The Lessons that EDH-only Players Don't Learn

[@salubrioussnail]

Check out the accompanying podcast episode: kzbin.info/www/bejne/noK4Y4CBe6mjjLc It covers the elements of the topic that I didn't go into as much, including niche formats like Dandan and as well as a greater discussion of the benefits of playing limited.

[@beanslinger2]

The biggest strain on my previously commander exclusive playgroup is the amount of time each game took. We're all busy people, and the length of a commander game being 30 mins m i n i m um (can take several hours depending on the game :/) was too much. We've since swapped to "modern" (60 card format with some house rules attached) and... i think its called PDH brawl? (uncommon creature as your commander, 60 card singleton format with only commons allowed, 25 life and 16 commander damage is lethal) these smaller deck formats make for much, much quicker games. playing these 60 card formats after eternal commander games has really boosted my deckbuilding capabilities. I can finally not fear a land --> sol ring --> arcane signet start and now live in fear of one and two drop creatures. sorry for the essay I just enjoy your videos and wanted to share my group's story. :)

[@abysscallstoabyss55]

I’m pretty sure you’ve heard, “You’re over thinking it.” a lot in your loooooooong life. 🤔 Don’t worry kids, you don’t have to have a pocket pin protector or be mildly autistic to play this game.

[@abysscallstoabyss55]

I’m sure you’ve heard “You’re over thinking it.” a lot in your looooong life. 😑

[@Azeria]

I’m an aggro player in Standard and by far the biggest lesson I’ve learnt is that the best free counterspell in the world is the one they never have to play. That’s not to say that you always play your biggest threat into open mana, but every counterspell or cut down they use is one they don’t have anymore. Don’t zero for one yourself by playing scared.

[@HSExsiccator]

Amen. Make them have it. Then make them have it again.

[@Glennjamyyyn]

Wonderfully put. i LOVE throwing down threats or making intimidating swings with open mana JUST to scare my opponent into using resources or counterspell. Either they let me do it because they're scared I have counterplay, or they get scared and counter it, letting me swing later without repercussions.

[@halcyonacoustic7366]

Yup, just won a game because the my friend was too scared to play anything (including his board-wipe) I might counterspell for two turns. I asked him if he had anything to bait out my counterspell afterwards and he absolutely did.

[@sicklysweetdenouement]

This. If you don't push their resources, they'll just sit on them until they have too many resources to get past.

[@KyleTremblayTitularKtrey]

If yer aggro yer basically just trying to drop more threats than he can remove. PUT EM DOWN DONT LET HIM STACK MANA

[@cynthia-op8rx]

60-card formats teach you important lessons such as "run removal" and "redundancy is good"

[@erfarkrasnobay]

and then you tun into decks that "98 ways to assemble Thoracle"

[@PhotriusPyrelus]

With the billions (hyperbole) of effective reprints with different name, you think EDH nerds don't understand redundancy?

[@erfarkrasnobay]

@@PhotriusPyrelus sane EDH players know that redundancy make games borring and repeatable. and going 100 singleton format just to instantrly throw away concept of uniqunes is common but awful. =(

[@PhotriusPyrelus]

@@erfarkrasnobay Oh, I absolutely agree. To call EDH a "singleton" format when every players does everything he possibly can to eliminate that aspect of the game is comical. Almost as comical as the worst format ever invented becoming more popular than the standard format and destroying the game.

[@erfarkrasnobay]

@@PhotriusPyrelus by worst format that kill standard you mean that abomination of 3 year legar card pool with overpowered mythic-slot cards powercreeped to turn-3 loss and now including unset (aetherdrift) and card-ads now became real cards? (iniverse beyond) meanwhile keepeng 2 instead of 4 month window beetween printing legal sets? TBH I think standard will never recover and we will continue to play F.I.R.E.-"standard"

[@CHoustonify]

Anecdotally, more and more people I'm meeting play EDH and limited and nothing else. This is because they don't want the experience of bringing a deck they love to a 60 card competitive format, only to lose, 100 percent of the time, to a moderately good standard deck utilizing the meta. Limited feels scrappy in the same way the randomness of commander allows, so players with worse cards or less experience can actually stand a fighting chance.

[@itsafish8726]

man it sure isn't that the price of other formats happens to be so expensive, rotations, and banning that making. Also how they are so much more feeling of competition in 1v1.

[@danielolsen3514]

From my anecdotal experience, edh first players stick to edh & lesser extent limited because they find more success/wins. Or they can easily blame losses on edh politics or "opening a bad pool." 60 cards heads up is a more unforgiving format, especially older formats. One bad decision can lose a game. There isn't another player to bail you out or a luckier pool/bomb to recover with. Players like to build their own decks. More often, you spend more time deckbuilding than playing. So players put focus on that. Edh and Limited are the most forgiving for Brewing.

[@crushcreate1461]

@@itsafish8726 Sure, this can be a factor, but Commander decks can be very expensive to build as well. Granted, you can compete with a $100-$200 deck at most tables just fine. As for limited though, $15+ for draft and $30+ for prerelease adds up really fast.

[@bamby3144]

For me its more that proxies aren't allowed in constructed format and I can't afford to buy even a pauper deck lol.

[@sethadelman8]

rotations, especially for standard is what makes it the best format in magic rn. yea its expensive but there are cheaper deck options that are still effective

[@simonteesdale9752]

I feel that probably the biggest thing EDH-only players lose is an aggressive instinct. The sheer amount of missed attacks from utility creatures I've seen is utterly astounding. Like the difference between a control deck at 35 and 10 life is huge, and probably adds ~40 minutes to a game.

[@Lazydino59]

Honestly also a “play to win” mindset and threat assessment / “empathy”. Had so many games where I start going after someone and they are like “dude why” and it’s because I know what I can and can’t beat but they just don’t understand why my low to the ground aggro deck is hammering their super friends deck

[@jolteon345]

That’s also a flaw within the “let everyone do the thing” mindset. Someone just ramps for the first 5 turns? They aren’t doing the thing so people feel bad attacking them. Then when they finally go to do the thing, it’s something that you need to stop anyway or else they win. I’m slotting more Monarch and Initiative cards into my decks to incentivize combat without forcing it. I love goad as a mechanic and I like it as protection, but I hate it when incentivizing combat because it removes the power of choice.

[@MrGaiakid]

People don't like to become "the bad guy" early game by poking at anyone, that's why I love playing Nelly borca, I force people to play the game lol

[@SleepyStreak]

Doesn't help that lots of commander players are AWFUL about grudges and threat assessment. Being aggressive literally gets you killed because people will start just focusing you because "I need to swing at someone and you hit me already". Even 10 turns later when you're not the threat.

[@leifdering3600]

@@jolteon345 when I first got into magic, my friend told me that ramp is always an act of aggression. No one is "just ramping," they're getting ready to drop some bombs.

[@fiddlewheelx]

My biggest lesson from other constructed formats was rolling with the punches. Accepting removal, responding to responses, not blocking unless necessary, this is very important to understand if playing MTG.

[@user-lz5np1nn7i]

This by far. I have a buddy who just started playing. Refuses to block or attack if he will lose said creature.

[@DoctorGalactor]

Highly agree on recommending pre-release events. The foundations pre-release gave me some of my favourite moments while playing magic, even though I realized halfway through that I had about 6 extra lands that I didn't need which caused me to lose 3-1 lmao.

[@Han-um9dt]

definitely agree. I got into magic off of a a Wilds of Eldraine pre-release and it was an amazing way to jump right into my vibrant LGS scene.

[@ArcturusAlpha]

im glad you enjoyed it. personally it seems like too high of powerlevel.

[@asianpotatofarmer1310]

Fr prerelease are my favorite to play sadly I have missed the last three prereleases

[@Fr0stbite1801]

Yep, highly recommend the limited format this time around. It's can be seen as kinda basic, this is a core set after all, but that's why limited feels nice for foundations. Karlov manor and thunder junction were too wild for me, but this is just simple clean magic.

