If WotC were to have a contest where the winner(s) got to be part of the design team for a Commander set, and you won, what agenda(s) would you push for, and why?
For myself, I would push for a valuable ($30+) reprint in each deck, 10-15 answers per deck (targeted and mass removal), Strip Mine in each deck, lots of new and/or currently premium-only artwork, and snow-covered basics.
The valuable reprints are for those players that cannot afford the originals, the answer volume to encourage new players to run more answers, Strip Mines for efficient killing of the variety of utility lands, the art for we collectors of art (plus, some card art is objectively bad), and snow-covered lands just because.
Cheers!
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If in the area, check out Gamers N Geeks and Mini War Games in Mobile, Alabama and Underhill's Games in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio.
Nope. Whole lot of nope. The goal of the commander products is to help get people into the format. Including $30+ reprints will drive the price of the decks up in LGSs. It will end up being bought by people wanting to strip the decks for parts rather than buying them to play them and later evolve them into customized decks. Strip Mine also encourages play that WOTC doesn't really like. Wasteland maybe. But even that would be pushing it. Basically your design ideas are completely contrary to the goal of the products. What you want is more in line with premium decks like the Modern Event Deck.
Pretty much what gutterstorm said. You can find on ebay the mind seize deck from 2013 with the true name nemesis and baleful strix pulled out of the precon and then being resold without them. It would depend on expensive reprints and how those cards are used in the other formats.
The problem with defining this format by what is "fun" is that everyone seems to define fun as what they don't lose to. If you keep losing to easily answered cards, that means you should improve your deck. If you don't want to improve your deck, then you should come to peace with the idea that you are going to lose because you chose to not interact with better strategies.
I like your ideas Krichaiushii (especially providing one valuable reprint in each deck, lots of answers and a Strip Mine). The answers and Strip Mine will help new Commander players enter new Commander games more prepared to deal with threats and the valuable reprint will make Commander products worth picking up for new and old players alike. I disagree with Gutterstorm and Boys to Men regarding price concerns. WOTC could limit rapid price gouging for Commmander decks by continuing to print them to meet demand and as long as big box stores sell them close to MSRP LGSs will have no choice but to reasonably price said decks. Case in Point, Boys to Men cites Mind Seize, but that deck is currently available for $31.44 on Amazon.com and contains $52.36 worth of cards according to MTG Goldfish.
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Modern:UB Taking Turns Modern:URW Madcap Experiment Pauper: MonoU Tempo Delver
I'm going to side with Gutterstorm & Boys to Men on this one. I'm all for reprinting staples but I think anything over the $15 mark is pushing it for the Commander decks. While Mind Seize is currently $31.44 that's not how it started out & it only dipped in price after WOTC doubled up on those decks in future shipments.
I'd print some cards that use up experience counters in some way. (In combination with experienced commanders in the 5 missing dual colors.) Things like "As an additional cost to cast ~, remove N experience counters from yourself." or "t, remove X experience counters from yourself: Add X mana to your mana pool in any combination of colors."
I'd push for multicolored planeswalker generals, with some quirky cards like squee's revenge. And foil generals please.
Foil generals is a great idea! I'd also prefer WOTC replace the giant commander card with a full-art version of the commander with no text. Would be a great collectible.
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Modern:UB Taking Turns Modern:URW Madcap Experiment Pauper: MonoU Tempo Delver
Push for more new alternate commanders to be included. You don't have to make them mythic, but make them interesting enough.
The original commander sets had 15 new commanders total: 10 wedge commanders, and a cycle of enemy color commanders. Each deck had 3 brand new commanders in it, which has not been repeated since then, although the legendary creatures from Portal 3 kingdoms was pretty cool.
Include the new set mechanic on at least one legendary creature to some extant, like having Anya, Merciless Angel have the ability to give other creatures Myriad.
Make a Boros general that isn't combat oriented.
More popular characters who were never given a card before.
