Dear Azami was excellent.

Dear Azami was really cool. I had forgotten about that article series even though you can find one of my deck submissions there...

Levi Byrne is still running a dear azami column https://www.hipstersofthecoast.com/2019 ... champions/

What I would like to see, but never have is:

- Functional reviews - similar to a set review, but instead it looks for cool, niche cards to fill a roll in a deck. Exploring what options are available to different color combinations. Kind of like the Cremation in thread in the Strategy forum explores graveyard hate options. The options can be as broad or narrow as needed.

For example:


Challenge Decks:

Fans submit a general and either a win condition or some number of cards and you go through your process for creating that deck. Kind of like the Iron Chef series here in Random Chatter. For example, you might draw suggestions from an article comments and decide to showcase a Rafiq deck that is not Voltron, or an Agrus Kos that uses Breath of fury (with or without other similar effects) and infinite combat steps.

I'd read that, Treamayne.

Admittedly I haven't read many of your columns, Sheldon. I don't tend to read Magic articles because most of them I've read don't teach me much I can bring into my own gameplay. When people are building EDH decks, for example, they often talk about replacements they're making which make sense, but they don't teach how they made those decisions (beyond “these cards are strictly better” or something) and it means I don't learn much about deckbuilding for myself. I haven't read enough of your articles to know how you approach this.

I enjoy articles that talk about strategy such that I can actually improve strategy in my own games. I enjoy articles about deckbuilding that help me learn about deckbuilding.

I'd be interested in functional reviews because they teach me about new cards I could be looking at, and those challenge decks (if they explain the “how”) could teach me how to approach similar niche strategies, especially in a way that's compatible with EDH philosophy as one of the RC members views it.

I also enjoy design articles, so I read a lot of what's written by Maro, and I like learning the rules and the game, so I read the periodic Oracle and CR updates. If there's articles from Sheldon existing or future which talk about the game philosophy and how to fulfill on it in situations that aren't obvious I'd read those. Some examples: How strong should my deck be? How should/could I handle things when someone's playing the exact kind of deck I hate playing against? If I'm building a controversial deck archetype like stax, how should I handle that within EDH and keep things fun?

Honestly, I just check up on Sheldon's articles and Elder Dragon Statesmen every couple weeks because his perspective is interesting. Even though his status precedes him; his content is usually a bit more interesting than regular EDH content- since he doesn't qualify it with "I've been playing since Beta." "I've been playing since X" is a tiresome way to build up some non-existent credit. As a content consumer, I don't need credentials; if someone is a scrub, it's obvious. Even then, there are people who haven't been playing Magic for very long who produce some very enjoyable content.

In particular though, Sheldon's perspective is rarely presented as EDH's "Word of God" to his audience. He gives strong opinions, without filters; and doesn't discourage the audience from challenging them. I've never seen him use his status as a bludgeon, or feed trolls any more commentary than required to recognize that they're trolling for a reaction. It's just sober commentary, with discourse which has a level friendly banter.

By contrast, I can only watch The Professor, Commander's Brew, or the Command Zone for so long, before it becomes tiring and the rhetoric becomes same-y. Sheldon's content (as well as Benny and Abe), feels much more candid (like this forum.) For me, atleast; that's where the heart and soul of Magic is.

QFT

QFT!!

I never read any article but I hear about them from other players. So if it involves me I’m going to hear about it from another person and if it seems outlandish I will look it up myself and try to identify sources. On the other hand I ‘watch’ YouTubers talk about things happening to and about the community more then chatter from or within the community. Mostly how silly hasbro/WotC is about banning people or not sponsoring other people or just generally bending the knee to the most vocal minority avaible to get sjw points. Bascailly following get woke go broke practices of everyone company these days. If there were more articles on this and why WotC as a company feels the need to resort to the lowest npc/regressive rhetoric would be an interesting read. This isn’t to say WotC doesn’t have a history of backing up from the ant mound when they feel threatened. IE when they censored all the demonic sysmbols in the game for a handful of years until the Christians stopped bothering them about it. I just feel like they can do better then follow trends. How about be above it all or better yet make your own waves wizards.

As a side note I’ve noticed more female players and even though I’m happy that’s the case I can’t help but wonder why they didn’t feel invited before. Obviously something has changed, but many of these new players are just that new. Most of them don’t have the kind of collection to get into modern or legacy. Many have been playing for maybe the last two or three years and those are the older ones. You could talk about the rise of female admissions and discuss what might have changed and how strong this trend might be. I’m a fan of inviting as many people into the game. However I don’t like the way WotC goes about banning and restricting players and fans of their franchise. They can do better and someone outta point that out.

The marketing for MTG in general has evolved a lot in the last 10 years; one part of that has been pushing Commander pre-con product out to mass market retailers. This has been pretty successful at recruiting new players to the game (especially those who didn't know about/feel welcome at a local game store). It also dovetails in with your other post, about the way the format has evolved. I think the way players first encounter the format makes a pretty big difference to the way they approach the game.

Women feeling uninvited to LGSs is a long-standing issue. I'm not sure where to start with this one.



I feel like there's some specific person/incident you're referring to, but I don't get it.
And just to be clear -- you know Sheldon's not the person who decides player bannings right?

I feel like there's some specific person/incident you're referring to, but I don't get it.
And just to be clear -- you know Sheldon's not the person who decides player bannings right?[/quote]

I appolgize I was taking about the way hasbro/WotC was handling things not Sheldon and the edh committee.

