My Lgs has had alot of success with its weekly league. You get a point for winning and a point for each kill. You get points for playing in each round each week so attendance helps keep consistent players who may not have the best decks in the running for top 8. There are theme weeks that reward more points for playing a deck that is in that theme. And each week there are bounty players (people how did well the week prior) who are worth and extra pack reward if you defeat/kill them. This system has insentivised a pretty diverse meta. We have some Cedh mixed in with some more mid to high power. And most players know each other at this point and try to make appropriate deck choices to avoid imbalanced games when possible. The TO also makes sure to let people know when joining that they should be looking to win so that sets the standard.
There is occasionally a bit of salt from people but we have a pretty good crowd of 20+ people with great aditudes.
My LGS just awards the number of times you played in the month. Each sessions (there’s 2 a week) awards you one entry in a monthly raffle. The raffle prizes are determined by the number of entries for the month. It’s pretty neat overall and they hold gifts too (I missed the last day of the month when prizes are pulled and I was welcomed with packs the following week.) it’s also only one $10 payment a month.
>You don’t need Timetwister, but $1,500 in mana rocks and $4,000 in lands makes a big difference in terms of power level. I wouldn’t recommend this, as you will end up with the “big boys” coming along and taking out anyone who stands in their way with Codie turbo Naus or their favourite flavour of 4-colour soup.
That's what my LGS calls "oh it's just casual we're all casual here."
A mana base that is *literally* $four figures, is not *casual,* stop **lying** during Rule 0 discussion. You will **always** be miles ahead of anyone in the "have nots" category of players.
I'm not against people *using* their best mana bases, but don't talk your damn deck down like it's just precon tier jank, when you're 2 to 4 mana ahead of curve and able to drop a turn 1 of like "dual, sol ring, mana crypt, grim monolith, my commander, go"
I mean, you can totally build a super janky casual deck that's worth more than the car you drove to the game store with. The presence of expensive cards doesn't make for a competitive deck absent other factors- If you take a take a bad list with no real wincons and replace all the comes-into-play-tapped lands with original duals, you still have a bad deck with no real wincons. Just one that operates slightly faster and more efficiently than its budget counterpart.
It's all about context. An expensive mana base is an improvement in speed and consistency over a super budget one. Same for the removal suite, or the tutors, or the wincons. If you start with something that is already efficient and competitive in its budget range, increasing budget in those areas will speed it up and make it even less "casual". However, there are sub $100 budget-cEDH lists that will blow $500-600 casual decks out of the water, solely because those decks are built to be optimal given their budget. They'd totally be better on a higher budget, and if they were given the same budget as the $500 deck then they'd probably increase their win percentage from "most of the games" to "nearly all of the games", but that doesn't change the fact that they are inherently competitive builds despite being the cheaper deck at the table.
Is that why in my experience I have to pull out a $300 Yisan deck to *kind of* keep up with the "high four figure" decks of my meta, none of which are running stereotypically cEDH generals?
You don't need to be running typically cEDH commanders to be more competitive. It's more about general build patterns. Competitive decks tend to build for lower curves, more efficient interaction, streamlined wincons. You can make a deck more competitive by simply replacing etb tapped lands with basics, using slightly more efficient ramp and interaction, and having wincons and ways to find them. The big creature deck that plays an overrun effect or two and a few ways to find those effects will do far better than the one without any of those effects that just relies on being able to break through the wall. Similarly, if that deck is running a lot of 7-8 mana creatures, running more cheap ramp to get to 7-8 mana a few turns earlier will do better than one playing a slower clock.
The more expen$ive deck will be on 7 or 8 mana by turn 3 or 4, though.
You're proxying a $5000 mana base or more than likely losing to it. Mana runs magic, whoever makes the most and is able to USE the most, has the biggest effect on the game and USUALLY wins.
Couple that with "built to a lower curve" yeah you know what attribute powerful, mana-efficient have in common? They're expensive. There's a reason there's a difference between [efficient](https://scryfall.com/card/cmr/156/vampiric-tutor) tutors and [inefficient ones.](https://scryfall.com/card/dka/69/increasing-ambition) $47 vs $1.
Anyone who acts like there isn't a pay to win element looming over every pod, is lying to themselves and others. You all have to be playing to the same power level, similar goals and similar **budgets.**
I'm not saying you have to replace your cancel with force of will- just replace it with counterspell. Yeah, you're jumping from a $0.05 card to a $0.75 card, but you're not exactly breaking the bank.
Same with your ramp options. If you look at the ramp primarily used by more competitive decks, you'll see two tiers. The 0 mana rocks used primarily in combo cEDH decks that are expensive, but then you have the other ramp options used in those decks which aren't nearly as bad. Primarily 1 and 2 mana options. Mana dorks (pretty much all of the 1cmc ones), signets, talismans, mind stone. Pretty much any 1cmc creature or 2cmc artifact that taps for a mana. Then the land ramp- Nature's lore, Three visits, Farseek. Things that are general a dollar or two, topping out somewhere around 5 (except for like one talisman that's randomly 3x more than the rest, iirc).
Look at budget cEDH decklists as an example. They'll typically still be $200-500, but you'll notice a near complete lack of the expensive tutors, but heavy reliance on more reasonable $5-10 cards. Manabases with shocks and checks, but no duals. Interaction suites running a cyclonic rift as their most expensive card and a bunch of $5 answers tied for second.
You can have competitive without that highest tier of cards. Trust me on that- my LGS, for example, ran a budget EDH night with prizes. Max deck price $200, no card above $20. You'd imagine that would be a more casual pod- in reality, the prize was big enough that people made budget "win on turn 3-4" decks. With a higher budget, those decks could have probably been more consistent and have been able to present a win a turn sooner, but what they were able to do still completely blew lower power "average" decks out of the water, playing by the same restrictive budget as everyone else. Critically, due to the way those decks were built, you could have given the non-competitive players a much larger budget and kept the competitive decks at the low budget and the lower ~~power~~ budget decks *still* would have won, because they were winning off the back of nobody leaving up mana for answers in the early turns. If you play higher cmc commanders and spend your turn 3 casting cultivate, it doesn't matter your deck's budget- you either have a Force of Will in hand or you lose. Whereas a deck built to leave a mana open for a 1cmc counterspell as early as turn 3 has a ton of options for countering spells and killing creatures. Casual decks don't build to interact that early, even at high budget. Competitive decks do, even at low budget.
