January 2016 Rules Announcement

[TsumiBand]

Taken from here, because the main Commander site is apparently under a deluge and can't be bothered to MySQL correctly -- http://tappedout.net/mtg-forum/commander/banned-list-announcement-january-2016/

Prophet of Kruphix is Banned
Vancouver Mulligan replaces Partial Paris
Rule 4 is no more (you can only generate colored mana in your commander's color identity)

I never sat across from a Prophet of Kruphix but I've seen several analogues, I have trouble thinking this was anything but kid service. Maybe someone's been legitimately impacted by this that can explain to me why it's not; I don't see it, or at least, I don't see it as being a bigger problem card than any of the other U and/or G cards that they have no apparent allergy to. How DEN is still a card after all this time I have no idea.

I gave my two cents about Vancouver mulligans some time ago; I typically saw Partial Paris as an equalizer, not a game-breaker. When the players are already coming together under house rules, you're either self-moderating broken starts by a) discouraging the decks b) being as broken as your opponents. I don't think this really addresses the root of the 'issue', but whatever.

As for Rule 4 dissolving -- honestly this feels like a major pillar of the format, one of its defining rules, and I'm surprised at the logic used to get rid of it. "It never came up before, so we don't expect it will anytime soon." How could it come up if it was largely prohibited by deck construction in the first place? One of the most interesting parts of the format to me was that by picking a Commander you were essentially deciding which kinds of magic were off-limits to you; even if you stole a Troll Ascetic (somehow), you couldn't give it the mana it needs to regenerate it. It's the Alara principle; your Grixis commander has never seen Green or White mana before, why should the deck built around it be any different? It seems like a foolish change, and it's another one of those "so Blue can do more things now, not that any real Blue mages care about this sort of thing" hand-wavey explanations as to why this isn't just making Blue decks better by letting them actually make use of those objects they stole with the outside mana symbols.

I do not like these changes.

I know EDH is all about the house rules and the social gathering and the whoozit and the whatsit and all that, but here's the thing, is I primarily have to play with PUGs if/when I do because I never have fucking time to play with my mates. So in a personalized format all I have to go to are PUGs, and all I have to rely on is the widely known rules, so I can't just dismiss them as "not my EDH" because it is. So, that's lame.

[Baumeister]

Taken from here, because the main Commander site is apparently under a deluge and can't be bothered to MySQL correctly -- http://tappedout.net/mtg-forum/commander/banned-list-announcement-january-2016/I never sat across from a Prophet of Kruphix but I've seen several analogues, I have trouble thinking this was anything but kid service. Maybe someone's been legitimately impacted by this that can explain to me why it's not; I don't see it, or at least, I don't see it as being a bigger problem card than any of the other U and/or G cards that they have no apparent allergy to. How DEN is still a card after all this time I have no idea.

The main problem with Prophet of Kruphix and the reason I have always hated seeing it far more than Dead Eye Navigator is the crushing amount of both turn and mana advantage it provides for such a low up front cost. In order for a player to prevent you from beginning to run away with the game, they need instant-speed removal on the turn you decide to play your Prophet. I built a Momir Vig deck specifically to abuse Prophet and it was frighteningly good finding, protecting, and abusing this creature. Sure, you have to build around it a bit, but the payoffs are absurd. The card essentially reads: Play mostly creatures in your deck. If you do, this is three Time Walks per round.

It also has perfect stats for this format being green for Green Sun's Zenith, blue to pitch to Force of Will, having 2 power for recursion with Reveillark and being a wizard for incidental card advantage from Azami.

I know part of the reason for the ban was fan service, but I will not be sad to see it gone.


I gave my two cents about Vancouver mulligans some time ago; I typically saw Partial Paris as an equalizer, not a game-breaker. When the players are already coming together under house rules, you're either self-moderating broken starts by a) discouraging the decks b) being as broken as your opponents. I don't think this really addresses the root of the 'issue', but whatever.

I think using the regular mulligan rule (with the multiplayer modifier) will force people to run more lands. I see this as neither a good or a bad change.


As for Rule 4 dissolving -- honestly this feels like a major pillar of the format, one of its defining rules, and I'm surprised at the logic used to get rid of it. "It never came up before, so we don't expect it will anytime soon." How could it come up if it was largely prohibited by deck construction in the first place? One of the most interesting parts of the format to me was that by picking a Commander you were essentially deciding which kinds of magic were off-limits to you; even if you stole a Troll Ascetic (somehow), you couldn't give it the mana it needs to regenerate it. It's the Alara principle; your Grixis commander has never seen Green or White mana before, why should the deck built around it be any different? It seems like a foolish change, and it's another one of those "so Blue can do more things now, not that any real Blue mages care about this sort of thing" hand-wavey explanations as to why this isn't just making Blue decks better by letting them actually make use of those objects they stole with the outside mana symbols.

I do not like this change either for the reasons you listed. It seems like they are trying to fix something that worked perfectly fine. I supposed it makes rainbow lands better? And now when you have Gauntlet of Power in play with Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, opponents can tap for two black mana instead of two colorless mana.

Actually, does this make the weird lock with Zedruu the Greathearted and Celestial Dawn less effective?

[Ace/Homebrew]

I support all changes!

Partial Paris was fine if you kept 6 and threw away a 4th land to potentially re-draw another land, but more often than not it was 'mulligan 5, keeping Sol Ring and land'. That always annoyed me. Now it's not an issue. :smile:

Getting rid of Rule 4 is a flavor loss, which is a shame. But not having 'Exotic Orchard makes green, which turns to colorless because Rule 4 --> Kozilek!!' moments seems like a plus.

Prophet of Kruphix was a problem and I am glad to see it gone. In games I've played, the person resolving Prophet wins. I wouldn't say that it has happened in every pod I've played in, but whenever I've seen Prophet hit the table, the game gets lop-sided and is over shortly.

[AngryTroll]

I play Legacy competitively and EDH for fun. I build EDH decks to be strong and streamlined, but I plan to win about 1/5 to 1/3 of the games I play with friends-my share, roughly. This is possible because the group I play with feels the same way; however, Primeval Titan, Sylvan Primordial, Prophet of Kruphix, and Consecrated Sphinx are really hard to leave out of a deck that can play them, and they immediately shape the game around themselves. My decks tend to be heavy on instant speed spot removal to kill, in order of dislike, Prophet of Kruphix, Deadeye Navigator, and Consecrated Sphinx.

Prophet of Kruphix is my least-favorite EDH card, for the reasons listed and the way it boggs down the game. In a four player game, I get 1/4 of the turns and have to wait three turns until I get to untap. As soon as someone drops a Prophet, I get 1/8 of the turns and need to wait seven turns until I get to play again. As others stated, it also requires immediate, instant speed removal; even if the next player in line has a Wrath, it's still almost a Time Walk. Temporal Manipulation is good; Time Stretch is scoop-inducing.


The EDH banned list is a funny thing. Sol Ring is ridiculous, much stronger than most of the creatures on the banned list, and in many ways harder to answer. I don't feel bad running a Swords to Plowshares or a Krosan Grip in an EDH deck; even though they trade one for one, they're so good at what they do that I am willing to make that inefficient-in-multiplayer trade. I don't feel as good running a Nature's Claim, although perhaps I should. I think part of the problem is that Sol Ring doesn't get tutored for and the game doesn't revolve around it once it sticks like games do around Prophet, Consecrated Sphinx, and Prime Time. Still though, Sol Ring is legal and those aren't? It's very strange.

