MTGNexus

Posted: **Fri Apr 02, 2021 3:22 am**

This is purely an opinion poll, I'd not looking to actually argue for any perspective, so I wouldn't really consider it a rules discussion. I just want to get the temperature of the water. I included options to amend the rules strictly for purposes of making sure all viewpoints are included. Let me know if yours doesn't fit into one of these categories.

In each case, assume that lesson-boards follow the normal restrictions for deck construction (1 per deck between 99 and lesson-board, must follow CI).

Posted: **Fri Apr 02, 2021 10:08 am**

I would let outside of game effects just work the way they are intended. I don't see any harm letting people rent a truck and bring their whole collection with them.

Posted: **Fri Apr 02, 2021 10:12 am**

clicked full wishboard. I feel like everyone's revulsion about tutoring for sideboard cards is just a side-effect of the format's decasualization and they should be supported fine in lower power groups

Posted: **Fri Apr 02, 2021 10:14 am**

I don't like wishboards, so I'm against lessons too. I think the hundred card limit is pretty generous already and should be sacrosanct.

Posted: **Fri Apr 02, 2021 10:43 am**

Whatever their decision, I hope there' a consistency. I prefer a creative EDH format over a game where everyone can just stock up answers, though a lesson board is a lot more acceptable than a wish board since lessons are weaker, a wish can fetch a far larger batch of cards.

Posted: **Fri Apr 02, 2021 11:00 am**

Voted for option #2. Would be interesting to experiment with learn / lesson, and I'd be okay with people experimenting with it, but I wouldn't want an actual rules change to support it. I'm still extremely against wishboards in general.

Posted: **Fri Apr 02, 2021 11:04 am**

TLDR: It's obvious that WotC isn't going to stop using "outside of game" design space. It's high time Commander gets in line with the rest of official Magic and adopts Sanctioned Commander and Unsanctioned Commander.

SPOILER

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Legend wrote: ↑
4 years ago
Fortunately for cEDH players, even without Rule 13, sanctioned games solve this problem. In a world where Wish effects function in Commander according to Wizards' rule on them, the solution to the cEDH players' dilemma would simply be to play in sanctioned events. That is the strength of defaulting to Wizards' rule on Wish effects rather than Rule 13: It would let never-Wishers play sanctioned events in order to avoid Wishing and Wishers to play unsanctioned events in order to enjoy Wishing. Both would be equally legit regardless of opinion or mood, and official in every sense of the word, and put the onus on standardized rules instead of heaping the burden of responsibility on the players. Yet it would still empower players to evoke Rule 0 to decide if they wan't to play as though they're in a sanctioned event, even if they aren't.

That being said, players wouldn't be forced to resort to Rule 0 to Wish, which when it comes to Wish effects, is always a bad experience for everyone involved. It's a false analogy to compare hashing out Wish effects with Rule 0 and hashing out deck power level with Rule 0. It starts the game with what is essentially an argument. It is never comfortable or pleasant and sets an awkward, uncomfortable vibe for the rest of the game (if not the day) regardless of what decision was made. Wishers don't want to ask if they can Wish and never-Wishers don't want to be asked if it's okay to Wish. Never-Wishers don't like to tell Wishers "no" and Wishers don't like to be told "no". If the Wisher may Wish, nobody feels like they're playing a real game of Commander. If the Wisher may not Wish, everyone's mood ring turns amber. It's all very childish. The notion that "Rule 0 makes it super fun to hash out Wishing before games" is a total fantasy. The exact opposite is true. Doing away with Rule 13 and defaulting to Wizards' rule would solve all of this.

Posted: **Fri Apr 02, 2021 11:24 am**

I feel that getting a specific subset of cards as intended by the mechanic is fine by me. The only issues i have with wishboards is that it allows for specific hate pieces which is an issue Learn does not have.

Posted: **Fri Apr 02, 2021 11:42 am**

Without wanting to debate: I firmly believe people who want to be jerks in game are going to be jerks already. Will someone in Gruul include Burning Wish in their deck, and Tsunami/Flashfires/Wake of Destruction in their wishboard? Sure, absolutely will happen. I happen to think that since there are more tutors in the game for the maindeck, any villainy will still take the form of maindecking something and then tutoring for it.

Wishes don't really enable or disable this. All they do is remove fun options, and as the space gets more populated by Companion, Lesson, or whatever else happens this year or the next, the more necessary it will become to reverse rule 13 just to play Magic cards that get printed.

Further, to add, anyone who believes in playing exactly 100 cards must know that ship has sailed; Companion is legal.

Posted: **Fri Apr 02, 2021 11:46 am**

No lessons or wishboards, please. If you want the card in your 99, put it there.

