Combo decks [...] generally raises the playskill of everyone involved; if you miss a single opportunity, it could cost you the game.
I don't think I can let that one slide. I'd say playing cEDH drastically reduces the number of interactions to worry about because the pool of played cards is so much fewer, as are the number of decks and archetypes. It also drastically reduces the number of important decisions in a game because it's so much shorter. Granted, those decisions are much more likely to be life and death than any of the myriad mostly-irrelevant decisions made in a normal commander game, but I think being able to identify the critical junctures in a normal commander game from among all the unimportant ones - and to make the right choice in those decisions - can be a lot harder than making the right decisions in a fast combo game, because in the fast combo game it's mostly the same kinds of decisions every game. Whereas in the normal commander game, the kinds of decisions can be enormously diverse and require more critical thinking and less rote memorization.
Not that the play skill of most normal commander players is high - it is not. And the skill of cEDH players tends to be higher, partly because you have to be fairly invested and familiar with the game to buy in at that level. But there's way, way more room to perfect your gameplay in a normal game of commander than a cEDH one, at least imo.
Yeah, you could just as easily say Stax raises the skill level because you never know what "fun" little rules I have in store for you.
A diverse meta is what I think raises the skill level more than anything.
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Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
I would probably say more toward control, but only slightly. Mostly because if you weaken control too much (and the temptation is great), combo takes over.
I would like to see more aggro and midrange than currently exists, though.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
Yeah, you could just as easily say Stax raises the skill level because you never know what "fun" little rules I have in store for you.
A diverse meta is what I think raises the skill level more than anything.
On phasing:
I would like to see more aggro and midrange than currently exists, though.
On phasing: