Top 10 Biggest Mistakes Commander Players Make | The Command Zone 196 | Magic: the Gathering EDH

greetings humans you have entered the commands your destination for all aspects of elder dragon Highlander enjoy your stay at least earned it don't look at me that way don't look at me what's up everybody you are listening slash watching the commands own podcast I'm your host why don't we do this to ourselves you know I we used to write music on YouTube and this is now or that legacy totally worth it welcome to the commands own podcast I'm your host you actually quiet what happened the house it oh you made a mistake I made an honest mistake honest mistake well speaking of mistakes what are we talking about today Josh so we are going to be discussing something that we all do when we play magic you know commander is the most complex magic format there is yeah so biggest mistakes the most common mistakes the pitfalls so that we can all avoid them in the future hopefully I make many of the mistakes that we're gonna talk about on this list I definitely make the first mistake the most 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every single episode and this episode is dedicated to Nathan Ritter s'en Nathan you rock yeah we also have a very special message here something exciting that's coming up it is available only to patrons mm-hmm we've been asked about this a ton probably more than anything else on the show's history so you people that skipped all of our little sponsorship stuff you're not going to even know about this we're gonna be really disappointed because who clicked the timecode in the comments you missed it we are giving away something really big on our 200th episode of this show we are going to give away a guest appearance on game nights done that's right you could be on the show that's right well you have to be a patron of course there are there are some restrictions we're not going to list them all here but the long short of it is you need to be a patron and you need to send us an audition video so because this show is seen by so many people we're not just gonna randomly choose we're going to 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the link to that stuff in the shownotes so make sure you check that out before you enter will also be tweeting out a link that's gonna get you to a landing page they'll detail all of the stuff so that if you have any questions don't send it to us just go to that link instead and yeah we are announcing this on the 200th episode which should land in March but that means that you have to get your entries in before we record that episode so like a week before that but again this will all be in that link in the show notes and everything else all the descriptions everything you need to know but very exciting you could be on game nights you could be sitting across from Jimmy and I and then currently unnamed guests well probably next to us we never sit next to a true you'll be seeing next to one of us and across from the other one and across from some other guests we're not sure who yet yeah very exciting can't wait to see all your entries again three minutes no longer can be left out can be less but no yeah okay let's move on to our Dineen our main topic which is the 10 biggest mistakes commander players make I want to say it's start we all make mistakes it's nothing to be ashamed of the problem is when you start making the same mistakes over and over again right and that means you're not learning so today we want to go over these big miss steps that you know we see all the time around the EDH table so that maybe we can stop making them over and over again myself included and these are in no particular order usually when we do top 10 lists we list the best things at number 1 or you know that's these are just all mistakes they all I think take different places on yeah I didn't know how we didn't know how to lay them out as far as like which one's the worst and which ones so we're just gonna name 10 and you can decide yeah the hierarchy all right there are only 10 ever they're not these are the biggest one yeah the big in our minds all right number one yeah this is I'll let you read it because this is a is the Jimmy Wang special I do this sometimes you do it a little bit more than I do I see it my mistake is when I do it on game nights all right this is number one keeping sketchy hands so it's very very basic you made a big mistake you the worst way to start off the game of magic the gathering was by keeping my hand that was not good or had way too much risk in it so well I think it even exacerbated in commander nadhs compared to other formats because if you do that in limited or standard or modern if game might be over in like turn yes the agony is not is not stretched out like it is in commander you could be sitting there for 90 minutes or you know an hour because that's how long games can take ya where you stumble out man and never drew your third land you know till turn six or seven and you just don't have a chance to win those games it's not very much fun yeah so in limited you can sort of take a little more risk because if it doesn't work well you can move on to game two and try again mm-hmm yeah but you still shouldn't keep a sketchy handle limited unless you have very good reason to I mean there are times I think in limited where like you've got a tool and opener you need to get lucky but going down to six you know you lose 20% chance to win that game so or you're aggro you have two drops in your hand you only have two lands you'll need to draw that third land necessarily there's lots of different reasons why you might keep us catch your hand but let's talk about what a good opening hand looks like and I would say the perfect opening hand out of seven cards three of them are lands one of them is a ramp card one of them draws you cards and then the other two just do things your deck wants to do yeah I definitely want ramp and I want card draw and of the two I actually think I'd prefer card draw yeah I agree because that can draw you into the ramp or other things you want mm-hmm so I generally I'll mulligan the first hand no matter what if there's not a single piece of card draw in it really even if you have beautiful three land hand with ramp and everything else I mean it'll have to be pretty powerful because I don't want to be in a situation I mean picture this and it happens a lot where you you actually can play all the cards in your hand but then you're you've got one card or no cards right and like your board looks really good and somebody cast ratha god and now what am i just top decking top technique hoping where it's much better to have played a 4x8 arena on turn three mm-hmm and now when those that inevitable board war I pour some set back happens I still have six cards in my hand yeah and you'll keep drawing in tomorrow yeah I agree with that for sure I think the only time I would keep a hand that has zero amount of card draw on it is if my commander can card draw that's a good more if I know I have it just a ton of sources of it in the deck or if I'd like a tutor for instance that's the reason I think something like throw cos or you know commanders that draw you cards or give you card advantage are so powerful because they get they get you automatically the number one piece that you always want to have like right if I have card draw in my opening hand I'll keep it almost no matter what else is in it provided I can cast that card draw spell if there's a study or African