FoodChainGoblins wrote: ↑4 years ago
Basically my point is that no one wants to play Commander against me if I play good cards or even play well for that matter. So I have to dumb down my decks. I am a person who gets too extreme at times, so if I'm gonna play a crap deck, it really will be a crap deck. It will literally just have no win-cons and cards to %$#% with people. I play Magic to win, not to lose. Sorry, not sorry. Even when I played crap decks in the past, I played them because of a win percentage that I had (Cragganwick Cremator or Elementals). Once it goes south, I ditch the deck. It's no fun anymore. I loved, loved the game play from Knight Retreat, but after 2-3 months of only a 61% win percentage, I figured the deck was not for me (I wasn't a good enough pilot or whatever the case)
I had somewhat the same problem when we formed a commander group. I was the only one that had access to so many cards (been playing consistently since 2013, started in 2008) and my first decks were extremely powerful when compared to theirs, even to a friend's from the Modern LGS. So I've taken it as a challenge to build my decks closer to them, while also empowering theirs by giving them cards (oftentimes outright gifting them) and fixing their deck building mistakes.
Plus I can finally play cards that are bad in Modern. Angel Tribal, Thopter/Servo Tribal, Tezzert Tribal, (Almost) Everything Ravnica Niv etc. Adding Planechase to the mix also helps the fun by adding incredible randomness and providing challenges in trying to navigate those weird circumstances.
I, like you, play to win -and probably have the most wins in that playgroup-, but as long as everyone did their thing or as
@cfusionpm said something amzing, weird, memorable happened, then winning is secondary or even lower.
It may be that Commander isn't for you or it may be that you haven't found the one(s) that suit you.
cfusionpm wrote: ↑4 years ago
If this is the case, not only does it show a fundamental disconnect to understanding what people like about competitive constructed formats, it also shows the fundamental disconnect in understanding Commander. Thank God that someone other than WOTC runs the rules committee for EDH.
I can see where you're coming from, but two things:
1. The very social nature of commander helps with it not needing an "official" banlist.
2. They have %$#% up many times. Coalition Victory still banned, took them years to ban Iona just as some examples.
The social nature can be a double edged sword too. If you go into a random playgroup, there's no guarantee of the power level of the group so you may end up miserable or make others miserable. I've also had people whining because my 4C and 5C decks have near perfect manabases due to shock/fetches.
FoodChainGoblins wrote: ↑4 years ago
Thank you. They did not even want to concede that point. I don't want to own 10 Commander decks, rather I don't want to pay for 10 commander decks so I have a 1, 2, and so on all the way to 10. It's much too expensive and I don't have the time. I just have 1 deck. If someone asks, "do you want to play commander" and I have time, that's the deck that I'll break out. I don't want to have to go through 5 min. of conversation on what's okay and what's not. One Commander game takes enough time.
You can be fine with 2-3, as long as they encompass the range 5-8, most players are there. cEDH is 9-10 and even against them an 8 isn't dead in the water.