I don’t miss “Old EDH”

[Dunadain]

People like to talk about the "good ol' days" of edh, aka, "battlecruiser edh" and I've said a similar thimgs when my cute deck just gets murdered by a t3 combo.

Recently though, I've had some really long games and tbh, they are not as fun as I remember. In a game where the first 5ish turns don't really matter matter, the first 5ish turns are also boring. Then there's this awkward stall, either because no one has good attacks, or the board keeps wiping, or nobody is playing cards in fear of over committing into a wipe.

Obviously the nuanced answer is that games should be somewhere in between these two extremes and the sweetspot is going to vary from person to person, but I think I've been taking the faster games that I have nowadays for granted. I'll also feel less bad about murdeing someone with Ebondeath, Dracolich on t6.

[Sinis]

I think I miss when things were less rails-attuned.

Lemme explain. There's two prongs on this fork.

First, when Wizards prints something now, it's usually some mechanical stand in. You build the "Edgar Markov deck". There's a clear way to build the deck in maximum efficiency, and most people immediately figure out that if they want more vampire tokens, they play cheap 1 mana vampires, or vampires that replace themselves, (but both, because 100 card singleton). Similarly, there is a "Tasha, the Witch Queen deck", a "Jinnie Fay, Jetmir's Second deck" etc. Ever since (I want to say) 2014, WotC has been making decks that are more and more streamlined where they kind of build themselves. I do not like this development. I liked when the legendary supertype was a balancing feature as in Thalia, Guardian of Thraben (release date notwithstanding), and not a "HEY EDH COMMANDER PLAYERS, WANNA SEE THE LATEST THING YOU CAN BUILD?" I do not like this. I think it stifles creativity, and it's just... bleh. I do not want a commander to be released, and then for it to be basically pre-built. It is especially egregious with preconstructed decks, where it has become (for me) rarer and rarer to find more than a couple of cards to remove from a precon with a general I want to play because it's already built how I would have built it (I would like to arrive at that finish line on my own).

The second tine in this fork is the ubiquity of internet information. EDHREC, Game Knights, and many, many others solve these things and release it in a glossy presentation long before the cards are even released. The massive internet hive mind solves everything long before we get our mitts on physical copies. It's really hard to see a Legendary spoiler that points in a particular direction, and then for major content creators to point at it and say "Hey, it could go in the particular direction WotC intended it to" and then for me to want to build it, and play it in front of other people.

Basically, I want Wizards to print stuff not geared towards us, and then to be able to shut out the vast MTG content creation engine. I want legends to be generic, not stand in tribal leaders (like Edgar) or stand in supertype leaders (like Jorn or Isu), or the 'newest equipment commander' or the 'newest vehicle commander'. I would like a puzzle that isn't pre-solved. Like maybe having King Macar, the Gold-Cursed vehicles or something where it's not explicitly worded, but you can have a creative horse in the race. I think this is one of the reasons I advocate for, and enjoy Partners and partner-like mechanics so hard: There are so many options that it can't be pre-built. Wanna build Karlach, Fury of Avernus/Hardy Outlander? No content creator has broached it (probably), there's no precon for it.

---

I don't mind that decks are more streamlined now. I do mind that they're often uninventive and boring.

[pokken]

The thing I dislike most about streamlining is that, as a deck approaches maximum streamlining, it inevitably becomes a worse version of the same deck with a different commander or slightly different color identity.

The less tuned you are, the more room there is to play less glue and play more stuff that makes your commander mechanically distinct. If you're playing 30 staples at the top of your deck, there's very little room for personality.

[TheAmericanSpirit]

I don't mind modern edh. But nothing will beat the good ol' days of slamming incoherent jank against incoherent jank. Back in 2011, it was mostly guesswork and decks in the wild were way less predictable. The scariest boogeyman on the block was Zur the Enchanter. It was a beautiful time.

Alas, too soon tomorrow becomes yesterday.

