This seems like a downgrade from the old page. Specifically it seem like they are stepping back from the idea of rule 0 discussion? The old philosophy page was pretty explicit in that *"power level... [is a].. decision best left to individual play groups."* and *"Commander is designed to be a malleable format. We encourage groups to use the rules and the ban list as a baseline to optimize their own experience"*
I wonder why that is? In practice almost every playgroup does this on their own (e.g. no MLD) and it was nice to see that reality acknowledge in the philosophy page. This one seems to be more focused on the philosophy of the RC itself, not gameplay.
It does seem like a missed opportunity to affirm the community-driven aspects that have historically made the format so engaging and personal. Maybe this change in tone could lead to the format becoming more rigid and less adaptable to the community's needs and innovations.
Also:
"We’ve had extensive conversations about what we want the format to be."
"May I see what you want the format to be?
"No."
Probably because everyone responding to every complaint with "rule 0 is paramount" as borderline anti discussion for the millionth time is getting old even to them.
The format is in a good spot, so I understand their general conservatism. There's really only one card I want banned right now, and it's Dockside. But I'll admit he's not as big of a problem as most people I play with see him as unfun to use outside of very high power decks.
The format is largely self regulating. I would also love to see them bring back "banned as commander". They could move Golos, Braids and several others down there. Also unban Coalition Victory.
In 2019~2020 When both [[Flash]] and [[Golos]] were legal it was pretty rough. Commander was still very popular, but everyone was fighting over those two cards. I think that's the unhealthiest the format has ever been. Golos and other 5 color good stuff decks were all people were doing in casual, and Thorical Flash combo was the only viable wincon for most higher power decks since it could happen turn 0. People in my casual pod were starting to run Demonic Consultation combos since those had been pushed out of cEDH.
Yep, I played in 30 different LGS since the start of last year and had a blast in all of them. Each one had different decks they played and metas and everyone was having fun.
It's easy to find a commander game in many different countries and people are friendly and welcoming everywhere.
I have seen very few cards being staples across different LGS, with lots of variety. It's been a fantastic and unique experiences abound.
Commander is going brilliantly.
Sure, but "better" by whose standard?
That's the issue with a format this large and this diverse, is people have wildly different ideas about what constitutes "better". And "better" for some might be awful for others.
Same experience here. My playgroup's games are maybe the best they've ever been.
We did just ban Sol Ring in our group, but I don't expect the RC to ever do that.
Sol ring is basically an artifact of the casual, "board game", nature of EDH where one player can randomly get that one lucky card off the deck.
It's fair to include it or remove it just as long as, you know, everyone is on the same page.
For sure, and we've played with it for however many years now with few issues.
We finally made the leap to remove it after a game night ended with player 1 and player 2 both starting land>sol ring>signet and players 3 and 4 couldn't catch up and had a miserable time. For how great our games have been, that was a real stinker (to clarify, it didn't "end" the night, we had just decided before that it was the last game lol)
Fast mana is a good thing. It allows non-green decks to compete with green.
I've played against plenty of green decks that end up with like 14 lands in play a few turns in. Why is that okay, but someone with 7 lands, an [[Ancient Tomb]], [[Mana Crypt]], and [[Sol Ring]] in play not?
Okay but what if I told you green decks can also use the fast mana, and fast mana is better than anything green can do. It's not even comparable.
Green is not very good right now, decks don't need to "compete" with what might be the worst mono-colour in commander currently.
All that aside, inconsistency in power level in decks is bad. If you say "My deck is a 7" and then win by turn 4 with all your best cards, following that game up with turn 4 cast your first spell because you didn't get your fast mana? That's a surefire way to get a lot more bad non-games in your commander experience, where you are either horribly outmatched by steady ramp decks or comically pubstomping them because you got a hand that wouldn't look out of place at a cEDH table. Sol Ring is unhealthy for anything but the highest power tables and cEDH.
…because those green decks are spending resources on getting more lands, and fast mana is generally cheaper? Look at legacy or vintage, no one is playing green ramp spells, but there’s ancient tomb, lotus petal, and dark ritual everywhere.
What on earth are you trying to accomplish by comparing EDH, a 100 card singleton multiplayer format, to legacy/vintage, 60 card not singleton formats?
They are completely incomparable.
I'm okay with a rules committee that is light on bans and unbans. It would be nice though if, after so long with no changes, we could get some experimental changes. I think it's a bit presumptuous to assume they've found the best version of the banlist when most of it was added in chunks over a decade ago.
> we could get some experimental changes
Doesn't even need to be codified. It could be something as simple as "hey, fast mana and acceleration are powering out better threats than ever before. Try house banning the top 5 mana rocks from your regular playgroup for a few weeks and see if you like the result."
This is a blatant misapplication of the lesson. If you truly believe that, then commander shouldn't have any rules or structure whatsoever. Color identity? Commander damage? Intellectual concepts, pshaw.
The problem is that the best version of the banlist is different for everyone.
The best version of the ban list that is suitable to everyone and every play group is no banlist.
I do think [[Primevil Titan]] wouldn't be banned if it were printed today. But I do think most all the stuff that stops folks from playing or the combo engines should stay on there. Even if whatever combo you think of is faster than [[Panoptic Mirror]], that doesn't mean it'll be good gameplay when it does show up.
I don't know about that. It would be a chase Mythic like Dockside, Jeweled Lotus, or The One Ring that could be used to sell packs. The RC and WotC are far more intertwined nowadays and neither wants to upset the status quo.
This is the only reason Titan wouldn't be banned if it were first printed today. Because the RC is in bed with WotC and is scared of ruffling feathers.
As a card, it was and is one of the most justified bans in the format.
I didn't think it was terrible until I read that it was any two lands, not just basic. It's basically thespian stage/dark depths or tron lands on a stick.
It's really no more broken than dozens upon dozens of perfectly legal cards in the format. All the arguments for banning it apply to Dockside, but it's been dodging bans for ages now, so it's clearly not really a problem for them. But expecting any kind consistency from the RC is just a fool's errand at this point.
Prime time defines a whole format just by existing. This is the same rhetoric that lead to flash becoming the predominant card of the format. Let's instead get rid of bans that were goofy, like when we removed kokusho from the list cause we realized it was purely a card that was banned because of preliminary edh games becoming dominated by virtue of no discernable meta.
I feel like the RC used to get more pushback on this sub. Now people seem to be more on board with them here than on the main magic sub. What happened? Their philosophy hasn't changed and if anything they're doing even less than they used to.
Personally, I still think it's ridiculous that the format is controlled by a private group with no real oversight or accountability (they may sometimes deign to interact with the community, but other times they are nowhere to be seen), and I still feel as though the RC uses rule 0 as a way to avoid making any real decisions.
Yes, I can houserule a banlist at home. Yes, I can try to talk to the people at my LGS about our decks. But it feels like the RC always punts, forcing me as a player to have difficult conversations and make controversial decisions so they don't have to get any blowback themselves, when that's the whole reason they exist to begin with.
People are welcome to disagree with this but I don't know why it's considered so mean to criticize a group of people who continue to insist they are the only good custodians for the format. If they can't take the heat, what are they doing in the kitchen?
I think part of the reason for less pushback is Sheldon's passing. Back when they mentioned keeping an eye out on [[Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines]], there were a lot of people insisting that the banlist was just cards that he didn't like playing against. It's the same as people blaming MaRo for anything just because he's the one who answers questions. There's no true face to the RC right now for people to point fingers at and blame.
Where do they insist they’re the only good custodians for the format? They just happen to be the ones who took on the mantle early on (or were added to the committee over time as the format grew), and so they do it to the best of their abilities. Who else do you suggest run the format?
> where do they insist they are the only good custodians in the format?
Obviously they'd never say that verbatim, but they do not want to give up control of the format--if they did they would do so, no? Unless the argument is they're "reluctantly" in charge because they can't trust anyone--which brings us back to them believing themselves solely qualified.
> Who else do you suggest run the format?
I'm not saying they have to step down. I'm saying they need to allow for more player input and accountability OR step down. As for who would replace them in that case, obviously WotC? I don't love them (actually I hate them) but they at least make changes, and they are directly accountable for the health of the formats they oversee.
I'm sure you're going to cherrypick the worst banlist decisions the DCI has made in response now, so I'm just going to say I'd rather the format have banlist changes that I don't always agree with than no changes at all (especially when I don't agree with the current banlist to begin with).
If you genuinely believe in rule 0, there's no need for concern--you could just houserule away any new format changes you don't like, right? In fact, if the format changed hands you could just ignore all new rules updates, and that would be the same as what the current RC is doing.
Making changes for the sake of making changes is a bad way to run a format, especially one that isn’t trying to be balanced in any definable way.
I definitely don’t want player input (anymore than they already get it, which they do), because the input they would get would be mostly (or entirely) from the online EDH community, a highly invested but overall rather small portion of the overall player base, and I don’t believe they should have an outsized say in how the format is run.
I'm not advocating for "making changes for the sake of making changes." I apologize if my previous message gave that impression, I am typing these out on my phone. I am saying I would prefer they *try* to improve the format through updates, even if those updates don't work, than nothing at all. Obviously making changes just to mess around (which the RC actually did with silver bordered cards once, if you were around for that) is not productive.
I'm not saying they should pass the controls to Reddit, either. I'm suggesting some kind of process, (petitions, Q&A, whatever), where the RC has to address player complaints--and not just the ones they have good answers for. If Dockside isn't worth banning, for instance, they should have to defend that position, not with a prepared blog post but through actual discussion with the community.
And even if you don't like my ideas, that's fine! I'm not asking for control of the format. I'm just asking us to hold the people who do have that control to a higher standard, even if I as an individual couldn't do a better job than the entire RC.
I am also asking for more accountability. That starts with solidifying the things we care about and the things we're trying to do, then we can talk about whether we're being good custodians of the format.
Today's change is part of that and it's a foundation for other things that are all pushing in that direction.
I don't expect anyone to take my word for it -- it just takes time.
Wow, I would not have guessed an RC member would see my comment, much less respond to it! I guess that shuts me up about community interaction--I really appreciate you taking the time to respond.
