I agree with Mimeoplasm - yes, he's also capable of one-shotting someone. And Scion can do it, provided you're willing to sac a crapload of life, but then you've pretty much set yourself in pretty rough board position unless you used it to kill off the last person standing. And the funny thing about Heartless Hidetsugu is, yes, that combo would kill someone at 40 life, but not someone at 39, lol. One of those times where less is more!
I would point out though that Scion and Progenitus require 5 colors, while Phage only requires one, and therefore less mana-fixing. Someone pointed out that it takes 11 mana - quite frankly, I can't remember the last game I played where I finished with less than 15 mana on the board (but I like control decks, that's just me). And bringing up infinite combo insta-kills is a completely different ballpark from what we're talking about here.
This doesn't work. Costs may be paid in any order, so moving the general to your hand can't be part of the cost. It needs to be a separate action, or part of the effect of an action.
That's kind of the beauty of making it part of the cost; as a part of the rules, if at any point of paying the costs of a spell or ability it turns out you can't pay the costs, then you jump back to the game state before you started paying the cost. In this case, if you decide to pay the mana, discard, then put it into your hand, you'll stop at the point where you discard it because there's nothing to discard. You can't pay the cost, so you take the normal course of action one would take when they try to cast a spell, activate their lands' mana abilities, and find out they can't pay the cost of the spell.
The only real concern I can think of, is if there's no rule preventing activated abilities that normally can only be activated in play from being activated from other zones. If this is the case there would have to be an extra clause to keep green Kamahl from being able to overrun from the command zone.
Can you tell me any other general that can insta-kill someone with 40 life with NO other help other than a Greaves?
Dakkon Blackblade, Scion of the Ur-Dragon, and The Mimeoplasm can with no special help...just things that naturally happen as the game progresses. And there are plenty of ways to stop Phage in the scenario you outlined.
Look, Magic players, and EDH players specifically, whine about things they deem "broken" or "degenerate", usually with little frame of reference. A 7 mana creature with no evasion that has to deal combat damage to kill anyone, even if given haste for "free", is not degenerate or broken on any level. Hell, I'd argue that it's not even that good; you have to cast it at just the right time to really benefit, and if you do succeed in killing one player, the others will probably kill you next.
As far as the potential rules change, I am fine either way. Locally, we allow any of the legendary creatures with casting from hand-based triggers to be played as intended as Generals, and we have had zero problems. We have not has a sudden influx of Myojin of Night's Reach decks, and even if we did, answers exist, and there are often "better" things played before that player reaches 8 mana.
Even that minor change I fear is adding unnecessary complexity to the rules. You're getting what, another 10-15 generals total, several of which won't get played anyway even with the rule? A rule change isn't worth covering this corner case.
If local playgroups want to adopt this change to use one of the affected generals I'd totally encourage that though. This is the sort of thing that IMO should be dealt with on a group-by-group basis, like poison damage and such.
I think the best solution is the most elegant one. Personally something like "Casting from the Command Zone is treated as casting from your hand" or something obviously formatted correctly is the best solution.
Even that minor change I fear is adding unnecessary complexity to the rules. You're getting what, another 10-15 generals total, several of which won't get played anyway even with the rule? A rule change isn't worth covering this corner case.
That's more generals than were enabled by the color identity rule addition, which arguably added more complexity than the proposed change would. To my knowledge the consensus is that color identity was a good idea.
I think the best solution is the most elegant one. Personally something like "Casting from the Command Zone is treated as casting from your hand" or something obviously formatted correctly is the best solution.
that's what Im going for in the OP. Tell me if it's close as is
That's more generals than were enabled by the color identity rule addition, which arguably added more complexity than the proposed change would. To my knowledge the consensus is that color identity was a good idea.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. So much. This is what I've been feeling but unable to express.
I've been thinking about this all morning (slow day at work). I agree with the original intent, allowing more commanders to be playable. While I agree Haakon is a lost cause, I don't want to give up on Ith, the channelers, or ninjas. Here's what I came up with.
You may play your commander and activate its abilities as if it were in your hand.