[Dunharrow]

Two things
1 - how we play magic has changed. what you enjoyed 10+ years ago may not hold true anymore.
2 - Magic was more fun, not just at the commander tables, when we didn't have the resources we have now. I remember reading all the deckbuilding articles looking for gems I never heard of. It's not the style of play I miss, it's the surprise, the mystery and the creativity.

the format would be more fun if the most popular cards would be banned every year. Swords to Plowshares is an amazing card so what would happen if it wasn't in the format anymore? It isn't anyone's pet card or anything. Or just list the 30 most popular cards and make a rule that you can only play 6 per deck.

[materpillar]

I very much don't agree. I'd much prefer a 2-hour long slog than getting randomly murdered by a pushed commander on turn 4. At least in games that are slogs people get to do things with their deck. There's a much higher chance of complete non-games because the ceiling powerlevel of decks is much higher than it used to be. It's much harder to match powerlevels with random players at the LGS. Higher power levels and more streamlined decks also make playing pet cards significantly worse and timmy bombs pretty bad. All of which I'm not a fan of.

[ISBPathfinder]

I miss the post tuck / clones edh of years ago. The addition of combo card after combo card has really done bad things to the format and the fact that we still default at 40 life despite all of this isn't helping. I feel like the LGS games of EDH are hard to get everyone happy with the power level between all the players and it leaves a lot of people wishing for a different outcome than what they get.

[RxPhantom]

(I would like to arrive at that finish line on my own).

Your entire post resonated with me, but I really wanted to drill down on this specific sentence, because oh man do I feel the same way! I don't want to build a deck that a bunch of other people have. I want my mind to be the driving force behind my deck. I can't stand commanders that build themselves. Once you've seen every Feather, the Redeemed deck, you've seen them all.

For this reason, I build the first drafts of my decks without any outside assistance. No EDHrec. Just me and an idea. Sometimes I find that the hivemind and I have reached similar conclusions, but it was still me and that makes all the difference.

As for game length, I'm still a fan of mid to long games as long as things are happening and players are keeping things moving.

One thing I miss about the old days, though, is tuck. I suspect it's not a popular opinion, but I loved it. Getting your commander tucked meant that you had to rely more on wits, guile, or luck to pull off the win.

[Sinis]

I don't mind modern edh. But nothing will beat the good ol' days of slamming incoherent jank against incoherent jank. Back in 2011, it was mostly guesswork and decks in the wild were way less predictable. The scariest boogeyman on the block was Zur the Enchanter. It was a beautiful time.

Alas, too soon tomorrow becomes yesterday.

I think this is part and parcel to one of the things I wrote. They just don't print incoherent jank anymore. My first real project in EDH was to build each of the ascendant/essences from the Saviours of Kamigawa cycle (i.e. Rune-Tail, Kitsune Ascendant // Rune-Tail's Essence, nb, Erayo was legal at the time). Trying to make some of these cards work was really interesting. Some of them kind of built themselves (like Erayo was super-degenerate; it was a deck I only played with when people specifically asked, either to test mettle or see the spectacle). Like, try to build a deck around Kuon, Ogre Ascendant // Kuon's Essence.

Many of my decks were really fun to play, but they were awful, and I don't feel like there's room for that at most tables anymore.

Obviously this wasn't the case for everything. Uril was a pre-solved thing. But, I felt like there were many more that weren't.

(I would like to arrive at that finish line on my own).

Your entire post resonated with me, but I really wanted to drill down on this specific sentence, because oh man do I feel the same way! I don't want to build a deck that a bunch of other people have. I want my mind to be the driving force behind my deck. I can't stand commanders that build themselves. Once you've seen every Feather, the Redeemed deck, you've seen them all.

For this reason, I build the first drafts of my decks without any outside assistance. No EDHrec. Just me and an idea. Sometimes I find that the hivemind and I have reached similar conclusions, but it was still me and that makes all the difference.

As for game length, I'm still a fan of mid to long games as long as things are happening and players are keeping things moving.