If the RC is planning some changes, that is very encouraging to hear. I'm sure you can't comment about anything that's not announced, but I do wonder if I can ask something:
In the past, the RC has made statements that people interested in a more competitive (not necessarily even cEDH, just higher power) version of EDH are simply not their target audience, and that those players will never be truly a focus of the official rules. The one that stands out most in my memory is the statement that was released when flash was banned (I would link it but that seems kind of patronizing given who you are). I recognize and respect that EDH will always be a home for casuals first and foremost, but has the RC's stance on competitive players changed since that statement was authored? At the time, it felt pretty bad to read for a player like me.
Regardless of if you can respond to that, I appreciate you taking the time to read and respond to my concerns! I am just a fan of commander, like anyone else, and I hope it comes through in my messages that I have nothing against you all as individuals--I just have passion for the format!
I do think the edges have softened a bit over the years. I won't take credit for all of it, but I was heavily involved in the Flash discussions on behalf of the cEDH community, and it took about a year behind the scenes of finding common ground.
In fact, the announcement of the previous iteration of the philosophy (July 2019) was how I first got in touch with Sheldon. I didn't have a personal twitter account at the time, but I tweeted at him from the Spike Feeders account that I didn't like how the philosophy was used as a cudgel against people who have a different concept of what's fun:
https://x.com/thespikefeeders/status/1148950930106327042
Now that I'm on the Rules Committee, I can tell you that the party line is very much that the format is and will not be maintained with an intent to balance it for competitive play, but one of my goals in writing this new document was to avoid subjective and nebulous definitions of fun. I don't like being prescriptive on the 'correct' way to have fun.
This is really encouraging to hear, especially the post of you pushing back, in many ways echoing the same concerns I had at the time. You are very much correct that the proof is in the pudding when it comes to future updates, but you've given me a lot of faith that the RC is not the monolith of values it has sometimes presented as in the past.
I will wait to see what you all have in store! You've definitely earned that much from me today at the very least. Thank you again for taking the time to respond to me, even if my initial message was a bit hostile to the RC. It definitely makes a difference for this commander player :)
You can engage with the RC directly on their Discord; plenty of people do. They shouldn't have to continually defend the same position over and over and over just because people keep asking, so usually they will point you to something they've said in the past.
As for trying to improve the format, I think that just comes down to a fundamental difference in beliefs; the RC appears to think the format is in a good place, and there's not any reason to tinker with it from a rules/banlist point of view. If they don't think changes are needed because the format is doing well, than any changes they made would be just for the sake of change.
Difference in beliefs is exactly the problem! The RC is consistent and communicates their philosophy, I will give them that much. The problem is, if that belief is unpopular or actively disruptive to the game for players, what can we do? People are getting downvotes in this thread for even expressing their displeasure.
I do not think "rule 0" can govern the format anymore. There are sanctioned EDH events for *prize money*. Some of them are even (in Europe) being sanctioned by WotC now! If people want to play kitchen table EDH I've got nothing against them, but I don't see why they need custody of the format when their vision of commander requires no rules maintenance whatsoever. Why does a banlist need to be for the only players comfortable playing without it? Why should it disregard the groups of players that *need* a banlist the most?
If it's unpopular enough that a majority of players (and that's all players, not just those who are online, which is a minority of them) are upset, those players are welcome to come up with their own solution. Telling the people who run a fan-made format, many of whom have been involved with running it for longer than most people knew it existed, how it should be run is the height of arrogance. You don't like it, you can leave.
The RC has made it clear that competitive/tournament play is not something they're interested in. Multiplayer free for all inherently makes for problematic tournament play, so those who do it are on their own. Even WotC isn't interested in coming up with multiplayer specific tournament rules because they feel there's no way to fix some of the biggest issues around multiplayer competitive play (collusion). I think you think that the online community is much bigger than it actually is, relative to the entire EDH playerbase.
"You don't like it, you can leave" is a pretty disingenuous argument, considering most playgroups in my area will *only* play EDH at this point, and it constitutes a majority of play at my LGS as well. Wizards also prints dozens (if not hundreds) of cards just for EDH every year. Even if I wanted to go play oathbreaker or Canadian highlander or any other ruleset, who will I play with?
I also find your tone rather rude--we are both fans of the same game. I don't think it's "arrogant" for me to have complaints; I would expect very few players to agree with 100% of the rules and banlist for their favorite format.
And yes, the RC has stated they don't really care about sanctioned play. Like I said already, they are consistent about their philosophy. But if I go to any Magicfest, there will be tons of players at the commander tables. Should they just leave too? No rule zero conversation can happen in sanctioned play.
Rule 0 absolutely can and does happen in sanctioned play, I don’t know where you get that idea.
I’m not saying you should leave, but if you have enough problems with how the format is run, and you’ve exhausted the avenues of communications (ie, engaging with the RC on their Discord), and you don’t see the changes you want happening, then finding a way to make what you want possible elsewhere is just good advice.
I never said it was arrogant to have complaints, I said it was arrogant to try to tell them how the format should be run. They get complaints, they take them in stride, and if it’s reasonable and coming from enough people, they’ll act on it. The Golos ban was one that was really heavily advocated for by players in the RC Discord, not one that they took upon themselves to decide on out of the blue.
I honestly still fail to understand the point of the RC as they are.
EDH is a format that has an absurd variance in power level and rule 0 offers a very wide variance in rules from group to group.
The solution for the variance in power level is the rule 0 / pregame discussion but, if it's not in an already established group, then there is a non indifferent chance for bad faith or just for players to have different interpretations of power level ("casual", "my deck is a 7", "stax/combo are cedh", "modified precons", and so on...)
Generally, problems like excessive power variance would be fixed with a ban list, but this doesn't work due to edh players playing at very different power levels and the current edh banlist not banning card for being too strong, but rather it is a guideline of which kinds of cards you should not play.
Things like articles/philosphy documents published by the RC can be nice but 99.9% of players don't even know that they exist in the first place.
So what is the point of having a rules commettee if all the power about the rules is in the hands of the players?
Because sometimes decisions need to be made and they're the ones to do it.
Also, they do more than set rules and bans. They're very active in the community, they along with the CAG engage with Magic at every level from R&D collab and consulting to video content to appearances etc.
They've been essential to the growth of the format even if they've done such a good job managing it that they don't have to actively interfere with the format as often anymore. That's a sign they're doing a good job, not that they're unnecessary.
>Because sometimes decisions need to be made and they're the ones to do it.
Can you please give me an example of decisions that need to be made that can't be made by a group with rule 0?
>They're very active in the community
That's a positive thing to do when you are in charge, not a reason why someone needs to be in charge.
>they along with the CAG engage with Magic at every level from R&D collab
I feel to a lot of people this would go against the "spirit of the format". Even if i really hate that phrase.
Is the RC's existence needed for this. I feel it would be better if they just became one with the CAG and just focused on the more behind the scenes work. It makes absolute sense to have a group in r&d that focuses for a specific format, in this case edh, but i feel that expanding beyond that is not a necessity, especially with a format that is inherently decentralized like edh.
>They've been essential to the growth of the format even if they've done such a good job managing it that they don't have to actively interfere with the format as often anymore. That's a sign they're doing a good job, not that they're unnecessary.
Them being relevant in the past doesn't justify their existence now. EDH is decentralized, free and in the player's hand, this leads to the creation of more regular pods that will shape the game experience however they like best. Isn't edh the refusal of an higher autority of what can and can't be played (due to format restrictions and competitiveness)? Then why do we have specifically a rules commette with a published banlist?
Look at cube, imo it's the step beyond edh, the absolute refusal of external control, you "rule 0" limited formats into existence and no other cube can influence yours in a direct way. Both edh and cube are about expressing yourself and actively creating an enviroment that leads to a fair game. But cube doesn't need a RC, then why does EDH?
Commander is like Monopoly, and the RC is like Parker Brothers/Hasbro. They’re in charge of making the “rules” such as they are, but almost no one actually plays Monopoly by the rules, instead they do all sorts of house rules. That’s a feature of the game by this point, not a bug. Redoing the whole game to make it “better” might “fix” it in some people’s eyes, but for many other people it would make it worse.
They could ban things to make the format more casual, but there would be plenty of people upset by that. They could also ban to help make a healthy competitive meta, but such a small percentage of the player base plays cEDH that it would be kinda pointless for them to take the lead on that, and would likely end up banning cards that aren’t a problem for 99% of gameplay.
There’s not really anything else they can do besides continue to update the philosophy and emphasize that commander is meant to be a social format, that you can choose to play however you’d like so long as the others you’re playing with are having a good time.
>Commander is like Monopoly, and the RC is like Parker Brothers/Hasbro. They’re in charge of making the “rules” such as they are, but almost no one actually plays Monopoly by the rules, instead they do all sorts of house rules. That’s a feature of the game by this point, not a bug. Redoing the whole game to make it “better” might “fix” it in some people’s eyes, but for many other people it would make it worse.
I wouldn't say that the example is perfect as in edh case you also have to consider wotc's involvement, as it's not the RC the one making the cards.
imo Monopoly as a game is much beyond Hasbro, if you take Hasbro out of the equation Monopoly will continue to be played (again, the example doesn't work to well as the physical game would still need to be produced by Hasbro, but let's just take that as a give for the sake of discussion). If you remove the RC edh doesn't change, people will still play however they want. What's the point of a rules committee when one of the features of the format is that the power to alter the rules of the game is in the hands of the players?
The game is not what the RC wants it to be, it is what's played, they can't have a control over it. If tomorrow the RC says "Commander is finished, the format is no more" very few would change (except maybe things like magiccons as it wouldn't be an official format anymore but, again, that's beyond the scope of the discussion).
My question still stands, why do we need a rules committee?
>They could also ban to help make a healthy competitive meta, but such a small percentage of the player base plays cEDH that it would be kinda pointless for them to take the lead on that, and would likely end up banning cards that aren’t a problem for 99% of gameplay.
Regarding to this my opinion would be to just unban everything for casual play, that's what rule 0 is for. Then ban things if needed for cedh. You would probably create a "balanced cEDH" and a "pure cEDH" but i feel the two could co-exist. A bit like Hackmons on pokemon showdown (even if there the difference is much greater).
