My local shop is thinking about starting a weekly 1v1 commander league. While some of us were talking about how to begin, one idea we had to try and balance out the format a little was to restrict the basic Island to a single copy per deck. Has anyone ever tried this before? If so, what effect does it have on the format?
But really if you want to do that, the only way to make it fair would be all basic lands restricted to 1. I could play blue without a basic land at all with the right amount of money. If you are going to have a store based league it is usually based on the standard 1v1 Commander rules, this makes it easier for new players etc that want to play in a store run format to play since it is a fixed set of rules across every store.
Blood Moon. More on topic it seems like far more of a tax on budget than playability as most decks with U in will be running a lot of non basics anyway. What might, IMO, be more interesting in placing a minimum on the number of basics you have to play.
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Just put a cap on the number of cards with the text of "counter target spell" to, say, seven. People can still play their combo if they want, but it restricts the sheer dearth of hard permission. These decks will look to loopholes around the "counter cap" with cards with different text, a la Mindbreak Trap, Venser, & Unsubstantiate and it's ilk. In my experience, this works out as the number of these type of effects are few, and the real "feel bads" are from the overwhelmingly large number of cheap two or less cmc spells that are mostly hard counters in disguise.
The league I hosted for ages via Gatherling worked well with this rule (I had to drop the league though when the v4 MODO client rolled out). Control players found it a suitable challenge but not overwhelmingly against them, the casuals felt like they were actually playing a game rather than getting countered into a demoralizing experience every game.
I appreciate the intent here - a look at MTGGoldfish shows only one deck with no islands that has even a small share of the metagame (Nissa Ramp), with 4C Partner Control, Baral, Sultai Control, and Jace being particularly oppressive control lists while Breya is a brutal combo deck. Blue-based decks make up an unhealthy 70% of the meta and banning cantrips and Vial Smasher didn't help a ton.
I think restricting island isn't the way to go though - the 4C and 3C decks are far more powerful than the mono-blue lists (if not more miserable to play against), and most well-tuned lists are already only running 1-2 Islands. It is, as most folks have said, mostly a budget tax on anyone who does want to play Jace or Baral.
If you really wanted to sculpt the meta it would call for desperate measures, like banning a ton of powerful blue cards or possibly creating a whole new local format of "Modern legal cards + cards printed only in Commander decks and Conspiracy; all cards on the 1v1 banned list are still banned). As many authors have said, changing the starting life total to 20 (like in French and standard MTG) would also be big, allowing more aggro decks to flourish and incentivizing some new folks.
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Blood Moon. More on topic it seems like far more of a tax on budget than playability as most decks with U in will be running a lot of non basics anyway. What might, IMO, be more interesting in placing a minimum on the number of basics you have to play.
Yeah, this would completely off-balance the game and give an unfair advantage to decks that can run Ruination, Blood Moon, Magus of the Moon, etc.
And I agree, a minimum number of basics would be more interesting and more playable than a maximum.
This is pretty funny that this even came up. People get so bent out of shape when their stuff gets countered, it's part of the game, figure it out.
If you do this, the only way you should is to restrict every color of basic land. But doing so would just raise the price barrier of entry to deck building. Just maindeck all of the blue hate cards like Guttural ResponseGreat Sable StagSurrak Dragonclaw stuff like that
I have a Blue / Black deck that I intentionally only run 2 basic islands in. Honestly.... You dont need any basic lands to make a blue deck. This concept will just punish those who dont have good landbases which seems unnecessary as they are already punished by not owning the best lands.
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With so many nonbasic lands making blue mana, I doubt the rule would effective.
It'd hurt GU decks because ramp. Even Animar runs a nice complement of ramp spells stapled on creatures.
It would also fall victim to Blood Moon. I could see this being a thing if Back to Basics were a problem, but BTB isn't likely to be a problem in a deck where only one basic island can be used.
Those are literally the only two situations I can think of. And seriously, if BTB is that big of a problem (It isn't.), just house-ban it.
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Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
My local shop is thinking about starting a weekly 1v1 commander league. While some of us were talking about how to begin, one idea we had to try and balance out the format a little was to restrict the basic Island to a single copy per deck. Has anyone ever tried this before? If so, what effect does it have on the format?
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But really if you want to do that, the only way to make it fair would be all basic lands restricted to 1. I could play blue without a basic land at all with the right amount of money. If you are going to have a store based league it is usually based on the standard 1v1 Commander rules, this makes it easier for new players etc that want to play in a store run format to play since it is a fixed set of rules across every store.
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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.
The league I hosted for ages via Gatherling worked well with this rule (I had to drop the league though when the v4 MODO client rolled out). Control players found it a suitable challenge but not overwhelmingly against them, the casuals felt like they were actually playing a game rather than getting countered into a demoralizing experience every game.
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I think restricting island isn't the way to go though - the 4C and 3C decks are far more powerful than the mono-blue lists (if not more miserable to play against), and most well-tuned lists are already only running 1-2 Islands. It is, as most folks have said, mostly a budget tax on anyone who does want to play Jace or Baral.
If you really wanted to sculpt the meta it would call for desperate measures, like banning a ton of powerful blue cards or possibly creating a whole new local format of "Modern legal cards + cards printed only in Commander decks and Conspiracy; all cards on the 1v1 banned list are still banned). As many authors have said, changing the starting life total to 20 (like in French and standard MTG) would also be big, allowing more aggro decks to flourish and incentivizing some new folks.
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
And I agree, a minimum number of basics would be more interesting and more playable than a maximum. Yep - apply it equally to all basics or not at all. We laugh about this, but years ago, I dropped an Island turn 1 and had my opponent concede. Some people really hate blue.
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If you do this, the only way you should is to restrict every color of basic land. But doing so would just raise the price barrier of entry to deck building. Just maindeck all of the blue hate cards like Guttural Response Great Sable Stag Surrak Dragonclaw stuff like that
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It'd hurt GU decks because ramp. Even Animar runs a nice complement of ramp spells stapled on creatures.
It would also fall victim to Blood Moon. I could see this being a thing if Back to Basics were a problem, but BTB isn't likely to be a problem in a deck where only one basic island can be used.
Those are literally the only two situations I can think of. And seriously, if BTB is that big of a problem (It isn't.), just house-ban it.
On phasing: