allhailbolas

[allhailbolas]

Where is this voyage going?

Hello fellow commander players,

My name is Anton and I love commander. Here, I want to help you all to better understand the social nature of the format and give advice on how to integrate social aspects in your deckbuilding, playing and interaction with opponents to make sure everyone at the table has a great time. I’ll talk about how I understand the spirit of the format, what follows from that and what motivates people to play commander. From this, we can conclude which motivations might not be compatible and how to work around this. We’ll talk about evaluating your deck’s power, but also its impact on other players, about empathy for your opponents and cards that might take away from their fun. We’ll try to figure out how you can identify like-minded players and how to communicate what you’re looking for in a game, so in the end, everyone will have the best time possible when playing the best game’s best format and we can ensure its long term health.

Everything I say here is obviously my opinion and perspective, although I tried to make as many unbiased observations as possible based on the source material, in which case I represent the source’s opinion. I personally believe commander is for everyone and each playstyle is valid, as long as you take others’ experience into account and never force your style on others.

I will put all posts in reverse chronological order, as they build upon each other.

I hope you’re in for the ride and am always happy to discuss anything I post on here on twitter @AllHailBolas.

Let’s get this collective voyage started!

[allhailbolas]

What is commander’s spirit?

The rules of commander are available here:

https://mtgcommander.net/index.php/rules/

You can find the philosophy document here:

https://mtgcommander.net/index.php/the-philosophy-of-commander/

Additional quotes are from a few of Sheldon's articles:

http://www.starcitygames.com/articles/38858_The-Latest-Commander-Philosophy-And-Banned-List-Update.html

http://www.starcitygames.com/articles/38648_Thinking-About-Thinking-About-Commander.html

http://www.starcitygames.com/articles/37865_Commander-Cards-You-Shouldnt-Play.html

Rules

The format's rules already give us a rough idea of its spirit. The life total is twice as high as in tournament formats, meaning it's probably intended to have longer, more drawn-out games where more things happen and high-cost/less-efficient cards can still be played. Each deck has one(or more) commander(s), a special card in a different zone that restricts your deckbuilding, meaning it's much easier to build around a theme and personalize your deck. Commander is singleton, therefore there will be higher variance and less consistency, which leads to many more unique boardstates and interesting plays. Repetitive gameplay is not intended. Commander is a multiplayer format as well and every single player will win fewer games on average than in a two-player format; you have to be ready to lose a lot of games. Having multiple players enables 'politics', for example, in-game deals, truces, and manipulation of other players to help win the game. Therefore, commander games can not be won via skill alone and social aspects can't be ignored. I think we can conclude from this, that winning the game through magic skill and deckbuilding prowess can't be the primary focus when playing commander in its intended way. If you're looking for games where you can prove how good a player/deck builder you are, many commander games will not be for you, and you should clearly state that you're looking for this kind of game before you sit down to play, or there will be players at the table who'll be unhappy after the game.

With the rules' guidance we can formulate statements on the spirit of the format:

1) Games will/should take some time

2) Themes in deckbuilding are encouraged

3) Winning is not the primary goal

Philosophy

Now, let's examine what the official philosophy document says about the format's goals and what the RC, mostly through Sheldon Menery’s articles, has added to that, so we can derive the intended experience, which the format wants to offer:

"Commander is for fun. It's a socially interactive, multiplayer Magic: the Gathering format full of wild interactions and epic plays, specifically designed as an alternative to tournament Magic. [...] Commander focuses on a resonant experience. Each game is a journey the players share, relying on a social contract in which each player is considerate of the experiences of everyone involved--this promotes player interaction, inter-game variance, a variety of play styles, and a positive communal atmosphere. At the end of an ideal Commander game, someone will have won, but all participants will have had the opportunity to express themselves through their deck building and game play."

As an alternative to tournament magic and with a philosophy as a basic part of its rules, the commander format is a format but it's more than that.

"Commander is also an ideal [...] It's a place where fun is encouraged, and not just fun for yourself, but everyone involved."

It is a way to play and enjoy magic, where each game tries to be as memorable and fun as possible; optimally, every commander game will produce a unique, memorable story.

"Commander is created to create the best possible social experience"

Meaning, each player's experience matters, and actively working together to make sure everyone has a great time is necessary.

Commander could be described as a social exercise where, in the framework of a game of magic, players have to figure out how to make sure that all of them have a great time, although they all have different expectations and goals. Solving this social puzzle will make your games much more enjoyable but it will also make you be a better person in life, as you need to develop empathy and mindfulness along with honest communication with others to succeed in this.

So far, I'd summarize as:

'The spirit of the commander format is to foster a play environment where the chance of feeling that one participated in the game in a meaningful and satisfying way, regardless of the game's outcome, is as high as possible for each player at the table'

This means each player got the experience they wanted and they had the time and resources available in the game to achieve this, while not disabling others from doing the same thing.

“The rules of Commander are designed to maximize these experiences within a game of Magic. The addition of a commander, larger life total, and deck building restrictions emphasize the format's flavor; they increase deck variance and add more opportunities for participation and expression.“

As I stated when looking at the rules, themes are highly encouraged, and in contrary to competitive formats, are a viable way to build decks. Deck variance is another great thing, as it makes sure that games play out differently and gameplans aren’t too linear and repetitive, which is a style that seems to be discouraged.

