Your arguments are "We want to support a bad format with proven trouble cards and an administration that admits they won't care for paper" with a sprinkle of "My facts are real, your facts are not" (Vial/Kraum lasted 5 months when DC was in a lull, Oloro close to 8 at one of the peaks in DC popularity).
If DC dies, in nine months you'll be whining that none of your decks can even tickle the top tier decks and WotC doesn't care about paper results. While I won't have people to play the balanced, competitive 1v1 commander list because you didn't want to put the minimal deckbuilding concessions necessary to make Zurgo a non-issue.
Who cares if wizards supports paper? Paper and online are the same game. If they decide to try to balance and regulate 1v1 online those changes will transpose to the paper players using the online rules. I will certainly be whining about the horrid banlist "in nine months" and so will the MTGO community. I have hope that wizards will listen when the online community complains of the inbalance.
If DC dies, in nine months you'll be whining that none of your decks can even tickle the top tier decks and WotC doesn't care about paper results. While I won't have people to play the balanced, competitive 1v1 commander list because you didn't want to put the minimal deckbuilding concessions necessary to make Zurgo a non-issue.
WoTC gives much much more value to online results for almost ANY format, on paper Miracles has about... 8-9% top appearences, on online it goes to almost 20%, guess what happened? It will affect paper sure, but online decks also affects paper, it will have almost the same card pool with the exception of 2-3 cards (playable cards) and basically the same strategies, online meta does differ from paper, but it isn't as different as you say. If a deck becomes oppressive on paper or online, it will soon gravitate towards either one of those.
Also sorry, if WoTC has any sense, Oloro, Vial, TC, DTT and Tasigur will all get banned very soon... So that I really do not worry about, they said they were going to act fast. The actual list is awful, but with time it will shape itself, I played a bunch of tier 2 decks with good results back then with DC, I'm pretty sure soon I'll be able to play them again here, now I know its almost impossible beating Tasi or Vial, but with time I'll be ok probably.
I always played my decks with 30HP on DC, I'm sure I will be able to play them again, wizards always wants diversity, diversity means they sell more cards (online and paper) so... if a format is not diverse its not good for them financially, they will try to make it diverse.
Cainsson You assume a lot of things. First you assume Zurgo is an issue to me, it's not. It is for DC's meta, which his 12% seems to tell me it's not as easy to make it a non-issue as you claim.
You also assume Wizards list will keep being this bad, which is far from being a given, specially because this was a joint list with Multiplayer and the next one won't be.
You seem to be clinging to DC because you prefer it, which I said several times it's fine. It's clearly a more balanced format than Wizards. But you're not actually dealing with the issue I'm really talking about, which is format's acceptance and spread.
There are 2 different arguments being discussed here.
1) What is the healthiest and most balanced format in Terms of mechanical play? I agree with Cainsson and Yuji here
2) What formats will live, and what will die? I agree with Fsecco here. Whether I like it or not people are going to gravitate to the official wizards format. You can try to fight this but you will lose. You are better off prepping for the wizards list now because it's just a matter of time before DC disappears. This disappearance will be decided by new players. When a new player is presented a choice to play a pseudo official format or a complete third party format I would put money on the majority choosing the pseudo official format.
That's it.
And #1 is not a given in the future. Wizards can become a balanced format. It just isn't right now.
Oh yeah, also a great point you guys touched: MTGO will have WAY MORE solid metagame data than we ever had for the format. So it'll be easier to understand what's going on and ask for bans/unbans. I just hope they keep their mind open and make a 1x1 banlist that has fewer cards than Leviathan currently have, so we can play with fun stuff again.
Who cares if wizards supports paper? Paper and online are the same game.
The point is paper players will break the format because we're the vast majority, and it will take ages to be reflected on the banlist because by their own admission the ammount of people playing commander online is minuscule.
BTW Iname just top8'd at the DTC, don't expect those results against Oloro and Vial Smasher.
WoTC gives much much more value to online results for almost ANY format
That's the problem, the majority of Legacy results come from Online, the majority of Modern results come from Online, the only trackable draft results come from online. The majority of 1v1 Commander games are in paper.
Cainsson You assume a lot of things. First you assume Zurgo is an issue to me, it's not. It is for DC's meta, which his 12% seems to tell me it's not as easy to make it a non-issue as you claim.
You also assume Wizards list will keep being this bad, which is far from being a given, specially because this was a joint list with Multiplayer and the next one won't be.
You seem to be clinging to DC because you prefer it, which I said several times it's fine. It's clearly a more balanced format than Wizards. But you're not actually dealing with the issue I'm really talking about, which is format's acceptance and spread.
A 12% that not only doesn't hog top8 results but often doesn't even top. That's not an issue, that's a cheap deck. You sound like the people that argued that Pod wasn't an issue because Burn and Affinity were more popular, when Pod had won 5/6 Modern GPs plus the Modern PT and consistently put 2+ copies on top 8s.
And I am not the one who's changing colors all of a sudden. Commander has never been official and never depended on stores, the WPN or WotC. It's always been a rogue format sustained by players. But now all of a sudden "we" have to support WotC because the crap they regurgitated and called a format means they will put more effort into it than the DC? Sorry but that's bull***** and clear as day your personal preference talking.
What deck do you even want to play that its impossible to play in DC but you hope won't be teabagged all day long by Oloros?
That was true. But now that 1v1 is a real thing we can probably expect more digital games to come. I didn't know that Iname made top 8 in 20 life. That's really sweet. Now I'm really sad DC is going to disappear.