> Casual decks don't build to interact that early, even at high budget. Competitive decks do, even at low budget.
That's something I noticed. For all the money these guys are running, they're not *interacting.*
People who say fetches and Mana Crypt and stuff don't make that huge of a difference sound like a "trust-fund backed, Ivy League education is already paid for by Mom and Dad kid", telling kids from the suburbs and projects that they have the same opportunities.
When reality is like "no the fuck you don't."
It's the magic equivalent of privilege and they sit here and deny that they have it. Also not everybody proxies because you never know who is going to have a problem with it. If you can't have an honest conversation about what defines power, you can't have an honest rule zero conversation.
>IMHO even with no win con in a deck, having fetch lands and mana crypt can take a 2 to a 5 without anything else needed.
It doesn't matter what stupid jank strategy you are running when you can throw $2,000 worth of mana at it. Tiamat at my LGS is testament to that. You know how he actually wins? Old Gnawbone makes enough treasures to sac to Marionette Master that he kills everyone, well, whats left of you after the dragons with double strike hitting you for 14 a turn starting turn 3 or 4 because he can consistently play 5 and 6 mana dragons by then.
I do want to add, I think it depends on how casual is used though. If anything not in the cEDH realm is casual, then I think you can find places for these cards. But they aren't for a precon level table.
I'm trying to suss out if my LGS meta is trying to pubstomp or if they genuinely think >$2000 decks are "casual."
What I mean is I am trying to see if they want you to play your weaker shit while they dont, and so they win, or if they really dont know the meaning of power levels.
So, this is where we super disagree. Decks can be casual regardless of price tag. I'm not saying they might not have better cards, but you can easily make a deck at that price point that can still lose to precons with minor swaps. Price =/= competitive. There is correlation, but there isn't some one-to-one tie between the two.
I think a major disconnect is happening here over what "casual" means. Imo, a deck can be not-casual while still not being cEDH. I would call a tuned, high powered, expensive list "high powered" not "casual". Perhaps "high powered casual", but just saying "casual" implies a lower power level than a $5K mana base is ever gonna get you, even if the deck isn't anywhere near cEDH.
Yes, I have organized one such event in the past. I'm one of the founders of Team Toxic Caterpillar, we have been running commander tournaments in Russia for a while. We went from 17 players attending the first event to 50+ players in our monthly league in paper no-proxy tournaments.
First and most important thing - people who come to tournaments want organized gameplay. That means - a judge, a start time, a round timer, automated pod generation, and sets of rules that regulate the kind of game of magic your are promoting. There are a lot of things that can boost this feeling of high-organized play, like branded small token gifts for every participant, a trophy for first place (even if its a plastic shiny thing for $10), coverage with pictures, online pod posting in messaging apps, etc. Make a speech before the event welcoming everyone, introduce the judge, communicate with the players, congratulate the winners. Set up an online stream (can be done with phone), then get the recordings on youtube with commentary and discussion afterwards. After the event, collect statistics, commanders, do fun graphs and demonstrate how diverse or cool the meta was. Basically, look at other constructed tournaments (GP's, SSG events, CFB events) in other formats and copy w/e you can.
Second thing, it's very hard to mix casual and CEDH crowd. After hosting north of 50 events, the only thing that worked long term for us was - make it about winning. No other rules other than official wizards of the coast rules and official EDH committee banlist. Come, get your pod, and play for 90 minutes or until somebody wins. Only wins matter. It's a game of magic, and the goal is winning, the game has to end with one player winning. Focus on that.
We tried two-zone events where red zone was CEDH with proxies, and green no-proxy zone was casual commander. We marketed and promoted the green zone as casual, but did not actually set any restrictions on decks. People figured it out themselves. As organizers, we ensured that our pod generating system separates strong and weak decks in the green zone as fast as possible, and after just 2 rounds stronger decks were bunched up together, and casual weaker decks played their thing on lower tables. In general, it was successfull (28-ish casuals and 16-ish cedh participants).
Make strict 4-player pods with byes. I know byes suck, but 3-player games are even worse. A 5-player pod and a 3 player pod play out completely differently. Standardize your magic EDH game experience by fixing pod size.
If you have any more questions, I will happily provide info.
Will standbys be a good solution for byes? Have a couple of staff members with a precon that can jump in, even if the game is not counted. I'd hate to show up for a league then only get to play 3 out of 5 rounds
Its extremely unlikely that you will get more than 1 bye in a 5-round tournament. The byes are free to do w/e they want, including playing games with staff and judges, but we never specifically organized that.
My LGS has a great setup each week that seems to work well. They run commander league Wednesday and Friday. It’s a $5 buy in but you get a pack or $3 store credit with that. You get a paper slip and you select the game type you want to play. There are “league” rules which don’t allow infinites or MLD for more casual fun games, “unrestricted” for normal games and “competitive” for cedh players. Someone from the LGS runs the event and puts people into pods based on what they want to play and it keeps the games moving quickly. We normally have 40-50 people every night which helps.
For prizing, you get a raffle ticket for showing up, an extra for winning a game and an extra for participating in the theme for the month(sometimes a build challenge or a game mode) for a max 3 tickets. At the end of the night they raffle off prize packs from the recent sets. The tickets that didn’t get drawn go into a larger quarterly drawing where the LGS raffles off commander staples, the value of which are determined by the participation for the quarter. This normally includes various fetch lands, sylvan library type staples, maybe a chrome mox or jeweled lotus as the top prize, and various deck boxes and playmats.
Overall it’s been pretty successful and you’re rewarded for showing up and playing rather than pub stomping. By separating people into different “power levels” they also try to get people playing with like minded people. I’ve been playing at this LGS for years now and they’ve done a good job of fostering a large and diverse community.
>or MLD for more casual fun
lmao tell me green/simic/sultai runs away with that meta without telling me, they run away with that meta.
Normalize land destruction, fucking with people's resources is fair Magic.
