Update from Rules Committee re: The Walking Dead Cards

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Post by ISBPathfinder » 3 years ago

@Airi I get you on disagreeing with the RC on their role. I personally think the RC should step up and ban some of the widespread socially unacceptable cards in the format rather than relying on metas to self regulate. Self regulation tends to cause growing pains with new metas and new players that causes some level of monetary loss for players as well as bad feelings towards those who don't agree with social bans. This isn't really what we are talking about but I think most people have slightly different interpretations of what the RC should do is all I was aiming at.

This topic is likely going to remain a hot topic. Its fine if we don't see eye to eye. I think the role of the RC is a topic that has a lot of different opinions on. From the start I never expected to see the RC step up and ban this product. I wasn't surprised by the responses and I more or less saw what I expected out of them. I was happy that they spent the time talking to the community as well as crafting a lengthy response as I think we also could have seen a simple response of "we are not banning this product" with little in terms of addressing why. The RC explaining their actions as well as having listened to the community and having talked to wizards about it goes a long ways in my book. I don't think they ignored us and I think they went to a lot of trouble doing what they felt they could on our behalf.
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Post by Legend » 3 years ago

Rorseph wrote:
3 years ago
Sheldon definitely speaks from a place of privilege.
I don't understand. What privilege exactly is effecting his judgements in this issue?
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Post by duducrash » 3 years ago

TheAmericanSpirit wrote:
3 years ago
for not issuing functionally flaccid, largely symbolic ultimatums (like many hysterical people among us might suggest) is pretty dumb and shortsighted.
What a great respectfull way to contribute to the conversation, I'm 100% sure if a post as heavy worded as this were directed as the RC it would (RIGHTFULLY) be warned and shunned. I don't have any powers whatsoever but it would be really nice for the conversation if you got down of yout high horse and spoke to people with respect.
ISBPathfinder wrote:
3 years ago

There have been a lot of new products sold outside of standard set releases. Sure, this one is more expensive and isn't being sold through LGS but its not like you couldn't use the same argument on the brawl products that recently released, or perhaps some of the premium priced packs with new cards, or even commander decks if you wanted.
What if I can't purchase this at all? Not over LGS, not over website? At all? The only way I could get would be with somewhat shady. That would present direct advantage to those who have relatives in certain places of the world would be heavily privildged?

The point isn't how expensive it is for people here, it is that they don'y have a chance.

You said before how there was no precedent for a banning insituation like this, this is right, because there were never something like this. The only thing that comes close isthe global series series planeswalkers from china, but they were bad so no one cared. Now there are relevant cards which directly impact gameplay that can't be acquired at all by some players, and thats not even the main complain about those who dislike the cards.. I have an Alela deck, I got her from my LGS, I don't think a widely avaliable and distributed product can be compared to this product at all.

Also, disagreeing with the RC stance isnt giving WOTC a free pass and I feel making this argument is unfair, at best it's whataboutism, at worst is gaslighting, like players were mad at this smol group and giving a free pass to the giant company and how unfair it is, While we are in a topic about the RC response.

WOTC has a predatory business model and 100% explores their playbase. Someone on the internet saying they are dissapointed with the RC doesnt automaticly makes them support WOTC or anything near

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Post by Rorseph » 3 years ago

Legend wrote:
3 years ago
Rorseph wrote:
3 years ago
Sheldon definitely speaks from a place of privilege.
I don't understand. What privilege exactly is effecting his judgements in this issue?
I think you misunderstand. I agree with the RC's reasoning here and have no problems with it. I don't like the cards or the crossover, so I'm not going to buy them.

