Question for those who voted yes in this poll: did you consider the second order effect that if all PWs were allowed as Commanders, knowing we'd ban some (which I'm pretty sure you figured out), you then wouldn't have the banned ones available as 1 of 99? If you thought of it, how did it factor into your decision?
For myself, I didn't find the secondary effects to be relevant. Do note that my observation comes with a grain of salt because I'm an avid cEDH player and am admittedly part of a group that you (the RC and CAG) deliberately don't cater to (for good reasons, probably haha).
The first thing I'd like to mention, being a representative of the cEDH crowd, is that if the RC and CAG are worried about how an unbanning/banning would affect the general Commander environment, it's always useful to ask the cEDH crowd. Anything that we can do to break a specific card is something that we all collectively enjoy AND are really good at. I think the cEDH crowd could be a good benchmark in evaluating the potential ramifications of banning/unbanning decisions y'all make.
Of the planeswalkers that are currently legal, Teferi, Temporal Archmage is one of the strongest options available to the cEDH meta game, with perhaps Aminatou or Estrid coming in as VERY distant 2nd place options. The reason that this is the case is because he, in tandem with The Chain Veil, is a 1-card semi-infinite combo that takes advantage of the most basic aspect of the game: mana advantage. It is Teferi's -1 ability that puts him so over the top because he allows you to cheat on mana. Any card that allows its caster to generate mana and/or card advantage at low mana costs is inevitably going to be powerful in the game; it's one of the reasons that Mana Crypt, Flash, and Ad Nauseam are so format defining from a cEDH perspective. Each of these cards allow you to cheat on mana in some form or fashion, making them very powerful. Teferi is by far the best Planeswalker-as-a-Commander card and represents a signficant portion of the cEDH world. If we use Teeri as the benchmark for evaluating other planeswalkers, then I don't think that enabling all Planeswalkers as Commanders is a terrible thing, because so few of them allow you to cheat on mana or cards like Teferi does.
Of the available planeswalkers (excluding the new War set), there are only a few of them that actually allow you to cheat on mana or cards in an egregious fashion.
Tezzeret the Seeker - first, by playing this card as your Commander, you're restricted to Blue, which is the historically strongest artifact tutor color in the game. His first ability CAN allow you to cheat on mana, depending on which artifacts are in play. And from a cEDH perspective, this is valuable but not inherently broken and that's because he can only untap 2 artifacts. In order to really break The Chain Veil, Tezzeret would need to find an artifact rock that taps for at least 5 in order to legitimately go infinite with the Veil. That's basically impossible, since no card has been printed that naturally taps for 5 (Everflowing Chalice or Astral Cornucopia are the only ones that can and the mana cost of doing so is PROHIBITIVE).
Estrid, the Masked - by enchanting multiple different mana sources, Estrid can definitely cheat on mana AND cards. However, unlike Teferi, her abilities cannot directly win you the game after some sort of mana loop is achieved [i]without any additional pieces[i]. Teferi literally only needs the Veil and enough mana rocks to generate 5across 4 permanents. Then, once you've got the loop going, you can use a freshly cast Teferi to activate his first ability to put your deck into your hand. Teferi is a self-contained win condition and enabler all at once. Estrid is not, and is therefore not heavily played in a cEDH setting, if at all.
Daretti, Scrap Savant - his minus abiity is what makes him so good and that doesn't directly add mana to your mana pool like Teferi does. He fits VERY nicely into a heavy Stax and Mass Land Destruction shell because he can pick up dead artifacts and thus create mana advantage, but he himself does not directly add mana or generate positive card advantage.
Aminatou, the Fateshifter - Aminatou also cheats on mana by allowing you to re-instablink (the new keyword of blinking something immediately instead of waiting until end of turn for it to come back) a permanent and ideally get another effect of that card for 0 mana. However, she needs at least 2 other cards in order to truly go infinite because currently there is no other card that is an enabler for her that is also a self-contained win condition. In order to go infinite, you need to be able to get a global second instance of activating a Planeswalker ability. The only ones I know of that can directly do so are [CARD}The Chain Veil[/CARD] and Oath of Teferi. There is a secondary case of Felidar Guardian and Panharmonicon, but either way this setup still requires 3 cards. And 3 cards is a pretty big ask in the cEDH world.
Chandra, Torch of Defiance - still doesn't cut it because there is no way that you can have her ability add more mana than it costs to activate The Chain Veil, the main enabler for planeswalkers in a mono-Red deck.
Dack Fayden - I think there could be some interesting applications if he were to be a Commander, but I don't think that he'll ever be strong enough to be a Commander and be scary to play against. I would be happy to be proven wrong though, since I like his charisma.
Freyalize, Llanowar's Fury - probably the closest analog to Teferi from a cEDH standpoint, she still doesn't directly add mana in as large of quantities as Teferi does. While she is VERY powerful when built correctly, she still needs quite a bit of setup and, most importantly, she needs at least a turn or two OR a setup of specific cards in order to be truly powerful. She is in the colors of Doubling Season, which makes her a very powerful option for an Elfball/Storm-like win condition.
Garruk Wildspeaker - I remember when he was first printed and he was successfully used in Rock variants because of his first ability. He can generate quite a bit of mana, depending on your board state and the land selection available. But, again, he isn't a self-contained win condition like Teferi and has trouble generating a comparative amount of mana from his ability.
Gideon of the Trials would be hella annoying to play against BECAUSE he would be available as a Commander. This is probably the first card that crosses my mind as an "uh-oh" card, and that's simply because in order to kill the player that has a Gideon emblem you need to kill the Gideon first. But he's VERY weak otherwise.
Jace, Ingenious Mind-Mage could actually be powerful, because he CAN cheat on mana AND is a self-contained win condition. There are enough creatures in Blue that add mana (whether untapping permanents like Aphetto Alchemist or actually add mana like Grand Architect where you could legitimately go off with The Chain Veil. But that requires a touch more setup for a permanent that's VERY hard to tutor for in mono-Blue.
Kiora, Master of the Depths[/CARD] - again, it's possible that she could be REALLY strong because there are a lot of creature and land combinations I can think of that would allow you to go infinite and she is also a self-contained win package as well. This could be an offender in an already powerful color combination.
Hopefully the criteria is pretty clear as to which Planeswalkers I would evaluate as being cEDH quality material. And because I'm coming from a cEDH mindset, I don't mind the feel-bads of losing to quick combo.
However, with what I've said, I do think that Kelzam has a great point on financial aspects NOR do I consider whether some of the currently pritned Planeswalkers would be fun-sucking/game-warping permanents. Some of the new Planeswalkers look like they would be hella annoying to constantly see over the course of a Commander game and there are some that would probably make the table groan (Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker as repeatable and constant removal would probably be a sad panda face for the rest of the table, especially if you dedicate more than 25% of your deck to mana sources).
I think I'd like to particularly stress Kelzam's point. Because Commander has become such a global phenomenon, any decision you make in regards to bannings/unbannings DOES have direct impacts on the secondary MTG card market. I think you're all aware of that power, which I appreciate, and this is ultimately the best argument in influencing your decision to allow Planeswalkers to be Commanders.
Anyways, those are my thoughts. TL;dr I don't think that there are enough powerful secondary effects that would drastically influence my opinion of the power level of the available planeswalker pool to make any of them egregious/un-fun from a cEDH perspective if they were legal as Commanders.
But it would definitely be hella awesome to have the new Nicol Bolas be the Commander for my Nicol Bolas themed Commander deck...