arena or something like that right because that gives me a two hundred or a hundred percent chance two hundred percent chance a double chance of drawing the things I need because I'm drawing twice as many cards per turn or ristic study maybe even more yeah wrist excites probably my favorite card to see my opening hand especially early I'd rather see it than soul ring honestly yeah also you should always consider your hand with your commander in it because technically it is if you think about it so that can help will also shape a lot of things being like well I have a hand that's like kind of playable but oh I also have this HR commander in here maybe I should rethink how I looked at my hand to see if it's really gonna fit my game plan for the game now let's talk about the hands that tempt you yeah so what are those look like the hands where you they look good probably shouldn't keep but you end up keeping yeah I think they always involve some level of variance in them so it's like well if this happens and everything is gonna be fine and oftentimes a lot of that is cards like scroll rack or a synthesized divining top yeah anything that essentially allows you to like dig a little deeper or give you a little better shot at doing something or some kind of it's a little gravy that's making you make a bad decision but you're you you can sort of justify it by going well this isn't a great keep but yeah I have a brainstorm in hand so that's gonna blah blah blah and it's like well that's good but it really allows you to look at two additional cards you know you're keeping a tool and er you really need five or six lands does that do that for you it's super risky I think that was my worst keep of all time was one ancient tomb and the sensei's dividing top and an awesome hand otherwise and I think you're the one that says this is like of course a hand is gonna look great if it doesn't have lands in it because it's all cards you want to play that's what I whenever I'm tempted and I often in I think back to that phrase which is that bad opening hands always look awesome because they're all gasps right yeah cuz you never look at your hand and goes sweet a mountain and two islands that's not the sweet part the other salts sweet to the mountain pile the other four cards are the sweet part so when you look at a hand that has a mountain island and five other cards it looks great it's always gonna look great because you have so much gas in your hand yeah but really you need to be you need to be disciplined in that circumstance and you need thattaway also like we play in a friend group that is very open to being like look you don't have a good hand just Mulligan the seven like if you do it 20 times in a row we're gonna look at you strangely but if you don't want to go down to six the first time and you want to just go ahead you know not partial Parris but yeah exactly but yeah go ahead more one more time fully you know we're watching you shuffle and everything like it's not like you're gonna cheat you know I think the partial Parris rule being changed did change a lot of how people structured how they looked at their opening hands cuz I think back in the day you could have a pretty crappy opening hand being like well just partial Paris away the bad parts and hope to draw in two lands yeah that's the big part too is like you had an additional draw step or you could if you had too many lands you dumped a couple of yeah exactly and then it was like oh man if I have four lands so a dump to kind of like but but now you don't have that option you just have the seven card hand that you have so yeah don't keep bad hands make sure that you're gonna be set up to go into the mid to late game yeah yeah otherwise you're just gonna not have a good time you're gonna be sitting there not able to do much think about it in life like would you hey I want to race cars it's like well you can need to train you need to spend a lot of time doing all the prep work you can't just jump into an f1 and expect to go and that's like a bad opening hand it's like you want to play that eventual long game you got to make sure that the base foundation of what you're gonna do in the first parts of the game work all right oh another hand that people like to keep that as bad is like having a coalition relic or something in two lands and they're not the right colors right like if you have a four color commander and you're trying to keep a hand that is dependent on drawing a land and being them to play a man the rock that may be able to have fraction like you're really in the desperate spot there yeah I think that's the only time I would take a ramp or a color fixing over card draw is if I have like a four color commander that I had to play yeah I guess it would depend on the commander to me the cards are still gonna get you the extra looks at extra cards that's going to find you that extra color whereas ramp won't find you after cards right cards will find you extra ramp if that makes sense okay biggest mistake number two is impatience and also / lack of having a plan mhm so you see this a lot which is people just sort of playing their cards because they can I've even heard people say that but like I'm just gonna do this because I can yeah it's just like I have this in my hand and it's this is this is I think Craig I think if he falls in this category a lot cuz he's so excited he's like I got boring collects I'm just gonna play it yeah still has a huge effect right it's not like he just played it into a counterspell like he would have definitely not yeah into that but he still just drops bombs when he can yeah but the plant you know you need a plan with your deck you you shouldn't be just playing cards because you can hopefully your deck is built in such a way that cards work together and you're thinking like okay do I have another card that works with this card then it's okay I'm playing it and I'm gonna play this card next and these are gonna work together but you see a lot of people's like they're just a cool card and then you know that's it over extending into the board into board wipes because they can play their cards I think impatience does play a lot into it which is like I haven't done anything impactful in a while I want to see stuff happen I want stuff to move I want to feel like I'm contributing to something I want to do stuff it's not deuced I didn't come sit here to play commander tonight to not do stuff yeah and that's the thing too is you need I think the lack of a plan is a big thing whereas like every single time so I have a deck that is a just a straight burn deck and it tries to combat in one turn and I think a lot of your decks have this too where it's like it needs to have that one big turn then hold on to that lead and a lot of times it's like well I could deal with a threat with one of these burn spells right now on the table just because it's there maybe he hasn't even swung at me but I'm just scared of it or it's like an oracle mold I I'm afraid they're gonna add too much value off of it but that card is also very important to making your actual game plan function so then you're balancing right well or do I just play this out because I'm impatient and I think this has to get done or do I need to hold it back and think about what I'm trying to do here yeah think about my plan how am i trying to win this game and do I need this card if I do then I should hold it as long as humanly possible yeah and maybe you do eventually use it to remove something rather than try and