Forgive the ignorance, I'm still fairly new to EDH (old-time MTG player), but I keep seeing a lot of decks with either recurring/infinite combos, cards that have a "you win the game" ability, some kind of fishing/tutor system to bring out game-ending cards, and people saying they expect to wipe a table by anywhere b/w turns 4-6... For a format which seems to focus on the fun/social aspects of playing MTG (as opposed to Standard, Modern, or tournament formats like cEDH), that doesn't seem to entirely add up in my eyes.

Granted, my entry point was/is the Avengers Assemble precon (a birthday gift from my little bro, which I have spent a bunch of time editing and such), which in terms of strategy is about as simple as it gets (big stompys). But still, possibly even with the most fortuitous opening hand, and draws, there's no chance I'm winning, against 3 oppos, before, like, turn 10-12. And even that is probably pushing it.

So... am I simply an idiot who doesn't understand the format? Or am I just content to play what most would consider incredibly low-power games? My brother and his mate (who would be my "pod" I guess, though we still haven't met up since I got this deck) both play modified LOTR precons, so perhaps we're all just hanging out at the low-power table. I've been meaning to go to a Commander night at my LGS, but the timing hasn't worked up til now. Next week will be the first chance I'll get to go. Is there a reasonable chance I'm planning to bring a knife to a bazooka fight?

EDIT: Here is the current state of this Avengers deck. I have plenty of interaction, a few wipe-adjacent cards, as well as plenty of means to draw and buff the creatures. It's not particularly optimized, since I wanted to have a couple means of inflicting damage outside of the battlefield, as well as just have some fun with a couple classic oldies, but it feels more streamlined than the stock precon now.

EDIT THE 2ND: Super helpful responses thus far, gang. The insight is all very much appreciated, so big thanks to everyone who has chimed in!

EDIT THE 3RD: I think I may actually have had a "wincon" in here, without fully realizing it. Well, maybe a one-player kill, or maybe a "headshot" would be more appropriate. It's not super fast, and will rely on a good amount of luck, but assuming I can keep my Commander [[Captain America, Team Leader]] alive long enough, if I manage to pull both [[Resourceful Defense]], and [[Lockjaw, Slobbering Teleporter]], I have a means of dealing unblockable lethal Commander damage to a single player, probably by ~turn 10.

Hi y'all. I'm thinking about participating in a Bracket 3 tournament tomorrow (i know, i know... i agreethat bracket 3 tournaments are just asking for trouble). No proxies are allowed for this event, so I'm thinking about playing this deck:

https://moxfield.com/decks/K6_BwlIE8E-690DsB_X4kw

I'm anticipating attacking the field from an angle they're not prepared to deal with, i.e. lands and particularly ones that nobody else will likely be playing.

I'm soliciting feedback for the idea and/or thoughts on any other ideas that might be better (I also have winota built if I wanted to merely present raw strength or a Jorn build that is more traditional, resilient, and grindy).

Thanks!

So I should preface this by saying that EDH is personally not my favorite format, I tend to play stuff like Timeless rn, but i do really enjoy some casual social magic every once in a while. I'm considering building an [[Atraxa, Grand Unifier]] deck for bracket 3, since she's generic enough and in enough colors that i can play a lot of cards i like without having to manage a ton of decks for a format i don't play as much; i also just like her as a card since she feels like a classic wincon to me (decks like Sneak & Show, Reanimator, or the Domain deck that used to be in standard), plus i enjoy delirium-style decks that want a variety of card types.

However, i often see more casual players bemoaning these kinds of generic commanders and decks online, is there really that much of a dislike for them? And what exactly do casuals dislike about them? I'd figure less invested players would jump at generic "good stuff" piles since they can play really any card they want to and have it work somewhat well. I mainly just don't want to end up with a deck that makes my opponents at the lgs groan, and again im not super familiar with the casual space so i just dont get why "slop" decks are disliked.

