the negative connotation of the term cEDH

[Yatsufusa]

One thing I think may have a somewhat profound impact on the current less-than-perfect road we find ourselves on is the massive shift to commander as a common, probably the most common, beginner format. It sounds a bit myopic to say that they way I progressed through the game was the ideal way, but I think it did provide me with some perspective that a lot of new players lack.

Imo, the ideal way to get into magic is to start playing 60(+) card casual. Very little, if any, strategy advice, just try stuff and see what works. Gradually decks get more tuned and eventually you start thinking "hmm, maybe I should get into competitive magic." So you go into standard (or limited but we'll focus on standard). If you like it, great, keep doing it. If you get annoyed about rotation or want a higher power level, switch to modern/legacy/vintage. However - and this is the path I ended up on - if you find the idea of an established meta very boring and want to be able to brew your own decks and still compete, at that point get into commander. Then you can appreciate the freedom of a format that isn't built optimally, where the number of viable decks is practically infinite. Where you can play those old cards from your 60-cards that could never be competitively viable. A massive canvas to paint whatever you like onto.

However, I think what's happening nowadays is that people START on EDH, or at least very early move to EDH. They have little experience with other competitive formats, and so they don't really appreciate what commander is an escape from. They're still in the mindset of optimization, which players who took the ^ path got out of their system on their road towards standard. So when they see a powerful commander deck, they're impressed. They want to do it too. They don't see the road that optimization leads toward - a settled meta with far less room for creativity and variety.

My whole Arena-Generation analysis technically already answered this. We can rant that our way of joining the format (start with Limited, go into 60-Card constructed then retire into EDH with our hoard of cards we've gotten from said experience) is "the ideal way", but reality has already shifted in light of Arena. The new generation, as well as the upcoming ones entering paper via this format, with their skills learnt from Arena instead of our "pathing" adopt a completely different view and it's not necessarily their fault.

They have no hoard to draw from because their experiences are from an online client that doesn't translate to excessive cardboard lying about. They also have more than double the number of cards from the whole history to look back on compared to us when we started out, which means they are more reliant on the technologies now available to help refine their choices (yes, unfortunately to the point of straight-up net-decking even). They have little incentive to fork out money for niche, obscure, old cards "just for fun", be it because they're used to playing MTG for free / low costs, or felt they paid enough on Arena so they're looking for power-value for IRL cardboard, the nearest compromise is probably their very first precon for a grasp of the format itself only, assuming they weren't already parachuted in by someone else.

Also, more of these newer generation players also play other video games and are more attuned to the idea of progression. Just like you said our "ideal progression path" was through limited, then 60-card constructed before EDH and they lacked that, it's just natural progression they favor cEDH advice of optimization because it embodies the progression they so desire. To state that as a "poison" is akin to saying our Limited and 60-Card constructed experiences were also of the same quantity. Meanwhile EDH itself can't seem to generate a counter-offer to attract these new talents directly, ever since our old "ideal progression path" more or less got extinguished? Does that ironically make casual EDH similarly stagnant instead?

EDH was an "antidote" born out of the "poison" that was 60-card constructed... a decade ago. Now the new "poison" is cEDH, but to expect the same antidote to work exactly the same is a fool's errand. I can see from your other posts that you just want them out, to define themselves separately as though they were their own "60-card constructed" so that EDH can regain its "antidote effectiveness", but it isn't so simple. The cEDH players who also wanted that already did that, splintered themselves into their own private groups, as so many others have attested here. Those who remain with the deliberate intent to pubstomp will always remain because that's exactly what they want (to pubstomp), to just tell them to leave is contradictory to them and without actual actions, means nothing.

Then remains the third group, the unsure. The new (Arena) generation of players who are still on a progression climb. Some of them will find comfort in true cEDH and join the splintered groups. Others will feel the same as us of the days of old and shift into EDH. Then there will always be black sheep who stay for Pubstomping (there were folks from our generation of old which did exactly that, moved from 60-card constructed to Pubstomping even back then, the exact group you mentioned to "be frustrated they couldn't cut it in 60-card", but they are subset of black sheep and not even cEDH players because they never splintered and couldn't have originated from there).

But another line is blurred, due to power-levels rising across the board, it causes a weird momentum shift where Pubstompers are finding it hard to pubstomp and the decks that would be considered Pubstompers (and ran by them) a decade ago are the de-facto norm of today's players (new or old). In other words, a generational shift. If you walk into an LGS and it turns out every game you have has 3 "pubstompers", then what exactly is the norm? Does that make us the outlier, the "Pubstomped" that needs to be on the lookout for similar players to form our own splinter groups instead? Does the title of Commander pass to the majority of "Pubstomp-level" decks that aren't quite cEDH but aren't "Pubstomped" decks either? Does the perspective they lack change to become that the perspective we have to be outdated instead? Do we claim them to be invading when reality is that they're already dominating?

When the average player that joined in 2020/21/22 has a deck that "pubstomps" a veteran from 2010 and the average game consists of at least 75% of those new players, are we just going to call them "cEDH Demons" and lump them with the splintered groups that already left a long time ago? Sure, we might do that here in our safe corner of the internet, but in reality I've seen LGS metas just adapt, either the veterans splinter off (or leave the game if they can't) or adopt to the higher powers of play (that's still not at cEDH level). I can't speak for MTGO or other online formats, but only from what I've seen on the ground in paper. In fact, some folks that had to reduce playtime (or leave) due to life also find it a great companion of a reason.

[DirkGently]

My whole Arena-Generation analysis technically already answered this. We can rant that our way of joining the format (start with Limited, go into 60-Card constructed then retire into EDH with our hoard of cards we've gotten from said experience) is "the ideal way", but reality has already shifted in light of Arena. The new generation, as well as the upcoming ones entering paper via this format, with their skills learnt from Arena instead of our "pathing" adopt a completely different view and it's not necessarily their fault.

They have no hoard to draw from because their experiences are from an online client that doesn't translate to excessive cardboard lying about. They also have more than double the number of cards from the whole history to look back on compared to us when we started out, which means they are more reliant on the technologies now available to help refine their choices (yes, unfortunately to the point of straight-up net-decking even). They have little incentive to fork out money for niche, obscure, old cards "just for fun", be it because they're used to playing MTG for free / low costs, or felt they paid enough on Arena so they're looking for power-value for IRL cardboard, the nearest compromise is probably their very first precon for a grasp of the format itself only, assuming they weren't already parachuted in by someone else.

I'm not sure how Arena factors into it all tbh.

In some ways I think it could be a good thing. Standard was becoming less and less popular as an onboarding format as EDH rose to popularity, preventing players from being properly tempered in the fires of tedious meta grinding. Arena, since it doesn't (and probably can't) support proper EDH, forces people to play standard again.

But on the other hand, it can shorten the 60-card casual phase from years (at least in my case) down to an afternoon. They don't get to experience as much of the fun of working on your own, personal, janky decklist, which is a core part of what commander tries to recapture for those of us who are too jaded to attempt it in competitive formats. It also makes it much easier to spend a very short time playing standard, decide "meh, I lost 3 games, guess it's not for me" leaving them somewhat under-"tempered" compared to someone who went to the hassle of putting together actual cardboard standard decks. It's a lot harder to give it up quickly with that extra level of investment, I think. So when cardboard players give up on standard, it's less likely to be a passing fancy, and more likely to be real exhaustion with the meta - at which point they're in a better place, imo, for EDH.

Not having a physical collection is a bummer. And it's also true that, because of the much more rapid pace of arena (no more 1-per-week FNM, you can get a season's worth of grinding done in a slow weekend) people are probably less likely to experience a wide variety of cards before burning out on Arena - even with today's typhoon of card releases. That probably means less yearning for the past (another big part of the draw of commander, imo), since the past was only a few months ago.

Also, more of these newer generation players also play other video games and are more attuned to the idea of progression. Just like you said our "ideal progression path" was through limited, then 60-card constructed before EDH and they lacked that, it's just natural progression they favor cEDH advice of optimization because it embodies the progression they so desire.

agree.

To state that as a "poison" is akin to saying our Limited and 60-Card constructed experiences were also of the same quantity.

Hey hey hey, don't lump limited into this. Limited does not have remotely the same kind of meta stagnation as 60-card does. I think a lot of people play limited and commander because they both offer much greater variety than 60-card (or at least, that's why I do those two formats exclusively - a lot of people I talk to at prereleases do those two formats too, but I guess it might just be that they're already at a limited event and commander is just the most popular format).

Meanwhile EDH itself can't seem to generate a counter-offer to attract these new talents directly, ever since our old "ideal progression path" more or less got extinguished? Does that ironically make casual EDH similarly stagnant instead?

I think the original sin of the format was in trying to expand it. EDH shouldn't be trying so hard to attract people at all. Its role historically was as a place for people to go when they got sick of the grind of competitive constructed. Unfortunately that's no longer its role, though. Or at least it's also pulling double-duty as an onboarding format.

EDH was an "antidote" born out of the "poison" that was 60-card constructed... a decade ago.

It still is that, I think. It's just gotten messier.

Now the new "poison" is cEDH, but to expect the same antidote to work exactly the same is a fool's errand. I can see from your other posts that you just want them out, to define themselves separately as though they were their own "60-card constructed" so that EDH can regain its "antidote effectiveness", but it isn't so simple. The cEDH players who also wanted that already did that, splintered themselves into their own private groups, as so many others have attested here. Those who remain with the deliberate intent to pubstomp will always remain because that's exactly what they want (to pubstomp), to just tell them to leave is contradictory to them and without actual actions, means nothing.

