Readers!

2020 was... A year. While there is no guarantee that 2021 will be any better, 2020 had some real bright spots and we'd be remiss if we didn't talk about what happened to our favorite format. Both as a cause of Covid and as a cause of decisions at Wizards of the Coast, it was an incredibly tumultuous year for Commander but I would like to make the case that the format emerged largely unscatched and in a few real ways, better than ever. Typically, my "end of the year" article goes through my articles to talk about what we learned, and while I'll still do that, I want to focus more on Commander as a whole than on 75% because what's good for one, it turns out, is good for the other and what's bad for one is bad for the other. What did we learn about how we want to build 75% decks in 2021 and beyond as a result of THE YEAR OF COMMANDER? Let's get into it.

The Rise of VDH

2020 was the year of Commander and for me, it was the year I played more than ever before. With the necessity of webcam play and the trend for content creators to stream games on twitch using spelltable or even a program like whereby, it was possible to get a game at all hours of the night with people all over the world. With lockdowns making a lot of people feel very isolated and alone, reaching out to play a game over webcam was a technology that was immediately embraced and which couldn't have come at a better time.

There were some consequences of this new technology, but almost all of them were overwhelmingly positive. First of all, people bought paper cards. A lot of LGSs suffered and a lot more than we'd like to see close did so, but with the shift to digital Magic for competitive formats, Commander was asked to do a lot of the heavy lifting for paper Magic cards. Luckily, Commander is a format where more than a handful of cards are in fashion, and with a ton of new Commander products released this year, there was more demand than ever with all of the new decks people built. I won't say Commander "saved" the paper market, but it shouldered a lot of weight when it was needed and will probably need to continue to.

Another consequence is that Spelltable's release went gangbusters and WotC acquired the program. Spelltable may not be everyone's preferred way to play on webcam but the program anticipated our needs well and it has caught on. With so much webcam Commander being played, either a better program or incremental improvements to Spelltable or both are inevitable and exciting.

Finally, we had to re-examine which cards we played on webcam, and that has caused players like me, who relied on specific cards like Bribery and Gonti, Lord of Luxury to balance our decks against theirs, to re-evaluate our entire approach.

I dedicated an entire piece to it, and if you missed it, it's worth a look before you start adding cards like Opposition Agent to a deck you're going to play on webcam. There are great alternatives to cards like Bribery that cause you to look through their deck and while I love cards like that, removing them has allowed me to make more room for cards I always ended up cutting like Master Thief or Sower of Temptation. Removing something from the board can in some instances be a bit more impactful than playing with a card they haven't drawn yet, and it's more polite for webcam in any case.

I'm not in charge of the format, however, so there is something we can all do to make someone casting a Bribery a little bit less miserable for the table. I would recommend registering your decklists online and keeping them up-to-date. Moxfield, Archidekt, Scryfall, Aetherhub and Mtg Goldfish are all excellent choices. If your opponents can look at a list of the cards in your deck, they can ask for a card that you have rather than you having to let them play 20 questions or fan your deck in front of the camera. Taking some time to have the lists ready to go can save some awkward times later if people insist on playing a card like Acquire or Praetor's Grasp (they're good cards and I love them!) in a webcam game. They get a little more information than players would normally get if they know your whole list, but this is a goofy, bulk-rare format to play with friends for no prizes, so I think the convenience of having searchable lists trumps the miniscule edge they get if you have to say "fail to find" when they try to Bribery for your Blightsteel.

A Million New Cards

There were a lot of products this year, the year of Commander, and some of them introduced some new concepts to the game. First and foremost, I want to remind everyone that counter-gaming can be a good way to deal with some of the new, annoying things that players can do in Commander and most of those cards are still great in the deck against other strategies. I'm sure there are some I missed that you're already employing, but it doesn't hurt to be reminded.

New cards also give us an opportunity to take out some old ones since we have a hard cap on deck size. Every addition needs a subtraction, and one tool for taking cards out is on EDHREC in the form of the two salt surveys. I wrote a couple of pieces all about what I thought contributed to a high salt score and how you can avoid some of those cards or concepts. EDHREC might do the salt survey every year, so we might see some cards like Hullbreacher or Opposition Agent on there, or we might realize that those things are not nearly as egregious as blowing up everyone's lands or taking 3 extra turns. Seeing cards that people said would be banned right out of the gate not even register on the survey is always interesting, though it doesn't come in time to shut people up on Twitter when they're arguing.

I decided that the opposite of 75% was having access to a Nev's Disk all the. Wiping the board early and often is miserable and makes games take forever. Printing Nevinyrral and Sarulf, Realm Eater within months of each other was pretty demoralizing for me. When I cracked one in a pack on my twitch stream, I may have overreacted... slightly.

It's a signed, one-of-a kind collector's item, now. If you thought Oloro made games annoying, wait until Nev comes to a table near you.

Inspiration From Elsewhere

Other games inspired how I built 75% this year. Playing a ton of Hades, speedrunning Shandalar (yes, really) and Slaying the Spire got me through long periods of social lockdown, but it was a game from the 1990s, Mortal Kombat, that inspired me to think of my opponents' hands as my own, greatly increasing the number of cards I could access. Taking stuff from their board eliminates a lot of problems from webcam commander, provided you have enough infinitokens to represent what you took.

I re-thought my approach to playing answers this year as well, opting to try and play more "scalpels" and fewer "machetes" - that is to say, taking a more surgical approach to solving problems. I haven't entirely changed how I do all removal, but thinking in those terms has really helped me win games where I blow up less of my own stuff.

Finally, I want to point out that this year gave us two of the most 75% commanders of all time - Inniaz, the Gale Force and Blim, Comedic Genius. For so long, 75% was focused on scaling the table by taking stuff we wanted of theirs that I never anticipated I would want to level the playing field by giving someone something they couldn't deal with. Donating an Illusions of Grandeur is a concept as old as those two cards, but it took a pandemic for me to remember how much fun that concept is. Stealing their stuff is fun, but handing them a cooked grenade in the form of Thought Lash or Lich is just as devastating and fun. Magic is supposed to be fun, so let's make bad cards like Forbidden Crypt useful and make some frenemies along the way.

2020 was... a marathon, honestly. I'm glad to have gotten through it relatively unscathed and I'm glad some bright spots like the emergence of webcam Commander helped get us through it all. I appreciate all of you for hanging in there with me for another year, the editing staff at Coolstuff who makes me look good, this community for existing and providing so many opportunities for people to make a living without working directly for Wizards and to thank everyone who made Commander a thing for making Commander a thing. Looking forward to 2021 there is a lot to be excited about, including some more webcam games. Hit me up on Twitter @jasonealt and let's sling some cardboard. Until next year!