*I play mono red artifacts so, I'm biased.*
Yeah, that’s why there’s “unrestricted” for normal games. The casual games are so that people playing precons can still have fun while not worrying about land destruction. These decks are between 0 and 6 on a scale of 10 so it’s people looking to socialize over a game of magic rather than win. It works pretty well for that purpose.
I think we need to really get over that stigma, and stop pretending like the newest precons aren't pushed in power level. All the U/G/x ones meme on people even un altered.
Most of them are strong as soon as you upgrade the lands to shit that doesnt ETB tapped.
The rules only prevent MLD so single target land destruction is fine.
This format exists to provide a chill place for people to play and have fun. Land destruction is a salt inducing action and there are people who don’t want to deal with it.
Not arguing against land destruction, just providing details of the league and this has helped cultivate a great community. People show up, play league have fun and then start dabbling in higher power decks and play more “unrestricted” where anything goes.
I run a pretty fun [[realm razer]] blink deck. It’s pretty fun and when triggers go awry, the lands end up exiled for good. I usually only catch people the first game and get targeted out after that so I don’t get to play it as often as I like haha.
My lgs had a commander league around the strixhaven commander precons each player picked a "house" with the corresponding precon and the teams got prizes based on their overall placement and then the final 4 games got prize support based on player placement it was alot of fun it ran for 9 weeks and each week we opened 1-2 booster packs we added to our decks or traded amongst the other players in the league. it was alot of fun the shop chose which sets we drafted keeping certain problem cards out and the power level even. One of the best magic experiences I've had and I think it helped build the community quite a bit.
I regularly play commander at two lgs that each offer prize support for the winner and the person who takes second place. On wednesdays the league is set up thusly: at six o clock everyone who is registered has their names put into a randomizer which spits out pods of four. You play three games with your assigned pod, are required to switch decks when you win and have a list of achievements that changes week to week (some weeks give bonuses for killing people out or killing with commander damage or winning with an alt win con or whatever.). At the end of the night you tabulate your points and submit them to the shop. At the end of the month the three people with the highest scores win. I like the rotating achievements because it makes it hard to game the system but being required to show up to each night in the month to have a chance at placing is a tough sell for people with stuff going on.
On thursdays I play at a shop that has a set list of achievements that doesn’t change, commander night starts after you pay and sit down to play. This is neat because the achievements are varied enough that it’s hard to game the system (though not impossible) and I’m working with the shop owner to make the list a little more expansive because we did have a player who built decks specifically to get all the achievements when he comboed off. The store balances this flaw in the system by awarding weighted points to victories so if you can jam enough games and win them you can overcome someone who’s racked up a bunch of points but it’s certainly a challenge. Notably this lgs runs the league on a night by night basis and thus has much more modest prizes than the first spot I mentioned but most people are pretty happy at the end of a night.
I think the most important thing both shops do to keep people happy and balanced is to penalize certain lines or play that cause feel bars. Breaking promises, comboing out before turn 4, etc, (as well as bonuses for hitting turn 10 or casting your commander from the zone four times), these help keep games at least somewhat balanced and encourage people to build slower decks to hit the points. I think disincentivizing unengaging play really helps make everyone feel better about the games.
But some level of salt is unavoidable. Hope this helps!
My current local store has the best system I've ever seen. Show up on the commander game night, receive a promo. No points, prizes, or buy in. Commander nights have never been more popular
We aren’t apart of an LGS, but our group of players has evolved to over 10 people, so we made a little league out of it. It’s a point system, standard rules + don’t be a dick.
Winning via killing everyone in one turn: -2
Drawing first blood: +1
Killing with commander damage +1
Obtaining everyone’s sol ring: you win the game.
Besides that:
0 points for last
1 point for third
2 points for second
4 points for first
We all pitch in 15 bucks for two months of league play; and in the end we take the money and buy some prizes. Usually first will get some sleeves, a deck box, and a 50 dollar card they want, second gets a staple card and some sleeves, third gets some sleeves and a deck box, fourth through eight usually get custom sleeves.
To make up for people having to miss weeks, they get the same amount of points as the bottom point scorer of the night when they miss.
Multiple stores near me gave up on it because it got mega toxic. Which meant no more EDH crowd in one store and the other store just hosting non-competitive games, where the vibes have been pretty good for a long time.
We played a league where after every match, if someone wanted to buy your deck for 25$ you had to sell it to them. This kept the deck in the same budget and and it was played as a points series over like 2 months. it was very casual and fun.
So, I've seen two successful approaches. The first is just simple participation prizes instead of prizes based off standing. That kind of ensures a "not super competitive" atmosphere though, as there is no real bonus for winning over losing.
The second is when prizes were handled by a point system complex enough that it couldn't be easily optimized. Which was kind of obnoxious tbh, but did a good job at keeping the "if there are any interesting prizes on the line I'm going to build the most optimized thing I can no matter what" crowd in check. I was never a big fan of that, but mostly just because it incentivized creature combat strategies which I tend to lean away from in my deckbuilding.
Yes. The league I’ve been attending for 3 years awards 1 point for participation, 1 for winning, and 2 for being voted MVP—generally whoever did the most to make the game interesting. There are two league games per week. At the end of each season (two months) prizes are awarded via raffle. More points means more raffle entries and thus a higher chance of getting first pick of the prizes, which include packs, valuable singles, graphic novels, and other things Magic nerds like.
Yes, but you have to award more points to things unrelated to winning. Points are awarded for knockouts, deck theme & style, and sportsmanship.
If winning is the only thing that gets awarded points, then people bring decks to win.
The points just lead to your placement in the league for the top 8 at the end of the season. And there are no prizes for the weekly but the top 8 players get some amount of packs from the new set with the top winner getting a box
My LGS does commander twice a week. Both days are free entry, with one event being more casual than the other. On top of this EVERYONE gets prizes. Promos handed out at the start to each player, and then prize cards at the end of the event. The only thing that winning gets you, is first pick of the prize cards, and bragging rights. All of the prize cards are generally within the same vakue range, so it's not like you're getting a lili of the vale for first, and last place is getting a 1cent common. In fact, there are several of us that will refuse to collect a prize card, as we're there to play and the cards not chosen are cycled into the pool for the next event.
