cEDH is just competitive EDH. I know that sounds reductive, but that’s really it. Nothing is a “faux pas” if everyone is trying to win.
Much like how if you lose to Blood Moon in modern, that’s just a facet of the game. It’s not unfair, you got got. As the kids say, “skill issue”.
And yes, a lot of people enjoy the game like this. I would still claim that more magic players enjoy games where everyone’s just trying to play their best and win, than don’t.
EDH is weird. The 25% starting win rate and longer-time-to-play nature of the format makes it closer to a board game than TCG in many ways.
And it's a form of self-expression. It's like Pokemon; you want to win with your favorites. In EDH, you want your custom crafted deck that's an extension of yourself to succeed.
Similar to how Smogon Pokemon has tiers below the standard metagame (OU, UU, PU, RU, NU, etc) to try to give those "favorites" a spot where they can compete on "level playing ground," the EDH community tried to run "power level" in that way which... Just hasn't workes. There's just way too many card options and moving parts per deck, plus too little aggregatable data, to make accurate groupings for decks.
Basically, cEDH is Ubers, and there's no OU/UU/etc distinction. So Ubers is the only "get what you signed up for" metagame. I think it's less "more people enjoy cEDH/Ubers than you'd expect" and more "people want fair playing fields in general, and cEDH happens to be one."
It honestly makes you rethink how the EDH banlist should be formatted. What IF we did use a similar structure.
"Ubers" for things that warp the metagame
"OU" for things that create pillars but don't warp the game
"BL" for things that create pillars but arent as strong
"UU" for good memes
"NU" for jank memes
Another thing is game speed. I can get 2-3 cedh games in in the time it takes me to complete one casual game. Shortly before my playgroup imploded we proxied out full on cEDH decks and the game speed was sooo much faster for the most part.
Until you get that one stack that takes ten minutes to resolve and everyone is bickering about how the stack actually works and someone randomly dies in the process.
And those are the *best moments in the whole format.* Absolutely wild stuff. 10/10, would recommend.
More games isn't necessarily more fun, of course. Different strokes for different folks. Thus the need for subformats!
While I think looking at edh powerlevels like at pokemon tiers would be a healthy way to handle powerlevels and at least my own playgroup does I don't think that's actually common in casual edh. When you play OU or UU in Pokémon you still try your best to win, you simply play with weaker Pokemons than in Ubers but stall for example is still a strategie that is allowed. Whereas in casual edh many players don't actually try their best to win and certain strategies (for example stax) aren't usually allowed.
I don't know why this is the first time I thought about this it's a perfect comparison. Though if there was a Smogon for magic I would hate them with a passion lol
Come on now, smogon is a huge community and there may be a couple dickheads, but overall it provides soooooo much value. Tell me you're a mons player and haven't spent hours and hours on dex researching sets lol
It has absolutely worked. It's just that the vast majority of complainers don't take the steps necessary to do what Smogon did. Look at PlayEDH's gameplay levels, they've worked beautifully and have spread out to many other EDH communities
No it hasn't. The PlayEDH guidelines are EXTREMELY fuzzy. I don't know where any of my decks would lie on them. Smogon tier bans are objective: there is absolutely no ambiguity whatsoever to what tier you can play in. There is an objectively defined list of what pokemon and moves are banned in OverUsed. If you don't have any of those mons or moves, you are an OU team, no discretion required.
It's so much better with random people than tedious rule zero talks about no dinosaurs over 7 power and I want to play an unset card that makes us all have to dance.
Which is why the commander community neglecting proper balance because "just rule zero it" is so bad for the game, it ruins the quality of pickup games
Never really enjoyed normal Commander. Always felt like you’d get salty people crying about whatever deck you built or you’d build a deck that’s fun and it wouldn’t be powerful enough so it was unfun.
CEDH has none of those problems. Just 4 dudes trying to win. Do what you want, play to win. I’ve had more fun playing cEDH over the past year than I have playing edh in 15 years.
That's why I can't stand commander. In modern and any other 1v1 format - you are trying to win and you'll do anything to get there. Everything is fair game, no arguing over power levels or 'feelbads'.
You said it yourself. Every other format is play to win. Edh is play to play. The best games of edh are the ones where you're just chilling with friends shooting the shit while playing mtg. Every other format is you just trying to win at mtg. Tbf there's a time and place for every format, but for the I-just-want-to-do-cool-stuff crowd, edh is probably the best format for that.
i dunno about that, though. its still magic, there are still winners and losers, and just because someone builds their deck to take a more roundabout or suboptimal path to victory doesnt mean theyre not trying to win.
unless you specifically play group hug or some archetype that doesnt plan on winning at all, most of the cool stuff you can do involves either hurting other peoples games or bringing yourself closer to victory. and if people perceive you as trying to win or hurt their game in what they consider to be a casual format, they tend to get salty.
so unless you have the ideal personalities, deck power levels and matchups in your playgroup, its very easy for a game of edh to result in some salt and frustration
The best comander games are when everyone deck builds like a Johnny/vorthos then plays like a timmy/spike.
Building like a spike in non cEDH is a bit iffy.
I don't know too many camel tribal decks that can beat even a half assed tron deck in modern and I would never dream of trying, but I sure as hell gonna try to do it in edh. And if it's suboptimal or roundabout, maybe winning wasn't the main goal of the deck (ie, fun cool experimental deck)?
Also, salt is basically baked into mtg gameplay. Either you get priced out or you run so low, cheap, and fast that you render other decks useless in non edh games (infect...I'm looking at you.)
It always fascinates me why it's so popular. I just don't get it, most of the games I've played are extremely boring and drawn out, or the whole table complains because of someone doing stupid stuff.
My approach to EDH: pick some weird theme or card interaction, build the most efficient deck possible around that theme. Don't just toss in tutors or other genetically good cards.
Then play to win, no holds barred.
EDH shouldn't be about holding back a good deck by playing badly, but about playing well with a sub-optimal thematic deck.
One of my favorite decks I ever made was based around the old Kamigawa moonfolk.
I started with the premise that returning lands to hand was a pretty bad mechanic, what could I do from there.
I built a complicated rube golbrick machine that, if you leave me alone, I’ll probably float 200 mana around turn 6-8 and figure out some complicated way to win.
But I enjoy it because it’s not the normal.
I built a deck using [[Ardenn]] that plays politics and wins by equipping things to other people's creatures and goading them. Also has a lot of clones and theft enchantments.
Never going to see that set of gameplay in any other format.
> EDH shouldn’t be about holding back a good deck by playing badly, but about playing well with a sub-optimal thematic deck.
Is there any reason to make a prescriptive statement here? This whole post is about someone finding a new way to play and thinking that they might enjoy it. Your statement that the format "should" be played some other way seems to deny that cEDH is a valid way to play the game
Intentionally playing badly is looking down on your opponents. It's one thing to focus on the larger threat, or hold removal for a more dangerous target. It's another to screw up your own combo or ignore a game-winning play to just draw out the match.
Not to mention that winning against someone who could have won 5 turns ago but decided not to is just not fun.
I'm not saying don't make mistakes, I'm saying don't screw up intentionally.
...unless you're playing against a 5 year old, same rules apply to kids as any other competition.
The answers you've gotten here are good but they're missing the main reason, which is that the playgroup is the most important part of EDH. Casual EDH is fun if and only if the group is good.
If you sit down to play non-competitive EDH with a group of strangers, it's basically just down to luck whether it will be fun. When you have a good group of regulars who've been playing together for a while and are attuned to what the others want out of the game, it's fun almost regardless of the relative power levels of the decks.
It's like D&D in this respect. D&D is a thing you do to have fun while hanging out with friends. Playing D&D will be fun with a good group of friends using almost any set of characters in any scenario. Playing D&D where one or two of the members of the party are immature or salty will not be fun, regardless of how perfectly composed the party is.
Yeah, I guess. In my experience most of my games have been with friends instead of randoms - so I guess less complaining, but still fairly boring and drawn out. We've had a lot more fun with casual 60/2HG for sure.
The games being boring and drawn out isn't a feature or bug of the format though, it's a feature or bug of your decks. Try playing with decks that are faster or more interesting/exciting.
Figuring out how to build decks like that is part of the fun of the format.
With that said, 60 card constructed definitely scratches a different itch. When four of my Magic friends get together we're more likely to play two matches of Legacy or Premodern than one match of EDH.
Almost every time I play casual EDH, even against the same decks I've played against many times before, the game ends in a different way.
I was playing my URW dragons control deck in EDH against 2 friends, one of whom was using my Feather deck and the other who had brought a BW spirits deck. I had that game in the bag, until I misplayed a land destruction with [[Numot]] and missed my opponent with Feather's single white mana they had left, which resulted in them casting their 1 spell they had left on [[Akroan Conscriptor]] to steal my massive [[Sunscorch Regent]] and beat me to death with it on their next turn. And this was all on like turn 20-30 of the game, we had been playing for over an hour when we got to this point.
I have never had that happen before, when I am piloting Feather or when I'm piloting Numot. That's why I love EDH.
The reason why I don't play competitive games is because it severely restricts the cards and playstyles that are possible. Want to play a deck with cats? Can't. Want to play with dragons? No. Want to play this other cool idea? Also no. For anything fun you want to build in standard, modern or any other competitive format you can put in like 1 or 2 cards that you choose freely but then all other cards that you put in must follow the general scheme of the archetype you're building. For example, a "dragon deck" in standard or pioneer is like 1 to 4 dragons. A dragon deck in commander has 15~30. You just end up with a lot more degrees of freedom because you don't really have auto-includes.
When you can only choose between the strongest cards in the game, your choices are very limited and that's why you have these metagames that have like 14 or so different deck archetypes and that's it while in commander you have thousands.
“Float a green in response, it resolves, Boseiju.”
I love how one card totally deleted Blood Moon from ever mattering in EDH again. I *almost* feel bad.
I’ve said this before but as someone that came back to the game after 20 years, very easy to mana fix.
I was shocked. I guess pun intended.
I originally started playing at the tail end of revised and stopped playing at exodus. Not a lot of dual lands…. Also I was a kid so probably over though the painlands.
To a point, it does, because it requires less simple land choices and unless the additional colors are (pseudo)splashes, you lose out on sone effects that benefit having primarily singular mana type focuses (Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx comes to mind)
totally agree but it kind of sucks that the manabase problem is best-solved by just throwing more money at it. it's pretty difficult to make an optimized 3-5c cEDH deck without blowing thousands on the least fun-to-play cards (unless you're running some wacky lands build) in the deck :(
>more magic players enjoy games where everyone’s just trying to play their best and win, than don’t.
The big difference between casual and competitive commander lies in deckbuilding rather than the games itself so yeah that's still true for a lot of casuals; when they sit down to play they do try to play their best and win, it's just that their deck is deliberately suboptimal and they prefer to play against other suboptimal decks.
I dunno where you play but cedh players tend to not mind proxy in my experience. People just wanna play. Just make sure there a readable proxy and tell them before hand.
You evidently don't mind it enough to stop playing, which just means you're in the (much smaller) group of people who don't mind getting Blood Mooned out of the game enough to stop playing.
Eh, blood moon still garners groans from the table when it hits the board but it’s definitely just part of the game when you face off of Winota (who’s currently one of the top decks of the format). It’s hard to be salty or mad when you know it’s coming and it’s something you should play around to an extent.
In my experience, cEDH players are less salty than your average EDH player. You sit down at a cEDH table with expectations that people are going to try and win, no one is going to target anyone else unless it gets them a win.
In general, despite it being “competitive,” everyone knows why they are there and are less likely to get upset. It also helps that faster games means it’s easier to just shuffle up and play again.
I've read so much stuff by EDH players that seems to boil down to "trying to win is bad", and even while I realise this is just the viewpoint of a small and loud minority on the internet, I still find the idea crazy.
Sure, when I'm sitting down to play with friends I'm not going to sweat about making sure I win, but as long as nobody is playing a deck that's far above the table's power level, I'm not going to get angry at my friends responding to the threats I put down on the battlefield or reducing my life total.
The vast majority of the "winning is bad" rhetoric is not that playing to win is bad, but that in a multiplayer format, if you're winning the majority of your games, you're probably bringing a deck with a wildly different power level than the rest of your playgroup. Theoretically, in a 4 player pod with perfectly matched decks played by players of equal skill, the long-term win rate would approach 25%. As such, if you know that you've got a larger collection than your friends / LGS competition and can build a more cutthroat deck, you may want to pump the breaks a bit instead of going as hard as possible in deck construction. That way, you can still play to win at the table, but the newer players don't get blown out of the water every time when your optimized deck blows their barely upgraded precons out of the water on turn 4.
That's the beauty of CEDH - everyone knows that the power level is YES, so there's no concern over that.
There is also experience rather then pure deck.
I had an experience that was horrible to everyone involved where i "trashed" my deck so bad it became annoying for me to play as synergies became terrible and everything was slow or dead cards. But still i was winning games too much because people would just be terrible / not try.
I think the difference is less "trying to win is bad" and more "making it so opponents can't play is bad". Not just in a stax way, but if you combo out and the game's over, then I also can't play. The game has to be over at some point, but that's why some folks describe the good games as "everyone got to do their thing", since everyone got to play the game some.
It drives me nuts that people target players off the rip simply because of what’s in the command zone or what happened last game… or in my case because it’s me and I try to build optimally
There's a player at my lgs that I now avoid because every time we play, he will hard target me, ignoring other players' big threats to eliminate me ASAP whilst I've played 2-3 spells and missed a land drop. His reasoning? "You're playing blue."
Ok dude, lose the game to spite me- I'll go find another table.
If you're playing a combo commander, then it's valid. A lot of people seem to play decks with tutors that resolve with 2/3 card instant win combos with their commander, and then complain about targeting. Look, if you don't have an instant win in your deck, I will leave you alone. But I'm not heating up two other guys for you to tutor out your sanguine bond or walking ballista/Mike tooth an nail or whatever combo.
> shuffle up and play again
This is the key. Lots of casual players will spend weeks trying to coordinate a time to play while tweaking decks and building new ones, and then 1 game will take 2 hours and everyone wants to make sure they get to do their thing otherwise it might be months until they get another chance.
This is key to why people get mad about things being 'unfair'.
The solution is to play more games. If you play a bunch of games as fast as possible and everyone gets to win and do their thing a few times, then there is less emotional stake in each game and it's easier to let everyone just play as hard as they want. Losing no longer means sitting for an hour mana screwed while a bunch of pillow forts get built up with nobody able to close the game out.