[HammerAndSickled]

Yeah, I mean the fact of the matter is that by the time you get to a point where you're putting Prophet in your deck, you're not "playing to win". The fact that EDH is basically singleton vintage with their ridiculous banlist means that if you really wanted to be competitive within the banlist (like we do in every other format of Magic) you would just play all the broken fast mana, cantrips, tutors, and card draw and basically just play unpowered Vintage. The fact that people chose to follow the "spirit of the format" and power down their decks to play grindy midrange 5-drops and then they're always the ones who get stuff banned (Primeval, Sylvan, and now Prophet.) The format is basically just a joke IMO. You either have competitive EDH which is playing to the fullest within the allowed banlist, in which case you should just proxy up Vintage and play that; or you have some "gentleman's agreement" format where there's a soft banned list not on the broken cards like Ring, Crypt, Vault, Demonic, YawgWill, etc. but more of a soft ban on what you're allowed to do with those cards, which is positively absurd.

[Dice_Box]

Post.
I tried to build a Grixis deck with Nekusar. Rocks, Tutors, Draw Sevens, Megrim/Liliana, Minds Desire and Vise. As I started to build the local group politely asked me not to, said I was not following the spirit of the game. I took that on board and thanked them for letting me know before I spent my money.

It's a game not meant for us Hammer. If you like me where your plan is to abuse what you have access too and you have open to you cards from the beginning of the game, then we are the top of the table when it comes to both options and opportunities. If we take this format to the Spike extreme we turn into everyone else's worst nightmare. I think it's fine to say it's not for us and move on, like standard is also. If people want to play EDH and only have a few hundred dollars to spend, let them play with their rules and have their fun. We have our format, our place to shine, it's just not with kids who have a Timmy outlook on the game and may also not have the funds needed to match an arms race we would start.

[Ace/Homebrew]

The fact that EDH is basically singleton vintage with their ridiculous banlist means that if you really wanted to be competitive within the banlist you would just play all the broken fast mana, cantrips, tutors, and card draw and basically just play unpowered Vintage.

Isn't that exactly the point though? It's not singleton Vintage... :tongue:

[HammerAndSickled]

I tried to build a Grixis deck with Nekusar. Rocks, Tutors, Draw Sevens, Megrim/Liliana, Minds Desire and Vise. As I started to build the local group politely asked me not to, said I was not following the spirit of the game. I took that on board and thanked them for letting me know before I spent my money.

It's a game not meant for us Hammer. If you like me where your plan is to abuse what you have access too and you have open to you cards from the beginning of the game, then we are the top of the table when it comes to both options and opportunities. If we take this format to the Spike extreme we turn into everyone else's worst nightmare. I think it's fine to say it's not for us and move on, like standard is also. If people want to play EDH and only have a few hundred dollars to spend, let them play with their rules and have their fun. We have our format, our place to shine, it's just not with kids who have a Timmy outlook on the game and may also not have the funds needed to match an arms race we would start.

The thing is, I actually love casual EDH. I play big mana decks that try to Djinn Illuminatus a Time Stretch or Radiate a Rite of Replication. I have a sweet deck that I liked playing with my more casual friends who aren't as competitive or invested as me. But the problem is I knew I was intentionally hamstringing myself every time I built a deck, because there were legal cards I wasn't playing because they were too good. I was playing DOWN to their level and I still got a card banned from my deck almost every announcement. And so I was in this weird spot where my friends looked at me like I was a jerk for casting Primeval Titan while one of them had freaking NECROPOTENCE in play.

Imagine this was any other format. Imagine you're playing Modern and you play Mono-Green beatdown because "Thoughtseize and Liliana are overpowered," and they leave those cards legal while banning Dungrove Elder. Imagine you're playing Legacy and Vampiric is legal, but only if you use it to get something "fair" (probably a fucking Veteran Explorer) and if you play Storm a judge stands behind you all day and "tsks" disapprovingly. The format IS for me, I want to play big mana battlecruiser Magic with my less-enfranchised friends, but it's so hard to do that when the banlist is laughably hypocritical.

[Baumeister]

Imagine this was any other format. Imagine you're playing Modern and you play Mono-Green beatdown because "Thoughtseize and Liliana are overpowered," and they leave those cards legal while banning Dungrove Elder. Imagine you're playing Legacy and Vampiric is legal, but only if you use it to get something "fair" (probably a fucking Veteran Explorer) and if you play Storm a judge stands behind you all day and "tsks" disapprovingly. The format IS for me, I want to play big mana battlecruiser Magic with my less-enfranchised friends, but it's so hard to do that when the banlist is laughably hypocritical.

The difference is that Modern is a sanctioned format where players almost always compete for prizes. It's very easy to not care about using powerful cards when there is money on the line. But EDH has been culled and shaped to appeal to casual players who get together to have fun and people take great offense when they feel their fun is being stifled. Whether that's right or wrong doesn't really matter. The rules committee has to balance the format in a way that appeals to the majority of players and EDH has always been the format for Timmies. You can play Hermit Druid combo or Oona Pitch Long or Aluren all day long and it's "allowed" - but people will stop playing with you because it's not the kind of Magic they want.

[JPoJohnson]

I really dislike the colored mana change. I play this fromat for the flavour of a deck being on point. This just destroy the whole purpose of the format.

[HammerAndSickled]

The difference is that Modern is a sanctioned format where players almost always compete for prizes. It's very easy to not care about using powerful cards when there is money on the line. But EDH has been culled and shaped to appeal to casual players who get together to have fun and people take great offense when they feel their fun is being stifled. Whether that's right or wrong doesn't really matter. The rules committee has to balance the format in a way that appeals to the majority of players and EDH has always been the format for Timmies. You can play Hermit Druid combo or Oona Pitch Long or Aluren all day long and it's "allowed" - but people will stop playing with you because it's not the kind of Magic they want.
But this doesn't answer my point about the absurdity of the "gentleman's agreement:" if those types of cards are too good for the purposes of the types of games EDH should be about, just ban them. When someone asks for a pickup game of magic, I ask them what format. Formats exist to define what's reasonable to play and allowable in the games. Even if I'm playing tier 1 and they're playing budget, at least we have the same IDEA of the game when I say "I've got Legacy, do you wanna play?" With EDH, it encompasses a spectrum of formats that are unrecognizable from each other. Hermit Druid combo bares no resemblance whatsoever to the game that Mr. tribal dragons expected to play. And apparently fair midrange Prophet/Titan decks are equally busted in the eyes of Timmy, when the difference between Prophet and fucking Sol Ring is astronomical.

An ex girlfriend invited me to "casual EDH" at her local shop a few times. For reference, I played RUG ramp, big mana bullshit plays, including Prophet of Kruphix at the time. No infinite combos, no fast mana, no tutors whatsoever, because these were the types of games I enjoyed with my other friends. So my deck went big, but wasn't broken. The first week, my 4 man pod consisted of me, Mono-U control, and two black decks packed with all the broken shit. Each black deck threatened an infinite table kill on turn 3, the Mono U guy countered it and I had a Krosan Grip. Then, by turn 5 both of them had found YawgWill to do it again, and Mono-U guy tapped out to stop the first one and the second one went off. Games over, combo decks win, GG. I thought "this place is a lot more competitive than my deck, huh?" Then, the next week I show up, there's 3 new players I'm playing with. There's mono-red Aggro guy who's new to the game and doesn't understand the stack, GR tokens guy who is playing mostly RTR block cards and had no nonbasic lands or mana acceleration, and some Bant Angels deck that was again casual low-power. Suddenly, with the same deck I played last week, now I'm the one who's a league above them in power level, and on turn 10 or so I copied a Rite on a Battlegrace Angel or something stupid and won that way. Completely different games with the same deck, both times because there was a fundamental misunderstanding of what EDH is supposed to be.

