Yo! Where all my alternate Pai Gow Magic name ideas at? Reply here so I can find em easily. -JLK

"the fact that paradox engine isn't banned..." this has aged very well

"If we keep doing it" Do it! Extra Turns is great!

I like Sheldons' idea of, don't play cards that keep everyone from actually being able to play their deck. Commander is more about having fun.

I love how everything they say just flies out the window in cedh

Three things I'd like to point out. 1) Something you guys mentioned was that it seems like his list included cards that made combos easier but never really followed up on that idea. Maybe the problem isn't combos but how easy getting them can be. I know I speak for myself (but I'm probably not alone) in saying that it feels worse loosing to a 2 card combo they tutored for than a 4 card combo they cleverly put together. 2) Considering the casual hate towards competitive, I think a lot of that is cost of good cards. The reason I don't run Demonic Tutor is not because I am "too righteous for such tryhard garbage," but because I cannot afford to put a $40-$50 card in my decks. Though malice towards players is never justifiable, some of the bitterness from casual is the feeling of pay to win. 3) Lastly, why are you guys so concerned about whether certain cards get banned or not? Outside of official play, I always understood EDH ban list to be like the pirate code: more guidelines than rules.

If I may be constructively critical about this episode, I feel like Josh made a better argument than DJ. While Josh seemed to tackle more of the "context" of the article and Sheldon's (possible) motivation behind it, DJ seems to come off a little more defensive. A lot of DJ's arguments seemed to come from the mindset of a "power gamer" not wanting to be constrained which I feel really missed the point of the article. I don't even think DJ is really like that, it's just his arguments seemed to come from there. I don't have a problem with combos, but I feel like anything that approaches infinite combos and/or prevents me from actually "playing magic" is not really going to encourage me to play again with you. Case in point: Palinchron is not the problem by itself, but it is very easy to abuse for infinite combos and it gets old very quickly when it gets abused. I think that was Sheldon's main goal with the article.

"Thieves' Auction. Confusing." Had to go read in detail what Thieves Auction does...Oh.

I like how DJ is like 'Sheldon doesnt like combo??' like hes personally offended

The first time I played with a competitive group I was a little annoyed with the combos. But now that I've been playing commander for over a year I've taken to thinking more like Josh; I don't care which playgroup I play with, as long as everyone has an understanding what type of game we are playing.

So let me get this straight: DJ is mad when the RC explains their thought processes, but then he's also mad that they don't explain all their bans to the extent that he would like. How are they supposed to win? Let him preside over the format alone as Emperor-for-Life? Look, we only have two real choices: either a small group of people make ban/unban decisions for the format and you just have to disagree with some of their decisions, or decisions are made democratically and you still have to disagree with some of the results. Shifting from the RC to WotC is just a sidegrade option so as long as the RC is doing a mostly-ok job, I say let them keep at it.

“Do you trust them more than WotC?” *contemplates sponsorship*

"If you're a stranger, Josh doesn't care if you have fun, he wants to crush you." "No! Well.... yeah."

"I'm fine with seedborn Muse" say the guy who play Vedalken Aurery in every of his decks. I wonder why XD

I would presume Biorhythm is banned because it very easilly reads "6GG: kill all opponents who don't have any creatures on board". They don't like cards that can kill a player in a single turn when cast without any other pieces.

I have a Narset and i complain when the other players don't target me. "Hello guys, i'm going to won if you don't stop me!"

Josh: I want players to have fun when I play Me: watches last few game knights edh games Huh.

I'm definitely with Josh here on not being as worried as DJ is about possible bannings of the cards in Sheldon's article. It feels like Sheldon is well capable of not letting his decisions on the Rules Commitee be clouded by personal preference, at least that's the impression I had after reading the article.

Josh is such a reasonable thinker. I always feel calmer watching these videos - and more informed!

Combo Enablers? Ahem, we're forgetting the TRUE Palinchrombo Palinchron, High Tide. High Tide Cost: U Makes all islands produce an additional blue mana until the end of your turn

"If there was a card that cost 8 mana and said ""I win the game"", would you play it?" "No, not at all." "I wouldn't either" ................................. "Biorhythm should be unbanned" 🤔

Need to add that DJ went full Alex Jones here with how he needlessly worried that Sheldon would ban any of these cards. He talks about barely using them and not having a problem with them but his exaggerated anxiety of Sheldon banning them contradicted that. If he seriously thinks that Sheldon would just let his feelings about what he doesn't like affect the way he evaluates cards with the RC, then it's obvious he hasn't read Sheldon's articles that much (the dude has discussed their process and how he interacts with that process SO. MANY. TIMES)

The majority of these cards go into the same build of Derevi stax.

