Wild bet: four 4 colored decks and a 5 colored one.
Please, no.
After taking so long to even get around to this,
it would really suck if they arbitrarily left out one of the four-color combinations
(as I'm sure they would choose my favorite, WUBG).
Momir Vig, Simic Visionary
Melek, Izzet Paragon
Oona, Queen of the Fae
Bruna, Light of Alabaster
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight
Rhys the Redeemed
Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
Sen Triplets
The Mimeoplasm WUBRGSliver OverlordGRBUW WUBRGSliver Hivelord(Superfriends)GRBUW
Commander 2016: Commander Allies
Commander 2017: Commander: Return of the Nephilim
Commander 2018: Commander Duel - 5 Color vs. Colorless
MSRP: $100
60 new cards, 30 per deck. No cards from the 1v1 banned list. Higher quantity of high dollar reprints and rares.
Logically it would be the Allied Pair decks. They opened the commander series with the tri-color wedges and followed with the tri-color arcs. I would personally like to see a UB not focused around milling
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Currently Playing:
Standard - Some kind of control
Modern - UB Mill (casual)
EDH - Meren's Grave Shenanigans
I've been thinking about it, and maybe it would not be a surprise at all if they go back to monocolor next year because 1) they want to keep things simple and 2) it would be easier to do legendary planeswalkers as commanders again. I could forgive something boring like that if they give us Serra and Jaya planeswalkers cards.
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Intensity, Integrity, Intelligence, Personified and Penguinified.
If they did do mono coloured again (although I really believe it will be duel allied colours) they would choose a different gimmick other then use planeswalker commanders again. I suppose they could make non general planeswalkers but they could do that in any colour combo.
Four-Color will be the most impactful theme they've yet done in Commander, so I'm guessing they'll tackle Ally pairs first.
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MTGS Wikia Article about "New World Order"
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
PSA to everyone who keeps forgetting about the Reserved List:
You're on a website dedicated to talking about MtG. You're only a few keystrokes away from finding out what cards are on the Reserved List. You're also only a few keystrokes away from finding out why some cards on the Reserved List got foil printings in FtV, as Judge promos, or whatnot, as well as why that won't happen again. Stop doing this.
The biggest problem is that 4 color and 5 color mana bases are at least a bit harder to swing with cheap mana bases, or else make it primarilly G for ramp and then fill things out from there. Only one of the four color combos is lacking green, so its still theoretically workable, but that sounds about the opposite of fun, and (as has been discussed by Maro on multiple occasions) it is almost impossible to flavorfully differentiate between each four color combination.
You could get a successful commander, a nephilim reprint, and then would struggle to find anything else noteworthy (and even the nephilim are, well, strange).
I find it most likely that they will do a round of allied colors in 2016, its the big dumb obvious thing to do, so Wizards will do it.
After that? I expect a round of themed decks, including each of the colors incorporated in some way. A five color, an artifact centric deck (perhaps even a four color deck here, green is the only color that is now more or less entirely anti-artifact), perhaps a colorless deck utilizing the presumed "wastes" basics (some kind of exemplar Eldrazi that isn't a titan? Cool.), and a pair of somehow thematically opposed decks (I.E. commander scale Divine vs. Demonic or Elves vs. Goblins).
Though I expect Allied duals this year, it would be cool if they cheated into 4-color decks. They could do scarecrows leaving out green, since it would need the least ramp, being they're mostly colorless casting cost. Scion of the Ur-Dragon leads Dragons, could (mostly) leave out blue, with the mana for it coming from dual lands or artifacts. Same sort of things for allies, mostly skipping black but Tazri at the fore. A Horde of Notions elemental deck could mostly skip white. And a sliver deck could skip out on red spells and have a few options for the face card.
The real issue is making one new legendary for each deck that misses the last color. But then the Nephilim would have a home.
I really think it'll be allied pairs, but I would greatly enjoy a tribal theme to all of the decks. Something like: UB - Zombies, Ninjas, or Rogues BR - Demons or Dragons RG - Beasts or Werewolves GW - Elves WU - Angels, Birds, or Humans
Out of these options I prefer Allied color decks. But please, for the love of Thassa do not make them about the Ravnica Guilds. Hopefully these will have more character cards.
If I had a choice, all decks would be monochrome every year. I love mono color. When are we finally getting Serra PW?
As much as I want 4-color decks, I don't think it can happen yet. They always print 2 new commanders and one old one and there are no existing 4-color commanders to reprint. So unless they change it up and give us 3 new commanders in each deck, I think we'll have to wait a few years after we get 4 color legendaries elsewhere.
In the mean time, allied colors are obvious.
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"Pop in, find a dragon, roast a dragon."
