Plus whatever brawl is, I guess we'll see. I guess I change decks frequently enough that building for a standard format is pretty reasonable, but I don't like the idea of fracturing the commander player base. Maybe if it's a tourney format it'll attract new blood rather than split the existing player base. Probably shouldn't speculate too much until the full announcement tomorrow.
I honestly want to hope its used to help bridge the gap from 60 to 100. Like a newish player whose been playing for half a year now might be interested in Commander but might feel a bit overwhelmed, so they might try out Brawl as a Commander-Lite variant. If they like it and want to expand, that is where Commander comes in.
From my experience with prototype Commander formats that used things like Standard or Frontier beforehand, it might draw fans already of Commander into a more casual environment.
I honestly want to hope its used to help bridge the gap from 60 to 100. Like a newish player whose been playing for half a year now might be interested in Commander but might feel a bit overwhelmed, so they might try out Brawl as a Commander-Lite variant. If they like it and want to expand, that is where Commander comes in.
From my experience with prototype Commander formats that used things like Standard or Frontier beforehand, it might draw fans already of Commander into a more casual environment.
I like the idea of drawing more players into commander. I'd prefer they didn't try to bring players the other way, but I wouldn't be surprised. I've no personal inclination to move away from EDH, so if it's commander-lite trying to funnel players into more competitive formats it probably isn't for me.
I honestly want to hope its used to help bridge the gap from 60 to 100. Like a newish player whose been playing for half a year now might be interested in Commander but might feel a bit overwhelmed, so they might try out Brawl as a Commander-Lite variant. If they like it and want to expand, that is where Commander comes in.
From my experience with prototype Commander formats that used things like Standard or Frontier beforehand, it might draw fans already of Commander into a more casual environment.
I like the idea of drawing more players into commander. I'd prefer they didn't try to bring players the other way, but I wouldn't be surprised. I've no personal inclination to move away from EDH, so if it's commander-lite trying to funnel players into more competitive formats it probably isn't for me.
Understandable. Not everyone is going to be interested. As some may just skip Brawl and go into Commander and Commander players may just skip brawl.
Zahid, Djinn of the Lamp4UU Legendary Creature - Djinn (R)
Flying
You can pay 3U and tap an artifact you control instead of paying the mana cost of this spell. 5/6 "I do what I want, insignificant mortal, but do not stop telling me about your wishes: I am amused by them."
1) Pretty sure, if I'm reading this correctly, he dodges commander tax.
2) He has built in evasion.
3) Hes basically a legendary Mahamoti Djinn after being cast.
4) Because one of the conditions to use an alternate casting for him is simply "tap an artifact", you could tap a pair of Swiftfoot Boots or Hammer of Nazahn and still equip it to him.
5) Indestructible artifacts are very useful for him. Darksteel Ingot, Darksteel Citadel, Darksteel Forge, Darksteel Axe, Darksteel Plate and Shield of Kaldra seem like auto-includes for Zahid.
6) Since he cares about artifacts, typical colorless and cards interact with artifacts should be considered like for example Memnarch or Academy Ruins.
7) Since there is no "as a sorcery" for when he can be cast, things like Leyline of Anticipation and Vedalken Orrery should be considered.
Commander tax is added after all "costs" are paid, therefore Zahid cannot dodge the tax, even if he could be paid with alternative cost.
I feel like Brawl will be alot like Super Smash Bros.: Brawl. That game had a ton of hype but no long-term appeal. I might build a single deck out of draft chaff, but unlikely to keep it in rotation. I would miss playing sweet, wonky old cards too much.
"I can play Brawl without feeling suboptimal for not owning dual lands."
Something tells me that the above sentence plays a big role in the formulations of Wizards. While many of the more valuable cards in MTG can certainly be seen as an investment (as they are a one-time cost and can be incorporated into future decks), many players would far rather spend $2,000 to make 6-8 unique brawl decks over the course of two years than bite the bullet and buy a Bazaar of Baghdad for a one-time cost.
While I am personally on the fence about brawl, it certainly caters to people who can't afford the best cards, don't have the patience to save for months (likely avoiding limited and standard play to do so) to get the best cards, and who still desire "optimal, competitive play". Whether or not I feel that such impatience should be rewarded with a unique format is neither here nor there.
As long as they don't try to replace Commander products with Brawl products I could care less about Brawl. Would be cool to see them use it as a bridge from 60 card to Commander as others have said.
I think that Brawl really proves that wotcs doesn't really understand or care for EDH. EDH was made to be played with old cards, "standard commander" looks like a terrible idea, it will end worse than tiny leaders
Ah yes they totally don't understand it, its not like they don't print Commander 201X products for the community. They also totally don't care about it and never would make a fan-made format into an official format. Its not like they have realized this is a flagship format for the card game itself, no sir.
Brawl is there to act as a bridge in order to bring in new blood. While allowing any old blood to try something different, some may love it and others may not. Brawl is not meant to replace Commander.
"Hey new player want to try Brawl? If you like this, then we have another format that is right your alley."
Ah yes they totally don't understand it, its not like they don't print Commander 201X products for the community. They also totally don't care about it and never would make a fan-made format into an official format.
They just go where the money is. Just look at Maro quotes about commander and you'll see that he don't care or understand the format.This brawl thing made me understand that is a widespread problem.
I don't think this choice will help them. If they want to bring more player to standard, they should actually try to make standard balanced, fun and interesting.
EDIT: oh god i just saw that planeswalker are legal commander. Final proof that this abomination was created to push their agenda inside commander. Can't wait for it to fail, i hope even more spectacularly than tiny leaders.
Well yeah no surprise Sherlock, they are a business, it can't just be all good intentions that keeps something like WotC afloat.
Also about Planeswalkers: There is no doubling season or equivalent in standard. You know, the main thing that the commander community pushes against for planeswakers being commanders. Its also not that big of a surprise. If the RC was to help make this a seemless process by allowing planeswalkers, they need to ban the problem children first like Sorin Markov and Doubling Season.
You are having a knee jerk reaction to something and not properly analyzing the situation.
Ah yes they totally don't understand it, its not like they don't print Commander 201X products for the community. They also totally don't care about it and never would make a fan-made format into an official format. Its not like they have realized this is a flagship format for the card game itself, no sir.
Brawl is there to act as a bridge in order to bring in new blood. While allowing any old blood to try something different, some may love it and others may not. Brawl is not meant to replace Commander.
"Hey new player want to try Brawl? If you like this, then we have another format that is right your alley."
Aye, if they’d make EDH an official format, the cost of older cards would TRIPLE, its much more benign to make a standard legal commander to attract new players to EDH, then move to full EDH after. I think WotC made the right move.
@ilovesaprolings: So what your saying is, because its capitalism, we should not have such things because its lazy and uncreative? So care to fork over any of your Commander 201X products or that Commander's Aresenal? Those were made through capitalism after all. Capitalism is one of the main driving forces in MTG that keeps it alive with new content. For at any point in its history they could have just pulled the plug on the game, written it as a failure, and that was that, no more new MTG cards.
Meanwhile, the reasing behind this is? Planeswalker are cool and a huge EDH's weakness is that cards don't rotate?
It's really hard to be sure of exactly what you're trying to say, but yes, non-rotation is a huge problem for commander. Rotation, as feel-bad as it is, fixes a LOT of problems in TCGs. There's a reason why it exists. It lets us leave mistakes in the past where they belong (cough sol ring cough). It keeps the metagame from becoming stale. it cuts down on boring format staples (cough sol ring cough). It makes it easier for new player to jump in without being woefully behind.
My favorite thing about this format is that I could go and build the most powerful deck possible, and I'm pretty sure it would still get rekt by a couple newer players if they decided to gang up on me from the start. That is a good sign. When "competitive" EDH decks are able to easily 3v1 or 4v1, that's a sign that the format is ruled by money and degenerate combos, and it's a huge disincentive to get into the format for new players, or anyone who wants a classic mtg experience.
That said, my local group has been great recently and we don't have issues with fast combos or anything particularly degenerate. But I don't love knowing that I have to intentionally hamstring myself and avoid playing certain cards even if they'd fit well into my strategy, because if I did go as competitive as possible my group wouldn't have the slightest chance - even without netdecking. Not having access to those broken cards means that whatever silly thing you want to do is probably not THAT far from the top-tier stuff, and well within the range that inherent multiplayer stability can resolve.
Basically - we don't have to intentionally tone down decks in this space. We can build something silly or something as cutthroat as possible, and they'll still probably have fun, reasonable games against each other.
I'm okay with this as a stepping stone. People who are new who want to get into multiplayer will quickly realize the very steep learning curve of even reasonable multiplayer circles. Someone can build one of these decks, and then if they chose wisely, once the commander rotates out they can start upgrading it with cards from the vintage card pool, that way you can potentially soften the blow of having your deck rotate out.
I'm on the fence..I'm sad because I don't have a lot of standard cards that are organized in my binders...I open a pack take the rare and then just ignore the rest lol. I don't see it really catching on for our playgroup.....the local L2 just posted a war hammer meme that says "I sense Heresy" in response to my posting a link to the article.
EDIT: and yeah this also feels like a way for WotC to sell more packs/boxes etc....hell this sells those PW stater decks right off the bat as a starter deck for this type.
I won't get involved with it personally. I see the value in it for Wizards, budding casual players and the EDH community. It encourages people to think about more than just the chase rares of standard, and think about wider synergies. It encourages players to think more about casual formats and is a good gateway drug to EDH, and gives EDH players a wider player base once people make the leap. I can't see it as anything more than a transition format, but it's a niche that got filled so that's nice.
