I'm not sure if you're being disingenuous or not to try to score internet points, because it sure seems like that you're giving cursory reading and trying to imply contradiction where there is none, vs. engaging with the entire argument. But I'll humor you I guess.
less inclined to play artifact or enchantment themed decks != disincentivize playing artifacts and enchantments
Decks will still play the most powerful artifacts and enchantments, obviously, and people will still *have* artifact and enchantment themed decks.
The concern is more that there will be a higher ratio of nongames or people being forced to shelve commanders because they can't play a fun game with PW Commander X. Not that dack fayden being legal will single handedly drive artifact decks out of the meta.
Not everything is 0 or 1 man; life is not black and white, etc. Some things have a great deal of nuance, and trying to achieve a fun Magic format is definitely one of those things.
I'm not, those positions appear to be at odds with each other. If the concern is that PWs can act like an Aura Shards from the Command Zone, it stands to reason people would respond by dropping all but the most essential artifacts/enchantments. I see now you're making a distinction specifically for theme decks, but that's kind of just the risk you take when you run an artifact or enchantment based deck. Sometimes your Breya, Etherium Shaper decks runs right into a Vandalblast. It's just something you have to accept when you choose to run a deck like that, and try to build in some ways to recover. I don't see the argument that PWs are going to cause more problems than usual.
In my opinion, the strongest argument for keeping PWs out of the Command Zone is simply the precedent. The rule is generals are legendary creatures, and there's no reason to change it. And I would have been on board with that a few years ago. But then WotC went and printed PW generals, and changed all PW's to legendary. The precedent line is a lot blurrier than it used to be, and it's increasingly hard to justify allowing some PWs but not others. Just imagine some new player opening a cool new PW like Teferi, Hero of Dominaria and trying to build an EDH deck around him because that player has seen others with PW generals, only to be told they can't. It's kind of silly.
How is that any more silly than some new player buying some Kaladesh or Amonkhet packs, getting a really cool Masterwork or Invocation card and finding out you can't play that card in Standard?
Formats have rules. One of the rules of this format is that unless otherwise specified, commanders have to be legendary creatures. There are exceptions, but exceptions need not be generalized. The planeswalkers who can be generals don't negate the basic rules of the format any more than the existence of things like Relentless Rats negates the general singleton nature of the format.
The risk of running into a vandalblast potentially vs. having Dack steal your best artifacts over and over again until you kill that player is somewhat different. You can look at their general and see what's going to happen which is a different thing than having to play around vandalblast or bane of progress (being used once or twice, generally) because of their color profile.
But yes, I think the theme decks are especially vulnerable to being shoved out of games or having nongames because a higher portion of their decks will be things like that.
I haven't really thought about it deeply but I suspect you would find similar types of games with Daretti IC, Nahiri and even Ajani Unyielding repeatedly machine gunning creatures, or Tezzeret representing torpor orb, cursed totem and pithing needle in the CZ.
Again, I don't think any of that necessarily disqualifies PWs but it's something that concerns me a little -- particularly with some experience with weirdly lopsided matchups and how that can affect playgroups and metas.
I think there is nothing wrong in allowing them. There are the worst card type. Basically every color can do something against them in form of creatures. Black and red can destroy/damage them directly via spells, blue has the most flyer and can bounce them. White has card that can exile them and has some wrath effects and green is the best color for creature so yeah. There are a some hate artifacts, too. More than enough answers, if they get out of hand.
Boros would be the winner. Nahiri and Ajani would be great control commander option. Nahiri provides some card selection, too.
The latest planeswalker cards are already designed with Brawl in mind.
More commander to brew with. Is never a bad think.
There are flavorful as commander and the pillar of every modern magic story.
Some of the older Planeswalker may be to strong. Karn and Sorin comes in mind. But the other are all fine.
Speaking of Brawl, it's pretty much dead, isn't it? Seems like having the option of planeswalkers in the command zone wasn't even popular enough in a format designed to allow for it to make that format a success, which suggests maybe Commander is fine without making that change.
Bad matchups exist already and will continue to exist. It doesn't really make sense to use that as an excuse to deny hundreds of new generals.
They are heavily mitigated by the multiplayer nature of the format, if someone is spending their mana on a planeswalker and using their removal ability to kill a single target, they aren't really advancing their gameplan.
Speaking of Brawl, it's pretty much dead, isn't it? Seems like having the option of planeswalkers in the command zone wasn't even popular enough in a format designed to allow for it to make that format a success, which suggests maybe Commander is fine without making that change.
I just wasn't interested in using a Standard cardpool.
It's one of maybe a five or so significant potential issues people have brought up, whereas the counterargument is "Variety GOOD" - with the only real subpoint being "People like walkers!" and "Card advantage in color combinations that struggle with it."
So the "pro" side is not really making powerful arguments, so much as trying to poke holes in the pile of valid concerns people have raised one at a time and then say "well, even if it is a problem that alone isn't big enough!" while ignoring the other things considered.
All in all, despite me voting yes, I feel like the pro arguments are kind of pathetic
They mostly boil down to "we want it, it's not going to impact CEDH, so do it, p.s. your concerns are all dumb."
(For reference the things I have heard as negatives)
* Increase of bad matchups especially for ench/artifact theme decks
* Increased removal tax for decks needing to answer both planeswalkers and creatures from the command zone
* Potential collateral damage of unbannable cards like DS, Contagion Engine, Inexorable tide, deepglow skate, etc. if they achieve casual omnipresence
* Potential collateral damage for powerful walkers having to be banned due to no BAAC list (e.g. Tezzeret, Dack)
* Some people really just do not like walkers
* Potential for slowing the game down as people gear up to keep creatures from attacking their walkers
* Precedent of legendary creatures being the primary focus of commander
* Potential for unpredictable financial effects
Not sure if I missed any but that's all I remember. I don't think all of them are necessarily good but the ways they have been answered are very flip in my opinion (e.g. simple statements like "Bad matchups already exist")
Speaking of Brawl, it's pretty much dead, isn't it? Seems like having the option of planeswalkers in the command zone wasn't even popular enough in a format designed to allow for it to make that format a success, which suggests maybe Commander is fine without making that change.
I just wasn't interested in using a Standard cardpool.
I got into EDH after my first Standard rotation and discovering I had nobody to play Legacy against.
