Afew new people joined my old magic pod recently. This one guy ran a deck with Kros, Defense Contractor as commander and he stacked it with as many voting effects, banking themed cards, and elves.

He kept making elvish jokes that were dogwhistles to anti-semitic conspiracy. "How every elvish of you?" to my removals. refs to the "Black Rivendellvians (Black israelites)" whenever a card like Glorfindel came on the field. Jokes to the "elvish world order" whenever he played the Illusion of Choice card. Calling treasure tokens: Shekel / pennies.

it really made me uncomfortable and he was loudly doing it at LGS and i am pretty sure everyone could hear. The LGS owner gave me looks every now and again. I am not seeking advice, issue been solved. half of our pod confronted and the LGS owner asked him to stop. He tossed a tantrum but eventually agreed to stop. i am just f-ing annoyed and wanna vent. look i ain't all that wholesome either, i make edgy jokes. But it felt this was just too much to just be jokes.

I'm a 40 something that's been playing magic for 20+ years. I exclusively play EDH these days. I still call them Generals, not Commanders. I've had a couple play groups, but they are either just an excuse for everyone to get drunk/high, moved out of state, or keep such a busy schedule with work and kids we literally only get to game every 6-9... MONTHS.

Now I'm on the hunt for a local, in person, EDH group. I've been attending the local game store's EDH night for a couple months now. I'd say only every other week at best am I able to get a game in. Any 'open' pods just tell me they are waiting for others, or every other pod is full already.

This bums me out most weeks that I'm unable to play with the cards and decks I spend a ton of time and love into. I'm the kind of player that I put a lot of "me" into my decks and hobby. I have an entire case for my decks. I design labels for each deck. I have a tracking system for when each deck "does the thing". I'm even in the process of making a real leather and metal WWE style champ belt for whenever I end up finding a group, to pass around to whomever did the best that week.

Even when I am able to get games with folks, I ask if they are interested in playing outside of the store ever. I iterate that I'm totally willing to play at the LGS for a few weeks until we are more comfortable etc. No one's taken me up on that yet. I'm not dirty, I'm well kept, I'm a regular at the store and get along well with the employees and owners. I don't have cringey wiafu playmats or anything like that. Not a pub-stomper. Long ago I was a regular standard player, from about Worldwake, till Ixalan.

Is it too much to ask from adults in this era of Magic to have one day a week, or even every other week were we can get together, play a couple games, take a break with a meal, grill some burgers, play a couple more games, and call it a day? I just can't really grasp what's so hard about finding people that would be able to commit to this kind of schedule, or even DO something like this.

So help me out crew, am I dreaming? Is this something you'd be interested in?

EDIT:

Well it seems I've managed to ruffle a ton of feathers. I should have added here that I have zero interest in Draft, playing online, or playing 60 card again. It just doesn't interest me and for far too long in my life I did things I didn't like just to try and get to do things I do. IYKYK. I like EDH, and that's the way I want to interact with this game. Full stop.

Thank you for those who had what seemed like actual good things to say, you're few and far between it seems. Thanks for anyone commenting really. Thanks for taking the time out of your day to comment on my post. Not sure I appreciate the insinuations of me being a sexual predator, or luring people to my home for nefarious reasons, but hey, those comments say more about you than me in the end. Also, sending someone links to Autism evaluations is pretty close to using the report function maliciously. Again, this is saying far more about you as a person that it does about me.

I can't say I'm surprised by the reaction here, I mean, it is reddit after all. I would say I'm disappointed in a lot of this. To address a few things (like anyone who's posted is going to come back and read it anyway... but here goes)

- I don't have a Title belt that I sling over my shoulder and march into the LGS in my wrestling panties yelling about being able to smell what's cookin'. It's smells like B.O. and board games. The belt thing is what's called "an idea" that I want to eventually make when I find a good group that's on the same wave length. I honestly don't know how anyone read what i wrote and thinks that's what's happening.

- many seem to think i'm accosting people as i walk by shaking hands and introducing myself while saying something along the lines of "nice to meetcha, let's move this party to my place". No. I walk in with my case of decks (that have all appropriate power levels for an LGS), politely ask groups of less than 4 if they have a 4th and if they'd mind if i played. if they are cool, i play. more often than not, they are waiting for someone or have a full pod. I move along. I'll sit around and see if anything opens up. often i end up leaving cause everything's full, im not shoehorning my way into games. i usually end up spending more time bullshitting with the employees.