-Chandra Nalaar
Allied Guilds is probably the way to go, hopefully with plansewalkers (but i would bet against it). I also wish for some good mana fixing reprints. Scry Lands, Check Lands... filters even.... but their track record of reprint lands is pretty poor.
Allied Guild: Easiest to do, but they just did 2-color this year
Yeah like how they wouldn't do 3-color after the first one because they had already done 3 color before.....oh wait.
With newer players not having played for that long they won't have easy access to some of the older allied colored cards. That and WotC would have to ignore allied colors and focus on enemy colors for the next ten or so years to even give enemy colors a chance to catch up to all the love allied card go for so long.
As much as some people don't want allied colors, that's what its going to be. While the statement of wanting all 10 two color combos to be equally playable for standard, I'm sure at this point its gone past that and applies to everything where applicable. Doing enemy colors this year and then not doing allied the next when its something they can deliver on doesn't make any sense.
Commander does not equal Standard, and they did not do wedges back-to-back with shards. Also, Allied pairs have far more commanders than enemy pairs, so they are not an equal comparison.
I'm thinking they'll make two new decks: a five-color one and a colorless one. Both would probably be priced around 10 dollars more than usual due to the increased number of nonbasic lands in both lists.
Five-color would be interesting, and with MaRo's comment about not having five decks, I wouldn't be completely opposed to a two-deck release one year with a five-color deck and a colorless deck. Since they've got Wastes now, it wouldn't be completely out of the question.
All that said, I'm putting my bets on allied color pairings for this year. It just seems logical considering the pattern they've kind of been following.
Miscellaneous:
1 5 color
1 4 color
1 3 color
1 2 color
1 1 color
this would be my ideal situation
If they did that they'd have to have the 4-color not include cards of the 1-colors color. And the 3-color and 2-color would need to be opposites. That would still end up with one color likely getting more cards than the others unless they did something to make them have more artifacts.
Magic does a lot of things to be fun and cool, but because they care about new people picking up product to play with friends, they care a lot about balance.
Also, since they came out with Wastes pretty recently, they could do a 0-color deck or something, just to spice things up.
Logically it would be the Allied Pair decks. They opened the commander series with the tri-color wedges and followed with the tri-color arcs. I would personally like to see a UB not focused around milling
NINJAS! They've talked a bit about Kamigawa not being well received but they're willing to go back if the community is deemed interested. How to whet our appetite? Ninjas.
If we assume for a moment that allied pairs is the theme, we could get a pretty good selection of non-stereotypical decks. My only sadness is that they probably wouldn't do werewolves because of DFC.
Logically it would be the Allied Pair decks. They opened the commander series with the tri-color wedges and followed with the tri-color arcs. I would personally like to see a UB not focused around milling
NINJAS! They've talked a bit about Kamigawa not being well received but they're willing to go back if the community is deemed interested. How to whet our appetite? Ninjas.
If we assume for a moment that allied pairs is the theme, we could get a pretty good selection of non-stereotypical decks. My only sadness is that they probably wouldn't do werewolves because of DFC.
Unless, instead of tokens for that deck they include the check cards.
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Currently Playing:
Standard - Some kind of control
Modern - UB Mill (casual)
EDH - Meren's Grave Shenanigans
Honestly, when someone said the idea of an allied color general with an enemy colored activated ability, it made perfect sense. That way a UB general with a activated ability could be like a UBR commander, a WUB commander or a WUBR commander. Or, if you don't want to use the activated ability, it could be a UB commander.
Please, no.
After taking so long to even get around to this,
it would really suck if they arbitrarily left out one of the four-color combinations
(as I'm sure they would choose my favorite, WUBG).
Reprint Stasis!
Control needs more love.
EDH:
Momir Vig, Simic Visionary
Melek, Izzet Paragon
Oona, Queen of the Fae
Bruna, Light of Alabaster
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight
Rhys the Redeemed
Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
Sen Triplets
The Mimeoplasm
WUBRGSliver OverlordGRBUW
WUBRGSliver Hivelord(Superfriends)GRBUW
Commander 2017: Commander: Return of the Nephilim
Commander 2018: Commander Duel - 5 Color vs. Colorless
MSRP: $100
60 new cards, 30 per deck. No cards from the 1v1 banned list. Higher quantity of high dollar reprints and rares.