I'm speaking specifically about the moral equivalence he drew between Nicol Bolas and Negan. For a lot of folks, Negan is a lot worse than Nicol Bolas (or even Yawgmoth) because of the things he's done, to his "wives" specifically. That reads as tone deaf to a lot of people, myself included.
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Post by cryogen » 3 years ago

I know that most people are being respectful towards each other, the RC, and WotC. But just as a reminder (because it has come up in multiple threads now), there is no evidence that the RC is in any way bought by WotC or does what WotC wants them to. That is baseless conspiracy theory and posts insinuating or outright making the claim without evidence will be warned. Thanks.
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Post by Dragoon » 3 years ago

Rorseph wrote:
3 years ago
I'm speaking specifically about the moral equivalence he drew between Nicol Bolas and Negan. For a lot of folks, Negan is a lot worse than Nicol Bolas (or even Yawgmoth) because of the things he's done, to his "wives" specifically. That reads as tone deaf to a lot of people, myself included.
I haven't seen the show but how can a normal human be worse than a mythic being who murdered millions, if not billions, of innocents? Even the War of the Spark trailer showed a family slaughtered by the zombies, igniting Liliana's rebellion. Maybe Negan's depiction is more gruesome than Bolas' one but I can't see him being worse as a villain.

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Post by Rorseph » 3 years ago

Dragoon wrote:
3 years ago
I haven't seen the show but how can a normal human be worse than a mythic being who murdered millions, if not billions, of innocents? Even the War of the Spark trailer showed a family slaughtered by the zombies, igniting Liliana's rebellion. Maybe Negan's depiction is more gruesome than Bolas' one but I can't see him being worse as a villain.
I'm going to put this in a spoiler tag, so consider this your trigger warning, y'all.
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Negan is an unrepentant, serial rapist. Something that our MtG baddies are not, canonically speaking.
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Post by cryogen » 3 years ago

Rorseph wrote:
3 years ago
Dragoon wrote:
3 years ago
I haven't seen the show but how can a normal human be worse than a mythic being who murdered millions, if not billions, of innocents? Even the War of the Spark trailer showed a family slaughtered by the zombies, igniting Liliana's rebellion. Maybe Negan's depiction is more gruesome than Bolas' one but I can't see him being worse as a villain.
I'm going to put this in a spoiler tag, so consider this your trigger warning, y'all.
SPOILER
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Negan is an unrepentant, serial rapist. Something that our MtG baddies are not, canonically speaking.
Actually, I'm going to make a formal mod request that all descriptions of traumatic events regardless of whether they were performed by a normal man during a zombie outbreak or a magical dragon be put into spoiler tags. Part of the issue with Negan is that you don't always know what the people you interact with have gone through and how your words, actions, or cards will affect them. So let's use a spoiler tag when appropriate.

Thanks everyone.
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Post by Hermes_ » 3 years ago

Rorseph wrote:
3 years ago
Dragoon wrote:
3 years ago
I haven't seen the show but how can a normal human be worse than a mythic being who murdered millions, if not billions, of innocents? Even the War of the Spark trailer showed a family slaughtered by the zombies, igniting Liliana's rebellion. Maybe Negan's depiction is more gruesome than Bolas' one but I can't see him being worse as a villain.
I'm going to put this in a spoiler tag, so consider this your trigger warning, y'all.
SPOILER
Show
Hide
Negan is an unrepentant, serial rapist. Something that our MtG baddies are not, canonically speaking.
This is where the argument can go down a rabbit hole, Society as a whole feels that rape is a special kind of Evil that goes to the special hell (along with those who talk in movie theaters),while things like genocide (Ethnic cleansing or whatever term you use), mass murder etc are all mostly okay when depicted in most forms of media. Rape hits close to home for thousands, if not untold millions of people. And to see even a fictional depiction or even a heavily implied one can be a trigger for any PTSD or upsetting to many people. Like Cryo said, you never know what the other players have lived through, but you can be 98% sure that they haven't had to deal with what the big bads of MTG lore have done.
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Post by ISBPathfinder » 3 years ago

duducrash wrote:
3 years ago
What if I can't purchase this at all? Not over LGS, not over website? At all? The only way I could get would be with somewhat shady. That would present direct advantage to those who have relatives in certain places of the world would be heavily privildged?

The point isn't how expensive it is for people here, it is that they don'y have a chance.

You said before how there was no precedent for a banning insituation like this, this is right, because there were never something like this. The only thing that comes close isthe global series series planeswalkers from china, but they were bad so no one cared. Now there are relevant cards which directly impact gameplay that can't be acquired at all by some players, and thats not even the main complain about those who dislike the cards.. I have an Alela deck, I got her from my LGS, I don't think a widely avaliable and distributed product can be compared to this product at all.

Also, disagreeing with the RC stance isnt giving WOTC a free pass and I feel making this argument is unfair, at best it's whataboutism, at worst is gaslighting, like players were mad at this smol group and giving a free pass to the giant company and how unfair it is, While we are in a topic about the RC response.
I don't know anything about international shipping but given the size of wizards its kind of surprising to me that they can't ship worldwide. I did buy the product and I can tell you they did charge me for shipping and it was on the upper side of hella expensive for shipping 5 cards within the US. It just surprises me that they can't manage international shipping but I guess I don't know the limitations of other countries and the logistics of it. They handle shipping to distributors but I suppose they get that set up to go from a printer overseas to the distributor rather than sending it there from the US.

Yea, this part isn't great and I suppose if someone in your LGS shows up with them its just going to push that dagger in deeper as the availability for everyone else isn't there.

I get where you are coming from. If this product had some new must have card like a functional reprint sol ring or something it would feel a lot worse but given that only Rick seems like he is even useable in the 99 but even then there are almost no other human commanders worth forcing tribal almost all of these are played as the commander, I kind of feel like I would be a lot more annoyed if these cards weren't just some new commanders but viable new cards in the 99 that would see play.
duducrash wrote:
3 years ago
WOTC has a predatory business model and 100% explores their playbase. Someone on the internet saying they are dissapointed with the RC doesnt automaticly makes them support WOTC or anything near
That is fair.
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Post by cryogen » 3 years ago

From my understanding it's not that they can't handle international shipping, it's that licensing agreements with AMC may forbid selling this product to certain countries. Or something else preventing sale in those regions. Because these aren't being sold in countries that have a Magic playing base, so shipping normal product isn't an issue.
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Post by Airi » 3 years ago

Dragoon wrote:
3 years ago
I haven't seen the show but how can a normal human be worse than a mythic being who murdered millions, if not billions, of innocents? Even the War of the Spark trailer showed a family slaughtered by the zombies, igniting Liliana's rebellion. Maybe Negan's depiction is more gruesome than Bolas' one but I can't see him being worse as a villain.
The reason is kind of in your description of the two. One depiction is a lot more real and discomfortingly close to home than the other. Think of it kind of like the Umbridge vs Voldemort thing that came up around the time the fifth HP book got popular: A lot of people were really uncomfortable with Umbridge's depiction. Not because she was "worse" than Voldemort, but because she was a lot more real of a villain. Voldemort was kind a distant concept to most people, but just about everyone can think of an Umbridge in their lives.

I can't personally relate to Bolas's crimes, because they're very heavily rooted in magic and the far fetched fantastical. That doesn't mean that he isn't abhorrent, or a villain. But I can relate to and get severely uncomfortable with Negan, because while it was nothing on his level, it's an experience I can relate to my life. And the statistics for people who have also had personal experience with that topic are depressingly high.

Edit: I'm not necessarily saying that the RC should ban Negan (I think they should, but I understand why they may not, and that's not the point). I am saying that equating the two isn't really a fair argument.

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Post by Dragoon » 3 years ago

Hermes_ wrote:
3 years ago
Rorseph wrote:
3 years ago
Dragoon wrote:
3 years ago
I haven't seen the show but how can a normal human be worse than a mythic being who murdered millions, if not billions, of innocents? Even the War of the Spark trailer showed a family slaughtered by the zombies, igniting Liliana's rebellion. Maybe Negan's depiction is more gruesome than Bolas' one but I can't see him being worse as a villain.
I'm going to put this in a spoiler tag, so consider this your trigger warning, y'all.
SPOILER
Show
Hide
Negan is an unrepentant, serial rapist. Something that our MtG baddies are not, canonically speaking.
This is where the argument can go down a rabbit hole, Society as a whole feels that rape is a special kind of Evil that goes to the special hell (along with those who talk in movie theaters),while things like genocide (Ethnic cleansing or whatever term you use), mass murder etc are all mostly okay when depicted in most forms of media. Rape hits close to home for thousands, if not untold millions of people. And to see even a fictional depiction or even a heavily implied one can be a trigger for any PTSD or upsetting to many people. Like Cryo said, you never know what the other players have lived through, but you can be 98% sure that they haven't had to deal with what the big bads of MTG lore have done.
I can see how that can be a problem for some people but I can't really approve of a ban for that reason. Many games can feature such villains and I don't hear anyone asking to ban them there either. Many games ask you to play as the villain, sometimes even real, historic ones. The artwork doesn't show Negan doing anything reprehensible, so I think it's ok. Now if someone in my playgroup (or even a stranger I happen to be playing with) were to have a problem and politely asks me to not play this card, I can totally see myself swapping it out for something else. I can understand local problems and I think people should be considerate, but banning the card just for that is taking it a step too far.