I clearly made enough mistakes when writing this post that it's getting mostly negative engagement, which is fair enough. My own commentary on the changes was supposed to only be a footnote to sharing the link to Wizard's official, up-to-date version of the bracket system (https://magic.wizards.com/en/formats/commander#brackets), which is somewhat hard to find through most search engines.

To be clear, I'm not criticising anyone for this, other than maybe WOTC for failing to adequately inform players of the changes that have been made to the bracket system since it launched. People seem generally aware that updates have happened, but I still often see ideas about the bracket system floated that are long since out of date. Here's the link to Wizard's up-to-date specifications for what each bracket is or means: https://magic.wizards.com/en/formats/commander#brackets

Some changes I'd like to highlight as I see people get them wrong a lot:

• Bracket 1 states that rules on card legality can be flexible or even waived at the discretion of your pod.
• Bracket 2 is no longer tied to the power of pre-constructed decks.
• Bracket 3 no longer has a strict number limit of 3 game changers, but instead states that game changers played in B3 should be either value engines or game-winning spells. My mistake, b3 still has the 3 game changer limitation, it's just written in the section about game changers rather than the section describing b3. Why they chose to format it this way, I don't understand, but I should've read more thoroughly.
• The Bracket system no longer places any limitations on tutoring, beyond the tutors placed on the Game Changers list.
• There's now an expected turn count on Brackets 1, 2, 3, and 4 of 9, 8 , 6, and 4 turns respectively. As many have pointed out in the comments, these are expected counts for turns played by each player, not expected win turns: so in B3, players are expected to play 6 turns, meaning a win should generally be expected on turn 7. Importantly, these are expected minimum turn counts, not strict minimum turn counts: A nut draw or a lack of opponent interaction can cause you to win faster than is specified, and that's fine, so long as it's an uncommon occurrence with your deck.

My friends keep removing my commander (I play [[Minn, Wily Illusionist]]) and while hilarious, I am prevented from participating in the game of magic. So I wanna ask

1. Are there Blue commanders that I can play that don’t get crippled by commander removal
   
2. Is there a build for [[Minn, Wily Illusionist]] so I don’t get locked out of the game if she’s removed?

​

So last night, i was at my LGS's commander night. How it works is you sign up and get podded with 3 random players. It took some growing pains, but the community has gotten pretty good at the rule 0 convo. Most of us have several decks ranging from 2-5, myself included. All this to say last night, I had an interaction that left me thinking maybe I had been dishonest about my decks, which I obviously never want to do.

We played a total of three games last night, two of which I won. Let me set the stage. We have myself, player 2 (the person who i had the social interaction with), player 3 (a Modern format oldhead who now just wants to play magic for magics sake), and player 4 (a player who plays strong commanders, but in suboptimal ways in favor of pet cards). I know players 3 and 4 and have had several great pods with them in the past. Definitely some of my favorite folks to get paired against. This is my first time podding with player 2.

Our first game is Player 2 on Hamza, Player 3 on Mothman, and Player 4 on Socrates. I know neither player 3 and 4's decks are super optimized and Hamza is a slow rolling deck, so I play my Avatar Aang deck, which is all the cards from Avatar and a few allies for synergy. It would be bracket 1 if it wasnt for how good the avatar cards synergize under Aang. The game goes quickly for me. Im knocked out fairly quickly by Player 2 and 3, being put to 2 while everyone else is floating around the 25-30 life mark. I die on upkeep to radiation. Oh well, cant win them all. The game goes for four more totations, then Socrates wins through approach of the second sun and everyone seems to have had a great time.

