Let me present to you some #DataIsBeautiful that shows how WotC is prioritizing phasing out (no pun intended) monocolored EDH deck designs for command zones for the sake of command zone designs that facilitate multicolored decks. I'll go into detail for each of these 4 charts. 🧵 ImageImageImageImage
First, let's start out by talking the raw numbers of what Commanders are printed each year. As @SaffronOlive tweeted based on the entire @MTGGoldfish Commander Crew's end of the year podcast, designing commanders is currently in an unprecedented spike, but is it all the same? No. Image
To add more context, here's what the cumulative totals of raw commanders look like. It took us 25 years to have more than 750 commanders (1993-2018), and only THREE more years to get past 1500 commanders (2019-2022). Image
If we break it down to the actual types of commanders that are printed each year, it's difficult to understand much. (See the last tweet for more detailed explanation of the colors in all these charts.) We do see a monocolored spike in 2010, the year before the 1st EDH precons. Image
Lastly, here's the really telling chart. Since 2005, the year after the start of the Kamigawa block & the year of the start of the Ravnica block, monocolored command zone designs have been on a steady and recently accelerating downfall, even when ignoring partner-like mechanics. Image
In other words, rather than understanding that players dislike playing monocolored (see the attached image showing 1/8 of the #EDHREC top 100 most popular being monocolored/colorless) and consequently prioritizing inventing designs that reward monocolored decks, they have --> Image
<-- ignored this important space for design and chose to print more multicolored options so that the lack of popularity of smaller color identities is no longer a problem. Monocolored options were 72% of the options in 2005, and now they're almost HALF of that. Image
Why do I care? If players are happy, what's the big deal?
Players like playing against a variety of decks. Sameness of what your opponents play is a BIG cause of unfun in ALL formats. If it's rare for an opponent to be playing a deck that ISN'T multicolored, that's a BIG problem. Image
Some players may not intuit this. However, ask players if they feel that cards that punish multicolored decks and reward monocolored decks, like the cards below, are fair to play in non-cEDH #Commander.

If you feel it's not fair to punish strong decks, ask yourself, "Why not?" ImageImageImage
This is my request to @wizards_magic to view monocolor commanders less as a small niche that is better left ignored but more as an untapped (no pun intended) design space that could excite players, given exciting cards that preferentially incentivize monocolored Commander decks.
(In the charts above, Red represents command zone designs that use multiple cards, like "partner" and "choose a background". Of the rest of all commanders, which are single cards in command zones, Gold is all the ones with color identity>1, and Blue is for color identity<2.)
See the full stats: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d…

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with MagicalHacker, Doctor of Commander Decks

MagicalHacker, Doctor of Commander Decks Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @Magical__Hacker

Jun 2, 2023
Recently, I wanted to figure out EXACTLY how effective my decks are, since they are all doing pretty much the opposite of what you now hear as the Commander Dogma: faster = more wins. In comparison, my decks are designed to do little in the early game.

Here are my results: Image
First of all, what am I looking at?

Of my 16 commander decks, only 12 are able to played on MTGO with no more than 4 replacements to cards due to MTGO's card pool restrictions.

For each of those 12, I played games of multiplayer commander (note: not 1v1, this is very important)
until that deck had two wins. For four of my decks, I found that my chosen strategy needed to be changed or tweaked (next tweets has those details) and one deck needed a completely different commander and strategy since the previous deck was no longer viable.
Read 19 tweets
Jun 2, 2023
"This could be an important lesson for players as well as for game designers: whether it's mana rocks or board wipes or metagame responses, the desire for our cards to 'belong' is a strong psychological force that dictates a lot of our card choices." -@JosephMSchultz
This statement from the video linked below really struck a chord with me, and I'd like to explain why.
When I heard him say this, I resonated very strongly to it, as I'm sure many other people do. However, I immediately recognized that this means something completely different to him (and probably a ton of other players) than it means to me and other like-minded players.
Read 12 tweets
Dec 27, 2022
@maro254

"The biggest strike against this [adamant] is that it just doesn't have that many fans. It has a few challenges, but nothing we couldn't do if we wanted. The best chance for this to return is a set with a monocolor theme where it just exactly fills the roll we need."
@maro254 Please also consider adamant for Commander preconstructed decks. Of 1604 Commanders, 623 are monocolored/colorless without "partner", "partner with", or "choose a background". That's slightly more than 3/8 (it was closer to 4/9 before 2022). -->
That's a lot of commanders, so we see them in the top 100 most popular commanders, right? We would expect 39, but instead, we get 12. That's less than 1/3 of what we would expect.

What can WotC do to make existing monocolored Commanders more exciting to play? Adamant, probably.
Read 4 tweets
Dec 27, 2022
I'd like to document my thoughts related to what Sam Black is saying, since I am in agreement with ~75-90% of what he is saying here. This is also notable since our overlap is something I've been saying at least since 2015 (see sources at end) & been called "brainless" for. -->
"People don’t play enough land. I think the precons wotc makes are about 3-5 land short of where they should be."

Unfortunately, we start with where we disagree. Card draw is king in Commander, & when it gets answered, you hope your deck is built to give you gas in a pinch. -->
"People justify not playing enough lands by playing rocks, but if you spend a turn playing a rock and then miss a land drop, it’s really bad."

100%. If you keep 2 lands and a signet and don't top deck a land, the signet is just a more expensive land. (continued) -->
Read 16 tweets
Mar 26, 2022
You've heard of cEDH, but have you heard of sEDH?

sEDH, or "stipulation EDH", is the format popularized by YouTube content creators such as Commander Clash of @MTGGoldfish and Commander VS of @StarCityGames.

But what if you're not a YouTube channel, & YOU want to play too?

-->
@MTGGoldfish @StarCityGames Then, there needs to be an official place/person to find the official stipulation for a particular time period. That's how your group can decide for yourselves if you want to try it out for that time.

Who should decide the theme? Some rando named MagicalHacker? Well... no.

-->
Ideally, it should be a member of the Commander Rules Committee or the Commander Advisory Group. But, is it better for it to be some rando than it be nobody at all? That's debatable, but I personally think the answer is yes. Kind of. -->
Read 8 tweets
Mar 2, 2022
A Defense of Temple of the False God, a thread.

But first, let's do an entry poll :)

Before reading my points on TotFG, how do you feel about it in Commander?
So, why am I tweeting this now?

I was listening to the linked podcast (side note: @MTGGoldfish 's Commander Clash podcast is my current favorite podcast), and I felt that the most important parts of TotFG were left insufficiently presented.

On top of that, it was not even a whole month ago that I wrote this absolute banger of a tweet:

(Also, shout out to @MangoThreat who did a fantastic video regarding this tweet! Definitely give it a watch!)
Read 21 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us!

:(