[@cox2060]

I played my first prerelease; Bloomburrow and I got third. Pulled a Maha and 2 hearthborn battler, so I built a crazy strong R/B deck

[@hoodiegal]

I agree with this notion and it's why I hate that standard is so difficult to get into. I started playing in Return to Ravnica. You wanna know how? I walked into a store and bought a standard-legal precon. It wasn't super powerful, but strong enough that it could put up a fight and win a decent number of games. It still had some clear upgrade paths, which made me excited to buy booster packs. A bit later when I decided that I do want to drop more money on this hobby, I bought an event deck (Dragon's Maze Selsenya deck) which was way more powerful than that precon and contained a bunch of cool and powerful rares, including Parallel Lives (!). Now if you want to get into playing standard, you've got... the starter decks I guess? With one rare each? (what a joke) Or you can find a decklist online, bring it into a store, and hope that they have all those cards as singles. Great. Or you can order from an online marketplace. Using a third party vendor (neither wizards directly nor the lgs you play at) is the most convenient way of getting into standard. Waow.

[@baconsir1159]

The pipeline for getting into Standard these days is Arena

[@brunop.8745]

wow your pfp is absolutely ancient

[@Silas_MN]

@@baconsir1159 which is why paper standard has dried up so hard the last few years, there's no method to transition from one to the other

[@wickederebus]

​@Silas_MN a precon deck you buy 1 or 2 of, with a code to redeem the contents online would be awesome. Buy 2 physical precons that you can also immediately test with on Arena

[@casually_lurking]

I hopped in here too; it was a fun environment to jib people with Azorius Aggro' in.

[@ColeTrainStudio]

12:15 FINALLY, AN EDH PERSON SAID IT. Pauper and Draft/Cube are, imo, the premier way to play the game that is not legacy or vintage.

[@baconsir1159]

Pauper is where it's at. Also just built my first cube, need to order it all when I have some spare cash.

[@w8ting4fri]

I just made a pauper cube and I’m much more excited to draft that than I am to play commander.

[@josephvandenberg2483]

Cube OP

[@blackfalcon179]

I never liked Pauper but Limited is a great way to learn new cards

[@changhyon92]

i mean pauper is literally legacy lite

[@ralonnetaph6450]

this is a general topic that I think deserves far more discussion than it is typically given, especially the nature of not being able to use other players as a shield where the only reason you're still on the board is because swinging at you would leave the other player open, that is one of the reasons the format encourages pillow fort playstyles and if it's all you know it makes it hard for you to see when you NEED to start laying pressure on your opponent. Also thankyou for the pauper shoutout, it's lower powerlevel of individual cards has been far closer to the feeling old kitchen table magic I used to be able to play with my brothers than EDH, partially because that feeling most of us want to chase is heavily influenced by the fact as a teenager you didn't have adult money and internet shops for singles you had what you pulled from the 2-3 packs you could buy every weekend, and that was mostly not very good commons, so that was what you played with.

[@danthewafflelord3059]

@@ralonnetaph6450 pauper is unironically cracked af. I love it

[@ralonnetaph6450]

@@danthewafflelord3059 bless the format where something as simple as "a 2/2 vanilla for 1 mana" is an auto include in almost all decks that run that color

[@danthewafflelord3059]

@ralonnetaph6450 Glint hawk provides a lot of neat Synergy with stuff like Tithing Blade, Carrot Cake, and Lembas

[@Pendergast891]

I've won many clutch games after surviving at 1 life The only life that counts is the last one, and learning how to ensure you keep it is an important step every edh player should learn

[@ThePloftis]

My local store has started doing Standard Brawl tournaments. Which is a 1v1 59 card singleton with a commander and the number of games I won because the other player just never blocks is astounding. Theyll have 7 mana up and not block with the mana dork even though his mana value is useless now

[@johnreese5739]

That format sounds pretty sick honestly. Is it normal rules outside of commander/singleton is it like 25 life or so?

[@wydx120]

​@@johnreese5739 It's 1v1 with 25 life totals, 60 card singleton decks that must include a commander (or pair if they have the right abilities) And there's no commander damage rule (with 25 life, commander damage would almost be the same effort than just getting their life total to 0, so no need to track both) It's the format WotC tried to push as their WotC-branded version of Commander (many years before finally getting control of EDH) It was intended to be Standard-only legal cards by default, but the lack of an actual commander gamemode in Arena, and the preference of people for the Historic Brawl variant in there (the digital eternal format equivalent of Modern) made them start to specify default "Brawl" as "Standard Brawl"

[@therealax6]

@@johnreese5739 If you want to try it, it's still available on Arena! It's not my thing, but it's still there, and it's probably the easiest way to get a game going _right now_ and see if you like the format. (As @wydx120 said, look for "Standard Brawl" in Arena if you want to play this.) By the way, the format, like basically any format, isn't _required_ to be 1v1. You can play almost any format as multiplayer, and Brawl is no exception. However, they did add a special rule regarding this just for Brawl: the starting life total in 1v1 is 25, but in multiplayer, it's 30. Keep it in mind!

[@pockettrigger]

I think the biggest thing as someone coming from other card gamed (Hearthstone and YGO) is the difference in mindset. Alot of the time the players I play with who started with EDH struggle more with getting there stuff removed and going into the lategame slog then I do. It also happens in deckbuilding as well, I find it alot easier to be more flexible in deckbuilding thanks to my experience in more traditional 1v1 formats/games. I forged my iron will in the control warrior trenches, I WILL play this 3 hour game out and there is nothing you can do to stop me

[@leadpaintchips9461]

Eh, I've won and lost enough that I'd much rather get a couple more games in then hoping that either my opponent or I topdeck a win.

[@OmneAurumNon]

Lots of good memories with control warrior :) I reached legend for the first time with murloc oracle control warrior, back when I was playing hearthstone

[@pockettrigger]

That's fair. I feel like the longer games lead to my decks being tested in scenarios that wouldn't really come up if I avoided long games and just scooped

[@ReyaadawnMTG]

You can also play ramp in EDH because your hand is never truly empty, you’ll always have access to your commander that always gets more expensive.

[@Lazydino59]

Also the game inherently lasts longer. In standard If you play a turn 2 rampant growth and die to mono red on turn 4 you get like +2 mana max. In casual commander most games are at least 8 turns so you are minimum +6 mana

[@jeezuhskriste5759]

@@Lazydino59If you die to aggro on turn 4, your rampant growth didn’t give you two mana, it refunded itself. You spent a card to gain zero extra mana over the course of a game. And that’s only if they killed you after _your_ turn 4; if they went first, you might not even get your mana back.

[@qwerqwer-rt8wm]

​@@jeezuhskriste5759 if you aggro 1 player out on turn 4 you really just have no business at most commander tables.

[@jeezuhskriste5759]

@@qwerqwer-rt8wm …Which is what makes ramp good. Turn 4 was regular formats.

[@siosilvar]

@@qwerqwer-rt8wm more commander tables need to deal with a voltron deck every now and then. it's not an every game flavor, but i have a couple of decks that left unchecked *will* take out a player on each of turns 5, 6, and 7.

[@micboyyaboy2578]

YES! Pauper mentioned! I got introduced to it back when my high school was going to do a pauper tournament (it never happened, sadly), and I bought an Eldrazi Tron deck for it!

[@baconsir1159]

Love me some pauper. Cheapest format, and the most diverse? Good shit. Sure with Paupergeddon wasn't all the way in Italy, or we had some US equivalent...

[@aris.7564]

Happy to hear a plug for pauper! It's my favorite format, bar none. Decks are cheap, strong, and incredibly fun. That being said, I hang out on the pauper subreddit a lot and it's sort of fascinating seeing the misconceptions that EDH-only players can have about sixty-card formats crop up. Just today someone was asking about why anyone would play aggro when combo decks exist. Sometime I have been noticing a lot with pauper newcomers has been a fear of netdecking that I think holds some people back quite a bit. If your EDH deck is a turn or two slower than the other three people at the table, it doesn't matter nearly as much as it does in Pauper. If someone pulls ahead, there are three other people to slow them down. In pauper, if your deck isn't fast or efficient enough you're either going to get killed by an aggro deck or totally locked down by a control deck before you get to do the cool thing you're trying to do. There's absolutely space for brewing in the format, but brewing a deck that can compete 1v1 requires way more format knowledge and experience than building an EDH deck that can win a few games at your LGS.