As I said, I wont play - why bother with EDH-lite when you have all of MTG's catalog to draw from? But it'd be nice to see a few more players in my local area showing interest in casual singleton.
I am tempted to play as it would finally give me an excuse to build Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons and Samut, Voice of Dissent and put my two otherwise useless boxes of Amonkhet to good use, but it seems like if this is designed to be played for prizes, there is gonna be a whooooole lot of The Scarab God / Nicol Bolas, God-Pharaoh control decks that make the game generally miserable.
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Sufferer of EDHD
Commander - Currently Playing: RCRDaretti: Superfriends Forever RCR WGBDoran: Ent-mootWBG GGGMultani: Group Bear HugGGG GB(B/G)The Gitrog Monster: Dredgefall DurdleGB(B/G) RGWGahiji, the Honored Group Hug MonsterRGW UB(U/B)Yuriko, Ninja Trinket AggroUB(U/B) WUBRGAtogatog: Assembling a OHKOWUBRG
I am tempted to play as it would finally give me an excuse to build Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons and Samut, Voice of Dissent and put my two otherwise useless boxes of Amonkhet to good use, but it seems like if this is designed to be played for prizes, there is gonna be a whooooole lot of The Scarab God / Nicol Bolas, God-Pharaoh control decks that make the game generally miserable.
I can't imagine a scenario in which these sort of decks won't prevade the format, if there are prizes involved. Once Scarab and Bolas rotate out, it will be other culprits.
I'm personally really excited about the format, despite the obvious "sell moar packs" scheme that's lurking just under the surface. I understand the mentality a lot of people are taking about this being fundamentally about making money, but it can also (through rose tinted goggles) be seen as a way to give us a new toy to play with. Standard is failing across the board and I think it would be irresponsible of any company to look at one of their longest running sales drivers becoming less and less profitable and not attempting to think creatively for solutions to it's problems.
There are a lot of solid cards in standard right now that I've already picked up for various EDH decks, so I'm potentially spending less than $50 to acquire the new cards to build the deck I'm spitballing, and $30 of that is split between Search for Azcanta and Torrential Gearhulk, both of which I wanted anyway. Besides that, the deck only uses 2 non basic lands, praise Urza!
I enjoy deck building immensely, and having a limited card pool to choose from or restrictions to build around just gets me ridiculously excited, and that's the reason why the only formats I play exclusively are EDH and Limited. I doubt I'm the target audience here, but I'd this gets some die-hard standard grinders to dip their toes in the EDH hot tub, I won't complain. More players in our format is not a bad thing.
I am tempted to play as it would finally give me an excuse to build Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons and Samut, Voice of Dissent and put my two otherwise useless boxes of Amonkhet to good use, but it seems like if this is designed to be played for prizes, there is gonna be a whooooole lot of The Scarab God / Nicol Bolas, God-Pharaoh control decks that make the game generally miserable.
I'm not so sure. 1v1, yes, there will be some "best decks", like every competitive format. But multiplayer I doubt any deck would be unassailable. There's only a few wraths and they're not that good ones. Only a few counters and they're not the good ones. Only a few removal spells and they're not the good ones.
Don't get me wrong, I'm sure good decks could be made with those commanders, and perhaps they will be the best, but they won't be miles above "normal" decks in power level, in the way that a tuned narset list can smash a casual group even if it's getting focused by everyone. Bolas will never live for longer than 1 turn against a competent table bent on his destruction. I think without the presence of dumb combos, competitive multiplayer could be legitimately interesting, similar to how conspiracy was.
My thoughts are pretty much: "well, this is not for me, but I guess it might get more people (maybe) interested in Commander".
Though I feel this is a format that might become 'solved' rather quickly ('til next rotation, anyway), particularly if any actual tournaments-for-prizes become a thing for this.
Also, three-or-more color manabases are going to be... well, "fun". Jodah, Archmage Eternal manabase with only standard cards in 60-card singleton? Good luck.
