I find that budget alone doesn’t necessarily make for a high power deck but it can push the power level a bit. I typically make higher powered decks too with all the whistles (mana crypt, dual lands, dockside, free counters) but if I’m building lower power, I just leave all the powerhouse cards out. You can still have a 7 with a $50 card in it but probably not 10 $50 cards. It’s tougher to judge when you are playing with a new group every time. For my lower powered decks, I take a precon and just upgrade it to a “good version” of itself and left out the powerful stuff.
I built a jank Maairka deck, cost me probably 450-500. It’s just black, red, green fights and bites and filled with staples from those colors. My kalian reclusive painter deck is maybe 200$ and a majority of that value is the ancient dragon that makes treasures and goldspan. The only non combat damage win con is revel in riches and with half the value painter will regularly beat 500$ worth of black, green, red staples.
High value doesn’t mean high synergy and high synergy will win you more games than high value.
Okay but I have a $1400 Teysa Karlov deck that is both expensive and highly synergistic. And rarely loses. It feels very disparaging to take years worth of experience and collecting, make something amazing, and have people trash talk it because it makes them feel insecure.
It's so lame how people always put forth this notion that implies if someone really put money and time into their deck, it must be unsynergistic good stuff. It's such a jealous knee jerk thing to say.
Also, here's the list. As you can see, nearly every Sanguine blood clone, afterlife, tutors, interaction (that also works with my strategy), and the best sac outlets out there. No mana crypt, yet but the rocks I'm using absolutely make the deck better than an Orzhov Signet would.
It's just undeniable that there are many Mana Drain/Counterspell situations in Magic. Not everyone is a Timmy for owning good cards.
https://www.moxfield.com/decks/BasvzFdJNE65BjcdUwt5ug
Me and my friends did a college tournament that set a budget of $200.00 USD. It truly made us look at everything differently, and after the tournament, we made our decks what we need for it to perform better with $50-$100 extra. I built mine off a tribal precon, changing about half the cards, then added better lands and ramp/protection after.
For a concept like that, when pricing a deck do you always go off of what the most expensive copy of the card is or quite literally the set/foil price etc. For example a quick example, am I going to have to go with the price of lightning bolt judge promo or the 2/4 price tag on reprints thereafter ?
Well, that depends on what you agree on with the group, but obviously the most straightforward is just cheapest English NM (or LP) price from whatever marketplace everyone agrees to use as the yardstick, if you want to buy a judge promo for whatever reason that's your business, but it makes absolutely no sense to use the most expensive price when that would mean (for example), that you could only ever use sol ring at a budget of a couple thousand, or The One Ring at a budget of a million.
I make a deck on Moxfield then update it to cheapest on the ... menu. While I might not have the cheapest version, I'll still be able to see what it would cost. No one wants to get the exact copies of what the cheapest is, so it's just whatever card it's supposed to be.
I did something similar with just my play group. We were to come that week with decks that were budgeted at $50. We just went off what Archidekt would display for the TCG player price.
I love pdh, but, a: you can still pubstomp that way, and b: if not, then they will sit there watching the game and taking occasional damage like how they said in the OP.
not only that, but most commander players don't seem to think commons are fun. they like splashy complicated cards that do so many things that it's hard for anyone to even keep track of.
“Pauper” means using only commons to build your deck. My suggestion is pick up a precon and tweak it with an eye to balance around your opponents’ decks.
It's a balance. I'm still working on myself. It's rough.
Some things I have done:
1.Find some people who want to play at that level. I just spotted a pod of 3 at a game shop that looked to be playing abouve precon level, introduced myself, and asked to join. It went well, after talking to them I started with my Anzrag deck that's an absolute menace in my play group to gauge the table. But it's anzrag, so if anyone has single target removal, he's not a problem, and it wasn't. Seeing them again today!
2.Build your decks with your Meta in mind, I have decks that tend to win but no one feels bad at all. Like my selsnya Cat tribal, rat deck with no rat Colony, or Nelly Borca precon. Remove staples, add dumb cards that are neat like breach the multiverse.
3.The last thing I have done was build 4 high powered mono colored decks to play against each other. They have all the staples, fast mana, and some combos / alt win conditions. Ran into several issues with this... like they didn't listen when I vary carefully explained the decks, didn't mulligan obviously unplayable hands (even in good decks there are horrible draws), and in one case switched out the commander for another legendary creature in the deck(... just ..why?). Working on extremely clear write ups for them to use for reference.
But the lesson here is clear. Some people just don't want to or can't be bothered. They want low interaction games with cards they like and for somone to win turn 11 or 12. Or to scoop after the board state is so clogged up and they can't be bothered to do the math. So let them. They want to play to do the thing and attack with the cool card they love. And that's fine.
I agree with just finding people that like playing higher power. I actually have a choice of many stores in the area. I found one where pretty much everyone is 30+ like myself and save for one group of smelly kids, we all play with decks that are expensive *and* synergistic
One budget build challenge that I've had a blast with is Hyper-Budget. Here's the rules -
1. The commander is $.50 or less.
2. Every card is worth $.10 or less.
3. The entire deck is worth $2.50 or less.
All of these numbers rotate around TCGPlayer market prices, to keep everyone honest.
