When you see this image, how does it make you feel?

Oh wait, this is the internet, so I already know. This dude…he pisses you off, doesn’t he?

That’s the thing with George Lucas. Sure, he created the most successful film franchise of all time. He made something you probably adored. Chances are there is something incredible about one of his stories that inspired you at a young age; a story that was truly creative and inspiring.

And then he destroyed it. And why? Because he, like most of mankind, just doesn’t know how to leave something alone.

Welcome to EDH: IMHO. A diverse haven for passionate, casual weirdos who want to create stories with their friends through a game of Commander!

I hate sequels. You know why? Because they rarely ever suceed in raising the profile of a franchise. More often than not, they actually diminish it.

Boondock Saints. Pirates of the Caribbean. The Matrix. Countless franchises whose sequels are so truly bad that they almost make you regret seeing the usually-very-good original.

Sure, there are occasional exceptions. (Terminator 2 rules, duh) The Dark Knight – Editor
But in general, I’m tired of seeing great movies get ruined by poor sequels. As a writer, you do the hard work of creating a great story, amazing characters, and a captivating plot. All that’s left is to leave it alone and let history enjoy your work.

You’ve done the hard part: now just finish it.

This gif was brought to you by  Cars 2 aka I Guess Pixar really CAN Make a Bad Movie.

All this to say…sequels are tricky, guys.

Commander 2011 was a smash hit. The generals ruled, the decks had tons of staples, the mana-fixing was decent, and a great amount of fun was had by all.

Wizards were so taken aback by the success of Commander 2011 that they weren’t prepared to release a commander product in 2012. Nevertheless, a standard was set, and Commander would eventually begin having a new pre-constructed decks on a yearly basis.

The thing is….sequels are tricky, guys.

Just to be clear, these precons did very well commercially. Wizards is at a point where they have to try pretty hard for a release to be a financial failure.

That said, in terms of fun, I can comfortably say no release has ever done more damage to EDH.

We could talk about how True-Name Nemesis, a practically useless commander card, was such a legacy chase piece that it made one of the precons nigh-impossible to attain.

We could talk about how they didn’t print nearly enough of the decks, running out of supply when demand rolled into fervor.

But to express how badly this hurt the format, I don’t have to do that. I just have to talk about the five commanders they chose to lead each of these decks.

Oloro, Ageless Ascetic

Even before Oloro, Commander had become a format where you often just played certain colors to enable your combo, without ever actually casting your commander.

So what did wizards do? They printed a general that actually incentivized leaving your commander alone for the entirety of the game. If that wasn’t enough, Oloro gave already passive decks a way to not openly durdle, but build up a life total to hold off other players until they could Diabolic Revelation into all their combo pieces for the win.

…and to prolong that suffering as long as they possibly could.

Derevi, Empyrial Tactician

Oh, wonderful. Look, its Deveri. Like Oloro, Derevi it took a strategy that was already one of the most hated in the format (because who doesn’t love Static Orb, right?) and gave them the perfect general for the occasion.

On top of that, add in that she combos off with just about everything. (My name is Azami, Lady of Scrolls; I heard there was some fun for me to smash?)

As bad as Derevi is practically, she is even worse fundamentally. One of the first things a person learns about EDH is how commander tax works. It is so foundational that it seemed to actually subvert the very essence of the format when a card like this can just ignore it. To make matters worse, cheating commander tax just isn’t enough for Derevi: she has to embarrass it. Derevi doesn’t just skip the tax: she does it at instant speed.

What fun.

Jelava, Nephalia’s Scourge

Ok, well, this ones not too bad. Jeleva is pretty fair, all around. Let’s just make sure there aren’t any other strong generals in this deck….

Oh, yeah. Look, a general who is already roughly half of your game-winning combo! Huzzah!

Oh well, if they printed this, surely its gotta be the only combo piece general in this set…..

Prossh, Skyraider of Kher

Last of all, the single most destructive commander ever printed:

Marath, Will of the Wild

Ok, just kidding. Marath is fine. He just hangs with the wrong crowd.

Marath aside, when you look back at Commander 2013, you see a murderer’s row of un-fun generals. Like any legend, there are totally fun ways to build all of these decks. (except maybe Derevi…who has fun playing Derevi?) I built a Derevi and unblockables deck, and then realized that I had lost all my friends – Editor

In general, Wizards whiffed bad enough on these products that they came perilously close to undoing all the goodwill they created with casual commander two years previously. As you know, the most popular generals in the format tend to be the ones from the most recent set of precons, meaning people were actually suffering while learning about how to cause suffering for others at the same time.

So, here’s the good news. Wizards learned from Commander 2013, and their yearly precons were marked improvements.

No more legacy chase cards. No more underprinting.

Most of all, they created some truly fun commanders. In 2014, just one year after this fiasco, Wizards released mono-colored commander decks. They made what was, in my opinion, the single most fun set of commander precons that were ever printed.

Not only were the decks fun, but the generals from Commander 2014 succeeded in changing the game in a way that was still fun. This set was the first to create planeswalkers that could be the general of a deck, a concept that would have been very easy to muddle, but ended up creating enjoyable new twists in casual gameplay.