So much this. I mean, we've pretty much got Brion, Munda, and Razia. Brion still wants big creatures, although some Brion lists go for Threaten effects instead; while Munda is Ally-focused instead of combat-focused, pretty much all of the R/W allies are combat-focused or terrible; Razia is over-costed and has a weak effect.
I was really really hoping for a legend in the last bunch along the lines of:
TecKnight of the Orchid Edge 2RW
Legendary Creature - Human Knight
When ~ enters the battlefield, if an opponent controls more lands than you, you may destroy target nonbasic land.
When ~ enters the battlefield, if an opponent controls more lands than you, you may search your library for a basic land and put it into play, then shuffle your library.
2/3
- Either as a replacement for the oversize cards (that I've literally never seen anyone use... ever) or as something addition, foil versions of all playable commanders in the set.
- Plane-themed decks e.g. a deck for each Alara shard, or Tarkir Khans, etc. or even make each deck set on a different Plane. Really focus on coherent deck flavor.
- fewer non-synergistic cards on the whole. They don't need to be powerful or expensive cards, just ones that match what the commander does.
- Snow-Covered Basics reprint. Ideally with new art.
OK, so the idea is Commander 2016, which will most likely be allied-colors to complete the last unused theme. There are a few things to keep in mind: 1, you can't pack them full of $20 reprints because then they get ripped apart by speculators and never reach the players they were designed for, 2, the decks themselves need to have a theme and can't just be two-color goodstuff, and 3, they have to be balanced to play well out of the box against each other (so no making the U/B one drastically better than the others). It'd also be nice to try and get one character that doesn't have a card yet in here for each pair, because there's really no better place to do it.
B/U: Evasion. Every creature has evasion and/or a combat damage trigger. Possible reprints include Larceny, Ghastlord of Fugue, Shadow of Doubt, Doomsday Specter, and/or Dire Undercurrents. New commanders could be Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar, Oona as reborn from Maralen, a Dimir spymaster, or if you want a planeswalker, Tevesh Szat.
I like your ideas Krichaiushii (especially providing one valuable reprint in each deck, lots of answers and a Strip Mine). The answers and Strip Mine will help new Commander players enter new Commander games more prepared to deal with threats and the valuable reprint will make Commander products worth picking up for new and old players alike. I disagree with Gutterstorm and Boys to Men regarding price concerns. WOTC could limit rapid price gouging for Commmander decks by continuing to print them to meet demand and as long as big box stores sell them close to MSRP LGSs will have no choice but to reasonably price said decks. Case in Point, Boys to Men cites Mind Seize, but that deck is currently available for $31.44 on Amazon.com and contains $52.36 worth of cards according to MTG Goldfish.
Wizards can't really do much if a store decides to raise prices on products. For example Modern masters is ridiculous in price compared to when the first edition came out they are not being sold at msrp prices, rat's nest theme deck from kamigawa was selling for double the msrp where I live at every LGS because of the Jitte in it. We are lucky that we see some of the cards get reprints since the products for commander were first released. Sol ring is one example as is cards like wurmcoil engine and nevinyrral's disk. These cards are the type of cards I support seeing reprints, the disk and sol ring aren't played in modern and while the engine sees some play it isn't like strip mine where people are going to buy them for their other non-commander decks in eternal formats. If damnation was reprinted in a precon everyone and their mums would be buying them, wizards just can't be printing cards worth more than the value of the msrp of a precon. It's not going to be fair for anybody. With that said, I do support the reprint of older cards that haven't been reprinted in a long time but do contain some value in edh. Would love to see bribery, peacekeeperburgeoning etc get some love.
I would push Commander sets, or at least the generals, to be more creative, i.e., outside of stereotype, or viable for multiple types of decks. For example, Daxos the Returned is a general would can run tokens, voltron, and combo with his ability, and an enchantress type general beyond W/B usual theme. Under this movement, W/R would also go beyond their imposed battle-focus theme, and B/G go beyond their graveyard emphasis, etc.
I'd also appreciate generals with weird abilities. Hopefully a dice roll general!
