Unreleased and New Card Discussion

[Dunadain]

Oh wait, I have to make the joke:

We did it bois, we found a way to break Mind Over Matter.

[TheAmericanSpirit]

@toctheyounger Game Knights gets to cheese on everything. They're EDH's golden boys, or haven't you heard?

My prescription: brace yourself.

[toctheyounger]

@toctheyounger Game Knights gets to cheese on everything. They're EDH's golden boys, or haven't you heard?

My prescription: brace yourself.

I know, it's the gross side of seeing crossovers of fandoms. You get creators you don't like hamming it up and pretending to like the same stuff you do.

I'll be alright, I just definitely won't watch it.
"I play The One Ring."

literally everyone on the set of Game Knights: "OOOOOOOooooOOooOOoOohh"

🤮🤮🤮

[Dunadain]

So on a more general note, are there ANY good EDH content creators? I don't really see the point in dunking on random yt so I don't talk about it much, but seriously, 60 card eternal formats have people like Bosh n' roll, Andrew Meducci, Thraben University, Limited has a ton of great streamers, nobody cares about standard and we've got... Game Knights and Commander's Quarter.

Again, I don't really feel the need to make fun of other people for enjoying their content, but do any of you have recommendations for EDH channels with a bit more substance?

[Venedrex]

So on a more general note, are there ANY good EDH content creators? I don't really see the point in dunking on random yt so I don't talk about it much, but seriously, 60 card eternal formats have people like Bosh n' roll, Andrew Meducci, Thraben University, Limited has a ton of great streamers, nobody cares about standard and we've got... Game Knights and Commander's Quarter.

Again, I don't really feel the need to make fun of other people for enjoying their content, but do any of you have recommendations for EDH channels with a bit more substance?

Quintessential Commander is pretty good imho. They have a lot of banter and they don't overedit it seems. MTG Muddstah I watch every once in a blue moon as sort of a background video. Muddstah is barebones production, but my biggest concern with the channel is the amount of gameplay mistakes, which has led to me watching less and less. I get that everyone makes mistakes, but.. when you see multiple games with multiple mistakes that alter the end result of the game it can get old. But I do like the variety of decks that appear on his channel.

LoadingReadyRun sometimes has fun games, but they can be a mixed bag for me personally. Some games are 4 hour slugfests that get a little boring to watch, while others are entertaining and full of fun plays. The game they played with the new Innistrad commander decks in particular was very entertaining for me anyway. They also have a good chunk of mistakes sometimes, but they seem to catch them because they often have a judge on hand or playing with them.

[toctheyounger]

So on a more general note, are there ANY good EDH content creators? I don't really see the point in dunking on random yt so I don't talk about it much, but seriously, 60 card eternal formats have people like Bosh n' roll, Andrew Meducci, Thraben University, Limited has a ton of great streamers, nobody cares about standard and we've got... Game Knights and Commander's Quarter.

Again, I don't really feel the need to make fun of other people for enjoying their content, but do any of you have recommendations for EDH channels with a bit more substance?

I mostly watch cedh. Partly because it's quicker to watch and partly because the plays are tighter, but there's a couple of good channels that spill over into casual from time to time or there's some bleed over.

The Spike Feeders are pretty good, although they're less active now than they have been in the past. They do a good mix of cedh and casual games, too.

Play to Win do specifically cedh games but their games are pretty awesome.

Casually Competitive have just started up again. They're like power level 8 - competitive but not optimal, their games are good.

My favorite though is Rebell Son. She doesn't do a ton of gameplay per se, but when she does her formatting is cool and the videos are great. Her skits are hilarious, too. All will be two was the best.

CovertgoBlue has the 'worst possible' commander show. It's a static pod of him and 3 mates, and the premise they talk about for rule zero is the 'worst possible' thing their decks do. It's not bad. A little bit longer format than I have time for but it's about as close to a true 7 as you can get.

The Nitpicking Nerds are high power casual. They do mostly informative vids, but they do have some gameplay vids too. I like their games less than I thought I would, but it's again 7 gameplay that can be enjoyable.