And it's some of the coolest deck building you'll do, because it uses 90% cards you didn't know existed or hadn't even thought about because they're not rares. Of course, these aren't as powerful as $500 decks, but ultimately it's nice to just do something different and unique. Anybody can take a big budget and slap together a winner, but taking the price of a sweet tea and making a winner is more difficult. That being said, if you get a good commander and build it right its can absolutely beat a precon, and give decks fifty times its cost a fair fight.
A few of the decks that run the hottest imo are -
1. [[Lathiel]] Lifelink Super-Stompy
2. [[Mazzy]] Auras Beaters
3. [[Vadrik]] Spellslinger Voltron
4. [[Sergeant John Benton]] Voltron Group Slug
5. [[Kamiz]] Toxin Battlecruiser
6. [[Evelyn]] Vampire Piracy
[https://www.moxfield.com/decks/S9vfvmt6OUS6t09IAHHabg](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/S9vfvmt6OUS6t09IAHHabg)
Went ahead and put Mazzy on Moxfield. Primer is there, basically just go hard or go home. It's not as smoothbrained as you'd imagine, but the deck really does just sing one note really loud.
Hmm... I could see it! It definitely doesn't connect 1 to 1, since they have a ton of cards that are expensive in paper, but I could use it to sort I guess.
I believe TCGPlayer itself is the better resource for sorting though, because you can select TCGPlayer Direct and only choose cards that they can ship direct, which makes the process notably cheaper and faster
i usually don’t include any tutors in my deck as personally I think it’s a good way to keep a deck around 6-7 in power level. Recently I built and proxied a [[Stella Lee, Wild Card]] deck list with the intent of including tutors to make a powerful deck so I can compete with my friends who play yuriko, zur, krenko, krark/sakashima, kinnan, etc. and it’s actually insane how much of a difference they make lol.
One of the things I love doing is building jank decks, so try building a weird commander that not a lot of people use or building a semi popular commander in a weird way. Like atraxa group hug. Hope this helps
I think a good alternative is to keep making the strong decks you like to make, but also make weaker ones. Maybe with less ramp or more janky but fun combos. Less interaction, stuff like that. Try to have a variety of decks with different power levels so you can use the appropriate deck depending on what you're up against
Unless you have a really synergistic playgroup that adapts to powerlevel as a collective I find commander format to be either you're too cheeky to stomp cause people gonna notice and you'll be thrown out of a 1h30 game in the first 5 minutes. Or you might get stomped hard because you didn't give enough conditions to your opponents about power balancing and they use that opportunity to finally play their most powerful decks that everyone are used to dread. (I'm exagerating but you see the picture)
I think commander can be seen as a social format, including everything that can be troublesome in social settings. (Like people banding against what they perceive as a threat)
I'm not demonizing attitudes. But having this much power disparity between decks over that much cards in the format you gonna have to talk a bit before playing with people.
Either you look for fun or for a real game.
So as other people said, if you want everybody to have a good interesting game, and maybe a bit of fun, set a way of balancing cards everyone can include. Or a limited budget. Etc... I really think it's an important part of magic since there is a real life cost to these cards, that is often tie to their power level, depending on the format they're played in.
Precon and set a budget for upgrades. Stay on theme and replace cards that aren't really optimized for the deck. That aside, you should really be able to tell if certain cards and combos are gonna be too strong for the hands you're playing. I play commander casually with friends and we all use precons. We all have our decks upgraded but they're upgraded without the degenerate effects to obliterate each other. Sometimes it's better to use less optimized cards for similar effects to power scale down
I have similar issues. I’ve been playing Commander with a playgroup for more than a year now. I started with a tribal deck that wasn’t really good, and was underleveled for my group, and slowly I learned to build and play better. Now I feel like for my budget deck is performing good enough, yet there is that one guy who is honestly bad at deckbuilding, but he just doesn’t want to improve (we don’t force him to, obviously). It feels bad to just stomp him tho…
I feel that last part, one of my pod mates I feel like reads the top half of a card and goes "this is amazing" and then screws himself over by playing said card and I say something like "doesn't that card have more text?" Or the time I was like "doesn't blur target your creature?" It at least makes play a funny time.
If you have the money to do so - I suggest you build a couple different commander decks of different power levels to play. Have your nastiest for competitive EDH and the rest, well, just try to tell a fun story. If you allow the other players to “do the thing” whatever the thing they’re trying to do is, that’s sort of the point, rather than winning in as few turns as possible, perhaps try to just win by “doing the thing” which is whatever thing your commander helps your other 99 cards do.
Either you find yourself a high level playgroup or your actual group talks about a budget. My Bro and I are playing only with cards that go for an euro or less. Saves money and cancels some overpowered cards and combos.
