Opinions on potential changes to Commander?

[Spinsane]

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's background IS gold, not a WUBRG rainbow

[Red_Wyrm]

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's background IS gold, not a WUBRG rainbow

I forgot that 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.

[Soren841]

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

[WizardSpartan]

I have decided to stop arguing my case.


(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 )

[Spinsane]

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's background IS gold, not a WUBRG rainbow

I forgot that 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 up. Saying Gold Cards are different from split-colours cards is not much ch of an excuse, considering how 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.

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?

[Red_Wyrm]

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's background IS gold, not a WUBRG rainbow

I forgot that 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 up. Saying Gold Cards are different from split-colours cards is not much ch of an excuse, considering how 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.

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. 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 in monoblack.

I dont see how you make the jump from the hybrid mana argument to the phyrexian mana argument.

[Spinsane]

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...

[Red_Wyrm]

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 and 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.

[Soren841]

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.

[Spinsane]

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 and 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 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, can my opponent dispell it using a 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?

[Red_Wyrm]

Well sure he can counter using 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 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 have a black color identity in my deck because of the commander. However the card is still black and white.

[CleanBelwas]

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). Usually these just refer to the sideboard. EDH has no sideboard, so should these cards let you get anything from your collection?

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: 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: 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: 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 and still lost because of 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: Yes. Partner is strong enough as it is and it helps 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: Yes. Is very unintuitive as it currently works. So much so that it is affecting design (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: 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.

[Red_Wyrm]

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 in their Omnath, Locus of Mana deck as a pseudo proxy of Emrakul, 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 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 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 in the command zone? The past x years (sorry I don't know how many) of specifically commander designed cards were not intended to have Bolas's 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 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 trigger when it goes to the command zone too.

Actually, I wanted a 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!

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 and Goblin Bomb are real cards, why can't Baron Von Count be?

[CleanBelwas]

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 cards on the bottom, where 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 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!

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 and Goblin Bomb are real cards, why can't Baron Von Count be?

Yea I'm inclined to agree. My playgroup are super 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 instead of 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, Crow Storm, Bumbling Pangolin (without the augments) etc. are fine, but Hoisted Hireling or 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 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.

[Aetherium Slinky]

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?

@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.