We go to game 2 and I break out Appa, Steadfast Guardian. Player 2 immediately is on edge and asks if its an eldrazi deck. I explain that no, it is a flicker deck that is built around airbending and repeating advantage. I do say I have a copy of original Kozilek for the draw 4 trigger, but that's the only one, and that I dont attack with it because he always has summoning sickness. Player 2 seems to relax and says okay. Player 2 breaks out 9 Fingered Keen built around Gates and Maze's End, player 3 plays player 4's socrates deck, and player 4 switches to Hearthhull. I have an admittedly banger turns 1-4, getting out a Deep Gnome Terramancers, Charming Prince, Appa, and Semblance Anvil on artifacts and creatures. I have an established once per turn rotarion loop that ends in me netting two 1/1 allies. For the next 5 turns, i draw nothing but lands. Each turn is 30 seconds on "i repeat thr loop and make two dudes." Player 2 is immediate on edge, rolling their eyes at the loop and gives an occasional huff. Finally, after 5 turns of this, i have 10 ally tokens while everyone else has much more impressive boards. Even Keen is 8 gates closer to a Maze's end win. Turn 10, i draw Kozilek and, like i said, i use it to draw 8 cards over the next two rotations. Player 2 is getting visibly annoyed. One of those 8 is a moonshaker cav, so km ready to build the biggest board I can and go. I have this mouse that says when its targeted, i flip the top of my library till i hit a cmc 3 or less critter and put it into play. Player 2 huffs and audibly says "okay, we're gonna be here a while.' I flip 2 more creatures in, play moonshaker, and win. While we're cleaning up, player 2 says, yup just the same as every other eldrazi combo deck. First yellow flag.

Okay, we have time for one more game. I get a little self concious, maybe I wasnt clear enough, so i switch to Katara, waterbending master. Its a tried and true mono-U deck. I explain its simple control and leverages Katara's draw power into things like things like psychosis crawler, sphinx's tutilage, or twenty toed toad. Player 4 literally tried to win off thoracle, player 3 is a modern player and loves these types of decks, and player 2 just tried to win off gates. Clearly everyone is fine with control and alternate wincons, right?

So game starts, player 2 is on this Selesnya lifegain unicorn. I didnt catch the name of it, but it dealt with +1/+1 counters as well. Player 3 is back on Mothman, and player 4 is on a self-discard commander from Marvel. Mistress Moonlight or something like that. The game is going pretty well. Despite all the mill and control, no one is truly ahead and we're having a pretty interactive game. We enter the final few turns, and ive taken control of the game. Player 3 has a creature who +1/+1 for each card in the grave and i made a deal for him to swing it at the other two players and I'll use my rogues passage to make it unblockable. Player 3 laughs at the idea, loves it, and we eliminate player 4 and drop player 2 to like 10 life. At this point, he starts swinging it at me, so i enter my aggressive bounce mode. I have like 25 cards in hand and a shinxs tutelage and a 20 toed toad. The options are there and i have enough control to make it the turn rotation to swing with toed. Everyone agrees ive got it next turn if it makes it back to me. Player 2 begins picking their stuff up, which is fine if you want to concede, but starts saying stuff like "ive got better things to do with my time," and stuff that implies im gonna drag this game out forever, despite all 4 players seeing i have game next turn.

Well, we all start packing up and we're giving our GGs, and im getting very cold vibes from player 2. They seemed to have an issue with all my decks and implied multiple times i wasnt being honest about them. Was I in the wrong?

EDIT: im also not trying to make player 2 out to be an ass or salty or anything, genuinely curious if i could have worded my explanations better

EDIT: We all said general bracket 3 area, wanting games to go longer turnwise, but still be able to end in a timely manner

need help with ideas for a deck based on that famous pokémon tcg incident where the guy ate a card. I was thinking something along the lines of switching a devour creature (or someghing like that, probably more mandatory) while I cast it with another permanent via [[sudden substitution]] and some ways to recur it. this way I can eat their cards nom nom

Technically, the card requires something to be played prior to forking off with infinite triggers. Is that bracket 3, or 4? I’m running a Kalamax deck and looking for combo outs at B3 for the table.

Im newer to commander with people outside of my immediate playgroup and want to use this as a bracket 3 deck since I’ve already got the primary cards for it. The only other win con would be directly attacking with Kalamax or Chandra’s after he’s infinitely HUGE.

Hi all,

I’m fairly new to Magic. Use to play back in 21 but started again. Was building Kaalia back then but never finished it.