If the ban list was reasonable, everyone would have the same idea of what they're getting into. Ban tutors, mana rocks, combo pieces, whatever, until the format is healthy. THEN you can ban a midrangey card like Prophet if it's getting out of line. But the absurdity of saying "we'll let the format police itself when it comes to busted fast mana, but we're using our Authority as Creators of the Format to tell you which green creature you can and can't play" is ridiculous.

[Ace/Homebrew]

I really dislike the colored mana change. I play this fromat for the flavour of a deck being on point. This just destroy the whole purpose of the format.
I don't disagree with the flavor complaint. But it hardly destroys the whole purpose of the format... Off-color mana turning colorless was a small part of the overall color restriction.

My irritation at the flavor fail changed to indifference when the RC compared the change to mana-burn. Really what gets significantly more (or less) powerful with this change? How often will this affect the games you play?


An ex girlfriend invited me to "casual EDH" at her local shop a few times.
I've started asking anyone I've never played with how many turns (or how much time) they'd like the game to go before drawing my hand. It gives everyone an idea of the power level of their deck. This is often better than directly asking what power level they play at because people tend to under or over estimate that...

[Baumeister]

But this doesn't answer my point about the absurdity of the "gentleman's agreement:" if those types of cards are too good for the purposes of the types of games EDH should be about, just ban them. When someone asks for a pickup game of magic, I ask them what format. Formats exist to define what's reasonable to play and allowable in the games. Even if I'm playing tier 1 and they're playing budget, at least we have the same IDEA of the game when I say "I've got Legacy, do you wanna play?" With EDH, it encompasses a spectrum of formats that are unrecognizable from each other. Hermit Druid combo bares no resemblance whatsoever to the game that Mr. tribal dragons expected to play. And apparently fair midrange Prophet/Titan decks are equally busted in the eyes of Timmy, when the difference between Prophet and fucking Sol Ring is astronomical.

I mean, yeah, I can't really pose an argument against this because everything you're saying is correct. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I realize that the best games of EDH I've played have been with groups of people who have the same idea of how powerful a deck should be. It's almost like the format as it is is asking you to build decks for every conceivable level of competitiveness you could face.


If the ban list was reasonable, everyone would have the same idea of what they're getting into. Ban tutors, mana rocks, combo pieces, whatever, until the format is healthy. THEN you can ban a midrangey card like Prophet if it's getting out of line. But the absurdity of saying "we'll let the format police itself when it comes to busted fast mana, but we're using our Authority as Creators of the Format to tell you which green creature you can and can't play" is ridiculous.

I agree.

[TsumiBand]

If the ban list was reasonable, everyone would have the same idea of what they're getting into. Ban tutors, mana rocks, combo pieces, whatever, until the format is healthy. THEN you can ban a midrangey card like Prophet if it's getting out of line. But the absurdity of saying "we'll let the format police itself when it comes to busted fast mana, but we're using our Authority as Creators of the Format to tell you which green creature you can and can't play" is ridiculous.

<33333333333

[H]

I mean, yeah, I can't really pose an argument against this because everything you're saying is correct. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I realize that the best games of EDH I've played have been with groups of people who have the same idea of how powerful a deck should be. It's almost like the format as it is is asking you to build decks for every conceivable level of competitiveness you could face.

Well, there you go. Successful EDH metas are a communal exercise. When I lived in NY we had a very good meta at our local store, where everyone understood that you played the competitive people with your competitive decks and you played the casual-fun people with your casual-fun decks. No one really got bent out of shape about any of it, because everyone understood that different strokes are for different folks.

Now-a-days I only have one EDH deck built and I rarely play it. It's a foiled-out Rhy, the Redeemed and it's mostly just for fun. I don't play anymore because I lack time, but also the EDH crowd around here tends to be humans that I would prefer not to interact with in any way, shape or form. Some of our Legacy crew has been picking up decks lately, but it really doesn't seem to be developing into a real competitive meta.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

But this doesn't answer my point about the absurdity of the "gentleman's agreement:" if those types of cards are too good for the purposes of the types of games EDH should be about, just ban them. When someone asks for a pickup game of magic, I ask them what format. Formats exist to define what's reasonable to play and allowable in the games. Even if I'm playing tier 1 and they're playing budget, at least we have the same IDEA of the game when I say "I've got Legacy, do you wanna play?" With EDH, it encompasses a spectrum of formats that are unrecognizable from each other. Hermit Druid combo bares no resemblance whatsoever to the game that Mr. tribal dragons expected to play. And apparently fair midrange Prophet/Titan decks are equally busted in the eyes of Timmy, when the difference between Prophet and fucking Sol Ring is astronomical.

I have built a sub-serious Karametra deck with focus more on the beautiful art than any real power. It's meant as a relaxation from real Magic and I found it satisfactory to build it, to sleeve it, to shuffle it and to cuddle with it. But the actual playing of it is a nightmare and I find very little joy in it. As someone already pointed out on this forum, most of the EDH games would be better if the pair would simply show to each other their deck instead of playing out the games.

Normally I'm trying to build a deck as powerful as possible, but in EDH there are so many constraints and so many opposing goals, wishes and expectations that there's no chance to play a real game of Magic even in a case you'd play in a confined environment of head-to-head tested and designed pair of decks meant for mutual opposition and shared experience. The people's idea of "fun" decks ranges from one end of a spectrum (Casual Bears Deck) to the other extreme (Singleton Vintage) with so many possibilitites in betwen that there's hardly any chance to have anything else than a crazy "format" even before the comic absurdity of singletons-only deck kicks in and makes all life miserable with unpredictable chaos; one that's very often reduced by redundancy which in my eyes is either a confession of inner and inherent failure in EDH's nature, or at least a sacrifice to better enjoyment of a game lest it would turn into Dice Roll Olympiade.

The last experience I mentioned above was when we played a four-seat table (after a three hours of lgs Legacy action and with a midnight approaching; factors that are already and enough taxing on both mental and physical powers of an individual) with all the usual stuff that accompanies multiplayer games, be it politics (thankfully we were at least that sane to choose to play 2HD), tiresome turns and wutnot. The stupidity of EDH showed up in all nakedness when both of the games ended in the same result: our side was annihilated without a smallest chance of a real counterpressure and the whole undertaking left a bad taste in my mouth pickled cheese or not. And it led me to a decision:

The last time I played an EDH was also the last time I played this joke of a format for the rest of my life.

Why so? I won't even start on the obvious clunkiness of format's banned list (setting aside if it's called EDH or Commander). I just want to tell that I find little excuse for an existance of a format where Sol Fucking Ring or Hermit Druid is allowed, while Sylvan Primordial or Primeval Titan isn't. (Lets not start a war over any particular card; I just wanted to build and EDH deck with full cycle of Titans and Primordials, but as they're not allowed, I simply set the idea to the rest where it dwells with any other indecent and obscene thoughts.) But the whole substance and base and essence of EDH is so far from my understanding and from what I am able to swallow, that I find no need to participate in it anymore.

