The Importance of MANA CURVE | The Command Zone 156 | Magic: the Gathering Commander/EDH Podcast
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Show Notes:
In this level up episode, Josh brings the idea of the Mana Curve to the table, and why it's more important in Commander now than ever.
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Game Knights #6:
• New AMONKHET Commander...
What We Mentioned on the End Step:
The Magic Castle in Los Angeles
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"Bear tribal. You heard it here first."
Well, looks like you called it
Post-Modern Horizons set review, this episode's coincidental comments include
1) Bear Tribal
2) 'Shenanigans' involving the graveyard
3) trying to pronounce "ouphe"
Ayula laughing :)
I would love it if they uploaded more commander games. But I know its a big amount of work to produce those videos. Still would be great.
halti91 Agreed. Especially with Craig playing Infect ^_^
Just gonna plug it for them for those looking at this comment - support their patreon to make it easier for them to make those videos more often
They will i'm sure considering how popular Game Knights is, but they obviously take forever to make and it isn't like they have a film crew.
Aaron Payne
I don't want this to sound negative in any way to this channel. I usually stream CZcams while working, with my screen off. Google stopped that. You can only stream with the screen off if you pay for CZcams red now. So I'd like to support them but there is just too much CZcams content and I went from streaming 8-10 hours a day to 2-3 videos a week. I don't want to say it's not worth it but I would have to pay google as well to make it more worth it : (
Aaron Payne they have all of these episodes as a podcast as well so you can stream those on your phone or probably computer with the screen off too maybe (all free as well)
i've never played a game of commander, never watched a podcast before, never went on patreon either. Now i'm doing all three cause of this channel, even building my own Rishkar deck to start playing
I feel so proud. Welcome to the most awesomest format! (yes, "awesomest" is now a word. I make up words sometimes...) Also we really appreciate the patreon support. You rock!!!
Woo green players!
yeah i've already watched it maybe 3-4 times, though i'm going for more elves in the deck to make max use of metallic mimic and elf tribal stuff
Once you are into it, take a commander with blue in it for you next deck. You can thank me later :)
Anyone want to do Changeling tribal with me?
33:00 little did you know the might of Bear Force 1
and if I recall it Won the game too lol
My most recent level up moment? A buddy of mine recommended a podcast called "The Command Zone".
#BestAnswerYet
"if your commander is breya birds of paradise isn't as good"
Well yeah.
It's green.
I thought it was blue, hehe.
I immediately got the Angel tune the moment you started humming it. You can't begin to comprehend the scale of my obsession. The song, by the way, is Sanctuary by Darling Violetta.
Oh my God I am dying because of this.
Would like to mention something in relation to the Mana-curve that i find very relevant, and has been a learning moment for me personally in regards to just building decks in general ...
When you laid out your mana curve in regards to CMC, go through the cards 'again', and arrange the cards in regards to 'The most likely moment you want to play the card' (or expect to want to cast it). Say f/e a board-wipe at 4 mana, do you want to play that at turn 4 ? Well maybe if everybody starts playing lower drops, but more then likely you will want to play it turn 7 or 8, when people have established a board and the more impactful creatures start to come out of the woodworks (right?)
This 'new curve' is the actual mana-curve of your deck, and from this you can also evaluate the low drops, 'Do these still make an impact if I play them later, the more 'yes' that is, the better it is for commander (as pointed out in the show), but obviously you play them as you can to make use of mana. And this 'new curve' also shows you that while you lower your curve you still have a lot of things to do on those later turns. Like card draw, Targeted Removal, Board wipes, Cards with X mana symbol in them with high upside the higher X is (and you place those somewhere you'd most likely want to play them for X, earlier is 'meh' but at least i do something, later is obviously better) ... and i think that with this curve you'd be much happier in regards to your late game impact options.
To the listeners? My biggest level-up in deckbuilding was preparing for the Amonkhet pre-release and release weekend (in which i sucked hard anyway), and playing limited in general. Deckbuilding is a half of the limited gameplay, and you can't just think about it for as long as you need to, look on the web for tips and so on, like you do every time in constructed. Adjusting the curve is crucial, and so is evaluating cards for what they really are. And when I heard of the "quadrant theory" a whole new world opened in front of me. I believe it's the same thing in edh, a much slower constructed format, where some cards get to shine because of their versatility, or the fact that they are good at every stage of the game.
