Wizards of the Coast is actively trying to get EDH / Commander players into Standard and other non-Eternal formats whether it's through Brawl or Companion in Ikoria where it just keeps blowing up in their face every time. So why can't they just focus on keeping Standard players happy while allowing EDH / Commander players to enjoy their format? Especially when most EDH / Commander players have no real desire to dump money into a deck that's going to rotate out in a year. There's this notion that MTG needs Standard in order to survive given the importance of Organized Play and Local Game Stores (LGSs). After all the Local Game Store (LGS) is just as important for anyone who wants to play the format of their choice without having to feel sorry for spending tons of money on cardboard that they could've put to better use.
I'm not even sure If Wizards of the Coast can find a good mechanic to draw EDH / Commander players into Standard and other non-Eternal formats without breaking MTG. They're already off to a terrible start with Companion which looks good in concept but extremely poor in execution. The main problem I'm seeing with Companion is that it's a mechanic that still triggers outside the game without casting the actual card similar to the Eminence mechanic which still triggers while the Commander / General is still in the Command Zone. Oloro, Ageless Ascetic was the first example of this allowing players to gain life without having to cast him at all. I think Wizards of the Coast could've easily fixed Companion by having players cast the Companion card while applying a "Companion Tax" of paying 2 extra mana. There's already a lot of topics discussing Companion's impact on various formats.
So to try to answer this topic I don't think it's something that's really worth pursuing for Wizards of the Coast.
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America Bless Christ Jesus
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
Well, Saffron Olive (Seth) of MTG Goldfish tweeted that it is simply because Commander/EDH players are playing EDH because they don't want to be competitive, so there is nothing WoTC can do about it.
I have a slightly different perspective, and that is about how WoTC has pushed new players towards Commander. I don't think all these new players are just non-compedative but more that there is no way to be a casual standard player. You have to learn the metagame, then get all the best (expensive) cards then learn to play against all the best cards. All before you actually know if you will like MTG long term. Plus will you move onto a new deck once your current one rotates? (Keep in mind I am talking about paper not Arena)
For Commander you buy one of the pre-cons and just start playing and either you like it or you don't or.. better yet you like it but want to improve the deck or swap to a new commander etc. Honestly, I wouldn't recommend Commander to a new player, it creates such hard to understand boardstates with ancient cards that interact strangely with the rules and basically anything goes as far as broken combos goes. I'd prefer players play a few standard seasons first so they can make good decisions around threat detection and are familiar with the basic rules.
Standard needs pre-cons/event decks/challenger decks and it needs to have 4 ofs and most importantly they need to provide a competitive mana base. I have played the same combination of colours just rotating out half my lands at a time and picking up the next set allowing me to cheaply play standard for years. Secondly they need to stop making Mythics including planeswalkers so stupidly powerful, to be honest it wasn't even that long ago when you could play that Mono blue evasion tempo deck composed of mostly commons/uncommons. The stupidly strong over-pushing of mythics has to stop, they should not be soo much more powerful and difficult to interact with as the rares. The core cards of a deck need to be rare or lower, your core interactive spells need to uncommons/commons.You can't have format warping cards that require very specific answers to deal with them, because that warps the format further.
I digress, Its important that WotCo just reprint the needed cards (THE LANDS) in standard precon decks and they need to avoid causing the prices to skyrocket by having the key cards be mythic and you need to be able to build interactive and aggressive decks from mostly uncommons with a few key rares. this also allows for easier reprinting of standard precons.
WotC needs new product to sell, and eternal formats don't make for big sales. I think that's also likely why they're tying the precons to the sets, so that you're forced to buy the set to use the mechanics to the fullest.
Not sure I see the connection between companions and Eminence. None of them do anything until they're cast. They might be an attempt to entice commander players, but I think more likely it's just a way to use the fun gimmick of commander in non-commander formats. I think the most defining quality of commander is being casual, so fans of commander aren't likely too keen on getting into a competitive format just because it imitates one mechanic.
you need to be able to build interactive and aggressive decks from mostly uncommons with a few key rares.
The cycling deck is essentially all uncommons and commons. It gets a little better with shocks and a lurrus, but honestly it doesn't make a huge difference.
Yorion is pretty oppressive atm but I've been able to climb to mid platinum with very little effort using cycling. I've got a full set of IKO and I've only ever payed $5 for arena.
