A Better Way To Figure Out Power Level In Commander
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- čas přidán 25. 04. 2024
- Using a more robust method for figuring out the power level of your deck.
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Thanks again Demo for bringing attention to the project. Awesome!
I’ve browsed some of the comments and questions. First of all: thanks for all the positive replies! For those who have questions about the guide, the site covers more information than Demo went over. And if you want to really get into the nitty gritty of the project: there’s also a TO Primer/Article linked on the site that covers most of questions I found in the comments.
GL & HF,
Beebles
Love it!
the hero edh deserves 🥰
My playgroup started out with an anti-interaction mindset, because we wanted to be polite and avoid hurt feelings. Boy did that have the opposite effect that we intended! Slowly we're increasing interaction, and salt is decreasing.
Exactly, because when you're adverse to it, anytime it happens feels personal. But when it's more common and just a thing that happens it's easier to not take personally.
@@Wintercide
Games also tend to end up quite bland when no one can directly interfere with what anyone else is doing.
It turns the experience into four-way Solitaire, a concurrent race in individualized lanes, a simple contest instead of a complex conflict.
Finally, a visual model. It's so clean, and the key is right within it for simple access.
... God I'm a nerd.
Dude, you are commenting on a video about MtG. Who isn't a nerd here?
Just wanted to let you know that this comment made my day. Glad you like it.
everyone is a nerd about something. even if you are a total normal dude with a boring life, you gotta have some passion for something to build knowledge about.
if you know alot about baking bread, then you are a bread baking nerd. what's not to love about a bread baking nerd. same goes for tcg nerds
Loved the less subjective criteria that guy used. I think this is a better way evaluating the power level
"Hey casual EDH how you doing"
*This video*
"Yeah"
I'd rather get turn 1 scammed for an entire night than have to deal with another way EDH players try to force a 15 minute discussion on their pods' decks' power (they're all a 7, btw)
Honestly I find the best, most memorable games occur when everyone at the table has about a 3/5 for stopping power. Things never go as planned and there's a nice controlled chaos that makes for dynamic games
This model is an extrapolation of the one I've been using for years: "on what turn does my deck reliably threaten to win?"
If your deck makes big moves on turn 6, you should ideally play with three other turn 6 decks. Same for turn 3 decks (cEDH) or turn 10+ decks (casual jank pods).
My model had a major blind spot regarding Stax decks, but this new one covers them. Very good.
I think something people get confused about a lot is when a guy who has a deck that normally doesnt win until at least turn 8-10 or later has a really good turn 1 with sol ring + arcane signet and has a perfect curve and good card draw with it as well leading to a much quicker win. People think "wow that decks way too strong for this pod" but reality is most of their decks would also pop off if they had a similar type of starting hand.
cEDH isn't a 3 turn format...
@@khub5660 he's not saying that. He's saying a 3 turn deck is cedh, not cedh is 3 turns.
@itskmillz a turn 3 deck means you are presenting a win, reliably (key word here), on turn 3. That is far from the truth for cEDH and is a massive misconception.
There are only a few decks that can pull this off, but they are glass cannons and don't even get the chance to attempt an early win since everybody is playing free interaction.
I think your view of decks with low interaction is a little warped. There are definitely powerful decks that can win that have very low interaction. I, myself, tend to build with moderate to high amounts of interaction (15-30 cards that interact with various things), but have a few "all-in" decks with more like 2-5 interaction cards. They're not at all throwing caution to the wind, or playing chaos - they just have a different strategy to outpace the opposition or overwhelm them, rather than trade blows with interaction. It can be fun to play like this sometimes, to see if your opponents can stop you or slow you down enough so that they can come back and win the long game :)
This. Most of my decks I'd classify as stompy or aggressive (Gishath, Atarka, Hazezon, Ziatora) have just a couple of the staple cards like Swords or Heroic Intervention for interaction, plus whatever might be in my deck's theme. The only time I run higher than like 8 interaction pieces is if my deck calls for it, like Glissa The Traitor
I believe this video is talking more about generalities than specificities. There are always going to be exceptions to every rule, but if the rule holds true for 85% + of the time it's what you cover. You cannot expect a short form content creator to go over every corner case. It just gets old having to preface every statement with "on average" or "in general", it's easier to simply assume your audience is aware of this. But apparently not in some cases, LOL.
Eh I’d say anytime you’re at the mercy of your opponents interaction and plays you are not really setup to be a properly competitive deck. You can easily get outpaced, either by a deck that’s faster, or by then taking out a key piece of your board that puts out in front. I’d say interaction is the only way to confidently say your deck will win, otherwise you are vulnerable to the whims of your opponents.
At the end of the day, the overall "strength" of a deck is a combination of its aggression (ability to win more quickly) and its defensiveness (keeping itself in the game and stopping opponents from winning). If you're lower on defence, but higher on aggression, you can have a well-balanced game against a deck that's less aggressive, but more interactive. Sure, particularly at high power / cEDH, being pure aggression tends to be less effective, but it's still viable and some people just like that kind of gameplay (playing with or against).
@@thomasfox1959 That's why decks that are competitive with low interaction also are VERY fast. Being at the whims of your opponent's interaction requires your opponent's to be able to interact. My favorite Glass Cannon example is a Goblin Charbelcher combo deck. The deck does one thing, sometimes in the first turn or two. But it wins A LOT. When it doesn't win, it knows it pretty quick, as well, but it still can put up seriously high win percentages, even at very competitive tables.
Interesting hearing about your game lengths. I try to get the games to last around an hour, I want to play several decks in an evening at the LGS.
Ah, thanks, finally a satisfying answer to why many people seem so opposed to long games. Always puzzled me since I'm more like "I'm playing Magic either way, what difference does it make?".
"I am the sheriff in every game" - oh I feel you bro 😂
Very relatable stopping power commentary.
Bro lol you are contradicting yourself
If you are on enough interaction to easily shut down cEDH decks as you claim, you should be at least in the high power casual section as the description specifies that you either need to win by x turn OR keep decks that would otherwise do so in check, which you are clearly doing.
Good point, it does distinguish that. You don't HAVE to win within four turns if your deck makes victory inevitable.
This scale is actually really good, most of my decks are between 5-7 on the traditionnal scale but vary vastly on this scale, some of my more jank decks are like 2/4.5 (power/control) and my most powerfull deck is like 4/2.5, this says way more about how the deck plays out that the old scale, love it
Seen this several times, but it's been a while...for what it's worth, a precon can win turn 7-9 consistently.
Yeah. This chart is near worthless. Developed clealy by someone who doesn't actually understand magic
Thats true but to be fair only the strongest precons against weaker precons.
The fastest i seen a precon win was 8, idk about turn 7.
I really like this graph a lot. I sometimes build some crazy decks in 60 card formats, and I think this can be applicable to 60 card formats too. Not exactly 1:1 for sure, but the principles are similar.
This is a great chart. My playgroup has a clear power problem due to 2 of our players are just playing high impact decks that are near cedh while the rest of us are just running it casual or jank.
Wow, I do have a deck that won once around turn 5, maybe sooner. I had no idea Auntie Blyte could be so powerful.
Also, if you're going to just have one kind of removal in your deck, it should be land destruction. That'll stop your opponent from even becoming a threat to begin with.
so long as you're willing to lose a couple friends I suppose😅
My rating system is
Jank- random stuff like a sticker deck that while it can do stuff I’m just looking to swing out with my hotdog goblin with a funny hat that if I’m lucky on the sheet I flip it may get infect….
Precon- decks got an actual strategy and synergy with a chance of actually winning but I’m running divination and 3 cost rocks.
Tuned- the above with the core of the deck being the exact same but now running premier draw spells, 2 coat mana rocks fetches etc just to up speed of the deck.
Then competitive where you start running tutors and fast mana and the like where the deck starts becoming more about the combo inside the deck rather than the overall synergy of the deck and the whole deck is built around assembling and protecting that combo.
I have a Yarok deck which has won me more games than the rest of my decks together combined. I only have 2 removal spells and 1 Evacuation that I rarely use. Capsize and Terastodon are those removal spells. However, the value engine I'm able to set up is usually enough to make my opponents waste their removal and I follow up with a Rise of the Dark Realms or a Diluvian Primordial with Yarok or Panharmonicon on the field and that play pattern is enough to revenge my way into victory. Sometimes you just have a good read and if you play the cards at the right time, it works. I also have my opponents destroy each other because I usually don't threat a win con. Or I set up a bluff one, then for a couple of turns I'll pretend I lost my engine, meanwhile I have Muldrota or something ready to be flashed in with unwinding canyons or leyline of anticipation
That’s kind of the way I’ve always graded my decks, what turn can it win the game. Great stuff.
Loved when this diagram came out. I think it is a better step for helping people find games that make sense for them. I wonder what other dimensions we could add to help gauge power level?
So if my friend is consistently dropping his whole hand and swinging for game by turn six, that's cEDH, right? If your most powerful is pressed to win by turn nine? We seldom can stop our Timmy because either his board state has one or two mobs or he vomits his whole deck out and kills all three of us outright.
Does anyone think that a point system that is similar to Warhammer would be helpful? I know it would take time to give each card in magic history a ranking, but would it be helpful with gauging power levels?
