So the only one I think would be more busted than what we have now is Tezzeret, who is essentially Arcum with haste (better in some ways worse in others).
I suspect you would have to ban him eventually, but I think it would be fine for a while.
I can't think of anything else that's insanely busted, especially because there are so few multicolored planeswalkers on the balance. Being restricted to 1 or 2 colors (mostly) is a serious restriction in EDH (especially if one isn't green or blue:P).
Another huge plus I think is that you may enable some of the card advantage deficient color combinations with strong walkers to actually be decent -- Nahiri, the Harbinger suddenly makes a RW deck potentially a thing (in 75% circles).
The answer is none. You wouldn't have to ban a single PW even if they were all allowed as a commander. PWs are inherently terrible in EDH, and they get worse with each opponent you add. They're jokes. If you think Ugin is the best thing you can be doing in your Command Zone, clearly you aren't paying attention.
The most annoying planeswalkers I can come up with would be:
Dack Fayden - Cheap artifact theft and there is very little you can do to stop him and his effect.
Tezzeret the Seeker - He seems sort of like Arcum Dagsson but harder to interact with. Its true you are only dealing with 0-4 mana artifacts the turn he comes down but I don't find that to be much of a comfort given he has a lot less restriction in a lot of means in that he doesn't need haste or artifact creatures to opperate.
Sorin Markov - this guy is already a raging dick of a card.... I don't want to ever see him as a commander.
Ones I don't think would necessarily eat bans but I think would be hugely annoying as commanders:
Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver - this isn't normally a good planeswalker in commander but if you had it in your command zone and could curve it in every game I feel like it probably would get fairly annoying. Being in UB means you would be in very strong colors to disrupt opponents as well.
Chandra, Flamecaller - her diversity of effects and access to sweepers would probably make her strong and annoying.
Elspeth, Sun's Champion - strong abilities, ability to sweep and poo tokens everywhere would make her hard to attack in a lot of cases.
Garruk, Primal Hunter - he is already strong in the 99 for his draw capabilities. I suspect he would be good as a commander as well.
Gideon, Ally of Zendikar - Stacking his +1/+1 anthem multiple times does sound annoying and non interactive.
Gideon, Champion of Justice - He sounds like an annoying MLD commander. I don't know if he would be all that good but he probably would be annoying.
Liliana of the Veil - My concern here more comes from the idea of curving her into every game and mashing her + repeatedly. Her edict isn't as huge in this format but if you knew you could always curve her into play and then start wrecking hands..... that sounds annoying and grindy.
Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker - Extremely versatile and annoying to consider that he might be repeatedly be dropping into play. Sure, he costs 7 starting but..... I feel like I would make my deck fairly heavy on sweepers and ramp if I planned to build him.
Ugin, the Spirit Dragon - I am not going to say he will be the biggest offender, but I would be concerned about him as a commander.
The other thing to consider about planeswalkers as commanders is just how much they slow games down. They often encourage you to protect your walkers from creatures and the loyalty of the walkers extends life totals in a lot of ways because the game slows down as people attack into walkers instead of into life totals. There is also the thought that really any walker who can suddenly emblem the turn they enter off of Doubling Season should also be something to keep in mind. It potentially would lead to needing to ban Doubling Season assuming you were to allow walker commanders.
The other thing to consider about planeswalkers as commanders is just how much they slow games down. They often encourage you to protect your walkers from creatures and the loyalty of the walkers extends life totals in a lot of ways because the game slows down as people attack into walkers instead of into life totals. There is also the thought that really any walker who can suddenly emblem the turn they enter off of Doubling Season should also be something to keep in mind. It potentially would lead to needing to ban Doubling Season assuming you were to allow walker commanders.
That's something I occasionally screw up on myself, and is an excellent point to make. Half the time I stop and think about my moves against a superfriend deck, it's because I'm wondering if I can afford getting slapped around by the walkers while I'm trying to kill my opponent. Add in politics and table talk, and an already-slow game can grind to a halt more often than not.
