Flash- The Problem with CEDH
Many players have expressed dissatisfaction with how games seem to slog and tournament rounds frequently end in draws, whether forced or simply because they go to time. There have been calls to ban Rhystic Study and Mystic Remora, saying they are the reason these games inevitably extend. Some say it’s because of all the new free interaction that Wizard’s prints each year. I do not believe the primary offender to be any of these. After all, that didn’t seem to be the case one, two, and three years ago. Indeed, those cards are strong and have always been, but they have never been nearly as obnoxious as they are now. So what changed? The card Flash was reprinted under a different name and players didn’t even notice.
To fully comprehend the position in which the format exists, I must first take you on a brief tour of history. Before there was Commander, there was EDH, and before that, Magic players were entirely focused on 60-card formats. There was a time when the card Flash was so powerful and dominant in the meta that it was banned. This format-warping card allowed players to execute potent combos instantly for only two mana. Players considered the Flash meta toxic and unfun as simply resolving Flash meant that, in large part, the game was over.
Now, jumping forward to Commander in 2008, Protean Hulk, the other half of the Flash combo, was banned because it was considered too powerful and too easy of an enabler for combos since it allowed players to cheat multiple creatures into play upon its death. However, Hulk was unbanned in 2017, and that, along with the printing of new, even more powerful cards, quickly led to one of the darkest times in Commander’s history—Flash Hulk Winter. During this period, Flash Hulk combo ran rampant, and players widely considered the format stale since the efficiency of Flash was far and away better than even the second most effective combo. So prevalent was Flash Hulk that the game devolved into two types of decks—Hulk decks and decks that aimed to stop Hulk. This widespread homogenization of the format eventually led to the first-ever ban made explicitly for cEDH in 2020.
Funny enough, just a year before that ban, another two-mana card was printed and started to make the rounds: Dockside Extortionist. It was also around the time of Dockside’s printing and the Flash ban that the COVID-19 Pandemic took the world by storm. The isolation of the pandemic, stimulus checks, and the extra time people gained by having to quarantine led to an immense rise in TCG popularity across the board. For Magic, this meant a massive surge in players interested in cEDH, and the online tournament scene took off. One thing to note is that many of the newer players had never fully experienced competitive Commander during the reign of Flash Hulk. So, while Dockside was a powerhouse in its own right and eventually was banned due to its format-warping nature, many cEDH players were distraught because the card offered exciting play patterns and gameplan acceleration. In fact, one could say that cEDH was at its height in popularity during the years Dockside was legal.
Now cut to the end of 2024 up to the present. Dockside, the overpowered and warping card, is banned, yet numerous long-time and new players seem disenfranchised with the current game. I am one of those. Why do we feel that the format is no longer exciting and no longer yields the fun it used to?
The answer lies in the similarities between now and Flash Winter. Now, as they did then, players sit behind whatever their engine is, be it a Rhystic, a Thrasios, or a Tymna, and wait until someone else has the gall to try and present a win. An immense homogenization of the format is another similarity. It has led to players feeling frustrated and bored with a general understanding that tapping out to cast a spell can result in immediate and untelegraphed death. The root cause of all this? Borne Upon a Wind. Well, Borne and Valley Flood Caller, and even, to some extent, High Fae Trickster. All Flash enablers that can be deployed at instant speed.
The immediate counterargument from many players will be that Borne and its ilk are not two-card combos that immediately win the game. However, they are single-card enablers for the most brutal and efficient combos ever seen in Magic’s history. The reason that today’s combos are so efficient is because of the inevitable power creep of the game. I would even argue that these wildly powerful combos attract people to the cEDH format and that gutting all of them would only disenfranchise players further.
No, it is not the combos that are the issue or the prevalence of draw engines, but the Flash enablers (here-to-fore referred to as Flashers.). Flashers are problematic for several reasons. This is evident by the meta warp they cause and similar cards already on the ban list.
First: Flashers contribute to the stale, homogenized, and overly grindy nature of the current format.