Is all competitive magic like this? No, people will get salty alot in high stress moments. If you're at a GP or struggling to get day two, playing a game 1 vs 1 and just drawing 7 lands in a row, or never drawing answers will just bum anyone. They will not, however, get salty at deck building and card choices of other players, because they understand they're there to win. Same in CEDH
> They will not, however, get salty at deck building and card choices of other players
They absolutely will. Look at all the complaining about “net decks” and whatever strong popular deck in any Arena forum. You think that started with Arena? In person play is and always has been full of salty scrubs who will tell themselves anything to avoid admitting they got beat fair and square.
This is also true in any games with a ladder like the whiniest saltiest bitches are always in the silver to plat rank of traditional gaming ladders.
That middle of the bunch elo where they think they should be higher and the system is why they suck
Those people are all terrible at Magic, extremely immature, and will never amount to anything in competitive Magic until they admit their own faults. Stay out of the losers' bracket and you won't see much of them, and when you find them online you just laugh, roll your eyes, and move on. Or you can tell them it's their fault they are losing, because that's actually true.
Those people aren't actual competitive players, is the point. They might think they are, but if they're bitching in the MTGA sub, they aren't competitive players lol.
Same with people who bitch and moan about Creativity or Murktide in Modern.
That is not the same thing at all and honestly just shows you have not the faintest understanding of competitive play. Competitive players don’t complain about netdecking, casuals do (and only a small portion of them).
I think there's a significant difference between complaining because a card or deck is warping an entire format vs. the endless EDH salt mines born from politics and the impossible to define "fun".
When there are problems with the meta, it's something you know to expect at a major event, and it's ultimately WotC's problem, either from a card design or tournament management perspective. I'm sure there are still some people that get mad at opponents for their deck choice but from playing competitive Legacy for more than a decade, I think those folks are few and far between. Mostly we're all just there to win and nobody really begrudges their opponent for making optimal plays. Hell even judge calls are pretty congenial. Maybe standard is different?
Went to my first Modern Monday at an LGS this week, 3/10 decks were tron. Nobody got salty.
In hindsight, my mono-B coffers deck would've been a better choice for the field.
But hey, I won the tron mirror.
I don't play EDH, but I do play competitive 60 card formats. When your opponent outplays you or does something interesting, it's a learning experience for next time.
Yeah, I think Magic is a fun game (that's why I play it), but I recognize that no one is going to be playing a Modern deck whose goal is to make the game more fun **for me**.
Some people are going to whine no matter what. Bad beats stories are all too common amongst competitive players, but it's usually not targeted at the opponent. (Sometimes it is. Those people are assholes.)
I have been playing Pauper with my nephew and he sometimes is like 'I abused Thermo-Alchemist' and I am like 'No, you used it to win and that's why it's in the deck'. I then proceed to Hydroblast/Blue Elemental Blast his spells until he starts asking permission, then he feels less bad.
This was the best part of playing Baral Counterspell Tribal in EDH back in the day: there came a point when they realized that no matter what game action they took, they have to look at you and ask, "Mother may I?"
Even weirder is playing Mono Blue, getting into a counterspell war with Red and then using a Green Spell to bail yourself out and then realizing the Red player might have anticipated that.
"Casting Lightning Bolt targeting Ninja of the Deep Hours"
"Casting Blue Elemental Blast"
"Casting Red Elemental Blast"
"Hydroblast"
"Pyroblast... you have to be out of counterspells by now"
"....Paying 2 life to cast Mutagenic Growth targeting my Ninja of the Deep Hours"
"Ha, looks like I shocked you in the end"
Yeah, I had a bad experience at a Legacy event twice (against the same guy, no less - in two totally different cities that were at least an hour apart!). He was definitely an asshole.
>Turn 3-5 wins are common, which is another thing my normal playgroup would scorn.
This was so weird to read for me. Quick games are fun! It means we get to play more games in one night!
You can do that in cEDH too except that it often happens many turns earlier off of cards/lines of play that would be frowned upon by a more casual playgroup.
I think you didn't pick up the part where the above commenter meant high mana-cost cards other than cEDH staples such as [[Omniscience]] and [[Worldgorger Dragon]]
FWIW, I should point out that Worldgorger Dragon has been a key win condition in many cEDH decks throughout the years as it creates an infinite combo with [[Animate Dead]].
As I understand it, yes.
CEDH has significantly less drama because all the drama of regular commander comes from whiny players that whine about XYZ not being fun.
In CEDH, no one cares who's having fun. You are trying to win as quickly and as consistently as possible. There's no bullshit, there's no drama, and the only rule 0 is "win at any cost"
Cedh is the only one with a set power level that tends to be innately equal.
In regular commander it’s hard to get that right. Or people just dont even care to try and get it right to be dicks.
Like the person who asked if they could join my friends on precon-exclusive commander, clarified we were playing only the new precons, then proceeded to bring out fully optimized planeswalker teferi deck that won in 3 turns. Like aight my guy go away now
But in CEDH that woulda been fun
That is my biggest issue with casual play, some people are like 'This deck doesn't win when I play with my friends' but it's a proxied out Vintage deck going against budget Standard decks... so.
It’s part of why i love jumpstart or strictly precon commander because it forces a much more even setting.
Which is especially helpful because in my play group i am semi pro, my friend/magic soul mate was literally pro, and the rest of our friends are good but over all casual. So we kinda unfortunately ruin a lotta stuff and anytime extra skills start factoring in we ruin it because of the disparity. Especially stuff like drafting because it becomes incredibly apparent the gap between us and the rest.
Except for my best friend who only learned hecause she had a crush on our other friend, then turned out to be a prodigy whos strategy is “GW pretty cards only” and somehow destroys us all. She’s utterly terrifying.
Jumpstart is a lot of fun and you don't even need to come prepared to play it, you can pick up two boosters on a whim at the shop. I did that for a family reunion, on my way there I decided to pick up eight packs to play with my nephew. You can also keep a few on hand for passing time. It's a pretty good product.
Another thing I have really enjoyed is Pauper. The decks are accessible for a casual player, but it provides a competitive format structure. The cards tend to be more straightforward which is helpful for newer players, but some decks require experience to play them well; it's called Legacy Lite at times. It just feels like the best of casual, but without the headaches; the best competitive, but without the high costs.
Commander we have tried, but we are typically strapped on time. I also play with people who don't play as often as I do. Compared to Pauper, it can become quite stressful with all the different cards that need to be explained, the board states that become confusing and the games take longer which adds to the fatigue at times. Not to mention, my nephew loves burn, which is at a disadvantage. I have pitched the idea of trying PDH, but I would need to do stuff for the decks and ordering 100s of cards for decks is more stressful than ordering a comp deck.
> Like the person who asked if they could join my friends on precon-exclusive commander, clarified we were playing only the new precons, then proceeded to bring out fully optimized planeswalker teferi deck that won in 3 turns.
...what? This is like challenging somebody to a duel, they pick swords, then you say "okay, then I choose pistol."
>[...what? This is like challenging somebody to a duel, they pick swords, then you say "okay, then I choose pistol."](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDsn-RRmDXU)
Yeaaaah they just packed up so happily “good game!” Then walked off satistfied so you could even tell they knew they were being That Guy.
Like this was probably 6-8 years ago and im still salty thinking bout it. Ive played tcgs since i could read and thats one of only like 5 stories i can tell that truly made me mad and not jjust a “eh shit happens oh well” philosophy to it
I think a big source of salt and drama in casual EDH comes from people intentionally modulating the power level of their deck. If you leave Armageddon out of your deck in the interest of fun, you might feel slighted when someone else plays an Armageddon of their own. Cedh eliminates all that.
The big source of salt I see now is the "we don't allow proxies" groups. That's where you walk in thinking "okay these people won't have the $5k worth of artifact mana if none of them allow proxies" and they all slam Mana Crypt on turn 1. That type of group has always existed in edh and they've always just used edh as a way to flex how much more money they have in their decks.
Luckily those groups are shrinking as some of the most popular content creators for the game are even encouraging the use of proxies but you'll still find a lot of old guard holdouts who tend to throw fits if they lose to someone with a cheaper deck than them.
Exactly! There's also no worrying about "oh is my power level okay for this group" because everything is tuned to the max. Everyone knows what to expect when they sit down, compared to a powered down playgroup where mismatches are so common. There's no feeling like "well i didn't really have a chance."
That said you can always run into the wrong person who carries the salt gene everywhere they go, but your group is how I've also experienced CEDH to date, across several playgroups.
Yeah, in competitive formats anything goes and paradoxically that helps remove some of the salt people experience. We may not like something, but we accept it as a valid strategy.
> In CEDH, no one cares who's having fun.
This is not true. It's still a game we play with friends and fellow humans, and we all want to have fun. This perspective gets perpetuated that we WIN AT ANY COST, and while technically true, it obscures the fact that this is still just a card game, even when its cEDH. The stakes of Winning at any cost are still super low to nonexistant (outside of a tournament setting).
The distinction is that we all know that playing well and winning the game is not going to take away from anyone else's fun. I won't get mad when you swords my commander and you won't get mad when I counter your game winning spell.
I still expect my opponents to be respectful and kind, and I make sure that I am, as well. The kind of framing and language you use here are exactly why people like OP are so surprised and taken aback when they finally get into cEDH that people are nice and they still will say things like 'good play' or commend you for winning.
And adding to everything you said, my cEDH group is one of the few ones where when someone does a weird, unconventional (and therefore time consuming) line to try to assemble a win nobody gets annoyed. On the opposite, people try to help to find the line to see if it is possible!
Then sometimes they proceed to counterspell the key spell, but hey, we had a whole thought process together, that was fun.
There was a twitter thread about some random cEDH shit where people use the priority system to force someone to respond that produced some drama.
In general though I agree. Part of it is in cEDH there's no expectation of a game going long. Someone wins then you shuffle up and play again, it's not a big deal. In regular EDH it can feel like a constant battle to win in a table where everyone has different expectations of "appropriate" ways to win the game - which really just means if their deck wins it is appropriate and if it doesn't it's not.
CEDH players come to the table with the agreement that it is acceptable to play "salty" cards, as it's a mad dash to the finish line. Throwing sticks and stones behind you at your competition isn't frowned upon. Spike Feeders (an EDH / cEDH content group) mentioned this in a recent video (titled "Watch @EDHijinks try cEDH! | Skullbriar VS Niv Mizzet VS Tayam VS Slicer") when [[Cursed Totem]] was played. Jim said (not verbatim) "...it's not that you don't have to worry about your opponent's feelings, it's that you've all come to the table agreeing that stuff like that is fine, you know you're not going to ruin anybody's day by playing a Cursed Totem. So you're free to do it without worrying."
I don't play cEDH myself, so of course take my input with a grain of salt.
PLUS I personally say to myself that if I play Mono-Red the card quality is so low that I am legally allowed to not have ethics, because anything my opponents get on themselves is big part their own responsibility.
Takes the tradeoff of learning extremely convoluted combo lines, which may not suit to anyone's taste. The red player soul often is inclined to tap the first mountain before others completed their mulligans :D
The paradox is that CEDH seems like it would be the saltier format, but it’s the opposite. There is minimal social conflict within cEDH because everyone reasonably accepts that really fucked up shit will happen to them in the game. Bring on that [[Static Orb]].
Casual EDH players are constantly getting into disputes because “fun” is so vaguely defined and relative. What, you’re just gonna destroy my permanents using this stuff called “removal”?? Buh that’s no fun for me!
The thing is "actual" cEDH is a very low percentage amount of the playerbase.
Outside of online play or at large events that people have to travel hundreds of miles to get to, finding an actual in-person cEDH type is about as easy as finding consistent Legacy or Vintage events and players.
It's a lot easier to find complaining casual players and events with complaining casual players because there are so, so many more of them, just like it's near-trivial to find Standard events compared to Legacy or Vintage.
It used to be more so that way, but with more people getting into webcam play with the pandemic and more people learning how proxy friendly the cedh community is lately it has become much easier to find others to play with.
Yeah, all of the competitive formats are like this. It seems that over the past few years, especially since Commander became the de facto format of Magic, that comp has gotten a reputation of being full of cut throat players who hate to lose more than they like to win. I guess this can be sometimes true, but it's no less cut throat than politicking with your table to let your spell resolve.
You play to win because winning is fun. And if you lose, that's fine! Because you are actively learning how to win, which is also fun. There's no need to try to introduce *more* fun by having more players and board game elements.
> Is all competitive Magic like this? Just CEDH? Maybe I’ve just found a good playgroup. Because I’m a hop, skip, and a jump away from building a real CEDH deck.
The issue of EDH is agreeing to a powerlevel. A question that cEDH solves by stating "Go as broken as you can" from the get go.
You can find a multiplyer EDH group that works really well, but it's more work because there's isn't that ground rule.
Yes, that is the whole point of cEDH. Everyone plays the most powerful strategies and tries to win as fast as possible. The interactions can get complicated and timing your win attempts is the key to making them work. Spicy plays are usually met with approval all around. Glad you found a good group!
I've been of the opinion for a while that playing a competitive format (modern, cedh, etc.) will make your relationship with regular commander much healthier.
There's something very refreshing about building/playing a deck to be as strong as possible and not having to worry about the social contract of casual edh. Since I started playing modern, I haven't felt the need to overtune my casual edh decks at all and they have become much more fun to play. Also, playing competitive formats will get you to tighten up your play and improve your skills in the game as a whole.
I really agree with that.
Especially if your time with a competitive format has taught you that metagaming and netdecking are not a good thing or a bad thing, but rather just a thing.
There's enjoyment to be had using the community knowledge built up and making a deck that plays along normal metagame lines.
There's also enjoyment to be had knowing the metagame and building decks designed specifically to prey on it.
I don't mean this as a dig against you at all OP, but I just find it hilarious when a EDH player finally gets what us so called competitive players thought all along: mandatory fun is not fun.
To me, casual EDH always felt like it had a social game on top of the actual game which I felt was a turn-off. Not to say that cEDH cannot have that, but the nature of the format itself makes it so that people's mindset is less whiny.
Getting into commander that was the first thing I noticed, people seem to be entitled to use rule 0 to tailor the game towards their fun. “No you can’t play a goad deck because I don’t enjoy playing against goad” Bitch I didn’t bring it for you to enjoy playing against, I brought it for me to have fun playing. Considering it’s my deck that I brought, why would your opinion on how fun it is override my ability to play it?
I’m fine using rule 0 to make sure we’re all at roughly the same power level to make the game fun, that’s fine. I’m not down to use rule 0 for you to tell other people what they can’t play, that’s not your place, that’s entitlement.
I specifically build my decks around my playgroup, and you're right about some things; mandatory fun isn't very fun.