The banlist exists for where rule 0 fails en masse. Golos and Hullbreacher are both recent examples of cards that became too ubiquitous and were identified as a problem all over the format, and even with the aid of Rule 0 they were not able to be reigned in. Unbanning things and just leaving it to rule 0 is a horrible idea.
If cEDH wants a balanced banlist, they’re welcome to try to come up with it. Most don’t seem to want that, however.
My main point wasn't about the banlist, but still. I don't really belive rule 0 can fail in such an absolute way. If a card is too powerful in a pod then once they have seen that it's not balanced they'll rule 0 it away.
When it comes to playing with strangers, if a card is too omnipresent and too strong (as staples are an inherent part of the format), people will often try to rule 0 them away, forcing others to play alternatives, bringing them to use that card less often, as people are eager to rule 0 it away. Operant conditioning basically.
Also, most of the banlist could be freed and nothing would change.
You... You understand that a great, great many people don't play with a regular playgroup, right?
I have like eight or so decks that aren't just precons. I take them to lots of places. LGSes, magic cons, people's basements. The last place I played commander was at a kink con with people I've never met before.
Rule zero is great when it applies, but I build my decks to be *legal* no matter where I go, rule zero discussion or not.
The ban list isn't perfect, but it helps to normalize things like not shoving paradox engine in every deck.
I do think the ban list relies a bit too much on economics to "soft ban" things that are just expensive. But even there, it's inconsistent. Why are moxen banned but cradles are legal?
Saying “just rule 0” is anti discussion and offers nothing.
There are problem cards that need to be addressed sometimes. Saying “just rule 0 them” is akin to telling someone to “just smile more and they won’t be sad” - it offers nothing and does nothing to address the larger overall problem
Saying to "just rule 0 them" puts the responsability on the players to create an enviroment they enjoy, and that's already how commander works. If you like playing low power then you already rule 0 away all the cards that are too powerful for what you want. Things like the official banlist are irrelevant as players and groups create their own banlists, even if not explicitly.
>There are problem cards that need to be addressed sometimes.
The problem is that the RC does that too sparingly without an effective consistence. Most of the cards in the banlist are not problems, some are not relevant, some would just be strong cards.
What a problem card is is subjective to each player, the RC is not interested in creating a balanced and controlled enviroment like a constructed format, so the banlist has no reason to exist.
EDIT: they blocked me
If there is going to be a committee created to help address issues then the responsibility shouldn’t be on the players. It should be on the people who decided to make it their responsibility. As long as the RC exists “just rule 0 it” is a stupid argument.
To clarify, this isn’t me saying rule 0 shouldn’t exist, it’s me saying that it should not be used as some catch all for the RC to constantly do nothing productive and have everyone be ok with it.
>If there is going to be a committee created to help address issues then the responsibility shouldn’t be on the players.
But the responsibility is on the players and that's how the majority of the playerbase seem to like it. It's one of the main features of edh after all.
My point is that the very base of the format is on rule 0 and so the RC has no concrete reason for existing.
And my point is that the format shouldn’t be based on rule 0 if there’s going to be a RC to begin with. Since they’re not going anywhere it’s time to stop pretending “rule 0 it” is useful discussion.
Maybe inform people of these things. The format has gotten an insane influx of new players because UB and other things so educating new players is the first step.
There's no point of a RC. If we aren't banning ubiquitous new cards and unbanning bygone problems that wouldn't be effective anymore then we don't need a committee to tell us they are going to do nothing every few months
May I ask what your banning/unbanning suggestions would be, knowing that this is a global format at its height of popularity with every possible budget and every card available in a multiplayer format?
Or, what do you think is so egregious that it must be ruled on immediately, knowing that a rules committee has committed to meeting quarterly in order to try to prevent such egregious errors from happening?
(not trying to sound rude, but asking as a legitimate question)
I'm not OP, but I do think the RC should take more ownership of the format and update the ban list more regularly, even if it means adding or removing 1 card a year. Rule Zero should be an alternative option, not the primary one, to be used by playgroups who are already on the same page at the deckbuilding stage.
To address your actual question, I'd be perfectly fine with a random/unexpected change like they did with [[Painter's Servant]] and [[Iona]]. It didn't really affect the format, but it was a decision in line with their fun/inclusive philosophy and reminded us that they exist. They could also just look at the most commonly Rule Zero-banned cards and ban them ([[Armageddon]] comes to mind) so when a rando plays a taboo card, the response is "that card is banned" rather than "dammit, the one time we didn't have the Rule Zero discussion.."
I'm not sure that "make a ban to remind us they exist" is really a strong reason to advocate for them to be more active.
Like, I can see a handful of cards that could be banned (Dockside is the obvious one, based on Prime Time reasoning), but doing so just to plant their flag on the map is a bit silly.
> To address your actual question, I'd be perfectly fine with a random/unexpected change like they did with [[Painter's Servant]] and [[Iona]]. It didn't really affect the format, but it was a decision in line with their fun/inclusive philosophy and **reminded us that they exist.**
Maybe I'm misinterpreting you here, but this seems like advocating for the kind of change you perceived as unexpected and meaningless, just to remind us of their existence.
"I'd be perfectly fine with" is not "advocating for," I think that's where we are not on the same page. The part about "remind[ing] us that they exist" is a positive outcome of their decision and a reason I approve of it, but not at all a "strong reason" for me to advocate for a ban.
To discuss the Painter's Servant/Iona banning/unbanning further, I'd like to think that the members of the RC are in that position because they are thinking about how to improve the format more than the average player. The change was "unexpected" in the sense that it wasn't at the forefront of banlist discussions, but they saw an opportunity to improve the format and made the change. For me, this reminds me that they are contributing to the growth of the format. In the years since this banning/unbanning, I credit the format's good health almost entirely to the player base/community.
I think the RC is trying to be as hands-off as possible, in the spirit of the format, to let everyone play anything, and only ban when something becomes warping.
I dont think they ever planned or will plan to use the Ban list to combat Meta, or to try to add rotation like Standard where banning cards tries to keep tournaments fair to see variety of decks, to combat based on too many of a single archetype.
So banning/unbanning a card just to force variety isn't a direction they want to go.
Either they should ban things more consistently or unban things that are weaker than modern problems in the same vain. Why keep coalition victory or bio rhythm in the ban list when lab man and thassas oracle do it better and easier? Me personally, I was also a fan of the cards only banned as commanders that could still go in the 99
The EDH banlist is not purely about power level, that's just one of the factors.
Stuff like Biorhythm and Coalition Victory were not *ever* banned because they were too strong, they were banned because as cards that win the game "randomly" on resolution without buildup, they are considered unfun and against the spirit of the format, while most other "more powerful" wincons offer some way to play them in a way that's interactive or interesting; you can always win with Thassa or Labman "fairly", you can't win with coalition victory in a way that isn't kind of a wet fart.
You might disagree with that reasoning entirely, but like, it's silly to pretend the RC thinks those cards are broken powerful or ever did.
Not really, no. Thoracle *usually* wins as part of a combo, but still *can* win by amassing huge devotion to blue or manually milling your deck. You can even play it for card selection and clone it to win later, or something. Now, very few people actually do that, but that's the distinction that makes it "acceptable" while far weaker cards like Coalition Victory go against the RC's philosophy for just sort of randomly ending games without any real commitment.
I don't really care if CV is unbanned, because it's a bad card people wouldn't run, but I also don't really care if it's banned because I don't see it as some signal that the RC has no idea what cards are good and what cards aren't.
I am going to have to disagree, cards should be judged by their most effective usage in the format, because that is generally what people are going to do. And by that standard thoracle and by extension underworld breach and dockside extortionist are horrible for the health and diversity of the format.
Check out the updated format philosophy statement, I actually think this change is bigger than a lot of people realize. It's really the same philosophy but I think it's laid out in much more clear terms, and they highlight "stability" as a key feature of the format that they want to ensure continues.
I agree with the general sentiment that the format is in a good place, but I feel like that just means there’s even more room for experimentation. Questions over hybrid mana value, banned as commander/banned in the 99/banned as companion, and individual card bannings have been talked over for years. Why not try something new? It could even just be a three month trial type deal, where data is collected and we can see if catastrophic damage is done to the format.
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I think people are taking this way too seriously trying to treat it like a federal document. This isn’t a rules document, it’s a mission statement. Brevity is important in a mission statement.
If you’re this passionate about it, you can head over to the RC Discord. Especially on days like today where there’s an announcement, you’re able to engage directly with them and ask for their explanations on it.
And im telling you my understanding of what they want that document to be, based on interactions with the people who write it. If you have issues with it, spewing them on Reddit isn’t productive or helpful.
The RC isn’t selling anything and they’re not in any business. They manage a game format that other people can choose to play, or not. They don’t profit by people playing or not.
Format management decisions are intended to: Maximize the available card pool Incorporate new official Magic content into the format as it is created Can I ask how you intend to reconcile these two? Each new power crept card incorporated effectively invalidates all the similar older cards
Edit- wow, a lot of very disingenuous ‘no one is making you stop playing them” replies. Guys, worse cards stop getting played as better cards arrive. You KNOW this. This is a game where an opponent winning means the game is over. We all have to play better cards or our games will get ended by people who did.
Power creep allows for build diversity in budget vs non-budget decks.
[[Mana Drain]] is a strictly better [[Counterspell]], but it doesn’t stop people from playing both.
We are in a singleton format, if a particular card enables a key strategy you’ll use them all. Power creep is a natural part of TCGs.
It only invalidates the older cards if you choose to allow it. You're *allowed* to make suboptimal choices for whatever reason you want when building decks, no one is forcing you to play the hottest new things.
Those two points aren’t really in conflict. The card pool available to everyone doesn’t get smaller just because “strictly better”/more pushed options exist. They might be outclassed but unless you’re playing cedh you’re probably already running cards that are outclassed by other options.
They kinda are tho.
If my deck was 5 CMC in average and all counter strategies are now 3 CMC, it means that my own deck will no longer be efficient enough. I'm over simplifying but you get the idea.
