Commander "What If...?" | EDHRECast 232

[@breakingtide]

Im with Dana on the commander damage thing. It does happen ALL the time and even when it doesn't, the THREAT of it dictates how people block a LOT. In decks where it doesn't matter, most people will tell you dont bother tracking it. I do all the time with my mizzix if I HAPPEN to hit someone early

[@AncientHydraGaming]

Also, I've used commander damage to kill people under Teferi's Protection or Platinum Imperium because I have a "damage can't be prevented".

[@Mwarrior1991]

i do think people die to commander damage a lot, but i dont think voltron players win a lot. its like infect, you can wipe a person with a quick sneak attack, but then youre gonna get blasted down by the rest of the table real quick.

[@Sipricy]

As someone that does not like commander damage: I don't dislike it because I'm under the impression that it's irrelevant, I dislike it because it's 3 extra numbers that I need to keep track of (in addition to my life total), and it's mostly just annoying. It's also unintuitive with how it interacts with cards that prevent life totals from changing (Your life total won't change, but you're still taking commander damage when the attack connects). If it was intuitive and easy to track, it wouldn't be that much of a problem. Removing commander damage makes voltron decks worse, and they don't need to be nerfed. It just needs to be easier to track.

[@GrayVMhan]

​​@@Mwarrior1991extra turns or extra combats are great when going for commander damage since you can hopefully knock out more than one player using your extra swings

[@NerdByAnyOtherName]

I'm a bit colorblind and I must say that Matt's opening joke really came out of the purple

[@mfitkin]

I look forward to this podcast every week, your joy is infectious

[@AxillaryPower2]

Personally, I've got an equipment deck and there's a handful of cards that tutor as well as do something else, like Fighter Class and Stoneforge mystic. That change would probably knock out 6 or more cards. It would, however, make cards that "look at the top x cards, get one" the new best thing.

[@happybrain2674]

The best things are cheating tutors: you search and put into play. So yeah maybe the next best would be all ways to cheat into play without searching, like bolas citadel or cascade.

[@Core159]

Joey at the very end there from that slip Matt made killed me. Love listening every week.

[@MrJeffAqua]

Banning search effects would add about 700 cards to the commander ban list.

[@andrewsparkes6275]

Just hijacking your comment to post a tangential thought - Matt brought up how green would lose a lot of power due to losing a bunch of its ramp spells...I'm not so sure it would. As mentioned, cards that let you make more land drops would become ubiquitous, and how would green get extra cards into its hands to do that? Drawing more cards. And how would green draw more cards? By adding blue. So it may drop green's 'own' power, but would usher in even more Simic ubiquity. And we do NOT need that. I'd take playing against any other combination over playing a horde of Simic decks. At least now green just pair with black without needing blue to make it Sultai, or Gruul without it becoming Temur, etc. If green loses its ramp spells, I guarantee that Simic, 'Bant', 'Sultai' and 'Temur' (i.e. just decks splashing another color to get to play Simic) decks would become the dominant color combinations, making the deck pool even more homogenous.

[@okgut2033]

It might be the biggest ban list in one go 😂

[@Playingwithproxies]

It would add 0 cards to the banned list it would just make 700 cards do nothing

[@Squee_666_9]

@@Playingwithproxies Nothing is exactly what cards on the banned list do.

[@Thimbrethil]

True. Personaly I’m great fan of green ramp. Almost all of my decks are green, and no, this ban would not change that, it would just make me miserable.

[@crawdaddy1234]

If Commander damage didn’t exist, my Tuvasa deck would die. I generally have to rely on taking one opponent out with Commander damage. It would invalidate so many commanders.

[@dhammer5842]

All Voltorn commanders would get axed, the collateral damage is too high.

[@torianojones1597]

Right there with you

[@WUBRGer_King]

Commander damage really is necessary to keep lifegain decks from dragging the game forever, too.

[@andreviljoen7157]

Infect would also become way more prevalent

[@jamespatterson5644]

I have won a game with a full trifecta with my Glissa deck. normal combat damage to 1 plater, commander damage to one player and mill one player. I have also lost to commander damage to GAAIV

[@Thundercall1991]

Matt, I'm honored to be on the challenge the stats of this episode. One small sidenote on the Aetherflux Reservoir. if you cascade once, it doesn't gain you 3 life, it will gain you 4 as both triggers will be on the stack and upon resolution it will check the amount of spells cast that turn which would be 2. Both triggers will give you 2 life each. Double cascade will give you 3 AF triggers on the stack with 3 spells cast that turn which will gain you 9 life (in case it's the first 3 you cast that turn that is). By the way, love EDHRECast, it's amazing, keep up the good work! Hoping to one day play an MTGO game vs you three!

[@ventus5822]

I just got the scary thought of seeing a gaea's cradle in someone's command zone, that sounds like a ... erh experience

[@prinnyEXE]

Oh God that is the worst I've heard.

[@ToxicAtom]

I think a cool way to make more things available as a commander that usually aren't is to make it so anything that's a legendary creature on one of its sides can be your commander. Like, if Esika, God of the Tree can be your commander despite being cast as an enchantment 80% of the time, then Elbrus, the Binding Blade should be able to be your commander, because 80% of the time, the goal there is to make it a legendary creature.

[@UnreasonableOpinions]

I buy this. Frankly, there aren't that many cards like this, and the majority don't do anything that strange. The cards in the Marit Lage tradition take many steps to make one big creature, and one big creature isn't that hard to deal with any more.

