Faster game starts and smoother gameplay
Commander (EDH) forum
Posted on Dec. 12, 2023, 10:38 a.m. by HeadinPants
For the people like me who value getting as many games as possible in within the 3-4 hours I get to play magic each week, I would like to share some of the rules and tricks that my brother and I use on the regular.
1: Modification to rolling for first
It's not rolling for highest, but highest non-tie! Regardless of what dice are being rolled, this significantly cuts down on the number of times you have to reroll. Unless everyone in the pod ties, each player will only have to roll once.
2: Seeing the 8th
In multiplayer EDH, you are going to see your 8th card as soon as you take your first turn. If someone isn't sure they will have enough mana sources in their opening hand, allow them to look at the top card of their library to see if they draw into one. The odds of this working out are typically around 1/3, so that's 33%-ish fewer mulligans that have to be made. This is exceptionally useful for players who have long histories of being mana screwed (like me, even in my landfall deck >.>). If you are concerned that someone may use this to cheat for a better hand, have them reveal the top card rather than peek, and force them to mulligan if it isn't a mana source costing 2 or less.
3: Avoid tutors
Not only does this make the game more enjoyable overall, since it cuts back on people looking for combos, but it also cuts down on the number of times you will have to look through and/or shuffle your library. Now, I know some people may be thinking, "But what about my Cultivate/Farseek/Fabled Passage?" To that I say, "Avoid tutors, not exclude!" If (for example) you have 8 ramp or fixing pieces in your deck, and 6 of them involve searching for lands, consider replacing them with mana rocks or effects like Growth Spiral and increasing the amount of card advantage in the deck. Draw more cards and you will find more mana.
Gidgetimer says... #3
If these work for you and speed up the cadence of play for your playgroup, that is great. However; to me two of these "fix" non-issues and one encourages bad deck building. If I had to name the top 2 things that I feel people could do to speed up play I'd say:
Have a plan for your turn before it gets to your turn. You know at the end of your turn how much mana you will have on your next turn (to within 1 mana) and what cards you will have (minus 1) you can have a rough plan for your next turn before you even end the current one. Then you can just modify it as you draw cards and as other people take actions.
Don't take actions that don't advance the game. If you already over 100 life and no one can challenge your board position, there is no reason to gain another 5 life. If you already have everything you could want for protection and a win condition online, there is no reason to draw more cards. If the actions you are taking don't decrease your win clock or improve resilience there is no reason to take them.
December 12, 2023 12:37 p.m.
The single biggest thing I have done to speed up games was convince my playgroup that it is okay to concede. There used to be so much "I might have something", "I want to see it played out", "What if he makes a mistake?", and other useless time wasting shit. We could spend up to an hour on a single turn because one player wanted to see if the combo player would mess up the combo. An absolute waste of time.
Now, if I get my combo out I say "This is my combo, I have X pieces of protection. Can anyone stop me?" and we either play it out or move on. If someone casts Upheaval and then refills their board, the rest of the table has a quick five second chat of "Does anyone have a plan?" (answer is usually "No") and we scoop and move on. If someone dies, the other two non-winning players have a quick talk "Can you deal with all the Eldrazi? I can't" and we scoop and move on.
December 12, 2023 3:06 p.m.
Last_Laugh says... #5
It's not avoid tutors so much as it is tutor considerately.
Don't wait for the end step before your turn to tutor. State that you're tutoring early (typically end of combat on the turn before mine personally unless it's an early turn) to save time but it's end of turn you're technically tutoring (make sure no one is effecting hands or topdeck in the meantime).
If you are tutoring/fetching a land that you need that turn, play the fetch/tutor but just state what you tutored for, use that mana before actually tutoring, and then look up the land when you pass turn (or as soon as you would draw a card if that's earlier).
This alone will save 10+ minutes per game if you tutor frequently.
December 12, 2023 3:22 p.m.
chaosshadow589 says... #6
I do agree with your comments on tutor considerately insofar as knowing what you might be looking for. But tutoring in an opponent's end step before yours can be huge if there's a turn between that player and your own. That's potential for a counterspell, deflecting swat, or even opposition agent. While I get the point, for gamesmanship purposes it just makes sense to do the tutoring at the most opportune time IE opponent tapped out or after you've watched them use interaction with another player first. I frankly don't trust people with the handshake (in your end step) because you're giving them information and it may affect their plans in some way shape or form.
December 12, 2023 3:31 p.m.
Crow_Umbra says... #7
My main playgroup does something kinda similar to roll for first, except we roll to see who rolls a 1 first with a D20. It leads to some fun and hectic rolls to lead into our games.
Although we don't use the "look at the 8th" card, we allow a friendly variation of a mulligan. We allow folks to draw a fresh 7 from their already shuffled deck until they find something serviceable, then shuffle all previously drawn hands back in.
My group doesn't use tutors much. I think I'm the one that uses tutors the most, and even then I usually go for the missing combo piece or some form of protection/interaction.
Something my play group used to do is incorporated Monarch as part of our games to encourage attacks, and get rid of people rolling for attacks. Basically, at the of the 3rd turn, the last person in turn order would become the Monarch. We played with this for a few months, but stopped once people's decks got tuned enough that it wasn't really necessary.
December 12, 2023 5:26 p.m.
plakjekaas says... #8
When rolling to start, we roll a single D20, and divide the ranges to the nummer of participating players. So 1-5 is player 1, 6-10 is player 2 etc. all the way up to player 4. Only one die ever needed to point out the starting player, it's even faster than the highest non-tie.
When you're with just 3 players, it's 1-6, 7-12, 13-18 and roll again on a 19 or 20, or just roll a D6.
December 13, 2023 2:57 a.m.
FormOverFunction says... #9
I feel like the longest games happen when you have three or four super-tuned high-speed-low-drag (HSLD) decks that have one main wincon, and a bunch of answers to de-rail opponents. When something like an azoroius deck that locks everyone down and then hits one opponent for one or two points each turn (after locking out the “mill one player at a time deck” and the “thassa’s oracle” deck) the agreement-to-scoop fix shines as king. If the oracle deck stalls the azorious deck, but has been forced to mill one of its oracle pieces... everyone is sort of stuck in limbo.
December 13, 2023 11:15 a.m.
HeadinPants says... #10
Last_Laugh I mostly agree. My problem with your argument actually stems from the issues caused by shuffling a commander deck when you have hands a bit small to do it comfortably. In the early turns of the game, even if I crack an Evolving Wilds immediately, the group still has to wait on me to finish shuffling. Until turn 3 or 4, this is typically still the case. I removed almost all the the land-searching functions from my landfall deck as a result of this.
Crow_Umbra I have mixed feelings about rolling for a 1, some people are just cursed, and sometimes probability just makes that take longer. I typically go for 2 dice of any size from 6 thought 12, whichever 2 dice I grab first.
However, I do love the idea of incorporating Monarch in that way.
plakjekaas My problem with that arrangement is that you are forced to track turn order. It's a neat idea, but that's one extra thing to track in Commander, where there are already too many triggers. I typically just go clockwise from start.
December 13, 2023 11:50 a.m.
HeadinPants says... #11
Gidgetimer Ahhh, it sounds like you don't play at an LGS frequently ;) When you have a regular playgroup a lot of these turn into non-issues.
Tsukimi I'm glad you said this! I ran an infinite combo literally 1 time and found that it made the game ending seem much more unsatisfying. Blundering into a win by problem solving has always felt more rewarding.
Epidilius I mostly agree, but my one point of contention is that you are thinking about combos. In most of the games I play, there are few, if any, intentional combos available. If the "can anyone deal with this" question is about a board state of big or too many creatures, that's absolutely the case. The problem with it in the case of combos is just the lack of satisfaction for everyone else at the table. Does this mean you shouldn't scoop if no one can stop a combo? No, but it doesn't leave the best feeling at the end of a game. I'd rather have a game played strategically than "Who can get an infinite combo fastest?"
December 13, 2023 12:02 p.m.
Crow_Umbra says... #12
I should have clarified a bit more lol. When our group rolls for 1, everyone rolls with a D20 at the same time, leading to the hectic frenzy of everyone trying to roll as quickly as possible. It's pretty fun, and helps loosen up the tone prior to the game starting. Sometimes we use a D6 or two if we have more of those than we have D20s.
Incorporating Monarch made our games a lot more dynamic and helped get rid of those stalemate board states. In addition to peoples' decks becoming more tuned up, we also moved away from using Monarch since our main playgroup leans more aggro go-wide
December 13, 2023 1:19 p.m.
HeadinPants I brought up a couple of combo decks because they are easy examples, but it applies to other styles too. Grixis Stax has us locked down, and no one can break us out? Scoop. Mono Red Jhoirah has Darksteel Plate equipped to the commander, and no has exile effects? Scoop. The Boros Iroas deck has just cracked one player for 78 damage, and the other two players don't have a board wipe? We scoop.
We have a varied meta in our playgroup, both in terms of deck styles and power levels, but the quick scoop is something we do all the time.
December 13, 2023 8:17 p.m.
HeadinPants says... #14
Epidilius Absolutely fair. My general rule is that I have specific situations in which I scoop. The classic ones are when a control or aristocrats deck has established a lock on the board. A lot of those other situations I prefer to see play out organically, mostly because I'm always interested to see what unorthodox answers other players come up with. However, some of my decks that are still developing because they just don't have a lot going for their theme have conditions under which they straight up cannot function. The early drafts of my modified creature deck couldn't cope if it lost too many creatures too quickly, for example, so if I didn't find any card draw sources and someone wiped the board, the deck was pretty much dead in the water.
