We've officially launched the format with: ModernCommander.com. We'll be updating more and more this week! Go to the site for newer content as I alter the thread.
What is Modern Commander
Modern Commander is a variant of Commander that utilizes a more up to date cardpool and a few rules changes with an emphasis on built in balance. It is designed with event play, both casual and competitive, in mind.
Why A New Format?
Since becoming Commander, EDH has grown exponentially; what was once exclusively a niche whacky kitchen table game, it has become a wildly popular format with an expanding player base. With the growing number of players, we've seen increased efforts to run events, but commonly with meta specific rules/bans and sub-formats (French/Tiny Leader/Pauper). This is largely in response to the fact that the RC's ban list and philosophy is to push a concept of self-governed social contracts of balance in an embrace of "Timmy-ism" that worked very well for its humble beginnings. While that's great for many players, it doesn't fully cater to the growing diversity of players, as ideas of balance and game philosophies can differ greatly. It becomes very hard to hold events with so many different types of players in way that makes everyone happy, as self governing ideas of good play can get messy. So rather than argue the RC's rules/bans, a better solution is to simply standardize a new base format to help players find the type of game they want to play between the two.
Rule Philosophy
While Classic EDH thrives on a system of subjective social contracts to ensure fun, we want these new formats to be about players taking the card pool to the furthest creative extent without that gray area of limitation. Part of this means we are embracing EDH's more powerful synergies that are often self regulated from abuse. We're justifying it in the sense that with this expectation, players are challenged to alter deck building theory to better cope with the these types of strategies. Extensive play testing in a competitive environment has demonstrated a balance occurs when deck builds anticipate these tactics, as games rarely came down to the first attempts to win.
There of course need to be some restrictions to ensure a healthy format and 2 main points will be the center of influence for what guides rules and bans:
A healthy diversity of decks - We want to avoid saying what can and cannot exist, but if we sense that the meta becomes dominated by a narrow selection of decks we will make changes to encourage more diversity.
Rules/Bans Should Promote the Influence of In-Game Decisions - While volatility and luck are inherit in all card games, it is important to the ideals of good game design that how you play the game matters. We can't stop all the potentially wild plays possible in EDH, nor do we want to, but we value the potential of outplay rather than being victims of fate whenever possible. Part of this is a bias against cards/rules that present too much influence in dictating wins before players have a reasonable chance to interact with the game.
Going forward we'll be trying to open up the rules/bans to be a bit more free and only make restrictions when we feel they are in violation of the established philosophies. The end goal being a rule/ban list that favors balance and interaction.
Format Rules
Legal Cards - Modern Commander will be composed of: Block/Core sets starting with 8th Edition till current, Conspiracy, Commander Preconstructed decks, and Commander's Arsenal (this list includes giant cards that were printed). The only banned cards are the ones listed below in the "Banned List" section, cards banned in Classic EDH and Constructed Modern are not banned.
30 life - We're going to be monitoring this change VERY closely, but there's a lot of potential positives to this change. We notice at high level, certain common archetypes are simply under powered and this will give those decks more chance to compete with the onslaught of decks that can simply ignore life loss and win. It's important that players aren't too easy to remove however, as we don't want to see established archetypes fall of the map under this change. As well this helps rounds become much quicker in events and avoid a common case of time rulings dictating an often unfair assessment on who deserves the win.
Free Partial Paris Mulligan (first is free, each there after is 1 card less. Mulliganed cards are set aside until you keep, then shuffled back in) - A major aspect of fighting quick and powerful cards is the ability for players to have early options available to deal with them. This creates a skillful and positive ability for players to ensure a more interactive game happens and you aren't at the mercy of opening hands to see if you get to play. It also plays benefit to varied decklists and multicolor that were negatively impacted in Classic EDH's rule change. THE SCRY RULE IS NOT IN EFFECT.
Commander Specific Banlist - We're starting with no bans to see what forms, but our intent is to try not to eliminate cards from the card pool if they're only broken as Commanders. So we'll be keeping this open for when the time comes and we feel a card has become a problem, but might be validated in this restriction.
Commander started as a way to play our favorite cards we didn't get to play anywhere else.
Currently we have Tiny Leaders, Duel Commander, and Commander, we have enough.
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This thread is not to dispute the idea of this happening, only how. If you have constructive input that is fine, but comments like these serve no purpose as the existence of these formats do not detract from the base format. As well french/tiny leaders are considered overly niche sub-formats, where as these will be to establish larger formats more true to the original with the intent to help players find better play groups and agreement of game scenarios/balance.
I will refrain from responding to these types of posts from here on out and ask they these posts do not distract from the OP. Thank you.
Updated a first take on rules. Please argue this list as it is a first run glance and I'll be updating it Monday with consideration to discussions I have in this forum and within my own meta.
this is pure theory-crafting, so take it for what you will:
i didn't see if this was for multiplayer or 1v1, but as a multiplayer banlist, i can see that itd prolly just be griselbrand and biorhythm that would be problematic, and maybe if you added griselbrand to the banned as commander, it'd kinda even it out? it feels like you're trying to stomp out certain combos from your meta.
i'm really confused as to why lab man is on the watch list over say soemthing like deadeye navigator or sylvan primordial? in my experience, having a way-too-early DEN or primordial can really damper the game, but unlike lab man, the game doesn't just end, 'cuz everyone thinks they can still worm their way out of that hole (not that they ever do), whereas lab man just says lets shuffle up and play another game.
also, has anyone here been locked out with a panoptic mirror/time walk? its not very fun, but it seems like its doable here in the legacy-edh. maybe its too slow for the format you're envisioning?
The goal is not to stomp out every infinite available. A few questions need to get asked about each one:
How fast can these typically go off?
How many cards are required?
How many instances and availability of response types are there?
Does this have any telegraphing properties such as requiring the need of a permanent resolving first?
Is there relevance to board state?
Lab man is used in a variety of combos, many I feel are fair in the intention of the list, but there are some cases I have concerns, thus he's on a watch list to look into it. I honestly don't think he'll be banned, but it's worth looking into. We're trying to stop "oops I win cards" and work with combos that have more reasonable chances to answer. Deadeye has many gaps to respond to and requires set ups that can be punished. Remember most of this list is to inspire discussion before a real list is made. I'm also considering the mirror, but I'm curious if it is slow enough. I'll add it to the watch list.
