Deckstats Forum
English-language Forums => Commander Discussion => Topic started by: CleanBelwas on February 09, 2020, 05:52:10 pm
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So I listened to a podcast MaRo (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Maro) released recently where he discussed his views on some areas of Commander that have been in recent discussions when it comes to potential changes to be made to the format.
He said he's be looking at it from the perspective of a games designer rather than a player, and was very open about the facts that a) he has zero influence or control over any of the decisions, b) that he doesn't play a lot of commander personally and c) that these were his initial gut reactions to the issues mentioned and that his mind could easily be changed if there was supporting data that suggested his thoughts and assumptions had little foundation.
I actually found it surprisingly open and neutral. If you want to take a listen yourselves, it can be found here:
https://media.wizards.com/2020/podcasts/magic/drivetowork711_h2hcommanderpart1_AbwUd243.mp3
I'll outline the topics below, along with a brief summary of his standpoint on the issue:
1. Hybrid Mana - should a hybrid card be allowed in a deck that only has one colour in it's commanders identity? For example, should Kitchen Finks (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Kitchen+Finks) be allowed in Teshar?
MaRo (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Maro): Yes. The colour identity rule was made before hybrid mana existed. Hybrid mana was designed to be "either/or" not "and". Commander is the only format where these cards function differently, and he stated that he doesn't think a card should ever function differently depending on what format it is being played in. He said that hybrid cards bend the colour pie, but don't break it (with one exception, which I'm yet to figure out myself) and there are already cards that are legal in the format that could be argued flout these rules (cards that make tokens that are different colours for example).
Me: I've been converted by this argument to be honest. Originally I was against it, but I see his point and I'm now for it.
2. No max deck size.
MaRo (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Maro): No change. 100 cards has a wonderful round symmetry that the format benefits from.
Me: No change, but mostly because I'd be tempted to build battle of wits (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Battle+of+Wits) and I don't want to have to shuffle that monstrosity. Really I don't care either way.
3. Ban Sol Ring (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Sol+Ring)?
MaRo (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Maro): No. He stated that he thinks that one of the fundamental reasons MTG has been successful is that it can be played quickly. He thinks it's one of commanders biggest downfalls that games can sometimes drag on for hours, and fast mana, especially things like Sol Ring (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Sol+Ring) that are readily available to almost anyone, helps negate (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Negate) this somewhat.
Me: No. I get MaRo (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Maro)'s point, but mostly I'd never want to deny anyone the satisfaction that comes from a turn 1 Swamp (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Swamp), Sol Ring (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Sol+Ring), Mind Stone (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Mind+Stone), Skullclamp (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Skullclamp).
4. Non-creature Legends as commander?
MaRo (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Maro): No. Part of Commander's brilliance is it's flavour, and a sword or a statue or a hill can't lead an army.
Me: Nuetral. I like the idea of dumb jank being able to be your commander, but I can see why people would be against it.
5. No Commander Damage
MaRo (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Maro): Remove commander damage. He was very clear here that he only made this choice based off his gut without access to data, but he thinks that commander logging and remembering commander damage isn't worth the "cognitive load" that is required of it.
Me: I was almost convinced by his argument, but I like commander damage. I think it keeps lifegain bullshit in check. I think basically any other infinite combo is enough that they probably win (infinite mana, infinite tokens, infinite turns) but infinite life becomes a race for who can draw the fewest cards. That is a battle anyone can win, but no one wants to sit there and actually play that game. Plus Voltron is fun. To me, Commander damage is kind of "fair" infect.
6. 4th player advantage - Giving the player going last some kind of assistance so that they aren't left behind
MaRo (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Maro): He said the stats he'd seen said that going last only provided a very small disadvantage (about 1-2%), so if there were to be a change, it would have to be an elegant enough solution that it was fair, and an easy enough rule to interpret and understand, otherwise the change wouldn't be worth it.
Me: Hard to disagree with his logic in my opinion.
7. Double infect to 20
MaRo (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Maro): Initially yes, but eventually no. He said his initial reaction was "double life total, so double infect makes sense", but that having discussed it with people who played more commander and were more familiar with metas, they said that it's one of the few aggressive strats that is even remotely viable in commander, and the support is still kind of shit.
Me: No one in my meta has ever played infect, so I don't know how annoying it is to get one shot from it. The previous arguments seem reasonable, but I have no strong feelings either way.
8. Return of the Tuck Rule
MaRo (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Maro): Don't bring it back. One of the fundamental points of commander is being able to repeatedly play your commander. The tax aims to make this fair, but being able to get rid of them "permanently" flouts one of the fundamental points of the format.
Me: Agree again. Tuck the tuck rule.
So that's a brief summary of what was discussed, as well as my own two cents.
I know there are a lot of Commander players here on deckstats that play all across the spectrum from jank to cEDH, and many of us like to talk about these kinds of things.
I'd love to hear what you guys think about these points. I'm sure many of you have insights I've missed and I like having my mind changed.
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MaRo (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Maro) knows what he's talking about imo. I definitely agree with all his points. Voltron is a big strat in Mardu and getting rid of that would be ridiculous. I agree, it's very necessary to deal with lifegain decks. They're already strong from starting at 40, not 20 life. Basically, all his points I absolutely agree with. Unfortunately, he didn't address the Flash (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Flash) philosophy issue. Would have been nice if somebody outside the community provided their opinion.
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Yea I agree. He seems to be pretty fair about it. Acknowledging the flaws as well as praising where it's due. Some guys at WotC seem a bit like classic yuppie yes men, fearful to even say a bad word, but here at least, MaRo (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Maro) seemed very fair to me.
I should mention this is only part one of a two parter. The flash (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Flash) discussion may come in part two.
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Mostly agree with all of these
1. Hybrid mana - I'll circle back to this one.
2. No max hand size - Agree 100% that Commander should be EXACTLY 100 cards. Allowing more cards could easily lead to decks too large to shuffle. Also facing decks with 110-120 cards each, makes mill a much less viable strategy.
3. Ban Sol Ring (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Sol+Ring) - Disagree 100%. Big mana is one of the hallmarks of the format. I've never even heard anyone seriously say that Sol Ring (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Sol+Ring) should be banned because of power levels. I've only heard people say that it should be banned because they're tired of seeing it; they want more variety in their Commander games. Not a reason to ban a card.
4. Allow non-creatures as commander - I pretty much think it should always be creatures. Planeswalkers are powerful cards. They give you a free spell every turn. Being able to recur them out of your command zone is too powerful. It would certainly lead to a bunch of planeswalkers on the ban list.
5. No Commander damage - Commander damage is the check on life gain decks. Big mana is a thing. This can turn in to big life. Commander damage keeps a victory route open. It doesn't come up often. But when it does, it is usually the only route of defeating that player. Plus, eliminating commander damage would all but eliminate voltron strategies.
6. Fourth Player Bonus - I am all for trying to mitigate the last player disadvantage. But, as previously stated, the last player disadvantage isn't really all that big. In fact, most games I play, by around turn 4 or so no one really remembers who went first. The fourth-player bonus would have to be something big enough to be worth the rule, but small enough so that the third player doesn't wish they actually played last. I haven't seen any ideas that actually fit in that tiny space.
7. Infect to 20 - I do not think 20 is the correct number. However, I also do not think 10 is the right number. Mainly because of Blightsteel Colossus (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Blightsteel+Colossus). It hits for 13 infect. And it recurs itself. I think 15 should be the correct number for Commander. (Or ban Blightsteel Colossus (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Blightsteel+Colossus) and then reevaluate 10 poison.)
8. Reinstate the Tuck rule - I think this is an issue where I will always advocate for the status quo. When we had the tuck rule, I didn't want it to go away as a viable strategy against problem commanders. Now that it's gone, I do not see the value in bringing it back. There were a lot of feel bad moments when a deck would get shut down for having its commander get Chaos Warp (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Chaos+Warp)'ed.
