Context is King: Things That Impact Your Card Evaluation | Magic: the Gathering | Commander

Why do some cards get overhyped, and why do some sets become letdowns? Let's discuss the intangibles that affect our Magic judgments.
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[@pauldyson8098]

English professor here. While I love EDHRECast videos in general, this video essay by Joey has me thinking that there should be a corpus of work on M:tG and on Commander. Or, rather, there already is such a corpus, but Joey's research, organization, and astute observations have me thinking that Magic really is more than just a fun hobby at this point: it's its own language, its own discipline, in a way. I also love how apparent Joey's passion for Magic and for words are both present, here and elsewhere.

[@philavoie]

Joey, you are approaching @RhysticStudies deep analysis on social subject. I even think you two should do a mash up... Great stuff!

[@EDHRECast]

This is the best compliment ever, Rhystic Studies is such a gem. Thank you!

[@Theizzy2265]

Baldur's Gate set's cards always become more interesting everytime I read them.

[@joaoscianni5948]

Its been over a year and I still discover a new amazing card that costs pennies from that set every month

[@Kestral287]

Ezuri's Predation is interesting in that it's also a great demonstration of the point that you used Lurking Predators for. It has a gigantic, near-vertical price jump at one point. That jump happened the day that a Game Knights video was dropped, where a Predation came down extremely early - turn three I believe - and absolutely crushed the boardstate. If I'd wanted to create a video specifically to sell that card I don't think I could do better than that one. Cue a ton of people buying in, and then learning that the card is much better when it's smashing your opponents' turn three plays before they're possibly ready for it than plinking their seven drops and dying. It was a fascinating time in the Commander space.

[@AtrusOfMyst]

100% agree - the fact that people react so strongly on Twitter and color people's impressions on card previews is absolutely a trap to keep you spending more time on that platform.

[@jasonritner9662]

Even before social media, people loved to develop strong opinions on cards and how powerful they were going to be. The effect has just been magnified by the unique awfulness that social media brings to us.

[@bryanleblanc5648]

Great content Joey. Very much agree with you about the stickers and the Day/Night cycle in particular. In a digital format like Arena, mechanics like these and cards like Cathars Crusade get a lot less tedious, but in paper EDH they're just not conducive to a good night

[@Mecal00]

I hate finding good cards that have day/night, it makes me not want to use them because it'll be the only card in the deck that has it, and I'm not about to deal with that

[@Ryadic]

Great video. Love all the thought that was put into it. I love the point on monologue tax specifically. It's not a bad card. It was just in the wrong deck. I feel that it also belongs in other decks, too, but it will be a long time before it's discovered because so many people are writing it off as "not smothering tithe". And that's really the fault of the art.

[@JJMickeyMedia]

This is a very interesting topic that I'm glad to get to hear your thoughts about.

[@nattyboom6470]

Great video Joey! You really wove a beautifully contextiled narrative in this video. I could easily follow the pattern of your arguments, yet; I never felt like you were just stringing me along. 😉

[@friedrichk95]

that was some legit content engagement.

[@ty_sylicus]

Buldar's Gate was such a good set that got a raw deal.

[@brendans1983]

20:21 i know you are well spoken, but man, i think you just ad libbed one of the deepest things ive ever contemplated in my life 😂🍻

[@RazgrizAce67]

Very detailed and thoughtful video, thanks for sharing!

[@travis_approved]

You bringing up the vlogbrotbers and John Green actually made my day I love them so much

[@jerryloiselle8507]

What a great video topic! Love how you talk about the subject and explored it!

[@keckerstrom]

Savvy video! Love the perspective

[@TheMusicMan1105]

I think this is an excellent topic! You sort of touched base on it, but I think the context of seeing cards play in an opponent’s deck has a much larger effect on our evaluation of cards. I played a game recently and realized that Dockside Extortionist which is a known overly powerful card is also evaluated that way because the card is often built into decks that are able to manipulate it more than just casting it once for value. In the game I played my friend was playing a mardu reanimator style deck so he was able to get it back multiple times. I think it is in those ways players are able to manipulate the value of a card affects our evaluation.

