Snail's Guide to Tuning Your Jank

[@turtlelovingfilms]

Instructions unclear, missed my land drop at turn 164

[@IvanKolyada]

Well, that is a part of deck consistency - enough land cards

[@Julian_The_Apostate]

That's always a problem when you only put 341 land cards in a 100 card deck. Newer players consistently make that mistake.

[@salubrioussnail]

Stop trying to confuse my calculator, it’s doing its best

[@thered1s276]

@@Julian_The_Apostate no it's fine. I have a creature that Swampcycles for 3

[@RyanMorgan89]

I play 99 lands and strip mine ain’t one

[@AilithNix]

once again the snail does not miss. When people ask me for deckbuilding help, I often reference your videos, because they cover things that I'm trying to get across much more clearly and concisely than I can.

[@dflameX]

I think it's important to mention Meta Consistancy as well. I have one person at my table that only runs a card draw group hug deck. I've cut all card draw from all my decks and will replace once he decides to make a new deck Brad!

[@kaleb5436]

I honestly love your content, one of the best MTG channels out there, you get straight to the point, and the videos are always super informative and interesting. Keep up the great work sir snail!

[@maxruff875]

I was just talking with my play group after a commander night and a couple of them were feeling bummed because their decls didn't work quite right and they were having trouble fiinding satisfying way to win. Perhaps a future video can look at win conditions and what they mean in EDH since I think a lot of people struggle with putting those strategies together. Otherwise I think this video does a good job of getting a taste of that question. Great work as always!

[@terencebad7009]

One of the reasons people don’t like tutors is exactly the opposite of this - that everyone playing less consistent decks makes it more about luck. Some people prefer monopoly to chess. I personally find it intimidating knowing I can play everything well and be consistently good, rather than having some instawin games and some instaloss games where I can blame my deck (even though I built the damn thing). Richard Garfield actually said mana screw in MTG is one of its strengths in high level play, as a better player will only win say 60% of the time, unlike in chess. This means a worse player still gets to win that 40%, which feels a lot better than 0% or 5% or whatever. It’s also why I love roguelikes - I can get better at slay the spire but some runs are free so I feel amazing

[@EllipticalReasoning]

A related reason to dislike tutors is they can limit the jankiness of the deck. Obviously there's many ways to enjoy singleton deckbuilding, but a main reason I play commander is I want to be able to include suboptimal cards that are still good with my strategy, and if I instead just tutor for the best one it misses the point. That's not to say tutors are always bad - using tutors as 'toolbox' effects like the video described is really fun, since it plays into that exam same goal - letting niche cards see play. The problem for me becomes if I know what I'm going to tutor for (or tutor for for greatest chance of victory) before the game even starts.

[@Nr4747]

The biggest problem with tutors in EDH, imho, is when they are used for proactive lines of play. This makes playing (and playing against) the same deck feel very same-y extremely quickly since there are usually only 1 or 2 lines of play that are superior to everything else, so you'll tutor for the same cards and go for the same plays again and again and again. Without tutors, luck not only is a much bigger factor in determining the winner (as you pointed out) but also - and that's the most important part, imho - also in what lines of play develope.

[@grizum4420]

@@Nr4747 big agree like if I'm in sultai and tutor up the thoracle combo that's so much worse than say vamp tutoring a board wipe when the board is out of control.

[@selkokieli843]

Very much agree with everything, consistency needs high numbers, tutors are only as good/repetitive as they're used for, predictability is valuable. I always love to hear you talk bout table politics. I've also started gearing my deck towards linear, easy to follow for my opponents. I get to do my things quite often because they overestimate my threat level less often! One thing I still see A LOT in games is not attacking much. Midrange crusher 5k is easy to lose to if put under no pressure, even more true to combo and control with heavy removal & light creatures. I advocate for attacking as much as the deck/ current board with more creatures to make control play wipes earlier for less value and make sure that decks with hard-to-interact non-creature wins have to devote more cards to protect and slow themselves down, promoting fair intractable creature based magic that's most accessible to all players and decks. Another criminally underutilised tool is one round non-aggression agreements with other creature heavy boards. You and opponent have committed resources to the board, why should you take damage or trade those critters away for no gain? Instead turn both forces against your mutual opponents. The two or even three of you get to keep AND use your things while also benefitting from each others' army. An enemy of my friend can be my temporary ally! Just remember to stay predictable. If opponent agrees to not attack you next turn and then you play a lethal board against them, they will feel betrayed and nobody agrees again for benefit that's not mutual. Board wipes are popular and very effective against honest creature strategies, aggro is imo a very difficult style to play to success in edh and can benefit tons from table politics. I'd love to hear your take on this "politics of aggression" 😊

[@IStillJustLikeCats]

The local game store I was going to for magic had that problem, where people were too causal in their play style to the point where people just were barely aggressive at all until they got a good, large board state. It made it to where I'd be there for hours, but only got a game or two in. So I built my Krenko deck to entirely deal with that problem, and focused it on building up my army and dealing damage while doing it as well as using the size of my army as a means to generate game ending outlets without having to actually attack with it. And worse yet, I even built it so that my army shrinking even does damage. I made it a point that if everyone at the table was going to be passive, then I was going to make it a huge problem. Another thing I also did with the deck, while it did cost me to lose games early on, was just smack whoever was the first person to hit me for any sort of notable damage as hard and relentless as possible once people started to be more aggro but only towards me. It both made it so it forced their hands into considering attacking other people, and also made then be hesitant to attack me once we did get past that passive phase of the player base so I could still get time to build myself up and get the pieces I need to hit hard and win. I've since made a few changes to the deck to accommodate the change in player base, especially once the shop relocated.

[@pedrodarosamello64]

@@IStillJustLikeCats I did something simialr with my Locust God deck, it basically is a big red sign saying "Do something already or as you will die to 40 instances of 1 dmg real fast. The deck is basically 3 things: dmg multipliers, card draw and ramp towards getting locust god ont he field.

[@benjaminloyd6056]

Agreed aggro is hard. I am not a combo fellow. My Fynn the Fangbearer and Syr Konrad decks are focused on keeping the game moving.