But oh well. 'Tis not away from me, so what do I really mind? *shrugs*
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X Hope of Ghirapur Swordpile W Ghosty Blinky Anafenza U Nezahal- Big, Blue and HERE! B Gonti Can Afford It R Etali, Primal 'Whatjusthappened?' G Polukranos Wants More Mana WU The Exalted Vizier Temmet WB Home, Athreos WR Basandra, Recursive Aggression WG Karametra, Momma of Lands UB Wrexial Eats Your Brains UR Arjun, the Mad Flame UG The Fable of Prime Speaker BR Hellbent, Malfegor Style BG Jarad, Death is Served RG Running Thromok WUB Varina and ALL the Zombies WUBYennett, the Odd Pain-Train WUR Zedruu the Furyhearted WUG Arcades' Strategy, Shmategy, Sausage and Spam WBR A Case of Mathas' Persistent F*ckery WBRLicia's League of Legendary Lifegain Layabouts WBG The Karador Advantage PackageWRG Gahiji Rattlesnake Collection UBR Jeleva... does... things UBG Damia's Just Deserts URG Yasova's Has More Power Than Sense BRG Wasitora, Bad Kitty WUBRBreya, Eggs, Breya'd Eggs WUBG Tymna and Kydele, Extended Borrowing WURG Kynaios and Tiro, Landfall Impersonations WBRG Saskia Pet Card EnchantressUBRG Yidris of the Chi-Ting Corporation WUBRG Tazri's Amazing Allies
Though I feel this is a format that might become 'solved' rather quickly ('til next rotation, anyway), particularly if any actual tournaments-for-prizes become a thing for this.
I'm very dubious of this. 1v1 maybe, but I'd expect it won't be terribly different from normal standard in terms of top-tier decks, lower tier but still ok decks, decks made to counter the high tiers, etc. Multiplayer I think will always have that inherent balance where the scariest player gets smacked down - in normal "competitive" commander, that's hard to keep balanced since a single card can instantly win the game, but with the significant card restriction I think it'll be very hard to beat multiple opponents ganging up on you.
I'll try to make it simple since you don't understood my point. You said that wotc made this to gain money. Fair. This is a free market, that's what they are supposed to do.
But in a free market, i'm also supposed to decide to not give my money to products that i think have a bad quality
Wotc is trying to sell standard sets. They are failing because a lot of people didn't thought standard's quality was high enough. Mistakes from wotc were pretty clear.
To continue selling standard sets and making money, wotc could have tried to print better standard cards and make a better environment. You know, release a quality product.
Instead, they choose this. A new format that should convince another playerbase to buy standard sets because they weren't able to catch the standard playerbase's attention again.
I don't think this reflect quality and insight, i don't care if they want to make money, i pay for quality and insight, not money lust.
You really are undervaluing the affect of rotation in a format like commander. Your commander rotates? Boom, your deck is garbage.
I make a Firesong and Sunspeaker deck? well, let's hope two years from now they will reprint a WR legend that work with burn
I make a Muldrotha deck? Maybe there will be a sultai legend in standard two years from now, but probably not. And hardly would be graveyard-themed. So i'm probably screwed
I make a Gishath deck? Yeah, i will enjoy my two years because after that i'm surely screwed.
I make an abzan deck? Oh wait, i can't.
A banlist looks like a better way to remove problematic cards. 10k fine cards shouldn't pay for a couple of broken ones. Especially if that means making commander rotates.
I don't mean to be rude, but are you trying to post from windows command line or something? All your posts end up really weirdly formatted and quote-broken.
Anyway, let's take a look at gishath. That deck is probably going to be mostly dinos and some ramp. Let's take a look at those dinos. Carnage tyrant is pricy, $20, ouch. Zacama is pretty reasonable at $7. Gishath and ripjaw are each $5 apiece, and there's a few at $3 before we end up down in the dollar rare bin. Hey, let's throw in a dino-huatli and some removal. Land-wise, you throw in some check-lands for a couple bucks each, maybe get fancy and get a growing rites for $4, add some mana dorks and hey, presto, a deck. What'd that end up costing us?
Less than $100, easy. If you want to go budget and cut the carnage tyrant and shave a few of the lands off, I bet I could get it down to $50 and still be perfectly viable. And that's a complete deck, which very few cards will rotate from for a year and a half.
After that year and a half, sure, the deck is probably mostly worthless. But hey, you got a year and a half worth of use out of that thing. Let's compare that to, say, my latest commander deck. Let's plug into deckstats and see...
hmm, $2,187.11. And that was for a stupid joke deck. I hope I'm ready to keep playing it for the next 30+ years to get my money's worth!
Granted, I've already got all my duals and fetches and tabernacles and what-have-you so my actual cost to build a new deck is usually pretty negligible, but I think it's pretty clear for a new player, looking to get into a format, which one offers the better bang for their buck if they want to build a competitive deck.
Complaining about the standard environment is fair (I guess, I haven't played in years) but improving it doesn't seem at odds with introducing a new format. Presumably they'll try to do both. Making sets that draft well AND create a good standard environment AND appease casual players is probably pretty difficult. Not that I think we should let them off the hook for designing unfun sets (which I don't really agree with personally, except for triple amonkhet draft), but I think it's pretty far-fetched to think that they're creating a new format to save money on R&D costs or something.
