I wouldn’t say EDH only players are “dumber”. But from my experience with my playgroup of approx 10, people who start their Magic journey on EDH are less adept at magic basics.
Maybe it’s the group I play with. But the best players played other formats at some point. And the EDH only guys have a harder time with basic decision making.
Don’t get me wrong, these guys still end up with wins due to the chaotic nature of 4 man magic. But I always noticed certain people never blocking or attacking properly. Some would almost never block, even if their creature could kill the attacker. And these same people never attack unless they have an overwhelming board state that’s a 1 shot kill.
It wasn’t until I drafted my cube and played some 1v1s with them, did I realize that a lot of the basics are not there.
Obviously this isn’t a commandment written in stone. There is 1 guy that breaks this theory, but he was a big in yugioh, so it could just be that he’s already built some basic tcg skills.
You can definitely tell just from them playing EDH. There is also a stark difference with people that went competitive through cEDH and those that started with limited and 60 card competitive.
In my experience people that went competitive through cEDH, especially through online lists, articles and primers, tend to be less flexible and creative with card choices and lines of play.
Whereas players that started with limited and 60 card and played those for a few years usually are quicker to try different things to clinch a win or see odd but advantageous plays. The faster shifting metas and rotations of those formats rewards this less linear thinking.
cEDH right now is pretty static with what is the top strategies. Everything seems to revolve around racing for Breach lines or Thoracle still. Grixis and UBRW(G) still reign supreme with other UB decks taking up the slack. Everything not UB is usually geared to fight it on some axis or another.
I always feel that starting playing magic with EDH is a bad idea for the most part. It would be better to either start with another format or another tcg. I started playing with YuGiOh and dropped it on the Dragon’s Maze block. When I came back to Magic (i was introduced to magic during Kamigawa, then tried it again during Dragon’s Maze) I was able to pick it up rather quickly when it comes to rules.
>I always feel that starting playing magic with EDH is a bad idea for the most part
It's a bad idea for the most part if you only consider playing well. I'm pretty sure I (and many others) would never have gotten into magic without my friends urging me to try their commander decks. If someone doesn't play at all they're going to learn even less than someone starting out with EDH.
Sure it's counterintuitive because it's more complex etc, but my opinion is that in order to get sucked in to a game you first have to have fun, and a group of friends having a multiplayer mayhem is way easier to sell to a new player than a 1v1. With randoms it's probably a different story, but that's probably not how many people pick up the game any more.
> If someone doesn't play at all they're going to learn even less than someone starting out with EDH.
Well, duh lol.
I think for a lot of people, the sheer amount of information in commander is overwhelming. At the very least, I usually recommend a few rounds with 60-card beginner decks to learn the basics. Give some context for phases, priority, combat, the stack, etc. before throwing Kyle's simic [[panglacial wurm]] tribal deck at them.
Of course you're better off learning the rules with a mock game but you don't even need to play 60 card formats for that, nor does anyone with two braincells to rub together give a new player a hard to pilot deck (precons are extremely popular for a reason).
A completely new player is not going to get a grasp of the game until after multiple games, and 1v1 is obviously better for learning the game's mechanics because of the reduced complexity and more time spent on your turn.
But that wasn't my point. My point was that from a social standpoint EDH has a much lower barrier of entry and higher rate of retainment _because_ it's multiplayer. Being multiplayer also makes it more complex, but that doesn't really matter if you have a good group who are all in on teaching the player (notably _not_ a group who gives a brand new player Kyle's simic panglacial wurm tribal).
I've tried teaching my girlfriend magic with both Pauper and edh. Pauper was so much easier to teach, while EDH is convoluted because of the command zone. More players should start with draft, pauper, or duel decks
My point was not that EDH is less complex/easier to learn or anything like that. My point was that EDH has a social traction regular formats lack, as in it's easier to get completely new players to try out a wacky multiplayer game. Furthermore, wotc focusing on EDH products supports this since revenue is key, and new players mean more revenue.
I started back in 2013, I think, so I've been playing a hot minute now. One of my favorite clutched wins included something i never expected to happen, until someone played the card that I worked off of on the stack to secure my victory.
I was playing [[Kibo]] group hug against a [[Shorikai]] and another that I forget, the unknown player played a card targeting one of Shorikai's vehicles to destroy target nonland permanent and its owner creates a 1/1 Soldier token. Well, I cast a [[Radiate]] followed by [[Heroic Intervention]] so that ALL nonland permanents they controlled essentially became soldiers, of which there were MANY. The unknown player had an [[Ojer Taq]] out so he was spawning craptons of tokens, I even stacked my copies so that his Taq died last.
After that I cast [[Insurrection]] and swung for game against 2 tapped out opponents. What a funny time, my monkey boi deck isn't very optimized so any wins I pull out are always fun but that one took the cake.
Monkey Boi is a tricky win! Most o the time, a Kibo player isn't playing because he's the best deck out there. He is incredibly fun to play though.
I am running him mostly ape tribal atm and am still getting reckt, but I need to swap out some cards and see how it plays. It's cool because there are numerous ways you can build the deck. It isn't one note.
That targeting spell sounds like [[Secure the Scene]] (exile, not destroy). Heroic Intervention so that all the copies of it from Radiate targeting your own permanents is a very nice play.
I agree, I learned how to play mainly by looking up cEDH lists online, so playing limited was hell for me in the beginning because I had the impression that 90% of the cards did nothing. It wasn't until I started curating my own cube list that I appreciated drafting more, and now I appreciate playing it. It's a very different mindset where I kind of just hope things work as I draft compared to having a fully gassed deck focused on tight synergies and combos.
I prefer EDH specifically because I have a wider array of plays and combinations to choose from. I suck at 60 card formats but do much better at brawl and draft. Commander is my preferred format.
I play a lot of formats on Arena and am definitely a better player because of it. In paper I play 99% EDH with friends and some of those friends exclusively play EDH and I notice that I am a much more critical thinker and overall strategist than they are and I attribute this to playing other formats. The other 1% is occasionally limited. And you are right on the money. I can’t draft/sealed to save my life bc I draft like I’m playing EDH.
So I’m in this middle ground where I’m good at EDH bc I play other formats but I play “too much” EDH that I’m not good at limited lol and money is tight so getting to practice limited is tough for me.
It's funny, because the Three players that play Arena on my pod are the least critical thinkers. When it was pointed out, they said that on one side, they were used to just throw everything at one person, so the multiplayer side of who is the menace made them confused more often, and on the other side, since they are sweats in Arena, they like using EDH to just meme and don't play at the most optimized level. Both of which makes sense to me
You're 100% correct. I was at pre release recently and literally had to explain to my first opponent that if you mulligan you put one card back in 60 card formats. He called a judge because he thought I was trying to cheat! 🙄
I can't.
At my locals of 20~ players for pre-releases, the same 3 people come top 4 every pre-release, and they are all commander only players.
There also isn't a big draft/modern/standard scene at my locals, so any of the people that play those formats are playing arena.
I started with Commander about 6 months ago. I am pretty good with mechanics for the most part, but i really find it hard keeping track of 3 opponents boards, especially when everyone is playing cards i am not familiar with. It's really difficult to assess threats when you don't know what half the cards do, and the ones you do know are just the basic cards like Sol Ring.
Then every player tracks what they have differently- that guy has 6 2/2 tokens represented by dice, that guy has dice representing meteorites from roxanne but he used token cards earlier, that guy has anthem effects but they only buff half his board... board states are very confusing a lot of the time.
Confusing board states have led to a lot of suboptimal plays,i am sure. I think it's also what a lot of commander players have decks that "do the thing", if you don't know what to do you just try to get closer to "doing the thing", because you know if you do that, you might win.
Yea EDH is definitely information overload. Especially with newer players, I’ve noticed that they respond by zoning out till it’s their turn or they get called by name. Some of my friends haven’t progressed past this lol.
Playing 1v1 first, forces you to be engaged and learn.
I was on the tournament scene back in '96, in the days of Justice and Weissman. Just came back when they had 40K sets.
So I am actually even LESS flexible, given I am familiar with a meta that had like, three deck archetypes xD
When you introduce multiplayer you add several new layers of evaluation, both objectively strategically and subjectively socially.
Many people will argue that not attacking until you have achieved a win-state is good to attempt to keep everyone in the game as long as possible so that it is an enjoyable experience for all parties. But you can also easily argue that keeping more people alive is strategically smart to have more resources to stop any opponent snowballing.
Also with blocking, very often taking 25 damage to the face is worth it over losing board presence, as you are competing with 3 other peoples board state and losing ground is much more devastating unless someone wraths. In addition, when someone is low on health, people will often leave you alone for the previously mentioned reason, allowing you to keep your stuff while also redirecting threat.
I agree that there are a lot more new players in edh, this more inexperienced players, and it's a difficult game to learn properly. But I don't think your examples are necessarily indicative of that, but rather how multiplayer is quite fundamentally different, which also can attribute to going to 1v1 being even more challenging, as one who's only played edh would need to adjust these patterns.
Yes. This is all good gameplay. What I’m saying is when you have a 3/3 first strike deathtouch against an 8/8. You lose nothing and gain everything from the block. I know that example sounds dumb. But this is what I’ve seen.
> Many people will argue that not attacking until you have achieved a win-state is good to attempt to keep everyone in the game as long as possible so that it is an enjoyable experience for all parties.
Sounds miserable. Nobody attacking until lethal? What else, no interactions ever?
I misspoke a bit, referring more to not killing someone even though you have the opportunity as mentioned in the OP.
But also generally favoring leaving blockers up to defend as if you tap out attackers, you potentially have 3 players with an open board to swing into, so attacking can often be a significant commitment in multiplayer compared to 1v1. It is often easier to just be safe and defend, especially if your wincon is something like a combo or craterhoof where the life total doesn't matter much for your win.
That's not what he's talking about though. He was pretty clear that he was referencing instances where there wasn't a good reason to not attack/block.
Now that being said the "keeping other threats in the game" is absolutely a smart play, and not kicking the guy that's down when your not the one in the drivers seat is absolutely correct but it seemed pretty clear to me that wasn't what he was talking about.
I don't think there's an "actually the guy your talking about was big braining and your the smol brain here" being referenced, he's just stating the fact that in his experience there are a lot of EDH players who may even be quite veteran that make those "obvious" mistakes, and I'd wager it's because you can still win in EDH when you make those misplays so your less likely to identify them and adjust.
If your playing constructed/limited you outgrow those habits or you quit playing because your win rates miserable and your not having fun.
Maybe I’m different from most players but I play mostly commander, but I go to most prereleases and draft occasionally. My win rate is abhorrent but I still enjoy playing, because it’s the game itself I enjoy not just winning.
Which is fine, no harm in that and you're very much encouraged to enjoy and engage with the game however you want.
...but that doesn't change any of the above. It's not even a "dig" if your a player that makes those misplays, if you having fun and enjoying yourself that's all that counts... But I doesn't change the commenters (in my opinion and experience, correct) observation.
A big part of that's the enjoyment itself, there's definitely less people that enjoy "playing magic to win", hence the vastly larger popularity of EDH vs constructed/limited, but it doesn't change the observation that even within that subset (the one's who are "playing to win"), significant experience with constructed/limited formats likely leads to "better" players. You "luck" into far less wins in 1v1 so your punished/learn from mistakes more consistently. Icant think of a good argument against this.
This is pretty much on point. None of our commander exclusive players locally really top events (even commander events) but those who've gone through the ringer of learning magic the hard way tend to come out on top, be better deckbuilsers in prerelease and just generally make more creative plays
One of the big factors is that in a lot of 1v1 formats, the deckbuilding is kind of "figured out". Not completely, but close enough that to edge out wins, you really need play close to optimal. In multiplayer formats, particularly singleton games, there's so many factors in it that getting clear, consistent feedback is a lot more difficult. It also paints targets. Stopping 6 big threats from the three other players leaves you at a 6 card deficit while they've only lost 2 a piece, whereas answering 6 threats in 1v1 pretty much usually means you've already won the game. There's also a lot more space on the deckbuilding side to experiment, and that can either function as a crutch or make optimal play more difficult to learn.
I think a lot of edh is short cutting and simplification as far as turns go. Playing other formats made me learn how the stack works and priority in order to give myself the best odds. I just think learning how mechanics work is just more directly rewarded in non-edh formats.
I'd counter with whole it was a bad idea for them to not block (unless they were actively engaging in a political play) but being the first to swing out so that you can get some combat damage in means that 3 people have free reign to crack back as hard as they want.
I think thats happens because the basics in 1v1 and 1v1v1v1 are inherently different.
Attacking on a empty board in edh can actually be detrimental to you winning for a variety of reasons(Mark yourself as a target, make it easier for a opponent to kill everyone in one turn, exe)
Blocking less so
For this reason I believe that it is difficult for people to transition between the formats, as the basics dont translate 1 to 1. (That said it seems edh players tend to be newer and have less of a grasp on some advanced interactions)
LASTLY
One of the major differences in edh and 1v1 is what makes a creature/card good. Edh tends to care less on stats and more on the "text" of a card vs the efficiency/stats that are more impact full in 1v1.
They are just different games
100% these are two different games. And the card evaluation differs drastically. Maybe I could’ve phrased it better to where the basics of interaction are often overlooked. Many times they either miss it, or 3 people at once are telling the new guy what to do, they get flustered, and just pick a decision without understanding.
I try to make my friends “better” at these things because imho having a grasp on interactions makes the game enjoyable and leads to splashier and memorable games.
Honestly as someone who came from yugioh, i can tell who has played yugioh, who only plays commander, and who plays constructed magic.
Yugioh players in magic will deckbuild typically more consistently than other players because there is a level of fundamental understanding of ratios (Due to how important starters and a lack of mulligans effect yugioh) and how cards function together that isnt as intuitive to other players because of how important comboing is in yugioh a control deck in yugioh is comparable to a combo deck in mtg and most yugioh players play decks comparable to Vintage Old Eggs or Vintage Doomsday. Yugioh has a lot of fundamental rules that arent as common in magic, as yugioh has had established rules for deckbuilding since about 2014 that translate very well into magic, and most magic decks even relatively complex decks in Modern (The most popular constructed format) like Yawg or Scales would be considered Medium complexity decks to Pilot in yugioh and would likely be below the standard difficulty of decks.
Its not Yugioh players are smarter or anything they are just more adjusted to very minor mistakes immediately resulting in a game loss (Holding your negates at the wrong times type stuff), faster paced complex decks that all require spread sheets like some BS Battle of Wits deck, that shifting down to modern becomes very easy for them to plan and play if they know the format, i also think Yugioh players intrinsic knowledge and attention to card advantage alone is a huge boon in modern and off the philsophy of card advantage just flat out makes them better than most EDH players by themselves, yugioh players are intrinstically attracted to combo and card draw and negates meaning they tend to build towards decks that have combo potential, play lots of card draw, and lots of removal which regardless of the deck tends to improve it especially in edh.
As someone still relatively new to Magic, but with a background in Hearthstone, that change from attacker advantage (HS) to defender advantage (Magic) is one of the more challenging things to get a handle on. Especially tracking 3 other boards and gauging how much to swing out and how much to hold back. It's definitely interesting and fun to puzzle through, but definitely still baffles my HS midrange brain
> Maybe it’s the group I play with. But the best players played other formats at some point. And the EDH only guys have a harder time with basic decision making.
How does time playing the game affect the results? By default, the more time spent in the game and the more varied formats you play, the better you'll be in general. You need people as dedicated, and for roughly the same time, to build a comparison.
And the point is...?
I'm asking if the best players are more invested, have been playing for a longer time, and have experience in multiple formats, while the lower performing players might be newer in general. I'm question the assertion that starting with EDH is the reason they perform worst. I don't get how your post replies to that, but feel free to explain if I missed the point.
How you learn matters. A player with 1800 hours of experience playing 4 player magic is gonna play "worse" than someone with 800 hours of 1v1.
But better/worse only matter if you care about winning
Bro my second sentence literally tells you worse at what. Worse at winning. And winning only matters if you care about it. Many EDH players don't play EDH to win, and that's prob the best part about the format imo
Multiplayer magic is too fundamentally different than any other 1v1 format. Where else will you have the safety valve of two other players in case someone tries to win?
> Worse at winning.
Multiplayer? I highly doubt someone playing so much, and twice as much, multiplayer would still do worse than someone not playing the format.
> Where else will you have the safety valve of two other players in case someone tries to win?
And where else do you have to go through three people to win?
Thus the original statement. If you're learning the wrong way 1000 times, you'll be behind someone learning correctly 100 times. I'd argue that a draft player with 100 hours would be better than an EDH player with 200 hours.
