MTG Salvation

You would think that given EDH / Commander is the most popular format in Magic: The Gathering that far exceeds Standard there would ACTUALLY be support for In-Person Tournaments at Local Game Stores (LGSs). My Local Game Store (LGS) only managed to fire at least two EDH / Commander tournaments with a decent player turnout in the last two to three years or so. Not sure If table space rentals for other card games might be the issue or something else entirely. Yes games tend to be a bit more grindy than your average competitive non-Singleton tournament where you aren't paired in 4 player pods for a particular match / round whether it be Swiss or Single Elimination. Sure there's CommandFest but it hits differently compared to your average MagicFest, Grand Prix, or Pro Tour event where there's an actual draw to get people playing In-Person instead of being stuck on Arena with MTGO now being completely dissolved. I think that's EDH / Commander's issue is that there's no real draw to get players competing for one another when the EDH Rules Committee and Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro have already settled for excluding the cEDH crowd that would in fact help grow the format after the power creep we witnessed from Commander Legends 1 in regards to Hullbreacher, Opposition Agent, and Jeweled Lotus scaring them off.

They don't want to risk speeding the format up more than they already have as it's caused A LOT of backlash with how the format is perceived to be ran with a much slower time clock. The reason why I'm bringing this topic up is since Standard has failed to get more new players into Magic: The Gathering as of late there needs to be a viable replacement for Standard to get new blood into the game and EDH / Commander given it's popularity would be a perfect fit IMO. Sure there's Pioneer and Modern but those formats are already expensive enough as it is. How often do you see your Local Game Store (LGS) fire In-Person tournaments for Pioneer and Modern like they do for Standard? Are they firing them off outside the weekend when that actually gets less people in as opposed to more during the weekend or are there too many people who have to work during the weekends to where they aren't able to cut the playtime within their work schedule? Maybe there's the fear of renting out table space for other events that make it hard to run these kind of In-Person Tournaments at Local Game Stores (LGSs). I'm really curious about this. Let me know. I don't think it would take THAT much resources to get the job done. Shouldn't be hard to give participating players promos for entering or have at least some kind of prize pool that doesn't bankrupt an LGS.

So… are you expecting casual edh players to play in an actively competitive event when not being competitive is a major draw of the tournament to many or are you expecting wizards to regularly send out sufficient support to every LGS to make it worthwhile to cEDH players with decks worth over $5000?

Asking why wizards isn’t holding competitive commander events displays a startling lack of awareness regarding the appeal of EDH in general.

I'm primarily a cube player and when my friends want to play EDH, I would either build a deck using my cube or borrow a deck to play.

The cEDH format is way too expensive for me to consider playing competitively.

We have two free Commander nights which require no support. There's enough demand for tournaments, but any realistic time is booked by a better draw. The same is true for Standard.

Quote from motleyslayer »

I feel that commander players as a whole would rather just play with their playgroups, rather than play in something more organized. By sticking to their own playgroups, they know what power level to expect and can tailor their experience to that. Commander is also a pretty casual format, so in my opinion organized tournaments at a store kinda go against the casual nature of commander

See that's the thing. If they're not playing in something more organized then they should at least play with their playgroups In-Person at Local Game Stores (LGSs). What's the point of playing Paper Magic If the ecosystem built to make it happen no longer exists? Before the advent of Social Media the best place to meet up and play was and still should be the Local Game Store (LGS). You can't play at your Local Amazon Fulfillment Center, Pawn Shop, Gas Station, or Big Box Retailer like Walmart and Target. MTG players might have been able to get away with it in the past before Local Game Stores (LGSs) became more mainstream to the public but times are much different now where they can't keep relying solely on a poorly competitive format like Standard to get more foot traffic and seats at Local Game Stores (LGS) which is something that EDH / Commander as a format doesn't have.

The "Casual Nature" of EDH / Commander was really only a design concept by the EDH Rules Committee not realizing how the popularity of the format would explode to the point where it would also entice competitive players to do the same but yet are instead being told they aren't allowed in the same club due to conflicting ideologies of what the format should be and look like. What they SHOULD be doing is finding the right balance between competitive and casual for EDH / Commander without necessarily breaking the format though unfortunately Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro in terms of their Research & Development Team will ONLY listen to the EDH Rules Committee for advice on designing EDH / Commander cards and NOT want to gain ANY sort of influence from the cEDH demographic after what happened in regards to Hullbreacher, Opposition Agent, and Jeweled Lotus in Commander Legends 1.

