The idea is to choose a Planeswalker as your Oathbreaker (a.k.a. Commander / General) and an Instant or Sorcery spell as your Signature Spell. The creators of this format Weird Cards, have settled on 60 Card Singleton / 20 Life as making most strategies viable though they also could've tested this format with 80 Card Singleton / 30 Life instead. Of course smaller library means less variation in successive games.
Keep in mind that there are two Command Zones in this format instead of one: Your Planeswalker being your Oathbreaker and a Signature Spell (Instant or Sorcery) that can only be cast while your Oathbreaker is on the battlefield and is subject to Commander Tax (think of the Triumph cycle from War of the Spark). You must pay 2 additional mana each time you recast your Oathbreaker and Signature Spell from the Command Zone.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
I kind of want to build a deck for this with Jace, the Mind Sculptor+Tunnel Vision or Narset, Parter of Veils+Windfall in my Command Zones to prove the absurdity of having a "signature spell" in the Command Zone alongside Planeswalker as a Commander. It's really unfortunate that The Command Zone podcast gave this a large boost in attention, because it's frankly a silly idea for a format. Really tired of hearing about these riffs on Commander every few months, the subsequent begging of content creators and everyone to pay it attention and the slowly dying bandwagon that results afterwards.
If I find enough people for this format in my play group I will try it out. I like the idea to play Serra the Benevolent and Enlightened Tutor as oathbreaker/Signature spell. The whole deck is enchantment heavy with some removal (Grasp of Fate etc.), token stuff (Sigil of the Empty Throne, Luminarch Ascension etc...). Creating many angel tokens and making Serras +2 more relevant. Even the Emblem seems to be so much better in a format where you start at 20 and don't have commander damage as win condition.
Honestly, there is so much broken by having access to an instant or sorcery throughout a game. Even if it resolved to the graveyard, but giving it cumulative buyback is insane. Imagine any deck that can count to 10 mana in 4 turns with dorks having a 2-3 card infinite combo of creatures using primal surge (a tame example). Look at Narset + days undoing for a frankly scarier version of leovold. New saheeli + storm (cast 4 spells, grapeshot grapeshot seems to kill efficiently and leave you with a fair number of attacker just in case). For something touting a casual format, it seems to be primes at a hypercompetitive meta.
Well is a multiplayer format. Everyone can see what your commander and signature spell is. You need your commander/oathbreaker on the field to cast the signature spell. Your commander won't be on the field long enough if your combo is too broken because everyone will attack your oathbreaker. In addition the format has his own banlist. https://weirdcards.org/oathbreaker-ban-list Saheeli, the Gifted is banned for example.
I like that it is 20 life and 60 cards only. This should provide much faster games than the usual 2 hour games in commander.
Edit: In edition you can build something without planing to break the format.
Board wipes and tutors certainly seem like the way to go in this format. The "signature spell" portion is what really sets off alarms in my mind. Having access to a tutor of board wipe constantly in every game is a recipe for disaster.
We do have to keep in mind that in order to cast the signature spell, you must have your Oathbreaker in play. Most people seem to forget about that. No turn 1 Faithless Looting into reanimate every turn 1 if you're playing a Rakdos Oathbreaker.
Me? While there seem to be a million broken things to do in this format, I really want to play fair. I was thinking either GW D&T with either Huatli, Radiant Champion or Ajani, Mentor of Heroes + Worldly Tutor or Gruul with Domri, Anarch of Bolas or Domri, Chaos Bringer + Worldly Tutor to ramp and get a bunch of uncounterable/indestructible/unsacrificeable creatures while ramping and fighting. I could also go mono-green with Garruk Wildspeaker + Worldly Tutor to ramp even faster + overrun, while still searching up sticky creatures. Seems like a decent plan in a field of nothing but boardwipes.
Well is a multiplayer format. Everyone can see what your commander and signature spell is. You need your commander/oathbreaker on the field to cast the signature spell. Your commander won't be on the field long enough if your combo is too broken because everyone will attack your oathbreaker. In addition the format has his own banlist. https://weirdcards.org/oathbreaker-ban-list Saheeli, the Gifted is banned for example.
I like that it is 20 life and 60 cards only. This should provide much faster games than the usual 2 hour games in commander.