Posted: **Fri Apr 02, 2021 12:00 pm**

At one point, before the RC came down firmly against wishes, there were people in the local meta who used wishboards. They mostly filled the wishboard with narrow answers to certain strategies and color-hosing cards they would never want to play in the 99, and it was mostly awful. I was glad when that nonsense was done with.

It's fine for some Magic cards to not be aimed at us. Indeed, it is probably much healthier for the game as a whole for that to be the case.

I also believe companions should not be a thing in the format.

Posted: **Fri Apr 02, 2021 12:29 pm**

Just a quick note, if you're trying to get a legitimate temperature check, including obvious bias in your poll options ("lessons should strictly be crappy cards") isn't the best idea.

Personally, I think wishboards are fine. I think the vast majority of players would be responsible with them, and the ones who aren't would already be a neat to play, and thus nothing would change there.

Posted: **Fri Apr 02, 2021 12:39 pm**

Wallycaine wrote: ↑
3 years ago
Just a quick note, if you're trying to get a legitimate temperature check, including obvious bias in your poll options ("lessons should strictly be crappy cards") isn't the best idea.

Fair enough, but let's not kid ourselves - they're all incredibly overcosted for the 99. I can look at every single one and they're overcosted by 1-2 mana, and none of them are particularly splashy effects. I don't expect any of them to get played outside of lesson-boards, though Introduction to Annihilation is an ok budget replacement for Karn Liberated I suppose.

Posted: **Fri Apr 02, 2021 1:19 pm**

DirkGently wrote: ↑
3 years ago

Wallycaine wrote: ↑
3 years ago
Just a quick note, if you're trying to get a legitimate temperature check, including obvious bias in your poll options ("lessons should strictly be crappy cards") isn't the best idea.
Fair enough, but let's not kid ourselves - they're all incredibly overcosted for the 99. I can look at every single one and they're overcosted by 1-2 mana, and none of them are particularly splashy effects. I don't expect any of them to get played outside of lesson-boards, though Introduction to Annihilation is an ok budget replacement for Karn Liberated I suppose.

Oh, I'm not saying it's inaccurate, just that putting it into the poll options would be a bit like, idk, phrasing adding wishboards as "Should we allow players to have wishboards to fetch narrow color hosers?". It's technically not untrue, it's just obviously biased towards a particular answer.

Posted: **Fri Apr 02, 2021 2:44 pm**

I would never, ever, ever play with Burning Wish and sideboards. But I kinda like lessons. They're weak, expensive, and narrow for the most part.

I want to see the whole set before I form a firm opinion but my sort of off-the-cuff thought is that I'd consider one of two options:

1. amend learn to let you search for lessons in your deck so people could theme on it.

2. allow placing 3-5 lessons face up in the command zone - no surprises - and let Learn fetch lessons from the command zone.

Posted: **Fri Apr 02, 2021 2:53 pm**

I'm willing to give most things, including Lessons, a shot to see what kind of impact they have. They don't seem particularly problematic from what I've seen so far.

Posted: **Fri Apr 02, 2021 3:01 pm**

I've never played a game with a wishboard, so I am open to allowing a player to use one on a game-by-game basis, but not as a general hard rule.

I do think that the contents of a wishboard/lessonboard/sideboard should be fully visible information from before the game begins, no reason for them to be hidden information, and if you see somebody roll up with a wishboard full of Boil and Gloom, you can just walk away from the game or deny the wishboard. So a gentlemen's agreement (Sorry, I know, but the phrase is inherently gendered) not to pack a wishboard full of narrow but devastating hosers.

I think ideally the use of the wishboard would be cards that you would want to put into your deck, making it a tradeoff between being able to wish for them or being able to draw them, essentially weaker tutors.

Posted: **Fri Apr 02, 2021 3:22 pm**

Wallycaine wrote: ↑
3 years ago
Oh, I'm not saying it's inaccurate, just that putting it into the poll options would be a bit like, idk, phrasing adding wishboards as "Should we allow players to have wishboards to fetch narrow color hosers?". It's technically not untrue, it's just obviously biased towards a particular answer.

I get what you're saying, but it's worth pointing out that wishboards obviously don't need to have narrow color hosers, whereas lessons are pretty universally crappy in the 99 no matter what. So one is speculation whereas one is just a fact.

Posted: **Fri Apr 02, 2021 3:30 pm**

As we're almost 50% through the set, I voted "I believe Lesson and Learn should work in Commander" (option 4).

Clearly, most every Learn card was balanced and costed under the principle that it was "draw an action spell", which it will be in Standard and will usually be in limited. The result is that in EDH, these cards are all wildly unplayable minus a few stand-outs. Meanwhile, the lessons were clearly designed to be in a sideboard as a toolkit and most of them are also wildly unplayable.