I like your ideas Krichaiushii (especially providing one valuable reprint in each deck, lots of answers and a Strip Mine). The answers and Strip Mine will help new Commander players enter new Commander games more prepared to deal with threats and the valuable reprint will make Commander products worth picking up for new and old players alike. I disagree with Gutterstorm and Boys to Men regarding price concerns. WOTC could limit rapid price gouging for Commmander decks by continuing to print them to meet demand and as long as big box stores sell them close to MSRP LGSs will have no choice but to reasonably price said decks. Case in Point, Boys to Men cites Mind Seize, but that deck is currently available for $31.44 on Amazon.com and contains $52.36 worth of cards according to MTG Goldfish.
But the thing is that big box stores outside the US don't necessarily hold Magic. Here in NZ, we have LGS's, EB Games, and Toyworld (if we're lucky). They would be stupidly hard to get a hold of.
On topic, I would push for reprints of the original COMM legendaries, Kaalia and co. Planeswalkers in each deck because they're exciting. And staple common and uncommon reprints. As other's have said, not the ridiculously expensive ones, but things like Aven Mindcensor and Beast Within.
I cant think of much worse than prices being put through the roof and poor availability by people scavenging the precons cards which should be reprinted elsewhere. There are a selection of card that pretty much only see casual or EDH use which I would want reprinted like Rhys the Redeemed, Privileged Position and even something like Vigor could all IMO use a reprint.
As for the decks themselves its pretty clear that we are getting allied pairs next which is cool but I would like them to push the boat out a bit and explore more unique styles of commanders. The barriers to this that I can see is making them too obscure means that 1) the decks will not perform in a way beginners will expect 2) the decks are likely to become unfocused and rubbish because they are trying to accommodate a selection of very different commander options.
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EDH BRGKresh the BloodbraidedBRG, A box of lands and ideas.
Modern: RG Titanshift. A deck made of cards too stupid for EDH.
Retired: Lots. More than I feel you should suffer through or I should type out.
A return to Kamigawa, with ninjas as a primary theme for UB instead of mill. Ignore mill entirely. UB faerie/ninja aggro, with a cheap primary commander that can ninjutsu out of the command zone. A UB thief commander that gives you experience when you hit, lets you cherry pick something from the player's deck that costs X or less.
I'd like to see a Selesnya deck that ignores tokens, give the colors something out of the ordinary or a commander that supports a different play style than filling the board.
Mostly I want to see commanders that do things outside of what Wizards usually pushes a color combination for. UB beatdown, GW control, RB tokens, whatever. Give me some stuff that plays differently than what's been printed so far.
- Slot in a few more original cards and less reprints, even if it's just obvious variations on existing cards/cycles. Instead of the worthless Vivid cycle would there's more than a few people that would appreciate an enemy version of the Odyssey filters for example, or a variant on the Tainted land cycle.
- Continue the P3K reprints they seemingly abandoned in 2015 (Hua Tuo, Lu Xun) because there's few other opportunities to reprint a lot of these only-expensive-because-they're-rare cards.
- Replace the oversized foil with literally anything. A stick of gum like in the old Topps baseball card packs would get more use than those oversized foils. I've seen them get used as coasters more often than as actual commander cards. You know what would be crazy? Replace them with normal sized foil commanders! You know, cards that people would actually use?
- Design commanders for all five decks. Don't do what they did this year where they designed commanders for four decks then handed the Boros one off to a random guy they met at Starbucks ten minutes before the submission deadline.
- Planeswalkers! They don't need to be the can-be-used-as-a-commander variety even. But it's a great chance to see planeswalkers that probably won't have big plot roles in the future. I would have loved to what Vraska is up to in the Meren deck, or see where Tamiyo is at, or even see past versions of planeswalkers that we're never going to see in an Orgins-like spot, either in planeswalker or legend form.
- Instead of Random Piece of Joe's Equipment why not use those slots to give us some game-famous weapons. They finally quit printing famous gear as crap uncommons (hey, it's Nicol Bolas' Gem of Becoming! What an amazing piece of . . . wait, what?) but I'd like to see Garruk's Helm or Sorin's sword or Gideon's sural.