Edit: In edition you can build something without planing to break the format.
Doomsday is banned as well, which was literally my first thought.
The multiplayer thing reeks of "Grislebrand isn't too bad of a commander, everyone can see it and I am playing a fair deck, it won't ruin games" levels of naïveté. Yeah, there are social constraints, but a game where I spent 5 seconds of thought before breaking it (literally just searched the list of blue walkers and assumed something was there, it was) is flawed. Very few people are going to play the way the makers envisioned, Sheldon has this probken all the time in EDH. The health of a format can't be based in banning everything you don't like or trusting in people to build fair decks - presumably 2/3s of palyers are spikes or johnnys and Johnny wants to show off the interaction he thought of and spike wants to prove he can maximize the value of the system. R&D makes decisions on the worst possible outcome, not the best.
Well is a multiplayer format. Everyone can see what your commander and signature spell is. You need your commander/oathbreaker on the field to cast the signature spell. Your commander won't be on the field long enough if your combo is too broken because everyone will attack your oathbreaker. In addition the format has his own banlist. https://weirdcards.org/oathbreaker-ban-list Saheeli, the Gifted is banned for example.
I like that it is 20 life and 60 cards only. This should provide much faster games than the usual 2 hour games in commander.
Edit: In edition you can build something without planing to break the format.
Doomsday is banned as well, which was literally my first thought.
The multiplayer thing reeks of "Grislebrand isn't too bad of a commander, everyone can see it and I am playing a fair deck, it won't ruin games" levels of naïveté. Yeah, there are social constraints, but a game where I spent 5 seconds of thought before breaking it (literally just searched the list of blue walkers and assumed something was there, it was) is flawed. Very few people are going to play the way the makers envisioned, Sheldon has this probken all the time in EDH. The health of a format can't be based in banning everything you don't like or trusting in people to build fair decks - presumably 2/3s of palyers are spikes or johnnys and Johnny wants to show off the interaction he thought of and spike wants to prove he can maximize the value of the system. R&D makes decisions on the worst possible outcome, not the best.
It is casual format. If you want to build a deck to show everybody that the format is broken go for it. Make your one game and proof everyone you are right. The other will likely never play against your deck again if it is that broken and you can move on while the other can have fun.
I spent 5 minutes on this.
I believe this would be very unfun to play against. But I also think a format built around planeswalkers would be very controlling and having access to a spell at all times very warping.
I could also make a list for Or Liliana of the Dark Realms + Torment of Hailfire. The rest of the deck can be draw and board wipes and edicts.
TBH, everyone so far has gone to the extreme the format can go. Make no mistake, I've tried the Narset + Windfall thing, its just as misery inducing as you'd expect, but lets apply this same logic to our beloved EDH and assume everyone runs Flash Hulk and Shimmer Zur builds right?
This is absolutely has to be treated casually or else it would just be "solved" by playing U/X Planeswalker with severe lockdown. Interesting to note though, Black got two 1cmc removal spells for 'Walkers in WAR that work well to hammer these strategies using broken spell + PW combos in the zone.
It is casual format. If you want to build a deck to show everybody that the format is broken go for it. Make your one game and proof everyone you are right. The other will likely never play against your deck again if it is that broken and you can move on while the other can have fun
Look, I am not responding to shame the way you think, go play it. I design games in my freetime, and more than once I have been bit by making a mechanic that I saw as fun but in actuality was bonkers. I don't want to sit down and play the deck I described (leovold wheels), because I don't want to play this game, for all the same reasons I don't play vintage. Yes, it is casual, I don't deny that, but are you really sitting there telling me that means a cohesive thing? Some groups casual means a loose adherance to the rules, plus added houserules. Some groups it only means not for prizes. I personally play somewhere in the middle - I have fun ideas that I optimize. But I olay a wide variety of strategies, and any format where some are far better than others is going to attract that syle of play from all except those that actively want that underdog challenge. I am saying that combo and control are naturally advantaged so much that aggro is likely to die, and without aggro for the early pressure, combo needs to win before control can stabilize. The push is hyper efficient combo and strong permission based control.
