lol, ISB's post in the main forum made me think about the calls for a testing period for cards and the fact that this is a month and a half would give them good feedback about uncards, but if that was their plan then yeah they should have picked a different way to do it..unless they want to just use this as to why a public testing period wouldn't work.
Ditto. Thankfully, the duration they've set in advance has this ending on my birthday. You're welcome.
What a nice birthday present to yourself.
I also have a concern that since this is for a limited time only, people are going to go out of their way to do crazy things while they still can, whether or not their group has as much fun as the pilot does.
I also have a concern that since this is for a limited time only, people are going to go out of their way to do crazy things while they still can, whether or not their group has as much fun as the pilot does.
If true and people do decide to play cards that way, I think it will set a strong precedence for not allowing silver-bordered cards in the future.
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WUBRGMr. Bones' Wild RideGRBUW Trap your friends in an endless game with this 23-card combo!
I feel like this whole thing is like anything else in EDH: Some people (such as myself) just want to have some lighthearted fun playing cards like Booster Tutor and a lot of silly but overall not-completely-busted cards; then there's the people who are going to look to break the game in any way they can during this window and make it unfun for the majority of players. This idea in itself isn't bad - it's the handful of players that are going to abuse it. Like those same players do with our without Un-cards. I can't even begin to count how many people I've played who normally without silver bordered access are only concerned with how much fun they're having piloting a deck, even if it means sacrificing the rest of the table's experience. When it comes to this? It's going to be the same type of behavior as normal and I know who I will and won't be playing EDH with for the next month. Clue: It's the same people as I normaly would/wouldn't avoid.
As much as I generally agree with the RC's decisions and direction, this is one of the few cases I don't. The severity of my disagreement this time is greater than that of Iona's position in the format (basically the RC and I don't place the same severity distribution on the different factors that are taken into account for banning) but less than that of the old Rule 4, although that's due to the temporary nature of this new change (otherwise it'll be a lot more severe than the old Rule 4 imbalance).
Even with the temporary clause, I don't agree with the decision for many reasons that undoubtedly rose because all I have is that paragraph from the announcement (which means the RC can easily counter it if they told us the reasons behind the decision), but since I have to work with what I have at the moment - it's not going to be too good for me.
The main reason this decision is bad to me it's that it's almost on par on the level of creating a sub-EDH format that isn't Duel Commander (the only one that survived long). It's almost like as though the RC decided to scrap EDH and replace it with Tiny Leaders officially in some ways (not all obviously), but within this timeframe I would expect results that would almost be the same - an unpopular decision rejected by the masses eventually, although I do recognize the RC did effectively pre-empt that by making the change temporary. That doesn't change the similar factors in the response though.
It all stems to this - how many people have silver-bordered cards (and play EDH) - and not only that - how many playgroups have enough players with silver-bordered cards to accept this change without much internal strife? One can easily say that Unstable is coming out (and I won't deny because of the lack of information behind the decision, it does smell as a marketing tactic, but I refrain from making absolute statements on the matter for now), but the change includes two older sets that are not only out-of-print, but probably rarer than Coldsnap in the market. There's inherently an imbalance as a result but this one is ironically more serious than the typical cases in EDH (the usual "you don't need old cards/ABURDuals to play EDH effectively"), because the yardstick isn't power, but well, something even harder to quantify (I wanted to say "fun", but with all the weird things from Unglued and Unhinged combined, it's actually too huge a mess for me to bother classifying).
Bluntly put, even with Unstable in print, I suspect that most internal strife within playgroups will rise between people with old Un-cards and those who don't and as a result, majority of playgroups will "house-ban silver-bordered cards" (almost said "keep status quo", but the RC just changed it...), which becomes a more practical unpopular decision on the RC's end, rather than the typical more vocal ones we get (Banned as Commander and Tuck Rule...). Throw in that the change is temporary, it does add favor to "I'm not going to buy cards for a format lasting less than 2 months" and/or "I'm not going to revamp my decks for just 2 months", which in turns aids the "house-ban" side of the internal strife. As for groups without the internal strife - the same reasoning should make it an even easier battle to win.
