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By: ForestFire0, Sam
Aug 17 2011 12:04pm
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The problem with playing Commander online is the lack of a consistent playgroup. Wow, that was easy!

...I guess I should explain why not playing with the same people causes problems. There are two different problems that arise from being able (and often forced) to play with different people every game. The first problem is that in a random game, each player arrives with a different idea of what that game should be like. The second problem is that there is no accountability for the decks people play. I’ll detail what these problems are and offer a few suggestions on how to avoid them.
When four random people start a game of Commander on MTGO, each player has a different idea of what a game of EDH should look like. If these images are too different, someone will likely not enjoy the game. For example, after the release of the Commander cards online, I’ve seen more decks than I'd like to that are similar to this one:
http://puremtgo.com/userfiles/image/decktops/gru.png); padding-bottom: 10px; background-repeat: no-repeat; position: relative; height: 40px">
Riku of Two Reflections
Please don't build this deck.
Creatures
1 Acidic Slime
1 Avenger of Zendikar
1 Consecrated Sphinx
1 Duplicant
1 Eternal Witness
1 Flametongue Kavu
1 Genesis
1 Glen Elendra Archmage
1 Izzet Chronarch
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
1 Mnemonic Wall
1 Oracle of Mul Daya
1 Palinchron
1 Pestermite
1 Primeval Titan
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Terastodon
1 Tidespout Tyrant
1 Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger
1 Woodfall Primus
20 cards

Other Spells
1 Riku of Two Reflections
1 Braingeyser
1 Capture of Jingzhou
1 Cultivate
1 Explosive Vegetation
1 Genesis Wave
1 Kodama's Reach
1 Mana Geyser
1 Nostalgic Dreams
1 Ponder
1 Praetor's Counsel
1 Recurring Insight
1 Regrowth
1 Rude Awakening
1 Temporal Manipulation
1 Time Stretch
1 Time Warp
1 Tooth and Nail
1 Walk the Aeons
1 Chord of Calling
1 Comet Storm
1 Desertion
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Harrow
1 Hinder
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Reiterate
1 Spell Crumple
1 Stroke of Genius
1 Voidslime
1 Worldly Tutor
1 Asceticism
1 Dream Halls
1 Exploration
1 Mana Reflection
1 Propaganda
1 Rhystic Study
1 Coalition Relic
1 Crystal Shard
1 Erratic Portal
1 Mana Crypt
1 Minion Reflector
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Sol Ring
1 Command Tower
41 cards

Lands
1 Academy Ruins
1 Cascade Bluffs
1 Deserted Temple
1 Fire-Lit Thicket
1 Flooded Grove
4 Forest
1 Gruul Turf
4 Island
1 Izzet Boilerworks
1 Karplusan Forest
1 Maze of Ith
1 Mosswort Bridge
4 Mountain
1 Reliquary Tower
1 Rootbound Crag
1 Shivan Reef
1 Simic Growth Chamber
1 Spinerock Knoll
1 Strip Mine
1 Tectonic Edge
1 Temple of the False God
1 Vesuva
1 Vivid Crag
1 Vivid Creek
1 Vivid Grove
1 Yavimaya Coast
35 cards
 
Time Stretch
Most Riku decks ramp mana into a copied Time Walk effect, then either combo out or kill with pure card and mana advantage. Personally, I’m not a big fan of Time Walk effects in EDH because they generally make everyone else sit around and watch the caster play solitaire. After playing against a few of these decks, I know to try to take them out as soon as possible. Sometimes, that won’t be possible and the Riku user will Time Walk his way to victory. The player is often quite smug after such a victory, seemingly under the impression that he is a better deck builder or player than the rest of the table. In reality, his victory is possible because he wants something from the game. The Riku player wants to win and personally have a good time. How the rest of the table reacts to his deck or the game isn’t even considered. If he is matched up with three players who do take into consideration the other people’s experience and would rather have a deck that leads to an interesting and fun game, the Riku player is at a distinct advantage. I own all the cards in the preceding deck, but I've never played it. Even when I tried a version without the infinite mana and creature combos, I gave up on the game halfway through out of embarrassment after realizing that even without the combos, the deck was no fun to play against (and for me, knowing I would hate to be on the other side of the table takes the fun out of the deck). I would rather play a deck that will lead to an interesting game where everyone gets a chance to play a role. That means playing a deck that, while maybe strong, doesn't dominate the table or turn the game into a game of one vs. three. Here's a Riku deck that can stand up to most decks without walking over them:
http://puremtgo.com/userfiles/image/decktops/.png); padding-bottom: 10px; background-repeat: no-repeat; position: relative; height: 40px">
Pauper Riku
Don't worry, it's still plenty good
Creatures
1 Aether Adept
1 Anarchist
1 Bloodfire Dwarf
1 Coiling Oracle
1 Devoted Druid
1 Drift of Phantasms
1 Elvish Visionary
1 Essence Warden
1 Farhaven Elf
1 Faultgrinder
1 Fertilid
1 Heart Warden
1 Izzet Chronarch
1 Krosan Tusker
1 Man-o'-War
1 Mnemonic Wall
1 Mulldrifter
1 Ondu Giant
1 Overgrown Battlement
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Scrivener
1 Wickerbough Elder
1 Yavimaya Elder
23 cards

Other Spells
1 Riku of Two Reflections
1 Brilliant Plan
1 Compulsive Research
1 Counsel of the Soratami
1 Cultivate
1 Divination
1 Exploding Borders
1 Explore
1 Fade Away
1 Fissure
1 Foresee
1 Growth Spasm
1 Hull Breach
1 Hurly-Burly
1 Kaervek's Torch
1 Kodama's Reach
1 Mana Geyser
1 Ponder
1 Rain of Embers
1 Rampant Growth
1 Reap and Sow
1 Rolling Thunder
1 Rush of Knowledge
1 Search for Tomorrow
1 Temporal Spring
1 Tremor
1 Yamabushi's Storm
1 Yawning Fissure
1 Cancel
1 Capsize
1 Counterspell
1 Harrow
1 Into the Roil
1 Puncture Blast
1 Relic Crush
1 Repulse
1 Smash
1 Rhystic Study
1 Shielding Plax
1 Darksteel Ingot
1 Gruul Signet
1 Izzet Signet
1 Simic Signet
1 Command Tower
41 cards

Lands
1 Bant Panorama
1 Evolving Wilds
6 Forest
1 Forgotten Cave
1 Grixis Panorama
1 Gruul Turf
6 Island
1 Izzet Boilerworks
1 Jund Panorama
1 Lonely Sandbar
5 Mountain
1 Naya Panorama
1 Remote Isle
1 Rupture Spire
1 Simic Growth Chamber
1 Slippery Karst
1 Smoldering Crater
1 Terramorphic Expanse
1 Tranquil Thicket
33 cards
 
Mnemonic Wall
Aside from the general, this deck has only common cards. I’ve found that this is a great way to use a commander generally seen as “broken” in a fair way (Zur would probably still be broken in a pauper build). Without the rare cards like (Tooth and Nail) or (Temporal Manipulation) Riku becomes a lot more fair. I've also found building a deck with only commons to be a lot of fun. This deck can also get all of its basic lands on the board in the first half of the game. With only a few X spells to abuse, this usually isn't too much of a problem for the other players.
However, it isn’t only deck choices that can be affected by people’s expectations of what an EDH game should be like. If one person wants to be friendly and another wants to be cut throat, they will play the same deck very differently. One person having a cut throat attitude can easily transform staples into very obnoxious cards. For example, I was playing a game with my Animar deck. There was a U/G player who was ramping his mana and drawing lots of cards. After having seen some of my cards, this player recognized that green has the best creatures, so he played (Terastodon) to kill two of my forests, then played (Woodfall Primus) twice to kill my other two sources of green mana. By the time he called my last green-producing land, my hand was mostly green creatures that I could no longer cast and I left the game. Obviously, neither Woodfall Primus nor Terastodon are cards that are inherently unpleasant, but a player who wants to play a cut throat game, they can easily be used in a very unpleasant manner.
The lack of a consistent play group online has another consequence, and that is the lack of accountability to the types of decks people play. I’ve seen one player who will always play a B/G (Hermit Druid) deck that will fairly consistently plays hermit druid on the second or third turn and activates it and wins on the third or fourth turn. Anyone who plays or follows eternal formats is already aware that in a deck with no basic lands, Hermit Druid is a powerful card. Being able to put your entire library into your graveyard for a small investment of 1GG over two turns is very powerful. Anyone who has played in a game that ended to a combo on the third turn also knows how frustrating this can be. If the Hermit Druid player was playing offline with a group of players, they would either see the deck once then tell him not to play it again or change their decks to fight it. Online, neither of these things can happen. Players can’t change their decks to counter a deck they haven’t seen before. If each player has to pack answers for all types of combo decks they might, there will be much less room to run the fun cards that make Commander so unique. It also is impossible to know that a player plays a fast combo deck if you’ve never played him before. So players who want to kill the table on turn three, flip (Erayo, Soratami Ascendant) on turn two, or get a surprise, instant kill with (Sharuum the Hegemon) can do so, game after game after game. Online, it is very hard to get a universally bad reputation. Some people take advantage of this fact by playing quick and hard-to-stop combo decks or other frustrating decks (e.g. a (Hokori, Dust Drinker) land hate deck). Add in the new players unfamiliar with the degeneracy of some commanders and it becomes even easier.

