MTG Salvation

Cryo, that's how it is. The lines of communication go both ways.

Hey Sheldon... do you think we can be given a timeline for when we can expect the CAG to make an announcement regarding their charter?

I hope it will be within a month.

Well, the RC will actually be the one announcing the CAG Charter, but it's going to be soon.

I've updated the first post to include the CAG charter, which has just been published.

Thanks. As always, constructive feedback is encouraged.

I'm not very familiar with most of the members of the CAG, but if one of the purposes of the group is to serve as the loyal opposition then I'm very happy. Homogeneity is a weakness, and opening up the council to a more diverse range of voices and experiences will only benefit the format.

Quote from Sheldon »

Thanks. As always, constructive feedback is encouraged.

Outside of maybe one person I can think of, was the concern of using their position for financial gain (or just the perception of it) in your minds with any of the potential CAG nominees? Obviously we don't need to mention names, but was that portion added more of a CYA rather than a necessity? A lot of the charter seems like it was things that "should go without saying but we're saying them anyways".

Quote from cryogen »

Quote from Sheldon »

Thanks. As always, constructive feedback is encouraged.

Outside of maybe one person I can think of, was the concern of using their position for financial gain (or just the perception of it) in your minds with any of the potential CAG nominees? Obviously we don't need to mention names, but was that portion added more of a CYA rather than a necessity? A lot of the charter seems like it was things that "should go without saying but we're saying them anyways".

It was written into the draft before there were ever members selected, so the answer is definitely no. As I mention in the article, the integrity of the RC and everyone associated with us is extremely important, and we say some of the things that should go without saying not for the people on the CAG, but for the community. We also have to remember that you write philosophy documents for groups with the philosophy in mind, not for the people who will first serve in the group.

I guess this is as reasonable a place as any to introduce myself here.
Hi, I'm Charlotte Sable, one of the members of the Commander Advisory Group. I used to be on Salvation more actively back in 2007-2010 or so, but not since then. I was invited back and I'm happy to make myself available to listen to the concerns and ideas of the Commander community here and elsewhere. If you have any questions for me, feel free to ask them here or in PMs or new threads or wherever.

Which cards, if any, would you add or remove from the banlist if you had total control?

Kind of curious to ask that question of everyone on the committee, tbh.

Quote from DirkGently »

Which cards, if any, would you add or remove from the banlist if you had total control?

Kind of curious to ask that question of everyone on the committee, tbh.

Disclaimer: This is my own personal opinion only and doesn't represent the opinions of anyone else on the CAG or the RC, nor what might happen in the future.

If it were solely up to me, I would unban Biorhythm, Gifts Ungiven, Painter's Servant, and Worldfire. I would ban Avacyn, Angel of Hope, Iona, Shield of Emeria, and Cyclonic Rift.

You've got gifts on there, so you get a from me.

Hoping anyone will push to unban library is probably a pipe dream

Quote from JqlGirl »

I guess this is as reasonable a place as any to introduce myself here.
Hi, I'm Charlotte Sable, one of the members of the Commander Advisory Group. I used to be on Salvation more actively back in 2007-2010 or so, but not since then. I was invited back and I'm happy to make myself available to listen to the concerns and ideas of the Commander community here and elsewhere. If you have any questions for me, feel free to ask them here or in PMs or new threads or wherever.

Welcome back! There are a ton of threads in this particular forum about Single Card Discussion that bring up some interesting thoughts about certain banned cards. I hope you check them out! Props on your Unesh list too, btw.

Can you speak yet about how you (and the RC + CAG by extension) evaluate potential unbans as a group? I think Sheldon has spoken to this previously, but I'm curious as to your perspective in working with the group. With the announcement coming soon for the CAG charter, as well as the new Infinity War set coming, I imagine that there will be a chance for some cards to come off the banned list for Commander and possibly some cards that will be added to the banlist.

I also think that Biorhythm should come off the list. It's just not as mana efficient and scary as it used to be.

Quote from benjameenbear »

Can you speak yet about how you (and the RC + CAG by extension) evaluate potential unbans as a group? I think Sheldon has spoken to this previously, but I'm curious as to your perspective in working with the group.

We haven't had any sort of formal talks yet, just chatter on our discord about what we would like to see, both within the CAG and in the combined CAG/RC group. The rising trend in the past week or so seems to be looking to evaluate cards more philosophically as a whole so that similar cards will generally be treated similarly. For example, is an 8+ CMC spell that ends the game allowable or not? Is there a meaningful distinction in this category between something like Biorhythm and something like Coalition Victory? This is where we're at at the moment.