I'm very dubious of this. 1v1 maybe, but I'd expect it won't be terribly different from normal standard in terms of top-tier decks, lower tier but still ok decks, decks made to counter the high tiers, etc. Multiplayer I think will always have that inherent balance where the scariest player gets smacked down - in normal "competitive" commander, that's hard to keep balanced since a single card can instantly win the game, but with the significant card restriction I think it'll be very hard to beat multiple opponents ganging up on you.
Yeah, you are probably on point. We'll see I suppose.
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X Hope of Ghirapur Swordpile W Ghosty Blinky Anafenza U Nezahal- Big, Blue and HERE! B Gonti Can Afford It R Etali, Primal 'Whatjusthappened?' G Polukranos Wants More Mana WU The Exalted Vizier Temmet WB Home, Athreos WR Basandra, Recursive Aggression WG Karametra, Momma of Lands UB Wrexial Eats Your Brains UR Arjun, the Mad Flame UG The Fable of Prime Speaker BR Hellbent, Malfegor Style BG Jarad, Death is Served RG Running Thromok WUB Varina and ALL the Zombies WUBYennett, the Odd Pain-Train WUR Zedruu the Furyhearted WUG Arcades' Strategy, Shmategy, Sausage and Spam WBR A Case of Mathas' Persistent F*ckery WBRLicia's League of Legendary Lifegain Layabouts WBG The Karador Advantage PackageWRG Gahiji Rattlesnake Collection UBR Jeleva... does... things UBG Damia's Just Deserts URG Yasova's Has More Power Than Sense BRG Wasitora, Bad Kitty WUBRBreya, Eggs, Breya'd Eggs WUBG Tymna and Kydele, Extended Borrowing WURG Kynaios and Tiro, Landfall Impersonations WBRG Saskia Pet Card EnchantressUBRG Yidris of the Chi-Ting Corporation WUBRG Tazri's Amazing Allies
Fair enough.
I spent 150€ for my first EDH and i'm still playing it after 6 years. My cheapest deck was 80€ and my most expensive ones was 250€. My Gishath deck costed me 70€, it's probably going to cost me another 70€ for fetches+shock+filters.
So i'm not really interested to play a deck that, even if cheap, 2 years from will be worthless and i won't be phisically able to play it.
I guess it can work as an introductive format. Even so, there are some problems: someone buying a commander precon as first deck won't be able t play with his friends who started brawl. Fragmentizing the playerbase is a risk.
If this wasn't just a blatant cash grab in a difficult moment, i would be way more positive. But right now it's just lokking as a way to make money without making any work.
They need to improve the quality of cards in standard, simple as that.
I guess i will reserve my further opinions when Kaladesh will rotare out and a new standard will shape.
What far-off utopia are you living in that you could buy fetches + shocks + filters for 70€? I'm seeing shocks at $15-20, fetches at $20-50 depending on friendly vs enemy, and filters at $10-15 thanks to the reprints...which puts the total around $400. I haven't checked the exchange rate but I think that's a tad more than 70€. And that's still far from optimal without revised duals, which are obviously going to make the price skyrocket further, not to mention other lands you might want like gaea's cradle or yavimaya hollow.
For brawl you could spend less than $200 total and have a FULLY optimized deck. No punches pulled, no cheaping out on the mana base, no "well, of course I didn't buy THAT".
Also, and I think this doesn't go remarked on enough, but how long do you REALLY play a deck? Personally I can't play a deck for more than a month or two (with a few exceptions) before I get bored. I know I'm probably at the far end of the EDHD spectrum, but still, you're telling me that after several years of playing a deck you aren't bored with it? Really? I just have a hard time believing that.
Besides that...I really think people are getting over-worried about strict rotation in a casual format. I would bet that the vast majority of EDH groups, if they started playing brawl, would be totally cool with someone playing an (unmodified) ex-brawl deck. Maybe your friends are jerks, but I guarantee my group would not give a crap whatsoever (if anything, I'm probably the most by-the-books of the group).
Not sure what you mean by "improve the quality of cards in standard". I'm aware that the environment is bad, but I don't think that's the result of specific individual cards so much as the entirety of the card pool taken together. Also personally I haven't played standard since INN and I don't really care much about it except insofar as it helps keep wizards afloat and keeps my draft chaff worth something. So if they want to make a product that caters to something that sounds interesting to me - EDH but with the stupid cards removed, budgets lowered (for other players more than myself), and with new deckbuilding territory to discover - that's absolutely my preference over improving an inherently boring format like standard.
Fragmenting the player base is a risk for sure. That's easily my biggest concern in this. I do think it's unlikely that the established EDH crowd will abandon EDH in favor of brawl, though - more likely they'll just add brawl decks on the side. And ideally so will standard players and even limited players. Yes, there are risks, but if things work out it could add a lot of people to the singleton, legendary, casual fold.