For one, I would be able to stand the awful deck that my companion Martin (Slosh here on MTS) was lent. I might be able to withstand the unending shenanigans with opponent's DEN. But being a GW pilot, being forbidden to play 8-mana creatures and mass-LD althewhile my opponent is not only allowed to play, but he even ACTUALLY PLAYED an unholy sort of the most wicked magick ever seen in history of mankind, forced me to abandon this ship and leave it to those who find it amusing to navigate it throught the rocks and cliffs of opposing "fun decks".

As a Karametra pilot/deckbuilder that put some kind of thought into the deck to make it more of an artistic project than a Vintage Lite, I find it offensive that after being put under a barrage and stream of Demonic Tutor, Mind Twist, Necropotence, Hymn to Tourach, Strip Mine, Nevinyrral's Disk and Dystopia, my opponent had guts to comment on and dispute my immediate leaving of the table, pub, community.


Have fun with your Format: Wheel of Fortune.

[Sloshthedark]

I have built a sub-serious Karametra deck with focus more on the beautiful art than any real power. It's meant as a relaxation from real Magic and I found it satisfactory to build it, to sleeve it, to shuffle it and to cuddle with it. But the actual playing of it is a nightmare and I find very little joy in it. As someone already pointed out on this forum, most of the EDH games would be better if the pair would simply show to each other their deck instead of playing out the games.

Normally I'm trying to build a deck as powerful as possible, but in EDH there are so many constraints and so many opposing goals, wishes and expectations that there's no chance to play a real game of Magic even in a case you'd play in a confined environment of head-to-head tested and designed pair of decks meant for mutual opposition and shared experience. The people's idea of "fun" decks ranges from one end of a spectrum (Casual Bears Deck) to the other extreme (Singleton Vintage) with so many possibilitites in betwen that there's hardly any chance to have anything else than a crazy "format" even before the comic absurdity of singletons-only deck kicks in and makes all life miserable with unpredictable chaos; one that's very often reduced by redundancy which in my eyes is either a confession of inner and inherent failure in EDH's nature, or at least a sacrifice to better enjoyment of a game lest it would turn into Dice Roll Olympiade.

The last experience I mentioned above was when we played a four-seat table (after a three hours of lgs Legacy action and with a midnight approaching; factors that are already and enough taxing on both mental and physical powers of an individual) with all the usual stuff that accompanies multiplayer games, be it politics (thankfully we were at least that sane to choose to play 2HD), tiresome turns and wutnot. The stupidity of EDH showed up in all nakedness when both of the games ended in the same result: our side was annihilated without a smallest chance of a real counterpressure and the whole undertaking left a bad taste in my mouth pickled cheese or not. And it led me to a decision:

The last time I played an EDH was also the last time I played this joke of a format for the rest of my life.

Why so? I won't even start on the obvious clunkiness of format's banned list (setting aside if it's called EDH or Commander). I just want to tell that I find little excuse for an existance of a format where Sol Fucking Ring or Hermit Druid is allowed, while Sylvan Primordial or Primeval Titan isn't. (Lets not start a war over any particular card; I just wanted to build and EDH deck with full cycle of Titans and Primordials, but as they're not allowed, I simply set the idea to the rest where it dwells with any other indecent and obscene thoughts.) But the whole substance and base and essence of EDH is so far from my understanding and from what I am able to swallow, that I find no need to participate in it anymore.

For one, I would be able to stand the awful deck that my companion Martin (Slosh here on MTS) was lent. I might be able to withstand the unending shenanigans with opponent's DEN. But being a GW pilot, being forbidden to play 8-mana creatures and mass-LD althewhile my opponent is not only allowed to play, but he even ACTUALLY PLAYED an unholy sort of the most wicked magick ever seen in history of mankind, forced me to abandon this ship and leave it to those who find it amusing to navigate it throught the rocks and cliffs of opposing "fun decks".

As a Karametra pilot/deckbuilder that put some kind of thought into the deck to make it more of an artistic project than a Vintage Lite, I find it offensive that after being put under a barrage and stream of Demonic Tutor, Mind Twist, Necropotence, Hymn to Tourach, Strip Mine, Nevinyrral's Disk and Dystopia, my opponent had guts to comment on and dispute my immediate leaving of the table, pub, community.


Have fun with your Format: Wheel of Fortune.

It's a difficult theme, you know my reservations about the format and it really comes to your aspirations playing it, I'm a super spikey person so it's hard for me to just jam things mindlessly and it haunts me if I play technicaly poorly so it often comes to playing well vs. social aspect, in a hypocritical format where winning certain ways is frowned upon by some... and that's just the core of the problem, the other is the objective power disbalance when you bring a spoon to a gunfight, a slingshot to a rocket launcher fight, a sailboat to a spacefight, a spacefight to a galaxyfight, you get the impression, so while I finally topdeck Alpha Instill Energy for my Beta Prodigal Sorcerer my Opp mass clones dragon/titan/golem hybrids... After said night you ragequit, I actually reanimated a deck limited to Saga to compete with Toms, probably Animated the Dead deck would be more precise, did not cost much lifetime and the deck is definitly -1 in front... it was quite fun and challenging, but then we got to the good old Shrieking Drake, Oath of Ghouls, Aluren, Equilibrium, Survival, Tortured Existence, Citanul Flute boardstate which needed 2 tables and a beer to maintain, just to find the embarassing fact I cant kill my opponent other than in 10 turns of said personal hell of infinite options because my only 1+ power creature is a Gilded drake and don't have a way to deal with enchantments other than bounce or Smokestack.. so found out I'm actually sick when my precious creation does what it's supposed to do, Tom scooping to my supreme position when I started to chain Spike Feeder counter in rather embarassing fasion was the most rewarding I experienced that night... since then we've bough-in/proxied 93/94 oldschool and sling that instead - is faster to play between legacy rounds, the format is suprisingly well balanced and creative and you get to play all the sweet cards...

I simply do not have time, mental capabilities and the zeal to follow another format with legacy which is even X time more complicated if I want to enjoy the format and stay a sane human lifeform... even though your attitude to the game isn't that spike as mine I think it really comes what do you expect of it, my deck is also an "artistic project", a dadaistic one, but either you accept you could lose/win miserably or (don't) play the format/subformat the ad hoc group agrees on, the actual banlist of the ABC or different Commandlander is unimportant

[Ace/Homebrew]

Additional content on the Rules Announcement by Sheldon:

http://www.starcitygames.com/article/32261_Commander-Updates-For-January.html

On mulligans:

Variance is a thing that happens in Magic, and like we write in the announcement, we aren't going to solve Magic's problems (assuming you see variance as a problem) via the format. What we really want is for people to be able to be in the game from the get-go. We believe this solution both gives players the best chance to do this and limits any abuses at the same time.

On Rule 4:

We're not the Supreme Court, but this is as close as we might come to an RC member having a dissenting opinion.

I didn't want copy and clone, which I find a thoroughly overrepresented strategy, to get even stronger. Toby convinced me that it doesn't actually show that much improvement because there aren't that many colored (and non-blue) activation costs already frequently played in the format.

