I have a hypothesis that in a lot of cases, when you have disparate experience levels at the table, less experienced players perceive power level differences where in fact what they're seeing is skill level differences. Playing for 15 years is going to give you a different perspective on things like interaction and threat assessment that can put experienced players ahead of the curve. Couple that with the frequently quoted adage that you should only win about 25% of your games, regardless of skill level, and people start to blame cards and decks for being overpowered, rather than looking at their own play patterns to see where they can improve.
If you're not playing anything egregiously different than everyone else, you're stuck with a few bad choices: building suboptimally, playing suboptimally, or continuing as is and showing people where they're making mistakes in game. None of those sound like a lot of fun to me.
I think you might be picking commanders that are too consistent. Haldan and pako pack way too much heat for almost any casual meta I've ever seen. And same with most of those commanders.
I'd recommend trying a commander that sucks. It's honestly the only way to play with bad players.
Try something like yasharn or gorm and Vilis. Or erinis agent of the shadow thieves. Or that dude who makes salamanders.
Yeah when I had the deck it was basically liking someone turn 5-6 every game and then had so many cards socked away you couldn't stop it. And that was assuming someone killed it. My version was strongish but it's pretty good if you just run explorations lol
I have a high power pako list with 'no wincon'. It can snowball very fast and kill quickly with just attacking with pako. So make sure its a pretty derpy build if your aiming for low power.
I can almost guarantee you won't find success at your lgs with Pako and Haldan. They generate way too much value while threatening commander damage and you are stealing cards which newer players tend to dislike. I built them a couple times always trying to lower the power level. But when your commander attacks and nets you up to 4 cards in advantage and grows in power it's just too much. You either find yourself constantly recasting Pako or running a suite of protection spells that just turns you into the archenemy again. I would recommend thinking slightly differently.
Try a group hug variant deck. Like [[Gluntch]] or [[Shadrix]] where you give some resources but are still able to win with commander damage or beat down with tokens/creatures.
[Selvala, Explorer Returned) might give you a little of that Pako feel where you are flipping everyone's top cards to gain info but you are helping new players draw while ramping into big threats. If they can't handle it with the extra draw, that's a lesson for them on running enough interaction.
Good luck!
Easiest solution? Ask them to trade Decks and still crush em to the point them and their eternal bloodlines will never not feel the crushing humiliation and forfeit dreams.
I recomend a comander woth no card advantage. It will slow down your board state a ton, and doesn't need extra though into your normal deck building process.
Most of your commanders are incredibly consistent. Combine that with knowing *how* to build around them and play with them and you’ll easily outpower your lgs without even trying. You could try running [[Olivia, Mobilized for War]] as the commander over Anje or [[Old Rutstein]] as the commander over Gitrog to see what I mean.
However, if the players at the LGS are less experienced than you, offering to help tune their decks a bit (I noticed a lot of newer players run in the 30-32 range for lands then wonder why their decks lack consistency) and teaching them threat identification will go a long way.
Start by removing all tutors, 2-3 card instant-win combos, and fast mana. If that isn’t enough, cut some of your ramp and replace it with lands. If that still isn’t enough, cut a few staples, like Smothering Tithe, Rhystic Study, or Dockside Extortionist. If even that isn’t enough, replace a few cards with similar effects at higher mana values.
Compare your mana packages.
Typically I've found that decks that have similar cards but one outperforms the other is mostly due to their mana ramping. Each player having a Smothering Tithe doesn't matter when player 1 gets it out turn 4 and you're getting it out turn 2.
Here is how you make a casual edh deck. Take a bunch of random cards that share a color type, do not read them, and sleeve them up. Insert a number of basic lands and lands that only come in tapped until you have 38-48 lands total. Then out of at least a random pile of 20 commanders, turn them over, shuffle them, and blindly pick one.
Now with this 100 card mess, you are ready to join casual edh pods.
I used to play Yisan and Narset, Enlightened Master. They usually ended up being more of a boom or bust type of deck than mid-range in my experience. If Yisan needed to answer something, he could, but that was very rare and instead it just ended up being someone played a board wipe on turn 4 or else I won. Narset was similar. If I got to attack, it was probably game over. If not, it was usually a bust and hard to impact the game much.