At this point, you might be thinking that I’ve made the classic editorial mistake: I’ve outlined problems, but provided no solutions. Well, I do have a few solutions, so there! Most everyone will agree that MTGO isn’t the most feature-packed or user-friendly piece of software. However, there are a few features that I feel are underused. They are the game description, the buddy list, and the block list. The game description is a first line of defense against players with different expectations. If you want to play a fun, friendly game, put that in the description. If you want to play with your best deck that always seems to trounce everyone when you play in a random game, make the description something like “Bring a good deck” or “Competitive game” or “Anything Goes”. Doing this will cut down the complainers when you want to play something strong and will cut down on the people with decks your Spirit/Arcane or Sphinx Tribal deck can’t handle. Sure, you’ll still get some people who will see your description looking for a fun game and see this as an opportunity to prey on the weak, but those people will be fewer. You can also make use of the block list for jerks like that. The block list does two things in MTGO: it prevents you from being messaged by people on your block list and it prevents those people from joining games you start. What I would suggest is that when you make a game with a description, and someone ignores that description, block that player and eject them (obviously, explain why you are doing this). For those who don’t know, to eject a player, the majority of players have to vote to eject. To vote, you simply type “/eject Player Name” in the game chat. The player name has to match exactly, including capitalization. If the player is voted out of the game, they are forced to concede. Ejecting a player also takes their spells with them. This can come in handy if a player spitefully casts (Obliterate) with no way to win and the rest of the table doesn’t feel like starting from scratch. The last feature to make use of is the buddy list. If you play a game with someone and you really enjoyed playing with them, add them as a buddy. Next time you’re on, you will be able to see if they have started a game and you can join that one. If you have a large enough buddy list, you can even make it so your games are buddy-only. Another option is to find or start a clan focused on EDH.

33 Comments

Hey Welcome to Puremtgo. I by Paul Leicht at Wed, 08/17/2011 - 12:14
Paul Leicht's picture

Hey Welcome to Puremtgo. I liked the premise of your article as it really is something that is often not addressed on modo. I have a policy in general of not joining random games unless I am wearing my elephant hide skin since people can be really abusive with decks and chat. I much prefer to ask a buddy if they are up for a game and then see what happens with a person I know in the mix. It makes breaking the ice with the other two people a bit easier. Unfortunately people tend to not read the notes in the advertisement or don't understand them or don't care so if you rely totally on potluck you get just that.

It would be very nice if the client had a way to mark people as either desirable or undesirable commander players (for your own information) so as to have reminders when playing "in the wild" but until that I guess we need to keep notes elsewhere.

About formatting on here. Please check and make sure you have closed your html tags (the < and > elements) in the text. If you need help with this ask one of us veterans for help in client. Another thing is the bottom section is a wall of text. Using <p> tags to separate your ideas will make them more readable as will interspersing images through out to illustrate points and give the eyes some relief.

Good tone by walkerdog at Wed, 08/17/2011 - 13:30
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I liked the tone that your article took. You didn't whine and you articulated your thoughts well.

I hate to be "that guy" but by Westane at Wed, 08/17/2011 - 13:50
Westane's picture

I hate to be "that guy" but now that I'm back in town...

I had an INCREDIBLY hard time reading this article. The ideas were good, the thoughts and opinions were good, but the formatting left a lot to be desired. It came off as a giant wall of text, and somehow the deck list formatting fell apart. It would do you a lot of good to review your formatting before submitting, as an article that is ascetically unpleasing is, unfortunately, often an article unread.

Thanks to everyone for the by ForestFire0 at Wed, 08/17/2011 - 15:03
ForestFire0's picture

Thanks to everyone for the responses. I think there is definitely a learning curve, so I'll work on the formatting you all mentioned for the next time.

As a recommendation by walkerdog at Wed, 08/17/2011 - 15:14
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Use the preview button before submitting, especially when you're getting started. It helps find dead links, walls of text and so forth.