Lastly, back when Local Game Guy was The 99, his Brew Wars series was pretty awesome. Extremely high production value with mid to high level decks and really solid gameplay with prominent content creators around the format.

[duducrash]

Gandalf seems like a saga design before sagas were a design

[Hermes_]

so, I just realized that with the Superfriends deck not having green side steps having to reprint Doubling Season

[DirkGently]

@Dunadain I think a big part of the issue is that commander is a way more personal format. Standard, everyone wants to have a good deck and win. Some people will avoid or prefer certain types of decks, but ultimately spikes are running the show. In commander, it's so broad. First of all, you've got a wide swath of people who suck at the game and have no aspirations to stop sucking. They just want to hang out and play. Among people who are interested in winning, a lot of them (myself included) have much more elaborate restrictions about what they will and won't do, both in terms of deckbuilding and playing. And then there's the sliding scale from draft chaff to cEDH to contend with. And the experience gap, which will completely change the way you'd talk about strategy between a newer and a more experienced player. Finally, square that, because all the variation that a player has applies equally to the rest of the table, making any attempt to talk about game situations almost impossible compared to something like standard that has a much lower variation of matchups.

For all those reasons, trying to find someone to cater to your particular tastes may be near impossible, and because of that, it's harder to get noticed out of the crowd. Which is probably why content targeted more for new players, who at least enter the format in a similar place, is more successful than more serious discussion of the format.

At least that's my best explanation. Because yeah EDH content is pretty horrendous tbh.

[pokken]

I have watched a few games of commander and all things considered its one of the most tedious ways to engage with magic for me.

there are too many issues to list. No one knows the rules and no one knows the cards so most games wind up being just a bunch of monkeys throwing %$#% around. Commander is closer to a game of ow my balls than anyone wants to admit already. Putting it under a microscope just makes it more obvious.

[RedCheese]

So im not the only one that isn't a fan of Game Knights around here then XD

I'm elss excited for this set after only recently knowing about their "intepretation" of certain characters, giving me the impression they don't respect the IP.

[Mookie]

Gandalf the Grey looks... sort of meh? I suppose he's sort of like an upgraded Rootha, Mercurial Artist? I assume there's something interesting to do with him, but definitely an odd combination of abilities for a spellslinger commander.

The One Ring looks quite strong - a mix between Phyrexian Arena and Mind Unbound / The Magic Mirror. I've actually been testing out The Magic Mirror as a reanimation target in Sharuum, so having something that can feasibly be hardcast is certainly interesting. Throw in Voltaic Key / Shabraz, the Skyshark / etc for extra value... or try to loop it every turn for pseudo-immortality.

re: EDH content - I enjoy watching the MTGGoldfish commander channel occasionally. They do tend towards 2+ hour grindfests with minimal editing though, so I don't always make it through in a single sitting. I've watched a few other channels in the past, but none I would recommend at the moment.

...I spent like an hour writing this post to try to come up with an explanation why EDH content tends to be that of other formats, but I haven't found any reasonable hypotheses. The best one I could arrive at is 'EDH is a primarily a casual format, so most of the content is also pretty casual'. When I watch a pro play Legacy / Modern / etc., they'll usually have good commentary regarding their thought process and their opponent's plays... but there aren't as many pros playing casual formats. The high level of format variance also makes it much more challenging to talk about opponents' decks, particularly if you only ever play against them once.

...that said, I do think part of the issue is structural. If I'm watching one person play on MTGO or Arena, they can spend time and commentate the game as they play. On the other hand, if I'm watching a table of four play a game of Commander, they can't really talk about their hand or lines of play in the moment. If they want to add analysis, they'll need to go back and commentate it afterwards, which can take a long time (assuming they even recall what was going through their mind in the first place). As a result, most commander content I see has either real-time banter / table talk or is a more basic factual summary of previously-recorded gameplay.