[@dashkatae]

One thing about limited formats over EDH that you didn't touch on is that playing a limited enviroment makes you better at assessing threats. I've seen some multiplayer games where someone will just pop off a removal spell at the first thing they can even though the card might not be that threatening just because the game will go long or they'll draw more cards to get into action and there are other players to help as well. In one on one though, you have to think things through as you may never draw into another answer so killing that early game card might bite you in the butt since now you have no removal for the actual threat that will win them the game.

[@WatcherCCG]

Definitely been a victim of skewed threat assessment rather frequently. I run Oloro (life gain, pillow fort tactics, less than 20 creatures) and my pod will stare at my life counter like a doomsday clock out of nothing but pure fear at the POSSIBILITY I might draw one of my wincons, while more direct threats who actually have everything they need are popping off or setting up combo pieces.

[@colecook834]

Damn, this helped me learn just how slow and optimized my ur dragon deck is. He died 5 times in one turn.

[@Breviparopus]

How!

[@colecook834]

@Breviparopus i need more land fetches.

[@Breviparopus]

@@colecook834 but how did he die so much in one turn

[@WookieRookie]

​@@Breviparopusprobably he was killed on sight and then recasted due to some kind of infinite mana until no one had removal in his hand

[@JusteeniLingueeni]

I've been on the other end of the scale. I love watching your videos, but I'm a 60 card and limited player through and through. I play timeless (and sometimes historic) on MTGA and I've been getting very into Cube lately (especially low power Cubes). I have some friends that also play, but they're EDH players, so we see the game very differently. Despite our differences, we can still appreciate the nuances of each format, but the differences still feel very jarring. One of the main things that has scared me from playing commander (and still continues to) is the sheer complexity by nature of how it works. Board states get very complicated, and trying check how many resources your opponent has, cards in hand, commander damage, threats, deck strategies, any current political play, gets very overwhelming. Heck, even remembering upkeep triggers or resolving a stack with 3+ cards starts to feel really overwhelming when there's so many factors at play in commander. I've started to realize that the reason why many EDH players seem to go about things just fine is because they're just not keeping track of all those things, and just kind of playing on autopilot, not worrying about the finer details. I like to try to play to the best of my ability (not so much as in a "I need to win" sense, but an "I want improve myself as a player, win or lose" way), so it's very hard for me to ease into the mentality of just playing simple magic on a complex board state. Contrarily, I've found that when playing Cube with EDH friends, it's apparent that they struggle with the opposite issue. They'll never keep a land in hand to bluff a resource advantage, constantly play instants and activated abilities well before they could've been provoked to, and struggle a lot with combat especially (notably forgetting that double blocking exists). I think that once that initial hurdle of understanding how other formats work is surpassed, players really appreciate the nuances of a simpler game. The race against the clock with aggro, the careful resource management of a midrange mirror, the art of timing with combo decks, and the intense stare down of a control mirror. Even though you have less tools to work with compared to EDH, the game just takes on an incredibly beautiful form that keeps me enjoying MTG. tldr: I find EDH feels so complex at times, that you can't stop to appreciate the smaller details. Playing simpler formats can help you understand and admire those parts that make up so much of Magic.

[@corhydrae3238]

"I've started to realize that the reason why many EDH players seem to go about things just fine is because they're just not keeping track of all those things, and just kind of playing on autopilot, not worrying about the finer details." As a basically-only-edh-player, pretty much this. Paying attention to literally everything that happens is insane, and you kinda have to learn how to evaluate what kind of plays you need to watch out for. It also helps when you have a playgroup with a good atmosphere where people voluntarily point out when they're making important plays. I do have one archetypical control deck that forces me to play in everyone's turns and pay good attention to every single play. I love that deck, but can only really play it every so often. I'm genuinely mentally exhausted after every game I play with it.

[@therealax6]

On the video that brought me here, which was Commander gameplay, there was, near the end, a lethal-threatening attack. The attacker had an Urabrask's Forge out, which had just spat out its first token (a 1/1 with trample and haste); defending player was at 1 life with four creatures on the board. The attacker attacked with the token, defender blocked with one disposable creature, the attacker removed the blocker with a kill spell and the attacking token trampled through and killed the player. This is an obvious blunder. In this scenario, the obvious answer (particularly considering the attacker didn't have any other meaningful permanents out) was to block with everything, or _maybe_ with three creatures if they wanted to make very sure one creature stayed alive. But this kind of blocking scenario doesn't really come up often in Commander, so I don't blame them.

[@ikaros110]

Yes!! I would also recommend delving into other games. I've played Hearthstone, Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh before being introduced to Magic and they all taught me vastly different things. My decks in both limited and EDH usually stem from me comparing cards to mechanics I've experienced in other games. Also I feel like in commander you can make all sorts of playstyles work (your Malfegor deck is a great example), so experiencing another game will make you stray from building the same deck with different cards over and over again :)

[@veronicavanvoorst]

Absolutely agree with what you said and I think you did a great job of doing so in a respectful and honest way. Playing just EDH isn't wrong, and if that's what you want, you should do that. But there are more nuances to the game that are more prevalent in other formats. And going to double down on cube! If you want to try something that very different gameplay-wise to EDH but also can be really calm, casual, and cost literally nothing to play, ask your LGS if anyone has a cube. If not, see if you and your playgroup can put one together, it really doesn't have to cost a lot of money and it is so fun!

[@thetrinketmage]

A lot of words just to say Mental Magic is the best format...

[@simonteesdale9752]

Counterpoint: Judges tower.

[@mimpbusiness]

randomly opening youtube to be greeted by a new snail video... effervescent

[@Syngraphaeor]

Fantastic verbiage, sir

[@mimpbusiness]

@Syngraphaeor don't call me that

[@KodasGarden]

bubbly? that word means bubbly lol

[@somethingelse1339]

"This video is so fizzy how dare you agree with my bad word choice I'm angry now"

[@mimpbusiness]

@@somethingelse1339 i'm fine with people not getting my stupid meme reference just don't call me sir we're not on reddit and i'm not a man

[@escapegrass]

Just want to say - Your sharuum slide is my favorite deck, I’ve changed about 20 or so cars to make it better without increasing the budget by much and it’s been performing amazing! Your original list definitely was an amazing starting point and inspired me to improve it! Ty for making good content and giving me one of my favorite decks!

[@JD-gk7eh]

@7:05: "It's not worth a card to get ramp in a 60 card format." I'd say in higher power formats, it's not only not worth it, it's wholly unnecessary or actually impossible because your cards are so efficient. You can't, for example, ramp out a Tarmogoyf because it only costs 2. 60-card decks in a format like Modern are full of cards like this, cards that are already so efficient you can't ramp them. It's not even "not worth the card," which implies there's some benefit to the practice but the cost of a whole card is too high a price, but that there's nothing in your deck to ramp into at all.

[@matthew20141]

Mono g post ramps out hardcast emrakul

[@JD-gk7eh]

@@matthew20141 That's an entire archetype designed around casting huge things ahead of schedule (because the game will be over by the time you'd cast them on schedule). Not the same thing at all.

[@JNDDS1]

Ramping can be powerful with the right pieces and the specific strategy. Look at legacy with chrome mox, mox diamond or exploration. Chrome mox allows prison decks to put out a critical piece a turn earlier to lock out the opponent. Mox diamond was used in lands to put a turn one wren and six into play before normal counter spells can be played. Exploration is a bit niche because it accelerates lands decks because of the land nature of their combos, but it still matches the point. I mean, even gem stone caverns is played in modern. It just depends on your game plan and the available pieces.

[@epicwaba6424]

@@JNDDS1The Moxes and gemstone caverns are more "fast mana" than traditional land or artifact ramp. There is a difference, more like having a huge burst of mana rather than storing extra for later

[@therealax6]

I think ramp decks exist in all formats (maybe not Vintage?), but the very fact that we can talk about ramp _decks_ implies that not every deck cares about ramp. I personally love high-color ramp decks, and they're basically the only thing that keeps me playing 60-card formats nowadays, but they're very much a dedicated archetype and not the average. (Still, I have to admit that beating your opponent in Standard by casting a Doppelgang for X = 9 feels very Commander-like...)