Five life, Four decks, Three cards, Two players, One Pack. Easy name: Countdown.

Paradox engine is dumb. It's not even fun to play. It definitely belongs on this list.

9:35 Sheldon's list

I feel like half this video is kind of misunderstanding his article. He didn't say he wants these cards banned. He didn't say he thinks they're a problem in the format. He's doing this more as an informative thing, being like "hey, these cards maybe aren't that cool to do, you might consider that for a house rule for your playgroup" It all depends on how you play and build your deck. I've had someone tell me they don't want me to play my Xantcha deck which is based around punishment effects, because taking damage every time they draw a card or put out a token just makes most of their decks unplayable. On the other hand, that player is totally cool with me pulling out my Hatebears deck, which limits the things you can do and taxes your plays much like a Staxx deck would. Then we have someone in our playgroup who plays a mono-white deck with Armageddon, because she claims that card just belongs to the typical flavor of oldschool white decks - and in that deck, it's not really that much of an issue. It's all really dependent on context though. I wouldn't want someone to pull out the Armageddon or the Palinchron when playing at an LGS either though, if you don't know what you're up against and potentially there's some kids with weaker, more budget decks, you don't want to just steamroll them.

Some of my favorite commander moments have been "mean" combos going against one another. My opponent was trying to pull a Felidar Guardian Combo of with Animato while I was trying to pull off a graveyard recursion card. It was a crazy control mirror and we had some hilarious instances trying to keep each other under control.

“The fact that paradox engine isn’t banned...” this statement has not aged well

Are There Cards You Shouldn’t Play? Precons with Pros ;)

I’ve had games where mindslaver has saved the table from a combo deck. In a four player game I haven’t had an issue with it.

This is one of my favorite videos you've put out. Just the sheer passion and the fact that you both argued like adults, and could handle having different opinions. Great job.

"The best card in Pi Gow Magic is love axe." Ah, subtitles. Sometimes, they make me smile. I guess this goes up there with Swol Ring, Final Farting, and Skymarcher Perspirant.

51:30 "I live in the real world too." 👏🔥 DJ getting saaaaaal-tay!

3:09

Love the real talk mid way though the episode. Feels like conversation I've had with my friends. Great ep!

great episode. keep up with extra turns, and loved the discussion on the rules committee and WotC. important conversation that is good to keep an eye on

"I'll Emrakul, but then that's it. You get your turn." And completely waste Teferi's Protection. XD

The only real problem I found with all these cards (Mana Denial and Infinite Combos) is that those prevent a LOT of player to go and play EDH at their Local Game Store. I heard of a lot of people that just are afraid to go and participate with new people, because they believe they will go just to get all ther lands destructed or combo'ed before turn 5, and have an awful time all day. Just because the lack of rules for 'casual' players. That I can tell from my personal experience. Maybe there could be a special 'Casual EDH Ban List' banning all that boring stuff, just to get a better understanding before starting a match with new people. Like, not a real banlist, but something like 'Hey, this decks fits legally into the casual category stablished by Wizards' and 'This decks doesn't', so I can clearly know in which kind of game I am about to get in.

I really appreciate Josh’s page throws because I usually listen on itunes and don’t watch the vids, so a nice paper throw that the mic picks up is muy bueno. Also I like the show keep up the good work.

I have a question about EDH deck rules. Could I have a 'Scion of Urgin' ( a colourless creature -'' tap any mana'') in a Rorix Bladewing deck ( mono red). As i will only be tapping red mana anyway

Had a telepathy in my deck for a while, just a blue and everyone else has to play with their hands reveled. I kept getting it in my opening hands or first draw. The games got so confusing with everyone's hands on the table, after a few times i felt compelled to take it out.

