MTG Salvation

The head judge for my state said before he was involved in the judge program, he went to a PTQ where the event's head judge ruled that if Gifts Ungiven was cast when the opponent had Imperial Mask out, you just got to search for four cards and put all of them into your hand because they couldn't be targeted to choose.

Changing the effect to only your creatures does make the instant spells less powerful, but that's probably for the best. That puts it more in line with landfall instants like Mysteries of the Deep, Searing Blaze and Tomb Hex that are easiest to "power up" on your turn and similar cards like Return to Dust and Careful Consideration. As two posters above me pointed out, the use of flash creatures and token-making activated abilities would be the enablers for instants, which are RUG's other themes.

Thanks for the critiques and feedback!

Here are reworked wordings that makes the trigger only apply to creatures you control:

Hivemind (When you cast this spell, copy it for each creature that entered the battlefield under your control this turn. You may choose new targets for the copies.)

Tokens do make this go crazy, but that was kinda the point.

Does this version of the rite put it more in line with Battle Hymn?

Rite Spell 2 R
Sorcery
Add R to your mana pool.
Hivemind (With creatures you control only)

It was an oversight on me for not seeing how the draw spell compares to Glimpse of Nature and Regal Force's effect. Seems too much like Beck // Call with the "creatures you control" rewording and a UG cost. Not sure how to salvage that one.

Here's a rework to not give red a 1 drop flyer:

Stormy 2 (U/R)
Creature - Elemental
Whenever an instant or sorcery spell you control is copied, ~ gets +2/+0 until end of turn.
1/1

Could the triggered ability also grant it flying in line with Stream Hopper/Goblin Balloon Brigade, or some other ability like can't be blocked, trample, haste, etc?

So "storm-like" in the title probably sets off red flags, since we're talking about copying spells for free. That's why I'm asking for help with balance. Here is a keyword mechanic I came up with while working on cards for a URG wedge:

Hivemind (When you cast this spell, copy it for each creature that entered the battlefield this turn. You may choose new targets for the copies.)

The idea was to be somewhere between storm and conspire. The URG wedge I've come up with is headed by intelligent insects, and they like making creatures and casting spells, as URG loves to do (e.g. Riku of Two Reflections).

Here are basic common/uncommon cards I started with as simply riffs on staple spells:

Rite Spell (R/G)
Sorcery
Add RG to your mana pool.
Hivemind (When you cast this spell, copy it for each creature that entered the battlefield this turn. You may choose new targets for the copies.)

Lifegain Spell 1G
Instant
You gain 3 life.
Hivemind (When you cast this spell, copy it for each creature that entered the battlefield this turn. You may choose new targets for the copies.)

Naturalize Spell 1G
Sorcery
Destroy target artifact or enchantment.
Hivemind (When you cast this spell, copy it for each creature that entered the battlefield this turn. You may choose new targets for the copies.)

Draw Spell 1(U/G)(U/G)
Instant
Draw a card.
Hivemind (When you cast this spell, copy it for each creature that entered the battlefield this turn. You may choose new targets for the copies.)

Unsummon Spell 2U
Instant
Return target creature to its owner’s hand.
Hivemind (When you cast this spell, copy it for each creature that entered the battlefield this turn. You may choose new targets for the copies.)

Here's the URG commander that's a cross between Wort, the Raidmother and Riku:

Hiveminder 1URG
Legendary Creature - Insect Wizard
Flash
Flying
Instant and sorcery spells you cast have hivemind. (When you cast the spell, copy it for each creature that entered the battlefield this turn. You may choose new targets for the copies.)
3/2

This mechanic obviously becomes super broken with tokens, but that was part of the fun, but is it too broken? Here are possible changes to make for balance:

• Only triggering off creatures you control
• Only triggering off nontoken creatures
• Making it like storm but only for creature spells being cast
• Increasing the cost of each spell to slow it down

Here's this set's cards in the style of Izzet's Wee Dragonauts, Nivix Cyclops, Nivmagus Elemental, et al:

Stormy (U/R)
Creature - Elemental
Flying
Whenever an instant or sorcery spell is copied, ~ gets +3/+0 until end of turn.
1/1

Feedback is appreciated!

