Opinions on potential changes to Commander?

[CleanBelwas]

I think 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.

[Morganator 2.0]

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 or Aetherflux Reservoir.

[Soren841]

If by more viable u mean relative to itself yes.. but it's still infinitely worse than everything else

[ApothecaryGeist]

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 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 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.  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'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.  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 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's podcast and see if he changes my mind on anything.

[WWolfe]

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.

[Xaarvaxus]

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'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.

[ApothecaryGeist]

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 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'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.

[WWolfe]

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 a fun deck to pilot and build. That's part of what makes commander great.