I know they don't usually do repeats, but I would love to see them do Myriad again. I thought it was probably their best new multiplayer-centric mechanics they've done (one of the design team's goals for the set, towards "ending the game", was a really smart choice I think), but the designs they made in C15 were the barebones proof-of-concept type designs that didn't really play with it all that much save for Blade of Selves. The kind of designs they make when they want to leave it open for the future, but who knows when we'll get it again. A Myriad clone would be really sweet, or a creature that cares about other creatures that multiplies itself with Myriad when it attacks.
Another thing C15 did that was really awesome in my opinion was the returning plane-themed mechanics, and I wish there had been more, for each of the new commanders.
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They didn't care that he was the savior of Fort Keff, the great hunter of Ondu, the champion of Kabira. To them, he was just another piece of flesh, a thing with life to be drained away.
2. Print near-functional reprints of cards on the Reserved List - I know the Reserved List is never going away and that the Reserved List forbids even creating functional reprints, but getting cards that do the same thing (or nearly the same thing) would be a step towards fixing that problem.
3. Stop filling one of the decks with too many mana sources. Daretti last year and Ezuri this year both had 2-3 too many lands in it. I remember thinking that Marath also had too much mana in it as well.
4. Next year being allied 2-color decks seems like a slam dunk, so I'd like to see them print 3 new potential commanders for each deck.
5. If they don't do allied 2-solor, then I'd like to see 4-color decks. Print cards whose mana cost includes 2 colors and put the other 2 colors in the text box as part of an activated ability of some sorts. That way, people can play their Nephilim, add 5 more decks to potentially make a full 37 deck "Chromatic Project" a reality.
6. Use the product to reprint cards that have never had the Modern card frame, a black border, or a proper printing with the latest Oracle text. With the creation of the C, there are now a ton of cards that need to be reprinted to show the change and this is a perfect place to do that (although I'm a little scared of how ugly " : Add CC to your mana pool." is going to look on a Sol Ring).
1 - Reuse some of the previous commander set mechanics. C15's Myriad and Experience Counters, (the latter in particular, having a mechanic like only ever printed on 5 cards is a waste given how well it would interact with having multiple cards with the ability in a deck) and the previous year's Lieutenant stand out to me but I'd also quite like to see another "Tempt with" cycle and of course "can be your commander" on planeswalkers.
2 - Reprints of cards that don't see much play outside EDH/other casual play, but are worth a decent amount. Last year's Black Market was perfect. As a subset of this, P3K stuff. Three Visits would be great. Likewise one-offs that appeared in previous commander sets and nowhere else (e.g. Stranglehold).
3 - Continue with the printing of old characters and returns to old planes. Just not Theros for the latter. It's been way way overused recently, and it wasn't that interesting in the first place. On the other hand, anything from Dominaria is very welcome.
4 - New legendary creatures that don't use all the colours in the deck but feature the new (or reused if point one is being done) "commander" mechanic (e.g. experience, effect based on mana spent etc.). The first Commander set had a new 2 colour legend in each of the three colour sets, so it'd be cool if, assuming we're getting allied two colour pairs this time round, to have a new mono-colour legend in each set (one for each colour in total).
5 - Ensure the legends in each deck do completely different things (To be fair, Wizards have actually been pretty good on this, right up until they designed [and I use the term very loosely] the ones for the RW deck last time round) and explore lesser used aspects of the colour pairs - last year's Daxos was excellent, as while BW enchantments was not unheard of as a deck, it was rather out of left field when it came to how that colour pair's legends had previously been designed.
6 - Don't bother with the big foil(s). Waste of space and money. Give us normal sized foils of the commanders instead.
1. If enemy pairs are on the agenda, then I'd probably find ways to push artifact themes in WB, UR, and RW. A UR artifact-themed legend has been a popular request, I personally would love to see more Equipment focus in RW, and I even see untapped potential in WB for artifact themes, most likely tied to a "treasure hoard" flavor. That said, I doubt I would be able to theme more than one deck around artifacts at a time, and UR would definitely take priority over RW and WB.