[@RedPandaStan]

this hits so hard. when i built edh the way edh is normally built, the same 20 staples plus a few commander specific synergies, i got bored as hell. when i started building them like standard decks? thats when stuff got fun

[@garak55]

This a 100%. Netdecking from edhrec is the bane of my existence.

[@kappapride720]

How does one build standard decks? For reference I have played some standard and built some decks but have never seen any guidelines for it.

[@SleepyStreak]

If you wanna have fun in EDH find new commanders to play instead of the same popular ones, make your decks consistent and resilient. Have *lots* of drawing. Have a commander that provides some form of draw/ramp/recursion. Have lots of ramp, preferably land. Have lots of low-cost efficient cards despite your massive ramp/draw package. Run recursion/re-usable effects. Run lots of cheaper effective interaction. Etc... Anything at 5cmc or higher should have a lot of impact on your deck. Basically you aim to have cards in hand at all times, and be playing things/interacting every turn cycle multiple times.

[@fastpuppy2000]

​@@kappapride720 You lean on community knowledge a lot of the time, even if homebrewing from scratch, because meta knowledge is very important. You can use a hyper-geometric calculator to figure out the chances of drawing some specific card in your deck by the time you've drawn X cards while you're playing Y copies of it, but you still need the context of what you'll be up against. You're just looking to maximize the chances of winning with a specific game plan/s based on what's in your deck, while keeping in mind that the opponent is going to try to stop you. If you know that Control and Midrange have a really good 4-drop they'll all be playing, that means you need to either really speed up your game plan, or you need to pack removal spells that can deal with that, and weave those spells into your expected game plan. If you know that aggro can win by turn 2 or 3 in a vacuum this format, then you need to bring the means to stumble them in some way until you can land your own big goober to stomp them out. The good news is that you only need to consider so much. If everyone is trying their damnedest to win, then there's only going to be so many decks worth considering before some build is just a worse version of another one. If you have game against the best decks in a format, you're probably fine. You also just accept that you'll lose in some match ups regardless and lose sometimes due to luck or your opponent just being better. Figure out how proactive/reactive and flexible you want to be, figure out how you will actually win, and then crunch some numbers or do some iterative refining on how to get there. Or netdeck it, because the pros did that work already. In all likelihood, you really need to learn how to build a sealed deck first, probably.

[@deezboyeed6764]

​@SleepyStreak I am having fun making a proxy deck too, figured with UB being what it is I will make a battletech themed deck. Its been fun searching for possible vehical commanders and vehicals to go into it. Although I am waiting on aether drift before finishing

[@yowsky0]

I built a cube a little while back hoping it'd be a good way to get people into competitive games without having them buy expensive constructed decks or shell out draft fees. I was able to get a 12-man together, including many who'd played pretty much exclusively commander up to that point. I ended up in the eggs archetype while one of the newcomers built an impressive storm deck. The guy who built that storm deck fell in love INSTANTLY and wanted to run it every weekend, but the others weren't so keen. I couldn't get them in the same room on a weekend again. I eventually just asked one of them what was up and he pretty much just told me straight that the experience was dogshit. He'd hardly ever played a 20-life game, and he was expected to DRAFT a 40 card aggro/combo deck, then play through a cutthroat 1v1 bracket? He'd put together a mostly nonfunctional ranimator pile over the hour of drafting, then got stormed on, wastelanded to 0, run over by affinity, etc. What he was describing gave me flashbacks of my own first draft. M15 and the rabblemasters. I went to my LGS excited, cobbled together a golgari pile without a proper curve or efficient creatures, and got stomped while being informed as politely as possible that NO, I could not, in fact, just cast fog whenever I pleased in combat. I was so embarrassed that I poured over the rules for months afterwards, hoping I'd never have an experience like that again. That was with multiples of cards that were EASY to evaluate. Imagine your first draft is a powered vintage cube where people are copying finale of promise and abusing KCI . . . Now, I know these commander players weren't having the same rules issues as young me, but my point is this: be considerate. Encourage your friends to try other formats and expand their horizons, but don't assume that YOUR optimal experience is somehow 'better' than commander. If you drag people into deep waters and are surprised when they don't swim, you're an asshole.

[@___i3ambi126]

I jumped straight into commander from a history with competitive yugioh. It's been interesting to compare the way I deck build and play to the way most mtg and commander players do.

[@latimelord3586]

4:00~ ish, not sure if you get to this, but ‘blocking with a key creature’ in a 60 card vs commander, one big difference is in commander, that ‘key creature’ is a one of, while in 60’s it’s often a 4 of, that may not change your point, but that defiantly changes the thoughts of ‘I need to keep this alive, because otherwise I have to get it back to play’ instead of ‘I can block because I can get another from a draw’

[@therealax6]

While that's true, the commander is often the key creature being talked about! I play a whole lot of Brawl in Arena, and it always seems to surprise my opponents when I'm willing to block with my commander and lose it. I'm not even down a card!

[@thatstranger6114]

I can't speak to all scenarios, but oftentimes even a key card/effect in commander will have some kind of redundancy within the deck whether it's another card with similar ability or a method of recursion focused around keeping it in play. It might still have more value over a counterpart in a non-singleton format, but a well constructed EDH deck will usually have an answer to losing a key component.

[@eroticbearvideos]

you could watch the video to find out if he does

[@majinvegeta6364]

As someone who learned how to play MtG at an LGS that had Type 1 tournaments every week for FNM, I was genuinely shocked by the concept of not running ramp in 60 card formats. It legitimately took me a solid minute to reconcile the fact that my experience +27 years ago was not the norm for the time, let alone today. Now that I think about it, formats like Standard, Modern, or just kitchen table magic using newer sets are the most likely entry points for players who have found the game in the last few decades and they rarely use ramp. That's just crazy to think about. I've played a lot of MtG. I've made top cut in PTQs, States, and got 2nd place in a 226 player Beta Draft Qualifier. I have played just about every format, other than Pioneer, and still, after all of these years, I see Vintage as the default. That's wild to think about. It just goes to show how much influence our environment has on our development as players when we are first learning the game. 🤔😳🤯

[@paradoxical247]

A big thing my friend group dislikes about formats not commander adjacent is the 1v1 and pacing aspects of the formats. They prefer team oriented play and slower pacing to get a more enjoyable experience.

[@thraxus6661]

This topic has been something in the back of my mind over the past year or so as I've been watching my local community and the way they engage with magic and behave during different settings/formats. I'm definitely going to share this with whoever I can, but I think there's a larger conversation to be had with the EDH community at large where there are certain skills/mindsets that you learn in other mtg formats that EDH-only players just never actually learn, and sometimes that leads to incredibly toxic sections of your local mtg community. I think this video is a wonderful start toward breaking that down!

[@blaketaylor6227]

The very first lesson I learned when playing magic is that everything is a resource. That is one of the single hardest to learn facets of the game, and for my friend group, I've been HAMMERING that lesson into all of them. It has dramatically improved their overall deck building, and I am happier playing with them now because of it. Makes things far more entertaining for everyone

[@Silas_MN]

edh being the default beginner format is horrifying to me, singleton decks drawing on a 30k+ card pool is a great way to scare people off

[@mcstotti8691]

As someone who started playing magic at the start of this year i actually loved starting with edh. No one ever told me i couldnt play card x because of rotation.

[@fastpuppy2000]

I still find the whole thing off putting. It's almost a different game that just uses pre-existing Magic cards as its pieces. The fundamentals are different or outright gone, and it decimated hobby shop enjoyment for me. EDH was at it's best when it was the wacky format for enfranchised players. You'd not find out about it until you pretty much had a handle on the main rules and heuristics of Magic. I see people online flummoxed that Standard decks don't have color identity rules or something similar and it makes me so sad about the state of it all.

