I wouldn't call it power creep. I'd call it more power correction. It's one of many things related to the 3 drop size moving from 2/2 to 2/3 or 3/2. A 3/2 still goes down in combat to a 2 drop with 2 power, but a 2/3 can stonewall just a little and put a speed bump on being behind, but not to an obnoxious level like T:tap target creature or B: regenerate. Gain 2 life just isn't as strong as it used to be, though, with 2 and 3 drops regularly having 3 power. A lot of limited cards have been tweaked over the years around stuff like this. It's also hard to call anything not constructed playable power creep because if it only effectively exists in limited, it only exists with things in limited with it. Highway Robber might actually be just as strong in Mercadian Masques as Vampire Spawn is in Forgotten Realms. I mean it's also a mercenary which means you could have tutored it directly into play. Powerful tribal benefits are a big thing with costing cards as well. I mean back in my day, Craw Wurm was quite good, but it's gone from high pick common to getting buffed to 7/6 and now with lifegain. I actually remember bragging pretty hard on Vastwood Gorger back in Zendikar, but it was also a 2/1 for 2 format. Once upon a time, Thorn Elemental and Ancient Silverback used to be desired rares. Direct damage spells have been scaled to kill bigger creatures and the power and/or toughness of draft chaff has risen enough that they were ok uncommons. They said Shivan Dragon was still too strong, but it was fine as 6/6 for 5RR. Serra Angel was pretty damn strong in M10 at uncommon, but its limited value has fallen as well. Vampire Nighthawk was obnoxious in triple Zendikar draft, but I never heard a peep about its dwarf color shift in Kaladesh. We also had an enchantment land in Modern Horizons and an artifact land in this set but they probably won't make an impact in limited in those sets because synergy is a thing. Creatures are a particularly good place to power correct, though, because if you make them bigger over all, they balance each other out. Who knows, it might even be possible to make 4+ toughness common enough that Lightning Bolt isn't a concern. Of course, in Rise of the Eldrazi, Flame Slash wasn't even that out of place with all the beefy walls and stuff or the glut of tokens. Blightsteel Colossus even got less criticism overall than Darksteel Colossus did back in the day. That's because indestructible just isn't what it used to be. I'm pretty sure that's the kind of thing that's the real result of New World Order. It's just like FIRE that people criticize heavily while bragging over its benefits. I don't think fire is about broken cards. Remember the reject rare cards of the past that were such worthless garbage they had reject rare draft as a joke format? We still have less desirable rares that maybe you don't personally want, but they aren't Mudhole or anything. They're cards you could see some use for if you enjoy playing the kind of decks they might fit in. Now, sure they get derided as "for commander" but would you prefer Mudhole or niche commander? It's impossible to make a set relevant in high level competitive constructed, but I think we've seen since, say Dominaria, that you can certainly make the set's rares and mythics not completely useless garbage.
It could have a put it into library or even the Weatherseed Treefolk ability, but whatever you do is going to be wordy. It can also realistically only be so doomy. It has to be a reasonable card that doesn't just win the game on the spot when it resolves. Now, if the deathtouch is that big of an issue, it could have had bite instead of fight, but it doesn't need trample in addition to haste, ward, and fight. I think it's actually kind of similar to an eldrazi titan in design, although obviously not as powerful as the Emrakul the Aeons Torn card. That was way too much on the automatic win scale.
Do beholders actually fly or just levitate a bit off the ground? Flying in Magic tends to imply being very high for evasive purposes. It doesn't seem to have any need to try and evade you. That just makes it harder to blast you with its eye powers. It also seems to do just fine with the eye stalks. It immobilizes you and causes you to act for it. From what I can see, it does quite well at representing a beholder just like Tarrasque does everything it's supposed to do. It just isn't as overpowered as some people want it to be so they can whine about it being overpowered later.
It does regenerate and have resistance to dying based on being a Magic card. It has 10 toughness. That means unless it takes TEN damage this turn, it regenerates back to full health at the end of the turn. It "comes back" with full health. It also has psudo trample. It fights before combat, so even when, in all likelyhood, it kills whatever it fights it's still hitting for 10. As far as I can see, it manages to do everything it does in D&D lore and have text that fits on a Magic card. I've never played D&D but I know it has books. You can have a lot more abilities when a book describes them. This isn't an Egyptian God Card situation where they had too many abilties to accurately represent on a Yugioh card. I'm quite a fan of Tarrasque. It's big, splashy, and impressive, but not overpowered.
So it took them *checks date* eights months since the release of the Walking Dead Secret Lair to finally come up with a solution to not only those cards, but also Magic versions of them when six months before that the solution already existed with the Godzilla versions of cards. So it took them 14 months to find a solution that already existed to a problem that didn't need to exist in the first place. By pushing this idea out they are acting like they fixed something when in reality what they did is ignore the actual previous solution.
Is this a solution? Yes. Is there any reason why the base card(s) need to be from another franchise rather than it being a Magic card first? No.
Them putting these in the list is honestly, what I think is, them looking to push set boosters more and likely trying to get rid of draft boosters. It's far better for them to sell packs that cost $6-$7 rather than $4. It's also them showing they are not 100% confident in UB if they're going "you can find these elsewhere in product you'll probably actually buy" though you'd have to open a ton of them to do so.
I don't know how easily this kills the "Crossover Reserved List", most definitely damages the idea of it at least, as they won't be tossing in every UB card in there and it will take a lot of time to go through them all. With how hard it is for them to reprint some cards, like fetch lands, I bet the same issue will arise for the more expensive UB cards that end up as Vintage/Legacy staples. "Sorry, we're not reprinting Kermit or the Red Stapler any time soon." This is evident by them saying they can't do it for The Walking Dead SL, likely because the contract made up didn't include that, shows we do still have the "Crossover Reserved List" already.
On a personal note I'm still not going to enjoy the Magic version of a card technically being based on UB card, while artistically it may be better, I will still get to look down and go "Oh, this is actually Gandalf (or Mickey Mouse) I'm playing with" and I still do not want that.
Quote from From the Article »
This upcoming Universes Beyond Secret Lair (it's worth the wait to hear about, we swear)
So confident in it that they have to add in a "we swear it's good" is almost pathetic on their part.
If people buy set boosters that's gonna shift some volume that way. There's not a shortage of draft boosters as far as I can tell and neither of those products is a limited print run, so it's not like people are being forced to buy set boosters to get their cards.
No, they are not forced to, but them adding more incentives to set boosters can be taken as either them not selling well (wouldn't be surprised by this, they do feel a bit redundant) or they are doing well and they want them to do even better to shift away from draft packs.
Anyway, I'd say this is a step in the right direction. Hopefully we can get something similar for the non secret lair products too.
It is most definitely a step in the right direction, when it comes to their willingness to reprint UB. My issue is why it took them so long to make this announcement or not think of this sooner. The answer already existed, either with reprints or the Godzilla format, and yet it seemed they wanted to stick with the FOMO idea many gacha/AAA video games stick with nowadays.
Perhaps they got some research that did not bode well for UB or even the game in the long run with previous policies.
Hey Mark, My LGS is currently concerned about the lack of Draft boosters that they have been able to order for recent sets. Can you please assuage our fears that Wizards is phasing out draft boosters? I personally don't enjoy set/collector boosters, because I don't like opening packs without drafting them (not to mention those boosters have cards I can't get in draft boosters, which is an entirely separate complaint).
Strixhaven’s draft booster shortage was a combination of trying to gauge set booster reaction during a pandemic along with COVID-related printing issues. We have taken steps to adjust the percentage.
And look at that, part of it came from their focus on a new product. As for the Covid related issues it was a year in, every business should have had that figured out, many did within two months with little issues. If it didn't exist, or focused on, more draft packs would have been made. We've seen them turning focus away from draft packs as we've gotten two new boosters they want to push in the last two years (collectors and set, and more so now with set). They have increasingly wanted people to buy less draft packs, but more of the new expensive stuff. It's no surprise a business wants you to spend more on the pricier products.
Not including TWD cards is quite odd here, as if they are given completely new art and wording would have no connection to the IP, so I doubt licensing would have a play in not redoing them.
