I'm an old man and I hate change. It's been a bitter pill to swallow the changes to tucking. I mostly play monored, so I rarely tuck creatures; but I believe that a well built deck should be able to win without it's commander.
The nightmare scenario for me is having to play every game against a 'deal with me right now or you lose' general; it seems many general already require a 3v1 alliance from the table to shut down and removing a players ability to efficiently answers generals with tucks will hurt for the short term.
Looking to the future, this change seems more like step 2 of the grand plan to me then a change made based on it's own merits. The writing on the wall is that hard bans on certain OP commanders will be coming. Step 1, "Problematic as a commander" was added to the categories for banning as well as the removal of the banned as a commander category. Step 2, tucking a general was removed.
Maybe there isn't a predetermined conspiracy to ban some of the strongest generals, but it seems that without tucking more generals will become harder to answer and since player will always have access to the commander no matter what you do it, it's going to be very hard to raise an anti-ban argument for those generals.
"Nothing runs the feel-bads worse than having your commander unavailable to you for the whole game."
What about not being able to interact well with threatening commanders? Purphoros, God of the Forge is already a pain to deal with and now it's just a race against him. Derevi, Empyrial Tactician is one of the more powerful commanders there are and this ban makes him much more so.
I don't feel like this update we well thought out at all and if it's kept it will likely result in more unneeded bannings in the future since a card is now warping the format.
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Hey guys so I've actually moved on from commander on to 60 card decks so I don't have any commander decks.
Anyway I've started my own gameplay channel in which I play games (Magic also)
In my opinion, this is a very bad change to the format. It makes it much more difficult to deal with a variety of problem commanders. The next best options - things like Lignify and Pithing Needle - are too easy to get around, or simply remove.
This has actually been the first rule change for the format I've been truly unhappy with. Normally I'm okay when things get banned, as that lets me try out new and interesting cards in my decks, but in this case, it feels like the change is going to have a net negative impact on deck diversity, as players are likely going to start slotting in more sub-par answers to problem commanders in order to have some capacity to deal with them.
This! I really just don't get this change. Changes like this are making it clear to me that there are some meta's that would shock the RC to see the strength of certain decks. Checks and balances are an important part of a properly balanced format. This attempt to make the game more "fun" for more table top style meta's really just makes no sense. Their explanations make even less sense. I think they over thought a rather simple problem.
Well, anyway, my playgroup has decided to test the change out, but there is a good chance we will ignore this rule change for the simple fact it unbalances the local meta. After all, the RC themselves has in fact admitted on more than one occasion they have no real power...only the power people and playgroups choose to invest in them.
Well they do have power in the sense that Wizards trusts them to manage the format. So they basically have the backing of WotC, which is only helped by Wizards admitting that they don't really have the time or resources to properly manage it. All in all, I don't think that this change will have as big an impact as everyone is making it sound. Much like removing the BaaC list, the legendary rule change, etc., there will be an uproar at first, and then after a while and seeing how the change actually affects games, people will settle in with the new rule or simply houserule to the old rules. I will miss having the option to tuck a general, but I'm sure I'll manage.
The legend rule change impacted the balance of just a couple of cards, mostly Phantasmal Image (which went from superstar to solid) and Geist of St Traft (which got better but not by enough to be a problem).
The cards impacted by this rule change are quite a bit more important to the format. The 15 Theros gods just got impossible to deal with as commanders except by the most obnoxious of cards in the format (Meddling Mage, Nevermore, mass LD, etc). Combo commanders just got insane.
There will either have to be a significant wave of emergency bannings, or people will need to houserule a solution in their playgroups, otherwise Commander will go through three horrible months in any environment where even a small minority plays to win. (Houserules can include 'Tommy Spike is banned from this playgroup because we are sick of Derevi and Prosh shenanigans').
Look how annoyed Cyclonic Rift makes people, as a card that decides games and can only be interacted with through counterspells. Now imagine it was uncounterable - that's what this change makes some of the combo commanders into.