Formatting aside... by apaulogy at Wed, 08/17/2011 - 15:26
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4

I think the article content is great. I do not play Commander, but I have a general idea about what you are talking about. Some of my friends play in Thurdsay tournaments in my LGS. They had a dude show up in the past that consistently brought a competitive Vendilion Clique deck. He was asked to tone down his deck list because it was just not fun to play against (All permission/card draw, with either V. Clique wins via general damage or Tunnel Vision). I undertsand their qulam because this is supposed to be a fun, casual format. The guy didn't listen and kept bringing his deck as it was, he eventually got hated out of the group and they have been able to continue playing like they normally do. I imagine this type of thing would be harder when you are playing against a bunch of randoms...

Anyway, I like your solutions. The buddy and block lists have particularly been good friends.

I am interested in Commander online, maybe I'll give it a try sometime.

Thanks for this.

Another major problem with by Cownose at Wed, 08/17/2011 - 15:54
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Another major problem with commander online is there is no ability to play 1v1 matches. IRL we play 2-player commander tournaments a lot at my local shop, but MODO will have none of it. I asked an ORC and was told that there was no intention of ever having this functionality...I don't understand why not.

I would say its because 1v1 by ShardFenix at Wed, 08/17/2011 - 17:15
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I would say its because 1v1 will never be supported by the Commander/EDH RC. And its been said that the groups are both trying to adhere to the natural intention of the format. This is why there is no 'official' 1v1 banned list outside of the semi-accepted French List.

I think the measures you by JMason at Wed, 08/17/2011 - 16:00
JMason's picture

I think the measures you suggest are fair enough. For some reason I have been reluctant to concede in the past, but recently I can do that when I'm not having any fun, and not feel bad about myself. You do have to wonder about the quality of some player's threat assessment, ignoring the big bad and picking off the obvious strugglers, for example don't ignore the Zedruu player when he actually has Thought Lash on the battlefield! It would be nice if commanders could be limited to one per table too, the craziness of three Mimeoplasms! Looking forward to your next wall of text, i mean article :-)

I'll take the other by inneutral at Wed, 08/17/2011 - 19:16
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I'll take the other side:

Your solution is of course 100% reasonable... people should be free to make games with comments that amount to "No decks that frequently win." But I think people should try to progress out of that need as they mature as deck builders.

You give some specific examples, and I think they highlight my point. Isn't the problem that 3 people can't build decks capable of killing a hermit druid? You say players would need to pack answers to "all kinds of threats", but in a world in which people play decks that win efficiently (oops, I mean are "less accountable"), there aren't necessarily more types of threats, just different kinds of threats.

Also, the person Stone Raining you is not doing anything (besides summoning mild fat) to help beat the other two players. Perhaps he can do this because the other two players' decks are terrible (oops, "accountable")?

This gets to my broader point. The whole point of the game is to position yourself to succeed not just tactically, but strategically/politically. Sharuum or Erayo are major threats before mulligan decisions have even been made. By shunning players who make themselves the obvious #1 target, you contribute to the situation I commonly see where politics/strategy is almost non-existent. E.g., players tend to simply spread their attacks around, and when they don't, the harmed opponent moans. I think it adds to the fun of the format that sometimes someone could have an inexplicable vendetta against you.

The #1 problem in my opinion is that the client doesn't have a better tutorial on how to efficiently manage yields to triggers/passing of priority.

I mentioned that players by ForestFire0 at Wed, 08/17/2011 - 21:05
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I mentioned that players would need answers to all kinds of threats, and these answers come in 2 forms: counterspells and removal. Some threats can only be handled by counterspells, while others can be handled by both counterspells and removal.

If I am putting a threat down on turn 2 or 3 that must be answered (e.g. hermit druid), one of my opponents has to have a counterspell or a kill spell. If they have a coutnerspell, that means they didn't play anything on their turn, because they were waiting for my threat, despite not being aware I was playing a combo deck. A game where everyone is playing blue and just holding open counterspell mana every turn isn't very fun.

So let's say they'll stop my hermit druid with a terror. If I am making a deck that will have good odds to get a kill spell on turn 2 or 3, after seeing 10 total cards, I should put roughly ten terror effects into my deck (seeing 10 cards out of 100 equals one-tenth my deck, so I should have 10 terrors to ensure, on average, I see one by turn 3). That's 1 out of every 6 non land cards. A terror effect won't even answer all the possible threats though, and for some (like Erayo, for example), it will be too late to use a terror by the time we get to my turn again, so I should be running artifact/enchantment removal too. There's another ten cards gone. Now I only have 40 cards left to devote to what my deck is actually supposed to be about.