A recent level-up moment for me involved changing my focus to commanders with low cmc that can be easily recurred if needed. Not only does Edric fit the bill, but he has a built-in, card-draw engine that allows myself and others to draw cards, as long as Edric remains on the battlefield, and he encourages my opponents to attack each other, instead of me.
Thank you guys so much! Now all my decks run perfectly!
Great video guys. Mana curve is one of those concepts that no matter how experienced you are, it's always good to get pointers or brush up on.
I love that you guys are covering this topic because I feel like so many people don't have a good understanding of the concept, and like the (fantastic) Commander's Brew guys, are laboring under the misapprehension that it makes you a degenerate spike to build your deck well. It's a huge perception problem in the EDH community that just because you play well, and build your decks well, you are perceived as being an abusively powerful player, when really the people who think that are often just not exposed to truly Spikey players.
Also, Josh you said that many players aren't as excited about their 1, 2, 3 drops and I think that's probably totally true unfortunately. For me, they're some of my most exciting cards. I ALWAYS love playing Orcish Lumberjack! You guys should do a series of Top 10 1-3 drops in each color combo, that would be a huge service to the community.
It's funny because I'm like you. I love my 1-2-3 drops. I think the more you build your decks while considering your mana curve the more proud you are of all the cool and impactful low cmc spells you've "discovered" and therefore the more you look forward to playing them! I like your idea for a show topic. Will definitely put it on the to-do list.
Orcish Lumberjack is great. He's like an axe wielding Sol Ring.
imaginarymatter he's better in some cases
I think you massively misunderstand the Commanders Brew guys. Their perspective seems, quite obviously, to be based on having a meta that is casual and most importantly accessible. Nobody can deny that usually lower cmc costs equate to higher dollar value decks. Making an excellent low budget deck takes as much skill in deckbuilding and play as making a super-spikey super- competitive super-expensive deck. Unfortunately, magic is a game where you can pay to win to a large degree. I absolutely hate it when a super-spikey player joins my budget EDH meta wipes us out on turn 3/4 and then turns around and says we need to improve our deckbuilding and become "better" players. These people are ignorant of the way we are playing this game: casual, fun and affordable.
Aiden Don I disagree massively that this is a mana curve issue. It's almost always a Tutor and Combo issue. Totally different things (and I'm not knocking the combo/competitive players - do what you find fun). Building your deck to be efficient and worry about mana curve has nothing to do with budget. Look at the card Ben literally called out: Orcish Lumberjack. It's $.25!
So glad you mentioned (multi)kicker spells, I love a lot of these guys in my decks because they give me stuff to do pretty much no matter what. I think it was Commander's Brew that put the idea of having a variety of stuff to do with all your mana that turned me on to looking at these things.
You guys are awesome. You really help the format out and get more people into it. Something I wish you would talk about is the "official" rules of commander and how people are supposed to have their own meta in each group.
Most interesting episode in a while. I have also recently been reconsidering the curve in some of my decks and using more mana dorks compared to ramping growths effects. I'll definitely keep this in minds when tuning my decks. Cheers!
52:09 - Was a great point Jimmy, good video on the whole guys keep it up!
I've always kept low cmc's in mind when making individual decisions, but this video puts my decks all in a new light and inspires me to edit them all to lower cmc's across the board. I have a lot of five drop commanders like Mazirek, Samut, Keranos
watching this for the first time in 2020, well commander 2017 didnt give you Bear Tribal, but it finally came in 2019 great job CommandCast! Its amazing to see how the show has evolved, i feel like starwars and im going back and watching the prequels again and its amazing, the help and wisdom is timeless!
You guys are awesome! This really helped me better understand my mana curve. Thanks for the tips, guys.
Your show helped me with the idea of ramp. Now I include at lest 10-12 ramp spells (sometimes more :) ) in my EDH decks and it helps me ta actually play the game! Thnx guys!
