Do These Decks Just Build Themselves? | EDHRECast 271

As commander designs get more niche, does that make their build paths more restrictive? How can you make your deck stand out when all the other 99s look the same? Let's take a look!
Want access to exclusive content, the Challenge the Stats spreadsheet, EDHRECast Discord, and more? Support the cast on Patreon! / edhrecast
Want to see the decks we play? Check them out here: edhrec.com/art...
Check out the EDHREC collection at Coalesce and use code 'EDHREC' for 10% off! www.coalesceap...
Follow the cast on Twitter:
@EDHRECast
@JosephMSchultz
@danaroach
@mathimus55
This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at www.betterhelp... and get on your way to being your best self.
General: bit.ly/EDHRECast
Apple Podcasts: bit.ly/EDHRECa...
Spotify: bit.ly/EDHRECa...
Google Podcasts: bit.ly/EDHRECa...

[@CrabBaskets]

I totally agree that R&D have a really hard job creating new cards. What I would love to see in future commanders is less text. That's all I ask. Give us both open ended and niche commanders that have 2 lines of text at most.

[@hanschristopherson8056]

I think part that problem is just slapping extra abilities on that don’t add anything to the ability people are actually building around

[@orpheos9]

Completely agree. Ive played MTG for many years, but took the last 5 years or so off. Coming back, Ive been so shocked by how much more reading I have to do to understand what is going on during commander games. Especially when a card has 2 paragraphs of abilities that arent as logically connected so its like they are all 2 cards jammed into 1 commander.

[@Volkbrecht]

The job would become a lot easier if they stopped designing for Commander. Half the fun was in cobbling together stuff that was never intended to be used that way into working decks, instead of basically having the ideas for the decks already included in the card pool.

[@andrewpark78]

What’s an example of an open ended yet niche commander with 2 lines of text?

[@CrabBaskets]

@@andrewpark78 to clarify my original comment I would hope to see R&D in the future give us commanders that are open ended and commanders that are niche, I am not singularly asking for commanders to be both niche and open ended at the same time. I think it is good to have both to give players plenty of options to explore. I hope that makes sense and my verbiage is clear there. To answer your question for an example of a commander that fits both; I would say Imoti, Celebrant of Bounty is an example of that. It has Cascade and gives spells 6 MV+ cascade as well. It's niche as it encourages you to build around big mana value spells and at the same time is open ended that you aren't pigeon holed into a specific spell type that will get the cascade trigger.

[@pauldyson8098]

Two things: -First, an apology to Joey or, rather, to Baba Lysaga: I was wrong about her. I threw together a list on MTGO and jammed a few games. Arguably the most fun commander I've ever played, made great use of niche/underplayed cards, and it was durdley as hell in the best possible way. I will never doubt you again, Joseph Tiberius Schultz. -This might be a hot take, but I find decks that build themselves/"solved" decks to be a lot of fun. Maybe it's because I spent so much time playing 60-card formats, but making little tweaks to established lists is something I enjoy more than playing open-ended commanders like Alela or Atraxa. Great vid as always, folks!

[@sleepyjackdaw]

The nice thing about very obvious build-around set mechanic commanders is that it gives you a reason to play those set mechanic cards -- things like Verazol, Kadena, Gavi, Ranar, etc. There are plenty of "set mechanic" cards that I will run as pet cards or as a sidegrade to the standard disenchant, counterspell, etc. but having a strong reason to run a large mass of those cards is fun, even if it's not challenging. Plus, it doesn't mean there's no need to discriminate -- there's plenty of optimization to be done. You don't just run any card with adventure in Gorion, only those that have enough utility to reasonably cast most games. So it scratches a lot of the same itch that non-build around niche commanders have -- you get to play cards that otherwise would languish in your collection. Another benefit is that since you're supplementing a lot of generic good stuff with more niche versions that synergize with the commander, the deck has little overlap with other decks you're running, even if it's remarkably similar to every player's deck of that commander. It's also nice to see those decks use cards from multiple blocks as time goes on and mechanics get revisited. This is definitely a subset of commanders that tend to be built similarly, but it's one I've been enjoying. Just my two cents, to up those (viewer response) stats.

[@Dragon_Fyre]

I think the main issue I would have is not that a Commander is niche, but it is the obvious singular choice Commander for that style. So, if you are playing a shrine deck, why wouldn’t you be playing Go-Shintai or for a saga deck, why wouldn’t you use the new Tom Bombadil. Everything else would just be vastly inferior. If you like Dragons, the Ur Dragon is not your only choice as good as it is; there are so many good commanders for a dragon tribal and they can play very different from each other. You could constantly be taking that deck apart and making new dragon decks but once you have your Tom Bombadil saga deck, at most you may slightly tweak it over time. There is no crossover.

[@edhdeckbuilding]

love this topic guys. more people need to talk about it.

[@andrewknies675]

to many staples and to much good stuff "upping the averages". Power creep in an "eternal" format leads to this it seems. a new (better) legendary creature with the same colors just swaps 70% of the old commanders cards and tweaks the rest for whatever combos and theme it uses. eventually it will continue but reach a plateau where you have the max amount of staples and the minimum necessary /theme/commander specific cards to make it run efficiently. probably around 80/20 perhaps or 90/10 I would think on the very high end

[@djfranics4544]

Hey I know you @edhdeckbuilding

[@Durtaz]

I love that you’re here!

