For those who don’t know, the reserve list was created in 1996 in response to a crashing singles market and a turbulent time in tcg history. Wizards promised to not reprint certain cards on said list.

Now, we find ourselves two decades later. The cheapest abu dual is $320, Gael’s cradle is $800+, and many more. This extreme price locks out the vast majority of magics player-base out of some of the best cards in the game. Sure, you can always proxy, but many others and i love to have the authentic card, plus it locks out players who aren’t willing to fork over a paycheck from playing them in tournaments. Those who have the money will have the advantage. Plus, if we see abu duals get rereleased, the majority of other dual lands will become much cheaper and more accessible for all. Enough time has passed. Collecting isn’t what magic is, it’s playing the game itself; so why lock some of the most iconic and best cards behind a massive paywall?

I've been playing my [[Teysa Karlov]] deck for about three years. It's probably the deck I'm most comfortable with, and I've always described it as pretty straightforward.

Sacrifice creatures, get death triggers, make more creatures, repeat. Nothing particularly complicated.

Last weekend a friend forgot his decks and asked to borrow one of mine. He's been playing Magic for a couple years, so I handed him Teysa and told him it was easy to pick up.

Holy shit, it was not.

He'd look at a board with six creatures and a sacrifice outlet and ask what he was supposed to do. I'd say something like "Well, you can sacrifice that one now, but it's probably better to wait until you get another payoff."

Then he'd ask which payoff.

And I'd realize there were about four different cards I was hoping he'd eventually draw, each of which changed what he should be doing with the exact same board.

At one point he asked why I hadn't attacked with a creature that was just sitting there doing nothing. I started explaining why I wanted it to die on my terms, then caught myself explaining an interaction involving three cards that weren't even on the battlefield.

He wasn't playing badly. He just didn't have three years of experience with those specific 99 cards living in his head.

I think I've confused knowing my own deck really well with the deck actually being simple.

It also made me wonder how many times I've told newer players that a deck is easy when what I really meant was that the decisions feel automatic to me.

Has anyone else had this realization after watching somebody else pilot their deck? And how do you actually judge whether a deck is beginner-friendly when you're already so familiar with it?

For whatever reason people HATEEEE mill. And I’ve literally never understood the hate. When I ask why they hate it I get the singular response of “now I can’t play that card and lost access to it”

But when I tell them that me milling a card you didn’t have access to in the first place doesn’t really change the game for them, they can’t seem to wrap their head around it.

Another archetype people hate is theft decks. I recently built the ur Sphinx.. now the deck is hardly a theft deck, I mean sure I get to cast my opponents spells sometimes but the premise of the deck is.. sphinxes…and one of the guys I play with regularly will literally hard target me the entire game because “I worked hard on my deck to play it not watch you play it”

I feel like way too many people have forgotten that this is a game, a multiplayer game at that, and a game that only one person can win.

Turn 6 I had [[Raul, Troubled Shooter]], [[World Shaper]], [[The Water Crystal]], [[Dreamborne Muse]] and [[The Wise Mothman]. So I pass the turn to my friend. In his upkeep he has to mill 10 from the muse and in his main phase 5 from a rad counter. He instantly scoop claiming my deck was oppressive.

I had attacked him with world shaper and still could tap Raul so everybody would mill 5.

Yes in this turn sequence I would mill every opponent for 20 cards each. My creatures would grow from the moth man but that was it.

I honestly don’t see the problem. I think he overreacted cause people have problems with mill. But what do you guys think?

deck list for reference

I'm considering brewing up a wheel deck but I'm sick of looking at Nekusar lists. I used to have a pretty sweet [Sauron, The Dark Lord] wheels list but I'm looking for something fresh.

What are some of your unique commanders for wheels and/or damage on card draw?

I just finished a game of commander in which one of the players took consistently 5+ minute turns, usually he did 1 or 2 things the whole turn. He did end up winning on a 10+ minute turn but again maybe took 6 actions. He drew 2 cards so there wasn't a large amount of new information, he just needed time to read through his board state. He was missing triggers too left and right, had to go back and redo steps.