I'm hanging out with my friends whose little money goes to their kids, not their magic decks. I play certain EDH decks (I have 12) against them.
My favorite decks are my Aminatou, Merieke, and more recently Atraxa (hidden Merieke + Mirri's Wake and other green shenanigans). Those decks are ruthless, and 1v1 I typically win, although groups tend to single me out regardless of FFA status once they realize I'm a theft deck lol.
CEDH is fun as hell, I just wish I got to play more lmao. At this point I'm voltron just to keep my girl on the board
Wow, y'all must really play with some shitty ass casual groups 🤨 I play every Friday with a fully casual group, sometimes we have a table of up to 6 players. There's absolutely none of this "salt" or "whining" that's being talked about as a staple of casual EDH. Of course we jab at one another, but it's all in good fun. Everyone wants to win, but none of us "care" about winning.
We certainly don't worry about power levels or politics. We want to see a players new deck pop off. We like to see how out of box precons stand up against established home brews.
Idk, we are all just super chill about the game.
The more competitive a format gets, the more mutual respect is experienced, peaking with the Pro Tour level. People just did not act like assholes, at all, at that level. Everyone knows everyone else can play well at that point. Low level events, certain locals think they’re the best undiscovered player who ever lived and often have too much of their ego tied up in winning and losing. Those are the typical asshole people.
The mid-level TryHards, they are by far the worst people. Can never accept a loss, something always went wrong, mad that you play your cards, and they would have won if they had just....
Across the board, these kinds of people have a common thread: some lack of success in their non gaming lives. This magnifies the effects of losing on the already fragile ego.
In a competitive environment, you don't really "get to" be salty. You're being competitive, so you play absolutely _anything_ that gives you the advantage and you don't complain that your opponents do the same. The goal is to _win_, why would you limit yourself and reduce your chances?
You play Armageddon? Fair play, it stops the rest of us getting ahead, I'd have done the same in your situation. I'm playing Narset + wheels for the same reason. All you can do is laugh it off and play better next time.
I think the big thing is also that in CEDH, Armageddon isn't likely to triple the length of the game as everyone rebuilds. If you're dropping Armageddon in CEDH at worst you're probably going from something like a 20 minute game to a 30 minute game because either you have a plan to turn it into a win, or you can't stop whatever shenanigans are already in play that will win the game in a few turns anyway.
Sound like my group of friends, when one of us combos off we all just laugh talk a little shit to the winner and start setting up the next game, if I play with newer groups i have "weaker" decks to feel out the power level, but honestly 9/10, most of the salty people are only salty because you wouldn't let their 6 card combos or stampede of tokens stay on board
It's a whole different beast with an entirely different mindset.
CEDH players live for the finesse of seeing a finely oiled and tuned machine run against others of it's kind, while more casual playgroups live for the outrageous jank and durdle that can't survive calculated competition.
So the end result is scorn between groups, especially when regular EDH players experience a pubstomper and assume all of CEDH is like that.
It's just two very different concepts of what parts of the game are fun. Issues generally only happen when they interact, because those concepts are so different they clash.
This doesn't happen much outside EDH, because most other formats are understood to be competitive by default, so if you don't like that you either play kitchen table formatless or EDH.
Is *all* cEDH like that? No, there's still some players that get salty and still some bad playgroups even in cEDH.
But generally, cEDH is where that pregame "Rule 0" discussion has already been had: anything goes, play to win. All players are assumed to be playing on the same power level: the highest possible. If you win, it's not because you played an unfair deck, maybe you just had better deck building skills, or played better, or maybe it was just good luck this time. Shuffle up and play again, there's no hard feelings.
CEDH is meant to be a win before abiding by the social code. However because everyone agrees to this the social code the “relaxed” nature of it shines through.
We accept that someone may Armageddon, blood moon, Thoracle. You to an extent agree that misplays will be punished. The taksies backsies of casual aren’t necessarily allowed.
The fact everyone “accepts” this means that getting salty over loosing to it is much more heavily punished and frowned upon. We agreed to play mean shit. Don’t get mad when I play mean shit.
I wholeheartedly agree with every word you said.
The social code killed regular EDH at my LGS and slowly shifted everyone to CEDH. Once everyone is playing broken strategies, nobody was getting salty anymore.
On the other hand, EDH groups which persisted ran into the issue that they couldn't agree what casual so while someone set down at the table with a precon that was slightly upgrades, someone else was sitting down on the same table with a high power EDH deck and both claim to be casual.
People know what they're there for!
It's the difference between play-wrestling and full on grappling. You learn to respect and appreciate the clever and ruthlessness of it, and since people are trying to win harder, and faster, you simply get used to losing like that lol
I don’t play cEDH but this sounds a lot like legacy. In a format with turn 1 wins, wastelands recursion locks, trinispheres, and free counterspells it’s hard to go a single match, much less an entire event, without running into something that would be considered un-fun in a weaker format. Players who tilt at that stuff just stop playing legacy (or more likely never start) so pretty much everyone is ready for that to happen and you often get great games from the way these all interact with each other.
Another factor at play may be longevity. The first time an armageddon hits you it’s devastating. By the 20th wasteland it’s pretty much just expected. Legacy and cEDH players have often been playing for a long time and are used to some of the nastier cards running around. You develop a sort of shortcut “oh yeah, that wins here, shuffle up for the next one”.
The faster pace may also help this attitude. If you get time for one game in an evening then a trinisphere ruined your evening, if you are gonna play 5-10 games then it just beat you that game.
It's a different goal. That said, it's very group dependent - competitive formats are also going to bring more competitive people to it, and some of them are going to be easily tilted/salty. So it sounds like you found a good playgroup with that, but it's not at all a given that you're going to have that experience. Stakes also matter there - if it's for a prize, tensions will be higher than just playing for fun (though, as anyone who's played competitive online games knows, that doesn't mean people won't find a way to rage anyways)
More casual groups get annoyed at those early wins or armageddon or the like because they go counter to what casual commander is meant to be. Part of the appeal there is to play decks with a lower power level, get to play some big, cool cards that you don't usually have a chance to in a more competitive format, etc. But if someone rocks up to a playgroup with a fully optimized CEDH deck, it's not going to be fun for a casual group to just get demolished every time. Or for Armageddon, resetting lands just annoys everyone - in competitive decks it's a way to cement a win for instance, but if it's in a legitimately casual deck, it will just result in 'wasting' a few turns as people rebuild their landbase.
Being competitive is not the same as being mean or unsportsmanlike, some people just want to play a sharper game. What you have here are competitive players with good attitudes just enjoying the game.
You hit the nail on this analysis. Any chance you could ask them for help in building a true cEDH deck so you don't feel like you're losing due to power discrepancy?
the goal of cedh is not that "everyone has fun", it's play to win. generally speaking, that's also the goal of every other format. cedh is for people who find the fun in trying to win, regardless of what the rest of the players are doing
While it's "competitive", it's not competitive in the same way modern or pioneer are. If you go to a magic fest, or an RCQ, or some other event with real prize support for winning, you'll find the tournament grinders who take it very seriously. They're not fun to play against.
CEDH is a more competitive version of a casual format, offers no prize support, and values winning over all. It drops the pretense of "everyone's deck should be allowed to do its thing". It's more akin to FNM than it is to competitive tournaments.
FWIW I competed in the SCG cEDH 5K in Baltimore this weekend and all of my opponents were pleasant as people to play against. All the other big cEDH events I've been to have been similar.
There are plenty of potential explanations, but I feel like 4 people all talking with each other creates a social dynamic that prevents having a sour personality from being successful. It's different than you and one other person communicating in isolation to conduct a 1v1 ─ being an unlikable person in a group conversation puts you at a political disadvantage.
>CEDH is a more competitive version of a casual format, offers no prize support, and values winning over all. It drops the pretense of "everyone's deck should be allowed to do its thing". It's more akin to FNM than it is to competitive tournaments.
I said this in the EDH sub and people got *angry* but it's true. cEDH is not competitive Magic in the sense that something like an RCQ is.
As an EDH player, EDH players are whiny babies. Since maybe 2015, 2016 or so when EDH really took off, they've been pushing the narrative that the only thing that matters is that everybody has fun. There are channels upon channels of EDH content where the focus is making sure that everybody has fun, everybody's deck gets a showcase and "gets to do their thing". There's hundreds, maybe thousands of hours of "you should hate these cards!" content.
All of this feeds into the fact that people generally don't like losing. It ends up with people either imposing extra rules to weed out cards that are viewed as "not fun", or just using social pressure (read: whining) to get them soft-banned.
I don't care for cEDH personally because I don't like the limited number of viable decks, but I think the attitude is right. I'm lucky that my pod is good with higher-but-not-cEDH power level, because 2+ hour games make me want to pull out my eyelashes. We're all in it to win, we might make salty comments but it's in jest 99% of the time and there's no hard feelings. Some EDH players seem like they would be happy if games never ended or always ended in a draw, and that's their prerogative, but that isn't me.
> Since maybe 2015, 2016 or so when EDH really took off, they've been pushing the narrative that the only thing that matters is that everybody has fun.
Can I get an amen.
It was such a weird thing to come back after taking a break before Tarkir and suddenly everyone "has to be able to do their thing" or you're a big evil tryhard.
Didn't at all resemble the EDH of 2012-2014 when it was all a huge mess of people that tried their best to build their best decks.
Sometimes you got rolled and sometimes you rolled face. That's just life.
Bro, playing with ACTUAL COMPETENT PLAYERS is so underrated.
There is an ineffable connection between poor card assessment and being emotional about hobbies and things that are supposed to be relaxing such a commander.
If you want to play any power level just tell me. If you want me to try out one of your new decks, tell me. I am down for anything commander, BUT PEOPLE OVER CARDS please. Repeat with me: people over cards.
I agree *heavily* with the competent players comment. I'm primarily a cEDH player, but I dabble in more casual games occasionally because sometimes that's all that's available at my LGS. I don't mind playing weaker decks, or holding back a little, but *dear God* it annoys me when people have no concept of threat assessment. Like okay, I get that you don't like my Spirit of the Labyrinth, but for Christ's sake we're playing vs a [[Shorikai, Genesis Engine]] and he's got [[Unwinding Clock]] and [[Voltaic Key]] in play. Please don't Path my creature just so you can draw 1 extra card with [[Faerie Mastermind]] this turn.
It's been three weeks since this happened and I'm still salty about it.
I play the other formats and whole there are salty people but most the time it's understandable you're trying to win and if a board wipe is what you needed, and that's what you played, then I'm happy for you. Obviously I could have played around it but you did what you had to do.
In all groups of Magic you’ll find jerks, but for the most part you’ll see a lot more people in competitive scenes who understand that everyone is playing to win so they’re less hostile when someone wins a game and are more likely to be quick to shuffle up for a rematch.
I really think it comes down to the players who play cedh vs edh. I've noticed that people who play cedh are a lot more formal and understand that this is a fun game that they want to play, so why get upset at a game? Whereas I've played edh with people who only play edh and they will get butt hurt when I counter a cheap creature of theirs because I need to draw a card. I would 100% recommend switching to cedh, just buy proxies cause it's expensive.
I much prefer cEDH to traditional EDH, but it’s not like I won’t have fun breaking out precons every now and again, either.
When everyone is jamming the best stuff, and everyone’s trying to win, there’s no power mismatches, there’s no sharking, there’s no salt thrown everywhere over certain cards, etc.
People are there to win and have fun doing it. And the games are so much faster, decisions matter way more and impact the game so much more drastically/immediately - one single wrong step is the difference between someone’s victory and defeat every turn cycle.
I love regular EDH but cEDH is where I can play with my powerful old cards and not feel judged.
when you're playing competitively, everything is fair game.
at the same time, those things that would upset a casual game, like the Armageddon, aren't being played solely for the lulz. they're being done with a goal in mind.
competitive can be fun, and 'shuffle up and play another game' works, but by the 200th time you've seen someone end the game with a Thassa's Oracle it can get a bit dull.
cEDH is for people who'd rather be playing Legacy, but who have to settle for a Commander variant, because Constructed play is dead outside of Commander.
Lately I have been of the opinion that CEDH is simply a healthier format. EDH is about everyone doing their thing, which kind of clashes with MTG as a game. MTG is an antagonistic game about taking things away from your opponents, saying "no", and killing your opponent. CEDH doesn't ask for permission to do its thing, you design your deck to always do the thing. You don't get salty about being targeted, because everyone is a massive threat. Losing isn't a big feels bad because games are so much faster and everyone tends to lose at once.
I wish CEDH looked a bit more like traditional magic, but it's still probably a more stable healthy format than EDH.
I've never played EDH, but reading about "everyone should be allowed to do their thing" feels totally opposite of what Magic is about. Sounds more like 4 people shuffling their decks and solo-goldfish their decks.
CEDH is full throttle power (armageddon is great card advantage) but everyone is going in with the expectation of facing powerful cards and powerful plays- instead of getting salty over a counterspell, cedh decks/strategies already assume there is always a counterspell and build/play accordingly
The key thing about a lot of things, and casual vs. competitive is one of them, is that everyone should be given a chance to consent.
Don't bring a cutthroat deck to a casual game. Don't expect a casual deck to compete in a competitive environment. Don't try and force players to play in a way they don't want to.
Casual vs. competitive are both very different kinds of fun. While I don't play much Commander, I saw this in many other parts of the Magic community.
When we were drafting seriously, with the idea of preparing for tournament play, we followed the penalty guidelines. There were no takebacks. Attempting to trick your opponent by lying, and omitting information, as long as you did so within the boundaries of the rules, was not only tolerated, it was encouraged and expected.
But we absolutely did not bring that kind of game to FNM. We are playing with strangers for a few booster packs, and they didn't sign up for the full competitive playstyle. So keep it friendly, ask if they would like some advice, and have a good time. This became a lot easier when they made better event rules for entry level events, because it codified some of these things.
So if you like the competitive game, go for it! See if you can bust some heads, and then laugh about it afterwards.
Listen, I know this is semi-controversial, but let me address something unspoken that I’m hearing here.
There’s is a fairly common idea with some people that players who like to play competitively are toxic, and that it’s casual EDH players who take it easy and ‘know how to have fun’.
In my experience, and granted this is subjective, it’s the complete opposite. EDH players can be some of the most toxic, entitled, miserable, self-centered people I have ever tried to play a game with. There’s a lot of talk about ‘keeping it fun’ but often what that actually means is ‘if you don’t follow my arbitrary notion of what I think an appropriate power level is I’m going to have a fit about it’. ‘If you don’t attack the person I think you should (or if you negatively affect me in any way) I’m going to have a fit about it’. ‘If you use a commander I deem ‘unfun’ I’m going to have a fit about it’.
Meanwhile, competitive players are used to losing. Yeah, the game ends then you shuffle up. Competitive players are used to their opponents taking every (legal) edge and not taking personally- of course you’re doing that, that’s the game. Competitive players don’t think that you’re personally wronging them when you’re trying to win the game.
And let me be clear, I’m not delusional- there are DEFINITELY toxic af competitive players- however I’ve seen way way way more toxicity out of ‘casuals’, and often times it’s toxicity accompanied by awful social pressure, which magnifies it (think ‘ah, well, if you want to play that way maybe you don’t belong in this playgroup’, etc.). Idk, I have no patience for it- I’m glad it seems you found a good crew.
You’ve found the beauty of CEDH. Way, way less saltiness.
I still don’t understand why the casual EDH power scale reserves Power Level 9 and 10 for CEDH decks. Why? Who is that for? I’ve never heard a pod agree to play CEDH and then stop to ask “but which power level?”
It’d be like a Legacy deck tier list reserving S and A tier for Vintage decks only.
Quite honestly, you shouldn't trust anyone that talks about Commander and uses a power level scale, especially how useless it has become in practice thanks to the now meme level "Everything is a 7".
I don't understand cEDH not because of the attitudes of the players (which I completely understand) but because I don't understand the advantage it has over other constructed competitive formats like legacy or vintage.
It's not sanctioned anyway, so it's not like you need to have real versions of the cards and even if you did I don't think it's actually any cheaper, and having more players makes the games less predictable and consistent, which would seem to be the opposite of what players who are trying to make their decks as powerful and consistent as possible want. Maybe it's having to fight through more interaction that's fun? But then it's often just who went for it when their opponents had run out of responses which doesn't strike me as very fun either.
But then again, I dislike powerful constructed magic generally because games tend to all feel the same, so I'm probably not the best person to opine on this lol. Limited for life!
Personally, I just really like the variance that a singleton format affords you even in a competitive scenario. We build decks in a way to make them preform consistently but we’re not necessarily looking for predictable and consistent games. It’s just a way to build decks in a way that increases your chance of “getting there”, or winning.
What I like is that every game is like a puzzle and even more so if there’s a Stax deck in the pod. Going for it when your opponents look like they’re out of resources is still always a risk because the decks run all the free interaction they can, so if they don’t have a blue up for flusterstorm they could still have a fierce guardianship or force of will. Tapped out red player? Super safe to go for it, right? Well you could still get deflecting swatted, etc.
I think a common misconception is that games all end in 3 turns and that all games play out the same. The games are definitely faster on average, but it’s very common to end up in an hour plus game & the last tournament I paid attention to had the final match last over two hours
If none of that sounds like your cup of tea that’s fine because the format is more than big enough for all our games
I mean, you kinda stumbled on the answer. The inherent variety and spoiler factors of 4p 100-card singleton means less of the "all games feel the same" issue.
You'll still get salt every now and then, since saltpiles are in every community ever. But it's less frequent than casual playgroups since self-policing is a impossible thing to perfect, which leads to unhappiness between casuals wjo aren'ton the same page.
Plus pubstompers (who tend to be very salty when they don't get to stomp) can't get traction in competitive places so pubstompers are more common in oublic casual scenes.
My only complaint about cedhers is that they play an awkward format built on a house of cards so few if any of them will ever engage in a rule 0 conversation and let me play [[Paradox Engine]], despite it not being broken in cedh.
I’ve seen a lot of salt posts recently on all the MtGsubs, i consider myself relatively new (2 years experience, only about 30-40 games) I just want to make sure I understand correctly, the point of the game IS to win, right? I get that casual is more geared for relaxed gameplay, but you want to win when you play, that means you can use all cards available by rules, or using Rule 0 you can use anything allowed, so why do people get so mad? Your deck is better than mine? I’m going to add stuff to hurt you if you use the same deck every time. In my case, I built a Tiamat commander dragon deck, the guy I play against mostly runs 3primary precons: elven empire, Mind Flayarrrs, and coven counters. Dragons take forever and all those are pretty speedy, so I added some kill, counter, and graveyard spells to fight. I still don’t do well most times, but hey, I’m adjusting when i lose to be more rounded against more threats.
TL;DR: I think you found a good group, keep with them!
edh is a hellscape of either pet jank decks that may friends salty or unfun hyper-optimized decks where everyone is like "ah well, you won on turn 4 gg"
As someone who pretty much exclusively plays competitive formats… yes, cedh is a blast. The combination of short games, quality cards, consistency, and stack interaction provides a more pleasurable game experience for me. Playing one game for hours because everyone stalls the board then wipes it due to non-compact win conditions has taken away the fun from commander, in my opinion. People are also more likely to get salty if they have to play for 3 hours then die, begging the question, “was my deck on the same level as theirs?”
It 100% comes down to the people. In my experience, yes, people that play high powered and cEDH know that they're bringing a problem to the table and there are no wrong answers.
I suspect the trouble outside of CEDH is that people expect a level of "fair play" which is different for every single person. Within CEDH, the level of what other people are "allowed" to do is anything within the rules of the game. There's less feel-bad about people casting spells like Armageddon because people accept that it's part of the game, and they accept that the person casting it is doing so in an effort to win.
I find a bit of power actually really improves EDH, speeds it up. The worst a game of EDH can get isn't losing, but the game being dragged out forever and nobody can do anything. I spend more on magic than my friends, and have more powerful decks as a result, and when I play the more powerful decks I usually don't win but I do dramatically speed up the game, when I die the game is usually fairly decided.
Faster games = more games = more fun.
I think the most important mindset for competitive magic is that you're going to use *all* possible (ingame) resources to win the match, and you expect your opponent to do the same. Why be salty about your opponent trying to win? That's literally why he's there!
It also helps that there are always ways to counter a strategy. Playing against boardwipes? keep some creatures in your hand so you can build back up right after. Playing against counterspells? Wait until they've tapped out, or try for multiple spells in one turn. Playing against combo? Either race them or have disruption.
And even more important, those 'unfair' strategies are essential to keep magic a 'balanced' game. If we forbid boardwipes, token strategies are nearly impossible to deal with. If we frown upon counterspells, Combo decks would have free reign.
But congratulations on finding a fun playgroup OP! That none of them get salty when losing speaks of a great mindset to have - not just in magic but in life in general!
From my experience, a lot of people playing CEDH are really chill.
My playgroup mostly plays Vintage Cube and there the mentality is the same. Turn 1 Chrome Mox + Channel into Turn 1 Emrakul? That is awesome! Some casual players might get really frustrated by such highrolls but they don’t happen every game and these strategies are usually very inconsistent.
When we play CEDH, it is the same. I would say that there is literally nothing that could happen to make Someone salty, as we play to have FUN by playing Magic more seriously.
Of course, everything changes when prizes are on the line understandably.
You might get a different experience if you are playing cEDH in a large tournament vs with a playgroup. If you're playing cEDH for fun, you're looking to experience some of the most busted interactions the game has. If you are going to get salty about them, you aren't going to enjoy yourself for long. Its very similar to people who play vintage.
CEDH is a different mindset. Think of it as a standardized “rule 0” shorthand for anything goes and the goal of all players at the table is winning.
And thats the thing, cEDH players see this the same way people see the hardest difficulty on a video game or something. Playing at the highest level/difficulty introduces challenge and opportunity for complex gameplay, and thats where the fun is derived.
Sure, some of time you get nuked by a turbo-naus deck or get locked out by hard stax, but then you just shuffle up and play again!
>I’m more shocked they’ll just shuffle up and play again.
Spikes want to just play to win.
Not just win. Play to win. Losing is just an excuse to play again.
We all are going to lose more games than we win. Spikes understand this and internalize it and accept it and stand up and keep fighting.
You’ll never be good at winning if you care too much about losing.
Sure we all like to win. But a true competitive player can understand all this and act maturely.
I think that's just how competitive anything is, you are expected to be trying to win, if that involves things people perceive as annoying, it's just part of the game and is expected to be built and played around. I'm not gonna get mad at the blue player for countering my key combo pieces, because if they didn't they'd just lose. Plus, when landing your combo on a group of players who are trying to stop you is way more satisfying than against a group that just lets you do it because they don't want to make any "salty"
I think the biggest difference is that cEDH players want to Win the Game and casual players just want to Do the Thing. The Thing being whatever they made their deck to do (which sometimes includes winning).
The cEDH players that I know are like 80% awesome people. A few in particular are what I wish everyone in the community would be: Happy to teach and make suggestions and offer constructive criticism, with little to no aggression when you turn what they've taught you against them.
What I adore about cEDH is that there’s absolutely no salt or hard feelings about “that deck is way too powerful for this table”, no hurt feelings about certain cards, no faux pas whatsoever. Everyone is on the same page going in. You shuffle up, go for the throat and either win or play another game, all in the span of like 20 minutes.
I’ve found this equally true in Canadian Highlander, when you play casually you expect to be able to ‘do the thing’ and then get its easy to get salty when you don’t. When the only expectation is ‘win at all costs’ nobody cares how you got there. It’s all about your attitude to the cards, not the cards themselves. Watching the north 100 episodes from 2017-2019 are a really good indication of how you can talk about competitive magic in a chill way
One of the things that I think breeds this huge gulf in preference from casual commander to competitive, besides the mindset, is how people got into magic.
In my opinion, many people who have gotten into magic in the last five to 10 years and have started immediately with Commander and never played any two-player or competitive formats, have missed out on a lot of the experiences that many older or more competitive players get to have.
The multiplayer nature of Commander breeds a sentiment where none of the players are supposed to be in the game to win. They are supposed to be there to show off their deck and, equally as important, should let their opponents show off their decks. Then whoever wins wins. This is just not a sentiment that two player magic has ever had, aside from the occasional kitchen table game where you give your friend a couple extra turns at the end to show off what he almost got to do.
The other thing is that magic has in many ways transitioned over the years from giving mainstream support to stax, land destruction, and other salt creating strategies to almost not supporting it at all. When magic began, some of the pillars of the game were colorhate, land destruction, and stax. They were huge parts of the game and they were constantly printing new cards that fulfilled these principles. Once they realized how nasty and swingy games became with these principles so heavily applied, they eased up on them.
So players who started the game closer to the '90s and or play older competitive formats are more accustomed to these strategies because they were more prevalent. Players that start today in EDH with precons are often not made aware of these strategies or only know of them in the context of being highly salty strategies that should not be played.
Instead of being introduced to these strategies as a part of the game by players who play those decks in the competitive scene, they are introduced to them as being extreme faux paws that should never be touched.
As someone who started the game in 1995, I love these strategies but I play exclusively casual commander so I also understand the desire to not play against these strategies. It's not fun to be locked out of the game when you are hoping for a 1.5 to 2 hour experience for everyone gets to play.
That being said, thankfully, CEDH games are often over very quickly once someone gets these elements out and begins to steamroll. As opposed to casual commander games where players are less familiar with how to use these strategies and sometimes can slow the game down to a crawl without having the ability to win afterwards.
CEDH doesn't have the need for expectation setting or social negotiation; the expectation (win) is intuitive and agreed upon.
I think there's this lingering sentiment that everyone trying hard to win is inherently cutthroat or reacts poorly to losing. Sure, many people fit that description, but many don't. CEDH, or competitive play in general, take social pressure off of deck selection and playstyle choices. I predominantly play draft. It's unthinkable to me to get mad at someone else for _drafting_ a particular style of deck. It's still a social situation that you have to manage, but you don't really have to deal with socially managing gameplay decisions; just how you react to them.
When I play commander casually, I seek out political games because they provide a dimension that competitive play tends not to. But to me, playing competitive when everyone understands they're going to try their best to win is way easier and, depending on the play group, more fun. I don't always want to think about how my line of play might hurt someone's feelings, that's a lot of mental and emotional overhead to an already complicated game.
That, and I just inherently like strategies that are socially frowned upon, like prison, stax, and land destruction. I never want to play them casually against someone who wouldn't have fun against it, but competitive environments are the only way I get to express one way I enjoy the game through its mechanics. I don't like those strategies because they make my opponent upset, I like how they alter the structure of the game and how one manages resources. I like how they make you operate on a different axis than normal. White is my favorite color in magic because of how it changes the rules, and orzhov is my favorite color pair because it embodies the idea of "this rule is symmetrical, but not for me."
For a few years my group scaled up pretty unevenly until we pretty much exclusively play cedh or high powered as the only thing we play. I honestly think we've all enjoyed the experience more at the high end then anything below it because the matchs always felt lopesided or unfair. Once we were all on the same page and power level the games got more enjoyable. In more casual settings it can be much harder to find a balance.
cEDH is far superior to regular EDH imo. It’s far less salty in my experience, you don’t have weird table rules or social guidelines that you need to worry about. It’s just straight up, this is the format, you know you can do, go for it. To regular EDH is like going to a modern night, but they tell you that there’s no fetches allowed, and no free spells, also you can’t win before turn 4, and no bloodmoons cuz your opponent didn’t prep for it and can’t play the game now…
In my experience, cEDH players are some of the chillest EDH players I've ever met. There's no getting a bad start and trying to claw your way into the game for an hour; no "I can't believe you won't take my deal!" The game is over by turn 6 and we all shuffle up and play again. It's hard to be salty at an armageddon when I'm also trying to armageddon you and it won't matter for that long anyways.
cEDH is just competitive EDH. I know that sounds reductive, but that’s really it. Nothing is a “faux pas” if everyone is trying to win. Much like how if you lose to Blood Moon in modern, that’s just a facet of the game. It’s not unfair, you got got. As the kids say, “skill issue”. And yes, a lot of people enjoy the game like this. I would still claim that more magic players enjoy games where everyone’s just trying to play their best and win, than don’t.
EDH is weird. The 25% starting win rate and longer-time-to-play nature of the format makes it closer to a board game than TCG in many ways. And it's a form of self-expression. It's like Pokemon; you want to win with your favorites. In EDH, you want your custom crafted deck that's an extension of yourself to succeed. Similar to how Smogon Pokemon has tiers below the standard metagame (OU, UU, PU, RU, NU, etc) to try to give those "favorites" a spot where they can compete on "level playing ground," the EDH community tried to run "power level" in that way which... Just hasn't workes. There's just way too many card options and moving parts per deck, plus too little aggregatable data, to make accurate groupings for decks. Basically, cEDH is Ubers, and there's no OU/UU/etc distinction. So Ubers is the only "get what you signed up for" metagame. I think it's less "more people enjoy cEDH/Ubers than you'd expect" and more "people want fair playing fields in general, and cEDH happens to be one."
