I'm in the "common in any set digital or otherwise" camp. I can't think of a single card online as common that is so degenerate it would make the format unplayable. I also believe that allowing them will be healthy for the format, especially when they're basically strictly worse versions of a common we have access too. My green deck REALLY wants Aeopile and Moonglove extract.
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I'm in the "common in any set digital or otherwise" camp. I can't think of a single card online as common that is so degenerate it would make the format unplayable. I also believe that allowing them will be healthy for the format, especially when they're basically strictly worse versions of a common we have access too. My green deck REALLY wants Aeopile and Moonglove extract.
I assume you mean Aeolipile and Moonglove Extract. For one, you can play Moonglove Extract as it was printed in three offline Magic sets, and no online-exclusive Magic sets.
Also, the fact that under these rules offline only cards are legal is not due to how good cards online are, it is due to the fact that I am keeping a regularity between the two formats; online Pauper and offline Pauper.
The reasoning behind only allowing offline Magic cards to be used in the current rule set is that it is under the same formatting regular Pauper is - only cards that are common online are legal. It simply made sense to do it the same way offline. This is not an online format, and as such, we do not have online-only cards such as Gleemax offline; this logic is incorporated into the current rule set.
So wait, are you advocating allowing MTGO Masters Edition commons? Or does the common only rule apply only to cards which have been [i[printed[/i] in common?
Pauper Commander is an offline Magic format in which all cards used must have been printed at the common rarity in a Magic set or product, excluding a player's commander, which must have been printed at the uncommon rarity in a Magic set or product. A common or uncommon promotional card is only legal if the card has been printed at the common or uncommon rarity in a Magic set or product, respectively.
Cards that have been printed at the common rarity in a Magic Online set or product are legal, as long as the follow the above rule as well. Basically the difference is using the term Magic Online set or product, as the official Pauper rules state, or Magic set or product, as my rules state. I am going to reword this ruling to make it a bit more clear.
Hey all, as I am really eager to get more games tested, this is my idea to test both rules and commanders (this will be posted in the rules thread as well). We will need a combined effort on this however. We can pick the top 8 or so best commanders in theory, use cockatrice preferably, and test in both 4 player and 1v1 environments. This will obviously take time, but it is at least going to be productive. In my opinion, the main points to consider while testing would be starting life totals, commander damage, poison damage (one of the 8 should be a poison commander), and which commanders are 'unbeatable'. The more games we are able to play, the more reliable our information will be. I will need at least 3 other people to sign up to help with this if I can't find anyone IRL to do this with. Backups and people to substitute for others is not a bad idea.
Once we can get some kind of commitment we can set up testing schedules. There are also plenty of other commanders to chose from (Lorescale Coatl etc.); just put your suggestions down on either thread and we can go from there.
Is there any interest in defining how many uncommons can be played in Peasant commander, as it is the close brother of Pauper? I've seen it range from 8-10 (usually including the commander).
I would be willing to help out if possible. My schedule should be freeing up a little bit in the upcoming weeks.
I propose we officially add Army Ants to the test gauntlet for 1v1. Of course I don't have any real data to back it up, but in theory it could be a fast, consistent lock, or the backbone of a very strong aggro deck.
So wait, are you advocating allowing MTGO Masters Edition commons? Or does the common only rule apply only to cards which have been [i[printed[/i] in common?
I would be more for allowing them thus allowing anything that comes up in a gatherer search to be approved. It is rather confusing when using a card filter for commons to exclude cards from Master's Editions.
The reason they are commons in masters edition sets anyways is that is where wizards considers their rarity today. In my mind it makes more sense to accept that than it does to allow cards that used to be commons that got bumped up in rarity. You realize those commons were considered to powerful in general to remain at common rarity. Thus wizards bumps their rarity up but we still accept them as playable. Why would we say that a card that was bumped down in rarity to be not acceptable due to being not in print technically?