Please, take the time to goldfish your deck before going out and playing with strangers. Try to understand the interactions in your own deck. Commander is a complicated game and sometimes external triggers can mess up your game plan, I get that. That being said, taking time to understand how your deck works makes it easier for you to play. Respect other people's time when playing with other people.

Just wanted to share a fun social interaction to possibly brighten someone's feed a little bit.

My friend does really cool custom commander nights, where about a month or two prior, he creates commanders and randomly assigns them to the playgroup. We proxy up decks with our assigned commanders and bring them to the table.

He gave me a dimir colored commander that was Sherlock Holmes, a 3 cost commander that investigates when any creature dies by paying 1, and could sacrifice artifacts (I think my friend should errata it to clues only) to make everyone mill one, and if he sacrificed three artifacts, he could make one player reveal their hand. Very fun, very thematic design.

But boy was I worried when I saw that it milled cards. It almost had the vibe of being a [[grinding station]] on a stick.

Especially with its ability being usable at instant speed, especially with me able to look at peoples hands. I do have a reputation of being the person with very threatening decks, (my win rate is abysmal at this table though, like 10% ish, I play and do scary things and then just hekin die lol) and I was now just handed yet another commander with the potential to be really nasty.

Anyways, the deck got built, and I rolled up to the game night, and in 2/3 games, accrued enough clue tokens to drop a massive bomb card that outright and suddenly won the game. One was dropping [[persuasive interrogators]] after I accrued 10 clues and one player had already been knocked out of the game.

The other win though, the one I thought would induce a lot more salt, was my unintentional win using [[the water crystal]]. I genuinely didn't process the card as a wincon, I just assumed it would be a way to get more things hitting the grave for cool reanimate effects. But put simply, I had enough artifacts on board from my clue generation cards, that after a check of the numbers of cards in everyone's library, sacrificed my artifacts to Sherlock, and 5 cards at a time milled each player out of the game in one fell swoop.

And yeah, it was weird to me cause I expected at least someone to get mad or peeved at the game ending with MILL of all things, but everyone seemed enthusiastic about the deck popping off and doing the thing, and people asked me about the detective/clue/murder theming and how I went about building the deck after the games.

It's honestly the first time I've won so many matches with this playgroup in such a short timeframe, and I was super thrilled at the positive reaction my playgroup had to a deck with MILL in it lol. I love the deck, and have played it with family and other friends since, and they all seem to like its detective theme, and funky splashy wins.

I hope y'all have good playgroups that have fun and encourage your shenanigans, because I just got ahold of my next commander for the next custom night and ... It's AZORIUS. I warned him about me getting the opportunity to build an Azorius deck, and he just said "lol just have fun with it".

As Dimir is allegededly the spy guild i kinda want to make a deck powerful enough to participate in B3. Of course also B3 because of [[Notion Thief]].

But since i know nothing of MtG Lore and dont even need a Lore wise spy i came here to ask which legendary fulfills this attribute the most according to others.

Must not be from Ravnica or a spy lorewise.

A mechanical spy would be cool or maybe just even the artwork if its cool. I want to make a spy/thief themed deck. Maybe clue tokens, maybe stealing.

Been building a few different decks lately and started thinking about how the old complaints like white having no card draw are pretty much dead now, but every colour still has stuff that annoys me.

​White for me is just how hard it is to actually end the game. You get all this good draw and protection now, you build a huge board, and then you just sit there waiting to draw one of the two or three big team buff spells so you can finally swing for lethal.

​With blue, I hate how awkward it is to win at casual tables. If your group doesn't like infinite combos or extra turns, you just end up drawing thirty cards with no real way to chew through 120 life.

​Black decks all feel the same to me lately. No matter what commander I pick, it feels like the deck always wants to turn into the same pile of tutors and life drain.

​For red it has to be impulse draw. Exiling your own removal spell on turn three when there is nothing worth blowing up feels terrible. Plus if your early start gets shut down you are basically topdecking.