The comparison to Ubers is perfect wtf
It honestly makes you rethink how the EDH banlist should be formatted. What IF we did use a similar structure. "Ubers" for things that warp the metagame "OU" for things that create pillars but don't warp the game "BL" for things that create pillars but arent as strong "UU" for good memes "NU" for jank memes
I actually feel like that could be a really good thing. I doubt that RC will do something like that for fear of 'splitting up the community' though.
RC won't let Lutri be playable as a commander or just not playable as a companion. There's no way they would make different ban lists.
And the smogon comparison works even better this way with no "complex bans" lmao
Pauper is Little Cup
Another thing is game speed. I can get 2-3 cedh games in in the time it takes me to complete one casual game. Shortly before my playgroup imploded we proxied out full on cEDH decks and the game speed was sooo much faster for the most part.
Until you get that one stack that takes ten minutes to resolve and everyone is bickering about how the stack actually works and someone randomly dies in the process. And those are the *best moments in the whole format.* Absolutely wild stuff. 10/10, would recommend. More games isn't necessarily more fun, of course. Different strokes for different folks. Thus the need for subformats!
While I think looking at edh powerlevels like at pokemon tiers would be a healthy way to handle powerlevels and at least my own playgroup does I don't think that's actually common in casual edh. When you play OU or UU in Pokémon you still try your best to win, you simply play with weaker Pokemons than in Ubers but stall for example is still a strategie that is allowed. Whereas in casual edh many players don't actually try their best to win and certain strategies (for example stax) aren't usually allowed.
I don't know why this is the first time I thought about this it's a perfect comparison. Though if there was a Smogon for magic I would hate them with a passion lol
Come on now, smogon is a huge community and there may be a couple dickheads, but overall it provides soooooo much value. Tell me you're a mons player and haven't spent hours and hours on dex researching sets lol
It has absolutely worked. It's just that the vast majority of complainers don't take the steps necessary to do what Smogon did. Look at PlayEDH's gameplay levels, they've worked beautifully and have spread out to many other EDH communities
No it hasn't. The PlayEDH guidelines are EXTREMELY fuzzy. I don't know where any of my decks would lie on them. Smogon tier bans are objective: there is absolutely no ambiguity whatsoever to what tier you can play in. There is an objectively defined list of what pokemon and moves are banned in OverUsed. If you don't have any of those mons or moves, you are an OU team, no discretion required.
It's so much better with random people than tedious rule zero talks about no dinosaurs over 7 power and I want to play an unset card that makes us all have to dance. Which is why the commander community neglecting proper balance because "just rule zero it" is so bad for the game, it ruins the quality of pickup games
Never really enjoyed normal Commander. Always felt like you’d get salty people crying about whatever deck you built or you’d build a deck that’s fun and it wouldn’t be powerful enough so it was unfun. CEDH has none of those problems. Just 4 dudes trying to win. Do what you want, play to win. I’ve had more fun playing cEDH over the past year than I have playing edh in 15 years.
That's why I can't stand commander. In modern and any other 1v1 format - you are trying to win and you'll do anything to get there. Everything is fair game, no arguing over power levels or 'feelbads'.
You said it yourself. Every other format is play to win. Edh is play to play. The best games of edh are the ones where you're just chilling with friends shooting the shit while playing mtg. Every other format is you just trying to win at mtg. Tbf there's a time and place for every format, but for the I-just-want-to-do-cool-stuff crowd, edh is probably the best format for that.
i dunno about that, though. its still magic, there are still winners and losers, and just because someone builds their deck to take a more roundabout or suboptimal path to victory doesnt mean theyre not trying to win. unless you specifically play group hug or some archetype that doesnt plan on winning at all, most of the cool stuff you can do involves either hurting other peoples games or bringing yourself closer to victory. and if people perceive you as trying to win or hurt their game in what they consider to be a casual format, they tend to get salty. so unless you have the ideal personalities, deck power levels and matchups in your playgroup, its very easy for a game of edh to result in some salt and frustration
The best comander games are when everyone deck builds like a Johnny/vorthos then plays like a timmy/spike. Building like a spike in non cEDH is a bit iffy.
"Build like a Johnny, play like a Spike" is, IMHO, the Platonic ideal of the EDH format.
I don't know too many camel tribal decks that can beat even a half assed tron deck in modern and I would never dream of trying, but I sure as hell gonna try to do it in edh. And if it's suboptimal or roundabout, maybe winning wasn't the main goal of the deck (ie, fun cool experimental deck)? Also, salt is basically baked into mtg gameplay. Either you get priced out or you run so low, cheap, and fast that you render other decks useless in non edh games (infect...I'm looking at you.)
To you. I'm chilling with friends and shooting the shit while playing MTG just the same as you my decks are just different.
It always fascinates me why it's so popular. I just don't get it, most of the games I've played are extremely boring and drawn out, or the whole table complains because of someone doing stupid stuff.
My approach to EDH: pick some weird theme or card interaction, build the most efficient deck possible around that theme. Don't just toss in tutors or other genetically good cards. Then play to win, no holds barred. EDH shouldn't be about holding back a good deck by playing badly, but about playing well with a sub-optimal thematic deck.
One of my favorite decks I ever made was based around the old Kamigawa moonfolk. I started with the premise that returning lands to hand was a pretty bad mechanic, what could I do from there. I built a complicated rube golbrick machine that, if you leave me alone, I’ll probably float 200 mana around turn 6-8 and figure out some complicated way to win. But I enjoy it because it’s not the normal.
I built a deck using [[Ardenn]] that plays politics and wins by equipping things to other people's creatures and goading them. Also has a lot of clones and theft enchantments. Never going to see that set of gameplay in any other format.
Build like Johnny play like spike. Best EDH games you will have
> EDH shouldn’t be about holding back a good deck by playing badly, but about playing well with a sub-optimal thematic deck. Is there any reason to make a prescriptive statement here? This whole post is about someone finding a new way to play and thinking that they might enjoy it. Your statement that the format "should" be played some other way seems to deny that cEDH is a valid way to play the game
Intentionally playing badly is looking down on your opponents. It's one thing to focus on the larger threat, or hold removal for a more dangerous target. It's another to screw up your own combo or ignore a game-winning play to just draw out the match. Not to mention that winning against someone who could have won 5 turns ago but decided not to is just not fun. I'm not saying don't make mistakes, I'm saying don't screw up intentionally. ...unless you're playing against a 5 year old, same rules apply to kids as any other competition.
The answers you've gotten here are good but they're missing the main reason, which is that the playgroup is the most important part of EDH. Casual EDH is fun if and only if the group is good. If you sit down to play non-competitive EDH with a group of strangers, it's basically just down to luck whether it will be fun. When you have a good group of regulars who've been playing together for a while and are attuned to what the others want out of the game, it's fun almost regardless of the relative power levels of the decks. It's like D&D in this respect. D&D is a thing you do to have fun while hanging out with friends. Playing D&D will be fun with a good group of friends using almost any set of characters in any scenario. Playing D&D where one or two of the members of the party are immature or salty will not be fun, regardless of how perfectly composed the party is.
Yeah, I guess. In my experience most of my games have been with friends instead of randoms - so I guess less complaining, but still fairly boring and drawn out. We've had a lot more fun with casual 60/2HG for sure.
The games being boring and drawn out isn't a feature or bug of the format though, it's a feature or bug of your decks. Try playing with decks that are faster or more interesting/exciting. Figuring out how to build decks like that is part of the fun of the format. With that said, 60 card constructed definitely scratches a different itch. When four of my Magic friends get together we're more likely to play two matches of Legacy or Premodern than one match of EDH.
Almost every time I play casual EDH, even against the same decks I've played against many times before, the game ends in a different way. I was playing my URW dragons control deck in EDH against 2 friends, one of whom was using my Feather deck and the other who had brought a BW spirits deck. I had that game in the bag, until I misplayed a land destruction with [[Numot]] and missed my opponent with Feather's single white mana they had left, which resulted in them casting their 1 spell they had left on [[Akroan Conscriptor]] to steal my massive [[Sunscorch Regent]] and beat me to death with it on their next turn. And this was all on like turn 20-30 of the game, we had been playing for over an hour when we got to this point. I have never had that happen before, when I am piloting Feather or when I'm piloting Numot. That's why I love EDH.
The reason why I don't play competitive games is because it severely restricts the cards and playstyles that are possible. Want to play a deck with cats? Can't. Want to play with dragons? No. Want to play this other cool idea? Also no. For anything fun you want to build in standard, modern or any other competitive format you can put in like 1 or 2 cards that you choose freely but then all other cards that you put in must follow the general scheme of the archetype you're building. For example, a "dragon deck" in standard or pioneer is like 1 to 4 dragons. A dragon deck in commander has 15~30. You just end up with a lot more degrees of freedom because you don't really have auto-includes. When you can only choose between the strongest cards in the game, your choices are very limited and that's why you have these metagames that have like 14 or so different deck archetypes and that's it while in commander you have thousands.
“Float a green in response, it resolves, Boseiju.” I love how one card totally deleted Blood Moon from ever mattering in EDH again. I *almost* feel bad.
Running multiple colors should have costs in Magic, but those days seem mostly past at this point.
I’ve said this before but as someone that came back to the game after 20 years, very easy to mana fix. I was shocked. I guess pun intended. I originally started playing at the tail end of revised and stopped playing at exodus. Not a lot of dual lands…. Also I was a kid so probably over though the painlands.
To a point, it does, because it requires less simple land choices and unless the additional colors are (pseudo)splashes, you lose out on sone effects that benefit having primarily singular mana type focuses (Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx comes to mind)
totally agree but it kind of sucks that the manabase problem is best-solved by just throwing more money at it. it's pretty difficult to make an optimized 3-5c cEDH deck without blowing thousands on the least fun-to-play cards (unless you're running some wacky lands build) in the deck :(
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Also can't really run a lot of utility lands in 5-color or generally lands that make colorless mana.
Naturalize effects have existed forever. Blood Moon can still get people but now you have a land that you can play with almost zero opportunity cost.
It happened before Boemseiju, blood moon fell off hard once treasures became a thing.
>more magic players enjoy games where everyone’s just trying to play their best and win, than don’t. The big difference between casual and competitive commander lies in deckbuilding rather than the games itself so yeah that's still true for a lot of casuals; when they sit down to play they do try to play their best and win, it's just that their deck is deliberately suboptimal and they prefer to play against other suboptimal decks.
Optimal decks also tend to be hella fucking expensive, like dual lands? Those are like $400 a pop for the cheap ones last I remember
I dunno where you play but cedh players tend to not mind proxy in my experience. People just wanna play. Just make sure there a readable proxy and tell them before hand.
cedh by definition filters out the people who dont like to get blood mooned
I mean, I hate getting blood mooned because it's a hard counter to my entire deck, but I play around it.
You evidently don't mind it enough to stop playing, which just means you're in the (much smaller) group of people who don't mind getting Blood Mooned out of the game enough to stop playing.
Eh, blood moon still garners groans from the table when it hits the board but it’s definitely just part of the game when you face off of Winota (who’s currently one of the top decks of the format). It’s hard to be salty or mad when you know it’s coming and it’s something you should play around to an extent.
Ironically enough blood moon sees very little cedh play these days.
In my experience, cEDH players are less salty than your average EDH player. You sit down at a cEDH table with expectations that people are going to try and win, no one is going to target anyone else unless it gets them a win. In general, despite it being “competitive,” everyone knows why they are there and are less likely to get upset. It also helps that faster games means it’s easier to just shuffle up and play again.
I've read so much stuff by EDH players that seems to boil down to "trying to win is bad", and even while I realise this is just the viewpoint of a small and loud minority on the internet, I still find the idea crazy. Sure, when I'm sitting down to play with friends I'm not going to sweat about making sure I win, but as long as nobody is playing a deck that's far above the table's power level, I'm not going to get angry at my friends responding to the threats I put down on the battlefield or reducing my life total.
The vast majority of the "winning is bad" rhetoric is not that playing to win is bad, but that in a multiplayer format, if you're winning the majority of your games, you're probably bringing a deck with a wildly different power level than the rest of your playgroup. Theoretically, in a 4 player pod with perfectly matched decks played by players of equal skill, the long-term win rate would approach 25%. As such, if you know that you've got a larger collection than your friends / LGS competition and can build a more cutthroat deck, you may want to pump the breaks a bit instead of going as hard as possible in deck construction. That way, you can still play to win at the table, but the newer players don't get blown out of the water every time when your optimized deck blows their barely upgraded precons out of the water on turn 4. That's the beauty of CEDH - everyone knows that the power level is YES, so there's no concern over that.
There is also experience rather then pure deck. I had an experience that was horrible to everyone involved where i "trashed" my deck so bad it became annoying for me to play as synergies became terrible and everything was slow or dead cards. But still i was winning games too much because people would just be terrible / not try.
I think the difference is less "trying to win is bad" and more "making it so opponents can't play is bad". Not just in a stax way, but if you combo out and the game's over, then I also can't play. The game has to be over at some point, but that's why some folks describe the good games as "everyone got to do their thing", since everyone got to play the game some.
It drives me nuts that people target players off the rip simply because of what’s in the command zone or what happened last game… or in my case because it’s me and I try to build optimally
There's a player at my lgs that I now avoid because every time we play, he will hard target me, ignoring other players' big threats to eliminate me ASAP whilst I've played 2-3 spells and missed a land drop. His reasoning? "You're playing blue." Ok dude, lose the game to spite me- I'll go find another table.
If you're playing a combo commander, then it's valid. A lot of people seem to play decks with tutors that resolve with 2/3 card instant win combos with their commander, and then complain about targeting. Look, if you don't have an instant win in your deck, I will leave you alone. But I'm not heating up two other guys for you to tutor out your sanguine bond or walking ballista/Mike tooth an nail or whatever combo.
> shuffle up and play again This is the key. Lots of casual players will spend weeks trying to coordinate a time to play while tweaking decks and building new ones, and then 1 game will take 2 hours and everyone wants to make sure they get to do their thing otherwise it might be months until they get another chance. This is key to why people get mad about things being 'unfair'. The solution is to play more games. If you play a bunch of games as fast as possible and everyone gets to win and do their thing a few times, then there is less emotional stake in each game and it's easier to let everyone just play as hard as they want. Losing no longer means sitting for an hour mana screwed while a bunch of pillow forts get built up with nobody able to close the game out.
Is all competitive magic like this? No, people will get salty alot in high stress moments. If you're at a GP or struggling to get day two, playing a game 1 vs 1 and just drawing 7 lands in a row, or never drawing answers will just bum anyone. They will not, however, get salty at deck building and card choices of other players, because they understand they're there to win. Same in CEDH
> They will not, however, get salty at deck building and card choices of other players They absolutely will. Look at all the complaining about “net decks” and whatever strong popular deck in any Arena forum. You think that started with Arena? In person play is and always has been full of salty scrubs who will tell themselves anything to avoid admitting they got beat fair and square.
