I agree with every single one of these picks. I haven’t played a ton of Commander, but whenever I do I’m really turned off by commanders with salty/toxic abilities or ones that have doubling or copying effects. It’s not because I think they’re too strong, but it’s because they’re negatively fun, like a fun dampener. Copying/doubling effects can be fine but baked into the commander makes every single thing become so much more complicated, with so much more state to manage.

The most unfun commander games and people I’ve played with are the ones who take 100 actions per turn, dominating the game time with their turn decisions and actions. The least fun I have is when 80% of the game is spent on one player masturbating in front of the other 3. I seek out games now that are with lower powered or thematic commanders only. I understand I could be in the minority with this, and it’s coming from someone who can’t wrap their head around how or why CEDH exists. I feel like Commander is the format for having fun above literally everything else, and when anything at all prevents fun in any way I just feel like it should go to any of the 10s of competitive formats or events.

I’ve always loved this artwork, and just how gross it is

I think they have to be doing some player-skill-based matchmaking in those queues. I think it would just be really un-fun if they didn’t, and I’d bet Arena is optimizing for player hours over anything else. Nothing ends an Arena session like getting dunked on multiple games in a row in a ranked queue lol.

I’d bet that each format – Standard, Explorer, Alchemy, etc. – has its own set of weights.

I never thought about that but I’d bet you’re right and I’d hope they’re getting updated a lot more regularly than the Brawl ones.

Just out of curiosity, they must be using this for unranked and the play queue right? If not, there has to be something else they’re using for those matchups because I still never see a wide deck/player disparity even in the unranked queues.

I also think most of the frustration was due to the improper weighting on cards. I think that indicated to people that they don’t give a shit enough to keep them current or perhaps they don’t have the resources to, both of which are bad news for players.

For me, the best change they could make would be to display the MMR/Deck Strength numbers everywhere in matches. The way you can see the Elo in all chess matches I think helps people understand why they’re matched up against their opponent. Having everything in the dark makes people come up with conspiracy theories.

Damn, this is so beautiful

I think they should have dropped the 2,300 gem cost to unlock it, and just allowed everyone to accumulate tickets accordingly. I don’t mind a new currency in the game, but this is really just another bundle sold to us for gems/money. And you have to do work to accumulate the rewards after you pay.

Not really in love with this, as it kinda reads like a second Mastery Pass that costs less but with fewer (worse?) rewards. Still just kind of comes off like another complicated and confusing system to extract more money up front from the players.

I’m wondering if I can use this to build a deck full of draft chaff and get myself matched against similar things.

Yea you absolutely can. I was reading some other comments online about people doing it, and I’m about to spin up a modified Rocco deck to see if I start seeing different opponent commanders and all that.

This is really amazing actually, and validates some things I think a lot of players thought for a long time.

I was able to tune down by Rocco Street Chef deck to below 1080 so now I shouldn’t be hitting the ridiculous commanders any more.

I think this makes the most sense. It’s a shame they won’t be included for people who want them but I would be annoyed if I didn’t play Timeless.

Love stonks days. Haven’t been playing much at all lately, but this always gets an Epic Games app update out of me lol

So far, fwiw, the best take on solving mana screw imo has been what the game Sorcery Contested Realm has done. You have a 40 card deck and a separate 20 card lands deck. In Magic you would start with 4 spells and 3 lands, one free mulligan in both decks, and then you draw from either deck for the turn. Cards would have to be erratad en masse to make this work in Magic, but I think Arena kinda solves it with “seeking” a land vs. a spell. I don’t know how that works in Magic outside of at least smoothing an opening hand. The game would need to refer to the deck separately from the “atlas” of lands.

Regarding his biggest fear and Magic’s biggest threats:

“The places I get worried about are Magic’s tournament system, which has historically been important to Magic’s health. And then the philosophy that you should not make rare cards so powerful that you need them. People feel that’s a philosophy that has been broken from time to time, and I think it’s always been a mistake. It might have made money in the short run, but it has hurt the game in the long run, or at least until it was corrected,” he said.

“I think things that are existential threats for a game like Magic is if the community breaks down, and here I’m thinking of the community built around tournaments, but not just that. Or if people see it as being a game where you can buy victory, which is associated with this idea of making rare cards too powerful—or powerful cards too rare would be another way to put it. Those are serious problems which might lead to short-term profit but will lead to long-term problems that could be catastrophic.”

As the number of cards in circulation grew, Garfield went out of his way to keep common or easier-to-find cards powerful, while also keeping the rare cards narrowly attuned and never so powerful that you needed them to win. He would sometimes demonstrate this by bringing a deck full of common cards to games stores and beating players who had decks stuffed with expensive rares.

Today, getting rich kids to buy 10 sets of the game seems to be Hasbro’s primary business model. Wizards has adopted a punishing release schedule, printing so many new cards that the Bank of America recently reprimanded Hasbro for trying to over-monetize their players and downgraded the company’s stock. When I asked Garfield what he thought about this, he pleaded ignorance and told me he’s been completely disconnected from the game since the pandemic. He’s heard rumors that have alarmed him, but he thinks Wizards of the Coast old-timers like Bill Rose and Mark Rosewater still have the game’s best interests at heart.

I thought this was particularly interesting. I love the original vision Garfield had with commons vs. rares, bring that back!

Very good bans here

I’m actually really looking forward to Commander draft. Seems absolutely wild, and I like that you get a Collector booster to choose a commander from and kind of know your colors before the draft starts.

I am looking forward to playing this kinda strange Baldur’s Gate commander draft event at my local store on the 18th. It’s a casual event but I wonder if it comes w/ the Arena draft token.

I honestly don’t buy that there is a pristine 10 Alpha Black Lotus in existence. The fact that they’re claiming a 10 makes me extremely skeptical of all of this.

I love that animation lol