[@TeaHauss]

There was a reddit post a while back of a group that was tired of the shuffling, but allowed as rule 0, up to 5 cards that search through your deck. I personally love this idea because I love ratcatcher in my rat tribal deck but searching my deck every turn it was out was so tedious, that when it died I was relieved. So much so, I took it out.

[@thegarunixking1101]

I like that too. I don't like linearity in commander, but I do love my Karametra deck.

[@imprisonedmike]

I once lost to commander damage even with a set up of an Archon of Coronation ETB every turn. I could take damage but it wouldn’t cause me to lose life. If commander damage wasn’t a thing I would have won that game. Still one of the funniest losses I have ever had.

[@aidanschauer1581]

When it comes to the battle bond lands, they should just print a version with the dual land type on them and then boom, value added

[@thomasstenson7989]

Commander damage is something I plan into almost every deck I build. It's part of the aura of the format!

[@TheOtherDoughnut]

Adrix and Nev belong in Ivy since many of the spells used in Ivy decks make token copies such as cackling counterpart or rite of replication. Yes they don’t interact with each other necessarily however adrix and nev go great with a lot of the other 99

[@BisyBackson365]

I love the no tutor thing. But maybe the rules say "Search their library" but there are "shallow tutors" they allow to search for X cards deep. So demonic tutor as an example - now called "demonic hall" can exile the top 7 cards of your library and put 1 of the exiled cards into your hand.

[@janmelantu7490]

Impulse, baby

[@AzkuulaKtaktu]

Aetherflux is even better in cascade than mentioned, since you can stack the triggers such that you gain life after both spells have been cast. 4 life, not 3.

[@andrewdodd3408]

Dana, Your Challenge the Stats is Brilliant, I have Irenicus's Vile Duplication in my Narset, Enlightened Master deck as she can cast it for free if she reveals it during her attack, whereas Spark Double can't be cast for free because it's a creature.

[@marnixw8724]

My personal take on tutoring: land searching should be allowed, otherwise many green ramp cards just wouldn't work. I prefer to play without other tutors, since I like my decks to have a bit more variance. I ask people before we play if they run a lot of tutors, since that changes the game completely, being able to get what you want when you want it. In that case, I play a more consistent deck. On the searching/shuffling part: people need to learn to save everyone's time by searching when there's time. For example: just get a basic from Sakura tribe elder immediately after your turn is done, and then sac it before your turn. Just say; I can block with this when I need to but I'm just gonna get a land now to save time. Also; talk through what they are doing, and then do the searching and shuffling when they're done. Example: I play harrow, get two untapped lands, play a thing with my 2 mana, pass, and then go search and shuffle after that. Same goes for fetching, cultivate, etc. Especially if a thing gets tapped lands, just don't do it. I hate sitting through my opponent cracking an evolving wilds on their turn.

[@crazymexicanoloco]

Though a " no searching" rule would stop landfall decks, green will still riegn Supreme with mana dorks. No other color has that many. We will see lanowar elves spike in price.

[@Fogshaper]

The Tango Lands ("It takes two to tango") cycle should desperately be finished.

[@williamdrum9899]

That and the mirage fetches, it's been almost 30 years now

[@TheGtDragoon]

Joey’s mom has got it going on All she wants is to play some voltron 🎶

[@hellNo116]

the fact that people in the community don't know what the ban list is, has finally came up today for me after 4 years playing. I sat down and played against primival titan. Thank god I knew that I had to remove it asap. and the thing about the rules. I have seen people who play cedh make so many mistakes and misinterpret the rules of mtg the game. so yeah you need straight forward rules

[@trichogaster1183]

jeez i just realised that rafiq is basically a 4 mana 8/4

[@Ixidora]

It's so wonderful, isn't it?

[@Nr4747]

Not really, unfortunately. He still dies to Abrade, Lightning Bolt, Anger of the Gods, Sweltering Suns, a single Zacama activation etc.

[@MTGJosh]

I love the lessons we can learn from hypothetical scenarios. Great video!

[@jaredwonnacott9732]

I love that you pointed out the non-legendary copies are easier to copy. I just made an Adrix and Nev deck that is just about copying my commander. It was great to have a Followed Footsteps on a non-legendary token and after a couple turns being able to say, "I don't have enough dice for my tokens, because there aren't enough dice."

[@90kalos1]

I love the point about fetch lands. While I use them, it's never actually for the purpose of mana fixing. But rather other utilities, like synergies with recursion and top

[@Iker888]

I’ve bought several precons and I’m pretty happy with their current power level.

[@lelandwhitehead56]

RE: mill players being disadvantaged by people with more than 100 cards- Lifegain does the same thing to creature damage decks, but it would be silly to consider not allowing lifegain whatsoever because the creature damage deck would have to do 50 damage to kill someone instead of 40.

[@SirSmudgeProductions]

In terms of the change in searchable libraries it could also just be: reveal the top X cards of your library and take the first card that fits the search criteria (for the ramp cards)|| cards like tutors are more difficult, but maybe a house rule of search the top X cards of library and then put the remaining cards on the bottom of library in random order--thereby not needing the shuffle

[@shorewall]

I like the idea of an "Aven Mindcensor" Emblem. If you have an effect that lets you search your library, you can only search the top 4 cards of your deck.

[@xxhellspawnedxx]

The idea of no tutors, I think, wouldn't break green's dominion on the format (which quite frankly seems rather balanced between the colours at the moment) but just shift it further in favour of UG+, where you have ample ways of drawing cards from playing lands, playing lands from the top of your library, and so on. Land tutoring is only part of the advantage green has, but I would argue that just as strong is extra land drops, something that no other colour normally can do. Which other colour has something along the lines "4 mana - Draw a card each turn and create X treasure tokens, where X is the amount of turns this permanent has been in play"? Cause that's what Oracle of Mul Daya is. And the answer is of course "None". So, it would only serve to further strengthen green and green-running decks. And furthermore, extra land drop cards are expensive, extremely so when compared to most mana rocks or land tutors. So cheap green decks would be a thing of the past, too.

