the negative connotation of the term cEDH

[maeos]

As the title says, i would like to discuss about the negative connotation about cEDH. I have heard people complain about these players saying that they only want to win and that they are willing to pubstomp for a victory. i feel that the letter c in the subformat, has had the wider audience group us with the more toxic players of the format. the mmcast just put out a video with Jim Lepage from the spike feeders, talking about cEDH, the mentality and other stuff about it, among other magic related things. and there was a post that was made within minutes of the upload denouncing the subformat calling it a cancer. Would it be better if we renamed this subformat? is there a way to change the community's negative views? is there a way to seperate the cEDH players from the toxic players?

[DirkGently]

Renaming something doesn't change what it is.

[lyonhaert]

Would it be better if we renamed this subformat?

No, I don't think it would help.

is there a way to change the community's negative views?

There is probably a small group of loud haters. You're unlikely to change those particular minds, but it's still important to lay out the difference between groups for anybody else that is reading, though.

is there a way to seperate the cEDH players from the toxic players?

They already are fairly separate, especially in definition (even if there may be some individuals that overlap). It's these loud doom-criers that are conflating and spreading stereotypes.

This kind of education to counter stereotypes, though, is often difficult. Sometimes a person is kinda passively holding stereotypes about it in their head because that's what they've heard but they don't have any emotional ties to them from negative experiences - these are probably the easiest to educate because maybe they just need to see actual cEDH. The folks with emotional ties, though, it gets trickier because they're invested. So then it can be a matter of needing the right messenger at the right time for a single person to truly consider a different perspective and let it in.

[BeneTleilax]

Relations between cEDH and regular EDH, though not ideal, seem to have been improving over recent years (see: Flash ban), current discussion of unbans. I don't think any radical moves are needed.

[maeos]

but the name inherently has a negative connotation by saying competitive. people ive asked say that it makes them think that its the competition grinder's format, when cEDH just isnt it. im not saying that to rename it to "fluffy huggy time" but to something that better represents the philosophy of this subformat.

[void_nothing]

but the name inherently has a negative connotation by saying competitive.

I'm not even a CEDH guy and I need to say two things here:

1) If a game being competitive has a negative connotation to someone, I think that's a problem with their mindset, not the game.
2) CEDH is literally the competition-focused side of EDH.

[benjameenbear]

cEDH players, who truly follow cEDH principles of equitable, socially acceptable, fun games with optimized strategies and decklists, are part of a different crowd. For me, I say we should follow the advice of T Swift when it comes to dealing with the negative connotation: "haters 'gonna hate, hate, hate..."

People love to hate success and expertise as a means of justifying their own inadequacies (whether monetary ones OR skill-based ones). Rather than call THAT out, I just shrug my shoulders.

Ironically, I've deliberately sat down with non-optimized decks that were handed to me and, with the skillset and mindset I've cultivated through cEDH, STILL have gotten complaints about pubstomping and winning too much. With terrible meme decklists... that I didn't even build. Meh.

[toctheyounger]

I really think the only negative connotation in practice comes when someone brings a cedh deck to a casual table. Now, from what I've heard from general cedh players and some of the bigger advocates of the format that's not interesting to any real spike. So it follows that what you've got here is a group of people who are misrepresenting that part of the community by bringing guns to knife fights like a bunch of jerks. And in my experience when this has happened thats exactly what these people are, but that doesn't mean they're a true representation of what most cedh players are like.

I don't think rebranding helps here. I think predominantly the answer is getting a good rule 0 read on your table and keeping in mind that one bad experience should not be enough for you to tar every cedh player with the same brush. Hell, even if this happens several times you just have bad luck with the pods you're joining. As above, cedh players are emphatically not interested in playing casual metas with their opus thief or thrasios tymna highly tuned machines. Its either not a challenge or the game plays out on a metric their decks aren't built to manage, and either way its a mismatch.

It does suck but honestly clear communication is the key. If the person pubstomping isn't getting the message or is misrepresenting what they're doing you have a problem. But the problem is not with cedh. Yiu have a problem with a jerk who just wants a W, and will crap on you to get it. That does suck but it isn't cedh to blame.