Europe? I can get shocks for about 8€. Just the other day i bought the WG fetch for 11€, so the prices aren't as dramatic as you think here. I just run 3 shocks + 3 fetches + 3 filter. My decks work fine even without original duals or Cradle. Sure it's not 100% optimized but it's still able to give me the mana i need when i need it 85% of games.
It varies. I still play my first deck. It kinda bores me now, but because my meta as changed and my deck isn't as effective and fun as it was at the beginning. Still i wasn't cruel enough to dismantle or change it.
My second deck, the 250€ one, is the ones the bores me the most. I'm not playing it anymore, but still i don't have the heart to dismantle it because it was so expensive...
My third and fourth deck are doing fine. I play them regularly. Right now I'm playing mostly Gishath, my fifth because of playtesting reason. And because i enjoy spouting Rex Raptor's nonsense during games.
Well, the environment is still made by the specific induvidual cards, so...
My main concern is still that they will use this cashgrab to not put the effort they should in standard or to playtest this format. People will start to buy this out of hype without having a real balanced environment.
I just want wizard to start working seriously about standard. Right now this still just look like an easy shortcut, instead of a concerted effort to help the playerbase.
Fair enough, I extrapolated a bit on the shocks based on the price of the RW one, which is actually among the more expensive (although so is the RG one, so gishath ends up being a relatively expensive triad even with the GW one being cheap). And the khans fetches are also cheaper on average than my small sample size predicted. That said, arid mesa alone is going to suck up almost half of your budget so I highly doubt you're getting there with 70 euros, and even ignoring duals, having 9 fetches is a huge boon to your mana base. They're very nearly just as good as on-color fetches.
Of course you can optimize (or not) as much as you like. But the same is true for brawl. With a non-optimized brawl list - cut a few of the most expensive cards, cheap out a little on the mana base - $50 is super reasonable. That 250€ deck that you don't like very much anymore could have been a decade worth of brawl decks. And especially with something like Gishath, I bet you could essentially just remove 40 cards and have a brawl deck basically ready to go. And on the flip side, if you built him for brawl, when he expires I bet you could add 40 cards and have a pretty decent commander deck. Being able to play brawl doesn't even necessarily cost any additional money.
I don't understand your "They need to improve the quality of cards in standard" comment. Define "quality"? Maybe you just need to elaborate.
I also think you're jumping to conclusions. I'm fairly certain wotc is not trying to abandon standard - it's still the main tournament format (or maybe second behind limited). It's possible they're hoping for some sort of shot in the arm from this, but I don't see any reason to think that they'd be doing this as an alternative to improving standard so much as in addition to improving standard. Cards don't come out very quickly, though, so improving standard is a slow process. Wotc has been around for 25 years, I think it's safe to say that they aren't hoping to dump a bunch of cards and close up shop before anyone notices that they suck. Worst case they're trying to find ways to keep people entertained until new cards can arrive and hopefully improve standard. There's not really much they can do short of mass banning until then anyway.
From my experience with prototype Commander formats that used things like Standard or Frontier beforehand, it might draw fans already of Commander into a more casual environment.
I like the idea of drawing more players into commander. I'd prefer they didn't try to bring players the other way, but I wouldn't be surprised. I've no personal inclination to move away from EDH, so if it's commander-lite trying to funnel players into more competitive formats it probably isn't for me.
Commander tax is added after all "costs" are paid, therefore Zahid cannot dodge the tax, even if he could be paid with alternative cost.
Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest WUR Voltron Control
Temmet, Vizier of Naktamun WU Unblockable Mirror Trickery
Ra's al Ghul (Sidar Kondo) and Face-Down Ninjas
Brudiclad, Token Engineer
Vaevictis (VV2) the Dire Lantern
Rona, Disciple of Gix
Tiana the Auror
Hallar
Ulrich the Politician
Zur the Rebel
Scorpion, Locust, Scarab, Egyptian Gods
O-Kagachi, Mathas, Mairsil
"Non-Tribal" Tribal Generals, Eggs
Something tells me that the above sentence plays a big role in the formulations of Wizards. While many of the more valuable cards in MTG can certainly be seen as an investment (as they are a one-time cost and can be incorporated into future decks), many players would far rather spend $2,000 to make 6-8 unique brawl decks over the course of two years than bite the bullet and buy a Bazaar of Baghdad for a one-time cost.
While I am personally on the fence about brawl, it certainly caters to people who can't afford the best cards, don't have the patience to save for months (likely avoiding limited and standard play to do so) to get the best cards, and who still desire "optimal, competitive play". Whether or not I feel that such impatience should be rewarded with a unique format is neither here nor there.
Brawl is there to act as a bridge in order to bring in new blood. While allowing any old blood to try something different, some may love it and others may not. Brawl is not meant to replace Commander.
"Hey new player want to try Brawl? If you like this, then we have another format that is right your alley."