+1 on the above. Nonbasic land hate is the natural check to greedy manabases. Remove a check and watch some aspect of the game go out of control
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EDH RRGrenzo plays your deck, GGYeva's mono green control, WW9-tails trys desperately for monowhite not to suck RWBUTymna and Kraum's saboteur tribal, UWG Kestia's Enchantress Aggro, RUB Jeleva casts big dumb spells, RGB Vaevictis' big critters can kill your critters hard
Why would you ban Back to basics, blood moon and contamination, yes sure they are not that cool to play against, but it enables a more budget players to compete. Honestly the look on a face of a player that plays 2 basics after he tapped out and you drop Back to basics is pure gold.
Anyway, yeah I'd love to play that format and just have fun with daretti, goblin welder and sundering titan or that always fun thing called T2 Sylvan primordial. I believe you played EDH when those 2 creatures were legal, but I don't know of you ever saw kicked Rite of replication on Sylvan primordial on T4 after he reanimated it on t3
Yeah, those were good times.
On topic - banning LabMan would hurt a fair number of decks, or at least make it harder to throw in a backup plan. Do you think that banning it would help diversity, which is another key element?
Well what needs to be tested is what happens when EDH is oriented to intentionally push power into a deck. Current EDH is typically casual to 75% in builds with a lot of social rules dictating the avoidance of some anti fun cards. If playing the card pool to the best of their potential, some of these choices become a bit more impactful and that's why they're on a the watch list. It isn't purely about power, it has to do with the shift in build focus. Once we understand what happens as a result we can weigh in on diversity.
I don't want to restrict decks with bans if I can avoid it, so there's a bit of question over nonbasic hate. Blood Moon particularly helps red, which is argued the weakest color and I particularly don't want to take things away from it...however these cards blow out 3-5 colors decks which are more popular in this format than any other. When social contracts are gone, there is a risk these may become overused and banning it might be better for diversity in the end. This is why they're on a watch list, not the ban list. Many things on the watch list are pure worst case theory, it does not imply they currently are OP and in need of bannings. Simply concerns to observe.
Unlike the RC list, we're anticipating the most broken use of cards and how deck builds will shift to deal with them. I'm anticipating more answers in this type of meta and less "battle cruiser" style decks as a response and that weirdly justifies more broken stuff to not be ban worthy. Sylvian/Sundering is a case such as that. Admittedly I wasn't playing when they were legal. Any card banned on RC/French list is something I'm looking into. I'm trying to decipher what was banned as genuinely overpowered and what was a response to over popular cards.
TBH I'm more curious in everyone's opinion on the Modern Commander. I think this might be a great way to create diversity and perhaps even buff colors comparatively.
When Sundering Titan was legal the general mentality as I understood it was "hey brah, I'm just trying to stick it to those 5c players", but what generally happened was the player who was already slightly manascrewed just got crippled. Since it was a ETB and LTB trigger, there wasn't any way to effectively minimize it. Sylvan Primordial, because of the lack of a may clause, had a similar problem of forcing players to hit a land where there were no other valid targets. And because the value your got out of the card was insanely good in multiplayer, it was a must run card, often in conjunction with blinking, cloning, and reanimation. It was every bit as centralizing as Primeval Titan was, but with a more obvious feel-bad downside to it.
All that being said, in a more streamlined competitive environment you may not have these problems. If you're going to start from scratch, I'd probably just ban a couple of big offenders like Sol Ring, then keep an eye on everything else until they prove to be a problem. If you could enlist some help from other playgroups it would also give you more objective data because you aren't getting only your own personally skewed impressions.
You need to be very careful in customizing a banlist when crafting a custom format like "Legacy EDH". Especially when you're looking at cards like Winter Orb and other "unfun" cards. See, players don't always like getting stuck under an orb or whatever, but most players accept that the card is legal and available, it might not be fun, but they'll probably have to deal with it at some point. And then they need to either choose to take Orb and other lockdown effects into account, and be prepared to answer them, or ignore them and accept the games they run into them as losses.
So you ban Winter Orb. Okay, well, now if I played Winter Orb, I'm going to switch to Static Orb/Rising Waters/ Hokori, Dust Drinker. Ok, so you ban those. Well at this point you're starting to ban an entire archetype. This isn't fair to players looking to play that archetype. We're not talking about players wanting to play a super broken combo, we're talking about an entire archetype.
In the meantime, there are far more disgusting things running around in the format:
"Wait, I can't even play winter orb in my deck, but that guy over there is reanimating Worldgorger Dragon? Wait, I can't cast Contamination, but that dude is about to kill everyone through Sharuum combo and the game before that I lost to Condemn/Tunnel Vision? And that dude over there is doing bonkers stuff with Survival of the Fittest, a card that's banned in ACTUAL Legacy? I mean, Winter Orb doesn't kill anyone, it doesn't instakill someone with a combo, it's of a card type that's fairly easily destroyed and dealt with, and just because others don't find it fun, I personally find it fun, and why is their definition of "fun" overriding mine?"
Again, even if you did ban Winter Orb, that's just one piece of the full package. You've gotta also nuke several other cards or the ban is completely pointless, and at some point you have to acknowledge that you're just simply trying to ban an entire archetype because an entire table full of players couldn't figure out how to break one artifact that they don't like?
So fine, you banned the entire archetype. Whatever, I'm gonna switch to Radha Land Destruction. Is that any better?
There will always be an archetype that doesn't make friends, isn't known for being nice, and people groan when their namesake cards hit the table. More often than not, someone will figure out how to play that archetype or something equally bad when you ban it.
Besides, you're calling the proposed format "Legacy Commander." Know what happens in actual Legacy? T1 kills are perfectly normal. Locking people down under a countertop package is a normal play. Reanimating a Griselbrand on T1 is just fine. Calling it "Legacy Commander" and then targeting cards like Winter Orb and Stasis is counter-intuitive to what the name implies.