Not only that, no one has yet to come up with a reasonable qualification as to where the line should be drawn for what to ban and what not to ban. I don't envy anyone who has to traverse that debate. There are some obvious options, but there's plenty of not so obvious options that are eminently abusable. I just think adding them pushes games in directions in ways that aren't appealing to me - defensive, passive, non-interactive combo machines.
The answer is none. You wouldn't have to ban a single PW even if they were all allowed as a commander. PWs are inherently terrible in EDH, and they get worse with each opponent you add. They're jokes. If you think Ugin is the best thing you can be doing in your Command Zone, clearly you aren't paying attention.
There were probably less condescending ways to say this, but that's alright. You have your opinion and that's fine by me. Perhaps I exaggerated. Ugin definitely isn't the best thing I can think of to do with my command zone, but I can guarantee there would be people out there who would think like this. Tron is generally not thought of well in Modern, how well do you think Karn Liberated would be received as a potential commander? Having permanent access to exile as well as a mini one-sided Shahrazad? That's the last thing I ever want to play against. I'd rather not sit down and save myself 6 hours. Whether or not that deserves a ban it doesn't sound like fun.
Regardless, whether or not any would be banned, I don't find walker generals a lot of fun to play against. Literally almost everything they do make games go in a direction that seems completely at odds with what EDH should be - a fluid, interactive, social experience. Predominantly, they slow games down, they don't encourage interaction, and they are often abusable. The vast majority don't scale well to EDH, granted, but there's enough that would really benefit from the permanence of a slot in the command zone enough to be curmudgeonly annoyances that at present it's not something I want to see happen. Maybe once there's more variance in ways to interact with walkers it'd be feasible, but at present it just seems a bad idea.
The most annoying planeswalkers I can come up with would be:
Annoying does not equal ban worthy. Oh no, someone built an annoying monoblue deck with Teferi, Temporal Archmage at the helm. If only they had picked literallyanyotherobnoxiousmono-bluegeneral. Hell, there's even a different obnoxious monoblue Teferi you can already play as your general. I mean, you put Chandra, Flamecaller on your list for crying out loud. She's so aggressively mediocre she barely made the 99 of my Grixis Superfriends list and let me tell you, there are not a whole lot of good Grixis color PWs. If this is one of your examples of a problematic PW Commander I don't really know what to say other than even the very best PW Commanders are child's play compared to their actual creature Commander counterparts.
There were probably less condescending ways to say this, but that's alright. You have your opinion and that's fine by me. Perhaps I exaggerated. Ugin definitely isn't the best thing I can think of to do with my command zone, but I can guarantee there would be people out there who would think like this. Tron is generally not thought of well in Modern, how well do you think Karn Liberated would be received as a potential commander? Having permanent access to exile as well as a mini one-sided Shahrazad? That's the last thing I ever want to play against. I'd rather not sit down and save myself 6 hours. Whether or not that deserves a ban it doesn't sound like fun.
Regardless, whether or not any would be banned, I don't find walker generals a lot of fun to play against. Literally almost everything they do make games go in a direction that seems completely at odds with what EDH should be - a fluid, interactive, social experience. Predominantly, they slow games down, they don't encourage interaction, and they are often abusable. The vast majority don't scale well to EDH, granted, but there's enough that would really benefit from the permanence of a slot in the command zone enough to be curmudgeonly annoyances that at present it's not something I want to see happen. Maybe once there's more variance in ways to interact with walkers it'd be feasible, but at present it just seems a bad idea.
Karn is just a worse version of *insert Eldrazi here*. Sure, he can exile a permanent. The Eldrazi can Annihilate handfuls at a time. Hell, I don't even think he'd be the best "Karn" Commander, either, seeing as how Karn, Silver Golem has combo potential. Again, PWs are just inferior versions of Commanders we already have access to.
As for whether they'll slow down games... so? I quite enjoy a slow-burning game. Also, what do you mean PW don't encourage interaction? They can be physically attacked, making them infinitely more interactive than any random creature Commander where your options are "use kill spell" or "do nothing".
Ya'll are blowing this way out of proportion. I don't know about you guys, but I hardly ever see any of the legal PW Commanders as it is, and they were specifically made to play well in EDH. I seriously doubt being able to play one of the million Ob Nixilis Reignited clones as your Commander is going to somehow lead to a degenerate play experience. Just let people play with their stupid Superfriends.
Karn is just a worse version of *insert Eldrazi here*. Sure, he can exile a permanent. The Eldrazi can Annihilate handfuls at a time. Hell, I don't even think he'd be the best "Karn" Commander, either, seeing as how Karn, Silver Golem has combo potential. Again, PWs are just inferior versions of Commanders we already have access to.
I never said it would be good. I said it would be painful to play against, and I don't see the 'there are better commanders' argument as changing my mind in that respect.
As for whether they'll slow down games... so? I quite enjoy a slow-burning game. Also, what do you mean PW don't encourage interaction? They can be physically attacked, making them infinitely more interactive than any random creature Commander where your options are "use kill spell" or "do nothing".
Every walker deck I've encountered is an attempt to lock out the rest of the people at the table or combo off. That's not interactive. Every Daretti I've encountered specifically aims for the Lattice/Disk/emblem/Scrap Mastery interaction. I get that's part of the deal with a commander that can't attack, but I don't find it fun to play against. Solitaire sucks.
End of the day I agree it's not the end of the world, I just think it's not the evolution Commander needs. I've no problem with people having house rules to play whatever walker, it's just not an experience I'm interested in playing or playing against.
I don't know about you guys, but I hardly ever see any of the legal PW Commanders as it is, and they were specifically made to play well in EDH.
Yes, they were specifically made to play well in that role. Sorin Markov, however, was not. Nor were the other non-commander planeswalkers. I think a deck with Sorin Markov at the helm and packing Rings of Brighthearth and some life drain sounds like a blast - ONCE. After that, it becomes horrendous. With ramp, you could effectively cut 75% of your opponents' life totals before they've even built up their board, and only a counterspell or The Immortal Sun could stop it. It's even more powerful than infect because you don't need to get past blockers.
This idea gets brought up every few months, and the arguments have been rehashed over and over. Most people already have their mind set and aren't willing to budge. But that's why the RC encourages house rules.
Annoying does not equal ban worthy. Oh no, someone built an annoying monoblue deck with Teferi, Temporal Archmage at the helm. If only they had picked literallyanyotherobnoxiousmono-bluegeneral. Hell, there's even a different obnoxious monoblue Teferi you can already play as your general. I mean, you put Chandra, Flamecaller on your list for crying out loud. She's so aggressively mediocre she barely made the 99 of my Grixis Superfriends list and let me tell you, there are not a whole lot of good Grixis color PWs. If this is one of your examples of a problematic PW Commander I don't really know what to say other than even the very best PW Commanders are child's play compared to their actual creature Commander counterparts.
Most of my complaints about the idea of planeswalkers as commanders is because they are annoying and slow the game way down. You could probably argue that all of the previous banned as commander legends could be removed and let social elements guide if they should be legal. Most of the legends they banned are not really that broken if you and everyone else is playing at that level but because they are annoying and make miserable games (especially if not everyone is playing to that level).
This isn't to say that some of the better commanders who are legal can't be as strong or stronger than the banned legends. Its actually quite hard to make an argument that Erayo, Soratami Ascendant should be banned beyond the scope that the commander is annoying in that if you are going to tune a deck to the point where it actually works in a reasonable timeframe, its probably a deck that you would want to consider a competitive deck which is outside of the scope of the banned list anyways.
Planeswalkers create slow miserable grindy gamestates and that is why I am against them.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
End of the day I agree it's not the end of the world, I just think it's not the evolution Commander needs. I've no problem with people having house rules to play whatever walker, it's just not an experience I'm interested in playing or playing against.
That's fine. I can easily say the same thing about a huge swath of currently legal Commanders. I just want to be clear that there are absolutely no power-level reasons to keep PWs from being Commanders. They are in no way, shape or form overpowered.