I appreciate this upload, I've only been playing magic for about a year now and mana curve is something that I still somewhat struggle with. I am always making minor changes to my home brewed commander decks and I definitely need more mana ramp
Relatively new to mtg and fell in love with Commander. I've tweeked a mono green deck I bought but now I'm trying my hand at building from scratch using the three colours I'm less familiar with, BUR, you guys have helped a lot in my building.
Good luck playing Animar on turn 2 after turn 1 fyndhorn elves! ;) You guys are awesome. This episode was enlightening and I'm now re-thinking my Alesha build, cutting some cmc3 stuff and adding stronger four drops.
I recently started building a edh deck around kefnet and this helped me a lot. I originally put a lot of high costed draw spells, mill or counter with big bonuses at the top of the curve. I changed this to go more with low cost counters and I feel like this will be significantly better play wise. I also feel that this deck will be crazy fun because I'm building more control with some land bounce and card draw bonuses. Great episode guys
I've definitely noticed a deck I put together recently did not care as much about mana curve with the exception of hate that I catch. That is Kaalia of the Vast edh
Hey guys, love your show. This is the single most important issue for creating powerful commander decks! Especially with the new mulligan rule. Keep up the good work, i have ordered a ton of cards from Card Kingdom with your endorsement.
I was at the Magic Castle last week. Really cool to get a Magic shout out for a Magic shout out. Best of Luck at the Audition.
Spoiler alert. He aced the audition. Woo hoo!
Yay! I am a Magician who plays MTG as well. Plan to audition later this year! Love your Podcast BTW.
The Twisted Visionary That's freakin' awesome! Good luck and let us know how you do.
My weekend commander playgroup has a league where there's a healthy mix of both competitive and casual and I get a lot of help from those who've been playing magic since way back in the early days. Then there's you guys, the Professor, and Wedge from the Mana Source to help me gain a better understanding of the game and the mechanics.
Hey @jfwong and @JoshLeeKwai my biggest level up moment when building my commander decks is when I realized, with help from a good friend, to always start with what ramp packages I will play in the deck after I choose the commander. It is fun to play big spells or sweet synergistic comboes, but you can't play those if you don't have the mana.
Loving the video so far. Am a short time fan but have watched hours of your videos over the last few weeks. Love the show and please keep up the amazing quality content
Thank you guys!!! Damn. Wish I heard this podcast/video months ago instead of just brewing and going nuts on how to build
You guys keep coming up with new and interesting topics every time! You're both my Angles! ;)
Just bought cards off of card kingdom for my commander decks and I have to say I love that website now. Will for sure shop again.
I love that you guys used animar as an example, hes my favorite commander!
Show Starts 5:06
Jamie Sydney ty
Mvp
This episode helped me so much building my first deck
Same here.
Didn't think about adding the notes bit to the Card Kingdom order. Will do that in the future!
This is exactly what I needed. I am definitely guilty of wanting to many high cost spells. I am going to take the challenge with 2 of my decks for sure. Thank you guys, making us better magic players with each video. My "To the Listeners" answer: I haven't been playing for long at all, not even a year, so I am still learning some basics. So my biggest level up has to be when I realized I wasn't putting enough land and other mana sources in my decks. I will never forget the night I sat down with my first deck and removed all these cool spells just to add more land. That was hard but now that deck is really good and I never have problems with drawing land.
To the listeners: I literally just built my first deck (ordered like 50 cards from Card Kingdom - they should arrive soon!) with Sigarda, Heron's Grace as the commander. The main idea I had to keep reminding myself of is that redundancy is important - it's not enough to have just one card with an effect because chances are I won't see it in every game. So I made sure that for key effects I had 2 or 3 similar cards that did the same thing. Watching old episodes was super helpful along the way, so thanks so much for all you do! I am sure I will be continuing to make tweaks as I start to play it.
That's awesome to hear. Thanks for using Card Kingdom and supporting the show. Let us know how the deck plays out!
