Recent Game Knights Episode (spoilers) and Commander Play Styles

[kraus911]

There's a lot to talk about Game Knights and how it positively/negatively affects our format, and I don't intend to stir up the waters in that regard. But the recent Time Spiral episode ( for reference - was really uncomfortable to watch for me because of how 2 players were playing 1 game and 2 players were playing another. It really brought home to me two issues we all deal with: Pregame table communication and during game politics.

The Professor from the Tolarian Community College channel did an excellent video on discussing deck power levels recently ( and I really like how he emphasizes communicating about what kind of game you want. The Game Knights video is just a great illustration of how a game goes when people wanting different things from their game bring their decks to the table. It is odd because it seems everyone knew going in what kind of deck the sultai combo player would be playing, but regardless of that, you can see the frustration we've all felt at mismatched tables.

I think the aspect of the video that really stands out though is the table politics. Stating that players can choose who gets hit by Kaervek the Merciless works fine for a casual game, but not when there's a sultai combo deck that plays Timetwister . As far as the deal making and favor exchanging that is a staple of Game Knights, those just fall flat when there's a competitive deck at the table. A friend of mine said it well that in more competitive games you politic with your actions. If you let your shields down to deal with an obvious problem that is going to run the table, others should respect that and give you a break. I really liked Josh's technique of pointing out the Narset, Parter of Veils and the high loyalty Cassius left her at, saying, hey guys, he's going to wheel. To me that's the kind of politicking that makes a game fun.

[Rumpy5897]

Summary of TCC video, as it's five one-line points rolled out into 17 minutes of blabber:

1. Prior to game, discuss:
   1. desired game length
   2. whether playing optimally or socially
   3. what sort of play patterns are undesirable
2. Commander value is the prime indicator of deck potential
3. Do a post-game debrief of things that went right/wrong

While this is quite a bit more useful than offering the extremely insightful "MY DECK IS A SEVEN", there are still a number of factors that go into creating a balanced game that are quite hard to model (prior power bias, player skill, what have you). The easiest way is to play it by ear after the first game and adjust decks accordingly. These discussion points theoretically help, but if you just blew up the world on turn six with your "snake tribal" deck while nobody else did anything of note, there are power cues for the whole room to read here. This requires repeated games though, and I think a healthier shift of discussion would be towards encouraging multiple games within pods. As then after some period of burn-in, hopefully of one game, some more balanced fun can be had. Are repeated games within pods the norm? I'd say this is not the case on Cockatrice at least.

Interestingly, TCC markets the video towards playgroups. I think if you're in a playgroup, you've probably grokked the basic concept of communication within said group and can avoid insane power imbalances. Nut draws and other stomps can still happen, but if you're playing against people you're familiar enough with to call them a playgroup, you shouldn't need a checklist to ensure the game is reasonably balanced.

I'll agree that the TSR Game Knights episode could have been more balanced. It feels that sometimes they communicate better, they had Amaz on once and that game was pretty high-powered table-wide (minus the second guest, who got screwed by the draw and played like one spell all game long). Once the notoriously competitive Cassius dibsed Tasigur, the Kaervek/Radha players could have gone for Arcades and Feather instead. Even then, there are a lot of factors that can lead a game astray even if the decks are better equipped to be in a game together. The worst Game Knights episode (as far as I'm concerned) has one of the decks explode into a never-ending barrage of extra turns, which is wildly out of proportion to everything else that's happening at the table. It doesn't help that there's a nontrivial misplay in the deck's favour earlier in the game. At least the most recent one wasn't a non-game.

[PrimevalCommander]

There does seem to be a large discrepancy in power level in this game. Thought I was watching "Casually Competitive" or "Playing with Power" there for a moment. Game Knights is hit or miss to me for quite a while. The Tasigur deck appeared to be working at a different level than the rest of the table. Though Josh did have a snoozetastic Jhoira deck from 2012 with some new toys/bombs.

