What's up, dear readers?

Today is the first in what I expect to be a series of columns exploring the format of Commander in a broader way than in my usual weekly deck techs. I'm going to start out with one of the most central and controversial topics in EDH - power levels.

A deck's "power level" is shorthand for how likely it is to win a game of commander. Given that there are many, many ways to get from that first draw at the start of the game to the proverbial finish line, power levels are imprecise at best.

Most Commander players want games where everyone has a roughly equal chance of winning. It might occasionally be fun to see if you can beat a much stronger or faster deck, but the average player really does want to win their "fair share" of games. In multiplayer Commander that usually means a 25% win rate.

Starting your games with a pod of roughly equal decks is an important part of trying to have games where everyone starts with a roughly equal chance of winning. Player skill, luck, politics and the inherent advantages and disadvantages that certain deck types have against each other will always skew that "equal chance" but at the start of the game we generally want something resembling parity.

The Promise of a Fair Game

One of the most common ways to evaluate an EDH deck is to assign a number from 1 to 10, where 10 is the strongest and 1 is the weakest. The joke is always that players assign their own decks a power level of 7. If everything is a 7, then nothing is a 7, but it's still funny how many players peg their decks to that particular number.

These numerical scales have strengths and weaknesses, and can be a real help to players who are trying to figure out where their decks fall in power when compared to other decks.

You might do all sorts of things during the game that could tip the scales in one way or another, but you start each match with something of a promise that you are playing a fair game.

You didn't bring a machine gun to a knife fight.

You're not matching up the Bronx Bombers against the Bad News Bears.

You're not a "pubstomper".

Most of these power level scales are looking at the turn your deck can consistently win by.

Speed matters. If one player's deck consistently wins by turn four and another player's deck consistently wins by turn eight, you can expect that the first player is going to win more games than the second player. If nothing else, the second player won't have enough time for their deck to get set up to try to push for a win.

I don't want to reproduce anyone else's work here, and I don't really want to set up my own power level scale, but you can google "commander power level chart" or "a guide to power levels in EDH" and find a variety of these numeric charts. Some people really like to be able to assign numbers to their decks so that they can tell other players the precise power level of the deck they're going to play.

It's worth noting that any scale that looks at the turn a deck can win requires a caveat. There are decks that do not try to win the game early, but which will instead try to lock the board down in some way so that other players cannot win. For that reason, I like to say that I care about the turn a deck can win or lock the game. If a player doesn't know what that means, they probably can't lock the game at all, but if they are on a stax or control deck they should understand.

If you sit down for a game and tell your tablemates your deck is a 7, or a 4, or a 9, you are making something of a promise. You are making a promise that if they match your power level, they should experience something resembling a "fair" game of EDH.

True Lies

You can swear by your numeric power levels all you like, but I've grown to feel that power levels and the implied promise of a fair game can be really problematic.

At the highest levels of play (cEDH) you should have players who accept that anything can happen and that everyone is playing to win. They are going to play their best deck and it's up to you to try to match it. If you lose, you need to work on getting better. There is no promise of a fair game, just an expectation that you'll bring enough interaction and a powerful enough deck that you can hang.

At the lowest levels of play, I think it's fair to say that there is an inverse expectation. You are there to have fun, and if you build with a goal of consistently winning over just doing goofy things and having fun, you may run into trouble. Low powered decks take longer to play their goofy cards and have their goofy fun. If you are winning every game by a certain turn, that might frustrate tablemates who are playing "Ladies Facing Left" or "Tribal Rebecca Guay Art." The promise is to have the focus of the game be on having fun, over and above winning and losing.

The middle levels of play are where power level issues most often arise.

You are trying to have a game where everyone's decks get to "do their thing".

You are also trying to win.

You may not want to hit your wincon so quickly that nobody else had fun in the game. You also don't want to take so long that you've run out of interaction and can't stop someone else from winning. You're looking for that sweet spot where you are all getting to see your decks do what they were built to do.

Ideally there will be twists and turns along the way and the game will end up being one where everybody feels satisfied, even if they didn't win.

The promise of matched power levels is a promise that you might have a game like that, but it's rare for that kind of promise to come true.

You might think it would be easy to match power levels, and in a closed meta or playgroup where most of your games are with the same people, it tends to work out over time. You learn which decks to watch out for, which decks are glass cannons, which ones win out of nowhere, and so on.