You're right, I forgot about good ol' Sorin. To be fair, I think Sorin should be banned period, not just as a Commander but in the 99 as well. But, as is the running theme of these kinds of discussions about EDH, it's up to the players if they want to play that kind of game. This is the price we pay for minimalist bans; the answer to every problem invariably becomes "just house rule it". It makes coming to this subforum rather pointless, to be honest. Every thread eventually boils down to "this is how EDH is and if you don't like it that's why the RC encourages house rules."
I am not saying that you are not entitled to your own viewpoint or that we can't disagree. My concern is not from the standpoint of playing with these as commanders but playing against them. I think from the standpoint of piloting them they probably would be quite interesting to be the pilot. I just worry that they might be painful to play against. Games might get longer and the reality of the fact is that historically speaking we don't have nearly as many ways of interacting with planeswalkers as most other card type. White's Oblivion Ring style of cards are probably the most abundant but also tend to be bad effects in multiplayer commander.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
I don't find them to be all that slow and grindy so much as pathetically weak...if they are not being proliferated/doubled.
The combo of even thrummingbirding a few planeswalkers is what makes it oppressive. Make people actually protect them instead of just deepglow skating to victory.
Superfriends decks are laughable and just constantly die to chipshots if they aren't coupled with some way to reuse them repeatedly, or Proliferating, or sometimes Chain Veil but veil is pretty answerable again. And most of the time in my experience it's the counter mechanic that busts them (vorel, gilder gairn, inexorable tide, throne of geth, etc etc).
I don't even care about Sorin. If you wanna be that guy who gets focus fired out of every game you could just play Skithiryx
If tomorrow I could play any pw as a commander, I would build Narset Transcendent to prove a point - a mediocre, hardly played PW can be busted as a commander. Why?
All I need to do is fill my deck with counterspells, board wipes, time warps... and I will lock my opponents out of every game with the emblem.
I like that Emblems cannot be removed, I don't want something that interacts with them... but I also think that having access to your PW at all times is only okay if they make bad emblems that don't win the game on the spot.
Many PW ults will win the game - and they should! It is difficult to ult a planeswalker.
But if you look at all these PWs that people are mentioning and start thinking of their decks being nothing but stalling until the PW ultimates, then you realize that it changes the whole format.
Existing commanders are not made in such a way that you can just stall the game a few turns and they win.
The most annoying planeswalkers I can come up with would be:
Dack Fayden - Cheap artifact theft and there is very little you can do to stop him and his effect.
Tezzeret the Seeker - He seems sort of like Arcum Dagsson but harder to interact with. Its true you are only dealing with 0-4 mana artifacts the turn he comes down but I don't find that to be much of a comfort given he has a lot less restriction in a lot of means in that he doesn't need haste or artifact creatures to opperate.
Sorin Markov - this guy is already a raging dick of a card.... I don't want to ever see him as a commander.
Dack has potential for political shenanigans due to his +1 and stealing key artifacts that the table doesn't want that player to have.
Tezzeret can potentially go infinite with PW Teferi and The Chain Veil and mana rocks.
Sorin Markov, well I just agree. Especially if rituals+rocks+doublers are involved.
Ones I don't think would necessarily eat bans but I think would be hugely annoying as commanders:
Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver - this isn't normally a good planeswalker in commander but if you had it in your command zone and could curve it in every game I feel like it probably would get fairly annoying. Being in UB means you would be in very strong colors to disrupt opponents as well.
Chandra, Flamecaller - her diversity of effects and access to sweepers would probably make her strong and annoying.
Elspeth, Sun's Champion - strong abilities, ability to sweep and poo tokens everywhere would make her hard to attack in a lot of cases.
Garruk, Primal Hunter - he is already strong in the 99 for his draw capabilities. I suspect he would be good as a commander as well.
Gideon, Ally of Zendikar - Stacking his +1/+1 anthem multiple times does sound annoying and non interactive.
Gideon, Champion of Justice - He sounds like an annoying MLD commander. I don't know if he would be all that good but he probably would be annoying.
