Absolutely, but I think it would be more competitively viable, and reduce the amount of tracking.
I think having a set number your Commander needs to reach is a bit easier to track than needing to do comparative math every time your life total changes from anything after a Commander hits you once. (Plus you can end up in weird situations where "X Commander hit me for 10, Y Commander hit me for 10, I've just been drained by player 3, my life total is now 20, who do I lose to for the purposes of rules?")
Yeah, just pointing out that Brawl not having Commander Damage is no more a sign that "WotC thinks Commander Damage shouldn't exist" than 1v1 Commander not allowing partner meant WotC thought it was a bad mechanic they should never have printed.
I mean, by that same argument, isn't 1v1 Commander a sign that WotC is trying to get rid of the Partner mechanic?
Brawl is a different format. You have smaller decks, greater restrictions on deck lists, and can use Planeswalkers as commanders. They might not have had Commander Damage to encourage people using Planeswalkers as well as creatures. Or they might have decided it's a bad rule.
Maybe WotC doesn't like Commander damage as a mechanic, I'll happily concede that. I literally can't know one way or the other. I haven't personally seen anything on CD, but people at WotC have commented on things they don't like, like MaRo and his intense dislike of political cards.
Personally, I don't think it's a bad rule. It means that even relatively vanilla legends can be useful beyond just deck flavor.
Among other things, if WotC did go with a Commander Damage matters as a theme for a deck or color, it would give them an excuse to make tracking tokens, like with poison. Which could make that general process easier.
I thought commander damage was never mentioned because of how tedious tracking it can get sometimes. It's why the consolidated commander damage argument comes up every once in a while.
I won't disagree that Commander Damage can be quite tedious to manage, especially with things like Partner and stealing effects and copies and what not. That might be due, in part at least, to the fact that few decks focus on it as a win condition. When it's something extraneous, something no one is aiming for, it does feel like weird rules baggage that is difficult to track. If a deck is focused on it, however, I think it'd be something easier to track (if for no other reason than someone's win con is literally based on tracking it.)
Yeah, Kediss, Emberclaw Familiar feels like a real missed opportunity for “commander damage matters” - perhaps a deliberate one. Some altered rules functionality along the lines of “whenever a creature/commander you control deals combat damage to an opponent, it deals that much combat damage to each other opponent” would have sufficed.
Anyone remember how powerful Erhnam Djinn was back in the day? I can’t help but feel that’s a good analogue for where white should be right now. Flavor wise, “yes I’m really strong, but I abide by a certain code of honor to compensate” strikes me as eminently suitable.
Actually, Erhnam Djinn specifically makes me wonder if you could build something out of a White deck that wants to be attacked. Like an Reverse-Goad, "Until your next turn, that creature attacks each combat if able and attacks you if able." It'd be a unique playstyle for the format, I think, while fitting in White's color pie by encouraging you to "martyr" yourself to "protect" the others. But it'd definitely be difficult to balance, because the rewards for being attacked would need to be really good, while not completely alleviating the fact that you're being attacked as often as possible. (And also not get tied up in Ghostly Prison effects.)
I have a strong feeling that WotC personally hate the "21 commander damage rule" (and I can perfectly understand the reasons behind it) and that's why it's a thing that in 10 years of commander product was never mentioned in any single card (and probably never will), because they have no interest in supporting it, but since they do not control the rules of the format but the Rules Commitee, they can't officially delete it either. In fact, when WotC did their own commander variant, Brawl, they dislike commander damage so much that it doesn't exist as a rule in that format completely.
As for Commander Damage not being a thing in Brawl, I think that's more because of the 25 life, 60 cards, one on one thing, rather than because they dislike Commander Damage. The difference between 21 damage and 25 damage is very small, and in a stalled board you can run through two sixty card decks much faster than four one-hundred card decks. Commander Damage is just another potential valve for ending the game faster.
That's an interesting idea, and something I don't actually think wotc has explored at all, despite jumping into a lot of other areas of commander design space. I could see something like a legend, creature, or enchantment that let all your creatures deal commander damage, or all creatures of a certain type. Maybe even something that reduced the required commander damage for opponents.