Changing perceptions is hard and the people who have an issue with it have to want to be enlightened, which is tough because that sort of involves meeting these players halfway for a game on even pegging and seeing that these people are just like you and want a good clean game with lots of interaction. That's not always possible, given the high expense for putting together a 9 or 10 deck, let alone learning to pilot it.

Its a tough one because there is no cover all solution to changing the way people think about this part of the format. My suggestion to people who are actually wanting to know 'whats their deal' is to recommend them to watch some Spike Feeders games. They're high powered mostly, although there are casual games occasionally too, and it can be a little jarring to watch because these games do play out differently for obvious reasons. But these are the nicest people, and if somehow I ever had the chance to shuffle up with them I've no doubt they'd make me feel welcome. Not only that, their communication around the stack and priority and gameplay in general is exemplary. Its what every meta should strive for in terms of making plays and counterplays clear and minimizing durdle time when someone is going off. As well as that they still manage some good banter, and I actually can't recall ever seeing any salt in their content. I think the point behind pointing someone in this direction is to illuminate them to the fact that these people don't aren't interested in exploiting the table for their own fun. They're the same as you and I, and their subsection of the format is just misrepresented by people who don't want to play a game where the cards aren't stacked in their own favor.

This ended up longer than I intended, but this issue does irk me. We've got cedh players in the multitudes here and they're decent folk too. Ultimately this is a 'change happens one person at a time' scenario i think is what I'm getting at.

[pokken]

All you guys have to do is wait. The whole format will be CEDH and CEDH adjacent in 5-10 years at this rate =P

[Dunharrow]

cEDH doesn't have a negative connotation. It has a competitive connotation. And if people don't want to play competitively, cEDH is something they will actively avoid.
I know a lot of cEDH players, and a lot of casual players. And they know each other and avoid playing with each other. Wow.
Why do you think there is animosity?

[PrimevalCommander]

All you guys have to do is wait. The whole format will be CEDH and CEDH adjacent in 5-10 years at this rate =P

Ain't that the truth. Trying to power down my current playgroup right now by punishing all-in combo strategies and glass cannon style deck building. Still I have done my fair share of optimizing over the past several years. Mostly to faster ramp and more efficient answers, not quick combos.

I've never played at the highest power levels of commander. But I would try it if I could get enough people together with the ability to play at that level, and decent enough printers to proxy the $$ cards. The problem I have is the guys with janky decklist and a bunch of 2 card infinite combos thrown in. What do you do with that? Ignore them and they combo, pay attention to them and I feel like a bully, haha. Guess I'ts not pubstomping when they turn 3 infinite mana, but don't have a mana sink in hand to win the game.

[Sinis]

Would it be better if we renamed this subformat? is there a way to change the community's negative views? is there a way to seperate the cEDH players from the toxic players?

There's a rub, here. We are all playing EDH, but, for all intents and purposes, we're playing a different game. cEDH players have a unique and exhaustive rule zero conversation: "If it's legal, it's fair."

As I see it, there are two main problems:

Problem the first: Certain kinds of players are intentionally covert about what they (theoretically) want in a game. For short, we'll call these guys 'pubstompers'. There isn't really any stopping these kinds of people for exactly one game. Someone says they want to play the same game as you (a casual who wants to durdle a bit), and then turn 3 combos out, fine, enjoy your two and a half minutes of fame. I strongly encourage players to decline future games with pubstompers. The problem should solve itself.

Problem the second: After accepting a rule zero conversation that "if it's legal, it's fair", cEDH proponents want to change what's legal as a roundabout way of having an alternate rule zero conversation about what is fair. This is the talk we see from cEDH personalities on social media complaining about Thassa's Oracle in the way they once complained about Flash. This end of the problem isn't easily solved, and I'll be honest, it earns the most enmity from me. This format was never intended to be competitive, and should never be balanced for it. Every other format serves the competitive itch. Further, it is likely impossible to balance this format; the banlist length for other eternal formats (after countless incentivized tournaments with recorded results) should make it clear why this would be so difficult to do.

---

I would advocate for a format split (which is essentially what you're suggesting with a renaming), but I suspect that would make cEDH wither and die, and it won't solve the first problem of people being disingenuous about their deck contents (and their frankly covert rule zero game style of "I just want to win, and if people are unprepared that is more likely to happen").