Liliana of the Veil - My concern here more comes from the idea of curving her into every game and mashing her + repeatedly. Her edict isn't as huge in this format but if you knew you could always curve her into play and then start wrecking hands..... that sounds annoying and grindy.
Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker - Extremely versatile and annoying to consider that he might be repeatedly be dropping into play. Sure, he costs 7 starting but..... I feel like I would make my deck fairly heavy on sweepers and ramp if I planned to build him.
Ugin, the Spirit Dragon - I am not going to say he will be the biggest offender, but I would be concerned about him as a commander.
Ashiok could be powerful, could be weak, as it really will be about trying to hit key pieces with the + and then stealing with - .
Flamecaller would be a really interesting commander to see, she would be really good at not only sweeping and hand-refills, but attacking other planeswalkers.
Sun's Champion I would wager is good at stomping go tall strategies and those that are very anthem centric. Like a Sun's Champion can counter a Sun's Champion if the first has creatures with 4 power or greater due to ultimate and other anthems.
Primal Hunter to me is similar to Flamecaller, just minus the sweep ability. But being in green instead of red makes him much more powerful.
Ally of Zendikar indeed anthem stacks, but I feel he is not the worst on this list.
Champion of Justice would basically be: Grow, float mana, exile, cast some spells, then swing heavy next turn. Which imho is fair play if the MLD is trying to close the game. Probably would tax or bridge opponents as well to keep them from attacking while they said opponents have lots of creatures.
Veil would probably get used in a deck with discard synergies but also with some stax and/or pox-based effects in addition to obvious tutors.
Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker is very good. Perma-stealing creatures, destroying non-creature permanents like lands, then just give him a fitting suite of cards in the deck.
Lord of Innistrad I would argue is more obnoxious of an emblem stacker than Ally of Zendikar because Lord survives his - to and if allowed to live for two more turns can make another emblem. While its only +1/+0, being able to do it more often for less cost than +1/+1 is something to keep even more in mind.
Ugin is going to be most predictable when he goes off. -6 to clean house, then just machine gunning opponents, - only to get rid of low cost stuff. Powerful though? Hes only going to be strong as a planar cleansing.
The other thing to consider about planeswalkers as commanders is just how much they slow games down. They often encourage you to protect your walkers from creatures and the loyalty of the walkers extends life totals in a lot of ways because the game slows down as people attack into walkers instead of into life totals. There is also the thought that really any walker who can suddenly emblem the turn they enter off of Doubling Season should also be something to keep in mind. It potentially would lead to needing to ban Doubling Season assuming you were to allow walker commanders.
Doubling season being banned I feel would be important step to allow planeswalkers because I feel would skew the game towards G/x decks, as if you are in green you should always play Doubling Season just for the chance to boost your commander's starting loyalty. In addition to its other uses like multiplying your tokens which quite a few planeswalkers tend to make anyway in order to protect themselves.
And the salient point is that the RC has already discussed it and we have no current plans to change the rules on who can be commanders.
The short version is that they're not Legendary Creatures. The slightly longer version is in addition to that, there are a number of them that would need to be banned. Repeatable PWs are in some cases quite broken, even with a commander tax. We don't really discuss who voted which way on the RC--but I'll tell you that this didn't even come to a vote. We talked about it and agreed it wasn't a direction we wanted to go.
And the salient point is that the RC has already discussed it and we have no current plans to change the rules on who can be commanders.
The short version is that they're not Legendary Creatures. The slightly longer version is in addition to that, there are a number of them that would need to be banned. Repeatable PWs are in some cases quite broken, even with a commander tax. We don't really discuss who voted which way on the RC--but I'll tell you that this didn't even come to a vote. We talked about it and agreed it wasn't a direction we wanted to go.
A bit outdated, but dunno why they would change their minds now if that change didn't do it.
Because its reaching 16 months (AKA 1 year & 4 months) at this point since that post was made. If that were closer, like within the past 4-7 months, it would be more understandable on that stance. Just saying that people aren't exactly static with their thoughts when it comes to decisions and opinions. If the update is the same as before, that would still be fine.