Not only that, but they actually refined some of their design shortcomings. In 2017, they debuted Eminence, allowing commander to affect the game from the command zone, but still incentivizing their pilots to actually play their generals. This mechanic was seen as a huge success, and showed that they learned from what they tried to do with Jeleva and Oloro.

Wizards has always seemed to just barely-kinda-sorta understand Commander. When you hear Mark Rosewater talk about Commander, it  feels like he just doesn’t understand how it is supposed to work, and that shows in the company’s design. For every Commander 2011, there seems to be a Commander 2013.

That said, the idea of creating cards for a casual format is a monumental challenge when you consider how much thought has to go into every single set. The truth is, more often than not, Wizards nails it. Yes, these generals still plague casual groups to this day, but Wizards did a great job of making sure there was only the one bad sequel.

So…basically the Dollars Trilogy. Commander is the Dollars Trilogy.

Kyle Somerfeldt

Kyle Somerfeldt is an avidly casual player of Commander. He loves movies, Japanese pro wrestling, and Sphinx Ambassador. Every week, he uses EDH IMHO to share his rambling philosophy regarding the format he loves.

But is this fair? What do we really know about vegetables?

Some like to party.

Some make great weapons; right, Clive Owen?

That’s right, mate.

And some just…

…explode.

Welcome to EDH: IMHO. A diverse haven for passionate, casual weirdos who want to create stories with their friends through a game of Commander!

Today, we continue our unlimited, running series evaluating the different options for ramp in commander. The beginning of a commander game is crucial, so its important to give plenty of consideration to your ramp passage.

Every time we Rate that Ramp, we invite a special celebrity evaluator on to help us know just what to do with these silly cards. This week’s guest is the star of 1982’s classic horror film and internationally acclaimed diabetes spokesperson Wilford Brimley. Thanks for joining us today, Wilf!

Today, Wilf wants to talk about vegetables. Exploding Vegetables, also known by its technically-correct-but-far-less-satisfying name, Explosive Vegetation. This was the first real ramp card I got excited about. After all, when you start playing commander, and you’ve got a hand full of seven drops, few things bring you more joy than seeing good ole’ veggies there to help get you there.

In format of big, explosive plays, who wouldn’t want more big, explosive vegetables?

And the stakes just get higher when you learn that Veggies is just the oft-forgotten middle child of this kind of ramp.

Meet its cool, mature older brother…

And the likeable, unassuming younger brother:

When I first started playing with my current group, we collectively loved “veggies” and friends. It seems to put you so far ahead, along with the fact that it’s incredibly helpful for manafixing, especially in decks with three or more colors. Suddenly, our cool seven drops were playable on turn five if we had a land. Even if we had cast our general once already, we probably had the mana to cast them again.

Which is why I am a little sad to say that these cards have slowly begun to fade out from our playgroup. Skyshroud Claim makes the occasional appearance, but the other two are going extinct quickly.

Why? Well, the short answer is that it costs four; for ramp, I’m afraid…

The big drawback of any ramp spell is the fact that you need it early, but don’t want it late. Nothing is worse than hoping for the perfect topdeck, only to get a ramp spell. Sometimes, in the care of Sol Ring and other cheap ramp, the upside you get from the early boost is worth the occasional late-game dead draw. Sol Ring even adds an available mana for you in the late game, giving your Black Sun’s Zenith one more toughness to cancel out, or one more card from Pull From Tomorrow.

But Veggies and friends, at four mana each, will rarely be something you can just tack onto your turn. Not only is it a dead draw, its converted mana cost makes it a comparatively expensive dead draw, keeping it from even piggybacking on another play in a convenient fashion.

The final problem is this: on turn four, is this what you really want?

Turn four is pretty important in Commander. Chances are, this is a turn where your commander is playable, perhaps for the first time. For white decks, you are finally within reach of a Wrath to stop the guy who got the god start. For blue, you’ve got the mana for Fact or Fiction.

As spoiled as it sounds, turn four just feels too late for ramp. Sure, this gives you a shot at 7 mana on turn 5. There are certainly a good number of landfall decks that benefit from a double drop. But most decks aren’t specifically built around land drops. I am willing to bet you’re gonna have a hand full of cards you would much rather play on turn four than Veggies and pals.

Skyshroud Claim still makes a decent case; both lands come into play untapped, along with the ability to search for shocks or other dual lands. This makes it a little more helpful than its homies, but only slightly so. In general, Mr. Brimley is just not impressed.

Explosive Vegetation:  2.5 Brimleys

Ranger’s Path: 2.75 Brimleys

Skyshroud Claim: 3.25 Brimleys

This makes our running list as follows:

1. Sol Ring (*****)
2. Mana Crypt (****3/4)
3. Skyshroud Claim (***1/4)
3. Birds of Paradise (***)
4. Ranger’s Path (**3/4)
5. Explosive Vegetation (**1/2)

Thanks for joining us this week! As always, if you like veggies…keep it! The best part of Commander is the ability to just play a card if you like it. Just one word of advice: don’t tell Wilford Brimley.

Kyle Somerfeldt

Kyle Somerfeldt is an avidly casual player of Commander. He loves movies, Japanese pro wrestling, and Sphinx Ambassador. Every week, he uses EDH IMHO to share his rambling philosophy regarding the format he loves.

This is our second in an as-of-yet-unlimited series where we evaluate some of the nearly-countless ramp options in commander. So much of a game of commander can be determined by those crucial first few turns, while a failure to launch can be annoying and unforgettably unpleasant.

Last week, we looked at the godfathers of EDH ramp, Sol Ring and Mana Crypt. This week, I would like to look at another beloved piece of ramp technology.

Every week, we have a celebrity guest ‘star’ visit us in order to help us evaluate the card. This week, we are honored to have distinguished ABC News correspondent John Quinones. Thanks for joining us this week, John.

In classic Quinones style, its time to ask ourselves…What Would You Do?

One of the most magical words to see on a commander card is ‘any’: ‘any’ number, ‘any’ time, ‘any’ color. We love that word. It suits the limitlessness that brings so many people back to commander, time and again.

It’s that limitlessness that is so very appealing about Birds of Paradise. For decks that can regularly be 3-5 colors, the ability to drop in a Command Tower on a flying stick seems like just what the doctor ordered. And it would appear that most commander players agree, as Birds of Paradise is the 41st most popular card in commander according to edhrec.com

Here’s the thing: I’m not sure it’s that good.

Let me qualify this for a second; if you are building a deck to win in the first five turns, you are running a ton of ramp similar to this, and the color fixing makes it perfect for that kind of brew. If you run a commander that can use the Birds for another purpose late in the game, such as decks commanded by generals like Animar, Soul of Elements and Ezuri, Claw of Progress, it’s perfect.

If it’s not one of those situations…I don’t think this card is really that good.

At least when I draw Cultivate on turn 12 or later, I’m getting lands that I can use for the rest of the game. At least when I drop in a Fellwar Stone, it doesn’t have summoning sickness. Oh yeah, and neither of them dies to this.

If your playgroup is like mine, Wrath-effects are popular and efficient defense. It’s bad enough to lose a powerful team of creatures, but to lose a piece of mana-production that you were counting on for the next turn just seems unacceptable when you consider the options.

This may be a nice point for me to further explain what I usually want in a ramp spell. With some exceptions, I would ideally want my ramp spells to be:

1. Cards that get me lands OR
2. Mana rocks OR
3. Mana dorks (when necessary)

When I ramp, I want lands. I’ll settle for mana rocks (artifacts that tap to produce mana), because they are much less fragile than mana dorks like Birds Of Paradise. But what really hurts Birds of Paradise is the fact that it’s in green. When I play green, I have a variable armada of ramp options waiting in the wings, begging me to have them help me get actual lands of the color of my choice into play. In all likelihood, when I get a land on the battlefield, I will get to keep that land for the duration of the game. (Now that we, thankfully, live in the post Sylvan Primordial world)

If Birds of Paradise was in any other color, it would probably earn itself four stars or more. But it’s in green, and is simply not as good as other green cards used for the early game. For me, it settles in at a barely-respectable 3 out of 5 Quinones(es?). (Dear Editor, please leave this word in there, because I think it’s funny) (Actually, if you actually want to leave these parenthetical notes, as well, I’m down with that, too) (Editor, you rock)

This makes our running list as follows:

1. Sol Ring (*****)
2. Mana Crypt (****3/4)
3. Birds of Paradise (***)

Thanks for joining us this week! For John Quinones, I’m Akabane Rowsdower! Consider your ramp…rated!

Kyle Somerfeldt

Kyle Somerfeldt is an avidly casual player of Commander. He loves movies, Japanese pro wrestling, and Sphinx Ambassador. Every week, he uses EDH IMHO to share his rambling philosophy regarding the format he loves.

“In commander, the worst thing that can happen to you is to not hit your first six lands drops.”

Ok, so obviously not the actual worst thing that can happen, but still pretty unpleasant. In commander, getting lands could be the determining factor between a game where you burn out early, or last late into the game to affect the outcome.

Welcome to EDH: IMHO. A diverse haven for passionate, casual weirdos who want to create stories with their friends through a game of Commander!

Commander is the format of big, splashy plays. In order to power those plays, you’re gonna need mana, and lots of it.

I devote a lot of time, thought, and card space to mana in my commander decks. Out of 99 cards in a deck, my goal is always to run 38 mana-producing lands, along with 12 ramp spells. If the deck doesn’t include green I bump ramp spells all the way up to 14.

Most people would probably say this is too much ramp. They hate the feeling of drawing a ramp spell late into the game when they could be drawing something that makes a bigger crater. But for me personally, that is worth the risk to make sure my deck has a proper liftoff.

So I’m going to run through just about every playable ramp spell available. I’ll give each one a rating between 1-5 stars, based on how good I think it is for everyday commander usage.

I will also keep a running list of rankings, denoting how I rate each ramp spell.

To make it a little more fun, I will get a little help from a celebrity guest star in order to properly evaluate each card with just the right amount of pizazz.

For the inaugural column, only one man’s star power would suffice. Helping me to evaluate the first ramp spell is the legendary star of such television hits as Quantum Leap and Men of a Certain Age, Mr. Scott Bakula!