That's why I'm saying you're refusing to listen. It's not a personal thing for me (but it seems to be for you). Do I prefer formats that aren't aggro x midrange? Yes I do. But I can play ANY FRIGGING DECK IN DC, that's not an issue at all. I don't give a slight f*** to what is playable or not because I can just sleeve anything and play whatever. It's a shame you can't differentiate what's personal preference and what's not.
You say stuff like I just want to play Oloro and whatever (which I clearly will because I obviously loved Oloro and DTT and Cruise) but I really don't care what version of the format "WINS", as long as one of them wins and the other are put to rest so we don't divide the player base. I'd play Baral/Jace in DC20 forever if I needed, I love the decks. Anf if they're banned I'd migrate to Augustin or Geist or Keranos or WHATEVER. The main issue is to understand limitations and survivability of each format.
As I said, MY AREA, specifically, died when DC changed to 20 life. It seems to be coming back now that Wizards declared support for the format. Last Friday we played Wizards, this Friday it'll happen again. That's huge here. And as I've been saying for posts and posts, you may think what you want, but everything points to Wizards' format dictating the future of Commander, whether you like it or not. So as I said, play whatever you want, I'm shifting support to Wizards not only because it's the only thing I can do, but because I believe this is the move that'll finally put the format in the spotlight it deserves - the "rogue format sustained by players" approach clearly didn't work.
Online results are lower now because 1x1 Duel doesn't exist there. It was played with multiplayer banlist. I can bet money that this will change starting tomorrow, so you're looking through the lens of the past to this whole issue. It doesn't matter what things look like NOW. But how they'll look in the future.
EDIT: And guess what? If Wizards says, in July, that their 1x1 format will be 20 life, then I'm cool with it too.
That's why I'm saying you're refusing to listen. It's not a personal thing for me (but it seems to be for you). Do I prefer formats that aren't aggro x midrange? Yes I do. But I can play ANY FRIGGING DECK IN DC, that's not an issue at all. I don't give a slight f*** to what is playable or not because I can just sleeve anything and play whatever. It's a shame you can't differentiate what's personal preference and what's not.
Why do you feel limited to Aggro or Midrange? Surely control and combo exists in 20 life. Cainsson just mentioned that Iname hit top8. I haven't seen the list but last I checked it's a control/combo deck.
In any format, you can always play something different than what the format mostly looks like, I know. That doesn't mean the format doesn't have a clear face.
That's the part where personal preference comes into play. And I've been trying a lot to downplay this because although I have a personal preference of playstyle for the format, I know you all have it too and it shouldn't matter too much aside from me personally quitting the format or not. So its relevance is lower than other issues. I'll play DC20, like I said, if it's the winning format for Commander. I can play Baral, Jace or other more controlish decks and that's cool. But I played with Vial and Breya too, and you can't call them control decks. Breya plays a lot like Modern Control decks, which are very midrangey. Jace had to change a lot of its cards for more removal and a more midrangey approach too. Only Baral keeps the hard control/full counter route, and people are already complaining because it doesn't quite fit the format DC20 defenders want.
TL;DR: I dislike the midrange META, not just the midrange decks. That's personal preference and I'll still play DC20 if it comes out on top after all this - just like I kept playing it instead of changing to Leviathan. But I'd PREFER if things were different. It's a fortunate coincidence that Wizards actually decided to support Commander, and that it decided to go with 30 life. If they said 20 I'd still go their way.
That's why I'm saying you're refusing to listen. It's not a personal thing for me (but it seems to be for you). Do I prefer formats that aren't aggro x midrange? Yes I do. But I can play ANY FRIGGING DECK IN DC, that's not an issue at all. I don't give a slight f*** to what is playable or not because I can just sleeve anything and play whatever. It's a shame you can't differentiate what's personal preference and what's not.
You say stuff like I just want to play Oloro and whatever (which I clearly will because I obviously loved Oloro and DTT and Cruise) but I really don't care what version of the format "WINS", as long as one of them wins and the other are put to rest so we don't divide the player base. I'd play Baral/Jace in DC20 forever if I needed, I love the decks. Anf if they're banned I'd migrate to Augustin or Geist or Keranos or WHATEVER. The main issue is to understand limitations and survivability of each format.
As I said, MY AREA, specifically, died when DC changed to 20 life. It seems to be coming back now that Wizards declared support for the format. Last Friday we played Wizards, this Friday it'll happen again. That's huge here. And as I've been saying for posts and posts, you may think what you want, but everything points to Wizards' format dictating the future of Commander, whether you like it or not. So as I said, play whatever you want, I'm shifting support to Wizards not only because it's the only thing I can do, but because I believe this is the move that'll finally put the format in the spotlight it deserves - the "rogue format sustained by players" approach clearly didn't work.
Online results are lower now because 1x1 Duel doesn't exist there. It was played with multiplayer banlist. I can bet money that this will change starting tomorrow, so you're looking through the lens of the past to this whole issue. It doesn't matter what things look like NOW. But how they'll look in the future.
EDIT: And guess what? If Wizards says, in July, that their 1x1 format will be 20 life, then I'm cool with it too.
It's personal because DC is a people's format. I don't see SCG or CFB organizing tournaments, I see players asking their LGS when they have a free timeslot and making a facebook event/reddit post about it.
The format doesn't HAVE to die just because it's not supported by WotC, because it never was. And I bet you most of the people who never played DC because they would rather play with the "official" (multiplayer) list, are still not gonna play WotC's 1v1 online list. Whom I expect to support and push it are Leviathan players and the people who were unhappy with both Leviathan and DC.
Zurgo IMO is only issue for unprepared players. It is cheap deck so there are many players. I think at DTC it was about 15% of the meta but none got into top8. I agree that we cant have double standart (ban one commander that has high% and not the other one) but DC is realy known for slow adaptation.
What deck do you even want to play that its impossible to play in DC but you hope won't be teabagged all day long by Oloros?
Maelstrom wanderer?
That's pretty much cheating because Wanderer is Tier1 in Leviathan BECAUSE of the 10lp cushion but link me your thread/list and we'll optimize it for 20lp.
In any format, you can always play something different than what the format mostly looks like, I know. That doesn't mean the format doesn't have a clear face.
That's the part where personal preference comes into play. And I've been trying a lot to downplay this because although I have a personal preference of playstyle for the format, I know you all have it too and it shouldn't matter too much aside from me personally quitting the format or not. So its relevance is lower than other issues. I'll play DC20, like I said, if it's the winning format for Commander. I can play Baral, Jace or other more controlish decks and that's cool. But I played with Vial and Breya too, and you can't call them control decks. Breya plays a lot like Modern Control decks, which are very midrangey. Jace had to change a lot of its cards for more removal and a more midrangey approach too. Only Baral keeps the hard control/full counter route, and people are already complaining because it doesn't quite fit the format DC20 defenders want.
TL;DR: I dislike the midrange META, not just the midrange decks. That's personal preference and I'll still play DC20 if it comes out on top after all this - just like I kept playing it instead of changing to Leviathan. But I'd PREFER if things were different. It's a fortunate coincidence that Wizards actually decided to support Commander, and that it decided to go with 30 life. If they said 20 I'd still go their way.
So basically you dislike 20life cause you don't like playing against aggro/midrange? I think that's an odd argument but it's an honest one I can respect. I guess it's not that odd. I don't like playing against super fast combo decks and that's why I prefer 20 life.
It's personal because DC is a people's format. I don't see SCG or CFB organizing tournaments, I see players asking their LGS when they have a free timeslot and making a facebook event/reddit post about it.
The format doesn't HAVE to die just because it's not supported by WotC, because it never was. And I bet you most of the people who never played DC because they would rather play with the "official" (multiplayer) list, are still not gonna play WotC's 1v1 online list. Whom I expect to support and push it are Leviathan players and the people who were unhappy with both Leviathan and DC.
You're looking at this wrong. It's not that a format dies when it doesn't have Wizards support, but that a format thrives when it does. If there is a Wizards official format with basically the same rules, than a similar format is bound to die. Try to come up with a "new Legacy" not supported by Wizards and wonder why it doesn't replace Legacy.
People already played Multiplayer Commander, but it REALLY took off when Wizards got behind it, even to the point it now releases yearly products meant for it and is the second largest Magic format. This isn't personal opinion, it's a given.
It took quite some time to convince players that DC was the best list for 1x1 play. People had doubts about switching from Wizards multiplayer list. That struggle ended a while ago, although there are players still stubornly playing Wizards 1x1. That all changes tomorrow. So I think your statement "I bet you most of the people who never played DC because they would rather play with the "official" (multiplayer) list, are still not gonna play WotC's 1v1 online list" is just false and lacks real world observation.
And yet Canadian Highlander, Tiny Leaders and Frontier are still a thing, not to mention the endless Pauper variants.
Sure the 60+ tournaments in the main french community may have a splinter effect happen to them, but the places pulling 12-20 people FNMs can easily choose to continue with DC in spite of WotC's list by simply asking the players what they want.
So I think your statement "I bet you most of the people who never played DC because they would rather play with the "official" (multiplayer) list, are still not gonna play WotC's 1v1 online list" is just false and lacks real world observation.
It's personal because DC is a people's format. I don't see SCG or CFB organizing tournaments, I see players asking their LGS when they have a free timeslot and making a facebook event/reddit post about it.
The format doesn't HAVE to die just because it's not supported by WotC, because it never was. And I bet you most of the people who never played DC because they would rather play with the "official" (multiplayer) list, are still not gonna play WotC's 1v1 online list. Whom I expect to support and push it are Leviathan players and the people who were unhappy with both Leviathan and DC.
You're looking at this wrong. It's not that a format dies when it doesn't have Wizards support, but that a format thrives when it does. If there is a Wizards official format with basically the same rules, than a similar format is bound to die. Try to come up with a "new Legacy" not supported by Wizards and wonder why it doesn't replace Legacy.
People already played Multiplayer Commander, but it REALLY took off when Wizards got behind it, even to the point it now releases yearly products meant for it and is the second largest Magic format. This isn't personal opinion, it's a given.
It took quite some time to convince players that DC was the best list for 1x1 play. People had doubts about switching from Wizards multiplayer list. That struggle ended a while ago, although there are players still stubornly playing Wizards 1x1. That all changes tomorrow. So I think your statement "I bet you most of the people who never played DC because they would rather play with the "official" (multiplayer) list, are still not gonna play WotC's 1v1 online list" is just false and lacks real world observation.
Everyone in our playgroup pretty much ignored it once we found out it was an online format so were back to the multiplayer rules even for 1 v 1. Explaining leviathan and DC to new players has been far to difficult compared to buy this deck and play some cards.
And yet Canadian Highlander, Tiny Leaders and Frontier are still a thing, not to mention the endless Pauper variants.
Sure the 60+ tournaments in the main french community may have a splinter effect happen to them, but the places pulling 12-20 people FNMs can easily choose to continue with DC in spite of WotC's list by simply asking the players what they want.
Yeah they can. I can also ask for an Old School tournament and my LGS can comply, but that doesn't make the format big. I don't get your point at all.
Frontier is a good example. Almost no one plays it. Can you understand what would happen if Wizards got behind Frontier?
