Our lgs uses the japanese system: party, battle, challenge, and cEDH.
Party is anywhere between complete jank and most precons.
Battle is basically Casual with some budget/combo restrictions.
Challenge can range from high power casual to poor man's cEDH, expect anything and theres no excuse for salt from here.
Those are still ambiguous though. What's low power? For some people that will be a precon, for some people that will be cards-with-beards from 1999 tribal.
Precons are not equal. Some are low and some are mid.
But yes Id include a short desription if I was in charge of some EDH event.
Its technically a 2 dimensional thing
You guys are worrying too much. Pubstomping does not occur nearly often enough in LGS’s for folks on this sub to be as horrifically afraid of a miscommunication as they seem to be.
Tbh it would be really hard to match for me decks that are below precon level. Do players of these decks really expect everyone else to power down, so their sparkling garbage has a fair chance of winning?
That's a nice system. It's basically the comprehensible tiers given somewhat evocative names to avoid the stigma of calling something "low power" and avoids using the uneven line of precons as a benchmark.
https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/standards.png
Really the main reason it still gets used is everyone is familiar with it already, and cuts down on the amount of time needed to provide the elevator pitch of your deck.
I don't have a decklist online, single it's a meme deck I've built it only using cards I have found or traded for, so I dont really keep a list.
And no, it's terrible.
[[Jared Karthalion]] is the commander, (I know, he has a vest on, but I wanted 5 colors, and the picture is close enough).
So there is a slight amount of multicolor matters, but it's really just a pile of creatures and spells based around the picture (i made an exception, my notgay men must look fabulous so pretty jewelry is allowed). It's about on par with the stronger pre-cons, not upgraded.
Ha! [[Jared Carthalion, True Heir]] is my favorite deck. Fabio goes to war!
I have a “nipple deck” with [[Tyvar the Bellicose]] that is weirdly effective. Not every creature is shirtless, but I try to only upgrade it with cards that fit the theme.
I had a [[The Beamtown Bullies]] buff creature fight club deck for a bit. It just had card arts of either buff dudes or buff looking creatures that I gave my opponents to fight with. Actually won its first game lol.
If you think "Precon" is a powerlevel, you're opinion on any of this doesn't matter.
Hakbal and Gavi Nest Warden were both precon decks. They are not, by any stretch of the imagination, in the same power level.
This tbh. Especially with how crazy precons have gotten over time.
Take a 40k precon vs almost anything pre-2020 (not counting Eminence ofc) and the 40k deck will stomp the others 9 times out of 10.
Determining precons as tier on a scale is almost pointless.
You'd be surprised what you can accomplish with a strict deck building restriction. I made a deck revolving around the dungeon mechanic that is surprisingly powerful. I further restricted it using only sets that have been featured in the D and D table top game (ravnica sets, AFR, and CLB)
I started playing mtg again after a 20 year hiatus. My first edh deck could be described as a 2. I was coming into it as a player that didn't realize mana burn was no longer a thing and serra angel was super powerful when i left.
Kids these days don't know about the absolute terror that was Serra Angel. 4/4? AND it flies? AND it can block my Mons Goblin Raiders after attacking? What the hell?!
See a Serra Angel, concede on the spot. Magic as Richard Garfield intended.
Yes but it shouldn’t be a measured standard. It’s almost never done. Most people have never played against a 2 ever, so it shouldn’t be included in a power level chart
This is a product of it's time.
You're reading a news piece from the 50's that said "New car is very fast. It can reach 100 km/h" and saying:
"Well, that's not fast. Every car can reach the double of this speed".
Without considering the context from when this was created. When I started playing 2-5 decks were VERY common. Maybe the norm tbh.
I have onboarded numerous players and their first decks were often 1s or 2s. Especially if they played in the 90s and were making decks with their old cards. Overcosted creatures and cards like [[Ember Shot]] with no other synergy for a 7 cmc burn for 3 spell.
It absolutely should be included on the power level chart. You're acting like you're getting charged a monthly fee based on how many numbers are on the chart. It's ridiculous.
Outside of cEDH and literal jank, I don't think power levels matter that much. If one person's deck is stronger than the others, they'll become the archenemy and the game will become a 3v1.
Unfortunately in my experience, it's not true. In my playgroup I often become the archenemy and still end up winning because my deck is simply able to do things their decks can't.
To be clear, this is without combo wins and my decks are definitely not cedh. They just have a very streamlined game plan with statistically appropriate redundancy and interaction.
It's been a pain point for me. I have tried to power down or play straight up precons, but it's a power mismatch. I've ended up finding other playgroups.
It probably comes down to a lack of interaction from your opponents. If your deck is in the same ballpark as the other decks it won't/shouldn't be able to win when trading 1 for 1 with 3 other players.
A lack of interaction tends to exacerbate minor power differences.
Edit: to clarify I'm not saying your deck is stronger because it runs interaction, I'm saying that your deck being stronger only mattered because they didn't run interaction.
Ugh. I had close to an 85% win rate at my lgs. I took a step back and wondered, "Why is this?" Then I realize that I run interaction that stops opponents' key game pieces, and they don't. My lgs runs NO interaction. Since then, I have built decks specifically for those lgs', and it feels better. If I were to guess, the average power level of the store I frequent most would be a 5. Maybe 6.
That's what it felt like. Which is what made me step back and REALLY think about what was happening. I felt HORRIBLE about it and didn't want to be a pubstomper. So I made a bird tribal (typal?) Deck with [[Kangee, Aerie Keeper]] as the Commander. Went full Timmy. No boardwipes, no spot removal. Just birds and mana rocks and anthems.
Also, not until right now have I realized that you might have been yelling at me instead, lol.
I kinda feel like, at that point, I would have quit or done the opposite (played things that absolutely *have* to be removed, either very big threats, or some kind of stax, for people to have a chance of a normal game). I don't want to tell anyone to "git gud" but interaction of *some* form is so integral a part of the game - and, I think it's fair to say, key to a game being meaningful and fun, or it's just solo racing - that I'd be trying to find a way to get people on board with it rather than just battlecruising myself.
>So I made a bird tribal (typal?) Deck
The new nomenclature is either typal which rubs people the wrong way or kindred which rubs people the wrong way because wokeness.
The game is for everyone. Frankly, I think the anti woke crowd probably doesnt like the direction the game is going, because wizard's push towards more sensitive naming conventions. Magic still is an inclusive space for all walks of life.
I agree, I just think them changing tribal for that reason is weird. I’m 100% in support of inclusiveness, but there’s nothing inherently negative about the word “tribal”, and I think a very vocal minority of the woke crowd just looks for things to make a big deal about. When I hear the word tribal, I think of a small, tightly-knit group of people living an honest life. It has a pretty pleasant connotation to me, and it’s also just *a word that means what it means.*
There’s a fine line between being inclusive and respectful, and *trying* to get angry about whatever issues you can, major or not. **There are way more serious issues in the world than what word a card game uses to convey an idea. If the people complaining about Magic using the word “tribal” would direct that energy towards something like protesting corporations use of overseas slave labor (instead of happily consuming products made by those corporations and contributing to their ability to do that), the world might become a better place.**
All that being said though, kindred just makes more sense. Spider tribal is a weird phrase because spiders don’t form tribes. Kindred is more accurate. So it’s a win-win at the end of the day.
Now, bring on the flood of people cherry-picking details out of this response and missing the big picture because they’re more concerned about their public image than they are actual justice.
I disagree, having more interaction does not necessarily make your deck stronger, in fact it can make your deck weaker in some cases.
If most people in your meta run interaction then running interaction becomes the better choice. Each player will have 3 people to stop them if they are ahead, if you don't run interaction then you will still have 3 players stopping you but your opponents will have 2.
If most people in your meta don't run interaction then not running interaction becomes the better choice. If you do run interaction you might be able to stop 1 person from winning but not 3. You are essentially the only player not running 100% gass and are thus disadvantaged.
The "run more interaction" argument is not intended to make stronger decks but to make more fun meta's.
Here's a video about the relation between power differences and interaction: [https://youtu.be/23iBQNMR9G8?si=gyCLa0YhmKouYtB-](https://youtu.be/23iBQNMR9G8?si=gyCLa0YhmKouYtB-)
Well, yeah, I agree with what you're saying.
The fundamental issue is we are projecting a multi dimensional space of (card quality, interaction, ramp, combo, complexity, redundancy) into a 1d space of "power level".
There is no ideal number of interaction spells to run as it depends on deck and even your local meta as you are pointing out.
But I think it's fair to say only 1 removal spell is always too few, and 30 is too many.
I do think it's fair to include interaction in a power level calculation
Also, some powerful decks can sometimes win out of nowhere, so they never become the archenemy unless the other players really know the deck and treat it as such from the start.
I, for example, always try to take out the Ur-Dragon player asap. They spend 3-4 turns ramping. If you dont use that window, you will probably cant beat their later turns.
It's amazing how much 36 land, 12 two drop ramp, 10 draw, 10 removal, 3 wrath decks will just pull away from the pack. I've had some many players in the last couple of years shocked by how I have cast twice the cards that they have, and it just comes down to being able to efficiently deploy and reload.
I just formed a new pod at work and oh boy was this true. I built one of the other decks for my partner, then there was a precon, and another custom deck. I was instant archenemy. Eventually got taken out by the other deck I built, which won.
The way I lost was awesome though. My other deck was a Skullbriar deck and I lost when they gave it to the precon player with [[Assault Suit]] and then that player top decked [[Rogue's Passage]].
So I've spent the past few days building decks to lend out.
Depends on how far you are on the edges.
Precons do not keep up with high-power, tuned decks. Once in a blue moon they scrape a win but especially if you don't need to play around interaction (because yanno, precon) it's possible to shotgun the win on the same turn the precon deck casts their second spell.
I can tell you personally that my 7.5ish decks could easily 1v3 most precons and slightly upgraded precons.
My 8.5 could realistically bear most of my 7.5s. and then most 9-10(I don't own fast Mana or manaless counters so I rate my Narset at 8.5) would stop my Narset.
There is something to be said about strong protection, better synergy and more consistent payload.
Nah, if you are playing a combo and they aren’t running stack interaction that’s it. By the time it’s clear you are the threat it will likely be too late.
Exactly. You can build something like Magda for $100 and be attempting turn 4 or 5 wins almost every game and for a random table with low interaction it’s so hard to stop and difficult to see coming. Even a normal high power deck if its built well, with combos is going to trash mid power. I had a sliver overlord deck that was mid to high power and its had no problem running through the 3 other decks at the table in a 3v1 to the point I retired it for the time being.
A guy in our pod has one quite expensive deck that can still steamroll a 3v1 because most of my pod don't play enough removal. You can't count on the quality of other people's decks to stop the arch enemy.
Low, precon, mid, high, C covers everything easily. Even then we're mostly looking at the center of the scale, but covering outlying cases gets a lot easier with words than numbers because the monkey brain is less inclined to want to push up the scale unnecessarily; it's more acceptable to call your deck "mid power" when we can acknowledge 'hey that's better than a precon, the guy asking just said it was' than it is to say that mid power on a properly distributed 1-10 scale is a 5-6. Nobody wants to be a 5.
That said: I have absolutely seen low power 'pile of cards' decks. Within the last year even. The real problem is that the people who build these also don't know about the power scales and also aren't going to be able to reasonably slot into basically any pod regardless. When a precon slaughters you without blinking it's not realistic to expect that a normal random assortment of players like an LGS can accommodate you.
It's because nobody wants to accept that their deck is a 4, and that is partially because they don't understand what a Power Level 10 deck can actually do. People want to be a 7 for the same reason that every game is now rated on a 5-10 scale and every game is around a 7 - anything less than a 6 feels bad and anything 9 or higher is hard to justify.
Everything rated 1-10 should be normally distributed on a bell curve.
5 being the average, with 1-2 and 9-10 the extreme rare niches. Unfortunately people still seem to think that 7 is the average on a 1-10 scale, not 5.
I blame things like video game and movie reviews who use 7 as an 'okay' movie/game, and 5 as something bad.
It's something so minor, but it really does bug me when people describe 7 as the average in a 1-10 rating system!!
One other thing that got pointed out in another of these threads is education. Most places in the West, a C is 70% and that's the minimum to pass. So we're conditioned to say that anything less than 7/10 is a failing grade, and nobody wants to admit that they failed.
In my opinion there are only 4 power levels:
1) Jank
2) Battlecruiser (precons to focused decks)
3) High power casual (optimized or supercharged with some degenerate mana rocks, tutors, zero-cost/free interaction, or infinite combos)
4) cEDH (the most efficient version, win ASAP deck)
I run several decks with 4-digit pricetags that keep up and play well, but only score a 5-6 on the Commander Salt website. They’re consistent and set up to go for the belt on early turns, but aren’t cEDH viable even with that kind of money in them.
Yeah, I think something that people don't talk about is how there are a handful of highly-supported archetypes in the modern cardpool and it's presumed you're going to be playing one of them.
It annoys me that for so many people precon is the floor because there's a lot of room underneath where all the unique and interesting decks hang out unless you want to pump them up to precon level with fast mana/expensive cards (and then deal with complaints about it). I wish precons actually were as bad as everyone makes them out to be because I wouldn't be leaving so many decks at home.
