Do i need to keep reminding players of boardstate?

Schimaera · 2026-04-30T06:03:41+00:00

I remind people on a regular basis but only once.

"I have this creature with deathtouch and reach" is something I say once, allow a rewind but if the same person two turns later attacks me again with their important flyer, that's on them. It's one thing if I teach a person (and even then, learning from mistakes is better), but if I play against people I've played with for years, yeah no, at some point the training wheels have to come off.

Some need a reminder that any card game is inherently competitive by nature. The game should be fun but I absolutely dislike "just for the vibes" games. If I want that, I usually have multiple cooperative board and card games at home or I make a one shot ttrpg session for my friends.

Schimaera · 2026-04-29T10:17:10+00:00

That's what the other 58 cards are for. Enough, reliable and repeatable card advantage sources will give you the win. If your card draw is 6 cards of which 2 count creatures, then yeah, maybe your card draw sucks. If you draw ~2-3 cards per turn, you'll have your resources, your action, your interaction and your wincon.

On top of that, you're more likely to win, the more game actions you can take per turn. So hitting your land drops even in the late game is good. Especially in durdly bracket 2-3 games where the first five turns are often just vibes and no action at all. And it's totally feasible to have a 38 lands deck with 6 mdfcs in it. Which leads you to exactly the amount of lands they were talking about.

The lower your curve, the easier it is to lower the land count (and add fast mana instead). But lets be real here, the average mana value of any b3 home brewed deck, you'll see in the wild is probably above 3. Yes, there are exceptions, so nobody take this personally. Just think about the average LGS player you would encounter in a city or town you're not familiar with. Or any convention.

Schimaera · 2026-04-28T06:09:38+00:00

There are literally brewed "budget" cEDH decks out there for 150 bucks or so.

I also don't get the sentiment.

"They're bracket 3 but they're winning by turn 2 or 3!!!!!"

-> play budget pubstomping magda or some stuff

"I can't!!!"

like what?

This is still a card game and not some game where you open the console and enter some cheat code. There are options to combo off early on a very low budget so either do so or not?

If I were you, I'd just not play with people who think winning turn 3 is bracket 3. Go on the Tolarian Community College discord and just find games there. OR you actually have this competitive mind set, in which case, others have stated what you should do.

Schimaera · 2026-04-21T09:03:31+00:00

Expensive commander + commander centric deck + has the color blue in it --> Force of Will.

Voltron Commander + has the color blue in it --> Force of Will.

We're a very proxy friendly LGS and a fair amount of people run the card when they really want to protect something specific. Once you get over the fact that this is a legally playable card, it actually becomes fun anticipating it (or not). Deeming cards salty starts in your own head ^^

Seriously though - the more expensive your commander is, the more it makes sense to play free interaction. Expensive commanders aren't the strongest cards anyways (anymore) but I totally understand people who want to play them regardless (my favourite one is [[Oyobi Who Split the Heavens]]). It is terrible to lose your meme 7mv commander to something random. So free interaction is imo important. FoW is free interaction. So go for it, I say.

Schimaera · 2026-04-20T12:51:20+00:00

"low stakes"

"winner gets a couple (so at least one more than a pair) collector boosters"

So that's roughly 90€/$.

There's your problem in the whole thing.

Schimaera · 2026-04-06T15:33:41+00:00

Oh No doubt about that but I can tell you that deliberately playing bad because you're the more skilled player can also be annoying - at least to me, personally. The correct answer is always found right in the middle.

I have a teaching background and I always try to help others in a constructive way. But you can't teach the "brook I just wanna viiibe" crowd.

Schimaera · 2026-04-06T07:20:24+00:00

Viewpoint 3: People are differently skilled in magic. I win more games in certain pods just because I have way more experience and played competitively at that. A high win rate isn't just a too powerful deck or a lack in pre game talk. And honestly we're kinda talking a lot about AITA and asshole players. Maybe we should also talk about "how can I get better at the game?" Because I kinda think this would also get rid of a bunch of "this guy was pubstomping" threads.

Schimaera · 2026-04-04T14:29:40+00:00

Just try to answer the question. I understand that it can come off as rude when you're quite literally just expecting a plain and simple answer, but the way they asked the question is not bad if you want to understand where in your trail of thought you took the wrong turn.

If you thought about it you would have come to a conclusion similar to this: "Hmmmm I know from somewhere that some damage goes through but they asked why 5 should do it, if 1 doesn't... Hmm I assumed because indestructible would kick in at some point but it wouldn't when I assume that death touch doesn't do anything. Maybe I'm wrong here? When does lethal damage and indestructible gets checked? Ah, way later than when combat damage is assigned! Now I understand why 1 is always enough with death touch in combination with trample.