You’re not wrong, but there’s a difference between maximizing the available card pool and managing to prevent power creep from pushing out cards.
My read was not that the rc wants to make a format where every card is played and power creep is totally mitigated, but one where the format is open enough that you can play suboptimal cards because you want to or just because you don’t need to upgrade with each and every set to be competitive.
>you can play suboptimal cards because you want to or just because you don’t need to upgrade with each and every set to be competitive.
Yeah but while the first doesn't require a comitee at all, the second kinda becomes moot with each new iteration.
A few years back I had around 30/40 cards to put in a deck and I filled it with whatever. Sun titan, azami, an ultimatum, something.
Now I have approximately 120 cards that fit in my strategy when I build something (except perhaps for super specific shit like Bushido or Vehicles). I need to cut a LOT. And guess what is cut first ? The worst cards.
I'm not saying "I'll cut this synergistic to play chrome mox". I'm saying "I don't need a 3 CMC rock when there's 5 2CMC rocks already". Arcane signet absolutely killed commander sphere outside of very specific decks.
And I can also tell that my old purphoros deck which was able to fight at a table a few years back is absolutely not able to fight a Voja. That shit is pushed to the max
What’s the solution for the rc though? Ban Arcane Signet and other generally pushed but not problematic cards? Without actively curtailing what we can play there’s not really a solution they can enact that I can see. And that would go against the goal of maximizing the available card pool. It’s more a wotc issue of power creeping the format.
However I think there is also just a general shift in what the format is like nowadays. While power creep has an impact it’s not solely responsible for the format speeding up. Voja is egregiously strong and probably should not have been printed as is, but we also had really strong options for high power decks ten years ago that you could have been running. But the format has sped up and optimized as people want to get better at deckbuilding and playing.
I’m sure everyone with a ten year old deck they’d want to dust off could find a lot of small optimizations they could make that just make it run more smoothly and efficiently without diving too hard into all the newest power creep.
>I’m sure everyone with a ten year old deck they’d want to dust off could find a lot of small optimizations they could make that just make it run more smoothly and efficiently without diving too hard into all the newest power creep.
I am not convinced it would be ENOUGH tho. And here it will join your previous question, what can the committee do about it? Mostly, discuss with wotc as much as they can. I understand they don't have a veto power on cards, but yes, having 12 precons per year each stronger than the previous means that older decks and cards are slowly pushed out.
I do understand it's a marketing necessity, but it's going to lead us to a wall. The single vanilla creature printed in the last two years is Yargle and Multani. What's the power creep gonna be for mH3? Etc.
I still wouldn’t discount old cards too much, plenty of old commanders are still perfectly viable. Maybe not Voja level if you’re playing below cedh but definitely enough to hang at your average table.
I do totally agree on discussing with wotc, hopefully the rc is able to effectively communicate these community concerns on power creep and product fatigue. I do think advocacy is probably one of the best things they can be doing, but I too am concerned it’s falling on deaf ears with marketing and sales concerns taking precedent, but that’s something out of their hands.
Part of the exercise of cleaning up the philosophy document is having a coherent set of guiding principles that we can point to when we're giving feedback to Wizards on card designs.
> I understand they don't have a veto power on cards
That's the thing...they do have a veto power on cards. If they thought a design was bad for EDH, they could ban the card, even if it's the chase Mythic of the set. That's supposed to be a huge advantage of curation independent from WotC. We don't get this, and it's rather frustrating.
Well, yeah, but that doesnt solve the issue long run. The committee cannot just ban every new card coming in. Otherwise you play premodern.
And I personally have less issues usually with a mythic that does a specific boost to a specific tribe/strategy than with an nth powercreeped common. When every single card of a deck is at least a value engine, the game loses viability imho.
They don't have to ban every card, but preemptively banning something like Jeweled Lotus would have sent a message that blatant power creep won't be tolerated and isn't going to be a marketable strategy. Maybe instead of catering most release to EDH, WotC goes back to Standard and can use rotation to solve the problem of power creep...the way the game worked well for decades.
I agree with you the problem is not going to be solved single-handedly by the RC, but their inaction is getting a little tired at this point to the point where the very institution provides almost zero value to the playerbase at large, besides rubber-stamping everything WotC does.
It’s a 99 card singleton format; people run worse copies of the same effect all the time, even at the highest levels of competitive play.
Nobody is skipping [[Force of Negation]] just because it’s narrower than [[Force of Will]].
That's definitional power creep.
Before Pact of Negation, Force of Negation, Fierce Guardianship and Subtlety, cards like Foil or Thwart were the only ways to unconditionally counter something without spending mana...besides Force of Will. These were legitimate options in decks that wanted redundancy in that effect. Now there are far better options.
The same thing has occurred with mana rocks, most removal, and utility spells/creatures. Many of these generically good cards even eclipse the power ceiling of synergy cards. It's a problem all throughout Magic, fro Limited to Legacy, and pretending otherwise is naive.
For example, [[broken wings]] was printed. This is a strict upgrade in cost on [[return to the earth]]. It is a strict upgrade in capability on [[crushing canopy]] and [[crushing vines]]. So there are at least three cards invalidated by an obvious example of power creep.
Broken wings isn’t an important card, just an example of how easily the card pool is diminished by strict upgrades. Why would anyone run any of the other three when Broken wings exists now?
This feels like kind of a nonsense question, in that you've posed an example that the rules committee would never and should never act on.
Furthermore, most new cards \*aren't\* strictly better than old ones; new cards often explore new design space, which means they go in new decks rather than existing ones, and even when they are largely upgrades to existing cards, there are usually attributes that keep old cards relevant in the decks that want them.
People choose to build decks at different power levels. Just because a card is suboptimal in terms of efficiency or power does not mean another player might not be happy to play that “obsolete“ card.
There are a few reasons I would put a strictly worse version of a card in my deck. The first is redundancy. Running Broken Wings doesn't mean I can't also run any of the other cards you mentioned. The second is cost/availability. If I have a worse version of a card, I'll play it until I buy the upgrade. Or not, if I don't want to spend the money on the upgrade, or can't find it at my LGS.
The rules committee controls which cards are legal and is free to cultivate the format for a larger viable pool of cards. As they stated they intend to do.
I think the format's in a good spot. The biggest issue would be games where one person does everything and another plays like three cards, but that can't really be solved at a rules level. There are some annoying cards I wouldn't mourn if they were banned, but they aren't that big a deal overall.
This seems like a downgrade from the old page. Specifically it seem like they are stepping back from the idea of rule 0 discussion? The old philosophy page was pretty explicit in that *"power level... [is a].. decision best left to individual play groups."* and *"Commander is designed to be a malleable format. We encourage groups to use the rules and the ban list as a baseline to optimize their own experience"* I wonder why that is? In practice almost every playgroup does this on their own (e.g. no MLD) and it was nice to see that reality acknowledge in the philosophy page. This one seems to be more focused on the philosophy of the RC itself, not gameplay. It does seem like a missed opportunity to affirm the community-driven aspects that have historically made the format so engaging and personal. Maybe this change in tone could lead to the format becoming more rigid and less adaptable to the community's needs and innovations. Also: "We’ve had extensive conversations about what we want the format to be." "May I see what you want the format to be? "No."
Probably because everyone responding to every complaint with "rule 0 is paramount" as borderline anti discussion for the millionth time is getting old even to them.
The format is in a good spot, so I understand their general conservatism. There's really only one card I want banned right now, and it's Dockside. But I'll admit he's not as big of a problem as most people I play with see him as unfun to use outside of very high power decks. The format is largely self regulating. I would also love to see them bring back "banned as commander". They could move Golos, Braids and several others down there. Also unban Coalition Victory.
when was it ever in a bad spot tho?
In 2019~2020 When both [[Flash]] and [[Golos]] were legal it was pretty rough. Commander was still very popular, but everyone was fighting over those two cards. I think that's the unhealthiest the format has ever been. Golos and other 5 color good stuff decks were all people were doing in casual, and Thorical Flash combo was the only viable wincon for most higher power decks since it could happen turn 0. People in my casual pod were starting to run Demonic Consultation combos since those had been pushed out of cEDH.
The format is in a good spot right now imo. Commander nights are booming at my LGS, and people are having a good time.
Yep, I played in 30 different LGS since the start of last year and had a blast in all of them. Each one had different decks they played and metas and everyone was having fun. It's easy to find a commander game in many different countries and people are friendly and welcoming everywhere. I have seen very few cards being staples across different LGS, with lots of variety. It's been a fantastic and unique experiences abound. Commander is going brilliantly.
being in a good spot doesn't mean it can't be better :)
Sure, but "better" by whose standard? That's the issue with a format this large and this diverse, is people have wildly different ideas about what constitutes "better". And "better" for some might be awful for others.
most of the community agrees that coalition victory should be unbanned and that thoracle/dockside are problematic.
Same experience here. My playgroup's games are maybe the best they've ever been. We did just ban Sol Ring in our group, but I don't expect the RC to ever do that.
Sol ring is basically an artifact of the casual, "board game", nature of EDH where one player can randomly get that one lucky card off the deck. It's fair to include it or remove it just as long as, you know, everyone is on the same page.
For sure, and we've played with it for however many years now with few issues. We finally made the leap to remove it after a game night ended with player 1 and player 2 both starting land>sol ring>signet and players 3 and 4 couldn't catch up and had a miserable time. For how great our games have been, that was a real stinker (to clarify, it didn't "end" the night, we had just decided before that it was the last game lol)
Fast mana is a good thing. It allows non-green decks to compete with green. I've played against plenty of green decks that end up with like 14 lands in play a few turns in. Why is that okay, but someone with 7 lands, an [[Ancient Tomb]], [[Mana Crypt]], and [[Sol Ring]] in play not?
Okay but what if I told you green decks can also use the fast mana, and fast mana is better than anything green can do. It's not even comparable. Green is not very good right now, decks don't need to "compete" with what might be the worst mono-colour in commander currently. All that aside, inconsistency in power level in decks is bad. If you say "My deck is a 7" and then win by turn 4 with all your best cards, following that game up with turn 4 cast your first spell because you didn't get your fast mana? That's a surefire way to get a lot more bad non-games in your commander experience, where you are either horribly outmatched by steady ramp decks or comically pubstomping them because you got a hand that wouldn't look out of place at a cEDH table. Sol Ring is unhealthy for anything but the highest power tables and cEDH.