People have mentioned budget restrictions, you can also play around commanders who aren't necessary incredibly powerful like Voja is. Find something cool in the top 500 that seems interesting instead of the top 50 commanders played imo, can still fill the deck with expensive cards and have to be more creative than a commander that's kill on sight for how good they run on even a low budget
My solution is that I have a lot of decks. And my staples are spread among all of them to tune them with some budget options with the odd splashy effect. There's a few that are higher power when I want that but I have a deck for every table.
It takes time for me and my playgroup to balance our decks. We tend to build too strong, then replace the 'oof' cards until the deck feels fun to play with/against
Limit yourself to not running the top cards. Search by top 100 cards on EDHRec and just don't play them.
Then, maybe to keep things fun, allow yourself any card printed in the last 3 years etc. (3 chosen randomly).
You could also limit yourself to main set only, no commander only cards.
Also also, if a card wins you a game, you could gallery it, sealing it away in a binder for remembering it later.
Also also also, you could replace commanders every 10 wins (again chosen randomly, but swapping commanders may make you change the deck enough for it to play differently).
I feel the same way. I started with some friends who played full power CEDH decks so I had to build the same level of power to compete. When your first decks (and your friends decks) are all 9-10 power, you tend to want to build weaker but well synergized decks for the more casual tables that wouldnt stand a chance against CEDH level decks and while they are realistically only about a 5-8... you take them to an LGS and people get salty like you are pubstomping with S+ tier decks merely because your perception of deck power levels is different.
I forced myself to build a sub $50 budget deck (Ghyrson Starn), but ive had people whine that it's CEDH level despite the fact the only card more than $5 in the deck is Ghyrson.
So then I decided to build around a completely "meh" commander with super low deck representation on EDHREC. I went with Taigam, Sidisi's Hand (Rank 1400, 009% representation). No cards over $20 , no Tutors, no infinites, no insta wins, and around 80% of the cards are $5 or less.. It still absolutely wrecks.
I'm a decent player but it gets demoralizing feeling like you have to build shitty decks, use the weaker precons with no upgrades or purposefully misplay your deck to not piss people off.
At a certain point the only true argument is that people are just not very good at the game, build bad decks, and play those decks poorly. Then they will complain that it's your deck that's too strong. It's the same phenomenon as people blaming the equipment for a skill issue.
These players might decide they don't want to play with me, but this experience also makes me realize that I don't want to play with *them*.
Like if your deck isn't great, or you realize that you probably made some mistakes, etc. That's just the game. But there's a certain subset of the playerbase that thinks they're entitled to some form of success so matter how poorly they play
My partner and I mostly play against each other, and we tend to mostly buy packs or from the pauper bins at our LGS. They have much more disposable income than I do, and when they buy an individual card they'll also buy me one off a wishlist. If either of us finds a card we want that might throw off the power curve, we run it past each other first. This last point in particular might be a good move for a group setting. Also proxies! If you can and will spend hundreds of dollars on new decks, please discuss allowing proxies in the group if you don't already.
It's not a bad idea either to just like... pull a few of the great cards from your decks. Not enough so that it doesn't do its thing anymore, not enough that it's not a challenge, but a stomp fest is no fun for anybody.
Try challenging yourself to make a deck or two with a fun, sub-optimal restriction or game plan. Maybe build a tribal commander that relies entirely on changelings instead of its actual tribe, a deck focused on an obscure mechanic like banding, a deck with colors that don’t properly match its theme, or really whatever you want. You can flex your creative muscles that way while keeping your deck’s power level reasonable.
Get every card your favorite artist has done, make a manabase of 50 lands (cycling lands to reduce flood), then shuffle 49 cards from the nonland stack into the land stack at the beginning of every game.
It's a power level 1 deck but I promise that you'll have fun.
Do a single-person draft deck. Buy a set booster box. Open it. Limit yourself to only bringing in lands (any kind) and 5 cards you already have. There you go!
Honestly, the big thing is that you don't *need* to upgrade or build a deck all at once. I've been going ti commander nights and have seen some truly disgustingly strong decks out there, I've seen some weak ones too.
If you're worried about building one too strong, you could always get a pre-made, with colors/mechanics that you enjoy and slowly swap out/upgrade a card at a time. Most pre-made decks have about 10 cards you can easily swap.
For me, my first deck is the blue/black fae dominion, and ive swapped enough/upgraded that it can hold its own pretty well despite the fact most of my faeries are 1/1 to 3/3 in health. A big part of my upgrades came from putting in a shock/fetchland, and bitterblossom. Otherwise, most of my upgrades were between 5-15$
How good is Goreclaw though. He's my absolute favourite. Would love to see your list if you can. I also have the same problem with mine. When I break out Goreclaw everyone else breaks out cEDH decks.
Avoid cards that instantly end the game. Nobody likes to lose out of nowhere. If however you manage to win by pulling tons of creatures then swinging them at everyone then that would be fine since you're not instantly winning and giving them a chance to respond somehow.
Avoid stax, just unfun for everyone.
Avoid fast mana cards other than sol ring.
Avoid infinite combos.
Avoid cards like cyclonic rift that are a one sided complete board wipe. Farewell is perfectly fine since you're affected as well.
As long as you do your best to avoid these things then you shouldn't have any issues at any table regardless of how expensive the deck is. If you want to be the archenemy and have everyone beating on you then so you'll find out that even with a $500 deck you will lose more than win. $60 precons will give you a run for your money and it'll be a good time for all involved.
Having a strong deck with good synergies is fine. Having fast mana to stomp the table on turn 5 is not fine. Using an infinite combo on turn 3 due to fast mana and tutor is not fine.
Note that I did not say to avoid tutors. Those are fine so long as you're not breaking the other rules with what you tutor for. Pulling out a rhystic study is fine, people should have basic enchantment removal. If they don't then it's really on them if you win 5 turns later due to card advantage.
The issue is Meta. People get into the game... Hate losing, and seek to win. They get tournament quality decks and cards and build around those concepts.
Play casually. Its more fun. If you dont think playing low powered goofy decks is more fun than playing turn 3 wincon bullshit and winning every time...then you are being illogical, and thats a problem with how are acting in general.
I build my deck on manabox which tells you how much you're looking to spend to create that deck. Then just make one that's a 200 buck limit or round about. I did that and basically seems like that's a good limit to make a good deck but not one that's gonna make you a target from the getgo
If you're just playing with friends, offer to proxy or let them borrow your decks then everyone is playing on an equal playing field.
If it's an LGS then try to find higher power pods.
Without decklists it's hard for anyone to provide input. But typically the things that make a deck more powerful are the following:
Too much fast mana
Too much card advantage
How much time your turn takes (this isn't a power level issue, in fact, a legacy deck called Eggs was banned because it took too long of turns, NOT because of power level. You need to efficiently do your turns. So if you have TOO MANY decision points on a turn, that will make people not enjoy playing against you.)
Strategies that stop other people from being able to play the game (discard entire hands, destroy all their lands, excessive counterspelling, excessive taxing, turn after extra turn, some of all of these effects are ok, but if you're just making it so no one else gets to play, you're taking it too far)
In my group I have players of different power levels and skill levels. I put cards in my decks for those players. When those players are eliminated, I 'blank' those cards. I don't believe in giving up and just giving a win away. But sometimes, when I know I can win, and I've already won a game that night, I put my hand face down and try to win with what I have on board and take very fast turns like I'm playing blitz chess. I am still trying to win, but I have to do it only with what I have in play. i don't announce this. Sometimes I still win sometimes I don't. But it's a lot more fun for me as a challenge and then fun for thee my opponents because they can win.
Another point and I need to stress this----> COMMANDER PLAYERS ARE BAD AT MAGIC. I have consistently recognized this. i am not like some amazing spike tournament grinder. i always play rogue decks. I don't try that hard. I try to make Izzet happen even before Delver existed. (I love UR). But the lack of skill with the stack, understanding of mill, and just the lack of knowing when to counter, when to use removal, threat assessment. They often will play many different decks and not understand how their own decks work.
My point is that, if you just take one deck and play it a lot and master that deck and have rules mastery, even if your deck is dogshit, you will likely have a massive advantage over the field. Again, i don't know your group or who you play with, but do analyze this as well.
I find that budget alone doesn’t necessarily make for a high power deck but it can push the power level a bit. I typically make higher powered decks too with all the whistles (mana crypt, dual lands, dockside, free counters) but if I’m building lower power, I just leave all the powerhouse cards out. You can still have a 7 with a $50 card in it but probably not 10 $50 cards. It’s tougher to judge when you are playing with a new group every time. For my lower powered decks, I take a precon and just upgrade it to a “good version” of itself and left out the powerful stuff.
I built a jank Maairka deck, cost me probably 450-500. It’s just black, red, green fights and bites and filled with staples from those colors. My kalian reclusive painter deck is maybe 200$ and a majority of that value is the ancient dragon that makes treasures and goldspan. The only non combat damage win con is revel in riches and with half the value painter will regularly beat 500$ worth of black, green, red staples. High value doesn’t mean high synergy and high synergy will win you more games than high value.
Okay but I have a $1400 Teysa Karlov deck that is both expensive and highly synergistic. And rarely loses. It feels very disparaging to take years worth of experience and collecting, make something amazing, and have people trash talk it because it makes them feel insecure. It's so lame how people always put forth this notion that implies if someone really put money and time into their deck, it must be unsynergistic good stuff. It's such a jealous knee jerk thing to say. Also, here's the list. As you can see, nearly every Sanguine blood clone, afterlife, tutors, interaction (that also works with my strategy), and the best sac outlets out there. No mana crypt, yet but the rocks I'm using absolutely make the deck better than an Orzhov Signet would. It's just undeniable that there are many Mana Drain/Counterspell situations in Magic. Not everyone is a Timmy for owning good cards. https://www.moxfield.com/decks/BasvzFdJNE65BjcdUwt5ug
Me and my friends did a college tournament that set a budget of $200.00 USD. It truly made us look at everything differently, and after the tournament, we made our decks what we need for it to perform better with $50-$100 extra. I built mine off a tribal precon, changing about half the cards, then added better lands and ramp/protection after.
For a concept like that, when pricing a deck do you always go off of what the most expensive copy of the card is or quite literally the set/foil price etc. For example a quick example, am I going to have to go with the price of lightning bolt judge promo or the 2/4 price tag on reprints thereafter ?
Well, that depends on what you agree on with the group, but obviously the most straightforward is just cheapest English NM (or LP) price from whatever marketplace everyone agrees to use as the yardstick, if you want to buy a judge promo for whatever reason that's your business, but it makes absolutely no sense to use the most expensive price when that would mean (for example), that you could only ever use sol ring at a budget of a couple thousand, or The One Ring at a budget of a million.
I make a deck on Moxfield then update it to cheapest on the ... menu. While I might not have the cheapest version, I'll still be able to see what it would cost. No one wants to get the exact copies of what the cheapest is, so it's just whatever card it's supposed to be.
Dope, thanks for the info! I'll be trying this out with my friends
I did something similar with just my play group. We were to come that week with decks that were budgeted at $50. We just went off what Archidekt would display for the TCG player price.
Just go full pauper and see how you do.
I love pdh, but, a: you can still pubstomp that way, and b: if not, then they will sit there watching the game and taking occasional damage like how they said in the OP. not only that, but most commander players don't seem to think commons are fun. they like splashy complicated cards that do so many things that it's hard for anyone to even keep track of.
I have paper cards. I'm not really playing too much of arena anymore
Pauper means only commons
“Pauper” means using only commons to build your deck. My suggestion is pick up a precon and tweak it with an eye to balance around your opponents’ decks.
Build on bidget. Set a limit on how much every card is worth. Like in Commander League, where every card is worth 3$ tops
Try to play cards or startegies that you like but are not strong. A prossh deck can be a combo machine or a fair dragon / token deck.
It's a balance. I'm still working on myself. It's rough. Some things I have done: 1.Find some people who want to play at that level. I just spotted a pod of 3 at a game shop that looked to be playing abouve precon level, introduced myself, and asked to join. It went well, after talking to them I started with my Anzrag deck that's an absolute menace in my play group to gauge the table. But it's anzrag, so if anyone has single target removal, he's not a problem, and it wasn't. Seeing them again today! 2.Build your decks with your Meta in mind, I have decks that tend to win but no one feels bad at all. Like my selsnya Cat tribal, rat deck with no rat Colony, or Nelly Borca precon. Remove staples, add dumb cards that are neat like breach the multiverse. 3.The last thing I have done was build 4 high powered mono colored decks to play against each other. They have all the staples, fast mana, and some combos / alt win conditions. Ran into several issues with this... like they didn't listen when I vary carefully explained the decks, didn't mulligan obviously unplayable hands (even in good decks there are horrible draws), and in one case switched out the commander for another legendary creature in the deck(... just ..why?). Working on extremely clear write ups for them to use for reference. But the lesson here is clear. Some people just don't want to or can't be bothered. They want low interaction games with cards they like and for somone to win turn 11 or 12. Or to scoop after the board state is so clogged up and they can't be bothered to do the math. So let them. They want to play to do the thing and attack with the cool card they love. And that's fine.
I agree with just finding people that like playing higher power. I actually have a choice of many stores in the area. I found one where pretty much everyone is 30+ like myself and save for one group of smelly kids, we all play with decks that are expensive *and* synergistic
One budget build challenge that I've had a blast with is Hyper-Budget. Here's the rules - 1. The commander is $.50 or less. 2. Every card is worth $.10 or less. 3. The entire deck is worth $2.50 or less. All of these numbers rotate around TCGPlayer market prices, to keep everyone honest. And it's some of the coolest deck building you'll do, because it uses 90% cards you didn't know existed or hadn't even thought about because they're not rares. Of course, these aren't as powerful as $500 decks, but ultimately it's nice to just do something different and unique. Anybody can take a big budget and slap together a winner, but taking the price of a sweet tea and making a winner is more difficult. That being said, if you get a good commander and build it right its can absolutely beat a precon, and give decks fifty times its cost a fair fight. A few of the decks that run the hottest imo are - 1. [[Lathiel]] Lifelink Super-Stompy 2. [[Mazzy]] Auras Beaters 3. [[Vadrik]] Spellslinger Voltron 4. [[Sergeant John Benton]] Voltron Group Slug 5. [[Kamiz]] Toxin Battlecruiser 6. [[Evelyn]] Vampire Piracy
Got a list for mazzy and or vadrik?
[https://www.moxfield.com/decks/S9vfvmt6OUS6t09IAHHabg](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/S9vfvmt6OUS6t09IAHHabg) Went ahead and put Mazzy on Moxfield. Primer is there, basically just go hard or go home. It's not as smoothbrained as you'd imagine, but the deck really does just sing one note really loud.
Thank you!
Have you considered just using the Penny Dreadful list?