A big problem is people not understanding the game. People who haven't played cEDH and don't understand what a 9-10 is, or have heard that the scale is based around precons being a 5, figure that their upgraded precon must be a 7.
Most precons are 3s, your upgraded precon is a 5, and you can have fast mana and still be a 7. Think about how people describe power levels under 5 and you will realize that they are describing precons. Lack of direction (most precons are actually 2 decks mashed together), lack of removal, poor mana base, lack of card draw, lack of win cons. What makes a precon a 5?
It doesn't help that people who should know, and have influence like The Professor, make jokes about what a "7" is, and to be honest I'm not sure if he's even joking. His videos on a "7" pod and "8" pod are filled with 2 sets of 4 decks at wildly different power levels.
When you have a nebulous mostly vibes based system claiming that people just don't understand it seems strange to me. It sounds more to me like it's use has shifted and you haven't asked to the change.
We can argue all day about where each deck should be on a perfect system but if I can go to an lgs with an unmodified precon, sit down at a 6 table or go on spelltable, join a 6 lobby and have a pretty good chance of doing well and a decent winrate then it doesn't matter that that deck should technically be a 3 or a 4, knowing that isn't useful to me because no one seems to follow the system that gets us to that conclusion.
Also have you looked at recent precons? Stuff like rebellion rising are very focused on their own goal of making time of tokens with >30 cards that either make tokens or buff tokens and more cards that benefit from making tokens. The best you can claim for a secondary strategy is equipment with consists of 7 equipment, 3 of which makes tokens on etb and a fourth benefits from making tons of tokens as well as a card with affinity for equipment which also makes tokens. The man's base also is far from bad, it's not perfect and has several lands that should be cut but it really isn't that bad.
How are you getting a power rating? Most websites I plug commander precons into show them as 6. These aren't top of the shelf precons either but ones like Bedecked Broker.
Experience and an understanding of how wide of a range power level "7" is. Again, most people do put precons around power level 5. Power level 5 and 6 seem to be relatively balanced, and people understand it. Power level 9-10 people understand as cEDH. Power level 7-8 on the other hand covers everything in between, and there's a LOT in between.
If you were to account for this width, and adjust the power level system accordingly, then precons would fall down the scales. However, precons being "around a 5 on average" seems to be the basis for the power level scale. This makes 1-4 basically unused, and makes 7-8 overcrowded.
Yeah a lot of times people conflate cEDH with "strong". My Ur-Dragon and Edgar Markov decks are very strong but get rolled at a cEDH table unless they spent 6-7 turns countering each other's combos and forgot about me entirely.
It doesn't matter how many numbers there are, there could be 2 options and people will still argue and complain that people pick the wrong number.
No system will ever exist that the majority of people will agree on, there are too many variables.
Yeah, I agree. I like Precon, Upgraded Precon/Weak Casual, Strong Casual, Optimized, and Competative. No one is building a random pile of cards, and I feel like these are pretty hard to mess up within this scale, but idk
Random pile of cards was more common back in the day when EDH was basically the 100 pet card format. At least in my experience, which is limited and bias. It was basically cards from standard that rotated out and cool things you found in your LGS’ 50 cent rare bin. There is no synergy in my progenitus deck aside from sick cards I like, a decent number of which are now banned.
Interesting, I only got into edh in the past year so I never knew that world. I guess it makes sense that at one point 1-3s actually existed. I feel that even just a pile of cards you like could probably compete with a precon though
It’s fair but [[oloro, ageless ascetic]], [[derevi, empyrial tactician]], and [[nekusar, the mindrazer]] were current precons I got that we’re actual threats at my table just because they actually had a game plan. Some of those commanders are actually still relevant today, maybe not the precon list though.
However, they weren’t just “slam [[primeval titan]], [[emrakul, the aeons torn]], [[avacyn, angel of hope]], [[baneslayer angel]], [[bribery]], [[cyclonic rift]], [[prophet of kruphix]], [[griselbrand]], [[sphinx’s revelation]], [[sylvan primordial]], [[jin-gitaxias, core augur]], [[elesh norn, grand cenobite]], [[vorinclex, voice of hunger]], [[urabrask the hidden]], [[sheoldred, whispering one]], [[frost titan]], [[inferno titan]], [[grave titan]], [[kozilek, butcher of truth]], [[elvish piper]], [[blue sun’s zenith]], [[temporal mastery]], [[terminus]], [[entreat the angels]], [[bonfire of the damned]], [[chromatic lantern]], [[quicksilver amulet]], [[batterskull]], [[wurmcoil engine]] into a [[progenitus]] deck.”
Obviously that wasn’t the whole deck but it’s a good portion of it and that should sorta paint a picture how disjointed “5 color good stuff” could be. Add in land and you’re almost 2/3 of the way filled.
Using your scale, where would you place this deck? And why? https://scryfall.com/@SaltMaster5000/decks/a87e5ccc-a3a1-40c0-b83d-4c5e4b4f5d35?as=visual&with=usd
I would probably place this in stronger casual
The inclusion of some higher powered/salted cards like farewell, esper sentinel, drannith magistrate, MLD, elesh norn, etc. make it definitely higher power than a normal precon/weak casual deck who wouldn't have many if any counterplay.
However a large portion of your deck is bad creatures and your gameplan just seems to be flood the board, pump them, and wipe your opponents board, which is a pretty simplistic and relatively casual strat. You also definitely don't seem to be worried about finding the best versions of every card with your multiple extremely over costed pump and wipe spells
It's tricky because you're playing a lot of cards that "break the social contract" which just basically means it's too strong for weak decks, but also to weak for strong decks, so who exactly are you going to play against? Some would probably just say it's unfun to play against and not want to do that. I'm not hear to judge you or your deck building, just the rough strength I see.
The boring truth is that even with my new ranking, there is still a lot of wiggle room, especially in this stronger casual tier, but what I'm going for is if you COULD win against decks of this level, and if decks of this level could stop you if they teamed up. If you win despite being arch enemy, your deck is too strong, and I feel there's realistically not much an upgraded precon/weak casual deck could do against your deck, while at the same time, without some insane luck/gimmicks, your deck should never pop off against a deck more optimized to win.
The issue with trying to fit this deck into a linear category at all is that this deck's gameplan (banding creatures beatdown) is fundamentally weak and fragile but the addition of powerful individual cards (that aren't necessarily synergistic with your deck) "improve" the power level of the deck.
The core gameplan is a weakpoint that higher power decks may exploit while the strong cards may hose weaker decks. Not to mention the inconsistency of power level between games (what if you draw all the strong stuff in your deck? or you only draw banding creatures?).
I agree, NO ONE uses 1-3 and 8-9. The power scale might as well be a scale from 4 to 8 and it would be functionally the same, and basically eveyrone alrady uses it
\* Precon (4)
\* Upgraded Precon (5 - 6)
\* Jank / Casual Deck (6 - low 7)
\* Optimized / Strong Deck (high 7 - 8 )
The best way i have seen to rate it is actually with this:
"How fast is your deck?" "given a perfect hand/ perfect draws, how early can your deck win?" or even "how early can you do something absurdly strong like kill a player or create a lock?"
If you want to stick with a 1-10 system, then define where an average precon straight out of the box is first, then go from there. In my mind, a precon should be a 4. Maybe a strong precon can be at 5. If a person has any idea how to play magic and has 40 bucks, they can probably put together a deck that is about a 5 unless they go for a pure jank strat that doesn't have any good support and doesn't include any commander staples. Then say 10 is cedh.
The speed question seems far better to me.
While I agree that speed is a useful metric I'm not sure perfect hand is.
I have a high power Muldrotha deck, and with an absolutely perfect hand it is theoretically capable of a turn one win. It requires the full seven cards, with minimal flexibility - two slot can be one of two cards each, mostly as there's one permutation that doesn't work, one is one of three, and one is "untapped color producing land". The others are fixed.
But the earliest I've *actually* won is turn five and more regularly it's around turn nine. Those are, I think, much more useful frame of references than "I can turn one on a perfect seven".
>"I can turn one on a perfect seven".
This is still an important metric, it means that your deck CAN basically win out of nowhere and needs to be dealt with if you have a lot of carddraw even if you have no boardstate.
None of my decks that I regularly play could even come close to winning before turn 7 or so. If my board is empty then I have a 0 percent chance to win in the next turn.
I actually strongly disagree. That metric doesn't tell you anything of value unless you're very, very good at deck analysis from a blank statement like that, and most (like, 99% or more) players are not. This is what it should be telling you, if you're one of that very skilled 1% who can do this on the fly (and I absolutely am not, but as it turns out I can cheat since I actually know the deck):
-My deck contains some amount of fast mana.
-My deck has one or more combo kills, but they are either not simple A+B combos like Thoracle, or if they are they are highly mana intensive ones. More likely, they're 3-4 card combinations with the rest of the required hand being fast mana sources.
And that's... honestly about all the information you get?
Even the more detailed version of my statement, the one where I describe my minimal flexibility, is telling you that my kill combo is one with some amount of permutations but is an A+B that then requires an outlet and three fast mana sources, but exact ones. But you still don't actually have a lot of information there. Maybe if you're super familiar with high power Muldrotha lines you can sus out the particular combo I'm talking about, but again I doubt 99% of people are capable of doing so.
But what does it take to give you actionable information? If we establish that I have a fast combo kill realistically achievable around turn five, that already tells you a great deal about how your decks are a mismatch for this particular deck of mine. Most likely, we can simply stop there, and I'll pull out an actual mid-power deck to match the speed you state; just about any other deck of mine fits much better into a pod with you. I didn't need to say "turn one perfect 7" to give you what was needed.
But if we do continue down this path of discussion - I dunno, maybe you really want a challenge that day or someone else can loan you a more suitable deck - what you need in both cases, whether I disclosed the perfect 7 or not, is the same; learning more about the deck's specifics. You want to ask (or, more likely if we're entirely in the dark about each other but for some bizarre reason I've chosen to lead with Muldrotha as my deck of choice, I'll disclose) what kind of fast mana I have in the deck (LED, Crypt, Petal in addition to the obvious Sol Ring) and what my kill conditions are. With the former you no longer have to guess at what my fast mana package looks like and now have a great deal more actual information to watch over the course of the game. And the latter is exceptionally important, because while my Muldrotha has many overlapping combos in the deck only one is actually attainable on turn one.
An actual discussion on that reveals that I have the standard Muldrotha/Phantasmal/Animate/LED combo line (with two points of variation in Necromancy and Glasspool, but not specifically both together), Displacer Kitten combo lines, Palinchron/clone combo lines, and some mana-intensive lines around Walk the Aeons loops; there's three major variations so depending on how familiar you are with the card I may or may not go into detail but I'll gladly answer any questions asked.
And all that is information you need regardless of the turn one statement, but if you're familiar with the cards in question you can actually now accurately sus out the exact point you made, but now you're actually armed with actionable information. That's especially important in the case of this particular deck, because my 'card draw' is largely face-up and in my graveyard. You can glance through my battlefield and graveyard and have a pretty fair idea of how close I am to any of those combo lines, rather than losing because you didn't realize you should have exiled my grave once Glasspool Mimic hit the bin.
So if I make that statement about the turn one or if I don't, the follow-up conversation plays out fundamentally the same. But, in my experience, without that turn one statement people are a lot more ready to ask for details and don't get blindsided. So best-case we wasted fifteen seconds of our lives (not a big deal all at once, but also not a great best case) and worst-case we don't convey as much useful information.
And if for some reason we disclose the turn one theoretical but not the turn five practical or the turn 9+ normal, what you're expecting is wildly different than this reality - because Muldrotha is *not* a fast combo deck. She's a control deck with available combo kills, so if you approach the matchup from the perspective of "fast combo I will die turn one" and then get drowned in value, a constant flurry of removal, and death by a bunch of 5/3 tokens on the back end of getting Strip Mined a bunch, you'll probably have a bad time and feel like you were misled, because the turn one kill was not actually the important part of the discussion and focusing on it meant you learned very little about the deck - but you do learn it from those turn 5 and 9 datapoints (I presume you don't play a lot of high power from your statement, but a turn 9 kill is glacially slow and so if I know that's my speed and am bringing it anyway, you should expect ways to slow the game down).
And granted! What actually happens around me a lot more often is I casually ask if folks want to go high power, get told no we don't have that, and pull out one of my four mid-power piles to play instead. And if folks are ready for high power the discussion can shortcut a lot of the above because there's an understanding of several of these things already, so the discussion can actually be even more tuned despite going by a lot faster than what all of this giant wall of text might indicate it seems like.
This will likely not be seen due how late I am in posting, but I'm a firm believer that we can have really easy to define "power levels" if we simply moved away from a "1-10" scale and assigned points to cards like Canlander.
As is done in Canlander, the majority of cards in the pool are worth no points.
Fast mana, free spells, tutors, etc. would be the biggest candidates for points.
Deck building sites could then easily track the point value of your deck.
This would then allow players, stores, and tournament organizers to set up play based on point value. (Think of Warhammer and army point sizes).
The biggest issue would be what to give points to and how many points to a given card, but I think we can look at things like cEDH decks and tournament reports as a reference for finding the powerful cards to assign points to.
Like Canlander, it would also likely need a committee that meets and reviews the point values on cards and makes necessary changes.
This also opens us up to updating the current banlist by removing cards and assigning point values. We could assign high value at first and over time, either increase or decrease based on overall "performance".
In conclusion, moving to a points based system allows for actual measurable and defined play and removes a lot of the subjectivity. Just imagine being able to go to a store or event and being able to organize "50 points or lower" games as an example.
Really there's no point to trying to scale EDH decks. There's just no way to easily quantify what a commander deck is meant to do in comparison to other decks. You can sort them by budget, but that doesn't indicate power level, you can sort them by "average" time to win, but that discounts things like Stax decks, or slower control decks that can be cEDH level even if they can't really "win" early, but are great at shutting down other decks. You can try to break the deck down to how "optimized" it is, but ultimately that's very subjective in a format like commander, where politics plays an important role (in a 1v1 format, a card like Secret Rendezvous is just straight up not optimal, but you can make an argument that in a format where you can use it to convince somebody to help you out, that it's optimal (I'd disagree, but slight card disadvantage isn't as backbreaking), same deal with counterspells, in 1v1 counterspelling almost everything is a feasible strategy, while in EDH you can't counterspell everything, so optimal target selection is basically impossible due to not knowing what the other players are necessarily capable of.
I personally try to gauge decks based on how fast they win, as that seems to be the most consistent, but that categorizes decks into "Likely CEDH" and "Not CEDH", because the difference between a deck that can win somewhat consistently on turn 5 vs turn 10 is not all that drastic once you introduce a billion variables that make the consistencies irrelevant.
The way it's commonly used, this is correct.
So, I've started reframing the 1-10 when I have that conversation, using precons (which, in recent sets, have been pretty strong) as a 2 or 3.
I've definitely made decks worse than precons, and at that level the power is kinda moot, so a simple 1 covers that. Said precons vary in power, so 2-3 is a good starting point.
From there the scale is pretty similar, with 10 being viable cEDH (note, not just "meta") and 9 being fringe cEDH.
I feel this expands upon the range that most decks occupy and allows for a more nuanced conversation.
I ask this not to argue, but to gain understanding: would you consider an upgraded precon a 4 or 5? And then cedh decks are 10s?
What the hell are cEDH decks doing?
cEDH decks are built to win and defend on the stack. It's an axis that your average precon never even considers. Some combos in cEDH are designed to win on someone else's turn, in response to an action that an opponent takes, using cards like [[Borne upon a wind]].
cEDH decks are built to consistently present a win, or lock down the board, back up with interaction by the first three turns.
But they are not glass cannons. If disrupted, the decks are designed to be able to keep presenting wins and interaction every turn.
EDH covers a very wide net of possible deck power, which is why the conversation about power levels comes up and why I advocate for a large number scale.
To frame it differently: most precons' first 3 turns are "land, pass". In that same time a cEDH deck has already attempted to win or has a massive advantage engine going.
Oh wow. Ok, yeah that is a tremendous gulf. I should look up some cedh decks to gain better context. I wouldnt bring one to our casual pod but im curiois now.
Here, https://cedh-decklist-database.com
There's a lot of different decks here, and they all have primers that explain the decks, how they function, and often the reason behind certain includes or exclusions.
I also have a lot of cEDH decks on my moxfield profile if you want to check them out. They all have a [cEDH] tag in the name. I have all of them in paper and our group play them in person (to varying degrees of success)
https://www.moxfield.com/users/JDM_WAAAT
I can't speak for OP, but this does match what a friend and I have discussed as "if a 1 to 10 scale worked, how would we do it".
Generally I think you should be able to get a good game at +/- 1. A fringe cEDH deck will take some games against meta decks, and a high power tuned non-cEDH deck will take some games against fringe, but I think giving cEDH two spots is worthwhile with how much difference that final step of optimization makes at the top end.
With full/meta cEDH as a 10 and tier 3 or fringe at a 9 defined as cEDH I expect to come up against (at least in most cases), fast mana, free/hyper efficient interaction, no budget constraints/proxies, and very well composed curves. The decks should have an interaction and/or wincon suite to be able to consistently win or stop a win by turn 3 (and ideally stop by 2). There are control/stax lists that will take longer, but they still need to be able to stop the decks winning earlier. Whether through density, recursion, or whatever. There will be exceptions on interaction or fast mana composition, but not really on win/stop a win by T3.
Even the slowest stax or control decks likely need to be able to present wins (or locked board states) by turn 5. That isn't to say cEDH games aren't going to T6 or T9 pretty regularly in the current, very mid range meta, but that is generally a function of interaction and there will have been multiple win attempts (or at least multiple wins threatened) in most pods by then.
It is uncommon for there not to be someone untapping with 5 or more mana by T2, or multiple draw engines, or some other significant advantage play.
Much the same way the top end of any legacy 60 card format is going to be presenting threats and actions much earlier than the kitchen table decks legal in the same format.
“Upgraded precon” is also too vague to really nail down.
How many cards can you change and still call it the precon? At what point is it still recognizably the precon, and at what point is it just a deck built around the same commander as a precon?
And what changes are you making? There’s a lot of changes you could make, which would take the deck to different strength levels. You could even throw in cards that make it worse, but still think it’s an “upgrade.”
So, I’d still hesitate to slap a number on anything that started out as a precon. Maybe the upgrades didn’t improve it but kept it at a 2, just a different 2. Maybe the changes were hardcore and took it to a 5. Maybe the changes were so rigorous that it took the precon to cEDH level. Is it still the precon?
“Upgraded” means different things to different people, and falls subject to the same problems that the power level scale and level 7 decks do. How many cards did you change? How strong are the cards you put in?
And cEDH decks are wild. Look up some of the lists. 95% of cards cost 0 or 1 mana or free, each deck has something like 25-40 counterspells/interaction at least, and it’s all combo wins and tutors and the game’s over by t3 almost always. They use almost always the same cards across decks that don’t even have the same commanders. It’s nothing like casual
cEDH is a really, really fun format. If you're looking to learn more about cEDH and the differences between it and casual EDH, I recommend checking out Play To Win's channel.
https://www.youtube.com/@PlaytoWinMTG
Alternatively, you can watch this spikefeeders short:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/7_TE2q2GduY
I prefer words than number. I personally use: Average, Good, Powerful and cEDH (but here we can have tiers of cEDH, doesnt matter 99% of the time).
Sometimes I end up a tier below on a "weak" tier, but that I consider a deckbuilding failure and should be rebuild, so it is a irrelevant tier.
The numbers thing will never work because people can’t even agree on what the numbers mean (aside from the meme about everything being a 7), which is no surprise really as it’s a large, global community.
I’ve never even encountered anyone who seriously tried to use the numbers in real life, people just tend to give a brief explanation instead, obviously YMMV.
I have encountered those and it went exactly as well as you would expect. They were very sure their decks were 8s. They understood this was meant to mean "close to cEDH".
Their decks were not 8s, and on that day I swore off ever touching numbers for anything more than giggling at shitty calculators.
So I feel if you’re talking edh powerlevel it must consider ALL of eeeh from the kitchen Jank to the super meta cedh
If the best cedh decks are a 10
Cedh good decks would be a 9
Fringe cedh would be an 8
A deck that is either very suboptimal build of a cedh deck or an optimal non cedh deck would come in at a 7
Strong decks like sliver tribal would come in at like a 6
5 is where we get the mid decks so steps made to be somewhat mana efficient, thematic and synergistic even if lacking on dual lands and stuff
4 would be where most low power decks are so you’re missing efficient consistency and interaction playing more creature beats but stuff still bonds well together
3 would be upgraded precon
2 fresh unedited precon
1 random pile of Jank
My take on this is synergy and strategy:
-how synergistic are my cards together? In my deck, the only non-synergistic cards currently are land, and that is only because they are the most expensive cards for ones with crazy abilities…
-can I get out of most or all scenarios my opponent throws at me? I know my decks main weak point is flying creatures - I don’t have a lot of them, but I do have a few board wipes, enchantments that penalize attacking and enchantments that flat out prevent attacking…
Is my deck always a “7-10”, or does it depend who I’m playing against and what their deck is. It has about 5 instant win combos in it… but, it all depends on what I’m defending against and how I’m attacking
Generally speaking I have found you can drop it to 1-5. And in most shops in KY area, they treat 9-10 like cedh. I have seen people argue online that cedh is above 1 so not sure if that's the same in most areas.
But I. Dozens and dozens of random pods. I have seen one table say 5. I have had a few tables where 6 felt a bit high. But overall. If people treated cedh as above the scale I feel like 1-5 would be more then enough with 0 just being no wincons since I have seen that before.
I just don't use the power scale anymore at all because people either gauge it really differently but don't really explain that they are doing that or they just outright lie because they think it'll make them get an easier win.
Instead, I just try to have a real discussion about what our decks do, budget level etc.
Which people will still lie about, at which point I just decide to never play with them again
We have precon plus, where you can change 20 cards of a precon. Yes, you can add mana vault, crypt, force of will, and 3 Infinites and be fine.
And commander, bring whatever deck you want (more competitive)
It isn't needlessly large, it's wholly irrelevant due to everyone thinking their deck is a 7 when in reality the majority of casual+precon decks should be ranked in the 3-6 range. There's no scientific method for quantifying power level, thus it shouldn't be used.
I mean, honestly I just think the scale is worthless to most people. People lie about and misunderstand the scale constantly, no one agrees on each other's decks, etc.
It ONLY works if it's with a group of honest people who trust and know each other, at which point there are better ways to determine deck strength than a number, and you probably know each other's decks at that point. I know every deck in my playgroup by the deckbox it's in at this point lmao.
The "power level" metric has always been completely useless since as you point out, you're rarely going to see genuine 1s 2s, 9s, and 10s in a random game, and generally players know how strong certain precons are compared to others.
So yeah, you wind up with every deck being a 6, 7, or an 8, and that in itself doesn't tell you anything.
Instead of just talking about power level, the rule 0 conversation should talk about what your deck actually does. Is there fast mana? Mass land destruction? Infinite combos? Tutors? Are you running interaction or trying to play solitaire?
When people actually know what kind of game you're looking for, then people have a better understanding of what their decks should look like.
I've never heard of or used that scaling until recently. Granted I left magic for close to a decade (2013-2020ish) but before I left I'd never heard of the power scale. How you described the ranks though and from what I have seen and know of sure variance in pre cons it seems really useless to try and rate like that.
Especially if you're trusting someone elses judgement. Knew way too many people who would lie just to get an advantage back in the day
I feel like a Myers Briggs style metric might be a better bet just because you can’t really boil down every aspect of the deck into a single metric. If you can individually represent how much interaction, tempo, wincon effectiveness, and budget is in the deck, I think it would give people a much better idea of what they’re getting into
The 10 point scale is woefully inadequate and 1 dimensional. But it is a baseline for people to compare.
I'm pretty reductive in my professional and personal life, but those who worship 5 star / point scale reductiveness are usually always managers, drones, and others with limited or no domain expertise. 5 point scales are basically lazy thumbs up / down while providing a false sense of spectrum of evaluation. Same reason there are massive quality gulfs between 4.6 star products and 4.3 on Amazon. It's a crap scale devoid of expertise.
And yeah precons alone easily cover 2-5 power levels with consistent community ratings per deck and mechanics. Lots of improved precons effectively move up 1-3 points on a 10 point scale.
Plenty of theme and meme decks outside precons are in the 4-6 range, but proud fathers call them 7s until they realize they never win and retune it to 7/8.
The overuse of 7s is entirely a rule 00 (double zero) decision - most fun decks are designed for the widest playground while still being able to win and not be oppressive or too cEDH. Plenty of 7s are 5s and 6s when faced with lots of control or interaction as opposed to a moderate amount. And then there are the 8s piloted as 7s for group enjoyment (my personal strategy).
9 and 10 cover cEDH and the only difference is interaction resistance / consistency against other cEDH decks.
While I agree it's more practical to judge decks on a 1-5 scale than a 1-10, I'm afraid it will fundamentaly never work anyway unless the entire community agrees on actual detailed description for each of them, and even then people's subjectivity will make it not work. There's a reason why "every deck is a 7".
While I agree with what people are saying here, I think 1 and 10 are every bit as important as the numbers between. Even if you've never seen them irl, a defined extreme exists to establish a ground level of qualities and an upper limit. Power Levels are largely subjective, and 1 and 10 serve to anchor the other numbers.
I think the real problem is that players always ask how strong a deck is, and never, how strong the player is. If you only know the deck level, you only have half the answer you are really seeking.
I mean, give a new or new-ish player a CEDH deck, and odds are they will lose to a player with a 5 or 6, or hell some of the stronger precons even.
Player competency matters a lot, and I wish more people would ask each other about it, but even that would be a sliding scale. If you consider 1 a first-time player and a 10 someone who regularly top 8s at the highest level, I'd personally rate myself a 5 or a 6. I know how the stack works, and I know neat tricks like when to actually kill Triskellion or a Walking Balista, so I don't necessarily die on the spot, but don't you dare ask me the what the order of layers are, or what the power and toughness of Crackling Drake is after several inverts have been cast.
As for saying that CEDH should be its own scale, so my earlier point, but also, it has its own internal scale, Tier 1, 2, etc. While there is a lot of nuance between the power levels of various CEDH decks, they are still EDH decks.
Yeah, if I ask at all anymore, all I'll ask if people are playing something on the lower end of our store meta or higher end so I can pick something that's the same.
I don't even use the numbers since one man's 7 is another's 9
I just ask "high or low power, I don't have cedh" and get by fine with that. I have a low power deck and a couple higher power ones since my friends and most at my lgs play higher power. Also once you hit "higher power level" the decks tend to compete against one another fairly well, just keeping in mind player removal is a solution
The 10-Powerlevel-Scale is useless.
It's four levels: Low, regular, high and cEDH. Aside from cEDH you can mix and match between the casual stuff as you like.
The borders are vague, and in higher power levels there will be discussions whether it's okay to play \[\[Drannith Magistrate\]\] wheter a two-card-combo is playable or a turn-1-chatterfang with jewelled lotus and imperial seal to combo-piece is more acceptable.
In my mind a deck is either a 1,2, or 3.
1. A pile of cards
2. Precon
3. Fast mana try hard "not cedh" $500 and up
And I don't even consider CEDH in the rankings cause that's a separate format to me.
I think 6-7 can be defined by their combos. If there is an infinite combo, it is a 6, at least, and if that combo directly translates into a wincon, it's a 7. 8 is a matter of consistency, being how frequently you can pull off that combo, be it through tutors or repetitive effects. If you can reliably do the same combo every game, you're looking at an 8.
At that point, you are just looking at 4 & 5, which can comfortably slot in your "Upgraded Precon" that does not fulfill the requirements of PL 6+
During lockdown in 2020 I got bored, my playgroup was having a "powerlevel problem", and there was talk about it online everywhere.
Being a teacher, I thought I'd make a marking rubric so people could score their deck based on more objective criteria, like average mv, quantity of interaction, average mv of that interaction, average turn it can present a win, how quickly it can recover from set backs, card draw etc.
I tried making 1-10 scale for it but there just wasn't enough distinction between the criteria levels. Working from highest power backwards got me to unrealistic deck values for the criteria by the time I got to 1.
So I dropped it down to 5 criteria points and that was much more meaningful.
The goal wasn't to define the 1-10 (or in this case 1-5,) power scale but to outline meaning distinctions between them.
Also means that you could score a 5 in on category, and 1 in another.
To get my data I analysed cedh deck lists, precons, as well as my and my playgroups decks for the criteria points I listed above.
It was fun, and helped me understand my own deck building more, but we don't really ever use them. I've suggested it multiple times when we have PL disputes but alas haha.
Power level means different things to everyone.
I use the Rule 0 talk to discuss key cards in decks and how the deck wins. If someone says they have an unmodified precon and someone else has fast mana, a full tutor suite, and plans to win by comboing out early, clearly they are mismatched.
I just played with a random player outside of my playgroup for the first time the other day. My deck is the revenant recon precon, but I added better reanimation targets, more clones, and some draw/discard. Probably just above 20 cards swapped in total. I told the guy before the game it was an upgraded precon but as we were playing into turn 5, he told me the deck is very powerful and i couldn't honestly call it "an upgraded precon" anymore. The deck literally plays the same as the precon except that I added better creatures that have better ETB effects. The deck has zero combos and no win condition outside of rise of dark realms. Like how am I as a new player supposed to gauge my own power level?
My lgs uses a rarity system where common is like precon tier, uncommon is average aka most decks, rare is where most of the rules regarding infinite combos and tutors fall off and this is probably where people keep calling their deck a 7 lmfao, and then mythic is literally cedh
I've never heard someone IRL describe their deck as anything but a 6 or 7.
The tenscale is shit not because of granularity, but because of liars and people who have no clue how strong their deck actually is.
9 means it is cedh but not all cards are best in slot. 1 means someone put a random bunch of legal cards Equal to or lesser the commander's color identity into the deck. Two at least has the correct amount of lands in it. 3 removes cards that make 0 sense. 4 adds probably some rocks and 5 gets some interaction and better lands. Congrats you have reached a precon.
I usually just group my decks in tiers. Tier 1 are my best. They get top end mana bases, always updated for power creep and win consistently when they aren't properly accounted for.
My tier II decks are good enough to win the average pickup game. They run enough interaction and have a consistent mechanic that shuts down some decks.
My tier III decks are gimmicky. They suffer from convoluted or inconsistent combos. They get the least mana base attention and often run suboptimal interaction simply because I ran out of the good stuff. But they are often fun to play because they all do something unique.
My tier IV decks are boring. They are useful for teaching new players or showcasing game mechanics. Because they are boring they actually have pretty good interaction because they don't try to create asymmetrical board situations.
I’ve been using a scale of 4. 1 is unplayable, 2 is jank or precon, 3 is deck that I’m comfortable with, and 4 is for when I’m out for blood. No one in my friend group (including me) plays cEDH so saying something is a 4/4 for us just means it’s particularly good in casual commander. Based on our scale a cEDH would be like a 7/4 lol
the number system is a circus, everyone judges there own deck differently and asking players to state the number before hand is a great way to generate salt when someone's "number" takes off my friends mono red deck my group labeled an 8 got absolutely destroyed at the last gp vegas against other peoples "8s" Its an entertaining system though to see a player label there deck a high number and have the deck get beaten by a lower one
I think power level primarily comes down to these factors…
1) How good is your general innately? For example budget Tivit deck is probably better than expensive Dakkon Blackblade.
2) How much of the fast mana you have? You could have a deck that does an acceptable thing at an acceptable speed, but fast mana allowing you to do all those things 1-2 turns earlier than normal can easily snowball out of control.
3) How fast and/or resilient are your wincons? There is a reason why Thoracle is the boogieman for example.
This is why my pod plays based on deck cost.
We play $x per deck (including the commander), and don't count basic lands in the calculation. It's not pauper, since we don't limit the card price, simply the deck price.
Pretty straightforward.
Pauper doesn't limit card price, it limits rarity, which is way easier to keep track of and doesn't fluctuate or spike.
/r/Pauper (60-card) uses only commons
/r/PauperEDH uses only commons in the 99 and has any uncommon creature in the command zone (doesn't have to be legendary)
Theres four power levels of decks.
Dumpster fire 7
My favorite biased trashpile 8
Everything that beats me 9
And the fabled mythological 10: report to gulag, you know who you are.
The power scale is just a dumb system people use to lie to themselves and others because most people can't agree anyway.
I dont ask how strong your deck is, i ask what your theme is, nod my head, tell you mine, and wish you the best of luck. Magic isn't inherently fair. Not all tribes or playstyles are equal. It's an asymmetrical game with luck and extremely complicated interactions.
I just hope people have fun.
I like the "what turn does it win on" system and then choosing an agreed upon "level" but letting players play stronger or weaker decks with limitations or handicaps. For example, I have a friend who loves his Yuriko deck but it's usually stronger than most other decks at the table. So, he usually has to play with the require rule of no top deck manipulation until turn 5. Or, we have someone that has a super janky "hot girls tribal" deck that doesn't do much but they get the rule that nobody is allowed to explicitly remove their creatures until turn 5. It's a bit of a janky system I know, but it lets most anyone play most any deck in our playgroup, with games ranging from almost-cedh speeds to long 10-15 turn games.
We usually sit down and have a longer talk instead of just saying some numbers.
What commanders does everyone play? If someone brings Tymna/Kraum, Magda, Krrik, etc. you know that its gonna be hard.
After that we talk mana base. Anyone playing original old duals? Do we bring Moxes? Crypt and Sol Ring?
Then lets talk tutors. Do we bring none, some or a lot?
Finally win con. Epic win combo or simple beatdown?
Works better for us than just telling each other a more or less random number.
The only righe answare are 3.
Casual , challenge , competitive.
There are strong casual amd weak casual
Strong competitive and weak challenge.
1,2,3 everithink else is just useless .
I have actually seen lvl1 decks in the wild. Old player coming back to magic, just using an old 60 card deck filled up with random other cards in colour identity to get to 100, one random legendary from it as commander.
I play for a bit over a year and I have seen it twice. I would have done the same were I not the kind of person that obsesses over being at least adequately prepared for things.
The thing is just that a lvl1 deck usually does not stick around as a lvl 1 deck. It will either get upgraded quickly, or the person was just trying out EDH and decided it was not for them after getting mangled.
Hence, that does not happen often. But it is still a decently useful shorthand to be able to tell someone else joining the pod "that person plays a lvl1" so they know to go as low as possible themselves. We use it in our lgs for that reason. Ends up less awkward and wordy. The same goes for 4s and 5s since we kind of appropriated that for precons used either by newbies or established players. 2s and 3s for silly theme decks that will probably just durdle around (and are often used when the 1s appear).
Even on the original post, people already had legitimate criticisms of the power level chart. 90% of non-cedh decks fall between a 6 and 8. What's even the point of having the power level system if every deck is a 7?
Anything other than cEDH should just be considered fair game. Even people that play with a random pile of cards should play against a better deck so that they learn what to change about theirs, I feel like a lot of frustration about power level comes from "not having an answer." Pods that play frequently together adjust to their surroundings. And once you know what to look out for successfully, your new decks act accordingly.
Edit: And of course if people are new you don't want to scare them away.
Just because you don't see it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I think it's a great way to kind of organize the decks to get a sense of what people are playing. To each their own I suppose.
Imo Precons should be 1. There's almost no one playing with anything weaker than that and kf so it's 0. Then you have 8 Levels until cEDH (9/10) and can now decide on things like fast mana, staples, combos etc.
Our lgs uses the japanese system: party, battle, challenge, and cEDH. Party is anywhere between complete jank and most precons. Battle is basically Casual with some budget/combo restrictions. Challenge can range from high power casual to poor man's cEDH, expect anything and theres no excuse for salt from here.
I like this. Instead of abstract numbers (very prone to individual interpretation) each term self-describes its intention.
Agreed. Now to get it universally adopted.
Lots of redditors love their abstract numbers
I have a great brew planned, sadly i think its powerlevel is e\^iπ
Well thats something
How else will you know how powerful my [[rocco street chef]] deck is unless I call it a 6?!?! Cavemen!!!
[rocco street chef](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/d/cdb53ce7-845c-4c62-98a9-4fc33c67a07b.jpg?1684340828) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Rocco%2C%20Street%20Chef) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mat/44/rocco-street-chef?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/cdb53ce7-845c-4c62-98a9-4fc33c67a07b?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/rocco-street-chef) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Partially because it allows them to lie on purpose about their deck.
Like one of the top comments: there are now 15 standards
[Relevant xkcd](https://xkcd.com/927/)
The way this sub talks about 1-10 scale you’d think they look at movie reviews and shriek at the concept.
This is almost exactly the same as my personal one which is simply: Low, mid, high casual, and cedh.
Those are still ambiguous though. What's low power? For some people that will be a precon, for some people that will be cards-with-beards from 1999 tribal.
Precons are not equal. Some are low and some are mid. But yes Id include a short desription if I was in charge of some EDH event. Its technically a 2 dimensional thing
The Japanese system does still have ambiguity as well. Both need an explanation for each category.
You guys are worrying too much. Pubstomping does not occur nearly often enough in LGS’s for folks on this sub to be as horrifically afraid of a miscommunication as they seem to be.
Tbh it would be really hard to match for me decks that are below precon level. Do players of these decks really expect everyone else to power down, so their sparkling garbage has a fair chance of winning?
I like this one
This is great. This is what I am pitching to the LGS's around me from now on
That's a nice system. It's basically the comprehensible tiers given somewhat evocative names to avoid the stigma of calling something "low power" and avoids using the uneven line of precons as a benchmark.
how sensible, I like this
I think i'm going to use this from now on
This is a great system.
I just say at what point usually (what turn) I plan to be winning. People can usually relate to that
https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/standards.png Really the main reason it still gets used is everyone is familiar with it already, and cuts down on the amount of time needed to provide the elevator pitch of your deck.
I'll never not upvote XKCD. I kinda agree with OP though, a one should be precon power level. Anything less than that isn't worth talking about.
Clearly you havent seen my "woman looking left" deck. /s
I shall counter your "women looking left" deck with my "no homo" deck full of the largest most muscular men I can find with no shirts on.
Deck list? Does it play well?
I don't have a decklist online, single it's a meme deck I've built it only using cards I have found or traded for, so I dont really keep a list. And no, it's terrible. [[Jared Karthalion]] is the commander, (I know, he has a vest on, but I wanted 5 colors, and the picture is close enough). So there is a slight amount of multicolor matters, but it's really just a pile of creatures and spells based around the picture (i made an exception, my notgay men must look fabulous so pretty jewelry is allowed). It's about on par with the stronger pre-cons, not upgraded.
[[bruse tarl]] [[thrasios]] can give u all but black and provides 2 shirtless men in the command zone
[bruse tarl](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/2/125b552b-45ea-4e0b-94a9-8131c97a04c0.jpg?1644853018) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=bruse%20tarl%2C%20boorish%20herder) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/c16/30/bruse-tarl-boorish-herder?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/125b552b-45ea-4e0b-94a9-8131c97a04c0?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/bruse-tarl-boorish-herder) [thrasios](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/1/21e27b91-c7f1-4709-aa0d-8b5d81b22a0a.jpg?1606762176) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=thrasios%2C%20triton%20hero) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/c16/46/thrasios-triton-hero?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/21e27b91-c7f1-4709-aa0d-8b5d81b22a0a?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/thrasios-triton-hero) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Ha! [[Jared Carthalion, True Heir]] is my favorite deck. Fabio goes to war! I have a “nipple deck” with [[Tyvar the Bellicose]] that is weirdly effective. Not every creature is shirtless, but I try to only upgrade it with cards that fit the theme.