Please don't misread this as a post of discouragement, I'm glad you're trying to find a solution. But at some point you have to admit that you're not creating a whole new format so much as you are just house ruling bans on cards the community's majority doesn't like. Which is not to say that that's not necessarily a bad thing, but in order to create a balanced meta, you're talking about banning a WHOLE lot more cards because players WILL find a way to make unfair decks, and your own banlist might even go so far as to enable decks that couldn't have existed before to survive.
If I wanted to, you could put that entire "proposed banlist" into effect, and I would show up teaching people the power of Earthcraft and/or Survival. And then those would get banned. And so on until there were no cards left anyone thought was fun because someone else thought losing to them was unfun.
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Legacy: TES
EDH: Grand Arbiter $tax, Freyalise Stompy, Mimeoplasm Death From the Grave
Do not misunderstand the Winter Orb consideration as any focus on targeting anti-fun cards, this is not what these formats are about. The meta I come from has casual/comp players, but operates at an extremely comp level with many of our players, I being one of them. Winter Orb is a card I use and it's only fair I take a look at cards I use as much as others I deem as problematic. I have seen our community adjust to Winter Orb quite well, but I do note that my list targets a few staple ramp spells so it's worth discussing. It is still important that I generate discussion with proposals, regardless of my biases. This is not an attempt to make my own home list, this is to form a ban list that is with balance in mind and remove overly volatile cards. Only take the banned list into account in terms of where I feel this needs to go. The maybe list is really to inspire these arguments to prevent oversights. Many cards on that list I would personally not ban and I list merely as a check against my own opinions. The list needs to be about the interested demographs view of what a competitive-esque take on EDH should be, not my sole view point.
Monday will update the list and I will add polls to gauge public opinion on what makes the ban list.
If people are sick of reading about stuff just stop taking part. You have 100% control over what you read. Simic Ascendancy isn't going to get banned just because you didn't tell someone to shut up on the internet.
Hi, just a few questions to understand the philosophy of the format:
1. What is your opinion of certain cards that basically ignore all previous events of the game and win on the spot? This might be a poor question as I can only think of Coalition Victory at the moment.
2. I noticed that you've switched out the bans between Grindstone and Painter's Servant. How do you feel about "colors-matter" cards that may potentially be degenerate combo with the Servant? (Key Example being Iona, Shield of Emeria)
3. What is your opinion about Tooth and Nail? That is often a card that comes up in banlist discussion as a card that may potentially end the game then and there. Especially with the exclusion of Painter's Servant from the banlist, how do you feel about the potential to tutor for a TnT, then follow-up by tutoring the multitude of 2 creature infinite combos/lock-out combos?
It looks like you've put in a lot of work into this, and I am excited to see how this develops.
I have said this many times and i will say it again here if you want to make a competitive oriented list that is more balanced and allows for more diversity in strategy you need to bring the life total back down to 20. There is no need to ban a card like Ad Nuaseam no need for cards from serra ascendant to Sylvan library to necro to Gitaxian probe and night's whisper to all function without their intended draw backs Toxic deluge shgould not be a better damnation You should have to look at those 2 cards and make a decision as to which one goes in your deck. The increase to 40 life is a CASUAL change and one that breaks more cards than you can count and invalidates an INSANE number of core strategies in Magic. Lightning bolt should be an excellent card because it is an excellent magic card. Combo decks should have to fear a turn 1 Delver of secrets respect aggro players. Whether you want to have a format like vintage that's fast and powerful slinging black lotus or one more tame banning everything not legal in modern there is absolutely no reason to run a competitive version of commander with 40 life its for lack of a better thought just stupid. This goes beyond the cardboard in your chances of success without this change should you choose the more open card pool which I see as a major draw to this kind of format the number of required bans to get much done would in my estimation have a very large chance of leading you down the path that is prismatic. This is a competently separate format i don't even see a need for commander damage having a card you always have access to is broken enough but its also a draw tot he format and part of what makes it so much fun. It allows the build around and a wide variety of decks to be played but you don't need any other help even fi you keep it for nostalgic reasons its much more fair at 20 life as your not giving this card you always have access to a unique double damage amplifier which again is broken and uncalled for. You want to balance combo when they already have a clear advantage in a multiplayer setting? You do not need to take away all there cardboard take away their ability to use life as a resource and re introduce aggressive cards to the meta game and watch how fast they die when multiple players smell blood in the water and cracking their fetchland and losing 1 life matters. aggro already will struggle to kill 3 players as is they don't need to deal with 40 life in fact they type is its purest form as seen in other formats is non existent and for good reason. The power and toughness on your creatures should matter not just the effect stapled on to them. While I don't have the time in my personal life to make such a list i simply don't have the time to do the leg work i would love to help you if you have any questions but i implore whoever does undertake this task to not let their personal bias get in the way or half ass it. While i understand making sweeping changes like this will invalidate much of the data you may have collected from the current format and completely and utterly change it i think its would undoubtedly be for the better. Having a banlist that includes mana crypt but not sol ring in a competitive setting makes no sense. If your goal is balance price should not be an issue so unless you truly believe mox pearl far superior to sol ring having them in 2 separate categories is just incorrect. When you are using the correct life total Sol ring is every bit as degenerate as mana crypt maybe more so as you can easily die to a mana crypt when you dont get a free 20 life. I personaly like the idea of legacy power level access to certain vintage power cards but at correct life totals axeing sol ring lotus crypt and all moxen recall etc .. while leaving many cards banned in legacy due to certain decks being to strong with them IE frantic search windfall mental misstep alone as the reason they are banned in legacy is mostly irrelevant for that purpose. You will need to grind you will need to do an insane amount of testing and once its all said and done adjust the banlist as your players find out what is best and reign it in. Please though for the love of god hear my SCREAM DO NOT LEAVE THE LIFE TOTAL AT 40 !!!!
Grindstone was in notice of both RC's and French's ban list targeting the combo. While most 2 card combos are fine, the low mana cost, artifact type, and ability to go off the turn it's played is a point of concern. This can be argued to be removed, but I foresee too many easy ways to assemble this quickly given those factors, it's a lot easier and accessible than say leyline/helm (which is fair in my eyes). I took notice that the two ban lists differed on which part of the combo to remove. I'm aware that opening up painter lets in some interesting interactions: Llawan/Iona!...but I until those become an issue, I think it's better to give players these tools as in most cases they can only lock down a few of the opponents and aren't reliable GG's. Keep in mind the removal of some of the more busted mana rampers reduces the potential to quickly drop an Iona if one were to use her as a commander, giving players time to respond.