Custom Set
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hu9uNBSUt92PwGhvexYlwFvsh6_SJBlEEIUV3H9_XyU/edit?usp=sharing
Standard - Some kind of control
Modern - UB Mill (casual)
EDH - Meren's Grave Shenanigans
Commander: WUBRG Superfriends, GW Rhys Tokens, WUBRG Scion of the Ur-Dragon
Kitchen Table (now that's real Magic): WUBRG Domain, GU Biovisionary, UB Korlash Grandeur, UW Merfolk Mill
Elf
Goblin
Merfolk
Zombie
Human
Angel
Demon
Vampire
Cat
Bird
Owner of IcyGeek.com
BChainer, Dementia Master(Big Mana/Reanimator)
BRRakdos, The Showstopper (Mass Life Loss/Ramp)
BUThe Scarab God (Zombie Tribal/Control)
BWKarlov of the Ghost Council (Life Gain)
BGJarad, Golgari Lich Lord (Stompy/Dredge)
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher (Tokens/Non-infinite Combo)
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
You could get a successful commander, a nephilim reprint, and then would struggle to find anything else noteworthy (and even the nephilim are, well, strange).
I find it most likely that they will do a round of allied colors in 2016, its the big dumb obvious thing to do, so Wizards will do it.
After that? I expect a round of themed decks, including each of the colors incorporated in some way. A five color, an artifact centric deck (perhaps even a four color deck here, green is the only color that is now more or less entirely anti-artifact), perhaps a colorless deck utilizing the presumed "wastes" basics (some kind of exemplar Eldrazi that isn't a titan? Cool.), and a pair of somehow thematically opposed decks (I.E. commander scale Divine vs. Demonic or Elves vs. Goblins).
The real issue is making one new legendary for each deck that misses the last color. But then the Nephilim would have a home.
UB - Zombies, Ninjas, or Rogues
BR - Demons or Dragons
RG - Beasts or Werewolves
GW - Elves
WU - Angels, Birds, or Humans
Standard - Some kind of control
Modern - UB Mill (casual)
EDH - Meren's Grave Shenanigans
If I had a choice, all decks would be monochrome every year. I love mono color. When are we finally getting Serra PW?
|| UW Jace, Vyn's Prodigy UW || UG Kenessos, Priest of Thassa (feat. Arixmethes) UG ||
Cards I still want to see created:
|| Olantin, Lost City || Pavios and Thanasis || Choryu ||
In the mean time, allied colors are obvious.
-Chandra Nalaar
Allied Guilds is probably the way to go, hopefully with plansewalkers (but i would bet against it). I also wish for some good mana fixing reprints. Scry Lands, Check Lands... filters even.... but their track record of reprint lands is pretty poor.
In Progress
GBIshkanah, Grafwidow ~ BWGRTymna the Weaver & Tana, the Bloodsower ~ UGRashmi, Eternities Crafter ~ RGAtarka, World Render
Yes they did
As for the other 4...I guess tribal could work.
WBC Eldrazi & Taxes CBW
UR Keep on Cantripin' (UR Phoenix) RU
WU Surprise! It's not UW Control! (UW Midrange) UW
BG The Rock, Straight BG
U Mono-Blue Fish U
RBW Mardu Pyromancer BWR
RG Rabble! Rabble! (GR Blood Moon Aggro) GR
Legacy
W Death & Taxes W
All that said, I'm putting my bets on allied color pairings for this year. It just seems logical considering the pattern they've kind of been following.
EDIT: Nath'd on the 5-color vs. colorless
WU TBD | UB Wrexial | BR The Scorpion God | RG Xenagos | GW Katilda
WB TBD | UR TBD | BG Virtus & Gorm | RW Feather | GU Koma
GWU TBD | WUB Sefris | UBR TBD | BRG Lord Windgrace | RGW TBD
WBG TBD | URW Brallin & Shabraz | BGU Kadena | RWB Edgar | GUR Maelstrom Wanderer
WUBR TBD | UBRG Thrasios & Vial Smasher | BRGW Saskia | RGWU TBD | GWUB TBD
WUBRG The Ur-Dragon | C Kozilek
For colors, as a wild thought how about this cycle:
Colorless
Mono-Color
Two-Color
Three-Color
Five-Color
That way there's something for everyone.. Except the 4-color people, and Wizards clearly doesn't like them anyway...
1 5 color
1 4 color
1 3 color
1 2 color
1 1 color
this would be my ideal situation
If they did that they'd have to have the 4-color not include cards of the 1-colors color. And the 3-color and 2-color would need to be opposites. That would still end up with one color likely getting more cards than the others unless they did something to make them have more artifacts.
Magic does a lot of things to be fun and cool, but because they care about new people picking up product to play with friends, they care a lot about balance.
Also, since they came out with Wastes pretty recently, they could do a 0-color deck or something, just to spice things up.
NINJAS! They've talked a bit about Kamigawa not being well received but they're willing to go back if the community is deemed interested. How to whet our appetite? Ninjas.
If we assume for a moment that allied pairs is the theme, we could get a pretty good selection of non-stereotypical decks. My only sadness is that they probably wouldn't do werewolves because of DFC.
Unless, instead of tokens for that deck they include the check cards.
Standard - Some kind of control
Modern - UB Mill (casual)
EDH - Meren's Grave Shenanigans