Just want to point out something about Joey's challenge: for those unware, Grim Feast as printed targets a single opponent but the oracle text says "an opponent" so yes it will trigger off any opponent's creature dying.
This is true of most older enchantments. Targets are not part of static effects nowadays (they are only part of activated abilities and spells, or triggers which also have something like "choose target opponent", the last of which is pretty rare in itself). See: 4th Edition Kismet, as another example.
I find it interesting how the 3 two color pairs that make up Sultai (Dimir, Golgari, and Simic) taking the top 3 spots of the two color list don't translate into Sultai having a high placement in the three color list.
Agreed. I think it's got to do with how its component 2 color pairs have really distinct identities, but Sultai just feels like "generically good:" lots of removal, ramp, and draw, but nothing unique.
@@aegisgamingofficial2178 Yeah I am not at all surprised, exactly for the reason of identity. E.G. Esper you just know you are going to build a control style of deck. However if you take Jeskai, it doesn't have a clear identity or style and the same applies to Sultai or Temur. What I found most striking (but not really surprising) is that for 2 color combinations the bottom 4 all had white in it.
Im gonna challenge the challenge on the role cards for eriette. Her 2nd ability is a drain and gain for how many auras you control. So the roles on creatures you control doesnt protect you for her 1st ability, but it drains the table for her 2nd.
Yeah I agree, I think maybe cutting the creatures that create single roles, but spellbook vendor making a aura every turn for 1 mana is one of the few ways to really up the aura count. Skitter just is a cheaper phyrexian arena.
Furthermore depending on the game state it just might be better to voltron your creatures rather than enchant your opponents. If nothing else if you badly need to "re turn on" Lord Skitter's blessing your deck is suited to do that. Just slap one of the dopier auras you're running on your own thing and enjoy continued card draw.
Came here to say the same thing. You don't need to use every part of the card for it to be good. And the drain half of Eriette is the more important part anyway. The fact that many of the role cards also come with creatures is also good for the deck when it probably isn't running many
While eriette loves throwing down auras on oppnents creatures (both to make them weak and strong) putting roles on your creatures still work really well with eriette's drain ability, which is her main win condition. Having cards like spellbook vendor just helps you ramp up the drain, so while it's good to take into account good auras to throw on your opponent's creatures, enchanting your own creatures is still very solid for an eriette deck
Yeah I agree. I think if you are only focusing on the first ability roles aren’t good, but for the back half of the card they are very useful. And also flavorful given there is a lot of Role support in the same set as Eriette.
One thing contributing to the higher average mana value could be the amount of black mana value 4 kill spells printed recently with either convoke or a situational 2 mana discount From Matt's explanation of the 80-20 rule, you're not seeing a 90-10 split, it's 50-10. the 80-20 rule is "the top 20% is responsible for 80%" not "the top 20% is responsible for half and the lower 80% for the other half" I don't think we're actually seeing a significant shard>wedge bias. Out of the top 5, the expected average is a 3-2 split, it just happened to favor shards this time. What I find more significant is the bias against white in the two color breakdown (all 4 on the bottom) and against green in the three color one (3/4 non-green combinations at the top of the list)
About the rising of average CMC lately : MDFCs are in all of my decks, they are huge staples of the format, played in every color arnd archetype. But they're counted as spells in the "average mana curve" results, even if you include them as land in your deck...
Jeskai and Abzan being at the bottom of the 3-colors is interesting given the number of precon decks they got this year. But they also just don't have that many actual commanders for them.
Higher mana averages do not mean more mana spent - maybe the possibilities to cheat cards into play have multiplied or mastered by more players, so we just see a new variant of deck optimization.
Eriette’s end step trigger counts all auras you control. I think a creature like Spellbook Vendor that will generate a bunch of auras over time might still fit. I’d be reluctant to just improve my opponents’ creatures without a ton of protection ensuring Eriette wouldn’t die and let let me get attacked. The cards might still be overplayed, but I’d look at what else is in the decks running them for evidence that enchanting their own creatures along with their opponents’ is part of the plan.
There's a ton of cheap enchantments like Cursed Flesh and Dead Weight which are great to put on your opponents' creatures you don't want attacking you; even if Eriette dies, they're still weaker than they would have been had you not enchanted them!
I just counted the Legends in my Boros Equipment deck: 7 legendary artifacts, 13 legendary creatures. I guess the meme of there being a hundred interchangeable Boros equipment commanders has some foundation.
Abzan may occupy the lowest percentile in 3 color pairings, but we have to consider that the Atraxas alone being the most popular 4c pair are probably enough to swing a couple percentile points away from it.
This is true for me. I have the New Atraxa commanding my enchantress list, which I had bounced around a few different 3 color options but settled here, since I could use all of them.
It's not a full percentage point of change that 2 color decks went down by 0.82% and that was the highest differential for overall color pairing popularity, that's pretty interesting! While 2 color is the most popular trend at 39.78% I wonder with the increase in 3 color or more commanders being made if that is impacting that number in a small way.
Yes, Grim Feast!! I just decided to edit my hobbit deck and went dark with it, found this card and it's so good. I love it! Going tonight to play with it at the lgs first time.
On the matter of popular color pairs, Matt, I wish Selesnya was more popular than it is too. I'm a Naya mage with both Boros and Gruul two-color decks, but Selesnya just has a variety problem. The color pair does only a couple things, Enchantress, go-wide tokens, and lifegain sometimes, and the first two of those themes have pretty good options by adding a third color. When Strixhaven came out, they made an effort to give new and unique identities to most of the color pairing: Golgari lifegain, Boros reanimator, etc., and I said at the time that Selesnya needs a similar treatment to define a new role for Selesnya, because unless you only want to make tokens, Selesnya isn't offering many options.
I'd like to see more interesting options for mono-red, mono-white, and each of the 2-color white pairs. With the exception of Orzhov and Abzan, I tend to avoid red and white but Strixhaven made Boros more interesting, imo. For red, I just want a better entry point for an aggressive deck for players that tend to avoid traditional combat (tap to swing). White just needs to be less vanilla/boring narratively.
Is complitely normal. Blue is the best color by far in Eternal Magic formats, while White is the "worst" at drawing cards, which is the best thing you can do on Commander without interacting with the table. Also, White is very bad for interaction that isn't exiling things, while blue, red and black are the best colors for interacting with your opponents in the stack. We are in a multiplayer format at the end of the day
I agree re: Lord Skitter, Blessing, and I’d also mention that while Eriette generally does want to enchant opponents and creatures, in play there are still several very good auras that you will want to keep on your side of the board - once people are getting drained down and low, you still need to swing in for kills at times with All That Glitters or Angelic Destiny or maybe Phyresis for a beefy infect KO. Having a Greater Auramancy to give your enchanted creatures shroud, or Umbra Mystic for totem armor, are great ways to protect your board state while draining, but require you enchant your side as well as your opponents. So ultimately I’d say that it’s not exactly a nonbo so much as a “be cognizant of what and how much role tokens you put in” I also could see role tokens being a specific theme to go into for a budget deck, pairing roles for your stuff with Bargain to sac them and a handful of cheap auras to push your opponents elsewhere - not going as far into cursing and opponent enchanting as the typical version of the deck. I’ve built Eriette in paper though so I’ll certainly be keeping an eye on all this - it’s a really fun deck!
Color trends aren’t surprising also because mana fixing is expensive if you want speed. The more colors in a deck the more potentially expensive the mana base might be to function. I’ve been relieved to see the price drops from some shock and fetch lands, I hope they continue to reprint to give more people access to them.
I was surprised that Boros % was higher than Selesnya or that Golgari % was above Simic and Izzet as well as for 3 color that Grixis % was as high as it is. The rest are more or less where I would have predicted.
Boros is 0.1% higher than Selesnya. It's pretty much on par. That said, with how varied Selesnya is now (tokens, food either as lifegain or taking advantage of artifacts, lifegain in general, enchantress, etc), I'm surprised it's that low.
@@andrewsparkes6275I would have expected Boros to be at least a few % points below basically everything… I guess Feather and Winota decks really drive up the % stats. Edit: I guess when I think about it though, I see alot of decks with white and green in them but rarely just those two. There is usually a 3rd colour…
About that mana curve trending upward. Has there been in increase in cards that help cheat cards in cheaper, or for free? My Jodah, the Unifier deck for example has an average mana value of 3.49, but I'm counting on Jodah, Winota, and Sisay, Weatherlight captain to get a ton of creatures/legendaries onboard. So, it doesn't play like a mid 3's deck.
I think this has a lot to do with it. People are playing more "free" spells, both the cycle printed a few years ago, and the ones printed 20 years ago (snuff out). These cards have an average CMC close to 4. I have several decks with 10~8-13 drops at the back end of my curve, but they are not for casting, they are for cheating out. Without them my curves are under 3.
I wonder if the increase in the number of legends per deck is due to an increase in legends-matter commander decks, especially with Shanid/Dihada and Jodah being printed last year in DMU. It'll be interesting to see if that continues over the next few years, assuming they print more. Also GET US MORE SELESNYA DECKS
I feel like there is some kind of underlaying theme to the most popular commanders, but it's tough to define in exact terms. Especially when there's stuff that feels like it *should* be popular but isn't for some reason. Like (as of this comment) Moira and Teshar have ~200 decks, despite being super easy to get value out of. Yeah it's only one turn, but you can cheat *anything* into play for the cost of playing a mana rock. Like not saying it needs to be #1, just you'd think it'd have more than 200. But that's just an example of what I meant, how it's tougher to nail down something that resonates with EDH players than one might think.
I believe the reason the color trends didn’t change is people are geared towards playing a certain number of colors. For example, I have 16 decks; 1 mono colored, 9 two color, 6 three color, and zero for the rest. I obviously am drawn to two and three colors, where as I know people that play five color decks tend to aim for five colors for their new decks as well. People that enjoy playing colorless were already playing colorless, they just got new options. Ect
For color balance 31:01, it's not surprising that 2 and 3 color decks make up 70% of the decks, as there are 20 of these color combinations out of a possible 32, which is 62.5% to begin with.
Id be interested in seeing how much the top commanders carry their colors when it comes to color identity popularity. E.G., how much of Mardu's place in top 5 three-color combos is owed solely to isshin and edgar
Y'all talking about Selesnya's drop off... Rakdos has a very similar drop-off from Prosper to Rakdos, Lord of Riots. Prosper is the only reason that color combo isn't dead last, which is a shame. Rakdos needs some non-prosper love.
hard disagree with drunk wooky's challenge. Cheap auras for the second ability is really really strong, especially with all the other aura scaling those decks
In challenge the stats eriette was brought up for enchanting your own creature but I think you should do both. Her second ability still triggers off your board and if she is ever removed you don’t want a bunch of big boys that you’ve been pumping now able to attack you
I actually got a Grim Feast for my Willowdusk deck some time ago and yes, the card is amazing, but it doesn't really work well with Willowdusk because she can only activate as a sorcery, so all the life gain that happens after your last main phase until your next turn can't be converted into +1/+1 counters.
Honestly I agree with Matt I want to see the average manicurve go up yeah sure you could play your your two mana removals and those are always going to be a thing but once you start getting above three mana you have a lot more room to do interesting things with cards
If Jeskai monks crossed a gate into Kamigawa, they could come back with two different artifact based commanders: vehicles crewed by monk pilots with prowess, and living equipment (the three colors that support artifacts/equipment very well). Abzan could send its members to Ikoria and spiritbond with the mutated beasts (leave with Seige Rhino, come back with Seiger Rhino).
On the topic of identity driving color combos popularity, id guess that varied individual identities within the combo do a lot of lifting. Grixis for example has in my opinion the most diverse array of any color combination, unearth, spells, curses, equipment, artifacts its kind of got it all. And i think it comes from a flexibility of identity, vs when we look at something like selesnya its creature or enchantment based, without too many standout interesting commanders for the helm
Hey!! Great work!! Just wanna point out something about the last 3 years that edhrec gathers data: I think that those 3 years policy favors power creep because most of the new decks and old decks' modifications are made with the newest cards, those ones which have suffered power creep. So only gather data of that period focus the attention on power creeped decks more than in old deck. That produce an effect on the new player and everyone who checks edhrec that the format it is speeding up. I'd suggest if it is possible to gather data from way back. Due it is an eternal format many players do not actualize their decks and keep playing with them (like me). All that old decks data could help to give a better general view of the format, and to low de average cmc. Thanks for reading! keep the great job!
I mostly agree with the role token challenge for Eriette, however I think Lord Skitter's Blessing and Not Dead After All are still valuable in the deck.
for the point of more legendary creatures in decks im currently on an quest to build decks for a mono and 2 color paits where at least 75 percent of creatures need to be legendary black and green were easy blue and white still tough without really clashing themes
So you all mentioned that you're surprised that you weren't seeing more changes in some of the numbers especially because of recent commander decks for example the five color deck from Commander Masters or the colorless deck from Commander Masters or the abs and deck from Commander Masters but also those decks were out of price for a lot of players it's not like it was a $40 deck. I feel that if those decks were 40 $45 you would see a lot more of a shift for colorless and white green black specifically
Will, Scion of Peace really convinced me to try Azorious again. He let's me play some 'bad' cards to generate HUGE value which is not something I expected from those colours.
I´d like to challnge street wraith in any an every black commander deck. Having a 98-card deck has huge potential upside. If you don´t agree, then at least put it into Sefris decks
My Dina deck thanks you for the challeenge the stats today, i had no idea Grim Feast even existed!!(Or willowdusk if im being honest) so 2 new cards for me woo!!
Endless Scream isn't as efficient as Rancor but the possibility of more damage in the late game probably makes it solid in a Tatsunari enchantress deck.
I do not understand the legendary stats. I looked back to all my decks. I am running in between 15-20 in every deck. How it is so low at almost 10 is beyond me.
I want to say some of the color pairings data must be older. There are WAY too many Abzan decks floating around to be last of the 3-colors. Same for Mono-White with the release of the Angels deck.
dimir's popularity is hyper-skewed by Yuriko and wilhelt. IIRC Golgari is skewed by lathril and chatterfang. Selesnya sadly doesnt have a "ZOMG MUST PLAY!" commander on those levels (sythis just doesnt quite carry selesnya by herself). Though I do think people are really sleeping on Hamza. And Emmara SotA is incredibly underrated.
Fom my on deeckbuilding activities and what I have seen in the past year or so, I am reasonably certain that at least part of the increase in CMC is due to the new MDFCS as well as the new landcyling cards, plus mos uses for split cards. Under that premise, it would also be super interesting to see if there are trends regarding the actual mana curves as opposed to the overall CMC
The 80/20 rule was invented by an Italian dude ruminating that 'hey, isn't it weird that 80% of the land is owned by 20% of the people? that must be how things are supposed to be organised.'
@@JonReid01 I’m asking more for their stats how they’re counting them. Especially cause with MDFCs that are lands, and MDFCs that are cards on both sides, that could really alter the results depending on how they’re counting them.
Saruman OF THE MANY COLORS should have been WUBR rather than WUB. Fits thematically and we would have another 4 color commander, which we don't have enough of. And if you're reading this some months from now, where hopefully we got a cool WUBR commander, don't say something like "but then we wouldn't have gotten that one". We could have had both. We could have it all.
How the fuck is Abzan last in popularity?!? I agree 100% with you guys, it is the color trio that got the most attention and the most innovation in the past year, how on earth didn't all that move the needle? Has Hasbro saturated the market to such an obnoxious degree that nobody has any interest in new cards anymore?
Matt, you're wrong about Kansas. We grow more corn than wheat. However we grow a bigger proportion of wheat than any other state. Honestly, our biggest export is aircraft parts.
The answer is more in the 2-color vs 3-color splits. Lots of Dimir, Golgari Simic while Sultai is only 5th. It's clear that noble Dimir (the true way to play the game) doesn't dirty itself with lowly green, and golgari knows where to put those stinky green cards (in the graveyard) while Simic is just green trying to play a good color (but is just trash) This was a message from the green haters.
I would like to challenge the stats of this video with personality. Of course Dimir is the top 2 color combination recorded and updated, because it caters to a meticulous mindset, same with Grixis. My point is I am wondering what the casuals that are either not bothering to post decklists or hiding their decklists are actually playing. I think this speaks volumes for the “why is Abzan so low with all these recent precons” if all the people who bough the precons tweaked them only a little and do not see it worth their time to sub 5-10 cards in a readily available decklist.
Just want to point out something about Joey's challenge: for those unware, Grim Feast as printed targets a single opponent but the oracle text says "an opponent" so yes it will trigger off any opponent's creature dying.
Grim feast is literally the only way I don't kill myself in my Savra deck
I was just tuning my Willowdusk deck this morning, too. Good to know! Thanks 🌞 21:42
@@12jacobmar share your deck list? 😁
@@JonReid01
[COMMANDER]
1 Willowdusk, Essence Seer
[CREATURES]
1 Birds of Paradise
1 Bloodtracker
1 Blossoming Bogbeast
1 Changeling Outcast
1 Dina, Soul Steeper
1 Elanor Gardner
1 Evolution Sage
1 Ezzaroot Channeler
1 Forgotten Ancient
1 Gingerbrute
1 Gluttonous Troll
1 Grazing Gladehart
1 Hangarback Walker
1 Herd Baloth
1 Hooded Hydra
1 Marshland Bloodcaster
1 Myr Convert
1 Rampaging Brontodon
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Silhana Ledgewalker
1 Sproutback Trudge
1 Tempting Witch
1 Tireless Provisioner
1 Tivash, Gloom Summoner
1 Tormented Soul
1 Tough Cookie
1 Veinwitch Coven
1 Yedora, Grave Gardener
[ARTIFACTS]
1 Alhammarret's Archive
1 Arcane Signet
1 Candy Trail
1 Lembas
1 Loxodon Warhammer
1 Pristine Talisman
1 Talisman of Resilience
1 Venser's Journal
1 Well of Lost Dreams
[INSTANTS]
1 Appetite for the Unnatural
1 Deglamer
1 Feed the Clan
1 Mortality Spear
1 Natural End
1 Pulse of Murasa
[SORCERIES]
1 Ancient Craving
1 Cultivate
1 Damnable Pact
1 Explore
1 Farseek
1 Feed the Swarm
1 Healing Technique
1 Many Partings
1 Pest Infestation
1 Ranger's Path
1 Read the Bones
1 Revival Experiment
[ENCHANTMENTS]
1 Alpha Authority
1 Dark Tutelage
1 Gift of Paradise
1 Glorious Sunrise
1 Quiet Disrepair
1 Rancor
1 Retreat to Kazandu
1 Trudge Garden
[LANDS]
1 Command Tower
1 Exotic Orchard
17 Forest
1 Gingerbread Cabin
1 Golgari Rot Farm
1 High Market
1 Jungle Hollow
1 Llanowar Wastes
1 Myriad Landscape
1 Radiant Fountain
1 Rogue's Passage
1 Sapseep Forest
1 Slippery Karst
3 Swamp
1 Tainted Wood
1 Temple of Malady
1 The Shire
1 Witch's Clinic
This is true of most older enchantments. Targets are not part of static effects nowadays (they are only part of activated abilities and spells, or triggers which also have something like "choose target opponent", the last of which is pretty rare in itself). See: 4th Edition Kismet, as another example.
I find it interesting how the 3 two color pairs that make up Sultai (Dimir, Golgari, and Simic) taking the top 3 spots of the two color list don't translate into Sultai having a high placement in the three color list.
I find Dimir or Simic commanders to often be very different from Sultai commanders (Golgari has overlap with graveyard recursion or triggers).
Agreed. I think it's got to do with how its component 2 color pairs have really distinct identities, but Sultai just feels like "generically good:" lots of removal, ramp, and draw, but nothing unique.
@@aegisgamingofficial2178 Yeah I am not at all surprised, exactly for the reason of identity. E.G. Esper you just know you are going to build a control style of deck. However if you take Jeskai, it doesn't have a clear identity or style and the same applies to Sultai or Temur.
What I found most striking (but not really surprising) is that for 2 color combinations the bottom 4 all had white in it.
The best Sultai Commander is banned right now. If he was free Sultai would gain some points for sure
@@Controlqueen31 I don’t see Leo ever being unbanned.
Im gonna challenge the challenge on the role cards for eriette. Her 2nd ability is a drain and gain for how many auras you control. So the roles on creatures you control doesnt protect you for her 1st ability, but it drains the table for her 2nd.
Yeah I agree, I think maybe cutting the creatures that create single roles, but spellbook vendor making a aura every turn for 1 mana is one of the few ways to really up the aura count. Skitter just is a cheaper phyrexian arena.
Yeah that that challenge is garbage
Furthermore depending on the game state it just might be better to voltron your creatures rather than enchant your opponents.
If nothing else if you badly need to "re turn on" Lord Skitter's blessing your deck is suited to do that. Just slap one of the dopier auras you're running on your own thing and enjoy continued card draw.
Came here to say the same thing. You don't need to use every part of the card for it to be good. And the drain half of Eriette is the more important part anyway. The fact that many of the role cards also come with creatures is also good for the deck when it probably isn't running many
While eriette loves throwing down auras on oppnents creatures (both to make them weak and strong) putting roles on your creatures still work really well with eriette's drain ability, which is her main win condition.
Having cards like spellbook vendor just helps you ramp up the drain, so while it's good to take into account good auras to throw on your opponent's creatures, enchanting your own creatures is still very solid for an eriette deck
This was a really confusing "nombo." Did they purposely not read the second ability? I'm confused.
Yeah I agree. I think if you are only focusing on the first ability roles aren’t good, but for the back half of the card they are very useful. And also flavorful given there is a lot of Role support in the same set as Eriette.
Abzan needs Vampire Elves and it would be top 3.
I need Abzan Astarion 😮
One thing contributing to the higher average mana value could be the amount of black mana value 4 kill spells printed recently with either convoke or a situational 2 mana discount
From Matt's explanation of the 80-20 rule, you're not seeing a 90-10 split, it's 50-10. the 80-20 rule is "the top 20% is responsible for 80%" not "the top 20% is responsible for half and the lower 80% for the other half"
I don't think we're actually seeing a significant shard>wedge bias. Out of the top 5, the expected average is a 3-2 split, it just happened to favor shards this time. What I find more significant is the bias against white in the two color breakdown (all 4 on the bottom) and against green in the three color one (3/4 non-green combinations at the top of the list)
About the rising of average CMC lately :
MDFCs are in all of my decks, they are huge staples of the format, played in every color arnd archetype. But they're counted as spells in the "average mana curve" results, even if you include them as land in your deck...
I'm so glad I got to meet you all at Las Vegas.
Jeskai and Abzan being at the bottom of the 3-colors is interesting given the number of precon decks they got this year. But they also just don't have that many actual commanders for them.
Higher mana averages do not mean more mana spent - maybe the possibilities to cheat cards into play have multiplied or mastered by more players, so we just see a new variant of deck optimization.
Exactly my thought
Eriette’s end step trigger counts all auras you control. I think a creature like Spellbook Vendor that will generate a bunch of auras over time might still fit. I’d be reluctant to just improve my opponents’ creatures without a ton of protection ensuring Eriette wouldn’t die and let let me get attacked. The cards might still be overplayed, but I’d look at what else is in the decks running them for evidence that enchanting their own creatures along with their opponents’ is part of the plan.
There's a ton of cheap enchantments like Cursed Flesh and Dead Weight which are great to put on your opponents' creatures you don't want attacking you; even if Eriette dies, they're still weaker than they would have been had you not enchanted them!
Lord skitters blessing is also a 2 mana phyrexian arena with the odd missed turn after a board wipe.
I just counted the Legends in my Boros Equipment deck: 7 legendary artifacts, 13 legendary creatures. I guess the meme of there being a hundred interchangeable Boros equipment commanders has some foundation.
This episode finally convinced me to go through the effort of logging my decks into archidekt. I feel like I've joined the club
Abzan may occupy the lowest percentile in 3 color pairings, but we have to consider that the Atraxas alone being the most popular 4c pair are probably enough to swing a couple percentile points away from it.
This is true for me. I have the New Atraxa commanding my enchantress list, which I had bounced around a few different 3 color options but settled here, since I could use all of them.
Sorry guys I have to step in, Kansas has a shitton of corn
It's not a full percentage point of change that 2 color decks went down by 0.82% and that was the highest differential for overall color pairing popularity, that's pretty interesting! While 2 color is the most popular trend at 39.78% I wonder with the increase in 3 color or more commanders being made if that is impacting that number in a small way.
Yes, Grim Feast!! I just decided to edit my hobbit deck and went dark with it, found this card and it's so good. I love it! Going tonight to play with it at the lgs first time.
I wonder if the flood of new precons is shifting the mana curve up? Just more people starting from less optimized & taking longer to weed down.
Thank you Matt for correcting Joey about Kansas.