[@andrewrockwell1282]

I know that guy...

[@orpheos9]

I think having more narrow commanders is fine as long as those arent the only commanders they are printing. Having a mix so people can build to their taste is great. There is a risk if the more narrow commanders are WAY more powerful than the more open ended commanders.

[@jaredwonnacott9732]

As much as I loved the accidental segue, there was a missed opportunity. "One reason for the homogeny from deck to deck is simply that more people are looking at resources like EDHrec. Unfortunately, that can also lead to less optimal cards still finding their way into the majority of decks, or great cards being overlooked. That's why every week we challenge the stats." This episode could have really highlighted how important that segment really is.

[@UnreasonableOpinions]

You get people saying a deck is 'solved' because there are 100-150 alleged 'auto-include' cards for the commander. If you have more 'auto-include' cards than there are nonland slots in the deck, you have a construction challenge immediately, building down instead of up.

[@Smashurtoe]

Definitely agree with and appreciate the comment about people just not having time, and people like the illusion of the challenge. Personally think a bigger issue is just the face roll easy commanders (Korvold, Aesi). Too many of those is probably worse for the format than a mild power level saga deck with ole Tom that all look similar.

[@TableTopRoles]

Do you all ever feel like EDHRec contributes to homogeny in the format?

[@EDHRECast]

A tool is how ya use it. EDHREC is a mirror, not a prescription. We often use it to avoid common staples, honestly 😊

[@dungensAreDragons]

​@@EDHRECastofc EDHREC increases the homogeny of the format. The question should instead be if that is a good, bad, or neutral thing. IMO it could easily be argued that it's has a net negative on the format by showcasing how multiple commanders "should" be played. Making novel strategies feel, like an intentional nerf. We don't want EDH to become Modern.

[@jaredcrawford923]

@@dungensAreDragons I think EDHREC is a great too to fill out a couple more spots in a deck after you have already picked a direction for a commander and exhausted scryfall searches for synergies. If you choose to go to EDHREC and just start copy/pasting the top 10 in every section, of course your deck will look like the next guys. This is not an issue with the site so much as it is an issue with the type of user.

[@steadfastideal]

​@@dungensAreDragons bit of a misguided take. Sounds very similar to the old complaint that formats are "solved" too fast these days. We used to call it netdecking, but we don't bother calling it anything now because info traveling at the speed of the web is an assumption not an exception. You can't choose to not have people share info, but commander as a format is much more self regulating than something like modern so you don't have to "suffer" from it if you don't want to. If you feel like there is a net-negative affect to people having easy access to information in your play geoup, maybe experiment with house ban lists for overpowered cards *cough sol ring cough* or do themed events or even budget restrictions.

[@steadfastideal]

​@@jaredcrawford923 edhrec is a much more approachable tool for new players also.

[@KriusAerion]

As someone that’s new, I don’t know cards well. Being able to see average decks and build off them like upgrading a pre-con is much easier and accessible for me than brewing something from scratch

[@thatoneguy4783]

Another factor that I feel like wasn't touched on was how many reprints for commander we've had within the last 2 or 3 years. People have been able to get alot of these staples now from price reduction due to list reprints, precons, and supplementary/premium sets that got more copies out there for people who wanted it.

[@egoish6762]

I recently took Prosper apart as it was winning too much, however using the edhipster site it was 83% "hip" which meant a small amount over overlap. Every red or black card printed felt like a staple in Prosper and i'm not sure if thats a good or bad thing from a deck building perspective.

[@Gshadewolf14]

So after I finished watching this episode, I switched over to a set review from (unnamed popular Commander podcast) and not to throw hate, but it seems like a lot of big EDH content creators tend to pigeonhole cards into only belonging in certain decks, and I think all the viewers that take those opinions as doctrine might also affect the similarity between decks nowadays

[@GrooseMTG]

This is the one thing I don't like about mtg content. People tend to have less original and fun ideas when deck building due to popular opinions online.

[@DemikDragonganger]

​@@GrooseMTGAnd for those of us who like to look cool, we get to use this data to figure out what people haven't seen yet.

[@GrooseMTG]

@DemikDragonganger definitely true, I love playing cool synergies people have never seen.

[@jeremyv3470]

Your desire to win rather than to play is what pushes out your favorite/pet cards. My decks are not great and I usually am playing a level under the table and that is perfectly fine with me because I love to play and to play with my fun cards. It makes winning when I do even better.

[@stephenbradford8524]

This is the attitude I'm trying to develop. Pretty sure I'm not there yet :)

[@jaredcrawford923]

Could it be that as Commander grows in popularity and draws more players from other formats that the data gets skewed to reflect that? I started with Commander, but the impression I get from people new to the format is a much bigger emphasis on winning being the sole enjoyment to be had in a game. This probably comes from the fact that other formats are 1v1 and the social aspect isn't really emphasized as much. That being the case, these players are going to try to "solve" these commanders for optimized performance in terms of wins rather than with an emphasis on uniqueness or personality. Just a thought.

[@Volkbrecht]

It's not just that. In general, the EDHREC data has deep biases built into it. For starters, it does not reflect the habits of people who don't use the database, but it also overvalues the players that primarily use it. So these discussions are not all that representative of the real world in general, and it may be way off what some players experience in their local communities.