EDH is an eternal format. In other eternal formats, combo is kept in check by Force of Will. Yes, we have FoW in Commander, but in a 100 card deck there is a much smaller chance of drawing it. If a player wants to show up with a dedicated and well-built combo deck, he will win the majority of games he plays. There is no way to avoid it.

For example, I can play an Erayo deck that plays Erayo on turn two followed by 3 artifacts that cost 0 or less (Sol Ring is an example of an artifact with a negative mana cost). Unless you have a counterspell or terror ready for Erayo, you're screwed. And on turn 2, there's no guarantee you will.

There is a big difference between having a deck that frequently wins and having a deck that almost always wins. Usually that difference is between playing a well-made deck with good cards and playing a combo deck. EDH is a format that can be easily broken if one has that goal. It's up to the community not to have that goal and to avoid players who attempt to break the format.

What's really wrong with EDH by Pitlord at Wed, 08/17/2011 - 23:28
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2

In my opinion, things like this article are actually what's wrong with EDH. Every article like this sounds to me like a small child who entered a bicycle race with his Huffy and calls the actual cyclists jerks.
That said, I do like that you at least put forward a few solutions. If you want to play your made-up format with even more inane made-up rules, feel free to do so, and I will happily play my real cards with the big kids.
Finally, in response to the last post: The difference between having a deck that wins frequently and and deck that almost always wins is actually the difference between a mediocre deck and a good or great one. If everyone is playing decks that are actually good there is little issue with someone flipping Erayo on turn 3 or Sharruum killing you on turn 5. It's only when people play with mediocre cards/decks that it becomes an issue, and only for them. Sure, you're playing for fun, but who's to say that the person playing Erayo isn't as well? I loved playing Erayo, probably the most fun I've ever had in a casual format.

tl;dr: The solutions posted were actually somewhat decent, but next time skip the part that makes you look like a whiny child who can't compete with actual good decks.

Good solutions, bad lead up by arthurmauk at Thu, 08/18/2011 - 01:53
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2

I agree with Pitlord, the solutions are exactly what I would recommend too: marking your games with descriptions, making extensive use of your buddy list and your block list, and join a clan. Segregating the player base makes everyone better off: the casual players will enjoy their longer non-combo games, and the competitive players won't feel bored and unchallenged trashing the casual players. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with either play style, just that they should be kept separate to keep the games interesting. This is how we do it in 1v1 Constructed and it applies to EDH too. The most challenging games are played with people around your skill level and with a similar perspective on the game, which is why many online games now have a ladder system to match you to your opponent by a similar skill level.

That said, the rest of the article was more whining about other players not adhering to your idea of fun. This is not constructive, nor is it informative about anything we care about. We all have our own ideas of fun, but most of us don't feel the need for everyone else to know about it either.

Lastly, consider the big advantage to play EDH online: variety. You get to play with so many different decks that no two games are even similar. Playing it in a small group in paper will only have so many iterations of decks, whereas the online pool is so much larger. Plus there are all the other advantages to playing online: availability of opponents, lower price of cards on average, building many decks with just 1 copy of the card, etc. Of course highlighting a disadvantage of playing online is useful, but let's not forget the advantages either, which may greatly outweigh the disadvantage.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding by ForestFire0 at Thu, 08/18/2011 - 09:50
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Maybe I'm misunderstanding you and Pitlord, but I think you are both saying you would like to play games where everyone is playing the best and fastest decks they can build. I'm not sure if you've really considered the implications of this. As I said, in Legacy and Vintage, combo decks are kept in check by FoW. If you are playing a combo deck game 1 and don't have FoW in hand, the combo deck wins (game 2 maybe you'll board in hate and this isn't as true).

In EDH, the odds of having a FoW in your first 10 cards, assuming you even have it in your deck, are much lower than in other formats. This means that combo decks will win 9 games out of 10 against slower decks. The only solution for the noncombo player would be to play combo. All games would devolve into four players goldfishing their combo decks seeing who can get a faster win. That is what the end result would be of a competitive EDH environment.

Also, I never meant to give the impression that I can't or won't play with or against strong decks. I am equally frustrated when someone dominates a table, even if that person is me. I have plenty of decks that I rarely play because they won too often. For me, I don't enjoy a game where I walk all over the other three players, so I try to avoid decks that do that. I have at least three or four decks I've stopped playing because they win too quickly (turns 4-6 is my idea of too soon). If I do feel like playing those decks, I'll play them with people I know or with a description.

