As we sit in the lull between Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty and Streets of New Capenna seasons, it’s time to reflect on how we’ve played paper Magic for the last two years: over webcam. Webcam play has been a tremendous success and is a significant factor in our game getting through the pandemic in a reasonably healthy form. While it’s been a huge net positive, there have also been some difficulties.
Commander battlefield states are already confused enough. When you’re not in the same physical space as the other three players, parsing what’s on the battlefield can be trying at best. There are some cards or classes of cards that amplify the problem, cards which you might want to consider setting aside for webcam play.
Inclusion on this list isn’t negative commentary on a particular card; most of them are cards we want to play in person. They unfortunately make playing and tracking the webcam game more difficult, creating barriers to effectively playing the game simply by their very nature.
Types of Problematic Cards
We can think of the problematic cards in one of two major ways. First are cards that search an opponent’s library, especially if you’re getting a card or cards and keeping them secret. I think there’s now a feature on Spelltable so that you can block other players’ view of searching another player’s library, but I have yet to see it in use. Sometimes, players have their decklists available, so they can just DM it to the player doing the searching and have them pick something.
The next class of cards are those which simply put too many opponents’ permanents on your side of the battlefield—the kinds that will stress out your InfiniTokens collection. We’re not talking a card like Storm Herd or Avenger of Zendikar, which put out cards that you can track with a single token and a die. This one is about a bunch of different cards, like mass graveyard resurrection. Since you don’t have the art, it’s difficult to see at a glance what they are. If they have a great deal of text, you’ll end up having to look it up in Scryfall or whatever resource you use.
The good news is that these cards are eminently playable in person. They’re often good, fun, and/or compelling cards. While they may be awkward in webcam play, they’re enjoyable in in-person games. The cards at the top of the list are the least offenders. As we get farther down, you’ll see that they’re a little more awkward. For each card, I’ll identify why it’s awkward for webcam play, as well as some positives to look forward to once we return to playing in person.
Honorable Mention: Mindslaver
One Mindslaver is fine. Multiple recursions become that joke that gets less funny every time you tell it. Since only the normal controller and the Mindslaver player have knowledge of what’s in the former’s hand, it’s difficult to share (although opening a DM channel should solve that). Mostly, Mindslaver serves as a game-ender for someone or just a win condition when it’s down to two players and you have a full lock. It’s an eye-rolly card live or on camera, but one that can be worked around reasonably enough.
Honorable Mention: Zedruu the Greathearted
The play pattern of Zedruu is in itself problematic for webcam play. The whole goal is to give away permanents. We love our InfiniTokens, but there’s a critical mass you get to at some point. Making things worse is that Zedruu tends to be pretty grindy since you’re giving away suboptimal things. If you’re not killing folks with Illusions of Grandeur, games can get pretty bogged down.
20. Grip of Chaos
This one’s really tedious even in paper. Selecting targets at random from stuff you can’t even see is the worst of the worst.
19. Grimoire Thief
This card with a prototype version of the inspired mechanic could be part of a pretty savage mill engine, since you’re exiling cards instead of putting them into the graveyard. If you’re playing it alongside Opposition and anything that untaps it, including Seedborn Muse, you can get multiple mills a turn cycle. What makes it tricky is that you’re allowed to look at these face-down cards and the owner can’t. It seems unlikely that you’d ever use the sacrifice ability to counter something, but you never know.
18. Expropriate
Expropriate is high on salt score lists. With experienced players, everyone generally votes for money, giving the player control of something instead of a pile of extra turns. That one extra turn that they’ve voted for themselves may lead to a game-ending scenario, especially since they’ve stolen big, scary stuff. What keeps Expropriate from being lower on the list is that it exiles itself. It’s extremely difficult to use multiple times (although there are definitely ways).
17. Cultural Exchange
We’re not talking a single exchange, like with Gilded Drake, which is easily represented by a couple of InfiniTokens, but a massive one that will turn the battlefields under two cameras to seas of white and dry erase. This card is cool when used with a token strategy to get some real upgrades—and you don’t want to sleep on the idea of exchanging three or four instead of waiting for the big sweep that might never happen. Of course, the hilarity comes when you exchange battlefields of two other players, keeping yourself out of it.
16. Head Games
A card that we’ve actually seen played on the Commander RC stream, Head Games’s saving grace vis-à-vis webcam play is that you can just instruct the player to fill their hand with lands. It’s an effective discard spell, but looking through the opponents’ library can get pretty tedious, with decision trees that’ll likely slow down your games.
15. Confusion in the Ranks
This one can go haywire in a tabletop game, let alone when you’re not in person. Everything (well, at least not lands or planeswalkers) gets exchanged, creating another battlefield that’s represented by more InfiniTokens than anything else.
14. Bribery
This one also includes Knowledge Exploitation and Acquire, as well as anything else that searches an opponent’s library and then puts something onto the battlefield or casts it. Part of the search problem can be mitigated by the targeted player just providing a decklist, letting the caster read instead of trying to see the whole deck on camera. Bribery is obviously very popular in paper games. Nothing says joy like smashing someone with their own big beefy boi.
13. Pako, Arcane Retriever
Pako is higher up on the list than Etali, Primal Storm because it takes more work—namely its partner Haldan, Avid Arcanist—to get webcam-difficult. The +1/+1 counters on Pako aren’t an issue at all, and if you’re playing it without Haldan and just exiling stuff, it’s really a non-issue.