Well, it sounds like the RC have touched on at least some of the points we've covered here. I remember seeing video of Sheldon and Gavin Verhey at some con post C18 release and it came up then, too. Long story short, it doesn't appear that anything has caused a change of opinions there. Sorry, I don't remember where and when or I would reference it.
I am not saying that you are not entitled to your own viewpoint or that we can't disagree.
Oh, I understood. What am I going to do? Tell you you're wrong for not liking PW Commanders? That's obviously your opinion and you're entitled to it. I was merely pointing out that there's really not much else for us to say.
Well, it sounds like the RC have touched on at least some of the points we've covered here. I remember seeing video of Sheldon and Gavin Verhey at some con post C18 release and it came up then, too. Long story short, it doesn't appear that anything has caused a change of opinions there. Sorry, I don't remember where and when or I would reference it.
Well there we go, more recent confirmation about the matter.
Another thing I think needs to happen is Doubling Season and Proliferate interactions need to be fixed. Simple matter of saying "loyalty is loyalty not loyalty counters."
Change has been a long time coming and would fix a lot of the nonsense likely to happen.
I seriously doubt they are changing the rules of loyalty and proliferate based on EDH to make some 'Walkers OK.
The answer is none. You wouldn't have to ban a single PW even if they were all allowed as a commander. PWs are inherently terrible in EDH, and they get worse with each opponent you add. They're jokes. If you think Ugin is the best thing you can be doing in your Command Zone, clearly you aren't paying attention.
This is just not supported by the current state of EDH. Pillow forts and control are already strong, and PWs just give people free life because you have to deal with them instead of the player. Notice almost everyone here is debating how many need to get banned.
Doubling season etc when you don't even get priority to respond to an ultimate? Yea there are going to be some that have to go.
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.
Doubling season etc when you don't even get priority to respond to an ultimate? Yea there are going to be some that have to go.
Oh no. You've combined a card with your commander to maybe win the game? What horror. Surely that's not possible right now, is it? No, no, that's nonsense. The RC has only our best interests at heart and definitely would have banned out anything even remotely degenerate like that.
Regardless of your views on the card, discussion of whether Doubling Season would be banned in a hypothetical situation is probably besides the point.
The RC has only our best interests at heart and definitely would have banned out anything even remotely degenerate like that.
The RC is not your mom. They're not going to wash your drawers, tuck you in at night and make sure you don't combo. They're there to give you a reasonably open forum to play creatively and the way you want to so long as that doesn't impinge on others having a good time. People tend to lose sight of this when they blame the format's degeneracy on the RC. It's not surprising, but it also isn't deserved.
The RC is not your mom. They're not going to wash your drawers, tuck you in at night and make sure you don't combo. They're there to give you a reasonably open forum to play creatively and the way you want to so long as that doesn't impinge on others having a good time. People tend to lose sight of this when they blame the format's degeneracy on the RC. It's not surprising, but it also isn't deserved.
Missing the point. I am aware of the RC's views. But what that also means is that one cannot immediately turn around and complain that something mildly degenerate is the reason that PWs can't be Commanders because that is quite frankly bull*****. There are just so many broken things you can do in EDH, and the official answer is "if you don't like them don't play them it's a social format." That goes both ways. Don't like Doubling Season with a PW Commander? Don't play it. Look, problem solved.
Well, it's a single reason for not allowing walkers in the Command zone, and it's not the best reason, so we're on the same page there.
My reasoning for not wanting to see it happen is that I derive pleasure from an interactive game, and that's not something that happens with superfriends or walker decks. It's my opinion, and clearly yours differs. There's no reason we have to come to a consensus, and I don't see one of us being able to convince the other either. What more can I say?
I'm almost positive that one of them (I believe it was BKM) at one point said that Doubling Season would be snap banned if they legalized all Planeswalkers.
Yeah, I"m decently sure I saw that at some point as well. Tbh my biggest concern would be the return of BaaC and Sheldon's semi apocalyptic prediction of the list if it returned.