* Increase of bad matchups especially for ench/artifact theme decks
* Increased removal tax for decks needing to answer both planeswalkers and creatures from the command zone
* Potential collateral damage of unbannable cards like DS, Contagion Engine, Inexorable tide, deepglow skate, etc. if they achieve casual omnipresence
* Potential collateral damage for powerful walkers having to be banned due to no BAAC list (e.g. Tezzeret, Dack)
* Some people really just do not like walkers
* Potential for slowing the game down as people gear up to keep creatures from attacking their walkers
* Precedent of legendary creatures being the primary focus of commander
* Potential for unpredictable financial effects
1: There are I think 6 planeswalkers out of about 140 that destroy artifacts and enchantments. This argument is absolutely silly. Magic evolves constantly, things that were once good are obsoleted all the time.
2: Planeswalkers are not even good enough to warrant many dedicated removal slots. They provide small utility effects for large mana costs, and require board control to generate much value. Maintaining board control in multiplayer is exceptionally hard. On top of that, we already added the theros gods and I don't seen anyone complaining about the indestructible enchantments you can run as your general, that usually have effects almost on par with many planeswalker ultimate emblems.
3: They will never achieve casual omnipresence because planeswalkers are not the only general types. Most generals(and colors) already have a substantial list of "must run" cards, planeswalkers will be no different.
4: I don't believe any current planeswalkers are particularly egregious aside from maybe tamio with doubling season, but banning a small handful of commanders to make dozens more legal is a no-brainer decision for increasing the card pool.
5: This is not a valid argument.
6: Slower, grindier games are what edh was all about. That's what the higher life total and less consistent decks help with.
7: You should be really mad at theros gods then if legendary creatures are the important part of edh.
8: Price shifts happen all the time. EDH has caused hundreds of cards to change radically in value already.
1: There are I think 6 planeswalkers out of about 140 that destroy artifacts and enchantments. This argument is absolutely silly. Magic evolves constantly, things that were once good are obsoleted all the time.
2: Planeswalkers are not even good enough to warrant many dedicated removal slots. They provide small utility effects for large mana costs, and require board control to generate much value. Maintaining board control in multiplayer is exceptionally hard. On top of that, we already added the theros gods and I don't seen anyone complaining about the indestructible enchantments you can run as your general, that usually have effects almost on par with many planeswalker ultimate emblems.
3: They will never achieve casual omnipresence because planeswalkers are not the only general types. Most generals(and colors) already have a substantial list of "must run" cards, planeswalkers will be no different.
4: I don't believe any current planeswalkers are particularly egregious aside from maybe tamio with doubling season, but banning a small handful of commanders to make dozens more legal is a no-brainer decision for increasing the card pool.
5: This is not a valid argument.
6: Slower, grindier games are what edh was all about. That's what the higher life total and less consistent decks help with.
7: You should be really mad at theros gods then if legendary creatures are the important part of edh.
8: Price shifts happen all the time. EDH has caused hundreds of cards to change radically in value already.
1. Saying stuff like "this argument is silly, magic evolves constantly, things that were once good are obsoleted" is pretty much a nonstatement. 6/140 is just a meaningless contextless number. How many are actually playable, and what decks would people play? Nobody knows for sure.
But Dack Fayden is immensely popular and would see tons of play. So what the heck does 6/140 have to do with that? If a huge number of people play Dack, for example, artifact strategies will run into more nongames than before.
2. Reasonable points! I don't think Theros gods are the perfect comparison but they are one I had thought of. Their abilities are not as broad or repeatable for the most part.
All I can say is my experience with multiple walker decks at a table has taxed the ability of removal to keep them in check--often they'll drop an effect o a good blocker, or have a couple sweepers in succession, and the only way to get rid of them is to remove them -- which is not as easy as creatures.
The Theros Gods just play a bit differently in my experience. But YMMV.
3. "They will never" is a statement I think you need to substantiate better - the difference between generals and walkers is that there is a large pool of cards that they share, whereas there are much fewer generals that share various staples (ex. How many generals play Reality Acid? Just Brago pretty much.).
Suppose there were 30 or 40 commanders that all wanted to run parallel lives, primal vigor and anointed procession (instead of maybe 5 or 6) - do you think that may change perspectives?
4. Ok, well there was quite the discussion on this previously and at least a few are fairly beefcake with DS, and lots of them would play it. Tamiyo largely irrelevant because she can't play it as commander.
5. How is "we like planeswalkers" any more a valid argument than "lots of people do not like planeswalkers." The EDH rules committee definitely takes into account preferences of the broader community.
6. Ok, says you? Are you sure games couldn't get pushed to being too long on the average by a high population of walkers? I'm not. I'm not sure either way but I think it's something to think about. But I am super glad you are so sure it won't be a problem as to not even want to consider it. Because the type of game you want is what everyone wants?
7. I wrote the Ephara Primer, I don't care. Their abilities are narrower than walkers.
8. I guess, but it's something to think about. It'd be much bigger than a single new commander being printed, and there could easily be a huge mess if say, CFB got word of it early and raised the price on all their PW staples.
You're making a lot of grand sweeping statements like "they will never" and "that's just silly" and "no brainer" and whatever that makes me extra leery of your point of view. You seem to basically be sure, and unwilling to admit anything could potentially be a concern. That type of attitude makes me think you're probably on the wrong side of the issue and trying to "win" vs. trying to come to the right conclusion.
Dack counterpoint that actually considers the point of view instead of saying "that's silly" --
Dack Fayden is a very powerful walker in EDH that sees a good amount of play already, and would surely be a popular commander (given his powerful and popular color combo). Dack would initially likely pose a tough challenge to artifact themed decks, but artifact decks are uniquely positioned to combat planeswalkers and Dack in particular.
There are many effects that shut walkers off in mono brown:
Just to name a few. Further, Dack's color combination will struggle to deal with these cards as while red has a good deal of artifact removal, artifact decks already have to contend with this and are designed to deal with it.
The deckbuilding consequences of playing a couple pithing needle effects should be considered, but artifact themed decks very commonly play these cards already and so if they come loaded for answers to Dack that are easily tutorable and recurrable it seems unlikely they would actually promote nongames.
While it's possible slower to adapt or more casual metas may be impacted, this is fundamentally fairly similar to how deckbuilders have to react to new powerful commanders in general -- e.g. Gitrog and Muldrotha and Meren over successive years spawned an increase in graveyard hate to be required, even in casual circles.