2. I have one particular card design I'd love to see made real for Commander someday, a creature I call Baited Dragon. It's the kind of card that builds momentum, getting bigger and bigger as players feed it to swing at each other and choose whether to kill it or leave it alive until they get a chance to control it.
Baited Dragon3RR
Creature - Dragon
Flying, haste
At the beginning of each opponent's upkeep, that player may sacrifice a creature. If that player does, he or she gains control of ~, untaps it, and puts a +1/+1 counter on it.
4/4
Baited Dragon in turn inspired other rare creatures designed for Commander, like a white Angel that you can lend to other players with a variant of lifelink that heals the owner rather than the controller or a green Elemental that allows each player to play an additional land during his or her turn and gets a +1/+1 counter each time they do. I would probably try to find a place for each of them.
3. I think it would be fun if we had more revisit themes like in Origins and C15, with each deck getting both old and new cards featuring the central mechanic of the deck.
4. Color identities allowing, I would push for a good Emmara card to make up for what happened back in RTR block.
5. I would look for interesting choices for "forgotten legends" in the vein of Geralf and Gisa, like Talara and Illulia from Shadowmoor and Leonos II and Feather from RTR.
6. I would also look for possible "where are they now" legends like Daxos and Ezuri from C15. Cymede as a standalone UR legend aligned with Keranos seems like a promising prospect, and could be complimented by a new RW Anax card.
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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.
For myself, I would push for a valuable ($30+) reprint in each deck, 10-15 answers per deck (targeted and mass removal), Strip Mine in each deck, lots of new and/or currently premium-only artwork, and snow-covered basics.
The valuable reprints are for those players that cannot afford the originals, the answer volume to encourage new players to run more answers, Strip Mines for efficient killing of the variety of utility lands, the art for we collectors of art (plus, some card art is objectively bad), and snow-covered lands just because.
Cheers!
Krichaiushii on PucaTrade.
Modern: URW Madcap Experiment
Pauper: MonoU Tempo Delver
My EDH Commanders:
Aminatou, The Fateshifter UBW
Azami, Lady of Scrolls U
Mikaeus, the Unhallowed B
Edric, Spymaster of Trest UG
Glissa, the Traitor BG
Arcum Dagsson U
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
(Image by totallynotabrony)
Foil generals is a great idea! I'd also prefer WOTC replace the giant commander card with a full-art version of the commander with no text. Would be a great collectible.
Modern: URW Madcap Experiment
Pauper: MonoU Tempo Delver
My EDH Commanders:
Aminatou, The Fateshifter UBW
Azami, Lady of Scrolls U
Mikaeus, the Unhallowed B
Edric, Spymaster of Trest UG
Glissa, the Traitor BG
Arcum Dagsson U
The original commander sets had 15 new commanders total: 10 wedge commanders, and a cycle of enemy color commanders. Each deck had 3 brand new commanders in it, which has not been repeated since then, although the legendary creatures from Portal 3 kingdoms was pretty cool.
Include the new set mechanic on at least one legendary creature to some extant, like having Anya, Merciless Angel have the ability to give other creatures Myriad.
Make a Boros general that isn't combat oriented.
More popular characters who were never given a card before.
I was really really hoping for a legend in the last bunch along the lines of:
Legendary Creature - Human Knight
When ~ enters the battlefield, if an opponent controls more lands than you, you may destroy target nonbasic land.
When ~ enters the battlefield, if an opponent controls more lands than you, you may search your library for a basic land and put it into play, then shuffle your library.
2/3
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
(Image by totallynotabrony)
- Either as a replacement for the oversize cards (that I've literally never seen anyone use... ever) or as something addition, foil versions of all playable commanders in the set.
- Plane-themed decks e.g. a deck for each Alara shard, or Tarkir Khans, etc. or even make each deck set on a different Plane. Really focus on coherent deck flavor.
- fewer non-synergistic cards on the whole. They don't need to be powerful or expensive cards, just ones that match what the commander does.
