Glittering, Cunning, and Acquisition are self-explanatory. Coax and Spawnsire already have a thing going with Eldrazi cards exiling cards. Karn is basically for artifact-centric decks.
The last one is Ring of Ma'rûf, its already expensive because its a reserved list card from Arabian Nights and as one of the four horseman sets it tends to be picked clean by speculators and old-style formats like 93/94 Magic. It should be ignored from concerns as it is also a very slow card requiring two payments of 5, 10 in total to activate, also it exiles itself after use.
The next category to see growth is Burning Wish and Living Wish. They are good but they aren't weak either, they will see play but not nearly the same as the prior category, minus ring.
The final category for growth is Golden Wish, Death Wish, and Research // Development. Golden s a very expensive to cast tutor that will only find a home in mostly enchantress decks. Death is cheaper but it also comes with a steep cost of 1/2 the caster's life which in EDH can mean being left with 18-20 life easily after one cast and would likely only find a home in decks that purposefully wanted low life total like Near-Death Experience. Finally Research is the weakest of the bunch as while it gets you four cards in total with one cast, those same cards enter your deck.
So you want to add a format specific rule that changes the actual function of the card, but don't see that as a larger issue than Rule 13?
Function is prior function per prior rules within the game.
Use Rule 0 if you want wishes, stop trying to hoist them on everyone. People need to be good sports, and ask to use them if its something they want to try.
Here is a counter point from ground rules I listed. You got to admit you walked into this one.
Quote from Ava »
3) If a player would hypothetically misbehave with using wishes, they are obviously violating the social contract / gentleman's agreement.
Random forum posters don't just set the ground rules for a discussion.
Agreed. I don't agree to half your basic premises, so your clarity is irrelevant.
Why does price not matter? Why are other cards that do nothing nonequivalent to the cards in question that do nothing? If the RC decides "outside the game" is a functionless term [redacted sentence fragment], why is that a foul ball?
I will just quote what ForgottenOne posted to show why price doesn't matter much with wishes.
That rule neuters exile removal. We run exile removal to get rid of things, but if you make wishes now act as a Get Out of Jail Free card for exiled cards, it makes a lot of cards far, far worse.
A wish is just tutoring from exile with how I purpose. Is it really any different if you tuck my non-commander cards and I use a normal tutor to retrieve it?
After all Karn, the Great Creator is the modern day version of a wish card. If you exile my artifact, I can just retrieve it with Karn. Also Karn is far more repeatable than most other wish cards aside from Spawnsire of Ulamog.
That it would require a deck to run Pull From Eternity and/or Riftsweeper to retrieve a wish since most legal wish cards exile themselves after finishing their effect and also tend to be one-use cards. That the only that would see play with a rules change is Pull From Eternity because Riftsweeper sends it to the deck and even then PFE puts it in your graveyard and not in your hand so you need a way to cast it from your graveyard or to put that card into your hand and then cast it. Which if it sounds clunky and casual level of play, it likely is.
The reason for the third just means that
1) The cards do have purpose within the format
2) That no wishboard is needed
3) No banlist update is needed
4) Half the functionality exists for them just like in other formats, but of a different manner
5) Rule 13 being rweritten to accommodate them
To move this discussion forward is how to handle the wishes.
1) Ban Ring of Ring of Ma'rûf, Glittering Wish, Burning Wish, Cunning Wish, Living Wish, Golden Wish, Death Wish.
2) Or establish a proper wishboard within the rules which is greater than 0 but not more than 10. In casual environments, a binder might be used but the player must ask for permission.
3) Allow the cards to fetch the equivalent card from exile as long as they own it such as with Karn, the Great Creator as per the rules prior to Magic 2010. (Example: A Living Wish can grab a creature or land card you own that is exiled.)
I already know your thoughts on two of the three sections, but I feel you might find that the third is a more fair compromise.
Lets lay some ground rules:
1) Fractured Powerstone and Paliano, the High City are nonequivalent examples that have no weight in the discussion.
2) Concerns about price are a non-issue.
3) If a player would hypothetically misbehave with using wishes, they are obviously violating the social contract / gentleman's agreement.