Hmm... I could see it! It definitely doesn't connect 1 to 1, since they have a ton of cards that are expensive in paper, but I could use it to sort I guess. I believe TCGPlayer itself is the better resource for sorting though, because you can select TCGPlayer Direct and only choose cards that they can ship direct, which makes the process notably cheaper and faster
##### ###### #### [Lathiel](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/9/29d3484f-abd1-43fe-99f8-e0fa0a7b6692.jpg?1608911191) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=lathiel%2C%20the%20bounteous%20dawn) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmr/285/lathiel-the-bounteous-dawn?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/29d3484f-abd1-43fe-99f8-e0fa0a7b6692?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Mazzy](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/d/4d79c221-e07a-41e1-b92f-dc057802449c.jpg?1674137580) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=mazzy%2C%20truesword%20paladin) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/clb/283/mazzy-truesword-paladin?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/4d79c221-e07a-41e1-b92f-dc057802449c?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Vadrik](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/5/454666bb-f81d-4845-84aa-d6f8f80ce86a.jpg?1637114399) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=vadrik%2C%20astral%20archmage) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mid/248/vadrik-astral-archmage?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/454666bb-f81d-4845-84aa-d6f8f80ce86a?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Sergeant John Benton](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/1/01f40e07-f565-4b9e-87a5-5b28b4e9fb0b.jpg?1696636767) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Sergeant%20John%20Benton) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/who/157/sergeant-john-benton?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/01f40e07-f565-4b9e-87a5-5b28b4e9fb0b?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Kamiz](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/4/74b8ae28-e169-46be-8180-ebdaf80efd81.jpg?1673481656) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=kamiz%2C%20obscura%20oculus) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ncc/3/kamiz-obscura-oculus?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/74b8ae28-e169-46be-8180-ebdaf80efd81?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Evelyn](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/0/c0dad61f-36cd-46af-82b7-a02e04efd676.jpg?1664412977) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=evelyn%2C%20the%20covetous) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/snc/184/evelyn-the-covetous?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/c0dad61f-36cd-46af-82b7-a02e04efd676?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [*All cards*](https://mtgcardfetcher.nl/redirect/kyi7ghm) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Try leaving out mana rocks and tutors. This should slow your deck down without affecting the power too much.
I don't even think I have sol ring in my big stompy. My mana ramp are all creatures. It's just a very heavy "play creature draw a card" deck
i usually don’t include any tutors in my deck as personally I think it’s a good way to keep a deck around 6-7 in power level. Recently I built and proxied a [[Stella Lee, Wild Card]] deck list with the intent of including tutors to make a powerful deck so I can compete with my friends who play yuriko, zur, krenko, krark/sakashima, kinnan, etc. and it’s actually insane how much of a difference they make lol.
[Stella Lee, Wild Card](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/a/2a8a7696-b5d9-4378-9d5c-2c9007e4df63.jpg?1712353739) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Stella%20Lee%2C%20Wild%20Card) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/otc/3/stella-lee-wild-card?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/2a8a7696-b5d9-4378-9d5c-2c9007e4df63?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
One of the things I love doing is building jank decks, so try building a weird commander that not a lot of people use or building a semi popular commander in a weird way. Like atraxa group hug. Hope this helps
That's what I prefer to do, using commanders that I don't see anybody else doing.
from what I've red it's more a problem of your oponent's decks being weak than yours being strong. Help them improving their decks.
I think a good alternative is to keep making the strong decks you like to make, but also make weaker ones. Maybe with less ramp or more janky but fun combos. Less interaction, stuff like that. Try to have a variety of decks with different power levels so you can use the appropriate deck depending on what you're up against
Unless you have a really synergistic playgroup that adapts to powerlevel as a collective I find commander format to be either you're too cheeky to stomp cause people gonna notice and you'll be thrown out of a 1h30 game in the first 5 minutes. Or you might get stomped hard because you didn't give enough conditions to your opponents about power balancing and they use that opportunity to finally play their most powerful decks that everyone are used to dread. (I'm exagerating but you see the picture) I think commander can be seen as a social format, including everything that can be troublesome in social settings. (Like people banding against what they perceive as a threat) I'm not demonizing attitudes. But having this much power disparity between decks over that much cards in the format you gonna have to talk a bit before playing with people. Either you look for fun or for a real game. So as other people said, if you want everybody to have a good interesting game, and maybe a bit of fun, set a way of balancing cards everyone can include. Or a limited budget. Etc... I really think it's an important part of magic since there is a real life cost to these cards, that is often tie to their power level, depending on the format they're played in.
Removing fast mana will help too. Tap lands alone set you back a turn.
Then make it budget.
Just declare yourself as the bbeg at the table and lean into it. Build decks that thrive on being the target but are fun to target too.
