I had a conversation this week with Commander writer Jason Rice. Jason has started penning a series called Unified Theory of Commander that I think is very interesting and that has started a lot of great discussions online. We were discussing me shipping him a Hazezon Tamar so he could build a new deck. “I need something a little jankier in my portfolio,” he said. “Saturday night, I played a couple of games, and my Roon of the Hidden Realm deck just absolutely went off.”

I don’t know that there’s anything wrong with going off, but he elaborated. “Someone tried to Pyxis of Pandemonium the table, but I already had Sylvan Library in play, so I just kept putting strong enters-the-battlefield effects on top. Then, when he popped it, I went infinite and ended the game. ‘Oh look . . . Deadeye Navigator, Palinchron, and Venser, Shaper Savant all got exiled. How did that happen?’ So I tried to tone it down in the next game by playing my 75% Slivers deck that you featured in that article . . . only to hit a Primal Surge for half my deck.”

“I think next week I'm just going to play my 50% Kemba jank deck and lose a little bit.”

“I don't want to get a rep as a face stomper try-hard. I like the variety of the decks I get to play at my shop.”

Last week, we decided that if you knew what to expect from your normal group, it wasn’t necessary to jam a 75% deck. However, that’s not to say a 75% deck shouldn’t be fine for that group. Wasn’t that the entire point of this project? You can build a deck for casuals and build a deck to take on try-hards, but isn’t it good to have a deck that works for both? Is the only way to follow up a few wins strung together to play a durdle deck with the express purpose of letting them pull your pants down, lest ye be branded a try-hard and exiled from the lunch table?

How do we deal with stringing a few wins together, and how big a sample size is big enough?

I had all of this in mind when I revisited an e-mail I was sent back in early May from a reader named Laurent Lignon.

Autumn Willow ? Commander | Laurent Lignon

• Commander (0)

• Creatures (18)
• 1 Allosaurus Rider
• 1 Arbor Colossus
• 1 Boon Satyr
• 1 Craterhoof Behemoth
• 1 Nessian Game Warden
• 1 Nylea's Emissary
• 1 Oracle of Mul Daya
• 1 Pathbreaker Wurm
• 1 Pelakka Wurm
• 1 Primordial Hydra
• 1 Skarrg Goliath
• 1 Uktabi Wildcats
• 1 Wolfbriar Elemental
• 1 Wolfir Silverheart
• 1 Worldspine Wurm
• 1 Azusa, Lost But seeking
• 1 Molimo, Maro-Sorcerer
• 1 Patron of the Orochi

• Spells (39)
• 1 Primal Bellow
• 1 Squall Line
• 1 Strength in Numbers
• 1 Worldly Tutor
• 1 Beacon of Creation
• 1 Blessings of Nature
• 1 Boundless Realms
• 1 Howl of the Night Pack
• 1 Hunting Wilds
• 1 Hurricane
• 1 Increasing Savagery
• 1 Natural Order
• 1 New Frontiers
• 1 Overwhelming Stampede
• 1 Ranger's Path
• 1 Rude Awakening
• 1 Skyshroud Claim
• 1 Waiting in the Weeds
• 1 Wurmcalling
• 1 Aspect of Wolf
• 1 Blanchwood Armor
• 1 Instill Energy
• 1 Into the Wilds
• 1 Lost in the Woods
• 1 Rancor
• 1 Rites of Flourishing
• 1 Sylvan Library
• 1 Vow of Wildness
• 1 Barrin's Codex
• 1 Caged Sun
• 1 Gauntlet of Power
• 1 Jayemdae Tome
• 1 Orochi Hatchery
• 1 Sigil of Distinction
• 1 Strata Scythe
• 1 Trailblazer's Boots
• 1 Helm of Kaldra
• 1 Shield of Kaldra
• 1 Sword of Kaldra

• Lands (42)
• 34 Forest
• 1 Llanowar Reborn
• 1 Mosswort Bridge
• 1 Oran-Rief, the Vastwood
• 1 Rogue's Passage
• 1 Temple of the False God
• 1 Hall of the Bandit Lord
• 1 Yavimaya Hollow
• 1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx

Buy This Deck

(Into the Wilds used to be Rowen.)

Has Laurent’s deck been overperforming? That is the real question. It sounds to me like Laurent thinks so, and his playgroup may even think so (I can scarcely blame anyone facing down 1,095 damage for thinking that way), but are they right? Or is the deck overperforming because the rest of the group is underperforming? Remember that the commander is Autumn Willow, and this is ostensibly a Voltron deck of sorts. Token swarm is only Plan B. It sounds like the real issue is that the rest of the group can’t deal with a guy just farting out tokens for many, many turns and then using Craterhoof as a coup de grâce.

You have no choice sometimes but to jam a bunch of games. Are you going to trample for 1,095 more than 1 ÷ X games? Fewer? Are you going to Primal Surge for infinity often? How often will you have Venser, Deadeye Navigator, and Palinchron? Tooth and Nail isn’t inherently bad, so how often does it have to appear to be considered too often?

There is no choice, folks; we need to jam games. Laurent’s deck may be much more powerful and consistent than I am crediting it for because I have not seen it in action. Jason’s Roon deck may need significant modification to make it a 75% deck, and that’s not even a way to build a 75% deck that we want to pursue. That Sliver deck we made together may be super-bonkers and unfair. Or the heart of the cards may have been with Jason that night, and I may have balanced him karmically during my Commander night, watching my Mayael the Anima deck give me zero eligible creatures with Illusionist's Bracers on it! That’s two triggers! Are you telling me I had no fatties in the top ten cards of my library!? Is my Mayael deck poor or is it underperforming? Given the situation I encountered the other night, when the guy who borrowed Mayael spit out an It That Betrays, improbably, on turn four, I’m going to go with “the deck just doesn’t like me.” And, sometimes, your deck will like you. That doesn’t mean you should weaken the deck and take out your favorite combos. That’s a bit like throwing out the baby and keeping the bathwater. And no one wants a bathwater deck. The whole reason we started this project was so we could have reasonable decks that didn’t make casual groups miserable.

I don’t have all the answers, but I will tell everyone you need a big sample size before you take a paring knife to your deck meat. Get your games in. Is the deck really consistent or are you getting lucky? Is everyone else durdling? Is everyone drinking and watching the World Cup and not paying attention when you play Waiting in the Weeds for twenty? If the deck is just overperforming some nights, leave it alone. Decks are 75% because they’re not 50% and you’re going to win more than 1 ÷ X games a session sometimes. It will even out in the long run. If your group dubs you a try-hard, it doesn’t matter which deck you play. The problem is with a skill-level disparity and a deck-power-level disparity.

As a final thought, if any of us decide that one or all of our decks are too strong for our playgroup, let’s avoid tearing a 75% deck apart to play with them. Build something new: all white-bordered, a commander from Homelands, or all ladies looking left. Whichever restriction you choose, you’ll be glad you left your 75% deck together to battle stronger foes. And remember that if your group ever feels that their decks are too weak, everything in your binder is for trade.

That does it for me this week. How many games is enough to know if your deck is overperforming? Have you ever felt the need to weaken a deck based on how your playgroup responded? Have you ever felt behind the eight ball and stepped your game up? Leave it in the comments below or on reddit, and let’s get a dialogue started.