Question for those who voted yes in this poll: did you consider the second order effect that if all PWs were allowed as Commanders, knowing we'd ban some (which I'm pretty sure you figured out), you then wouldn't have the banned ones available as 1 of 99? If you thought of it, how did it factor into your decision?
I don't agree with the BaaC list but then again I haven't seen any arguments or discussions about any Walkers that aren't already legal as Commanders that makes them seem as they would require banning, even for tables that play at less power then the ones I tend to play at these days.
The best walkers are already legal and I would need to seem real good reasoning as to why any of the ones that would be made generals would have to be banned, beyond them just being annoying.
Aside from the power level concerns that have been discussed here, my biggest concern on this subject is how having planeswalkers as commanders would affect the length of games. Planeswalkers are all basically life gain spells, as they draw aggro away from the control and can't attack like a creature commander can. Additionally, the lines of play for a planeswalker tend to be more complex than for a creature and so that would add even more time to the game. In short, I believe that making this change would be bad for the format in terms of making games take too much longer. Commander isn't a format like standard or modern where there's a clock and a time limit. Commander goes as long as it goes, and I know that I'm always happy on days where I can get in more shorter games of Commander than days where I play fewer, longer games.
Aside from the power level concerns that have been discussed here, my biggest concern on this subject is how having planeswalkers as commanders would affect the length of games. Planeswalkers are all basically life gain spells, as they draw aggro away from the control and can't attack like a creature commander can. Additionally, the lines of play for a planeswalker tend to be more complex than for a creature and so that would add even more time to the game. In short, I believe that making this change would be bad for the format in terms of making games take too much longer. Commander isn't a format like standard or modern where there's a clock and a time limit. Commander goes as long as it goes, and I know that I'm always happy on days where I can get in more shorter games of Commander than days where I play fewer, longer games.
This is a point that I very much agree with. JLK and Jimmy Wong were discussing this on Twitter the yesterday, as well, when someone brought up one of the episodes of The Command Zone podcast where they talked about Planeswalkers as Commanders. They put it pretty much as you do here, in that ultimately, being forced to deal with way more Planeswalkers will take combat damage away from players and thus effectively be padding those life totals.
Sure there are plenty of non-combat oriented decks that don't really get into the red zone that much, but those actually make for an even better case regarding increased game length, because in at a table with 2 or 3 Planeswalker Commanders, if the only non-PWer Commander is a Meren deck or something that doesn't bother to attack much, then that makes those games even longer.
Another thing I want to bring up is that while I don't mind long games, I do mind games where everyone is trying desperately to keep one Commander off of the table. This is Commanders like Narset, Enlightened Master, Zur the Enchanter, etc. The Commanders where even at competitive tables, if you let them sit and everyone isn't attending to that player, they explode out of nowhere. At tables with those Commanders, you basically get very little time to progress what you're trying to do with your own deck because you have to be so concerned with what they're going to do. With Planeswalker Commanders, it's the same thing, except on a much larger scale. It is very rare that a game can afford for a Planeswalker emblem to go off. Some Planeswalkers, you don't even want them to use their middle ability more than once. Currently, if a Planeswalker lands in Commander games, it is either taken out fast, or gets lost in the chaos of the multiplayer nature of the format. In an environment where multiple people are able to cast a Planeswalker from the Command Zone on demand, you have to devote resources (time and spells) to keep them off of the board, constantly
Some people try to make a case that players should simply run more removal for Planeswalkers, but it's poor reasoning. Planeswalkers as Commanders will fundamentally change how people have to interact with and play games of Commander because of them being in the Command Zone. It's not as simple as adding removal. Aggro decks actually get worse because they have to focus on Planeswalkers. Certain colors get better, others don't. And this will be a reality. If someone doesn't believe it, look how every time the Commander precons come out, or even any set with a new Commander, you see a large number of people building and playing the new and shiny thing. There is a certain amount of room to explore when a new set of Commander decks come out, or a new set, before people exhaust the potential of those decks and either they lose their luster and move on, or they've optimized them and don't feel the need to keep playing them over and over again. This is a sensation that happens with every new set.
Now, imagine the above phenomenon but with the entire back catalog of Planeswalkers. That should tell you how many people you're going to see playing Planeswalkers as Commanders. It's new, it's a sudden whole new area of unexplored territory for the format at large. They're going to be absolutely rampant. There's no ifs, ands or buts about it. And that sensation is going to last for a very, very long time because it's not a small handful of Legendary Creatures, half of which that have a certain or niche mechanic or operation. Planeswalkers are value engines. It would not be healthy for this format, and risks doing more damage to the format than good. People like Jeremy Noell and other Twitter personalities can suggest that it's as simple as just unleashing them all as much as they want, but it is not good for the stability that this format has as it currently exists, or it's long term health.
I feel like that is a thing more based on the individual building the deck rather than more cards available.
If someone wants to make a controlling, taxing, life gaining deck or any combination of those things those tools already exist.
I am unsure if any p/w do this better than Commanders already legal.
You really don't want Dovin Baan, Jace, Unraveler of Secrets, Venser, the Sojourner, Ral, Izzet Viceroy or a number of other Planeswalkers to get their emblem off or it's going to be a nearly impossible uphill battle. When you're having to keep them under control while also dealing with one or two other players who are also playing Planeswalkers, you're so busy splitting your resources that the game is never going to move whether they taxes or control or not. The fact is that being forced to devote most of your combat or removal to Planeswalkers - not even including the other stuff in their deck - the game is grinding to a halt. You have no time to progress how your deck wants to play, because you have to worry about their Planeswalkers. In the current Commander environment you can make smart choices and trades and let some Commanders sit on the battlefield without worry about them. There is more nuance than "Keep everyone's Planeswalkers off of the board". That nuance is extremely lessened and gameplay becomes much less interesting.
Aside from the power level concerns that have been discussed here, my biggest concern on this subject is how having planeswalkers as commanders would affect the length of games. Planeswalkers are all basically life gain spells, as they draw aggro away from the control and can't attack like a creature commander can. Additionally, the lines of play for a planeswalker tend to be more complex than for a creature and so that would add even more time to the game. In short, I believe that making this change would be bad for the format in terms of making games take too much longer. Commander isn't a format like standard or modern where there's a clock and a time limit. Commander goes as long as it goes, and I know that I'm always happy on days where I can get in more shorter games of Commander than days where I play fewer, longer games.
See, I'm not convinced having planeswalkers as commanders will actually make the game longer. Hear me out.
Generally speaking, I agree with what you're saying. Planeswalkers do buffer life totals; they do draw aggro away from players. By extension that means life totals that would otherwise be shrinking are now cushier than before. All of that is true, but that doesn't necessarily mean games will be longer. That merely sounds true. In practice, I think the results might honestly stay the same.
Commander, as it is, already grants players an enormous life buffer to hide behind, so much so that traditional aggro decks are basically unheard of. In my experience, what tends to end games of Commander isn't some grindy battle of attrition. No, it's usually a dramatic shift in the balance of power. Yes, sometimes games are decided by the careful accrual and denial resources, but more often I find games are decided by someone going way over the top of everyone else. Some player invariably makes a ton of mana, or draws forty cards, or assembles some multi-card combo that wins the game. Whatever it is they're doing, it's way more powerful than everything else going on, and it provides that player with such a commanding lead that they're able to take over the rest of the game from there.
Imagine a game where four players have been battling it out for a while, but they're all still in the game with varying amounts of life, cards, and board states. Now imagine one player with a moderately sized army casts Craterhoof Behemoth. This player was chipping away at people's life totals earlier, but now they suddenly have a massive amount of damage to distribute, so much so that all the maneuvering they did before is rendered mostly negligible in comparison; the damage up until now was simply too paltry to matter. This is how I suspect planeswalkers might play if they could be commanders. Yes, planeswalkers would probably redirect damage away from players and towards them, but the stage in the game at which this occurs might not affect the overall length of the game because that Craterhoof or similar such card is still going to run everyone down anyway.