Given White's current love of Equipment, maybe there's something in a White Equipment that says "Equipped creature deals combat damage as though it was your Commander. If the equipped creature is your Commander, it gains double strike." Or something to that effect.
I wonder if White could end up as the color to play around with Commander Damage? They care about combat, they care about "fairness," and they definitely care about building up and protecting creatures, so it feels like it would be in their wheelhouse.
This is the most recent image of the Raven Man.
Tivash looks similar, but I think it's more a coincidence. (Green eyes on Tivash, different style of cloak, a bit more lithe and youthful than the Raven Man), Liliana is on the plane to look for a way to revive Gideon, as mentioned in the first story.
Yeah, that seems to be the case. It's one of those situations like Damage on the Stack, where it completely alters how a small subset of cards work, but not enough to make those cards worth getting errata.
That's a lot of assumptions based off of a rumor started by a hypothetical survey that you heard about second hand. But sure.
Well, damn, guess you got me there. This is the "only talk about verified things and don't assume anything" forum. Thanks for showing me the error of my ways. I will correct this grave mistake in the future.
Meh, it also feels like they do more and more of these each year. This year being behind doesn't mean much since these typically drop in batches. I'm sure once actual details of this arrive it'll be easier to evaluate.
That early access is worth quite a bit. If I can get the product to resell before others, it sells for more. Reselling SLs is already pretty profitable overall,and pretty easy, especially in the days immediately following the first deliveries.
That's assuming you get the product first and not just "Get to order the product first, with everything shipping at once." I also wasn't assuming purchasing for turning purposes, but I suppose that's on me.
They certainly create more product every year, as I've listed in another thread, but Secret Lairs have only been around since 2019. 2020 is the best data we can work off of, and we're already a third of the way through the year. Theros Stargazing and Secret Lair Drop: Smitten were comparable sets of five, as are Secret Lair: International Women's Day and Secret Lair: Black is Magic (being more charity based drops). But by this point last year, we'd also had the Year of the Rat, and Thalia. If Strixhaven only gets one Secret Lair, it'll be comparable to the Godzilla Lands Secret Lair.
You also made me curious again, so let’s toss in some extra math. I bought one Secret Lair in 2020. Assuming my receipt is correct, it cost 5 dollars to ship to me. I’m in the Midwest, so it probably costs more to ship to the East Coast, but I can only work with the information I have.
Assuming that every box costs 5 dollars to ship, with a 10% discount, I would need to buy 18 Secret Lairs to exceed the cost of the Subscription. Specifically going off of my list: Year of the Rat through non-foil Happy Yargle Day!, purchasing both foil and non-foil, gets me to $150 in discounts and free shipping.
From foil "Happy Yargle Day!" onwards, the savings add up to $110.
EDIT: Missed 3 places where shipping could have been added, upping the savings at the end from $95 to $110.
This is all assuming that the shipping, early access, and merch are worth $0
I did explicitly say in that final paragraph that free shipping would likely drive that price closer to the cost of the subscription.
Early Access may as well be $0, however. Unless WotC decides that early access is also the only access for a product they've been printing to demand, which, hey, they could do.
I didn't see anything in the thread about merch, so, I don't know. Did it specify that the merch would be free, or is it just something unique that you get to buy if you have a subscription?
EDIT: To be clear, I was also specifically responding to the idea that the 10% discount alone was worth the price of admission, like you said earlier.
I was curious how much you’d “save” with the 10% off, so I took a look at 2020 as a base.