4) The arguments against wishes that are "do we really need them?" and "but the RC made this rule years ago so..." are nonarguments.
5) The reason this discussion came about recently is because of misunderstanding and confusion, which rule 13 already creates for the masses who don't know about it, ergo clarity and strict rules are more desirable than murkiness and house rules.
2) Except that it is. Cards cost money and making cards more desirable suddenly is something that has to be taken into account by the RC and the CAG. We're not WotC and we're allowed to acknowledge the existence of the secondary market.
4) You are literally arguing that a rule of the format should be changed. The onus is on the side asking for change to prove that change is better than the status quo. Inertia is a powerful force.
5) Rule 13 was clarified for exactly this reason. Should ignorance of any given rule by some percentage of the playerbase be a valid reason to argue for removal of that rule? I don't think so.
2)Even if a wish were to spike in price, the individual must adapt or fail, we aren't playing penny dreadful.
4) Because those two arguments are used as the last line of defense in the rules discussion section and have in their several years added nothing to a discussion other than inertia you speak of.
5) "The reason this discussion came about recently is because of misunderstanding and confusion" specifically from a rules clarification.
Lets lay some ground rules:
1) Fractured Powerstone and Paliano, the High City are nonequivalent examples that have no weight in the discussion.
2) Concerns about price are a non-issue.
3) If a player would hypothetically misbehave with using wishes, they are obviously violating the social contract / gentleman's agreement.
4) The arguments against wishes that are "do we really need them?" and "but the RC made this rule years ago so..." are nonarguments.
5) The reason this discussion came about recently is because of misunderstanding and confusion, which rule 13 already creates for the masses who don't know about it, ergo clarity and strict rules are more desirable than murkiness and house rules.
I'm anti-wishboard for a stupidly simple reason (relative to the "grand philosophical musings" above and below): I don't think wishboards would be intuitive, affordable, or fun for new players and we need them.
Fact is, if wishes suddenly became more than a house-rule rarity, they'd spike in both price and popularity. *****, I've got a slot in basically every red deck for a burning wish with 15+ modes. The buyouts would be real. Chump change cards would now be both prohibitively expensive for casual players and ubiquitous in more competitive circles. So now we have more precons being stomped in pick-ups by unattainable cards that essentially constitute as the ultimate tutor effect. Sure most people would fix up a proper sideboards, but "outside the game" is a pretty nebulous term in social play and the first time a person whips out their 60 page binder and eats 10 minutes to resolve a wish, it won't leave a memorably pleasant taste in anyone's mouth.
That's all worst case scenario talk, yes. But I like our fabulous format as-is, and the growing popularity of EDH reflects that a lot of other people do too. I don't think extrapolating the wishboard experience is going to do us any favors in the long run, and I think that may be why the RC is choosing this direction as the status quo.
Edit:spelling
While yes that is a worry, its a bit of an inevitability with prices. Maybe its not a wish, but instead the standard player has to deal with its a psychotic fury or a balduvian rage or aurelia's fury or sunforger because of feather, the redeemed they got from a pack or draft. Now people experience the feeling of missing out or FOMO because they could have easily bought these cards at any point, but didn't want to until it was too late.
A person who searches their library slowly for a card is not much better than person who slowly decides what card outside the game they want to put into their hand. A person who slowly calculates and recalculates the size of their board of their creatures and who they can go after isn't much better either. A person who goes through an infinite or near-infinite combo but takes a long time isn't much better either. A person who slowly decides if they let a spell resolve even if they couldn't actually respond to it anyway isn't much better either.
Fractured Powerstone is a non-example. The reason it doesn't work is because the game it is played with isn't the that is used in Commander, just like Paliano, the High City isn't meant for this format. Planechase in itself is technically its own game that is separate from Commander just as Archenemy is separate from Commander. You can mix these game modes, sure, but they are not the default. These example cards are not the same as a preexisting card losing usability because of a newer rule invented directly by a committee because of a notion against competitive environments.
Also a wishboard isn't counted for the number for your main deck set of cards. Your wishboard is a separate pile. If I had a main deck of 100 cards and a wishboard of 15, the main deck is still 100 cards. If I get a card from the wishboard, the main deck is still 100 cards in total.