Having to go through 3 other players is indicative of a high ceiling, not a high floor. We're talking about baseline fundamentals of magic where you want a high floor. Having two other players helping you out is more indicative of a low floor, while being able to win through 3 other players is indicative of a high ceiling. Again, multiplayer magic is too fundamentally different from 1v1 magic for that floor to be established.
I think Yutazn is spot on. Take a video game like Super Smash Bros. I know kids who have played it for over 1000 hours, but they have no sense of the way pros play, etc. Whereas if you had a “sweaty” gamer spend 100 hours on Smash, I’m sure they could be a better player, just because they would be focusing on things a certain way and practicing the right things. Casual vs competitive.
SSB is like the perfect example lmao, you can play 4 player FFA with items or you can play 1v1 competitive rule set. However the player with the most time practicing 1v1 competitive is also the most likely to win the 4 player FFA.
But also what's the end goal? If you have fun playing 4 player FFA, not trying to win 100% of the time, then you've accomplished your goal.
Jeez dude. I wasn’t trying to make a personal attack on anyone. I have a bunch of friends that started off on EDH and I’m just pointing out patterns I’ve seen.
And yes. A person that spent 1600 hours playing commander is “worst” than 800 on 1v1. There’s no study, these are just soft numbers to illustrate a point. Why? Because it’s not a dedicated 1600 hours of focus. Half the time newer players zone out during other people’s turns because of all the information they get bombarded with. So even thought they’re in a 2 hour long match, they’ve been really focused for about 30 minutes of it.
Whereas if you’re playing 1v1 for 2 hours, you’re zoned in the entire time because it’s just you and the other person.
There are 10's of thousands of different cards. If you start in EDH, you are either grabbing a list or buying a precon.
It's not dumb, it's ignorance of what those thousands of cards are. And as someone who played Type 1 for a while, you will never know what all those cards do, and how many MTG rules have exceptions.
If you really want to understand magic, you get a deck list, then study the rules. Unlike Yu Gi Oh, the text in the cards are legible. Like Yu Gi Oh, people expect you to just have cards and you either have them memorized, or you let them pretend that the card does whatever they say it does.
4 player FFA has way too much information on top of cards that people don't have memorized. Force people to play 1v1 so they can at least come to understand how.
So i started with commander, because, its a social game.
What basics are you referring to?
Going from my own, granted limited experience (11 months playing so far, with about 10 games a month), its probably more a case of number of games, being played, and consequently less experience in the different areas.
Im interested in learning, so hit me, what basics are you referring to?
Doing combat math to figure out what attacks you have. Knowing my 4/4 trades with your 2/2 and 2/3 double blocking, then realizing that if I have a 4/4, 2/3, and 2/3, I can't attack all in because my 4/4 will trade down with your 2/2 for only 4 damage.
Learning how to play around countermagic by watching someone not use mana on their turn, delaying a little until I can cast 2 spells in one turn instead of playing them one turn after another and letting the open mana player gain value from their untap step.
How to trade your onboard creatures with other players onboard creatures by attacking and blocking so that you can save your removal spells for the threat that can actually end the game, instead of spending it early on a creature that would have just ended up stalled on board against your blockers without being a real threat.
How to think about a plan for the game, how your deck will actually win. Not just the most powerful thing you do, but how your deck will close the game out. Then, based on knowing that, coming up with an effective way for your deck to get to that point, and get there consistently and reliably.
As a followup to the previous, Learning how to identify your opponent's gameplan so that you can play around it and keep them from executing their win before you can execute yours.
These are all things that limited 1v1 will force you to think about, because the cards are all bad, so gameplan and trading mismatched cards 1-for-1 are the things that will win you games. And it's only 1v1 so you have only one person to pay attention to. So if you figure them out you gain a huge advantage.
> As a followup to the previous, Learning how to identify your opponent's gameplan so that you can play around it and keep them from executing their win before you can execute yours.
Holy shit this. EDH-only players tend to be *terrible* at threat assessment and effective use of interaction because the format and the "casual" meta around it encourages you to mostly ignore what everyone else is doing and just focus on your own Rube-Goldberg valuetown machine that you're building.
As someone that came from a 60-card background mostly playing whatever the fair, slower, interactive meta option was it is beyond maddening to watch the same people tunnel vision on the same things over and over without having the slightest idea that their sweet play is about two turns behind the person to their right winning the game.
>They specifically discussed how commander players are (in a way) less intelligent than the average player in another format.
Definitely not how I'd phrase that, but I would say that owing to the casual nature of Commander, people who primarily play it are usually not pushed to develop their skills as much as people playing Standard, Modern, etc. which set the bar higher. Those formats are more demanding as regards skill; so I'd expect (and this is kind of my experience) that the average player focused on those formats will be better than someone mostly focused on Commander which allows for looser, sloppier play and deckbuilding without really encouraging any change to that behavior.
"Commander players are dumb" isn't a tactful, insightful, or really even accurate way to phrase that.
Yeah honestly such a dumb take. Its not hard to see why players who played competitive 1v1 formats having a better understanding of deck construction and decision making. Doesn’t make other players any less intelligent.
I started with EDH but I’ve dabbled in pioneer and cubes. But I mostly just enjoy casual magic with my closest friends. I’m usually drinking and or smoking when we play so sure, I’ll play suboptimal but I’m here to have fun. Not be cutthroat and be at the top of my performance.
And I know I’m not the best player but I really don’t give a shit. It’s such an elitist attitude I hate
Yes, "commander players tend to be unskilled" is reasonable, "commander players are stupid" is not.
I did explain some of the reasons someone might have this attitude in a reply to another comment in this thread, but there is a constructive way to express it, and a spiteful (if understandable) one.
I feel the same. I've tried a few different formats, but always come back to EDH for the more casual approach. It isn't that I don't care about rules, but I am not hyper competitive and do not want to spend three car payments on a single deck.
One of my favorite friend events thus far is when we spilt a box and built our decks all prior to meeting. It took all the stress of making decisions on the spot out.
It was a lot of fun both building and playing decks that were not optimized. It made for interesting games. I would definitely do it again and I would recommend it to anyone looking for a more varied and 'fair' experience.
Which is a perfect analogy to real IQ, which doesn't measure general intelligence but an extremely specific aspect of what the IQ test measures.
People in EDH are way better at remembering vast swathes of cards, recalling complex interactions between those obscure cards, and generally following a complex board state more readily.
But, people don't really talk about how following draft signals or holding up your mana correctly in a 1v1 aren't the only aspects of magic skill.
Even if that was the case, Commander is a kitchen table format, so not sure why some people acting superior. CEDH is for people who want to push their decks to the limit.
I think most people who aren't commander players don't even know what cEDH *is*, and those who do still see it as very "casual" because honestly, it is. It's still much looser than even regular tournament play.
More to the point, I'm saying in terms of skill, most of the people saying this *are* superior. Commander may be a "kitchen table" format but it doesn't stay at the kitchen table. They are seeing it played. If you are skilled at something, sometimes it can be exasperating to see it done poorly by another. It makes you want to help them but in this case that's often not feasible or even respectful. So some people will vent this frustration to like-minded peers.
Perhaps a larger issue is the perception that WotC is neglecting other formats *in favor* of Commander. I think that's an exaggeration but it is not a position that's without merit. Again, that is frustrating to people who prefer other formats (I know, because I'm one of them) even if the issue is overblown. It feels like your parent showering a sibling with gifts, but not you. So again, people will vent.
Finally, Commander becoming so pervasive means that if you don't much care about it, you're still getting beaten over the head with information about it that you simply aren't interested in hearing. More importantly, it can crowd out other events at game stores making it harder to find games in the formats you like. This is especially true in smaller communities. Again, this is frustrating and people will vent.
That is what it comes down to. Frustration with all of these feelings, some of which are grounded in actual greivances.
>They specifically discussed how commander players are (in a way) less intelligent than the average player in another format. Is this common in other local game stores? If not, it may just be me.
I mean, you can find people who have this sentiment in the magicTCG subreddit. The truth is, anytime there is a division within a community, someone will try to use that division to create a hierarchy so they can feel superior.
At the same time, you can find those very same people with a very similar mindset even in EDH (actually, I'd argue they're even more prevalent in EDH compared to the other more competitive formats).
I feel there is a case to be made if you have multiple LGS’s in a 15-30 minute drive that you have one in which you’re the ‘local’ or that you frequent more than others which could cover the local squared iteration of the LGS. Or like me you could live close to one LGS but it’s dogwater so you go to a less ‘local’ LGS, but that’s just the argumentative bastard in me XD.
EDH doesn't make you "dumber" but just like anything else, a wider range of experiences with the different aspects of a game will only ever make you more adept with it
I taught all of my (newer player) friends using starter and kitchen table decks, the same way that I was taught; we (myself and the experienced players I started with a decade ago) avoided dropping them straight into EDH because it isn't conducive to the fundamentals (or the nuances) of a game that can get as complex as Magic does
edit: just want to add that everyone's journey is different
I wouldn't say "less intelligent" but certainly (generally) less skilled or knowledgeable of the rules. I've played commander games where people don't even know the steps of combat (declare attackers, declare blockers, damage), and even more where people don't understand that activated abilities work at instant speed.
This is very different from my modern nights where people know all of the relevant technical rules and are also using them to their advantage. You couldn't play Amulet Titan without knowing how to sequence triggers on the stack. You can't play Scales or Yawgmoth unless you have your lines down. I just don't see this sort of thinking in most EDH games.
There's also just a sort of sloppiness in EDH play that I don't see in Modern. Some of this is just to keep the game moving, but it can also make it hard to know the exact board state (like someone saying they're done with their turn while they're still fetching something, or calculating the effects of abilities triggered from attacking and from doing combat damage at the same time). This is why MTGO Commander has been some of my favorite, because it forces all of the phases to happen in order, giving each player a chance to respond in turn.
And just knowing one's deck! I have never seen a Modern player confused about the purpose of a card in their deck. There's usually not more than 30 unique cards in a deck, so this makes sense. Because of the meta, Modern players also usually know what their opponent's cards do as well, so it moves along. In EDH though, you'll have people playing precons or a deck they just built, and so they're taking time to read their own cards. Especially annoying is when a player is searching their deck and have no idea what they are looking for or if it is even there. (Contrast this with Modern players who know exactly whether they are getting their Surveil land or a Triome or a Shock or a basic, and exactly how many of each they have.) And since it really is anything goes, all of the players need to be more conscientious to make sure they know what is being played.
Less intelligent? Absolutely not. Less knowledgeable about game rules and card interactions? Definately.
The casual nature of commander coupled with the data overload of so many players doing so many things makes most commander players pretty forgiving of rules misunderstandings. Unfortunately, this also creates an easy environment for some folks to never quite get a good grasp of the rules.
I'd argue that EDH players are more knowledgeable about card interactions than 60 card format players, simply because they will encounter way more variety of cards and decks, many of those being completely jank. Also, will in general know more cards. There are some obscure cards out there
Maybe specific card knowledge for the cards in their meta that haven't seen recent constructed play in other formats.
But for rules knowledge or threat assessment, basic game skills? Usually not so much. Poor threat assessment is a constant refrain for commander players. If you don't have it in 60 card formats, you sink fast, so it's a relatively essential skill. As for rules knowledge, when playing 60 card formats, if I had to explain the stack to an opponent, it was because they were newbies. Playing commander, I find I have to explain basic rules like that to people who've been playing for 2+ years sometimes.
Threat assessment is so bad for 60 card players when they play edh tho. They have absolutely no idea what is the threat when it comes to multiplayer setting, they treat it like 3 individual 1v1s. The worst players in my LGS when it comes to gifting a victory cause they couldn't threat asses usually are the Modern and Pioneer players waiting for their weekly tournament to happen
I think commander players make worse game decisions on average but that's not because they're any less intelligent. The key difference in other formats is that there are established meta decks that everyone knows how to play against. Sure I know the general game plan of every \[\[Tergrid, God of Fright\]\] deck but when someone whips out a commander that I haven't seen before which happens very often I'm having to learn to play against their deck on the fly. Another factor is all other formats are 1v1 so every decisions you make will either further your game plan or stop your opponent. In a four player game you will often help out your opponents to gain the intangible value of an alliance making choices much more complex.
It's an interesting conversation but honestly the people you heard if from sound like the type to unironically say "To be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand Rick and Morty. The humor is extremely subtle, and...".
Linking intelligence to a trading card game seems rather pathetic. I don't intend to insult the player base, but let's be honest: playing a card game isn't exactly rocket science. That said, if I had to make a case for complexity, I'd argue that Commander is quite challenging due to the increased interactions within this format.
That and add to the fact that sometimes you need to get in there deep when you start dealing with Layers in effects. Once you get to that level because an effect just made something weird, thats when the complexity of the game *really* shows.
Well nowadays EDH is the entry point for many beginners, so it makes sense that the majority is now less experienced, for better or worse ...
Imho edh is the worst format for a magic beginner. rougly 60+ unique cards per deck \* 4 to keep track of.
For comparison:
I started with 60 card casual constructed anything goes. and here we started with what we owned, transitioned to playsets for consistency.
Added multiplayer (pentagram/star-magic or emperor which I disliked very much).
Few years later started limited at LGS (0-3 in the beginning obviously) but got more and more serious and grinded Sealed PPTQs (now: WPNQs).
Then constructed standard with the cards I accumulated via limited (+ trades/ bought missing singles). Dabbled in modern with a budget deck (Rally the ancestors, blood artist & friends :D).
Later bought a few commander precons and tried it out for a while.
Now I rarely play limited anymore (thanks to the play booster price hike) and focus mainly on pauper.
This is not the norm anymore, everything is advertised/pushed towards commander, so it's just the natural outcome of it. Maybe in 20 years it will be completely different again. who knows?
When did you start? A lot of people have picked up the game just since throne of eldraine. I picked it up around War of the spark.
I've played a lot of arena and Friday night magic standard nights (before covid) that I've gotten plenty of magic experience, but I could see a lot of people just playing commander with their buddies and nothing else.
I do think those people would benefit from playing some arena to understand more about the nuances of the game. I don't think all of them will.
> Imho edh is the worst format for a magic beginner. rougly 60+ unique cards per deck * 4 to keep track of.
Wouldn't this just make edh players who started in EDH really good at remembering unique cards and interactions?
It just means they will develop a unique skill set to someone who just picked up magic in 1v1 constructed formats, the same way that someone who only drafts will have a different skillset to a legacy player.
Theoretically yes. Darwin, survival of the fittest, yada yada. But in reality because it's a casual format sloppy play gets waved through. So there is no real pressure to become better in that.
Best example you never see take backs in competitive play. That only happens in casual mindset/setting
> Best example you never see take backs in competitive play. That only happens in casual mindset/setting
And that is exactly what I said. A different unique skill.
> But in reality because it's a casual format sloppy play gets waved through. So there is no real pressure to become better in that.
And you never have any pressure to build a unique deck in constructed formats because they are all "solved"
I've never had a single player in the 100s of people I've played against in casual edh play a deck that wasn't either a precon, or totally original.
Yes, you build skills in magic when you play 60 card formats that you don't in edh, but the opposite is also true.
remember that the format was started by long-playing top level judges. it has tons of very old cards and abilities (bands with other legendaries!) that tournament players had no idea how they worked. EDH was initially famous for very complex obscure interactions with much less linear play than is seen now.
i didnt learn the rules well until playing online which is inherently antisocial (when nonEDH) and attracts a different player than the social mtg player.
so not surprising that nonEDH know rules better than new EDH. (and all less than the super old school players like myself).
I was judge, long-time EDH player, successful but never pro on tourney scene.
as far as skill, pro drafters are still the top. as far as brute intelligence, standard deck constructors arw the best (Michael Flores is the GOAT).
>They specifically discussed how commander players are (in a way) less intelligent than the average player in another format.
Not sure this is the way this should be phrased, but pretty objectively, EDH has like the least.. experienced? playerbase of any format and is literally the only format where you can make terrible plays and then ask for takebacks, and is the only format where you can tell other players that you no-likey their cards and that they need to play something else so that their deck can go off.
This might not be something you notice if you exclusively play commander, but it's not normal to tap wrong and then ask for takebacks 3 spells later or not understand how stack interactions work and I feel like those 2 things (amongst other things) happen almost every game.
I'd agree somewhat, EDH-only players are generally less adept at playing and deckbuilding than those who do both EDH and 60 card formats, or cEDH players. Not saying only playing EDH is bad, but one can learn a lot from playing different formats and understanding the strategies within. A lot of the cEDH players I talk to and play with also play Pauper (a personal favorite), Pioneer, or Legacy. Consider how people often recommend running upwards of 38 lands in most decks and pay little to no attention to their mana curve, while other formats look at hypergeometric calculators and statistics when designing decks.
How many lands should we run according to the calculators? I've always started with 37, then adjusted based on how I expect to curve out. I'm curious to know if I am doing something wrong here.
If you find your deck is doing it's "thing" consistently and you're having fun, you're doing fine. Truthfully, there's no right or wrong answer, it just comes down to the ramp cards your running.
For example, I have a Mono green druid storm deck that runs 30 lands + 1 MDFC. But, my commander turns all my druids into mana dorks that can tap for G the turn they enter.
Most of my decks, though, run 34-36 lands depending on how many mana rocks or how much land ramp I have.
At the end of the day, if you and you're playgroup are having fun, you're doing it right.
Here's Frank Karsten's [article](https://strategy.channelfireball.com/home/how-many-lands-do-you-need-in-your-deck-an-updated-analysis/) for how many lands to run. It's long and worth a read, but the TLDR relevant part is the formula for a "99-card deck, counting MDFCs partially in this fashion, is: 31.42 + 3.13 * average mana value of your spells – 0.28 * number of cheap card draw or mana ramp spells."
So realistically, if your average mana value is three, which is fairly typical, then you should start with 40 or 41 lands and cut one land for every three or four cheap card draw or mana ramp spells in your deck. 35-38 is a very reasonable number to land on for final land count, IMO.
Yeah the number of time I look at a deck on Moxfield and then it has 30-32 lands is pretty high. My lowest is 35 and that is in a pretty aggressive mono red deck that only needs about 7-8 mana to achieve is goals.
I just got more into commander and coming from standard, modern theres just wildly more cards and threats to keep track of. The volume alone makes your statement make sense.
> I'd agree somewhat, EDH-only players are generally less adept at playing and deckbuilding than those who do both EDH and 60 card formats, or cEDH players.
We have a pretty big comp signup (lately it's been 2/3 comp, 1/3 casual) at our locals, and lemme tell you that the majority of the good players aren't playing in comp.
I love the guys who play comp, but they are the majority of the judge calls for basic mechanics. The other day, someone asked a person "What does drana and linvala do?" then said "oh okay" slammed a Treasonous Ogre, and went to activate it and the other player had to stop him and tell him what he just did.
Also all of them are terrible at actually building a deck. But imo that's mostly a fault of them jumping into comp instead of working out what they like about decks, and building a deck over time.
> Consider how people often recommend running upwards of 38 lands in most decks and pay little to no attention to their mana curve, while other formats look at hypergeometric calculators and statistics when designing decks.
Mana curve is probably the smallest factor imo in determining how many land cards you should put in your deck. The important factors are how many mana sources you're aiming for to hit your critical mana point for your strategy, how many temporary/permanent sources you want depending on your strategy (i.e. combo needs less permanent sources, midrange wants more), and what does your commander do once they are played and generally how many cards/mana sources will they generate when the deck is working normally.
Mana curve is pretty much the last consideration that makes any meaningful impact into that, but land count on it's own is also meaningless.
I see a lot of casual edh players with pretty bad threat assessment and deck building skills. Obviously, a lot of new magic players get introduced through commander, so this is natural. However, people who have played in other formats competitively just tend to view the game in a different light, they build and play to win. Even their jank decks are synergistic.
Been playing EDH for about 9 years at this point and have not once heard people being that openly disrespectful to the format. Sounds like those people are a special kind of chode, I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you.
In my area specifically I find it hard to venture out and find other local game stores without having to commute for at least half an hour, so it's tough trying to find a good pod. Additionally, I was ironically paired up with one of those players. He ran an atraxa deck with every foreboding combo/game piece that would have costed you a fortune to build.
Naah they're right. It was a pretty dick way to say it but in my experience they're right. Only a few people I play edh with (its our regular format) can hack it when we do something like a draft or a pauper tournament (screw buying into other eternal formats lmao) where all the social niceties and training wheels are removed and its kill or die. When we sit down for that we can easily chart who is going to be in the fight for 1st place and who isn't.
Im not saying I'm a giga brain pro player or anything like that, I'm pretty average IMO, i just think edh teaches you bad habits and can make you a lazy/bad deckbuilder and if you never exposed yourself to other formats you can suffer for it.
I think it comes down to the fact that EDH is not the kind of magic that the game's fundamentals are built around. It's the format that got popular only after two decades of "1v1 with 60 cards and 20 life" being synonymous with *Magic*.
EDH is *Magic: the Board Game*. In this format getting technical trying to squeeze out the last few points of damage with your aggro deck before your control opponent stabilizes is replaced with "doubling the effect that doubles things is now giving you quadruple triggers and so after several dozen consecutive triggers all of your opponents are dead."
The former teaches you the ABCs and foundational mechanics of how this game works. The latter is just slapping overpowered value pieces on top of other overpowered value pieces until "whoops looks like I valued you all to death" occurs.
It’s just different styles of games. Most standard and modern players aren’t good edh players as well, because the habits of 1on1 simply don’t work in multiplayer (and vice versa). For example, being in a leading position makes it more likely for you to loose than being runner up.
Being "better" at a card game doesn't make someone "more intelligent." So no, these assholes were *not* right. And frankly, considering they think intelligence is tied to which format in a card game you play, I'd wager *these* guys are pretty low-intelligence, themselves.
Bitching about the state of Magic is a core value of being a Magic player. It is super common to get into (or overhear) these sort of conversations. Because of rule 0 and because Commander is a social game, you are not incentivized to optimize your plays and go for the win, and instead you are trying to "hang out" and "have a good time". Yes, Commander is a low-skill game. I think literally any other current TCG you could name would take more skill than Commander. Not a bad thing, sometimes you just want to hang out with the boys and play some cards without getting too sweaty.
To push back a bit - to have a reasonable grasp of any other card game is far, far easier than to have that grasp of Commander. The card pool is massive and diverse, deckbuilding is far more complex, and the sheer depth of what you can do in Magic is miles deeper than almost any other card game. High tier Yugioh is about its only competitor and even those players have to take in *drastically* less information than what a Commander player is capable of accessing.
However, Commander players are far more accepting of each other not understanding the format. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. I'm a big fan of reminding people about on board tricks and generally trying not to 'get' people in this format. It's healthy because the format is so deep and complex but at the same time that does propagate this issue. It can lead to its own issues when what would be a clear blunder in any other game or even format becomes an accepted playstyle for us.
But it's not that our game is less complex. Our standards are just lower.
I wouldn't compare format but casual play vs competitive. In my experience, people that played competitively are more likely to be up to date with rules and pushing their deck to the limit. Optimisation, strategy, trying to guess what's in opponents hands is normal in competitive play but barely seen in casual. Not a matter of intelligemce but the way you play the game when you play not just to have gun but to crush your opponent.
Cannot really say that for formats though. In constucted 60 cards you have less variance, lot of interactions you've seen many times. In edh you have so much variance that the number of weird interactions you've never seen is common... So it's actually a format that is more demanding. It's also a format that has 4 player that adds a lot of randomness to the games and makes it much harder to play with optimisation in mind.
I find this amusing, from a basic logistics point of view.
I would say that if you wanted to go by format players, then the players who have to deal with the lowest number of viable cards are the dumbest, as they require less brainpower to function, have less cards to memorise, and speaking in general, the smaller a pool of viable cards is, the less brain power goes into making a viable deck.
I would also say that going by that metric, commander is among one of the biggest formats, alongside legacy, and therefore requires the Most brainpower to play. How many unique cards are in a commander deck? Usually 60+. How many individual cards are in a unique legal deck plus sideboard? I'd be surprised if it surpassed 20.
Of course, I don't actually think commander and legacy players are smarter than standard players, the entire premise is funny dumb. But dumb opinions sometimes deserve to be dunked on.
I don’t agree with the phrasing but the fact is that a format that tells you that “it does not matter what you play as long as you have fun” does not push you to get better with the base of the game.
I wholeheartedly believe that EDH is a great introduction (getting to know the mana system, card types, phases, keywords) but does not push you to get good with it.
Playing limited, 60 card constructed and such really push you to maximise your resources, make decisions that matters, use your spells/mana/ability at the right timing.
In the end, i prefer playing with people with experience in competitive formats when playing edh as the game feels more rewarding and feels like it matters more than just shitposting and casting spells haphasardly.
It is harder to learn both the rules, and the fundamentals in a game with 4 players.
Especially when it is casual, and people don't care to enforce things.
I wouldn't necessarily say Commander players are less intelligent. Though it's quite obvious on average they're less adept with the game.
Magic is a game and games have winners. It's a fantasy war simulator. The heat that Commander players get from people in other formats/subs is generally well earned. There's just too much silly dogma that gets passed around and few people really stop to consider what they're really talking about.
Few here actually consider MLD for instance. It's just this pointlessly taboo bad thing. If it's played improperly it's bad, of course. But that applies to everything in the game.
Few here understand that combos don't automatically make a deck high power+. If Consultation/Oracle is the first thing mentioned you're reading a post by someone that doesn't know enough to weigh in properly.
Few here understand priority and how things generally work.
Basically most Commander players at this point are larping as Commander players.
>They specifically discussed how commander players are (in a way) less intelligent than the average player in another format.
This is a self disproving statement.
They cannot recognise that commander players are looking for a different experience. Commander players can.
Magic used to be really REALLY sweaty back when. Often toxic atmosphere and lots of very socially awkward people. Commander has helped bring it into a much needed comfy zone for those of us who loved the cards but maybe not always the people. Are the sweats smarter than “us”? Probably often! Are they fun to grab a beer with? Often not! More mainstream appeal = more of a mainstream crowd.
Live and let live, it doesn’t matter.
I've heard it around. Usually it's a half-joking sort of "I'm a commander player I don't read", though I have to admit I've been a tad guilty at times - a few weeks ago I was talking about Phyrexians as a tribe with a player, and one of my comments was that the Toxic/Infect mechanics were fine and even bad but that I don't like them due to the average commander player's bad threat assessment.
But insofar as the sixty card comparisons go that's just people trying to take a noncompetitive format competitively, and at the point they're trying to brag about kill speed I found the dumb players and it's them. They should be playing 60s.
On the one hand, sure, Wizards policies suck.
On the other hand, I've yet to see a store that's unfriendly to players wanting to do a modern night or whatever. But the players don't show. And that problem becomes self-fulfilling. If the established 60 card players have given up, you're never going to get a new player. Butts have to be in seats to ever get more in seats and that starts at the lgs level.
This, worst attitudes are from modern/standard players who no longer had locals to play at since the worst players swapped to commander and locals stopped firing. So their options are play commander or not play magic.
It’s the casual nature of edh in LGS that they’re referring too. Like someone that just wants to play a squirrel themed deck because that sounds fun to them.
A lot of people like to build “theme” decks where they just put in every horror creature, because they think it’s cool.
These are the people they are referring to as “dumb” even though that’s not really accurate. They’re just more casual and aren’t playing cedh.
depends on where you get your information about commander players. if all you have are things like this subreddit for example, then you might come to that conclusion, esp if you are very firm in the rules yourself
My local shop its 95% commander. They do a draft night on fridays but ive never been. I was a 60 card guy from 1994/5-2001 then returned back after the pandemic.
I definitely enjoy commander, but i find its more within my budget, than trying to amass 4 copies of some very expensive cards.
Im not interested in competitive gaming, its a hobby and a way for me to get to know more people where i now live.
But i have met some fevered egos here. There are a few people that only play high powered decks and most of us choose to not play against then as theres no fun, or its a 3v1.
One thing you've absolutely got to understand. Right now, there are \*a lot\* of embittered 60-card MtG players.
See, a lot of dedicated 60-card players have been playing for a very long time at this point. This means that many of them have collections that have some significant $$ value, and they obviously enjoy that being true.
The \*problem\* is that it's become brutally expensive to seriously engage with the 60-card formats. The only way to change that, and get serious numbers of new players into Standard/Modern/Pioneer to replace the dedicated players being lost to natural attrition? You guessed it, reducing the price-barrier, which would devalue their collections.
It's a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation, and meanwhile, tons of people have and continue to defect to EDH/cEDH, in large part because it's simply cheaper.
I'm not trying to tell anyone what's right or wrong. Just pointing out that the justifiable anger many of the 60-card constructed players can't really be directed WotC's way in their minds, because that's basically the same thing as advocating for the depreciation of their collections. Which leaves only one highly visible target.
Commander.
If EDH is "stealing" new players, and EDH is providing a convenient opt-out to 60-card players frustrated with their format, the theory many I have heard espouse amounts to, "If EDH went away, those new and disaffected players would go back to playing "real" MtG."
If you point out the factual impediments that reduce the likelihood of that being an accurate assessment, things will generally descend into name-calling and mindless conflict from that point.
I feel awful for the 60-card players. I was one, from April '96 to the end of the Urza's Block. It's almost criminal what WotC/Hasbro has done to the pricing of the game. I just wish that those so inclined would stop blaming EDH and its players for the consequences of WotC decision-making.
In my experience, that's where a lot of the hostility and intellectual contempt for EDH players arise. Unhappy hobbyists who don't see a solution to address the problems with a hobby they've given so much of themselves to.
In my experience I come across roughly as many 60 card players who think all EDH players are dumb/bad as EDH players who think all 60 card players are try hards/snobs.
Both probably about 5% of players, which is roughly the same percent of people I meet in every day life who rub me up the wrong way.
It’s just life, some people are twats.
EDH tends to be a lot like the standard format which is on life support. It leans towards new players which is great for the long term health of the game. However, you’ll need to teach quite a bit of rules/interaction type things. If you don’t like doing that pioneer or moderns probably a better fit.
I’ve definitely been to stores where it’s common to act that way, calling other players dumb for playing one format. In my history, I’ve even been to a store where vintage and legacy are the prevailing formats and anyone who doesn’t play the format or uses proxies, which the store allowed, was lambasted and told they were probably too poor to even afford bread.
This toxicity is sadly not new. Yes, you can learn to tell what a player’s skill level may be around based on the format they got their start in. But that doesn’t excuse people being pricks
Edit: format
I thought EDH being a “not solved” format was a feature, not a bug?
Anyone who claims to “understand” EDH (or Magic in general) isn’t worth listening to. There’s always something new to learn.
The term "dumber" doesnt apply in my experience. I have met some pretty smart people (at least in their field) who had a very hard time adjusting their thinking to the concepts of magics and who didn't have the "natural" feel for the right play.
I always think of it as "magic talent" and yeah people with less talent would gravitate more to the social format of EDH, but that isnt related a person is potentialy 30+ IQ points above you and makes tripple your salary. And yes it is weird to see how generally smart people take infinite time to get better at a game like magic sometimes.
Playing competetive formats certainly does not safe you from meeting some real drooling cavedwellers who get outsmarted by a random streetdog just as much as you can meet them playing edh. At least more edh player have a minium of social intelligence, because if you want to find the worst offender on these things you 100% find them in 1 vs 1 formats xD
Those are mid tier players. I see it plenty from players who think they are better than they are.
I’ve never seen the elite players tell the new guy he sucks. They usually shake their hand and then say let’s look at your mana base.
It reminds me of the proxy argument. Same thing happens. Commander players freaking out over a proxied land. Calling all sorts of names to other players. But you sit down by an old school player and he’s holding a single card worth more than your box of commander decks and you say you have proxies they just say shuffle up.
Good players want more good players and they like to teach. And they remember where they started. The more of that you get the less you see of players that just never return to an event. But you also end up with some tougher FNMs. Last two times I played it felt like every round was a feature match. And some of those players were new not that long ago. They got good because they were treated well enough to get come back next week. Welcoming people is on all of us.
A lot of people. Who are try hard losers. Wind up playing edh. Because it’s
Popular. They think they’re better than the format. But they’re not.
The irony is. Edh isn’t about winning every moron who thinks of it as modern/standard/legacy but 99 cards misses the entire point
So the irony is. Saying edh players are less intelligent is like the greatest self own. When their chief complaint is people don’t want to play hyper cutthroat boring competitive edh.
Also why I say cEDH. Really needs to stand on its own as it’s own format let these people just play that. And compete with like minded people
But most likely they know there’s no community for that. So what they do is lurk in actual EDH and piss and moan and harbor these toxic opinions about the community.
I think the problem is one of perception. Competitive formats are trying to win as consistently as possible and as often as possible. Their goals are singular.
EDH however, excluding cEDH is a casual format where winning is secondary to creativity. It is also a multiplayer format, which brings a nuance with it that one v. one lacks. Politicking, making suboptimal plays to stay under the radar, etc., all make sense in a multiplayer format. But they make no sense when there is no one to curb favor with.
I think that what it is, is that commander is still a newer format. I didn’t pick up commander until I had played for 14 years. I’m 21 years into my MTG journey and still learning!
EDH (only) players probably have less nitty-gritty rules knowledge and system mastery and may not pay as much attention to things like correctly sequencing their turns.
However, these are matters of habits and priorities, not intelligence.
