How to make a -proper- EDH Room

by **BlackWyvern** » 24 Mar 2017, 07:14

We all should know what the room create interface should look like, but, I don't think we all UNDERSTAND it. So, in this post I'm going to be comprehensively explaining what each option is, does, and why you should be using it.

I will be explaining every option, but I will mark the options that YOU REALLY SHOULD PROBABLY READ.

Name:

| Open: ► What is it / what does it do?
Unsurprisingly, this is where you name your room.

► Why should I use it?
Sure, people often times overlook room names, but you can use it to request decks without combos, infinites, or just about anything else. Now, it's still up to the players themselves to respect that, so <insert name of people we all know to be jerks about any/everything> will still join and ruin your day anyway.

TIME LIMIT:

| Open: ► What is it / what does it do?
This setting sets the absolute hard limit on how long a player can spend playing ALL of their turns.

► Why should I use it?
THIS IS ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT SETTINGS YOU SHOULD ALWAYS BE USING, OMFG. That said, this setting is often misunderstood, so let me explain; but first...

SETTING A ROOM TIME FOR 120 MINUTES IS JUST AS BAD AS SETTING A ROOM WITHOUT A LIMIT. Just don't do it, and if you do, stop. Ahem, now then.

If you want to think of it as a function of the absolute longest a GAME CAN BE, then you have to multiply this value by the number of players joining your room. So setting a 120 minute four player match means that if you all somehow manage to stalemate, that's going to be an EIGHT HOUR GAME. Yeah, that sounds like so much fun. Setting a game time of 30 minutes means that at most you're setting yourself up for a much more reasonable and realistic two hour game.

However, it's better to look at it this way: That combo deck with the mob bouncing commander that has 27 enter-the-battlefield effects? Yeah, you know that guy. His turns take like 10 minutes each and are physically painful. By setting the game time limit to something reasonable like 30 minutes, he can only take THREE of his excruciatingly long turns before he AUTOMATICALLY LOSES FOR BEING A JERK.

I usually advise setting this value to something between 30 and 50 minutes at most. Anything too short, and you'll be killing people (or yourself), and anything too long allows people to go AFK for a soda, go to the bathroom, and watch the next two episodes of Dragon Maid while their Magic Missile sits in stack waiting for them to hit done.

Password:

| Open: ► What is it / what does it do?
It sets a password for your game.

► Why should I use it?
This should be pretty self-explanatory. If you only want to invite your select group of Hug Deck friends and spend an hour buffing each other into oblivion, this is how you would do it.
(Also I suggest trying that sometime, it's rather funny. [Especially if you go in with a deck with cards like Confusion in the Ranks, Possibility Storm, and Grip of Chaos] )

Deck Type:

| Open: ► What is it / what does it do?
Sets the auto-check function for XMage to determine if a selected deck is legal.

► Why should I use it?
Because you have to. If you want an EDH room, you have to use this option specifically.

Rated Checkbox:

| Open: ► What is it / what does it do?
It sets whether or not XMage should take note of the results of this match and (in/de)crement your constructed/limited rating.
I... Honestly don't know any more than that. It's more a modern thing. Also think it applies to tournaments. Again, more a modern thing.

► Why should I use it?
I honestly say don't. I know it's a more popular option in more traditional deck modes though, so if you don't want to mess with your account stats in that regard, it's better to fear the unknown and just not poke at it. If I ever learn what use it has in EDH, I'll update the post. -shrug-

ALLOWED QUIT %:

| Open: ► What is it / what does it do?
This is another one of those terribly misunderstood and never used options that are REALLY BLOODY IMPORTANT (If you want to play fair and fun games.)

► Why should I use it?
Those jerks with those troll combo decks, turn 2 eldrazi spam, Oloro King of Armchair pillowforts, and whatever other generally annoying trollish decks have a tendency of ragequitting the moment someone counters them. Bunch of immature children. However, this can work for our advantage! Every time they concede and quit, XMage makes a note of that on their account. If you want to see, look at the matches column of the connected players window.

The (Q:4) next to my name means that I have only conceded and quit four games of the 82 I have played. This gives me an overall ~4.88% quit rate. We all know XMage is kinda buggy, and broken, so no one will have a 100% participation rate after a while. But our jerk friends? They sit at 40-70% quit rates. That means if you set the allowed quit rate to something like say... 15% you will NEVER see those guys in your room. Sounds like a good deal to me.

EDH POWER LEVEL:

| Open: ► What is it / what does it do?
Our tools against the trolls don't stop at just quit percentage. Anyone can make a smurf. But making a balanced and fair DECK? That's a lot harder to do. This option also allows us to selectively BAN COLORS. OMFG NO MORE BLUE F- YO COUCH DECKS!

► Why should I use it?
Because blue is a terribly broken and overpowered color in EDH. I know it, you know it, and anyone who runs a blue control/recursion deck knows it.