Time to start buying those Bonds of Mortality then. Also another thing to be on the lookout for is Eternal Scourge, Misthollow Griffin, and Squee, the Immortal. Also this emblem makes Sigarda, Host of Herons more annoying to deal with as edicts are off the table. Along with other means to have a very sticky creature(s). Since she is so easy to reach her ultimate, she is going to go off in the same turn with just a bit of prepwork such as The Chain Veil or even a Doubling Season for examples. She doesn't make you immortal but she certainly makes you more of a pain to knock out. Any go-wide strategy is going to be stopped in its tracks if unable to handle her. Go-tall strategies can still win through commander damage. Milling can work if they don't have obnoxious means to stop you there like an eldrazi titan or a wheel of sun and moon. The remainder are just strategies that involve cards that read "the game is a draw" or "loses the game" or "win the game".
Good question, but for clarification - are we talking about a card that specifically reads 'you win the game' and nothing else - like, you resolve it and win, no other provisos? If so, I'd say somewhere around 12-14 mana would be fair, with some level of colour splash depending on flavour and such.
The closest we've been to this is Coalition Victory, which is far too easily splashed and more or less, once you resolve it, you win the game given that its in pentacolour. Making the spell more expensive doesn't necessarily make it a harder win con to hit, so hoops to jump through are nice, like Approach of the Second Sun - it's not perfect, but it's definitely not as abusable as Coalition Victory would be or Laboratory Maniac is - the latter purely on the basis of being in blue and having access to stupid levels of draw/mill.
I would disagree with AotSS not being abusable. You just two card combo it with either a Demonic Consultation or Spoils of the Vault. Consultation exiles six then starts digging, which Second Sun is conveniently seven deep. Spoils costs life equal to how far you have to dig, which in this case is 7 life, Second Sun just conveniently happens to give you 7 life.
If you switch Oubliette to Phasing, then it will gain an additional ability - 502.15i When a permanent phases out, any local enchantments or Equipment attached to that permanent phase out at the same time. This alternate way of phasing out is known as phasing out "indirectly." An enchantment or Equipment that phased out indirectly won't phase in by itself, but instead phases in along with the card it's attached to.
Equipment will Phase Out with the Creature, in addition to Enchantments.
And that's exactly why Oubliette and Tawnos's Coffin can't make the targeted creature phase out, because Wizards would be giving those cards functionality they're not meant to have.
Coffin and Oubliette used to use phasing because it was actually simpler and more elegant.
The reasoning why it was changed back to the clunky wordfest? According to Mark L. Gottlieb, the writer of the article:
Oubliette and Tawnos's Coffin
Originally, these cards didn't phase creatures out. They were printed years before phasing was invented. Then, somewhere along the way, someone realized that using phasing was a concise, convenient way to mimic the (long, clunkily worded) functionality of these cards. The tricky part of Oubliette and Tawnos's Coffin isn't that they remove creatures from the game and return them to play later. The tricky part is that those creatures retain any enchantments and any counters on them. This is really hard to express, since it's the opposite of how any other zone-change effect works . . . except phasing. So hooray for shortcuts.
The problem is that phasing doesn't exactly mimic the functionality. What's different?
When a creature phases out, it won't trigger leaves-play effects. Based on these cards' wordings, it should.
When a creature phases in, it won't trigger comes-into-play effects. Based on these cards' wordings, it should.
When a creature phases in, it's treated as though it has haste. This rarely matters with Oubliette and Tawnos's Coffin since the creatures return to play tapped, but in case the creature becomes untapped, it shouldn't be able to attack or use abilities that turn.
When a creature phases out, any Equipment attached to it phases out too. Based on these cards' wordings, it shouldn't.
If Oubliette or Tawnos's Coffin leaves play and the phase-in effect is Stifled, the removed creature will phase in the following turn. Based on these cards' wordings, it should remain removed from the game forever.
Of course, Oubliette and Tawnos's Coffin predate comes-into-play effects, leaves-play effects, Equipment, and Stifle. But those things all exist now, and they need to work intuitively with the card that you're holding in your hand. Therefore, phasing is leaving these cards in favor of a wording that goes back to their original (long, clunky) wordings. They'll work as printed (or as close to it as modernly possible).
