This is a very good resource--nice work! I do have a request, though. Would it be possible to explain why the banned cards are banned?

Though some have clear reasons, such as Griselbrand being a powerhouse storm commander like Sidisi, Undead Vizier with an Ad Nauseam in deck, I just don't personally agree with all of the choices. An example would be that Library of Alexandria is banned yet similarly powerful cards like Candelabra of Tawnos are legal. Sundering Titan I couldn't even tell you why it was banned from a competitive standpoint, and from a casual standpoint of it being too powerful, Jokulhaups should be banned instead.

I'll probably do it, but because of these discrepancies, it'll take some amount of time.

I got you. No problem if you can't make it work. Good luck!

@Scytec, @DrkNinja, @kamelyan, @Silverdrake, @multimedia

Hey guys, this is my first time asking for the help of a lot of people, umm... so I don't know how to do this exactly, but I would love some criticism before I start to try to put much more time into it, or promote it a lot. I previously worked on a primer for competitive EDH, Why Every Commander is Competitive, and thought, oh, if I do one on casual/mid-level EDH I could make a primer for all of EDH, expecting to just put in the same amount of time, I was dead wrong.

With the lack of a clearly defined goal, reasonable budgets included, and the theory behind politics, etiquette, much more sub-themes, and more beatdown in casual to pub-stomp levels, I realized slowly this would take a lot more than I easily could write up, so I am concerned I have missed large portions (other than the general deckbuilding section I am writing up).

I originally wanted to set up a part of this primer where I explain all of the recommended cards, like I did for cEDH, but realized with the massive increase in the number of decks that could be made, that recommended cards grew exponentially, like with something very specific, like cantrips, I might start with an effect like Brainstorm, Ponder, Preordain, Serum Visions, and Sleight of Hand, but then a mill deck might rather Thought Scour or Visions of Beyond, a storm deck might rather Quicken for instant speed shenanigans, as you can see all of these are good cards, but since there are tons more cards to name, it could take effectively forever to name all of the possible ways to build up each possible variation of each sub-theme and the cards that could go in them.

Another part of this was going to be on playing the decks themselves, and I would split it up into archetypes (I might still do this), so 'How to play Aggro', 'How to play Control', etc. but I feel like with different playgroups and house rules, that it could vary greatly. If I write in the 'How to play Control', "In the late game, you should hold up a land you don't need to play as though it was a real counterspell or removal card. Bluffing as though a card that is useful is more important than a random land in many cases." this might work in my meta, but I don't know enough about other metas to accurately say that.

The point is, I'd like other great helpers advice, if you don't have any, just ignore me, I apologize if I should ask others to help me out!

I'd love to help write some of this actually, I have created a Magic website with the intent to get a bunch of players to write articles from different view points. It failed as only one other player and myself ever ended up writing articles, and became too much for us. Ironically I've already wrote an article on politics.

Thanks DrkNinja, what was the website called, is it still up?

The Planeswalker Societyis the name, and I'd love to do it again, but I just can't find the right people to get it done.

Honestly, I'd love to say me, but I just couldn't. I really don't think I could because that is thoughtful journalism (albeit on a topic I am well versed in) and I don't write well enough to pull it off. I am currently on the little chat thing though xD, the website is super cool!

Thought about asking the T/O community but then I thought they probably wouldn't want me to recruit other people to another site...

That is fair, hey... mind if I ask some questions about the site, you've been on like 5 years more than me, so first of all, what is the Forums thing, I don't really understand it. Secondly how do I set up other accounts as separate 'editors' on a decklist?

@SynergyBuild - What is the final goal here? Are you trying to coalesce all information about EDH? Are you trying to create a great reference point for people getting into the format? People hoping to escalate their abilities and deckbuilding? I didn't see any clarification in your post, sorry if I missed it. I read most of your current summation, avoiding the color breakdown just because I'm moderately familiar already. Also, thanks for tagging me here, I appreciate it.

Sorry Im at FNM, this is generally supposed to introduce general EDH to newer player who already know how to play MTG and wany to try this format. Apologies if I didn't make that clear.

No worries, it just changes the recommendations.

I personally would refrain from such hard statements as commander is for exactly four people, typically that is the case and i would mention that it is the most common, but at its heart it is a multiplayer format, I personally have played a 9 person free for all...best game I've ever played, insanely fun. Haha.

