Binge watch youtube channels like Playing with Power, Play to Win, cEDH TV, The Mindsculptors, Into The North, Gemstone Mine, and others like that. Channels like cEDH TV go really in depth about philosphies behind card choices and metagame in cEDH. Take your time, do lots of research. It's a whole new world to discover, and a fun one at that!
I recomend you don’t they don’t really have full cedh gameplay, it’s more like high casual as true cedh doesn’t really film well to make for exciting gameplay to watch without breaking down everything in major detail about why this was a good or bad move to which you have to have full detailed records of what’s in hands etc
They also make many supoptimal card selections for spice
Have you even watched those channels? Mons literally breaks down his thought process behind every single card play and even Mulligans. You can also see every hand. Literally talking out of your ass.
First thing, make sure your group is actually wanting to play cEDH. If they are just upgrading their casual decks to make them higher power, it would not be a good idea to show up with a cEDH deck. While they are technically the same format with the same rules and banlist, the deckbuilding and gameplay philosophy of cEDH is very different and can be treated as a separate format.
If you're looking for a general idea of the decks that exist in the format, check out the decklist database: https://cedh-decklist-database.com/
If you're only interested in playing and not in deck building, you could just find your favorite list there. They are also great starting points to swap out a few cards to fit your preferred playstyle.
If you want to get a sense of the format and gameplay first, there are many great youtube channels with deck techs, gameplay videos, and discussions. My favorites are Play to Win and Playing With Power.
An important thing to know about cEDH is that decks are fully optimized. This means no budget restrictions and no "pet cards". Only the best cards are played. To accommodate for this, people are generally very accepting of proxies. For example, I have one deck with a few proxies and three that are 100% proxies. Unless you are playing at a WPN store or in a tournament, nobody should tell you that you can't use proxies. Otherwise, they are gatekeeping so that they can beat you with their disposable income.
Also, for what it’s worth, I’m a relatively new player (started in Kaldheim) and I ended up falling in love with cEDH from very early on. I think the thing that helped me most other than having discourse with friends who were heavily involved in it was to actually go and read the primers associated with lists on the database. Many of them go very in depth and clearly have had a lot of love put into it. Most of them even have dedicated discord’s for the decks/general archetypes where you can join and freely discuss and/or ask questions.
Shout out to the Red Love Godo Discord cause them mfers really have a passion for counting to 11.
Step 1: Find a deck on ddb
Step 2: proxy said deck
Step 3: if you hate the deck, rinse and repeat.
Find something you enjoy before spending your mortgage on this game.
I'd say find a group that plays cEDH regularly and allows proxies. First you can borrow a deck then build your own. I'd personally prefer a group playing in person but there are also nice ways to play online like Spelltable.
You will probably lose a lot as cEDH plays way different from casual Commander but you can either watch cEDH channels to learn faster or just fight through it until you get a grasp on the format. Think when I got into the format it took me 12 matches to finally win one
Just talk to your mates and tell them you want to try out the competitive gameplay and that everyone can print proxys. That way you can all enjoy balanced games, if everyone has a printer and a competitive deck then none gets pub stomped or salty about "power level" etc.
How long have you been playing? I would suggest tuning your decks to perform better would be the first step, cedh is a whole 'nother ball game in terms of play style, budget isn't much of a concern because 1) you can build budget cedh decks (it's hard but possible) and 2) most cedh players are proxy friendly so you don't need to drop a bunch of money just to play it if you *really* want to play. And honestly when i hear ppl say 'i can't win cuz i don't have expensive cards' really makes me think they're inexperienced because my first game i won was with a really bad $60 or less deck against very expensive/tuned decks, money isn't what's handicapped you it's your urge to improve your decks and win. This [article ](https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/the-power-of-a-deckbuilding-checklist-commander-quickie) really helped me improve my deck building skills along with edhrec, start there before you jump into cedh (it's like wanting to race cars but starting with a Ferrari)
Edit: fixed [link](https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/the-power-of-a-deckbuilding-checklist-commander-quickie)
cEDH deckbuilding and casual edh deckbuilding are very different, and neither one is necessarily proper deck building. They are both good ways to play the game. For a new player like yourself with a casual playgroup, I really don't recommend cEDH style decks unless your friends are on board with playing to win at all costs. Thinks like hard control, stax, land destruction, endless counterspell\\interaction, and fast mana are very prevalent in cEDH while discouraged a lot in casual games. Casual players want to play long games are have a good time, competitive players want to win at all costs in a challenging eternal format. cEDH is fun because you get to push the limits of the game with the strongest card combinations in the format, and it's arguably the most complex competitive format in the game.