Here is where the "casual format" problem comes in. People want to win, even if they have fun apart from winning, games become unappealing if there is no chance for victory (e.g. no one plays red/black when there isn't alcohol or some sort of punishment/reward involved). If it isn't true that everyone wants a chance to win, why is there an active debate about tutors/fast mana/(infinite) combo? Because the casual crowd, who is against those things, is upset at the advantage being able to win turn 2 gives, creating no chance for them to win. It is important to note though, that the person playing the degenerate deck also considers it a casual game, but expects people to be playing force of will, daze, and other ways to stop him. It is where the push and shove of the meta places people.
So how do we apply this - there is no way, except through official rules, to control how me and you approach this format. So when you show up with your dinosaur tribal, Huatli deck and I show up with degenerate combo, we both fail to have a good time because you didn't want to consider what could be broken, and I just picked the first thing that sounded good in the meta. And you know who is at fault? The game. It is set up to be easy to abuse so people are accidentally going to break it, and that is a flawed game.
The only way to fix it is to ban tons of stuff. Narset (both of them actually) is a good place to start, since there is too much that needs to be banned with her sticking around. Ugin the ineffable is likely another casualty, since he results in turn 4 all is dust, often. If it was simply have a walker, this format would be fine. The reliable backup of 2 combo pieces is likely too good.
Last piece: this is my diagnosis. I don't expect to have fun with it because it seems like a lot of things I don't like about games in general. That shouldn't matter to you - play casually. Have fun. If you don't see this happening in your playgroup, it should be fine. I am not here to poopoo your fun, just me voicing my opinions, a random stranger, on the internet.
TBH, everyone so far has gone to the extreme the format can go. Make no mistake, I've tried the Narset + Windfall thing, its just as misery inducing as you'd expect, but lets apply this same logic to our beloved EDH and assume everyone runs Flash Hulk and Shimmer Zur builds right?
This is absolutely has to be treated casually or else it would just be "solved" by playing U/X Planeswalker with severe lockdown. Interesting to note though, Black got two 1cmc removal spells for 'Walkers in WAR that work well to hammer these strategies using broken spell + PW combos in the zone.
Flash Hulk - not in the command zone
Zur - easy to kill, needs to attack to tutor the first piece.
You may think that people should build casually but the second you tell someone they can have 2 specific cards in their command zone they are going to try to build synergistically.
I don't think people are going to go with Domri Rade and Overrun. They are going to do Nissa, Worldwaker and Primal Surge. Even if their goal isn't to do the most busted thing possible, they will try to choose cards based on synergy.
If you took regular EDH and said every deck could have a spell in the command zone it would be even more problematic. Having to build around one legendary creature is fun. Building around 2 cards is inherently going to skew people towards decks that always try to win the same way. If you told me I could build around any Legendary Creature and a land card it would still be broken. You cannot give people that much consistency to deploy a strategy. Then it might as well be a turn 1-3 format.
If this is what you want, drop the command zone and play Legacy or Vintage.
FWIW, it's not as broken as it seems. Sure, you can combo out of your command zone or run Demonic Tutor as your signature spell, but I think people are missing the fact that you have 20 life in a 4 player game. People don't like losing to combo and if that is your game plan it's telegraphed from the time you sit down and start shuffling. Well built Oathbreaker decks are much more low to the ground than EDH decks and if you start the game in an archenemy position chances are you are dead by turn 5 to combat damage. That's been my experience at least. Is the format broken? Sure. So is commander, yet it is either the most popular, or second most popular way to play magic, period. The vast majority of playgroups don't play cEDH because they don't find it fun, and the same will likely be true for Oathbreaker. Games are shorter because decks are more consistent. Thats a good thing for many playgroups. In my experience the avg game of Oathbreaker is 30-50 minutes and is usually pretty swingy and fun. It feels more like multiplayer modern than commander.
I was super skeptical before I tried the format but I've been pleasantly surprised and I wouldn't be surprised if the format takes off. If you don't want to try it nobody is forcing you to, but to call the format solved or broken without having played a game is flat out wrong.
It seems like it only exists for the crowd that wants to use PWs as commanders. On top of that, I have a hard time believing that it provides a gaming experience that's better than Commander, or altogether different from it.
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It’s different than commander in a big way actually, but better is entirely subjective. Games are much faster and aggro/burn is a force to be reckoned with. With the combination of a PW and a Spell in the zone you can also build around very focused game plans and build super consistent decks, much more so then EDH. It’s a 6-8 turn format vs a 8-12 turn format like EDH. I’ve had a total blast with it so far and I hope the format continues to grow. It’s a nice alternative way to play multiplayer when you don’t have time to sit down for a 90+ min EDH game. Just my thoughts.
It really depends on your play group and how they wanna have fun with this new casual format. For one, we added a CMC minimum to the Signature Spell. It has to be an instant or sorcery with CMC of 5 or greater thus minimizing all the broken combos out there. And we are a casual group by all means which is why we set this rule up within our group. Allows us to have fun with the new format. This would also NOT prevent us from playing windfall in the deck with the new Narset but it will prevent the lock if windfall was the Signature spell.
So, with that in mind.... One thing I'm not 100% on. If we chose a spell with an overload cost, such as say Cyclonic Rift, would the overload cost be affected by the Commander Tax? So the next time it was cast for it's overload cost it would be 9 instead of 7? And I do see that Cyclonic Rift wouldn't follow our 5 CMC rule. I was just using it as an example.
Here's my first draft of Oathbreaker. My rationale is that if I can have a sticky board presence and an aggressive clock, I can discourage my opponents from just running out their planeswalkers early, which in turn means they can't cast their Signature Spell. Garruk Wildspeaker works pretty well for this strategy since his +1 allows me to cast Worldly Tutor easily the turn I play him, which lets me fetch up the best creature for the current board state. This happens as early as turn 2, but most likely on turn 3. If not, I'm starting the beatdown early with a curve of creatures that are difficult to answer.
Mox Opal, Mox Diamond and company are all unbanned (whilst the other fast mana is). Tezzeret can get thrown out pretty early on and just start refueling whilst draining the table for 5+ life a turn, pretty significant in a 20 life format. On top of that, Thoughtcast is refueling the hand consistently for 1 Blue on demand. If that still isn't enough for you, he's casting Karn/Ugin/Blightsteel and friends for near enough free. There's too many angles of attack, with the ability to just return anything you needed with Tezzeret too.
Since Genesis Wave is such a sweet card to pull off, but I wanted to be a little less obvious about it, here's an example of what I'm running. It won't stand up to the decks looking to break the format in half, but making your beefy rampers indestructible whilst drawing you cards feels like a dream.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
While i like the idea, far too easy to break the format. Heck, get infinit mana and you can have lightning bolt as your signature spell. With only 60 card it will be much easier to assemble an infinite mana engine. Gemstione array to make that mana red and then just keep casting lightning bolt.
Or even make fireball your signature spell, no need for gemstone array, just one red and infinite colorless. (And koth of the hammer can actually pull it off with two chain veil activation and 7 mountains (in fact i think it works with only 5 mountains)
I think I will try breaking Koth. (And also build new Bolas (with the elderspell) superfriends)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KD7odddh-ik
The idea is to choose a Planeswalker as your Oathbreaker (a.k.a. Commander / General) and an Instant or Sorcery spell as your Signature Spell. The creators of this format Weird Cards, have settled on 60 Card Singleton / 20 Life as making most strategies viable though they also could've tested this format with 80 Card Singleton / 30 Life instead. Of course smaller library means less variation in successive games.
Keep in mind that there are two Command Zones in this format instead of one: Your Planeswalker being your Oathbreaker and a Signature Spell (Instant or Sorcery) that can only be cast while your Oathbreaker is on the battlefield and is subject to Commander Tax (think of the Triumph cycle from War of the Spark). You must pay 2 additional mana each time you recast your Oathbreaker and Signature Spell from the Command Zone.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
(Also known as Xenphire)
I think I would do Venser, the Sojourner with Supreme Verdict as my signature spell. Or is it Teferi, Hero of Dominaria? Meh, I think Narset, Transcendant would be good too.
Actually, maybe Teferi's Protection would be better as a signature spell.
Or Time Warp
Everything seems busted so why not just play vintage.
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
Saheeli, the Gifted is banned for example.
I like that it is 20 life and 60 cards only. This should provide much faster games than the usual 2 hour games in commander.
