Is EDHREC ruining commander?
Commander (EDH) forum
Posted on Nov. 16, 2017, 7:37 a.m. by Suns_Champion
Hi all! Discussion time!
I saw an article somewhere with a similar title to this. I didn't read the article and couldn't find where I saw it but the topic still intrigued me.
Is EDHREC ruining how we see, build, and give advice on commander decks?
By looking at what other people have done/are doing, does that take the fun and creativity out of deckbuilding or is it just practical to use the best resource available?
By looking at the most used/popular cards available, do we miss the hidden gems for our commanders?
Let's talk! If anyone knows the article I'm thinking about please post it!
KingMathoro says... #3
I would say it depends on the player. The newer player will most likely just take it's word for granted while the more experienced player looks for cards that they may have not thought about using before or it helps give that player thoughts on potentially what an opponent is bringing firepower wise .I personally see it as a nice resource to have.
November 16, 2017 8:09 a.m.
hookedonkronix says... #4
It's an excellent tool to use when building an edh deck. It doesn't take the real leg work out of designing a deck but it can give a solid foundation to start the build from. I can't think of a logical reason as to why card suggestions coming from edhrec could be seen as ruining EDH, thats a bit of an outrageous claim. That's the same as saying that tappedout is ruining mtg by making deck crafting too easy.
November 16, 2017 8:42 a.m.
Gidgetimer says... #5
The only time EDHrec is a problem is when people forget that it is a tool to see what other people are running and start using it as a list of what should be in a deck. As Winterblast said the card quality as a whole is underwhelming and taking the 64 most popular spells and 35 most popular lands is a sure way to make a horrible deck.
November 16, 2017 11:46 a.m.
If you don't understand why a card is in a deck, you are not going to be able to pilot the deck very well. But edhrec is good to look when building a deck to see if anything you had not heard of or just forgot about. You still need to learn how to build a deck so that each card fills a purpose, and you understand why you choose it: either its the best that fits the decks theme, or its a budget replacement, or its the best at doing something (in your opinion).
November 16, 2017 4:46 p.m.
It definitely shortcuts doing a gatherer search in the colours of your commander (plus colourless of course), however you don't get anywhere near as much value.
For players new to EDH, the best place to start will always be the precons. Not just because they give you stuff like Sol Ring which it's rare for players outside of vintage to need, but because most of the decks provide the fundamental building blocks of a commander deck when you evaluate the card choices within that.
But the problem with EDHREC is that it gives you synergy scores for each card against that commander and while they're ok, the weighting can be very off for some cards (especially lands) and it is easy for a new player to treat this as gospel. Just like with the percent competitive score on Tappedout, you will get unknowing players gravitate to the high synergy cards.
November 16, 2017 5:24 p.m.
Rabid_Wombat says... #8
One thing I've noticed with EDHREC is that the most popular cards can also sometimes be the cheapest....which (as we all know too well) is quite often not the best option for an edh deck that wants to win lots.
But having said that, EDHREC is my first stop when building budget decks.
However, if I'm building a non-budget deck though I will try to Brainstorm for a few days on what should be included with a certain Commander and after assembling the deck I'll allow myself to check out EDHREC. My crew Despises netdecks in general so I'm forced into trying to be original with deck construction.
November 16, 2017 7:24 p.m.
I don't think EDHREC is ruining the game, but I think there's some truth in the statement. When I think of playing magic I get thrilled by the idea of building my own deck from scratch and having fun with other players.
There are some who prefer to play, and play to win, and netdeck as such. I don't like playing versus 3 kess players with the same deck only differentiated by a few cards. I do like playing versus different and original decks.
I DO use EDHREC, but as others said here, it's a tool for me. I build my deck without checking, add a 150 cards or so and skim down to 70-ish. After building my deck I check EDHREC for cards I might have missed, or strategies I didn't initially think of.
I do also think that players who don't put effort in their decks, and take most of it off someone else's list will miss gems some of us did think of, by browsing the gatherer or their collection. And well lastly, for me deckbuilding is fun and a big plus for the game. I feel proud when my janky brew win 1/10 games, but I wouldn't feel proud if I used a competitive list and won all games that night.
November 17, 2017 7:04 a.m.
Hyperalgialysis says... #10
Does it ruin the format? Absolutely not. Does it rob players of feeling the satisfaction of brewing? Aboslutely. I think the topic has been thoroughly covered above, but I will compare it to looking up top 8 deck lists. A friend of mine always buys and plays the deck that won the pro tour, every time there is a top deck he buys it. The problem is he doesn't understand how to use the sideboard correctly, and with the exception of the red deck, most of the interactions these decks contain. He usually does poorly at fnm. I think that anyone using these resources can do well, just on a player by player basis. It is nice to have a place that shows me cards I may have overlooked when building, but I would never solely rely on it.
November 17, 2017 9:35 a.m.
Steelspike says... #11
As with many others here, I use EDHrec purely for supplemental purposes.
I find a good card that I want to build a deck round and begin with stuff in my collection. Most times I'll only get 3 or 4 card ideas from edhrec, and only if I know they'll augment my current build.
I used to know a guy who would absolutely deny netdecking when called out on it. I mean, get SUPER butthurt and not show up for a week or two to our LGS. We knew he was netdecking because he's not creative enough to come up with some of the combos he was throwing out there. He would also get really confused when we would suggest some obvious synergies with some of his cards that he didn't have in the deck that ANYONE else would've thought to include.