Tooth and Nail is a card in the back of my head because it does indeed fall in the same philosophy as many library reliant "oops I win" cards. The factors making me reluctant to add it are that players can respond to the abilities of the combo creatures as well as the spell itself, and the mana cost making it slightly slower than similar 1 shot cards. A big focus is on the speed of the win, not so much can it win. I'm trying to curb turn 1-3 blow outs, encourage dangerous/winnable situations turn 4+, as by then it is more reasonable players have had time to build/tutor and have answers. This is based in the observations of my comp meta where the majority of decks can win about turn 4-6 uncontested, but by then would often be stopped and games would go 10+ turns. Only in cases of fast mana has a TaN taken a game before that and that's sort of why I went after them in the ban list instead.
Sol Ring is more than likely going to be banned, I'm pretty sure. I just know it is a card that is a staple that many people are attached to and wanted to be discussed before I did. That said it is the weakest of the rocks I banned so it is right at the border.
I can't agree with the 20 life, but I do respect the concern to the struggle aggro has. Added life is unfortunately a must have for this format, as dealing with 3 opponents at 20 life would lead to a meta of quick beaters where the first person focused has very little chance to survive long enough to stabilize or refocus their turns and mana on being defensive to a threat you provide. The big talking point here though does go back to aggro; is there a way we can tweek things to help out this weaker archetype without overly impacting others? I may test 30 however, but 20 is simply too low.
I'm once again eager to see the potential of Modern EDH, where there's a chance aggro may be more prevalent and we can see a side of EDH that doesn't get much spotlight in a Legacy style list.
Why is 20 simply to low? please do elaborate First off i don't agree on your assessment of what the meta would be however considering that neither of us has any meta data on that ill let that slide for now. Why is that a problem any more than combo and lockdown being the meta other than your own personal preference? 1 players being focused by 3 players loses? Call me crazy but im pretty sure that is what balance is you should NOT be able to 3v1 in a balanced format and if you think "quick beaters" will be the go to strategy in a format where you need to defeat 3 opponents i would love to hear why? " but 20 is simply too low." please explain im all ears nothing you said has convinced me in the slightest. All additional life does is create more imbalance the goal of a competitive list is balence. If you can convince me that having more life creates a more balanced environment then im all ears but nothing you said comes even close to that. It kills strategies it kills diversity if you want balance that balance should not be a balance of lockdown vs combo but i cannot for the life of me see how it has anything to do with balance and con only assume its your personal preference which is understandable . I would love to hear a compelling argument as to how having more life than the cards were using were intended adds to balance but to be blunt to want to keep the life total at 40 and call that set of rules "balanced" to me is a joke.
I'd like to begin by congratulating you on your creativity and commitment and offer some comments coming from a fairly competitive meta (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada) that hosted large commander events (and hosts smaller ones now) using the regular banned list.
It's quite doable, here's what we do now:
Round 1 four-player pods, regular rules except: No more than two turns in a row, to prevent looping. No infinites either. Yes, Ad Nauseam and Storm exploit this, but we've been dealing.
Round 2 2HG 60-life per team, anything goes.
Round 3 is a variant. Last time we had one table Archenemy v 4 the other table was Planechase. We've also had 1 v 1.
Give $10 entry, get $20 store credit back, and here's the beauty! We have prizes based not only on winning. Each table has a Ballot that fills in the following (can't vote for self):
1.Best Player 2.Most Original Deck 3.Best sportsmanship.
You can only win one prize per week, so what happens is the go-go-go-win-win-win guy will get the $20 for most kill points, then the rest of us get our $20. Last time I got best player for casting Imp's Mischief on an Identity Crisis from the Archenemy.
We previously had the same sort of format, with regular banned list, but it had an additional rule of you can't concede the first round, to prevent people just dropping to keep their points. Points were 1 point per player killed. Round two was 2 v 2 with players seated X Y / Y X and if you say you have a card, you need to reveal it to the table to avoid timewasting on bluffing, etc. One point per opposing player killed. Last round 1 v 1, one point per win. Here store credit was different. We'd pay $5 in and prizes went back to top 50-60% or so. So your top player could et $40-$50 back, but the rest would get maybe $5-$20 back.
Latly, we had 1 v 1 events with regular banned list. $5 entry, top 60% get store credit back.
Currently, there's a Duel Commander League going on, it's a little far for me or I'd play in it.
The point I'm making, I guess, is you shouldn't be trying to please everyone. Just make a league or an event, tell the rules and the prizes and so on and go from there. If people are cool with it they'll play. Don't make prizes anything meaningful to avoid temper-tantrums and so on. Have a few judges around to help.
I do like your Legacy idea by the way, but I feel you should just let people go hog wild. If people want to Painter's Stone, go nuts. If you want to Ad Naus, go nuts. Set the life totals to 30 maybe though. Lower the complications for yourself and give it a go. Other options is just a big league and accent casual play.
P.S. We looked at Modern Commander and found it way too limiting. We just stick with regular rules and self-regulate stuff we don't want. If we want to kill turn two we do that for a while. If we don't then we pull out goofy stuff.
Good luck.
Just @Cryogen though, when Sundering Titan was legal we'd just cripple people and stuff. Same with Sylvan, but we're known to be cutthroat. If a new player shows up we'll pull something more casual out but otherwise we play to win at all times. It's fun.
The "Crazy One", playing casual magic and occasionally dipping his toes into regular play since 1994.
Currently focusing on Pre-Modern (Mono-Black Discard Control) and Modern (Azorious Control, Temur Rhinos).
Find me at the Wizard's Tower in Ottawa every second Saturday afternoons.
Without fast mana, G is a must-include color in cEDH. Sol Ring and Mana Crypt introduce variance in a singleton format, but they also enable non-rampy color combinations to keep up. RW is bad in cEDH but it goes from an underdog to 100% unplayable garbage without those rocks and the vault cards.
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These days, some wizards are finding they have a little too much deck left at the end of their $$$.
