Anyone have a good example of this mythical Planeswalker that is developed that is at the same time fair and balanced in Standard and Too Strong in Commander?
You would have to ask the Brawl players. You've given us an impossible challenge, since the two formats have vastly different card pools, and being a problem in the 99 and being a problem in the Command Zone are two different evaluation approaches.
This is only going to get worse with how well WAR is being received.
Expect more focus on plot and story and walkers in the future.
The best course of action is to make them legal now, which will encourage wizards to design walkers with EDH in mind.
You mean like they don't design legendary creatures with EDH in mind, giving us stuff like Narset and Leovold? Or do you mean like when they DO design with EDH in mind and give us Prossh and Teferi?
Because remember, Wizards mentality is to make the card and let the Rules Committee deal with it if the card is a problem. So allowing all planeswalkers doesn't mean that Wizards starts making ones.that won't be OP in edh, it just means that many more cards every set that need to be evaluated under a new light (the way it plays in the Command Zone as well as in the 99).
They definitely design legendary creatures with edh in mind. Not exclusively, as they design cards specifically for all sorts of formats from vintage to draft, but the designers do not just ignore the most popular casual format in their process. "It's a legendary creature, does this make an interesting general?"
This is only going to get worse with how well WAR is being received.
Expect more focus on plot and story and walkers in the future.
The best course of action is to make them legal now, which will encourage wizards to design walkers with EDH in mind.
You mean like they don't design legendary creatures with EDH in mind, giving us stuff like Narset and Leovold? Or do you mean like when they DO design with EDH in mind and give us Prossh and Teferi?
Because remember, Wizards mentality is to make the card and let the Rules Committee deal with it if the card is a problem. So allowing all planeswalkers doesn't mean that Wizards starts making ones.that won't be OP in edh, it just means that many more cards every set that need to be evaluated under a new light (the way it plays in the Command Zone as well as in the 99).
They definitely design legendary creatures with edh in mind. Not exclusively, as they design cards specifically for all sorts of formats from vintage to draft, but the designers do not just ignore the most popular casual format in their process. "It's a legendary creature, does this make an interesting general?"
Point is, out of all the PW's (140 now, 37 incomming), I could find around 20 which I find interesting and make a deck for them (11%+). I hardly find 11% (93 creatures) out of all the 844 which I find interesting.
They definitely design legendary creatures with edh in mind. Not exclusively, as they design cards specifically for all sorts of formats from vintage to draft, but the designers do not just ignore the most popular casual format in their process. "It's a legendary creature, does this make an interesting general?"
But earlier you made a quip about them not doing a good job of it, so why would legal PWs as Generals make them do a better job on the PW aspect?
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.
I don't think anybody should diss building around ultimates, I would really build Gideon, champion of justice if I had the chance! What's fun to you may not be fun to other people, I mean look at me, I'm a Jhoira player. What I love most about this format is playing the archenemy of the table, and if possible winning in the flashiest way possible (and what's better for that than annihilating all of your opponents' boards?)!
On the topic of Legendary creatures design, MaRo confirmed several times that they do not do that. However, he did say that they want legendary creatures to be as cool design as possible so that people can be drawn to the character (or at least feel like the card doesn't betray said character, unlike Emmara Tandris for example which is sad considering she was supposed to be what eventually became Voice of Resurgence). And truth be told, they have been constantly killing it these days, both for creatures and walkers alike. They stopped using the legend rule as a balance tool a long time ago after all, hence cards like Helm of the Host :')
So while I'm completely for PW as generals... Making them legal in the CZ wouldn't make their design healthier for EDH. But again, that's already the same for legendary creatures so they're pretty much equal on that aspect.
Finally (still on the talk about balance), I think designing for commander is probably the hardest kind of design there is for one specific reason. Designing for EDH isn't only designing for one format. While Standard, Modern, etc are all pretty much branded as competitive formats, there's sooooo many ways to play commander! It's by far the supported format that has the widest range of player types. Something that is branded "crazy broken" by a casual player can be considered "trash" by a cEDH player and reciprocally... so I think that's why they just choose to go with the approach "does it look cool to most people", which I personally think is fulfilling its purpose.
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Point is, out of all the PW's (140 now, 37 incomming), I could find around 20 which I find interesting and make a deck for them (11%+). I hardly find 11% (93 creatures) out of all the 844 which I find interesting.
That is personal preference if we knew that everyone has the same the argument on that front would be over. Also the 11% will most likely fall since now it still has the advantage of not even having 1/4 of the numbers the creatures have and technically design space is rather limited on PWs.