Out of curiosity why did you just add Sultai to the color breakdown when you also have 4 other Clans and 5 Shards?

I really like the combo suggestions, those are excellent, but you're going to have tons of update as you find/people suggest more. I personally would refrain from anything over 3 cards as 4 card combos or more are a little iffy and very ridiculous. :p

Etiquette is another part of this I appreciated. However, when making suggestions and recommendations I would use the blanket rules set forth by the Commander Rules Committee and refrain from trying to explain the potentially infinite number of house rules. Though I would mention the fact that they exist and are not uncommon, many, many play groups have different rules and ban lists and it would be impossible to list them all. I feel as though it would be much easier on you if you just took the rules that people stepping outside their regular playgroup would follow.

Love the inclusion of the main archetypes and additional sub-themes, that is excellent. You could potentially include of list of perhaps the top 3 commanders in each color, then expand upon that to include the Guilds, clans, and shards. That would be tons of research however, so I understand if you don't want to include that. Perhaps instead you could include a few popular commanders for each Sub-Theme you have listed so people could get a start to a theme they think they will enjoy. :p

As for the recommended cards, I would restrict it to cards that could potentially be played in every deck of a given color. Yes to Brainstorm and Cyclonic Rift, not to Thought Scour and Quicken. People looking to tune decks will hopefully come across these more situational cards in their research process, but I am all for giving people a solid start. Honestly I think EDHRec should get a mention here...I realize they are a little controversial, but in my opinion more information is virtually always better.

Unfortunately this is all in am coming up with currently, if I thin of more I will let you know, feel free to ignore me and/or take what I say with a grain of salt, I can merely make recommendations based on what I would have liked to have seen when I was a newer player. Best of luck to you. Hopefully this helps even if just a little. Haha. You've certainly helped me quite a bit with my brews and I really appreciate that.

I'll certaijly give a mention to manabasecrafter and edhrec in the 'Additional Resources' section, as well as obviously the EDH rules committee. I only went over the 5 colors in the tab 'The Colors', so I don't know what you mean with sultai, but i probably misunderstand.

I am pretty tired for today after FNM though, so I'll make changes tommorow, but I like the ideas you gave and am very happy to have them. I wont ignore any of the ones you thought of!

Sorry, Sultai was under combos, not colors. That's my bad. Haha.

@SynergyBuild Forums is just where a forum where you can talk about different topics, that aren't directly about a deck or card. It could be about a format, about rules changes, bans, outer space, why the sky is blue, etc.

Second, there is a "share list" that has an option beside it that says "Shared users can edit" when you check the box. This means multiple users are listed as the creator and multiple people can make changes to the deck mainboard, description etc, but cannot add other shared users.

Also I pretty much agree with everything Scytec said, especially the Recommended cards (which I think should include a list of EDH Staples for every color) part.

I also think the deckbuilding process is more fluid than the way you describe it. I think a foundation and pillars to deckbuilding may be a better way to go with this.

DrkNinja Well thanks for the info! That will really help out! Onto the hard part, as to why I explain deckbuilding so rigidly...

Yes, deckbuilding happens in many ways, I simply want a good way to be used, not to describe every one. If a newer player can use the deckbuilding part to simply make a good deck that follows their playstyle, is within their budget, and works well in their playgroup, I can be happy, despite not explaining all of the details of deckbuilding.

To be hoenst, I don't think anyone knows or needs to know every way to deckbuild at all, and think everyone has a different take on it. I use a different method than I am using here personally, but I could hardly teach my method, despite it being extremely efficient (time-efficient, not energy efficient, I built helped build a friend a deck immediately before FNM, 15 minutes before the pods started xD), I just don't think it is reasonable to teach someone it when they are just starting to learn the format and want a deck to play with some friends.

I hope you can understand my reasoning, but I will make sure to add a disclaimer explaining that there are tons of other ways and this is simply a decent option for newer players to EDH deckbuilding. Is that cool as a compromise?

@Scytec To start, the easy ones, I had Sultai under the Combos tab because I was just righting what came to me for 2-1 card combos, which I will add more, like Aurelia, the Warleader/Helm of the Host in boros, etc. Secondly the combos will all be 1-2 card combos, no more, despite good 3+ card combos existing, to keep it simple two cards or less will be my goal.