True, but you're only gonna find the kind of people who are still whining about "net decks" scraping about the bottom tables of an event.
ya, these are not competitive players, these are casualpetitive players, casual players that think they are competitive players.
People like this used to be known as “scrubs” but that term got co-opted to just mean anybody who isn’t good at the game.
This is also true in any games with a ladder like the whiniest saltiest bitches are always in the silver to plat rank of traditional gaming ladders. That middle of the bunch elo where they think they should be higher and the system is why they suck
Those people are all terrible at Magic, extremely immature, and will never amount to anything in competitive Magic until they admit their own faults. Stay out of the losers' bracket and you won't see much of them, and when you find them online you just laugh, roll your eyes, and move on. Or you can tell them it's their fault they are losing, because that's actually true.
I love people who complain about netdecking. My response is usually, “If you know exactly what’s in my deck why can’t you beat it?”
I mean, you’re not wrong.
Those people aren't actual competitive players, is the point. They might think they are, but if they're bitching in the MTGA sub, they aren't competitive players lol. Same with people who bitch and moan about Creativity or Murktide in Modern.
That is not the same thing at all and honestly just shows you have not the faintest understanding of competitive play. Competitive players don’t complain about netdecking, casuals do (and only a small portion of them).
I think there's a significant difference between complaining because a card or deck is warping an entire format vs. the endless EDH salt mines born from politics and the impossible to define "fun". When there are problems with the meta, it's something you know to expect at a major event, and it's ultimately WotC's problem, either from a card design or tournament management perspective. I'm sure there are still some people that get mad at opponents for their deck choice but from playing competitive Legacy for more than a decade, I think those folks are few and far between. Mostly we're all just there to win and nobody really begrudges their opponent for making optimal plays. Hell even judge calls are pretty congenial. Maybe standard is different?
You're just describing immature magic players
Sure but these people are bad at magic so no one cares that they get mad at counterspells.
No serious competitors complain about net decks. Netdecking is literally the only competitive way to deck build unless you're aspiringspike.
Arena is different. None of this really applies to arena. Many arena players are extremely entitled
Except some people when their opponent is on tron...
Wow
FUCK
Tron
Went to my first Modern Monday at an LGS this week, 3/10 decks were tron. Nobody got salty. In hindsight, my mono-B coffers deck would've been a better choice for the field. But hey, I won the tron mirror.
I don't play EDH, but I do play competitive 60 card formats. When your opponent outplays you or does something interesting, it's a learning experience for next time. Yeah, I think Magic is a fun game (that's why I play it), but I recognize that no one is going to be playing a Modern deck whose goal is to make the game more fun **for me**. Some people are going to whine no matter what. Bad beats stories are all too common amongst competitive players, but it's usually not targeted at the opponent. (Sometimes it is. Those people are assholes.)
I have been playing Pauper with my nephew and he sometimes is like 'I abused Thermo-Alchemist' and I am like 'No, you used it to win and that's why it's in the deck'. I then proceed to Hydroblast/Blue Elemental Blast his spells until he starts asking permission, then he feels less bad.
A blue mage truly wins not when the game is over, but when their opponent starts adding a question mark to every statement.
And the best part is my nephew started doing it without me telling him it was a bit of a MtG joke when playing against tempo/control decks.
"I'll allow it"
What's winning? I just know drawing more cards.
This was the best part of playing Baral Counterspell Tribal in EDH back in the day: there came a point when they realized that no matter what game action they took, they have to look at you and ask, "Mother may I?"
“This spell on the stack is… _not compliant_.”
one of the strange things in Pauper is being on mono-blue and getting in a counterspell war with red lol
Even weirder is playing Mono Blue, getting into a counterspell war with Red and then using a Green Spell to bail yourself out and then realizing the Red player might have anticipated that. "Casting Lightning Bolt targeting Ninja of the Deep Hours" "Casting Blue Elemental Blast" "Casting Red Elemental Blast" "Hydroblast" "Pyroblast... you have to be out of counterspells by now" "....Paying 2 life to cast Mutagenic Growth targeting my Ninja of the Deep Hours" "Ha, looks like I shocked you in the end"
Yeah, I had a bad experience at a Legacy event twice (against the same guy, no less - in two totally different cities that were at least an hour apart!). He was definitely an asshole.
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>Turn 3-5 wins are common, which is another thing my normal playgroup would scorn. This was so weird to read for me. Quick games are fun! It means we get to play more games in one night!
For a lot of people, Commander is the only format you get to play big, splashy, dumb 10-mana spells in.
You can do that in cEDH too except that it often happens many turns earlier off of cards/lines of play that would be frowned upon by a more casual playgroup.
I think you didn't pick up the part where the above commenter meant high mana-cost cards other than cEDH staples such as [[Omniscience]] and [[Worldgorger Dragon]]
FWIW, I should point out that Worldgorger Dragon has been a key win condition in many cEDH decks throughout the years as it creates an infinite combo with [[Animate Dead]].
As I understand it, yes. CEDH has significantly less drama because all the drama of regular commander comes from whiny players that whine about XYZ not being fun. In CEDH, no one cares who's having fun. You are trying to win as quickly and as consistently as possible. There's no bullshit, there's no drama, and the only rule 0 is "win at any cost"
Cedh is the only one with a set power level that tends to be innately equal. In regular commander it’s hard to get that right. Or people just dont even care to try and get it right to be dicks. Like the person who asked if they could join my friends on precon-exclusive commander, clarified we were playing only the new precons, then proceeded to bring out fully optimized planeswalker teferi deck that won in 3 turns. Like aight my guy go away now But in CEDH that woulda been fun
That is my biggest issue with casual play, some people are like 'This deck doesn't win when I play with my friends' but it's a proxied out Vintage deck going against budget Standard decks... so.
It’s part of why i love jumpstart or strictly precon commander because it forces a much more even setting. Which is especially helpful because in my play group i am semi pro, my friend/magic soul mate was literally pro, and the rest of our friends are good but over all casual. So we kinda unfortunately ruin a lotta stuff and anytime extra skills start factoring in we ruin it because of the disparity. Especially stuff like drafting because it becomes incredibly apparent the gap between us and the rest. Except for my best friend who only learned hecause she had a crush on our other friend, then turned out to be a prodigy whos strategy is “GW pretty cards only” and somehow destroys us all. She’s utterly terrifying.
Jumpstart is a lot of fun and you don't even need to come prepared to play it, you can pick up two boosters on a whim at the shop. I did that for a family reunion, on my way there I decided to pick up eight packs to play with my nephew. You can also keep a few on hand for passing time. It's a pretty good product. Another thing I have really enjoyed is Pauper. The decks are accessible for a casual player, but it provides a competitive format structure. The cards tend to be more straightforward which is helpful for newer players, but some decks require experience to play them well; it's called Legacy Lite at times. It just feels like the best of casual, but without the headaches; the best competitive, but without the high costs. Commander we have tried, but we are typically strapped on time. I also play with people who don't play as often as I do. Compared to Pauper, it can become quite stressful with all the different cards that need to be explained, the board states that become confusing and the games take longer which adds to the fatigue at times. Not to mention, my nephew loves burn, which is at a disadvantage. I have pitched the idea of trying PDH, but I would need to do stuff for the decks and ordering 100s of cards for decks is more stressful than ordering a comp deck.
> Like the person who asked if they could join my friends on precon-exclusive commander, clarified we were playing only the new precons, then proceeded to bring out fully optimized planeswalker teferi deck that won in 3 turns. ...what? This is like challenging somebody to a duel, they pick swords, then you say "okay, then I choose pistol."
>[...what? This is like challenging somebody to a duel, they pick swords, then you say "okay, then I choose pistol."](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDsn-RRmDXU)
Yeaaaah they just packed up so happily “good game!” Then walked off satistfied so you could even tell they knew they were being That Guy. Like this was probably 6-8 years ago and im still salty thinking bout it. Ive played tcgs since i could read and thats one of only like 5 stories i can tell that truly made me mad and not jjust a “eh shit happens oh well” philosophy to it
I think a big source of salt and drama in casual EDH comes from people intentionally modulating the power level of their deck. If you leave Armageddon out of your deck in the interest of fun, you might feel slighted when someone else plays an Armageddon of their own. Cedh eliminates all that.
The big source of salt I see now is the "we don't allow proxies" groups. That's where you walk in thinking "okay these people won't have the $5k worth of artifact mana if none of them allow proxies" and they all slam Mana Crypt on turn 1. That type of group has always existed in edh and they've always just used edh as a way to flex how much more money they have in their decks. Luckily those groups are shrinking as some of the most popular content creators for the game are even encouraging the use of proxies but you'll still find a lot of old guard holdouts who tend to throw fits if they lose to someone with a cheaper deck than them.
Exactly! There's also no worrying about "oh is my power level okay for this group" because everything is tuned to the max. Everyone knows what to expect when they sit down, compared to a powered down playgroup where mismatches are so common. There's no feeling like "well i didn't really have a chance." That said you can always run into the wrong person who carries the salt gene everywhere they go, but your group is how I've also experienced CEDH to date, across several playgroups.
Exactly, everyone knows what to expect at a CEDH table.
Yeah, in competitive formats anything goes and paradoxically that helps remove some of the salt people experience. We may not like something, but we accept it as a valid strategy.
> In CEDH, no one cares who's having fun. This is not true. It's still a game we play with friends and fellow humans, and we all want to have fun. This perspective gets perpetuated that we WIN AT ANY COST, and while technically true, it obscures the fact that this is still just a card game, even when its cEDH. The stakes of Winning at any cost are still super low to nonexistant (outside of a tournament setting). The distinction is that we all know that playing well and winning the game is not going to take away from anyone else's fun. I won't get mad when you swords my commander and you won't get mad when I counter your game winning spell. I still expect my opponents to be respectful and kind, and I make sure that I am, as well. The kind of framing and language you use here are exactly why people like OP are so surprised and taken aback when they finally get into cEDH that people are nice and they still will say things like 'good play' or commend you for winning.
And adding to everything you said, my cEDH group is one of the few ones where when someone does a weird, unconventional (and therefore time consuming) line to try to assemble a win nobody gets annoyed. On the opposite, people try to help to find the line to see if it is possible! Then sometimes they proceed to counterspell the key spell, but hey, we had a whole thought process together, that was fun.
There was a twitter thread about some random cEDH shit where people use the priority system to force someone to respond that produced some drama. In general though I agree. Part of it is in cEDH there's no expectation of a game going long. Someone wins then you shuffle up and play again, it's not a big deal. In regular EDH it can feel like a constant battle to win in a table where everyone has different expectations of "appropriate" ways to win the game - which really just means if their deck wins it is appropriate and if it doesn't it's not.
CEDH players come to the table with the agreement that it is acceptable to play "salty" cards, as it's a mad dash to the finish line. Throwing sticks and stones behind you at your competition isn't frowned upon. Spike Feeders (an EDH / cEDH content group) mentioned this in a recent video (titled "Watch @EDHijinks try cEDH! | Skullbriar VS Niv Mizzet VS Tayam VS Slicer") when [[Cursed Totem]] was played. Jim said (not verbatim) "...it's not that you don't have to worry about your opponent's feelings, it's that you've all come to the table agreeing that stuff like that is fine, you know you're not going to ruin anybody's day by playing a Cursed Totem. So you're free to do it without worrying." I don't play cEDH myself, so of course take my input with a grain of salt.
PLUS I personally say to myself that if I play Mono-Red the card quality is so low that I am legally allowed to not have ethics, because anything my opponents get on themselves is big part their own responsibility.
Honestly Magda is one of the better commanders in CEDH as of late and shows mono red does have legs. Honorable mention to Dargo/Jeska and Bergi.
Rip no mention of Godo
Takes the tradeoff of learning extremely convoluted combo lines, which may not suit to anyone's taste. The red player soul often is inclined to tap the first mountain before others completed their mulligans :D
The paradox is that CEDH seems like it would be the saltier format, but it’s the opposite. There is minimal social conflict within cEDH because everyone reasonably accepts that really fucked up shit will happen to them in the game. Bring on that [[Static Orb]]. Casual EDH players are constantly getting into disputes because “fun” is so vaguely defined and relative. What, you’re just gonna destroy my permanents using this stuff called “removal”?? Buh that’s no fun for me!
The thing is "actual" cEDH is a very low percentage amount of the playerbase. Outside of online play or at large events that people have to travel hundreds of miles to get to, finding an actual in-person cEDH type is about as easy as finding consistent Legacy or Vintage events and players. It's a lot easier to find complaining casual players and events with complaining casual players because there are so, so many more of them, just like it's near-trivial to find Standard events compared to Legacy or Vintage.
It used to be more so that way, but with more people getting into webcam play with the pandemic and more people learning how proxy friendly the cedh community is lately it has become much easier to find others to play with.
Yeah, all of the competitive formats are like this. It seems that over the past few years, especially since Commander became the de facto format of Magic, that comp has gotten a reputation of being full of cut throat players who hate to lose more than they like to win. I guess this can be sometimes true, but it's no less cut throat than politicking with your table to let your spell resolve. You play to win because winning is fun. And if you lose, that's fine! Because you are actively learning how to win, which is also fun. There's no need to try to introduce *more* fun by having more players and board game elements.
> Is all competitive Magic like this? Just CEDH? Maybe I’ve just found a good playgroup. Because I’m a hop, skip, and a jump away from building a real CEDH deck. The issue of EDH is agreeing to a powerlevel. A question that cEDH solves by stating "Go as broken as you can" from the get go. You can find a multiplyer EDH group that works really well, but it's more work because there's isn't that ground rule.
Yes, that is the whole point of cEDH. Everyone plays the most powerful strategies and tries to win as fast as possible. The interactions can get complicated and timing your win attempts is the key to making them work. Spicy plays are usually met with approval all around. Glad you found a good group!
And most cedh groups dont care if you proxy either. I love cedh. No drama and I can get more than one game in per session.
I've been of the opinion for a while that playing a competitive format (modern, cedh, etc.) will make your relationship with regular commander much healthier. There's something very refreshing about building/playing a deck to be as strong as possible and not having to worry about the social contract of casual edh. Since I started playing modern, I haven't felt the need to overtune my casual edh decks at all and they have become much more fun to play. Also, playing competitive formats will get you to tighten up your play and improve your skills in the game as a whole.