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The first thing to take into account is that the goal here is to preserve much of what EDH is with the Legacy list, but curtail it to a more competitive mindset. We still want the format to be what it is and what people like, but remove the concept of self governing. That said a change like this inevitably has drastic consequences, whether or not I can guess the meta accurately, the shift would be inevitable and we without doubt would see it hurt established archetypes. However, the Modern list embraces more drastic changes such as this and a reality of aggro being more relevant is a possibility.
The biggest issue though is that the very concept of ALL cutthroat games hinges on the idea that players will make and break alliances with the end goal of winning it all. There is no reality behind 2nd/3rd/4th place in cutthroat, all motives are expected to lead to the win or you lose. Given that, the idea is not that a player should be strong enough to win 3v1 by their own hand, the balancing act comes from players amassing momentum and that inevitably priorities must shift to solve the new threat. There needs to be enough time for this effect to take place. If players can simply play a few tempo beaters and focus one player, you're not really building enough threat that is relevant enough to dominate mid game with this type of card pool. The player first focused has little chance of surviving and the risk is minimal to let you temporary allies go uncontested as you push with them. Power shifts are an important aspect of what makes cutthroat work and that means players need enough chance to survive if focused to see those shifts occur and force meaningful decisions. Currently there's a good system that if 3 people go all in on a player, one of them likely has snowballed so hard after 40 life they can wipe out the other 2 once they kill off the first person and thus it deters this from commonly happening flippantly.
The idea is not to make everyone happy with one rule list, we have found this impossible. This is where the idea of 3 formats comes in handy. Players can play the type they want with the intention of the formats self defined. Classic caters to the casual/Timmy nature of many players and is really about being fun and use of social contracts. Legacy is about pushing competitive balance and encouraging players to make the best deck they can with no limitations. This is a great way to split the groups so people are happy and there's no confusion of what the event is. Self governed social contracts become very hard to figure out when you get different player types and are a disservice to 75% - comp players who currently don't have a home in the community. Now players can easily build decks for each with an immediate understanding of the expectations of the game. Modern is really about a new format to see new archetypes form and be more accessible to players wanting to spend less and not buy overly niche cards. It gives a home for new players who want to play competitively, but don't want to deal with the daunting wall of the Legacy cardpool and combo intensive nature that can feel uninteractive.
The goal is every player type now has a home and there's less arguing about what EDH should be. Pick one of the 3 types for your event and people know what if it's for them and making alternating nights can get the right kinda players who will play well together, no more complaining that people hate your broken deck and no casuals complaining about unfun decks ruining their idea of EDH.
I think the unfortunate reality is that Red/White are already weak with these tools and what these give them does not offset how much more it gives the other colors. In fact the only notably strong deck combination of those colors is Naya and one other exception: Narset...a deck that honestly becomes a bit too fast when these rocks are available, yet remains a strong comp deck without them (and the return of hand sculpting). UR and WU do fine without however. Sadly there is a color tier in EDH and why I have hopes the Modern will hopefully see those colors have more power.
I just don't think we see eye to eye almost everything you listed as a CON I see as a benefit. The vision i have for a competitive multiplayer EDH format is nothing like the current format it's one that champions balance and is intentionally drastically different from the current EDH model because it is broken. I could go on to tell you why i think your wrong about everything in your second paragraph but ill just leave it at this becuase i think were so far apart
this quote
"the first thing to take into account is that the goal here is to preserve much of what EDH is " I would not want anything like this if i wanted this i would just play edh the way it is now.
Pretty cool idea and congrats. I'm a hardcore lurker of the banlist discussion, so it's always nice to see people "putting up" after heated debate.
I would like to offer my input though, take it, if you will, with a grain of salt because my preferred strategies are stax and permission, but I am a strong advocate of cards that mess with lands. Land destruction, Winter Orb effects, and Back to Basics effects, because without them, you either play green or fall behind. There needs to be efficient, attractive ways, to punish decks that rely on greedy mana bases, or windmill slamming fatties. I've been a part of a bunch of groups of varying competitive levels, and each time, the groups that deteriorated, were because of unchecked big mana decks. The groups that persist and remain fun are those that run said effects, I just see greater thought going into politics, deck building, and less over extension when land destruction is present, and it results in a greater number of decks that don't run green.
Also, set the starting life total to 30. Aggro and midrange deserve to have a more active role than just laying low until they can snipe someone. Playing with non-token creature combat damage in a singleton format is already hard enough, and the loss of fast mana will probably make it harder. In a four player pod, we can expect 2-4 wraths, and if there is a black deck present, then you also have to worry about Grave Pact shenanigans..
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They call me Hank Hill because I bring the pro-pain.
I just don't think we see eye to eye almost everything you listed as a CON I see as a benefit. The vision i have for a competitive multiplayer EDH format is nothing like the current format it's one that champions balance and is intentionally drastically different from the current EDH model because it is broken. I could go on to tell you why i think your wrong about everything in your second paragraph but ill just leave it at this becuase i think were so far apart
this quote
"the first thing to take into account is that the goal here is to preserve much of what EDH is " I would not want anything like this if i wanted this i would just play edh the way it is now.
I think a simple analogy is look at current formats of constructed. They cater to different needs; they have Limited which is full of broken cards and houses archetypes that are nonexistent in Standard. They are 2 very different games, which is why I'm proposing the 3. 2 are share common card pools but benefit different mentalities, where as Modern is where we can build a different vision. I keep bring Modern up in response, but you have yet to comment on this. I feel it gives opportunity to encourage your ideas.
We've had extensive testing with arguably one of the most cutthroat metas out there and we've seen a very skillful side of current EDH, flourish. I'm trying to simply capture what makes that work and rid the format of some of the more troublesome issues that are noninteractive and circumvent the skill aspect we've seen.
I play modern FFA on mtgo all the time so that doesn't interest me as much. I understand what you want I just want something completely differnt what I want would look nothing like what EDh does today it would be a completely different format not a replacement. We just want differnt things. I want so much more What I want would throw everything you know about EDH out the window not just ban out the best strategies currently available. You want to change this format I want a new one that resembles it in structure.
What is Modern Commander
Modern Commander is a variant of Commander that utilizes a more up to date cardpool and a few rules changes with an emphasis on built in balance. It is designed with event play, both casual and competitive, in mind.
Why A New Format?
Since becoming Commander, EDH has grown exponentially; what was once exclusively a niche whacky kitchen table game, it has become a wildly popular format with an expanding player base. With the growing number of players, we've seen increased efforts to run events, but commonly with meta specific rules/bans and sub-formats (French/Tiny Leader/Pauper). This is largely in response to the fact that the RC's ban list and philosophy is to push a concept of self-governed social contracts of balance in an embrace of "Timmy-ism" that worked very well for its humble beginnings. While that's great for many players, it doesn't fully cater to the growing diversity of players, as ideas of balance and game philosophies can differ greatly. It becomes very hard to hold events with so many different types of players in way that makes everyone happy, as self governing ideas of good play can get messy. So rather than argue the RC's rules/bans, a better solution is to simply standardize a new base format to help players find the type of game they want to play between the two.
Rule Philosophy
While Classic EDH thrives on a system of subjective social contracts to ensure fun, we want these new formats to be about players taking the card pool to the furthest creative extent without that gray area of limitation. Part of this means we are embracing EDH's more powerful synergies that are often self regulated from abuse. We're justifying it in the sense that with this expectation, players are challenged to alter deck building theory to better cope with the these types of strategies. Extensive play testing in a competitive environment has demonstrated a balance occurs when deck builds anticipate these tactics, as games rarely came down to the first attempts to win.
There of course need to be some restrictions to ensure a healthy format and 2 main points will be the center of influence for what guides rules and bans:
Format Rules
Ban List
Banned List
none yet
Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest WUR Voltron Control
Temmet, Vizier of Naktamun WU Unblockable Mirror Trickery
Ra's al Ghul (Sidar Kondo) and Face-Down Ninjas
Brudiclad, Token Engineer
Vaevictis (VV2) the Dire Lantern
Rona, Disciple of Gix
Tiana the Auror
Hallar
Ulrich the Politician
Zur the Rebel
Scorpion, Locust, Scarab, Egyptian Gods
O-Kagachi, Mathas, Mairsil
"Non-Tribal" Tribal Generals, Eggs
This thread is not to dispute the idea of this happening, only how. If you have constructive input that is fine, but comments like these serve no purpose as the existence of these formats do not detract from the base format. As well french/tiny leaders are considered overly niche sub-formats, where as these will be to establish larger formats more true to the original with the intent to help players find better play groups and agreement of game scenarios/balance.
I will refrain from responding to these types of posts from here on out and ask they these posts do not distract from the OP. Thank you.
Trap your friends in an endless game with this 23-card combo!
i didn't see if this was for multiplayer or 1v1, but as a multiplayer banlist, i can see that itd prolly just be griselbrand and biorhythm that would be problematic, and maybe if you added griselbrand to the banned as commander, it'd kinda even it out? it feels like you're trying to stomp out certain combos from your meta.
i'm really confused as to why lab man is on the watch list over say soemthing like deadeye navigator or sylvan primordial? in my experience, having a way-too-early DEN or primordial can really damper the game, but unlike lab man, the game doesn't just end, 'cuz everyone thinks they can still worm their way out of that hole (not that they ever do), whereas lab man just says lets shuffle up and play another game.
also, has anyone here been locked out with a panoptic mirror/time walk? its not very fun, but it seems like its doable here in the legacy-edh. maybe its too slow for the format you're envisioning?
Legacy - Solidarity - mono U aggro - burn - Imperial Painter - Strawberry Shortcake - Bluuzards - bom
The goal is not to stomp out every infinite available. A few questions need to get asked about each one:
RRGrenzo plays your deck, GGYeva's mono green control, WW9-tails trys desperately for monowhite not to suck
RWBUTymna and Kraum's saboteur tribal, UWG Kestia's Enchantress Aggro, RUB Jeleva casts big dumb spells, RGB Vaevictis' big critters can kill your critters hard
Arena Standard
UUUU Tempo, since before it was cool
Various Wx decks running Fountain of Renewal and Day of Glory
Anything I can cram Chaos Wand in to
Yeah, those were good times.
On topic - banning LabMan would hurt a fair number of decks, or at least make it harder to throw in a backup plan. Do you think that banning it would help diversity, which is another key element?
Misc. EDH Stuff: Commander Cube | Zombies (Horde)
Resources:Commander Rulings FAQ | Commander Deckbuilding Guide
Follow me on Twitter! @cryogen_mtg
I don't want to restrict decks with bans if I can avoid it, so there's a bit of question over nonbasic hate. Blood Moon particularly helps red, which is argued the weakest color and I particularly don't want to take things away from it...however these cards blow out 3-5 colors decks which are more popular in this format than any other. When social contracts are gone, there is a risk these may become overused and banning it might be better for diversity in the end. This is why they're on a watch list, not the ban list. Many things on the watch list are pure worst case theory, it does not imply they currently are OP and in need of bannings. Simply concerns to observe.
Unlike the RC list, we're anticipating the most broken use of cards and how deck builds will shift to deal with them. I'm anticipating more answers in this type of meta and less "battle cruiser" style decks as a response and that weirdly justifies more broken stuff to not be ban worthy. Sylvian/Sundering is a case such as that. Admittedly I wasn't playing when they were legal. Any card banned on RC/French list is something I'm looking into. I'm trying to decipher what was banned as genuinely overpowered and what was a response to over popular cards.
TBH I'm more curious in everyone's opinion on the Modern Commander. I think this might be a great way to create diversity and perhaps even buff colors comparatively.
All that being said, in a more streamlined competitive environment you may not have these problems. If you're going to start from scratch, I'd probably just ban a couple of big offenders like Sol Ring, then keep an eye on everything else until they prove to be a problem. If you could enlist some help from other playgroups it would also give you more objective data because you aren't getting only your own personally skewed impressions.
Misc. EDH Stuff: Commander Cube | Zombies (Horde)
Resources:Commander Rulings FAQ | Commander Deckbuilding Guide
Follow me on Twitter! @cryogen_mtg
So you ban Winter Orb. Okay, well, now if I played Winter Orb, I'm going to switch to Static Orb/Rising Waters/ Hokori, Dust Drinker. Ok, so you ban those. Well at this point you're starting to ban an entire archetype. This isn't fair to players looking to play that archetype. We're not talking about players wanting to play a super broken combo, we're talking about an entire archetype.