There's some risk of some feelbads there, but overall I think the potential for fun in playing a deck based off a popular, flavorful commander would be worth the risk.
Gotta stop this arguing with myself, because now I wanna build a Dack deck
Dack counterpoint that actually considers the point of view instead of saying "that's silly" --
Dack Fayden is a very powerful walker in EDH that sees a good amount of play already, and would surely be a popular commander (given his powerful and popular color combo). Dack would initially likely pose a tough challenge to artifact themed decks, but artifact decks are uniquely positioned to combat planeswalkers and Dack in particular.
There are many effects that shut walkers off in mono brown:
Just to name a few. Further, Dack's color combination will struggle to deal with these cards as while red has a good deal of artifact removal, artifact decks already have to contend with this and are designed to deal with it.
The deckbuilding consequences of playing a couple pithing needle effects should be considered, but artifact themed decks very commonly play these cards already and so if they come loaded for answers to Dack that are easily tutorable and recurrable it seems unlikely they would actually promote nongames.
While it's possible slower to adapt or more casual metas may be impacted, this is fundamentally fairly similar to how deckbuilders have to react to new powerful commanders in general -- e.g. Gitrog and Muldrotha and Meren over successive years spawned an increase in graveyard hate to be required, even in casual circles.
There's some risk of some feelbads there, but overall I think the potential for fun in playing a deck based off a popular, flavorful commander would be worth the risk.
Gotta stop this arguing with myself, because now I wanna build a Dack deck
I'm interjecting here and I apologize, but on this particular note:
Something else about Dack is how easy it is to get him out on Turn 2 and steal another player's Sol Ring or Mana Crypt, etc early in the game and give yourself a huge advantage. Even if Dack dies before your next turn, you're likely up another 2 mana after casting him - you effectively have a Fabricate in your Command Zone for most of the common early game mana rocks. Sure it's not common for an Artifact deck to take off with a lot of mana, but adding the consistency of often having the ability to not only steal more mana for yourself, but putting an opponent even further behind by doing so, seems way too powerful for 3 mana.
But these kind of things are why I'm personally not a fan of Planeswalkers as Commanders. This kind of scenario can allow one player to run away with the game early on. I'm definitely not a fan of the idea of seeing Liliana of the Veil in the Command Zone or her out on Turn 1 or 2 for similar but different reasons to my concern with the example of Dack, above. Many of the better low CC Planeswalkers create too much of an advantage early on, and the difference between using them immediately versus normal Creature-based Commanders where you have to set them up to have Haste is a really large advantage.
How is that any more silly than some new player buying some Kaladesh or Amonkhet packs, getting a really cool Masterwork or Invocation card and finding out you can't play that card in Standard?
Formats have rules. One of the rules of this format is that unless otherwise specified, commanders have to be legendary creatures. There are exceptions, but exceptions need not be generalized. The planeswalkers who can be generals don't negate the basic rules of the format any more than the existence of things like Relentless Rats negates the general singleton nature of the format.
I mean, sort of, except if some of the Masterpieces had "You can play this card in Standard" written on them somewhere. PW's with the text "can be used as your commander" are a ridiculously inelegant solution to a problem that doesn't really need to exist. Do we honestly think WotC is going to stop printing PWs with the commander rider on them? I certainly don't. So the rule isn't actually stopping people from playing with PWs as their general, just from playing the ones that were printed before WotC decided to start putting the rider on. So what's the purpose? Each time they print a new EDH product with PWs as the face, it's going to get harder and harder to rationalize it away as "the rules are the rules and the rules say commanders are legendary creatures... except for this huge pile of exceptions." How many are we up to right now? 11 I think? And I have no doubt that number will rise over the coming years.
Dack counterpoint that actually considers the point of view instead of saying "that's silly" --
Dack Fayden is a very powerful walker in EDH that sees a good amount of play already, and would surely be a popular commander (given his powerful and popular color combo). Dack would initially likely pose a tough challenge to artifact themed decks, but artifact decks are uniquely positioned to combat planeswalkers and Dack in particular.
There are many effects that shut walkers off in mono brown:
Just to name a few. Further, Dack's color combination will struggle to deal with these cards as while red has a good deal of artifact removal, artifact decks already have to contend with this and are designed to deal with it.
The deckbuilding consequences of playing a couple pithing needle effects should be considered, but artifact themed decks very commonly play these cards already and so if they come loaded for answers to Dack that are easily tutorable and recurrable it seems unlikely they would actually promote nongames.
While it's possible slower to adapt or more casual metas may be impacted, this is fundamentally fairly similar to how deckbuilders have to react to new powerful commanders in general -- e.g. Gitrog and Muldrotha and Meren over successive years spawned an increase in graveyard hate to be required, even in casual circles.
There's some risk of some feelbads there, but overall I think the potential for fun in playing a deck based off a popular, flavorful commander would be worth the risk.
Gotta stop this arguing with myself, because now I wanna build a Dack deck
I'm interjecting here and I apologize, but on this particular note:
Something else about Dack is how easy it is to get him out on Turn 2 and steal another player's Sol Ring or Mana Crypt, etc early in the game and give yourself a huge advantage. Even if Dack dies before your next turn, you're likely up another 2 mana after casting him - you effectively have a Fabricate in your Command Zone for most of the common early game mana rocks. Sure it's not common for an Artifact deck to take off with a lot of mana, but adding the consistency of often having the ability to not only steal more mana for yourself, but putting an opponent even further behind by doing so, seems way too powerful for 3 mana.
But these kind of things are why I'm personally not a fan of Planeswalkers as Commanders. This kind of scenario can allow one player to run away with the game early on. I'm definitely not a fan of the idea of seeing Liliana of the Veil in the Command Zone or her out on Turn 1 or 2 for similar but different reasons to my concern with the example of Dack, above. Many of the better low CC Planeswalkers create too much of an advantage early on, and the difference between using them immediately versus normal Creature-based Commanders where you have to set them up to have Haste is a really large advantage.
Thanks for playing the straight man for me and demonstrating how to have a discussion without being dismissive.
I can see the whole Dark Ritual into Liliana thing being horrifying, but the deckbuilding costs of gettting Dack out on t2 are pretty high since the red rituals are pretty significant. You're looking at maybe 4 cards that enable it?