Lol he would leave my playgroup in a heartbeat this is the type of stuff I’ve learned magic on

17:51 I discovered a powerful combo in my Zacama deck with Sakura-Tribe Elder, Emeria Shepherd and Zendikar Resurgence where, providing I had enough mana to start with, I could find myself doubling the amount of mana available to me by the next turn. I would repeatedly sac Sakura to find lands and then trigger Emeria to pull Sakura out of the graveyard and put him back in my hand and then repeat it until I had double the amount of lands on the board by my next turn.

My group's thing is that combos are fine, but as long as you don't always win that way. That influenced the way I build my decks so that I can combo if I draw the pieces, but I don't need to if I don't have to or want to.

Iona... she is a fun way to turn off Cyclonic rift. There is a lot of blue in my group lol Man I love that card.

I feel like Josh has a good point in this video. Play to the power level of your group. I have several decks, Animar, Muldrotha and Krenko, that all vary in power. I usually play whichever deck is best suited for the group I'm playing in. The only time I play a disproportionate deck is if the table arbitrarily decides to kill you before decks are chosen or the game begins. I have someone that I play with frequently that likes to target me just to say they've killed me. It is fine and it is up to me to react appropriately and protect myself from said player... I just realized this comment is all over the place, but that's okay, let's have a discussion.

my friend used the Eldrazi that tutors for another one and puts it on the top of his deck to get Emrakul one time. i sat there and smiled with a Stolen goods in hand. twas glorious

After reading through the list, the only thing I run is Back to Basics, and in my playgroup, it's more often fuel to pitch to Force of Will or a loot trigger than it is anything else. My playgroup tends to focus on basics, with monocolor and two color decks being the most common. If I saw five-color goodstuff, it might see the stack.

DJ's indignation seems to be predicated on a lack of context as to who Sheldon is. He's regularly said he thinks the ban list should be small, and that most of their bans are primarily based on 1) accessibility relative to power level (Actual Power is banned because it is insanely strong and insanely hard to get) 2) Play pattern relative to accessibility (EVERYONE had a Prophet of Kruphix and no one used it properly causing massively warped games-Learn about priority!) and 3) cards that shutout entire deck archetypes. Something like Biorhythm would shut down decks that don't want to run creatures and adds tons of feel-bads to otherwise healthy games. A green deck getting to 8 mana and knocking out a control deck on 5 mana that tapped out for some set up spells is a very crappy play pattern. AND its the primary play pattern for the card. Yes tooth and nail can end a game with a combo, but it can also get two value cards if you aren't a poop head:)

Where are the izzet sleeves in the background?

I cut Thieves' Auction after Possibility Storming into it with a Confusion in the Ranks on the board. No play with that card will ever top that, took like 40 minutes to resolve.

P.s Jumbo I remember playing in that game with the narset guy at GP Vegas !! I was the guy who was playing Kresh !!

Biorhythm is banned because EDH is a format where 12 mana happens- and it's a card that eliminates multiple players at a time. I trust the RC FAR more than I would handle Wizards with the same product. Where I disagree with the RC is solely in not banning Intuition (because really, cheap multitutors are the worst.) It's also odd to me that there's this complaint about the RC not being transparent. There's an entire forum where they interact with EDH players on a regular basis; they thoughtfully answer emails. This accusation of them staying opaque WHILE you fidget about an act of transparency on Sheldon's part makes me wonder a bit (not about either of the hosts- but if this sortof reaction is typical.) The RC runs on BST- the community is allowed to get as close to them as we like (within reason-) or stay as remote. For them, it's about crafting a form of Magic that emphasizes the social experience- they've been solid on that.

The only card that shouldn't be played in EDH is Battle of Wits

I know exactly what you mean at 39:00 when you're talking about playing tutors to make a bad deck good. I've got a shadowborn apostles deck. It could be pretty powerful if I had the time to tune it heavily and figure the best way to employ the drain-on-death style wincons but the deck as it is is pretty weak. It got a massive bump from Razaketh and I typically play a few tutors for some of the key cards in the combo but the deck requires so much mana or specific cards to combo off I just lose to a few well timed removal spells. It's not a powerful deck as far as my collection goes but it still razed the ire of a very casual player who saw the tutors, the combo, the "breaking format rules" that apostles and those two different rats do and told me the deck was "everything I hate about the format"

I played a new Chainer deck, I had Contagion in the deck to enable a combo turn.. First time I drew it I felt I needed to cast it to slow the game down and realised as the game went on that I probably shouldn't play the card in the group I'm with.