In the meantime, there are far more disgusting things running around in the format:
"Wait, I can't even play winter orb in my deck, but that guy over there is reanimating Worldgorger Dragon? Wait, I can't cast Contamination, but that dude is about to kill everyone through Sharuum combo and the game before that I lost to Condemn/Tunnel Vision? And that dude over there is doing bonkers stuff with Survival of the Fittest, a card that's banned in ACTUAL Legacy? I mean, Winter Orb doesn't kill anyone, it doesn't instakill someone with a combo, it's of a card type that's fairly easily destroyed and dealt with, and just because others don't find it fun, I personally find it fun, and why is their definition of "fun" overriding mine?"
Again, even if you did ban Winter Orb, that's just one piece of the full package. You've gotta also nuke several other cards or the ban is completely pointless, and at some point you have to acknowledge that you're just simply trying to ban an entire archetype because an entire table full of players couldn't figure out how to break one artifact that they don't like?
So fine, you banned the entire archetype. Whatever, I'm gonna switch to Radha Land Destruction. Is that any better?
There will always be an archetype that doesn't make friends, isn't known for being nice, and people groan when their namesake cards hit the table. More often than not, someone will figure out how to play that archetype or something equally bad when you ban it.
Besides, you're calling the proposed format "Legacy Commander." Know what happens in actual Legacy? T1 kills are perfectly normal. Locking people down under a countertop package is a normal play. Reanimating a Griselbrand on T1 is just fine. Calling it "Legacy Commander" and then targeting cards like Winter Orb and Stasis is counter-intuitive to what the name implies.
Please don't misread this as a post of discouragement, I'm glad you're trying to find a solution. But at some point you have to admit that you're not creating a whole new format so much as you are just house ruling bans on cards the community's majority doesn't like. Which is not to say that that's not necessarily a bad thing, but in order to create a balanced meta, you're talking about banning a WHOLE lot more cards because players WILL find a way to make unfair decks, and your own banlist might even go so far as to enable decks that couldn't have existed before to survive.
If I wanted to, you could put that entire "proposed banlist" into effect, and I would show up teaching people the power of Earthcraft and/or Survival. And then those would get banned. And so on until there were no cards left anyone thought was fun because someone else thought losing to them was unfun.
EDH: Grand Arbiter $tax, Freyalise Stompy, Mimeoplasm Death From the Grave
Monday will update the list and I will add polls to gauge public opinion on what makes the ban list.
1. What is your opinion of certain cards that basically ignore all previous events of the game and win on the spot? This might be a poor question as I can only think of Coalition Victory at the moment.
2. I noticed that you've switched out the bans between Grindstone and Painter's Servant. How do you feel about "colors-matter" cards that may potentially be degenerate combo with the Servant? (Key Example being Iona, Shield of Emeria)
3. What is your opinion about Tooth and Nail? That is often a card that comes up in banlist discussion as a card that may potentially end the game then and there. Especially with the exclusion of Painter's Servant from the banlist, how do you feel about the potential to tutor for a TnT, then follow-up by tutoring the multitude of 2 creature infinite combos/lock-out combos?
It looks like you've put in a lot of work into this, and I am excited to see how this develops.
Damia http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=410191
DDFT Legacyhttp://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=505247
Domain Zoo http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?p=10212429#post10212429
Tooth and Nail is a card in the back of my head because it does indeed fall in the same philosophy as many library reliant "oops I win" cards. The factors making me reluctant to add it are that players can respond to the abilities of the combo creatures as well as the spell itself, and the mana cost making it slightly slower than similar 1 shot cards. A big focus is on the speed of the win, not so much can it win. I'm trying to curb turn 1-3 blow outs, encourage dangerous/winnable situations turn 4+, as by then it is more reasonable players have had time to build/tutor and have answers. This is based in the observations of my comp meta where the majority of decks can win about turn 4-6 uncontested, but by then would often be stopped and games would go 10+ turns. Only in cases of fast mana has a TaN taken a game before that and that's sort of why I went after them in the ban list instead.
Sol Ring is more than likely going to be banned, I'm pretty sure. I just know it is a card that is a staple that many people are attached to and wanted to be discussed before I did. That said it is the weakest of the rocks I banned so it is right at the border.
I can't agree with the 20 life, but I do respect the concern to the struggle aggro has. Added life is unfortunately a must have for this format, as dealing with 3 opponents at 20 life would lead to a meta of quick beaters where the first person focused has very little chance to survive long enough to stabilize or refocus their turns and mana on being defensive to a threat you provide. The big talking point here though does go back to aggro; is there a way we can tweek things to help out this weaker archetype without overly impacting others? I may test 30 however, but 20 is simply too low.
I'm once again eager to see the potential of Modern EDH, where there's a chance aggro may be more prevalent and we can see a side of EDH that doesn't get much spotlight in a Legacy style list.
Damia http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=410191
DDFT Legacyhttp://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=505247
Domain Zoo http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?p=10212429#post10212429
It's quite doable, here's what we do now:
Round 1 four-player pods, regular rules except: No more than two turns in a row, to prevent looping. No infinites either. Yes, Ad Nauseam and Storm exploit this, but we've been dealing.
Round 2 2HG 60-life per team, anything goes.
Round 3 is a variant. Last time we had one table Archenemy v 4 the other table was Planechase. We've also had 1 v 1.
Give $10 entry, get $20 store credit back, and here's the beauty! We have prizes based not only on winning. Each table has a Ballot that fills in the following (can't vote for self):
1.Best Player 2.Most Original Deck 3.Best sportsmanship.
You can only win one prize per week, so what happens is the go-go-go-win-win-win guy will get the $20 for most kill points, then the rest of us get our $20. Last time I got best player for casting Imp's Mischief on an Identity Crisis from the Archenemy.
We previously had the same sort of format, with regular banned list, but it had an additional rule of you can't concede the first round, to prevent people just dropping to keep their points. Points were 1 point per player killed. Round two was 2 v 2 with players seated X Y / Y X and if you say you have a card, you need to reveal it to the table to avoid timewasting on bluffing, etc. One point per opposing player killed. Last round 1 v 1, one point per win. Here store credit was different. We'd pay $5 in and prizes went back to top 50-60% or so. So your top player could et $40-$50 back, but the rest would get maybe $5-$20 back.