12. Rise of the Dark Realms
Discussion of Rise of the Dark Realms also includes the ultimate ability of Liliana Vess. Not only does it jam your battlefield with token representations (I think this is the agreed-upon name to use for InfiniTokens and other things we might use, like art cards, or just scribbled-on Post-Its), it’s likely to create one of those absurd stacks of enters-the-battlefield triggers. When you have a tough time seeing what’s on the battlefield, it’s tough to figure out what to target.
11. Puca’s Mischief
A favorite card of fellow Commander Rules Committee (RC) member Toby Elliott, Puca’s Mischief is loads of fun in person. Once a bunch of stuff starts getting passed around, confusion reigns. Still, I highly suggest you give the card a chance in your in-person games. It constantly amuses. We might also include Avarice Totem here, but if you know the trick and have ten mana, that point becomes moot.
10. Gonti, Lord of Luxury
The place on the list that Gonti occupies includes Praetor’s Grasp, Thief of Sanity, Kheru Mind-Eater, and Mindleecher, as they all do basically the same thing. The search of the opponent’s library becomes the problem. In general, Gonti isn’t as bad since it’s only one card, and you can still do the decklist trick. I once played in a game in which someone Gonti’d me for my own Gonti, which then got a Clone, and it was all kinds of silly.
9. Tergrid, God of Fright
Tergrid creates play patterns that aren’t necessarily conducive to social games that everyone is going to end up happy with. In webcam play, the problem is amplified by the fact that the Tergrid player will accumulate a pile of token representations. If there’s a silver lining here, it’s that a Tergrid lock-out or overwhelming battlefield state is easy to achieve, ending the game in short order.
I’ve personally cooled on the idea of banning Tergrid (but remember that I’m only one of four decision-makers), because it looks like players are moving on from it. Yeah, they did it, it worked, and they won with it. It just doesn’t seem like the kind of deck that people will stick with, since it becomes pretty repetitive. The potential argument against banning is that players have mostly moved on and that we’ll see a dwindling number of Tergrid decks in the wild. It’s a card that we still want to wait on until in-person play really starts to show numbers. We’ll then get reports and make a decision.
8. Knowledge Pool
I’m also lumping Shared Fate in with Knowledge Pool, as what they do is similar. You put cards in, take other cards out. First, there will be a difficult-to-recognize pile of cards in the middle, somehow represented as a list of what you can pick from. Then you’re likely to end up with lots of cards that you don’t own. Knowledge Pool can create wild in-person games. On webcam, you have to do a lot of work to get there.
7. Villainous Wealth
The poster child for getting large numbers of permanents from someone else, Villainous Wealth is the Genesis Wave for an opponent. Luckily, there are times when it’s just a spell used in concert with a mana engine to effectively just mill someone out. On webcam, even a modest version with X equal to ten can clog up the picture.
6. Opposition Agent
A much-discussed card, Opposition Agent is easy to use in person, when you can just hand your opponent the deck. Once again, the decklist trick will work for webcam play, but if that’s not an option, things can get irritating—especially if the Opposition Agent player is forcing searches on everyone.
5. Etali, Primal Storm
Included in lots of precons for some reason, Etali is a swingy red card that will change the face of games. Unfortunately, over webcam, it involves adding many cards from other players to your side of the battlefield. The good news is that if a single Etali attacks three or more times, there’s a good chance the game will be over soon.
4. Mind’s Dilation
People really don’t like you stealing their stuff. They like it even less when you get to do it every time they cast their first spell of the turn. You end up with way more value than you paid for Mind’s Dilation. Of course, you’ll need plenty of token representations until someone destroys your Mind’s Dilation or you’ve used it to win the game. The possible good news is that it gets more than permanents, so you’ll be casting some spells as well.
3. Sen Triplets
The best possible news for webcam players is that the Sen Triplets player’s hand is simply revealed. There’s no need to jump through hoops to get it. Like with Mindslaver, you can’t just pick up and sit in the player’s seat to do stuff. You end up with the often-repeated problem with an overabundance of token representations.
2. Aminatou, the Fateshifter
We’re obviously only talking about the -6 ultimate on Aminatou as being problematic for webcam play. Otherwise, it’s just a fine card or commander. Once we get to shifting control of all the permanents, the battlefield becomes a quagmire.
I built my version, Aminatou’s Demons, shortly before COVID. I promised to not play it on the RC stream, although I’ve played the deck with a different Esper commander at the helm. I just got to play it in person for the first time since lockdown. This past weekend, as fellow RC members Scott Larabee and Toby Elliott visited, Mark “SellingCardsSucks” Nestico drove over to play with us. I was giddy to be able to play with Aminatou. Although she didn’t do any of the permanent-moving, she acquitted herself quite nicely.
1. Thieves’ Auction
Thieves’ Auction is really the absolute worst card to play over webcam by a long, long way. It’s sometimes pretty dreary in person. On camera, it’s nearly impossible to successfully resolve. The list of cards that players can choose from first has to be written down, then represented on the battlefield. At least you can put your own real cards on your side.
Streaming and webcam play probably saved Magic during our two years of dealing with the pandemic at its heights. We certainly figured out what was possible and had the chance to slake our thirsts for our favorite game and format. Although they’re not the only ones (I’m sure you have your own special lists), the above-listed cards present special challenges in playing on camera (and are likely best avoided, although I’m willing to concede that your mileage may vary), which will make it that much sweeter when we finally get to sit down with friends and play them.
As always, feel free to jump onto the Commander RC Discord server and discuss this piece. We have a dedicated channel for doing so. Also join us in any of the other lively chats that range anywhere from format philosophy to food and beverage. See you there.
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