Last week, I revisited the #youmightbeanedhdbif Twitter tag, digging into where we still stand as a community. Overwhelmingly, the feedback was positive. It’s clear that the issue is deep and a concern for many of you out there. Thank you for sharing back.

This week, I’m extending the idea to actionable concepts: reflection and analysis. Whether you apply it to your own decks and activities, or use it to screen and deflect potentially mismatched opponents, there are five concepts that can indicate one is being a jerk in Commander.

A brief caveat before continuing: Commander, like anything in Magic, is what you make of it. Commander can be competitive, tough, adversarial, and skill-testing. Just as Limited can be very relaxed and haphazard, you can push Commander as hard as you would Legacy. But if you’re encouraging and growing the wacky, off-the-wall hilariousness that comes with a focus on Magic divorced from most competitive concepts, you should take note of the following.

1. Clobbering, Not Cooperating

Commander is popularly defined to be the format of strange, amazing, and exciting plays. Whether it’s as small as activating one of the abilities on a Phelddagrif, or as big as a Scrambleverse after a kicked Rite of Replication on Precursor Golem, Commander is the only format where plays can completely change the game state yet not effectively end the game.

“Throwing a haymaker” is generally meant to be fatal to opponents in your average game of Magic. Commander should not be your average game of Magic. There’s panache to playing, but not beating down, with power. The temptation to strictly pound on opponents is a fair one; it’s drilled into our heads every time we shuffle up forty or sixty cards for a sanctioned event.

But giving into that temptation is wrong. This isn’t to say you shouldn’t make plays that can win games in Commander (see #5 below for that discussion), but bludgeoning opponents into submission isn’t as interesting or fun as interacting with them in different ways.

Cards like Yavimaya Dryad and Bazaar Trader can be surprising with cards like Elvish Champion and Trailblazer's Boots. The play is cute, a little helpful for opponents, but still advantageous for you. While Group Hug decks are the premiere “helping you” strategy, small, positive interactions with opponents can build the goodwill to survive when one of them decides to strike hard.

Your plays should be fun for you without necessarily crushing your opponents. It’s a very tricky balance, and not always successful when attempted, but much more rewarding for everyone when it works. If you aren’t coming to play a game where everyone is having some fun, many of us would prefer to not play with you.

2. Stasis, Not Races

While Stasis is more or less a relic of the past, the locking mechanism isn’t. “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” is an adage that is often invoked when it comes to lock decks. “Why give my opponent that chance to . . . ” leads to awkward, inbred deck ideas and construction.

I’ve asked questions like that myself, mind you. Avoiding locking opponents doesn’t mean to be completely oblivious to them, either. Creating a deck with the goal of preventing the ability of your opponents to play the game is wrong for Commander. And I don’t mean the “I frown at your shenanigans” wrong, but the “Your deck is dumb and I concede” wrong.

Commander is meant for everyone to play something. What that something can be is debatable to an extent, but everyone should have his or her moment to shine. When your deck starts with Winter Orb and Meekstone, your deck’s something stops everyone else’s.

Yes, preventing opponents from engaging in their full plans is an effective means to help you win a game of Magic. Building your entire deck to prevent anyone else from being able to win goes far beyond having removal and answers. Stopping the game is the exact opposite of why the vast majority of players sit down at a table.

If they didn’t want to play Magic, they wouldn’t have sat down with you in the first place.

“But it’s a part of Magic!” is a cry I’ve heard frequently as well. So is Black Lotus. So is Strip Mine. So is Tolarian Academy. Unless you’re at a Vintage tournament, sitting down for the average game of Magic doesn’t involve any of these cards. While they are as much a part of the game as any other card, part of the reason these are relegated to the past is because of the degeneracy they cause. Mudhole is part of the game too, but I haven’t seen anyone clamoring to play it in every “casual” game.

Commander is meant to be a social game, and the “social contract” vaguely governs what’s permissible. Just because you can bring the cards to lock doesn’t mean you should.

3. Quiet, Not Quipping

Silence is not always golden. While I struggle with having too much to say in (and about) games, those who treat the Commander table like a tournament game drag the experience down.

Multiplayer is full of politics. Who is doing what when, and why, and how, are important considerations. This is true of any game. Commander is more than politics and play, however. It’s meant to create a social experience. This involves being social.

Socialization and atmosphere are abundant at large events. Whether it’s a private tournament or Grand Prix, players at the highest levels carry on gregariously. However, there are the moments of serious tension, deep thought, and intense, deliberate focus. (Obviously.)