The idea of having this set of strictly defined tutors and stuff tickles me, and I want the mechanic to work in my favorite format the same way it will elsewhere. I wouldn't want to open all the floodgates, though. There's a universe of difference between a budget monowhite deck smoothing its early game with Professor of Symbology nabbing Introduction to Prophecy, or a beatdown deck using Gnarled Professor to nab a Introduction to Annihilation in the endgame, and a R/x deck Burning Wishing for Flashfires because white's life isn't hard enough in EDH.

Posted: **Fri Apr 02, 2021 3:35 pm**

I'm not a fan of lesson boards but someone showing up with a lesson board wouldn't be enough for me to not play with them. I would try and discourage it over the longer term though.

Same applies to wishes, for what it's worth. If someone were to load a wishboard with narrow but devastating hate cards, I wouldn't like it any more if they were maindeck and it's more of a social issue.

Posted: **Fri Apr 02, 2021 5:08 pm**

On the one hand I'm nearly open to any idea that lets people play more diverse decks (let people play hybrid and mdfc!!!) and i think lesson/lean is a neat space. But I do respect the idea of commander decks being 99 + commander* and that learn cards have rummaging built in so that they aren't full useless in the format. I'd let anyone random person play lesson (o washboard) but not sure if that should be full on rules changed.

I do like pokken idea of letting people tutor them from the deck than outside the game or maybe to say wishboard like stuff should be Part of" the 99 though not sure if that wouldn't cause a new set of issues.

Posted: **Fri Apr 02, 2021 6:03 pm**

Lessons are already pretty overcosted, even by limited standards. WotC has for once been cautious on the learning curve. And I love them for it. Something like this should raise red flags.

Posted: **Fri Apr 02, 2021 6:09 pm**

I feel like many of you are too optimistic about sideboards. Lessons are pretty weak, so I don't really care, but many of you seem to think that only a certain type of player would put silver bullets in the sideboard. You are wrong. Just because people are casual players doesn't mean that they don't see the benefit of putting GY hate in the wishboard, of putting storm hate or card draw hate... Maybe the average player won't be putting Boil or Flashfires, but they will play Collector Ouphe and Ashiok, Dream Render and Hushbringer.

A board of silver bullets you didn't want to put in your main deck is not fun. It is inherently extremely powerful, and then everyone will have to play with the wishboard because of the huge disadvantage of not playing with it. Also, it will squeeze graveyard decks out of the format because literally every deck will have answers in the sideboard. Right now, graveyard gets by knowing that most deck skimped on answers.

The fact is, nobody is playing Flashfires in the 99 unless they have something weird going on. You guys saying that people who would put it in the wishboard would anyway be playing tutors to get it in the 99, that's silly. They would tutor armageddon maybe but not flashfires.
Narrow hate cards are hard to include in the 99, but have absolutely no downside in the sideboard.

For people who want wishboards, can you give an example of what you want to put in the sideboard of one of your decks? I get that some people would use it to make their deck 10 or 15 cards bigger, but that is not really the value in a wishboard - that's just you having trouble making cuts.

Regarding lessons - I would let someone play with them, but if that's only because I find them low-powered. If there are any strong lessons and learn cards, then I might sing a different tune. I don't want any of these cards to become 'must includes' because they have no downside.

Posted: **Fri Apr 02, 2021 6:20 pm**

This is a casual format, so bend the rules if it produces fun results for everyone involved. Let someone play their casual wishboard or lesson plan.

Posted: **Fri Apr 02, 2021 6:30 pm**

Dunharrow wrote: ↑
3 years ago
I feel like many of you are too optimistic about sideboards. Lessons are pretty weak, so I don't really care, but many of you seem to think that only a certain type of player would put silver bullets in the sideboard. You are wrong. Just because people are casual players doesn't mean that they don't see the benefit of putting GY hate in the wishboard, of putting storm hate or card draw hate... Maybe the average player won't be putting Boil or Flashfires, but they will play Collector Ouphe and Ashiok, Dream Render and Hushbringer.

A board of silver bullets you didn't want to put in your main deck is not fun. It is inherently extremely powerful, and then everyone will have to play with the wishboard because of the huge disadvantage of not playing with it. Also, it will squeeze graveyard decks out of the format because literally every deck will have answers in the sideboard. Right now, graveyard gets by knowing that most deck skimped on answers.

The fact is, nobody is playing Flashfires in the 99 unless they have something weird going on. You guys saying that people who would put it in the wishboard would anyway be playing tutors to get it in the 99, that's silly. They would tutor armageddon maybe but not flashfires.
Narrow hate cards are hard to include in the 99, but have absolutely no downside in the sideboard.

This, 100%. This sort of thing was exactly what it was like in the local meta when wishboards were allowed. Except that people *did* also put in a fair amount of color hosers/MLD for specific land types. It was miserable.

MTGNexus

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