I did think of an abusive situation though. Basically putting your commander under a mimic vat. Making a copy, then returning your real commander to the command zone, allowing you to activate grandeur abilities an infinite number of times in any color.
I've been thinking about this all morning (slow day at work). I agree with the original intent, allowing more commanders to be playable. While I agree Haakon is a lost cause, I don't want to give up on Ith, the channelers, or ninjas. Here's what I came up with.
You may play your commander and activate its abilities as if it were in your hand.
I did think of an abusive situation though. Basically putting your commander under a mimic vat. Making a copy, then returning your real commander to the command zone, allowing you to activate grandeur abilities an infinite number of times in any color.
Doesn't your commander have to go TO the graveyard to be under a Mimic Vat? If you allow your commander to be Vat'd by going to the graveyard, he wouldn't be able to go to the command zone, unless I'm mistaken.
From wizards' rule page:
3. If a Commander would be put into a graveyard or exile from anywhere, its owner may choose to move it to the command zone instead.
(edit) Although, hrm, the errata on Mimic is worded differently than the card. That does makes things screwy.
That's more generals than were enabled by the color identity rule addition, which arguably added more complexity than the proposed change would. To my knowledge the consensus is that color identity was a good idea.
The color identity change was a flavor thing that took Bojuka Bog out of mono-white decks. I don't think adding generals was the main reason for the rule change, as this one would be. This change would be purely of a mechanical nature. It's also more abstract than the color identity bit. Actually, I'd argue that the color identity thing made the rules even more simple. Does a color of mana appear on a card (rather than only in the mana cost)? Then it's that color.
I've been thinking about this all morning (slow day at work). I agree with the original intent, allowing more commanders to be playable. While I agree Haakon is a lost cause, I don't want to give up on Ith, the channelers, or ninjas. Here's what I came up with.
You may play your commander and activate its abilities as if it were in your hand.
I did think of an abusive situation though. Basically putting your commander under a mimic vat. Making a copy, then returning your real commander to the command zone, allowing you to activate grandeur abilities an infinite number of times in any color.
It's already been brought up that this doesn't work, so I won;t go over that again,
But I just wanted to point out that you can, to an extent, already use grandeur abilities with Linessa, Zephyr Mage...
Just drop a Sakashima, the imposter, return Linessa, and then Grandeur her to sakashima. Now, the tricky part is abusing this, the only blue card I know of to return her from the graveyard to your hand is recall. I'm sure its possible to set something up with copying the spell, and then remanding it back to your hand... but if you go through all that trouble, I'm sure there's better ways to abuse it.
Now, in BU, your Commander is no longer your grandeur creature, but you have an easier time with it.
Likewise in Riku, Since you can drop a Clone to copy your grandeur guy (and kill him), and then get a token clone copy of the grandeur guy, then set up a regrowth chain for infinite grandeurness.
You may play your commander and activate its abilities as if it were in your hand. You may not discard it in this way.
Does that fix problems? It may stop the Channel dudes, but I think its better than leaving in Grandeur abuse.
I really like this. Although maybe you can just get rid of the second sentence since mimic vat can't be abused the way I described.
As someone who plays Korlash, I always just wrote the Grandeur ability off, since I don't really want another one of him anyway.
I thought about saying the command zone counts as an extension of the hand that can't be discarded, but then you get problems with cards like Maro. I think your suggestion is the simplest way to do it.
Dream halls already works for casting commanders from the command zone. It does not however pay the total cost, only the mana cost, meaning you still have to pay any additional costs and the commander tax.
Using Weebos two sentence solution makes the Myojins playable as intended (at least by my standards) and makes Ith and the ninjas much better, but not in an OP way. Although I think the additional 2 tax should be added when playing the alternate Ninjitsu and Suspend costs. I don't know how to word that or if it would already be added as the rules are written now.
Spitballing: All of this deals with rule 11 from mtgcommander.net
Quote from Existing »
11. While a Commander is in the command zone, it may be cast. As an additional cost to cast a Commander from the command zone,its owner must pay 2 for each time it was previously cast from the command zone.