On the matter of popular color pairs, Matt, I wish Selesnya was more popular than it is too. I'm a Naya mage with both Boros and Gruul two-color decks, but Selesnya just has a variety problem. The color pair does only a couple things, Enchantress, go-wide tokens, and lifegain sometimes, and the first two of those themes have pretty good options by adding a third color. When Strixhaven came out, they made an effort to give new and unique identities to most of the color pairing: Golgari lifegain, Boros reanimator, etc., and I said at the time that Selesnya needs a similar treatment to define a new role for Selesnya, because unless you only want to make tokens, Selesnya isn't offering many options.
well selesnya also likes to put + counters on things too, and it's got a lot of super friends boosters.
I'd like to see more interesting options for mono-red, mono-white, and each of the 2-color white pairs. With the exception of Orzhov and Abzan, I tend to avoid red and white but Strixhaven made Boros more interesting, imo. For red, I just want a better entry point for an aggressive deck for players that tend to avoid traditional combat (tap to swing). White just needs to be less vanilla/boring narratively.
Of the 2-color pairings - I think it’s worth pointing out that the bottom 4 pairings include White, and 3/4 top 4 include Blue. How about that??
Is complitely normal. Blue is the best color by far in Eternal Magic formats, while White is the "worst" at drawing cards, which is the best thing you can do on Commander without interacting with the table. Also, White is very bad for interaction that isn't exiling things, while blue, red and black are the best colors for interacting with your opponents in the stack. We are in a multiplayer format at the end of the day
Lord skitters blessing is really good in Eriette though because it's reliable and cheap card draw for a deck that really struggles with card advantage
I agree re: Lord Skitter, Blessing, and I’d also mention that while Eriette generally does want to enchant opponents and creatures, in play there are still several very good auras that you will want to keep on your side of the board - once people are getting drained down and low, you still need to swing in for kills at times with All That Glitters or Angelic Destiny or maybe Phyresis for a beefy infect KO. Having a Greater Auramancy to give your enchanted creatures shroud, or Umbra Mystic for totem armor, are great ways to protect your board state while draining, but require you enchant your side as well as your opponents. So ultimately I’d say that it’s not exactly a nonbo so much as a “be cognizant of what and how much role tokens you put in”
I also could see role tokens being a specific theme to go into for a budget deck, pairing roles for your stuff with Bargain to sac them and a handful of cheap auras to push your opponents elsewhere - not going as far into cursing and opponent enchanting as the typical version of the deck.
I’ve built Eriette in paper though so I’ll certainly be keeping an eye on all this - it’s a really fun deck!
Color trends aren’t surprising also because mana fixing is expensive if you want speed. The more colors in a deck the more potentially expensive the mana base might be to function. I’ve been relieved to see the price drops from some shock and fetch lands, I hope they continue to reprint to give more people access to them.
Matt’s right about the corn it’s here and it’s everywhere
I was surprised that Boros % was higher than Selesnya or that Golgari % was above Simic and Izzet as well as for 3 color that Grixis % was as high as it is. The rest are more or less where I would have predicted.
Boros is 0.1% higher than Selesnya. It's pretty much on par. That said, with how varied Selesnya is now (tokens, food either as lifegain or taking advantage of artifacts, lifegain in general, enchantress, etc), I'm surprised it's that low.
@@andrewsparkes6275I would have expected Boros to be at least a few % points below basically everything… I guess Feather and Winota decks really drive up the % stats.
Edit: I guess when I think about it though, I see alot of decks with white and green in them but rarely just those two. There is usually a 3rd colour…
About that mana curve trending upward. Has there been in increase in cards that help cheat cards in cheaper, or for free? My Jodah, the Unifier deck for example has an average mana value of 3.49, but I'm counting on Jodah, Winota, and Sisay, Weatherlight captain to get a ton of creatures/legendaries onboard. So, it doesn't play like a mid 3's deck.
I think this has a lot to do with it. People are playing more "free" spells, both the cycle printed a few years ago, and the ones printed 20 years ago (snuff out). These cards have an average CMC close to 4. I have several decks with 10~8-13 drops at the back end of my curve, but they are not for casting, they are for cheating out. Without them my curves are under 3.
I wonder if the increase in the number of legends per deck is due to an increase in legends-matter commander decks, especially with Shanid/Dihada and Jodah being printed last year in DMU. It'll be interesting to see if that continues over the next few years, assuming they print more.
Also GET US MORE SELESNYA DECKS
I feel like there is some kind of underlaying theme to the most popular commanders, but it's tough to define in exact terms. Especially when there's stuff that feels like it *should* be popular but isn't for some reason. Like (as of this comment) Moira and Teshar have ~200 decks, despite being super easy to get value out of. Yeah it's only one turn, but you can cheat *anything* into play for the cost of playing a mana rock. Like not saying it needs to be #1, just you'd think it'd have more than 200. But that's just an example of what I meant, how it's tougher to nail down something that resonates with EDH players than one might think.
I believe the reason the color trends didn’t change is people are geared towards playing a certain number of colors. For example, I have 16 decks; 1 mono colored, 9 two color, 6 three color, and zero for the rest. I obviously am drawn to two and three colors, where as I know people that play five color decks tend to aim for five colors for their new decks as well. People that enjoy playing colorless were already playing colorless, they just got new options. Ect
For color balance 31:01, it's not surprising that 2 and 3 color decks make up 70% of the decks, as there are 20 of these color combinations out of a possible 32, which is 62.5% to begin with.