Still, the point is pretty reasonable that the constant mana rock yoinking early in the game could be tilting.
I dunno. The more I think about all the permutations the less sure I am that I am imagining the potential impacts correctly.
The reason I call the bad matchup argument silly is because you are trying to use a fundamental aspect of the game, that cards beat other cards, as justification for excluding an enormous amount of additional cards for the format. Bad matchups already exist, they will continue to exist, and if you go all in on a card type as your strategy of course you will amplify the bad match up rate.
It's ridiculous to make this boogieman out of dack fayden specifically and use it as justification to exclude all planeswalkers as generals. My instant and sorcery deck has a tough time against gaddock teeg. Clearly GW commanders are problematic for the game.
Theros gods are actually more broad and repeatable than planeswalker effects. Like, much much much more repeatable. They are almost impossible to remove once they hit the battlefield and generals like purphoros, god of the forge and athreos, god of passage will be built around such that almost every card in the deck takes large advantage of the effects. Meanwhile you are wondering if your planewalker is going to survive even it's first turn on the table, let alone the many turns most walkers take to hit an ultimate that you might build around.
Walker effects are generally not edh scale. This needs to be repeated over and over and over and over again because so many people seem to think they are actually strong effects. Drawing an extra card? Destroying a single creature? For the mana you pay for planeswalkers, these effects are well below average for edh inclusion, even if you activate them multiple times. For 4 mana I'd expect to destroy every creature, or draw a huge number of cards. From a power level perspective, I believe there are only a couple walkers worth worrying about, the rest are just interesting for creative deck building in casual games.
The reason I call the bad matchup argument silly is because you are trying to use a fundamental aspect of the game, that cards beat other cards, as justification for excluding an enormous amount of additional cards for the format. Bad matchups already exist, they will continue to exist, and if you go all in on a card type as your strategy of course you will amplify the bad match up rate.
It's ridiculous to make this boogieman out of dack fayden specifically and use it as justification to exclude all planeswalkers as generals. My instant and sorcery deck has a tough time against gaddock teeg. Clearly GW commanders are problematic for the game.
Theros gods are actually more broad and repeatable than planeswalker effects. Like, much much much more repeatable. They are almost impossible to remove once they hit the battlefield and generals like purphoros, god of the forge and athreos, god of passage will be built around such that almost every card in the deck takes large advantage of the effects. Meanwhile you are wondering if your planewalker is going to survive even it's first turn on the table, let alone the many turns most walkers take to hit an ultimate that you might build around.
Walker effects are generally not edh scale. This needs to be repeated over and over and over and over again because so many people seem to think they are actually strong effects. Drawing an extra card? Destroying a single creature? For the mana you pay for planeswalkers, these effects are well below average for edh inclusion, even if you activate them multiple times. For 4 mana I'd expect to destroy every creature, or draw a huge number of cards. From a power level perspective, I believe there are only a couple walkers worth worrying about, the rest are just interesting for creative deck building in casual games.
What needs to be repeated over and over and over again is that there are more than a few walkers that would probably get banned (most of the ones that are good in edh, plus a few that would suddenly be bonkers if they sat in your command zone like Narset) or be obnoxious on the level of Teferi, and then a wide swath of walkers that would just never get ran because they would such as commanders. There may be, what, 2 or 3 that are actually interesting? Maybe? Most would be "yet another superfriends deck". What are we actually adding to the format to justify making this major change? That is something that the pro side has consistently failed to answer. A handful of interesting commanders (potentially)? 50 or so garbage commanders that nobody would run? For many, and judging by the poll 2/3s, this isn't enough to justify the change, at minimum. Clearly from the thread, many also believe that this doesn't overcome the many points in favor of keeping things the way they are.
Even if you try to poke holes in all the arguments against, and hell even if you succeed and we all end up agreeing they are weak arguments, you yourself are still left with the same problem. There are fewer points in favor of allowing walkers, and they are all pretty weak. That leaves you with a few weak arguments in favor vs numerous weak arguments against, and that's without even considering that you need some strong arguments just to justify changing the rules even in the face of no opposing arguments.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
The Meaning of Life: "M-hmm. Well, it's nothing very special. Uh, try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations"
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Whether its blue players countering your spells, red players burning you out, or combo, if you have a problem with an aspect of Magic's gameplay, you can fix it!
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
The reason I call the bad matchup argument silly is because you are trying to use a fundamental aspect of the game, that cards beat other cards, as justification for excluding an enormous amount of additional cards for the format. Bad matchups already exist, they will continue to exist, and if you go all in on a card type as your strategy of course you will amplify the bad match up rate.
It's ridiculous to make this boogieman out of dack fayden specifically and use it as justification to exclude all planeswalkers as generals. My instant and sorcery deck has a tough time against gaddock teeg. Clearly GW commanders are problematic for the game.
Theros gods are actually more broad and repeatable than planeswalker effects. Like, much much much more repeatable. They are almost impossible to remove once they hit the battlefield and generals like purphoros, god of the forge and athreos, god of passage will be built around such that almost every card in the deck takes large advantage of the effects. Meanwhile you are wondering if your planewalker is going to survive even it's first turn on the table, let alone the many turns most walkers take to hit an ultimate that you might build around.
Walker effects are generally not edh scale. This needs to be repeated over and over and over and over again because so many people seem to think they are actually strong effects. Drawing an extra card? Destroying a single creature? For the mana you pay for planeswalkers, these effects are well below average for edh inclusion, even if you activate them multiple times. For 4 mana I'd expect to destroy every creature, or draw a huge number of cards. From a power level perspective, I believe there are only a couple walkers worth worrying about, the rest are just interesting for creative deck building in casual games.
My advice would be to avoid words like silly and ridiculous when characterizing discussions unless they're literally insane. It's just a cheap rhetorical trick in the end that often backfires.
Overall this is a much better crafted discussion so thanks for that.
The thing I think you're missing about the bad matchup argument is this:
1. Today, X percentage of games are "bad matchup games", where someone runs into a deck that invalidates theirs
2. (my hypothesis) With Planeswalkers added, there will be an increased number of these because many popular planeswalkers have broad and general abilities that impact more decks than existing generals tend to.
