Casual is starting to feel meaningless...
Commander (EDH) forum
Posted on Sept. 3, 2020, 7:45 p.m. by UpperDeckerTaco
I've done it. I have made the full jump to cEDH and I feel almost unmotivated to brew anymore, due to the fact that every deck I attempt to build, I find myself saying, "There are better cards that can work for this".
I have an issue of liking the ability to win and do powerful things in one turn, and also hate being "That Guy".
Does anyone else feel this way about EDH? What would you recommend to stifle the monotonous feeling of building cEDH decks by default or even by "accident"?
You can also implement budgetary constraints that will help keep you deck tuned, but not necessarily cEDH.
This can add an additional challenge to brewing.
September 3, 2020 7:48 p.m.
King_marchesa says... #4
I like using companions as a restrictor, that way you are only limited to a certain card pool also I would suggest putting "pet cards" into your deck to make the experience more enjoyable and make your decks little less competitive. Another thing you can do is take a commander and only use some of its colors. This is a really neat thing that lets you dig deep and find cool synergies and fun and powerful card interactions. Whenever I try to make deck too good it always ends up not being fun so I try to make a good fun deck that runs well but also is quirky and enjoyable to play. If you love fast explosive turns maybe you should find a group of cedh player who can actually compete with your decks. Also it's also fun to try to make a kind of fringe commander competitive. Overall I think that you have to find a commander you like and go with it.
September 3, 2020 7:54 p.m.
SynergyBuild says... #5
Massacar I don't suggest that, because I did it myself.
I've since just made budget cEDH decks that cost $10 and win turn 4 every game (Yisan, the Wanderer Bard) or $100 Hermit Druid Sultai piles and stuff.
Restricting yourself means that your gameplay will just get more boring, as it means you have a lower card pool and make games duller as you refine your skills more and more.
King_marchesa, same issue, now you just make less consistent cEDH decks.
September 3, 2020 7:57 p.m.
EleshNornsFs says... #7
I have definitely hit that point. I played before EDH got solved and cEDH became it's own thing. I took a 3 year break and came back to see everything had changed. I had a hard time building a deck without just trying to refine things and ending up netdecking competitive lists. The best thing I can say is to try budget building and embracing a lower power level. You limit your card pool, but more options become actually viable at lower tiers. There isn't really much you can other than try and change your whole mindset. Which is easier said than done. Do with that what you will.
September 3, 2020 11:27 p.m.
PhotogenicParasympathetic says... #8
Restrictions are a great way to work around this - self-impose a certain tribe (I've build scout tribal, elemental tribal [before it was cool], cleric tribal [no shadowborns], etc.), or give yourself a CMC to build around (a friend of mine has a deck called "Ballet Bears" made up exclusively of 2/2's for 2 mana, and built a deck he called the "Triple decker" of only three mana spells, and had both a wishboard and a contraption deck to be the other two decks), or perhaps choose an obscure commander to tune to perfection (one of my best decks is helmed by Toshiro Umezawa, chosen as an "I bet no one's run into this commander before"), or pick a powerful commander like Breya, Etherium Shaper, but build the deck with no tutors, only eggs that sacrifice to draw cards.
There's loads of ways to force yourself to get creative, which will all yield good decks that can hold their own without becoming cEDH decks.
September 3, 2020 11:45 p.m.
Truthfully, the sheer number of tier 2 and tier 3 viable decks in cEDH is pretty astounding. The complexities of understanding how each of these decks interact or how typical game play patterns proceed is highly nuanced and extremely interesting (to me at least). The number of potential games states and how to play in them correctly is something that I, personally, always find refreshing, Competitive EDH is indeed pretty boring when played with unskilled players playing stock lists badly. But that also isn't competitive EDH, it's "competitive", and this is really what 99% of "competitive" matches are. Yes, those are boring and stale, but this is because players make the same mistakes over and over and over again playing the same pattern over and over and over again (which really begs the question of how players can continuously repeat the same mistakes time after time), but true competitive level play is extremely interesting because of the challenging complexities of the delicate game states that are created.
I don't even particularly believe that the cards comprising a particular deck list has much to do with whether or not games feel stale and monotonous. This feeling has a lot more to do with the quality of play itself as repetitive ineffectual game play patterns will always feel stale and monotonous and this is possible in matches with cEDH decks or straight out of the box precons. To me, it sounds more like what you've become bored by is the low quality of skillful play you often find yourself slogging through. The solution to that is to simply find more skillful players/opponents and play the game in a more interesting, exciting fashion. There's nothing like the thrill of a double digit effects layered stack pile that gets resolved in the most convoluted of fashions to leave everyone with a little something they wanted but also less than they hoped for. I had a crazy double Ad Naus 9 effect stack pile the other day where the stack was manipulated to have the ultimate result wind up using the Ad Nauseams to kill the casting players, totally wild and astonishingly exciting.
September 4, 2020 12:37 a.m.
TriusMalarky says... #10
I just don't buy cards more than $3 for EDH. Now, I'm not a cEDH player by any means(I couldn't be even if I proxied, nobody around plays cEDH), but my decks do tend to be on the more powerful side(except my monocolor decks. They suck). My Mairsil deck is currently unbeaten, my Korvold deck is pretty much 5 cards and a manabase away from my optimal list(that's not really counting some slightly better cards like Goblin Bombardment, but I do have a lot of the good cards for it), my Rainbow Sisay and Tuvasa decks sort of have to be screwed over early or they'll dominate lategame(although their value engines aren't as good as Korvold's.)
So far my decks are the ones to beat in my playgroup, mostly because I'm the only one that takes deckbuilding seriously. Maybe if I start losing I'll do more than try to make my worse decks better, but idk.