The problem comes when you are playing what some call "untrusted" games. By that I don't mean that you distrust your tablemates. I just mean that you don't know them. Lots of us play games with strangers, both online and in person, and we generally try to have games where there is a balance in the power levels of the decks we are playing.

If you're only playing two or three games with someone and then you'll never see them again, the inconsistency of many mid-powered decks can be a problem. If everyone plays a mid-powered deck and one of those decks has a banger of a game where they win before anyone else is able to even start really setting up, it can feel like the winner was pubstomping.

That deck might never again have a game like that, but without being able to see the deck in more than one or two games, it can be hard for the other players to trust that they weren't really playing against a much more powerful deck. Without knowing that a deck's average game is much less impressive, they could easily feel like they had been lied to.

You can also run into problems where players may not have the same level of understanding of the format.

If one player has only been playing high powered and cEDH decks and another player only plays jank and precon level decks, they might have wildly different ideas of what it means to be playing a power level 7 or 8 deck.

That cEDH aficionado might play his 7, blow the doors off the table, and leave everyone else feeling like they were lied to.

Conversely, a jank-lord might play what they genuinely think is an 8, have a terrible experience playing against "real" power level 8 decks, and feel like they had been lied to.

When players feel like they have been lied to, they are much more likely to be salty.

You should always assume good intentions.

The reality is that most of us get salty at one point or another when we play Commander. It's human nature to get annoyed when things don't work out the way we want and it's easy to walk away from a bad game feeling like one or more of your tablemates were playing more powerful decks.

Part of the problem is that implied promise you make when you tell your tablemate what power level your deck is. Experienced players know it means something, but not everything. Less experienced players may take it to heart and get annoyed if they feel like you were lying to them.

Keep It Simple, Stupid!

The first thing I'd suggest is that we simplify our approach to power levels.

There is just too much that goes into evaluating a deck to be able to accurately represent a deck's power level with a number. When you start trying to differentiate between a 7 and an 8, and then you start seeing players adding half points to their power levels, you are making promises you can't keep.

You're probably not going to be playing a hundred games with these decks. Somebody is going to win, everyone else is going to lose. If the winner claimed their deck was a half point weaker than the other decks, you may well have someone feel like the winner misrepresented the power level of their deck.

I'm much happier these days looking at decks as being low-powered, mid-powered, high-powered and cEDH. If I had to describe each tier, I'd describe them like this.

Low: You may not expect to win, you may not even have a wincon, and the focus is on the experience more than on the outcome. These games need to go longer for decks to be able to "do their thing" and many decks don't even have a "thing" they are trying to do. You'll see less removal and interaction and more creature-based strategies in low-powered play.

Mid: You are doing a balancing act between trying to win and trying to play longer games with a wider range of cards and more drawn out win conditions. You'll find more combat-focused decks at mid and low-powered levels of play. Combos are either missing or are so convoluted, telegraphed, or easily interrupted that players aren't usually upset when they happen.

High: The goal is to win and nearly anything goes in high powered play with the caveat that you aren't actually playing cEDH decks. That means you don't want to win so quickly and consistently that other high powered decks aren't able to keep up. You do have to play a lot of interaction and it will be harder to compete in high powered play without playing any combo at all. This is where outdated cEDH commanders and strategies end up when they have become obsolete in cEDH.

cEDH: The focus is on winning, and there is no expectation of anyone "going easy" on you. Whether you win or lose, you always focus on improving your deck and your own ability to play the game. There is a ton of interaction and decks can be incredibly fast and highly tuned. You generally play optimal commanders and the bar is very high for a deck to even be able to compete at this level.

A deck that can occasionally have a game where it feels like a cEDH deck is probably just a high powered deck, but one might describe it as a "fringe" cEDH deck. That just means that it lives in that liminal area between the high powered and cEDH tiers. It's going to trounce low and mid-powered decks, will do well against high powered decks, but might see very little success against top tier cEDH decks.

An Ounce of Prevention

By avoiding the trap of assigning a number to your deck, you can try to insulate yourself from players who fixate on those numbers (and half-numbers) and then get upset if your deck "felt" like a more powerful deck than you claimed it was. You can't really keep people from getting salty, but I like to do what I can to try to get ahead of these things.

You should have a healthy conversation before the game about how the deck plays - especially if you're playing with strangers or with familiar players that you know can get salty easily.

Does your deck try to combo off or win with an "I win" card like Thassa's Oracle?

Does it play a lot of cards that try to deny other players the ability to play their decks?

