For me, I don’t care how long a game is as long as it’s engaging. I’ve played miserable games that only lasted five or six turns, and I’ve played fantastic games that have last more than two hours.

Grindy, puzzle solving games where everyone had a chance is where it's at. Dirdle, game actions, and decisions do need to be as prompt as possible and encouraged, very positively encouraged lol

Have yet to watch the episode by my own admission. However, I will say that long games are either epic or painful. There's rarely middle ground.

Games with long runtimes due to lots of game actions are fine, but games with long runtimes because players arent paying attention, constantly missing triggers and then wanting to rollback to get the triggers to happen, or failing to even attempt to think about their future turns ahead of time are not.

One thing I would recommend people try is letting other players in your pod or playgroup play your decks and you theirs. Not only does this create a unique and different experience, but it will allow you to get a better glimpse of what it's like to be on the receiving end of what you build. This will allow you to craft a better play experience as well as see if there is anything your decks are lacking.

3 1/2 hours game yesterday night over discord, it was long but oh boy was fun, a lot of back and forward, everyone had their time to shine

The best thing I’ve learned as a edh storm player, is that you should goldfish your deck quite often. If you goldfish it enough the storm lines get easier to find and implement, and it makes games much faster

I can't enjoy a game under an hour. If there was no back and fourth, no villain arc, no story, there was no game.

The Tasha Equation for me was solved by using her as a world enchantment and draw engine and have the whole deck be cards that steal spells, only using her minus ability when ive grabbed something really juicy.

If I wanted shorter games, I would play any other magic format.

I find dueling your decks against each other is a great way to see what it feels like to play against yourself😊

Why are ghosts so happy when they're in an elevator? It lifts their spirits

To avoid the problem of accidentally having too much of effect X (like Matts wipe example) it is really helpful to use tools like moxfield and to tag the cards with every category they fall into. This way, when you enable the tag view, you get a really good and easy overview, even if 80% of your cards have a gazillion modes on them.

The big difference between long games and slow games is usually down to how effective the interaction is. A long game where everyone has effective turns and is battering back and forth is great. A slow game where a player has the board on lock but just won’t end it or is taking their second twenty-minute turn is bleak. I also notice that a lot of people just don’t build decks that are capable of long games, they rush one plan and then fizzle out after a second wipe. It feels like decks built with too much goldfishing and not enough actual testing, if you can be simply knocked out of a game by a single decisive interaction.

Great point guys. Play more proactive cards! ALWAYS THINK ABOUT YOUR OPPONENTS' EXPERIENCE.

This was the best challenge the stats Segway. I didn't expect it and I literally cheered in my car.

Ive found by playing with Tom Bombadil, the best way to keep track of all the lore counters is actually to just have a few dice out on your field to respresent 1-4/5 counters and just have the saga in the proper area. Helps SOOOO much with organization and speed.

My lgs will do a big 5-9 man pod of anyone who stayed around after 12 am. So far our longest game has been 5 hours. They’ve been giving out a booster pack to the winner.

i must be absolutely unhinged because i preferred longer games since i started playing edh because my brother always killed me on turn 1-2 with elfball in kitchen table "teaching" me how to play mtg and i just want to see everyone play mageecs.

I feel this a lot, my first deck was Shorikai Genesis engine vehicles and I loved the flavour, the unique mechanic and all the control tools azorious gave me! But unfortunately most games either dragged out too long (and people scooped up just to play another game) or I lost too much tempo setting up my vehicles (without having access to my control tools). And honestly it didn't felt super great to play, at least for me, but thankfully I've found a commander that does let me play vehicles fast and loose with Greasefang! I think a lot of people should think more about "disassembling" their decks, keeping the stuff they like (win conditions, removal, fun value engines) and working around those to find a new commander that can help you steer your deck in a direction that's more fun (which for me was transitioning from a very controlly azorious deck to a balls to the walls orzhov deck)

I enjoy the longer games, gives every deck a chance to do their thing, but stuff has to be happening. I think one of my favorite games of all time was a 3-way slugfest. Not many combos, but plenty of synergy and big bois. The longest-playing of our group was honestly having more fun being milled out than playing most of his cards, because it meant that I had to deal with the Horror player's ever-growing (topped out around 86/86) Sewer Nemesis, while the Horror player was keeping him on life support to keep the beefy beast around. We enjoyed that one as a group so much that "in comes an 86/86 off the top rope!" became a running joke.