[@Liteyears11]

The 2 color legends in Dominaria United that have domain abilities had me consider: What if color identity only applied to non-land cards? I'd probably run a random Forest or two in my non-green deck for whenever I get theft effect that pulls a Nature's Lore from one of my opponents.

[@DrMeisterBabylon]

that's what Exotic Orchard is for.

[@AncientHydraGaming]

@@DrMeisterBabylon Exotic Orchard can't effect Domain abilities. It doesn't gain land types, just available colors of mana.

[@williamdrum9899]

I came up with a custom card idea, kind of like partner. For example, a Goblin commander could have "Goblin army" which means your deck is allowed to contain basic lands and Goblin cards of any color identity. This doesn't include nonbasic lands, just basics.

[@KingJulius4]

If we had no max deck size I would probably end up with abunch of 105-110 card decks. That's usually the point in the cut down process where I have to mostly dismantle whatever sub-theme is in the deck so I can keep my primary deck objective in tact. I would love to be able to keep more of those subthemes fleshed out in the deck!

[@jeffe2267]

I think the 100 card limit is one of those things that increases creativity by adding restrictions. Your card choices become more personalized if you have to make a deck of a certain size. If you want to have more than 100 cards, you could always have a group of cards that you rotate in and out of the deck each time you play. It would practically be the same as having them in your deck all of the time (if you're not abusing tutors).

[@Ryne91]

On the subject of precon mana bases, I wish they'd add dual lands that have eminence of a sort. Something that says "this land enters tapped unless a commander you own is in the command zone or on the battlefield"

[@lVideoWatcherl]

Specifically make it dependant on the commander being on the field. That's a great idea for a commander-specific Land cycle though!

[@michaelcollins4534]

But what if commander damage applied to non combat damage as well. As an avid nekusar enjoyer I fail to see what could go wrong here

[@bladetb3934]

The biggest problem with 100 plus sized decks would be the shuffling. I have several friends I already shuffle for because they take too Damn long shuffling what becomes 70 something cards. Also they would want more mulligans since they would probably have screwed up land to card ratios

[@vantharion]

I think the command tax would probably benefit if it worked differently for different mana values. I'd also like if it was like '2 colorless phyrexian mana', so you could dodge it by paying 4 life. That way you can keep playing your commander, but you are putting yourself more in kill range by doing so. I agree on the 'scaling commander tax' of 7+ costs only being +1 each time.

[@Rattan-Rat]

have you heard of liesa?

[@JourneyVids333]

I would cry if commander damage was removed. Multiple decks of mine rely on that as their main win condition. My whole play style is combat focused

[@melephs_cap]

If searching libraries is gone, other forms of ramp and card advantage become super important. Treasures become even more unavoidable. Blue becomes more centralizing. White loses some of the few ramp cards it has which tutor for Plains. Extra land drops are a very green thing, so it still has some of the best ramp, and black loses one of its major forms of card advantage. I can see certain cards, like dual fetches and high-end tutors, as clashing with the philosophy of a singleton format, but beyond a few cards I feel like library searching effects play a large part in the color pie balance.

[@empurress77]

The other night our group were trying a rule for Esika, god of the tree. We have instituted a rule zero that Esika when played from the command zone is only played as the creature side of the card. It can be played from your hand or graveyard as an enchantment. For our group playing an enchantment (The prismatic Bridge especially) as your commander doesn't ring true to the spirit of the game at all.

[@jasongysbers5619]

Commander as a format already leans hard towards simic colors because of how much value you get out of drawing cards and ramping. Removing tutors would just further push the format towards more draw. Can't seek out the specific card/s you want, well more draw will likely get you there. Removing green's ability to tutor out lands won't stop it from ramping, instead green decks will shift to playing lands from the top of the library or to playing out multiple lands a turn and having enough draw to draw into them. Too many people only focus on their perceived benefits of a proposed change, but don't bother to look for any unintended consequences. WOTC designs cards for Commander because it can sell a lot of cards that way, so what impact would removing tutors to do to their designs? There would certainly be lots of pressure to change what or how certain new cards work to align with the new rules for commander. What would be the collateral impact on other formats, like standard, pioneer, or modern? We all experienced what happened to Commander when Brawl was created and pushed cards for brawl were introduced.

[@jaysalvadoriiisalvosa1625]

If tutors were banned I guess scry might go up a notch in deckbuilding consideration.

[@Tuss36]

I think the precon manabase issue, about how folks don't assume the nonland cards are the best but assume the lands are good, is rooted in the thought that the land base is expected to be able to drive the deck. That is to say, if you are playing a deck of these colours, these lands should do you fine, even if there might be more optimal ones out there. Personally I think most precon bases are fine, but there are some like the Sliver precon and another I forget which but it was like a two colour deck that had like 10 tapped duals that really didn't need the fixing, that could do with some improvement to become better foundational mana bases.

[@shorewall]

I think manabases are a more advanced concept, and newbies aren't really gonna even want to focus on lands, as opposed to all the fun payoffs in the deck.

[@samuelswinamer4939]

If there were a tutor limit like this I think it should include all cards that search libraries other than ones that specifically search "basic lands" (that means you can't fetch for basics, because they don't specifically search basic lands) We've done that in my group before and it was pretty fun.