As a thought experiment, imagine what Legacy would look like if Force of Will was banned tomorrow (or Vintage if FoW, Mishra's Workshop and Mental Misstep were all restricted at once). Force of Will is overpowered in the format, but it is the glue that holds the whole format together. There'd need to be a cascade of other bannings before a fun format reemerged. Tuck effects were the glue that held Commander together and protected it from degenerate generals.
I have to say that this is a pretty obvious thing too. I no longer have any faith in the rules committee and would like to see the DCI take control of the format from them.
Well they do have power in the sense that Wizards trusts them to manage the format. So they basically have the backing of WotC, which is only helped by Wizards admitting that they don't really have the time or resources to properly manage it. All in all, I don't think that this change will have as big an impact as everyone is making it sound. Much like removing the BaaC list, the legendary rule change, etc., there will be an uproar at first, and then after a while and seeing how the change actually affects games, people will settle in with the new rule or simply houserule to the old rules. I will miss having the option to tuck a general, but I'm sure I'll manage.
The uproar dies down because it solves nothing. In the end we don't have the power to change it, it's not a democracy. I'm not advocating for one, I'd just rather have a different ruler.
This change is depressing, as have the few updates prior.
"Nothing runs the feel-bads worse than having your commander unavailable to you for the whole game."
What about not being able to interact well with threatening commanders? Purphoros, God of the Forge is already a pain to deal with and now it's just a race against him. Derevi, Empyrial Tactician is one of the more powerful commanders there are and this ban makes him much more so.
I don't feel like this update we well thought out at all and if it's kept it will likely result in more unneeded bannings in the future since a card is now warping the format.
As soon as I saw this change, I immediately thought of Sigarda, Host of Herons. It was already comically easy to make her indestructible, since you're in white. She already has edict protection and can also be made into a 3 turn clock comically easy. The only thing that could have dealt with her at the time was a non-targetting tuck effect, a la Terminus or Hallowed Burial. Then this rolled out and she became an unkillable goddess of death and destruction. She gets put in the command zone, just cast her through a Cavern of Souls. Snap equip the Darksteel Plate and just run the house again.
"Nothing runs the feel-bads worse than having your commander unavailable to you for the whole game."
What about not being able to interact well with threatening commanders? Purphoros, God of the Forge is already a pain to deal with and now it's just a race against him. Derevi, Empyrial Tactician is one of the more powerful commanders there are and this ban makes him much more so.
I don't feel like this update we well thought out at all and if it's kept it will likely result in more unneeded bannings in the future since a card is now warping the format.
As soon as I saw this change, I immediately thought of Sigarda, Host of Herons. It was already comically easy to make her indestructible, since you're in white. She already has edict protection and can also be made into a 3 turn clock comically easy. The only thing that could have dealt with her at the time was a non-targetting tuck effect, a la Terminus or Hallowed Burial. Then this rolled out and she became an unkillable goddess of death and destruction. She gets put in the command zone, just cast her through a Cavern of Souls. Snap equip the Darksteel Plate and just run the house again.
Now you're having fun, the EDH Committee approved way!
Well they do have power in the sense that Wizards trusts them to manage the format. So they basically have the backing of WotC, which is only helped by Wizards admitting that they don't really have the time or resources to properly manage it. All in all, I don't think that this change will have as big an impact as everyone is making it sound. Much like removing the BaaC list, the legendary rule change, etc., there will be an uproar at first, and then after a while and seeing how the change actually affects games, people will settle in with the new rule or simply houserule to the old rules. I will miss having the option to tuck a general, but I'm sure I'll manage.
I suppose, but the idea that this may not be a big deal does not change the fact that this change makes no sense. Nor does it change that fact that their explanations are actually legitimately questionable. I admit, I was not a fan of the banned list rules change, but that was more of a cosmetic disagreement. This time my disagreement is more fundamental.
This will probably mean 5 or 6 cards need the banhammer.
(Not that I take a banlist seriously that allows the second and third most powerful of the broken artifact mana cards ever printed - Sol Ring, Mana Crypt - to remain in the format...)
True this. I'm hoping that one day I can live in a world where sol ring and mana crypt are banned. I'd also like to see Sensei's divining top on the banlist but it might not be good enough to warrant banning although I stand by the fact that every color should not have access to a one mana card manipulator. Any nonland colorless card that is an auto-include in every deck is probably not good for the format imo.
I think any reaction we really see in the next few weeks will be knee jerk reactions. This is a big move from the front of the RC but honestly I have been struggling with how to make boros, mono white, and mono red more playable and the conclusion comes down to something like this or the option of commander tutors (it wasn't going to happen).
Realistically, there are still a lot of ways in which to answer commanders. You can lock them up, make them uncastable, make them ignore ETB effects, protect yourself from them by pacifying or chump blocking them. With commanders becoming more robust it might just shift us to run more answers for commanders outside of tuck. Tuck was great and it gave reason to have a well rounded deck but it also meant that good colors became better. I think this opens up some weaker colors and combinations that before were borderline not runnable due to issues with card advantage and tutoring aka white and red.
Realistically, I suspect that the price of cards from an EDH perspective is about to be turned on its head. Things like Terminus and Hallowed Burial just lost a lot of bite but in their place could be things like Prison Term and Nevermore so its not as if we cant shift gears to answer this shift. The big difference in my mind is that in most of these cases an answer is what you need to get your commander back in the game instead of a tutor which is probably a better way to be playing.
I think this move is edgy personally. It shows that the RC isn't afraid to make big changes as this is their biggest change to date. We might dislike the idea of it but honestly it shows they are willing to change larger scale fundamental ways in which we might play the game. I think that is ultimately a good thing. Time will tell as to how things turn out from this change.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
I feel like this rule change lines up with the Commander philosophy that decks should need their commander to function at the most optimal level. Now that you can't completely get rid of commanders, players will be encouraged to build more around a commander than a concept. I see this as a healthy update to the rules.
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Current laser collection: 20 1000cc Ducati dualsport decks
I've seen the exact opposite. The RC has some very vocal supporters in this thread who to me seem about as likely to cut off an arm as to admit that sometimes the RC makes mistakes or didn't make an optimum decision. I imagine that's why you had to make this containment thread. Because honestly there's no reasoning with the other side (no matter which side you're on).
No, we made this thread because otherwise we would end up with people creating a new thread every time they wanted to know why a card was banned or wanted one banned. Having one thread keeps the main forum area cleaner.
You could probably have an entire subforum with individual threads dedicated to each card on the banned list plus a few common ones that several people advocate for banning (Prophet of Kruphix, Deadeye Navigator, Consecrated Sphinx, Mana Crypt, etc.) and few threads for things like the 'Tuck rule', the banned as commander rule, and color identity, and it would be one of the most trafficked subforums on the entire site.
I guess we'll get more clarification on what it means to be a commander next month then,cuz reading over the update it's just about Tuck. At least as far as I can tell.
Commanderness was also in the update:
Quote from Sheldon »
When FRF came out, manifest led us to talking about what it meant to be a commander-which is what got us talking about tuck in the first place. After a long discussion, we decided the best course regarding commander-ness was no change.
I also have a complaint about this part of the update, though:
Quote from Sheldon »
While we are keenly aware that tuck is a great weapon against problematic commanders, the tools to do so are available only in blue and white, potentially forcing players into feeling like they need to play those colors in order to survive.
So Chaos Warp and Warp World aren't red cards? I've also seen plenty of green cards put creatures from the graveyard to the bottom of the library (or shuffle them in) when the reanimator deck chooses to leave the general in the 'yard. (There's also Stunted Growth after bouncing the commander -- possible in colorless -- or the commander's owner bouncing it.) I admit to not being able to think of any black cards usable for tuck, though.
This! I really just don't get this change. Changes like this are making it clear to me that there are some meta's that would shock the RC to see the strength of certain decks. Checks and balances are an important part of a properly balanced format. This attempt to make the game more "fun" for more table top style meta's really just makes no sense. Their explanations make even less sense. I think they over thought a rather simple problem.
Well, anyway, my playgroup has decided to test the change out, but there is a good chance we will ignore this rule change for the simple fact it unbalances the local meta. After all, the RC themselves has in fact admitted on more than one occasion they have no real power...only the power people and playgroups choose to invest in them.
Well they do have power in the sense that Wizards trusts them to manage the format. So they basically have the backing of WotC, which is only helped by Wizards admitting that they don't really have the time or resources to properly manage it. All in all, I don't think that this change will have as big an impact as everyone is making it sound. Much like removing the BaaC list, the legendary rule change, etc., there will be an uproar at first, and then after a while and seeing how the change actually affects games, people will settle in with the new rule or simply houserule to the old rules. I will miss having the option to tuck a general, but I'm sure I'll manage.
It's funny that you mention the BaaC list change, because I think removing tuck as an answer is a good time to revisit that decision. Now that tuck isn't an out against commanders, you've got more cards that are perfectly fine as one of the 99, but questionable for the format as a commander. I really don't care about tuck that much (and the RC is right that the rules change mostly removes a lot of corner cases), but I want BaaC revisited if tuck is no longer a factor in balancing cards as a commander.
Of course, that might require somebody to fix Magic Online, so we can expect it never. *tinfoil hat*
I have on numerous occasions killed or countered voltron generals enough times that they couldn't afford to cast them anymore. Mana doesn't grow on trees. I've had my own sigarda at 17 to cast before. Pack more answers. This change will require more and that is a good thing.
In the end the RC wants people to self regulate against anti-social decks. If the removal of tuck causes every player to build 'abusive' decks, then the players are missing the point of the format.
This format is so easily broken, but the point (according to the philosophy of the RC) is not to build a deck that wins on turn 1, it is to play a game that is enjoyable with friends. If 'that guy' sees the removal of tuck as a reason to bust out Purphorus (as an example) every game and destroy everyone the same way every game, then the appropriate response is to discuss why this is not a fun game with everyone in the group and the Purphorus player and encourage a style of play that lets everyone have fun.
That's the format the RC want. They are not making this change to make Purphorus more powerful, instead to allow people to focus their games around the namesake of the format. IF Purphorus becomes a problem, the social contract is the default solution.
(I don't necessarily agree with this change, but I see the reasons behind it and I don't believe it will be the END OF TIMES! In my opinion it will foster an environment that is positive for the majority of Commander players, just not necessarily the players that are engaged enough to be here at MTG Salvation).
Players using tutors are gonna use tutors anyway, so I don't see why it was even used as a reason. It's feeble at best.
If they wanted to discourage using tutors, there should be a hardline approach instead of a soft one like this. Many people will not "get" the changes are due to "discouraging people using tutors".
Don't forget that most EDH players are enfranchised players already. Doing it with subtlety isn't gonna work; it's gonna rub them the wrong way. Either ban things or unban things to shake a format up.
But I do understand that Duel Commander already has this rule, so it's kinda weird that the RC is finally giving in to statistics. I do think when it comes to general sentiments/feedback the RC is indeed lagging and slow to adopt.
And just how do non-blue decks "pack more answers" to indestructible sigarda? their reasoning was that tuck was limited to blue and white (which is false btw) so they made this change because they wanted to promote diversity... so they narrowed available answers to some cards (in the case of sigarda, now only counterspells unless the pilot is an idiot who plays into wraths). Their reasoning on this change reeks of both herp AND derp.
Players using tutors are gonna use tutors anyway, so I don't see why it was even used as a reason. It's feeble at best.
If anything this change just made combo decks and the tutors they rely on better. Now I don't have to worry about my tutors being "wasted" on retrieving the combo piece I selected for the command zone. I will always have access to that combo piece, and there is nothing an opponent can really do to stop that, so all my tutors can go towards searching for combo piece number 2.
And just how do non-blue decks "pack more answers" to indestructible sigarda? their reasoning was that tuck was limited to blue and white (which is false btw) so they made this change because they wanted to promote diversity... so they narrowed available answers to some cards (in the case of sigarda, now only counterspells unless the pilot is an idiot who plays into wraths). Their reasoning on this change reeks of both herp AND derp.
Tell me about all those wonderful tuck cards in Black.
Anyway, there are still plenty of ways to answer commanders like Sigarda. For example, Ensnaring Bridge. Of course, those options are fragile and not reliable, but the entire point of the command zone rules is to make removing a commander less reliable.
black had no answers so... in order to "diversify" the format... they take answers away form the other colors, leaving only blue (G/W has no issue whatsoever dealing with artifacts and enchantments)... yep. makes perfect sense if you make sure you don't think about it at all. My primary deck is prossh. I benefit from this change more than most and i still think it was an awful, unnecessary, and ill-conceived rule change.
I'm sorry, but if having your general tucked kills your deck then it is a badly constructed deck.
Sure, my Lazav deck is buikt with the big guy in mind and is at its best when he is suited up, but if he isn't an option I don't just roll over and die. True-Name Nemesis, Invisible Stalker, Shafowmage Infiktrator, Dark Confidant, hell even Creeping Tar Pit all work just fine in his absence.
Black sun zenith, toxic deluge, hallowed burial and terminus still work, false. Prophet, various other mass exile effects, bigger creatures, remove the indestructible enabler, austere command, tranquil Grove slash back to nature slash fracturing gust, etc.
Anything that removes her enchantments will deal fine with her. Mono red has some. Issues but still disk, obstone and perilous vault. Cmon guys.
Do any of you actually play Enchantress decks? They are extremely vulnerable to even simple spot enchantment removal.
Maybe the good old standby of a deck being crappy if it doesn't function well without its commander just needs to die. That attitude just brings on goodstuff decks and is not absolutely correct, it's just an opinion.
We're playing commander not 99 card singleton legacy after all.
My preference is to have my commander be a core piece of deck and focus on protecting and getting it back vs building decks that run fine without casting commander.
To say that is not a valid approach to playing commander is just stating your opinion, not some kind of absolute fact.
The nightmare scenario for me is having to play every game against a 'deal with me right now or you lose' general; it seems many general already require a 3v1 alliance from the table to shut down and removing a players ability to efficiently answers generals with tucks will hurt for the short term.
Looking to the future, this change seems more like step 2 of the grand plan to me then a change made based on it's own merits. The writing on the wall is that hard bans on certain OP commanders will be coming. Step 1, "Problematic as a commander" was added to the categories for banning as well as the removal of the banned as a commander category. Step 2, tucking a general was removed.
Maybe there isn't a predetermined conspiracy to ban some of the strongest generals, but it seems that without tucking more generals will become harder to answer and since player will always have access to the commander no matter what you do it, it's going to be very hard to raise an anti-ban argument for those generals.
What about not being able to interact well with threatening commanders? Purphoros, God of the Forge is already a pain to deal with and now it's just a race against him. Derevi, Empyrial Tactician is one of the more powerful commanders there are and this ban makes him much more so.
I don't feel like this update we well thought out at all and if it's kept it will likely result in more unneeded bannings in the future since a card is now warping the format.
Anyway I've started my own gameplay channel in which I play games (Magic also)
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This has actually been the first rule change for the format I've been truly unhappy with. Normally I'm okay when things get banned, as that lets me try out new and interesting cards in my decks, but in this case, it feels like the change is going to have a net negative impact on deck diversity, as players are likely going to start slotting in more sub-par answers to problem commanders in order to have some capacity to deal with them.
Not a fan of this one, RC.
The legend rule change impacted the balance of just a couple of cards, mostly Phantasmal Image (which went from superstar to solid) and Geist of St Traft (which got better but not by enough to be a problem).
The cards impacted by this rule change are quite a bit more important to the format. The 15 Theros gods just got impossible to deal with as commanders except by the most obnoxious of cards in the format (Meddling Mage, Nevermore, mass LD, etc). Combo commanders just got insane.
There will either have to be a significant wave of emergency bannings, or people will need to houserule a solution in their playgroups, otherwise Commander will go through three horrible months in any environment where even a small minority plays to win. (Houserules can include 'Tommy Spike is banned from this playgroup because we are sick of Derevi and Prosh shenanigans').
Look how annoyed Cyclonic Rift makes people, as a card that decides games and can only be interacted with through counterspells. Now imagine it was uncounterable - that's what this change makes some of the combo commanders into.
As a thought experiment, imagine what Legacy would look like if Force of Will was banned tomorrow (or Vintage if FoW, Mishra's Workshop and Mental Misstep were all restricted at once). Force of Will is overpowered in the format, but it is the glue that holds the whole format together. There'd need to be a cascade of other bannings before a fun format reemerged. Tuck effects were the glue that held Commander together and protected it from degenerate generals.
I have to say that this is a pretty obvious thing too. I no longer have any faith in the rules committee and would like to see the DCI take control of the format from them.
The uproar dies down because it solves nothing. In the end we don't have the power to change it, it's not a democracy. I'm not advocating for one, I'd just rather have a different ruler.
This change is depressing, as have the few updates prior.
As soon as I saw this change, I immediately thought of Sigarda, Host of Herons. It was already comically easy to make her indestructible, since you're in white. She already has edict protection and can also be made into a 3 turn clock comically easy. The only thing that could have dealt with her at the time was a non-targetting tuck effect, a la Terminus or Hallowed Burial. Then this rolled out and she became an unkillable goddess of death and destruction. She gets put in the command zone, just cast her through a Cavern of Souls. Snap equip the Darksteel Plate and just run the house again.
Now you're having fun, the EDH Committee approved way!
I suppose, but the idea that this may not be a big deal does not change the fact that this change makes no sense. Nor does it change that fact that their explanations are actually legitimately questionable. I admit, I was not a fan of the banned list rules change, but that was more of a cosmetic disagreement. This time my disagreement is more fundamental.
True this. I'm hoping that one day I can live in a world where sol ring and mana crypt are banned. I'd also like to see Sensei's divining top on the banlist but it might not be good enough to warrant banning although I stand by the fact that every color should not have access to a one mana card manipulator. Any nonland colorless card that is an auto-include in every deck is probably not good for the format imo.
GB Midrange HomebrewBG
Modern
Affinity X
EDH
Jarad, Golgari Lich LordBG
Realistically, there are still a lot of ways in which to answer commanders. You can lock them up, make them uncastable, make them ignore ETB effects, protect yourself from them by pacifying or chump blocking them. With commanders becoming more robust it might just shift us to run more answers for commanders outside of tuck. Tuck was great and it gave reason to have a well rounded deck but it also meant that good colors became better. I think this opens up some weaker colors and combinations that before were borderline not runnable due to issues with card advantage and tutoring aka white and red.
Realistically, I suspect that the price of cards from an EDH perspective is about to be turned on its head. Things like Terminus and Hallowed Burial just lost a lot of bite but in their place could be things like Prison Term and Nevermore so its not as if we cant shift gears to answer this shift. The big difference in my mind is that in most of these cases an answer is what you need to get your commander back in the game instead of a tutor which is probably a better way to be playing.
I think this move is edgy personally. It shows that the RC isn't afraid to make big changes as this is their biggest change to date. We might dislike the idea of it but honestly it shows they are willing to change larger scale fundamental ways in which we might play the game. I think that is ultimately a good thing. Time will tell as to how things turn out from this change.
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You could probably have an entire subforum with individual threads dedicated to each card on the banned list plus a few common ones that several people advocate for banning (Prophet of Kruphix, Deadeye Navigator, Consecrated Sphinx, Mana Crypt, etc.) and few threads for things like the 'Tuck rule', the banned as commander rule, and color identity, and it would be one of the most trafficked subforums on the entire site.
I also have a complaint about this part of the update, though:
So Chaos Warp and Warp World aren't red cards? I've also seen plenty of green cards put creatures from the graveyard to the bottom of the library (or shuffle them in) when the reanimator deck chooses to leave the general in the 'yard. (There's also Stunted Growth after bouncing the commander -- possible in colorless -- or the commander's owner bouncing it.) I admit to not being able to think of any black cards usable for tuck, though.
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
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It's funny that you mention the BaaC list change, because I think removing tuck as an answer is a good time to revisit that decision. Now that tuck isn't an out against commanders, you've got more cards that are perfectly fine as one of the 99, but questionable for the format as a commander. I really don't care about tuck that much (and the RC is right that the rules change mostly removes a lot of corner cases), but I want BaaC revisited if tuck is no longer a factor in balancing cards as a commander.