You'd be surprised how weird licensing can be. I play one gacha game where they can't even upgrade a character because the licensing only included what was initially agreed on. It likely has some stipulation to not be included in boosters or something and they'd have to license the TWD later if they want to do do, which would cost more money every time they want to do so.
This is part of the reason the UB Reserved List is a likely thing even with this solution.
Set boosters do serve multiple purposes. Opening booster packs is fun. Id assume no one seriously disputes that point at all. Set boosters are an attempt to make the opening of boosters even more fun just for the sake of opening them. They can even include cards you don't want in limited, just like you can insert cards into commander decks you wouldn't want in limited, but those are limited on how strong in constructed you can make them without creating a deck scalping problem.
So, basically there's literally no solution other than I don't like this so I don't want anyone else to have it that would really make you happy.
If they really wanted to go fear of missing out, they would do something like a secret lair with an exclusive 4 damage lightning bolt or something obviously overpowered. Instead, they printed a bunch of neat but niche cards that likely aren't seriously competitive.
Godzilla solution is completely unreasonable. It would require concepting twice, thousands of cards that will never be reprinted with the new concepting because no one even wants the thing. It's perfectly reasonable to reconcept select cards or a limted run secret lair, but you're talking about thousands of wasted names and stuff for every shock, hill giant, diviniation, etc. The other alternative of only using pre existing Magic cards is equally as bad because it runs into the exact problem Godzilla had to begin with. The cards don't fit Godzilla well and are simply shoehorned in as badly as O-Kagachi or ludevic into commander decks.
So 60 card precons aimed at new players is dead. Who knows when we will ever get under $15 60 card precons focusing on themes and mechanics from the latest sets ever again.
I'm pretty sure it's just dead and there's no realistic way to produce and market it profitably. I can certainly understand your frustration, but 60 card casual precons has numerous problems. The normal 4 of rule pulls in multiple directions. It's extremely unfun for diversity UNLESS you have a unique, irreplacable effect the deck has to have to function. Other decks having multiples of more powerful cards make the precon garbage, though. You also can't print multiples of highly desirable cards for other formats because it either leads to scalping or destroys the secondary market value of the good cards. Pokemon also did the 60 card casual precon format online. You could play precon vs precon without the issue of having a very limited number of decks per set. People lost interest and the format was scrapped for the same issue competitive formats have. It led to people just playing the couple teir precons over and over again. What they can realistically do is commander precons and sets like jumpstart. Jumpstart has the kind of thing you're looking for. It has hundreds of potential 40 card precons per release, can make new cards without flooding the market, and you can even print desirable chase cards. Commander is an actual precon, can print format staples because people maintain a whole collection of decks, is automatically limited to `1 copy per card, and solves the unique, irreplacable card problem with its commander that you pretty much always have access to. The reason commander replaced you preferred precons isn't because wizards game sucks. It's because commander, by its very format design fixes all the problems with normal precons simply based on the way the format naturally works. If commander were invented in the beginning, 60 card casual precon never would have existed to begin with because it was flawed from the beginning and destined for failure. I've been playing for decades and every set, unless a 60 card precon gets scalped for parts, none of them ever sold like the low end of commander precons. It's just a naturally superior model to theme decks, intro decks, duel decks, clash packs, or box sets like game night or archenemy. Wizards tried a bunch of different things including precon league style play at game stores that no one was ever interested in at any store I ever went to. Sometimes you just have to face facts that exactly what you want is just not popular or profitable.
Oh my...WHAT WERE THEY THINKING THIS CARD IS BANNED IN LEGACY AND RESTRICTED IN VINTAGE FOR CRYING OUT LOUD! AND ITS LEGAL IN HISTORIC?!
Historic doesn't have the problem of vintage and legacy. It isn't banned for power. It's banned for wasting an absurd amount of time in paper magic. You have to shuffle for every copy that resolves and you have to give it a really good shuffle to make sure it's properly randomized. In digital, a proper shuffle is what? One second? It was simply a badly templated card.
Outside of facing a mill deck or excessive drawing to the point of basically just fishing for a combo, it's effectively Infinity Elemental for power and toughness. Drawing simply a large amount of cards will still make it a one shot. That's ok, though. It costs a stupid amount of mana and is very hard to cheat into play. It's for the same people that adore Colossification. Neither are good cards but they're funny. This is also better than Animate Library. It can be recurred and the spell can be copied. Animate Library is basically once per game.