The last factor I wanted to raise is that the RC does need to recognize that although Commander isn't the typical sanctioned format, plenty of major events have Commander side-events and this kind of change affects those to a very huge degree. Even if its temporary, it's still a major change and I can imagine plenty of players being confused about whether their GP side-event is silver-bordered legal or not, because the base status quo of the format is currently different and it would seem stupid to either get silver-bordered cards for an event that banned them or get into all sorts of weird situations because you entered a silver-bordered format without knowing it. Yes, I know clear communication helps for each event, but even in the time period of 1 month, I'm confident there's some players out there getting the wrong end of this stick.
So yeah, from my own projections and predictions this is going to a practically bad decision (in the sense it will really give the RC a negative image overall) rather than the typical vocal ones and maybe it's because I do somewhat care about the RC's image (it doesn't and isn't always shining good, but it's has always been a reasonable one), this particular decision just doesn't follow the typical RC logic that I'm used to.
As we expected, there's been a lot of strong reactions, both positive and negative, to the Un-Celebration. Thanks to all of you who have kept the discourse civilized. We think it'll be a fun six weeks.
However, we've decided that we need to ban an additional card. Nerf War isn't problematic mechanically, and we figured that we didn't need to tell people that they were responsible for making sure not to damage other people's cards. However, we're seeing a lot of people planning a shock and awe approach to try and force a concession, and that's very much missing the spirit of the format. It's also a bit problematic encouraging people to run around game stores and conventions with gun-like objects, and so we feel that Nerf War needs to be removed.
Let's be clear on this: if you are looking for ways to damage an opponent's cards, either out of spite or a desire to get them to concede, we encourage your playgroup, local game store or other organizer to take appropriate action to prevent this.
While we have your attention, we want to clear up a few other pieces of speculation.
* At no point did Wizards ask us to do this. When we told them the plan, they were supportive, but, as normal, they left us to our own devices.
* This is not a test or trial period. It's a chance to do something a little different for a few weeks, and then we'll go back to the usual Commander rules. The only consequence after then for the foreseeable future is that a few playgroups may have discovered some cards they enjoy playing with.
* We have no interest in jeopardizing our various positions in the Magic community for a small short-term profit and have made no effort to buy and sell silver-bordered cards to do so. Full disclosure: I picked up a Hascon promo set when they became available.
Saw this and thought it was interesting as I had never given the fact that commander doesn't have sideboards much thought. At the very least, it seems like a good thought exercise about.
After reading this, I think there are more pros and cons to adding sideboards than what the author writes about. Anyway, thought this might generate some good discussion here, and wanted to hear others' opinions here. Also, if any RC members see this, I'd be interested to hear their reasoning for their stance.
Edit: Here's my current 2 cents...
I like the idea of being able to "adjust" a deck to be more or less competitive based on the current playgroup instead of having to grab a different deck. Changing up to 15 cards from a deck before the game would make this fairly simple to achieve with minor planning, and if this were to become an official rule (allowing sideboards and before game side-boarding) I can see true merit to this.
Also, being able to get rid of Rule 13, and allowing wishes sounds pretty cool to me...
Didn't commander have a 10-card sideboard back in the day? What happened to that?
I'm open to the idea of sideboards (or heck just wishboards so that cards legal to play the format actually function instead of having their text blanked by a special rule.)
One con that is not mentioned is that adding sideboarding to the pregame increases the amount of time it takes to get into a game, additionally when your searching for a single card in a commander deck, it takes much longer to find 1 of the 99 then when you sideboard in standard and you just pull our one of this 4of and 2 of this 4of. However, I do beleive that commander games are supposed to be long, so adding a relativly small amount of time to the pregame to ensure that your better protected from getting blown out is a a good idea.
I'm not a big believer in that players will ever use their sideboards as a way to power down their deck to make it a fair fight when someone sits down with new tribal spiders deck. I'd be very hard for me to beleive that someone would actually side out their degenerate combo pieces (or value pieces like Rift and Card Sphinx) for the sake of fairness. But I do think the other players will be able to side in cards that throw a wrench into those combo pieces. Which looks like it would be a way to improve the relative evenenss of the games, so that one strong deck or strategy doesn't win too much.
