The EDHRec Effect

Reality Acid in brago is pretty good though

I haven't played magic for like 14 years and edhrec has been nice to find cards that I've never seen or heard of, but back in the day I loved crafting my own decks. Hopefully I'll get there again someday

I’m sorry man but you’ll have to pry reality acid from my cold, dead hands. I love that card so much in my Brago deck 😭

This explains so much confusion I've faced looking at edhrec.

Am I guilty of putting illusionist's bracers into sisay, even though I've never used it in a game? Yes.

Does that stop timmy brain? no.

why would wave of reckoning need arcades to remain on board? it isn't arcades itself that makes that card especially good in an arcades deck, it's the fact that you're already playing a bunch of 0-power creatures because they synergize with arcades, and then you find yourself saying "well would you look at that, I have a bunch of 0-power creatures, that makes wave of reckoning a one-sided wrath." it's still one-sided even if your arcades was removed

The subject of this video is rather weird as EDH inherently is a casual format and any real cEDH player will be netdecking the majority of their given list from the communities that play that particular commander. Who is the real targeted audience of this video?

I agree, some commanders can even choose between multiple strategies and EDHREC will show u all the cards, so be carefull and make sure you focus on your chosen win con.

I just try to play my junk. And if i win is a bonus

so far my best decks are the (or the ones I felt I was doing well with) where the ones I used EHREC as a starting point then went and found my own cards.

I think the best thing to do is build the deck like ehrec says, then look at what your commander theme is and look through gatherer for cards with the same theme, for my Volo deck I went okay it's copies and no more than one of each monster type with some exceptions, I then just went through every monster type for cards and picked the green,blue ones and then decided, is this worth the mana cost and is doubling it a good idea, if it's legendary/uses a type I already have is it still worth it.

That being said ehrec does have it's benefits, when I first tried making commander decks I just picked commanders that I assumed had good effects and making decks on paper for them, luckily I had a pro who would tell me no their bad before I spent money on them, but ehrec is good for figuring out where a card is in the ranking (and when your basically thrown into the deep end as I was being able to find the best commanders fast is pretty good), it's also good at letting you get a general group of cards so you don't end up like some of my decks where I've dumped like 50 different monsters and now have to sort through them to get only 25

Tbh the more I have played commander, the less I've used edhrec, often I use edhrec to see
A. What others use or other strategies people play
B. Unique or cool commanders that I want to build around
C. Generally to see some cards I might miss
But overall, I just think that its not as useful as some say. For some newer players to commander, I tell them not to use EDHREC until they are mostly done building, and every time they come out with way better decks.

EDHRec more like EDHNetDeck amirite fellas

Commander being in a non-solved state is actually so good! Creativity alive is awesome

How did you say so little in 14 painful minutes 😂

Never talk to me or my little dudes again

this could be a metaphor for ai if you wanted to

Just so you know, Snail, at the beginning of your video,you said that when Magic was created, it followed the template of other card games. However, this is untrue. It made the template, as it was the first deckbuilding card game ever released!

EDH Rec should be used as a starting point, you as the human have to make the conscious decisions about designing your deck. I often scroll through EDHrec and reject some of the options.

While not a common occurence, there was a case for me, where Crucible of Fire actually won me the game from blink of defeat, by just spamming high power Dragons with Warstorm surge already on the field to deal imediete damage to my opponent and melting them before it was their turn, as I would have not survived another turn

I put in a Kalamax, The Stormsire deck I was working on earlier and the top suggested card was Wilderness Reclamation, a card which is like… good in the abstract but has nothing to do with my deck really.

The reason? Those two cards were released in the same set, and it's in the Kalamax pre-con. It's literally only there because of people upgrading their precons, not because it's good in the deck at all.

And I see this right after I bought a bunch of cards based on edhRec....

I use EDHREC from a top-down approach. I use the average deck as a template and then I start adding my own sauce into the mix.

You're pretty woah

trying to run simic aggro without running merfolk tribal has taught me to mistrust edhrec lol

My man really said wombo combo in 2024.......
Subscribed.

I use EDHRec to find cards I didn't know about, I often take cards that are lower in the ranking because they fit the style of deck I'm building more than the common cards.
but I am a weird player who prefers obscure junk to proper efficient gameplay, I don't even play sol ring in my decks.