IMO Hardly any PW really opens new doors. So usage comes down to personal preference or power reasons. Like Dovin, Hand of Control vs. grand-arbiter-augustin-iv both helm the same kind of deck. (And I think Grand arbiter does it better)
Dunharrow also makes another good point PWs hurt aggressive decks which already don't have the greatest of times in edh.
Edit:
elpokitolama So much This
What's fun to you may not be fun to other people
But unfortunately that can't really be used as an argument for or against PWs. But I wish more people would reckognise this.
This is only going to get worse with how well WAR is being received.
Expect more focus on plot and story and walkers in the future.
The best course of action is to make them legal now, which will encourage wizards to design walkers with EDH in mind.
Lol. Yeah, they sure weren't focusing on planeswalkers these past 14 years /sarcasm. The only way they could focus on planeswalkers more in the story would be to ignore legendary creatures entirely (which would be really, really ******* stupid as legendary creatures are used to tie the story to planes and prevent everything from getting too samey by only having the same characters show up). Good job making yet another broad assertion with absolutely nothing to back it up though. I haven't seen anything suggesting that WAR is a game changer and we're going to see tons of uncommon planeswalkers from now on. It's pretty clearly the gimmick of the set and required a lot of special set building considerations to pull off. It's like saying Dominaria was really well received so expect the focus to shift to having tons of legendary creatures in each set.
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Point is, out of all the PW's (140 now, 37 incomming), I could find around 20 which I find interesting and make a deck for them (11%+). I hardly find 11% (93 creatures) out of all the 844 which I find interesting.
Cool story. I checked, and of the 179 Planeswalkers listed in gatherer, I believe 8 are DFCs. Of the remaining 171, I found 5 that I would possibly build around (less than 3%), and one of those I have already built around (Aminatou) because it explored a unique design space and has the special text allowing it to be a commander.
On the other hand, I've built nearly 100 commander decks over the last decade (started to lose track because I haven't written them all down). I find plenty of legendary creatures interesting, and I am constantly building more. Even if I had only used 84 unique commanders, that would put me about 10%, which is more than three times my percentage for planeswalkers.
The real point is - personal preference/anecdote means nothing. You like one thing, I like another.
Point is, out of all the PW's (140 now, 37 incomming), I could find around 20 which I find interesting and make a deck for them (11%+). I hardly find 11% (93 creatures) out of all the 844 which I find interesting.
Cool story. I checked, and of the 179 Planeswalkers listed in gatherer, I believe 8 are DFCs. Of the remaining 171, I found 5 that I would possibly build around (less than 3%), and one of those I have already built around (Aminatou) because it explored a unique design space and has the special text allowing it to be a commander.
On the other hand, I've built nearly 100 commander decks over the last decade (started to lose track because I haven't written them all down). I find plenty of legendary creatures interesting, and I am constantly building more. Even if I had only used 84 unique commanders, that would put me about 10%, which is more than three times my percentage for planeswalkers.
The real point is - personal preference/anecdote means nothing. You like one thing, I like another.
Well, it does mean that at least HE believes that there are that many pw that would be interesting commanders. That in practice means that at least one person THINKS this (whether it would play out in practice or if after building he'd decide that some of those are not interesting is another matter). In theory though, it does show that this is a viewpoint that people do actually have, even if I disagree strongly (I think only a handful of pws would make interesting commanders, and some of those are already allowed as commanders). There are likely a significant number of people who share his view, and I don't think it's right to dismiss his opinion as illegitimate. It's also not right to make a change based on a minority opinion, even if it's a significant minority, when a majority is set against it and there aren't compelling reasons to make the change beyond the minority opinion. If it weren't butting up against the value of the status quo and a majority being against it, it would deserve serious consideration. It would in that case be like the change to color identity that allowed Bosh as a commander. Wanting the change was a minority opinion, but fewer people were against the change (most were indifferent), the change was small enough that the value of the status quo was smaller, and it made the rule work more intuitively (which was a reason beyond preference for the change) and added value to the format by not arbitrarily excluding potential commanders for having off color activations.
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Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Whether its blue players countering your spells, red players burning you out, or combo, if you have a problem with an aspect of Magic's gameplay, you can fix it!
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
Point is, out of all the PW's (140 now, 37 incomming), I could find around 20 which I find interesting and make a deck for them (11%+). I hardly find 11% (93 creatures) out of all the 844 which I find interesting.
Cool story. I checked, and of the 179 Planeswalkers listed in gatherer, I believe 8 are DFCs. Of the remaining 171, I found 5 that I would possibly build around (less than 3%), and one of those I have already built around (Aminatou) because it explored a unique design space and has the special text allowing it to be a commander.
On the other hand, I've built nearly 100 commander decks over the last decade (started to lose track because I haven't written them all down). I find plenty of legendary creatures interesting, and I am constantly building more. Even if I had only used 84 unique commanders, that would put me about 10%, which is more than three times my percentage for planeswalkers.
The real point is - personal preference/anecdote means nothing. You like one thing, I like another.
It should be meaningless but the RC has specifically stated that interest in building around them matters, thus creating an unquantifiable reason to continue letting the format stagnate.
It should be meaningless but the RC has specifically stated that interest in building around them matters, thus creating an unquantifiable reason to continue letting the format stagnate.
This is false equivalency. Yes, papa funk made mention of boring walkers - in a lot of cases, I don't disagree. It's a subjective thing, but in most cases we fall on the same side of the discussion. Your mileage may vary, as with any subjective discussion.
There's nothing to suggest that the format is stagnating for not having walkers globablly available from the command zone. I'd suggest it's probably the opposite and that the format is as popular as it's ever been, and there's likely plenty of sales data and social media activity to back that up.
Also, even if interest in building around them matters, this poll has indicated that just under 40% of people who have seen this thread are interested in building around walkers. That's not a small percentage, but it's not a majority percentage. So, even with interest in walkers being relevant there's not enough interest to sway a change in the format at present. It doesn't make sense in any field to make changes to a business/industry/project that less than half people want anyway, so I feel like this is logical and unsurprising.
As a player that absolutely loves Planeswalkers and once heavily wanted to use them as Commander (and I have played since the format's inception) - I can honestly say that I have never gotten bored with finding legendary creatures to use.
In fact, even the Planeswalkers that they introduced specifically to fit into the Command Zone, are walkers I have never actually used as Commanders.
WOTC is on the right track, print Planeswalkers here and there that sidestep the RC's ability to dictate that PWs cannot be Commanders. The simple fact of the matter is that the vast majority of Planeswalkers don't enrich what you can or cannot do in the format already. Sure, flavor wins are nice. We all love flavor wins. But flavor wins don't actually equate to necessity.
Legalizing Planeswalkers as Commanders means you are now opening up the format to more bans on certain cards in an already oversized banned list.
I think people forget that you really have to pick and choose your battles, and if not having access ti PWs as Commanders turns you off of the format, then so be it. Go play Brawl. You are literally arguing that not having them legal as Commanders is of detriment to a format that continues to grow anyways...
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As a player that absolutely loves Planeswalkers and once heavily wanted to use them as Commander (and I have played since the format's inception) - I can honestly say that I have never gotten bored with finding legendary creatures to use.
In fact, even the Planeswalkers that they introduced specifically to fit into the Command Zone, are walkers I have never actually used as Commanders.
WOTC is on the right track, print Planeswalkers here and there that sidestep the RC's ability to dictate that PWs cannot be Commanders. The simple fact of the matter is that the vast majority of Planeswalkers don't enrich what you can or cannot do in the format already. Sure, flavor wins are nice. We all love flavor wins. But flavor wins don't actually equate to necessity.
Legalizing Planeswalkers as Commanders means you are now opening up the format to more bans on certain cards in an already oversized banned list.
I think people forget that you really have to pick and choose your battles, and if not having access ti PWs as Commanders turns you off of the format, then so be it. Go play Brawl. You are literally arguing that not having them legal as Commanders is of detriment to a format that continues to grow anyways...
You can't in the same breath as for people to explain what Planeswalkers people would like to build around or think would be fun and then dismiss it as another thing that does X Y or Z like that is a fair and not over harsh qualification to have. Commanders of all stripes are more than just the deck archetype they fit into I feel like this is pretty obvious and should need to be litigated.
And why not I will make a list (Alphabetical is the only order), also not gonna bother with WAR:
Now before you type that response that is something to the effect of that is 11 out of 178 planeswalkers what about all the other ones.
If I had to make a guess I have made Commander decks with probably 50 different Legendary Creatures and there are 838 of those so expecting one person to like or want to build with everything is and will always be foolish.
I am not sure you are getting my point. You are saying Ajani Vengeant would be fun... but why? Is lightning Helix fun? It's just a removal spell. Is the +1 fun? If you are thinking it would be fun for the ultimate then you are going about it all wrong. Alternate win cons in the command zone are highly unfun unless the hurdle to get there involves a lot. Playing a million board wipes and ultimating your planeswalker is not a fun or unique strategy.
Most of these other suggestions actually make a lot more sense. I could see building around the first two abilities.
So then the question becomes: Are you prepared for all the Ajani Vengeants and Tezzeret the Seekers and Liliana of the Dark Realms to be banned in Commander?
I honestly would be fine with making all planeswalkers legal if we brought back Banned as a Commander list. But because so many planeswalkers are self-contained win conditions that promote nothing but stalling the game and spamming the commander until you ult, I really think about 1/3 planeswalkers would need to be banned.
