Commander is already a flat busted pay-to-win format when taken to its extreme. If you're worried about Tezzeret combo decks then you're worried about the wrong thing.
It's a casual format for people to have fun with, and from that perspective there's really no reason that PWs can't be allowed. Your friend can already stroll up with a busted Derevi or Edric or Teferi deck any time they want; the banlist isn't what's keeping this format together.
At the least they could do a 'legal for 1 month' thing for War of the Spark like they did with un-cards for Unstable.
A fun ante format for people with a single consistent playgroup who all like to play cheap jank cards, created based off of a format I saw other people playing at a LGS back when I was a kid...
The format uses vintage-legal cards, plus all ante cards.
There are four rules; earlier (i.e. lower-numbered) rules take precedence if two rules conflict.
1: At the start of each game, each player antes the top card of their library. When another player wins, you sign your name on the card you've ante'd (over top of previous signatures, if necessary) and the winner adds it to their deck.
2: You can never remove a signed card from your deck (that is, a card you won as an ante through rule 1).
3: Your deck must contain two of each non-waste basic land card, signed or not.
4: Your deck must contain exactly 60 cards. If you play multiple games in quick succession, don't worry about immediately replacing cards lost to ante.
I don't know that these are the exact rules they'd used; I never thought to ask at the time. There's a good chance I'm re-inventing a format that already exists and which I just haven't heard of. But the intent is the same: to end up with a mish-mash of random janky cards, and have a good time laughing at how horrible these decks eventually become.
Most satisfying win ever for me was at a 2HG Origins tournament during GenCon one year with my brother. We got to see a bunch of really neat costumes, and managed to take first place with an amazing comeback in the final round from 1 life while they were still at 30 (2HG being a best-of-1 format). My brother was in BG, I was in WU.
We stabilized with an Eyeblight Massacre into two Sentinels of the Eternal Watch, one after the other, that kept all the new creatures they played tapped down, knowing their red player had two Lightning Javelins just waiting to show up. Right when they built up enough of a board to be able to swing past the Sentinels next turn despite the taps, my brother played a timely Languish and we swung for the win the following turn.
It was a great time. We won a booster box and no other packs I've opened since have been quite so sweet.
I wouldn't call her a Mary Sue per se, but that's not to say there isn't a good deal of bad writing surrounding her.
What irks me the most is that this centuries-old planeswalker and master of black magic wouldn't figure out that the all-important contract for her soul defaults to Nicky when she kills all her demons. It's supposed to make Nicol Bolas look more clever and devious than her, but honestly it just makes her look stupid and incompetent instead.
That's my main problem with the whole Nicol Bolas arc. At every turn, WotC's idea of making Nicol Bolas seem like a mastermind is to just make everyone opposing him an idiot. I'm mostly okay with that being the case for the rest of the Gatewatch, since they're all relatively new at this whole planeswalker thing. But it ends up making Liliana a very unbelievable and short-sighted character that just doesn't gel with her own lore. And then she's just overpowered instead to try to make it look like she knows what she's doing.
You could make a planeswalker with all non-loyalty abilities.
Gatewatch United WUBRG
Legendary Planeswalker
~ has all loyalty abilities of all other planeswalkers you control
At the beginning of your upkeep, look at the top card of your library. If it's a planeswalker card you may put it onto the battlefield.
Gatewatch United can be your commander
5
That way grabbing more planeswalkers wouldn't mean you couldn't use a more meaningful loyalty ability, but it's worse at grabbing them to compensate.
I think that one also needs some rework too. +1/+1 and first strike is not really great effect when the opponent knows it's coming.
You might have a point if it was sorcery speed, but effects like Seal of Strength are very relevant since it changes combat math. You can still swing your two 2/2s past their 3/3, for example.
A name change wouldn't hurt, though.
I think all of these are great. As with any cycle of effects-based-on-color, some are going to be slightly preferable to others.
Though in a vacuum I'm left wondering why these are artifacts instead of instants, it's not hard to justify it in an artifact-centric or permanent-centric set, or in any set that wants a higher permanent count, like if revolt or ascend are in it.
The keyword 'imprint' shouldn't be used for a card outside of a set that features it; but the ability works just fine as-worded without the preceding 'imprint'
I honestly think this would be green over red, since green handles returning permanents and blue handles returning nonpermanents. The white is largely thematic, though also justifies the token theme and being able to potentially aid others.