I like playing the long game, in any multiplayer format. One of the reasons I switched over to commander is because playing a game of commander feels like a larger story-arch that you get to be apart of. I’ve played many infinite combo games that end in turn two, and casual game that have gone two hours plus. I think the problem here is our limited selection of stores and shops to play our games at. Or even the fact that most ccg & TCG stores hold standard business hours, stay 9-5s and most of the mtg players in general that I’ve spoken to, work 9-5s. When it come down to it, neither the adults, or the children get to actively participate in the community, if they are attending school, and holding jobs. Commander games can go for some hours, yet here in Denver Colorado, you’d be lucky to get two hours worth of gameplay at any shop here, after a days work. I don’t believe it’s the game, I believe it’s Hasbro and Wizards refusing to supply a service, and take responsibility for the community they’ve created. In my opinion it should be up to the corporations to provide us spaces and places to use their products “publicly & regularly”. If they are not going to promote privately owned shops, then they better be the ones to supply us with places to promote their products. Time management is our problem, sure. But providing services that promote their products, judges that know the game,as we as bringing new players into the game is wizards and hasbros job. We ourselves have playgroups upon playgroups here in Colorado, with very little services available that allows us to support MTG. If they want us to play the game more, cut the corporate crap, and offer more services.

been refreshing youtube all day waiting for this

I kinda love decks that take a lot of game actions, though. even if I'm durdling, I do have fun spinning those wheels and having turns where it at least feels like I'm doing a whole lot of something.

Our group played a game not long ago that, over the course of several turns, was becoming more and more inevitable, but still long and grindy. One player had to leave much sooner than this would have resolved. We found, collectively within the contents of our four hands, the parts necessary to cause a draw on the spot. It's been a legendary story ever since.

An important point about sandbagging that board wipe. Just put your deck away after. Don’t be that guy that says, “I could’ve won if I had done this!” If you wanted to see the game play out, follow through.

I build my decks optimally no question. Whether or not I play optimally depends on the table.

On the flip side of the Angus superfriends deck slowing the game and being archenemy, i have a Kardur Doomscourge group slug deck. It actively wants to speed the game up and i become archenemy most of the time, and i absolutely love that deck and being the problem at the table :)

I recently thought of an interesting idea for my LGS, to assist in forming pods for people based on their playstyle. I figured I should give myself a nickname and decided on... "The Podfather." Dad jokes aside, you guys strike again with another phenomenal topic.

The first card I drew that I absolutely fell in love with was Wrath of God (1994). It's all been downhill since then. I have a Liesa, Shroud of Dusk deck that lives off of board wipes.

I've had a similar issue with my Tom Bombadil deck as to what you were talking about with the Gorion deck. When I built Tom, I wasn't thinking about it being a controlling type of deck, I just wanted to do fun things with saga's. But saga's are similar to adventures, a lot of the effects on good saga's are removal spells, or bounce, or stun. I want to have fun playing with the saga's, but I've noticed my opponents getting frustrated as I'm controlling their board states constantly. I know I can tone it down and take out some of the saga's with the removal attached to them, but the replacement saga's aren't powerful enough to keep me in the game otherwise. Kind of a catch-22.

aaaaand, you have to explain the lore behind the saga to everyone who is interested in the mtg lore, but is new to the game, and that takes some more time

I prefer Spellskite over Crown of the Ages just because it’s not a mana sink. Worst case, it re-directs removal from something important like my Commander… best case, it completely locks down so many spells, abilities, auras etc. unless opponents want to Voltron my Spellskite. With the increased popularity in Auras, Spellskite feels like a staple in most decks.

When I built my Queen Marchesa deck, I purposely built it to not be one of those decks that lead to long games. Instead of the standard pillow fort cards, I went with “punishment” style cards like Marchesa’s Decree, Revenge of Ravens, and Cunning Rhetoric. These cards don’t dissuade being attacked like the others do, but there are times where they are effectively doing that, so I put in other cards that are forcing attacks. Psychology no one wants to be forced to do something, so if the Monarch isn’t enough, then those usually seal the deal. Forced attacking definitely speeds up the game.

I've got a challenge for Joey's Baba Lysaga deck - Thornbite Staff. I just checked, and he's not running it. Just make sure there's a creature in the sac fodder, and she gets to untap to do it all again. It has certainly won games for my Baba Lysaga deck.

I recently house banned fast mana rocks including sol ring. It had a huge impact on games and made them way more fun. It has way more impact than you’d think in a white room theory craft.

I’m not concerned with an arbitrary length of game so much as tempo; Even 10 minutes when someone is playing STAX is a misery but it could be 2 hours and fly by if there are constant momentum shifts and crazy shenanigans.

Sometimes that +1/+1 counter deck doesn't NEED to double all the counters 6 times a turn. That's the only way I'll play counter decks in paper anymore, because sitting there and counting up dice, adding more dice, and calculating counters takes like 5 seconds or more a dice and it ends up taking up SO MUCH TIME.

Speaking of Starfield of Nyx, recently played against a Tom Bombadil deck that took over the game and really drug it out due to all the triggers. The Tom player decided to drop Starfield to finish the game, and after the other two players conceded, I hit them with a Batwing Brume for the win. So yeah, Starfield leads to some pretty fun stories.

Great suggestion with the initiative token.

This makes me think of my Izoni deck, it is a bit slow, and very stubborn. However, with most of the life gain being tied to card draw, it tends to accelerate rather than cause stalemates. It gets *a lot* of tokens after a while, and then it is just seing for lethal with the swarm. I have two evasion anthem in the deck to enable this as well.

I recently got back into commander and the match came down to the wire, with my Zndrsplt and Okaun deck swinging the first two players out easy enough, but player 3 held on for dear life, much to the impatience of the first two players. Every trick i could pull to rush things along, from gamble for a krarks thumb, to evasion to even desperate gambit but every avenue was thwarted, so while we were both sure with persistance i would win, i scooped anyway, to save the table any more wasted time. Was that the right call, or did i needlessly deny my opponent the victory they very well could have earned just for curtesy?

Fun fact, Ledgenary is a type, at least from my searches! I run starscream in my baba deck as well, it counts for all 3 hype!

I have a zaffai deck too. It will 100% take a big turn, I can do it in less than 5 minutes now though after some practice knowing all the lines

Dang, the Starscream challenge is sweet. Good work, Brian 👌

While I understand disliking when a game goes *too* long, that it's long at all isn't a bother, as if you had two 30 minute games vs one 1 hour game, you played the same amount of Magic (unless you just really like the early turns for some reason, you'll have less of those). I think folks take issue with longer games due to lack of agency, that part where you wish it was over because you've already tried your thing several times only for it not to work out and you kind of want to do something else now. Similar problem with long turns, that it takes agency away from other players because they tend not to be involved other than maybe helping track storm count. However, when a long game is a tense back and forth battle, when the archenemy is a new player from turn to turn and folks are vying for that one opening to just slam a big move, things can be great.

If you guys are taking notes and data on how long a game is going, do you think this could be a future stat that can be added to the EDHREC database? Like, a fake example would be: "Stasis - Average Game Length: 1.9 hours"?

Sigarda summons in my mono white elish norn deck (the saga one) is a houseeeee def recommend ppl to give that a shot!

One person in my play group build a combat focused brago deck. It was all ETB make a token, and after about turn 6 things got scary very quickly. Turns out there are a number of cards that make tokens in blue and white. I cannot stand tutors anymore. I will not play them just because of how long they take. Even if someone bends the rules and says I pass turn while searching a third of the time it gets back to their turn while searching. With my Sefris deck I focused entirely on going through the dungeon with a decent number of beaters, there are a decent number of initiative creatures with some power.