Just an anecdotal side note: I went to Rachel Agnes' Twitter and discovered she seems to be an avid Multi-Commander player that's excited with the new 1x1 banlist and playing it.
I mean, recently I saw a print from spastika where he was playing against VSL's Rachel Agnes. I have no idea if Rachel played 1x1 Commander before, but she's surely playing it now. Isn't that GREAT?
Who tf is rachel w/e and why should I care? Wtf is a VSL?
I mean, recently I saw a print from spastika where he was playing against VSL's Rachel Agnes. I have no idea if Rachel played 1x1 Commander before, but she's surely playing it now. Isn't that GREAT?
Who tf is rachel w/e and why should I care? Wtf is a VSL?
Vintage Super League, she was a competitor. Her stream and VSL are two things that are probably an order of magnitude more popular than Duel Commander.
At the same time, though it seems like I'm contradicting what I said about unification, I hope 20 life DC doesn't die. In the same way that there are numerous 60-card formats that people can choose from or switch around with, I don't think it would be the end of the world to have two 1v1 commander formats. I believe the experience provided by each is different enough, and we don't need to insist that one needs to cease to exist for the other to thrive. I'd rather just encourage people to play both.
Sorry for the double post, but I forgot to answer you, my friend.
I really believe the format can't handle a big division like this. It survived the Leviathan split because Leviathan never flew high enough. I've been playing Magic for 23 years now, and until 2007 we had so few formats it was quite easy to get people to even play 10-15 proxy Vintage. I stopped playing in 2008 and came back in 2012. By then Legacy got popular and there were a bunch of other popular formats eventually like Commander, Pauper, Modern, etc. With the game getting more expensive and time consuming each time, it becomes very hard to have people playing multiple formats. Usually someone has a main format, where the dedication and money goes; and a secondary one, just to play something different from time to time.
Duel Commander always suffered from this overload of formats. It's related to a purely for-fun format most competitive player joke about, so it has always been hard to bring competitive players from other formats to DC; and it also fails to launch events in several areas around the world, which also doesn't help. Being a 3rd or 4th format in importance to competitive players (Standard, Modern and Legacy are clearly ahead) it's very hard for the format to survive. If the small player base it has divides itself in 2, well then we're dead.
Why Wizards list is important for us to get behind? Because it makes the format have the support we always needed to bring competitive players under our umbrella. So either we keep playing a casual format with dwindling player-base, fighting Magic's Trinity of Formats for space, or we get behind an initiative that, JUST BY HAVING WIZARDS NAME ON IT, already makes it sound way less casual than DC. That Wizards 1x1 format will have a different name that isn't Commander is only the cherry on top of it all.
I mean, recently I saw a print from spastika where he was playing against VSL's Rachel Agnes. I have no idea if Rachel played 1x1 Commander before, but she's surely playing it now. Isn't that GREAT?
There are 2 different arguments being discussed here.
1) What is the healthiest and most balanced format in Terms of mechanical play? I agree with Cainsson and Yuji here
2) What formats will live, and what will die? I agree with Fsecco here. Whether I like it or not people are going to gravitate to the official wizards format. You can try to fight this but you will lose. You are better off prepping for the wizards list now because it's just a matter of time before DC disappears. This disappearance will be decided by new players. When a new player is presented a choice to play a pseudo official format or a complete third party format I would put money on the majority choosing the pseudo official format.
Woah how long have I been asleep, this thread exploded.
For me, whether or not DC disappears does depend on where WoTC gets their prints on, but not completely. Of course it's a factor, and of course people will gravitate towards the "pseudo-official" one. But until Wizards reverses their "this banned list is only intended for Magic Online Commander. We respect the community roots and oversight of the Commander Rules Committee, and the creation and support of this format is in no way intended to impact paper Commander" disclaimer, I believe as of now DC is alive and well, and should stay that way. I think it's extremely dangerous to get behind the new format on paper after Wizards already explicitly said it is no way intended to impact paper Commander. Because until they say otherwise, if what Cainsson predicts will happen and in 9 months we're stuck with a terrible looking meta, Wizards could just say "wtf dint you listen we already said this wasn't meant for paper play lol" and not do a damn thing.. On the flip side, if the format thrives in MTGO and the banlist gets polished, and WoTC decides to have a go at paper, I think that's when we should get behind it on paper as the go-to format. Until then, it's very dangerous and too soon to write off DC. Though it is third-party, it is tried and tested (and yes some people either love or hate the changes brought about by it but that goes with all formats anyway), and I think most importantly is dedicated to paper play. To dismiss it and replace it with a format with an "MTGO only" disclaimer just because it has WoTC's name on it.. I don't think that's a good idea. I'm ok with both formats co-existing so that people can try both. I'm definitely not against people trying the MTGO list on paper, but what I am against is people taking it a step further and prematurely replacing a dedicated paper format for it. It's pseudo-official for a reason. Simply put, it's not official. At the very least, not yet.
As for the format not surviving a split, we don't know that for sure. After all, the number of commander players has increased greatly in the recent years, and that's something. Based on my experience over here, multiplayer commander is a starting point for people to look into 1v1 commander. And as it stands now, the metas and playstyles of 20 life and 30 life are different enough to cater to very different tastes. This can of course change if the 30 life banlist gets refined to satisfy most players.
I mean, recently I saw a print from spastika where he was playing against VSL's Rachel Agnes. I have no idea if Rachel played 1x1 Commander before, but she's surely playing it now. Isn't that GREAT?
Who tf is rachel w/e and why should I care? Wtf is a VSL?
Vintage Super League, she was a competitor. Her stream and VSL are two things that are probably an order of magnitude more popular than Duel Commander.
