Your first online pod

Step 1: Pick a community that plays in your hours

Most communities in the directory say whether they play online and where in the world their members are, so pick one whose evenings overlap yours. If you’re in the UK, you’ll find games most easily in a UK or European server, and American servers are at their busiest from about 1am your time. The reviews tell you what each community is like to play in, and how reliably games fire.

Join the server, read its rules channel, and then look for two channels: the one where people ask for a game, and the voice channels where games happen. The first is usually called looking-for-pod, lfg or pod-finder. Most servers ask you to pick a time zone or region role first, so do it! It’s how people who want a game find you.

Step 2: Ask for a game the way the server expects

Before you post, read the last 20 messages in the LFG channel. Every server has its own form, and a request that follows it will fill faster than a paragraph. What they all want to know:

• When, with a time zone, like “Tonight 19:00 UTC”. Add your own local time too if the server is international.
• Where you’ll play, whether that’s SpellTable, Convoke, camera-in-Discord, or any of them.
• What you’re after, which is cEDH. If the server hosts other brackets, say so explicitly. A “high power” table and a cEDH table are different games, and that difference is the most common cause of a bad first pod.
• How many seats you’ve got, or how many you need.

Then wait, and don’t post the same request in three channels or ping a role twice for the same game. If nobody bites within half an hour, say so and try a different time. It’s nothing personal, some evenings are quieter than others.

Step 3: Set up the table

When the pod fills, one player makes the game on SpellTable or Convoke and posts the link. Open it in Chrome, then on SpellTable choose your camera in Configure Inputs and check your whole play area is in frame before you join voice. If you’re using your phone as the camera, enable Use mobile device as webcam in Configure Inputs, which is SpellTable’s own way of doing it. Then open the game link on the phone. The camera guide shows the setup.

SpellTable does have built-in audio, however SpellTable itself calls it early-stage and recommends Discord for voice (its FAQ, checked September 2026). That’s what nearly every community uses anyway, so join the server’s voice channel and keep SpellTable’s own audio off, or you’ll hear everyone twice.

Before the first shuffle, the table settles two things out loud, and it takes under a minute:

1. Who’s playing what. Name your commander, as the table is entitled to know.
2. Life totals and tracking. SpellTable and Convoke both track life totals. Agree how commander damage and poison will be tracked too, and that whatever you pick is the record.

Step 4: Play the game a competitive table expects

Most servers don’t write any of this down, so it’s where new players most often slip up.

• Announce what you do. Tap lands, name the spell, say how much mana you’re floating. On camera, nobody can read your board from across the room. “Cast Rhystic Study, two blue and a colourless” is the whole habit.
• Ask before you assume. It’s “Does anyone respond?” before you resolve, and “Pay the one?” every time, until the table says they’ll always pay or never pay. Shortcuts are fine once they’re agreed, but until then they’re the source of most disputes.
• Politics are part of the game, lying about the game state isn’t. Bluffing about what’s in your hand is expected. Misrepresenting what’s on the battlefield, in the graveyard, or how much life you’ve got is cheating, and a camera makes it easy to check.
• Keep your camera on your cards. If you need to move it, say so. A hand that disappears off-camera during someone else’s turn looks bad, even when it’s innocent.
• Concede cleanly. When a win is on the stack and nobody has a response, say so and let it resolve, and save the table 10 minutes of a decided game. It works the other way too, so don’t concede to hand someone else the win. The table gets a say in that, and many servers rule on it.
• Don’t leave. If you must, say why and when. A player who drops at turn four without a word doesn’t get a second invite, and word gets around between servers.

Step 5: After the game

Say thanks, in voice or in the channel, and if the game was good, tell the person who organised it. If someone asks for your decklist, post it. Competitive players share lists freely, and a link to your list on Moxfield or the cEDH Decklist Database is the normal reply. If something in the game bothered you, raise it with a moderator in a direct message rather than in the channel. Most servers have a rules channel that says how.

Then do it again! Most people find their second pod comes out of the first, as the players you were good to play with will ask for you.