Ive played hundreds of commander games with a few different play groups....I dont think ive ever played a game that finished in an hour. We usually have a 4 hour block to play every Sunday, and we are STOKED if we can get 2 full games in

The number of turns or the total length of the game doesn't matter so much to me as having everyone be able to do what they want and having everyone take roughly the same amount of time. There have been a number of people to whom I've gently suggested that we should play with an aggregate turn timer, i.e. a cumulative sum of all the time you've taken across all your turns. And some decks that have prevented me from playing what I want in a way I found irritating and oppressive. Also, especially in Azorius decks, it's really important to have wincons. That's something I had to learn with my Brago deck. The issue is that I've struggled to find ones that aren't Thoracle or some infinite combo with Strionic Resonator. I've actually managed to get it to a point where I have a reasonable number of wincons, and I'm happy with the overall pace and mellowness of the deck, but it's pretty optimized, and I only play it when I see that a table is strong enough for it.

Long games for the win make em epic!

Curious, but has anyone ever done a Challenge the Stats over Tempting Licid? This thing seems really, really useful in a Goad deck, tap the Licid and spend 2 Green to force all of the opponent's stuff to block it (meaning other stuff is getting in if relevant) and return it to creature status after. I could be wrong, but that seems pretty good in a lot of decks, even if you don't expect to have huge creatures it can be repeated removal, can help sneak damage in if you put it on a Goaded chump, and can wipe out defenders if you slap it on something with Deathtouch, it can kill one blocking creature for each point of power. It seems good in Baaloth, maybe Thantis, but Rakdos Goad can't use it unfortunately. I think I have a deck that can end up generating awful board states now and then, because it's technically possible for me to have hard Stax and Discard effects out, but not have any Racks to actually close, the weenies in the deck are more to draw cards than to win via damage. Fortunately it's inherent card draw tends to find enough relevant pieces to make it a viable deck, but it requires a rule 0 conversation because once in awhile you draw poorly and it's a mess. I think building a deck that expects to end up the archenemy can be fun, it's not always a bad experience for a player to go all 'tall chicken' and require an answer, some games like that feel more exciting because of the drama. A Commander that ends up huge, like Thantis, is a natural for a less pushed group, it can be huge and it's easily given Trample and Deathtouch, probably making it a one-shot vs someone.

How can you submit a card for challenge the stats?

I'd love to see a deck list for that Angus Mackenzie superfriends deck! I hope its a budget deck...

With the Eligeth problem of not winning I play a similar deck (obviously none of the awkward scry stuff) and run Atemsis as the commander

That's a good intro joke, Dana 😂

an hour or so is just a fun game, 3-4 is an endurance test, and generally more stressful than fun. I wonder what the number would be for stress to fun ratio and how to effect that. How stress inducing should competitive games be, especially in casual environments? Do salt scores corelate to stress? (that's what I'm guessing) Also, I'm wondering if the length of game in and of itself is the stress part, or is it more how the game seems to extend itself, by way of restricting or undoing game changes, which makes it feel like you're doing a lot of nothing for several hours. What do you guys think?

Right now my favorite deck is an initiative deck. The problem i have is, i move through dungeon so fast that i habe to shuffle my deck too much. Amd the shuffling takes too long. But i love deck so much i wont stop

oh my GOD, that challenge the stats segue was GLORIOUS

My friends and i play 6 games every Thursday. Usually 4-6 hours total

As someone who is building a Tom Bombadil deck this is very useful insight

Long games with interaction is the best experience in Commander.

I also liked control decks but the classic izzet counter mass removal and then combo proved not very fun to my opponents so now I've discovered another way of controlling the table and ending in a surprising way with a goad deck. It is control but the opponents get to do their things, everybody happy now.

I've been playing mono black Toshiro for a while and it has the tendency to grind the game to a halt. I've struggled with this one a While.

I personally love longer games.

The last time played against Sefris the guy won on turn 2 with infinite dungeons.

I’ve been in a 3 hour game that wasn’t boring and epic. Every person was the archenemy at some point. Didn’t win in the end as eventually the value engine of my friend won out, but I think the sweet spot is about an hour before it gets to the point where you almost start trying to take SOMEONE out.

LMAO at saying turn 8-9 is a lot for closing a game. Low power games sit comfortable at 14-15 turns and it's fine.