3. Any increase in the percentage of "bad matchup games" is a negative for the format
4. Therefore, adding planeswalkers to the format will have at least this negative to the format
I think the core point you're missing from that argument is that any increase in the number of bad matchups is a net negative and must be considered. You can't hand-waive that and suddenly it's not a con because bad matchups exist.
In order to invalidate this line you need to establish that no increase in the bad matchup ratio will occur, which I think is probably impossible. Perhaps it could be minimized through discussion, I dunno.
Definitions of broad and repeatable (that I am using)
* broad effects have a) fewer restrictions on their use and b) wider target pool
* the degree to which effects are repeatable is determined by how often they can be used and the degree to which they can be used on demand
The difference in the utility of the Gods' effects and Planeswalkers are as follows:
* When a God lands, almost none of their abilities are active or can be used without additional mana or targets
-Ephara requires creatures in hand and more mana or a token creation ability
-Athreos requires creatures on board to die or a sac outlet
-Kruphix requires you to have more than 7 cards in hand or excess mana
-Karametra requires additional creatures and mana
-And so on
-The only real independently planeswalkeresque effect is Mogis, who doesn't care what the board state is and starts zapping people
By this definition God effects are fairly repeatable in that they often require low investment, but rarely can be done on demand and require a varying degree of setup.
In this sense they are comparable with the weaker walkers that require lots of setup.
So you can say that that on the repeatable spectrum the theros gods overlap with Planeswalkers with many walkers being more repeatable but some not. (e.g. Ephara's ability can be made to trigger quite a bit more than a Walker's, so it's more repeatable in some senses, but less in others because it can't be done on demand)
* Gods' abilities are narrow in their scope of targets
-Mogis affects only creatures and provides a choice (browbeat is bad)
-Karametra's ability affects your ramp and that's it
-Ephara's ability draws cards and that is it
-And so on
By this definition Gods' abilities are all quite narrow; they do generally one thing that affects one target at most. None of them have an effect that hits an opponent's board state except Mogis and Pharika which are very narrow (creatures with choice, creature cards in graveyard).
So you can view Gods' abilities as very narrow in comparison to most planeswalkers, who have 2-4 abilities generally each with different scope as opposed to 1-2 abilities generally restricted to one's own board.
In Summary re: the Gods - it is most likely true that they increased the bad matchup ratio as described above - especially because the interaction with them is very narrow, which is more impactful than their abilities. So if we were having this discussion about whether Gods impacted the bad matchup ratio, I would say yes they did--a mono black deck is going to struggle to interact with Purphoros for example.
But how does that impact differ from planeswalkers, beside the fact that on the balance walkers have broader and more repeatable abilities?
* There are 15 Gods, with no 3 color combinations. vs. 150 or so walkers
* Most of them are fairly weak, even in casual circles. Their abilities don't affect board states and they can't block without setup so they're fairly niche. (Some walkers share this, but even just the few walkers we have as commanders are used at least as often as the Theros Gods)
* None of the Gods have any ultimate effects that can virtually win the game, so their power ceiling is lower
I think the Gods are a fair comparison but I don't think it lives up. Just too many differences in the scope of abilities.
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re: The Gaddock Teeg argument
As established, the existing bad matchups have little to do with adding a whole bunch more to the format; if anything the relatively low number of bad matchups today is a reason for not adding more--it's a feature of the format that most decks are not rock-paper-scissors to each other.
Most of the bad matchups in EDH are matchup related vs. general related and that's a good thing (e.g. slow creature deck will struggle vs. board control.dec vs. high cmc Instant & Sorcery deck struggles vs. Gaddock Teeg).
I actually made this argument myself a page or two ago with Bruna vs. Aura Voltron (and had to immediately dismiss it for the aforementioned reasons).
What needs to be repeated over and over and over again is that there are more than a few walkers that would probably get banned (most of the ones that are good in edh, plus a few that would suddenly be bonkers if they sat in your command zone like Narset)
The collateral damage argument I made previously is a meaningful con. If Dack got banned for being too good in the CZ, that's going to tick off a bunch of people who play Dack. And similar with many walkers that decent now.
In the end I think OneRing sums it up beautifully which is that the "pros" pile is very small. No real getting around that unless we have some data (say, an opinion poll) and a much deeper analysis of the cons than we're doing here.
The only real data we have on preference is this poll which is almost surely a big enough sample to be fairly representative, and comes down firmly against.
A ban list and decisions around a format should be structured generally IMO around why something should not be the case.
What we are saying is only that precedent has been set and probably will continue to be set in the future for PW as Commanders. The format has not caught fire and burned down even with a handful of the strongest ones being already legal.
I genuinely believe that as with the other walkers doing this will change drastically little about Commander at all, sure there will probably be a surge of people making decks like what happens when anything new is added to this format.
If a bunch of the walkers hardly ever get played as Commanders congrats welcome to Legendary Creature status.
Some will be good, some will be bad, some will be great. Welcome to Magic the Gathering.
The reason I don't tend to float more positives is very similar to banning discussions in those it very much all magic cards are innocent until proven guilty. Cards have to be proven problematic to a point they should not be in the format, not fight for their inclusion within it. I feel the same way about this (And my answer would be a lot different generally without the precedent set and more importantly continued up to and including last year).
I think structural rules changes have a higher bar to surpass than inclusion of cards.
You say this, but what was the high bar reason that caused the removal of Banned as a Commander? As far as I'm aware, the primary driver behind that was... because it was awkward to maintain a second list of banned cards so it was better to just streamline it. Kind of like having a separate list of PWs that are playable vs. the ones that aren't.
Ehh, it's closer to "you can now play any creature as your commander" (structural rule change) than it is to "you may now play 7th edition cards in modern" which is an inclusion of cards in the format.
Re: Banned as a commander list
I still think that one was stupid so I'm not sure I can defend it, but I suspect that they felt that the fun added to the format by being able to play maybe 8 commanders was less than the impact of 1) maintaining a separate ban list with separate criteria, 2) the feelbads of new players not realizing their Braids deck was illegal
4: I don't believe any current planeswalkers are particularly egregious aside from maybe tamio with doubling season, but banning a small handful of commanders to make dozens more legal is a no-brainer decision for increasing the card pool.
This begins with the supposition that increasing the card pool is a goal, which I don't think it is. There's no shortage of Commanders.
(Note that this was a valid problem for Brawl, which is why allowing Planeswalkers made sense there. I've actually recommended to the Brawl team that they drop the color identity rules entirely for the same reason. Restrictions on a Standard-sized card pool are problematic. On a Vintage-sized one, necessary.)
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less inclined to play artifact or enchantment themed decks != disincentivize playing artifacts and enchantments
Decks will still play the most powerful artifacts and enchantments, obviously, and people will still *have* artifact and enchantment themed decks.
The concern is more that there will be a higher ratio of nongames or people being forced to shelve commanders because they can't play a fun game with PW Commander X. Not that dack fayden being legal will single handedly drive artifact decks out of the meta.
Not everything is 0 or 1 man; life is not black and white, etc. Some things have a great deal of nuance, and trying to achieve a fun Magic format is definitely one of those things.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
In my opinion, the strongest argument for keeping PWs out of the Command Zone is simply the precedent. The rule is generals are legendary creatures, and there's no reason to change it. And I would have been on board with that a few years ago. But then WotC went and printed PW generals, and changed all PW's to legendary. The precedent line is a lot blurrier than it used to be, and it's increasingly hard to justify allowing some PWs but not others. Just imagine some new player opening a cool new PW like Teferi, Hero of Dominaria and trying to build an EDH deck around him because that player has seen others with PW generals, only to be told they can't. It's kind of silly.
Formats have rules. One of the rules of this format is that unless otherwise specified, commanders have to be legendary creatures. There are exceptions, but exceptions need not be generalized. The planeswalkers who can be generals don't negate the basic rules of the format any more than the existence of things like Relentless Rats negates the general singleton nature of the format.
But yes, I think the theme decks are especially vulnerable to being shoved out of games or having nongames because a higher portion of their decks will be things like that.
I haven't really thought about it deeply but I suspect you would find similar types of games with Daretti IC, Nahiri and even Ajani Unyielding repeatedly machine gunning creatures, or Tezzeret representing torpor orb, cursed totem and pithing needle in the CZ.
Again, I don't think any of that necessarily disqualifies PWs but it's something that concerns me a little -- particularly with some experience with weirdly lopsided matchups and how that can affect playgroups and metas.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Boros would be the winner. Nahiri and Ajani would be great control commander option. Nahiri provides some card selection, too.
The latest planeswalker cards are already designed with Brawl in mind.
More commander to brew with. Is never a bad think.
There are flavorful as commander and the pillar of every modern magic story.
Some of the older Planeswalker may be to strong. Karn and Sorin comes in mind. But the other are all fine.
They are heavily mitigated by the multiplayer nature of the format, if someone is spending their mana on a planeswalker and using their removal ability to kill a single target, they aren't really advancing their gameplan.
I just wasn't interested in using a Standard cardpool.
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So the "pro" side is not really making powerful arguments, so much as trying to poke holes in the pile of valid concerns people have raised one at a time and then say "well, even if it is a problem that alone isn't big enough!" while ignoring the other things considered.
All in all, despite me voting yes, I feel like the pro arguments are kind of pathetic
They mostly boil down to "we want it, it's not going to impact CEDH, so do it, p.s. your concerns are all dumb."
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(For reference the things I have heard as negatives)
* Increase of bad matchups especially for ench/artifact theme decks
* Increased removal tax for decks needing to answer both planeswalkers and creatures from the command zone
* Potential collateral damage of unbannable cards like DS, Contagion Engine, Inexorable tide, deepglow skate, etc. if they achieve casual omnipresence
* Potential collateral damage for powerful walkers having to be banned due to no BAAC list (e.g. Tezzeret, Dack)
* Some people really just do not like walkers
* Potential for slowing the game down as people gear up to keep creatures from attacking their walkers
* Precedent of legendary creatures being the primary focus of commander
* Potential for unpredictable financial effects
Not sure if I missed any but that's all I remember. I don't think all of them are necessarily good but the ways they have been answered are very flip in my opinion (e.g. simple statements like "Bad matchups already exist")
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
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1: There are I think 6 planeswalkers out of about 140 that destroy artifacts and enchantments. This argument is absolutely silly. Magic evolves constantly, things that were once good are obsoleted all the time.
2: Planeswalkers are not even good enough to warrant many dedicated removal slots. They provide small utility effects for large mana costs, and require board control to generate much value. Maintaining board control in multiplayer is exceptionally hard. On top of that, we already added the theros gods and I don't seen anyone complaining about the indestructible enchantments you can run as your general, that usually have effects almost on par with many planeswalker ultimate emblems.
3: They will never achieve casual omnipresence because planeswalkers are not the only general types. Most generals(and colors) already have a substantial list of "must run" cards, planeswalkers will be no different.
4: I don't believe any current planeswalkers are particularly egregious aside from maybe tamio with doubling season, but banning a small handful of commanders to make dozens more legal is a no-brainer decision for increasing the card pool.
5: This is not a valid argument.
6: Slower, grindier games are what edh was all about. That's what the higher life total and less consistent decks help with.
7: You should be really mad at theros gods then if legendary creatures are the important part of edh.
8: Price shifts happen all the time. EDH has caused hundreds of cards to change radically in value already.
1. Saying stuff like "this argument is silly, magic evolves constantly, things that were once good are obsoleted" is pretty much a nonstatement. 6/140 is just a meaningless contextless number. How many are actually playable, and what decks would people play? Nobody knows for sure.
But Dack Fayden is immensely popular and would see tons of play. So what the heck does 6/140 have to do with that? If a huge number of people play Dack, for example, artifact strategies will run into more nongames than before.
2. Reasonable points! I don't think Theros gods are the perfect comparison but they are one I had thought of. Their abilities are not as broad or repeatable for the most part.
All I can say is my experience with multiple walker decks at a table has taxed the ability of removal to keep them in check--often they'll drop an effect o a good blocker, or have a couple sweepers in succession, and the only way to get rid of them is to remove them -- which is not as easy as creatures.
The Theros Gods just play a bit differently in my experience. But YMMV.
3. "They will never" is a statement I think you need to substantiate better - the difference between generals and walkers is that there is a large pool of cards that they share, whereas there are much fewer generals that share various staples (ex. How many generals play Reality Acid? Just Brago pretty much.).
Suppose there were 30 or 40 commanders that all wanted to run parallel lives, primal vigor and anointed procession (instead of maybe 5 or 6) - do you think that may change perspectives?
