Prossh was honestly the worst of the bunch. I mean, infinite combos aren't bad per se, but going infinite with just one other card, and specifically from the Command Zone? (So, my Xira Arien can't use Prossh.) He's still answerable, and is a big reason I'm constantly saying "you need moar removal instants".
Derevi, of course, just gets around a rule, but I wouldn't call her abusive. Especially since the cards I can think of which could use her are all not in her colors.
Marath is interesting. My snap judgment was a more aggressive Ghave 2.0. Marath is not quite in Ghave's territory, trading Grave Pact and friends (mostly) and things like Teysa, Orzhov Scion and Blood Artist for things like Warstorm Surge and Mana Echoes. So, more aggressive, yes, but not really a Stax build. And you have to use Cathars' Crusade to get your creatures back. But Marath does go big. (And yes, this means Trostani, Selesnya's Voice is really good in Marath.)
Oloro, I've covered. Mostly the extra lifegain isn't much, and I should hope you can do enough damage to make that lifegain trivial. And yeah, I prefer him out where I'm drawing cards.
Jeleva is storm. She's not the most abusive storm deck I've seen, but she is storm, and storm is inherently abusive.
And yeah, partner was my favorite gimmick. I wouldn't want tribal partner commanders, just for the record: I feel partner should be modular. You can encourage players to play a particular card type (and yes, I'm counting auras and equipment as card types here, even if they are subtypes), or do something like draw a lot of cards or drop a lot of tokens or self-mill or +1/+1 counters, but you can't say "play more goblins" on a partner commander. Mostly because if I pair a BR goblin partner with a BG elf partner, I'm in a bit of a bind because of the inherent antagonism of tribal decks with two separate creature types.
(This shouldn't be confused with "incidental tribal" like Blade of the Bloodchief, or cards like Deranged Hermit which actually provide you with an incentive to play them.)
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Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
And yeah, partner was my favorite gimmick. I wouldn't want tribal partner commanders, just for the record: I feel partner should be modular. You can encourage players to play a particular card type (and yes, I'm counting auras and equipment as card types here, even if they are subtypes), or do something like draw a lot of cards or drop a lot of tokens or self-mill or +1/+1 counters, but you can't say "play more goblins" on a partner commander. Mostly because if I pair a BR goblin partner with a BG elf partner, I'm in a bit of a bind because of the inherent antagonism of tribal decks with two separate creature types.
(This shouldn't be confused with "incidental tribal" like Blade of the Bloodchief, or cards like Deranged Hermit which actually provide you with an incentive to play them.)
Agreed here, partner is a decent enough mechanic on its own. I don't think it needs to be one-uppped by adding any further mechanics. What I really liked about it was the sheer possibilities it gives you. Any combination of tetra colours, any combination of mechanics is super awesome. Tribal was fun to say its been done, but I don't think we need to see any more. I know there's a fair amount of clamor for more planeswalker commanders, which I wouldn't be disappointed to see, but I could live without.
And yeah, partner was my favorite gimmick. I wouldn't want tribal partner commanders, just for the record: I feel partner should be modular. You can encourage players to play a particular card type (and yes, I'm counting auras and equipment as card types here, even if they are subtypes), or do something like draw a lot of cards or drop a lot of tokens or self-mill or +1/+1 counters, but you can't say "play more goblins" on a partner commander. Mostly because if I pair a BR goblin partner with a BG elf partner, I'm in a bit of a bind because of the inherent antagonism of tribal decks with two separate creature types.
(This shouldn't be confused with "incidental tribal" like Blade of the Bloodchief, or cards like Deranged Hermit which actually provide you with an incentive to play them.)
Agreed here, partner is a decent enough mechanic on its own. I don't think it needs to be one-uppped by adding any further mechanics. What I really liked about it was the sheer possibilities it gives you. Any combination of tetra colours, any combination of mechanics is super awesome. Tribal was fun to say its been done, but I don't think we need to see any more. I know there's a fair amount of clamor for more planeswalker commanders, which I wouldn't be disappointed to see, but I could live without.
Tribal partner commanders could be fun too. Odyssey/Onslaught block, they focused on both races and classes of creatures, and during Kamigawa there were the Ogre/Demon interactions. They could make ten race commanders with ten class commanders, modular nature kept and allow them to combo with older partners for more deck potentials. For example, Bruse Tarl, Boorish Herder can help make a tribal deck more aggressive while Thrasios, Triton Hero could add card draws to a tribal deck that normally don't have enough.
In terms of Oloro situation, perhaps WotC could make an "anti-lieutanent" creatures who become more powerful when opponents don't have their commanders out, like an angel who gains indestructible/hexproof and +2/+2 when the opponent she attacks doesn't have his/her commander out.
It's true, there are possibilities there. It could help to make tribal synergies more viable and competitive.
What do you think of the idea of partner walkers? I'd be interested to see micro-machine style planeswalkers, that cost less, have slightly fewer or smaller abilities and can partner. It's a big pie in the sky maybe, but if well designed could be a thing.
If Inalla is really that bad why is she not a Tier 1 competitive option like Prossh is? I get the Wanderwine Prophets combo is infinite turns (given you can connect) but that isn't guaranteed and it isn't a win con, it's just annoying.
It's true, there are possibilities there. It could help to make tribal synergies more viable and competitive.
What do you think of the idea of partner walkers? I'd be interested to see micro-machine style planeswalkers, that cost less, have slightly fewer or smaller abilities and can partner. It's a big pie in the sky maybe, but if well designed could be a thing.
Given the reminder text needed for such design (Partner and could be Commander), those PW you suggested might not be able to come with more than two abilities, but it'd be grand to see what kind of combo one could come up with.
I like any mechanic which plays around with the command zone. Most of us enjoy new perspectives on game play. It's just a case of making sure it's balanced, and in the past probably hasn't always been the case. Better to try them out and test them on the masses, and bannings can come if prove too much.
Out of interest, does anybody know if there is a mini sub-format that uses Conspiracy card types for additional commander shenanigans? I just had a look at them and a lot don't really do anything, but certainly some could be built around, and yes dare I say it abused. But could be fun right? You're allowed to have one Conspiracy card that starts in commander zone along with your commander.
I like any mechanic which plays around with the command zone. Most of us enjoy new perspectives on game play. It's just a case of making sure it's balanced, and in the past probably hasn't always been the case. Better to try them out and test them on the masses, and bannings can come if prove too much.
Out of interest, does anybody know if there is a mini sub-format that uses Conspiracy card types for additional commander shenanigans? I just had a look at them and a lot don't really do anything, but certainly some could be built around, and yes dare I say it abused. But could be fun right? You're allowed to have one Conspiracy card that starts in commander zone along with your commander.
I haven't seen such a format, but given that Conspiracy has been a popular set each release Wizards will keep banging them out. There's every chance it'd be feasible, and could be a lot of fun.
I'll be blunt, I'm quite risk-averse and I don't like them messing around the Command Zone. The 2013 set remains my most-disliked set of precons released and 2017 wasn't favorable for the same reason (the tribal aspect did help soften the mechanical aspect impact but at the same time since I wasn't running any of the tribes so it was a wholly separate negative factor for me personally as well).
Let's start with the most obvious problem - the 2013 Commanders took advantage of the Commander Tax - that's the first aspect related to the Command Zone I don't ever want to see touched again if possible. The Commander position is inherently a broken mechanic kept afloat by Color Identity (so we all don't just go 5C beststuff) and Commander Tax and I daresay it needs both to stay somewhat stable, so taking advantage of one is out of the question (think about the whole topic around banned as commander we already have currently I would think you would agree it really needs both pillars).
The second one (the actual Vanguard issue of this thread) I'm slightly less worried, but still wary about. I said the Commander position was inherently broken and invulnerability is part of the reason (especially with the tuck rule gone, but I'm not against that because I understood how much more it streamlined the rules). In a way, Vanguard Commanders also subvert Commander Tax since well, they don't even come out in the first place, but because they don't escalate advantages with the Tax, they are less offensive on that front.
That being said, they still subvert the Tax of the heavily advantageous Commander-Position and hence I believe they do need to be taxed from elsewhere, which is why if you were to ask me their severity levels, I would say The Ur-Dragon and Oloro, Ageless Ascetic are one tier higher, being "free" for their Vanguard abilities but having the fortune to be "balanced" by being restricted to one of the costlier tribes and less-used strategies (lifegain). The other 3 tribal Commanders are slightly "fairer" since their requirements essentially require mana paid in the form for creatures they cast (on top of the same tribal restrictions).
