By: Chris Lorensen

Coming together, meeting new people and, above all else, having fun – that’s what Matt McClure, the Commander Precon League organizer, says the tournament is all about. It’s one of the main reasons he decided to put people into teams for season two.

“After lots of feedback from Season one, Anthony from the Rules Committee suggested team events,” McClure said. “New players get deck brewing idea’s, how-to-pilot tips and seasoned players get to share their knowledge without penalty.”

To facilitate this, Jake, a member of Team Seven, immediately followed up the release of teams with a group chat invite for everyone to share ideas about their decks.

“Once I saw that there were teams, it made sense in my mind,” Jake said. “There is no reason not to communicate. If I’ve got a team, there are three or four minds working towards a common goal.”

And Jake says it wasn’t even all about winning. He just likes discovering new cards and interactions.

“I have this passion to learn,” he said. “Without other people, I can’t do that.”

As a testament to that deck building itch so many commander players feel, the others on the team have gotten a lot of help from each other as well. Michael says that he is constantly getting advice on interaction he never would have thought about and, even though they are small, they slowly come together to give him an edge.

“I tend to overlook some of the simple things and go for the most complex route and then they’re like ‘you can just do this,’” Michael said. “They said you should try Prototype Portal … and it was perfect and then that’s how I won match three.”

Nicky, the only player on the team who participated in season one, where he came in sixth place, said that the teams this season were a huge improvement. One of the biggest issues he has faced throughout season two has been card availability. He says his team has been crucial in helping him find replacement cards that, while not as optimal, still help him get to his end goals.

“The only suggestion that I got last season that even came close to making it in my deck was from Matt McClure,” he said. “Having a team is way more useful because there are cards that I have never heard of in my life that get suggested and I’m not a guy that knows little about magic. It’s just the most fringe cards you’ve never even heard of and someone’s like, ‘Oh yeah, I got destroyed by this thing.”

The Rules Committee has been in discussion about card availability and said they feel they have a solution moving forward and are eager to roll out the next iteration of the tournaments.

And although they say the team aspect of season two has been great, they also say there is room for improvement. Their biggest suggestion being that teams should be planned out so that they can reach their full potential.

Having questions about a player’s experience level at sign-up would go a long way, they said. This way each team could be crafted to have a balance of experienced and new players or perhaps even teams purposely made of similar or opposite color pairs and thus allowing for optimal gameplay.

“You’ve got four people on a team who are brand new magic players,” Michael said. “Then all of a sudden they’re getting wiped out every round, they don’t know how to fix their decks, they don’t know how to build stuff. They’re just kind of throwing ideas around and talking about how they got stomped.”

“I definitely agree, especially people who have competed in multiple seasons, they should not be in teams together cause that’s just an echo chamber at that point and doesn’t help anybody,” Nicky said. “I’ve been semi-useful to Michael and Jake but not as useful because they already have a large knowledge.”

Regardless of the future of CPC League teams, they all think the league does it’s job of bringing players together because, even though there are prizes involved, members of Team Seven can’t quite stop giving out advice.

Just after week one matches, Jake shared with his opponent some interactions they hadn’t considered for future upgrades. That player came up to him a week later, beaming that they had won their most recent match with the cards he suggested.

McClure also says to stay tuned and continue to give feedback as the Rules Committee is constantly looking to improve the experience.