[@paullilienthal449]

Still better than when Standard was king... "Oh, you went to your local target and built some 60 card decks? Too bad everything we sold you rotated out of the format a month ago." It never felt like you could buy cards quickly enough to get together a standard legal deck. Your choices were: buy singles from magazines, get screwed at draft, or play kitchen Magic.

[@-rolyat44]

I think a lot of the most important things you can learn from playing different formats is from playing decks of similar archetypes across different formats because in different formats the edge cases and skills being tested, even for decks that largely play the same and maybe even play the same cards, can be wildly different. I personally have found I have a distinct advantage against the average edh player because not only do I play competitive 60 card formats just as much as I play edh, I also have a significant background in other card games being a semi competitive yugioh player as well as a casual player of pokemon and a few other more minor card games while also being the type of player who wants to learn everything I can about every deck but also having a definite preference in deckstyles towards primarily control and midrange. My playing of yugioh and magic have especially been helpful for bolstering a number of skills because of the extreme difference of pacing between the games. With edh largely being a midrange format and yugioh being combo hell with it being extremely difficult to play combo and midrange at a high level there is an extreme dichotomy of in how my opponents are playing even with me largely sticking to the same few playstyles and as such I'm playing to very different outs

[@ethanosgood8159]

To share my personal experience, I started playing with 60-card kitchen table decks, which mostly just taught me the basics of having a game plan. From there, I started playing commender, and grew a lot in understanding consistency in deck building. More recently, as snail was saying, I've played a lot of draft and sealed. It was a format I was slow to learn. I started too used to the big splashy decks of edh, and tried to use a lot of clunky control decks with no finishers. Now, I have a better understanding of limited tho. I recently did a draft of Mystery Booster 2, and built one of my favorite decks. It was a White/Green/Black midrange deck with some early advantage pushers like a turn 4 storm play using Kobolds of Kher Keep, Memnite, and Noxious Rebirth, and some later finishers like "Who's That Praetor" and Hogaak ,who carried a couple games by himself (turn 4 gaak is disgusting).

[@scorpiosystem8082]

I got a couple of friends into magic through the default 60 cards 20 life experience, and it helped them learn quickly. afterwards, EDH is a great format for my pod because we like to play slow four player games where we socialize and show off wackier decks, but my girlfriend and i also love playing quick kitchen table games. Side note, I think part of the chump block dilemma relates to creatures usually being one-ofs in EDH, so the cost of losing one is a bit stronger than losing just one of your four copies of that small creature.

[@waterbottle6644]

As an edh only player, I do weekly commander games with my buddies, and I hope I can learn some good stuff from this.

[@simonteesdale9752]

Probably the best advice I can give is to be intentional about combat. If you aren’t going to block with a creature, check for free attacks. Also, if in doubt plink away at the player with the best late-game. A control deck at 5 life is beatable in a way the same deck at 20 isn't.

[@Portrial]

Because of how the format is handled, a 1 power creature in 60 card formsts is equivalent to 6 power creature in edh. Lastly, in 60 card formsts, tempo matters

[@simonteesdale9752]

@@Portrial I get what you're saying, but EDH utility creatures are often bigger (such as Tatiyova, or Omnaths), and there are more turns in total to plink away. 3 people attacking with 2/2's adds up surprisingly quickly. Also, tempo absolutely matters in EDH as well. It just looks different to 60-card.

[@1000Tomatoes]

I think in brawl you see blocking with commanders more often since unlike most other cards you can replay it if it dies.

[@Swoozman]

My Gut, True Soul Zealot/Inspiring Leader deck has 0 mana rocks and 10 Doomed Traveler Adjacent cards. I call it my “I came to play Magic the Gathering” commander deck. And if my opponents want to spend 4 turns ramping, Ill gladly eat them alive with Skeletons before they have a chance to do anything.

[@EldritchSquiggle]

what happens if you get wiped, gut costs 5 and your skeletons are gone? This has always been the issue for my similar goblins deck.

[@VoodooDuck]

!decklist please

[@Swoozman]

@@EldritchSquigglewhite has a lot of 2/3 mana board protection spells. But the deck’s curve also pretty much ends at 4 and has a lot of card draw so rebuilding isnt rough.

[@qwerqwer-rt8wm]

if you kill a single player on turn 4 when no one else is playing at that speed you shouldn't even be playing commander.

[@LazarusIsBackBaby]

Limited is SO fun. If anyone is on the fence about heading to their LGS to draft--do it, you won't regret it.

[@jnqt]

i’m a veteran 60 and 40 card player who just built my first commander deck. i gotta say, the culture shock has been pretty strong but i rly appreciate your content.

[@matthewvandyk7773]

I miss casual kitchen table 60 card multiplayer magic. (Or college pub table magic). Anywhere from 3 to 10 player's just playing 1 massive game of 60 card magic.

[@thyshoeve5173]

Listen, I come for the thoughtful discussion discussion on casual EDH. I stay for the unexpected plug for the best ways to play Magic.

[@brushwagg7735]

I feel like Arena does a shockingly good job of teaching the value of sequencing and having a real plan in a stalemate.

[@Cocytus127]

I've been playing exclusively EDH for the past 10 years and constructed/standard/modern for 3 years before that. (Started back when modern was called "extended") The mistakes I see the most in EDH games is: -Not attacking when somebody is open, especially in the first few turns. The excuse is usually "I don't want to make any enemies just yet" when everyone else at the table is trying to win just like you are. -Not playing things when you're afraid of a counterspell, especially when you're playing aggro. Make your opponents use their interaction. I've lost track of how many times I've baited removal or counter magic to resolve a much better spell or ability later. They only have so much interaction. And this ties into my next point. -Improper threat assessment. That 3/3 with an ETB that already did its thing that keeps attacking you every turn is not the target for your removal. The Ancient Copper Dragon with haste our mutual opponent just played would have been a much better target. Or like when you countered my commander that would have little effect on you just for the next guy to resolve a Farewell and annihilate your board. -NOBODY PLAYS TARGETED LAND REMOVAL. Every deck I build always has at least a strip mine AND a wasteland. There are too many problematic lands in EDH that just let a single player snowball into a game of solitaire.

[@tomc.5704]

I'm just getting into magic -- is strip mine worth playing in a group format like EDH? It's hard to imagine wanting to sacrifice one of my own lands to set back a single opponent. Isn't that just letting the other two opponents getting a land up on you?

[@Cocytus127]

@@tomc.5704 I slot Stripmine as a non-land ( I don't count it in my land allotment). Same with Wasteland. It's typically situational and usually they're just lands in my deck, but you'll be glad you have it when somebody plays Glacial Chasm, Gaea's Cradle, Sera's Sanctum, or tries to combo with Dark Depths. It isn't about setting yourself and an opponent back a turn but about ensuring one player doesn't pull miles ahead. The lands I mentioned above enable a player what I consider too much advantage.

[@qwerqwer-rt8wm]

use field of ruin etc. putting yourself down a land is asinine

[@Cocytus127]

@@qwerqwer-rt8wm It really isn't. Why would I spend two mana to give the guy a land back AND ramp my other opponents? THAT's asinine. But you do you.

[@Cocytus127]

@@qwerqwer-rt8wm In my original comment I said I've played commander for the past 10 years. I've played it exclusively in Magic The Gathering. Take your toxic shit stained personality somewhere else, please.

[@christianayala5943]

I think the ramp in commander goes hand in hand with the insane amount of card draw letting you have a full board

[@dancingmathusalem5451]

The biggest thing that I feel most EDH players don't understand, is that they need to play to win, not play to not lose. This also cover the good old "make them have it". If your play is 50/50 of winning and losing, depending on if they have a counterspell or not, you should probably make the play, especially if your other options amount to doing nothing. Losing in 10 turns is the same as losing in 5. Playing to not lose rarely works in 1v1, and it NEVER works in 4 player commander.