I could actually see fortelling a card meaning either cost you want to reduce to zero. I mean it's only legal in vintage, legacy, and commander. 2WU is a ton in formats where that's often a curve topping atomic bomb like JTMS. For that you get a 2/3 Serra Angel that wants you to play a very narrow subset of cards to do much. Even if it can ultimately let you play any foretell card for free, you have to exile the card first which would save you the 2 mana and then you get a 1/1 flier. If it's still around next turn, you could then cast it for free, but that's asking a lot where suspend or miracle let you cast, say, 10 mana spells for 1. Lets say you used it to play this mythic, probably one of the more impressive foretell cards. You drop your 2/3 and foretell the Mammoth for 0, netting you the 1/1 flier. If it survives a turn, you effectively get the 2/3 and the 1/1 for free but if not, you've played a hugely under curve legendary card that saved you 2 mana in a 3 color deck. You'd also have to play a bunch of foretell and a bunch of copies of the legendary in very fast formats to even consider it possibly becoming a problem. I don't know if wu will even have enough foretell cards to reliably get the ability to function in commander. Of course, in commander, you can also just blink a bunch of stuff to abuse that 1/1 ability in addition to free foretell, so it's no like it isn't a fun card. That reminds me a bit of Emeria Angel which is a fun card.
No matter what plane they pick to be invaded by a threat, it's the plane somebody dealy wanted and even the least popular planes in history have a very vocal group that demands a return to what they love.
To simply "everyone" would mean to extend a set by a lot.
Explore a plane on its own, then put in other stuff what you want to do with it.
The biggest issues of story telling right now is that they speed up everything in such a manner that it is packed into 1 set.
Thats the issue of all the Eldrazi story arcs, they needed a lot more sets to explore it slowly and build a threat up, instead its all rushed.
Magic had a past of extremely "slow" rolling its story and exploring in more detail what the planes mean they visit.
The entire Urza / Weatherlight story took years and the battle with Phyrexia and Yawgmoth took a long time and massive sacrifices from the heroes to save the rest of the multiverse from that threat.
That was GOOD story telling.
We dont get that anymore, its a quick and dirty slap of story telling, which turns the villains into cartoonish knock offs and the heroes into caricature of their characters.
----
Instead of making a 10/10 set for "some" people, WotC is trying badly to put just a handful of cards in a set to try to please everyone (so everyone gives 5/10 for each set and every set is basically the same rating), which leaves the fans with a after taste of soap water, graving for an "actual" set that gives them more.
WotC found a concept in Ravnica to make a set and story of tiny sub-factions and continues to repeat that recipe over and over and over again.
And as that is a problem for fans, they will tell you about it.
Well, that is a problem, but there really isn't a good answer. Lets say they go back on the no second set unless it's a return and do 2 Kaldheim sets. What happens now? WOTC is terrible because Dorminaria, Eldraine, Theros, and Ikoria didn't get a second set. Pick one was some people's absolute favorite plane in the game. Even Innistrad is now getting 2 sets crammed into the end of the year rather than taking up 2 slots after all the whining about how Ravnica got 3 and the others got 1. Of course, even the most popular planes, Ravnica, Innistrad, Zendikar, some people absolutely hate them. There's also the question of what do we gain from a second set? It helps the story out, but that's about it. Block model was a financial failure as is the story that they literally gave up a long time ago and jammed the book into the fat pack, later known as the bundle. It apparently won't even sell as an e book, nevermind an actual book,so from a business perspective, you're lucky there even is a published story anymore. I'm glad Magic still has a story even though I don't read it much, but expecting them to warp the profitable game around the unprofitable story isn't going to fly.