Additionally, the lines of play for a planeswalker tend to be more complex than for a creature and so that would add even more time to the game.
I disagree. I think planeswalkers are much simpler than creatures.
For the most part, planeswalkers tend to follow a similar pattern. They have a plus ability, a minus ability, and an ultimate. Most of the time, players can't ult their planeswalkers (and when they can it's really obvious if they should), so that just leaves the other two abilities. From there, you can usually do process of elimination to figure out which ability you should use. Am I working towards my ultimate? Use my plus ability. Are there any useful targets for my minus ability? Use my plus ability. Can I even afford my minus ability? You get the idea. And timing isn't really a restriction here either since players can only activate planeswalker abilities once per turn and at sorcery speed to boot.
You know what really bogs games down though? Decision paralysis. Planeswalkers are modular, sure, but creatures are especially modular because creatures get to participate in combat whereas planeswalkers usually don't. And in giant multiplayer games, it isn't uncommon for boards to stall out and for combat math to become so burdensome that players skip combat entirely in favor of playing it safe. That really slows down games because even though players might actually be in a position to bring the game to its conclusion, finding the lines to reach that point can be extremely difficult, especially if politics are involved. The complexity of these situations just causes mental shutdowns sometimes, and that's almost always because of creatures.
Planeswalkers grind the game to a halt because of their abilities? Well I should advise the concern also be directed to decks that have lots of nonland permanents, that act during their opponents turn, tutor frequently, that create sticky boards that are harder to break. That a variety of creature commanders can also make games go slow because of how they interact with the game as whole.
Planeswalkers are defensive and provide a health buffer? Creatures literally already act as buffers for your health. That like creatures, planeswalkers can also be offensive cards. Ever hear of ground-stalling?
Planeswalkers require resources to take care of? Good thing creaures, lands, enchantments, and artifacts aren't like that and don't require the deck to actually pack a healthy amount of means to remove those permanents. /s
Oh and I voted yes because I just want Tibalt, the Fiend-Blooded and Tibalt, Rakish Instigator as my commanders because he is my favorite of the planeswalkers, not because he is the strictly the best from a mechanical standpoint. That if the concern is power, ban the worst ones, allow the rest, and call it a day.
Planeswalkers grind the game to a halt because of their abilities? Well I should advise the concern also be directed to decks that have lots of nonland permanents, that act during their opponents turn, tutor frequently, that create sticky boards that are harder to break. That a variety of creature commanders can also make games go slow because of how they interact with the game as whole.
Planeswalkers are defensive and provide a health buffer? Creatures literally already act as buffers for your health. That like creatures, planeswalkers can also be offensive cards. Ever hear of ground-stalling?
Planeswalkers require resources to take care of? Good thing creaures, lands, enchantments, and artifacts aren't like that and don't require the deck to actually pack a healthy amount of means to remove those permanents. /s
Oh and I voted yes because I just want Tibalt, the Fiend-Blooded and Tibalt, Rakish Instigator as my commanders because he is my favorite of the planeswalkers, not because he is the strictly the best from a mechanical standpoint. That if the concern is power, ban the worst ones, allow the rest, and call it a day.
So, your argument for Planeswalkers is a sarcastic post that didn't even correctly address half of the issues you're attempting to poke holes in with faulty logic while simultaneously not actually doing anything to make a case for them?
Yep, there sure are archetypes and Commanders that see play that slow down the game. They're pretty niche and not often played, either, while the issue of slowing down games is inherent with any Planeswalker as a Commander for the reasons I listed that you couldn't cherry pick.
Yep. Creatures can block. Yet they don't divide your attacks between themselves and the player since it's not Hearthstone and you don't directly attack Creatures. The largest way of removing Planeswalkers is through combat damage where there's far less removal spells to be directed at Planeswalkers than any other type of removal out there. Your example falls flat.
Imagine a format that rarely sees Planeswalkers suddenly inundated with them coming out of the command zone on demand and having to further divide all those resources. Golly gee it's like on top of all of those things you mentioned that adding a bunch of something else to deal with that isn't often around might be stretching decks even thinner! You even made my case for me here. /s
In all seriousness, though, if all you have to offer the discussion here is to be sardonic then take that to social media or Twitter. We're actually having a discussion here.
Aside from the power level concerns that have been discussed here, my biggest concern on this subject is how having planeswalkers as commanders would affect the length of games. Planeswalkers are all basically life gain spells, as they draw aggro away from the control and can't attack like a creature commander can. Additionally, the lines of play for a planeswalker tend to be more complex than for a creature and so that would add even more time to the game. In short, I believe that making this change would be bad for the format in terms of making games take too much longer. Commander isn't a format like standard or modern where there's a clock and a time limit. Commander goes as long as it goes, and I know that I'm always happy on days where I can get in more shorter games of Commander than days where I play fewer, longer games.
If anything making games go longer would be a positive thing. Too much of this format is defined by degenerate ramp decks that just are "non interactive oops i win" -decks.
I feel like that is a thing more based on the individual building the deck rather than more cards available.
If someone wants to make a controlling, taxing, life gaining deck or any combination of those things those tools already exist.
I am unsure if any p/w do this better than Commanders already legal.
You really don't want Dovin Baan, Jace, Unraveler of Secrets, Venser, the Sojourner, Ral, Izzet Viceroy or a number of other Planeswalkers to get their emblem off or it's going to be a nearly impossible uphill battle. When you're having to keep them under control while also dealing with one or two other players who are also playing Planeswalkers, you're so busy splitting your resources that the game is never going to move whether they taxes or control or not. The fact is that being forced to devote most of your combat or removal to Planeswalkers - not even including the other stuff in their deck - the game is grinding to a halt. You have no time to progress how your deck wants to play, because you have to worry about their Planeswalkers. In the current Commander environment you can make smart choices and trades and let some Commanders sit on the battlefield without worry about them. There is more nuance than "Keep everyone's Planeswalkers off of the board". That nuance is extremely lessened and gameplay becomes much less interesting.
I don't tend to judge most p/w by their ultimates, so yes a bunch of emblems that emulate cards that exist, happen later and can't be removed aren't that high on my priority list.
If you take the ulimates out of the picture and view them as what they will most of the time be in a game the ones you list here aren't anything special sitting in the Command Zone.
Also again as bad as any of these possible worse case scenarios can or could be, they aren't any different than handfuls of situations that are already free and clear in this format.
So, your argument for Planeswalkers is a sarcastic post that didn't even correctly address half of the issues you're attempting to poke holes in with faulty logic while simultaneously not actually doing anything to make a case for them?
Faulty logic? Where? Oh I found it! Just look down yonder in dem quote boxes.
Yep, there sure are archetypes and Commanders that see play that slow down the game. They're pretty niche and not often played, either, while the issue of slowing down games is inherent with any Planeswalker as a Commander for the reasons I listed that you couldn't cherry pick.
You heard it here first folks. Tribal decks, superfriends, and even artifact decks for example are niche and rarely played.
Yep. Creatures can block. Yet they don't divide your attacks between themselves and the player since it's not Hearthstone and you don't directly attack Creatures.
Creatures in hearthstone don't typically heal at end of turn either like in MTG except for a rare few. You can't win through attrition of creature health unless your creatures have infect or wither, while deathtouch is more akin to poisonous. Oh and yes they do buffer your health, a Squire will stop a Krosan Cloudscraper as they will prevent all 13 of that damage coming to your face. The only time this is not the case is with a form of evasion that bypasses potential blockers.