The idea of sideboards reaises and interesting hypothetical question in terms of banlist discussion. Are there cards that are currently banned now or will be banned in the future that would not have to be if sideboards existed? I think most of the more recent bannings would still be banned with sideboards legal, but PoK may have been able to dodge the hammer with players able to side in more instant speed removal.
Sideboards for EDH are in an awkward spot. In theory it's a cool idea but realistically people are just going to side in brutally punishing hoser cards. There are too many Boil/Flashfires/Acid Rain variants for me to think having a sideboard would lead to anything good.
Didn't commander have a 10-card sideboard back in the day? What happened to that?
The Commander website used to have a section on "House Rules" that would cover things like alternate win conditions, league play, different muliigans groups used, etc. One of the things mentioned there was a sideboard option.
People who wanted to force their playgroup into accepting their use of a sideboard would cite that as an "official" Commander rule. That was never the intent, so we removed the page and set up a house-rule thread on the community forum instead.
Sideboards for EDH are in an awkward spot. In theory it's a cool idea but realistically people are just going to side in brutally punishing hoser cards. There are too many Boil/Flashfires/Acid Rain variants for me to think having a sideboard would lead to anything good.
Those cards have a chance of ending up in sideboards on day 1, but you don't see them in maindecks now not because they are narrow, but because they are incredibly bad in commander.
In this format, decks are often multicolor which limits the power of old hosers, which only hurt a single color or land type. Even if you do play against a mono color deck that you can Flashfires, they don't play 37 Plains, it's a mix of about half non-basic, half basic lands, meaning that even your hoser wont completely wipe them out. You're also playing ve three opponents and it's likely going to do nothing or next to nothing vs the other two players.
Even if players did slot in hosers on day 1, I believe they'd quickly learn how bad the cards are and no longer play them.
Those cards have a chance of ending up in sideboards on day 1, but you don't see them in maindecks now not because they are narrow, but because they are incredibly bad in commander.
In this format, decks are often multicolor which limits the power of old hosers, which only hurt a single color or land type. Even if you do play against a mono color deck that you can Flashfires, they don't play 37 Plains, it's a mix of about half non-basic, half basic lands, meaning that even your hoser wont completely wipe them out. You're also playing ve three opponents and it's likely going to do nothing or next to nothing vs the other two players.
Even if players did slot in hosers on day 1, I believe they'd quickly learn how bad the cards are and no longer play them.
They're really that bad. Acid Rain might as well say "destroy target Omnath, Locus of Mana player." I've scooped to Wave of Vitriol before when I was playing a 4-color general. Any mono-blue general is just dead to a resolved Choke. Lifeforce/Deathgrip are just obnoxious. Seeing Rest in Peace when you're playing any graveyard deck. There are so many cards that don't make the 99 because they're too narrow, but if I knew my hosers were going to hit 100% of the time, I would absolutely side them in the first chance I got.
To me, having only hoser cards in sideboards is obviously against the spirit of the format, and the people who will actually do this consistently are already doing their best to ruin everyone's fun...
Is it actually believable that allowing for sideboarding would create more worse games than better ones?
Is it actually believable that allowing for sideboarding would create more worse games than better ones?
I do think game quality going up or down would very much depend on who you ask. I'd imagine players who play certain types of decks that depend heavily on something not getting disrupted or removed would view sideboards as a net negative, while decks that don't depend heavily on any one thing or use extremely obscure things that are not likely to have many if any sideboard cards targeted at them will view it as a positive.
To use examples from my own meta: decks like Breya artifact combo and Oloro enchantments are likely losers here because players can side in more removal for the card type they focus on stacking. The same goes for graveyard decks like Tasigir and Chainer. The decks that might see an improvement would be mono-U Empress Galina being able to side out its Bribery and clones vs control decks for more answers. The deck that would likely be uneffected is a Maelstrom Wanderer deck that likes to cascade into time magic, due to the answers to time magic being very few and only good against that single deck.
Is it actually believable that allowing for sideboarding would create more worse games than better ones?
Yes. Exactly what kind of cards would you play in your sideboard? If they're 'fair', generically good answer cards like Swords to Plowshares/Vindicate/Nevinyrral's Disk etc. why aren't they already in your deck to begin with? It turns out when you have 15 slots in which to cram the most impactful cards you can in certain match-ups, you're going to end up with a lot of targeted hate and cards that aren't fun to play against.
Obviously, the choice of what cards to include in the sideboard would differ between players. Some will absolutely prefer more spikey options.
Kajarak32, Impossible; How about the three of us all do an experiment? Take one of your decks and make a 15 card sideboard for it, it may also be useful to explain why you chose the cards you did.
Kajarak32, Impossible; How about the three of us all do an experiment? Take one of your decks and make a 15 card sideboard for it, it may also be useful to explain why you chose the cards you did.
I have been playing my Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis deck the most recently so that's the one I'll build a sideboard for. Here's a quick list off the top of my head:
I built this list under the assumption that a legal sideboard doubles as a wishboard, so I would obviously also add Burning, Cunning, and Living wishes to the main deck, hence why I broke the list up by types to show what each can grab. Here's a quick breakdown of the cards and why I chose them:
Gaddock Teeg - I'd been thinking about adding Teeg to the deck proper for awhile now, but I never wanted to rework the deck to make sure my own stuff didn't get hit by it. Siding it in while simultaneously taking out cards that would be dead under Teeg makes it more appealing as long as I think it'll hurt an opponent more than me.
Cataclysm - Keeping either Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis or Marit Lage [as an aside, is there a way to link to a token?] and knocking everyone down to one land seems like a good way to lock up a game.
Obliterate - Marit Lage is indestructible and a 20/20 on an empty board ends the game pretty quickly.
Wildfire - Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis looks like a group-hug deck but it's secretly pretty mean. Getting an extra card AND an extra land-drop every turn while my opponents only get one of the two mean these "sacrifice X lands" effects are much more advantageous for me than my opponents.
Boil - Obviously for mono-U or maybe U/x. Also an instant compared to Tsunami so it can be Cunning Wished.
Aethersnatch - Having an extra counterspell to Wish for in case of emergency is always handy. Especially a counterspell that just takes their spell and makes it mine.
Chaos Warp - Wish target that can take care of any permanent, should the need arise.
Smokestack - Filler sideboard card that could potentially come in against slower decks that don't commit a ton of resources to the board.
This is obviously just a quick list. I'd need to do some deep thinking and actual testing to work out what I need the most, but this is a pretty good starting point.
Here is my attempt at a board for my monored control Jaya Ballard, Task Mage deck. I also assumed that Burning Wish would be a good inclusion in the maindeck, giving me access to the 2nd ever red tutor.
Shard Phoenix - Card I just recently cut from the deck. It's great vs weenie armies. Would love to board him into decks that flood the board with tokens.
Past in Flames - Card I used to have in the main also. The deck plays only a few instant and sorceries, but if my GY happens to have a couple of them in it, this makes for a perfect wish target to get another removal spell and a wheel.
Aftershock - Good general purpose removal spell. Used to play it main, seems like an allright wish target.
Shattering Spree - I already play 3 mass artifact kill (or steal) spells in the main, but some decks just play too many artifacts and you need to blow up their ramp or equipment.
Molten Disaster - I used to maindeck during the days when PoK was legal, due to being very easy for players to blink and protect it. I'd probably only wish for it in a tricky siuation, but it'd be bonkers in that moment.
Incite Rebellion - More anti-swarm and anti-tokens. Maybe going a bit overkill on this theme. This would be the first card I change I'd imagine.
Insurrection - Fantastic card, but the board has to be just right for it to work. I'd probably only wish for it and only when massive armies have built up at the table.
Shunt - I did consider Red Elemental Blast for this spot, but I think Shunts ability to swerve any spell would be more useful against the majority of decks. I'd probably bring it in vs mainly white and black decks, due to them having good single target removal.
Wild Ricochet - Same as above. Maybe I don't need two of these effects. Only way to find out is by playtesting.
Grafdigger's Cage - Been a fan of this card forever. Could never justify it maindeck over Tormod's Crypt, will be a much apprecited piece of GY hate vs heavy GY decks.
Crawlspace - Another anti-swarm card. Also under consideration for this spot was Silent Arbiter and Caverns of Despair, but crawlspace is the cheapest and the least likely to draw ire and thereby live the longest.
Meekstone - Fantastic anti-Voltron card. It does allright against fatties too, but since my deck is monored it really struggles to kill off a single large creaute that makes it to 10/10 because of auras or equipment. It used to be in my maindeck and may make it there again if fatties continue to grow in power.
Homeward Path - Homeward path is actually in my 99 currently, but if sideboards were implemented I'd move it here. You're not going to get your creatures stolen outside of blue decks or the occasional black reanimater deck. I'd move Arcane Lighthouse to the main in it's place.
Mouth of Ronom- Great land, but somewhat limited. It's very useful against decks like Teferi+Pool, I'm a bit concerned that it's not worth running against decks that have larger the x/4 generals. I imagine that I'd try it here and may move it to the maindeck again if it seems to be coming in often.
We tried sideboards in our meta a year or two ago. It just ended up being a bunch of narrow hosers to crush our metagame decks. It would up ending scrapped after a week or two. We occasionally uses Wishes for kicks, but rarely.
The UN-nouncement has not really affected us. We've already had one player that threw a silver-bordered card or two (Goblin Tutor or Common Courtesy, usually) in our decks and we just shrugged and went with it. We're super self-policing (with abundant grumbling at the RC just for fun!) and our grou's been together for over 5+ years, if not longer. It's fun!
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The "Crazy One", playing casual magic and occasionally dipping his toes into regular play since 1994.
Currently focusing on Pre-Modern (Mono-Black Discard Control) and Modern (Azorious Control, Temur Rhinos).
Find me at the Wizard's Tower in Ottawa every second Saturday afternoons.
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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
All I'm saying, is that if they wanted to enable silly games, then they should unban Recurring Nightmars.
Misc. EDH Stuff: Commander Cube | Zombies (Horde)
Resources:Commander Rulings FAQ | Commander Deckbuilding Guide
Follow me on Twitter! @cryogen_mtg
Misc. EDH Stuff: Commander Cube | Zombies (Horde)
Resources:Commander Rulings FAQ | Commander Deckbuilding Guide
Follow me on Twitter! @cryogen_mtg
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
(Image by totallynotabrony)
What a nice birthday present to yourself.
I also have a concern that since this is for a limited time only, people are going to go out of their way to do crazy things while they still can, whether or not their group has as much fun as the pilot does.
Misc. EDH Stuff: Commander Cube | Zombies (Horde)
Resources:Commander Rulings FAQ | Commander Deckbuilding Guide
Follow me on Twitter! @cryogen_mtg
Trap your friends in an endless game with this 23-card combo!
(Also known as Xenphire)
Even with the temporary clause, I don't agree with the decision for many reasons that undoubtedly rose because all I have is that paragraph from the announcement (which means the RC can easily counter it if they told us the reasons behind the decision), but since I have to work with what I have at the moment - it's not going to be too good for me.
The main reason this decision is bad to me it's that it's almost on par on the level of creating a sub-EDH format that isn't Duel Commander (the only one that survived long). It's almost like as though the RC decided to scrap EDH and replace it with Tiny Leaders officially in some ways (not all obviously), but within this timeframe I would expect results that would almost be the same - an unpopular decision rejected by the masses eventually, although I do recognize the RC did effectively pre-empt that by making the change temporary. That doesn't change the similar factors in the response though.
It all stems to this - how many people have silver-bordered cards (and play EDH) - and not only that - how many playgroups have enough players with silver-bordered cards to accept this change without much internal strife? One can easily say that Unstable is coming out (and I won't deny because of the lack of information behind the decision, it does smell as a marketing tactic, but I refrain from making absolute statements on the matter for now), but the change includes two older sets that are not only out-of-print, but probably rarer than Coldsnap in the market. There's inherently an imbalance as a result but this one is ironically more serious than the typical cases in EDH (the usual "you don't need old cards/ABURDuals to play EDH effectively"), because the yardstick isn't power, but well, something even harder to quantify (I wanted to say "fun", but with all the weird things from Unglued and Unhinged combined, it's actually too huge a mess for me to bother classifying).
Bluntly put, even with Unstable in print, I suspect that most internal strife within playgroups will rise between people with old Un-cards and those who don't and as a result, majority of playgroups will "house-ban silver-bordered cards" (almost said "keep status quo", but the RC just changed it...), which becomes a more practical unpopular decision on the RC's end, rather than the typical more vocal ones we get (Banned as Commander and Tuck Rule...). Throw in that the change is temporary, it does add favor to "I'm not going to buy cards for a format lasting less than 2 months" and/or "I'm not going to revamp my decks for just 2 months", which in turns aids the "house-ban" side of the internal strife. As for groups without the internal strife - the same reasoning should make it an even easier battle to win.
The last factor I wanted to raise is that the RC does need to recognize that although Commander isn't the typical sanctioned format, plenty of major events have Commander side-events and this kind of change affects those to a very huge degree. Even if its temporary, it's still a major change and I can imagine plenty of players being confused about whether their GP side-event is silver-bordered legal or not, because the base status quo of the format is currently different and it would seem stupid to either get silver-bordered cards for an event that banned them or get into all sorts of weird situations because you entered a silver-bordered format without knowing it. Yes, I know clear communication helps for each event, but even in the time period of 1 month, I'm confident there's some players out there getting the wrong end of this stick.
So yeah, from my own projections and predictions this is going to a practically bad decision (in the sense it will really give the RC a negative image overall) rather than the typical vocal ones and maybe it's because I do somewhat care about the RC's image (it doesn't and isn't always shining good, but it's has always been a reasonable one), this particular decision just doesn't follow the typical RC logic that I'm used to.
Misc. EDH Stuff: Commander Cube | Zombies (Horde)
Resources:Commander Rulings FAQ | Commander Deckbuilding Guide
Follow me on Twitter! @cryogen_mtg
Saw this and thought it was interesting as I had never given the fact that commander doesn't have sideboards much thought. At the very least, it seems like a good thought exercise about.
After reading this, I think there are more pros and cons to adding sideboards than what the author writes about. Anyway, thought this might generate some good discussion here, and wanted to hear others' opinions here. Also, if any RC members see this, I'd be interested to hear their reasoning for their stance.
Edit: Here's my current 2 cents...
I like the idea of being able to "adjust" a deck to be more or less competitive based on the current playgroup instead of having to grab a different deck. Changing up to 15 cards from a deck before the game would make this fairly simple to achieve with minor planning, and if this were to become an official rule (allowing sideboards and before game side-boarding) I can see true merit to this.
Also, being able to get rid of Rule 13, and allowing wishes sounds pretty cool to me...
I'm open to the idea of sideboards (or heck just wishboards so that cards legal to play the format actually function instead of having their text blanked by a special rule.)
One con that is not mentioned is that adding sideboarding to the pregame increases the amount of time it takes to get into a game, additionally when your searching for a single card in a commander deck, it takes much longer to find 1 of the 99 then when you sideboard in standard and you just pull our one of this 4of and 2 of this 4of. However, I do beleive that commander games are supposed to be long, so adding a relativly small amount of time to the pregame to ensure that your better protected from getting blown out is a a good idea.
I'm not a big believer in that players will ever use their sideboards as a way to power down their deck to make it a fair fight when someone sits down with new tribal spiders deck. I'd be very hard for me to beleive that someone would actually side out their degenerate combo pieces (or value pieces like Rift and Card Sphinx) for the sake of fairness. But I do think the other players will be able to side in cards that throw a wrench into those combo pieces. Which looks like it would be a way to improve the relative evenenss of the games, so that one strong deck or strategy doesn't win too much.
