There’s a progression that a lot of EDH (commander) players go through, after being introduced to the format and maybe borrowing a deck for some games we start out tossing together our first deck (or buying a pre constructed one) and inevitably we get our butts kicked. We then ask around, check online resources (like EDHRec.com) and slowly start upgrading our decks, making them more powerful and more optimized. After a while it starts to pay off and our decks are competitive enough to not go down without a fight and often even win.
The problem starts after that point, because on the high of having a well built deck the natural thing that many of us do next is to keep on upgrading it, aiming for perfection, we hunt down those stupidly expensive or hard to find power cards, we upgrade our mana bases, we build in lots of tutoring and redundancies and it works. Our decks get to a point where instead of having an even or slightly better than average odds of winning a game, we now have very high odds of winning against anyone without a deck tuned to the same level. And then the groans begin, first it’s audible groans whenever your opponents see you reveal what deck you’re playing and then if it’s particularly bad they groan when they see you sitting down at the table.
IMG: "Hi everyone! Guess what? I finally got the Imperial Seal I needed to upgrade my deck ...!" {GROAN}{GROAN}{GROAN}
There's nothing wrong with powerful decks but there is a need to think about the average power of the group you are playing with, being too much more OP than everyone else is no fun for anyone. To use a Pokemon analogy it's like if everyone else is using Charmanders to battle and you show up with a fully evolved Charizard. You will have no real challenge and your opponents will have a lousy time.
So what can you do to fight against this pattern?
Here’s 3 things that i’ve personal seen or tried that work (although it’s much harder the longer you have that reputation of playing groan worthy decks) -
1. Building multiple EDH decks with different levels of power and using the one at the right level for the group you are playing with.
PRO: Very Effective and Relatively Simple.
CON: Can be very expensive especially for newer players.
2. Building an EDH deck aimed at around the average level of the group you play with.
PRO: Cost Effective.
CON: Hard to balance as the individual levels of players and their decks can vary wildly in a group.
3. Building an EDH deck that can be leveled up or down by swapping a few cards.
PRO: Still more cost effective than the multiple deck strategy and it can surprise opponents who think they know your deck.
CON: Can be a bit fiddly and having extra “swap cards” for your deck means that it won’t fit into some of the standard 100 card deck boxes.
Some simple ways to change the power level of your decks are -
- Changing the number of tutors (more tutors = more consistent and more powerful),
- Changing the number of OP mana rocks (Sol Ring is an EDH staple but running other 0-1 cost mana accelerants significantly increase the power of a deck so maybe leave the Mana Crypt out if you are running a low power deck),
- and Changing the power of any combos you are using (a 2 card combo or a 1 card + commander combo is very powerful and scary for the group but if you change to 3 card combos or even 4+ card combos it is nowhere near as scary and in fact it will often impress the rest of the group if you can pull them off).
This article by Jason Alt on the 75% EDH deck building philosophy is also a good read.
BONUS SECTION
Inherently groan worthy things to be avoided outside of cEDH (competitive EDH) A.K.A. “Dick Moves”
Mass land destruction, Taking multiple extra turns and the entire Stax strategy (Stax is a strategy built around denying your opponents the ability to play often through “taxing” the cost of their spells). These actions which I consider the big 3 EDH “Dick Moves” are all problematic for the same reason - they stop people from actually playing the game but they don’t win the game at the same time.
Some not quite as bad but often problematic strategies are:
- Running a heap of tutors, it’s not a problem in itself but it does slow down the game and often ends up making your deck play out exactly the same every time (especially if you throw in a couple of 2 card instant win combos), NOTE: this is worsened if you run a commander who is either part of a 2 card combo or is able to tutor for things.
- Super fiddly turns, there’s a great joy that comes from that super late game turn when a player spends 10+ minutes doing lots of different things trying to either win themselves or to stop an opponent who is threatening a win, HOWEVER when your default turn from the mid-game onwards always takes that long but only results in small incremental payoffs it’s just F-ing annoying to all of your opponents.
- Let there be chaos, there are a number of cards particularly in red that can do crazy things like swapping control of everyones cards around (I’d consider Scrambleverse a prime example), this may seem fun and wacky but in reality it usually works out like this - everyone wastes 10+ minutes resolving things, the game hasn’t actually progressed and after the game is over it’s a major hassle to sort things out properly (especially if players are unlucky enough to be using the same sleeves).
NOTE: This article is based on my experiences at several different locations, but mainly at my LGS (Local Game Store) - shoutout to Kev and The Card House crew - where the average decks are at around a 6-7 on a 10 point power scale (where 1-2 are roughly thrown together piles, 5 is a pre-constructed deck and 9-10 would be cEDH level decks). Your group might have significant differences so working out the average power level and feelings of your own group is an important part of the process of getting rid of the groans.