by Ken Baumann
What is a game? An activity during which people experience failure and success while using limited resources to solve well-defined problems. Like life, games feature consequential choices and at least partially unpredictable outcomes; unlike life, games make progress tangible—and can be repeated. Games are the best occasions for easily, quickly, and frequently experiencing the pain-pleasure cycle of self-improvement.
With this definition in mind, imagine a cheat code that lets you press one button to beat a video game. Most gamers would choose not to use that code because doing so would defeat the purpose of playing, an act which requires the possibility of failure. Chess and poker have been "solved" since the deployment of data-rich computer programs, yet humans continue to play these games competitively in order to struggle with and against each other, moving measurably closer to a humane optimality. Enjoying that process is why competitors usually loathe easy wins; even in a casual setting, most players usually choose not to cheat.
Now let's break Magic: The Gathering. Imagine a card that causes you to win every game and requires no resources. Say it's a colorless zero mana instant whose text box reads "Split second / You win the game. / A deck can have any number of cards named [this broken bullshit]." This card would obviously be the most optimal game piece with respect to winning in the whole of Magic: The Gathering's history. It would simultaneously be the least optimal card with respect to having fun.
Now let's imagine the best move ever made in a social game, like the social game that takes place during a round of cEDH (i.e. competitive Commander). Let's picture a silent, quick gesture—a wink!—that immediately persuades every opponent to concede. Tournaments including the most win-optimal card ever printed (pre-nerf) and the best social move ever made would essentially be deterministic: whoever could wink the fastest would win, or, if for some reason a game actually began—say by players avoiding each other's gaze—whoever was able to put the winning card on the stack first would win. In other words, for a mildly attentive observer, the outcome of tournaments would become predictable.
So let's make our game-ruining card and gesture each a bit worse. Let's say the card now requires the minimum resource: it costs one generic mana to cast. And let's say the gesture only works 50% of the time. That card would still ruin every format in which it was legal, and that wink would still produce a lot of non-games, but there would still exist a small possibility of meaningful games being played. How? With respect to the broken card, by mana screw or mana flood, i.e. by not successfully pairing the broken card with its required input; with respect to the wink, by social counterplay, inattentiveness, or both. In other words, the game of Magic: The Gathering is made meaningful by the possibility of failure. Novelty and consequence follow the introduction of well-defined problems.
We can deduce from this thought experiment the following principle: Fun is a product of rarefying optimality. Or: Gameplay must be suboptimal in order to be surprising and progressive. Or: Good games delay the gratification of mastery. And now we can deduce some consequences for my favorite game: cEDH.
What is optimal in cEDH, a multiplayer combo format paired with a social game? Accruing cards and mana as efficiently and frequently as possible then winning whenever you want. Reasonably, the 2026 tournament meta in the United States has centralized around pairing passive and asymmetrical engines like Rhystic Study and Smothering Tithe with flash enablers like Borne Upon a Wind and Valley Floodcaller. This has created one of the least enjoyable metas in the game's history; most tournament grinders would gladly ban Rhystic Study if given the chance, hence the pejorative label for decks constructed optimally: "Slop." The consequences of strictly win-optimal deck design and gameplay on tournaments are bad logistically, bad aesthetically, and bad phenomenologically. Games and events become homogenous and predictable, and when games are both, they are practically dead.
Any competitive game whose stewards want it to thrive must maintain a context in which frequent experimentation exists between the poles of optimality and dysfunction; the nearer a game gets to either pole, the more it risks collapse. Players and designers can increase optimality and reduce dysfunction in many ways, e.g. by finding the best deck or improving mana production (e.g. the introduction of Treasure tokens), respectively. Players and designers can reduce optimality and increase dysfunction in many ways, e.g. by playing rogue decks or banning cards (e.g. the banning of Dockside Extortionist), respectively. This dialectic is good! It creates a healthy game, meaning a game that consistently produces well-defined problems.
But I should affirm that pursuing perfection is a great source of pleasure. One can use the broken card and gesture above as indices against which you can compare cards and tabletalk; every card and action can be examined through the lens of win-optimality, and such examinations help competitors stay honest. Assessing cards, decks, tactics, and strategies in terms of input and output, and being brutally honest during these analyses, is part of the shared culture by which the pace and power of cEDH is established. But seeking optimality at all costs often requires a player to sacrifice precious leisure time in some kind of "grind"; competitors often deaden for themselves the mysteries, tensions, and pleasures that keep people playing. Thus in order to sustainably compete and innovate, a player must work towards fulfilling goals that are personal, even private, alongside the goals that are more obviously incentivized (like winning events). Even Michael Jordan, arguably the most win-obsessed athlete in recent history, wanted to clown on Larry Bird just as bad as he wanted to bury the Celtics.
Reacting to the homogeneity in competitive 1v1 metas, Commander's designers formulated the game to be anti-competitive. The singleton rule enforced novelty and dysfunction; the life totals rewarded longer games with less predictable matchups and outcomes; the social game added the incalculably complex domain of manipulation and performance. cEDH is fun, and easily the most dynamic way to play competitive Magic, but it must feature suboptimal decks and decisions—it must be a home for experimentation—in order to be a good and healthy game. cEDH should feel like a big and shifting set of unsolved problems—not a game solvable by casting, copying, and stealing Rhystic Study.
More tangibly, cEDH would be a better game if all its caretakers were to:
- Unban as many cards as possible in order to increase experimentation in deck design and play styles;
- Ban cards that overly-centralize deck design, play style, and event metas (e.g. in 2026, passive, asymmetrical engines and/or flash enablers);
- Reward and strengthen combat (i.e. the act of reducing the game's third resource);
- Quicken the ability of stax (i.e. rule narrowing) decks to win;
- Balance blue's power with that of Magic's other four colors;
- Change tournament rules to incentivize novelty, reduce draws, and better manage player fatigue.
Lacking intervention from cEDH's governing body, players are invited to practice the magic trick of optimizing for cooler ends. In my extensive experience, cEDH is a better game when winning is a byproduct of learning. And though this format is a strong demonstration of the interrelation of these two ends, cEDH games should maximize pleasure every step of the way—not just the ephemeral thrill of securing a victory. Play is the process of delaying terminal gratification. Or: We need an erotics of games.
Ken Baumann is a writer who lives in New Mexico.