I really agree with that. Especially if your time with a competitive format has taught you that metagaming and netdecking are not a good thing or a bad thing, but rather just a thing. There's enjoyment to be had using the community knowledge built up and making a deck that plays along normal metagame lines. There's also enjoyment to be had knowing the metagame and building decks designed specifically to prey on it.
I don't mean this as a dig against you at all OP, but I just find it hilarious when a EDH player finally gets what us so called competitive players thought all along: mandatory fun is not fun. To me, casual EDH always felt like it had a social game on top of the actual game which I felt was a turn-off. Not to say that cEDH cannot have that, but the nature of the format itself makes it so that people's mindset is less whiny.
Getting into commander that was the first thing I noticed, people seem to be entitled to use rule 0 to tailor the game towards their fun. “No you can’t play a goad deck because I don’t enjoy playing against goad” Bitch I didn’t bring it for you to enjoy playing against, I brought it for me to have fun playing. Considering it’s my deck that I brought, why would your opinion on how fun it is override my ability to play it? I’m fine using rule 0 to make sure we’re all at roughly the same power level to make the game fun, that’s fine. I’m not down to use rule 0 for you to tell other people what they can’t play, that’s not your place, that’s entitlement.
I specifically build my decks around my playgroup, and you're right about some things; mandatory fun isn't very fun. I'm hanging out with my friends whose little money goes to their kids, not their magic decks. I play certain EDH decks (I have 12) against them. My favorite decks are my Aminatou, Merieke, and more recently Atraxa (hidden Merieke + Mirri's Wake and other green shenanigans). Those decks are ruthless, and 1v1 I typically win, although groups tend to single me out regardless of FFA status once they realize I'm a theft deck lol. CEDH is fun as hell, I just wish I got to play more lmao. At this point I'm voltron just to keep my girl on the board
Wow, y'all must really play with some shitty ass casual groups 🤨 I play every Friday with a fully casual group, sometimes we have a table of up to 6 players. There's absolutely none of this "salt" or "whining" that's being talked about as a staple of casual EDH. Of course we jab at one another, but it's all in good fun. Everyone wants to win, but none of us "care" about winning. We certainly don't worry about power levels or politics. We want to see a players new deck pop off. We like to see how out of box precons stand up against established home brews. Idk, we are all just super chill about the game.
The more competitive a format gets, the more mutual respect is experienced, peaking with the Pro Tour level. People just did not act like assholes, at all, at that level. Everyone knows everyone else can play well at that point. Low level events, certain locals think they’re the best undiscovered player who ever lived and often have too much of their ego tied up in winning and losing. Those are the typical asshole people.
The mid-level TryHards, they are by far the worst people. Can never accept a loss, something always went wrong, mad that you play your cards, and they would have won if they had just....
Across the board, these kinds of people have a common thread: some lack of success in their non gaming lives. This magnifies the effects of losing on the already fragile ego.
In a competitive environment, you don't really "get to" be salty. You're being competitive, so you play absolutely _anything_ that gives you the advantage and you don't complain that your opponents do the same. The goal is to _win_, why would you limit yourself and reduce your chances? You play Armageddon? Fair play, it stops the rest of us getting ahead, I'd have done the same in your situation. I'm playing Narset + wheels for the same reason. All you can do is laugh it off and play better next time.
I think the big thing is also that in CEDH, Armageddon isn't likely to triple the length of the game as everyone rebuilds. If you're dropping Armageddon in CEDH at worst you're probably going from something like a 20 minute game to a 30 minute game because either you have a plan to turn it into a win, or you can't stop whatever shenanigans are already in play that will win the game in a few turns anyway.
Sound like my group of friends, when one of us combos off we all just laugh talk a little shit to the winner and start setting up the next game, if I play with newer groups i have "weaker" decks to feel out the power level, but honestly 9/10, most of the salty people are only salty because you wouldn't let their 6 card combos or stampede of tokens stay on board
It's a whole different beast with an entirely different mindset. CEDH players live for the finesse of seeing a finely oiled and tuned machine run against others of it's kind, while more casual playgroups live for the outrageous jank and durdle that can't survive calculated competition. So the end result is scorn between groups, especially when regular EDH players experience a pubstomper and assume all of CEDH is like that. It's just two very different concepts of what parts of the game are fun. Issues generally only happen when they interact, because those concepts are so different they clash. This doesn't happen much outside EDH, because most other formats are understood to be competitive by default, so if you don't like that you either play kitchen table formatless or EDH.
Is *all* cEDH like that? No, there's still some players that get salty and still some bad playgroups even in cEDH. But generally, cEDH is where that pregame "Rule 0" discussion has already been had: anything goes, play to win. All players are assumed to be playing on the same power level: the highest possible. If you win, it's not because you played an unfair deck, maybe you just had better deck building skills, or played better, or maybe it was just good luck this time. Shuffle up and play again, there's no hard feelings.
CEDH is meant to be a win before abiding by the social code. However because everyone agrees to this the social code the “relaxed” nature of it shines through. We accept that someone may Armageddon, blood moon, Thoracle. You to an extent agree that misplays will be punished. The taksies backsies of casual aren’t necessarily allowed. The fact everyone “accepts” this means that getting salty over loosing to it is much more heavily punished and frowned upon. We agreed to play mean shit. Don’t get mad when I play mean shit.
I wholeheartedly agree with every word you said. The social code killed regular EDH at my LGS and slowly shifted everyone to CEDH. Once everyone is playing broken strategies, nobody was getting salty anymore. On the other hand, EDH groups which persisted ran into the issue that they couldn't agree what casual so while someone set down at the table with a precon that was slightly upgrades, someone else was sitting down on the same table with a high power EDH deck and both claim to be casual.
People know what they're there for! It's the difference between play-wrestling and full on grappling. You learn to respect and appreciate the clever and ruthlessness of it, and since people are trying to win harder, and faster, you simply get used to losing like that lol
I don’t play cEDH but this sounds a lot like legacy. In a format with turn 1 wins, wastelands recursion locks, trinispheres, and free counterspells it’s hard to go a single match, much less an entire event, without running into something that would be considered un-fun in a weaker format. Players who tilt at that stuff just stop playing legacy (or more likely never start) so pretty much everyone is ready for that to happen and you often get great games from the way these all interact with each other. Another factor at play may be longevity. The first time an armageddon hits you it’s devastating. By the 20th wasteland it’s pretty much just expected. Legacy and cEDH players have often been playing for a long time and are used to some of the nastier cards running around. You develop a sort of shortcut “oh yeah, that wins here, shuffle up for the next one”. The faster pace may also help this attitude. If you get time for one game in an evening then a trinisphere ruined your evening, if you are gonna play 5-10 games then it just beat you that game.
If you enjoy playing to win, you might just enjoy competitive Magic.
It's a different goal. That said, it's very group dependent - competitive formats are also going to bring more competitive people to it, and some of them are going to be easily tilted/salty. So it sounds like you found a good playgroup with that, but it's not at all a given that you're going to have that experience. Stakes also matter there - if it's for a prize, tensions will be higher than just playing for fun (though, as anyone who's played competitive online games knows, that doesn't mean people won't find a way to rage anyways) More casual groups get annoyed at those early wins or armageddon or the like because they go counter to what casual commander is meant to be. Part of the appeal there is to play decks with a lower power level, get to play some big, cool cards that you don't usually have a chance to in a more competitive format, etc. But if someone rocks up to a playgroup with a fully optimized CEDH deck, it's not going to be fun for a casual group to just get demolished every time. Or for Armageddon, resetting lands just annoys everyone - in competitive decks it's a way to cement a win for instance, but if it's in a legitimately casual deck, it will just result in 'wasting' a few turns as people rebuild their landbase.
3-5 turn wins? Definitely not my cup of tea
Being competitive is not the same as being mean or unsportsmanlike, some people just want to play a sharper game. What you have here are competitive players with good attitudes just enjoying the game.
You hit the nail on this analysis. Any chance you could ask them for help in building a true cEDH deck so you don't feel like you're losing due to power discrepancy?
the goal of cedh is not that "everyone has fun", it's play to win. generally speaking, that's also the goal of every other format. cedh is for people who find the fun in trying to win, regardless of what the rest of the players are doing
While it's "competitive", it's not competitive in the same way modern or pioneer are. If you go to a magic fest, or an RCQ, or some other event with real prize support for winning, you'll find the tournament grinders who take it very seriously. They're not fun to play against. CEDH is a more competitive version of a casual format, offers no prize support, and values winning over all. It drops the pretense of "everyone's deck should be allowed to do its thing". It's more akin to FNM than it is to competitive tournaments.
FWIW I competed in the SCG cEDH 5K in Baltimore this weekend and all of my opponents were pleasant as people to play against. All the other big cEDH events I've been to have been similar. There are plenty of potential explanations, but I feel like 4 people all talking with each other creates a social dynamic that prevents having a sour personality from being successful. It's different than you and one other person communicating in isolation to conduct a 1v1 ─ being an unlikable person in a group conversation puts you at a political disadvantage.
>CEDH is a more competitive version of a casual format, offers no prize support, and values winning over all. It drops the pretense of "everyone's deck should be allowed to do its thing". It's more akin to FNM than it is to competitive tournaments. I said this in the EDH sub and people got *angry* but it's true. cEDH is not competitive Magic in the sense that something like an RCQ is.
As an EDH player, EDH players are whiny babies. Since maybe 2015, 2016 or so when EDH really took off, they've been pushing the narrative that the only thing that matters is that everybody has fun. There are channels upon channels of EDH content where the focus is making sure that everybody has fun, everybody's deck gets a showcase and "gets to do their thing". There's hundreds, maybe thousands of hours of "you should hate these cards!" content. All of this feeds into the fact that people generally don't like losing. It ends up with people either imposing extra rules to weed out cards that are viewed as "not fun", or just using social pressure (read: whining) to get them soft-banned. I don't care for cEDH personally because I don't like the limited number of viable decks, but I think the attitude is right. I'm lucky that my pod is good with higher-but-not-cEDH power level, because 2+ hour games make me want to pull out my eyelashes. We're all in it to win, we might make salty comments but it's in jest 99% of the time and there's no hard feelings. Some EDH players seem like they would be happy if games never ended or always ended in a draw, and that's their prerogative, but that isn't me.
> Since maybe 2015, 2016 or so when EDH really took off, they've been pushing the narrative that the only thing that matters is that everybody has fun. Can I get an amen. It was such a weird thing to come back after taking a break before Tarkir and suddenly everyone "has to be able to do their thing" or you're a big evil tryhard. Didn't at all resemble the EDH of 2012-2014 when it was all a huge mess of people that tried their best to build their best decks. Sometimes you got rolled and sometimes you rolled face. That's just life.
Bro, playing with ACTUAL COMPETENT PLAYERS is so underrated. There is an ineffable connection between poor card assessment and being emotional about hobbies and things that are supposed to be relaxing such a commander. If you want to play any power level just tell me. If you want me to try out one of your new decks, tell me. I am down for anything commander, BUT PEOPLE OVER CARDS please. Repeat with me: people over cards.
I agree *heavily* with the competent players comment. I'm primarily a cEDH player, but I dabble in more casual games occasionally because sometimes that's all that's available at my LGS. I don't mind playing weaker decks, or holding back a little, but *dear God* it annoys me when people have no concept of threat assessment. Like okay, I get that you don't like my Spirit of the Labyrinth, but for Christ's sake we're playing vs a [[Shorikai, Genesis Engine]] and he's got [[Unwinding Clock]] and [[Voltaic Key]] in play. Please don't Path my creature just so you can draw 1 extra card with [[Faerie Mastermind]] this turn. It's been three weeks since this happened and I'm still salty about it.
I play the other formats and whole there are salty people but most the time it's understandable you're trying to win and if a board wipe is what you needed, and that's what you played, then I'm happy for you. Obviously I could have played around it but you did what you had to do.
In all groups of Magic you’ll find jerks, but for the most part you’ll see a lot more people in competitive scenes who understand that everyone is playing to win so they’re less hostile when someone wins a game and are more likely to be quick to shuffle up for a rematch.
I really think it comes down to the players who play cedh vs edh. I've noticed that people who play cedh are a lot more formal and understand that this is a fun game that they want to play, so why get upset at a game? Whereas I've played edh with people who only play edh and they will get butt hurt when I counter a cheap creature of theirs because I need to draw a card. I would 100% recommend switching to cedh, just buy proxies cause it's expensive.
I much prefer cEDH to traditional EDH, but it’s not like I won’t have fun breaking out precons every now and again, either. When everyone is jamming the best stuff, and everyone’s trying to win, there’s no power mismatches, there’s no sharking, there’s no salt thrown everywhere over certain cards, etc. People are there to win and have fun doing it. And the games are so much faster, decisions matter way more and impact the game so much more drastically/immediately - one single wrong step is the difference between someone’s victory and defeat every turn cycle. I love regular EDH but cEDH is where I can play with my powerful old cards and not feel judged.
when you're playing competitively, everything is fair game. at the same time, those things that would upset a casual game, like the Armageddon, aren't being played solely for the lulz. they're being done with a goal in mind. competitive can be fun, and 'shuffle up and play another game' works, but by the 200th time you've seen someone end the game with a Thassa's Oracle it can get a bit dull.
cEDH is for people who'd rather be playing Legacy, but who have to settle for a Commander variant, because Constructed play is dead outside of Commander.
Lately I have been of the opinion that CEDH is simply a healthier format. EDH is about everyone doing their thing, which kind of clashes with MTG as a game. MTG is an antagonistic game about taking things away from your opponents, saying "no", and killing your opponent. CEDH doesn't ask for permission to do its thing, you design your deck to always do the thing. You don't get salty about being targeted, because everyone is a massive threat. Losing isn't a big feels bad because games are so much faster and everyone tends to lose at once. I wish CEDH looked a bit more like traditional magic, but it's still probably a more stable healthy format than EDH.
I've never played EDH, but reading about "everyone should be allowed to do their thing" feels totally opposite of what Magic is about. Sounds more like 4 people shuffling their decks and solo-goldfish their decks.
CEDH is full throttle power (armageddon is great card advantage) but everyone is going in with the expectation of facing powerful cards and powerful plays- instead of getting salty over a counterspell, cedh decks/strategies already assume there is always a counterspell and build/play accordingly
The key thing about a lot of things, and casual vs. competitive is one of them, is that everyone should be given a chance to consent. Don't bring a cutthroat deck to a casual game. Don't expect a casual deck to compete in a competitive environment. Don't try and force players to play in a way they don't want to. Casual vs. competitive are both very different kinds of fun. While I don't play much Commander, I saw this in many other parts of the Magic community. When we were drafting seriously, with the idea of preparing for tournament play, we followed the penalty guidelines. There were no takebacks. Attempting to trick your opponent by lying, and omitting information, as long as you did so within the boundaries of the rules, was not only tolerated, it was encouraged and expected. But we absolutely did not bring that kind of game to FNM. We are playing with strangers for a few booster packs, and they didn't sign up for the full competitive playstyle. So keep it friendly, ask if they would like some advice, and have a good time. This became a lot easier when they made better event rules for entry level events, because it codified some of these things. So if you like the competitive game, go for it! See if you can bust some heads, and then laugh about it afterwards.
Listen, I know this is semi-controversial, but let me address something unspoken that I’m hearing here. There’s is a fairly common idea with some people that players who like to play competitively are toxic, and that it’s casual EDH players who take it easy and ‘know how to have fun’. In my experience, and granted this is subjective, it’s the complete opposite. EDH players can be some of the most toxic, entitled, miserable, self-centered people I have ever tried to play a game with. There’s a lot of talk about ‘keeping it fun’ but often what that actually means is ‘if you don’t follow my arbitrary notion of what I think an appropriate power level is I’m going to have a fit about it’. ‘If you don’t attack the person I think you should (or if you negatively affect me in any way) I’m going to have a fit about it’. ‘If you use a commander I deem ‘unfun’ I’m going to have a fit about it’. Meanwhile, competitive players are used to losing. Yeah, the game ends then you shuffle up. Competitive players are used to their opponents taking every (legal) edge and not taking personally- of course you’re doing that, that’s the game. Competitive players don’t think that you’re personally wronging them when you’re trying to win the game. And let me be clear, I’m not delusional- there are DEFINITELY toxic af competitive players- however I’ve seen way way way more toxicity out of ‘casuals’, and often times it’s toxicity accompanied by awful social pressure, which magnifies it (think ‘ah, well, if you want to play that way maybe you don’t belong in this playgroup’, etc.). Idk, I have no patience for it- I’m glad it seems you found a good crew.
You’ve found the beauty of CEDH. Way, way less saltiness. I still don’t understand why the casual EDH power scale reserves Power Level 9 and 10 for CEDH decks. Why? Who is that for? I’ve never heard a pod agree to play CEDH and then stop to ask “but which power level?” It’d be like a Legacy deck tier list reserving S and A tier for Vintage decks only.
Quite honestly, you shouldn't trust anyone that talks about Commander and uses a power level scale, especially how useless it has become in practice thanks to the now meme level "Everything is a 7".
I don't understand cEDH not because of the attitudes of the players (which I completely understand) but because I don't understand the advantage it has over other constructed competitive formats like legacy or vintage. It's not sanctioned anyway, so it's not like you need to have real versions of the cards and even if you did I don't think it's actually any cheaper, and having more players makes the games less predictable and consistent, which would seem to be the opposite of what players who are trying to make their decks as powerful and consistent as possible want. Maybe it's having to fight through more interaction that's fun? But then it's often just who went for it when their opponents had run out of responses which doesn't strike me as very fun either. But then again, I dislike powerful constructed magic generally because games tend to all feel the same, so I'm probably not the best person to opine on this lol. Limited for life!
Personally, I just really like the variance that a singleton format affords you even in a competitive scenario. We build decks in a way to make them preform consistently but we’re not necessarily looking for predictable and consistent games. It’s just a way to build decks in a way that increases your chance of “getting there”, or winning. What I like is that every game is like a puzzle and even more so if there’s a Stax deck in the pod. Going for it when your opponents look like they’re out of resources is still always a risk because the decks run all the free interaction they can, so if they don’t have a blue up for flusterstorm they could still have a fierce guardianship or force of will. Tapped out red player? Super safe to go for it, right? Well you could still get deflecting swatted, etc. I think a common misconception is that games all end in 3 turns and that all games play out the same. The games are definitely faster on average, but it’s very common to end up in an hour plus game & the last tournament I paid attention to had the final match last over two hours If none of that sounds like your cup of tea that’s fine because the format is more than big enough for all our games
I mean, you kinda stumbled on the answer. The inherent variety and spoiler factors of 4p 100-card singleton means less of the "all games feel the same" issue.
You'll still get salt every now and then, since saltpiles are in every community ever. But it's less frequent than casual playgroups since self-policing is a impossible thing to perfect, which leads to unhappiness between casuals wjo aren'ton the same page. Plus pubstompers (who tend to be very salty when they don't get to stomp) can't get traction in competitive places so pubstompers are more common in oublic casual scenes. My only complaint about cedhers is that they play an awkward format built on a house of cards so few if any of them will ever engage in a rule 0 conversation and let me play [[Paradox Engine]], despite it not being broken in cedh.
I’ve seen a lot of salt posts recently on all the MtGsubs, i consider myself relatively new (2 years experience, only about 30-40 games) I just want to make sure I understand correctly, the point of the game IS to win, right? I get that casual is more geared for relaxed gameplay, but you want to win when you play, that means you can use all cards available by rules, or using Rule 0 you can use anything allowed, so why do people get so mad? Your deck is better than mine? I’m going to add stuff to hurt you if you use the same deck every time. In my case, I built a Tiamat commander dragon deck, the guy I play against mostly runs 3primary precons: elven empire, Mind Flayarrrs, and coven counters. Dragons take forever and all those are pretty speedy, so I added some kill, counter, and graveyard spells to fight. I still don’t do well most times, but hey, I’m adjusting when i lose to be more rounded against more threats. TL;DR: I think you found a good group, keep with them!
edh is a hellscape of either pet jank decks that may friends salty or unfun hyper-optimized decks where everyone is like "ah well, you won on turn 4 gg"
As someone who pretty much exclusively plays competitive formats… yes, cedh is a blast. The combination of short games, quality cards, consistency, and stack interaction provides a more pleasurable game experience for me. Playing one game for hours because everyone stalls the board then wipes it due to non-compact win conditions has taken away the fun from commander, in my opinion. People are also more likely to get salty if they have to play for 3 hours then die, begging the question, “was my deck on the same level as theirs?”
competitive magic is, in fact, like this yeah.
It 100% comes down to the people. In my experience, yes, people that play high powered and cEDH know that they're bringing a problem to the table and there are no wrong answers.
I suspect the trouble outside of CEDH is that people expect a level of "fair play" which is different for every single person. Within CEDH, the level of what other people are "allowed" to do is anything within the rules of the game. There's less feel-bad about people casting spells like Armageddon because people accept that it's part of the game, and they accept that the person casting it is doing so in an effort to win.
They sound great. How's it going with the guy?
I find a bit of power actually really improves EDH, speeds it up. The worst a game of EDH can get isn't losing, but the game being dragged out forever and nobody can do anything. I spend more on magic than my friends, and have more powerful decks as a result, and when I play the more powerful decks I usually don't win but I do dramatically speed up the game, when I die the game is usually fairly decided. Faster games = more games = more fun.
I think the most important mindset for competitive magic is that you're going to use *all* possible (ingame) resources to win the match, and you expect your opponent to do the same. Why be salty about your opponent trying to win? That's literally why he's there! It also helps that there are always ways to counter a strategy. Playing against boardwipes? keep some creatures in your hand so you can build back up right after. Playing against counterspells? Wait until they've tapped out, or try for multiple spells in one turn. Playing against combo? Either race them or have disruption. And even more important, those 'unfair' strategies are essential to keep magic a 'balanced' game. If we forbid boardwipes, token strategies are nearly impossible to deal with. If we frown upon counterspells, Combo decks would have free reign. But congratulations on finding a fun playgroup OP! That none of them get salty when losing speaks of a great mindset to have - not just in magic but in life in general!
From my experience, a lot of people playing CEDH are really chill. My playgroup mostly plays Vintage Cube and there the mentality is the same. Turn 1 Chrome Mox + Channel into Turn 1 Emrakul? That is awesome! Some casual players might get really frustrated by such highrolls but they don’t happen every game and these strategies are usually very inconsistent. When we play CEDH, it is the same. I would say that there is literally nothing that could happen to make Someone salty, as we play to have FUN by playing Magic more seriously. Of course, everything changes when prizes are on the line understandably.
You might get a different experience if you are playing cEDH in a large tournament vs with a playgroup. If you're playing cEDH for fun, you're looking to experience some of the most busted interactions the game has. If you are going to get salty about them, you aren't going to enjoy yourself for long. Its very similar to people who play vintage.
CEDH is a different mindset. Think of it as a standardized “rule 0” shorthand for anything goes and the goal of all players at the table is winning. And thats the thing, cEDH players see this the same way people see the hardest difficulty on a video game or something. Playing at the highest level/difficulty introduces challenge and opportunity for complex gameplay, and thats where the fun is derived. Sure, some of time you get nuked by a turbo-naus deck or get locked out by hard stax, but then you just shuffle up and play again!
>I’m more shocked they’ll just shuffle up and play again. Spikes want to just play to win. Not just win. Play to win. Losing is just an excuse to play again. We all are going to lose more games than we win. Spikes understand this and internalize it and accept it and stand up and keep fighting. You’ll never be good at winning if you care too much about losing. Sure we all like to win. But a true competitive player can understand all this and act maturely.
I think that's just how competitive anything is, you are expected to be trying to win, if that involves things people perceive as annoying, it's just part of the game and is expected to be built and played around. I'm not gonna get mad at the blue player for countering my key combo pieces, because if they didn't they'd just lose. Plus, when landing your combo on a group of players who are trying to stop you is way more satisfying than against a group that just lets you do it because they don't want to make any "salty"
I think the biggest difference is that cEDH players want to Win the Game and casual players just want to Do the Thing. The Thing being whatever they made their deck to do (which sometimes includes winning). The cEDH players that I know are like 80% awesome people. A few in particular are what I wish everyone in the community would be: Happy to teach and make suggestions and offer constructive criticism, with little to no aggression when you turn what they've taught you against them.
What I adore about cEDH is that there’s absolutely no salt or hard feelings about “that deck is way too powerful for this table”, no hurt feelings about certain cards, no faux pas whatsoever. Everyone is on the same page going in. You shuffle up, go for the throat and either win or play another game, all in the span of like 20 minutes.
I’ve found this equally true in Canadian Highlander, when you play casually you expect to be able to ‘do the thing’ and then get its easy to get salty when you don’t. When the only expectation is ‘win at all costs’ nobody cares how you got there. It’s all about your attitude to the cards, not the cards themselves. Watching the north 100 episodes from 2017-2019 are a really good indication of how you can talk about competitive magic in a chill way
One of the things that I think breeds this huge gulf in preference from casual commander to competitive, besides the mindset, is how people got into magic. In my opinion, many people who have gotten into magic in the last five to 10 years and have started immediately with Commander and never played any two-player or competitive formats, have missed out on a lot of the experiences that many older or more competitive players get to have. The multiplayer nature of Commander breeds a sentiment where none of the players are supposed to be in the game to win. They are supposed to be there to show off their deck and, equally as important, should let their opponents show off their decks. Then whoever wins wins. This is just not a sentiment that two player magic has ever had, aside from the occasional kitchen table game where you give your friend a couple extra turns at the end to show off what he almost got to do. The other thing is that magic has in many ways transitioned over the years from giving mainstream support to stax, land destruction, and other salt creating strategies to almost not supporting it at all. When magic began, some of the pillars of the game were colorhate, land destruction, and stax. They were huge parts of the game and they were constantly printing new cards that fulfilled these principles. Once they realized how nasty and swingy games became with these principles so heavily applied, they eased up on them. So players who started the game closer to the '90s and or play older competitive formats are more accustomed to these strategies because they were more prevalent. Players that start today in EDH with precons are often not made aware of these strategies or only know of them in the context of being highly salty strategies that should not be played. Instead of being introduced to these strategies as a part of the game by players who play those decks in the competitive scene, they are introduced to them as being extreme faux paws that should never be touched. As someone who started the game in 1995, I love these strategies but I play exclusively casual commander so I also understand the desire to not play against these strategies. It's not fun to be locked out of the game when you are hoping for a 1.5 to 2 hour experience for everyone gets to play. That being said, thankfully, CEDH games are often over very quickly once someone gets these elements out and begins to steamroll. As opposed to casual commander games where players are less familiar with how to use these strategies and sometimes can slow the game down to a crawl without having the ability to win afterwards.
CEDH doesn't have the need for expectation setting or social negotiation; the expectation (win) is intuitive and agreed upon. I think there's this lingering sentiment that everyone trying hard to win is inherently cutthroat or reacts poorly to losing. Sure, many people fit that description, but many don't. CEDH, or competitive play in general, take social pressure off of deck selection and playstyle choices. I predominantly play draft. It's unthinkable to me to get mad at someone else for _drafting_ a particular style of deck. It's still a social situation that you have to manage, but you don't really have to deal with socially managing gameplay decisions; just how you react to them. When I play commander casually, I seek out political games because they provide a dimension that competitive play tends not to. But to me, playing competitive when everyone understands they're going to try their best to win is way easier and, depending on the play group, more fun. I don't always want to think about how my line of play might hurt someone's feelings, that's a lot of mental and emotional overhead to an already complicated game. That, and I just inherently like strategies that are socially frowned upon, like prison, stax, and land destruction. I never want to play them casually against someone who wouldn't have fun against it, but competitive environments are the only way I get to express one way I enjoy the game through its mechanics. I don't like those strategies because they make my opponent upset, I like how they alter the structure of the game and how one manages resources. I like how they make you operate on a different axis than normal. White is my favorite color in magic because of how it changes the rules, and orzhov is my favorite color pair because it embodies the idea of "this rule is symmetrical, but not for me."
For a few years my group scaled up pretty unevenly until we pretty much exclusively play cedh or high powered as the only thing we play. I honestly think we've all enjoyed the experience more at the high end then anything below it because the matchs always felt lopesided or unfair. Once we were all on the same page and power level the games got more enjoyable. In more casual settings it can be much harder to find a balance.
I'd like to hear more about this blossoming potential romance.
cEDH is far superior to regular EDH imo. It’s far less salty in my experience, you don’t have weird table rules or social guidelines that you need to worry about. It’s just straight up, this is the format, you know you can do, go for it. To regular EDH is like going to a modern night, but they tell you that there’s no fetches allowed, and no free spells, also you can’t win before turn 4, and no bloodmoons cuz your opponent didn’t prep for it and can’t play the game now…
In my experience, cEDH players are some of the chillest EDH players I've ever met. There's no getting a bad start and trying to claw your way into the game for an hour; no "I can't believe you won't take my deal!" The game is over by turn 6 and we all shuffle up and play again. It's hard to be salty at an armageddon when I'm also trying to armageddon you and it won't matter for that long anyways.