Mana curve went back up because WoTC printed more powerful higher CMC cards.
There are also just a lot more ways to cheat out cards now. A high MV means nothing when you're not actually paying that amount for the card.
I'm not surprised blue dropped, considering most of its wincons are combos (casual frown) and you gotta attack them relentlessly (archenemy hot seat)
Oh, it’s officially Friday now baby!
Id be interested in seeing how much the top commanders carry their colors when it comes to color identity popularity. E.G., how much of Mardu's place in top 5 three-color combos is owed solely to isshin and edgar
Y'all talking about Selesnya's drop off... Rakdos has a very similar drop-off from Prosper to Rakdos, Lord of Riots. Prosper is the only reason that color combo isn't dead last, which is a shame. Rakdos needs some non-prosper love.
I'm always surprised to see so many non-green colors being so popular.
Put Endless Scream into my Felisa deck a few months ago. Love it.
Isn't Sigil of Distinction an upgrade to Endless Scream in all cases except for enchantress and janky halloween themed decks?
I would like to point out that Joey’s comment about “Corny as Kansas in August,” is a song reference, not a generic comment
Plot twist: the cards that up the mana curve are actually Solitude, Leyline Binding, etc.
Dana really went beast MODE in his intro.
hard disagree with drunk wooky's challenge. Cheap auras for the second ability is really really strong, especially with all the other aura scaling those decks
In challenge the stats eriette was brought up for enchanting your own creature but I think you should do both. Her second ability still triggers off your board and if she is ever removed you don’t want a bunch of big boys that you’ve been pumping now able to attack you
I actually got a Grim Feast for my Willowdusk deck some time ago and yes, the card is amazing, but it doesn't really work well with Willowdusk because she can only activate as a sorcery, so all the life gain that happens after your last main phase until your next turn can't be converted into +1/+1 counters.
Abzan DESPERATELY needs more enticing variety in its legendaries
Honestly I agree with Matt I want to see the average manicurve go up yeah sure you could play your your two mana removals and those are always going to be a thing but once you start getting above three mana you have a lot more room to do interesting things with cards
If Jeskai monks crossed a gate into Kamigawa, they could come back with two different artifact based commanders: vehicles crewed by monk pilots with prowess, and living equipment (the three colors that support artifacts/equipment very well). Abzan could send its members to Ikoria and spiritbond with the mutated beasts (leave with Seige Rhino, come back with Seiger Rhino).
Unfortunately the Abzan and Jeskai clans no longer exist in the current timeline due to the events of Fate Reforged.
On the topic of identity driving color combos popularity, id guess that varied individual identities within the combo do a lot of lifting. Grixis for example has in my opinion the most diverse array of any color combination, unearth, spells, curses, equipment, artifacts its kind of got it all. And i think it comes from a flexibility of identity, vs when we look at something like selesnya its creature or enchantment based, without too many standout interesting commanders for the helm
The avg cmc going up was shocking, I was expecting it too continue to go down due to the increasing popularity of cedh
The thing about this deck that is most fun is the fact that the opponent gets to shape your hand
I know I'm late to this, but having graphs showing average numbers of cards at each mana value would be great!
Hey!! Great work!!
Just wanna point out something about the last 3 years that edhrec gathers data: I think that those 3 years policy favors power creep because most of the new decks and old decks' modifications are made with the newest cards, those ones which have suffered power creep.
So only gather data of that period focus the attention on power creeped decks more than in old deck. That produce an effect on the new player and everyone who checks edhrec that the format it is speeding up.
I'd suggest if it is possible to gather data from way back. Due it is an eternal format many players do not actualize their decks and keep playing with them (like me). All that old decks data could help to give a better general view of the format, and to low de average cmc.
Thanks for reading! keep the great job!
I guess having 3 boros and 3 selesnya decks makes me kind of a hipster.
cackling witch is also another great howl from beyond effect
I mostly agree with the role token challenge for Eriette, however I think Lord Skitter's Blessing and Not Dead After All are still valuable in the deck.
for the point of more legendary creatures in decks im currently on an quest to build decks for a mono and 2 color paits where at least 75 percent of creatures need to be legendary
black and green were easy blue and white still tough without really clashing themes
So you all mentioned that you're surprised that you weren't seeing more changes in some of the numbers especially because of recent commander decks for example the five color deck from Commander Masters or the colorless deck from Commander Masters or the abs and deck from Commander Masters but also those decks were out of price for a lot of players it's not like it was a $40 deck.
I feel that if those decks were 40 $45 you would see a lot more of a shift for colorless and white green black specifically
Mixing up wedges and shards when talking about the differences between wedges and shards sent me.
Guys, do you count lands in your average deck cmc?
edit: Thanks for clarifying that 14mins in^^°
Wait Matt's in Kansas? Dude awesome me too!
Kansans rise up
Matt just compared Joey to Steve Nash. Now that's a compliment, wow.
Kansas is the 6th highest corn producing state.
Will, Scion of Peace really convinced me to try Azorious again. He let's me play some 'bad' cards to generate HUGE value which is not something I expected from those colours.