[@JD-gk7eh]

"Losing in 10 turns is the same as losing in 5." Ah, but it's not. This is true if your only goal is to win the game, yes, and anything short of winning the game is a failure. But that's not why players play EDH. They are playing for an experience and you get to do a lot more of the things your deck does when you play 10 turns. Because your deck is all 1-ofs, each game is highly variant and you won't see the same cards in every game. Playing more turns gets you deeper into your deck, which means more of the cards you put in there, which are often there because you think they're cool or do something unique or are aesthetically pleasing. Players are fully content with a game they don't win if they had a good experience. If they just play a few ramp spells and then die because someone comboed off on turn 5, they didn't have much of an experience at all. But if they got to cast their whole hand, draw cards, and then lost after 10 turns, they did get to experience their deck, even if the game didn't end in their favor.

[@dancingmathusalem5451]

@JD-gk7eh if all you want is to see that cool thing your deck does, you can just goldfish by yourself or do a show and tell to the other three players. Playing MTG while actively not trying to win is like playing basketball without dribbling the ball. Why even play in the first place?

[@seanedgar164]

​@dancingmathusalem5451 bruh it's a social experience. I play to hang with my friends. Yeah we mostly try our best but I care more for having a good time with friends. Sometimes that means not board wiping even though I'm behind or not taking out the struggling player

[@dancingmathusalem5451]

@@seanedgar164 pickup basketball with my buddies is also a social experience, but we dribble the ball because we met to play basketball. If none of us wanted to dribble the ball, we would stop meeting for basketball and start doing something else we found fun

[@dancingmathusalem5451]

@@seanedgar164 moreover, the fact that you think that "having fun" and "trying to win" are opposites is kind of weird. I can do both, and so can all the people at my LGS.

[@davestier6247]

Yeah, the point of newer/edh only players kind of glazing over or packing it in if their deck doesn't Do The Thing is facts. I'm not sure if playing since before some of the guys in my group have been alive helps, but it seems like it might also factor in.

[@robertmendez8383]

i tried explaining to someone before a game while waiting for others to join how important removal is in a deck and they argued that anyone who says "dies to removal" is dumb and that fast mana is the problem. I said that its a valid point that removal is good and wins games but he kept arguing even into the game then i cheated out omniscience with illuna (no fast mana in the deck) and he scooped immediatly and complained. The third player then cast baby Cyclonic Rift for 2 mana and simply bounced my Omniscience to my hand and completely stoped me with the softest piece of removal via bounce.

[@Merepiff]

This is an interesting discussion to me. I played standard way back when, got back into the game for commander, but I learned life is a resource from commander rather than standard. Though, my friends joke that I never block anything, so I am not exactly the exception to the rule lmao

[@theArcosa]

Speaking on EDH as the new beginner format, the biggest problem is that teaching newer players every effect in the game, and what their expected use-case is, has always been an impossible task. We always forget the years of experience we have as enfranchised players, and basic things like the cost of entry that some of us have paid over decades. Pauper seems like a great place to start! I’ve never played it, but I wonder if PDH would be a reasonable step up.

[@GuyFromCanada]

I think 1v1 also teaches a lot about greedy mana. In commander, land hate is often stigmatized due to its power to completely freeze games to a standstill. However I'd argue that's because a lot of commander decks aren't prepared for the fairer types of land hate. I've seen commanders that barely run any basics because land hate is so stigmatized, no one runs it, so they can usually get away with it. But then every now and then, someone drops a winter moon, a blood moon, price of progress, ruination, etc. and they suddenly lose the game because they built their mana too greedily. If you play Modern or Legacy, this is just something you have to be prepared for, most decks run at least enough basics to cast whatever spells they would need underneath a blood moon or back to basics. A lot of commander decks do not, in favour of utility lands, or "Basic with upside" cards like Bosejiu, Who Endures. I feel this is a symptom of learning in a commander environment. Most people stigmatize land hate, so you run lots of non-basics (because more value is more better), then you run into someone who DOES use land hate, you lose to it, you get mad and ostracize them, the stigma continues, the cycle repeats. But this could be cut off at the pass with a few more basics and ways to find them. Which you would learn from 1v1, since Blood moon and similar effects are a present threat in a lot of older formats. (Note, when I say land hate, I don't mean mass, unrestricted land destruction like Armageddon. I mean cards that target a specific type of land to counteract greedy mana, or hate on a specific type of land.)

[@seththeace6217]

I almost only play edh and I always build my mana to be bloodmoon proof. Its not a card that I see often, but I've seen it enough to know that if you are the only one not messed up by it, you get a lot of advantage.

[@qwerqwer-rt8wm]

whens the last time you saw someone Armageddon in commander with no wincon? finding basics does litterlally nothing. we have plenty of non basic land hate on lands already which is good enough.

[@qwerqwer-rt8wm]

​@@seththeace6217 why are you building your deck for that in commander when you know you will almost never see it?

[@GuyFromCanada]

@ That misses the point. I’m saying lots (but not all) of commander decks run greedy mana and that can be punished by stray land hate cards. This is curbed by playing 1v1 because greedy mana is punished in 60 card formats.

[@qwerqwer-rt8wm]

@GuyFromCanada and I'm saying you shouldn't build around land hate in commander because no one plays land hate in commander.

[@GH-un9uz]

Another MAJOR thing edh is bad at teaching is giving newer players feedback on what their deck is doing wrong/needs more of. If you keep facing wide boards you can't stop because you don't run sweepers, then each time you lose a game you go "dang, I should really put some sweepers in the side". EDH being 4 player means a player who doesn't run enough counterspells/removal/sweepers can be saved by another player who does. The high variance of 4 player, 100 card, singleton gameplay means there is less immediate feedback on your deck's painpoints. The length of games also means that you just get less "data". If you go 3-2 because you lost a minimum of 4 games to token beatdown, you might not keep the information stored on a chart somewhere, but you will remember that you lost a bunch of games in a single night to this deck, maybe I should plan for next time. If you play 1-3 edh games in a night, losing one long game because you didn't have the sweeper won't be as memorable. EDH is a great format, but when new players get into edh and then never leave, they get better and better at *EDH*, and not better at Magic as a whole game.

[@CatManThree]

Its also a lot harder for other players to give you feedback themselves, be it for your deck or playpatterns. For example, a couple weeks ago there was a band new player at a pioneer event I went to whom was running an izzet pheonix deck. He wasnt really adjusted to things, but everyone was able to give him general tips on matchups, stuff to run, and play patterns. Even little things like holding your draw spell until the end of the opponets turn. In commander you cant really do this due to the high variance in deck construction outside of CEDH. Theres also how unrefined and messy commander decks tend to be anyway, as well as how their flows tend to be very single minded to most people.

[@qwerqwer-rt8wm]

orrrrrrr you can just play for fun. seems like people are having a real hard time understanding that.

[@aaronhooper4803]

So glad you mentioned Pauper, it's such a low bar of entry(even lower than commander in some cases), and paper Pauper at the LGS is so chill and fun. Yes, we get sweaty on MtGO from time to time, but the most fun is the big paper events and the weekly LGS games. Yeah, if you want top of the meta, you might spend $60 or $70, but playable decks for $20 that can take down a Pauper night are very possible. (I also love spending less than $100 to fully bling some of my decks out)

[@jacoboswald5731]

Just got into arena and the 60 card format with the ability to have more than 1 of the same card has really taught me a lot about magic!

[@aeolus7762]

I have actually adjusted how I build EDH decks based on a few things, but mostly just consistency. 10 ramp, 10 draw, 7-8 removal with 1-2 board wipes (depends on the type of deck), and 36 lands with 1 commander. Partners will give up one of the removal spells. As someone who started in 1v1 formats, having this standard of deckbuilding was gained from not net-decking when I played 1v1 and as I played cEDH more, I realized how much I needed the consistency to make it through games. It blows my mind that people attribute EDH to a beginner format when sometimes the plays you have to make completely supercede something you'd do in 1v1, especially when it comes to higher powered tables.

[@qwerqwer-rt8wm]

not enough lands

[@aeolus7762]

@qwerqwer-rt8wm With 10 pieces of ramp and low-end card draw, I have never had land issues. I have had issues when I deviate from 36, though.