Maybe we should make a poll for the Banned as a Commander list. If we voted in favour maybe the RC would have to consider it.
If we were to make a poll, this would be a good starting point. I 100% agree with Arcum and Derevi being banned as commanders, and can see how others would be considered.
I have a friend who swaps in Muzzio for Arcum to make his deck less powerful when playing for fun.
So yeah... people would lose a few toys, but if that justified adding all the planeswalkers to EDH then I think it would make sense.
I think the RC just doesn't want to have 20 cards on a BaaC list. I think they should rip off that bandaid.
You can't in the same breath as for people to explain what Planeswalkers people would like to build around or think would be fun and then dismiss it as another thing that does X Y or Z like that is a fair and not over harsh qualification to have. Commanders of all stripes are more than just the deck archetype they fit into I feel like this is pretty obvious and should need to be litigated.
And why not I will make a list (Alphabetical is the only order), also not gonna bother with WAR:
Now before you type that response that is something to the effect of that is 11 out of 178 planeswalkers what about all the other ones.
If I had to make a guess I have made Commander decks with probably 50 different Legendary Creatures and there are 838 of those so expecting one person to like or want to build with everything is and will always be foolish.
I am not sure you are getting my point. You are saying Ajani Vengeant would be fun... but why? Is lightning Helix fun? It's just a removal spell. Is the +1 fun? If you are thinking it would be fun for the ultimate then you are going about it all wrong. Alternate win cons in the command zone are highly unfun unless the hurdle to get there involves a lot. Playing a million board wipes and ultimating your planeswalker is not a fun or unique strategy.
Most of these other suggestions actually make a lot more sense. I could see building around the first two abilities.
So then the question becomes: Are you prepared for all the Ajani Vengeants and Tezzeret the Seekers and Liliana of the Dark Realms to be banned in Commander?
I honestly would be fine with making all planeswalkers legal if we brought back Banned as a Commander list. But because so many planeswalkers are self-contained win conditions that promote nothing but stalling the game and spamming the commander until you ult, I really think about 1/3 planeswalkers would need to be banned.
Maybe we should make a poll for the Banned as a Commander list. If we voted in favour maybe the RC would have to consider it.
I don't think any of the 3 cards you listed would have to be banned, not nearly close to it. I think everyone in this thread talking about bannings is way overhyping the power of these cards.
You can't in the same breath as for people to explain what Planeswalkers people would like to build around or think would be fun and then dismiss it as another thing that does X Y or Z like that is a fair and not over harsh qualification to have. Commanders of all stripes are more than just the deck archetype they fit into I feel like this is pretty obvious and should need to be litigated.
And why not I will make a list (Alphabetical is the only order), also not gonna bother with WAR:
Now before you type that response that is something to the effect of that is 11 out of 178 planeswalkers what about all the other ones.
If I had to make a guess I have made Commander decks with probably 50 different Legendary Creatures and there are 838 of those so expecting one person to like or want to build with everything is and will always be foolish.
I am not sure you are getting my point. You are saying Ajani Vengeant would be fun... but why? Is lightning Helix fun? It's just a removal spell. Is the +1 fun? If you are thinking it would be fun for the ultimate then you are going about it all wrong. Alternate win cons in the command zone are highly unfun unless the hurdle to get there involves a lot. Playing a million board wipes and ultimating your planeswalker is not a fun or unique strategy.
Most of these other suggestions actually make a lot more sense. I could see building around the first two abilities.
So then the question becomes: Are you prepared for all the Ajani Vengeants and Tezzeret the Seekers and Liliana of the Dark Realms to be banned in Commander?
I honestly would be fine with making all planeswalkers legal if we brought back Banned as a Commander list. But because so many planeswalkers are self-contained win conditions that promote nothing but stalling the game and spamming the commander until you ult, I really think about 1/3 planeswalkers would need to be banned.
Maybe we should make a poll for the Banned as a Commander list. If we voted in favour maybe the RC would have to consider it.
I don't think any of the 3 cards you listed would have to be banned, not nearly close to it. I think everyone in this thread talking about bannings is way overhyping the power of these cards.
I think people should first build the decks and play against them, before calling for bans or "oh this is so OP broken".
So according to you Tezzeret the Seeker should be banned, yet Arcum Dagsson staying legal? Arcum is cheaper then Tezz and searches ANY artifact compared to max 4 CMC for Tezz.
You should read the past article linked, a few replies up. Arcum, Zur, Derevi all get special mention.
Nice article.
TBH I would not mind to bring BaaC back.
Also I wouldn't mind any of those to be put there and allowed only in the 99.
You could add few PW's there, allowing them only as 99, while letting all others be available as generals.
Also, I think there aren't that many OP planeswalkers which would be banned as generals.
