Great vid, will try to make it work with some friends

[@AhmedM1247]

My first game: Taping my phone at a 60 degree angle with the wall. 🤣🤣

[@TheHelix123]

Lol

[@helmingways2056]

I taped a box under my table and set another box under and sit on the floor for now : D

[@pvtpain66k]

You have passed Planeswalker 101. Congratulations.

[@bascurero]

As an IT professional, I VERY much appreciate the fact that you covered encryption and data privacy. 🙏

[@dracohawk13]

As someone who's been playing a lot of commander over Discord, brawl on Arena, and recently was dragged kicking and screaming into the microtransaction hell that is MTGO, this is exactly the sort of thing I wanted to see more of. I tested the card scanner feature for myself just now too, and was surprised at how effective it seems to be. Wizards acquiring it admittedly gives me mixed feelings, seeing as how it's currently free... but I'd also like to see the app expanded a bit in useful ways. For instance, at the moment it tracks commander damage but not commander tax. Great video choice either way, made me click to see it very quickly indeed! (I particularly like that you take the time to get into security concerns too) You rock, Prof!

[@cgbug]

I've been playing magic commander and pauper using Cockatrice open source software. Is really amazing, it has all cards of magic available, 100% free, you can hover your mouse during the game over a card to see it on your screen. It takes a few hours to get used to the software but to be honest once you get used to it is the perfect place to play casual and competitive level games and is also the place I use to test new deck ideas and upgrades to my current paper decks, there is a chat box as well. I usually go on a audio call with a group or with friends to play it and the game is just amazing.

[@celularphone]

Illegal

[@TheMorbidHobo]

Thanks, I'll check that out.

[@cgbug]

@@celularphone It's not illegal. The creators doesn't distribute copyrighted material or host WC IP in their servers. They also do not make any money directly from the software using any IP. To be honest is the best piece of software I ever found to play a nice game of magic with friends (any format) and test cards before I make my mind on purchasing singles.

[@sunstrid3r44]

I use cockatrice for deckbuilding Whenever i am brewing a edh deck i use the software as a decklist and to test the deck, it is really useful

[@Mwarrior1991]

oh wow! that sounds amazing. I'm checking it out for sure

[@PurpleTentacle17]

Finally tried Spelltable with 2 friends and it was a blast! Thanks to your video we managed to assemble our gaming areas and played without any issues.

[@thorium883]

Damn, I really felt that last comment. Thanks for the info, professor, good luck and take care

[@RelentlessJuiced]

Hey Brian, just wanted to say thank you for bringing this programme to my attention. I’ve just had my first commander game with my friends since before the start of the pandemic. Genuinely surprised with how easy to set up and use Spell Table is. Hope you and your family are keeping well and keep up the good work.

[@TolarianCommunityCollege]

Glad I could help!

[@dark_raveen92]

I've played on PlayEDH when you posted about it in like April. It's also helped me get social interaction while I was locked in with Furlough. I have had many fun games of Commander with Spelltable. 4 player Slivers, I got killed by a life gain land, and other silly tales. All in Mid Tier. Thanks Prof for introducing this to me. I use the Reading the Card Explains the Card playmat.

[@jacobshaffer7831]

shoutout to the folks at infinitokens. they're pretty sweet.

[@infinitokens6748]

Why thank you! :D

[@KingBobXVI]

Tip for lighting: avoid overhead lights. I have ceiling lights and mounted my phone with a bendy phone arm thing (pretty cheap, also recommended), but the bright lighting above both blows out the sleeves with glare _and_ makes a big shadow. Instead, find other lights and angle them so they shine from a different direction than the camera. I have a desk lamp set up at a 45 degree angle or so, and flicking that on and turning _off_ the ceiling lights provides a near perfect lighting conditions for the camera.

[@TonyCook7]

Kindly share the link to that bendy arm thing that you mentioned in your post. I am super interested and would love to get my hands on one.