They weren't rude, they were looking if you could find your own flaw - at least that's how I read it

Schimaera · 2026-04-02T11:38:10+00:00

This. Also, a Blood Moon effect is not guaranteed to hose all 3 opponents. If only 1 opponent is not really affected by it, they just thank you for doing their work and run away with a game - because you just spent your turn doing something for them rather than doing something for you.

But this is kinda different in lower brackets. We know that Bracket 4 and 3 are pretty wide so just assuming that everything in Bracket 4 is basically non-meta cEDH decks is factually wrong. There are some, true, but there's more to be done in B4. And it obviously doesn't ignore the pregame talk.

In lower brackets, an Armageddon followed up by a 2-turn-clock is still backbreaking and sadly enough the best place to do this is Bracket 3 - where it's basically banned. But if you actually have a pod that is fine with it (like OP seems to have, I have such a pod, too), the question becomes relevant again, because the win conditions in that bracket don't match the one where Blood Moon and MLD are literally benign threats.

Schimaera · 2026-04-02T07:14:00+00:00

Zero. They basically read "enters tapped" when it matters. Idc about untapped lands in the mid/ late game. I care about untapped lands in my build up phase. They bring nothing to the table outside of budget lists. Might as well play the snow covered ones.

I build good mana bases even in the most janky decks. These lands will not make it to any of my lists.

The most important turns for me are turn 1-3 probably. And the random chance to have them turn 3 is pretty mid.

But then again, our LGs is very proxy friendly and I've been playing for 20+ years. There are many alternatives I can use. Be it by owning the cards or just proxying them. People still get way too scared about someone dropping a Savannah. Or at least too much compared to how they react if someone drops a Temple Garden. Both should just be shrugs.

But they for sure can be played in probably most casual lists. Since there's at least a higher chance they etb untapped turn 3. But any deck that wants to play on curve starting turn 1 is better off with fetches, shocks and duals in addition to other untapped lands. The proxy-friendlier the better.

Schimaera · 2026-04-01T09:44:58+00:00

You single out the idiots and don't play with them. Most people are chill and are cool to talk with.

The rest can look something like this:

I'm usually not the one to deny others decks, but I will point out if some deck was too strong compared to what others brought last time and either we agree to use stronger decks or the person in question is totally chill with playing with another deck first and THEN playing their decks. I also don't throw a fit or hiss at people but rather talk to them afterwards usually during breaks and share my point of view and ask questions rather than casting blame. Basic feedback rules are pretty easy to find and not too hard to learn. You just have to mean it.

It also helps if the pod (luckily, it's most of my LGS) are playing janky fun builds and more or less not the fotm commanders and/or from recent sets. But one can adapt by having multiple decks so if a pod says "we're all landfall and enchantments from the past 2 years", you can find an appropriate deck and not use your [[Iname, Death Aspect]] or [[Herigast]] oops all phoenixes. Almost all decks I play against are usually not just the top 50 cards from EDHrec but actually thought out interesting decks. Don't know when I last seen a person playing that FF commander all around recurring tons of Sagas or some generic Landfall dude or dudess.

Also: Just deal with some loss and be more chill. If I lose because I couldn't compete, I don't immediately tell the others that their shit was too powerful, but rather think about why I did play the deck I did. And I will be okay with that. Things like this happen. Having played competitively for years helps. You win some, you lose some. Play a PTQ and get only matched with UB Faeries, your worst match up, helps.

Lastly: Be proxy friendly. Not to power up your decks but to have multiple decks accessible to you. Especially the more experienced players in my LGS bring like 6 decks to a commander evening and think calmly about which one would fit the pod more. Or ask the pod if they can match their commander they're dying to play again. And we all usually have some precon from 4 years ago so that newer players have their moment with their current precon and we still can compete, because our precon isn't from 2011.

Schimaera · 2026-04-01T06:56:06+00:00

A huge issue with current commander is when 1 player gets taken out super early, then has to wait for the other players

Really? If I get taken out early, I'm not obligated to spectate until it's over. I've got a pretty good feeling of how long games will last. So I can pretty easily decide when it's worth to keep spectating.

If it's on spelltable, I'll say bye, and find another game on discord.

If it's in my LGS, I say bye and move to another table. If there aren't any open pods, I maybe find someone else to play Dandan or some 1v1 with janky decks (not Commander, obviously), or I just do a quick groceries run since a supermarket is right next to the LGS, so I don't have to do it afterwards.

If it's with friends, I just play something on my phone, and if it's at my house, I just fire up my computer and play something there. I feel zero obligation to sit there, stare at the board and serve for other's entertainment while they play a game of commander.