​Green kind of builds itself at this point and it gets boring. Half the deck is automatically the same land ramp cards every time and so many green commanders just hand you the game for doing very little.

​Curious what everyone else's biggest gripes are with each colour these days?

Hey y’all, I picked up a reality fracture precon a few weeks ago and have been making changes to it since, mostly in the creature lineup.

I’ve been wondering if anyone else has been feeling the issue of, “okay I got a nice polymorph target out, now what?”.

For example, last night i poly’d into an early Avacyn, Angel of Horror which was very fun but it didn’t really help me convert the game into a win. For context, I was at a weekly commander night where everyone was playing bracket 2 or so. While everyone else was building up their game plans, I felt as though my polymorph game plan wasn’t very effective. This is with having Jace polymorphs and Proteus Staff out on the board uncontested. The polymorphs were just not enough.

It’s not an entirely fair comparison, but I can’t help but think of the games I’ve played with my two year old Ghyrson Starn deck that I picked bc it was like $40 on edhrec. I’ve won every game I’ve played with that deck, which is only about 5 bc I just came back from not playing for two years, but still. Maybe this is just an issue with the polymorph style, it’s not very good but it’s very fun.

How have you all been doing with the new Jace commander?

Edit: I am a newer player still, my initial run with commander was short-lived, but I came back now

LGS is hosting a Precon Bracket 2 Night next month. Rules are you have to bring a precon, but it can't be a precon that contains any game changers (which would shift the deck to Bracket 3). Any suggestions on some solid precons? Any advice on what to look out for?

Hello! Played for a few months and was at my LGS after a long day yesterday. For whatever reason I started taking a long time to add up combat damage/attackers/+1 counters on one of my turns. Had like 7 tokens, something making more tokens when it attacks, and then another thing getting counters based on the number of attacking creatures.

Declaring attackers and adding up the damage took me about a minute and one of the other players seemed a bit annoyed. Been trying to get faster at this deck via playing/goldfishing.

I apologized for taking too long and one of the other players told me it was fine. Idk. It’s hard to know how long I’m actually taking but I genuinely don’t think it was more than a minute or two.

Should bracket 3 games be expected to end turn 6-8 WITH interaction or WITHOUT interaction. Let's say you have a deck that can win turn 5 without interaction, but with a simple piece of interaction, it drops into turn 6 or 7 immediately.

Thoughts?

Mox Link: https://moxfield.com/decks/4_EA_qTBhEWsX27epnRLnw
Made some changes recently:
Added 3 gamechangers. (Rhystic Study, Cyclonic Rift, Demonic Tutor)
Threw in a prepared tutor.
Even added some Strong Black Staples. (Blackmarket Connections, Two Sheoldreds, Massacre Wurm)

Feeling a bit lost, though. Whats a good win con, aside from just flooding my GY with creatures.... Growing Mirko and getting them out with Finality Counters? Did I get lost in the sauce?

Where do I need to focus to improve?
Mana Curve?
Mana Base?
Card Types? (Removal, Protection, etc.)

Thanks for the help, gamers.

I played a deck very similar to Melissa DeTora's from Game Knight episode #5 from 2017 like 8-9 years ago with [[Karamaetra, God of Harvests]] at the helm. I lost people to play with and sold my stuff years ago. Now I am thinking about getting back into it and I am considering playing bant enchantress. The enchantress commanders don't really entice me much, so I am considering this commander I found today [[Kros, Defense Contractor]]. He could be a political piece and help me stave off threats while I get established on the board. I am not sure if there are many enchantments that do it, but enchantments that let me trigger Kros repeatedly could be a good subtheme.

Now there is a dedicated enchantress commander in Selesnya in [[Sythis, Harvest's Hand]] as well. That seems a little boring to me, though.

Is blue worth bringing into enchantress? If so, is there a different bant commander that isn't Estrid or Tusava that you think would make for an interesting commander? TBH, from when I used to play enchantress, the commander mattered almost none. It was nice to have her indestructible and some ramp etc. but she wasn't really necessary to the game plan.