[@coolbarryo1852]

i agree with this sentiment wholeheartedly. alot more players just want to win and have little care for other aspects of their decks

[@williamlyons2720]

Challenge the stats: Ruthless Technomancer in Urza, Chief Artificer. Sac a construct to double the amount of artifacts you control, and a lot of treasure. Shows up in only 83 urza decks, or 0.003%

[@CDour]

46:40 this is why I love playing my Sultai Sidisi reanimator deck. It's easily one of my all time favorite decks

[@marnixw8724]

Yeah Sidisi was my first deck and still favorite. It's seen a million different versions, from zombie tribal, reanimator, mill, it's now a lands deck and I absolutely love it.

[@dullestpenguin4151]

I think more players are like Matt than many people think. A lot of people want to get in there and play more so than editing decks constantly.

[@Jakk3113]

I would like to see less legendary cards per set. A commander that bounces permanents on it's own is a "energy" commander.

[@DoctorOctoconapus]

Fewer*

[@GonzoEDH]

fewer*

[@HanDaimond]

I personally think having so many legendary cards in a single set doesn't feel that "legendary".

[@apophis456]

But if they don’t add 40 legendaries per set how are they gonna market every set for commander?

[@Spike-hl2mw]

an energy*

[@shogun452]

My issue with hyper specific commanders is when they are super powerful, total category killers. Go-shintai is a great example of this; because it’s linear, five color, and also extremely powerful, it negates other shine commander options. If it was limited in color, or in power, it would have at least left the conversation open for other shrine commanders. I don’t think adversity is necessarily the key to making commander fun, but leaving the conversation open, and letting people build a strategy without feeling they are suboptimal by default because they haven’t picked the ‘right’ commander for that strategy, is important.

[@Volkbrecht]

This also leads to the situation where ALL commanders at the table become "kill on sight", which leads to very railroaded gameplay.

[@hanschristopherson8056]

I have a gishath deck and this is definitely something a I saw and still see where most if the decks look the same because there are only so many good Dinosaurs, hopefully the new ixalan set gives us mire diversity to dinosaur decks

[@mofomiko]

It probably won't. Older and worse dinosaurs will be replaced with better ones, which become the new staples for the deck. But that's just the Tribal life

[@jeremymayville6799]

The way you guys present information is the best on the tube!

[@shaylic3795]

I really like narrow commanders like Urtet for my Changeling Tribal deck. It was such a nice addition to combo with Gemhide Sliver and Magda. I can tap creatures for mana which in turn also creates a treasure. Now Urtet untaps the changelings so I can tap them to attack and make more treasures. Assembling a Rube Goldberg machine with changelings is so fun. With Go-Shintai I love combining it with Umori as a companion and running all enchantments. So while yes you have the shrines in there you also have to search for enchantments to act as removal, ramp, and for your creatures. Makes it a fun puzzle to assemble.

[@darylmcnaughton748]

I can say that as someone who built an urtet (since he was in the thumbnail) when i was done building i still had over 100 cards in the maybe pile. he has a number of ways you can build him so I dont really feel railroaded with him.

[@warrioraidan]

The Academy Manufactor interaction is good to know. If you kill a Ruric Thar and you're mostly fight and bite spells you maybe don't want him as a static effect on your side. The AM allows me to choose the replacement and get the treasure and clue.

[@magnusjakobsson7163]

I agree that it's a bit boring with that many overlaps, but the EDHRec site itself must be a huge part of why we have so many overlapping EDH decks in the first place, right?

[@SackofDooDoo]

23:19 "Are you playing the deck... or is the deck playing itself?" This is the ultimate question for any brewer.

[@screwthisin]

The fact Joey was talking about a players enjoying a challenge didnt even segueing into Challeng the Stats and Matt stealing the segue is all on Joey. And this is the second time that happened.

[@scottricks1676]

I knowww twice now I swear Matt was tossing him a lay up lol

[@miaschwartz1074]

It is episodes like this where we get deep dives into numbers which is why this is my go to commander podcast. Keep up the good work guys. We need more of this

[@Hexatomb]

I have a bunch of "niche decks" that I totally changed. Perfect example is my group hug sliver deck full of warp world and trade effects. its all about taking a premise and having fun with it, dont get stuck in a "niche"

[@mrpandabites]

Wizards are creating a problem nobody asked for. They could so easily go back to making legends rare-only and I don't think anybody would care that there are no uncommon legends in a set.

[@ayylith]

Strongly disagree. Uncommon legends means a higher chance of opening legends in booster packs. Sure, years ago it was super exciting the few times I actually did get a legendary creature, but I much prefer actually having different options of commander decks to build without having to intentionally go and seek out a specific commander to buy. I like when I get a legendary creature and I already have cards that would work well with it. What would even be the advantage to not having uncommon legends? Specifically to cut people like me out of playing commander so you can only play against other people with the exact same expensive "unique" commanders as everyone else?

[@vasylpark2149]

This will be something else that you would potentially have to track, but what about a deck's stagnation. For example, a new commander comes out and you see 4000+ decks being built within the first 3 months, but a Afterwords it basically stops being built vs a commander like Atraxa who is constantly getting more decks, or maybe like Yuriko who trickled in a few decks but as soon as Kamigawa came about she exploded again and then trickled out. Just a thought.