- Snow-Covered Basics reprint. Ideally with new art.
UTeferi, Temporal ArchmageU's prison: blue is the new orange is the new black.
Mizzix Of The Izmagnus : wheels on fire... rolling down the road...
BSidisi, Undead VizierB: Bis zum Erbrechen
GTitiania, Protector Of ArgothG: Protecting Argoth, by blowing it up!
GYisan, The Wanderer BardG: Gradus Ad Elfball.
Duel EDH: Yisan & Titania.
In Progress: Grand Arbiter Augustin IV duel; Grenzo, Dungeon Warden Doomsday.
With that in mind, here are a few ideas:
W/G: Tokens, of all shapes and sizes, as many as possible. Possible reprints include Glare of Subdual, Collective Blessing, Rhys the Redeemed, Wheel of Sun and Moon, and/or Tolsimir Wolfblood. New commanders could be Mat'Selesnya, a fixed (read: better) Emmara Tandris, a wolfir that serves the Church, or if you want a planeswalker, Kristina of the Woods.
G/R: Big stuff to hit face with. Possible reprints include New Frontiers, Malignus, Stonebrow, Krosan Hero, Deus of Calamity, Decimate, and/or Domri Rade. New commanders could be O-Kagachi, Tovolar, one of the Gruul clan leaders before Borborygmos, or if you want a planeswalker, Lord Windgrace.
R/B: Pain. Everything hurts, all the time, for everyone. Possible reprints include Polluted Bonds, Master of Cruelties, Stigma Lasher, Kaervek the Merciless, and/or Anthem of Rakdos. New commanders could be Massacre Girl, the Butcher Clowns, Edgar Markov, or if you want a planeswalker, Parcher.
B/U: Evasion. Every creature has evasion and/or a combat damage trigger. Possible reprints include Larceny, Ghastlord of Fugue, Shadow of Doubt, Doomsday Specter, and/or Dire Undercurrents. New commanders could be Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar, Oona as reborn from Maralen, a Dimir spymaster, or if you want a planeswalker, Tevesh Szat.
U/W: Enchantment pillowfort. Possible reprints include Collective Restraint, Dovescape, Magus of the Moat, Teferi's Moat, and/or Solitary Confinement. New commanders could be Jodah, Azor I, an oracle of Ephara, or if you want a planeswalker, Vronos or Urza.
I'd also reprint Command Beacon at common, as there was no reason for it to be limited to one deck in the first place.
UBDragonlord Silumgar WGKarametra, God of Harvests
BRUNekusar, the Mindrazer BGMazirek, Kraul Death Priest
URMelek, Izzet Paragon UGPrime Speaker Zegana
WUHanna, Ship's Navigator BWUSydri, Galvanic Genius
WUBRGSliver Queen RBBladewing the Risen
WBKarlov of the Ghost Council RGXenagos, God of Revels
GFreyalise, Llanowar's Fury RWAurelia, the Warleader
RIb Halfheart, Goblin Tactician BDrana, Liberator of Malakir
UAzami, Lady of Scrolls WNahiri, the Lithomancer
WBGDoran, the Siege Tower CEmrakul, the Promised End
Wizards can't really do much if a store decides to raise prices on products. For example Modern masters is ridiculous in price compared to when the first edition came out they are not being sold at msrp prices, rat's nest theme deck from kamigawa was selling for double the msrp where I live at every LGS because of the Jitte in it. We are lucky that we see some of the cards get reprints since the products for commander were first released. Sol ring is one example as is cards like wurmcoil engine and nevinyrral's disk. These cards are the type of cards I support seeing reprints, the disk and sol ring aren't played in modern and while the engine sees some play it isn't like strip mine where people are going to buy them for their other non-commander decks in eternal formats. If damnation was reprinted in a precon everyone and their mums would be buying them, wizards just can't be printing cards worth more than the value of the msrp of a precon. It's not going to be fair for anybody. With that said, I do support the reprint of older cards that haven't been reprinted in a long time but do contain some value in edh. Would love to see bribery, peacekeeper burgeoning etc get some love.