Also where did hearthstone come from? Is it because my avatar is cartoony and hearthstone has a cartoony aesthetic? Hearthstone just seems like a very off topic and non-relevant topic. Very strange argument you used.
The largest way of removing Planeswalkers is through combat damage where there's far less removal spells to be directed at Planeswalkers than any other type of removal out there. Your example falls flat.
The largest method is actually spells that either target, edict, or sweep. Combat is only good if you can maintain that army or have means to give your creature a form of evasion.
Imagine a format that rarely sees Planeswalkers suddenly inundated with them coming out of the command zone on demand and having to further divide all those resources.
According to my crystal ball, and also this commander product here, that has already come to pass. Its from this relatively recent inventive design called "[name] can be your commander".
Golly gee it's like on top of all of those things you mentioned that adding a bunch of something else to deal with that isn't often around might be stretching decks even thinner! You even made my case for me here. /s
Gee golly wiz batman, why is your utility belt so much lighter? Did you forget your planeswalker repellent?
In all seriousness, though, if all you have to offer the discussion here is to be sardonic then take that to social media or Twitter. We're actually having a discussion here.
I take my joking very seriously. If you feel that I may have dismounted you with it, it maybe a sign you are taking the situation far too seriously and are blowing it out of proportion.
Like Dovin Baan? Really? This would be a boogeyman of the format? Hes slow as molasses and would require proliferation cards or at least a chain veil to be really threatening.
Jace, Unraveler of Secrets literally can't protect himself unless he negs 2. Also perhaps you would be interested in this older model called a mind sculptor. This card here gets a lot of mileage.
Venser, the Sojourner is somehow quicker than Dovin and yet even Dovin is better at protecting himself.
Ral, Izzet Viceroy? Is this an april fool's joke? In order for Ral here to protect himself, he has to neg 3, which puts him at 2 loyalty which is dangerous territory for a planeswalker.
I really expected at least a low hanging fruit like Sorin Markov, Karn Liberated, or Ugin, the Spirit Dragon in that list of yours. Because what makes these ones actually intimidating is that they have such a profound effect on the game because their impact can be done the same turn.
Again, the pro planeswalker crowd seems to.miss that this is a format based around legendary creatures, so any argument for allowing walkers as commanders has to not only show that the benefits outweigh the negatives, but do so significantly enough to warrant major change to the rules of the format. Nobody has been able to demonstrate this, and most people still feel that the negatives outweigh the positives.
So far the arguments for pws come from people just wanting to play them, or play specific walkers. House rule them in or make your own format. There's no reason the format should change in a fundamental way to accommodate you when the majority is against it. Even if allowing planeswalkers were a wash in terms of cost benefit, that would be a reason to leaves things as they are. Even the fact that it would grow the banlist is enough to counteract the benefit of a handful of interesting commanders being added. We already have a commanderesque format where all planeswalkers are legal as commanders, and it's dead.
Seriously, it's threads like this that make me glad the RC has a major status quo bias. People posting they want a format defining change so they can play tibalt or Nahiri is just laughable. If you want to play a specific walker, ask your playgroup. Have a discussion. That's what house rules are for, to accommodate unpopular preferences without having to change the rules for everyone. The beauty of this format is that it can be whatever your group agrees on, without imposing that on everyone else.
Private Mod Note
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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!
I feel like there's a flaw in viewing the walkers in a vacuum. Yes, some move towards their ultimates slowly, and yes, not all of them pose an immediate threat upon resolution.
But let's be honest - literally any mechanism that anyone uses in this game, whether it be walkers, tokens, artifacts, lands or creatures, anything else in between, you are always going to look for ways to break their symmetry. On its own, sure, Dovin Baan is a little lame. Boost his counters however, and you've got an extremely restrictive game state that the game literally has one way to break at present - Karn Liberated's ultimate. Likewise with Jace, Unraveler of Secrets - it has some utility, but doesn't do much until you hit his ult, at which point you have something in play that literally already exists on the ban list, and is harder to get rid of than its predecessor.
Not to mention, if you're NOT using proliferate or some other way to break the symmetry of your walkers in a superfriends/ commander is a walker deck, I question your ability to build around walkers, because you're probably doing it wrong.
At any rate, based on spoilers so far, this discussion really hasn't changed for me. In fact, with more proliferate (a landfall proliferate, no less) I'm less likely to want walkers in the zone - not because any of them will be overly strong in and of themselves, but because there's enough around already (and more coming) to make them wholly unpleasant to play against. Time will tell with the full spoiling, of course - if there's a reasonable degree of anti-walker tech coming, I'd be amenable to reassessment. As it is, nothing has changed - there's plenty of ways to make them grosser than usual, and not enough ways to deal with that, which leads to the sort of game I don't want to be involved in. As per usual, purely my opinion, yours may vary.
Again, the pro planeswalker crowd seems to.miss that this is a format based around legendary creatures, so any argument for allowing walkers as commanders has to not only show that the benefits outweigh the negatives, but do so significantly enough to warrant major change to the rules of the format. Nobody has been able to demonstrate this, and most people still feel that the negatives outweigh the positives.
So far the arguments for pws come from people just wanting to play them, or play specific walkers. House rule them in or make your own format. There's no reason the format should change in a fundamental way to accommodate you when the majority is against it. Even if allowing planeswalkers were a wash in terms of cost benefit, that would be a reason to leaves things as they are. Even the fact that it would grow the banlist is enough to counteract the benefit of a handful of interesting commanders being added. We already have a commanderesque format where all planeswalkers are legal as commanders, and it's dead.
Seriously, it's threads like this that make me glad the RC has a major status quo bias. People posting they want a format defining change so they can play tibalt or Nahiri is just laughable. If you want to play a specific walker, ask your playgroup. Have a discussion. That's what house rules are for, to accommodate unpopular preferences without having to change the rules for everyone. The beauty of this format is that it can be whatever your group agrees on, without imposing that on everyone else.
The printed product over three seperate products already disagrees with you and already has put the most powerful most build around walkers into the format as Commanders. The change has slready been made the format is already bigger than just legendary creatutes.
Also again I disagree with your basis where showing positive qualities outweighs negative ones because that is not how anything else in this format is ever determined. This that have too many negatives are removed from consideration and a lack of positives is not the same as a wealth of negatives.
Look at the hundreds of cards added to format every year for proof of that.
The printed product over three seperate products already disagrees with you and already has put the most powerful most build around walkers into the format as Commanders. The change has slready been made the format is already bigger than just legendary creatutes.
This is your opinion, hardly facts. Absolutely nothing to back it up, either, considering those are also the only legal walkers. I don’t think “powerful” is the appropriate term here, considering they only see play in EDH as well.
Teferi TA is probably the strongest of the bunch. NuKarn is miles ahead of him, in my opinion. 2-card board lock with Mycosynth Lattice? Generating Infinite Turns via Nexus of FateUgin’s Nexus? Same with NuRal Zarek, it’s like Panoptic Mirro in the Command Zone. Hell, NuTeferi is a better version of his original incarnation, with access to a secondary color to boot.
I just find it odd that people claim Pw’s Are weak in this format because they don’t make it around the table. But, besides Super Friends builds, what other deck is actively trying to protect a PW? Would you not support your General to make it shine? For it to shine, it has to stick. So, kind of poor logic to assume that PW would suffer similar fate as a general that it would in the 99.
Not worth it, and glad to see the RC is feeling that way as well.
Again, the pro planeswalker crowd seems to.miss that this is a format based around legendary creatures, so any argument for allowing walkers as commanders has to not only show that the benefits outweigh the negatives, but do so significantly enough to warrant major change to the rules of the format. Nobody has been able to demonstrate this, and most people still feel that the negatives outweigh the positives.
So far the arguments for pws come from people just wanting to play them, or play specific walkers. House rule them in or make your own format. There's no reason the format should change in a fundamental way to accommodate you when the majority is against it. Even if allowing planeswalkers were a wash in terms of cost benefit, that would be a reason to leaves things as they are. Even the fact that it would grow the banlist is enough to counteract the benefit of a handful of interesting commanders being added. We already have a commanderesque format where all planeswalkers are legal as commanders, and it's dead.
Seriously, it's threads like this that make me glad the RC has a major status quo bias. People posting they want a format defining change so they can play tibalt or Nahiri is just laughable. If you want to play a specific walker, ask your playgroup. Have a discussion. That's what house rules are for, to accommodate unpopular preferences without having to change the rules for everyone. The beauty of this format is that it can be whatever your group agrees on, without imposing that on everyone else.
The printed product over three seperate products already disagrees with you and already has put the most powerful most build around walkers into the format as Commanders. The change has slready been made the format is already bigger than just legendary creatutes.
Also again I disagree with your basis where showing positive qualities outweighs negative ones because that is not how anything else in this format is ever determined. This that have too many negatives are removed from consideration and a lack of positives is not the same as a wealth of negatives.
Look at the hundreds of cards added to format every year for proof of that.
Cards being added to the format is not the same at all as just changing the rules because a vocal minority feels like it. If you don't have some sort of a threshold for a rules change, then you have nothing. If the RC were to just allow walkers as commanders just because some people want it, what would stop them from reversing the decision just because some people don't (and, btw, that group is bigger)?
Also, you are factually incorrect that "showing positive qualities outweighs negative ones because that is not how anything else in this format is ever determined." The RC has in fact said that is part of their decision making process. The example that comes to mind was their response to requests to bring back banned as a commander so Braids and Rofellos could be legal in the 99. They explained that so little is gained from doing this that it does not outweigh the negative of a rules change and increased complexity.
Also, I'm sorry but 12 total walkers printed in secondary products that were designed specifically for commander does not disprove my argument. You've said this before in this thread and heard the responses. Wizards has said that they specifically tested these for commander and designed them with commander in mind, unlike all the other walkers printed. It also shows that they can serve the vocal minority without changing the rules and just allowing all walkers. If anything, its further proof as to just how unnecessary allowing walkers as commanders is. Let's not even get into the fact that most of them are either outright bad or extremely narrow. They added nothing of value to the format.
And you also neglect the sad fate of Brawl, which allowed PW commanders. Of course, Brawl had plenty of issues (rotating format, limited card pool, poor support, bad balance between colors), but PW commanders, if they were actually a feature, should have helped it overcome them. They simply weren't a draw.
Rather than change the format, house rule whatever offbeat walker you want as a commander. Format stability is itself a large positive. Its one of EDH's big draws. Rules changes need to be justified as adding substantial value to the format. PWs as commanders doesn't come close to passing this test.
Again, there is no real difference between allowing PWs and allowing Legendary enchantments, legendary lands, legendary artifacts, or even non legendary creatures as commanders. Hell, why should someone be able to run Nahiri if I can't run Tamanoa? The counter argument is that PWs are characters. So is Uncle Istvan. So is That Which Was Taken. And why stop with characters anyway? The flavor is that you choose a commander for your deck, why can't I choose Coralhelm Commander? He's qualified, he's already done the job! Jokes aside, nobody on the pro walker side has come up with a justification for allowing walkers that can't be made for allowing any legendary permanent or non legendary creature. That's a fundamental flaw with the position.
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!
Strictly speaking though, the precedent isn't really set by the precon walkers. It was set by the phrase 'x, y z can be your commander'. Feasibly that could be stuck on anything. So again, as Onering states above, there's no justification that can't be made for any other permanent.
Hell, now that there's legendary sorceries, Karn's Temporal Sundering could be my commander so long as that clause is stuck to it.
Strictly speaking though, the precedent isn't really set by the precon walkers. It was set by the phrase 'x, y z can be your commander'. Feasibly that could be stuck on anything. So again, as Onering states above, there's no justification that can't be made for any other permanent.
Hell, now that there's legendary sorceries, Karn's Temporal Sundering could be my commander so long as that clause is stuck to it.
But it is set as a precedent by the precon walkers. They are the only ones with that line of text, making it a planeswalker centric set of rules. That the only way this would be otherwise is if that text is officially printed on a nonplaneswalker noncreature card. Also if it were placed on any card such as a land, the land can't leave the command zone except from the effects of a command beacon because it can't be cast.
It isn’t, but point made nonetheless. Your argument has to come a long way to prove all walkers should be legal, just like mine is aeons away from legendary sorceries being legal. The point was that some are legal, sure. There’s a big difference between 12 commander designed walkers being legal and opening the floodgates to everything with a loyalty counter. There’s a lot of cons, and a very small list of pros.
As long as there is not a sincere thread titled "why can't That Which Was Taken be my commander" it is a hyperbolic meaningless distraction within this thread so in reality it is.
Again, the pro planeswalker crowd seems to.miss that this is a format based around legendary creatures, so any argument for allowing walkers as commanders has to not only show that the benefits outweigh the negatives, but do so significantly enough to warrant major change to the rules of the format. Nobody has been able to demonstrate this, and most people still feel that the negatives outweigh the positives.
So far the arguments for pws come from people just wanting to play them, or play specific walkers. House rule them in or make your own format. There's no reason the format should change in a fundamental way to accommodate you when the majority is against it. Even if allowing planeswalkers were a wash in terms of cost benefit, that would be a reason to leaves things as they are. Even the fact that it would grow the banlist is enough to counteract the benefit of a handful of interesting commanders being added. We already have a commanderesque format where all planeswalkers are legal as commanders, and it's dead.
Seriously, it's threads like this that make me glad the RC has a major status quo bias. People posting they want a format defining change so they can play tibalt or Nahiri is just laughable. If you want to play a specific walker, ask your playgroup. Have a discussion. That's what house rules are for, to accommodate unpopular preferences without having to change the rules for everyone. The beauty of this format is that it can be whatever your group agrees on, without imposing that on everyone else.
The printed product over three seperate products already disagrees with you and already has put the most powerful most build around walkers into the format as Commanders. The change has slready been made the format is already bigger than just legendary creatutes.
Also again I disagree with your basis where showing positive qualities outweighs negative ones because that is not how anything else in this format is ever determined. This that have too many negatives are removed from consideration and a lack of positives is not the same as a wealth of negatives.
Look at the hundreds of cards added to format every year for proof of that.
Cards being added to the format is not the same at all as just changing the rules because a vocal minority feels like it.
The example that comes to mind was their response to requests to bring back banned as a commander so Braids and Rofellos could be legal in the 99. They explained that so little is gained from doing this that it does not outweigh the negative of a rules change and increased complexity.
It's not a good example, due only people on this site and subsection voted in this poll, yet there is almost 36% for and 56% against, with rest undecided.
Not sure about your view, but I don't think 36% of players can be called a minority.
As for the second, I never understood why "banned as commander" was removed. Did it make rules harder? Come on, that's not an argument. MtG has so many rules, that if you can't grasp the concept of "This cannot be your general but can be in your deck" you probably should not play the game...
What will you do on stack and layer interactions then?
Not sure about your view, but I don't think 36% of players can be called a minority.
Quote from the muthaflipping dictionary »
Minority, noun: the smaller number or part, especially a number or part representing less than half of the whole.
Huh? How else would you define a minority?
I think the main reason to do away with the banned-as-commander rule was that it applied to so few cards. Rules simplicity has value. The stack can't really be simplified more than it is.
And while mtg has complex rules, formats generally don't. That way it's easy for people to move around between formats without needing to learn a bunch of new stuff.
For myself, I didn't find the secondary effects to be relevant. Do note that my observation comes with a grain of salt because I'm an avid cEDH player and am admittedly part of a group that you (the RC and CAG) deliberately don't cater to (for good reasons, probably haha).
The first thing I'd like to mention, being a representative of the cEDH crowd, is that if the RC and CAG are worried about how an unbanning/banning would affect the general Commander environment, it's always useful to ask the cEDH crowd. Anything that we can do to break a specific card is something that we all collectively enjoy AND are really good at. I think the cEDH crowd could be a good benchmark in evaluating the potential ramifications of banning/unbanning decisions y'all make.
Of the planeswalkers that are currently legal, Teferi, Temporal Archmage is one of the strongest options available to the cEDH meta game, with perhaps Aminatou or Estrid coming in as VERY distant 2nd place options. The reason that this is the case is because he, in tandem with The Chain Veil, is a 1-card semi-infinite combo that takes advantage of the most basic aspect of the game: mana advantage. It is Teferi's -1 ability that puts him so over the top because he allows you to cheat on mana. Any card that allows its caster to generate mana and/or card advantage at low mana costs is inevitably going to be powerful in the game; it's one of the reasons that Mana Crypt, Flash, and Ad Nauseam are so format defining from a cEDH perspective. Each of these cards allow you to cheat on mana in some form or fashion, making them very powerful. Teferi is by far the best Planeswalker-as-a-Commander card and represents a signficant portion of the cEDH world. If we use Teeri as the benchmark for evaluating other planeswalkers, then I don't think that enabling all Planeswalkers as Commanders is a terrible thing, because so few of them allow you to cheat on mana or cards like Teferi does.
Of the available planeswalkers (excluding the new War set), there are only a few of them that actually allow you to cheat on mana or cards in an egregious fashion.
Hopefully the criteria is pretty clear as to which Planeswalkers I would evaluate as being cEDH quality material. And because I'm coming from a cEDH mindset, I don't mind the feel-bads of losing to quick combo.
However, with what I've said, I do think that Kelzam has a great point on financial aspects NOR do I consider whether some of the currently pritned Planeswalkers would be fun-sucking/game-warping permanents. Some of the new Planeswalkers look like they would be hella annoying to constantly see over the course of a Commander game and there are some that would probably make the table groan (Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker as repeatable and constant removal would probably be a sad panda face for the rest of the table, especially if you dedicate more than 25% of your deck to mana sources).
I think I'd like to particularly stress Kelzam's point. Because Commander has become such a global phenomenon, any decision you make in regards to bannings/unbannings DOES have direct impacts on the secondary MTG card market. I think you're all aware of that power, which I appreciate, and this is ultimately the best argument in influencing your decision to allow Planeswalkers to be Commanders.
Anyways, those are my thoughts. TL;dr I don't think that there are enough powerful secondary effects that would drastically influence my opinion of the power level of the available planeswalker pool to make any of them egregious/un-fun from a cEDH perspective if they were legal as Commanders.
But it would definitely be hella awesome to have the new Nicol Bolas be the Commander for my Nicol Bolas themed Commander deck...
UB Dralnu, Lich Lord
RBW [Primer]-Kaalia of the Vast
BUG [Primer]-Tasigur, the Golden Fang
GWU [Primer]-Arcades, the Strategist
WUB Primer-Aminatou, the Fateshifter
UBR Nicol Bolas, the Ravager
I don't agree with the BaaC list but then again I haven't seen any arguments or discussions about any Walkers that aren't already legal as Commanders that makes them seem as they would require banning, even for tables that play at less power then the ones I tend to play at these days.
The best walkers are already legal and I would need to seem real good reasoning as to why any of the ones that would be made generals would have to be banned, beyond them just being annoying.
magicjudge.tumblr.com
GWU Angus Mackenzie's Fog of War GWU / B Sheoldred's Sleepless Cemetery B / R Ashling's Purifying Pilgrimage R
U Unesh's Sphinx Storm U / R Ib's Goblins: What It Says On The Tin R / UR Okaun & Zndrsplt Flip Out UR
Oathbreaker: UB Ashiok's Persistent Nightmare UB
This is a point that I very much agree with. JLK and Jimmy Wong were discussing this on Twitter the yesterday, as well, when someone brought up one of the episodes of The Command Zone podcast where they talked about Planeswalkers as Commanders. They put it pretty much as you do here, in that ultimately, being forced to deal with way more Planeswalkers will take combat damage away from players and thus effectively be padding those life totals.
Sure there are plenty of non-combat oriented decks that don't really get into the red zone that much, but those actually make for an even better case regarding increased game length, because in at a table with 2 or 3 Planeswalker Commanders, if the only non-PWer Commander is a Meren deck or something that doesn't bother to attack much, then that makes those games even longer.
Another thing I want to bring up is that while I don't mind long games, I do mind games where everyone is trying desperately to keep one Commander off of the table. This is Commanders like Narset, Enlightened Master, Zur the Enchanter, etc. The Commanders where even at competitive tables, if you let them sit and everyone isn't attending to that player, they explode out of nowhere. At tables with those Commanders, you basically get very little time to progress what you're trying to do with your own deck because you have to be so concerned with what they're going to do. With Planeswalker Commanders, it's the same thing, except on a much larger scale. It is very rare that a game can afford for a Planeswalker emblem to go off. Some Planeswalkers, you don't even want them to use their middle ability more than once. Currently, if a Planeswalker lands in Commander games, it is either taken out fast, or gets lost in the chaos of the multiplayer nature of the format. In an environment where multiple people are able to cast a Planeswalker from the Command Zone on demand, you have to devote resources (time and spells) to keep them off of the board, constantly
Some people try to make a case that players should simply run more removal for Planeswalkers, but it's poor reasoning. Planeswalkers as Commanders will fundamentally change how people have to interact with and play games of Commander because of them being in the Command Zone. It's not as simple as adding removal. Aggro decks actually get worse because they have to focus on Planeswalkers. Certain colors get better, others don't. And this will be a reality. If someone doesn't believe it, look how every time the Commander precons come out, or even any set with a new Commander, you see a large number of people building and playing the new and shiny thing. There is a certain amount of room to explore when a new set of Commander decks come out, or a new set, before people exhaust the potential of those decks and either they lose their luster and move on, or they've optimized them and don't feel the need to keep playing them over and over again. This is a sensation that happens with every new set.
Now, imagine the above phenomenon but with the entire back catalog of Planeswalkers. That should tell you how many people you're going to see playing Planeswalkers as Commanders. It's new, it's a sudden whole new area of unexplored territory for the format at large. They're going to be absolutely rampant. There's no ifs, ands or buts about it. And that sensation is going to last for a very, very long time because it's not a small handful of Legendary Creatures, half of which that have a certain or niche mechanic or operation. Planeswalkers are value engines. It would not be healthy for this format, and risks doing more damage to the format than good. People like Jeremy Noell and other Twitter personalities can suggest that it's as simple as just unleashing them all as much as they want, but it is not good for the stability that this format has as it currently exists, or it's long term health.
(Also known as Xenphire)
If someone wants to make a controlling, taxing, life gaining deck or any combination of those things those tools already exist.