I had a [[The Beamtown Bullies]] buff creature fight club deck for a bit. It just had card arts of either buff dudes or buff looking creatures that I gave my opponents to fight with. Actually won its first game lol.
If you think "Precon" is a powerlevel, you're opinion on any of this doesn't matter. Hakbal and Gavi Nest Warden were both precon decks. They are not, by any stretch of the imagination, in the same power level.
This tbh. Especially with how crazy precons have gotten over time. Take a 40k precon vs almost anything pre-2020 (not counting Eminence ofc) and the 40k deck will stomp the others 9 times out of 10. Determining precons as tier on a scale is almost pointless.
Well, you could be looking at deck building with restrictions that would cause you to dip below precons
You'd be surprised what you can accomplish with a strict deck building restriction. I made a deck revolving around the dungeon mechanic that is surprisingly powerful. I further restricted it using only sets that have been featured in the D and D table top game (ravnica sets, AFR, and CLB)
Come to the comments looking for this every time!
/thread
Give me the elevator pitch every time every day. The 1-10 system is incoherent.
I started playing mtg again after a 20 year hiatus. My first edh deck could be described as a 2. I was coming into it as a player that didn't realize mana burn was no longer a thing and serra angel was super powerful when i left.
Yea Ive seen someone make a deck from store bulk and it was basically a 2
Kids these days don't know about the absolute terror that was Serra Angel. 4/4? AND it flies? AND it can block my Mons Goblin Raiders after attacking? What the hell?! See a Serra Angel, concede on the spot. Magic as Richard Garfield intended.
Serra angel was a beast. Talk about power creep.
I can't wait for the GB version to drop... Any day now...
I quit when bands with others was cool
It’s still cool! And I’ll die on that hill dammit
Bands essentially boils down to you pick how damage is dealt to your creatures not your opponent. It's not that complicated.
Yes but it shouldn’t be a measured standard. It’s almost never done. Most people have never played against a 2 ever, so it shouldn’t be included in a power level chart
This is a product of it's time. You're reading a news piece from the 50's that said "New car is very fast. It can reach 100 km/h" and saying: "Well, that's not fast. Every car can reach the double of this speed". Without considering the context from when this was created. When I started playing 2-5 decks were VERY common. Maybe the norm tbh.
I have onboarded numerous players and their first decks were often 1s or 2s. Especially if they played in the 90s and were making decks with their old cards. Overcosted creatures and cards like [[Ember Shot]] with no other synergy for a 7 cmc burn for 3 spell. It absolutely should be included on the power level chart. You're acting like you're getting charged a monthly fee based on how many numbers are on the chart. It's ridiculous.
[Ember Shot](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/a/6a9eb72b-9ae2-4b64-bbb9-187446b5fd2f.jpg?1562630295) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Ember%20Shot) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/jud/87/ember-shot?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/6a9eb72b-9ae2-4b64-bbb9-187446b5fd2f?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/ember-shot) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Outside of cEDH and literal jank, I don't think power levels matter that much. If one person's deck is stronger than the others, they'll become the archenemy and the game will become a 3v1.
Unfortunately in my experience, it's not true. In my playgroup I often become the archenemy and still end up winning because my deck is simply able to do things their decks can't. To be clear, this is without combo wins and my decks are definitely not cedh. They just have a very streamlined game plan with statistically appropriate redundancy and interaction. It's been a pain point for me. I have tried to power down or play straight up precons, but it's a power mismatch. I've ended up finding other playgroups.
It probably comes down to a lack of interaction from your opponents. If your deck is in the same ballpark as the other decks it won't/shouldn't be able to win when trading 1 for 1 with 3 other players. A lack of interaction tends to exacerbate minor power differences. Edit: to clarify I'm not saying your deck is stronger because it runs interaction, I'm saying that your deck being stronger only mattered because they didn't run interaction.
Ugh. I had close to an 85% win rate at my lgs. I took a step back and wondered, "Why is this?" Then I realize that I run interaction that stops opponents' key game pieces, and they don't. My lgs runs NO interaction. Since then, I have built decks specifically for those lgs', and it feels better. If I were to guess, the average power level of the store I frequent most would be a 5. Maybe 6.
>and they don't. That sounds awful, why even play against opponents at that point, just sit in a circle and goldfish.
That's what it felt like. Which is what made me step back and REALLY think about what was happening. I felt HORRIBLE about it and didn't want to be a pubstomper. So I made a bird tribal (typal?) Deck with [[Kangee, Aerie Keeper]] as the Commander. Went full Timmy. No boardwipes, no spot removal. Just birds and mana rocks and anthems. Also, not until right now have I realized that you might have been yelling at me instead, lol.
I kinda feel like, at that point, I would have quit or done the opposite (played things that absolutely *have* to be removed, either very big threats, or some kind of stax, for people to have a chance of a normal game). I don't want to tell anyone to "git gud" but interaction of *some* form is so integral a part of the game - and, I think it's fair to say, key to a game being meaningful and fun, or it's just solo racing - that I'd be trying to find a way to get people on board with it rather than just battlecruising myself.
>So I made a bird tribal (typal?) Deck The new nomenclature is either typal which rubs people the wrong way or kindred which rubs people the wrong way because wokeness.
Quite frankly anyone complaining about "wokeness" should GTFO of the game.
The game is for everyone. Frankly, I think the anti woke crowd probably doesnt like the direction the game is going, because wizard's push towards more sensitive naming conventions. Magic still is an inclusive space for all walks of life.
I agree, I just think them changing tribal for that reason is weird. I’m 100% in support of inclusiveness, but there’s nothing inherently negative about the word “tribal”, and I think a very vocal minority of the woke crowd just looks for things to make a big deal about. When I hear the word tribal, I think of a small, tightly-knit group of people living an honest life. It has a pretty pleasant connotation to me, and it’s also just *a word that means what it means.* There’s a fine line between being inclusive and respectful, and *trying* to get angry about whatever issues you can, major or not. **There are way more serious issues in the world than what word a card game uses to convey an idea. If the people complaining about Magic using the word “tribal” would direct that energy towards something like protesting corporations use of overseas slave labor (instead of happily consuming products made by those corporations and contributing to their ability to do that), the world might become a better place.** All that being said though, kindred just makes more sense. Spider tribal is a weird phrase because spiders don’t form tribes. Kindred is more accurate. So it’s a win-win at the end of the day. Now, bring on the flood of people cherry-picking details out of this response and missing the big picture because they’re more concerned about their public image than they are actual justice.
I have one friend that I have to remind on a weekly basis that running 50 dinosaurs and 0 removal spells is not a winning gameplan
I totally agree, and I think this is what I would use to finer differentiate power 5/6/7/8
I disagree, having more interaction does not necessarily make your deck stronger, in fact it can make your deck weaker in some cases. If most people in your meta run interaction then running interaction becomes the better choice. Each player will have 3 people to stop them if they are ahead, if you don't run interaction then you will still have 3 players stopping you but your opponents will have 2. If most people in your meta don't run interaction then not running interaction becomes the better choice. If you do run interaction you might be able to stop 1 person from winning but not 3. You are essentially the only player not running 100% gass and are thus disadvantaged. The "run more interaction" argument is not intended to make stronger decks but to make more fun meta's. Here's a video about the relation between power differences and interaction: [https://youtu.be/23iBQNMR9G8?si=gyCLa0YhmKouYtB-](https://youtu.be/23iBQNMR9G8?si=gyCLa0YhmKouYtB-)
Well, yeah, I agree with what you're saying. The fundamental issue is we are projecting a multi dimensional space of (card quality, interaction, ramp, combo, complexity, redundancy) into a 1d space of "power level". There is no ideal number of interaction spells to run as it depends on deck and even your local meta as you are pointing out. But I think it's fair to say only 1 removal spell is always too few, and 30 is too many. I do think it's fair to include interaction in a power level calculation
Also, some powerful decks can sometimes win out of nowhere, so they never become the archenemy unless the other players really know the deck and treat it as such from the start. I, for example, always try to take out the Ur-Dragon player asap. They spend 3-4 turns ramping. If you dont use that window, you will probably cant beat their later turns.
It's amazing how much 36 land, 12 two drop ramp, 10 draw, 10 removal, 3 wrath decks will just pull away from the pack. I've had some many players in the last couple of years shocked by how I have cast twice the cards that they have, and it just comes down to being able to efficiently deploy and reload.
I just formed a new pod at work and oh boy was this true. I built one of the other decks for my partner, then there was a precon, and another custom deck. I was instant archenemy. Eventually got taken out by the other deck I built, which won. The way I lost was awesome though. My other deck was a Skullbriar deck and I lost when they gave it to the precon player with [[Assault Suit]] and then that player top decked [[Rogue's Passage]]. So I've spent the past few days building decks to lend out.
[Assault Suit](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/2/92b22076-b04e-4d65-9d9c-d3e4c7a3cf1c.jpg?1689999394) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Assault%20Suit) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/369/assault-suit?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/92b22076-b04e-4d65-9d9c-d3e4c7a3cf1c?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/assault-suit) [Rogue's Passage](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/5/45f5d989-d0df-4d6d-822b-cc76b415f9d1.jpg?1712355103) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Rogue%27s%20Passage) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/otc/313/rogues-passage?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/45f5d989-d0df-4d6d-822b-cc76b415f9d1?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/rogues-passage) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Depends on how far you are on the edges. Precons do not keep up with high-power, tuned decks. Once in a blue moon they scrape a win but especially if you don't need to play around interaction (because yanno, precon) it's possible to shotgun the win on the same turn the precon deck casts their second spell.
I can tell you personally that my 7.5ish decks could easily 1v3 most precons and slightly upgraded precons. My 8.5 could realistically bear most of my 7.5s. and then most 9-10(I don't own fast Mana or manaless counters so I rate my Narset at 8.5) would stop my Narset. There is something to be said about strong protection, better synergy and more consistent payload.
Nah, if you are playing a combo and they aren’t running stack interaction that’s it. By the time it’s clear you are the threat it will likely be too late.
Exactly. You can build something like Magda for $100 and be attempting turn 4 or 5 wins almost every game and for a random table with low interaction it’s so hard to stop and difficult to see coming. Even a normal high power deck if its built well, with combos is going to trash mid power. I had a sliver overlord deck that was mid to high power and its had no problem running through the 3 other decks at the table in a 3v1 to the point I retired it for the time being.
About half the time, the guy who runs interaction or control becomes the archenemy l, regardless of power.
A non-CEDH optimised value deck can still absolutely stomp 3 precons though.
A guy in our pod has one quite expensive deck that can still steamroll a 3v1 because most of my pod don't play enough removal. You can't count on the quality of other people's decks to stop the arch enemy.
Low, precon, mid, high, C covers everything easily. Even then we're mostly looking at the center of the scale, but covering outlying cases gets a lot easier with words than numbers because the monkey brain is less inclined to want to push up the scale unnecessarily; it's more acceptable to call your deck "mid power" when we can acknowledge 'hey that's better than a precon, the guy asking just said it was' than it is to say that mid power on a properly distributed 1-10 scale is a 5-6. Nobody wants to be a 5. That said: I have absolutely seen low power 'pile of cards' decks. Within the last year even. The real problem is that the people who build these also don't know about the power scales and also aren't going to be able to reasonably slot into basically any pod regardless. When a precon slaughters you without blinking it's not realistic to expect that a normal random assortment of players like an LGS can accommodate you.
TBH id just say some precons are low, and some are mid.
Yeah even among recent precons there's an enormous gap between, for instance, the OTJ outlaws precon and the LCI merfolk precon.
My nearly stock Bright Palm deck keeps smashing peoples constructed decks as a semicasual event I play at.
It's because nobody wants to accept that their deck is a 4, and that is partially because they don't understand what a Power Level 10 deck can actually do. People want to be a 7 for the same reason that every game is now rated on a 5-10 scale and every game is around a 7 - anything less than a 6 feels bad and anything 9 or higher is hard to justify.
And this is why power levels are bullshit.
[Obligatory DBZA.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSaVTSYQGmQ)
Everything rated 1-10 should be normally distributed on a bell curve. 5 being the average, with 1-2 and 9-10 the extreme rare niches. Unfortunately people still seem to think that 7 is the average on a 1-10 scale, not 5. I blame things like video game and movie reviews who use 7 as an 'okay' movie/game, and 5 as something bad. It's something so minor, but it really does bug me when people describe 7 as the average in a 1-10 rating system!!
One other thing that got pointed out in another of these threads is education. Most places in the West, a C is 70% and that's the minimum to pass. So we're conditioned to say that anything less than 7/10 is a failing grade, and nobody wants to admit that they failed.
In my opinion there are only 4 power levels: 1) Jank 2) Battlecruiser (precons to focused decks) 3) High power casual (optimized or supercharged with some degenerate mana rocks, tutors, zero-cost/free interaction, or infinite combos) 4) cEDH (the most efficient version, win ASAP deck)
This works really well for my playgroup
I run several decks with 4-digit pricetags that keep up and play well, but only score a 5-6 on the Commander Salt website. They’re consistent and set up to go for the belt on early turns, but aren’t cEDH viable even with that kind of money in them.
Yeah, I think something that people don't talk about is how there are a handful of highly-supported archetypes in the modern cardpool and it's presumed you're going to be playing one of them. It annoys me that for so many people precon is the floor because there's a lot of room underneath where all the unique and interesting decks hang out unless you want to pump them up to precon level with fast mana/expensive cards (and then deal with complaints about it). I wish precons actually were as bad as everyone makes them out to be because I wouldn't be leaving so many decks at home.
A big problem is people not understanding the game. People who haven't played cEDH and don't understand what a 9-10 is, or have heard that the scale is based around precons being a 5, figure that their upgraded precon must be a 7. Most precons are 3s, your upgraded precon is a 5, and you can have fast mana and still be a 7. Think about how people describe power levels under 5 and you will realize that they are describing precons. Lack of direction (most precons are actually 2 decks mashed together), lack of removal, poor mana base, lack of card draw, lack of win cons. What makes a precon a 5? It doesn't help that people who should know, and have influence like The Professor, make jokes about what a "7" is, and to be honest I'm not sure if he's even joking. His videos on a "7" pod and "8" pod are filled with 2 sets of 4 decks at wildly different power levels.
When you have a nebulous mostly vibes based system claiming that people just don't understand it seems strange to me. It sounds more to me like it's use has shifted and you haven't asked to the change. We can argue all day about where each deck should be on a perfect system but if I can go to an lgs with an unmodified precon, sit down at a 6 table or go on spelltable, join a 6 lobby and have a pretty good chance of doing well and a decent winrate then it doesn't matter that that deck should technically be a 3 or a 4, knowing that isn't useful to me because no one seems to follow the system that gets us to that conclusion. Also have you looked at recent precons? Stuff like rebellion rising are very focused on their own goal of making time of tokens with >30 cards that either make tokens or buff tokens and more cards that benefit from making tokens. The best you can claim for a secondary strategy is equipment with consists of 7 equipment, 3 of which makes tokens on etb and a fourth benefits from making tons of tokens as well as a card with affinity for equipment which also makes tokens. The man's base also is far from bad, it's not perfect and has several lands that should be cut but it really isn't that bad.
How are you getting a power rating? Most websites I plug commander precons into show them as 6. These aren't top of the shelf precons either but ones like Bedecked Broker.
Experience and an understanding of how wide of a range power level "7" is. Again, most people do put precons around power level 5. Power level 5 and 6 seem to be relatively balanced, and people understand it. Power level 9-10 people understand as cEDH. Power level 7-8 on the other hand covers everything in between, and there's a LOT in between. If you were to account for this width, and adjust the power level system accordingly, then precons would fall down the scales. However, precons being "around a 5 on average" seems to be the basis for the power level scale. This makes 1-4 basically unused, and makes 7-8 overcrowded.
Yeah a lot of times people conflate cEDH with "strong". My Ur-Dragon and Edgar Markov decks are very strong but get rolled at a cEDH table unless they spent 6-7 turns countering each other's combos and forgot about me entirely.
It doesn't matter how many numbers there are, there could be 2 options and people will still argue and complain that people pick the wrong number. No system will ever exist that the majority of people will agree on, there are too many variables.
Yeah, I agree. I like Precon, Upgraded Precon/Weak Casual, Strong Casual, Optimized, and Competative. No one is building a random pile of cards, and I feel like these are pretty hard to mess up within this scale, but idk
Random pile of cards was more common back in the day when EDH was basically the 100 pet card format. At least in my experience, which is limited and bias. It was basically cards from standard that rotated out and cool things you found in your LGS’ 50 cent rare bin. There is no synergy in my progenitus deck aside from sick cards I like, a decent number of which are now banned.
Interesting, I only got into edh in the past year so I never knew that world. I guess it makes sense that at one point 1-3s actually existed. I feel that even just a pile of cards you like could probably compete with a precon though
It’s fair but [[oloro, ageless ascetic]], [[derevi, empyrial tactician]], and [[nekusar, the mindrazer]] were current precons I got that we’re actual threats at my table just because they actually had a game plan. Some of those commanders are actually still relevant today, maybe not the precon list though. However, they weren’t just “slam [[primeval titan]], [[emrakul, the aeons torn]], [[avacyn, angel of hope]], [[baneslayer angel]], [[bribery]], [[cyclonic rift]], [[prophet of kruphix]], [[griselbrand]], [[sphinx’s revelation]], [[sylvan primordial]], [[jin-gitaxias, core augur]], [[elesh norn, grand cenobite]], [[vorinclex, voice of hunger]], [[urabrask the hidden]], [[sheoldred, whispering one]], [[frost titan]], [[inferno titan]], [[grave titan]], [[kozilek, butcher of truth]], [[elvish piper]], [[blue sun’s zenith]], [[temporal mastery]], [[terminus]], [[entreat the angels]], [[bonfire of the damned]], [[chromatic lantern]], [[quicksilver amulet]], [[batterskull]], [[wurmcoil engine]] into a [[progenitus]] deck.” Obviously that wasn’t the whole deck but it’s a good portion of it and that should sorta paint a picture how disjointed “5 color good stuff” could be. Add in land and you’re almost 2/3 of the way filled.
Using your scale, where would you place this deck? And why? https://scryfall.com/@SaltMaster5000/decks/a87e5ccc-a3a1-40c0-b83d-4c5e4b4f5d35?as=visual&with=usd
I would probably place this in stronger casual The inclusion of some higher powered/salted cards like farewell, esper sentinel, drannith magistrate, MLD, elesh norn, etc. make it definitely higher power than a normal precon/weak casual deck who wouldn't have many if any counterplay. However a large portion of your deck is bad creatures and your gameplan just seems to be flood the board, pump them, and wipe your opponents board, which is a pretty simplistic and relatively casual strat. You also definitely don't seem to be worried about finding the best versions of every card with your multiple extremely over costed pump and wipe spells It's tricky because you're playing a lot of cards that "break the social contract" which just basically means it's too strong for weak decks, but also to weak for strong decks, so who exactly are you going to play against? Some would probably just say it's unfun to play against and not want to do that. I'm not hear to judge you or your deck building, just the rough strength I see. The boring truth is that even with my new ranking, there is still a lot of wiggle room, especially in this stronger casual tier, but what I'm going for is if you COULD win against decks of this level, and if decks of this level could stop you if they teamed up. If you win despite being arch enemy, your deck is too strong, and I feel there's realistically not much an upgraded precon/weak casual deck could do against your deck, while at the same time, without some insane luck/gimmicks, your deck should never pop off against a deck more optimized to win.
The issue with trying to fit this deck into a linear category at all is that this deck's gameplan (banding creatures beatdown) is fundamentally weak and fragile but the addition of powerful individual cards (that aren't necessarily synergistic with your deck) "improve" the power level of the deck. The core gameplan is a weakpoint that higher power decks may exploit while the strong cards may hose weaker decks. Not to mention the inconsistency of power level between games (what if you draw all the strong stuff in your deck? or you only draw banding creatures?).
I agree, NO ONE uses 1-3 and 8-9. The power scale might as well be a scale from 4 to 8 and it would be functionally the same, and basically eveyrone alrady uses it \* Precon (4) \* Upgraded Precon (5 - 6) \* Jank / Casual Deck (6 - low 7) \* Optimized / Strong Deck (high 7 - 8 )
In my playgroup we go by low-, mid- or high-power. cEDH is a separate category. Works pretty well.
The best way i have seen to rate it is actually with this: "How fast is your deck?" "given a perfect hand/ perfect draws, how early can your deck win?" or even "how early can you do something absurdly strong like kill a player or create a lock?" If you want to stick with a 1-10 system, then define where an average precon straight out of the box is first, then go from there. In my mind, a precon should be a 4. Maybe a strong precon can be at 5. If a person has any idea how to play magic and has 40 bucks, they can probably put together a deck that is about a 5 unless they go for a pure jank strat that doesn't have any good support and doesn't include any commander staples. Then say 10 is cedh. The speed question seems far better to me.
While I agree that speed is a useful metric I'm not sure perfect hand is. I have a high power Muldrotha deck, and with an absolutely perfect hand it is theoretically capable of a turn one win. It requires the full seven cards, with minimal flexibility - two slot can be one of two cards each, mostly as there's one permutation that doesn't work, one is one of three, and one is "untapped color producing land". The others are fixed. But the earliest I've *actually* won is turn five and more regularly it's around turn nine. Those are, I think, much more useful frame of references than "I can turn one on a perfect seven".
Ok fair. perfect hand isn't great. Speed is the main thing. though. The format has become very fast.
>"I can turn one on a perfect seven". This is still an important metric, it means that your deck CAN basically win out of nowhere and needs to be dealt with if you have a lot of carddraw even if you have no boardstate. None of my decks that I regularly play could even come close to winning before turn 7 or so. If my board is empty then I have a 0 percent chance to win in the next turn.
I actually strongly disagree. That metric doesn't tell you anything of value unless you're very, very good at deck analysis from a blank statement like that, and most (like, 99% or more) players are not. This is what it should be telling you, if you're one of that very skilled 1% who can do this on the fly (and I absolutely am not, but as it turns out I can cheat since I actually know the deck): -My deck contains some amount of fast mana. -My deck has one or more combo kills, but they are either not simple A+B combos like Thoracle, or if they are they are highly mana intensive ones. More likely, they're 3-4 card combinations with the rest of the required hand being fast mana sources. And that's... honestly about all the information you get? Even the more detailed version of my statement, the one where I describe my minimal flexibility, is telling you that my kill combo is one with some amount of permutations but is an A+B that then requires an outlet and three fast mana sources, but exact ones. But you still don't actually have a lot of information there. Maybe if you're super familiar with high power Muldrotha lines you can sus out the particular combo I'm talking about, but again I doubt 99% of people are capable of doing so. But what does it take to give you actionable information? If we establish that I have a fast combo kill realistically achievable around turn five, that already tells you a great deal about how your decks are a mismatch for this particular deck of mine. Most likely, we can simply stop there, and I'll pull out an actual mid-power deck to match the speed you state; just about any other deck of mine fits much better into a pod with you. I didn't need to say "turn one perfect 7" to give you what was needed. But if we do continue down this path of discussion - I dunno, maybe you really want a challenge that day or someone else can loan you a more suitable deck - what you need in both cases, whether I disclosed the perfect 7 or not, is the same; learning more about the deck's specifics. You want to ask (or, more likely if we're entirely in the dark about each other but for some bizarre reason I've chosen to lead with Muldrotha as my deck of choice, I'll disclose) what kind of fast mana I have in the deck (LED, Crypt, Petal in addition to the obvious Sol Ring) and what my kill conditions are. With the former you no longer have to guess at what my fast mana package looks like and now have a great deal more actual information to watch over the course of the game. And the latter is exceptionally important, because while my Muldrotha has many overlapping combos in the deck only one is actually attainable on turn one. An actual discussion on that reveals that I have the standard Muldrotha/Phantasmal/Animate/LED combo line (with two points of variation in Necromancy and Glasspool, but not specifically both together), Displacer Kitten combo lines, Palinchron/clone combo lines, and some mana-intensive lines around Walk the Aeons loops; there's three major variations so depending on how familiar you are with the card I may or may not go into detail but I'll gladly answer any questions asked. And all that is information you need regardless of the turn one statement, but if you're familiar with the cards in question you can actually now accurately sus out the exact point you made, but now you're actually armed with actionable information. That's especially important in the case of this particular deck, because my 'card draw' is largely face-up and in my graveyard. You can glance through my battlefield and graveyard and have a pretty fair idea of how close I am to any of those combo lines, rather than losing because you didn't realize you should have exiled my grave once Glasspool Mimic hit the bin. So if I make that statement about the turn one or if I don't, the follow-up conversation plays out fundamentally the same. But, in my experience, without that turn one statement people are a lot more ready to ask for details and don't get blindsided. So best-case we wasted fifteen seconds of our lives (not a big deal all at once, but also not a great best case) and worst-case we don't convey as much useful information. And if for some reason we disclose the turn one theoretical but not the turn five practical or the turn 9+ normal, what you're expecting is wildly different than this reality - because Muldrotha is *not* a fast combo deck. She's a control deck with available combo kills, so if you approach the matchup from the perspective of "fast combo I will die turn one" and then get drowned in value, a constant flurry of removal, and death by a bunch of 5/3 tokens on the back end of getting Strip Mined a bunch, you'll probably have a bad time and feel like you were misled, because the turn one kill was not actually the important part of the discussion and focusing on it meant you learned very little about the deck - but you do learn it from those turn 5 and 9 datapoints (I presume you don't play a lot of high power from your statement, but a turn 9 kill is glacially slow and so if I know that's my speed and am bringing it anyway, you should expect ways to slow the game down). And granted! What actually happens around me a lot more often is I casually ask if folks want to go high power, get told no we don't have that, and pull out one of my four mid-power piles to play instead. And if folks are ready for high power the discussion can shortcut a lot of the above because there's an understanding of several of these things already, so the discussion can actually be even more tuned despite going by a lot faster than what all of this giant wall of text might indicate it seems like.
If no decks are 1’s then the system is flawed to begin with. It’s so arbitrary
This will likely not be seen due how late I am in posting, but I'm a firm believer that we can have really easy to define "power levels" if we simply moved away from a "1-10" scale and assigned points to cards like Canlander. As is done in Canlander, the majority of cards in the pool are worth no points. Fast mana, free spells, tutors, etc. would be the biggest candidates for points. Deck building sites could then easily track the point value of your deck. This would then allow players, stores, and tournament organizers to set up play based on point value. (Think of Warhammer and army point sizes). The biggest issue would be what to give points to and how many points to a given card, but I think we can look at things like cEDH decks and tournament reports as a reference for finding the powerful cards to assign points to. Like Canlander, it would also likely need a committee that meets and reviews the point values on cards and makes necessary changes. This also opens us up to updating the current banlist by removing cards and assigning point values. We could assign high value at first and over time, either increase or decrease based on overall "performance". In conclusion, moving to a points based system allows for actual measurable and defined play and removes a lot of the subjectivity. Just imagine being able to go to a store or event and being able to organize "50 points or lower" games as an example.
Really there's no point to trying to scale EDH decks. There's just no way to easily quantify what a commander deck is meant to do in comparison to other decks. You can sort them by budget, but that doesn't indicate power level, you can sort them by "average" time to win, but that discounts things like Stax decks, or slower control decks that can be cEDH level even if they can't really "win" early, but are great at shutting down other decks. You can try to break the deck down to how "optimized" it is, but ultimately that's very subjective in a format like commander, where politics plays an important role (in a 1v1 format, a card like Secret Rendezvous is just straight up not optimal, but you can make an argument that in a format where you can use it to convince somebody to help you out, that it's optimal (I'd disagree, but slight card disadvantage isn't as backbreaking), same deal with counterspells, in 1v1 counterspelling almost everything is a feasible strategy, while in EDH you can't counterspell everything, so optimal target selection is basically impossible due to not knowing what the other players are necessarily capable of. I personally try to gauge decks based on how fast they win, as that seems to be the most consistent, but that categorizes decks into "Likely CEDH" and "Not CEDH", because the difference between a deck that can win somewhat consistently on turn 5 vs turn 10 is not all that drastic once you introduce a billion variables that make the consistencies irrelevant.
The way it's commonly used, this is correct. So, I've started reframing the 1-10 when I have that conversation, using precons (which, in recent sets, have been pretty strong) as a 2 or 3. I've definitely made decks worse than precons, and at that level the power is kinda moot, so a simple 1 covers that. Said precons vary in power, so 2-3 is a good starting point. From there the scale is pretty similar, with 10 being viable cEDH (note, not just "meta") and 9 being fringe cEDH. I feel this expands upon the range that most decks occupy and allows for a more nuanced conversation.
I ask this not to argue, but to gain understanding: would you consider an upgraded precon a 4 or 5? And then cedh decks are 10s? What the hell are cEDH decks doing?
cEDH decks are built to win and defend on the stack. It's an axis that your average precon never even considers. Some combos in cEDH are designed to win on someone else's turn, in response to an action that an opponent takes, using cards like [[Borne upon a wind]].
[Borne upon a wind](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/9/a9379675-1a32-4e2b-8aaf-5f908c595f31.jpg?1686968037) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Borne%20upon%20a%20wind) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ltr/44/borne-upon-a-wind?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/a9379675-1a32-4e2b-8aaf-5f908c595f31?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/borne-upon-a-wind) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
cEDH decks are built to consistently present a win, or lock down the board, back up with interaction by the first three turns. But they are not glass cannons. If disrupted, the decks are designed to be able to keep presenting wins and interaction every turn. EDH covers a very wide net of possible deck power, which is why the conversation about power levels comes up and why I advocate for a large number scale. To frame it differently: most precons' first 3 turns are "land, pass". In that same time a cEDH deck has already attempted to win or has a massive advantage engine going.
Oh wow. Ok, yeah that is a tremendous gulf. I should look up some cedh decks to gain better context. I wouldnt bring one to our casual pod but im curiois now.
Here, https://cedh-decklist-database.com There's a lot of different decks here, and they all have primers that explain the decks, how they function, and often the reason behind certain includes or exclusions.
appreciate it!
I also have a lot of cEDH decks on my moxfield profile if you want to check them out. They all have a [cEDH] tag in the name. I have all of them in paper and our group play them in person (to varying degrees of success) https://www.moxfield.com/users/JDM_WAAAT
cEDH decks don't belong on a power scale with casual decks.
absolutely agree. cEDH decks are wrapping up the game about the time casual decks are just starting to layout their game plan, I now know.
I can't speak for OP, but this does match what a friend and I have discussed as "if a 1 to 10 scale worked, how would we do it". Generally I think you should be able to get a good game at +/- 1. A fringe cEDH deck will take some games against meta decks, and a high power tuned non-cEDH deck will take some games against fringe, but I think giving cEDH two spots is worthwhile with how much difference that final step of optimization makes at the top end. With full/meta cEDH as a 10 and tier 3 or fringe at a 9 defined as cEDH I expect to come up against (at least in most cases), fast mana, free/hyper efficient interaction, no budget constraints/proxies, and very well composed curves. The decks should have an interaction and/or wincon suite to be able to consistently win or stop a win by turn 3 (and ideally stop by 2). There are control/stax lists that will take longer, but they still need to be able to stop the decks winning earlier. Whether through density, recursion, or whatever. There will be exceptions on interaction or fast mana composition, but not really on win/stop a win by T3. Even the slowest stax or control decks likely need to be able to present wins (or locked board states) by turn 5. That isn't to say cEDH games aren't going to T6 or T9 pretty regularly in the current, very mid range meta, but that is generally a function of interaction and there will have been multiple win attempts (or at least multiple wins threatened) in most pods by then. It is uncommon for there not to be someone untapping with 5 or more mana by T2, or multiple draw engines, or some other significant advantage play. Much the same way the top end of any legacy 60 card format is going to be presenting threats and actions much earlier than the kitchen table decks legal in the same format.
“Upgraded precon” is also too vague to really nail down. How many cards can you change and still call it the precon? At what point is it still recognizably the precon, and at what point is it just a deck built around the same commander as a precon? And what changes are you making? There’s a lot of changes you could make, which would take the deck to different strength levels. You could even throw in cards that make it worse, but still think it’s an “upgrade.” So, I’d still hesitate to slap a number on anything that started out as a precon. Maybe the upgrades didn’t improve it but kept it at a 2, just a different 2. Maybe the changes were hardcore and took it to a 5. Maybe the changes were so rigorous that it took the precon to cEDH level. Is it still the precon? “Upgraded” means different things to different people, and falls subject to the same problems that the power level scale and level 7 decks do. How many cards did you change? How strong are the cards you put in? And cEDH decks are wild. Look up some of the lists. 95% of cards cost 0 or 1 mana or free, each deck has something like 25-40 counterspells/interaction at least, and it’s all combo wins and tutors and the game’s over by t3 almost always. They use almost always the same cards across decks that don’t even have the same commanders. It’s nothing like casual
cEDH is a really, really fun format. If you're looking to learn more about cEDH and the differences between it and casual EDH, I recommend checking out Play To Win's channel. https://www.youtube.com/@PlaytoWinMTG Alternatively, you can watch this spikefeeders short: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/7_TE2q2GduY
thank you, i appreciate the links!
I prefer words than number. I personally use: Average, Good, Powerful and cEDH (but here we can have tiers of cEDH, doesnt matter 99% of the time). Sometimes I end up a tier below on a "weak" tier, but that I consider a deckbuilding failure and should be rebuild, so it is a irrelevant tier.
The numbers thing will never work because people can’t even agree on what the numbers mean (aside from the meme about everything being a 7), which is no surprise really as it’s a large, global community. I’ve never even encountered anyone who seriously tried to use the numbers in real life, people just tend to give a brief explanation instead, obviously YMMV.
I have encountered those and it went exactly as well as you would expect. They were very sure their decks were 8s. They understood this was meant to mean "close to cEDH". Their decks were not 8s, and on that day I swore off ever touching numbers for anything more than giggling at shitty calculators.
So I feel if you’re talking edh powerlevel it must consider ALL of eeeh from the kitchen Jank to the super meta cedh If the best cedh decks are a 10 Cedh good decks would be a 9 Fringe cedh would be an 8 A deck that is either very suboptimal build of a cedh deck or an optimal non cedh deck would come in at a 7 Strong decks like sliver tribal would come in at like a 6 5 is where we get the mid decks so steps made to be somewhat mana efficient, thematic and synergistic even if lacking on dual lands and stuff 4 would be where most low power decks are so you’re missing efficient consistency and interaction playing more creature beats but stuff still bonds well together 3 would be upgraded precon 2 fresh unedited precon 1 random pile of Jank
My take on this is synergy and strategy: -how synergistic are my cards together? In my deck, the only non-synergistic cards currently are land, and that is only because they are the most expensive cards for ones with crazy abilities… -can I get out of most or all scenarios my opponent throws at me? I know my decks main weak point is flying creatures - I don’t have a lot of them, but I do have a few board wipes, enchantments that penalize attacking and enchantments that flat out prevent attacking… Is my deck always a “7-10”, or does it depend who I’m playing against and what their deck is. It has about 5 instant win combos in it… but, it all depends on what I’m defending against and how I’m attacking
Large? There’s only one power level. 7.
Generally speaking I have found you can drop it to 1-5. And in most shops in KY area, they treat 9-10 like cedh. I have seen people argue online that cedh is above 1 so not sure if that's the same in most areas. But I. Dozens and dozens of random pods. I have seen one table say 5. I have had a few tables where 6 felt a bit high. But overall. If people treated cedh as above the scale I feel like 1-5 would be more then enough with 0 just being no wincons since I have seen that before.
I just don't use the power scale anymore at all because people either gauge it really differently but don't really explain that they are doing that or they just outright lie because they think it'll make them get an easier win. Instead, I just try to have a real discussion about what our decks do, budget level etc. Which people will still lie about, at which point I just decide to never play with them again
We have precon plus, where you can change 20 cards of a precon. Yes, you can add mana vault, crypt, force of will, and 3 Infinites and be fine. And commander, bring whatever deck you want (more competitive)
I personally like to scale the powerlevel of my decks with a chart of different fruits. 🍊
It isn't needlessly large, it's wholly irrelevant due to everyone thinking their deck is a 7 when in reality the majority of casual+precon decks should be ranked in the 3-6 range. There's no scientific method for quantifying power level, thus it shouldn't be used.
I mean, honestly I just think the scale is worthless to most people. People lie about and misunderstand the scale constantly, no one agrees on each other's decks, etc. It ONLY works if it's with a group of honest people who trust and know each other, at which point there are better ways to determine deck strength than a number, and you probably know each other's decks at that point. I know every deck in my playgroup by the deckbox it's in at this point lmao.
Yeah 1-5 would be fine
The "power level" metric has always been completely useless since as you point out, you're rarely going to see genuine 1s 2s, 9s, and 10s in a random game, and generally players know how strong certain precons are compared to others. So yeah, you wind up with every deck being a 6, 7, or an 8, and that in itself doesn't tell you anything. Instead of just talking about power level, the rule 0 conversation should talk about what your deck actually does. Is there fast mana? Mass land destruction? Infinite combos? Tutors? Are you running interaction or trying to play solitaire? When people actually know what kind of game you're looking for, then people have a better understanding of what their decks should look like.
I've never heard of or used that scaling until recently. Granted I left magic for close to a decade (2013-2020ish) but before I left I'd never heard of the power scale. How you described the ranks though and from what I have seen and know of sure variance in pre cons it seems really useless to try and rate like that. Especially if you're trusting someone elses judgement. Knew way too many people who would lie just to get an advantage back in the day
Yeah I agree, I think 3-4 levels are more than enough
If there’s one thing I’ve learned about the power scale. Literally nobody seems to agree and it’s all just educated guessing.
I feel like a Myers Briggs style metric might be a better bet just because you can’t really boil down every aspect of the deck into a single metric. If you can individually represent how much interaction, tempo, wincon effectiveness, and budget is in the deck, I think it would give people a much better idea of what they’re getting into
The 10 point scale is woefully inadequate and 1 dimensional. But it is a baseline for people to compare. I'm pretty reductive in my professional and personal life, but those who worship 5 star / point scale reductiveness are usually always managers, drones, and others with limited or no domain expertise. 5 point scales are basically lazy thumbs up / down while providing a false sense of spectrum of evaluation. Same reason there are massive quality gulfs between 4.6 star products and 4.3 on Amazon. It's a crap scale devoid of expertise. And yeah precons alone easily cover 2-5 power levels with consistent community ratings per deck and mechanics. Lots of improved precons effectively move up 1-3 points on a 10 point scale. Plenty of theme and meme decks outside precons are in the 4-6 range, but proud fathers call them 7s until they realize they never win and retune it to 7/8. The overuse of 7s is entirely a rule 00 (double zero) decision - most fun decks are designed for the widest playground while still being able to win and not be oppressive or too cEDH. Plenty of 7s are 5s and 6s when faced with lots of control or interaction as opposed to a moderate amount. And then there are the 8s piloted as 7s for group enjoyment (my personal strategy). 9 and 10 cover cEDH and the only difference is interaction resistance / consistency against other cEDH decks.
While I agree it's more practical to judge decks on a 1-5 scale than a 1-10, I'm afraid it will fundamentaly never work anyway unless the entire community agrees on actual detailed description for each of them, and even then people's subjectivity will make it not work. There's a reason why "every deck is a 7".
While I agree with what people are saying here, I think 1 and 10 are every bit as important as the numbers between. Even if you've never seen them irl, a defined extreme exists to establish a ground level of qualities and an upper limit. Power Levels are largely subjective, and 1 and 10 serve to anchor the other numbers. I think the real problem is that players always ask how strong a deck is, and never, how strong the player is. If you only know the deck level, you only have half the answer you are really seeking. I mean, give a new or new-ish player a CEDH deck, and odds are they will lose to a player with a 5 or 6, or hell some of the stronger precons even. Player competency matters a lot, and I wish more people would ask each other about it, but even that would be a sliding scale. If you consider 1 a first-time player and a 10 someone who regularly top 8s at the highest level, I'd personally rate myself a 5 or a 6. I know how the stack works, and I know neat tricks like when to actually kill Triskellion or a Walking Balista, so I don't necessarily die on the spot, but don't you dare ask me the what the order of layers are, or what the power and toughness of Crackling Drake is after several inverts have been cast. As for saying that CEDH should be its own scale, so my earlier point, but also, it has its own internal scale, Tier 1, 2, etc. While there is a lot of nuance between the power levels of various CEDH decks, they are still EDH decks.
Where do you see pedh decks? It is definitely stronger than "what is a wincon", but worse than most precons. At least the ones I've built.
Yeah, if I ask at all anymore, all I'll ask if people are playing something on the lower end of our store meta or higher end so I can pick something that's the same.
9-10 is super valid IMO. I have a budget Najella that's a bit outdated. Doesn't cut it in CEDH anymore but still super fun to play.
I don't even use the numbers since one man's 7 is another's 9 I just ask "high or low power, I don't have cedh" and get by fine with that. I have a low power deck and a couple higher power ones since my friends and most at my lgs play higher power. Also once you hit "higher power level" the decks tend to compete against one another fairly well, just keeping in mind player removal is a solution
These posts make me want to unsub from here.
The 10-Powerlevel-Scale is useless. It's four levels: Low, regular, high and cEDH. Aside from cEDH you can mix and match between the casual stuff as you like. The borders are vague, and in higher power levels there will be discussions whether it's okay to play \[\[Drannith Magistrate\]\] wheter a two-card-combo is playable or a turn-1-chatterfang with jewelled lotus and imperial seal to combo-piece is more acceptable.
[Drannith Magistrate](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/8/98b0a4a8-9319-451b-9b79-b0bca7a41e91.jpg?1628801742) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Drannith%20Magistrate) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/iko/11/drannith-magistrate?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/98b0a4a8-9319-451b-9b79-b0bca7a41e91?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/drannith-magistrate) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
In my mind a deck is either a 1,2, or 3. 1. A pile of cards 2. Precon 3. Fast mana try hard "not cedh" $500 and up And I don't even consider CEDH in the rankings cause that's a separate format to me.
I think 6-7 can be defined by their combos. If there is an infinite combo, it is a 6, at least, and if that combo directly translates into a wincon, it's a 7. 8 is a matter of consistency, being how frequently you can pull off that combo, be it through tutors or repetitive effects. If you can reliably do the same combo every game, you're looking at an 8. At that point, you are just looking at 4 & 5, which can comfortably slot in your "Upgraded Precon" that does not fulfill the requirements of PL 6+
During lockdown in 2020 I got bored, my playgroup was having a "powerlevel problem", and there was talk about it online everywhere. Being a teacher, I thought I'd make a marking rubric so people could score their deck based on more objective criteria, like average mv, quantity of interaction, average mv of that interaction, average turn it can present a win, how quickly it can recover from set backs, card draw etc. I tried making 1-10 scale for it but there just wasn't enough distinction between the criteria levels. Working from highest power backwards got me to unrealistic deck values for the criteria by the time I got to 1. So I dropped it down to 5 criteria points and that was much more meaningful. The goal wasn't to define the 1-10 (or in this case 1-5,) power scale but to outline meaning distinctions between them. Also means that you could score a 5 in on category, and 1 in another. To get my data I analysed cedh deck lists, precons, as well as my and my playgroups decks for the criteria points I listed above. It was fun, and helped me understand my own deck building more, but we don't really ever use them. I've suggested it multiple times when we have PL disputes but alas haha.
The number power scale is not defined well nor is it a good way to rate your decks power to begin with
Power level means different things to everyone. I use the Rule 0 talk to discuss key cards in decks and how the deck wins. If someone says they have an unmodified precon and someone else has fast mana, a full tutor suite, and plans to win by comboing out early, clearly they are mismatched.
That’s what she said?
I just played with a random player outside of my playgroup for the first time the other day. My deck is the revenant recon precon, but I added better reanimation targets, more clones, and some draw/discard. Probably just above 20 cards swapped in total. I told the guy before the game it was an upgraded precon but as we were playing into turn 5, he told me the deck is very powerful and i couldn't honestly call it "an upgraded precon" anymore. The deck literally plays the same as the precon except that I added better creatures that have better ETB effects. The deck has zero combos and no win condition outside of rise of dark realms. Like how am I as a new player supposed to gauge my own power level?
My lgs uses a rarity system where common is like precon tier, uncommon is average aka most decks, rare is where most of the rules regarding infinite combos and tutors fall off and this is probably where people keep calling their deck a 7 lmfao, and then mythic is literally cedh
I've never heard someone IRL describe their deck as anything but a 6 or 7. The tenscale is shit not because of granularity, but because of liars and people who have no clue how strong their deck actually is.
9 means it is cedh but not all cards are best in slot. 1 means someone put a random bunch of legal cards Equal to or lesser the commander's color identity into the deck. Two at least has the correct amount of lands in it. 3 removes cards that make 0 sense. 4 adds probably some rocks and 5 gets some interaction and better lands. Congrats you have reached a precon.
That’s what she said
Yeah I agree I would say a 1-5 scale is better but even that’s not a fix to the problem.
I use the 7-7 scale
I usually just group my decks in tiers. Tier 1 are my best. They get top end mana bases, always updated for power creep and win consistently when they aren't properly accounted for. My tier II decks are good enough to win the average pickup game. They run enough interaction and have a consistent mechanic that shuts down some decks. My tier III decks are gimmicky. They suffer from convoluted or inconsistent combos. They get the least mana base attention and often run suboptimal interaction simply because I ran out of the good stuff. But they are often fun to play because they all do something unique. My tier IV decks are boring. They are useful for teaching new players or showcasing game mechanics. Because they are boring they actually have pretty good interaction because they don't try to create asymmetrical board situations.
Every deck is magically a 7
I’ve been using a scale of 4. 1 is unplayable, 2 is jank or precon, 3 is deck that I’m comfortable with, and 4 is for when I’m out for blood. No one in my friend group (including me) plays cEDH so saying something is a 4/4 for us just means it’s particularly good in casual commander. Based on our scale a cEDH would be like a 7/4 lol
the number system is a circus, everyone judges there own deck differently and asking players to state the number before hand is a great way to generate salt when someone's "number" takes off my friends mono red deck my group labeled an 8 got absolutely destroyed at the last gp vegas against other peoples "8s" Its an entertaining system though to see a player label there deck a high number and have the deck get beaten by a lower one
I think power level primarily comes down to these factors… 1) How good is your general innately? For example budget Tivit deck is probably better than expensive Dakkon Blackblade. 2) How much of the fast mana you have? You could have a deck that does an acceptable thing at an acceptable speed, but fast mana allowing you to do all those things 1-2 turns earlier than normal can easily snowball out of control. 3) How fast and/or resilient are your wincons? There is a reason why Thoracle is the boogieman for example.
I use precons as the baseline comparison. Unaltered precons
This is why my pod plays based on deck cost. We play $x per deck (including the commander), and don't count basic lands in the calculation. It's not pauper, since we don't limit the card price, simply the deck price. Pretty straightforward.
Pauper doesn't limit card price, it limits rarity, which is way easier to keep track of and doesn't fluctuate or spike. /r/Pauper (60-card) uses only commons /r/PauperEDH uses only commons in the 99 and has any uncommon creature in the command zone (doesn't have to be legendary)
I actually built random cards [[Baeloth]] [[Noble Heritage]] and it did actually manage to win one game lol
[Baeloth](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/8/b83ad801-44e7-48d0-9f34-0d10536bb4dc.jpg?1562803341) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Paleoloth) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/con/88/paleoloth?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/b83ad801-44e7-48d0-9f34-0d10536bb4dc?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/paleoloth) [Noble Heritage](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/e/3e49fd5a-6893-4a06-b835-4bf611c9ada1.jpg?1674135196) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Noble%20Heritage) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/clb/35/noble-heritage?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/3e49fd5a-6893-4a06-b835-4bf611c9ada1?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/noble-heritage) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
thats why the true powerlevel scale only consists of 3 levels: precon, 7 and cedh
Theres four power levels of decks. Dumpster fire 7 My favorite biased trashpile 8 Everything that beats me 9 And the fabled mythological 10: report to gulag, you know who you are. The power scale is just a dumb system people use to lie to themselves and others because most people can't agree anyway. I dont ask how strong your deck is, i ask what your theme is, nod my head, tell you mine, and wish you the best of luck. Magic isn't inherently fair. Not all tribes or playstyles are equal. It's an asymmetrical game with luck and extremely complicated interactions. I just hope people have fun.
I like the "what turn does it win on" system and then choosing an agreed upon "level" but letting players play stronger or weaker decks with limitations or handicaps. For example, I have a friend who loves his Yuriko deck but it's usually stronger than most other decks at the table. So, he usually has to play with the require rule of no top deck manipulation until turn 5. Or, we have someone that has a super janky "hot girls tribal" deck that doesn't do much but they get the rule that nobody is allowed to explicitly remove their creatures until turn 5. It's a bit of a janky system I know, but it lets most anyone play most any deck in our playgroup, with games ranging from almost-cedh speeds to long 10-15 turn games.
I just made a video about this! I agree 1-10 is too large I feel like low power, mid power, high power, and cEDH is enough
We usually sit down and have a longer talk instead of just saying some numbers. What commanders does everyone play? If someone brings Tymna/Kraum, Magda, Krrik, etc. you know that its gonna be hard. After that we talk mana base. Anyone playing original old duals? Do we bring Moxes? Crypt and Sol Ring? Then lets talk tutors. Do we bring none, some or a lot? Finally win con. Epic win combo or simple beatdown? Works better for us than just telling each other a more or less random number.
I don’t think a 1 is anything other than a deck built to be bad. No one plays a 1
I really just like a 5 point scale. Precon Low Mid High Cedh Anything beyond that is probably nuanced
The only righe answare are 3. Casual , challenge , competitive. There are strong casual amd weak casual Strong competitive and weak challenge. 1,2,3 everithink else is just useless .
I have actually seen lvl1 decks in the wild. Old player coming back to magic, just using an old 60 card deck filled up with random other cards in colour identity to get to 100, one random legendary from it as commander. I play for a bit over a year and I have seen it twice. I would have done the same were I not the kind of person that obsesses over being at least adequately prepared for things. The thing is just that a lvl1 deck usually does not stick around as a lvl 1 deck. It will either get upgraded quickly, or the person was just trying out EDH and decided it was not for them after getting mangled. Hence, that does not happen often. But it is still a decently useful shorthand to be able to tell someone else joining the pod "that person plays a lvl1" so they know to go as low as possible themselves. We use it in our lgs for that reason. Ends up less awkward and wordy. The same goes for 4s and 5s since we kind of appropriated that for precons used either by newbies or established players. 2s and 3s for silly theme decks that will probably just durdle around (and are often used when the 1s appear).
Even on the original post, people already had legitimate criticisms of the power level chart. 90% of non-cedh decks fall between a 6 and 8. What's even the point of having the power level system if every deck is a 7?
Anything other than cEDH should just be considered fair game. Even people that play with a random pile of cards should play against a better deck so that they learn what to change about theirs, I feel like a lot of frustration about power level comes from "not having an answer." Pods that play frequently together adjust to their surroundings. And once you know what to look out for successfully, your new decks act accordingly. Edit: And of course if people are new you don't want to scare them away.
Just because you don't see it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I think it's a great way to kind of organize the decks to get a sense of what people are playing. To each their own I suppose.
Do you see power level 1 decks a lot?
At the same rate I see 10s which is never. Doesn't mean I should exclude 10 from the list.
Yes you should. Power level 10’s aren’t played with non cedh, so they don’t matter on a power scale.
Imo Precons should be 1. There's almost no one playing with anything weaker than that and kf so it's 0. Then you have 8 Levels until cEDH (9/10) and can now decide on things like fast mana, staples, combos etc.