One would hope in a playgroup environment this would only happen once, and the rest of the table could either adjust their threat assessment accordingly, or ask the offending player if they have a lower powered deck. Funny enough, my new local playgroup has games that end up like this. I'm still trying to get a feel for which power scale is more common and adjust my deck and play to match.

[Krishnath]

That episode of Game Knight was painful to watch, it got bad near the end that I couldn't watch the last five minutes of the video. It didn't help that two of Marsh's opponents got outright told what he was going to do, said they were going to deal with it, and then did the exact opposite of what they said they would do, basically wasting a turn and allowing him to set up and spike the game. No offense to them, I like them both as both entertainers and content creators, but %$#%$#% that was stupid. If you know what a combo player is setting up and you have the means to stop them, you do not faff about, you friggin' stop them.

[darrenhabib]

I can't stand watching commander games on video so I have never watched a Game Knights episode, but thought I'd give it a go to see what you were talking about.
I will say kudos on the production, they have somebody creating animations of cards and I can appreciate the effort with that!

On the actual power level differences, yes this is Commander in a nut shell. I mean if a group can't get it right for an actual entertainment video it's a sure sign of the problem most groups have at some stage.

[pokken]

Somewhat of a tangent:

A thing I learned (that kinda surprised me) when doing that deck analysis project is that average CMC is by far the #1 indicator of what a deck is going to do. Nothing correlated more directly with power level than average CMC.

There were goofy exceptions like the high CMC tribal and karador mono-1-drops and whatever but those are pretty easy to suss out.

As to why, it's because your average CMC largely answers the question of what your deck thinks the critical turn is, in a roundabout fashion, which says a lot about how you want to play.

It's probably the first thing I would look at for an honest assessment of power level, and I'd say that decks that diverge seriously from a curve perspective are unlikely to play well together.

[Dunharrow]

Somewhat of a tangent:

A thing I learned (that kinda surprised me) when doing that deck analysis project is that average CMC is by far the #1 indicator of what a deck is going to do. Nothing correlated more directly with power level than average CMC.

There were goofy exceptions like the high CMC tribal and karador mono-1-drops and whatever but those are pretty easy to suss out.

As to why, it's because your average CMC largely answers the question of what your deck thinks the critical turn is, in a roundabout fashion, which says a lot about how you want to play.

It's probably the first thing I would look at for an honest assessment of power level, and I'd say that decks that diverge seriously from a curve perspective are unlikely to play well together.

I 100% believe this, but I do not know how you can expect the average EDH player to know their deck's average CMC.

[pokken]

I 100% believe this, but I do not know how you can expect the average EDH player to know their deck's average CMC.

Deckbox, tappedout, etc. all have calculators but yeah I know a lot o guys who do not put their decks into deckbox.

[Serenade]

......y'all don't track these things and most of your life in Excel? =P

[Dunharrow]

I 100% believe this, but I do not know how you can expect the average EDH player to know their deck's average CMC.

Deckbox, tappedout, etc. all have calculators but yeah I know a lot o guys who do not put their decks into deckbox.

I have never put a decklist online - by the time I do it a new set comes out and it is out of date.

[pokken]

I keep all my decks online and update them every time I make changes, it's the only way to keep track of where all my cards are

[abel88]

i honestly have a hard time watching game knights anymore. you pretty much know is gonna win within the first 10 minutes of a game, josh is just getting worse and worse with his attitude, and vedalken orrery butt kissing just gets boring after a while.

[NGW]

i honestly have a hard time watching game knights anymore. you pretty much know is gonna win within the first 10 minutes of a game, josh is just getting worse and worse with his attitude, and vedalken orrery butt kissing just gets boring after a while.

Seriously, like...I get having a pet card and all, but he overrates the hell out of an honestly pretty mediocre card. With an enabler like Seedborn Muse, sure, it's pretty damn great, but otherwise getting to take your turn spread out across the rest of the rotation isn't honestly that valuable most of the time. Most plays I make tend to be things I rather do on my own turn anyways.