So... what's the base creature then? "This artifact isn't a creature as long as it's part of a combined artifact creature." makes it sound like, if I join one combine creature to another, they both stop being creatures and I end up with two useless non-creature artifacts stuck to eachother.
It also doesn't state what happens if the base creature, whichever one that is, dies. Do the others also go into your graveyard, or do they go back to being their own thing like with Bestow creatures?
I think this idea would be better implemented by just using or re-hashing bestow. Maybe if you cast them for their combine cost they become equipment with no equip cost instead of auras?
Or it's an activated ability with a cost, and is basically just equip but with the added "this becomes a non-creature equipment, attach it to target creature, it becomes a creature again when it is not attached to anything." rules and so on?
Some minor spoilers, but one of the cards that got leaked in War of the Spark reads "[This planeswalker] has all loyalty abilities of all other planeswalkers on the battlefield."
Interestingly, this goes against the templating for how keyword-collecting creatures work (see Majestic Myriarch, Odric, Lunarch Marshal) when they gather their keywords from other creatures on the battlefield. They're written as triggers to avoid the confusion that comes from two of these cards being on the field at once. See the errata on Escaped Shapeshifter for an example of them actively avoiding it.
But hypothetically, both players could be playing the aforementioned planeswalker, creating this same sort of issue. Which makes me think WotC is making a minor rules change to resolve the issue that made these cards previously untenable.
That should mean we may also now see new attempts at cards like Escaped Shapeshifter.
I don't think he needs to do more to justify cursing yourself. Not at all.
Cursing everyone instead of just one person is a good way to make curses more viable in multiplayer. It means that his own cycle of curses will have twice the effect, Curse of Misfortunes and Curse of Echoes become hilarious, anything with Constellation goes crazy, bad cards that care about enchantments/auras become good, good cards that care about enchantments/auras become incredibly nasty, and so on. All for just 3 mana.
Tried a somewhat madness-themed Olivia, Mobilized for War deck out for the first time. Mostly it was an excuse to run all the goofy red/black and monored pet cards that I couldn't play anywhere else.
To my delight, Cyclops Gladiator proved to suddenly be a good card (well, relatively) with the small addition of haste. Later wraths fell, but the K&T player filled my hand back up with a Minds Aglow. I then took someone out with a double-striking Two-Headed Giant and it made my day.
Leyline of Shadows and Leyline of Abundance are busted.
T1: Leyline, Summer Bloom, 6-drop
T2: Oh, you're still here?
Meanwhile Leyline of Shadows gets jammed into every reanimator or dredge deck ever.
Leyline of Oblivion isn't strictly better than Leyline of the Void, or even close (doesn't stop flashback, Snapcaster, Jace's GY count, etc.) so I think it's probably fine.
Leyline of Winter is, ironically, best in fast and aggressive decks, since it means creatures can't block the turn they hit play but they can attack the turn after just fine. I do like it just as a way to punish fetches though. (the fetch enters tapped, then the land it fetches also enters tapped)
It's a casual format for people to have fun with, and from that perspective there's really no reason that PWs can't be allowed. Your friend can already stroll up with a busted Derevi or Edric or Teferi deck any time they want; the banlist isn't what's keeping this format together.
At the least they could do a 'legal for 1 month' thing for War of the Spark like they did with un-cards for Unstable.
The format uses vintage-legal cards, plus all ante cards.
There are four rules; earlier (i.e. lower-numbered) rules take precedence if two rules conflict.
1: At the start of each game, each player antes the top card of their library. When another player wins, you sign your name on the card you've ante'd (over top of previous signatures, if necessary) and the winner adds it to their deck.
2: You can never remove a signed card from your deck (that is, a card you won as an ante through rule 1).
3: Your deck must contain two of each non-waste basic land card, signed or not.
4: Your deck must contain exactly 60 cards. If you play multiple games in quick succession, don't worry about immediately replacing cards lost to ante.
I don't know that these are the exact rules they'd used; I never thought to ask at the time. There's a good chance I'm re-inventing a format that already exists and which I just haven't heard of. But the intent is the same: to end up with a mish-mash of random janky cards, and have a good time laughing at how horrible these decks eventually become.
We stabilized with an Eyeblight Massacre into two Sentinels of the Eternal Watch, one after the other, that kept all the new creatures they played tapped down, knowing their red player had two Lightning Javelins just waiting to show up. Right when they built up enough of a board to be able to swing past the Sentinels next turn despite the taps, my brother played a timely Languish and we swung for the win the following turn.
It was a great time. We won a booster box and no other packs I've opened since have been quite so sweet.