September 4, 2020 10:24 a.m.
FormOverFunction says... #11
I’m still confused/alarmed that cEDH even exists. That, of course, isn’t entirely true because I know who M:tG players are...but you know what I’m getting at. I always saw EDH as a reprieve from standard/modern/etc and should have expected it to get dragged into the main channel of the M:tG river (ESPECIALLY when WotC started making EDH-specific stuff). Check out my decks- they’re nothing BUT restrictions because that is the biggest thing I like about M:tG. You might enjoy going that direction, even if just for a little while. It’s pretty liberating when you tip your scope more towards the concept of “When you get to walk to a table of friends, you just won. The rest is just gravy.” Make something that is based on a fun/silly/personal idea. WotC has given us a LOT to work with. Try to make some use of it for fun, rather than just to deal the proper amount of damage. ::thumbs-up-emoji::
September 4, 2020 10:43 a.m.
RNR_Gaming says... #12
So, the most fun you're going to have from this point on is mastering the game; which is much harder and slower, though if you couple this with playing for actual stakes (prize support or betting your friends) it becomes quite enjoyable. Additionally, now is the best time for you with that mind set; wizards is releasing an abundance of product - find the diamonds in the piles of reprinted chaft :]
September 4, 2020 11:19 a.m.
UpperDeckerTaco
Unpopular but honest answer. There is a reason they say “ignorance is bliss”. You’ve become educated and aware enough of the wholistic meta and pool of edh that you reflexively build decks that are 90-95% optimal.
If you continue to try to “brew optimally”, you’re gonna burn out. Metas become solved just as assuredly as life must come to an end. The only remedy to prevent the burnout requires personal growth. This is to say:
You must start brewing suboptimally, on purpose, with the goal of making a deck that is more fun to play than it is viable. Fun is subjective, you’ll have to figure out what is “fun” personally. Fun also changes over time, which is strangely helpful in that your deck will never be “optimally fun” in the way that a cEDH deck will be “optimally competitive”.
You must accept that you’re going to start losing more. Be very careful here. There’s a line between willful ignorance of your mistakes, and being overbearing and blaming yourself for losses you couldn’t reasonably prevent. You must tread the fine line in the middle to prevent gameplay from becoming boring, simply by nature of the fact that your decks may be “worse” than the decks your opponents play.
This will take time. Be patient with “rediscovering the magic” (pun intended). Btw welcome to the senior club. Everyone who plays a format long enough goes through this. Some give up brewing and just try to play perfectly. Some go down the route I just laid out. Some give up the game entirely. Up to you which route to take.
September 4, 2020 4:27 p.m.
TriusMalarky says... #14
Lol I just try to take an entirely suboptimal play and run with it/make it as optimal as possible
Fun things have come of it. 5-color Multani 'Dredge' in Pioneer, Minecraft combo(also pioneer, but the combo doesn't actually work), indestructible flying cats(modern), true affinity(modern), esper pile-of-random-i-win-cards(probably modern), abzan counters w/outlast.
September 4, 2020 4:40 p.m.
FormOverFunction says... #15
DuTogira has hit the bullseye. Painfully so. Well done.
September 4, 2020 6:37 p.m.
I actually felt this way as well but I found a slightly different way of dealing with it. You are building your decks with the goal of winning. Instead of making bad decks (which as a brewer always feels kinda painful since it feels like you’re sacrificing part of the thing you enjoy doing) set a different goal for your deck besides winning you can set this as the only thing your deck tries to do or make it a self imposed prerequisite to winning. Let’s take an example of mono-red our photo us/goblin deck. Sounds like it’ll be pretty straight forward to pilot and get stale. Well set the goal to needing to sac 25 goblins in a single turn. Optimizing towards a game plan that doesn’t necessarily result in a win allows you “win” in your own way without necessarily making everyone else lose which should help prevent you feeling like “that guy”. If you’re still doing too well for your liking you can add in the deck building restrictions other have mentioned or add in more goals to reach. My personal favorite deck was Ramos with the goals of 1) producing 25 mana in a turn (without producing infinite). 2) draw 5 cards a turn 3) Play 2 eldrazi 4) cause general suffering to both myself and others. I added in a few deck building constraints 1) no colored cards 2) budget build with max price of $100 (this was mostly because I didn’t have money to spend on cards) 3) all non-basics can only produce colorless.
With that deck my “win” rate as far as other were concerned wasn’t completely dominating the games anymore but I still was having fun trying to optimize and win my way. Once I started doing that I stopped hating edh as much.
Best of luck to you in finding your fun.
September 5, 2020 9:58 a.m.
Build a cube next, it's a much more complicated deck building activity. And if you don't build it super high-powered like cEDH decks, it will give you an opportunity to use tons of cards that you aren't considering using anywhere else. It worked for me when my commander deck building experience felt stale.
September 5, 2020 10:40 a.m.
golgarigirl says... #18
I'm lucky enough that my playgroup consists of a good 20 people who are at various skill levels both play and deckbuild-wise. I've had to push myself into less competitive and more budget builds in addition to my normal fare (we're all sub-cEDH, but some days I feel like we get close). I also have gotten the chance to help brainstorm and build, as well as theorycraft/teach building other's decks, often in concepts and strategies that don't interest me personally, but are fun to figure out nonetheless.
September 6, 2020 12:35 a.m. Edited.
FormOverFunction says... #19
To piggyback on golgarigirl’s point; I think the play group one is in has a huge impact on the game. Maybe make a new deck and try some new folks? See what’s out there? All in all, it’s also possible you just need a break. I don’t want to make it seem like that isn’t an option either...
Dredge4life says... #2
You just embrace it, and borrow other decks if you want to play at a lower power level.
September 3, 2020 7:47 p.m.