Thread by @ghirapurigears

here's an unfiltered and unfinished thought stream i am working on-
wotc's change of focus from competitive players to casual/edh players has been detrimental to both groups. By making cards that are strong enough to play in edh, they make cards that are completely busted in 60

this then creates really unbalanced and unfun standard, pioneer, and modern environments, leading competitively minded players to look elsewhere for their fun

this sends them to the biggest and most popular format, edh, without a commensurate shift in mindset from competitive to relaxed.

and because EDH gets the biggest, most busted cards and has such a small and conservative ban list, these folks end up making incredibly powerful topline decks, thus creating more cedh players who, importantly, aren't aware that there is such a thing as cedh

so they end up playing edh because that's the only format they think exists, but with highly tuned and competitive mindsets, and start crushing faces, pushing the casual players out of the format

the spirit of the format is lost in the messaging, the player base starts to fracture, and edh ends up a powercrept mess of a format.

the older way of doing it, where wotc designed and balanced for competitive play, left commander players delving for more creative and interesting answers, and a much more healthy format

i don't know where this goes, as it is an unfinished thought, but i think that wotc accidentally upset a very carefully balanced ecosystem and is paying for it now.

this isn't to say that cedh can't be a part of the conversation, rather, it means that cedh must be a much more prominent part of the conversation. we need to make sure players can find the people to play with that meet their expectations and needs

this means actively welcoming and supporting cedh so that we have somewhere to send all the folks who are running away from the wastelands of standard play