[@quenteta1]

Love that you're digging beneath the surface on deckbuilding topics! So few creators seem to bother discussing draw odds or situational valuation. Really excited to see where this series goes

[@kindredreveler378]

One of my friends used to win many of his games with a Torment of Hailfire, So I shoved a couple of twincasts and Narset's reversals into my decks, and turned his victories into mine.

[@MrFelblood]

This is how you do it. Think. Anticipate. Plan.

[@Cocytus127]

I let a guy take a 15 minute turn playing out an all-in exsanguinate in his Gitrog deck with squandered resources and even using Bisejui who shelters all to make it uncounterable only to flash in Venser, Shaper Savant to rerun the spell to his hand.

[@DaIncredibleEgg]

Great vid, I think you did a good job "disengaging the rantsona" and fairly considering both sides of consistency. One thing worth noting - I think the kind of goal that tutor-haters have isn't that they prefer to lose to infinite combos drawn "naturally", but that encouraging an environment without tutors discourages people from including combos in the first place because they become too inconsistent - they're basically just a different flavor of combo-hater that views tutors as a guaranteed death-by-combo. I had a friend in my playgroup that felt this way, and the solution actually ended up being adding more combo-disrupting answers to his deck so he would be less likely to be helpless against the combo pieces tutors fetch.

[@Grudi28]

Cool video bro, a hobby of mine is building ultra budget decks, something like 40 USD for the entire deck and everything you said in this video is something that people should know, sometimes people just copy piles of cards online and spend a ton without knowing how to pilot the deck. It's important that you build your own deck to know how to play it

[@ilsignoredellaluce2234]

You should also play the pauper format, where 50/60 USD is the price of a tier 1 deck

[@ericfalconer386]

You have no idea how happy it made me to see mathematical formulas applied to deckbuilding. I’ve been playing for about a year now, and this is the kinda stuff that speaks to me when I think about elevating my game. I’m sure myself and many others would love to see a video exploring how to look at the game from a mathematical standpoint!

[@chrispychicken9614]

Hypergeometric calculations are necessary to decide wether or not to include cards like Collected Company. 🤷‍♂️

[@oom-3262]

Simple, clean and elegant. How haven't I seen this channel before? You got yourself a sub.

[@aaronmiller1009]

I feel like people don’t talk about this enough, consistently is one of the most important elements in a fun commander game. If everyone’s deck can react to the gamestate it creates really interesting interactive games. (It’s also why I hate sol ring so much because it’s that 1/99 of a super explosive start)

[@Anthropologize]

I absolutely love this channel. Keep up the good work! You hit the (s)nail on the head with all of your analysis without the condescending tone that often comes along with veteran EDH players. Can't wait to see this grow!

[@MRAIClassroom]

Bro this is what I’m looking for I love this video. This is next level. I love the function equation . I agree with u I would not use this for every deck. But to have a general sense of the numbers and how to do the functions is awesome. Your stuff man. I also liked ur video on rule zero… my play group is awesome we have no issues, but seems like some really bogus stuff happens and I’ve seen it at the LGS a bit!

[@PositiveBlackSoul]

I wanna say I recently played a variation of Sharum Slide online and it was a ton of fun and was in general well received by the table. The combination of Cycling. Artifacts and Flicker works really well and I may even end up building a variation in paper. Also watching your videos and playing Sharum Slide really helped me understand building my own decks better.

[@sarahbuck2506]

Absolutely love that you posted your calculators. You're definitely right about the way people perceive power levels when it comes to combos and explosive wins. People hate my Grenzo, Dungeon Warden deck for the way it often wins with an infinite combo, but I'm just flipping cards from the bottom and hoping for the best. Meanwhile my Millicent deck is just dropping little dudes every turn, but it's so resilient to removal and board wipes that the win rate is far higher and people don't see it as being anywhere near Grenzo level in power. Also gonna have to get a Yisan for the Meria deck now :)

[@NameMachineBroke]

Found your channel of the EDH rec video you did, and glad to see you making content RIGHT when I need it!

[@yesimchar]

i LOVE this type of video. I watch a lot of theory crafting stuff and so I'm glad KZbin recommended this to me. I am subscribed now and binge watching your videos haha

[@jafsrob]

Glad you clarified for people who equate consistency to repetition that this belief doesn’t have to be true.

[@spoopyboi1882]

my friend group leaned into higher power combo lists while i wasn't playing for the past few years, and shifting my deck building mindset from a midrange battlecruiser builder to trying to match their power level with my own combos is a seriously hard thing to do. Videos like yours are helping a lot in my brewing

[@mopanda81]

I find in singleton formats the stronger decks become the fewer replacements there are for just having really really high card quality across the board. With CEDH being so popular this usually means decks are gonna balloon in cost too. Combos aren't so much something you figure out on your own as they are packages of things other people have discovered and you pick the most interesting ones for yourself imo. The few inexpensive combo decks that exist are usually just way way too linear like zada, hedron grinder but they can still be fun. Your other alternative is to play more reaction and stax pieces and gum up the game if you're trying to achieve more conventional wins.

[@W0lfguard1997]

7:00 this is the point where I start to understand what probably separates my deck from most others at my table. Unless my commander has built in carddraw I tend to go more for loads of carddraw and value and little removal. Which is why I've been told that some of my decks feel like you keep removing stuff again and again but it just keeps coming nonstop. If you skip a turn there is suddenly too much to handle and it's gg. Removal only hits the 14 if that actively helps with the gameplan (like all the sacrifice trigger creatures in my carmen deck). The same goes for pieces like the Stone of Erech. I only play it in my Dynamo deck where I can double the draw ability. So my philosophy is basically: play a few basic interaction cards that are too good to pass up, the rest is nice to have for the ability but mostly exists to bolster the primary gameplan of doing shenanigans with my commander.

[@QEDmirage]

The section on Tutors was interesting, coming as a person who mostly plays Yugioh. Yugioh in large part *revolves* around tutors, counterplaying them, and imposing costs on their use/activation. Maybe the first match against someone with a tutorable combo is an outta nowhere win; but in later games, you basically get to know they have a loaded gun, waiting to go, and there's a fun tension in wondering when it will come out and if you'll have the resources reserved to stop it if it does.

[@MrFelblood]

This is exactly the kind of thinking that hyper-casual magic players don't want to do, which is ... fine I guess. For them. I can't get my head around getting into a 4 player format just to play solitaire with magic cards, but each to his own.