My proposed solution is for cEDH players to have a more nuanced Rule Zero conversation. If you look at the speed running community, there are plenty of categories that players compete in, often specific to their particular game. For example, Hollow Knight boasts 7 different categories, including True Ending, Any%, 112% (full completion), etc. Hades has near as many, including Fresh File, All Weapons, and different Heat levels. These are rule zero conversations in a non-Magic competitive context.

cEDH communities need to start adopting the rule zero conversation about how they want their games to play out. If a bunch of speedrunners can negotiate "any%", "Fresh file", "True Ending" or whatever based on their specific game, cEDH players can start -- as a community -- negotiating "No Thoracle", or "No Consult", or whatever comes out of the woodwork in six months. Will this eventually result in custom banlists? Sure. Arguably it's an eventual format split. But, if you don't...

The only alternatives to those avenues are to expect the RC to begin banning cards for competitive purposes (which they have explicitly said that they will not after Flash's exclusion) or to continue playing with the "If it's legal, it's fair" mentality where their games are often determined by Thoracle lines (which, frankly, is making cEDH social media personalities weep incessantly and annoyingly).

tl;dr cEDH needs to evolve into having rule zero conversations about 'problem cards', hope the RC changes the mission statement of the format, or just plain old suck it up.

[DirkGently]

While obviously I dislike pubstompers, I have a much bigger problem with cEDH conceptually, regardless of the good intentions of those playing it. Because both groups occupy similar space, cEDH information and mindsets gradually seep into the greater EDH community. Inexperienced players see cEDH players doing cEDH things and are impressed by it, without understanding the full context, and seek to emulate it. Youtube recommendations bring up cEDH channels to people watching EDH content. People talk about cards they like. EDHrec pulls cEDH and EDH decks indiscriminately. Combine inexperienced players with cEDH ideas and the result is inevitably going to be detrimental to the barriers placed between the two formats. While this blurring between cEDH and EDH is certainly not wholly responsible for the power creep of the format, I think it contributes in a significant way, which makes cEDH an existential threat. As such I will always dislike cEDH.

I also think cEDH is a refuge for people who can't hack it in properly competitive formats (i.e. ones with serious competitive events) but still want to feel superior to the regular EDH rabble. This is 100% based on personal opinion and no I'm not sorry.

[pokken]

I also think cEDH is a refuge for people who can't hack it in properly competitive formats (i.e. ones with serious competitive events) but still want to feel superior to the regular EDH rabble. This is 100% based on personal opinion and no I'm not sorry.

In my experience playing cedh fairly heavily (a game or two a week for most of a year) I definitely encountered this group, but I think it's probably a plurality but not a majority?

What's interesting to me is how *on the internet* CEDH is about everyone playing top tier meta decks with no budget or with proxies to counter budget, but on the ground there're a lot of budget constraints and people playing way-off-meta decks (the Have-Nots) getting annihilated by the Haves with meta decks.

That's what ultimately turned me off to it. That and the constant stack wars. Ugh. I got my fill of that playing legacy for years and then got another dose of it. I'm seriously over the 7 deep stack and deciding to pass on countering something to get other people to use up their resources as a tactic.

[BeneTleilax]

While this blurring between cEDH and EDH is certainly not wholly responsible for the power creep of the format, I think it contributes in a significant way, which makes cEDH an existential threat.

I disagree strongly. I think the migration of Modern/Standard players into EDH caused the power creep and pseudo-casual optimization mentality of casual EDH. You look at the big problem powercreep cards in casual, and you've got what: Korvold, Chulane, Kenrith, all the green draw effects and Dockside? Only Dockside is really a cEDH thing, and it was introduced in a precon, so it's not like it wouldn't have made it into casual anyways. If anything, as casual is has gotten powercrept, it's tilting ever more towards the supremacy of threats and value engine permanents. That's the opposite direction of cEDH's increasing tendency towards self-contained combos and playing Egyptian Rat Screw on the stack. Besides getting stronger, casual has not drifted towards cEDH in archetypes, staples or playstyle, which I think it would if cEDH really were causing the creep.

Also, again, criticizing cEDH players, rather than the format itself, does not support your argument and reads smug.

[toctheyounger]

Formats will always veer towards power, its inevitable. We don't have rotation of cards, we have an ever increasing pile of value that constantly makes its older variants obsolete or sub par. Combine that with the popularity of edh as a format in the last few years and thats why we're seeing a push towards power moreso than ever. Frankly, as trite as it sounds, if anyone is responsible for power creeping the format its wotc itself with the perpetual hype machine and more releases than anyone could possibly manage. It was inevitable anyway, theyre just making it happen quicker.

I think a big thing for me is that it seems a fairly misunderstood subsection of edh from the outside and thats what lends to cedh being the supposed bogeyman. I don't play it, I'm not interested in doing so, but I can still respect what those players do. They've got nothing to answer for in terms of impact on the rest of the format either. Dockside was always going to be expensive, card is busted af. They don't spike prices on cards that aren't already very good, and a lot of the removal they use is so niche its next to useless in casual games anyway, and they're not interested in punching downwards and making anyone else miserable.

People have this conception that they're influencing the casual community to lean into combo as if combos weren't around long before cedh ever became a thing.

Edit - I mean no shade towards anyone by saying this either, apologies if anyone feels attacked by this, not my intent.

[pokken]

They've got nothing to answer for in terms of impact on the rest of the format either.

I'm not sure who exactly is answerable for the CEDH cultural undercurrent of "that card is trash and you're trash for playing it" that seeps out of its underbelly. It's obviously not the entire community no more than our community is entirely answerable for the worse attitudes toward CEDH players.

I think both communities could do a lot of work being more civil to each other and to the respective formats' goals.

Go spend a few hours on the CEDH reddit and read the things people say about the RC and their card evaluation skills and so on and tell me there isn't a cultural problem (and you can do the same in the regular EDH reddit or even this thread and see some of the animosity toward CEDH Players, so both sides definitely have some problematic attitudes ).

Not sure where I'm going with that but I do think there is blame to go around for some things.

If I had to pick one thing, I'd say that the cEDH community really needs to collectively stomp on the idea that the EDH banlist should be managed from a competitive standpoint. This idea has about a thread a week on reddit to the tune of "My gosh how can they have trash like Primeval Titan on the banlist, what a joke, look at how bad Ad Nauseam is!!" or whatever. They just have to give up on lobbying for something that is the antithesis of the format's philosophy.

edit: So I'm off topic a bit, but to spin it back around, I think the CEDH community needs to stop doing the things that get them a negative rep. The negative rep of CEDH is not just pubstompers and it's nothing to do with the name. As long as there're a lot of loud voices of CEDH players out there calling for Sheldon's head and catching upvotes, it's going to remian somewhat adversarial.

[Myllior]

Not sure where I'm going with that but I do think there is blame to go around for some things.

I think where you're going is "Some people are dicks. More at 11." 😜

Really though, I don't think there's any significant animosity borne towards cEDH that isn't rooted in another issue or is perhaps misdirected. I think this because there's animosity directed all over the format for all sorts of 'reasons'. For every person blasting cEDH players as "pubstompers", there's another lambasting casual players as "crybabies". For every person bemoaning that Thassa's Oracle hasn't been banned, there's another insisting that Rule of Law effects are the devil incarnate. (Or whatever, that second one doesn't work so well).

Regardless, I think the issue is perhaps not so specific to cEDH, but more on wider discourse. People enjoy EDH in different ways and while, yes, there are some bad actors, in general my impression is that people are fairly respectful of this. If you're minding your own business and are having fun, then I don't think there's much need to pay heed to anyone telling you that you're doing it wrong.

[duducrash]

I also hate the term CEDH. Mostly because its nonsense, its the same format, same cards, same rules, its the same thing. If your LGS has prize support for a cmdr night its a competitive game of EDH. CEDH is a nonsense concept that means nothing

[materpillar]

As the title says, i would like to discuss about the negative connotation about cEDH. I have heard people complain about these players saying that they only want to win and that they are willing to pubstomp for a victory. i feel that the letter c in the subformat, has had the wider audience group us with the more toxic players of the format. the mmcast just put out a video with Jim Lepage from the spike feeders, talking about cEDH, the mentality and other stuff about it, among other magic related things. and there was a post that was made within minutes of the upload denouncing the subformat calling it a cancer. Would it be better if we renamed this subformat? is there a way to change the community's negative views? is there a way to seperate the cEDH players from the toxic players?

Personally, I view cEDH as a bastardization of Elder Dragon Highlander. I was drawn to EDH as a format that was a casual, high variance format where you can cast fun timmy cards like the Elder Dragons it was named after. I've been playing my Chromium deck for about a decade now, and I enjoy slamming her and turning her right just as much today as I did when I first threw the deck together. EDH was pitched to me as a format where you could play really dumb, pretty bad, old cards. cEDH is just not this. cEDH isn't remotely this. I was drawn to EDH because it was basically as far from constructed formats as you could possibly get. cEDH is forcing EDH to be as close to the constructed mindset as you can possibly get. The vast majority of what cEDH offers is the opposite of what I personally enjoy. Renaming the format won't change that the fact that I am fundamentally, philosophically opposed to the goals of the cEDH format.

You'll notice I have specifically been referring only to the cEDH format and not to those who play it. Other people enjoy Standard, Modern, Legacy, Vintage, cEDH and whatever other constructed formats. If people enjoy them and find like minded people to enjoy them, more power to you guys. The problem is the constructed/cEDH mindset can and does bleed over into casual games. Whenever it does, it tends to ruin the experience that I specifically look forward to in my games. Those who are drawn towards cEDH and constructed formats just fundamentally want different gameplay experiences than I do (as a rule of thumb).

Most of my negativity towards cEDH stems from the fact that I feel like I have to push back against the constructed format mindset. EDH is the only non-limited format I play. I don't really have any other magic outlet. If you like constructed but don't like cEDH you can dabble in standard, modern, legacy, vintage or whatever. There's a wide variety of tournaments you can enter to scratch your magic itch. If EDH becomes unplayable (for me) as a result of the constructed mindset slowly nibbling away at its foundation, I'm just going to stop playing magic. I don't have any fallback format options like those who enjoy constructed do. I feel like my enjoyment of EDH would improve overall if cEDH just didn't exist. I don't dabble in constructed, I wish constructed wouldn't dabble in EDH.

Pubstompers who netdeck cEDH decks just so they can pad their fragile ego are a completely different and problem.

[toctheyounger]

They've got nothing to answer for in terms of impact on the rest of the format either.

I'm not sure who exactly is answerable for the CEDH cultural undercurrent of "that card is trash and you're trash for playing it" that seeps out of its underbelly. It's obviously not the entire community no more than our community is entirely answerable for the worse attitudes toward CEDH players.

I think both communities could do a lot of work being more civil to each other and to the respective formats' goals.

Go spend a few hours on the CEDH reddit and read the things people say about the RC and their card evaluation skills and so on and tell me there isn't a cultural problem (and you can do the same in the regular EDH reddit or even this thread and see some of the animosity toward CEDH Players, so both sides definitely have some problematic attitudes ).

Not sure where I'm going with that but I do think there is blame to go around for some things.

If I had to pick one thing, I'd say that the cEDH community really needs to collectively stomp on the idea that the EDH banlist should be managed from a competitive standpoint. This idea has about a thread a week on reddit to the tune of "My gosh how can they have trash like Primeval Titan on the banlist, what a joke, look at how bad Ad Nauseam is!!" or whatever. They just have to give up on lobbying for something that is the antithesis of the format's philosophy.

edit: So I'm off topic a bit, but to spin it back around, I think the CEDH community needs to stop doing the things that get them a negative rep. The negative rep of CEDH is not just pubstompers and it's nothing to do with the name. As long as there're a lot of loud voices of CEDH players out there calling for Sheldon's head and catching upvotes, it's going to remian somewhat adversarial.

What I'm hearing here is that reddit is bad. Water is wet too, pokken lol

I get where you're coming from here though. Theres outspoken folks with bad or edgy takes on both sides of the fence really. I think the main thing is one person doesn't speak for either side, and people can be, and often are, assholes to those who differ from them.

I do agree with the banlist thing though - there's absolutely no need to curate it for cedh specifically, and the RC would likely never do so. They're part of the community, but looking at it from the perspective you've mentioned implies a superiority that isn't there. Part of the beauty of this format is that it can be played with different goals in mind, and that makes neither one better or worse. Again, reddit can be a truly awful dumpster fire for vitriol and awful judgment.

[pokken]

Regardless, I think the issue is perhaps not so specific to cEDH, but more on wider discourse. People enjoy EDH in different ways and while, yes, there are some bad actors, in general my impression is that people are fairly respectful of this. If you're minding your own business and are having fun, then I don't think there's much need to pay heed to anyone telling you that you're doing it wrong.

So generally speaking, I find a lot more cEDH folks telling EDH people that the format needs to be run their way than there are EDH people telling CEDH people not do whatever they want amongst themselves. I think that's the major distinction for me.

There is a not insignificant group of people actively lobbying to change the commander banlist to be run from a competitive standpoint, with the general ethos that casuals can rule 0 whatever they want, so having the banlist focused on them is a waste of time.

That shouldn't reflect on the whole cEDH community, I guess? But I think that's why folks resent cEDH.

What I'm hearing here is that reddit is bad. Water is wet too, pokken lol

So I think this is an easy oversimplification to make. There are well-moderated areas of Reddit that are a pleasure tbh, the more time I spend there I realize it's basically moderation.

I think communities get the moderation they deserve for the most part, and it speaks to something of the general culture to me.

[ukkuhrmakhai]

I don't have a negative connotation with cEDH because as long as it referred to as cEDH or competitive EDH because then there honesty and clarity that is separate from regular EDH. EDH is a self-policing format built around rule zero and cEDH is a competitive format. The two cannot coexist in the same game because cEDH is about ignoring all the self-policing that EDH is built on and players bringing cEDH decks and play to a traditional EDH game is a problem. However, this is usually a player issue where someone is wants an easy win.

There are a few issues, some of which I think cEDH gets blamed for unnecessarily.

1) "Pubstompers"
As others have said this problem exists pretty much everywhere and existed before cEDH was popular. This is a player problem and is best solved by avoiding that player. Sometimes, they will use cEDH decks and even reference cEDH as a justification if people complain but no "Pubstomper" is looking for competition. They want an easy win.

2) Power creep
cEDH didn't slow down the power creep of EDH games but it didn't cause it either. The biggest contributors to this are powerful generic commanders, predictable rule zero discussions, netdecking, time and poor judgements of power level. Strong generic commands set the baseline of what a deck needs to do compete. An unoptimized Chulane is probably the minimum of what any deck needs to compete against since even in a casual game that is what the worst player could sit down with. Many of the rule zero conversations I hear end up as "No combo, no mld, we don't like control, 70%." Because everyone is building to the same goal any deck you find online will probably be "appropriate"/barely acceptable for your playgroup. The nature of gaming is that people will try to optimize their decks over time and EDH is still about winning, so most decks are going to be the best deck that can be made that doesn't have combo since it is hard for players to make their deck deliberately worse. The last part of power creep is that people are terrible at estimating the power of their deck.

3) cEDH asks for bans because cEDH uses EDH banlist and rules except rule zero
The EDH banlist relies heavily on self-policing and is not a good ban list (for competition). Relying on a banlist from a non-competitive format for a competitive format is a terrible idea, especially when the banlist specifically states it will not be addressing the issues with the format.
This is similar to starting a soccer league where you ignore the rule about not using hands and then complaining that FIFA won't make changes to their rules to address issues in your league.

CEDH needs to find their own governing body similar to duel commander.

I would advocate for a format split (which is essentially what you're suggesting with a renaming), but I suspect that would make cEDH wither and die, and it won't solve the first problem of people being disingenuous about their deck contents (and their frankly covert rule zero game style of "I just want to win, and if people are unprepared that is more likely to happen").

My proposed solution is for cEDH players to have a more nuanced Rule Zero conversation. If you look at the speed running community, there are plenty of categories that players compete in, often specific to their particular game. For example, Hollow Knight boasts 7 different categories, including True Ending, Any%, 112% (full completion), etc. Hades has near as many, including Fresh File, All Weapons, and different Heat levels. These are rule zero conversations in a non-Magic competitive context.

cEDH communities need to start adopting the rule zero conversation about how they want their games to play out. If a bunch of speedrunners can negotiate "any%", "Fresh file", "True Ending" or whatever based on their specific game, cEDH players can start -- as a community -- negotiating "No Thoracle", or "No Consult", or whatever comes out of the woodwork in six months. Will this eventually result in custom banlists? Sure. Arguably it's an eventual format split. But, if you don't...

The only alternatives to those avenues are to expect the RC to begin banning cards for competitive purposes (which they have explicitly said that they will not after Flash's exclusion) or to continue playing with the "If it's legal, it's fair" mentality where their games are often determined by Thoracle lines (which, frankly, is making cEDH social media personalities weep incessantly and annoyingly).

tl;dr cEDH needs to evolve into having rule zero conversations about 'problem cards', hope the RC changes the mission statement of the format, or just plain old suck it up.

I agree. Speed runners have a rule zero conversation at the beginning and eventually codify it into the rules of the category. cEDH need someone to codify and then maintain the format or stop expecting that rules committee will.

However, it will be hard to get traction because cEDH is a mixture of people wanting to play a balanced, competitive four player highlander format with commanders and people wanting to make combo decks/play EDH with no rule zero ( Having a new name might help encourage people to move to a new ban list and accept it as a different format.

tl;dr cEDH is a new and distinct format. It should not be treated as a subformat of commander because it was originally EDH with no rule zero. A new name might help people accept a separate ban list.

[DirkGently]

I disagree strongly. I think the migration of Modern/Standard players into EDH caused the power creep and pseudo-casual optimization mentality of casual EDH. You look at the big problem powercreep cards in casual, and you've got what: Korvold, Chulane, Kenrith, all the green draw effects and Dockside? Only Dockside is really a cEDH thing, and it was introduced in a precon, so it's not like it wouldn't have made it into casual anyways. If anything, as casual is has gotten powercrept, it's tilting ever more towards the supremacy of threats and value engine permanents. That's the opposite direction of cEDH's increasing tendency towards self-contained combos and playing Egyptian Rat Screw on the stack. Besides getting stronger, casual has not drifted towards cEDH in archetypes, staples or playstyle, which I think it would if cEDH really were causing the creep.

Also, again, criticizing cEDH players, rather than the format itself, does not support your argument and reads smug.

I was fairly clear that I don't think cEDH influence is the only thing, or even necessarily the main thing, leading to format power creep. But I think the evidence of its influence is there. I picked out a couple commanders that combo with another card and all of them have increased in usage within those decks in the past 6 years (all these numbers are from % usage, not raw numbers).

food chain is up 12% in prossh
winter orb is up 35% in derevi
ancestral statue is up 10% in animar
curiosity is up 14% and ophidian eye up 20% in niv-mizzet (and that's comparing the old niv-mizzet against the new one, when the new one gives you more options for synergies besides lolcombo)

As far as "egyptian rat screw on the stack", Mental Misstep I would say is pretty iconic for being amazing in that environment, and terrible outside of it. In 2016 the most popular commander for it (zur) ran it 5.3%. Now it's at 7% across all blue decks. That is a massive increase. I haven't looked at other counterspells to cherry pick, that was the first one that popped into my head.

EDH hasn't adopted the exact same combos as cEDH, but it has gotten increasingly tolerant of things popularized by cEDH. Can I prove a direct causal link between those two things? No, obviously not, but I think the idea that cEDH has had no impact whatsoever on EDH is kinda implausible.

I do agree that most of the format is focused more on big value engines - mark rosewater and his irritating enthusiasm for doubling things - but that doesn't mean the combo stuff isn't there. If anything, it makes it more impressive that the combo stuff has increased despite how much recent magic has primarily pushed big dumb value plays.


I didn't intend for it to read smug. I intended for it to read disdainful. Especially online, but also in person, there are a lot of cEDHers who look down their noses at EDHers, and who think they're hot %$#% because they can win in a format with no serious competition but would 0-x any tournament bigger than an FNM. I'm not saying that's all cEDHers, but for those people I have nothing but contempt.

[BeneTleilax]

I didn't intend for it to read smug. I intended for it to read disdainful.

This is why people think you're a dick. Because you go out of your way to be insulting. I don't play cEDH, but I've always found the anti-cEDH folks to be far more condescending and aggressive than the pro-cEDH ones, here especially.

EDH hasn't adopted the exact same combos as cEDH, but it has gotten increasingly tolerant of things popularized by cEDH. Can I prove a direct causal link between those two things? No, obviously not, but I think the idea that cEDH has had no impact whatsoever on EDH is kinda implausible.

I think you need some pretty firm evidence before you start declaring something an "existential threat".