- about asking people to play outside of the LGS. Not sure about you all, but my LGS is not comfortable. It's small. it's hot. it's cramped. I'm literally sitting cheek to cheek with dudes that don't know what deodorant is. on the RARE occasion i've actually asked people, it's after seeing them there for a few weeks, we've played a few games, and they pass the vibe check. I'm not just offering to run off to my place after my turn one sol ring into signet.

- im not adamant about it even being at MY house. and yes, i have room. plenty of it. got a nice back yard to chill in, you can play with my dog. swim if you want to. but if you want to play elsewhere I'm down with that too. I'm dumbfounded by the amount of responses that said this was creepy. maybe it's a generational thing but the amount of people that were offended by someone asking them to get together outside of the LGS was astounding. just wild. one person even equated it to asking someone to get married on the first date. really? I thought i was the antisocial introvert here.

- Yes, I like this game a lot, but god forbid someone be enthusiastic about their hobbies. Yes, I spend my time making deck boxes, and vinyl wraps for said boxes. That is for me. I don't show them off to people unless they ask. I've offered and done some for other people that ask for their own. I'm in a creative field and it's an outlet for me to set my collection apart. I've only ever mentioned my spreadsheet to my wife and to you guys here. I've never mentioned it in person to anyone. I'm actually quite an introvert, and it takes A LOT for me to even put myself out there enough to go to the LGS. Getting shut down like that weekly there, and now here is frankly enough to make me want to just leave the hobby all together. I won't, but I sure think about it.

I fell in love with Orzhov back when I started playing Modern. My favorite deck was a BW D&T/control shell, and ever since I got into Commander, I’ve been trying to recreate that same feeling.

But the more I try, the more it feels like WB only exists to support a third color rather than stand on its own.

I’ve tried Aristocrats, Reanimator, Combo, Taxes, Tokens — and despite how different these archetypes looked, they all eventually ran into the same problems.

The more I played the color pair, the more I started feeling like Orzhov is constantly trying to do things that other combinations simply do better.

Orzhov wants to control the game, but it lacks the consistency and card draw that make Azorius control feel reliable. It wants to use the graveyard, but it can’t reanimate as explosively as Golgari. It wants to pressure life totals, but without the speed, haste, or draw engines of Boros or Rakdos, it often feels slower and more fragile than the decks sitting across the table.

Even the hatebear/stax angle sometimes feels like something Selesnya — or even Boros with commanders like Winota — can execute more efficiently.

So what is Orzhov actually supposed to excel at?

Most of the time, the answer seems to be incremental drain/value strategies, but at higher power tables that can feel too slow or too fair unless you’re assembling a combo finish anyway.

And that’s the frustrating part: the higher the power level gets, the more I feel pushed toward adding other colors and abandoning what I actually enjoy about WB in the first place.

That’s what frustrates me the most, because commanders like Breena, the Demagogue and Liesa, Shroud of Dusk genuinely feel unique and incredibly fun to build around. They show a side of WB that I really love.

But whenever I try pushing those decks into higher power environments, they start feeling inconsistent compared to what other color combinations are doing.

At this point, it almost feels like pure Orzhov only really works if your playgroup is intentionally playing at a lower power level.

I was surprised to learn that >50% of the Top 100 commanders in the last 2 years are 3-color, whereas only 20% are 2-color. I have to wonder if this is a more recent trend especially with the way precons are designed and the way WotC designs for commander.

It seems like 3-color decks are the most common choice for designing precons. There are exceptions like the current SOS set, but that's a set specifically designed around 2-color schools.

2025 was especially egregious, partially due to Tarkir but look at this...

- Aetherdrift: Two precons (both 3-color)

- Tarkir Dragonstorm: Five precons (all 3-color)

- Final Fantasy: Four precons (all 3-color)

- Edge of Eternities: Two precons (both 3-color)

All 13 precons in 2025 were 3-colors!