What irks me the most is that this centuries-old planeswalker and master of black magic wouldn't figure out that the all-important contract for her soul defaults to Nicky when she kills all her demons. It's supposed to make Nicol Bolas look more clever and devious than her, but honestly it just makes her look stupid and incompetent instead.
That's my main problem with the whole Nicol Bolas arc. At every turn, WotC's idea of making Nicol Bolas seem like a mastermind is to just make everyone opposing him an idiot. I'm mostly okay with that being the case for the rest of the Gatewatch, since they're all relatively new at this whole planeswalker thing. But it ends up making Liliana a very unbelievable and short-sighted character that just doesn't gel with her own lore. And then she's just overpowered instead to try to make it look like she knows what she's doing.
Gatewatch United WUBRG
Legendary Planeswalker
~ has all loyalty abilities of all other planeswalkers you control
At the beginning of your upkeep, look at the top card of your library. If it's a planeswalker card you may put it onto the battlefield.
Gatewatch United can be your commander
5
That way grabbing more planeswalkers wouldn't mean you couldn't use a more meaningful loyalty ability, but it's worse at grabbing them to compensate.
You might have a point if it was sorcery speed, but effects like Seal of Strength are very relevant since it changes combat math. You can still swing your two 2/2s past their 3/3, for example.
A name change wouldn't hurt, though.
I think all of these are great. As with any cycle of effects-based-on-color, some are going to be slightly preferable to others.
Though in a vacuum I'm left wondering why these are artifacts instead of instants, it's not hard to justify it in an artifact-centric or permanent-centric set, or in any set that wants a higher permanent count, like if revolt or ascend are in it.
I honestly think this would be green over red, since green handles returning permanents and blue handles returning nonpermanents. The white is largely thematic, though also justifies the token theme and being able to potentially aid others.
Overall a very cool card.
It also doesn't state what happens if the base creature, whichever one that is, dies. Do the others also go into your graveyard, or do they go back to being their own thing like with Bestow creatures?
I think this idea would be better implemented by just using or re-hashing bestow. Maybe if you cast them for their combine cost they become equipment with no equip cost instead of auras?
Or it's an activated ability with a cost, and is basically just equip but with the added "this becomes a non-creature equipment, attach it to target creature, it becomes a creature again when it is not attached to anything." rules and so on?
I also find Recurring Insight to be very impactful if it doesn't get countered.
Painful Truths is very efficient if you're running three colors.
And Pain's Reward is hands-down the most fun.
Of course there's always Cruel Bargain and Infernal Contract; you only need 1 life to win, right?
Interestingly, this goes against the templating for how keyword-collecting creatures work (see Majestic Myriarch, Odric, Lunarch Marshal) when they gather their keywords from other creatures on the battlefield. They're written as triggers to avoid the confusion that comes from two of these cards being on the field at once. See the errata on Escaped Shapeshifter for an example of them actively avoiding it.
But hypothetically, both players could be playing the aforementioned planeswalker, creating this same sort of issue. Which makes me think WotC is making a minor rules change to resolve the issue that made these cards previously untenable.
That should mean we may also now see new attempts at cards like Escaped Shapeshifter.
Cursing everyone instead of just one person is a good way to make curses more viable in multiplayer. It means that his own cycle of curses will have twice the effect, Curse of Misfortunes and Curse of Echoes become hilarious, anything with Constellation goes crazy, bad cards that care about enchantments/auras become good, good cards that care about enchantments/auras become incredibly nasty, and so on. All for just 3 mana.
To my delight, Cyclops Gladiator proved to suddenly be a good card (well, relatively) with the small addition of haste. Later wraths fell, but the K&T player filled my hand back up with a Minds Aglow. I then took someone out with a double-striking Two-Headed Giant and it made my day.
Fog Bank, Deadly Recluse, and Baleful Strix come to mind.
And most people won't swing their big'uns at you if you've got a Soul Snare in play.
T1: Leyline, Summer Bloom, 6-drop
T2: Oh, you're still here?
Meanwhile Leyline of Shadows gets jammed into every reanimator or dredge deck ever.
Leyline of Oblivion isn't strictly better than Leyline of the Void, or even close (doesn't stop flashback, Snapcaster, Jace's GY count, etc.) so I think it's probably fine.
Leyline of Winter is, ironically, best in fast and aggressive decks, since it means creatures can't block the turn they hit play but they can attack the turn after just fine. I do like it just as a way to punish fetches though. (the fetch enters tapped, then the land it fetches also enters tapped)