Also about Planeswalkers: There is no doubling season or equivalent in standard. You know, the main thing that the commander community pushes against for planeswakers being commanders. Its also not that big of a surprise. If the RC was to help make this a seemless process by allowing planeswalkers, they need to ban the problem children first like Sorin Markov and Doubling Season.
You are having a knee jerk reaction to something and not properly analyzing the situation.
Aye, if they’d make EDH an official format, the cost of older cards would TRIPLE, its much more benign to make a standard legal commander to attract new players to EDH, then move to full EDH after. I think WotC made the right move.
Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest WUR Voltron Control
Temmet, Vizier of Naktamun WU Unblockable Mirror Trickery
Ra's al Ghul (Sidar Kondo) and Face-Down Ninjas
Brudiclad, Token Engineer
Vaevictis (VV2) the Dire Lantern
Rona, Disciple of Gix
Tiana the Auror
Hallar
Ulrich the Politician
Zur the Rebel
Scorpion, Locust, Scarab, Egyptian Gods
O-Kagachi, Mathas, Mairsil
"Non-Tribal" Tribal Generals, Eggs
My favorite thing about this format is that I could go and build the most powerful deck possible, and I'm pretty sure it would still get rekt by a couple newer players if they decided to gang up on me from the start. That is a good sign. When "competitive" EDH decks are able to easily 3v1 or 4v1, that's a sign that the format is ruled by money and degenerate combos, and it's a huge disincentive to get into the format for new players, or anyone who wants a classic mtg experience.
That said, my local group has been great recently and we don't have issues with fast combos or anything particularly degenerate. But I don't love knowing that I have to intentionally hamstring myself and avoid playing certain cards even if they'd fit well into my strategy, because if I did go as competitive as possible my group wouldn't have the slightest chance - even without netdecking. Not having access to those broken cards means that whatever silly thing you want to do is probably not THAT far from the top-tier stuff, and well within the range that inherent multiplayer stability can resolve.
Basically - we don't have to intentionally tone down decks in this space. We can build something silly or something as cutthroat as possible, and they'll still probably have fun, reasonable games against each other.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
The Unidentified Fantastic Flying Girl.
EDH
Xenagos, the God of Stompy
The Gitrog Monster: Oppressive Value.
Marchesa, Marionette Master - Undying Robots
Yuriko, the Hydra Omnivore
I make dolls as a hobby.
EDIT: and yeah this also feels like a way for WotC to sell more packs/boxes etc....hell this sells those PW stater decks right off the bat as a starter deck for this type.
As I said, I wont play - why bother with EDH-lite when you have all of MTG's catalog to draw from? But it'd be nice to see a few more players in my local area showing interest in casual singleton.
RCRDaretti: Superfriends Forever RCR
WGBDoran: Ent-mootWBG
GGGMultani: Group Bear HugGGG
GB(B/G)The Gitrog Monster: Dredgefall DurdleGB(B/G)
RGWGahiji, the Honored Group Hug MonsterRGW
UB(U/B)Yuriko, Ninja Trinket AggroUB(U/B)
WUBRGAtogatog: Assembling a OHKOWUBRG
I can't imagine a scenario in which these sort of decks won't prevade the format, if there are prizes involved. Once Scarab and Bolas rotate out, it will be other culprits.
There are a lot of solid cards in standard right now that I've already picked up for various EDH decks, so I'm potentially spending less than $50 to acquire the new cards to build the deck I'm spitballing, and $30 of that is split between Search for Azcanta and Torrential Gearhulk, both of which I wanted anyway. Besides that, the deck only uses 2 non basic lands, praise Urza!
I enjoy deck building immensely, and having a limited card pool to choose from or restrictions to build around just gets me ridiculously excited, and that's the reason why the only formats I play exclusively are EDH and Limited. I doubt I'm the target audience here, but I'd this gets some die-hard standard grinders to dip their toes in the EDH hot tub, I won't complain. More players in our format is not a bad thing.
Don't get me wrong, I'm sure good decks could be made with those commanders, and perhaps they will be the best, but they won't be miles above "normal" decks in power level, in the way that a tuned narset list can smash a casual group even if it's getting focused by everyone. Bolas will never live for longer than 1 turn against a competent table bent on his destruction. I think without the presence of dumb combos, competitive multiplayer could be legitimately interesting, similar to how conspiracy was.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
Though I feel this is a format that might become 'solved' rather quickly ('til next rotation, anyway), particularly if any actual tournaments-for-prizes become a thing for this.
Also, three-or-more color manabases are going to be... well, "fun". Jodah, Archmage Eternal manabase with only standard cards in 60-card singleton? Good luck.