Finally, I don't feel I was whining and never intended it to come across as such. I was attempting to provide examples to illustrate how attitude manifests in both deck design and game play.

Combo is hamstrung in EDH by by inneutral at Thu, 08/18/2011 - 15:54
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Combo is hamstrung in EDH by the Highlander nature of the format. Combo compensates for this with tutors. And the existence of tutors is also the answer to your question... you don't need 10 FoW's or Swords to Plowshares or Oblations or Spin into Myths, you need one and nine tutors.

Additionally, it is usually pretty clear what sort of combo your opponent is attempting to assemble from the get-go. Once you know that, you know the speed of the combo. The fastest player sees the most hate. This in turn benefits slower combos/strategies, so the political/strategic nature of the format can keep fast combo in check.

To quote the spirit of the by protocol_7 at Fri, 08/19/2011 - 00:40
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To quote the spirit of the game from the official website

"
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.

House rules or "fair play" exceptions are always encouraged if they result in more fun for the local community.
"

This is why people get mad at Erayo and Sharuum that combos to oblivion by turn 5. It's not in the spirit of the game.
If you play to win in edh, you are in the wrong game.

I agree if I play Erayo it's fun for me. But it's not fun for the rest of the people. That goes against the social contract imo. EDH is a unique format. It was not invented by wotc. It has been and always will be a community based game. To say competitive edh, it's an oxymoron. It's a format specifically not be competitive. If you want those environment in your playgroup, that's fine. However, in an online environment, that's not what players are expecting. Please respect your fellow players by playing with gentlemen's agreement in mind.

+1 x10 by Paul Leicht at Fri, 08/19/2011 - 09:45
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+1 x10

-1 x10 Find someone to by greyes3 at Fri, 08/19/2011 - 21:06
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-1 x10

Find someone to enforce this agreement, that a majority of players haven't even heard of, online, and players will abide by it. As it stand now, EDH online is a format with winners and losers, and will be continued to be treated as such by people who prefer one of these end results to the other.

Isn't the entire point of the by MMogg at Sat, 08/20/2011 - 07:53
MMogg's picture

Isn't the entire point of the article that your opinion is the predominant one but there are ways to circumvent that? In other words, there are ways to ensure you have a good game within the boundaries of the social contract online. Just giving up and saying, "oh well, online is cut throat, end of story" is the exact opposite the author hopes you will conclude. In fact, online play can be molded to be the format you see in paper, but the main conduit for that is simply communication: either buddy lists or clans.

Personally, to use an analogy, Commander is like a dance. If one person is breakdancing, another is waltzing, another is line dancing and still another is dancing the forbidden dance of Peru, it's gonna be awkward. It's not that one is wrong and the other is right, it's about finding like-minded people to dance with.

I think you are confusing my by greyes3 at Sat, 08/20/2011 - 13:10
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I think you are confusing my opinion with the author's opinion. I don't think there is a problem with EDH online; he does.

You're talking to a brick by Scartore at Sat, 08/20/2011 - 15:56
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@Mmogg, You're talking to a brick wall in this case i believe.

The article was about how to by Paul Leicht at Sat, 08/20/2011 - 15:32
Paul Leicht's picture

The article was about how to enforce the agreement as well as refining it to be balanced for online play (Using buddies etc). Or that is what I got from it.

plz never join one of my by Scartore at Sat, 08/20/2011 - 15:58
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@greyes3
plz never join one of my games then... mmk?

In my opinion there is only by Lord Erman at Thu, 08/18/2011 - 02:27
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3

In my opinion there is only one and ONE only solution to this: There should be two multiplayer rooms. One for casual play and and one for competitive play. Just like we have two rooms for 1vs1 games.

Every one knows that if he wishes to play his 20x Grizzly Bears.dec, he should go to the Casual Room and if he wishes to play his Caw Blade, he should go to the TP Room. Why not give the same to the Multiplayer players as well? This way you will not need buddy lists, block lists nor will you need any game descriptions.

As of now, every multiplayer game happens in the same room. Meaning we have both that 20x Grizzly Bears.dec player AND the Caw Blade player in the same room. That's just wrong! It's wrong for both sides.

So WotC simply should seperate those players and everyone will be happy. That's absolutely the only logical option.

Regarding the article, I will only echo what others have already said:

1- Formatting is very important and you should work on it.
2- You show us one disadvantage of playing multiplayer online. Okay what you say is true but why not talk about the advantages as well? Why not mention for example that Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed is a $150 rare in paper whereas it's an uncommon on MTGO that costs only $0,12?

