I have taken some time off from playing group hug to play cEDH…

It all started when I was testing out a mono green Yisan, the Wanderer Bard group hug deck at a casual league. The deck solved green mana for the table very effectively and basically had no win cons… That is a mistake by the way and my time playing cEDH has given me some new viewpoints that I can’t wait to share in the coming weeks! Anyway I was playing at the casual league when, in game two the guy sitting to my left (let’s call him Bob) decides to play (without a rule zero convo) his Narset, Enlightened Master cEDH infinite turns deck. It uses stax pieces to stop everyone from doing anything (the only reliable form of control in cEDH) and then around turn three or four takes infinite turns to win the game. I scooped on turn two because I realized that all the free mana I was giving away just made him win even faster. It was a real feel bad situation and it made me reevaluate how group hug effects the power level of a pod.

     There is a lot to unpack from that single experience in my commander adventure! First of all yes, it’s pretty crummy to sneak a cEDH deck into a casual pod but let’s not point all fingers at Bob, I think the real failure was the lack of effective rule zero conversation. Also nothing happens in a vacuum so here is some lead up to that game. I was in Bob’s pod during the previous match. In that match there was a different player that took a bunch of long turns and did a bunch of actions that earned him extra points in the league. To understand why this is a problem I familiarized myself with the concept of perverse incentive. Here is the Wikipedia link. So basically he held the table hostage while he farmed points. It was boring at best. Then fast forward to game two and I can only imagine Bob is fed up. The pods are called out and he and I are paired with two new players. He was probably wishing he had played his cEDH deck during the previous game. But when it comes down to it the previous game failed due to a lack of effective rule zero conversation combined with the perverse incentives that get added to a game by casual commander leagues. 

    After that not so great experience the power level issue became my main focus. I now know that group hug decks have to concern themselves with power level even more than the average deck. I was just making the power level imbalance worse in the game with Bob. I have talked in previous entries about not solving the whole table (link here) but I think as the power level of the pod rises the best way to build group hug will need to adapt. I have ideas and will share in future posts and deck techs! It should be stated that group hug has no place in a cEDH pod. And of course as we have established cEDH has no place at a casual pod.

    The more I looked into the issue the more it became clear that the only people in the commander community that didn’t have issues with power level were established playgroups that played week after week and cEDH players. The established playgroups still said they had power creep week after week as they all upgraded their decks to counteract each other but with enough conversation they could have fun balanced games.

    cEDH isn’t effected by power level imbalance because it plays the highest power cards in the history of Magic. So I decided to try it. Not in casual pods of course, I got a playgroup of cEDH players together and we played and still play on a regular basis!

    As it turns out I love cEDH! But it comes with it’s own set of limitations. The main one is that the card pool is fairly small. This is a good and a bad thing. Less cards to learn but also less creative freedom when brewing decks. I have learned a lot about card interactions but also I’ve learned about very powerful synergies that win games on the spot. I still play cEDH a lot but I couldn’t stay away from the creative freedom of brewing for casual commander! 

    Over the last few years I have learned to play commander in many different ways and I have applied them to group hug. I love giving away resources then finding creative ways to turn the tables during the endgame! My journey into cEDH has definitely given me some new creative paths and I can’t wait to share some of them in the coming weeks! 

Here are some cards to think about… Bye for now!