[@qwerqwer-rt8wm]

@aeolus7762 you've never missed a land drop your entire time playing at 36 lands? how much ramp you play has ABSOLUTELY NO EFFECT on how many lands you should play. ramp is not a land drop. if your playing in a turn 3-4 group I guess your probably fine but thats probably not the case. casting rampant growth is not as good as playing your land for turn.

[@aeolus7762]

@qwerqwer-rt8wm I can't say that I haven't missed one before, but mathematically, anything greater than 36 out of 100 can net you in flooding. I can tell you that from experience. And while you are correct by saying that lands shouldn't be affected by ramp, i point you to formats like cEDH where land counts get as low as 20 because of the amount of ramp they have in the deck. So while ramp intrinsically does not equal land drops, at the same time, should I miss a land drop but have a ramp piece out, I'm not shut out from the game.

[@qwerqwer-rt8wm]

@aeolus7762 we must play at drastically different speeds. any casual table I sit down at wants to hit that 7th land drop consistently. I'd rather flood and than be screwed as well every time.

[@ratbaby3107]

I think one of the big things is the perception of removal or counterspells as "mean". Once you've seen how fast a deck can absolutely run away without disruption in 60 card will teach you real quick why people use counter magic and removal. And it's also very good at teaching you how to play around it. In commander, spending four turns playing do-nothing synergy pieces and ramp while the blue player draws into counter magic makes it feel like "ugh, they always have the answer", when if you just play cards that do things and demand answers, they'll run out real quick. A friend of mine plays a card draw centered simic deck, and he says the same thing. Of course I countered your commander, it's the only thing you've played in six turns that actually affects the game.

[@imaginarymatter]

Interesting companion piece for the Magic Mirror podcast.

[@thatrashcan9993]

That Sylvan Caryatid into Siege Rhino visual brought back memories. Man i miss Theros/Khans standard. Such a fun environment.

[@johnreese5739]

This may seem like a kind of random note but you mentioning the small amount of ramp you play in your malcolm deck helped me a bit with a major breakthrough on my current main deck (Breena tokens agro) to play 2 mana catchup ramp cards and they've dramatically smoothed out the experience. Thanks

[@ebbandfloatzel]

Kind of a weird bit of advice but in my opinion one of the better ways to get better at playing commander and even magic in general... Is playing OTHER card games. Pokemon plays a lot like legacy, with the importance on combat emphasized. While yugioh makes you navigate not only your own combo lines, but your opponent's too. Those are the two I play occasionally, and they provided way more insight into deck building than commander ever could on its own. otcgs like Shadowverse and Hearthstone also do some good, but tend to have a WAY different feel for both gameplay and deck building due to the nature of every card being curated.

[@Stinkoman87]

I think cardfight vanguard taught me to be better at blocking.

[@seththeace6217]

Fire emblem cipher taught me a lot about card advantage, and why getting the aggro player to no cards in hand is important.

[@Gcannoli1837]

This is such a great video. Though my only experience playing magic is edh and I started 6 months ago, i also used to play high level hearthstone & played a lot of tournaments. I think almost everything mentioned can apply to having competetive experience with other low life tcgs. Great video!!!

[@sd_does_stuff]

Makes a lot of sense. Keep up the good content. We love you snail

[@K9hollow]

Truly a joy to see a new snail vid on the suggested page when I get home and open KZbin 🎉

[@Customerbuilder]

Love this video. At least once a month, I "get" someone with a double block. They just don't see it as a possibility. Same with what you said for stax. I started in Tempest when mono-blue, slow-play permission was the top deck. You have to find spots when they drop their shields and hit them hard.

[@wyattdetherow6853]

Agree with literally every point you made in this video, I was even thinking about how my play group makes these mistakes a lot as commander is the only card games they've ever played

[@AlluMan96]

I think one other skill that players will learn to a bit slower if they stick to EDH exclusively is that of the opening hand. To a certain degree, they will still learn the basics, because nobody wants to end up sitting through 3 turns only to miss their crucial land drop and passing for the 3rd time in a row. However, there is a certain reckless spirit that the commander, one free mulligan and that extra draw on turn 1 encourages. You already have the safety of your commander, the one card you always have access to, so you can easily grow a tendency to sculpt hands with it in mind alone without considering how the hand plays by itself. You're also more encouraged, while mulliganing, to try and fish for the nut draw, because you have a whole extra mulligan to use. Whether a hand was playable or not doesn't matter, because it doesn't "pop off" like you'd want to. On the flipside, for the first turn player, they have the additional safety of being allowed to draw on the first turn. With an extra draw, they can thus become much more tempted on the opposite end and keep greedy hands, thinking "I'll just topdeck the last piece when needed and it'll be all good". None of these mentalities are innate to the EDH experience, but the way the rules are set up, there's much less pressure to consider these things. Add on top of this the general length of an average EDH game and the fact that during this, other people will be taking the heat off of you and this all just makes your opening hand seem so much less important in the grand scheme of the game. Go to any other 1v1 format and things just don't work that way. Your opener is your lifeline. The cards in your opening hand may very be the only cards you'll get to play all game, so they ought to be ones that count. You don't have the luxury of a free mulligan to fish for your optimal line either, so every time you want to gamble on another hand is one card less for the next. This matters, because you can't just rely on hiding behind the threat of the moment and bide your time, because you're the only threat at the table to your opponent. This pressure makes you look at your opening grip in a whole new light. You're more pressured to keep a hand that works and you learn to appreciate a hand that might not immediately start making the advantage-bar go crazy, but keeps you in the game for long enough to see your winning cards flow in one at a time. It did so for me, at least. Perhaps even doubly so, because the 1v1 format I have most touch with is Highlander, where you really need to count your blessings with every good hand you keep.

[@calebbrown1068]

Is there any chance we could get a breakdown on your budget Ellivere deck you built for Trinket Mage’s recent video? I want to bring more aggressive, Limited energy to my tables and that seemed like a good place to start.

[@Lazydino59]

I LOVE my ellivere deck. Only precon I ever bought and changed out a lot of it by now but learning how to upgrade the deck can make you a much better player. For example birds of paradise is the best card in the deck because it’s ramp when you need it early and can wear auras to draw cards later.

[@loganduncan4315]

Honestly, 60/limited just makes you better at squeezing the most out your small pool of cards in your deck(playing your cards better) but it makes you better at identifying bad cards/dead cards. When you play 60 card and your deck testing your going to be thinking to yourself that this card is dead or it is not doing enough or is to slow or is not as good as a sideboard piece as I thought. but in edh you don't often play with every card in your deck let alone with the same pieces playing the same opponents. I goldfish my commander decks pretty heavy, I find it fun and it makes trimming the fat easier but I also am criticizing my cards heavily. the exception being for cards I want to play like mind slaver in my Saheeli, the Sun's Brilliance deck but if I choose to play a card for fun my cards to support that and cards that find my self not casting I should not be playing.

[@sniperwaffle7581]

YES WE NEED MORE KZbinRS SIMPING FOR PAUPER. Most underrated format, love playing my gulgari dredge decks.

[@justaname2422]

I've only been playing magic for like 10 years on and off but my buddies who taught me had all played since middle school and taught me 60 card so after not playing together for a time span and we regrouped to play commander in the last 2 years we picked it up really quick and we all more intuitively built decks and played games out really grindy and life conscious. Actually, we still do lol. Great video, made me more grateful to have been taught 60 card back then. We also do a sealed event once a month so that also helps.

[@PotatoSniper]

Huge advocate for pauper, I’ve learned so much at being a better player and more intricately how the game works, biggest thing I’ve seen is that commander players don’t attack or block nearly enough

[@Paddlequack710]

I did the 60 card to commander deck thing twice, and it makes it significantly easier. my goblins have no commander staples, no ramp, and it's still highly unpredictable to my opponents. Blocking recklessly, having 3 mana with no issues happening in my deck, it's so much fun, seeing people just give up on me as a target and go for someone else.