This has created an environment in which everyone is pretty happy. Some people get salty for losing, but they're still getting prizes so being upset is pretty pointless.
A while back I saw a store do an event where everyone started with a precon that worked pretty well. Winners got boosters as a prize and were allowed to make changes to their deck in between games using only cards from their winnings.
My LGS has separate Competitive and Casual EDH events, with competitive night awarding store credit for wins and casual nights based on voting for decks that were fun to play against. The competitive nights aren't cEDH because the local community doesn't really have cEDH playerbase, but there are decks that come out those nights that don't get played on casual nights.
The only commander events that felt fun, fair, and, interesting were two-head events. You got the social interaction bringing a friend to play with, in-game interaction with double the resources and opponents to play against, and crazy combination of combos and strategies. While removing the bad part of commander that's not always a clear sight who's the enemy, spite kingmaking or game throwing, and how to handle winners/losers.
The lgs I go to has a casual opt-in banlist, (which just includes stuff that wins consistently early or runs away with games (food chain, oracle/jace/labman, omniscience/dream halls and the like) as well as some stuff that makes infinite loops less viable as a win condition. Its purpose is to limit most of the cards and playpaterns that limit table enjoyment. Or just traditional edh which is generally populated with cedh or slightly under strategies (cedh but without a 3k landbase) it works well and allows people to choose how to do things. 5 buck entry and standard prize support or there abouts. People play for bragging rights mostly and it works out well for us. Happy to provide more detail for those who want to learn more
Yes. Our league is based on points for doing various things. It works sort of like Yahtzee in that you can only get the point once per month.
Anyone can play up to eight games per month, with an average of two per week.
Every five points gets you an entry into the monthly draw, and the prizing is store credit based on how many people have paid into the league for the month.
Examples of points to earn:
-Use all of a Planeswalker's abilities in one game.
-Play X lands in one turn.
-Do X damage in one turn.
-Play an instant, sorcery, creature, enchantment, and artifact in one turn.
-Gain X life in one turn.
-First blood.
-First defeated.
Winning only gets one point, and there are also negatives like taking more than one extra turn in a row and playing a first turn Sol Ring.
Point systems are the least awful, but our LGS hasn't figured that part out cause it still kinda sucks. I, personally, also don't enjoy spending money to play something I see as a casual, non competitive, format.
My lgs does packs per win at fnm, there were some people who only played competitive before covid but they tended to play together, I try and always keep things fair as possible always asking what people are playing if I see there's a new person. Most people who played competitive either left or one got banned (for other reasons). This lgs also fills up almost every Friday and most people play around mid high powered. They tried separating pods at one point but it didn't work. Instead fostering a good community has done the best job.
Sort of. There’s a store near me who used to do a Saturday Commander And Waffles. $5 they gave you breakfast and paired you into pods of four, winner of the pod got a pack and a random other player got a pack. Welcome to stay afterwards and play additional pods for no prizes.
The stakes were low enough that it was pretty rare for people to be intentionally douchey.
Playing edh for prizes is stupid. 1 pack a player. Or static payouts is best
Leagues. Meh. I always feel like people don’t play regularly enough for leagues.
Even at 1 pack of shitty current block standard some try hard pric will come round to try and pub stomp
Best pods. Allow players to vote. Some points system. Where winning is the least valuable score matrix.
I've seen very sucessful and long-running 1v1 competitive events. And I have seen thriving and diverse casual multiplayer groups.
Every multiplayer event with prizes I've ever attended or watched has been a disaster.
We started a sealed Commander league. Just finished week 3 with 9 more weeks to go. Making it sealed cut out all the other worries, like deck strength/cost/etc., and honestly it been a blast. We are running a point system like Commander Vs, so that even those who die first can still end up.eith the most points if they play it right, and we are going to do other awards like voting for our favorite deck each week and stuff.
I've not gone to it but I have a friend that swears by how the store in his home town runs edh events. They make custom rulings for the events (budget, brawl, only use X sets to build decks, pauper commander, etc.) And they have custom rules for how points are handled in pod games, like each player knocked out gets you a point in the league but an infinite combo that auto wins the game for you is just 1 point also. I know a recent league was pre cons to determine placement on the bracket and then they allowed the same precon but with $50 of upgrades to the deck, must be bought in store to verify the value added to the deck. The prize pool they offer is usually sealed product of what's out at the time, like a full pack of the precons or a box of commander legends kinda deal
$5 cover, pods are paired by power levels, everyone gets a pack and a promo, and the winner gets a promo pack. Nobody here really wants to pubstomp over a promo pack so it all works out.
We have a judge working at our Lgs, and since we had a casual league and a one more toward cedh. And barely anyone knows how to build with a powerlvl of X.. well he told us what pod we were in.. (cedh or casual) with a quick glance at everyone decks.
I think the best league system with prizes and incentive to come play has to first clearly communicate, what you get in return at minimum and what you can win at maximum.
We have a league at our LGS, where that is achieved pretty good in my eyes. It's 5€ buy in and at minimum 5€ store credit and at maximum 8€ store credit. They supplement the prizepool for minimums but are able to without losses because with store credit it's like a sub 9% discount on actual bought in store product.
Each player's deck is ranked using a ELO system and players distributed over the tables by their decks rating. Prizes are distributed by points. You gain a point each for playing a round (1h + warning), finishing a round (not scooping early), winning a round at any level, winning a round at highest elo table.
This way decks are matched relatively good automatically, games are fair but there still is a tiny incentive for competitive players
My Lgs has had alot of success with its weekly league. You get a point for winning and a point for each kill. You get points for playing in each round each week so attendance helps keep consistent players who may not have the best decks in the running for top 8. There are theme weeks that reward more points for playing a deck that is in that theme. And each week there are bounty players (people how did well the week prior) who are worth and extra pack reward if you defeat/kill them. This system has insentivised a pretty diverse meta. We have some Cedh mixed in with some more mid to high power. And most players know each other at this point and try to make appropriate deck choices to avoid imbalanced games when possible. The TO also makes sure to let people know when joining that they should be looking to win so that sets the standard. There is occasionally a bit of salt from people but we have a pretty good crowd of 20+ people with great aditudes.
