Hey everyone
I've been playing MtG for about 3 years now and I've come to a sort of crossroads where I've found myself losing interest in the format I normally play (Legacy) and could use a bit of advice on how to proceed.
Time for the back story (Warning : huge post ahead)...
I started playing MtG 3 years ago when I discovered Duals of the Planeswalkers on Xbox Live, tried the demo, got hooked and bought the full version, and played on Xbox Live for a few months before heading a LGS to expand my horizons with some paper cards. I started like most other people do, playing the Standard format FNMs and learning about deck building and tuning. I played Standard for a few years and eventually became dissatisfied with the limited selection of cards available in the Standard format and having to build entirely new decks every few months to stay competitive. About that time I became friends with some Legacy players and got into the Legacy format. I loved having so many more cards to choose from and the variety of deck archetypes that were viable, so I played Legacy almost exclusively from then on.
However, over the past few months I've grown a bit tired of playing Legacy. Part of it is that I don't think I really care that much about winning in tournaments anymore. The Legacy tournaments my LGS runs cost $5 to enter, are 4 rounds of swiss, and pay out $10 cash to anyone who goes 3-1 and $15 cash to anyone who goes 4-0. This was good motivation to try my best for a long time, but the past few months I just kinda stopped caring about the money. I get enough money from my job working 5 days a week that turning my $5 to play in a tournament into $10 or $15 doesn't really motivate me anymore.
The other reason I've grown tired of Legacy is that the meta I play in has been flooded with various kinds of Stoneforge Mystic / Batterskull based decks ever since New Phyrexia came out. On any given night I'd say usually 3 out of my 4 matches are some kind of deck with Stoneforge Mystic and almost every game comes down to "Can I kill Stoneforge Mystic on turn 2?". If I can, I have a shot at winning, if not I pick up my cards. I hate playing against Stoneblade and I absolutely despise playing against Maverick, and that's pretty much all my meta is aside from the occasional Storm, Burn, or Elves deck. I'm tired of playing the same matches over and over, I'm tired of how stupidly expensive the format has become, and I just don't feel any motivation to want to play it anymore. I've tried playing all sorts of Legacy decks to see if it changed the way I feel about the format and it hasn't, I'm just sick of Legacy.
So I've explored Standard and Legacy for sometime and grown tired of them, I know I don't like Limited Formats due to their more luck based nature (and I have notoriously bad luck when it comes to cracking packs), I don't care for the Modern format much due to the somewhat narrow card selection and extensive banned list, and as much as I have enjoyed playing Vintage (with proxies) due to the crazy stuff you can pull off in the format I definitely don't want to spend the kind of money on MtG that it takes to buy Power. And even if I was willing to spend the big $$$ on Vintage there's no one else my area who is interested in the format so either way it's a waste of my time/money.
So at this point I feel like I've tried and either didn't like or grew sick of just about every MtG format I've played. Standard, Legacy, Modern, Limited. The only formats I've really never grown tired of is Vintage but I don't want to spend the kind of money it costs to play it, don't have anywhere locally that runs Vintage tournaments, and don't know anyone else who likes Vintage anymore even if I did have the money and a place to play. I've tried taking breaks from Legacy for a month and coming back to it and that didn't really help much, I still hated playing against Stoneforge Decks just as much as ever and I still didn't feel like I had any real motivation to compete in the tournaments.
Which brings me to the question I've been pondering. Could Commander be a good format for me? I know that there's a lot of people in my area playing Commander, and I did enjoy the couple of games of the format I I played half a year or so ago (borrowing a deck from someone else). I liked how you could pull off crazy Vintage-esque shenanigans and the format does seem pretty diverse and wide open for brewing and experimenting. And after becoming somewhat disenchanted with playing in tournaments over the past few months I'm feeling a bit attracted to the more casual "play for fun" appearance of the format.
But just like any eternal format the Commander format does seem pretty expensive to build good decks that I'd want to play. I've been building a Wort, Boggart Auntie deck slowly over the past few months to try out the format with (since red and black are my favorite colors and I've always loved playing Goblins in just about every format) and I've put around $200 into the deck and come to the point where I've got about $200 left to go in terms of card cost before the deck is finished. For reference, my deck list is the spoiler tag below.
Now looking at the cost of the deck I'm starting to get cold feet about finishing it. I love all the awesome interactions and tricks I can do with the deck and getting to play all my favorite Goblins from MtG history in one deck is totally sweet. But $400 is a lot of money to spend on cardboard in my mind and I'm uncertain if I'm going to really like playing Commander or if I'm just throwing my money away on another format I'm going to get tired of and give up on. But I feel like I've explored just about every other option that MtG has to offer (except for MtGO, since all my computers are Macs from the pre-Intel era and there's no online MtG software available for them) and have yet to find a format that could keep me happy over the long term.
I'm not ready to give up on MtG as a hobby, since I really enjoy the social interaction and have made so many good friends playing this game, but almost every format I've played has been a dead end for me and I'm not sure where to go with the game to make it fun and exciting for me again. Could Commander be a worthwhile format for me to get into?
Any advice would be much appreciated.
(TLDR : Don't like Standard, Legacy, Modern, or Limited anymore. Do like Vintage but don't have the money for it or people to play it with. Don't care about winning tournaments anymore. Maybe will like Commander?)
I have to go to work in a sec so I can't read the entire thing, but judging from what I've read, have you tried Cube? You can buy a decent list outright for about the same price as that Goblins list, and it's basically free drafting forever.
I love commander it is definately worth it. Some of the lands could be expensive but its only 1 card per deck in 99 card deck. Ive have done an EDH match almost every night with my roommates and that has lasted almost 2 years the decks are always unpredictable and commander plays are awesome
the advantage of commander cards, is that they're ALWAYS IN DEMAND. so you may spend this $400 on that wort deck, to find out the format's not for you, and you should be able to easily turn that right back around for at most a $100 loss.
I play limited and EDH (commander) exclusively now, with the occasional foray into a constructed non-singleton format. and i've never looked back. EDH is just the format for those who are bored with the more competitive minded formats out there. It's casual in nature, but dont let that sway you, there are and will always be Sharks.