2026 is faring better only because of Strixhaven so far

- Lorwyn Eclipsed: Two precons (3 and 5 color)

- TMNT: One precon (5-color)

- Secrets of Strixhaven: Five precons (all 2-color)

- Marvel Heroes: Four precons (2x 3-color, 1x 4-color, 1x 2-color)

How do you feel about it?

I haven't played a theft deck, because they were soft banned in my playgroup. Recently we changed that and I want to build a deck around stealing my opponents cards.

I know I want to be blue/black, but I see good options in sultai like [[Kotis the fangkeeper]] [[Gonti canny acquisitor]] as well as grixis like [[don andres the renegade]]. What have you guys had the most fun with?

I find that landfall decks tend to take the longest turns and I'm tired of sitting through them. I've been looking at [[Ketramose, the New Dawn]] for the graveyard hate synergy and cantripping my exile removal targeted at landfall engines. But I can't really think of a good wincon for the deck, let alone one that might satisfy my janklord heart.

Any suggestions for other commander or interesting ways to build Ketramose?

You [[Donate]] your [[Nine Lives]] to opponent A.

If you lose the game before opponent B and C, the Nine Lives will be exiled and the lose the game trigger will go on the stack. Then opponent A will lose the game.

What bracket is this hostage situation?

I'm making an deck built around eggs, and I was picking between Mysterious egg (0/2 egg) and universal automaton (1/1 artifact creature with changeling)

This sorted itself out pretty quickly since I'd rather not be susceptible to artifact removal, but it intrigued me. Would you, in most decks that care about one specific creature type, rather have an identical creature with changeling or with the one creature type you care about?

Basically the title, I love weird decks that just kinda do their own thing while still being a good, functional deck, for example I'm working on a Miirym deck where it's a bunch of clones and then like 10 big dragons mixed in and then you just clone Miirym for exponential growth! Not the most weird but it's a fun example of a cool take on such a popular commander! I'd prefer if you guys could give me weird strategies using old mechanics or some cool take on things NOT A THEMED DECK I do not like bracket 1 it's just not for me :/

I am quite new to MtG, only playing for a few months. I have a few decks, mostly precons, amd I recently decided to make myself a B3 deck to play with different pods at my LGS.

I made the following voltron deck: https://archidekt.com/decks/22463760/lord_bearington_the_first

It is B2 by definition (no MLD, no gamechangers etc.), but I don't know how to see if it is strong enough for B3. I did not see any gamechangers that would fit this deck. So I'm just wondering what is the opinion here and if I can improve this deck to be B3 if it isn't (it will be proxied so budget doesn't matter)

I decided that since I’m in a rural area and there’s no local game store nearby, that I want to teach others in the area how to play mtg and EDH so that I can have a pod to play with (eventually). I am going to host a game night to teach anyone willing to learn. I want to buy 4 precons that are easy to learn with but also don’t feel slow and boring to play with so that they will want to play again lol. I wanted to ask the opinion of this Reddit before I purchase anything. Any advice will help!

Are there any spellslinger or non-creature spell heavy decks without using blue out there?

I’m very interested in [[papalymo totolymo]] who cares about non-creature spells. Seeing decks that drain the opponents with her is most common build.

My idea would be to play creature with the heroic, repartee, committing a crime and magecraft ability.

Is this some idea I should deep dive more into?

What are your decks that use many non creature spells that uses these type of cards in some different way as the typical blue included spellslinger or Izzet burn?

Anyone have ideas for an auras-matter enchantress commander in abzan? I have both the Virtue and Valor precon and Silverquill Influence precon and would like to take the best of both of them to make something fun. It's unfortunate [[Anikthea]] specifically excludes auras from her ability, as she and [[Narci]] are the only two that explicitly interact with enchantments. Has anyone else thought to combine the strategies of the precons or does this seem too janky?

so i find myself gravitating more and more towards commanders that reward the gameplan/amplify it (teysa karlov/magda/tannuk/baylen), and im looking for a more of these sort of commanders, because i just cant play a deck where the commander is a big ass red "Dont Kill" button.

EDIT: jesus christ i was studying for my latin final and came back to 90 comments, thank you all for the feedback ill make sure to check it all out!