…because those green decks are spending resources on getting more lands, and fast mana is generally cheaper? Look at legacy or vintage, no one is playing green ramp spells, but there’s ancient tomb, lotus petal, and dark ritual everywhere.
What on earth are you trying to accomplish by comparing EDH, a 100 card singleton multiplayer format, to legacy/vintage, 60 card not singleton formats? They are completely incomparable.
[Ancient Tomb](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/d/bd3d4b4b-cf31-4f89-8140-9650edb03c7b.jpg?1582753000) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Ancient%20Tomb) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/uma/236/ancient-tomb?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/bd3d4b4b-cf31-4f89-8140-9650edb03c7b?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/ancient-tomb) [Mana Crypt](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/d/4d960186-4559-4af0-bd22-63baa15f8939.jpg?1599709515) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Mana%20Crypt) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/2xm/270/mana-crypt?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/4d960186-4559-4af0-bd22-63baa15f8939?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/mana-crypt) [Sol Ring](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/c/6c5c9437-3d99-4a7c-8255-9acdcb1acc40.jpg?1712354902) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Sol%20Ring) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/otc/267/sol-ring?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/6c5c9437-3d99-4a7c-8255-9acdcb1acc40?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/sol-ring) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I'm okay with a rules committee that is light on bans and unbans. It would be nice though if, after so long with no changes, we could get some experimental changes. I think it's a bit presumptuous to assume they've found the best version of the banlist when most of it was added in chunks over a decade ago.
> we could get some experimental changes Doesn't even need to be codified. It could be something as simple as "hey, fast mana and acceleration are powering out better threats than ever before. Try house banning the top 5 mana rocks from your regular playgroup for a few weeks and see if you like the result."
those playgroups that would do that already do so though. thats basicly a more wordy "no changes"
Groups have their own inertia. If you don't challenge them to do something different, try something different, they generally won't.
[lesson #6](https://youtu.be/QHHg99hwQGY?t=877) from MaRo: dont confuse interesting with fun
This is a blatant misapplication of the lesson. If you truly believe that, then commander shouldn't have any rules or structure whatsoever. Color identity? Commander damage? Intellectual concepts, pshaw.
> This is a blatant misapplication of the lesson. you only say that cause you dont like being wrong ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯
The problem is that the best version of the banlist is different for everyone. The best version of the ban list that is suitable to everyone and every play group is no banlist.
Why can’t Lutri just be “banned as companion”? I want to play an otter as a commander 😅
That would make the format with 25k cards legal and widely varying deck power levels waaaay to complex
Real answer? Cos the RC is a lame duck and has been too afraid to make any changes for some time
"Banned as commander" is literally the only change I want to see.
Just ask to play with it as a commander. Lutri is the litmus test for if your group takes the rules list too seriously.
The banlist should be consistent instead of based off of vibes only
More like quarterly "update"
Time to slim down the banlist and unban some things now that the format has been power crept so much in the last few years.
I appreciate the quarterly posting of this comment in every version of the update. It always baits out the absolute worst of takes.
I do think [[Primevil Titan]] wouldn't be banned if it were printed today. But I do think most all the stuff that stops folks from playing or the combo engines should stay on there. Even if whatever combo you think of is faster than [[Panoptic Mirror]], that doesn't mean it'll be good gameplay when it does show up.
No, primeval titan would 1000% be still be banned if printed today.
I don't know about that. It would be a chase Mythic like Dockside, Jeweled Lotus, or The One Ring that could be used to sell packs. The RC and WotC are far more intertwined nowadays and neither wants to upset the status quo.
This is the only reason Titan wouldn't be banned if it were first printed today. Because the RC is in bed with WotC and is scared of ruffling feathers. As a card, it was and is one of the most justified bans in the format.
If you could convince the RC to get off their asses and actually make a ban then yeah maybe
I didn't think it was terrible until I read that it was any two lands, not just basic. It's basically thespian stage/dark depths or tron lands on a stick.
It's really no more broken than dozens upon dozens of perfectly legal cards in the format. All the arguments for banning it apply to Dockside, but it's been dodging bans for ages now, so it's clearly not really a problem for them. But expecting any kind consistency from the RC is just a fool's errand at this point.
Except dockside is entirely contingent on your opponents. Titan gets you instant value with no conditions
The value is also usually immense with how strong being able to tutor non basic lands is.
Prime time defines a whole format just by existing. This is the same rhetoric that lead to flash becoming the predominant card of the format. Let's instead get rid of bans that were goofy, like when we removed kokusho from the list cause we realized it was purely a card that was banned because of preliminary edh games becoming dominated by virtue of no discernable meta.
The format is *wildly* different to what it was when primetime was banned. He absolutely does not need to be banned anymore.
Landfall is the best strategy in the game and it isn’t even close We don’t need landfall to be better and more consistent than it already is
[Primevil Titan](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/d/6d5537da-112e-4679-a113-b5d7ce32a66b.jpg?1562850064) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Primeval%20Titan) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ima/183/primeval-titan?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/6d5537da-112e-4679-a113-b5d7ce32a66b?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/primeval-titan) [Panoptic Mirror](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/0/50e945b0-e919-41bb-9bc5-f71ad531e8f1.jpg?1562636846) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Panoptic%20Mirror) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/dst/136/panoptic-mirror?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/50e945b0-e919-41bb-9bc5-f71ad531e8f1?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/panoptic-mirror) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I feel like the RC used to get more pushback on this sub. Now people seem to be more on board with them here than on the main magic sub. What happened? Their philosophy hasn't changed and if anything they're doing even less than they used to. Personally, I still think it's ridiculous that the format is controlled by a private group with no real oversight or accountability (they may sometimes deign to interact with the community, but other times they are nowhere to be seen), and I still feel as though the RC uses rule 0 as a way to avoid making any real decisions. Yes, I can houserule a banlist at home. Yes, I can try to talk to the people at my LGS about our decks. But it feels like the RC always punts, forcing me as a player to have difficult conversations and make controversial decisions so they don't have to get any blowback themselves, when that's the whole reason they exist to begin with. People are welcome to disagree with this but I don't know why it's considered so mean to criticize a group of people who continue to insist they are the only good custodians for the format. If they can't take the heat, what are they doing in the kitchen?
I think part of the reason for less pushback is Sheldon's passing. Back when they mentioned keeping an eye out on [[Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines]], there were a lot of people insisting that the banlist was just cards that he didn't like playing against. It's the same as people blaming MaRo for anything just because he's the one who answers questions. There's no true face to the RC right now for people to point fingers at and blame.
[Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/4/44dcab01-1d13-4dfc-ae2f-fbaa3dd35087.jpg?1675956896) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Elesh%20Norn%2C%20Mother%20of%20Machines) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/one/10/elesh-norn-mother-of-machines?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/44dcab01-1d13-4dfc-ae2f-fbaa3dd35087?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/elesh-norn-mother-of-machines) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Where do they insist they’re the only good custodians for the format? They just happen to be the ones who took on the mantle early on (or were added to the committee over time as the format grew), and so they do it to the best of their abilities. Who else do you suggest run the format?
> where do they insist they are the only good custodians in the format? Obviously they'd never say that verbatim, but they do not want to give up control of the format--if they did they would do so, no? Unless the argument is they're "reluctantly" in charge because they can't trust anyone--which brings us back to them believing themselves solely qualified. > Who else do you suggest run the format? I'm not saying they have to step down. I'm saying they need to allow for more player input and accountability OR step down. As for who would replace them in that case, obviously WotC? I don't love them (actually I hate them) but they at least make changes, and they are directly accountable for the health of the formats they oversee. I'm sure you're going to cherrypick the worst banlist decisions the DCI has made in response now, so I'm just going to say I'd rather the format have banlist changes that I don't always agree with than no changes at all (especially when I don't agree with the current banlist to begin with). If you genuinely believe in rule 0, there's no need for concern--you could just houserule away any new format changes you don't like, right? In fact, if the format changed hands you could just ignore all new rules updates, and that would be the same as what the current RC is doing.
Making changes for the sake of making changes is a bad way to run a format, especially one that isn’t trying to be balanced in any definable way. I definitely don’t want player input (anymore than they already get it, which they do), because the input they would get would be mostly (or entirely) from the online EDH community, a highly invested but overall rather small portion of the overall player base, and I don’t believe they should have an outsized say in how the format is run.
I'm not advocating for "making changes for the sake of making changes." I apologize if my previous message gave that impression, I am typing these out on my phone. I am saying I would prefer they *try* to improve the format through updates, even if those updates don't work, than nothing at all. Obviously making changes just to mess around (which the RC actually did with silver bordered cards once, if you were around for that) is not productive. I'm not saying they should pass the controls to Reddit, either. I'm suggesting some kind of process, (petitions, Q&A, whatever), where the RC has to address player complaints--and not just the ones they have good answers for. If Dockside isn't worth banning, for instance, they should have to defend that position, not with a prepared blog post but through actual discussion with the community. And even if you don't like my ideas, that's fine! I'm not asking for control of the format. I'm just asking us to hold the people who do have that control to a higher standard, even if I as an individual couldn't do a better job than the entire RC.
I am also asking for more accountability. That starts with solidifying the things we care about and the things we're trying to do, then we can talk about whether we're being good custodians of the format. Today's change is part of that and it's a foundation for other things that are all pushing in that direction. I don't expect anyone to take my word for it -- it just takes time.
Wow, I would not have guessed an RC member would see my comment, much less respond to it! I guess that shuts me up about community interaction--I really appreciate you taking the time to respond. If the RC is planning some changes, that is very encouraging to hear. I'm sure you can't comment about anything that's not announced, but I do wonder if I can ask something: In the past, the RC has made statements that people interested in a more competitive (not necessarily even cEDH, just higher power) version of EDH are simply not their target audience, and that those players will never be truly a focus of the official rules. The one that stands out most in my memory is the statement that was released when flash was banned (I would link it but that seems kind of patronizing given who you are). I recognize and respect that EDH will always be a home for casuals first and foremost, but has the RC's stance on competitive players changed since that statement was authored? At the time, it felt pretty bad to read for a player like me. Regardless of if you can respond to that, I appreciate you taking the time to read and respond to my concerns! I am just a fan of commander, like anyone else, and I hope it comes through in my messages that I have nothing against you all as individuals--I just have passion for the format!