I am unsure if any p/w do this better than Commanders already legal.
You really don't want Dovin Baan, Jace, Unraveler of Secrets, Venser, the Sojourner, Ral, Izzet Viceroy or a number of other Planeswalkers to get their emblem off or it's going to be a nearly impossible uphill battle. When you're having to keep them under control while also dealing with one or two other players who are also playing Planeswalkers, you're so busy splitting your resources that the game is never going to move whether they taxes or control or not. The fact is that being forced to devote most of your combat or removal to Planeswalkers - not even including the other stuff in their deck - the game is grinding to a halt. You have no time to progress how your deck wants to play, because you have to worry about their Planeswalkers. In the current Commander environment you can make smart choices and trades and let some Commanders sit on the battlefield without worry about them. There is more nuance than "Keep everyone's Planeswalkers off of the board". That nuance is extremely lessened and gameplay becomes much less interesting.
(Also known as Xenphire)
Generally speaking, I agree with what you're saying. Planeswalkers do buffer life totals; they do draw aggro away from players. By extension that means life totals that would otherwise be shrinking are now cushier than before. All of that is true, but that doesn't necessarily mean games will be longer. That merely sounds true. In practice, I think the results might honestly stay the same.
Commander, as it is, already grants players an enormous life buffer to hide behind, so much so that traditional aggro decks are basically unheard of. In my experience, what tends to end games of Commander isn't some grindy battle of attrition. No, it's usually a dramatic shift in the balance of power. Yes, sometimes games are decided by the careful accrual and denial resources, but more often I find games are decided by someone going way over the top of everyone else. Some player invariably makes a ton of mana, or draws forty cards, or assembles some multi-card combo that wins the game. Whatever it is they're doing, it's way more powerful than everything else going on, and it provides that player with such a commanding lead that they're able to take over the rest of the game from there.
Imagine a game where four players have been battling it out for a while, but they're all still in the game with varying amounts of life, cards, and board states. Now imagine one player with a moderately sized army casts Craterhoof Behemoth. This player was chipping away at people's life totals earlier, but now they suddenly have a massive amount of damage to distribute, so much so that all the maneuvering they did before is rendered mostly negligible in comparison; the damage up until now was simply too paltry to matter. This is how I suspect planeswalkers might play if they could be commanders. Yes, planeswalkers would probably redirect damage away from players and towards them, but the stage in the game at which this occurs might not affect the overall length of the game because that Craterhoof or similar such card is still going to run everyone down anyway.
I disagree. I think planeswalkers are much simpler than creatures.
For the most part, planeswalkers tend to follow a similar pattern. They have a plus ability, a minus ability, and an ultimate. Most of the time, players can't ult their planeswalkers (and when they can it's really obvious if they should), so that just leaves the other two abilities. From there, you can usually do process of elimination to figure out which ability you should use. Am I working towards my ultimate? Use my plus ability. Are there any useful targets for my minus ability? Use my plus ability. Can I even afford my minus ability? You get the idea. And timing isn't really a restriction here either since players can only activate planeswalker abilities once per turn and at sorcery speed to boot.
You know what really bogs games down though? Decision paralysis. Planeswalkers are modular, sure, but creatures are especially modular because creatures get to participate in combat whereas planeswalkers usually don't. And in giant multiplayer games, it isn't uncommon for boards to stall out and for combat math to become so burdensome that players skip combat entirely in favor of playing it safe. That really slows down games because even though players might actually be in a position to bring the game to its conclusion, finding the lines to reach that point can be extremely difficult, especially if politics are involved. The complexity of these situations just causes mental shutdowns sometimes, and that's almost always because of creatures.
Trap your friends in an endless game with this 23-card combo!
Planeswalkers are defensive and provide a health buffer? Creatures literally already act as buffers for your health. That like creatures, planeswalkers can also be offensive cards. Ever hear of ground-stalling?
Planeswalkers require resources to take care of? Good thing creaures, lands, enchantments, and artifacts aren't like that and don't require the deck to actually pack a healthy amount of means to remove those permanents. /s
Oh and I voted yes because I just want Tibalt, the Fiend-Blooded and Tibalt, Rakish Instigator as my commanders because he is my favorite of the planeswalkers, not because he is the strictly the best from a mechanical standpoint. That if the concern is power, ban the worst ones, allow the rest, and call it a day.
So, your argument for Planeswalkers is a sarcastic post that didn't even correctly address half of the issues you're attempting to poke holes in with faulty logic while simultaneously not actually doing anything to make a case for them?
Yep, there sure are archetypes and Commanders that see play that slow down the game. They're pretty niche and not often played, either, while the issue of slowing down games is inherent with any Planeswalker as a Commander for the reasons I listed that you couldn't cherry pick.
Yep. Creatures can block. Yet they don't divide your attacks between themselves and the player since it's not Hearthstone and you don't directly attack Creatures. The largest way of removing Planeswalkers is through combat damage where there's far less removal spells to be directed at Planeswalkers than any other type of removal out there. Your example falls flat.
Imagine a format that rarely sees Planeswalkers suddenly inundated with them coming out of the command zone on demand and having to further divide all those resources. Golly gee it's like on top of all of those things you mentioned that adding a bunch of something else to deal with that isn't often around might be stretching decks even thinner! You even made my case for me here. /s
In all seriousness, though, if all you have to offer the discussion here is to be sardonic then take that to social media or Twitter. We're actually having a discussion here.
(Also known as Xenphire)
If anything making games go longer would be a positive thing. Too much of this format is defined by degenerate ramp decks that just are "non interactive oops i win" -decks.
More stax = healthier format.
I don't tend to judge most p/w by their ultimates, so yes a bunch of emblems that emulate cards that exist, happen later and can't be removed aren't that high on my priority list.
If you take the ulimates out of the picture and view them as what they will most of the time be in a game the ones you list here aren't anything special sitting in the Command Zone.
Also again as bad as any of these possible worse case scenarios can or could be, they aren't any different than handfuls of situations that are already free and clear in this format.
You heard it here first folks. Tribal decks, superfriends, and even artifact decks for example are niche and rarely played.
Creatures in hearthstone don't typically heal at end of turn either like in MTG except for a rare few. You can't win through attrition of creature health unless your creatures have infect or wither, while deathtouch is more akin to poisonous. Oh and yes they do buffer your health, a Squire will stop a Krosan Cloudscraper as they will prevent all 13 of that damage coming to your face. The only time this is not the case is with a form of evasion that bypasses potential blockers.
Also where did hearthstone come from? Is it because my avatar is cartoony and hearthstone has a cartoony aesthetic? Hearthstone just seems like a very off topic and non-relevant topic. Very strange argument you used.
The largest method is actually spells that either target, edict, or sweep. Combat is only good if you can maintain that army or have means to give your creature a form of evasion.
According to my crystal ball, and also this commander product here, that has already come to pass. Its from this relatively recent inventive design called "[name] can be your commander". Gee golly wiz batman, why is your utility belt so much lighter? Did you forget your planeswalker repellent?
I take my joking very seriously. If you feel that I may have dismounted you with it, it maybe a sign you are taking the situation far too seriously and are blowing it out of proportion.
In fact lets take a look at your troubles. Like Dovin Baan? Really? This would be a boogeyman of the format? Hes slow as molasses and would require proliferation cards or at least a chain veil to be really threatening.
Jace, Unraveler of Secrets literally can't protect himself unless he negs 2. Also perhaps you would be interested in this older model called a mind sculptor. This card here gets a lot of mileage.
Venser, the Sojourner is somehow quicker than Dovin and yet even Dovin is better at protecting himself.