Learning the power of Mana Dorks in certain decks completely changed the way I build decks now. This has led me to being able to drop my 5 CMC tri-color commander on turn 3 consistently and I can't imagine going back!
Creatures with undying still hit the graveyard, so Deathrite Shaman may exile Ballista when it's sacced after the first use.
700.4. The term dies means “is put into a graveyard from the battlefield.”
702.92a Undying is a triggered ability. “Undying” means “When this permanent is put into a graveyard from the battlefield, if it had no +1/+1 counters on it, return it to the battlefield under its owner’s control with a +1/+1 counter on it.”
Yeah sorry I wasn't clear here. The trick is they can often kill the shaman first with the ballista.
ichik umer glad someone pointed this out, shaman has two toughness so Ballista can't kill it without going to the graveyard first or having a 4th card. Shaman exiles it in response to the undying trigger.
Would like to mention that 'Lightning bolt' actually does get better in Commander if people do what you advocate they do in this exact episode ... because lowering the curve means more targets for Lightning bolt ;)
You guys are awesome! Great content as usual! Even though I already employ these ideas, I still love hearing you guys talk about it :D
To the listeners: this was very recent and what I did was focussed my atraxa deck which was previously spread over +1/+1 counters, infect and superfriends for budget reasons to just +1/+1 counters. It has resulted in the deck playing much better, as where planeswalkers which usually were targeted and killed straight away once were in my hand and library, cards which work with the deck now are.
Honestly, the curve counter on TappedOut is one of my favorite parts of the site. I love seeing the odds of having a drop of a certain number throughout the game. Also gives me an idea of what to cut when new stuff comes out, which is really good for me since I find new, cool stuff all the time.
Personally, I like having my deck curve out around 4-5-6, and have a card or two at 8-9-10-11.
Two things that changed how I made decks are: concern around ramp and card draw. Someone told me once, "One of the strongest sentences that can be on a cards is 'draw a card'". So I took ramp and card draw to heart and built a Sram equipment deck with a Sun Titan and Evolving Wilds for mono-white repeatable ramp.
Arrested Development reference at the end was great
For me, the biggest improvement in my deck building of late is working on adding in more removal/answers. I enjoy having synergistic and thematic builds, which lead to me often sacrificing interaction cards. One of the ways I'm trying to improve this is by having put together a deck that is more heavy on the control aspect than a theme, helping me to adapt to this playstyle and using this to improve my deckbuilding.
Other then that when switching out cards for curve purposes, I always note down which cards went out and which I added on a small list. During games I occasionally refer to this list when I draw a card, just to see whether or not I would have rather drawn the taken out card instead.
Another piece of advice is taking out big CMC spells for repeatable or activate-able stuff. For example, Heliod is actually a great card in a control deck. You can hold up answers like counter spells or removal, but have something you can sink your mana into if you don't need to use your answers yet. And you still do something with that mana.
Min 33, Bear Tribal Commander. You already knew this was coming!
To the listeners: Using the staple binders method mentioned in one of the previous episodes has made my deckbuilding insanely efficient. Owning one of each fetch/shock land makes starting a new deck so much more affordable. I'm building a 5 color deck and saved around $400 on just the land base.
think you could link it, unable to find a video tagged with any of the keywords
Excited to listen to this
I got the booster box, fat pack, and both planswalker decks for $145 + $10 shipped!! Also got consecrated sphinx and 2x Gideon of the trials in my packs!
Aaron Payne Now that is what we calling running hot! Gratz!
To the listeners: Definitely adding more cantrip, scry and card draw variant spells into my decks. Noticed a huge increase in the value of my plays in early turns or just being able to tuck those late game lands without having to reduce the amount that's in the deck.
All about getting that value boiii
Thank you for this helpful video!
Top ten! Love you guys! Keep rocking!
Ya the replacement of Partial-Paris to Vancouver mulligan seriously affected some of my EDH decks (in particular my Grixis-Chaos deck, where I ran 30lands and would mulligan away all non-lands or non-mana production cards in my opening hand in order to have an opening hand of 4 or 5 lands)
Maelstrom Wanderer is a good example of this as the curve stops at 8, which is the big man himself and the double cascade means tempo is a reduced issue if Wanderer gets countered
This is a very good and helpful episode.