Themed decks, social interaction and high variance in gameplay turn this into a format that is excellent for generating stories that everyone wants to remember and share and many players will focus on narrative equity, meaning taking actions that actively try to generate more and crazier stories.

So commander could as well be described as a place where amazing stories about games of magic are born, and it is comparable to tabletop RPGs where everyone works together to create a lasting memory. It is a journey that players go on and they have to cooperate to reach the desired destination.

"Commander is designed to be a malleable format. We encourage groups to use the rules and the ban list as a baseline to optimize their own experience. This is not a license for an individual to force their vision onto a play group, but encouragement for players to discuss their goals and how the rules might be adjusted to suit those goals. The format can be broken; we believe games are more fun if you don't."

As we concluded, commander is more a way of playing and enjoying magic than it is a format with hard rules and restrictions, and therefore it can be customized to fit players' needs and wishes. The last line is one of the most important ones in the document. It says that you can act well within the rules while still breaking the format. There is a huge difference between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law and for commander specifically, this is a feature rather than a bug. Breaking the format here could mean two things:

Building the most broken and effective decks possible, which is what most would say is what cEDH is about, or breaking the social contract, ignoring its spirit and not caring about the other players.

cEDH is a viable way to play commander, but as stated in the philosophy document, not what most players are looking for. As long as everyone is on the same page, it is an enjoyable way to play, but it should not be played along non-cEDH decks and players, because both sides will have an experience which is unexpected and unwanted.

As for breaking the social contract, it should be obvious that this is problematic for the other players' experience. This can come in many forms, for example:

- lying about your deck's power level/gameplan/your intended experience

- unwillingness to communicate and cooperate with other players before the game

- unwillingness to try to evaluate one's decks' impact on others

- actively trying to make the game less fun for others

-preventing other players from meaningfully participating in the game

If you don't break the social contract, everyone will have more fun, so please try not to.

The spirit of commander

In conclusion, an optimal game in the spirit of commander could be described as:

‘All players are actively working together to create a game in which each of them can meaningfully participate and everyone gets to experience what they were looking for so, in the end, each player had fun and can take away a lasting, enjoyable memory’

Just ask yourself after a game: 'Do I want to remember this game and do the other players as well?' and if the answer is 'Yes, we all do' then you have succeeded in playing a game which is fully in the spirit of the format.

Not every game can be like this, but every game should be approached with this in mind

[allhailbolas]

What are you looking for?

When thinking about commander's philosophy, we identified that one of the most important things when sitting down for a game is making sure that each player can get the experience they're looking for. For that to work, we have to know what we ourself are looking for. Identifying our goals and the anticipated experience can be quite tricky but we'll try to tackle it here.

There are many motivations for playing magic. To break them down and analyze them, we'll look into the main psychographics, as described by Mark Rosewater here:

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/timmy-johnny-and-spike-revisited-2006-03-20-2

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/vorthos-and-mel-2015-08-31

The psychographics

The basic breakdown is into Txmmy, Jxnny, and Spike on the motivation side, and Mel and Vorthos on the appreciation side; the three original psychographics are about why you play, and the other two about in which way you enjoy the game's aesthetics.

Txmmys want to experience something, they are looking for fun and enjoyment, which can be found in hilarious and big, swingy plays. They want to see fun interactions in the game and between the players. They embrace variance and randomness, going with the flow of the game and the hands they're dealt.

Jxnnys are looking for a way to express themselves. Expression can be about cleverness, creativity, personality, and uniqueness. Jxnnys love deckbuilding, potentially even more than playing. Their decks can be very thematic and weird, including unusual cards and subtle synergies that (hopefully) no-one has ever thought of before them. Convoluted combos are their jam, as are constraining themes and exploring out-of-the-box ideas.

And then there is Spike. Spikes want to prove themselves, which is mainly done by winning. They are very self-critical and judge their own abilities, which is why others' recognition of their skill is important for Spikes. Spikes can enjoy analytics; figuring out what is good and why it is good. Evaluating cards and decks and tuning lists to make them as efficient as possible. Some are always trying to improve their own play-/deckbuilding skills.

Vorthos enjoys the flavor of the game. Names, types, artwork, flavor text, and characters are what is aesthetically pleasing to Vorthoses. Flavor is beauty to them, beauty which can be found in decks and gameplay.

For Mels, beauty is found in magic's mechanics. Interactions between cards, rules and different lines on the same card are like multiple tiny gears in a big machine. Mels love observing these machines and enjoy its functionality and intricacies. When the machine is running smoothly with all parts fitting together, Mels are happy.

All of these psychographics are compatible. It's best to imagine all of them as traits of a player's personality, with each trait varying in degree of intensity.

Armed with knowledge of these traits, one can now try to identify one's own influences and the goals they lead towards:

Mel and Vorthos are not influential when it comes to gameplay, but rather big factors when building a deck. Remember, commander as a format encourages themes and embraces flavor, and that's an area where Mel&Vorthos's fancies are tickled.

If you enjoy building your deck around characters, stories, artworks and similar, you show strong aspects of Vorthos.

If mechanical interactions and constraining themes based on game elements intrigue you, your Mel trait is showing.