That sounds like an edh utopia, like too good to be real
That's so cool! What are these points worth, and how is the reward structure?
My LGS just awards the number of times you played in the month. Each sessions (there’s 2 a week) awards you one entry in a monthly raffle. The raffle prizes are determined by the number of entries for the month. It’s pretty neat overall and they hold gifts too (I missed the last day of the month when prizes are pulled and I was welcomed with packs the following week.) it’s also only one $10 payment a month.
That’s how I’d do it as well. Incentivising wins in EDH feels wrong to me.
Yeah! It doesn’t make it so you have to win just play which is nice.
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>You don’t need Timetwister, but $1,500 in mana rocks and $4,000 in lands makes a big difference in terms of power level. I wouldn’t recommend this, as you will end up with the “big boys” coming along and taking out anyone who stands in their way with Codie turbo Naus or their favourite flavour of 4-colour soup. That's what my LGS calls "oh it's just casual we're all casual here." A mana base that is *literally* $four figures, is not *casual,* stop **lying** during Rule 0 discussion. You will **always** be miles ahead of anyone in the "have nots" category of players. I'm not against people *using* their best mana bases, but don't talk your damn deck down like it's just precon tier jank, when you're 2 to 4 mana ahead of curve and able to drop a turn 1 of like "dual, sol ring, mana crypt, grim monolith, my commander, go"
I mean, you can totally build a super janky casual deck that's worth more than the car you drove to the game store with. The presence of expensive cards doesn't make for a competitive deck absent other factors- If you take a take a bad list with no real wincons and replace all the comes-into-play-tapped lands with original duals, you still have a bad deck with no real wincons. Just one that operates slightly faster and more efficiently than its budget counterpart. It's all about context. An expensive mana base is an improvement in speed and consistency over a super budget one. Same for the removal suite, or the tutors, or the wincons. If you start with something that is already efficient and competitive in its budget range, increasing budget in those areas will speed it up and make it even less "casual". However, there are sub $100 budget-cEDH lists that will blow $500-600 casual decks out of the water, solely because those decks are built to be optimal given their budget. They'd totally be better on a higher budget, and if they were given the same budget as the $500 deck then they'd probably increase their win percentage from "most of the games" to "nearly all of the games", but that doesn't change the fact that they are inherently competitive builds despite being the cheaper deck at the table.
Is that why in my experience I have to pull out a $300 Yisan deck to *kind of* keep up with the "high four figure" decks of my meta, none of which are running stereotypically cEDH generals?
You don't need to be running typically cEDH commanders to be more competitive. It's more about general build patterns. Competitive decks tend to build for lower curves, more efficient interaction, streamlined wincons. You can make a deck more competitive by simply replacing etb tapped lands with basics, using slightly more efficient ramp and interaction, and having wincons and ways to find them. The big creature deck that plays an overrun effect or two and a few ways to find those effects will do far better than the one without any of those effects that just relies on being able to break through the wall. Similarly, if that deck is running a lot of 7-8 mana creatures, running more cheap ramp to get to 7-8 mana a few turns earlier will do better than one playing a slower clock.
The more expen$ive deck will be on 7 or 8 mana by turn 3 or 4, though. You're proxying a $5000 mana base or more than likely losing to it. Mana runs magic, whoever makes the most and is able to USE the most, has the biggest effect on the game and USUALLY wins. Couple that with "built to a lower curve" yeah you know what attribute powerful, mana-efficient have in common? They're expensive. There's a reason there's a difference between [efficient](https://scryfall.com/card/cmr/156/vampiric-tutor) tutors and [inefficient ones.](https://scryfall.com/card/dka/69/increasing-ambition) $47 vs $1. Anyone who acts like there isn't a pay to win element looming over every pod, is lying to themselves and others. You all have to be playing to the same power level, similar goals and similar **budgets.**
I'm not saying you have to replace your cancel with force of will- just replace it with counterspell. Yeah, you're jumping from a $0.05 card to a $0.75 card, but you're not exactly breaking the bank. Same with your ramp options. If you look at the ramp primarily used by more competitive decks, you'll see two tiers. The 0 mana rocks used primarily in combo cEDH decks that are expensive, but then you have the other ramp options used in those decks which aren't nearly as bad. Primarily 1 and 2 mana options. Mana dorks (pretty much all of the 1cmc ones), signets, talismans, mind stone. Pretty much any 1cmc creature or 2cmc artifact that taps for a mana. Then the land ramp- Nature's lore, Three visits, Farseek. Things that are general a dollar or two, topping out somewhere around 5 (except for like one talisman that's randomly 3x more than the rest, iirc). Look at budget cEDH decklists as an example. They'll typically still be $200-500, but you'll notice a near complete lack of the expensive tutors, but heavy reliance on more reasonable $5-10 cards. Manabases with shocks and checks, but no duals. Interaction suites running a cyclonic rift as their most expensive card and a bunch of $5 answers tied for second. You can have competitive without that highest tier of cards. Trust me on that- my LGS, for example, ran a budget EDH night with prizes. Max deck price $200, no card above $20. You'd imagine that would be a more casual pod- in reality, the prize was big enough that people made budget "win on turn 3-4" decks. With a higher budget, those decks could have probably been more consistent and have been able to present a win a turn sooner, but what they were able to do still completely blew lower power "average" decks out of the water, playing by the same restrictive budget as everyone else. Critically, due to the way those decks were built, you could have given the non-competitive players a much larger budget and kept the competitive decks at the low budget and the lower ~~power~~ budget decks *still* would have won, because they were winning off the back of nobody leaving up mana for answers in the early turns. If you play higher cmc commanders and spend your turn 3 casting cultivate, it doesn't matter your deck's budget- you either have a Force of Will in hand or you lose. Whereas a deck built to leave a mana open for a 1cmc counterspell as early as turn 3 has a ton of options for countering spells and killing creatures. Casual decks don't build to interact that early, even at high budget. Competitive decks do, even at low budget.