And circling back to #1. Hybrid Mana - I used to be 100% for hybrid cards. Because there was a time when you absolutely could not cast it for off-color mana. Decks, by rule, could not produce mana outside their color identity. If you did, it became colorless. Then along came the colorless mana symbol. We had to get rid of that rule, so that you couldn't easily generate colorless mana. Now every deck can produce mana of any color. With Darksteel Ingot (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Darksteel+Ingot), Exotic Orchard (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Exotic+Orchard), Fellwar Stone (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Fellwar+Stone), etc this is very easy to do. I was in favor of allowing off-color hybrids when it would have been impossible to cast using off-color mana. Now I am not. There are hybrid mana cards, split cards, double-faced cards, and cards with off color activations. All of these need to be treated equally in the deck construction rules. If I can put hybrid cards in my deck, why can't I put split cards in my deck? Why can't I put off-color activations in my deck? As an exampe: I've got an Animar deck (URG). I put the split card Beck // Call (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Beck+%2F%2F+Call) in the deck. The call half has white in its mana cost. If I've got a Darksteel Ingot (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Darksteel+Ingot), what is to stop me from casting the Call half? Alesha, Who Smiles at Death (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Alesha%2C+Who+Smiles+at+Death) is red with a hybrid white/black activation. Why can't I put her in the Animar deck? And then what is to stop me from activating the abilities? Any rule permitting hybrid cards would have to address these other off-color cards (and most likely prohibit (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Prohibit) them.) I am currently against hybrid mana. But if someone could come up with clean simple rule, I could be persuaded otherwise.
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Damn ApothecaryGeist, you've got me coming back around on hybrid mana. You've put forward a very compelling argument (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Compelling+Argument).
I think the counter argument would be that you don't actually need off colour mana because you always have the choice. With split cards and activated abilities, you have to be able to produce exactly that colour. With hybrid mana, you're using mana you're producing anyway. Kitchen Finks (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Kitchen+Finks) in Teshar is just being paid with white mana.
However, by the same argument, you could include split cards by saying you can only cast the half with your commanders identity, and then it just gets messy and needlessly complicated.
MaRo (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Maro) made some excellent points from a design perspective, but you've highlighted some potential implications that are presented by it from the perspective of those playing and building the decks. He was also very supportive of rules being simple, and this would certainly make it complicated.
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I think infect should stay at 10. You can make all the arguments you want about whether infect is fun or not, but you can't really argue it's power: infect is weak. Not as a mechanic, since Grafted Exoskeleton (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Grafted+Exoskeleton), Tainted Strike (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Tainted+Strike), and Triumph of the Hordes (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Triumph+of+the+Hordes) can all be game winners, but as an archetype. Blightsteel Colossus (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Blightsteel+Colossus) is one of the very few cards with infect printed on them that are actually scary. I'd argue that, for creatures, the only others are Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Skithiryx%2C+the+Blight+Dragon) and Putrefax (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Putrefax).
There just isn't a lot of support for infect. Almost every card you run in an infect deck either doesn't affect your opponents' poison total or was printed in either New Phyrexia or War of the Spark. Even the huge bump in proliferate from WAR isn't great because proliferate is slow and infect wants to win fast.
Infect is really good at killing one player, sometimes two, but very rarely has the staying power (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Staying+Power) to win a game. Raising the counter target would just eliminate infect as a playable deck (not to mention hurt Scion of the Ur-Dragon (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Scion+of+the+Ur-Dragon), but that's a different discussion). 10 counters is an achievable goal, but any higher is just too many hoops to jump (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Jump) through.
Also, Blighsteel is an 11/11, not a 13/x (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=X). That's important because people often have 2 toughness worth of blocks and it dies to removal. You don't even worry about the incidental damage because it's counters, not life. Sure, Blightsteel is indestructible, but black removes things with -1/-1 counters, blue counters/bounces things, and white exiles. The only colors that consistently have problems removing Blighsteel are green and red, and green regularly has threats big enough to just block. Not to mention greens's ability to run and tutor for Melira, Sylvok Outcast (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Melira%2C+Sylvok+Outcast) if infect is big in your meta. Basically, Blighsteel usually gets handled before it can smack someone and the only color that helps with that is red (haste and Chandra's Ignition (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Chandra%27s+Ignition) effects), but red has the least infect support, especially for commanders.
Anyway, this huge rant was to say: infect may make people very salty, and you should talk to your playgroup before running it just like MLD or stax, but it's really not good enough to merit nerfing or banning for.
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Damn ApothecaryGeist, you've got me coming back around on hybrid mana. You've put forward a very compelling argument (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Compelling+Argument).
I second that lol. The whole hybrid mana debate is very difficult, as there are only 3 options when making mana outside of your commander's colors:
- It turns into colorless. This is very bad because, like multiple people have said, it takes the downsides of cards like Warping Wail (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Warping+Wail) and Eldrazi Displacer (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Eldrazi+Displacer) and (mostly) neutralizes them.
- It stays that color. As ApothecaryGeist said, that + hybrid mana changes results in some situations that shouldn't exist.
- It goes away entirely. *Sen Triplets (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Sen+Triplets) starts crying* We just can't do that.
Beck // Call (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Beck+%2F%2F+Call), though, isn't composed of hybrid mana. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't its color identity UWG? If so, it still couldn't be cast in Animar even with hybrid mana changes.
One idea I have is: When building a deck, you can "pick" one half of the hybrid cost when determining the card's color identity and whether or not it could be included in a certain deck.
For example, the situation you listed, ApothecaryGeist. I have an Animar, Soul of Elements (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Animar%2C+Soul+of+Elements) commander deck and want to include Alesha, Who Smiles at Death (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Alesha%2C+Who+Smiles+at+Death). Alesha's color identity is red and your choice of black or white. Unfortunately, neither R/B or R/W fit into Animar, so it couldn't be included.
This philosophy still holds true for split cards like Carnival // Carnage (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Carnival+%2F%2F+Carnage). While Carnival could be run in mono red or mono black decks, Carnage has a color identity of R/B and could only be run in decks with a minimum color identity of R/B.
And finally, it holds true for cards like Footlight Fiend (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Footlight+Fiend). Because it can cost R or B it can be included in mono red or mono black decks.
Tell me if anybody doesn't get what I'm saying, whether or not you agree, or if there are instances where my idea doesn't work.
Thanks!
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Beck // Call (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Beck+%2F%2F+Call), though, isn't composed of hybrid mana. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't its color identity UWG? If so, it still couldn't be cast in Animar even with hybrid mana changes.
In world where hybrid mana is allowable ... I can put Figure of Destiny (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Figure+of+Destiny) in my Animar deck; I am allowed to ignore all those white mana symbols. So why can't I put Beck // Call (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Beck+%2F%2F+Call) in it? The Beck half can be cast with UG. And then I ignore the white mana symbol on the Call half. Can I put Azorius Guildmage (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Azorius+Guildmage) in my deck? Ignoring all those white mana symbols? And for another example ... can I put Daybreak Ranger in my mono-green deck? (the transformed side has a red activation).
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Beck // Call (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Beck+%2F%2F+Call), though, isn't composed of hybrid Can I put Azorius Guildmage (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Azorius+Guildmage) in my deck? Ignoring all those white mana symbols?
Well the way I'm thinking about it is when determining the color identity of a card, you can pick one of the 2 colors. With Beck // Call (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Beck+%2F%2F+Call), it's color identity is 3 colors. Nothing changes that. Currently, its color identity is those 3 colors. Changing how hybrid mana works doesn't change cards like that. Azorius Guildmage (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Azorius+Guildmage) has abilities that require specifically white and blue mana, respectively. While I can pick which one of the 2 colors I want for its mana cost, that will not ultimately change its color identity because of its activated abilites. Does that make sense?
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Okay. I wanna jump (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Jump) in.
1) Hybrid mana. I agree that it should be allowed for the purpose that it was intended to be Either/Or, not and. The card borders for something like unmake (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Unmake) are white and black because it can be white or black or both. Something like, Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Ayli%2C+Eternal+Pilgrim), is white AND black hence the gold. We can see the cards intended to be used as AND combinations are gold, not individual WUBRG colors.
With this said, I think there should not be a deck building restriction in the color identity. If I want to run counterspell (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Counterspell) in my Krenko deck, let me. Let's use Mr. GolgariFTW's third idea.
It goes away entirely.
Why are you crying over Sen Triplets (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Sen+Triplets)? Your name is GolgariFTW, not EsperFTW.
This stops me from running counterspell (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Counterspell) in Krenko, although I could, but it would be a dud. I guess I could run Gitaxian Probe (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Gitaxian+Probe) feasibly with, but phrexian mana is another thing altogether that needs to be addressed all on it's own. My stance, very briefly, it was a mistake and shouldn't have ever made it past R&D. This also allows you to run a split card and run just half. This allows you to run Archangel (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Archangel) Avacyn in a mono white deck.
Now to address my first commander specifically, Sen Triplets (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Sen+Triplets)'s problem could be solved with Celestial Dawn (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Celestial+Dawn) and/or Mycosynth Lattice (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Mycosynth+Lattice). Just like Phage the Untouchable (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Phage+the+Untouchable) is forced to run Torpor Orb (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Torpor+Orb), you'd be forced to run Celestial Dawn (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Celestial+Dawn) and/or Mycosynth Lattice (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Mycosynth+Lattice), which you kind of are already, but you can run Chromatic Lantern (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Chromatic+Lantern), along with other similar effects too as of now.