Are you running a lot of boardwipes, counterspells, or removal?

These things matter in terms of managing expectations even though there's no promise that you'll be drawing into those cards. You might not play a single Praetor in your game, but it's wise to make sure your table knows if you've got every single one of those salt-inducing Praetors in your deck before you start the game.

The "Fair Share" Plan

In cEDH there's no such thing as winning your "fair share" of games.

My understanding of the top end of our format is that your goal is to continually improve and perfect your deck and your game. You might help other cEDH players learn how to pilot their decks better, and you might help them make upgrades to their lists, but you'll never "go easy" on them. The fun is in the struggle and if you're not winning, you're working to get to a point where you are winning.

That approach simply can be applied to every level of play, but there are clear and obvious limitations.

You don't tell a player in a low powered meta, playing a low powered Myr Tribal deck, that they should really just upgrade to cEDH Food Chain Prossh because they'll lose way less often against the other janky decks in their meta.

You don't hand an knife-fighter a machine gun and send them back into the same arena.

Creating an "arms race" where everyone is trying to out-power everyone else can result in a lot of unhappy players and unpleasant games. I'm sure there are playgroups out there that have been through the power level wars and not fallen apart. Some players can enjoy the "git gud" plan, but I'm a much bigger fan of what I call the "fair share" plan.

The "fair share" plan is really simple, though it only really applies to low and mid powered metas. You can do it in high powered play as well, but it doesn't fit into cEDH at all.

You try to win your fair share of games and you assume that other players will have fun if they're also winning their fair share of games. In most playgroups that means winning roughly one in four of your matches.

That does NOT mean that you actually throw (intentionally lose) games.

What it means is that you do your best to have a range of power levels in the decks you bring to your play session, and if you win a game you switch to a weaker deck if possible for the next game.

If by some trick of fate you find yourself dominating play, use that as an excuse to really challenge yourself by building a deck you don't think you can win with. You might pick a weak commander or restrict yourself by not playing "staples." You could intentionally play a tribe that has less support. You could build on an insanely low budget. There are countless ways to make it harder to win games.

If you're that good a player and deck-builder you ought to be able to brew up a deck that you'll have a hard time winning with, but which will still be interesting and fun for you to play.

Does that mean it's OK to play a high-powered deck and crush a table of lower powered decks if you're going to drop down to a weaker deck after you win?

This might be a "hot take," but I think it's fine.

There's no guarantee that your deck is going to win. The table might gang up on you and take you down. Someone else might be on a strong enough deck to give you a real challenge. Your deck might just have a bad game. You might even have overestimated how powerful your deck really is.

There are lots of reasons why a game you expect might be a mismatch could end up being fun.

If it isn't fun and you run away with the game - be a decent table mate and thank everyone for letting you play the deck before you switch down to something weaker.

Final Thoughts

Have I sold you on the idea that we should really be moving beyond numeric power levels?

I see the attraction of being able to quantify your deck's strength, speed and resiliency and I appreciate that smart people like complicated solutions to things. I just think the temptation to label your deck a 6.5 and then upgrade it to a 7.0 or 7.5 if it's been doing well is just a little unrealistic. These decks don't play in a vacuum - they rely on the skill of the player piloting them, they interact with the other decks in the game, and the variance you encounter in a singleton format is hard to understate.

Am I overstating the idea that a power level number is an "implied promise"? Maybe, but you've probably seen players walk away from games all salty and upset and that comes from somewhere. If you begin the game by implying that your deck is weaker than theirs and then you blow the doors off the table, it's not surprising that someone might take it poorly.

After writing up this column, I circled back to a site that I remembered had a well-known power level system. If you go to http://www.playedh.com/ you'll see that they have a five-tiered system that is quite similar to what I've thrown together today and which is already familiar to lots of players.

Whether you adopt my Low-Mid-High-cEDH approach, you use the playEDH system, you can't quit using a numeric system, or you even feel the need to assign decimals or fractions to your numbers, I think it's worth stepping back and marveling at the fact that we play a format where we go out of our way to try to have games that are as fun as possible.

Those numbers are an attempt, however misguided, to try to have balanced and fun games. We're generally trying to win, but we're also trying to create an experience that everyone enjoys

We want the people we're playing with to have fun as well. For many of us, fun means getting a few wins along the way, but the fact that we're playing in a format where we go out of our way to try to make sure everyone is going to have a good time is what made me fall in love with this format in the first place.