On this week’s column, I want to evaluate the two pieces of ramp you are most likely to see on turn one. Most of my analysis will be pretty obvious, here, but this will allow us to get used to the evaluation format a little bit. Let’s begin with the absolute last word when it comes to ramp, our friend the Sol Ring.

It’s colorless. It is played on turn one. It should, ideally, give you four mana on turn 2. Even late in the game you basically give yourself an extra mana on the turn you play it. It is run in no less than 78% of decks on tappedout.net, making it the most played card in all of commander…by a full 26% over the next most popular card.

Unless you are constraining yourself with a deck-building or price limitation that wouldn’t allow it, there really isn’t a great reason not to run this card. I have no choice but to award this card the full score of FIVE Scott Bakulas.

Moving right along: this one time, I heard someone say that there was one other piece of ramp that was better than sol ring.

They were wrong, of course, but its still quite good. Isn’t it?

Short answer: Yes, Mana Crypt is good. Like Sol Ring, it means that (worse case scenario) you have four mana on turn 2. Unlike Sol Ring, and this is where my friend’s argument has a little traction, Mana Crypt allows for three mana on turn 1. When added to anything from Cultivate to Chromatic Lantern, could certainly mean five mana on turn 2. Yes, you have to pay three life occasionally. No, that is not likely to matter before it is destroyed by a Bane of Progress.

That’s the good news. The bad news is for those who already hate drawing ramp spells late in the game. If a ramp spell is a dead draw, for you, than this might be the worst one to draw late. Sure, you can always use two more mana, but at that point you are more than a little worried that that thing might just kill you. It’s a ramp spell that you are unlikely to play at all if you’re under 20 life in commander.

Then there is the actual currency price. The converted mana cost makes it look like its free…but nothing could be further than the truth. When there are so many cool thing to buy for your deck, it is difficult to justify spending your hard-earned cash on something as boring and potentially painful as this.

Think about that for a second. This card has a legitimate reason to be preferred over SOL RING, and it still doesn’t even make the most 100 played card according to edhrec.com. Clearly the price tag and the downside are enough to put people off this card.

Don’t get me wrong: I may not think it’s better than Sol Ring, but I would definitely say it’s in the conversation. Even so, there are just enough drawbacks that I end up rating it just short of its little metal brother, with a still-impressive four-and-three-quarters Bakulas.

Thus, my running list looks like:

AkabaneRowsdower’s running Ramp Rankings!
1. Sol Ring (*****)
2. Mana Crypt (****3/4)

You might be thinking: did I just read this article just to have this idiot tell me Sol Ring is good?

Yes…I guess you did. But hey, you have to start somewhere; if we’re going to talk ramp, we’ve gotta start with the measuring stick.

I look forward to this series, as discussing the theory behind a seemingly soulless mechanical deck building issue can be of great service in creating the kinds of awesome commander games we all seek! We all love to build decks that do awesome things once we get eight mana…but all that deckbuilding means nothing without eight mana!

As they say, you can’t win the race…

…if you do that.

Kyle Somerfeldt

Kyle Somerfeldt is an avidly casual player of Commander. He loves movies, Japanese pro wrestling, and Sphinx Ambassador. Every week, he uses EDH IMHO to share his rambling philosophy regarding the format he loves.

This was before commander really exploded in popularity. At that time it was known as the ‘cheap,’ format. The dollar rare box was your best friend. My decision to abstain from boosters was definitely the right decision for the time, considering what most of my card needs were.

But still, there was something missing.

Whenever my friends got packs, I begged them to let me open one of them. Sure, I wasn’t going to keep the cards, but there was something inside me that missed that sound of peeling plastic, and the surprise of unveiling its contents.

It’s why we wrap presents. It’s why the bean-boozled challenge is a thing.

We love to take a risk, holding our breath in anticipation of the sheer excitement of finding out just what’s inside.

Welcome to EDH: IMHO. A diverse haven for passionate, casual weirdos who want to create stories with their friends through a game of Commander!

Redundancy. When you play some form of ‘regular’ magic, you are taught that redundancy is important. Redundancy allows you to pre-plan your turn based on your anticipated draws, and allows the best cards in your deck to occur frequently.

The obvious problem is that redundancy is spun on its head in a format where you are only allowed one of each card.

Says who?!?!?!?!?

For someone who has only played normal “four-of” limit magic, this is a frequent hang-up when they give commander a try. To be fair, this isn’t really surprising. Chances are they have come from playing a format where the less redundant the deck, the less often they win.

Every time I have brought someone into commander from another format, their first instinct is to jam in as many tutors as possible.

Unfortunately, that instinct can often result in a lot of this:

Even if you don’t have a crazy broken combo, tutors just seem perfect in a format where so little is guaranteed. It ensures you always have an answer, or can access to your wincon when the moment is right.

This leads perfectly to the final question you should ask your playgroup:

Question #4: How many tutors is too many?

As I said before, tutors act as a crutch for players new to commander. Tutors link them to magic-as-they-know-it. Tutors help new commander players slowly wade into the deep end.

I am fine with this. But after a couple games I usually encourage them to see how many tutors they can cut. Not because tutors are egregious (although I do wonder how many times you can Tooth and Nail and still have fun). The real reason I do this is that I think a player running a lot of tutors is missing out.

Missing out….on the glory of chaos!