The idea of sideboards reaises and interesting hypothetical question in terms of banlist discussion. Are there cards that are currently banned now or will be banned in the future that would not have to be if sideboards existed? I think most of the more recent bannings would still be banned with sideboards legal, but PoK may have been able to dodge the hammer with players able to side in more instant speed removal.
The Commander website used to have a section on "House Rules" that would cover things like alternate win conditions, league play, different muliigans groups used, etc. One of the things mentioned there was a sideboard option.
People who wanted to force their playgroup into accepting their use of a sideboard would cite that as an "official" Commander rule. That was never the intent, so we removed the page and set up a house-rule thread on the community forum instead.
Those cards have a chance of ending up in sideboards on day 1, but you don't see them in maindecks now not because they are narrow, but because they are incredibly bad in commander.
In this format, decks are often multicolor which limits the power of old hosers, which only hurt a single color or land type. Even if you do play against a mono color deck that you can Flashfires, they don't play 37 Plains, it's a mix of about half non-basic, half basic lands, meaning that even your hoser wont completely wipe them out. You're also playing ve three opponents and it's likely going to do nothing or next to nothing vs the other two players.
Even if players did slot in hosers on day 1, I believe they'd quickly learn how bad the cards are and no longer play them.
Is it actually believable that allowing for sideboarding would create more worse games than better ones?
I do think game quality going up or down would very much depend on who you ask. I'd imagine players who play certain types of decks that depend heavily on something not getting disrupted or removed would view sideboards as a net negative, while decks that don't depend heavily on any one thing or use extremely obscure things that are not likely to have many if any sideboard cards targeted at them will view it as a positive.
To use examples from my own meta: decks like Breya artifact combo and Oloro enchantments are likely losers here because players can side in more removal for the card type they focus on stacking. The same goes for graveyard decks like Tasigir and Chainer. The decks that might see an improvement would be mono-U Empress Galina being able to side out its Bribery and clones vs control decks for more answers. The deck that would likely be uneffected is a Maelstrom Wanderer deck that likes to cascade into time magic, due to the answers to time magic being very few and only good against that single deck.
Kajarak32, Impossible; How about the three of us all do an experiment? Take one of your decks and make a 15 card sideboard for it, it may also be useful to explain why you chose the cards you did.
1 Vesuva
Creatures
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Tocatli Honor Guard
Sorceries
1 Acid Rain
1 Tsunami
1 Flashfires
1 Cataclysm
1 Obliterate
1 Wildfire
1 Destructive Force
1 Boil
1 Aethersnatch
1 Chaos Warp
Enchantments
1 Rest in Peace
Artifacts
1 Smokestack
Gaddock Teeg - I'd been thinking about adding Teeg to the deck proper for awhile now, but I never wanted to rework the deck to make sure my own stuff didn't get hit by it. Siding it in while simultaneously taking out cards that would be dead under Teeg makes it more appealing as long as I think it'll hurt an opponent more than me.
Tocatli Honor Guard - Sometimes one Torpor Orb just isn't enough. Should maybe be Hushwing Gryff but whatever.
Acid Rain - Obviously for mono-G or maybe G/x
Tsunami - Obviously for mono-U or maybe U/x
Flashfires - Obviously for mono-W or maybe W/x
Cataclysm - Keeping either Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis or Marit Lage [as an aside, is there a way to link to a token?] and knocking everyone down to one land seems like a good way to lock up a game.
Obliterate - Marit Lage is indestructible and a 20/20 on an empty board ends the game pretty quickly.
Wildfire - Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis looks like a group-hug deck but it's secretly pretty mean. Getting an extra card AND an extra land-drop every turn while my opponents only get one of the two mean these "sacrifice X lands" effects are much more advantageous for me than my opponents.
Destructive Force - Same as Wildfire
Boil - Obviously for mono-U or maybe U/x. Also an instant compared to Tsunami so it can be Cunning Wished.