LE

this is good a good suggestion, sir by apaulogy at Thu, 08/18/2011 - 11:49
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I think this is a good solution (multiple rooms), but we know how that works out as well.

When I play in the TP room, I often run into someone with a strong deck/interaction, but is an underplayed archetype due to the fact that it loses to X tier 1 deck consistently. Basically, you have an infinitesimal percent chance to be playing the deck that you are "practicing" against in a real tournament. While I do not mind this because there is still information to be gleaned, card interactions to become aware of, etc. I have had people concede to me in the TP room saying "Go to the Casual Room, noob", when I felt my deck was at least tier 2. For example, his happened with a Goblin deck that I was testing out recently. I also won the match g2 with double Goblin Grenade, so maybe dude was tilting.

The point of bringing this up is that the idea of "competitive" and "casual" are subjective to a degree. The problem that he highlights here will still be a problem, albeit some what segregated.

I don't know how hard it is to get a multiplayer game going, but I think that I would have felt that I wasted time even going into the casual room only to have my game wrecked by a competitive jerk.

I think the solution is a combination of this and the buddy/block lists. This solution, in my mind, just eliminates the need for game descriptions that say "Casual" or "Competitive".

I also agree about adding the "advantages" portion.

This is just my opinion, however.

I often briefly test new by char49d at Fri, 08/19/2011 - 01:11
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I often briefly test new decks/tweaked decks in the TP room before I run it in a daily to see how the hands play out. This is mostly to test the manabase or get a feel for what I'm trying to do.

There are two problems with these rooms I have noticed. The first is, never play against someone who has "single game" instead of "match".

The first reason is people are almost always playing aggressive aggro in these matchups, and make sketchy, unrealistic keeps and will just mulligan/quit if they don't like their hand or draw their second land. There is also no reason to play a standard single game vs Mono Red/Tempered Steel/Kuldotha Rebirth, since the interesting games are always after sideboard.

The second is decks playing cards that aren't good enough for constructed. Whenever I see Jace's Erasure, Augury Owl and Cudgel Troll hit the stack, I say GG and hit concede. I had someone recently Surgical Extraction my T1 Preordain, and T2 Ponder, game 1, and he was a mono white deck.

I think Rage Quitting vs Goblin Grenade is wrong in the TP room, that's a real card. On the other hand, if they Goblin Grenade you after they scry a few to the bottom with Augury Owl, it is a different story.

I completely agree. When I by protocol_7 at Fri, 08/19/2011 - 00:02
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I completely agree. When I was playing pauper, I hated seeing storm decks that just went off in a casual room. But this is pretty rare to see since most storm/crazy combo decks were in tournament room.

Good article by Ikoma_Aze at Thu, 08/18/2011 - 08:42
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Hi... Just to say I thought the article was interesting, and to me it didn't come off as whiny.

Personally I used to only try to play competitively, and have only recently started playing EDH (ie casual).
I'm slowly starting to adjust to a whole new style of playing where you don't just try to win a fast as possible.

Your article gave useful advice, whichever side of the fence you sit on, and I look forward to your next one!

casual commander clan, etc by zev3 at Thu, 08/18/2011 - 11:22
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I've recently been playing Commander more than anything else online (can't keep up with the standard/block metagames with a toddler and twin infants :). I really enjoy it, and the occasional opponent with a turn 5 combo table-kill hasn't soured my taste for the format.

As a "mainly for fun" player, I like the suggestions put forth, particularly the Commander clan one. I'm not too familiar with how to find an existing Commander clan (I imagine there are some out there). Any tips on that front? (Sorry if this is a newb question.)

Also, I agree with the advantages missing from the article. I hardly get to play my paper Commander decks (my playgroup is also lousy with kids :), and therefore my paper decks aren't quite where I'd like to them to be.

But online, thanks to cheaper prices and the "only need 1 copy" feature, I can invest in some staples or nice-to-haves without breaking the bank. Definitely a big draw, for me at least.

You're right that there are by ForestFire0 at Thu, 08/18/2011 - 11:40
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You're right that there are definitely a lot of advantages to playing online that I didn't mention. However, I sort of assumed that if you are still playing online, you are aware of both the advantages and disadvantages and decided the pros outweigh the cons. But yeah, there are lots of advantages to playing online, such as ease of finding a game, ease of purchasing cards, affordability of cards, etc.

I have to admit that the by Thisismich at Thu, 08/18/2011 - 18:19
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I have to admit that the first impression this article gave me is the same as Pitlord and arthurmauk, then I reconsidered a bit but still... Especially the phrase you used in one of the comments " EDH is a format that can be easily broken if one has that goal. It's up to the community not to have that goal and to avoid players who attempt to break the format."