This is actually a really stupid complaint just like the too many products or card prices. There's simply literally nothing Wizards can do to make everyone happy. The real problem is we have greedy people that want everything to be entirely what THEY want. You can't even usually get 10 people to agree on toppings for a damn pizza, nevermind millions of people to agree on what makes Magic good and fun. Some people want more emphasis on stuff just on this plane while others want a connected interplanar story. If we're going to have connected story, it has to be something really important unless we're being silly like the blogatog comic about doughnuts. Even if we're gathing artifacts or something, there has to be a reason, probably an interplanar threat since the game is about combat. We've had 3 big interplanar threats now, Bolas, Eldrazi, Phyrexians. They've been implemented different ways at different times while a loud group absolutely hates it no matter the implementation. Starting with alara, bolas wrecks the shard aspect which was really popular. On Zendikar, the eldrazi wreck the very popular adventure aspect. On Mirrodin, the phyrexians wreck the popular metal plane and monopolize the story while people dislike the plane conquered by phyrexians and liked the invading better. Then, we take years off for Innistrad, Return to Ravnica, and Theros and people are upset that the story doesn't feel connected other than the hated planeswalkers. Of course, planeswalkers are very popular in general, but some people despise the pricing, some people despise the gameplay, others despise how they monopolize the story just like a big bad. Then, we head to tarkir where they wreck beloved 3 color khans plane for dragon (the most popular creature type) plane and set up for the eldrazi. Afterwards, we head for Zendikar where people whine about how the eldrazi pulled all the focus because there's so many of them and they also ruin what makes the eldrazi special by making a bunch of colored ones that are just garden variety horrors. Innistrad pulls back on the eldrazi but it's too much and too soon for some people, especially the people that don't want them on their beloved Innistrad at all. Kaladesh, the gatewatch mostly win without wrecking the place and after that and "no consequences" on Zendikar they changed it up on Amonkhet and let Nicol Bolas finally do something, annihilating the mostly unexplored plane of Amonkhet. Ixalan is buildup and mostly unconnected and does poorly. Then, we have 3 sets on Ravnica since people want plane as they knew and loved it and people whine about too much time on one plane. The war also kills off gideon, dovin, domri, and dack, some of the least popular characters and a member of the gatewatch that has a contingent bent on killing them all. People are also upset about that, especially dack who didn't get another card but also gideon, especially because he's very popular like Elspeth. Then, we go to Eldraine, Theros, Ikoria, Zendikar and there are complaints about not enough connectivity and Wizards forgetting about the phyrexians. Now, we're on Kaldheim and we're revisiting the phyrexians invading again because that's what people want them to do. It's pulled back, possibly to just a few cards but even that is too much for some people. If you go through the entire list, you'll notice there's literally no way Wizards can make everyone happy. It's just like card prices where people want the cards they own to be expensive but the ones they don't to be cheap. It's also like the too many products where some people want to eliminate releases, but everything that gets cut was someone's pet product. Even mostly maligned products like theme decks/planeswalker decks got blowback from their cancellation. It seems to me, Magic has done a pretty impressive job of solving pretty much everything that can be solved. What's left is literally impossible because you have warring factions that want contradictory things and are unwilling to compromise. No matter what plane they pick to be invaded by a threat, it's the plane somebody dealy wanted and even the least popular planes in history have a very vocal group that demands a return to what they love.
I could see them doing Comrade if it had a downside or two. That way, adding another color to a commander is a process you have to think about. I've seen various versions of adding one color to a commander that had starting hand size reduced by one, skip their first draw step, or increasing the casting cost of the commander by 1 of the new color. I've dabbled on the idea, that gave your opponents X thing where X was the number of times you cast the main commander that game.
tl;dr: I think it's possible to add a color if some downsides went with the decision.
I specifically think the piper would be fine paired with any deck. The design space for being able to graft a commander onto any deck is going to be very small, though. Partners designed to be partners are already weaker than normal commanders. How anemic would they have to be to partner with any commander? There's also the combo problem. Huge swathes of commander designs will be super problematic to partner with any legendary creature ever to exist. The piper, however, is a vanilla 3/3 for 5. It's easily the worst card in your entire deck and would simply be an emblem that gives you an optional extra color for the most part.
It's still an extra card and color for every aingle deck ever. This, in and of itself, doesn't make unviable decks more viable, but does make oppressive ones more oppressive.