4. Ok, well there was quite the discussion on this previously and at least a few are fairly beefcake with DS, and lots of them would play it. Tamiyo largely irrelevant because she can't play it as commander.
5. How is "we like planeswalkers" any more a valid argument than "lots of people do not like planeswalkers." The EDH rules committee definitely takes into account preferences of the broader community.
6. Ok, says you? Are you sure games couldn't get pushed to being too long on the average by a high population of walkers? I'm not. I'm not sure either way but I think it's something to think about. But I am super glad you are so sure it won't be a problem as to not even want to consider it. Because the type of game you want is what everyone wants?
7. I wrote the Ephara Primer, I don't care. Their abilities are narrower than walkers.
8. I guess, but it's something to think about. It'd be much bigger than a single new commander being printed, and there could easily be a huge mess if say, CFB got word of it early and raised the price on all their PW staples.
You're making a lot of grand sweeping statements like "they will never" and "that's just silly" and "no brainer" and whatever that makes me extra leery of your point of view. You seem to basically be sure, and unwilling to admit anything could potentially be a concern. That type of attitude makes me think you're probably on the wrong side of the issue and trying to "win" vs. trying to come to the right conclusion.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Dack Fayden is a very powerful walker in EDH that sees a good amount of play already, and would surely be a popular commander (given his powerful and popular color combo). Dack would initially likely pose a tough challenge to artifact themed decks, but artifact decks are uniquely positioned to combat planeswalkers and Dack in particular.
There are many effects that shut walkers off in mono brown:
Just to name a few. Further, Dack's color combination will struggle to deal with these cards as while red has a good deal of artifact removal, artifact decks already have to contend with this and are designed to deal with it.
The deckbuilding consequences of playing a couple pithing needle effects should be considered, but artifact themed decks very commonly play these cards already and so if they come loaded for answers to Dack that are easily tutorable and recurrable it seems unlikely they would actually promote nongames.
While it's possible slower to adapt or more casual metas may be impacted, this is fundamentally fairly similar to how deckbuilders have to react to new powerful commanders in general -- e.g. Gitrog and Muldrotha and Meren over successive years spawned an increase in graveyard hate to be required, even in casual circles.
There's some risk of some feelbads there, but overall I think the potential for fun in playing a deck based off a popular, flavorful commander would be worth the risk.
Gotta stop this arguing with myself, because now I wanna build a Dack deck
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
I'm interjecting here and I apologize, but on this particular note:
Something else about Dack is how easy it is to get him out on Turn 2 and steal another player's Sol Ring or Mana Crypt, etc early in the game and give yourself a huge advantage. Even if Dack dies before your next turn, you're likely up another 2 mana after casting him - you effectively have a Fabricate in your Command Zone for most of the common early game mana rocks. Sure it's not common for an Artifact deck to take off with a lot of mana, but adding the consistency of often having the ability to not only steal more mana for yourself, but putting an opponent even further behind by doing so, seems way too powerful for 3 mana.
But these kind of things are why I'm personally not a fan of Planeswalkers as Commanders. This kind of scenario can allow one player to run away with the game early on. I'm definitely not a fan of the idea of seeing Liliana of the Veil in the Command Zone or her out on Turn 1 or 2 for similar but different reasons to my concern with the example of Dack, above. Many of the better low CC Planeswalkers create too much of an advantage early on, and the difference between using them immediately versus normal Creature-based Commanders where you have to set them up to have Haste is a really large advantage.
(Also known as Xenphire)
Thanks for playing the straight man for me and demonstrating how to have a discussion without being dismissive.
I can see the whole Dark Ritual into Liliana thing being horrifying, but the deckbuilding costs of gettting Dack out on t2 are pretty high since the red rituals are pretty significant. You're looking at maybe 4 cards that enable it?
Still, the point is pretty reasonable that the constant mana rock yoinking early in the game could be tilting.
I dunno. The more I think about all the permutations the less sure I am that I am imagining the potential impacts correctly.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
It's ridiculous to make this boogieman out of dack fayden specifically and use it as justification to exclude all planeswalkers as generals. My instant and sorcery deck has a tough time against gaddock teeg. Clearly GW commanders are problematic for the game.
Theros gods are actually more broad and repeatable than planeswalker effects. Like, much much much more repeatable. They are almost impossible to remove once they hit the battlefield and generals like purphoros, god of the forge and athreos, god of passage will be built around such that almost every card in the deck takes large advantage of the effects. Meanwhile you are wondering if your planewalker is going to survive even it's first turn on the table, let alone the many turns most walkers take to hit an ultimate that you might build around.
Walker effects are generally not edh scale. This needs to be repeated over and over and over and over again because so many people seem to think they are actually strong effects. Drawing an extra card? Destroying a single creature? For the mana you pay for planeswalkers, these effects are well below average for edh inclusion, even if you activate them multiple times. For 4 mana I'd expect to destroy every creature, or draw a huge number of cards. From a power level perspective, I believe there are only a couple walkers worth worrying about, the rest are just interesting for creative deck building in casual games.
What needs to be repeated over and over and over again is that there are more than a few walkers that would probably get banned (most of the ones that are good in edh, plus a few that would suddenly be bonkers if they sat in your command zone like Narset) or be obnoxious on the level of Teferi, and then a wide swath of walkers that would just never get ran because they would such as commanders. There may be, what, 2 or 3 that are actually interesting? Maybe? Most would be "yet another superfriends deck". What are we actually adding to the format to justify making this major change? That is something that the pro side has consistently failed to answer. A handful of interesting commanders (potentially)? 50 or so garbage commanders that nobody would run? For many, and judging by the poll 2/3s, this isn't enough to justify the change, at minimum. Clearly from the thread, many also believe that this doesn't overcome the many points in favor of keeping things the way they are.
Even if you try to poke holes in all the arguments against, and hell even if you succeed and we all end up agreeing they are weak arguments, you yourself are still left with the same problem. There are fewer points in favor of allowing walkers, and they are all pretty weak. That leaves you with a few weak arguments in favor vs numerous weak arguments against, and that's without even considering that you need some strong arguments just to justify changing the rules even in the face of no opposing arguments.
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
My advice would be to avoid words like silly and ridiculous when characterizing discussions unless they're literally insane. It's just a cheap rhetorical trick in the end that often backfires.