Will be interesting to see how exactly R&D rework/reword the card to be functionally identical but not take several minutes for each player to decipher a wall of tiny text.
"When Dimensional Dungeon enters the battlefield, target creature phases out. That creature can't phase in for as long as Dimensional Dungeon is on the battlefield."
No Oblivion Ring-ish blink trick with this one, though.
Going to agree with this. As it would actually be the more elegant solution since phasing doesn't do ETB/LTB and tokens would still be fine if affected by this.
The suggestion for how it could work with phasing was suggested by WOTC in 2005 as:
When Oubliette comes into play, target creature phases out. That creature can’t phase in as long as Oubliette remains in play.
When Oubliette leaves play, the creature phases in tapped.
If the secondary effect is prevented, The affected creature still phases in because it is phased out, just at a later date instead of instantaneously. If it were to be updated like with Void Nothing's suggestion, all it would do is simply not force the creature to phase back in as soon as Oubliette left the field.
Cunning Wish - 2 Printings
Living Wish - 3 Printings
Golden Wish - 1 Printing
Death Wish - 1 Printing
Glittering Wish - 1 Printing
Coax from the Blind Eternities - 1 Printing
Research // Development - 1 Printing
Mastermind's Acquisition - 1 Printing
Spawnsire of Ulamog - 1 Printing
Karn, the Great Creator - 2 Printings
Ring of Wind - 1 Printing
Of the lot, the biggest ones to spike would be: Cunning Wish, Glittering Wish, Coax from the Blind Eternities, Mastermind's Acquisition, Ring of Ma'rûf, Karn, the Great Creator, Spawnsire of Ulamog.
Glittering, Cunning, and Acquisition are self-explanatory. Coax and Spawnsire already have a thing going with Eldrazi cards exiling cards. Karn is basically for artifact-centric decks.
The last one is Ring of Ma'rûf, its already expensive because its a reserved list card from Arabian Nights and as one of the four horseman sets it tends to be picked clean by speculators and old-style formats like 93/94 Magic. It should be ignored from concerns as it is also a very slow card requiring two payments of 5, 10 in total to activate, also it exiles itself after use.
The next category to see growth is Burning Wish and Living Wish. They are good but they aren't weak either, they will see play but not nearly the same as the prior category, minus ring.
The final category for growth is Golden Wish, Death Wish, and Research // Development. Golden s a very expensive to cast tutor that will only find a home in mostly enchantress decks. Death is cheaper but it also comes with a steep cost of 1/2 the caster's life which in EDH can mean being left with 18-20 life easily after one cast and would likely only find a home in decks that purposefully wanted low life total like Near-Death Experience. Finally Research is the weakest of the bunch as while it gets you four cards in total with one cast, those same cards enter your deck.
A wish is just tutoring from exile with how I purpose. Is it really any different if you tuck my non-commander cards and I use a normal tutor to retrieve it?
After all Karn, the Great Creator is the modern day version of a wish card. If you exile my artifact, I can just retrieve it with Karn. Also Karn is far more repeatable than most other wish cards aside from Spawnsire of Ulamog.
That it would require a deck to run Pull From Eternity and/or Riftsweeper to retrieve a wish since most legal wish cards exile themselves after finishing their effect and also tend to be one-use cards. That the only that would see play with a rules change is Pull From Eternity because Riftsweeper sends it to the deck and even then PFE puts it in your graveyard and not in your hand so you need a way to cast it from your graveyard or to put that card into your hand and then cast it. Which if it sounds clunky and casual level of play, it likely is.
1) The cards do have purpose within the format
2) That no wishboard is needed
3) No banlist update is needed
4) Half the functionality exists for them just like in other formats, but of a different manner
5) Rule 13 being rweritten to accommodate them
1) Ban Ring of Ring of Ma'rûf, Glittering Wish, Burning Wish, Cunning Wish, Living Wish, Golden Wish, Death Wish.
2) Or establish a proper wishboard within the rules which is greater than 0 but not more than 10. In casual environments, a binder might be used but the player must ask for permission.
3) Allow the cards to fetch the equivalent card from exile as long as they own it such as with Karn, the Great Creator as per the rules prior to Magic 2010. (Example: A Living Wish can grab a creature or land card you own that is exiled.)
