March 2020 AMA

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pokken
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Post by pokken » 4 years ago

I did some serious in depth scanning of various commanders on edhrec because people claimed it skewed competitive causing paradox engine to be overrepresented.

Data is buried somewhere on Sally but my conclusion was that people copy and pasting budget decks en masse seemed to counteract it some but only the most spiky commanders skewed that competitive, e.g. urza. And even then I wanna say like 80 percent of urza decks were more like 8/10 than actual cedh?

Sharpened
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Post by Sharpened » 4 years ago

Treamayne wrote:
4 years ago
In my (biased) opinion, it's this simple:
- Flash wasn't a problem before the Hulk un-ban
- Flash isn't a problem anywhere now, except C2 Flash-hulk metas
- Flash isn't the problem, remove Hulk again and let us casual players keep Flash - or - ban Flash locally in your meta.
The primary issue that I see with that logic is that Hulk sees more play than Flash.

I think Flash can be a neat card, and wouldn't want to take it away from casual players. I think Protean Hulk is an even neater card, and wouldn't want to take that away from casual players.

But if you took 1 away (and I'm not saying that anyone should), Flash is the obvious choice. Not only does hitting that card change the combo to be slower, and easier to interact with. The collateral damage is less - Hulk is in 3 times as many decks.

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Post by papa_funk » 4 years ago

pokken wrote:
4 years ago
I did some serious in depth scanning of various commanders on edhrec because people claimed it skewed competitive causing paradox engine to be overrepresented.
I think that's slightly inaccurate, It skews *invested*. These are people who are invested enough in Magic/Commander that they go online and actually post it. They may be terrible deckbuilders, but the effort required in doing so shows a very high level of online investment. There's probably a correlation with competitive there, but it may not be linear.

Think about something you're a fan of that you kind of enjoy, but are not that invested in. You wouldn't call it hobby. It's a fun diversion and if your friends want to do it, then you're down. It could be a favorite board game, or a sport you kind of follow. Consider your mentality towards that.

Got that picture?

There are a zillion people who look at Magic like that. They are not posting on EDHRec. (They are playing a lot of Commander, though)

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pokken
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Post by pokken » 4 years ago

papa_funk wrote:
4 years ago
pokken wrote:
4 years ago
I did some serious in depth scanning of various commanders on edhrec because people claimed it skewed competitive causing paradox engine to be overrepresented.
I think that's slightly inaccurate, It skews *invested*. These are people who are invested enough in Magic/Commander that they go online and actually post it. They may be terrible deckbuilders, but the effort required in doing so shows a very high level of online investment. There's probably a correlation with competitive there, but it may not be linear.

Think about something you're a fan of that you kind of enjoy, but are not that invested in. You wouldn't call it hobby. It's a fun diversion and if your friends want to do it, then you're down. It could be a favorite board game, or a sport you kind of follow. Consider your mentality towards that.

Got that picture?

There are a zillion people who look at Magic like that. They are not posting on EDHRec. (They are playing a lot of Commander, though)
I agree with that assessment, it's a much better characterization than skewing competitive cos there's a ton of hot garbage out there. I play with a lot of total offliners though and their stuff never looks anything like EDHREC decks.

I am glad you guys are in connection with those people somehow. I believe the current campaign to ban flash is almost surely unfairly marginalizing people who are not big on the internet, and it's a big concern for me personally.

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Post by MrMystery314 » 4 years ago

I agree with that assessment. Even using here as an example, there are many extremely enfranchised people who, if they are uploading decks to EDHREC, would be uploading decks correctly deemed as relatively casual. I'm sure the "average power level" is higher than average simply because people are less likely to be uploading modified precons or "Ixalan chaff: the deck", but I'm also not sure that there is such a significant disparity that the decks aren't representative of the players who are likely to be adversely affected by a ban. That is also working under the assumption that there are many enfranchised players who look at EDHREC for inspiration, but would never take the time to upload a deck there; likewise, I am sure there are many relatively casual players who Google "Meren commander deck" and go with the first search results, which as of this moment are on EDHREC, but aren't necessarily involved in creating or processing online EDH content. I would assume that the percentage of EDH players with absolutely no exposure to online materials is smaller than what most people would estimate, although like I said, it depends on how generously we define these parameters. One trend that I've noticed in many of these forum threads is that people enjoy speaking "on the behalf" of larger groups as representatives, which isn't always conducive to accurate discussion; as nice as it is to "stand up for the little guy," assumptions and generalities aren't terribly helpful. It would be really nice to get some real data, but it's ultimately impossible to account for the silent proportion who don't actively participate online or are otherwise vocal, and we have no idea if there are isolated pods of players who googled "competitive EDH," built decks using collections they've been accumulating since the 1990s, and happily bash each other's faces in with Sushi Hulk and Najeela without any complaints, or pods who take their precons, add some cards they find cool, and happily bash each other's faces in with Zetalpa and Zacama. We have no real way of knowing what biases are in any data we collect and if they're actually representative; just because something feels like it ought to be inaccurate doesn't mean we should assume it to be so.

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Post by bobthefunny » 4 years ago

Sinis wrote:
4 years ago
Treamayne wrote:
4 years ago
I would like to see some data on this that isn't an "EDHRec" percentage number. For example here, in this thread, I posted about how I am currently running Flash.
I, too, have posted about playing Flash, and never uploaded a deck to EDHrec.

However, I would contend that the argument is that EDHrec stats are an acceptable representation of decks out in the wild (I don't think they are, but what you're asking for here is tantamount to an unmeetable burden of proof, barring a massive effort of in-person surveys to capture people who don't visit any online Magic material).
I am not aware of Flash being in any deck at my LGS, but what I am aware of, is that of 8 long-time regulars to the store, I am the only one that posts decklists online. One player occasionally frequents Nexus and/or Salv. One player frequents EDH reddit (not competitive). The other 5 players do not really have an online presence at all.

We have another 5-6 newer players that I am not certain where their online activities lie yet, but of them I would guess that maybe 2 of them frequent online forums.

I don't think it's exactly a stretch to say that the decklists posted online represent a small minority of magic users, and in particular also represent the more dedicated magic players.

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Post by Dragonlover » 4 years ago

Of the 10+ players I know, I'm the only one that's uploaded deck lists on here. I know one of them has his on Tapped Out, mostly for his own records. Pretty sure none of them have anything on EDHrec.

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Post by Segrus » 4 years ago

I used to use tappedout for keeping deck lists, but have been using archidekt more regularly now. I like it more and it conveniently links up with edhrec. While I don't use edhrec much for deck building, I figure my fairly casual nature is good for the data so many other people use. I don't know.

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Post by if4ko » 4 years ago

Can confirm, have about 20 solid EDH players in my LGS community. Only 3 of us upload our lists to EDHRec/satellite sites, and I upload for one of them because he doesn't feel like making an Archidekt account. Another player used to upload to TappedOut, but quit the game itself because of personal issues. I'm the only Nexus member.

Have one Flash player in our casual community, later confirmed he uses it for Value Hulk.

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Post by cryogen » 4 years ago

My LGS experiences line up pretty similarly. Out of the 20-30 players at league, only a small handful have any online presence and only one or two are deeply enfranchised (myself not included).
Sheldon wrote:You're the reason we can't have nice things.

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Post by pokken » 4 years ago

Indeed, same here. Only people who have decks online in my group are ones who have asked me for help on decklists and my requirement was they put them online so I can look at them instead of frigging random grainy cellphone pictures of their pile of cards :P

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Post by Segrus » 4 years ago

As a casual player the main thing keeping me from putting Flash into decks isn't competitiveness, just plain old forgetfulness. I keep not pulling one of the 3 or 4 old copies I have while deck building. So around a couple weeks ago I put a copy into an Izzet Sea Monsters deck where it makes some sense to include (and I was rebuilding it for some new cards anyway). One day, when I can go to an LGS again, my intention is to bring the deck and see if I run into the card. Mostly likely I won't.

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