Hi Folks,

I am here to talk about the format. First of all, I have to make some disclaimers, that might be helpful to understand the following post right.

1. I am not an english native speaker. Please overread my mistakes.
2. Budget is not the matter here. I earn enough money to buy whatever card I want to buy.
3. This is my opinion. If you want to read this post, its your own choice. You have been warned.

Who I am and where I come from
I play magic the gathering since alliances and won several small competitions in my area. I play prereleases and friday night regularly. I am very interested in the cards, the mechanics and the possibilities of interactions. If you want to categorize me, I am somewhere between jhonnie and timmy. I like to create decks and I like to play cool things. Winning is not so important, than having a good time. That is, why I was interested in commander. I played the format for a year now on a non regular basis (about 2-8 hours a week).

What commander should be ...
"Commander is designed to promote social games of magic."
It is played in a variety of ways, depending on player preference, but a common vision ties together the global community to help them enjoy a different kind of magic. That vision is predicated on a social contract: a gentleman's agreement which goes beyond these rules to includes a degree of interactivity between players. Players should aim to interact both during the game and before it begins, discussing with other players what they expect/want from the game."
Here is the link http://mtgcommander.net/rules.php

What I encountered during my games ...
I tried to play commander in four different citys in five different stores. In all stores there were magic players from the whole range, casual to professional. They had fun during games of Standard and Legacy (which I play, too). Almost none of them had that much fun during any commander match I encountered. Me neither. Almost every game was dominated by a cheap combo win in turn 7-10. The size of the group did not matter. There were duels and groups of 3 to 5. The combo wins were almost always with unlimited turns, unlimited damage or unlimited life. Even, when I tried to build my deck comepletly around disruption, removal, graveyard hate, commander hate, I failed to hinder such a win. I only delayed them. I played several commanders (taysa, glissa and karador, rafiq, jor kadeen. No exeptional weak or troll-commander.) I won ocassionally against random players, but the games finishing in a turn below 10 with some tutored (and most of the time counter protected, @Force of will) combo trick were way too many to count. 8 out of 10 at least. All four citys were the same. There sat one guy and played his trick and won. And everybody sighed, shuffeled their cards and returned to start. That was no differend kind of magic. That was the same style of magic I see and play with 60 cards. Just more randomized.

What the problem was
The problem of this format is, that most players (I encountered) think of commander as "legacy big". They optimize their decks to achive cheap wins, locking out other players entirely. "Contamination and bitterblossom in turn 3? Can't handle it? Your problem". "No disruption ready for mikaeus and triskelion? Sad for you and not my fault bro." There was no social aspect to most matches I played, no diplomacy and way to little fun. I have seen casual players coming up with a cool deck Idea, getting outcomboed before even hitting the table with some thread and never returning again to the commander-evenings. The combo player always telled their story of "this is the game. face it noob. or cry at home" (yes, they were mean, too). More than once I started to talk about playing style and how much fun it would be to play a bit lower, to house rule away those cheap wins and just to have a good time. I failed. Few others who tried the same failed, too. There was no chance to come to an agreement. I tried to explain the format to them, tried to underline the social aspect, linked this page and the disclaimer I quoted earlier. No chance. The hardest hitting argument was always: "What is not exactly on the banlist is fine."

Consequences
So the 'spikes' rule our stores, you might say. Yes, they do. And the rules protect their way of playing, cause the only language they understand is a clear banlist. So why not gather some friends and don't go to the stores anymore? Well, I did. Like most other players do. Same story. They played at home and in the stores. First two games, they show up with a nice deck and we have a little fun while chatting, drinking beer and eating prezels. Everybody enjoys the evening. Then they play at the stores again, get beaten and return to the friend matches with the same monster-of-a-deck as before. "Thats the game bro. Face it", they tell and our fun is lost. So why not use some kind of combo hating blue hard counter deck? Cause I am here to have fun. And I don't like it to be forced to a decktype to see some game hit the 15th round. So why then not gather some people with the same social focus of the game; other Jhonnies and Timmys? ... Well, I prefer not to. I want to meet and play with new people and chat with them in a gamestore. So I quit the commander format and returned to legacy. At least, there is no vague fluff about social and gentlemen's agreements there. Everybody knows the exact rules, the forced meta game, and everybods is ok with both of them.

