Commander Powertable

[Judaspriester]

1. What turn do you usually get your commander out by?

I've found this to usually be a pretty good indicator of deck strength. Most cEDH decks get their commander out by turn 3 or sooner (partner commanders are the exception) and many strong casual decks will get their commander out a turn or two above curve. If you're casting a 6-mana commander on turn 6, it's an indication of either not enough mana ramp, or a slow gameplan. Possibly both.

I have to disagree on this one. I could get my Merieke Ri Berit fairly consistently out on turn three but I would hardly call that an achievement because A) I don't usually want to do that B) I play taplands and still get her out. Something like Hope of Ghirapur would totally ruin this category.

However... Casting commander ahead of curve is a good indication of ramp power. My friend won't cast Kozilek on T11 but more like T6-T7, which is an indication of really good ramp power. Perhaps the correct wording is: "how much ahead of the curve can you cast your commander?" I know something like Hope of Ghirapur and Rhys the Redeemed still get poor scores.

That isn't a that big deal. First of all I would go the way like you already mentioned, to take a look on how fast I can play my commander compared to its cmc. Rhys on turn 1 isn't exactly an archivement, Memnarch on the other hand would be a powerful play on turn 3. So if we make a rating from 1-6, playing the commander on curve would be either 3 or 4.

/edit: clarification.

[CleanBelwas]

I agree with MustaKotka, but I also think the problem extends further than that.

The biggest issue with determining a power level is that EDH as a format has such a variety of players that want different things.

The clearest distinction for what I mean is EDH vs cEDH.

In EDH, people are usually looking to play a good game of interactive magic, playing powerful cards and doing cool stuff. It is not uncommon, nor unwanted, for games to go 10+ turns even without hard stax effects. When people play like this, it's not really a big deal if you play your commander out a bit later because a) they have a high cmc or b) it better suits your game plan. But this kind of play style simply will not cut the mustard in cEDH.

Personally I feel that comparing cEDH and non-cEDH decks is like comparing lemons and limes. They're similar sure, but ultimately different. I think it would probably be worth having separate systems for ranking cEDH and "regular" EDH decks. I think the criteria for what makes a deck effective and powerful are different enough that there could be two systems. There could even be a pre-cursor check list for the cEDH list. A list of criteria (to be defined) that a deck must fulfil to meet the requirements before it's even assessed to stop people overestimating their deck's power level, assuming it's a cEDH deck or close to one and scoring it incorrectly.

I touched on this earlier in the thread when I suggested the idea of weighting categories based on priority, but I think that remains one of the biggest issues that these kinds of scoring systems need to get around. Different decks are going to care about the same categories different amounts.

As MustaKotka points out with his HoG example, there will always be times when a given deck will answer a certain category in a way that belies it's power level. HoG will likely never be a cEDH deck, but has the potential to be reasonably powerful. However, it is always going to boss the "When can you get your commander out by" question.

TL;DR

1) There is an argument that cEDH and EDH decks can and should be assessed, ranked and scored with different systems.
2) Being able to make scores contextually relevant to the deck so that it's score is based on areas that the deck wants to prioritise and focus on is still a fairly major hurdle as there are too many edge cases that undermine regular questions.

[Judaspriester]

Well, I've already wrote how the HoG problem could be somewhat solved. It's much more an archivement to play Memnarch on turn 3 than HoG on turn 1, so I wouldn't "punish" a HoG deck by giving it the maximum rating, because it has got a cmc 1 commander. It should only end up in the (upper?) middle field.

About EDH vs cEDH, I think differing here wouldn't help at all. I agree with you, that the deck have a different focus, but it's not like you can draw a sharp line where you can say "this is cEDH and this is not". Also the evaluation of the decks will be somewhat dependant on the player. there will always be cases where player A says that's a 3, but player B says that's already a 4. But at least within the playgroup, this should somewhat balance out.

Besides that, we can write a master thesis about this problem and there would still be some edge cases that would undermine the system. But for me this isn't a big deal. You can still say that your deck is a strong 4 star deck or a weak 4 star deck.
The big idea behind this whole table was to give the players an indicator how strong their deck is compared to others, based on some regular questions. So the question would be "do we need to cover all edge cases?". I would say no, just try to aim for the big ones.

[CleanBelwas]

Well, I've already wrote how the HoG problem could be somewhat solved. It's much more an archivement to play Memnarch on turn 3 than HoG on turn 1, so I wouldn't "punish" a HoG deck by giving it the maximum rating, because it has got a cmc 1 commander. It should only end up in the (upper?) middle field.

I'm not sure that comparing a commanders CMC to the turn it can come out is necessarily an accurate depiction of power though. Often it will be, but there are a lot of decks whose game plan doesn't revolve around getting their commander out as soon as possible. While I agree that any system can't account for every edge case, I think the more we can cover the better, and this one seems like one that will crop up enough and be impactful enough that it could do with some consideration.

My Scarab God deck tends to spend it's first few turns killing, countering and milling so that by the time I play him the graveyards are nice and full. My Scarab God is by no means the most powerful version of a Scarab God deck, but this strategy is fairly common for what is a reasonably powerful commander. I'd say there are a decent number of powerful decks who look to play their commander only when they are in position to make the best use of it (generally the more control based decks that are looking to make the game go longer and control the board until they strike). This is part of their plan and doesn't detract from their power.

