LoadingReadyRun brings you Elder Dragon Social Club: a new Commander format show in partnership with Card Kingdom. We talked with Graham Stark to find out more.
In the ten years that LoadingReadyRun has been making Magic: The Gathering content, this well-loved Canadian bunch have explored pretty much every nook and cranny of the game. From Friday Night Paper Fight to Crack-a-Pack and TapTapConcede, they have kept us laughing and learning along the way.
Graham Stark–one of the founders of LRR–talked with me about one of their newest endeavors, Elder Dragon Social Club. Developed in partnership with Card Kingdom, Elder Dragon Social Club is a new Commander Format show launching on June 20th.
“There’s a lot of Commander content out there because people love Commander. And we were finally like ‘We should do a Commander show,” but we wanted to do it our way. We’re less interested in the sickest plays or the wildest combos. We focus on playing the decks, having a good game, and just being friends at a Commander table.”
The Rise of Commander
Over the past few years in particular, Commander has become one of the most–if not the most–popular format of Magic. With the emphasis on social play and the ability for tinkering, Commander has demonstrated its broad appeal.
“I think the reason Commander is so popular is that it allows for a lot of freedom in deckbuilding. It has the largest pool of affordable cards, so you get to be really creative. You can do stuff that is highly competitive. You can also do stuff like the decks that I like that are absolutely goofball shenanigans.”
“Given that it’s a 100-card singleton format, there is a lot of replayability that a deck can play totally differently across multiple games. It’s a format that works well for established play groups, but you can also show up at your local game store and say “hey, let’s play commander.”
Commander’s accessibility mixed with its universality makes this a format anyone can jump into–and lets folks play whichever way they prefer:
“Personally, I err towards totally ridiculous stuff, where I’m less concerned about winning the game as I am about allowing my deck to do its thing. If I’ve successfully done the thing, I don’t really care if I’ve won or lost. But I also know that for some folks, winning is fun.”
Whether you like winning or just like watching, Elder Dragon Social Club has something for you.
The Gathering
The social aspect of the game reaches far beyond the Commander format:
“Wizards said it themselves with their 30th Anniversary event: that the Gathering is just as important as the Magic. After two/two-and-a-half years of not playing Magic in person, actually getting to sit down at a table and play Commander like this – we just love doing it.”
LoadingReadyRun’s passion for the Magic community shines through all of their content.
“Over the years, I’ve been pleased to observe that the community has gotten more welcoming and open over time. It’s not perfect – but overall I would say that the community has changed for the better over the 10 years that we’ve been a part of it, and I hope that that will continue and be even better.
It’s been something that we’ve always been doing very purposefully–making sure that our fans are open, kind and welcoming to a diverse range of people. Being content creators, you can’t be passive about those things.”
Elder Dragon Social Club
Elder Dragon Social Club launches with its first episode on Monday, June 20th.
“The first episode is going to feature the Streets of New Capenna precon decks, and I think we oops-ed into a very fun game of Commander. We legitimately enjoy playing the precons and they can certainly be an inspiration for people who enjoy brewing themselves.”
Graham also gave us a teaser for what we can expect in the future:
“We bought a giant click-y casino wheel, and LRR has collected an extensive number of Wizards of the Coast precons over the years. So we put 20 of them on the wheel, and we’ve recorded an episode where it starts with people spinning the wheel to see what decks they’ll play. In the future, we realized there are enough decks that we could put 40 decks on the wheel!”
“This is definitely the kind of Commander content that speaks to us. We’re goofing. We’re joking with each other. And there’s still a game of Commander happening. We’re trying to present the game in a way that’s easy to follow, but still lets the folks at the table be themselves.”
You can check out Episode 1 of Elder Dragon Social Club on LoadingReadyRun’s MTG YouTube channel starting Monday, June 20th.
Anna Volbrecht is a writer at Card Kingdom. If she’s not playing a Golgari deck, she’s probably playing tribal – Book Tribal being her all-time favorite.