Anyway, I'm getting rambly... In summation, I only hate netdeckers that build multi-thousand dollar decks that don't lose because they can afford all the expensive cards (IE. Candelabra of Tawnos, for example).
I firmly believe nedecking is counter intuitive to the entire deck building process. Your deck should be yours. Not someone else's that you try to pass off as an original.
November 17, 2017 2:25 p.m.
fadelightningmm says... #13
Edhrec is only ruining edh in the sense that decks are so similar now. If I sit down at a table I already can tell how a deck will play because Ive played against. I like edh for the variety. Edhrec kills the variety. That being said I do use it. To see if there are cards that I missed in my own creation.
November 18, 2017 9:18 a.m.
RedUndead40 says... #14
No. Its more of a supplemental resource. I myself use it regularly but I have never just straight copied a deck list from it. I still use my usual gatherer advanced searches to really make it my own.
That being said, if someone who is less attuned to deck building than myself wants to copy a whole deck list from it, who cares? Some people aren't good at building a deck from the ground up. Should they be punished for that by forcing them to build crappy decks without a proper reference point? No. That would be unhealthy for the format more than anything else.
December 5, 2017 12:42 p.m.
I think its a good tool for beginner players and sometimes it can be helpful. However I've found that it stifles creativity for myself personally and because of that I've stopped using it in favor of working things out on my own. It takes that personal touch out of deck building that I love so much. As for Ruining? Well, I feel that for each person they're going to have a different experience with it. For me, I tend to stay away from it most times because of what I get out of magic. however for someone just jumping into the format? I think its a good thing.
I hope my answer is satisfactory. :)
December 14, 2017 7:49 a.m.
Captain_Howel says... #16
I might be able to offer a bit of insight here. I'm new to EDH, but not new to Magic; I started during the original Ravnica block, played casually with the precon Simic deck from that block (the one with Experiment Kraj and the infamous Protean Hulk), ruined the deck by swapping in huge green creatures without any understanding of deck construction, and then lost interest a little after Lorwyn came out and the only person I had left to play with was a high school friend who seemed to take great joy in crushing me repeatedly with a vicious Selesnya Elf tribal deck. I recently got back into the game and just finished building my first deck for the format, using EDHREC for reference at times. I figured some thoughts on my building experience might be helpful to the discussion.
The only thing I knew I wanted to do was build a deck featuring my all-time favorite card, Mycoloth. A friend suggested using Thromok the Insatiable, which immediately caught my attention; I love the Devour ability, and that right there was a very potent use of it. The prospect of picking out 100 cards seemed very daunting to me; I was so used to 60-card decks with 2 or 4 of everything, if not entirely precon. I looked through the 400 or so cards I already owned, and besides basic lands, only 15 of them stood out as cards that could even conceivably fit the deck. I would need to research a lot.
At this point, I knew of 6 resources: MTG Wiki, EDHREC, TCC, TappedOut, magiccards.info, and Commander's Brew (specifically Episode 49: Gruul Tokens). I used TCC to pick out sleeves, a deckbox, and custom tokens. TCC's two-color mana base video showcased a base that was WAY out of my budget, while Commander's Brew's mana base used way too many taplands (Gruul's gotta have speed, yo!). I ended up building the mana base mostly on my own using MTG Wiki to pick out affordable nonbasic lands. For the rest of the deck, EDHREC was a big help, but was not the gospel.
At least one of you mentioned the synergy rating below each card. Looking at Thromok's page, I could not for the life of me figure out any rhyme or reason to the synergy ratings for each card, so I just ignored them. EDHREC made it easy to fill up the deck initially, but I knew that any given deck was not simply going to have most of the 100 most popular cards with a few oddball picks, that certain picks would need a specific build to support them (e.g. Krenko, Mob Boss would not work well in my deck given only 3 other cards in the deck produce Goblins), and that certain aspects that might be key in the deck would not be represented in the top picks.
Thromok's All-You-Can-Eat Buffet took a month to build, and in the end contained only 5 cards I already owned. I went from "how will I come up with ~90 cards to add to this?" to "how will I cut this down to just 100 cards from the ~150 here that all feel so essential?" I just counted, and here's some insights about the 61 non-land cards: the deck has 17 of the 28 Signature Cards/Top Cards from the EDHREC page. 14 cards in the deck aren't listed on the EDHREC page, of which 1 was suggested by a personal friend, 2 came from Commander's Brew's build, and 11 were handpicked by me while looking for solutions on magiccards.info and the like.
So I did lean on EDHREC pretty heavily, but did my best to think for myself too. I think I'll be able to go without it more as I become more experienced. I've got several ideas for future decks and I'm looking to challenge myself with each one, so maybe I'll build one with a challenge like "pick 50 cards excluding basic lands without looking at EDHREC."
Hope this helps!
December 16, 2017 3:05 a.m.
Captain_Howel says... #17
Shit, I just remembered we're not supposed to post decks in this forum, and now I can't delete the comment. Sorry about that.
Winterblast says... #2
The main problem with edhrec is that it mostly gives really bad advice on what to put into a deck. The best strategies for a commander aren't even represented by the suggestions. If people build according to edhrec they will get an underwhelming deck for the legend of their choice.
November 16, 2017 8 a.m.