"How soon can you deck enact it's game plan" is kind of what we are after, but is probably ultimately too vague.

About EDH vs cEDH, I think differing here wouldn't help at all. I agree with you, that the deck have a different focus, but it's not like you can draw a sharp line where you can say "this is cEDH and this is not". Also the evaluation of the decks will be somewhat dependant on the player. there will always be cases where player A says that's a 3, but player B says that's already a 4. But at least within the playgroup, this should somewhat balance out.

This is probably fair. I think I got a little too wrapped up in objective scoring and forgot about simply the context of playing with your play group which will bring it's own familiarities and unspoken knowledge. It kind of doesn't matter if a group tend to grossly over estimate a decks power level as long as they do it for all decks, because they will at least still be in similar ball parks to each other.

Besides that, we can write a master thesis about this problem and there would still be some edge cases that would undermine the system. But for me this isn't a big deal. You can still say that your deck is a strong 4 star deck or a weak 4 star deck.
The big idea behind this whole table was to give the players an indicator how strong their deck is compared to others, based on some regular questions. So the question would be "do we need to cover all edge cases?". I would say no, just try to aim for the big ones.

You're right of course, it will never be able to cover every edge case. The more we can cover though, the better, and if we identify one it's always worth bringing it up in case someone can think of a solution.

[Judaspriester]

Well, I've already wrote how the HoG problem could be somewhat solved. It's much more an archivement to play Memnarch on turn 3 than HoG on turn 1, so I wouldn't "punish" a HoG deck by giving it the maximum rating, because it has got a cmc 1 commander. It should only end up in the (upper?) middle field.

I'm not sure that comparing a commanders CMC to the turn it can come out is necessarily an accurate depiction of power though. Often it will be, but there are a lot of decks whose game plan doesn't revolve around getting their commander out as soon as possible. While I agree that any system can't account for every edge case, I think the more we can cover the better, and this one seems like one that will crop up enough and be impactful enough that it could do with some consideration.

I agree with you that not every deck has the gameplan to get the commander out asap, but the speed you're able to do this is a good indicator for many decks in terms of speed and colorfixing. Even if you don't want to play your cmc 6 commander on turn 4, if your deck regulary allows you to do this it's still an indicator for how good is  your deck in collecting ressources.

This is something you can evaluate. The gameplan is a way to wague construct to be evaluated with some simple criteria, but you've already noticed that yourself.

About EDH vs cEDH, I think differing here wouldn't help at all. I agree with you, that the deck have a different focus, but it's not like you can draw a sharp line where you can say "this is cEDH and this is not". Also the evaluation of the decks will be somewhat dependant on the player. there will always be cases where player A says that's a 3, but player B says that's already a 4. But at least within the playgroup, this should somewhat balance out.

This is probably fair. I think I got a little too wrapped up in objective scoring and forgot about simply the context of playing with your play group which will bring it's own familiarities and unspoken knowledge. It kind of doesn't matter if a group tend to grossly over estimate a decks power level as long as they do it for all decks, because they will at least still be in similar ball parks to each other.

I also think so. There will always be some small differences in evaluation, but that's already given by the fact that we can't make the check list crystal clear. Within the playgroup this should usually balance out over time. If you've got 1 person that over/underrates their decks, the group will usually notice this, and react to this (either by giving him tips how to adjust the ratings, or by learning what the score would mean in their own measurement).
Between groups there could be bigger gap, but I don't think that the evaluations will differ by more than one point (given an 1-6 rating with taking the average in order to compare the decks).

[CleanBelwas]

I agree with you that not every deck has the gameplan to get the commander out asap, but the speed you're able to do this is a good indicator for many decks in terms of speed and colorfixing. Even if you don't want to play your cmc 6 commander on turn 4, if your deck regulary allows you to do this it's still an indicator for how good is  your deck in collecting ressources.

Yea that's probably pretty reasonable actually. What turn could you rather than what turn do you will denote an amount of the fixing and ramp options your deck has, which definitely contributes to it's overall power.

Plus it's probably not unreasonable to assume that, generally speaking, commanders with high and awkward casting costs aren't ever going to be the most powerful. I had a Progenitus deck that could consistently get him out around turn 5 or 6, but against super powerful decks I'd already be dead. Powerful as he is on the field, Progenitus will likely never be a top tier commander.

[dexflux]

TL;DR

1) There is an argument that cEDH and EDH decks can and should be assessed, ranked and scored with different systems.
2) Being able to make scores contextually relevant to the deck so that it's score is based on areas that the deck wants to prioritise and focus on is still a fairly major hurdle as there are too many edge cases that undermine regular questions.

The entire notion of ranking decks assumes maximum competitiveness as a ceiling, therefore a "regular" EDH deck would simply be an average or bad deck in terms of powerlevel. Hence, there is no need to differentiate between EDH and cEDH - cEDH is to EDH what Modern tournaments are to Kitchen Table Magic with the Modern cardpool and banlist. Ultimately the same format with different levels of competitiveness - the thing we want to measure.

Edit: I think it's safe to assume that the slugfest that is the common EDH game is not played at a high powerlevel. And it's fun. We just have to embrace that we can't rank some jank as an above average deck when the ceiling is TnT, Flash Hulk and company.