To this:
11. While a Commander is in the command zone, it may be cast and activate its abilities as if it were in your hand. As an additional cost to cast a Commander or activate its abilities from the command zone, its owner must pay 2 for each time it was previously cast or its abilities were activated from the command zone.
This also fixes the chanellers while letting you grandeur, but at a price. Still no love for Haakon...
Using Weebos two sentence solution makes the Myojins playable as intended (at least by my standards) and makes Ith and the ninjas much better, but not in an OP way. Although I think the additional 2 tax should be added when playing the alternate Ninjitsu and Suspend costs. I don't know how to word that or if it would already be added as the rules are written now.
Spitballing: All of this deals with rule 11 from mtgcommander.net
To this:
11. While a Commander is in the command zone, it may be cast and activate its abilities as if it were in your hand. As an additional cost to cast a Commander or activate its abilities from the command zone, its owner must pay 2 for each time it was previously cast or its abilities were activated from the command zone.
This also fixes the chanellers while letting you grandeur, but at a price. Still no love for Haakon...
I like this solution a lot, it fits in snugly.
Are there any outlying rules situations that could cause problems?
Using Weebos two sentence solution makes the Myojins playable as intended (at least by my standards) and makes Ith and the ninjas much better, but not in an OP way. Although I think the additional 2 tax should be added when playing the alternate Ninjitsu and Suspend costs. I don't know how to word that or if it would already be added as the rules are written now.
Have the general tax get its own section. Something like, "whenever the commander leaves the command zone, as an additional cost pay 2 for each time beyond the first the commander has left the command zone".
11. While a Commander is in the command zone, it may be cast and activate its abilities as if it were in your hand. As an additional cost to cast a Commander or activate its abilities from the command zone, its owner must pay 2 for each time it was previously cast or its abilities were activated from the command zone.
I like the "as if it were in your hand" clause for the activated abilitites, that prevents people from using green kamahl to overrun from the command zone. I still think the card should reside in the hand for a moment though, as I am not sure how exactly the game takes actions like discarding. If discarding has a very specific meaning (of moving a card from your hand to the graveyard), then the above wording wouldn't work.
Anyways, the reason why Ith is so difficult to have work is because suspend isn't an activated ability. Which means everything we're doing right now doesn't apply to him at all.
Luckily, I don't think it would take much. There would have to be an extra rule in the Suspend section, something along the lines of "If a card with suspend can be cast from a zone other than the hand, that card may be suspended from that zone as well". It would cause a bit of collateral damage though, like being able to suspend creatures from the graveyard with Karador without having it count towards his "once per turn" restriction.
I still think the card should reside in the hand for a moment though, as I am not sure how exactly the game takes actions like discarding.
This is incredibly broken, there are tons of cards with instant speed interactions with your hand, and lots of ways to abuse this.
There is a reason why it was designed so that you don't pay the tax to put it into your hand, then get to cast as normal... it's just to easy to abuse.
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Did you read my post earlier? When I say "reside in the hand for a moment", I mean its really a moment. It all happens while you are paying costs so nobody gets priority. Channeling Arashi would look like this:
"Move Arashi from the command zone to your hand, 2, xGG, discard Arashi: Arashi does x damage to each creature with flying"
Did you read my post earlier? When I say "reside in the hand for a moment", I mean its really a moment. It all happens while you are paying costs so nobody gets priority. Channeling Arashi would look like this:
"Move Arashi from the command zone to your hand, 2, xGG, discard Arashi: Arashi does x damage to each creature with flying"
The issue is to activate abilities priority has to be gained, which means that you either create a really awkward situation where commander abilities in the command zone / hand can be activated without priority... and with unusual timing, or you create a situation where it's super easy to abuse.
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"Heterological" is heterological if and only if "heterological" is autological
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The issue is to activate abilities priority has to be gained, which means that you either create a really awkward situation where commander abilities in the command zone / hand can be activated without priority... and with unusual timing, or you create a situation where it's super easy to abuse.
What are you talking about? Being able to activate abilities from the command zone isn't fundamentally different from being able to flashback an instant, or activate reassembling skeleton's ability.