[@Controlqueen31]

I agree with you. I see It as a power level/simplicity/support to that strategy thing. Atraxa could be played with counters, planeswalkers or infect. And two of those strategies get a lot of new cards every year. Yuriko goes with every ninja + unblockable creature + Big maná spell that is usefull. On the other half we got Gisath, Tovolar, Gavi... They are ok, but doesn't get enough cards or are not powerfull enough

[@Niedomysm]

25:55 Matt in talking about players just checking EdhRec to see what other players are doing might also be part of the problem. Its super easy to have interest in a commander and check the site to see what other people have done to see if you even like the strategy or even how to start. Then your deck is automatically going to start looking like everyone else's deck.

[@Tuss36]

It was touched on briefly, but I think the solution for commanders that "build themselves" would be to have multiple commanders to the strategy. Even if the deck ends up looking similar, the commander being different can still change its feel or direction if even slightly, and helps alleviate the feeling of "Why would I play anything else." which is most present when you're provided something that supports your strategy so directly. That said, there is still the issue when commanders are far and away the best, even when there are other options. This is most prominent when the best option has the most colours. There's no decision between playing BW vampires or RB vampires when Edgar lets you play it all and way better than Olivia or something. Also I think the commanders that fuel themselves might be a result of draft design. They aren't all put into draft sets of course, but the mindset might carry over. It's not a great feeling when your bomb rare boosts your goblins but you weren't drafting goblins so it's not useful even if it's in your colours, so they let it make some goblin tokens either as an ability or ETB or "whenever you do X" so you're not out in the cold. But it does mean that when you're able to build for the theme in a constructed manner, it's icing on the already well decorated cake that can make it a bit much.

[@TruthlessHero]

The problem seems to go a little deeper than just a new legend sort of being on rails. WotC has been printing a bunch of niche support cards that sort of "auto slot" in the 99 of some of the older legends as well, which has led to some of the older commanders losing individuality for consistency and power.

[@chrisvanderheiden12]

I definately agree with joey on the Satsuki vs Tom point. I am definately a brewer, so having LESS colors makes me have to work more to do "the thing." I know that's not everyone's cup of tea. (I especially dislike 5c commanders, but that is kind of it's own thing.)

[@dakillaklown715]

Would you consider most tribal decks as "plays itself" or "builds itself"?

[@mjhenkel1984]

in my experience, they play themselves, but building them requires some hard choices. which tribe members to leave out, which non-tribe member payoffs are worth a slot. your ramp, card draw, and/or interaction package might already be solved tho, depending on what your tribe has.

[@Oopsall]

They typically build themselves unfortunately, unless you wanna go with some real stinkers of cards. I usually fix that problem by playing a little lesser known tribe like insects or golems

[@kl3r1k3r-7]

I would love to see edhrec add a feature that automatically hides these staple cards. I gets so annoying to see the same cards over and over again. Only cause I want to build a white deck I don't need to add smothering tithe or elesh norn etc. We know these cards exist and yes using the budget option helps but still. Creativity and variety over staples. Imo

[@SiliconSicilian]

Some of the data shows a trend of players focusing build into a single path. As pointed out, this isn't entirely a measure of players taking a commander that is on rails, it may be other support cards are just better than previously varying cards. Of note, though. The number one commander for overlap previously, Kadena, actually went down in percentage. Prebuilt commanders are getting more fine tuned and powerful so we can't necessarily say that Necrons or Tyranids are on rails; they were just really tuned to begin with. Dana's point that duplicate commanders within a shop becoming more rare makes this a topic that really isn't an issue. Most players in my groups also have a variety of decks so we never sit down with duplicates at all. I think the last time I saw a duplicate was at a precon event where you bought a precon as entry and then evolved that deck over the course of a league by adding boosters (random cards) every week.

[@VagrantKing]

The design opposite of this is the background commanders, there are so many combinations that you never know what to expect when someone puts one on the table in front of you. It’s why I actually think they were quietly the best commander designs of all time. The sheer variety and number of decks they can and will fuel over the years is massive and a net positive for the design space. I personally want to make a background commander that I have five decks for, a background of each color and monocolor, every deck being very differently designed, and I choose my background at random whenever I play the commander which picks which deck I play.

[@cocoachrispies]

Love a good ol' modular commander deck. Might I recommend Durnan from CLB precon? He doesn't have any major requirement besides "play creatures" and you can easily make the background the direction.

[@VagrantKing]

@@cocoachrispies I liked Durnan a lot! I considered him for a bit. I also considered Wilson Refined Grizzly bc that would be hilarious. I am probably going to end up using Burakos, Party Leader though. I want a party of every color combo (I currently have him as monoblack aristocrats, have all the stuff for BW party goodstuff, and am working on BG with a 1/1 counter theme)

[@cocoachrispies]

@VagrantKing oh! I had not considered him. That's an excellent idea. If you don't mind sharing, which backgrounds do you intend for each of the colors?