One thing I miss about the old days, though, is tuck. I suspect it's not a popular opinion, but I loved it. Getting your commander tucked meant that you had to rely more on wits, guile, or luck to pull off the win.

I think it's not just feather. It's stuff like Jodah, the Unifier. I think the upsetting thing is there's no inventiveness to apply here. With King Macar, the Gold-Cursed, I mentioned vehicles, but you could also be playing stuff like Paradise Mantle, Springleaf Drum, etc. Maybe something to untap him more (like, would you Maze of Ith your own King Macar? Puppet Strings?). Those are all thoughts you can have. I feel like Jodah doesn't have room for those thoughts. I feel like most modern generals don't. You play legendary spells, full stop.

I also generally avoid EDHREC. Virtually the only online content I consume is here, on this site, or in a few scattered discords with relatively small audiences. However, I use twitter, and mtg twitter is a lot like EDHREC when it comes down to discussion about what's "good" in EDH.

I very much don't agree. I'd much prefer a 2-hour long slog than getting randomly murdered by a pushed commander on turn 4. At least in games that are slogs people get to do things with their deck. There's a much higher chance of complete non-games because the ceiling powerlevel of decks is much higher than it used to be. It's much harder to match powerlevels with random players at the LGS. Higher power levels and more streamlined decks also make playing pet cards significantly worse and timmy bombs pretty bad. All of which I'm not a fan of.

I agree very much with the idea that games where someone's turbo-charged and streamlined general runs away with the game, it's less likely to have fun.

[Mookie]

One thing I miss about the old days, though, is tuck. I suspect it's not a popular opinion, but I loved it. Getting your commander tucked meant that you had to rely more on wits, guile, or luck to pull off the win.

Yeah, I also miss tuck. When you aren't guaranteed access to your commander, you need to get creative with your win conditions. Your commander may be plan A, but you still need a plan B... and if games go long, maybe C and D as well.

These days? I feel like a lot of my opponents' strategies are 'resolve snowbally commander → untap with commander → win', with a backup plan of 'recast commander until opponents run out of removal'... unless they're running something like Tivit, Seller of Secrets or Zacama, Primal Calamity, in which case they don't even need to wait to untap.

...to me, one of the main appeals of EDH is the high variance... and I'm not a fan of how repetitive it can feel to play against some decks these days.

[pokken]

(edited for accuracy )

Yeah, I also miss tuck. When you aren't guaranteed access to your commander, you need to get creative with your win conditions. play a ton of extra goodstuff as a backup plan, homogenizing the format

It's like people don't remember what decks were like before tuck was canceled.

[ISBPathfinder]

One thing I miss about the old days, though, is tuck. I suspect it's not a popular opinion, but I loved it. Getting your commander tucked meant that you had to rely more on wits, guile, or luck to pull off the win.

I think there were pros and cons to it. You are correct that it made us play differently but it also made it harder to build around the commander unless you had a ton of sac outlets and or tutors in your deck. It felt like it removed a lot of the playing field and really pushed green and black harder as the colors that could get out of tuck. Red was probably the worst affected by tuck having the least tuck and the least means out of tuck.

[materpillar]

(edited for accuracy )

Yeah, I also miss tuck. When you aren't guaranteed access to your commander, you need to get creative with your win conditions. play a ton of extra goodstuff as a backup plan, homogenizing the format

It's like people don't remember what decks were like before tuck was canceled.

This was more my experience as well. Tuck feels like it'd be nice to have back as an answer to the streamlined pushed commanders but it really really blows to run into tuck in a low power. You think not being able to tuck Chulane, Teller of Tales is a pain since you have to play whack a mole. Real pain is having someone Hinder your Tivadar of Thorn in your "blinking Tividar and looping Shields of Velis Vel is my only means of creature removal" deck. I'd rather Doom Blade a thousand Chulane, Teller of Tales than have to experience that again.

