MTG Salvation

Quote from CrimsonWings_3689 »

I see having more than 100 cards as being a problem because the deck construction limits a deck to 100 cards, including the commander. To have wishes function serves only to circumvent that rule, after games are started.

Then do you also have a problem with Shadowborn Apostle for circumventing the singleton rule?

Quote from CrimsonWings_3689 »

The choices at that point seem clear... Enable wishes and see games devolve into longer games with wish/sideboards like it is in constructed formats with silver bullets and see a newly printed, fair card be banned. (one that plenty of people will have with the new set) OR leave wishes where they are and allow individual play groups to determine what wishes mean or don't for them.

Frankly the majority of your post sounds like fearmongering to me. Someone ruining the game by Wishing for an Armageddon versus someone ruining the game by just playing Armageddon seems like a distinction without a difference. Is it possible people will only include a bunch of awful cards in their Wishboards, like Acid Rain? Sure, I guess. But making it sound like literally everyone will do that all the time seems a bit disingenuous. It would be like me warning you off of playing EDH at all because the only things that get played are hardcore combo decks that win on T4. Do some people play those decks? Yes. But it's certainly not indicative of the entire experience. We should be trying to figure out how the average player would use Wishes if they were legal worked at all.

Quote from MRHblue »

Your refusal to acknowledge some cards do things besides get cards from outside the game does not stop that from being an actual reason.

The rule has been around for a while, but so have cards that do something else. (EDIT : 2006)

You are using circular logic, and Wishes won't be banned or allowed to work as written.

A bad reason, in the same way having a rule that says "Effects can't prevent players from drawing cards" because the other half of Leovold, Emissary of Trest is fun is a bad rule.

As for the cards that predate the rule... oh wow a terrible punisher version of Jace's Ingenuity and probably the worst of the large Eldrazi. Cool. I can continue never seeing either of those cards ever played. Good thing the RC carved out a space to protect these two random cards, or else we might have had to make due with real, less awful cards.

What will happen and what should happen are often different. That doesn't change anything.

Quote from TheAmericanSpirit »

Also, banning them outright disallows people who do currently enjoy them and blanket legalization foists them upon people who don't wanna worry about super tutors with their own sideboards. Saying they formally do nothing is actually a kind of brilliant; it's hardline enough to keep wishes out of most games, but built on stuff flimsy enough for the people who do really want them to generate conversations and arguments with their lgs or playgroups about letting wishes fly.

Black and white is very clear, but gray stuff can be fine too.

This is literally why they just added Rule 0. If you want to play them you have to houserule them. Them being fake banned or actually banned doesn't change that.

Quote from Kamino_Taka »

The Problem with that approach is the cards that do more than just wish and that part is fine. You wouldn't wanna ban Fractured Powerstone just because the second ability has no effect , same with Mastermind's Acquisition or Research // Development. So a blanket ban is undesirable. And a specific ban on those who only wish is the single card errata on those that don't. Banning all is only a "clean" solution if you do the same for Fractured Powerstone, draft matters cards.

The only 'real' card that would be hit as collateral is Karn, the Great Creator. The rest are either Wishes, underpowered jank nobody is playing anyways, or have functionally identical counterparts. But all of that is beside the point because this obviously wasn't even a concern for the RC seeing as how most of these cards didn't even exist when they created this rule. Rule 13 is, for all intents and purposes, a ban on Wishes without actually being a ban because that's what it was designed to be.

As for your other suggestions, it's not the same. Fractured Powerstone and draft-matters cards behave exactly how they are supposed to in a game of EDH. Same thing goes with Battle of Wits which people keep mentioning. All of these cards work as the rules say they do. Burning Wish does not. Its rules text has been explicitly removed by the RC. It's essentially format-specific errata, just like Karakas used to have. And we all know what happened there.