The thing I don't get is why would they expand the banlist after they would bring BaaC back?
No reason for that..
I do think Ajani Vengeant would be a bad card to build around. You can't build around the first two abilities... they are just controlling abilities. If you want to build around the ultimate, then that is the problem.
I think any planeswalker with a gamewinning ultimate would have to be banned as a commander. Since there is no BaaC list, they would be outright banned. Sheldon mentioned this in his article about this thread - making all walkers commanders would also force them to ban a large portion of them.
Ajani Vengeant or Liliana of the Dark Realms are cards with generic uninteresting abilities when they are cast. I assume if you are building them it is to abuse the ultimates. So if 95% of their commander decks are made to force the ultimates, I think that they need to be banned as a commander.
Braids, Cabal Minion is not a terribly broken card. It just makes broken decks. And the RC doesn't want those decks around.
I am very much against PW generals that can win the game by themselves. If they combo with one other card - fine, it is the same as many other combos in the format. But being a self-contained win con is very frustrating.
My 'rule' for PW commanders would be: "if you can build around the first 2/3 abilities, it's good - if you can only build around the ultimate, it is not good for the format because all of the decks it will enable will be the same"
It should be meaningless but the RC has specifically stated that interest in building around them matters, thus creating an unquantifiable reason to continue letting the format stagnate.
Also, even if interest in building around them matters, this poll has indicated that just under 40% of people who have seen this thread are interested in building around walkers.
Due to pollwording that statement could be incorrect one can be for/against pws as commander and still be un/interested in building around pw's.
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So according to you Tezzeret the Seeker should be banned, yet Arcum Dagsson staying legal? Arcum is cheaper then Tezz and searches ANY artifact compared to max 4 CMC for Tezz.
I Think you got that backwards as arcum can only look for noncreature artifacts, you need an artifact creature already out need to be able to resolve the trigger of arcum to get anything at all you need to tap him so you need to wait one turn or give it haste (Upside is easy Paradox Engine enabling). While Tezz can be used the turn it comes down can look for any artifact cmc<= 4 that turn, or untap 2 mana rocks, less stipulations and more abilities and without help both usable on turn 5. In my Opinion Tezzeret is the stronger card. Furthermore Tezz decks and arcum decks would look similar so no new deck just a slightly different flavor. That being said this is an individual comparison. I also think not that many commanders would need to be banned, but most of the ones that don't need to be banned don't add much. And those that add much tend to be more on the bannable end. (Of course Generally Speking as Tezzeret the Seeker doesnt add much but is more on the bannable end and Dovin, Grand Arbiter adds much but is rather weak)
I do think Ajani Vengeant would be a bad card to build around. You can't build around the first two abilities... they are just controlling abilities. If you want to build around the ultimate, then that is the problem.
I think any planeswalker with a gamewinning ultimate would have to be banned as a commander. Since there is no BaaC list, they would be outright banned. Sheldon mentioned this in his article about this thread - making all walkers commanders would also force them to ban a large portion of them.
Ajani Vengeant or Liliana of the Dark Realms are cards with generic uninteresting abilities when they are cast. I assume if you are building them it is to abuse the ultimates. So if 95% of their commander decks are made to force the ultimates, I think that they need to be banned as a commander.
Braids, Cabal Minion is not a terribly broken card. It just makes broken decks. And the RC doesn't want those decks around.
I am very much against PW generals that can win the game by themselves. If they combo with one other card - fine, it is the same as many other combos in the format. But being a self-contained win con is very frustrating.
My 'rule' for PW commanders would be: "if you can build around the first 2/3 abilities, it's good - if you can only build around the ultimate, it is not good for the format because all of the decks it will enable will be the same"
I don't understand this point of view at all. It just sounds like creating weird arbitrary rules.
What's wrong with building towards a game ender with your general? Are we worried that people might win a game after establishing complete board control? That sounds perfectly reasonable to me.
They take their 4/5 mana walker and untap with it repeatedly, I'd hope they get some huge play off of it, because their + abilities are usually very small effects.
Keep in mind there are a number of generals that people just run for the colors and almost ignore the general outright.
I am very much against PW generals that can win the game by themselves. [...] But being a self-contained win con is very frustrating.
So, better ban every commander that can turn sideways and win with general damage? Ack, watch out for those dreaded Elder Dragons! After 3 whole turns of uninterrupted attacking, they'll kill you all by themselves! Clearly too powerful for EDH. Ban plz.
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You would have to ask the Brawl players. You've given us an impossible challenge, since the two formats have vastly different card pools, and being a problem in the 99 and being a problem in the Command Zone are two different evaluation approaches.