I already know your thoughts on two of the three sections, but I feel you might find that the third is a more fair compromise.
4) Because those two arguments are used as the last line of defense in the rules discussion section and have in their several years added nothing to a discussion other than inertia you speak of.
5) "The reason this discussion came about recently is because of misunderstanding and confusion" specifically from a rules clarification.
1) Fractured Powerstone and Paliano, the High City are nonequivalent examples that have no weight in the discussion.
2) Concerns about price are a non-issue.
3) If a player would hypothetically misbehave with using wishes, they are obviously violating the social contract / gentleman's agreement.
4) The arguments against wishes that are "do we really need them?" and "but the RC made this rule years ago so..." are nonarguments.
5) The reason this discussion came about recently is because of misunderstanding and confusion, which rule 13 already creates for the masses who don't know about it, ergo clarity and strict rules are more desirable than murkiness and house rules.
Do I make myself clear?
A person who searches their library slowly for a card is not much better than person who slowly decides what card outside the game they want to put into their hand. A person who slowly calculates and recalculates the size of their board of their creatures and who they can go after isn't much better either. A person who goes through an infinite or near-infinite combo but takes a long time isn't much better either. A person who slowly decides if they let a spell resolve even if they couldn't actually respond to it anyway isn't much better either.
Also a wishboard isn't counted for the number for your main deck set of cards. Your wishboard is a separate pile. If I had a main deck of 100 cards and a wishboard of 15, the main deck is still 100 cards. If I get a card from the wishboard, the main deck is still 100 cards in total.
The reasoning why it was changed back to the clunky wordfest? According to Mark L. Gottlieb, the writer of the article:
Originally, these cards didn't phase creatures out. They were printed years before phasing was invented. Then, somewhere along the way, someone realized that using phasing was a concise, convenient way to mimic the (long, clunkily worded) functionality of these cards. The tricky part of Oubliette and Tawnos's Coffin isn't that they remove creatures from the game and return them to play later. The tricky part is that those creatures retain any enchantments and any counters on them. This is really hard to express, since it's the opposite of how any other zone-change effect works . . . except phasing. So hooray for shortcuts.
The problem is that phasing doesn't exactly mimic the functionality. What's different?
- When a creature phases out, it won't trigger leaves-play effects. Based on these cards' wordings, it should.
- When a creature phases in, it won't trigger comes-into-play effects. Based on these cards' wordings, it should.
- When a creature phases in, it's treated as though it has haste. This rarely matters with Oubliette and Tawnos's Coffin since the creatures return to play tapped, but in case the creature becomes untapped, it shouldn't be able to attack or use abilities that turn.
- When a creature phases out, any Equipment attached to it phases out too. Based on these cards' wordings, it shouldn't.
- If Oubliette or Tawnos's Coffin leaves play and the phase-in effect is Stifled, the removed creature will phase in the following turn. Based on these cards' wordings, it should remain removed from the game forever.
Of course, Oubliette and Tawnos's Coffin predate comes-into-play effects, leaves-play effects, Equipment, and Stifle. But those things all exist now, and they need to work intuitively with the card that you're holding in your hand. Therefore, phasing is leaving these cards in favor of a wording that goes back to their original (long, clunky) wordings. They'll work as printed (or as close to it as modernly possible).So SyntheticDreamer, do you agree with WotC's logic for reverting the cards to back the way they were?
EDIT: Also here are the links from yawgatog to show effectively the before-and-after on oracle wording for oubliette and coffin:
https://yawgatog.com/resources/oracle-changes/10e-med/?id=27
https://yawgatog.com/resources/oracle-changes/10e-med/?id=33
Fun little trivia fact: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/phasing-rescue-2005-02-21
The suggestion for how it could work with phasing was suggested by WOTC in 2005 as:
When Oubliette leaves play, the creature phases in tapped.
If the secondary effect is prevented, The affected creature still phases in because it is phased out, just at a later date instead of instantaneously. If it were to be updated like with Void Nothing's suggestion, all it would do is simply not force the creature to phase back in as soon as Oubliette left the field.
Pass.