She's a vintage player, so that plays a role in her excitement. I'm beginning to notice that this 20/30 life divide is also influenced by our 60 card format preferences. Not a bad thing, but it'll help for people to be self-aware about that. A vintage player would look at things differently from a Modern player. I imagine if a Modern Super League existed and she was a part of it instead of VSL, the MTGO format as it stands won't be her cup of tea. This is also a big part of why I believe that having 2 very different formats won't hurt.
Also, what the very eloquent 3drinks is trying to say is, a player being a part of something that is more popular than Duel commander does not mean that her preferences and excitement for something translate to being more important than other people's preferences and excitement. Throwing in a VSL player's name into an argument does not validate it, especially when all this Rachel person did was play (in MTGO, not on paper) and express her excitement. I mean if Kai Budde visited the Philippines and I lent him my pocket zurgo deck to test against my queen marchesa in a race to 100 with DC rules, tweets about it and takes a selfie with me and my decks with a #DCisFun, yeah i'll be happy, but it in no way changes any of the points made for or against the format.
Btw I just googled "famous mtg players" and his name came up so don't make fun of me if he's long dead or something I dint know i'm sorry
Ironically I'm predominantly a Legacy player and don't like Modern that mutch.
I like open, brewer-friendly formats with stablished decks that are vulnerable to metagaming. DC is this.
I dislike 2-deck formats where the drop between tiers is garganthuan and rogues cannot compete with tier1s unless they're literally designed to win that match and lose everything else. Leviathan is this.
30lp DC was somewhere inbetween (loopsided towards Leviathan), but that changed with Vial Smasher opening the gap between tiers so hard that even Jenara and Anafenza felt into disuse and Titania is having trouble to stay relevant.
Is Vial Smasher the problem? No, Vial Smasher is A problem, but the problem is the 30lp. It's what lets Baral dig for Polymorph or Narset/Wanderer wait two more turns to ramp into combo-protection mana. It's what makes sure Zurgo, Anafenza, Doran, Bruse+Reyhan and Sidisi can't punish a misplay or force the tier1s to race their combo into a punt.
I'd rather have Edric and Tasigur unbanned at 20lp than play the current DC banlist at 30lp. The first is a metagaming exercise, the second is a aberration on the game's core design. THG and EDH have higher lp because they're MULTIPLAYER and starting DC at 30lp might have been the fulcrum of the format's woes from the start.
In regards of this topics name, I will like to add this to the discussion:
DISCLAIMER: Everything from now on is highly subjective.
I strongly believe that, whatever happens, the 1v1 list from WotC will end up being the only 1v1 commander format left in a couple of years. WotC will draw the longer straw. Let us imagine that everything Cainsson said is true. DC20 is the best way this format could work, then WotC will just go down the DC20 road if they have to and, at some point, they will consume DC, nothing and I mean absolutely nothing can stop WotC from changing to 20lp if they want to do that. So when/if this format ever gets competitive, they will do whatever they please to make it the balanced and if that requires 20lp, they will just do that.
And I know WotC said “It was never our intent to disrupt the paper multiplayer Commander community and the format you play at your local game store or at home with friends. We fully support the Rules Committee's work to make multiplayer Commander the best it can be and will do our best to support their effort.”
Let us first face the fact that they only mentioned the rules committee of Multiplayer. They did not mention DC or Leviathan. Secondly, I really do think this is just a publicity stunt. They do not want to make anyone mad, so they make this statement, and in 3 months, this is forgotten and they (WotC) can do what they want.
Little reference from my LGS.
We had around 8-14 players playing DC30. The DC20 came and the first game night after that we had around 20 players. Everyone was excited, but the player base just started falling from game night to game night and has now reached a point where there were 5-6 players at the latest two game nights. I was not there but I was told that one person actually played two decks last game night because they were only five players.
I know my brother and I stopped playing DC two months ago because we did not like the “play Vial or go home” that DC20 had become. I do not know if that is the reason other players stopped attending to DC game nights, but that does not matter either. What matters is that I think the DC20 is dead at our LGS. They can keep making game nights for it, but why would players want to turn up to a game night with 5-6 players?
However, the multiplayer EDH is quite strong at our LGS and in some other game shops as well. I feel like a lot of the players who play any kind of EDH likes the possibilities the format offers, they don’t care too much if some colors are stronger than others, all they want is a stable (and by stable I am referring to a stable banlist) format where they can play funny cards like DTT and stuff. These players will get behind WotC 1v1 list.
Another reason for this to be true is this:
My brother and I started to play multiplayer EDH now. We recruited two players for a 4-man group. Two players who both played MTG 8-10 years ago, so they know the basic rules and stuff. They both want to play a 1v1 format on this side of our multiplayer group but as they said, “DC or Leviathan does not make sense to us, why should we start playing those when there is an upcoming format supported by wizards”. I think this will be the case for many of the newcomers, as I stated before in this topic.
TL:DR Go ahead and keep playing DC20 or Leviathan at your LGS, I think it will be a rare sight in a couple of years.
Well, you are right it is entirely subjective. The 20 life population over here since the vial ban is growing. And until wizards outright comes up with a paper 1v1 commander format, DC will continue to exist, at least over here. A few LGS owners have already outright said they will continue to hold their tournaments using French rules.
“DC or Leviathan does not make sense to us, why should we start playing those when there is an upcoming format supported by wizards”.
We had a couple bad nights because of this, people didn't want to brew for post-Vial ban because they were expecting the WotC banlist, then the banlist came out and we hated it. The organizers said we'd keep playing DC, and last night we were 12 again despite a holyday. I expect even more this friday.