[@defendeur3themaster220]

@@MrFelblood Casual commander IS solitaire, each person does its non-sense slow and win more ''things'' and one persone win from nowhere with a busted card with nos no interaction to prevent the win. CEDH is THE least solitaire format since, if you don't care about others plans you'll die fast.

[@PhoenicopterusR]

​@MrFelblood I think there's an important distinction between players who specifically want to play Solitaire, and players who incidentally end up playing Solitaire because no one really teaches you how to build a deck and they've yet to really nail home how to balance what they want and what they need.

[@chrispychicken9614]

Is it solitaire if I win on turn 2 or 3 and nobody interacted with me? If so, whose failure to interact created a game of solitaire? It seems very obvious that the other three players failed to create an interactive and balanced game.

[@PhoenicopterusR]

@@chrispychicken9614 Well, first question, why are you playing at that level and assuming players chose not to answer, then trying to blame them for it? Second question, is YOUR deck built around long, tedious combos with zero interaction? if yes, you're playing solitaire. Multiple people can play solitaire together, because it's not how others interact with you, it's how you don't interact with others.

[@Wyldomark]

Fun thing about watching this is how months ago when having difficulties finding the right card to cut to open space for new ones, I literally made a spreadsheet and categorized every card, ranked the catogories, and felt weird about cards that did not belong in any of them, or categories with only 1 or 2 cards. Felt like they did not belong, didn't sinergize well. This helped me a lot and now I do it by defaultf for every new deck. Its very enlightning.

[@Divreon]

I loved early commander making you play cards together in ways you've never played them because you didn't have 20 of the same effect. Versatility vs consistency. I liked it being more random for all players.

[@deangeloenriquez1603]

0:11 I’m genuinely curious but I don’t think it will matter when by turn 4 my opponent has milled all but 15 cards out of my library

[@MrSonictheOtter]

Thanks for video Alex. You're awesome! Keep doing what you're doing man. I find EDH more fun after watching your videos!

[@martinpatton8799]

This is my new favorite commander focused channel

[@twentytwo__]

rollout consistency is a fire term, for an idea ive used a lot! great vid as always slimy man

[@chloranusvennhrer1855]

Thank you very much, this will be useful in my Yu-Gi-Oh! decks.

[@TeethMeat-jm8ou]

Great video. One of my most thought out and consistent decks is an aggro deck. I partially made it to show you don't need ramp or card draw. It does however have more of the things that i want to do in the deck so i am naturally drawing them anyway. ie I don't need card draw, i just need a another legion warboss, or a blade historian.

[@phantomgamerxd5792]

This is a great video explaining deck building. I'm personally awful at building commander decks and I appreciate the useful information this video provides.

[@spartica7720]

Working on building a Glissa zombie tribal deck, I’m having issues balancing the theming around just being a good stuff pile. This video is helping me rationalize cutting for better ramp and removal options.

[@impadimprixie]

5:53 seeing both avenger of zendikar and butcher of Malakir, two cards I put in my muldrotha deck using the exact thought process you're describing? Hurtful. But I needed that.

[@snickitysnack1571]

Wow this falls remarkably similar to how I build decks. The categories, the playtesting, the probability calculating, it's all here and more. Nice to find a channel that suits my taste of commander and all its aspects.

[@john-l4i6u]

great content! you will grow quickly my dude! also 11:06 Ive found that playing izzet is the most fun way to play spell slinger combo. I know that Kess is better than Mizzix because of the access to black, and that's really not up for debate. The fact that I can keep up at Cedh tables with Mizzix, and use my experience counters for insane draw/ritual value and then play what i find instead of tutoring up Thassa's oracle every game makes the deck a lot more fun to pilot for me.

[@macinnes800ad]

All very valuable advice that I will promptly ignore for all my decks! I play exclusively tribal decks (Brigid Kithkin, Lim - Dul Zombies and Arixmethes Sea Monsters - though that last one is a little more vague) and alot of this is hard for tribal decks. I'm currently building Doran Treefolk and I COULD look for a better cards to play into Doran's strengths but that would lose the theme of the deck. Indomitable Ancients does nothing on its own but with Doran it becomes a 10/10, with Timber Protector it becomes an 11/11 indestructible, and with Gnarled Grovestrider it gains vigilance. I suppose the advice for me and other tribal enthusiasts working with small card pools is to analyse gimmicky cards - like I saw Fendeep Summoner and liked the flavour text, art and gimmicky effect, but I don't know if my manabase can support it (as many lands are forests to synergise with the large number of treefolk that have * = no. of forests, so I use the tap duel lands), so its an easy cut if I find a better card. But my point is there are things beyond consistency and power in especially EDH and thats the charm and spectacle of it. If I pull of an inconsistent combo that I dreamed up while high on Lorwyn card fumes it'll be a memorable and fun experience - I can't say the same for my Arixmethes deck which for the most part is a fine-tuned engine.

[@noneofyourbusiness9428]

I love this video as a resource to help some friends who are wanting to get better at deck building. As a certified nutcase combo deckbuilder with a 30 land, purposely undertuned Alela Aetherflux combo deck, I appreciate not deviating into the more psychotic parts of tuning. If I can remove the scariest thing on the board while sitting at 4 land drops for 3 or 4 turns while quietly assembling a weird ass combo that uses mostly mana rocks as my combo pieces to draw most or all of my deck and win out of nowhere then I'm happy.

[@BasketChase98]

My favorite deck has 3 key things it needs to get online. It’s a Ghired deck that utilizes red’s access to effects like Kiki Jiki and Twinflame to create token copies of creatures that scale with copies of themselves (since populated copies will not be exiled/sacrificed at eot, only tokens created by the initial effect go away.) Kalonian Hydra, Angel of Destiny, Quartzwood Crasher, etc. The 3 main things it needs are creatures to copy, creature copiers, and some way for Ghired to survive combat (since he’s just a 2/5.) The deck has to run a lot of tutors and draw as a result, while maintaining a critical mass of cards with redundancy for each of the 3 key subcategories of the deck. For example, Vigor pulls double duty as combat protection and valuable creature to be copied. It’s an extremely tight list and every choice of what to add and what to cut can have massive impacts on the deck’s overall consistency.