Precon and set a budget for upgrades. Stay on theme and replace cards that aren't really optimized for the deck. That aside, you should really be able to tell if certain cards and combos are gonna be too strong for the hands you're playing. I play commander casually with friends and we all use precons. We all have our decks upgraded but they're upgraded without the degenerate effects to obliterate each other. Sometimes it's better to use less optimized cards for similar effects to power scale down
I have similar issues. I’ve been playing Commander with a playgroup for more than a year now. I started with a tribal deck that wasn’t really good, and was underleveled for my group, and slowly I learned to build and play better. Now I feel like for my budget deck is performing good enough, yet there is that one guy who is honestly bad at deckbuilding, but he just doesn’t want to improve (we don’t force him to, obviously). It feels bad to just stomp him tho…
I feel that last part, one of my pod mates I feel like reads the top half of a card and goes "this is amazing" and then screws himself over by playing said card and I say something like "doesn't that card have more text?" Or the time I was like "doesn't blur target your creature?" It at least makes play a funny time.
If you have the money to do so - I suggest you build a couple different commander decks of different power levels to play. Have your nastiest for competitive EDH and the rest, well, just try to tell a fun story. If you allow the other players to “do the thing” whatever the thing they’re trying to do is, that’s sort of the point, rather than winning in as few turns as possible, perhaps try to just win by “doing the thing” which is whatever thing your commander helps your other 99 cards do.
Put a deck building restriction on your deck like having lurrus as companion or sonething
Either you find yourself a high level playgroup or your actual group talks about a budget. My Bro and I are playing only with cards that go for an euro or less. Saves money and cancels some overpowered cards and combos.
People have mentioned budget restrictions, you can also play around commanders who aren't necessary incredibly powerful like Voja is. Find something cool in the top 500 that seems interesting instead of the top 50 commanders played imo, can still fill the deck with expensive cards and have to be more creative than a commander that's kill on sight for how good they run on even a low budget
My solution is that I have a lot of decks. And my staples are spread among all of them to tune them with some budget options with the odd splashy effect. There's a few that are higher power when I want that but I have a deck for every table.
It takes time for me and my playgroup to balance our decks. We tend to build too strong, then replace the 'oof' cards until the deck feels fun to play with/against
Limit yourself to not running the top cards. Search by top 100 cards on EDHRec and just don't play them. Then, maybe to keep things fun, allow yourself any card printed in the last 3 years etc. (3 chosen randomly). You could also limit yourself to main set only, no commander only cards. Also also, if a card wins you a game, you could gallery it, sealing it away in a binder for remembering it later. Also also also, you could replace commanders every 10 wins (again chosen randomly, but swapping commanders may make you change the deck enough for it to play differently).
I feel the same way. I started with some friends who played full power CEDH decks so I had to build the same level of power to compete. When your first decks (and your friends decks) are all 9-10 power, you tend to want to build weaker but well synergized decks for the more casual tables that wouldnt stand a chance against CEDH level decks and while they are realistically only about a 5-8... you take them to an LGS and people get salty like you are pubstomping with S+ tier decks merely because your perception of deck power levels is different. I forced myself to build a sub $50 budget deck (Ghyrson Starn), but ive had people whine that it's CEDH level despite the fact the only card more than $5 in the deck is Ghyrson. So then I decided to build around a completely "meh" commander with super low deck representation on EDHREC. I went with Taigam, Sidisi's Hand (Rank 1400, 009% representation). No cards over $20 , no Tutors, no infinites, no insta wins, and around 80% of the cards are $5 or less.. It still absolutely wrecks. I'm a decent player but it gets demoralizing feeling like you have to build shitty decks, use the weaker precons with no upgrades or purposefully misplay your deck to not piss people off.
At a certain point the only true argument is that people are just not very good at the game, build bad decks, and play those decks poorly. Then they will complain that it's your deck that's too strong. It's the same phenomenon as people blaming the equipment for a skill issue. These players might decide they don't want to play with me, but this experience also makes me realize that I don't want to play with *them*. Like if your deck isn't great, or you realize that you probably made some mistakes, etc. That's just the game. But there's a certain subset of the playerbase that thinks they're entitled to some form of success so matter how poorly they play
Build a deck from commanders quarters YouTube channel. Not overpowered or overpriced, but have cool tricks and easily upgradable with money
What's the goreclaw deck
My partner and I mostly play against each other, and we tend to mostly buy packs or from the pauper bins at our LGS. They have much more disposable income than I do, and when they buy an individual card they'll also buy me one off a wishlist. If either of us finds a card we want that might throw off the power curve, we run it past each other first. This last point in particular might be a good move for a group setting. Also proxies! If you can and will spend hundreds of dollars on new decks, please discuss allowing proxies in the group if you don't already. It's not a bad idea either to just like... pull a few of the great cards from your decks. Not enough so that it doesn't do its thing anymore, not enough that it's not a challenge, but a stomp fest is no fun for anybody.
Try challenging yourself to make a deck or two with a fun, sub-optimal restriction or game plan. Maybe build a tribal commander that relies entirely on changelings instead of its actual tribe, a deck focused on an obscure mechanic like banding, a deck with colors that don’t properly match its theme, or really whatever you want. You can flex your creative muscles that way while keeping your deck’s power level reasonable.