"So you are yust whining here, bro? Not cool."
"No, I don't. I tell my story to encourage a (new) discussion about how this format is ruled and handeled, to change something, maybe."

How the problem could be solved easily
If I am right, commander encourages interactions between players and new fun ideas of playing. To ensure that (in my opionion) there has to be a better and longer banlist. it is true: That cancels out some cards and tricks, who are loved by some spikes. So what? Spikes do have their formats for these things. To cancel out some open minded players or to regularly punish new and interested players is far worse and non social. See, the idea of self reglementing local player groups does not work (at least in our area). People are lazy and used to follow strict bannings and to abuse cards until they break the game. They are encouraged to do so, cause wizards of the corast adopted edh (and renamed it commander) to make more money. Wizards does not tell people the gentlemen's agreement fluff. They tell people the plain rulez and the bannings and are done with it (see https://www.wizards.com/magic/tcg/artic ... -commander). They sell commander as 'some new format with some strange rules', that has to be broken and won, like every other format. That is their spirit of commander and they are winning. This community is losing the voice in the format and is reduced to the banlist, which they adopt. 'The spirit of edh', the social and gentlemen's style of play, is about to get lost. Do you really want this format to become some kind of "legacy single card multiplayer"? Sometimes, even the gentlemen do have to make their rules clear. This time is now.

Thanks for reading. If you had differend experiences with the format, I really honestly envy you.
Discuss if you like to.

Please remind yourself, that I will not read (expected) flamings.
You will write them without ever hitting your target yust for yourself.

Hey kelen, I can see that you're online, so don't just run off! You wrote a whole lot of words, so you obviously care about this. The one thing, though, that was missing from your post was a solution to your perceived problem. You have a paragraph entitled "How the problem could be solved easily", but there's nothing there. What do you think we should do?

P.S. Your english is good.

P.P.S. If you're playing 8 hours of EDH a week you're way more regular than most folks here.

There are 2 solutions the way I see it;
- social punishment, simply kicking all the lame ass combo players from the store to never have them return again
- a bigger banlist

Honestly, everywhere I play option 1 works fine. Some groups are more cutthroat then others, but when I encountered almost all the players from the group felt the same. And even if they could not play such a strong deck themselves due to lack of cards, they didn't care that others did. They made their deck in such a way that they could interact with the combo player(s).

I agree that many people think Commander is "Legacy Big", while I constantly am in the top 4 of the local FNM, have great success in Commander, Legacy, Standard, etc. I think that combo-ing out of a multiplayer game is the cheese way to do it. Most of what my friends and I do are Cube Drafts we have a specific 1v1 cube and a specific multiplayer EDH cube (EDH is mine) and we've gone to great lengths to ensure that there are no infinite combos in either of them.

I started playing MTG back when BETA was on the shelves, stopped at Tempest for about 8 years and got back in around RoE. When I first got back into the game everyone was playing each of their different segments Legacy/Modern/Standard... so I went and made a budget deck for each that exploited the weaknesses of the formats (basically infinite combos) and it go to the point where none of them wanted to play because it stopped being about who was the most skilled but who had the better draw and go a turn 3 win.

When Commander came out and I ushered everyone to play that we all did so with the understanding to not have any infinite combos in the decks for a cheap win. Kinda like nations not using Nuclear weapons, because then everyone does and then no one has fun. While my experience isn't normal it is an example that is does work and that Commander is about fun not a cheap win, you just need to find like minded people like you.

I have some hopes that you'll be happy in the next couple of days. Look for changes to how the banlist is phrased here.

The URL you posted is for Commander Online. That will always be a sterile list. When people point at that, always point them at the banlist on this site, which will be talking about the banlist in the overall context of the game.

(OK, I posted and the banlist philosophy stuff went right up a tad early. Enjoy!)

Hm... expected hateflames.
Really nice to meet some gentlemen.
Thank you for reading.
Here is what I think.

Solution 1 - Enlargen the banlist
I would enlarge the banlist with the typical fast win combo cards like contamination, mind slaver, time walk etc. So every spike is at least hindered in their way of abusing the format. This would mean some tears and some hard decisions (mikaeus or triskelion or tooth and nail?) and a much longer banlist. Some spikes would quit the format and return to legacy. But it might work. The guys at http://duelcommander.com/ try to do so. It is a start, I think.

Solution 2 - Make new rules to hinder cheap wins
Something that prohibits unlimited combos. Something like (I am really not good in ruling): "A player can't play the same card more than once a turn." Something, that brings back the uniqueness of the format, encourages different strategies and revive the social aspect. At least cancel the "all non commander colored mana is converted into colorless mana" rule. But I think that the loss of that rule might encourage only new nasty combos, which don't not come to my mind, right now.

Solution 3 - Write a new format
Commander is accepted by now, even with its flaws. If you fear the impact of such a change, write a new format calles "gentlemen's commander" or "social commander". Make it official. Implement the things in Solution 1 and 2 and see, how it goes. Write some statement when announcing it, telling people more about the social aspect of the game and the gentlemen's rules.

Solution 4 - Cap the money spent
I really don't like this solution and it is not mine. But a friend had the idea, so I will post it, too. If there was a limit for a single card (maybe 10$) and the deck as a whole (maybe 200$) beginners would be encouraged to play and some nasty ruling and spontaneus winning cards (like berserk) would be canceled out. But I really don't think they are the problem.

Solution 5 - Make deck building more complicated and casual
There are several ways to encourage that. Maybe some rules, that do allow only 25 rares in a deck? Or a rule that does pair cardcombos together (mind slaver / sharoom) and you may only pick one of them. But this might be too unpopular and too complicated to work.

Solution 6 - Tell Wizards to implement the gentlemen's rules
If you can make wizards to implement the gentlemen's aspect to the game on their homepage, this might encourage more players to play a bit more like edh and a bit less like legacy. It is a smooth change and does count on the good spirit of people and the chances to convert spikes into nice social players. I myself don't think this would work. But who knows?

edited:
@papa_funk


Hi. Nice to meet you. Maybe you talk about the phrase "These cards (and others like them) should not be played without prior agreement from the other players in the game." Almost all players I encountered did not understand, what that means. This might be too vague, to help. I see, that this should encourage more social interactions and a local banlist (perhaps), but in my area it does not work at all by now.

Oh. I yust read your document viewtopic.php?f=1&t=12254
That was more, that I had hoped to happen for this format soon. I am intrigued to return to the commander format, even when I encountered so many boring games and social bullyness there. I hope, that this will change the situation fot the better. But I honestly doubt it. Especially in my area.

I think that Commander is a social game and to each group their own. Some people like quick infinite combo wins, I do to an extent. I think you just need to find a better group of local people, ones that think like you do.

The problem is that there are literally thousands of infinite combinations and to try to ban all of them would make the ban list too extensive to be useful. Wizards recognized this and put in referee cards like War's Toll, Strangehold, Grafdigger's Cage, Pithing Needle, Nevermore, Meddling Mage, etc. I don't know what colors you prefer to play but there are great refree cards in every color and plenty that are colorless.

I play twice a week ... about 4 hours total. Hey, that would make a good poll!

Hi Kelen,

I don't have time to write you a longer response, but I tend to agree with you. The social breakdown in EDH is a significant problem in a lot of places, and I'm working on a longer ban list that I'm going to propose to my regular group and LGS store manager. Hopefully you'll stick around; this forum's pretty friendly, and even people who disagree with you will usually give you a polite, reasonable argument.

Individual metas are always going to be an arms race because people want to succeed. People spend hundreds, if not thousands of dollars on a deck and then see it lose by turn 9-10. They want to see their effort rewarded so they make a few trades to answer this or that and now they're able to stop everyone else from playing so that they can play their own decks. Everyone else makes some changes and now the games are capping out at turn 7-8. New cards come into print and the card pool and everyone gets new weapons to pull out so they can now end turn 5-6.

The problem is that there is no easy answer. People like to win. They get used to the concept that a balanced match up would give you a 50% win chance. Once you start adding additional players though, that win chance drops significantly. Losing 3/4 of your matches doesn't seem fun so it starts an arms race.

The format cannot survive with a 200+ card ban list. Just look at the response to Prime Time getting banned. It's built around big splashy cards and plays and every card removed kills dozens of potential splashy plays.

Synergies are god. As an example, I recently made a deck around Patron of the Moon. I did not intend for it to be a combo deck or for it to have any/many infinite combos. Looking at the general, how can you build around that? He puts lands into play tapped... Amulet of Vigor is a must have! He's got moonfolk offering and moonfolk bounce lands to then be replayed by their Patron so it would be dumb not to include them. That right there is an infinite combo. So what do you ban? Amulet of Vigor? All moonfolk? Patron? Amulet seems the best candidate. If you ban the Amulet, budget mana bases will take a huge hit. The barrier for entry goes up and it turns off more players. You could ban Patron. Suddenly "Janky" but fun cards like Ovinomancer can't find a home and the Timmy players get turned off since this is supposed to be the format where obscure cards thrive.

Ultimately, we have to police ourselves. Sadly, the LGS where you aren't close friends with all the strangers you're playing with is the worst location to police yourself since you don't really care if those strangers are having fun.

Hmm. I thought about this for a while.
And I wanted to share with you the decktypes run in my meta.

Combo (Winning Chance: 70%, Fun to play against: 1/10)
The decks usually run blue / black, tutors a sick combo as fast as possible, wait for countermana and hit the table in an "stop me now with doublecounters, or die" way. Basically, a game is a race between several combo decks, ignoring each other until someone pulls out a combo. It is like playing alone with other people accidently at the table. The most annoying thing is, when you cannot see one guy winning, cause they all win out of nothing in one or a chain of unlimited turns. Most 'beloved' combos are "Infinite Turns", "Niv-Mizzet Commander Damage ophidians eye", "Infinite Sharoom" or "Mikaeus and Triskelion".

Lockout Decks (Winning Chance: 20%, Fun to play against 1/10)
These decks try to lock out all other players as fast as possible, by canceling out their manabase with some effect like contamination. Most of them run black. They use heavy tutoring and some disruption to get this done. When they got their lock out, they sigh reliefed (cause no combo player won by that point out of nowhere) and play happy to the end.

Disruption / Discard / Control (Winning Chance: 3%, Fun to play against 2/10)
The answer to Lockout and Combo in my meta uses heavy discard and graveyard hate. They usually go black / Blue / white with something like Sen Triplets as commander. They don't try to win. Their only goal is to try to stop the combo or lockout players, from playing. It is really annoying to be hit by a mind twist in turn 4, but hey, at least it is not combo so it is indeed more fun to play against.

Boooom Decks (Winning Chance 5%, Fun to play against 2/10)
The decks are mostly build out of frustration, using red/white to blow things up, cause that is their only chance to have an impact on the table. They use "cannot be countered" or "split second" spells and try to win with planeswalkers after they destroyed all players manabase. I dont like to play against these decks. But again, at least it is not combo and sometimes it is funny to see a comboplayer go into nerdrage after an "red elemental blast" hit his counter-counter.

Aggro-Suicide (Winning Chance 2%, Fun to play against 5/10)
These decks yust tries to kill somebody fast. Their goal is to hit a comboplayer faster, than he pulls out his combo. Liked colors are green, black and red. These decks ignore diplomacy usually (cause there is no diplomacy anyway in my meta) lock onto a player (usually the combo player, who won last match) and start beating him down hard. They use all possible accelerations to deal deadly (commander) damage, like Berserk, Hatred or direct damage for the kill. It is not fun to play against, but at least it is more fun, than to play against discard, land destruction, lockout or combo - cause it is more honest, I guess. Even if they play douchebag commanders like Zur.

The Rest (Winning Chance 0%, Fun to play against 8/10)
Once in a while, there are some other decks, trying cool things. I have seen themed zombies, indestructible angels and even dragons. Sometimes they even implement cards, that are not hard power, yust because they like them. They all fail hard. And they never come back a second time.

Here are some cards, EVERY deck plays, regardless of strategy
- Sensei's dinining top (to find combo)
- Mana Crypt (to accelerate combo)
- Pithing needle (to counter enemy combo)
- Every tutor available (to find combo)
- Maze of Ith (to counter some suicide-aggro)
- Force of Will and Pact of Negation (to cancel combos)

To make things clear, here are some cards, that are simply to bad to be played in my meta:
- Mimic Vet (cause there are no good creatures in graveyards. Its all combo)
- Sword of X (does not help at all, cause you either go suicide aggro, or die to combo anyway)
- Bribery (hits a player for ... nothing. creatures are no point in this meta. Sometimes played to steal a combo part)

So basically thats my experience. I would like to see more decks like Wort Raidmother, Rafiq aggro Swords or Karador and his graveyard. But that is not going to happen. They are yust too bad, cause they cannot win fast enough (which would be turn 5-8). There is no lategame. There is no diplomacy. And there is no smalltalk chatting at the tables. After the games everybody is usually stressed and in anger and insists that "I would have won by combo one turn after you!".

This kind of playing is like a virus. New players are told to play so and they do (or do at least, when they see, that there is no chance of winning if not). People are forced to play blue (for countering combos, and because aggro is weak in multiplayer) and pick special commanders and special cards. This Meta runs about 10 different decks with a variation of 5% from each other. So it is basically legacy 100 single card multiplayer - without sideboards. Yay -.-


Possible Soultions without more bannings:

Giving up Commander Damage and lower the life to 30
Commander damage is an annoying mechanic, cause you have to count your damage twice. It is confusing for new players. Also it makes dull cards great, like hatred or berserk. Giving up commander damage and lowering the life a bit would weaken some annoying cards which trigger at above 30 life faster and make beat down stronger, forcing combo players to build in more defense against these decks and by that, weakening their combo potential.

Combo hindering Rules
To reduce the strength of combos (which is by far the easiest and cheapest way to win in commander), you could hinder these strategies by special rules, that aim at them, like: "You cannot attack more than one player. If a player is killed, each other player cannot loose the game and their life cannot change and go below 1, until the next players upkeep. If you could kill more than one player, you have to choose one." But they would be clunky and really unfun by itself.

"Last revenge"
It is like anti-combo rules, but more elegant and logic. If anybody gets hit by a combo, he can exile a part of that combo and ensure the combo player a heavy beatdown from the rest of the table, disencouraging such cheap nasty wins. The exact rule might be:
"If a player is killed, he may exile a spell or a card in play or in a graveyard. "


Again, I am not good at making rules.
But I think, these rules would help the format to grow in the right direction
and giving birth to new tactical decisions and strategies.

Hi Kelen.

Great Post. Doesn't match my experiences exactly, but I haven't played anywhere online, or in the states.

I play only with people whose company I enjoy. When out of town, I'll dip the toe in, and quickly find a group like-minded people.