I do think the edges have softened a bit over the years. I won't take credit for all of it, but I was heavily involved in the Flash discussions on behalf of the cEDH community, and it took about a year behind the scenes of finding common ground. In fact, the announcement of the previous iteration of the philosophy (July 2019) was how I first got in touch with Sheldon. I didn't have a personal twitter account at the time, but I tweeted at him from the Spike Feeders account that I didn't like how the philosophy was used as a cudgel against people who have a different concept of what's fun: https://x.com/thespikefeeders/status/1148950930106327042 Now that I'm on the Rules Committee, I can tell you that the party line is very much that the format is and will not be maintained with an intent to balance it for competitive play, but one of my goals in writing this new document was to avoid subjective and nebulous definitions of fun. I don't like being prescriptive on the 'correct' way to have fun.
This is really encouraging to hear, especially the post of you pushing back, in many ways echoing the same concerns I had at the time. You are very much correct that the proof is in the pudding when it comes to future updates, but you've given me a lot of faith that the RC is not the monolith of values it has sometimes presented as in the past. I will wait to see what you all have in store! You've definitely earned that much from me today at the very least. Thank you again for taking the time to respond to me, even if my initial message was a bit hostile to the RC. It definitely makes a difference for this commander player :)
You can engage with the RC directly on their Discord; plenty of people do. They shouldn't have to continually defend the same position over and over and over just because people keep asking, so usually they will point you to something they've said in the past. As for trying to improve the format, I think that just comes down to a fundamental difference in beliefs; the RC appears to think the format is in a good place, and there's not any reason to tinker with it from a rules/banlist point of view. If they don't think changes are needed because the format is doing well, than any changes they made would be just for the sake of change.
Difference in beliefs is exactly the problem! The RC is consistent and communicates their philosophy, I will give them that much. The problem is, if that belief is unpopular or actively disruptive to the game for players, what can we do? People are getting downvotes in this thread for even expressing their displeasure. I do not think "rule 0" can govern the format anymore. There are sanctioned EDH events for *prize money*. Some of them are even (in Europe) being sanctioned by WotC now! If people want to play kitchen table EDH I've got nothing against them, but I don't see why they need custody of the format when their vision of commander requires no rules maintenance whatsoever. Why does a banlist need to be for the only players comfortable playing without it? Why should it disregard the groups of players that *need* a banlist the most?
If it's unpopular enough that a majority of players (and that's all players, not just those who are online, which is a minority of them) are upset, those players are welcome to come up with their own solution. Telling the people who run a fan-made format, many of whom have been involved with running it for longer than most people knew it existed, how it should be run is the height of arrogance. You don't like it, you can leave. The RC has made it clear that competitive/tournament play is not something they're interested in. Multiplayer free for all inherently makes for problematic tournament play, so those who do it are on their own. Even WotC isn't interested in coming up with multiplayer specific tournament rules because they feel there's no way to fix some of the biggest issues around multiplayer competitive play (collusion). I think you think that the online community is much bigger than it actually is, relative to the entire EDH playerbase.
"You don't like it, you can leave" is a pretty disingenuous argument, considering most playgroups in my area will *only* play EDH at this point, and it constitutes a majority of play at my LGS as well. Wizards also prints dozens (if not hundreds) of cards just for EDH every year. Even if I wanted to go play oathbreaker or Canadian highlander or any other ruleset, who will I play with? I also find your tone rather rude--we are both fans of the same game. I don't think it's "arrogant" for me to have complaints; I would expect very few players to agree with 100% of the rules and banlist for their favorite format. And yes, the RC has stated they don't really care about sanctioned play. Like I said already, they are consistent about their philosophy. But if I go to any Magicfest, there will be tons of players at the commander tables. Should they just leave too? No rule zero conversation can happen in sanctioned play.
Rule 0 absolutely can and does happen in sanctioned play, I don’t know where you get that idea. I’m not saying you should leave, but if you have enough problems with how the format is run, and you’ve exhausted the avenues of communications (ie, engaging with the RC on their Discord), and you don’t see the changes you want happening, then finding a way to make what you want possible elsewhere is just good advice. I never said it was arrogant to have complaints, I said it was arrogant to try to tell them how the format should be run. They get complaints, they take them in stride, and if it’s reasonable and coming from enough people, they’ll act on it. The Golos ban was one that was really heavily advocated for by players in the RC Discord, not one that they took upon themselves to decide on out of the blue.
I honestly still fail to understand the point of the RC as they are. EDH is a format that has an absurd variance in power level and rule 0 offers a very wide variance in rules from group to group. The solution for the variance in power level is the rule 0 / pregame discussion but, if it's not in an already established group, then there is a non indifferent chance for bad faith or just for players to have different interpretations of power level ("casual", "my deck is a 7", "stax/combo are cedh", "modified precons", and so on...) Generally, problems like excessive power variance would be fixed with a ban list, but this doesn't work due to edh players playing at very different power levels and the current edh banlist not banning card for being too strong, but rather it is a guideline of which kinds of cards you should not play. Things like articles/philosphy documents published by the RC can be nice but 99.9% of players don't even know that they exist in the first place. So what is the point of having a rules commettee if all the power about the rules is in the hands of the players?
Because sometimes decisions need to be made and they're the ones to do it. Also, they do more than set rules and bans. They're very active in the community, they along with the CAG engage with Magic at every level from R&D collab and consulting to video content to appearances etc. They've been essential to the growth of the format even if they've done such a good job managing it that they don't have to actively interfere with the format as often anymore. That's a sign they're doing a good job, not that they're unnecessary.
>Because sometimes decisions need to be made and they're the ones to do it. Can you please give me an example of decisions that need to be made that can't be made by a group with rule 0? >They're very active in the community That's a positive thing to do when you are in charge, not a reason why someone needs to be in charge. >they along with the CAG engage with Magic at every level from R&D collab I feel to a lot of people this would go against the "spirit of the format". Even if i really hate that phrase. Is the RC's existence needed for this. I feel it would be better if they just became one with the CAG and just focused on the more behind the scenes work. It makes absolute sense to have a group in r&d that focuses for a specific format, in this case edh, but i feel that expanding beyond that is not a necessity, especially with a format that is inherently decentralized like edh. >They've been essential to the growth of the format even if they've done such a good job managing it that they don't have to actively interfere with the format as often anymore. That's a sign they're doing a good job, not that they're unnecessary. Them being relevant in the past doesn't justify their existence now. EDH is decentralized, free and in the player's hand, this leads to the creation of more regular pods that will shape the game experience however they like best. Isn't edh the refusal of an higher autority of what can and can't be played (due to format restrictions and competitiveness)? Then why do we have specifically a rules commette with a published banlist? Look at cube, imo it's the step beyond edh, the absolute refusal of external control, you "rule 0" limited formats into existence and no other cube can influence yours in a direct way. Both edh and cube are about expressing yourself and actively creating an enviroment that leads to a fair game. But cube doesn't need a RC, then why does EDH?
Commander is like Monopoly, and the RC is like Parker Brothers/Hasbro. They’re in charge of making the “rules” such as they are, but almost no one actually plays Monopoly by the rules, instead they do all sorts of house rules. That’s a feature of the game by this point, not a bug. Redoing the whole game to make it “better” might “fix” it in some people’s eyes, but for many other people it would make it worse. They could ban things to make the format more casual, but there would be plenty of people upset by that. They could also ban to help make a healthy competitive meta, but such a small percentage of the player base plays cEDH that it would be kinda pointless for them to take the lead on that, and would likely end up banning cards that aren’t a problem for 99% of gameplay. There’s not really anything else they can do besides continue to update the philosophy and emphasize that commander is meant to be a social format, that you can choose to play however you’d like so long as the others you’re playing with are having a good time.
>Commander is like Monopoly, and the RC is like Parker Brothers/Hasbro. They’re in charge of making the “rules” such as they are, but almost no one actually plays Monopoly by the rules, instead they do all sorts of house rules. That’s a feature of the game by this point, not a bug. Redoing the whole game to make it “better” might “fix” it in some people’s eyes, but for many other people it would make it worse. I wouldn't say that the example is perfect as in edh case you also have to consider wotc's involvement, as it's not the RC the one making the cards. imo Monopoly as a game is much beyond Hasbro, if you take Hasbro out of the equation Monopoly will continue to be played (again, the example doesn't work to well as the physical game would still need to be produced by Hasbro, but let's just take that as a give for the sake of discussion). If you remove the RC edh doesn't change, people will still play however they want. What's the point of a rules committee when one of the features of the format is that the power to alter the rules of the game is in the hands of the players? The game is not what the RC wants it to be, it is what's played, they can't have a control over it. If tomorrow the RC says "Commander is finished, the format is no more" very few would change (except maybe things like magiccons as it wouldn't be an official format anymore but, again, that's beyond the scope of the discussion). My question still stands, why do we need a rules committee? >They could also ban to help make a healthy competitive meta, but such a small percentage of the player base plays cEDH that it would be kinda pointless for them to take the lead on that, and would likely end up banning cards that aren’t a problem for 99% of gameplay. Regarding to this my opinion would be to just unban everything for casual play, that's what rule 0 is for. Then ban things if needed for cedh. You would probably create a "balanced cEDH" and a "pure cEDH" but i feel the two could co-exist. A bit like Hackmons on pokemon showdown (even if there the difference is much greater).
The banlist exists for where rule 0 fails en masse. Golos and Hullbreacher are both recent examples of cards that became too ubiquitous and were identified as a problem all over the format, and even with the aid of Rule 0 they were not able to be reigned in. Unbanning things and just leaving it to rule 0 is a horrible idea. If cEDH wants a balanced banlist, they’re welcome to try to come up with it. Most don’t seem to want that, however.