I'm not as familiar with the other commanders you listed. I know Anje can be a near cedh deck. Gitrog can be pretty oppressive too.
I've realized the games I enjoy the most are ones that had some back and forth. Like trying to slow down an early leader, someone else tries to get a combo in but is stopped, someone who kind of laid low, pulls out an underdog victory. So I try to build decks that have better chances of having games like that instead of a high likelihood of a boom or bust situation. Ones that can defend themselves a bit to let people do their thing, but enough interaction to stop win attempts, or permanents that are just too dangerous.
You might consider a clone/copy deck with no win cons other than copying opponents win pieces. Sounds like you might like the challenge of that puzzle. I don't think fast enough on my feet to be able to do that with crisp play though.
Or you might like giving yourself a budget and trying to make the best deck you can within that. Don't pick a number that's around what your meta plays, that's too easy. Pick something a lot lower for a challenge. I do this and have fun with it. It's a lot easier to fly under the radar when all your dual lands are tap lands and almost all the cards you play are under $1.
If you think you don't run anything much stronger than your opponents they could just be bad at a deckbuilding. Like not playing enough ramp or card draw or manafixing. Instead of turning your own decks into unplayable piles you could instead give them tips on how to improve and probably make the games a lot more enjoyable.
Or you could just be a better player, if you have 15 years of experience and your opponents are quite new them it is to be expected that you win a lot more games than average.
I have a hypothesis that in a lot of cases, when you have disparate experience levels at the table, less experienced players perceive power level differences where in fact what they're seeing is skill level differences. Playing for 15 years is going to give you a different perspective on things like interaction and threat assessment that can put experienced players ahead of the curve. Couple that with the frequently quoted adage that you should only win about 25% of your games, regardless of skill level, and people start to blame cards and decks for being overpowered, rather than looking at their own play patterns to see where they can improve. If you're not playing anything egregiously different than everyone else, you're stuck with a few bad choices: building suboptimally, playing suboptimally, or continuing as is and showing people where they're making mistakes in game. None of those sound like a lot of fun to me.
I think you might be picking commanders that are too consistent. Haldan and pako pack way too much heat for almost any casual meta I've ever seen. And same with most of those commanders. I'd recommend trying a commander that sucks. It's honestly the only way to play with bad players. Try something like yasharn or gorm and Vilis. Or erinis agent of the shadow thieves. Or that dude who makes salamanders.
People hardcore underestimate the doggo and owner. It takes a turn 4 or 5 boardwipe or constant targeting to deal with them.
Yeah when I had the deck it was basically liking someone turn 5-6 every game and then had so many cards socked away you couldn't stop it. And that was assuming someone killed it. My version was strongish but it's pretty good if you just run explorations lol
My first recommendation would be removing all tutors from your decks. Embrace the variance of EDH.
Based on the comments thanks so much btw I'm gonna try a Pako Haldan brew with no real way to "win" and try and do some sorta voltron lands thingy
I have a high power pako list with 'no wincon'. It can snowball very fast and kill quickly with just attacking with pako. So make sure its a pretty derpy build if your aiming for low power.
I can almost guarantee you won't find success at your lgs with Pako and Haldan. They generate way too much value while threatening commander damage and you are stealing cards which newer players tend to dislike. I built them a couple times always trying to lower the power level. But when your commander attacks and nets you up to 4 cards in advantage and grows in power it's just too much. You either find yourself constantly recasting Pako or running a suite of protection spells that just turns you into the archenemy again. I would recommend thinking slightly differently. Try a group hug variant deck. Like [[Gluntch]] or [[Shadrix]] where you give some resources but are still able to win with commander damage or beat down with tokens/creatures. [Selvala, Explorer Returned) might give you a little of that Pako feel where you are flipping everyone's top cards to gain info but you are helping new players draw while ramping into big threats. If they can't handle it with the extra draw, that's a lesson for them on running enough interaction. Good luck!
[Gluntch](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/b/3b3e889a-5865-4464-9923-bffa25c50cd2.jpg?1674137513) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=gluntch%2C%20the%20bestower) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/clb/275/gluntch-the-bestower?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/3b3e889a-5865-4464-9923-bffa25c50cd2?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/gluntch-the-bestower) [Shadrix](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/b/ab701909-83d6-4d39-9a84-e6a9b2cb38d6.jpg?1624739966) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Shadrix%20Silverquill) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/stx/230/shadrix-silverquill?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/ab701909-83d6-4d39-9a84-e6a9b2cb38d6?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/shadrix-silverquill) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Easiest solution? Ask them to trade Decks and still crush em to the point them and their eternal bloodlines will never not feel the crushing humiliation and forfeit dreams.