Quote from cryogen »

Quote from JqlGirl »

A question for everyone complaining about Rule 13 re: Wishes, etc.:
Nothing functionally changed in the rule with this update, so why is everyone getting all argumentative about it now?

Probably because they want wishes to work and this update showed that you guys discussed them and didnt reach a conclusion they liked.

Or, because it continues to be a poor solution. It's the same as if the RC added a hypothetical "Rule 14: Relentless Rats-type effects do not work in Commander." It's an example of the RC going out of their way to remove functionality from cards without actually banning the cards in question because... reasons? It is absurdly close to card-specific errata, and there is simply no reason for it. Either Wishes are fine and should be legal to work how they work, or they're not and they should be banned. There's no middle ground here.

Quote from RileyMcAwesome »

Paliano, the High City doesn't explain how it doesn't do anything either... Wishes specify outside the game, conspiracy cards specify drafting. I'm seriously not seeing any difference. You're granting that the average EDH player is smart enough to know that draft cards don't work when you don't draft but not that sideboard tutors don't work when there aren't sideboards?

"If you control Paliano, the High City but you didn’t draft a card named Paliano, the High City, its second ability won’t add mana to your mana pool. Notably, Paliano won’t produce colorless mana."

"In a sanctioned event, a card that’s “outside the game” is one that’s in your sideboard. In an unsanctioned event, you may choose any card from your collection."

Yeah. Weird why I might think that.

Quote from BounceBurnBuff »

"Sideboards don't exist in commander, therefore the card does not function."

End of the conversation, there isn't a "no, but" required.

Except the card is legal to play. Why?

It's not even mentioned on the ban list page on the "Official Commander Rules" site. Add a section for cards that reference "outside the game" and list them out real quick. That's all that needs to be done.

Quote from BounceBurnBuff »

Between new Karn and Mastermind's Acquisition, Wizards has shown they're open to printing more effects of this type into the game, so increasing the banlist every time one of these gets printed on day 1 is a far less elegant way than simply denying the function full stop.

It really isn't any more elegant. The fact that I am legally allowed to put a card in my deck, cast that card, and then perform exactly zero game actions is as inelegant as it gets. Wishes are effectively banned, they're just not listed on the ban list. That's inelegant. If a new player asks me "is Burning Wish banned" I shouldn't have to say "no, but..." and then a long-winded explanation. That's inelegant.

It is extremely obvious the RC want the Wishes banned but simply don't want to make the banned list look larger. Just bite the bullet and add them to the list.

Quote from JqlGirl »

We reworked Rule 13 due to some ongoing confusion over the “officialness” of sideboards and wish boards. While (here comes Rule 0 again) we support local groups deciding what’s best for themselves in this regard, we wanted to clarify for the broader audience that no one can force you into letting “outside the game” cards work in a different way.

And this continues to be the worst possible option. If you don't want people to use wishes, simply ban them. Having a dozen or so cards legal but with literally no functional game text is just bonkers. Who exactly is this rule for? Isn't this the literal exact reason ya'll made Rule 0 for in the first place?

Quote from whiffy penguin »

Cool cool cool you want to play the lottery. Have fun opening packs looking for specific cards.

Other then buying singles this is the best way to get high value singles to trade or sell and you pay a bargain price. I also get to draft with my friends in a no stakes environment.

The masterpieces you want are bad for the game. They devalue all the cards in the set they come from. Do you really want to go back to Kaladesh and have lottery tickets, oh. Also all the Rares are worth a dollar because the masterpieces eat up all the value equity?

I like how you say it's playing a lottery right before mentioning that simply buying singles is obviously the best way to get specific cards. If you want a specific Masterpiece you can buy it as a single like anything else. It's not playing the lottery.

As for your other "point"... yes that was kind of the intention when they added Masterpieces in the first place. In fact, it was literally the first reason listed in MaRo's introductory article for the product:

Now that I've explained what we're doing, it's time to talk about how the Masterpiece Series came about and why we've chosen to do it. The short answer is that we've faced a number of challenges as Magic has grown, and we found that many of those challenges were addressed with Zendikar Expeditions. I'm going to start my explanation by walking through some of the challenges we've faced.