I'd also appreciate generals with weird abilities. Hopefully a dice roll general!
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
But the thing is that big box stores outside the US don't necessarily hold Magic. Here in NZ, we have LGS's, EB Games, and Toyworld (if we're lucky). They would be stupidly hard to get a hold of.
On topic, I would push for reprints of the original COMM legendaries, Kaalia and co. Planeswalkers in each deck because they're exciting. And staple common and uncommon reprints. As other's have said, not the ridiculously expensive ones, but things like Aven Mindcensor and Beast Within.
And something better than the oversized cards.
As for the decks themselves its pretty clear that we are getting allied pairs next which is cool but I would like them to push the boat out a bit and explore more unique styles of commanders. The barriers to this that I can see is making them too obscure means that 1) the decks will not perform in a way beginners will expect 2) the decks are likely to become unfocused and rubbish because they are trying to accommodate a selection of very different commander options.
BRGKresh the BloodbraidedBRG, A box of lands and ideas.
Modern:
RG Titanshift. A deck made of cards too stupid for EDH.
Retired: Lots. More than I feel you should suffer through or I should type out.
I'd like to see a Selesnya deck that ignores tokens, give the colors something out of the ordinary or a commander that supports a different play style than filling the board.
Mostly I want to see commanders that do things outside of what Wizards usually pushes a color combination for. UB beatdown, GW control, RB tokens, whatever. Give me some stuff that plays differently than what's been printed so far.
- Continue the P3K reprints they seemingly abandoned in 2015 (Hua Tuo, Lu Xun) because there's few other opportunities to reprint a lot of these only-expensive-because-they're-rare cards.
- Replace the oversized foil with literally anything. A stick of gum like in the old Topps baseball card packs would get more use than those oversized foils. I've seen them get used as coasters more often than as actual commander cards. You know what would be crazy? Replace them with normal sized foil commanders! You know, cards that people would actually use?
- Design commanders for all five decks. Don't do what they did this year where they designed commanders for four decks then handed the Boros one off to a random guy they met at Starbucks ten minutes before the submission deadline.
- Planeswalkers! They don't need to be the can-be-used-as-a-commander variety even. But it's a great chance to see planeswalkers that probably won't have big plot roles in the future. I would have loved to what Vraska is up to in the Meren deck, or see where Tamiyo is at, or even see past versions of planeswalkers that we're never going to see in an Orgins-like spot, either in planeswalker or legend form.
- Instead of Random Piece of Joe's Equipment why not use those slots to give us some game-famous weapons. They finally quit printing famous gear as crap uncommons (hey, it's Nicol Bolas' Gem of Becoming! What an amazing piece of . . . wait, what?) but I'd like to see Garruk's Helm or Sorin's sword or Gideon's sural.
-
GReki, the History of Kamigawa Legendfall
UGEdric, Spymaster of Trest Drawmaster of Trest | GBGlissa the Traitor A Touch of Death | WBTeysa, Orzhov Scion Spinning in Graves
UWIsperia, Supreme Judge A Riddles of Sphinxes | RG Mena and Denn, Wildborn Beware Falling Rocks | GWSigarda, Host of Hurons The Enchantress
WRGRith the Awakener Superfriendly Tokens
Another thing C15 did that was really awesome in my opinion was the returning plane-themed mechanics, and I wish there had been more, for each of the new commanders.
But the people behind the barrier knew.
2. Print near-functional reprints of cards on the Reserved List - I know the Reserved List is never going away and that the Reserved List forbids even creating functional reprints, but getting cards that do the same thing (or nearly the same thing) would be a step towards fixing that problem.
3. Stop filling one of the decks with too many mana sources. Daretti last year and Ezuri this year both had 2-3 too many lands in it. I remember thinking that Marath also had too much mana in it as well.
4. Next year being allied 2-color decks seems like a slam dunk, so I'd like to see them print 3 new potential commanders for each deck.