From my prospective WotC has been a company that turns tail and runs at the sign of friction between them and whatever political or social issues might be running around at the time. As I pointed out that they have had a history in censoring card art and how these days they censor people though blackballing fans of their game.https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=n3JL4NHKii8.

I also don’t think anyone likes how cheating is caught on camera at a pro tour and nothing happens it cheapens the game at a high level of play. I guess it’s a non edh related subject but still not less important to the general apparatus of the game overall.[url] https://m.youtube.com/watchv=D1IbhxIqCh8[\url].

Idk I just like to relax and play the game I don’t see why wizards as a company feels the need to get woke and maybe I’m wrong on this and they just sliped up or it’s just bad choices from individual employees. However if I’m not wrong then this issue will only alienate players from the game which isn’t something they outta be doing.

This isn't the topic for discussing Wizards of the Coast and its issues; it's for input on Sheldon's columns and content to read.

“ I'd like to hear what kinds of written content you as the community prefer to read--not just the type and style of articles you like, but what drives you to particular content. The time you have for reading Commander articles is limited, and we'd like to make the best use of that time. I'm curious not just what gets you to a site or author, but what keeps you coming back there/to them (other than the obvious "needs to be at least somewhat coherently written").”


Sorry I read that as what content you as a magic player not someone from the edh community.

The best article has been about how Sheldon and the commentee goes about banning and unbanning cards. Anytime I hear about what articles are written it’s usually about what is ban/unbanned and why.

I would like to understand why protein hulk is unbanned and reoccuring nightmare isn’t. Being that protein hulk was unbanned because graveyard hate is much more prevalent in the meta so wouldn’t reoccuring nightmare be unbanned for the same reason. I would also like to see why we can’t have a cEDH and edh ban list to focus the two most extreame varieties of play. It might be for the same reason why you can’t have the commander ban list and and cards in edh ban list. I would like the format to become more widely available, but the only two forms of play seem to come down to cEDH(win within the ban list) or player points( win off the point system).

Idk if the cEDH community is represented by the ban list and maybe because they are A subset of edh they shouldn’t be considered and play within the rules generally set. Although that being the case shouldn’t paradox engine be banned for oppressive play. I don’t see a benefit of keeping that particular card in the meta. Don’t get me wrong I’ve played with cEDH and edh players, but that card is a special kind of game breaking. It might not reach primevil titan or griselbrand levels of negative gameplay, but it can sure give players who are trying to play a casual game sour grapes when someone is generating infinite mana from a cast trigger...

How about what you guys think emrakul the promised end and it’s affect on the format. I’ve personally removed it for [card]word of command[\card] because I just needed better hand disruption and I didn’t want to ruin someone’s day by killing/exile their commander.

Will the tuck rule come back? What would let you consider bring it back the tuck rule that is. I personally don’t like the fact that someone can rely on their general to win the game off it. It’s easy with the gods because they are often indestructible enchantments, it’s worst with triggers from the general zone because only static effects can stop those like [card] torpor orb[\card].

I'll try to give "Reader's Digest" discussion on this. All of these have had dedicated threads, and/or creeped up to derail larger threads at some point.





Hulk piles take much more effort to setup than RN setups, first. Second, while stronger tools to get around Hulk combo exist- it's more useful in regular commander as a value card. Over time, the things that made Hulk bannable have just sortof melted away as being unimportant. Combo potential isn't the basis for bans anymore. Recurring Nightmare makes 20 minute turns- Flash Hulk loops can be demonstrated quickly; and Hulk piles no longer need to go infinite to simply be good. RN is the most extreme version of Omniscience, and functionally holds it's slot on the banlist to represent the entire strata of cards that try to push excruciatingly long turns- in which faulty math often occurs, rules are broken out of disinterest etcetc. The RN ban is symbolic of "Magic as Solitare" cards, by being the absolute most extreme way of pushing that.



cEDH is a fringe. Obtaining the cards to build the decks requires thousands of dollars in investment. Groups like Lab Maniacs express interest in pushing the rules as built by the RC to their limit. Noone is stopping them from designating their own banlist like the "French Commander" fringe.



It's easier to just recur a Mindslaver. Like Mindslaver, it's just usually super inefficient, makes games take longer than necessary, and only feels mean. There are plenty of cards that do that- and don't add to the time required to play out the games.



Doubt it. The revised rule establishes the principal that the command zone exists to give a player constant access to their commander choice. As such, I find that if your Commander goes back to the CZ instead of the bin, you'd likely better have a good reason- since Timetwister variants no longer punish you for using your Commander as a graveyard resource (which was more of a problem than Terminus if I'm being honest.)

Emmy 2.0 also is a lot less inherently "mean". The fact that it gives that player an extra turn takes away a lot of the reason to use it as a "you don't get to play anymore" card and instead makes it more likely to be used as a "I'm going to use some of your resources to do something I want done" effect. It also is a way to give a free extra turn to a player who's behind.


Fixed it for you. The ability to tuck your opponents' commanders was not an explicit decision by the rules committee as an attempt to balance the game. Tuck effects were not particularly common/efficient at the time EDH was created, so they simply weren't taken into consideration when designing the rule.

I personally see the old tuck loophole as being the equivalent of if Wizards were to right now start printing a bunch of cards like Teferi's Curse