Should we also ban all portal cards because they are hard to find??? It just makes sense to me to allow Master's Edition cards to be played if printed in common rarity.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
I would be more for allowing them thus allowing anything that comes up in a gatherer search to be approved. It is rather confusing when using a card filter for commons to exclude cards from Master's Editions.
The reason they are commons in masters edition sets anyways is that is where wizards considers their rarity today. In my mind it makes more sense to accept that than it does to allow cards that used to be commons that got bumped up in rarity. You realize those commons were considered to powerful in general to remain at common rarity. Thus wizards bumps their rarity up but we still accept them as playable. Why would we say that a card that was bumped down in rarity to be not acceptable due to being not in print technically?
Should we also ban all portal cards because they are hard to find??? It just makes sense to me to allow Master's Edition cards to be played if printed in common rarity.
This simply is NOT an online format, as online Pauper is NOT an offline format, and cannot be treated as such. You could use your same logic and say any cards that haven't been reprinted/have been printed with a higher rarity couldn't be used.
This simply is NOT an online format, as online Pauper is NOT an offline format, and cannot be treated as such. You could use your same logic and say any cards that haven't been reprinted/have been printed with a higher rarity couldn't be used.
This is also very true, in my opinion I think either both should be allowed or neither should be allowed.
The downside being that people tend to be a bit irritated when a card gets reprinted in a higher rarity and it would remove it from pauper play. Overall... I don't really see why we should make a big fuss over a few cards from MTGO being reprinted as commons. If someone told me that they were unwilling to play against it in a pauper environment for your reasons.... I seriously would just refuse to play against that person in general.
Again though.... I don't see why I should listen to you at all on what I can or cant play. This is going to be the downside of something like this. To my knowledge you are just someone who has played 10 games of pauper EDH... I have no knowledge of your level of play or any reason to listen to you on this topic. Without some sort of official RC... I don't see where this will ever go here...
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
This is also very true, in my opinion I think either both should be allowed or neither should be allowed.
The downside being that people tend to be a bit irritated when a card gets reprinted in a higher rarity and it would remove it from pauper play. Overall... I don't really see why we should make a big fuss over a few cards from MTGO being reprinted as commons. If someone told me that they were unwilling to play against it in a pauper environment for your reasons.... I seriously would just refuse to play against that person in general.
Again though.... I don't see why I should listen to you at all on what I can or cant play. This is going to be the downside of something like this. To my knowledge you are just someone who has played 10 games of pauper EDH... I have no knowledge of your level of play or any reason to listen to you on this topic. Without some sort of official RC... I don't see where this will ever go here...
I am someone who has played a decent amount of Pauper Commander games, and an extremely large amount of online Pauper games, and offline EDH games. Level of play also has no bearing on whether or not you have experience in Pauper Commander. The reason you should listen to what I am saying is that I am trying to do something no one else is; create a decent set of rules that people have a chance to at least partly agree on. There is no chance that everyone will agree on everything.
I am someone who has played a decent amount of Pauper Commander games, and an extremely large amount of online Pauper games, and offline EDH games. Level of play also has no bearing on whether or not you have experience in Pauper Commander. The reason you should listen to what I am saying is that I am trying to do something no one else is; create a decent set of rules that people have a chance to at least partly agree on. There is no chance that everyone will agree on everything.
If you want people to pay attention to the rules that you're trying to standardize, since you're not an official person, you should try to go with the masses as much as possible.
Here's the rules I used when playing Pauper (IRL, never played online)
1. Uncommon general, 99 commons. - (Had to be printed as a common in at least one set, meaning MTGO Masters Editions didn't count)
2. 40 starting life, 21 GD, 10 poison. - I'm fine with 30/16, but I still think there's no reason to change poison.
3. No banned cards or general.
Back on topic, I was merely asking for clarification on whether or not you were including MTGO-only commons. I don't really have much of an opinion either way, but I do feel that any card which has been printed as a common is fair game (most notably Whispersilk Cloak, which despite owning a bunch of, I bought one from Darksteel specifically for my Pauper deck.)