Now, as far as I can tell https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1GmTEAv50uxMtgWKL5K0eL5wA4wVGRVWswgNl7a_0zm0/edit#gid=0 is the most complete list of EDH card powers by the guy who actually implemented the system. It seems pretty decent. As for how EDH Power Level is calculated? ... I have no idea. One source on reddit says it's the aggregate total of all cards divided by 2.5, another just says it's the numbers in the spreadsheet simply added together. If I could get a solid answer on this, that would be fantastic.

However, saying that, I can give you some examples of what does.
I'll use a few decks of mine..

My Darien Mono-White soldier spam lifegen deck is a 34.
Twisted Reality, my Red-Blue troll deck that uses cards like Scrambleverse, Confusion in the Ranks, Possibility Storm, Grip of Chaos, Shimmer, Eye of the Storm, and more Fork effects that anyone can shake a stick at.. Is a 42.
YOU SHALL NOT CAST, another Blue-Red deck with 40 Counterspells is a 47.
Group Hug, RGYU Super Gay Bros is a 48
Uncontrolled Growth, a Mono-Green deck around ABSOLUTELY STUPID amounts of ramp and token generation scores a 57.
And a professional Red-Green dragons deck based on a published MTG Championship build is a solid 51.

So I'd have to say if you want a fair game, you should put the power to something around 35-50.
THAT BEING SAID an Eldrazi deck with all of the most obscene things I could put in it ranked a measly 30. So, that's a bit troublesome.

HOWEVER, as I stated before, we can also use this option to ban ENTIRE COLORS. So lets explain that.
What color gets banned is based on the number in the 1's digit. (It's actually based on Power % 10, but people don't actually know what modulus is usually.)
So to ban each specific color, this is what you do:
Ban Green: x1
Ban Red: x2
Ban Black: x3
Ban Blue: x4
Ban White: x6

This means a power of 44 will not only restrict the deck power to that, but also ban any and ALL blue cards from being in someone's deck. It will give them a happy little dialog box if they don't meet requirements. (Unfortunately there's no way to just ban a list of specific cards. I think that would be too server-intense.)

All that being said, if anyone has some suggestions on where specific cards should be power wise, /u/spjspj4 looks to be the one to contact about that.

Game Type:

| Open: ► What is it / what does it do?
Sets how many players you want to allow into your room. (Kind of)

► Why should I use it?
You have to. But, if you want two players only, then you have to set this option to Commander Two Player Duel

ALLOW ROLLBACKS:

| Open: ► What is it / what does it do?
It allows players to request redos and rollbacks of turns. It's also broken and incredibly buggy and will more often than not kill your EDH game.

► Why should I use it?
Don't. Uncheck it. No one will think less of you for it. That ~4.88% quit rate on my account? That's because of Rollback bug.

FREE MULLIGANS:

| Open: ► What is it / what does it do?
Allows players to mulligan to 7 cards x number of times instead of losing cards every draw.

► Why should I use it?
Commander is a much more... Fickle.. game mode compared to Modern modes. And XMage doesn't exactly like people somedays. So it's usually polite to set mulligans to atleast 1, if not 3-4 for good measure. There's nothing like having to mulligan 6 times to get more than one land in a deck with 40 in library.

Players:

| Open: ► What is it / what does it do?
Sets the number of players, duh.

► Why should I use it?
Cuz, you have to. But, if you want two player games, you will need to change the Game Type. Read above for that.

RANGE OF INFLUENCE:

| Open: ► What is it / what does it do?
This determines how far away from you spells and monsters can affect other players. If you're playing a multiplayer game you will need to adjust this setting.

► Why should I use it?
If you have a four player game, and range of influence is only set to ONE, you will not be able to affect or attack the player directly diagonal from you in the table. This problem only gets worse with more players. (Not that Xmage can really handle displaying more players very gracefully.) TWO or ALL fixes this problem for four player games.

ATTACK OPTION:

| Open: ► What is it / what does it do?
This is somewhat similar to Range of Influence, but more annoying.

► Why should I use it?
If you have ROF set to ALL, but Attack Option to Right or Left, you will be able to cast cards that affect all players, but you will only be able to ATTACK players to your immediate right or left. This is more of a Modern thing, but if you're playing with friends in a private room, could make for some interesting games.

Skill Level:

| Open: ► What is it / what does it do?
It's similar to the room name, wherein it defines the type of players you would like to see in your room. However, this is rarely the case when you end up with players with highly tuned jerk decks flooding in.

► Why should I use it?
It's an extra layer of the fabled player-player trust. New people commonly look at that and kind of get an idea what kind of game they're getting into. However, since no one actually uses this option anymore, it's pretty much Curb Stomp Cereal with a great surprise in every box! (Not part of a balanced breakfast)

WINS:

| Open: ► What is it / what does it do?
Sets the number of rounds to play.

► Why should I use it?
Because if you set this to any more than one, YOU ARE A TERRIBLE PERSON AND YOU SHOULD GO SIT IN THE CORNER.

Most EDH games are significantly longer than modern variants. And since we can't use the sideboard, a deck that is completely useless against that one particular guy last game is going to be equally as useless the next two you're going to be sitting through unless everyone concedes and gets a negative quit mark on their account. That's bad for everyone.