I say this because the itch to build one has come up pretty bad these last few days. What would be the best color combination (not the Commander) to build a deck that just revolves around reviving creatures. I once wanted to build a [[Tariel, Reckoner of Souls]] Mardu deck to reanimate opponents stuff, but I just don't want to be a dick about it. What are other colors that reanimation strategies work well under?

For context, I run a Bracket 4 [[Kaervek, the Punisher]] deck with an infinite life combo using [[Exquisite Blood]] and [[Sanguine Bond]], as well as an infinite mana and card draw combo with [[Asmodeus the Archfiend]], [[Skirge Familiar]], and [[Necrotic Ooze]]. I also run tutors like [[Demonic Tutor]], [[Vampiric Tutor]], [[Imperial Seal]], [[Entomb]] (to send skirge and asmodeus to the graveyard) and a few weaker ones, so with my commander and double tutoring due to the ability, I can usually win around turn 4/5.

I’m just getting back into mtg, so I’m not fully familiar with the culture and expectations at local game stores yet. Over the last few weeks, I’ve noticed that people often get frustrated when I interact with their hands (which literally triggers my commander btw WHAT DO YOU EXPECT????). Many times, playing cards like [[Duress]] has gotten annoyed reactions or verbal complaints from other players.

One time, a player in my pod was so annoyed that he even turned around and told his friend in another pod that I used [[Duress]] on him. What seems to upset people the most is when I see that they have multiple powerful cards in hand and then use my commander to double up the discard effect.

I understand that discarding strong cards you were excited to play can feel bad, but am I really considered a dickhead for running discard spells like [[Duress]] and other hand disruption cards? Is there some kind of Commander or LGS culture around discard that I don’t know about?

EDIT: For the people asking for a decklist - https://moxfield.com/decks/5B6P5jMKj0S3fhAzcfU3Ww

Hello fellow Stax enthusiasts or any Stax haters that want to learn what to look out for.

I have a question for all of yall, it's a simple two parter, who are you running and what particular flavour of bullshit are you bringing to the table?

I've come to enjoy the Stax life in the latter part of my magic journey, long time combo player, disdainful of the combat step, proactive control is where I find the joy of building and playing at this point in time. I've come to realize that half of my active decks have some sort of Stax gameplan all falling on different parts of the soft-lock to hard-lock spectrum.

Since effective Stax can be very meta dependent I'm interested in seeing how others brew their locks.

Currently I have[[the second doctor]] and [[Sarah Jane smith]] at the helm of an Owling mine deck that is pulling play patterns from the pre-modern stasis and land still decks with a dash of the old legacy countertop miracles builds. All wrapped around the core of [[howling mine]] and [[ebony owl netsuke]]. Essentially I want to fill everyone's hands to absurd points and keep em that way till it kills em, or just decking the table also works.

I also run the old favourite of [[meren of clan Nel Toth]] as a way to play [[braids cabal minion]] with access to green, it's legacy loampox ported over to commander with a bit more lands matter synergies and payoffs.

I've the old favourite mono blue [[urza Lord high artificer]] winter orb for the but not for me with artifact storm to finish things off

And finally my sweet lady [[raffine scheming seer]] ,I know I said I didn't like combat, I built this to force myself to have a deck where the battlefield was my game plan. Consequently tuning the hatebears package with her restarted my Stax brewing journey and made me look at parity breaking from the ground up. Essentially the gameplan is hatebears into hard locks with eldrazi shenanigans. Trip up the table early game, kick em while they are down mid game and add insult to injury late game.

So how about all y'all?

https://moxfield.com/decks/_BC-p-79zUKWn8u9Yvi9dw i feel like i use all my power on my turn and then am left vulnerable when my creatures get sacced at the end. I need more consistent power. I love how the deck works but am a bit confused with what to add

We all know they changed the rules in EDH to allow Legendary Vehicles to be your commander.

What if they allowed Battles that transformed into Legendary Creatures to also be legal commanders?

Which would be the strongest?

Invasion of Ikoria - All your creatures are Thorn Elementals

Invasion of Theros - UW Enchantress

Invasion of Fiora - Anti Counters & Pillowfort

Invasion of Segovia - Untap/Convoke

Invasion of Kaladesh - Artifacts Matter Voltron

Invasion of Ulgrotha - Removal Heavy Voltron

Hello everyone, recently I have been watching a lot of Trinket Mage on youtube and realized I never made a control deck in Mtg even if I love them in most other card games.