My booster pack deprivation may be to blame, but in my opinion drawing a card might be the best moment in all of magic. I absolutely live for that moment, wondering how the game might pivot.

It’s actually even better in commander…because you have to wait for it. So much happens between two turns in a commander game. That causes some long waits while the board changes, and changes again. All the while, you look at your hand, carefully planning your move for that anticipated moment when it comes around to your turn again.

Untap. Upkeep. You’ve been waiting for this. Your plan is set, all you need to do is draw, and when you do….

Stop everything. The plans have changed. All of a sudden, I have something more awesome to do.

That, right there; that is the moment that keeps me coming back to magic.

Magic takes skill, and planning, and foresight. But sometimes it takes luck (known in some parts of the world by another name: chaos). If skill was everything, I’m not sure I’d play. It’s that delicious, fervent rush of chaos that makes this game so very rewarding.

That’s why I always challenge commander players with this: replace every tutor you have with card draw, and see what happens.

It’s undeniably weaker, and you shouldn’t do it if you want your deck to be at its “best.” But for me, winning bows down to the throne of stories.

Come to think of it, I’m not sure anything more perfectly epitomizes my deck-building philosophy than the act of replacing a tutor with a draw spell.

You see, tutoring is a sniper rifle. Card draw is a shotgun.

One gets the job done. The other creates STORIES.

As always, this is only my opinion. Talk to your playgroup and come up with your own conclusions. If they aren’t the same as mine, that’s awesome. No matter what you choose, you are working together to make the kinds of games you want to have. For me, that’s what EDH was always meant to be.

The entire point of these last four weeks has been to encourage talking with your playgroup; I hope you have! When it comes to tutors, talk about it with your friends. If you are like my group, I think you’ll find that your games will become more epic when you’re not even sure what is going to happen next.

For people who have only played “four-of” magic, chaos is a pit.

In Commander, Chaos is a ladder.

Kyle Somerfeldt

Kyle Somerfeldt is an avidly casual player of Commander. He loves movies, Japanese pro wrestling, and Sphinx Ambassador. Every week, he uses EDH IMHO to share his rambling philosophy regarding the format he loves.

As far as the hand goes: Not bad, not great. If I can get to six mana, I’m golden.

Oh wait, I started with six cards; I get to scry. Maybe I’ll get some help.

I go to scry, and I see my girl….

Hello, beautiful.

Suddenly I’m excited. I’m gonna get there. It’s gonna be all right. Oracle is awesome and….

My friend Jaws Putrefys her to Bejeezus and back. See, Jaws has a rule. When he spots Oracle, he kills it on sight. Never explains why, doesn’t even think it’s always his best play; just does it. He’s a man of principles. So… Let’s talk about removal.

Kyle Somerfeldt

Kyle Somerfeldt is an avidly casual player of Commander. He loves movies, Japanese pro wrestling, and Sphinx Ambassador. Every week, he uses EDH IMHO to share his rambling philosophy regarding the format he loves.

Welcome to EDH: IMHO. A diverse haven for passionate, casual weirdos who want to create stories with their friends through a game of Commander!

This is the second article in a four-part examination of the kind of questions we want to be asking when it comes to the kind of commander games we want to have.

Last week we learned to ask your play group: How do you want your games to end? For you and your friends, what is a satisfying conclusion to a game of magic? When you answer this question, it helps the group create more games that match everyone’s ideals of what constitutes FUN magic.

This week, our question is this

Question #2:
How interactive should our games be?

In other words…..Are you playing with yourself?

No no! Get your mind out of the gutter! Bad reader! Bad, dirty, reader!

What I’m actually talking about is, how does your group feel when a turn just goes….OFF? How do they feel about long, extended turns, like the one described above?

Now, for some of you, that kind of turn is the stuff of legends. You LOVE plays like this. You love to see how different cards from magic’s past interact to create insane scenarios for your benefit.

And you’re in luck! The great thing abut commander is that if you and your playgroup all think this is awesome, by all means, queue up them turns!

But for for others, myself included, waiting for one of these turns to end feels something like this.

Remember, the theme of this series is talk.

Getting an extra turn, in many commander decks, is the beginning of the end. If someone gets one extra turn, it usually means no one else is getting another turn at all.

Even when it doesn’t just end the game, these cards can be annoying. In multiplayer, each person is already waiting longer than they may be used to if they’ve only played 1-on-1. To take an extra turn is to essentially skip every single person you are playing with. You may just be excluding everyone else at the table.

Personally, this is why our playgroup encourages each other not to include extra turn cards. This way, everyone has a turn coming up, the game keeps moving, and everyone feels like they have something to do, or that their untap step is right around the corner. Extra turns were just never for us.

No matter where your group’s discussion goes, a good question to ask might be this: Is this awesome more than once?

Without a doubt, a cool interaction like the one above is amazing the first time you see it. Second time around…how does it feel?

Does it feel like you just might be….playing with yourself?

As always, allow me to remind you that everything I’m saying is just my opinion. (It’s not called EDH IMH-FACT, after all.) If your playgroup is on the same page, and these kinds of cards/games don’t bother your group, go for it. The nature of casual magic is that you have the opportunity to shape the story of your games with your friends: all you need to do is talk about it.