I had to come back to this episode and watch it to pay my respects to Paradox Engine. F.

My group has a mercy rule where normally you can't do anything to get advantage of a board wipe like if your board gets sweeper you can't full out swing unless its 1v1

The problem with all the combo enabler cards you spoke about in the first part isn't just that it enables a combo. It's that it enables a combo that takes a long time, and then might not be able to actually end the game.

I despise this one individual at my LGS who likes to play blink effects and go infinite often. My first game of commander in 6 years took place two months ago, first time at commander night & the shop. Made this known to the table. I didn’t do much with atraxa +1/+1 matters during that game. Turn 10 he combos of for infinite mana, then returned all nonland permanents to our hands. Then says “well I have infinite mana now, wanna call it?” My words exactly were “okay you have infinite mana, cool. What are you going to do with it? Infinite mana doesn’t win you the game” He groaned and blinked all our stuff then said “next turn is everyone’s lands.” Preface: I had 4 storage lands with a total of 40ish available mana from those, & a board full of dual producing lands. Cast atraxa, cheap bolster 2 creature, greaves on atraxa, cast vorel of the hull clade+greaves, atraxa with +4/+4 now, greaves to atraxa again, altered ego targeting vorel, greaves to vorel copy, atraxa with +8/+8, greaves to atraxa, spark double targeting vorel+greaves, atraxa with +16/+16 , greaves to atraxa. Swing for lethal at said player. GG He packed and left. SALT. Now if we sit down I take his permanents and kill him with them every time. I counter ALL of his tutors, I hate him out of every game because he’s just a shitty person. No one likes him and he plays scummy combos with the soul intent of ruining people’s game.

I think you are missing something. I think by putting these cards into categories you really missed the one big problem he has. I think you guys are looking at these cards with the question of "how powerful are these cards?", But I think he is looking at these cards with the question of "Is this how Magic is meant to be played?" Commander is also meant to be a fun, casual game. Not a competitive tournament style game, so it would bother him more to be playing with cards that completely change the game of Magic. I think he has issues with cards that drastically change the rules of magic. I also agree with that. If you take Armageddon for an example, It would be very annoying to have all lands destroyed because lands are crucial to playing the game. It is the source of how the game is played. That's like playing monopoly and "destroying" the money. The game feels pointless if that happens. The point of the game is to outmaneuver and play the other person. If you have no mana to do that, just like if you had no money in monopoly, then you are no longer playing the game. I think he likes to beat people because he is the better player, not because he has a crazy card that changes the game making it impossible for the others to win. It feels cheap. For example, I actually do not think his big problem with Sorin was you going down to 10 on Sorin. I think the problem is that his ultimate gives you control of that player like Mindslaver does. It could be that both are on that card too! It sounds like he is more concerned about not playing the game the way the game is meant to be played. Taking someone else's turn is just not how games in general are played. Only in Magic can that really happen, and I think he has issue with that. Another example, you said theives action was just confusing when explaining it. I think he would actually say, "that's not magic!" And again with Wound Reflection, you are not meant to be losing double the amount of life out of nowhere, AND it is constant! I believe that by putting these cards into categories you actually made it harder for yourself to see his overall problem with these cards.

I am pretty much on board with Josh’s philosophy here. I do play Vorinclex in a Damia deck though. That deck also has the other praetors in color, and a Ulamog, and x spells. My play group is heavy on removal and answers so we all have fun anyway. I have discovered it really comes down to how the decks interact, and if we all have power stuff, but are still vulnerable to interaction, Salty giggles are well received.

Similar to the constant mists thing: It only took one game of Zur's Weirding in my Muldrotha deck before I had to drop it for anyone to be willing to play with me anymore.

A really annoying deck that a friend of mine has: Rashmi extra turns. He claims it is not a combo deck. The rest of the group does not buy that because the way he wins is taking between six and infinite extra turns. He almost never gets to go infinite tho, bc the rest of us just shuffle up as he starts to go through a few turns without slowing down bc it takes FOREVER and nobody else gets to do anything. Because of that deck, I have issues with combo so I understand if Sheldon might.

binge watching these a year later out of boredom and laughing at the sentence "im glad paradox engine isnt band."

