How consistent is your playgroup? And how does that affect your deck building?

[CleanBelwas]

Hi all,

There is a thread going around at the moment where people are discussing The Command Zone deck building template and how much it lines up with their builds.

I was looking through it and I realised that my decks aren't particularly close, but a lot of people are saying that theirs are.

It got me wondering why that might be, and I realised that most of my deck building decisions are based heavily on my meta.

For example, I run very few board wipes. Most decks don't run any, and only two decks have more than 1 (because they make sense with the themes of the deck).

This is as a direct result of my playgroup getting tired of games where the board is getting constantly wiped and 1 game takes all night. We like quick games. Win or lose, we shuffle up and play again. We didn't discuss this directly, but it's a move that everyone just starting to do, and our game nights are a lot more fun as a result.

So now I'm curious. How much does the consistency (or lack there of) of your playgroup affect your deck building?

Does it impact the amount of each kind of card you include?
Are there cards you only include because you have a consistent group and a strong meta that would otherwise be cut?
Do you try and make sure your deck(s) will fair well at any table?
Do you try and keep a mix of "appropriate for my meta" and "good at any table" decks?

[Hyedris]

Hi, I have the same playgroup for years, and I tend to follow some rules.

They have a lot of removal and board wipes (hitting nonland permanents), so I don't use a lot of artifact-based ramp (sol ring, signets, etc.), and I build my decks with extra protection (counterspells, boros charm/heroic intervention). Also I have less board wipes, they use them for me

My friends are under the impression that "the player with the most cards in hand must be the one who is going to win", so it makes him/her a target. I try to use fewer draw cards so that I go unnoticed.

They also talk a lot and form alliances, so a little bit of "politics" never hurts...

[Morganator 2.0]

I guess I'm going to be the odd-one out here. My group has close to 20 people that show up on a regular basis (at least once a week out of the three available days) and countless others that show up semi-regularly. We have people of all ages, backgrounds, and orientations. We meet between two different game stores. We even have our own Discord server. I'm kinda the defacto leader of the group. I make the best decks and I'm the one that organizes all the events and play-days, so everyone just kinda follows my lead. I also used to go to other, less popular game stores and recruit other people to join our group. We'd play some commander games and if I though they were good people I'd offer for them to join our big group. Every that has joined has said it's so much better than where they were before.

All of this is from the before-times. We still keep contact with each other but none of us are vaccinated so we're biding our time.

The result of having a large group is having a large variety of decks and power levels. That's probably why I have a mild obsession with rating power levels; I want to make an accurate metric for my group to use. I try to make a wide variety of decks for me to use, but I'm not very good at it. I like playing strong decks. I like tinkering with them to see what cool new things I can make them do. To make up for this, I also help a lot of people upgrade their decks, and I give Powerpoint presentations on better deck-building strategies (not kidding, it's dumb but it works).

We have a strong sense of community and I'm proud of that. Who you play with is more important than what you play with.

[Bonethousand]

My playgroup has lost all luster for infinite combos and games that last too long. So, over time our decks have gotten a lot splashier and less durdley. We jokingly complain that we never play removal, but I think none of us are that concerned with it anymore. It frees up slots to run more synergy pieces and to do ridiculous stuff. Our games have evolved into showing off what absurd things we can do, and then we play it out, or more often than not the person in the lead scoops, because they've done what they've set out to do.

[WizardSpartan]

I have a very consistent & small playgroup that I haven't met with since pre-Covid (we've played online a couple times, but not much), but most of my play has been online with randoms.

Because of how much work I've done on my decks during quarantine, I'd say that I am no longer building for a specific playgroup. If I was building for my playgroup, I would probably be dropping a lot of my removal, as it wouldn't be necessary (as a result of my playgroup's style/power level).

I'm building for online play, with varying playstyles, power level, strategies, etc., so all of my decks have ample removal & protection, etc. so I can deal with whatever I'm up against. That's probably the reason why I have (to me) an abnormal amount of protection, especially in my non-blue decks.

[Mynus]

My playgroup has about 8 people, but each week it is typically the same core 3-4 with others showing more sporadically. Our powerlevels since I have joined have all started to rise with players upgrading to compete, which causes others to upgrade, and so on and on. This is about the extent that it affects my deck building.

I build decks with budget in mind, I am usually aiming for the cards I purchase to be under $100 total. If it works and I like it, I do a few small upgrades to get it to a point that it has some consistency to it, after that I leave it alone and enjoy playing it. But I don't stay on a deck for too long, I end up brewing something new every couple months. I occasionally circle back to the decks I really enjoyed and invest a couple more cards into them. None of my decks will ever make it to cEDH power level (on purpose), but I never really feel underpowered in our games. I also heavily invest my deck building strategy with the commander, I want my deck to reflect the goal that my commander has set (which I think can be a hindrance to power level at times). At the end of the day, I would rather build an entirely new budget deck, then spend that money to upgrade any deck past a certain point. Building the deck is much of the enjoyment for me.


We have one player that builds higher level decks, but with politics and everyone else usually assuming he is the threat, the games are typically fair. Does he win on turn 4 occasionally, yes, but that means we get to go to the next game.

[jlutzxinc]

I have my own thread about the kind of people in my regular group, but I'll mention again that a lot of them are very aggressive (but for fun, because we like that style).  There are also a lot of random people (many of whom we recruit from various "git gud"-type groups because we don't like scrublords), but they jump right in along the same lines.  I'm de facto default "leader" because everyone looks up to me, but I dislike that as I'm not really worth it.

We have a REALLY long blacklist that also incorporates a whitelist (including Mystery Booster "test cards"), use the old Companion mechanic, and almost always form a single game with everyone present rather than split it up (with the exception that people allowed one blacklisted card are separate from people not using any) but we share no other hard-and-fast ground rules; we don't like "cheese strategies" like Infect but won't forbid them, and we don't like wildly expensive cards but still use what we have.

My Deckbuilding is internally consistent because I know what to expect and would rather build what I love than let them decide, and I often hold off on becoming "the threat" early in favor of a "final turn" that can defeat any number of people because I know I won't win AT ALL otherwise.  I almost never pay "Commander tax" because I usually only cast my Commander once.

[robort]

There is 2 consistant groups. The Thursday night group and the Saturday afternoon group. There is a complete mixture of decks that are brought to each group as well.  I would also say I have set the standard of "playing the game". I am not really out to win I play for the enjoyment and seeing the different interactions and decks that are brought. So I personally don't care what deck you plop down to play because I will grab whatever deck and bring it out. I have been titled the chaos player but not so much I play chaos decks more like I play chaos cards. Cards that don't see play or I will play a card without regards to what you are doing or what cards you may or may not be holding. I don't really do threat assessments because if it looks like a threat on the board to me I will try deal with it. You tell me "You attack me this will happen", I will attack you just to see if you are bluffing or not. I put something on the field and you guys now deal with it. So a few of the others have made decks that are made with my playstyle for the pure enjoyment of the game. They still of course have their other decks and I have played against most of them all ready. When we break into 2-4 pods we announce what type of pod is happening. Everything from cedh, optimized and so forth.

Both my playgroups though are laid back and we just enjoy playing magic.

[fluffyp]

My group all play the same every time, and I'm the only one that builds on a regular basis.  Two of my group like to be very flashy and they seem threatening straight away, the other person likes to do nothing then suddenly one-shot someone. I like to ensure everyone has a good time but remains constantly unsure what I'm going to do and what threat I pose   I also don't mind going out first and watching everyone else play their decks.  I learn a lot by watching.  We have a few rules and deliberately keep the competitive level down.  I very purposefully do not run tutors in my decks, nor do we use expensive fetch lands; no land destruction except the very odd Decimate here and there; no stax (if we can help it); basically, nothing that actually "prevents" someone else playing the game.  We like fun, splashy plays and surprise attacks and we don't go crazy with the budget so we can limit the power creep.  Most of my decks hover around the £100 mark, and some of my best came in much cheaper.