On Prophet banning:

There has to be a best card in the format, so that's not a banning criterion, but when the (arguably) best card in the format starts driving players to the same place all the time, whether that's from a deckbuilding angle or as a matter of enjoyment of the play experience, we feel compelled to take action.

[Mystical_Jackass]

After a long time, I'd stopped playing EDH altogether about half a year ago 'cause of the same bullshit you guys are talking about. Here's my honest opinion though:


They NEED to split Commander into 2x different formats. That's the only way I see it. You basically have two different sides that see this format differently: The Casuals vs the Spikes. The Spikes want to play this as a singleton vintage and use the maximize every card outside the banlist and decklists to the full potential, the casuals have their own conception outside of the ban of what is/isn't fair and the "kind of magic game" they want to play. The issue isn't about one side being more right about "what makes a great game of Commander" over the other, it's the fact that the format is just so massive and not very defined that it opens players up to their own interpretation of "what it means to be fair".

If they had two separate Commander formats, they could then have a "Casual EDH" with its own rules committee, the format would have very aggressive ban list trying to crack down on combos, degenerate cards, sol rings, tutors or w/e, and try to make it more of a Creature vs Creature format again. Then have "Constructed EDH" which actually unbans more shit, like PTitan and Prophet are fair game, let the Spike players play Constructed EDH format and that way ppl can ask "are you doing Constructed edh?" or something like that, so they know not to bring their Timmy flavorful deck to a wolf fight.

Right now they're trying to do this thing where they shoot for the middle ground, catering to both casual AND competetive players, and it just doesn't work. THey just end up pissing them both off 'cause then neither side is completely getting the type of game they want. Word

MJ

[TsumiBand]

Another problem as I see it in getting rid of Rule 4 is that it just begs another set of questions.

There's always been a tension in deckbuilding for EDH wherein color identity excludes or includes cards based on their sum total of mana symbols present on the card. Previously, if one wanted to play cards that are costed one way but have a more complex color identity -- say, Bringers or cards like Paragon of the Amesha -- you had to build to access those colors, which (in the case of Bringers) meant picking a five-color Commander. That hasn't changed, but now the effect is negative for a new reason -- Why, if I'm able to tap for all colors of mana as I see fit, does color identity limit me to excluding cards with outside activation costs? I can generate those colors just fine, and the casting cost on the card is mono-red, so why can't I toss a Bringer of the Good Things into my monocolored deck again? The only thing holding people back is that definition of color identity.

I see this as a problem as much now as I did when I tried to peruse the mtgcommander.net forums (I've never actually *tried* to get banned so hard in my life, I really hate that place lol) and people were making the arguments for deleting Rule 4 years ago. It tends to be the same individuals that really want that Spiky, 100-card Highlander busted-as-fuck Vintage experience, because they tend to complain that a format with deckbuilding restrictions such as this is a format that's living a lie. Honestly I think the Spikiest players in EDH are the guys that really want things both ways; they want their Grixis commander decks fully powered and ready to pull off a fundamental turn kill, and they also want those dirty filthy budget players to go play their kitchen table Magic at their mom's house, alone and sad, living this "lie" that Magic can be defined by any other set of rules.

That's.... a tad hyperbole. But it's the vibe I get from the people who play the format like it's damaged but just enjoy pwning n00bs with Storm combo and then stating that those decks are truly the pinnacle of the format, and everyone else that isn't tweaking their decks to be as broken as possible are just lying to themselves about the game they're playing. That subtext is *always* sneaking around in their crappy arguments, and it's gross and stupid and full of angry crabs.

[CaptainTwiddle]

I'm actually completely supportive of the adoption of the Vancouver mulligan, the banning of Prophet of Kruphix, and deleting "rule 4."

RE: Mulligan rule - I think it just makes the game simpler if all the formats use a similar mulligan rule. More importantly though, using the same mulligan rule requires players to apply the same deckbuilding fundamentals to all the formats. With partial Paris, you could cheat on lands and the rule favored combo.

RE: Prophet banning - Prophet was similar to Primeval Titan in that it immediately became the sole focus of the game when it hit the table. The more players involved, the more powerful Prophet became. In the way that extra turn effects essentially read as "each other player skips a turn," Prophet basically did this every round. In my mind, it's was basically all the problems associated with Sensei's Divining Top compounded by each additional player and scaling as the game progressed.

RE: Rule 4 - I think color identity defining what cards you can include in your deck still maintains the original spirit of the format. The real reason this rule changed was because of the implementation of specifically colorless costs in Oath of the Gatewatch. It's a total flavor foul and conflict with traditional Magic rules to be able to use a Birds of Paradise to cast Kozilek, the Great Distortion or use you Vesuva to copy a basic land from outside of your deck to now generate colorless mana when it should be producing a given color.

General rant about the pitfalls of Commander:

While Commander is a format that I have enjoyed immensely, the format has built-in flaws. The idea of having a "casual format" is problematic, simply because "casual" does not have a universal definition. To some, it means they get to play some of those cards that are otherwise relegated only to Vintage. For others, it means decks should just contain fun cards without being laser focused. For some, it's purely about building a deck based on flavor.

A sentiment that is fairly common is that combo decks, by which I mean decks that assemble a combo which allows them to defeat all opponents in a single critical turn, are against the spirit of the format. In my opinion, if you don't want people to play combo, don't encourage multiplayer games and don't have players start with twice as much life. Everything in Magic is a potential resource (hands, libraries, graveyards, exiled cards, life totals...everything) and cards are generally designed with the normal constructed formats in mind. For example, any card that allows you to pay life to draw cards is inherently more powerful in Commander than in other formats. The double life totals also make creatures much less effective in terms of utilizing their power in combat. Most of the creatures that see play in Commander are essentially spells (e.g. powerful ETB or static effects). Additionally, having a "commander" further nudges players toward combo strategies, as you have ready access to a least one specific card every game. If you're even remotely concerned with winning, as every player should be (otherwise the game is no longer a game), you need a really compelling reason not to build you deck to make use of your commander in a highly synergistic way.

My last issue with Commander is that, by virtue of utilizing the entirety of Magic as the card pool, you inherently create a format where players' respective "casualness" is going to differ drastically. Having access to things like dual lands make a really big difference when playing against people who don't. Of course, part of the appeal of Commander is that you can play random old cards that no one knows/remembers, which may not be overtly powerful. Of course, allowing in those cards also allows in the powerful ones, unless you create a ridiculous banned list.

An experiment I'd love to try:

While I think there are a lot of ways you could adjust Commander to be more consistently fun, an idea that I've really been interested in is limiting the card pool to Modern legal sets. By doing that, you eliminate many of the most degenerate combos. The main problems with this are that a) it doesn't appease the "casual = random old cards" crowd, and b) the printing of the Commander products is out of step with this idea; granted you could create an exception to allow cards that were printed only in the Commander products in addition to those from Modern legal sets (this would allow play of something like Kaalia of the Vast, but not Sol Ring, even though both are contained in the same Commander product).

TL;DR on the rant: The main problem with Commander, or any casual format, is that its level of enjoyment for any player is based largely on being part of a playgroup who share similar ideals for what the format should be. That is fine and well for many of us, but for the person that doesn't have a group of friends to get together with and relies on meeting people at an LGS, it leads to awkward games where they are either dramatically over or under powered compared to who they are playing with, or they need to have multiple decks built at varying levels of power to account for the variance in opponents.

[Aggro_zombies]

Deleting rule 4 is exactly the same as deleting mana burn: both rules existed to disincentivize players from doing something they generally didn't want to do anyway.