In cEDH, control lists try to extend games and gather resources during that time in order to make a push during the final moments of a match after other players have had their resources drained because of failed win attempts. Flashers enable non-control decks to execute similar strategies and make a final push over the top of another player’s attempt. Being typically a control strategy, this historically requires an amount of setup and premeditation but has now become the primary game plan of midrange and turbo decks since they no longer have to try and win during their turns. This starts to cause many decks to look the same throughout their 99. Even more so than one would typically expect from power-crept options.
Second: Flashers are responsible for the turbo-is-dead argument and are the primary cause of games going to time.
Though Rhystic Study is easy to blame for the current state of the format, that card has existed since Commander’s inception, and though it has always been exceptionally powerful, so has Sol Ring, and for years so was Mana Crypt. In this vein, Rhystic is certainly a contributing factor, as are all the ”Rhystic effects”. However, the format did not slow down until after the simultaneous printing of Flashers and the banning of cards that allowed players to brute force their way past those effects.
Because games have become so snaillike and players consistently get mired in exceptionally long and convoluted stack battles that take pods to time and frequently result in no-win/king-making situations, the intentional draw rate has skyrocketed. Even with all the free interaction, players can only pack so much into a deck before they begin to actively hurt their own chances of winning the game. In my and many others’ experience, the Flashers have become the weapons of the losing players. Those who recognize that they cannot hope to overcome all the resources others have, therefore, negotiate with another losing player to back up their win attempt over the top of someone else’s to force a draw-state. The ability to win has become itself, a piece of interaction.
Fans of the Flashers might tend to argue this point, citing that effects such as Emergence Zone, Vedalken Orrery, and Leyline of Anticipation existed for much longer and have never caused this problem. However, these arguments fail to hold any substance since, in addition to the mana value of the latter two objects, each of these items cannot easily be deployed at instant speed. Flashers, unilaterally, can be cast at any point during the game when a player can play a spell and has priority.
Third: Flashers incentivize poor and sloppy play patterns.
Flashers promote sloppy gameplay that succeeds in winning pods but fails at demonstrating skill expression. Magic is played in three stages: building, metagaming, and gaming. While building and metagaming are beyond the scope of this article, from my observation, Flashers typically promote bad play patterns in the gaming stage.
Those who would like to play fast or turbo decks are oft the first to complain about the “midrange hell” meta. They are also frequently some of the most egregious offenders, treating their unresolvable win attempts into forced draws and prolonged stack wars using Flashers. Where the purpose of decks that can demonstrate fast wins is to get in beneath opponents’ engines and defenses or snipe a passing window where others are shields down, fast decks currently have the liberty to play well beyond their scope and instead imitate midrange lists, which are in turn imitating control decks.
Were these decks not allowed to simply wait endlessly until the opportune moment (that moment frequently being right when time is called and the possibility of losing drops dramatically due to the ease of forcing a draw-state), they would instead need to either shoot for wins much earlier or become much more skilled at navigating windows and luring opponents into a false sense of security.
The way things stand, fast and midrange decks play the way they do because Flashers exist and are legal. Therefore, one cannot fault players for utilizing the available tools. Indeed, I do not place the blame on players but on the cards and the fact that they were printed in the first place.
Should players continue to feel frustrated with the game's current state, I would not be surprised to see an increased decline in player engagement and a rise in discontent. At the time of this writing, some unbans are speculated to be coming. I can only hope that some variety of unbans assist in righting the format to a somewhat playable state again. Though I have my doubts.
As I mentioned at the beginning of this article, I played during the original Flash Winter, and the overall sentiment of players then feels remarkably similar to what is happening now. At that time, I took a step back for about a year to avoid the toxic and unfun games that Flash created. I am feeling that same urge now. And in case my feelings aren’t clear to readers by this point, I would leave you with this last thought:
I am probably the #1 Dockside/Mana Crypt/Jeweled Lotus hater out there, and I was ecstatic when the bans happened. However, in this current meta, I would happily see all of the 2024 bans reversed if it meant seeing the Flashers take their place. If some action is not taken to remove the Flashers from the game, we will certainly be in for another long “Winter”.