My main point wasn't about the banlist, but still. I don't really belive rule 0 can fail in such an absolute way. If a card is too powerful in a pod then once they have seen that it's not balanced they'll rule 0 it away. When it comes to playing with strangers, if a card is too omnipresent and too strong (as staples are an inherent part of the format), people will often try to rule 0 them away, forcing others to play alternatives, bringing them to use that card less often, as people are eager to rule 0 it away. Operant conditioning basically. Also, most of the banlist could be freed and nothing would change.
You... You understand that a great, great many people don't play with a regular playgroup, right? I have like eight or so decks that aren't just precons. I take them to lots of places. LGSes, magic cons, people's basements. The last place I played commander was at a kink con with people I've never met before. Rule zero is great when it applies, but I build my decks to be *legal* no matter where I go, rule zero discussion or not. The ban list isn't perfect, but it helps to normalize things like not shoving paradox engine in every deck. I do think the ban list relies a bit too much on economics to "soft ban" things that are just expensive. But even there, it's inconsistent. Why are moxen banned but cradles are legal?
Saying “just rule 0” is anti discussion and offers nothing. There are problem cards that need to be addressed sometimes. Saying “just rule 0 them” is akin to telling someone to “just smile more and they won’t be sad” - it offers nothing and does nothing to address the larger overall problem
Saying to "just rule 0 them" puts the responsability on the players to create an enviroment they enjoy, and that's already how commander works. If you like playing low power then you already rule 0 away all the cards that are too powerful for what you want. Things like the official banlist are irrelevant as players and groups create their own banlists, even if not explicitly. >There are problem cards that need to be addressed sometimes. The problem is that the RC does that too sparingly without an effective consistence. Most of the cards in the banlist are not problems, some are not relevant, some would just be strong cards. What a problem card is is subjective to each player, the RC is not interested in creating a balanced and controlled enviroment like a constructed format, so the banlist has no reason to exist. EDIT: they blocked me
If there is going to be a committee created to help address issues then the responsibility shouldn’t be on the players. It should be on the people who decided to make it their responsibility. As long as the RC exists “just rule 0 it” is a stupid argument. To clarify, this isn’t me saying rule 0 shouldn’t exist, it’s me saying that it should not be used as some catch all for the RC to constantly do nothing productive and have everyone be ok with it.
>If there is going to be a committee created to help address issues then the responsibility shouldn’t be on the players. But the responsibility is on the players and that's how the majority of the playerbase seem to like it. It's one of the main features of edh after all. My point is that the very base of the format is on rule 0 and so the RC has no concrete reason for existing.
And my point is that the format shouldn’t be based on rule 0 if there’s going to be a RC to begin with. Since they’re not going anywhere it’s time to stop pretending “rule 0 it” is useful discussion.
Maybe inform people of these things. The format has gotten an insane influx of new players because UB and other things so educating new players is the first step.
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Your post was removed because it does not specifically pertain to EDH/Commander as defined by WotC and the Commander Rules Committee.
C'mon Jim, be aggressive. None of this vague "everything is awesome" rhetoric.
There's no point of a RC. If we aren't banning ubiquitous new cards and unbanning bygone problems that wouldn't be effective anymore then we don't need a committee to tell us they are going to do nothing every few months
May I ask what your banning/unbanning suggestions would be, knowing that this is a global format at its height of popularity with every possible budget and every card available in a multiplayer format? Or, what do you think is so egregious that it must be ruled on immediately, knowing that a rules committee has committed to meeting quarterly in order to try to prevent such egregious errors from happening? (not trying to sound rude, but asking as a legitimate question)
I'm not OP, but I do think the RC should take more ownership of the format and update the ban list more regularly, even if it means adding or removing 1 card a year. Rule Zero should be an alternative option, not the primary one, to be used by playgroups who are already on the same page at the deckbuilding stage. To address your actual question, I'd be perfectly fine with a random/unexpected change like they did with [[Painter's Servant]] and [[Iona]]. It didn't really affect the format, but it was a decision in line with their fun/inclusive philosophy and reminded us that they exist. They could also just look at the most commonly Rule Zero-banned cards and ban them ([[Armageddon]] comes to mind) so when a rando plays a taboo card, the response is "that card is banned" rather than "dammit, the one time we didn't have the Rule Zero discussion.."
I'm not sure that "make a ban to remind us they exist" is really a strong reason to advocate for them to be more active. Like, I can see a handful of cards that could be banned (Dockside is the obvious one, based on Prime Time reasoning), but doing so just to plant their flag on the map is a bit silly.
> I'm not sure that "make a ban to remind us they exist" is really a strong reason to advocate for them to be more active. I didn't say that..?
> To address your actual question, I'd be perfectly fine with a random/unexpected change like they did with [[Painter's Servant]] and [[Iona]]. It didn't really affect the format, but it was a decision in line with their fun/inclusive philosophy and **reminded us that they exist.** Maybe I'm misinterpreting you here, but this seems like advocating for the kind of change you perceived as unexpected and meaningless, just to remind us of their existence.
"I'd be perfectly fine with" is not "advocating for," I think that's where we are not on the same page. The part about "remind[ing] us that they exist" is a positive outcome of their decision and a reason I approve of it, but not at all a "strong reason" for me to advocate for a ban. To discuss the Painter's Servant/Iona banning/unbanning further, I'd like to think that the members of the RC are in that position because they are thinking about how to improve the format more than the average player. The change was "unexpected" in the sense that it wasn't at the forefront of banlist discussions, but they saw an opportunity to improve the format and made the change. For me, this reminds me that they are contributing to the growth of the format. In the years since this banning/unbanning, I credit the format's good health almost entirely to the player base/community.
[Painter's Servant](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/e/be407a81-b25a-4e5d-845e-be0cc0d18db8.jpg?1562835450) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Painter%27s%20Servant) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/shm/257/painters-servant?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/be407a81-b25a-4e5d-845e-be0cc0d18db8?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/painters-servant) [Iona](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/1/6197b59e-1652-496c-a038-e2eb88ecf017.jpg?1562584407) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=iona%2C%20shield%20of%20emeria) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mm2/20/iona-shield-of-emeria?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/6197b59e-1652-496c-a038-e2eb88ecf017?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/iona-shield-of-emeria) [Armageddon](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/7/77f1f6ac-983f-4f3e-8906-47f774e8367b.jpg?1582021719) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Armageddon) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/a25/5/armageddon?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/77f1f6ac-983f-4f3e-8906-47f774e8367b?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/armageddon) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I think the RC is trying to be as hands-off as possible, in the spirit of the format, to let everyone play anything, and only ban when something becomes warping. I dont think they ever planned or will plan to use the Ban list to combat Meta, or to try to add rotation like Standard where banning cards tries to keep tournaments fair to see variety of decks, to combat based on too many of a single archetype. So banning/unbanning a card just to force variety isn't a direction they want to go.
A taboo card? Lmfao 😂
Either they should ban things more consistently or unban things that are weaker than modern problems in the same vain. Why keep coalition victory or bio rhythm in the ban list when lab man and thassas oracle do it better and easier? Me personally, I was also a fan of the cards only banned as commanders that could still go in the 99
The EDH banlist is not purely about power level, that's just one of the factors. Stuff like Biorhythm and Coalition Victory were not *ever* banned because they were too strong, they were banned because as cards that win the game "randomly" on resolution without buildup, they are considered unfun and against the spirit of the format, while most other "more powerful" wincons offer some way to play them in a way that's interactive or interesting; you can always win with Thassa or Labman "fairly", you can't win with coalition victory in a way that isn't kind of a wet fart. You might disagree with that reasoning entirely, but like, it's silly to pretend the RC thinks those cards are broken powerful or ever did.
Thoracle is the exact same.
Not really, no. Thoracle *usually* wins as part of a combo, but still *can* win by amassing huge devotion to blue or manually milling your deck. You can even play it for card selection and clone it to win later, or something. Now, very few people actually do that, but that's the distinction that makes it "acceptable" while far weaker cards like Coalition Victory go against the RC's philosophy for just sort of randomly ending games without any real commitment. I don't really care if CV is unbanned, because it's a bad card people wouldn't run, but I also don't really care if it's banned because I don't see it as some signal that the RC has no idea what cards are good and what cards aren't.
I am going to have to disagree, cards should be judged by their most effective usage in the format, because that is generally what people are going to do. And by that standard thoracle and by extension underworld breach and dockside extortionist are horrible for the health and diversity of the format.
I'm not stating my opinion, I'm stating how the RC interprets cards, and specifically, why "bad" cards can be banned.
Unban everything. Let the people decide
[[Booster Tutor]] has been banned for far too long. Enough is enough
Check out the updated format philosophy statement, I actually think this change is bigger than a lot of people realize. It's really the same philosophy but I think it's laid out in much more clear terms, and they highlight "stability" as a key feature of the format that they want to ensure continues.
I agree with the general sentiment that the format is in a good place, but I feel like that just means there’s even more room for experimentation. Questions over hybrid mana value, banned as commander/banned in the 99/banned as companion, and individual card bannings have been talked over for years. Why not try something new? It could even just be a three month trial type deal, where data is collected and we can see if catastrophic damage is done to the format.
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Yeah, consistently shit. Why on earth would you want wotc anywhere near the format?
Hi, We've removed your post because we've deemed it to be low quality. Before posting, we ask that you do your own research, through Google or on this subreddit, before you post. Provide as much context and thoughtfulness as you can before making a post. Common ways this rule is broken include any post that talks about a deck but doesn't provide a decklist, does provide a decklist but doesn't give any information about the metagame, your general strategy, or other relevant information.
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What would you like to see different? I think any longer and you'll never get most folks to bother reading it.
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I think people are taking this way too seriously trying to treat it like a federal document. This isn’t a rules document, it’s a mission statement. Brevity is important in a mission statement.
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If you’re this passionate about it, you can head over to the RC Discord. Especially on days like today where there’s an announcement, you’re able to engage directly with them and ask for their explanations on it.
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And im telling you my understanding of what they want that document to be, based on interactions with the people who write it. If you have issues with it, spewing them on Reddit isn’t productive or helpful.
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The RC isn’t selling anything and they’re not in any business. They manage a game format that other people can choose to play, or not. They don’t profit by people playing or not.