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Ravarshi Kashaku, Ancient Dragon of the Darkened Realms;
The Merciless Lord of Torture, Permanently Bound To: ">[THE PACK] 11/5/63 - 11/25/09 Goodbye mom, i'll always love you...
Your Mileage May Vary. Yes Commander is technically a casual format. But all that really means is that there isn't any prize incentive to win. For some this means they don't give a **** about the outcome. For others it has virtually no effect on how optimized/powerful they're willing to make their deck. Neither approach is wrong. But it's not unheard of for members of the first category to have animosity toward the second.
Also commander is often played in multiplayer, which in theory lets you balance things out via diplomacy. However I have seen this diplomacy get ugly: immature players will use it as an outlet for personal vendettas, and in other cases it turns the game into a thinly veiled popularity contest. Do not expect the outcome of multiplayer games to be more then vaguely related to play skill, because you need to be obnoxiously far above the curve to win a scheme-less archenemy game vs 3+ other players.
You can stick to 1v1, but it'll be harder to find opponents, and many of them stick to the French 1v1 banlist. The French banlist does an ok job at balance, but in doing so, you lose access to a lot of the vintage-esque plays that make the format interesting in the first place.
Despite these issues, EDH is still very fun, but you REALLY need to find a mature play group that's all on the same page in terms of what they expect in a game.
Cube and EDH are common remedies for displeasure with other aspects of the game. I know players who have given up on tournament play after successful careers and taken to advancing their own Cubes and EDH decks.
Although you don't like limited, you should at least do some research on Cubes and see if it piques your interest. Aside from that, EDH is a very good format but your experience will depend in large part on who you play against. I myself grew tired of Standard rather quickly and started playing EDH because it offers more depth and complexity than you can experience in a normal game of 60-card. I find that there are two distinct playgroups in my meta: a group of casual players who despise high-power decks and a group of cutthroat veterans (in all aspects of Magic from tourney play to trading) who make you fight for your right to the table. There is some blending between the two, but I have not played with the intermediate group much.
I would take a look around your LGS and see what your meta is like. Ask people about their decks. If most are playing with the precon Commander decks and have made minor modifications, you're likely dealing with a more casual crowd. If you notice fields of foils, foreign cards, and decks built for combo strategies, you're dealing with a higher-level crowd. You can usually find both at decent-sized game shops.
Keep in mind that EDH can be a money-intensive format, as can Cube. Putting together a dream list may not be a cheap endeavor, but it really comes down to what you want to play. I have a $2k BUG list and my friend has a $150 Riku deck and we both love EDH all the same.
If you're interested in learning more about EDH deck construction, I wrote an article here as an introductory guide for those new or inexperienced with regards to the format.
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Epochalyptik from http://tappedout.net/ EDH isn't about what you play, it's about who you play with.
The simple answer: yes Commander is the answer. No format allows for so much freedom of pure deck creation; every different legendary creature will be useful for various kinds of decks, in addition to the sheer amount of diverse spells that can be played and utilized together for combos unheard of in any other format.
And the fact that it's casual, means that you can enjoy the game however you like with your friends; cards never become illegal to play (well rarely anyway), and every new set of cards just means more options to improve upon your deck.
You can also combine it with Planechase and Archenemy for loads more enjoyment and ridiculous combos.
I, too, was going to suggest cube. Bad luck with limited is less likely when every card is main-deck material. Ask around and see if there's already a cube in your area. Or check the cube map in the cube forum.
But don't just limit yourself to EDH, Legacy, or Cube. There are many different unofficial formats and variants that can make Magic interesting outside of tournaments.
Some other formats to try out: Block, Build Your Own Standard, Pauper, Peasant, Prismatic, Singleton, Bling, Tribal, Art Magic, Rainbow Stairwell, Chess Magic, Live Draft, Queue Draft, Back Draft, etc.
Some other variants to try out: Planechase, Archenemy, Type 4, Stack, Memory Magic, Reverse Memory Magic, Secret Alliances, Assassins, Quest Magic, Horde, Constructed Queue Live Draft, Chaos, Star, etc.
Part of the reason for Magic's longevity has been the myriad ways in which the game can be played. Each different format or variant is a twist to the basic game that helps keep the play experience fresh.
"A rich man thinks all other people are rich, and an intelligent man thinks all other people are similarly gifted. Both are always terribly shocked when they discover the truth of the world. You, my dear brother, are a pious man." - Strahd von Zarovich
The thing that Cube has over Commander/EDH and almost all other casual formats is that the power level and $$$ other people put into their deck is exactly equal in Cube. (More specifically, at least the chance of having a deck of the same power level is equal.) This was one of my biggest problems with the people I played with. I would either put too much money into my deck and it would be completely unfair or I would have to neuter my own deck so the games would be more competitive and fun.
I don't know if this is a problem with your play group.
It's also a lot of fun to make, especially if you decide to make a themed cube instead of a standard one. If you like brewing, instead of designing a deck, you end up designing an entire format.
I think your real problem is in what keeps you playing magic in the first place. You have to learn to accept that you are going to see a lot of the same cards all the time. This is just undeniable and a part of magic since there are only so many viable decks in any given format.
Commander is great for the casual aspect of it, but if you play with die-hard Spike's you're going to end up seeing a lot of the same cards and the same strategies. You are going to have to try really hard to create a casual group for EDH if you're trying to keep things fresh, and this is also assuming they have the resources to keep things fresh. Most casual players do not.
Everyone I know loves cube. I love Powered Cubes to Pauper Cubes to only Multi-Colored Cubes and only Artifact Cubes. Cubes made with player-created cards and even cubes with specific casual rules. Drafting is fun and will seriously help with your player skill/ability to deck build/identify what makes cards useful rather than just what they do.
Hope I could help.
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Cockatrice: Infallible
Mhjames: mtgsalvation: I DON'T SEE HOW THIS CARD IS GOOD. I KNOW PATRICK CHAPIN USED IT AND WENT 8-0, BUT THAT WAS A SMALL TOURNAMENT. THE CARD IS TOO SLOW. YOU NEED TO MAKE SURE THE OPPONENT HAS A SPELL IN THE GRAVEYARD
I say give Commander a test run for a week or two. Don't worry about pimping out your Wort list. Take it with some junk thrown in and play it out. Or grab one of the precons, tweak with some goodstuff, and see how it goes. I think you'll enjoy it. Commander is, imo, one of the fastest growing segments of the M:TG community.