I dont like combo decks, but i am making a "joker's house of fun" deck with thieves auction, and i find it fine in my group, but for me, competitive commander doesnt exist, i just play with my friends. Love the show, thx for all the content

The way my Play group and I found a way to deal with mine slaver , because I run it, Is that you can control their first turn you use it but each subsequent turn you let them play saying “nothing you can do affects me”

Ive moved to many places and will have a play group for about a year then move again (not my families fault), but having so far 4 play groups and playing magic 10 years, the first 2 were nice and had power levels of 5-7 at I followed that. Then my 3rd group... first game I was playing a 6ish power deck against their mean 8-9ish decks and after the first game they poked fun at me that "I couldn't afford good decks." Not knowing I played magic 9 years at that point. And it was a lot of social contracts being broken with one playing infinite mind slaver, kiki-jiki splinter twin deck, and the 3rd playing the blue predator and sensa triplets and other tough cards. So I came with 3 or 4 power 10 decks cycling through them so they cant just fix there deck to beat it like they did with themselves. It felt good to get that vengeance with very few loses for poking fun at me especially since they did it to keep other newer players away. But I'm in my 4th group now and its far more fun then the other group.

I'm not gonna lie Josh totally nailed this whole conversation about agreeing or disagreeing with the rules committee. I'll say I used to play Yu-Gi-Oh! and I left because of the changes they made to the game: Master Rule 4, patching the first player drawing rule out, and stuff like that drastically changed a game that a lot of people were already very comfortable in going through the motions for. I switched to Magic and specifically commander because not only is it a lot of fun, it's so reliably consistent that I never need to worry about something so drastic happening that I can't enjoy the game further. Do I want a few cards off the banlist? Sure, but when your card pool is literally thousands of cards as an eternal format and only a few dozen are banned; I'm not gonna complain much.

I play paradox engine in a Nekusar deck because it’s slow and it helps accelerate my board state with mana rocks, is this still acceptable?

Possibility Storm is one of those chaos cards that will make me scoop. I play decks with a decent amount of counterspells, and it becomes impossible to pstorm into a removal spell for it.

DJ needed to chill in this episode, especially with the talk of, "you can't tell me what to do." It's an article by the father of the format giving his two cents, nothing more nothing less. I guess he should have titled the article "Cards I Would Recommend Not Playing In Your Play Group In Commander But Only If You Feel Like It No Pressure".

This is a really interesting discussion. I'm gonna do an additional plug for the Elder Dragon Statesman podcast - the other member of that podcast is Anthony Alongi (my father), who used to write for WOTC and was responsible for the "Serious Fun" articles that were on the website for a while. It's a good show, and you should watch the most recent episodes (they like to integrate RL stuff into it, which in my opinion doesn't age as well over time) I was amused that you release this episode now, because I never really thought about the connections between me, Sheldon, and you guys until I saw this episode. Keep releasing cool stuff, guys.

i whip out the chaos deck sometimes. i get targeted immediately or everyone quits. some people think its "not fun" resolving 4 thieves auctions a turn...

What about spell deck orriented completely around land destruction, generally unfare. What if every card destroys target land(s). Is it Valid, as stacks is still 'valid-ish', based off farness, speed, or win-con.?

Command Zone, in general I like your content. But this episode felt kinda sour to me because I think you misunderstood the content of the article. I feel the best way to summarize what was said is, "These kinds of cards can make EDH unfun by preventing people from playing the game. If you're group is having unfun experiences, this discussion could offer insight into why that's happening and how to deal with it. And sure, most of this is obvious once you get on the ground and play. But that's okay because not everyone sees obvious things, and opening up discussion can help everyone do better. Hell, I don't even play EDH and it gave me insight on what would be unfun to build if I ever got into it. The misunderstanding I saw lead to a episode that felt very negative to me, and instead of getting a discussion on how to maintain a fun group we got a lot of salt that turned me off from the rest of the episode.

I refuse to play both dictate of erebos/gravepact. Having on board repeatable board wipes just isn't fun for anybody, especially since it ends up hitting the player who's super far behind as well. I won't play aura shards for similar reasons.