[@VagrantKing]

@@cocoachrispies Of course, I’d be happy to. Black- Haunted One (aristocrats, currently have together and love it) Green- Master Chef (1/1 counters, currently being assembled) upcoming: White- Flaming Fist (Orzhov Voltron), Red- Passionate Archaeologist (Prosper-ous Party, a cast from exile deck), and finally for Blue I’m between two backgrounds, Candlekeep Sage (Flicker ETBs) and Shameless Charlatan (Clone and Copy)

[@PawzBrownMTG]

Applaud 👏 👏👏👏 Matt that was the most Artistic joke. But then you said it wasn't your idea. But so awesome anyways lol. KEEP STAYING PAWZITIVE Y'ALL

[@PawzBrownMTG]

I'd like to tip my hat 👒 to you with the way the 3 of you are so great and the connectivity between y'all is so great thanks for y'all video's

[@emileo12]

Not sure where to send a challenge the stats, but a surpsingly high number of colorless deck are running myriadlandscape. Myriad landscape cant fetch wastes!

[@GerBessa]

If they play true highlander (no wastes in multiple), it's still a mana producing land better than City of Brass.

[@Oopsall]

They’ve challenged that in the past, but check the end of the video where they list literally every way you can contact them

[@alanevans5353]

I definitely feel the idea that using a commander for something it wasn't intended for can be a lot of fun. I have a Dihada superfriends deck, and only her second ability actually cares about legends that aren't creatures. Her first ability us for protecting blockers in the deck and the second ability churns through the deck to gain extra mana and find the big walkers

[@willmcgee8379]

Believe my Thalisse deck is one of those three decks listed with Dark Triumph. Exceptional trick that has won me games!

[@ingolf82]

21:45 this is why what's it's face got banned... emm... Golos, Tireless Pilgrim. Golos, Tireless Pilgrim got banned because it was just the go to good stuff commander, every other comander was just inferior so everyone played Golos and so they banned it.

[@Schnaqer]

I feel like the increase in deck overlay also comes from the fact that many people take the average edhrec list of a certain commander and paste that into a deckbuilding site which then gets picked up by the indexer and plants it even more firmly in the average list.

[@Schnaqer]

This gets even worse with precon commanders of course. People take the unaltered deck list and paste them into the deckbuilder and don’t change a thing.

[@bmprosser]

Wanna see top notch design for a commander? Grist. You have to get creative to make insect tribal work. He’s also one of the only planes walkers where you find yourself NOT activating loyalty on a turn as the best option

[@Controlqueen31]

One thing I've noticed since spring 2017 (when I started playing commander) is that they don't usually create new strategies, even strange ones, in the last few years. For example: in Commander 2020 we got five decks: Humans, Spellslinger/Copy, "Counters", Cycling and Mutate. From those, only "one" is new (I know the counters is somekind new but u know): Mutate, an arquetype new to this game in the same set, with only like 10/15 good cards in sultai colours. Cycle got a commander at least but she is so simple that doesn't even count. Tovolar is a good example of an OK commander but simple as F. You got cards for dealing damage. In Dominaria United, they printed the elf girl that goes along with artifacts. And I think that's a good desing, cause green do not have a lot of artifacts commanders, at least not good ones. The point I want to make is that they are printing a lot of good/usefull cards for the 99 slots but not good/fun/new commanders the way they should. I prefer that they print 15 new legendaries per set that are ok in their own way, except if the set is about that, like Dominaria 2018 or LOTR, that 50 or 60 and 4/5 of them are worthless or copies of others

[@mn6334]

I very much enjoy tinkering with decks but building them from the ground up is pretty daunting and I haven't done it much. Most of my decks are either precons I've tinkered with or lists I found online/youtube that I thought were cool and built my own version.

[@maggiek8616]

Really interesting topic to talk about. Matt thank you for bringing up the point about Universes Beyond. I know a lot of people who have the Warhammer decks and either made 0 changes, or made very few. I have Swarmlord myself and limited to only 15 changes, which still needed to feel thematic (1 of each Praetor, MoM Lukka). I've been playing for a number of years now, and i find the increased number of super specific commanders that are also the best possible option for a deck strategy to be really boring. I also don't like the continual increase in the number of legendaries who get printed with WUBRG activations that don't justify why other than so players can play 5c good stuff. I really enjoy commanders like Rivaz, Morophon, Stonebrow, who give you a pretty solid direction but still allow a lot of individual decisions and creativity. But also fun to build commanders like Experiment Kraj as tribal Ooze instead of their usual infinite counter combos!

[@dreddbolt]

These self-building decks can sometimes be collect-a-thon builds, but it was a fun experience acquiring the last few pieces for quite a few... just a couple honden shrines for Go-Shintai, and I even pulled a foil Ancient Copper Dragon to put in Farideh (Devil's Chosen). Speaking of collect-a-thons, adventure spells and cascade worked really well for my favorite deck of 2022, Alora (Merry Thief)//Tavern Brawler. The choose a background "roster" (or so to speak) opened up a possibility of paths to choose. Also, I got to finally put a copy of Lucky Clover in an EDH deck which has been sitting in my collection since Throne of Eldraine. I'm currently working on two more collect-a-thon deck builds with Safana (Calimport Cutthroat)//Guild Artisan Rakdos dungeons and Skanos Dragonheart//Acolyte of Bahamut die-on-this-hill mono-green dragons.

[@dizzynarutofan100]

12:53 The Silent King is a pre-con, and a lot of the cards are too cool/flavourful to cut out imo.

[@mjhenkel1984]

worth it to get two of that deck, one to run and one to dismantle (its pieces are so versatile!)