win but only in the most dire of circumstances you don't just be like well I'm just gonna kill that and I'll worry about not having this card later yeah I put down not playing explosively I do believe and I've said this before on the show that most games of commander end by somebody playing and I'm not a combo now I can infinite combo but a sequence of two to three maybe four cards in a row on the same turn or on the end step and then on their turn but quickly in succession that add up and are difficult to stop because they were played together rarely does a game of commander and we're like I played something pastor and pastor and pastor and comes back to me untapped play something pastor and faster and faster on tap you know I mean yeah have you ever played Tetris 1v1 well I've watched you guys played on that show we did right so you know what happened yeah what you're trying to do is you're trying to send blocks over to the other person and when you score let's say you know a game Tetris is for neuro and when you do that you send a big pile of blocks and a lot of times people think oh the way I'm gonna win is just by sending a Tetris building up sending another Tetris but that literally is playing a card on your turn passenger and Williams come around because it takes a while to build up the thing to send that block down the way that if you watch really competitive players do it is that they'll sequence it up so that they'll go Bam Bam Bam Bam and do like 2 3 3 2 meses your plan because it like sends you blocks and then you're trying ok adjust to that same or blocks oh crap and they're doing it in quick succession they're not waiting and giving you time to clear out what you just sent them so what happens you'll see it like in a matter of seconds one players one player is sending all their blocks down the other players board goes like it's just way too fast for them to recover from so that is kind of what you want to be doing with your event yeah wincing you know we played the other night and I was playing my Tim deck and I had a Empress Galina in my hands so from like the third turn and that's a very powerful card we were playing Cassius and he had a planeswalkers deck and because of the new legend rule planeswalkers are now legends and I knew Galena is gonna be super powerful in this game because I have a player that's basically just playing legendary permanence and so my response to this was to hold Galena in my hand for as long as possible and I know that deck has a lot of effects that let me reuse Galena untap ER and give her haste and I we just refused to play her the entire game until I could play her an activator at least twice on the same turn I was like I have thousand-year elixir in this deck I am anger in this deck I have Curos followers in fates titute on tap where I needed a lot of mana and I waited and waited and waited and just didn't just refuse the player I'll just do anything else because that card if I do it right will win me the game yeah and eventually later I managed to get her out player twice steal two Planeswalkers win the game that way a lot of people I think would just play Galena on like turn five or six yeah and that's what I did with my ku mana deck in the last game that's cuz I didn't have haste in a blurs yeah untap errs but I didn't have hasten a blur so it's like well I just have to play around you're never gonna be in a situation where you can play or an actuary around the turn so there's no reason to wait yeah you just pick a spot where you hope you can untap with her which is fine but if you know what your deck has and you have a plan then you know I believe that's the correct way to play commander almost always which is to plan for a very explosive turn try and keep everything under control set everything up and be like okay now I'm gonna go one two three four yeah you know it's also a combo you're waiting and trying to see what they're doing cuz it's like I'm just gonna play this out which means that you haven't thought through oh maybe that opponent is ready to board white you know like this person hasn't played creature for four turns while everyone else to play creatures they're playing white they're looking at one car in their hand the cars out yeah hold on so a part of that story with Galena is leads into the third biggest mistake right that I think a lot of players and they make and that is not knowing your deck you got to know your deck I think this happens a lot because we excitedly build new decks and want to put new cards in maybe the deck isn't fully synergized yet and so as a result you just you kind of know what's in the deck but you don't understand how the deck works or its main goal or you're just testing it out for the first time and that's when you run into the biggest mistakes yeah and I think it's okay right like especially early on with a deck you've just built you haven't played it a lot you're getting to know it know the ropes and how it works you know that that's not a mistake but I think once you've had the deck for a while it seems like there's still certain decks certain people who just never seem to understand their data and they're like I go to tutor and in your brain you're like you got to get skull clamp that's that's the best card in that yeah board blade I know that's it to lose yeah from playing against it and they're just like I don't know you know you can tell they can't figure out what to get you'll hear us often say when we're talking about decks on the show like oh the best card in this deck is X mm-hmm it's skull clamp it's search spanner its blah blah blah knowing that is really important right yeah and it's not often the cards you would think like surge spanner you know skull clamp those aren't deemed winning cards but those are the cards in most circumstances you're gonna go get because disagree I'm just kidding I mean they're not they're not game getting in the insurrection is right there I'm winning their game winning but they're not what you would say is the best card in the deck when you just look through it but this this card just makes everything else in the deck hum you know and so knowing those little things I think makes you makes your deck and use such a more powerful player because you really understand how your deck works what pieces it really wants yeah yeah and not just the game waiting pieces everybody knows yeah when I got a you know 15 tokens on the board I go get crater hoof behemoth yeah that's not hard to know what's hard to know is like on turn four or five there's nothing really super scary out I know what should I be doing what should I want to be doing if I do something huge everyone's gonna turn around and kill me if I do something not impactful enough I'm gonna fall behind in the game what's the play I can make that's like the best card in my deck you know I can go get skull clamp that's gonna just set me up and it's not gonna be maybe right now or all the time super threatening to my opponent's a lot of times too and you treat her early it's knowing what card new deck maybe is the most flexible so it's like okay do I get I'm playing against a lot of indestructible creatures or whatever do I get toxic deluge or do I get like a damnation right now or do I even need to tutor right now that's the thing - it's like your deck may have a ton of draw engines in it and you tutoring super early actually might be a waste of a really good tutor because you may draw into a given how much your deck draws cards right well you're taking