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They definitely design legendary creatures with edh in mind. Not exclusively, as they design cards specifically for all sorts of formats from vintage to draft, but the designers do not just ignore the most popular casual format in their process. "It's a legendary creature, does this make an interesting general?"
When I see legendary creatures like Tomik, Distinguished Advokist, Fblthp, the Lost, Tetzimoc, Primal Death, Verix Bladewing pr things like Dragonlord Kolaghan, I kind of doubt that they ask themselves "does this make an interesting general?"
Not like you can't make a deck for these creatures, but why would you?
On the other hand, I would play the heck out of Ashiok, Dream Render or Dovin, Hand of Control. And those are Uncommons. Out of the Legendary creatures at Uncommon quality, most interesting ones for me are Danitha Capashen, Paragon, but why would I play him when I have Sram, Senior Edificer, then Hallar, the Firefletcher, but there is low number of good kick spells and then maybe Slimefoot, the Stowaway, because Saprolings tribal.
Point is, out of all the PW's (140 now, 37 incomming), I could find around 20 which I find interesting and make a deck for them (11%+). I hardly find 11% (93 creatures) out of all the 844 which I find interesting.
On the topic of Legendary creatures design, MaRo confirmed several times that they do not do that. However, he did say that they want legendary creatures to be as cool design as possible so that people can be drawn to the character (or at least feel like the card doesn't betray said character, unlike Emmara Tandris for example which is sad considering she was supposed to be what eventually became Voice of Resurgence). And truth be told, they have been constantly killing it these days, both for creatures and walkers alike. They stopped using the legend rule as a balance tool a long time ago after all, hence cards like Helm of the Host :')
So while I'm completely for PW as generals... Making them legal in the CZ wouldn't make their design healthier for EDH. But again, that's already the same for legendary creatures so they're pretty much equal on that aspect.
Finally (still on the talk about balance), I think designing for commander is probably the hardest kind of design there is for one specific reason. Designing for EDH isn't only designing for one format. While Standard, Modern, etc are all pretty much branded as competitive formats, there's sooooo many ways to play commander! It's by far the supported format that has the widest range of player types. Something that is branded "crazy broken" by a casual player can be considered "trash" by a cEDH player and reciprocally... so I think that's why they just choose to go with the approach "does it look cool to most people", which I personally think is fulfilling its purpose.
Modern Storm
Modern Taking Turns
EDH Jhoira of the Ghitu
That is personal preference if we knew that everyone has the same the argument on that front would be over. Also the 11% will most likely fall since now it still has the advantage of not even having 1/4 of the numbers the creatures have and technically design space is rather limited on PWs.
IMO Hardly any PW really opens new doors. So usage comes down to personal preference or power reasons. Like Dovin, Hand of Control vs. grand-arbiter-augustin-iv both helm the same kind of deck. (And I think Grand arbiter does it better)
Dunharrow also makes another good point PWs hurt aggressive decks which already don't have the greatest of times in edh.
Edit:
elpokitolama So much This
But unfortunately that can't really be used as an argument for or against PWs. But I wish more people would reckognise this.
Lol. Yeah, they sure weren't focusing on planeswalkers these past 14 years /sarcasm. The only way they could focus on planeswalkers more in the story would be to ignore legendary creatures entirely (which would be really, really ******* stupid as legendary creatures are used to tie the story to planes and prevent everything from getting too samey by only having the same characters show up). Good job making yet another broad assertion with absolutely nothing to back it up though. I haven't seen anything suggesting that WAR is a game changer and we're going to see tons of uncommon planeswalkers from now on. It's pretty clearly the gimmick of the set and required a lot of special set building considerations to pull off. It's like saying Dominaria was really well received so expect the focus to shift to having tons of legendary creatures in each set.
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
On the other hand, I've built nearly 100 commander decks over the last decade (started to lose track because I haven't written them all down). I find plenty of legendary creatures interesting, and I am constantly building more. Even if I had only used 84 unique commanders, that would put me about 10%, which is more than three times my percentage for planeswalkers.
The real point is - personal preference/anecdote means nothing. You like one thing, I like another.
2023 Average Peasant Cube|and Discussion
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Well, it does mean that at least HE believes that there are that many pw that would be interesting commanders. That in practice means that at least one person THINKS this (whether it would play out in practice or if after building he'd decide that some of those are not interesting is another matter). In theory though, it does show that this is a viewpoint that people do actually have, even if I disagree strongly (I think only a handful of pws would make interesting commanders, and some of those are already allowed as commanders). There are likely a significant number of people who share his view, and I don't think it's right to dismiss his opinion as illegitimate. It's also not right to make a change based on a minority opinion, even if it's a significant minority, when a majority is set against it and there aren't compelling reasons to make the change beyond the minority opinion. If it weren't butting up against the value of the status quo and a majority being against it, it would deserve serious consideration. It would in that case be like the change to color identity that allowed Bosh as a commander. Wanting the change was a minority opinion, but fewer people were against the change (most were indifferent), the change was small enough that the value of the status quo was smaller, and it made the rule work more intuitively (which was a reason beyond preference for the change) and added value to the format by not arbitrarily excluding potential commanders for having off color activations.