Storm is cool. Extra turns are cool, too. But when you build a deck around them, you decrease the interaction that can happen in a great game of commander. For me, that’s the problem with extended combos: eventually, its just goldfishing with your friends watching.

And I don’t want to goldfish. I want to collaborate.

Kyle Somerfeldt

Kyle Somerfeldt is an avidly casual player of Commander. He loves movies, Japanese pro wrestling, and Sphinx Ambassador. Every week, he uses EDH IMHO to share his rambling philosophy regarding the format he loves.

For me, the key to a great story is how it ends. If an amazing story has a lame ending, it will undue every trace of the groundwork that brought it to its conclusion. If a mediocre movie can really stick the landing, then you might be able to forgive mistakes made the the beginning and middle of the plot. There’s just something about a story that really, truly requires you to stick the landing.

Welcome to EDH: IMHO. A diverse haven for passionate, casual weirdos who want to create stories with their friends through a game of Commander!

Last week we talked about….talk. The key to a healthy EDH playgroup is being able to communicate about the kinds of games you want to have. The more you all share, the better the deckbuilding decision-making of everyone in the group. This doesn’t mean you will always agree: these conversations may very well end with some compromises. But at the end of the day, it helps your group to work together toward the most fun games possible.

For the next four weeks, I want to talk about the kind of conversations that should take place for the sake of your playgroup. Most of these conversations revolve around the question: “Is this ok?” Magic is a diverse game with a diverse variety of players, and that can lead to any number of differences in expectation when people play commander together. The last thing anyone wants is a violent mismatch due to the players involved not being on the same page

I will discuss what I believe to be 4 important questions for your playgroup. I’ll share my opinion at the end of each, but I really want to stress that there is no correct answer here, on any of these subjects. In truth, the correct answer can only be the one you all arrive at through discussion. That said, I’ll warn you from the beginning that I, in general, tend to take the conservative route on most of these subjects.

Now, the best place to begin this discussion…is the end.

Question #1: How do you want your game to end? How long do you want your game to go?

In all likelihood, there will be two schools of thought on this subject, and it centers around how people feel when a game winning combo or alternate win condition hit the board.

Some people play commander for the crazy, long, interactive games. They want power to sway several times over the course of the game, and hate it when someone wins out of the blue without ever really interacting with the board.

Others just don’t want games to last that long. As my friend CNWeezard said to me, some games just need to end. Players in this camp don’t mind someone winning all of a sudden; they enjoy finding perfect interactions on the board, and ways to end the game uniquely and efficiently.

A common compromise between the two is setting a number of turns for a game, and to say that after a certain turn ‘anything goes.’ Sheldon Menery, godfather of EDH, has often said that he thinks anything that happens after turn 7 is fair game, which is how this little diddy has stayed off the banned list so long.

Rowsdower take: I love long games, and very rarely do I wish they would end. Only when 3 players have life totals in triple digits do I ever hope for sudden death.

Similarly, I don’t love combos. More often than not, it feels like an abrupt, unearned end to the “story” of the game. I feel like a lot of people in my group tell the story of the Eldrazi Mulldrifter.

I don’t feel like anyone talks about the Palinchron/Phantasmal Image/Capsize games that our group had at one point. Except, perhaps, to say what a deflating way to end a game it was.

For me, I want to create a great story with a satisfying ending. If your group has fun with combos: awesome! Do it! If your group wants combat to always end the game, then consider a ban on infinite interactions. Maybe you want to meet in the middle, and set a turn limit of when a game can end.

No matter your conclusion the important thing, once again, is to talk. Talk to your group about the kinds of stories you want to tell. Talk to them about what kinds of game endings you want to have.

Commander, and particularly casual commander, has a unique advantage over nearly any other game I’ve played. That advantage is this: you, and your friends, get to decide what kind of game you want to have. In any competitive format, you are a slave to a banned list, or to a meta…but not so in commander. In Commander, you have the opportunity to talk to your group and decide exactly what kind of game you want to have.

As Mort Rainey says in Secret Window, the only thing that matters is the ending.

Kyle Somerfeldt

Kyle Somerfeldt is an avidly casual player of Commander. He loves movies, Japanese pro wrestling, and Sphinx Ambassador. Every week, he uses EDH IMHO to share his rambling philosophy regarding the format he loves.

Thank you for joining me! If you are reading this article, I hope that you read my first one. My desire with that article was to not only introduce myself, but to give you, my beloved reader, a look into what I want EDH IMHO to be every week.
This week, I would love to discuss my history with the format, and why I love it so very much. If I had to summarize my Commander mission statement, it would be this:

My goal in commander is to create the very best possible Magic the Gathering experience for my playgroup.

This is important for me to get out of the way early. I know for a lot of commander groups this is simply not the case. If the above statement isn’t for you, that is awesome, and I wouldn’t want to change a single thing about your philosophy. (Not that I could)

But the goal of creating the best experience possible is, for me, what casual (and by extension commander) is all about. Now, to be clear, this does not mean you don’t build with strong interactions in mind, and it certainly doesn’t mean you don’t build answers into your deck to stop your opponents. What this mission statement sets into place is an attitude that takes an extra step to consider your opponents, as well as yourself.