[TheGildedGoose]

So on a more general note, are there ANY good EDH content creators? I don't really see the point in dunking on random yt so I don't talk about it much, but seriously, 60 card eternal formats have people like Bosh n' roll, Andrew Meducci, Thraben University, Limited has a ton of great streamers, nobody cares about standard and we've got... Game Knights and Commander's Quarter.

Again, I don't really feel the need to make fun of other people for enjoying their content, but do any of you have recommendations for EDH channels with a bit more substance?

The Brian Weissman has a YouTube channel where he analyzes his 1v1 EDH games on MTGO. It's not exactly compelling gameplay, but the analysis and reasoning he gives are second to none. Not everything is applicable to multiplayer of course but in terms of deck construction and lines of play, there's no one better.

I find most other EDH content creators either unbearably annoying, wrong, or both, honestly. Live play videos are boring and frustrating, and as I alluded to in that thread I made, I think there's not a lot of interesting analysis of EDH going on. Nitpicking Nerds are close, but their self-imposed breakneck pace of producing content means they put out a lot of ill-considered dreck. I want to fill that gap a little bit, but then I remember that I'm extremely lazy and easily discouraged, so maybe I shouldn't invest in Adobe Premiere.

[Igzex]

I wish I could be as excited about playing terribly as the Game Knights people are...

[TheGildedGoose]

I wish I could be as excited about playing terribly as the Game Knights people are...

I'm okay with bad plays and rules fiascos. I'm not okay with people that make me cringe so hard I need medical attention.

[toctheyounger]

Honestly, these critiques are why I watch cedh %$#%. Some of it is dross. The Good stuff is pretty high level sequencing and theory and seeing it in action with quality gameplay. Rebell pauses her gameplay and overlays it with her thoughts on strategy and game theory to back up her sequencing. It flows really well and works great. Dylan and Cam from play to win do the same. Tyler from play to win is just super good, doesn't really make misplays. Even some of the podcast are worth just listening to.

Mostly if you're not interested in that level of play it's a bit abstracted, sure, but I found over time most of the actual game theory and strategy I hear from this area of play I agree with. It's infinitely better than anything you see from the command zone or commanders quarters. Those two channels to me are to strategy what clickbait is to scientific articles. Even for casuals their advice is actively bad.

[TheGildedGoose]

Honestly, these critiques are why I watch cedh %$#%. Some of it is dross. The Good stuff is pretty high level sequencing and theory and seeing it in action with quality gameplay. Rebell pauses her gameplay and overlays it with her thoughts on strategy and game theory to back up her sequencing. It flows really well and works great. Dylan and Cam from play to win do the same. Tyler from play to win is just super good, doesn't really make misplays. Even some of the podcast are worth just listening to.

Mostly if you're not interested in that level of play it's a bit abstracted, sure, but I found over time most of the actual game theory and strategy I hear from this area of play I agree with. It's infinitely better than anything you see from the command zone or commanders quarters. Those two channels to me are to strategy what clickbait is to scientific articles. Even for casuals their advice is actively bad.

I'll have to give Rebell and Play to Win a look. I tend to eschew cEDH content because it's at a tier I don't play at, but theory is theory regardless of tier. I'm always looking to up my game and hearing other people explain their thought processes nourishes me.

[toctheyounger]

Honestly, these critiques are why I watch cedh %$#%. Some of it is dross. The Good stuff is pretty high level sequencing and theory and seeing it in action with quality gameplay. Rebell pauses her gameplay and overlays it with her thoughts on strategy and game theory to back up her sequencing. It flows really well and works great. Dylan and Cam from play to win do the same. Tyler from play to win is just super good, doesn't really make misplays. Even some of the podcast are worth just listening to.

Mostly if you're not interested in that level of play it's a bit abstracted, sure, but I found over time most of the actual game theory and strategy I hear from this area of play I agree with. It's infinitely better than anything you see from the command zone or commanders quarters. Those two channels to me are to strategy what clickbait is to scientific articles. Even for casuals their advice is actively bad.