I think the worst part of EDHREC, for me, is when looking at face or secondary commanders for precons the cards that would normally be clear cuts are pushed with like 60% rates lol

Haven't played MTG since high school but damn do I love when people to stat related analysis. The fact that the data isn't independent should be painfully obvious to anyone but it is clear how people don't realize it. Also could be a bit of the perception problem. A soccer player has pretty good odds if they kick it straight down the middle as keepers dive to one side the large majority of the time...but if they don't dive...you look like a dope who kicked it straight at the keeper. Not running certain cards might have that impact. "You didn't run in X in your Y deck? No wonder you lost!" might not be explicitly said, but I bet the sentiment has been tossed around more than a few times...

People shouldnt copy paste decks, you should consider your own playstyle and interests and make decks around your own ideas. These websites are great for inspiration or even suggesting something you didnt think of, but you shouldnt rely on them.

I like the video as a whole, but I’d have to disagree with reality acid in a brago/flicker deck example. Reality acid is a great repeatable removal piece. It gets around shroud and Hexproof if you flicker it. It also gets around indestructible and regenerate because it forces a sac.

EDHREC is the best tool to know where to start when building a commander deck. Its not perfect, nothing will ever be perfect and we all have weird pet cards that dont get reccommended. My issue with EDH rec is its TOO data driven. I rarely see anything creative. Its basically always the same deck with various levels of optomization. Itll give you other archetypes which is nice but its the same thing all the decks are basically the same.

Tasijoker not lives rent free in my head, I hope you're happy

i always prefered to mark my commanders color identity in scryfall and have a look through thousands of cards, rather than use EDHRec

It’s good to call out edhrec copy pasting and i understand that you are trying to call out people for not knowing what the cards in their decks are for but it feels like you are just saying you want faster less durdly games. If I can’t play a 5 mana enchantment that buffs my dragons or panharmonicon then why am I playing EDH? I might as weep go back to modern. The speeding up and “optimizing” of the format is what’s killing commanders to most people.

I just use the "add to card" feature of deckbuilding sites, and never update the deck if I make changes.

When I play the deck, and remove an underperforming card for a much needed removal spell, the deckbuilding sites may never hear about this change.

As a result, edhrec may have a lot more first draft decks, and fewer well tuned decks.

Brenard, Ginger Sculptor has this problem with Academy Manufactor

I agree with the sentiment of not looking at it as the bible, but IDK about those Illusionist's Bracers. They look kinda functional in my Merieke deck.

I AM telling you not to use EDHrec

Now imagine someone did something like that but not for Magic but to control cars, decide insurance terms, write books about foraging or check for copyright infringement. That would be wild right?

for an example of the titular effect: people please stop running swiftfoot boots and lightning greaves on Narset, Enlightened Master, she already innately has hexproof! especially don't run lightning greaves if you're playing her as a voltron deck you dummies, you can't put auras and equipment on her once you've given her shroud! seriously why do 18% of narset voltron decks have lightning greaves, please get help.
if you need to give her Haste, use Boots of Speed instead because at least it's doing something else for her (+1 power) and it's also dirt cheap to buy.

One of the games DeepBlue lost against Gary Kasparov, the DeepBlue team blamed on them loading the opening moves with standard data, and DeepBlue randomly picking one that its own analytics said was lousy, and turns out DeepBlue was smarter than the standard open books in chess, at least on that opening.

I only go to edhrec to look after new ideas when I need to fill some holes in my builds.

As someone with a YGO background, I am amazed at how little interaction people play in their commander decks outside of 2-3 board wipes. I hope your video inspires people to stuff their decks with single-target removal. Casting Murder shuts down 90% of commander decks for no reason other than people build their decks as "Commander plus 99 cards that work with Commander", instead of "99 cards that function without my commander but function even better with it."

Honestly one of the best uses for EDHREC is building cubes, because you choose an archetype that you want to build into the cube, then grab the ones that aren’t just “do x, do y” and also gives you the top commanders as an idea for some splashy multi-colour cards

This is why is I set all my lists as private if I'm just brewing.

This entirely applies to ai and ai assisted proofs that will be then become part of the database that LLMs pulls from -

While I agree with you, second harvest is one of the strongest cards in voló. In my deck it is usually a functional counter spell or removal most of the time. It’s a spell that can win the game, or interact as a copy of any removal/counter etb when behind.

Players that "didn't do anything the while game" will probably win the game because they didn't get targetted. Got some friend to play and I alway teach them to, first, alway swing with your creature if the attack make sense and second, don't have pity for players that misses their land drop or "do nothing".

Strands of Night, my beloved, you are my favorite recur spell next to Phyrexian Reclaimation and sometimes Debtor's Knell.

Origins in Alaska?!!! Wow, I had no idea it originated here!