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I suspect you would have to ban him eventually, but I think it would be fine for a while.
I can't think of anything else that's insanely busted, especially because there are so few multicolored planeswalkers on the balance. Being restricted to 1 or 2 colors (mostly) is a serious restriction in EDH (especially if one isn't green or blue:P).
Another huge plus I think is that you may enable some of the card advantage deficient color combinations with strong walkers to actually be decent -- Nahiri, the Harbinger suddenly makes a RW deck potentially a thing (in 75% circles).
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
The most annoying planeswalkers I can come up with would be:
The other thing to consider about planeswalkers as commanders is just how much they slow games down. They often encourage you to protect your walkers from creatures and the loyalty of the walkers extends life totals in a lot of ways because the game slows down as people attack into walkers instead of into life totals. There is also the thought that really any walker who can suddenly emblem the turn they enter off of Doubling Season should also be something to keep in mind. It potentially would lead to needing to ban Doubling Season assuming you were to allow walker commanders.
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That's something I occasionally screw up on myself, and is an excellent point to make. Half the time I stop and think about my moves against a superfriend deck, it's because I'm wondering if I can afford getting slapped around by the walkers while I'm trying to kill my opponent. Add in politics and table talk, and an already-slow game can grind to a halt more often than not.
EDH decks: 1. RGWMayael's Big BeatsRETIRED!
2. BUWMerieke Ri Berit and the 40 Thieves
3. URNiv's Wheeling and Dealing!
4. BURThe Walking Dead
5. GWSisay's Legends of Tomorrow
6. RWBRise of Markov
7. GElvez and stuffz(W)
8. RCrush your enemies(W)
9. BSign right here...(W)
There were probably less condescending ways to say this, but that's alright. You have your opinion and that's fine by me. Perhaps I exaggerated. Ugin definitely isn't the best thing I can think of to do with my command zone, but I can guarantee there would be people out there who would think like this. Tron is generally not thought of well in Modern, how well do you think Karn Liberated would be received as a potential commander? Having permanent access to exile as well as a mini one-sided Shahrazad? That's the last thing I ever want to play against. I'd rather not sit down and save myself 6 hours. Whether or not that deserves a ban it doesn't sound like fun.
Regardless, whether or not any would be banned, I don't find walker generals a lot of fun to play against. Literally almost everything they do make games go in a direction that seems completely at odds with what EDH should be - a fluid, interactive, social experience. Predominantly, they slow games down, they don't encourage interaction, and they are often abusable. The vast majority don't scale well to EDH, granted, but there's enough that would really benefit from the permanence of a slot in the command zone enough to be curmudgeonly annoyances that at present it's not something I want to see happen. Maybe once there's more variance in ways to interact with walkers it'd be feasible, but at present it just seems a bad idea.
As for whether they'll slow down games... so? I quite enjoy a slow-burning game. Also, what do you mean PW don't encourage interaction? They can be physically attacked, making them infinitely more interactive than any random creature Commander where your options are "use kill spell" or "do nothing".
Ya'll are blowing this way out of proportion. I don't know about you guys, but I hardly ever see any of the legal PW Commanders as it is, and they were specifically made to play well in EDH. I seriously doubt being able to play one of the million Ob Nixilis Reignited clones as your Commander is going to somehow lead to a degenerate play experience. Just let people play with their stupid Superfriends.
I never said it would be good. I said it would be painful to play against, and I don't see the 'there are better commanders' argument as changing my mind in that respect.
Every walker deck I've encountered is an attempt to lock out the rest of the people at the table or combo off. That's not interactive. Every Daretti I've encountered specifically aims for the Lattice/Disk/emblem/Scrap Mastery interaction. I get that's part of the deal with a commander that can't attack, but I don't find it fun to play against. Solitaire sucks.
End of the day I agree it's not the end of the world, I just think it's not the evolution Commander needs. I've no problem with people having house rules to play whatever walker, it's just not an experience I'm interested in playing or playing against.
This idea gets brought up every few months, and the arguments have been rehashed over and over. Most people already have their mind set and aren't willing to budge. But that's why the RC encourages house rules.