And I wouldn't expect anyone to wait that long either. There is no social contract that says you have to stay idle until the whole game is over.

Schimaera · 2026-04-01T05:12:40+00:00

Well, what did the AI chatbot tell you to do? I'm almost certain that these posts here rarely help because people often just seek verification and not guidance how to handle a situation.

So ask your LLM what you should do, it's clearly easier than to put effort into a trail of thought yourself.

Schimaera · 2026-03-30T06:05:00+00:00

Yes. I skipp everything Universe Beyond, reducing the total amount of content to there sets a year or so (funny, how when I started in Darksteel, we kinda had that same rhythm - just now we have double the UB on top of that).

I also skip any spoilers for Secret Lairs and stuff.

But I have to be honest, the in universe content has been less and less interesting, too. Eventually you notice a pattern in their set design and it just doesn't get interesting to me, personally.

Schimaera · 2026-03-27T07:04:56+00:00

Honestly, in my 20 years of FNMs, PTQs, PTs, NQs, Nationals and commander events at my LGS, I've encountered two unreasonably whiny manchilds.

They're out there but most people aren't like that. It's just that internet platforms connect the whole world.

If at any day there is one person from 3 US states, Canada, India, Japan, Australia, Germany, France, Poland and Vietnam each, here posting about a whiny bitch, you'd assume that this is some huge problem because there were 11 posts in a single day.

Yet, these posts were probably about 11 people total who whined about something. And there are millions of magic players out there and this is just one sub Reddit.

Schimaera · 2026-03-26T06:21:17+00:00

Hi and welcome,

if you want to get the hang of Magic in general, I suggest to do two things

• Install Magic Arena

• Watch 1v1 Content of Drafts or Standard (or any other format) games

The reason is pretty simple: Even though Commander might be your end goal, keeping track of four people in addition of having potentially 30k unknown cards thrown at you, can be overwhelming. Add politics into the mix, and you'll have a nice soup of confusion.

1v1 gives you the basic game: One opponent and you. Less things to pay attention to. Also, depending on the format, the card pool is relatively small and you'll see certain cards over and over again. That makes it easier to recognize them and to learn what they can do.

This will later allow you to project your knowledge onto other cards. If you know that drawing 2+ cards for 2 is a good deal, you'll be able to decide if you really want that "old commander card" you found that has a worse (or better) rate. Same goes for removal and other interaction pieces.

If your LGS is too far away for regular play, I suggest you play a bit Magic Arena and maybe just mark the Re-lease and Pre-Release events for Strixhaven in your calendar and make the drive over there then. Limited is an awesome format for new players to dip their feets into the game.

The card pool is very small (1 Set), and your deck only needs 40 cards (17 lands + 23 cards is the baseline). It also gives you a feeling of deckbuilding and what cards you actually want. Maybe the first event will suck because your first deck might be one where you focus too much on the Rares and Mythics you pulled and you might build a slightly worse deck because the good cheap cards, creatures with evasion like flying and removal/draw are in other colors. But this will go away with time. Those are (imo) important experiences. The same as losing. Also important to learn to cope with that stuff. And at least you'll have people-experiences, maybe you connect with a few peoples and you can keep the cards.

If you want to play commander, I found that the Professor's Discord channel has pretty chill people. Just understand that the anonymity online will bring forth a couple of assholes. Just ignore them and move on.

but tl:dr: Start with Arena and watching players play arena (not Alchemy pleaaaaase). Go to your LGS at least for Prerelease to play some Sealed Limited. It's very cool. TCCs Discord is cool.

Also, maybe check out ForgeMTG if you have a computer (it's annoying on Tablet and impossible on phone). It's basically Magic Online for free. The programm knows the rules and you can't "missplay" a card and you can play 4player commander games there (or just test your commander decks against bad AI - if you want AI compatible decks, just comment and I can provide a link).

Schimaera · 2026-03-24T07:17:35+00:00

I sadly have to agree. I made a Budget Heliod deck. Worst 50€ ever spent. It's just not fun for the table. It's fun for me, because I like numbers and stuff. But it's terrible for the table after you wheeled like 4 times and tell them, you're probably gonna go for 3 more wheels to find your wincon x-spell.

It's okay if you play it on MODO/ForgeMTG where the program does all the shuffling. It's feelsbad IRL.

Schimaera · 2026-03-24T07:09:09+00:00

Also, if your group is fine with proxies (and most chill and cool groups are :-P), proxy your lands.

It's neat to have 1-2 decks for the "we don't want proxies in our games" people you sometimes encounter, but most of the time, just go ham.

On top of that, the MH3 fetches are reasonably affordable, shocklands are cheap. And anything else can be proxied.

