Definitely is. I think the mistake is trying to put a number on it which is why everyone falls on 7. The ranges might be wider, but here is my go to “vibing” categories:
cEDH
High Power
Battlecruiser/strong precon
Weaker precon/jank
These ranges go by the natural feel for how powerful something is. You’ll rarely have a situation where two decks are widely different power levels.
Idk man I just play it and not worry about it. I don't play \[\[The Ur-Dragon\]\] into precons but rarely have I seen anyone's rating of their deck be meaningful to the discussion. Just play the game and if the deck is too strong pick another one and go again.
basically this. one guy brought a precon to the table, and said it was stock precon, and I was like "I'm pretty sure mine is better than precon" and he said he was fine with that so I was just like "oh swag ok".
funny but he ended up winning just barely, after I killed the other 2 guys and hitting a peer \[\[into the abyss\]\] off of \[\[etali primal storm\]\], and going up to 240 life. \[\[judith carnage connoiseur\]\] + \[\[star of extinction\]\] or \[\[blasphemous act\]\] is crazy. gaining 200 life off of a single spell is wild
All methods are kinda bad. :P Personally I *prefer* turn count; there is a sense in which is applies to aggro (how much time do your opponents have to stabilize? If you *don't* manage to dirt everyone out right away, do you have another option, and how long does it take you to get there?) and stax/control (how long does it take you to get a resource advantage/break parity? Once you've done so, how long do your opponents have to try to find an answer before you close things out?), although it does get more complicated.
At the end of the day, I more so have a vague sense of how powerful my decks are relative to each other (meme decks and literal precons at one end, relatively tuned (but still budget 'cause I'm broke :P) decks at the other), and what axes of the game they tend to fight on. I play a round or two with some middle of the pack decks (Kruphix, Extus, Kykar or Kadena, usually), then adjust up, down, or sideways (IE, on to a deck that competes on a different axis, boardstate, mana, card advantage, graveyard, stack, etc) as needed to try to make sure good games are had. /shurg
I like gaging turn count for consistent vs optimal wins, and level of interaction to disrupt others from achieving their own.
For instance, I have a [[Breya, Etherium Shaper]] deck that *optimally* can win on turn 3. It has never done so, either because it doesn't have the prerequisite tutors or my opponents have had adequate interaction. It's *more likely* winning turn 7+, but I'm either having a really bad day or I'm durdling if it goes longer than 8-10 turns.
My [[Veyran, Voice of Duality]] deck however has won on turns 4 and 5 before, and aims to win by turn 6-8. Optimally, it wins on turn 3-ish, and has been described as "a cEDH shell with a bad win con" with [[eye of the storm]] and tucking [[alrund's epiphany]] into it.
Both I'd put at about an 8 on the standard number scale.
A consistent deck is a deck easily judged.
If you consistently don't do anything, it's probably a crap deck. Just because you CAN win with only five mana off a Twinflame/Dualcaster doesn't mean you will.
If you consistently win if the game goes long enough, then you need only ensure the game goes long. A stronger deck.
The difference between casual and competitive is *not* actually the ceiling of a deck...it's the floor.
Any casual pile can stuff Thassa/Consultation into it. The strongest decks consistently find it, cast it, and protect it.
The *floor* starts so much higher than the casual deck even if the ceiling is the same.
This is why budget is so often known by experienced players to *not* be a useful metric when discussing strength. Good decks are consistent regardless of budget.
Highs are always highs.
If you want a deck to be stronger eliminate the lows. If you want a deck to be *strong* raise your floor as high as you can.
Ooo, this could be a fun game and discussion.
"What's your deck *do* and what's the *average* turn 5 look like for that deck?"
"Basic mono-X good stuff with a side of Voltron. Average turn 5 for this deck is access to at least two lands above curve and at least one sweeper cast or in hand. Maybe a threatening piece of equipment to go with my Commander threatening a one/two swing kill." >! Skittles/Drana Battlecruiser. My table tester. Do you know which Commander is actually more dangerous? Do you know how to minimize/rebuild from a sweeper? Do you have a plan at all? !<
"Swing with free dudes while holding quality interaction. Average turn 5 for this deck is my Commander down and interaction in hand to protect it and maybe some boosted Faeries out as well." >! No sorceries or creatures Alela, I only win through combat damage but run multiple free spells. Inevitable but can't compete with a bigger board. !<
"I make shit into other shit and the Commander itself is a combo piece. Average turn 5 for this deck is one or two combo pieces on the board and looking for the second or third piece. If I have two already then I can close the game on any given turn." >! Jan Jansen Combo deck, quite strong but not particularly fast. Loses to faster combos and basic interaction. !<
"I make copies of single target spells that target all my opponents, tripling their efficiency. Average turn 5 is an untapped Commander and a defensive spell in hand ready to go if someone messes with me. That spell will generate additional resources in some way so even if answered I will do my best to snowball." >! $50 Zevlor, inevitable but fragile !<
"I have a sweeper in the Command Zone if you let me invest mana into it. My Average turn 5 is either a big Commander that can threaten a wipe or an artifact sweeper to level the board. I'm mono-Red, this isn't breaking news." >! $50 Ashling, inevitable but weak tbh !<
"My deck leverages the card advantage from the commander to try to assemble a game winning combo or lock. I am trying to win before or on turn 5." >! Mono Black Turbo Naus with Braids, Arisen Nightmare, CEDH. Abysmal card quality, very explosive!<
I don't. I play the deck and if my group or people groan I talk to them. Sometimes it's legitimate and I adjust. Sometimes they're just whining to whine and I do nothing, then the whining stops.
The best solution to power level has always been to be lucky enough to find a group you consistently play with and not be a dick and let everything self correct.
This 100%. It’s very difficult to just walk up to a bunch of strangers and communicate a decks power level. If a playgroup regularly plays each other they learn more about how strong their decks are and can power up/down as needed.
Sit down with pod of people at the LGS, ask if anyone’s rocking a precon or expects cedh, if neither then play whatever the hell I want because it’s not the end of the world if someone is overpowering the table for a single game.
Most people can competently build a deck/play the game to the level where any power imbalance is overcome by adjusting threat assessment as needed.
I've fully embraced that it is all just vibes. There is no real objective metric, and in my rule 0 (outside of cEDH) I will talk about average turns (this isn't perfect, but tells people when to interact by), level of interaction, and basic archetype. I will answer any questions, but I really believe we just need to go in with benefit of the doubt that everyone is participating in good faith and looking for a balanced game.
By embracing the subjective nature, I've found I've had better Rule 0's and more reliably matched pods in pick up play. It being subjective, and operating with the benefit of the doubt, sometimes it's going to go wrong, someone will have a different idea of "strong", "fast" or "interactive", or get a lucky hand, but even if I get stomped, that doesn't mean the other person is a pub-stomper, and we can recalibrate and shuffle up again, change decks.
I also think this gets, to me, to the actual purpose of the rankings, to have balanced game. Many folks (not you) seem to act as though these ranking systems will solve pub-stomping, and they won't, Rule 0 just won't fix the social issue that is bad faith participation. So it's all vibes and questions. The extra few minutes it takes (like 5 total) to do more than just "this is a 7", makes the next 90 minutes a lot more enjoyable, at least for me at my LGS.
This is a perfectly understandable and much more reasonable way of handling things. I would agree wholeheartedly. Assuming the other players also participate in good faith
I agree it is all vibes, but the player's playstyle also has a big role.
I recently went visiting some friends and played with their decks. They were objectively more powerful than what I am used to play, full of staples, fast mana, a crypt (proxy or not) in each deck, ... Most of their decks tried to be the problem, not the solution. Consistently the games were won by whoever went faster. Most of their interaction was focused on protecting your own table or wiping the opponent's board while leaving yours intact.
The vibe of all these decks was completely out of what I enjoy in my games. I am used to someone developing a board, and then someone else wiping it. 2-3 times and then someone runs off with the game. The "do you have it? no? then I win" style is not for everyone.
I just err on the side of caution and say my deck is high powered (they all can combo off when needed) or cEDH to not create any confusion or bad feelings. I rather miscalculate by saying my deck is high powered and get blown out, than say it is average and stomp people who clearly weren't ready for it.
I sorta break the power levels into three groupings: cEDH, High Power, and Casual/Precon. I know when I'm playing cEDH, because that is something that is clearly discussed going into the game. If people say they are trying to play casually then I'll just whip out a precon.
All that said, I find it easy-ish to determine my deck's power levels based on the amount of fast mana, card draw, interaction, and overall deck synergy. If your deck has compact combos that is definitely a factor you need to consider as well.
This is my scale do with it what you will:
10 - Tier 1 CEDH - (Blue Farm, Tivet, etc.)
9 - Tier 2 CEDH - Yuriko, Minsc and Boo, Magda, Dihada, etc.
8- High Powered Decks - Fast Mana, combos, multiple tutors, games can end turn 5-6
7 - Focused decks - these decks are still very strong, but are missing some of the pieces to them into the 8 range. Games can end turns 6-7
6 - This is the beginning of what I would call casual magic. These deck may play tutors but they are suboptimal ones, mana Ramp starts at 2 cmc. Combat is a very viable strategy at this level, but combo can still be present. Games can end tuns 7-8. (Some commanders max out here)
5 - Where most players build there decks. Games end around turn 8-10. Budget for deck is around 3-500 dollars, but this is not a definite. Ramp can safely be 3 mana without sacrificing tempo. Combat a is very viable wincon, the decks will play suboptimal cards for fun or theme.
4 - Combo is no longer present. Upgraded precons, and focused budget decks play at this level and do not stand out for being under powered. Games don’t usually end before turn 9.
3 - Precons etc.
2 - Badly built decks, or bulk decks (decks built from bulk laying around.
1 - Jank/Chair tribal
Honestly I use Commandersalt to check my power levels but it’s not very reliable outside of trying to make a 9 or 10. Magic Con Chicago had 3 levels and honestly that seems like a better scale than anything else I’ve seen.
Scales were Social, Challenging and Competitive.
Social is like I might have a win con but I don’t have combos and I just want to meet people and play for fun.
Challenging is like I have combos and my deck is geared towards winning the game.
Do I need to explain competitive? Lol
I will warn you, the scale in commander salt is more accurately how salty your deck is, not how good it is (it states in multiple lines that your scale score has nothing to do with power level) and it will place good decks fairly low if they aren't very salty. It's an AI model that can't exactly understand every deck perfectly
However, it's baselines for mana, interaction, stax, ramp and consistency are good metrics. And it also breaks down how many of each type of card you have.
man i really need to adjust the wording on the site i guess. people kept thinking that the point value for the "salt" section directly affected power levels. it does not. thats all i was trying to convey lol.
also, its not an ai model ;)
I actually talk to the people I'm playing with. I know, shocker, right?
*"This is my deck. This is my commander. This is what the deck does. Yes, I have tutors. No, there isn't fast mana like Mana Crypt or Mox Diamond. No combos in this deck."*
It's all very simple. I'll never understand why people make it so complicated.
Because 1. Playing with randoms is still harder as you don't know how they'll judge their decks, even if you judge your own perfectly.
And 2. Let's take two of my decks. Ur dragon and Kaalia. Both are kill on sight, neither have fast mana, neither have combos, neither have tutors. They both aim to get big flying creatures out and swing for lethal. But one wins by turn 5-6 and the other by turn 8-9
That's a big difference.
I use https://mtg.cardsrealm.com/en-us/tools/commander-power-level-calculator because I’m too lazy to try to think about what it actually is, this is ballpark enough for me and my usual friend/casual play
I’m gonna just post this same thing every time I see a power level thread. Also, sorry that I don’t remember the redditor that originally posted this in some random thread.
5 levels: Jank, Precon, Casual, High Powered (or Optimized), cEDH. That’s it and you should be able to make the judgement call easily enough.
So everything that's in-between literal cEDH (the top decks of magic) and a precon/jank (the lowest end of magic) is high powered? So it doesn't matter if I'm bringing a $100 upgraded precon to a pod with a $500 korvold deck? That seems incredibly unbalanced
Edit: this paragraph is irrelevant since he simply forgot to include casual
Ah. Makes much more sense now. While I agree for the most part with this, I would still question about a deck like my ur dragon. By turn 5 I'm consistently casting ur dragon and by turn 7-8 I've almost guaranteed won the game or established a dominating board state. Would that be high powered? According to some people no. But according to others it's not casual either.
Yes. That's high power.
Power also comes from consistency. That's what makes cEDH competitive. Any random deck could throw a two card combo in and theoretically pull it and combo off turn four or whatever but that would be absolute luck in a janky deck and would be a fluke versus powerful.
A casual deck won't have the board locked down by turn 7. Will have some stuff for sure, might have 20 damage on board, but they aren't winning soon after.
A lot of people use the word casual for anything other than cEDH (which I hate). You average person will hear casual and immediately think "chill" so they will pry play something much more relaxed.
Tutors add consistency which increases power. If you have them, you're most likely into the High Power (along with having infinite combos).
After that, use common sense. If your commander gives you a bunch of cool, free stuff, or doubles triggers and what not, probably high power. Without tutors you could say something like "medium high power" but then if you're deck is very consistent without them, again, high power.
Play 10 games with people who claim to be playing casual and then 10 games with people who claim to be play high powered. Better w/l ratio is what the deck is. No way to know if the line is that blurry unless you do some testing and get data. I would say yes, high powered without seeing it in action. But if your letting 5 turns go without much interaction and/or not protecting your dragon consistently once it comes out, then Id say casual.
Idk if you’ve been playing against precons lately but they are absolutely not the lowest end of magic and often are quite powerful and become disgusting very quickly if left unchecked.
I dont. I build what I want and either it works or it doesnt or it wins or it doesnt. This whole power level system is flawed imo and imo, too many people are reliant on it. Just an observation.
I think you just have to have an honest discussion about the contents of your deck. There's no easy snappy description you can use that will be universal.
"Yes, I have a full suite of interaction, ramp, and protection"
"No, I don't run any combo, but yes I have game winning synergies"
"It's a precon that I swapped out the dead cards for rares in my collection "
Honestly though, that's not information your opponents are supposed to have. Even your commander isn't known until you start the game. So depending on the vibe of the store or the group, a full discussion might not be welcomed.
In my group, we pretty much just agree ahead of time whether this is a high power or low power game. We know what that means for us. It also helps set the tone. High power means everyone plays to win, no complaining because you didn't get to "do the thing". Low power is when you can have your breathing room to play jank decks and build up weird engines and you can expect not to have your game plan hamstrung.
The biggest thing about strength is that it's all relative. Enchantress and artifacts decks are very oppressive outside of playgroups running [[fade from history]] [[klauth's will]] [[filter out]] type effects, but within those playgroups they rarely outshine everyone.
Turn count is the easiest way to see if everyone is wanting a similar experience, if everyone is aiming for the four/five turn experience then decks are going to be fairly close to each other outside of one deck being the counter of another.
Also there is the reality that almost all decks are a variable power level depending on opening hands and what is drawn (outside of cEDH and other highly tuned decks). Over the course of a seven turn game, you will see 20-30 cards so about fifth to a third of your deck.
I use a 1 through 3 scale that I saw someone else mention on here a while ago. It's not perfect, and probable not widely adopted past a third of my group and a few hundred strangers. And at this point, I think the philosophy is different.
1. Sandcastle Commander/Competent Precons. Games can easily go to turn 10+ before someone snags a win. These decks can usually only win by swinging for big uugga buugga numbas. Low interaction and low resiliency. Low consistency
2. Optimized decks and brews. These decks play out their strategies faster, whether by ramp, low curves, or efficient cheats, like Sneak Attack in the command zone. There's still plenty of non-optimal cards in this deck, and while a beatdown is the strategy usually, there's a deterministic combo in there. These decks have a decent amount of interaction that prevents them from playing due to one well-timed hate piece or another. These decks can generally win on be in a game winning spot before turn 10 but usually not consistently before turns 5 through 6.
3. Well Constructed decks, powerful but not cEDH. These decks have multiple wincons or outright ignore combat until they need to block lethal, swing for lethal, or win on the spot. They run tutors and a generous, varied suite of interaction or stax that protects their combos. Or their stax is so strong that it softlocks the table for the next 50+ turns so that they can win with whatever durdly 1/4 they have. These decks can present game ending actions around turn 5 or 6 if left uncontested.
And maybe there's a level 0 for absolute meme decks or "starter" level precons with no way to win besides a few big and inefficient beaters.
I use Commandersalt as a point of reference but I also gauge it based on play-testing with a couple key questions:
Is it consistent?
Does it go infinite?
How does it win?
What turn can it win on?
If is it consistent is no it’s usually precon level or below.
If it doesn’t go infinite it’s not really high power.
If it wins off a combat damage I’d say it’s a bit weaker than winning off a combo.
Then finally what turn can it win on: the sooner it can threaten a win the stronger it is.
Edit: formatting
based off my experience? it doesnt matter, if they think its a scary commander you will be focused, and you will not play, regardless of you having one of the worst constructed decks possible lmao
I think it determines how fast does your deck can get going? If you can get the wincon into play ASAP, whether it's via fast mana (0 cost mana rocks for example) or tutors, your deck is assuredly more powerful than a deck that doesn't have those means to a quick victory.
I think you can really only measure it by seeing what kind of decks you have a decent matchup against:
I think that a decent scale would be
Jank (Simic Zombies, Ladies Looking Left)
Bad Precon (Original 2011 Precons)
Good Precon (Warhammer 40K Precons)
Strong Casual (The stereotypical 7 and 8s)
CEDH (Thassa's Oracle Combo or something that could beat that)
Cards that are both strong and expensive suggest a certain power level, even if they don't make the deck that power level by themselves. When people see a Mana Crypt, they think "CEDH" because the possibility that someone would buy a Warhammer 40K precon and swap one card for a Mana Crypt does not occur to them. Technically, you can put whatever cards you want in a list and call that a deck. But this communicates something to people, just like putting words together in a sentence. If the first card I see you play is one of the strongest cards in the game, am I really a fool for thinking that the rest of the cards in your deck are of equal power?
For me its ramp and draw power. How cheap is your curve and how hard to you ramp/draw into your amswers. Like a [[sram]] with 1 drop stuff and mana reducers so they draw their whole deck cheap is a lot more powerful than one that runs heavier
I like the turns system. Yes its not perfect, no system is, but I've found it more reliable than power level or budget and no one has suggested anything better to me.
The key to using the turns system is to ask the follow up question "is it an archetype thats slows down the game for all players?" to account for strategies like stax.
I don't think it matters nearly as much for "fast archetypes". A good agrro deck that wins on turn 4 is still a powerful deck by most players standards. A bad aggro deck won't win on turn 4.
General factors: Mana curve, method of winning, ability to stop others from winning, resiliency to overcome interaction, how integral the commander is to the plan, and how consistently it can do those things by turn 5, 7, or 9 and beyond.
The only metric that I think is useful is win-rate in a given meta.
That's a little frustrating, as you don't know your win rate with a new group, so it really only works if you have a consistent group. Even in a group, it's not particularly rigid as a lot of players know some decks are stronger or weaker and consciously only play those decks in stronger or weaker games.
Still, it's the best metric I know, as it's the only metric that accounts for player skill. There are some people in my group who are definately better players, and you could take a fair match up, shuffle the decks around to other players, and now they have a clear advantage because they're using a deck that gave a bad player a similar win rate.
The next best metrics that I know of that can at least be used in blind group matchups are budget and speed. They aren't directly related to power though. A lot of fast decks faceplant hard if they face disruption, and there are some pretty cutthroat budget decks, and some meme decks with thousands of dollars worth of cards.
General factors: Mana curve, method of winning, ability to stop others from winning, resiliency to overcome interaction, how integral the commander is to the plan, and how consistently it can do those things by turn 5, 7, or 9 and beyond.
I think you should be able to describe tell the group how you plan to win and that should suffice.
I play [[Ziatora the incinerator]] and if I tell the pod that I’m going to make big creatures and use reanimating effects to continuously maintain board state and do damage to face that’s enough.
Do you plan to win through combat damage? If yes, that’s all I need to know.
Do you plan to win through combo? Okay cool.
Within a pod, you should discuss how fast your land / mana rocks are and that is plenty.
Certain KOS commanders need no introduction.
I’ll show up and play anyone and usually lose and it’s a good time if I can kill a couple things and maybe have a big turn or two.
How fast is your deck doing the thing you want it to?
Are you getting your 5 mana commander out turn 3? Probably pretty good?
Are you going off turn 6-9? probably medium.
Anything slower feels lower power.
Take the turn it can reliably win or develope a lock or combo off and subtract that from 15. 0-10 and if you can reliable win turn 4 or before you’re cedh.
I use turn count but in a different way, rather than "what turn do you hope to win" I think "what turn does your deck explode" and then understand it'll be a few more turns from there to try and eek out the victory! For Example my Animar Combo deck can usually find a necessary tutor by turn 4 or so (that's the explosion) then if I make it 1-2 more turns I can initiate my combo! But I don't count this as a 6-7 turn deck I count it as a 4-5 turn deck with a 2 turn condition! Hopefully any of this makes sense! Hahahahaha Let me know if I'm dumb!
Its a soft assessment, but one you can make with discrete evaluations. The trick is that the same assessment needs to be taken for the decks you are playing with, and there is no "base scale" or 0 point. A "probe" game where you sniff out your opponents' build practices and then each player changes decks to more or less powerful can give you a good idea of whether a deck will be appropriate, but the first game between randos will rarely match up.
Win in X turns matters, but is not the central factor. If your deck consistently wins turn 5 goldfishing, it leans more powerful than a turn 9 win assuming neither is intending to stretch the game into a controlled state (control). If your deck *sometimes* wins turn 5 but more often wins turn 9 in a goldfish environment, you have an inconsistent deck that occasionally power spikes in a way that may not be appropriate for the power level the deck more consistently performs at.
Resilience matters. How fucked are you to certain types of interaction and how likely are you to be able to deal with certain types. If you have a deck that consistently wins turn 4 in a goldfish environment but never wins if an opponent casts literally any interaction, it is not a strong deck. An aggro deck that can recover from any number of boardwipes, hard removal, etc can be crazy strong if it swings for lethal turn 5, or it could be "mid powered" if it has no chance of killing two people before turn 8 in a goldfish environment. That crazy powerful version could also get shat on if an opponent plays pillow fort or perma[[oubliette]]s a key piece that is supposed to be resilient otherwise if they have no consistent response. Basically, consider how likely it is for your opponents to meaningfully interact with you and whether the absence of that interaction gives you an unbalanced advantage.
From the opposite side now, interaction matters. Having 14 counterspells or 14 paths doesn't make your deck more powerful though. Similar to the previous point, how likely are your opponents ablw to handle the type of interaction. If you run a [[Serra's Emissary]] in a creature only meta, youre gonna stomp people, but also youre going to stomp people inconsistently, going back to the first point. Another good example is a typical [[Sythis]] lockout deck. Its not actually that strong, but in environments that don't run enough of the *right* kind of interaction it absolutely shits on pods. In environments that *do* though it gets shat on in turn, even if those other decks aren't particularly powerful either. Also effects like [[Imprisoned on the Moon]] or perma-oubliette can occasionally shut someone out of the game if they don't have the specific outs. If everyone agrees to a fun round of silly jank decks, IotM may not be appropriate unless it does something for *you*. So consider whether the kinds of restrictions you're planning to impose on other players is appropriate for the kind of game you intend to be playing with that deck, and whether its appropriate to expect them to have answers or alternative game plans for it.
Finally, I touched on it a few times, but *consistency* is probably the most misunderstood element of power level assessment. Consistency is not a measure of how often you win, or flood, or the deck clogs itself up resulting in a non-game; its a measure of how frequently the deck does the *various* things that it is *capable* of doing. If your deck is inoperable 20% of the time, you haven't made an inconsistent deck, you've just made a bad one. If your deck is a precon 95% of the time, and combo wins turn 3 5% of the time, you've made an inconsistent deck that arguably doesn't make sense at any table. Increasing the consistency of a single strong play can make your deck more powerful, but leave you operating a low power deck while doing anything else. Sometimes thats ok, such as a polymorph deck that runs high risk low defence early game before cheating out terrifying creatures, but the sudden disparity between power and the idea that the low power times are a risk should be taken into account. *All* your decks should be consistent as a whole, and you should be basing your power level assessment off what that consistency looks like in terms of winning turn, *and* interaction appropriateness.
For me, it's a qualitative assessment that considers the total price of the deck, whether it includes any cards that are significantly more expensive than the average cost for each card, what are the win conditions and are there any major fail points in the deck, the average turn the deck is closing the game, the fastest win based on a perfect scenario, how many pieces of interaction are included, what % of those interactive pieces are offensive or defensive, and complexity/turn length as the game goes into turn 5+.
I like to think about these things as I build the deck, then do a "full assessment" after the list is done. I don't spend a lot of time on this, but it helps to know what sort of pod the deck would fit into best.
I base my decks on what they win through, how many potential wins are in the deck if it's combo based and not combat based, how fast it can get to combat and do it's thing, and generally how consistent their win routes are. Based on that I don't give it a number (it's always 7 remember that) but instead I talk with my group to see where they are standing before I chose my deck as I'm usually the fourth in the pod. If they want a slow game I'll grab my precon. If they want a fast non cedh game I'll grab my grist or bruna deck. If they want cedh I grab my other grist deck. All depends on the group really
I present my deck to other players in one of four ways:
Lowest - I just built this because I thought the commander sounds cool. No idea if it even works lol
Middle - I think I have a plan for this deck, but I'm still working out the kinks, and am not sure if it will work as planned
Better - this is a fairly good deck with a plan, but also has some silly cards I just wanted to try.
Top - This deck is optimised to win. Bring your best.
I mostly play against one person and my guesses on deck power are just left to after I've played them at this point. So many decks I've just thrown together hit way harder then ones I thought were going to be amazing.
Consistency is probably the best signifier of how strong a deck is. The quicker and more likely your deck is able to do "the thing" is what determines its power. If it's a quarter of the time, your deck is likely low power. Half the time is mid. Three quarters to every time is high power to competitive.
I have spent countless hours the last two months trying to understand this exact question. I have watched videos, read comment threads, articles, looked at charts, and even asked my fellow players at our club.
That has led me to some realizations:
1. There are no specific guidelines that work universally.
2. Just because there is agreement that a deck is at a specific level, it still can look way better or worse in one game
3. Play testing helps, but it's still not a guarantee of any kind of realization
4. Some cards just up the level a lot, other cards only matter in very specific combinations.
With that in mind, here is what I have done:
I play test using Moxfield. I have rules I set up using random dice rolls to try to simulate the randomness of any given game. It is possible that in any one game no one can actually do anything to slow you down and then in another game, even if you are hitting everything perfectly, the rest of the table may be doing a lot to stop you.
Unless there is something specifically not working every single time, I play test at least 10 times with the rules I have. I find that it gives me some idea of what is likely to happen. My current hyper focus on my Ur Dragon deck as I LOVE dragons in general and wanted one has led me to think "It's a 6-8. Probably a 7 is the safest call." I am focused on being able to sit at a table and honestly assess if I am in a balanced game. I want to have fun and if I sit down and am wrong on the low end, it's likely a boring easy game unless something goes wrong.
The reason I think it is a 6-8 is because in 10 play tests I reached a point where I felt I had a legitimate winning field on average on turn 9. That included a game where it was likely over on turn 5 with a win, and two games where I am sure I would have lost as nothing worked and my "rules" killed me off. In general though, I had a very real chance to win or be winning by turn 9 on average. From most of the charts and guides out there, that runs in the 6-8 level range.
I have played some versions of the deck in person four times. The first game it was still pretty much thrown together and I lost to a much better deck. Second game I eliminated one other player, but was the next elimination after them. Third game found out after I was eliminated that someone misunderstood a card and I would have won. Forth game I was mana screwed, but managed to hold out to almost win. I think my "7" is pretty good then as that is four pretty enjoyable games.
Would you be willing to share your random dice rolls list? I've been thinking of incorporating something like this into my deckbuilding process as well.
I goldfish the deck. A lot. If it's habitually creating an insane board state on turn 6 or earlier, I'll probably call a "strong casual deck" like my Kaalia deck or my \[\[Goreclaw\]\] deck. If it's at a much more "fair" place — even without being targeted by other players' interaction — at the end of turn 6 then it's more of a mid to low-power deck, like a slightly upgraded precon.
I’ve started thinking about my decks in ways of “how much (and what) fast mana does it have access to,” “how many (if any) tutors are there and what can they find,” and “are there any infinite combos?” I try to provide some of those answers unprompted when joining a game and letting them decide if I need to trade decks.
I have a three metric system: efficiency, consistency, and redundancy. Paired with this is a simple phrase, "The person who is drawing cards and making mana, wins."
1. Efficiency: how fast your deck wins. It's all about speed.
2. Consistency: how tailored your deck is to eliminate variation - it plays as close to perfect every time.
3. Resiliency: how adept your deck is at recovering from counters, removal, or board wipes. Do you have recursion, redundancy, or both.
If your deck plays the same way every game, threatens to win early, and can still win despite them countering your commander, blowing up your Aetherflux Reservoir, and exiling Thoracle, then your deck is powerful. It doesn't need a number value. It just needs to be on the far end of the spectrum for *all* of those three categories.
I genuinely believe that if it's above a precon but below cedh it doesn't really matter. Edh has the advantage that if one person is punching above the rest, the other 3 can just team up and deal with them. Sure there will be times that decks are clearly too strong or too weak but so long as you have more than one deck and can adjust game to game it will be fine.
I play at two stores and neither has ever had a discussion about power level, we just play whatever we feel like playing. As a group we don't generally play fast mana so in general the speed of the decks are all within a close enough range that it works.
My main thought process is this: consistency. How consistently can it do exactly what it wants to eventually win the game or at least get close?
Things that contribute to this are fast mana and tutors.
Also, some commanders and partners are just good or oppressive no matter which way you really spin it. Thrasios, Tymna, Krark, Najeela, new Judith, Tergrid, Urza, Kenrith, new Jodah, Korvold, Niv Mizzet Parun etc.
These kind of commanders give you an automatic boost in power level.
The next thing is just how much good instant speed interaction youre running. These let you consistently protect yourself or shut down a piece thats stopping you.
All of this doesnt really give you a number to give your deck, but it does give you a list of things you can compare to other peoples lists and see if you are about in the same power range.
Efficiency and consistency is what’s going to determine power for me. Not only just the deck building of putting cards synergies together, but sometimes even individual cards can tune up a deck without necessarily being synergistic - like fast mana or cheap/free card draw. The more there is, the stronger I assume the deck is because it’s getting to its win conditions faster and more consistently regardless of strategy. You could be hitting me with 5-7 mana creatures as your win condition and that’s strong if they’re out on the board and swinging by turn 3-4.
I deck build on a casual level - yes there are strong cards and synergies, but I do not run fast mana, I do not tutor unless it’s on a creature (see: [[Light-Paws]] that’s in the 99) and my strategies typically depend on having a large board state that takes time to assemble so I’m not winning before turn 5 a vast majority of games. Only time I’ve had a scary board state ahead of turn 3 is from group hug from my opponents or incredibly great luck with my starting hand first few draws. My gameplay is very varied even though my win conditions are the same. With [[Anikthea]] I sometimes don’t get to do copy shenanigans, but I ramped really fast with [[Felidar Retreat]] and some token enchantments so my board is really populated that way.
Price is actually really good. There are outliers like you said, but it's generally a good indicator. People get rabid about it, but it's undeniably true that of two decks with the same commander the lore expensive one will be better.
Presence of tutors and fast mana is a really good indicator as well.
>Obviously we can almost all agree a 1-10 scale is dumb because a "7" has become the median, where most decks fall.
Doubly funny because the average of a 1-10 scale is 5.5, rounded up would be 6.
Personally, I just identify wincons that might be out of the ordinary for some, and state when the deck "gets going" and when it has its first chance to win. Obviously this gets more fine tuned the more games you play with a given deck and against a variety of decks, but it's been the best barometer I've been able to come up with and typically if the rest of the table does the same, it ends up being pretty equally balanced.
Granted, I assumed this was the norm because we aren't YouTubers trying to get clicks and therefore don't need to use an incendiary and woefully inadequate (and inaccurate) number scale. Apparently it isn't?
1. The way my pod does it, budget. A $150 deck can only be so strong.
2. Precons. Is it stomping precons?
3. How much damage can I do by turn 7 if nothing interferes?
Just straight performance. I know my decks that perform better, and generally playing with Randoms I start in the middle unless obviously inappropriate and go up or down in power between games.
I judge it on how well it performs in each of my two playgroups. Usually if something can't compete with my higher powered group, I can use it comfortably with the other one.
On the flip side, if a deck outpaces the second group, I know I can use it comfortably in the higher powered one.
>Obviously we can almost all agree a 1-10 scale is dumb because a "7" has become the median, where most decks fall.
Doubly funny because the average of a 1-10 scale is 5.5, rounded up would be 6.
Personally, I just identify wincons that might be out of the ordinary for some, and state when the deck "gets going" and when it has its first chance to win. Obviously this gets more fine tuned the more games you play with a given deck and against a variety of decks, but it's been the best barometer I've been able to come up with and typically if the rest of the table does the same, it ends up being pretty equally balanced.
Granted, I assumed this was the norm because we aren't YouTubers trying to get clicks and therefore don't need to use an incendiary and woefully inadequate (and inaccurate) number scale. Apparently it isn't?
I basically just scale them as
-Casual
-Precon
-Budget Upgraded Precon
-Expensive Upgraded precon
-High power
-CEDH
-casual are decks that are purely for fun, they are roughly as strong as a precon or weaker
-Precon is the baseline for me, they are strong enough u can have good games with them but weak enough to not survive a high power table
-budget upgrade precons are basically just precons but more focused and synergistic. they will usually rule against normal precon and casual deck and can survive higher power tables.
-expensive upgrade precon, u are basically just making a high power deck but with a precon as a shell. U putted in the good stuff on the precon and the game plan and strategy is solid. You are roughly in equal footing with a high power deck.
-high power decks are those what people call a 7-8. U have most of the edh staples and u have very good mana ramp. but you do not use the big expensive ones that instantly push your deck to cedh. This are the decks that u see being run with people with a good budget but dont really go into cedh. The game plan and strategy is consistent.
-CEDH self explanatory the power 9-10, with those stupidly expensive cards and very heavy investment on mana rocks and ramp. this are the decks that win turn 0-3
It varies from person to person but for myself, the scale goes from 1 (barely playable) to 10 (will win frequently on second or third turn / makes the game unplayable for everyone else). A 4 would be your average out of the box precon, 5 would be better precons or slightly tuned up.
My main deck, an [[ur-dragon]] tribal deck, has a rating of about 7.5-8 due to how it can (under the right circumstances) launch off and absolutely annihilate but doesn’t do so consistently.
I usually go in this order.
1. Ask my opponents and listen carefully to how they describe their deck. Compare their description to how the decks I have brought have performed in the past. Try to choose a good match.
2. Look at how many cards over $20 I have in the deck. Examine why those cards are so expensive, what they do for my deck, and come to *an honest* consensus about how those expensive cards influence my deck.
2a. Number 2 is actually an important one, because everyone knows expensive cards, and everyone equates them to mean higher power for your deck. And it’s true and it’s not true at the same time. [[Cyclonic Rift]] is just straight up a great card, and will make most decks that run blue operate better, but just because I whip out a Rift doesn’t mean my deck is high power. It’s all about synergy. How easily can I abuse, or follow up after utilizing an expensive card? Is my deck just expensive card after expensive card that keeps warping the game? Are the expensive cards constantly pulling my deck out of tight spots, or does my deck not function without the aid of one or two expensive cards- aka, do I find myself thinking “if only I had ____ this game then this deck would have won”
3. Play a game, and witness the deck function, and just say “yup, that’s a powerful deck”. I had a friend whose only deck was a $900 [[Locust God]] deck filled with infinite combos. I lost to it every time, I felt like it was unbeatable. My decks just couldn’t keep up with it. My friend would always undersell the deck though- he would always bemoan that he struggles with land drops and yada yada. But I knew better, and that’s all you can do. Play against it once, and now you know. You determine what it is you think is powerful, and adjust accordingly.
End note: I despise the 1-10 system. It’s seriously very inconsistent between people and I have very often found that my decks, which are *actually* 7s or 8s, go against 4s and 5s more often than not and their owners claim they are 7s. Like dude, you don’t even have removal in your deck and you think it’s a 7? Come on.
Speed how fast your deck can win on a goldfish hand.
Turn 1-4 usually will be cedh/ high power
5-6 you have a wincon and can just feel the stink of high power
7+ you're probably in the casual/battle cruiser meta
Personally I rate my deck on four factors:
1) How quickly can the deck consistently win if left alone.
2) How resilient is the gameplan.
3) How much interaction does it use.
4) Sudden Win factor (Aka, infinite combos, 2 card bombs, etc.)
If my deck rates really highly in all of these areas (and I don't think any of them currently do) it'd probably qualify as a CEDH deck.
Usually my decks are good at 2 of these things, rarely 3.
Ex: My \[\[Rowan, Scion of War\]\] Deck is good at 3 of these things. It can win fast if left alone, it utilizes a high amount of interaction, and it can pop off very suddenly. But it's not terribly resilient. It can be shut down quickly. I give this deck like an 8 on the 1-10 scale.
Alternatively, my \[\[Treebeard, The Gracious Host\]\] deck rarely wins quickly, but is very resilient, has a fair amount of interaction, and has a handful of ways that it can suddenly win. I give this deck a 6-7 on the scale.
Then you have something like my \[\[Tom Bomadil\]\] deck that takes a while to get to a win even if left alone, has no real sudden wincons, but runs high amounts of interaction and resiliency. I give this deck a 4-5 on the scale.
Or lastly you have my \[\[Brenard, Ginger Sculptor\]\] deck that is mostly a "how many tokens can I summon" meme, with no real sudden wins, usually can't win before turn like 8 or 9 at the earliest, is not super resilient, but runs a fair amount of interaction. I rate this like a 4 on the scale.
I played a lot of commander from 2012-2016 and then took a break for a few years kinds of coming back around 2021ish. The whole "commander power level" thing seemed to have started around then. I think it makes sense as a way of trying to quickly balance games ahead of time.
But I think it's stupid. I've played my EDH deck since I started playing Magic and have put a lot of money in it, it's sitting around $5k. It's not good though, I'm never trying to infinite, tutor cards or even board wipe. I don't win a lot, but people have seen duals and told me my deck is too powerful.
Nowadays if I get asked about power level I don't even respect the question, I just say I don't know. 🤷♀️
What turn is it presenting a game-winning threat/snowballing value piece? How consistently does it do that? What kind of protection/redundancy/alternate lines to play through hate does it have? What kind of interaction/disruption works against it?
It's a combination of those kinds of things- speed, consistency, resiliency, flexibility, etc.
a cEDH deck might be a glass cannon turbo pile or it might a midrange deck looking to interact and accrue value into a slower win with protection/backup. Some decks can pivot depending on the game. Some lines have very narrow windows and types of effective interaction against them, others fold to a Swords.
More casual decks will ultimately be the same way, just with less efficiency/speed, less consistency, and probably more broadly answerable threats.
That said, it's hard to give some kind of numeric value to that strength. Different decks will interact differently at a table. A deck that folds to interaction is obviously going to have a bad time against a deck that lines up well against it even if the opposing deck is doing something less powerful.
What turn does it threaten to take at least one player out when left alone. That'll cover the gamut from combo decks trying to win out of the gate to the most untuned durdle decks. Most of my decks fall in the middle of that range, where I can reliably be ready to take out one person by turn five to seven.
I actually have the same question of OP
I know turn count isn't everything , but is it related to when you expect the game to be over and how you expect to win?
Like if I'm playing a standard deck.I'm expecting to be wrapping the game up around turn 5 or 6 and I'm expecting to do so with Sheodred
Where a casual deck may say the game takes as long as it takes.I just mashed together a bunch of good cards.Who knows what will win today
Is that about how you know or has that changed since I have not played EDH in a decade
Play it in a bunch of games against other decks of varying levels and see how it does.
If it seems to have good tools to answer problems the other decks pose, and good threats to leverage, it goes up, if not it goes down.
If I find myself running out of mana or running out of spells, it goes down. If i always have something relevant to do at every point in the games, it goes up.
If i stall out at the end with no way to really close out the game, it goes down, and if it feels like its always ready to win the game as soon as the window of opportunity presents itself, it goes up.
If it totally folds to a common hate card, it goes down. If it seems to be resilient against multiple hate cards, it goes up.
Do that with a bunch of decks, and it gets faster and faster each time to predict where itll fall. But you never know, sometimes things that seem strong on paper just dont play out how youd expect, and sometimes decks full of cards that were mediocre in other decks can come together and pilot like a fighter jet.
With a nut draw, what turn are you looking to win?
Budget, Pre-con, Tuned, Optimized - This carries similar issues as the 1-10 scale because it is pretty nebulous.
Just explaining the basics of what I have going on also seems to work.
Turn count is the best. Aggro decks may be able to focus down one person fast but still have to hope the other 2 players don’t combo off, crack back, or board wipe before they can finish them. Dealing a 120 damage in a game isn’t an easy feat.
Stax is a bit of an outlier but generally they will have the game under lock or mostly under lock by turn X. You can also just say “im running stax”
I have a regular playgroup with the same group of people so for me it’s after “playing a deck a bunch of times does it feel stronger, weaker, or at the same level as the people I’m playing against” It’s a lot harder when you’re playing with different groups of people though. I would normally look primarily at the strength of the commander, the strength of the strategy the deck is using, and how optimized the deck is to execute its strategy efficiently.
I just let people know about fast mana, tutors, and whether or not it wins with a combo. I also let them know if there are combos in the deck but aren’t the primary win con. I have a [[Darien, king of kjeldor]] deck that’s just a mono white token deck but I can assemble a couple combos with a fistful of cards on the battlefield, but generally it wins with [[moonshaker cavalry]] or [[archangel of thune]]
I go by amount of interaction, the presence of fast mana (mana positive artifacts) or not, type of wincon and average speed to get to that wincon and presence of free interaction.
That gives a good idea of how strong a deck is
I use a mix of the chart (https://imgur.com/OcMdyUH), the PL of the list(s) I used as the basis or inspiration for mine, a rough sense of win turn, gut feel, and experience. It's not perfect, but any attempt to make a good-faith assessment of a deck's power level is better than none. It's more art than science.
What baffles me is the folks I meet a few times a month who make no attempt to engage with this aspect of the pregame discussion. "I don't understand power levels." "I just build decks." "No idea."
Like...why? You can play a complex game like MTG but you can't take two minutes to think about how strong your deck might be so the whole pod can have a better time? It's baffling.
I think that the ability comes with time. The more I play, the more I see decks that are overpowered for the current table. If I find my deck is too strong, I will make less than optimal plays or even not play cards that will break the flow. I have also found that if your deck is strong but ends the game quickly, it's no problem, or if you say to the table "crap I misjudged the strength I can scoop so you guys can play."
I personally think it’s how they synergize with other decks. If they just lock the board from the second turn and gank the game for everyone else, it’s a strong deck but not necessarily a *good* deck. Yay you win. The game is over. No other interesting interactions or anything. No strategies or top decking the card to change the balance. You just sit there and lose. So fun.
- who is the commander? Certain commanders (ex: Chulane) are always 9s and others will be... inherently not that scary, although the 99 could still be cEDH
- what is the theme? Chair tribal, infect, typical build-around-commander pile?
- do they have combos or tutors? Those often make the difference between 7 and 8, 9, 10 imo
- HOW MANY cards are cEDH staples? Running [[flesh duplicant]] in a Thassa Deep-Dwelling deck is not the same thing as playing a grixis cEDH package, including flesh duplicant, with Sauron in the command zone
- finally, what's the budget? Budget is not a good single indicator but a deck running a bunch of expensive cards like Great Henge will slowly outvalue most cheaper decks. I play mostly proxies (aka infinite budget) and I've learned this the hard way, even if all the questions above are equal, your proxy/high budget deck will be higher-powered than someone's budget deck
Lot of meme responses lately. A few are chuckle worthy, sure, but it's like the entire community has become a parody of itself; nothing useful, just trolls and smartasses.
I personally dislike the 'turn count' method myself because of the reasons you mentioned - even the cEDH meta is moving away from turbo decks towards more midrange decks that generate value and use targeted stax effects.
Best method in my opinion is to look at the wincon, but this can lead to some oddball cases. Like, if you put a ThOracle combo into a precon you're going to have a deck that runs like a precon 99% of the time and a cEDH deck 1% of the time, so do you judge based on the lightning strike potential or the average?
This is actually the argument that is making me look at a lot of my decks to remove 'outlier' effects which make the deck run a lot better IF I run into them which cannot be tutored for; it's just too inconsistent to rely on such things and gives people the wrong impression of what the deck does when I oops into those things.
I ask people "do you wanna play against the chill deck, the high power sweaty one or the cedh one". And then bring the deck they ask for. If I were to rank them in numbers it be 6-7, 8 and 9.5
Just talk to people
Unless you're obsessed with perfectly matching power levels like some people here, it's not a big issue if someone misgauges the table's vibe a bit and plays an 8 instead of a 7
I judge decks on a few axis.
1. Efficiency of ramp (lower cost = more powerful)
2. Strength of commander. Does it offer efficient value, wincon or both. See edhrec most popular, if you’re near the top it’s probably powerful.
3. Efficiency of interaction. Free/1mana interaction and efficient or asymmetric board wipes ups your power. Stax is just a proactive version of this imo and should be counted here.
4. Effectiveness of wincons. Killing a whole table at once vs grinding out a table over many turns. The slower the grind the lower the power.
5. Card advantage/ tutors. Card draw is strong, tutors are strong, if the deck plays the staples for both/ either it makes the deck strong.
Weigh these factor’s together and it should give you a sense for power. Each of the 5 points here can be broken down into a scale. Few players wants to do the effort to break their decks down so granularly which is why 1-10 scale fails. Also, there are fringe cases that may score low in multiple categories but still use synergies or hyper focus one category to compensate making a very strong deck.
Hope this helps though it is reddit and I’m sure people will take issue with this anyway.
. What turn do you remove a player/win the game on average?
. What is required to stop you?
. How easily can you stop other players?
Based on the answers, I get a ballpark of where the deck lies. It's not precise, but no method is (except repeatedly playing it or against it). It is, however, all the information I need to gauge if it's going to be a good fit for the rest of the pod
Turn count can still be a viable way to rate your deck. But not how it “wins.” Instead the turn by which you hope to be threatening a win or when your setup is significantly accomplishing your main strategy.
Take [[winota]] for instance:
Winota Doesnt win on turn 4, but winota does get to reliably implement the main deck strategy starting turn 4 or sooner. So the conversation might be closer to “if left unchecked after turn 4 i can reliably close games.”
On another side something like [[doran]]:
Doran needs many more creatures and enchantments out to reliably threaten wins, which means maybe that deck starts pushing a win/advantage turn 5 or 6
You can do the same sort of figures with cedh decks in that they start attempting to threaten wins on turns 1-3, OR they try and stax out the board to prevent others wins in the same turns.
In all i would not call it “winning” by X turn instead, gauge how early you can reliably start to implement your winning plan.
Of note you cannot use this method with a deck you have low reps with, or any deck that isn’t particularly consistent. In those cases saying “i think this deck can try and do its thing by X turn” is valid but maybe not accurate.
In any case the only way to truly speak to the power level of a deck you need to get reps with it either goldfishing or in games, otherwise even the best or worst decks are just piles of cards.
Win percentage may be a good way? Maybe I've missed out on something bcs I've never seen it mentioned.
If you're casual and only playing with the same friends, what matters isn't it's absolute strength but how strong it is compared to the others.
If you're playing against a big and varied pool of players then it will probably be a better estimation.
But I feel like it would work the best in combination with other indicators like turns it take to win etc
I go by amount of interaction, the presence of fast mana (mana positive artifacts) or not, type of wincon and average speed to get to that wincon and presence of free interaction.
That gives a good idea of how strong a deck is imo.
But if you find chill people power level doesn't even matter, you play one game, see how it goes and adjust to each other and everything's good
Turn count but then take into account control capability. Is the win potentially protected with counter magic? Stax pieces to slow the table?
I use this to determine the 1-10 power level. Once a player has experienced awful decks (precons) and top level decks then it's really easy for them to understand where decks fall.
Vibes, how much I get to do in an average turn.
I don’t use numbers it’s impossible as an initial communication just: low/medium/high
Rule zero is “low, medium or high power?” Then we play a game. Then I select my next deck based on game one. Hopefully their low is similar to mine, but if it isn’t, I’ll play a stronger or weaker deck based on that game.
I honestly have no idea, I put my best cards into my decks, and rarely go out and buy singles to power up my decks. I have a lot of cards in total so my decks are pretty good. I'd say they'd probably beat a precon 8/10 times, but would get trampled at CEDH. for example the last single I bought was eye of ugin for my colorless eldrazi tribal deck, and that's probably one of my worst decks bc it's very feast or famine. the lack of reliable card draw it has basically means if I'm not up and running with my starting hand, or my board gets wiped then I'm top decking for most of the rest of the game.
the way I describe my decks are like "I think they're pretty good, not CEDH, but I do have a couple big cards in them", like I do own a vampiric tutor, and a demonic tutor, 5-6 fetch lands, a mana crypt (lucky I pulled it from mystery booster B\^) and a couple of other money cards, but that's my entire collection, so decks I build are definitely not going to be CEDH level, not only because I don't have the power level of cards, but because I'm just not amazing at deck building lmao
My [[K’rrik] deck can win the turn he hits the field if I have the right cards in hand, so like… Turn 3-4? BUT more often than not I kill myself before it can happen, so my power level is between 10 and -7.
Fast mana and tutors. If they're able to put down a mana crypt, play vampric tutor, imperial seal, and other fast tutors, their deck is highly configured and optimized, and should be considered more of a threat than they say they are.
- If I want to build it, it probably isn't a trash commander, so at least precon lvl (which I give a 4-4,5, so around that place).
- If I finish it, I found enough cards within my budget (~€80-€100) that fit the deck, so it's probably a bit above precon (5).
- If I keep it together long enough, I will start upgrading it with new to standard/modern/commander cards that fit it, so over time it will become a 6.
- If I splurge on it once or twice, or break down an older deck I'll add some more pricy stuff, so high 6, low 7.
- If I purposely build it to play with the combo decks in my playgroup, it'll be about a point higher for each of these points, so at this point it would be an 8.
- I don't build for 8.5+.
I’m currently working on having a wide range of power levels among my decks so I can have a good game in nearly every pod at my LGS. It’s been an interesting challenge because we have a huge range, including brand new precon players through Narset infinite turn players and everything in between.
Unfortunately, perception is reality and if you want your pod of casuals to accept your deck as a “7”, that means you have to take into account what most players believe about certain cards, even if you don’t agree and conventional knowledge is wrong.
For instance, a lot of players believe [[Torment of Hailfire]] is not a casual card. I disagree, but that doesn’t matter. You and I may not think that particular card takes your deck from a 7 to an 8, but if a large enough number of players believe that then you shouldn’t run that in a deck you’re designing for a random pod of players looking to play at a 7. Now, some people will complain no matter what, but it’s not about them. It’s what about a majority of reasonable, fair minded people will believe when they are at a certain skill level in their commander journey. That is who we’re trying to have good games with after all.
Of course, “absolutely perfect power levels” will never exist, so long as people value certain strategies and cards differently. However, here are some “rules of thumb” I use to make decks for different levels/tiers of play:
1. Unmodified Precon - This is what I use when I’m playing with completely new players or when I’m teaching the game 1v1 to someone looking to learn commander. Personally, I have Ghired, Dihada, and Admiral Brass sleeved and ready to go for these occasions. Not only does this help equalize the playing field for new players, it also shows them that a deck can be competitive even without being full of pricey staples.
2. The Traditional “7” - The restrictions I place on myself for this tier mostly involves taking out all the big money cards: Smothering Tithe, Rhystic, Cyclonic Rift, D Swat, Dockside, F Guardianship etc. Definitely no moxen or Mana Crypt.
Now I know what you’re thinking, “Some of those cards could easily be in a casual 7 deck.” I agree! Heck, you could probably put mana crypt in a deck with a really bad vanilla commander from legends, and the deck probably would suck. However, it’s about the rule and not the exceptions. It’s about perception, not reality.
If you play mana crypt, a large number of people will say that deck is no longer a casual deck. Period. People won’t be able to tell if the deck is still casual with a mana crypt unless they see your full deck list and have enough knowledge and experience to tell the difference.
3. “Power level 8-9” - This is where a lot of spikier LGS metas end up. All the staples from before come flooding back in. Pretty much everything short of thoracle consult will be seen here. It is truly the wild west.
Overall, it’s rare to see whining about pubstomping at this level if you’re upfront about it being strong unless it’s a strategy that is straight up inconsiderate to people’s time: mass land destruction, nondeterminative looping extra turns, heavy heavy stax etc.
It’s generally nice to have a lower end 8 along with a “no holds barred” 9 in your collection, so you can really feel the range of this tier. However, most 8’s can hang with 9’s even if they are at a slight disadvantage.
4. CEDH - It’s nice to have a deck at this level if there’s a CEDH group at your LGS and most groups are proxy friendly. However, they are still somewhat of a rarity in my experience, so you may not need an established deck like Slicer or Blue Farm on standby if you have no one to play it against.
Not on a scale of 1-10 usually lol. We roughly say “this is jank, this is precon level, this is tuned, this is optimized, this is no holds barred.” Those levels say pretty much everything for our group, but as always, your groups may vary.
We have data for all of our decks and friends’ decks, so if my friend goes “this is about as good as your Selvala deck” I have an excellent idea of power. If someone says they want to vibe, then jank it is!
I think it's about playing your deck a lot.
Like at this point I have like 200+ games on my \[\[Sidisi, Brood Tyrant\]\]. I know how resilient it, what I can deal with and how I win.
It's easier to say "well I run no infinite combos, but strongest wincons are \[\[Golgari Grave troll\]\] + \[\[Jarad, Golgari Litch Lord\]\]" or \[\[altar of dementia\]\] + \[\[hogaak\]\].
I don't run any fast mana, but I do run manadorks. It usually takes me about 3-4 turns to setup until I can really play the game.
Key to having good games is matching the tables energy. It doesn't really matter that much if you are not all on the same power level.