2) Wait, are our decks supposed to be EXACTLY 100 cards? I thought it was minimum 100, like every other format is minimum 60 (yeah 40 too, but no one cares about limited). I assumed we all did 100 because it was the most optimized version of a deck. Less cards means better chance to draw the cards you need in the moment. Wouldn't hurt me one way or the other. Less restrictions though I think is good. Let someone build a Battle of Wits (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Battle+of+Wits) deck. Wait no, that someone would be me. Don't let me do that. I cant afford a 250 card deck.
3) Well Paradox Engine (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Paradox+Engine) got banned. Maybe Sol Ring (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Sol+Ring) is next? Seriously though, it's fine. It doesn't propel one person far enough ahead that they are untouchable. Maybe a Sol Ring (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Sol+Ring) into an Arcane Signet (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Arcane+Signet) turn 1 and then Gilded Lotus (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Gilded+Lotus) turn 2 and 9 mana turn 3, but how often is that a problem? That is a pretty amazing start.
4) I misinterpreted this at first. I took it as non legendary creatures as commanders, which I disagree with, except for maybe the Nephilim. Non creature legends could be interesting. I'd like to make a Genju of the Realms deck, but I can't. I think this should be done on a playgroup basis. Just flavor wise, it doesn't make sense to have an enchantment leading an army, being a commander. I guess I should propose a real argument other than flavor for why it shouldn't be changed.
We have several years of commander products designed specifically around specifically creatures being in the command zone. I will disregard the plansewalkers that can be commanders here because they were designed taking into account the balance (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Balance) of things and are thus fine. By that same logic, if an enchantment was designed and had the line of text "could be your commander" I would be fine with it. So to go back and allow all these new things into the command zone could cause major problem. Putting Bolas's Citadel (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Bolas%27s+Citadel) in the command zone? The past x (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=X) years (sorry I don't know how many) of specifically commander designed cards were not intended to have Bolas's Citadel (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Bolas%27s+Citadel) in the command zone. Being essentially guaranteed that card on turn 6 is crazy.
5) Okay commander damage. I don't like the argument, "It keeps life gain decks in check." Allow me to explain why. If I am killing you with commander damage, I am most likely going to do it with a dedicated voltron deck. So I would be killing you that way regardless. If I am not running a voltron deck, then my commander is probably not meant for bashing face, and as such, isn't going to be able to deal 21 damage to a single player. Sorry, I am not killing a life gain deck with my 2 power Ayli or my 1 power Urza. If a 2/3 can get through for 11 rounds, and the life gain deck couldn't win with 100000 life before then, the deck needs to be reworked.
Now my problems with commander damage. It raises so many questions. Most of you know the answers to these, but many do not. What happens when someone steals my commander, can they do commander damage to me with it? If they copy it can they? What if I have partner commanders? Is it 21 damage total from ALL commanders? What was my commander damage dice at? No not for Mizzix, for Yawgmoth. Why am I keeping track of commander damage from them? It's pointless. Wait whose responsibility is it to keep track of commander damage? Okay you guys get the point (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Get+the+Point).
I guess at this point it is fine though. Just keep it how it is because voltron is already weak enough, but a legitimate strategy, and chewing through 120 life is a lot harder than 63. It is something that I don't think should've ever existed, but it does, and it is easier to keep it than to do away with it.
6) I would love to incorporate the monarchy into the game maybe via this way. Player 4 starts as the monarch. Maybe change the wording of monarch to say may draw a card on the end step so that you dont draw (8 cards in hand), play a land (7), draw (8) and discard down to hand size. I think this might cause more problems though than what it's worth. Aggro decks obviously. Also since you're last, you're last to get creatures on the board, if you and everyone else is on curve, so someone can take the monarch with their llanowar elves (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Llanowar+Elves).
7) I am going to pull an ApothecaryGeist and come back to this one.
Eight) (Sorry the number 8 and a ) make this face 8) so I had to spell out 8) No. Cards like Nevermore (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Nevermore), Imprisoned in the Moon (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Imprisoned+in+the+Moon) and Blantant Thievery are already bad enough. People like playing their commanders. The deck is designed (most of the time) around it. On top of that, imagine the feel bads of Chaos Warp (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Chaos+Warp) into Bribery (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Bribery) on your commander.
Okay infect at 20. The first time I played commander, I sat down, they briefly explained the rules. 40 life, your commander can be cast from the command zone. It is for all intents and purposes (to twelve year old me) in your hand. The commander casts 2 colorless more for each time it has been cast from the command zone. 21 commander damage kills you. That is the run down I got. My first question was, "Is commander damage only combat damage?" and my second was, "So is it 20 poison counters to kill someone via infect?" Two, I think, fair questions to ask given the run down that I had been given and questions we all had at one point. I remember then thinking that Infect is so much more powerful because it is still 10, not 20. Before then, I don't think I had ever been killed by infect, so why I was concerned, I am not sure.
Well, here is why I changed my mind that it isn't as powerful as I thought. Maybe it'll change yours.
1)Crypt Cobra (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Crypt+Cobra). It says, "If a player has 10 or more poison counters, he or she loses the game." Since when do we go back and change the actual rules text, not reminder text, on a card simply because of the format we are playing in? The fundamental way a card works does not depend on the format.
2) You still need to do 30 damage to win the game. Your opponents (most likely) won't be able to help you. You generally need to do 120 damage to win, 40 to each opponent, but those opponents will also be contributing to that damage by attacking each other. No one else is going to be distributing poison counters.
3) Show me a decent infect commander. Atraxa, Praetor's Voice. Skithiryx, The Blight Dragon (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Skithiryx%2C+the+Blight+Dragon). Okay fair. That's it really. Still need 9 turns to kill everyone, 3 attacks each. Kind of slow. And you better bet he is eating removal. People are overly afraid of infect. I'd be worried maybe at 7 infect counters. Don't get me wrong, I love Skirhiryx, and it is a powerful deck, but not so powerful it needs a nerf. At 20 poison counters, you mine as well be running Uril to get that 21 damage instead of 20.
4) Show me a decent infect card. Again, Skittles. Also Blightsteel Colossus (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Blightsteel+Colossus) and Triump of the Hordes. That is three cards. And in an infect deck, those three cards aren't going to be played. The only one you'd be running in a dedicated infect deck is my boy Skittles. See point three above.
Blightsteel Colossus- Usually a two card win con with something like Chandra's Ignition (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Chandra%27s+Ignition). No different from Exquisite Blood (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Exquisite+Blood) and Sanguine Bond (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Sanguine+Bond). Infect isn't the problem in this instance.
Triumph of the Hordes- Essentially is a third Overrun (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Overrun) effect, the other two being Overrun (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Overrun) and Craterhoof Behemoth (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Craterhoof+Behemoth). The problem in this scenario isn't infect, it is the overwhelming board state you let your opponent build up.
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I would say Ezuri, Claw of Progress (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Ezuri%2C+Claw+of+Progress) and Xenagos, God of Revels (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Xenagos%2C+God+of+Revels) are probably the best infect commanders I've seen. Ezuri pumps something like Blighted Agent (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Blighted+Agent) for a win and Xenagos goes for Putrefax (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Putrefax) or a bunch of Titanic Growth (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Titanic+Growth) effects on a Glistener Elf (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Glistener+Elf) into Chandra's Ignition (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Chandra%27s+Ignition). Either way, you can't run Skittles, which is their biggest downside.
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Yeah I have seen infect decks for both Xenegos and Ezuri, but it is one of the weaker directions you can take either of those commanders which is why I ignored them. The idea is that it is so powerful that 10 poison counters is too little, and if you can build the deck more powerfully by excluding infect, then clearly infect isn't overpowered. And yeah lack of black totally hurts both of them.
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Since most everything I could have said already has been, I’ll limit my comment to the Hybrid Mana discussion.
I don’t think it should be allowed, mostly for the same reasons ApothecaryGeist presented. Why allow hybrid mana but not hybrid cards? Or cards with off-identity abilities?
For example, what happens when a Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Urborg%2C+Tomb+of+Yawgmoth) is in play and a player wants to use black mana to pay for hybrid mana on one of its cards even though black is not in their colour identity; would this be allowed? (let’s assume the only land they have left untapped normally only produces colourless mana)
Either way, why? Why allow it, if the card is considered to not be black because of the commander’s colour identoty, or why disallow (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Disallow) it if the hybrid card was allowed anyway?
By that same logic, if we’re going to allow hybrid mana symbols, why forbid (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Forbid) lands, rocks and dorks that can produce multiple colours of mana; shouldn’t they be allowed as long as they can produce at least one kind that falls within the commander’s identity? (For example allow Opulent Palace (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Opulent+Palace) in Dimir, Golgari and Simic, not just Sultai).
And how would Bloom Tender (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Bloom+Tender) handle hybrid mana? Would the presence of a Deathrite Shaman (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Deathrite+Shaman) allow a green deck’s Bloom Tender (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Bloom+Tender) to suddenly produce black mana too?
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I also have an opinion on hybrid mana. I feel like hybrid mana is a bonus that you get if you hit both the colours. Many hybrid mana cards are quite powerful on their own so it only makes sense that you need both colours in your identity for it to be an option for you. Some effects are also outside of the main colours and that would not make sense. An Animar deck should not have direct access to reanimation but Alesha has some degree of reanimation so that would break the colour pie in ways not intended for commander.
Same goes for things like Deus of Calamity (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Deus+of+Calamity) that would enable land destruction for mono green. What?
I also feel like hybrid mana is as much an enabling factor as it is a limiting factor. The full Spirit Avatar cycle is five hybrid mana to cast which should be difficult in rainbow decks and maybe in tricolour decks to an extent. If we remove the restriction of colour we should also somehow address the limitation of hybrid mana. This limitation is already in place for cards that let you cast for a colour or two colourless. Example: Flame Javelin (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Flame+Javelin). So how would that work out? Each hybrid mana in off-colours would be a {colour}/{2} mana symbol, essentially?
I just don't get it. Hybrid mana is an advantage and a limitation for the cards in the colours of a deck. We already have cards that let you replace a coloured mana symbol with life or colourless and it would feel very unfair to break the mechanic and essentially substitute it with another mechanic that is close to an already existing one.
TL;DR: Phyrexian mana was a mistake.
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This allows you to run Archangel (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Archangel) Avacyn in a mono white deck.
I may come back and reply more to your post later (there's some I disagree with) however this is wrong. From the Wizards site...
Archangel (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Archangel) Avacyn has a white casting cost, but can transform into Avacyn, the Purifier who has a red color identity. Archangel (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Archangel) Avacyn's color identity is white and red.
edit to add link- https://magic.wizards.com/en/content/commander-format
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Hybrid costs give a card a color identity of 2 colors though, I don't see how they differ from flip cards. There's no logic behind the decision, regardless of how much people want it.
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While I think I have come back around to thinking hybrid mana should be considered both when it comes to deck building and construction, I'll play devil's advocate for a moment and present what I feel are the counter arguments.
The first is, as MaRo (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Maro) stated, this rule makes hybrid mana function differently in commander than it does in any other format, which is a needless complication at a base level.
I think it's a good point, but ultimately I think the restrictions of colour for you deck already limit in a way that no other format has, and that restriction actually contributes to a huge part of what makes commander unique and fun and flavourful.
Also (and again, I don't necessarily agree with this, just putting it forward as an argument), one could reason that hybrid mana is different to those of rocks and lands that could produce off colour mana as those do contain explicitly mana symbols that don't appear in your decks colour identity. It is this ruling that still allows you to run off colour fetches. One could argue (and MaRo (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Maro) did) that the hybrid mana symbol was designed to be interpreted as either/or, not both. They are visually different and far more open to interpretation than regular or even phyrexian mana symbols.
I don't think these arguments quite hold enough water personally, but I can see the logic behind them.
One of the things MaRo (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Maro) kept coming back to is intuition (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Intuition), and I think if you explained the rules of Commander to a new player, then showed them Kitchen Finks (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Kitchen+Finks), they would assume that it could only be played in Selesnya or something that encompasses it, and certainly not mono white or green.
Edit:
Also, Rhys the Redeemed (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Rhys+the+Redeemed). That dude is neither mono colours.
I will also mention here for those that didn't listen to the podcast, MaRo (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Maro) stated that part of his inclination to change the hybrid mana rule is that he feels like it has huge potential to impact and worsen future design space. I haven't been a game designer at WotC for the last 20 years, so I won't pretend to know as much about this as he does, but when he's assessing it from a design perspective rather than a game play one, I can see where he is coming from. I still think I'm overall against the change, but I respect where his stance came from.
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WotC should leave well enough alone. If they don't like the restrictions that EDH brings then they should stop making cards tailored for it in standard sets just to lure (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Lure) EDH players into propping up the latest set. They forced Brawl upon themselves and now that takes up some design space as well. Once a year pre-cons and draft sets are good enough. Of course that's probably the finance side of the house dictating things to the design team. I'm just worried they're going to muck it up.
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WotC should leave well enough alone. If they don't like the restrictions that EDH brings then they should stop making cards tailored for it in standard sets just to lure (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Lure) EDH players into propping up the latest set. They forced Brawl upon themselves and now that takes up some design space as well. Once a year pre-cons and draft sets are good enough. Of course that's probably the finance side of the house dictating things to the design team. I'm just worried they're going to muck it up.
MaRo (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Maro) did actually mention as one of his precursors that WotC have no control or input over the rules and decisions made around Commander. If any of these changes did come to pass, it'd be down to the Commander Rules Committee, and I have a lot less faith in those guys making good decisions than I do in WotC.
That said, I'm also not naive enough to believe that WotC would support this homebrew format without considerable influence. They may not have the final say, but I doubt very much that they are powerless.
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Oh WOTC definitely has some pull (though who knows how much). Or do you believe the RC just coincidentally decided to unban Protean Hulk (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Protean+Hulk) right before it was reprinted in Masters 25?
I'd suspect it's a give and take relationship. You give WOTC this and they'll give Commander players that.
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Oh WOTC definitely has some pull (though who knows how much). Or do you believe the RC just coincidentally decided to unban Protean Hulk (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Protean+Hulk) right before it was reprinted in Masters 25?
I'd suspect it's a give and take relationship. You give WOTC this and they'll give Commander players that.
Yea I'm in the same boat as you here. I suspect they maintain this independence for their official status, but behind the doors I bet there is a lot of give and take going on. Probably more so now than ever before, with Commander's rapidly increasing popularity and cash cow potential.
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This allows you to run Archangel (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Archangel) Avacyn in a mono white deck.
I may come back and reply more to your post later (there's some I disagree with) however this is wrong. From the Wizards site...
Archangel (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Archangel) Avacyn has a white casting cost, but can transform into Avacyn, the Purifier who has a red color identity. Archangel (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Archangel) Avacyn's color identity is white and red.
edit to add link- https://magic.wizards.com/en/content/commander-format
No no no. I was saying if we removed the whole color identity thing we could do that. Yes as the rules are now. We cannot do that. Sorry for the confusion.
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I disagree about why having color restrictions when building your deck. You chose a commander to challenge yourself to build around that commander whose abilities are founded in the piece or pieces of the color pie they represent. Otherwise, why select a commander to build around those abilities if you're going to go outside the color pie for things the commander would never be able to do?
What in red indicates Counterspell (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Counterspell) fitting in a Krenko deck?
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If I am killing you with commander damage, I am most likely going to do it with a dedicated voltron deck.
There are plenty of commanders that can win through commander damage despite not building around it (Alesha, Who Smiles at Death (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Alesha%2C+Who+Smiles+at+Death) equipped with Whispersilk Cloak (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Whispersilk+Cloak)/Sunforger (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Sunforger)) and I can easily see a lifegain player gain an arbitrary amount of life, get teamed up on, and be left with no board. Even commanders like Alesha with only 3 power represent a 7 turn clock minimum, and I've killed more people than I can count with an unblockable, untargetable Alesha. Don't knock it.
Why are you crying over Sen Triplets (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Sen+Triplets)? Your name is GolgariFTW, not EsperFTW.
Disclaimer: I personally hate Esper colors :P. Not my thing. I see your point, but I feel like making out of color disappear (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Disappear) would be too much. Various weird cards that change the colors of mana would basically make your opponent's mana go away entirely, and Blood Moon (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Blood+Moon) against non red decks would be even worse than it currently is.
And I'll address all the arguments against my idea:
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Urborg%2C+Tomb+of+Yawgmoth): So what if they get black mana? The way my idea is set up means that none of the cards in a deck with a color identity of RW, say, is that the only time you could use black mana specifically is with weird cards like Sen Triplets (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Sen+Triplets) or with the hybrid mana symbols of R/B or W/B. They already could activate those abilities even without black mana.
Opulent Palace (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Opulent+Palace) (any land that produces colors outside commander's color identity): Its color identity is GUB, so it can't be run in decks that don't have a minimum color identity of GUB.
Lands/rocks/creatures that make any color of mana: You can still make mana outside of color identity of commander, but the only uses they would be have would be the same as black mana made by lands affected by Urborg (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Urborg).
Bloom Tender (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Bloom+Tender): Yes, it would make G & B mana in the presence of Deathrite Shaman (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Deathrite+Shaman), but like I've said previously in this post, that doesn't matter.
Rhys the Redeemed (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Rhys+the+Redeemed): Hmm. I would say my idea only works for cards that you're considering as a part of the 99. Therefore, Rhys the Redeemed (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Rhys+the+Redeemed) as a commander would have a color identity of G/W. As a creature in a deck, it can be in either W or G decks.
I get this gets confusing, but I think it's more simple than it seems. Any hybrid symbol on a card in the 99 can be considered as 1 color or the other color in terms of color identity. As a commander, the color identity is the same as originally.
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Rhys the Redeemed (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Rhys+the+Redeemed): Hmm. I would say my idea only works for cards that you're considering as a part of the 99. Therefore, Rhys the Redeemed (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Rhys+the+Redeemed) as a commander would have a color identity of G/W. As a creature in a deck, it can be in either W or G decks.
I get this gets confusing, but I think it's more simple than it seems. Any hybrid symbol on a card in the 99 can be considered as 1 color or the other color in terms of color identity. As a commander, the color identity is the same as originally.
So if I had a Mono-G (let's say Ezuri, Renegade Laader) deck and added Rhys the Redeemed (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Rhys+the+Redeemed) in there, Rhys would be a Mono-G card? Would Bloom Tender (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Bloom+Tender) then produce just one mana, or would he still produce two because Rhys is GW?
Could Reaper King (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Reaper+King) become playable in every single deck because he could be argued to be a (10) colourless creature, or a (6GB) Golgari creature, or whichever combination you want, and thus fit within any commander's colour identity?
As WWolfe said, I feel as though gaining access to these cards should be a reward for fitting both halves of the card within your commander's colour identity...
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I mainly play aggro-decks in EDH, so here my 2 cents about commander damage and infect:
Commander-Damage: Adds viability to aggressive strategies, instead of dealing 120 damage you need 63, but you restrict yourself to dealing the damage in a certain way. I see the commander damage as compensation for your commitment. Especially in high-power metas games are rarely won by combat damage alone. If you would remove commander damage, you potentially erase (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=de&card=Erase) an entire unique to the format archetype, and all of that because "you need to keep track"?
Infect: Anyone who is either for infect to 20 or against infect in general has never built a dedicated infect deck and tried to win. I understand why it is disliked by many, but its far from being broken. By playing infect you drive the commander-damage scenario to the highest level: its THE glass cannon. You need 1) infect creature (which mostly have horrendous rates, except for blightdaddy) 2) combat trick and 3) preferably haste or evasion. With all 3 you potentially kill 1 player, and this is exactly where the problem arises:
I run a dedicated infect deck, Xenagos as commander. When I enter a pot, I will guaranteed kill 1 Player, quickly. This is the main reason for people disliking infect. They want to play commander and die after 5 turns whilst the rest keeps playing. I understand why some say it isnt "fun" to them, but its far from broken. Its playing 3-4 mana 2/Xs ( Core Prowler (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=de&card=Core+Prowler), Corpse Cur (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=de&card=Corpse+Cur), Blight (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=de&card=Blight) Widow ) and Colossal Might (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=de&card=Colossal+Might) etc., and trying not to run out of steam. If you dislike infect, dont try to ban it or change the rules, just dont play it and voice you dislike playing against it. I dont like stax, do I want to ban stasis (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=de&card=Stasis)? No, because banning something limits the potential fun for others to have, whilst im not forced to play against it. (Setting infect to 20 is pseudo-banning it, getting all 4 players to 10 is serious work)
And the last point: If you have problems with playing against infect but want to compete and play against it: Get 1-2 early blockers. Infect players like to keep hitting someone they hit before as long as they dont oneshot. Just try not to take the first hit. :)
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On infect & commander damage: If you take away infect and/or commander damage, certain commanders just become as obsolete as some that already are (ie, a lot of the Boros commanders). My Skullbriar deck, sure it's built primarily to be a 1v1 deck but I do on occasion enjoy playing it in multiplayer. Without infect or commander damage that deck becomes worthless in multiplayer as there's just no way for it do deal 120 damage (more if there's a lifegain deck in the pod) before it becomes a target that never stays on the board. Whereas having to deal 30 infect or 63 commander is reasonable. It still becomes a target but it's a target with a much more achievable goal.
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So if I had a Mono-G (let's say Ezuri, Renegade Laader) deck and added Rhys the Redeemed (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Rhys+the+Redeemed) in there, Rhys would be a Mono-G card? Would Bloom Tender (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Bloom+Tender) then produce just one mana, or would he still produce two because Rhys is GW?
Could Reaper King (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Reaper+King) become playable in every single deck because he could be argued to be a (10) colourless creature, or a (6GB) Golgari creature, or whichever combination you want, and thus fit within any commander's colour identity?
As WWolfe said, I feel as though gaining access to these cards should be a reward for fitting both halves of the card within your commander's colour identity...
Yes, Rhys the Redeemed (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Rhys+the+Redeemed) would fit, but I think you're pointing out one of the problems with my idea. I would think of it as: in-game, color identity stays the same. When building the deck, though, it gets confusing. The color identity "changes" to 1 of the 2 colors in the hybrid pair. How this would be easily explained/implemented, though, I dunno. (Reaper King (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Reaper+King) would have the ability to go into every deck, which might create some balance (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Balance) questions)
Basically, hybrid cards were created to provide flexibility. You could play them in mono color decks or in dual color decks, they become extremely easy to cast. Like people have mentioned, their background is not gold. Their background is half 1 color, half the other. Therefore, (imo) they should be treated differently than gold cards. They were designed to provide options, choices. They aren't doing that in EDH right now.
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It's just not at all consistent with the rest of the game mechanics. It doesn't work logically or in the rule set of the game
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It's just not at all consistent with the rest of the game mechanics. It doesn't work logically or in the rule set of the game
I agree with this. Thinking about cards like Rhys or Reaper King (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Reaper+King) that I originally forgot to think about in my first post, it isn't really possibly to logically make a rule for all these hybris cards treating them as either color, not both. As much as I'd like to include deathrite shaman (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Deathrite+Shaman) in my mono black deck, there are too many problems.
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Basically, hybrid cards were created to provide flexibility. You could play them in mono color decks or in dual color decks, they become extremely easy to cast. Like people have mentioned, their background is not gold. Their background is half 1 color, half the other. Therefore, (imo) they should be treated differently than gold cards. They were designed to provide options, choices. They aren't doing that in EDH right now.
But then again, Reaper King (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Reaper+King)'s background IS gold, not a WUBRG rainbow ;)
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Basically, hybrid cards were created to provide flexibility. You could play them in mono color decks or in dual color decks, they become extremely easy to cast. Like people have mentioned, their background is not gold. Their background is half 1 color, half the other. Therefore, (imo) they should be treated differently than gold cards. They were designed to provide options, choices. They aren't doing that in EDH right now.
But then again, Reaper King (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Reaper+King)'s background IS gold, not a WUBRG rainbow ;)
I forgot that reaper king (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Reaper+King) existed when making my initial argument. However, I believe the gold border is due to the fact that you cannot pay a single color. You cannot pay WWWWW, UUUUU, BBBBB, RRRRR, or GGGGG. The only possible way for it to he cast is for it to be colorless or gold.
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Reaper King (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Reaper+King) is gold because his color identity is 5c. They don't have a rainbow border for any card. Dual colored borders are neat for certain cards but it still just shows their color identity. Also what Wyrm said
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I have decided to stop arguing my case.
(https://media1.tenor.com/images/88f5f184508324eb7464385c5fbd138a/tenor.gif?itemid=13789066)
(Yeah I figured out how to put gifs in posts and will be spamming them, whenever they are relevant. Enjoy the genius that is this ;D )
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Like people have mentioned, their background is not gold. Their background is half 1 color, half the other. Therefore, (imo) they should be treated differently than gold cards.
But then again, Reaper King (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Reaper+King)'s background IS gold, not a WUBRG rainbow ;)
I forgot that reaper king (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Reaper+King) existed when making my initial argument. However, I believe the gold border is due to the fact that you cannot pay a single color. You cannot pay WWWWW, UUUUU, BBBBB, RRRRR, or GGGGG. The only possible way for it to he cast is for it to be colorless or gold.
I’m leaving the quotes in just to highlight why I brought Reaper King (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Reaper+King) up. Saying Gold Cards are different from split-colours cards is not much ch of an excuse, considering how Reaper King (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Reaper+King) is gold and yet can be played as any of the 32 colour combinations: you can pay WUBRG, 2WUBR, 4WUB, 6WU, 8W, 10, or any of the other colour combinations.
Sure, you can’t pay just WWWWW, but you CAN pay 8W using 9 white mana, or 8U using 9 blue mana... So while a rainbow coloured background doesn’t exist, if any card deserved it it would be Reaper King (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Reaper+King).
Once again, the only reason I brought it up was as a counter to the “gold cards are different from split colour cards” argument. I don’t see why they should be.
I also would like to add that while I understand the original point Mako wanted to make, this goes against the rules since rule 107.4c says: A hybrid mana symbol is all of its component colors. It is both colours, not just one or the other...
And if Hybrid mana were to be considered to be eothwr colour, shouldn’t phyrexian mana also be considered to be colourless?
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Like people have mentioned, their background is not gold. Their background is half 1 color, half the other. Therefore, (imo) they should be treated differently than gold cards.
But then again, Reaper King (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Reaper+King)'s background IS gold, not a WUBRG rainbow ;)
I forgot that reaper king (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Reaper+King) existed when making my initial argument. However, I believe the gold border is due to the fact that you cannot pay a single color. You cannot pay WWWWW, UUUUU, BBBBB, RRRRR, or GGGGG. The only possible way for it to he cast is for it to be colorless or gold.
I’m leaving the quotes in just to highlight why I brought Reaper King (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Reaper+King) up. Saying Gold Cards are different from split-colours cards is not much ch of an excuse, considering how Reaper King (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Reaper+King) is gold and yet can be played as any of the 32 colour combinations: you can pay WUBRG, 2WUBR, 4WUB, 6WU, 8W, 10, or any of the other colour combinations.
Sure, you can’t pay just WWWWW, but you CAN pay 8W using 9 white mana, or 8U using 9 blue mana... So while a rainbow coloured background doesn’t exist, if any card deserved it it would be Reaper King (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Reaper+King).
Once again, the only reason I brought it up was as a counter to the “gold cards are different from split colour cards” argument. I don’t see why they should be.
I also would like to add that while I understand the original point Mako wanted to make, this goes against the rules since rule 107.4c says: A hybrid mana symbol is all of its component colors. It is both colours, not just one or the other...
And if Hybrid mana were to be considered to be eothwr colour, shouldn’t phyrexian mana also be considered to be colourless?
No you do make an excellent point. I'll concede my gold vs split color argument to you.
I am aware of the rules. We are debating weather or not to change them, so I think citing them is a bit of circular reasoning. The best argument I've seen and the one that I agree the most with is the intention of the card. They were intended to be either/or by design, not both. But there are cards I neglected like reaper king (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Reaper+King). Although I dont see a problem throwing him in a 1, 2, 3 or 4 color deck. My opinion on hybrid mana isnt too strong since the only card I really care about is deathrite shaman (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Deathrite+Shaman) in monoblack.
I dont see how you make the jump (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Jump) from the hybrid mana argument to the phyrexian mana argument.
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I am aware of the rules. We are debating weather or not to change them, so I think citing them is a bit of circular reasoning.
Wait, so we’re talking about changing the official M:tG rules now, not just the Commander/EDH rules?
I quoted the Magic rules, btw, to show that they explicitly state that hybrid mana is both colour, not simply either. All I’m saying is that if the EDH rules were to say that hybrid mana can be considered to be either colour when deckbuilding, thatwould go against the wording laid down in the Magic Comprehensive Rules...
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I see what you're saying.
If changed, the EDH rules would be changing the color identity of the cards. Something that didnt exist before commander and is exclusive to commander. A card may be both green and red for the purposes of ruby medallion (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Ruby+Medallion) and sapphire medallion (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Sapphire+Medallion) in each format, but the color identity rule is made for commander. It may be part of the official rules now, the color identity of a card, but it came around because of commander. So yes I dont see why we cant change the rules.
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Because, if a color symbol is on a card ANYWHERE outside of reminder text then it is part of that card's color identity. Why are hybrid costs different? It has both colors in the cost, it's identity is both colors.
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I see what you're saying.
If changed, the EDH rules would be changing the color identity of the cards. Something that didnt exist before commander and is exclusive to commander. A card may be both green and red for the purposes of ruby medallion (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Ruby+Medallion) and sapphire medallion (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Sapphire+Medallion) in each format, but the color identity rule is made for commander. It may be part of the official rules now, the color identity of a card, but it came around because of commander. So yes I dont see why we cant change the rules.
While I agree the Color Identity rules are unique to Commander (and its variants, like Brawl), the fact remains that the rules clearly say that hybrid mana IS both colours, whatever way we want to interpret it. I understand what MaRo (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Maro) meant, but that's not what the rules actually say, and deciding that the EDH rules should consider these symbols to be an either/or instead of an and would be a ruling that would specifically go against the core rules of Magic.
Let's extrapolate further, and pretend we let hybrid mana be considered eithers; at what point are they no longer just eithers? If a MonoBlack deck includes a Footlight Fiend (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Footlight+Fiend), can my opponent dispell it using a Blue Elemental Blast (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Blue+Elemental+Blast), or can I still pretend that the carrd is MonoBlack because I chose to interpret the symbol as B instead of B/R?
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Well sure he can counter using blue elemental blast (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Blue+Elemental+Blast). Although why you're running it I am not sure.
The card references the color of the card, not the color identity. I think the color identity of the card should be determined when deck building. Alesha, who smiles at death (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Alesha%2C+Who+Smiles+at+Death) is a red card with Mardi color identity. This means color and color identity don't have to be the same thing, although in the case of hybrid mana, they are. The color identity of cards in the deck could be based off the commander. If Yawgmoth is my commander, any hybrid cards like unmake (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Unmake) have a black color identity in my deck because of the commander. However the card is still black and white.
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Part 2 is out.
Here is a link for those who want to listen:
https://media.wizards.com/2020/podcasts/magic/drivetowork713_h2hcommanderpart2_Ko12Djs9.mp3
Points raised in this episode:
1) Wish Boards - Cards that let you get any card (for example, the second mode on Mastermind's Acquisition (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Mastermind%27s+Acquisition)). Usually these just refer to the sideboard. EDH has no sideboard, so should these cards let you get anything from your collection?
MaRo (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Maro): Doesn't really care as it's such a small issue. Generally in favour as long as the whole table is fine with it. It's largely up to the player wishing to deal with it so the impact on others is small. Appreciates that it somewhat negates the point of 100 card singleton. Wish cards essentially make your deck have more than 100 cards.
Me: fine, as long as it's agreed by all parties beforehand.
2) Change Mulligan Rule
MaRo (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Maro): No official change. Thinks rule 0 is sufficient. Casual tables can be free to be more liberal with their mulligans.
Me: Same.
3) Life total change - change that starting life total, most likely to 30 or 35.
MaRo (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Maro): Life total is too ingrained, changing would cause too many problems. If he were to start over and build from scratch, then probably (to reduce game length and give aggro a chance), but no need to change currently.
Me: Same. I can see the argument, but people are used to it and it's part of the charm. K'rrik is not nearly as broken with 10 less life, and I love K'rrik.
4) Planeswalkers as commanders
MaRo (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Maro): Yes. Commander is wonderful because you get to choose a character to lead an army and it's very flavourful. Planeswalkers are some of the most prominent characters. He suspects most people wont use them anyway, and those who do want to should be able to.
Me: I'm honestly undecided on this one. I've never tried it. My only experience with it is watching people like Commander Vs. try it. It didn't seem that broken, but they tend to build decks that are entertaining to watch rather than powerful. And one of them ultimated Liliana, Dreadhorde General (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Liliana%2C+Dreadhorde+General) and still lost because of doubling season (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Doubling+Season), so there is clearly some busted stuff going on. I think I'd ultimately say yes, but I'm a filthy casual.
5) Change the Partner Tax - tax applies to both rather than either. If you cast A and it dies, when you cast B it needs +2 anyway
MaRo (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Maro): Yes. Partner is strong enough as it is and it helps balance (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Balance) it. Also a lot easier to track and remember.
Me: My first thought is that this change would be fine, but I'd want a bit more context and to know more statistics to back it up. I know partners see a lot of play at the top end of the power level, so if this would hose their strats too badly then I don't think it's worth it.
6) Commander death triggers - should commanders still count as dying if they go to the command zone.
MaRo (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Maro): Yes. Is very unintuitive as it currently works. So much so that it is affecting design (MaRo (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Maro) said that they will specifically avoid giving death triggers to legendary creatures, even in standard sets, not just the commander products).
Me: Yes, for the same reasons. Seems like a very minor change and it would be far more intuitive.
7) Silver Bordered cards
MaRo (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Maro): Yes, sort of. He would make a second, alternate format called "Un-Commander", that has it's own list of legal silver bordered cards. Mostly because people like official rules. Strictly for the casuals.
Me: I would fucking love this.
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1) Wish cards.
I don't particularly care. I tried some of the wish cards with my playgroup, grabbing from my entire collection, and they didn't seem to add too much. Perhaps a limitation that it cannot be banned in commander and it has to be in the color identity of your commander, so someone can't run Living Wish (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Living+Wish) in their Omnath, Locus of Mana (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Omnath%2C+Locus+of+Mana) deck as a pseudo proxy of Emrakul, The Aeons Torn (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Emrakul%2C+the+Aeons+Torn), but I agree it should be up to the playgroup to decide.
2) Change Mulligan Rule
What is the official mulligan rule? My playgroup still does partial mulligan, and I keep telling them it favors combo decks (my decks) the most.
3) Life Total Change
We are changing it to 30 life? So 15 poison counters? What about 35 life? 17 and a half poison counters? Joking aside, I think the 40 life is too, for a lack of a better word, ingrained (great word for this btw CleanBelwas). Also part of what gives commander the appeal to the casual players is being able to play their big Timmy spells, or Johnny spells? I get them mixed up. Spike is cEDH, I know that. Lowering the life total would make it harder for the non Spike people to do the big splashy stuff they love to do, like Genesis wave (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Genesis+Wave) for 30 for example.
I am ignorant here, so I will leave this question to Soren and Morganator. Would reducing the life total to 35 or 30 make non infinite combat in cEDH more viable?
4)Plansewalkers as Commanders. This is essentially the same concept, with stricter parameters, as the non creature legends idea.
I will firmly stick to the same argument for this one as I did for the other one.
Non creature legends could be interesting. I'd like to make a Genju of the Realms deck, but I can't. I think this should be done on a playgroup basis. Just flavor wise, it doesn't make sense to have an enchantment leading an army, being a commander. I guess I should propose a real argument other than flavor for why it shouldn't be changed.
We have several years of commander products designed specifically around specifically creatures being in the command zone. I will disregard the plansewalkers that can be commanders here because they were designed taking into account the balance (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Balance) of things and are thus fine. By that same logic, if an enchantment was designed and had the line of text "could be your commander" I would be fine with it. So to go back and allow all these new things into the command zone could cause major problem. Putting Bolas's Citadel (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Bolas%27s+Citadel) in the command zone? The past x (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=X) years (sorry I don't know how many) of specifically commander designed cards were not intended to have Bolas's Citadel (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Bolas%27s+Citadel) in the command zone. Being essentially guaranteed that card on turn 6 is crazy.
5) I don't too much experience with partner commanders. I have a cEDH flash (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Flash) hulk deck with Tymna and Thrasios as the commanders. It is completely proxies except for the commanders. I played it once and kicked the table's ass so I am not allowed to play it anymore, rightfully so, I think. The goal was to encourage my friends to proxy a cEDH deck and do that, but they didn't bite. That is the only experience with partner commanders I have so I don't think it is fair for me to make a statement for or against partner tax.
6)Commander Death Triggers
r/sarcasm Oh yes, let's make Child of Alara (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Child+of+Alara) trigger when it goes to the command zone too.
Actually, I wanted a Child of Alara (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Child+of+Alara) deck when I first started playing EDH and the reason I didn't make it was because I found out that commanders don't "die" unless they go to the command zone. While I think it should count as dying, the technicalities for making it trigger death triggers when going to the command zone seem too much. "When a commander leaves the battlefield, if it was going to the graveyard before the replacement effect sent him to the command zone, anything triggers caused by him going to the graveyard are still triggered."
7) Silver Bordered Cards
LET ME PLAY BARON VON COUNT (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Baron+Von+Count)!
I have a viewpoint that I think a lot of players share. Ban each card specifically, not the entire suite of silver bordered cards. There are more than a few cards that could feasibly be printed in a real magic set. Goblin Game (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Goblin+Game) and Goblin Bomb (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Goblin+Bomb) are real cards, why can't Baron Von Count (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Baron+Von+Count) be?
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2) Change Mulligan Rule
What is the official mulligan rule? My playgroup still does partial mulligan, and I keep telling them it favors combo decks (my decks) the most.
Currently all formats are using the London Mulligan, which is actually really good. Each time you mulligan, you draw a full 7 and put X (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=X) cards on the bottom, where X (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=X) is the number of times you have chosen to mulligan. It's slightly better than scrying as you can put any card back. If the first card you drew was an 8 drop and the rest of the hand was fine, you can just sling the 8 drop to the bottom, whereas with the old mulligan system you only have the option to scry the last card to the bottom and you'd end up stuck with an 8 drop in your hand.
MaRo (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Maro) was a little unclear what was actually meant by changing the mulligan rule, but I inferred that he was more referring to the notion of taking free 7s rather than the type of mulligan used. In multiplayer formats, everyone gets one free mulligan where they can put their original hand back and draw a fresh 7 with no downside or penalty.
We have a house rule in my playgroup which is:
Everyone gets one free mulligan. We each roll a D20 to determine who is going first. If you roll a 1 you lose your free Mulligan. If you roll a 20 you get an extra free Mulligan. It's never important, but it is kind of fun.
7) Silver Bordered Cards
LET ME PLAY BARON VON COUNT (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Baron+Von+Count)!
I have a viewpoint that I think a lot of players share. Ban each card specifically, not the entire suite of silver bordered cards. There are more than a few cards that could feasibly be printed in a real magic set. Goblin Game (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Goblin+Game) and Goblin Bomb (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Goblin+Bomb) are real cards, why can't Baron Von Count (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Baron+Von+Count) be?
Yea I'm inclined to agree. My playgroup are super chill (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Chill) about Silver Bordered cards. We started using them when they were just functional reprints of legal cards that we owned to save having to buy new cards (Amateur Auteur (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Amateur+Auteur) instead of Felidar Cub (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Felidar+Cub) for example), but we each had a load of silver bordered cards from an unstable draft we did that were super fun so we decided to try them out. We ended up with a house rule of you can play anything that doesn't require anything physically weird. So things like Super-Duper Death Ray (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Super-Duper+Death+Ray), Crow Storm (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Crow+Storm), Bumbling Pangolin (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Bumbling+Pangolin) (without the augments) etc. are fine, but Hoisted Hireling (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Hoisted+Hireling) or Blurry Beeble (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Blurry+Beeble) aren't allowed. For us at least, it's worked out fine and we've had a lot of fun with it.
I also fully intend to make an Acornelia, Fashionable Filcher (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Acornelia%2C+Fashionable+Filcher) deck and my playgroup have said they're fine with it.
There is certainly a lot of fun to be had for the casuals who are open to silver bordered includes.
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I think MaRo (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Maro) meant that under Rule 0 people are allowed to mulligan as they please, with any style they find fun and take as many free mulligans as they find fun. I know the official rule is standard London but how official is most kitchen Commander anyway?
@CleanBelwas: You should definitely flip those: getting a nat 1 guarantees you go last so you should get all the help you can get. Nat 20 lets you always go first so you lose your free mulligan privileges.
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I think MaRo (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Maro) meant that under Rule 0 people are allowed to mulligan as they please, with any style they find fun and take as many free mulligans as they find fun. I know the official rule is standard London but how official is most kitchen Commander anyway?
Yea that makes sense, and that's the main reason I don't think any rules changes are necessary. Let people do what they want.
@CleanBelwas: You should definitely flip those: getting a nat 1 guarantees you go last so you should get all the help you can get. Nat 20 lets you always go first so you lose your free mulligan privileges.
I 100% agree with you if our intention was to be fair, but that unfairness is exactly why we like doing it this way. My playgroup also likes to play D&D together, so we like it this way as it's reminiscent of this. Also, we don't roll strictly for turn order, we've already sat down at this point and don't care enough to swap chairs, so you can get a 1 and still go second if you are sat next to the winner of the roll. It's mostly for the D&D flavour that we do it.
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I am ignorant here, so I will leave this question to Soren and Morganator. Would reducing the life total to 35 or 30 make non infinite combat in cEDH more viable?
I mean... Yes... but not by much. A lot of combos are still just faster than combat damage. Even the commanders that can win with incremental combat damage (Najeela, Narset, Edric) have combo wins as a primary. Lowering the life total would (slightly) hurt combo decks that use Ad Nauseam (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Ad+Nauseam) or Aetherflux Reservoir (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Aetherflux+Reservoir).