I don't want to be rude but it seems like a lot of people's problems with DC come from their finicky, non-competitive playgroups/local scene, and not with the format itself. People who didn't like "Vial or bust" won't like "Oloro or bust" anymore and will abandon that format too after an initial push, like the fairweathers that they are.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
If DC dies, in nine months you'll be whining that none of your decks can even tickle the top tier decks and WotC doesn't care about paper results. While I won't have people to play the balanced, competitive 1v1 commander list because you didn't want to put the minimal deckbuilding concessions necessary to make Zurgo a non-issue.
BChainer, Dementia Master(Big Mana/Reanimator)
BRRakdos, The Showstopper (Mass Life Loss/Ramp)
BUThe Scarab God (Zombie Tribal/Control)
BWKarlov of the Ghost Council (Life Gain)
BGJarad, Golgari Lich Lord (Stompy/Dredge)
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher (Tokens/Non-infinite Combo)
WoTC gives much much more value to online results for almost ANY format, on paper Miracles has about... 8-9% top appearences, on online it goes to almost 20%, guess what happened? It will affect paper sure, but online decks also affects paper, it will have almost the same card pool with the exception of 2-3 cards (playable cards) and basically the same strategies, online meta does differ from paper, but it isn't as different as you say. If a deck becomes oppressive on paper or online, it will soon gravitate towards either one of those.
Also sorry, if WoTC has any sense, Oloro, Vial, TC, DTT and Tasigur will all get banned very soon... So that I really do not worry about, they said they were going to act fast. The actual list is awful, but with time it will shape itself, I played a bunch of tier 2 decks with good results back then with DC, I'm pretty sure soon I'll be able to play them again here, now I know its almost impossible beating Tasi or Vial, but with time I'll be ok probably.
I always played my decks with 30HP on DC, I'm sure I will be able to play them again, wizards always wants diversity, diversity means they sell more cards (online and paper) so... if a format is not diverse its not good for them financially, they will try to make it diverse.
You also assume Wizards list will keep being this bad, which is far from being a given, specially because this was a joint list with Multiplayer and the next one won't be.
You seem to be clinging to DC because you prefer it, which I said several times it's fine. It's clearly a more balanced format than Wizards. But you're not actually dealing with the issue I'm really talking about, which is format's acceptance and spread.
That's it.
And #1 is not a given in the future. Wizards can become a balanced format. It just isn't right now.
The point is paper players will break the format because we're the vast majority, and it will take ages to be reflected on the banlist because by their own admission the ammount of people playing commander online is minuscule.
BTW Iname just top8'd at the DTC, don't expect those results against Oloro and Vial Smasher.
That's the problem, the majority of Legacy results come from Online, the majority of Modern results come from Online, the only trackable draft results come from online. The majority of 1v1 Commander games are in paper.
A 12% that not only doesn't hog top8 results but often doesn't even top. That's not an issue, that's a cheap deck. You sound like the people that argued that Pod wasn't an issue because Burn and Affinity were more popular, when Pod had won 5/6 Modern GPs plus the Modern PT and consistently put 2+ copies on top 8s.
And I am not the one who's changing colors all of a sudden. Commander has never been official and never depended on stores, the WPN or WotC. It's always been a rogue format sustained by players. But now all of a sudden "we" have to support WotC because the crap they regurgitated and called a format means they will put more effort into it than the DC? Sorry but that's bull***** and clear as day your personal preference talking.
What deck do you even want to play that its impossible to play in DC but you hope won't be teabagged all day long by Oloros?
BChainer, Dementia Master(Big Mana/Reanimator)
BRRakdos, The Showstopper (Mass Life Loss/Ramp)
BUThe Scarab God (Zombie Tribal/Control)
BWKarlov of the Ghost Council (Life Gain)
BGJarad, Golgari Lich Lord (Stompy/Dredge)
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher (Tokens/Non-infinite Combo)
You say stuff like I just want to play Oloro and whatever (which I clearly will because I obviously loved Oloro and DTT and Cruise) but I really don't care what version of the format "WINS", as long as one of them wins and the other are put to rest so we don't divide the player base. I'd play Baral/Jace in DC20 forever if I needed, I love the decks. Anf if they're banned I'd migrate to Augustin or Geist or Keranos or WHATEVER. The main issue is to understand limitations and survivability of each format.
As I said, MY AREA, specifically, died when DC changed to 20 life. It seems to be coming back now that Wizards declared support for the format. Last Friday we played Wizards, this Friday it'll happen again. That's huge here. And as I've been saying for posts and posts, you may think what you want, but everything points to Wizards' format dictating the future of Commander, whether you like it or not. So as I said, play whatever you want, I'm shifting support to Wizards not only because it's the only thing I can do, but because I believe this is the move that'll finally put the format in the spotlight it deserves - the "rogue format sustained by players" approach clearly didn't work.
Online results are lower now because 1x1 Duel doesn't exist there. It was played with multiplayer banlist. I can bet money that this will change starting tomorrow, so you're looking through the lens of the past to this whole issue. It doesn't matter what things look like NOW. But how they'll look in the future.
EDIT: And guess what? If Wizards says, in July, that their 1x1 format will be 20 life, then I'm cool with it too.