ISBP is right that without an "official" rules committee or a central figure who has the credentials and/or fame to act as a figurehead, any rules that are made will need to stand by their own merits and satisfy the majority of (potential) players.
I've been working on my own set of Pauper EDH rules for a while too, and was happy to see it being discussed here. Here is a site I have been preparing for my playgroup with the possibility of using it to organize tournaments at my local shops:
You will see that I addressed the online vs offline rarity issue by making the rule "if it's common on Gatherer, it's legal." I understand Cakins' point about the division between online and offline formats, but I don't see the need to maintain it. Allowing online commons doesn't result in any abusive cards becoming legal, and I don't see players really caring if a card was in a Masters Edition. The simplicity of looking at the Gatherer and going "that's a common, that's not" is preferable to me. If someone can show me the harm this would cause, I am open to it. Right now it seems like it will allow some quirky older cards like Telekinesis to see play.
There are a few problems with the logic I see being presented.
1.) No one wants to ban cards. For some reason, people want no cards to be banned, and want to ensure the cards that are banned are so unbelievably absurd that they are impossible to play against. There are cards banned in regular EDH that aren't impossible to play against, and in many cases, are easy to counteract.
2.) There are way too many technicalities that people making their own suggested rules are overlooking. You want cards that have been printed at the common rarity to be legal offline. I am going to give you two of the many problems I see with so much of your logic, besides that of which I have already presented. For one, what happens if/when wizards prints a card that only exists online, and as a common? And as my second point, Pauper was a format designated as a cheap format, for those that simply cannot afford other formats. When cards aren't common offline, as a whole, they are more expensive. By doing so, you are crossing the threshold of what the format is supposed to be.
3.) As another point, gatherer.wizards.com doesn't have a designated Pauper filter. It does, however, tell you what cards are common in what sets; my being that it is not hard to determine with my rule set what cards are legal.
4.) Finally, there doesn't need to be consensus on cards that should be banned. There are PLENTY of cards banned in other formats that people want to play, and that people don't want to play. It is a matter of what needs to be banned. This logic goes for rules as well. Some people may not want certain rules to change, but in reality, there are some things that need to stay in place.
I don't think it's that people don't want to ban cards, it's that up until now, there hasn't been meaningful discussion on unifying the format so banning hasn't been given much thought.
On second thought, I think I'm firmly on the side of cards that have been printed in common only. I was doing a Gatherer search, and there's a lot of uncommon/rare cards that have never been printed in common. This rule would give us access to Exile, though, and a whole host of Legends and Portal generals that are now uncommon (plus Narwhal FTW!).
Cakins, could you give specific examples of specific cards that would be sources of problems if online was allowed as well?
I don't believe I have ever said there are cards that would be sources of problems. This is not my problem with adding online cards to the format.
@Kolmastoista
You don't want to listen to me? Don't listen to me. At no point do I pretend to have some amount of authority. You want to make your own rule set? Make your own rule set.
The biggest part of your statement was that I disagree with was that you think the rules of Pauper Commander should be guidelines. What I want, and have always wanted, was this format to blossom into a REAL format, that people can be informed about; so please don't say 'we' are not making an official rule set. The title of this post might be The Unoffical Official Pauper Commander Rules, but that is not my long term goal. The worst things that happen in offline EDH are when people don't know what cards are "banned" in certain groups, and things like Shahrazad destroy playgroups. If this format is every going to be a real format, I am 95% certain that Wizards will chose to only allow cards that have been printed as a common offline to be legal, as that falls into place with other format-defining decisions they have made in the past. When Wizards revamped EDH into Commander, they didn't give a set of guidelines, they gave it straightforward rules. They are changing their mentality, and if I can get closer to their mentality, and overall towards making Pauper Commander a real format, I will. However if you want Pauper Commander to turn into an extremely unknown format such as Rainbow Stairwell or something (which it is currently), then continue doing what you are doing.
I think the concern being raised by many is that we simply don't rush to ban cards or generals based on theory or a handful of casual games played out by a few seemingly random people on the internet.