Edit: In edition you can build something without planing to break the format.
Board wipes and tutors certainly seem like the way to go in this format. The "signature spell" portion is what really sets off alarms in my mind. Having access to a tutor of board wipe constantly in every game is a recipe for disaster.
We do have to keep in mind that in order to cast the signature spell, you must have your Oathbreaker in play. Most people seem to forget about that. No turn 1 Faithless Looting into reanimate every turn 1 if you're playing a Rakdos Oathbreaker.
Me? While there seem to be a million broken things to do in this format, I really want to play fair. I was thinking either GW D&T with either Huatli, Radiant Champion or Ajani, Mentor of Heroes + Worldly Tutor or Gruul with Domri, Anarch of Bolas or Domri, Chaos Bringer + Worldly Tutor to ramp and get a bunch of uncounterable/indestructible/unsacrificeable creatures while ramping and fighting. I could also go mono-green with Garruk Wildspeaker + Worldly Tutor to ramp even faster + overrun, while still searching up sticky creatures. Seems like a decent plan in a field of nothing but boardwipes.
UGTurboFogGU
BRSacrificial AggroBR
16The Paper Pauper Battle Bag16
EDH
BRRakdos, Lord of PingersBR
GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
UB Ramses OverdarkUB
Sig by Ace5301 of Ace of Spades Studio
Doomsday is banned as well, which was literally my first thought.
The multiplayer thing reeks of "Grislebrand isn't too bad of a commander, everyone can see it and I am playing a fair deck, it won't ruin games" levels of naïveté. Yeah, there are social constraints, but a game where I spent 5 seconds of thought before breaking it (literally just searched the list of blue walkers and assumed something was there, it was) is flawed. Very few people are going to play the way the makers envisioned, Sheldon has this probken all the time in EDH. The health of a format can't be based in banning everything you don't like or trusting in people to build fair decks - presumably 2/3s of palyers are spikes or johnnys and Johnny wants to show off the interaction he thought of and spike wants to prove he can maximize the value of the system. R&D makes decisions on the worst possible outcome, not the best.
It is casual format. If you want to build a deck to show everybody that the format is broken go for it. Make your one game and proof everyone you are right. The other will likely never play against your deck again if it is that broken and you can move on while the other can have fun.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBfySRU7cNI&t=1313s
Here is a little game play video. It looks okay.
1 Teferi, Hero of Dominaria
1 Supreme Verdict
Instants
1 pollen lullaby
1 holy day
1 ethereal haze
1 teferi's protection
1 dawn charm
1 remand
1 counterspell
1 arcane denial
1 swan song
1 dovin's veto
1 negate
1 mana leak
1 angelsong
1 angel's grace
1 path to exile
1 swords to plowshares
1 brainstorm
1 Sphinx's Revelation
1 mana drain
1 nexus of fate
1 impulse
1 opt
1 dig through time
1 Oath of Teferi
1 snapcaster mage
1 narset transcendent
1 jace, the mind sculptor
1 deepglow skate
1 dovin, hand of control
1 teferi, time raveler
1 spark double
1 treasure cruise
1 Meddling Mage
1 Pithing Needle
1 sorcerer's spyglass
Land
1 Tundra
1 Glacial Fortress
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 polluted delta
1 flooded strand
1 misty rainforest
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Windswept Heath
1 Arid Mesa
1 marsh flats
1 strip mine
1 arcane lighthouse
1 Command Tower
1 Sea of Clouds
1 adarkar wastes
4 island
3 plains
1 Celestial Colonnade
I spent 5 minutes on this.
I believe this would be very unfun to play against. But I also think a format built around planeswalkers would be very controlling and having access to a spell at all times very warping.
I could also make a list for Or Liliana of the Dark Realms + Torment of Hailfire. The rest of the deck can be draw and board wipes and edicts.
Or the decks are full-on combo.
Like Tamiyo, Field Researcher + Finale of Devastation to get Deepglow Skate. I am sure with a tutor in the command zone you can figure something out to win very quickly.
I just don't get the format. Nothing looks fun.
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
This is absolutely has to be treated casually or else it would just be "solved" by playing U/X Planeswalker with severe lockdown. Interesting to note though, Black got two 1cmc removal spells for 'Walkers in WAR that work well to hammer these strategies using broken spell + PW combos in the zone.