[@haikuheroism6495]

very helpful video! I'm new to commander and using a deck that my friend built for me. It's really unbalanced but I'm slowly tuning it to be better. This is coming in handy as I'm adjusting stuff.

[@cameton_youtube]

I've been working out some of this recently, thanks for providing a reference to check my work against lol

[@AspavientosPC]

First time I see your video, instant sub! I know you featured the equations in the video, but it would be cool to also have them in the website so there's the one resource to go to.

[@conanladler3472]

Awesome finally someone explaining something with math so I actually understand what they mean

[@FurrySpatula]

I approach my deck building the way you do. Consistency. I categorize what's needed to do what I need to. I look at it based on how often will said card come out if i have X of them. Usualy a one off I find is one in 7 games. But! I like the idea of looking what turn will a card be drawn especially for things i do on late game turns.

[@Fluffkitscripts]

I’ve got this knights deck that’s all about equipment. Since Syr gwyn draws you a card for each attacking creature with an equipment on it, you’d think it’d be picky about wanting a balance of equipment and creatures. That’s not quite what I found. Lizard blades, colossus hammer, whispersilk cloak, argentum armor, all kinds of equipment can shake up a board when equip cost is a non-factor. Gwyn can even hit hard on her own if your hand is just full of hammers. You get the power hitting of voltron if that’s what you need and, being able to field a small squad of creatures at worst, you don’t fold to one single piece of remove. Another thing that helps its ability to consistently put up a fight is gwyn’s ability to shuffle equipment. “Alright, we’re about to pass turn and block. Who needs shroud? Who needs flying? Who needs double strike?”. You can respond really well to different boards.

[@sanders_2]

Loved these thoughts. I have never been unhappy in a game when I lose. I only get unhappy when my deck isn't playing how I planned.

[@YBladeY]

Glad to see that people also think like me. I have a huge spreadsheet that shows this for all my decks.

[@agentkhaine2204]

Dadgummit, I’m just gonna subscribe because ya keep making bombs. Loved seeing someone showcase some math for consistency & mulligans - you showed it well, whenever I talk about it my group just says its too tryhard. XD

[@DonWanri]

Thanks for your work ! I'm answering the end of the video : Sure, someone tutoring a combo isn't more annoying than someone drawing a combo, (when it happens). But still, banning tutors means that it's ay less frequent and it's harder to play combo. That means combo decks are still better than every other archetype, but by a thin margin instead of by a lot. We banned tutors in my playgroup and games are more interesting, deckbuilding is less easy and archetypes are way more diverse. Previously we were almost CEDH with 5+ tutors and 2 cards combo wincons in every deck. There was no point to try and reduce three times 40 life points when everybody was tutoring a wincon turn 5. Also, from a philosophy standpoint, the point of the format being singleton means embracing variance. And from an entertainment point of vue, tutoring takes a long time and can lead to anticlimactic wins more often.

[@BanditZRaver]

To answer your, "Tutor into explosive win" scenario. Its not that I would rather "top deck" the win, its that its so predictable what my Opponent (or even myself) is tutoring for. Its ONLY about that WinCon card. Example, if my Opponent used [Gamble] and risked tutoring for their WinCon, "obviously" is the reply, however losing the WinCon to the random Discard also makes it fun because they did "Gamble" the card in the attempt to grab it. But if my Opponent used Demonic Tutor 4 of the 5 games we "played that night" then its just obviously the most boring thing about the tutor. Sure my Opponent is doing the thing they want to do to make the deck "work" and to "showcase the thing" they built the deck for. But when its that predictable, when its that obvious, when its so telegraphed that the table just groans at the very IDEA that the Opponent would do Anything else thing. Its, "I tutor for Craterhoof" If I played an [Imperial Recuiter], the interesting thing about Imperial is that I'm grabbing ANY 2 Power or less Creature. Sure, I can grab [Zurzoth, Chaos Rider], BUT what if I grabbed [Humble Defector] and actually... played it as its designed for? To be passed around and used as a Political tool? That makes for interesting games, its makes for fun moments at the cost of being bland, boring, and worst of all, "predictably Spike-y". Yes, the entire POINT of any game in Magic is to win, but that's a condition it of itself. "How do I want to win, and what is my personal goal to achieve." Most of my games involve just killing 1 player, thats MY WinCon. I don't want to be First, But I sure as hell don't want to be 4th Place. And of course everyone can define their own wins. But I remind adamant when I say, "Tutors make games BORING."

[@frederickhansarmstrongthe1656]

Even with tutors you still need to make the attempt to win. Loads of points for interaction between the table and the now arch enemy. Sure the plan might be predictable, but how did we get to the point where I'm placing DT on the stack to fish for the A to my B? I think people focus too much on how the win happens and never the interaction to get there. That is going to vary from game to game. I don't want to down play how you feel or take away from how you play. It just often seems we focus too much on the end state and not the journey which is how fun and wild stories come to be.

[@BanditZRaver]

@@frederickhansarmstrongthe1656 respectable opinion, in my side of the world, most of the people in my LGS use their Commanders as the Kingpin, (barring obvious Voltrons) however the higher level we get to play, the Commanders become more like Combo Pieces to an already proper deck. We still have the people who get really upset when the "only consistent card", their Commander, gets removed. And we have more sturdier decks who shrug at the notion that a Turn 1 Swords to Plowshares did anything but just slow down the Sandbagging or Tempo. People still depend on their Commander as the Kingpin and once you disconnect that Connection, the trailer goes byebye. But it is a trial by fire with all TCGs

[@brettbarrett9423]

Hey, I'm interested in that `choose` calculation you wrote at 8:23 - how does that work? What's the syntax and which application do you use to process that? I would've thought, with simple math, I'd say the likelihood of drawing either of those is 2/100 * 7 (2 cards out of 99, times 7 chances) = 14/99. Or, if you're using `+5` to signify in the first 5 turns, simply 24/99 ~= 24% chance.