If you want the format be taken seriously then a lot of work is going to have to be done in order to build and earn the trust of the player base so that the rules being presented don't simply appear to be the opinion of a few people. If you've already done testing then write articles with decklists and details supporting your reasoning for decisions. I am more inclined to trust players like d0su & ISBP because I have read their threads and seen their decklists in action.
You don't want to listen to me? Don't listen to me. At no point do I pretend to have some amount of authority. You want to make your own rule set? Make your own rule set.
If this is how you feel then you should just change the name of this thread to "Cakins' Pauper Commander Rules" because that's all that they'll be.
Please. Help build the format up by earning my trust rather than pushing me and others away.
I think the concern being raised by many is that we simply don't rush to ban cards or generals based on theory or a handful of casual games played out by a few seemingly random people on the internet.
If you want the format be taken seriously then a lot of work is going to have to be done in order to build and earn the trust of the player base so that the rules being presented don't simply appear to be the opinion of a few people. If you've already done testing then write articles with decklists and details supporting your reasoning for decisions. I am more inclined to trust players like d0su & ISBP because I have read their threads and seen their decklists in action.
I want this SO much. The problem is that I ask for help from the community with testing, and I don't get responses. I have a person (European - Much easier if we are all from the same continent / time zone - I am in the US) that is able to test, but without more this is going to be next to impossible. I can test against people in real life, but their lists simply aren't tuned.
I would be willing to help out if possible. My schedule should be freeing up a little bit in the upcoming weeks.
My offer still stands if you need someone with whom to test decklists and whatnot. I don't have the strongest technical play, but I like to think I'm a somewhat competent deckbuilder.
I don't think it's that people don't want to ban cards, it's that up until now, there hasn't been meaningful discussion on unifying the format so banning hasn't been given much thought.
On second thought, I think I'm firmly on the side of cards that have been printed in common only. I was doing a Gatherer search, and there's a lot of uncommon/rare cards that have never been printed in common. This rule would give us access to Exile, though, and a whole host of Legends and Portal generals that are now uncommon (plus Narwhal FTW!).
My offer still stands if you need someone with whom to test decklists and whatnot. I don't have the strongest technical play, but I like to think I'm a somewhat competent deckbuilder.
I'd be willing to do the same if I can convince my group to try it.
I added a Testing Information section to the rules page, rather than creating a third thread. This will contain decklist information, and testing times and people who are committed to testing. So far we have 3 people for the first testing group, and need 1 more. In addition, I added a Psychatog list, as it was the only one I have. Feel free to message me lists (please don't clog up the forum), and I will add them to the decklists section. Commanders are still up for discussion in this first testing group as well. Decklists should probably be tuned for 1v1, as you can't tune diplomacy. The testing time for the first testing group will be determined after the last person is committed. It would also be helpful if you could list your timezone.
Well, it would be a completely different deck. Cavern Harpy plays more like a more control-esque Mistmeadow Witch. Pyschatog can play like a combo deck, with a self-mill strategy, however I play a control version.
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I assume you mean Aeolipile and Moonglove Extract. For one, you can play Moonglove Extract as it was printed in three offline Magic sets, and no online-exclusive Magic sets.
Also, the fact that under these rules offline only cards are legal is not due to how good cards online are, it is due to the fact that I am keeping a regularity between the two formats; online Pauper and offline Pauper.
So wait, are you advocating allowing MTGO Masters Edition commons? Or does the common only rule apply only to cards which have been [i[printed[/i] in common?
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Cards that have been printed at the common rarity in a Magic Online set or product are legal, as long as the follow the above rule as well. Basically the difference is using the term Magic Online set or product, as the official Pauper rules state, or Magic set or product, as my rules state. I am going to reword this ruling to make it a bit more clear.
My suggested commander testing list:
Bloodbraid Elf
Psychatog
Invisible Stalker
Jace's Phantasm
Mistmeadow Witch
Izzet Guildmage
Quillspike
Whispering Specter
Once we can get some kind of commitment we can set up testing schedules. There are also plenty of other commanders to chose from (Lorescale Coatl etc.); just put your suggestions down on either thread and we can go from there.
