Power, With Resposibility
PEDH PHILOSOPHY AND MISSION STATEMENT
POWER, WITH RESPONSIBILITY.
The pEDH format seeks to embody this short and sweet sentence.
We’re not here to hold hands around a campfire and eat S’Mores.
We’re here to metaphorically kill each other. This is war, and war is ugly.
But, with great power, comes great responsibility. In life, you’ll be professionally placed into positions of power; naturally, through the course of events, you’ll come into competition with the outside world around you.
Hence, the moniker, of pEDH: Power, With Responsibility.
It can be readily agreed upon that EDH/Commander is a vintage-light format with a game zone dedicated to its namesake: the Command Zone. A zone in which your General, now known as your Commander, leads your army into battle against two to three other armies at the same time (and sometimes, more). It’s a format where temporary alliances are made, and then broken. Where treason and treachery are commonplace. Where we are gracefully playful to each other under the auspices of “the spirit of the format”, and anything that’s unfun is ruled out of the gamespace.
We, are none of that, because we accept the fact that war is ugly. That, and "fun" is a relative concept.
Here, we cast off the masks of chivalry. Here, we know that great leaps forward require severe risks. Here, we are not afraid to express that.
Negotiations are done. We are not here to negotiate a peace summit. This, is the multiplayer version of thermonuclear war.
Welcome to Thunderdome. This is pEDH. Embrace it.
A Rationale for the Format.
There is a cognizant difference in the frame of mind of the average EDH/Commander player, and the Competitive EDH/Commander, or cEDH, player. To fully understand the scope of this divide, let’s look at each one separately.
One seeks to express themselves with wonky deck designs and hilarious interactions.
The other, seeks to express itself through consistency, reliability, and lethality.
One seeks to be “something other than a tournament format in which players consider each other’s experiences alongside their own.”
The other, defines itself by the “Turn 4 Relevancy Principle”, which asks very simply, “Do you have the capacity to kill the table by turn 4 consistently, or can you consistently lock the table out from doing so by that same timeframe?”.
EDH gameplay generally plays itself out like an elaborate pillow-fight, until someone pulls out a chainsaw.
cEDH seeks to take format of EDH to its furthest possible deck design limits, and then break them, within the confines of the EDH rule set.
cEDH is not a format of its own, but rather the same format as EDH, but with a different frame of mind and approach. Both of which are valid, within their own contexts.
And this is where pEDH comes in; some cEDH’ers have recognized that peaceful co-existence is not possible within the same gamespace of EDH. Some of us believe that it is possible to play with whatever you want, as long as you do it responsibly, because your gameplan is offset by two to three other opponents, doing the same thing you are.
The social contract is alive and well here. And that social contract, is that we expect our opponents in pEDH to throw everything but the kitchen sink at us.
A Rationale for a Point System.
In order to understand this rationale, let’s look to our neighbor to the North. Canada.
Our neighbor to the north has devised a format which has taken Vintage-style 60 Card Magic, and adapted it into a 100 card Highlander format. That format, is Canadian Highlander, commonly called CanLander for short.
In Canadian Highlander, a 1 on 1 gamespace involving the strongest cards in Magic are commonly played, and highly regulated, through a point system. In this point system, you’re allowed a maximum of 10 points for your 100 card deck.
But remember: That format is specifically designed for one on one play. And you’re playing at a starting life of 20.
So, how does this translate to Commander?
Commander is a multiplayer format, with a unique characteristic-defining design space: the command zone. CanLander, doesn’t have that. Likewise to offset this, Commander has an explicit banlist; CanLander does not, with the exception of a few very specific cards, chief among them being Shahrazad.
But who says that they can’t be blended together? (They’re both Highlander variants, right?) Australian Highlander is a 7-point, 60-card singleton variant that also uses the Vintage banlist, with a point list based on the size of the deck, and German Highlander is a 100 card singleton variant with a straight up banlist.
But again, these are also one on one formats. These formats don’t take into consideration the multiplayer nature of the gamescape that is Commander.
But who says you can’t have your cake and eat it, too? Who says you can’t have cereal for dinner or pizza for breakfast?
Well, we believe you can. You can, but the trade-off is that you can only do whatever you want as long as you're willing to accept the consequences of your actions. For example, you're free to sleep in and be late to your job, as long as you're willing to get fired. You're free to go to a movie, as long as you buy a ticket to get in.
pEDH is no different. To regulate the degeneracy inherent to the format, a point system is installed as a safeguard to make sure that you can go overboard, as long as you do it in a controlled manner.
In this format, just like in cEDH, we strive for turn 4 relevancy. We seek to lock out the table by turn 4, or win by turn 4. And to that end, the point system is reflected to aim to that goal.
You'll notice that the bar is set fairly high; 30 points high, in fact. So, why 30 points, you ask? The reasoning is rather simple: in CanLander your deck's power level normally only accounts for 1 opponent; here, we have to account for 2 to 3 other people playing against you, on the same power level.
Under Rule 13 of the Rules Page, you'll find a full breakdown of the number of points associated with each card. Here, besides the cards are from the CanLander point system, you'll also notice cards that are bracketed: these are cards from the Commander gamespace that are either legal from that format, or have been banned from that format, that were not on the original point list from Canadian Highlander. This means that in addition to adopting the point system of CanLander, certain specific cards have been pointed due to their problematic nature in the cEDH gamespace.
Welcome To Thunderdome: A Final Word on pEDH.
Life is hard sometimes, and change is even harder. As the format grows and evolves, the point system, as well as the rules, are subject to modification, based on how the meta game evolves and takes shape.
Regardless of whatever may happen from here, the intention of crafting this format since day one has been one of cultivating degeneracy in a controlled manner. And it plans to stay that way.
After all, our format's perspective is that if everything's broken, then everything's fixed. Commander's worked on that unspoken principle for years and if there's anything that they got right, it's definitely that.
Sources:
1. http://highlandermagic.info/ German Highlander
2. https://canadianhighlander.wordpress.com/ Canadian Highlander
3. http://mtgcommander.net Elder Dragon Highlander