Kermis by David Vinckboons(1605). Whispering Snitch by Jason Rainville.

I had been planning a column in which I told a fictional story about a Thanksgiving Day meal in which all the participants exhibited various forms of bad table manners. It was going to be an allegorical stab at talking about bad table manners in EDH, but the more I thought about it, the less I wanted to pen another preachy diatribe in which I'd tell everyone to brush their teeth, take regular showers (or baths), and treat each other decently.

You should absolutely keep good personal hygiene and be nice even when you're being "mean" in a game, but you don't need me to tell you that. I suspect if you do need to learn those basic life lessons, it's unlikely I'd be the one able to break through and get you to change your ways.

We're coming out of the long Thanksgiving Day weekend in America, and many of us have a lot to be thankful for. I'm certainly no exception so I'm going to share five of the things I've most grateful for as we enter into the Holiday season.

Safe Havens

I consider myself incredibly lucky to have an amazing local game store to play at. They let us Commander players play for free, while some stores charge for table space and require EDH leagues to implement a prize structure of some sort. We've been playing at NexGen Comics for almost three years and have created a robust and vibrant little Commander community.

As our league's organizer I've been lucky enough to not ever be in the position to have to deal with instances of racism, homophobia, or even hyper-partisan loudmouths making a nuisance of themselves. To be honest, one might reasonably call me a hyper-partisan loudmouth, but all in all we've been able to keep the peace, keep our Commander nights and afternoons about the game, and treat each other with respect. The salt occasionally flows but it usually doesn't flow too strongly.

I'm sure there are stores where a black or hispanic player might wind up having a pretty bad time, or where a gay or transgender player might not feel welcome. As far as I'm aware we've always been able to maintain an open and welcoming atmosphere for pretty much anyone that walks in the door.

I'm very grateful that we've got a safe haven for local Commander players to gather at. For many of us, it's become a home away from home and a place we can go to forget our troubles, play games and create memories, stories and friendships.

Problems that Sort Themselves Out

As I write this I have to acknowledge that I'm not being entirely honest with you. We aren't welcoming to everyone...

This past year we had a player show up and play very competitive decks, win an outrageous percentage of their games, and show very little interest in adjusting their playstyle to try to have games in which anyone else had a chance or even had fun.

The community soured on him pretty quick and before too long he didn't feel very welcome.

Some folks were really blunt with him. He'd ask if he could join in a game and he'd get rebuked pretty hard.

For my part, I tried to get him to play at the same level as everyone else. I loaned him a deck. I and others talked with him and tried to explain what the problem was, but the issue seemed to be that he genuinely didn't care about anything but winning. He showed no real interest in anyone else enjoying the games he played in at all.

If he could win every game by turn five without anyone else being able to do anything about it, that was just fine by him.

Given that he was actively creating pretty miserable game experiences for the casual players who were showing up wanting to get in some fun Commander games, I don't really have any regrets about how he was treated, and eventually he stopped coming.

I don't actually know what happened to finally convince this fellow that it wasn't worth pubstomping casual players at our LGS any longer.

I did hear someone suggest that it was one particular "casual night" game in which he switched to a "weaker" deck and then combo'ed off with Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker and Zealous Conscripts on turn five or six. I was in that game and I asked the table if they wanted to keep playing "for second place" because none of us cared who won and really just wanted a longer, more interesting game. It was unanimous. We played on, and the spike had to sit and wait for us to finish before we'd start another game with him.

I'm very grateful that he eventually stopped coming.

It wasn't fun to have to constantly think about whether or not to bring our best decks to "casual" night and it wasn't fun to constantly lose to someone who only cared about his own win rate and had zero interest in playing at the level of the other players at the table. It was a slightly unpleasant situation and it eventually seemed to resolve itself. Thank goodness.

The Spice of Life

You might think from the above statements that I'm one of those casual players that thinks that competitive decks are toxic and are bad for the format and for the community. You'd be wrong. I've got a few decks that are on the edge of maybe being competitive and I love being able to pull out a deck that is occasionally able to win pretty early in a game.

While I can appreciate a powerful, highly-tuned competitive deck, what I love more than anything is variety.