Here is the finished one. Let me know what you guys think and if there are some mandatory upgrades to have in the deck. I tried to cover protection and ramp decently but I think card draw might still be a weakness in the deck.

I also seem to be adding so many things randomly tbh which shouldn’t be the case. Ultimately I understand the goal of kaalia or my deck atleast is win on board with huge creatures.

I have been looking to buy a few more cards but paused before I buy them since it’s pricey. I think I need to adjust my creatures as well since I think there are much better options apart from the ones I have.

The cards I’m thinking of getting was the following

Ancient Copper Dragon
Giver of Runes
Hall of the Bandit Lord
Jeska's Will
Reanimate
Cavern of Souls
Demonic Tutor
Smothering Tithe
Teferi's Protection
The One Ring
Vampiric Tutor

The idea is to get the deck to bracket 3 high. Bracket 4 is fine too but not that strong since it was be out of my group strength.

Thanks!

Sorry to bug you all - I'm very new to MTG and Simic. Wondering does anyone know any good characters to go with Tendi if she's your commander. I have artifacts figured out, but not sure what a good win con for simic, or what creatures might benefit?

Meta is high tier 3 to love Tier 4.

https://moxfield.com/decks/On1rflBm20-_8f-0aJA_BQ

I have an [[Evelyn, the Covetous]] vampire tribal deck. It's fun for me to play, not so much for my opponents. I want to take the deck apart and make it more degen for bracket 4, which necessarily means not going vampire tribal.

But I want a vampire tribal deck. I loves my bloodsuckers, ya dig? I was thinking of making it [[Strefan, Maurer Progenitor]], but there is that voice in the back of my head telling me to just make [[Edgar Markov]].

But I've never played against an Edgar deck, so I'm not sure how miserable it is for the rest of the table. I don't mind being the archenemy, I relish it in fact. But I don't want to make the rest of the table miserable as a result.

So what's it like?

Hello, not sure how to share a post intelligently so I’ll just link my original
https://www.reddit.com/r/EDH/s/bQ4tJJYQtS
TLDR : Was asking about use of Breach combo in B3

I had a Dragon Deck that used the Breach Combo as an ALT wincon. It worked well in those longer games that drag-on because someone is playing a more prison type strategy.

I’ve since upped the deck to B4. I added a few more game changers (Jeskas, Mana Vault, Ancient Tomb).
I also got rid of a few pet cards that just weren’t doing anything in the faster B4. Once I got the deck in a good spot I started tracking W/L and so far it’s 19-13. I’d say at least 50% of the 13 loses I’m in the game not just getting rolled. 59% win rate not too bad.

It’s a dragon deck primarily and that’s where most of the wins come from but it does have this ability to gamble its way to a breach line. Probably 70-30 on wins with both sides of the deck. And complaining is almost non-existent. The last two guys to complain were both Light Paws players about to lethal everyone so that’s interesting.

I get this a lot, “Breach in red dragons? I wouldn’t pick that”. But the dragons are a real threat that will burn you out and act as lighting rods for removal and wipes. If I play a few dragons and force some interaction it can put stuff in my grave for a big breach turn. And with the extra gas with Jeskas breach is a little easier to make happen if my grave is big.

Do I think Breach is too strong for B3? Yea maybe but it’s also legal. Some guys play Thassa or Bolas. I’m keeping my deck B4 since I love a nice win where no one complains at the end. If my LGS ever had a B3 tournament though I’d remake the original B3 Dragon-Breachers cause that thing was a menace.

A bit ago I came in here wondering if Temmet was weak because it felt like I couldn't ever really pop off with him. I had alot of people recommend Varina as a commander instead and have Temmet in the 99, which has ended up feeling alot better. The drawing/discarding feels good and its relatively easy to establish a board from turns 1-4, only issue I end up having now is the fact that It seems like even with my deck I don't end up turning the turns into more explosive stuff, so im just trying to figure out whether its something with my decklist or if my drawing RNG is just buns. I just wanna be able to compete with my buddys better, one buddy in particular made a Thorin mono red voltron and i find it especially difficult to deal with (I hate blood moon) but im not sure if at this point im just overly min/maxing my deck or if I can make its identity even stronger. Any recommendations or criticisms or questions are greatly appreciated :) for the decklist cards in the sideboard are cards I initially had in and cut and maybeboard is every card ive looked at and said "oh this could be good" for priority upgrades I believe bone miser and cryptcaller chariot will help immensily.

https://archidekt.com/decks/27337104/temmet_upgraded

I am having a bit of an issue.