Edit: and let's not forget Baral
Edit2: Oh and Nin
BChainer, Dementia Master(Big Mana/Reanimator)
BRRakdos, The Showstopper (Mass Life Loss/Ramp)
BUThe Scarab God (Zombie Tribal/Control)
BWKarlov of the Ghost Council (Life Gain)
BGJarad, Golgari Lich Lord (Stompy/Dredge)
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher (Tokens/Non-infinite Combo)
That's the part where personal preference comes into play. And I've been trying a lot to downplay this because although I have a personal preference of playstyle for the format, I know you all have it too and it shouldn't matter too much aside from me personally quitting the format or not. So its relevance is lower than other issues. I'll play DC20, like I said, if it's the winning format for Commander. I can play Baral, Jace or other more controlish decks and that's cool. But I played with Vial and Breya too, and you can't call them control decks. Breya plays a lot like Modern Control decks, which are very midrangey. Jace had to change a lot of its cards for more removal and a more midrangey approach too. Only Baral keeps the hard control/full counter route, and people are already complaining because it doesn't quite fit the format DC20 defenders want.
TL;DR: I dislike the midrange META, not just the midrange decks. That's personal preference and I'll still play DC20 if it comes out on top after all this - just like I kept playing it instead of changing to Leviathan. But I'd PREFER if things were different. It's a fortunate coincidence that Wizards actually decided to support Commander, and that it decided to go with 30 life. If they said 20 I'd still go their way.
It's personal because DC is a people's format. I don't see SCG or CFB organizing tournaments, I see players asking their LGS when they have a free timeslot and making a facebook event/reddit post about it.
The format doesn't HAVE to die just because it's not supported by WotC, because it never was. And I bet you most of the people who never played DC because they would rather play with the "official" (multiplayer) list, are still not gonna play WotC's 1v1 online list. Whom I expect to support and push it are Leviathan players and the people who were unhappy with both Leviathan and DC.
That's pretty much cheating because Wanderer is Tier1 in Leviathan BECAUSE of the 10lp cushion but link me your thread/list and we'll optimize it for 20lp.
BChainer, Dementia Master(Big Mana/Reanimator)
BRRakdos, The Showstopper (Mass Life Loss/Ramp)
BUThe Scarab God (Zombie Tribal/Control)
BWKarlov of the Ghost Council (Life Gain)
BGJarad, Golgari Lich Lord (Stompy/Dredge)
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher (Tokens/Non-infinite Combo)
You're looking at this wrong. It's not that a format dies when it doesn't have Wizards support, but that a format thrives when it does. If there is a Wizards official format with basically the same rules, than a similar format is bound to die. Try to come up with a "new Legacy" not supported by Wizards and wonder why it doesn't replace Legacy.
People already played Multiplayer Commander, but it REALLY took off when Wizards got behind it, even to the point it now releases yearly products meant for it and is the second largest Magic format. This isn't personal opinion, it's a given.
It took quite some time to convince players that DC was the best list for 1x1 play. People had doubts about switching from Wizards multiplayer list. That struggle ended a while ago, although there are players still stubornly playing Wizards 1x1. That all changes tomorrow. So I think your statement "I bet you most of the people who never played DC because they would rather play with the "official" (multiplayer) list, are still not gonna play WotC's 1v1 online list" is just false and lacks real world observation.
Sure the 60+ tournaments in the main french community may have a splinter effect happen to them, but the places pulling 12-20 people FNMs can easily choose to continue with DC in spite of WotC's list by simply asking the players what they want.
Watch it happen anyway.
Everyone in our playgroup pretty much ignored it once we found out it was an online format so were back to the multiplayer rules even for 1 v 1. Explaining leviathan and DC to new players has been far to difficult compared to buy this deck and play some cards.
https://archidekt.com/user/71716
Yeah they can. I can also ask for an Old School tournament and my LGS can comply, but that doesn't make the format big. I don't get your point at all.
Frontier is a good example. Almost no one plays it. Can you understand what would happen if Wizards got behind Frontier?
Who tf is rachel w/e and why should I care? Wtf is a VSL?
Steel Sabotage'ng Orbs of Mellowness since 2011.
Vintage Super League, she was a competitor. Her stream and VSL are two things that are probably an order of magnitude more popular than Duel Commander.
Woah how long have I been asleep, this thread exploded.
For me, whether or not DC disappears does depend on where WoTC gets their prints on, but not completely. Of course it's a factor, and of course people will gravitate towards the "pseudo-official" one. But until Wizards reverses their "this banned list is only intended for Magic Online Commander. We respect the community roots and oversight of the Commander Rules Committee, and the creation and support of this format is in no way intended to impact paper Commander" disclaimer, I believe as of now DC is alive and well, and should stay that way. I think it's extremely dangerous to get behind the new format on paper after Wizards already explicitly said it is no way intended to impact paper Commander. Because until they say otherwise, if what Cainsson predicts will happen and in 9 months we're stuck with a terrible looking meta, Wizards could just say "wtf dint you listen we already said this wasn't meant for paper play lol" and not do a damn thing.. On the flip side, if the format thrives in MTGO and the banlist gets polished, and WoTC decides to have a go at paper, I think that's when we should get behind it on paper as the go-to format. Until then, it's very dangerous and too soon to write off DC. Though it is third-party, it is tried and tested (and yes some people either love or hate the changes brought about by it but that goes with all formats anyway), and I think most importantly is dedicated to paper play. To dismiss it and replace it with a format with an "MTGO only" disclaimer just because it has WoTC's name on it.. I don't think that's a good idea. I'm ok with both formats co-existing so that people can try both. I'm definitely not against people trying the MTGO list on paper, but what I am against is people taking it a step further and prematurely replacing a dedicated paper format for it. It's pseudo-official for a reason. Simply put, it's not official. At the very least, not yet.