[@s7121n9s]

I have never heard of this but now knowing about it I'm over the moon excited. I don't have anyone to play commander with anymore even before all the chaos. Definitely going to be doing this as soon as I can

[@krvys7226]

a few more tips/ workarounds I have found, and want to share. Sometimes Spelltable has issues with all 4 players getting each other's cams, resulting in a lot of reloading. another option is, if at least one person has all 4 cams, and you have access to a discord, have that person go live, and everyone who doesn't have a cam of the stream can watch that one, only switching back to adjust life totals and such. it also gives the chance for other people to watch your games. As prof said, lots of content creators have there own place for playing web games. I'm a member of the Spike Feeders discord and am always down to jam a game of any power level. (contrary to popular belief, its not all CEDH there)

[@lkledu2]

6:40 I loved how the playmat on top right looks on spelltable

[@willkarantonis1482]

Perfect timing! My playgroup JUST discussed Spelltable last night

[@ChavezSA]

Love Spelltable. It’s been my beacon of light in the dark landscape of paper Magic.

[@GeekandGlory]

It's taken me this long to get into webcam magic and I think it is going to be my main go-to for a while. Between work, living in the boonies and the price of gas, it's so much more convenient for me to get a came together online than drive 45mins+ to play in person. My rig is jank as hell but it works. 😸

[@felipeborban3337]

I've playing online tabletop for months and didn't knew it! Proff thanks as always, your are amazing man! All the other "ways" to handle the camera was a nice catch to!

[@TolarianCommunityCollege]

Happy to help!

[@JoeyBBiden]

​@TolarianCommunityCollege I just got into commander again, and my childhood friends live all across the globe. Prof, because of you and this video we get to have fun like we are 20 again! You are best! Never change!

[@picturenay]

Before WOTC, you could see the prices of cards and where to buy them. After WOTC, you can't do that any more :(

[@charanth182]

That's silly doesn't WOTC want to sell cards? Edit: forgot the secondary market doesn't exist.

[@xChikyx]

@@charanth182 secondary market? That's just a myth

[@Th3N1NjA]

You also can't view the card on scryfall through spell table anymore either.

[@MrSaranm]

@@charanth182 I don't think the secondary market is really profitable for WOTC. I'm definitely not a market expert or anything, but packs full of garbage commons and nearly unplayable uncommons seem like it'd be way more profitable than selling people the cards they actually want. Lootboxes exist for a reason.

[@johnward6361]

The prices were waay off though. It was a neat option but it usually wasn’t very accurate

[@KingGameReview]

I use my Android phone and I didn't need any additional apps. I just scanned the QR code on spelltable and it automatically linked to my phone's camera.

[@m.dinelle947]

Where is the QR code on the website?

[@KingGameReview]

@@m.dinelle947 when you join a room, in the camera settings, you can choose to use your phone, when you do - it generates a qr code

[@Keinish79]

So we tried this yesterday with a friend and it was great. Now we are telling the rest of our playgroup about it. Thank you very much for the video and tips.

[@thearcenist]

Been using this for a couple of weeks now. It is really great and the playEDH community is fantastic.

[@daseinoseven4514]

Oh no, WotC acquired them? Oh well. I was quite excited about this until that info was revealed.

[@Resonantscythe]

Yeah, so "excited" to see how wotc monetizes this *smiling mask over crying face meme*

[@DeknasAnimated]

I just commented that before i looked at other comments xp yeah I'm making my account today before it becomes a paywall of some kind. My only hope is that they actually just leave the developers to do their thing and the only monetization is esthetics only.

[@charanth182]

Part of me was going "cool how can we adapt this to other games?" Any development for not WOTC games has obviously been killed.

[@starnik]

Ha, it's terrible I felt the same way. I can only imagine they want to choke the life out of a "free" way to play Magic that isn't through one of their services. I just can't see WotC doing something for the benefit of others without monetizing it.

[@Wilhuf1]

@@starnik You already paid for your paper Magic cards? Hah hah! You can pay *more* to play with them online too!