5. If they don't do allied 2-solor, then I'd like to see 4-color decks. Print cards whose mana cost includes 2 colors and put the other 2 colors in the text box as part of an activated ability of some sorts. That way, people can play their Nephilim, add 5 more decks to potentially make a full 37 deck "Chromatic Project" a reality.
6. Use the product to reprint cards that have never had the Modern card frame, a black border, or a proper printing with the latest Oracle text. With the creation of the C, there are now a ton of cards that need to be reprinted to show the change and this is a perfect place to do that (although I'm a little scared of how ugly " : Add CC to your mana pool." is going to look on a Sol Ring).
7. Put full art basic lands in the set.
Jalira, Master Polymorphist | Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder | Bosh, Iron Golem | Ezuri, Renegade Leader
Brago, King Eternal | Oona, Queen of the Fae | Wort, Boggart Auntie | Wort, the Raidmother
Captain Sisay | Rhys, the Redeemed | Trostani, Selesnya's Voice | Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight | Obzedat, Ghost Council | Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind | Vorel of the Hull Clade
Uril, the Miststalker | Prossh, Skyraider of Kher | Nicol Bolas | Progenitus
Ghave, Guru of Spores | Zedruu the Greathearted | Damia, Sage of Stone | Riku of Two Reflections
2 - Reprints of cards that don't see much play outside EDH/other casual play, but are worth a decent amount. Last year's Black Market was perfect. As a subset of this, P3K stuff. Three Visits would be great. Likewise one-offs that appeared in previous commander sets and nowhere else (e.g. Stranglehold).
3 - Continue with the printing of old characters and returns to old planes. Just not Theros for the latter. It's been way way overused recently, and it wasn't that interesting in the first place. On the other hand, anything from Dominaria is very welcome.
4 - New legendary creatures that don't use all the colours in the deck but feature the new (or reused if point one is being done) "commander" mechanic (e.g. experience, effect based on mana spent etc.). The first Commander set had a new 2 colour legend in each of the three colour sets, so it'd be cool if, assuming we're getting allied two colour pairs this time round, to have a new mono-colour legend in each set (one for each colour in total).
5 - Ensure the legends in each deck do completely different things (To be fair, Wizards have actually been pretty good on this, right up until they designed [and I use the term very loosely] the ones for the RW deck last time round) and explore lesser used aspects of the colour pairs - last year's Daxos was excellent, as while BW enchantments was not unheard of as a deck, it was rather out of left field when it came to how that colour pair's legends had previously been designed.
6 - Don't bother with the big foil(s). Waste of space and money. Give us normal sized foils of the commanders instead.
2. I have one particular card design I'd love to see made real for Commander someday, a creature I call Baited Dragon. It's the kind of card that builds momentum, getting bigger and bigger as players feed it to swing at each other and choose whether to kill it or leave it alive until they get a chance to control it.
Baited Dragon 3RR
Creature - Dragon
Flying, haste
At the beginning of each opponent's upkeep, that player may sacrifice a creature. If that player does, he or she gains control of ~, untaps it, and puts a +1/+1 counter on it.
4/4
Baited Dragon in turn inspired other rare creatures designed for Commander, like a white Angel that you can lend to other players with a variant of lifelink that heals the owner rather than the controller or a green Elemental that allows each player to play an additional land during his or her turn and gets a +1/+1 counter each time they do. I would probably try to find a place for each of them.
3. I think it would be fun if we had more revisit themes like in Origins and C15, with each deck getting both old and new cards featuring the central mechanic of the deck.
4. Color identities allowing, I would push for a good Emmara card to make up for what happened back in RTR block.
5. I would look for interesting choices for "forgotten legends" in the vein of Geralf and Gisa, like Talara and Illulia from Shadowmoor and Leonos II and Feather from RTR.
6. I would also look for possible "where are they now" legends like Daxos and Ezuri from C15. Cymede as a standalone UR legend aligned with Keranos seems like a promising prospect, and could be complimented by a new RW Anax card.
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.
I'd like to give whatever colors we're working with something new to use in the Command Zone.