This is something that has stuck in my craw for a while and I wanted to get the thoughts of the community.
Generally speaking, I support the idea of using rule 0 in a pre-game chat with other players to establish what each person is bringing and hopes to accomplish. Even though everyone has their own view of what a "7 out of 10" means and some bad actors may try to slip nasty tricks in, that's a good way to gauge what people at the table are bringing and what they want.
With that said, there is a major functional limitation to table talk.
If one person comes to the table with their unmodified precon and someone else only comes with their cEDH deck, the game cannot occur in a way that is fair to both players. I hear a lot of people bypass and talk around this particular matter by saying that they always carry around an unpowered deck or that they can borrow a weaker deck (or lend a stronger one) but I do not see this as a universal answer.
I honestly feel that, within reason, it should be possible for players using decks of different power levels to play against each other and for each to feel that they had a meaningful game of MTG. Rather than policing content of player's libraries in a way that would be inconsistent from one card table to the next, why not negotiate handicaps with the table (weakening yourself and/or empowering others) as part of that table talk to help make up the difference in power levels?
I want to indicate that Handicaps are fairly flexible. A small imbalance (such as playing a mono-white deck against enemies with ramp and card draw out the wazoo) may get a meaningful boost from starting with a treasure token and/or an extra card in hand. A large imbalance may require giving a handicapped player an archenemy deck or a whole special action like "Once per game, when you have priority, exile target spell or permanent and counter each of its activated or triggered abilities. This special action does not use the stack". If you don't trust players at your table to accurately represent how much help they need in advance, you can grant an advantage who whomever lost first the last round or grant an obstacle (like a 1-sided sphere of resistance effect) to whomever won the last game.
I'm not saying that there should be some monolithic rule that people should be able to game to get specific benefits, of course. I guess that I'm just wondering why I always hear players asking if it's okay to bring out their stax/turns/combo/storm deck and have never once heard a player ask what sort of handicap they'd need to offer for the other person to feel comfortable fighting that deck.
Is that a silly question? Am I missing something obvious?
What about the idea of using proxies as a handicap for EDH / Commander? Might of been discussed here before but is still worth mentioning though. Me and my playgroup do this and I've seen other playgroups proxy high-end Reserve List cards that you'd see more from cEDH players than Casual EDH players. I'm one of those purists who doesn't like to run highly expensive cards that are normally proxied by those who don't have the money to pay for them. Then again with counterfeits on the rise it's almost immediately hard to tell nowadays anyway.
I do find most EDH / Commander games are mostly just decks that players like piloting the most instead of decks at the table consistently playing off of each other which is easier said than done I'm afraid. I'm not saying for everyone to run Chaos decks but it would be an interesting change of pace to see new cards printed that force your opponents to attack as a form of disrupting their combos or make them work for setting them up without relying on free counterspells while being tapped out on mana sources. This is probably something that doesn't bode well with cEDH players in general.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
America Bless Christ Jesus
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
You just have to build a range of decks, if you are the person that has the resources to do so. I have some brutal decks and I have decks that, as a johnny player are trying to do something inherently goofy, some decks that get better or worse depending on opponents. I also mostly try to play colours that are not heavily represented at the table just so we have a solution to everything.
Generally speaking, I support the idea of using rule 0 in a pre-game chat with other players to establish what each person is bringing and hopes to accomplish. Even though everyone has their own view of what a "7 out of 10" means and some bad actors may try to slip nasty tricks in, that's a good way to gauge what people at the table are bringing and what they want.
With that said, there is a major functional limitation to table talk.
If one person comes to the table with their unmodified precon and someone else only comes with their cEDH deck, the game cannot occur in a way that is fair to both players. I hear a lot of people bypass and talk around this particular matter by saying that they always carry around an unpowered deck or that they can borrow a weaker deck (or lend a stronger one) but I do not see this as a universal answer.
I honestly feel that, within reason, it should be possible for players using decks of different power levels to play against each other and for each to feel that they had a meaningful game of MTG. Rather than policing content of player's libraries in a way that would be inconsistent from one card table to the next, why not negotiate handicaps with the table (weakening yourself and/or empowering others) as part of that table talk to help make up the difference in power levels?
I want to indicate that Handicaps are fairly flexible. A small imbalance (such as playing a mono-white deck against enemies with ramp and card draw out the wazoo) may get a meaningful boost from starting with a treasure token and/or an extra card in hand. A large imbalance may require giving a handicapped player an archenemy deck or a whole special action like "Once per game, when you have priority, exile target spell or permanent and counter each of its activated or triggered abilities. This special action does not use the stack". If you don't trust players at your table to accurately represent how much help they need in advance, you can grant an advantage who whomever lost first the last round or grant an obstacle (like a 1-sided sphere of resistance effect) to whomever won the last game.
I'm not saying that there should be some monolithic rule that people should be able to game to get specific benefits, of course. I guess that I'm just wondering why I always hear players asking if it's okay to bring out their stax/turns/combo/storm deck and have never once heard a player ask what sort of handicap they'd need to offer for the other person to feel comfortable fighting that deck.
Is that a silly question? Am I missing something obvious?
I do find most EDH / Commander games are mostly just decks that players like piloting the most instead of decks at the table consistently playing off of each other which is easier said than done I'm afraid. I'm not saying for everyone to run Chaos decks but it would be an interesting change of pace to see new cards printed that force your opponents to attack as a form of disrupting their combos or make them work for setting them up without relying on free counterspells while being tapped out on mana sources. This is probably something that doesn't bode well with cEDH players in general.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
Pioneer:UR Pheonix
Modern:U Mono U Tron
EDH
GB Glissa, the traitor: Army of Cans
UW Dragonlord Ojutai: Dragonlord NOjutai
UWGDerevi, Empyrial Tactician "you cannot fight the storm"
R Zirilan of the claw. The solution to every problem is dragons
UB Etrata, the Silencer Cloning assassination
Peasant cube: Cards I own