Those more intense moments aren’t what Commander is about. While thinking about your play is a pretty good thing, and something you should continue to do, the point of making a play isn’t to always make the “correct” one. The point of the play is to have fun and, from time to time, help other players have fun, too.

Would it ever be correct to play a Group Hug deck? Answering that depends on your build and play style, but if you are planning to carefully lock opponents out of the game, the answer is likely no. If you want to encourage gameplay that’s riskier, more random, and more entertaining, the answer is obviously yes. Playing the political game requires giving discrete resources for virtual “goodwill” from others.

Sitting down to grind out a victory through “making the right choices every time” is a goal that gets in the way of having fun. Sitting down to win multiplayer is more difficult since you must defeat more players. Sitting down to have a fun game while possibly winning is where Commander plays best.

Relax. Smile. Be unafraid to take the risky, “nonoptimal” move. Everyone will enjoy it more.

4. Indifference, Not Interdependence

It’s pretty easy to have fun in Commander: Grab whatever you like and just do it. Even the most competitive of min-maxing players can do that.

Adapting your mentality to include the fun of other players is much more difficult.

Shutting out emotional attachment to a game during the game is a feat most players learn. Getting bogged down in how you feel about your opponent, and worrying how your opponent feels, is often a waste of effort: You came to win.

Commander is not the act of winning, but the process of getting there. Being indifferent—or worse, abusive—to other players is wrong. It’s beyond good sportsmanship (such as what you’ll find detailed in the DCI’s guidelines for tournament play) and being a good fellow Commander player.

To have the faith—true, blind belief—that other players will not stomp you down or actively crush your ability to play the game is terrifying. There are no guarantees against very bad things happening. The social contract is not law. But if you choose to participate, and continue to play with others who participate, it becomes easy to see why Commander is so addictive.

Making the effort to punish players who choose not to follow the social contract isn’t effective. When you adapt your decks to specifically defeat them, they see this as a sign to continue adapting and fighting back. The cycle of “escalating technology” is what drives deck-development in competitive formats. Breaking this cycle in a Commander group is critical to the social contract.

The more we sit down with our hearts open and decks relaxed, the more we contribute to the community that can make Commander even better.

5. Playing to Win, Not Winning the Play

It’s been clear in the previous four points that playing to win isn’t what Commander is about. But that statement isn’t as untrue as I’ve painted it; the statement is incomplete. You should play to win . . . the hearts of your fellow players.

Everything I’ve shared today leads up to this pinnacle of Commander. Beyond simply cooperating with others, being sociable and interactive, letting others have their chance to shine, and contributing to the welcoming culture, we all have incredible potential to do more: Consider each and every play.

The question to bring to the table is “How can I make this more fun?” Answering other questions like “What’s the right play?” should take a back seat to building a game to be better. To win in Commander, you simply have the best time. Redefining what it means to win is a core component of the Commander experience.

When do you use Doom Blade on a Primeval Titan? Immediately after it hits play, or after it gets to attack once? When do you decide to cast your Commander? Waiting for the most opportune moment, or immediately in a heat of passion with a grin on your face?

Winning the play is an entirely different paradigm from playing to win. Winning in Commander is relatively easy if winning games is all you’re interested in. There are plenty of broken cards, tutors to fetch them with, and dominant interactions to create. For the most part, everything allowed in Legacy is available in Commander. Grab a random sample of Zur the Enchanter or Uril, the Miststalker and see what the decks look like. Try Erayo, Soratami Ascendant or Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir.

Now what about Lovisa Coldeyes, or Rith, the Awakener? Just like the Commanders above, these too can be tuned to be deadly powerful. Almost any Commander deck can pull the fullest potential out of a Legendary creature. Choosing “the cool play” over a well-oiled machine is what Commander is all about. I’ve seen a Teferi deck that used him as a breaker: Try to “go off,” and he jumps in to fight you. I’ve seen a Zur deck for the colors where he was never cast.

It isn’t the Commander, but the deck built around it. If your deck was built without a focus on group play and creating exciting moments, I’m not sure your deck can work.

The End of the Line

The points raised today aren’t commandments carved in stone, or enforceable laws of protectionism; these are thoughts and views that skew to creating what most of us crave when playing Commander.

It’s a line drawn, but in sand. It’s as malleable and transitory as the shifting tide will permit. Let’s continue to keep the tide in our favor. There’s already plenty of competitive in the Magic world.