EDIT : @Airi : Sorry, I took too long typing my answer and didn't see your post. I think your position is understandable. If you have personal problems with those cards, I don't mind playing without them when playing with you. It's just that I feel banning them for everyone, while (I think) it doesn't cause any problems with a majority of players, is doing a disservice to the community.

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Post by cryogen » 3 years ago

Dragoon wrote:
3 years ago
Many games can feature such villains and I don't hear anyone asking to ban them there either. Many games ask you to play as the villain, sometimes even real, historic ones.
I would wager that most of those games let you know upfront, they don't blindside a player. I've never played them, but if I sat down to play Axis & Allies I would expect to have to deal with Nazis being involved, and if I played GTA I would expect violence and crime being committed.

Magic is billed as a fantasy card game that is for all ages and demographics that is an escape from the real world. Sure, it has characters of questionable morality because stories usually revolve around some form of conflict. But there is a big difference between a character whom they vaguely describe in order to give some depth and one whose actions have been graphicly depicted and which players can relate to,
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Post by Dragoon » 3 years ago

cryogen wrote:
3 years ago
Dragoon wrote:
3 years ago
Many games can feature such villains and I don't hear anyone asking to ban them there either. Many games ask you to play as the villain, sometimes even real, historic ones.
I would wager that most of those games let you know upfront, they don't blindside a player. I've never played them, but if I sat down to play Axis & Allies I would expect to have to deal with Nazis being involved, and if I played GTA I would expect violence and crime being committed.

Magic is billed as a fantasy card game that is for all ages and demographics that is an escape from the real world. Sure, it has characters of questionable morality because stories usually revolve around some form of conflict. But there is a big difference between a character whom they vaguely describe in order to give some depth and one whose actions have been graphicly depicted and which players can relate to,
Mmh, you've got a point. But still, you have to have seen the show and be uncomfortable with Negan to really be bothered, which I don't think amounts to such a big number of Magic players. The depiction on the card doesn't show anything. I still think this doesn't deserve a ban for that reason alone.

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Post by cryogen » 3 years ago

Dragoon wrote:
3 years ago
cryogen wrote:
3 years ago
Dragoon wrote:
3 years ago
Many games can feature such villains and I don't hear anyone asking to ban them there either. Many games ask you to play as the villain, sometimes even real, historic ones.
I would wager that most of those games let you know upfront, they don't blindside a player. I've never played them, but if I sat down to play Axis & Allies I would expect to have to deal with Nazis being involved, and if I played GTA I would expect violence and crime being committed.

Magic is billed as a fantasy card game that is for all ages and demographics that is an escape from the real world. Sure, it has characters of questionable morality because stories usually revolve around some form of conflict. But there is a big difference between a character whom they vaguely describe in order to give some depth and one whose actions have been graphicly depicted and which players can relate to,
Mmh, you've got a point. But still, you have to have seen the show and be uncomfortable with Negan to really be bothered, which I don't think amounts to such a big number of Magic players. The depiction on the card doesn't show anything. I still think this doesn't deserve a ban for that reason alone.
There is no way of quantifying this.
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Post by Dragoon » 3 years ago

cryogen wrote:
3 years ago
Dragoon wrote:
3 years ago
cryogen wrote:
3 years ago


I would wager that most of those games let you know upfront, they don't blindside a player. I've never played them, but if I sat down to play Axis & Allies I would expect to have to deal with Nazis being involved, and if I played GTA I would expect violence and crime being committed.

Magic is billed as a fantasy card game that is for all ages and demographics that is an escape from the real world. Sure, it has characters of questionable morality because stories usually revolve around some form of conflict. But there is a big difference between a character whom they vaguely describe in order to give some depth and one whose actions have been graphicly depicted and which players can relate to,
Mmh, you've got a point. But still, you have to have seen the show and be uncomfortable with Negan to really be bothered, which I don't think amounts to such a big number of Magic players. The depiction on the card doesn't show anything. I still think this doesn't deserve a ban for that reason alone.
There is no way of quantifying this.
Maybe, but that's the crux of the problem. It isn't worth banning a card because some people feel uncomfortable about the represented fictional individual just standing there in the artwork. That doesn't mean you can't express your disagreement obviously, but you can't really expect everybody else to obediently follow suit. If WotC were to repeat this sort of thing in the future, it might be wise to add a question about it in their market research, to at least get some data about it. Maybe a community poll, as I've seen suggested somewhere?

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Post by cryogen » 3 years ago

Dragoon wrote:
3 years ago
cryogen wrote:
3 years ago
Dragoon wrote:
3 years ago


Mmh, you've got a point. But still, you have to have seen the show and be uncomfortable with Negan to really be bothered, which I don't think amounts to such a big number of Magic players. The depiction on the card doesn't show anything. I still think this doesn't deserve a ban for that reason alone.
There is no way of quantifying this.
Maybe, but that's the crux of the problem. It isn't worth banning a card because some people feel uncomfortable about the represented fictional individual just standing there in the artwork. That doesn't mean you can't express your disagreement obviously, but you can't really expect everybody else to obediently follow suit. If WotC were to repeat this sort of thing in the future, it might be wise to add a question about it in their market research, to at least get some data about it. Maybe a community poll, as I've seen suggested somewhere?
Well there is no doubt in my mind that the blame lays at the feet of WotC, and they are the ones who should be taking action to ban this card and take steps internally to make sure this doesn't happen again. That said, in the absence of action on their part, the question remains whether the RC should take actions which historically have not been ones they have taken.
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Post by UnfulfilledDesires » 3 years ago

Negan discourse with potentially triggering content:
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Comparisons with MTG villains like Yawgmoth & Bolos raise the issue of just how horrific a lot of what the game depicts is if you stop & think. Magic has casually included torture & joked about it since the early days. See Torture|HML and Ashnod's Altar|5ED. We're used to seeing this in popular media, but torture is real & isn't just history. I'm sure some number of MTG players have been tortured. Genocide & colonialism are also dynamics we sadly know all too well here on Earth in the 21st century. Saying rape is dramatically worse than the torture, genocide, colonialism, & so on that appear on cards strikes me as difficult to maintain.

However, I've never heard anyone complain about these MTG elements, while lot people are expressing that they don't want to play with Negan. The logic doesn't really matter there a ton folks who won't sit down at a Negan table. But there is a logic I can follow. The key difference I can think of between sexual violence & torture/genocide/colonialism is that a disturbing number of MTG players are rapists & abusers. That particular horror stands closer. I don't know anything about Negan apart from what I've heard relating to this controversy, but assuming he is a rapist/abuser, having some cishet dude sit down with a deck built around him sounds a bit creepy. Cisheteropatriarchy remains a big problem in the MTG community, even if it's gotten better lately. (An LGS owner recently asked what my pronouns were!)

I won't mind if Negan gets banned on the grounds of triggering players or making them uncomfortable. I additionally hope the discourse prompts us to reflect on whether the game really needs explicit references to torture, gruesome bodily harm, genocide, & colonialism. & maybe even to question our investment in the aesthetics of violence. I know it's something I struggle with, as an amateur scholar of military history. Even the simplest of fantasy tropes like swords in fact do awful things to the human body when used as intended. I don't know what the answer is, as martial fantasy continues to fascinate me. But I never want to become fully comfortable with & forget the reality of violence. (Again, it's not just history. People still get attacked with knives & other blades. I've been threatened with a knife up close by antiqueer bigot. Many folks I know have been stabbed or have had someone try to stab them. Etc.)