Put another way: if I play a GW deck, there's basically no reason for me to want to tap a Command Tower for black. Allowing players to "filter" black into colorless didn't - until recently - accomplish anything, so players just wouldn't do it. The only time it did matter was the cited copy-and-steal strategy, which players already liked because it let them be greedy. This makes that strategy mildly better, but a large percentage of the creatures in EDH are either ETB/"dies" value dorks or guys you're playing for static abilities (ie, Avacyn), so this isn't representing some huge improvement.

I think this is a flavor fail in the same way one can argue off-color fetches are a flavor fail.

The rest of the changes are good. Prophet was degenerate in mid-tier groups, full stop. It needed to go. Every game where a Prophet hit the table instantly came down to who could out-Prophet every other player, and that got stale quickly. It was one of those weird exceptions to the rule for mature groups that self-police where the card was busted but not obviously busted in the same way a turn one Sol Ring is busted, so people still played it a lot.

[Ace/Homebrew]

They NEED to split Commander into 2x different formats.
Isn't that why there is French EDH?

I'm pretty sure EDH is a casual format by definition. And French EDH is a competitive format by definition.




Edit:
The emphasis is mine.

In this casual, multiplayer format, you start with a life total of 40 (rather than the usual 20) and choose a legendary creature to serve as your Commander. You then choose cards to match your Commander’s color identity to build your deck. A card's color identity is any mana symbol appearing on that card.Source ("http://magic.wizards.com/en/gameinfo/gameplay/formats/commander)

[Alexorrr]

After a long time, I'd stopped playing EDH altogether about half a year ago 'cause of the same bullshit you guys are talking about. Here's my honest opinion though:


They NEED to split Commander into 2x different formats. That's the only way I see it. You basically have two different sides that see this format differently: The Casuals vs the Spikes. The Spikes want to play this as a singleton vintage and use the maximize every card outside the banlist and decklists to the full potential, the casuals have their own conception outside of the ban of what is/isn't fair and the "kind of magic game" they want to play. The issue isn't about one side being more right about "what makes a great game of Commander" over the other, it's the fact that the format is just so massive and not very defined that it opens players up to their own interpretation of "what it means to be fair".

If they had two separate Commander formats, they could then have a "Casual EDH" with its own rules committee, the format would have very aggressive ban list trying to crack down on combos, degenerate cards, sol rings, tutors or w/e, and try to make it more of a Creature vs Creature format again. Then have "Constructed EDH" which actually unbans more shit, like PTitan and Prophet are fair game, let the Spike players play Constructed EDH format and that way ppl can ask "are you doing Constructed edh?" or something like that, so they know not to bring their Timmy flavorful deck to a wolf fight.

Right now they're trying to do this thing where they shoot for the middle ground, catering to both casual AND competetive players, and it just doesn't work. THey just end up pissing them both off 'cause then neither side is completely getting the type of game they want. Word

MJ
Isn't what you're describing as a secondary "spikier" format basically highlander? It's essentially the same open deck building concept (minus commander limitations), and is way less regulated by an official governing body (in that it has a set rulebook and doesn't have an RC changing things). Maybe I'm way off on what Highlander is, but it seems like the vintage crazy combo brewer's paradise.

I don't like the rule 4 change, and their reasoning for it seems kind of flaky. Just as with the tuck rule though, if you don't like it in your play group, don't use it.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

[CaptainTwiddle]

I'm really surprised by the amount of opposition to the removal of "rule 4." One of the primary reasons that was cited for the removal was that the rule would allow the new colorless-specific costs to be paid using sources which don't actually produce colorless mana (or a clunky rule would need to be added to prohibit this). While this is speculation on my part, I think it's a pretty safe assumption to make that Wizards is going to make use of the colorless costs going forward, though likely not in such high representation in most sets compared to Oath of the Gatewatch. One of the things the new colorless symbol allows that we haven't seen implemented yet is a way to create powerful, colorless artifacts. Previously, the only real way to keep powerful artifacts fair was to add to their mana cost. Now, powerful cards can be printed at lower CMCs but with a colorless requirement, thereby putting deckbuilding constraints on their use. If Wizards does in fact make use of this design space, the existence of rule 4 would make for undesirable interactions down the road, as the deckbuilding cost for those cards would not apply, provided your deck contains cards like like Birds of Paradise or Mana Confluence, which under rule 4 effectively tap for an additional color.

[Mystical_Jackass]

Isn't that why there is French EDH?

I'm pretty sure EDH is a casual format by definition. And French EDH is a competitive format by definition.
But what if players want to play an "actual" 4 player Commander game competetively? Not just a singleton Legacy Match vs another 3cmc General.

The way I see it you have two groups of people, one group that takes the ban list very literally building the best possible decks and not hesitant to Cataclysm or Combo out on the board to win, the other half of players constantly coming up with their own definition of "what it means to be fair" since the format is extremely large and filled with broken to screw your opponent over, the only thing stopping you from crafting a Grixis "time walk" deck is free will-- I've done it, people rage and don't want to play, so I come back with a friendly G/W, then someone else brings a combo and goes infinite while you watch. So instead of just branching into 2 formats for EDH, the rules committee has to cater to these two parties of brats that are forced to coexist.



Isn't what you're describing as a secondary "spikier" format basically highlander? It's essentially the same open deck building concept (minus commander limitations), and is way less regulated by an official governing body (in that it has a set rulebook and doesn't have an RC changing things). Maybe I'm way off on what Highlander is, but it seems like the vintage crazy combo brewer's paradise.
True, I started out Highlander, let's be honest though nobody really plays it. "Commander" is Wizard's sponsored game, you've got boxes getting sold at every Walmart and Target in the country. For the sake of balance though, this Casual Commander that we're playing needs to heavily crack down on the Ban List and create an independent Commander for competetive players who want to use Time Warp, Mana Crypt, and Storm shit... I have each of these cards and have used them over the years, but for balance you can't have so many ways to "oops-kill" your opponent in one turn, if you really wanted to. Perfect example, almost any time when I had Recruiter in my hand and 14 mana (4 red) I could get Kiki/Pester and win the game if they didn't have an answer... yes, if they DIDNT have an answer is the key, but something THAT out of the blue I can nearly always time it when someone taps out and just win the game. According to the rules that's perfectly legal, but this whole "spirit of the game" is made-up for those that don't want to deal with Cataclysm+Ghostaway shennanigans while everyone not playing "fair" is doing it.

[TsumiBand]

I think the reason for the "spirit of the format" ultimately arises from the apparent ease of sticking a game-ending 2 card combo in a multiplayer format. I mean if every stupid podunk Voltron gets banhammered to shit from the top down, then we're suddenly playing Modern Highlander with a command zone. Fuck that.

So instead you have a ban list that allegedly handles the game ruining garbage, and you leave it to your group to decide if anyone's impressed or interested in watching Sedris Long.dec run the table.

I think it's a flawed approach, if only for the decisions that come down the pike. The sheer amount of busted Blue shit that's legal compared to the durdly Green beaters that get banned is testament to that. But admittedly, *if* one were adhering to the so-called spirit, then the 2 card jank is implicitly handled in the usual way that comrades moderate each other; ridicule and ostracism, followed by eventual compliance.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

The sheer amount of busted Blue shit that's legal compared to the durdly Green beaters that get banned is testament to that.