Aethersnatch - Having an extra counterspell to Wish for in case of emergency is always handy. Especially a counterspell that just takes their spell and makes it mine.
Chaos Warp - Wish target that can take care of any permanent, should the need arise.
Rest in Peace - Graveyard hate that I'll honestly probably never bring in because I use my graveyard more than most people (Crucible of Worlds,
Life from the Loam, etc.) but could possibly be used against some obvious linear graveyard decks like Meren of Clan Nel Toth.
Smokestack - Filler sideboard card that could potentially come in against slower decks that don't commit a ton of resources to the board.
Creature
Shard Phoenix
Sorcery
Past in Flames
Aftershock
Shattering Spree
Molten Disaster
Incite Rebellion
Insurrection
Instant
Into the Core
Shunt
Wild Ricochet
Artifact
Grafdigger's Cage
Crawlspace
Meekstone
Land
Homeward Path
Mouth of Ronom
Shard Phoenix - Card I just recently cut from the deck. It's great vs weenie armies. Would love to board him into decks that flood the board with tokens.
Past in Flames - Card I used to have in the main also. The deck plays only a few instant and sorceries, but if my GY happens to have a couple of them in it, this makes for a perfect wish target to get another removal spell and a wheel.
Aftershock - Good general purpose removal spell. Used to play it main, seems like an allright wish target.
Shattering Spree - I already play 3 mass artifact kill (or steal) spells in the main, but some decks just play too many artifacts and you need to blow up their ramp or equipment.
Molten Disaster - I used to maindeck during the days when PoK was legal, due to being very easy for players to blink and protect it. I'd probably only wish for it in a tricky siuation, but it'd be bonkers in that moment.
Incite Rebellion - More anti-swarm and anti-tokens. Maybe going a bit overkill on this theme. This would be the first card I change I'd imagine.
Insurrection - Fantastic card, but the board has to be just right for it to work. I'd probably only wish for it and only when massive armies have built up at the table.
Into the Core - More artifact removal. This one happens to exile instead of destroy. A must against Darksteel Forge and Darksteel Plate.
Shunt - I did consider Red Elemental Blast for this spot, but I think Shunts ability to swerve any spell would be more useful against the majority of decks. I'd probably bring it in vs mainly white and black decks, due to them having good single target removal.
Wild Ricochet - Same as above. Maybe I don't need two of these effects. Only way to find out is by playtesting.
Grafdigger's Cage - Been a fan of this card forever. Could never justify it maindeck over Tormod's Crypt, will be a much apprecited piece of GY hate vs heavy GY decks.
Crawlspace - Another anti-swarm card. Also under consideration for this spot was Silent Arbiter and Caverns of Despair, but crawlspace is the cheapest and the least likely to draw ire and thereby live the longest.
Meekstone - Fantastic anti-Voltron card. It does allright against fatties too, but since my deck is monored it really struggles to kill off a single large creaute that makes it to 10/10 because of auras or equipment. It used to be in my maindeck and may make it there again if fatties continue to grow in power.
Homeward Path - Homeward path is actually in my 99 currently, but if sideboards were implemented I'd move it here. You're not going to get your creatures stolen outside of blue decks or the occasional black reanimater deck. I'd move Arcane Lighthouse to the main in it's place.
Mouth of Ronom- Great land, but somewhat limited. It's very useful against decks like Teferi+Pool, I'm a bit concerned that it's not worth running against decks that have larger the x/4 generals. I imagine that I'd try it here and may move it to the maindeck again if it seems to be coming in often.
The UN-nouncement has not really affected us. We've already had one player that threw a silver-bordered card or two (Goblin Tutor or Common Courtesy, usually) in our decks and we just shrugged and went with it. We're super self-policing (with abundant grumbling at the RC just for fun!) and our grou's been together for over 5+ years, if not longer. It's fun!
Currently focusing on Pre-Modern (Mono-Black Discard Control) and Modern (Azorious Control, Temur Rhinos).
Find me at the Wizard's Tower in Ottawa every second Saturday afternoons.