Of course, that might require somebody to fix Magic Online, so we can expect it never. *tinfoil hat*
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
This format is so easily broken, but the point (according to the philosophy of the RC) is not to build a deck that wins on turn 1, it is to play a game that is enjoyable with friends. If 'that guy' sees the removal of tuck as a reason to bust out Purphorus (as an example) every game and destroy everyone the same way every game, then the appropriate response is to discuss why this is not a fun game with everyone in the group and the Purphorus player and encourage a style of play that lets everyone have fun.
That's the format the RC want. They are not making this change to make Purphorus more powerful, instead to allow people to focus their games around the namesake of the format. IF Purphorus becomes a problem, the social contract is the default solution.
(I don't necessarily agree with this change, but I see the reasons behind it and I don't believe it will be the END OF TIMES! In my opinion it will foster an environment that is positive for the majority of Commander players, just not necessarily the players that are engaged enough to be here at MTG Salvation).
If they wanted to discourage using tutors, there should be a hardline approach instead of a soft one like this. Many people will not "get" the changes are due to "discouraging people using tutors".
Don't forget that most EDH players are enfranchised players already. Doing it with subtlety isn't gonna work; it's gonna rub them the wrong way. Either ban things or unban things to shake a format up.
But I do understand that Duel Commander already has this rule, so it's kinda weird that the RC is finally giving in to statistics. I do think when it comes to general sentiments/feedback the RC is indeed lagging and slow to adopt.
UR Melek, Izzet ParagonUR, B Shirei, Shizo's CaretakerB, R Jaya Ballard, Task MageR,RW Tajic, Blade of the LegionRW, UB Lazav, Dimir MastermindUB, UB Circu, Dimir LobotomistUB, RWU Zedruu the GreatheartedRWU, GUBThe MimeoplasmGUB, UGExperiment Kraj UG, WDarien, King of KjeldorW, BMarrow-GnawerB, WBGKarador, Ghost ChieftainWBG, UTeferi, Temporal ArchmageU, GWUDerevi, Empyrial TacticianGWU, RDaretti, Scrap SavantR, UTalrand, Sky SummonerU, GEzuri, Renegade LeaderG, WUBRGReaper KingWUBRG, RGXenagos, God of RevelsRG, CKozilek, Butcher of TruthC, WUBRGGeneral TazriWUBRG, GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
If anything this change just made combo decks and the tutors they rely on better. Now I don't have to worry about my tutors being "wasted" on retrieving the combo piece I selected for the command zone. I will always have access to that combo piece, and there is nothing an opponent can really do to stop that, so all my tutors can go towards searching for combo piece number 2.
Tell me about all those wonderful tuck cards in Black.
Anyway, there are still plenty of ways to answer commanders like Sigarda. For example, Ensnaring Bridge. Of course, those options are fragile and not reliable, but the entire point of the command zone rules is to make removing a commander less reliable.
Sure, my Lazav deck is buikt with the big guy in mind and is at its best when he is suited up, but if he isn't an option I don't just roll over and die. True-Name Nemesis, Invisible Stalker, Shafowmage Infiktrator, Dark Confidant, hell even Creeping Tar Pit all work just fine in his absence.
This change is a joke, a bad bad joke.
UBBreya's Toybox (Competitive, Combo)WR
RGodzilla, King of the MonstersG
-Retired Decks-
UBLazav, Dimir Mastermind (Competitive, UB Voltron/Control)UB
"Knowledge is such a burden. Release it. Release all your fears to me."
—Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver
Anything that removes her enchantments will deal fine with her. Mono red has some. Issues but still disk, obstone and perilous vault. Cmon guys.
Do any of you actually play Enchantress decks? They are extremely vulnerable to even simple spot enchantment removal.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
We're playing commander not 99 card singleton legacy after all.
My preference is to have my commander be a core piece of deck and focus on protecting and getting it back vs building decks that run fine without casting commander.
To say that is not a valid approach to playing commander is just stating your opinion, not some kind of absolute fact.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall