With the way the commander economy is blown up, is the new optimal strategy in deck building to find the "2nd in class"?

[TheGildedGoose]

Welp while I just made this thread, I spent $55 on singles to enhance the Party Time deck (which also cost me $55 from my LGS) because I just had to add that Archivist of Oghma because it's a cleric 😐. Battle Angels of Tyr as well, but that's for zenith seeker itself lol.

Do as 3drinks says, not as 3drinks does.

😂😂😂

Man I can't believe I fell right into the new card trap. I wonder if with all the toys I just got, that I could do a Magic no-buy for a year.

Might as well call your ISP and ditch the mobile plan, too.

🎶You're only one spoiler season away 🎶

[Mookie]

@3drinks: Please get in the shame cube. It's for your own safety.

[3drinks]

Lmfao. Oh you guys 😂😂

[Igzex]

Jokes on you I never have to worry about the commander singles economy because I only play jank like dragon trib-*side-eyes the price of Ancient Copper Dragon*

[3drinks]

Jokes on you I never have to worry about the commander singles economy because I only play jank like dragon trib-*side-eyes the price of Ancient Copper Dragon*

Now you will feel my pain 😂

[BaronCappuccino]

Ancient Brass Dragon is 1/3 the value of my deck, or was at one point. It was ~50 when I first knew I needed it and could preorder, and it was ~30 when I placed my order. I needed the 70's D&D manual printing because this is my first blinged out deck. I was surprised. It's not a great card. It's a big scary 7 drop that's not particularly durable, and has to survive a trip around the table because it's got no innate haste.

[Dragoon]

Yeah, the Ancient Dragons are really pricey. I want all of them in both alternate arts but I don't exactly know if I should wait or buy them asap at this point ...

[DirkGently]

I've cracked the blue and black ones in alternate arts, and the first green one someone was willing to trade was also alternate art. So now I kinda feel obligated to get the white and red ones in alt art too...

[RowanKeltizar]

To address the OPs question, there are plenty of cards where 2nd best is probably good enough for casual play. Instead of Wheel of Fortune you could run Reforge the Soul Wheel of Misfortune Imposing Grandeur and probably my favorite Change of Fortune. Wheel of Fate could be ok if you can cast it with cascade.

If I'm building a new deck I will actively seek out budget replacements. In some cases though, that's difficult. Not all staples have a viable alternative.

I set aside $50-100 per month to spend on singles. It's my only "expendable" income. It's money I probably could have spent elsewhere but hey, I don't eat out that much. I only travel on a blue moon. My phone bill is low... so I justify it. Plus, that money doesn't just evaporate. I could recoup it if I needed to.

My biggest gripe with the game right now is the state of sealed product. I don't buy it, but it is the source of the singles that I do buy. I just wish they could get their quality control issues figured out, charge less for packs, and increase the value those packs have. Tons of cards could use with more regular reprints and they just keep reprinting the bulk rares and mythics to oblvion. I believe a happy middle ground is possible where base versions of many staples are affordable, but people still get to bling out their decks with expensive alt arts and foils. Wotc gets to make money and player base is happy to spend that money.

I worry that people are just going to get fed up with sealed product to the point of leaving the game. But it could take a crisis like that to change Wizard's policies and practices.

[Jemolk]

I worry that people are just going to get fed up with sealed product to the point of leaving the game. But it could take a crisis like that to change Wizard's policies and practices.

Alternatively, get so fed up with prices that we just start to proxy everything. Which, you know, with kitchen table being as much of a thing as it is, is a real risk if prices just don't ever drop to a reasonable level.

[Sinis]

Yeah, the Ancient Dragons are really pricey. I want all of them in both alternate arts but I don't exactly know if I should wait or buy them asap at this point ...

I might be late to this party, but... the analysis I've heard is that the EV on CLB is so bad that there will be legitimate scarcity for the most desirable mythics in the short term. Your Battle Angels, your Ancient Dragons, etc. are going to be pricy and will probably remain so. Obviously stuff like Volo will be cheap for a little bit, but I would venture to say that the Mythics are basically at their foreseeable floor.

Full Disclosure: I bought a single cycle of the rulebook frame non-foil ancient dragons because I'm a weirdo.