I've never been a fan of cube personally, and cannot stand to play it. Something about it I just do not like. It's the one way to make me get up from a table and leave. I love normal drafting though, so... ymmv?
Give them both a try and see which you like more, and go with that for a time. I tend to switch back and forth from competitive standard to commander in 6 month intervals. I get bored with one, and go back to the other. Keeps each kind of fresh for me, I guess.
Because conservative bias is a far, far worse thing. Liberal bias doesn't, statistically speaking, make people stupid. Conservative bias (or at least Fox's version of it) does.
Cube is great fun, different every time, and the amount of interactions and decks you make is insane. Highly recommended.
That being said, I'm sad to see you don't like Legacy. I love the format, you just need different decks to play. I get seeing SFM everywhere is boring and repetitive.
+1 for Commander. I've got 3 completed decks and 4 in-progress decks (and 2 ex-decks that have been deconstructed), each clocking in between $200 and $400 if you price each card separately (counting full-art basics and snow basics). That's not how much I actually paid for each, between pulling cards out of packs, trades, and getting lucky deals on eBay, but that's the value they sum up to.
I think it's been worth it. I was sort of in your place a while back, tired of Standard rotations, and I had no Legacy players to play with despite having a couple Legacy decks to play. I found Commander, and a bunch of people to play with, and I could use all the old cards and not worry about rotations. It's been a blast. And I think my favorite part is just how flavorful you can make each deck just based on the general; my Thada Adel, Acquisitor deck has me playing the role of "acquisitor" (with something close to 30 cards that either steal my opponents' stuff or take advantage of their plays), my Ghave, Guru of Spores deck truly takes advantage of Ghave's ability to fracture and coalesce himself into tokens and counters (rather than simply token swarm, I sacrifice my tokens as often as I make them, sometimes to the point of a combo-win with Bitter Ordeal), and my Soraya the Falconer deck is an army of birds... literally, it's simultaneously a bird tribal and a soldier tribal deck (thank you, Aven Brigadier)
Just my .02$, commander is very hit or miss depending what you enjoy. Combos you get many less copies of the combo pieces, so your going to end up with a pile of tutors. Less consistent decks also seem to have a major power drop over 60 card format, my group plays a LOT of legacy free for all 4+ players with their strongest builds leads to very swingy boards, faster games.
I found commander too slow and unpredictable, but from knowing what you don't like maybe its up your alley.
It depends on what your wanting from edh, the days of a long multiplayer game where you eek out an advantage over the opponent are long gone. It's become all about troned up generals and multiplayer knock out combos by turn six...
I've stopped playing edh because frankly if I want that kind of format I'll just play a competitive format.
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Current Decks
Standard BEtched Champion/InfectB WSoilders/knightsW WUVenser SplicerWU RRDWR GFeed the Pack comboG WUPool of ExhaustionWU
EDH GEzuri, Elf OverrunG BGeth, GraverobberB UThada Adel, ThiefU RUrabrask, Big RedR WElesh Norn, CrusadeW WUGAngus Makenzie, Bant ControlWUG
Have you considered becoming a judge? It is a great way to still have the social aspect of magic if you are not so very interested in competitive magic anymore
There are many ways to spice up the interest in Magic, and sticking with a format in which cards never rotate out is probably not it. If you stick with Standard, you have the most limited card pool of any format, and that means you have to be a bit more creative in your deck-building (unless you take the shortcut of netdecking, but even then you aren't guaranteed a win unless you actually understand the deck and it is effective against your local meta).
Yes, seeing the same deck over and over and over again is frustrating and eventually maddening. That was one of the reasons that I began making Standard decks, just to see how my thoughts would line up with the pros. I get the feeling we are actually thinking kind of alike in many ways. I am not saying I am a pro by any measure, just that I see a lot of the thoughts I come up with fully fleshed out in their decks.
Moving up to a more competetive meta should keep it from getting stale. The "Stoneblade" decks were dominant in Standard a few years back, and that was one of the reasons that Stoneforge Mystic was banned in Modern just as it was about to rotate. They didn't want their new format to be broken out the gate.
If you are getting bored with Standard in the current meta where there are no completely dominating brews, then I suggest Magic may not be for you. There is a ton of variety in decks that you are likely to see at FNM, and where some are kind of expensive, none are so insanely expensive that you can't pick up a deck every few months that will be competetive. Right now, every deck in the top tier in Standard has a weakness, and it can be exploited. Nothing is so dominant that nothing else has room for a win.
Commander does have a "fresh" feel to it, but if you get bored easily, then you will likely bore of this as well. Commander in some ways is even more predictable than Legacy, as you know just about EVERY deck will have a Sol Ring, and if it drops on turn 1 it is very difficult to overcome.
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Currently playing:
Standard: WBRG Aggro-Reanimator Humans GRBW
Modern: UR Twinning RU G Venus Fly Trap G U Artifacts Aggro U
My experience with commander is that your enjoyment will depend on the personalities of those who frequent your lgs and distribution of noobs, casual, casual-competative (best demographic for edh IMO), and spike players who attend the edh events. I and a few other players built our store's weekly edh day a few years ago, but at a certain point it turned entirely into a spikes and noobs environment with little in between. This resulted in many annoying situations such as games shifting into certain players being completely hamstrung the entire game, newer players being completely overwhelmed by convoluted board states, and chronic poor threat assessments causing excessively drawn out games. I'm sure every commander player has been a part of one of those awful 3 hour stax/soft lock/wrath heavy games.
Since my schedule would only permit about 2 edh days a month, it only took a couple pain-marathons in a row for me to quite the lgs' edh event.
What I eventually did though, was build a pauper cube (about $100 + sleeves), convert my edh collection into an edh cube (and proxied the hell out of stuff I didn't own), so I could play whatever I want, whenever. I also aggressively pursued getting a few of my lapsed friends back into magic, and poached players I liked from the lgs for a weekly group.
There's no sense in spending that much money on a format you haven't played much yet. Just finish your deck as cheaply as possible, then if you like it, get those expensive cards.
I've heard people call Commander the poor man's vintage.
Depending on how competitive you want to be, what banlist is used or the players you play against are, will determine the cost and your amount of fun.
Some groups are super competitive; you'll see Life from the Loam + Wasteland/Stripmine combo's, and things of that nature. People will play any "dirty" or "ungentlemenly" combo that's not banned. This isn't a big thing to worry about, just something that is out there. (If you ever play in a side event at an SCG Open or GP)
Commander is a great format though; just last night I was in a 6 player Chaos game where one guy cast Windfall twice and still didn't win (and could have cast it a third time but didnt see it until 2 player turns later). He knocked out the guy to my right and put a Jin Gitaxis into play. before his EoT i exiled it. On my turn I casted Miraris Wake, replenished 6 enchantments (doubling season and parallel lives), and casted a Verdeloth the Ancient for 16 saprolings. I ended up losing the next go around, when the guy who casted windfall went to attack the Kaalia player (to my left), but he had the instant that lets you change what player you attack, and I got hit by a flyer and lost. One guy this game also had a Mimic Vat out, and at one point 3 players had Primeval Titans on board, and no one was killing them b/c the player would get Primeval tokens, lol.
There are so many different kinds of generals and playstyles you can do; it really makes the format enjoyable.
If you plan to make Commander decks, I suggest making 2 decks: a 1V1 deck and a multiplayer deck.
Just to echo a few other posters, do not shell out $400 on a deck, cold. Commander is a VERY forgiving format compared to legacy when it comes to sloppy plays and suboptimal card choices, so you can easily get started with an inexpensive deck and work on it as time goes on (assuming you like the format). There's a small following of pauper edh enthusiasts here on mtgs, and some of their all common decks are quite visionary, especially the child of alara "pauper dreamcrusher".
For purchase at my lgs, I regularly put together $15 - $20 monocolored edh decks that can be quite competitive, especially if the general scales well against the contents of your opponents' decks such as thada adel, acquisitor and sakashima the impostor. Finally, there are also great ashling the pilgrim and azusa, lost but seeking decks that can be upwards of 60 - 75% basic lands.
Thank you very much to everyone for all the great replies and advice!
At this point I have a pretty good feeling about the Commander format. The last time I looked in on some Commander games at my LGS the variety of decks and power levels seemed pretty diverse. There were a good dozen or so people who play Commander there every tuesday and friday night and the deck power levels looked all over the map. There were some people with slightly modified pre-cons, other's with almost fully foiled super Spike combo decks, and all sorts of decks in between. Sometimes it was 4-6 player, sometimes it was 1 on 1. So I feel like it's safe to expect that I'll likely end up playing with a bunch of different people from week to week with varying degrees of competitiveness.
Regarding the finishing of my Wort, Boggart Auntie deck I'm going to try to have it complete by the time the Minneapolis GP rolls around on May 19-20. I live not too far away from the event and I saw that they were going to be having a bunch of Commander side events and I'd like to give it a go to see what I think. I can definitely have everything for my deck except for a few of the more expensive parts of the mana base in time, which I can always swap out for some more basics if I don't get the Badlands/Bloodstained Mire/Urborg/Volrath's Stronghold in time for the tournament. The deck won't be optimal, but it probably doesn't need to be just to try out the format. I'm expecting there will be some pretty hardcore decks there so I don't expect to win, but I've never minded losing to fast combo (I.E. Storm) when playing Legacy so I won't have any hard feelings about losing to some powerful combo decks. Heck, I've got some combos of my own that can be tutored to just win the game on the spot. Buried Alive for Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, Skirk Prospector, and Lightning Crafter then Living Death or Patriarch's Bidding with one other random Goblin in the graveyard works pretty well. Then there's also the whole Goblin Charbelcher + Goblin Recruiter trick for 1 vs 1 games.
So anyway, after thinking about it a bit I decided not to sweat the $200 to finish the deck. I know I'm ready to get out of Legacy at this point so I just listed the cards that made up my Legacy decks that I knew I wouldn't be using in Commander for sale/trade to pay for the costs of finishing my Commander deck. That way I don't feel like I'm losing any real money out of my pocket to try Commander, and that makes me feel a lot more secure about the whole thing. And hey, even if it turns out that I don't like the format after a while I shouldn't lose much value on the cards I purchased/traded for to build my deck if I decide to resell/trade them.
We'll see what I think of the format as a whole after I've had a chance to play some games at my LGS and the upcoming GP, but it sure seems like fun. So far I really like the amount of creative artistry that you can put into building your decks, and fine tuning and optimizing those decks takes a whole new level of care and attention that I've never encountered in any other format. Combine that with the amazingly expansive card pool and I'm really liking the deck building aspect of this format. I've already got a list drawn up for a second deck that I'm tweaking and tuning (Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre) so if I do decide that I like and want to continue playing the format I'll have another fun project to work on over time.
Regarding Cube Drafting (since many people suggested it) I have played Cube twice at this point. Those Cube drafts, with a fully powered Cube I might add, were definitely the most fun I've ever had playing a limited format, since pretty much every card in every pack was first pick'able. With most Limited formats it feels to me like being successful with the deck you draft depends far too heavily on cracking an awesome rare (something I have extremely bad luck with) and that luck aspect really bothers me. I always hated losing Limited games to players with vastly inferior skill who just happened to crack a Planeswalker or a bomb rare creature in their packs. But with Cube on the other hand every card in every pack is an awesome card, so it's not so much dependent on luck as it is skillful deck building by drafting the cards that fit whatever archetype you want to play. Because of this I've loved every game of Cube I've played.
However, at this point I really don't have a big enough group of friends who play MtG to support building a Cube and drafting it with them. And, well, I just wouldn't feel comfortable drafting my Cube with people I don't know very well due to the potential risk of theft for the more valuable cards in it. So I'm not sure Cube is going to be something I want to start working on right now, but if I ever expand my regular playgroup past the 2-3 people it's currently at (all of which only play Legacy and Standard sadly) it's definitely something I'd consider doing. For now though I think meeting new people who play Commander and getting in some games with them is the direction I want to try.
Again, thank you to everyone who replied and any additional advice/wisdom/feedback/thoughts/etc. anyone may have to offer is always appreciated
I love playing Legacy because I want access to all the cards the game has ever seen, without having to pay up the wazoo everytime cards rotated. I initially decided to go into Legacy as a high school player in 2004, since I couldn't afford to get into Vintage (and in fact, it was cheaper for me to play Legacy than Standard, especially since I would occasionally quit the game every few years). If you remove all barrier problems to Vintage, I would strongly consider playing that as well, but then I have grown to love Legacy so much that I'm not sure I'd turn back. I'm also not sure Vintage can offer the same diversity of archetypes, the same level of tournament support, the same player base, etc.
That being said, there are a few problems with Legacy, as much as I like it. Obviously, it's very expensive to play competitively. Playing a lot of rounds can be very mentally tiring, since it is so skill-intensive and mistakes lose you a match. And while it's probably the most diverse constructed format ever, you still don't see quite as many interactions as a format with a wider pool of "playable" cards, such as EDH or Cube. And obviously, you lose the thrill of opening packs (the "limited" experience). Cube has solved all of these problems for me, but of course, it isn't as well-supported (at local game stores in an organized tournament). However, for casual play, nothing beats that.
I'm sure a lot of the great things I like about Cube are applicable to EDH as well (even though I don't play it). On the other hand, it may be difficult to justify dropping $20-100 for a card for your deck in a format where prize support is essentially not there because it goes against the spirit of a casual format. But I'm sure it's still a blast.
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Due to real-life obligations, I am taking a long break from Magic which may include missing the local Legacy GP. Apologies for not being able to keep my threads updated.
I've been playing MtG for about 3 years now and I've come to a sort of crossroads where I've found myself losing interest in the format I normally play (Legacy) and could use a bit of advice on how to proceed.
Time for the back story (Warning : huge post ahead)...
I started playing MtG 3 years ago when I discovered Duals of the Planeswalkers on Xbox Live, tried the demo, got hooked and bought the full version, and played on Xbox Live for a few months before heading a LGS to expand my horizons with some paper cards. I started like most other people do, playing the Standard format FNMs and learning about deck building and tuning. I played Standard for a few years and eventually became dissatisfied with the limited selection of cards available in the Standard format and having to build entirely new decks every few months to stay competitive. About that time I became friends with some Legacy players and got into the Legacy format. I loved having so many more cards to choose from and the variety of deck archetypes that were viable, so I played Legacy almost exclusively from then on.
However, over the past few months I've grown a bit tired of playing Legacy. Part of it is that I don't think I really care that much about winning in tournaments anymore. The Legacy tournaments my LGS runs cost $5 to enter, are 4 rounds of swiss, and pay out $10 cash to anyone who goes 3-1 and $15 cash to anyone who goes 4-0. This was good motivation to try my best for a long time, but the past few months I just kinda stopped caring about the money. I get enough money from my job working 5 days a week that turning my $5 to play in a tournament into $10 or $15 doesn't really motivate me anymore.
The other reason I've grown tired of Legacy is that the meta I play in has been flooded with various kinds of Stoneforge Mystic / Batterskull based decks ever since New Phyrexia came out. On any given night I'd say usually 3 out of my 4 matches are some kind of deck with Stoneforge Mystic and almost every game comes down to "Can I kill Stoneforge Mystic on turn 2?". If I can, I have a shot at winning, if not I pick up my cards. I hate playing against Stoneblade and I absolutely despise playing against Maverick, and that's pretty much all my meta is aside from the occasional Storm, Burn, or Elves deck. I'm tired of playing the same matches over and over, I'm tired of how stupidly expensive the format has become, and I just don't feel any motivation to want to play it anymore. I've tried playing all sorts of Legacy decks to see if it changed the way I feel about the format and it hasn't, I'm just sick of Legacy.
So I've explored Standard and Legacy for sometime and grown tired of them, I know I don't like Limited Formats due to their more luck based nature (and I have notoriously bad luck when it comes to cracking packs), I don't care for the Modern format much due to the somewhat narrow card selection and extensive banned list, and as much as I have enjoyed playing Vintage (with proxies) due to the crazy stuff you can pull off in the format I definitely don't want to spend the kind of money on MtG that it takes to buy Power. And even if I was willing to spend the big $$$ on Vintage there's no one else my area who is interested in the format so either way it's a waste of my time/money.
So at this point I feel like I've tried and either didn't like or grew sick of just about every MtG format I've played. Standard, Legacy, Modern, Limited. The only formats I've really never grown tired of is Vintage but I don't want to spend the kind of money it costs to play it, don't have anywhere locally that runs Vintage tournaments, and don't know anyone else who likes Vintage anymore even if I did have the money and a place to play. I've tried taking breaks from Legacy for a month and coming back to it and that didn't really help much, I still hated playing against Stoneforge Decks just as much as ever and I still didn't feel like I had any real motivation to compete in the tournaments.
Which brings me to the question I've been pondering. Could Commander be a good format for me? I know that there's a lot of people in my area playing Commander, and I did enjoy the couple of games of the format I I played half a year or so ago (borrowing a deck from someone else). I liked how you could pull off crazy Vintage-esque shenanigans and the format does seem pretty diverse and wide open for brewing and experimenting. And after becoming somewhat disenchanted with playing in tournaments over the past few months I'm feeling a bit attracted to the more casual "play for fun" appearance of the format.
But just like any eternal format the Commander format does seem pretty expensive to build good decks that I'd want to play. I've been building a Wort, Boggart Auntie deck slowly over the past few months to try out the format with (since red and black are my favorite colors and I've always loved playing Goblins in just about every format) and I've put around $200 into the deck and come to the point where I've got about $200 left to go in terms of card cost before the deck is finished. For reference, my deck list is the spoiler tag below.