[@shadowmyst9661]

Oh yeah, my Narset, Enlightened Exile deck kills with Commander Damage all the time as a Spellslinger (Prowess + Magecraft). And it can hit for lethal surprisingly quick out of nowhere sometimes, and take everyone out in quick succession. Commander damage wins happen all the time. It’s just a matter of when and where.

[@Mwarrior1991]

removing the max deck size actually seems not very good... in a singleton format where consistency is already hugely diluted, and with tutors as common as they are, going above the deck max would really just let people stuff more broken powerful cards in their decks that they would normally cut for synergy cards. we would just end up seeing more broken staples.

[@Mwarrior1991]

also, way to just assume people dont play mill very much right after clutching your pearls to defend the poor voltron players...

[@dhammer5842]

I think that a Minimum Commander cost might be a clean way to replace commander tax. So in place of add 2 to CMC you simply make the min that you have to pay equal to 2 for each time you have cast your Commander previously. So 2's are able to be cast again for 2, then 4 etc., and for those 6+ers you can cast them up to 3 times without it hitting you, then it proceeds up. The min, beyond the CMC of the Commander can of course be payed with any color.

[@bardeenios251]

the thing about having legendary artifacts like Umezawa's Jitte as commander is the fact that you would have to build a colourless deck around them, and that's not something most people take into account.

[@sonkal-elkent6143]

I would love to see you all play matches with one "what if" scenario per match, especially the ones you unanimously DON'T want to see implemented.

[@Tuss36]

It amuses a bit that Teferi Time Raveler would be bad to play against when there's already a Teferi that *is* legal that does what he does, albiet with some details tweaked. Can lead to a rude lockout with Mirror Pool.

[@Jarikk1195]

I want to add to Thomas's challenge, it's even better than Matt makes it seem. Aether flux Reservoir checks how many spells you've cast when the trigger resolves. If you cast a spell with cascade and resolve the cascade trigger first you'll end up gaining 2 life then 2 life as the reservoir triggers resolve instead of 1 then 2 life.

[@unimaginative_artist]

Precons can have dual lands specific to the commander if you have commander xyz vial coast comes into play untapped

[@voxkine9385]

The thing about tutors is, I actually love their inclusion. Not even because of their effect in game. One thing that’s hard to do is find the right power level of a deck. Tutors is an easy way to bump up or down the power of a deck. If I’m playing at a table and we all aimed for 7 power, I may accidentally make an 8. It’s an easy way to reduce the power JUST by removing tutors. Same if the opposite is true, if I accidentally made a 6 power deck, adding in a few tutors is an easy way to bring it up. THAT’S why I like tutors, it’s an easy power tool. Same with lands. Fetch lands and “fast” multi coloured lands like shock lands is another easy way to change power levels.

[@CaptainRoss]

Can we get things like Ghost Quarter and Field of Ruin in Precons? They aren't expensive but, that's a desperately needed utility in precons.

[@TheSilverFox442]

Or Tectonic Edge, for that matter.

[@Sp0rkXNinja]

I recently added Irenicus's vile duplication to Riku of Two Reflections. I was surprised how good it was. Plus it's fun to copy a Adrix and Nev. Finally flying can matter is some games.

[@GerBessa]

I think Joey watched the EDHijinks where OGH has a 26 lands Lilliana tribal.

[@rorschach1]

Most definitely

[@xxthevampirate]

what about putting in a sakshima? she's a spark double but she can be played in the command zone also she has partner if you want to play multiple commanders. Also I keep most of my decks around 120 cards to power up or down a deck.

[@frenchertoast]

I would be really in favor of commander damage not being player specific! Outside of making it easier to track it, it also adds a whole new politics aspect to Voltron decks which I think will be a lot of fun!

[@jessesandburg]

Eh voltron decks are still pretty deadly. It would make them way more popular for sure id think.

[@Benshimen]

This is such a great conversation. It would be nice to some of these things applied.

[@ryanstehlin4513]

In response to using any legendary card as a commander, what are your thoughts on Jim Lepage's Ozolith deck?

[@QuasiGame0]

Scaling Command Tax would be interesting and equals out after 3 removals +1 the first recast vs +2 +3 the second recast vs +4 +6 the 3rd recast vs +6 +10 4th vs +8

[@YohKomori22]

I love using irenicuss vile duplication in my landfall. I frequently turn my scute or baloth tokens into an army of months cause I combo duplication with sakashimas will. In fact my mas damage yielded in a single play to date was this exact pair of spells working with an omnath being copied then the copy being copied to trigger a mountain of life gain (like 20 plus creatures who were omnath clones) helping to float in a timely ancient green warden and him allowing me to fire off like 160 damage at each player on a land drop! Love this card and spark but this having flying comes up so much in landfall

[@alexandrefiset9184]

What if we can use card with hybrid mana in mono colored deck or deck with one of thw two color in the hybrid mana cost. Exemple put Kitchen Finks in mono white or black/white or green/black deck or any combination without white or green

[@williamdrum9899]

Niv Mizzet would love this. Swans of Bryn Argoll = infinite card draw

[@jamespearsoniii914]

Agree w/ the idea of banning cards that make their owner search their library. Still allowing for cards that force others to search, as part of balancing the effective power of a spell

[@AzkuulaKtaktu]

Is there anything more commander-y than voltron?

[@happybrain2674]

two-tron!

[@adri2703]

I'm scared to think of the price drops of the tutors and fetchlands and the price increase in card draws.

[@okgut2033]

There are other formats, so it would be not that strong

[@Playingwithproxies]

@@okgut2033 it could be if all players sold their fetches and tutors most people would probably keep them and play their own old rules if they try to take away tutors. Playing all the anti tutor cards in your own deck is probably the better option. Make all tutors dead cards or worse than dead cards.

[@adri2703]

@@okgut2033 I only play EDH 🥲🥲🥲

[@okgut2033]

@@Playingwithproxies to the part "they would still play them": some will. Others have to rule 0 in that case and thats good enough. Atm its more that some tables rule 0 to not go overboard with tutors. Esp those "jank" decks, that have the one card they needed to make it work. (Just ask yourself is it still jank if you get to do the thing every game?) To the "use tutor hate instead": the options are limited. I can count them for you: lot of counterspells, 14 change target spell, 6 stax, 6 cant tutor cards, 3 silence cards and the two end the turn spells. If you want to hate tutors effectively you need to play blue, with the big cake being counterspells. The easyer way would be to scoop... To be a little more positive: As it is atm. i think most tables have to learn how to handle powercreep. If they can, tutors and other stronger things wont be a problem, but the temtation will allways be there.

[@happybrain2674]

proxy will be your friend in those hard times ;)

[@cottoncandysamurai2791]

I think colorless needs to be relooked at as those eldrazi that are "colorless" need to be considered actually colorless regardless of pips

[@travis_approved]

“Check yourself before you EDHREC yourself” is suuuuch and under rated line omg

[@TheChitownboi93]

I strongly believe having allowing Planeswalkers for Cmdrs would be fun. I understand that some would be broken, but what's the harm in that when we have a rules committee that can ban certain ones. i think we are deproving ouraelves of so much fun just 'cos of a few bad apples. Also, I just want actual characters as Cmdrs. Having a commander be an object, thing, or place makes no sense to me flavorwise (Backgrounds still feel weird to me).

[@mightyone3737]

Tutoring is fairly important to Commander, but I personally do go out of my way to avoid too many tutors, especially the stronger ones. Some decks they make sense, and you really need to be running them once you're playing 8s and up in power level. You can build a 7 that can do well without tutoring, but restricting people from ramping and digging out lands will WILDLY change the game, I have a 5 colour deck that relies heavily on drawing land ramp to fix it's mana, it doesn't have Fetches due to budget, but it's got lots of good ramp spells that it'd hate to lose. I only have 2 true Fetches atm, one that's in a deck that desperately wants it to find Mystic Sanctuary for combo purposes, the other one uses it's one in hopes of getting out a Sun Titan and recurring it, they are very powerful lands, if you don't run them you are really, really hurting yourself in a variety of ways, but decks that run Fetches tend to be very 'samey' because they have to run so many great payoffs for using Fetches, in addition to having similar mana bases because they use the same duals that go with Fetches. If you take out Fetches, other than cEDH people will have more diverse mana bases, which would be a good thing. My biggest problem with Fetches is still the price, not the really the power, but the game wouldn't suffer from losing them I suspect. Commander Damage is really important, I have a Pavel Maliki deck that derives most of it's wins from the fact that Pavel can do a ton of damage with his Firebreathing, but that only matters due to Commander Damage effectively doubling it. It doesn't always win off of Commander damage, but often the fact that it's on board can matter a lot, people can't risk swinging if they'll get whacked back with Commander damage. It's a hassle to track, but it's also less complex than lots of things that already exist in the game, just write it on a piece of paper, a retractable pencil and pad of paper should be standard supplies, there are tons of uses for paper and pencil in this game, life tracking is a very good one, and you can easily have everyone track everyone's life if people are prone to losing track of their own. I don't know if it's still Commander if Pavel Maliki ceases to be a valid option. Also as you guys note, there are TONS of situations where you'll still die to Commander damage when you're otherwise unassailable, and the game is less fun if it's too easy to gain invulnerability. Bigger What If (than non-creature Legendaries): What if you could use those old bad creatures that they just didn't make Legendary, like Ali From Cairo and Uncle Istvan? it wouldn't break the game, and people might well have fond memories of those cards, or maybe they want something more pushed like Ebon Praetor, a card that just drips Legendary yet isn't because nothing was in that set. Many PWs are definitely not suitable as Commander, but most of those would be hated out really hard. I personally love No Maximum Deck Size, it's a huge disadvantage to go over 60 cards in 1v1 because you're crippling your odds of drawing key cards, so going to 120 to run Yorion in Commander is arguably a bigger problem, 60 cards with 4 of has 1 or more of the card in 40% of your opening hands, 80 4 of drops it to 31%, 1 in the 99 is obviously ~7%, so 119 singleton is under 6%, which if you ask me hurts you. My browser calculator only can calculate the odds up to 170 card decks, which have a 4.1% chance of seeing a card in their opener, which feels really bad if you need certain cards. I suppose you're actually hurting yourself way more than in 60 card, but we've all got cards in Commander decks that it feels like we never see, so imagine how much more of an issue that is with a 250 card singleton deck, how are you ever going to find your 1 of win con without running more tutors than exist in Magic? I'd actually be interested in 60 card singleton, some people play old school type Commander, going up to a certain set usually, then you often can't run 100 singleton and have good games, there are too many terrible cards. TBH, normal card pool with 60 card singleton and no tutoring other than basic land fetching would probably work pretty decently, you combine a smaller deck with a reduction in your 'redundancy', so decks wouldn't be too much faster. 100 cards is a bit arbitrary, but it's also functional, I just feel like certain types of players would have more fun with a faster game and a smaller deck, even as I have tutor driven decks that would LOVE to have 110 cards, or 105, there are too many cards I want to run in those decks. Pre-Cons would ideally have two types, which they kind of do atm, where you have pre-cons that are 'introductory' type decks, rather than pre-cons that are more legitimate decks, like the Drop deck or some of the other more impressive pre-cons that feature more complex cards. In the decks marketed towards experienced players, you pay more for the deck and get (usually) better reprints and important new cards, meaning most people who buy these are doing it for cards rather than for a new deck, they plan to cannibalize it immediately. The introductory decks are usually quite cheap, and these need to feature more functionality IMHO, because people probably will play with this for awhile, and if it sucks they might not keep playing. WotC should stop reprinting so many so-so cards in pre-cons, especially lands that are usually considered bad cards, you don't need to print cards that nobody wants to play with (and that already have been printed into the crawlspace under the sub-basement), introductory decks need to work out of the box (despie being cheaper), the big shiney pre-cons can have out of the box issues (despite costing more), but ideally they would also be functional, as many people apparently enjoy playing pre-cons. Pre-cons are generally a lot better than they used to be in terms of playability, so I feel like maybe we need to be patient? In regards to reprint equity, it's like the execs don't remember that lots of old pricey cards will be made obsolete rather than reprinted (meaning all this power creep is just pissing away all of the old card stock anyways to chase immediate profits), the company is more or less choosing to make less money by holding back key reprints 'because they could do them later and charge almost exactly what you're getting', because make no mistake they engineer their sets to make sense to crack, but only if you're getting sealed product for cheap or if you're addicted to buying it. Wholesale prices are much lower, and these boxes are cracked in great numbers for people to buy singles, but there is literally no reason WotC can't tweak it's equations to include more value per dollar in EV per pack, there is a point when you're just exploiting your consumers because you don't fundamentally understand how reprinting is supposed to work, but I've watched new games come out and immediately adopt a Reserve List. I feel like a serious game shouldn't have pieces that are 'really rare/expensive', that's just a collector's product, if Magic hadn't abandoned the Reserved List they would have gone under IMHO, just the knowledge that most key cards would *eventually* see reprint was enough to keep some people playing, waiting for their chance to build Jund or Jace Control. If you ask me, the 'Reserved List' should be an illegal business practice because the company is leaving potential profit on the table in perpetuity, they could make serious bank reprinting it and they literally owe nothing to the people who have old copies, they already have all the money they will get from them. There are also the various cards that are over $50 in all printings and aren't on the Reserved list, the cards that when they are reprinted they are upshifted in rarity, often to Mythic, to make sure that they remain unpleasantly pricey. The 'promise' of the Reserved List doesn't seem to be legally binding in any way, and corporations are legally obligated in the US to maximize profit (or they are 'cheating' shareholders, there are no binding obligations towards consumers or employees for some reason), so it just seems really weird that owners of WotC just give buckets of money to random people who have old cards! I do have a few Reserved List cards, but even if they began reprinting such cards, I doubt all of them would warrant it, plenty will never see any play and might as well stay rare to have some cachet, but the playable stuff should be more available. At this point I'd settle for a Gold Border Vintage Masters set I think.

[@williamdrum9899]

I play a 4 color group hug deck (I think you know which ones) and I don't do nonland tutors or the pay 1 life fetches.

[@serafimb2319]

Here's a challenge to the stats: March of the machines is in 60% (!) of Eloise decks. Why?! It immediately kills your clue tokens because they're CMC zero. But even worse: they immediately die, triggering Eloise to create another Clue, which triggers her again.... So 60% of Eloise decks are apparently trying to let the game end in a draw.

[@brentwalker9576]

Alternate Command Tax rule to try with your group, dubbed the Alternate Minimum Mana Value: the minimum Mana Value for casting a Commander from the Command Zone before any other modifications is 2 x N, where N = Number of Times you've cast that Commander from the Command Zone this game. When this alternate minimum becomes higher than the Commander's printed Mana Value, the additional amount that must be paid is like normal Commander tax. In other words, all Commanders cost what they cost the first time you cast them, until the minimum becomes higher than their mana value, then you make up the difference with mana of any color (generic Mana, just like the current tax). This still makes Commander costs scale with the number of times they are cast, but means that in effect, high cost commanders are able to be cast a few times at their regular cost before starting to get dinged by the minimum. You track it just like Commander Tax, you just apply it differently. ----- Alternate color identity rules to try with your group: Alternate Basic Based Identity. A Commander's identity is unchanged, but the cards that are allowed in that deck are determined if all mana costs associated with the card (casting cost, activated abilities, triggered abilities, kicker costs, everything) can be completely satisfied using only basic lands that go in that Commander's deck. How does this affect hybrid Mana? Any card that is disallowed in current decks only because of a hybrid cost and for no other reason can now be played, but cards with other complexities are still restricted. Practical examples: -Phyrexian Mana and other alternative Mana effects like Convoke still can't cheat cards into decks, because paying life to satisfy the pip means a basic land wasn't used to satisfy all costs. -Reaper King goes in any deck, because any deck can satisfy his cost with ten wingdings (Wastes are basics, remember) or 9/10 mana of a single color. -Cards like New Capenna's weird hybrid guild agents fit in more decks. Let's use Toluz as our example. Azorius, Blue, Dmir means that Toluz fits in any decks with blue but lack white or black, even Temur decks, because all three colored pips can be satisfied using only Islands. Toluz can't go in decks without blue, even those that have white and/or black, because needing an island for the non-hybrid pip makes it required. -Cards like the Liege cycle and Eldrain's wacky hybridized knights fiit in mono-color decks or multicolor decks with one color but not the other because the one type of basic is still able to pay for everything, including they hybrid activated abilities. -Cards like the Guildmages and Deathrite Shaman can't, because while they could be CAST, they still have an activated ability restricted by non-hybrid Mana, so both basic types are needed to satisfy all costs associated with the card. -Edge cases that exist already and still remain edge cases like Suspend cards with no costs other than suspend are treated as they are currently. -New edge cases that are created like cards that specify things like "spend only mana produced by creatures to..." should all be resolved by ignoring the restriction and acting as though basics can be used to pay it. Both ideas take a lot of rules text to fully explain, but they should be pretty intuitive. Would you pay less than 2x the number of times you cast your commander? Make up the difference, that's your tax. Can you pay for everything using your Commander's basic lands? It fits in the deck. (Edited: spelling, clarification of "from Command Zone")

[@vavakxnonexus]

Commander tax as a minimum value you have to pay is a really interesting idea! The folks mentioned that any replacement rule has to be intuitive, and this *does* feel intuitive to me - "What about [insert method to reduce mana here]?" you go down to the minimum, simple as. I wonder if the pace of how fast minimum value would increase would have to change, since I can see "Oh, I have to kill this commander 3/4 times before anything meaningfully changes" being frustrating.

[@brentwalker9576]

@@vavakxnonexus You can definitely go either way with it. My personal testing shows that in jank groups, changing it to 1 instead of 2 is fine, for the same reason doing that already works out. Casual players get more chances to stay in the game by playing their Commander more without it being truly free. By contrast, higher end optimized groups might want to try setting the value to 3 and seeing how it plays. It technically punishes low Mana Value commander, but by the second cast the minimum has become 6 if they want to try a third time, which can really put the brakes on decks that spam out and just keep casting, including disrupting some famous combos (Food Chain) by requiring at least one extra moving part to keep them functioning. In practice, I find two still works as the magic number. Raising the minimum level of interaction for players to be effectively locked out the game is generally not a bad thing.

[@andrewsparkes6275]

So to clarify, with a 5cmc commander, you can cast it for 5 three times (the first time for 5 as per normal, the second time for 5 as its commander tax is 2 which is less than 5, the third time for 5 since its commander tax is 4 which is less than 5). That part I guess...but what happens after? Since its commander tax would be 6 the fourth time I cast it, am I now paying 11 mana total or am I paying 6 total mana? I'm not sure if you meant the commander's own base cmc is taken off of the commander tax or not (so when its commander tax is 6, do I still minus the 5cmc of the commander from that?). Either way, would this not be fair on lower-cmc commanders, which are already usually weaker than higher-cmc ones? i.e. the third time I cast a Fblthp, it'd cost 6 mana including commander tax (and it would never get a reduction in commander tax), whereas the third time I cast my 5cmc commander, it still only costs 5, and my 5cmc commander is almost already definitely gonna be more inherently powerful than Fblthp.

[@brentwalker9576]

@@andrewsparkes6275 The alternate minimum can also be thought of as reducing the current command tax system by your Commander's CMC each time, if that framing is more helpful. So the third time you cast your 5 CMC commander, you check against the minimum of six see that it's one more, and wind up paying an effective coand tax of 1 generic Mana, which then becomes 3, 5, 7, and so on since it's still +2 each cast. The lowest CMC commanders aren't directly affected much, since the system just replicates current command tax for them. But the effect you point out for high cost commanders is why I propose it as an alternative to try for casual games, not necessarily the best solution. I don't know how it would affect cEDH (no personal experience to draw on), but can see how this could warp optimized metas since it would means that decks running, say, the Ur-Dragon or an Eldrazi would now require that much additional interaction before command tax "kicks in" for them, and those additional turns are more chances to play lands and other mana sources. Giving someone playing jank more chances to stay active is great. Giving what could be looked at as a Command Tax reduction of dozens of mana over multiple turns in very competitive games...maybe not so great. My hunch is that it's something that's probably just an alternate house rule for lower power groups or others that find it fun in their playgroup for variety, but if it helps get the wheels rolling on an effective alternative rule the community finds useful, I'm not complaining.

[@andrewsparkes6275]

@@brentwalker9576 Oh I'm not complaining as such, more just wanted to clarify! The example of Fblthp is kinda a silly exaggeration just to highlight a possible 'flaw' but even then I agree for casual playgroups, it's not much of a flaw and is fairer in general.

[@ManjMau]

Let's push the CAG to remove the deck limit guys! That rule seemed arbitrary to begin with! Another idea I heard from someone else that would drastically improve the Commander experience: Treat casting commander the same way as you now cast companions. Make it a special action to pull it to your hand to cast it, that action would cost xx where x is the number of times you have cast your commander. This rule would allow a lot more of commanders that were previously not able to be easily cast because of their restrictions (Such as Phage, The Untouchable).

[@okgut2033]

We are lucky that noone pushed the cardlimit in magic to the extrems. I heard that on Yu-Gi-Oh they added the cardlimit after someone brought a 10000 card deck in a Tournament. And resolving a shuffle would also be difficult, depending on how hard you limittest the rule. There might be the posibility its caused by someone else like with path to exile... I get the hype, dont get me wrong! But if the change would be official would this cause more or less rule 0 discussions?

[@holdyourfire74]

That commander tax idea isn't bad. It would allow you to spread the increased cost over a couple of turns too. Though I'm not sure I want to see Phage in the command zone. I don't mind dropping the card limit restriction either. I think there is a rule that you must be able to shuffle your deck so that puts a pseudo-limit on it. That may just be in other competitive formats though.