The cEDH game is an amazing thing, but the sheer speed and power of competitive decks by its very nature creates an environment in which the vast majority of "casual" decks can't compete or even really have fun. If a casual deck is nearly incapable of winning before turn ten and they're playing against a well tuned cEDH deck there's little chance that you're going to wind up having much of a game.

The best competitive players understand this and generally seek out other competitive players so they can have fun games where everyone is at the same power level.

While I have nothing against players tuning their decks up to be stronger and more competitive, I love that I play in a league and in a casual meta in which we see a really wide range of playstyles and power levels, from barely-modified precon Commander decks up to true cEDH decks. That means we have the occasional blowout but it makes for a wonderful, ever-changing and always varied meta.

You really never know what you're going to wind up playing against on any given night and for that I'm truly grateful.

The Greatest Format Ever

Holy Superlatives, Batman!

I'm a Commander player almost exclusively, so I'm probably not even qualified to say that Commander is the best format of Magic: The Gathering, but I'm saying it anyways.

We're a singleton format, which means more variety in our deck construction. I love variety.

We're a casual format, which means that outside of cEDH, there is an incredible range of decks that you might encounter when you play with strangers. Competition can be the enemy of diversity, as the weaker decks fall to the wayside and over time only the best decks prevail. In a casual format, especially when there's little or nothing on the line, you get to see all kinds of crazy decks even if they aren't particularly efficient or effective. To me, that's a wonderful thing.

The ability to rely upon having a commander available to us at all times gives our decks a character and personality that I think few other formats have. You get to really tune your deck around the "party trick" your commander brings to the table, and you know you'll always have that one card available if you can pay the casting cost (and the tax).

Our games are multiplayer so we have the added and wonderful wrinkle of politics to contend with. Games are won and lost with our boardstate and our strategy but also with a player's ability to turn on the charisma or bend an opponent's will to their own. Navigating a challenging table can be as much about making the right plays as it can be about handling each person in the right manner. There is simply no substitute for it, and once I got hooked on the multiplayer game I pretty much lost interest in playing 1v1 Magic.

We also have the ability to play cards from the entire history of Magic: The Gathering, and the ban list is really quite small, all things considered. This year I was able to build very strong decks around brand new commanders - Marwyn, the Nurturer and Najeela, the Blade-Blossom. This past month I was able to get our Commander League's top point total for November with a pair of pre-modern legendary creatures, Multani, Maro-Sorcerer and Rith, The Awakener. Outside of cEDH circles you can play, have fun with, and even win games with all manner of generals.

If I'm counting up things to be thankful for, one of them has to be the format itself. I love it and I can't imagine playing any other kind of Magic.

Not Being On The Rules Committee

We have a rules committee that has to some extent placed the onus on us to decide within our own playgroups and metas how we want to shape our game.

They have given us a recommended ban list and they have urged us to add or remove from it to suit our purposes. There are playgroups where the rules are followed strictly. There are playgroups where there is no banlist and you can proxy anything you like. In some groups you can play silver-bordered or non-legendary creatures or even non-creatures as your general. On some level, these groups are all still playing Commander.

That doesn't mean that if we made truly radical departures from the Commander rules we'd still be playing Commander. There are limits, but there seems to be a lot of flexibility for what can pass as "Commander" and I don't think the Rules Committee would have it any other way.

I'm genuinely grateful for the job that the stewards of our format have been doing, but I'm also glad that I'm not on the Rules Committee.

Those guys get no end of grief for every decision they make and plenty of grief for decisions they haven't made. It seems to me like they're doing a pretty good job of walking the fine line between fun and competitiveness and if you don't like the decisions they're making you can always implement house rules.

Final Thoughts

I have to assume there are things you're grateful for as well.

If that includes a local game store or a favorite online retailer, you should definitely consider giving them some extra business this holiday season. If you're thankful for having a fantastic playgroup or a particular friend who always makes your Commander games memorable, consider doing something for them over the holidays.

That's all I've got for you this week. If this column feels a little thrown together, please forgive me. This weekend was full of family stuff and I wound up a little behind in my weekly writing schedule.

Thanks for reading and I'll see you next week!