something flexible and then you're nailing it down to something inflexible if once you once you've tutored for the thing yeah your options are diminished whereas if you wait oh now I now I found out I need cyclonic grips I'll go get it yeah yeah all right number four yes and this happens quite a lot often times because we just want to play the game for fun maybe because we're playing with the lack of a plan maybe because we don't know our deck it's easy to get lost throughout the game - and not even realize you've done this right and it's angering multiple players / not doing the right political thing basically setting yourself up for failure by attacking other players early not making the right deals backstabbing someone going back on a promise even sometimes to the last point not tutoring up the right card in the right scenario let's say hey this person about to go infinite can anyone stop it you're like no he's like no actually that can stop it you just have to do x y&z so like lots of different things can anger multiple players and we talked about this all the time don't pick fights with everyone at the table it just does not benefit you unless you have some kind of way of stopping it I don't even know there's an unless I mean it's inevitable in some games you'll become what we call the Emperor which is the most scary player in which case you haven't technically picked a fight with everyone you've just put yourself in such a dominating position that they naturally are turning at all teaming up against you but yeah this is more about the person who's like oh and turn one I sort of attack you or not turn one on turn three or four I attack you and then later oh you play something I destroy it and then later the you know player number four I do something against you and now it's just like each player has a little bit of Voe grudge against you right because you didn't concentrate your efforts at any one person you just sort of willy-nilly or like slap you spit in your face step on your toe yeah or if you were like playing the police of the table yeah like oh my dick has all the removal for it so it's kind of on me to remove this stuff it's like well not really you're just not gonna win those games because they're just sort of naturally inclined unless something major happened you sort of become the default target and you know especially if you're playing like an aggro deck or a deck that's like what is it that that Craig's famous quote you've got to be like the junkyard dog yeah junkyard dog latch if you're playing an aggro under infect deck and you start attacking someone you got to latch on and just work til they're not yeah yeah you know I think a lot of what happens to is when you're in a game and you make some of these small decisions all the time like oh I'm gonna do this thing it might benefit one person if it's like it might benefit the person that's been hurting you it's very easy for that person just to not make that decision and sort of move on do something else take a different line and play in their hand that maybe it's like okay you have a ton of rocks and I play boring clacks you're gonna be fine right or if it's like this person has been angering me I'm not gonna play boring clicks I'm gonna play this thing to destroy all the rocks instead you know like the everyone is gonna have a ton of decision points and the more the less goodwill you have with other players the more they're gonna think about not helping you or just yeah just little moments that you don't even know they really made that decision yeah just like well this is gonna hurt him a little but do I care no I don't because of this thing earlier yeah exactly whereas if he didn't do something to me I might be like well I'm not gonna anger them yeah or if you position yourself like hey this person is playing this car like a howling mine or whatever that's helping everyone out but it's really me out like I don't want to actually hurt this player I don't want them to go out but if they've been agreeing you the whole game or if they've been doing stuff that goes against you then it's like well I know that's roughly I don't really care about you anymore yeah and I think it's important to remember this isn't just attacking it's it's removing things it's you know taking other actions table talk - yeah table talk as well so on to number five number five is sort of inversely related to number one right it's not angering multiple players it's angering the wrong player me actually Josh don't anger Josh very often I put very often you don't want to poke the bear there's so many times where we'll be at a table and some of you're like well he's the biggest threat and you're like yeah I know but I definitely do not want to make that person angry yeah like well it's not like right now it's all hail the king you know yeah exactly bowing yes my liege will what do you want me to do I'm still plotting behind his back - some days we're all a little finger yeah bring him down but right now straight-up confrontation face to face with that player is a bad idea and people do this all the time though I feel like just because it's like well someone's gotta stand up yeah yeah someone's got to stop them something's like yep and I hope it's yeah exactly or if I hope I'm the one that has to do it it's a way that unilaterally fixes a lot of things like the only time I want to anger the best player the strongest player at the table is if it's one that even the best player has to go like well I guess you're right those are the situations you want to get in I want to team up with somebody to do it so even if I know I have to destroy a thing I want to team up with another one of the players at the table yeah and get them to do something - so at least the anger of the person is spread out right because you know I just definitely don't want to draw the ire of the most powerful player at the table by myself yes sometimes even the wrong player the poke isn't necessarily the best player they're just the one that also doesn't understand how to appropriately you know get back at someone or they take way too large of an action in response to something you've done like that could also be the wrong bar to poke you have to know that's gonna be the response and be ready for it yeah yeah yeah because like for instance I just want to attack Josh sometimes because I know like well Josh might just bring up something from the past that I don't even remember but they may just come into play and like and then too little too late I've done something that's angered him in the way that I didn't realize offended his whole like lineage of my family yeah you know a good example of this is in the most recent game nights Craig destroys my Bedell canari and I'm just like well I'm just attacking you Craig like yeah and it had it had an effect on the game because it was enough damage that he was low later yeah and you know maybe he can survive another turn or two if not for that stuff and yeah that's just like well you did something to me you're you will always elicit a response I'm never gonna just like you you destroyed something about it yeah you're always gonna get some payback even if it was correct for you to do it well he died to infect anyway so it didn't matter that that deny that's a good point whatever choose like Craig was at Lowell enough of a life total where part of my plan before I drew trying for the hordes was like well maybe I need to kill him for some time yeah and then I'll go after Josh yeah that's good