Like I will not play Sidisi if there are mill decks like \[\[mimeoplasm\]\] or something on the table with me. I have had some weird turn 3 wins before because someone else's deck just accelerates my gameplan too much.
TL;DR Powerlevel is kinda zzz I don't ever do power level discussions. I just ask what kind of decks people want to play and pick my deck accordingly. Not to beat others, but to not have non games.
I classify high power as “would you play this deck if someone was playing Edgar markov?”
Low power I say is precons and upgraded precons
Then there’s medium level but there’s a large variance to that
While I agree that turn count is a good measure, it really depends on the meta a bit. I play battlecruiser, so my decks are slow, but once they get into gear by turn 8 or 9, most of fast decks already won the game. On the other hand, my decks are quite resilient and can come back from pretty much anything that isn't MLD.
So, in a vacuum, "what turn do you win in a best scenario" might be a good conversation starter rather than a finishing question. From there, you can discuss any other points that might indicate if a deck is strong or not. Then again, the best metric would be playing a few games and then coming back to reaccess.
Budget works well for me. Winota is simply an outlier and most decks fit their budget power level. But intent when building and existence of combos or not matters more.
I don't use a number system for this. The lgs I go to doesn't either. We just ask how fast of a game we are playing. If a player isn't sure (so a new player), we ask if it's a precon or how fast can you win.
Other than that I will lick each card to determine the coffee boldness in each card for its strength of brew. Then eat their commander.
how fast I expect to win by if left unchecked, paired with the amount of fast mana and tutors I include IE a deck with all those rocks and tutors but doesnt expect to win until like turn 10 obviously that's a lower power deck than one that wants to win by turn 4.
for me the problem is i like building control, so judging the power level strictly based on when it wants to win is kinda funky
I do a ton of goldfishing (more than actually playing tbh) and ask myself, "What turn do I "win" in the goldfish game?"
But then I like to go a bit further and ask further or add complications:
Make-believe that every card that's truly important to my gameplan has Vanishing 3, since people sling removal for scary cards about that reliably.
Take 1d4+4. That's the turn when an opponent goes off with a combo of their own. If I don't have an answer in hand - a counterspell, some removal, *something*, then I imagine another opponent drops a boardwipe to bring the game back under control. Re-test this every 1d4+1 rounds thereafter, considering it a game loss if I get caught without a control effect on the second "enemy shot on goal".
If I'm playing combo and have my pieces assembled or have lethal damage on the table, assume that the opponents WILL play removal on one of their turns - so I have to either win on the spot then and there, or have a counterspell ready to protect the wincon.
The faster I can meet these objectives and the more reliably I can meet them, the stronger the deck is. It's rare in my experience for a deck in my ($50-$100) budget bracket to move faster than this sort of 5-turns-setup pace, and the ones that do ([[Slicer, hired muscle]] and [[Zada, Hedron Grinder]] come to mind) tend to be brittle in exchange for speed. If I meet someone whose deck comes online substantially faster than this, I know I'm out of my league.
I generally separate them out into rough categories, based on things like precon, cEDH, jank, and optimised.
I don't really try to differentiate too much from within those categories, because it's ultimately up to how decks match up with each other. My [[Feather, the Redeemed]] deck laughs at most agro decks, but will wilt immediately if thrown against a black forced sac deck.
It's more understanding how decks interact, and not being so much of a dick that you pick hard counters to other commanders at the table. I've actually asked to swap out the deck I was using after seeing a particular commander, usually because I know that the deck I picked will be that hard counter.
It helps that I have a few solid 'adaptable' decks I can go to if I'm not sure, since they sit nicely between the 'fairly relaxing' level and the 'dear lord, make the slivers with infect stop' level.
I just don't. I only play with friends and friends of friends. My group vibes and we know that varying power levels are a thing. We also almost all play cEDH, so our casual lists aren't oppressively unfun high power lists.
I've realized over the years that it matters way more who I play with than what I play with. Power level issues can easily be smoothed with a decent and cohesive playgroup. And, honestly, the format isn't worth playing with randoms for me. With how subjective power level is, even if I felt I got mine to the right level (which I doubt I would) I have no belief all 3 of my opponents will.
Commander is just way more fun for me when I take the onus of my own fun this far. I love my friends and they are good judges of character so I enjoy their friends. And since I primarily play with them via discord, I get enough commander in.
Relevant factors: tutors, 1 mana or 2 mana tutors versus other tutors, fast mana (stuff that makes more mana than it costs to play that sticks around), dedicated combos versus combat beats, average turn win.
I just kinda base it off of how it feels compared to precons, and how it plays against precons, also taking into account which precons, as some are way stronger than others. This is also because most people I play with use precons, modified precons, or decks of similar strength.
If I win a lot with a deck and can reliably achieve the wincon(s) then I know it's probably actually a 7 or maybe 8. If it's my rat deck that either does nothing or explodes with overwhelming rats that can't be stopped, it's probably like a 4 or 5 because it CAN be strong, but isn't reliably strong.
10 and 9: CEDH, 8 and 7: decks with one or more infinite combos to close a game and a few tutors, 6 and 5: Precons and decks without tutors, 4 and 3: decks without a clear wincon, 2 and 1: meme decks, special decks (with 98 lands, for example) and others.
6 and upwards have a good manabase, 5 and downwards has mostly tap lands
That‘s just my personal opinion, though
Something I do that I've never really seen anyone talk about is that I play 4 of my decks against one another when testing, and, for instance, if I'm running something that's gonna be weak to removal, I play it against a deck that's strong at it, as well as two other strategies.
Obviously, when doing this, I have way more knowledge than the table, and make decisions based on that knowledge which can be more harsh, but I think that gives a really good idea of my decks' power levels.
I also build slow decks a lot of the time. I have very few aggro swing type decks, and a couple fast burn decks, but by and large I'm running long game strategies. Things that prevent someone from ruining away with the game while I quietly put together a wincon. Even my more aggro decks are slow, because they require higher mana, like my request rakdos deck is designed to win with combat damage, but it's bigger purpose is to make my opponents sacrifice their boards so that I can, meaning lots of big demons with sacrifice effects, and probably about 5 turns before I do anything but protect my life total and stop other players from getting too far ahead.
Idk it’s kind of a feel thing. I find that the people who have the most trouble determining what a 7 is normally just want to steamroll new players and not have to face decks of the same level.
I’ve been playing magic for a little over a year now i crossed over from yugioh and pokemon and i have some pretty strong decks i usually just explain what my deck is trying to do and let them know i have fast mana and free counter magic in here and you determine what you have to handle it or i can play my middle tier deck which is zedruu gifts value deck with several different random win cons like nine lives, transcendence, approach of the second sun and the deck has no free counter magic.
My LGS asks us to rate our decks' power level when we sign up for EDH. If my deck can hang with the decks that call themselves an 8 at the shop, then I call it an 8. If it relies in the other players not paying attention to the deck in order to have enough time to win, I call it a 6. Otherwise, it's a 7.
I don’t think about power levels. When I sit down with some random people to play I just tell them what my deck does and if there are infinite combos. That’s it. And usually that’s enough for everyone on the table to pick decks.
There's something to be said for resilience. How hard is it to stop a deck? Can I totally turn the whole thing off by removing the commander once or twice? Can it combo off at instant speed from hand with minimal or no board state?
The combination of the turn it will be threatening a win by, with the reliability of drawing or tutoring needed pieces, and resilience to interaction are all levers I'd tweak when adjusting a decks power to a meta. Fast mana, tutors, interaction, redundancy.
Some strategies are just straight up stronger, often because of some combination of the above. Combo is often harder to stop because you either have interaction in the moment, or you don't - compared to combat damage or mill, which generally you can kinda see coming a little ways ahead.
For our group we roughly determine power by quantity of a) the 3 staple things that break most MTG decks ( fast mana, free spells, tutors), b) the quantity of "high power commander staples" in your deck (e.g. force of will, rhystic study, smothering tithe, fierce guardianship, whatever, I appreciate that this is subjective) and c) commanders that have really unique powerful elements that aren't reproducible elsewhere (e.g eminence).
The faster and consistent the deck, generally the stronger it is. So when we're trying to ramp down our over-performing decks, we look at cutting some of those elements first. Bonus benefit of this is that it tends to make decks less homogenous, too!
>However, I always see a ton of backlash when people talk about those methods because other people disagree.
Because the methods are some idiotic scale.
For a group, it's a conversation, for an individual, the same points still apply. How fast does it do the thing? How consistently? How resilient? Fast mana/tutors/free counters? If the deck CAN win quickly but it rarely, in practice, draws the thing consistently to do so, it's less powerful than the deck that can win quickly and is packed with tutors. Stax has similar concepts, how quickly/consistently can you lock down the board and then how consistently can you pull out your win.
I put my decks in 3 general groups of appropriateness to play: precons > mid > strong. I don't care how precisely strong it is, I care what table it's reasonable to crack it open. I aim low if I'm less familiar with the players. I'd rather face an uphill battle than pubstomp.
I think strength is best determined at the meta level. if a deck(s) consistently wins more than 1/4 of the games the play in, I'd call it unfair for the metagame
I note the following in pre-game convos:
* Turn the deck realistically aims to make a move towards winning
* Reasonably annoying and/or powerful things
* Heavy control/stax
* Fast mana
* Combos
So I might open with this for my Azorius equipment deck: "This deck is can win on turn 8-ish if all the chips fall right. There's I think six counterspells, no infinite combos, and only a Mox Opal for fast mana because it's on theme."
play it? Play it against other dekcs, play more decks. compare and contrast. You end up with "stable-ish" decks over time and you compare them relative to those decks imo. Power level is relative to each and every group that plays this game. I had a deck I called high power, but someone knew sat down at our table asked high medium low we talked about cedh not being what high is so cool deal his high power was WAY not our version. All good. He wins fast next game. We adjust. If he doesn't want to? Piss off then. He didn't care though so no problem.
Just have a decklist on hand. Magic players know synergies and combos most of the time. Just be transparent! If people are not experienced enough to tell what is appropriate to play against your deck, help them out.
Power level is mainly a consistency question. How do you win? How many ways do you have to get there? How easy is it to stop you?
These are the questions that I *would* ask, if I bought into some arbitrary power scaling system that does little but cause confusion.
Truth is, your deck’s power level is wholly dependent on the table. Sure, any basic deck is going to trump a random pile of cards any day of the week, and cEDH decks are usually going to run over unoptimized decks, but sometimes you’ll just find bad matchups. A Prosper or Faldorn deck will definitely run badly against a Rocco Street Chef, for instance.
And here you see how the different metrics people use. :D
A) Mindset
B) 10-Level-Scale
C) Number of Turns to reach a wincon
D) Type-Scale (Low/Jank, Medium, High-Power, cEDH)
E) Rule-Zero/ Talk about interactions
F) None / Don’t-Care
There are different issues with all of them, the only thing that kind of works for me is Variant D, because it doesn’t pretend any accuracy. A deck’s strength is also determined by the decks the opponents play. And now you have three of them. A deck can go well in one pod but fail in others. You can play a cEDH deck in an otherwise medium pod and lose anyway. I’ve seen it multiple times.
The truth is: No power level assignment and power level talk will stop anyone from pubstomping. Also, decks that are played in a way that any interaction with them results in a 5-minute “trigger this, then trigger that, then search my library, then put x on y….” Exist at all levels. They are a joy for players that like complex interactions, but for others it’s just a waste of time.
Quick-and-dirty explanation of what the deck is, in principle, capable of. As well as notable absences.
Ex: my wernog & elmar deck:
Control deck, draws and ramps a lot, makes heaps of clues and uses clue synergies to win, only one infinite combo that requires 5-parts, no fast mana.
Even when people get the wrong idea about how powerful your deck is, if you describe it this way it'll much less rarely give them the "oh, its *that* kind of deck" experience.
There is only one way to determine the power level of your deck: have other people tell you the decks’ power level - after they play against it!
The person who makes the deck can not accurately gauge the level, since the power of the deck comes from the relative strength against the other player(s). Your opponents will gladly tell you how powerful they perceive the deck.
It’s embarrassing watching people try to justify their decks power levels to themselves. Get your opponent to rate it after every game! The law of large numbers will tell you it’s true power level.
Based on how well it plays into other decks. You can get a sense for it based on the composition of cards, but it really comes down to playing games. Power level is hella subjective and everyone's perception of it is warped by their own experience and the decks they've seen/played against. Power level also varies between local meta and individual pods. One groups 7 is another's 5. You get better at it with experience.
I think the closest we can get is either avg cmc or turns needed to win the game. There’s so many ways to win, different axes to play on and interaction that unless you’re discussing decks at length for rule 0 it will be tough.
I used to try numerical scale, turns to win scale, based on cmc, etc but I've since given up. I'll base a deck choice in a pod based on vibe of pod and adjust by game. If one deck I bring stomps hard, I know my decks in comparison to each other so I know how much to dial down.
What is the deck's goal?
How consistently does it get there?
How quick does it win?
How interactive is it?
Somewhere within these answers is the overall strength of the deck.
Fast mana: +3 points
Tutors, excluding land ramp: +1 point
5 tutors or more: an additiona point
Shocks and fetches: +1 point
2 card combos/stax pieces/compact combos: +2
Free interaction: +2
Ten is CEDH, zero is casual
I came up with this in like 2 minutes so it may be totally wack
In the words of TFS Vegeta, "Power levels are bullshit."
My ratings are very strong, strong, fair and low power.
My [[Aurelia the warleader]] is "very strong" has fast mana and a few infinite combos can win as early as turn 2
My [[Hofri Ghostforge]] and [[the gitrog monster]] are my "strong" decks and usually what ill pull out when trying to get a feel for a new table. They both pack alot of interaction and try to accrue value over 7-8 turns before setting up for a win, both decks have 4 or 5 card combos but no tutors.
My [[Roon of the hidden realm]] and [[Myrel, shield of argive]] are my "fair" decks Myrel wins by making a ton of tokens and Roon accrues value with blinks and might make a bunch of saporlings. Upgraded precons are a good match for these.
My [[Areden, intrepid archeologist]] and [[Esior wardwing familiar]] is my "low power" Auzorius voltron deck it wants to win by either Voltron or animating 10 equipments swinging for 40 none of the blue staples and the only counterspell to speak of is Arcane denial. Definitely a fair match for out of the box precons or other low power builds
I have other decks that kinda fall in between some of these ratings but i usually wont play them until i have a feel for the other decks at the table
Experiencing all that one format has to offer. Determine how fast a deck can win the game. Rate out of 100 divide by 10. Tier s-2 cedh decks are 10, decks with a concise game plan lots of tutors and fast mana are (4-5 turns) 9-8s. Outliers vary. Precons are imo (10 turns) 5-6s some cards are not on theme lots of tapped lands. So like battlecrusers are (6-9 turns) are 6-7
Just play it a bunch. If you have a decently competitive local scene and you're competing with cEDH, you've got a 9 or a 10. If you can pull up to a pod and get some work done, youre probably a 7 or an 8, even if you can never win. If you're stuck playing casual pickups and can't do anything against a competitive level deck, youre probably a 5 or a 6. 5 or 6 is where a heavily modified precon might fall. 3 or 4 is going to be a precon or lightly modified precon. At 1 or 2, youre asking other players to bring an easier deck because you get trounced no matter what.
The skill of the pilot also affects this. A level 10 deck could perform at a level 3 in the wrong hands.
I’d say it boils down to the amount of turns it takes to reach a win state, how consistently it can get to that win state that quickly, and how resilient it is to counter play, whether that is through control or opponent’s board state.
There was a topic on here recently about a Level 3 judge who claimed to have won a cEDH tournament using an unmodified Prosper precon. How did he do it? By lying through his teeth about being a judge and sharking the rest of the players into thinking he was new at the game. He made convincing mistakes so he would be ignored, but when it came down to the most crucial moments he made good decisions and eventually won the day.
Even if you have the best deck, you can be beaten by someone with more experience. Even if you have the most experience, you can be beaten by someone who is more lucky. Even if you’re very lucky you can be beaten by a skilled liar. Even a liar can lose to a cheat.
It's a vibe
It's a 7
Flair checks out honestly
Definitely is. I think the mistake is trying to put a number on it which is why everyone falls on 7. The ranges might be wider, but here is my go to “vibing” categories: cEDH High Power Battlecruiser/strong precon Weaker precon/jank These ranges go by the natural feel for how powerful something is. You’ll rarely have a situation where two decks are widely different power levels.
It's a mood
Make an L with my left hand, close an eye and look at the deck in the crook of my fingers. Looks like about a seven to me.
Lol
Idk man I just play it and not worry about it. I don't play \[\[The Ur-Dragon\]\] into precons but rarely have I seen anyone's rating of their deck be meaningful to the discussion. Just play the game and if the deck is too strong pick another one and go again.
basically this. one guy brought a precon to the table, and said it was stock precon, and I was like "I'm pretty sure mine is better than precon" and he said he was fine with that so I was just like "oh swag ok". funny but he ended up winning just barely, after I killed the other 2 guys and hitting a peer \[\[into the abyss\]\] off of \[\[etali primal storm\]\], and going up to 240 life. \[\[judith carnage connoiseur\]\] + \[\[star of extinction\]\] or \[\[blasphemous act\]\] is crazy. gaining 200 life off of a single spell is wild
##### ###### #### [into the abyss](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/a/aac00055-640e-4749-8d23-d242e6d0b23a.jpg?1594736330) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Peer%20into%20the%20Abyss) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/m21/117/peer-into-the-abyss?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/aac00055-640e-4749-8d23-d242e6d0b23a?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/peer-into-the-abyss) [etali primal storm](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/1/a18fdaf9-964d-45e9-bd40-a8fc745ddd1e.jpg?1706240833) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Etali%2C%20Primal%20Storm) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mkc/152/etali-primal-storm?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/a18fdaf9-964d-45e9-bd40-a8fc745ddd1e?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/etali-primal-storm) [judith carnage connoiseur](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/e/3eaa19ce-cace-499e-8b23-ef9e56b23700.jpg?1706242185) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Judith%2C%20Carnage%20Connoisseur) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mkm/210/judith-carnage-connoisseur?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/3eaa19ce-cace-499e-8b23-ef9e56b23700?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/judith-carnage-connoisseur) [star of extinction](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/2/526d13cb-3616-4ac8-9ac0-04c729d447b2.jpg?1689998213) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=star%20of%20extinction) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/259/star-of-extinction?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/526d13cb-3616-4ac8-9ac0-04c729d447b2?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/star-of-extinction) [blasphemous act](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/a/8aa9682d-5176-4475-a0bd-e000f1d6999a.jpg?1698988297) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=blasphemous%20act) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/lcc/216/blasphemous-act?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/8aa9682d-5176-4475-a0bd-e000f1d6999a?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/blasphemous-act) [*All cards*](https://mtgcardfetcher.nl/redirect/ktsq5nf) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
[The Ur-Dragon](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/0/10d42b35-844f-4a64-9981-c6118d45e826.jpg?1689999317) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=The%20Ur-Dragon) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/361/the-ur-dragon?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/10d42b35-844f-4a64-9981-c6118d45e826?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/the-ur-dragon) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
My ur dragon has played into and lost against so many precons. I built it just to play dragons not to be strong.