[@kiritokaguya9180]

I love this one today! I feel it so much each time I look at some of my older decks or when i build a new one... there are so many stapels and when you own some of the powerful, why dont you put them into the deck, I always ask myself!? Its just that I have the fear to loose some kind of race or something. I have Rhystic study, i have most of the tutors, i have doubling season, cyclonic rift and craterhoof... but i dont want to build each time the same deck. In the process of building i like to search my binders for synerg cards, but its hard to jump over the big cards and if i play a great and niche card each time a player at the table complains and I feel bad. Commander is such a great way to play magic and the social aspekt is one of its biggest pros but also at the same time one of its biggest flaws. Players like to optimize and even if I talk to the table before we start I encounter so many players who lie how strong and potent their deck is. Or the just hate your commander and go after you the whole time and get salty if you beat them to it. Love your Podcast and all sind Joey you will get more segways this year, I believe in you!

[@Computer-STEM-NERD-903]

@EDHRECCast… 41:50 … EXACTLY… Ultimate challenge is the “Anything you can do” (Annie Get Your Gun, 1946)-deck is THE ULTIMATE ILLUSIONIST *of Challenge*… For Simic, Prof (Brian Lewis, TolarianCommunityCollege) mentioned it a long time ago now and I will reiterate for all to hear today… Simic = EXPERIMENT KRAJ … Way too powerful to ignore now with all the activated abilities on commanders now and WoTC handing out nukes like they’re Baseball cards being handed out with Wrigley’s Gum Wrappers…

[@noobtuber10]

I have 6 queen kayla decks, they have different wincons and archtypes, besides taping the cmdr, they all play differently

[@alexishillairet266]

This kind of commanders are really good for new players, an easy way into deckbuilding. And also, sometimes im making a dimir,simic or golgari deck, and after a few matches i have this idea "damn, this deck could be much better with muldrotha" , the same goes for atraxa, the greek dudes, jetmir and other commanders , i dont have that problem with the more nitche commanders, i think they give more life to the game.

[@finnbergbower8775]

I recently built a Zask, Skittering Swarmlord deck, and while going over the list with a buddy he said "yeah, I don't really know too many other cards I'd even want to add." Especially with niche themes like insects, you can feel that sort of railroading.

[@casketbase7750]

46:21 I relate so much to playing a Commander for just one of their abilities. My Gimbal build is cleaner than most, just using his tokens as Polymorph fuel. No need to go wide, tall, and trample-y with tons of differently named artifact tokens. 1/1s are enough.

[@hoezouikheten]

Even for commanders like Baba Lysaga, its easier to just copie the average deck list on EDHREC than go to scryfall and search for every golgari card that does somthing with life gain, just to have to repeat it for sacrifice, card draw and untap cards. Personaly I do like to search for every possible option, but its a lot of work and being honest often you still end up with a very similar deck to the average deck on EDHREC.

[@mazereon629]

I think edhrec itself plays a big part in why a lot of the decks are same. Back in the day when I knew 40 good cards for a commander then I'd have to play 15 random cards that I had lying around and I liked, now when I check edhrec and see the top 200 cards for every commander it's harder to put that pet card in when I literally see 200 better cards right in front of me. And outside of precon people, I believe everyone who brews decks (and isn't just upgrading precons) knows about edhrec.

[@danielrajai3635]

I as a parent, welcome more simplistic commanders. The more basic the lines the easier it is for me to introduce my kids to the game. It is easy to forget how complex the game has gotten over the years.

[@patricklynch4074]

I tend to actually like decks like this, i find a satisfaction in Solving a deck. I love my hazezon shaper of sands deck and my reaper king deck, both of which have such limited options (desert cards and scarecrow cards). I like the challenge of "with these limited options, how good can i make it with out of the box not-quite-support". Contrasting, my ur dragon deck stresses me out to deck build because there are So Many Options that i feel like i have to know every dragon in order to work on the deck without feeling like I'm wasting time with a bad build that id do differently if i knew the cards better.

[@babyberry369]

As a player who has built quite a few different Boros decks that combination seems to only facilitate two play styles which is very concerning. Feather the Redeemed and Firesong/Sunspeaker break away from the norm which I love but as it stands new and creative ideas for each color combinations seems to be pushed with a reasonably large overlap. There needs to be some changes that happen to break the mold every so often otherwise things will get stale and that mold will only grow as time goes on.

[@Woogachaka42]

A couple of notes: 1. Totally can echo the "I don't want my deck to play itself" premise. 2. A couple of games I've found that have been a fun way for me to scratch a bit of that MTG itch while feeling a little burnt out on EDH: Age of Wonders 4 and Spirit Island. Age of Wonders 4: very cool Magical 4X that I cannot do justice here. Spirit island, Like playing magic cooperatively against a pandemic board and a very good time (also playable via Tabletop simulator!)

[@JD-gk7eh]

Yes and no. I built Urtet and while 80-85 of the cards were super easy, the last 15-20 were really hard. When you have access to five colors, what you should do for support gets a lot murkier and harder. That said, what niche commander designs do is make decks more LINEAR, both in terms of design and play. It's obvious what you should do with Urtet and how the deck plays. The back end may be complicated (what are your final payoffs/closer cards) but the front end is completely obvious and the same every game. That's one thing I dislike about the trend of recent commanders; they are made to be easy to make and therefore EASY TO TEST because R&D has to put out so many sets. They don't have time for thorough testing. Make it obvious what to do and what people build will be close to what R&D build and they know whether it's broken or not.