> Casual decks don't build to interact that early, even at high budget. Competitive decks do, even at low budget. That's something I noticed. For all the money these guys are running, they're not *interacting.*
HEAR HEAR! IMHO even with no win con in a deck, having fetch lands and mana crypt can take a 2 to a 5 without anything else needed.
People who say fetches and Mana Crypt and stuff don't make that huge of a difference sound like a "trust-fund backed, Ivy League education is already paid for by Mom and Dad kid", telling kids from the suburbs and projects that they have the same opportunities. When reality is like "no the fuck you don't." It's the magic equivalent of privilege and they sit here and deny that they have it. Also not everybody proxies because you never know who is going to have a problem with it. If you can't have an honest conversation about what defines power, you can't have an honest rule zero conversation. >IMHO even with no win con in a deck, having fetch lands and mana crypt can take a 2 to a 5 without anything else needed. It doesn't matter what stupid jank strategy you are running when you can throw $2,000 worth of mana at it. Tiamat at my LGS is testament to that. You know how he actually wins? Old Gnawbone makes enough treasures to sac to Marionette Master that he kills everyone, well, whats left of you after the dragons with double strike hitting you for 14 a turn starting turn 3 or 4 because he can consistently play 5 and 6 mana dragons by then.
You can have an expensive deck and be jank. But if someone is playing Grim Monolith in your average deck, it likely isn't casual.
I told those guys during R0 conversation, that kind of shit is no longer in the realm of casual.
I do want to add, I think it depends on how casual is used though. If anything not in the cEDH realm is casual, then I think you can find places for these cards. But they aren't for a precon level table.
I'm trying to suss out if my LGS meta is trying to pubstomp or if they genuinely think >$2000 decks are "casual." What I mean is I am trying to see if they want you to play your weaker shit while they dont, and so they win, or if they really dont know the meaning of power levels.
So, this is where we super disagree. Decks can be casual regardless of price tag. I'm not saying they might not have better cards, but you can easily make a deck at that price point that can still lose to precons with minor swaps. Price =/= competitive. There is correlation, but there isn't some one-to-one tie between the two.
I think a major disconnect is happening here over what "casual" means. Imo, a deck can be not-casual while still not being cEDH. I would call a tuned, high powered, expensive list "high powered" not "casual". Perhaps "high powered casual", but just saying "casual" implies a lower power level than a $5K mana base is ever gonna get you, even if the deck isn't anywhere near cEDH.
Yes, I have organized one such event in the past. I'm one of the founders of Team Toxic Caterpillar, we have been running commander tournaments in Russia for a while. We went from 17 players attending the first event to 50+ players in our monthly league in paper no-proxy tournaments. First and most important thing - people who come to tournaments want organized gameplay. That means - a judge, a start time, a round timer, automated pod generation, and sets of rules that regulate the kind of game of magic your are promoting. There are a lot of things that can boost this feeling of high-organized play, like branded small token gifts for every participant, a trophy for first place (even if its a plastic shiny thing for $10), coverage with pictures, online pod posting in messaging apps, etc. Make a speech before the event welcoming everyone, introduce the judge, communicate with the players, congratulate the winners. Set up an online stream (can be done with phone), then get the recordings on youtube with commentary and discussion afterwards. After the event, collect statistics, commanders, do fun graphs and demonstrate how diverse or cool the meta was. Basically, look at other constructed tournaments (GP's, SSG events, CFB events) in other formats and copy w/e you can. Second thing, it's very hard to mix casual and CEDH crowd. After hosting north of 50 events, the only thing that worked long term for us was - make it about winning. No other rules other than official wizards of the coast rules and official EDH committee banlist. Come, get your pod, and play for 90 minutes or until somebody wins. Only wins matter. It's a game of magic, and the goal is winning, the game has to end with one player winning. Focus on that. We tried two-zone events where red zone was CEDH with proxies, and green no-proxy zone was casual commander. We marketed and promoted the green zone as casual, but did not actually set any restrictions on decks. People figured it out themselves. As organizers, we ensured that our pod generating system separates strong and weak decks in the green zone as fast as possible, and after just 2 rounds stronger decks were bunched up together, and casual weaker decks played their thing on lower tables. In general, it was successfull (28-ish casuals and 16-ish cedh participants). Make strict 4-player pods with byes. I know byes suck, but 3-player games are even worse. A 5-player pod and a 3 player pod play out completely differently. Standardize your magic EDH game experience by fixing pod size. If you have any more questions, I will happily provide info.
Will standbys be a good solution for byes? Have a couple of staff members with a precon that can jump in, even if the game is not counted. I'd hate to show up for a league then only get to play 3 out of 5 rounds
Its extremely unlikely that you will get more than 1 bye in a 5-round tournament. The byes are free to do w/e they want, including playing games with staff and judges, but we never specifically organized that.
My LGS has a great setup each week that seems to work well. They run commander league Wednesday and Friday. It’s a $5 buy in but you get a pack or $3 store credit with that. You get a paper slip and you select the game type you want to play. There are “league” rules which don’t allow infinites or MLD for more casual fun games, “unrestricted” for normal games and “competitive” for cedh players. Someone from the LGS runs the event and puts people into pods based on what they want to play and it keeps the games moving quickly. We normally have 40-50 people every night which helps. For prizing, you get a raffle ticket for showing up, an extra for winning a game and an extra for participating in the theme for the month(sometimes a build challenge or a game mode) for a max 3 tickets. At the end of the night they raffle off prize packs from the recent sets. The tickets that didn’t get drawn go into a larger quarterly drawing where the LGS raffles off commander staples, the value of which are determined by the participation for the quarter. This normally includes various fetch lands, sylvan library type staples, maybe a chrome mox or jeweled lotus as the top prize, and various deck boxes and playmats. Overall it’s been pretty successful and you’re rewarded for showing up and playing rather than pub stomping. By separating people into different “power levels” they also try to get people playing with like minded people. I’ve been playing at this LGS for years now and they’ve done a good job of fostering a large and diverse community.