I always tend to clutter my decks with expensive stuff, and think "yeah, this curve sucks, but it's commander!" ...
I will have to go through all of them again and improve them a lot.
Same thing with card draw and ramp, I tend to run awesome spells but fail to cast them way too often :O.
Congrats on 50K! You guys have exploded recently.
level up- vedalken orrery in everything! thanks command zone
Not first :-(
Josh Lee Kwai how do you think you would build around Temmet?
Josh Lee Kwai It's okay, you're first in our hearts.
L
Are you guys going to SDCC 2017?
Josh! So whats the average mana curve for typical EDH deck from 1 to 7?
Still don't have the basic idea... is it similar to limited mana curve? Same proportions? Same %?
About the counterspell thing, when i was the only person not playing blue in the game and i didnt get to play magic because most of my spells got countered or bounced or removed in a way, and playing my olivia deck and not really being able to interact with that game was frustrating.
Very informative episode. I have often struggled in the past with mana curves for my deck, but this video has helped my perspective on it. I will apply these ideas to my deck building in the future. :) Also congrats on 50k subscribers! Are you doing anything to celebrate on the channel?
Please do more deck doctors. I miss the insights from those videos. :(
Josh you rock! I wish I could send you my decks and have you review them
this is what I'm talking about. great episode
Mooouuurr game knights videos! lol love to see your guys play
Nice topic. Since you mentioned it for the first time in some other video I also went in the direction of lowering the curve in some of my decks... but there are still exceptions (is what you also said at one point in the video I think) depending on the commander you run ;)
I have a {WG} Selvala, Explorer Returned deck. The Ideal play is to get her out on turn 1 or 2 if the starting hand allows it. Even if I get her out only on turn 3, trun 4 i will be having up to 8 mana, with that i can crank out a Elesh Norn early or piss everybody off with Vorinclex or even better flavour wise is playing Selvala's Stampede ^^
In short, in Selvala my curve is pretty much rising towards the higher mana cost ;)
one of my friends has a deck that has an average cmc of 7, and it's pretty awesome :D
Angel was amazing had my fav actor Christian Kane who jumped to leverage and the librarians on tnt
Would love to see a top 10 early cards episode! It's hard to find good cheap (cmc) cards for my EDH cube
Nice video! You guys are always so helpful and informative. Love Game Knights, love these podcasts, pretty much everything you guys do is awesome! I think the biggest thing that has helped in my commander deck building is determining whether or not a spell has a significant enough impact in the particular strategy that I'm going for. When I first started playing commander, I was just pretty much putting all my rares in one deck lol But now I know that it takes so much more than that. Obviously, when you first get into the format, all you want to do is pick a commander that's in your favorite colors and just pile all your rares into one big deck. Trust me, it's very tempting, but not the way you'll have fun or even catch a win. Like you guys said, discipline is key! You want to see what your commander actually does, outline your main strategy, then start doing some research on cards (rares and non rares alike lol) that add synergy and impact the game in your favor, while benefiting the whole strategy of your general.
Michio Einstein Sounds like a great deck building level up! Very glad you enjoy the show and thanks for sharing!
This episode ~could have~ convinced me to finally take out Vish Kal, Blood Arbiter from my Atraxa deck. It's so expensive and if I have it in hand, more often than not I'd rather have another card instead. But every time I want to take it out, I think it has so much potential. XD
That's a good way to put it, it is stubborn. I was told to carry your opinions I a box and listen to others, and if you like theirs take your old beliefs, throw it out and replace it with the new one. It's literally how we grow as a person
we need more gameplay!!! I love the game knights!
I have a solution to not using all of your mana each turn. Play Kruphix as your commander.
Blade TB I do. He's a bro and I love him. Simic for life
32:59 And now, we've seen "Bear Force One" win an episode of Game Knights
I need to work on the mana on my deck, I have a little 1 mana cards equal amounts 2, 3 and 4 cmc cards and then it drops dramatically at 5 and six then increases at 7.
this is amazing. Now i level'd up on deckbuilding :D
i used to mash power spells together (and) hope for the best, thanks for this tips. +subscribed
Jayr WalkingstickShinyknife Glad you found it helpful!