But to talk about that, I must first share what is probably my cardinal rule of commander:

Talk to each other.

Full disclosure: I am a full-blooded introvert. People can wear me out, especially if a conversation goes too long. I could write a separate social column on the tricks I have used in the past use to end conversations as quickly as possible. I’d read it – Editor

So believe me: those of you who got exhausted just READING my request that you talk to your playgroup: I get it! It’s work, and it’s often contentious work, at that. It always requires energy and patience.

But in my opinion, talking is the only way to create the kind of games you want to experience as a team. It is not only worth the effort, but in my opinion, it is actually wasteful not to talk.

You know what’s a great movie? The Hateful Eight.

If you’re a big fan of Tarantino, you probably don’t love this movie. It’s probably just barely better than Death Proof when you rank his movies. The Hateful Eight is super long. It may be Tarantino at his most pretentious. You have to wait a long time for the action.

But it’s my favorite Tarrantino movie. It may not be his greatest…but it’s my favorite.

Do you know why? Because of how they talk.

People who love Tarrantino have all kinds of reasons why. They love the grittiness, or the violence, or his dark humor. They love that he basically reinvented the rules of plotting when it comes to film. I love all those things, but for me, they aren’t what makes Tarrantino great. What truly sets him apart, in my opinion, is the way he has characters talk to each other. And Hateful Eight just might be the Taj Mahal of talk.

The movie is an ensemble of awesome actors who do so very little, but say so very much. The few moments of violence and action in the film act as punctuation for the dialogue. The dialogue aligns the dominoes to ensure that the action rolls destructively and passionately through every twist and turn.

Sometimes, I think I love the act of communication so much because I feel like the world around me has come to despise it. Talking is work. Talking can be monotonous. It often requires you to repeat yourself, which never feels like anything less than the biggest waste of time possible.

And this is just as true in commander as it is in anything else. Someone hates how a certain card affects the game, but they are worried to make someone mad, or that they will look stupid for hating a card that isn’t as powerful as they think.

So they do the worst thing they can do for a problem: they keep their concern to themselves.

But here’s the thing: when you don’t talk, you do the one thing that has 0% chance of fixing the problem. To not talk is to keep precious knowledge out of the pool.

I need the card because of its title….but seriously, screw this card.

I recall a time when my playgroup was having dinner together before we started a new game. One member of my group, who for the sake of this article I will nickname “Jaws,” was mostly just listening. We discussed some of the cards in our group that might be negatively affecting our experiences. We were bringing up some really powerful cards that were potentially warping our playgroup’s experience.

Finally, we asked Jaws what card bothered him the most.

“Honestly,” he said, “I think it sucks that Crypt Ghast can be played in mono-black decks.”

Wait…..seriously?

If you don’t know, there are a lot of people like my friend Jaws when it comes to this card. Extort is known in the commander community as just another bullet in the pissing contest between Mark Rosewater and Sheldon Menery when it comes to what color identity should mean in commander. Rosewater has always hated that hybrid cards cannot be played in either of its colors, individually. Meanwhile Menery has maintained that a commander must have both of a hybrid’s cards colors in its identity for it to be legal.

It is theorized that extort was created by Rosewater just to needle at Menery’s stance. If true, it is a embarrassingly petty move. Of course, it was followed in kind by Menery’s equally petty response, which was to declare that extort would actually not factor into a card’s color identity. His reason?

Because the hybrid mana is in the reminder text.

As lame as the Menery/Rosewater disagreement is, at the end of the day Crypt Ghast is legal to be run in mono black decks. Even though I didn’t think that was a big deal, my friend Jaws did. We had been playing commander for four years, and I don’t think I had ever heard Jaws mention a card he didn’t like.

So I took it out. Now, I don’t need to tell you how amazing Crypt Ghast is in mono black. I also don’t need to tell you that my deck got weaker after that. Keeping up in mana can be hard when you don’t have green, so cards like Crypt Ghast are a godsend. It was a really tough cut for the deck.

But then again, making as good of a deck as possible….that’s not my mission statement, is it?

I will try to say this every week, but I want you all to know that this series of articles is going to be about my particular experience with casual commander in my own specific playgroup. There’s a good chance you disagreed with a good portion of this article, and that’s not only ok, it’s actually perfect. My entire point with this article is to create as much fun as I can through what I believe to be the most important ingredient: talk. Talk with your playgroup. Come to conclusions. Be ok with those conclusions differing from the EDH Rules Committee. For the sake of the preservation of your fun, and the fun of your friends, be brave enough to talk!

Thanks as always! This has been EDH IMHO. I’ve been, and continue to be, Akabane Rowsdower.

Kyle Somerfeldt

Kyle Somerfeldt is an avidly casual player of Commander. He loves movies, Japanese pro wrestling, and Sphinx Ambassador. Every week, he uses EDH IMHO to share his rambling philosophy regarding the format he loves.

“I’m Rowsdower. Zap Rowsdower.”

…and with that, I met one of the most ridiculous fictional characters I’ve ever seen. I’m not sure I’ve ever been so inspired by something so stupid.