That's pretty much spot on.

[Davran]

I think the reason for the "spirit of the format" ultimately arises from the apparent ease of sticking a game-ending 2 card combo in a multiplayer format. I mean if every stupid podunk Voltron gets banhammered to shit from the top down, then we're suddenly playing Modern Highlander with a command zone. Fuck that.

So instead you have a ban list that allegedly handles the game ruining garbage, and you leave it to your group to decide if anyone's impressed or interested in watching Sedris Long.dec run the table.

I think it's a flawed approach, if only for the decisions that come down the pike. The sheer amount of busted Blue shit that's legal compared to the durdly Green beaters that get banned is testament to that. But admittedly, *if* one were adhering to the so-called spirit, then the 2 card jank is implicitly handled in the usual way that comrades moderate each other; ridicule and ostracism, followed by eventual compliance.

Ultimately what constitutes "game ruining garbage" is somewhat subjective. That's why there's so much digital ink being spilled about how the RC was dumb enough to ban card X when card Y is still legal.

The biggest problem is that the decision to ban or unban a card or cards is based on a limited set of data gathered somewhat empirically by a small number of people. "Format warping" is really code for something they see a lot of at their respective local shops that they've gone ahead and assumed equates to some sort of mass presence in the meta at large. Compare that to a legacy banlist decision that's based on several large tournaments worth of data, and it's easy to see why some folks feel the RC has their head up their collective ass. I mean, no one in my meta is currently playing Consecrated Sphinx.dec, so that card is totally fine by me...but the people at the table next to me during GenCon who lost handily to one that was cast on turn 2 of their game might feel a little differently.

At the end of the day, some cards are just better than others. That is a fact. As a result, it's not all that far fetched for the "better" cards to show up in a larger percentage of decks than some other card that is "worse". The real question that seems to leave everyone scratching their head is where exactly the tipping point is between "better" and "banned", as it seems to be a somewhat moving target.

[Goaswerfraiejen]

The obvious and simplest solution to the rule 4/colourless problem was to restate rule 4 in terms of generic mana, not colourless mana. The justification given for not doing that makes no sense to me:


We could paper over it (both "mana generated from off-color sources can only pay generic costs" and "you can't pay a cost outside your color identity" were considered), but a lot of the flavor would be lost in the transition, defeating the purpose. Without the resonant flavor, Rule 4 was increasingly looking like mana burn - a rule that didn't come up enough to justify it's existence.

The actual solution that was implemented is being criticized primarily on the grounds of loss of flavour. And the fact that it helps the bribery-style decks a fair bit is an indication that it will come up more often than the mana burn rule, which only came really came up with specific cards (e.g. Omnath), not whole strategies.

Suppose you buy the argument that when a rule loses its flavour and almost never comes up, it ought to be deleted. Suppose you concede that rule 4 seldom came up (which isn't true in my experience, but whatever). The operative question becomes: did it lose its flavour? My answer: I just don't see how revising to "generic" rather than "colourless" would have entailed a loss of flavour. What does entail a loss of flavour is its outright deletion.



Oh, and I prefer the partial Paris mulligan. I think it does a decent job of evening out the playing field (although a statistical analysis may well show that's a mistaken intuition).

[TsumiBand]

The obvious and simplest solution to the rule 4/colourless problem was to restate rule 4 in terms of generic mana, not colourless mana. The justification given for not doing that makes no sense to me:



The actual solution that was implemented is being criticized primarily on the grounds of loss of flavour. And the fact that it helps the bribery-style decks a fair bit is an indication that it will come up more often than the mana burn rule, which only came really came up with specific cards (e.g. Omnath), not whole strategies.

Suppose you buy the argument that when a rule loses its flavour and almost never comes up, it ought to be deleted. Suppose you concede that rule 4 seldom came up (which isn't true in my experience, but whatever). The operative question becomes: did it lose its flavour? My answer: I just don't see how revising to "generic" rather than "colourless" would have entailed a loss of flavour. What does entail a loss of flavour is its outright deletion.



Oh, and I prefer the partial Paris mulligan. I think it does a decent job of evening out the playing field (although a statistical analysis may well show that's a mistaken intuition).

This makes a lot of sense.

A rule like "mana outside tour commander's color identity can only be used to pay generic costs" is actually deceptively clever, since at first read it sounds redundant until you consider mono-Red stealing something like Nantuko Shade, or maindecking Sunburst cards or something bad like that.

The relative strength of those plays is not the sticking point so much as the loss of flavor. EDH is a format defined by exclusion, and weakening those exclusionary rules just makes EDH look and play less like itself. When that happens you get things like Extended, which died a horrifying death after being a *killer* constructed format. That rules change was way, way beyond Rule 4 in terms of its scope and impact, but the lesson remains intact - screwing with the soul of the format is a bad idea.

[kombatkiwi]

But what if players want to play an "actual" 4 player Commander game competetively? Not just a singleton Legacy Match vs another 3cmc General.

The way I see it you have two groups of people, one group that takes the ban list very literally building the best possible decks and not hesitant to Cataclysm or Combo out on the board to win, the other half of players constantly coming up with their own definition of "what it means to be fair" since the format is extremely large and filled with broken to screw your opponent over, the only thing stopping you from crafting a Grixis "time walk" deck is free will-- I've done it, people rage and don't want to play, so I come back with a friendly G/W, then someone else brings a combo and goes infinite while you watch. So instead of just branching into 2 formats for EDH, the rules committee has to cater to these two parties of brats that are forced to coexist.



True, I started out Highlander, let's be honest though nobody really plays it. "Commander" is Wizard's sponsored game, you've got boxes getting sold at every Walmart and Target in the country. For the sake of balance though, this Casual Commander that we're playing needs to heavily crack down on the Ban List and create an independent Commander for competetive players who want to use Time Warp, Mana Crypt, and Storm shit... I have each of these cards and have used them over the years, but for balance you can't have so many ways to "oops-kill" your opponent in one turn, if you really wanted to. Perfect example, almost any time when I had Recruiter in my hand and 14 mana (4 red) I could get Kiki/Pester and win the game if they didn't have an answer... yes, if they DIDNT have an answer is the key, but something THAT out of the blue I can nearly always time it when someone taps out and just win the game. According to the rules that's perfectly legal, but this whole "spirit of the game" is made-up for those that don't want to deal with Cataclysm+Ghostaway shennanigans while everyone not playing "fair" is doing it.

If you want to play a 4-man competitive commander game you can do that with the existing list already. If you're saying that the vintage artifact mana is too powerful (along with certain cards such as Hermit Druid or whatever else rustles your jimmies) and they need to be banned in multiplayer then you basically just end up with singleton legacy decks anyway so I'm not sure what your proposed solution is.

If you have somehow assembled 14 mana then you deserve to win the game with one card (c.f. Emrakul). Likewise having a bunch of creatures + 7 mana + cataclysm + ghostway is a pretty impressive achievement and probably shouldn't be on anyone's list of broken things. I don't deny that Cataclysm on its own is a powerful card but this post is a perfect illustration of how metagames get really inbred when scrubby social pressure pushes the focus towards 'winning a certain way' rather than just 'winning'.