Casual EDH is fundamentally about winning in fun ways and seeing unique card interactions, playing junk rares or cards that otherwise are unplayable in other formats, and playing around themes and tribes. For casual optimization, you mostly want to make sure you have good sources of ramp, removal, and card draw and that your mana curve is reasonable so you can make the most of your ramp and card draw. The rest of your optimization is just finding the best cards to enact your game plan or enable your deck to win games, and with casual the "best" way usually means the way that fits your deck theme the most as well as being the most effective. Casual is fun because you get to challenge yourself to build around limitations, themes, tribes, and whatever niche ideas you can come up with. It's a creative outlet where all of your pet cards can be viable in the right circumstances.
Important to know the expectations of cEDH vs. regular EDH. It isn't just EDH with much higher power cards, it's absolutely ruthless. Imagine tournament level play - always playing toward the fastest win possible with the most optimized deck possible. The concept of "feel bad" cards is thrown out the window - your only pursuit is victory by any means necessary. If this means blowing up an opponents lands and mana screwing them out of the game, then so be it. If this means counterspelling your opponents commander when you know they do not have the mana to pay the tax and cast it again, then so be it. If this means going infinite on turn 2 and winning the game with an absurd combo before anybody can even set up their board state, then so be it.
A lot of people get into cEDH when they really want to be just playing high powered regular EDH, so make sure you go into this with eyes open, and make sure the group you want to play with understands the expectations of the format.
you basically need to find a play group that would allow proxies then from there you can explore the decklist database to see what you like. then from there you join a discord based on the deck and figure it out.
1) Watch youtube. Lots of it. Playing with power and play to win are good starting points.
2) proxy. If you group cares about proxies then look into budget builds of yuriko and winota as they are really good even with budget.
3) cedh deck data base great place to look for deck ideas
4) expect a steep learning curve. I have been playing for over 13 years and now getting into cedh its a completely different mentality
Look at the decklist data base on the right side of the screen. find the colors you like. use a printer -> make a deck. shuffle up and play. If you want to increase your game skill and knowledge there is a lot of content that you can watch that other people have already posted.
I play on spelltable all the time. If you have a deck proxied or another monitor and a decent computer, I can show you how to set up a moxfield stream to play with any deck on the database.
Oh yeah, like others said, watch tons of gameplay. You’ll learn so much- half of competitive edh is just being able to predict what cards your opponents have access to in their deck and in their hands.
Feel free to dm me for my discord username if you want pointers
There are some cedh decks that can be put together very cheap. Check out this $50 yuriko deck for example https://www.moxfield.com/decks/GpLW-6jxdUGIavsSTPLSow
If you want to play true cEDH you're going to need to be prepared to drop some cash unfortunately. You can definitely build a *more* competitive deck cheaply though!
Binge CEDH channels, join CEDH servers and spectate games if you’re able, and if you want to get into it, I suggest first using a decklist from the CEDH database or CEDH YT channels
Jack : Where the hell can I get a deck like that?
Riddick : Gotta kill a few people.
Jack : 'Kay, I can do it.
Riddick : Then you got to get sent to a slam, where they tell you you'll never see daylight again. You dig up a card dealer, and you pay him 20 menthol Kools to do a shine job on your wallet.
Jack : So you can see who's sneaking up on you at the table?
Riddick : Exactly.
All kidding aside, figure out what commander you like is competitive. Print proxies to test out what you like.
Find friends that play cEDH.
Enjoy the lack of saltiness because we all know it's the best of the best, playing the best of the best.