1 Wort, Boggart Auntie
[38 Goblin Creatures]
1 Goblin Lackey
1 Skirk Prospector
1 Goblin Chirurgeon
1 Knucklebone Witch
1 Goblin Lookout
1 Goblin Recruiter
1 Goblin Piledriver
1 Mogg War Marshal
1 Goblin Tinkerer
1 Skirk Drill Sergeant
1 Stingscourger
1 Slavering Nulls
1 Frogtosser Banneret
1 Weirding Shaman
1 Warren Instigator
1 Goblin Wardriver
1 Auntie’s Snitch
1 Goblin Sharpshooter
1 Goblin Matron
1 Tuktuk the Explorer
1 Gempalm Incinterator
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
1 Boggart Harbinger
1 Mad Auntie
1 Goblin King
1 Goblin Warchief
1 Goblin Chieftain
1 Goblin Ruinblaster
1 Lightning Crafter
1 Goblin Ringleader
1 Goblin Wizard
1 Boggart Mob
1 Murderous Redcap
1 Warren Pilferers
1 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Skirk Fire Marshal
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
1 Goblin Marshal
1 Moggcatcher
1 Cabal Slaver
[10 Spells]
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Buried Alive
1 Beseech the Queen
1 Diabolic Tutor
1 Tarfire
1 Warren Weirding
1 Fodder Launch
1 Living Death
1 Patriarch’s Bidding
[6 Artifacts]
1 Skullclamp
1 Basilisk Collar
1 Goblin Charbelcher
1 Door of Destinies
1 Coat of Arms
1 Eldrazi Monument
[5 Enchantments]
1 Oversold Cemetery
1 Cover of Darkness
1 Shared Animosity
1 Dralnu’s Crusade
1 Grave Pact
[38 Lands]
1 Command Tower
1 Badlands
1 Blood Crypt
1 Auntie’s Hovel
1 Dragonskull Summit
1 Graven Cairns
1 Tainted Peak
1 Sulfurous Springs
1 Blackcleave Cliffs
1 Rakdos Carnarium
1 Lavaclaw Reaches
1 Akoum Refuge
1 Urborg Volcano
1 Tresserhorn Sinks
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Cavern of Souls
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Goblin Burrows
1 Volrath’s Stronghold
10 Mountain
8 Swamp
I'm not ready to give up on MtG as a hobby, since I really enjoy the social interaction and have made so many good friends playing this game, but almost every format I've played has been a dead end for me and I'm not sure where to go with the game to make it fun and exciting for me again. Could Commander be a worthwhile format for me to get into?
Any advice would be much appreciated.
(TLDR : Don't like Standard, Legacy, Modern, or Limited anymore. Do like Vintage but don't have the money for it or people to play it with. Don't care about winning tournaments anymore. Maybe will like Commander?)
I play limited and EDH (commander) exclusively now, with the occasional foray into a constructed non-singleton format. and i've never looked back. EDH is just the format for those who are bored with the more competitive minded formats out there. It's casual in nature, but dont let that sway you, there are and will always be Sharks.
The Merciless Lord of Torture, Permanently Bound To: ">[THE PACK] 11/5/63 - 11/25/09 Goodbye mom, i'll always love you...
Tibalt & His Devils vs. Avacyn's Inquisitors
My EDH decklists
Also commander is often played in multiplayer, which in theory lets you balance things out via diplomacy. However I have seen this diplomacy get ugly: immature players will use it as an outlet for personal vendettas, and in other cases it turns the game into a thinly veiled popularity contest. Do not expect the outcome of multiplayer games to be more then vaguely related to play skill, because you need to be obnoxiously far above the curve to win a scheme-less archenemy game vs 3+ other players.
You can stick to 1v1, but it'll be harder to find opponents, and many of them stick to the French 1v1 banlist. The French banlist does an ok job at balance, but in doing so, you lose access to a lot of the vintage-esque plays that make the format interesting in the first place.
Despite these issues, EDH is still very fun, but you REALLY need to find a mature play group that's all on the same page in terms of what they expect in a game.
Although you don't like limited, you should at least do some research on Cubes and see if it piques your interest. Aside from that, EDH is a very good format but your experience will depend in large part on who you play against. I myself grew tired of Standard rather quickly and started playing EDH because it offers more depth and complexity than you can experience in a normal game of 60-card. I find that there are two distinct playgroups in my meta: a group of casual players who despise high-power decks and a group of cutthroat veterans (in all aspects of Magic from tourney play to trading) who make you fight for your right to the table. There is some blending between the two, but I have not played with the intermediate group much.
I would take a look around your LGS and see what your meta is like. Ask people about their decks. If most are playing with the precon Commander decks and have made minor modifications, you're likely dealing with a more casual crowd. If you notice fields of foils, foreign cards, and decks built for combo strategies, you're dealing with a higher-level crowd. You can usually find both at decent-sized game shops.
Keep in mind that EDH can be a money-intensive format, as can Cube. Putting together a dream list may not be a cheap endeavor, but it really comes down to what you want to play. I have a $2k BUG list and my friend has a $150 Riku deck and we both love EDH all the same.
If you're interested in learning more about EDH deck construction, I wrote an article here as an introductory guide for those new or inexperienced with regards to the format.
EDH isn't about what you play, it's about who you play with.
[EDH]
BUG Combo/Control:
BUG Dominus - Dreamcrusher Edition GUB
And the fact that it's casual, means that you can enjoy the game however you like with your friends; cards never become illegal to play (well rarely anyway), and every new set of cards just means more options to improve upon your deck.
You can also combine it with Planechase and Archenemy for loads more enjoyment and ridiculous combos.
The Modal Cube is also on Cube Tutor!
GWEDH Asmira's WrathGW
Some other formats to try out: Block, Build Your Own Standard, Pauper, Peasant, Prismatic, Singleton, Bling, Tribal, Art Magic, Rainbow Stairwell, Chess Magic, Live Draft, Queue Draft, Back Draft, etc.
Some other variants to try out: Planechase, Archenemy, Type 4, Stack, Memory Magic, Reverse Memory Magic, Secret Alliances, Assassins, Quest Magic, Horde, Constructed Queue Live Draft, Chaos, Star, etc.
Part of the reason for Magic's longevity has been the myriad ways in which the game can be played. Each different format or variant is a twist to the basic game that helps keep the play experience fresh.
The thing that Cube has over Commander/EDH and almost all other casual formats is that the power level and $$$ other people put into their deck is exactly equal in Cube. (More specifically, at least the chance of having a deck of the same power level is equal.) This was one of my biggest problems with the people I played with. I would either put too much money into my deck and it would be completely unfair or I would have to neuter my own deck so the games would be more competitive and fun.