Everything I touch dies.

I keep getting matched with new / returning players at locals, and my weakest deck is a high bracket 2. I need something weaker for tables like these!

So I ask you, what are your coolest and most thematic bracket 1 decks? Bonus points if it is £50 or less.

We’ve seen the face commander for the Borg precon, [[The Borg Queen]], an esper artifact creatures matter commander. This is similar to [[Urza, Chief Artificer]] another artifact creatures matter commander in esper. Between the two, which do you think is better?

Mystery Booster Commander edition launched this week but was only sold on the Secret Lair Chaos vault. Its been four years since we last got a draftable commander set and now the only commander set for draft is exclusively available from scalpers until the next Secret Lair drop. You can't say "just proxy them" to do a draft. Yes there's printing capacity limits but I'm really tired of hearing all the excuses and am fatigued from wasting time to have the privilege to give WOTC my money. I don't care enough about the set to pay scalper prices, but knowing it exists and could be printed to demand is incredibly frustrating. I'll still be playing Magic late next year when it could be shipped via print to demand, so why not let me rack up my credit card for that? The ideal solution would be to cut a UB standard set for a commander set every year, but the cynical side of me thinks WOTC would rather give us more Hobbit and Spider-Man.

Hi guys,

I recently bought the [[Giada, Font of Hope]] precon. I really like it, the simple and old school joy of just slamming down some cool creatures and turning them sideways.

I am considering upgrading it a bit to match my pod's powerlevel, and I came across those 3 cards who seem to be Giada's stapples : [[Avacyn, Angel of Hope]], [[Battle Angels of Tyr]] and [[Serra Ascendant]].

The thing is, here in Europe these cards are around 25 bucks each, which seems a lot to me.

Angels enjoyers, would you guys say that they are worth the price ?

Thanks everyone

[[Thought Lash]]

The Commutative Upkeep doesn't matter in a 100 card format.

You can exile your entire library at your upkeep so you win immediately with cards like [[Laboratory Maniac]] with the Draw step coming after (ok, it has to survive a full turn circle without giving flash, but still).

You have your entire library at your disposal for damage protection... And you know, your library is pretty big in Commander. It's like it reads 'gain X life where X is the cards in your library'.

4 CMC may be a bit high but it could still worth considering?

I've been building a [[Tinybones, Pocket Nuisance]] deck at bracket 2, and I think I have it in a place where it at least functions. I'd like to debut it as my first custom-built deck to play against others, but you only get one first impression, right? I'm getting the impression that discard decks are super-hated, and it's not hard to tell why. I don't want people I haven't met hating my first ever custom deck, so I feel like I should build something else first, THEN maybe bring out the lil' bastard when I have friends and a good reputation at the LGS. So, I ask, what are some commanders that, win or lose, you had fun playing against? Ones that were neither too detrimental to your own plan, nor too insular and solitaire-like. Maybe one that had something interesting going on that made playing against them memorable, in a good way.

I was hoping to get some opinions on what it means to be "Late game" in a Bracket 3 tournament. I want to play [[Narset, Enlightened Exile]] and mainly want to run prowess spam, but there is an infinite 2-card combo that exists in my list. It's [[Rionya, Fire Dancer]] and [[Combat Celebrant]] chaining infinite combat steps (and ideally, infinite prowess assuming I can keep casting noncreatures from everyone's graveyards). It's an 8 mana combo. Technically, I could go infinite turn 5 if the cards are there and without any ramp, but with rituals and rock ramp it could be even sooner. The more I think about it the faster it feels so maybe I'm already talking myself out of it? I would really like to know what others think.

