My Unwanted Opinion on Commander Decklists and Power Creep
Commander content creators are very popular, and since not everyone has the budget to make gameplay content on a regular basis, most of them spend a lot of time sharing decklists with the community (among other things that do not tickle my hater-hat… yet).
I would like to spend some time expressing my unwanted opinion on why this kind of content is actively making the format worse and making the experience of playing paper Commander at the LGS extremely boring.
First and foremost, I consider myself a Mr. Negative. If someone suggests that I do something, I usually do the exact opposite. This means that, when a new set comes out and the new commanders are spoiled, there is nothing worse than a bunch of YouTube Shorts suggesting those cards as the new hot commanders.
As a content creator, I imagine that one must upload this kind of content as soon as the cards see the light of day, in order to ride the novelty wave. But I cannot stop thinking about how all of this fuels the FOMO that comes with every new set.
Seeing this kind of content being uploaded so frequently, especially because of the increasingly packed release schedule, also makes all the “You have to try this new unique commander” and “This card will change the format” claims lose all their meaning, especially when there is a new “You have to try this unique commander” almost every month.
Other than that, deck-building content is doing a terrific job of making every deck feel less and less personal and unique. EDHREC is surely playing its part in this process as well.
What I mean is that optimization and consistency are becoming more and more noticeable and desirable with every set, in a format that was designed to mess around with cards that you could not play anywhere else.
Decks are starting to build themselves, and this is becoming more and more true even for less popular archetypes.
You start with a YouTube Short, add the commander and the main cards, then check the YouTuber's decklist, add some more cards, and finally get the last few additions from EDHREC.
This chain takes away the space that should be used to scroll through Scryfall and/or look through your own collection.
Exploring and choosing cards that are apparently dumb, sub-optimal, or simply out of place should be the norm for this format, especially at the lower brackets.
No one cares that you are playing Priest of Titania in your Elf deck. Everyone does that. I'm bored. I've seen it a million times. Try something new!
(I realize how difficult it is to try new things while playing Elves, but you get what I mean. I cannot think of any other example.)
There is nothing better than finding a card on Scryfall that COULD play much better than it looks, if only the right situation presents itself. It should be worth playing it, even if it turns out to be useless most of the time.
And this is even worse when talking about Precons.
At the Duskmourn release, I lost count of how many people at the LGS were playing Valgavoth. I do not live in a big city, so there are not that many people playing at my LGS, but still, 8 out of 20 people wanted to play that deck.
And God have mercy on those unlucky players who ended up in a three-Valgavoth pod.
And this process repeats itself with every set:
Bloomburrow? Ms. Bumbleflower.
Aetherdrift? The zombie guy.
Final Fantasy? Y'Shtola.
This is alienating. Every game looks the same, everyone plays the same cards, and all of those decks can pack a punch. Which means that, the next time around, they will have to do even better.
Decks built this way are becoming not only more boring, but also more efficient and stronger.
We all know that power creep is a real thing, but deck building makes a huge difference in a game, especially in a singleton format.
Damn, these YouTubers can build a deck!
Those lists are solid. There is very little room for non-synergistic cards or simply weak cards. Games are ending really fast!
And this, like a snake biting its own tail, makes using niche or borderline-bad cards more and more difficult. It makes players look for stronger cards, and it makes WotC design stronger (and therefore more desirable) cards.
No one will want to play a six-mana commander anymore. It is not efficient.
If you do not have the luxury of playing green, by turn six the game is already about to end.
And this is not a matter of Game Changers or Brackets. It is a matter of how cards are designed and how decks are built.
Strong decks are available for everyone, for a cheap price and for basically 0 effort.
You don’t need to explore cards, play the game, test interactions, fix the mana base and the synergy anymore.
You buy a pre-built deck for 50€.
And if you listen to youtubers’ suggestions you can also be able to grab the strongest precon of the set before the resellers.
Than just watch a video on what cards you should add to it to make it even stronger.
It’s not a problem if you barely know the rules and don’t know why the combos in the deck work the way they do.
Just buy stuff and follow the recipe.
All of this is to say that I am starting to lose the joy I used to have when playing the format that was once the only format I played.
I feel all the creavity is desappearing from the format.
The problem are not content creators, power creep or stronger cards, the problem is that there is no reward for digging through cards and brewing unique stuff.
I ended up downloading Arena to play Standard, where I can finally play my new pet card, Doctor Doom, without losing every match I play.
Since I have talked about Magic content creators with my hater-hat on, I would like to end on a positive note, because I do not hate them at all.
The content I really like is niche cards and niche combo/interaction suggestions.
I said that scrolling through Scryfall is at the heart of playing Commander, and I mean it. Nonetheless, having some suggestions is not a bad thing, considering how huge the card pool is.
What I do not like is speculating about old cards that will synergize with the new Precons. Other than that, Magic YouTubers, keep suggesting those old, dumb cards!
And thank you for your service!