So, basically it has about the same effect as the continued printing of new sets or not banning massive amounts of cards. I mean if you banned thousands of cards, weak commanders could really shine. Short of that, thre isn't reallly much you can do to change that. The real question is, does it make the format more fun? The potential extra card per deck is negligible because you would almost certainly cast any spell in your entire deck over it. It's basically just an emblem/monarch marker/city's blessing unless you literally have nothing to cast other than a vanilla 3/3 for 5. It's about the same level of broken as a free colorless land per deck that you only get to play if you have 7 or more lands. I mean sure drawing 17 lands when you only have 10 on the battlefield is card advantage in the most technical sense, but unless you can do something useful with them, they aren't card advantage in a practical sense. It really comes down to whether being able to add up to one color to any commander deck with less than 5 would make the format more enjoyable on the whole for people that aren't purposely breaking it. I mean if you don't want an extra color, you can just choose to have the extra card unless you're playing colorless. It's possible there's a game where you might actually cast it. It would even lead to the cool story someday of how someone managed to win with it. I think it would be quite entertaning.
It would just be an auto include, necessary part of the game thag only ever got used to add colors to fecks that are already broken.
Omg the land you mentioned would be literally the most broken card in Magic. Lurrus who?
Obviously no one would ever use it to add red to spider tribal add that hybrid card they want, splash for answers, play that off color card that's got such great synergy with the commander, play that dfc with a problematic color identity, or any of that. No one would ever use it to splash in green ramp into colors that don't have it or anything like that. The only thing people will ever do is use it to add additional combos and tutors to their decks.
The people adding it for casual reasons will be lesser in nimber and impact than the people adding it to make games less interactive.
Everywhere I've played commander in person, people tend to shun infinite combos. There's also a lot of playing silver bordered cards, pet cards, tribal decks, etc. Sure there will be people out there that will use any powerful card to break the format even more, but it's not that hard to break the format now. I've played commander with proxied Ancestral Recalls and Black Lotuses flying around at not breaking games. If you're powering out your Progenitus or something, it can be pretty neat.
If comrade existed, everyone would be able to slap a comrade on all of their preexisting (non-partner) decks for zero cost to get an extra card in the command zone. If you've forgotten, Lutri was banned the day it was revealed because every Izzet deck could add it as an extra card you start with... and you want to print a whole bunch of those cards.
Even if the only comrade was Prismatic Piper (so you could expand the color identity of your decks by one color), that would still be too powerful.
Apologies if I'm not reading sarcasm but dang.
That would be far different than Lutri. Lutri was a card that would only benefit ur and would go in every one of those decks, making it a very expensive and difficult to reprint card. the piper is on 1 in 6 commander legends packs and letting every deck graft it on wouldn't unbalance the format at all. It would optionally add a color to every deck but 5 color, solve the 4 color problem, let you graft in that hybrid card, put less pressure to add unnessary colors to commanders in the future, solve the wastes problem, and probably many others. It should totally be a thing. I mean yes, it is an extra card, but that extra card is suckier than Hill Giant and every deck could have it, not one combination.
It's still an extra card and color for every aingle deck ever. This, in and of itself, doesn't make unviable decks more viable, but does make oppressive ones more oppressive.
So, basically it has about the same effect as the continued printing of new sets or not banning massive amounts of cards. I mean if you banned thousands of cards, weak commanders could really shine. Short of that, thre isn't reallly much you can do to change that. The real question is, does it make the format more fun? The potential extra card per deck is negligible because you would almost certainly cast any spell in your entire deck over it. It's basically just an emblem/monarch marker/city's blessing unless you literally have nothing to cast other than a vanilla 3/3 for 5. It's about the same level of broken as a free colorless land per deck that you only get to play if you have 7 or more lands. I mean sure drawing 17 lands when you only have 10 on the battlefield is card advantage in the most technical sense, but unless you can do something useful with them, they aren't card advantage in a practical sense. It really comes down to whether being able to add up to one color to any commander deck with less than 5 would make the format more enjoyable on the whole for people that aren't purposely breaking it. I mean if you don't want an extra color, you can just choose to have the extra card unless you're playing colorless. It's possible there's a game where you might actually cast it. It would even lead to the cool story someday of how someone managed to win with it. I think it would be quite entertaning.