point I forgot was was like because Craig could definitely I mean I think he felt that right he had to like kind of play a little defensively after a second and and Greg does not like that no definitely not I mean we're just trying to get to calm out again you know okay number six yes this one I think happens because we are just very a DD people in general in the social media / Internet age where we just don't pay enough attention to the board maybe there's something else distracting us maybe you work on a side conversation maybe we're the tech kind of table that always looks at their phone and I think it's easy to after like game three or game two to very quickly start becoming much worse magic players because there's still a lot don't want to take it or when you keep those sketchy opening hands and you're really not having an effect on the game it's easy to sort of get distracted and you're not really that invested in it yeah so not paying attention to the board just not focusing on the game and then it snowballs on you because you miss things and because you've missed things you don't really know what's going on and because of that you're even more detached yeah where you know it you're just like wait what what's happening they still alive you know this can happen a lot - I've seen this when it's you and I playing on the same table and to other players and and me I'm like laser focused on what you're doing cuz I know exactly what your goal of your deck is I'm like guys this is happening he probably has this in his hand don't forget this can happen out of nowhere but it's not that they're not even paying attention to the board they just don't know enough about what's potentially happening and they're worried about their stuff maybe there are other opponents stuff to not understand okay that's what's really happening on the board because there's a lot of hidden information too that people can't pick up on a lot of times yeah and I want to separate this from people who don't know all the cards that's totally fine if you're new to the game or you just haven't played a ton or there's cards out that you don't understand how they work or what they are you've never seen him before we've all been in that position that's totally fine you'll because I'm constantly going weak what is that yeah but I take the card I read it I sort of get an idea okay that's there I know that exists it's different than the person who's like not really paying attention and they're like oh wait you did what last turn right they cast like three things come on yeah and then it's like oh I would have done this in response to it's like oh we're and room for some trouble yeah I mean okay fine take it back but man could you could you please pay attention just we're all trying to play here and it also leads you to play mistakes right for sure you wrote down something really good here too which is it's okay to ask questions and I think that's actually a big part of table talk and politicking as well is like after you ask the basic questions like what's that card do again it becomes the do we need to do something about that car you know like or like asking other people's advice and putting the pressure and onus on them to say like yeah we need to get rid of that or get rid of him or get rid of her immediately you know in our group there's a question that gets asked quite a bit with somebody will be like okay is there anything on the table that we need that I need to be worried about yeah because they're like I've paid attention but I may not see something you see so I'm inviting you to sort of help me threat assess here yeah and that I think is one of the best parts about commander is that it is you know where everyone's teammates and enemies at the same time yeah all right number seven this is sort of the biggest complaint we hear I'd say people bring up we've made in with these entire episodes about yeah so the number seven biggest mistake the commander players make is improper threat assessment yeah this is um this is a complicated one so we're not gonna go super in-depth on this topic like you said we've done a couple of episodes on that idea that's called threat assessment as well yeah so you're going to check that out please go look for it there's a lot of things to remember it's that why here what's bad for someone else isn't necessarily bad for you hmm you know I think well we get caught up in this people going and this is something we just hear constantly which is like oh my playgroup they're just so bad at threat-assessment they just blah blah blah they let this thing here and that there and it's like yeah because you're looking at from your perspective right but if I look at it from Jimmy's seat he might not be as scared of aura shards as I am because he doesn't have a lot of artifacts and enchantments in his deck and that's not a big problem to him so he doesn't see it as a threat where's you're going you we need to destroy that and he's like I don't care about that's kinda nice yeah you know sometimes you're like it's food chain we're just all going to lose yeah and in those cases when people don't understand like I don't I need to get rid of a combo piece or something like that sure that's that I think that is a mistake a lot of times where it's like but again we're all playing this game of chicken in some ways where it's like can I wait how long can I wait because I'm trying to it's like a race where I'm trying to get to my wind condition before you do and sometimes I have to stop and knock you down but that also cost me something is climbing am I doing that did I get ahead or did I get behind and so sometimes I just need to risk it yeah and allow your thing to be there because I can maybe outrace it with my you know big explosive turn yeah I think I think that is true like something like food chain comes down I think people have to realize okay this has to go for various reasons or we have to have a plan to stop the person next chance they get to use it whatever but yeah they're not necessarily bad for you is a big thing because I'll find myself complaining about something on the table and everyone's just kind of like one person smirking because it's actually helping them the other person just doesn't care because they're like to life and they just want to live and at that point it's not that you even have bad and proper threat assessment it's just that you maybe could have made better decisions before this all went down to stop you from getting in this part where now because of one card your opponent played you just shut out the game yeah a lot of times that's a really good point right a lot of times I think you're losing the game and you're looking at this card this moment then they played but you actually are in that position because you allowed some value engine and stick around for too long right it was inevitable they were gonna come up with some you know sort of threat because they had so many cards right and they were gonna get there before you because they had a value engineer self so that that can be a problem we're like you're looking at the wrong point as the problem and really it was back three or four turns well I mean improper threat assessment could also be as simple as not blocking the right creature yeah or not counter spelling the right thing you know that's you incorrectly assessing the threat of something coming at you I've seen people throw away creatures in limited games because they didn't want to lose life right and so that's them not assessing the fact that - life is not worth a card or whatever or you know like different things and small little bits and pieces like that yeah they're not thinking about the other cards in their deck sometimes you know the knowing your deck comes into this which is like okay that's bad for you but you're the answer I have in hand right now is utter end and it can answer anything they've got a creature if I just draw a creature I can block it yeah I have a lot of creatures in my deck so I don't want to use an answer that's you know Alex will answer for a small thing like that yeah exactly so I think also a lot of people with threat assessment they don't factor in the player dynamics enough mm-hmm like yeah that's a threat is it a threat to me a lot of times you can afford to wait because somebody that person who played the thread is actually picked fights with everybody or they poked the bear or they're now the biggest threat and so I don't have to be the one to answer that because everyone else is gonna be trying the answer yeah even sometimes if the threat that they put down is bad for you but it's making everyone angered so angry at that person that they all turn them at the same time that's actually good maybe you do want it to stick around maybe you just play around it in a way I think the right assessment goes it's such a broad ranging topic it's whether or not you point out something at the table for everyone else to hear or its you decide to not play certain card out of your hand there this happen so many times where someone will have something like an aura shards out and then someone's like murari's wake it's like what you're giving them the juiciest target it's like they went hunting and then you're just a magnificent elk that just was like well I'm just gonna reveal myself and I'm gonna right in front of you yeah I miss an Elmer yeah what are you doing yeah so I think a lot of times it's it's based on what you have in your hand it's based on what you think other people are gonna do in response to the threat there's a lot of assessing that happens here and it's not just oh that cards bad everyone should know I wrote down taking care of something that's bad only to lose to something that's terrible yeah this is a mistake you I've done it we've all done it where you're like I wish I would have held this one card and not use it on that thing right because that thing was not as bad as what eventually end up killing me and that would have answered the kill me thing it could have been like tragic arrogance yeah that's game nights right yeah Mel chose to counterspell my tragic arrogance and then she end up losing to triumph of the hordes and that was a situation I believe where yeah tragic arrogance was kind of bad for Mel at that point but it wasn't game losing Lea bad whereas trying for the hordes was game losing Lea bad and at the end she was like yeah I wish I would have held my arrack arcane denial you know she hadn't thought about the possibility of Kraig having triumph or the hordes which to Mel's in Mel's defense she hasn't played with Kraig enough to understand that that you always have to worry about that card presence and no one expects the expansion infestation infestation I don't know I was like yeah all right so on to number eight which is related to improper threat assessment it's complaining about improper threat assessment mmm instead of capitalizing on it so all the people that always come to us and say you know so-and-so my play group are people and replayed over they just can't assess threats they just lets things happen and blah blah blah hey listen you have identified a weakness in your opponents game now it's up to you to take advantage of it that's what gaming is yeah if you find out that in basketball that your opponent can't dribble with their left hand it makes defending them way easier you don't complain about it you make them go left every single time because they can't do it this if they can't a threat assess threats very well that's a leak in their game and you can now play out things in in a manner that you maybe normally wouldn't mm-hmm you know you can put down something that would normally be scary but you know they just don't tend to answer threats or it depends right because if their threat assessment goes the other way where it's like they'll remove the thing they shouldn't remove and you maybe hold it wait for them to yeah find something scary that's not that scary and that's it yeah that's the other thing is like what you're like you know they have a board wipe you know they have removal you know they're probably not going to use at the right time so let someone else be the victim of that bad decision as opposed to you you know running that risk you know so I think yeah it's definitely true you can you should always take advantage of someone else's weaknesses whether or not it's their deck oh this person's playing mono read my enchantments are gonna be okay or if it's them you know just not making the right decision or it's like this person is always turning their cards sideways that means I can probably try and sneak in a triumph of the Horde kill you know like there's lots of different ways that you can take advantage of people's incorrect play yeah but I think complaining about it is is actually the wrong you should be like oh sweet they don't know about me yeah not good now how do I tailor my play now to take advantage of that I think that's one of the fastest ways to if you want a better play group to make people improve is by capitalizing on some weaknesses but yeah I don't think bickering and talking about it and complaining on Twitter is going to actually make them better at threat assessment then you gonna make your life really hard to also just tell someone to do something better or teach them without them figuring it out for themselves and that's the same for me it's the same for I think everyone on the planet there's a saying I think it's an Eastern saying which is that it's is it is a wise man indeed who can learn from another's mistake oh you almost always have to learn from your own mistakes it's true that's a good point all right number nine playing at sorcery speed which is kind of what the when people first learn magic and the idea of an instant is kind of foreign or instant speed effects or triggered a but not dedicated abilities by it it doesn't make sense to them yeah it's like okay I can do this and the way it works is I take my turn then they take their turn then I take my turn and people that played hearthstone before playing the game like magic also have this sort of embedded into them that you can only do things on your turn that specific times so playing at sorcery speed is goes to a lot of things whether or not you build your deck to only play at sorcery speed or you're just unable to capitalize on when the best time to do something like activate an ability in response to something or playing at someone's end step there's lots of different ways that playing a source for speed ends up affecting you but I think it starts with like deck building yeah it's a it's a deck building thing but I also think in the game there are various points where and I like to think of this around turn like seven eight nine where now maybe more like eight nine ten where winning of the game start to happen right in normal non-competitive play groups in competitive it's way earlier but where you're looking around it's like okay with the right sequence of events somebody could win the