I'm starting to think they should simply just add a "You can't cast colored spells not of your Commander's Color Identity" and be done with it.
I agree. If the intent of rule 4 is to prevent stuff like that, why not just outright prevent those things instead of going about it in a weird way with mana generation.
You shouldn't be able to cast all of the enemy Freyalise's stuff with your Grixis deck either, just because you have a Lantern in play.
Yeah, I don't buy that argument since you can cast all of your opponent's spells right now as long as you don't have to pay their mana costs.
Think of Bribery. It is a powerful theft card, maybe one of the most popular, but for Rule 4's removal to have any effect you would have to steal a creature with an activated ability that costs out-of-colour mana while you simultaneously had a 5c mana producer on your side (or had previously stolen something like that). This means you are not stealing a huge number of very powerful creatures that don't have such activated abilities.
My preference is to drop Rule 4 entirely. It removes the colourless generation problem and new players don't have to bother to learn an extra rule.
Incidentally, Rule 4 is in the wrong spot of the rules anyway, since Rule 3 and 5 are both about deck construction while rules 8 to 14 deal with in-game considerations.
I don't play off-color fetches but I do currently run Crypt Ghast in my Oona deck. The flavor fits, so I'm okay with it. By contrast, Blind Obedience doesn't feel right for my Rubinia deck.
Really? I would think Rubinia Soulsinger would really get along with cards about obedience. Seems kind of her thing.
In fact, if Extort was ever printed on a non-white, non-black card, you would also be allowed to run that card in a non-white, non-black deck. However, I think that gets a lot closer to violating the spirit of the format than the current run of Extort cards.
Control Magic effects and Clone variants already are versatile removal and excellent ways to maintain board parity and tempo. Just look at blue's top 50 lists. Adding the ability to tap for any allows any deck that runs blue or black to approach with more of a "goodstuff from yourstuff" attitude.
You say it, but I still don't see it. Remember, for this to matter you still have to steal a creature with an activated ability that requires coloured mana outside of the Commander's Colour Identity. I can imagine that happening, sure, but there is a huge range of powerful creatures that do not require this.
While the rules interaction is a bit awkward, it's hardly game breaking at this moment, and a Darksteel Ingot or any other tap: add any card in a 5 color deck still taps for more options of mana type than in a lower color restricted deck. The weirdest interaction by far is Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, and to a lesser extent Quicksilver Fountain and blood moon, but it's really not that big of an issue...
Well sure, but you could make the same argument that the presence of Rule 4 doesn't impact too many games either. I don't really see the number of games being impacted as being that important to the overall issue.
Besides, colourless requirements are a new major mechanic of an upcoming set and those always see some play, add to that the fact that some of these colourless requiring cards are pretty good and would make the cut in a number of Commander decks almost guarantees it will see more play than ten year old Sunburst cards or the combination of stealing things with activated abilities that require mana while simultaneously having something that produces that extra type of mana.
Would there be a reason to run these at all? All of the decks lands will produce colourless mana, assuming the land produces mana, so its not like we will need the lands to cast the new Kozilek.
Now, you might want to run one or two of these so that you can have a basic land to fetch for cards that give you that option, like Path to Exile or Ghost Quarter, and that's nice, but unless a player has budget considerations, I would think the non-basic lands would be too useful to pass up.
And as I type that, I wonder if the artifact based basic land tutors might be worthwhile for a larger change in the deck, things like Wayfarer's Bauble and Burnished Hart. We still can't use a card like Gauntlet of Power to boost them since it specifies a colour and you cannot choose "colourless" to be a colour.
Even in this example I'm not sure that the casual table is unhappy. The scooping player I can only assume is losing anyway, he scoops, denies the draw, and the other two at the table are happier that the resource wasn't handed to him.
I would be unhappy, mostly because of the nebulous idea of "fairness". Even if it puts me at a bit of a disadvantage, I don't want to see my fellow players get twisted over something like this. Given a choice, I would generally prefer my opponent to have a Deathtouch blocker for a turn than an extra card, usually, but I'd like them to draw the card under these circumstances. I would prefer this generally in the hopes that if the situation was reversed, that player would do the same thing for me, and both of us would do it for some random third player.
And again, you and everyone else so far are ignoring the simple "casual" fix of letting a scoop-harmed player take back his action and try again.
I'm not ignoring it, it just introduces too many other possibilities, like what if other players have blockers or your attacking creature is actually something larger like a big creature with a Sword of Fire and Ice, so the card draw is coming attached to a bunch of damage (enough to kill the player you actually tried to attack, but still represents a good chunk of any other player's life total). Certainly, I could see circumstances where the best answer is to allow a player to do a take-back, but other times the best answer is to allow the player to just draw the card, depending on the situation.
I mean, imagine a situation where Player A has a Sword of Feast and Famine and taps out and then attacks Player B who scoops instead of letting the lethal damage be resolved. No combat damage, no trigger, no getting the mana back. How much of a take-back would you allow, the entire turn's worth of tapping mana? Just the attack? Or isn't it easier just to let the player have the damage trigger?
The idea is to cultivate an environment that shows the "strategic" concession that it doesn't actually do anything relevant to the game so that it doesn't happen. At least when it can be avoided.
Does integrating this new rule, or one like it, actually keep the majority casual Commander players happy?
I'm not sure it does. If so, how?
Imagine you are a casual player that has an Ohran Viper in play and you attack a player with one life left. That player scoops before combat damage is dealt for the express purpose of denying you the card draw. Do you think you, as a casual player trying to have fun with your friends, is going to enjoy this particular thing? Is a rule that says that yes, you can draw your card, going to make you more unhappy?
I have seen scooping to deny such small things before, not the big game winning actions like Insurrection or to get rid of Bribery targets at the worst possible time for the stealing player, but just small bore things. Preventing me from drawing one card is not going to break open the game, generally speaking, and it feels pretty spiteful to scoop just to prevent it.
I try to buy copies of cards that cost less than 5$ for each deck that I've built using that card, but for anything more expensive, I just proxy it when it is in multiple decks. I make sure that the deck I plan to play the most has no proxies in it, but the others will have proxies. I just like playing multiple decks in the same night too much and I don't have the budget to get all the cards for all the decks I want to play. That said, I never proxy cards unless I own at least one copy of that card.
At least with Modern, WotC can reprint any card at the drop of a hat. Think of the fetch lands and how much they cost before they were re-printed in Khans of Tarkir. The enemy fetch lands are now jumping in price and they can be reprinted in any upcoming set, especially now that WotC has basically gotten rid of the allied vs. enemy unbalance.
While Snapcaster Mage is expensive right now, but it could show up again in the upcoming Innistrad set or in the next Modern Masters set.
Another good number would have been 75 cards since that would be the size of a regular constructed deck plus sideboard. But when they were making the deck, they clearly were going for a larger size than that, and making it 100 cards is a nice round number that is larger than 75. In this way, making it 80 or 85 or 90 cards, just would have seen... odd. I guess.
BTW, I'd probably still ban everything applicable that's already on the regular banned list. Taking away Survival of the Fittest doesn't make Sylvan Primordial significantly less dangerous/warping.
But you do lose a lot of the cheap re-animation spells that allow it to be replayed again and again. There are still cloning effects floating around and expensive reanimation spells, but the cheapest and easiest ways to cheat the card and replay the card are gone. I think it could be worth it to leave it in the format in case there are no problems.
Not on power-level, but on cost. The judge foil, modern frame version of Force of Will is currently listed at 800$ at Star City Games. That is not the kind of thing you want in your format.
I agree. If the intent of rule 4 is to prevent stuff like that, why not just outright prevent those things instead of going about it in a weird way with mana generation.
Yeah, I don't buy that argument since you can cast all of your opponent's spells right now as long as you don't have to pay their mana costs.
Think of Bribery. It is a powerful theft card, maybe one of the most popular, but for Rule 4's removal to have any effect you would have to steal a creature with an activated ability that costs out-of-colour mana while you simultaneously had a 5c mana producer on your side (or had previously stolen something like that). This means you are not stealing a huge number of very powerful creatures that don't have such activated abilities.