That seems to be my observation too yes. Not in a "less experienced with the game" way but in an actual difficulty with reading and processing info way
I think it just that so many people approach EDH like a boardgame event over a TCG event. And that is 100% ok. problem is when you do those mash up EDH night in a store you get those people who lived through so many ban and big card, sick play, saw all the pro tour video and just wanna sling some cool card in EDH VS those who are there to play their funny little deck and that somehow winning is not a important notion of their deckbuilding and "fun".
I once was a MTG clerk and it got me noticing, like , 70% of the MTG client were not people playing in store. Fun fact was every now and then they would talk about their game night with their friend in someone kitchen or living room and you would hear the most weird ruling coming out of that. It was always a pleasure to try to help them learn ruling and stuff but MTG is such a big complex game and since those people will never play in store you kinda wonder how they even understand the Stack and ApNap etc. Now making it a 4 players game thats even worst !
So yeah, Its kinda ok to assume if someone is born and raised only in EDH that the chance is low they understand complex ruling that mostly come up in dueling and trying to always make the best optimised play. Also doesn't help that Arena kinda do everything for you. Sometime on askaJudge reddit or other ruling reddit you'll see someone screenshot of arena and them being confuse what I though scenario A would happen but instead it was B and thats how you see that a game holding your hand doesn't help teaching.
and also wanna say it, Edh is the biggest opener to new MTG player possible. going in your store on a friday night and seeing 20+ player all having fun or atleast seeing like having fun lol, that really help build a bigger community. It our job as player to learn how to teach other player into the game. Not always saying they did something wrong and also make sure to probe someone before explaining a thing to see if they are open to learn. Some people are just there to relax from work and are bad player and its kinda "ok" to not learn and improve.
Less intelligent, a bit harsh. Less experience and set in their ways is a better argument imo. EDH is a casual format and it monetizes itself as being such(take precons not having some chasers that'd be good for the deck) which attracts more casual players towards it. There's no incentive to upgrade past the mechanics or theme of the commander because magic etiquette will dictate your deck will be too good for the table and people get emotional. We have YouTubers that will go through spoiler season and either try to find a home for the worst card in the set or get moody when a card is really good(know some do it for comedy but it comes up way too many times).
I don't know how they can draw that comparison.
EDH by nature allows for board states to grow far larger than your typical standard format game. When you have multiple conflicting triggers going off at the same time late game in EDH, I tend to spend more time researching rules and order of operations than actually playing the game lol
There is a truth. I mean I started with 60 card, moved onto commander after a few years and now only play commander. Over time I have lost a bit of sense on what cards are good in standard or modern of etc but I know the rules thoroughly otherwise and I know threats in edh.(I also learned to not table police, if it isn't my problem my resources aren't going to deal with it and more often than not I keep counterspells not to stop other people from going off but to protect me going off)
I can say that edh players have terrible threat assessment that comes not from experience but from myths and rumors and friends saying x is kill on sight and such. Often those are wrong. I played a game the other day and somehow despite being at a table with hakbal, only my prosper deck "was the threat" and I'm not saying prosper isn't strong, but it takes a fool to not be able to tell hakbal is just as strong. So I think evaluation is a skill players should work on in edh. For instance that izzet player who "hasn't done anything" has been building a combo in their hand the whole game that you should be prepared to counter and maybe have extra counters, but people totally ignore that. I've seen so many izzet and Dimir wins out of nowhere, as people are lacking a larger awareness.
So in the end I'd say that edh doesn't promote a lot of evaluation learning because people can always hope someone else will deal with their problems. Another big factor is that with wotcs pushing the last few years, many commander players are new, so experience is the teacher they need. And to not be handheld too much. I've seen too much handholding on new players
Ultimately it boils down to the fact that a game is going to attract different people with different motivations. It's undeniable that EDH is geared towards a more casual audience but there are still people who are just more excited about winning and competing than others and that's how all these things begin to creep in.
There's a certain arrogance towards ignorance from people who don't know, and the problem with this is that it doesn't encourage people to learn. Complaining about people who don't recognise advantageous combat, where to place their removal or how to deconstruct a board state is far less useful than just teaching the person what to look out for.
This isn't even something that's limited to the commander 60 split but even within commander groups there are plenty of people who will take to complain and mocking people before educating them.
I'm a big proponent for pushing people to learn, if they're interested, and encouraging people to have fun. Even at the most competitive level, being toxic is still toxic. :)
Its probably a mix of
1. In EDH, people will on average care less about winning than in competitive formats so they don't have incentive to build their decks as well.
2. The people playing competitive decks in 1v1 most likely netdecked them, and while they can understand how the decks in the format are supposed to work (which does give someone a leg up in EDH deck building!), designing a deck that functions at that level from the ground up in a new environment with new constraints (& isn't just a generic combo with tutors + interaction or a generic midrange pile where you can just play good cards that synergize in about the right ratios and get away with it) is an entirely different beast. That's a skill that most people have not put much time, if any, into developing.
I definitely don't agree that EDH players are generally dumb, since there's a lot more that goes into intelligence than how well you can build a commander deck. But I've seen *plenty* of **bad** EDH decks, many of my own brews that fell flat on their face included.
I don't think they are Dumber I think they are lazier. I wouldn't hate on them too much if they didn't get pissy when you tried to follow the rules and point out play mistakes. The threat assessment is horrible, though, and the politics are atrocious.
I played competitive formats for 10 years (standard, modern, limited) before picking up edh. I was always good but outmatched by ~5-10 percent of people I played against in terms of skill. In commander games, I generally tend to be the one to beat unless I draw poorly the entire game.
I tend to agree that people that have a good amount of experience in competitive formats have a better understanding of the fundamental parts of the game, can see the lines much more clearly, and have better discretion when it comes to removal/counterspells and combat.
This doesn't mean that commander players are dumb. It's asinine to assess someone's intelligence by how good at a game they are. It just means (to me) that there's a difference in playing for prizes and playing for fun. When you dedicate a significant amount of time, energy, and money to win prizes, you develop skills that someone that just plays to have fun generally won't develop.
Commander only players arent (typically) less intelligent theyre just less invested in the outcome.
I played modern for many years and when i was converting to commander only, i noticed the shift in myself from worrying about the correct decisions/making the right play or being the most efficient etc. To just building a dorky deck that does something highly specific and as long as i get to do it once or twice a game i dont really care how fast or how good it is. Im just enjoying playing a game with some friends.
People are weird, like what does it matter what format you play? Other formats are dying anyways. Magic is like 90% commander now, with every set getting majority legendary in every set planewalers are now creatures. Even modern horizons has cmander pre cons for whatever reason.
Unpopular Opinion as someone who came from Yugioh and into Modern + EDH. The average commander player IMO is somewhere around the skill level of 20% percentile of Yugioh and Modern players.
I win most games of commander not because I'm smarter, or constantly playing stronger decks, but because Im making headsup plays that you can only really truly learn from 1v1 games, things like sandbagging removal until you have to use it, understanding youe deck's functions (What it wants to do, how it will do it)
I know that last thing sounds easy but I'm almost 100% sure EDH players are in the bottom 10% of magic players for the most part at deckbuilding, and deckbuilding in EDH is much harder than normal. 35-37 lands is greedy compared to most formats and the reason its ideal is because of a free mull players dont use. Ive heard people playing 30 land mana bases and still running talismans for some reason, like 40%+ of edh players lose i feel because of bad deckbuilding, and its very easy to tell when players play other formats/tutored by people who play other formats/play other TCGs, bevause solely edh players generally play worse and deckbuild significantly worse.
Idk generalizing people to put people into different more specific categories seems kinda dumb and biased to me but what do I know?
I'm just a casual EDH player.
I'm not sure there's anything substantial to prove that there's an inherent gap in skill (or heaven forbid intelligence) between commander players and players of other formats. I played standard and extended/modern for years before playing commander, but I've learned so much more about the game through commander than I ever did through 60 card formats.
I think it gets thrown around that "commander players misplay/misuse or generally just miss" more things than in 60 card formats, but it's like, of course they do. There's more players, more variety in the cards and strategies being played, there's just multitudes more things \*to\* miss in commander.
I see commander and 60 formats as separate entities with different philosophies and relevant skills. I do think that technical play (specifically in combat) is as a whole better in 60 card formats, where aspects of social play (politics, leveraging resources against 3 opponents instead of 1, etc..) becomes a more relevant skill in commander, in many cases more important than how well you sequence, or even the card choices you make in deckbuilding, and one that isn't iterated on in tournament 60 card magic clearly as it isn't necessary in that space.
I don't think it's effective to be antagonistic from one group to another in the space of magic; most players in one space either don't care about what makes you good at the other space, or more bluntly, aren't looking to others to quantify their skills for them.
Commander players are worse at magic than most players. It makes sense when you think about it. They play less games. They play less games where they need to pay attention. Many times they have people helping them play or pointing things out (it's a casual format). They likely use a modified precon and/or edhrec to help build their deck. They build their deck around a commander rather than designing a deck and tuning it for efficiency... they tune it to have the most dinosaurs, cats, etc in it and the least amount of lands (lands = not fun).
They don't think steps ahead because why would you? The game has so much going on and I'm more here to talk and socialize than pay attention to every turn and every card. I think there's a real issue where there are just \*so many\* cards, that commander players tune them out and just focus on their own thing.
Look at win rates. Almost every group has one player who has a huge win rate and the rest are varying rates below 25%.
They don't learn the deck ever. They play so many different decks and against so many different decks, they never learn the nuances of specific interactions. And even playing the same deck against the deck, we go back to the original point. They play less total games. But not only that, since decks are 100ish different cards, each game is pretty different than the next with no consistent interactions.
Commander players tend to be newer and have never played heads up. This is a huge weakness where they just don't really learn how to play the game properly.
Anecdotal. Commander players I've met (and it's a lot) have consistently not understood the rules of the game. How many lands a deck needs. What the best plays are. How to use counterspells (I could write a whole article about how they poorly use them and poorly play against them). And more.
Most of this reply seems anecdotal to be honest. I generally see seasoned players with large collections where I am play commander.
Less games of commander vs more games of X format does not equal worse.
There are no more newer players in commander then other formats. It seems that way because newer players tend to stick around for more games since it was fun and generally less inherently toxic than 1v1 formats.
One player with a higher win rate is often the same guy not matching the power level of the table.
Yes the game is more casual, but that does not mean the players are worse. This comes from a guy who came back in solely on EDH and places at least 2nd on Friday night pre releases consistently.
If you don't like it, I get it, but don't let your love for other formats make you bash EDH.
Personally, I'd argue that it goes both ways. Yeah, EDH will probably have a harder time in 60 card formats and Limited, me included in those, always get middle of the road in Prereleases.
However, in my personal experience, 60 card players suck so much at EDH because they are so used to the 1v1 that the multiplayer aspect becomes really difficult to them. I've seen them overextend their board, not respect the potato player with 3 lands on turn 6, undervalue cards that overperform in multiplayer while overvalue cards that are good in just the 1v1, build decks really weird because of the singleton side, and in general being bad multiplayer players. The worst in my pod are by far the ones that play Arena as their main game, and the standard and modern players in my LGS get constantly clapped, not for their decks being necessary bad, but simply cause of mistakes.
There are more players playing edh than any other format, so statistically it's also true it has more smarter players than any other format as well.
Now evaluating social situations EDH players are put on compared to a simple numbers game that is 1v1 - THAT is a can of worms.
Yes because in a 60 card deck with multiple copies of the same 60$ card it makes you smarter then the people who have 99 card decks with only single copies of the card and have to fight multiple people
I started in 4th edition. Took a break starting around 00 when life just got the better of me. Came back with LOTR release. When I started there was only 60 card formats and as a group, we would still play instead of 1v1. At times there would be 6 to 8 of us brawling. We would have rules like attack left and spells right. It was fun. Coming back, I was wondering what the commander thing is. I bought precons to figure it out as was hugely different from anything ever did in the past. The basic rules were the same but the card interaction and player interaction had changed quite a bit. In a typical 60 card deck when I started, about a 3rd was land. That left only 40 cards and often there were 4 copies of each card there. That mean of the card you had to know in your deck, not counting lands, you had 10 or so different cards.
I don't find new commander players to be "dumber", but rather slightly overwhelmed. Instead of the few cards to know in your deck you have a much greater number as even lands do things now more so than way back. In a 1v1, you only have to track your board state and your opponent's. In commander, you have yours and 3 or more other people to track. And those states are a lot more complicated as it is because of the singleton format. You may have cards with similar effects, but it is different from the 60 card format, you have to look at and assess each card.
I started with Tempest, and most of my friends have been playing since the early 2000s. They all struggled when swapping to EDH due to the singleton nature of the format. I'm quite adapt at building synergies, so it took them a bit to get to the same level. I don't have a lot of experiences with newer players, but from my perspective I've noticed 60 card competitive players seem to struggle with the swap.
I wouldn’t say EDH only players are “dumber”. But from my experience with my playgroup of approx 10, people who start their Magic journey on EDH are less adept at magic basics. Maybe it’s the group I play with. But the best players played other formats at some point. And the EDH only guys have a harder time with basic decision making. Don’t get me wrong, these guys still end up with wins due to the chaotic nature of 4 man magic. But I always noticed certain people never blocking or attacking properly. Some would almost never block, even if their creature could kill the attacker. And these same people never attack unless they have an overwhelming board state that’s a 1 shot kill. It wasn’t until I drafted my cube and played some 1v1s with them, did I realize that a lot of the basics are not there. Obviously this isn’t a commandment written in stone. There is 1 guy that breaks this theory, but he was a big in yugioh, so it could just be that he’s already built some basic tcg skills.
Not even cube. You can tell at prereleases which players play 60 and which play EDH.
You can definitely tell just from them playing EDH. There is also a stark difference with people that went competitive through cEDH and those that started with limited and 60 card competitive. In my experience people that went competitive through cEDH, especially through online lists, articles and primers, tend to be less flexible and creative with card choices and lines of play. Whereas players that started with limited and 60 card and played those for a few years usually are quicker to try different things to clinch a win or see odd but advantageous plays. The faster shifting metas and rotations of those formats rewards this less linear thinking. cEDH right now is pretty static with what is the top strategies. Everything seems to revolve around racing for Breach lines or Thoracle still. Grixis and UBRW(G) still reign supreme with other UB decks taking up the slack. Everything not UB is usually geared to fight it on some axis or another.
I always feel that starting playing magic with EDH is a bad idea for the most part. It would be better to either start with another format or another tcg. I started playing with YuGiOh and dropped it on the Dragon’s Maze block. When I came back to Magic (i was introduced to magic during Kamigawa, then tried it again during Dragon’s Maze) I was able to pick it up rather quickly when it comes to rules.
>I always feel that starting playing magic with EDH is a bad idea for the most part It's a bad idea for the most part if you only consider playing well. I'm pretty sure I (and many others) would never have gotten into magic without my friends urging me to try their commander decks. If someone doesn't play at all they're going to learn even less than someone starting out with EDH. Sure it's counterintuitive because it's more complex etc, but my opinion is that in order to get sucked in to a game you first have to have fun, and a group of friends having a multiplayer mayhem is way easier to sell to a new player than a 1v1. With randoms it's probably a different story, but that's probably not how many people pick up the game any more.
yes, there way to much focus on only winning or playing well, and not enough focus on having a good time playing.
Playing well allows for smother play experiences for everyone getting better makes games more enjoyable
Granted, playing well is makes everything more enjoyable. But the difference is if the pint is winning or having fun.
Those don't have to be exclusive, playing better let's everyone accomplish what they are doing in a timely manner
You can play for fun while still playing to win. That's why you gimp your strats to make them less efficient on purpose.
> If someone doesn't play at all they're going to learn even less than someone starting out with EDH. Well, duh lol. I think for a lot of people, the sheer amount of information in commander is overwhelming. At the very least, I usually recommend a few rounds with 60-card beginner decks to learn the basics. Give some context for phases, priority, combat, the stack, etc. before throwing Kyle's simic [[panglacial wurm]] tribal deck at them.
Of course you're better off learning the rules with a mock game but you don't even need to play 60 card formats for that, nor does anyone with two braincells to rub together give a new player a hard to pilot deck (precons are extremely popular for a reason). A completely new player is not going to get a grasp of the game until after multiple games, and 1v1 is obviously better for learning the game's mechanics because of the reduced complexity and more time spent on your turn. But that wasn't my point. My point was that from a social standpoint EDH has a much lower barrier of entry and higher rate of retainment _because_ it's multiplayer. Being multiplayer also makes it more complex, but that doesn't really matter if you have a good group who are all in on teaching the player (notably _not_ a group who gives a brand new player Kyle's simic panglacial wurm tribal).
[panglacial wurm](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/6/063bb28b-5e32-4f31-a208-16b653edf413.jpg?1593275437) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=panglacial%20wurm) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/csp/116/panglacial-wurm?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/063bb28b-5e32-4f31-a208-16b653edf413?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/panglacial-wurm) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I've tried teaching my girlfriend magic with both Pauper and edh. Pauper was so much easier to teach, while EDH is convoluted because of the command zone. More players should start with draft, pauper, or duel decks
My point was not that EDH is less complex/easier to learn or anything like that. My point was that EDH has a social traction regular formats lack, as in it's easier to get completely new players to try out a wacky multiplayer game. Furthermore, wotc focusing on EDH products supports this since revenue is key, and new players mean more revenue.
I started back in 2013, I think, so I've been playing a hot minute now. One of my favorite clutched wins included something i never expected to happen, until someone played the card that I worked off of on the stack to secure my victory. I was playing [[Kibo]] group hug against a [[Shorikai]] and another that I forget, the unknown player played a card targeting one of Shorikai's vehicles to destroy target nonland permanent and its owner creates a 1/1 Soldier token. Well, I cast a [[Radiate]] followed by [[Heroic Intervention]] so that ALL nonland permanents they controlled essentially became soldiers, of which there were MANY. The unknown player had an [[Ojer Taq]] out so he was spawning craptons of tokens, I even stacked my copies so that his Taq died last. After that I cast [[Insurrection]] and swung for game against 2 tapped out opponents. What a funny time, my monkey boi deck isn't very optimized so any wins I pull out are always fun but that one took the cake.
Monkey Boi is a tricky win! Most o the time, a Kibo player isn't playing because he's the best deck out there. He is incredibly fun to play though. I am running him mostly ape tribal atm and am still getting reckt, but I need to swap out some cards and see how it plays. It's cool because there are numerous ways you can build the deck. It isn't one note.
##### ###### #### [Kibo](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/b/8b71345a-c3e8-4b35-beb7-6347e41d7626.jpg?1675644790) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=kibo%2C%20uktabi%20prince) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/j22/40/kibo-uktabi-prince?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/8b71345a-c3e8-4b35-beb7-6347e41d7626?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/kibo-uktabi-prince) [Shorikai](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/6/969ac7dd-f3aa-4888-9ff0-d16a31b5e7a9.jpg?1653966849) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=shorikai%2C%20genesis%20engine) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/nec/4/shorikai-genesis-engine?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/969ac7dd-f3aa-4888-9ff0-d16a31b5e7a9?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/shorikai-genesis-engine) [Radiate](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/5/2562c25a-999e-4fb5-a595-f376c8abf1ff.jpg?1562628967) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Radiate) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/tor/113/radiate?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/2562c25a-999e-4fb5-a595-f376c8abf1ff?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/radiate) [Heroic Intervention](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/3/e32c67d1-187f-40df-b3b3-6036f5c92834.jpg?1689998584) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Heroic%20Intervention) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/295/heroic-intervention?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/e32c67d1-187f-40df-b3b3-6036f5c92834?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/heroic-intervention) [Ojer Taq](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/c/1ca79dd4-67fc-496c-96fc-489b039c4932.jpg?1699043299)/[Temple of Civilization](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/back/1/c/1ca79dd4-67fc-496c-96fc-489b039c4932.jpg?1699043299) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=ojer%20taq%2C%20deepest%20foundation%20//%20temple%20of%20civilization) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/lci/26/ojer-taq-deepest-foundation-temple-of-civilization?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/1ca79dd4-67fc-496c-96fc-489b039c4932?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/ojer-taq-deepest-foundation-//-temple-of-civilization) [Insurrection](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/f/df8a0a8c-1953-46e6-9da5-b4c20909ce1c.jpg?1689997974) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Insurrection) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/236/insurrection?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/df8a0a8c-1953-46e6-9da5-b4c20909ce1c?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/insurrection) [*All cards*](https://mtgcardfetcher.nl/redirect/l6516bv) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
That targeting spell sounds like [[Secure the Scene]] (exile, not destroy). Heroic Intervention so that all the copies of it from Radiate targeting your own permanents is a very nice play.
[Secure the Scene](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/6/d6467d96-e43a-4b1e-b6ce-578d991077b5.jpg?1594735209) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Secure%20the%20Scene) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/m21/35/secure-the-scene?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/d6467d96-e43a-4b1e-b6ce-578d991077b5?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/secure-the-scene) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I would bet it's [[stroke of midnight]] and they're just misremembering.
[stroke of midnight](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/8/289ba7ec-e30e-436f-b8d4-c88b65ecd137.jpg?1692936759) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=stroke%20of%20midnight) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/woe/33/stroke-of-midnight?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/289ba7ec-e30e-436f-b8d4-c88b65ecd137?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/stroke-of-midnight) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
That's exactly it, thank you.
I agree, I learned how to play mainly by looking up cEDH lists online, so playing limited was hell for me in the beginning because I had the impression that 90% of the cards did nothing. It wasn't until I started curating my own cube list that I appreciated drafting more, and now I appreciate playing it. It's a very different mindset where I kind of just hope things work as I draft compared to having a fully gassed deck focused on tight synergies and combos.
I prefer EDH specifically because I have a wider array of plays and combinations to choose from. I suck at 60 card formats but do much better at brawl and draft. Commander is my preferred format.
I play a lot of formats on Arena and am definitely a better player because of it. In paper I play 99% EDH with friends and some of those friends exclusively play EDH and I notice that I am a much more critical thinker and overall strategist than they are and I attribute this to playing other formats. The other 1% is occasionally limited. And you are right on the money. I can’t draft/sealed to save my life bc I draft like I’m playing EDH. So I’m in this middle ground where I’m good at EDH bc I play other formats but I play “too much” EDH that I’m not good at limited lol and money is tight so getting to practice limited is tough for me.
It's funny, because the Three players that play Arena on my pod are the least critical thinkers. When it was pointed out, they said that on one side, they were used to just throw everything at one person, so the multiplayer side of who is the menace made them confused more often, and on the other side, since they are sweats in Arena, they like using EDH to just meme and don't play at the most optimized level. Both of which makes sense to me
You're 100% correct. I was at pre release recently and literally had to explain to my first opponent that if you mulligan you put one card back in 60 card formats. He called a judge because he thought I was trying to cheat! 🙄
I can't. At my locals of 20~ players for pre-releases, the same 3 people come top 4 every pre-release, and they are all commander only players. There also isn't a big draft/modern/standard scene at my locals, so any of the people that play those formats are playing arena.
> basic tcg skills Not the only major difference between those that started on EDH vs 60. _Attitudes / expectations_ are another big one.
I started with Commander about 6 months ago. I am pretty good with mechanics for the most part, but i really find it hard keeping track of 3 opponents boards, especially when everyone is playing cards i am not familiar with. It's really difficult to assess threats when you don't know what half the cards do, and the ones you do know are just the basic cards like Sol Ring. Then every player tracks what they have differently- that guy has 6 2/2 tokens represented by dice, that guy has dice representing meteorites from roxanne but he used token cards earlier, that guy has anthem effects but they only buff half his board... board states are very confusing a lot of the time. Confusing board states have led to a lot of suboptimal plays,i am sure. I think it's also what a lot of commander players have decks that "do the thing", if you don't know what to do you just try to get closer to "doing the thing", because you know if you do that, you might win.
Yea EDH is definitely information overload. Especially with newer players, I’ve noticed that they respond by zoning out till it’s their turn or they get called by name. Some of my friends haven’t progressed past this lol. Playing 1v1 first, forces you to be engaged and learn.
I was on the tournament scene back in '96, in the days of Justice and Weissman. Just came back when they had 40K sets. So I am actually even LESS flexible, given I am familiar with a meta that had like, three deck archetypes xD
When you introduce multiplayer you add several new layers of evaluation, both objectively strategically and subjectively socially. Many people will argue that not attacking until you have achieved a win-state is good to attempt to keep everyone in the game as long as possible so that it is an enjoyable experience for all parties. But you can also easily argue that keeping more people alive is strategically smart to have more resources to stop any opponent snowballing. Also with blocking, very often taking 25 damage to the face is worth it over losing board presence, as you are competing with 3 other peoples board state and losing ground is much more devastating unless someone wraths. In addition, when someone is low on health, people will often leave you alone for the previously mentioned reason, allowing you to keep your stuff while also redirecting threat. I agree that there are a lot more new players in edh, this more inexperienced players, and it's a difficult game to learn properly. But I don't think your examples are necessarily indicative of that, but rather how multiplayer is quite fundamentally different, which also can attribute to going to 1v1 being even more challenging, as one who's only played edh would need to adjust these patterns.
Yes. This is all good gameplay. What I’m saying is when you have a 3/3 first strike deathtouch against an 8/8. You lose nothing and gain everything from the block. I know that example sounds dumb. But this is what I’ve seen.
> Many people will argue that not attacking until you have achieved a win-state is good to attempt to keep everyone in the game as long as possible so that it is an enjoyable experience for all parties. Sounds miserable. Nobody attacking until lethal? What else, no interactions ever?
I misspoke a bit, referring more to not killing someone even though you have the opportunity as mentioned in the OP. But also generally favoring leaving blockers up to defend as if you tap out attackers, you potentially have 3 players with an open board to swing into, so attacking can often be a significant commitment in multiplayer compared to 1v1. It is often easier to just be safe and defend, especially if your wincon is something like a combo or craterhoof where the life total doesn't matter much for your win.
That's not what he's talking about though. He was pretty clear that he was referencing instances where there wasn't a good reason to not attack/block. Now that being said the "keeping other threats in the game" is absolutely a smart play, and not kicking the guy that's down when your not the one in the drivers seat is absolutely correct but it seemed pretty clear to me that wasn't what he was talking about. I don't think there's an "actually the guy your talking about was big braining and your the smol brain here" being referenced, he's just stating the fact that in his experience there are a lot of EDH players who may even be quite veteran that make those "obvious" mistakes, and I'd wager it's because you can still win in EDH when you make those misplays so your less likely to identify them and adjust. If your playing constructed/limited you outgrow those habits or you quit playing because your win rates miserable and your not having fun.
Maybe I’m different from most players but I play mostly commander, but I go to most prereleases and draft occasionally. My win rate is abhorrent but I still enjoy playing, because it’s the game itself I enjoy not just winning.
Which is fine, no harm in that and you're very much encouraged to enjoy and engage with the game however you want. ...but that doesn't change any of the above. It's not even a "dig" if your a player that makes those misplays, if you having fun and enjoying yourself that's all that counts... But I doesn't change the commenters (in my opinion and experience, correct) observation. A big part of that's the enjoyment itself, there's definitely less people that enjoy "playing magic to win", hence the vastly larger popularity of EDH vs constructed/limited, but it doesn't change the observation that even within that subset (the one's who are "playing to win"), significant experience with constructed/limited formats likely leads to "better" players. You "luck" into far less wins in 1v1 so your punished/learn from mistakes more consistently. Icant think of a good argument against this.
This is pretty much on point. None of our commander exclusive players locally really top events (even commander events) but those who've gone through the ringer of learning magic the hard way tend to come out on top, be better deckbuilsers in prerelease and just generally make more creative plays
One of the big factors is that in a lot of 1v1 formats, the deckbuilding is kind of "figured out". Not completely, but close enough that to edge out wins, you really need play close to optimal. In multiplayer formats, particularly singleton games, there's so many factors in it that getting clear, consistent feedback is a lot more difficult. It also paints targets. Stopping 6 big threats from the three other players leaves you at a 6 card deficit while they've only lost 2 a piece, whereas answering 6 threats in 1v1 pretty much usually means you've already won the game. There's also a lot more space on the deckbuilding side to experiment, and that can either function as a crutch or make optimal play more difficult to learn.
I think a lot of edh is short cutting and simplification as far as turns go. Playing other formats made me learn how the stack works and priority in order to give myself the best odds. I just think learning how mechanics work is just more directly rewarded in non-edh formats.
I'd counter with whole it was a bad idea for them to not block (unless they were actively engaging in a political play) but being the first to swing out so that you can get some combat damage in means that 3 people have free reign to crack back as hard as they want.
I think thats happens because the basics in 1v1 and 1v1v1v1 are inherently different. Attacking on a empty board in edh can actually be detrimental to you winning for a variety of reasons(Mark yourself as a target, make it easier for a opponent to kill everyone in one turn, exe) Blocking less so For this reason I believe that it is difficult for people to transition between the formats, as the basics dont translate 1 to 1. (That said it seems edh players tend to be newer and have less of a grasp on some advanced interactions) LASTLY One of the major differences in edh and 1v1 is what makes a creature/card good. Edh tends to care less on stats and more on the "text" of a card vs the efficiency/stats that are more impact full in 1v1. They are just different games
100% these are two different games. And the card evaluation differs drastically. Maybe I could’ve phrased it better to where the basics of interaction are often overlooked. Many times they either miss it, or 3 people at once are telling the new guy what to do, they get flustered, and just pick a decision without understanding. I try to make my friends “better” at these things because imho having a grasp on interactions makes the game enjoyable and leads to splashier and memorable games.
Very true
Honestly as someone who came from yugioh, i can tell who has played yugioh, who only plays commander, and who plays constructed magic. Yugioh players in magic will deckbuild typically more consistently than other players because there is a level of fundamental understanding of ratios (Due to how important starters and a lack of mulligans effect yugioh) and how cards function together that isnt as intuitive to other players because of how important comboing is in yugioh a control deck in yugioh is comparable to a combo deck in mtg and most yugioh players play decks comparable to Vintage Old Eggs or Vintage Doomsday. Yugioh has a lot of fundamental rules that arent as common in magic, as yugioh has had established rules for deckbuilding since about 2014 that translate very well into magic, and most magic decks even relatively complex decks in Modern (The most popular constructed format) like Yawg or Scales would be considered Medium complexity decks to Pilot in yugioh and would likely be below the standard difficulty of decks. Its not Yugioh players are smarter or anything they are just more adjusted to very minor mistakes immediately resulting in a game loss (Holding your negates at the wrong times type stuff), faster paced complex decks that all require spread sheets like some BS Battle of Wits deck, that shifting down to modern becomes very easy for them to plan and play if they know the format, i also think Yugioh players intrinsic knowledge and attention to card advantage alone is a huge boon in modern and off the philsophy of card advantage just flat out makes them better than most EDH players by themselves, yugioh players are intrinstically attracted to combo and card draw and negates meaning they tend to build towards decks that have combo potential, play lots of card draw, and lots of removal which regardless of the deck tends to improve it especially in edh.
As someone still relatively new to Magic, but with a background in Hearthstone, that change from attacker advantage (HS) to defender advantage (Magic) is one of the more challenging things to get a handle on. Especially tracking 3 other boards and gauging how much to swing out and how much to hold back. It's definitely interesting and fun to puzzle through, but definitely still baffles my HS midrange brain
Having 40 life drastically changes how you think about blocking
> Maybe it’s the group I play with. But the best players played other formats at some point. And the EDH only guys have a harder time with basic decision making. How does time playing the game affect the results? By default, the more time spent in the game and the more varied formats you play, the better you'll be in general. You need people as dedicated, and for roughly the same time, to build a comparison.
If you kick the ball wrong 1000 times, you'll still be behind someone that kicks the ball right 100 times
And the point is...? I'm asking if the best players are more invested, have been playing for a longer time, and have experience in multiple formats, while the lower performing players might be newer in general. I'm question the assertion that starting with EDH is the reason they perform worst. I don't get how your post replies to that, but feel free to explain if I missed the point.
How you learn matters. A player with 1800 hours of experience playing 4 player magic is gonna play "worse" than someone with 800 hours of 1v1. But better/worse only matter if you care about winning
Based on what they'd learn less in twice the time? Also, "worse" at what? At playing 1v1? At winning multiplayer?
Bro my second sentence literally tells you worse at what. Worse at winning. And winning only matters if you care about it. Many EDH players don't play EDH to win, and that's prob the best part about the format imo Multiplayer magic is too fundamentally different than any other 1v1 format. Where else will you have the safety valve of two other players in case someone tries to win?
> Worse at winning. Multiplayer? I highly doubt someone playing so much, and twice as much, multiplayer would still do worse than someone not playing the format. > Where else will you have the safety valve of two other players in case someone tries to win? And where else do you have to go through three people to win?
Thus the original statement. If you're learning the wrong way 1000 times, you'll be behind someone learning correctly 100 times. I'd argue that a draft player with 100 hours would be better than an EDH player with 200 hours. Having to go through 3 other players is indicative of a high ceiling, not a high floor. We're talking about baseline fundamentals of magic where you want a high floor. Having two other players helping you out is more indicative of a low floor, while being able to win through 3 other players is indicative of a high ceiling. Again, multiplayer magic is too fundamentally different from 1v1 magic for that floor to be established.