[@Spencer4686]

Very good points well made, always a pleasure to listen to your thoughts. ❤

[@kevincron6235]

Love this topic and this video. I think there are similar effects with some cards that get pigeonholed as competitive-only. Example: Up the Beanstalk. Look at it's usage (30%) in Ur-Dragon, a deck literally premised on casting 5+ mana spells ahead of schedule and repeatedly. Thanks for another high quality analysis.

[@Kestral287]

To be fair, that one probably just has to do with the volume of that effect that already exists. Ur-Dragon decks play two similar cards - Garruk's Uprising and Temur Ascendancy - at fairly high numbers, and a third in Kindred Discovery at slightly higher than Beanstalk numbers. It looks like what's happened is that Beanstalk moved into Elemental Bond's space as the fourth best version of that effect in Ur-Dragon, not that it's been overlooked. It's sitting above Bond itself, Great Henge, and Kiora in usage. And it is worth noting that the ceiling on the big three is much higher than that of Beanstalk - among the Top and High Synergy cards I spotted five cards that explicitly work better with the first three than Beanstalk, because they are putting in big creatures without casting them, and only one where Beanstalk works better than the others - Crux of Fate. There's probably a bit of inertia where people are thinking eh, Elemental Bond is good enough, but especially with how ceiling-focused Commander players are Beanstalk's position makes a good bit of sense to me. It has a better floor than its competition for sure but that's not really how we've been trained to deckbuild.

[@DrukenReaps]

Great video and topic! Leans into how I went about building my Mairsil deck a bit. Looking for those cards that many expect like Tree of Perdition but also digging deep into Scryfall to find things like Shauku, Endbringer. Even picked up a Pendant of Prosperity, a card I'd call bad in almost any other deck. All of these cards are just so much better with Mairsil than they are without. This kind of context making the card better is what really drove me to build that commander in the first place with so many cards made better by being in with him.

[@quayo90]

Always Appreciate this type of discourse and discussion point

[@c-mac9902]

This is very interesting, I have never evaluated a card in the context of the deck, or set that it came in. Never even occurred to me that others would. But then again, I opened my first booster pack 29 years ago so things were a bit different back then when I was forming my reaction to seeing cards for the first time.

[@michaelk6071]

I have a dream that my funny little cards will one day live in a game where they will not be judged by the circumstances of their printing but by the content of their oracle text -Joey, basically, I think

[@coreyroberson4550]

Great points all around, but especially on Unfinity. I have run a silver-bordered cube for years, but I didn't buy a single card from Infinity and refuse to play it. I briefly toyed with the idea of buying only misprints with the wrong symbol (oval vs acorn) because WOTC themselves couldn't keep it straight and messed up both in spoiler season and in actual printing. But I ditched that idea because I don't want to support that product, even on the secondary market. If it had been a real silver-bordered set, I would have bought boxes.

[@michaelsparks1571]

I think of my favorite card evaluation changes are similar to the Currency Exchange/Quintarius synergy you spoke of. Where in vacuum, a particular card is "meh", but when it does go brrr, it goes BRRRR. Ex. Sword of the Meek. Before Thopter Foundry came out, it was a near-worthless, "who cares" draft-chaff bulk Uncommon. And after, it was suddenly a $3-4 chase that speculators were trying to buyout, and once it got a reprint years later it even got upshifted to Rare. Even though without Foundry, it's really still just as "meh" as before.

[@xanderjones6239]

So, you're telling me reading the context, explains the card? 😏

[@12jacobmar]

With cards like Bootleggers Stash starting at $50 pre-order. My playgroup just makes proxies before set release and try cards out. BL stash did some cool things, but we were glad we didn't pay $50 for it.