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Most of my complaints about the idea of planeswalkers as commanders is because they are annoying and slow the game way down. You could probably argue that all of the previous banned as commander legends could be removed and let social elements guide if they should be legal. Most of the legends they banned are not really that broken if you and everyone else is playing at that level but because they are annoying and make miserable games (especially if not everyone is playing to that level).
This isn't to say that some of the better commanders who are legal can't be as strong or stronger than the banned legends. Its actually quite hard to make an argument that Erayo, Soratami Ascendant should be banned beyond the scope that the commander is annoying in that if you are going to tune a deck to the point where it actually works in a reasonable timeframe, its probably a deck that you would want to consider a competitive deck which is outside of the scope of the banned list anyways.
Planeswalkers create slow miserable grindy gamestates and that is why I am against them.
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I am not saying that you are not entitled to your own viewpoint or that we can't disagree. My concern is not from the standpoint of playing with these as commanders but playing against them. I think from the standpoint of piloting them they probably would be quite interesting to be the pilot. I just worry that they might be painful to play against. Games might get longer and the reality of the fact is that historically speaking we don't have nearly as many ways of interacting with planeswalkers as most other card type. White's Oblivion Ring style of cards are probably the most abundant but also tend to be bad effects in multiplayer commander.
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The combo of even thrummingbirding a few planeswalkers is what makes it oppressive. Make people actually protect them instead of just deepglow skating to victory.
Superfriends decks are laughable and just constantly die to chipshots if they aren't coupled with some way to reuse them repeatedly, or Proliferating, or sometimes Chain Veil but veil is pretty answerable again. And most of the time in my experience it's the counter mechanic that busts them (vorel, gilder gairn, inexorable tide, throne of geth, etc etc).
I don't even care about Sorin. If you wanna be that guy who gets focus fired out of every game you could just play Skithiryx
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
All I need to do is fill my deck with counterspells, board wipes, time warps... and I will lock my opponents out of every game with the emblem.
I like that Emblems cannot be removed, I don't want something that interacts with them... but I also think that having access to your PW at all times is only okay if they make bad emblems that don't win the game on the spot.
Many PW ults will win the game - and they should! It is difficult to ult a planeswalker.
But if you look at all these PWs that people are mentioning and start thinking of their decks being nothing but stalling until the PW ultimates, then you realize that it changes the whole format.
Existing commanders are not made in such a way that you can just stall the game a few turns and they win.
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
Tezzeret can potentially go infinite with PW Teferi and The Chain Veil and mana rocks.
Sorin Markov, well I just agree. Especially if rituals+rocks+doublers are involved.
Doubling season being banned I feel would be important step to allow planeswalkers because I feel would skew the game towards G/x decks, as if you are in green you should always play Doubling Season just for the chance to boost your commander's starting loyalty. In addition to its other uses like multiplying your tokens which quite a few planeswalkers tend to make anyway in order to protect themselves.
https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/commander-edh/commander-rules-discussion-forum/783724-stupid-question-now-that-all-planeswalkers-have?comment=3
A bit outdated, but dunno why they would change their minds now if that change didn't do it.
This is just not supported by the current state of EDH. Pillow forts and control are already strong, and PWs just give people free life because you have to deal with them instead of the player. Notice almost everyone here is debating how many need to get banned.
Doubling season etc when you don't even get priority to respond to an ultimate? Yea there are going to be some that have to go.
Oh wait...
The RC is not your mom. They're not going to wash your drawers, tuck you in at night and make sure you don't combo. They're there to give you a reasonably open forum to play creatively and the way you want to so long as that doesn't impinge on others having a good time. People tend to lose sight of this when they blame the format's degeneracy on the RC. It's not surprising, but it also isn't deserved.
My reasoning for not wanting to see it happen is that I derive pleasure from an interactive game, and that's not something that happens with superfriends or walker decks. It's my opinion, and clearly yours differs. There's no reason we have to come to a consensus, and I don't see one of us being able to convince the other either. What more can I say?
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