[@colincodes]

Dude, I love your videos. Just want to say that. I'm a new-ish player this year, and you've been a great help getting me back into it.

[@Desterbad]

I've been playing with Zoom since the start of lockdown in March. Soooo sick of it! THIS LOOKS SO GOOD. Already can see how good the features are. And so happy that paper magic still matters to wizards :) P.S. @Professor you didn't link your setup. The expensive one. It looks sick. Please link :)

[@johnward6361]

We’ve been playing twice a week since April on zoom. Played about 4 or 5 games on spelltable. Spelltable does not work well a lot of the time and ends up being very frustrating. Zoom is much more consistent. If the card recognition and audio worked better I’d be all in with spelltable

[@BrittanyLJaso]

I was my carnival Rita my mom is so best and I was so much was great🙂 🦗🐞🐞🕷

[@Kattywagon29]

Now that I've got some vacation coming up, I finally decided to watch this video. My friend gave me a webcam months ago in hopes that I would play some EDH online, but I've been so busy. This weekend I'm gonna start working on figuring out how to set up and light my space properly so I can get started!

[@jacktupp4358]

Wow, this is great! I'm so glad you posted a review or I probably wouldn't have found it until way later. I just ran a bunch of games last night with this. Awesome find.

[@TheCeejay95]

PROF, you're a Tolarian Scholar (with MORE upside than a 2/3). I've been looking for ways to play with friends with my EDH decks and I'm SOOO pumped you posted this!!

[@tuckerkaup]

Thanks for exposing this to us proff! I'm moving back home from college and leaving alot of friends behind that I play commander with but this helps me stay in contact and be able to play with them!

[@holgerplitschplatsch4012]

Wow, this such a great video! My Friends and i planned weeks ahead because we wanted to meet up this weekend to play some edh. Sadly Germany is in lockdown again so this helps us out tremendously! Thank you tcc!

[@nathanp1052]

I play commander every Sunday using google hangouts. Its cool to see so many options in technology for everyone to be able to play and talk to each other.

[@plumokin5535]

I'm literally crying laughing at "I have never received such flavor points"

[@frankpocean]

prof you're too cool. thank you for the input and informative video/walkthrough on ST. I'll probably look into buying a set up down the road once I stop buying singles..

[@quantumlandbooks4005]

This is so helpful and love seeing What We Owe To Each Other in a MTG video.

[@Drazatis]

My first set of games was me setting up a pillow fort tent so I could manipulate the lighting, and playing on the floor. As Richard Garfield intended.

[@Toasty25000]

I'm really enjoying Spelltable, fantastic application. A couple notes from my experience so far (take them or leave them): 1. Cell phone video quality is generally very poor, I tried with an iPhone X, maybe newer ones are better 2. The card reading feature of Spelltable has a much much easier time reading the cards if the camera is directly overhead, it can't reliably read cards at an angle

[@Sajomir]

thank you for making this video - I'd been curious about Spelltable for a while!

[@m1gr3nA]

you can use de-foiled cards as reusable tokens with dry-erase marker. foil can be peeled off from card or solvent can be used to remove the print leaving shiny background (acetone works on contemporary foils but be careful as it is toxic and flammable). you can even just put piece of paper in a sleeve and draw/write on the sleeve, that works too. remember to have a piece of cloth to clean up the tokens afterwards and glhf :)

[@cannibalskitchen8421]

When I hear that wizards acquired spell table, I immediately became concerned. Here's hoping they don't shoot it for the sake of boosting arena.

[@MaxPatatePowa]

My worry is that if WotC bought it, they will want to find a way to monetize it. So a free browser based tool might become bogged down with some type of cosmetic or worse, just plain selling of data to make money out of it.

[@BamBamSecretAgentXer]

I think it’s catch to kill. Buy it and then stop development of it to let it die overtime. Do this to keep LGS happy as well as boost Arena. SpellTable was a big threat to Arena

[@ludosgd]

Thank you! I was just starting a bunch of research on this very topic!