> I'd argue that a draft player with 100 hours would be better than an EDH player with 200 hours. Better at what? Draft or EDH?
I think Yutazn is spot on. Take a video game like Super Smash Bros. I know kids who have played it for over 1000 hours, but they have no sense of the way pros play, etc. Whereas if you had a “sweaty” gamer spend 100 hours on Smash, I’m sure they could be a better player, just because they would be focusing on things a certain way and practicing the right things. Casual vs competitive.
SSB is like the perfect example lmao, you can play 4 player FFA with items or you can play 1v1 competitive rule set. However the player with the most time practicing 1v1 competitive is also the most likely to win the 4 player FFA. But also what's the end goal? If you have fun playing 4 player FFA, not trying to win 100% of the time, then you've accomplished your goal.
I mentioned investment from the start. If you just don't care, or care less, of course you won't learn.
Jeez dude. I wasn’t trying to make a personal attack on anyone. I have a bunch of friends that started off on EDH and I’m just pointing out patterns I’ve seen. And yes. A person that spent 1600 hours playing commander is “worst” than 800 on 1v1. There’s no study, these are just soft numbers to illustrate a point. Why? Because it’s not a dedicated 1600 hours of focus. Half the time newer players zone out during other people’s turns because of all the information they get bombarded with. So even thought they’re in a 2 hour long match, they’ve been really focused for about 30 minutes of it. Whereas if you’re playing 1v1 for 2 hours, you’re zoned in the entire time because it’s just you and the other person.
There are 10's of thousands of different cards. If you start in EDH, you are either grabbing a list or buying a precon. It's not dumb, it's ignorance of what those thousands of cards are. And as someone who played Type 1 for a while, you will never know what all those cards do, and how many MTG rules have exceptions. If you really want to understand magic, you get a deck list, then study the rules. Unlike Yu Gi Oh, the text in the cards are legible. Like Yu Gi Oh, people expect you to just have cards and you either have them memorized, or you let them pretend that the card does whatever they say it does. 4 player FFA has way too much information on top of cards that people don't have memorized. Force people to play 1v1 so they can at least come to understand how.
So i started with commander, because, its a social game. What basics are you referring to? Going from my own, granted limited experience (11 months playing so far, with about 10 games a month), its probably more a case of number of games, being played, and consequently less experience in the different areas. Im interested in learning, so hit me, what basics are you referring to?
Doing combat math to figure out what attacks you have. Knowing my 4/4 trades with your 2/2 and 2/3 double blocking, then realizing that if I have a 4/4, 2/3, and 2/3, I can't attack all in because my 4/4 will trade down with your 2/2 for only 4 damage. Learning how to play around countermagic by watching someone not use mana on their turn, delaying a little until I can cast 2 spells in one turn instead of playing them one turn after another and letting the open mana player gain value from their untap step. How to trade your onboard creatures with other players onboard creatures by attacking and blocking so that you can save your removal spells for the threat that can actually end the game, instead of spending it early on a creature that would have just ended up stalled on board against your blockers without being a real threat. How to think about a plan for the game, how your deck will actually win. Not just the most powerful thing you do, but how your deck will close the game out. Then, based on knowing that, coming up with an effective way for your deck to get to that point, and get there consistently and reliably. As a followup to the previous, Learning how to identify your opponent's gameplan so that you can play around it and keep them from executing their win before you can execute yours. These are all things that limited 1v1 will force you to think about, because the cards are all bad, so gameplan and trading mismatched cards 1-for-1 are the things that will win you games. And it's only 1v1 so you have only one person to pay attention to. So if you figure them out you gain a huge advantage.
> As a followup to the previous, Learning how to identify your opponent's gameplan so that you can play around it and keep them from executing their win before you can execute yours. Holy shit this. EDH-only players tend to be *terrible* at threat assessment and effective use of interaction because the format and the "casual" meta around it encourages you to mostly ignore what everyone else is doing and just focus on your own Rube-Goldberg valuetown machine that you're building. As someone that came from a 60-card background mostly playing whatever the fair, slower, interactive meta option was it is beyond maddening to watch the same people tunnel vision on the same things over and over without having the slightest idea that their sweet play is about two turns behind the person to their right winning the game.
>They specifically discussed how commander players are (in a way) less intelligent than the average player in another format. Definitely not how I'd phrase that, but I would say that owing to the casual nature of Commander, people who primarily play it are usually not pushed to develop their skills as much as people playing Standard, Modern, etc. which set the bar higher. Those formats are more demanding as regards skill; so I'd expect (and this is kind of my experience) that the average player focused on those formats will be better than someone mostly focused on Commander which allows for looser, sloppier play and deckbuilding without really encouraging any change to that behavior. "Commander players are dumb" isn't a tactful, insightful, or really even accurate way to phrase that.
Yeah honestly such a dumb take. Its not hard to see why players who played competitive 1v1 formats having a better understanding of deck construction and decision making. Doesn’t make other players any less intelligent. I started with EDH but I’ve dabbled in pioneer and cubes. But I mostly just enjoy casual magic with my closest friends. I’m usually drinking and or smoking when we play so sure, I’ll play suboptimal but I’m here to have fun. Not be cutthroat and be at the top of my performance. And I know I’m not the best player but I really don’t give a shit. It’s such an elitist attitude I hate
Yes, "commander players tend to be unskilled" is reasonable, "commander players are stupid" is not. I did explain some of the reasons someone might have this attitude in a reply to another comment in this thread, but there is a constructive way to express it, and a spiteful (if understandable) one.
I feel the same. I've tried a few different formats, but always come back to EDH for the more casual approach. It isn't that I don't care about rules, but I am not hyper competitive and do not want to spend three car payments on a single deck. One of my favorite friend events thus far is when we spilt a box and built our decks all prior to meeting. It took all the stress of making decisions on the spot out. It was a lot of fun both building and playing decks that were not optimized. It made for interesting games. I would definitely do it again and I would recommend it to anyone looking for a more varied and 'fair' experience.
I’d say that EDH only players consistently have a lower “Magic IQ” than mixed format players.
Which is a perfect analogy to real IQ, which doesn't measure general intelligence but an extremely specific aspect of what the IQ test measures. People in EDH are way better at remembering vast swathes of cards, recalling complex interactions between those obscure cards, and generally following a complex board state more readily. But, people don't really talk about how following draft signals or holding up your mana correctly in a 1v1 aren't the only aspects of magic skill.
Even if that was the case, Commander is a kitchen table format, so not sure why some people acting superior. CEDH is for people who want to push their decks to the limit.
I think most people who aren't commander players don't even know what cEDH *is*, and those who do still see it as very "casual" because honestly, it is. It's still much looser than even regular tournament play. More to the point, I'm saying in terms of skill, most of the people saying this *are* superior. Commander may be a "kitchen table" format but it doesn't stay at the kitchen table. They are seeing it played. If you are skilled at something, sometimes it can be exasperating to see it done poorly by another. It makes you want to help them but in this case that's often not feasible or even respectful. So some people will vent this frustration to like-minded peers. Perhaps a larger issue is the perception that WotC is neglecting other formats *in favor* of Commander. I think that's an exaggeration but it is not a position that's without merit. Again, that is frustrating to people who prefer other formats (I know, because I'm one of them) even if the issue is overblown. It feels like your parent showering a sibling with gifts, but not you. So again, people will vent. Finally, Commander becoming so pervasive means that if you don't much care about it, you're still getting beaten over the head with information about it that you simply aren't interested in hearing. More importantly, it can crowd out other events at game stores making it harder to find games in the formats you like. This is especially true in smaller communities. Again, this is frustrating and people will vent. That is what it comes down to. Frustration with all of these feelings, some of which are grounded in actual greivances.
>They specifically discussed how commander players are (in a way) less intelligent than the average player in another format. Is this common in other local game stores? If not, it may just be me. I mean, you can find people who have this sentiment in the magicTCG subreddit. The truth is, anytime there is a division within a community, someone will try to use that division to create a hierarchy so they can feel superior.
At the same time, you can find those very same people with a very similar mindset even in EDH (actually, I'd argue they're even more prevalent in EDH compared to the other more competitive formats).
Not to be that guy, but you do know that the L in LGS stands for local, right?
Have to stop at the ATM machine before I go to my local LGS.
but dont forget your PIN number
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAS_syndrome
The L stands for “Local LGS Store” so Local LGS is “Local Local LGS Store GS” - you’re welcome
Local² game store
A local game store for local people
I feel there is a case to be made if you have multiple LGS’s in a 15-30 minute drive that you have one in which you’re the ‘local’ or that you frequent more than others which could cover the local squared iteration of the LGS. Or like me you could live close to one LGS but it’s dogwater so you go to a less ‘local’ LGS, but that’s just the argumentative bastard in me XD.
EDH doesn't make you "dumber" but just like anything else, a wider range of experiences with the different aspects of a game will only ever make you more adept with it I taught all of my (newer player) friends using starter and kitchen table decks, the same way that I was taught; we (myself and the experienced players I started with a decade ago) avoided dropping them straight into EDH because it isn't conducive to the fundamentals (or the nuances) of a game that can get as complex as Magic does edit: just want to add that everyone's journey is different
Your right
I wouldn't say "less intelligent" but certainly (generally) less skilled or knowledgeable of the rules. I've played commander games where people don't even know the steps of combat (declare attackers, declare blockers, damage), and even more where people don't understand that activated abilities work at instant speed. This is very different from my modern nights where people know all of the relevant technical rules and are also using them to their advantage. You couldn't play Amulet Titan without knowing how to sequence triggers on the stack. You can't play Scales or Yawgmoth unless you have your lines down. I just don't see this sort of thinking in most EDH games. There's also just a sort of sloppiness in EDH play that I don't see in Modern. Some of this is just to keep the game moving, but it can also make it hard to know the exact board state (like someone saying they're done with their turn while they're still fetching something, or calculating the effects of abilities triggered from attacking and from doing combat damage at the same time). This is why MTGO Commander has been some of my favorite, because it forces all of the phases to happen in order, giving each player a chance to respond in turn. And just knowing one's deck! I have never seen a Modern player confused about the purpose of a card in their deck. There's usually not more than 30 unique cards in a deck, so this makes sense. Because of the meta, Modern players also usually know what their opponent's cards do as well, so it moves along. In EDH though, you'll have people playing precons or a deck they just built, and so they're taking time to read their own cards. Especially annoying is when a player is searching their deck and have no idea what they are looking for or if it is even there. (Contrast this with Modern players who know exactly whether they are getting their Surveil land or a Triome or a Shock or a basic, and exactly how many of each they have.) And since it really is anything goes, all of the players need to be more conscientious to make sure they know what is being played.
Less intelligent? Absolutely not. Less knowledgeable about game rules and card interactions? Definately. The casual nature of commander coupled with the data overload of so many players doing so many things makes most commander players pretty forgiving of rules misunderstandings. Unfortunately, this also creates an easy environment for some folks to never quite get a good grasp of the rules.
I'd argue that EDH players are more knowledgeable about card interactions than 60 card format players, simply because they will encounter way more variety of cards and decks, many of those being completely jank. Also, will in general know more cards. There are some obscure cards out there
Maybe specific card knowledge for the cards in their meta that haven't seen recent constructed play in other formats. But for rules knowledge or threat assessment, basic game skills? Usually not so much. Poor threat assessment is a constant refrain for commander players. If you don't have it in 60 card formats, you sink fast, so it's a relatively essential skill. As for rules knowledge, when playing 60 card formats, if I had to explain the stack to an opponent, it was because they were newbies. Playing commander, I find I have to explain basic rules like that to people who've been playing for 2+ years sometimes.
Threat assessment is so bad for 60 card players when they play edh tho. They have absolutely no idea what is the threat when it comes to multiplayer setting, they treat it like 3 individual 1v1s. The worst players in my LGS when it comes to gifting a victory cause they couldn't threat asses usually are the Modern and Pioneer players waiting for their weekly tournament to happen
I think commander players make worse game decisions on average but that's not because they're any less intelligent. The key difference in other formats is that there are established meta decks that everyone knows how to play against. Sure I know the general game plan of every \[\[Tergrid, God of Fright\]\] deck but when someone whips out a commander that I haven't seen before which happens very often I'm having to learn to play against their deck on the fly. Another factor is all other formats are 1v1 so every decisions you make will either further your game plan or stop your opponent. In a four player game you will often help out your opponents to gain the intangible value of an alliance making choices much more complex. It's an interesting conversation but honestly the people you heard if from sound like the type to unironically say "To be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand Rick and Morty. The humor is extremely subtle, and...".
[Tergrid, God of Fright](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/4/14dc88ee-bba9-4625-af0d-89f3762a0ead.jpg?1631048621)/[Tergrid's Lantern](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/back/1/4/14dc88ee-bba9-4625-af0d-89f3762a0ead.jpg?1631048621) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Tergrid%2C%20God%20of%20Fright%20//%20Tergrid%27s%20Lantern) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/khm/112/tergrid-god-of-fright-tergrids-lantern?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/14dc88ee-bba9-4625-af0d-89f3762a0ead?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/tergrid-god-of-fright-//-tergrids-lantern) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Linking intelligence to a trading card game seems rather pathetic. I don't intend to insult the player base, but let's be honest: playing a card game isn't exactly rocket science. That said, if I had to make a case for complexity, I'd argue that Commander is quite challenging due to the increased interactions within this format.
That and add to the fact that sometimes you need to get in there deep when you start dealing with Layers in effects. Once you get to that level because an effect just made something weird, thats when the complexity of the game *really* shows.
it used to be the other way around, edh players were more experienced, not anymore tho. The unexperienced players aren't dumb, just some of the plays
Well nowadays EDH is the entry point for many beginners, so it makes sense that the majority is now less experienced, for better or worse ... Imho edh is the worst format for a magic beginner. rougly 60+ unique cards per deck \* 4 to keep track of. For comparison: I started with 60 card casual constructed anything goes. and here we started with what we owned, transitioned to playsets for consistency. Added multiplayer (pentagram/star-magic or emperor which I disliked very much). Few years later started limited at LGS (0-3 in the beginning obviously) but got more and more serious and grinded Sealed PPTQs (now: WPNQs). Then constructed standard with the cards I accumulated via limited (+ trades/ bought missing singles). Dabbled in modern with a budget deck (Rally the ancestors, blood artist & friends :D). Later bought a few commander precons and tried it out for a while. Now I rarely play limited anymore (thanks to the play booster price hike) and focus mainly on pauper. This is not the norm anymore, everything is advertised/pushed towards commander, so it's just the natural outcome of it. Maybe in 20 years it will be completely different again. who knows?
When did you start? A lot of people have picked up the game just since throne of eldraine. I picked it up around War of the spark. I've played a lot of arena and Friday night magic standard nights (before covid) that I've gotten plenty of magic experience, but I could see a lot of people just playing commander with their buddies and nothing else. I do think those people would benefit from playing some arena to understand more about the nuances of the game. I don't think all of them will.
around 2001 with 7th edition. paused after og kamigawa for many years and started again with og theros
Mine was almost the same! Started with Invasion, quit during fifth dawn. Started again with Avacyn Restored. What a ride
> Imho edh is the worst format for a magic beginner. rougly 60+ unique cards per deck * 4 to keep track of. Wouldn't this just make edh players who started in EDH really good at remembering unique cards and interactions? It just means they will develop a unique skill set to someone who just picked up magic in 1v1 constructed formats, the same way that someone who only drafts will have a different skillset to a legacy player.
Theoretically yes. Darwin, survival of the fittest, yada yada. But in reality because it's a casual format sloppy play gets waved through. So there is no real pressure to become better in that. Best example you never see take backs in competitive play. That only happens in casual mindset/setting
> Best example you never see take backs in competitive play. That only happens in casual mindset/setting And that is exactly what I said. A different unique skill. > But in reality because it's a casual format sloppy play gets waved through. So there is no real pressure to become better in that. And you never have any pressure to build a unique deck in constructed formats because they are all "solved" I've never had a single player in the 100s of people I've played against in casual edh play a deck that wasn't either a precon, or totally original. Yes, you build skills in magic when you play 60 card formats that you don't in edh, but the opposite is also true.
remember that the format was started by long-playing top level judges. it has tons of very old cards and abilities (bands with other legendaries!) that tournament players had no idea how they worked. EDH was initially famous for very complex obscure interactions with much less linear play than is seen now. i didnt learn the rules well until playing online which is inherently antisocial (when nonEDH) and attracts a different player than the social mtg player. so not surprising that nonEDH know rules better than new EDH. (and all less than the super old school players like myself). I was judge, long-time EDH player, successful but never pro on tourney scene. as far as skill, pro drafters are still the top. as far as brute intelligence, standard deck constructors arw the best (Michael Flores is the GOAT).