That being said, I can see this easily going wrong, for example if they removed the tribal restrictions but didn't increase the necessary costs for the "Vanguard abilities" (or in other words, made Commanders better than Oloro).
From a mechanical standpoint, there is still potential for this aspect of the format to grow, but it's so easily potentially broken (as 2013 almost demonstrated once), bundled with my risk-averse tendencies that I don't really feel comfortable with Vanguard Commanders being too much a thing moving forward.
Extra note that the Experience Comamnders were technically an attempt to do that as well - they were trying to keep the Commanders effects "invulnerable" through the use of counters without touching the tax system and I honestly felt safer that way... let's just say I don't have the best of faith in WotC's costing capabilities generally speaking.
That being said, I can see this easily going wrong, for example if they removed the tribal restrictions but didn't increase the necessary costs for the "Vanguard abilities" (or in other words, made Commanders better than Oloro).
From a mechanical standpoint, there is still potential for this aspect of the format to grow, but it's so easily potentially broken (as 2013 almost demonstrated once), bundled with my risk-averse tendencies that I don't really feel comfortable with Vanguard Commanders being too much a thing moving forward.
During the preview weeks one of the articles on the mothership (I think it was Gavin Verhey's but I'm not sure) actually talked about this point, and said that they learned from Oloro. In Wizard's current philosophy, these kind of cards are ok if they are not too open ended. That is why a tribal restriction or a narrowly applicable ability is deemed to be ok, but something generic like Oloro's ability (which any deck can use regardless of what you play) is deemed not ok specifically due to the opponent's inability to answer it.
Having said all this, I would also be game for Vanguard cards that require your commander's color identity to include or even be a specific color identity in order too use them. Wizards could use the color's strength and weaknesses to balance these out. For example:
Selesnya VanguardGW
Vanguard (You may play this card if your commander's color identity contains G and W. If you do, you start the game with it in the command zone. You deck may contain no more than 1 Vanguard.)
Creatures you control get +1/+1.
Noncreature spells you cast cost 1 more to cast.
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The secret to enjoyable Commander games is not winning first, but losing last.
If my post has no tags, then i posted from my phone.
There does need to be some thought into this long term. Magic is going to be around for as long as man-kind is still around, so if you can imagine that with too many of these available, Commander would be reduced to most decks never actually playing a commander out. People will laugh about "the days of playing out commanders" and tell them about the rules of commander tax, as nobody knows about this part of the game. True story right, if it's too prevalent.
If Inalla is really that bad why is she not a Tier 1 competitive option like Prossh is? I get the Wanderwine Prophets combo is infinite turns (given you can connect) but that isn't guaranteed and it isn't a win con, it's just annoying.
That's still is a 1 card combo. Actually it's really 1 card because it's better to no cast Inalla, otherwise the opponents will have more way to stop your combo.
If you think that's good design and promotes healty gameplay just because it isn't super duper broken...
Well, not necessarily. As I said, you still need combat damage from Wanderwine, which there's no guarantee of. I'm not necessarily saying it's good design, but it's not terrible design either. Her eminence ability is at least interesting, if maybe a little too liberal. I don't see her as drastically cut throat or a terribly non-interactive commander. If anything, Kess, Dissident Mage is currently playing out as the stronger combo commander. And she's probably just as non-interactive - you still need to play her, but once that's done and she has Lightning Greaves or other protection, you're pretty good.
I'm definitely not saying you're wrong, just maybe not as emphatically convincing as possible. I actually think the eminence commanders are generally a reasonable improvement from the 2013 commanders, some of which were convincingly overpowered. There's definitely still room to improve the vanguard mechanics though.
There does need to be some thought into this long term. Magic is going to be around for as long as man-kind is still around, so if you can imagine that with too many of these available, Commander would be reduced to most decks never actually playing a commander out. People will laugh about "the days of playing out commanders" and tell them about the rules of commander tax, as nobody knows about this part of the game. True story right, if it's too prevalent.