game or basically win the game on any of these turns there's just enough mana and things in play and so under those circumstances it's really incumbent upon you to play in the most flexible manner possible because you could be the person winning the game but you also want to leave yourself open with no way to respond if somebody's about to win and right I need to you know have your answers or the things you can do ready and that's one of the reasons we love Vidal candor we talk about a lot of time but I think there's just so many times when it's like yeah I could play this born CLECs or whatever but I'd rather play a5 drop hold a few mana open and be able to I just have one removal spell yeah in case something I don't see is about to happen and I can stop it and therefore live an entire turn and that really does affect deck-building too because a lot of times I found myself when my my less well built decks where I'm like well I have five cards in my hand I can only play one of them right now I don't have the ability to play one and hold mana up or if I want to hold a counter spell or a removal spell or something to interact some of the speed I have to just literally pass the turn and then you get hammered in by a bunch of people hitting with different stuff you don't have any sort of board presence and so as a result you really do lock yourself down to only playing at sorcery speed or sometimes only being able to play one thing at instant speed so I think having that flexibility is really big too I mean maybe that's sort of like a hybrid number nine which is be able to be more flexible through game Plains so that you have the choice to play at instant speed when you need to and the things you play a sorcery speed are gonna let you do that yeah I don't actually think it's a literal sorcery speed as far as like call me casting casting things it's playing that way it's having it's playing in a manner that leaves yourself the most flexible with the most amount of decisions at the most amount of times so whatever you've got in your hand and out on the board at the moment I like to maximize my ability to respond over my ability to sort of even develop my board or anything a lot of times you'll see me like okay I play something small or nothing at all and just say go because I really am like I just want as much information as possible I want to know are you gonna attack me well I don't want to guess I want to actually see you go to attack me and then I'll respond because if you then I don't have to use the thing or blah blah you know that that kind of philosophy over which cards you play and you know all kinds of things yeah alright number ten the last of the top ten biggest mistakes commander players make is no politics people who don't play politics is the game for fun leave the politics for Thanksgiving dinner with the family I just don't play politics in age I just refuse to do it I hated each because of all the politicking here's the thing you're in a game there are more than two people so there's social dynamics you can say you're not playing politics all that means is you're losing at politics right there's it's inevitable but what it's like some quote like by not playing the game you've lost you've lost the game yeah and I want to say that politics is not just speaking because we tend to think of politics as the things you say and like you know pointing out other things or trying to get other people to talk further but also what you do how you do it and when you do it hmm you know actions are part of politics you know the things you choose to take out explaining why might be part of it because that's talking but you can be political without being extremely vocal yeah and also I think when people hear the word politics they see it as this very like big and divisive thing when politics could be as easy as like all right I'm gonna ping this guy and you're gonna take one damage right now because you did something to me earlier or like I'm gonna get rid of this one problem I creature but we can all agree that it has to you know like very small or much smaller things can be political it doesn't need to be like a alright well I'm gonna try and kill you right now and if you don't it's because you know it's like doesn't like you absolutely should try and get rid of this thing cast your card on that thing yeah yeah that's what people think of as politics but politics can also be just being aware of the little dynamics you know we said earlier you can anger multiple players without even really knowing it because I'm turned to you did something small term for you did something those there's a lot of time in between turns turn six you did something and you don't even know that in every player's head they're like well if I get a chance I'm gonna get that person back for that yeah yeah but somebody watching could know that mm-hmm and be like they're all little upset with Josh because he's been you know sort of taking little bite-sized pieces out of different players and so I know that and now I don't have to talk or do anything I'm just aware there are politics happening and I can take advantage of it in my place by knowing the dynamic that's going on at the table yeah ADH is such a complex game and having four players either you're all best friends or you've just met in LGS there's so many different layers to how you can play the game and how people play it incorrectly politicking has to be one of the most defining characteristics of the game and if you are just not interested at all and contributing to it or even learning how to be better at it then commander might not be the format for you honestly I mean if you enjoy a multiplayer game in any kind of board game there is always a level of politics involved in pretty much I can't think of a single board game that doesn't have politics that's multiple people because at the end of the day even asking someone advice and how to do something or you know pointing out something that's winning faster than one else and they should all do something about like that's all layers of politics I think we just need to expand our definition of the word so that it involves everything from the very minut to the the biggest proclamations yeah but and I also think like a lot of people need to redefine what politics are to make it palatable for them you know yes not just lobbying for things to happen a lot of it is just paying attention knowing what the landscape is like socially yeah and then taking advantage of that and you know can often say very little and still be involved in the politics because you understand all the undercurrents of things that are going on and a little can go a long way to it can just be like I destroy that thing and I'm like I'm a graveyard deck it's a death right I'm gonna have to do that yeah I mean in politics too I think if you start changing sort of re altering the meaning of the word of it to maybe be more of negotiations or discussions or you know deals deal making instead of just politics because I think that word itself just has a weird stigma to it these days that people can't serve a race from their minds so negotiations negotiations I like that on all levels all right holding people hostage it's politics yeah all right um pila for it that's that's the top 10 biggest mistakes commander players and make now time for to the listeners what is the biggest mistake you think many players make that we didn't talk about so is there an 11th 12th is probably plenty are there any particular mistakes that you yourself the listener makes that you know you need to fix like keeping sketchy opening hands and how did you fix it - yeah right it could it be is it like hey I decided to start just being more vocal in general around you know board games and stuff and I've learned have I picked up on different things you know was it you know I took a class in debate at college you know we heard from we hear from a lot of people that just listening to our politics episodes sort of gave them a jumping-off point where they could start to sort of you know try out the politics try some of the things we talked about and just by doing that it sort of erased the stigma got them used to it it's just like anything if you practice it you're gonna become a little better at it yeah it's just having the willingness to sort of dip your toe in the water and give it a shot and we've had a lot of people go like you know what after your ex politics episode our playgroup all decided that to embrace it and now we have a ton of fun playing cuz our group loves the politics and we actually see it as one of the fun parts and even in the midst of like these little arguments were like look at each other and laugh because it's like oh god we're lobbying this and being able to separate the game from real life to is a big deal yeah just making sure that you don't take a grudge or a gripe into real life because it's see you're playing with pieces of cardboard some of them are shinier than others and if you want to buy the really really shiny ones like azores gateway I just I just picked up a couple because the card is ridiculous go to card Kingdom com slash command zone use that affiliate link and you'll be supporting game nights supporting this podcast and all of our content and we really do appreciate it yep and as well ultra pro always a sponsor of the show and game that's as well very easy to pick up their products they are located everywhere in the world essentially you can definitely find them at your local gaming store as well as car can Allah commands them so thank you to both of our sponsors as always for being a part of the show okay now it's time for the instep where we talk about something cool outside the world of magic this one's cool so earlier this not this year we're in 28th at the end of 2017 my co-host Ashley Adams she hosts the cooking show with me feast of fiction she had a baby congratulations yeah very big congratulations she had been man she pregnancy is crazy I mean she created the child she created the child it was nine months of her it was really interesting because I've no national yeah you got to see her like everybody and she let me know really early on so I knew as well and I didn't realize this but it I mean I kind of realized it right that the body is obviously going through major changes to push out a baby a full-on sized miniature human in nine months it's insane but that it comes with a whole suite of emotions of weird cravings of mood swings and and restless nights morning sickness all sorts of crazy stuff I didn't realize just how impactful it was on someone and I and I you know Ashley a lot of dads out there like touring like oh man Jimmy yeah not on their heads yeah and so Ashley of course because we talk all the time I got to hear a lot of it firsthand so you know I think big props goes to everyone that has ever had to endure a pregnancy but you know it was crazy because the moment the child came out and that kind of had this in my mind's like well what's the it's the movie thing right it's when it happens and you see it for the first time you hear these stories everyone's perspective changes and then all of a sudden sag race thing in the world that exactly happened oh yeah it was just like I'm so glad the after nine months of this turmoil that it did end up in something very positive and happy and fulfilling for Ashley so big congratulations to her Congrats Ashley now Sawyer is the name of the little boy are they like fans of the show lost or something I don't know if I'll get my kids Sawyer after watching that show your favorite character I lost oh I think it was uh what's-her-name Evangeline Lilly's character trait okay yeah I like Kate a lot - I thought she had them won't for one she was I mean I little show full disclosure I only really watched like the first three seasons before I realized they didn't know where they're going and so I think later on the show she got like less but in the first two seasons she was awesome yeah you know it's funny because the best characters got better in the later seasons because that they're like well I guess we can just focus on development so all right I like the dog to in steps you got lost in there also yeah right yeah don't don't go watch it if you haven't seen it so ASIS you can watch the first season then be happy I think the second season is actually pretty good or at least the first half of the second season yeah you can watch the first two seasons but then you realize they don't know where they're going yeah leaders of the show they never answer any of the real questions in the show they just do this thing where they give you more mystery boxes to open but a couple of guys who will answer all of your questions about the modern format on the masters of modern podcast which is our sister podcast Alice Kessler and Ben Bateman you should really check them out you can find them on collected company right next to us or you can follow them on twitter at the mm cache yeah and our editor for the show is Terry Robertson doing the video and audio versions of this podcast you can watch those online at youtube.com slash the command zone the podcast I highly suggest you do it because that's where you can also find our game nights episodes that Terry also contributes to as well as our lead background an animator I don't know even what to call Jeffrey he's a jack-of-all-trades he's jinx Magic the Gathering animator is the animator yeah and you can find him at living cards MTG on Twitter he does the intro and outro graphics for the video versions of this podcast Oh Jeffrey was just on the kitchen table magic KDM that we have both been on it was very interesting to learn about Jeffrey's process I mean I knew a lot about it obviously are we both been on it now Sam does a great job when hit the whole time I podcast with the most like man he he we researched everything he knows every detail of my career so far and it was great to be able to talk about it in that sort of in-depth way so yeah highly recommend the kitchen table magic podcast okay three n steps three instead well that one was definitely in the world magic but the extra 2 n steps are free everybody won't charge you this week all right thanks for listening and we'll see you next time peace [Music] [Music] thank you for your attention for further inquiries send an email to command cast at rocketjump calm or ask us on Twitter at jf1 and at Josh Lacroix see you later earlier creating here [Laughter]

Channel: The Command Zone

Views: 426,827

Keywords: video game high school, ted wong, vghs, wong, jfwong, jimmy, magic, the, gathering, mtg, magic the gathering, strategy, game, trading card game, deck, tactics, commander, general, elder, dragon, highlander, politics, josh, lee, kwai, cards, Card Game (Game Genre), negotiations, command, zone, podcast, the command zone, edh rules, mana, mana bases, Game Knights, GameKnights, gameplay

Id: ZNx4F2mQJUk

Length: 53min 23sec (3203 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 30 2018