‘Ello ladles and jellyspoons! Today’s article is a trap! Yep, pure triggered clickbait. But I really do think that LGS owners should push for formats other than Commander and Standard week after week. Here is why:
*Before anyone gets the wrong idea and thinks that I don’t like, enjoy, respect, and/or appreciate Standard and Commander; that is not the case.*
In fact, I’m most impressed by who ever wins a Standard Pro Tour (or “Mythic Championship” now, whatever you want to call it…) as I think it’s the most difficult Pro Tour format to win (article on that later actually). Standard is the most popular competitive FNM format that newer players gravitate towards after outgrowing casual kitchen table Magic. Standard plays a major role in a player’s journey down the rabbit hole, kind of like a “gateway drug” that later leads to Modern and Legacy. Most importantly, Standard is Wizards’ bread and butter money maker. Pro Tour coverage pushes the newest cards that makes people want to go out and crack packs. Wizards doesn’t make any money when people buy thousand dollar Power 9 pieces, they make their money off people chasing rares and cracking Standard packs. And by nature of the format, it requires constant monetary upkeep from rotation to rotation to keep your Standard deck legal even if you just buy singles.
Casual Commander I’ve been finding in recent years has been responsible for introducing a lot of first time players to the game. Often by a friend or family member played on kitchen tables, Commander has become the default feel good have fun Magic format. This is super important because in order for a business to grow, so does their player base and if Wizards can nurture this format as an avenue to attract newer players then great! You’re average casual Commander player is the type of person that will buy a booster pack or two every payday. However, Modern players (sad to say it) are not buying booster packs (unless it’s Modern Horizons…) we might pick up a playset of things like Assassin’s Trophy every now and then but Wizards has already got all their money out of Modern grinders. Wizards relies on your average casual player to buy booster packs, open up a single bomb rare, and jam it in their pet deck. Casual Commander makes up a huge portion of the Magic player base and needs to protected to ensure a thriving business and for the health of the game in general. *For the record I love me some good ol’ casual Commander, I’ve got Mono-Green Bounteous Kirin lifegain Arcane spells and Talrand “Police Officer” built. Commander (outside of GPs and PTs) is the glue that holds the game together and casual is the purest form of Magic. #endrant
Now the part you guys are going to hate me for so gather around for story time w/ Burt:
So it’s Amonkhet Standard and I’m down at my LGS on a Friday night. I see a fresh new face sitting down at the end of the table. Glancing over, I noticed he had the tier 1 Mono-Black Zombies deck sleeved up. He won FNM that night beating me for 1st place. I continue to see him for a couple of weeks until rotation comes. Guess who I never saw at FNM again? Run into him about a month later at the grocery store.
“Hey bud, haven’t seen you at FNM lately.”
“Yeah, half my deck rotated so I sold what I could for pennies.”
I saw this happen before during Origins with a guy playing Izzet Spells. His deck rotated and we never saw him again for the same reason. Now I’m not saying that this always the case but this could have been prevented. What I’m talking about is customer retention.
This is the issue I have with LGSs who push Standard every Friday night. Sure, it sells packs and for new Magic players the price tag on a tier 1 Standard deck that can win Pro Tours is much less horrifying than…
It would be advisable for LGS owners to stop picking the low hanging fruit and start considering the long term by focusing on customer retention. This can be achieved by educating newer players about the future pitfalls of playing Standard and gently nudging them towards eternal formats. Modern and even Legacy come to mind (and believe me, Modern is my baby) but I honestly feel like Pauper is a LGS’s saving grace. It’s cheap, it’s competitive, it doesn’t rotate, and newer players are able to grow with and later master the deck as their skill progresses. Start a Pauper League! Put up some foil Brainstorms for the 1st place prize… Something to help LGSs from losing players to “first time Standard rotation syndrome”. I love Standard, it’s an integral part of Magic as a whole but we need to encourage more *sustainable* formats for FNM.
*Now if your LGS does (for example) Modern one week, Standard the next, 1v1 Commander after that, and Pauper on the last Friday (basically a good mix of formats for FNM) then disregard everything you’ve read.*
Now, here is my issue with Commander as an FNM format: ITS BASICALLY A SINGLETON 100 CARD VERSION OF LEGACY! Heck, we even get to play with cards deemed too busted and banned in Legacy but are legal only in Commander! Turn 2 kills from Breakfast Hulk… Before you say it sounds like I’m complaining, actually I’m not. I enjoy degenerate cEDH and 1v1 Commander. The issue is that it’s a dangerous format because the power level is so unregulated that your average casual Commander player that signs up for their first FNM is going to get wrecked. Which sucks because we are presented with a dilemma: how do we take something that was intended to be fun and social in nature and make it a competitive format for FNM? It goes against the founding principles, the spirit of Commander, that the format originated from.
But when you give me a sky’s the limit banned list like Commander you bet your buns I’m going to build the most degenerate Grixis Storm deck that I can throw 2,882$ at. I’m not paying to lose. I’m not here to ensure you have fun. I’m here to win. It’s what paid my hard earned money (even if it’s only 5$) and submitted my DCI number to play in. Now, before you accuse me of being a cruel heartless Spike who only derives pleasure from winning: I thoroughly enjoy playing casual Commander and audibly saying “Meeeey-ahhhh!” every time I create 2/2 drake token when I play Talrand. (In fact, I’m such a good sport I even make the drake noises when someone else steals my Talrand and starts making drakes with him.)
Which leads me to my second story:
A couple weeks ago I 3-0’ed my local FNM (mostly from getting lucky and riding the back of a Glacial Chasm because people people didn’t have a way to remove it (which is a whole other article in it’s own)). But here is what happened a week later. I go back down for a Sunday chaos draft (my favorite 🤗) and the person who I beat round one a week before was there. As I walk through the door I hear him groan and say, “Oh he’s here? F*** this.” gets up and walks out. He was going to draft. He was going to be a paying customer. Now I’m not going to apologize for playing my deck to the best of my abilities at a competitive REL level sanctioned event that I paid money to compete in a week before, that’s not my point. My point is that when people show up for Commander FNM with their cat tribal precon deck and someone shows up with a cEDH deck…
That is the risk a LGS owner takes when they decide to schedule Commander as their FNM format week after week. Burning poor casual players because Commander’s power level is so vast. It’s appealing because so many people play Commander and on the surface people imaging the fun battle ship version of the game that they fondly remember playing with their friends, but they don’t realize that they are playing in a format that has access to some of the most broken cards in Magic. Honestly, I wish there was an established “power level system” for Commander to divide the format into agreed upon power brackets (or something…) to help remedy this issue. But for the time being, I hope shop owners will be more cautious about pushing Commander FNM four Fridays in a row (or at least let people know what they are getting into before they single-handedly lose to a Glacial Chasm…)
In conclusion: Standard and Commander players are integral to the sustainability of the game and something we should protect and help grow. Even if you don’t play Standard or Commander this concept still effects you; because usually that’s how people start playing Modern, Legacy, and even Vintage. They start by playing Standard or Commander and branch out from there. I don’t like to play Arena personally, I like paper Magic where where I can read people’s bluffs, physically place my blockers on top of their declared attackers, or see when they have a combat trick if they move a card to the front of their hand as I’m considering attacks. But Arena and it’s Twitch audience is drawing in more and more new players to the game which is good. More players means more people trickling into Modern and Legacy in the long run. I love this game and need more people to play Modern and Legacy with. More people, more cards, cheaper prices for everyone overall. So do your part and help a friend branch out into new formats, show a friend Magic for the first time, or get your buddy who used to play years ago back into the game by inviting them to chaos draft.
Thanks for reading! I hope my abstract article didn’t tilt people too bad. Blow me up on Facebook in the comment section about how I’m wrong 😛
And as always, if you’re in the market for some snazzy new sleeves be sure to cruise on over to the shop and use my discount code MADMAGIC for 15% off on your next purchase.