Quote from Rosy Dumplings »

So… are you expecting casual edh players to play in an actively competitive event when not being competitive is a major draw of the tournament to many or are you expecting wizards to regularly send out sufficient support to every LGS to make it worthwhile to cEDH players with decks worth over $5000?

Asking why wizards isn’t holding competitive commander events displays a startling lack of awareness regarding the appeal of EDH in general.

I'm expecting Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro to regularly send out sufficient support to every Local Game Store (LGS) to make it worthwhile to cEDH players, however the difference would be to ban specific cards from cEDH players that would otherwise be too broken and too expensive for Casual EDH players and vice-versa so that the power level isn't completely off balance. While I understand the general appeal behind EDH / Commander it's also equally important that these players have a very good reason to STAY and PLAY at Local Game Stores (LGSs) instead of wandering off outside Local Game Stores (LGSs) akin to your average "Take Home and Play" Tabletop Board Games like Monopoly and Scrabble. On the plus side it can also be used to help publicly advertise for Paper Magic in a way that isn't as polarizing as Standard currently is right now.

Quote from Breathe1234 »

I'm primarily a cube player and when my friends want to play EDH, I would either build a deck using my cube or borrow a deck to play.

The cEDH format is way too expensive for me to consider playing competitively.

Like I said before, find a way to make cEDH as affordable as Casual EDH without upsetting the MTG community as a whole however with players wanting to run their favorite cards that are more than likely banned it's very hard to please everybody in a manner of which will replace Standard as the lifeblood of Local Game Stores (LGSs) instead of just printing new cards solely for EDH / Commander that ends up breaking competitive formats with Standard, Modern, and Pioneer as an end result.

Quote from hrvl »

We have two free Commander nights which require no support. There's enough demand for tournaments, but any realistic time is booked by a better draw. The same is true for Standard.

If Commander Nights were booked on the weekends and not just the weekdays then there would be a much better draw IMO. Or at least replace FNM with Commander Night with Friday Night Commander or something since Standard is a format that's beyond repair at this point.

Quote from Rimase »

Varied Playstyles, EDH/Commander is a format that encourages diverse and creative deck-building. Players have different playstyles and preferences, making it challenging to create a tournament structure that accommodates everyone

That's the thing. If Paper Standard encouraged as much diverse and creative deck-building as EDH / Commander then we'd be seeing more players at Local Game Stores (LGSs) but the fact that Arena exists to take those players away to play Remotely Online instead of In-Person at an LGS is gatekeeping younger generations of new Paper Magic players to enter the game in a way where the overall complexity of the game itself isn't scaring off new players when it actually is right now.

What you're saying is that a format has to be linear in design in order to work for Competitive In-Person Organized Play but If that's the case then why is Paper Standard so boring compared to EDH / Commander? Rotating formats like Standard just proves that Competitive Magic is Pay to Win but more aggressive than your average Loot Box / Loot Crate or Gacha game due to it's short time window. Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro refuses to come to terms that they can't please everyone.

Quote from Kryptnyt »

A lot of stores disallow proxies for sanctioned events, and fair enough, because they want to sell cards. If you play Commander in a no-proxy setting with money on the line, this heavily favors players who are willing to shuffle up their dual lands or Mishra's Workshop / Timetwister etc.

It's kind of a question of, do you run a ~$100 Budget CEDH tournament? Do you curate a banlist to get the most players interested? Or just suck it up and allow proxies. There's things you can do for sure. Ask your friends what they would like to see, and talk with the owner of your LGS about it. Commander is generally popular because of its less competitive nature, though, and introducing a prize will definitely soil that.

The real challenge is how do you make EDH / Commander as attractive to Local Game Stores (LGSs) as Paper Standard used to be before the global pandemic and Arena pushed for more remote play. Sure you want them to buy Commander product but most importantly you also want them to actually sit down and play in-person as you would in a competitive tournament. If prize support isn't the answer to draw more people to play EDH / Commander at Local Game Stores (LGSs) then what is? Prize support is obviously off the table here.

Why not reward EDH / Commander players for trying to reach specific board state conditions to earn points or store credit for their Local Game Store (LGS)? Best 2 out of 3 matches in a 4 player pod would take too long but given how fast the format has gotten you can finish a 4 player EDH / Commander game in roughly 45 minutes as opposed to an hour or two based on live streams of EDH / Commander games I've watched on YouTube but you probably have an easier time speed running that If everyone was running Mono Red or Mono Green If these events were given color identity restrictions.

I think that's what's missing is that If Local Game Stores (LGSs) can run EDH / Commander tournaments restricting color identity then that can help narrow out the amount of multi-colored decks that are not only prevalent in cEDH but also in Casual as well. Colorless decks have proven to get out of hand I mean look at Zhulodok, Void Gorger which is basically Maelstrom Wanderer but Colorless for 1 less mana without a haste enabler. I don't know If that would help the situation aside from a curated ban list but it's a start I suppose.

What If a banlist was curated to where fast mana wasn't allowed for these In-Person EDH / Commander Tournaments at Local Game Stores (LGSs)? Sure it would slow games down exponentially akin to playing with or against Stax but it would help keep the game at a reasonable pace I suppose. If worse comes to worse Judges can still call time and allow 4 player pods at each table two turns left and whoevers life total is the highest wins though it'd be single or double elimination instead of swiss rounds so that the tournament can end quicker. Adding the option of a top cut for undefeated players seems like extra hours and adds pressure to Local Game Stores (LGSs) that are scheduled to close down due to set business hours.

Then again I've been noticing some major pushback against how Organized Play is ran for other Paper Trading Card Games / Collectible Card Games where slow play is mostly frowned upon. I know it's no longer allowed in the Pokémon TCG and Konami's actually been cracking down on this for Yu-Gi-Oh! tournaments in Japan. Magic: The Gathering is arguably the only game of it's kind to allow a certain level of slow play in competitive tournaments though for it's competition from Japan not so much and time is money. As someone whose more of a fan of Swiss rounds over single or double elimination this is disheartening to say the least. The consequences of the pandemic through monetary inflation has made it even harder to play in-person.

No. That's the short of it, just "no".

Commander as a competitive format doesn't work for a myriad of reasons, not the least of which being a multiplayer format. Combining cash money and multiple players and invariably you will have two players that collude to run the table and split the difference. "So then why not go 1v1", you ask next. Sure, but commander 1v1 is just Vintage Lite with an arbitrary banlist and the lack of the actual draw to playing Vintage - the only place where you legally can play the Power 9.

Okay, so why don't we build it like the other eternal format, Legacy. It's true that Legacy is a more well balanced environment, but it's still suffers many of the same drawbacks as Vintage (barrier to entry being the chief issue). Further compounding this, and it applies to the first point above, is this takes away from the commander play aspect the average commander player comes into the format to experience.

At the crux of the issue with commander now, is the format is very not-balanced, especially for competitive play. Rather, it's a check to see who got the fast mana first, and that person will run away with the game via the disparate resource advantage. "Okay, so why not curate the banlist?" you might ask next. Now you've gone and splintered the playerbase, players will often reject anything non-official, and even if you do succeed here, all you've done is create a subsystem of LGS specific house rules. You haven't gained any ground.

In closing, commander doesn't work as a competitive format because mixing multiplayer and cash money is a poor recipe due to a myriad of factours. To say nothing of the wide skill mismatches that will inevitably lead to turbo players using any given LGS as a "grind spot" where they get whatever free content they can by pubstomping the non-turbo players that showed up to play a very different game. I watched my LGS almost die when they tried to roll this out, and this scenario is exactly what transpired. Once they changed to a "$5 buy-in gets you $5 store credit" system, the atmosphere changed to a positive one. And, unsurprisingly, those turbo grinders all vanished. Good riddance, I say. Better for the LGS, better for the players, all of it a positive.

What Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro doesn't understand about Paper Magic is that it's been around long enough to develop different "ecosystems". Yes there's the Commander ecosystem however the Paper Standard ecosystem is what the entirety of the game was built around since the very beginning 30 years ago. Back when the game first debuted in 1993 you didn't really have a variety of different formats to choose from where players could only run 4 of playsets of individual cards minus basic lands with a Banned / Restricted List and that was it. Then Wizards of the Coast came in and invented the Paper Standard format which back then was known as Type 2 Constructed before they were bought out by Hasbro. Granted there was A LOT of push back when Wizards of the Coast first introduced Type 2 Constructed to Paper Magic because players wanted to play their cards how THEY wanted but ultimately Paper Standard is what saved the game from just falling off to being just a card game where people were like, "If you didn't have the best cards that were old then you can't compete". It kind of created a little gated playground that you could come in and play as a new player where you wouldn't have to worry about needing to run the last decade's worth of cards and acquiring all the stuff where you only needed to be concerned about the last two years worth of cards. More importantly, it also provided people to play with in-person right? If you don't have people to play then you're not going to have people come out to their Local Game Store (LGS).

Wizards of the Coast found out about this the hard way by messing around and it looks as though we're moving back to how Paper Standard worked in the past so having that kind of Organized Play program where you move up in tournament brackets is extremely crucial now at the local level instead of the convention level but you could still build up to the convention level. Wizards of the Coast used to have a very healthy release schedule for Paper Magic products where they mainly focused on Paper Standard which allowed all the other formats to take care of themselves but by catering to other formats through dramatically changing that release schedule to avoid power creeping Paper Standard those solutions created their own set of unforeseen problems creating a diminishing returns scenario. There's only so much that Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro can try to get from Commander players because Commander players don't consume products the exact same way competitive Paper Standard players do. The fundamental market dynamics between Paper Standard and Commander are quite different to where the company NEEDS to actually create demand for Paper Standard, not Arena, by having FNM and In-Person Paper Standard events at Local Game Stores (LGSs). Healthy Paper Standard play is vital to Local Game Stores (LGSs) which leads to more new players coming into Commander without Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro trying to advertise the game in a way that isn't anti-LGS like what they've been doing for the past few years with all this gatekeeping nonsense.

Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro feels as though the Local Game Store (LGS) is a hindrance to the game itself and they actively want to get rid of the social stigma that comes from playing In-Person when that's what the game was actually built around in the first place. Magic: The Gathering was originally intended to be a localized community based card game that helped those who didn't fit in with the rest of society to feel welcome where as now they're unwelcome because they no longer fit in with today's societal norms. So Commander doesn't have to be competitive to get more new players at Local Game Stores (LGSs) when Paper Standard needs to be the driving force behind WHY these players migrate to other Paper Magic formats like Commander without it feeling as though it's being advertised more as a "take home and play" tabletop board game like Monopoly and Scrabble. I don't understand why that's so hard and difficult to understand because clearly Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro's marketing team for Paper Magic nowadays still feels anti-LGS when it shouldn't be. That's what happens when they copy directly off of a famous YouTuber's business model along with partnering with Amazon to dump products that didn't sell while somehow making their money back where there's literally no financial repercussions for them whatsoever. Even the gatekeeping by Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro on Social Media has gotten out of control as well.

The REAL question we should all be asking ourselves is what If there was an actual reward for playing EDH / Commander at your Local Game Store (LGS)? Currently there is none because Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro and the EDH Rules Committee have convinced themselves that the format MUST remain Casual and therefore cannot be Competitive when other competitive formats in Paper Magic don't really offer the same freedom of deck building and creativity that EDH / Commander has as they're stuck with restricted metagames based on what's available in the formats' card pool that pigeonholes players into having to netdeck JUST to compete. Because having to build decks to deal with problems can easily take away wanting to build decks that doesn't have to answer to someone else's problem. In EDH / Commander you can LITERALLY curate your own meta while being able to play with what you love without having to play with what you don't enjoy. So why don't competitive formats have a similar sense of creative freedom? I've been noticing a growing apathy for set rotations in Paper Trading Card Games / Collectible Card Games as opposed to eternal formats where they could literally just rotate out single cards instead of sets like in Yu-Gi-Oh! which is now facing a crisis involving lack of prize support because the creator of Yu-Gi-Oh! Kazuki Takahashi hated the idea of cash prizes in Yu-Gi-Oh! and Konami chose to honor his wish even after death.