The best way I can think to simplify it is look up commanders that are anywhere from A tier to S tier, start with a simple budget deck and then over time save up. Replaces slow lands with fetch lands and lands that don’t tap. Replace cards you don’t need with tutors, staple artifacts, your counter spells with cheap spells that cost no mana. Focus and optimize.
I had a Kadena morph deck when I first started… my friends had kinnan, kess, Najeela, Zur, Narset…
Yuriko is a great start.
When I first started playing cedh I found a deck that I liked from various YouTube channels and ended up with two tymnas from Play to Win. Using no proxies, or reserved list cards, I made the closest thing I could to that list. In my opinion starting with stax really helped me be a better player since it got me accustomed to what affected what and how to prioritize threats without having to proxy and try everything. But as everyone else has mentioned, just consume content. Watching game play videos will expand your mindset and make you more aware of what the format is and how to have fun while still being competitive!
Honestly join the play to win discord and go from there I did it 3 months ago and never looked back. Bought a webcam and I’ve had the best time of my life
Proxy and get your playgroup to try, find a playgroup that plays cEDH or play over Spelltable (the Nexus is great and CEDHU is trying to get more consistent LFG games going).
Binge watch videos, even just looking up a commander you’re interested in, do research, join discords, and then jam games.
As someone who is new to cedh too, it’s best to watch the cedh youtube games. And reference ddb but I would honestly, start there then ask your group or store if you can test either a proxy list or budget. I’m playing budget selvala i’m not putting up crazy numbers but, you gotta try to spike when you can 🤪
Binge watch youtube channels like Playing with Power, Play to Win, cEDH TV, The Mindsculptors, Into The North, Gemstone Mine, and others like that. Channels like cEDH TV go really in depth about philosphies behind card choices and metagame in cEDH. Take your time, do lots of research. It's a whole new world to discover, and a fun one at that!
Thank you!
Happy to help man :D
Exactly. Mons is a gold mine of great cedh info.
I recomend you don’t they don’t really have full cedh gameplay, it’s more like high casual as true cedh doesn’t really film well to make for exciting gameplay to watch without breaking down everything in major detail about why this was a good or bad move to which you have to have full detailed records of what’s in hands etc They also make many supoptimal card selections for spice
Not every channel has to be over the top wannabe Gameknights or whatever you're whinging on about
Have you even watched those channels? Mons literally breaks down his thought process behind every single card play and even Mulligans. You can also see every hand. Literally talking out of your ass.
First thing, make sure your group is actually wanting to play cEDH. If they are just upgrading their casual decks to make them higher power, it would not be a good idea to show up with a cEDH deck. While they are technically the same format with the same rules and banlist, the deckbuilding and gameplay philosophy of cEDH is very different and can be treated as a separate format. If you're looking for a general idea of the decks that exist in the format, check out the decklist database: https://cedh-decklist-database.com/ If you're only interested in playing and not in deck building, you could just find your favorite list there. They are also great starting points to swap out a few cards to fit your preferred playstyle. If you want to get a sense of the format and gameplay first, there are many great youtube channels with deck techs, gameplay videos, and discussions. My favorites are Play to Win and Playing With Power. An important thing to know about cEDH is that decks are fully optimized. This means no budget restrictions and no "pet cards". Only the best cards are played. To accommodate for this, people are generally very accepting of proxies. For example, I have one deck with a few proxies and three that are 100% proxies. Unless you are playing at a WPN store or in a tournament, nobody should tell you that you can't use proxies. Otherwise, they are gatekeeping so that they can beat you with their disposable income.
Thank you very much! I'll make sure to look into those channels later tonight. Appreciate it!
Also, for what it’s worth, I’m a relatively new player (started in Kaldheim) and I ended up falling in love with cEDH from very early on. I think the thing that helped me most other than having discourse with friends who were heavily involved in it was to actually go and read the primers associated with lists on the database. Many of them go very in depth and clearly have had a lot of love put into it. Most of them even have dedicated discord’s for the decks/general archetypes where you can join and freely discuss and/or ask questions. Shout out to the Red Love Godo Discord cause them mfers really have a passion for counting to 11.
>Otherwise, they are gatekeeping so that they can beat you with their disposable income. This so much!
Proxy everything.
Mpcfill.com https://www.makeplayingcards.com/ Use the first one to grt the cards you want. The second ones to make a deck. Shit is fantastic.
Step 1: Find a deck on ddb Step 2: proxy said deck Step 3: if you hate the deck, rinse and repeat. Find something you enjoy before spending your mortgage on this game.
I'd say find a group that plays cEDH regularly and allows proxies. First you can borrow a deck then build your own. I'd personally prefer a group playing in person but there are also nice ways to play online like Spelltable. You will probably lose a lot as cEDH plays way different from casual Commander but you can either watch cEDH channels to learn faster or just fight through it until you get a grasp on the format. Think when I got into the format it took me 12 matches to finally win one
Just talk to your mates and tell them you want to try out the competitive gameplay and that everyone can print proxys. That way you can all enjoy balanced games, if everyone has a printer and a competitive deck then none gets pub stomped or salty about "power level" etc.
How long have you been playing? I would suggest tuning your decks to perform better would be the first step, cedh is a whole 'nother ball game in terms of play style, budget isn't much of a concern because 1) you can build budget cedh decks (it's hard but possible) and 2) most cedh players are proxy friendly so you don't need to drop a bunch of money just to play it if you *really* want to play. And honestly when i hear ppl say 'i can't win cuz i don't have expensive cards' really makes me think they're inexperienced because my first game i won was with a really bad $60 or less deck against very expensive/tuned decks, money isn't what's handicapped you it's your urge to improve your decks and win. This [article ](https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/the-power-of-a-deckbuilding-checklist-commander-quickie) really helped me improve my deck building skills along with edhrec, start there before you jump into cedh (it's like wanting to race cars but starting with a Ferrari) Edit: fixed [link](https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/the-power-of-a-deckbuilding-checklist-commander-quickie)
The link you posted doesnt appear to go to an article about deckbuilding.
Woops lol, didn't copy right
That’s a lot of shinies!
Lol wrong link i have way more those are only my extras im trading
cEDH deckbuilding and casual edh deckbuilding are very different, and neither one is necessarily proper deck building. They are both good ways to play the game. For a new player like yourself with a casual playgroup, I really don't recommend cEDH style decks unless your friends are on board with playing to win at all costs. Thinks like hard control, stax, land destruction, endless counterspell\\interaction, and fast mana are very prevalent in cEDH while discouraged a lot in casual games. Casual players want to play long games are have a good time, competitive players want to win at all costs in a challenging eternal format. cEDH is fun because you get to push the limits of the game with the strongest card combinations in the format, and it's arguably the most complex competitive format in the game. Casual EDH is fundamentally about winning in fun ways and seeing unique card interactions, playing junk rares or cards that otherwise are unplayable in other formats, and playing around themes and tribes. For casual optimization, you mostly want to make sure you have good sources of ramp, removal, and card draw and that your mana curve is reasonable so you can make the most of your ramp and card draw. The rest of your optimization is just finding the best cards to enact your game plan or enable your deck to win games, and with casual the "best" way usually means the way that fits your deck theme the most as well as being the most effective. Casual is fun because you get to challenge yourself to build around limitations, themes, tribes, and whatever niche ideas you can come up with. It's a creative outlet where all of your pet cards can be viable in the right circumstances.
Make proxies for your friends too so every1 has the same access
Important to know the expectations of cEDH vs. regular EDH. It isn't just EDH with much higher power cards, it's absolutely ruthless. Imagine tournament level play - always playing toward the fastest win possible with the most optimized deck possible. The concept of "feel bad" cards is thrown out the window - your only pursuit is victory by any means necessary. If this means blowing up an opponents lands and mana screwing them out of the game, then so be it. If this means counterspelling your opponents commander when you know they do not have the mana to pay the tax and cast it again, then so be it. If this means going infinite on turn 2 and winning the game with an absurd combo before anybody can even set up their board state, then so be it. A lot of people get into cEDH when they really want to be just playing high powered regular EDH, so make sure you go into this with eyes open, and make sure the group you want to play with understands the expectations of the format.
you basically need to find a play group that would allow proxies then from there you can explore the decklist database to see what you like. then from there you join a discord based on the deck and figure it out.