I'll have to give Rebell and Play to Win a look. I tend to eschew cEDH content because it's at a tier I don't play at, but theory is theory regardless of tier. I'm always looking to up my game and hearing other people explain their thought processes nourishes me.

Go for Rebell. Play to Win is mostly a gameplay channel. The hosts are awesome guys, but most of the allure is seeing how intense the games can be and watching Tyler be pretty amazing at this game. Which IS good, but if you're not interested in cedh specifically or that meta in general some of the lines might be a little boring. It's not ALL thoracle but those lines definitely appear.

Rebell has a huge variety of vids on her channel. Like I say some are funny, there's tons of brews, and she does a few series style things too. Commander school is little 5 minute tutorials of some of the more abstract concepts in the game.

Her gameplay is mixed in production value. She started just taking a smartphone to her lgs and passing it round the table as turns pass, which is novel if nothing else. The latest gameplay vid, of which there is only one so far, is the one with strategy interspersed. Honestly it works really well and doesn't hold up the flow of the game at all. She kinda does more weird fringe brews too. Mostly she plays a sans black wild pile deck for cedh which just tries to stax the board and win through combat. It actually does pretty well.

Recently too she's been on a few other channels. And nowadays Prof from TCC outsources his brewing to her too. The last commander game on his channel had Gavin Verhey playing her build.

[TheAmericanSpirit]

I'm just going to shout out the cardmarket channel as a shining spot in the rancid piles of "content". They don't play EDH a lot, but their gameplay videos have better production than Game Knights imo and are simultaneously 1000% less annoying and in-your-face. They've also got more than a few pros like Thoralf, karsten, and Mengucci popping on play, so they're not inundated with stupid mistakes or gameplay errors.

[5colorsrainbow]

Personally I don't care for live play, sometimes I watch friends stream arena but we typically are talking about stuff outside of the game itself while we do ( like we'll talk magic stuff still but not the game they are playing).

As for content creators i typically just to go to a little bit of everybody (thanks for some suggestions here and part of the reason I'm even here). I don't think I'm The best deck builder necessarily so I like to get a range of ideas of how to go about it. As @DirkGently brings up EDH is such a broad format it's hard to find someone who exactly fits your taste and playstyle so typically if there's a commander I want to build around I look at what other people have to say about it and if they have any interesting ideas that could go along with it.

[RedCheese]

I watch more Yu-Gi-Oh content than MTG, and i don't play yu-gi-oh in real card format lol.

I guess is because rather play the game instead of watching, specially EDH where the social part makes a diference. You want to be there, you want to sue your crafted deck. Watching some one else play EDH, a mroe casual format, isn't as engaging. Specially not things like Limited where your deck si random or compettive formats where you aspire to make the ebst deck possible.

[toctheyounger]

Well there's more spoilers incoming. Including Tom %$#% Bombadil.

Honestly flavor wise so far these look super good.

[Venedrex]

Well there's more spoilers incoming. Including Tom %$#% Bombadil.

Honestly flavor wise so far these look super good.

Indeed. I really like that food is returning, so flavorful.

Cons, I'm starting to get annoyed that we don't look to be getting a Ring equipment or a DFC Gandalf, but oh well.

Also, if one of you scallywags opens THE one ring, I will fight you. JK

Oh, and they confirmed, no planeswalkers in the set which surprised me.

We also saw that there will be A Riders of Rohan commander deck, and it is in Jeskai colors so, horsemanship is seeming really likely right about now, since they already mentioned having trouble with not enough cards that could have flying, so my guess is most of the cards in the set that would have flying (aka the blue cards), are represented as cavalry and have horsemanship instead. Hence the precon being Jeskai.

[RedCheese]

Cool cards and a flavor fail with the Aragorn + Arwen card.........

[Mookie]

Reprieve is effectively a white Remand. I assume that has some implications, given that the set is going to be Modern-legal. At the very least, it's a nice addition to white's toolbox, which is currently pretty light on stack interaction. (also: Sunforger)