Regardless of making standard more affordable, though, I think there does need to be a format that (1) isn't all metagamy and competitive like standard, and (2) isn't as complex as commander. Which is what I think brawl was intended to be, failings aside.
There's no way to make a simple format that uses new cards but doesn't rotate. You have to pick 2 out of 3. Commander uses new cards and doesn't rotate, but isn't simple. Brawl(/standard) is simple and uses new cards, but rotates. I guess the third alternative is block constructed but nobody wants to play that.
WotC needs new product to sell, and eternal formats don't make for big sales. I think that's also likely why they're tying the precons to the sets, so that you're forced to buy the set to use the mechanics to the fullest.
Not sure I see the connection between companions and Eminence. None of them do anything until they're cast. They might be an attempt to entice commander players, but I think more likely it's just a way to use the fun gimmick of commander in non-commander formats. I think the most defining quality of commander is being casual, so fans of commander aren't likely too keen on getting into a competitive format just because it imitates one mechanic.
EDH / Commander IMO isn't the "end all be all" format that a lot of players talk about If there's no place to show for it. No LGS, No EDH. I'm not sure If the recent errata on Companions in Ikoria will be enough to convince players that Wizards of the Coast found a good competitive answer to EDH / Commander in a way that draws more players in Organized Play events for Paper Standard. If anything it just reinforces Wizards of the Coast's recent push toward Digital that was hastened from the pandemic.
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America Bless Christ Jesus
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
That is really simple to explain J. Its based on the spending habits of the collective EDH playerbase. Commander 20XX decks always sell really well. Legends from whatever standard set tend to also sell well. They took it to mean that in order to rope someone in, they should double down on the EDH side of the game to get the average player interested in other formats as EDH-like things is apparently what the player base likes. They also have taken it to mean just print whatever they feel like in Commander precons as the playerbase will just snatch it up anyway, such as Timeless Wisdom having Fierce Guardianship. They also have understood that new Standard players are very likely to take their collections and move to EDH so catering to both tends to work well most of the time, the only time this really blew up in their face was companions. Even Brawl is just the training wheels version of EDH to get people accustom to the idea.
I changed into snooping thru the broom closet, I mean, uhhh, looking for somewhere to look at and I stumbled across this remarkable artifact which I learned to be called an Isochron Scepter. Low and behold I observed it produced a curious cacophony of counterspells or card draw when the ideal spell was used. In a dramatic reversal of events, I even discovered it is able to produce countless mana! Hopefully, this card may be covered in my assignment concerning the tribune to Barrin, perhaps even for some more credit? We need a "Brian, Tolarian Adjunct" within the next un-set. It'll have an potential like "Bounce target permanent if it's CMC is higher than it's second-hand market price."
standard just stopped being complex enough for me. over the years they've really toned it down, from 3 viable archetypes to basically 1, sometimes 2. the meta gets solved incredibly quickly with every new set, and it tends to boil down to just 2-3 decks. to me that's boring. as long as that's going on i really won't have an interest in standard. it gets very tiresome to play against and see the same cards day after day.
brawl isn't really an option to compete either, the format is just as bad as standard. there are less than a handful of viable decks, and that's basically it.
there's also the lack of multiplayer, and that just makes the disparity between builds all the more glaring. often whoever gets ahead first, stays ahead and wins. there's no way to politics out of it, there's no duck and cover, there's no biding your time, you just get ****ed.
edh can be competitive, so claiming it isn't as the draw for most seems really... well like mislabeling it and ignoring what makes the format great to so many. its complex, multiple archetypes are viable, you can use cards from all through magics history, those are some of the real draws.
my other gripe with the modern era and exploiting the popularity of edh is that they keep pushing cards, in sets, in precons, we keep getting targetted cards. cards that are aimed squarely at edh. its made deck building a nightmare, and has also lead to a lot more ubiquity between decks as some of the newer cards aimed at edh are just a little too good. that in the long run will either stagnate the format or put too much pressure on players to consume consume consume all while there's a nuclear arms race in card design.
i'd much rather they focus on just making cards. design sets that are engaging and fun to play, in sealed, in standard, in draft, ignore edh completely. hell ignore legacy, modern, and pioneer also. if cards are designed well they'll find a home, it doesn't need to be forced. forcing playability just upends formats and isn't fun for anyone. we'll get more creative builds again, and a more diversified standard environment too if they emphasize that over jamming ways into every set to get edh players to buy, or legacy players to buy, or whoever else to buy.
