Competitive Play

Influx of new players

New 19 Jul 2024 Asked by kidcincinnati 4 Comments

Hey Mark! I’ve noticed a lot of content creators have mentioned getting into Magic around RTR and/or Innistrad. I also hopped in around that point, which is part of why hearing this a lot has stuck out. Was there something unique in that period that might have had that result? Is it just that we’re in a certain point in a cycle of players? Or is it maybe all just confirmation bias on my part?


There’s no correlative data showing that time period had any spikes beyond the normal slope at the time. Confirmation bias seems likely.

MH Sets and Power Creep

New 16 Jul 2024 Asked by smtmtg 15 Comments

Hey Mark! Not to be confrontational or anything but can we, at this point, say that the MH sets (specially mh3) caused power creep? The meta on the pro tour was pretty rough. Thanks for all your hard work!


It raised the power level of the format. That happens whenever enough new (relevant) cards enter a format. Before we starting making cards for Modern (when sets were mostly focused at Standard), the influx of (relevant) new cards was low, so format churn was low. Olds cards did get forced out by new cards, but it happened at a much slower rate. That’s not what “power creep” is. So, if you want to be unhappy with format churn due to products being created with a higher power level as they’re aimed at Modern, that’s very reasonable. It’s a “card influx” complaint not a “power creep” complaint.

Perception on Commanders' Strength

New 20 Jun 2024 Asked by j-waffles 56 Comments

Hey mark, long time reader, also long time asker. I like a challenge when deckbuilding. When I first found out about your psychographics, I thought “woah! it even have the same name as me!” (John). Commander helps tickle that itch for me, because I can start off with a dumb premise and try to make that concept as best I can, and since it’s not a competitive format, I know that there will always be SOMEONE with a deck on a similar power level, however bad that terrible deck idea ends up being.This brings me to a qualm that I personally have, and have seen purely anecdotal evidence that other people have too.It feels kinda lame when you guys make a commander that’s just “this is the best commander for X”. More and more we’re getting legends where they’re just the *correct* choice. If I want to build a sultai graveyard deck, Muldrotha is the answer. Nothing tops it, and I doubt anything every will top it. And that’s just one archetype. 5 color sagas? Bombadil. Snow? Jorn and Isu. Flash tribal? Nymris. Sure there are other cards that can be the commander, but you can say that about anything. Sure, I COULD make a Rakdos exile deck with Pavel Maliki in the command zone, but that’s just objectively wrong. The commander is always gonna be prosper. My point is that it’s getting harder and harder to say “how do I make this work” when you’re just handing us the blueprints and all the parts with a step by step instruction booklet on what to do.To be fair, many archetypes have so much innate complexity to them and have reached a critical mass of options where it’s impossible to tell what the “best” option is, as there are so many different facets and roads to go down. Orzhov aristocrats and mono-green stompy are easy examples.But the fact that it isn’t always the case doesn’t change the fact that happens a lot. I’m sure I’m not the only one that feels this way, but I’m also sure that if it was a majority opinion in the community y’all wouldn’t be doing it this much. I just want to know if you have anything to say about this perception that I and many others hold. Thank you for all you do in magic, I hope you respond.


One of the most common requests I get here on the blog is “make this color combination Commander for this particular theme”. Eventually, for some of them, we find an opportunity to make it. We don’t know when that opportunity will arise again. We shouldn’t try to make the best Commander we can for that slot? If it’s too weak, players will just complain and ask we make another one. The reality is a lot of players want prescriptive answers, and there’s no way to make them for the players that want them and not for the players that don’t. The idea is that players who want to do something different have access to the history of Magic to find less obvious answers.

Deck Card Limit Consideration

New 20 Jun 2024 Asked by dutchseawall 9 Comments

When/If: "A deck can only have one card named CARDNAME", or a similarly worded effect that restricts the copies of a card a deck can have down to less than 4.


That’s not something we want to do in competitive tournament formats and is irrelevant in Commander.