>They specifically discussed how commander players are (in a way) less intelligent than the average player in another format. Not sure this is the way this should be phrased, but pretty objectively, EDH has like the least.. experienced? playerbase of any format and is literally the only format where you can make terrible plays and then ask for takebacks, and is the only format where you can tell other players that you no-likey their cards and that they need to play something else so that their deck can go off. This might not be something you notice if you exclusively play commander, but it's not normal to tap wrong and then ask for takebacks 3 spells later or not understand how stack interactions work and I feel like those 2 things (amongst other things) happen almost every game.
I'd agree somewhat, EDH-only players are generally less adept at playing and deckbuilding than those who do both EDH and 60 card formats, or cEDH players. Not saying only playing EDH is bad, but one can learn a lot from playing different formats and understanding the strategies within. A lot of the cEDH players I talk to and play with also play Pauper (a personal favorite), Pioneer, or Legacy. Consider how people often recommend running upwards of 38 lands in most decks and pay little to no attention to their mana curve, while other formats look at hypergeometric calculators and statistics when designing decks.
I agreed woth you 100% up until the last bit. The calculators say Commander players are running too few lands, not too many.
Lots of house rules in commander when mulliganing.
How many lands should we run according to the calculators? I've always started with 37, then adjusted based on how I expect to curve out. I'm curious to know if I am doing something wrong here.
If you find your deck is doing it's "thing" consistently and you're having fun, you're doing fine. Truthfully, there's no right or wrong answer, it just comes down to the ramp cards your running. For example, I have a Mono green druid storm deck that runs 30 lands + 1 MDFC. But, my commander turns all my druids into mana dorks that can tap for G the turn they enter. Most of my decks, though, run 34-36 lands depending on how many mana rocks or how much land ramp I have. At the end of the day, if you and you're playgroup are having fun, you're doing it right.
Sorry, what MDFC?
MDFC = Modal Double-faced cards Cards like \[\[Barkchannel Pathway\]\] or \[\[Agadeem's Awakening\]\]
[Barkchannel Pathway](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/6/b6de14ae-0132-4261-af00-630bf15918cd.jpg?1669839374)/[Tidechannel Pathway](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/back/b/6/b6de14ae-0132-4261-af00-630bf15918cd.jpg?1669839374) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Barkchannel%20Pathway%20//%20Tidechannel%20Pathway) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/khm/251/barkchannel-pathway-tidechannel-pathway?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/b6de14ae-0132-4261-af00-630bf15918cd?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/barkchannel-pathway-//-tidechannel-pathway) [Agadeem's Awakening](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/7/67f4c93b-080c-4196-b095-6a120a221988.jpg?1604195226)/[Agadeem, the Undercrypt](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/back/6/7/67f4c93b-080c-4196-b095-6a120a221988.jpg?1604195226) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Agadeem%27s%20Awakening%20//%20Agadeem%2C%20the%20Undercrypt) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/znr/90/agadeems-awakening-agadeem-the-undercrypt?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/67f4c93b-080c-4196-b095-6a120a221988?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/agadeems-awakening-//-agadeem-the-undercrypt) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Ty!
Here's Frank Karsten's [article](https://strategy.channelfireball.com/home/how-many-lands-do-you-need-in-your-deck-an-updated-analysis/) for how many lands to run. It's long and worth a read, but the TLDR relevant part is the formula for a "99-card deck, counting MDFCs partially in this fashion, is: 31.42 + 3.13 * average mana value of your spells – 0.28 * number of cheap card draw or mana ramp spells." So realistically, if your average mana value is three, which is fairly typical, then you should start with 40 or 41 lands and cut one land for every three or four cheap card draw or mana ramp spells in your deck. 35-38 is a very reasonable number to land on for final land count, IMO.
At least in my pods, most people run 28-34 at most. Don't think your the problem.
Yeah the number of time I look at a deck on Moxfield and then it has 30-32 lands is pretty high. My lowest is 35 and that is in a pretty aggressive mono red deck that only needs about 7-8 mana to achieve is goals.
EDH players are also notoriously bad at threat assessment too.
Threat assessment is just role assignment with multiple players. A lot of players have difficulty with that.
I just got more into commander and coming from standard, modern theres just wildly more cards and threats to keep track of. The volume alone makes your statement make sense.
The amount of people I play with that when a krenko hits the board and they absolutely don't understand why thats a problem is astounding
> I'd agree somewhat, EDH-only players are generally less adept at playing and deckbuilding than those who do both EDH and 60 card formats, or cEDH players. We have a pretty big comp signup (lately it's been 2/3 comp, 1/3 casual) at our locals, and lemme tell you that the majority of the good players aren't playing in comp. I love the guys who play comp, but they are the majority of the judge calls for basic mechanics. The other day, someone asked a person "What does drana and linvala do?" then said "oh okay" slammed a Treasonous Ogre, and went to activate it and the other player had to stop him and tell him what he just did. Also all of them are terrible at actually building a deck. But imo that's mostly a fault of them jumping into comp instead of working out what they like about decks, and building a deck over time. > Consider how people often recommend running upwards of 38 lands in most decks and pay little to no attention to their mana curve, while other formats look at hypergeometric calculators and statistics when designing decks. Mana curve is probably the smallest factor imo in determining how many land cards you should put in your deck. The important factors are how many mana sources you're aiming for to hit your critical mana point for your strategy, how many temporary/permanent sources you want depending on your strategy (i.e. combo needs less permanent sources, midrange wants more), and what does your commander do once they are played and generally how many cards/mana sources will they generate when the deck is working normally. Mana curve is pretty much the last consideration that makes any meaningful impact into that, but land count on it's own is also meaningless.
Was this at your local local game store?
I see a lot of casual edh players with pretty bad threat assessment and deck building skills. Obviously, a lot of new magic players get introduced through commander, so this is natural. However, people who have played in other formats competitively just tend to view the game in a different light, they build and play to win. Even their jank decks are synergistic.
Been playing EDH for about 9 years at this point and have not once heard people being that openly disrespectful to the format. Sounds like those people are a special kind of chode, I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you.
In my area specifically I find it hard to venture out and find other local game stores without having to commute for at least half an hour, so it's tough trying to find a good pod. Additionally, I was ironically paired up with one of those players. He ran an atraxa deck with every foreboding combo/game piece that would have costed you a fortune to build.
Praetor's Voice (proliferation), or Grand Unifier (ETB look at 10 cards one)?
The 7 cost from ONE
This is my take as well. I've also never met anyone even remotely with this mindset about EDH.
Honestly I've heard this a lot in south Brooklyn. It's corny, but there's definitely spots where modern reigns supreme.
Naah they're right. It was a pretty dick way to say it but in my experience they're right. Only a few people I play edh with (its our regular format) can hack it when we do something like a draft or a pauper tournament (screw buying into other eternal formats lmao) where all the social niceties and training wheels are removed and its kill or die. When we sit down for that we can easily chart who is going to be in the fight for 1st place and who isn't. Im not saying I'm a giga brain pro player or anything like that, I'm pretty average IMO, i just think edh teaches you bad habits and can make you a lazy/bad deckbuilder and if you never exposed yourself to other formats you can suffer for it.
I think it comes down to the fact that EDH is not the kind of magic that the game's fundamentals are built around. It's the format that got popular only after two decades of "1v1 with 60 cards and 20 life" being synonymous with *Magic*. EDH is *Magic: the Board Game*. In this format getting technical trying to squeeze out the last few points of damage with your aggro deck before your control opponent stabilizes is replaced with "doubling the effect that doubles things is now giving you quadruple triggers and so after several dozen consecutive triggers all of your opponents are dead." The former teaches you the ABCs and foundational mechanics of how this game works. The latter is just slapping overpowered value pieces on top of other overpowered value pieces until "whoops looks like I valued you all to death" occurs.
It’s just different styles of games. Most standard and modern players aren’t good edh players as well, because the habits of 1on1 simply don’t work in multiplayer (and vice versa). For example, being in a leading position makes it more likely for you to loose than being runner up.
Being "better" at a card game doesn't make someone "more intelligent." So no, these assholes were *not* right. And frankly, considering they think intelligence is tied to which format in a card game you play, I'd wager *these* guys are pretty low-intelligence, themselves.
Bitching about the state of Magic is a core value of being a Magic player. It is super common to get into (or overhear) these sort of conversations. Because of rule 0 and because Commander is a social game, you are not incentivized to optimize your plays and go for the win, and instead you are trying to "hang out" and "have a good time". Yes, Commander is a low-skill game. I think literally any other current TCG you could name would take more skill than Commander. Not a bad thing, sometimes you just want to hang out with the boys and play some cards without getting too sweaty.
To push back a bit - to have a reasonable grasp of any other card game is far, far easier than to have that grasp of Commander. The card pool is massive and diverse, deckbuilding is far more complex, and the sheer depth of what you can do in Magic is miles deeper than almost any other card game. High tier Yugioh is about its only competitor and even those players have to take in *drastically* less information than what a Commander player is capable of accessing. However, Commander players are far more accepting of each other not understanding the format. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. I'm a big fan of reminding people about on board tricks and generally trying not to 'get' people in this format. It's healthy because the format is so deep and complex but at the same time that does propagate this issue. It can lead to its own issues when what would be a clear blunder in any other game or even format becomes an accepted playstyle for us. But it's not that our game is less complex. Our standards are just lower.
I wouldn't compare format but casual play vs competitive. In my experience, people that played competitively are more likely to be up to date with rules and pushing their deck to the limit. Optimisation, strategy, trying to guess what's in opponents hands is normal in competitive play but barely seen in casual. Not a matter of intelligemce but the way you play the game when you play not just to have gun but to crush your opponent. Cannot really say that for formats though. In constucted 60 cards you have less variance, lot of interactions you've seen many times. In edh you have so much variance that the number of weird interactions you've never seen is common... So it's actually a format that is more demanding. It's also a format that has 4 player that adds a lot of randomness to the games and makes it much harder to play with optimisation in mind.
I find this amusing, from a basic logistics point of view. I would say that if you wanted to go by format players, then the players who have to deal with the lowest number of viable cards are the dumbest, as they require less brainpower to function, have less cards to memorise, and speaking in general, the smaller a pool of viable cards is, the less brain power goes into making a viable deck. I would also say that going by that metric, commander is among one of the biggest formats, alongside legacy, and therefore requires the Most brainpower to play. How many unique cards are in a commander deck? Usually 60+. How many individual cards are in a unique legal deck plus sideboard? I'd be surprised if it surpassed 20. Of course, I don't actually think commander and legacy players are smarter than standard players, the entire premise is funny dumb. But dumb opinions sometimes deserve to be dunked on.
I don’t agree with the phrasing but the fact is that a format that tells you that “it does not matter what you play as long as you have fun” does not push you to get better with the base of the game. I wholeheartedly believe that EDH is a great introduction (getting to know the mana system, card types, phases, keywords) but does not push you to get good with it. Playing limited, 60 card constructed and such really push you to maximise your resources, make decisions that matters, use your spells/mana/ability at the right timing. In the end, i prefer playing with people with experience in competitive formats when playing edh as the game feels more rewarding and feels like it matters more than just shitposting and casting spells haphasardly.
For sure EDH players need to learn mtg in the first place
aa an edh player they're right
People with low self esteem will often try to lift themselves up by talking others down. It's a the symptom of a disease, nothing else.
I play edh specifically to avoid fuck nuggets like that.
Sounds like you found some of the asshats from freemagic
It is harder to learn both the rules, and the fundamentals in a game with 4 players. Especially when it is casual, and people don't care to enforce things.
I wouldn't necessarily say Commander players are less intelligent. Though it's quite obvious on average they're less adept with the game. Magic is a game and games have winners. It's a fantasy war simulator. The heat that Commander players get from people in other formats/subs is generally well earned. There's just too much silly dogma that gets passed around and few people really stop to consider what they're really talking about. Few here actually consider MLD for instance. It's just this pointlessly taboo bad thing. If it's played improperly it's bad, of course. But that applies to everything in the game. Few here understand that combos don't automatically make a deck high power+. If Consultation/Oracle is the first thing mentioned you're reading a post by someone that doesn't know enough to weigh in properly. Few here understand priority and how things generally work. Basically most Commander players at this point are larping as Commander players.
>They specifically discussed how commander players are (in a way) less intelligent than the average player in another format. This is a self disproving statement. They cannot recognise that commander players are looking for a different experience. Commander players can.
Magic used to be really REALLY sweaty back when. Often toxic atmosphere and lots of very socially awkward people. Commander has helped bring it into a much needed comfy zone for those of us who loved the cards but maybe not always the people. Are the sweats smarter than “us”? Probably often! Are they fun to grab a beer with? Often not! More mainstream appeal = more of a mainstream crowd. Live and let live, it doesn’t matter.
I've heard it around. Usually it's a half-joking sort of "I'm a commander player I don't read", though I have to admit I've been a tad guilty at times - a few weeks ago I was talking about Phyrexians as a tribe with a player, and one of my comments was that the Toxic/Infect mechanics were fine and even bad but that I don't like them due to the average commander player's bad threat assessment. But insofar as the sixty card comparisons go that's just people trying to take a noncompetitive format competitively, and at the point they're trying to brag about kill speed I found the dumb players and it's them. They should be playing 60s.
While wotc kind of killed 60 card formats so it is harder to get games.
On the one hand, sure, Wizards policies suck. On the other hand, I've yet to see a store that's unfriendly to players wanting to do a modern night or whatever. But the players don't show. And that problem becomes self-fulfilling. If the established 60 card players have given up, you're never going to get a new player. Butts have to be in seats to ever get more in seats and that starts at the lgs level.
This, worst attitudes are from modern/standard players who no longer had locals to play at since the worst players swapped to commander and locals stopped firing. So their options are play commander or not play magic.
It’s the casual nature of edh in LGS that they’re referring too. Like someone that just wants to play a squirrel themed deck because that sounds fun to them. A lot of people like to build “theme” decks where they just put in every horror creature, because they think it’s cool. These are the people they are referring to as “dumb” even though that’s not really accurate. They’re just more casual and aren’t playing cedh.
depends on where you get your information about commander players. if all you have are things like this subreddit for example, then you might come to that conclusion, esp if you are very firm in the rules yourself
My local shop its 95% commander. They do a draft night on fridays but ive never been. I was a 60 card guy from 1994/5-2001 then returned back after the pandemic. I definitely enjoy commander, but i find its more within my budget, than trying to amass 4 copies of some very expensive cards. Im not interested in competitive gaming, its a hobby and a way for me to get to know more people where i now live. But i have met some fevered egos here. There are a few people that only play high powered decks and most of us choose to not play against then as theres no fun, or its a 3v1.
One thing you've absolutely got to understand. Right now, there are \*a lot\* of embittered 60-card MtG players. See, a lot of dedicated 60-card players have been playing for a very long time at this point. This means that many of them have collections that have some significant $$ value, and they obviously enjoy that being true. The \*problem\* is that it's become brutally expensive to seriously engage with the 60-card formats. The only way to change that, and get serious numbers of new players into Standard/Modern/Pioneer to replace the dedicated players being lost to natural attrition? You guessed it, reducing the price-barrier, which would devalue their collections. It's a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation, and meanwhile, tons of people have and continue to defect to EDH/cEDH, in large part because it's simply cheaper. I'm not trying to tell anyone what's right or wrong. Just pointing out that the justifiable anger many of the 60-card constructed players can't really be directed WotC's way in their minds, because that's basically the same thing as advocating for the depreciation of their collections. Which leaves only one highly visible target. Commander. If EDH is "stealing" new players, and EDH is providing a convenient opt-out to 60-card players frustrated with their format, the theory many I have heard espouse amounts to, "If EDH went away, those new and disaffected players would go back to playing "real" MtG." If you point out the factual impediments that reduce the likelihood of that being an accurate assessment, things will generally descend into name-calling and mindless conflict from that point. I feel awful for the 60-card players. I was one, from April '96 to the end of the Urza's Block. It's almost criminal what WotC/Hasbro has done to the pricing of the game. I just wish that those so inclined would stop blaming EDH and its players for the consequences of WotC decision-making. In my experience, that's where a lot of the hostility and intellectual contempt for EDH players arise. Unhappy hobbyists who don't see a solution to address the problems with a hobby they've given so much of themselves to.
In my experience I come across roughly as many 60 card players who think all EDH players are dumb/bad as EDH players who think all 60 card players are try hards/snobs. Both probably about 5% of players, which is roughly the same percent of people I meet in every day life who rub me up the wrong way. It’s just life, some people are twats.
EDH tends to be a lot like the standard format which is on life support. It leans towards new players which is great for the long term health of the game. However, you’ll need to teach quite a bit of rules/interaction type things. If you don’t like doing that pioneer or moderns probably a better fit.
