AUSTIN, TX — During a local Commander night, newcomer Tracy Goldman reportedly spent an entire evening masquerading as an experienced EDH player, frequently nodding along to foreign terms and rules without hesitation.
“The first time I played I just assumed commander damage was just regular damage in commander. Turns out there is this whole other system of losing the game from damage. Now it makes sense why everyone looked at me like I was crazy a week later when I kept referring to ‘standard damage’ during my games of Standard.”
Witnesses confirmed that even though Goldman knew very little, her agreeable demeanor was enough to convince the entire pod she was a seasoned veteran.
“People would ask me to do stuff like pay 1, help them with a counterspell, or play a board wipe. I figured as long as I kept on saying yes to everything the other players would assume I belonged. Turns out all you need to do to make friends in EDH is never say no and never care about winning.”
The strategy appeared to work, as other players commended Goldman’s tactical prowess, none the wiser to her internal panic.
“She had this innocent look about her, but I quickly learned she was playing 4D chess,” said podmate Marcia Elliott. “Everyone understood they could rely on support from Tracy, so no one wanted to deal her too much damage. In the end she avoided over 60 points of damage just from all the favors everyone owed her. Also, I hear a lot of people say, ‘always pay the 1’ but all that goes out the window with exactly 9 mana and a castable The Ur Dragon doesn’t it? Not Tracy, she embodies paying the 1. After a while we stopped asking if she’d pay. She even joked that she’d pay for other people. What a legend.”
“Yeah, I wasn’t joking,” explained Goldman. “I didn’t know I couldn’t pay Rhystic Study for the other players. Everyone laughed when I tried, so I took that as a sign that I could. I kept tapping my lands for other people. That just made everyone laugh more. I got invited to six other people’s houses to play commander by the end of the night and I literally just learned you can re-cast your commander after it dies.”