[@brettbarrett9423]

Oooh, just saw the calculator at the end. I'm still curious tho :)

[@salubrioussnail]

That notation is what I plugged into R (my stats coding language of choice) but it's communicating identical information to the written out equation at 4:00. The choose function refers to the probability concept of a combination, and what it means mathematically is top!/bottom!*(top-bottom)! where top and bottom refer to the stacked numbers in the parentheses and ! means factorial. What the equation at 4:00 is basically saying is f(X) equals the probability of not drawing zero ramp spells. The reason a more complex function like that is needed is because each draw changes the probability of all draws afterward, since not drawing a card makes drawing that card later more likely and vice versa. Each additional draw adds less to the chances of drawing the card, because the function accounts for the cases where the card was already drawn, a number of cases that increases as more of the deck is drawn.

[@brettbarrett9423]

@@salubrioussnail Oh, of course - after each draw, the odds change. That makes total sense. Thank you for your detailed comment and for elaborating. I only found your channel last week after following other popular channels for years and I have to say, I really love your takes. You have some really refreshing thought patterns around deck construction, power levels, and synergy. Thanks for sharing!

[@QuicksilverSG]

The worst thing about tutors is watching someone search repeatedly through their deck. What I do is try to limit tutoring to a particular card type in each deck, e.g. land, enchantment, artifact or tribe. I then mark the upper left corner of those cards with a little round non-residue sticker, underneath the transparent card sleeve. That allows me to quickly spot tutor targets when I fan the deck open. Another useful trick with key combo cards is to use white-border variants just for those few cards.

[@OdinPlays94]

My favorite way to play around consistency is to isolate exactly what my commander is trying to do and build the deck around that. If done correctly, you won't need your commander to hit the board in order for you to play it effectively. My Ellivere deck focuses on making big enchanted creatures to kill people through combat damage. Virtuous roles play well into this, but this roles only benefit from me playing a lot of enchantments. So my card draw revolves around me either enchanting creatures or playing enchantments along with my commander helping me draw cards by dealing damage with said creatures. My value engines directly revolve around my game plan as well. Creature generation like sigil of the empty throne which benefit from playing enchantments which directly advance my game plan. In short, I prefer deck synergy over what is considered to be more powerful.

[@StaxPiece]

Awesome video definitely will use the website

[@guyatanosavia8487]

From my experience, that's not the reason people dislike tutors. The repeated ensemble of shrugs tutors elicit tends to be due to reptition. When people play a tutor, after a couple of games it becomes apparent that that tutor is really just a cheap way to have a specific card in your deck occupy two card slots as opposed to one, leading to more reptitive gameplay. The big exceptions to this are, as you've exemplified in this video, toolbox decks *or* secret commander decks. I'm always excited to see or use Sunforger, for instance, because I can't wait to see what toolbox people slotted into their list. Of course I'm expecting to see a handful of sunforger staples (Crush Contraband, PtE/StP, Boros Charm) but you never know if someone is running Denying Palm or Lapse of Certainty in their lists

[@vitormiranda201]

I was introduced to the commander by a person who puts together lists so you necessarily start with number 35 of lands, sun ring, arcane signet, guild signet, color pair talisman and mind stone, then you take your pile of cards and filter it to have replacement of hand, removal, protection, acceleration and only then the fun thing that your deck should do, it says you already occupy 40 slots of 99 with mana and you should make a stack with 99 to get 59 and then see if you need more lands or more stones or dork, then you look for cards that are 2-1 for example reclamation sage or caustic Caterpillar which are artifact and enchantment removals and throw away the beautiful and expensive card that is not so versatile

[@PhoenicopterusR]

I was on board until that last bit there. Good for consistency and versatility, but ya gotta leave a little room for personalization. Everyone and their grandmother is going to run Rec Sage so you better be keeping that beautiful and expensive card in there if you like it.

[@LTAT42069]

You did a video on ramp which I found to be extremely enlightening and gave me a perspective I've never heard nor considered. Could you do the same thing for card draw and do a similar video outlining the different card draw cards, why one deck might want to use one card draw over another, burst card draw vs sustain card draw (Sign in blood vs Pyrexian Arena), which types of decks/strategies would benefit more from a conditional/Sustained card draw or the burst card draw cards. I personally cram a bunch of burst card draw cards in my decks because I want my value NOW as opposed to later. I don't opt for cards that have to sit like Phyrexian Arena, but will run cards like Rhystic Study or Beast Whisper in certain decks, but always favoring burst draw. I hope to hear your insight on this. Cheers 🍻

[@51gunner]

8:30 - that feeling when you've bought an expensive staple piece, go to categorize your deck, and see this piece of pricy cardboard dangling out there. Looking at you, Sanguine Bond and Exquisite Blood in one of my decks. You win the game together, but separately you're just okay and probably don't rate playing. They're exciting, but after seeing Sanguine Bond sit in my hand all game un-cast, I think I need more veggies (mana rocks).

[@WIBYTIEDH]

I very much like to build decks in a way that I could theoretically combo off, but I don't want the deck to rely on that to win incase it gets countered or fails. For instance, I run Korvold and it's basically anything can be sacrificed. But I run the old Murderous Redcap with Melira Sylvok Outcast and a sac outlet that I can cheat out with Protean Hulk. But if that doesn’t work, there's also Stimulus Package and Pitiless Plunderer with a sac outlet to infinitely sac treasure and creatures. And if all else fails, it's basically a matter of making Korvold huge and swinging for lethal

[@TheDerpyDeed]

about the turn 1 sol ring - if you play white - turn 1 fragmentize that turn 1 sol ring your opponent played.

[@Certified_doofus]

as a myra player, i love my inconsistent $150 pile of garbage. It's beautiful when half the tine it flounders and half the time it casts time stretch every turn. simply magnificent.

