While the statement in the OP is true, have you considered Pauper? If I understand correctly, while I haven’t built a Pauper deck yet, the limitations on card rarity should make it very possible to build a strong deck without spending too much. There’s also proxies, which cost a fraction of real cards and shpuld be good enough to play with

We do, would be nice to make games a bit shorter but I guess that will come with better decks and more experience with what we’re playing haha

That’s great haha very carefully managing how you look to others while actually assembling the pieces for your win is whay I was initially thinking about! But now I understand that in a casual setting I’d be better just playing, altough a bit smarter without going all-in at every turn, otherwise I’d be sitting there doing the bare minimum and watching others play. In a tournament is a great strategy, you’re literally playing to win, in a casual group like mine winning is a good result but not the only objective

Yes, I meant what you wrote in your second paragraph! Holding back something to not pull ahead too far and get all eyes on you. The T1 Sol Ring is a great example because one of us seems to be drawing it early so much more often than the others that we do often keep removals ready for whatever is coming out lol

You’re right, very deck-dependent! One of us runs a heavily upgraded Pantlaza precon that’s basically all creatures, and once they managed to win even after three board wipes even though they kept casting ALL creatures they could lol

So, yeah, I can see how overextending after you get to 7 devotion can leave you empty-handed when the wipe comes. Definitely something I’ll keep in mind in future!

MTG is our first TCG so it’s definitely not that lol we like big boards and spells, we’re actually few people so we don’t really play super competitive, make many mistakes, and games take way too long (around twice as long compared to what WoTC say about Commander games’ duration) lol

Yes, I guess that’s what I meant! In my playgroup we’re all new to MTG and I’ve noticed that everyone almost always taps out all mana (unless they have a removal/counterspell in hand), me included.

I should probably start avoiding going all-in like you do, to reduce both how I’m perceived by others and the resources I commit up until the boardwipe. I guess it can be a proper strategy, thanks!