I think there are also quite a few people who might want to play in more isolated groups but simply don't have access to them. So they come to LGS commander nights trying to find like-minded players, and instead find a lot of new players who fall into the patterns I've already explained. I don't think anyone is being a villain in this pattern - perhaps some people who are intentionally pubstomping, but I think that's a comparative rarity. But nevertheless, the pattern is a problem.

Then remains the third group, the unsure. The new (Arena) generation of players who are still on a progression climb. Some of them will find comfort in true cEDH and join the splintered groups. Others will feel the same as us of the days of old and shift into EDH. Then there will always be black sheep who stay for Pubstomping (there were folks from our generation of old which did exactly that, moved from 60-card constructed to Pubstomping even back then, the exact group you mentioned to "be frustrated they couldn't cut it in 60-card", but they are subset of black sheep and not even cEDH players because they never splintered and couldn't have originated from there).

I mean, hopefully, but because of the growth of the format it feels like there's always going to be a lot more of those "on the progression climb" playing pseudo-cEDH decks than those who know what they're doing and have decided to sit firmly on one side of the fence or the other.

Ofc, there are also quite a few people who just don't have much of a competitive itch at all and never try for cEDH simply because they don't take the game very seriously. Which is fine, ofc, in a way they're sorta the new bedrock of the format, I think, because they're unlikely to be moved competitive-ward. Just like the old bedrock - i.e. me and other long-time players - were unlikely to be moved into cEDH because of a desire to avoid meta stagnation.

But another line is blurred, due to power-levels rising across the board, it causes a weird momentum shift where Pubstompers are finding it hard to pubstomp and the decks that would be considered Pubstompers (and ran by them) a decade ago are the de-facto norm of today's players (new or old). In other words, a generational shift. If you walk into an LGS and it turns out every game you have has 3 "pubstompers", then what exactly is the norm? Does that make us the outlier, the "Pubstomped" that needs to be on the lookout for similar players to form our own splinter groups instead? Does the title of Commander pass to the majority of "Pubstomp-level" decks that aren't quite cEDH but aren't "Pubstomped" decks either? Does the perspective they lack change to become that the perspective we have to be outdated instead? Do we claim them to be invading when reality is that they're already dominating?

It really varies in my experience. And ofc everyone's line is different. I think some would look at some of my decks and consider them too powerful to play at a casual table. I run a lot of powerful cards, but always in the service of doing something experimental. And almost all my decks try to win in a "fair" way (generally - moderate amounts of [combat] damage over time). But optimizing in that way can be a bit of a lonely task in a format where so much of the playerbase is inexperienced and doesn't appreciate the nuance of power levels, especially in a format this complex. Cue world's smallest violin.

But anyway, I've seen metas where there's a fairly high percentage of "pubstomp level" combo decks, and metas where it's practically unheard of - it really can vary quite a bit. I think having cEDH players participating may be the catalyst that can make that shift, but it probably varies by circumstance. I think it's excessively pessimistic to say 3/4 of decks are pubstompy, but it does depend on where your line is for pubstompy-ness. In my experience, when new players "catch the cEDH virus" they don't tend to adopt all the cheap interaction, but more focus on the wincons. So you end up with a meta that will still lose to a true cEDH deck the vast majority of the time, but is miserable to play a casual deck against because the only way anybody wants to win is to combo out.

When the average player that joined in 2020/21/22 has a deck that "pubstomps" a veteran from 2010 and the average game consists of at least 75% of those new players, are we just going to call them "cEDH Demons" and lump them with the splintered groups that already left a long time ago? Sure, we might do that here in our safe corner of the internet, but in reality I've seen LGS metas just adapt, either the veterans splinter off (or leave the game if they can't) or adopt to the higher powers of play (that's still not at cEDH level). I can't speak for MTGO or other online formats, but only from what I've seen on the ground in paper. In fact, some folks that had to reduce playtime (or leave) due to life also find it a great companion of a reason.

Well, as I've said earlier, I don't think there's *usually* malicious intent, so "demons" is taking it a bit far. Especially as regards the new players who gets pulled into the cEDH vortex out of ignorance. In a lot of cases, the power levels can still be manageable (at least for the level I build at, YMMV - and ofc the multiplayer aspect can help as well) but the way games tend to play can be pretty lame - I swear, some places I play, if I lose a game it would be 80%+ to a combo. But as I said, it varies a lot. On a personal level, I think education is the most powerful tool. Try to explain to new players how cEDH and EDH are different formats with different goals. If newer players can understand the delineation, they can at least have a better chance of making the decision of how they want to build their decks consciously. They still won't have the experience to understand the totality of what's going on, but it's better than nothing.

Of course I'm 100% game for better suggestions.

[BeneTleilax]

ry to explain to new players how cEDH and EDH are different formats with different goals. If newer players can understand the delineation, they can at least have a better chance of making the decision of how they want to build their decks consciously.

Now you are coming around to reason. Do you see how vocal animus towards cEDH could marr this conversation? If the player you're talking to does prefer cEDH, will you then tell them they should not darken the doorstep of "your" store when you play? That the format they have chosen is an existential threat to your own? How will the fear of those responses then cover their answer, and with it the delineation you want?

[pokken]

I guess this is one area where mtgo is better than in store play. cEDH players tend to make their own tables labeled cEDH when they want a cEDH game. People bringing a cEDH deck to a more casual table, even tables advertising stronger (7-8 power) casual, is rare.

It's kinda weird but the reverse thing happened to me on mtgo when I'm playing cedh. I make a cedh table and put it in the comments and such.

Then two casuals show up with galumph tier decks and the game is me and my buddy trying to figure out how to combo out while being chased by bears.

I tried probably 30 games of cedh on mtgo and never once had a full pod of cedh decks.

[materpillar]

ry to explain to new players how cEDH and EDH are different formats with different goals. If newer players can understand the delineation, they can at least have a better chance of making the decision of how they want to build their decks consciously.

Now you are coming around to reason. Do you see how vocal animus towards cEDH could marr this conversation? If the player you're talking to does prefer cEDH, will you then tell them they should not darken the doorstep of "your" store when you play? That the format they have chosen is an existential threat to your own? How will the fear of those responses then cover their answer, and with it the delineation you want?

I'm not afraid of cEDH and it's "existential threat" to EDH. I play EDH to have fun. My fun is not cEDH. If my local LGS turns into cEDH I'll leave. There is far more to myself as a person than magic the gathering.

It isn't fear mongering for me to say "if you sit down with a cEDH deck I won't play with you." That's a basic rule zero conversation. I know very specifically what I want from a game of EDH and I can lay it out very clearly without throwing shade at cEDH. I spend a lot of time tuning my decks, specifically to be fun to play with and against. If my opponent doesn't do the same then I feel no obligation to engage with them. As such if my opponent doesn't think my deck are fun to play with or against because they're too low powerlevel, they have no obligation to engage with me and that's ok.

I find cEDH to be rather boring and uninspired. I don't talk about it from a basis of fear, I talk about it with a massive lack of enthusiasm because I have no enthusiasm for it. I find uninteractive win condition to be tedious and unexciting. I don't talk about that though because I find it massively boring. I I talk about positive things. I talk about making people concede with Rishadan Pawnshop. I explain how I've killed people with Chromium. I show them Thran Turbine and Peer Pressure. I show them my Shields of Velis Vel loops in my Tivadar of Thorn. If they don't find this interesting and only want to talk about how to best protect their Thassa's Oracle while it's on the stack, then our conversation is probably going to be pretty brief. If they really want to know about cEDH I'll point them in the best direction I know and wish them Godspeed. I'm not going to join them on that journey though.

[BeneTleilax]

I'm not afraid of cEDH and it's "existential threat" to EDH. I play EDH to have fun. My fun is not cEDH. If my local LGS turns into cEDH I'll leave. There is far more to myself as a person than magic the gathering.

Cool, I was not talking to you. I was responding to Dirk, who did call it an existential threat in as many words. If you think such dire terms are unnecessary and somewhat silly, take it up with him.

[DirkGently]

Now you are coming around to reason. Do you see how vocal animus towards cEDH could marr this conversation?

What does that have to do with me voicing my opinions on this forum? I'm not having that conversation with you. I hope you're already familiar with the distinctions.

If I'm explaining the difference between the two formats to a new player I generally try to avoid moral judgments. Obviously.

If the player you're talking to does prefer cEDH

The sorts of players who can benefit from that conversation are too new to know what they want. It's like asking a six year old what they want to be when they grow up.

will you then tell them they should not darken the doorstep of "your" store when you play?

I'll tell them they shouldn't play with the broader commander playerbase, yeah. That sorta being the most important part of the conversation. Not that I expect they'll actually follow that advice, which is of course the problem.

That the format they have chosen is an existential threat to your own?

Do you think I'm completely blind to context? I don't tell little kids how climate change is gonna kill us all either, but that doesn't mean I don't think it's true.

[BeneTleilax]

The sorts of players who can benefit from that conversation are too new to know what they want. It's like asking a six year old what they want to be when they grow up.

So anyone who likes cEDH is either a new player, who you describe as children who can't decide for themselves, or an insidious threat to them? You realize how pearl-clutching you sound?

[materpillar]

I'm not afraid of cEDH and it's "existential threat" to EDH. I play EDH to have fun. My fun is not cEDH. If my local LGS turns into cEDH I'll leave. There is far more to myself as a person than magic the gathering.