Here are the sets available during that time period, as well as their price and the number of cards included:
Year of the Rat; $39.99; 8 cards
Theros Stargazing Volumes I-V; $39.99 each or $149.99 for all five; between 3 and 15 cards
International Women’s Day; $49.99; 5 cards
Thalia – Beyond the Helvault; $29.99; 4 cards
April Fools; $0.00; 4 cards (only game stores could get these, but those were gifts too)
The Godzilla Lands; $29.99; 5 cards
*Full Sleeves: The Tattoo Pack; $29.99; 5 cards
*Can You Feel with a Heart of Steel?; $39.99; 3 cards
*The Path Not Traveled; $39.99; 4 cards
*Mountain, Go; $29.99; 4 cards
*Ornithological Studies; $29.99; 5 cards
(* These sets were part of the Summer Superdrop, and thus could be combined for $169.95, which gives 1 random fetch land from the Secret Lair Ultimate Edition)
Prime Slime; $29.99; 5 cards
Every Dog Has Its Day; $29.99 (non-foil), or $39.99 (foil); 4 cards
Happy Yargle Day!; $29.99 (non-foil), or $39.99 (foil); 5 cards
Showcase: Zendikar Revisited; $29.99 (non-foil), or $39.99 (foil); 5 cards
(** These sets were part of the Secret Lair Secretversary, and thus could be bundled in one of three ways: $99.99 for all non-foil sets; $139.99 for all foil sets; $229.99 for all sets)
So, to get absolutely everything from the 2020 Secret Lairs, bundling where possible and not accounting for taxes and shipping, you spend $1,049.81. This nets you 156 cards, in a mix of foils and non-foils, and not counting “secrets” like the Stained-Glass Planeswalkers.
If you weren’t getting both version of the sets available in foil and non-foil, this lowers to either $899.83 (for foils) or $839.83 (for non-foils) and 123 cards.
Now, we don’t know exactly what WotC is going to do as far as the subscription goes. They could choose to bundle things up, or they could choose to do it individually. They may charge for both foil and non-foil, or they may just leave it at one. They may force subscribers to buy everything, or they may allow you to skip on Secret Lairs you don’t want. We don’t know.
Let’s assume the worst: signing up for this charges you the highest amount I listed. It bundles some together, but double dips on foils and non-foils.
A 10% discount saves you…$104.98.
Assuming the 4 “subscriber only” secret lairs cost $39.99 a piece, that 10% discount jumps up to…$120.98.
Now, to be excessively fair, free shipping will likely drive those numbers a little closer to the cost of the subscription. But as it stands, paying $149 ($12.42 a month) for a 10% discount does not pay for itself. Not unless WotC prints more Secret Lairs this year than they did last year, and signs aren’t looking great there. By this time last year, we’d already had 2 more Secret Lairs than the current count.
I think having a set number your Commander needs to reach is a bit easier to track than needing to do comparative math every time your life total changes from anything after a Commander hits you once. (Plus you can end up in weird situations where "X Commander hit me for 10, Y Commander hit me for 10, I've just been drained by player 3, my life total is now 20, who do I lose to for the purposes of rules?")
Brawl is a different format. You have smaller decks, greater restrictions on deck lists, and can use Planeswalkers as commanders. They might not have had Commander Damage to encourage people using Planeswalkers as well as creatures. Or they might have decided it's a bad rule.
Maybe WotC doesn't like Commander damage as a mechanic, I'll happily concede that. I literally can't know one way or the other. I haven't personally seen anything on CD, but people at WotC have commented on things they don't like, like MaRo and his intense dislike of political cards.
Personally, I don't think it's a bad rule. It means that even relatively vanilla legends can be useful beyond just deck flavor.
I won't disagree that Commander Damage can be quite tedious to manage, especially with things like Partner and stealing effects and copies and what not. That might be due, in part at least, to the fact that few decks focus on it as a win condition. When it's something extraneous, something no one is aiming for, it does feel like weird rules baggage that is difficult to track. If a deck is focused on it, however, I think it'd be something easier to track (if for no other reason than someone's win con is literally based on tracking it.)
Actually, Erhnam Djinn specifically makes me wonder if you could build something out of a White deck that wants to be attacked. Like an Reverse-Goad, "Until your next turn, that creature attacks each combat if able and attacks you if able." It'd be a unique playstyle for the format, I think, while fitting in White's color pie by encouraging you to "martyr" yourself to "protect" the others. But it'd definitely be difficult to balance, because the rewards for being attacked would need to be really good, while not completely alleviating the fact that you're being attacked as often as possible. (And also not get tied up in Ghostly Prison effects.)
