Still another rekative newcomer question, sorry!
I’ve finally started finding my footing in draft a little bit, and I’ve found some cool unofficial formats that I’ve enjoyed deck building for, but this is something that’s stuck in my craw a little bit for a while and I’m curious what my options are.
My friends all play EDH, so if I want a casual game I have to play that. They have a number of decks I’ve been able to borrow, and I did buy a precon I saw at a toy show (Prosper, Tome Bound – Planar Portal), but so far, I’ve just not really found the fun, and I’m wondering what I’m missing.
The main problem is that during each of these games, I wind up mostly sitting there waiting to play the game. Not just hecause of long turn times (although when someone has a lot of triggers, that is a factor), but also due to my commander getting instantly removed, or having little in hand to play, or someone having only flyers and my not having any kind of protection or removal in hand…ever. Maybe my luck is phenomenally bad, but I mostly sit there with a near empty board after a couple board wipes or targeted removal or just…well I assume my precon must just be kind of bad because i wind up with a bunch of treasure tokens and nothing to spend them on. In short, for almost any game, my turns have been draw > land > pass, with an occasional play > removed/countered > pass. I’ve thought about trying to buy a different precon or maybe finding a budget deck list on edhrec and buying that, but I’m hesitant to spend more money on a format I haven’t really enjoyed or even gotten to actually play in so far.
So I guess I’m looking for advice. Have I just been playing the wrong decks? Is it because I’m bad at the game (Only about 2 years in, so this seems plausible)? Is it something else? What do I have to do to enjoy it?
What I’ve been enjoying is Primordial. I got the group to try it but I can tell it’s not going to replace or even really augment EDH as their social format. But I dont want to be completely locked out of the social angle with my friends, so I’m determined to find a way to have fun with commander and get into it with them.
Removal-heavy group? Play threats that are hard to remove. Theros Gods are great because they’re indestructible and only creatures some of the time. Then throw in some “can’t be countered” effects
I just don’t play EDH because I don’t enjoy it or the play patterns it promotes. Multi-hour long games where proud nails get hammered down because Yawg forbid someone pulls ahead and wins. There’s often that one guy playing a groan inducing slog-fest, too.
Going to a draft with some friends, as well as getting to know local players who don’t EDH has helped.
That, or putting together a cube or a themed battle box for folks to play from can help, but both of those are quite invested options. Ravnica guilds draftchaff constructed is a fun and popular format, and if you can talk folks into playing it pentagon, 2HG, or other better multilayer format styles so much the better (this will work to make EDH more fun, too).
It sounds to me like your group is playing at a fairly high power level. I’ve been at tables with the exact opposite experience, where I put down some rabid commander and the whole table just ignores me as I go off & wincon. I’ve also had the exact experience you’re describing. To put it simply, each group plays at different power levels. You might start by simply asking them what power level they think they’re playing at, based on the new bracket system. It sounds like you are bringing a bracket 2 deck to a bracket 4 table. (You’re bringing a knife to a gunfight).
As for the price, it sounds like you haven’t found exactly what you want to play yet. I would seriously look into proxies. Get yourself a box or two of sleeves, and just start printing out cards to try them out. Once you find your niche, then you can start actually buying cards.
In general, I love Commander because it’s 2 games in one, there’s the deck building game and then the social play game. For the deckbuilding, you might try watching some Podcasts. The Command Zone just did a long podcast about deckbuilding, it’s not a bad place to start. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSNV6224cHg
The social angle is very much a piece of the game - specifically table politics & threat assessment. Being able to put down a Commander who flies just under the radar, while keeping the heat on the other guy is part of the strategy. “OMG, look at what his Commander does, guys, he’s going to go off next turn if we don’t all team up & stop him”. Or not, some people enjoy being the table villain. But based on your question, I would certainly play around with some purposely shitty commanders and see if your group is actually targeting your commander, or is just targeting you (in which case, find better friends).
I’ve been thinking about your comment and I started to wonder if maybe the politics is what’s actually keeping me from enjoying the format. I’ve tried some of that but I get swung at anyway, often because I’m the least dangerous/easiest to attack at any given moment (no blockers, no reach, etc). Even as much as I point to the Muldrotha and say “hey I’ve played that deck and none of you have targeted that player, it could get wild” it never seems to work. If I’m bad at the political game, maybe the rest of the game just kind of crumbles around me? I hear these stories of people “not looking like a threat” but when i try to do the same I think it looks more like I’m a soft target.
I think there are going to be a couple issues at play here. Precons are a bit on the weaker side, so your deck may be lacking in draw, protection, ramp, whatever. What doesnt help is Prosper is kind of a strong commander on his own, he does draw a decent amount of removal by himself.
