Should competitive EDH be a thing?

Hey all, I've been thinking a bit on our results on ban lists for EDH and cEDH and how they differed and I've come up with this question? Should Competitive EDH be it's own format?

Now we all know that people will play at different levels of commander, we all know that different folks have different interests so naturally, there will be a bit of discussion on whether or not anything should be done.

First let's start with a history lesson, because naturally when you're online you want to learn things.

This look familiar? That's because it's from the Duel Commander official website.
For a while, I always thought that Duel Commander and Regular were made at the same time but no, Duel commander actually  got its origins from Level 5 Kevin Desprez, who brought the initial idea of Elder Dragon Highlander to France from the USA, before it spread across Europe and now gains over the rest of world. The main difference is that players build decks with an eye toward 1 versus 1 duel rather than multiplayer. The game is played by two opponents only, starts with 20 health points, and obeys the same rules as a regular Magic The Gathering game, one commander (or commanders with Partner ability) plus 99 (98) cards in the starting library. The mulligan system is the same as for sanctioned formats, and the construction rules follow the same color identity rule as the multiplayer version does. The rules and updates are currently published on a Facebook page using notes.

On a totally unrelated topic don't you guys just love Wikipedia?

But seriously, why hasn't this been done to make cEDH more of a thing?
Duel Commander has been successful for nearly a decade now and shows no sign of going away. For as long as I can remember there have been commander players who build decks not in "The spirit of EDH" but to absolutely dominate tables.

Both methods are totally fine but don't exactly interact well with another. I'm sure casual players won't miss the Brago stax deck or Ad Naseum combo deck in the meta and the competitive decks obviously don't care about playing against Pirate Tribal.


Now there are some things I need to address as well.

There are formats and fads. Formats like Legacy, Standard, Commander, and Duel have been around a long time and show no signs of stopping.
Fads like Tiny Leaders and Frontier (Oh shots fired, I'm totally kidding) are cool for a month or two but die out. Competitive EDH has been around long enough that I think making it a real thing would be better for the players.

Now I'm just some handsome, Smart, and Perfect fella but I can't really say how to get this started or who should be put in "Charge" of bannings or whatever but I can say that if we never try we won't get anywhere. I can't begin to tell you how often I see people get riled up (Usually around bannings) and talk about making their own thing, but you know what? It never happens. Usually, because no one wants to take charge and really start going forward. I can't say I'm much different honestly, all I'm doing here is going rabble rabble rabble and not really suggesting much, why not, though? The popularity is there, the ideals are there, and the players are definitely there.


We already know that the regular EDH committee doesn't tailor the format towards competitive players, and that's totally fine. It's their baby and if they want to build it towards their own ideals then more power to them. However, there is no reason that another format couldn't be built with different ideology.



So let's get into it. I've whined about the same thing for a few paragraphs now. If we were to start the format today what would we need? Well a committee firstly, we need dedicated players (Looking at you Competitive EDH Reddit) to make their own ban list and rules. This really wouldn't change much. Maybe reduce the life total to 30 so Ad Naseum and Necro aren't as broken and aggro can have a breather of a chance (Probably not).
I did a poll on which cards should or shouldn't be banned in commander and Competitive. I think looking at that again with more competitive players in mind and getting more ideas on which cards are safe to unban and maybe look at a few competitive offenders (Hermit druid, Ad Naseum, Necro, Mana crypt).

Granted that isn't too much to start with but remember that Duel commander started with the same ban list as regular and evolved into it's own thing from there.
They had the passion (Check), the people (Check), and the decks (Check) to make it happen.


Finally, there will be people that will argue that the demand for this isn't there and to those people, I say this:

If there wasn't interest then why is there a tier list?
(http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/list-multiplayer-edh-generals-by-tier/)


There is so much discussion there on which generals are competitive, Optimized builds, and how to improve other generals.



Not enough? How about a Reddit page
(https://www.reddit.com/r/CompetitiveEDH/)

On top of this, there are constant remarks on regular EDH Reddit on players who want to improve their decks and they ask the competitive players for input. There are plenty of times where I get messages from people asking "How can I make X better?" or "Can you help me improve against Y?"
Now if people weren't interested in making their own decks better than why would this be the case?

Finally, you could argue that these people are in the minority, that's likely the case. I can also say that Modern players outnumber Legacy players.
Does that make Legacy any less of a format? Of course not. The issue with money can be daunting when most competitive EDH lists are thousands of dollars but there are always fantastic budget options.


https://www.reddit.com/r/CompetitiveEDH/comments/4akekw/primer_building_budget_yisan_200/

http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/sub-50-mono-goblin-storm/


Not to mention the entire 2DH community which optimizes decks for turn 5/6 kills with cards that are ALL under 2 dollars.

I'll leave you with this.
The cards are out there, the people are out there, the passion is out there.
Why are we so lazy and haven't done anything yet?



tl:dr
Yes

(Note, I don't want people to think it's about segregating the players, I just think having both extremes tailored to would help a lot)



DoomBlade, Signing out.




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