Possibly not as much sadly, as some cards are generally powerful and others are just super powerful in a specific deck... So you would have to give points aswell somehow to card combinations 👀
I like this. It's an interesting structure for power level. I've always viewed it as jank, strong, and meta plus levels of being tuned. So not tuned jank is the weakest possible type of deck, where fully tuned meta is the strongest possible type of deck.
My city seems to have a mutual understanding of our decks being high-power. Few cedh and few med-power but pretty much 90% of games at my lgs is high-power. I have 5 decks, 1 cedh, 3 high, 1 mid. But the mid is aristocrats with smokestack, grave pact, etc. So it could still be seen as high
Mana ramp in artifacts is an excellent gauge of a groups power level. Its almost universal in all cedh decks. Just look at your next game. Lions eye diamond, mana crypt, mana vault, etc...your likely in atleast a group playing top level. Might not be world class unless they build it perfectly but its a pritty clear heads up either way. Have fun!
Not just any artifact mana ramp. The 0 cost and 1 cost ones specifically. A few others like Grim monolith. Lands is another huge tell tale sign. Fetch lands that dont tap or dual lands that don't tap coming in play are another big signal.
Love this! Finally somebody made a graph representation for power level. This is so useful. Thank you so much demo for sharing, great points made as always.
I consider my pod pretty casual and I have to say a 9 turn game is rare, and a 12 turn game is unheard of. We're usually ending the game turns 6-8.
does anyone run removal?
This is such a cool concept and should be mentioned in the power levels at the table before you play.
Things like this show just how varied the edh landscape is. I play in, what I would call a fairly casual playgroup and my janky brews regularly feel a little behind curve because the majority of decks go off around turn 5-6. Some slower games can go on to turn 10-12 but they are by far a minority.
I think this chart needs a third axis of how many cards/mana does the deck have access to? Lots of ramp or large amounts of card draw make a deck dangerous
A lot of this chart seems to refer to stax. Maybe it refers to running more removal. I like the middle section a lot more than the bottom.
I have a glass cannon deck, and yes that can win turn 3, but plays absolute no interaction, well its more of an infinite cascade deck.
But the thing here is nobody knows what your gone do so it actually sneaks below. Its like almost never the threat. (until it starts casting)
I fell out when you mentioned being the sheriff at the table. I used to be that way but now I play yolo. Its a heavy crown to the police at the table. Just trying to get mine before everyone else.
Turn 8 is super late in high power, i think that only happens when someone is running stax or heavy counter deck. Great video i like to know where people are before we get into it
my playgroup pod kinda looks like this :
Nekusar
Najeela
Kaseto
and then something else
and the power level goes kinda in that order as well.
(I'm the kaseto player)
Najeela obviously wins a lot of these games, and I have a Neheb, the Eternal deck that can win at a similar pace as the Najeela deck (turn 4 is possible but you need to draw very well)
but our entire playgroup is not running enough interaction.
Think its really hard to knock out all 3 players on t5 with a fair combat wincon. Like does it impact also what kinda deck you run? Because a control deck can establish a lock by t5 but will take a few turns to win.
You mean a stax deck, control decks dont "lock" as far as im aware
@@soleo2783my control deck locks. Simplest form of this is I have omniscience/dream halls into the counterspell forbid.
I don’t think forbid or omniscience are stax cards, but they certainly create a lock.
@@soleo2783 I mean when they have established control of the game and have it locked into placed where you know you have lost as far as they won't let you get to your win anymore but they haven't beaten you to death yet.
Didn't mean a prison lock.
@@simonchi5372 tbh i dont think ive ever seen a control actually manage to do this in commander.
I have a cPDH Dargo + Keddis deck that can present table lethal commander damage on turn 3-4.
turbo boardwipe would be really funny. lands, rocks, and every boardwipe.
Seeing this makes me realize how much power creep has been happening at my LGS. It’s honestly kind of lame because you can’t sit down with jank decks, people don’t even pay for magic cards, they just print off the meta cards. It’s sad because it’s meant to be a casual format but some folks just want to win and has turned a once busy little community to just 3-4 people a week.
I think all local scenes ebb and flow in these patterns. Honestly for a store I feel it's best to shun proxies. If you just let the people who like to pay to win, win. People will target them out of the game itself. It puts the ball in their court. If people don't like playing with you then it's on you to change or leave.
The game is alienating when it becomes an arms race. It's not even about the cards themselves really. Proxies are usually argued to be more inclusive but actually cost way more upfront for hardware many would never use for anything other than printing proxies.
I do have a deck that aims to win by turn 7-8. On a couple of occasions I have managed to win by turn 4 but in both case I drew my combo in my starting hand so I wouldn't say that's reliable.
A precon can win between turns 9 and 12 if uninterrupted and has mid impact stopping power, is a precon the upper limit to casual edh? It just seems like there is a column missing in both directions. Here's the biggest problem, we are still going to argue about power level because to me a regular focused deck (old power level 7)should be able to threaten a win from turn 7 or 8 if left completely unchecked.