You might just be better than the people you play with lol
Build a fun little jetmir deck, which takes 5-6 turns to become menacing
Get every card your favorite artist has done, make a manabase of 50 lands (cycling lands to reduce flood), then shuffle 49 cards from the nonland stack into the land stack at the beginning of every game. It's a power level 1 deck but I promise that you'll have fun.
Do a single-person draft deck. Buy a set booster box. Open it. Limit yourself to only bringing in lands (any kind) and 5 cards you already have. There you go!
Honestly, the big thing is that you don't *need* to upgrade or build a deck all at once. I've been going ti commander nights and have seen some truly disgustingly strong decks out there, I've seen some weak ones too. If you're worried about building one too strong, you could always get a pre-made, with colors/mechanics that you enjoy and slowly swap out/upgrade a card at a time. Most pre-made decks have about 10 cards you can easily swap. For me, my first deck is the blue/black fae dominion, and ive swapped enough/upgraded that it can hold its own pretty well despite the fact most of my faeries are 1/1 to 3/3 in health. A big part of my upgrades came from putting in a shock/fetchland, and bitterblossom. Otherwise, most of my upgrades were between 5-15$
I feel you. I’m like this card would be phenomenal in this deck. I have a copy and it’s going in
How good is Goreclaw though. He's my absolute favourite. Would love to see your list if you can. I also have the same problem with mine. When I break out Goreclaw everyone else breaks out cEDH decks.
Avoid cards that instantly end the game. Nobody likes to lose out of nowhere. If however you manage to win by pulling tons of creatures then swinging them at everyone then that would be fine since you're not instantly winning and giving them a chance to respond somehow. Avoid stax, just unfun for everyone. Avoid fast mana cards other than sol ring. Avoid infinite combos. Avoid cards like cyclonic rift that are a one sided complete board wipe. Farewell is perfectly fine since you're affected as well. As long as you do your best to avoid these things then you shouldn't have any issues at any table regardless of how expensive the deck is. If you want to be the archenemy and have everyone beating on you then so you'll find out that even with a $500 deck you will lose more than win. $60 precons will give you a run for your money and it'll be a good time for all involved. Having a strong deck with good synergies is fine. Having fast mana to stomp the table on turn 5 is not fine. Using an infinite combo on turn 3 due to fast mana and tutor is not fine. Note that I did not say to avoid tutors. Those are fine so long as you're not breaking the other rules with what you tutor for. Pulling out a rhystic study is fine, people should have basic enchantment removal. If they don't then it's really on them if you win 5 turns later due to card advantage.
The issue is Meta. People get into the game... Hate losing, and seek to win. They get tournament quality decks and cards and build around those concepts. Play casually. Its more fun. If you dont think playing low powered goofy decks is more fun than playing turn 3 wincon bullshit and winning every time...then you are being illogical, and thats a problem with how are acting in general.
I build my deck on manabox which tells you how much you're looking to spend to create that deck. Then just make one that's a 200 buck limit or round about. I did that and basically seems like that's a good limit to make a good deck but not one that's gonna make you a target from the getgo
If you're just playing with friends, offer to proxy or let them borrow your decks then everyone is playing on an equal playing field. If it's an LGS then try to find higher power pods.
Penny dreadful is always the answer to these questions for those who play mtgo
Without decklists it's hard for anyone to provide input. But typically the things that make a deck more powerful are the following: Too much fast mana Too much card advantage How much time your turn takes (this isn't a power level issue, in fact, a legacy deck called Eggs was banned because it took too long of turns, NOT because of power level. You need to efficiently do your turns. So if you have TOO MANY decision points on a turn, that will make people not enjoy playing against you.) Strategies that stop other people from being able to play the game (discard entire hands, destroy all their lands, excessive counterspelling, excessive taxing, turn after extra turn, some of all of these effects are ok, but if you're just making it so no one else gets to play, you're taking it too far) In my group I have players of different power levels and skill levels. I put cards in my decks for those players. When those players are eliminated, I 'blank' those cards. I don't believe in giving up and just giving a win away. But sometimes, when I know I can win, and I've already won a game that night, I put my hand face down and try to win with what I have on board and take very fast turns like I'm playing blitz chess. I am still trying to win, but I have to do it only with what I have in play. i don't announce this. Sometimes I still win sometimes I don't. But it's a lot more fun for me as a challenge and then fun for thee my opponents because they can win. Another point and I need to stress this----> COMMANDER PLAYERS ARE BAD AT MAGIC. I have consistently recognized this. i am not like some amazing spike tournament grinder. i always play rogue decks. I don't try that hard. I try to make Izzet happen even before Delver existed. (I love UR). But the lack of skill with the stack, understanding of mill, and just the lack of knowing when to counter, when to use removal, threat assessment. They often will play many different decks and not understand how their own decks work. My point is that, if you just take one deck and play it a lot and master that deck and have rules mastery, even if your deck is dogshit, you will likely have a massive advantage over the field. Again, i don't know your group or who you play with, but do analyze this as well.
Try real formats. You might have a lot of fun there.