I believe Txmmy and Jxnny are self-explanatory when it comes to figuring out how these traits are influencing you in gameplay and deckbuilding. You just have to ask yourself: What kind of expression am I seeking and what do I find most enjoyable?

But now, let's talk about the elephant in the room, Spike.

Being spiky is a pretty controversial trait when talking about commander. As we concluded last week, commander is, contrary to most other formats, about more than winning. In tournament formats, you can be 100% spiky and this won't be problematic, as this formats' goal is to win the game so you won't be scorned for trying as hard as you can to achieve this goal. But commander is different; it has a social spirit. We described a game in line with this spirit as:

‘All players are actively working together to create a game in which each of them can meaningfully participate and everyone gets to experience what they were looking for so, in the end, each player had fun and can take away a lasting, enjoyable memory’

For this to work, we have to answer the question of which sought-after experiences are compatible and what can take away from compatibility.

Compatibility

The first thing that comes to mind is, that all psychographics need a certain environment to get what they're looking for.

Txmmy can want fun/big plays, swingy games, high variance, huge numbers, crazy turns and similar. These can be enabled by expensive cards, lots of mana, multiple amplifying effects, chaos inducing cards, and large board states. This can only happen if there is enough time to deploy these and the game goes late enough to play expensive spells. Additionally, there need to be enough resources available for Txmmy. Ending the game very early and taking resources away from other players, which can already start in the form of playing lots of removal, prevents Txmmy from calling the game a success. Another thing that Txmmy hates is feeling bored. If you have ONE big combo turn that takes a long time or if you take many turns in a row while others have to watch, Txmmys will be annoyed by the time monopoly you created. The same is true if you prevent Txmmys from doing anything that can advance the game, by locking them out of the game and denying them the ability to participate. On the other hand, if you make plays and play cards that will make the game more fun or chaotic and enable new game states that are unique and interesting, you can make Txmmys at your table happy.

Jxnnys are about expressing themselves and want an environment where that is possible. In general, that can be similar to Txmmys’ needs, as Jxnnys who like convoluted combos with many pieces need time to have a chance of assembling them. But mostly, they want you to notice and recognize what they're expressing. The smart synergies in their deck, the constraining theme that they could make work, the unusual card that had a surprisingly high impact on the game. What they need is other players who are interested in more than their own deck and plays and are open to new things and weird choices. It's devastating to them if you tell them that their choices are bad and that they should be playing other things, because by saying such things you show them that you didn't notice what they were expressing, or even worse, don't care. Jxnnys are happy if you ask them about their choices and reasons, appreciate and acknowledge when their deck works, and it's very satisfying for them if they can show you something new and you show your appreciation for that. The tricky thing is, that it is very unusual for magic players to not care about winning at all. Most players want to at least have a realistic chance to win the game. Jxnnys can handicap their ability to win the game by a lot, because for them expression comes first. So for them to still have a shot they need others to play decks which are not too strong, too consistent or have a focus that is on something else than winning as well.

And Spikes? What Spikes need is players who have at least a similar degree of spikyness, so that the competition is tough for them and they won't get handed an easy win. If your main, and highly dominant, trait is spikyness, you want to win, at any cost. This can be problematic when playing with people who are less spiky than you are because they have different motivations which make them make decisions that are at odds with maximizing the ability to win the game. If your only focus is on winning, you'll make decisions in deckbuilding and playing which will destroy the environment that Txmmy and Jxnny need.

Therefore, the experience’s characteristics that players are looking for can be:

variety

entertainment

social interaction

participation

competition

With the premise, that every player has aspects of all the psychographics' traits, but with different degrees of intensity, everyone is at least a little bit of a Txmmy, Jxnny, Mel, Vorthos and also Spike. The intensity of the Txmmy, Jxnny, Mel, and Vorthos traits can be ignored, as their goals are compatible without much trouble; in the end, the one thing we need to focus on when trying to achieve compatibility is the degree of spikyness in a player.

The less spiky you are, the more willing you'll be to make decisions that'll make you lose win-percentage to enable other goals, and the more you will agree with the statement:

Just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should do it.

At the top of spikyness are players who are unwilling to compromise and try to win above all else. Descending from there, more and more other factors and motivations are added, and players are freely giving away more and more percentage points because winning matters less to them.

This can be in many ways:

-Including cards in your deck because they are fun or you personally like them (pet cards) although more efficient or powerful options are available

-Constraining your deckbuilding by sticking to a theme that you enjoy building around rather than just optimizing your deck to be as powerful as possible

-Avoiding certain cards because they are too good and make winning 'too easy' or 'too boring' and could lead to repetitive gameplay

-Making a play that is not the best one available, but one you find fun and enjoyable

These, along with similar things, are all decisions based on personal factors that decrease win-percentage. But thinking of the format's spirit that we established, one can freely give away win percentage as well, because one is empathic and cares about the other players. You might avoid certain cards because they don't lead to the environment that other players need or are actively unfun to play against. You might not play certain styles of decks because you know that others won't enjoy playing against them. You might not make a specific play because it will make someone unhappy, although it might be the best play available. Understanding these interpersonal reasons to give away win-percentage is the secret to successfully embracing the format's spirit.

You have to be willing to diminish your own ability to win the game, to enable others to enjoy the game. That’s what the pre-game communication is for. It's for figuring out if all players are willing to lessen their own ability to win the game by a similar amount, to enable the other players' enjoyment, to avoid an imbalance of experiences.

So if someone asks 'What is your deck's power level?' or 'How long do you want this game to go?' or 'How competitive is your deck?' what they are actually looking for is the answer to the question 'How much do you want to win, and to what degree will you be able to compromise about that?'. If that is the question that we're actually trying to get an answer to, maybe we should change how we approach pre-game communication. Why not actively ask others how strongly they want to win and if they are willing and able to adjust that based on how you and the other players answer this question. The big problem here is that the abstract concept of degree of spikyness is hard to put into words or numbers. I would advocate for a different approach. Try to explain, what needs to happen for you to enjoy the game and see it as a success. For example, do you want to: Make as many tokens as possible? Cast an X-spell for a large amount? Surprise someone with an unusual effect? Assemble a specific synergy? Draw lots of cards? Use a particular card in your deck? Show of some flavorful cards? Make political deals, maybe betray someone? Or would you just like to win?

The thing is, that empathy is really hard and so is figuring out what others really want, so make it easier for everyone and just tell them what you're looking for.

I hope we all are now able to identify our own motivations and sought-after experience, are aware of potential problems with compatibility and know how to communicate these motivations before a game.

[allhailbolas]

Which cards are problematic?

After examining players' motivations and compatibility-problems regarding those motivations, let's focus on cards that are offensive because they clash with the format's spirit in general or can be problematic when encountering specific motivations. I'll try to sort these cards into categories, explain their problematic aspect, the evoked experience for others, and alternatives you could use instead. As for cards I mention that aren’t banned, it’s not that you can’t use them, but I would advocate that you should try to use them less or not use them at all, but at least be aware of why they are problematic and how they will lessen others’ enjoyment of games in which you use these.

Let’s start with an amazing comedy skit about these ‘banned in spirit’ cards:

The ban list

The ban list can be found here:

https://mtgcommander.net/index.php/banned-list/

The list’s explanation is found in the philosophy document here:

https://mtgcommander.net/index.php/the-philosophy-of-commander/

And some further explanations of problematic cards are in this article:

http://www.starcitygames.com/articles/37865_Commander-Cards-You-Shouldnt-Play.html

As the philosophy document states, the ban list:

does not seek to regulate competitive play or power level

seeks to demonstrate which cards threaten the positive player experience at the core of the format or prevent players from reasonable self-expression

The primary focus of the list is on cards which are problematic because of their extreme consistency, ubiquity, and/or ability to restrict others’ opportunities.

There, we can find a list of categories that problematic cards might fit in, but

The following list isn’t exhaustive, nor is it a checklist, but it represents ways in which cards challenge the positive experiences players look for in commander games

This includes cards which:

• Cause severe resource imbalances • Allow players to win out of nowhere • Prevent players from contributing to the game in a meaningful way. • Cause other players to feel they must play certain cards, even though they are also problematic. • Are very difficult for other players to interact with, especially if doing so requires dedicated, narrow responses when deck-building. • Interact poorly with the multiplayer nature of the format or the specific rules of Commander. • Lead to repetitive game play. 

Let’s recall how we summarized the sought-after experience’s characteristics that players can be looking for:

variety, entertainment, social interaction, participation, competition

All cards mentioned here are impacting one or more of these and are therefore problematic.

Resource imbalances/Preventing others from contributing

Impact: variety, social interaction, participation, competition

Resource imbalances can come in two ways, either getting ahead by a huge amount of resources (cards/mana/life/tempo) or taking away lots of resources from other players, in some cases so many resources that they are unable to contribute to the game any more, which is why I grouped these two together. Banned cards that do this include:

Ancestral Recall

Balance

Black Lotus

Braids, Cabal Minion

Channel

Erayo, Soratami Ascendant

Iona, Shield of Emeria

Fastbond

Griselbrand

Karakas

Leovold, Emissary of Trest

Library of Alexandria

Limited Resources

Mox Sapphire, Ruby, Pearl, Emerald and Jet

Paradox Engine

Primeval Titan

Prophet of Kruphix

Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary

Sundering Titan

Sylvan Primordial

Tolarian Academy

Trade Secrets

Upheaval

Yawgmoth's Bargain

Many of these are banned/restricted in other formats as well, because they're some of the most powerful magic cards ever printed (e.g. the power 9). Some are more powerful here than in other formats because they can interact with the command zone (e.g. Braids, Grislebrand, Rofellos, Karakas). Additionally, some interact poorly with commander's other rules (e.g. Iona, Trade Secrets, Limited Resources).

Although that's not the ban list's main goal, some of these cards are incredibly powerful while being incredibly expensive too, so availability is a real problem, therefore it makes sense to include these on the ban list, so players don’t have to worry about not being able to access these amazingly strong effects due to budget restrictions.

Besides these, the mentions here are cards that generate lots of resources and cards that take them away, so why are these banned? Generating lots of resources is a problem because as we examined when talking about players' motivations, there are playstyles that need time to work out, and drowning players who pursuit these styles in resources prevents them from doing what they sat down for. Another problem is, that if these were legal, players' who want to play powerful cards would have less variety available, because many of these are so much better than the alternatives, which would create less interesting and more repetitive gameplay and would reduce options for players. Obviously, you don't have to play the best cards, but with increasing power level, fewer cards with that power level are available, therefore lowering the overall power level opens up more cards to be playable.

