Depala, Pilot ExemplarDepala, Pilot Exemplar | Art by Greg Opalinski

One the finnicky parts of the Brackets is the power of the pilot, or how well the player plays. I wonder if it was intentional or not for the Commander Format Panel to neglect this pain point in the formulation of Brackets. It's obvious that the perception of the power of a deck has a lot to do with who pilots it.

An amateur can make a cEDH deck seem infantile in construction and a seasoned player can make a precon seem broken. The more I thought about it though, I understood why the Panel might have neglected this aspect of balancing games.

The Power of the Pilot

What everyone loves about the Brackets—those that do love it—is how much guidance it gives us. Granted, the guidance it gives doesn't "solve" all aspects of balancing a game of Commander, but it gives us something concrete to look at. Number for Game Changers, turns before a player is eliminated, two-card versus three-card combos, and even mass land denial are concretely laid out to determine power.

This system isn't perfect, but it gives us something to hold onto, concretely. The glaring problem with quantifying the power of the pilot is how would we actually measure it? It can't be how much you win; that could be because of the deck's power. The amount of years you've played can't be it either; some players have been playing "inefficiently" for many years because of the strength and metas of their play groups. It can't even be how well a player understands the rules; Magic is partially rules knowledge but also—like art—partially creativity.

None of these are concrete enough.

In the vagaries of power of the pilot, I consider all of the above mentioned—inadequately concrete—measurements explaining a portion of what we see in an exceptional player: high win rate, experience in the game, and creativity and knowledge in the game. It's just not easy to measure accurately enough to pass around to your friends on a sheet of paper. There comes the rub.

What Do We Do Now?

So, we can identify, roughly, a powerful player, even if there isn't a perfect set of rules to identifying one. If this player keeps piloting what we could all consider a Bracket 3 deck to constant wins, how do we have a balanced play experience? The first hurdle is likely identifying where the fussy start and end between a good player and tuned deck is. Don't look at me; I don't know how to scientifically quantify that. But let's assume we can do this.

Maybe everyone pilots the same deck and wins roughly about the same in the same in the pod, but when this player pilots it they constantly win. Let's say that is scientific enough.

What then? We've identified a problem, right? I don't know if everyone would agree we should do something at all. Is a person who consistently wins, regardless of the deck, something we should interfere with? Is a person's skill an edge that should be balanced? It's a tough question.

Commander is a casual game that has its own internal logic. A weirdly unique internal meta. In competitive formats, like Standard, building the strongest deck and piloting it to the best of your ability is the ultimate goal. It's about exploiting random chance, and fighting against it at the same time. It's about rewarding exceptionalism.

Commander isn't the same. Not even cEDH is the same. It has problems balancing turn order, cross talk and politics, bad threat assessment, and priority bullying. All of this on top of a 100-card singleton format with minimal ways to streamline and make efficient a win, at least in casual.

So the meta and landscape of Commander has sort of morphed into conversations about having fun rather than being efficient. The more efficient the game becomes the less it feels like the core expectations of a Commander game. It's so antithetical to how card games typically work, though.

Then, should we extend balancing beyond deck building to personal skill because of this difference? Should we try to make a skill level present in a casual way? This is the real question of this article. How do we make a competitive skill level, casual?

Holding Back

This comes to the reason I wrote this article. I have had several conversations with various Magic writers and personalities over the course of my time playing the game. They've had some thoughts about this question of toning down skill.

I want to give some personal context before we get into this question. Some would consider me a somewhat competitive and creative player in the Commander space, including myself. I find that I win more often in games where I try to balance the power of a deck without factoring in my skill.

My performance in streamed games might make this seem surprising. However, what's more entertaining for viewers is highs and lows and fun plays. Efficient isn't always fun to watch. I've sandbagged wins and even avoided getting a little advantage to make games more fun to watch.

However, I would never do this because of my perception of another player's skill. Entertainment, yes. Power balancing, no. I found that this concept or distinction is a point of contention amongst Magic players and content creators. Some advocate for sandbagging if you've won too much or have played too exceptionally.

There again comes the confounding logic of Commander, that I personally struggle with. Fun is prioritized over efficiency, but while I can respect the heart of Commander is to have fun, I find there are some internal logic issues with holding back on purpose.

The Problems With Holding Back in Commander

How is the conversation about holding back going to go? Do you hold back and tell them? Do you hold back and keep it a secret?

Telling them is fairly problematic because it'll sound like this: "I'm such a better player than you that I had to let you win so you had a chance." Even if you said, "I've been playing longer and could have won, but I thought you deserved a win."

I googled the definition of "condescending" and Merriam-Webster said, "Showing or characterized by a patronizing or superior attitude toward others" and under their simple definition is said, "Showing that you believe you are more intelligent or better than other people."

I know the intention here is be honest about your skill, but how should your opponent feel hearing this? It feels like they weren't taken seriously, and that their wins were handed to them. This might make some people happy, but it certainly wouldn't make me happy. Winning, at least for me, should be earned. How do I get better otherwise?

With this logic, I find holding back and telling them a wrong move here.

So what if, to avoid this feeling of condescension, you don't tell them? What if you purposefully withhold a CounterspellCounterspell or a FarewellFarewell against their Self-Mill and Reanimator deck and keep it to yourself?

There are two lines of thinking here. One is "This will never get back to me." One sandbagged Austere CommandAustere Command at the right time might not be noticed. And two: if a pattern forms, people aren't going to ignore that after a win streak and "feels bad" vibes around the table, you suddenly start not having it. It seems suspicious.

Maybe this sounds a bit paranoid and convenient in thinking. I'll try another approach.

What if they just start thinking you don't play enough interaction? Their perception of themselves as a player is warped by your insistence on playing poorly on purpose. Maybe they think they should run less interaction. Perhaps they start running fewer lands. Mayhaps they get away with murder with some deck and get a false sense of strength.

I wonder if you're actually helping in this scenario. This also might be a little convenient as a potential problem. What if players don't pick up bad habits?

How about one more hypothetical? What if they just learn bad playing habits from you? Players get better when they make mistakes and learn how to be more creative and efficient from their betters. How can you learn to be better if you don't get the opportunity to push boundaries for a win you deserve?

Little to no resistance isn't an environment for innovation and creativity. But perhaps players don't want to get better; maybe they want to be bad at Magic forever. That sounds very unlikely.

How to Balance

I'm not ignorant to the reasons players want to push for holding back. Fun is the goal of casual commander, but competitiveness is also part of the fun. Outsmarting, outplaying, or outbuilding against an opponent is important to a large portion of players. Not all of them, notably. Some don't want to get better as players at the expense of having fun. Some players come to have a game of Commander as a way to decompress from a long, stressful day. I can acknowledge that.

I can however also suggest that holding back is not the optimal way to solve this problem. Roman Milan wrote a fun article called How To Be a Veteran Commander Player Around Newbies. In it he discusses a few approaches that I think would be helpful: finding pods with similar power for newer players and playing less complex commanders.

I find helping players find similarly experienced tables is a great way to teach players how to make incremental growth. You don't want them to experience a completely unbalanced game. Similar to Milan's other suggestion of playing a commander with a direct play pattern, players interact with you in a less nuanced and intricate way. This allows them to strengthen their fundamentals. I co-sign these suggestions completely.

I would add to this, offering—with consent, obviously—insight on decisions. Explaining how your deck wins and pieces to keep an eye on as an opponent, walking back turns where the sequencing is messy, or being open and honest about threat assessment, can give insight to other players about how to meet your power without taking away their autonomy.

Lastly, and most crucially, factor in your own power as a player with your deck selection when deciding Brackets. It's not an official rule, but we all know it makes a difference. You don't have to put a number on your skill to understand that you can pilot a particular deck well enough to stop others. And I'm not ignorant to the fact these are vibes-based suggestions that might still fail you, but it is something. It's an attempt at balancing, and that's half the battle.

When I'm playing with newer players, I will always start with something a little weaker to gauge where everyone is at, and then scale up. I can lose a couple of games first. No big deal. I find this less condescending—though slightly condescending—because I'm not assuming their power, I'm just trying to gauge them while trying to avoid pub stomping. I taking them seriously without blowing past them.

Conclusion

Quantifying the power of the pilot is a very difficult thing to do, but I don't know if holding back is the best way to solve for that, if we should solve for it at all. I don't need everyone to agree with me on this, but I wanted to shine a light on why I struggle with the concept of holding back.

Hopefully some of my alternate solutions here might help you in your next game with newer players. Let me know. I'm @strixhavendropout on everything!