I propose we officially add Army Ants to the test gauntlet for 1v1. Of course I don't have any real data to back it up, but in theory it could be a fast, consistent lock, or the backbone of a very strong aggro deck.
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I would be more for allowing them thus allowing anything that comes up in a gatherer search to be approved. It is rather confusing when using a card filter for commons to exclude cards from Master's Editions.
The reason they are commons in masters edition sets anyways is that is where wizards considers their rarity today. In my mind it makes more sense to accept that than it does to allow cards that used to be commons that got bumped up in rarity. You realize those commons were considered to powerful in general to remain at common rarity. Thus wizards bumps their rarity up but we still accept them as playable. Why would we say that a card that was bumped down in rarity to be not acceptable due to being not in print technically?
Should we also ban all portal cards because they are hard to find??? It just makes sense to me to allow Master's Edition cards to be played if printed in common rarity.
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[Modern] Allies
This simply is NOT an online format, as online Pauper is NOT an offline format, and cannot be treated as such. You could use your same logic and say any cards that haven't been reprinted/have been printed with a higher rarity couldn't be used.
This is also very true, in my opinion I think either both should be allowed or neither should be allowed.
The downside being that people tend to be a bit irritated when a card gets reprinted in a higher rarity and it would remove it from pauper play. Overall... I don't really see why we should make a big fuss over a few cards from MTGO being reprinted as commons. If someone told me that they were unwilling to play against it in a pauper environment for your reasons.... I seriously would just refuse to play against that person in general.
Again though.... I don't see why I should listen to you at all on what I can or cant play. This is going to be the downside of something like this. To my knowledge you are just someone who has played 10 games of pauper EDH... I have no knowledge of your level of play or any reason to listen to you on this topic. Without some sort of official RC... I don't see where this will ever go here...
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[Modern] Allies
I am someone who has played a decent amount of Pauper Commander games, and an extremely large amount of online Pauper games, and offline EDH games. Level of play also has no bearing on whether or not you have experience in Pauper Commander. The reason you should listen to what I am saying is that I am trying to do something no one else is; create a decent set of rules that people have a chance to at least partly agree on. There is no chance that everyone will agree on everything.
If you want people to pay attention to the rules that you're trying to standardize, since you're not an official person, you should try to go with the masses as much as possible.
Here's the rules I used when playing Pauper (IRL, never played online)
1. Uncommon general, 99 commons. - (Had to be printed as a common in at least one set, meaning MTGO Masters Editions didn't count)
2. 40 starting life, 21 GD, 10 poison. - I'm fine with 30/16, but I still think there's no reason to change poison.
3. No banned cards or general.
Back on topic, I was merely asking for clarification on whether or not you were including MTGO-only commons. I don't really have much of an opinion either way, but I do feel that any card which has been printed as a common is fair game (most notably Whispersilk Cloak, which despite owning a bunch of, I bought one from Darksteel specifically for my Pauper deck.)
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I've been working on my own set of Pauper EDH rules for a while too, and was happy to see it being discussed here. Here is a site I have been preparing for my playgroup with the possibility of using it to organize tournaments at my local shops:
http://pauperedh.weebly.com/pauper-commander-rules.html
You will see that I addressed the online vs offline rarity issue by making the rule "if it's common on Gatherer, it's legal." I understand Cakins' point about the division between online and offline formats, but I don't see the need to maintain it. Allowing online commons doesn't result in any abusive cards becoming legal, and I don't see players really caring if a card was in a Masters Edition. The simplicity of looking at the Gatherer and going "that's a common, that's not" is preferable to me. If someone can show me the harm this would cause, I am open to it. Right now it seems like it will allow some quirky older cards like Telekinesis to see play.
1.) No one wants to ban cards. For some reason, people want no cards to be banned, and want to ensure the cards that are banned are so unbelievably absurd that they are impossible to play against. There are cards banned in regular EDH that aren't impossible to play against, and in many cases, are easy to counteract.
