Should Cards Be Designed for EDH

#mtg #thetrinketmage #trinketmage #magicthegathering

Articles:

Let me know if you will try this! Also, go follow @33elk he makes good stuff!

Patreon:

Channel Art by Beevuu:

My EDH Decks:

All the Music is by Chillpeach and Solaris:
@Chillpeach
@SolarDTM

[logancampbell]

Ulalek felt like they were thinking of "the First Sliver, but Eldrazi" and just made everything worse.

[jonwainwright]

I am very interested in hearing the results of you removing those cards from your decks for a time. Bring on the follow up video!!

[AlexOvTheAbyss]

I'm on the fence. Yeah, there are open slots, and throwing some in is fine. That said, the Modern Horizons sets have felt more designed for commander than anything else. Then the Commander sets, well, they've been pretty disappointing to me. Probably off topic, but the whole precon thing has really started to annoy me. Commander Masters: "Here is an Eldrazi deck! (except with barely any Eldrazi and twice as many artifact creatures than Eldrazi)". Fallout: "Here is an energy deck!" MH3: "Here is a better, and real Eldrazi deck, and a better energy deck!" Thanks for making me feel like I wasted my money.

[AlluMan]

Couldn't agree more. I think that Commander is such a unique experience and such a different game from regular Magic, that deciding to never experiment with the new design-space that brings with it seems like a waste, especially because mechanics like goad or the voting cards or arguably things like monarch wouldn't have seen the light of day. It's just that this isn't Nadu's issue and the issue comes in the attitude the statement that Nadu was designed with Commander in mind reflects. This idea that in order to design with Commander in mind, the card needs to be pushed and broken as fuck. Why does it have to be that way? Wouldn't the spirit of Commander vibe more with cards designed with it in mind being made weaker, but with a new avenue of card design? Why do cards designed for commander tend to look less like The Slime Against Humanity and more like Dockside Extortionist?

The idea of intentionally designing powered-down decks has actually been a theme I happened to stumble into by accident. After having taken apart alot of decks and gutted some precons for the cards I needed elsewhere, I began to notice a pile of unused, but perfectly adequate cards that were now just sitting at my table, going completely to waste. I thought a moment about whether to binder them and offer them in trade, but then decided that I'd rather make them useful and started crafting new Commander decks from these scraps. From them, I made a Ghyrson Starn and a Dargo/Malcolm deck, both considered decently potent commanders/pairings, yet don't play as aggressively as they could, because a total of 6 cards were bought between the two to fill in some needed utilities.

In fact, this little project inspired me to make a third one based on the topic of the video. To celebrate Nadu's format-reveal party and the fact that Nadu's stock market has crashed, I'm going to make a Nadu Commander deck, where the gimmick is that the copy of Nadu is the only card I am allowed to buy for the deck. Everything else I build around it has to come from the chaff and bulk that's lying on my table and in my trunk. It'll act as both a statement about Nadu's legacy and an experiment to see just how far this one card can go without any proper build-around. Can I just out-value and out-ramp opponents and win with generic Simic value rather than the ridiculous combos it became best known for? I'm excited to see where it goes.

[thebigsquig]

I think the only time commander-design really bothers me is when they include a card in a draftable set that’s only useful in commander. Take obeka. There are zero cards in OTJ her upkeep ability interacts with, so if you draft her she’s just a 4 mana 2/5 with menace. Essentially a dead rare slot.

She’s only useful in commander, so why put her in the main set? If she has some interaction in OTJ draft I’d understand.

Eritte the beguiler, also from OTJ, has the same problem. There’s only one Esper colored aura in OTJ and it perma-taps it’s target.

[myanrueller]

Two great examples of WOTC printing synergy over power were from the same set as Smothering Tithe. Teysa Karlov and Judith, the Scourge Diva.

Both outstanding aristocrats synergy pieces that can be a commander, and are clearly very popular. But they aren’t inherently and generically powerful, just synergy pieces for decks that really wanted good synergy in the CZ.

And most importantly, they divided the deck building decisions on aristocrats between two Guilds. Instead of it just being a Mardu commander that did both, which is likely what we’d have seen today.

[grip]

I would love for wizards to do more stuff like bloomburrow for commander. They printed a LOT of cards for tribes that do not have a lot of support, and I would love for them to continue supporting a wide variety of tribes and focus less on the popular themes. I'd also love for them to stop printing things with "with a finality counter on it", "activate this only once on each of your turns", "your opponents may sacrifice or lose x life". Print something and commit to it or I'll have to run nesting grounds in each of my decks.

[nilesamon]

I was hoping you'd just say "No." and then play credits for the remaining 13 minutes.

[zonko]

For 2 years now Ive cut Sol Ring out of all of my decks, and heres what I noticed.

-If ever so slightly, I was less targeted early game. Even if I played a decent threat, if someone had Soul Ring, Mana Vault, or Mana Crypt, there was a higher chance others would focus on them.

-I had 1 more slot to put an extra flexible card in my deck. Whether this helped or not I could attune my ramp a little better to my deck's needs and playstyle. Rven if it was a minor change or a slower way to ramp, it increased my synergistic consistency of the deck and I got to pull of my strats more.

-This may be because I got better with the decks I had, but I felt like removing Sol Ring made me think a lot more about my position on the table and what moves to pull next. Being attacked felt more natural and I wasnt feeling like I would be under pressure if I laid out more signature "win more" cards.

I dont run Mana Crypt, Mana Vault, Jeweled Lotus, etc (cuz I dont have them) but for those who do, you may have similar results to me. I hope you make a video about your experiment in the future though!

[shmackydoo]

Imagine how those play testers felt that they got usurped at the last second. Insane how they even can makes "last minute changes"

[jacob]

You know what? Even though my group is high powered im cutting sol ring. We have rules against fast mana but when we discuss sol ring we just kindof shrug and talk about its cultural importance to EDH. But honestly? It just leads to games where someones far ahead early and if thats fine, why arent all the other fast mana fine? The answer is theyre not, and neither is sol ring.

[zanderfus]

Don't get me wrong, I love precons and cards designed for commander, it allows for way more interesting design space, but they shouldn't come at the expanse at 60 card formats. Most cards designed for commander are cool and interesting though so pepole screaming saying all cards designed for commander just look at the worst of them

[___iambi]

I'm new to commander, but just through watching videos I've grown to think commander decks should strive to be consistent.

If a deck is a silly precon level stack, but has a combo added that can try to win the game on turn 5... it's no longer a silly precon deck. It's a very inconsistent combo deck. The other players will have trouble matching their deck choice and targeting focus for a deck like that. If it doesn't draw combo then it's at precon level, and if it does then it's a very high powered casual deck. Many will just end up having to treat it like it always has the combo anyways, which is much less fun for the deck owner when that is overkill.

To fix this, we should strive to make a deck consistent. If it can combo as early as turn 5, it should reliably attempt to do so at least by turn 7. Or it should basically never be attempting such plays at all.

Soul ring is a commonly played break of this rule. Decks that normally want to do things by a certain turn, can often do that thing two turns faster if they happen to draw soul ring. This applies to all types of decks, but as an example:
If a combo deck normally tries to win the first time by turns 5 or 6 and is high powered casual... the 7% of the time they draw their one soul ring, they might combo around turn 3 or 4. The deck becomes nearly cedh 5% of the time...

So I'd say if you're going to play powerful fast mana like soil ring, you should play enough of it to see some version of fast mana a majority of the time. This way it can be relied apon. Opponents can treat the deck like it has fast mana and they won't be bullying most of the time because the deck likely does actually have it in hand.

[gaia]

I love the idea of yours to try and cut fast mana and other strong cards to look where it will lead you (maybe ask the other people on the table to do the same, not that you are underpowered in every game :D)
1. Will you keep track on wich cards you exchange and with what
2.Will you look where you play? Each store has often some power level as has each friend group, so it might be helpful to be aware in wich enviroment you play for your conlusion.

[LongLiveStopMotion]

I refuse to play any cards originally printed in commander products in my decks.

They go against the spirit of the format. The fact that this statement makes people angry makes me happy. EDH players are vampires, always do the opposite of what they say and drive the stake in.

I'm not to the extreme of building, "Pre-EDH" decks, I still like looking over new cards for includes and tweaking decks. Also, I need to keep up at least somewhat with power creep.

[Velgrauder]

My problem with designing for Commander outside of precons is that Nadu is NOT the first time that a Commander plant spirals out of control to become a format terrorizer. You'd think they would have learned after the Hogaak fiasco from MH1, or from the results of having printed Atraxa, Golos, 4C Omnath, Kenrith, or Field of the Dead. Companion as a whole proved that Commander has no business being amywhere near 60 card formats.

[theagave]

As a person who primarily plays on random spelltable matches and only meets with my group at the lgs only a few times each month, the most enjoyment I've had has been taking out sol ring, other mana positive accelerants in games (including smothering tithe and dockside) and tutors (even in decks where I have a secret commander). Not only do they free slots in decks despite their inherent synergies with some of my decks, but allow me to play at a steady pace where I can play some more removal or draw instead of bursting out of the gate and becoming either archenemy or leaving the other players in a salty or depressed mood because you just got the right pieces you wanted or had more mana. And for my lgs group, we have seen little change with how our decks play without these staple-like cards. The power spikes are just less pronounced and more easily handled when there isn't someone who is 3+ mana above the other players (except for a landfall/green deck). If you like that kind of moderate progression in game, I think you'll be happier with the results. Have a good day, Mr. Trinket Mage

[hedgehogwriting]

In all but a few of my artifact-centric decks, I have found a lot of fun in cutting sol ring (and not having run any other mana rocks cheaper than 2 mana in the first place). I'd highly recommend it for anyone looking to have decks never punch much higher than expected. I don't even notice a difference in my decks in most of my games since I'm still running cheap-ish/efficient spells and 2-mana rocks.

[paniago]

Before i watch the video, no cards should not be designed for commander, it goes against the principles of the format. It makes deck creation more streamlined and less about the exploration of possibilities. Example: two commanders of the top 10 in EDHREC have Eminence and one has Commander ninjutsu. let's see if i change my opinion!

[jarekhartwell]

Some of the most fun text boxs come from commander designed cards. I think commander designed cards are fine in the context of commander pre cons or reprint sets, such as Masters sets. Printing commander cards in non commander sets is the issue. Obeka in OTJ is a notable one, but there are dozens if not hundreds of more examples. Precons where only commander legal cards can exist, masters sets reprinting old, commander staples, and in commander masters, legends, etc sets where commander is the main focus. Those are the sets where commander designed cards should go