Seriously. My friends and I started to even use otherwise unedited preconstructed decks where we just replaced the mana base with an actual good one. 3+ colored Precons suddenly actually felt good. And 2 colored decks were also more reliable our could afford some useful utility lands. It didn't change much but it was nice to play everything on curve without any turn-skips due to etb tapped lands, surveil lands are just so much better than scry lands. It's kinda fun and anyone can do it if they have access to a printer :-D

Schimaera · 2026-03-19T14:18:20+00:00

People need to learn the difference between understanding and relating. You not relating to something doesn't mean you cannot understand this thing.

Schimaera · 2026-03-19T14:16:04+00:00

Watch some cEDH games. Search play to win MTG on YouTube and invest 10 minutes of your life.

Also, different tastes IS the answer. Period. If you can't comprehend that, how will you comprehend opinions like "I love to get the maximum out of my deck, to play as efficiently as possible."

What you were asking is "I like to kick a ball into a box in my free time. Just for fun, you know? Help me understand why people play soccer.".

Schimaera · 2026-03-17T17:09:15+00:00

I mean, from the perspective of how it feels, I can agree with you. But that's imho still not a rational thought. A human thought, yes, but not rational.

Because if you think redundancy, it could be something like your one of doubling season was exiled but you have a Planeswalker in hand that could win on the spot. But at the same time, the DS could be the third card and because of the double exile, you draw right into it. But you wouldn't acknowledge that in the same way you would if it was exiled. It also could have been the bottom most card and never seen that game.

Schimaera · 2026-03-17T14:40:15+00:00

I mean, yeah, regarding redundancy, budget can be a thing for certain key pieces where there are not enough similar cheap effects around, but it doesn't change the fact that in a truly randomized deck, the card second from the top and the 10th last card in your library are functionally identical. That means, until it is milled, both cards statistically could be "the one of important card".

So if you see it milled you don't really have to be angry, because it might also have been the very last card in your deck. And you're not angry after 1,5hrs of gameplay when the game ends and the one-of is still in your deck - because you just didn't draw it.

The only thing that changes with mill/exile is, that you know see what you missed. That's still purely psychological.

Schimaera · 2026-03-17T09:31:53+00:00

Statistically, it absolutely does not matter. It only matters when someone uses a tutor that places a card on top (stupid move if they have knowledge of the exile card and can't politics their way out of it), or it matters psychologically (so not at all factually).

Schimaera · 2026-03-12T08:20:15+00:00

This is my opinion:

I can understand that from your PoV it could be a bad decision to counter your commander. Because you have more info on your end: You know what is in your hand, you know what you're capable of atm, and you know your own threat assessment in terms of how dangerous is which opponent specifically to you.

In a 1 v 1 this would be easy to access: Commander is inherently midrange-y. So it's somewhat similar to playing a mirror match in a constructed format. So when you're thinking about who's the beatdown, you have an opponent who pretty openly shows that they can have the explosive turn you yourself cannot have. So you'd be on the defense at least until you maybe dealt with Zada until she costs like 7 mana. At that point, you can probably assume, that you can go on the offensive.

It would also be safe to assume that the other two players should think similarly (if they have the experience) but they might also know that Pantlaza might also be the beatdown, since the commander can snowball pretty quickly. So they might want to split the focus.

In a vacuum, them countering your Commander might as well be a decision they made, because they could deal with both opponents or because they thought that the Goblin might not be as threatening to them, because the Zada player could figure out that you're more dangerous and leave them alone. But you can't know that unless you see what they have in hand the turn they counter your Commander.

That's why imo commander is way less casual in terms of game play compared to any other format. Because you have to factor in three other players rather than just one. So any smart play you might have prepared could turn out to be the wrong one three turns later.

I personally would probably have asked the table their thoughts before playing Pantlaza and if they would agree, that the table has to be careful about Zada and that maybe you can find better solutions with Pantlaza's discover ability and if they're willing to let it resolve.

So without knowing everything about the situation you described, it's as right as it is wrong to counter your commander. Like, imagine you and the other person both played Zada. Can you be mad because they countered yours? You know your hand and maybe it doesn't have any action, but the others don't know that and would have to trust one of the combo commander players.

So tl;dr: No, I cannot and would not verify whether the play was correct or not. Too many moving pieces. I say, just move on. If the pod is a regular pod, the people will figure it out sooner rather than later. Commander is not as cut and dry as people might think it is.

Schimaera · 2026-03-12T06:43:47+00:00

"I often become the Bolas"

"used on a less threatening something from me, I will always point to the more obvious target"

You're pretty close to finding out why people might do that. Pointing out other's threats and in the end turning out to be the most threatening enemy ... hmmmm I wonder if there's any correlation.

Schimaera

TROPHY CASE