As for the format not surviving a split, we don't know that for sure. After all, the number of commander players has increased greatly in the recent years, and that's something. Based on my experience over here, multiplayer commander is a starting point for people to look into 1v1 commander. And as it stands now, the metas and playstyles of 20 life and 30 life are different enough to cater to very different tastes. This can of course change if the 30 life banlist gets refined to satisfy most players.
She's a vintage player, so that plays a role in her excitement. I'm beginning to notice that this 20/30 life divide is also influenced by our 60 card format preferences. Not a bad thing, but it'll help for people to be self-aware about that. A vintage player would look at things differently from a Modern player. I imagine if a Modern Super League existed and she was a part of it instead of VSL, the MTGO format as it stands won't be her cup of tea. This is also a big part of why I believe that having 2 very different formats won't hurt.
Also, what the very eloquent 3drinks is trying to say is, a player being a part of something that is more popular than Duel commander does not mean that her preferences and excitement for something translate to being more important than other people's preferences and excitement. Throwing in a VSL player's name into an argument does not validate it, especially when all this Rachel person did was play (in MTGO, not on paper) and express her excitement. I mean if Kai Budde visited the Philippines and I lent him my pocket zurgo deck to test against my queen marchesa in a race to 100 with DC rules, tweets about it and takes a selfie with me and my decks with a #DCisFun, yeah i'll be happy, but it in no way changes any of the points made for or against the format.
Btw I just googled "famous mtg players" and his name came up so don't make fun of me if he's long dead or something I dint know i'm sorry
I like open, brewer-friendly formats with stablished decks that are vulnerable to metagaming. DC is this.
I dislike 2-deck formats where the drop between tiers is garganthuan and rogues cannot compete with tier1s unless they're literally designed to win that match and lose everything else. Leviathan is this.
30lp DC was somewhere inbetween (loopsided towards Leviathan), but that changed with Vial Smasher opening the gap between tiers so hard that even Jenara and Anafenza felt into disuse and Titania is having trouble to stay relevant.
Is Vial Smasher the problem? No, Vial Smasher is A problem, but the problem is the 30lp. It's what lets Baral dig for Polymorph or Narset/Wanderer wait two more turns to ramp into combo-protection mana. It's what makes sure Zurgo, Anafenza, Doran, Bruse+Reyhan and Sidisi can't punish a misplay or force the tier1s to race their combo into a punt.
I'd rather have Edric and Tasigur unbanned at 20lp than play the current DC banlist at 30lp. The first is a metagaming exercise, the second is a aberration on the game's core design. THG and EDH have higher lp because they're MULTIPLAYER and starting DC at 30lp might have been the fulcrum of the format's woes from the start.
DISCLAIMER: Everything from now on is highly subjective.
I strongly believe that, whatever happens, the 1v1 list from WotC will end up being the only 1v1 commander format left in a couple of years. WotC will draw the longer straw. Let us imagine that everything Cainsson said is true. DC20 is the best way this format could work, then WotC will just go down the DC20 road if they have to and, at some point, they will consume DC, nothing and I mean absolutely nothing can stop WotC from changing to 20lp if they want to do that. So when/if this format ever gets competitive, they will do whatever they please to make it the balanced and if that requires 20lp, they will just do that.
And I know WotC said “It was never our intent to disrupt the paper multiplayer Commander community and the format you play at your local game store or at home with friends. We fully support the Rules Committee's work to make multiplayer Commander the best it can be and will do our best to support their effort.”
Let us first face the fact that they only mentioned the rules committee of Multiplayer. They did not mention DC or Leviathan. Secondly, I really do think this is just a publicity stunt. They do not want to make anyone mad, so they make this statement, and in 3 months, this is forgotten and they (WotC) can do what they want.
Little reference from my LGS.
We had around 8-14 players playing DC30. The DC20 came and the first game night after that we had around 20 players. Everyone was excited, but the player base just started falling from game night to game night and has now reached a point where there were 5-6 players at the latest two game nights. I was not there but I was told that one person actually played two decks last game night because they were only five players.
I know my brother and I stopped playing DC two months ago because we did not like the “play Vial or go home” that DC20 had become. I do not know if that is the reason other players stopped attending to DC game nights, but that does not matter either. What matters is that I think the DC20 is dead at our LGS. They can keep making game nights for it, but why would players want to turn up to a game night with 5-6 players?
However, the multiplayer EDH is quite strong at our LGS and in some other game shops as well. I feel like a lot of the players who play any kind of EDH likes the possibilities the format offers, they don’t care too much if some colors are stronger than others, all they want is a stable (and by stable I am referring to a stable banlist) format where they can play funny cards like DTT and stuff. These players will get behind WotC 1v1 list.
Another reason for this to be true is this:
My brother and I started to play multiplayer EDH now. We recruited two players for a 4-man group. Two players who both played MTG 8-10 years ago, so they know the basic rules and stuff. They both want to play a 1v1 format on this side of our multiplayer group but as they said, “DC or Leviathan does not make sense to us, why should we start playing those when there is an upcoming format supported by wizards”. I think this will be the case for many of the newcomers, as I stated before in this topic.
TL:DR Go ahead and keep playing DC20 or Leviathan at your LGS, I think it will be a rare sight in a couple of years.
But you're right, let's see in a few years.
We had a couple bad nights because of this, people didn't want to brew for post-Vial ban because they were expecting the WotC banlist, then the banlist came out and we hated it. The organizers said we'd keep playing DC, and last night we were 12 again despite a holyday. I expect even more this friday.
I don't want to be rude but it seems like a lot of people's problems with DC come from their finicky, non-competitive playgroups/local scene, and not with the format itself. People who didn't like "Vial or bust" won't like "Oloro or bust" anymore and will abandon that format too after an initial push, like the fairweathers that they are.