[@Kestral287]

This is a smart approach in general but is especially important with the hyped cards. Even if it's just in the Moxfield playtester or whatever first-hand experience with a card is far more valuable than anything else for evaluation, because it starts to fight through these inbuilt biases. I rolled my eyes at the Initiative for a long time, just like Joey mentions here, but after actually seeing it in action I've been adding those effects to more and more decks.

[@SSolemn]

About Unfinity, Starlight Spectacular has won me a lot of Games in my Alela deck, it's a great finisher there plus it's in theme with being an enchantment. I also use Exchange of Words in that deck, and it's works even better than removal sometimes ✨ Great Video

[@gabriellefton6389]

Over the past few months I've found better homes for some of the big spells that cane in the Inalla precon that didn't quite get there. A lot of the old persons were so unfocused.

[@alexabney7913]

Reading the context explains the context!

[@Magnafiend]

Bitterthorn funny enough actually kind of still does KINDA work with Brimaz but just in a very very roundabout way. It basically acts as a 3 cost proliferate trigger for him if you absolutely need it since the 0/0 phyrexian germ token will just die. Is it a good use for the card? No, not really, but it's not so wholly removed like the Ezuri example. Side note, love the Duchamp reference in the beginning, totally brings me back to my art school days.

[@danielgoldberg2129]

I preordered a box of Unfinity and when it was spoiled I almost cancelled the order, but in the end I decided to support my lgs and went ahead and bought it. It’s still sitting unopened.

[@Bongus_Bubogus]

I love Exchange of Words from Unfinity in my blink deck. I give an ETB creature I control a permanent effect from an opponents utility creature, then from there I can blink my own creature again removing the ability from the board or even Exchange of Words itself to snipe a bigger target later.

[@SWNJim]

When Hullbreacher was spoiled, I screamed about it to anyone who would listen. I knew it was going to be a problem much more than Opposition Agent. Leovold was banned for that effect. The only reason I think Narset hasn’t caught a ban is that you can attack her directly. When I looks at new cards, I always first look at whether they go in any of my Mardu decks, but I also try to identity what it’s going to be primarily for. I have different definitions for ramp/draw/removal than most and if a card fits in multiple categories, then I usually rank it higher. For instance, I think the fetchable surveil lands are going to be very powerful despite coming in tapped. Seems like others aren’t so high on them.

[@simonnice9030]

Fantastic analysis and one of the reasons why Magic is the best game ever :).

[@xayidegreymind5782]

One of the issues I'm struggling with as my budget for the fancy "good stuff" is that i was used to not having them playing around not having them and figuring out how they work with my existing deck play and overall playstyle experience i want. Its all well and good that i can put vedalkin orrery in decks now but it means nothing if i just haven't really been used to playing stuff at instant speed on every turn (as an example)

[@Niedomysm]

With bootleggers stash I also feel that part of it might have been newer players not understanding it is a replacement effect so they either get the treasure or the "raw mana" from the land. I 100% had to correct several people who bought it for that insane $50 pre-order price because they thought it did both. They combined that with "everyone says treasure is super powerful" and of course that was bound to happen

[@johnathanrhoades7751]

I love the videos of world class violinists on the street. It’s interesting to see how, for people who aren’t particularly musically trained at least, the context completely changes the experience. Also, Escape Tunnel is totally going in all my one decks that run evolving wilds/terramorphic expanse.

[@timothymiles2851]

Love these more philosophical videos

[@chezpizza3869]

I'm simply excited about the old west set right now

[@ethanwetzel7]

I have a Kalemne Giants Tribal/Voltron deck, love her

[@vampirica11]

People are just like lemmings. Following each others without thinking for themselves. So if it feels like the herd doesn't like Baldur's Gate, the set must suck! But if you actually looked at how many cards from this set go into your commander decks, you must conclude that it's a pretty good set! It's honestly better than the original Commander Legends. But that one had some crazy reprints, and people do think with their wallet =)

[@casketbase7750]

This topic applies so hard to my Kogla deck. Every time a throwaway green Human comes out, I pay close attention to whether it can go infinite with him. *Sharp-Eyed Rookie* is a fantastic new payoff creature, but its being ignored because *Archdruid's Charm* is the chase Green from this set. Know your deck and what it wants to do. The niche cards are sometimes more precious than the generic popular ones.

[@Trogdorbad]

In regards to Unfinity and its cards not seeing as much play as they should I distinctly remember when it was announced roughly half of Unfinity would be legal in eternal formats, there were people just absolutely losing their minds. Especially one guy who went as far as to say that if he's playing with you and you drop a card from Unfinity on the field, he'll just scoop and find a different table to play at. One of these days I wanna build OG Atraxa as a stickers/attractions deck just to further upset those kinds of people

[@meltie77]

Hey, I also like vlogbrothers!

[@Dragon_Fyre]

I enjoy mechanics like The Monarch, where you just add a card into play. Easy to track… Night/Day or the Initiative however are tedious in tracking and I stay clear of them as they tend to slow down the game (same reason I don’t like Saga/Planeswalker decks). LOTR is somewhere in the middle with The Ring Tempts You mechanic (mostly just annoying to other players that may not be familiar with it).

[@aninnocentbystander119]

It's all about expectations Like, I expected to get some deck tech from the title of this video, and instead, I got a pretty solid summary of why several sets have flopped recently. (Balder's Gate is recent, RIGHT?!)

[@chrisvanderheiden12]

I have never had an issue with initiative. I haven't seen it a TON, but I just see it like monarch. The extra bits just don't seem cumbersome to me.

[@Dragon_Fyre]

I think the difference is that you just pass The Monarch from player to player. The initiative requires that you track your dungeon progress (and not everyone has a copy of it, so that can get messy). By the same context, I don’t mind voting based on priority. I hate when you have to all “write it down” and then reveal your choice. This can lead to all sorts of cheating rather than just politics.

[@chrisvanderheiden12]

That's fair. In my deck that runs initiative I have 5 copies of the dugeon (one to pass on the initiative side and one for each player) specifically to help with that. I also tend to play decks that are fiddly and have lots of options, so I might just not noticed the added mental upkeep as much as others might.

[@Kestral287]

You only need like 3 copies of the token. One for the initiative marker and then one for each side of the table. A couple dice from there and you're set. That sounds like a lot on paper but it's the exact same amount of effort that I put into just... making Zombie tokens. People talk a lot about getting bogged down by the dungeon choices a lot but honestly I find that there's usually a very clear optimal path for a given board state.

[@ekuude]

​@@Kestral287idk I just find it too much. You say sure it's not a ton on its own but it's just one...more...thing to keep track of. Someone has ring bearer, monarch, day//night and then another player introduces initiative. By itself it's fine but the cluttered mess the game is in sends it over the edge, at least for me. And it's by far the most complicated of all the extra stuff I mentioned.

[@ty_sylicus]

Dark Patrons sounds like what Joey would call members of his private Necromancy sub-reddit.

[@JetNAmplify]

me with scroll of fate sitting on my desk beside me: *looking at the art in your background* ...wait a minute

[@hotsaucehunter2570]

THIS!!!! i have a korvold deck that makes treasure tokens. And by far the two biggest killers of the deck are disciple of the vault and reckless fireweaver. If i wasnt doing those tokens specifically, then i wouldnt consider them. But if i went the creature route i would use blood artist and chatter fang, and suddenly it changes the way it works. I love this video. P.s. sol ring is way too overplayed, and i will die on the that hill.

[@IneptCardCollector]

17:06 spot on

[@Dragon_Fyre]

I think the context that was overlooked for Alms Collector was that Consecrated Sphinx was a monster of a card at that time in addition to White card draw being nearly non existent (no longer a problem).

[@Kestral287]

But even with those facts, Collector was very bad in practice.

[@mrTjstephens1]

Joey the warlock!

[@barrytdrake]

DuChamp's Fountain is quite interesting! BTW, what is the art behind you?

[@CaptainTempest1]

Looks like Scroll of Fate to me!

[@TahuNuva2008]

Scroll of Fate from C19

[@barrytdrake]

Thank you!

[@chrisvanderheiden12]

I don't remember if someone like MARO said this or it was just my observation, but Fluros 100% could have been black border, but they didn't want 4/5 of the cycle to be "silver" border and one be black.

[@TeaGarrison]

An weird outlier in this discussion is the opt vs preordain thing. Preordain is literally a better card but it’s slightly less accessible and much less talked about than opt, so opt sees more play.

[@Demotros]

Getting very close to quoting Mewtwo, Joey.

[@enoesiw]

I'm perfectly happy with Un- sets being completely illegal sets that provide special arts for lands and otherwise being really fun, isolated shenanigans sets.

[@TheGtDragoon]

I still don’t see how anyone could have conflated the meaning words commander “legends” with the idea of a “masters” set level of reprints. Open your eyes and you’ll find these are two different words. Forehead.

[@EDHRECast]

Sadly, that's exactly the lesson WotC took from that set, as seen in MaRo's 2022 design article: magic.wizards.com/en/news/making-magic/state-of-design-2022

[@Controlqueen31]

Let's speak about the elephant in the room of Karlov Manor: Delney. Delney is a very good, very solid card. But is not worth 50$. I mean, no card should be more than 10$, but 50$ cards are things like dockside, free counterspells, broken cards that work on every deck of their colors... Things like that. Delney is crazy good in their decks, not in every deck. The Throne is in the same category and, to me, is way better. Being a mythic doesn't help with Delney ofc, but come on. That's my honest opinion. PD: I am so hyped about Delney, and I'm going to buy them if I don't opened in the prerelease.

[@ekuude]

I don't think it belongs in every deck but it's perfect for Raffine. Makes all my low to the ground guys hard to block and triggers connive twice?? Feels like it was made for connive, could have been a new capenna card

[@rocker1296]

I started running Monologue tax as a flavor card in a rule 0 deck with a custom commander based on my Bard in my groups DnD campaign. It was meant to be a card that was my character's desire to be the center of attention, kind of like "you're talking too much" and it has put in plenty of work for me while not being something that draws hate at the table. So I never really got Matt's hate of the card, it would regularly net 2-3 extra mana per turn rotation. I've just been putting it in my white decks since and it's never been a disappointing draw.

[@kovala]

Tell me you were an English major without telling me you were an English major: MTG edition. ;)

[@vasylpark2149]

The name legends in commander legends, set the stage that it would revolve around the legendary creatures that can be your commander. So when it wasn't that and instead was a draftable EDH set, set in DnD. had they called it DnD: Battle for Baldur's Gate, and said it was a EDH draft, it would have hit different. It even merged the Shield Icon from Commander Legends and the DnD symbol leaning more into the confusion. When you confuse people they disengage, even if you an I think the set is absolutely amazing. I have decks with Raphael, Ganax/Iron Throne, and Jeheira/Iron Throne, with a ton of cards from the set in my decks.

[@varsoonhks3211]

Agree on the main thesis of what you're saying here--as a player, it's a bit hard to keep up with all the product and assess if I want to engage with it at all for including new cards in my decks. That all said, I disagree on the Unfinity cards. The art, names, and set symbol all do enough to quirk in that it's joke-Magic, but the context that's awkward is the idea that these 'joke' cards are fine to play in 'real' Magic. I see way more thematic aversion there similar to what some people feel for Universes Beyond. Yes, Clown Car is great in a Magda deck, but I really don't enjoy the optics of my cool dwarf army getting in and out of a clown car so that Dragons will show up. Similarly, cards like Comet are fantastic and see little to no play and I figure a large part of that is less 'I do not know if this is a joke or not' and more 'I know this is a joke and do not want it near my deck' or, even more realistically, just people having written the whole set off of legal play like all the other Un sets.

[@ThePencilWizard]

Imma be honest, the dice cards in Baldur’s Gate and Adventures are underpowered trash. (So are attractions, but eh..)