My favorite part of Friday's

The way to make a dungeon deck not take a lot of time is to play Varis. Play a creature on every player’s turn to get through the dungeon

i have a new Hylda deck that creates a long game where not much happens, but it isn't strong enough that people just dont like playing against it, so i just resigned myself to understand that it is a game 1 deck not a game 3 or 4 deck

4 wizards meet for a duel to the death. The first wizard says I’ll agree to this duel but first I request that you do not paralyze me. The second says I will agree to the duel but no fire spells. The third says I will duel but no poisons can be used. The 4th says is this gonna take to long I’ve got a thing. I blame rule zero wotc and power creep novels they call trading cards.

24:37 🏆 Segue of the Year Award 2023

I’ve definitely sandbagged board wipes so that I can start another game haha

Hinata and brago getting brought up at once as miserable commanders lol, I had each of these built and didn’t like either of them. Rebuilt them as Hinata blink, red gives blink better reach and blink makes Hinata not awful to play against like the usual non-cEDH build path. Great deck now

My sunday play group regularly has between six and ten players. I know your pain

your problem is that you dont build your deck with the win condition in mind, rather, you build it with the "value" in mind.

Games going long is why I like having combos in casual decks. No cheesy turn 3 A+B combos, but being able to have a way to end the game is important, especially if the game is stalled out

I misread the title as "The Curse of Long Names" and thought this was gonna be 51 minutes of Asmo chat.

Joe SMITH???... Dedicated to his CRAFT??? snuck one in there Joey, I see you, I see you.

Soooo cool my friend 🤩

Instead of craterhoofs in every color. Game could use a more thunderfoot baloth esque card in different colors

People that watch long podcasts = people who like long games 😂

Speaking of muldrotha baby lasagna would be great in that deck

My Hylda deck makes games take forever

Long especially in causal really tick me of. People don’t read their cards & strategis during other players turns. Of course the board is always changing but u can come correct during.

Hate games that end too quickly, like when the cEDH player strolls up to a casual game and infinite combos turn 3 while I've played a signet and three basic lands. Only long games I hate are ones that are stax induced. Long because people can't do anything. As long as their is a decent amount of back and forth, I'm down for a game going a few hours.

Honestly if you feel like your tom bombadil deck is taking too long just switch to narci so you can just do what you're trying to do with a little more consistent win condition. My brother actually had a djeru with eyes open pillowfort deck which intended to get ajani steadfast emblem to make him take 0 dmg with djeru and try and use gideons to slowly beat people down. Although personally I like long games I have a stax superfriends deck myself called teferi and friends in azorious. Yea I would say don't play these decks with strangers and only play with people who know what's about to happen. And honestly in every game of commander you should always be assessing the board and thinking about what you're going to do ahead of time as much as possible.

Dana that's a dead baby joke lol

Jokes on them. Almost none of my decks have a card that wins the game! Most of my decks are pet cards smashed together in to a fun pile.

I think 1 hour is like a good length for a game. Much shorter and it feels bad. Much longer and i wanna die

My play group uses a chest timer for 15 minutes so each player has 15 minutes worth of turn to play and it makes the games much faster when people think ahead and it's much more enjoyable

Personally, when I edit deck, I make sure to remove any cards that I don’t like playing with. Scute swarm? Way too much math; you can scute on outta my landfall deck!!

I totally understand this. When the Skittles player sits in my pod, I know we're going to have a 2, 3, 4..... ....minute game. 😂

This is part of why I dislike Legends Tribal and Superfriends decks. Not only are they so complicated that the opponents can't keep track of how to stop them, the player themself struggle as well. Such decks tend to take as much time as the rest of the table combined, and not in a fun way for the rest of the table. I actively cut down on micromanagement in my decks to simplify things. Few if any +1/+1 counters, a select set of tokens, and so on.

Just put a Strixhaven Stadium in your deck and make war on your enemies

The Goblin joke was actually funny…

The irony of s 51 minute video. 😆

I don't mind games with many turns. I despise players and decks which require a lot of time per turn. Searching has gotten really bad as of late, with many people recommending fetch to shock mana bases, which mean you are tutoring and shuffling after a third of your land drops. Say what you will about tap lands, but they are fast and painless in actual play compared to a fetch. I don't mind Sagas as much as Superfriends, but the worst offender is just not knowing how to play your own deck. A lot of times I can tell players spent zero time familiarizing themselves with their own deck so they can play it quickly and efficiently.