[Myllior]

Alternatively, get so fed up with prices that we just start to proxy everything. Which, you know, with kitchen table being as much of a thing as it is, is a real risk if prices just don't ever drop to a reasonable level.

This is pretty much where I'm headed, in the longer term. In the short term I'm downsizing from 10 decks to 6 and will start selling off parts of my collection that won't see immediate use. The prices associated with this game have become obscene and I loathe that my hobby has become an investment to be managed.

Obviously it's nice that we can recoup some (or even all) of our expenses on this game, but if I were starting fresh today I'd be 100% proxying from the get-go.

[DirkGently]

Alternatively, get so fed up with prices that we just start to proxy everything. Which, you know, with kitchen table being as much of a thing as it is, is a real risk if prices just don't ever drop to a reasonable level.

People have been proxying for decades. I was making decks from slips of printed-out paper back in college in 2010. Still, most people prefer not to proxy. It seems pretty unlikely that people are going to suddenly start proxying en-mass to a degree that makes a significant cut from wotc's profits.

I really don't buy the complaints that the game has become unaffordable, especially as a new feature. Precons are a bit more expensive than they used to be, which is annoying, but they've also gotten progressively stronger and are still a pretty cheap-buy in compared to building from scratch. While some chase mythics end up being fairly pricey (really wish I'd picked up an ancient copper dragon earlier...or maybe 2...), the majority of commander-playable rares end up at bargain-basement prices. We haven't seen a JTMS-level mythic in a long time.

Sure, reserved list cards are expensive, but you don't need reserved-list rares to compete in commander. It's a casual format. And if the power level of your meta is so high that you actually do, then maybe consider trying to change that? It's like saying "man, go-karting is such an expensive hobby now that all my friends are driving ferraris."

[PrimevalCommander]

I really don't buy the complaints that the game has become unaffordable, especially as a new feature. Precons are a bit more expensive than they used to be, which is annoying, but they've also gotten progressively stronger and are still a pretty cheap-buy in compared to building from scratch. While some chase mythics end up being fairly pricey (really wish I'd picked up an ancient copper dragon earlier...or maybe 2...), the majority of commander-playable rares end up at bargain-basement prices. We haven't seen a JTMS-level mythic in a long time.

What qualifies as a JTMS-level mythic? Because JTMS is utterly medium in commander, and when in standard commanded similar prices as a slew of new cards that have been printed for modern. See Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer and Wrenn and Six, and Force of Negation. Commander-playable is a pretty low bar, but commander-powerful does seem to be creeping up in price on average, especially at Mythic. White has been hit particularly hard with high demand for powerful cards, and the prices are not bargain-basement.

A small selection of Commander Bombs from recent years, with dozen's more at $10-$20 that I just ask "Why?"
The Great Henge, Old Gnawbone, Teferi's Protection, Fierce Guardianship, Jeska's Will, Smothering Tithe, Ancient Copper Dragon, Finale of Devastation

[TheGildedGoose]

A small selection of Commander Bombs from recent years, with dozen's more at $10-$20 that I just ask "Why?"
The Great Henge, Old Gnawbone, Teferi's Protection, Fierce Guardianship, Jeska's Will, Smothering Tithe, Ancient Copper Dragon, Finale of Devastation

The Meathook Massacre, Deflecting Swat, Dockside Extortionist...

I suppose "JTMS-level" is a nebulous criterion, since its price was entirely driven by competitive format demand and it reached over $100, but there are still incredibly expensive cards that are very good to great cards in EDH.

[PrimevalCommander]

I forgot about Meathook Massacre because it pre-released so expensive, and never went down, that I just wrote it out of my mind .

As said early in the discussion, budget picks or second tier picks have been a deckbuilding go-to since the commander format's inception. That will always be a valid strategy. Budget is a completely personal criteria and varies greatly from one individual to the next. Commander was built on using cards that were neglected by other formats. You could probably ask the question a different way; "With the magic economy blowing up, is the most common building strategy for Commander no longer using second-in-class picks?". While writing this very paragraph is making me realize I have been chasing all the $$ power cards, when that was never what made this format great. I have a huge box of powercrept cards that could more than likely construct 2-3 fully functional decks out of cards deemed too weak for today's Commander Format. Traded my Onslaught foil Explosive Vegetation and it felt like a piece of EDH history I was giving away.