Challenge #1: Keeping Standard Accessible

Standard is the most-played Constructed format. It's designed as an entry point for players who wish to play Constructed Magic. Through market research and social media, we learned that many of the players who were interested in playing Standard felt it was something beyond their reach. We had to find ways to address this.

Having Standard decks that don't cost hundreds of dollars? Outrageous! I know, it's weird that people actually want to play their game without having to consider the financial ramifications. So what?

Quote from whiffy penguin »

So it’s not that it’s a garbage product it’s that you can’t afford it.

Yeah, I'm sure that's what it is. Do you also enjoy paying exorbitant fees for a cable television package when all you really want are a few channels? Because that's exactly what the Mythic Edition is. It's a bundle of things nobody actually wants together. Are you a collector? Cool, here's an extra $100 fee for a bunch of loose WAR packs you don't actually want. Neato.

The reason I'm upset is because when WotC announced they'd be putting the Masterpiece series on hiatus, I assumed that to mean it would eventually return under it's old form. If WotC considers the Mythic Edition to be a continuation of the Masterpiece series (as evidenced by the fact the cards say "Masterpiece" on them) then yes, I'm very disappointed because it means we'll likely never see Expeditions/Inventions/Invocations again in standard packs. That's a shame, because those were a good idea that with a few minor tweaks could have been great. Instead we got this cash-grab nonsense that only benefits scalpers.

Quote from GloriousGoose »

I guess just casting Maelstrom Wanderer is a combo, now.

Speeds it up a turn? Are you kidding me? Do you realistically see Wanderer coming out on turn 4 without Ring or Crypt? Does Yisan combo out on turn 3 (maybe 4, I can't remember) without the assistance of fast mana? No, fast mana speeds up the game by at least two turns, more if they use their fast mana to ramp even more. By comboing out earlier, they decrease the chance of interaction. Please, tell me you get the correlation between fast mana and comboing out early.

Besides, what's your solution to combo? I'm all ears.

Banning fast mana not only slows combo down, but stops starts like the one I had, which was almost equally as ridiculous.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think 2 turns is the fastest sol ring/crypt can speed up anything (ignoring interactions that let them generate extra mana like voltaic key or combos where they're part of the combo, etc, and assuming players always make land drops). Just wait 2 turns for them to play 2 extra lands, and then do exactly the same thing that they would have done with fast mana. They'll have the exact same play pattern, except ignoring those two turns waiting to play lands.

I'm pretty sure fast mana will generally accelerate plays between 1-2 turns. Which is still fairly absurd in a lot of cases - the MW player, for example, without crypt, would presumably have had T2 farseek, t3 explosive, giving 7 mana on turn 4, and a 5 mana MW. Compared to turn 3. That's a huge difference in terms of the sorts of answers that can reasonably be in place by that point in the game (oh and also screw MW that guy sucks).

Also I loathe this "well, you should just play against more morally upstanding people!" argument. Many of us play in LGSs or open groups where we can't just exclude people without being incredibly rude, and possibly not even being able to get a game - and that's assuming we already know that person and we aren't just going in blind. If the format only works for close friends, then that's a pretty stupid way to run a format. If you're so good at regulating fast mana yourself, then why not house UNBAN them???

Oh right, because everyone talks a big game about how other people should house rule stuff, but no one actually wants to do it. Because it sucks.

Gentle reminder that fast mana needs to be banned.

Played three games at my new store last night with Erebos against Maelstrom Wanderer and Yisan.

Game 1: Maelstrom Wanderer opened with Forest, Mana Crypt, Farseek on turn 1 followed by Explosive Vegetation on turn 2. He won that game.

Game 2: Yisan opened with Forest, Mana Crypt, Yisan on turn 1. He won that game.