As long as commander damage is part of the format and there are good combat commander around, this will not happen. There might be a higher percentage of decks that never aim to play their commander, but I don't see this doom scenario happen at all. Not even close.
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The secret to enjoyable Commander games is not winning first, but losing last.
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Derevi, of course, just gets around a rule, but I wouldn't call her abusive. Especially since the cards I can think of which could use her are all not in her colors.
Marath is interesting. My snap judgment was a more aggressive Ghave 2.0. Marath is not quite in Ghave's territory, trading Grave Pact and friends (mostly) and things like Teysa, Orzhov Scion and Blood Artist for things like Warstorm Surge and Mana Echoes. So, more aggressive, yes, but not really a Stax build. And you have to use Cathars' Crusade to get your creatures back. But Marath does go big. (And yes, this means Trostani, Selesnya's Voice is really good in Marath.)
Oloro, I've covered. Mostly the extra lifegain isn't much, and I should hope you can do enough damage to make that lifegain trivial. And yeah, I prefer him out where I'm drawing cards.
Jeleva is storm. She's not the most abusive storm deck I've seen, but she is storm, and storm is inherently abusive.
And yeah, partner was my favorite gimmick. I wouldn't want tribal partner commanders, just for the record: I feel partner should be modular. You can encourage players to play a particular card type (and yes, I'm counting auras and equipment as card types here, even if they are subtypes), or do something like draw a lot of cards or drop a lot of tokens or self-mill or +1/+1 counters, but you can't say "play more goblins" on a partner commander. Mostly because if I pair a BR goblin partner with a BG elf partner, I'm in a bit of a bind because of the inherent antagonism of tribal decks with two separate creature types.
(This shouldn't be confused with "incidental tribal" like Blade of the Bloodchief, or cards like Deranged Hermit which actually provide you with an incentive to play them.)
On phasing:
Agreed here, partner is a decent enough mechanic on its own. I don't think it needs to be one-uppped by adding any further mechanics. What I really liked about it was the sheer possibilities it gives you. Any combination of tetra colours, any combination of mechanics is super awesome. Tribal was fun to say its been done, but I don't think we need to see any more. I know there's a fair amount of clamor for more planeswalker commanders, which I wouldn't be disappointed to see, but I could live without.
Tribal partner commanders could be fun too. Odyssey/Onslaught block, they focused on both races and classes of creatures, and during Kamigawa there were the Ogre/Demon interactions. They could make ten race commanders with ten class commanders, modular nature kept and allow them to combo with older partners for more deck potentials. For example, Bruse Tarl, Boorish Herder can help make a tribal deck more aggressive while Thrasios, Triton Hero could add card draws to a tribal deck that normally don't have enough.
In terms of Oloro situation, perhaps WotC could make an "anti-lieutanent" creatures who become more powerful when opponents don't have their commanders out, like an angel who gains indestructible/hexproof and +2/+2 when the opponent she attacks doesn't have his/her commander out.
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
What do you think of the idea of partner walkers? I'd be interested to see micro-machine style planeswalkers, that cost less, have slightly fewer or smaller abilities and can partner. It's a big pie in the sky maybe, but if well designed could be a thing.
Given the reminder text needed for such design (Partner and could be Commander), those PW you suggested might not be able to come with more than two abilities, but it'd be grand to see what kind of combo one could come up with.
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
Out of interest, does anybody know if there is a mini sub-format that uses Conspiracy card types for additional commander shenanigans? I just had a look at them and a lot don't really do anything, but certainly some could be built around, and yes dare I say it abused. But could be fun right? You're allowed to have one Conspiracy card that starts in commander zone along with your commander.
Niv-Mizzet Reborn
Feather, the Redeemed
Estrid, the Masked
Teshar
Tymna/Ravos
Najeela, Blade-Blossom
Firesong & Sunspeaker
Zur the Enchanter
Lazav, the Multifarious
Ishai+Reyhan
Click images for decks->
-Prime Speaker Vannifar
---------------------Will & Rowan Kenrith
I haven't seen such a format, but given that Conspiracy has been a popular set each release Wizards will keep banging them out. There's every chance it'd be feasible, and could be a lot of fun.