I don't know if this is a problem with your play group.
It's also a lot of fun to make, especially if you decide to make a themed cube instead of a standard one. If you like brewing, instead of designing a deck, you end up designing an entire format.
Thread | Draft
Commander is great for the casual aspect of it, but if you play with die-hard Spike's you're going to end up seeing a lot of the same cards and the same strategies. You are going to have to try really hard to create a casual group for EDH if you're trying to keep things fresh, and this is also assuming they have the resources to keep things fresh. Most casual players do not.
Everyone I know loves cube. I love Powered Cubes to Pauper Cubes to only Multi-Colored Cubes and only Artifact Cubes. Cubes made with player-created cards and even cubes with specific casual rules. Drafting is fun and will seriously help with your player skill/ability to deck build/identify what makes cards useful rather than just what they do.
Hope I could help.
By: ol MISAKA lo
Cockatrice: Infallible
I've never been a fan of cube personally, and cannot stand to play it. Something about it I just do not like. It's the one way to make me get up from a table and leave. I love normal drafting though, so... ymmv?
Give them both a try and see which you like more, and go with that for a time. I tend to switch back and forth from competitive standard to commander in 6 month intervals. I get bored with one, and go back to the other. Keeps each kind of fresh for me, I guess.
That being said, I'm sad to see you don't like Legacy. I love the format, you just need different decks to play. I get seeing SFM everywhere is boring and repetitive.
WGURBLands!WGURB
WGUInfectWGU
Legacy Lands Primer
Top 8 SCG Oakland 2014
Helpdesk
My Cube on CubeTutor
I think it's been worth it. I was sort of in your place a while back, tired of Standard rotations, and I had no Legacy players to play with despite having a couple Legacy decks to play. I found Commander, and a bunch of people to play with, and I could use all the old cards and not worry about rotations. It's been a blast. And I think my favorite part is just how flavorful you can make each deck just based on the general; my Thada Adel, Acquisitor deck has me playing the role of "acquisitor" (with something close to 30 cards that either steal my opponents' stuff or take advantage of their plays), my Ghave, Guru of Spores deck truly takes advantage of Ghave's ability to fracture and coalesce himself into tokens and counters (rather than simply token swarm, I sacrifice my tokens as often as I make them, sometimes to the point of a combo-win with Bitter Ordeal), and my Soraya the Falconer deck is an army of birds... literally, it's simultaneously a bird tribal and a soldier tribal deck (thank you, Aven Brigadier)
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
(Image by totallynotabrony)
I found commander too slow and unpredictable, but from knowing what you don't like maybe its up your alley.
I've stopped playing edh because frankly if I want that kind of format I'll just play a competitive format.
BEtched Champion/InfectB
WSoilders/knightsW
WUVenser SplicerWU
RRDWR
GFeed the Pack comboG
WUPool of ExhaustionWU
EDH
GEzuri, Elf OverrunG
BGeth, GraverobberB
UThada Adel, ThiefU
RUrabrask, Big RedR
WElesh Norn, CrusadeW
WUGAngus Makenzie, Bant ControlWUG
Extended
WGElvesWG
Legacy
RGoblinsR
UBGFariesUBG
UBGRaffinityUBG
Yes, seeing the same deck over and over and over again is frustrating and eventually maddening. That was one of the reasons that I began making Standard decks, just to see how my thoughts would line up with the pros. I get the feeling we are actually thinking kind of alike in many ways. I am not saying I am a pro by any measure, just that I see a lot of the thoughts I come up with fully fleshed out in their decks.
Moving up to a more competetive meta should keep it from getting stale. The "Stoneblade" decks were dominant in Standard a few years back, and that was one of the reasons that Stoneforge Mystic was banned in Modern just as it was about to rotate. They didn't want their new format to be broken out the gate.
If you are getting bored with Standard in the current meta where there are no completely dominating brews, then I suggest Magic may not be for you. There is a ton of variety in decks that you are likely to see at FNM, and where some are kind of expensive, none are so insanely expensive that you can't pick up a deck every few months that will be competetive. Right now, every deck in the top tier in Standard has a weakness, and it can be exploited. Nothing is so dominant that nothing else has room for a win.
Commander does have a "fresh" feel to it, but if you get bored easily, then you will likely bore of this as well. Commander in some ways is even more predictable than Legacy, as you know just about EVERY deck will have a Sol Ring, and if it drops on turn 1 it is very difficult to overcome.
Standard:
WBRG Aggro-Reanimator Humans GRBW
Modern:
UR Twinning RU
G Venus Fly Trap G
U Artifacts Aggro U
Legacy:
B Reanimator B
WU Stoneblade UW
EDH
WBGGhave, Guru of SporesGBW
URGRiku of the Two ReflectionsGRU
WUBRGScion of the Ur-DragonGRBUW
Casual
Far too many to list
Since my schedule would only permit about 2 edh days a month, it only took a couple pain-marathons in a row for me to quite the lgs' edh event.
What I eventually did though, was build a pauper cube (about $100 + sleeves), convert my edh collection into an edh cube (and proxied the hell out of stuff I didn't own), so I could play whatever I want, whenever. I also aggressively pursued getting a few of my lapsed friends back into magic, and poached players I liked from the lgs for a weekly group.
"Personally I love high-riak, low-reqars gambles. Life's best with a decent amount of riak. And f*** reqars."
Depending on how competitive you want to be, what banlist is used or the players you play against are, will determine the cost and your amount of fun.
Some groups are super competitive; you'll see Life from the Loam + Wasteland/Stripmine combo's, and things of that nature. People will play any "dirty" or "ungentlemenly" combo that's not banned. This isn't a big thing to worry about, just something that is out there. (If you ever play in a side event at an SCG Open or GP)
Commander is a great format though; just last night I was in a 6 player Chaos game where one guy cast Windfall twice and still didn't win (and could have cast it a third time but didnt see it until 2 player turns later). He knocked out the guy to my right and put a Jin Gitaxis into play. before his EoT i exiled it. On my turn I casted Miraris Wake, replenished 6 enchantments (doubling season and parallel lives), and casted a Verdeloth the Ancient for 16 saprolings. I ended up losing the next go around, when the guy who casted windfall went to attack the Kaalia player (to my left), but he had the instant that lets you change what player you attack, and I got hit by a flyer and lost. One guy this game also had a Mimic Vat out, and at one point 3 players had Primeval Titans on board, and no one was killing them b/c the player would get Primeval tokens, lol.