Cool, I was not talking to you. I was responding to Dirk, who did call it an existential threat in as many words. If you think such dire terms are unnecessary and somewhat silly, take it up with him.

I find it weird that I have to defend my desire to engage in an open conversation on a public internet forum but sure I'll bite. As far as I can tell @DirkGently and I have had functionally identical opinions in this thread. Your argument directed towards his opinion felt equally directed towards mine because our opinion have a pretty significant amount of overlap.

I choose to quote "existential threat" because I felt was a good paraphrasing of your entire quotes implied negativity towards how Dirk/I talk to new players about cEDH.

Now you are coming around to reason. Do you see how vocal animus towards cEDH could marr this conversation? If the player you're talking to does prefer cEDH, will you then tell them they should not darken the doorstep of "your" store when you play? That the format they have chosen is an existential threat to your own? How will the fear of those responses then cover their answer, and with it the delineation you want?

Maybe the bolded will be more clear. In every sentence of your message you imply that we only speak about cEDH with new players in a way that is fairly toxic. I was disagreeing and clarifying.

So anyone who likes cEDH is either a new player, who you describe as children who can't decide for themselves, or an insidious threat to them? You realize how pearl-clutching you sound?

cEDH is fundamentally incompatible with the EDH I want to play. Any influence cEDH has on EDH is fundamentally damaging the game as I desire to play it. That's not pearl-clutching, that's just how it is.

[DirkGently]

So anyone who likes cEDH is either a new player, who you describe as children who can't decide for themselves, or an insidious threat to them? You realize how pearl-clutching you sound?

Stop putting words in my mouth.

All new players to all games don't yet know what they want. That's the exploratory part of the game. I went through it. Everybody went through it. The problem is that EDH is a fragile format that wants a fairly nuanced understanding of the increasingly-nebulous distinction between itself and cEDH. Standard has a much more straightforward set of expectations. If a new player is a baby, standard is a sturdily constructed crib, whereas EDH is an emporium of fine china and sharp knives.

cEDH players are a threat to new players in the same way someone who likes to smoke weed is a threat to children. There's nothing morally wrong with either (even if I personally think cEDH is a boring, miserable format), but kids don't have the capacity to understand how to appropriately use drugs, and new players don't know how to distinguish between EDH and cEDH. So it's probably best not to do the respective thing around the respective group lest you give them some ideas they aren't equipped to handle yet.

[BeneTleilax]

I choose to quote "existential threat" because I felt was a good paraphrasing of your entire quotes implied negativity towards how Dirk/I talk to new players about cEDH.

I mean, Dirk literally called cEDH an existential threat. I was making reference to that quote. I was only implying what he posted himself. I'm singling out his responses because he's been far more blunt than you, and I think that matters. I think places like this do have some power to shape norms in the broader community, though not as much as they once did. If people see Dirk talking about how cEDH is a threat and compares cEDH players playing at the same store as casuals to someone giving drugs to children they'll be less likely to say they like cEDH, even if they do. Or they'll take cues from that the next time they see someone playing cEDH somewhere and spread the animosity.

If you want a clear dialogue, and a clear delineation between cEDH and casual EDH, creating a chilling effect is wholly counterproductive. I don't think it will influence anyone's desire to play competitively, but it will influence whether they say they do.

For the record, I also want a clear separation of the two, which is what I've seen from the cEDH community.

[StardustFae]

Again, cEDH isn't the issue. If someone stomps with a cEDH deck, the game is a non-event, you can disregard their presence and continue playing.

The problem is Solitaire players who take 10-15 minutes in a single turn trying to win. Those types of players consistently make for the most negative experiences, and it's those types of players that the wider community needs to be shaming.

There's a significant difference between someone piloting UPS and winning Turn 3, and 'that' person who pilots a non-interactive 'combo' deck, that takes 10 minutes to actually fish for the combo. They're the problem with EDH as a whole, not the handful of people throwing their wallets at each other in closed games.

[DirkGently]

compares cEDH players playing at the same store as casuals to someone giving drugs to children

Are you deliberately missing the point of my metaphor? The comparison is to people doing (legal) drugs AROUND children, not GIVING them to children. The former is legal but ill-advised (and somewhat immoral), the latter is illegal (and extremely immoral).

If you want a clear dialogue, and a clear delineation between cEDH and casual EDH, creating a chilling effect is wholly counterproductive. I don't think it will influence anyone's desire to play competitively, but it will influence whether they say they do.

I think the opposite. If new players know that EDH players often despite cEDH players (an exaggeration but let's assume that's the impression they get) then I think they're much more likely to hedge on the side of being underpowered, and maybe even try to figure out where the line is to avoid stepping on it - unless they think that line is stupid, in which case they'll presumably go find a format without it (whether cEDH or ideally some other format entirely). Playing EDH isn't something you quietly do on your own where you could hide what you're actually doing. You'd have to be pretty thick to understand "playing high-powered decks is frowned upon" enough to say you don't, but then put zero concern into actually trying to fit within accepted power levels. It would be like trying to stay in the closet while in the middle of a pride parade.

Of course, some people do try to fit within non-cEDH power levels but end up on the high side because of all the factors pushing power levels up, and the other clueless players who also don't understand the distinctions letting them into their games. But that has nothing to do with the supposed "chilling effect".

And I play competitively. I don't build competitively.

For the record, I also want a clear separation of the two, which is what I've seen from the cEDH community.

I assume you either aren't paying attention or you live in Narnia.

[BeneTleilax]

I assume you either aren't paying attention or you live in Narnia.

Ah yes, my experiences are different than yours, so I must just be wrong. I guess I should tell the cEDH players in my area that they don't exist.

Playing EDH isn't something you quietly do on your own where you could hide what you're actually doing.

Neither are RPGs, but I've seen session 0s get needlessly complicated by clear playstyle terms getting turned into signaling nonsense. Openly despising a subformat is how you get "MY DECK IS A 7" and name-calling. I've already seen one person call a Uril deck "cEDH" just because he was salty he lost to it. Once words become principally insults, they lose their utility for much else. Your style and points seem angled to turn 'cEDH' into an insult.

[DirkGently]

Ah yes, my experiences are different than yours, so I must just be wrong. I guess I should tell the cEDH players in my area that they don't exist.

Have you tried looking online?

Obviously cEDH players being responsible and keeping the formats separated is a good thing, but it doesn't take a lot of bad apples to spoil the bunch. Saying "well, there aren't problematic players at my LGS" doesn't mean they aren't elsewhere. Considering how strong of evidence you seem to demand from other people, it seems fairly ridiculous to say "well, I don't see it happening in my immediate vicinity, therefore it's not a problem."

Neither are RPGs, but I've seen session 0s get needlessly complicated by clear playstyle terms getting turned into signaling nonsense.

idk anything about TTRPGs so you're gonna have to pick a different metaphor if you want me to get what you're saying.

My gut reaction is to say the TTRPGs are so nebulous with their playstyles that it becomes impossible to set a standard, whereas I think magic makes it a lot easier to create a sliding scale of power, at least for people who know what they're doing. But again, I don't know anything about TTRPGs.

Openly despising a subformat is how you get "MY DECK IS A 7" and name-calling.

I dunno what you mean about "my deck is a 7". Like everyone assuming their deck is average power level? I think that's mostly an issue of people being clueless about power levels due to inexperience, not a cultural problem. As I've said, EDH is a terrible onboarding format.

Name-calling is gonna happen either way. If someone plays a deck that people think is too strong, it's probably gonna create some emotions.

And as I've said a thousand times, in-person I generally avoid animosity towards other formats, except to express that cEDH decks should only be played against other cEDH decks. I express my true emotions here because I think we're all adults and can handle it.

I've already seen one person call a Uril deck "cEDH" just because he was salty he lost to it.

High bar for evidence you've got there.

Do you think we should warmly embrace pubstompers? I'm guessing not. As such, so long as someone playing cEDH at a casual table is seen as a bad thing, clueless people are probably going to use it as an insult, especially when they lose. Trust me, people will grab at whatever negative thing they can think of when they get upset. Playing cEDH conceptually isn't necessarily an insult, but playing a cEDH deck at a casual table is, and it kinda has to be, because as long as it's frowned upon to do that - and it has to be frowned upon to do that - people are going to internalize it as a negative thing and throw it out when emotions run hot.

Once words become principally insults, they lose their utility for much else. Your style and points seem angled to turn 'cEDH' into an insult.

When have I used cEDH as an insult, ever? I've expressed that I don't like cEDH. I don't like moths either. That doesn't mean I'm going to use "moth" as an insult or that the word "moth" has lost its meaning for me.

I don't even consider most of the decks being brewed by new aspiring-cEDH players to be cEDH, but rather in the no-man's-land between the two formats. My bar for cEDH is pretty high, higher than the lower range of power which I dislike by quite a bit.

[BeneTleilax]

it seems fairly ridiculous to say "well, I don't see it happening in my immediate vicinity, therefore it's not a problem."

That wasn't what I was saying. In both cases, I described the limitations of my evidence "from what I've seen" and "one guy". Neither statement was pretending to be something more than an anecdote, illustrating where I'm coming from. The latter anecdote was meant to demonstrate existence (real people do this) rather than prevalence.

When have I used cEDH as an insult, ever?