I'll admit I've had to cut cards because I've felt too spikey. I run a deck in both multi and 1v1. Ended up cutting ravages of war and only running Armageddon. I only run Armageddon to properly deal with hard control decks, I play the deck depending on the setting, like in multi I usually sit in the corner and go wall beat down but if it's a spikey group I go right for the combo hammer, because if I don't someone else is going to do something like that

There's a lot of good points in this video and they really needed to be shared for those who have issues within their play groups. The group I play with all really love broken combos and overpowered effects so we all play the nastiest decks we can manage with what we have because that's what we have fun with, and sometimes we'll even let games run a little longer when we can end the game immediately just to see what happens. Every group is different and needs to understand their fellow players and be willing to talk about any issues they have or see if they can find another play group that likes to play the kind of games they enjoy. It's a game, it shouldn't be taken too seriously and everyone should be able to have fun.

My playgroup banned cyclonic rift because we all have PTSD from our highschool playgroups lol

DJ is FAR too worried about bans. There are always more cards that can be played. And I know that DJ would love the challenge of adaptation to the format change. So what if Palinchron gets banned? You always have your own circle of people to play with (same can be said for house rule bans, I know). But we have dishonest people in stores that walk in with their competitive deck to wipe out a casual pod. It gets really miserable and makes people not want to go to the store anymore. Golden Rule of EDH? Treat others how you want to be treated. Be honest, find similar power levels to make the game enjoyable for the group. THAT is why EDH is a thing. If you are there to compete, go to a competitive pod or play Standard, or Modern, or Legacy.

I do play a jank infinite counterspell combo in a hanna deck. I do make sure everyone knows how it works and what it is before playing and if they're cool with it, just so it doesn't come out of left field. It's also purposefully super janky and disruptable.

What do people generally think of sire of insanity? I play it in my kallia deck and my friend hates every time I play it, but I mostly play it to slow him down since if I have a slow start his tishana deck goes off with it's card draw

I could watch you guys play Pai Gow Magic for an hour, that was so fun!

Tax and land destruction are anti fun. They reduce engagement. It’s one thing to counter, destroy and fight etc, but losing is more fun than not playing. You never want to turn a multiplayer game into a single player game, that’s what anti fun is.

The best way to get around a deck that constant mists is simple. Put an aether flux reservoir in every deck you build. You never know when you need to fire off the death ray.

I had a staxx deck, Mogis, and I had winter Orb in it. When I was building the deck 4 separate people from two different play groups all warned me not to play it. Within two weeks of playing the deck I had to take it out cause I was pissing off too many people in my playgroup and felt bad.

In my play group, we all decided to not play infinite combos. They seem to ruin the fun for everyone else. Maybe, when we understand it more, it will be better. But right now, we will not use them.

notion thief in a wheel deck... i have played this... and i feel bad just looking at in my hand ....

I really love this episode. My group has a rule about communicating about our decks. Mostly we are here for fun. However, if we all agree to be competitive, then as long as it's commander legal, everything goes. I have 2 decks that are based around shutting down opponents in as many ways as possible. I've played both maybe 5 times ever

I once cast my entire sliver deck on turn 3 by accident. I know exactly why my playgroup pushes me off the table first.

I know theres one thing you shouldnt play... Beginner precons with decorated magic veterans instead of the typical, dynamic decks we love to see

The most annoying part of the article is when he says that Stasis has "like" the most hideous art in magic history. Stasis is one of my favorite works of art!

You should go over and maybe even show the examples of the current edh rules that might be different than from casual play from shops and stuff

I've never seen Constant Mists before, so I'd never considered it a problem. But now I'm trying to come up with ways to deal with it that aren't in blue and aren't land destruction. I'm coming up short. Anyone got some insight for me?

so he doesnt like stacks combo or cards with abilities that are fair in standard or modern. but hes fine with expropriate protean hulk and others

Just putting this out there but I've really enjoyed command zone a lot more since DJ joined as co-host, no hate to Jimmy but maybe when he's done with the project he's working on the show becomes a trio or alternates or something 🤷🏾‍♂️

Hi guys ! Can i ask for advice ? Is commander 2017 vampiric bloodlust at MSRP worth it ? Because my Lgs have one And i want to try commander out

With palicron it is commonly played in Animar where it costs two, so you net one mana with regular lands. Then you get an infinitely big animar and infinite mana at least.