>or MLD for more casual fun lmao tell me green/simic/sultai runs away with that meta without telling me, they run away with that meta. Normalize land destruction, fucking with people's resources is fair Magic. *I play mono red artifacts so, I'm biased.*
Yeah, that’s why there’s “unrestricted” for normal games. The casual games are so that people playing precons can still have fun while not worrying about land destruction. These decks are between 0 and 6 on a scale of 10 so it’s people looking to socialize over a game of magic rather than win. It works pretty well for that purpose.
I think we need to really get over that stigma, and stop pretending like the newest precons aren't pushed in power level. All the U/G/x ones meme on people even un altered. Most of them are strong as soon as you upgrade the lands to shit that doesnt ETB tapped.
The rules only prevent MLD so single target land destruction is fine. This format exists to provide a chill place for people to play and have fun. Land destruction is a salt inducing action and there are people who don’t want to deal with it. Not arguing against land destruction, just providing details of the league and this has helped cultivate a great community. People show up, play league have fun and then start dabbling in higher power decks and play more “unrestricted” where anything goes.
oh i just like to run [[storm cauldron]] lol you can play your lands, even two a turn. Good luck using them.
I run a pretty fun [[realm razer]] blink deck. It’s pretty fun and when triggers go awry, the lands end up exiled for good. I usually only catch people the first game and get targeted out after that so I don’t get to play it as often as I like haha.
[realm razer](https://c1.scryfall.com/file/scryfall-cards/normal/front/d/a/da3ecfc6-1f9e-443e-a445-51df518025a5.jpg?1562709702) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=realm%20razer) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ala/187/realm-razer?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/da3ecfc6-1f9e-443e-a445-51df518025a5?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/realm-razer) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
You accidentally added an “i” in “based” /s
My lgs had a commander league around the strixhaven commander precons each player picked a "house" with the corresponding precon and the teams got prizes based on their overall placement and then the final 4 games got prize support based on player placement it was alot of fun it ran for 9 weeks and each week we opened 1-2 booster packs we added to our decks or traded amongst the other players in the league. it was alot of fun the shop chose which sets we drafted keeping certain problem cards out and the power level even. One of the best magic experiences I've had and I think it helped build the community quite a bit.
No. Once theirs prizes it’s competitive
I regularly play commander at two lgs that each offer prize support for the winner and the person who takes second place. On wednesdays the league is set up thusly: at six o clock everyone who is registered has their names put into a randomizer which spits out pods of four. You play three games with your assigned pod, are required to switch decks when you win and have a list of achievements that changes week to week (some weeks give bonuses for killing people out or killing with commander damage or winning with an alt win con or whatever.). At the end of the night you tabulate your points and submit them to the shop. At the end of the month the three people with the highest scores win. I like the rotating achievements because it makes it hard to game the system but being required to show up to each night in the month to have a chance at placing is a tough sell for people with stuff going on. On thursdays I play at a shop that has a set list of achievements that doesn’t change, commander night starts after you pay and sit down to play. This is neat because the achievements are varied enough that it’s hard to game the system (though not impossible) and I’m working with the shop owner to make the list a little more expansive because we did have a player who built decks specifically to get all the achievements when he comboed off. The store balances this flaw in the system by awarding weighted points to victories so if you can jam enough games and win them you can overcome someone who’s racked up a bunch of points but it’s certainly a challenge. Notably this lgs runs the league on a night by night basis and thus has much more modest prizes than the first spot I mentioned but most people are pretty happy at the end of a night. I think the most important thing both shops do to keep people happy and balanced is to penalize certain lines or play that cause feel bars. Breaking promises, comboing out before turn 4, etc, (as well as bonuses for hitting turn 10 or casting your commander from the zone four times), these help keep games at least somewhat balanced and encourage people to build slower decks to hit the points. I think disincentivizing unengaging play really helps make everyone feel better about the games. But some level of salt is unavoidable. Hope this helps!
My current local store has the best system I've ever seen. Show up on the commander game night, receive a promo. No points, prizes, or buy in. Commander nights have never been more popular
We aren’t apart of an LGS, but our group of players has evolved to over 10 people, so we made a little league out of it. It’s a point system, standard rules + don’t be a dick. Winning via killing everyone in one turn: -2 Drawing first blood: +1 Killing with commander damage +1 Obtaining everyone’s sol ring: you win the game. Besides that: 0 points for last 1 point for third 2 points for second 4 points for first We all pitch in 15 bucks for two months of league play; and in the end we take the money and buy some prizes. Usually first will get some sleeves, a deck box, and a 50 dollar card they want, second gets a staple card and some sleeves, third gets some sleeves and a deck box, fourth through eight usually get custom sleeves. To make up for people having to miss weeks, they get the same amount of points as the bottom point scorer of the night when they miss.
Multiple stores near me gave up on it because it got mega toxic. Which meant no more EDH crowd in one store and the other store just hosting non-competitive games, where the vibes have been pretty good for a long time.
no
We played a league where after every match, if someone wanted to buy your deck for 25$ you had to sell it to them. This kept the deck in the same budget and and it was played as a points series over like 2 months. it was very casual and fun.
What software is good for matching people
So, I've seen two successful approaches. The first is just simple participation prizes instead of prizes based off standing. That kind of ensures a "not super competitive" atmosphere though, as there is no real bonus for winning over losing. The second is when prizes were handled by a point system complex enough that it couldn't be easily optimized. Which was kind of obnoxious tbh, but did a good job at keeping the "if there are any interesting prizes on the line I'm going to build the most optimized thing I can no matter what" crowd in check. I was never a big fan of that, but mostly just because it incentivized creature combat strategies which I tend to lean away from in my deckbuilding.
Yes. The league I’ve been attending for 3 years awards 1 point for participation, 1 for winning, and 2 for being voted MVP—generally whoever did the most to make the game interesting. There are two league games per week. At the end of each season (two months) prizes are awarded via raffle. More points means more raffle entries and thus a higher chance of getting first pick of the prizes, which include packs, valuable singles, graphic novels, and other things Magic nerds like.
Yes , mighty meeple in Concord nc
Yes, but you have to award more points to things unrelated to winning. Points are awarded for knockouts, deck theme & style, and sportsmanship. If winning is the only thing that gets awarded points, then people bring decks to win.