I have a deck that has put up a winning board on turn 5 or 6 before but it is in now way cEdh: Adrix and Nev that lucked out on legendary copies early and was creating 3 trillion copies on the next cast.
I beat a Magda cEDH deck yesterday with Giada, Font of Hope. Mono white had all the answers for that deck.
our group is still 'mid power' depite us adding more and more super staples to our archtypes
Good chart. I've been using "on what turn could this deck win" method for a while. Adding the other axis of how much interaction the deck has makes sense.
My strongest are 5/1 and 4/4.
My other decks tend to live in the 2/2 - 4/3 rectangle.
I have two decks I play if I think someone is playing unfairly. They’re 4/4 and 1/5, though the latter is usually deployed against just that one player.
I tend to play low interaction because I want everyone to be able to do their thing or at least make a good effort at it :)
I dislike board wipes unless they’re going to lead to a win con, so most of my decks run 0-1.
I had a similar theory, but with two axes.
The best draws in a high power/optimized deck might be able to pull one over at a cEDH table, but 9/10 times the difference in power level will be very clear. A deck that's designed to win by turn 4 consistently has a huge leg up against decks designed to win on turns 5-8.
It's funny, I have a Bruvac Mill deck that won on turn 4. But was was with an excellent opening hand, a great draw, and no one countered my spell. Typically if that deck wins it's on turn 8-10+
Who's ready for some interaction. Windmill slams Saruld, Realm Eater down.
I like this 2-axis scale. In my experience, generally decks with lots of stopping power aren't as good at generating threats (threatening a win) since they have less deck slots dedicated to win conditions and value generation. And vice versa - a deck that's all-in on winning as fast as possible generally doesn't have as much interaction. Where someone decides to fall on that spectrum is personal preference to me, i.e. increasing capability in one area comes at the cost of another.
Of course, the most competitive decks do both well (i.e. cEDH), but this requires extensive deck tuning and, often, a bigger budget.
One time i had my pantlaza dinosaur deck win by turn 7 but usually its mid tier , it even caught me by suprise but i had a monster hand and pulls. Makes me not want to upgrade it though seems like tutors and fetch lands and such will make it to powerfull of a agroo deck ( if i dont get board wiped all the time )
All my decks mostly revolve with optimized win power (not quite CEDH level) and no-mid stopping power though there are some exceptions for when I needs something less optimal or more stopping (though I don’t play stax because I think it’s cruel and boring)
To be fair my group I play with is pretty optimized and usually has some more stopping power to compensate for my slight power advantage.
Love this! Finally something I can see what a eight "IS" what a 4 "IS" and others can see too. I need a laminated copy of this immediately!
This is such an amazing way to look at power-levels. I would have bet my decks would fall in the mid of both axis, but actually it's very low on the interaction side! And I think winning after about 9 turns is the most likely win zone for me. Thank you for talking about this!
Based on the chart my decks almost all fall on 3/3. True neutral. Sounds about right.
I got kambal board wipe tribal €100 budget with some cheap goodstuff in it and it's really punching above its weight consistently. Hard to put on this power level scale, I wouldn't call it tolerant :D
You keep saying Chaos decks are low to no impact, but I'd argue that many chaos decks are on the high impact side of things. A Warp World or Possibility Storm just wrecks most decks in the same way as stax. It may not be removal or counterspells, but it is interaction that impacts players ability to enact their game plan. "Let's see what happens" means let's see what happens when everyone gets to play their way. I generally would rather watch someone do something really cool than to play for twice as long and possibly win while running board wipes and counters and removal, so I play the 1 star interaction decks. Chaos is not that.
I really think that "Canadian Highlander"-like point system would've been great for EDH. I guess it would be a lot of work to point cost problematic cards, but hey, at least Sol Ring would be 'soft capped'.
The biggest complaint that I get is that the table always has to find someway of answering my board states, and therefore can't focus on their own strategies. I tend to run high synergy and resilient decks rather than decks that contain removal/sweepers, however even my strongest deck (angry omnath) only MIGHT fall under high power optimized because it can possibly win by turn 8 uninterrupted. by the chart here ALL of my decks fall under low/mid power because I let people do their thing, but punish them for leaving me to do mine.
in other formats, people are asked to compete and then embrace one another over how they are able to adapt to the meta. it even becomes water cooler talk to bring players together for a common effort
edh players, on the other hand, like to splinter the crowd and discourage group play. not wanting to play against someone who is trying to win the game through either powerful effects or a potent supply of interaction is just a bizarre concept for most people who genuinely enjoy MTG
I still will only ever play godo turn 1 win or bust in cedh.