Latly, we had 1 v 1 events with regular banned list. $5 entry, top 60% get store credit back.
Currently, there's a Duel Commander League going on, it's a little far for me or I'd play in it.
The point I'm making, I guess, is you shouldn't be trying to please everyone. Just make a league or an event, tell the rules and the prizes and so on and go from there. If people are cool with it they'll play. Don't make prizes anything meaningful to avoid temper-tantrums and so on. Have a few judges around to help.
I do like your Legacy idea by the way, but I feel you should just let people go hog wild. If people want to Painter's Stone, go nuts. If you want to Ad Naus, go nuts. Set the life totals to 30 maybe though. Lower the complications for yourself and give it a go. Other options is just a big league and accent casual play.
P.S. We looked at Modern Commander and found it way too limiting. We just stick with regular rules and self-regulate stuff we don't want. If we want to kill turn two we do that for a while. If we don't then we pull out goofy stuff.
Good luck.
Just @Cryogen though, when Sundering Titan was legal we'd just cripple people and stuff. Same with Sylvan, but we're known to be cutthroat. If a new player shows up we'll pull something more casual out but otherwise we play to win at all times. It's fun.
Currently focusing on Pre-Modern (Mono-Black Discard Control) and Modern (Azorious Control, Temur Rhinos).
Find me at the Wizard's Tower in Ottawa every second Saturday afternoons.
MTG finance guy- follow me on Twitter@RichArschmann or RichardArschmann on Reddit
The first thing to take into account is that the goal here is to preserve much of what EDH is with the Legacy list, but curtail it to a more competitive mindset. We still want the format to be what it is and what people like, but remove the concept of self governing. That said a change like this inevitably has drastic consequences, whether or not I can guess the meta accurately, the shift would be inevitable and we without doubt would see it hurt established archetypes. However, the Modern list embraces more drastic changes such as this and a reality of aggro being more relevant is a possibility.
The biggest issue though is that the very concept of ALL cutthroat games hinges on the idea that players will make and break alliances with the end goal of winning it all. There is no reality behind 2nd/3rd/4th place in cutthroat, all motives are expected to lead to the win or you lose. Given that, the idea is not that a player should be strong enough to win 3v1 by their own hand, the balancing act comes from players amassing momentum and that inevitably priorities must shift to solve the new threat. There needs to be enough time for this effect to take place. If players can simply play a few tempo beaters and focus one player, you're not really building enough threat that is relevant enough to dominate mid game with this type of card pool. The player first focused has little chance of surviving and the risk is minimal to let you temporary allies go uncontested as you push with them. Power shifts are an important aspect of what makes cutthroat work and that means players need enough chance to survive if focused to see those shifts occur and force meaningful decisions. Currently there's a good system that if 3 people go all in on a player, one of them likely has snowballed so hard after 40 life they can wipe out the other 2 once they kill off the first person and thus it deters this from commonly happening flippantly.
The idea is not to make everyone happy with one rule list, we have found this impossible. This is where the idea of 3 formats comes in handy. Players can play the type they want with the intention of the formats self defined. Classic caters to the casual/Timmy nature of many players and is really about being fun and use of social contracts. Legacy is about pushing competitive balance and encouraging players to make the best deck they can with no limitations. This is a great way to split the groups so people are happy and there's no confusion of what the event is. Self governed social contracts become very hard to figure out when you get different player types and are a disservice to 75% - comp players who currently don't have a home in the community. Now players can easily build decks for each with an immediate understanding of the expectations of the game. Modern is really about a new format to see new archetypes form and be more accessible to players wanting to spend less and not buy overly niche cards. It gives a home for new players who want to play competitively, but don't want to deal with the daunting wall of the Legacy cardpool and combo intensive nature that can feel uninteractive.
The goal is every player type now has a home and there's less arguing about what EDH should be. Pick one of the 3 types for your event and people know what if it's for them and making alternating nights can get the right kinda players who will play well together, no more complaining that people hate your broken deck and no casuals complaining about unfun decks ruining their idea of EDH.
I think the unfortunate reality is that Red/White are already weak with these tools and what these give them does not offset how much more it gives the other colors. In fact the only notably strong deck combination of those colors is Naya and one other exception: Narset...a deck that honestly becomes a bit too fast when these rocks are available, yet remains a strong comp deck without them (and the return of hand sculpting). UR and WU do fine without however. Sadly there is a color tier in EDH and why I have hopes the Modern will hopefully see those colors have more power.
this quote
"the first thing to take into account is that the goal here is to preserve much of what EDH is " I would not want anything like this if i wanted this i would just play edh the way it is now.
Damia http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=410191
DDFT Legacyhttp://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=505247
Domain Zoo http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?p=10212429#post10212429
I would like to offer my input though, take it, if you will, with a grain of salt because my preferred strategies are stax and permission, but I am a strong advocate of cards that mess with lands. Land destruction, Winter Orb effects, and Back to Basics effects, because without them, you either play green or fall behind. There needs to be efficient, attractive ways, to punish decks that rely on greedy mana bases, or windmill slamming fatties. I've been a part of a bunch of groups of varying competitive levels, and each time, the groups that deteriorated, were because of unchecked big mana decks. The groups that persist and remain fun are those that run said effects, I just see greater thought going into politics, deck building, and less over extension when land destruction is present, and it results in a greater number of decks that don't run green.
Also, set the starting life total to 30. Aggro and midrange deserve to have a more active role than just laying low until they can snipe someone. Playing with non-token creature combat damage in a singleton format is already hard enough, and the loss of fast mana will probably make it harder. In a four player pod, we can expect 2-4 wraths, and if there is a black deck present, then you also have to worry about Grave Pact shenanigans..
We've had extensive testing with arguably one of the most cutthroat metas out there and we've seen a very skillful side of current EDH, flourish. I'm trying to simply capture what makes that work and rid the format of some of the more troublesome issues that are noninteractive and circumvent the skill aspect we've seen.
Damia http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=410191
DDFT Legacyhttp://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=505247
Domain Zoo http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?p=10212429#post10212429