I didn't say you did. I said a world where people openly despise cEDH (not just pubstomping) is a world where it would lose meaning quickly. I don't think you want that. I was following up on the hypothetical you laid out (where people openly despise cEDH, and that disdain becomes normalized). In my experience, social pressure is very good at changing what people say they want, but not at changing what they actually want. Our ends are fairly similar, as I understand yours, and I said as much. I want a clear delineation between formats, clear communication about what format someone wants to play before a game, and no pubstomping.

I just think my means (distant tolerance of cEDH and coexistence as separate subformats) is more likely to bring that about.

[onering]

I guess this is one area where mtgo is better than in store play. cEDH players tend to make their own tables labeled cEDH when they want a cEDH game. People bringing a cEDH deck to a more casual table, even tables advertising stronger (7-8 power) casual, is rare.

It's kinda weird but the reverse thing happened to me on mtgo when I'm playing cedh. I make a cedh table and put it in the comments and such.

Then two casuals show up with galumph tier decks and the game is me and my buddy trying to figure out how to combo out while being chased by bears.

I tried probably 30 games of cedh on mtgo and never once had a full pod of cedh decks.

Lol that's funny. Talk about bringing a knife to a gunfight.

cEDH isn't my normal go to, so the times I've played it I've usually gotten a full pod of cEDH, or at least near cEDH decks (I definitely see people bring their pet deck that's like almost but not quite a 9 and on the fringe of being competitive). I have seen the random casual decks show up though, and I'd probably see it more if I played cEDH more.

[onering]

Reading through this thread, it once again seems like there is a lot of arguing over tone between people who, once you actually get down to what they want, almost entirely agree. And once again, it seems to stem from hyperbole and dismissiveness on the part of certain people who seem intent on engaging with every conversation via hot takes then becoming indignant when those hot takes are called out.

"cEDH shouldn't exist and cEDH players are just people who couldn't cut it in real competitive formats and have superiority complexes" is a lot different from "cEDH players should only play cEDH decks against other cEDH players with cEDH decks, and not try to influence regular EDH." The latter seems to be what Dirk is actually advocating, and is a completely reasonable position that most of the thread seems to agree with, myself included. But leading with the former, the smug hot take, just poisoned the conversation and ensured an argument.

[DirkGently]

That wasn't what I was saying. In both cases, I described the limitations of my evidence "from what I've seen" and "one guy". Neither statement was pretending to be something more than an anecdote, illustrating where I'm coming from. The latter anecdote was meant to demonstrate existence (real people do this) rather than prevalence.

I don't mind anecdotes. The issue is when they're coming from someone who demanded "I think you need some pretty firm evidence" in response to statistical evidence that I spent the better part of an hour gathering. Which would have been clear if you quoted my entire sentence instead of just the back half.

I also think saying you've seen a desire for clear format separation from "the cEDH community" implies a much broader perspective than just "the cEDH people in my local area".

I didn't say you did. I said a world where people openly despise cEDH (not just pubstomping) is a world where it would lose meaning quickly.

Then your example was poor, because the player mad at Uril was presumably accusing him of pubstomping, not playing cEDH in a cEDH pod. So unless you want to remove the stigma from that, and I don't think either of us do, accusing someone of playing a cEDH deck is going to remain an insult, especially among people who aren't worldly enough to use correct terminology all the time.

I was following up on the hypothetical you laid out (where people openly despise cEDH, and that disdain becomes normalized). In my experience, social pressure is very good at changing what people say they want, but not at changing what they actually want.

I think it's good at changing how people want to be perceived. What they say is part of that, of course, but so is what they play.

At any rate, as much as some EDH players dislike cEDH, I don't think the dislike reaches the point where people are intentionally burying their desires. Every other format welcomes that attitude to deckbuilding with open arms, and most new EDH players are too inexperienced to have a strong opinion either way. Locally, I've seen something of the opposite tbh. People are proud to say they play cEDH, even people who I would argue do not (people in the no-man's-land). YMMV, of course.

Personally I chalk it up to the massive influx of new players being the "new bedrock" as I mentioned. In years past, I think the bedrock was jaded ex-standard players who limited power intentionally to avoid the meta stagnation of competitive formats. The "new bedrock" doesn't have much interest in building cEDH, but more out of apathy than intentionality. They also don't have a strong nose for it or opposition to it, meaning you can pubstomp (whether intentional or, more likely, not) with much less pushback. People are a lot more likely to say "wow, cool deck" after getting obliterated, as compared to yesteryears "okay...that wasn't cool...please don't play with us anymore..." Both groups existed at both times, but there's been a big increase in the ratio of casual players to jaded players. Or at least that's been my experience.

Our ends are fairly similar, as I understand yours, and I said as much. I want a clear delineation between formats, clear communication about what format someone wants to play before a game, and no pubstomping.

yes

I just think my means (distant tolerance of cEDH and coexistence as separate subformats) is more likely to bring that about.

I think in terms of how we actually act in an LGS environment is probably not dissimilar. As I've said, I'm much nicer about cEDH in person. The problem with that approach, though, both yours and mine, is that we're not in control of the situation. Sure, when I sit down at a table I try to establish the power level we're playing at, I try to explain the distinctions between the formats, etc. But meanwhile, at the other games in the store, that's not happening. Power levels are clashing, people are getting pubstomped and wanting to emulate it, and a higher and higher percentage of decks are moving into the semi-competitive blur between formats. Not to mention, at least at an LGS level, eventually you can't control your own pod. You don't want to play against the blur decks, but everyone else is cool with it. Why can't you just be cool, man?

Reading through this thread, it once again seems like there is a lot of arguing over tone between people who, once you actually get down to what they want, almost entirely agree. And once again, it seems to stem from hyperbole and dismissiveness on the part of certain people who seem intent on engaging with every conversation via hot takes then becoming indignant when those hot takes are called out.

For real, though, idk what the point of tone policing this thread is. The only groups of people I've been openly dismissive of is pubstompers and wannabes (afaik). If you self-identify as either of those things, why do you hate yourself?

For the most part I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt to cEDH players that they aren't intentionally tearing down the wall. I think it's just an inevitability of the confluence of certain situations (primarily, cEDH EDH proximity and the influx of new players).

cEDH shouldn't exist

Never said it.

I would say "I wish cEDH didn't exist" though. For suresies.

cEDH players are just people who couldn't cut it in real competitive formats and have superiority complexes

Nawp. I said that the format is a refuge for those people. That doesn't mean all cEDH players fit into that category. But it is a friendlier environment for those people than other formats where they might face more significant competition.

EDH is a refuge for people who hate being interacted with and throw tables whenever someone casts a counterspell. Again, doesn't mean all EDH players are like that. But the format is friendlier to those people than other formats.

Dirk

Thank you.

[onering]

And once again, when called out on it you split hairs. "Oh, I didn't say exactly that word for word, I said something very similar that conveys mostly the same meaning!" Your the only person that sees a difference Dirk, and only because you're motivated to.

I don't pubstomp, and I rarely play cEDH, but thanks for assuming that people can't disagree with your smug, self righteous, dismissive attitude without being the direct target of it. It was clear in your opening hot take that you weren't talking about pubstompers, because you went out of your way to let everybody know that by differentiating pubstompers and cEDH and then saying you hate cEDH. In a thread started by a cEDH player asking how to improve relations in the playerbase.

I mean, at some point with multiple people over multiple threads pointing out the way in which your posts often carry a dickish and demeaning tone, maybe you'd self reflect a little bit and work on that? Like I said, when you got called on it you walked back your original post to a far more reasonable take that most people agree with, but don't pretend like you led with what amounted to "cEDH is terrible and shouldn't exist (I wish it didn't exist, same difference), and cEDH players are scrubs who can't play real formats, and this isn't even counting the damn pubstompers." That's how it came off, and if that wasn't your intent then maybe you should focus on getting your point across instead of seeing how edgy and sarcastic you can be on every topic. It's a pattern at this point, and people are pointing it out to you rather than blocking you in the hopes that you change. You do usually make good points, but you seem, especially lately, to put the need to argue first, and it definitely rubs me the wrong way, and judging from the several posters who've said something about it I'm not alone. You clearly want your views to be taken seriously and engaged with respectfully, do the same to other people.

[Yatsufusa]

Ehh might skip some of the smaller sections or the ones we agreed on.

I'm not sure how Arena factors into it all tbh.

In some ways I think it could be a good thing. Standard was becoming less and less popular as an onboarding format as EDH rose to popularity, preventing players from being properly tempered in the fires of tedious meta grinding. Arena, since it doesn't (and probably can't) support proper EDH, forces people to play standard again.

But on the other hand, it can shorten the 60-card casual phase from years (at least in my case) down to an afternoon. They don't get to experience as much of the fun of working on your own, personal, janky decklist, which is a core part of what commander tries to recapture for those of us who are too jaded to attempt it in competitive formats. It also makes it much easier to spend a very short time playing standard, decide "meh, I lost 3 games, guess it's not for me" leaving them somewhat under-"tempered" compared to someone who went to the hassle of putting together actual cardboard standard decks. It's a lot harder to give it up quickly with that extra level of investment, I think. So when cardboard players give up on standard, it's less likely to be a passing fancy, and more likely to be real exhaustion with the meta - at which point they're in a better place, imo, for EDH.

Not having a physical collection is a bummer. And it's also true that, because of the much more rapid pace of arena (no more 1-per-week FNM, you can get a season's worth of grinding done in a slow weekend) people are probably less likely to experience a wide variety of cards before burning out on Arena - even with today's typhoon of card releases. That probably means less yearning for the past (another big part of the draw of commander, imo), since the past was only a few months ago.