[@Interesting_Failure]

This video freaked me out because I am building both exactly Goreclaw (the sorta version that runs vanilla 4/1s and goes for the honest 120 damage headcrack; though a little slower, I'm willing to cast her turn 4 with something like Somberwald Sage if it means also dropping two other creatures that turn and having better mana long term) and exactly a persist combo deck (Falco Spara; broader theme of removing unwanted counters so the natural wincon ended up being persist combo, though any two parts of the three-part Actual Infinite aim to produce enough value to at least play the game. Like just persist + sac outlet produces counters to remove, just persist + enabler produces immortal creatures, just enabler + sac outlet...well, ech, I have pretty much every persist creature I could find for a reason) One thing I do wanna note is that getting flooded with stuff that isn't your deck's core mission (ramp + removal, mostly) can feel way worse than getting flooded with synergy pieces and therefore losing speed/not having the tools to deal with an opponent; in the latter case you at least still "get to do something" while in the former it can feel like your deck failed completely to do what it was supposed to. I think this can lead to a psychological bias towards including "core elements" over supporting cards; personally I try to get around this by having supporting cards that are synergistic somehow, but this isn't always possible. A more minor version of this is that commander protection which turns out to be unnecessary has a tendency to feel like a wasted draw/wasted deckslot. Removal's also a weird category because it's not all created equal; a card drawn is a card drawn, a mana generated is a mana generated, but a Krosan Grip is not a Rewind is not a Chained to the Rocks is not a Snuff Out is not a Shatterskull Smashing. This also means that if you e.g. really need to out an enchantment, even with 10 "removal" spells you might only have two or three that actually solve the situation you're facing. Hell, if you're in monoblue and it's all counterspells and bounce you might have nothing at all! There's a reason I'm willing to run Introduction to Annihilation in Thryx in spite of the on paper incredible weakness of the card. Perhaps worst of all is that the psychological impact of not having removal when you need it is less than the impact for pretty much any other card type, for one simple reason: nobody had the removal! It might just be the tables I play at, but there's a tendency for one person to come out ahead due to having the first game plan that doesn't get disrupted and is strong enough to win; in these sorts of games, the "blame" for not being able to stop that plan is shared amongst you and the other two people who lost. I suspect this then makes the pull to add more because you didn't have it when you needed it less than it is for other categories; being mana screwed is a strong incentive, going into topdeck mode is a strong incentive, your deck "not doing its thing" is a strong incentive, but not having a Vandalblast when you needed one...a little less so. Another interesting thing to look at is slot compression; I have a tendency to chuck a Hedron Archive into anything that still wants ramp by 4 because it functions as both ramp AND card draw, freeing up deck space. I am moderately obsessed with MDFC lands for this same reason; replacing a Swamp with Hagra Mauling might mean reducing both my land and removal quality by a little, but the extra deck slot is very tempting (although I do tend to run 36/63 as a default land spread, so most of what it's actually doing is hedging out getting land screwed). Plus there's something really funny about picking it up with a Ravnica bounceland and then casting the front face; like dude it was right there! I love the hell out of slot compression; cards that do it tend to be versatile in letting you react to different situations, and it can free up deck slots as long as you don't overdo it. Especially when one of the "slots" is something like synergy piece; Perrie is a hysterical deck because literally all the ramp also has stupid types of counters on it (yes I'll come out a turn later if it means having an omen counter and an oil counter, fight me). I tend to enjoy building decks that are tightly woven synergy wise, which means e.g. most of the ramp in Goreclaw is either capable of hitting higher power (mostly 4, although 3 is acceptable since there's a few other buff effects) or specifically generates more mana with a big creature around; this can get me into trouble if synergistic category cards are hard or impossible to come by, though, since it makes adding them a bit of a feel-bad. You can compensate for a lack of removal (and to some degree commander protection) with politics/manipulating threat assessment in a way that you can't with card draw; if your commander is important but in a more subtle way than someone's Zur that's about to complete an infinite, you can essentially create both a removal spell and a commander protection spell by convincing the Path to go elsewhere. I don't think this is always a bad plan to have; not relying on being underestimated, necessarily, but relying on being "a problem for later". This sort of thing is also a big part of why I like rattlesnaking; "convincing" is easier when backed up with an implicit or explicit threat. The point I'm making, I guess, is that interaction can be accounted for by playstyle in ways that ramp and draw can't, which can affect the preferred types and quantities in weird ways. Finally, a common argument (at least in my head) against high removal counts is that they're not "necessary" in the way other things are. Maybe you'll find no target! Maybe someone else would have dealt with the threat and all your removal did was let them deal with you instead (think "playing like a nerd" from one of your previous videos, but you never had the removal to begin with). Maybe having one more threat, or a draw spell to kickstart your engine again, or a mana source to replay your commander one last time, or indeed would have won you the game, but instead here you are with nothing but a plow and no plan because everything you'd want to use it on got board wiped away with the rest of your cards. Maybe the right other card would have let you just play around whatever your opponent was doing anyway instead of addressing it directly. Anyway great channel I've watched everything and struggled to articulate my thoughts in response because most of them are "...shit, he's probably right". I don't think I've stopped to seriously ponder my deckbuilding philosophy this heavily in...years? Maybe since I started playing? It's been a *thing*, especially trying to figure out whether my reasons for running lower interaction counts than you seem to suggest are legitimate. (I've developed a rule of thumb that once interaction gets into a deck I should be VERY skeptical of cutting it out again, but even with this and the MDFC stuff I tend to end up with lower counts, and I'm not sure if this is due to the game plans I tend to run, playstyle, or if I should just be cutting a few cards for lightning bolts or whatever)

[@salubrioussnail]

Slot compression is a super useful concept and one that greatly helps in making decks that play smoothly. I showed my Meria deck's supporting slots on screen which includes 13 for removal and 12 for protection, and honestly the only reason the deck can devote such a large amount of space to interaction is because so much of the deck is super compact that way. A bunch of cards from different categories are also equipments, which turn into wincons with the deck's equipment synergies, and the commander can turn any artifact into either ramp or value, which lets me go pretty light on those categories.

[@Interesting_Failure]

Ah, smart. Meria does kinda seem like "slot compression: the commander" looking at it through that lens, although I'd probably go overboard with artifact tokens or something.

[@casketbase7750]

Ah, another distinguished user of Hypergeometric Distribution calculation. My shorthand is having 13-14 of a card that I absolutely NEED by turn 4. These include a flicker effect for Kardur, a sac outlet for Atla Palani, and a polymorpher in Gimbal.