[kraus911]

All in all the games on Game Knights are of a different ilk than what I like to play, but that's what I love about our format - build the games you want to have. It just has to be intentional. I think it'd be great if they followed up in their usual discussion of the game video with how it's a good example of the need to actively "metagame" in a way that makes for a balanced game. I've definitely had those games where someone brings out their all artifact deck when I have a selesnya deck with Aura Shards and other artifact hate and told them one of us needs to switch decks or it's going to be an unfun time.

Again, what is weird to me about the episode is it's a high production value video so the lack of forethought in terms of balancing the decks and also the gameplay is strange.

[pokken]

Again, what is weird to me about the episode is it's a high production value video so the lack of forethought in terms of balancing the decks and also the gameplay is strange.

I think a huge portion of the commander community thinks it's easy to just pick up decks and play a good game. That's the impression I've gotten from watching a lot of non-CEDH videos.

Even a big portion of the CEDH content is littered with horrible landslides from people playing lower tiered decks (e.g. Monored Godo vs. tuned T&T).

Deck design in commander has more in common with cube design than it does with deck design in terms of complexity, if your goal is to craft a good experience.

(except the cube is your entire meta and you don't have control over it )

[Rumpy5897]

Deck design in commander has more in common with cube design than it does with deck design in terms of complexity, if your goal is to craft a good experience.

(except the cube is your entire meta and you don't have control over it )

This is a weirdly accurate description of EDH power scenarios. Once a high level of familiarity is obtained, it becomes possible for the group as a whole to try to sculpt a fun environment minimising non-game odds for all people involved.

A thing that I've been underrating in my musings is the power of reaction. You see that to an extent in the Game Knights episode - Josh sniffs out a play line and tries to band the table together to do something about it. If you comparatively explode out of the gate, you get to eat the removal. As it turns out, Sheldon's adages still often hold true - aiming for second in threat level tends to get you relatively smooth sailing (and "build casual, play competitive" helps obtain desired power level while not having the game feel hollow, but that's a different matter). The fact is interaction can help close some power gaps, but there's still only so much this can do.

As for Game Knights itself, I remember when the initial episodes were coming out and it was a new, cool and exciting thing. By now they've expanded to a 10+ person operation, they've got to pay the bills, and that impacts their content. Another thing that leaves its mark is they're advertising the new set, so they've got a narrow legend pool and finite amount of time to build/test. As for the show's influence on the format - I don't think it's that bad, really? I feel that most of my decks could hold their own at the sort of power level they tend to operate at. While I didn't submit my decks for a formal check, I tried to get the playEDH Discord's opinion on them for a relatively unbiased power measure. My best deck was right in the middle of their scale, and I feel that I wouldn't need to reach for those to be able to do something. What sort of negative influence does the show have on the format?

[toctheyounger]

I'm sure we all saw the writing on the wall for this episode way ahead of time. It wasn't the most painful episode to watch but it is up there - there's one where JLK plays Athreos clerics and another where he plays Emmara tap tribal. He dominates the table both times and no one tries hard enough to stop him, he runs away with the game, and the games are just uninteresting to watch. Then there's the fan entry extra turns episode where Ashlen brings her Kozilek deck. Cool deck, but it can't have been fun just being dominated like that.

Honestly, as great as the production value is for GK, there's so much variation in the quality of the games. A lot of it is just that they're not that great at the game in many ways. Jimmy makes terrible plays constantly. In this game there was no reason Ashlen ought to have cast Fiery Emancipation ahead of her commander. I'm sure there's more.

Its also a really weird meta that I really struggle to relate to. They have a completely unfettered budget and still somehow let Cash run away with the game.How do you have that sort of access to quality and just let someone win like that? To be honest, this was inevitable - Cash showed them what the end result of that sort of budget is and what happens when you don't run enough removal. Also, what was Josh even running in his Jhoira build? How do you have absolutely nothing to suspend? Its baffling and I don't get it.