I recently picked up the Cabaretti precon for the sole purpose of playing it as-is in regular pods. I think I bought one precon from Commander 2011 and even then I never actually played the deck before parting it out. Though back then the decks were hardly worth playing as-is compared to now.

[DirkGently]

What qualifies as a JTMS-level mythic?

I just meant in terms of price for a new card. JTMS peaked at $120 iirc, and that's $160 with inflation. I don't recall any card getting close to that in recent memory, not even ragavan. You're right that it's mediocre in commander.

prices are not bargain-basement.

There are definitely cards that cost a not-insignificant amount of money. But you don't need those specific cards to build a viable deck. Barely more than 10 rares in SNC are more than a dollar (5 of those being lands), with strong cards like Rabble Rousing, Brokers Ascendancy, Extraction Specialist, Ziatora's Envoy. Evelyn, the Covetous, Depopulate, Maestros Ascendancy, Endless Detour all below a buck, and that's not even looking at commons and uncommons. And there's only a couple mythics above $5, and mostly ones that are mediocre in commander. And older sets are even cheaper, especially once they rotate. You could buy a precon off the shelf, throw a handful of good dollar rares in there, and have a perfectly viable deck in the vast majority of play spaces.

People get hung up on not being able to afford specific cards. If this was a competitive format, that could be an issue, but it's not, and it isn't. Just play other cards. That's what you did before they were printed. Unless you're actually unable to keep pace with your playgroup, it's not a terribly serious issue imo. There have been thousands of strong commander cards in the past few years. The vast majority are plenty affordable. And the ones that aren't will probably get reprinted eventually.

In other formats you actually need specific cards to compete, 1v1 means you need to match power level much more closely to win, and you need 4x cards which are usually far more expensive than commander cards. I can understand people complaining about costs in those formats, but for commander? C'mon. You want to play with the shiny toys, which is fair, so do I, but you don't need them to compete. Don't make it sound like a bigger problem than it is. The minimum price to buy in hasn't really changed by much.

[Gentle Giant]

Fully agree with Dirk: with all the stuff they're printing these days, I feel like a veritable Scrooge McDuck diving through all the super cheap interesting/cool cards. I spent quite a lot on singles for both Capenna and Baldur's Gate (at least, for my standards), that might've gotten me 1 Ancient Copper Dragon , an Archivist of Oghma, and maybe two other hot button staples. Instead, I have over 200 new cards to brew with!
Honestly, I'm glad they've learned how to reign it in but keep things interesting/brewable.

[3drinks]

People get hung up on not being able to afford specific cards. If this was a competitive format, that could be an issue, but it's not, and it isn't. Just play other cards. That's what you did before they were printed. Unless you're actually unable to keep pace with your playgroup, it's not a terribly serious issue imo. There have been thousands of strong commander cards in the past few years. The vast majority are plenty affordable. And the ones that aren't will probably get reprinted eventually.

This resonates with me. As I get excited to brew with Agent Gut of the Iron Throne (what even is the "iron throne" and why do they reward their agents for things dying? Are they an assassin's guild? It sounds fascinating), I'm reminded that I can do very well with the same bloodghasts I had years ago, and keep pace with the same wellsprings we've had for roughly a decade. The newest card for such a deck is (and this goes for a lot of decks I think) is Mayhem Devil, an uncommon. An incredibly sharp-pointed uncommon that will go very far.

If you can get disconnected from the mass product shilling of seemingly every set, and let the stuff simmer down, you realize you can easily get by without the latest hotness. Except the white power up cards, but that's a topic for another thread.

[Mookie]

For every set, I make a list of the cards I'm interested in picking up... and looking at my current buylist, it's 5% pushed white EDH cards, 5% lands, 5% cross-format all-stars, 5% splashy mythics.... and 80% bulk jank. It's very easy for me to drop the 20% of my wishlist that is actually expensive and just brew with the cheap stuff. It may not result in the strongest or most optimal decks, but it also cuts out almost all of the cost.