Fun challenge the stats is wild research used in jeskia. Fun tutor that can hit or wiff. Makes tutoring a chance then a guaranteed hit.
MDFC cards would impact the average cost if they are replacing lands.
I´d like to challnge street wraith in any an every black commander deck. Having a 98-card deck has huge potential upside. If you don´t agree, then at least put it into Sefris decks
My Dina deck thanks you for the challeenge the stats today, i had no idea Grim Feast even existed!!(Or willowdusk if im being honest) so 2 new cards for me woo!!
Edhrec is a mess
Endless Scream is pretry cool.
My therory about the mana curve change is people are cutting lands to add 7-drop bombs again lol
Endless Scream isn't as efficient as Rancor but the possibility of more damage in the late game probably makes it solid in a Tatsunari enchantress deck.
Is worth noting that he was talking about it in the context of his Dimir deck, without access to Green.
I do not understand the legendary stats. I looked back to all my decks. I am running in between 15-20 in every deck. How it is so low at almost 10 is beyond me.
Love seeing Esper number 1 in three color combination
I want to say some of the color pairings data must be older. There are WAY too many Abzan decks floating around to be last of the 3-colors. Same for Mono-White with the release of the Angels deck.
Ooh, physics joke. That’s a good one
Every time you say "mana curves" I think of Chase.
Re: Average mana curve, I built an Imoti / Keruga deck, so that was my bad :P
dimir's popularity is hyper-skewed by Yuriko and wilhelt. IIRC Golgari is skewed by lathril and chatterfang. Selesnya sadly doesnt have a "ZOMG MUST PLAY!" commander on those levels (sythis just doesnt quite carry selesnya by herself).
Though I do think people are really sleeping on Hamza. And Emmara SotA is incredibly underrated.
Fom my on deeckbuilding activities and what I have seen in the past year or so, I am reasonably certain that at least part of the increase in CMC is due to the new MDFCS as well as the new landcyling cards, plus mos uses for split cards. Under that premise, it would also be super interesting to see if there are trends regarding the actual mana curves as opposed to the overall CMC
They grow plenty of corn in Kansas fyi
maybe the higher avg mana curve is because people are cutting basic lands to run mdfc lands
Thank you Matt! #wheatstate
The 80/20 rule was invented by an Italian dude ruminating that 'hey, isn't it weird that 80% of the land is owned by 20% of the people? that must be how things are supposed to be organised.'
Is that...a Black Lotus behind Dana? Baller.
Residents of Kansas REPRESENT
🌾🌾🌾🌾
I expected Jund to be in top 3 at least!
How do MDFCs affect Average mana cost?
On moxfield they count as the frontside. Which platform are you using?
@@JonReid01 I’m asking more for their stats how they’re counting them. Especially cause with MDFCs that are lands, and MDFCs that are cards on both sides, that could really alter the results depending on how they’re counting them.
Kansas represent!
Saruman OF THE MANY COLORS should have been WUBR rather than WUB. Fits thematically and we would have another 4 color commander, which we don't have enough of.
And if you're reading this some months from now, where hopefully we got a cool WUBR commander, don't say something like "but then we wouldn't have gotten that one". We could have had both. We could have it all.
Wouldn't it make sense to include lands in the deck's CMC? Because the number of lands also has meaning in its speed and efficiency
Esper is exactly where it should be.
Aragorn and Atraxa were two of the most popular new commanders this year, which is probably holding up the 4 color numbers.
The 2-color rating is closed by all four guilds that contain white. Oops.
How the fuck is Abzan last in popularity?!? I agree 100% with you guys, it is the color trio that got the most attention and the most innovation in the past year, how on earth didn't all that move the needle? Has Hasbro saturated the market to such an obnoxious degree that nobody has any interest in new cards anymore?
love it den city
Dimir gang rise up
I'm here and so much into dimir ☠🥷
Matt, you're wrong about Kansas. We grow more corn than wheat. However we grow a bigger proportion of wheat than any other state. Honestly, our biggest export is aircraft parts.
The color combination stats make me feel as a green player that green is being unfairly scapegoated and that blue-black is the “real problem”
The answer is more in the 2-color vs 3-color splits. Lots of Dimir, Golgari Simic while Sultai is only 5th.
It's clear that noble Dimir (the true way to play the game) doesn't dirty itself with lowly green, and golgari knows where to put those stinky green cards (in the graveyard) while Simic is just green trying to play a good color (but is just trash)
This was a message from the green haters.
I thoroughly hate green and happily crush it whenever I can.
Those math jokes were great! 😅 I just hope it doesn divide the comment section.
I think people playing commander are really tunning to build fun decks with fun cards rather than ''good'' stuff.
It's many things
it's pretty much always many things :P@@fastydave
I would like to challenge the stats of this video with personality.
Of course Dimir is the top 2 color combination recorded and updated, because it caters to a meticulous mindset, same with Grixis.
My point is I am wondering what the casuals that are either not bothering to post decklists or hiding their decklists are actually playing.
I think this speaks volumes for the “why is Abzan so low with all these recent precons” if all the people who bough the precons tweaked them only a little and do not see it worth their time to sub 5-10 cards in a readily available decklist.
Wow you guys are sponsored by Ryan Gosling!!!