Its just weird....high level game play and they still goldfish. I just really struggle to relate to the actual game play in all but a couple of episodes.

[kraus911]

I think that's part of how the show can be unhealthy for the format - it doesn't demonstrate how to build a balanced meta. It focuses more on ingame deals and favors than it does on "hey do our decks match up?" and "what do you want from the game?" Cassius wanted to bring his A game, clearly, and Ashlyn wanted more chaos and splashy plays. And honestly, Cassius talking about getting salty when people started to try to do something about his gameplan when he had a Timetwister already in the graveyard? A good player should respect people recognizing his good line of play and trying to dismantle it, not get "salty". I think if the show spent more time on demonstrating how to match decks and play styles it would carry a lot more weight.

And the other aspect of the show that's unhealthy is playing with cards on the reserved list, or even cards not on the reserved list that are above a certain price. It's not normal anymore to play in a gameshop and have a bunch of ABU duals on the table with Wheel of Fortune and Gaea's Cradle being flung about. Sure, you could say it's like watching a youtube channel where people driver Ferraris and Porsches because it lets you see cool expensive things you can't afford, but at the end of the day, if they want to promote the format, they should demonstrate how to do so with sub $300 decks rather than decks full of $300 cards.

[toctheyounger]

I think that's part of how the show can be unhealthy for the format - it doesn't demonstrate how to build a balanced meta. It focuses more on ingame deals and favors than it does on "hey do our decks match up?" and "what do you want from the game?" Cassius wanted to bring his A game, clearly, and Ashlyn wanted more chaos and splashy plays. And honestly, Cassius talking about getting salty when people started to try to do something about his gameplan when he had a Timetwister already in the graveyard? A good player should respect people recognizing his good line of play and trying to dismantle it, not get "salty". I think if the show spent more time on demonstrating how to match decks and play styles it would carry a lot more weight.

And the other aspect of the show that's unhealthy is playing with cards on the reserved list, or even cards not on the reserved list that are above a certain price. It's not normal anymore to play in a gameshop and have a bunch of ABU duals on the table with Wheel of Fortune and Gaea's Cradle being flung about. Sure, you could say it's like watching a youtube channel where people driver Ferraris and Porsches because it lets you see cool expensive things you can't afford, but at the end of the day, if they want to promote the format, they should demonstrate how to do so with sub $300 decks rather than decks full of $300 cards.

Not sure if you've seen any of the roundtable discussions post game they do, but there's one post every game. The last one, with the guy from Cobra Kai, they mentioned that they do at least 1-2 games pre-filming to make sure the decks balance out, but....this time round I dunno, either Cassius's deck flopped hard in the trials or everyone else's deck flopped hard in the filmed game. It's hard to see how that Tasigur, the Golden Fang deck would stack up fairly against the other builds, it was pretty optimised, and I don't know if you could say that about any of the other decks.

To be honest, I think the unhealthiest thing about the more recent episodes is the attitude people coming in have which is 'I want the win'. That's where these stacked games happen, people just bring their die-hard decks to try and get one past JLK. Cash definitely had that this time, and I think the last episode was just an archenemy commander more than anything - guy realised what he'd picked and knew he had to fight the whole table or he was a goner.

There's definitely guests that have brought a really good vibe with them and played in a really balanced, fun to watch sort of way - I really enjoyed Joe Johnson in his two appearances, Rachel Weeks, Craig is way more balanced than his spikish deck choices make him seem, and Mel Li was really good too (although something makes me think they stopped inviting her after she got all salty for Craig playing Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger - they keep referring to it years later even). Even Cash's previous appearances have been more balanced too.