Let's start with the most obvious problem - the 2013 Commanders took advantage of the Commander Tax - that's the first aspect related to the Command Zone I don't ever want to see touched again if possible. The Commander position is inherently a broken mechanic kept afloat by Color Identity (so we all don't just go 5C beststuff) and Commander Tax and I daresay it needs both to stay somewhat stable, so taking advantage of one is out of the question (think about the whole topic around banned as commander we already have currently I would think you would agree it really needs both pillars).
The second one (the actual Vanguard issue of this thread) I'm slightly less worried, but still wary about. I said the Commander position was inherently broken and invulnerability is part of the reason (especially with the tuck rule gone, but I'm not against that because I understood how much more it streamlined the rules). In a way, Vanguard Commanders also subvert Commander Tax since well, they don't even come out in the first place, but because they don't escalate advantages with the Tax, they are less offensive on that front.
That being said, they still subvert the Tax of the heavily advantageous Commander-Position and hence I believe they do need to be taxed from elsewhere, which is why if you were to ask me their severity levels, I would say The Ur-Dragon and Oloro, Ageless Ascetic are one tier higher, being "free" for their Vanguard abilities but having the fortune to be "balanced" by being restricted to one of the costlier tribes and less-used strategies (lifegain). The other 3 tribal Commanders are slightly "fairer" since their requirements essentially require mana paid in the form for creatures they cast (on top of the same tribal restrictions).
That being said, I can see this easily going wrong, for example if they removed the tribal restrictions but didn't increase the necessary costs for the "Vanguard abilities" (or in other words, made Commanders better than Oloro).
From a mechanical standpoint, there is still potential for this aspect of the format to grow, but it's so easily potentially broken (as 2013 almost demonstrated once), bundled with my risk-averse tendencies that I don't really feel comfortable with Vanguard Commanders being too much a thing moving forward.
Extra note that the Experience Comamnders were technically an attempt to do that as well - they were trying to keep the Commanders effects "invulnerable" through the use of counters without touching the tax system and I honestly felt safer that way... let's just say I don't have the best of faith in WotC's costing capabilities generally speaking.
Having said all this, I would also be game for Vanguard cards that require your commander's color identity to include or even be a specific color identity in order too use them. Wizards could use the color's strength and weaknesses to balance these out. For example:
Selesnya Vanguard GW
Vanguard
(You may play this card if your commander's color identity contains G and W. If you do, you start the game with it in the command zone. You deck may contain no more than 1 Vanguard.)
Creatures you control get +1/+1.
Noncreature spells you cast cost 1 more to cast.
If my post has no tags, then i posted from my phone.
Vampire Dude 1WB
Legendary Creature - Vampire Dude
2/2
Lifelink
Creatures you control enter battlefield with a +1/+1 counter on it.
As long as ~ is in the command zone, creature spells you control cost 1 less to cast and creatures you control get -1/-1.
Partner
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
Niv-Mizzet Reborn
Feather, the Redeemed
Estrid, the Masked
Teshar
Tymna/Ravos
Najeela, Blade-Blossom
Firesong & Sunspeaker
Zur the Enchanter
Lazav, the Multifarious
Ishai+Reyhan
Click images for decks->
-Prime Speaker Vannifar
---------------------Will & Rowan Kenrith
Well, not necessarily. As I said, you still need combat damage from Wanderwine, which there's no guarantee of. I'm not necessarily saying it's good design, but it's not terrible design either. Her eminence ability is at least interesting, if maybe a little too liberal. I don't see her as drastically cut throat or a terribly non-interactive commander. If anything, Kess, Dissident Mage is currently playing out as the stronger combo commander. And she's probably just as non-interactive - you still need to play her, but once that's done and she has Lightning Greaves or other protection, you're pretty good.
I'm definitely not saying you're wrong, just maybe not as emphatically convincing as possible. I actually think the eminence commanders are generally a reasonable improvement from the 2013 commanders, some of which were convincingly overpowered. There's definitely still room to improve the vanguard mechanics though.
As long as commander damage is part of the format and there are good combat commander around, this will not happen. There might be a higher percentage of decks that never aim to play their commander, but I don't see this doom scenario happen at all. Not even close.
If my post has no tags, then i posted from my phone.