It would just be an auto include, necessary part of the game thag only ever got used to add colors to fecks that are already broken.
Omg the land you mentioned would be literally the most broken card in Magic. Lurrus who?
Obviously no one would ever use it to add red to spider tribal add that hybrid card they want, splash for answers, play that off color card that's got such great synergy with the commander, play that dfc with a problematic color identity, or any of that. No one would ever use it to splash in green ramp into colors that don't have it or anything like that. The only thing people will ever do is use it to add additional combos and tutors to their decks.
Hoping the next commander legends would had expand the partner into a new mechanic like
Comrade(You can have this card as an additional commander if your commander has no assigned partner)
I was hoping for another white angel planeswalker with partner maybe next time.
I hope shadow and infect would be revisted as commanders
Dude... this would be broken as hell.
If comrade existed, everyone would be able to slap a comrade on all of their preexisting (non-partner) decks for zero cost to get an extra card in the command zone. If you've forgotten, Lutri was banned the day it was revealed because every Izzet deck could add it as an extra card you start with... and you want to print a whole bunch of those cards.
Even if the only comrade was Prismatic Piper (so you could expand the color identity of your decks by one color), that would still be too powerful.
Apologies if I'm not reading sarcasm but dang.
That would be far different than Lutri. Lutri was a card that would only benefit ur and would go in every one of those decks, making it a very expensive and difficult to reprint card. the piper is on 1 in 6 commander legends packs and letting every deck graft it on wouldn't unbalance the format at all. It would optionally add a color to every deck but 5 color, solve the 4 color problem, let you graft in that hybrid card, put less pressure to add unnessary colors to commanders in the future, solve the wastes problem, and probably many others. It should totally be a thing. I mean yes, it is an extra card, but that extra card is suckier than Hill Giant and every deck could have it, not one combination.
It's still an extra card and color for every aingle deck ever. This, in and of itself, doesn't make unviable decks more viable, but does make oppressive ones more oppressive.
So, basically it has about the same effect as the continued printing of new sets or not banning massive amounts of cards. I mean if you banned thousands of cards, weak commanders could really shine. Short of that, thre isn't reallly much you can do to change that. The real question is, does it make the format more fun? The potential extra card per deck is negligible because you would almost certainly cast any spell in your entire deck over it. It's basically just an emblem/monarch marker/city's blessing unless you literally have nothing to cast other than a vanilla 3/3 for 5. It's about the same level of broken as a free colorless land per deck that you only get to play if you have 7 or more lands. I mean sure drawing 17 lands when you only have 10 on the battlefield is card advantage in the most technical sense, but unless you can do something useful with them, they aren't card advantage in a practical sense. It really comes down to whether being able to add up to one color to any commander deck with less than 5 would make the format more enjoyable on the whole for people that aren't purposely breaking it. I mean if you don't want an extra color, you can just choose to have the extra card unless you're playing colorless. It's possible there's a game where you might actually cast it. It would even lead to the cool story someday of how someone managed to win with it. I think it would be quite entertaning.
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Set boosters do serve multiple purposes. Opening booster packs is fun. Id assume no one seriously disputes that point at all. Set boosters are an attempt to make the opening of boosters even more fun just for the sake of opening them. They can even include cards you don't want in limited, just like you can insert cards into commander decks you wouldn't want in limited, but those are limited on how strong in constructed you can make them without creating a deck scalping problem.
So, basically there's literally no solution other than I don't like this so I don't want anyone else to have it that would really make you happy.
If they really wanted to go fear of missing out, they would do something like a secret lair with an exclusive 4 damage lightning bolt or something obviously overpowered. Instead, they printed a bunch of neat but niche cards that likely aren't seriously competitive.
Godzilla solution is completely unreasonable. It would require concepting twice, thousands of cards that will never be reprinted with the new concepting because no one even wants the thing. It's perfectly reasonable to reconcept select cards or a limted run secret lair, but you're talking about thousands of wasted names and stuff for every shock, hill giant, diviniation, etc. The other alternative of only using pre existing Magic cards is equally as bad because it runs into the exact problem Godzilla had to begin with. The cards don't fit Godzilla well and are simply shoehorned in as badly as O-Kagachi or ludevic into commander decks.