Part of me wonders though, whether this was a deck he already had together and had been curating for some time. It seems that way - that's a ton of money to drop on a build you use for one episode. It's something I'd be interested in hearing from JLK and Jimmy about too, tbh - how far down the rabbit hole do you go for a deck you might only use once? Jimmy seems mostly happy to durdle, so I don't think he would be too committed to perfecting a build around a new commander, and JLK is kind of sold as being the mastermind gamer of the show, so there's probably a lot of pressure on him to either win lots or compete well.

[MeowZeDung]

My boy and I just watched the episode tonight.

Yeah... that was rough. Incredible production, per usual. The cutaways to give colorful commentary on every... single... game action are getting to be a little much though. I get it - they're trying to appeal to a very broad audience and not just longtime commander players. Add onto that the imbalances everyone has already noted and... woof. It genuinely makes me miss the vibe they had when it was just them and two buddies in an apartment. I hope they can recapture some of that moving forward.

I think the only other thing that really gets to me is that it seems that JLK is just far and away the best player AND deckbuilder on most episodes (no offense to the others, they aren't necessarily "bad", JLK just seems to be a step up. Not uncommon for most playgroups to have one such player.), so there's a lot of archenemy, people spiking decks to get him (like in this episode - sweet deck Marsh, but it will be more fun in pure cEDH pods), or JLK just running the table. That's a shame, b/c I really, really like JLK. He's probably the most likable guy in the broadly popular MTG creatorsphere in my opinion - you can tell he cares, is genuine, wants others to succeed, and has put a LOT into both balancing entertaining and educating. His decks are generally pretty fun and creative AND they do serious work. But it seems every episode he's facing off against a UGx ramp/draw pile, a BRx chaos/removal pile, and a dud. Maybe it was inevitable that the tone of the show shift more and more away from casual and toward "look at these new/powerful/expensive cards!" as they got more sponsors. I don't fault them I guess. There's serious pressure there. I'm guessing nothing about making that show is easy, especially now with payroll commitments.

Contrast GK with Commander's Brew gameplay show "Battle of the Brews", which is way more casual, but the decks are significantly more balanced with regard to power level. The guys are total goofballs, which might not be everyone's cup of tea, and the production value is a LOT lower, but I've enjoyed every episode except for one where a Sai, Master Thopterist deck was leagues above the rest of the table and it became a game of solitaire. It's really too bad they haven't brought it back due to Covid, but I hope they do. I wish something like GK would use their influence and production to make sweet content like that.

(Rereading this makes me feel bad because it comes across as taking an absolute dump on GK. Easy to be an armchair quarterback. To clarify: I quite enjoy the show and my son and I look forward to each new episode of it and Extra Turns. I really hope they keep doing what works well and adjust for what hasn't been as stellar.)

EDIT: maybe the fellas will just break the internet and finally manage to get Marshall and LSV to come on the show and humor fans of multiplayer and limited.

[DirkGently]

I concur about the frustrations. A few more stray thoughts:

It feels like they're very reticent to target one person - even when it's clear that they're the threat. It was really annoying watching them slug it out with each other and make deals with Cassius when it was obviously he was playing a deck tiers above theirs. Josh was the only one playing smart and his deck did absolutely nothing.

I suspect they don't exercise enough control over what people play. Cassius' deck looked like unfun cancer to me. Someone in production should have told him to play something else, just for the sake of a watchable game.

Minor note, but they really ought to cool it with doing animations for spells that have already been cast. Seen it!

It's kind of stupid how they act like "oh golly gosh, what an exciting yet unfortunately turns of events" when he goes immediately for an asymmetric wheel combo and almost pulls it off. That's not a dramatic turn. That's a signal that you should pick new decks and try again.

The ratio of likes/dislikes reinforces what I already see on a smaller scale at my LGS - most commander players really don't have a good grasp on power levels and what makes for an interesting game.

Most importantly BY FAR - WTF Ashlen copied my Kaervek strat! (Well, except for the part of it where I give myself an out to redirect damage when enemies are targeting me or the game is about to end) Not that I'm actually annoyed, but I am genuinely curious if she got the idea from my thread, if my ideas have migrated elsewhere, or if she thought of the same thing independently. Her not using my complete rules makes me suspect it's the latter, but I want to believe the former.

[MeowZeDung]

It feels like they're very reticent to target one person - even when it's clear that they're the threat. It was really annoying watching them slug it out with each other and make deals with Cassius when it was obviously he was playing a deck tiers above theirs. Josh was the only one playing smart and his deck did absolutely nothing.

Ermagersh yes. Letting Narset, Parter of Veils live was beyond ridiculous - and while JLK played it up for entertainment value, I thought I sense some genuine frustration in his voice too.

Then Ashlen blows up all sorts of crap with Toralf, God of Fury. . . but lets the freakin Hullbreacher live?!?!? I mean, I guess they already let him get into Omniscience range at that point, but... like atleast... try?

I suspect they don't exercise enough control over what people play. Cassius' deck looked like unfun cancer to me. Someone in production should have told him to play something else, just for the sake of a watchable game.

QFT.

Most importantly BY FAR - WTF Ashlen copied my Kaervek strat! (Well, except for the part of it where I give myself an out to redirect damage when enemies are targeting me or the game is about to end) Not that I'm actually annoyed, but I am genuinely curious if she got the idea from my thread, if my ideas have migrated elsewhere, or if she thought of the same thing independently. Her not using my complete rules makes me suspect it's the latter, but I want to believe the former.

HA! As soon as she made that stipulation to the table I thought to myself "...doesn't Dirk's Kaervek deck do something like that?"

[toctheyounger]

Most importantly BY FAR - WTF Ashlen copied my Kaervek strat!

HA! As soon as she made that stipulation to the table I thought to myself "...doesn't Dirk's Kaervek deck do something like that?"

Ha! And me makes three! I saw it coming a little....there's really no other way to play Kaervek and not get hated out imo, but I thought of Dirk as soon as I saw it nonetheless.

All that aside I think we'll probably see more of this into the future. There's kind of a JLK/Jimmy meta anyway - Josh builds decks that are solid and reliable without being too busted mostly, which gives the gamestate enough stability for Jimmy to durdle and do whatever he decides to do game to game. The others like Ladee and Ashlen and the others have their moments of brilliance, but if JLK left I think the games would be sloppy enough that they would struggle to live up to past glories. It kind of makes anyone coming into the meta have to pretty much clear JLK's threat assessment and if they do with sufficient momentum they probably win.

Honestly, as fun as GK is I think Jimmy isn't that great an EDH player. He's the guy who needs to rein in his imagination and hone his lines of play and make sure he hits his %$#% land drops. Perhaps it's some sort of gamer profile representation where they wanna make sure durdlers are validated or something, but he's just not very good, or at least, the footage makes him seem average. This game was kind of the perfect example, really - he just screwed around, made a deal with another player to remove something, got so distracted that he forgot about it altogether and then lost.

I dunno I guess I'm probably being harsh, Jimmy's cool and all. It's probably a bit harder to keep your play tight on camera.

[TheAmericanSpirit]

Most importantly BY FAR - WTF Ashlen copied my Kaervek strat! (Well, except for the part of it where I give myself an out to redirect damage when enemies are targeting me or the game is about to end) Not that I'm actually annoyed, but I am genuinely curious if she got the idea from my thread, if my ideas have migrated elsewhere, or if she thought of the same thing independently. Her not using my complete rules makes me suspect it's the latter, but I want to believe the former.

If I had to put money on it, I'd wager it's just an example of parallel evolution, but I will concede that we have some really high-quality primers here. if nationally significant people like sheldon pop through occasionally, it isn't unthinkable to expect other personalities to peruse our discussions from time to time. The internet can be surprisingly small if one's query is ultra specific...

Did you see any evidence reflected in her build, like a significant card overlap, or was it only the rules manipulation? I'm gonna have to watch this now.

Edit: cleansing myself of shameful spelling errors.