System seems good, while I generally play in the High Power - Optimized Decks category. The thought of a single game of EDH going for 1.5-2hrs or more sounds absolutely miserable.
Trying to figure out why that seems to be a widespread sentiment (I'm more like "I'm here to play Magic, what does it matter if it's 4 games of 1 hour or 1 game of 4 hours?"). Are your preferences shaped by a wish to play multiple different decks in an evening?
Yeah, like how people can't stand movies that last for two hours, or sports events, or concerts from their favorite artists. 2 hours of having a great time doing something you love with friends is just too much fun in one go. Absolutely miserable.
@@jaredwonnacott9732 Thanks for the feedback; and I think I am closer now to emotionally understanding that position (intellectual understanding is easy, but connecting to why others feel a certain way is often a challenge for me).
@@christiangreff5764 Because there is more variance in four one hour games than there are in one four hour game. "Oh great, Jim played a Farewell... and he chose all modes? That's the 5th time the game state has been reset this game." If you like spending half the day playing one single game of commander more power to you. As much as I would love to play EDH at my LGS for five, six, seven hours the one day a week I get to play. I can't.
I would like to see one cedh deck at a table of upper mid power
Lvls…curious how it would move in that environment.
cEDH mulligans to win/combo piece & tutor.
T1-T2 Thoracle Consultation.
First question : do you play any fast mana ?
Like an Explosive Vegetation that ramps me from 4 lands on turn 4 to 7 lands on turn 5? That's some pretty fast mana of I draw it in my first dozen cards! We obviously know Sol Ring and Mana Crypt are fast mana. We know that most ramp spells really aren't. However, there's a massive grey area. What about Lotus Petal or Rampant Growth? What about Dark Ritual or Jeweled Lotus? What is the Jeweled Lotus is paired with a 7 drop commander instead of a 3 drop? What if the Dark Ritual is part of a game winning combo that you're hoping to assemble by turn 10 or so? What if the Lotus Petal is one of a dozen zero cost artifacts you tossed into your deck to trigger artifact synergy? Fast Mana is such a weird thing to define, and isn't a particularly good way to assess the power of a deck. Being able to ramp into a really bad but really expensive card is one of my favorite things to do in Magic, but it usually requires a lot of fast mana. Doesn't mean it's powerful at all. Fast mana is only as powerful as the cards it casts, so ability to threaten wins and to stop wins from others really seem like much better measurements.
@@jaredwonnacott9732Fast mana is defined as a game action that immediately generates more mana than it cost. Ramp does not fall into fast mana because it doesn't generate more mana than it cost on the turn that it is played. The fast mana spells in EDH that are in many decks (because the cards are so cheap) are Sol Ring and Dark Ritual.
@@jaredwonnacott9732 Nice answer ! Thanks. Fast mana is "when you are building, what is the FIRST CARD EACH TIME YOU BUILD to think about ?"
Obviously, green ramp is in the color pie; dark ritual is an iconic black spell not even inserted in any black build; lotus petal and lotus jewel are one ofs. This §%!/? ring is in EVERY build : mono, multicolored, combo, control even aggro. This thing is iconic, sure, but it's the level 0 of deck building (and a pain in the ass to play).
I play a glass cannon deck that meets cedh standards according to this chart. It has low curve and plentiful recursion so much so that it hopes to exhaust all answers before i run out of gas. It absolutely loses when everyone dumps all their interaction trying to stop me but if the rest of the table is up to snuff i can usually find an opening after counter magic is wasted on one of them.
I get absolutely bullied into the ground at casual groups 😂
The main problem I can see with this site is that until you have enough games with your deck that you're trying to determine the power level of, you can't know many of the categories on this chart, and even then the results of the games are affected by the variety of the deck you're playing against. Not to mention if you're an inexperienced player and have no idea what many of these terms mean let alone how to apply them to your deck. It is a good chart for experienced players with a good idea of how your deck is supposed to run, but beyond that it's just another very subjective way of determining power level. Plus let's say you have figured out exactly where your deck fits on this chart, how do you communicate that knowledge to your opponent? let's say you bring up the site on your phone and show everyone where your deck is, that's still without full value unless your opponents also have figured out where their decks land on the chart. Overall this site is extremely useful to experienced players with a good amount of experience with their decks, but beyond that it's not of much help.
My Mizzix of the Izmagnus deck could quite reliably win on turn 5 or even earlier. But it was always winning in pretty much the same way. So I took it apart.
It was of course on the glass cannon side of decks
I haven't finished the video, but I feel like to assess a decks power level it should not be a guess. It should be some sort of tested algorithm.
The first thing that comes to mind would be to play a bunch of test games (probs like 10 for consistency and accuracy) with no opponents and see how many turns it takes you to deal out a total of 120 damage or to mill roughly 260ish cards or dish out 30 poison counters. Whatever the decks win is supposed to be, how long it takes you to do that. Then take the average of all those mock games and that's your power level.
Like if it takes a deck an average of 8 uncontested turns to win, that's a power level of 8.
If it takes an average of 12, then the power level is 12.
Takes a little time, but it's easy to run through quick games like that and it would be more consistant than whatever jank systems people use now.
And it also accounts for the players skill level.
As a player learns the ins and outs of their deck its power could slowly increase.
There's different definitions of cEDH - consistently winning by turn 5 uninteracted with is pretty competitive, but that doesn't mean its fast enough for the cEDH meta. A lot of what people consider 'high power' can often win earlier imo, it's basically cEDH with commanders that aren't cEDH meta commanders.
I like it. I agree that I don't really see people mention defensive ability of a deck as a factor in power level but it is for sure important and the biggest issue I see locally is that people skimp on interaction and typically suffer for it.
yeah i rwally like this system foe decks. bravo to the patron
I’m trying to figure out this chart… if you make your deck higher power, you go up a tier into high power casual EDH but if you max out the deck for control, it drops back into tolerant casual ??? That makes no sense.
Because people who are okay with playing against very controlling strategies are often okay with going against more powerful decks as well.
@@aronsandstrom601That makes no sense. This is a chart to gauge power level. From the descriptions, your opponent being able to lock you out completely (5 star) with control makes their deck weaker.
I have never heard someone arguing “I don’t like that your deck allows me to cast some of my spells. That gives me a shred of hope that I could win which is misleading. I need you to be able to counter ALL my spells”. 😂
Yeah, I agree that the High power casual block should shift one to the right. I'm fine with calling a turn 8 glass cannon deck casual.
If you max out the deck for control, you sacrifice some of the parts that made it such a powerful offensive deck. Giving up some of your "win-fast" ability to slow the game down changes the deck from powerful casual to just normal casual. I don't see why that's difficult to understand.
@@epicyoungThat’s not what the chart is saying; You are talking about comparing a 3 star power and 5 star control with a 4 star power and 4 star control deck. This chart is saying that if the power level remains the same at 4 star (when your deck can threaten to win) if it has better control, it is worse.
I havent played real cedh by now, but know a playgroup from my lgs... There they usually play at least like 5 different combos in the same deck, plus interaction... Maybe thats not the norm, but that gives me the impression, that actual cedh glas cannons don't really excist. ... but as sad just my impression of knowing and watching games...
Overall this system goes closer, to what i understand as powerlevels.
Casual.( stompy, 6+piece combo, etc... No multiple extra turns, no masslanddestruction or back to basics stuff)
Something in between
High power (everything goes just not as fast and consistant as cedh)
Cedh(don't know 😅)
Interesting chart, ill give it that but i have 2 issues with it.
1. Cedh media is slow and grindy right now. It should be 1-5 is cedh, not 1-4 like it used to be. I know someone who recently won a cedh tournament and their deck gold fishes turn 5. Ask any non cedh player and they will say turn 5 is too fast. It should start at 6 (even then you get people murdering under their breath)
So you have 2 options for the rest of the scale;shrink high power to 6-8 OR you push it to 6-9 and 9 is shared with mid power (speeds not the only thing that makes a deck "strong")
2. The second issue; lets say we have two mid power decks. They both win from turn 9-12. One is far to the left the other is far to the right.
You mean to tell me the glass cannon to the left is just as strong with lots of interaction? (Ways of answering problems)
No way.
I like the idea so much, but the cuts are weird. No cEDH deck has a 1/5 in interactions, that's a glass canon high powered deck. Also, if you're bringing a 5/5 interaction package and a 4/5 ability to win, that's a cEDH deck (any stax deck with a decent win cond but mostly focuses on stopping other players). Except for that fact, great way of looking at things
Try not to think of it as boxes that show viability decks, but as boxes that show where people might to start having objections you playing that deck with them/cause feelbads. The boxes represent the combined expectations of the players. The true shape of the box will always depend on the people at the table, so that’s why the guide mentions them to be examples and a starting point. I also went for a simple 4-box setup to keep the guide legible.
Ehhh... Godo is still considered cEDH, and is definitely a glass cannon.
Your pods are way more casual than mine; if someone isnt going for a win within 30 minutes of the game starting something has gone wrong in my pod.
That seems like nobody got to develop a mature strategy at all.
@@VexylObby
The opposite, actually. At least two people have tried to win by that point and yards are full of interaction and removal
@@Bladezeromus Winning =/= a well developed board of synergy and theme.
@@VexylObby
You're just talking out of your ass on some holier-than-thou crap. The reasons games go fast in our pod is BECAUSE the decks have strong synergy and a balance between theme and performance.
@@Bladezeromus No need for hostility.