Legal cards which probably generate too many resources are for example: 

Necropotence, Sylvan Library, Gaea's Cradle, Ad Nauseum, Yawgmoth's Will

Cards that take away resources are much more interesting. In most extreme cases, they take away others' ability to do anything relevant, basically ending the game for them. This again is problematic, if players need time and resources for their playstyle, and the resource denial available is too fast and too efficient to counteract, rendering these playstyles useless when encountering strong resource denial. Locking players out or leaving them without cards/lands or similarly deprived of options is even worse because then you have to sit and watch for the rest of the game, because there are still others who could help you and you might have some answers left, meaning you're not technically dead and could get out of it. Many players hate this because they want to play magic and not wait until others finish playing magic; this situation can feel helpless and be very painful, in a similar way to how being extremely mana-screwed/-flooded can feel horrible. As a magic player, you know that this feels bad, and therefore should understand why others feel bad if you put them in this situation. If your strategy is based around locking players out or taking away lots of resources, I would advocate to do this in a way which leaves them viable options to deal with the situation, or killing them extremely quickly so they don't have to suffer through this slow death by a thousand cuts.

Cards that are not banned, but evoke similar feel-bads and have equivalent problems associated with them are most of the mass land destruction/ mass land denial effects, e.g.

Armageddon, Ruination, Back to basics, Winter Orb, Mana Breach, Stasis, Blood Moon,  Worldfire.

efficient Stax cards, which make spells uncastable for others or continually take away resources or just prevent players from game actions, e.g.

Grand Arbiter Augustin IV, Sphere of Resistance, Possessed Portal, Smokestack, Ethersworn Canonist, Stranglehold, Ensnaring Bridge, Trinisphere, Vorinclex, Jin-Gitaxias, Grave Pact, Hullbreacher.

If you want to use cards that could be put in this category, you should make sure that others' are fine playing against these effects and you should be aware of how these cards will impact others’ goals.

When looking for alternatives, instead of denying resources, you could play more efficient removal spells to deal with problematic things from your opponents without preventing them from doing them at all. You can play effects like Cranial Extraction or Gideon's Intervention if you want to prevent specific cards from being cast. Maybe include more counterspells or targeted discard if you're afraid of some things resolving. When dealing with powerful lands, maybe use targeted removal and cards like Blood Sun instead of blowing up everything.

Repetitive gameplay/Less variance

Impact: variety, entertainment

This includes ubiquitous cards which are necessary inclusions if you want access to certain effects or the most powerful version of an effect, cards that hugely increase a deck's consistency and therefore lessen variance, and pieces for easy to assemble combos which always end the game in the same way. Banned cards that fit are:

Flash

Gifts Ungiven

Lutri, the Spellchaser

Panoptic Mirror

Recurring Nightmare

Time Vault

Tinker

Some other ubiquitous cards that aren't banned are cards like

Cyclonic Rift, Rhystic Study, Seedborn Muse, Cabal Coffers, Smothering Tithe, Mana Crypt, Arcane Signet, Sensei's Divining Top, Sol Ring, Golos.

Cards like these are basically a must-include if you want to make your deck better. There will always be format-staples and if you want to build a strong deck you'll probably include them, but if you are looking for games that play out differently each time and want to see unique cards and effects in each game, you will probably not play these. There's nothing inherently wrong with these, but it is still good to be aware that some might not like seeing the same cards/commanders each game and will look for more other players with more ‘interesting’ decks.

What is much more variance reducing are pieces of strong combos and effects that can find these pieces. There are many infinite combos available in the commander format, and a lot of these only need 2-3 pieces to work out. These combos are a problem if your deck can assemble them quickly, consistently or they are your only game plan If you are too fast with these, others, who are not playing similarly fast and consistent combos, won't have enough time to get the experience they were looking for. Some players don't like any kind of combo, because they don't see it as a 'fair' way to win the game, because these combos work on an entirely different axis than the rest of the game. You should be aware of what others think of combos and what they would consider too early for you to combo them out. Tutors are another thing, as, when used optimally, they will make games play out more similar to each other. You'll get similar win conditions in these games, find the same solutions for problematic answers and get the same threats that others have problems dealing with. This will make your plan more consistent but reduces variance and unique cards, which some see as a thing they love about the format and want to encounter. Especially combos combined with tutoring will produce repetitive game states, which is something some players are actively trying to avoid when playing the format, so be careful when you use these effects and make choices about which you want to use, how many of these, and if any at all.

Cards that aren't banned but fall under this category are many of the cEDH combo pieces or strong two-card combos, e.g.

Dramatic Reversal, Food Chain, Laboratory Maniac, Protean Hulk, Persist/Melira, Kikki/Conscripts, Thopter/Sword, Monolith/Rings, Palinchron/Mana-doubling, Mikaeus/Triskelion, Doubling Season/Planeswalkers

especially feel-bad are combos which include the commander, as that is a combo piece that's always available.

As for tutoring, all the tutors which cost 1-2 mana, tutors which are repetitive or find a whole combo are very powerful, e.g.