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If by more viable u mean relative to itself yes.. but it's still infinitely worse than everything else
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These seem much less controversial than last week's ...
1. Wish Boards - I am 100% against wish boards. I have in the past sat down with people who have them. I have agreed to play the game. I was genuinely curious to see how it would go. I've done that three or four times now. It is always the same. The wish board has every potential answer they could need. That wish card effectively becomes any card they could need at the time - a massively modular spell. It's a bit too good. Every time the wish player wins. With normal tutors, you have to dedicate slots in you deck for the tutor targets. This comes at a cost of having fewer slots to dedicate to your deck's goal. Opponents can also interact with that pile of cards ... they can mill your library, force you to discard, etc. A wish board becomes an extra 10 to 15 cards in your library that no one can touch. Too broken. I am now 100% against wish boards. I think it is correct that these effects do not function in EDH.
2. Change the mulligan rule - the original post is a bit vague. I'm guessing that's because MaRo (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Maro) was a bit vague. Change to what? or change from what? Is this from a time pre-London? Or is he citing a post-London problem? Commander has had a few different mulligan's over the years. Partial Paris was great for the 100 card format, but a bit broken. Vancouver and London are both ok. On the old mtgcommander.net site, they used to give the suggestion that you just chuck your hand and draw a new 7 off the top. No shuffling in between. That is now gone from the new site. I would like to see this policy officially adopted for Commander. It just takes too long to watch 3 players shuffle their 100 card decks for a mulligan, then do it again. Draw 7, toss & draw 7, toss & draw 7, keep, shuffle & London to bottom take much much less time.
3. Life total change - I see no reason to make a change in life total at this point in the format. I've not heard anyone say that 40 life points is too high nor too low. And it is almost one of the defining traits of the format.
4. Planeswalkers as commanders - Didn't we already talk about this last week. Sure that was "any legendary permanent", but planeswalkers are legendary (now). While it would be very flavorful, I am still against it. Planeswalkers are powerful, even the weak ones. They are mostly only balanced by the fact that once they are dealt with (killed), there aren't a lot of ways to recur them from the graveyard. Having access to the most supercharged planeswalker that can come back for the low low price of 2 extra mana is just too much.
5. Change the partner tax - When partner commander first debuted, this is how I initially thought they would function. I would be good with this change. The reality is that WotC could make this change. They invented the partner mechanic and the associated rules. The Commander Rules Committee had nothing to do with it.
6. Commanders hitting the graveyard when they die - This at first seems like a simple change, but if you dig into all the rules ramifications it could be very complicated. If it goes to graveyard, then triggers another movement to command zone, I could Stifle (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Stifle) that trigger and force your Commander to stay in the graveyard. Similar thing with exiling, and even more heinous as I could lock your commander in exile (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Exile). If it goes to grave, and then moves to command zone as a state-based effect, then you don't have the option to keep your commander in the graveyard. I think this issue is conceptually tied to the tuck rule. If you always want commanders to always be accessible, then the current rule needs to stand. If you want the tuck rule to come back, then this rule could potentially change too. MaRo (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Maro)'s problem of not being able to design legendary creatures with death triggers is simple. Stop designing EVERY legendary creature specifically for Commander. We have playable commander's that have them - Kokusho, Child of Alara (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Child+of+Alara). Part of Commander's charm is that were taking cards out of the context of their original designs and finding other creative ways to use them.
7. Silver borders - I am for this. I think we need 2 lists. The first is a list of silver border cards that are completely supported by the black border rules. Crow Storm (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Crow+Storm) is a great example here. Nothing about this card couldn't be printed in black border. These cards would be legal all the time. The second list would be a list of cards that, while not completely supported by black border rules, they don't completely break the black border rules. This would be things like "artist matters" cards. These cards would be legal, but you would have to announce at the beginning of the game that you are running them. The final list would be everything else in silver border that wouldn't be banned. These cards would only be legal when specifically playing Un-Commander. I was working on such list a while back. I never completed them.
Now I'm going to go listen to MaRo (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Maro)'s podcast and see if he changes my mind on anything.
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1-Wish Boards: Thoroughly against. As someone else mentioned it's a way to constantly have answers to any problem that arises without having to slot them into your deck. I've seen people tutor for the card giving them access to their wish board and then use the wish board card to deal with whatever was going on in the game. It just craps in the face of the hard 100 card rule.
2- Change the mulligan rule: To me this is house-ruled where ever you play anyway so it's kind of a mute point. At one LGS I go to they do free mulligans up to three times (Initial draw and two times after) and you always scry two after declaring if you're keeping the hand. At another LGS I go to, it's hard London mulligan rules.
3- Life total change:I see no need to change something that I've never heard anyone complain about.
4- Planeswalkers as Commanders: You'd end up with several banned, and I've played games with multiple people playing planeswalker commanders. They last longer than the average game as constantly having to keep planeswalkers from hitting their ultimate becomes a continuous factor. That chip damage that can speed up a game incrementally ends up directed at planeswalkers.
5- Change the partner tax: I really have no opinion either way. I don't have any partner decks nor do I play against that many.
6- Commanders hitting graveyard: I don't see anything that's wrong with how it functions now.
7- Silver borders: I really have no opinion. I've never thought about playing any and never had anyone I was playing with want to use them.
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1-Wish Boards: wish style cards are some of my favorites to play but this is one better served by letting local metas decide how they want to handle it. No need to change this.
2-Mulligan Rule: London mull with multiplayer freebie is a fine baseline/default to use for the big Fests and such. As stated by others, every group seems to do this differently. The people I play with the most usually allow extra free mulls for low lands just because we play so infrequently that we don't want to waste time on games where someone is out before it even starts.
3-Starting life total: So much of how people play is based off of 40 that lowering it would likely cause significant shifts in deck construction, play style, etc. Aggressive decks are strengthened while combo is weakened. Black gets toned down some while maybe white receives the tiniest of boosts [still doesn't solve lack of ramp/draw]
4-Planeswalkers as Commanders: I'm fine with the ones designed to be Commanders but feel most are too powerful to be able to keep coming back repeatedly. I get MaRo (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Maro)'s point here about being able to play a character from the storyline, etc so maybe the answer is to make versions of the Gatewatch that are 'May be played as your Commander' designs to scratch that itch for the Vorthos [sp? too lazy to look up right now]. I'd say just let Oathbreaker and Brawl fill the need but at least locally, after the initial enthusiasm, these 2 formats seem to be dwindling from what I'm hearing.
5-Partner tax: No strong opinion here for the same reasons WWolfe mentioned.
6-Commander 'Death': I've had some trouble getting this distinction across while trying to teach people to play but not sure what can of worms it might open up if changed. Wary of changing it.
7-'Un' cards: As a not-a-fan of them, I'd prefer they stay out of the official rules with local groups setting their own standards regarding them. I enjoy reading them because some of them are quite funny but keep them the heck out of my game. Someone mentioned allowing ones that don't require other players to sing or dance or dumb crap like that but keeping the ones that do banned. I could maybe get behind that....maybe.
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I have now listened to Mark Rosewater's podcast. Most of where I agree with his stance, he is coming from the perspective of a player. Most of where I disagree, Mark is coming from the perspective of a card designer. Not only has he not changed my mind, but he has strengthened my opinions.
MaRo (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Maro) repeatedly stated that he does not play much Commander. He was speaking about a fictional world where he would have the ability to change Commander rules. He was not specifically talking about anything that desperately NEEDS to be changed in Commander. But just things, in general, that could possibly be changed from a Game Designer's perspective.
Commander's Rules were formulated from a player's perspective. Building and playing the decks. The difficulties of the MTG designer are not the player's problem.
Many of MaRo (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Maro)'s "proposed" changes were his lamenting that mechanics do not work in Commander the way that R&D intended. To me this is part of Commander's charm. We are taking cards out of their intended context and dropping them into another. Rules quirks abound. If this hamstrings the designers, my advise to them is to quit designing Standard cards to be Commander playable. (When legendaries have death triggers, now we have a choice to make as players.) The Commander community finds uses for a lot of cards that weren't specifically designed for Commander. We will continue to do so.
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If this hamstrings the designers, my advise to them is to quit designing Standard cards to be Commander playable. (When legendaries have death triggers, now we have a choice to make as players.)
That's part of what makes Elenda, the Dusk Rose (https://cards.deckstats.net/magiccard.php?utf8=1&lng=en&card=Elenda%2C+the+Dusk+Rose) a fun deck to pilot and build. That's part of what makes commander great.