2.) There are way too many technicalities that people making their own suggested rules are overlooking. You want cards that have been printed at the common rarity to be legal offline. I am going to give you two of the many problems I see with so much of your logic, besides that of which I have already presented. For one, what happens if/when wizards prints a card that only exists online, and as a common? And as my second point, Pauper was a format designated as a cheap format, for those that simply cannot afford other formats. When cards aren't common offline, as a whole, they are more expensive. By doing so, you are crossing the threshold of what the format is supposed to be.
3.) As another point, gatherer.wizards.com doesn't have a designated Pauper filter. It does, however, tell you what cards are common in what sets; my being that it is not hard to determine with my rule set what cards are legal.
4.) Finally, there doesn't need to be consensus on cards that should be banned. There are PLENTY of cards banned in other formats that people want to play, and that people don't want to play. It is a matter of what needs to be banned. This logic goes for rules as well. Some people may not want certain rules to change, but in reality, there are some things that need to stay in place.
On second thought, I think I'm firmly on the side of cards that have been printed in common only. I was doing a Gatherer search, and there's a lot of uncommon/rare cards that have never been printed in common. This rule would give us access to Exile, though, and a whole host of Legends and Portal generals that are now uncommon (plus Narwhal FTW!).
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I don't believe I have ever said there are cards that would be sources of problems. This is not my problem with adding online cards to the format.
@Kolmastoista
You don't want to listen to me? Don't listen to me. At no point do I pretend to have some amount of authority. You want to make your own rule set? Make your own rule set.
The biggest part of your statement was that I disagree with was that you think the rules of Pauper Commander should be guidelines. What I want, and have always wanted, was this format to blossom into a REAL format, that people can be informed about; so please don't say 'we' are not making an official rule set. The title of this post might be The Unoffical Official Pauper Commander Rules, but that is not my long term goal. The worst things that happen in offline EDH are when people don't know what cards are "banned" in certain groups, and things like Shahrazad destroy playgroups. If this format is every going to be a real format, I am 95% certain that Wizards will chose to only allow cards that have been printed as a common offline to be legal, as that falls into place with other format-defining decisions they have made in the past. When Wizards revamped EDH into Commander, they didn't give a set of guidelines, they gave it straightforward rules. They are changing their mentality, and if I can get closer to their mentality, and overall towards making Pauper Commander a real format, I will. However if you want Pauper Commander to turn into an extremely unknown format such as Rainbow Stairwell or something (which it is currently), then continue doing what you are doing.
Interesting how the authority comment comes right back around doesn't it. Why do you have the authority to say such?
If you want the format be taken seriously then a lot of work is going to have to be done in order to build and earn the trust of the player base so that the rules being presented don't simply appear to be the opinion of a few people. If you've already done testing then write articles with decklists and details supporting your reasoning for decisions. I am more inclined to trust players like d0su & ISBP because I have read their threads and seen their decklists in action.
If this is how you feel then you should just change the name of this thread to "Cakins' Pauper Commander Rules" because that's all that they'll be.
Please. Help build the format up by earning my trust rather than pushing me and others away.
I want this SO much. The problem is that I ask for help from the community with testing, and I don't get responses. I have a person (European - Much easier if we are all from the same continent / time zone - I am in the US) that is able to test, but without more this is going to be next to impossible. I can test against people in real life, but their lists simply aren't tuned.
This should go without saying, even as it is stated these are Unoffical rules.
My offer still stands if you need someone with whom to test decklists and whatnot. I don't have the strongest technical play, but I like to think I'm a somewhat competent deckbuilder.
Draft my Mono-Blue Cube!
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykwqXuMPsoc
good grief, you got that stuck in my head.
I'd be willing to do the same if I can convince my group to try it.
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Is Cavern Harpy better than Psychatog?
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Well, it would be a completely different deck. Cavern Harpy plays more like a more control-esque Mistmeadow Witch. Pyschatog can play like a combo deck, with a self-mill strategy, however I play a control version.