December 13, 2023 11:24 p.m.
My group experimented with doing partial mulligans or getting opening hands by drawing 10 cards and choosing 3 to shuffle back in. With the intent of avoiding the "I just can't do anything" starts.
Once a game reaches 5 players we usually break out the roles from Bang! to give the game some structure. Sheriff is the first player, has 60 life, and is the only publicly known role. Sheriff and Deputy need to take out the Bandits and Renegade, Bandits need to take out the Sheriff, Renegade is trying to be the last player standing. It may make a game longer but at least it adds some structure and direction to it. There's less hemming and hawing about "I really should attack someone but I'd feel guilty about doing it" when your role informs you about whether you should hit the Sheriff or hit anyone else.
I am also way more of a Commander Casual now that I'm older and want to treat this less like Worlds where I need to agonize over every decision and play as much at instant speed as possible and more like a board game where we're all trying to hang out and not drain everyone's time.
December 14, 2023 11:41 a.m.
Gidgetimer says... #16
SpammyV: You may enjoy the Advanced Kingdoms variant.
HeadinPants: I play almost exclusively at a LGS. We don't have a problem with people not being able to roll for first in a timely manner or taking too long tutoring though. We tutor in the manner Last_Laugh suggested and I guess I've never really considered the hand size problem. Of the 16 or so "usual suspects" at the LGS only 3 have hand size issues and each has someone with large hands that is always there at the same time that can help if needed. If we are being sweaty enough that it matters about tutoring at the opportune time we usually aren't concerned about game length anyway since it should be a quick one.
There has also been enough anti-combo sentiment in this thread that I would like to remind people that everyone (especially in a casual variant like commander) has their own preferences for how to play. Telling someone that their fun is wrong just because it is different than how you have fun is inconsiderate. The only people who it matters are cool with what is going on in the game are the participants and that is why it is important to have a Rule 0 discussion to set expectations.
December 14, 2023 5:45 p.m.
Last_Laugh says... #17
HeadinPants Yeah, I can't help ya with the small hands issue. I don't exactly have big hands either. I have to stabilize the deck against my chest as I shuffle. I grab small stacks and add them to what I'm shuffling and only shuffle the full 100 2-3 times. I also only grab about 1/3 off the bottom to shuffle in instead of half the deck (I find it easier to hold the majority of the cards still while sliding fewer in). I've gotten extremely used to shuffling after running all 9 fetches in all of my 3 color decks for years, previously playing Captain Sisay, tutoring in general, and abusing the crap out of Imperial Recruiter on every player's turn in my Grixis Marchesa deck. Unless you've got really small hands, it's a matter of repetition, technique, and practice.
December 14, 2023 9:01 p.m.
SteelSentry says... #18
I would say, on the topic of tutors, the problem is usually people not knowing the deck as well as they think they do. The only two decks I have a density of non-land searching is my Goblin Welder secret commander deck, and a deck I know inside and out that I've had basically since I started playing EDH; even complicated tutors like Doomsday and Realms Uncharted don't take me much time at all since I know my piles beforehand and can name all the cards I'm grabbing before I pick up the deck.
December 15, 2023 6:17 p.m.
HeadinPants says... #19
Last_Laugh Don't I know it! My brother introduced me to magic... holy shit. I think almost 21 years ago now. Still can only go so fast without risking damaging the cards. To be fair though, I also have big wrist and hand joint problems, so those probably aren't helping me there.
December 17, 2023 1:22 p.m.
HeadinPants says... #20
SteelSentry I may be wrong here, but I think you are in the minority on that, mostly on the grounds that new products are constantly being released, and that means many players are always changing their decks. It's entirely possible I'm wrong and that's just how it plays out at my LGS, though. Either way, you're right that having a good grasp of the deck makes it easier to figure out what you're grabbing, but that doesn't change that you will have to shuffle afterwards.
I will admit that with the Realms Uncharted example I was always in the same boat as you: the only deck I ran it in was Ur-Dragon, so it was the "pick a creature type" lands, Command Tower, and Path of Ancestry most of the time.
December 17, 2023 1:28 p.m.
golgarigirl says... #21
Epidilius I probably need to learn to do that...I'm a stubborn Old Fogey that will let a game drag on because I enjoy seeing if I can wiggle my way out from oppressive scenarios. But it really isn't worth it, or fair to everyone, to drag a game out just because I might be able to pull a thing off. My friends are just as stubborn, but as resident fogey, it's probably on me to set an example!
Tsukimi says... #2
My playgroup still does partial mulligans since we don't do infinite combos or the like. Makes games faster and more fun to play
December 12, 2023 12:29 p.m.