Overall this is a much better crafted discussion so thanks for that.
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The thing I think you're missing about the bad matchup argument is this:
1. Today, X percentage of games are "bad matchup games", where someone runs into a deck that invalidates theirs
2. (my hypothesis) With Planeswalkers added, there will be an increased number of these because many popular planeswalkers have broad and general abilities that impact more decks than existing generals tend to.
3. Any increase in the percentage of "bad matchup games" is a negative for the format
4. Therefore, adding planeswalkers to the format will have at least this negative to the format
I think the core point you're missing from that argument is that any increase in the number of bad matchups is a net negative and must be considered. You can't hand-waive that and suddenly it's not a con because bad matchups exist.
In order to invalidate this line you need to establish that no increase in the bad matchup ratio will occur, which I think is probably impossible. Perhaps it could be minimized through discussion, I dunno.
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Definitions of broad and repeatable (that I am using)
* broad effects have a) fewer restrictions on their use and b) wider target pool
* the degree to which effects are repeatable is determined by how often they can be used and the degree to which they can be used on demand
The difference in the utility of the Gods' effects and Planeswalkers are as follows:
* When a God lands, almost none of their abilities are active or can be used without additional mana or targets
-Ephara requires creatures in hand and more mana or a token creation ability
-Athreos requires creatures on board to die or a sac outlet
-Kruphix requires you to have more than 7 cards in hand or excess mana
-Karametra requires additional creatures and mana
-And so on
-The only real independently planeswalkeresque effect is Mogis, who doesn't care what the board state is and starts zapping people
By this definition God effects are fairly repeatable in that they often require low investment, but rarely can be done on demand and require a varying degree of setup.
In this sense they are comparable with the weaker walkers that require lots of setup.
So you can say that that on the repeatable spectrum the theros gods overlap with Planeswalkers with many walkers being more repeatable but some not. (e.g. Ephara's ability can be made to trigger quite a bit more than a Walker's, so it's more repeatable in some senses, but less in others because it can't be done on demand)
* Gods' abilities are narrow in their scope of targets
-Mogis affects only creatures and provides a choice (browbeat is bad)
-Karametra's ability affects your ramp and that's it
-Ephara's ability draws cards and that is it
-And so on
By this definition Gods' abilities are all quite narrow; they do generally one thing that affects one target at most. None of them have an effect that hits an opponent's board state except Mogis and Pharika which are very narrow (creatures with choice, creature cards in graveyard).
So you can view Gods' abilities as very narrow in comparison to most planeswalkers, who have 2-4 abilities generally each with different scope as opposed to 1-2 abilities generally restricted to one's own board.
In Summary re: the Gods - it is most likely true that they increased the bad matchup ratio as described above - especially because the interaction with them is very narrow, which is more impactful than their abilities. So if we were having this discussion about whether Gods impacted the bad matchup ratio, I would say yes they did--a mono black deck is going to struggle to interact with Purphoros for example.
But how does that impact differ from planeswalkers, beside the fact that on the balance walkers have broader and more repeatable abilities?
* There are 15 Gods, with no 3 color combinations. vs. 150 or so walkers
* Most of them are fairly weak, even in casual circles. Their abilities don't affect board states and they can't block without setup so they're fairly niche. (Some walkers share this, but even just the few walkers we have as commanders are used at least as often as the Theros Gods)
* None of the Gods have any ultimate effects that can virtually win the game, so their power ceiling is lower
I think the Gods are a fair comparison but I don't think it lives up. Just too many differences in the scope of abilities.
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re: The Gaddock Teeg argument
As established, the existing bad matchups have little to do with adding a whole bunch more to the format; if anything the relatively low number of bad matchups today is a reason for not adding more--it's a feature of the format that most decks are not rock-paper-scissors to each other.
Most of the bad matchups in EDH are matchup related vs. general related and that's a good thing (e.g. slow creature deck will struggle vs. board control.dec vs. high cmc Instant & Sorcery deck struggles vs. Gaddock Teeg).
I actually made this argument myself a page or two ago with Bruna vs. Aura Voltron (and had to immediately dismiss it for the aforementioned reasons).
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Small detour for this quote, which illustrates another point I made earlier quite well:
The collateral damage argument I made previously is a meaningful con. If Dack got banned for being too good in the CZ, that's going to tick off a bunch of people who play Dack. And similar with many walkers that decent now.
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In the end I think OneRing sums it up beautifully which is that the "pros" pile is very small. No real getting around that unless we have some data (say, an opinion poll) and a much deeper analysis of the cons than we're doing here.
The only real data we have on preference is this poll which is almost surely a big enough sample to be fairly representative, and comes down firmly against.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
What we are saying is only that precedent has been set and probably will continue to be set in the future for PW as Commanders. The format has not caught fire and burned down even with a handful of the strongest ones being already legal.
I genuinely believe that as with the other walkers doing this will change drastically little about Commander at all, sure there will probably be a surge of people making decks like what happens when anything new is added to this format.
If a bunch of the walkers hardly ever get played as Commanders congrats welcome to Legendary Creature status.
Some will be good, some will be bad, some will be great. Welcome to Magic the Gathering.
The reason I don't tend to float more positives is very similar to banning discussions in those it very much all magic cards are innocent until proven guilty. Cards have to be proven problematic to a point they should not be in the format, not fight for their inclusion within it. I feel the same way about this (And my answer would be a lot different generally without the precedent set and more importantly continued up to and including last year).
Walkers are all in the format already.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
This isn't a structural rules change. It is a large scale inclusion of cards. Planeswalkers can already be run as commanders.
Pretend WOTC errata'd every planeswalker to have the line "you can use this card as your commander".
Re: Banned as a commander list
I still think that one was stupid so I'm not sure I can defend it, but I suspect that they felt that the fun added to the format by being able to play maybe 8 commanders was less than the impact of 1) maintaining a separate ban list with separate criteria, 2) the feelbads of new players not realizing their Braids deck was illegal
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
This begins with the supposition that increasing the card pool is a goal, which I don't think it is. There's no shortage of Commanders.
(Note that this was a valid problem for Brawl, which is why allowing Planeswalkers made sense there. I've actually recommended to the Brawl team that they drop the color identity rules entirely for the same reason. Restrictions on a Standard-sized card pool are problematic. On a Vintage-sized one, necessary.)