[@jagteq]

I would have no complaint at all about Commander damage, if the sole impetus for tracking it was on the player who dealt the damage. Having to track that I took 2 from Liliana on turn 4 when it’s never, ever going to matter is annoying, but if the controller wants to keep track of it in case and I can just ignore it when it’s a Commander that doesn’t attack, no issue.

[@gulgothica]

It’s so weird going back to earlier episodes when Joey gets to Challenge the Stats :-P

[@Crypt4l]

Of course you can fit every single Chandra they ever made into a Chandra theme deck! It means there isn't a lot of space for other things, but it works^^°

[@UnreasonableOpinions]

I have actively been reducing then umber search-your-library effects ever since I had a bad experience, realising in my rather juiced-up Hazezon deck I had spent more time shuffling my library post-search than I had doing everything else between the start of my first turn and blowing up the board to win. It would definitely speed up the game. I don't think I'd like it, even though my least favourite thing is shuffling oversized decks, because the very reason I play the game is to watch fancy machines go online. This would make any form of that beyond raw card-on-card synergy untenable, and I think also make combos rarer but more obnoxious - suddenly every combo that isn't two cards and preferably one in the zone is turbojank. Fewer combos overall, but it would cut them off from the worst first and leave the strongest relatively more intact. Removing commander damage would be worse, even as someone who almost never wins to it and regularly loses to it. It puts a hard clock on the game, it forces players to actually engage in the combat phase instead of just tanking through it, and it balances out the potency of go-wide and combo decks by halving their ability to simply race over the top of it. Total life would likely need to go down, and that is a risky change.

[@jedstanaland2897]

There are some commanders that simply can't win through commander damage. As for the legendary creatures being commanders what about things like the Enchantments genju of the realm and possibly having that or something like that as your commander.

[@gypsieking3280]

Anyone know where we could find a recording of the Prof and Command zone Q&A?

[@Si0nbarzahd]

Green wouldn't actually lose anything by banning "tutors" wizards would just print cards that say look at top x or reveal until x lands and it would be 99% same just slightly less consistent on color fixing.

[@Mister_Omura]

Tutors are a huge detriment to format, but they will never be banned. The best we can hope for is some staple-quality hate cards. The tutor-hate cards we currently have, like Aven Mindcensor, Opposition Agent, and Ob Nixilis, Unshackled, are medium at best. If we got some powered up tutor-hate, akin to how Dauthi Voidwalker completely wrecks graveyard decks, then we'd be talking.

[@davidstar2686]

Been a while but rewatcing atm. Oathbreaker is now an official format recognized by wizards. Typically I put 1 planeswalker that works with my deck so that I can cut the size down to 60 and play a quick game.

[@TheOtherDoughnut]

Green still has abundance, and cards like mulch or just any “look at the top X cards and get a land or creature” landfall would be ok

[@leonfriedemann9151]

The problem with decks over 100 would possibly be more selfmill decks than mill decks. Traumatize yourself and living dead you got 100 cards in your graveyard possibly 30 creatures or more to come out 🤔 But the upside... I have sat so many times down thinking whether I put a bad card in, that I like, or an actual great card, that's not that cool.... Or just putting all cards with cool golgari theme in one deck...... I would love that 😍

[@ArkmageEDM]

what? no mention of hybrid mana? I'm disappointed. particularly since they mentioned a companion card, which is what sparks a lot of debate about hybrid mana normally.

[@peadrianlastname]

The no tutors thing I don't like, but I do think people play way too many tutors. I'm fine with land ramp/fetches but past that I only run tutors if they are on theme with the deck. For example if my deck is about multicolored cards then I can run tutors but only if they are multicolored or they look for multicolored cards

[@jaredarquette6320]

Man that challenge the stats just opened up the way fir my Veyran deck

[@johnreyes5276]

Love this video! Do you guys have a link to the command zone interview with the professor that you guys mentioned in the video. Please and thank you.

[@BrodyTwice]

Where can I find the video of prof jimmy and josh discussing their hot takes?

[@volleyballricky]

Omg...Im currently building reyhan ishai and Im struggling a little bit. Can you post the decklist?

[@ACertainGuy0]

7:25 Dana, all 3 of those cards you listed are 100% still playable if you banned all forms of searching the library. note every single card listed there says the controller MAY search their library!

[@spagandhi]

If any legendary permanent could be your commander, I would build a thousand year storm deck and swiftly make the decision to allow that very very stilly

[@ML7WL]

this "copy"/"create" interaction is kinda weird ruled because "enter with counters"/"move counters"="placing counters"; so to the interpretation of these cases be consistent, a token copy should be considered "created".

[@MakeVarahHappen]

Dana: "Planeswalkers would be the most powerful commanders because none of them have been vetted for Commander play." Also Dana: *lists off a bunch of incredibly powerful commanders that see wide amounts of play that were all explicitly designed for Commander play* Like in the end most issues with Commander rules can be solved by rule zero but given that most Commander players don't play cedh no we would not gravitate to the most competitive toxic degenerate plays for the same reasons we don't now.

[@happybrain2674]

I myself play as less tutors as possible and maybe with proxies i will be able to also have no tutors at all^^

[@seanedgar164]

Search effects being banned not only spikes the price of Exploration effects but also kills commanders like my Yasharn

[@WTFsenseilol]

Our home rule for commander damage is that there is a single track of commander damage. If you get 21 commander damage total from all commanders you lose the game. That way every single commander damage counts.

[@willjackson5885]

Allowing more than 100 cards means Yorion's companion restriction is as trivial as Lutri's... A free partner for WU decks

[@shadowmyst9661]

If Color Identity wasn’t a Rule then significantly more decks would be including Green just for Ramp.