Just my 2 cents, but personally I'd much prefer coalition victory to be legal over biorhythm because, while both can end the game for 8 mana, coalition victory is easier to interact with, in the form of instant-speed removal available to every color in some measure, whereas biorhythm is really only preventable via counterspells. Personally I care more about the interactivity than the raw power - obviously if CV resolves successfully it's a guaranteed win whereas bio requires extra steps.

Both spells are kinda boring ways to win, but at least with CV if you're playing a creature-light deck you've got a chance.

Also biorhythm is available to, idk, probably almost half the decks out there are green. At least 30%. Whereas only a few percent are 5-color. I don't know how much that factors in, but I'd personally factor it pretty heavily.

Seeing Iona on the wishlist, along with Gifts off the ban list warms my heart to you. Iona is just a rude precedent to set the tone of your games with.

Hi Charlotte, good to see you here. Hopefully you won't be a stranger.

Could you expand a bit on your thoughts behind Avacyn and why you feel she is unhealthy enough to be on your radar?

I am also interested in hearing more about the philosophical approach to the ban list as you are able and willing to discuss it publicly. We are always here to provide additional input. The look at 8+ mana spells makes sense. CV has been brought up again, Expropriate is being debated on the official forums, and there are some de facto cards like Tooth and Nail which are probably on the grosser end of power level for the format. For me personally, I would be primarily concerned with the ease at which the card and be cast or brought into play. Comparing T&N with CV or Wildfire for example, the former comes out ridiculously easy thanks to green ramp, but the latter two are much harder to cheat out.

Quote from cryogen »

Could you expand a bit on your thoughts behind Avacyn and why you feel she is unhealthy enough to be on your radar?

My disdain for Avacyn comes from the same place as my disdain for Iona in that she can basically lock out some mono-color decks from ever doing anything meaningful against that player again. How does mono-red get rid of Avacyn? They can't. Avacyn leads to unfun game states and limits interaction to the point where I feel that she's bad for the format.

Quote from JqlGirl »

My disdain for Avacyn comes from the same place as my disdain for Iona in that she can basically lock out some mono-color decks from ever doing anything meaningful against that player again. How does mono-red get rid of Avacyn? They can't. Avacyn leads to unfun game states and limits interaction to the point where I feel that she's bad for the format.

Various ways to deal with avacyn in monored, mostly from the top of my head.

Chaos warp, warp world, stingscourger, decree of annihilation, aligned hedron network, brittle effigy, duplicant, helvault, and scour from existance.

Edit: nearly forgot about All is Dust

Various ways to deal with avacyn in monored, mostly from the top of my head.

Chaos warp, warp world, stingscourger, decree of annihilation, aligned hedron network, brittle effigy, duplicant, helvault, and scour from existance.

Edit: nearly forgot about All is Dust

Personally I get the for and against - perhaps the point was that it's the magic equivalent of Alcatraz - if you can't break out past it, not only are you done, you're not having any fun. I get this far more so with Iona - she's the epitome of fun police. But I totally understand the reasoning with Avacyn too.

Except you aren’t done against Avacyn (unlike iona w/o colorless answers if she picked your color). You can keep playing the game and doing things, you just can’t destroy it or attack into her (probably).

Red also has Threaten effects to temporarily deal with Avacyn, as well as the tried and true method of killing Avacyn's controller to remove her.

Quote from JqlGirl »

If you have any questions for me, feel free to ask them here or in PMs or new threads or wherever.

What's your deserted island album?

What's your opinion on fast mana and low cost combo enablers and their impact on the format?

Quote from GloriousGoose »

What's your desert island album?
What's your opinion on fast mana and low cost combo enablers and their impact on the format?

My desert island album is "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars" by David Bowie. Still one of the best full albums of all time.
I'm fine with the current state of fast mana in the format right now. I wouldn't want to add more, though.
What low cost combo enablers are you talking about specifically? I'm fine with most combos as long as they make the game end.

Thrilled to have you posting here Charlotte.

My question to you is: do you have a bronze sable in your Alesha, Who Smiles at Death deck?

How competitive is your regular EDH meta, by the way?

Quote from Dunharrow »

Thrilled to have you posting here Charlotte.

My question to you is: do you have a bronze sable in your Alesha, Who Smiles at Death deck?

How competitive is your regular EDH meta, by the way?

I don't, no. As much as I love Bronze Sable, even I admit that a vanilla 2/1 for 2 doesn't really carry its weight in Commander. I'll just have to be happy with the hundreds of foil ones I have in binders and boxes.

My local playgroup is a reasonable mix of decks ranging from about 60% to say 90% or so. Nothing approaching cEDH levels, but varied enough that there are occasional power differential issues in games. It really depends on who's at the shop on any given day.