[@ekuude]

You're right but missing the fact it's fun to roll a d20 😊

[@ThePencilWizard]

@@ekuude You right, it is fun to throw polyhedrons at my opponents, but if I could only get the formula right..

[@thischannelhasnocontent8629]

I still don't understand what's weird about bootleggers' stash. I mean, green had tireless provisioner and old gnawbone, so i feel like making treasures has been pretty green ever since they started printing them outside of pirate colors.

[@ty_sylicus]

Black borders is the single WORST thing that has ever happened to an Un set! 😡

[@patonnight]

13:05 Honestly I was the happiest with Ezuri Claw of Progress design. Simic winnies was my favorite standard deck back at the time on Magic Origins and it got an incredibly Commander Support. Ezuri is an elf, after all, so I don't think is breaking any color pie nor theme. He wants tiny creatures like any elf deck, and makes them HUGE like a Simic should. It's perfect.

[@manasplained]

I'm definetly going to take these ideas into consideration as i continue the series I'm doing on my channel thank you!

[@ZEDEX252]

Hello

[@grampaw5605]

The original quote: "Text without context is a pretext."

[@jasonritner9662]

I have spent a little under 2 years getting back into Magic because of the Commander format after beginning way back in 5th/Tempest and playing a lot at random intervals through the years. Usually only playing standard or kitchen table casual games with family. I've not typically run into this issue myself because at some level, I've always looked at each card individually and ignoring what the community has felt on it. I've always had a weird relationship with what I've perceived as a good card vs what the rest of the community values. I'm usually pretty good at catching the hidden bangers, but tend to avoid the overly obvious ones that immediately end up skyrocketing in price and slowly tapering off. It's tough evaluating cards, especially in an online environment where you don't know what anyone's level of familiarity with the game is. People develop very extreme opinions rapidly and then love to argue using bad faith arguments. Personally, I've generally tried to put cards into context of where they'd be ideal first, even if that isn't what the meta looks like at the time, or you'd have to shift formats for it to make sense. I'm not special or anything, that's just how I've always looked at the cards, but it usually leads to a bias where I will over value obscure cards that only work in a single circumstance or only in a certain format. For example, back in the day, I bought a bunch of cards from a friend who was getting rid of his collection. I think it ended up being around 600-1000 cards, basically doubled my collection at the time. This was... 2000/2001 I think? He had been out for years and mostly had Revised, Ice Age, and Fallen Empires. I started going through them and found cards like Brainstorm and Mystic Remora, especially in conjunction with my Mirage tutor spells and wondered why they weren't considered better. At the time I was absolutely wrong to think these cards were good outside of the casual games we were playing. The only formats that supported those cards were the formats that generally also included Power 9 stuff, and Type 2 definitely didn't support playing cards that old. Back then, I missed that context and was only imagining them in ideal circumstances that didn't exist back then. I've paid attention to that lesson, and it led me to how I evaluate cards now. Out of context and ideal and then how it fits into the format I'm playing and if that's possible. I'm usually pretty good at picking out future bomb cards, but I'm terrible at recognizing a card that's a trap within its released set. (This is why I think Aftermath is going to be a set where it's prices are going to spike hard once people realize how good those cards are)

[@blindcommander]

I think its silly that people have to 'react' at all. Just read the catd. The importance or unimportance of a card is right there on the catd if you just trad it. I believe its called critical thinking. Unfortunatley i cant really relate to the feelings in this one. Have your own mind. Does a card look good or bad to you? Does it look fun to you? I play good cards and bad cards (by others opinions). I dont waste time worrying about what people think about my card choices.

[@andrewwhite2123]

If you want your commander out asap every game, that doesn’t mean you run 0 cards with equivalent MV, but you do want cards of that mana value to be played afterwards. You want cards that get enhanced by your commander. YOU WANT TO PLAY SUBOPTIMAL CARDS.

[@derekdenis]

shout out to the entextualization/contextualization dialectic... gotta be one of my favourite genders