Well, as someone else pointed out, the concept of fun is highly subjective and by trying to define it you are obviously using YOUR personal feelings on the matter, thus disagreeing with someone else who find extremely funny running his entire deck in one single, very long turn.
In a few words, by saying that he should stop because "it's not fair" you're limiting his experience of the game to bring it closer to YOUR concept of "fun" and that's utterly wrong.

Look, I used to love playing pauper, then I started running into countless affinity and blue storm decks; they were totally NOT fun to play against FOR ME but I never EVER told someone he should never play a certain deck because it was not fun to play against (ok, maybe in some tilty, tired moments, but I was not exactly thinking straight).
I started putting descriptions, in big, colorful fonts but people just ignored them, so, seeing I had no other choice, I stopped playing pauper in the casual rooms. It's a bit sad but this is the Magic Online player base; we have to deal with it.
Stopping is the only power we have over what we think is wrong (see the recent bannings in standard when the player base started dwindling) but it's a double edged sword, we may realize we are alone in it or just too few for the player base to care about.

What we can do is to create groups on the various forums and clans on MODO to group players with the same, or similar concept of fun and play against them. I also like Lord Erman's idea of different rooms, this should help a bit too but telling other people what they should or should not play is a big no-no.

I stand by what I said about by ForestFire0 at Thu, 08/18/2011 - 23:10
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I stand by what I said about the format being easy to break. A dedicated combo deck will generally be unbeatable in EDH. If you were suddenly going to make 4 man EDH a sanctioned format with prize support, etc, you would find that combo decks would dominate. There are enough tutors to make combo decks very consistent. On the other hand, tutoring for FoW defeats the entire purpose of playing FoW (i.e. that you can play it for no mana).

EDH is different from duel formats, at least in my opinion, because it is a multiplayer format. Generally, winning a game with four players doesn't necessarily mean you had the best made deck or were the best player. Politics will often play a large role in who wins. Because of this, playing with the sole objective of winning misses the point of EDH (once again, this is a subjective thing). Some of the best games of EDH I've played have been ones where I've ended up losing. Despite the end result, those games were interactive and exciting. I would much rather have a game that goes until turn 15 where I lose than a game that goes until turn 5 where I win.

And that was the point I was trying to make: if you would rather have a game where you win on turn 5, then you shouldn't be playing with people who would rather lose on turn 15. A problem from the former group find it's easier to accomplish their goal if they are playing with people from the latter group.

Finally, I don't always have to belong to the turn 15 group. I have several decks that will win on turn 5 or 6 (I was sad to discover that my Animar deck probably belongs in that pile after 3 games ended on turn 5 or 6. I could argue that it's the other people's fault for not having a wrath, but I don't think it's fair to put my opponents in a position where they have one turn to play a WoG or they lose). I will play these decks if everyone comes in expecting good decks to be played, but it's pointless to bring a fast deck to a game where not everyone is playing a deck that can handle it.

cutthrout EDH online by unspeakable at Fri, 08/19/2011 - 11:55
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Nice article on the problems of EDH in the online world. The online environment seems to work very well for competetive play (drafting or constructed) but not so well for casual play. Your suggestions on how to minimize the problems are appreciated, and are probably just about the only reasonable steps that can be taken without revising the program.

It would be nice if WOTC would take some steps to make the online world a little less casual-unfriendly. I think the main area that needs improvement is player-categorization, both based on feedback from other players (maybe a bit like ebay?) and a players categorization of themself. This type of information helps make the online world a bit more like the real world, where people can steer themselves away from jerks and form casual groups of like-minded players. The "casual v. tournament" distinction is a very crude effort in this general area. Make casual MTGO a bit more like a dating service, perhaps :)

In the meantime, I think protocol_7 emphasizes an important point. Namely, EDH is specifically intended to be a more casual, interactive game format. While in a duel setting, the presumption is that you are playing to win, the presumption in EDH is that you are playing to play. That being the case, the burden should be on players who are using a cutthrout EDH deck to announce this is the type of game they intend to play, as the presumption is that more casual decks will be used. Other players can then accept or reject this. Doing otherwise is a violation of the spirit of EDH. If a player does not do this, he should be ejected by agreement of the other players, as described. This is not a perfect solution, as plenty of griefers feel they've already succeeded if they get to the point of forcing an ejection, but it seems the best we can do with the environment that exists.