After reading back over the last couple instalments of The Metaworker, I realised that some of the strategies I’ve been getting into might be a little heavy for the average playgroup. In fact, the whole concept of making appropriate meta choices sometimes has the effect of sparking a sort of arms race within a playgroup, where escalating power levels make the play style unforgiving and tedious.

Quite often you’ll hear spirited discussions about the “spirit of Commander” when you’re surfing the MagicTCG subreddit or the MTGSalvation Forums, and it’s a concept you may already be familiar with. In essence, it refers to the idea that Commander is a format whose loose rule structure allows for deck diversity and a more social environment. This removes a lot of the tension that’s associated with competitive Magic. Quite often this translates to deckbuilders making suboptimal card choices because they value things like flavour, interactivity, or inclusion of a pet card over closing the game out as early as possible.

With that in mind, let’s dive right into this week’s topic – Having Fun with our Friends, which I’m going to break down into three main ideas.

When I sit down with a group of people to play Commander, the very first thing I do is talk to them a little about what style of game they like to play. I do this because

The social nature of Commander thrives when all players in a game approach the game with similar ideas of what to expect.

You’ll notice that I very explicitly avoided using the words “spike” and “casual” in this definition because I believe there’s a lot of fun to be had at both ends of the competitive spectrum, as long as everyone in the game knows what they’re getting into. Sometimes the answer is “ramp to fatties and beat face”, other times it’s “Warp World and Goblin Game”, and in my own personal playgroup it’s “tax, stax, and efficient resource conversion (which is a concept we’ll be talking about in a later episode”.

2. Meta Choices are sometimes a means of powering down your deck diluting your strategy, if that’s what your meta calls for.

I haven’t really touched on this idea yet in these articles, but it is absolutely true. In any playgroup there’s bound to be a disparity in the deckbuilding skill and budget of each deckbuilder at the table. If you recognize that your own decks are at a significantly higher power level than what your friends can handle, and they’re not adapting to handle your strategy appropriately, it could be time to build a new deck.

3. Pull punches in deckbuilding, never in gameplay.

If you find yourself identifying with the situation I’ve described above, do your best to avoid pulling punches in gameplay. Letting people win because you’ve determined that your opponent’s deck is incapable of beating yours comes off as patronizing, and it has the tendency to escalate tensions rather than diffusing them. The time to pull your punches is in your card selection during deckbuilding, as it limits your access to tools you normally lean on as a player.