Zap Rowsdower, whose name I use here, as well as on Discord, is the standout character in the Canadian indie classic(?) The Final Sacrifice. It SHOULD have won best picture in 1990, but for some reason the academy went with the safe choice Dances with Wolves. Curse you Kevin Costner…you beautiful, incredible man.

The Final Sacrifice is best known for its mock-up on the now-legendary science-fiction movie riff show, Mystery Science Theatre 3000. The Final Sacrifice is my very favorite episode, because Zap Rowsdower is the physical manifestation of the sound my laughter.

Rowsdower is an overweight, mulleted, blonde behemoth of a man who ambles his drunk haunches into the plot of the movie, a beer can hanging from his pickup truck rear view mirror like some kind of Billy Joel custom air freshener from hell. He epitomizes the blue-collar tough man with a heart of gold that dominated sci-fi and action movies as the eighties became the nineties. It is his very exhibition of the trope, in both his successes and failures, that makes him so perfectly immaculate.

I love Zap Rowsdower with all of my heart.

And I love Elder Dragon Highlander.

I never really got into standard, or any other kind of competitive magic. From the first time I cast a Volcanic Hammer (the Zap Rowsdower of removal if there ever was one) magic was something I did with my friends. You guys who play formal magic with strangers, I salute you! It just wasn’t my thing.

Playing casually with friends, I sleeved up normal 60-card decks. I had a vague idea of what was good and what wasn’t, and I was aware of the world of competitive magic. But anything I read about competitive magic just ended up being applied to how I played with my friends. As a result, most of the magic norms (especially back in 2007) shaped my playing style. Most notable was how this affected the converted mana cost of most of my spells.

Five mana spells were a luxury. Six mana; a treasure. Seven; practically folklore.

So into my ‘spare card’ box went big spell after big spell. Cards that looked fun, but were just not conceivably playable. Into the box went Experiment Kraj, Pelakka Wurm, and Blatant Thievery.

A friend of mine had begged me to play EDH for the longest time. He always said to me “You love casual…you would love commander.” For some reason, the idea of 100-card decks just sounded annoying, and the idea of singleton simply unacceptable. I must have been one of the only strictly- casual magic players in the world who just had to have that sweet redundancy.

When Commander 2011 first came out, I noticed the Devour for Power deck had a lot of pieces I needed for my 60-card decks. I decided to buy it on the day it was released. There was just one problem. The shop where I bought it required that you played one game with it, out of box.

“Great,” I though, “Let’s get this over with so I can go home and brew.”

And then…I played.

Hours later, I was rushing home to immediately starting destroying every 60-card deck I had. I threw open the lid of my spare cards box and suddenly realized I had a lot of 6+ converted mana cost cards to re-read.

The cards I always thought were bulky and wasteful were suddenly worth something. Diamonds in the clunky, overweight, garbage can of discarded rares I had lying around.

Even as I describe those cards, I find every adjective also applies to my ironic hero, Zap Rowsdower.

He’s clunky. He’s overweight. He’s garbage.

And he’s glorious.

Ever really stop and wonder why Chuck Norris facts became a thing?

This feeling right here. That’s why.

What makes Zap Rowsdower perfect is how much he, and the heroes he unintentionally parodied, became discarded as the nineties rolled through to the new millennium. Zap Rowsdower was John McClane with a mullet. He was Stone Cold Steve Austin with a Canadian accent. He was pretty much every Nicolas Cage character before everyone realized what a parody of himself Nicolas Cage already was.

And what MST3K  did with Zap Rowsdower, I did with magic cards that I just thought I’d never play. Out from the attic comes an old relic, reminiscent of a time when we wanted a hero who was just enough of a schmuck like us that we thought we could be something great.

“If that weird loser is somehow a hero….then I must be a hero, too!

That’s why I love commander. It’s not just a love letter to magic’s past, and it’s not just using something that is useless in every other format. It’s the idea that an outdated, lackluster trope of a time gone by still actually matters, for some unexplained reason.

Is that just nostalgia? Sure, that’s part of it, but it’s more than that. It’s memories so special that even a unexceptional imitation reminds us of what is great about the game. Or movies. Or anything we remember with fondness.

“And they’ll watch the game, and it’ll be as they’d dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick, they’ll have to brush them away from their faces.”

I love Zap Rowsdower. And I love Elder Dragon Highlander. My hope for EDH: IMHO is that it will be a place where I share what I love about commander.

I’ll talk about my philosophy. I’ll explain why I prefer some cards over others. The first series of articles I will discuss is a general guide to all things ramp, in regards to commander. As much as that just sounds like nuts and bolts, my hope is for this to much more than that.

Because for me, Commander is  so much more than that. EDH is an introspective, reflective format. You’re not just tuning a deck: you’re tuning an experience. You’re searching for a vibe; you’re creating an environment. When you build a commander deck, you forge a story. When you replace a card, you shape the perfect occasion. That’s what I love about commander, and what I hope I’ll be able to share with you every week, here on EDH: IMHO.

I’ve been, and continue to be, Akabane Rowsdower. Thanks for reading!

Kyle Somerfeldt

Kyle Somerfeldt is an avidly casual player of Commander. He loves movies, Japanese pro wrestling, and Sphinx Ambassador. Every week, he uses EDH IMHO to share his rambling philosophy regarding the format he loves.