[@authenticnaabi8974]

Personally I like consistently inconsistent decks. Example: A card like Animate Dead is a stable star for this reason. If you build your deck in a way that it uses stuff like Frantic Search, you are always going to find stuff through your own deck that enables Animate Dead, but also works exceptionally well in situational moments as it allows you to grab stuff opponents left behind in the graveyard. Also a big reason why a lot of stables of similar style are stables. Another example: Grenzo, the Havoc raiser can be built in a way that it consistently steals stuff from opponents, but it will always be inconsistent with the outcome. Which makes it extremely enjoyable in the long run. Similar case with Evelyn or Gonti. More examples: Wild cascade decks. You can make them consistently hit cascade effects turn after turn, but you can make it in a way that instead of hitting a single ultra-powerful card, you can play roulette. A lot of theorycrafting involved here in the deckbuilding process to eliminate dead cascades. (Well... All you really want is card draw, mana ramp and more cascades so, but anyway...) edit. The probability function part was really interesting, but another interesting tool to play around would be rampulator. I did a rough one that I sadly lost in time, but basically all it did was that you add lands/ramp cards in a deck and the deck played them (hopefully) the most optimal way and crafted the net mana graph for each turn. I used to this to point out the ridiculous power of Sol Ring, Mana vault, Chrome mox etc. to hammer in the idea how absurdly good they are, because for whatever reason people are lumping mana elves in the same category as Sol Ring.

[@MasterDecoy1W]

Staple (noun): a basic or principal item, thing, feature Stable (adj): not likely to fall or give way

[@toewoe]

My problem with tutors is that i enjoy when my deck does a bunch of unique things and plays differently every time. Thats why i play commander. I play 100 different cards and will likely never get the same combination of cards twice. Using tutors takes away the uniqueness of each game I much prefer finding a way to win with what i have than just falling back on the crazy card that i havent drawn. Part of this is that I rarely run those crazy cards because I think theyre boring. Id rarer lose with something fun than play torment. Its boring, its lame, its unoriginal.

[@Shinji0Ikari007]

Maybe I suck at math. Just what are the operations in the parentheses at 4:04? I know that x is number of type of card in deck and 2 = y = turn #

[@salubrioussnail]

They're shorthand notation for the probability concept of combinations. What the parentheses (and the stuff within them) stand for is Top!/Bottom!(Top-Bottom)!, with the exclamation marks being factorials.

[@ToxicAtom]

IS THAT A WEB1 RENAISSANCE REFERENCE? So glad to see you've made your own website.

[@judahhurr5836]

Great video, really reminds me of a Jenny and Vastra deck I'm brewing rn

[@Nathanael_Forlorn]

The opposite approach was my original mindest: If I spent $$$ on a deck, it better not get boring easily - so put a bunch of variance in there, so ever match feels fresh and different. But I do see where snail is coming from, and also agree. Now I'm trying to find the middle ground of it being variable, but comparable. Not entirely disconnected, at the cost of some more narrower focus.

[@maxdamon3365]

I like your "scientific" approach to the commander format. When watching your videos I think that you could actually write an thesis about the commander format :) Your videos have substance It reminds me of the age of empires 2 KZbinr spirit of the law :)

[@mr.magicmumbles4039]

Why run consistency when you can take a leaf from the tree of whimsy and slam down spells no one knows how to react to every turn? No one ever expects the Island Sanctuary, In The Eye of Chaos and Metamorphic alteration turn.

[@mulliganaway5627]

A good thing to mention here is redundancy! Have multiple win lines, and have replacement cards for those win lines. If you can play through or around their interaction, and shoot the win, you want that option available. Have similar effects on similar cards so that way losing one doesn’t hurt as bad!

[@ya64]

It's painful sometimes to cut something that looks cool, but it's less painful than sitting there with that card dead in your hand for multiples turns, waiting for the perfect opportunity to play it.

[@51gunner]

That was me at FNM lol. Sanguine Bond in hand from turn 1, never had time nor mana nor big synergies to cast it. Sure, it goes infinite with another enchantment in my deck. But how often do I find both and cast both and have nobody stop me?

[@Muddled_Mindflayer]

What are the chances in seeing your friend's Vadrok deck? Honestly I'd love to have their list.

[@salubrioussnail]

archidekt.com/decks/4236279/neverbeforeseen_combo

[@josephstalin7975]

I fall asleep to your content in hopes to get better at mtg and get a good nights rest

[@Raghetiel]

Can you share your Glissa battle cruiser decklist? It sounds cool!

[@salubrioussnail]

archidekt.com/decks/5035210/glissacruiser

[@Louis-dk9jk]

Nice video! Definitely cool to see the applications of probabilty in magic. I am an engineering undergrad who is interested in the theoretical maths but not super great at coding. I looked to replicate the the model shown at 4:04 ish but haven't ever used the choice function before. If anyone would be willing to help with these couple lines in python I would greatly appreciate it. This is what I have started with, the way I have written the ys line doesn't currently work import numpy as np import random xs = np.arange(0, 35, 5) ys = 1 - random.randrange(99-xs, 9)/random.randrange(99, 9) Thanks :)

[@salubrioussnail]

The code on screen there is R code, which being a stats language already has all the necessary stuff built in. The "choose" function refers to the probability concept of combinations, which is also what the notation of the stacked numbers in the parentheses refers to. Here's some of the code I used when I rewrote the function in javascript, with "fact" referring to a factorial function (not python obviously but js is pretty readable): function choose(x,y){ let z = (fact(x))/(fact(y)*fact(x-y)) return z } Hope this helps!

[@WarrickRanger]

Ramp is far and above the most misunderstood term in commander, because what kind and what form that takes depends on your critical turn, which in itself is a nebulous concept that most people do not understand. It requires you to have a fundamental understanding of your deck's win conditions and lines, and if you don't, you'll end up playing cards that ramp on or after your critical turn, instead of getting to that turn faster.

[@PeteB90]

Meria as Equipment Voltron, love it... not sure why I didn't think of it. She'll be good replacement for Sram which is kinda boring to play. Cheers!

[@auburncrow4568]

It's weird how some of my most consistent and absolutely isnane decks over the years I made in a fevered frenzy over the course of less than two hours and managed to make a pile that somehow just worked. Like sticking together a car out of scrap only for it to miraculously sputter to life by some god-gifted miracle only to crumble into ashes when you adjust the side mirror by a fraction of a inch. (I took out a land)

[@sayntfuu]

But what math would you study if you wanted to? I have a pretty solid grasp of geometric analysis but this type of probability calculation is hard to pin down what to study.

[@salubrioussnail]

Combinations and permutations would be the place to start. Knowing those will give you a basic understanding of the calculation for drawing a particular type of card (which itself is called a hypergeometric distribution), and they're also the foundation for most of the rest of probability and statistics.

[@sayntfuu]

@@salubrioussnail Awesome thank you. Great content, it makes me want to be better lol.

[@StrongButAwkward]

IMO people should think about consistency in EDH like this: A deck that is built well enough to consistently execute its *strategy* every game, but often sees different cards and may get there differently game to game is *not* missing the point of EDH or against the spirit of the format. Decks that are built to consistently get and see the same *specific cards* as fast as possible to execute the *same exact* outcome and path to get there, with all other cards just being ways to find those cards or interaction, *are* against the spirit of EDH based on the principles of the format laid out in text by the format charter. They additionally miss the point of casual ~in general~ and feel like decks played by people that want to feel like they're tournament competitive players but are too scared or w/e to actually just do that. I think the difference between those two types of consistency is something people should keep in mind when building decks. As the late Sheldon Menery correctly said: build casually, play competitively.

[@kalemroseland7973]

The 'thought I made a bad deck' part happened at a prerelease I went to recently, I got smoked my first game and thought I messed up and my opponent said "it's just variance" and then I ended up actually taking first for the whole prerelease.

[@bigspagheti4119]

I once, in one turn made so many hasty adrix and nev copies I couldn't find a calculator to do the math, but I came up with something like 3.48E8,000,384 copies, and now that deck gets hated off the table for the one game it won, but my extremely consistent 75+% win rate "group hug" Xyris deck is completely fine.

[@MayoIsMyInstrument]

This video made me realize i had more combo redundancy in a deck i just built than i thought

[@shirokatake3285]

Hey Snail! Thank you for the video and the calculator. It helped me a lot with building my deck I love it so much! I've got a question with the land drop miss calculator. I was wondering how you calculated this number so I inspected the code in the browser and I found this x=((99-L)*choose(99-L,7)*choose(L,X))/(choose(99,X+7)*99). I understood that the top chooses() are calculating number of ways to draw X land cards and 7 nonland cards in a X + 7 hand, and the bottom choose() is calculating number of ways to draw X + 7 cards from 99 in the deck, but why do we need to multiply (99-L) with the top combinations and 99 with the bottom combination?

[@noahhager1187]

I've been trying to tune a standard monastery mentor deck for a while and it's so inconsistent. by its nature, it can't consistent but this really does help a lot.

[@teamcyeborg]

My biggest consistency question is how the heck everyone else is shuffling that their lands aren't all clumped up somewhere in the middle of their deck. Somehow, no matter how thoroughly I shuffle, I will hit nothing but lands 7 turns in a row when I need spells and my deck will be barren for the entire game whenever I have a hand of good cards

[@PhoenicopterusR]

Right there with you. Tried adjusting lands multiple times but there's always a weird land bubble that is either currently what I'm drawing into while I'm flooded, or a couple turns away when I'm being screwed. Just accept fate and hope that you can draw more cards.

[@CrisMW98]

4:37 how did he calculate the data in this graph?

[@KilWilShow]

Do you think a “win more” card catagory would be healthy to keep track of? Cards like akroma’s memorial. Or would these fit better under a “win-con” catagory?

[@salubrioussnail]

Yeah, I'll sometimes keep an "escalation" category for my decks and tag cards that only do things when I'm already doing things. It's a good way to make sure I don't end up running way too many of those by accident.

[@gayMath]

I have both really inconsistent decks where i mulligan exclusively for lands in hand to start, knowing my draws will be heavy on options, and decks where when I mulligan the requirement is damn near "am I holding 7 cards" because they're just so consistent in what they do. I love them both, I like playing decks that are good and bad in many different metrics, but I think people should really do a little playtesting of the different ways a deck can be powerful and weak in different areas to see what combinations they like more and are more able to play with.

[@Kaador]

Uuuh Landdrop-Miss-Calculator. So easy so nice. Thanks :)

[@Nurriek]

I am curious as to how you found the modeling equations. I would love to follow up on them for my own lists.

[@salubrioussnail]

The X card by Y turn is basically a hypergeometric distribution, and I threw it together with a bit of quick probability knowledge. I included a calculator for that one on my website, which is linked in the description, and that website also includes a calculator for average turn to miss a land drop with a given land count. The one for combo was a bit more of a pain in the ass, but I could make a calculator for that one as well if I was feeling very motivated.

[@iv9753]

Do you count cantrips in the draw category?

[@Shabazz859]

You should talk about the 40k precons mtg released It feels like the necron and chaos decks are insanely inconsistent. Also I love the snail avatar ur my fav mtg yt channel now

[@Smaul002]

Would love to hear more about your friend’s Vadrok deck. It sounds fun

[@salubrioussnail]

I discuss it in more detail in my video about combo decks

[@paniago82]

11:14 weird take on tutors, for me the problem with tutors are the repetitive game patterns. less about losing to a big spell and more about allways doing the same thing in a 100 card singleton format. and to answer the question i have a Emry, Lurker of the Loch combo deck where 70% if my cards are some sort of combo, alot of them game winning and most people don´t hate the deck because i have to draw in to it.

[@Doji97]

yooooo, supercool of you to use a math example. I have heard about modelization of magic decks a lot of times, but i never saw one for real. Anybody knows where I can read more theory about this?

[@toxi3489]

i was always wondering what makes my deck into a good functioning deck, so first i just throwing everything in. I was looking on Moxxfield what others are playing and the cards that i saw the most play would go in there, after this i searched on scryfall for some underrated or some sort of underdogs who could fill some places that bugged me ( i am playing mono blue i didnt expect it could be this hard to find a simple mana dork or something like this for a blue color without a downside xD) after this i did something that i learned in my time as a florist... Minimize all the cards, that would bug me even after all this process, and bring it to a 100 card deck. I try right now to make a Jin Gitaxias/ great Synt. Deck, wich doesn't go the boring way of, leveler and laboratory maniac and goes more into a spam sorcery and instants to get a lot of tokens from haifun etc. while sabotaging my opponents with the other 2 Jins. and other counter spells etc. So thank you for this, it rly helped me and confirmed my problems that i had with "Hmmm...this deck was buildet tooo fast...." edit: before someone is saying ew mono blue, i am trying to make it as hard as possible for me to win, so i dont go this normal blue hate route xD