Look, I am not responding to shame the way you think, go play it. I design games in my freetime, and more than once I have been bit by making a mechanic that I saw as fun but in actuality was bonkers. I don't want to sit down and play the deck I described (leovold wheels), because I don't want to play this game, for all the same reasons I don't play vintage. Yes, it is casual, I don't deny that, but are you really sitting there telling me that means a cohesive thing? Some groups casual means a loose adherance to the rules, plus added houserules. Some groups it only means not for prizes. I personally play somewhere in the middle - I have fun ideas that I optimize. But I olay a wide variety of strategies, and any format where some are far better than others is going to attract that syle of play from all except those that actively want that underdog challenge. I am saying that combo and control are naturally advantaged so much that aggro is likely to die, and without aggro for the early pressure, combo needs to win before control can stabilize. The push is hyper efficient combo and strong permission based control.
Here is where the "casual format" problem comes in. People want to win, even if they have fun apart from winning, games become unappealing if there is no chance for victory (e.g. no one plays red/black when there isn't alcohol or some sort of punishment/reward involved). If it isn't true that everyone wants a chance to win, why is there an active debate about tutors/fast mana/(infinite) combo? Because the casual crowd, who is against those things, is upset at the advantage being able to win turn 2 gives, creating no chance for them to win. It is important to note though, that the person playing the degenerate deck also considers it a casual game, but expects people to be playing force of will, daze, and other ways to stop him. It is where the push and shove of the meta places people.
So how do we apply this - there is no way, except through official rules, to control how me and you approach this format. So when you show up with your dinosaur tribal, Huatli deck and I show up with degenerate combo, we both fail to have a good time because you didn't want to consider what could be broken, and I just picked the first thing that sounded good in the meta. And you know who is at fault? The game. It is set up to be easy to abuse so people are accidentally going to break it, and that is a flawed game.
The only way to fix it is to ban tons of stuff. Narset (both of them actually) is a good place to start, since there is too much that needs to be banned with her sticking around. Ugin the ineffable is likely another casualty, since he results in turn 4 all is dust, often. If it was simply have a walker, this format would be fine. The reliable backup of 2 combo pieces is likely too good.
Last piece: this is my diagnosis. I don't expect to have fun with it because it seems like a lot of things I don't like about games in general. That shouldn't matter to you - play casually. Have fun. If you don't see this happening in your playgroup, it should be fine. I am not here to poopoo your fun, just me voicing my opinions, a random stranger, on the internet.
Flash Hulk - not in the command zone
Zur - easy to kill, needs to attack to tutor the first piece.
You may think that people should build casually but the second you tell someone they can have 2 specific cards in their command zone they are going to try to build synergistically.
I don't think people are going to go with Domri Rade and Overrun. They are going to do Nissa, Worldwaker and Primal Surge. Even if their goal isn't to do the most busted thing possible, they will try to choose cards based on synergy.
If you took regular EDH and said every deck could have a spell in the command zone it would be even more problematic. Having to build around one legendary creature is fun. Building around 2 cards is inherently going to skew people towards decks that always try to win the same way. If you told me I could build around any Legendary Creature and a land card it would still be broken. You cannot give people that much consistency to deploy a strategy. Then it might as well be a turn 1-3 format.
If this is what you want, drop the command zone and play Legacy or Vintage.
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 was super skeptical before I tried the format but I've been pleasantly surprised and I wouldn't be surprised if the format takes off. If you don't want to try it nobody is forcing you to, but to call the format solved or broken without having played a game is flat out wrong.
Yeva (88/92 foils)
Raff
Scarab
Rakdos
Wort ($50 budget, 94/97 foils)
Trostani
It seems like it only exists for the crowd that wants to use PWs as commanders. On top of that, I have a hard time believing that it provides a gaming experience that's better than Commander, or altogether different from it.
My 720 Peasant Cube
So, with that in mind.... One thing I'm not 100% on. If we chose a spell with an overload cost, such as say Cyclonic Rift, would the overload cost be affected by the Commander Tax? So the next time it was cast for it's overload cost it would be 9 instead of 7? And I do see that Cyclonic Rift wouldn't follow our 5 CMC rule. I was just using it as an example.