What I am saying is that 30 minutes is like what, 6 or 7 turns (x4 people)? That's like putting down maybe 2 parts of a synergy down after initial interactions?
If someone is winning at turn 8 or below, they're just playing to win, instead of playing to see what they can create.
Matured games tend to play around 45-60min, if not more.
Yeah I run very little removal but tons of protection to do my thing 😂 I have the most fun with synergy and consistency. I also goldfish a LOT so that might impact my play style. I have a buddy who runs 15-25 removal/counters and his decks aren't very good but he can hang with higher power decks because of it. He also runs like 14 mana rocks. That's 80/100 slots taken up. Leaves room for 20 pieces. If you build like that and have more than 10 decks it will begin to get boring brewing wise.
80/100 including lands*
i feel like you are mixing up power with archetypes. turbo vs mid range vs control. in high power and cedh midrange and control can easily play through stop attempts vs turbo who have more trouble with that.
Dang, this is a good metric!
Think almost all of my decks end up being a 2/3-4 because I wanna win in a more janky way, but still police the table. But like Demo lamented, once I've used my removal and not one else has any, someone else who's playing objectively stronger cards will eventually just win :/
Play more carddraw engines and/or recursion engines if possible in any way. If they do not have the removal to stop someone else from winning, they don't have the removal to stop your engines, giving you the ammunition to stop them as much as needed in turn. Once you established domninance over the battlefield, you can win in any janky way you like. If they don't scoop first, that is ...
Most of my decks are on the low end but I'm fine with that I win a lot but don't really care if I don't lol I do interact a lot but most of my removal is jank in itself lol I figure I won't focus on the best cards available and just use what I have
The one thing that you didn't address that I don't quite understand in this scale is why "4 star High Power - Optimized Decks and 5 Star All the Stops - Denial Decks" are segregated off from High Power Casual EDH and are instead a part of Tolerant Casual EDH. Would love to hear your take on this decision. Glad there's becoming more of a concerted effort to try and properly clarify Power Scales within the EDH community.
so the guy who made this is combing through the comments taking them into account.
I made that choice for two reasons: A) to reflect that many casual tables refrain from playing at the maximum level of stopping power (a high power non-cEDH Tergrid deck is a good example of that) and B) that adding anything more than 4 boxes hurt the model in terms of legibility.
Also note that in the bottom left it says that these ballparks are example format interpretations meant as a starting point for the user to define their own preferred ways to play EDH. The format can be shaped in any way the group prefers. It would be impossible to add all the possible boxes in there or to satisfy all players with only a few of them.
@@oneofthosebeebles Maybe you could consider relabeling the 'Tolerant Casual' region to make it more clear that this region describes decks that NEED more tolerant playgroups since it seems to instead be oftentimes read as BEING tolerant in some sense? Calling them 'Grindy Casual' might work better because that is what having multiple of those in the same playgroup will tend to turn the game into?
@@christiangreff5764 Thanks for the feedback. I have come across others who had issue with the term “tolerant” or at least would like to see that changed. The subtitle for it already says that these are decks that require a more tolerant table, so I’m not sure if making that even more explicit is going to be a solution for your concern. I do like Grindy Casual though. I’ll give it some thought.
I have.
1 cedh deck (fringe because of ultra budget)
3 high power
2 mid power
my opinion is that high control decks ruin fun more than high power decks. if you run a bunch of interaction to protect your win con, it's the same as a glass cannon cedh deck. you're focused on the win, not playing the game.
I think this is the same way most people rate their decks already because people rarely, in fact, almost never, rate a deck below a 5. Anything below 5 just about everyone would consider jank. So, that leaves 5 numbers. I don’t think the deep graph helps. It also doesn’t consider the player’s ability. A more experienced player brings the power level of a deck.
Great thing about commander: you get to choose who you play with. Dont be afraid to walk alway from a borderline-cEDH table or ask someone to put their "casual" Kinaan deck away. Problem is, there are too many babies that don't speak up and would rather whine during and after. Guess what, Magic is for everyone -- go make a pod with 3 other babies and you're golden 👶
It for sure is a better way of evaluating a deck than hey I am playing a 7!
Personally I think most of my decks will be around High power casual EDH and Tolerant casual EDH. I like to play a lot of removal and try to have several ways of stopping my opponents even in more janky commanders. For my Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain deck, I think that one is a Glass Cannon cEDH deck. The deck can in theory win at turn 1, If given a Godhand but can quite reliably win around turn 3-4 BUT it has no interaction at all. It is just focused on a single goal: Put my whole deck on the table and win by having a card on the board which says 'you win if you can't draw a card.' (e.g. Laboratory Maniac)
Chaos decks with no win cons are basically just insulting to your pod.
agreed
This chart is definitely more accurate than most power level rankings, but it's also utterly useless. The purpose of ranking power levels is to simplify rule 0 discussions with randos; braking out this chart doesn't simplify anything.
