Lab Notes!

  How to Teach a Standard Player Commander https://www.youtube.com/live/Nh_UQMq7pLU?si=PzUoCm19NNvAkayk  Seven voices, seven answers We did a Morning Coffee Show with Super Fast Tortoise on how to introduce new players to Commander. Seven voices gave seven different versions of the right advice, and every one of them was reasonable. That told me something. There is no single right way to teach Commander, because there is no single new player. A Standard player who already knows the stack and the color pie is a different student than someone who has never tapped a land. So my answer doesn't start with a lesson plan. It starts with a question. Step 1: Find out who they want to be at the table Before you teach anything, ask two questions. How do you want to win a game of Commander? How do you want to engage with the people at the table? The answers shape everything that follows. Someone who loves attacking needs a different first deck than someone who wants to build a big engine ...

        I Rage Quit Arena. Then I Checked the Receipts. I just closed Arena harder than a Wrath of God on my own board. My first instinct was to scream “rigged.” My second was to ask whether I could prove it. I can’t. But I did find some things worth being angry about: 1. You don’t own your cards. Wildcards can’t be traded with other players, and nothing you earn leaves the client. I’ve got 50,000+ paper cards I can sell, trade, or sleeve up. Arena gives me a license and a login. mtgrocks 2. The free ride is slow. One analysis says the free starting pool is small, and getting the exact cards you need takes a long time. To field a competitive deck before the next set arrives, you really need to pay for wildcards. Fair counterpoint: another outlet argues Arena is good for free-to-play players and isn’t really pay-to-win. I’d call it pay-to-keep-up. draftsim mtgrocks 3. It isn’t Commander. Wizards’ format page lists Brawl as a one-on-one format with 100 cards, 2...

  You Can’t Beat Me Unless You Kill Me (Because We Aren’t Playing the Same Game) Let me start with a disclaimer. I’m not saying I’m good at Magic. I missed more triggers tonight, playing a precon, than I’d like to admit. I’m not writing this because I’ve figured the game out. I’m writing it because I think I’ve figured out something about why I enjoy it , and I think a lot of players are quietly losing that. The Game Inside the Game I play Commander for fun. That’s the whole strategy. And I think it’s why I feel like I’m winning more, but I don’t mean games. When I say winning, I mean walking away from the table happy, whether my commander took the game or got boarded out on turn six. A good night is one where I enjoyed the people, the plays and the chaos. By that measure, I win almost every time I sit down. Meanwhile, I watch other players hold cards back, waiting for the perfect game-winning play. Then someone disrupts it, and the table goes sour. If the only thing that cou...

  Be the Threat? Let’s Talk About That A while back I clicked on a Commander video, and within seconds my gut said “no.” The message was that every player at every table should be the threat.  I’ve thought about it since, and I still say no. Here’s why, and what I’d do instead. Credit where it’s due. Passive Magic is a real problem. Sitting on a hand of cards and waiting for the perfect moment makes for a long, flat game. If that’s what he’s pushing against, I’m with him. But “be the threat” isn’t “do something.” It’s “be the one everyone has to deal with.” A threat vs. the threat Being a threat means developing your board, having a plan, and staying relevant. That’s good advice at any table. Being the threat means pulling every opponent’s attention onto you. In a four-player game, that can mean three players’ removal and attacks landing on you before you’ve done anything. And if everyone follows the rule, nobody is the threat anymore. You’ve just invented a race. ...

  Why I Keep Bringing a  Knife  to a Gun Fight (Thanks SFT) People assume that when I show up to a pod, I'm the guy holding all the cards — the broken combo, the powered-up bracket 4 nightmare deck, overwhelming force against whatever the table's running. A knife to a gun fight. They've got it backwards. More often than not, I'm the one walking into a bracket 3 arena with a bracket 2 deck. A knife to a gun fight, if we're being honest. And I do it on purpose. Here's why. 1. I don't need to win. I've reached a point in Commander where I'm just comfortable playing the game. Winning isn't the thing I'm chasing anymore, which frees me up to make choices that a "win at all costs" mindset never would. 2. It makes me better. When I bring an underpowered deck to an overpowered table, I can't lean on good cards to bail me out. I'm forced into subtler, more nuanced lines — actually thinking instead of executing. A lot of the de...

  Do I Kill Iron Man? Do I kill Iron Man? I feel like a jerk just typing that. But it's a real question, and it's got me thinking about something bigger: what do you actually know going into a game of Commander, and what are you allowed to do with it? Start simple. You know which commander your opponent is running. That's it, that's the whole information. How powerful is that? And what do you do with it? I've hit this before, thirty years of RPGs deep. There's a word for it there — metagaming. Acting on what you know instead of what your character knows. Commander doesn't have a character to hide behind, so the line moves: it's not fiction vs. reality, it's this game vs. your history with this person . Commander on the table? Fair. Commander you looked up on Moxfield last night? Not fair. Commander you know because you've played this guy forty times? Somewhere in the murky middle. Here's where I land: I'm not building a deck to kill...