Alternatively, I was considering [[Helm of the Host]]. Which would make infinite combats a 12 mana combo with Celebrant. I feel like that would be better if I wanted to avoid any trouble in a tournament setting.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Edit: Hey just wanted to say guys that some of the advice I recieved was to just contact the organizer and I did! They told me no infinites straight up. Still it was nice talking about everyones interpretations and thank you all for replying! I think I still will do helm, but just to copy my commander and not go infinite.

The list of course:
https://archidekt.com/decks/26487850/bird

How does one have a bird deck with no bird?

Well, for starters, there’s actually no creatures in it at all and the birds come from the commander for every single spell in the deck (non-creature spells).

And to keep my hand full of non-creature spells I made them all (mostly) draw spells. So an average turn would go… spell, draw, spell, draw, attack, spell draw, and pass

Notable cards being [[Kindred Discovery]] [[propaganda]] and [[banner of kinship]]

I love this deck so much, no one has ever said anything negative about it and it always gets great reviews from the lgs.

Need to test out a deck? I play birds
Just playing a precon? Bird will do
Just trying to have a chill game with no thinking? Birds is the deck

What is your go to chill deck?

https://moxfield.com/decks/y8XUo7mcGU-iPNN9k1bndA

Could I please have some help. I built this to be my weaker deck to play with other bracket 2 decks but I've had some people tell me it's still optimized and bracket 3 at a minimum.

To me it was anything but that. But I don't want to screw anyone over so I need some help.

The gameplan is to find mesmeric orb and/or mindcrank, play them on turn 4ish and mill out my opponents over the next 6+ turns. Depending how many lands they tap for and if I find a card to copy the artifact.

It uses the redirection/goad cards to stay alive over those 6 or so turns.

I'm not really sure where to start on depowering it further to make it fit into bracket 2.

https://edhplay.com/decks/c55e761f-b6c5-46bb-961a-12f1f2175762

i dont know how to win each game, is there any suggestions or cards i could add (please only budget cards and i cant afford the expensive and good ones)

proceeds to win with in an interaction from the last ability

Why does this always happen? Is it just me? Always the with the most random jank cards too

Had a thing where I actually got the emblem from [[arlinn, embraced by the moon]] and was able to untap with [[restless ridgeline]] to kill two people in one turn. Earlier that game I said I never get the -6 off and it doesn't matter in this deck (usually only use her for the trample and vigilance/haste)

Doh! What are your funny moments like that?

I have played commander for a long time and only now did I come to the realization that I have comfort zones in terms of power, tempo and cards played. Part of that realization comes from the relatively new context of Brackets, so a lot of my thoughts will be referring to Brackets and Gamechangers. And before you get the wrong idea, I think the Bracket system is a vast improvement to the Commander format.

Comfort zone 1

This one is pretty easy to define. I like highly interactive games of decks with very few restrictions if any.

Basically true Bracket 4 if everyone is playing interaction. cEDH is also very fun, but the variety of decks you see is much smaller and cEDH sometimes has a bad aftertaste from tournament dynamics which I don't enjoy.

Comfort zone 2

Interactive games of very synergistic decks that prioritize synergy over raw power, often avoiding Gamechangers if they don't compliment the game plan directly. These decks would not play a Rhystic Study, but go for a draw engine that synergizes with the game plan.

Basically Bracket 3 where Gamechangers (and similar cards) are only included if they really fit the deck, often no Gamechangers at all. Or maybe a faster Bracket 2.

Comfort zone 3

Slower janky decks that do creative things with an uncommon archetype, but still interact with opponents.

In terms of Brackets, this is something in the Bracket 2 area that takes a lot of inspiration from Bracket 1.

Conclusions

The Brackets only losely fit my comfort zones, and that is fine. I enjoy games outside of my comfort zone just a little bit less. The thing that is most important to my enjoyment is interaction though.

What are your comfort zones? Do they align with the Brackets?