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
It should be meaningless but the RC has specifically stated that interest in building around them matters, thus creating an unquantifiable reason to continue letting the format stagnate.
This is false equivalency. Yes, papa funk made mention of boring walkers - in a lot of cases, I don't disagree. It's a subjective thing, but in most cases we fall on the same side of the discussion. Your mileage may vary, as with any subjective discussion.
There's nothing to suggest that the format is stagnating for not having walkers globablly available from the command zone. I'd suggest it's probably the opposite and that the format is as popular as it's ever been, and there's likely plenty of sales data and social media activity to back that up.
Also, even if interest in building around them matters, this poll has indicated that just under 40% of people who have seen this thread are interested in building around walkers. That's not a small percentage, but it's not a majority percentage. So, even with interest in walkers being relevant there's not enough interest to sway a change in the format at present. It doesn't make sense in any field to make changes to a business/industry/project that less than half people want anyway, so I feel like this is logical and unsurprising.
In fact, even the Planeswalkers that they introduced specifically to fit into the Command Zone, are walkers I have never actually used as Commanders.
WOTC is on the right track, print Planeswalkers here and there that sidestep the RC's ability to dictate that PWs cannot be Commanders. The simple fact of the matter is that the vast majority of Planeswalkers don't enrich what you can or cannot do in the format already. Sure, flavor wins are nice. We all love flavor wins. But flavor wins don't actually equate to necessity.
Legalizing Planeswalkers as Commanders means you are now opening up the format to more bans on certain cards in an already oversized banned list.
I think people forget that you really have to pick and choose your battles, and if not having access ti PWs as Commanders turns you off of the format, then so be it. Go play Brawl. You are literally arguing that not having them legal as Commanders is of detriment to a format that continues to grow anyways...
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Very well said.
I am not sure you are getting my point. You are saying Ajani Vengeant would be fun... but why? Is lightning Helix fun? It's just a removal spell. Is the +1 fun? If you are thinking it would be fun for the ultimate then you are going about it all wrong. Alternate win cons in the command zone are highly unfun unless the hurdle to get there involves a lot. Playing a million board wipes and ultimating your planeswalker is not a fun or unique strategy.
Most of these other suggestions actually make a lot more sense. I could see building around the first two abilities.
So then the question becomes: Are you prepared for all the Ajani Vengeants and Tezzeret the Seekers and Liliana of the Dark Realms to be banned in Commander?
I honestly would be fine with making all planeswalkers legal if we brought back Banned as a Commander list. But because so many planeswalkers are self-contained win conditions that promote nothing but stalling the game and spamming the commander until you ult, I really think about 1/3 planeswalkers would need to be banned.
Maybe we should make a poll for the Banned as a Commander list. If we voted in favour maybe the RC would have to consider it.
8.RG Green Devotion Ramp/Combo 9.UR Draw Triggers 10.WUR Group stalling 11.WUR Voltron Spellslinger 12.WB Sacrificial Shenanigans
13.BR Creatureless Panharmonicon 14.BR Pingers and Eldrazi 15.URG Untapped Cascading
16.Reyhan, last of the Abzan's WUBG +1/+1 Counter Craziness 17.WUBRG Dragons aka Why did I make this?
Building: The Gitrog Monster lands, Glissa the Traitor stax, Muldrotha, the Gravetide Planeswalker Combo, Kydele, Chosen of Kruphix + Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa Clues, and Tribal Scarecrow Planeswalkers
Just an FYI of Sheldon's stance on bringing back BaaC, for better or for worse.
http://www.starcitygames.com/article/34751_What-If-Banned-As-A-Commander-Came-Back.html
If we were to make a poll, this would be a good starting point. I 100% agree with Arcum and Derevi being banned as commanders, and can see how others would be considered.
I have a friend who swaps in Muzzio for Arcum to make his deck less powerful when playing for fun.
So yeah... people would lose a few toys, but if that justified adding all the planeswalkers to EDH then I think it would make sense.
I think the RC just doesn't want to have 20 cards on a BaaC list. I think they should rip off that bandaid.
8.RG Green Devotion Ramp/Combo 9.UR Draw Triggers 10.WUR Group stalling 11.WUR Voltron Spellslinger 12.WB Sacrificial Shenanigans
13.BR Creatureless Panharmonicon 14.BR Pingers and Eldrazi 15.URG Untapped Cascading
16.Reyhan, last of the Abzan's WUBG +1/+1 Counter Craziness 17.WUBRG Dragons aka Why did I make this?
