Turns out, becoming a better cEDH player involves making a lot of mistakes. Conveniently, I make plenty of those.
Welcome to Misplays & Mulligans, the place where I willingly relive my bad cEDH decisions in the hopes that someone (not necessarily me) learns something.
You might be asking yourself, “How did we get here?”
I wish I could tell you I was kidnapped by a team of Thopters and held hostage until I either fed the fish or learned how to play Magic: The Gathering. Being the upstanding individual that I am, I chose the lesser of two evils.
Sadly, that’s not the case.
Story Time!
Picture this…
(Sorry, I couldn’t pass up a Golden Girls reference.)
October 2024
After a long, exhausting three-quarters of a year, it was finally time for this overstimulated, worn-out mom to take a little R&R at the most magical place on Earth…
The beach.
My husband and I invited my brother-in-law, Sean, and his partner, Andie (they weren’t married yet, but they are now, and we love them!) to spend the weekend with us.
At that point, Sean had been playing Magic for years and, in all my infinite wisdom, I made fun of him for it.
Yes.
I know.
I was an ass.
Anywho…
One thing led to another, and we wandered into a local TCG shop. (Shout out to Tower of Games.) I bought my very first Commander deck, Tricky Terrain from Modern Horizons III, a deck for my husband, and Sean and Andie patiently taught us how to play.
I, of course, hated that damn precon.
I couldn’t understand the mechanics, and in typical Shi fashion, I couldn’t have missed more triggers if I tried.
Why did I choose it?
Because an online quiz told me I was a Simic player.
Instead of asking someone who had actually been playing the game for years, I trusted a random quiz on the internet.
Was that dumb?
Absolutely.
Would I do it again?
Also absolutely.
Making questionable decisions is basically my superpower.
You’ll see.
As much as I struggled to understand what I’d signed myself up for, I loved watching Sean and Andie play. I don’t remember what Sean was piloting, but Andie (now my sister-in-law) was playing the one deck that truly caught my attention: Squirreled Away, the Bloomburrow precon featuring Chatterfang leading an aggressively adorable Squirrel Corps (we’re a crayon-eating family) to thwart Sean’s advances in hilariously over-the-top fashion.
That was it.
I was hooked.
Within a couple of weeks, Tricky Terrain was quietly retired to the shelf of poor life choices.
I picked up my own copy of Squirreled Away, as well as a copy of Food and Fellowship (also inspired by Andie), bought my husband Urza’s Iron Alliance because he’s that player, and started looking for a local game store where I could play.
Shout out to Born2Game.
Since then, I’ve found an incredible community of cardboard addicts (said with love), made genuine friends, and asked approximately eleven billion questions. Some of them more than once because I’d forgotten the answer the first time.
Those players have corrected my terrible lines, challenged my thinking, and encouraged me to keep improving.
They’re responsible for most of what I know about Magic.
The misplays and mulligans?
Those are all mine.
Where It All Went Wrong
May 2025
By this point, I’d played enough Commander to realize something wasn’t right.
I’d upgraded my decks.
I had the cards.
I was drawing the cards.
I still wasn’t winning.
The decks weren’t the problem. I’d had much better players look them over just to be sure.
The problem was me.
Not because I didn’t understand the game.
Because I kept pulling my punches.
If someone looked like they weren’t having fun, I wouldn’t attack them, even if they were the biggest threat.
If someone fell behind, I’d sacrifice my own board to help them catch up.
Somewhere along the way, I’d convinced myself that if everyone had fun playing with me, they’d want to play with me again.
If they played with me enough…
Maybe they’d become my friend.
Do I know that logic is weird?
Yes.
Do I know it’s an absolutely terrible competitive strategy?
Also yes.
Social situations have never been my strong suit, and somehow my brain decided this was the best way to make friends.
Turns out it’s only a fantastic way to lose games of Magic.
One evening in late May, I was at the shop looking to get a few games in.
One player stepped away between games so someone else could join our pod.
Normally, I don’t mind.
People need breaks.
(And if you’re like me and immediately shuffle up for the next game… go stretch your legs. Do as I say, not as I do.)
The person who sat down was someone I avoid playing with whenever possible.
Every local game store has one.
The person who knows every… single… card.
The one who loudly tells everyone how to play their deck.
The one who announces your next play before you’ve made it.
The one who reaches over and touches your cards without asking.
No thanks.
For a little context, I’m autistic and have OCD. People touching my things without asking genuinely bothers me. I’m also sensitive to people yelling at me, whether it’s intentional or not, too many competing sounds, and conflicting social cues. Those are the kinds of things that can overwhelm me pretty quickly. Therapy has helped me develop coping strategies, but it’s also taught me that it’s okay to avoid situations I know are likely to push me past my limits. Playing with this particular person almost always did exactly that.
So instead of making a scene, I quietly switched out.
Unfortunately, there weren’t any open Commander pods, so I wandered over to watch another game.
At first, I thought they were just playing Commander.
Then someone cast Rhystic Study.
It got countered.
The Rhystic Study player countered the counter.
Someone else responded.
Another player fired back.
The stack kept growing.
Nobody was upset.
Nobody complained.
Everyone was laughing.
Everyone was fighting over every spell on the stack, and they were having the time of their lives doing it.
I stood there watching, completely fascinated.
Then one thought hit me.
“Wait… there’s a format where everyone is trying to do the meanest, most broken thing possible… and everyone actually enjoys it?”
Sign.
Me.
Up.
And that was my introduction to cEDH.
Learning the Hard Way
Like most new cEDH players, my first few months…
Well, by “few,” I mean about fourteen and counting.
It’s been… rough.
I’ve bounced between commanders trying to find one that actually fits my playstyle.
I’ve scoured decklists, borrowed ideas from players far better than me, and mashed them together with my own “improvements” that usually weren’t improvements at all.
I’ve chased every shiny new strategy that caught my attention.
I’ve convinced myself, more than once, that a terrible idea was actually secret tech.
Spoiler alert:
It wasn’t.
But every bad decision taught me something.
Usually after I lost.
Why This Blog Exists
Somewhere along the way, I noticed something.
There are thousands of articles explaining how to play cEDH.
Most of them are written by people who already know what they’re doing.
This isn’t that blog.
This is the story of someone who’s still figuring it out.
Someone who still misses triggers.
Still punts games.
Still asks questions.
Still gets excited when a line finally clicks.
Still squeals excitedly when I win a round at a competition.
Every post is another lesson.
Sometimes for you.
Usually for me.
If you’re new to cEDH, I hope my mistakes help shorten your learning curve.
If you’re an experienced player, I hope you laugh at my strategic disasters.
Preferably with me instead of at me.
Either way…
Welcome to Misplays & Mulligans.
The misplays are real.
The mulligans are questionable.
The lessons are learned one game at a time.
What in the Hell Was I Thinking?
Misplays and Mulligans 
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