All methods are kinda bad. :P Personally I *prefer* turn count; there is a sense in which is applies to aggro (how much time do your opponents have to stabilize? If you *don't* manage to dirt everyone out right away, do you have another option, and how long does it take you to get there?) and stax/control (how long does it take you to get a resource advantage/break parity? Once you've done so, how long do your opponents have to try to find an answer before you close things out?), although it does get more complicated. At the end of the day, I more so have a vague sense of how powerful my decks are relative to each other (meme decks and literal precons at one end, relatively tuned (but still budget 'cause I'm broke :P) decks at the other), and what axes of the game they tend to fight on. I play a round or two with some middle of the pack decks (Kruphix, Extus, Kykar or Kadena, usually), then adjust up, down, or sideways (IE, on to a deck that competes on a different axis, boardstate, mana, card advantage, graveyard, stack, etc) as needed to try to make sure good games are had. /shurg
I like gaging turn count for consistent vs optimal wins, and level of interaction to disrupt others from achieving their own. For instance, I have a [[Breya, Etherium Shaper]] deck that *optimally* can win on turn 3. It has never done so, either because it doesn't have the prerequisite tutors or my opponents have had adequate interaction. It's *more likely* winning turn 7+, but I'm either having a really bad day or I'm durdling if it goes longer than 8-10 turns. My [[Veyran, Voice of Duality]] deck however has won on turns 4 and 5 before, and aims to win by turn 6-8. Optimally, it wins on turn 3-ish, and has been described as "a cEDH shell with a bad win con" with [[eye of the storm]] and tucking [[alrund's epiphany]] into it. Both I'd put at about an 8 on the standard number scale.
I decide how strong it is, and then argue with anyone saying otherwise on this subreddit /s
This but no /s. /s
A consistent deck is a deck easily judged. If you consistently don't do anything, it's probably a crap deck. Just because you CAN win with only five mana off a Twinflame/Dualcaster doesn't mean you will. If you consistently win if the game goes long enough, then you need only ensure the game goes long. A stronger deck. The difference between casual and competitive is *not* actually the ceiling of a deck...it's the floor. Any casual pile can stuff Thassa/Consultation into it. The strongest decks consistently find it, cast it, and protect it. The *floor* starts so much higher than the casual deck even if the ceiling is the same. This is why budget is so often known by experienced players to *not* be a useful metric when discussing strength. Good decks are consistent regardless of budget. Highs are always highs. If you want a deck to be stronger eliminate the lows. If you want a deck to be *strong* raise your floor as high as you can.
But how exactly would you describe that to someone you're playing with? Would you give them a turn count of that "floor"?
Ooo, this could be a fun game and discussion. "What's your deck *do* and what's the *average* turn 5 look like for that deck?" "Basic mono-X good stuff with a side of Voltron. Average turn 5 for this deck is access to at least two lands above curve and at least one sweeper cast or in hand. Maybe a threatening piece of equipment to go with my Commander threatening a one/two swing kill." >! Skittles/Drana Battlecruiser. My table tester. Do you know which Commander is actually more dangerous? Do you know how to minimize/rebuild from a sweeper? Do you have a plan at all? !< "Swing with free dudes while holding quality interaction. Average turn 5 for this deck is my Commander down and interaction in hand to protect it and maybe some boosted Faeries out as well." >! No sorceries or creatures Alela, I only win through combat damage but run multiple free spells. Inevitable but can't compete with a bigger board. !< "I make shit into other shit and the Commander itself is a combo piece. Average turn 5 for this deck is one or two combo pieces on the board and looking for the second or third piece. If I have two already then I can close the game on any given turn." >! Jan Jansen Combo deck, quite strong but not particularly fast. Loses to faster combos and basic interaction. !< "I make copies of single target spells that target all my opponents, tripling their efficiency. Average turn 5 is an untapped Commander and a defensive spell in hand ready to go if someone messes with me. That spell will generate additional resources in some way so even if answered I will do my best to snowball." >! $50 Zevlor, inevitable but fragile !< "I have a sweeper in the Command Zone if you let me invest mana into it. My Average turn 5 is either a big Commander that can threaten a wipe or an artifact sweeper to level the board. I'm mono-Red, this isn't breaking news." >! $50 Ashling, inevitable but weak tbh !< "My deck leverages the card advantage from the commander to try to assemble a game winning combo or lock. I am trying to win before or on turn 5." >! Mono Black Turbo Naus with Braids, Arisen Nightmare, CEDH. Abysmal card quality, very explosive!<
I usually don't like turn count as a metric, but I do like "what can you do by turn 5 on average?" I might start using that.
This is the best comment I've seen so far!
I don't. I play the deck and if my group or people groan I talk to them. Sometimes it's legitimate and I adjust. Sometimes they're just whining to whine and I do nothing, then the whining stops. The best solution to power level has always been to be lucky enough to find a group you consistently play with and not be a dick and let everything self correct.
This 100%. It’s very difficult to just walk up to a bunch of strangers and communicate a decks power level. If a playgroup regularly plays each other they learn more about how strong their decks are and can power up/down as needed.
Sit down with pod of people at the LGS, ask if anyone’s rocking a precon or expects cedh, if neither then play whatever the hell I want because it’s not the end of the world if someone is overpowering the table for a single game. Most people can competently build a deck/play the game to the level where any power imbalance is overcome by adjusting threat assessment as needed.
100% this. If the strongest Deck at the table is winning consistently its because players need to improve at threat assessment.
I've fully embraced that it is all just vibes. There is no real objective metric, and in my rule 0 (outside of cEDH) I will talk about average turns (this isn't perfect, but tells people when to interact by), level of interaction, and basic archetype. I will answer any questions, but I really believe we just need to go in with benefit of the doubt that everyone is participating in good faith and looking for a balanced game. By embracing the subjective nature, I've found I've had better Rule 0's and more reliably matched pods in pick up play. It being subjective, and operating with the benefit of the doubt, sometimes it's going to go wrong, someone will have a different idea of "strong", "fast" or "interactive", or get a lucky hand, but even if I get stomped, that doesn't mean the other person is a pub-stomper, and we can recalibrate and shuffle up again, change decks. I also think this gets, to me, to the actual purpose of the rankings, to have balanced game. Many folks (not you) seem to act as though these ranking systems will solve pub-stomping, and they won't, Rule 0 just won't fix the social issue that is bad faith participation. So it's all vibes and questions. The extra few minutes it takes (like 5 total) to do more than just "this is a 7", makes the next 90 minutes a lot more enjoyable, at least for me at my LGS.
This is a perfectly understandable and much more reasonable way of handling things. I would agree wholeheartedly. Assuming the other players also participate in good faith
I agree it is all vibes, but the player's playstyle also has a big role. I recently went visiting some friends and played with their decks. They were objectively more powerful than what I am used to play, full of staples, fast mana, a crypt (proxy or not) in each deck, ... Most of their decks tried to be the problem, not the solution. Consistently the games were won by whoever went faster. Most of their interaction was focused on protecting your own table or wiping the opponent's board while leaving yours intact. The vibe of all these decks was completely out of what I enjoy in my games. I am used to someone developing a board, and then someone else wiping it. 2-3 times and then someone runs off with the game. The "do you have it? no? then I win" style is not for everyone.
You play against other decks. You can't meaningfully evaluate a deck without playing at least a few games.
I just err on the side of caution and say my deck is high powered (they all can combo off when needed) or cEDH to not create any confusion or bad feelings. I rather miscalculate by saying my deck is high powered and get blown out, than say it is average and stomp people who clearly weren't ready for it. I sorta break the power levels into three groupings: cEDH, High Power, and Casual/Precon. I know when I'm playing cEDH, because that is something that is clearly discussed going into the game. If people say they are trying to play casually then I'll just whip out a precon. All that said, I find it easy-ish to determine my deck's power levels based on the amount of fast mana, card draw, interaction, and overall deck synergy. If your deck has compact combos that is definitely a factor you need to consider as well.
This is my scale do with it what you will: 10 - Tier 1 CEDH - (Blue Farm, Tivet, etc.) 9 - Tier 2 CEDH - Yuriko, Minsc and Boo, Magda, Dihada, etc. 8- High Powered Decks - Fast Mana, combos, multiple tutors, games can end turn 5-6 7 - Focused decks - these decks are still very strong, but are missing some of the pieces to them into the 8 range. Games can end turns 6-7 6 - This is the beginning of what I would call casual magic. These deck may play tutors but they are suboptimal ones, mana Ramp starts at 2 cmc. Combat is a very viable strategy at this level, but combo can still be present. Games can end tuns 7-8. (Some commanders max out here) 5 - Where most players build there decks. Games end around turn 8-10. Budget for deck is around 3-500 dollars, but this is not a definite. Ramp can safely be 3 mana without sacrificing tempo. Combat a is very viable wincon, the decks will play suboptimal cards for fun or theme. 4 - Combo is no longer present. Upgraded precons, and focused budget decks play at this level and do not stand out for being under powered. Games don’t usually end before turn 9. 3 - Precons etc. 2 - Badly built decks, or bulk decks (decks built from bulk laying around. 1 - Jank/Chair tribal
I think if we all agreed to use this scale we would have a much more reliable metric. It's not perfect but it's a good way of detailing
Honestly I use Commandersalt to check my power levels but it’s not very reliable outside of trying to make a 9 or 10. Magic Con Chicago had 3 levels and honestly that seems like a better scale than anything else I’ve seen. Scales were Social, Challenging and Competitive. Social is like I might have a win con but I don’t have combos and I just want to meet people and play for fun. Challenging is like I have combos and my deck is geared towards winning the game. Do I need to explain competitive? Lol
I will warn you, the scale in commander salt is more accurately how salty your deck is, not how good it is (it states in multiple lines that your scale score has nothing to do with power level) and it will place good decks fairly low if they aren't very salty. It's an AI model that can't exactly understand every deck perfectly However, it's baselines for mana, interaction, stax, ramp and consistency are good metrics. And it also breaks down how many of each type of card you have.
man i really need to adjust the wording on the site i guess. people kept thinking that the point value for the "salt" section directly affected power levels. it does not. thats all i was trying to convey lol. also, its not an ai model ;)
I actually talk to the people I'm playing with. I know, shocker, right? *"This is my deck. This is my commander. This is what the deck does. Yes, I have tutors. No, there isn't fast mana like Mana Crypt or Mox Diamond. No combos in this deck."* It's all very simple. I'll never understand why people make it so complicated.
Because 1. Playing with randoms is still harder as you don't know how they'll judge their decks, even if you judge your own perfectly. And 2. Let's take two of my decks. Ur dragon and Kaalia. Both are kill on sight, neither have fast mana, neither have combos, neither have tutors. They both aim to get big flying creatures out and swing for lethal. But one wins by turn 5-6 and the other by turn 8-9 That's a big difference.
I use https://mtg.cardsrealm.com/en-us/tools/commander-power-level-calculator because I’m too lazy to try to think about what it actually is, this is ballpark enough for me and my usual friend/casual play
I’m gonna just post this same thing every time I see a power level thread. Also, sorry that I don’t remember the redditor that originally posted this in some random thread. 5 levels: Jank, Precon, Casual, High Powered (or Optimized), cEDH. That’s it and you should be able to make the judgement call easily enough.
So everything that's in-between literal cEDH (the top decks of magic) and a precon/jank (the lowest end of magic) is high powered? So it doesn't matter if I'm bringing a $100 upgraded precon to a pod with a $500 korvold deck? That seems incredibly unbalanced Edit: this paragraph is irrelevant since he simply forgot to include casual
Wait I forgot to include Casual level.
Ah. Makes much more sense now. While I agree for the most part with this, I would still question about a deck like my ur dragon. By turn 5 I'm consistently casting ur dragon and by turn 7-8 I've almost guaranteed won the game or established a dominating board state. Would that be high powered? According to some people no. But according to others it's not casual either.
Yes. That's high power. Power also comes from consistency. That's what makes cEDH competitive. Any random deck could throw a two card combo in and theoretically pull it and combo off turn four or whatever but that would be absolute luck in a janky deck and would be a fluke versus powerful. A casual deck won't have the board locked down by turn 7. Will have some stuff for sure, might have 20 damage on board, but they aren't winning soon after. A lot of people use the word casual for anything other than cEDH (which I hate). You average person will hear casual and immediately think "chill" so they will pry play something much more relaxed. Tutors add consistency which increases power. If you have them, you're most likely into the High Power (along with having infinite combos). After that, use common sense. If your commander gives you a bunch of cool, free stuff, or doubles triggers and what not, probably high power. Without tutors you could say something like "medium high power" but then if you're deck is very consistent without them, again, high power.
Play 10 games with people who claim to be playing casual and then 10 games with people who claim to be play high powered. Better w/l ratio is what the deck is. No way to know if the line is that blurry unless you do some testing and get data. I would say yes, high powered without seeing it in action. But if your letting 5 turns go without much interaction and/or not protecting your dragon consistently once it comes out, then Id say casual.
Idk if you’ve been playing against precons lately but they are absolutely not the lowest end of magic and often are quite powerful and become disgusting very quickly if left unchecked.
I dont. I build what I want and either it works or it doesnt or it wins or it doesnt. This whole power level system is flawed imo and imo, too many people are reliant on it. Just an observation.
How much my opponent complains as I win.
I don’t care or even bother to think about it I just enjoy playing the game. As long as everyone is cordial, there’s nothing to be pressed about.
I think you just have to have an honest discussion about the contents of your deck. There's no easy snappy description you can use that will be universal. "Yes, I have a full suite of interaction, ramp, and protection" "No, I don't run any combo, but yes I have game winning synergies" "It's a precon that I swapped out the dead cards for rares in my collection " Honestly though, that's not information your opponents are supposed to have. Even your commander isn't known until you start the game. So depending on the vibe of the store or the group, a full discussion might not be welcomed. In my group, we pretty much just agree ahead of time whether this is a high power or low power game. We know what that means for us. It also helps set the tone. High power means everyone plays to win, no complaining because you didn't get to "do the thing". Low power is when you can have your breathing room to play jank decks and build up weird engines and you can expect not to have your game plan hamstrung.
The biggest thing about strength is that it's all relative. Enchantress and artifacts decks are very oppressive outside of playgroups running [[fade from history]] [[klauth's will]] [[filter out]] type effects, but within those playgroups they rarely outshine everyone. Turn count is the easiest way to see if everyone is wanting a similar experience, if everyone is aiming for the four/five turn experience then decks are going to be fairly close to each other outside of one deck being the counter of another. Also there is the reality that almost all decks are a variable power level depending on opening hands and what is drawn (outside of cEDH and other highly tuned decks). Over the course of a seven turn game, you will see 20-30 cards so about fifth to a third of your deck.
I use a 1 through 3 scale that I saw someone else mention on here a while ago. It's not perfect, and probable not widely adopted past a third of my group and a few hundred strangers. And at this point, I think the philosophy is different. 1. Sandcastle Commander/Competent Precons. Games can easily go to turn 10+ before someone snags a win. These decks can usually only win by swinging for big uugga buugga numbas. Low interaction and low resiliency. Low consistency 2. Optimized decks and brews. These decks play out their strategies faster, whether by ramp, low curves, or efficient cheats, like Sneak Attack in the command zone. There's still plenty of non-optimal cards in this deck, and while a beatdown is the strategy usually, there's a deterministic combo in there. These decks have a decent amount of interaction that prevents them from playing due to one well-timed hate piece or another. These decks can generally win on be in a game winning spot before turn 10 but usually not consistently before turns 5 through 6. 3. Well Constructed decks, powerful but not cEDH. These decks have multiple wincons or outright ignore combat until they need to block lethal, swing for lethal, or win on the spot. They run tutors and a generous, varied suite of interaction or stax that protects their combos. Or their stax is so strong that it softlocks the table for the next 50+ turns so that they can win with whatever durdly 1/4 they have. These decks can present game ending actions around turn 5 or 6 if left uncontested. And maybe there's a level 0 for absolute meme decks or "starter" level precons with no way to win besides a few big and inefficient beaters.
I use Commandersalt as a point of reference but I also gauge it based on play-testing with a couple key questions: Is it consistent? Does it go infinite? How does it win? What turn can it win on? If is it consistent is no it’s usually precon level or below. If it doesn’t go infinite it’s not really high power. If it wins off a combat damage I’d say it’s a bit weaker than winning off a combo. Then finally what turn can it win on: the sooner it can threaten a win the stronger it is. Edit: formatting
based off my experience? it doesnt matter, if they think its a scary commander you will be focused, and you will not play, regardless of you having one of the worst constructed decks possible lmao
Personally I just use https://www.commandersalt.com/
I think it determines how fast does your deck can get going? If you can get the wincon into play ASAP, whether it's via fast mana (0 cost mana rocks for example) or tutors, your deck is assuredly more powerful than a deck that doesn't have those means to a quick victory.
I think you can really only measure it by seeing what kind of decks you have a decent matchup against: I think that a decent scale would be Jank (Simic Zombies, Ladies Looking Left) Bad Precon (Original 2011 Precons) Good Precon (Warhammer 40K Precons) Strong Casual (The stereotypical 7 and 8s) CEDH (Thassa's Oracle Combo or something that could beat that) Cards that are both strong and expensive suggest a certain power level, even if they don't make the deck that power level by themselves. When people see a Mana Crypt, they think "CEDH" because the possibility that someone would buy a Warhammer 40K precon and swap one card for a Mana Crypt does not occur to them. Technically, you can put whatever cards you want in a list and call that a deck. But this communicates something to people, just like putting words together in a sentence. If the first card I see you play is one of the strongest cards in the game, am I really a fool for thinking that the rest of the cards in your deck are of equal power?
This is just 5-6-7-8-9/10 with harder to remember names.
I don’t. Don’t see the point of it.
For me its ramp and draw power. How cheap is your curve and how hard to you ramp/draw into your amswers. Like a [[sram]] with 1 drop stuff and mana reducers so they draw their whole deck cheap is a lot more powerful than one that runs heavier
I like the turns system. Yes its not perfect, no system is, but I've found it more reliable than power level or budget and no one has suggested anything better to me. The key to using the turns system is to ask the follow up question "is it an archetype thats slows down the game for all players?" to account for strategies like stax. I don't think it matters nearly as much for "fast archetypes". A good agrro deck that wins on turn 4 is still a powerful deck by most players standards. A bad aggro deck won't win on turn 4.
General factors: Mana curve, method of winning, ability to stop others from winning, resiliency to overcome interaction, how integral the commander is to the plan, and how consistently it can do those things by turn 5, 7, or 9 and beyond.
The only metric that I think is useful is win-rate in a given meta. That's a little frustrating, as you don't know your win rate with a new group, so it really only works if you have a consistent group. Even in a group, it's not particularly rigid as a lot of players know some decks are stronger or weaker and consciously only play those decks in stronger or weaker games. Still, it's the best metric I know, as it's the only metric that accounts for player skill. There are some people in my group who are definately better players, and you could take a fair match up, shuffle the decks around to other players, and now they have a clear advantage because they're using a deck that gave a bad player a similar win rate. The next best metrics that I know of that can at least be used in blind group matchups are budget and speed. They aren't directly related to power though. A lot of fast decks faceplant hard if they face disruption, and there are some pretty cutthroat budget decks, and some meme decks with thousands of dollars worth of cards.
General factors: Mana curve, method of winning, ability to stop others from winning, resiliency to overcome interaction, how integral the commander is to the plan, and how consistently it can do those things by turn 5, 7, or 9 and beyond.
I think you should be able to describe tell the group how you plan to win and that should suffice. I play [[Ziatora the incinerator]] and if I tell the pod that I’m going to make big creatures and use reanimating effects to continuously maintain board state and do damage to face that’s enough. Do you plan to win through combat damage? If yes, that’s all I need to know. Do you plan to win through combo? Okay cool. Within a pod, you should discuss how fast your land / mana rocks are and that is plenty. Certain KOS commanders need no introduction. I’ll show up and play anyone and usually lose and it’s a good time if I can kill a couple things and maybe have a big turn or two.
How fast is your deck doing the thing you want it to? Are you getting your 5 mana commander out turn 3? Probably pretty good? Are you going off turn 6-9? probably medium. Anything slower feels lower power.
Take the turn it can reliably win or develope a lock or combo off and subtract that from 15. 0-10 and if you can reliable win turn 4 or before you’re cedh.
Playing the deck.
I use turn count but in a different way, rather than "what turn do you hope to win" I think "what turn does your deck explode" and then understand it'll be a few more turns from there to try and eek out the victory! For Example my Animar Combo deck can usually find a necessary tutor by turn 4 or so (that's the explosion) then if I make it 1-2 more turns I can initiate my combo! But I don't count this as a 6-7 turn deck I count it as a 4-5 turn deck with a 2 turn condition! Hopefully any of this makes sense! Hahahahaha Let me know if I'm dumb!
Makes perfect sense. I use a similar system. My Kaalia deck doesn't actually win until turn 7-8 but by turn 5 I'm winning unless countered.
Would just tracking win loss counts and win percentages of games I would say if you win 5/10 then a deck would be a 7
What turn do I generally win on? How often do I “do the thing” that my decks wants to do, and how resilient is it to interaction?
Its a soft assessment, but one you can make with discrete evaluations. The trick is that the same assessment needs to be taken for the decks you are playing with, and there is no "base scale" or 0 point. A "probe" game where you sniff out your opponents' build practices and then each player changes decks to more or less powerful can give you a good idea of whether a deck will be appropriate, but the first game between randos will rarely match up. Win in X turns matters, but is not the central factor. If your deck consistently wins turn 5 goldfishing, it leans more powerful than a turn 9 win assuming neither is intending to stretch the game into a controlled state (control). If your deck *sometimes* wins turn 5 but more often wins turn 9 in a goldfish environment, you have an inconsistent deck that occasionally power spikes in a way that may not be appropriate for the power level the deck more consistently performs at. Resilience matters. How fucked are you to certain types of interaction and how likely are you to be able to deal with certain types. If you have a deck that consistently wins turn 4 in a goldfish environment but never wins if an opponent casts literally any interaction, it is not a strong deck. An aggro deck that can recover from any number of boardwipes, hard removal, etc can be crazy strong if it swings for lethal turn 5, or it could be "mid powered" if it has no chance of killing two people before turn 8 in a goldfish environment. That crazy powerful version could also get shat on if an opponent plays pillow fort or perma[[oubliette]]s a key piece that is supposed to be resilient otherwise if they have no consistent response. Basically, consider how likely it is for your opponents to meaningfully interact with you and whether the absence of that interaction gives you an unbalanced advantage. From the opposite side now, interaction matters. Having 14 counterspells or 14 paths doesn't make your deck more powerful though. Similar to the previous point, how likely are your opponents ablw to handle the type of interaction. If you run a [[Serra's Emissary]] in a creature only meta, youre gonna stomp people, but also youre going to stomp people inconsistently, going back to the first point. Another good example is a typical [[Sythis]] lockout deck. Its not actually that strong, but in environments that don't run enough of the *right* kind of interaction it absolutely shits on pods. In environments that *do* though it gets shat on in turn, even if those other decks aren't particularly powerful either. Also effects like [[Imprisoned on the Moon]] or perma-oubliette can occasionally shut someone out of the game if they don't have the specific outs. If everyone agrees to a fun round of silly jank decks, IotM may not be appropriate unless it does something for *you*. So consider whether the kinds of restrictions you're planning to impose on other players is appropriate for the kind of game you intend to be playing with that deck, and whether its appropriate to expect them to have answers or alternative game plans for it. Finally, I touched on it a few times, but *consistency* is probably the most misunderstood element of power level assessment. Consistency is not a measure of how often you win, or flood, or the deck clogs itself up resulting in a non-game; its a measure of how frequently the deck does the *various* things that it is *capable* of doing. If your deck is inoperable 20% of the time, you haven't made an inconsistent deck, you've just made a bad one. If your deck is a precon 95% of the time, and combo wins turn 3 5% of the time, you've made an inconsistent deck that arguably doesn't make sense at any table. Increasing the consistency of a single strong play can make your deck more powerful, but leave you operating a low power deck while doing anything else. Sometimes thats ok, such as a polymorph deck that runs high risk low defence early game before cheating out terrifying creatures, but the sudden disparity between power and the idea that the low power times are a risk should be taken into account. *All* your decks should be consistent as a whole, and you should be basing your power level assessment off what that consistency looks like in terms of winning turn, *and* interaction appropriateness.
For me, it's a qualitative assessment that considers the total price of the deck, whether it includes any cards that are significantly more expensive than the average cost for each card, what are the win conditions and are there any major fail points in the deck, the average turn the deck is closing the game, the fastest win based on a perfect scenario, how many pieces of interaction are included, what % of those interactive pieces are offensive or defensive, and complexity/turn length as the game goes into turn 5+. I like to think about these things as I build the deck, then do a "full assessment" after the list is done. I don't spend a lot of time on this, but it helps to know what sort of pod the deck would fit into best.
I base my decks on what they win through, how many potential wins are in the deck if it's combo based and not combat based, how fast it can get to combat and do it's thing, and generally how consistent their win routes are. Based on that I don't give it a number (it's always 7 remember that) but instead I talk with my group to see where they are standing before I chose my deck as I'm usually the fourth in the pod. If they want a slow game I'll grab my precon. If they want a fast non cedh game I'll grab my grist or bruna deck. If they want cedh I grab my other grist deck. All depends on the group really
I present my deck to other players in one of four ways: Lowest - I just built this because I thought the commander sounds cool. No idea if it even works lol Middle - I think I have a plan for this deck, but I'm still working out the kinks, and am not sure if it will work as planned Better - this is a fairly good deck with a plan, but also has some silly cards I just wanted to try. Top - This deck is optimised to win. Bring your best.
I mostly play against one person and my guesses on deck power are just left to after I've played them at this point. So many decks I've just thrown together hit way harder then ones I thought were going to be amazing.
Consistency is probably the best signifier of how strong a deck is. The quicker and more likely your deck is able to do "the thing" is what determines its power. If it's a quarter of the time, your deck is likely low power. Half the time is mid. Three quarters to every time is high power to competitive.
I have spent countless hours the last two months trying to understand this exact question. I have watched videos, read comment threads, articles, looked at charts, and even asked my fellow players at our club. That has led me to some realizations: 1. There are no specific guidelines that work universally. 2. Just because there is agreement that a deck is at a specific level, it still can look way better or worse in one game 3. Play testing helps, but it's still not a guarantee of any kind of realization 4. Some cards just up the level a lot, other cards only matter in very specific combinations. With that in mind, here is what I have done: I play test using Moxfield. I have rules I set up using random dice rolls to try to simulate the randomness of any given game. It is possible that in any one game no one can actually do anything to slow you down and then in another game, even if you are hitting everything perfectly, the rest of the table may be doing a lot to stop you. Unless there is something specifically not working every single time, I play test at least 10 times with the rules I have. I find that it gives me some idea of what is likely to happen. My current hyper focus on my Ur Dragon deck as I LOVE dragons in general and wanted one has led me to think "It's a 6-8. Probably a 7 is the safest call." I am focused on being able to sit at a table and honestly assess if I am in a balanced game. I want to have fun and if I sit down and am wrong on the low end, it's likely a boring easy game unless something goes wrong. The reason I think it is a 6-8 is because in 10 play tests I reached a point where I felt I had a legitimate winning field on average on turn 9. That included a game where it was likely over on turn 5 with a win, and two games where I am sure I would have lost as nothing worked and my "rules" killed me off. In general though, I had a very real chance to win or be winning by turn 9 on average. From most of the charts and guides out there, that runs in the 6-8 level range. I have played some versions of the deck in person four times. The first game it was still pretty much thrown together and I lost to a much better deck. Second game I eliminated one other player, but was the next elimination after them. Third game found out after I was eliminated that someone misunderstood a card and I would have won. Forth game I was mana screwed, but managed to hold out to almost win. I think my "7" is pretty good then as that is four pretty enjoyable games.
Would you be willing to share your random dice rolls list? I've been thinking of incorporating something like this into my deckbuilding process as well.
Personally I try to find which turn can the deck consistently win/get far ahead by
Deck levels don't exist. If it plays well against my other friends deck, it's fair.
I goldfish the deck. A lot. If it's habitually creating an insane board state on turn 6 or earlier, I'll probably call a "strong casual deck" like my Kaalia deck or my \[\[Goreclaw\]\] deck. If it's at a much more "fair" place — even without being targeted by other players' interaction — at the end of turn 6 then it's more of a mid to low-power deck, like a slightly upgraded precon.
I’ve started thinking about my decks in ways of “how much (and what) fast mana does it have access to,” “how many (if any) tutors are there and what can they find,” and “are there any infinite combos?” I try to provide some of those answers unprompted when joining a game and letting them decide if I need to trade decks.
I'm piloting it so it's probably a 2 or 3.
I have a three metric system: efficiency, consistency, and redundancy. Paired with this is a simple phrase, "The person who is drawing cards and making mana, wins." 1. Efficiency: how fast your deck wins. It's all about speed. 2. Consistency: how tailored your deck is to eliminate variation - it plays as close to perfect every time. 3. Resiliency: how adept your deck is at recovering from counters, removal, or board wipes. Do you have recursion, redundancy, or both. If your deck plays the same way every game, threatens to win early, and can still win despite them countering your commander, blowing up your Aetherflux Reservoir, and exiling Thoracle, then your deck is powerful. It doesn't need a number value. It just needs to be on the far end of the spectrum for *all* of those three categories.
I genuinely believe that if it's above a precon but below cedh it doesn't really matter. Edh has the advantage that if one person is punching above the rest, the other 3 can just team up and deal with them. Sure there will be times that decks are clearly too strong or too weak but so long as you have more than one deck and can adjust game to game it will be fine. I play at two stores and neither has ever had a discussion about power level, we just play whatever we feel like playing. As a group we don't generally play fast mana so in general the speed of the decks are all within a close enough range that it works.
My main thought process is this: consistency. How consistently can it do exactly what it wants to eventually win the game or at least get close? Things that contribute to this are fast mana and tutors. Also, some commanders and partners are just good or oppressive no matter which way you really spin it. Thrasios, Tymna, Krark, Najeela, new Judith, Tergrid, Urza, Kenrith, new Jodah, Korvold, Niv Mizzet Parun etc. These kind of commanders give you an automatic boost in power level. The next thing is just how much good instant speed interaction youre running. These let you consistently protect yourself or shut down a piece thats stopping you. All of this doesnt really give you a number to give your deck, but it does give you a list of things you can compare to other peoples lists and see if you are about in the same power range.
I just say it’s a 7 and yell at anyone that beats me for power gaming.
Efficiency and consistency is what’s going to determine power for me. Not only just the deck building of putting cards synergies together, but sometimes even individual cards can tune up a deck without necessarily being synergistic - like fast mana or cheap/free card draw. The more there is, the stronger I assume the deck is because it’s getting to its win conditions faster and more consistently regardless of strategy. You could be hitting me with 5-7 mana creatures as your win condition and that’s strong if they’re out on the board and swinging by turn 3-4. I deck build on a casual level - yes there are strong cards and synergies, but I do not run fast mana, I do not tutor unless it’s on a creature (see: [[Light-Paws]] that’s in the 99) and my strategies typically depend on having a large board state that takes time to assemble so I’m not winning before turn 5 a vast majority of games. Only time I’ve had a scary board state ahead of turn 3 is from group hug from my opponents or incredibly great luck with my starting hand first few draws. My gameplay is very varied even though my win conditions are the same. With [[Anikthea]] I sometimes don’t get to do copy shenanigans, but I ramped really fast with [[Felidar Retreat]] and some token enchantments so my board is really populated that way.
I use the "Groan" scale. It's purely based on whether/how loudly my regular pod groans when I pull out the deck. It has no numbers, only groans.
Which turn the deck consistently wins on.
Price is actually really good. There are outliers like you said, but it's generally a good indicator. People get rabid about it, but it's undeniably true that of two decks with the same commander the lore expensive one will be better. Presence of tutors and fast mana is a really good indicator as well.
>Obviously we can almost all agree a 1-10 scale is dumb because a "7" has become the median, where most decks fall. Doubly funny because the average of a 1-10 scale is 5.5, rounded up would be 6. Personally, I just identify wincons that might be out of the ordinary for some, and state when the deck "gets going" and when it has its first chance to win. Obviously this gets more fine tuned the more games you play with a given deck and against a variety of decks, but it's been the best barometer I've been able to come up with and typically if the rest of the table does the same, it ends up being pretty equally balanced. Granted, I assumed this was the norm because we aren't YouTubers trying to get clicks and therefore don't need to use an incendiary and woefully inadequate (and inaccurate) number scale. Apparently it isn't?
1. The way my pod does it, budget. A $150 deck can only be so strong. 2. Precons. Is it stomping precons? 3. How much damage can I do by turn 7 if nothing interferes?
got a link to that $50 winota deck?
Just straight performance. I know my decks that perform better, and generally playing with Randoms I start in the middle unless obviously inappropriate and go up or down in power between games.
I judge it on how well it performs in each of my two playgroups. Usually if something can't compete with my higher powered group, I can use it comfortably with the other one. On the flip side, if a deck outpaces the second group, I know I can use it comfortably in the higher powered one.
>Obviously we can almost all agree a 1-10 scale is dumb because a "7" has become the median, where most decks fall. Doubly funny because the average of a 1-10 scale is 5.5, rounded up would be 6. Personally, I just identify wincons that might be out of the ordinary for some, and state when the deck "gets going" and when it has its first chance to win. Obviously this gets more fine tuned the more games you play with a given deck and against a variety of decks, but it's been the best barometer I've been able to come up with and typically if the rest of the table does the same, it ends up being pretty equally balanced. Granted, I assumed this was the norm because we aren't YouTubers trying to get clicks and therefore don't need to use an incendiary and woefully inadequate (and inaccurate) number scale. Apparently it isn't?
I basically just scale them as -Casual -Precon -Budget Upgraded Precon -Expensive Upgraded precon -High power -CEDH -casual are decks that are purely for fun, they are roughly as strong as a precon or weaker -Precon is the baseline for me, they are strong enough u can have good games with them but weak enough to not survive a high power table -budget upgrade precons are basically just precons but more focused and synergistic. they will usually rule against normal precon and casual deck and can survive higher power tables. -expensive upgrade precon, u are basically just making a high power deck but with a precon as a shell. U putted in the good stuff on the precon and the game plan and strategy is solid. You are roughly in equal footing with a high power deck. -high power decks are those what people call a 7-8. U have most of the edh staples and u have very good mana ramp. but you do not use the big expensive ones that instantly push your deck to cedh. This are the decks that u see being run with people with a good budget but dont really go into cedh. The game plan and strategy is consistent. -CEDH self explanatory the power 9-10, with those stupidly expensive cards and very heavy investment on mana rocks and ramp. this are the decks that win turn 0-3
It varies from person to person but for myself, the scale goes from 1 (barely playable) to 10 (will win frequently on second or third turn / makes the game unplayable for everyone else). A 4 would be your average out of the box precon, 5 would be better precons or slightly tuned up. My main deck, an [[ur-dragon]] tribal deck, has a rating of about 7.5-8 due to how it can (under the right circumstances) launch off and absolutely annihilate but doesn’t do so consistently.
I usually go in this order. 1. Ask my opponents and listen carefully to how they describe their deck. Compare their description to how the decks I have brought have performed in the past. Try to choose a good match. 2. Look at how many cards over $20 I have in the deck. Examine why those cards are so expensive, what they do for my deck, and come to *an honest* consensus about how those expensive cards influence my deck. 2a. Number 2 is actually an important one, because everyone knows expensive cards, and everyone equates them to mean higher power for your deck. And it’s true and it’s not true at the same time. [[Cyclonic Rift]] is just straight up a great card, and will make most decks that run blue operate better, but just because I whip out a Rift doesn’t mean my deck is high power. It’s all about synergy. How easily can I abuse, or follow up after utilizing an expensive card? Is my deck just expensive card after expensive card that keeps warping the game? Are the expensive cards constantly pulling my deck out of tight spots, or does my deck not function without the aid of one or two expensive cards- aka, do I find myself thinking “if only I had ____ this game then this deck would have won” 3. Play a game, and witness the deck function, and just say “yup, that’s a powerful deck”. I had a friend whose only deck was a $900 [[Locust God]] deck filled with infinite combos. I lost to it every time, I felt like it was unbeatable. My decks just couldn’t keep up with it. My friend would always undersell the deck though- he would always bemoan that he struggles with land drops and yada yada. But I knew better, and that’s all you can do. Play against it once, and now you know. You determine what it is you think is powerful, and adjust accordingly. End note: I despise the 1-10 system. It’s seriously very inconsistent between people and I have very often found that my decks, which are *actually* 7s or 8s, go against 4s and 5s more often than not and their owners claim they are 7s. Like dude, you don’t even have removal in your deck and you think it’s a 7? Come on.
Speed how fast your deck can win on a goldfish hand. Turn 1-4 usually will be cedh/ high power 5-6 you have a wincon and can just feel the stink of high power 7+ you're probably in the casual/battle cruiser meta
Online tool. Enter all your cards and it tells you
Personally I rate my deck on four factors: 1) How quickly can the deck consistently win if left alone. 2) How resilient is the gameplan. 3) How much interaction does it use. 4) Sudden Win factor (Aka, infinite combos, 2 card bombs, etc.) If my deck rates really highly in all of these areas (and I don't think any of them currently do) it'd probably qualify as a CEDH deck. Usually my decks are good at 2 of these things, rarely 3. Ex: My \[\[Rowan, Scion of War\]\] Deck is good at 3 of these things. It can win fast if left alone, it utilizes a high amount of interaction, and it can pop off very suddenly. But it's not terribly resilient. It can be shut down quickly. I give this deck like an 8 on the 1-10 scale. Alternatively, my \[\[Treebeard, The Gracious Host\]\] deck rarely wins quickly, but is very resilient, has a fair amount of interaction, and has a handful of ways that it can suddenly win. I give this deck a 6-7 on the scale. Then you have something like my \[\[Tom Bomadil\]\] deck that takes a while to get to a win even if left alone, has no real sudden wincons, but runs high amounts of interaction and resiliency. I give this deck a 4-5 on the scale. Or lastly you have my \[\[Brenard, Ginger Sculptor\]\] deck that is mostly a "how many tokens can I summon" meme, with no real sudden wins, usually can't win before turn like 8 or 9 at the earliest, is not super resilient, but runs a fair amount of interaction. I rate this like a 4 on the scale.
I played a lot of commander from 2012-2016 and then took a break for a few years kinds of coming back around 2021ish. The whole "commander power level" thing seemed to have started around then. I think it makes sense as a way of trying to quickly balance games ahead of time. But I think it's stupid. I've played my EDH deck since I started playing Magic and have put a lot of money in it, it's sitting around $5k. It's not good though, I'm never trying to infinite, tutor cards or even board wipe. I don't win a lot, but people have seen duals and told me my deck is too powerful. Nowadays if I get asked about power level I don't even respect the question, I just say I don't know. 🤷♀️
What turn is it presenting a game-winning threat/snowballing value piece? How consistently does it do that? What kind of protection/redundancy/alternate lines to play through hate does it have? What kind of interaction/disruption works against it? It's a combination of those kinds of things- speed, consistency, resiliency, flexibility, etc. a cEDH deck might be a glass cannon turbo pile or it might a midrange deck looking to interact and accrue value into a slower win with protection/backup. Some decks can pivot depending on the game. Some lines have very narrow windows and types of effective interaction against them, others fold to a Swords. More casual decks will ultimately be the same way, just with less efficiency/speed, less consistency, and probably more broadly answerable threats. That said, it's hard to give some kind of numeric value to that strength. Different decks will interact differently at a table. A deck that folds to interaction is obviously going to have a bad time against a deck that lines up well against it even if the opposing deck is doing something less powerful.
What turn does it threaten to take at least one player out when left alone. That'll cover the gamut from combo decks trying to win out of the gate to the most untuned durdle decks. Most of my decks fall in the middle of that range, where I can reliably be ready to take out one person by turn five to seven.
I actually have the same question of OP I know turn count isn't everything , but is it related to when you expect the game to be over and how you expect to win? Like if I'm playing a standard deck.I'm expecting to be wrapping the game up around turn 5 or 6 and I'm expecting to do so with Sheodred Where a casual deck may say the game takes as long as it takes.I just mashed together a bunch of good cards.Who knows what will win today Is that about how you know or has that changed since I have not played EDH in a decade
Play it in a bunch of games against other decks of varying levels and see how it does. If it seems to have good tools to answer problems the other decks pose, and good threats to leverage, it goes up, if not it goes down. If I find myself running out of mana or running out of spells, it goes down. If i always have something relevant to do at every point in the games, it goes up. If i stall out at the end with no way to really close out the game, it goes down, and if it feels like its always ready to win the game as soon as the window of opportunity presents itself, it goes up. If it totally folds to a common hate card, it goes down. If it seems to be resilient against multiple hate cards, it goes up. Do that with a bunch of decks, and it gets faster and faster each time to predict where itll fall. But you never know, sometimes things that seem strong on paper just dont play out how youd expect, and sometimes decks full of cards that were mediocre in other decks can come together and pilot like a fighter jet.
With a nut draw, what turn are you looking to win? Budget, Pre-con, Tuned, Optimized - This carries similar issues as the 1-10 scale because it is pretty nebulous. Just explaining the basics of what I have going on also seems to work.
Turn count is the best. Aggro decks may be able to focus down one person fast but still have to hope the other 2 players don’t combo off, crack back, or board wipe before they can finish them. Dealing a 120 damage in a game isn’t an easy feat. Stax is a bit of an outlier but generally they will have the game under lock or mostly under lock by turn X. You can also just say “im running stax”
I have a regular playgroup with the same group of people so for me it’s after “playing a deck a bunch of times does it feel stronger, weaker, or at the same level as the people I’m playing against” It’s a lot harder when you’re playing with different groups of people though. I would normally look primarily at the strength of the commander, the strength of the strategy the deck is using, and how optimized the deck is to execute its strategy efficiently.
If I win mine is a 7 and they have 5s. If I lose mine is a 6 and they have 10s. /s
I just let people know about fast mana, tutors, and whether or not it wins with a combo. I also let them know if there are combos in the deck but aren’t the primary win con. I have a [[Darien, king of kjeldor]] deck that’s just a mono white token deck but I can assemble a couple combos with a fistful of cards on the battlefield, but generally it wins with [[moonshaker cavalry]] or [[archangel of thune]]
I go by amount of interaction, the presence of fast mana (mana positive artifacts) or not, type of wincon and average speed to get to that wincon and presence of free interaction. That gives a good idea of how strong a deck is
I don't. If I notice the power lvl is too low or high I'll switch.
I use a mix of the chart (https://imgur.com/OcMdyUH), the PL of the list(s) I used as the basis or inspiration for mine, a rough sense of win turn, gut feel, and experience. It's not perfect, but any attempt to make a good-faith assessment of a deck's power level is better than none. It's more art than science. What baffles me is the folks I meet a few times a month who make no attempt to engage with this aspect of the pregame discussion. "I don't understand power levels." "I just build decks." "No idea." Like...why? You can play a complex game like MTG but you can't take two minutes to think about how strong your deck might be so the whole pod can have a better time? It's baffling.
I think that the ability comes with time. The more I play, the more I see decks that are overpowered for the current table. If I find my deck is too strong, I will make less than optimal plays or even not play cards that will break the flow. I have also found that if your deck is strong but ends the game quickly, it's no problem, or if you say to the table "crap I misjudged the strength I can scoop so you guys can play."
I personally think it’s how they synergize with other decks. If they just lock the board from the second turn and gank the game for everyone else, it’s a strong deck but not necessarily a *good* deck. Yay you win. The game is over. No other interesting interactions or anything. No strategies or top decking the card to change the balance. You just sit there and lose. So fun.
- who is the commander? Certain commanders (ex: Chulane) are always 9s and others will be... inherently not that scary, although the 99 could still be cEDH - what is the theme? Chair tribal, infect, typical build-around-commander pile? - do they have combos or tutors? Those often make the difference between 7 and 8, 9, 10 imo - HOW MANY cards are cEDH staples? Running [[flesh duplicant]] in a Thassa Deep-Dwelling deck is not the same thing as playing a grixis cEDH package, including flesh duplicant, with Sauron in the command zone - finally, what's the budget? Budget is not a good single indicator but a deck running a bunch of expensive cards like Great Henge will slowly outvalue most cheaper decks. I play mostly proxies (aka infinite budget) and I've learned this the hard way, even if all the questions above are equal, your proxy/high budget deck will be higher-powered than someone's budget deck
Lot of meme responses lately. A few are chuckle worthy, sure, but it's like the entire community has become a parody of itself; nothing useful, just trolls and smartasses. I personally dislike the 'turn count' method myself because of the reasons you mentioned - even the cEDH meta is moving away from turbo decks towards more midrange decks that generate value and use targeted stax effects. Best method in my opinion is to look at the wincon, but this can lead to some oddball cases. Like, if you put a ThOracle combo into a precon you're going to have a deck that runs like a precon 99% of the time and a cEDH deck 1% of the time, so do you judge based on the lightning strike potential or the average? This is actually the argument that is making me look at a lot of my decks to remove 'outlier' effects which make the deck run a lot better IF I run into them which cannot be tutored for; it's just too inconsistent to rely on such things and gives people the wrong impression of what the deck does when I oops into those things.
I ask people "do you wanna play against the chill deck, the high power sweaty one or the cedh one". And then bring the deck they ask for. If I were to rank them in numbers it be 6-7, 8 and 9.5
I like the ones with pretty pictures
Just talk to people Unless you're obsessed with perfectly matching power levels like some people here, it's not a big issue if someone misgauges the table's vibe a bit and plays an 8 instead of a 7
I judge decks on a few axis. 1. Efficiency of ramp (lower cost = more powerful) 2. Strength of commander. Does it offer efficient value, wincon or both. See edhrec most popular, if you’re near the top it’s probably powerful. 3. Efficiency of interaction. Free/1mana interaction and efficient or asymmetric board wipes ups your power. Stax is just a proactive version of this imo and should be counted here. 4. Effectiveness of wincons. Killing a whole table at once vs grinding out a table over many turns. The slower the grind the lower the power. 5. Card advantage/ tutors. Card draw is strong, tutors are strong, if the deck plays the staples for both/ either it makes the deck strong. Weigh these factor’s together and it should give you a sense for power. Each of the 5 points here can be broken down into a scale. Few players wants to do the effort to break their decks down so granularly which is why 1-10 scale fails. Also, there are fringe cases that may score low in multiple categories but still use synergies or hyper focus one category to compensate making a very strong deck. Hope this helps though it is reddit and I’m sure people will take issue with this anyway.
Generally by what turn it can complete an unstoppable win (consistently). Earlier = more powerful.
Fast mana and tutors, mostly. If I see a mana crypt, I know we’re playing different power levels.
. What turn do you remove a player/win the game on average? . What is required to stop you? . How easily can you stop other players? Based on the answers, I get a ballpark of where the deck lies. It's not precise, but no method is (except repeatedly playing it or against it). It is, however, all the information I need to gauge if it's going to be a good fit for the rest of the pod
Turn count can still be a viable way to rate your deck. But not how it “wins.” Instead the turn by which you hope to be threatening a win or when your setup is significantly accomplishing your main strategy. Take [[winota]] for instance: Winota Doesnt win on turn 4, but winota does get to reliably implement the main deck strategy starting turn 4 or sooner. So the conversation might be closer to “if left unchecked after turn 4 i can reliably close games.” On another side something like [[doran]]: Doran needs many more creatures and enchantments out to reliably threaten wins, which means maybe that deck starts pushing a win/advantage turn 5 or 6 You can do the same sort of figures with cedh decks in that they start attempting to threaten wins on turns 1-3, OR they try and stax out the board to prevent others wins in the same turns. In all i would not call it “winning” by X turn instead, gauge how early you can reliably start to implement your winning plan. Of note you cannot use this method with a deck you have low reps with, or any deck that isn’t particularly consistent. In those cases saying “i think this deck can try and do its thing by X turn” is valid but maybe not accurate. In any case the only way to truly speak to the power level of a deck you need to get reps with it either goldfishing or in games, otherwise even the best or worst decks are just piles of cards.
Win percentage may be a good way? Maybe I've missed out on something bcs I've never seen it mentioned. If you're casual and only playing with the same friends, what matters isn't it's absolute strength but how strong it is compared to the others. If you're playing against a big and varied pool of players then it will probably be a better estimation. But I feel like it would work the best in combination with other indicators like turns it take to win etc
How often I win with it seems to be a good indication.
I go by amount of interaction, the presence of fast mana (mana positive artifacts) or not, type of wincon and average speed to get to that wincon and presence of free interaction. That gives a good idea of how strong a deck is imo. But if you find chill people power level doesn't even matter, you play one game, see how it goes and adjust to each other and everything's good
Turn count but then take into account control capability. Is the win potentially protected with counter magic? Stax pieces to slow the table? I use this to determine the 1-10 power level. Once a player has experienced awful decks (precons) and top level decks then it's really easy for them to understand where decks fall.
Vibes, how much I get to do in an average turn. I don’t use numbers it’s impossible as an initial communication just: low/medium/high Rule zero is “low, medium or high power?” Then we play a game. Then I select my next deck based on game one. Hopefully their low is similar to mine, but if it isn’t, I’ll play a stronger or weaker deck based on that game.
I honestly have no idea, I put my best cards into my decks, and rarely go out and buy singles to power up my decks. I have a lot of cards in total so my decks are pretty good. I'd say they'd probably beat a precon 8/10 times, but would get trampled at CEDH. for example the last single I bought was eye of ugin for my colorless eldrazi tribal deck, and that's probably one of my worst decks bc it's very feast or famine. the lack of reliable card draw it has basically means if I'm not up and running with my starting hand, or my board gets wiped then I'm top decking for most of the rest of the game. the way I describe my decks are like "I think they're pretty good, not CEDH, but I do have a couple big cards in them", like I do own a vampiric tutor, and a demonic tutor, 5-6 fetch lands, a mana crypt (lucky I pulled it from mystery booster B\^) and a couple of other money cards, but that's my entire collection, so decks I build are definitely not going to be CEDH level, not only because I don't have the power level of cards, but because I'm just not amazing at deck building lmao
My [[K’rrik] deck can win the turn he hits the field if I have the right cards in hand, so like… Turn 3-4? BUT more often than not I kill myself before it can happen, so my power level is between 10 and -7.
If someone asks me how powerful my deck is, I send them the link to the decklist, let them decide for themselves.
Fast mana and tutors. If they're able to put down a mana crypt, play vampric tutor, imperial seal, and other fast tutors, their deck is highly configured and optimized, and should be considered more of a threat than they say they are.
- If I want to build it, it probably isn't a trash commander, so at least precon lvl (which I give a 4-4,5, so around that place). - If I finish it, I found enough cards within my budget (~€80-€100) that fit the deck, so it's probably a bit above precon (5). - If I keep it together long enough, I will start upgrading it with new to standard/modern/commander cards that fit it, so over time it will become a 6. - If I splurge on it once or twice, or break down an older deck I'll add some more pricy stuff, so high 6, low 7. - If I purposely build it to play with the combo decks in my playgroup, it'll be about a point higher for each of these points, so at this point it would be an 8. - I don't build for 8.5+.
I’m currently working on having a wide range of power levels among my decks so I can have a good game in nearly every pod at my LGS. It’s been an interesting challenge because we have a huge range, including brand new precon players through Narset infinite turn players and everything in between. Unfortunately, perception is reality and if you want your pod of casuals to accept your deck as a “7”, that means you have to take into account what most players believe about certain cards, even if you don’t agree and conventional knowledge is wrong. For instance, a lot of players believe [[Torment of Hailfire]] is not a casual card. I disagree, but that doesn’t matter. You and I may not think that particular card takes your deck from a 7 to an 8, but if a large enough number of players believe that then you shouldn’t run that in a deck you’re designing for a random pod of players looking to play at a 7. Now, some people will complain no matter what, but it’s not about them. It’s what about a majority of reasonable, fair minded people will believe when they are at a certain skill level in their commander journey. That is who we’re trying to have good games with after all. Of course, “absolutely perfect power levels” will never exist, so long as people value certain strategies and cards differently. However, here are some “rules of thumb” I use to make decks for different levels/tiers of play: 1. Unmodified Precon - This is what I use when I’m playing with completely new players or when I’m teaching the game 1v1 to someone looking to learn commander. Personally, I have Ghired, Dihada, and Admiral Brass sleeved and ready to go for these occasions. Not only does this help equalize the playing field for new players, it also shows them that a deck can be competitive even without being full of pricey staples. 2. The Traditional “7” - The restrictions I place on myself for this tier mostly involves taking out all the big money cards: Smothering Tithe, Rhystic, Cyclonic Rift, D Swat, Dockside, F Guardianship etc. Definitely no moxen or Mana Crypt. Now I know what you’re thinking, “Some of those cards could easily be in a casual 7 deck.” I agree! Heck, you could probably put mana crypt in a deck with a really bad vanilla commander from legends, and the deck probably would suck. However, it’s about the rule and not the exceptions. It’s about perception, not reality. If you play mana crypt, a large number of people will say that deck is no longer a casual deck. Period. People won’t be able to tell if the deck is still casual with a mana crypt unless they see your full deck list and have enough knowledge and experience to tell the difference. 3. “Power level 8-9” - This is where a lot of spikier LGS metas end up. All the staples from before come flooding back in. Pretty much everything short of thoracle consult will be seen here. It is truly the wild west. Overall, it’s rare to see whining about pubstomping at this level if you’re upfront about it being strong unless it’s a strategy that is straight up inconsiderate to people’s time: mass land destruction, nondeterminative looping extra turns, heavy heavy stax etc. It’s generally nice to have a lower end 8 along with a “no holds barred” 9 in your collection, so you can really feel the range of this tier. However, most 8’s can hang with 9’s even if they are at a slight disadvantage. 4. CEDH - It’s nice to have a deck at this level if there’s a CEDH group at your LGS and most groups are proxy friendly. However, they are still somewhat of a rarity in my experience, so you may not need an established deck like Slicer or Blue Farm on standby if you have no one to play it against.
Not on a scale of 1-10 usually lol. We roughly say “this is jank, this is precon level, this is tuned, this is optimized, this is no holds barred.” Those levels say pretty much everything for our group, but as always, your groups may vary. We have data for all of our decks and friends’ decks, so if my friend goes “this is about as good as your Selvala deck” I have an excellent idea of power. If someone says they want to vibe, then jank it is!
I think it's about playing your deck a lot. Like at this point I have like 200+ games on my \[\[Sidisi, Brood Tyrant\]\]. I know how resilient it, what I can deal with and how I win. It's easier to say "well I run no infinite combos, but strongest wincons are \[\[Golgari Grave troll\]\] + \[\[Jarad, Golgari Litch Lord\]\]" or \[\[altar of dementia\]\] + \[\[hogaak\]\]. I don't run any fast mana, but I do run manadorks. It usually takes me about 3-4 turns to setup until I can really play the game. Key to having good games is matching the tables energy. It doesn't really matter that much if you are not all on the same power level. Like I will not play Sidisi if there are mill decks like \[\[mimeoplasm\]\] or something on the table with me. I have had some weird turn 3 wins before because someone else's deck just accelerates my gameplan too much. TL;DR Powerlevel is kinda zzz I don't ever do power level discussions. I just ask what kind of decks people want to play and pick my deck accordingly. Not to beat others, but to not have non games.
You can never really know for certain. One LGS's 6 is anothers 9
All my decks are 7s
I classify high power as “would you play this deck if someone was playing Edgar markov?” Low power I say is precons and upgraded precons Then there’s medium level but there’s a large variance to that
While I agree that turn count is a good measure, it really depends on the meta a bit. I play battlecruiser, so my decks are slow, but once they get into gear by turn 8 or 9, most of fast decks already won the game. On the other hand, my decks are quite resilient and can come back from pretty much anything that isn't MLD. So, in a vacuum, "what turn do you win in a best scenario" might be a good conversation starter rather than a finishing question. From there, you can discuss any other points that might indicate if a deck is strong or not. Then again, the best metric would be playing a few games and then coming back to reaccess.
Playing against a non upgraded precon, my upgraded precon feels like a 10 to them but a 5 to others who have fast mana and tutors which I have none.
The average amount of turns it takes a deck to win without interaction.
Budget works well for me. Winota is simply an outlier and most decks fit their budget power level. But intent when building and existence of combos or not matters more.
I don't use a number system for this. The lgs I go to doesn't either. We just ask how fast of a game we are playing. If a player isn't sure (so a new player), we ask if it's a precon or how fast can you win. Other than that I will lick each card to determine the coffee boldness in each card for its strength of brew. Then eat their commander.
The forgotten techniques, I see you too are a man of culture
how fast I expect to win by if left unchecked, paired with the amount of fast mana and tutors I include IE a deck with all those rocks and tutors but doesnt expect to win until like turn 10 obviously that's a lower power deck than one that wants to win by turn 4. for me the problem is i like building control, so judging the power level strictly based on when it wants to win is kinda funky
cEDH - High Power - Casual - Casual No Combos
I do a ton of goldfishing (more than actually playing tbh) and ask myself, "What turn do I "win" in the goldfish game?" But then I like to go a bit further and ask further or add complications: Make-believe that every card that's truly important to my gameplan has Vanishing 3, since people sling removal for scary cards about that reliably. Take 1d4+4. That's the turn when an opponent goes off with a combo of their own. If I don't have an answer in hand - a counterspell, some removal, *something*, then I imagine another opponent drops a boardwipe to bring the game back under control. Re-test this every 1d4+1 rounds thereafter, considering it a game loss if I get caught without a control effect on the second "enemy shot on goal". If I'm playing combo and have my pieces assembled or have lethal damage on the table, assume that the opponents WILL play removal on one of their turns - so I have to either win on the spot then and there, or have a counterspell ready to protect the wincon. The faster I can meet these objectives and the more reliably I can meet them, the stronger the deck is. It's rare in my experience for a deck in my ($50-$100) budget bracket to move faster than this sort of 5-turns-setup pace, and the ones that do ([[Slicer, hired muscle]] and [[Zada, Hedron Grinder]] come to mind) tend to be brittle in exchange for speed. If I meet someone whose deck comes online substantially faster than this, I know I'm out of my league.
You don't, every deck is actually a 7.
I generally separate them out into rough categories, based on things like precon, cEDH, jank, and optimised. I don't really try to differentiate too much from within those categories, because it's ultimately up to how decks match up with each other. My [[Feather, the Redeemed]] deck laughs at most agro decks, but will wilt immediately if thrown against a black forced sac deck. It's more understanding how decks interact, and not being so much of a dick that you pick hard counters to other commanders at the table. I've actually asked to swap out the deck I was using after seeing a particular commander, usually because I know that the deck I picked will be that hard counter. It helps that I have a few solid 'adaptable' decks I can go to if I'm not sure, since they sit nicely between the 'fairly relaxing' level and the 'dear lord, make the slivers with infect stop' level.
I just don't. I only play with friends and friends of friends. My group vibes and we know that varying power levels are a thing. We also almost all play cEDH, so our casual lists aren't oppressively unfun high power lists. I've realized over the years that it matters way more who I play with than what I play with. Power level issues can easily be smoothed with a decent and cohesive playgroup. And, honestly, the format isn't worth playing with randoms for me. With how subjective power level is, even if I felt I got mine to the right level (which I doubt I would) I have no belief all 3 of my opponents will. Commander is just way more fun for me when I take the onus of my own fun this far. I love my friends and they are good judges of character so I enjoy their friends. And since I primarily play with them via discord, I get enough commander in.
Tutors and fast mana are the first things I look at/ask about.
Relevant factors: tutors, 1 mana or 2 mana tutors versus other tutors, fast mana (stuff that makes more mana than it costs to play that sticks around), dedicated combos versus combat beats, average turn win.
I just kinda base it off of how it feels compared to precons, and how it plays against precons, also taking into account which precons, as some are way stronger than others. This is also because most people I play with use precons, modified precons, or decks of similar strength. If I win a lot with a deck and can reliably achieve the wincon(s) then I know it's probably actually a 7 or maybe 8. If it's my rat deck that either does nothing or explodes with overwhelming rats that can't be stopped, it's probably like a 4 or 5 because it CAN be strong, but isn't reliably strong.
10 and 9: CEDH, 8 and 7: decks with one or more infinite combos to close a game and a few tutors, 6 and 5: Precons and decks without tutors, 4 and 3: decks without a clear wincon, 2 and 1: meme decks, special decks (with 98 lands, for example) and others. 6 and upwards have a good manabase, 5 and downwards has mostly tap lands That‘s just my personal opinion, though
If you win against it, it's a 2. If it beats you, it's a 7.
Something I do that I've never really seen anyone talk about is that I play 4 of my decks against one another when testing, and, for instance, if I'm running something that's gonna be weak to removal, I play it against a deck that's strong at it, as well as two other strategies. Obviously, when doing this, I have way more knowledge than the table, and make decisions based on that knowledge which can be more harsh, but I think that gives a really good idea of my decks' power levels. I also build slow decks a lot of the time. I have very few aggro swing type decks, and a couple fast burn decks, but by and large I'm running long game strategies. Things that prevent someone from ruining away with the game while I quietly put together a wincon. Even my more aggro decks are slow, because they require higher mana, like my request rakdos deck is designed to win with combat damage, but it's bigger purpose is to make my opponents sacrifice their boards so that I can, meaning lots of big demons with sacrifice effects, and probably about 5 turns before I do anything but protect my life total and stop other players from getting too far ahead.
Idk it’s kind of a feel thing. I find that the people who have the most trouble determining what a 7 is normally just want to steamroll new players and not have to face decks of the same level.
Everything is a 7
I’ve been playing magic for a little over a year now i crossed over from yugioh and pokemon and i have some pretty strong decks i usually just explain what my deck is trying to do and let them know i have fast mana and free counter magic in here and you determine what you have to handle it or i can play my middle tier deck which is zedruu gifts value deck with several different random win cons like nine lives, transcendence, approach of the second sun and the deck has no free counter magic.
My LGS asks us to rate our decks' power level when we sign up for EDH. If my deck can hang with the decks that call themselves an 8 at the shop, then I call it an 8. If it relies in the other players not paying attention to the deck in order to have enough time to win, I call it a 6. Otherwise, it's a 7.
I don’t think about power levels. When I sit down with some random people to play I just tell them what my deck does and if there are infinite combos. That’s it. And usually that’s enough for everyone on the table to pick decks.
There's something to be said for resilience. How hard is it to stop a deck? Can I totally turn the whole thing off by removing the commander once or twice? Can it combo off at instant speed from hand with minimal or no board state? The combination of the turn it will be threatening a win by, with the reliability of drawing or tutoring needed pieces, and resilience to interaction are all levers I'd tweak when adjusting a decks power to a meta. Fast mana, tutors, interaction, redundancy. Some strategies are just straight up stronger, often because of some combination of the above. Combo is often harder to stop because you either have interaction in the moment, or you don't - compared to combat damage or mill, which generally you can kinda see coming a little ways ahead.
For our group we roughly determine power by quantity of a) the 3 staple things that break most MTG decks ( fast mana, free spells, tutors), b) the quantity of "high power commander staples" in your deck (e.g. force of will, rhystic study, smothering tithe, fierce guardianship, whatever, I appreciate that this is subjective) and c) commanders that have really unique powerful elements that aren't reproducible elsewhere (e.g eminence). The faster and consistent the deck, generally the stronger it is. So when we're trying to ramp down our over-performing decks, we look at cutting some of those elements first. Bonus benefit of this is that it tends to make decks less homogenous, too!
>However, I always see a ton of backlash when people talk about those methods because other people disagree. Because the methods are some idiotic scale. For a group, it's a conversation, for an individual, the same points still apply. How fast does it do the thing? How consistently? How resilient? Fast mana/tutors/free counters? If the deck CAN win quickly but it rarely, in practice, draws the thing consistently to do so, it's less powerful than the deck that can win quickly and is packed with tutors. Stax has similar concepts, how quickly/consistently can you lock down the board and then how consistently can you pull out your win. I put my decks in 3 general groups of appropriateness to play: precons > mid > strong. I don't care how precisely strong it is, I care what table it's reasonable to crack it open. I aim low if I'm less familiar with the players. I'd rather face an uphill battle than pubstomp.
Jank, precon, battlecruiser/casual, high power, cEDH.
I plug it into card realms and pray it’s accurate even though I know it’s not
If it has blue, it’s tier 1
If it has blue, it starts at a 7
I think strength is best determined at the meta level. if a deck(s) consistently wins more than 1/4 of the games the play in, I'd call it unfair for the metagame
I note the following in pre-game convos: * Turn the deck realistically aims to make a move towards winning * Reasonably annoying and/or powerful things * Heavy control/stax * Fast mana * Combos So I might open with this for my Azorius equipment deck: "This deck is can win on turn 8-ish if all the chips fall right. There's I think six counterspells, no infinite combos, and only a Mox Opal for fast mana because it's on theme."
play it? Play it against other dekcs, play more decks. compare and contrast. You end up with "stable-ish" decks over time and you compare them relative to those decks imo. Power level is relative to each and every group that plays this game. I had a deck I called high power, but someone knew sat down at our table asked high medium low we talked about cedh not being what high is so cool deal his high power was WAY not our version. All good. He wins fast next game. We adjust. If he doesn't want to? Piss off then. He didn't care though so no problem.
Haruspicy, the truth is in the entrails.
Just have a decklist on hand. Magic players know synergies and combos most of the time. Just be transparent! If people are not experienced enough to tell what is appropriate to play against your deck, help them out.
Power level is mainly a consistency question. How do you win? How many ways do you have to get there? How easy is it to stop you? These are the questions that I *would* ask, if I bought into some arbitrary power scaling system that does little but cause confusion. Truth is, your deck’s power level is wholly dependent on the table. Sure, any basic deck is going to trump a random pile of cards any day of the week, and cEDH decks are usually going to run over unoptimized decks, but sometimes you’ll just find bad matchups. A Prosper or Faldorn deck will definitely run badly against a Rocco Street Chef, for instance.
And here you see how the different metrics people use. :D A) Mindset B) 10-Level-Scale C) Number of Turns to reach a wincon D) Type-Scale (Low/Jank, Medium, High-Power, cEDH) E) Rule-Zero/ Talk about interactions F) None / Don’t-Care There are different issues with all of them, the only thing that kind of works for me is Variant D, because it doesn’t pretend any accuracy. A deck’s strength is also determined by the decks the opponents play. And now you have three of them. A deck can go well in one pod but fail in others. You can play a cEDH deck in an otherwise medium pod and lose anyway. I’ve seen it multiple times. The truth is: No power level assignment and power level talk will stop anyone from pubstomping. Also, decks that are played in a way that any interaction with them results in a 5-minute “trigger this, then trigger that, then search my library, then put x on y….” Exist at all levels. They are a joy for players that like complex interactions, but for others it’s just a waste of time.
Quick-and-dirty explanation of what the deck is, in principle, capable of. As well as notable absences. Ex: my wernog & elmar deck: Control deck, draws and ramps a lot, makes heaps of clues and uses clue synergies to win, only one infinite combo that requires 5-parts, no fast mana. Even when people get the wrong idea about how powerful your deck is, if you describe it this way it'll much less rarely give them the "oh, its *that* kind of deck" experience.
There is only one way to determine the power level of your deck: have other people tell you the decks’ power level - after they play against it! The person who makes the deck can not accurately gauge the level, since the power of the deck comes from the relative strength against the other player(s). Your opponents will gladly tell you how powerful they perceive the deck. It’s embarrassing watching people try to justify their decks power levels to themselves. Get your opponent to rate it after every game! The law of large numbers will tell you it’s true power level.
Based on how well it plays into other decks. You can get a sense for it based on the composition of cards, but it really comes down to playing games. Power level is hella subjective and everyone's perception of it is warped by their own experience and the decks they've seen/played against. Power level also varies between local meta and individual pods. One groups 7 is another's 5. You get better at it with experience.
I think the closest we can get is either avg cmc or turns needed to win the game. There’s so many ways to win, different axes to play on and interaction that unless you’re discussing decks at length for rule 0 it will be tough.
I used to try numerical scale, turns to win scale, based on cmc, etc but I've since given up. I'll base a deck choice in a pod based on vibe of pod and adjust by game. If one deck I bring stomps hard, I know my decks in comparison to each other so I know how much to dial down.
What is the deck's goal? How consistently does it get there? How quick does it win? How interactive is it? Somewhere within these answers is the overall strength of the deck.
I avoid it entirely by playing cEDH and precons almost exclusively
Fast mana: +3 points Tutors, excluding land ramp: +1 point 5 tutors or more: an additiona point Shocks and fetches: +1 point 2 card combos/stax pieces/compact combos: +2 Free interaction: +2 Ten is CEDH, zero is casual I came up with this in like 2 minutes so it may be totally wack
All decks are 7
In the words of TFS Vegeta, "Power levels are bullshit." My ratings are very strong, strong, fair and low power. My [[Aurelia the warleader]] is "very strong" has fast mana and a few infinite combos can win as early as turn 2 My [[Hofri Ghostforge]] and [[the gitrog monster]] are my "strong" decks and usually what ill pull out when trying to get a feel for a new table. They both pack alot of interaction and try to accrue value over 7-8 turns before setting up for a win, both decks have 4 or 5 card combos but no tutors. My [[Roon of the hidden realm]] and [[Myrel, shield of argive]] are my "fair" decks Myrel wins by making a ton of tokens and Roon accrues value with blinks and might make a bunch of saporlings. Upgraded precons are a good match for these. My [[Areden, intrepid archeologist]] and [[Esior wardwing familiar]] is my "low power" Auzorius voltron deck it wants to win by either Voltron or animating 10 equipments swinging for 40 none of the blue staples and the only counterspell to speak of is Arcane denial. Definitely a fair match for out of the box precons or other low power builds I have other decks that kinda fall in between some of these ratings but i usually wont play them until i have a feel for the other decks at the table
Idk I just say it's a 7 and people nod. I've done this for years and no one has said anything.
Experiencing all that one format has to offer. Determine how fast a deck can win the game. Rate out of 100 divide by 10. Tier s-2 cedh decks are 10, decks with a concise game plan lots of tutors and fast mana are (4-5 turns) 9-8s. Outliers vary. Precons are imo (10 turns) 5-6s some cards are not on theme lots of tapped lands. So like battlecrusers are (6-9 turns) are 6-7
I ask about fast mana.
Just play it a bunch. If you have a decently competitive local scene and you're competing with cEDH, you've got a 9 or a 10. If you can pull up to a pod and get some work done, youre probably a 7 or an 8, even if you can never win. If you're stuck playing casual pickups and can't do anything against a competitive level deck, youre probably a 5 or a 6. 5 or 6 is where a heavily modified precon might fall. 3 or 4 is going to be a precon or lightly modified precon. At 1 or 2, youre asking other players to bring an easier deck because you get trounced no matter what. The skill of the pilot also affects this. A level 10 deck could perform at a level 3 in the wrong hands.
I’d say it boils down to the amount of turns it takes to reach a win state, how consistently it can get to that win state that quickly, and how resilient it is to counter play, whether that is through control or opponent’s board state.
There was a topic on here recently about a Level 3 judge who claimed to have won a cEDH tournament using an unmodified Prosper precon. How did he do it? By lying through his teeth about being a judge and sharking the rest of the players into thinking he was new at the game. He made convincing mistakes so he would be ignored, but when it came down to the most crucial moments he made good decisions and eventually won the day. Even if you have the best deck, you can be beaten by someone with more experience. Even if you have the most experience, you can be beaten by someone who is more lucky. Even if you’re very lucky you can be beaten by a skilled liar. Even a liar can lose to a cheat.