I don't see any problems or conflicts here.
Incidentally, Rule 4 is in the wrong spot of the rules anyway, since Rule 3 and 5 are both about deck construction while rules 8 to 14 deal with in-game considerations.
Really? I would think Rubinia Soulsinger would really get along with cards about obedience. Seems kind of her thing.
You say it, but I still don't see it. Remember, for this to matter you still have to steal a creature with an activated ability that requires coloured mana outside of the Commander's Colour Identity. I can imagine that happening, sure, but there is a huge range of powerful creatures that do not require this.
Well sure, but you could make the same argument that the presence of Rule 4 doesn't impact too many games either. I don't really see the number of games being impacted as being that important to the overall issue.
Besides, colourless requirements are a new major mechanic of an upcoming set and those always see some play, add to that the fact that some of these colourless requiring cards are pretty good and would make the cut in a number of Commander decks almost guarantees it will see more play than ten year old Sunburst cards or the combination of stealing things with activated abilities that require mana while simultaneously having something that produces that extra type of mana.
Now, you might want to run one or two of these so that you can have a basic land to fetch for cards that give you that option, like Path to Exile or Ghost Quarter, and that's nice, but unless a player has budget considerations, I would think the non-basic lands would be too useful to pass up.
And as I type that, I wonder if the artifact based basic land tutors might be worthwhile for a larger change in the deck, things like Wayfarer's Bauble and Burnished Hart. We still can't use a card like Gauntlet of Power to boost them since it specifies a colour and you cannot choose "colourless" to be a colour.
I would be unhappy, mostly because of the nebulous idea of "fairness". Even if it puts me at a bit of a disadvantage, I don't want to see my fellow players get twisted over something like this. Given a choice, I would generally prefer my opponent to have a Deathtouch blocker for a turn than an extra card, usually, but I'd like them to draw the card under these circumstances. I would prefer this generally in the hopes that if the situation was reversed, that player would do the same thing for me, and both of us would do it for some random third player.
I'm not ignoring it, it just introduces too many other possibilities, like what if other players have blockers or your attacking creature is actually something larger like a big creature with a Sword of Fire and Ice, so the card draw is coming attached to a bunch of damage (enough to kill the player you actually tried to attack, but still represents a good chunk of any other player's life total). Certainly, I could see circumstances where the best answer is to allow a player to do a take-back, but other times the best answer is to allow the player to just draw the card, depending on the situation.
I mean, imagine a situation where Player A has a Sword of Feast and Famine and taps out and then attacks Player B who scoops instead of letting the lethal damage be resolved. No combat damage, no trigger, no getting the mana back. How much of a take-back would you allow, the entire turn's worth of tapping mana? Just the attack? Or isn't it easier just to let the player have the damage trigger?
The idea is to cultivate an environment that shows the "strategic" concession that it doesn't actually do anything relevant to the game so that it doesn't happen. At least when it can be avoided.
Imagine you are a casual player that has an Ohran Viper in play and you attack a player with one life left. That player scoops before combat damage is dealt for the express purpose of denying you the card draw. Do you think you, as a casual player trying to have fun with your friends, is going to enjoy this particular thing? Is a rule that says that yes, you can draw your card, going to make you more unhappy?
I have seen scooping to deny such small things before, not the big game winning actions like Insurrection or to get rid of Bribery targets at the worst possible time for the stealing player, but just small bore things. Preventing me from drawing one card is not going to break open the game, generally speaking, and it feels pretty spiteful to scoop just to prevent it.
While Snapcaster Mage is expensive right now, but it could show up again in the upcoming Innistrad set or in the next Modern Masters set.
But you do lose a lot of the cheap re-animation spells that allow it to be replayed again and again. There are still cloning effects floating around and expensive reanimation spells, but the cheapest and easiest ways to cheat the card and replay the card are gone. I think it could be worth it to leave it in the format in case there are no problems.
Not on power-level, but on cost. The judge foil, modern frame version of Force of Will is currently listed at 800$ at Star City Games. That is not the kind of thing you want in your format.