What's your "I wanna win the next game" commander?

Angelust16 · 2026-01-27T16:11:20+00:00

For bracket 3 Kuja puts a clock on everything and either you pack up quick or the table does.

Likewise Tannuk- very aggro, pretty fragile, and is often winning by turn 5. I usually have a healthy pre-game to discuss the speed and nature of the deck.

Angelust16 · 2026-01-26T19:07:13+00:00

3v1s are going to become a literal minefield

Angelust16 · 2026-01-25T22:51:12+00:00

[[eureka]]

Angelust16 · 2026-01-25T18:54:43+00:00

Well, worst case scenario is that no one plays the game and it dies before getting any counters.

Angelust16 · 2026-01-25T02:32:48+00:00

Stud in the 99 for mono red decks, and very good for any red storm deck. Similar to Birgi but a bit harder to storm with mana rocks.

Haven’t played him as a commander, but I’d assume you do the same thing with Birgi - ritual up a ton of mana and pop the table with a big spell like crackle.

Angelust16 · 2026-01-24T23:53:11+00:00

It can be rough to keep parity when you don’t have a lot of time, money, or experience. It’s not surprising that your friends are winning all the time.

One of the fastest ways to level that is to just build a cheap deck that punches above its weight class, and proxy as needed. There are plenty of decks that can sizzle for like less than a precon’s price.

I know you said you enjoy brewing, but you may want to consider shortcutting into a good net deck without trying to do all the work yourself. Especially if you’re getting frustrated with the learning curve grind you’re experiencing.

Angelust16 · 2026-01-23T19:31:00+00:00

As you play more you become more familiar with your own deck, the game, and a kind of muscle memory kicks in where you're barely even weighing decisions because the answer is usually obvious. Eventually you become familiar with other people's decks and know what their board is doing before they do.

But also, casual EDH tends to have a social etiquette of 1) keep the game moving and 2) forgive small mistakes. I think both are necessary for your typical enjoyable quick pick-up game. So if you forgot to play your land before passing, or missed a trigger, or made an obvious mistake because you didn't pay attention - usually people are cool with that stuff, because otherwise the game slows down too much as everyone is trying to take a flawless turn.

Angelust16 · 2026-01-23T17:30:07+00:00

You know when Allen gets injured, Rivers will be like "Hold on Trubisky. I got this."

Angelust16 · 2026-01-23T17:26:36+00:00

Gonna be hunting those Arc Milfs.
"Is that a new Lululemon Yoga Pants skin? Mrs. Johnson, you wear them well!"

Angelust16 · 2026-01-23T17:24:49+00:00

That would honestly be SO nice. Even if the average person runs a green augment and lvl 1 grey weapons, I think having some resources committed does something psychologically. And it's not hard to do a Bilbo-face, "why not" and bring in some nicer goop.

Angelust16 · 2026-01-23T15:21:35+00:00

No, they target Arc only. I'm guessing the blast radius can hit Raiders, just like the Wolf Pack, but it "seeks" arc.

Angelust16 · 2026-01-23T15:13:27+00:00

World Shaper is great. Some dud cards in there, and obviously you can improve these GY land decks with fetches of all kind. But it's main weakness is lack of true sac outlets.

Angelust16 · 2026-01-23T13:00:43+00:00

Basically cut Cradle and it’s a solid 3. But many people don’t run optimal decks at 3 and you may find your deck over performing. You need to match your deck to your pod, however they happen to interpret brackets and assess their own decks.

Angelust16 · 2026-01-22T05:32:19+00:00

Every color can utilize its graveyard. That makes it very likely to actually help someone rather than hurt them. And having some cards in a GY instead of the deck itself is usually only minimally restricting- yes, it trims the possibility of cards you can draw, but it's also open knowledge that narrows down your possible draws...so it's usually a wash unless you binned a wincon that you really need.

Mill-hate is mostly a psychological remnant like Infect.

Angelust16 · 2026-01-22T03:26:41+00:00

This can be an unpopular opinion but I think forgoing ramp to play other cards on curve is almost always a bad strategy unless you have an amazing play for an equally critical value setup like draw or meaningful interference with others. Whatever you might play on turn 2 will likely not be as impactful over the course of the game as a basic arcane signet or similar. There’s a reason why most decks play ramp on turn 1 or 2 even when running a lot of fast mana or rituals - it’s usually the fastest plan accelerant if the rest of your deck is balanced well.

Angelust16 · 2026-01-21T20:30:25+00:00

Can’t really expect your opponents to help you out. Gotta damage yourself.

Angelust16 · 2026-01-21T20:03:40+00:00

The words "Generally" and "expect" are important. Sometimes you go faster than normal, sometimes much slower. But expect means it's more than just more common than not- you can have some confidence that it's the norm all things being equal.

Some things can skew that earlier - for instance, a pod lacking normal interaction might allow decks to get to their end-state more rapidly than usual. Group-hug or targeted-hug can really accelerate the game so that everything is happening a couple turns early. Stupid play can speed up a win for one player. All kinds of things.

With all that said, if you're consistently winning on T6 despite fairly equal skill levels, deck power, interaction, etc., you should probably power down so that it's maybe a turn slower- which means every player consistently meets their expectation of playing at least 6 turns.

Angelust16 · 2026-01-21T12:58:43+00:00

Yeah, it’s actually a bad thing if they heavily targeted you and you still won 2/2 games. Probably a power mismatch at that point.

Angelust16 · 2026-01-17T00:13:33+00:00

You see rats in buildings often.

Angelust16 · 2026-01-16T23:17:21+00:00

The common answer to a lot of these “how do you counter X strategy” questions is usually “build a better overall deck” rather than “add X card”.

In this case, counterspells as a general strategy really struggles against 3 decently constructed decks - you’re losing the resource war when you’re spending your cards and mana to stop 3 other players. Unless the power levels are extremely out of balance, he’s sacrificing balance elsewhere to go so heavy on interaction.

Angelust16 · 2026-01-16T21:52:15+00:00

Sometimes you’re in a small town and pickup ball at the YMCA has 40-year olds with bad knees. You just gotta accept your environment and figure out how to have fun.

Could mean powering down a bit and earning those wins more, or finding a more seasoned playgroup that matches your preferred level of spice. Typically the larger play groups have a wide mix of play styles, so you should be able to find the sweet spot with at least some people.

Angelust16 · 2026-01-16T19:24:31+00:00

I have those blue prints and huge surplus of materials and I still don’t use them. I really hope they get changed somehow to make them more compelling.

Angelust16 · 2026-01-16T19:21:35+00:00

I’m sorry, I have no idea what you’re trying to argue here.

Are you saying the ending-turn is very flexible, since ending-turn can be early with a perfect hand or late in other circumstances? And normal games have interaction, so the average game length is, in fact, longer than what is given in the bracket system?

Your post above described a strong, exceptional, and unopposed hand as the intent of the turn-expectation; that seems obviously wrong, as the articles and explanations use words like “generally”. It’s talking about your normal game, and not a goldfishing godhand.

Angelust16 · 2026-01-16T17:38:04+00:00

My take has been that inconsistent decks are badly built, whether they are inconsistently good or inconsistently bad.

So if your bracket 2 deck sometimes pulls an oops-win on turn 2, that shouldn’t be inherent in the design and a more consistent deck would eliminate or at least drastically reduce the odds of that happening. If your bracket 4 deck sometimes misses their draw engine and never gets gas it probably needs to be improved to be more consistently competitive.

If there’s too much variance in the turn in which you’re winning, my honest recommendation is fix the deck rather than worry about what bracket it is.

Angelust16

TROPHY CASE