[PrimevalCommander]

I miss portions of old EDH. Power creep is so rampant now that it gets hard to play even older format staples as they are so outclassed. The speed of the format and pushed nature of the commanders just leaves my interest watered down on the vast majority of the new legends. It is difficult to get inspiration to strike when everything is signposted to "build me this way". Yes there are legends that don't do this, but we have already had several examples that are so blatantly softballed to one theme or another as to make the design uninspired.

Tuck was something I missed, but now that it has been a good while, I don't think it would be good to come back. Goodstuff did reign supreme because you could not dedicate too much of your deck to commander synergy. But also if you wanted to be heavy on a theme, you actually had to build redundancies for the commander within the deck, which was a good way to balance power and add resiliency to your strategy. Now we see commanders cast 3-4-5 times per game and with each player doing this, the inevitability of strong commanders taking over gets old. I am not 100% sold that it should have left, but I know it cannot come back now as all the new players are so dependent on their commanders as to be lost without them. For mid-power games, killing commanders are probably the #1 easiest ways to stall opponents out and grab a win. No one knows how to play without their commander on the battlefield. I still build most of my decks with enough redundant synergy or draw-ramp to ensure I have access to what I need.

Game speed has been a wash. I do like slower games sometimes, but when I can play 3 or 4 games in a 4 hour session instead of just 2, it gives me much more data on my decks and keeps things fresh. Less multi-turn stalemates and slog fests. I just mold my playgroup as best I can to get the play experience we want. Now sometimes I want different things, but overall we are within the casual spectrum of the format, which is enough for me. Overall game speed pushes out a lot of the card pool for power level reasons. I am trying to develop a group that can play multiple speeds of commander so we can open our card pool some and allow for more quirky ideas instead of known "good builds".

As many have mentioned, I just don't like being spoon fed commanders for every possible theme in the game. Where is the challenge or uniqueness in that? Back before "design for commander" was #1 on their to-do list you actually had to find a commander with vague synergy with what you wanted to do and make it work. That put more emphasis on the cards in the 99, and less on the commander. Now you can just slam whatever signpost commander for your theme and the top 50 on color cards for that theme and rock on. Now you don't HAVE to do that, and I don't, but just seeing it out there is a big eye roll to me and apparently several others.

I don't like tutors in the command zone as a rule for reducing variance. Though Scion of the Ur-Dragon has sentimental value for me being from Time Spiral, my first set, so I'm trying to figure out how to build him with some variance involved. It will still probably end up a linear snoozefest, but I must try. And I have been wanting to make a Wild Pair deck for years and Rocco, Cabaretti Caterer may be the most efficient way to guarantee I see Wild Pair every game.

[ISBPathfinder]

Its kind of annoying how many generic card advantage commanders there are now. Back in the day it felt a lot harder to come by them and now every commander regardless of colors feels like it has a form of card advantage stapled onto it.

I ended up playing against a few casual players last week and it was to the point where I was like.... my casual decks are too competitive for this group and I just bowed out because I didn't think anyone was really having fun. Then I jumped to another table where I got comboed on super early through counter magic and was like.... FFFF where is the fun at these days.

[Treamayne]

I miss midrange games. My experience, at least, in the last five-ish years is that games are either comboed out by T5-6 or Staxed* into oblivion so nobody can cast/keep anything for 20 turns. I miss experienced magic players piloting EDH decks, so they come in to the game understanding things like threat assessment and "games actions should not be personal." Just because I blew up your T2 Rhystic Tithe does not mean I hate you or that you have to carry a vendetta over the next dozen games. . .

Now we see commanders cast 3-4-5 times per game and with each player doing this, the inevitability of strong commanders taking over gets old.

Yeah, in my never-will- happen-wishlist two of the primary format changes I would like:

• Commander tax moved from "2x" calculation to "xx" calculation (1st recast: +1 mana, 2nd recast: +4 mana, 3d recast: +9 mana)
  • Maybe only have that apply to recasting in the same turn?
• A defined limit to how many times per turn a commander can be recast from the CZ

*Very loose interpretation of the term, meaning a combination of players preventing plays or wiping every/every-other turn cycle. IME at least one player will do one of these and usually another player will do the other - the interaction is misery for everybody.