[DirkGently]

Ermagersh yes. Letting Narset, Parter of Veils live was beyond ridiculous - and while JLK played it up for entertainment value, I thought I sense some genuine frustration in his voice too.

The feeling I got watching it is that he realized early on "oh piss, this could end up being a really unsatisfactory episode if it's literally just narset wheel immediately".

I wonder how they're made tbh. Do they ever have a do-over if the game doesn't turn out well?

I dunno I guess I'm probably being harsh, Jimmy's cool and all. It's probably a bit harder to keep your play tight on camera.

The vibe I get from both of them, in different ways, is that a significant percentage of what's happening is performative. That's true in the really obvious ways when they pout/gloat to camera in between plays (which are obviously shot after the game itself so they can't possibly still care that much), but also that their goal is split between the normal goals of a game, and the goal of performing the experience of an exciting game, and those goals don't necessarily align. I suspect the reason they don't make hands visible is that they're probably sandbagging correct plays for the sake a "more exciting game". Especially in the case of JLK, who seems to play relatively calculated trying to control the experience of the game - I think in this particular case the potential disaster caused him to be more explicit than usual in terms of threat assessment. Usually he seems like he's trying to both perform "hey, this is a fun casual commander game" while also carefully trying to ensure that the gameplay is enjoyable. In Jimmy's case, it seems like he mostly builds lower-powered decks and just doesn't take it very seriously, and assumes things will work themselves out. I dunno what he's like off camera, but on camera I'd say he seems detached. I'm probably reading too much into it, but I wonder if he's normally a bit more cutthroat and is intentionally trying to dial it back (probably too far back) to make the game look "fun and casual". (Maybe that's just because my dad would do that sort of thing when we'd play games as a kid - you could tell it was easy for him to get too competitive, so to avoid that he'd go into this space where he just didn't care at all, and it made the games kinda boring since he wasn't really even trying.)

On the subject of dumb misplays, why did he tap out for Commune with Lava? Surely he'd get much better value out of leaving a few mana open so he could actually, y'know, cast some stuff? Especially when someone has omniscience on the board and there's a solid chance the game will be over before his next turn. X=7 at absolute most imo. Then at least he could cast most enchantment removal he might hit and potentially save the game. To me, that's a good example of the sort of misplay you make when you really don't give that much of a %$#% about the game tbh. Like "eh, this is a thing to do I guess."

Obviously Ashlen isn't on as often, but I don't think her bad plays were made through apathy, I think they were just bad plays. Playing Kaervek on 7 was just as easy as playing the enchantment, easier since everyone knows you have it so no one can accuse you of misplaying since they don't know your alternatives. For the other guy, I also don't think he was performing in the same way either. JLK is the one corralling the various cats around the rink trying to make something watchable out of the whole thing.

I think ultimately it'd be a lot more enjoyable if they changed their production to play multiple games with different decks, reveal hands to camera, not try to puppet master the thing, and make an episode from whichever game turned out more interesting. It seems like they've got a one-take philosophy and it results in some real bad acting trying to make a garbage game look fun.

If I had to put money on it, I'd wager it's just an example of parallel evolution, but I will concede that we have some really high-quality primers here. if natoknally signjficant people like sheldon pop through occasionally, it isn't unthinkable to expect other personalities to peruse our discussions from time to time. The internet can be surprisiingly small if one's query is ultra specific...

Did you see any evidence reflected in her build, like a significant card overlap, or was it only the rules manipulation? I'm gonna have to watch this now.

I think it most likely is an independent idea because her decklist is very different from mine, especially in terms of mana ramp. My deck has like 30% mana ramp to get Kaervek on board early and often. Hers has very little ramp. Which seems like a bad plan considering how many cards she's got primary to synergize with her expensive commander, but w/e. Far from the biggest problem that game.

btw I'm assuming natoknally is a typo? I'm guessing nationally? Just want to clarify, not typo-shaming.