Building: The Gitrog Monster lands, Glissa the Traitor stax, Muldrotha, the Gravetide Planeswalker Combo, Kydele, Chosen of Kruphix + Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa Clues, and Tribal Scarecrow Planeswalkers
I don't think any of the 3 cards you listed would have to be banned, not nearly close to it. I think everyone in this thread talking about bannings is way overhyping the power of these cards.
I think people should first build the decks and play against them, before calling for bans or "oh this is so OP broken".
Come on, there are lot of cards which are borderline ban-able, yet they are not on the banlist, like Tooth and Nail, Iona, Shield of Emeria, Winter Orb and I could go on.
Ajani Vengeant doesn't even come close to the banlist.
So according to you Tezzeret the Seeker should be banned, yet Arcum Dagsson staying legal? Arcum is cheaper then Tezz and searches ANY artifact compared to max 4 CMC for Tezz.
Liliana of the Dark Realms, ever tried her? I did. She was fun to play as general, but far away from OP and even further from even touching the banlist. If this is a problematic card for you, I am not sure what do you say for things like Palinchron, Deadeye Navigator, Derevi, Empyrial Tactician or Zur the Enchanter.
Nice article.
TBH I would not mind to bring BaaC back.
Also I wouldn't mind any of those to be put there and allowed only in the 99.
You could add few PW's there, allowing them only as 99, while letting all others be available as generals.
Also, I think there aren't that many OP planeswalkers which would be banned as generals.
The thing I don't get is why would they expand the banlist after they would bring BaaC back?
No reason for that..
I think any planeswalker with a gamewinning ultimate would have to be banned as a commander. Since there is no BaaC list, they would be outright banned. Sheldon mentioned this in his article about this thread - making all walkers commanders would also force them to ban a large portion of them.
Ajani Vengeant or Liliana of the Dark Realms are cards with generic uninteresting abilities when they are cast. I assume if you are building them it is to abuse the ultimates. So if 95% of their commander decks are made to force the ultimates, I think that they need to be banned as a commander.
Braids, Cabal Minion is not a terribly broken card. It just makes broken decks. And the RC doesn't want those decks around.
I am very much against PW generals that can win the game by themselves. If they combo with one other card - fine, it is the same as many other combos in the format. But being a self-contained win con is very frustrating.
My 'rule' for PW commanders would be: "if you can build around the first 2/3 abilities, it's good - if you can only build around the ultimate, it is not good for the format because all of the decks it will enable will be the same"
8.RG Green Devotion Ramp/Combo 9.UR Draw Triggers 10.WUR Group stalling 11.WUR Voltron Spellslinger 12.WB Sacrificial Shenanigans
13.BR Creatureless Panharmonicon 14.BR Pingers and Eldrazi 15.URG Untapped Cascading
16.Reyhan, last of the Abzan's WUBG +1/+1 Counter Craziness 17.WUBRG Dragons aka Why did I make this?
Building: The Gitrog Monster lands, Glissa the Traitor stax, Muldrotha, the Gravetide Planeswalker Combo, Kydele, Chosen of Kruphix + Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa Clues, and Tribal Scarecrow Planeswalkers
Due to pollwording that statement could be incorrect one can be for/against pws as commander and still be un/interested in building around pw's.
I Think you got that backwards as arcum can only look for noncreature artifacts, you need an artifact creature already out need to be able to resolve the trigger of arcum to get anything at all you need to tap him so you need to wait one turn or give it haste (Upside is easy Paradox Engine enabling). While Tezz can be used the turn it comes down can look for any artifact cmc<= 4 that turn, or untap 2 mana rocks, less stipulations and more abilities and without help both usable on turn 5. In my Opinion Tezzeret is the stronger card. Furthermore Tezz decks and arcum decks would look similar so no new deck just a slightly different flavor. That being said this is an individual comparison. I also think not that many commanders would need to be banned, but most of the ones that don't need to be banned don't add much. And those that add much tend to be more on the bannable end. (Of course Generally Speking as Tezzeret the Seeker doesnt add much but is more on the bannable end and Dovin, Grand Arbiter adds much but is rather weak)
I don't understand this point of view at all. It just sounds like creating weird arbitrary rules.
What's wrong with building towards a game ender with your general? Are we worried that people might win a game after establishing complete board control? That sounds perfectly reasonable to me.
They take their 4/5 mana walker and untap with it repeatedly, I'd hope they get some huge play off of it, because their + abilities are usually very small effects.
Keep in mind there are a number of generals that people just run for the colors and almost ignore the general outright.