But oh well. 'Tis not away from me, so what do I really mind? *shrugs*
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
Anyway, let's take a look at gishath. That deck is probably going to be mostly dinos and some ramp. Let's take a look at those dinos. Carnage tyrant is pricy, $20, ouch. Zacama is pretty reasonable at $7. Gishath and ripjaw are each $5 apiece, and there's a few at $3 before we end up down in the dollar rare bin. Hey, let's throw in a dino-huatli and some removal. Land-wise, you throw in some check-lands for a couple bucks each, maybe get fancy and get a growing rites for $4, add some mana dorks and hey, presto, a deck. What'd that end up costing us?
Less than $100, easy. If you want to go budget and cut the carnage tyrant and shave a few of the lands off, I bet I could get it down to $50 and still be perfectly viable. And that's a complete deck, which very few cards will rotate from for a year and a half.
After that year and a half, sure, the deck is probably mostly worthless. But hey, you got a year and a half worth of use out of that thing. Let's compare that to, say, my latest commander deck. Let's plug into deckstats and see...
hmm, $2,187.11. And that was for a stupid joke deck. I hope I'm ready to keep playing it for the next 30+ years to get my money's worth!
Granted, I've already got all my duals and fetches and tabernacles and what-have-you so my actual cost to build a new deck is usually pretty negligible, but I think it's pretty clear for a new player, looking to get into a format, which one offers the better bang for their buck if they want to build a competitive deck.
Complaining about the standard environment is fair (I guess, I haven't played in years) but improving it doesn't seem at odds with introducing a new format. Presumably they'll try to do both. Making sets that draft well AND create a good standard environment AND appease casual players is probably pretty difficult. Not that I think we should let them off the hook for designing unfun sets (which I don't really agree with personally, except for triple amonkhet draft), but I think it's pretty far-fetched to think that they're creating a new format to save money on R&D costs or something.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
Yeah, you are probably on point. We'll see I suppose.
For brawl you could spend less than $200 total and have a FULLY optimized deck. No punches pulled, no cheaping out on the mana base, no "well, of course I didn't buy THAT".
Also, and I think this doesn't go remarked on enough, but how long do you REALLY play a deck? Personally I can't play a deck for more than a month or two (with a few exceptions) before I get bored. I know I'm probably at the far end of the EDHD spectrum, but still, you're telling me that after several years of playing a deck you aren't bored with it? Really? I just have a hard time believing that.
Besides that...I really think people are getting over-worried about strict rotation in a casual format. I would bet that the vast majority of EDH groups, if they started playing brawl, would be totally cool with someone playing an (unmodified) ex-brawl deck. Maybe your friends are jerks, but I guarantee my group would not give a crap whatsoever (if anything, I'm probably the most by-the-books of the group).
Not sure what you mean by "improve the quality of cards in standard". I'm aware that the environment is bad, but I don't think that's the result of specific individual cards so much as the entirety of the card pool taken together. Also personally I haven't played standard since INN and I don't really care much about it except insofar as it helps keep wizards afloat and keeps my draft chaff worth something. So if they want to make a product that caters to something that sounds interesting to me - EDH but with the stupid cards removed, budgets lowered (for other players more than myself), and with new deckbuilding territory to discover - that's absolutely my preference over improving an inherently boring format like standard.
Fragmenting the player base is a risk for sure. That's easily my biggest concern in this. I do think it's unlikely that the established EDH crowd will abandon EDH in favor of brawl, though - more likely they'll just add brawl decks on the side. And ideally so will standard players and even limited players. Yes, there are risks, but if things work out it could add a lot of people to the singleton, legendary, casual fold.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
Of course you can optimize (or not) as much as you like. But the same is true for brawl. With a non-optimized brawl list - cut a few of the most expensive cards, cheap out a little on the mana base - $50 is super reasonable. That 250€ deck that you don't like very much anymore could have been a decade worth of brawl decks. And especially with something like Gishath, I bet you could essentially just remove 40 cards and have a brawl deck basically ready to go. And on the flip side, if you built him for brawl, when he expires I bet you could add 40 cards and have a pretty decent commander deck. Being able to play brawl doesn't even necessarily cost any additional money.
I don't understand your "They need to improve the quality of cards in standard" comment. Define "quality"? Maybe you just need to elaborate.
I also think you're jumping to conclusions. I'm fairly certain wotc is not trying to abandon standard - it's still the main tournament format (or maybe second behind limited). It's possible they're hoping for some sort of shot in the arm from this, but I don't see any reason to think that they'd be doing this as an alternative to improving standard so much as in addition to improving standard. Cards don't come out very quickly, though, so improving standard is a slow process. Wotc has been around for 25 years, I think it's safe to say that they aren't hoping to dump a bunch of cards and close up shop before anyone notices that they suck. Worst case they're trying to find ways to keep people entertained until new cards can arrive and hopefully improve standard. There's not really much they can do short of mass banning until then anyway.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6