PLAY TO WIN vs PLAYING WITH POWER vs MIND MUSCLE MAGIC-WHO'S THE BEST BACKGROUND COMMANDER IN cEDH?

This week we're once again joined by Josh from Mind Muscle Magic and Higher from Playing with Power to find out who's the best background Commander in cEDH.
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[@TheGrifcannon22]

I really feel for Higher and Cam this game. I have had so many games that go exactly like theirs did. Either spending every turn just trying to stick the commander or just getting thwarted at every attempt to win.

[@kstandish42]

Cameron: “I’d like to play some cards.” Dylan, Josh and Higher: “Absolutely fucking not!” Also seeing another foodchain deck has my brain buzzing, I can’t stop brewing food chain decks 😂

[@ModAnonMTG]

The amount of times RCoE was supposed to protect me and Endurance blew me tf out 😭😭😭😭😭😭

[@a_level_70_elite_raccoon]

That was a rough one for Cam and Higher, but wow was that impressive watching Cam try to squeeze every last bit of advantage out of that combo turn. Heckuva game as always, great job!

[@prestonjackson6155]

Josh: blows nose Dylan: I was gonna say something but I didn't want to accidentally embarrass you. Also Dylan: puts the entirety of it in the post credit scene 🤣

[@joshfrancisco6004]

Ya wtf!?! The whole damn recording session 😆 fuck me 😆

[@Lumautis]

I always love the post game discussions even just the little snippets before. Please keep this!

[@swat6591]

It would be cool to see the 1-5 color decks again. If you guys do those every year then we can see how the Meta has changed and what new cards have been added.

[@frankdetank9126]

Here we are again! I'm always excited to see your videos pop up in my feed. Have you considered doing a best enchantress deck in cEDH video?

[@rowrow_]

Thank you for the bonus table talk. It's one of the reasons I enjoy watching y'alls content is how y'all just communicate the entire time

[@aeolus7762]

And this is why I love the diversity the backgrounds gave to cEDH. They all performed (minus Higher, sadly) very well and even only being two colors, it was a hell of a grind!

[@Flip4Crypt]

This game was absolutely fucking brutal, holy shit. So mean in every direction Beautiful. What a gnarly Endurance play Great shit as always!

[@ghost64626]

Food Chain Wins Games!!!! That Endurance was brutal lol

[@PlaytoWinMTG]

Both powerful cards to be sure

[@oddball_covers]

Poor cam got hosed holy moly. Such a cool line. But in the end, IT DOESNT EVEN MATTER!

[@PlaytoWinMTG]

I TRIED SO HARD

[@TheGrifcannon22]

@@PlaytoWinMTG and got so far

[@alexbirmingham2793]

This was so good. Thanks for doing what you're doing guys!

[@StackedEDH]

Dylan with the Linkin Park lyric, lol

[@PlaytoWinMTG]

😈

[@brianknowles3980]

We’re hard casting Raz these days in CEDH. What is this life even? 😂

[@kstandish42]

Sometimes you gotta let ‘em know, I got that Razaketh and you can Razacatch these hands 🙌

[@ingolf82]

I'm gonna do the Fiend hunter version of Abdel, where you get 3 fiend hunters (Abdel + fiend hunter + Felidar Guardian for example) on the table and get infinite 1/1's and just smash face :) and it's still Orzhov so I guess the background drains people to death too if I have a sac outlet.

[@lilyberry8268]

8/8 Flyer in play. Cam: Combat means nothing to me. 😂

[@geoffreygarfein9169]

DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMN! That running gag was fan-fuking-tastic!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@macypage1688]

6:22 haha I got really confused for a second, I thought you sent his commander to the graveyard with that gilded drake lol

[@SpicyPlay]

The power of dibs on Wishclaw.

[@Lykrast]

Daaaamn that Endurance that sure was a moment!

[@JoePendra]

Cam tried so hard, but in the end it didn't even matter...awesome game guys!

[@kallemon]

Great video as always, and a really good game!

[@jukaiforest]

Wilson Wins Games for next shirt

[@PlaytoWinMTG]

Hmmmm 😁

[@TheGrifcannon22]

Wilson the bear playing volleyball.

[@geoffreygarfein9169]

So, I am on Wilson for CEDH I have been slowly upgrading the deck. I wish there was a discord.

[@bensteinhauser784]

I couldn't find Cam's deck list but does he run Nested Shambler, Lurrus, and LED? it helps combo off with Raza when you're low on creatures and/or mana.

[@PlaytoWinMTG]

Deck lists are in the description and there was a deafening silence out

[@bensteinhauser784]

@@PlaytoWinMTG thank you! I totally missed them.