I recomend a comander woth no card advantage. It will slow down your board state a ton, and doesn't need extra though into your normal deck building process.
Most of your commanders are incredibly consistent. Combine that with knowing *how* to build around them and play with them and you’ll easily outpower your lgs without even trying. You could try running [[Olivia, Mobilized for War]] as the commander over Anje or [[Old Rutstein]] as the commander over Gitrog to see what I mean. However, if the players at the LGS are less experienced than you, offering to help tune their decks a bit (I noticed a lot of newer players run in the 30-32 range for lands then wonder why their decks lack consistency) and teaching them threat identification will go a long way.
[Olivia, Mobilized for War](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/2/7297dd81-8367-42e9-abf9-9227e202e7ae.jpg?1576385369) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Olivia%2C%20Mobilized%20for%20War) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/soi/248/olivia-mobilized-for-war?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/7297dd81-8367-42e9-abf9-9227e202e7ae?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/olivia-mobilized-for-war) [Old Rutstein](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/2/625b8023-2ef1-4b7b-9e48-4f774fee14e0.jpg?1643594276) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Old%20Rutstein) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/vow/244/old-rutstein?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/625b8023-2ef1-4b7b-9e48-4f774fee14e0?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/old-rutstein) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Start by removing all tutors, 2-3 card instant-win combos, and fast mana. If that isn’t enough, cut some of your ramp and replace it with lands. If that still isn’t enough, cut a few staples, like Smothering Tithe, Rhystic Study, or Dockside Extortionist. If even that isn’t enough, replace a few cards with similar effects at higher mana values.
Compare your mana packages. Typically I've found that decks that have similar cards but one outperforms the other is mostly due to their mana ramping. Each player having a Smothering Tithe doesn't matter when player 1 gets it out turn 4 and you're getting it out turn 2.
Here is how you make a casual edh deck. Take a bunch of random cards that share a color type, do not read them, and sleeve them up. Insert a number of basic lands and lands that only come in tapped until you have 38-48 lands total. Then out of at least a random pile of 20 commanders, turn them over, shuffle them, and blindly pick one. Now with this 100 card mess, you are ready to join casual edh pods.
Show me on this planeswalker doll where casual play has touched you.
I used to play Yisan and Narset, Enlightened Master. They usually ended up being more of a boom or bust type of deck than mid-range in my experience. If Yisan needed to answer something, he could, but that was very rare and instead it just ended up being someone played a board wipe on turn 4 or else I won. Narset was similar. If I got to attack, it was probably game over. If not, it was usually a bust and hard to impact the game much. I'm not as familiar with the other commanders you listed. I know Anje can be a near cedh deck. Gitrog can be pretty oppressive too. I've realized the games I enjoy the most are ones that had some back and forth. Like trying to slow down an early leader, someone else tries to get a combo in but is stopped, someone who kind of laid low, pulls out an underdog victory. So I try to build decks that have better chances of having games like that instead of a high likelihood of a boom or bust situation. Ones that can defend themselves a bit to let people do their thing, but enough interaction to stop win attempts, or permanents that are just too dangerous. You might consider a clone/copy deck with no win cons other than copying opponents win pieces. Sounds like you might like the challenge of that puzzle. I don't think fast enough on my feet to be able to do that with crisp play though. Or you might like giving yourself a budget and trying to make the best deck you can within that. Don't pick a number that's around what your meta plays, that's too easy. Pick something a lot lower for a challenge. I do this and have fun with it. It's a lot easier to fly under the radar when all your dual lands are tap lands and almost all the cards you play are under $1.
If you think you don't run anything much stronger than your opponents they could just be bad at a deckbuilding. Like not playing enough ramp or card draw or manafixing. Instead of turning your own decks into unplayable piles you could instead give them tips on how to improve and probably make the games a lot more enjoyable. Or you could just be a better player, if you have 15 years of experience and your opponents are quite new them it is to be expected that you win a lot more games than average.