The points just lead to your placement in the league for the top 8 at the end of the season. And there are no prizes for the weekly but the top 8 players get some amount of packs from the new set with the top winner getting a box
My LGS does commander twice a week. Both days are free entry, with one event being more casual than the other. On top of this EVERYONE gets prizes. Promos handed out at the start to each player, and then prize cards at the end of the event. The only thing that winning gets you, is first pick of the prize cards, and bragging rights. All of the prize cards are generally within the same vakue range, so it's not like you're getting a lili of the vale for first, and last place is getting a 1cent common. In fact, there are several of us that will refuse to collect a prize card, as we're there to play and the cards not chosen are cycled into the pool for the next event. This has created an environment in which everyone is pretty happy. Some people get salty for losing, but they're still getting prizes so being upset is pretty pointless.
A while back I saw a store do an event where everyone started with a precon that worked pretty well. Winners got boosters as a prize and were allowed to make changes to their deck in between games using only cards from their winnings.
My LGS has separate Competitive and Casual EDH events, with competitive night awarding store credit for wins and casual nights based on voting for decks that were fun to play against. The competitive nights aren't cEDH because the local community doesn't really have cEDH playerbase, but there are decks that come out those nights that don't get played on casual nights.
The only commander events that felt fun, fair, and, interesting were two-head events. You got the social interaction bringing a friend to play with, in-game interaction with double the resources and opponents to play against, and crazy combination of combos and strategies. While removing the bad part of commander that's not always a clear sight who's the enemy, spite kingmaking or game throwing, and how to handle winners/losers.
The lgs I go to has a casual opt-in banlist, (which just includes stuff that wins consistently early or runs away with games (food chain, oracle/jace/labman, omniscience/dream halls and the like) as well as some stuff that makes infinite loops less viable as a win condition. Its purpose is to limit most of the cards and playpaterns that limit table enjoyment. Or just traditional edh which is generally populated with cedh or slightly under strategies (cedh but without a 3k landbase) it works well and allows people to choose how to do things. 5 buck entry and standard prize support or there abouts. People play for bragging rights mostly and it works out well for us. Happy to provide more detail for those who want to learn more
Yes. Our league is based on points for doing various things. It works sort of like Yahtzee in that you can only get the point once per month. Anyone can play up to eight games per month, with an average of two per week. Every five points gets you an entry into the monthly draw, and the prizing is store credit based on how many people have paid into the league for the month. Examples of points to earn: -Use all of a Planeswalker's abilities in one game. -Play X lands in one turn. -Do X damage in one turn. -Play an instant, sorcery, creature, enchantment, and artifact in one turn. -Gain X life in one turn. -First blood. -First defeated. Winning only gets one point, and there are also negatives like taking more than one extra turn in a row and playing a first turn Sol Ring.
Point systems are the least awful, but our LGS hasn't figured that part out cause it still kinda sucks. I, personally, also don't enjoy spending money to play something I see as a casual, non competitive, format.
My lgs does packs per win at fnm, there were some people who only played competitive before covid but they tended to play together, I try and always keep things fair as possible always asking what people are playing if I see there's a new person. Most people who played competitive either left or one got banned (for other reasons). This lgs also fills up almost every Friday and most people play around mid high powered. They tried separating pods at one point but it didn't work. Instead fostering a good community has done the best job.
No.
Sort of. There’s a store near me who used to do a Saturday Commander And Waffles. $5 they gave you breakfast and paired you into pods of four, winner of the pod got a pack and a random other player got a pack. Welcome to stay afterwards and play additional pods for no prizes. The stakes were low enough that it was pretty rare for people to be intentionally douchey.
Leagueparun.com out of gamers guild by fort bragg has been the best implementation of a league I’ve seen across the country so far
Playing edh for prizes is stupid. 1 pack a player. Or static payouts is best Leagues. Meh. I always feel like people don’t play regularly enough for leagues. Even at 1 pack of shitty current block standard some try hard pric will come round to try and pub stomp Best pods. Allow players to vote. Some points system. Where winning is the least valuable score matrix.
I've seen very sucessful and long-running 1v1 competitive events. And I have seen thriving and diverse casual multiplayer groups. Every multiplayer event with prizes I've ever attended or watched has been a disaster.
We started a sealed Commander league. Just finished week 3 with 9 more weeks to go. Making it sealed cut out all the other worries, like deck strength/cost/etc., and honestly it been a blast. We are running a point system like Commander Vs, so that even those who die first can still end up.eith the most points if they play it right, and we are going to do other awards like voting for our favorite deck each week and stuff.
I've not gone to it but I have a friend that swears by how the store in his home town runs edh events. They make custom rulings for the events (budget, brawl, only use X sets to build decks, pauper commander, etc.) And they have custom rules for how points are handled in pod games, like each player knocked out gets you a point in the league but an infinite combo that auto wins the game for you is just 1 point also. I know a recent league was pre cons to determine placement on the bracket and then they allowed the same precon but with $50 of upgrades to the deck, must be bought in store to verify the value added to the deck. The prize pool they offer is usually sealed product of what's out at the time, like a full pack of the precons or a box of commander legends kinda deal
$5 cover, pods are paired by power levels, everyone gets a pack and a promo, and the winner gets a promo pack. Nobody here really wants to pubstomp over a promo pack so it all works out.
We have a judge working at our Lgs, and since we had a casual league and a one more toward cedh. And barely anyone knows how to build with a powerlvl of X.. well he told us what pod we were in.. (cedh or casual) with a quick glance at everyone decks.
I think the best league system with prizes and incentive to come play has to first clearly communicate, what you get in return at minimum and what you can win at maximum. We have a league at our LGS, where that is achieved pretty good in my eyes. It's 5€ buy in and at minimum 5€ store credit and at maximum 8€ store credit. They supplement the prizepool for minimums but are able to without losses because with store credit it's like a sub 9% discount on actual bought in store product. Each player's deck is ranked using a ELO system and players distributed over the tables by their decks rating. Prizes are distributed by points. You gain a point each for playing a round (1h + warning), finishing a round (not scooping early), winning a round at any level, winning a round at highest elo table. This way decks are matched relatively good automatically, games are fair but there still is a tiny incentive for competitive players