Arena matters because from a LGS-rotation perspective, that's essentially where majority of the "new" players for the format have started coming from and will continue to for the foreseeable future. The old guard also tend to take more absences due to age/life, meaning the new blood essentially forms the more consistent bedrock.

Funny enough, the ones that leave Arena "in an afternoon" tend to just naturally lean towards casual a whole lot easier, because they left that early due to their natural inclination towards casual than progression (there are folks like that). It's the ones that have been tempered for some time (and "left" due to a "bad luck streak") that are more prone to falling to Pubstomping misalignments and like you said, the fact that Arena needs less investment so they're more likely to rage-quit before being completely tempered/exhausted by the process.

Also, yes they have less investment in the history of the game. Arena being what it is (much more easily accessible) also attracts much more players that join because it's a card game and they have literally zero interest in the lore. In fact, it skews the percentage of those type of players much more. Yet it is precisely because of all these factors we need to think of how to accommodate these players' transit smoothly. I can't just bring my jank 2012 brew now and expect it to work out anymore, the same way I can't expect the new Arena player to have read up on Old Kamigawa before Neon Dynasty, and that's assuming they even bothered reading up on Neon Dynasty.

Hey hey hey, don't lump limited into this. Limited does not have remotely the same kind of meta stagnation as 60-card does. I think a lot of people play limited and commander because they both offer much greater variety than 60-card (or at least, that's why I do those two formats exclusively - a lot of people I talk to at prereleases do those two formats too, but I guess it might just be that they're already at a limited event and commander is just the most popular format).

Okay, I concede on this one I literally typed too fast and just imprinted the whole Limited-60-card-Constructed process into my message and didn't catch it as I kept ranting on.

I think the original sin of the format was in trying to expand it. EDH shouldn't be trying so hard to attract people at all. Its role historically was as a place for people to go when they got sick of the grind of competitive constructed. Unfortunately that's no longer its role, though. Or at least it's also pulling double-duty as an onboarding format.

Like Arena introducing the factor of a different generation of new players set to be the bedrock, it's too late. The moment WotC started pushing the format with precons and format-specialized cards, they also pushed it as the PREMIER paper format because it's the format that doesn't work on Arena (the other thing they're pushing, but for Limited/Standard). We can complain (and have) but reality is we cannot overturn that shift (definitely not by now).

It still is that, I think. It's just gotten messier.

Not really, it's mostly just messier because like we pointed out, folks are more prone to being half-tempered by Arena. On the flip side those who can adapt to straight-up casual also tend to be identified faster (because they had less investment and didn't cling onto Standard as a paper-masochist because they invested in the format already), it's just the base demographic of Arena players play other video games, so it naturally skews favoring progression the same way more of them also ignore lore.

I think there are also quite a few people who might want to play in more isolated groups but simply don't have access to them. So they come to LGS commander nights trying to find like-minded players, and instead find a lot of new players who fall into the patterns I've already explained. I don't think anyone is being a villain in this pattern - perhaps some people who are intentionally pubstomping, but I think that's a comparative rarity. But nevertheless, the pattern is a problem.

Actual cEDH Old Guard already isolated themselves. Pubstompers are actually getting rarer in this age of powercreep (another result of WotC pushing the format) and the specific "Arch-villian" cEDH player that can successfully pubstomp and convert new players are even rarer. If anything, I've experienced the opposite, the cEDH player (be it old guard that lost the splinter group, or some lost newbie) actually tones down after realizing the cEDH decks folds hard when going against multiple new-age (powercreep) decks.

Yes the new-age decks have also essentially also caused the old-guard-casual to fold and go extinct, but that's natural movement/evolution of the format due to the combination of WotC pushing the format's power and the inflow of new Arena players that walked into that push. There's pocket cases where the new player walks into a cEDH meta and gets converted, but that's more likely because they were fighting 1v3 against 3 cEDH players and in no dimension can they answer 3 cEDH players fast enough. Meanwhile as I said, in the inversion, if they outnumber the cEDH player, there's often enough answers from 3 players to cause the cEDH deck to fold hard because unlike the new-age decks, cEDH decks do lack stamina to go as far in the long run.

New-Age decks aren't cEDH by a country mile, but I can also see the unfortunate scenario that a new Arena player walks into an LGS still dominated by Old-Guard-Casual, proceeds to overpower those decks (as I said the powercreep did happen) and then gets mistakenly titled as a cEDH player, ironically forcing them to seek out actual cEDH groups (if they didn't quit) and they either get converted, or found out they didn't like either cEDH or Old-Guard casual and quit when there isn't a New-Age bracket for them.

I mildly complained during the first arms race of the format when Eternal Masters happened, but surprisingly that had attuned me (and my LGS) to be more welcoming towards this new wave of Arena-Powercreep generation, while also tuning down the few cEDH players who lost their splinter groups over the years. Meanwhile LGSes that maintained the Old-Guard-Casual staunchly then can't take the influx of new-age-power-Arena players, mislabeled them as cEDH in an attempt to isolate them like they did with the Old-Guard-cEDH, only to find out they're actually the outnumbered ones (Arena being a factor, plus the old guard tend to take more absences).

I mean, hopefully, but because of the growth of the format it feels like there's always going to be a lot more of those "on the progression climb" playing pseudo-cEDH decks than those who know what they're doing and have decided to sit firmly on one side of the fence or the other.

Ofc, there are also quite a few people who just don't have much of a competitive itch at all and never try for cEDH simply because they don't take the game very seriously. Which is fine, ofc, in a way they're sorta the new bedrock of the format, I think, because they're unlikely to be moved competitive-ward. Just like the old bedrock - i.e. me and other long-time players - were unlikely to be moved into cEDH because of a desire to avoid meta stagnation.

Yep, basically everything I just said. I prefer calling them "New-Age" rather than "pseudo-cEDH" because to them that's the base standard, just like they have no favor towards the history of the game, they don't have any with the old-guard/bedrock either. Progression starts there and there is the floor they are likely to fall back into, even if they find out they didn't enjoy actual cEDH.

But as I've re-iterated over-and-over again, they are set to become the new bedrock, with Arena being a major factor of supplying numbers. I personally chose to adapt to the New Age because I want to fit more comfortably into that bedrock instead of having to scour around for the dwindling old-guard, the same way I also see some old-guard cEDH players also deciding to tone-down to "New Age" levels instead because they also couldn't find their old-guard.

The era of the "Old Bedrock" is over, at least on the LGS level (obviously this doesn't apply to true-splintered kitchen groups), they're just a few old-guards around that really need to plan their meetings the same way old-guard cEDH players did for their splinter cells.

It really varies in my experience. And ofc everyone's line is different. I think some would look at some of my decks and consider them too powerful to play at a casual table. I run a lot of powerful cards, but always in the service of doing something experimental. And almost all my decks try to win in a "fair" way (generally - moderate amounts of [combat] damage over time). But optimizing in that way can be a bit of a lonely task in a format where so much of the playerbase is inexperienced and doesn't appreciate the nuance of power levels, especially in a format this complex. Cue world's smallest violin.

But anyway, I've seen metas where there's a fairly high percentage of "pubstomp level" combo decks, and metas where it's practically unheard of - it really can vary quite a bit. I think having cEDH players participating may be the catalyst that can make that shift, but it probably varies by circumstance. I think it's excessively pessimistic to say 3/4 of decks are pubstompy, but it does depend on where your line is for pubstompy-ness. In my experience, when new players "catch the cEDH virus" they don't tend to adopt all the cheap interaction, but more focus on the wincons. So you end up with a meta that will still lose to a true cEDH deck the vast majority of the time, but is miserable to play a casual deck against because the only way anybody wants to win is to combo out.

Correct. "New-Age" decks tend to adopt cEDH combos, but they don't overload or overclock like actual cEDH, and pack a lot more removal than either cEDh or Old-Guard-Casual, which is why they are capable of hard-flopping cEDH decks as long as they can use the multiplayer aspect to their advantage (essentially that cEDH fought a Russian Winter with no winterwear) and easily out-stamina the old-guard-casual because powercreep.

Between themselves, the "cEDH combo aspect" doesn't really fire because of heavy removal all-around, so unlike cEDH it's not a race to combo-first, it's basically opportunity-finding to try to execute the combo instead. Sure, there might be the unfortunate occasional game where it really just ended like a cEDH game because someone gambled on what they thought was an early opportunity and it paid off, but usually it's just taken in stride. In a well-balanced "New-Age" game, the game still strides long enough (with combos countered here and there) for the opportunity to other win conditions to prevail.

Well, as I've said earlier, I don't think there's *usually* malicious intent, so "demons" is taking it a bit far. Especially as regards the new players who gets pulled into the cEDH vortex out of ignorance. In a lot of cases, the power levels can still be manageable (at least for the level I build at, YMMV - and ofc the multiplayer aspect can help as well) but the way games tend to play can be pretty lame - I swear, some places I play, if I lose a game it would be 80%+ to a combo. But as I said, it varies a lot. On a personal level, I think education is the most powerful tool. Try to explain to new players how cEDH and EDH are different formats with different goals. If newer players can understand the delineation, they can at least have a better chance of making the decision of how they want to build their decks consciously. They still won't have the experience to understand the totality of what's going on, but it's better than nothing.

Of course I'm 100% game for better suggestions.