[@dragade101]

My two cents from playing Magic on and off for 2 decades: I learned to play a VERY casual constructed version of Standard. We made up our card pool. I had not ever heard of drafting or even touched drafting until a few years and was at a con. Some tables were drafting. That was the WORST experience in my Magic years thus far and swore to never draft again. (Was I under prepared and clueless? Yes but someone should have asked if I was new to drafting, cause I was asking questions that probably indicated such. Maybe it was even predatory that they took my money to lose pretty spectacular in a few moments). My play group changed over years but we kept to a flexible like Standard environment. We consented to a few combo decks and had those decks were trying to secure a sub turn 5 win (and thus played a different pool). Sometimes we played old school 2 head giant for variety (EDH was not on our radar at this time.) If I was to be introduce to Magic with EDH as my first format; would I have enjoyed Magic as much? Probably not. Maybe. Possibly. Teaching players to play a strict 2 or 3 year rotating Standard seems a bit harsh though. Rather I think a new player should learn Magic through a controlled and less powerful setting like Pauper/Standard. Don’t bring tunned decks for a new player to have to learn meta game. Can you quickly learn and get into EDH? Yes. Should Limited (not Cube) be a player’s first or second exposure to Magic? Hardly ever, or even never. For you are a strange person if you thrive on playing Limited. The mechanic of drafting is unlike every other format and the most unusual to learn.

[@michaelsparks1571]

Another 60-card lesson is that in a 1v1 scenario, you don't get any passivity. The games where each side is seeing who "go fish"es faster are much fewer and further between. In 1v1 YOU are always Archenemy and YOU have to be the one assessing/dealing with threats, disrupting opponent's, etc so you're incentivized to build you deck with that in mind. This means a 1v1 player is not only doing the whole "run more interaction", but is also more comfortable becoming Archenemy, because it's an expected scenario the deck has planned for, and is therefore more willing to take heat from making the "risky" play of actually starting the ball rolling earlier. 1v1 also teaches you to recognize the "shields up/down" moments when you can/can't make your bigger plays. Too often I still see EDH-only players trying to play some game-ending haymaker into a blue-player with 10-mana up, eat a Counterspell, and then get upset at the blue-player for their own poor play. I had a god-hand that could turn3 once and didn't win the game until turn-11 with that same combo because I HAD to wait for the the shields to go down.

[@d.barrett578]

Limited is 100% the best way to develop a deeper understanding of the game.

[@TDBRecords]

This was a cool video, thanks for challenging commanders deck building crutches/mistakes

[@mule51]

How to netdeck is another thing that playing 60 card formats has taught me. Looking at a decklist and making tweaks to the deck and then iterating on those tweaks, has helped me be able to use sites like edhrec to make a deck functional and appropriate for the purpose I want for the deck,

[@blackfalcon179]

As a Standard player turned Modern player turned Commander player, I think this video brings up a lot of good points for players to understand the intricacies of this game and how to play tighter.

[@Jerhevon]

Not just stacks to cut down on resources, but a solid board wipe will leave some players grasping for straws. Personally why after 2-3 creatures I like to diversify my threats with an enchantment or artifact. Advancing my board, but hopefully without exposing everything to removal all at once. (On the flip side, in white I do like my WWW Hour of Revelation and just trying to clear everything out at once.)

[@binch6291]

While it shares the myopia of EDH regarding ramp and card pool, Arena’s (Historic) Brawl is a strong EDH-adjacent format for teaching some of the skills offered in 60-card formats. Even though it’s got similar card pool and meta to EDH, the 1v1 context with a life total of 25 means that analogues of 60-card aggro and control strategies can thrive. The infamous Fynn the Fangbearer decks are what teach a lot of EDH tourists into the format to start taking removal seriously in deck design.

[@TheMercurialAlchemist]

One of my favorite EDH decks right now is Brenard, Ginger Sculptor. Part of the reason for that is that I run a bunch of little dudes with good etb's, like Woodland Elves, then kill them obviously for more value with Brenard out. Some of my opponents always forget that I can do that and don't expect me to instantly chump block. It's so strange to most players that I *want* my creatures to die, especially when it's a non-black deck

[@theunease5541]

I love limited and I can tell I get much better at the game the more I play it and I can tell the people I play against irl are much better than me because they play it. But the only way I can play limited right now is grinding free to play drafts on arena and prereleases. Which sucks if I do badly cause it means I can't even play that much at all. I've wanted to get into pauper for a while now, but I just don't have anyone to play with so the motivation to make a deck is hard, especially if the meta might change completely by the time I get a chance to actually play someone at all. I am definitely gonna build a cube at some point too, cause it sounds amazing and so fulfilling. I should try to use cockatrice or something to draft and play more games in general, but crippling social anxiety, lol. Instead I just spend most of my time building silly edh decks for myself 99% of which will never see the light of day, but were fun to make at least.

[@BouncingTribbles]

Commander best represents the original vision of magic the gathering. There is a great book called Arena. It was one of the first magic lore books, if not the first. It tells the story of wizards who have collected links to powerful beings and fought duels with spells. We were already playing mage tower in 4th edition.

[@johnsanko4136]

I think one of the big things a 60 or even 40 card draft deck will teach you better than EDH is to focus on your outs/win conditions. Cube draft is my favorite format, but I will admit it's a format that rewards more experienced players. Limited sealed is a great format that anyone of every level can enjoy.

[@hiphop2u]

I was introduced to the game via standard like 9 years ago. Since then I’ve built 14 commander decks and 1 standard deck lol

[@koboldqueen3055]

I build my deck in such a way that I can almost always block, blocking is so important, and a couple of good early-game blocks have won me games.

[@glenndean6]

I like Jumpstart cubes. No deck building, manageable deck size, lots of discovery by mixing things together, easy to generate variety for an afternoon.

[@soorianpadmanabhan6603]

If you're frustrated with games ending out of nowhere/you don't feel like most of your choices affected the outcome, you really should play formats outside of EDH. It's hard to convey to EDH players how board states being simpler, life totals being lower, and deck lists being knowable can make all your decisions matter and make "unfair" gameplans much more enjoyable.

[@therealax6]

To be fair, in modern Standard, I very often feel like my decisions don't matter in the slightest because there's absolutely nothing I could've done against the aggro red (or red/white) deck while on the draw... but then again, maybe that's a best-of-one issue that could be solved by playing best of three.

[@treetheoak8313]

Draft and sealed will make you a better deck builder and player.

[@doomdonuts2241]

Thanks for the pauper shout out 🫡

[@rubensmith776]

As a primarily cEDH player, I enjoy your more analytical view of casual commander.

[@Starfighterace421]

I love draft and cube. Its honestly my next favorite format after commander. I do think commander has become my favorite after getting back into the game due to the fallout decks, but i still remember the highschool days where we just made random decks and just rolled with it xD

[@JervisGermane]

I'm an old man like you, and when EDH came along I thought "Finally I don't have to worry about all that crap anymore. I can just play this." Little did I know I now had a whole bunch of new crap to worry about.

[@leekyonion]

I got back into magic from playing competitive modern from 2017-2020 to playing commander this year and the first thing my friend while i was deck building said, "dont worry about your life total too much" and I looked at my grixis deck and told him "hey bro, i will probably loae like 15 life with all of these life loss cards", ive never felt so heard in my life

[@HJOTech]

If you like brewing and being creative with decks as an EDH player, I would highly recommend limited. It evokes the same feeling while having tighter constraints on what to include in your deck. As mentioned in the video, pre release/sealed is a good introduction into the “format” and has a similar casual vibe as commander. Draft is fundamentally superior but requires more knowledge and experience to get good at. Be warned though, you might spend a lot of money drafting 😅

[@william7546]

This funny, its exactly why I like my Yuriko deck, I dont run combos, but its efficient and grinds people down. It's a time limit unless you gain life.

[@NerdsofWisdom]

I have several decks now where I do not have a sol ring as I need pips and not colourless. I also go through and work out the ratios of pips in every deck to consider if I can make use of ramp that uses colourless or not. I now have more and more decks that run 3 cmc mana rocks because either I want to cast different cards (often my commander) as my 2 drop or the advantage of the colour is better than the 2 drop colourless option.

[@swampybwoy]

I think drafting / sealed is one of the best ways to teach deck building heuristics like mana curve and creature count etcetera