I do feel cautious recommending it, but building your own deck may help out. Knowing your own deck intimately is a better experience than a precon or borrowing a deck, plus you can customize your deck to do a thing you want it to do
Any tips on that then? I really don’t want to spend more than $15-20 tops (although I realize this is impossible hecause of shipping, so I guess as little as possible will have to do) and it has to function without the commander (which seems to defeat the purpose of the format but whatever) because no matter who I’ve played, it just gets removed to the point where the tax makes it unplayable (Kess, Muldrotha, Pantlaza, Prosper, Hakbal…several more).
Also maybe you can answer, what happens when you are technically not dead (>0 life) but can’t take any useful actions? Friends seem upset when I say I’m ready to scoop, but I’m also not interested in sitting there for another hour not being able to play. I guess they want my life total to stay for damage triggers maybe? Or they think someone can come back from an empty hand and a recent board wipe?
Honestly just consider proxying the cards; after having spent a bit too much on colored paper I’m realizing that buying actual cards is nothing more than cosmetic (if you only play with friends). That way you can try out ALL the cards you feel like trying, without wasting money.
You can either print the full card with this site (https://mtgprint.net/) or an ever more ink-saving version with this one (https://playtestproxies.com/).
Of course always keep in mind the power level of the decks used in your group and ask them if they’re okay with it.
Regarding your OP, it sounds like your pod is playing at a level higher than precon; when we play precons only we see maybe two single-target removals and maaaybe one boardwipe, which is normal since stock precons have very little removal. Ask them to bring precons next time
Asking them to bring precons sounds good. UT at least two of the people in that group don’t even own any precons. For them, the deckbuilding is the fun part, so they’d just as well not play than run someone else’s deck.
I think trying to proxy something more powerful is the last chance here, and if I still don’t “get” commander after that, I’ll probably just throw the towel in and do something else when they break out the commander decks.
Another friend (not in this pod) pointed out that it’s for cards you love, a commander youre dying to build around, etc, so if you have to ask where the fun is, it’s not the format for you, and I guess I get that.
You do have to like the commander and what it does (and the singleton and multiplayer format), but it sounds like you don’t have the time to find out what that is, since yours get removed often and quickly. Getting obliterated is never fun, even when you love the format and the commander
If they have only high power decks, yeah you’re better off trying to find a new-ish commander and proxy a whole deck around that. Keep in mind that usually older precons are pretty underpowered compared to newer cards. Still, since you sound new to EDH they could at least make a sacrifice once and either borrow a precon or build something low power with the spare cards they have, if possible.
Unfortunately I don’t think $15 - $20 is reasonable for a Commander deck. I built a couple of Pauper (i.e. only commons) Commander decks recently and even they cost more than that. (And based on your description, a Pauper Commander deck is not going to be viable in your playgroup.) I wrote up a guide to buying a Commander deck recently and my subjective opinion was that $100 is the least you can expect to spend.
You said you’re borrowing decks from friends. I have some people in my playgroups who don’t own any decks of their own and always borrow someone else’s – nothing wrong with that. But the low-budget approach that I would suggest at this stage is that you try to borrow the same deck every time, and get familiar with it.
This can be a tough question to answer (and you don’t have to answer it for me at all), but I’d be curious about in what way your friends seem upset when you say you want to concede. There could be a few different things going on there. Maybe you have more options than you realize and they want to help you learn that. Maybe they feel bad about giving you an imbalanced game experience and are going to try to fix it. Maybe they’re jerks who just want a punching bag. What I’d advise you to do would differ in each of those scenarios.
One thing to keep in mind about Commander is that if your typical game has four players, you are going to lose about 75% of the time even if you’re just as skilled as everyone else. So don’t think of Commander games as being about winning. Instead, focus on doing something cool with your cards, and enjoying the company of your friends.
There’s some incredulity that there’s nothing I can do or have no answers in hand, and then encouragement to stay in because there somehow might be a comeback when I’ve missed 4 land drops and none of my mana rocks have come out. Or similar. I think there’s a certain amount of feelsbad that commander is not catching with me, or how often in collateral damage in such a way that I don’t actuality get to play even though I’m technically in the game. Probably a little over half the games so far have resulted in that.
Just this weekend I played the Pantlaza deck and it got removed early, I played it again and started building up a board, then the next turn it and the rest of my creatures got sent back to my hand, then I had to discard half of them for hand limit, and one I finally got it back out again, someone could either take it or get an extra turn. That deck basically ceases to function without its commander, so I waited another hour and a half being completely unable to affect the game state at all. In hindsight, I should’ve scooped to deny that player the resources. After 3 consecutive turns, they didn’t even win!
But yeah it’s not about winning, it’s about sitting there bored out of my skull not being able to affect the game. At this moment I would rather play any other format because commander has been unbelievably boring in every one of the dozen plus games I’ve tried.
It sounds like your friends aren’t jerks, so that’s something. Can ask them more directly for help? If they know what you do and don’t want out of the game, maybe they they’ll be able to recommend a deck that’s more likely to deliver it. One idea, if you have the time for it, is to play some practice games open-handed, where you all talk about why you’re doing what you’re doing.
Getting the board wiped is normal in Magic and especially in Commander. Try to learn to prepare for it. If you have a couple of blockers and don’t feel like you’re in immediate danger of dying, try keeping some of your cards in hand to rebuild after it happens. (I’m not saying it’s easy to strike the right balance; I’m still not good at it.)
Honestly, Commander isn’t my favorite format, and I think you’ve correctly identified some of the problems with it. What @ptc075 said earlier about playing the social game is accurate. That’s why I like to recommend “Group Hug”-type decks. Even if you’re not necessarily winning the game, making your resources valuable to other players helps ensure that at least you’re participating in it.
We tried that early on, where I’d get stuck, show my hand and they’d go “oh…” I think part of it is that my luck might just be really bad, and the first precon I picked up on my own is apparently really quite terrible, so that didn’t help either. On board wipes, it’s not that I have much of an issue with them, it’s just that so far they seem to only come right before I’m able to do something, and it’s incredibly frustrating to have never had an opportunity to actually affect the game. Although by the sound of it, maybe that’s actually normal? The very mean part of me wants to put together 99 cards worth of board wipes, targeted removal, land destruction, stun counters, you name it and take an “If I can’t play, nobody can” approach. But that’d be very very un-fun for everyone else, so I shan’t.
Just for completeness’ sake and to hopefully give context to what the rest of the group is playing, I tried to remember what card caused the Pantlaza situation, and it appears to have been Expropriate. Stuff on that order is what I’d consider normal for the power level here. Lots of things that can destroy one’s chance of playing in a single turn.
99 cards worth of board wipes
Well, “Prison” is an established archetype, focused on strategies that make it hard for opponents to assemble a board presence. It’s true that some people won’t find it fun. But if your playgroup is competitive, it might be in line with what they expect.
Hm…we may be onto something, then…
@Evu @sambeastie yes prison is an established archtype that is only welcome at the highest power levels. I’d concede every game that appeared to have a.prison deck in it.
An alternative is to ask for a lower power level in the game while you start out. You could suggest everyone play with a stock preconstructed deck, for example.
As for scooping, if they don’t like it maybe they should realise that you are not having fun and it’s not cool for them to demand their fun at your expense. A healthy group is where everyone is having fun. Storytime: a long time ago (in a galaxy far, far away) one friend and I started playing the Star Wars CCG. He chose Empire and I chose Rebels. After he bought all the top tier singles, I got predictably crushed every game and now neither of us play.
Theres going to be no solution to the price tag, which i get. However MTG is a game of rules, and all rules are made to be broken. Yuriko and Derevi get around commander tax, so that you may still build a deck that revolves around your commander.
Technically not dead is up to you to decide whether to scoop or not.
@sambeastie If you want to, could you share your decklist ? I could suggest change in a 10$ budget (I’m a budget builder so I’m use to work on a tight wallet)
It’s just an unmodified precon.
@sambeastie wow the precon is indeed really bad, can’t compete against any recent precon
As suggested by @Artemis201 cuting 3 mana ramp for 2 mana ramp allows you a more consistent turn 3 prosper
I remove 22 cards (put in “considering”) and suggested 22 new one (put in “sideboard”) for a total for 15€
The most important one are :
- the ramp changes
- the protections (since you said prosper was highly focused)
- disciple/mayhem devil for a clearer wincon
- the card advantage
https://moxfield.com/decks/dy8SOdn4oUaizXF6ZTAq-AI will definitely proxy those and test out this version of the deck next time we play. And if it feels better, I’ll get the real ones.
Hmm. Prosper is a deck that should go brrrr even when you don’t always have the commander out. I play an upgraded precon and I found that adding every 2-mana artifact that produces mana as well as some extra things that exile more cards really makes the deck go off.
Should be pretty easy to upgrade for not that much. If you’re interested, here’s my list. It works very well. Could probably use with some additional protection for Prosper.
I’ll take a look, but I do wonder if maybe Prosper just isn’t resonating with me and I should just look elsewhere.