I personally see bringing edh players into standard as an impossible task due to how the game is structured.
Standard play makes heavy use of asynchronous card access (getting components for the deck is not part of the actual game as it is with drafting, cubes, or card games like ascension), players are allowed up to 4 copies of nonbasic cards and only need 60 cards in their library (meaning that players could fill a deck and sideboard with fewer than 20 different cards while avoiding basic lands), the game is generally played with a competitive mindset, a highly limited subset of cards are legal, and instant information is available online.
Between all of these factors, standard decks are pushed toward toward consistency and higher win rates through the use of a few good cards, whose presence is quickly learned after a new set releases or new bans are announced.
In other words, Standard is a terrible environment for Brewing!
Seriously, brewing in a solved standard and expecting to win at FNM is like trying to forge a new chess strategy before playing against well-trained players. If you aren’t ABSURDLY talented at the game, you probably won’t get to far at brewing... and no amount of brewing skill will make the decks you “want” to play playable, instead simply revealing new lines or slight alterations allowable within the current meta and card pool.
EDH, meanwhile, is a lot more friendly to brewers. Increased deck size and singleton restrictions forces a larger portion of the card pool into playability and the vast size of the card pool can make it harder to identify “correct” choices even with tools like EDHRec. Plus, the (generally) casual nature of the format and multiplayer dynamics allows it to better accommodate suboptimal decks at many play tables.
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I'm not even sure If Wizards of the Coast can find a good mechanic to draw EDH / Commander players into Standard and other non-Eternal formats without breaking MTG. They're already off to a terrible start with Companion which looks good in concept but extremely poor in execution. The main problem I'm seeing with Companion is that it's a mechanic that still triggers outside the game without casting the actual card similar to the Eminence mechanic which still triggers while the Commander / General is still in the Command Zone. Oloro, Ageless Ascetic was the first example of this allowing players to gain life without having to cast him at all. I think Wizards of the Coast could've easily fixed Companion by having players cast the Companion card while applying a "Companion Tax" of paying 2 extra mana. There's already a lot of topics discussing Companion's impact on various formats.
So to try to answer this topic I don't think it's something that's really worth pursuing for Wizards of the Coast.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
https://twitter.com/SaffronOlive/status/1259486632857698305
I have a slightly different perspective, and that is about how WoTC has pushed new players towards Commander. I don't think all these new players are just non-compedative but more that there is no way to be a casual standard player. You have to learn the metagame, then get all the best (expensive) cards then learn to play against all the best cards. All before you actually know if you will like MTG long term. Plus will you move onto a new deck once your current one rotates? (Keep in mind I am talking about paper not Arena)
For Commander you buy one of the pre-cons and just start playing and either you like it or you don't or.. better yet you like it but want to improve the deck or swap to a new commander etc. Honestly, I wouldn't recommend Commander to a new player, it creates such hard to understand boardstates with ancient cards that interact strangely with the rules and basically anything goes as far as broken combos goes. I'd prefer players play a few standard seasons first so they can make good decisions around threat detection and are familiar with the basic rules.
Standard needs pre-cons/event decks/challenger decks and it needs to have 4 ofs and most importantly they need to provide a competitive mana base. I have played the same combination of colours just rotating out half my lands at a time and picking up the next set allowing me to cheaply play standard for years. Secondly they need to stop making Mythics including planeswalkers so stupidly powerful, to be honest it wasn't even that long ago when you could play that Mono blue evasion tempo deck composed of mostly commons/uncommons. The stupidly strong over-pushing of mythics has to stop, they should not be soo much more powerful and difficult to interact with as the rares. The core cards of a deck need to be rare or lower, your core interactive spells need to uncommons/commons.You can't have format warping cards that require very specific answers to deal with them, because that warps the format further.
I digress, Its important that WotCo just reprint the needed cards (THE LANDS) in standard precon decks and they need to avoid causing the prices to skyrocket by having the key cards be mythic and you need to be able to build interactive and aggressive decks from mostly uncommons with a few key rares. this also allows for easier reprinting of standard precons.
Pioneer:UR Pheonix
Modern:U Mono U Tron
EDH
GB Glissa, the traitor: Army of Cans
UW Dragonlord Ojutai: Dragonlord NOjutai
UWGDerevi, Empyrial Tactician "you cannot fight the storm"
R Zirilan of the claw. The solution to every problem is dragons
UB Etrata, the Silencer Cloning assassination
Peasant cube: Cards I own
Not sure I see the connection between companions and Eminence. None of them do anything until they're cast. They might be an attempt to entice commander players, but I think more likely it's just a way to use the fun gimmick of commander in non-commander formats. I think the most defining quality of commander is being casual, so fans of commander aren't likely too keen on getting into a competitive format just because it imitates one mechanic. The cycling deck is essentially all uncommons and commons. It gets a little better with shocks and a lurrus, but honestly it doesn't make a huge difference.
Yorion is pretty oppressive atm but I've been able to climb to mid platinum with very little effort using cycling. I've got a full set of IKO and I've only ever payed $5 for arena.
Regardless of making standard more affordable, though, I think there does need to be a format that (1) isn't all metagamy and competitive like standard, and (2) isn't as complex as commander. Which is what I think brawl was intended to be, failings aside.
There's no way to make a simple format that uses new cards but doesn't rotate. You have to pick 2 out of 3. Commander uses new cards and doesn't rotate, but isn't simple. Brawl(/standard) is simple and uses new cards, but rotates. I guess the third alternative is block constructed but nobody wants to play that.
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
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
brawl isn't really an option to compete either, the format is just as bad as standard. there are less than a handful of viable decks, and that's basically it.
there's also the lack of multiplayer, and that just makes the disparity between builds all the more glaring. often whoever gets ahead first, stays ahead and wins. there's no way to politics out of it, there's no duck and cover, there's no biding your time, you just get ****ed.
edh can be competitive, so claiming it isn't as the draw for most seems really... well like mislabeling it and ignoring what makes the format great to so many. its complex, multiple archetypes are viable, you can use cards from all through magics history, those are some of the real draws.
my other gripe with the modern era and exploiting the popularity of edh is that they keep pushing cards, in sets, in precons, we keep getting targetted cards. cards that are aimed squarely at edh. its made deck building a nightmare, and has also lead to a lot more ubiquity between decks as some of the newer cards aimed at edh are just a little too good. that in the long run will either stagnate the format or put too much pressure on players to consume consume consume all while there's a nuclear arms race in card design.
i'd much rather they focus on just making cards. design sets that are engaging and fun to play, in sealed, in standard, in draft, ignore edh completely. hell ignore legacy, modern, and pioneer also. if cards are designed well they'll find a home, it doesn't need to be forced. forcing playability just upends formats and isn't fun for anyone. we'll get more creative builds again, and a more diversified standard environment too if they emphasize that over jamming ways into every set to get edh players to buy, or legacy players to buy, or whoever else to buy.
Standard play makes heavy use of asynchronous card access (getting components for the deck is not part of the actual game as it is with drafting, cubes, or card games like ascension), players are allowed up to 4 copies of nonbasic cards and only need 60 cards in their library (meaning that players could fill a deck and sideboard with fewer than 20 different cards while avoiding basic lands), the game is generally played with a competitive mindset, a highly limited subset of cards are legal, and instant information is available online.
Between all of these factors, standard decks are pushed toward toward consistency and higher win rates through the use of a few good cards, whose presence is quickly learned after a new set releases or new bans are announced.
In other words, Standard is a terrible environment for Brewing!
Seriously, brewing in a solved standard and expecting to win at FNM is like trying to forge a new chess strategy before playing against well-trained players. If you aren’t ABSURDLY talented at the game, you probably won’t get to far at brewing... and no amount of brewing skill will make the decks you “want” to play playable, instead simply revealing new lines or slight alterations allowable within the current meta and card pool.
EDH, meanwhile, is a lot more friendly to brewers. Increased deck size and singleton restrictions forces a larger portion of the card pool into playability and the vast size of the card pool can make it harder to identify “correct” choices even with tools like EDHRec. Plus, the (generally) casual nature of the format and multiplayer dynamics allows it to better accommodate suboptimal decks at many play tables.