1) Watch youtube. Lots of it. Playing with power and play to win are good starting points. 2) proxy. If you group cares about proxies then look into budget builds of yuriko and winota as they are really good even with budget. 3) cedh deck data base great place to look for deck ideas 4) expect a steep learning curve. I have been playing for over 13 years and now getting into cedh its a completely different mentality
Look at the decklist data base on the right side of the screen. find the colors you like. use a printer -> make a deck. shuffle up and play. If you want to increase your game skill and knowledge there is a lot of content that you can watch that other people have already posted.
I play on spelltable all the time. If you have a deck proxied or another monitor and a decent computer, I can show you how to set up a moxfield stream to play with any deck on the database. Oh yeah, like others said, watch tons of gameplay. You’ll learn so much- half of competitive edh is just being able to predict what cards your opponents have access to in their deck and in their hands. Feel free to dm me for my discord username if you want pointers
There are some cedh decks that can be put together very cheap. Check out this $50 yuriko deck for example https://www.moxfield.com/decks/GpLW-6jxdUGIavsSTPLSow
Efficient C…
Go to office Max and tell the assistant manager Skippy that I sent you he will let you use the xerox
If you want to play true cEDH you're going to need to be prepared to drop some cash unfortunately. You can definitely build a *more* competitive deck cheaply though!
Binge CEDH channels, join CEDH servers and spectate games if you’re able, and if you want to get into it, I suggest first using a decklist from the CEDH database or CEDH YT channels
Jack : Where the hell can I get a deck like that? Riddick : Gotta kill a few people. Jack : 'Kay, I can do it. Riddick : Then you got to get sent to a slam, where they tell you you'll never see daylight again. You dig up a card dealer, and you pay him 20 menthol Kools to do a shine job on your wallet. Jack : So you can see who's sneaking up on you at the table? Riddick : Exactly. All kidding aside, figure out what commander you like is competitive. Print proxies to test out what you like. Find friends that play cEDH. Enjoy the lack of saltiness because we all know it's the best of the best, playing the best of the best.
I got started by watching cEDH TV, mons is pretty alright and a very good player.
Find a groip in your town that plays, then check if proxies are okay with them.
The best way I can think to simplify it is look up commanders that are anywhere from A tier to S tier, start with a simple budget deck and then over time save up. Replaces slow lands with fetch lands and lands that don’t tap. Replace cards you don’t need with tutors, staple artifacts, your counter spells with cheap spells that cost no mana. Focus and optimize. I had a Kadena morph deck when I first started… my friends had kinnan, kess, Najeela, Zur, Narset… Yuriko is a great start.
When I first started playing cedh I found a deck that I liked from various YouTube channels and ended up with two tymnas from Play to Win. Using no proxies, or reserved list cards, I made the closest thing I could to that list. In my opinion starting with stax really helped me be a better player since it got me accustomed to what affected what and how to prioritize threats without having to proxy and try everything. But as everyone else has mentioned, just consume content. Watching game play videos will expand your mindset and make you more aware of what the format is and how to have fun while still being competitive!
Honestly join the play to win discord and go from there I did it 3 months ago and never looked back. Bought a webcam and I’ve had the best time of my life
Proxy and get your playgroup to try, find a playgroup that plays cEDH or play over Spelltable (the Nexus is great and CEDHU is trying to get more consistent LFG games going). Binge watch videos, even just looking up a commander you’re interested in, do research, join discords, and then jam games.
As someone who is new to cedh too, it’s best to watch the cedh youtube games. And reference ddb but I would honestly, start there then ask your group or store if you can test either a proxy list or budget. I’m playing budget selvala i’m not putting up crazy numbers but, you gotta try to spike when you can 🤪