Game 3: I opened with Swamp, Sol Ring, Coldsteel Heart on turn 1 followed by a turn 2 Swamp, Thought Vessel, and Erebos. I won that game.

The only thing memorable about these games is that fast mana was the deciding factor in who won the game. Well, I guess the Maelstrom Wanderer player giving me ***** for not doing much in games 1 and 2 being utterly dominated by me in game 3 was satisfying, but that's neither here nor there.

Quote from BlueTronFTW »

The art looks like they hired some feminist from Tumblr who specializes in making women look like twelve year old boys. Pressing F to pay respects.

I think there's more of a chance that people who say things like this wouldn't know what a women looks like if she smacked them across the face.

Quote from cryogen »

Well it doesn't win the game, and it is a 16 card combo. So.....

That's like calling coalition victory a 7 card combo.

I'm worried about things like turn 1 mana vault, turn two traumatize self, turn 3 a player dies. Then if someone answers besieged you have a player sitting out what could be a full commander game bored for an hour.

As far as I'm aware coalition victory is banned because of it's "win from no where" combined with ease of assembling the pieces. This seems pretty easy to assemble the pieces and, while not killing the whole table, killing one player only can often be socially more boring because sitting out while the game goes on is often worse.

I can't imagine anyone actually making you shuffle if you use his ability more than once without manipulation.

I don't see her getting banned. Spirit of the Labyrinth is fine. Notion Thief is fine.
She may be harder to target with spot removal but she is also harder to recur.

You would put...liliana of the dark realms in the banned category.

Can you take a step back and realize what you just said there?

Can you take a good hard look at what you just said there please?

Edit: I looked through the list of cards you think are problematic and most of those things are substantially worse than the average casual play I see. Commander is a powerful format. It takes a LOT for a card to be problematic.

I assume all newly printed commanders will no longer be legal at release, and instead evaluated for how "worthwhile" they are and what they can bring to the format.

Another reason that BaaC list is very weird is how often honestly do see a Commander like Derevi in the 99 of a deck anyway? Saying that if this is reinstated we will have to ban these Commanders who are just fine now feels very strange, also don't see many Arcum's running around not in the Commander spot.

Holding cards legality hostage that if that article is being honest they already have huge problems with.

Quote from Dunharrow »

Quote from Carthage »

Quote from Dunharrow »

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 find that knowing that the ultimate will end the game warps the game around that general. I think that certain generals, like Ajani Vengeant and Liliana of the Dark Realms, or Dovin Baan, will focus entirely on the getting to the ultimate. There will be no variability - they will all be those decks. It is hard to deal with a commander that can win the game by itself and is immune to boardwipes. You can hope to attack it... but these walkers only enable one deck - Spam boardwipes until you ult.

I don't think it's fun. I don't think it helps Commander.

Quote from Impossible »

Quote from Dunharrow »

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.

Combat is easy to interact with. you can block.
That is the difference. Two legendary creatures going at it is a race, or combat math....
Planeswalker commanders do not need combat damage, they can just keep the board clear and fog until the game is over.



I don't know... I think there are a lot of unfun generals that only enable turbo fog decks.

I think you are being extremely not generous to how people build decks to assume that all Walker led decks will be the same, we already have a bunch of Walkers that can be Commanders and those don't all turn into board wipe fests.

Like in the case of Dovin specifically

You are saying with that bit about him that you are more worried about someone paying 3 mana and not being disrupted for 4 turns in a row than someone playing the same effect of that accumulation for just the 3 mana in an artifact? If someone wants to take that much time to build to that effect sure why not, that doesn't seem like it is that much value or that powerful even.

Planeswalkers do not live that long in the Commander games I play now, I don't think peoples desires to keep them down will lessen at all if you make them the Commander. So much speculation and assumption that just feels off with how the cards are used at present.

I feel like the logic there is kinda weird. We brought a thing back so we have to add more things to it is very strange.