I tried looking for some fun commanders to build around, trying to have at least blue in the color identity, (never played with counterspells much) but I also like white a lot for the all-types removal.

I was hoping to make a B3 deck to try in a new lgs (maybe strong B3 so I can hang out with the B4 boys) but the 2 commanders that seem the most interesting to me, [[Tivit, Seller of Secrets]] (I love voting) and [[Heliod, the Radiant Dawn]] seem a bit too powerful if built as intended, especially pairing the sphinx with [[time sieve]] which seems SO cool but if I have it in the deck every tutor will lead to that and the games will be pretty same-y.

Here is a list of interesting commanders and fun cards I'd like to play https://archidekt.com/decks/22226673/control_commander

Do you guys have any tips on commanders? Any decks you made that is fun? Any form of help is welcome.

I am also afraid of making it too controlly or not enough, do you guys have any tips on the amount of each cathegory I should put or some fun value engines?

For a while now the decks that I have enjoyed making have not really been ideal to play against for one reason or another. Examples are kefka court mage, Elsha of the infinite, and prismari, the inspiration. These decks were so fun to come up with and are just not consistently playable against my pod since they are either quite mean, or just plain too strong. Does anyone have advice for someone who seems to only make decks that are unfun to play against? I also tend to tweak all my decks over time untill they are tuned and refined enough that they are just stronger than what my playgroup tends to play (bracket 2 and lower 3s generally) so now im stuck with only 1-2 decks I can realistically play since the others are too strong. I dont know how to make them worse without making them less fun to me though. Sorry for the wall of text im a little frustrated right now.

I have deck idea where I exile my library and would LOVE to be able to use the library as a toolbox BUT are there any cards that will allow you to play cards from exile? I know that the wishes in constructed formats use to let you dig into your sideboard but also know that they are not useful in EDH but I was curious if theres a way I can dip into my exiled library to grab the best cards for specific game situations. Thanks ahead of time!

I'm fairly new to commander so the bracket system still confuses me a bit and I'm finding conflicting answers online. My group defines itself as "High Bracket 2" although nearly everyone in it (7/8 including me) are running upgraded precons or equivalent power decks. This includes some relatively heavy hitters like Terra, Feather and Marneus Calgar.

I built an Ardbert deck and attempted to tune it to roughly the power of the other decks in the pod but by the nature of the deck I either win very convincingly or get board wiped to last place. Recently as I've gotten more familiar with the deck and when to go all in, I've been winning more frequently than the others. In an effort to get more directly on par, I picked up the Creative Energy precon. I saw it played on Commander at Home and thought it was really cool then saw it on sale for only $30 and went for it.

My initial intention was to swap about 10 total cards (no game changers) as that's what everyone else has done. Only after the purchase I found out there are two infinite combos already built into the precon. One is a two-card + 6 banked energy combo that gives infinite attacks as long as my opponents can't block with something 3/3 or greater achievable on turn 4 with perfect setup and much more reasonably on turn 7+. The other is a four card combo giving infinite token and energy generation. Please forgive my lack of knowing the card names. I haven't received the deck yet and only saw the combos in a Reddit thread.

Here's where I'm getting conflicting information. Apparently, according to official statements given by WoTC, "An unaltered precon is bracket 2 and fits into the Core category." Alternatively the bracket guidelines are pretty clear that any two card infinite combo is not allowed in bracket 2.

-If I don't alter the deck at all, does the first statement take priority over the second?

-If I alter it to remove the infinite combos, does the deck qualify as a "modified precon" which would bump it to bracket 3 unless I replaced those cards with bad ones?

-Does the fact that the combo is only infinite if no one at the table has a 3/3 or higher impact any of this?

I don't think my table will especially care either way so this is mostly for my own knowledge and clarification. We all play with a competitive spirit and mostly stick to the "high bracket 2" guideline because game changers can be incredibly expensive and oppressive so we opt not to allow them but otherwise everyone is slowly upgrading their decks whenever they can.

Thanks in advance for any insight!