Enlightened Tutor, Entomb, Mystical Tutor, Hermit Druid, Demonic Tutor, Crop Rotation, Survival of the Fittest, Doomsday, Vannifar, Birthing Pod, Tainted Pact, Demonic Consultation

If you want to avoid these effects, there are lots of things you can do. For staples, there are many similar but more narrow, more scaling-reliant or a little less powerful cards. Instead of fast combos, you can use combos that use more pieces, are much more expensive and therefore slower, or don't go infinite/win the game but just generate lots of value.

You can replace tutor effects with cantrips, especially those who look at a few cards from the top of your library, or you can play more cards that draw you many cards; both of these approaches will help you find the things you need more consistently, but you will still have to encounter variance and rely on how your deck is arranged in order to find them.

Sudden wins/Invalidating decisions

Impact: participation, competition

Similarly to combos, cards that suddenly win the game can be a problem when they can come out too early. Their other problematic aspect is, that these wins can feel like they invalidate most of the game actions and strategic choices that have been made before, as it only comes down to staying alive and casting one specific card to win the whole game. Many of these need additional resources or setup to work, but they have an incredibly efficient rate and can turn a stable looking board into a sudden win, while other cards in this category can even win straight up without anything else. I'll also include cards that enable easy wins after suddenly dealing lots of damage or similarly setting one or more opponents up to being taken out of the game and cards that create chaos in the game, as they have the same problem with resetting and invalidating whole parts of the game while randomly distributing resources, which can make players unhappy as well. Banned cards of this category are:

Biorhythm

Coalition Victory

Sway of the Stars

Legal cards with similar tendencies are for example:

Omniscience, Sorin Markov, Primal Surge, Craterhoof Behemoth, Blightsteel Colossus, Insurrection, Debt to the Deathless, Torment of Hailfire, Enter the Infinite, Thieve's Auction, Warp World, Scrambleverse

You could replace them with win conditions that are more reliable on other cards on the board or specific supporting effects if you think that other players you encounter don't enjoy playing against win conditions that can come out of the blue or plan on winning more incrementally. As for chaos, you should make sure that opponents have no problem with chaotic effects ‘spicing’ up the game, which can be good fun but isn't everyone's thing.

Time monopoly

Impact: entertainment, social interaction, participation

Players want to play the game, and in the same way that resource denial and locking them out makes them sit and watch while others play, effects that asymmetrically distribute game time create a very unpleasant experience. This can come in the form of extra turn effects, including the banned:

Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

Time Walk

But also:

Expropriate, Time Stretch, Time Warp, Sage of Hours, Nexus of Fate

Effects can also take away turns/parts of turns from other players, e.g.:

Mindslaver, Emrakul the Promised End, Aeon Engine, Time Stop, Orim’s Chant, Fatespinner

Or they can make you take an insanely long turn while others wait, mostly in the form of storm combo decks and similar plans that revolve around using many spells/effects in a single turn.

If you want to have a bigger impact on the game and try to achieve this through toying with the game's time allotment, consider not making others watch while you play the game but rather make your turns more explosive instead. This can be done through mana doubling effects, repetitive card draw based around something your deck does well (e.g. casting creatures, playing lands) or Ritual effects for one-turn mana increases. If you intend on creating a time monopoly, try to do something similar to what I proposed when locking people out: Kill them fast and end the game quickly.

Poor format interaction

Impact: variety, competition

Commander is a multiplayer format with a high starting life and a card in the command zone, and some cards interact very poorly with these rules, including cards that reference certain life totals, scale with the number of opponents/turns, work out of the command zone or hate against specific colors, e.g.:

Felidar Sovereign, Serra Ascendant, Kokusho the Evening Star, Gray Merchant of Asphodel, Derevi Empyrial Tactician, Edgar Markov, Oloro Ageless Ascetic, Luminarch Ascension, Boil, Lifeforce, Acid Rain

Some of these have been designed for the commander format, but they are still a bit abusive of the format's rules, as eminence commanders can't be interacted with by other players, which can feel hopeless. Color hate uses the color identity rules against other players and is a very asymmetrical effect, which makes this feel especially bad.

An aside on budget

It feels bad if you are disadvantaged in a game of magic because of things out of the players' control. This can be in the form of facing many expensive and powerful cards that you can't afford. It is not the other player's fault that they have more money available or are willing to spend more on magic, and if you think you belong in this category, you should definitely consider how it would make you feel if you'd continually play against decks which are much more expensive than yours. Magic isn't pay-to-win, but rather pay-to-play, but saying budget doesn't impact a deck's power wouldn't be accurate. There are some quite expensive and very powerful cards and many cards of similar functionality where more efficient versions are more expensive than the less efficient ones. This means that having a bigger budget makes it easier for you to build a powerful deck than if you had a smaller budget, which doesn't mean it is wrong to use what you have available to buy the cards you want to include. But you have to be sensible that others might have fewer resources to invest in their decks and therefore will be disadvantaged when playing against you, and might be a bit upset by this. This has the most impact in regards to mana-bases, as good lands aren't cheap and alternatives have downsides. It obviously isn't a huge disadvantage to play a guildgate rather than an original dual land, but if you are facing many of these budget-related choices throughout your deckbuilding process, they’ll add up and the handicap due to this won't be insignificant in the end and your deck will be less consistent, or a little bit slower, which can feel bad, because this is not because of decisions you made that where wrong, but based on factors out of your control. Try to be empathic with players who spend less than you and maybe spread out your expensive cards over more decks if their price seems to continually upset many of your fellow players.

Can impact: competition

This should give a good overview of cards that can cause problematic experiences for others and help you understand the reasons for this as well as how you can avoid causing these feelings. Commander is a lot about consent and knowing what others will be fine playing against and what you should avoid is a hard, but also very rewarding skill to master.

If you don't want to stop playing with these cards, which you definitely don't have to do, you should at least be aware of when and how they can cause problems and give you an idea of whom you shouldn't use them against or better ask before doing so. As long as you know that there is a social cost associated with these and that it’s not a freeroll to use them, just because they are allowed, you can make more particular and nuanced decisions of when and how you use these, instead of including them anywhere you can.

As said in the beginning, the ban list is not a hard rule, but a guideline of what could be obstructive to others' enjoyment of the game and therefore be used with caution.

[allhailbolas]

How to approach pre-game communication?

Pre-game communication is at the heart of the social contract. It's the tool that allows you to compromise about the experiences everyone is expecting and figure out how the group of players sitting down for a game can make sure everyone else has a good time, without taking away too much from your own goals. For pre-game communication to be successful, we need to make sure that others understand what we are looking for, we understand what they are looking for and then all parties choose a deck which has the highest compatibility with all these sought-after experiences. Pre-game communication should be as short and condensed as possible, while still fulfilling these requirements, to make sure there is lots of time for the actual game. Therefore, we must always strike the right balance between this taking too much time, and not being done thoroughly enough to work.

Expectations

We identified some basic qualities of players' sought-after experiences in 'What are you looking for?'. In summary, these were:

variety

entertainment

social interaction

participation

competition

This is still a lot to talk about, so let's try to condense them further to communicate about this more effectively.

Variety and entertainment are in the same ballpark because if they are not fulfilled, players who were looking for them will feel bored. Seeing the same cards, same patterns and repetitive gameplay is what happens when variety is lacking. When there is no entertainment, things that happen in the game don’t evoke strong emotions and players are indifferent to the game and not interested in and enjoying what’s happening. So if not offering these qualities will lead to boredom, the opposite is true when they are achieved, so together they stand for:

Fun

Next up are social interaction and participation. They both stand for similar things, but one is on the social side and all about what happens between the players that is not part of the gameplay and the other is about the gameplay. In gameplay, looking for interaction and participation means you don't sit around while others play or you all just play in solitaire mode, but that everyone gets to play a meaningful role in the game and what everyone is doing is impacting and influencing others. On the social side, this means that there might be politics, that people are talking about their decks and card choices, there can be banter and trash-talking, but the climate should be relaxed and respectful. Together, we can group these as:

Involvement

As for competition, we don't need to condense it further because the meaning is very clear, so this is the third thing that makes up expectations:

Competition

So even when trying to make pre-game communication as short as possible, we should consider at least these three basic attributes of the game experience and make others aware of how much we value these and try to understand how they are valuing them as well.

Assessment

After talking about our own expectations, we're only halfway done with the pre-game communication. The second and probably even more important part is the assessment of our available decks and their compatibility with the things others told us.

We should now have an idea of:

1) What they consider fun and what will take away from their fun

2) How competitive they are and how strong their decks will be

3) How involved they want to be in the game, mechanically and socially

For the fun side of things, we need to evaluate our own gameplan and the plays that our deck will make, and how much they align with what others said they'll find fun or if we're doing something which they labeled as actively unfun. Involvement works similarly, as we need to know if our gameplan is actively denying them their needed level of involvement or if we're looking for a different social experience than the other players. For both of these, we should know how many and which of the cards that we talked about in 'Which cards are problematic?' are in our deck, and how these impact others. We have to choose a deck that doesn't have too many of these or some that are too offensive or specifically incompatible with others' communicated expectations. For each group of players, there will be a certain level of problematic cards at the table that is right and this can be anywhere between none at all or anything goes, meaning you need to figure out what is probably acceptable.

To have a well-balanced environment for competition, we need to choose a deck that has a similar absolute strength than the other players' decks, to provide us with a game situation where there is not a huge relative difference in power level. Power level has multiple aspects and they all impact your competitiveness. These aspects are the deck's speed, meaning how early you can achieve your gameplan's goals; your deck's consistency, meaning how reliable you can find the spells you need and can cast them; your resiliency against interaction from other players who are trying to prevent you from winning and your ability to interact with other players to try to prevent them from winning. Power level also helps with answering the question 'How much do you want to win, and to what degree will you be able to compromise about that?’.

Communication

Current pre-game communication is mostly focusing on power level, which is usually done with a number or tier-based system, but as I see it there are quite a few problems with this.

The first is that 'power level' directly talks about competition, but doesn't touch fun or involvement, therefore it is failing to acknowledge fun and involvement as important aspects of players' motivations.

The problem I see here with the current form of communication is that this gives the impression, that competition is the only important thing you need to keep in mind, which is exactly what the commander format is trying to avoid. So if all you talk about before a game is power level, you are undermining the formats’ identity and spirit, although I think this is mostly unintentional and many are not aware of this contradiction between the format’s spirit and current approaches to pre-game communication. Additionally, because you're missing two of the three key components I arrived at, you're basically only talking about a third of what you should be talking about, so this can never be sufficient unless winning the game is the only thing people care about.

To effectively convey the other two aspects, we need to find a way to talk about the metrics behind them, which is short and efficient while being understandable for others and easy to evaluate.

One helpful thing is time. There is a correlation between power level and game time, as a deck’s speed, which we established as being an aspect of power level, defines how quickly the game can end. In a game of magic, it is most useful to talk about time as turns. Talking about how many turns we expect the game to take and what we would consider ideal also helps with the participation aspect of involvement, as people may want to play at least a certain number of turns, for them to consider their time spent on the game as meaningful participation. Talking about game time can, therefore, help with the speed and consistency aspects of power level and also with the participation aspect of involvement.

To further convey involvement, it is useful to talk about your deck's main plan and how you try to win. Some plans are based around denying others to be meaningfully involved in the game or try to asymmetrically distribute game time, and this can be at odds with others' wish for involvement. Talking about your plan and how you plan to win also helps others to evaluate how fun they believe playing against your deck will be for them.

Telling others your deck's plan will also tell them about your willingness to compromise about winning the game, as some plans are more about winning than others and therefore helps them evaluate how you rate competition. Your plan also correlates with power level, as some plans are more powerful than others and depending on your plan people can have an idea of how resilient your deck is as well. Another wording for this that can be helpful is 'Why did you build this deck?/What did you build it for?' as this helps transport your idea of fun. You can ask yourself what is most fun about playing this deck or what you like best about it and explain that to others, so they'll understand why you play this particular deck and what you want to achieve with it.

In my opinion, the combination of your deck's plan and the number of turns you expect/want to take in the game is a sufficient replacement for talking about power level (and therefore also competition), as power level is hard to evaluate anyway because assigning numbers or tiers/labels to decks is very abstract and correctly evaluating a decks strength is a hard skill that even many competitive players have trouble with, so it is easier to just talk about what you are trying to do, and how early you believe that to be fruitful. Additionally, this combination tells you much more about fun and involvement than talking about power level while still conveying enough of your idea of competition, which is why I believe this to be a more successful approach to pre-game communication.

Another thing that matters is talking about the things you consider to be unfun and actively taking away from your involvement. If there is something you don't want to play against or don't want to happen, say that right away in the beginning. If you're avoiding certain categories of problematic cards, tell others about that, so there won't be a bad surprise waiting for you during the game.

Another problem that I see with current pre-game discussion is, that a 'power-level'-scale, that tries to objectively measure how comparable decks will be in the following game is troubling because trying to remove subjectivity is the opposite of what the pre-game discussion should be doing. Commander as a format is about the many subjective ways that people enjoy the game, and when talking before a game we try to see how compatible the players' subjective stances are. Trying to somehow remove the subjectivity in this discussion by using a scale-system is contradictory to the discussion's goal.

This approach only makes sense to me, when you treat commander as a format like other formats, where the goal is to have a balanced competitive environment where players can show up with different styles of decks and have similar chances to win. But as I see it, this is not how commander works. The ban list is representative, there are other motivations than winning, and there are many different ways to play and people can make up their own house rules if they want to. This is not an environment that can or should be balanced. When sitting down to play, I would argue that most players don't, above all, want to have a chance to win that is similar to other players' chances to win, but rather are mostly looking for an experience that's worth their time. So while a scale-system can work similarly to a tier-system to establish how competitive your deck is in a normal tournament format, it is oddly out of place in a discussion about a commander game and the whole approach of trying to establish competitive balance for a game of commander is not doing the format's spirit justice.

I think if you treat commander like a format, there will be problems coming from that treatment, and in my opinion, current pre-game discussion is a symptom of this misunderstanding.

A new approach

As I understand it, the pre-game discussion shouldn’t be used as a balancing tool to adjust players' win-percentage, but rather be understood as a talk about consent for the kind of experience the players will collectively share in their next game.

Therefore, the things that would be helpful to state and ask before the game I’d recommend to be similar to:

‘What is your deck's main plan and how do you try to win?’

‘Why do you play this deck or what did you build it for?’

‘How many turns do you want/expect this game to take?’

‘How many turns would you like to have at least?’

Additionally, I greatly encourage you to tell others:

‘I am trying to avoid these cards/effects and don't like playing against them: [...]’

If everyone tries to honestly and precisely make and answer these statements and questions, it should be manageable for everyone to identify the correct deck to play and make sure you'll have a good game that everyone can enjoy.

If you don’t like sharing too much about your deck then I think it would be optimal if you can at least ask them about their dislikes and preferred speed so you can choose a deck that doesn’t include contradict their ideals and isn’t too fast, which is probably the best compromise between not giving too much away while still adjusting for the expected experience

This is different to what most people are used to in pre-game communication and it will take some time for you to know how to answer these questions for each of your decks and how to assess your decks’ compatibility with others’ answers to these questions, but I am sure that your quality of experiences in a game of commander will be improved if everyone tries to internalize this approach to pre-game communication.

Remember, we’re all here because we love experiencing this format, so help each other out and make sure everyone has a good time.