[@jacob510]

@27:10 100% yes, less 5 color commanders more 2 or 3 color. Heck even 4 color that isnt WURG

[@jamesclare1858]

I may be wrong but I suspect niche/self-contained commanders may be more budget/card accessibility friendly. If you're new or have little cards, it's nice to open a pre-con deck and play without having to make changes. When I have looked at building more open-ended commanders they tend to require stronger cards (which may cost more to buy) to make the deck work at the desired power level. I can see this being an issue for newer players or someone who may not have a lot of cards. Card restrictions (commander colors) can also have an impact on deck price as your working with a smaller card pool.

[@patricklynch4074]

2 of the challenge the stats are my decks! And yeah, the shelob one is because it says Instead. You don't get the cool one, you get 3 normal tokens Instead

[@Ryadic]

11:40 - Yeah 31 commanders is a large jump, but what percentage of overall commander is that compared to before? I'd wager that percentage has gone down because of how many legendary creatures WOTC keeps shitting out.

[@Xenagos]

I think that the key is you have options with your 99. Yeah, there's like 1 commander for some strategies, but if there's enough cards that you get to pick and choose what suits you (see something like ur dragon or tom bombadil, because there are plenty of dragons and sagas), then you still feel like you have a lot of agency. If there's not a lot of cards that go in the 99 for the commander, it feels like you just throw in every card in that archetype. When I was building a Gorion deck, it was just throwing in every adventure card in bant colours, because there's only like 40 of them, meanwhile there's over 300 dragons.

[@DarthSmirnoff]

I'm a player who's been around since 4th Edition (Just missed those duals...), and I don't consider myself a GREAT deck brewer. I'm more of a tinkerer, so I'm kinda glad that WotC has been printing a lot of "On Rails" commanders, where I can go onto EDHRec and pull up a decklist in my price range and tinker with it cards that I like, or just have laying around. Like my Muldrotha deck, the build was price-light on land, and I have some Lake Of The Dead's kicking around, so I tossed them in to help with the ramp.

[@voxkine9385]

I love my Verazol deck but… yea… just so focused on being Simic kicker that there is effectively only one deck to build with it… super fun, but very niche deck that clearly built itself.

[@jw5087]

I wish I had access to the data you're using... I think there's a general effect of "Increasing the amount of categories into which you can sort things makes these categories more homogenous internally.“ In Magic terms: More and more Commanders tends to mean fewer decks per Commander and those decks are likely to have more in common with each other. So I don't know how much of the increase of homogenization is due to that and how much is due to narrow card designs like Shrine commander/ Saga Commander/ ...

[@Murwiz]

I like your analysis in the opening about overlap, but I think there's another dimension to this. One reason for overlap might be just the improvement in deck-building technology (i.e., KZbin). What if you looked at the overlap by when the card was first printed? I.e., if a commander went from having 20% of its cards being one year old to (a year later) having 30%, that would imply that the power-creep and deck-building-on-a-rail situation has affected that commander.

[@vincent-antoinesoucy1872]

I like super niche commander, it's on you to make them unique and not a stock EDH list. Everyone is always talking about how they want less legendary printed, I'm super duper fine with it, I want to play commander no one elses play, it's really easy nowaday, I remember when it was half the time you'd encounter someone playing a commander you had built.

[@Tuss36]

The "If they designed Mimeoplasm today they'd have it mill you" comment is amusing since they basically did that with Ludevic, Necrogenius

[@boppitude]

I find it interesting that two of the topics discussed here, namely, commanders that "solve their own equations" (well put) and commanders with very obvious cards to put in the 99, might actually cancel each other out a bit. If a commander says "if X, do Y," but the commander itself doesn't do X, that will encourage me to put all of the best X cards in my deck so I can get my commander to function. A commander that gets itself to do everything you want it to do, while admittedly boring, might actually allow more creativity in the 99. I still do agree that both of these are concepts worth keeping an eye on, though.

[@okgut2033]

You wanna have another go wide finisher? Foul-Tongue Shriek might do what you need it to do. Yeah its only target player but at that point it might be the last one you need to get if you want to hit all 3 players into the KO zone :)

[@Geneo1700]

the segue by Matt was an absolute jaw-dropper for me oh my goodness

[@whitesmith5985]

I agree that too many legendary creatures are being printed at the moment. Should be straight up cut in half. But with straight forward commanders like Urtet, what I personally would want is for them to make different commanders for the straightforward strategies, which you mentioned with the saga commanders with less colours, but I'm thinking more along the lines of, for example, another 5 colour myr commander, that does something that feels really different, and leads you in a unique direction. Maybe one that rewards you or forces you to use mana made my myrs, and has some graveyard synergy (that's only an example off the top of my head so don't judge lol) Only problem is that this is such a niche tribe, and goes against my point of printing so many legends. But I don't see why within a year or 2 they couldn't do this exact thing, in a horizon set or exactly how urtet was released only in set boosters or something.

[@lucasthomas9184]

38:48 The professor's preview video for Kiora bests the sea God is probably one of my favorites of his.

[@mikes7423]

Not sure if it was mentioned....maybe I missed it....but could it be that sites like EDHREC encourage deckbuild overlap; ie. makes for lazy deck building?? I'll admit, after I've gone through my deck idea and cobbled a deck together, I'll run a passthrough on EDHREC to see if there was any obvious misses I made....or any card interactions I'd like to favor more strongly....or avoid playing. But just as easily, I could spit out what EDHREC offers....which would increase that overlap stat.

[@Kalarticus11]

I'd imagine a lot of popular staples getting reprints within the last year and dropping in prices and thus becoming more attainable is also part of the increase in deck overlaps as well

[@drake6244]

I've got a Shigeki deck and I put the restriction on it to have him be my only legendary card in the entire deck and it's my favorite deck of all time. I also gave myself the second challenge of making it mono green control and I love the deck!

[@lostinthewoods2201]

I love EDHREC, how else would i find my jank uncommons from 96? The fact that the tool is so great should lead people to experiement. Sadly i feel commander become less casual the longer i play

[@minispiel19]

As long as there is a healthy mixture of open-ended commanders and specific strategy commanders, I don’t think it’s a problem.

[@andrewsparkes6275]

8:09 I feel Joey has it the wrong way around here? Its not "excluding the lands, decks share the main cards". Its thats "Those 50 cards ARE the lands, ramp spells (in green) and mana rocks/reducers (outside of green)". Those 50 shared cards in most decks are most likely the 20 basics, 18 duals and 12 or so mana boosters that are the same in most decks in that color combination (not even the specific commander).

[@Oopsall]

I’m pretty sure their statistics are excluding lands

[@andrewsparkes6275]

@@Oopsall Then how can that many decks possibly share 75+ cards? As much as EDH players famously don't play enough lands, there aren't enough EDHrecs with 25 or less lands to compare decks with 75+ cards unless they include lands.

[@seanbrown2201]

I think Szarekh is close to Kadena in Gavi because if you want black artifact tribal there are very few cards not found in the precon to choose from, so homogeneity out of the gate is almost enforced. As we get new cards like the Palantir in LotR, we will start to see more diversification potentially,

[@chrisgallo2236]

Looking for something similar for Thalisse, Ramosian Rally could also work. W3, if you control a plains card you may tap an untapped creature you control instead of paying its mana cost. Creatures you control get +1/+1 until end of turn.

[@smoody31]

I would be curious as to what was the increase of pure deck numbers that have increased YOY as it relates to these statistics. I know 12 months ago, no one in my pod had documented any of their decks digitally, and now I bet we're over 100 decks that we've documented and are contributing to any statistical YOY analysis being performed like this. Certainly not disagreeing that the power level increase of cards is forcing us to make decision that trigger this podcast's outcome.

[@TeaHauss]

This was my favorite episode, cause there is no "right" answer, just a great thought experiment

[@thea2rael]

Like Pauper EDH, we thought of building a commander deck while just allowing uncommon cards. We are still brewing and did not have any game, but mine is ready to go ;) Like Matt said "Giving yourself a challenge helps a lot"

[@JohnGarner-j5e]

Joey with the spot on prediction of an off color energy commander.

[@doku6255]

Funnily 7 months after this episode of the podcast there was the fallout energy deck alongside the announcement of another energy deck

[@drkillenger5564]

I think a lot of Tribal decks fall into this trap. Like, if you're building Elves or Goblins you're gonna run 70% of the same cards as other decks that play those tribes

[@jaredcrawford923]

I think a great way to circumvent this problem is to choose an additional subtheme to go along with the tribe you try to build. For example I have a Lathril, Blade of the Elves deck that leans heavily into convoke/tap mechanics to power out huge creatures like Impervious Greatwurm, Mossbridge troll, and Bramblesnap. I shoot for about 2/3 of my creatures being of the chosen tribe and the last 1/3 enabling my subtheme.

[@Lucarioguild7]

Speaking of Dark Triumph, there's a ton of those kinds of cards that are free under certain circumstances that should see way more play

[@stephenbradford8524]

If they ever make a dedicated energy commander, I will immediately lose interest in building an energy-themed EDH deck.

[@dustinchang5089]

I didn’t play magic when energy was thing, but I almost wonder if they payoff will be worth it, moreso than having the battery itself…like Yarok.

[@Volkbrecht]

I feel you. I loved those games when you saw some odd legend (like Norin, the Wary :) ) appear on the table, and you were immediately curious how the hell they managed to make that effect work. These days, a lot of commanders are really too obvious. Pair that with a certain number of auto-includes and the appeal of the format is pretty much down the drain.

[@ry7hym]

19:28 well there's gonna be an energy commander now. It's in Jeskai Colors and from the Fallout sets

[@chaffenbake]

It would be interesting to have deviations away from 5C typal commanders like Urtet and Go-Shintai that can just jam in all the Myr/Shrines and a bunch of good stuff. Nine-Fingers Keene is a Gates commander, but only provides access to 3 colors and therefore cuts out a decent chunk of Gates to put into the deck. Not to say Sultai doesn't have a wealth of strong cards, and not to say that Gates are on the same level as other card types in terms of power level, but it does seem like Keene was a mindful design restriction to move away from the design philosophies of "5C typal commander of the set."