I would point out though that Scion and Progenitus require 5 colors, while Phage only requires one, and therefore less mana-fixing. Someone pointed out that it takes 11 mana - quite frankly, I can't remember the last game I played where I finished with less than 15 mana on the board (but I like control decks, that's just me). And bringing up infinite combo insta-kills is a completely different ballpark from what we're talking about here.
That's kind of the beauty of making it part of the cost; as a part of the rules, if at any point of paying the costs of a spell or ability it turns out you can't pay the costs, then you jump back to the game state before you started paying the cost. In this case, if you decide to pay the mana, discard, then put it into your hand, you'll stop at the point where you discard it because there's nothing to discard. You can't pay the cost, so you take the normal course of action one would take when they try to cast a spell, activate their lands' mana abilities, and find out they can't pay the cost of the spell.
The only real concern I can think of, is if there's no rule preventing activated abilities that normally can only be activated in play from being activated from other zones. If this is the case there would have to be an extra clause to keep green Kamahl from being able to overrun from the command zone.
Dakkon Blackblade, Scion of the Ur-Dragon, and The Mimeoplasm can with no special help...just things that naturally happen as the game progresses. And there are plenty of ways to stop Phage in the scenario you outlined.
Look, Magic players, and EDH players specifically, whine about things they deem "broken" or "degenerate", usually with little frame of reference. A 7 mana creature with no evasion that has to deal combat damage to kill anyone, even if given haste for "free", is not degenerate or broken on any level. Hell, I'd argue that it's not even that good; you have to cast it at just the right time to really benefit, and if you do succeed in killing one player, the others will probably kill you next.
As far as the potential rules change, I am fine either way. Locally, we allow any of the legendary creatures with casting from hand-based triggers to be played as intended as Generals, and we have had zero problems. We have not has a sudden influx of Myojin of Night's Reach decks, and even if we did, answers exist, and there are often "better" things played before that player reaches 8 mana.
If local playgroups want to adopt this change to use one of the affected generals I'd totally encourage that though. This is the sort of thing that IMO should be dealt with on a group-by-group basis, like poison damage and such.
:symu::symr: Melek WheelStorm
:symw::symg: Trostani Enchantress (updated 6/5)
:symg::symr::symu: Unexpected Results.dec
That's more generals than were enabled by the color identity rule addition, which arguably added more complexity than the proposed change would. To my knowledge the consensus is that color identity was a good idea.
Practice for Khans of Tarkir Limited:
Draft: (#1) (#2) (#3) (#4) (#5)
that's what Im going for in the OP. Tell me if it's close as is
Thank you, thank you, thank you. So much. This is what I've been feeling but unable to express.
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You may play your commander and activate its abilities as if it were in your hand.
I did think of an abusive situation though. Basically putting your commander under a mimic vat. Making a copy, then returning your real commander to the command zone, allowing you to activate grandeur abilities an infinite number of times in any color.
Doesn't your commander have to go TO the graveyard to be under a Mimic Vat? If you allow your commander to be Vat'd by going to the graveyard, he wouldn't be able to go to the command zone, unless I'm mistaken.
From wizards' rule page:
3. If a Commander would be put into a graveyard or exile from anywhere, its owner may choose to move it to the command zone instead.
(edit) Although, hrm, the errata on Mimic is worded differently than the card. That does makes things screwy.
What about:
You may play your commander and activate its abilities as if it were in your hand. You may not discard it in this way.
Does that fix problems? It may stop the Channel dudes, but I think its better than leaving in Grandeur abuse.
The color identity change was a flavor thing that took Bojuka Bog out of mono-white decks. I don't think adding generals was the main reason for the rule change, as this one would be. This change would be purely of a mechanical nature. It's also more abstract than the color identity bit. Actually, I'd argue that the color identity thing made the rules even more simple. Does a color of mana appear on a card (rather than only in the mana cost)? Then it's that color.
:symu::symr: Melek WheelStorm
:symw::symg: Trostani Enchantress (updated 6/5)
:symg::symr::symu: Unexpected Results.dec
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StaffIt's already been brought up that this doesn't work, so I won;t go over that again,
But I just wanted to point out that you can, to an extent, already use grandeur abilities with Linessa, Zephyr Mage...