So a 4* that can win on turn 5-8 with 5* control aspect that can interact is... Tolerant casual?
No I definitely don't agree. I also don't think decks aiming to win turns 5-8 with low interaction are at all cedh.
"Glass cannon never wins"
*cEDH Godo enters the chat*
Okay
Glass cannon never wins. That's why Godo hasn't won an tournaments in years.
@@a.velderrain8849 I didn't know that winning a tournament is the only way anyone can ever win a commander game...
@@a.velderrain8849 Mox Masters 28 January 2023 Godo took first place in a cEDH tournament of 128 people. But yes, years...
@@mobius3339 That was literally more than a year ago, therefore years.
It would have to be 2+ years to qualify as years.@mobius3339
I strongly dislike calling the High Power decks 'near cEDH'. The two are vastly different. I'll give three of my strongest decks as an example:
My Voja deck is about a 4/2. It is very high power, consistently attempts a win on turns 5 or 6, and holds up just enough removal to deal with the worst threats my of my opponents. A typical game goes: Turns 1-3, ramp hard. Turn 4, cast Voja. Turn 5, swing with Voja, get value and an overwhelming board state. Turn 6, win.
My Rionya deck is a 5/1, borderline cEDH. It has at least two turn 1 win lines, although both require having the correct 5 cards in my opening hand (and one of them requires going late in turn order so that I get enough triggers off of Dockside). Of the last 4 games I've played, I've presented a turn 2 win attempt once and a turn 3 win attempt twice. Average win attempt is probably about turn 4. The deck is VERY fragile, however, which is why it's only borderline cEDH. A single piece of hate or instant speed removal to wreck my combo and the deck has no way to recover - it'll just sit there and durdle for another 10 turns hoping for the right topdeck.
My Azami deck is true cEDH (although not a top tier one), clocking in at about a 5/4. It has multiple possible turn one wins, about a dozen tutors for consistency, and runs 25+ pieces of interaction. The only thing holding the deck back is the mono-blue color identity which limits me from running the best possible combo lines (Breach+Freeze or Forbidden+Thoracle). Instead, I have to rely on Scepter+Reversal for my main combo (with a few more obscure options as backup win cons).
These are three very different decks. I would never bring my Voja deck to a cEDH table, and I would only try my Rionya deck if I knew that the rest of the table was running glass cannon decks themselves.
I strongly disagree that high power casual can be considered in contention for cEDH. A tuned miirym deck that spams out dragons could easily win on average turn 6. This deck, however, would not stand a chance at a cEDH table. cEDH is a well defined meta where every deck is using cards from the same 400-500 card pool (with a few exceptions). cEDH is easy to see and define, where everything else is a bit more difficult
Dinosaurs are not cedh and can win in 5 turns if you do nothing. That said, running a bunch of board wipes just to reset the game over and over again is quite boring. I prefer 3 games in a couple hours rather than 1 really long really boring game.
Budget is a good indicator
*nervously looking at my full secret lair 5000$ jank deck*
Hardly. If I foil out an old border only deck and it becomes $5000, it's only because those 7th Edition foils are so damn expensive, especially for cards that only had one foil printing in said border. I foil all my decks, so even decks that would normally cost $50 can go above $100 simply because foils (usually) cost more.
@@crimsonleg4237 1% of cases
@@froggystrap1232 1% of cases
"This glass cannon deck you're never going to win me"
Me: Winning cedh games by turn 3 or 4 with Rowan, scion of war, that has no interaction.
your cedh opponents have no counterspells or removal? i find that hard to believe.
@@edhdeckbuilding cedh is getting more and more about protecting your own game plan than stopping other players' game plans. Removal isn't critical when Thassa's Oracle is the fastest and most efficient way to win the game. For example, the top 2 decks of the most recent tournament had Red Blast and Pyroblast as the only non-creature removal. They play about 10 counterspells but the idea is more about protecting your own win. I've lost cedh games where I didn't even get a turn 1, and I'm not hard mulliganing for Forces in a singleton format.
@@edhdeckbuilding That's the best part - Last time I played it, I had Boseiju, Who Shelters All in play. They had counters. They couldnt counter my hailfire.
My yawgmoth thran physician deck with sol ring and dark ritual for the only fast mana and slow tutors under $5.00s is a turn 5-8 high power casual deck. Def not cedh.
Cedh = 1-5
High pow= 6-8
Mid pow=9-12
See, jank is kinda wild card-esk. Most of mine are jank, but I have two high power decks. But I have had jank decks go crazy against high-level decks, and though it may be luck, it also might be because the person has no clue what you're doing or do not know about janky combos so there is the element of surprise.