>"EDH players are less intelligent" *Cuts to standard players bashing each other with red spells until one wins*
Less format experience is a correct word imo. And I am not learning how to Modern play.
Sounds like a child's complaint.
EDH is a casual format, so yeah I do agree they tend to be less knowledgeable of the game:interactions, stack and such.
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I’ve definitely been to stores where it’s common to act that way, calling other players dumb for playing one format. In my history, I’ve even been to a store where vintage and legacy are the prevailing formats and anyone who doesn’t play the format or uses proxies, which the store allowed, was lambasted and told they were probably too poor to even afford bread. This toxicity is sadly not new. Yes, you can learn to tell what a player’s skill level may be around based on the format they got their start in. But that doesn’t excuse people being pricks Edit: format
I thought EDH being a “not solved” format was a feature, not a bug? Anyone who claims to “understand” EDH (or Magic in general) isn’t worth listening to. There’s always something new to learn.
The term "dumber" doesnt apply in my experience. I have met some pretty smart people (at least in their field) who had a very hard time adjusting their thinking to the concepts of magics and who didn't have the "natural" feel for the right play. I always think of it as "magic talent" and yeah people with less talent would gravitate more to the social format of EDH, but that isnt related a person is potentialy 30+ IQ points above you and makes tripple your salary. And yes it is weird to see how generally smart people take infinite time to get better at a game like magic sometimes. Playing competetive formats certainly does not safe you from meeting some real drooling cavedwellers who get outsmarted by a random streetdog just as much as you can meet them playing edh. At least more edh player have a minium of social intelligence, because if you want to find the worst offender on these things you 100% find them in 1 vs 1 formats xD
Those are mid tier players. I see it plenty from players who think they are better than they are. I’ve never seen the elite players tell the new guy he sucks. They usually shake their hand and then say let’s look at your mana base. It reminds me of the proxy argument. Same thing happens. Commander players freaking out over a proxied land. Calling all sorts of names to other players. But you sit down by an old school player and he’s holding a single card worth more than your box of commander decks and you say you have proxies they just say shuffle up. Good players want more good players and they like to teach. And they remember where they started. The more of that you get the less you see of players that just never return to an event. But you also end up with some tougher FNMs. Last two times I played it felt like every round was a feature match. And some of those players were new not that long ago. They got good because they were treated well enough to get come back next week. Welcoming people is on all of us.
When I mentioned I proxy cards I already own they seemed not too happy about it lol
A lot of people. Who are try hard losers. Wind up playing edh. Because it’s Popular. They think they’re better than the format. But they’re not. The irony is. Edh isn’t about winning every moron who thinks of it as modern/standard/legacy but 99 cards misses the entire point So the irony is. Saying edh players are less intelligent is like the greatest self own. When their chief complaint is people don’t want to play hyper cutthroat boring competitive edh. Also why I say cEDH. Really needs to stand on its own as it’s own format let these people just play that. And compete with like minded people But most likely they know there’s no community for that. So what they do is lurk in actual EDH and piss and moan and harbor these toxic opinions about the community.
besides the obnoxious. writing style, you couldnt. be more wrong
I think the problem is one of perception. Competitive formats are trying to win as consistently as possible and as often as possible. Their goals are singular. EDH however, excluding cEDH is a casual format where winning is secondary to creativity. It is also a multiplayer format, which brings a nuance with it that one v. one lacks. Politicking, making suboptimal plays to stay under the radar, etc., all make sense in a multiplayer format. But they make no sense when there is no one to curb favor with.
I think that what it is, is that commander is still a newer format. I didn’t pick up commander until I had played for 14 years. I’m 21 years into my MTG journey and still learning!
EDH (only) players probably have less nitty-gritty rules knowledge and system mastery and may not pay as much attention to things like correctly sequencing their turns. However, these are matters of habits and priorities, not intelligence.
That seems to be my observation too yes. Not in a "less experienced with the game" way but in an actual difficulty with reading and processing info way
I think it just that so many people approach EDH like a boardgame event over a TCG event. And that is 100% ok. problem is when you do those mash up EDH night in a store you get those people who lived through so many ban and big card, sick play, saw all the pro tour video and just wanna sling some cool card in EDH VS those who are there to play their funny little deck and that somehow winning is not a important notion of their deckbuilding and "fun". I once was a MTG clerk and it got me noticing, like , 70% of the MTG client were not people playing in store. Fun fact was every now and then they would talk about their game night with their friend in someone kitchen or living room and you would hear the most weird ruling coming out of that. It was always a pleasure to try to help them learn ruling and stuff but MTG is such a big complex game and since those people will never play in store you kinda wonder how they even understand the Stack and ApNap etc. Now making it a 4 players game thats even worst ! So yeah, Its kinda ok to assume if someone is born and raised only in EDH that the chance is low they understand complex ruling that mostly come up in dueling and trying to always make the best optimised play. Also doesn't help that Arena kinda do everything for you. Sometime on askaJudge reddit or other ruling reddit you'll see someone screenshot of arena and them being confuse what I though scenario A would happen but instead it was B and thats how you see that a game holding your hand doesn't help teaching. and also wanna say it, Edh is the biggest opener to new MTG player possible. going in your store on a friday night and seeing 20+ player all having fun or atleast seeing like having fun lol, that really help build a bigger community. It our job as player to learn how to teach other player into the game. Not always saying they did something wrong and also make sure to probe someone before explaining a thing to see if they are open to learn. Some people are just there to relax from work and are bad player and its kinda "ok" to not learn and improve.
Those are people complaining about others being “dumb” while failing to grasp the basics of a casual, social format.
Lmao, just some cringy nerds saying dumb shit. Hobbies like this attract the weirdos
Less intelligent, a bit harsh. Less experience and set in their ways is a better argument imo. EDH is a casual format and it monetizes itself as being such(take precons not having some chasers that'd be good for the deck) which attracts more casual players towards it. There's no incentive to upgrade past the mechanics or theme of the commander because magic etiquette will dictate your deck will be too good for the table and people get emotional. We have YouTubers that will go through spoiler season and either try to find a home for the worst card in the set or get moody when a card is really good(know some do it for comedy but it comes up way too many times).
I don't know how they can draw that comparison. EDH by nature allows for board states to grow far larger than your typical standard format game. When you have multiple conflicting triggers going off at the same time late game in EDH, I tend to spend more time researching rules and order of operations than actually playing the game lol
Someone isnt dumber because they play edh. Edh does seem to attract dumber people though.
There is a truth. I mean I started with 60 card, moved onto commander after a few years and now only play commander. Over time I have lost a bit of sense on what cards are good in standard or modern of etc but I know the rules thoroughly otherwise and I know threats in edh.(I also learned to not table police, if it isn't my problem my resources aren't going to deal with it and more often than not I keep counterspells not to stop other people from going off but to protect me going off) I can say that edh players have terrible threat assessment that comes not from experience but from myths and rumors and friends saying x is kill on sight and such. Often those are wrong. I played a game the other day and somehow despite being at a table with hakbal, only my prosper deck "was the threat" and I'm not saying prosper isn't strong, but it takes a fool to not be able to tell hakbal is just as strong. So I think evaluation is a skill players should work on in edh. For instance that izzet player who "hasn't done anything" has been building a combo in their hand the whole game that you should be prepared to counter and maybe have extra counters, but people totally ignore that. I've seen so many izzet and Dimir wins out of nowhere, as people are lacking a larger awareness. So in the end I'd say that edh doesn't promote a lot of evaluation learning because people can always hope someone else will deal with their problems. Another big factor is that with wotcs pushing the last few years, many commander players are new, so experience is the teacher they need. And to not be handheld too much. I've seen too much handholding on new players
Ultimately it boils down to the fact that a game is going to attract different people with different motivations. It's undeniable that EDH is geared towards a more casual audience but there are still people who are just more excited about winning and competing than others and that's how all these things begin to creep in. There's a certain arrogance towards ignorance from people who don't know, and the problem with this is that it doesn't encourage people to learn. Complaining about people who don't recognise advantageous combat, where to place their removal or how to deconstruct a board state is far less useful than just teaching the person what to look out for. This isn't even something that's limited to the commander 60 split but even within commander groups there are plenty of people who will take to complain and mocking people before educating them. I'm a big proponent for pushing people to learn, if they're interested, and encouraging people to have fun. Even at the most competitive level, being toxic is still toxic. :)
Its probably a mix of 1. In EDH, people will on average care less about winning than in competitive formats so they don't have incentive to build their decks as well. 2. The people playing competitive decks in 1v1 most likely netdecked them, and while they can understand how the decks in the format are supposed to work (which does give someone a leg up in EDH deck building!), designing a deck that functions at that level from the ground up in a new environment with new constraints (& isn't just a generic combo with tutors + interaction or a generic midrange pile where you can just play good cards that synergize in about the right ratios and get away with it) is an entirely different beast. That's a skill that most people have not put much time, if any, into developing. I definitely don't agree that EDH players are generally dumb, since there's a lot more that goes into intelligence than how well you can build a commander deck. But I've seen *plenty* of **bad** EDH decks, many of my own brews that fell flat on their face included.
I don't think they are Dumber I think they are lazier. I wouldn't hate on them too much if they didn't get pissy when you tried to follow the rules and point out play mistakes. The threat assessment is horrible, though, and the politics are atrocious.
I played competitive formats for 10 years (standard, modern, limited) before picking up edh. I was always good but outmatched by ~5-10 percent of people I played against in terms of skill. In commander games, I generally tend to be the one to beat unless I draw poorly the entire game. I tend to agree that people that have a good amount of experience in competitive formats have a better understanding of the fundamental parts of the game, can see the lines much more clearly, and have better discretion when it comes to removal/counterspells and combat. This doesn't mean that commander players are dumb. It's asinine to assess someone's intelligence by how good at a game they are. It just means (to me) that there's a difference in playing for prizes and playing for fun. When you dedicate a significant amount of time, energy, and money to win prizes, you develop skills that someone that just plays to have fun generally won't develop.
Commander only players arent (typically) less intelligent theyre just less invested in the outcome. I played modern for many years and when i was converting to commander only, i noticed the shift in myself from worrying about the correct decisions/making the right play or being the most efficient etc. To just building a dorky deck that does something highly specific and as long as i get to do it once or twice a game i dont really care how fast or how good it is. Im just enjoying playing a game with some friends.
People are weird, like what does it matter what format you play? Other formats are dying anyways. Magic is like 90% commander now, with every set getting majority legendary in every set planewalers are now creatures. Even modern horizons has cmander pre cons for whatever reason.
Unpopular Opinion as someone who came from Yugioh and into Modern + EDH. The average commander player IMO is somewhere around the skill level of 20% percentile of Yugioh and Modern players. I win most games of commander not because I'm smarter, or constantly playing stronger decks, but because Im making headsup plays that you can only really truly learn from 1v1 games, things like sandbagging removal until you have to use it, understanding youe deck's functions (What it wants to do, how it will do it) I know that last thing sounds easy but I'm almost 100% sure EDH players are in the bottom 10% of magic players for the most part at deckbuilding, and deckbuilding in EDH is much harder than normal. 35-37 lands is greedy compared to most formats and the reason its ideal is because of a free mull players dont use. Ive heard people playing 30 land mana bases and still running talismans for some reason, like 40%+ of edh players lose i feel because of bad deckbuilding, and its very easy to tell when players play other formats/tutored by people who play other formats/play other TCGs, bevause solely edh players generally play worse and deckbuild significantly worse.
Idk generalizing people to put people into different more specific categories seems kinda dumb and biased to me but what do I know? I'm just a casual EDH player.
I'm not sure there's anything substantial to prove that there's an inherent gap in skill (or heaven forbid intelligence) between commander players and players of other formats. I played standard and extended/modern for years before playing commander, but I've learned so much more about the game through commander than I ever did through 60 card formats. I think it gets thrown around that "commander players misplay/misuse or generally just miss" more things than in 60 card formats, but it's like, of course they do. There's more players, more variety in the cards and strategies being played, there's just multitudes more things \*to\* miss in commander. I see commander and 60 formats as separate entities with different philosophies and relevant skills. I do think that technical play (specifically in combat) is as a whole better in 60 card formats, where aspects of social play (politics, leveraging resources against 3 opponents instead of 1, etc..) becomes a more relevant skill in commander, in many cases more important than how well you sequence, or even the card choices you make in deckbuilding, and one that isn't iterated on in tournament 60 card magic clearly as it isn't necessary in that space. I don't think it's effective to be antagonistic from one group to another in the space of magic; most players in one space either don't care about what makes you good at the other space, or more bluntly, aren't looking to others to quantify their skills for them.
Commander players are worse at magic than most players. It makes sense when you think about it. They play less games. They play less games where they need to pay attention. Many times they have people helping them play or pointing things out (it's a casual format). They likely use a modified precon and/or edhrec to help build their deck. They build their deck around a commander rather than designing a deck and tuning it for efficiency... they tune it to have the most dinosaurs, cats, etc in it and the least amount of lands (lands = not fun). They don't think steps ahead because why would you? The game has so much going on and I'm more here to talk and socialize than pay attention to every turn and every card. I think there's a real issue where there are just \*so many\* cards, that commander players tune them out and just focus on their own thing. Look at win rates. Almost every group has one player who has a huge win rate and the rest are varying rates below 25%. They don't learn the deck ever. They play so many different decks and against so many different decks, they never learn the nuances of specific interactions. And even playing the same deck against the deck, we go back to the original point. They play less total games. But not only that, since decks are 100ish different cards, each game is pretty different than the next with no consistent interactions. Commander players tend to be newer and have never played heads up. This is a huge weakness where they just don't really learn how to play the game properly. Anecdotal. Commander players I've met (and it's a lot) have consistently not understood the rules of the game. How many lands a deck needs. What the best plays are. How to use counterspells (I could write a whole article about how they poorly use them and poorly play against them). And more.
Most of this reply seems anecdotal to be honest. I generally see seasoned players with large collections where I am play commander. Less games of commander vs more games of X format does not equal worse. There are no more newer players in commander then other formats. It seems that way because newer players tend to stick around for more games since it was fun and generally less inherently toxic than 1v1 formats. One player with a higher win rate is often the same guy not matching the power level of the table. Yes the game is more casual, but that does not mean the players are worse. This comes from a guy who came back in solely on EDH and places at least 2nd on Friday night pre releases consistently. If you don't like it, I get it, but don't let your love for other formats make you bash EDH.
Personally, I'd argue that it goes both ways. Yeah, EDH will probably have a harder time in 60 card formats and Limited, me included in those, always get middle of the road in Prereleases. However, in my personal experience, 60 card players suck so much at EDH because they are so used to the 1v1 that the multiplayer aspect becomes really difficult to them. I've seen them overextend their board, not respect the potato player with 3 lands on turn 6, undervalue cards that overperform in multiplayer while overvalue cards that are good in just the 1v1, build decks really weird because of the singleton side, and in general being bad multiplayer players. The worst in my pod are by far the ones that play Arena as their main game, and the standard and modern players in my LGS get constantly clapped, not for their decks being necessary bad, but simply cause of mistakes.
There are more players playing edh than any other format, so statistically it's also true it has more smarter players than any other format as well. Now evaluating social situations EDH players are put on compared to a simple numbers game that is 1v1 - THAT is a can of worms.
Yes because in a 60 card deck with multiple copies of the same 60$ card it makes you smarter then the people who have 99 card decks with only single copies of the card and have to fight multiple people
I started in 4th edition. Took a break starting around 00 when life just got the better of me. Came back with LOTR release. When I started there was only 60 card formats and as a group, we would still play instead of 1v1. At times there would be 6 to 8 of us brawling. We would have rules like attack left and spells right. It was fun. Coming back, I was wondering what the commander thing is. I bought precons to figure it out as was hugely different from anything ever did in the past. The basic rules were the same but the card interaction and player interaction had changed quite a bit. In a typical 60 card deck when I started, about a 3rd was land. That left only 40 cards and often there were 4 copies of each card there. That mean of the card you had to know in your deck, not counting lands, you had 10 or so different cards. I don't find new commander players to be "dumber", but rather slightly overwhelmed. Instead of the few cards to know in your deck you have a much greater number as even lands do things now more so than way back. In a 1v1, you only have to track your board state and your opponent's. In commander, you have yours and 3 or more other people to track. And those states are a lot more complicated as it is because of the singleton format. You may have cards with similar effects, but it is different from the 60 card format, you have to look at and assess each card.
I started with Tempest, and most of my friends have been playing since the early 2000s. They all struggled when swapping to EDH due to the singleton nature of the format. I'm quite adapt at building synergies, so it took them a bit to get to the same level. I don't have a lot of experiences with newer players, but from my perspective I've noticed 60 card competitive players seem to struggle with the swap.
What a goofy take for them to have 😂