[duducrash]

What I trully hate of new age commander is how frowned upon cometitive/hate pieces are. In the past few months Ive seen someone be asked to play another deck because they played Mystic Remora and "thats a high powerlevel card". It doesnt even do anything in lower powered tables most of the time!!

Ive also taked MANY times about the time some tried to kick me out of a game because of Thalia, Guardian of Thraben . People are trying to play some youtube like games that dont are almost goldfishing

[Shabbaman]

Basically, I want Wizards to print stuff not geared towards us, and then to be able to shut out the vast MTG content creation engine.

The Power Of Shiny New Things (tm). Nobody has to build douchebaggery boring decks, they just choose to do so. Nobody has to write/stream about the exact same new card either, they just choose to do so. And since there are so many people playing you're bound to find somebody doing exactly what you don't want. That's likely true whatever your stance is...

[3drinks]

I just hate that there's always one player that is clearly on a budget/a kid/on chair tribal that just wants to play despite there being that one player that has the fully autonomous Tatyova "that isn't that good, guys, I swear!" but always picks on the weak link player and wins every time because they accumulate resources fastest because of this dynamic. Usually through infinite turns. And no one sees the issue but me because the same thing will continue to happen game after game after game.

[BaronCappuccino]

Only thing I miss about yesteryear is building Commander decks from cards that weren't designed for Commander.

[RxPhantom]

Only thing I miss about yesteryear is building Commander decks from cards that weren't designed for Commander.

Ok, but like, that's a huge thing.

[Jemolk]

I don't miss old EDH that much because for me, it never entirely went away. I do wish more people would try building decks without reliance on "staples," but that was never really not a problem. Same with getting overly distracted by "ooh, shiny" and appreciating power level more than interesting design. Really, the only modern Magic phenomenon that's getting in my way is product fatigue, and in some ways, people not wanting to keep up with the constant bombardment of new stuff and getting nostalgic for their best memories of a time that's past has improved my experience by getting people to focus more on the fun oddball designs over the latest wall-of-text OP mythic.

Only thing I miss about yesteryear is building Commander decks from cards that weren't designed for Commander.

You still can. It's a lot harder, and you have to make the deliberate deckbuilding decision to restrict yourself, but you can absolutely do it. I regularly do.

[RowanKeltizar]

I think meta playgroup restrictions could be an answer, and I think they might be best received if they are mutable. For example, "today we are only playing our budget decks." or "Today we are only playing our mon-colored decks" or maybe, "Today we all borrow one player's decks"

Idk, in my experience the multiplayer/singleton aspect of EDH is self balancing. The person running a $2k hyper optimized deck might actually be the first to be hated out. Strategy still is king in my playgroup despite all of us having the newest shiniest toys.

[Avacyn Believer]

I can very much relate to the comments about not enjoying long games that stall, and having more fun when I can play more games within an evening. I've noticed in myself that I don't enjoy games where nothing is happening, and I want games to finish fairly quickly so we can have another game.

This is why I've changed my opinion on 'I win' or 'you lose' cards. I didn't use to like them, but now I know that my decks have at least one card that can end the game.

It was likely said already, if not here then somewhere else; I believe that the enjoyment of any game comes down to expectations.

I can have fun in a slow game if we are all playing decks that go slow, and I can also have fun in a game we expect to be over by turn 5 if we are all playing those kind of decks. When I am not having fun is when someone, or me, is playing a deck that dominates too much because everyone else is playing lower power decks.

Comes down to communication really. By necessity I have to play with a lot of different groups, as my job sends me all over the place, and had to learn to travel with a range of decks and communicate with the table before the game starts. I always tell people what kind of deck I intend to play, and change the deck if the power level doesn't fit.