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Post by Yatsufusa » 3 years ago

cryogen wrote:
3 years ago
Well there is no doubt in my mind that the blame lays at the feet of WotC, and they are the ones who should be taking action to ban this card and take steps internally to make sure this doesn't happen again. That said, in the absence of action on their part, the question remains whether the RC should take actions which historically have not been ones they have taken.
Historically the RC has only taken actions for cards that become (potential) problems due to the functional conflicts caused by the structural pillars of the format differing from the main game, or in the case of Lurrus, cards that become no problem due to said pillars. The format only emitted an "old-school format' feel as a coincidental byproduct of how it was structured to enable the usability of older cards, at no point was "old-school" an actual goal / pillar of the format and neither was "lore", since Arabian Nights/P3K made the cut (and we can have Urza & Yawgmoth serve under the same Wrexial overlord anyway).

The RC never promised to protect the "sanctity" of the lore/game, it only looked like that because up until now WotC themselves were doing it (and they never promised it verbally either) and in such matters the RC pretty much follows WotC. Remember, the five pillars (in my personal ranking of importance) that define the format are:

1) Color Identity (Absolutely no other format does it, it's why only we have Hybrid wars blahblahblah...)
2) Singleton (Yes, cards like Rat/Apostles get by, but it was created loosely just to enforce diversity without being too hung up on the final details)
3) Commander / Command Zone (On the surface it looks like it should #1, but definition is shaped more by restrictions than bonuses, and the Commander system is a bonus to the game rather than a restriction, I mean a lot of the format's internal problems do stem from it)
4) Multiplayer (Some play 1v1 with the RC list and get on fine, some others don't, but ultimately there's no real way to enforce multiplayer since it's looser than 1v1 by default)
5) 100-Total (still compromised by Companions on a design-level, as bad as they are now)

As of now it's still more legitimate for me to be angry at the RC for not just banning Companions (and freeing Lutri) and/or changing the rule to 100-minimum (and enabling Yorion) and some of you know how I hate it when there's some "hypocrisy" in the rules from my views on Rule-4 and Iona.

Can the RC suddenly start caring for the lore and deviating from WotC because of this? Yes, but there should be no expectation for them to. The community is so caught up in illusion that the RC "speaks for the community" (well they do have direct verbal channels most don't but at the end of the day it's not that much more valuable in reality) that they think when the RC is just doing maintenance work on their own rules (or cards crashing into it), they're doing it to "speak for the community". The publicized janitor does not unclog the custom bidet toilet he built to tell the government to invent uncloggable toilets / get wider piping.
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Post by Peterhausenn » 3 years ago

Dragoon wrote:
3 years ago

Maybe, but that's the crux of the problem. It isn't worth banning a card because some people feel uncomfortable about the represented fictional individual just standing there in the artwork.
didnt wizards just do that a few months ago when they banned invoke prejudice and the others?

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Post by DirkGently » 3 years ago

Yatsufusa wrote:
3 years ago
1) Color Identity (Absolutely no other format does it, it's why only we have Hybrid wars blahblahblah...)
2) Singleton (Yes, cards like Rat/Apostles get by, but it was created loosely just to enforce diversity without being too hung up on the final details)
3) Commander / Command Zone (On the surface it looks like it should #1, but definition is shaped more by restrictions than bonuses, and the Commander system is a bonus to the game rather than a restriction, I mean a lot of the format's internal problems do stem from it)
4) Multiplayer (Some play 1v1 with the RC list and get on fine, some others don't, but ultimately there's no real way to enforce multiplayer since it's looser than 1v1 by default)
5) 100-Total (still compromised by Companions on a design-level, as bad as they are now)
This is obviously a wild tangent, but I'd rank multiplayer as the most defining element of the format and the command zone as the second. Imo the multiplayer element is a huge part of what keeps the format largely casual, because it's so much harder to make a multiplayer FFA game competitive logistically, and it makes the format far more social than others. Even for people they do play 1v1 (and obviously I do too occasionally) the conventions and spirit of the format is dictated by the multiplayer environment. Without being multiplayer I think it would have just turned into another tournament format - which is roughly what's happened to brawl, despite it lacking competitive events and being originally pitched as multiplayer.

But I find it really weird that you consider the commander to be less important than color identity, when anyone can happily ignore CI entirely by picking any random 5c commander they never plan to cast. The only reason not to do this is if you want some specific commander in the command zone. So I'm not seeing how valuing restrictions more than bonuses makes sense, when nearly everyone is happily accepting those restrictions in order to use the "bonus" in the way they want to. Broadly-speaking, I think CI has potentially hampered the format, because multicolor creatures are already usually more powerful commanders to begin with just because of how wotc designs cards (harder costs = better effect), and CI gives them even more advantage. This was less of a problem before wotc was designing nearly everything targeted to commander players, though.

So for me it'd be:

multiplayer
commanders
color identity
singleton
100 cards

Also you left off 40 life and commander damage - which I think do have a pretty profound impact on how the format is played tbh (well, 40 life does anyway, not so much commander damage, commander's vestigial tail mechanic).
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Outcryqq
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Post by Outcryqq » 3 years ago

Peterhausenn wrote:
3 years ago
didnt wizards just (banning a card because some people feel uncomfortable about what it depicts) do that a few months ago when they banned invoke prejudice and the others?
Yes, but Wizards did, not the Rules Committee. I think that's an important distinction.

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cryogen
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Post by cryogen » 3 years ago

Yatsufusa wrote:
3 years ago
cryogen wrote:
3 years ago
Well there is no doubt in my mind that the blame lays at the feet of WotC, and they are the ones who should be taking action to ban this card and take steps internally to make sure this doesn't happen again. That said, in the absence of action on their part, the question remains whether the RC should take actions which historically have not been ones they have taken.
Historically the RC has only taken actions for cards that become (potential) problems due to the functional conflicts caused by the structural pillars of the format differing from the main game, or in the case of Lurrus, cards that become no problem due to said pillars. The format only emitted an "old-school format' feel as a coincidental byproduct of how it was structured to enable the usability of older cards, at no point was "old-school" an actual goal / pillar of the format and neither was "lore", since Arabian Nights/P3K made the cut (and we can have Urza & Yawgmoth serve under the same Wrexial overlord anyway).

The RC never promised to protect the "sanctity" of the lore/game, it only looked like that because up until now WotC themselves were doing it (and they never promised it verbally either) and in such matters the RC pretty much follows WotC. Remember, the five pillars (in my personal ranking of importance) that define the format are:

1) Color Identity (Absolutely no other format does it, it's why only we have Hybrid wars blahblahblah...)
2) Singleton (Yes, cards like Rat/Apostles get by, but it was created loosely just to enforce diversity without being too hung up on the final details)
3) Commander / Command Zone (On the surface it looks like it should #1, but definition is shaped more by restrictions than bonuses, and the Commander system is a bonus to the game rather than a restriction, I mean a lot of the format's internal problems do stem from it)
4) Multiplayer (Some play 1v1 with the RC list and get on fine, some others don't, but ultimately there's no real way to enforce multiplayer since it's looser than 1v1 by default)
5) 100-Total (still compromised by Companions on a design-level, as bad as they are now)

As of now it's still more legitimate for me to be angry at the RC for not just banning Companions (and freeing Lutri) and/or changing the rule to 100-minimum (and enabling Yorion) and some of you know how I hate it when there's some "hypocrisy" in the rules from my views on Rule-4 and Iona.

Can the RC suddenly start caring for the lore and deviating from WotC because of this? Yes, but there should be no expectation for them to. The community is so caught up in illusion that the RC "speaks for the community" (well they do have direct verbal channels most don't but at the end of the day it's not that much more valuable in reality) that they think when the RC is just doing maintenance work on their own rules (or cards crashing into it), they're doing it to "speak for the community". The publicized janitor does not unclog the custom bidet toilet he built to tell the government to invent uncloggable toilets / get wider piping.
Agreed. I was against the RC banning the SL:TWD cards as a whole, and while I don't think it is their role to ban Negam, I would like to see it banned due to his character.
Sheldon wrote:You're the reason we can't have nice things.

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OneAndOnly
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Post by OneAndOnly » 3 years ago

If silver-bordered cards were aesthetically unpleasing, they should have gone with gold-bordered cards. They've been done before, and have fairly high regard!

That, or choose a different border style unique to TWD, and let the fans figure it out.

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