There are so many different kinds of generals and playstyles you can do; it really makes the format enjoyable.
If you plan to make Commander decks, I suggest making 2 decks: a 1V1 deck and a multiplayer deck.
WBG Karador GBW
R Daretti R
RG Omnath GR
WRG Modern Burn GRW
WB Modern Tokens BW
DCI Rules Advisor as of 5/18/2015
For purchase at my lgs, I regularly put together $15 - $20 monocolored edh decks that can be quite competitive, especially if the general scales well against the contents of your opponents' decks such as thada adel, acquisitor and sakashima the impostor. Finally, there are also great ashling the pilgrim and azusa, lost but seeking decks that can be upwards of 60 - 75% basic lands.
"Personally I love high-riak, low-reqars gambles. Life's best with a decent amount of riak. And f*** reqars."
At this point I have a pretty good feeling about the Commander format. The last time I looked in on some Commander games at my LGS the variety of decks and power levels seemed pretty diverse. There were a good dozen or so people who play Commander there every tuesday and friday night and the deck power levels looked all over the map. There were some people with slightly modified pre-cons, other's with almost fully foiled super Spike combo decks, and all sorts of decks in between. Sometimes it was 4-6 player, sometimes it was 1 on 1. So I feel like it's safe to expect that I'll likely end up playing with a bunch of different people from week to week with varying degrees of competitiveness.
Regarding the finishing of my Wort, Boggart Auntie deck I'm going to try to have it complete by the time the Minneapolis GP rolls around on May 19-20. I live not too far away from the event and I saw that they were going to be having a bunch of Commander side events and I'd like to give it a go to see what I think. I can definitely have everything for my deck except for a few of the more expensive parts of the mana base in time, which I can always swap out for some more basics if I don't get the Badlands/Bloodstained Mire/Urborg/Volrath's Stronghold in time for the tournament. The deck won't be optimal, but it probably doesn't need to be just to try out the format. I'm expecting there will be some pretty hardcore decks there so I don't expect to win, but I've never minded losing to fast combo (I.E. Storm) when playing Legacy so I won't have any hard feelings about losing to some powerful combo decks. Heck, I've got some combos of my own that can be tutored to just win the game on the spot. Buried Alive for Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, Skirk Prospector, and Lightning Crafter then Living Death or Patriarch's Bidding with one other random Goblin in the graveyard works pretty well. Then there's also the whole Goblin Charbelcher + Goblin Recruiter trick for 1 vs 1 games.
So anyway, after thinking about it a bit I decided not to sweat the $200 to finish the deck. I know I'm ready to get out of Legacy at this point so I just listed the cards that made up my Legacy decks that I knew I wouldn't be using in Commander for sale/trade to pay for the costs of finishing my Commander deck. That way I don't feel like I'm losing any real money out of my pocket to try Commander, and that makes me feel a lot more secure about the whole thing. And hey, even if it turns out that I don't like the format after a while I shouldn't lose much value on the cards I purchased/traded for to build my deck if I decide to resell/trade them.
We'll see what I think of the format as a whole after I've had a chance to play some games at my LGS and the upcoming GP, but it sure seems like fun. So far I really like the amount of creative artistry that you can put into building your decks, and fine tuning and optimizing those decks takes a whole new level of care and attention that I've never encountered in any other format. Combine that with the amazingly expansive card pool and I'm really liking the deck building aspect of this format. I've already got a list drawn up for a second deck that I'm tweaking and tuning (Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre) so if I do decide that I like and want to continue playing the format I'll have another fun project to work on over time.
Regarding Cube Drafting (since many people suggested it) I have played Cube twice at this point. Those Cube drafts, with a fully powered Cube I might add, were definitely the most fun I've ever had playing a limited format, since pretty much every card in every pack was first pick'able. With most Limited formats it feels to me like being successful with the deck you draft depends far too heavily on cracking an awesome rare (something I have extremely bad luck with) and that luck aspect really bothers me. I always hated losing Limited games to players with vastly inferior skill who just happened to crack a Planeswalker or a bomb rare creature in their packs. But with Cube on the other hand every card in every pack is an awesome card, so it's not so much dependent on luck as it is skillful deck building by drafting the cards that fit whatever archetype you want to play. Because of this I've loved every game of Cube I've played.
However, at this point I really don't have a big enough group of friends who play MtG to support building a Cube and drafting it with them. And, well, I just wouldn't feel comfortable drafting my Cube with people I don't know very well due to the potential risk of theft for the more valuable cards in it. So I'm not sure Cube is going to be something I want to start working on right now, but if I ever expand my regular playgroup past the 2-3 people it's currently at (all of which only play Legacy and Standard sadly) it's definitely something I'd consider doing. For now though I think meeting new people who play Commander and getting in some games with them is the direction I want to try.
Again, thank you to everyone who replied and any additional advice/wisdom/feedback/thoughts/etc. anyone may have to offer is always appreciated
That being said, there are a few problems with Legacy, as much as I like it. Obviously, it's very expensive to play competitively. Playing a lot of rounds can be very mentally tiring, since it is so skill-intensive and mistakes lose you a match. And while it's probably the most diverse constructed format ever, you still don't see quite as many interactions as a format with a wider pool of "playable" cards, such as EDH or Cube. And obviously, you lose the thrill of opening packs (the "limited" experience). Cube has solved all of these problems for me, but of course, it isn't as well-supported (at local game stores in an organized tournament). However, for casual play, nothing beats that.
I'm sure a lot of the great things I like about Cube are applicable to EDH as well (even though I don't play it). On the other hand, it may be difficult to justify dropping $20-100 for a card for your deck in a format where prize support is essentially not there because it goes against the spirit of a casual format. But I'm sure it's still a blast.
Legacy
UWR Miracles UWR
GWB Maverick GWB
GB Elves GB
UBR ANT UBR
RG Combo Lands RG
Vintage
BUG BUG Fish BUG
Modern
GBW
Junk PodMagic: the Buylisting