Just like how "New-Age" decks need to time their "cEDH combos", the same can be said of removal. The reason some "New Age" games fall apart despite being the decks all looking balanced on paper is because a "New-Age" meta tests threat assessment much more thoroughly than either cEDH or "Old-Guard-Casual", with the former demanding answers all the time asap and the later allowing too much slacking (to the point "pack more removal" is advice usually only dispensed for returning Old Guards who didn't get the memo and seldom for the newer players, although they do need to hone their threat assessment itself, due to lack of tempering).

To the newer generation of players, this is their EDH - if you want other conditions to prevail, you have to be armed to deal with cEDH-tier threats and know when to deal with said threats. Your own cEDH-tier bullet(s) are also likely prone to flop, so you better prepare another win condition that wins through attrition because that is what dodges removal reserved for the bullet themselves.

You cannot just explain the old bedrock and expect them to build a deck consciously to the floor of the old era, because they were introduced to the power-level of the current era and their accessibility (and willingness to spend because remember they have no physical hoard) is also more limited to what's easily available now. This also holds true for the ceiling of cEDH, they find out removal and threat assessment can hard-fold those as long as they have numbers (which Arena provides) and have little incentive to reach for the same ceilings the old-guard cEDH players did (also doesn't help the old inaccessible cards for those are also exorbitantly expensive, especially from their perspective).

They're forming their own comfortable bedrock that exists between the two extremes of the Old-Guards and steadily outnumbering the Old Guards of both ends (casual and cEDH). Both Old Guards easily condemn this "New-Age" power-level to be closer to the opposite side then they would like, but it generally sounds louder from the Casual side because there are more of us than Old-Guard-cEDH, that is all. Meanwhile, realistically on the ground I just see this "New Age" group absorb the Old Guard from both sides as it naturally grows faster thanks to Arena (and the Old Guard taking more absences to maintain its presence not helping their own preservation).

As the new generation starts to outnumber and stabilize more, it is not them who needs to understand the casual and cEDH of old, but the casual and cEDH of old that needs to understand the precise "New Age" level they need to play if they still want an easier time to find games to play just by walking in the LGS.

[Jemolk]

@Yatsufusa -- I disagree very strongly with the idea that this shift is inevitable. I think our reasons for preferring powered-down casual games still hold immense weight, and that many newer players who hear us explain them will end up agreeing. In fact, this is my precise experience with things, as both one of the old guard and one of the people who most readily tries to welcome newer players at my LGS. It's not even that difficult to make the case for casual. If anything, I'd consider most of your arguments to be profoundly defeatist.

Now, most likely, you don't have the overwhelming strength of philosophical attachment to specifically casual jank that I do, which is fine, but I promise you, it's extremely easy to convert new players by simply allowing them to borrow one of my ludicrous number of decks out of the suitcase that I drag to EDH night, and not much harder just by showing off my goofy synergistic nonsense brews in my own hands. And I know I've certainly made an impression on people with my arguments about why you should avoid staples, as well.

You don't have to actively drag your meta toward casual like I do mine if you don't want to, but it's definitely possible.

[DirkGently]

And once again, when called out on it you split hairs. "Oh, I didn't say exactly that word for word, I said something very similar that conveys mostly the same meaning!" Your the only person that sees a difference Dirk, and only because you're motivated to.

Damn, I'm really taking up some real estate in your head these days, aren't I? I write what I mean and I mean what I write. If you're interpreting my words to mean something that isn't there, that isn't my fault. It's not like we're doing interpretive dance at each other and doing our best to interpret the meaning. Just read the words, dude.

I wish my neighbors house didn't exist because then I would have a better view of the beach. I'm free to be as selfish as I want with my desires. But I don't think it SHOULDN'T exist, that would be ridiculous.

I don't pubstomp, and I rarely play cEDH, but thanks for assuming that people can't disagree with your smug, self righteous, dismissive attitude without being the direct target of it.

That's certainly one way of attempting to justify your anger at me for...arguing my position with people I disagree with?

wait, are you saying I accused you of doing those things? I sure don't remember doing that to you or anyone specific for that matter. Quotes please if you're going to claim I said something wrong.

It was clear in your opening hot take that you weren't talking about pubstompers, because you went out of your way to let everybody know that by differentiating pubstompers and cEDH and then saying you hate cEDH.

That's a smidge hyperbolic. I said I don't like it. That's not a prescription for what I think should be done about it, that's just my feelings about it. I think cEDH by its existence threatens EDH - and I was pretty clear that it wasn't necessarily the fault of cEDH players. I think that's pretty even-handed?

I do also think it harbors a lot of unsavory elements who deserve to be taken down a peg. I think that's pretty inarguably true. I'll admit to taking some enjoyment in expressing that fact, but if you can't blow off some steam on the internet, where can you? Loosen up a bit, eh?

In a thread started by a cEDH player asking how to improve relations in the playerbase.

If you want to solve the hostility coming from your opposition, I would think it beneficial to know why they're hostile to you.

I mean, at some point with multiple people over multiple threads pointing out the way in which your posts often carry a dickish and demeaning tone, maybe you'd self reflect a little bit and work on that?

Nah I'm good.

Personally I would have waited until you had better numbers before going with an argumentum ad populum. Plenty of people liking my perspective on this thread. Sorry you're not having a good time, I'm having a ball.

Like I said, when you got called on it you walked back your original post to a far more reasonable take that most people agree with, but don't pretend like you led with what amounted to "cEDH is terrible and shouldn't exist (I wish it didn't exist, same difference), and cEDH players are scrubs who can't play real formats, and this isn't even counting the damn pubstompers." That's how it came off, and if that wasn't your intent then maybe you should focus on getting your point across instead of seeing how edgy and sarcastic you can be on every topic.

I walk back nothing. If you think me clarifying my statements for people who read like they're looking at a Van Gogh is "walking things back" then I'm sorry to disappoint.

I've walked back things on other threads, of course, if I think someone has a better point than me. But this thread feels like I'm running the court tbh.

You clearly want your views to be taken seriously and engaged with respectfully, do the same to other people.

I dunno why you think views about some silly card game need to be engaged with the same gravitas as the Council of Nicaea. Don't treat my views respectfully, treat them roughly. They've been bad bad views, give them a good paddling. Let's see if some truth falls out.

Ehh might skip some of the smaller sections or the ones we agreed on.

jesus christ I hope so. This post is insanely long lol.

Arena matters because from a LGS-rotation perspective, that's essentially where majority of the "new" players for the format have started coming from and will continue to for the foreseeable future. The old guard also tend to take more absences due to age/life, meaning the new blood essentially forms the more consistent bedrock.

Oh yeah, it definitely matters, I'm just not confident in whether it's a good thing or a bad thing overall. Hard to say I suppose.

Funny enough, the ones that leave Arena "in an afternoon" tend to just naturally lean towards casual a whole lot easier, because they left that early due to their natural inclination towards casual than progression (there are folks like that). It's the ones that have been tempered for some time (and "left" due to a "bad luck streak") that are more prone to falling to Pubstomping misalignments and like you said, the fact that Arena needs less investment so they're more likely to rage-quit before being completely tempered/exhausted by the process.

Yeah, I think people are probably more likely to dump arena because of the ranked system but still harbor competitive aspirations. I know for me playing draft, I really don't like ranking up until every fight is 50/50 and I feel like I'm not really progressing. Don't get me wrong, I like a good fight, but part of what I like about limited is that you start at the bottom every draft and fight your way to the top (if you do well). Starting with difficult opposition every game every time gets kinda exhausting tbh. Not sure if that's fair of me, but that's how it feels. I much prefered the event-style things where there's no ranks when I played. Whereas people who do LGS standard get to feel like they're climbing that mountain every time, which I think feels a lot better and is more likely to retain those people instead of pushing them into EDH.

But idk, really hard to guess about proportions without doing major research.

Also, yes they have less investment in the history of the game. Arena being what it is (much more easily accessible) also attracts much more players that join because it's a card game and they have literally zero interest in the lore. In fact, it skews the percentage of those type of players much more. Yet it is precisely because of all these factors we need to think of how to accommodate these players' transit smoothly. I can't just bring my jank 2012 brew now and expect it to work out anymore, the same way I can't expect the new Arena player to have read up on Old Kamigawa before Neon Dynasty, and that's assuming they even bothered reading up on Neon Dynasty.

Personally I never cared much about lore tbh. I know it's a big thing for some people. But less investment overall for sure.

Okay, I concede on this one I literally typed too fast and just imprinted the whole Limited-60-card-Constructed process into my message and didn't catch it as I kept ranting on.

lol thank you.

Like Arena introducing the factor of a different generation of new players set to be the bedrock, it's too late. The moment WotC started pushing the format with precons and format-specialized cards, they also pushed it as the PREMIER paper format because it's the format that doesn't work on Arena (the other thing they're pushing, but for Limited/Standard). We can complain (and have) but reality is we cannot overturn that shift (definitely not by now).

yeah, I've become a bit of a MtG doomer these days tbh.

Not really, it's mostly just messier because like we pointed out, folks are more prone to being half-tempered by Arena. On the flip side those who can adapt to straight-up casual also tend to be identified faster (because they had less investment and didn't cling onto Standard as a paper-masochist because they invested in the format already), it's just the base demographic of Arena players play other video games, so it naturally skews favoring progression the same way more of them also ignore lore.

I mean yes, that's a big problem, but there are nevertheless good games to be had. Locally I've seen metas in different directions - the miserable pseudo-cEDH blur, and the chill casual. You have to do more work to find it but I think it's still achievable, at least for now.

Actual cEDH Old Guard already isolated themselves. Pubstompers are actually getting rarer in this age of powercreep (another result of WotC pushing the format) and the specific "Arch-villian" cEDH player that can successfully pubstomp and convert new players are even rarer. If anything, I've experienced the opposite, the cEDH player (be it old guard that lost the splinter group, or some lost newbie) actually tones down after realizing the cEDH decks folds hard when going against multiple new-age (powercreep) decks.

Interesting, but I don't think I've seen that phenomenon personally. Certainly lots of power crept value stuff, but cEDH still generally wins in my experience.

Yes the new-age decks have also essentially also caused the old-guard-casual to fold and go extinct, but that's natural movement/evolution of the format due to the combination of WotC pushing the format's power and the inflow of new Arena players that walked into that push. There's pocket cases where the new player walks into a cEDH meta and gets converted, but that's more likely because they were fighting 1v3 against 3 cEDH players and in no dimension can they answer 3 cEDH players fast enough. Meanwhile as I said, in the inversion, if they outnumber the cEDH player, there's often enough answers from 3 players to cause the cEDH deck to fold hard because unlike the new-age decks, cEDH decks do lack stamina to go as far in the long run.

From what I see most commonly, the "new-age" decks ape the wincons of cEDH but lack the interaction, giving the edge to the cEDH deck since it's usually more streamlined and more able to defend itself.

New-Age decks aren't cEDH by a country mile, but I can also see the unfortunate scenario that a new Arena player walks into an LGS still dominated by Old-Guard-Casual, proceeds to overpower those decks (as I said the powercreep did happen) and then gets mistakenly titled as a cEDH player, ironically forcing them to seek out actual cEDH groups (if they didn't quit) and they either get converted, or found out they didn't like either cEDH or Old-Guard casual and quit when there isn't a New-Age bracket for them.

If someone gets fully converted to cEDH and isolates from EDH I'm okay with it. I don't consider that a tragedy. Although it is true that casual players who mislabel things which aren't cEDH as cEDH can cause problems. Anything that muddies the water is bad, imo, because it blurs the line - whether that blurring is coming from the cEDH players or the casual players.

I mildly complained during the first arms race of the format when Eternal Masters happened, but surprisingly that had attuned me (and my LGS) to be more welcoming towards this new wave of Arena-Powercreep generation, while also tuning down the few cEDH players who lost their splinter groups over the years. Meanwhile LGSes that maintained the Old-Guard-Casual staunchly then can't take the influx of new-age-power-Arena players, mislabeled them as cEDH in an attempt to isolate them like they did with the Old-Guard-cEDH, only to find out they're actually the outnumbered ones (Arena being a factor, plus the old guard tend to take more absences).

Personally my experience is a bit complicated because I've switched metas a lot of times. So it's hard to see any obvious turning points or progressions, more a bunch of scattered dots trending in certain directions. But on the plus side it gives me a wider perspective, even if it's a substantially shallower one.

Yep, basically everything I just said. I prefer calling them "New-Age" rather than "pseudo-cEDH" because to them that's the base standard, just like they have no favor towards the history of the game, they don't have any with the old-guard/bedrock either. Progression starts there and there is the floor they are likely to fall back into, even if they find out they didn't enjoy actual cEDH.

sure, but there are still a lot of players who stay pretty casual even by older standards. Everything about power level has gotten blurred, but it matters more at the top end where it can really overpower things. A couple 5s can still take down a 7 pretty easily if they band together, but a couple 8s will get owned by a 10 if they don't have a lot of efficient answers.

But as I've re-iterated over-and-over again, they are set to become the new bedrock, with Arena being a major factor of supplying numbers. I personally chose to adapt to the New Age because I want to fit more comfortably into that bedrock instead of having to scour around for the dwindling old-guard, the same way I also see some old-guard cEDH players also deciding to tone-down to "New Age" levels instead because they also couldn't find their old-guard.

Yeah, I think that's where a lot of groups are now. Idk about cEDH players toning down but it can be hard for me to see everything for the aforementioned reasons.

The era of the "Old Bedrock" is over, at least on the LGS level (obviously this doesn't apply to true-splintered kitchen groups), they're just a few old-guards around that really need to plan their meetings the same way old-guard cEDH players did for their splinter cells.

Can't really speak to this as they're largely invisible to me. I'm sure some are out there but I have no idea how many.

Correct. "New-Age" decks tend to adopt cEDH combos, but they don't overload or overclock like actual cEDH, and pack a lot more removal than either cEDh or Old-Guard-Casual, which is why they are capable of hard-flopping cEDH decks as long as they can use the multiplayer aspect to their advantage (essentially that cEDH fought a Russian Winter with no winterwear) and easily out-stamina the old-guard-casual because powercreep.

Huh, I'm sure it varies, but as I've said I mostly see the answer-light versions in "new-age" decks. Not always ofc.

Between themselves, the "cEDH combo aspect" doesn't really fire because of heavy removal all-around, so unlike cEDH it's not a race to combo-first, it's basically opportunity-finding to try to execute the combo instead. Sure, there might be the unfortunate occasional game where it really just ended like a cEDH game because someone gambled on what they thought was an early opportunity and it paid off, but usually it's just taken in stride. In a well-balanced "New-Age" game, the game still strides long enough (with combos countered here and there) for the opportunity to other win conditions to prevail.

I guess it depends on what length you want. Personally I find they can end quite quickly, though, especially if I'm not playing the policeman.

Just like how "New-Age" decks need to time their "cEDH combos", the same can be said of removal. The reason some "New Age" games fall apart despite being the decks all looking balanced on paper is because a "New-Age" meta tests threat assessment much more thoroughly than either cEDH or "Old-Guard-Casual", with the former demanding answers all the time asap and the later allowing too much slacking (to the point "pack more removal" is advice usually only dispensed for returning Old Guards who didn't get the memo and seldom for the newer players, although they do need to hone their threat assessment itself, due to lack of tempering).

To the newer generation of players, this is their EDH - if you want other conditions to prevail, you have to be armed to deal with cEDH-tier threats and know when to deal with said threats. Your own cEDH-tier bullet(s) are also likely prone to flop, so you better prepare another win condition that wins through attrition because that is what dodges removal reserved for the bullet themselves.

You cannot just explain the old bedrock and expect them to build a deck consciously to the floor of the old era, because they were introduced to the power-level of the current era and their accessibility (and willingness to spend because remember they have no physical hoard) is also more limited to what's easily available now. This also holds true for the ceiling of cEDH, they find out removal and threat assessment can hard-fold those as long as they have numbers (which Arena provides) and have little incentive to reach for the same ceilings the old-guard cEDH players did (also doesn't help the old inaccessible cards for those are also exorbitantly expensive, especially from their perspective).

They're forming their own comfortable bedrock that exists between the two extremes of the Old-Guards and steadily outnumbering the Old Guards of both ends (casual and cEDH). Both Old Guards easily condemn this "New-Age" power-level to be closer to the opposite side then they would like, but it generally sounds louder from the Casual side because there are more of us than Old-Guard-cEDH, that is all. Meanwhile, realistically on the ground I just see this "New Age" group absorb the Old Guard from both sides as it naturally grows faster thanks to Arena (and the Old Guard taking more absences to maintain its presence not helping their own preservation).

As the new generation starts to outnumber and stabilize more, it is not them who needs to understand the casual and cEDH of old, but the casual and cEDH of old that needs to understand the precise "New Age" level they need to play if they still want an easier time to find games to play just by walking in the LGS.

I'm sure this sort of thing is happening, but to my experience it's a lot more varied and difficult to draw concrete narratives around. Power levels aren't homogenized in the middle, but scattered all over the place, with some people playing sub-precons and still quite a few near the old-school power level, despite the increasing numbers of "new-age" decks (which as I've said, tend to be more wincon-focused in my experience). But all that varies quite a lot from group to group. The internet likely has a much more established meta, I'd imagine, but in person things feel pretty chaotic in my experience.

[Yatsufusa]

@Jemolk

Yeah I could see where you're coming from and why my PoV can be seen as defeatist, but reality is back then my main LGS did its arms race much earlier and much more abruptly (during Eternal Masters and also due to a weird influx of vintage/legacy converts) and I decided with my dwindling available playtime I'd rather actually have some fun when I play then have no fun at all trying to push an opposite direction. The current wave is slower and I can see your movement as plausible, but at this point I'm entrenched where I am pretty comfortably with almost all players at the LGS, new or old (and we rotate pretty frequently due to life) so I'd rather not rock my boat. I do miss (and hence empathize) those 2011-2016 older days, but I naturally tilt towards a defeatist (or adaptive, two sides of the same coin) stance as I already took it years ago.

I'm sure this sort of thing is happening, but to my experience it's a lot more varied and difficult to draw concrete narratives around. Power levels aren't homogenized in the middle, but scattered all over the place, with some people playing sub-precons and still quite a few near the old-school power level, despite the increasing numbers of "new-age" decks (which as I've said, tend to be more wincon-focused in my experience). But all that varies quite a lot from group to group. The internet likely has a much more established meta, I'd imagine, but in person things feel pretty chaotic in my experience.

Okay, I'm definitely not quoting piece-by-piece, but generally we've come to an agreement, or at least even the parts neither of us are sure of we concede that it's because both of us are likely to have had vastly different actual experiences, my reply to Jemolk above sort of demonstrated I went actually did go "doomer" briefly then adapted quickly in my own meta and from as-as-a-neutral perspective as I could I analyzed Arena to be a much slower, but also more inevitable version of what Eternal Masters did for my own meta.

I think the major difference is you define the cEDH decks as the ones with most of the answers, but from my own experience the cEDH decks I saw pretty much only prepared answers sufficient to ensure the quickest wins and everything else was to speed out the wincons, because they were largely splintered (and favored 1v1, so their removal took into account their splintered meta). Turns out when the old-school casual players then decided to load up on the answers (and tutors to get those answers) without loading on the wincons they could still overwhelm the cEDH player pretty easily as long as they had the numbers advantage (we even let the cEDH play multiplayer games when they couldn't find each other because of that).

Another difference is that you think the "new age" players lack removal/interaction and load up on (not-quite cEDH) wincons, which is why they feel like "knock-off cEDH" decks, but from my experience the opposite was true. The real old-school casual decks were the ones lacking interaction because they were so used to battlecruising slowly unopposed, then accused any deck that packed removal to be "anti-casual" and hence "cEDH" when back then even those removal decks had wincons that were nowhere close to the "new age" decks, let alone cEDH ones. Eventually they gave up and started loading their own removal and my own meta evolved to what it was right before the Eternal Masters arms race / cEDH surge, so perhaps that was why we were somewhat halfway prepared to already outlast the cEDH meta (like I said they migrated from Vintage/Legacy and favored 1v1), only that we loaded up faster answers in response to cEDH's speed (while not really changing our wincons).

Only after that race (Eternal Masters), did the "New Age" players roll in (since precon exclusives didn't really powercreep until after that) and they quickly picked up on why removal choice and threat assessment was important, so my impression of "New Age" players seemed to be the ones loaded with the answers to deal with cEDH players. The plausible danger is that the powercreep post-Eternal Masters also modified their wincons to be stronger than those played by the old-school casuals who adapted with removal, they could be felt to be like a new generation of "cEDH" players instead, but ultimately their "cEDH" wincons could be similarly dealt removal by anyone who learnt from the interaction meta, so it didn't felt like they evolved to be any type of menace at all, just needed even more careful threat assessment.

Sure, of course there will always be the newbie who didn't get the memo and played the first few weeks as "new age with little/no interaction and too many combos", but more often than not they got stumped by why they kept losing because they kept launching combo after combo (forcing everyone else to answer them) and by the time they ran out it's easy to feel like one of the opponents won easily with another "pseudo-cEDH combo" but that's because a whole game of mainly interacting with the newbie already happened and everyone else was biding for that time, the same way the same meta dealt with actual cEDH back during Eternal Masters.

Did we lose true old-school casual battlecruiser along the way? Admittedly, to a certain degree, yes, we now need to navigate a minefield of interaction, but it's still possible to win via the old ways provided everyone isn't terrible at threat assessment and we used cEDH as well as mistaken "New-Age-pseudo-cEDH" players as grindstones to practice that threat assessment on, a well-timed battlecruiser isn't any different from any game-ending combo if utilized correctly. Likewise, removal is not a tool exclusive to cEDH, any deck worth its salt should pack and pilot its missiles wisely, casual doesn't mean you let loose off them willy-nilly.

To summarize, you think a group of 8s can't stop a 10, but from what I see they can if those 8s are loaded with tier-10 interaction, then it didn't matter whether they wincon/strategy was tier 5/6 back then (which made them the 8s). Nowadays it's a bit trickier to see because a lot of these 8s evolved to 9s because they're using their tier-10 interaction with their improved tier 7/8 wincons (and new players are following suit, but forgot about the removal part for their first few weeks), but it turns out if everyone knew how to run their tier-10 interactions, it doesn't matter at all, you could still be running tier 5/6 wincon/strategies today and stand the same chance.

Was it more fun when everyone was playing tier 5-7 and it was more chaotic? To a degree yes, but back then isolated cEDH was them running 10/10 on both ends and when it was discovered as long as you had tier-10 caliber removal and threat assessment skills, the gap between the tiers for wincons/strategies actually became much smaller. The casual deck that only packs fun and no interaction is no different from the "cEDH" deck that did the same with its combos, both fold when faced with interaction.

Unless you define mastery of interaction alone to qualify as cEDH (and not the combination of it and combos), it is actually the perfect homogenization tool that allows fun with both ends of the other factor (wincon/strategy). A meta with players less skilled with interaction would find more need to define the power-levels of wincons/strategies distinctly, but one with players mastered in the art of interaction can make a game balanced even with opposing power-levels. Interaction is like the unspoken "Rule 0" of the game itself, subtly built-in to display its prowess when mastered. When inverted, that's how pubstomping happens, when all decks don't run interaction at all, it becomes a matter of who manages to assemble first, in cEDH it's can be turn 1, in old-school casual it can be anywhere, but was it really a fun game when you realized that it was just taking 8 turns to do another thing, but similarly unopposed? The same sandbox, which makes the players that whine about removal, regardless of whether they are turn-1 cEDH combo, or turn 8 battlecruiser, the actual real menace of the format that dislikes the unspoken "Rule 0" of the format.

Funny enough it's our discussion here working out like I how I said it does in-game - with proper discussion/interaction we can still disagree but still have an enjoyable time, just like how a cEDH deck can lose to a battlecruiser that's loaded with the right interaction, or can still win in late-game if they changed their prioritizing according to the game in question. Either way, I think both of us have had a different experience and as a result a different definition of the various terms used here. But at the same time we pretty much admit and realize that difference and it's unlikely for us to fully reconcile (since actual experience leaves a mark deeper than mere forum words will). If you wish to respond I humbly request not to do it piece-by-piece either, because it's likely going to be just an explanation on how our experiences and views for each specific portion is different yet plausible from another perspective.

[DirkGently]

Okay, I'm definitely not quoting piece-by-piece, but generally we've come to an agreement, or at least even the parts neither of us are sure of we concede that it's because both of us are likely to have had vastly different actual experiences

yeah good call lol. Yours is by far the most productive part of the conversation I'm involved in, but damn it generates a lot of text.

I do think all you can really do is adapt. You can try to police your own games a bit, but at the end of the day in the LGS scene you're at the mercy of the table. If everyone else is groovy with the power creep, then you kinda have to go along with it or look like one of the table-flippers. Not than an experienced person would think you were, but there are usually a lot more new eyes than experienced ones in your LGS these days.

cEDH decks vary I'm sure in terms of answers vs threats, but most of the ones I see tend to have at least 10-20. Whereas a lot of the pseudo-cEDH decks are more like 5-10. That's just a general feeling I get, though, I'm sure different people do them different ways. The biggest difference is that the cEDH decks are usually running a massive number of tutors to find their combo wincon ASAP whereas the pseudo-cEDH decks are usually filling in gaps with random value stuff instead of being hyper focused. I guess there was a guy back in England I remember who ran some stupid 50-counterspell baral list and thought he was cEDH material lol. Like I said, I see more people wearing cEDH as a badge of honor, like it just means "I'm good at EDH" instead of being a separate format.

Definitely old-school decks were weak on interaction. Personally that was rarely my vice but it was true in general. I think migrating to having more answers while keeping similar wincons is the most fun way to play without getting obliterated by stronger decks, but then that was my game even back in 2011.

The new-age vs new-age meta you describe hasn't really evolved in the same way around here. Like I said, mostly low-answer decks. Sometimes playing Phelddagrif can be exhausting. But more commonly, it's like 1 new-age deck, a couple apathy-casuals, and myself. It's all over the map tbh. When I spectate other games, a lot of the time it just boils down to whoever combos first, with little resistance. Idk, maybe your meta is further "evolved" than mine is, but I'll admit I'd rather not stick around for it to get worse in that particular LGS (for a multitude of reasons).

I don't think it's true that "fun-tier" casual decks fold to interaction. Usually their threats are pretty scattershot so no single card getting removed will shut them down. Although they might scoop because they're upset you killed their cards, depending on the player.

Code: Select all

https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/list-multiplayer-edh-generals-by-tier/

I'd define cEDH as whatever ends up in the top tier lists tbh. I've long used this list ^ as a cheat-sheet for grokking the format without needing to actually wade too deep into the water. Usually it's combos plus efficient answers but I'm sure there's some degree of variety in there. (apologies for weird formatting but the forum software REALLY wants to import the tappedout decklist into a very long and very useless list of every commander in alphabetical order instead of a link)

I do think that having good threat assessment and interaction make for a better game at all power levels, but honestly a lot of the time it's kinda exhausting trying to explain to new players why burning their removal on subpar targets is a bad play. If there's no powerful decks then it doesn't matter so much, but when there's power level discrepancies plus bad threat assessment/weak interaction it's a recipe for disaster. I guess in that respect the "more evolved meta" is preferrable since at least people keep each other in check. But I still think it likely boxes out a lot of the meta to play at that level.

I disagree that old-school casual is just building up unopposed. I mean, it can be, if you're going for a craterhoof or whatever, but I think ideally there would be a lot more combat math going on - attacking the leading player and forcing them to take trades, lose life, etc, wearing them down that way even if you don't have removal. The everyone-in-a-bubble-then-wincon is terrible at every power level, I agree, but that's not what low-powered commander should be (imo).

Yeah, it has been a productive conversation - it's interesting to hear about your differing experiences. I think for the most part we're at as much of an understanding as we can be given our different environments. Even though our experiences differ a lot in the details, I think I can still place them together in a broader perspective of what's happening at a format-level.