Search for Azcanta is amazing with Jace Vyrn's Prodigy
Looking at episode 151 when I make a new deck on mtgo has made my decks much better with mana rocks and draw spells.
Level up Question: been playing commander for 5 years, recently have been moving towards cutting crazy powerful cards like doubling season, (that make you public enemy number one or seem to win on the spot) into cards like Duelist's Heritage which make games more interactive, nothing better than seeing people interacting with spells or politics .
Overall I win less games, but fun for everyone seems to increase :)
My biggest level up moment was me taking out kozilek the great distortion and narset the transcendent in my creature heavy brago deck. I added in mistmeadow witch and slithermuse. definitely my best decision because I can hit more than seven cards if I target the nekusar player or the group huggers.
and they just so happen to be talking about my commander a lot :D (Animar)
Reach Through Mist, Peer Through Depths, and Sift Through Sands are a melded spell.
the ultimate on jace is a mill effect, so if you play a mill deck, you will want to ult him.
not too shabby nice work for new caster XD
a friend of mine plays bear tribal with adaptive automaton, door of destinies, and some old green enchantment that pumps creatures with no abilities. then he runs fight as removal and overruns for win conditions
I think this is probably the issue my Lazav deck has. I run a lot of clones and copy effects so my curve is pretty heavily built into the 4-5 drops.
Good work
To the listeners: I built a zombie deck and took it to an EDH game night at my local. I lost more games than I one and one of the things someone at the shop pointed out to me was that my deck 'doesn't have many ways to interact with others'. Since then I've upped my removal and it's greatly improved my deck :)
Also, I find spellshapers to be fantastic early-game plays which are relevant all game long. Mageta the Lion... Avenger en-Dal... Deepwood Elder... Devout Witness... Hammer Mage... Overtaker... Waterfront Bouncer. Dawnstrider for life!
Hey guys, GREAT video, it's a topic that players both casual and 75%ers alike can definitely learn alot from :).
To the listeners: So my latest Level Up moment both had me proud and my playgroup rather annoyed lol. I was playing my Melek, Izzet Paragon list (which I don't consider a competitive or even semi-competitive deck simply due to the nature of how fragile storm can be) and my playgroup was kind of forced to watch in awe as I began to storm off by casting multiple spells and holding priority to then cast another spell in response, I did this until my storm count was high enough to kill everybody with the Ignite Memories in my hand, then I proceeded to cast my Ignite Memories and hold priority once again so that I could respond to it with Wipe Away so that the Split Second on Wipe Away would prevent anyone from casting a counterspell to stop my win condition from resolving. It's such a simple little interaction but, it definitely makes ya feel smart :)
my favorite deck I have is my izzet jori en deck. my deck makes other people targets. my deck does not need the commander but he does make my turns a lot better. most of the time I play him on turn 5 followed by a 2 mana spell
im building my first commander deck and chose Muldrotha, the Gravetide as my commander and it is possible to get it out on turn 2 so im exited to get that achievement. you nee land, sol ring to signet and lotus petal. then turn 2 land crack lotus pedal play Muldrotha, the Gravetide and then play lotus petal from your graveyard so you didnt even loose it and even if you dont have land on your next turn you still have 7 mana to burn
A big upside to lowering your curve that I don't think you guys mentioned is that it allows you to maybe cut a land or two. Over a longer game this effectively lets you see more actual cards instead of useless lands. That's the exact sort of marginal advantage you don't really think about that still wins you plenty of games.
my biggest commander deck building level up was moving away from building decks ENTIRELY around the commander. Often the cards that compliment your boss become completely dead without them. I began to build decks around a certain mechanic that functions with or without my commander. That way the decks stand on there own. If anyone reads this and you often struggle to find which cards to cut.... cut the cards that ONLY work with your commander first. Like Jimmy says, if you dont miss it in gameplay/testing then it probably wasnt great to begin with.