[@Paragon1976]

Thanks, prof! This is one of my favorite TCC videos.

[@TolarianCommunityCollege]

Glad you liked it!

[@detroit_toyhunter74]

just starting using the table and been loving it with my play group.

[@berkanna8066]

I really love your tie in this episode Prof! Very nice!

[@TolarianCommunityCollege]

Thank you! Cheers!

[@HenryAkes13]

Great work Prof! Can't wait to start playing digital commander!

[@thehamcleaver4894]

I've been dying to play some paper games again. Will definitely be sharing this with friends. Thanks again prof, be well!

[@Bringer0fRa1n]

I don't get to play as much as I would like, but it has made finding games so easy going into discord and finding a match on PlayEDH and using Spelltable. The fact that they deck check means I have had so many more evenly matched games than just randos at the LGS.

[@marco1941]

Nice, I was wondering if there was some sort of scanner-feature included. That makes it really interesting imo. Imagine, as technology improves, it might be possible to play with an overlay, that replaces everything with hq graphics and adds some animations or something. I'm curious what future will bring here. Because I feel like a paper magic online multiplayer is what might bring many people together, that are now only playing locally or that are having trouble to find other players. It could maybe revive paper magic.

[@shadowlink26]

I just noticed his copy of “What We Owe to Each Other” by Tim Scanlon on his bookshelf. That book is epic!

[@Grand_Admiral]

Just the other day I found myself thinking how great it would be if The Prof would put out a guide to Spelltable so I could finally set it up. Perfect timing! Or The Prof is in my head. Either way, it works for me!

[@filodrei]

Thanks, prof! Was always curious how ppl played online paper magic. Appreciate the primer.

[@Caelus7]

"It doesn't look like we will be returning to normality any time soon or worse, it looks like this may be the new normal". Words cannot describe how painful yet true that statement was.

[@ninny104]

My local shop has 'mander night once a week, and if I'm working, I miss out. So spelltable is pretty nice even after face-to-face play has become a thing. Also useful if you're like me if you spend a lot of time on a deck and you want other people to see it, regardless of whether or not you win 😌

[@brucetaylor4485]

I played with some of my buddies and just used two wires hanging from our dining room light fixture. I just sat my phone down on the wires and it worked great. Told my wife I was just guna leave them hanging there cause I'll need it again. it was simple and if I needed to, its an easy takedown and set up.

[@josephjames9090]

My friend and i have been wanting to get into commander but have been hesitant since we dont know when we will be able to play safely again, and we didnt want to do it on mtgo. This is so perfect! I think i want to make a gitrog deck or something else with a cool engine.

[@GrandDungeonDad]

This video was just what I needed to get started for this.

[@siggus1771]

Thanks a lot for making this video. This was much needed! Really cool video :)

[@greyborg3846]

My first attempt at playing webcam magic was with a playmat set on the inside of a cardboard box that was laid on its side with a small hole cut in it for my phone camera to see through which was set on top of the box. It actually worked fairly well.

[@Simonk_6]

I have been doing this since March when it was out of a dorm room and still virtualedh, it is so fun

[@TheMartianBotanist]

For those who cannot afford a webcam, there is a very easy *virtual* setup using OBS and a plugin called VirtualCam. With these two pieces of software and any online playtester (Moxfield, Archidekt, etc.) you can project the playtester to Spelltable webcam-free. Since the various SpellTable communities are generally noncompetitive and inclusive, I've personally experienced very little pushback from using this setup. Just don't use it in sanctioned events like Commandfest Online.

[@Twistedlittlesmile]

Been following the development of spelltable since before it was called spelltable, it's been great watching it grow

[@916nixART]

This sounds totally ideal. Shared it with my mtg friends. I hope we can get something going

[@dustinhaley7920]

Spelltable is fantastic. It felt really good playing paper EDH again. Used a bundle box as a camera stand as well.

[@chrishetmanski1709]

I finally gave this a whirl last night. I think it is *almost* as easy as most of the videos I've seen make it out to be, but I do suggest playing with it yourself first (trying different spaces and camera angles and lighting) and, if necessary, buy whatever tech you think you need to make it optimal. I had a webcam on top of a monitor on top of 5 roleplaying books and could still only see ~70% of my playmat, which was fine for that one session, but I'd like it to display my full play area moving forward. (Also, my webcam and/or lighting sucked, because none of my cards were searchable by their on-screen image. But my friend's were, and that is a pretty kick-ass feature.) All-in-all, yeah, this is a very cool and very easy way to play, but I think it does need a little pre-work to ensure the best play experience.

[@badmoose01]

I’ll finally be able to put my old selfie stick to good use through this. Thanks for sharing!

[@josephs.4813]

This was an awesome video Prof! I’ll have to give spelltable a try.

[@itsrodney1569]

2024 still free better settings ❤ this it's givin me more confidence to go to my lgs best way to test play decks

[@Hollowm13]

I love Spelltable. My friends and I start to use it and it's amazing. It's great to play paper magic again :)

[@jobywonkanobi]

tried spell table for the first time today had a great time will definitely be using it again, just make sure your rig and headset are working correctly before hand i had some severe troubles turns out the last Microsoft update messed with my settings and i had to go in and manually allow apps to use my microphone and new camera

[@time.5942]

I didn't know Wizards acquired Spelltable! That's great news (I think/hope), good for the guys that started it!

[@SniperGoldfish]

I just found out about SpellTable yesterday. Honestly its amazing and need more attention. I don't like arena and cant make it out to my LGS to play given my work schedule so this is great when my playgroup cant play.

[@mrmeepsyt5917]

big tru

[@MrMalorian]

Great video! I was hoping for something like this

[@damnijust]

PlayEDH Discord is the best place to play EDH online by far

[@StripesNTn]

I have been in the PlayEDH community for years. Before Spelltable we used Whereby ( i forget what it used to be called ). This plague has really made this server explode. Come join us. Lots of games 24/7.

[@richnprayer]

YES!! Professor! This is what I expect from Tolerian Community College!

[@el_pablodocus]

Thank your for this video, really. It's a gamechanger for our playgroup on Discord !

[@supabull8861]

thanks Prof ur the best! I tried it today after watching this video

[@japoniano]

For some reason all pandemic long I didn't hear of this until it was winding down... one day I'll try it...

[@wekneehutjr7211]

You sounded very sad in the last of the vid cheer up prof magic won’t die from COVID. It’ll die from wizards! Lol love your vids

[@joshuabarnett88]

Our group just discovered spelltable and it's wonderful. Wish it would support more than 4 players but it's still fantastic for online play

[@joshuagrajeda9442]

Excellent! Now we don’t have to mail that VHS tape back and forth. We’re still on turn 5, and I think my friend is about to go off :’( In all seriousness, though, this is an great resource. Up till now, we’ve only played using Google Rooms to acceptable if janky success. I only heard about Spelltable in passing a few days ago, so thanks to Prof for posting a video to elucidate us on this resource.

[@mikotagayuna8494]

This is already better than Arena. Next: DIY special effects whenever you play a card or make an attack as well as WWE-style entrance music or video clips to introduce your bad, trash-talkin', heel Commander!

[@jeremy.oliver]

Oh boy, 9 AM! Time for EDH exploration

[@ismailchishti8577]

Great content like always! Thank you! Have been looking for something like this since the start of lockdown, haven't founding anything good until now 👍

[@wesh8121]

Prof: "and spelltable has been acquired by wizards of the coast" The players: NANI!

[@hansherrera5321]

Thanks as always professor, I'm gonna check it out asap

[@xxenergizedxx6695]

Thank you so much Prof for the video and the information!

[@Escapist26]

It's been great to be able to play throughout lock down. Sometimes it's frustrating when someone has potato quality video or sound. I play in mid and find it funny that mana crypt is more or less banned, but people play it anyways. Nothing beats blowing someone out with settle the wreckage.