Ral, Izzet Viceroy? Is this an april fool's joke? In order for Ral here to protect himself, he has to neg 3, which puts him at 2 loyalty which is dangerous territory for a planeswalker.
I really expected at least a low hanging fruit like Sorin Markov, Karn Liberated, or Ugin, the Spirit Dragon in that list of yours. Because what makes these ones actually intimidating is that they have such a profound effect on the game because their impact can be done the same turn.
So far the arguments for pws come from people just wanting to play them, or play specific walkers. House rule them in or make your own format. There's no reason the format should change in a fundamental way to accommodate you when the majority is against it. Even if allowing planeswalkers were a wash in terms of cost benefit, that would be a reason to leaves things as they are. Even the fact that it would grow the banlist is enough to counteract the benefit of a handful of interesting commanders being added. We already have a commanderesque format where all planeswalkers are legal as commanders, and it's dead.
Seriously, it's threads like this that make me glad the RC has a major status quo bias. People posting they want a format defining change so they can play tibalt or Nahiri is just laughable. If you want to play a specific walker, ask your playgroup. Have a discussion. That's what house rules are for, to accommodate unpopular preferences without having to change the rules for everyone. The beauty of this format is that it can be whatever your group agrees on, without imposing that on everyone else.
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!
But let's be honest - literally any mechanism that anyone uses in this game, whether it be walkers, tokens, artifacts, lands or creatures, anything else in between, you are always going to look for ways to break their symmetry. On its own, sure, Dovin Baan is a little lame. Boost his counters however, and you've got an extremely restrictive game state that the game literally has one way to break at present - Karn Liberated's ultimate. Likewise with Jace, Unraveler of Secrets - it has some utility, but doesn't do much until you hit his ult, at which point you have something in play that literally already exists on the ban list, and is harder to get rid of than its predecessor.
Not to mention, if you're NOT using proliferate or some other way to break the symmetry of your walkers in a superfriends/ commander is a walker deck, I question your ability to build around walkers, because you're probably doing it wrong.
At any rate, based on spoilers so far, this discussion really hasn't changed for me. In fact, with more proliferate (a landfall proliferate, no less) I'm less likely to want walkers in the zone - not because any of them will be overly strong in and of themselves, but because there's enough around already (and more coming) to make them wholly unpleasant to play against. Time will tell with the full spoiling, of course - if there's a reasonable degree of anti-walker tech coming, I'd be amenable to reassessment. As it is, nothing has changed - there's plenty of ways to make them grosser than usual, and not enough ways to deal with that, which leads to the sort of game I don't want to be involved in. As per usual, purely my opinion, yours may vary.
The printed product over three seperate products already disagrees with you and already has put the most powerful most build around walkers into the format as Commanders. The change has slready been made the format is already bigger than just legendary creatutes.
Also again I disagree with your basis where showing positive qualities outweighs negative ones because that is not how anything else in this format is ever determined. This that have too many negatives are removed from consideration and a lack of positives is not the same as a wealth of negatives.
Look at the hundreds of cards added to format every year for proof of that.
This is your opinion, hardly facts. Absolutely nothing to back it up, either, considering those are also the only legal walkers. I don’t think “powerful” is the appropriate term here, considering they only see play in EDH as well.
Teferi TA is probably the strongest of the bunch. NuKarn is miles ahead of him, in my opinion. 2-card board lock with Mycosynth Lattice? Generating Infinite Turns via
Nexus of FateUgin’s Nexus? Same with NuRal Zarek, it’s like Panoptic Mirro in the Command Zone. Hell, NuTeferi is a better version of his original incarnation, with access to a secondary color to boot.I just find it odd that people claim Pw’s Are weak in this format because they don’t make it around the table. But, besides Super Friends builds, what other deck is actively trying to protect a PW? Would you not support your General to make it shine? For it to shine, it has to stick. So, kind of poor logic to assume that PW would suffer similar fate as a general that it would in the 99.
Not worth it, and glad to see the RC is feeling that way as well.
Cards being added to the format is not the same at all as just changing the rules because a vocal minority feels like it. If you don't have some sort of a threshold for a rules change, then you have nothing. If the RC were to just allow walkers as commanders just because some people want it, what would stop them from reversing the decision just because some people don't (and, btw, that group is bigger)?
Also, you are factually incorrect that "showing positive qualities outweighs negative ones because that is not how anything else in this format is ever determined." The RC has in fact said that is part of their decision making process. The example that comes to mind was their response to requests to bring back banned as a commander so Braids and Rofellos could be legal in the 99. They explained that so little is gained from doing this that it does not outweigh the negative of a rules change and increased complexity.
Also, I'm sorry but 12 total walkers printed in secondary products that were designed specifically for commander does not disprove my argument. You've said this before in this thread and heard the responses. Wizards has said that they specifically tested these for commander and designed them with commander in mind, unlike all the other walkers printed. It also shows that they can serve the vocal minority without changing the rules and just allowing all walkers. If anything, its further proof as to just how unnecessary allowing walkers as commanders is. Let's not even get into the fact that most of them are either outright bad or extremely narrow. They added nothing of value to the format.
And you also neglect the sad fate of Brawl, which allowed PW commanders. Of course, Brawl had plenty of issues (rotating format, limited card pool, poor support, bad balance between colors), but PW commanders, if they were actually a feature, should have helped it overcome them. They simply weren't a draw.
Rather than change the format, house rule whatever offbeat walker you want as a commander. Format stability is itself a large positive. Its one of EDH's big draws. Rules changes need to be justified as adding substantial value to the format. PWs as commanders doesn't come close to passing this test.
Again, there is no real difference between allowing PWs and allowing Legendary enchantments, legendary lands, legendary artifacts, or even non legendary creatures as commanders. Hell, why should someone be able to run Nahiri if I can't run Tamanoa? The counter argument is that PWs are characters. So is Uncle Istvan. So is That Which Was Taken. And why stop with characters anyway? The flavor is that you choose a commander for your deck, why can't I choose Coralhelm Commander? He's qualified, he's already done the job! Jokes aside, nobody on the pro walker side has come up with a justification for allowing walkers that can't be made for allowing any legendary permanent or non legendary creature. That's a fundamental flaw with the position.
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!
Hell, now that there's legendary sorceries, Karn's Temporal Sundering could be my commander so long as that clause is stuck to it.
Peak whataboutism
All sources in game with that line of text: http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?output=spoiler&method=visual&action=advanced&text= [can] [be] [your] [commander.]
Onering is just being hyperbolic and that their statement is dismissable and should be ignored.
It isn’t, but point made nonetheless. Your argument has to come a long way to prove all walkers should be legal, just like mine is aeons away from legendary sorceries being legal. The point was that some are legal, sure. There’s a big difference between 12 commander designed walkers being legal and opening the floodgates to everything with a loyalty counter. There’s a lot of cons, and a very small list of pros.
It's not a good example, due only people on this site and subsection voted in this poll, yet there is almost 36% for and 56% against, with rest undecided.
Not sure about your view, but I don't think 36% of players can be called a minority.
As for the second, I never understood why "banned as commander" was removed. Did it make rules harder? Come on, that's not an argument. MtG has so many rules, that if you can't grasp the concept of "This cannot be your general but can be in your deck" you probably should not play the game...
What will you do on stack and layer interactions then?
Huh? How else would you define a minority?
I think the main reason to do away with the banned-as-commander rule was that it applied to so few cards. Rules simplicity has value. The stack can't really be simplified more than it is.
And while mtg has complex rules, formats generally don't. That way it's easy for people to move around between formats without needing to learn a bunch of new stuff.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6