[@iansamuel1811]

this josh guy really wants everyone at the table to play around cabal pit lol

[@GOOMBAHx]

I subscribe for Cams laugh

[@ben.shields]

I interaction decisions in this game were very solid, tight gameplay guys!

[@bryanlincks8323]

Dylan with the not so subtle linkin park reference and the win

[@didupaytheone2678]

GG everyone,nice win with the fish , see u next time

[@Highwang]

Foresight was certainly a card I did NOT know existed, and man I had no clue why you'd play it until looking at the comments. :V

[@didupaytheone2678]

Love to see combat damage going around? Could be anyone's game

[@mistygreenviolin]

wow, nicely done Cam. even though you didn't get the win, seeing you problem solve time and time again was impressive

[@salchi-papa]

Food chain wins games

[@PlaytoWinMTG]

FOOD CHAIN

[@salchi-papa]

@@PlaytoWinMTG WINS GAMES

[@ryanvandale6541]

What music do you use for the background? I’ve always been drawn to your channel’s metal aesthetic

[@PlaytoWinMTG]

Epidemic sound!

[@orsettomorbido]

I love all four decks! Quick question: did the Animate Dead go to the GY after andurance was cast because it was already an aura that needed to be attached to the creature and endurance was cast after AD entered the battlefield? Because IIRC if the creature is gone before AD enters the battlefield, you end up having a useless enchantment on board (an interaction that I love.) But I don't remember all the corner cases XD

[@kíle97]

Question: if Dylan has endurance, and knows the either guy has the soul lantern and has to pop it for a reanimate spell earlier in the game, is that considered priority bullying/shouldn’t Dylan have used his endurance first?

[@PlaytoWinMTG]

Nah that’s called strategy

[@richardtarbell946]

17:30 “Sick deck tech” hahaha

[@emptynest4103]

So you can or can not cast a sorcery from the graveyard with gale if you casted an instant during an opponent's turn? Because I thought you couldn't but he casted a gitprobe during another player's turn when he casted snap back

[@jef89]

You can for sure. Gale's ability allows you to cast it right away, as part of the resolution. If he said something like 'you may cast... until the end of the turn', then you wouldn't be able to do it at instant speed.

[@gbasso666]

Shoulsnt Cam have played Agent of Iron Throne instead of Consultation?

[@cleanaccount9991]

I just feel bad for higher, I mean he wasn’t even really close to winning, but he just had the potential. That game was brutal…

[@ConnorPlaysTCG]

Question for Dylan: Do you think Nath stax is still viable for CEDH? and is the new braids from dominaria a consideration for the deck?

[@grimwatch5974]

New braids is a may for all players.

[@dantemalick2872]

@@grimwatch5974 yes but if they don't it's still draw 3 and do 6 damage

[@ConnorPlaysTCG]

@@dantemalick2872 this exactly drawing is always worth it especially with nath

[@jordanmalone3139]

If Josh never mentioned the Geier Reach Sanitarium, he could have waited for Dylan to make the fatal mistake Thassa players make which is drawing their whole deck and leaving 0 cards. Than when Thassa hits the stack, activate Geier making Dylan draw from nothing and losing the game. If dylan left himself 1-4 cards, he had 4 devotion, he coulda protected himself from Geier. But Thassa players almost always make this fatal mistake, which he did do, but no one had any more draw options at that point.

[@PlaytoWinMTG]

Ye have such little faith in me

[@jordanmalone3139]

@@PlaytoWinMTG You woulda drawn your whole deck regardless of geier being used! Admit it! Jk, that was an awesome win and great game all around. Feel bad for Cam, I was really rooting for him and his brute force tactics haha. seriously love you guys, keep it up!

[@adamreed2088]

I want to make the Wilson deck. Do you have any budget friendly options? I really like the deck

[@mackenner-aspery2715]

When is the fall/winter sweatshirt merch coming?! i wanna flex ptw on campus

[@pandogrover4120]

Why Cam doesn't attack with his 8/8? He could easily kill at least one player in two turns.

[@thekilla1234]

Killing 1 player doesn't win you the game. cEDH wins come from buying time to execute your win condition so you should not be thinking about making players lose the game, you should always focus on what wins you the game. This means you don't need to attack to win and in a lot of cases it's actually detrimental to attack or remove a player from the game early. The 2 most obvious reasons in this game are: 1. Key cards in his deck cost life to utilise, such as Razaketh and Ad Nauseum. Any damage he takes hurts the strength of these cards a lot (which is why "attack the black player" is a thing). Tapping your 8/8 blocker for 1 turn can cost you life for no reason. If he taps Razaketh down to attack with him, he would probably take 6-10 damage on the crack back from the other 3 players, which is just way too much in a deck that would prefer to put that life into their win conditions. Notice that the other players pointed out that he has an 8/8 to attack with, they know this and wanted him to open himself up (obviously it was said as a joke because Cam also knows that and wouldn't do it). 2. If you kill a player, that player can no longer interact with the game. That might sound good, but when you are looking for your combo or have your combo protection you want to keep players alive to interact with your opponents so you can get more turns and allow them to get into interaction wars to eat up interaction that isn't directed towards you. Even if you don't have protection its often better just to keep everyone in the game and buy time to build your combo. If you don't have your win condition in hand there is no reason to take anyone else out because it doesn't win you the game and just gives everyone else an easier time to resolve their win conditions. The only time it's worth taking someone out is if they have an obvious win next turn, because you likely lose if you pass the turn to them anyway.

[@pandogrover4120]

@@thekilla1234 I think you forgot something: the best removal is a player removal. Win throug a combo is allways the best way to win a game in edh/cedh. You should know that if you can eliminate a player that could posibly win the game on the spot you just doit, he could attack Dylan, but he didn't. And by experience sometimes when you get used to win throug combo you can usualy forget to attack. You know that are many cedh decks winconless right?

[@aimeduquet4879]

Yup...!

[@thekilla1234]

@@pandogrover4120 I literally explained why Cam didn't attack, but okay. If you wanna try and take out 1 of 3 players over 2 turns (it's actually 3 turns to take out Dylan because his commander has reach but you said 2 turns so let's go with that) and go down to 6 life because you have no blockers in your Razaketh/Ad Nauseum deck and still can't win because the player at 30 life is a stax deck then go for it, tell me how it works out for you. The only reason Dylan won was because he had Endurance in hand and top decked Food Chain when nobody had interaction (if he took out Higher that would have been less potential interaction). He didn't forget to attack. They literally TOLD HIM HE HAD AN 8/8 TO ATTACK and he chose not to. So saying "he forgot to attack" is nonsense. Cam didn't attack because it was correct to not attack to give his deck the best chance of winning in the situation he was in, that's literally it.

[@iansamuel1811]

thoughts on Nether Void being able to counter abdel and send him straight to grave? animate dead is pretty cheap to cast through it too. also protects from getting combo killed and from interaction.

[@filipi2338]

I already said in the other video, I play with the Abdel, Razaket is horrible as a win line.

[@PokenShaho]

Poor higher bro. Gale/Scion did not get the light it deserved here 😂

[@Highwang]

So I’m wondering how Burakos assembles a win here? I looked over the deck list but nothing really stuck out to me

i kinda like Burakos more with Guild Artisian, and Aggravated Assault, but this BW looks great

[@andrewrockwell1282]

I play an Abdel deck but I use Candlekeep sage for white blue. It is some good flicker value, I don't go infinite but I do use worldpurge to win games.

[@ujai5271]

This is not a troll, I just heard it several times recently: Is it a bit to call the card "Pognify"? Is it a PogChamp thing? I just want to know...

[@morganath]

I've been looking into playing blue fam, any deck list recommendations?

[@TripsAhoy]

Got em with that Endurance!!!! Lol

[@Laxrocks571]

I have a friend who has 3 of these background decks, none of the ones you guys are playing and they are actually amazing!

[@rinan5317]

That was an amazing game. That Endurance got me off my chair. Just one thing I've been staring at though is the (he/him) text to each player. No one talked about it in the comments and it's the first time I saw it...

[@didupaytheone2678]

Love me some combat boros equipment decks , I'm building ardenn and kobolt , dropping that hammer for free and killing the table ect

[@moxavenger]

When everything goes wrong, then nothing is going wrong.

[@havic1306]

Shouldn’t the deafening silence not allow him to cast the bob? @somewhere near 14 mins

[@PlaytoWinMTG]

Deafening is non creatures

[@archon245]

18:22 Accidental linkin park is the best linkin park

[@VeilofDeathMTG]

WILSOOOON - Also what a spicy Move Dylan...I mean obviously all the love to the shredder but damn that Endurance...spicyyyyyy

[@apemanxxl5661]

where do ya'll get your proxies from ?

[@mstrk101]

Is Wilson in a trans rights sleeve or a printed proxy on low ink?

[@PlaytoWinMTG]

Unfortunately it is just a printed proxy on low ink, but what you said seems way cooler so imma go with that

[@JakeyBoi1694]

With the wording of jewelled lotus, can you actually cast the background? It says use this mana to cast your commander, the background sits in your command zone but isn’t a commander??? Judge?

[@gavinmorrin1326]

From gatherer: "Choose a Background is a variant of the partner ability. You may have two commanders if one of them is a legendary creature with the choose a background ability and the other is a legendary Background enchantment. Backgrounds and cards with choose a Background do not interact with cards which have any other partner ability." So the background is a commander, it's just not a creature.

[@_claymore]

afaik, a Background counts as a commander for the sake of effects that refer to your commander. if an effect would refer to a "commander creature" then the background would not count, cause even though it's your "commander" it is not a "creature" but an echantment. tl:dr - Backgrounds count as your commander and thus can be cast with Jeweled Lotus, since that refers to casting your commander.

[@JakeRegalado-ChonkyThickems]

Maaaan Higher and Josh are so cool

[@didupaytheone2678]

No red in the pod, did I miss something? I thought u was going to say partners deck?

[@emmettmccleary4946]

why not grab silence instead of ranger-captain there?

[@Benstra93]

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaay a new play to win!

[@relussmyer]

I'm like 90% sure the discard land makes you draw, why would you not just leave up the mana to force a draw with the thassa etb still on the stack forcing him to lose?

[@bamby3144]

because he could just stop at 2 cards left and interact with josh trying to use the land.

[@jonlamoreaux1889]

Dylan reminds me of a neighbor kid I knew growing up who I invited over once (also named dylan) who stole my Pokémon cards.

[@PlaytoWinMTG]

I swear I never stole your cards!!

[@jonlamoreaux1889]

@@PlaytoWinMTG 🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@Gamerguy1793]

Curious why cam didnt attack with razaketh

[@jeffkuykendall3189]

It’s called CEDH for a reason…😂😂

[@arturstasienko2234]

Backgrounds are much better in the 99.

[@TheQueerLeaf99]

Nice

[@jadens_mayhem3962]

Need more gale content

[@Digmeonformore]

foodchain is still so good. :) gg

[@didupaytheone2678]

GG everyone keep up the good work, like the new set up with pronounced etc

[@Chuubii]

Is the editing quicker? I could barely pause to read the cards

[@Lavorre]

WHOOO PRONOUNS!! :D

[@kellyperry5009]

FOOD CHAIN WINS GAMES 🤘😎🤘😎

[@elric8882]

POGGERS

[@fnaw17]

Is it just me or does the commentary feel... weird? for this video? like it feels less synced to the flow? or just me?

[@PlaytoWinMTG]

Got any specific points you felt it wasn’t synced to the flow?

[@SlavicMoose]

B E G I N

[@fernandob2275]

Food chain decks are pretty much autopilot. 😴

[@Rh3ttD4v1s]

That endurance was fucking spicy! I was rooting for Cam but that play was too hot. Go Dylan!!

[@WrathNBrimstone]

wow, new viewer here because i watch other edh channels, i tried to watch this and instantly stopped about 3 minutes in, way too fast, not good content, just card play with little reaction, explanation, etc. You can play games this way in your circle at home on a table, you can't do this shit for content, not a subscriber or viewer in the future

[@roygbiv390]

Everything woke……..hope those pronouns work out for you

[@fosterdawson7339]

Just noticed you guys doing pronouns, hype

[@itskmillz]

Pronouns are arrogant. Get over yourself.

[@gaythiestMTG]

"I tried so hard and got so far But in the end it doesn't even matter" -Dylan @18:17 *cira 2001 Linkin Park don't worry man, I gotchu

[@professionalaverageppsize]

Why would you play wilson over any other green background commander?

[@PlaytoWinMTG]

Because it is only 2 mana!

[@professionalaverageppsize]

@@PlaytoWinMTG so you rather have a 2 mana nothing than a 3 mana sometimes something?

[@dfetzer707]

wilson, candlecove. simic food chain because its funny

[@bobbrekelmans2249]

Does anyone know the background song when the Foodchain awesomeness starts? Really need to add that to my Spotify list! :)

[@leogon1548]

ALREADY PLAYED PROBE INCORRECTLY, LOOK IS NOT REVEAL, YOU DO NOT SHOW THE ENTIRE GROUP THE HAND.

[@grinreaperoftrolls7528]

I have ASPIRED to do that with endurance (but I need to buy one first lol). It’s so funny to see that happen 😂

[@omgitsjoshjames]

Food. Chain. Wins. Games.

[@nosebleed9432]

are you guys going to mtg30??!!??

[@PlaytoWinMTG]

Nah

[@nosebleed9432]

@@PlaytoWinMTG alright see you at magic40 then🙏🏻

[@theorangeman6471]

No