Just drop a Sakashima, the imposter, return Linessa, and then Grandeur her to sakashima. Now, the tricky part is abusing this, the only blue card I know of to return her from the graveyard to your hand is recall. I'm sure its possible to set something up with copying the spell, and then remanding it back to your hand... but if you go through all that trouble, I'm sure there's better ways to abuse it.
Now, in BU, your Commander is no longer your grandeur creature, but you have an easier time with it.
Likewise in Riku, Since you can drop a Clone to copy your grandeur guy (and kill him), and then get a token clone copy of the grandeur guy, then set up a regrowth chain for infinite grandeurness.
Retired EDH - Tibor and Lumia | [PR]Nemata |Ramirez dePietro | [C]Edric | Riku | Jenara | Lazav | Heliod | Daxos | Roon | Kozilek
I really like this. Although maybe you can just get rid of the second sentence since mimic vat can't be abused the way I described.
As someone who plays Korlash, I always just wrote the Grandeur ability off, since I don't really want another one of him anyway.
I thought about saying the command zone counts as an extension of the hand that can't be discarded, but then you get problems with cards like Maro. I think your suggestion is the simplest way to do it.
This new wording means that I can cast Progenitus (sample general) off a Dream Halls correct?
If thats the case... Imk not sure If I will like this change... Or ill just have to change my general to Prog.
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My question is, does Dream Halls already work on cards in the Command Zone?
We could change it to:
You may play your commander and activate its abilities as if it were in your hand. You may not discard cards in this way.
That feels clunky though, and probably has unintended consequences. Hopefully its not necessary.
Spitballing: All of this deals with rule 11 from mtgcommander.net
To this:
11. While a Commander is in the command zone, it may be cast and activate its abilities as if it were in your hand. As an additional cost to cast a Commander or activate its abilities from the command zone, its owner must pay 2 for each time it was previously cast or its abilities were activated from the command zone.
This also fixes the chanellers while letting you grandeur, but at a price. Still no love for Haakon...
I like this solution a lot, it fits in snugly.
Are there any outlying rules situations that could cause problems?
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StaffYou can already use Dream halls to cast Commanders.
Retired EDH - Tibor and Lumia | [PR]Nemata |Ramirez dePietro | [C]Edric | Riku | Jenara | Lazav | Heliod | Daxos | Roon | Kozilek
Have the general tax get its own section. Something like, "whenever the commander leaves the command zone, as an additional cost pay 2 for each time beyond the first the commander has left the command zone".
I like the "as if it were in your hand" clause for the activated abilitites, that prevents people from using green kamahl to overrun from the command zone. I still think the card should reside in the hand for a moment though, as I am not sure how exactly the game takes actions like discarding. If discarding has a very specific meaning (of moving a card from your hand to the graveyard), then the above wording wouldn't work.
Anyways, the reason why Ith is so difficult to have work is because suspend isn't an activated ability. Which means everything we're doing right now doesn't apply to him at all.
Luckily, I don't think it would take much. There would have to be an extra rule in the Suspend section, something along the lines of "If a card with suspend can be cast from a zone other than the hand, that card may be suspended from that zone as well". It would cause a bit of collateral damage though, like being able to suspend creatures from the graveyard with Karador without having it count towards his "once per turn" restriction.
This is incredibly broken, there are tons of cards with instant speed interactions with your hand, and lots of ways to abuse this.
There is a reason why it was designed so that you don't pay the tax to put it into your hand, then get to cast as normal... it's just to easy to abuse.
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Imperial Painter
"Move Arashi from the command zone to your hand, 2, xGG, discard Arashi: Arashi does x damage to each creature with flying"
The issue is to activate abilities priority has to be gained, which means that you either create a really awkward situation where commander abilities in the command zone / hand can be activated without priority... and with unusual timing, or you create a situation where it's super easy to abuse.
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Imperial Painter
Pretty sure you can already do that. You'd have to pay the commander tax as well, though.
What are you talking about? Being able to activate abilities from the command zone isn't fundamentally different from being able to flashback an instant, or activate reassembling skeleton's ability.