[apple713]

An experiment I'd love to try:

While I think there are a lot of ways you could adjust Commander to be more consistently fun, an idea that I've really been interested in is limiting the card pool to Modern legal sets. By doing that, you eliminate many of the most degenerate combos. The main problems with this are that a) it doesn't appease the "casual = random old cards" crowd, and b) the printing of the Commander products is out of step with this idea; granted you could create an exception to allow cards that were printed only in the Commander products in addition to those from Modern legal sets (this would allow play of something like Kaalia of the Vast, but not Sol Ring, even though both are contained in the same Commander product).

TL;DR on the rant: The main problem with Commander, or any casual format, is that its level of enjoyment for any player is based largely on being part of a playgroup who share similar ideals for what the format should be. That is fine and well for many of us, but for the person that doesn't have a group of friends to get together with and relies on meeting people at an LGS, it leads to awkward games where they are either dramatically over or under powered compared to who they are playing with, or they need to have multiple decks built at varying levels of power to account for the variance in opponents.


You are either playing competitive EDH or casual EDH. Sounds like you want a casual EDH which can be achieved by selecting the appropriate play group. If you want to play in a tournament its going to be competitive. There is no reason to impose more restrictions on a format to make it more casual friendly, that just doesn't make sense.

Someone also mentioned a French EDH banned / restricted list which is something i would suggest you look into because its more casual friendly. I have the luxury of having many decks at varying power levels. When i sit down at a tournament i play Hermit druid because its awesome. The downside of playing hermit druid is the first round is an easy win but the second round is a 3v1 which is still winnable but its not great. So competitive decks like that are kept in check. In 1v1 its probably the most broken deck available but thats not really EDH in my opinion. When I am not playing in a tournament i play something fun. I play cards i don't normally get to play such as gauntlet of might.

Unfortunately, your rant will not change anything with the format and it is incredibly unlikely that competitive EDH will undergo and major changes in the future. What you suggest is more easily accomplished by communicating with your playgroup about a "different" set of rules. Since players want so many "different" versions of rules I'm certain wizards feels its best to leave the format with fewer restrictions and let players add them individually according to their playgroups.

[phonics]

I wish there was a highlander format that played more like 94/95. Right now there are so many broken things to do that games are just people throwing broken things at each other and everything getting swept each turn cycle until something isn't answered and they win. Unless you have a playgroup with its own rules (well then who cares) you just sit there at the table and do nothing unless you bring a degenerate deck as well.

[Davran]

I wish there was a highlander format that played more like 94/95. Right now there are so many broken things to do that games are just people throwing broken things at each other and everything getting swept each turn cycle until something isn't answered and they win. Unless you have a playgroup with its own rules (well then who cares) you just sit there at the table and do nothing unless you bring a degenerate deck as well.

This hasn't been my experience with EDH at all...so maybe it's not so much the format as it is the people you're trying to play it with? It's certainly easy to build some kind of degenerate deck if that's what makes you happy, but that's far from the only thing you can do.

[3drinks]

The fact of the matter is...

If you want to play Commander, you're best suited to Duel-Commander. The format is still young, and the governing body is only slowly working to ultimate balance - but I feel this is the most fun I've had in years. And I've played Commander from the days when Rend Flesh was the premiere spot removal of the format, the three months Griselbrand was legal in my Kaalia, and through the release of the C14 decks and the monstrosity known as Derevi, Empyrial Tactician. That format I'm done with, the politics of multiplayer, the RC-instituted "ban list" (note the air quotes), and I only tolerate it on MODO b/c that doesn't support DC.

Duel-Commander is love. Duel-Commander is the format for we, whom want to play competitively, to "go hard or go home".

[Jamaican Zombie Legend]

I understand the consternation with the official EDH banlist — it doesn't really make a whole lot of sense. Stuff like Painter's Servant is banned for having too much combo potential, but Tooth and Nail is legal along with an entire Vintage-calibre tutor suite. PrimeTime and Prophet of Kruphix got the axe for being too centralizing, but Consecrated Sphinx, DEN, and others roam free. Upheavel and lots of other board sweepers are banned because they undo game-states, yet Cyclonic Rift is allowed. Stupid cards like Sol Ring, Mana Crypt, Hermit Druid, and Necropotence are allowed. There's just not a whole lot of consistency to be observed.

Well, at least Griselbrand is banned in one format...*grumble grumble*

That said, I can't really jump on the Duel Commander or any other uber-Spikey train. EDH is the last real avenue for my Johnny-ish impulses, now that 60-card casual is KIA, where I can play "bad" decks and still have some expectation of an enjoyable gameplay experience. Most of this is due to the multiplayer nature of EDH, where weak decks can fly under the radar and broken piles quickly make things into into an impromptu game of Archenemy; the political aspects of 3+ player games serve as a great way of self-regulating the format. But the "spirit of EDH"/"build casually, play competitively" mantra also plays a part. Sure, it's woefully ambiguous and causes a heap ton of confusion (as discussed above), but at least it points players in a different direction than "singleton broken stuff + critter in the command zone". I appreciate that, at least.

[Baumeister]

Stuff like Painter's Servant is banned for having too much combo potential, but Tooth and Nail is legal along with an entire Vintage-calibre tutor suite. PrimeTime and Prophet of Kruphix got the axe for being too centralizing, but Consecrated Sphinx, DEN, and others roam free. Upheavel and lots of other board sweepers are banned because they undo game-states, yet Cyclonic Rift is allowed. Stupid cards like Sol Ring, Mana Crypt, Hermit Druid, and Necropotence are allowed. There's just not a whole lot of consistency to be observed.

Painter's Servant is banned because, before the recent rules change, it could prevent people from playing their deck for an absurdly low upfront cost. Furthermore, this is a casual format and the ban list must be targeted towards the middle of the pack. I would suggest setting guidelines with a group of friends on how you want to play EDH and if a game store is silly enough to have EDH events with prize money, play all the Hermit Druid garbage you want until nobody wants to play anymore.

I wouldn't expect anybody to take EDH/Commander seriously until we see Pro Tours. It's a casual format. That's really all there is.

[Goaswerfraiejen]

Woke up today to discover that in French:


Tasigur, the Golden Fang is now banned as a commander only.
Yisan, the Wanderer Bard is now banned as a commander only.
Gaea’s Cradle is now banned.

-----

Marath, Will of the Wild is added to the watchlist.
Animar, Soul of Elements is added to the watchlist.
Narset, Enlightened Master is added to the watchlist.
Jenara, Asura of War is added to the watchlist.
Cataclysm is removed from the watchlist.



Cradle is banned now? AAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!

[Goaswerfraiejen]

Double-posting to add: where's the hate for Deadeye Navigator and Palinchron? Seriously...

[3drinks]

Woke up today to discover that in French:




Cradle is banned now? AAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!

A long time coming. IMO.

[Goaswerfraiejen]

A long time coming. IMO.


I suppose, but the justification isn't great. If blue and green are a problem, only banning green things isn't exactly the way to fix it. Banning Cradle makes Prossh a lot worse along with Yisan (banned anyway!), Ezuri (is it really so scary?), Titania (I kind of hate Titania anyway, but Cradle isn't so bad in it), and a lot of lower-tier strategies. I don't see it doing much otherwise.

Cradle is really good, and it helps many lower-tier decks to compete, but I don't think it's anything like as broken as the blue crap that's been running around forever, and which is immune to bannings.

[Goaswerfraiejen]

I stopped playing for a few months and returned today, only to discover that duel commander is now down to 20 life, commander damage is gone, and the format has now split into three. WTF?