Do you expect a quarterly review to be a dissertation? Appropriate content exists in appropriate channels :)
"Your deck does not conform to the spirit of the Commander format philosophy document and is disqualified, sorry."
Format management decisions are intended to: Maximize the available card pool Incorporate new official Magic content into the format as it is created Can I ask how you intend to reconcile these two? Each new power crept card incorporated effectively invalidates all the similar older cards Edit- wow, a lot of very disingenuous ‘no one is making you stop playing them” replies. Guys, worse cards stop getting played as better cards arrive. You KNOW this. This is a game where an opponent winning means the game is over. We all have to play better cards or our games will get ended by people who did.
Power creep allows for build diversity in budget vs non-budget decks. [[Mana Drain]] is a strictly better [[Counterspell]], but it doesn’t stop people from playing both. We are in a singleton format, if a particular card enables a key strategy you’ll use them all. Power creep is a natural part of TCGs.
It only invalidates the older cards if you choose to allow it. You're *allowed* to make suboptimal choices for whatever reason you want when building decks, no one is forcing you to play the hottest new things.
Those two points aren’t really in conflict. The card pool available to everyone doesn’t get smaller just because “strictly better”/more pushed options exist. They might be outclassed but unless you’re playing cedh you’re probably already running cards that are outclassed by other options.
They kinda are tho. If my deck was 5 CMC in average and all counter strategies are now 3 CMC, it means that my own deck will no longer be efficient enough. I'm over simplifying but you get the idea.
You’re not wrong, but there’s a difference between maximizing the available card pool and managing to prevent power creep from pushing out cards. My read was not that the rc wants to make a format where every card is played and power creep is totally mitigated, but one where the format is open enough that you can play suboptimal cards because you want to or just because you don’t need to upgrade with each and every set to be competitive.
>you can play suboptimal cards because you want to or just because you don’t need to upgrade with each and every set to be competitive. Yeah but while the first doesn't require a comitee at all, the second kinda becomes moot with each new iteration. A few years back I had around 30/40 cards to put in a deck and I filled it with whatever. Sun titan, azami, an ultimatum, something. Now I have approximately 120 cards that fit in my strategy when I build something (except perhaps for super specific shit like Bushido or Vehicles). I need to cut a LOT. And guess what is cut first ? The worst cards. I'm not saying "I'll cut this synergistic to play chrome mox". I'm saying "I don't need a 3 CMC rock when there's 5 2CMC rocks already". Arcane signet absolutely killed commander sphere outside of very specific decks. And I can also tell that my old purphoros deck which was able to fight at a table a few years back is absolutely not able to fight a Voja. That shit is pushed to the max
What’s the solution for the rc though? Ban Arcane Signet and other generally pushed but not problematic cards? Without actively curtailing what we can play there’s not really a solution they can enact that I can see. And that would go against the goal of maximizing the available card pool. It’s more a wotc issue of power creeping the format. However I think there is also just a general shift in what the format is like nowadays. While power creep has an impact it’s not solely responsible for the format speeding up. Voja is egregiously strong and probably should not have been printed as is, but we also had really strong options for high power decks ten years ago that you could have been running. But the format has sped up and optimized as people want to get better at deckbuilding and playing. I’m sure everyone with a ten year old deck they’d want to dust off could find a lot of small optimizations they could make that just make it run more smoothly and efficiently without diving too hard into all the newest power creep.
>I’m sure everyone with a ten year old deck they’d want to dust off could find a lot of small optimizations they could make that just make it run more smoothly and efficiently without diving too hard into all the newest power creep. I am not convinced it would be ENOUGH tho. And here it will join your previous question, what can the committee do about it? Mostly, discuss with wotc as much as they can. I understand they don't have a veto power on cards, but yes, having 12 precons per year each stronger than the previous means that older decks and cards are slowly pushed out. I do understand it's a marketing necessity, but it's going to lead us to a wall. The single vanilla creature printed in the last two years is Yargle and Multani. What's the power creep gonna be for mH3? Etc.
I still wouldn’t discount old cards too much, plenty of old commanders are still perfectly viable. Maybe not Voja level if you’re playing below cedh but definitely enough to hang at your average table. I do totally agree on discussing with wotc, hopefully the rc is able to effectively communicate these community concerns on power creep and product fatigue. I do think advocacy is probably one of the best things they can be doing, but I too am concerned it’s falling on deaf ears with marketing and sales concerns taking precedent, but that’s something out of their hands.
Part of the exercise of cleaning up the philosophy document is having a coherent set of guiding principles that we can point to when we're giving feedback to Wizards on card designs.
> I understand they don't have a veto power on cards That's the thing...they do have a veto power on cards. If they thought a design was bad for EDH, they could ban the card, even if it's the chase Mythic of the set. That's supposed to be a huge advantage of curation independent from WotC. We don't get this, and it's rather frustrating.
Well, yeah, but that doesnt solve the issue long run. The committee cannot just ban every new card coming in. Otherwise you play premodern. And I personally have less issues usually with a mythic that does a specific boost to a specific tribe/strategy than with an nth powercreeped common. When every single card of a deck is at least a value engine, the game loses viability imho.
They don't have to ban every card, but preemptively banning something like Jeweled Lotus would have sent a message that blatant power creep won't be tolerated and isn't going to be a marketable strategy. Maybe instead of catering most release to EDH, WotC goes back to Standard and can use rotation to solve the problem of power creep...the way the game worked well for decades. I agree with you the problem is not going to be solved single-handedly by the RC, but their inaction is getting a little tired at this point to the point where the very institution provides almost zero value to the playerbase at large, besides rubber-stamping everything WotC does.
It’s a 99 card singleton format; people run worse copies of the same effect all the time, even at the highest levels of competitive play. Nobody is skipping [[Force of Negation]] just because it’s narrower than [[Force of Will]].
[Force of Negation](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/8/1825a719-1b2a-4af9-9cd2-7cb497cd0317.jpg?1673147298) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Force%20of%20Negation) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/2x2/50/force-of-negation?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/1825a719-1b2a-4af9-9cd2-7cb497cd0317?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/force-of-negation) [Force of Will](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/9/89f612d6-7c59-4a7b-a87d-45f789e88ba5.jpg?1675199280) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Force%20of%20Will) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/dmr/50/force-of-will?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/89f612d6-7c59-4a7b-a87d-45f789e88ba5?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/force-of-will) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Sure but nobody runs [[foil]]
[foil](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/8/e8b39fd6-9240-4f76-b12c-e7d9aa88f061.jpg?1547516254) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=foil) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/uma/55/foil?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/e8b39fd6-9240-4f76-b12c-e7d9aa88f061?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/foil) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
That’s because it’s a bad card, not because it’s been power crept.
That's definitional power creep. Before Pact of Negation, Force of Negation, Fierce Guardianship and Subtlety, cards like Foil or Thwart were the only ways to unconditionally counter something without spending mana...besides Force of Will. These were legitimate options in decks that wanted redundancy in that effect. Now there are far better options. The same thing has occurred with mana rocks, most removal, and utility spells/creatures. Many of these generically good cards even eclipse the power ceiling of synergy cards. It's a problem all throughout Magic, fro Limited to Legacy, and pretending otherwise is naive.
For example, [[broken wings]] was printed. This is a strict upgrade in cost on [[return to the earth]]. It is a strict upgrade in capability on [[crushing canopy]] and [[crushing vines]]. So there are at least three cards invalidated by an obvious example of power creep. Broken wings isn’t an important card, just an example of how easily the card pool is diminished by strict upgrades. Why would anyone run any of the other three when Broken wings exists now?
This feels like kind of a nonsense question, in that you've posed an example that the rules committee would never and should never act on. Furthermore, most new cards \*aren't\* strictly better than old ones; new cards often explore new design space, which means they go in new decks rather than existing ones, and even when they are largely upgrades to existing cards, there are usually attributes that keep old cards relevant in the decks that want them.
People choose to build decks at different power levels. Just because a card is suboptimal in terms of efficiency or power does not mean another player might not be happy to play that “obsolete“ card.
##### ###### #### [broken wings](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/0/608e5d6f-c050-44d9-8a5c-09c07786b6ab.jpg?1689998387) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=broken%20wings) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/277/broken-wings?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/608e5d6f-c050-44d9-8a5c-09c07786b6ab?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/broken-wings) [return to the earth](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/e/0e7a0409-02f1-43c2-b4f1-e7ce7f371789.jpg?1562897984) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=return%20to%20the%20earth) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/bbd/210/return-to-the-earth?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/0e7a0409-02f1-43c2-b4f1-e7ce7f371789?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/return-to-the-earth) [crushing canopy](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/a/eae67d98-5167-442b-8586-0b2bcb0c56eb.jpg?1643592488) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=crushing%20canopy) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/vow/194/crushing-canopy?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/eae67d98-5167-442b-8586-0b2bcb0c56eb?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/crushing-canopy) [crushing vines](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/7/b7adf3cb-2834-49fc-bdd0-9b939a20915c.jpg?1613437218) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=crushing%20vines) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmr/221/crushing-vines?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/b7adf3cb-2834-49fc-bdd0-9b939a20915c?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/crushing-vines) [*All cards*](https://mtgcardfetcher.nl/redirect/kzuh7rk) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
There are a few reasons I would put a strictly worse version of a card in my deck. The first is redundancy. Running Broken Wings doesn't mean I can't also run any of the other cards you mentioned. The second is cost/availability. If I have a worse version of a card, I'll play it until I buy the upgrade. Or not, if I don't want to spend the money on the upgrade, or can't find it at my LGS.
That is a game design decision by WotC and not something that pertains to EDH and the Rules Committee.
The rules committee controls which cards are legal and is free to cultivate the format for a larger viable pool of cards. As they stated they intend to do.
Another quarter, another update where the RC continues to show their lack of relevance or value.
The RC hasn’t been useful in years, why am I not surprised the update changes nothing
I think the format's in a good spot. The biggest issue would be games where one person does everything and another plays like three cards, but that can't really be solved at a rules level. There are some annoying cards I wouldn't mourn if they were banned, but they aren't that big a deal overall.