Games with 2-3 players or 5+ players are not generally the focus when speaking about deckbuilding, I mean how many decks have you built with the idea of stomping a 9 player game with it. That game does sound insanely fun though, don't get me wrong, but most of the time, 4 players is the norm, and should be expected, and I am sure you can imagine the difficulty of teaching the differences in gameplay at 2-3 players or 9 players, imagine 1 for 1ing someone in a 9 player game, that would be useless, and Grasp of Fate would be godly, Selvala, Explorer Returned would make like 7 mana and skyrocket your lifetotal, and Insurrection would kill half the board turn 5, ugh. As you can see, there are difficult issues when dealing teaching with more players.

However, most people don't deckbuild for that, but instead play them for fun, kinda like a house rule or something, and I find that perfectly acceptable to do. Under the EDH/Commander Theory section, nothing in it's contents (other than The Aggro Problem's math, but the conclusion is the same) need to be changed for 5+ players, it is simply not a problem there, Etiquette, Archetypes, Sub-Themes, Politics, these stay relatively the same (okay politics gets 10x more confusing, but it is the same ideas just repeated over and over). Now, for the rules and stuff, EDH is generally 4 players, dual commander was noted on, but I assume you aren't speaking of dual commander/French, so I'll drop that point. Anything other than 4 players is akin to a house rule in the most general of terms, and that is why I don't go over it, simply put.

The next thing is the card recommendations and staples, I'll hold off on that for now, and probably will get back to it. I think I will go over popular commanders for each sub-theme and color combination sooner or later too, but I want to finish up the deckbuilding section first.

Quick Question for All of You!

What other resources should I add to the Additional Resources section other than the 'Recommended Commanders', 'EDHrec', and 'Manabasecrafter', anything else I can toss in?

Scryfall & DeckStats (Plus EDHRec & Manabasecrafter) are vital to my deck building process. Scryfall is just a better Gatherer, and Deckstats breaks down your deck even further than T/O does as well as offering proxies to test your deck.

Also you kinda proved my point on the deckbuilding thing, there ARE so many ways to build a deck So give them a foundation and pillars to build by. Like for instance, when you build a deck the first thing you want to do is find a definition for your deck, that can be in the form of one card, a commander, a theme, a certain win condition, flavor, a combo, a card interaction, the level of fun you want to offer the table, how political you want the deck to be, etc. So a foundation of deckbuilding is defining the purpose of the deck. Then you have pillars like Card Advantage, Win Conditions, Color Selection, Budget, and competitive-ness/Your Meta that you use to help build the deck as a whole. The difference being that the player only has to define the deck first and then they can build each pillar up individually in any order vs following steps in a process.

The only reason I mention it, is because you can build a deck that doesn't have a perfect mana curve, or avg CMC cost, or isn't optimal land base and still have fun; which is the entire point of EDH in its purest conceptions. So give people guidelines and then you can add tips like how to balance a mana curve or creating a better land base and what that looks like.

I forgot gatherer... I feel stupid. I'll add Scryfall and Deckstats too, thank!

I believe we are in agreement on the second part!

I apologize for not being able to really add anything here. While I am not personally a fan of the whole Commander / EDH format your guide is very well thought out, insightful and discusses things I don't think about that often when it comes to the format. I only own one Commander deck, but it's so I can still play magic with people if they aren't playing any other format.

That is very kind of you to say, hydrothermia, and I am glad you have a Commander deck to play with! What is the commander?

SynergyBuild, currently it's Oloro, Ageless Ascetic when Wizard's released the 2013 Commander decks. I do have the deck posted here and it's heavily altered, but I mainly focus on the Modern format. I may pick up Aminatou, the Fateshifter's eventually maybe even Lord Windgrace cause he's old school magic lore.

Flattered to be mentioned here.
As some of the other guys here have mentioned, there's so many possible routes you can take deckbuilding in its difficult if not impossible to get a little coverage on everything. Something else that might be worth throwing in there is MythicSpoiler. There's a thesaurus function on the site that I've yet to find anywhere else. Basically if you pick a card, it'll give you 3 cards that function similarly, all hand-picked by the people that run the site. Incredibly helpful for fleshing out decks with cards you may not have ever heard of otherwise.

Beyond that there's just. So much to say. You could write an entire novel on EDH and still not cover everything.