I'm currently playing Pithing Needle, Sorcerous Spyglass and Phyrexian Revoker. Is this overkill on planeswalker answers? The nice part is I can tutor for revoker with my Tutor.
1 Garruk Wildspeaker
1 Worldly Tutor
Ramp (8)
1 Utopia Sprawl
1 Wild Growth
1 Arbor Elf
1 Llanowar Elves
1 Fertile Ground
1 Paradise Druid
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
Creatures (20)
1 Strangleroot Geist
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Prowling Serpopard
1 Rhonas the Indomitable
1 Eternal Witness
1 Dungrove Elder
1 Yeva, Nature's Herald
1 Temur Sabertooth
1 Nylea, God of the Hunt
1 Nullhide Ferox
1 Vorapede
1 Greenwarden of Murasa
1 Bane of Progress
1 Carnage Tyrant
1 Cloudthresher
1 Mistcutter Hydra
1 Genesis Hydra
1 Lifeblood Hydra
Spells (8)
1 Berserk
1 Pithing Needle
1 Vines of Vastwood
1 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Sorcerous Spyglass
1 Song of the Dryads
1 Elemental Bond
Lands (23)
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Mosswort Bridge
1 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
1 Gaea's Cradle
1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
17 Forest
UGTurboFogGU
BRSacrificial AggroBR
16The Paper Pauper Battle Bag16
EDH
BRRakdos, Lord of PingersBR
GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
UB Ramses OverdarkUB
Sig by Ace5301 of Ace of Spades Studio
Mox Opal, Mox Diamond and company are all unbanned (whilst the other fast mana is). Tezzeret can get thrown out pretty early on and just start refueling whilst draining the table for 5+ life a turn, pretty significant in a 20 life format. On top of that, Thoughtcast is refueling the hand consistently for 1 Blue on demand. If that still isn't enough for you, he's casting Karn/Ugin/Blightsteel and friends for near enough free. There's too many angles of attack, with the ability to just return anything you needed with Tezzeret too.
More enjoyable things I've faced have been like Nissa, Who Shakes the World with Genesis Wave, or Arlinn Kord and Moonmist making Werewolf tribal actually seem playable.
https://www.reddit.com/r/oathbreaker_MtG/
1 Jiang Yanggu, Wildcrafter
1 Inspiring Call
Creature (25)
1x Arbor Elf
1x Armorcraft Judge
1x Avenger of Zendikar
1x Bane of Progress
1x Beast Whisperer
1x Boreal Druid
1x Champion of Lambholt
1x Craterhoof Behemoth
1x Elvish Mystic
1x Endless One
1x Eternal Witness
1x Fyndhorn Elves
1x Gyre Sage
1x Incubation Druid
1x Ivy Lane Denizen
1x Kalonian Hydra
1x Llanowar Elves
1x Marwyn, the Nurturer
1x Reclamation Sage
1x Rishkar, Peema Renegade
1x Sakura-Tribe Elder
1x Scrounging Bandar
1x Ugin's Conjurant
1x Verdurous Gearhulk
1x Walking Ballista
1x Beast Within
1x Benefactor's Draught
1x Nature's Claim
1x Solidarity of Heroes
Sorcery (2)
1x Genesis Wave
1x Shamanic Revelation
Artifact (1)
1x Paradox Engine
Enchantment (3)
1x Concordant Crossroads
1x Durable Handicraft
1x Song of the Dryads
Planeswalker (1)
1x Nissa, Voice of Zendikar
Land (22)
18x Forest
1x Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
1x Oran-Rief, the Vastwood
1x Scavenger Grounds
1x Strip Mine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHGsrne17XM
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
Wow this is dumb.
Koth/Torch of Defiance + Lightning Bolt/Price of Progress...
Steel Sabotage'ng Orbs of Mellowness since 2011.
Or even make fireball your signature spell, no need for gemstone array, just one red and infinite colorless. (And koth of the hammer can actually pull it off with two chain veil activation and 7 mountains (in fact i think it works with only 5 mountains)
I think I will try breaking Koth. (And also build new Bolas (with the elderspell) superfriends)