Most times in my meta the games are quite dragged out, well beyond the tenth turn. Sure a few have been quicker (fastest was a turn three), but less than 10% of our games are ending before turn 10. Mostly I find, that in a multiplayer game, someone has an answer. To me, it so incredible the amount of Force of Wills and Krosan Grips lurking in peoples hands, waiting to kill Mr Killjoy's Combo.

But then again, its with people I like: we can ask them to play another deck, or use a different combo. In a group, it's self regulating. Ardent EDH players, we all have several decks. I don't mind LD in any form, but I personally detest Mindslaver. Someone else hates insurrection with a passion. So we respect each other's opinions. Every now and then, of course, the gloves come off.

But I'd not want the RC to base their bannings on the non-social douchebag Spikes in FLGS.

Niv Mizzet does not kill with commander damage. Commander damage is combat damage only. It is one of the greatest things PREVENTING combo from being the only viable strategy. Uril/Rafiq/Ob Nixilis/Zur/etc (with the same level of tuning) can all kill a combo player with commander damage by turn 3-5. Combo player dies quickly enough, often enough they have to replace on theme cards with more defensive measures which will further slow them down allowing the more fun decks to compete.

Honestly, it sounds to me like your meta just needs to adapt. Combo can be powerful but it is by no means a 70% win chance. Split second, morph, misdirects, or just ability based effects can all wreck control decks.

You mention creatures are useless in your meta but ALL of your combo and lock decks rely on them. Are you suggesting the Niv Mizzet player does not have an Eldrazi Titan in his deck to recycle his library so he doesn't deck himself? None of the blue players have a Consecrated Sphinx? I'm calling BS on that. Both of those creatures would be amazing targets for a bribery. Contamination requires a creature sacrifice every turn and it still doesn't stop artifact mana which you should be running. Sharuum combos and kills using artifact creatures or Blood Artist.

Jester's Cap effects will win you games if you're in such a combo heavy meta. Exile Mike and Trike becomes overcosted garbage. I've forced a combo player to counter their own Time Stretch by redirecting the target to myself with Willbender. Forcing a player to shuffle their library after they just mystical tutor'ed or whatnot will wreck them.

Combo decks are the most fragile decks in Magic. You get rid of one piece and they're dead in the water. Graveyard hate is very powerful at disrupting combo. Exiling that sculpting steel in Sharuum's yard in response to the CITP trigger will pretty much end her.

Stranglehold is a card and there are several others with similar effects.
Leyline of Sanctity makes you effectively immune to both Niv Mizzet and Mike and Trike.

If combo is running rampant in your meta, it's because you're letting them. The rules you're suggesting would just turn players away from the format and doesn't stop all infinite strategies like mill. Spikes will be spikes regardless. You need to adapt. Like you said yourself, a Red Elemental Blast will come out of nowhere and piss them off, it will also make the game last at least one more turn usually.

@Epsilon

This was no global chance, this is only in my meta.

And I don't think this game should all be about 'building decks to wreck combo strategies' to 'counter the meta'. I am not here for an advice on that (but thx anyway). I thought of this as a social game, like it is said in the gentlemen's fluff here on this site. Having fun while have a nice chat and a beer. If I read your post (which I probably should not have done, cause it makes me sad) it sounds like this is all our own fault, cause we are not playing 'properly'. I don't agree, Sir. The mess in our meta I discribed is not my fault, cause I don't want to adapt to or counter it. It is the whole meta in my area, that is wrong, cause it misses the point of edh.

So please answer the following question honestly: Do you LIKE games, that foces you to exile mikaeus, redirect a winning time stretch and exile three cards of a players library to prevent them from tutor-combo-winning or playing zur-enchantmentracer-disruption as counter meta deck? I don't. And I don't think, this should be the point in this format.

And may I add: I don't care, if "non-social douchebag Spikes" would be driven away from this format. Indeed, I would love to see that. They can go away and play legacy, modern, standard or vintage and have fun. And I swear, that for every such douchebag goin' there will be four happy new players joining the community. Cause it would be much more friendly ...