As for Commander Damage not being a thing in Brawl, I think that's more because of the 25 life, 60 cards, one on one thing, rather than because they dislike Commander Damage. The difference between 21 damage and 25 damage is very small, and in a stalled board you can run through two sixty card decks much faster than four one-hundred card decks. Commander Damage is just another potential valve for ending the game faster.
Given White's current love of Equipment, maybe there's something in a White Equipment that says "Equipped creature deals combat damage as though it was your Commander. If the equipped creature is your Commander, it gains double strike." Or something to that effect.
Tivash looks similar, but I think it's more a coincidence. (Green eyes on Tivash, different style of cloak, a bit more lithe and youthful than the Raven Man), Liliana is on the plane to look for a way to revive Gideon, as mentioned in the first story.
Well, damn, guess you got me there. This is the "only talk about verified things and don't assume anything" forum. Thanks for showing me the error of my ways. I will correct this grave mistake in the future.
That's assuming you get the product first and not just "Get to order the product first, with everything shipping at once." I also wasn't assuming purchasing for turning purposes, but I suppose that's on me.
They certainly create more product every year, as I've listed in another thread, but Secret Lairs have only been around since 2019. 2020 is the best data we can work off of, and we're already a third of the way through the year. Theros Stargazing and Secret Lair Drop: Smitten were comparable sets of five, as are Secret Lair: International Women's Day and Secret Lair: Black is Magic (being more charity based drops). But by this point last year, we'd also had the Year of the Rat, and Thalia. If Strixhaven only gets one Secret Lair, it'll be comparable to the Godzilla Lands Secret Lair.
You also made me curious again, so let’s toss in some extra math. I bought one Secret Lair in 2020. Assuming my receipt is correct, it cost 5 dollars to ship to me. I’m in the Midwest, so it probably costs more to ship to the East Coast, but I can only work with the information I have.
Assuming that every box costs 5 dollars to ship, with a 10% discount, I would need to buy 18 Secret Lairs to exceed the cost of the Subscription. Specifically going off of my list: Year of the Rat through non-foil Happy Yargle Day!, purchasing both foil and non-foil, gets me to $150 in discounts and free shipping.
From foil "Happy Yargle Day!" onwards, the savings add up to $110.
EDIT: Missed 3 places where shipping could have been added, upping the savings at the end from $95 to $110.
I did explicitly say in that final paragraph that free shipping would likely drive that price closer to the cost of the subscription.
Early Access may as well be $0, however. Unless WotC decides that early access is also the only access for a product they've been printing to demand, which, hey, they could do.
I didn't see anything in the thread about merch, so, I don't know. Did it specify that the merch would be free, or is it just something unique that you get to buy if you have a subscription?
EDIT: To be clear, I was also specifically responding to the idea that the 10% discount alone was worth the price of admission, like you said earlier.
Here are the sets available during that time period, as well as their price and the number of cards included:
If you weren’t getting both version of the sets available in foil and non-foil, this lowers to either $899.83 (for foils) or $839.83 (for non-foils) and 123 cards.
Now, we don’t know exactly what WotC is going to do as far as the subscription goes. They could choose to bundle things up, or they could choose to do it individually. They may charge for both foil and non-foil, or they may just leave it at one. They may force subscribers to buy everything, or they may allow you to skip on Secret Lairs you don’t want. We don’t know.
Let’s assume the worst: signing up for this charges you the highest amount I listed. It bundles some together, but double dips on foils and non-foils.
A 10% discount saves you…$104.98.
Assuming the 4 “subscriber only” secret lairs cost $39.99 a piece, that 10% discount jumps up to…$120.98.
Now, to be excessively fair, free shipping will likely drive those numbers a little closer to the cost of the subscription. But as it stands, paying $149 ($12.42 a month) for a 10% discount does not pay for itself. Not unless WotC prints more Secret Lairs this year than they did last year, and signs aren’t looking great there. By this time last year, we’d already had 2 more Secret Lairs than the current count.