Cardname Restriction in Deck

New 20 Jun 2024 Asked by zombsidian 10 Comments

Was having something like, "You can only have 1 card named 'The One Ring' in your deck" ever considered? I feel like it might've been a flavorful include


Restrictions increases variance which we avoid for competitive tournament formats.

Skittishness Regarding Subtype Updates

New 10 Jun 2024 Asked by jdrawer01 16 Comments

Re: Subtype updates"R&D is still a bit skittish about the last one."I think a big part of the equation is that a lot of us don't understand why R&D is skittish. As a player who came in sometime between Lorwynn and RTR, hearing about the GCTU sounded like the best idea ever. Of course, I've also spent 0 days on R&D, so I'm willing to believe and hear our reasons that part of the team may think it's not a good idea.


There’s a cost when a card does something that just isn’t written on the card. For example, a key moment at a Pro Tour happened because one player made a critical mistake because they were unaware their opponent’s card was an Archer (due to errata, not on the card).

Direct Printing for Commander

New 30 May 2024 Asked by 00no-name00 51 Comments

It seems wild to me that WotC cannot print cards directly to commander, without using the “this is legal in this other format, but banned from competitive play, but and if you want to play it in a casual format that includes 99 cards and an apart legendary creature you could wink wink”. It is the most played format of the game! It would seem good for business (and the format) that you could work something out and be able to support it by creating cars exclusively for it. No? I assume there’s a factor I’m not aware that is stopping this to be a thing or complicating matters . If you have any insight about this, I’d appreciate.Thanks!


Commander wasn’t created by Wizards, so we’re trying to be respectful of the group that has overseen it from the early days.

Commander Mode in Arena

New 29 May 2024 Asked by zombsidian 37 Comments

Also, Commander is the most popular played format in tabletop. I believe Standard is still the most popular format played on digital.

Do you think this might be because Arena doesn't have a standardized Commander mode, and instead utilizes Historic Brawl as a close comparison?


That might play into it, but I assume the main reason is the desire for fast, competitive, one-on-one play.

Player Types Explanation

New 29 May 2024 Asked by windingmossyways 41 Comments

I was listening to some of the podcasts you put out leading up to Thunder Junction release and you mention types of players as "johnny" or "jenny" or "spike" and I was curious what you meant by that. I thought I understood from context when you were talking about "spikey" decks but then I heard the others and didn't feel sure. Are these players in the design team or pros that players are meant to be familiar with or something?


Here’s my article from the topic in 2006. Note I hadn’t yet added the female names for Timmy (Tammy) and Johnny (Jenny). (Spike is unisex.):

Learning to Lose

New 26 May 2024 Asked by trollmore 4 Comments

Magic taught me how to lose.I used to be both super competitive and an incredibly poor loser. It was affecting my relationships. One of the worst ways that cane out was while playing commander, since there was one guy in the pod a with a much higher budget and I was always throwing tantrums about how that was unfair.So I decided to fix it. I built a deck headed by Olivia, Mobilized for War full of madness draft chaff. The deck had enough synergy that playing it felt like I was doing something, like winning was possible, but wasn’t powerful enough that winning was actually *likely.*Then I sat down with that deck and I forced myself to keep losing games until I could tolerate it.It worked! Nowadays people love playing with me and I always try to make sure everyone’s having a good time, regardless of who wins. I’m a much better person because of this game. Thanks for everything that you do!


Thanks for sharing.

Extra Deck Mechanic Odds

New 20 May 2024 Asked by pallidpunkprincess 22 Comments

With the recent banning of stickers and attractions, do you think there will ever be an extra deck mechanic targeted at competitive constructed?


Anytime in the near future, unlikely.

Pro Tour Update

New 16 May 2024 Asked by eternalcheechako 3 Comments

has there been any public announcement about the status of the pro tour since the August 2020 announcement that "we're taking the year off" and to stay tuned for a 2021 announcement (which I can't find)?


The Pro Tour has started again. We just had one held in Seattle last month, and the next one is in June at MagicCon Amsterdam.

Competitive vs Casual Play

New 08 May 2024 Asked by zackdes44 26 Comments

For about a year during COVID, I played cEDH. I find my greater understanding of the stack, interaction, timing, etc make me a much better casual magic player and I enjoy the game more. Do you think players should learn to play competitive magic, even if they want to be casual players?


I think people should play in whatever way makes the game the most enjoyable for them.

Token Slot Complexity

New 06 May 2024 Asked by stormcrow13 15 Comments

About the suggestion of a second token slot being surprisingly complicated. There was a time when there was no token/ad/minigame slot in packs. How complicated was it when the pro tour player profile cards were added then turned into the ad/token slot?


Making a draft booster is a different animal than making a set booster. The play boosters are far closer to a set booster than a draft booster, so comparing it to old draft booster executions is comparing apples and oranges.

Combinatorics in Partner Mechanic

New 04 May 2024 Asked by guardgomabroa 50 Comments

Preface to say I don't know how combinatorics work, but can you explain why they impact partner-commander power level? The most recent partner commander, Francisco, is a mono-black pirate typal card, and I don't understand how his mere existence could affect the power of a deck that has, as a random example, Yoshimaru and Slurrk as its commanders.


Let me explain. Combinatorics is the math of how things combine. Let’s say I have two cards with partner. There’s only one combination: 1+2. Now imagine I have three cards with partner. Now there are three combinations: 1+2, 1+3, & 2+3. Let’s keep going.Four cards: six combinations Five cards: ten combinations Six cards: fifteen combinations Seven cards: twenty-one combinationsEight cards: twenty-eight combinationsNine cards: thirty-six combinationsTen cards: forty-five combinations Each time you add another card it adds whatever that number card is (call it N) by N-1. What this means is the numbers get larger and larger with each new card you add. The third card added just two new combinations, but the fiftieth adds forty-nine more. Power level follows this progression. To make the math simple, let’s say 10% of the combinations are strong enough to be competitive. As you get more and more cards, the number of competitive card combinations goes up faster. That’s was the crux of my point. The more partner cards we make, the more combinations increase and the greater likelihood of things breaking. And it gets worse the more cards you have. We don’t look at it as any one card in a vacuum. We examine the mathematical probability of problem combinations getting created.

First Limited PT Event with Stamps

New 02 May 2024 Asked by gattm 20 Comments

Hi Mark! I was wondering when the first limited PT event with stamped cards was. Was there any limited events in the 1996 season? I recently came across an Ice Age card with a stamp and I was trying to see if it were a real WoTC event stamp or if it were something someone else did after the fact. Thanks!


The second ever pro tour, Pro Tour Los Angeles 1996, was the first limited pro tour and the first one with stamped cards.

Pro Tour Attendance Query

New 27 Apr 2024 Asked by godkingjinping 14 Comments

Will you be at the pro tour


I was yesterday.

Trivia on Magic's Psychology

New 22 Apr 2024 Asked by badgerbattalion 36 Comments

Hey Mark, I’d love some birthday Trivia on psychology or philosophy in magic!


The Timmy/Tammy, Johnny/Jenny, and Spike psychographics are based upon a tool used in advertising to understand the psychology of a brand’s users. I created the psychographics as a way for the designers to think about why players played certain cards. Part of my fascination with psychology comes from my mom who’s a psychologist.Happy Birthday!

Snow Basics Explanation

New 14 Apr 2024 Asked by honor-basquiat 72 Comments

Hi Mark,I don't understand why snow covered basics are a mistake, can you please explain? They are probably the most popular snow cards among the player base and in competitive constructed formats snow basics aren't causing any development or balance issues. They also aren't causing development or balance issues in Commander. I believe snow as a super type would be significantly less popular if snow basics didn't exist and as an archetype mechanically speaking the snow matters cards would be much weaker.


If snow-covered basic lands were non-basic, we would have costed the entire snow economy around that which would have made things significantly easier. The rewards could have been higher to balance that you couldn’t easily have as many.

Restricted List Usage

New 14 Apr 2024 Asked by butttaco7 18 Comments

When or if: formats other than Legacy using Restricted? Or is that out of your wheelhouse?


If. Restriction raises variance which is something we try to avoid for competitive tournament play.


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