I must be blind and missing it, but how has no one mentioned Sovereigns of Lost Alara? Some has, right?

After being ignored and mana screwed for most of a long game, a friend once killed a table of 6 by putting himself to 1 life between Necropotence and Bitterblossom, then casting Repay in Kind so he could swing for lethal using a single faerie each.

How do you handle Geth activating his ability? Does he just get everything he can get at every chance?

Cakins, could you give examples of specific cards that would be sources of problems if online was allowed as well?

ISBP is right that without an "official" rules committee or a central figure who has the credentials and/or fame to act as a figurehead, any rules that are made will need to stand by their own merits and satisfy the majority of (potential) players.

I've been working on my own set of Pauper EDH rules for a while too, and was happy to see it being discussed here. Here is a site I have been preparing for my playgroup with the possibility of using it to organize tournaments at my local shops:

http://pauperedh.weebly.com/pauper-commander-rules.html

You will see that I addressed the online vs offline rarity issue by making the rule "if it's common on Gatherer, it's legal." I understand Cakins' point about the division between online and offline formats, but I don't see the need to maintain it. Allowing online commons doesn't result in any abusive cards becoming legal, and I don't see players really caring if a card was in a Masters Edition. The simplicity of looking at the Gatherer and going "that's a common, that's not" is preferable to me. If someone can show me the harm this would cause, I am open to it. Right now it seems like it will allow some quirky older cards like Telekinesis to see play.

Is there any interest in defining how many uncommons can be played in Peasant commander, as it is the close brother of Pauper? I've seen it range from 8-10 (usually including the commander).

At this point, a watch list is what is needed more than a ban list. Not enough playtesting has been done to have a definitive answer.

What if we find that the potentially banned commanders are on (mostly) equal footing against each other? I'm not opposed to a "tier 1", given that there are legitimate tier 1.5, 2, etc.

The "official" rules can always contain the "use your own house rules" clause if you need to ban or unban anything.

If the goal is to make rules that are good for multiplayer, then I say no cards are worth banning because none of them can overwhelm 2-3 other players.

The 1v1 competitive EDH section of MTGS does keep a separate ban list to the usual EDH one, which includes banning Vendillion Clique as a commander as well as cards that give too big of an early lead like Sol Ring, Mana Crypt, Necropotence and a few others. Would it work to have a 1v1 ban list (or at least a suggested one, like how EDH rules always tell you to check with your playgroup because they may not care)?

Here's a list of the commanders that have been most seriously considered for banning:

• Psychatog
  
• Bloodbraid Elf
  
• Invisible Stalker
  
• Shriekmaw
  
• Nevermaker
  
• Jace's Phantasm
  
• Mistmeadow Witch
  
• Azorius Guildmage

Personally, I don't yet see the need to ban any of them, though I can see the top 3-4 in this list being very dominant, especially in 1v1. I'm less worried about them in multiplayer. None of the Ravnica guildmages are worth banning, and while Mismeadow Witch is very good, I doubt she's unstoppable.

I'm going to come up with the most degenerate lists I can for Psychatog, Bloodbraid Elf and Invisible Stalker and see how bad they can really be.

What criteria do we want for determining if a commander is worth banning? A card being "very good" is a poor way to do it. For me, it needs to seriously degrade the quality of the format by not allowing interactivity, or forcing players to play it or accept losing to everyone who does. Do any of these cards do that in such a dominate way that it deters people from wanting to face them?

Looking at the EDH ban list, two of the three banned commanders (Braids and Erayo) literally don't let anyone play Magic, and Rofellos does about the same thing by powering out huge threats faster than any other deck.

None of the uncommons are at that level, but of course Pauper has fewer ways to deal with problematic commanders, but if Psychatog is our Rafiq and Invisible Stalker is our Vendillion Clique, I think we're OK.

As far as noncommander cards up for banning, the only two that catch my eye are Hymn to Tourach and Sinkhole, but even those I'm not too worried about, unless we care about high price tags.