The EDH Multiverse - A Model of the EDH Landscape
Commander / EDH*
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What do you think of the CFP Brackets Beta? —Feb. 15, 2025
I’ve seen some people bring up my guides as a comparison to the new Bracket beta. I figured I’d share my current thoughts on the matter here for people who might be interested.
I think WOTC's Commander Format Panel (CFP) is kind of on the right track to come up with a framework that could be helpful for newcomers. The inclusion of card restrictions for each bracket helps in achieving that goal. At the same time I believe there’s a lot of ironing-out to do in both its contents as well as the presentation of their system. But given they've chosen to go with an iterative approach, that should work out fine, as this allows them to learn what works and what doesn’t from actual use and player feedback.
I do see two downsides to the current iteration that I’d like to share here:
- It communicates the wrong priority of pre-game talk topics to newcomers
- The system relies on a common understanding of everyone involved
1. It communicates the wrong priority of pre-game talk topics to newcomers
Even though the intent is to communicate 5 distinct experiences, the current visual places its focus on deck ingredients. That’s a double-edged sword in my analysis: on the one hand it makes it approachable for newcomers (which makes it work for the intended audience). However, that focus is ultimately not what commander is about or what we should learn new commander players to look for over everything else imo.
Imagine you’re trying to decide where to go out for dinner with three of your friends. How would you go about having that conversation with them? Are you going to start with what kind of ingredients you’d like the restaurant to serve? Are you going to check and compare restaurant review scores? Or are you first going gauge what kind of cuisine everyone feels like having tonight? What kind of table experience everyone’s looking for?
My stance has always been that yes, deck ingredients are important as some people have “allergies”, but that is not the thing that is the most important: in the end the proof of the pudding is in the eating. People should not be fussing about how much sugar or salt we all put in, but talk about if we feel like having pudding or pop tarts this time. About the kind of game we want to be having. And what that gameplay experience looks like. Having a list of cards that correlate with the resulting experience is fine, but there’s also common terminology and even quantifiable ways to describe the gameplay experience directly that could take centre stage instead. Ironically, such descriptors are included in their article, but I wish those would receive the spotlight in the system’s visual presentation rather than the deck ingredients. Because in the end, matching what your deck brings to the table in terms of gameplay should be considered more important than its ingredients, and the current visual seems to be communicating the opposite priority. However, that should be something they can fix relatively easily.
2. It relies on common understanding to work
The system aims to become “common language” while at the same time is assuring people that they don’t have to use it. These two things don’t really seem to go together. This is the big thing that many people seem to comfortably glance over throughout the entire power level discussion. Regardless of the quality or contents of a system, it's only going to be serving as "common language" if everyone at the table is prepared to understand and use it properly. These kind of systems rely on buy-in from the whole group to work.
There has always been this rigid desire amongst players to have one shared system that is going to solve all of their problems, but that is just an unrealistic dream scenario. Tools are inherently limited and prone to preference. Also, that whole intent is doomed to fail here as you're trying to fix a social challenge with a mechanical solution. You're never going end up with a system that everyone is going to use simply because not everyone is going to. That's the big illusion that keeps perpetuating itself. Granted, that is not really the intent of the developers of this tool, but that won't stop people from pushing it towards that use-case.
This does highlight a difference in design goals and intended audience with my own efforts, as it’s the reason I tried to come up with something that can inform your own behavior, even if you'd never shared the chart with anyone. It can then still serve as a resource for learning more constructive behaviors yourself (e.g. what to ask, how to diversify you deck suite, what words to use to describe them, how to navigate mismatches in expectations). Then you have at least done what you can do to make the situation better. And forcing others to digest your preferred guide might not be that much different from forcing them to play EDH in your preferred way.
I do believe this bracket system can make a positive difference for the community in the situation with randoms on the long run, which is what it is trying to achieve. Given the position of the CFP, the challenging task they had and the time they had to do it in, I think they can be happy with this first iteration. But they also still seem ways away from a system that will fully meet their design goals. I for one am curious to see what will happen next.
GL & HF
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