The whole bracket system was new to me when I returned but I am probably somewhere around high B2 - B3. I want to ramp out, draw cards, play stuff etc. but I am not looking to win crazy fast. I like to gain a large card/mana advantage etc. and just win through value over time.

Edit: I know what proxxying is, I usually do proxxy, I just want to increase my collection of real cards

I'm specifically talking about decks that can hold their own at bracket four tables.

The only commander who can hold their own and thrive I know of is [[zada, hedron grinder]] and [[krenko, mob boss]] because of the sheer speed they have. Ofc I'd imagine every answer is either a mono colored or dual colored deck but it'd be nice to see more variety.

Other commanders I'd imagine working:

[[Pia nalaar, consul of revival]] as a cast from exile deck

[[Oker axonil]] as a burn deck

[[Arabella, abandoned doll]] as a go-wide token deck

[[Zurgi stormrender]] see above

(Red might be the budget king)

Ask the title implies I’m looking for recommendations on Varina, lich queen. I have Linda kandarian queen and very much want to build a deck from her inspired by moist critikal so if anyone knows more about his deck, any of that information would be very much appreciated.
I’m adding the link to my decklist so you guys can say if it’s bad or not. Looking for high B3 maybe b4 because I’m going to use it as my high power deck

https://moxfield.com/decks/DTqMPTXEDESIog4oYcFSyg

Hi I play Smaug the Magnificent as my main Commander and I’m trying to move him up to a bracket 4. As of rn he is only a bracket 4 by definition only because of blood moon. Is there any recommendations on. Any cards that I should swap out? Here is the link to my deck list:https://manabox.app/decks/AaDvNbc7f52lbXfHxQGsVg

Overall the benefits way overweight the hate. Every now and then a random hate card surfaces, but hardly ever you're gonna see a snow hate card, and you can just freely run all snow lands with extraplanar lenses for a single color commander for instance without worrying at all for hate

I have a friend I plan to introduce to MTG, I was thinking of starting her on EDH as a format...there's just one problem...I don't play EDH, my formats are Pauper and Pioneer. The closest I've ever gotten to playing EDH consistently is Brawl on Arena (which is an entirely different format, I understand, I reference Brawl specifically for the command zone aspect).

My plan to start her on EDH is so that she has more people to play with, we are 4 hours away from one another and I won't be available to join her for games 99% of the time.

I understand the internals of EDH, I've watched games get played and have some experience on tabletop simulator with friends but not too much.

I planned to start her on either [[Invisible Woman]] or [[Cloak and Dagger, Entwined]] (her favorite Marvel Rivals character). I know they're not the best commanders but they're going to be used for an introduction!

Is there any advice you can give me to convert my 60 card brain into a 100 card singleton brain to begin the builds?

Thank you!

Hi everyone, my friends and I are starting to have quite a few decks with a huge difference in power while being in the same bracket 3, do Y'all have a way to rate / scale deck's power inside your pod ?

Something a bit more grounded, but more accurate than edhopwerlevel.com (it's a good base but miss a lot from decks to decks).

I'm eager to hear your suggestions.

Hey everybody! I am new to building decks, I've been playing magic for a while but have only upgraded precons.

I made this deck competent off watching some videos, looking at EDHrec, and looking at other people's lists.

I feel kinda lost. I think I've created a functional deck? My list is over by 7 cards and I'm hoping you guys can help me with some cuts.

Thanks y'all !

https://moxfield.com/decks/o0F299IsDUi_QVXRRyNAWw

https://youtu.be/vnohI799sow?is=H5EGGh91xS6ZTSLA

Hey everyone,

Andrew from TheManaDorks here. Our pod was really excited to play with the new mystery booster commanders. However we had a feeling that this would be a product that would be massively in demand. We recorded these games a month ago with proxies and it was an absolute blast. Commander will always be a community/ kitchen table format. If you're like us and missed the drop yesterday don't let that prevent you from playing with these new commanders. Hope you'll have as much fun as we did.